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-CHAPTER XIII LOVE-MAKING ON MARS
Following the battle with the air ships, the community remained within the city for
several days, abandoning the homeward march until they could feel reasonably assured
that the ships would not return; for to be
caught on the open plains with a cavalcade of chariots and children was far from the
desire of even so warlike a people as the green Martians.
During our period of inactivity, Tars Tarkas had instructed me in many of the
customs and arts of war familiar to the Tharks, including lessons in riding and
guiding the great beasts which bore the warriors.
These creatures, which are known as thoats, are as dangerous and vicious as their
masters, but when once subdued are sufficiently tractable for the purposes of
the green Martians.
Two of these animals had fallen to me from the warriors whose metal I wore, and in a
short time I could handle them quite as well as the native warriors.
The method was not at all complicated.
If the thoats did not respond with sufficient celerity to the telepathic
instructions of their riders they were dealt a terrific blow between the ears with
the butt of a pistol, and if they showed
fight this treatment was continued until the brutes either were subdued, or had
unseated their riders.
In the latter case it became a life and death struggle between the man and the
beast.
If the former were quick enough with his pistol he might live to ride again, though
upon some other beast; if not, his torn and mangled body was gathered up by his women
and burned in accordance with Tharkian custom.
My experience with Woola determined me to attempt the experiment of kindness in my
treatment of my thoats.
First I taught them that they could not unseat me, and even rapped them sharply
between the ears to impress upon them my authority and mastery.
Then, by degrees, I won their confidence in much the same manner as I had adopted
countless times with my many mundane mounts.
I was ever a good hand with animals, and by inclination, as well as because it brought
more lasting and satisfactory results, I was always kind and humane in my dealings
with the lower orders.
I could take a human life, if necessary, with far less compunction than that of a
poor, unreasoning, irresponsible brute. In the course of a few days my thoats were
the wonder of the entire community.
They would follow me like dogs, rubbing their great snouts against my body in
awkward evidence of affection, and respond to my every command with an alacrity and
docility which caused the Martian warriors
to ascribe to me the possession of some earthly power unknown on Mars.
"How have you bewitched them?" asked Tars Tarkas one afternoon, when he had seen me
run my arm far between the great jaws of one of my thoats which had wedged a piece
of stone between two of his teeth while
feeding upon the moss-like vegetation within our court yard.
"By kindness," I replied.
"You see, Tars Tarkas, the softer sentiments have their value, even to a
warrior.
In the height of battle as well as upon the march I know that my thoats will obey my
every command, and therefore my fighting efficiency is enhanced, and I am a better
warrior for the reason that I am a kind master.
Your other warriors would find it to the advantage of themselves as well as of the
community to adopt my methods in this respect.
Only a few days since you, yourself, told me that these great brutes, by the
uncertainty of their tempers, often were the means of turning victory into defeat,
since, at a crucial moment, they might elect to unseat and rend their riders."
"Show me how you accomplish these results," was Tars Tarkas' only rejoinder.
And so I explained as carefully as I could the entire method of training I had adopted
with my beasts, and later he had me repeat it before Lorquas Ptomel and the assembled
warriors.
That moment marked the beginning of a new existence for the poor thoats, and before I
left the community of Lorquas Ptomel I had the satisfaction of observing a regiment of
as tractable and docile mounts as one might care to see.
The effect on the precision and celerity of the military movements was so remarkable
that Lorquas Ptomel presented me with a massive anklet of gold from his own leg, as
a sign of his appreciation of my service to the horde.
On the seventh day following the battle with the air craft we again took up the
march toward Thark, all probability of another attack being deemed remote by
Lorquas Ptomel.
During the days just preceding our departure I had seen but little of Dejah
Thoris, as I had been kept very busy by Tars Tarkas with my lessons in the art of
Martian warfare, as well as in the training of my thoats.
The few times I had visited her quarters she had been absent, walking upon the
streets with Sola, or investigating the buildings in the near vicinity of the
plaza.
I had warned them against venturing far from the plaza for fear of the great white
apes, whose ferocity I was only too well acquainted with.
However, since Woola accompanied them on all their excursions, and as Sola was well
armed, there was comparatively little cause for fear.
On the evening before our departure I saw them approaching along one of the great
avenues which lead into the plaza from the east.
I advanced to meet them, and telling Sola that I would take the responsibility for
Dejah Thoris' safekeeping, I directed her to return to her quarters on some trivial
errand.
I liked and trusted Sola, but for some reason I desired to be alone with Dejah
Thoris, who represented to me all that I had left behind upon Earth in agreeable and
congenial companionship.
There seemed bonds of mutual interest between us as powerful as though we had
been born under the same roof rather than upon different planets, hurtling through
space some forty-eight million miles apart.
That she shared my sentiments in this respect I was positive, for on my approach
the look of pitiful hopelessness left her sweet countenance to be replaced by a smile
of joyful welcome, as she placed her little
right hand upon my left shoulder in true red Martian salute.
"Sarkoja told Sola that you had become a true Thark," she said, "and that I would
now see no more of you than of any of the other warriors."
"Sarkoja is a liar of the first magnitude," I replied, "notwithstanding the proud claim
of the Tharks to absolute verity." Dejah Thoris laughed.
"I knew that even though you became a member of the community you would not cease
to be my friend; 'A warrior may change his metal, but not his heart,' as the saying is
upon Barsoom."
"I think they have been trying to keep us apart," she continued, "for whenever you
have been off duty one of the older women of Tars Tarkas' retinue has always arranged
to trump up some excuse to get Sola and me out of sight.
They have had me down in the pits below the buildings helping them mix their awful
radium powder, and make their terrible projectiles.
You know that these have to be manufactured by artificial light, as exposure to
sunlight always results in an explosion. You have noticed that their bullets explode
when they strike an object?
Well, the opaque, outer coating is broken by the impact, exposing a glass cylinder,
almost solid, in the forward end of which is a minute particle of radium powder.
The moment the sunlight, even though diffused, strikes this powder it explodes
with a violence which nothing can withstand.
If you ever witness a night battle you will note the absence of these explosions, while
the morning following the battle will be filled at sunrise with the sharp
detonations of exploding missiles fired the preceding night.
As a rule, however, non-exploding projectiles are used at night."
[I have used the word radium in describing this powder because in the light of recent
discoveries on Earth I believe it to be a mixture of which radium is the base.
In Captain Carter's manuscript it is mentioned always by the name used in the
written language of Helium and is spelled in hieroglyphics which it would be
difficult and useless to reproduce.]
While I was much interested in Dejah Thoris' explanation of this wonderful
adjunct to Martian warfare, I was more concerned by the immediate problem of their
treatment of her.
That they were keeping her away from me was not a matter for surprise, but that they
should subject her to dangerous and arduous labor filled me with rage.
"Have they ever subjected you to cruelty and ignominy, Dejah Thoris?"
I asked, feeling the hot blood of my fighting ancestors leap in my veins as I
awaited her reply.
"Only in little ways, John Carter," she answered.
"Nothing that can harm me outside my pride.
They know that I am the daughter of ten thousand jeddaks, that I trace my ancestry
straight back without a break to the builder of the first great waterway, and
they, who do not even know their own mothers, are jealous of me.
At heart they hate their horrid fates, and so wreak their poor spite on me who stand
for everything they have not, and for all they most crave and never can attain.
Let us pity them, my chieftain, for even though we die at their hands we can afford
them pity, since we are greater than they and they know it."
Had I known the significance of those words "my chieftain," as applied by a red Martian
woman to a man, I should have had the surprise of my life, but I did not know at
that time, nor for many months thereafter.
Yes, I still had much to learn upon Barsoom.
"I presume it is the better part of wisdom that we bow to our fate with as good grace
as possible, Dejah Thoris; but I hope, nevertheless, that I may be present the
next time that any Martian, green, red,
pink, or violet, has the temerity to even so much as frown on you, my princess."
Dejah Thoris caught her breath at my last words, and gazed upon me with dilated eyes
and quickening breath, and then, with an odd little laugh, which brought roguish
dimples to the corners of her mouth, she shook her head and cried:
"What a child! A great warrior and yet a stumbling little
child."
"What have I done now?" I asked, in sore perplexity.
"Some day you shall know, John Carter, if we live; but I may not tell you.
And I, the daughter of Mors Kajak, son of Tardos Mors, have listened without anger,"
she soliloquized in conclusion.
Then she broke out again into one of her gay, happy, laughing moods; joking with me
on my prowess as a Thark warrior as contrasted with my soft heart and natural
kindliness.
"I presume that should you accidentally wound an enemy you would take him home and
nurse him back to health," she laughed. "That is precisely what we do on Earth," I
answered.
"At least among civilized men." This made her laugh again.
She could not understand it, for, with all her tenderness and womanly sweetness, she
was still a Martian, and to a Martian the only good enemy is a dead enemy; for every
dead foeman means so much more to divide between those who live.
I was very curious to know what I had said or done to cause her so much perturbation a
moment before and so I continued to importune her to enlighten me.
"No," she exclaimed, "it is enough that you have said it and that I have listened.
And when you learn, John Carter, and if I be dead, as likely I shall be ere the
further moon has circled Barsoom another twelve times, remember that I listened and
that I--smiled."
It was all Greek to me, but the more I begged her to explain the more positive
became her denials of my request, and, so, in very hopelessness, I desisted.
Day had now given away to night and as we wandered along the great avenue lighted by
the two moons of Barsoom, and with Earth looking down upon us out of her luminous
green eye, it seemed that we were alone in
the universe, and I, at least, was content that it should be so.
The chill of the Martian night was upon us, and removing my silks I threw them across
the shoulders of Dejah Thoris.
As my arm rested for an instant upon her I felt a thrill pass through every fiber of
my being such as contact with no other mortal had even produced; and it seemed to
me that she had leaned slightly toward me, but of that I was not sure.
Only I knew that as my arm rested there across her shoulders longer than the act of
adjusting the silk required she did not draw away, nor did she speak.
And so, in silence, we walked the surface of a dying world, but in the breast of one
of us at least had been born that which is ever oldest, yet ever new.
I loved Dejah Thoris.
The touch of my arm upon her naked shoulder had spoken to me in words I would not
mistake, and I knew that I had loved her since the first moment that my eyes had met
hers that first time in the plaza of the dead city of Korad.
CHAPTER XIV A DUEL TO THE DEATH
My first impulse was to tell her of my love, and then I thought of the
helplessness of her position wherein I alone could lighten the burdens of her
captivity, and protect her in my poor way
against the thousands of hereditary enemies she must face upon our arrival at Thark.
I could not chance causing her additional pain or sorrow by declaring a love which,
in all probability she did not return.
Should I be so indiscreet, her position would be even more unbearable than now, and
the thought that she might feel that I was taking advantage of her helplessness, to
influence her decision was the final argument which sealed my lips.
"Why are you so quiet, Dejah Thoris?" I asked.
"Possibly you would rather return to Sola and your quarters."
"No," she murmured, "I am happy here.
I do not know why it is that I should always be happy and contented when you,
John Carter, a stranger, are with me; yet at such times it seems that I am safe and
that, with you, I shall soon return to my
father's court and feel his strong arms about me and my mother's tears and kisses
on my cheek." "Do people kiss, then, upon Barsoom?"
I asked, when she had explained the word she used, in answer to my inquiry as to its
meaning.
"Parents, brothers, and sisters, yes; and," she added in a low, thoughtful tone,
"lovers." "And you, Dejah Thoris, have parents and
brothers and sisters?"
"Yes." "And a--lover?"
She was silent, nor could I venture to repeat the question.
"The man of Barsoom," she finally ventured, "does not ask personal questions of women,
except his mother, and the woman he has fought for and won."
"But I have fought--" I started, and then I wished my tongue had been cut from my
mouth; for she turned even as I caught myself and ceased, and drawing my silks
from her shoulder she held them out to me,
and without a word, and with head held high, she moved with the carriage of the
queen she was toward the plaza and the doorway of her quarters.
I did not attempt to follow her, other than to see that she reached the building in
safety, but, directing Woola to accompany her, I turned disconsolately and entered my
own house.
I sat for hours cross-legged, and cross- tempered, upon my silks meditating upon the
*** freaks chance plays upon us poor devils of mortals.
So this was love!
I had escaped it for all the years I had roamed the five continents and their
encircling seas; in spite of beautiful women and urging opportunity; in spite of a
half-desire for love and a constant search
for my ideal, it had remained for me to fall furiously and hopelessly in love with
a creature from another world, of a species similar possibly, yet not identical with
mine.
A woman who was hatched from an egg, and whose span of life might cover a thousand
years; whose people had strange customs and ideas; a woman whose hopes, whose
pleasures, whose standards of virtue and of
right and wrong might vary as greatly from mine as did those of the green Martians.
Yes, I was a fool, but I was in love, and though I was suffering the greatest misery
I had ever known I would not have had it otherwise for all the riches of Barsoom.
Such is love, and such are lovers wherever love is known.
To me, Dejah Thoris was all that was perfect; all that was virtuous and
beautiful and noble and good.
I believed that from the bottom of my heart, from the depth of my soul on that
night in Korad as I sat cross-legged upon my silks while the nearer moon of Barsoom
raced through the western sky toward the
horizon, and lighted up the gold and marble, and jeweled mosaics of my world-old
chamber, and I believe it today as I sit at my desk in the little study overlooking the
Hudson.
Twenty years have intervened; for ten of them I lived and fought for Dejah Thoris
and her people, and for ten I have lived upon her memory.
The morning of our departure for Thark dawned clear and hot, as do all Martian
mornings except for the six weeks when the snow melts at the poles.
I sought out Dejah Thoris in the throng of departing chariots, but she turned her
shoulder to me, and I could see the red blood mount to her cheek.
With the foolish inconsistency of love I held my peace when I might have plead
ignorance of the nature of my offense, or at least the gravity of it, and so have
effected, at worst, a half conciliation.
[Illustration: I sought out Dejah Thoris in the throng of departing chariots.]
My duty dictated that I must see that she was comfortable, and so I glanced into her
chariot and rearranged her silks and furs.
In doing so I noted with horror that she was heavily chained by one ankle to the
side of the vehicle. "What does this mean?"
I cried, turning to Sola.
"Sarkoja thought it best," she answered, her face betokening her disapproval of the
procedure. Examining the manacles I saw that they
fastened with a massive spring lock.
"Where is the key, Sola? Let me have it."
"Sarkoja wears it, John Carter," she answered.
I turned without further word and sought out Tars Tarkas, to whom I vehemently
objected to the unnecessary humiliations and cruelties, as they seemed to my lover's
eyes, that were being heaped upon Dejah Thoris.
"John Carter," he answered, "if ever you and Dejah Thoris escape the Tharks it will
be upon this journey.
We know that you will not go without her. You have shown yourself a mighty fighter,
and we do not wish to manacle you, so we hold you both in the easiest way that will
yet ensure security.
I have spoken."
I saw the strength of his reasoning at a flash, and knew that it were futile to
appeal from his decision, but I asked that the key be taken from Sarkoja and that she
be directed to leave the prisoner alone in future.
"This much, Tars Tarkas, you may do for me in return for the friendship that, I must
confess, I feel for you."
"Friendship?" he replied. "There is no such thing, John Carter; but
have your will.
I shall direct that Sarkoja cease to annoy the girl, and I myself will take the
custody of the key." "Unless you wish me to assume the
responsibility," I said, smiling.
He looked at me long and earnestly before he spoke.
"Were you to give me your word that neither you nor Dejah Thoris would attempt to
escape until after we have safely reached the court of Tal Hajus you might have the
key and throw the chains into the river Iss."
"It were better that you held the key, Tars Tarkas," I replied
He smiled, and said no more, but that night as we were making camp I saw him unfasten
Dejah Thoris' fetters himself.
With all his cruel ferocity and coldness there was an undercurrent of something in
Tars Tarkas which he seemed ever battling to subdue.
Could it be a vestige of some human instinct come back from an ancient forbear
to haunt him with the horror of his people's ways!
As I was approaching Dejah Thoris' chariot I passed Sarkoja, and the black, venomous
look she accorded me was the sweetest balm I had felt for many hours.
Lord, how she hated me!
It bristled from her so palpably that one might almost have cut it with a sword.
A few moments later I saw her deep in conversation with a warrior named Zad; a
big, hulking, powerful brute, but one who had never made a kill among his own
chieftains, and a second name only with the metal of some chieftain.
It was this custom which entitled me to the names of either of the chieftains I had
killed; in fact, some of the warriors addressed me as Dotar Sojat, a combination
of the surnames of the two warrior
chieftains whose metal I had taken, or, in other words, whom I had slain in fair
fight.
As Sarkoja talked with Zad he cast occasional glances in my direction, while
she seemed to be urging him very strongly to some action.
I paid little attention to it at the time, but the next day I had good reason to
recall the circumstances, and at the same time gain a slight insight into the depths
of Sarkoja's hatred and the lengths to
which she was capable of going to wreak her horrid vengeance on me.
Dejah Thoris would have none of me again on this evening, and though I spoke her name
she neither replied, nor conceded by so much as the flutter of an eyelid that she
realized my existence.
In my extremity I did what most other lovers would have done; I sought word from
her through an intimate. In this instance it was Sola whom I
intercepted in another part of camp.
"What is the matter with Dejah Thoris?" I blurted out at her.
"Why will she not speak to me?"
Sola seemed puzzled herself, as though such strange actions on the part of two humans
were quite beyond her, as indeed they were, poor child.
"She says you have angered her, and that is all she will say, except that she is the
daughter of a jed and the granddaughter of a jeddak and she has been humiliated by a
creature who could not polish the teeth of her grandmother's sorak."
I pondered over this report for some time, finally asking, "What might a sorak be,
Sola?"
"A little animal about as big as my hand, which the red Martian women keep to play
with," explained Sola. Not fit to polish the teeth of her
grandmother's cat!
I must rank pretty low in the consideration of Dejah Thoris, I thought; but I could not
help laughing at the strange figure of speech, so homely and in this respect so
earthly.
It made me homesick, for it sounded very much like "not fit to polish her shoes."
And then commenced a train of thought quite new to me.
I began to wonder what my people at home were doing.
I had not seen them for years.
There was a family of Carters in Virginia who claimed close relationship with me; I
was supposed to be a great uncle, or something of the kind equally foolish.
I could pass anywhere for twenty-five to thirty years of age, and to be a great
uncle always seemed the height of incongruity, for my thoughts and feelings
were those of a boy.
There was two little kiddies in the Carter family whom I had loved and who had thought
there was no one on Earth like Uncle Jack; I could see them just as plainly, as I
stood there under the moonlit skies of
Barsoom, and I longed for them as I had never longed for any mortals before.
By nature a wanderer, I had never known the true meaning of the word home, but the
great hall of the Carters had always stood for all that the word did mean to me, and
now my heart turned toward it from the cold
and unfriendly peoples I had been thrown amongst.
For did not even Dejah Thoris despise me!
I was a low creature, so low in fact that I was not even fit to polish the teeth of her
grandmother's cat; and then my saving sense of humor came to my rescue, and laughing I
turned into my silks and furs and slept
upon the moon-haunted ground the sleep of a tired and healthy fighting man.
We broke camp the next day at an early hour and marched with only a single halt until
just before dark.
Two incidents broke the tediousness of the march.
About noon we espied far to our right what was evidently an incubator, and Lorquas
Ptomel directed Tars Tarkas to investigate it.
The latter took a dozen warriors, including myself, and we raced across the velvety
carpeting of moss to the little enclosure.
It was indeed an incubator, but the eggs were very small in comparison with those I
had seen hatching in ours at the time of my arrival on Mars.
Tars Tarkas dismounted and examined the enclosure minutely, finally announcing that
it belonged to the green men of Warhoon and that the cement was scarcely dry where it
had been walled up.
"They cannot be a day's march ahead of us," he exclaimed, the light of battle leaping
to his fierce face. The work at the incubator was short indeed.
The warriors tore open the entrance and a couple of them, crawling in, soon
demolished all the eggs with their short- swords.
Then remounting we dashed back to join the cavalcade.
During the ride I took occasion to ask Tars Tarkas if these Warhoons whose eggs we had
destroyed were a smaller people than his Tharks.
"I noticed that their eggs were so much smaller than those I saw hatching in your
incubator," I added.
He explained that the eggs had just been placed there; but, like all green Martian
eggs, they would grow during the five-year period of incubation until they obtained
the size of those I had seen hatching on the day of my arrival on Barsoom.
This was indeed an interesting piece of information, for it had always seemed
remarkable to me that the green Martian women, large as they were, could bring
forth such enormous eggs as I had seen the four-foot infants emerging from.
As a matter of fact, the new-laid egg is but little larger than an ordinary goose
egg, and as it does not commence to grow until subjected to the light of the sun the
chieftains have little difficulty in
transporting several hundreds of them at one time from the storage vaults to the
incubators.
Shortly after the incident of the Warhoon eggs we halted to rest the animals, and it
was during this halt that the second of the day's interesting episodes occurred.
I was engaged in changing my riding cloths from one of my thoats to the other, for I
divided the day's work between them, when Zad approached me, and without a word
struck my animal a terrific blow with his long-sword.
I did not need a manual of green Martian etiquette to know what reply to make, for,
in fact, I was so wild with anger that I could scarcely refrain from drawing my
pistol and shooting him down for the brute
he was; but he stood waiting with drawn long-sword, and my only choice was to draw
my own and meet him in fair fight with his choice of weapons or a lesser one.
This latter alternative is always permissible, therefore I could have used my
short-sword, my dagger, my hatchet, or my fists had I wished, and been entirely
within my rights, but I could not use
firearms or a spear while he held only his long-sword.
I chose the same weapon he had drawn because I knew he prided himself upon his
ability with it, and I wished, if I worsted him at all, to do it with his own weapon.
The fight that followed was a long one and delayed the resumption of the march for an
hour.
The entire community surrounded us, leaving a clear space about one hundred feet in
diameter for our battle.
Zad first attempted to rush me down as a bull might a wolf, but I was much too quick
for him, and each time I side-stepped his rushes he would go lunging past me, only to
receive a nick from my sword upon his arm or back.
He was soon streaming blood from a half dozen minor wounds, but I could not obtain
an opening to deliver an effective thrust.
Then he changed his tactics, and fighting warily and with extreme dexterity, he tried
to do by science what he was unable to do by brute strength.
I must admit that he was a magnificent swordsman, and had it not been for my
greater endurance and the remarkable agility the lesser gravitation of Mars lent
me I might not have been able to put up the creditable fight I did against him.
We circled for some time without doing much damage on either side; the long, straight,
needle-like swords flashing in the sunlight, and ringing out upon the
stillness as they crashed together with each effective parry.
Finally Zad, realizing that he was tiring more than I, evidently decided to close in
and end the battle in a final blaze of glory for himself; just as he rushed me a
blinding flash of light struck full in my
eyes, so that I could not see his approach and could only leap blindly to one side in
an effort to escape the mighty blade that it seemed I could already feel in my
vitals.
I was only partially successful, as a sharp pain in my left shoulder attested, but in
the sweep of my glance as I sought to again locate my adversary, a sight met my
astonished gaze which paid me well for the
wound the temporary blindness had caused me.
There, upon Dejah Thoris' chariot stood three figures, for the purpose evidently of
witnessing the encounter above the heads of the intervening Tharks.
There were Dejah Thoris, Sola, and Sarkoja, and as my fleeting glance swept over them a
little tableau was presented which will stand graven in my memory to the day of my
death.
As I looked, Dejah Thoris turned upon Sarkoja with the fury of a young tigress
and struck something from her upraised hand; something which flashed in the
sunlight as it spun to the ground.
Then I knew what had blinded me at that crucial moment of the fight, and how
Sarkoja had found a way to kill me without herself delivering the final thrust.
Another thing I saw, too, which almost lost my life for me then and there, for it took
my mind for the fraction of an instant entirely from my antagonist; for, as Dejah
Thoris struck the tiny mirror from her
hand, Sarkoja, her face livid with hatred and baffled rage, whipped out her dagger
and aimed a terrific blow at Dejah Thoris; and then Sola, our dear and faithful Sola,
sprang between them; the last I saw was the
great knife descending upon her shielding breast.
My enemy had recovered from his thrust and was making it extremely interesting for me,
so I reluctantly gave my attention to the work in hand, but my mind was not upon the
battle.
We rushed each other furiously time after time, 'til suddenly, feeling the sharp
point of his sword at my breast in a thrust I could neither parry nor escape, I threw
myself upon him with outstretched sword and
with all the weight of my body, determined that I would not die alone if I could
prevent it.
I felt the steel tear into my chest, all went black before me, my head whirled in
dizziness, and I felt my knees giving beneath me.