CHAPTER XI
WHEN HELL BROKE LOOSE
Early the next morning Xodar and I commenced work upon our plans
for escape. First I had him sketch upon the stone floor of our
cell as accurate a map of the south polar regions as was possible
with the crude instruments at our disposal--a buckle from my harness,
and the sharp edge of the wondrous gem I had taken from Sator Throg.
From this I computed the general direction of Helium and the distance
at which it lay from the opening which led to Omean.
Then I had him draw a map of Omean, indicating plainly the position
of Shador and of the opening in the dome which led to the outer
world.
These I studied until they were indelibly imprinted in my memory.
From Xodar I learned the duties and customs of the guards who
patrolled Shador. It seemed that during the hours set aside for
sleep only one man was on duty at a time. He paced a beat that
passed around the prison, at a distance of about a hundred feet
from the building.
The pace of the sentries, Xodar said, was very slow, requiring
nearly ten minutes to make a single round. This meant that for
practically five minutes at a time each side of the prison was
unguarded as the sentry pursued his snail like pace upon the opposite
side.
"This information you ask," said Xodar, "will be all very valuable
AFTER we get out, but nothing that you have asked has any bearing
on that first and most important consideration."
"We will get out all right," I replied, laughing. "Leave that to
me."
"When shall we make the attempt?" he asked.
"The first night that finds a small craft moored near the shore of
Shador," I replied.
"But how will you know that any craft is moored near Shador? The
windows are far beyond our reach."
"Not so, friend Xodar; look!"
With a bound I sprang to the bars of the window opposite us, and
took a quick survey of the scene without.
Several small craft and two large battleships lay within a hundred
yards of Shador.
"To-night," I thought, and was just about to voice my decision to
Xodar, when, without warning, the door of our prison opened and a
guard stepped in.
If the fellow saw me there our chances of escape might quickly go
glimmering, for I knew that they would put me in irons if they had
the slightest conception of the wonderful agility which my earthly
muscles gave me upon Mars.
The man had entered and was standing facing the centre of the room,
so that his back was toward me. Five feet above me was the top of
a partition wall separating our cell from the next.
There was my only chance to escape detection. If the fellow turned,
I was lost; nor could I have dropped to the floor undetected, since
he was no nearly below me that I would have struck him had I done
so.
"Where is the white man?" cried the guard of Xodar. "Issus commands
his presence." He started to turn to see if I were in another part
of the cell.
I scrambled up the iron grating of the window until I could catch
a good footing on the sill with one foot; then I let go my hold
and sprang for the partition top.
"What was that?" I heard the deep voice of the black bellow as
my metal grated against the stone wall as I slipped over. Then I
dropped lightly to the floor of the cell beyond.
"Where is the white slave?" again cried the guard.
"I know not," replied Xodar. "He was here even as you entered. I
am not his keeper--go find him."
The black grumbled something that I could not understand, and then
I heard him unlocking the door into one of the other cells on the
further side. Listening intently, I caught the sound as the door
closed behind him. Then I sprang once more to the top of the
partition and dropped into my own cell beside the astonished Xodar.
"Do you see now how we will escape?" I asked him in a whisper.
"I see how you may," he replied, "but I am no wiser than before
as to how I am to pass these walls. Certain it is that I cannot
bounce over them as you do."
We heard the guard moving about from cell to cell, and finally, his
rounds completed, he again entered ours. When his eyes fell upon
me they fairly bulged from his head.
"By the shell of my first ancestor!" he roared. "Where have you
been?"
"I have been in prison since you put me here yesterday," I answered.
"I was in this room when you entered. You had better look to your
eyesight."
He glared at me in mingled rage and relief.
"Come," he said. "Issus commands your presence."
He conducted me outside the prison, leaving Xodar behind. There
we found several other guards, and with them the red Martian youth
who occupied another cell upon Shador.
The journey I had taken to the Temple of Issus on the preceding day
was repeated. The guards kept the red boy and myself separated,
so that we had no opportunity to continue the conversation that
had been interrupted the previous night.
The youth's face had haunted me. Where had I seen him before.
There was something strangely familiar in every line of him; in
his carriage, his manner of speaking, his gestures. I could have
sworn that I knew him, and yet I knew too that I had never seen
him before.
When we reached the gardens of Issus we were led away from the temple
instead of toward it. The way wound through enchanted parks to a
mighty wall that towered a hundred feet in air.
Massive gates gave egress upon a small plain, surrounded by the same
gorgeous forests that I had seen at the foot of the Golden Cliffs.
Crowds of blacks were strolling in the same direction that our
guards were leading us, and with them mingled my old friends the
plant men and great white apes.
The brutal beasts moved among the crowd as pet dogs might. If
they were in the way the blacks pushed them roughly to one side, or
whacked them with the flat of a sword, and the animals slunk away
as in great fear.
Presently we came upon our destination, a great amphitheatre situated
at the further edge of the plain, and about half a mile beyond the
garden walls.
Through a massive arched gateway the blacks poured in to take their
seats, while our guards led us to a smaller entrance near one end
of the structure.
Through this we passed into an enclosure beneath the seats, where
we found a number of other prisoners herded together under guard.
Some of them were in irons, but for the most part they seemed
sufficiently awed by the presence of their guards to preclude any
possibility of attempted escape.
During the trip from Shador I had had no opportunity to talk with
my fellow-prisoner, but now that we were safely within the barred
paddock our guards abated their watchfulness, with the result that
I found myself able to approach the red Martian youth for whom I
felt such a strange attraction.
"What is the object of this assembly?" I asked him. "Are we to
fight for the edification of the First Born, or is it something
worse than that?"
"It is a part of the monthly rites of Issus," he replied, "in
which black men wash the sins from their souls in the blood of men
from the outer world. If, perchance, the black is killed, it is
evidence of his disloyalty to Issus--the unpardonable sin. If he
lives through the contest he is held acquitted of the charge that
forced the sentence of the rites, as it is called, upon him.
"The forms of combat vary. A number of us may be pitted together
against an equal number, or twice the number of blacks; or singly
we may be sent forth to face wild beasts, or some famous black
warrior."
"And if we are victorious," I asked, "what then--freedom?"
He laughed.
"Freedom, forsooth. The only freedom for us death. None who
enters the domains of the First Born ever leave. If we prove able
fighters we are permitted to fight often. If we are not mighty
fighters--" He shrugged his shoulders. "Sooner or later we die
in the arena."
"And you have fought often?" I asked.
"Very often," he replied. "It is my only pleasure. Some hundred
black devils have I accounted for during nearly a year of the rites
of Issus. My mother would be very proud could she only know how
well I have maintained the traditions of my father's prowess."
"Your father must have been a mighty warrior!" I said. "I have
known most of the warriors of Barsoom in my time; doubtless I knew
him. Who was he?"
"My father was--"
"Come, calots!" cried the rough voice of a guard. "To the slaughter
with you," and roughly we were hustled to the steep incline that
led to the chambers far below which let out upon the arena.
The amphitheatre, like all I had ever seen upon Barsoom, was built
in a large excavation. Only the highest seats, which formed the
low wall surrounding the pit, were above the level of the ground.
The arena itself was far below the surface.
Just beneath the lowest tier of seats was a series of barred cages
on a level with the surface of the arena. Into these we were
herded. But, unfortunately, my youthful friend was not of those
who occupied a cage with me.
Directly opposite my cage was the throne of Issus. Here the horrid
creature squatted, surrounded by a hundred slave maidens sparkling
in jewelled trappings. Brilliant cloths of many hues and strange
patterns formed the soft cushion covering of the dais upon which
they reclined about her.
On four sides of the throne and several feet below it stood three
solid ranks of heavily armed soldiery, elbow to elbow. In front
of these were the high dignitaries of this mock heaven--gleaming
blacks bedecked with precious stones, upon their foreheads the
insignia of their rank set in circles of gold.
On both sides of the throne stretched a solid mass of humanity
from top to bottom of the amphitheatre. There were as many women
as men, and each was clothed in the wondrously wrought harness of
his station and his house. With each black was from one to three
slaves, drawn from the domains of the therns and from the outer
world. The blacks are all "noble." There is no peasantry among the
First Born. Even the lowest soldier is a god, and has his slaves
to wait upon him.
The First Born do no work. The men fight--that is a sacred privilege
and duty; to fight and die for Issus. The women do nothing,
absolutely nothing. Slaves wash them, slaves dress them, slaves
feed them. There are some, even, who have slaves that talk for
them, and I saw one who sat during the rites with closed eyes while
a slave narrated to her the events that were transpiring within
the arena.
The first event of the day was the Tribute to Issus. It marked
the end of those poor unfortunates who had looked upon the divine
glory of the goddess a full year before. There were ten of
them--splendid beauties from the proud courts of mighty Jeddaks and
from the temples of the Holy Therns. For a year they had served
in the retinue of Issus; to-day they were to pay the price of this
divine preferment with their lives; tomorrow they would grace the
tables of the court functionaries.
A huge black entered the arena with the young women. Carefully
he inspected them, felt of their limbs and poked them in the ribs.
Presently he selected one of their number whom he led before the
throne of Issus. He addressed some words to the goddess which I
could not hear. Issus nodded her head. The black raised his hands
above his head in token of salute, grasped the girl by the wrist,
and dragged her from the arena through a small doorway below the
throne.
"Issus will dine well to-night," said a prisoner beside me.
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"That was her dinner that old Thabis is taking to the kitchens.
Didst not note how carefully he selected the plumpest and tenderest
of the lot?"
I growled out my curses on the monster sitting opposite us on the
gorgeous throne.
"Fume not," admonished my companion; "you will see far worse than
that if you live even a month among the First Born."
I turned again in time to see the gate of a nearby cage thrown open
and three monstrous white apes spring into the arena. The girls
shrank in a frightened group in the centre of the enclosure.
One was on her knees with imploring hands outstretched toward
Issus; but the hideous deity only leaned further forward in keener
anticipation of the entertainment to come. At length the apes spied
the huddled knot of terror-stricken maidens and with demoniacal
shrieks of bestial frenzy, charged upon them.
A wave of mad fury surged over me. The cruel cowardliness of the
power-drunk creature whose malignant mind conceived such frightful
forms of torture stirred to their uttermost depths my resentment
and my manhood. The blood-red haze that presaged death to my foes
swam before my eyes.
The guard lolled before the unbarred gate of the cage which confined
me. What need of bars, indeed, to keep those poor victims from
rushing into the arena which the edict of the gods had appointed
as their death place!
A single blow sent the black unconscious to the ground. Snatching
up his long-sword, I sprang into the arena. The apes were almost
upon the maidens, but a couple of mighty bounds were all my earthly
muscles required to carry me to the centre of the sand-strewn floor.
For an instant silence reigned in the great amphitheatre, then
a wild shout arose from the cages of the doomed. My long-sword
circled whirring through the air, and a great ape sprawled, headless,
at the feet of the fainting girls.
The other apes turned now upon me, and as I stood facing them
a sullen roar from the audience answered the wild cheers from the
cages. From the tail of my eye I saw a score of guards rushing
across the glistening sand toward me. Then a figure broke from
one of the cages behind them. It was the youth whose personality
so fascinated me.
He paused a moment before the cages, with upraised sword.
"Come, men of the outer world!" he shouted. "Let us make our
deaths worth while, and at the back of this unknown warrior turn
this day's Tribute to Issus into an orgy of revenge that will echo
through the ages and cause black skins to blanch at each repetition
of the rites of Issus. Come! The racks without your cages are
filled with blades."
Without waiting to note the outcome of his plea, he turned
and bounded toward me. From every cage that harboured red men a
thunderous shout went up in answer to his exhortation. The inner
guards went down beneath howling mobs, and the cages vomited forth
their inmates hot with the lust to kill.
The racks that stood without were stripped of the swords with
which the prisoners were to have been armed to enter their allotted
combats, and a swarm of determined warriors sped to our support.
The great apes, towering in all their fifteen feet of height, had
gone down before my sword while the charging guards were still some
distance away. Close behind them pursued the youth. At my back
were the young girls, and as it was in their service that I fought,
I remained standing there to meet my inevitable death, but with
the determination to give such an account of myself as would long
be remembered in the land of the First Born.
I noted the marvellous speed of the young red man as he raced after
the guards. Never had I seen such speed in any Martian. His leaps
and bounds were little short of those which my earthly muscles had
produced to create such awe and respect on the part of the green
Martians into whose hands I had fallen on that long-gone day that
had seen my first advent upon Mars.
The guards had not reached me when he fell upon them from the rear,
and as they turned, thinking from the fierceness of his onslaught
that a dozen were attacking them, I rushed them from my side.
In the rapid fighting that followed I had little chance to note
aught else than the movements of my immediate adversaries, but
now and again I caught a fleeting glimpse of a purring sword and a
lightly springing figure of sinewy steel that filled my heart with
a strange yearning and a mighty but unaccountable pride.
On the handsome face of the boy a grim smile played, and ever and
anon he threw a taunting challenge to the foes that faced him.
In this and other ways his manner of fighting was similar to that
which had always marked me on the field of combat.
Perhaps it was this vague likeness which made me love the boy, while
the awful havoc that his sword played amongst the blacks filled my
soul with a tremendous respect for him.
For my part, I was fighting as I had fought a thousand times
before--now sidestepping a wicked thrust, now stepping quickly in
to let my sword's point drink deep in a foeman's heart, before it
buried itself in the throat of his companion.
We were having a merry time of it, we two, when a great body of
Issus' own guards were ordered into the arena. On they came with
fierce cries, while from every side the armed prisoners swarmed
upon them.
For half an hour it was as though all hell had broken loose. In
the walled confines of the arena we fought in an inextricable
mass--howling, cursing, blood-streaked demons; and ever the sword
of the young red man flashed beside me.
Slowly and by repeated commands I had succeeded in drawing the
prisoners into a rough formation about us, so that at last we fought
formed into a rude circle in the centre of which were the doomed
maids.
Many had gone down on both sides, but by far the greater havoc
had been wrought in the ranks of the guards of Issus. I could see
messengers running swiftly through the audience, and as they passed
the nobles there unsheathed their swords and sprang into the arena.
They were going to annihilate us by force of numbers--that was
quite evidently their plan.
I caught a glimpse of Issus leaning far forward upon her throne,
her hideous countenance distorted in a horrid grimace of hate and
rage, in which I thought I could distinguish an expression of fear.
It was that face that inspired me to the thing that followed.
Quickly I ordered fifty of the prisoners to drop back behind us
and form a new circle about the maidens.
"Remain and protect them until I return," I commanded.
Then, turning to those who formed the outer line, I cried, "Down
with Issus! Follow me to the throne; we will reap vengeance where
vengeance is deserved."
The youth at my side was the first to take up the cry of "Down
with Issus!" and then at my back and from all sides rose a hoarse
shout, "To the throne! To the throne!"
As one man we moved, an irresistible fighting mass, over the bodies
of dead and dying foes toward the gorgeous throne of the Martian
deity. Hordes of the doughtiest fighting-men of the First Born
poured from the audience to check our progress. We mowed them down
before us as they had been paper men.
"To the seats, some of you!" I cried as we approached the arena's
barrier wall. "Ten of us can take the throne," for I had seen
that Issus' guards had for the most part entered the fray within
the arena.
On both sides of me the prisoners broke to left and right for the
seats, vaulting the low wall with dripping swords lusting for the
crowded victims who awaited them.
In another moment the entire amphitheatre was filled with the shrieks
of the dying and the wounded, mingled with the clash of arms and
triumphant shouts of the victors.
Side by side the young red man and I, with perhaps a dozen others,
fought our way to the foot of the throne. The remaining guards,
reinforced by the high dignitaries and nobles of the First Born,
closed in between us and Issus, who sat leaning far forward upon
her carved sorapus bench, now screaming high-pitched commands to
her following, now hurling blighting curses upon those who sought
to desecrate her godhood.
The frightened slaves about her trembled in wide-eyed expectancy,
knowing not whether to pray for our victory or our defeat. Several
among them, proud daughters no doubt of some of Barsoom's noblest
warriors, snatched swords from the hands of the fallen and fell
upon the guards of Issus, but they were soon cut down; glorious
martyrs to a hopeless cause.
The men with us fought well, but never since Tars Tarkas and I
fought out that long, hot afternoon shoulder to shoulder against
the hordes of Warhoon in the dead sea bottom before Thark, had I
seen two men fight to such good purpose and with such unconquerable
ferocity as the young red man and I fought that day before the
throne of Issus, Goddess of Death, and of Life Eternal.
Man by man those who stood between us and the carven sorapus wood
bench went down before our blades. Others swarmed in to fill the
breach, but inch by inch, foot by foot we won nearer and nearer to
our goal.
Presently a cry went up from a section of the stands near by--"Rise
slaves!" "Rise slaves!" it rose and fell until it swelled to a
mighty volume of sound that swept in great billows around the entire
amphitheatre.
For an instant, as though by common assent, we ceased our fighting
to look for the meaning of this new note nor did it take but a moment
to translate its significance. In all parts of the structure the
female slaves were falling upon their masters with whatever weapon
came first to hand. A dagger snatched from the harness of her
mistress was waved aloft by some fair slave, its shimmering blade
crimson with the lifeblood of its owner; swords plucked from
the bodies of the dead about them; heavy ornaments which could be
turned into bludgeons--such were the implements with which these
fair women wreaked the long-pent vengeance which at best could
but partially recompense them for the unspeakable cruelties and
indignities which their black masters had heaped upon them. And
those who could find no other weapons used their strong fingers
and their gleaming teeth.
It was at once a sight to make one shudder and to cheer; but in a
brief second we were engaged once more in our own battle with only
the unquenchable battle cry of the women to remind us that they
still fought--"Rise slaves!" "Rise slaves!"
Only a single thin rank of men now stood between us and Issus. Her
face was blue with terror. Foam flecked her lips. She seemed too
paralysed with fear to move. Only the youth and I fought now. The
others all had fallen, and I was like to have gone down too from
a nasty long-sword cut had not a hand reached out from behind my
adversary and clutched his elbow as the blade was falling upon me.
The youth sprang to my side and ran his sword through the fellow
before he could recover to deliver another blow.
I should have died even then but for that as my sword was tight
wedged in the breastbone of a Dator of the First Born. As the fellow
went down I snatched his sword from him and over his prostrate body
looked into the eyes of the one whose quick hand had saved me from
the first cut of his sword--it was Phaidor, daughter of Matai Shang.
"Fly, my Prince!" she cried. "It is useless to fight them longer.
All within the arena are dead. All who charged the throne are
dead but you and this youth. Only among the seats are there left
any of your fighting-men, and they and the slave women are fast
being cut down. Listen! You can scarce hear the battle-cry of
the women now for nearly all are dead. For each one of you there
are ten thousand blacks within the domains of the First Born. Break
for the open and the sea of Korus. With your mighty sword arm you
may yet win to the Golden Cliffs and the templed gardens of the
Holy Therns. There tell your story to Matai Shang, my father. He
will keep you, and together you may find a way to rescue me. Fly
while there is yet a bare chance for flight."
But that was not my mission, nor could I see much to be preferred
in the cruel hospitality of the Holy Therns to that of the First
Born.
"Down with Issus!" I shouted, and together the boy and I took
up the fight once more. Two blacks went down with our swords in
their vitals, and we stood face to face with Issus. As my sword
went up to end her horrid career her paralysis left her, and with
an ear-piercing shriek she turned to flee. Directly behind her a
black gulf suddenly yawned in the flooring of the dais. She sprang
for the opening with the youth and I close at her heels. Her
scattered guard rallied at her cry and rushed for us. A blow fell
upon the head of the youth. He staggered and would have fallen,
but I caught him in my left arm and turned to face an infuriated
mob of religious fanatics crazed by the affront I had put upon their
goddess, just as Issus disappeared into the black depths beneath
me.
