As we reached the open the two female guards who had been detailed to watch
over Dejah Thoris hurried up and made as though to assume custody of her once
more. The poor child shrank against me and I felt her two little hands fold
tightly over my arm. Waving the women away, I informed them that Sola would
attend the captive hereafter, and I further warned Sarkoja that any more of her
cruel attentions bestowed upon Dejah Thoris would result in Sarkoja’s sudden and
painful demise.
My threat was unfortunate and resulted in more harm than good to Dejah
Thoris, for, as I learned later, men do not kill women upon Mars, nor women,
men. So Sarkoja merely gave us an ugly look and departed to hatch up deviltries
against us.
I soon found Sola and explained to her that I wished her to guard Dejah
Thoris as she had guarded me; that I wished her to find other quarters where
they would not be molested by Sarkoja, and I finally informed her that I myself
would take up my quarters among the men.
Sola glanced at the accouterments which were carried in my hand and slung
across my shoulder.
“You are a great chieftain now, John Carter,” she said, “and I must do your
bidding, though indeed I am glad to do it under any circumstances. The man whose
metal you carry was young, but he was a great warrior, and had by his promotions
and kills won his way close to the rank of Tars Tarkas, who, as you know, is
second to Lorquas Ptomel only. You are eleventh, there are but ten chieftains in
this community who rank you in prowess.”
“And if I should kill Lorquas Ptomel?” I asked.
“You would be first, John Carter; but you may only win that honor by the will
of the entire council that Lorquas Ptomel meet you in combat, or should he
attack you, you may kill him in self-defense, and thus win first place.”
I laughed, and changed the subject. I had no particular desire to kill
Lorquas Ptomel, and less to be a jed among the Tharks.
I accompanied Sola and Dejah Thoris in a search for new quarters, which we
found in a building nearer the audience chamber and of far more pretentious
architecture than our former habitation. We also found in this building real
sleeping apartments with ancient beds of highly wrought metal swinging from
enormous gold chains depending from the marble ceilings. The decoration of the
walls was most elaborate, and, unlike the frescoes in the other buildings I had
examined, portrayed many human figures in the compositions. These were of people
like myself, and of a much lighter color than Dejah Thoris. They were clad in
graceful, flowing robes, highly ornamented with metal and jewels, and their
luxuriant hair was of a beautiful golden and reddish bronze. The men were
beardless and only a few wore arms. The scenes depicted for the most part, a
fair-skinned, fair-haired people at play.
Dejah Thoris clasped her hands with an exclamation of rapture as she gazed
upon these magnificent works of art, wrought by a people long extinct; while
Sola, on the other hand, apparently did not see them.
We decided to use this room, on the second floor and overlooking the plaza,
for Dejah Thoris and Sola, and another room adjoining and in the rear for the
cooking and supplies. I then dispatched Sola to bring the bedding and such food
and utensils as she might need, telling her that I would guard Dejah Thoris
until her return.
As Sola departed Dejah Thoris turned to me with a faint smile.
“And whereto, then, would your prisoner escape should you leave her, unless
it was to follow you and crave your protection, and ask your pardon for the
cruel thoughts she has harbored against you these past few days?”
“You are right,” I answered, “there is no escape for either of us unless we
go together.”
“I heard your challenge to the creature you call Tars Tarkas, and I think I
understand your position among these people, but what I cannot fathom is your
statement that you are not of Barsoom.”
“In the name of my first ancestor, then,” she continued, “where may you be
from? You are like unto my people, and yet so unlike. You speak my language, and
yet I heard you tell Tars Tarkas that you had but learned it recently. All
Barsoomians speak the same tongue from the ice-clad south to the ice-clad north,
though their written languages differ. Only in the valley Dor, where the river
Iss empties into the lost sea of Korus, is there supposed to be a different
language spoken, and, except in the legends of our ancestors, there is no record
of a Barsoomian returning up the river Iss, from the shores of Korus in the
valley of Dor. Do not tell me that you have thus returned! They would kill you
horribly anywhere upon the surface of Barsoom if that were true; tell me it is
not!”
Her eyes were filled with a strange, weird light; her voice was pleading, and
her little hands, reached up upon my breast, were pressed against me as though
to wring a denial from my very heart.
“I do not know your customs, Dejah Thoris, but in my own Virginia a gentleman
does not lie to save himself; I am not of Dor; I have never seen the mysterious
Iss; the lost sea of Korus is still lost, so far as I am concerned. Do you
believe me?”
And then it struck me suddenly that I was very anxious that she should
believe me. It was not that I feared the results which would follow a general
belief that I had returned from the Barsoomian heaven or hell, or whatever it
was. Why was it, then! Why should I care what she thought? I looked down at her;
her beautiful face upturned, and her wonderful eyes opening up the very depth of
her soul; and as my eyes met hers I knew why, and—I shuddered.
A similar wave of feeling seemed to stir her; she drew away from me with a
sigh, and with her earnest, beautiful face turned up to mine, she whispered: “I
believe you, John Carter; I do not know what a ‘gentleman’ is, nor have I ever
heard before of Virginia; but on Barsoom no man lies; if he does not wish to
speak the truth he is silent. Where is this Virginia, your country, John
Carter?” she asked, and it seemed that this fair name of my fair land had never
sounded more beautiful than as it fell from those perfect lips on that far-gone
day.
“I am of another world,” I answered, “the great planet Earth, which revolves
about our common sun and next within the orbit of your Barsoom, which we know as
Mars. How I came here I cannot tell you, for I do not know; but here I am, and
since my presence has permitted me to serve Dejah Thoris I am glad that I am
here.”
She gazed at me with troubled eyes, long and questioningly. That it was
difficult to believe my statement I well knew, nor could I hope that she would
do so however much I craved her confidence and respect. I would much rather not
have told her anything of my antecedents, but no man could look into the depth
of those eyes and refuse her slightest behest.
Finally she smiled, and, rising, said: “I shall have to believe even though I
cannot understand. I can readily perceive that you are not of the Barsoom of
today; you are like us, yet different—but why should I trouble my poor head with
such a problem, when my heart tells me that I believe because I wish to
believe!”
It was good logic, good, earthly, feminine logic, and if it satisfied her I
certainly could pick no flaws in it. As a matter of fact it was about the only
kind of logic that could be brought to bear upon my problem. We fell into a
general conversation then, asking and answering many questions on each side. She
was curious to learn of the customs of my people and displayed a remarkable
knowledge of events on Earth. When I questioned her closely on this seeming
familiarity with earthly things she laughed, and cried out:
“Why, every school boy on Barsoom knows the geography, and much concerning
the fauna and flora, as well as the history of your planet fully as well as of
his own. Can we not see everything which takes place upon Earth, as you call it;
is it not hanging there in the heavens in plain sight?”
This baffled me, I must confess, fully as much as my statements had
confounded her; and I told her so. She then explained in general the instruments
her people had used and been perfecting for ages, which permit them to throw
upon a screen a perfect image of what is transpiring upon any planet and upon
many of the stars. These pictures are so perfect in detail that, when
photographed and enlarged, objects no greater than a blade of grass may be
distinctly recognized. I afterward, in Helium, saw many of these pictures, as
well as the instruments which produced them.
“If, then, you are so familiar with earthly things,” I asked, “why is it that
you do not recognize me as identical with the inhabitants of that planet?”
She smiled again as one might in bored indulgence of a questioning child.
“Because, John Carter,” she replied, “nearly every planet and star having
atmospheric conditions at all approaching those of Barsoom, shows forms of
animal life almost identical with you and me; and, further, Earth men, almost
without exception, cover their bodies with strange, unsightly pieces of cloth,
and their heads with hideous contraptions the purpose of which we have been
unable to conceive; while you, when found by the Tharkian warriors, were
entirely undisfigured and unadorned.
“The fact that you wore no ornaments is a strong proof of your un-Barsoomian
origin, while the absence of grotesque coverings might cause a doubt as to your
earthliness.”
I then narrated the details of my departure from the Earth, explaining that
my body there lay fully clothed in all the, to her, strange garments of mundane
dwellers. At this point Sola returned with our meager belongings and her young
Martian protege, who, of course, would have to share the quarters with them.
Sola asked us if we had had a visitor during her absence, and seemed much
surprised when we answered in the negative. It seemed that as she had mounted
the approach to the upper floors where our quarters were located, she had met
Sarkoja descending. We decided that she must have been eavesdropping, but as we
could recall nothing of importance that had passed between us we dismissed the
matter as of little consequence, merely promising ourselves to be warned to the
utmost caution in the future.
Dejah Thoris and I then fell to examining the architecture and decorations of
the beautiful chambers of the building we were occupying. She told me that these
people had presumably flourished over a hundred thousand years before. They were
the early progenitors of her race, but had mixed with the other great race of
early Martians, who were very dark, almost black, and also with the reddish
yellow race which had flourished at the same time.
These three great divisions of the higher Martians had been forced into a
mighty alliance as the drying up of the Martian seas had compelled them to seek
the comparatively few and always diminishing fertile areas, and to defend
themselves, under new conditions of life, against the wild hordes of green men.
Ages of close relationship and intermarrying had resulted in the race of red
men, of which Dejah Thoris was a fair and beautiful daughter. During the ages of
hardships and incessant warring between their own various races, as well as with
the green men, and before they had fitted themselves to the changed conditions,
much of the high civilization and many of the arts of the fair-haired Martians
had become lost; but the red race of today has reached a point where it feels
that it has made up in new discoveries and in a more practical civilization for
all that lies irretrievably buried with the ancient Barsoomians, beneath the
countless intervening ages.
These ancient Martians had been a highly cultivated and literary race, but
during the vicissitudes of those trying centuries of readjustment to new
conditions, not only did their advancement and production cease entirely, but
practically all their archives, records, and literature were lost.
Dejah Thoris related many interesting facts and legends concerning this lost
race of noble and kindly people. She said that the city in which we were camping
was supposed to have been a center of commerce and culture known as Korad. It
had been built upon a beautiful, natural harbor, landlocked by magnificent
hills. The little valley on the west front of the city, she explained, was all
that remained of the harbor, while the pass through the hills to the old sea
bottom had been the channel through which the shipping passed up to the city’s
gates.
The shores of the ancient seas were dotted with just such cities, and lesser
ones, in diminishing numbers, were to be found converging toward the center of
the oceans, as the people had found it necessary to follow the receding waters
until necessity had forced upon them their ultimate salvation, the so-called
Martian canals.
We had been so engrossed in exploration of the building and in our
conversation that it was late in the afternoon before we realized it. We were
brought back to a realization of our present conditions by a messenger bearing a
summons from Lorquas Ptomel directing me to appear before him forthwith. Bidding
Dejah Thoris and Sola farewell, and commanding Woola to remain on guard, I
hastened to the audience chamber, where I found Lorquas Ptomel and Tars Tarkas
seated upon the rostrum.
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