The Gods of Mars Read Online

The Prison Isle of Shador

XI. When Hell Broke Loose

XII. Doomed to Die

XIII. A Break for Liberty

XIV. The Eyes in the Dark

XV. Flight and Pursuit

XVI. Under Arrest

XVII. The Death Sentence

XVIII. Sola's Story

XIX. Black Despair

XX. The Air Battle

XXI. Through Flood and Flame

XXII. Victory and Defeat

CHAPTER I

THE PLANT MEN

As I stood upon the bluff before my cottage on that clear cold

night in the early part of March, 1886, the noble Hudson flowing

like the grey and silent spectre of a dead river below me, I felt

again the strange, compelling influence of the mighty god of war,

my beloved Mars, which for ten long and lonesome years I had implored

with outstretched arms to carry me back to my lost love.

Not since that other March night in 1866, when I had stood without

that Arizona cave in which my still and lifeless body lay wrapped

in the similitude of earthly death had I felt the irresistible

attraction of the god of my profession.

With arms outstretched toward the red eye of the great star I stood

praying for a return of that strange power which twice had drawn

me through the immensity of space, praying as I had prayed on a

thousand nights before during the long ten years that I had waited

and hoped.

Suddenly a qualm of nausea swept over me, my senses swam, my knees

gave beneath me and I pitched headlong to the ground upon the very

verge of the dizzy bluff.

Instantly my brain cleared and there swept back across the threshold

of my memory the vivid picture of the horrors of that ghostly

Arizona cave; again, as on that far-gone night, my muscles refused

to respond to my will and again, as though even here upon the banks

of the placid Hudson, I could hear the awful moans and rustling

of the fearsome thing which had lurked and threatened me from the

dark recesses of the cave, I made the same mighty and superhuman

effort to break the bonds of the strange anaesthesia which held me,

and again came the sharp click as of the sudden parting of a taut

wire, and I stood naked and free beside the staring, lifeless thing

that had so recently pulsed with the warm, red life-blood of John

Carter.

With scarcely a parting glance I turned my eyes again toward Mars,

lifted my hands toward his lurid rays, and waited.

Nor did I have long to wait; for scarce had I turned ere I shot

with the rapidity of thought into the awful void before me. There

was the same instant of unthinkable cold and utter darkness that I

had experienced twenty years before, and then I opened my eyes in

another world, beneath the burning rays of a hot sun, which beat

through a tiny opening in the dome of the mighty forest in which

I lay.

The scene that met my eyes was so un-Martian that my heart sprang

to my throat as the sudden fear swept through me that I had been

aimlessly tossed upon some strange planet by a cruel fate.

Why not? What guide had I through the trackless waste of

interplanetary space? What assurance that I might not as well be

hurtled to some far-distant star of another solar system, as to

Mars?

I lay upon a close-cropped sward of red grasslike vegetation, and

about me stretched a grove of strange and beautiful trees, covered

with huge and gorgeous blossoms and filled with brilliant, voiceless

birds. I call them birds since they were winged, but mortal eye

ne'er rested on such odd, unearthly shapes.

The vegetation was similar to that which covers the lawns of the

red Martians of the great waterways, but the trees and birds were

unlike anything that I had ever seen upon Mars, and then through

the further trees I could see that most un-Martian of all sights--an

open sea, its blue waters shimmering beneath the brazen sun.

As I rose to investigate further I experienced the same ridiculous

catastrophe that had met my first attempt to walk under Martian

conditions. The lesser attraction of this smaller planet and the

reduced air pressure of its greatly rarefied atmosphere, afforded so

little resistance to my earthly muscles that the ordinary exertion

of the mere act of rising sent me several feet into the air and

precipitated me upon my face in the soft and brilliant grass of

this strange world.

This experience, however, gave me some slightly increased assurance

that, after all, I might indeed be in some, to me, unknown corner

of Mars, and this was very possible since during my ten years'

residence upon the planet I had explored but a comparatively tiny

area of its vast expanse.

I arose again, laughing at my forgetfulness, and soon had mastered

once more the art of attuning my earthly sinews to these changed

conditions.

As I walked slowly down the imperceptible slope toward the sea I

could not help but note the park-like appearance of the sward and

trees. The grass was as close-cropped and carpet-like as some old

English lawn and the trees themselves showed evidence of careful

pruning to a uniform height of about fifteen feet from the ground,

so that as one turned his glance in any direction the forest had

the appearance at a little distance of a vast, high-ceiled chamber.

All these evidences of careful and systematic cultivation convinced

me that I had been fortunate enough to make my entry into Mars on

this second occasion through the domain of a civilized people and

that when I should find them I would be accorded the courtesy and

protection that my rank as a Prince of the house of Tardos Mors

entitled me to.

The trees of the forest attracted my deep admiration as I proceeded

toward the sea. Their great stems, some of them fully a hundred

feet in diameter, attested their prodigious height, which I could

only guess at, since at no point could I penetrate their dense

foliage above me to more than sixty or eighty feet.

As far aloft as I could see the stems and branches and twigs were

as smooth and as highly polished as the newest of American-made

pianos. The wood of some of the trees was as black as ebony, while

their nearest neighbours might perhaps gleam in the subdued light

of the forest as clear and white as the finest china, or, again,

they were azure, scarlet, yellow, or deepest purple.

And in the same way was the foliage as gay and variegated as the

stems, while the blooms that clustered thick upon them may not be

described in any earthly tongue, and indeed might challenge the

language of the gods.

As I neared the confines of the forest I beheld before me and

between the grove and the open sea, a broad expanse of meadow land,

and as I was about to emerge from the shadows of the trees a sight

met my eyes that banished all romantic and poetic reflection upon

the beauties of the strange landscape.

To my left the sea extended as far as the eye could reach, before

me only a vague, dim line indicated its further shore, while at my

right a mighty river, broad, placid, and majestic, flowed between

scarlet banks to empty into the quiet sea before me.

At a little distance up the river rose mighty perpendicular bluffs,

from the very base of which the great river seemed to rise.

But it was not these inspiring and magnificent evidences of Nature's

grandeur that took my immediate attention from the beauties of

the forest. It was the sight of a score of figures moving slowly

about the meadow near the bank of the mighty river.

Odd, grotesque shapes they were; unlike anything that I had ever

seen upon Mars, and yet, at a distance, most manlike in appearance.

The larger specimens appeared to be about ten or twelve feet in

height when they stood erect, and to be proportioned as to torso

and lower extremities precisely as is earthly man.

Their arms, however, were very short, and from where I stood seemed

as though fashioned much after the manner of an elephant's trunk,

in that they moved in sinuous and snakelike undulations, as though

entirely without bony structure, or if there were bones it seemed

that they must be vertebral in nature.

As I watched them from behind the stem of a huge tree, one of the

creatures moved slowly in my direction, engaged in the occupation

that seemed to be the principal business of each of them, and which

consisted in running their oddly shaped hands over the surface of

the sward, for what purpose I could not determine.

As he approached quite close to me I obtained an excellent view of

him, and though I was later to become better acquainted with his

kind, I may say that that single cursory examination of this awful

travesty on Nature would have proved quite sufficient to my desires

had I been a free agent. The fastest flier of the Heliumetic Navy

could not quickly enough have carried me far from this hideous

creature.

Its hairless body was a strange and ghoulish blue, except for a

broad band of white which encircled its protruding, single eye: an

eye that was all dead white--pupil, iris, and ball.

Its nose was a ragged, inflamed, circular hole in the centre of

its blank face; a hole that resembled more closely nothing that I

could think of other than a fresh bullet wound which has not yet

commenced to bleed.

Below this repulsive orifice the face was quite blank to the chin,

for the thing had no mouth that I could discover.

The head, with the exception of the face, was covered by a tangled

mass of jet-black hair some eight or ten inches in length. Each

hair was about the bigness of a large angleworm, and as the thing

moved the muscles of its scalp this awful head-covering seemed

to writhe and wriggle and crawl about the fearsome face as though

indeed each separate hair was endowed with independent life.

The body and the legs were as symmetrically human as Nature could

have fashioned them, and the feet, too, were human in shape, but

of monstrous proportions. From heel to toe they were fully three

feet long, and very flat and very broad.

As it came quite close to me I discovered that its strange movements,

running its odd hands over the surface of the turf, were the result

of its peculiar method of feeding, which consists in cropping off

the tender vegetation with its razorlike talons and sucking it up

from its two mouths, which lie one in the palm of each hand, through

its arm-like throats.

In addition to the features which I have already described, the

beast was equipped with a massive tail about six feet in length,

quite round where it joined the body, but tapering to a flat, thin

blade toward the end, which trailed at right angles to the ground.

By far the most remarkable feature of this most remarkable creature,

however, were the two tiny replicas of it, each about six inches

in length, which dangled, one on either side, from its armpits.

They were suspended by a small stem which seemed to grow from the

exact tops of their heads to where it connected them with the body

of the adult.

Whether they were the young, or merely portions of a composite

creature, I did not know.

As I had been scrutinizing this weird monstrosity the balance of

the herd had fed quite close to me and I now saw that while many

had the smaller specimens dangling from them, not all were thus

equipped, and I further noted that the little ones varied in size

from what appeared to be but tiny unopened buds an inch in diameter

through various stages of development to the full-fledged and

perfectly formed creature of ten to twelve inches in length.

Feeding with the herd were many of the little fellows not much larger

than those which remained attached to their parents, and from the

young of that size the herd graded up to the immense adults.

Fearsome-looking as they were, I did not know whether to fear them

or not, for they did not seem to be particularly well equipped for

fighting, and I was on the point of stepping from my hiding-place

and revealing myself to them to note the effect upon them of the

sight of a man when my rash resolve was, fortunately for me, nipped

in the bud by a strange shrieking wail, which seemed to come from

the direction of the bluffs at my right.

Naked and unarmed, as I was, my end would have been both speedy

and horrible at the hands of these cruel creatures had I had time

to put my resolve into execution, but at the moment of the shriek

each member of the herd turned in the direction from which the sound

seemed to come, and at the same instant every particular snake-like

hair upon their heads rose stiffly perpendicular as if each had been

a sentient organism looking or listening for the source or meaning

of the wail. And indeed the latter proved to be the truth, for

this strange growth upon the craniums of the plant men of Barsoom

represents the thousand ears of these hideous creatures, the last

remnant of the strange race which sprang from the original Tree of

Life.

Instantly every eye turned toward one member of the herd, a large

fellow who evidently was the leader. A strange purring sound

issued from the mouth in the palm of one of his hands, and at the

same time he started rapidly toward the bluff, followed by the

entire herd.

Their speed and method of locomotion were both remarkable, springing

as they did in great leaps of twenty or thirty feet, much after

the manner of a kangaroo.

They were rapidly disappearing when it occurred to me to follow

them, and so, hurling caution to the winds, I sprang across the

meadow in their wake with leaps and bounds even more prodigious

than their own, for the muscles of an athletic Earth man produce

remarkable results when pitted against the lesser gravity and air

pressure of Mars.

Their way led directly towards the apparent source of the river at

the base of the cliffs, and as I neared this point I found the meadow

dotted with huge boulders that the ravages of time had evidently

dislodged from the towering crags above.

For this reason I came quite close to the cause of the disturbance

before the scene broke upon my horrified gaze. As I topped a great

boulder I saw the herd of plant men surrounding a little group of

perhaps five or six green men and women of Barsoom.

That I was indeed upon Mars I now had no doubt, for here were members

of the wild hordes that people the dead sea bottoms and deserted

cities of that dying planet.

Here were the great males towering in all the majesty of their

imposing height; here were the gleaming white tusks protruding

from their massive lower jaws to a point near the centre of their

foreheads, the laterally placed, protruding eyes with which they

could look forward or backward, or to either side without turning

their heads, here the strange antennae-like ears rising from the

tops of their foreheads; and the additional pair of arms extending

from midway between the shoulders and the hips.

Even without the glossy green hide and the metal ornaments which

denoted the tribes to which they belonged, I would have known

them on the instant for what they were, for where else in all the

universe is their like duplicated?

There were two men and four females in the party and their ornaments

denoted them as members of different hordes, a fact which tended

to puzzle me infinitely, since the various hordes of green men of

Barsoom are eternally at deadly war with one another, and never,

except on that single historic instance when the great Tars Tarkas

of Thark gathered a hundred and fifty thousand green warriors from

several hordes to march upon the doomed city of Zodanga to rescue

Dejah Thoris, Princess of Helium, from the clutches of Than Kosis,

had I seen green Martians of different hordes associated in other

than mortal combat.

But now they stood back to back, facing, in wide-eyed amazement,

the very evidently hostile demonstrations of a common enemy.

Both men and women were armed with long-swords and daggers, but no

firearms were in evidence, else it had been short shrift for the

gruesome plant men of Barsoom.

Presently the leader of the plant men charged the little party, and

his method of attack was as remarkable as it was effective, and by

its very strangeness was the more potent, since in the science of

the green warriors there was no defence for this singular manner

of attack, the like of which it soon was evident to me they were as

unfamiliar with as they were with the monstrosities which confronted

them.

The plant man charged to within a dozen feet of the party and then,

with a bound, rose as though to pass directly above their heads.

His powerful tail was raised high to one side, and as he passed

close above them he brought it down in one terrific sweep that

crushed a green warrior's skull as though it had been an eggshell.

The balance of the frightful herd was now circling rapidly and

with bewildering speed about the little knot of victims. Their

prodigious bounds and the shrill, screeching purr of their uncanny

mouths were well calculated to confuse and terrorize their prey,

so that as two of them leaped simultaneously from either side, the

mighty sweep of those awful tails met with no resistance and two

more green Martians went down to an ignoble death.

There were now but one warrior and two females left, and it seemed

that it could be but a matter of seconds ere these, also, lay dead

upon the scarlet sward.

But as two more of the plant men charged, the warrior, who was

now prepared by the experiences of the past few minutes, swung his

mighty long-sword aloft and met the hurtling bulk with a clean cut

that clove one of the plant men from chin to groin.

The other, however, dealt a single blow with his cruel tail that

laid both of the females crushed corpses upon the ground.

As the green warrior saw the last of his companions go down and at

the same time perceived that the entire herd was charging him in

a body, he rushed boldly to meet them, swinging his long-sword in

the terrific manner that I had so often seen the men of his kind

wield it in their ferocious and almost continual warfare among

their own race.

Cutting and hewing to right and left, he laid an open path straight

through the advancing plant men, and then commenced a mad race

for the forest, in the shelter of which he evidently hoped that he

might find a haven of refuge.

He had turned for that portion of the forest which abutted on the

cliffs, and thus the mad race was taking the entire party farther

and farther from the boulder where I lay concealed.

As I had watched the noble fight which the great warrior had put

up against such enormous odds my heart had swelled in admiration

for him, and acting as I am wont to do, more upon impulse than after

mature deliberation, I instantly sprang from my sheltering rock

and bounded quickly toward the bodies of the dead green Martians,

a well-defined plan of action already formed.

Half a dozen great leaps brought me to the spot, and another instant

saw me again in my stride in quick pursuit of the hideous monsters

that were rapidly gaining on the fleeing warrior, but this time I

grasped a mighty long-sword in my hand and in my heart was the old

blood lust of the fighting man, and a red mist swam before my eyes

and I felt my lips respond to my heart in the old smile that has

ever marked me in the midst of the joy of battle.

Swift as I was I was none too soon, for the green warrior had been

overtaken ere he had made half the distance to the forest, and now

he stood with his back to a boulder, while the herd, temporarily

balked, hissed and screeched about him.

With their single eyes in the centre of their heads and every eye

turned upon their prey, they did not note my soundless approach,

so that I was upon them with my great long-sword and four of them

lay dead ere they knew that I was among them.

For an instant they recoiled before my terrific onslaught, and in

that instant the green warrior rose to the occasion and, springing

to my side, laid to the right and left of him as I had never seen

but one other warrior do, with great circling strokes that formed

a figure eight about him and that never stopped until none stood

living to oppose him, his keen blade passing through flesh and bone

and metal as though each had been alike thin air.

As we bent to the slaughter, far above us rose that shrill, weird

cry which I had heard once before, and which had called the herd

to the attack upon their victims. Again and again it rose, but we

were too much engaged with the fierce and powerful creatures about

us to attempt to search out even with our eyes the author of the

horrid notes.

Great tails lashed in frenzied anger about us, razor-like talons

cut our limbs and bodies, and a green and sticky syrup, such as

oozes from a crushed caterpillar, smeared us from head to foot,

for every cut and thrust of our longswords brought spurts of this

stuff upon us from the severed arteries of the plant men, through

which it courses in its sluggish viscidity in lieu of blood.

Once I felt the great weight of one of the monsters upon my back

and as keen talons sank into my flesh I experienced the frightful

sensation of moist lips sucking the lifeblood from the wounds to

which the claws still clung.

I was very much engaged with a ferocious fellow who was endeavouring

to reach my throat from in front, while two more, one on either

side, were lashing viciously at me with their tails.

The green warrior was much put to it to hold his own, and I felt

that the unequal struggle could last but a moment longer when the

huge fellow discovered my plight, and tearing himself from those

that surrounded him, he raked the assailant from my back with a

single sweep of his blade, and thus relieved I had little difficulty

with the others.

Once together, we stood almost back to back against the great

boulder, and thus the creatures were prevented from soaring above

us to deliver their deadly blows, and as we were easily their match

while they remained upon the ground, we were making great headway

in dispatching what remained of them when our attention was again

attracted by the shrill wail of the caller above our heads.

This time I glanced up, and far above us upon a little natural

balcony on the face of the cliff stood a strange figure of a man

shrieking out his shrill signal, the while he waved one hand in

the direction of the river's mouth as though beckoning to some one

there, and with the other pointed and gesticulated toward us.

A glance in the direction toward which he was looking was sufficient

to apprise me of his aims and at the same time to fill me with the

dread of dire apprehension, for, streaming in from all directions

across the meadow, from out of the forest, and from the far distance

of the flat land across the river, I could see converging upon

us a hundred different lines of wildly leaping creatures such as

we were now engaged with, and with them some strange new monsters

which ran with great swiftness, now erect and now upon all fours.

"It will be a great death," I said to my companion. "Look!"

As he shot a quick glance in the direction I indicated he smiled.

"We may at least die fighting and as great warriors should, John

Carter," he replied.

We had just finished the last of our immediate antagonists as

he spoke, and I turned in surprised wonderment at the sound of my

name.

And there before my astonished eyes I beheld the greatest of the

green men of Barsoom; their shrewdest statesman, their mightiest

general, my great and good friend, Tars Tarkas, Jeddak of Thark.

CHAPTER II

A FOREST BATTLE

Tars Tarkas and I found no time for an exchange of experiences as

we stood there before the great boulder surrounded by the corpses

of our grotesque assailants, for from all directions down the broad

valley was streaming a perfect torrent of terrifying creatures in

response to the weird call of the strange figure far above us.

"Come," cried Tars Tarkas, "we must make for the cliffs. There

lies our only hope of even temporary escape; there we may find a

cave or a narrow ledge which two may defend for ever against this

motley, unarmed horde."

Together we raced across the scarlet sward, I timing my speed that

I might not outdistance my slower companion.