Edgar Rice Burroughs - Mars Chronicles 02 - The gods of Mars

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Burroughs-Gods of Mars

THE GODS OF MARS Edgar Rice Burroughs

FOREWORD

TWELVE years had passed since I had laid the body of my great-uncle, Captain John

Carter, of Virginia, away from the sight of men in that strange mausoleum in the

old cemetery at Richmond. Often had I pondered on the odd instructions he had

left me governing the construction of his mighty tomb, and especially those

parts which directed that he be laid in an OPEN casket and that the ponderous

mechanism which controlled the bolts of the vault's huge door be accessible ONLY

FROM THE INSIDE. Twelve years had passed since I had read the remarkable

manuscript of this remarkable man; this man who remembered no childhood and who

could not even offer a vague guess as to his age; who was always young and yet

who had dandled my grandfather's great-grandfather upon his knee; this man who

had spent ten years upon the planet Mars; who had fought for the green men of

Barsoom and fought against them; who had fought for and against the red men and

who had won the ever beautiful Dejah Thoris, Princess of Helium, for his wife,

and for nearly ten years had been a prince of the house of Tardos Mors, Jeddak

of Helium. Twelve years had passed since his body had been found upon the bluff

before his cottage overlooking the Hudson, and oft- times during these long

years I had wondered if John Carter were really dead, or if he again roamed the

dead sea bottoms of that dying planet; if he had returned to Barsoom to find

that he had opened the frowning portals of the mighty atmosphere plant in time

to save the countless millions who were dying of asphyxiation on that far-gone

day that had seen him hurtled ruthlessly through forty-eight million miles of

space back to Earth once more. I had wondered if he had found his black-haired

Princess and the slender son he had dreamed was with her in the royal gardens of

Tardos Mors, awaiting his return. Or, had he found that he had been too late,

and thus gone back to a living death upon a dead world? Or was he really dead

after all, never to return either to his mother Earth or his beloved Mars? Thus

was I lost in useless speculation one sultry August evening when old Ben, my

body servant, handed me a telegram. Tearing it open I read: 'Meet me to-morrow

hotel Raleigh Richmond. 'JOHN CARTER' Early the next morning I took the first

train for Richmond and within two hours was being ushered into the room occupied

by John Carter. As I entered he rose to greet me, his old-time cordial smile of

welcome lighting his handsome face. Apparently he had not aged a minute, but was

still the straight, clean-limbed fighting-man of thirty. His keen grey eyes were

undimmed, and the only lines upon his face were the lines of iron character and

determination that always had been there since first I remembered him, nearly

thirty-five years before. 'Well, nephew,' he greeted me, 'do you feel as though

you were seeing a ghost, or suffering from the effects of too many of Uncle

Ben's juleps?' 'Juleps, I reckon,' I replied, 'for I certainly feel mighty good;

but maybe it's just the sight of you again that affects me. You have been back

to Mars? Tell me. And Dejah Thoris? You found her well and awaiting you?' 'Yes,

I have been to Barsoom again, and--but it's a long story, too long to tell in

the limited time I have before I must return. I have learned the secret, nephew,

and I may traverse the trackless void at my will, coming and going between the

countless planets as I list; but my heart is always in Barsoom, and while it is

there in the keeping of my Martian Princess, I doubt that I shall ever again

leave the dying world that is my life. 'I have come now because my affection for

you prompted me to see you once more before you pass over for ever into that

other life that I shall never know, and which though I have died thrice and

shall die again to-night, as you know death, I am as unable to fathom as are

you. 'Even the wise and mysterious therns of Barsoom, that ancient cult which

for countless ages has been credited with holding the secret of life and death

in their impregnable fastnesses upon the hither slopes of the Mountains of Otz,

are as ignorant as we. I have proved it, though I near lost my life in the doing

of it; but you shall read it all in the notes I have been making during the last

three months that I have been back upon Earth.' He patted a swelling portfolio

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that lay on the table at his elbow. 'I know that you are interested and that you

believe, and I know that the world, too, is interested, though they will not

believe for many years; yes, for many ages, since they cannot understand. Earth

men have not yet progressed to a point where they can comprehend the things that

I have written in those notes. 'Give them what you wish of it, what you think

will not harm them, but do not feel aggrieved if they laugh at you.' That night

I walked down to the cemetery with him. At the door of his vault he turned and

pressed my hand. 'Good-bye, nephew,' he said. 'I may never see you again, for I

doubt that I can ever bring myself to leave my wife and boy while they live, and

the span of life upon Barsoom is often more than a thousand years.' He entered

the vault. The great door swung slowly to. The ponderous bolts grated into

place. The lock clicked. I have never seen Captain John Carter, of Virginia,

since. But here is the story of his return to Mars on that other occasion, as I

have gleaned it from the great mass of notes which he left for me upon the table

of his room in the hotel at Richmond. There is much which I have left out; much

which I have not dared to tell; but you will find the story of his second search

for Dejah Thoris, Princess of Helium, even more remarkable than was his first

manuscript which I gave to an unbelieving world a short time since and through

which we followed the fighting Virginian across dead sea bottoms under the moons

of Mars. E. R. B.

CONTENTS

Contents

I. The Plant Men

II. A Forest Battle

III.The Chamber of Mystery

IV. Thuvia V. Corridors of Peril

VI. The Black Pirates of Barsoom

VII. A Fair Goddess

VIII. The Depths of Omean

IX. Issus, Goddess of Life Eternal

X. 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

THE GODS OF MARS 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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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. We had,

perhaps, three hundred yards to cover between our boulder and the cliffs, and

then to search out a suitable shelter for our stand against the terrifying

things that were pursuing us. They were rapidly overhauling us when Tars Tarkas

cried to me to hasten ahead and discover, if possible, the sanctuary we sought.

The suggestion was a good one, for thus many valuable minutes might be saved to

us, and, throwing every ounce of my earthly muscles into the effort, I cleared

the remaining distance between myself and the cliffs in great leaps and bounds

that put me at their base in a moment. The cliffs rose perpendicular directly

from the almost level sward of the valley. There was no accumulation of fallen

debris, forming a more or less rough ascent to them, as is the case with nearly

all other cliffs I have ever seen. The scattered boulders that had fallen from

above and lay upon or partly buried in the turf, were the only indication that

any disintegration of the massive, towering pile of rocks ever had taken place.

My first cursory inspection of the face of the cliffs filled my heart with

forebodings, since nowhere could I discern, except where the weird herald stood

still shrieking his shrill summons, the faintest indication of even a bare

foothold upon the lofty escarpment. To my right the bottom of the cliff was lost

in the dense foliage of the forest, which terminated at its very foot, rearing

its gorgeous foliage fully a thousand feet against its stern and forbidding

neighbour. To the left the cliff ran, apparently unbroken, across the head of

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the broad valley, to be lost in the outlines of what appeared to be a range of

mighty mountains that skirted and confined the valley in every direction.

Perhaps a thousand feet from me the river broke, as it seemed, directly from the

base of the cliffs, and as there seemed not the remotest chance for escape in

that direction I turned my attention again toward the forest. The cliffs towered

above me a good five thousand feet. The sun was not quite upon them and they

loomed a dull yellow in their own shade. Here and there they were broken with

streaks and patches of dusky red, green, and occasional areas of white quartz.

Altogether they were very beautiful, but I fear that I did not regard them with

a particularly appreciative eye on this, my first inspection of them. Just then

I was absorbed in them only as a medium of escape, and so, as my gaze ran

quickly, time and again, over their vast expanse in search of some cranny or

crevice, I came suddenly to loathe them as the prisoner must loathe the cruel

and impregnable walls of his dungeon. Tars Tarkas was approaching me rapidly,

and still more rapidly came the awful horde at his heels. It seemed the forest

now or nothing, and I was just on the point of motioning Tars Tarkas to follow

me in that direction when the sun passed the cliff's zenith, and as the bright

rays touched the dull surface it burst out into a million scintillant lights of

burnished gold, of flaming red, of soft greens, and gleaming whites--a more

gorgeous and inspiring spectacle human eye has never rested upon. The face of

the entire cliff was, as later inspection conclusively proved, so shot with

veins and patches of solid gold as to quite present the appearance of a solid

wall of that precious metal except where it was broken by outcroppings of ruby,

emerald, and diamond boulders--a faint and alluring indication of the vast and

unguessable riches which lay deeply buried behind the magnificent surface. But

what caught my most interested attention at the moment that the sun's rays set

the cliff's face a-shimmer, was the several black spots which now appeared quite

plainly in evidence high across the gorgeous wall close to the forest's top, and

extending apparently below and behind the branches. Almost immediately I

recognised them for what they were, the dark openings of caves entering the

solid walls--possible avenues of escape or temporary shelter, could we but reach

them. There was but a single way, and that led through the mighty, towering

trees upon our right. That I could scale them I knew full well, but Tars Tarkas,

with his mighty bulk and enormous weight, would find it a task possibly quite

beyond his prowess or his skill, for Martians are at best but poor climbers.

Upon the entire surface of that ancient planet I never before had seen a hill or

mountain that exceeded four thousand feet in height above the dead sea bottoms,

and as the ascent was usually gradual, nearly to their summits they presented

but few opportunities for the practice of climbing. Nor would the Martians have

embraced even such opportunities as might present themselves, for they could

always find a circuitous route about the base of any eminence, and these roads

they preferred and followed in preference to the shorter but more arduous ways.

However, there was nothing else to consider than an attempt to scale the trees

contiguous to the cliff in an effort to reach the caves above. The Thark grasped

the possibilities and the difficulties of the plan at once, but there was no

alternative, and so we set out rapidly for the trees nearest the cliff. Our

relentless pursuers were now close to us, so close that it seemed that it would

be an utter impossibility for the Jeddak of Thark to reach the forest in advance

of them, nor was there any considerable will in the efforts that Tars Tarkas

made, for the green men of Barsoom do not relish flight, nor ever before had I

seen one fleeing from death in whatsoever form it might have confronted him. But

that Tars Tarkas was the bravest of the brave he had proven thousands of times;

yes, tens of thousands in countless mortal combats with men and beasts. And so I

knew that there was another reason than fear of death behind his flight, as he

knew that a greater power than pride or honour spurred me to escape these fierce

destroyers. In my case it was love--love of the divine Dejah Thoris; and the

cause of the Thark's great and sudden love of life I could not fathom, for it is

oftener that they seek death than life--these strange, cruel, loveless, unhappy

people. At length, however, we reached the shadows of the forest, while right

behind us sprang the swiftest of our pursuers--a giant plant man with claws

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outreaching to fasten his bloodsucking mouths upon us. He was, I should say, a

hundred yards in advance of his closest companion, and so I called to Tars

Tarkas to ascend a great tree that brushed the cliff's face while I dispatched

the fellow, thus giving the less agile Thark an opportunity to reach the higher

branches before the entire horde should be upon us and every vestige of escape

cut off. But I had reckoned without a just appreciation either of the cunning of

my immediate antagonist or the swiftness with which his fellows were covering

the distance which had separated them from me. As I raised my long-sword to deal

the creature its death thrust it halted in its charge and, as my sword cut

harmlessly through the empty air, the great tail of the thing swept with the

power of a grizzly's arm across the sward and carried me bodily from my feet to

the ground. In an instant the brute was upon me, but ere it could fasten its

hideous mouths into my breast and throat I grasped a writhing tentacle in either

hand. The plant man was well muscled, heavy, and powerful but my earthly sinews

and greater agility, in conjunction with the deathly strangle hold I had upon

him, would have given me, I think, an eventual victory had we had time to

discuss the merits of our relative prowess uninterrupted. But as we strained and

struggled about the tree into which Tars Tarkas was clambering with infinite

difficulty, I suddenly caught a glimpse over the shoulder of my antagonist of

the great swarm of pursuers that now were fairly upon me. Now, at last, I saw

the nature of the other monsters who had come with the plant men in response to

the weird calling of the man upon the cliff's face. They were that most dreaded

of Martian creatures--great white apes of Barsoom. My former experiences upon

Mars had familiarized me thoroughly with them and their methods, and I may say

that of all the fearsome and terrible, weird and grotesque inhabitants of that

strange world, it is the white apes that come nearest to familiarizing me with

the sensation of fear. I think that the cause of this feeling which these apes

engender within me is due to their remarkable resemblance in form to our Earth

men, which gives them a human appearance that is most uncanny when coupled with

their enormous size. They stand fifteen feet in height and walk erect upon their

hind feet. Like the green Martians, they have an intermediary set of arms midway

between their upper and lower limbs. Their eyes are very close set, but do not

protrude as do those of the green men of Mars; their ears are high set, but more

laterally located than are the green men's, while their snouts and teeth are

much like those of our African gorilla. Upon their heads grows an enormous shock

of bristly hair. It was into the eyes of such as these and the terrible plant

men that I gazed above the shoulder of my foe, and then, in a mighty wave of

snarling, snapping, screaming, purring rage, they swept over me--and of all the

sounds that assailed my ears as I went down beneath them, to me the most hideous

was the horrid purring of the plant men. Instantly a score of cruel fangs and

keen talons were sunk into my flesh; cold, sucking lips fastened themselves upon

my arteries. I struggled to free myself, and even though weighed down by these

immense bodies, I succeeded in struggling to my feet, where, still grasping my

long-sword, and shortening my grip upon it until I could use it as a dagger, I

wrought such havoc among them that at one time I stood for an instant free. What

it has taken minutes to write occurred in but a few seconds, but during that

time Tars Tarkas had seen my plight and had dropped from the lower branches,

which he had reached with such infinite labour, and as I flung the last of my

immediate antagonists from me the great Thark leaped to my side, and again we

fought, back to back, as we had done a hundred times before. Time and again the

ferocious apes sprang in to close with us, and time and again we beat them back

with our swords. The great tails of the plant men lashed with tremendous power

about us as they charged from various directions or sprang with the agility of

greyhounds above our heads; but every attack met a gleaming blade in sword hands

that had been reputed for twenty years the best that Mars ever had known; for

Tars Tarkas and John Carter were names that the fighting men of the world of

warriors loved best to speak. But even the two best swords in a world of

fighters can avail not for ever against overwhelming numbers of fierce and

savage brutes that know not what defeat means until cold steel teaches their

hearts no longer to beat, and so, step by step, we were forced back. At length

we stood against the giant tree that we had chosen for our ascent, and then, as

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charge after charge hurled its weight upon us, we gave back again and again,

until we had been forced half-way around the huge base of the colossal trunk.

Tars Tarkas was in the lead, and suddenly I heard a little cry of exultation

from him. "Here is shelter for one at least, John Carter," he said, and,

glancing down, I saw an opening in the base of the tree about three feet in

diameter. "In with you, Tars Tarkas," I cried, but he would not go; saying that

his bulk was too great for the little aperture, while I might slip in easily.

"We shall both die if we remain without, John Carter; here is a slight chance

for one of us. Take it and you may live to avenge me, it is useless for me to

attempt to worm my way into so small an opening with this horde of demons

besetting us on all sides." "Then we shall die together, Tars Tarkas," I

replied, "for I shall not go first. Let me defend the opening while you get in,

then my smaller stature will permit me to slip in with you before they can

prevent." We still were fighting furiously as we talked in broken sentences,

punctured with vicious cuts and thrusts at our swarming enemy. At length he

yielded, for it seemed the only way in which either of us might be saved from

the ever-increasing numbers of our assailants, who were still swarming upon us

from all directions across the broad valley. "It was ever your way, John Carter,

to think last of your own life," he said; "but still more your way to command

the lives and actions of others, even to the greatest of Jeddaks who rule upon

Barsoom." There was a grim smile upon his cruel, hard face, as he, the greatest

Jeddak of them all, turned to obey the dictates of a creature of another

world--of a man whose stature was less than half his own. "If you fail, John

Carter," he said, "know that the cruel and heartless Thark, to whom you taught

the meaning of friendship, will come out to die beside you." "As you will, my

friend," I replied; "but quickly now, head first, while I cover your retreat."

He hesitated a little at that word, for never before in his whole life of

continual strife had he turned his back upon aught than a dead or defeated

enemy. "Haste, Tars Tarkas," I urged, "or we shall both go down to profitless

defeat; I cannot hold them for ever alone." As he dropped to the ground to force

his way into the tree, the whole howling pack of hideous devils hurled

themselves upon me. To right and left flew my shimmering blade, now green with

the sticky juice of a plant man, now red with the crimson blood of a great white

ape; but always flying from one opponent to another, hesitating but the barest

fraction of a second to drink the lifeblood in the centre of some savage heart.

And thus I fought as I never had fought before, against such frightful odds that

I cannot realize even now that human muscles could have withstood that awful

onslaught, that terrific weight of hurtling tons of ferocious, battling flesh.

With the fear that we would escape them, the creatures redoubled their efforts

to pull me down, and though the ground about me was piled high with their dead

and dying comrades, they succeeded at last in overwhelming me, and I went down

beneath them for the second time that day, and once again felt those awful

sucking lips against my flesh. But scarce had I fallen ere I felt powerful hands

grip my ankles, and in another second I was being drawn within the shelter of

the tree's interior. For a moment it was a tug of war between Tars Tarkas and a

great plant man, who clung tenaciously to my breast, but presently I got the

point of my long-sword beneath him and with a mighty thrust pierced his vitals.

Torn and bleeding from many cruel wounds, I lay panting upon the ground within

the hollow of the tree, while Tars Tarkas defended the opening from the furious

mob without. For an hour they howled about the tree, but after a few attempts to

reach us they confined their efforts to terrorizing shrieks and screams, to

horrid growling on the part of the great white apes, and the fearsome and

indescribable purring by the plant men. At length, all but a score, who had

apparently been left to prevent our escape, had left us, and our adventure

seemed destined to result in a siege, the only outcome of which could be our

death by starvation; for even should we be able to slip out after dark, whither

in this unknown and hostile valley could we hope to turn our steps toward

possible escape? As the attacks of our enemies ceased and our eyes became

accustomed to the semi-darkness of the interior of our strange retreat, I took

the opportunity to explore our shelter. The tree was hollow to an extent of

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file:///F|/rah/Edgar%20Rice%20Burroughs/Burroughs,%20Edgar%20Rice%20-%20Martian%20Tales%2002%20-%20Gods%20of%20Mars.txtBurroughs-GodsofMarsTHEGODSOFMARSEdgarRiceBurroughsFOREWORDTWELVEyearshadpassedsinceIhadlaidthebodyofmygreat-uncle,Cap ainJohnCarter,ofVirginia,awayfromthesightofmeninthatstrangemausoleumintheoldcemeteryatRichmond.OftenhadIponderedontheoddinstructionshehadleftmegoverningtheconstructionofhismightytomb,andespeciallythosepartswhichdirectedthathebelaidinanOPENcasketandthatthepo...

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