 Chapter 1 of Thuvia, Made of Mars. Chapter 1. Carthoris and Thuvia. Upon a massive bench of polished air-site, beneath the gorgeous blooms of a giant pomalia, a woman sat. Her shapely, sandled foot tapped impatiently upon the jewel-strewn walk that wound beneath the stately sarapas trees across the scarlet sward of the royal gardens of Thuvan-Din, Jeddak of Parth. As a dark-haired, red-skinned warrior bent low toward her, whispering heated words close to her ear. "'Ah, Thuvia of Parth,' he cried. "'You are cold, even before the fiery blasts of my consuming love. No harder than your heart. Nor colder is the hard, cold air-site of this thrice-happy bench which supports your divine and fabeless form. Tell me, O Thuvia of Parth, that I may still hope that though you do not love me now, yet some day, some day, my princess, I—' The girl sprang to her feet with an exclamation of surprise and displeasure. Her queenly head was poised haughtily upon her smooth red shoulders. Her dark eyes looked angrily into those of the man. "'You forget yourself, and the customs of Barsoom, Astak,' she said. "'I have given you no right thus to address the daughter of Thuvan-Din. Nor have you won such a right.' The man reached suddenly forth and grasped her by the arm. "'You shall be my princess,' he cried. "'By the breast of Isis thou shalt, nor shall any other come between Astak, Prince of Dusar, and his heart's desire. Tell me that there is another, and I shall cut out his foul heart and fling it to the wild caluts of the dead sea-bottoms.' At touch of the man's hand upon her flesh the girl went pallid beneath her coppery skin, for the persons of the royal women of the courts of Mars are held but little less than sacred. The act of Astak, Prince of Dusar, was profanation. There was no terror in the eyes of Thuvia of Parth, only horror for the thing the man had done, and for its possible consequences. Release me!' Her voice was level, frigid. The man muttered incoherently, and drew her roughly toward him. "'Release me!' she repeated sharply, or I call the guard, and the Prince of Dusar knows what that will mean.' Quickly he threw his right arm about her shoulders, and strove to draw her face to his lips. With a little cry she struck him full in the mouth with the massive bracelets that circled her free arm. "'Callit!' she exclaimed, and then, the guard, the guard, hasten in protection of the Princess of Parth.' In answer to her call a dozen guardsmen came racing across the scarlet sword, their gleaming long swords naked in the sun, the metal of their accoutrements clanking against that of their leather and harness, and in their throats hoarse shouts of rage at the sight which met their eyes. But before they had passed half across the royal garden to where Astak of Dusar still held the struggling girl in his grasp, another figure sprang from a cluster of dense foliage that half hid a golden fountain close at hand. A tall, straight youth he was, with black hair and keen gray eyes, broad of shoulder and narrow of hip, a clean-limbed fighting man. His skin was but faintly tinged with the copper color that marks the red men of Mars from the other races of the dying planet. He was like them, and yet there was a subtle difference, greater even, than that which lay in his lighter skin and his gray eyes. There was a difference, too, in his movements. He came on in great leaps that carried him so swiftly over the ground that the speed of the guardsmen was as nothing by comparison. Astak still clutched Thuvia's wrist as the young warrior confronted him. The newcomer wasted no time, and he spoke but a single word. Calot, he snapped, and then his clenched fist landed beneath the other's chin, lifting him high into the air and depositing him in a crumpled heap within the center of the Pamalia bush beside the air-site bench. Her champion turd toward the girl. Kaur, Thuvia of Parth, he cried. It seems that fate timed my visit well. Kaur, Cthoris of Helium, the princess returned the young man's greeting, from what less could one expect of the son of such a sire. He bowed his acknowledgment of the compliment to his father, John Carter, warlord of Mars. And then the guardsmen, panting from their charge, came up just as the prince of Dusar, bleeding at the mouth and with sword drawn, crawled from the entanglement of the Pamalia. Astak would have leaped to mortal combat with the son of Dejah Thoris, but the guardsmen pressed about him, preventing, though it was clearly evident that Nott would have better pleased Cthoris of Helium. But say the word, Thuvia of Parth, he begged. And Nott will give me greater pleasure than metting to this fellow the punishment he has earned. It cannot be, Cthoris, she replied. Even though he has forfeited all claim upon my consideration, yet is he the guest of the Jeddak, my father, and to him alone may he account for the unpardonable act he has committed. As you say, Thuvia, replied the Heliumite. But afterward he shall account to Cthoris, prince of Helium, for this affront to the daughter of my father's friend. As he spoke, though, there burned in his eyes a fire that proclaimed the nearer, dearer cause for his championship of this glorious daughter of Varsoon. The maid's cheek darkened beneath the satin of her transparent skin, and the eyes of Astak, prince of Dusar, darkened, too, as he read that which passed unspoken between the two in the royal gardens of the Jeddak. And thou to me, he snapped at Cthoris, answering the young man's challenge. The guard still surrounded Astak. It was a difficult position for the young officer who commanded it. His prisoner was the son of a mighty Jeddak. He was the guest of Thuvan Dinn, until but now an honored guest upon whom every royal dignity had been showered. To arrest him forcibly could mean not else than war, and yet he had done that which in the eyes of the Parth warrior merited death. The young man hesitated. He looked toward his princess. She, too, guessed all that hung upon the action of the coming moment. For many years, Dusar and Parth had been at peace with each other. Their great merchant ships plied back and forth between the larger cities of the two nations. Even now, far above the gold-shot scarlet dome of the Jeddak's palace, she could see the huge bulk of a giant freighter taking its majestic way through the thin Barsoomian air toward the west and to Dusar. By a word she might plunge these two mighty nations into a bloody conflict that would drain them of their bravest blood and their incalculable riches, leaving them all helpless against the inroads of their envious and less powerful neighbors, and at last a prey to the savage green hordes of the dead sea-bottoms. No sense of fear influenced her decision. For fear is seldom known to the children of Mars. It was rather a sense of the responsibility that she, the daughter of their Jeddak, felt for the welfare of her father's people. I called you, Padwar, she said to the lieutenant of the guard, to protect the person of your princess and to keep the peace that must not be violated within the royal gardens of the Jeddak. That is all. You will escort me to the palace, and the Prince of Helium will accompany me. Without another glance in the direction of Astok, she turned, and taking Carthoris's preferred hand, moved slowly toward the massive marble pile that housed the ruler of Parth and his glittering court. On either side marched a file of guardsmen. Thus Thuvia of Parth found a way out of a dilemma, escaping the necessity of placing her father's royal guest under forcible restraint, and at the same time separating the two princes, who otherwise would have been at each other's throat the moment she and the guard had departed. Beside the Pamalia stood Astok. His dark eyes narrowed to mere slits of hate beneath his lowering brows as he watched the retreating forms of the woman who had aroused the fiercest passions of his nature, and the man whom he now believed to be the one who stood between his love and its consummation. As they disappeared within the structure, Astok shrugged his shoulders and with a murmured oath crossed the gardens toward another wing of the building where he and his retinue were housed. That night he took formal leave of Thuvan Din, and though no mention was made of the happening within the garden, it was plain to see through the cold mask of the jeddak's courtesy that only the customs of royal hospitality restrained him from voicing the contempt he felt for the Prince of Dusar. Carthoris was not present at the leave-taking, nor was Thuvia. The ceremony was as stiff and formal as court etiquette could make it, and when the last of the Dusarians clambered over the rail of the battleship that had brought them upon this fateful visit to the court of Parth, and the mighty engine of destruction had risen slowly from the ways of the landing-stage, a note of relief was apparent in the voice of Thuvan Din as he turned to one of his officers with a word of comment upon a subject foreign to that which had been uppermost in the minds of all for hours. But after all, was it so foreign? Inform Prince Sovan, he directed, that it is our wish that the fleet which departed for Cowell this morning be recalled to cruise to the west of Parth. As the warship, bearing Astok back to the court of his father, turned toward the west, Thuvia of Parth, sitting upon the same bench where the Prince of Dusar had affronted her, watched the twinkling lights of the craft growing smaller in the distance. Beside her, in the brilliant light of the nearer moon, sat Carthoris. His eyes were not upon the dim bulk of the battleship, but on the profile of the girl's upturned face. Thuvia, he whispered. The girl turned her eyes toward his. His hand stole out to find hers, but she drew her own gently away. Thuvia of Parth, I love you, cried the young warrior. Tell me that it does not offend. She shook her head sadly. The love of Carthoris of Helium, she said simply, could be not but an honour to any woman, but you must not speak, my friend, of bestowing upon me that which I may not reciprocate. The young man got slowly to his feet. His eyes were wide in astonishment. It had never occurred to the Prince of Helium that Thuvia of Parth might love another. But at Kadabra, he exclaimed, and later here at your father's court, what did you do, Thuvia of Parth, that might have warned me that you could not return my love? And what did I do, Carthoris of Helium? She returned, that might lead you to believe that I did return it. He paused in thought and then shook his head. Nothing Thuvia, that is true. Yet I could have sworn you loved me. Indeed you well knew how near to worship has been my love for you. And how might I know it, Carthoris? She asked innocently. Did you ever tell me as much? Ever before have words of love for me fallen from your lips? But you must have known it, he exclaimed. I am like my father, witless in matters of the heart, and of a poor way with women. Yet the jewels that strewn these royal garden paths, the trees, the flowers, the sword, all must have read the love that has filled my heart since first my eyes were made new by imaging your perfect face and form. So how could you alone have been blind to it? Do the maids of Helium pay court to their men? Asked Thuvia. You are playing with me, exclaimed Carthoris. Say that you are but playing, and that after all you love me, Thuvia. I cannot tell you that, Carthoris, for I am promised to another. Her tone was level. But was there not within it the hint of an infinite depth of sadness? Who may say? Promised to another, Carthoris scarcely breathed the words. His face went almost white, and then his head came up as befitted him in whose veins flowed the blood of the overlord of a world. Carthoris of Helium wishes you every happiness with the man of your choice, he said, with, and then he hesitated, waiting for her to fill in the name. Coulon Tith, Jeddak of Cowell, she replied. My father's friend and Parth's most puissant ally. The young man looked at her intently for a moment before he spoke again. You love him, Thuvia of Parth, he asked? I am promised to him, she replied simply. He did not press her. He is of Barsoom's noblest blood and mightiest fighters, mused Carthoris. My father's friend and mine. Would that it might have been another, he muttered almost savagely. But the girl thought was hidden by the mask of her expression, which was tinged only by a little shadow of sadness that might have been for Carthoris, or self, or for them both. Carthoris of Helium did not ask, though he noted it, for his loyalty to Coulon Tith was the loyalty of the blood of John Carter of Virginia for a friend, greater than which could be no loyalty. He raised a jewel-encrusted bit of the girl's magnificent trappings to his lips. To the honor and happiness of Coulon Tith, and the priceless jewel that has been stowed upon him, he said, and though his voice was husky, there was the true ring of sincerity in it. I told you that I loved you, Thuvia, before I knew that you were promised to another. I may not tell you it again, but I am glad that you know it, for there is no dishonor in it, either to you, or to Coulon Tith, or to myself. My love is such that it may embrace, as well, Coulon Tith, if you love him. There was almost a question in the statement. I am promised to him, she replied. Carthoris backed slowly away. He laid one hand upon his heart, the other upon the pommel of his longsword. These are yours always, he said. A moment later he had entered the palace and was gone from the girl's sight. Had he returned at once, he would have found her prone upon the air-site bench, her face buried in her arms. Was she weeping? There was none to see. Carthoris of Helium had come all unannounced to the court of his father's friend that day. He had come alone on a small flyer, sure of the same welcome that always awaited him at Ptarth. As there had been no formality in his coming, there was no need of formality in his going. To Thuvan Din he explained that he had been but testing an invention of his own, with which his flyer was equipped. A clever improvement of the ordinary Martian air compass, which, when set for a certain destination, will remain constantly fixed thereon, making it only necessary to keep a vessel's prow always in the direction of the compass needle to reach any given point upon Barsoom by the shortest route. Carthoris's improvement upon this consisted of an auxiliary device which steered the craft mechanically in the direction of the compass, and upon arrival directly over the point for which the compass was set, brought the craft to a standstill and lowered it automatically to the ground. You readily discerned the advantage of this invention, he was saying to Thuvan Din, who had accompanied him to the landing stage upon the palace roof to inspect the compass, and bid his young friend farewell. A dozen officers of the court, with several body servants, were grouped behind the jeddak and his guest, eager listeners to the conversation, so eager on the part of one of the servants that he was twice rebuked by a noble for his forwardness in pushing himself ahead of his betters to view the intricate mechanism of the wonderful, controlling destination compass, as the thing was called. For example, continued Carthoris, I have an all-night trip before me, as to-night. I set the pointer here upon the right-hand dial which represents the eastern hemisphere of Barsoom, so that the point rests upon the exact latitude and longitude of Helium. Then I start the engine, roll up in my sleeping silks and furs, and with lights burning, race through the air toward Helium, confident that at the appointed hour I shall drop gently toward the landing-stage, upon my own palace, whether I am still asleep or no. Provided, suggested Thuvan Dinn, you do not chance to collide with some other night wanderer in the meanwhile. Carthoris smiled. No danger of that, he replied, see here. And he indicated a device at the right of the destination compass. This is my obstructiony vader, as I call it. This visible device is the switch which throws the mechanism on or off. The instrument itself is below deck, geared both to the steering apparatus and to the control levers. It is quite simple. Being nothing more than a radium generator, diffusing radio activity in all directions to a distance of a hundred yards or so from the flyer. Should this enveloping force be interrupted in any direction, a delicate instrument immediately apprehends the irregularity, at the same time imparting an impulse to a magnetic device which, in turn, actuates a steering mechanism, diverting the bow of the flyer away from the obstacle until the craft's radioactivity sphere is no longer in contact with the obstruction. Then she falls once more to her normal course. Should the disturbance approach from the rear, as in the case of a faster moving craft overhauling me, the mechanism actuates the speed control as well as the steering gear, and the flyer shoots ahead and either up or down, as the oncoming vessel is upon a lower or higher plane than myself. In aggravated cases, that is, when the obstructions are many, or of such a nature as to deflect the bow more than forty-five degrees in any direction, or when the craft has reached its destination and dropped it to within a hundred yards of the ground, the mechanism brings her to a full stop, at the same time sounding a loud alarm which will instantly awaken the pilot. You see, I have anticipated almost every contingency. Muvan Din smiled his appreciation of the marvellous device. The forward servant pushed almost to the flyer's side. His eyes were narrowed to slits. All but one, he said. The nobles looked at him in astonishment, and one of them grasped the fellow, none too gently by the shoulder, to push him back to his proper place. Carthoris raised his hand. Wait, he urged. Let us hear what the man has to say. True creation of mortal mind is perfect. Perchance he has detected a weakness that it will be well to know at once. Come, my good fellow, and what may be the one contingency I have overlooked? As he spoke, Carthoris observed the servant closely for the first time. He saw a man of giant stature and handsome, as are all those of the race of Martian red men. But the fellow's lips were thin and cruel, and across one cheek was the faint white line of a sword-cut, from the right temple to the corner of the mouth. Come, urged the Prince of Helium, speak. The man hesitated. It was evident that he regretted the temerity that had made him the center of interested observation. But at the last, seeing no alternative, he spoke. It may be tampered with, he said, by an enemy. Just drew a small key from his leavened pocket-pouch. Look at this, he said, handing it to the man. If you know ought of locks, you will know that the mechanism which this unlooses is beyond the cunning of a picker of locks. It guards the vitals of the instrument from crafty tampering. Without it, an enemy must half-wreck the device to reach its heart, leaving his handiwork apparent to the most casual observer. The servant took the key, glanced at it shrewdly, and then as he made to return it to Carthoris, dropped it upon the marble flagging. Turning to look for it, he planted the sole of his sandal full upon the glittering object. For an instant he bore all his weight upon the foot that covered the key. Then he stepped back, and with an exclamation as a pleasure that he had found it, stooped, recovered it, and returned it to the Heliumite. Then he dropped back to his station behind the nobles, and was forgotten. A moment later, Carthoris made his edu to Thuvan Dinn and his nobles, and with lights twinkling, had risen to the star-shot void of the Martian night. End of chapter 1, recorded by Scott Merrill. Chapter 2 of Thuvia, Made of Mars. This is a LibriVox recording. The LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Scott Merrill. Thuvia, Made of Mars. By Edgar Rice Burroughs. Chapter 2 Slavery. As the ruler of Parth, followed by his courtiers, descended from the landing-stage above the palace, the servants dropped into their places in the rear of their royal or noble masters, and behind the others one lingered to the last. Then quickly stooping, he snatched the sandal from his right foot, slipping it into his pocket-pouch. When the party had come to the lower levels, and the jeddak had dispersed them by a sign, none noticed that the forward fellow, who had drawn so much attention to himself before the Prince of Helium departed, was no longer among the other servants. To whose retinue he had been attached, none had thought to inquire, for the followers of a Martian noble are many, coming and going at the whim of their master, so that a new face is scarcely ever questioned, as the fact that a man has passed within the palace walls is considered proof positive that his loyalty to the jeddak is beyond question. So rigid is the examination of each who seeks service with the nobles of the court. A good rule that, and only relaxed by courtesy, in favor of the retinue of visiting royalty from a friendly foreign power. It was late in the morning of the next day that a giant serving-man in the harness of the house of a great Parth noble passed out into the city from the palace gates. Along one broad avenue, and then another, he strode briskly until he had passed beyond the district of nobles and had come to the place of shops. Here he sought a pretentious building that rose spire-like toward the heavens, its outer walls elaborately wrought with delicate carvings and intricate mosaics. It was the palace of peace in which were housed the representatives of the foreign powers, or rather in which were located their embassies, for the ministers themselves dwelt in gorgeous palaces within the district occupied by the nobles. Here the man sought the embassy of Dusar. A clerk arose questioningly as he entered, and that his request to have a word with the minister asked his credentials. The visitor slipped a plain metal armlet from above his elbow and, pointing to an inscription upon its inner surface, whispered a word or two to the clerk. The latter's eyes went wide, and his attitude turned at once to one of deference. He bowed the stranger to a seat, and hastened to an inner room with the armlet in his hand. A moment later he reappeared, and conducted the caller into the presence of the minister. For a long time the two were closeted together, and when at last the giant serving man emerged from the inner office, his expression was cast in a smile of sinister satisfaction. From the palace of peace he hurried directly to the palace of the Dusarian minister. That night two swift flyers left the same palace top. One sped its rapid course toward Helium. The other, Thuvia of Parth, strolled in the gardens of her father's palace, as was her nightly custom before retiring. Her silks and furs were drawn about her, for the air of Mars is chill after the sun has taken his quick plunge beneath the planet's western verge. The girl's thoughts wandered from her impending nuptials that would make her empress of Kaol, to the person of the trim young Heliumite, who had laid his heart at her feet the preceding day. Whether it was pity or regret that saddened her expression as she gazed toward the southern heavens, where she had watched the lights of his flyer disappear the previous night, it would be difficult to say. So too is it impossible to conjecture just what her emotions may have been as she discerned the lights of a flyer speeding rapidly out of the distance from that very direction, as though impelled toward her garden by the very intensity of the princess's thoughts. She saw it circle lower above the palace until she was positive that it but hovered in preparation for a landing. Presently, the powerful rays of its searchlight shot downward from the bow. They fell upon the landing stage for a brief instant, revealing the figures of the Parthian guards, taking into brilliant points of fire the gems upon their gorgeous harnesses. Then the blazing eyes swept onward across the burnished domes and graceful minarets, down into court and park and garden, to pause at last upon the air-site bench and the girl standing there beside it, her face upturned full toward the flyer. For but an instant the searchlight halted upon Thuvia of Parth, then it was extinguished as suddenly as it had come to life. The flyer passed on above her to disappear beyond a grove of lofty skeel-trees that grew within the palace grounds. The girl stood for some time as it had left her, except that her head was bent and her eyes downcast in thought. Who but Carthoris could it have been? She tried to feel anger that he should have returned thus, spying upon her, but she found it difficult to be angry with the young prince of Helium. What mad caprice could have indulged him to so transgress the etiquette of nations? For lesser things great powers had gone to war. The princess in her was shocked and angered. But what of the girl? And the guard, what of them? Evidently they, too, had been so much surprised by the unprecedented action of the stranger that they had not even challenged, but that they had no thought to let the thing go unnoticed was quickly evidenced by the scurring of motors upon the landing stage and the quick shooting airward of a long-lined patrol boat. Thuvio watched it dart swiftly eastward. So, too, did other eyes watch. Within the dense shadows of the skeel-grove, in a wide avenue beneath overspreading foliage, a flyer hung a dozen feet above the ground. Upon its deck keen eyes watched the far-fanning searchlight of the patrol boat. No light shone from the inshadowed craft. Upon its deck was the silence of the tomb. Its crew of a half-dozen red warriors watched the lights of the patrol boat diminishing in the distance. "'The intellects of our ancestors are with us to-night,' said one in a low tone. "'No plan ever carried better,' returned another. They did precisely as the Prince foretold. He who had first spoken turned toward the man who squatted before the control board. "'Now,' he whispered. There was no other order given. Every man upon the craft had evidently been well schooled in each detail of that night's work. Silently the dark hull crept beneath the cathedral arches of the dark and silent grove. The fovea of Parth, gazing toward the east, saw the blacker blot against the darkness of the trees as the craft topped the buttress-garden wall. She saw the dim bulk incline gently downward toward the scarlet sward of the garden. She knew that men came not thus with honourable intent. Yet she did not cry aloud to alarm the nearby guardsmen. Nor did she flee to the safety of the palace. Why? I can see her shrug her shapely shoulders in reply as she voices the age-old universal answer of the woman. Because scarce had the flyer touched the ground when four men leaped from its deck. They ran forward toward the girl. Still she made no sign of alarm, standing as though hypnotised. Or could it have been as one who awaited a welcome visitor? Not until they were quite close to her did she move. Then the nearer moon, rising above the surrounding foliage, touched their faces, lighting all with the brilliancy of her silver rays. Thuvia of Parth saw only strangers, warriors in the harness of Dusar. Now she took fright, but too late. Before she could voice but a single cry, rough hands seized her. A heavy, silken scarf was wound about her head. She was lifted in strong arms and born to the deck of the flyer. There was the sudden whirl of propellers, a rushing of air against her body, and from far beneath the shouting and challenge from the guard. Racing toward the south, another flyer sped toward Helium. In its cabin a tall, red man bent over the soft soul of an upturned sandal. With delicate instruments he measured the faint imprint of a small object which appeared there. Upon a pad beside him was the outline of a key, and here he noted the results of his measurements. A smile played upon his lips as he completed his task and turned to one who waited at the opposite side of the table. The man is a genius, he remarked. Only a genius could have evolved such a lock as this is designed to spring. Here, take the sketch, Lyrok, and give all Vine-owned genius full and unfettered freedom and reproducing it in metal. The warrior-audificer bowed. Man builds not, he said, that man may not destroy. Then he left the cabin with the sketch. As dawn broke upon the lofty towers which marked the twin cities of Helium, the Scarlet Tower of One and the Yellow Tower of its sister, a flyer floated lazily out of the north. Upon its bow was emblazoned insignia of a lesser noble of a far city of the empire of Helium. Its leisurely approach and the evident confidence with which it moved across the city aroused no suspicion in the minds of the sleepy guard. Their round of duty nearly done they had little thought beyond the coming of those who were to relieve them. Peace reigned throughout Helium. Stagnant, emasculating peace. Helium had no enemies. There was not to fear. Without haste the nearest air patrol swung sluggishly about and approached the stranger. At easy speaking distance the officer upon her deck hailed the incoming craft. The cheery kaor and the plausible explanation that the owner had come from distant parts for a few days of pleasure and gay Helium sufficed. The air patrol boat sheared off, passing again upon its way. The stranger continued toward a public landing stage where she dropped into the ways and came to rest. At about the same time a warrior entered her cabin. It is done, Vas Kor, he said, handing a small metal key to the tall noble who had just risen from his sleeping silks and furs. Good! exclaimed the latter. You must have worked upon it all during the night, Laroche. The warrior nodded. Now fetch me the Heliometric metal you wrought some days since, commanded Vas Kor. This done the warrior assisted his master to replace the handsome jeweled metal of his harness with the planar ornaments of an ordinary fighting man of Helium and with this insignia of the same house that appeared upon the bow of the flyer. Vas Kor breakfasted on board. Then he emerged upon the aerial dock, entered an elevator, and was born quickly to the street below, where he was soon engulfed by the early morning throng of workers hastening to their daily duties. Among them his warrior trappings were no more remarkable than is a pair of trousers upon Broadway. All Martian men are warriors, save those physically unable to bear arms. The tradesman and his clerk clank with their martial trappings as they pursue their vocations. The schoolboy, coming into the world, as he does, almost adult from the snowy shell that has encompassed his development for five long years, knows so little of life without a sore at his hip that he would feel the same discomforture at going abroad, unarmed, that an earthboy would experience in walking the streets knicker-bocker-less. Vas Kor's destination lay in greater Helium, which lies some seventy-five miles across the level plain from lesser Helium. He had landed at the latter city because the air patrol was less suspicious and alert than that above the larger metropolis where lies the Palace of the Jeddak. As he moved with the throng in the park-like canyon of the thoroughfare, the life of an awakening Martian city was in evidence about him. Houses raised high upon their slender metal columns for the night were dropping gently toward the ground. Among the flowers upon the scarlet sward which lies about the buildings, children were already playing, and comely women laughing and chatting with their neighbors as they called gorgeous blossoms for the vases within doors. The pleasant couture of the Borsumian greeting fell continually upon the ears of the stranger, as friends and neighbors took up the duties of a new day. The district in which he had landed was residential, a district of merchants of the more prosperous sort. Everywhere were evidences of luxury and wealth. Things appeared upon every house-top with gorgeous silks and costly furs, laying them in the sun for airing. Jewel-encrusted women lulled even thus early upon the carven balconies before their sleeping apartments. Later in the day they would repair to their roofs when the slaves had arranged couches and pitched silken canopies to shade them from the sun. Strains of inspiring music broke pleasantly from open windows, for the Martians have solved the problem of attuning the nerves pleasantly to the sudden transition from sleep to waking that proves so difficult a thing for most earth folk. Above him raced the long, light passenger flyers, plying each in its proper plane between the numerous landing stages for internal passenger traffic. Landing stages that tower high into the heavens are for the great international passenger liners. Freighters have other landing stages at various lower levels, two within a couple hundred feet of the ground. Nor dare any flyer rise or drop from one plane to another, except in certain restricted districts where horizontal traffic is forbidden. Along the close cropped sward which paves the avenue, ground flyers were moving in continuous lines in opposite directions. For the greater part they skimmed along the surface of the sward, soaring gracefully into the air at times to pass over a slower going driver ahead, or at intersections where the north and south traffic has the right of way, and the east and west must rise above it. From private hangers upon many a rooftop, flyers were darting into the line of traffic. Gay farewells and parting admonitions mingled with the whirring of motors and the subdued noises of the city. Yet with all the swift movement and the countless thousands rushing hither and thither, the predominant suggestion was that of luxurious ease and soft noiselessness. Martians dislike harsh, discordant clamor. The only loud noises they can abide are the martial sounds of war, the clash of arms, the collision of two mighty dreadnoughts of the air. To them there is no sweeter music than this. At the intersection of two broad avenues, Vascore descended from the street level to one of the great pneumatic stations of the city. Here he paid before little wicket the fare to his destination with a couple of the dull, oval coins of helium. Beyond the gatekeeper, he came to a slowly moving line of what to earthly eyes would have appeared to be conical-nosed, eight-foot projectiles for some giant gun. In slow procession the things moved in single file along a grooved track. A half-dozen attendants assisted passengers to enter or directed those carriers to their proper destination. Vascore approached one that was empty. Upon its nose was a dial and a pointer. He set the pointer for a certain station and greater helium, raised to the arched lid of the thing, stepped in and laid down upon the upholstered bottom. An attendant closed the lid, which locked with a little click, and the carrier continued its slow way. Presently it switched itself automatically to another track, to enter, a moment later, one of the series of dark-mouthed tubes. The instant that its entire length was within the black aperture, it sprang forward with the speed of a rifle ball. There was an instant of whizzing, a soft, though sudden, stop, and slowly the carrier emerged upon another platform. Another attendant raised the lid, and Vascore stepped out of the station beneath the center of greater helium, seventy-five miles from the point at which he had embarked. Here he sought the street level, stepping immediately into a waiting ground-flyer. He spoke no word to the slave sitting in the driver's seat. It was evident that he had been expected, and that the fellow had received his instructions before his coming. Scarcely had Vascore taken his seat when the flyer went quickly into the fast-moving procession, turning presently from the broad and crowded avenues into a less congested street. Presently it left the thronged district behind to enter a section of small shops, where it stopped before the entrance to one which bore the sign of a dealer in foreign silks. Vascore entered the low-ceiling room. A man at the far end motioned him toward an inner apartment, giving no further sign of recognition until he had passed in after the caller and closed the door. Then he faced his visitor, saluting deferentially. Most noble, he commenced, but Vascore silenced him with a gesture. No formalities, he said. We must forget that I am ought other than your slave. If all has been as carefully carried out as it has been planned, we have no time to waste. Instead, we should be upon our way to the slave market. Are you ready? The merchant nodded, and turning to a great chest produced the unemblazoned trappings of a slave. These Vascore immediately dawned. Then the two passed from the shop through a rear door, traversed a winding alley to an avenue beyond, where they entered a flier which awaited them. Five minutes later the merchant was leading his slave to the public market, where a great concourse of people filled the great open space in the center of which stood the slave block. The crowds were enormous today. For Carthoris, Prince of Helium, was to be the principal bidder. One by one the masters mounted the rostrum beside the slave block upon which stood their chattels. Briefly and clearly each recounted the virtues of his particular offering. When all were done, the major domo of the Prince of Helium recalled to the block such as had favorably impressed him. For such he had made a fair offer. There was little haggling as to price, and none at all when Vascore was placed upon the block. His merchant master accepted the first offer that was made for him, and thus a Dusaria noble entered the house of Carthoris. End of Chapter 2 Chapter 3 of Thuvia, made of Mars This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Scott Merrill Thuvia, made of Mars By Edgar Rice Burroughs Chapter 3 Treachery The day following the coming of Vascore to the palace of the Prince of Helium, great excitement reigned throughout the twin cities, reaching its climax in the palace of Carthoris. Word had come of the abduction of Thuvia of Parth from her father's court, and with it the veiled hint that the Prince of Helium might be suspected of considerable knowledge of the act and the whereabouts of the princess. In the council chamber of John Carter, warlord of Mars, was Tartos Moors, jeddak of Helium, Moors Kajak, his son, jedd of Lesser Helium, Carthoris, and a score of the great nobles of the empire. There must be no war between Parth and Helium, my son, said John Carter, that you are innocent of the charge that has been placed against you by insinuation. We well know, but Thuvan Din must know it well, too. There is but one who may convince him, and that one be you. You must hasten it once to the court of Parth, and by your presence there, as well as by your words, assure him that his suspicions are groundless. Bear with you the authority of the warlord of Barsoom, and of the jeddak of Helium to offer every resource of the allied powers to assist Thuvan Din to recover his daughter and punish her abductors, whom soever they may be. Go! I know that I do not need to urge upon you the necessity for haste. Carthoris left the council chamber, and hastened to his palace. Here slaves were busy in a moment setting things to rights for the departure of their master. Several worked about the swift flier that would bear the Prince of Helium rapidly toward Parth. At last all was done. But two armed slaves remained on guard. The setting sun hung low above the horizon. In a moment darkness would envelop all. One of the guardsmen, a giant of a fellow across whose right cheek there ran a thin scar from temple to mouth, approached his companion. His gaze was directed beyond and above his comrade. When he had come quite close he spoke. What strange craft is that? he asked. The other turned about quickly to gaze heavenward. Scarce was his back turned toward the giant, then the short sword of the latter was plunged beneath his left shoulder blade, straight through his heart. Voiceless, the soldier sank in his tracks. Stone dead. Quickly the murderer dragged the corpse into the black shadows within the hangar. Then he returned to the flier. Drawing a cunningly wrought key from his pocket-pouch he removed the cover of the right-hand dial of the controlling destination compass. For a moment he studied the construction of the mechanism beneath. Then he returned the dial to its place, set the pointer, and removed it again to note the resultant change in the position of the parts affected by the act. A smile crossed his lips. With a pair of cutters he snipped off the projection which extended through the dial from the external pointer. Now the latter might be moved to any point upon the dial without affecting the mechanism below. In other words the eastern hemisphere dial was useless. Now he turned his attention to the western dial. This he set upon a certain point. Afterward he removed the cover of this dial also, and with keen tool cut the steel finger from the underside of the pointer. As quickly as possible he replaced a second dial cover and resumed his place on guard. To all intents and purposes the compass was as efficient as before, but as a matter of fact the moving of the pointers upon the dials resulted now in no corresponding shift of the mechanism beneath, and the device was set, immovably, upon a destination of the slave's own shoes in. Presently came Carthoris, accompanied by but a handful of his gentlemen. He cast but a casual glance upon the single slave who stood guard. The fellow's thin, cruel lips and the sword-cut that ran from temple to mouth aroused the suggestion of an unpleasant memory within him. He wondered where Saurantal had found the man. Then the matter faded from his thoughts, and in another moment the Prince of Helium was laughing and chatting with his companions. Though below the surface his heart was cold with dread, for what contingencies confronted Thuvia of Parth he could not even guess. First to his mind, naturally, had sprung the thought that Astok of Dusar had stolen the Fair Parthian, but almost simultaneously with the report of the abduction had come news of the great feats at Dusar in honour of the return of the jeddak's son to the court of his father. It could not have been he, thought Corthoris, for on the very night that Thuvia was taken Astok had been in Dusar, and yet he entered the flyer, exchanging casual remarks with his companions as he unlocked the mechanism of the compass and set the pointer upon the capital city of Parth. With a word of farewell he touched the button which controlled the repulsive rays, and as the flyer rose lightly into the air the engine purred in answer to the touch of his finger upon a second button. The propeller's word as his hand drew back the speed lever, and Corthoris, Prince of Helium, was off into the gorgeous Martian night beneath the hurtling moons and the million stars. Scarce had the flyer found its speed ere the man, wrapping his sleeping silks and furs about him, stretched at full length upon the narrow deck to sleep. But sleep did not come at once at his bidding. Instead, his thoughts ran riot in his brain, driving sleep away. He recalled the words of Thuvia of Parth, words that had half assured him that she loved him, for when he had asked her if she loved Kulantith, she had answered only that she was promised to him. Now he saw that her reply was open to more than a single construction. It might, of course, mean that she did not love Kulantith, and so, by inference, be taken to mean that she loved another. But what assurance was there that the other was Carthoris of Helium? The more he thought upon it, the more positive he became that not only was there no assurance in her words that she loved him, but none either in any act of hers. No, the fact was she did not love him. She loved another. She had not been abducted. She had fled willingly with her lover. With such pleasant thoughts filling him alternately with despair and rage, Carthoris at last dropped into the sleep of utter mental exhaustion. The breaking of the sudden dawn found him still asleep. His flyer was rushing swiftly above a barren, ochre plane, the world-old bottom of a long-dead Martian sea. In the distance rose low hills. Toward these the craft was headed. As it approached them a great promontory might have been seen from its deck, stretching out into what had once been a mighty ocean, and circling back once more to enclose the forgotten harbor of a forgotten city, which still stretched back from its deserted quays, an imposing pile of wondrous architecture of a long dead past. The countless dismal windows, vacant and forlorn, stared, sightless from their marble walls. The whole sad city taking on the semblance of scattered mounds of dead men's sun-bleached skulls. The casements having the appearance of eyeless sockets, the portals grinning jaws. Closer came the flyer, but now its speed was diminishing. Yet this was not Parth. Above the central plaza it stopped, slowly settling Marsward. Within a hundred yards of the ground it came to rest, floating gently into light air, and at the same instant an alarm sounded at the sleeper's ear. Carthoris sprang to his feet. Below him he looked to see the teeming metropolis of Parth. Beside him, already, there should have been an air patrol. He gazed about in bewildered astonishment. There was indeed a great city, but it was not Parth. No multitude surged through its broad avenues. No signs of life broke the dead monotony of his deserted rooftops. No gorgeous silks, no priceless furs lent life and color to the cold marble and the gleaming air-site. No patrol boat lay ready with its familiar challenge. Silent and empty lay the great city. Empty and silent the surrounding air. What had happened? Parth was examined the dial of his compass. The pointer was set upon Parth. Could the creature of his genius have thus betrayed him? He would not believe it. Quickly he unlocked the cover, turning it back upon its hinge. A single glance showed him the truth, or at least a part of it. The steel projection that communicated the movement of the pointer upon the dial to the heart of the mechanism beneath had been severed. Who could have done the thing? And why? Carthoris could not hazard even a faint guess. But the thing now was to learn in what portion of the world he was, and then take up his interrupted journey once more. If it had been the purpose of some enemy to delay him, he had succeeded well, thought Carthoris, as he unlocked the cover of the second dial, the first having shown that its pointer had not been set at all. Beneath the second dial he found the steel pin severed as in the other, but the controlling mechanism had first been set for a point upon the western hemisphere. He had just time to judge his location roughly at some place southwest of Helium, and a considerable distance from the twin cities, when he was startled by a woman's scream beneath him. Leading over the side of the flyer he saw what appeared to be a red woman being dragged across the plaza by a huge green warrior, one of those fierce, cruel denizens of the dead sea-bottoms and deserted cities of dying Mars. Carthoris waited to see no more. And for the control-board he sent his craft-racing plummet-like toward the ground. The green man was hurrying his captive toward a huge thoat that browsed upon the ochre vegetation of the once scarlet, gorgeous plaza. At the same instant a dozen red warriors leaped from the entrance of a nearby air-site palace, pursuing the abductor with naked swords and shouts of rageful warning. That's the woman turned her face upward toward the falling flyer, and in the single, swift glance Carthoris saw that it was Thuvia of Ptarth, end of Chapter 3. Chapter 4 of Thuvia, made of Mars. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Scott Merrill Thuvia, made of Mars. By Edgar Rice Burroughs. Chapter 4 A Green Man's Captive When the light of day broke upon the little craft, to whose deck the princess of Ptarth had been snatched from her father's garden, Thuvia saw that the night had wrought a change in her abductors. No longer did their trappings gleam with the metal of Dusar, but instead there was emblazoned there the insignia of the Prince of Helium. The girl felt renewed hope, for she could not believe that in the heart of Carthoris could lie intent to harm her. She spoke to the warrior, squatting before the control board. Last night you wore the trappings of a Dusarian, she said. Now your metal is that of Helium. What means it? The man looked at her with a grin. The Prince of Helium is no fool, he said. Just then an officer emerged from the tiny cabin. He reprimanded the warrior for conversing with the prisoner, nor would he himself reply to any of her inquiries. No harm was offered her during the journey, and so they came at last to their destination with the girl no wiser as to her abductors, or their purpose than at first. Here the flyer settled slowly into the plaza of one of those mute monuments of Mars's dead and forgotten past, the deserted cities that fringe the sad ochre sea-bottoms where once rolled the mighty floods upon whose bosoms moved the maritime commerce of the peoples that are gone for ever. Thuvia of Parth was no stranger to such places. During her wanderings in search of the river Iss, that time she had set out upon what, for countless ages, had been the last long pilgrimage of Martians toward the valley door, where lies the lost Sea of Chorus she had encountered several of these sad remainders of the greatness and of the glory of ancient Barsoom. And again during her flight from the temples of the Holy Therns with Tars Tarkas, Jeddak of Thark, she had seen them, with their weird and ghostly inmates, the great white apes of Barsoom. She knew, too, that many of them were now used by the nomadic tribes of green men, but that among them all was no city that the red men did not shun, for without exception they stood amidst vast waterless tracts, unsuited for the continued sustenance of the dominant race of Martians. Why then, should they bring her to such a place? There was but a single answer. Which was the nature of their work, that they must need seek the seclusion that a dead city afforded. The girl trembled at thought of her plight. For two days her captors kept her within a huge palace, that even in decay reflected the splendor of the age which its youth had known. Just before dawn on the third day she had been roused by the voices of two of her abductors. He should be here by dawn, one was saying. Have her in readiness upon the plaza, else he will never land. The moment he finds that he is in a strange country he will turn about. Me thinks the prince's plan is weak in this one spot. There was no other way, replied the other. It is wondrous work to get them both here at all, and even if we do not succeed in luring him to the ground we shall have accomplished much. Just then the speaker caught the eyes of Thuvia upon him, revealed by the quick moving patch of light cast by Thuria in her mad race through the heavens. With a quick sign to the other he ceased speaking, and advancing toward the girl, motioned her to rise. Then he led her out into the night toward the center of the great plaza. Stand here, he commanded, until we come for you. We shall be watching, and should you attempt to escape it will go ill for you. Much worse than death. Such are the prince's orders. Then he turned and retraced his steps toward the palace, leaving her alone in the midst of the unseen terrors of the haunted city. For in truth these places are haunted in the belief of many Martians who still cling to an ancient superstition which teaches that the spirits of holy therns who die before their allotted one thousand years pass, on occasions, into the bodies of the great white apes. To Thuvia, however, the real danger of attack by one of these ferocious man-like beasts was quite sufficient. She no longer believed in the weird soul transmigration that the therns had taught her before she was rescued from their clutches by John Carter, but she well knew the horrid fate that awaited her should one of the terrible beasts chance to spy her during its nocturnal prowlings. What was that? Surely she could not be mistaken. Something had moved, stealthily, in the shadow of one of the great monoliths that lie in the avenue where it entered the plaza opposite her. Thar ban, jed among the hordes of Torkas, rode swiftly across the ochre vegetation of the dead sea-bottom toward the ruins of ancient Anthor. He had ridden far that night and fast, for he had but come from the despoiling of the incubator of a neighboring green horde with which the hordes of Torkas were perpetually warring. His giant thoat was far from jaded, yet it would be well, thought Thar ban, to permit him to graze upon the ochre moss which grows to greater height within the protected courtyards of deserted cities, where the soil is richer than on the sea-bottoms, and the plants partly shaded from the sun during the cloudless Martian day. Within the tiny stems of this dry-seeming plant is sufficient moisture for the needs of the huge bodies of the mighty thoats, which can exist for months without water, and for days without even the slight moisture which the ochre moss contains. As Thar ban rode noiselessly up the broad avenue which leads from the quays of Anthor to the great central plaza, he and his mount might have been mistaken for specters from a world of dreams. So grotesque the man and beast, so soundless the great thoats padded, nailless feet upon the moss-grown flagging of the ancient pavement. The man was a splendid specimen of his race. Fully fifteen feet towered his great height from sole to peat. The moonlight glistened against his glossy green hide, sparkling the jewels of his heavy harness, and the ornaments that weighted his four muscular arms, while the up-curving tusks that protruded from his lower jaw gleamed white and terrible. At the side of his thoat were slung his long radium rifle and his great forty-foot metal shod spear, while from his own harness depended his longsword and his shortsword, as well as his lesser weapons. His protruding eyes and antennae-like ears were turning constantly hither and thither, for thar ban was yet in the country of the enemy, and, too, there was always the menace of the great white apes, which, John Carter was wont to say, are the only creatures that can arouse in the breasts of these fierce denizens of the dead sea bottoms even the remotest semblance of fear. As the rider neared the plaza he reigned in suddenly. His slender, tubular ears pointed rigidly forward. An unwanted sound had reached them. Voices. And where there were voices outside of Torcas, there, too, were enemies. All the world of wide barsoom contained not but enemies for the fierce Torcasians. Thar ban dismounted. Keeping in the shadows of the great monoliths that lined the avenue of Quays, of sleeping anthor, he approached the plaza. Directly behind him, as a hound at heel, came the slate gray thoat, his white belly shadowed by his barrel, his vivid yellow feet merging into the yellow of the moss beneath them. In the center of the plaza, Thar ban saw the figure of a red woman. A red warrior was conversing with her. Now the man turned and retraced his steps toward the palace at the opposite side of the plaza. Thar ban watched until he had disappeared within the yawning portal. Here was a captive worth having. Seldom did a female of their hereditary enemies fall to the lot of a green man. Thar ban licked his thin lips. Thuvia of Parth watched the shadow behind the monolith at the opening of the avenue opposite her. She hoped that it might be but the figment of an overwrought imagination. But no! Now, clearly indistinctly, she saw it move. It came from behind the screening shelter of the air-site shaft. The sudden light of the rising sun fell upon it. The girl trembled. The thing was a huge green warrior. Swiftly it sprang toward her. She screamed and tried to flee, but she had scarce turned toward the palace when a giant hand fell upon her arm. She was world about and half dragged, half carried, toward a huge thoat that was slowly grazing out of the avenue's mouth on the ochre moss of the plaza. At the same instant she turned her face upward toward the whirring sound of something above her. And there she saw a swift flyer dropping toward her, the head and shoulders of a man leading far over the side. But the man's features were deeply shadowed, so that she did not recognize them. Now from behind her came the shouts of her red abductors. They were racing madly after him who dared to steal what they had already stolen. As Thar ban reached the side of his mount he snatched his long radium rifle from its boot, and wheeling poured three shots into the oncoming red men. Such is the uncanny marksmanship of these Martian savages that three red warriors dropped in their tracks as three projectiles exploded in their vitals. The others halted, nor did they dare return the fire for fear of wounding the girl. Then Thar ban vaulted to the back of his thoat. Thuvia of Parth still in his arms, and with a savage cry of triumph, disappeared down the black canyon of the Avenue of Quays between the sullen palaces of forgotten Anthor. Carthoris's flyer had not touched the ground before he had sprung from its deck to race after the swift thoat, whose eight long legs were sending it down the avenue at the rate of an express train. But the men of Dusar, who still remained alive, had no mind to permit so valuable a capture to escape them. They had lost the girl. That would be a difficult thing to explain to Astok, but some leniency might be expected could they carry the Prince of Helium to their master instead. So the three who remained set upon Carthoris with their longswords, crying to him to surrender, but they might as successfully have cried aloud to Thuvia to cease her mad hurtling through the Barsoomian sky, for Carthoris of Helium was a true son of the warlord of Mars and his incomparable Dejah Thoris. Carthoris's longsword had been already in his hand as he leaped from the deck of the flyer, so the instant that he realized the menace of the three red warriors, he wheeled to face them, meeting their onslaught as only John Carter himself might have done. So swift his sword, so mighty and agile his half-earthly muscles, that one of his opponents was down, crimsonning the ochre moss with his lifeblood, when he had scarce made a single pass at Carthoris. Now the two Romanian Dusarians rushed simultaneously upon the Heliumite. Three longswords clashed and sparkled in the moonlight, until the great white apes, roused from their slumber, crept to the lowering windows of the dead city to view the bloody scene beneath them. Thrice was Carthoris touched, so that the red blood ran down his face, blinding him and dying his broad chest. With his free hand he wiped the gore from his eyes, and with the fighting smile of his father touching his lips, leaped upon his antagonists with renewed fury. A single cut of his heavy sword severed the head of one of them, and then the other, backing away clear of that point of death, turned and fled toward the palace at his back. Carthoris made no step to pursue. He had other concern than the metting of well-deserved punishment to strange men who masqueraded in the meadow of his own house, for he had seen that these men were tricked out in the insignia that marked his personal followers. Turning quickly toward his flier, he was soon rising from the plaza in pursuit of Tharban. The red warrior whom he had put to flight turned in the entrance to the palace, and, seeing Carthoris's intent, snatched a rifle from those he and his fellows had left leaning against the wall as they had rushed out with drawn swords to prevent the theft of their prisoner. Few red men are good shots, for the sword is their chosen weapon, so now as the Dusarian drew bead upon the rising flier and touched the button upon his rifle's stock, it was more to chance than proficiency that he owed the partial success of his aim. The projectile grazed the flier's side, the opaque coating breaking sufficiently to permit daylight to strike in upon the powder file within the bullet's nose. There was a sharp explosion. Carthoris felt his craft reel drunkenly beneath him, and the engine stopped. The momentum the airboat had gained carried her on over the city toward the sea-bottom beyond. The red warrior in the plaza fired several more shots, none of which scored. Then a lofty minaret shut the drifting quarry from his view. In the distance before him Carthoris could see the green warrior bearing Thuvia of Parth away upon his mighty thoat. The direction of his flight was toward the northwest of Anthor, where lay a mountainous country little known to red men. The Heliumite now gave his attention to his injured craft. A close examination revealed the fact that one of the buoyancy tanks had been punctured, but the engine itself was un-injured. A splinter from the projectile had damaged one of the control levers beyond the possibility of repair outside a machine-shop. But after considerable tinkering Carthoris was able to propel his wounded flier at low speed. A rate which could not approach the rapid gate of the thoat, whose eight long, powerful legs carried it over the ochre vegetation of the dead sea-bottom at terrific speed. The Prince of Helium chafed and fretted at the slowness of his pursuit. Yet was he thankful that the damage was no worse. For now he could at least move more rapidly than on foot. But even this meager satisfaction was soon to be denied him. For presently the flier commenced to sag toward the port and by the bow. The damage to the buoyancy tank had evidently been more grievous than he had at first believed. All the balance of that long day Carthoris crawled erratically through the still air. The bow of his flier sinking lower and lower, and the list to port becoming more and more alarming, until at last, near dark, he was floating almost bow down. His harness buckled to a heavy deck-ring to keep him from being precipitated to the ground below. His forward movement was now confined to a slow drifting with the gentle breeze that blew out of the southeast. And when this died down with the setting of the sun, he let the flier sink gently to the mossy carpet beneath. Far before him loomed the mountains, toward which the green man had been fleeing, when last he had seen him, and with dogged resolution the son of John Carter, and dowed with the indomitable will of his mighty sire, took up the pursuit on foot. All that night he forged ahead until, with the dawning of a new day, he entered the low foothills that guard the approach to the fastness of the mountains of Torcas. Rugged, granitic walls towered before him. Nowhere could he discern an opening through the formidable barrier. Yet somewhere into this inhospitable world of stone, the green warrior had borne the woman of the red man's heart's desire. Across the yielding moss of the sea-bottom there had been no spore to follow, for the soft pads of the throat but pressed down in his swift passage the resilient vegetation which sprang back up again beneath his fleeting feet, leaving no sign. But here in the hills, where loose rock occasionally strewed the way, where black loam and wildflowers partially replaced the somber monotony of the waste places of the lowlands, Carthoris hoped to find some sign that would lead him in the right direction. Yet, search as he would, the baffling mystery of the trail seemed likely to remain forever unsolved. It was drawing toward the day's close once more when the keen eyes of the Heliumite discerned the tawny yellow of a sleek hide moving among the boulders several hundred yards to his left. Crouching quickly behind a large rock, Carthoris watched the thing before him. It was a huge banth, one of those savage Barsoomian lions that roamed the desolate hills of the dying planet. The creature's nose was close to the ground. It was evident that he was following the spore of meat by scent. As Carthoris watched him, a great hope leaped into the man's heart. Here, possibly, might lie the solution to the mystery he had been endeavoring to solve. This hungry carnivore, keen always for the flesh of man, might even now be trailing the two whom Carthoris sought. Cautiously, the youth crept out upon the trail of the man-eater. Along the foot of the perpendicular cliff, the creature moved, sniffing at the invisible spore, and now and then emitting the low moan of the hunting banth. Carthoris had followed the creature for about a few minutes when it disappeared as suddenly and mysteriously as though dissolved into thin air. The man leaped to his feet. Not again was he to be cheated as the man had cheated him. He sprang forward at a reckless pace to the spot at which he had last seen the great skulking brute. Before him loomed the sheer cliff, its face unbroken by any aperture into which the huge banth might have warmed its great carcass. Beside him was a small, flat boulder, not larger than the deck of a ten-man flyer, nor standing to a greater height than twice his own stature. Perhaps the banth was in hiding behind this? The brute might have discovered the man upon his trail, and even now be lying and wait for his easy prey. Cautiously, with drawn longsword, Carthoris crept around the corner of the rock. There was no banth there, but something which surprised him infinitely more than with the presence of twenty banths. Before him yawned to the mouth of a dark cave leading downward into the ground. Through this the banth must have disappeared. Was it his lair? Within its dark and forbidding interior might there not lurk not one but many of the fearsome creatures? Carthoris did not know. Nor, with the thought that had been spurring him onward upon the trail of the creature uppermost in his mind, did he much care. For into this gloomy cavern he was sure the banth had trailed the green man and his captive, and into it he, too, would follow, content to give his life in the service of the woman he loved. Not an instant did he hesitate. Nor yet did he advance rashly. But with ready sword and cautious steps, for the way was dark, he stole on. As he advanced the obscurity became impenetrable darkness. End of Chapter 4 Chapter 5 of Thuvia, Made of Mars This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Chapter 5 The Fair Race Downward along a smooth, broad floor led the strange tunnel. For such Carthoris was now convinced was the nature of the shaft he at first had thought but a cave. Before him he could hear the occasional low moans of the banth, and presently from behind came a similar uncanny note. Another banth had entered a passageway on his trail. His position was anything but pleasant. His eyes could not penetrate the darkness, even to the distinguishing of his hand before his face, while the banths he knew could see quite well, though absence of light were utter. No other sounds came to his ears than the dismal, bloodthirsty moanings of the beast ahead and the beast behind. The tunnel had led straight, from where he had entered it beneath the side of the rock furthest from the unscalable cliffs, toward the mighty barrier that had baffled him so long. Now it was running almost level, and presently he noted a gradual ascent. The beast behind him was gaining upon him, crowding him perilously close upon the heels of the beast in front. Presently he should have to do battle with one, or both. More firmly he gripped his weapon. Now he could hear the breathing of the banth at his heels. Not for much longer could he delay the encounter. Long since he had become assured that the tunnel led beneath the cliffs to the opposite side of the barrier, and he had hoped that he might reach the moonlit open before being compelled to grapple with either of the monsters. The sun had been setting as he entered the tunnel, and the way had been sufficiently long to assure him that darkness now reigned upon the world without. He glanced behind him, blazing out of the darkness, seemingly not ten paces behind, glared two flaming points of fire. As the savage eyes met his, the beast emitted a frightful roar, and then he charged. To face that savage mountain of onrushing ferocity, to stand unshaken before the hideous fangs that he knew were barred in slavering bloodthirstiness, though he could not see them, required nerves of steel. But of such were the nerves of Carthoris of Helium. He had the brute's eyes to guide his point, and, as true as the sword-hand of his mighty sire, he guided the keen point to one of those blazing orbs, even as he leaped lightly to one side. With the hideous scream of pain and rage, the wounded banth hurdled, clawing past him. Then it turned to charge once more, but this time Carthoris saw but a single gleaming point of fiery hate directed upon him. Again the needle-point met its flashing target. Again the horrid cry of the stricken beast reverberated through the rocky tunnel, shocking in its torture-laden shrillness, deafening in its terrific volume. But now, as it turned to charge again, the man had no guide whereby to direct his point. He heard the scraping of the padded feet upon the rocky floor. He knew the thing was charging down upon him once again, but he could see nothing. Yet if he could not see his antagonist, neither could his antagonist now see him. Leaping, as he fought, to the exact center of the tunnel, he held his sword-point ready on a line with the beast's chest. It was all that he could do, hoping that chance might send the point into the savage heart as he went down beneath the great body. So quickly was the thing over that Carthoris could scarce believe his senses as the mighty body rushed madly past him. Either he had not placed himself in the center of the tunnel, or else the blinded banth had aired in its calculation. However, the huge body missed him by a foot, and the creature continued on down the tunnel as though in pursuit of the prey that had eluded him. Carthoris, too, followed the same direction, nor was it long before his heart was gladdened by the sight of the moonlit exit from the long, dark passage. Before him lay a deep hollow, entirely surrounded by gigantic cliffs. The surface of the valley was dotted with enormous trees, a strange sight so far away from a Martian waterway. The ground itself was clothed in brilliant scarlet suorde, picked out with innumerable patches of gorgeous wildflowers. Beneath the glorious effulgence of the two moons the scene was one of indescribable loveliness, tinged with the weirdness of strange enchantment. For only an instant, however, did his gaze rest upon the natural beauties outspread before him. Almost immediately they were riveted upon the figure of a great banth, standing across the carcass of a new-killed thoat. The huge beast, his tawny mane bristling around his hideous head, kept his eyes fixed upon another banth that charged erratically, hither and thither, with shrill screams of pain and horrid roars of hate and rage. Carthoris quickly guessed that the second brute was the one he had blinded during the fight in the tunnel, but it was the dead thoat that centered his interest more than either of these savage carnivores. The harness was still upon the body of the huge Martian mount, and Carthoris could not doubt but that this was the very animal upon which the green warrior had borne away Thuvia of Parth. But where were the rider and his prisoner? The Prince of Helium shuddered as he thought upon the probability of the fate that had overtaken them. Human flesh is the food most craved by the fierce Barsoomian lion, whose great carcass and giant fuse require enormous quantities of meat to sustain them. Two human bodies would have but wedded the creature's appetite, and that he had killed and eaten the green man and the red girl seemed only too likely to Carthoris. He had left the carcass of the mighty thoat to be devoured after having consumed the more toothsome portion of his banquet. Now the sightless banth, in its savage, aimless charging and countercharging, had passed beyond the kill of its fellow, and there the light breeze that was blowing wafted the scent of new blood to its nostrils. No longer were its movements erratic. With outstretched tail and foaming jaws it charged straight as an arrow for the body of the thoat and the mighty creature of destruction that stood with forpaws upon the slate-gray side, waiting to defend its meat. When the charging banth was twenty paces from the dead thoat, the killer gave vent to its hideous challenge, and with a mighty spring leaped forward to meet it. The battle that ensued awed even the warlike Barsoomian. The mad rending, the hideous and deafening roaring, the implacable savagery of the blood-stained beasts held him in the paralysis of fascination, and when it was over and the two creatures, their heads and shoulders torn to ribbons, lay with their dead jaws still buried in each other's bodies, Carthoris tore himself from the spell only by an effort of the will. Hurrying to the side of the dead thoat, he searched for traces of the girl he feared had shared the thoat's fate, but nowhere could he discover anything to confirm his fears. With slightly lightened heart he started out to explore the valley, but scarce a dozen steps had he taken when the glistening of a jeweled bobble lying in the sword caught his eye. As he picked it up his first glance showed him that it was a woman's hair ornament, and emblazoned upon it was the insignia of the royal house of Parth. But sinister discovery, blood, still wet, splotched the magnificent jewels of the setting. Carthoris half choked as the dire possibilities which the thing suggested presented themselves to his imagination. Yet he could not, would not, believe it. It was impossible that that radiant creature could have met so hideous an end. It was incredible that the glorious Thuvia should ever cease to be. Upon his already jewel-encrusted harness, to the strap that crossed his great chest beneath which beat his loyal heart, Carthoris, Prince of Helium, fastened the gleaming thing that Thuvia of Parth had worn, and wearing had made holy to the Heliumite. Then he proceeded upon his way into the heart of the unknown valley. For the most part the giant trees shut off his view to any but the most limited distances. Occasionally he caught glimpses of the towering hills that bounded the valley upon every side, and though they stood out clear beneath the light of the two moons, he knew that they were far off, and that the extent of the valley was immense. For half the night he continued his search, until presently he was brought to a sudden halt by the distant sound of squealing thoats. Guided by the noise of these habitually angry beasts, he stole forward through the trees until at last he came upon a level, treeless plain, in the center of which a mighty city reared its burnished domes and vividly colored towers. About the walled city the red man saw a huge encampment of the green warriors of the dead sea-bottoms, and as he let his eyes rove carefully over the city, he realized that here was no deserted metropolis of a dead past. But what city could it be? His studies had taught him that in this little explored portion of Barsoom the fierce tribe of Torquesian green men ruled supreme, and that as yet no red man had succeeded in piercing to the heart of their domain to return again to the world of civilization. The men of Torques had perfected huge guns with which their uncanny marksmanship had permitted them to repulse the few determined efforts that nearby red nations had made to explore their country by means of battle fleets of airships. That he was within the boundary of Torques, Carthoris was sure, but that there existed there such a wondrous city he had never dreamed, nor had the chronicles of the past even hinted at such a possibility, for the Torquesians were known to live, as did the other green men of Mars, within the deserted cities that dotted the dying planet. Nor ever had any green horde built so much as a single edifice, other than the low walled incubators where their young are hatched by the sun's heat. The encircling camp of green warriors lay about five hundred yards from the city's walls. Between it and the city was no semblance of breastwork or other protection against rifle or cannon fire, yet distinctly now in the light of the rising sun Carthoris could see many figures moving along the summit of the high wall and upon the rooftops beyond. That they were beings like himself he was sure, though they were too great a distance for him to be positive that they were red men. Almost immediately after sunrise the green warriors commenced firing upon the little figures upon the wall. To Carthoris's surprise the fire was not returned, but presently the last of the city's inhabitants had sought shelter from the weird marksmanship of the green men, and no further sign of life was visible beyond the wall. Then Carthoris, keeping within the shelter of the trees that fringed the plain, began circling the rear of the besieger's line, hoping against hope that somewhere he would obtain sight of Thuvia of Parth, for even now he could not believe that she was dead. That he was not discovered was a miracle, for mounted warriors were constantly riding back and forth from the camp into the forest, but the long day wore on, and still he continued his seemingly fruitless quest until, near sunset, he came opposite a mighty gate in the city's western wall. Here seemed to be the principal force of the attacking horde. Here a great platform had been erected whereupon Carthoris could see squatting a huge green warrior surrounded by others of his kind. This, then, must be the notorious Hortan Gur, Jeddak of Torkas, the fierce old ogre of the southwestern hemisphere, as only for a Jeddak are platforms raised in temporary camps or upon the march by the green hordes of Barsoom. As the Heliumite watched, he saw another green warrior push his way toward the rostrum. Beside him he dragged a captive, and as the surrounding warriors parted to let the two pass, Carthoris caught a fleeting glimpse of the prisoner. His heart leaped in rejoicing. Thuvia of Parth still lived. It was with difficulty that Carthoris restrained the impulse to rush forward to the side of the Parthian princess. But in the end his better judgment prevailed, for in the face of such odds he knew that he should have been but throwing away, uselessly, any future opportunity he might have to succour her. He saw her dragged to the foot of the rostrum. He saw Hortan Gur address her. He could not hear the creature's words, nor Thuvia's reply, but it must have angered the green monster, for Carthoris saw him leap toward the prisoner, striking her a cruel blow across the face with his metal-banded arm. Then the son of John Carter, Jeddak of Jeddaks, warlord of Barsoom, went mad. The old blood-red haze through which his sire had glared at countless foes floated before his eyes. His half-earthly muscles, responding quickly to his will, sent him in enormous leaps and bounds toward the green monster that had struck the woman he loved. The Torcasians were not looking in the direction of the forest. All eyes had been upon the figure of the girl and their Jeddak, and loud was the hideous laughter that rang out in appreciation of the wit of the green emperor's reply to his prisoner's appeal for liberty. Carthoris had covered about half the distance between the forest and the green warriors, when a new factor succeeded in still further directing the attention of the latter from him. Upon a high tower within the beleaguered city a man appeared. From his upturned mouth there issued a series of frightful shrieks, uncanny shrieks that swept, shrill and terrifying, across the city's walls, over the heads of the besiegers, and out across the forest to the uttermost confines of the valley. Once, twice, thrice, the fearsome sound smote upon the ears of the listening green men, and then far, far off, across the broad woods came sharp and clear from the distance an answering shriek. It was but the first. From every point rose similar savage cries, until the world seemed to tremble to their reverberations. The green warriors looked nervously this way and that. They knew not fear, as earth men may know it. But in the face of the unusual their wanted self-assurance deserted them. And then the great gate in the city wall opposite the platform of Hortanger swung suddenly wide. From it issued as strange a sight as Carthoris ever had witnessed, though at the moment he had time to cast but a single fleeting glance at the tall bowman emerging through the portal behind their long oval shields. To note their flowing, auburn hair, and to realize that the growling things at their side were fierce Barsoomian lions. Then he was in the midst of the astonished Torcasians. With drawn longsword he was among them, and to Thuvia of Ptarth, whose startled eyes were the first to fall upon him, it seemed that she was looking upon John Carter himself, so strangely similar to the fighting of the father was that of the son. And to the famous fighting smile of the Virginian was the resemblance true, and the sword arm, ah, the subtleness of it, and the speed. All about was turmoil and confusion. Green warriors were leaping to the backs of their restive, squealing thoats. Callots were growling out their savage gutterls, whining to be at the throats of the oncoming foemen. Thar Ban, and another by the side of the Rostrum, had been the first to note the coming of Carthoris, and it was with them he battled for possession of the red girl, while the others hastened to meet the host advancing from the beleaguered city. Carthoris sought both to defend Thuvia of Ptarth, and reached the side of the hideous Hortan Gur, that he might avenge the blow the creature had struck the girl. He succeeded in reaching the Rostrum, over the dead bodies of two warriors who had turned to join Thar Ban and his companion in repulsing this adventurous red man, just as Hortan Gur was about to leap from it to the back of his thoat. The attention of the green warriors turned principally upon the bowmen advancing upon them from the city, and upon the savage banths that paced beside them, cruel beasts of war, infinitely more terrible than their own savage callots. As Carthoris leaped to the Rostrum, he drew Thuvia up beside him, and then he turned upon the departing jeddak with an angry challenge and a sword thrust. As the Heliumites point pricked his green hide, Hortan Gur turned upon his adversary with a snarl, but at the same instant two of his chieftains called to him to hasten, for the charge of the fair skinned inhabitants of the city was developing into a more serious matter than the Torquesians had anticipated. Instead of remaining to battle with the red man, Hortan Gur promised him his attention after he had disposed of the presumptuous citizens of the walled city, and leaping astride his thoat, galloped off to meet the rapidly advancing bowmen. The other warriors quickly followed their jeddak, leaving Thuvia and Carthoris alone upon the platform. Between them and the city raged a terrific battle. The fair skinned warriors, armed only with their long bows and a kind of short-handled war axe, were almost helpless beneath the savage-mounted green men at close quarters, but at a distance their sharp arrows did fully as much execution as the radium projectiles of the green men. But if the warriors themselves were outclassed, not so their savage companions, the fierce banths. Scarce had the two lines come together when hundreds of these appalling creatures had leaped among the Torquesians, dragging warriors from their thoats, dragging down the huge thoats themselves, and bringing consternation to all before them. The numbers of the citizenry, too, was to their advantage, for it seemed that Scarce a warrior fell, but his place was taken by a score more, in such a constant stream that they pour from the city's great gate. And so it came, what with the ferocity of the banths and the numbers of the bowmen, that at last the Torquesians fell back until presently the platform upon which stood Carthoris and Thuvia lay directly in the center of the fight. That neither was struck by a bullet or an arrow seemed a miracle to both. But at last the tide had rolled completely past them, so that they were alone between the fighters and the city, except for the dying and the dead, and a score or so of growling banths, less well trained than their fellows, who prowled along the corpses seeking meat. To Carthoris the strangest part of the battle had been the terrific toll taken by the bowmen with their relatively puny weapons. Nowhere that he could see was there a single wounded gray man, but the corpses of their dead lay thick upon the field of battle. Death seemed to follow instantly the slightest pinprick of a bowman's arrow, nor apparently did one ever miss its goal. There could be but one explanation. The missiles were poison-tipped. Presently the sounds of conflict died in the distant forest. Quiet reigned, broken only by the growling of the devouring banths. Carthoris turned toward Thuvia of part. As yet, neither had spoken. Where are we, Thuvia? he asked. The girl looked at him questioningly. His very presence had seemed to proclaim a guilty knowledge of her abduction. How else might he have known the destination of the flyer that brought her? Who should know better than the Prince of Helium? she asked in return. Did he not come hither of his own free will? From Anthor I came voluntarily upon the trail of the green man who had stolen you, Thuvia, he replied. But from the time I left Helium until I woke above Anthor I thought myself bound for Parth. It had been intimated that I had guilty knowledge of your abduction, he explained simply, and I was hastening to the jeddak, your father, to convince him of the falsity of the charge and to give my service to your recovery. Before I left Helium someone tampered with my compass, so that it bore me to Anthor instead of to Parth. That is all. You believe me? But the warriors who stole me from the garden, she exclaimed. After we arrived at Anthor they wore the medal of the Prince of Helium. When they took me they were trapped in Dusarian harness. There seemed about a single explanation. Whoever dared the outrage wished to put the onus upon another, should he be detected in the act. But once safely away from Parth he felt safe in having his minions return to their own harnesses. You believe that I did this thing, Thuvia? he asked. Ah, Carthoris, she replied sadly. I do not wish to believe it. But when everything pointed to you, even then I would not believe it. I did not do it, Thuvia, he said. But let me be entirely honest with you. As much as I love your father, as much as I respect Kulon Tith to whom you are betrothed, as well as I know the frightful consequences that must have followed such an act of mine, hurling into war, as it would, three of the greatest nations of Barsoom, yet notwithstanding all this, I should not have hesitated to take you thus, Thuvia of Parth, had you even hinted that it would not have displeased you. But you did nothing of the kind, and so I am here, not in my own service, but in yours, and in the service of the man to whom you are promised, to save you for him, if it lies within the power of man to do so, he concluded almost bitterly. Thuvia of Parth looked into his face for several moments. Her breast was rising and falling, as though to some resistless emotion. She hath took a step toward him, her lips parted as though to speak, swiftly and impetuously, and then she conquered whatever had moved her. The future acts of the Prince of Helium, she said coldly, must constitute the proof of his past honesty of purpose. Carthoris was hurt by the girl's tone, as much as by the doubt as to his integrity which her words implied. He had half hoped that she might hint that his love would be acceptable. Certainly there was due him at least a little gratitude for his recent acts on her behalf. But the best he received was cold skepticism. The Prince of Helium shrugged his broad shoulders. The girl noted it, and the little smile that touched his lips, so that it became her turn to be hurt. Of course she had not meant to hurt him. He might have known that after what he had said she could not do anything to encourage him, but he need not have made his indifference quite so palpable. The men of Helium were noted for their gallantry, not for boorishness. Possibly it was the earth blood that flowed in his veins. How could she know that the shrug was Carthoris's way of attempting, by physical effort, to cast a blighting sorrow from his heart, or that the smile upon his lips was the fighting smile of his father, with which the son gave outward evidence of the determination he had reached to submerge his own great love in his efforts to save Thubia of Ptarth for another, because he believed that she loved this other? He reverted to his original question. Where are we? he asked. I do not know. Nor I, replied the girl. Those who stole me from Ptarth spoke among themselves of Anthor, so that I thought it possible that the ancient city to which they took me was the famous ruin. But where we may be now I have no idea. When the bowmen return we shall doubtless learn all that there is to know, said Carthoris. Let us hope that they prove friendly. What race may they be? Only the most ancient of our legends and in the mural paintings of the deserted cities of the Dead Sea Bottoms are depicted such a race of auburn-haired, fair-skinned people. Can it be that we have stumbled upon a surviving city of the past which all bar soon believes buried beneath the ages? Thubia was looking toward the forest into which the green men and the pursuing bowmen had disappeared. From a great distance came the hideous cries of banths and an occasional shot. It is strange that they do not return, said the girl. One would expect to see the wounded limping or being carried back to the city, replied Carthoris with a puzzled frown. But how about the wounded nearer the city? Have they carried them within? Both turned their eyes toward the field between them and the walled city where the fighting had been most furious. There were the banths still growling about their hideous feast. Carthoris looked at Thubia in astonishment. Then he pointed toward the field. Where are they? he whispered. What has become of their dead and wounded?