Edgar Rice Burroughs - Mars Chronicles 04 - Thuvia Maid of

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XI Green Men and White Apes

XII To Save Dusar

XIII Turjun, the Panthan

XIV Kulan Tith's Sacrifice

Glossary of Names and Terms.

is the hard, cold ersite of this thrice happy bench which supports

your divine and fadeless form! Tell me, O Thuvia of Ptarth, that I

may still hope--that though you do not love me now, yet some day,

some day, my princess, I--"

The girl sprang to her feet with an exclamation of surprise and

displeasure. Her queenly head was poised haughtily upon her

smooth red shoulders. Her dark eyes looked angrily into those of

the man.

"You forget yourself, and the customs of Barsoom, Astok," she said.

"I have given you no right thus to address the daughter of Thuvan

Dihn, nor have you won such a right."

The man reached suddenly forth and grasped her by the arm.

"You shall be my princess!" he cried. "By the breast of Issus, thou

shalt, nor shall any other come between Astok, Prince of Dusar, and

his heart's desire. Tell me that there is another, and I shall cut out

his foul heart and fling it to the wild calots of the dead sea-

bottoms!"

At touch of the man's hand upon her flesh the girl went pallid

beneath her coppery skin, for the persons of the royal women of the

courts of Mars are held but little less than sacred. The act of Astok,

Prince of Dusar, was profanation. There was no terror in the eyes of

Thuvia of Ptarth--only horror for the thing the man had done and

for its possible consequences.

"Release me." Her voice was level--frigid.

The man muttered incoherently and drew her roughly toward him.

"Release me!" she repeated sharply, "or I call the guard, and the

Prince of Dusar knows what that will mean."

Quickly he threw his right arm about her shoulders and strove to

draw her face to his lips. With a little cry she struck him full in the

mouth with the massive bracelets that circled her free arm.."Calot!"

she exclaimed, and then: "The guard! The guard! Hasten in

protection of the Princess of Ptarth!"

copper colour that marks the red men of Mars from the other races

of the dying planet--he was like them, and yet there was a subtle

difference greater even than that which lay in his lighter skin and

his grey eyes.

There was a difference, too, in his movements. He came on in great

leaps that carried him so swiftly over the ground that the speed of

the guardsmen was as nothing by comparison. Astok still clutched

Thuvia's wrist as the young warrior confronted him. The new-comer

wasted no time and he spoke but a single word.

"Calot!" he snapped, and then his clenched fist landed beneath

the other's chin, lifting him high into the air and depositing him in a

crumpled heap within the centre of the pimalia bush beside the

ersite bench.

Her champion turned toward the girl. "Kaor, Thuvia of Ptarth!" he

cried. "It seems that fate timed my visit well."

"Kaor, Carthoris of Helium!" the princess returned the young man's

greeting, "and what less could one expect of the son of such a sire?"

He bowed his acknowledgment of the compliment to his father,

John Carter, Warlord of Mars. And then the guardsmen, panting

from their charge, came up just as the Prince of Dusar, bleeding at

the mouth, and with drawn sword, crawled from the entanglement

of the pimalia.

Astok would have leaped to mortal combat with the son of Dejah

Thoris, but the guardsmen pressed about him, preventing, though

it was clearly evident that naught would have better pleased

Carthoris of Helium.

"But say the word, Thuvia of Ptarth," he begged, "and naught will

give me greater pleasure than meting to this fellow the punishment

he has earned."

"It cannot be, Carthoris," she replied. "Even though he has

forfeited all claim upon my consideration, yet is he the guest of the

jeddak, my father, and to him alone may he account for the

man's challenge.

The guard still surrounded Astok. It was a difficult position for

the young officer who commanded it. His prisoner was the son of a

mighty jeddak; he was the guest of Thuvan Dihn--until but now an

honoured guest upon whom every royal dignity had been showered.

To arrest him forcibly could mean naught else than war, and yet he

had done that which in the eyes of the Ptarth warrior merited death.

The young man hesitated. He looked toward his princess. She,

too, guessed all that hung upon the action of the coming moment.

For many years Dusar and Ptarth had been at peace with each

other. Their great merchant ships plied back and forth between the

larger cities of the two nations. Even now, far above the gold-shot

scarlet dome of the jeddak's palace, she could see the huge bulk of

a giant freighter taking its majestic way through the thin

Barsoomian air toward the west and Dusar.

By a word she might plunge these two mighty nations into a

bloody conflict that would drain them of their bravest blood and

their incalculable riches, leaving them all helpless against the

inroads of their envious and less powerful neighbors, and at last a

prey to the savage green hordes of the dead sea-bottoms.

No sense of fear influenced her decision, for fear is seldom

known to the children of Mars. It was rather a sense of the

responsibility that she, the daughter of their jeddak, felt for the

welfare of her father's people.

"I called you, Padwar," she said to the lieutenant of the guard, "to

protect the person of your princess, and to keep the peace

that.must not be violated within the royal gardens of the jeddak.

That is

all. You will escort me to the palace, and the Prince of Helium will

accompany me."

Without another glance in the direction of Astok she turned, and

taking Carthoris' proffered hand, moved slowly toward the massive

As they disappeared within the structure Astok shrugged his

shoulders, and with a murmured oath crossed the gardens toward

another wing of the building where he and his retinue were housed.

That night he took formal leave of Thuvan Dihn, and though no

mention was made of the happening within the garden, it was plain

to see through the cold mask of the jeddak's courtesy that only the

customs of royal hospitality restrained him from voicing the

contempt he felt for the Prince of Dusar.

Carthoris was not present at the leave-taking, nor was Thuvia.

The ceremony was as stiff and formal as court etiquette could make

it, and when the last of the Dusarians clambered over the rail of the

battleship that had brought them upon this fateful visit to the court

of Ptarth, and the mighty engine of destruction had risen slowly

from the ways of the landing-stage, a note of relief was apparent in

the voice of Thuvan Dihn as he turned to one of his officers with a

word of comment upon a subject foreign to that which had been

uppermost in the minds of all for hours.

But, after all, was it so foreign?

"Inform Prince Sovan," he directed, "that it is our wish that the

fleet which departed for Kaol this morning be recalled to cruise to

the west of Ptarth."

As the warship, bearing Astok back to the court of his father,

turned toward the west, Thuvia of Ptarth, sitting upon the same

bench where the Prince of Dusar had affronted her, watched the

twinkling lights of the craft growing smaller in the distance. Beside

her, in the brilliant light of the nearer moon, sat Carthoris. His

eyes.were not upon the dim bulk of the battleship, but on the profile

the girl's upturned face.

"Thuvia," he whispered.

The girl turned her eyes toward his. His hand stole out to find

hers, but she drew her own gently away.

me that you could not return my love?"

"And what did I do, Carthoris of Helium," she returned, "that

might lead you to believe that I DID return it?"

He paused in thought, and then shook his head. "Nothing,

Thuvia, that is true; yet I could have sworn you loved me. Indeed,

you well knew how near to worship has been my love for you."

"And how might I know it, Carthoris?" she asked innocently. "Did

you ever tell me as much? Ever before have words of love for me

fallen from your lips?"

"But you MUST have known it!" he exclaimed. "I am like my

father--witless in matters of the heart, and of a poor way with

women; yet the jewels that strew these royal garden paths--the

trees, the flowers, the sward--all must have read the love that has

filled my heart since first my eyes were made new by imaging your

perfect face and form; so how could you alone have been blind to

it?"

"Do the maids of Helium pay court to their men?" asked Thuvia.

"You are playing with me!" exclaimed Carthoris. "Say that you

are but playing, and that after all you love me, Thuvia!"

"I cannot tell you that, Carthoris, for I am promised to another."

Her tone was level, but was there not within it the hint of an

infinite depth of sadness? Who may say?

"Promised to another?" Carthoris scarcely breathed the words.

His face went almost white, and then his head came up as befitted

him in whose veins flowed the blood of the overlord of a

world.."Carthoris of Helium wishes you every happiness with the

man of

your choice," he said. "With--" and then he hesitated, waiting for her

to fill in the name.

"Kulan Tith, Jeddak of Kaol," she replied. "My father's friend and

Ptarth's most puissant ally."

The young man looked at her intently for a moment before he

Virginia for a friend, greater than which could be no loyalty.

He raised a jewel-encrusted bit of the girl's magnificent trappings

to his lips.

"To the honour and happiness of Kulan Tith and the priceless

jewel that has been bestowed upon him," he said, and though his

voice was husky there was the true ring of sincerity in it. "I told you

that I loved you, Thuvia, before I knew that you were promised to

another. I may not tell you it again, but I am glad that you know it,

for there is no dishonour in it either to you or to Kulan Tith or to

myself. My love is such that it may embrace as well Kulan Tith--if

you love him." There was almost a question in the statement.

"I am promised to him," she replied.

Carthoris backed slowly away. He laid one hand upon his heart,

the other upon the pommel of his long-sword.

"These are yours--always," he said. A moment later he had

entered the palace, and was gone from the girl's sight.

Had he returned at once he would have found her prone upon

the ersite bench, her face buried in her arms. Was she weeping?

There was none to see.

Carthoris of Helium had come all unannounced to the court of

his father's friend that day. He had come alone in a small flier, sure

of the same welcome that always awaited him at Ptarth. As there

had been no formality in his coming there was no need of formality

in his going..To Thuvan Dihn he explained that he had been but

testing an

invention of his own with which his flier was equipped--a clever

improvement of the ordinary Martian air compass, which, when set

for a certain destination, will remain constantly fixed thereon,

making it only necessary to keep a vessel's prow always in the

direction of the compass needle to reach any given point upon

Barsoom by the shortest route.

Carthoris' improvement upon this consisted of an auxiliary

conversation--so eager on the part of one of the servants that he

was twice rebuked by a noble for his forwardness in pushing

himself ahead of his betters to view the intricate mechanism of the

wonderful "controlling destination compass," as the thing was

called.

"For example," continued Carthoris, "I have an all-night trip

before me, as to-night. I set the pointer here upon the right-hand

dial which represents the eastern hemisphere of Barsoom, so that

the point rests upon the exact latitude and longitude of Helium.

Then I start the engine, roll up in my sleeping silks and furs, and

with lights burning, race through the air toward Helium, confident

that at the appointed hour I shall drop gently toward the landing-

stage

upon my own palace, whether I am still asleep or no."

"Provided," suggested Thuvan Dihn, "you do not chance to collide

with some other night wanderer in the meanwhile."

Carthoris smiled. "No danger of that," he replied. "See here," and

he indicated a device at the right of the destination compass. "This

is my `obstruction evader,' as I call it. This visible device is the

switch which throws the mechanism on or off. The instrument itself

is below deck, geared both to the steering apparatus and the control

levers.

"It is quite simple, being nothing more than a radium generator

diffusing radio-activity in all directions to a distance of a hundred

yards or so from the flier. Should this enveloping force be

interrupted in any direction a delicate instrument

immediately.apprehends the irregularity, at the same time

imparting an impulse

to a magnetic device which in turn actuates the steering

mechanism, diverting the bow of the flier away from the obstacle

until the craft's radio-activity sphere is no longer in contact with the

obstruction, then she falls once more into her normal course.

almost every contingency."

Thuvan Dihn smiled his appreciation of the marvellous device.

The forward servant pushed almost to the flier's side. His eyes were

narrowed to slits.

"All but one," he said.

The nobles looked at him in astonishment, and one of them

grasped the fellow none too gently by the shoulder to push him

back to his proper place. Carthoris raised his hand.

"Wait," he urged. "Let us hear what the man has to say--no

creation of mortal mind is perfect. Perchance he has detected a

weakness that it will be well to know at once. Come, my good fellow,

and what may be the one contingency I have overlooked?"

As he spoke Carthoris observed the servant closely for the first

time. He saw a man of giant stature and handsome, as are all those

of the race of Martian red men; but the fellow's lips were thin and

cruel, and across one cheek was the faint, white line of a sword-cut

from the right temple to the corner of the mouth.

"Come," urged the Prince of Helium. "Speak!"

The man hesitated. It was evident that he regretted the temerity

that had made him the centre of interested observation. But at last,

seeing no alternative, he spoke.

"It might be tampered with," he said, "by an enemy."

Carthoris drew a small key from his leathern pocket-pouch.

"Look at this," he said, handing it to the man. "If you know aught

of locks, you will know that the mechanism which this unlooses is

beyond the cunning of a picker of locks. It guards the vitals of the

instrument from crafty tampering. Without it an enemy must

half.wreck the device to reach its heart, leaving his handiwork

apparent

to the most casual observer."

The servant took the key, glanced at it shrewdly, and then as he

made to return it to Carthoris dropped it upon the marble flagging.

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XIGreenMenandWhiteApesXIIToSaveDusarXIIITurjun,thePanthanXIVKulanTith'sSacrificeGlossaryofNamesandTerms.isthehard,coldersiteofthisthricehappybenchwhichsupportsyourdivineandfadelessform!Tellme,OThuviaofPtarth,thatImaystillhope--thatthoughyoudonotlovemenow,yetsomeday,someday,myprincess,I--"Thegirlspra...

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