The Gods Of Mars (12 page)

“The pure strain of the blood of this first black man has remained
untainted by admixture with other creatures in the race of which I am a
member; but from the sixteen-legged worm, the first ape and renegade
black man has sprung every other form of animal life upon Barsoom.

“The therns,” and he smiled maliciously as he spoke, “are but the
result of ages of evolution from the pure white ape of antiquity. They
are a lower order still. There is but one race of true and immortal
humans on Barsoom. It is the race of black men.

“The Tree of Life is dead, but before it died the plant men learned to
detach themselves from it and roam the face of Barsoom with the other
children of the First Parent.

“Now their bisexuality permits them to reproduce themselves after the
manner of true plants, but otherwise they have progressed but little in
all the ages of their existence. Their actions and movements are
largely matters of instinct and not guided to any great extent by
reason, since the brain of a plant man is but a trifle larger than the
end of your smallest finger. They live upon vegetation and the blood
of animals, and their brain is just large enough to direct their
movements in the direction of food, and to translate the food
sensations which are carried to it from their eyes and ears. They have
no sense of self-preservation and so are entirely without fear in the
face of danger. That is why they are such terrible antagonists in
combat.”

I wondered why the black man took such pains to discourse thus at
length to enemies upon the genesis of life Barsoomian. It seemed a
strangely inopportune moment for a proud member of a proud race to
unbend in casual conversation with a captor. Especially in view of the
fact that the black still lay securely bound upon the deck.

It was the faintest straying of his eye beyond me for the barest
fraction of a second that explained his motive for thus dragging out my
interest in his truly absorbing story.

He lay a little forward of where I stood at the levers, and thus he
faced the stern of the vessel as he addressed me. It was at the end of
his description of the plant men that I caught his eye fixed
momentarily upon something behind me.

Nor could I be mistaken in the swift gleam of triumph that brightened
those dark orbs for an instant.

Some time before I had reduced our speed, for we had left the Valley
Dor many miles astern, and I felt comparatively safe.

I turned an apprehensive glance behind me, and the sight that I saw
froze the new-born hope of freedom that had been springing up within me.

A great battleship, forging silent and unlighted through the dark
night, loomed close astern.

Now I realized why the black pirate had kept me engrossed with his
strange tale. For miles he had sensed the approach of succour, and but
for that single tell-tale glance the battleship would have been
directly above us in another moment, and the boarding party which was
doubtless even now swinging in their harness from the ship’s keel,
would have swarmed our deck, placing my rising hope of escape in sudden
and total eclipse.

I was too old a hand in aerial warfare to be at a loss now for the
right manoeuvre. Simultaneously I reversed the engines and dropped the
little vessel a sheer hundred feet.

Above my head I could see the dangling forms of the boarding party as
the battleship raced over us. Then I rose at a sharp angle, throwing
my speed lever to its last notch.

Like a bolt from a crossbow my splendid craft shot its steel prow
straight at the whirring propellers of the giant above us. If I could
but touch them the huge bulk would be disabled for hours and escape
once more possible.

At the same instant the sun shot above the horizon, disclosing a
hundred grim, black faces peering over the stern of the battleship upon
us.

At sight of us a shout of rage went up from a hundred throats. Orders
were shouted, but it was too late to save the giant propellers, and
with a crash we rammed them.

Instantly with the shock of impact I reversed my engine, but my prow
was wedged in the hole it had made in the battleship’s stern. Only a
second I hung there before tearing away, but that second was amply long
to swarm my deck with black devils.

There was no fight. In the first place there was no room to fight. We
were simply submerged by numbers. Then as swords menaced me a command
from Xodar stayed the hands of his fellows.

“Secure them,” he said, “but do not injure them.”

Several of the pirates already had released Xodar. He now personally
attended to my disarming and saw that I was properly bound. At least
he thought that the binding was secure. It would have been had I been
a Martian, but I had to smile at the puny strands that confined my
wrists. When the time came I could snap them as they had been cotton
string.

The girl they bound also, and then they fastened us together. In the
meantime they had brought our craft alongside the disabled battleship,
and soon we were transported to the latter’s deck.

Fully a thousand black men manned the great engine of destruction. Her
decks were crowded with them as they pressed forward as far as
discipline would permit to get a glimpse of their captives.

The girl’s beauty elicited many brutal comments and vulgar jests. It
was evident that these self-thought supermen were far inferior to the
red men of Barsoom in refinement and in chivalry.

My close-cropped black hair and thern complexion were the subjects of
much comment. When Xodar told his fellow nobles of my fighting ability
and strange origin they crowded about me with numerous questions.

The fact that I wore the harness and metal of a thern who had been
killed by a member of my party convinced them that I was an enemy of
their hereditary foes, and placed me on a better footing in their
estimation.

Without exception the blacks were handsome men, and well built. The
officers were conspicuous through the wondrous magnificence of their
resplendent trappings. Many harnesses were so encrusted with gold,
platinum, silver and precious stones as to entirely hide the leather
beneath.

The harness of the commanding officer was a solid mass of diamonds.
Against the ebony background of his skin they blazed out with a
peculiarly accentuated effulgence. The whole scene was enchanting.
The handsome men; the barbaric splendour of the accoutrements; the
polished skeel wood of the deck; the gloriously grained sorapus of the
cabins, inlaid with priceless jewels and precious metals in intricate
and beautiful design; the burnished gold of hand rails; the shining
metal of the guns.

Phaidor and I were taken below decks, where, still fast bound, we were
thrown into a small compartment which contained a single port-hole. As
our escort left us they barred the door behind them.

We could hear the men working on the broken propellers, and from the
port-hole we could see that the vessel was drifting lazily toward the
south.

For some time neither of us spoke. Each was occupied with his own
thoughts. For my part I was wondering as to the fate of Tars Tarkas
and the girl, Thuvia.

Even if they succeeded in eluding pursuit they must eventually fall
into the hands of either red men or green, and as fugitives from the
Valley Dor they could look for but little else than a swift and
terrible death.

How I wished that I might have accompanied them. It seemed to me that
I could not fail to impress upon the intelligent red men of Barsoom the
wicked deception that a cruel and senseless superstition had foisted
upon them.

Tardos Mors would believe me. Of that I was positive. And that he
would have the courage of his convictions my knowledge of his character
assured me. Dejah Thoris would believe me. Not a doubt as to that
entered my head. Then there were a thousand of my red and green
warrior friends whom I knew would face eternal damnation gladly for my
sake. Like Tars Tarkas, where I led they would follow.

My only danger lay in that should I ever escape the black pirates it
might be to fall into the hands of unfriendly red or green men. Then
it would mean short shrift for me.

Well, there seemed little to worry about on that score, for the
likelihood of my ever escaping the blacks was extremely remote.

The girl and I were linked together by a rope which permitted us to
move only about three or four feet from each other. When we had
entered the compartment we had seated ourselves upon a low bench
beneath the porthole. The bench was the only furniture of the room.
It was of sorapus wood. The floor, ceiling and walls were of
carborundum aluminum, a light, impenetrable composition extensively
utilized in the construction of Martian fighting ships.

As I had sat meditating upon the future my eyes had been riveted upon
the port-hole which was just level with them as I sat. Suddenly I
looked toward Phaidor. She was regarding me with a strange expression
I had not before seen upon her face. She was very beautiful then.

Instantly her white lids veiled her eyes, and I thought I discovered a
delicate flush tingeing her cheek. Evidently she was embarrassed at
having been detected in the act of staring at a lesser creature, I
thought.

“Do you find the study of the lower orders interesting?” I asked,
laughing.

She looked up again with a nervous but relieved little laugh.

“Oh very,” she said, “especially when they have such excellent
profiles.”

It was my turn to flush, but I did not. I felt that she was poking fun
at me, and I admired a brave heart that could look for humour on the
road to death, and so I laughed with her.

“Do you know where we are going?” she said.

“To solve the mystery of the eternal hereafter, I imagine,” I replied.

“I am going to a worse fate than that,” she said, with a little shudder.

“What do you mean?”

“I can only guess,” she replied, “since no thern damsel of all the
millions that have been stolen away by black pirates during the ages
they have raided our domains has ever returned to narrate her
experiences among them. That they never take a man prisoner lends
strength to the belief that the fate of the girls they steal is worse
than death.”

“Is it not a just retribution?” I could not help but ask.

“What do you mean?”

“Do not the therns themselves do likewise with the poor creatures who
take the voluntary pilgrimage down the River of Mystery? Was not
Thuvia for fifteen years a plaything and a slave? Is it less than just
that you should suffer as you have caused others to suffer?”

“You do not understand,” she replied. “We therns are a holy race. It
is an honour to a lesser creature to be a slave among us. Did we not
occasionally save a few of the lower orders that stupidly float down an
unknown river to an unknown end all would become the prey of the plant
men and the apes.”

“But do you not by every means encourage the superstition among those
of the outside world?” I argued. “That is the wickedest of your deeds.
Can you tell me why you foster the cruel deception?”

“All life on Barsoom,” she said, “is created solely for the support of
the race of therns. How else could we live did the outer world not
furnish our labour and our food? Think you that a thern would demean
himself by labour?”

“It is true then that you eat human flesh?” I asked in horror.

She looked at me in pitying commiseration for my ignorance.

“Truly we eat the flesh of the lower orders. Do not you also?”

“The flesh of beasts, yes,” I replied, “but not the flesh of man.”

“As man may eat of the flesh of beasts, so may gods eat of the flesh of
man. The Holy Therns are the gods of Barsoom.”

I was disgusted and I imagine that I showed it.

“You are an unbeliever now,” she continued gently, “but should we be
fortunate enough to escape the clutches of the black pirates and come
again to the court of Matai Shang I think that we shall find an
argument to convince you of the error of your ways. And—,” she
hesitated, “perhaps we shall find a way to keep you as—as—one of us.”

Again her eyes dropped to the floor, and a faint colour suffused her
cheek. I could not understand her meaning; nor did I for a long time.
Dejah Thoris was wont to say that in some things I was a veritable
simpleton, and I guess that she was right.

“I fear that I would ill requite your father’s hospitality,” I
answered, “since the first thing that I should do were I a thern would
be to set an armed guard at the mouth of the River Iss to escort the
poor deluded voyagers back to the outer world. Also should I devote my
life to the extermination of the hideous plant men and their horrible
companions, the great white apes.”

She looked at me really horror struck.

“No, no,” she cried, “you must not say such terribly sacrilegious
things—you must not even think them. Should they ever guess that you
entertained such frightful thoughts, should we chance to regain the
temples of the therns, they would mete out a frightful death to you.
Not even my—my—” Again she flushed, and started over. “Not even I
could save you.”

I said no more. Evidently it was useless. She was even more steeped
in superstition than the Martians of the outer world. They only
worshipped a beautiful hope for a life of love and peace and happiness
in the hereafter. The therns worshipped the hideous plant men and the
apes, or at least they reverenced them as the abodes of the departed
spirits of their own dead.

At this point the door of our prison opened to admit Xodar.

He smiled pleasantly at me, and when he smiled his expression was
kindly—anything but cruel or vindictive.

“Since you cannot escape under any circumstances,” he said, “I cannot
see the necessity for keeping you confined below. I will cut your
bonds and you may come on deck. You will witness something very
interesting, and as you never shall return to the outer world it will
do no harm to permit you to see it. You will see what no other than
the First Born and their slaves know the existence of—the subterranean
entrance to the Holy Land, to the real heaven of Barsoom.