By this I steered, endeavouring to keep the

circle of light below me ever perfect. At best it was but a slender

cord that held us from destruction, and I think that I steered that

night more by intuition and blind faith than by skill or reason.

We were not long in the shaft, and possibly the very fact of our

enormous speed saved us, for evidently we started in the right

direction and so quickly were we out again that we had no time to

alter our course. Omean lies perhaps two miles below the surface

crust of Mars. Our speed must have approximated two hundred miles

an hour, for Martian fliers are swift, so that at most we were in

the shaft not over forty seconds.

We must have been out of it for some seconds before I realised that

we had accomplished the impossible. Black darkness enshrouded all

about us. There were neither moons nor stars. Never before had I

seen such a thing upon Mars, and for the moment I was nonplussed.

Then the explanation came to me. It was summer at the south pole.

The ice cap was melting and those meteoric phenomena, clouds, unknown

upon the greater part of Barsoom, were shutting out the light of

heaven from this portion of the planet.

Fortunate indeed it was for us, nor did it take me long to grasp

the opportunity for escape which this happy condition offered

us. Keeping the boat's nose at a stiff angle I raced her for the

impenetrable curtain which Nature had hung above this dying world

to shut us out from the sight of our pursuing enemies.

We plunged through the cold camp fog without diminishing our

speed, and in a moment emerged into the glorious light of the two

moons and the million stars. I dropped into a horizontal course

and headed due north. Our enemies were a good half-hour behind us

with no conception of our direction. We had performed the miraculous

and come through a thousand dangers unscathed--we had escaped from

the land of the First Born. No other prisoners in all the ages of

Barsoom had done this thing, and now as I looked back upon it it

did not seem to have been so difficult after all.

I said as much to Xodar, over my shoulder.

"It is very wonderful, nevertheless," he replied. "No one else

could have accomplished it but John Carter."

At the sound of that name the boy jumped to his feet.

"John Carter!" he cried. "John Carter! Why, man, John Carter,

Prince of Helium, has been dead for years. I am his son."

CHAPTER XIV

THE EYES IN THE DARK

My son! I could not believe my ears. Slowly I rose and faced

the handsome youth. Now that I looked at him closely I commenced

to see why his face and personality had attracted me so strongly.

There was much of his mother's incomparable beauty in his clear-cut

features, but it was strongly masculine beauty, and his grey eyes

and the expression of them were mine.

The boy stood facing me, half hope and half uncertainty in his

look.

"Tell me of your mother," I said. "Tell me all you can of the years

that I have been robbed by a relentless fate of her dear companionship."

With a cry of pleasure he sprang toward me and threw his arms

about my neck, and for a brief moment as I held my boy close to

me the tears welled to my eyes and I was like to have choked after

the manner of some maudlin fool--but I do not regret it, nor am I

ashamed. A long life has taught me that a man may seem weak where

women and children are concerned and yet be anything but a weakling

in the sterner avenues of life.

"Your stature, your manner, the terrible ferocity of your

swordsmanship," said the boy, "are as my mother has described them

to me a thousand times--but even with such evidence I could scarce

credit the truth of what seemed so improbable to me, however

much I desired it to be true. Do you know what thing it was that

convinced me more than all the others?"

"What, my boy?" I asked.

"Your first words to me--they were of my mother. None else but

the man who loved her as she has told me my father did would have

thought first of her."

"For long years, my son, I can scarce recall a moment that the

radiant vision of your mother's face has not been ever before me.

Tell me of her."

"Those who have known her longest say that she has not changed,

unless it be to grow more beautiful--were that possible. Only,

when she thinks I am not about to see her, her face grows very

sad, and, oh, so wistful. She thinks ever of you, my father, and

all Helium mourns with her and for her. Her grandfather's people

love her. They loved you also, and fairly worship your memory as

the saviour of Barsoom.

"Each year that brings its anniversary of the day that saw you

racing across a near dead world to unlock the secret of that awful

portal behind which lay the mighty power of life for countless

millions a great festival is held in your honour; but there are

tears mingled with the thanksgiving--tears of real regret that the

author of the happiness is not with them to share the joy of living

he died to give them. Upon all Barsoom there is no greater name

than John Carter."

"And by what name has your mother called you, my boy?" I asked.

"The people of Helium asked that I be named with my father's name,

but my mother said no, that you and she had chosen a name for me

together, and that your wish must be honoured before all others,

so the name that she called me is the one that you desired, a

combination of hers and yours--Carthoris."

Xodar had been at the wheel as I talked with my son, and now he

called me.

"She is dropping badly by the head, John Carter," he said. "So

long as we were rising at a stiff angle it was not noticeable, but

now that I am trying to keep a horizontal course it is different.

The wound in her bow has opened one of her forward ray tanks."

It was true, and after I had examined the damage I found it a much

graver matter than I had anticipated. Not only was the forced angle

at which we were compelled to maintain the bow in order to keep a

horizontal course greatly impeding our speed, but at the rate that

we were losing our repulsive rays from the forward tanks it was

but a question of an hour or more when we would be floating stern

up and helpless.

We had slightly reduced our speed with the dawning of a sense of

security, but now I took the helm once more and pulled the noble

little engine wide open, so that again we raced north at terrific

velocity. In the meantime Carthoris and Xodar with tools in hand

were puttering with the great rent in the bow in a hopeless endeavour

to stem the tide of escaping rays.

It was still dark when we passed the northern boundary of the ice

cap and the area of clouds.