CHAPTER X
THE PRISON ISLE OF SHADOR
In the outer gardens to which the guard now escorted me, I found
Xodar surrounded by a crowd of noble blacks. They were reviling
and cursing him. The men slapped his face. The woman spat upon
him.
When I appeared they turned their attentions toward me.
"Ah," cried one, "so this is the creature who overcame the great
Xodar bare-handed. Let us see how it was done."
"Let him bind Thurid," suggested a beautiful woman, laughing.
"Thurid is a noble Dator. Let Thurid show the dog what it means
to face a real man."
"Yes, Thurid! Thurid!" cried a dozen voices.
"Here he is now," exclaimed another, and turning in the direction
indicated I saw a huge black weighed down with resplendent ornaments
and arms advancing with noble and gallant bearing toward us.
"What now?" he cried. "What would you of Thurid?"
Quickly a dozen voices explained.
Thurid turned toward Xodar, his eyes narrowing to two nasty slits.
"Calot!" he hissed. "Ever did I think you carried the heart of a
sorak in your putrid breast. Often have you bested me in the secret
councils of Issus, but now in the field of war where men are truly
gauged your scabby heart hath revealed its sores to all the world.
Calot, I spurn you with my foot," and with the words he turned to
kick Xodar.
My blood was up. For minutes it had been boiling at the cowardly
treatment they had been according this once powerful comrade because
he had fallen from the favour of Issus. I had no love for Xodar,
but I cannot stand the sight of cowardly injustice and persecution
without seeing red as through a haze of bloody mist, and doing
things on the impulse of the moment that I presume I never should
do after mature deliberation.
I was standing close beside Xodar as Thurid swung his foot for the
cowardly kick. The degraded Dator stood erect and motionless as a
carven image. He was prepared to take whatever his former comrades
had to offer in the way of insults and reproaches, and take them
in manly silence and stoicism.
But as Thurid's foot swung so did mine, and I caught him a painful
blow upon the shin bone that saved Xodar from this added ignominy.
For a moment there was tense silence, then Thurid, with a roar
of rage sprang for my throat; just as Xodar had upon the deck of
the cruiser. The results were identical. I ducked beneath his
outstretched arms, and as he lunged past me planted a terrific
right on the side of his jaw.
The big fellow spun around like a top, his knees gave beneath him
and he crumpled to the ground at my feet.
The blacks gazed in astonishment, first at the still form of the
proud Dator lying there in the ruby dust of the pathway, then at
me as though they could not believe that such a thing could be.
"You asked me to bind Thurid," I cried; "behold!" And then I
stooped beside the prostrate form, tore the harness from it, and
bound the fellow's arms and legs securely.
"As you have done to Xodar, now do you likewise to Thurid. Take
him before Issus, bound in his own harness, that she may see with
her own eyes that there be one among you now who is greater than
the First Born."
"Who are you?" whispered the woman who had first suggested that I
attempt to bind Thurid.
"I am a citizen of two worlds; Captain John Carter of Virginia,
Prince of the House of Tardos Mors, Jeddak of Helium. Take this
man to your goddess, as I have said, and tell her, too, that as I
have done to Xodar and Thurid, so also can I do to the mightiest of
her Dators. With naked hands, with long-sword or with short-sword,
I challenge the flower of her fighting-men to combat."
"Come," said the officer who was guarding me back to Shador; "my
orders are imperative; there is to be no delay. Xodar, come you
also."
There was little of disrespect in the tone that the man used in
addressing either Xodar or myself. It was evident that he felt
less contempt for the former Dator since he had witnessed the ease
with which I disposed of the powerful Thurid.
That his respect for me was greater than it should have been for a
slave was quite apparent from the fact that during the balance of
the return journey he walked or stood always behind me, a drawn
short-sword in his hand.
The return to the Sea of Omean was uneventful. We dropped down
the awful shaft in the same car that had brought us to the surface.
There we entered the submarine, taking the long dive to the tunnel
far beneath the upper world. Then through the tunnel and up again
to the pool from which we had had our first introduction to the
wonderful passageway from Omean to the Temple of Issus.
From the island of the submarine we were transported on a small
cruiser to the distant Isle of Shador. Here we found a small stone
prison and a guard of half a dozen blacks. There was no ceremony
wasted in completing our incarceration. One of the blacks opened
the door of the prison with a huge key, we walked in, the door
closed behind us, the lock grated, and with the sound there swept
over me again that terrible feeling of hopelessness that I had felt
in the Chamber of Mystery in the Golden Cliffs beneath the gardens
of the Holy Therns.
Then Tars Tarkas had been with me, but now I was utterly alone in
so far as friendly companionship was concerned. I fell to wondering
about the fate of the great Thark, and of his beautiful companion,
the girl, Thuvia. Even should they by some miracle have escaped
and been received and spared by a friendly nation, what hope had I
of the succour which I knew they would gladly extend if it lay in
their power.
They could not guess my whereabouts or my fate, for none on all
Barsoom even dream of such a place as this. Nor would it have
advantaged me any had they known the exact location of my prison,
for who could hope to penetrate to this buried sea in the face of
the mighty navy of the First Born? No: my case was hopeless.
Well, I would make the best of it, and, rising, I swept aside the
brooding despair that had been endeavouring to claim me. With the
idea of exploring my prison, I started to look around.
Xodar sat, with bowed head, upon a low stone bench near the centre
of the room in which we were. He had not spoken since Issus had
degraded him.
The building was roofless, the walls rising to a height of about
thirty feet. Half-way up were a couple of small, heavily barred
windows. The prison was divided into several rooms by partitions
twenty feet high. There was no one in the room which we occupied,
but two doors which led to other rooms were opened. I entered
one of these rooms, but found it vacant. Thus I continued through
several of the chambers until in the last one I found a young red
Martian boy sleeping upon the stone bench which constituted the
only furniture of any of the prison cells.
Evidently he was the only other prisoner. As he slept I leaned
over and looked at him. There was something strangely familiar
about his face, and yet I could not place him.
His features were very regular and, like the proportions of his
graceful limbs and body, beautiful in the extreme. He was very
light in colour for a red man, but in other respects he seemed a
typical specimen of this handsome race.
I did not awaken him, for sleep in prison is such a priceless boon
that I have seen men transformed into raging brutes when robbed by
one of their fellow-prisoners of a few precious moments of it.
Returning to my own cell, I found Xodar still sitting in the same
position in which I had left him.
"Man," I cried, "it will profit you nothing to mope thus. It were
no disgrace to be bested by John Carter. You have seen that in the
ease with which I accounted for Thurid. You knew it before when
on the cruiser's deck you saw me slay three of your comrades."
"I would that you had dispatched me at the same time," he said.
"Come, come!" I cried. "There is hope yet. Neither of us is dead.
We are great fighters. Why not win to freedom?"
He looked at me in amazement.
"You know not of what you speak," he replied. "Issus is omnipotent.
Issus is omniscient. She hears now the words you speak. She knows
the thoughts you think. It is sacrilege even to dream of breaking
her commands."
"Rot, Xodar," I ejaculated impatiently.
He sprang to his feet in horror.
"The curse of Issus will fall upon you," he cried. "In another
instant you will be smitten down, writhing to your death in horrible
agony."
"Do you believe that, Xodar?" I asked.
"Of course; who would dare doubt?"
"I doubt; yes, and further, I deny," I said. "Why, Xodar, you tell
me that she even knows my thoughts. The red men have all had that
power for ages. And another wonderful power. They can shut their
minds so that none may read their thoughts. I learned the first
secret years ago; the other I never had to learn, since upon all
Barsoom is none who can read what passes in the secret chambers of
my brain.
"Your goddess cannot read my thoughts; nor can she read yours when
you are out of sight, unless you will it. Had she been able to
read mine, I am afraid that her pride would have suffered a rather
severe shock when I turned at her command to 'gaze upon the holy
vision of her radiant face.'"
"What do you mean?" he whispered in an affrighted voice, so low
that I could scarcely hear him.
"I mean that I thought her the most repulsive and vilely hideous
creature my eyes ever had rested upon."
For a moment he eyed me in horror-stricken amazement, and then with
a cry of "Blasphemer" he sprang upon me.
I did not wish to strike him again, nor was it necessary, since he
was unarmed and therefore quite harmless to me.
As he came I grasped his left wrist with my left hand, and, swinging
my right arm about his left shoulder, caught him beneath the chin
with my elbow and bore him backward across my thigh.
There he hung helpless for a moment, glaring up at me in impotent
rage.
"Xodar," I said, "let us be friends. For a year, possibly, we
may be forced to live together in the narrow confines of this tiny
room. I am sorry to have offended you, but I could not dream that
one who had suffered from the cruel injustice of Issus still could
believe her divine.
"I will say a few more words, Xodar, with no intent to wound your
feelings further, but rather that you may give thought to the fact
that while we live we are still more the arbiters of our own fate
than is any god.
"Issus, you see, has not struck me dead, nor is she rescuing her
faithful Xodar from the clutches of the unbeliever who defamed her
fair beauty. No, Xodar, your Issus is a mortal old woman. Once
out of her clutches and she cannot harm you.
"With your knowledge of this strange land, and my knowledge of the
outer world, two such fighting-men as you and I should be able to
win our way to freedom. Even though we died in the attempt, would
not our memories be fairer than as though we remained in servile
fear to be butchered by a cruel and unjust tyrant--call her goddess
or mortal, as you will."
As I finished I raised Xodar to his feet and released him. He did
not renew the attack upon me, nor did he speak. Instead, he walked
toward the bench, and, sinking down upon it, remained lost in deep
thought for hours.
A long time afterward I heard a soft sound at the doorway leading
to one of the other apartments, and, looking up, beheld the red
Martian youth gazing intently at us.
"Kaor," I cried, after the red Martian manner of greeting.
"Kaor," he replied. "What do you here?"
"I await my death, I presume," I replied with a wry smile.
He too smiled, a brave and winning smile.
"I also," he said. "Mine will come soon. I looked upon the radiant
beauty of Issus nearly a year since. It has always been a source
of keen wonder to me that I did not drop dead at the first sight
of that hideous countenance. And her belly! By my first ancestor,
but never was there so grotesque a figure in all the universe.
That they should call such a one Goddess of Life Eternal, Goddess
of Death, Mother of the Nearer Moon, and fifty other equally
impossible titles, is quite beyond me."
"How came you here?" I asked.
"It is very simple. I was flying a one-man air scout far to the
south when the brilliant idea occurred to me that I should like
to search for the Lost Sea of Korus which tradition places near to
the south pole. I must have inherited from my father a wild lust
for adventure, as well as a hollow where my bump of reverence should
be.
"I had reached the area of eternal ice when my port propeller jammed,
and I dropped to the ground to make repairs. Before I knew it the
air was black with fliers, and a hundred of these First Born devils
were leaping to the ground all about me.
"With drawn swords they made for me, but before I went down beneath
them they had tasted of the steel of my father's sword, and I had
given such an account of myself as I know would have pleased my
sire had he lived to witness it."
"Your father is dead?" I asked.
"He died before the shell broke to let me step out into a world
that has been very good to me. But for the sorrow that I had never
the honour to know my father, I have been very happy. My only
sorrow now is that my mother must mourn me as she has for ten long
years mourned my father."
"Who was your father?" I asked.
He was about to reply when the outer door of our prison opened and
a burly guard entered and ordered him to his own quarters for the
night, locking the door after him as he passed through into the
further chamber.
"It is Issus' wish that you two be confined in the same room," said
the guard when he had returned to our cell. "This cowardly slave
of a slave is to serve you well," he said to me, indicating Xodar
with a wave of his hand. "If he does not, you are to beat him
into submission. It is Issus' wish that you heap upon him every
indignity and degradation of which you can conceive."
With these words he left us.
Xodar still sat with his face buried in his hands. I walked to
his side and placed my hand upon his shoulder.
"Xodar," I said, "you have heard the commands of Issus, but you
need not fear that I shall attempt to put them into execution.
You are a brave man, Xodar. It is your own affair if you wish to
be persecuted and humiliated; but were I you I should assert my
manhood and defy my enemies."
"I have been thinking very hard, John Carter," he said, "of all
the new ideas you gave me a few hours since. Little by little I
have been piecing together the things that you said which sounded
blasphemous to me then with the things that I have seen in my past
life and dared not even think about for fear of bringing down upon
me the wrath of Issus.
"I believe now that she is a fraud; no more divine than you or I.
More I am willing to concede--that the First Born are no holier
than the Holy Therns, nor the Holy Therns more holy than the red
men.
"The whole fabric of our religion is based on superstitious belief
in lies that have been foisted upon us for ages by those directly
above us, to whose personal profit and aggrandizement it was to
have us continue to believe as they wished us to believe.
"I am ready to cast off the ties that have bound me. I am ready to
defy Issus herself; but what will it avail us? Be the First Born
gods or mortals, they are a powerful race, and we are as fast in
their clutches as though we were already dead. There is no escape."
"I have escaped from bad plights in the past, my friend," I replied;
"nor while life is in me shall I despair of escaping from the Isle
of Shador and the Sea of Omean."
"But we cannot escape even from the four walls of our prison,"
urged Xodar. "Test this flint-like surface," he cried, smiting the
solid rock that confined us. "And look upon this polished surface;
none could cling to it to reach the top."
I smiled.
"That is the least of our troubles, Xodar," I replied. "I will
guarantee to scale the wall and take you with me, if you will help
with your knowledge of the customs here to appoint the best time
for the attempt, and guide me to the shaft that lets from the dome
of this abysmal sea to the light of God's pure air above."
"Night time is the best and offers the only slender chance we have,
for then men sleep, and only a dozing watch nods in the tops of
the battleships. No watch is kept upon the cruisers and smaller
craft. The watchers upon the larger vessels see to all about them.
It is night now."
"But," I exclaimed, "it is not dark! How can it be night, then?"
He smiled.
"You forget," he said, "that we are far below ground. The light
of the sun never penetrates here. There are no moons and no stars
reflected in the bosom of Omean. The phosphorescent light you
now see pervading this great subterranean vault emanates from the
rocks that form its dome; it is always thus upon Omean, just as
the billows are always as you see them--rolling, ever rolling over
a windless sea.
"At the appointed hour of night upon the world above, the men whose
duties hold them here sleep, but the light is ever the same."
"It will make escape more difficult," I said, and then I shrugged
my shoulders; for what, pray, is the pleasure of doing an easy
thing?
"Let us sleep on it to-night," said Xodar. "A plan may come with
our awakening."
So we threw ourselves upon the hard stone floor of our prison and
slept the sleep of tired men.
