CHAPTER XIII
A BREAK FOR LIBERTY
Xodar listened in incredulous astonishment to my narration of the
events which had transpired within the arena at the rites of Issus.
He could scarce conceive, even though he had already professed his
doubt as to the deity of Issus, that one could threaten her with
sword in hand and not be blasted into a thousand fragments by the
mere fury of her divine wrath.
"It is the final proof," he said, at last. "No more is needed to
completely shatter the last remnant of my superstitious belief in
the divinity of Issus. She is only a wicked old woman, wielding a
mighty power for evil through machinations that have kept her own
people and all Barsoom in religious ignorance for ages."
"She is still all-powerful here, however," I replied. "So it behooves
us to leave at the first moment that appears at all propitious."
"I hope that you may find a propitious moment," he said, with
a laugh, "for it is certain that in all my life I have never seen
one in which a prisoner of the First Born might escape."
"To-night will do as well as any," I replied.
"It will soon be night," said Xodar. "How may I aid in the
adventure?"
"Can you swim?" I asked him.
"No slimy silian that haunts the depths of Korus is more at home
in water than is Xodar," he replied.
"Good. The red one in all probability cannot swim," I said,
"since there is scarce enough water in all their domains to float
the tiniest craft. One of us therefore will have to support him
through the sea to the craft we select. I had hoped that we might
make the entire distance below the surface, but I fear that the
red youth could not thus perform the trip. Even the bravest of the
brave among them are terrorized at the mere thought of deep water,
for it has been ages since their forebears saw a lake, a river or
a sea."
"The red one is to accompany us?" asked Xodar.
"Yes."
"It is well. Three swords are better than two. Especially when
the third is as mighty as this fellow's. I have seen him battle
in the arena at the rites of Issus many times. Never, until I
saw you fight, had I seen one who seemed unconquerable even in the
face of great odds. One might think you two master and pupil, or
father and son. Come to recall his face there is a resemblance
between you. It is very marked when you fight--there is the same
grim smile, the same maddening contempt for your adversary apparent
in every movement of your bodies and in every changing expression
of your faces."
"Be that as it may, Xodar, he is a great fighter. I think that
we will make a trio difficult to overcome, and if my friend Tars
Tarkas, Jeddak of Thark, were but one of us we could fight our way
from one end of Barsoom to the other even though the whole world
were pitted against us."
"It will be," said Xodar, "when they find from whence you have come.
That is but one of the superstitions which Issus has foisted upon
a credulous humanity. She works through the Holy Therns who are
as ignorant of her real self as are the Barsoomians of the outer
world. Her decrees are borne to the therns written in blood upon
a strange parchment. The poor deluded fools think that they are
receiving the revelations of a goddess through some supernatural
agency, since they find these messages upon their guarded altars
to which none could have access without detection. I myself have
borne these messages for Issus for many years. There is a long
tunnel from the temple of Issus to the principal temple of Matai
Shang. It was dug ages ago by the slaves of the First Born in such
utter secrecy that no thern ever guessed its existence.
"The therns for their part have temples dotted about the entire
civilized world. Here priests whom the people never see communicate
the doctrine of the Mysterious River Iss, the Valley Dor, and the
Lost Sea of Korus to persuade the poor deluded creatures to take
the voluntary pilgrimage that swells the wealth of the Holy Therns
and adds to the numbers of their slaves.
"Thus the therns are used as the principal means for collecting
the wealth and labour that the First Born wrest from them as they
need it. Occasionally the First Born themselves make raids upon
the outer world. It is then that they capture many females of the
royal houses of the red men, and take the newest in battleships and
the trained artisans who build them, that they may copy what they
cannot create.
"We are a non-productive race, priding ourselves upon our
non-productiveness. It is criminal for a First Born to labour or
invent. That is the work of the lower orders, who live merely that
the First Born may enjoy long lives of luxury and idleness. With
us fighting is all that counts; were it not for that there would
be more of the First Born than all the creatures of Barsoom could
support, for in so far as I know none of us ever dies a natural
death. Our females would live for ever but for the fact that we
tire of them and remove them to make place for others. Issus alone
of all is protected against death. She has lived for countless
ages."
"Would not the other Barsoomians live for ever but for the doctrine
of the voluntary pilgrimage which drags them to the bosom of Iss
at or before their thousandth year?" I asked him.
"I feel now that there is no doubt but that they are precisely the
same species of creature as the First Born, and I hope that I shall
live to fight for them in atonement of the sins I have committed
against them through the ignorance born of generations of false
teaching."
As he ceased speaking a weird call rang out across the waters of
Omean. I had heard it at the same time the previous evening and
knew that it marked the ending of the day, when the men of Omean
spread their silks upon the deck of battleship and cruiser and fall
into the dreamless sleep of Mars.
Our guard entered to inspect us for the last time before the new
day broke upon the world above. His duty was soon performed and
the heavy door of our prison closed behind him--we were alone for
the night.
I gave him time to return to his quarters, as Xodar said he probably
would do, then I sprang to the grated window and surveyed the nearby
waters. At a little distance from the island, a quarter of a mile
perhaps, lay a monster battleship, while between her and the shore
were a number of smaller cruisers and one-man scouts. Upon the
battleship alone was there a watch. I could see him plainly in
the upper works of the ship, and as I watched I saw him spread his
sleeping silks upon the tiny platform in which he was stationed.
Soon he threw himself at full length upon his couch. The discipline
on Omean was lax indeed. But it is not to be wondered at since no
enemy guessed the existence upon Barsoom of such a fleet, or even
of the First Born, or the Sea of Omean. Why indeed should they
maintain a watch?
Presently I dropped to the floor again and talked with Xodar,
describing the various craft I had seen.
"There is one there," he said, "my personal property, built to carry
five men, that is the swiftest of the swift. If we can board her
we can at least make a memorable run for liberty," and then he
went on to describe to me the equipment of the boat; her engines,
and all that went to make her the flier that she was.
In his explanation I recognized a trick of gearing that Kantos Kan
had taught me that time we sailed under false names in the navy
of Zodanga beneath Sab Than, the Prince. And I knew then that the
First Born had stolen it from the ships of Helium, for only they
are thus geared. And I knew too that Xodar spoke the truth when
he lauded the speed of his little craft, for nothing that cleaves
the thin air of Mars can approximate the speed of the ships of
Helium.
We decided to wait for an hour at least until all the stragglers
had sought their silks. In the meantime I was to fetch the red
youth to our cell so that we would be in readiness to make our rash
break for freedom together.
I sprang to the top of our partition wall and pulled myself up
on to it. There I found a flat surface about a foot in width and
along this I walked until I came to the cell in which I saw the
boy sitting upon his bench. He had been leaning back against the
wall looking up at the glowing dome above Omean, and when he spied
me balancing upon the partition wall above him his eyes opened wide
in astonishment. Then a wide grin of appreciative understanding
spread across his countenance.
As I stooped to drop to the floor beside him he motioned me to wait,
and coming close below me whispered: "Catch my hand; I can almost
leap to the top of that wall myself. I have tried it many times,
and each day I come a little closer. Some day I should have been
able to make it."
I lay upon my belly across the wall and reached my hand far down
toward him. With a little run from the centre of the cell he sprang
up until I grasped his outstretched hand, and thus I pulled him to
the wall's top beside me.
"You are the first jumper I ever saw among the red men of Barsoom,"
I said.
He smiled. "It is not strange. I will tell you why when we have
more time."
Together we returned to the cell in which Xodar sat; descending to
talk with him until the hour had passed.
There we made our plans for the immediate future, binding ourselves
by a solemn oath to fight to the death for one another against
whatsoever enemies should confront us, for we knew that even should
we succeed in escaping the First Born we might still have a whole
world against us--the power of religious superstition is mighty.
It was agreed that I should navigate the craft after we had reached
her, and that if we made the outer world in safety we should attempt
to reach Helium without a stop.
"Why Helium?" asked the red youth.
"I am a prince of Helium," I replied.
He gave me a peculiar look, but said nothing further on the subject.
I wondered at the time what the significance of his expression
might be, but in the press of other matters it soon left my mind,
nor did I have occasion to think of it again until later.
"Come," I said at length, "now is as good a time as any. Let us
go."
Another moment found me at the top of the partition wall again with
the boy beside me. Unbuckling my harness I snapped it together
with a single long strap which I lowered to the waiting Xodar below.
He grasped the end and was soon sitting beside us.
"How simple," he laughed.
"The balance should be even simpler," I replied. Then I raised
myself to the top of the outer wall of the prison, just so that
I could peer over and locate the passing sentry. For a matter of
five minutes I waited and then he came in sight on his slow and
snail-like beat about the structure.
I watched him until he had made the turn at the end of the building
which carried him out of sight of the side of the prison that was
to witness our dash for freedom. The moment his form disappeared
I grasped Xodar and drew him to the top of the wall. Placing one
end of my harness strap in his hands I lowered him quickly to the
ground below. Then the boy grasped the strap and slid down to
Xodar's side.
In accordance with our arrangement they did not wait for me, but
walked slowly toward the water, a matter of a hundred yards, directly
past the guard-house filled with sleeping soldiers.
They had taken scarce a dozen steps when I too dropped to the
ground and followed them leisurely toward the shore. As I passed
the guard-house the thought of all the good blades lying there
gave me pause, for if ever men were to have need of swords it was
my companions and I on the perilous trip upon which we were about
to embark.
I glanced toward Xodar and the youth and saw that they had slipped
over the edge of the dock into the water. In accordance with our
plan they were to remain there clinging to the metal rings which
studded the concrete-like substance of the dock at the water's
level, with only their mouths and noses above the surface of the
sea, until I should join them.
The lure of the swords within the guard-house was strong upon me,
and I hesitated a moment, half inclined to risk the attempt to take
the few we needed. That he who hesitates is lost proved itself a
true aphorism in this instance, for another moment saw me creeping
stealthily toward the door of the guard-house.
Gently I pressed it open a crack; enough to discover a dozen blacks
stretched upon their silks in profound slumber. At the far side
of the room a rack held the swords and firearms of the men. Warily
I pushed the door a trifle wider to admit my body. A hinge gave
out a resentful groan. One of the men stirred, and my heart stood
still. I cursed myself for a fool to have thus jeopardized our
chances for escape; but there was nothing for it now but to see
the adventure through.
With a spring as swift and as noiseless as a tiger's I lit beside
the guardsman who had moved. My hands hovered about his throat
awaiting the moment that his eyes should open. For what seemed
an eternity to my overwrought nerves I remained poised thus. Then
the fellow turned again upon his side and resumed the even respiration
of deep slumber.
Carefully I picked my way between and over the soldiers until I
had gained the rack at the far side of the room. Here I turned to
survey the sleeping men. All were quiet. Their regular breathing
rose and fell in a soothing rhythm that seemed to me the sweetest
music I ever had heard.
Gingerly I drew a long-sword from the rack. The scraping of
the scabbard against its holder as I withdrew it sounded like the
filing of cast iron with a great rasp, and I looked to see the room
immediately filled with alarmed and attacking guardsmen. But none
stirred.
The second sword I withdrew noiselessly, but the third clanked in
its scabbard with a frightful din. I knew that it must awaken some
of the men at least, and was on the point of forestalling their
attack by a rapid charge for the doorway, when again, to my intense
surprise, not a black moved. Either they were wondrous heavy
sleepers or else the noises that I made were really much less than
they seemed to me.
I was about to leave the rack when my attention was attracted by
the revolvers. I knew that I could not carry more than one away
with me, for I was already too heavily laden to move quietly with
any degree of safety or speed. As I took one of them from its pin
my eye fell for the first time on an open window beside the rack.
Ah, here was a splendid means of escape, for it let directly upon
the dock, not twenty feet from the water's edge.
And as I congratulated myself, I heard the door opposite me open,
and there looking me full in the face stood the officer of the guard.
He evidently took in the situation at a glance and appreciated the
gravity of it as quickly as I, for our revolvers came up simultaneously
and the sounds of the two reports were as one as we touched the
buttons on the grips that exploded the cartridges.
I felt the wind of his bullet as it whizzed past my ear, and at the
same instant I saw him crumple to the ground. Where I hit him I do
not know, nor if I killed him, for scarce had he started to collapse
when I was through the window at my rear. In another second the
waters of Omean closed above my head, and the three of us were
making for the little flier a hundred yards away.
Xodar was burdened with the boy, and I with the three long-swords.
The revolver I had dropped, so that while we were both strong
swimmers it seemed to me that we moved at a snail's pace through
the water. I was swimming entirely beneath the surface, but Xodar
was compelled to rise often to let the youth breathe, so it was a
wonder that we were not discovered long before we were.
In fact we reached the boat's side and were all aboard before the
watch upon the battleship, aroused by the shots, detected us. Then
an alarm gun bellowed from a ship's bow, its deep boom reverberating
in deafening tones beneath the rocky dome of Omean.
Instantly the sleeping thousands were awake. The decks of a thousand
monster craft teemed with fighting-men, for an alarm on Omean was
a thing of rare occurrence.
We cast away before the sound of the first gun had died, and
another second saw us rising swiftly from the surface of the sea.
I lay at full length along the deck with the levers and buttons
of control before me. Xodar and the boy were stretched directly
behind me, prone also that we might offer as little resistance to
the air as possible.
"Rise high," whispered Xodar. "They dare not fire their heavy
guns toward the dome--the fragments of the shells would drop back
among their own craft. If we are high enough our keel plates will
protect us from rifle fire."
I did as he bade. Below us we could see the men leaping into the
water by hundreds, and striking out for the small cruisers and
one-man fliers that lay moored about the big ships. The larger
craft were getting under way, following us rapidly, but not rising
from the water.
"A little to your right," cried Xodar, for there are no points of
compass upon Omean where every direction is due north.
The pandemonium that had broken out below us was deafening. Rifles
cracked, officers shouted orders, men yelled directions to one
another from the water and from the decks of myriad boats, while
through all ran the purr of countless propellers cutting water and
air.
I had not dared pull my speed lever to the highest for fear of
overrunning the mouth of the shaft that passed from Omean's dome
to the world above, but even so we were hitting a clip that I doubt
has ever been equalled on the windless sea.
The smaller fliers were commencing to rise toward us when Xodar
shouted: "The shaft! The shaft! Dead ahead," and I saw the opening,
black and yawning in the glowing dome of this underworld.
A ten-man cruiser was rising directly in front to cut off our
escape. It was the only vessel that stood in our way, but at the
rate that it was traveling it would come between us and the shaft
in plenty of time to thwart our plans.
It was rising at an angle of about forty-five degrees dead ahead of
us, with the evident intention of combing us with grappling hooks
from above as it skimmed low over our deck.
There was but one forlorn hope for us, and I took it. It was useless
to try to pass over her, for that would have allowed her to force
us against the rocky dome above, and we were already too near that
as it was. To have attempted to dive below her would have put us
entirely at her mercy, and precisely where she wanted us. On either
side a hundred other menacing craft were hastening toward us. The
alternative was filled with risk--in fact it was all risk, with
but a slender chance of success.
As we neared the cruiser I rose as though to pass above her, so
that she would do just what she did do, rise at a steeper angle to
force me still higher. Then as we were almost upon her I yelled
to my companions to hold tight, and throwing the little vessel into
her highest speed I deflected her bows at the same instant until
we were running horizontally and at terrific velocity straight for
the cruiser's keel.
Her commander may have seen my intentions then, but it was too late.
Almost at the instant of impact I turned my bows upward, and then
with a shattering jolt we were in collision. What I had hoped for
happened. The cruiser, already tilted at a perilous angle, was
carried completely over backward by the impact of my smaller vessel.
Her crew fell twisting and screaming through the air to the water
far below, while the cruiser, her propellers still madly churning,
dived swiftly headforemost after them to the bottom of the Sea of
Omean.
The collision crushed our steel bows, and notwithstanding every
effort on our part came near to hurling us from the deck. As it
was we landed in a wildly clutching heap at the very extremity of
the flier, where Xodar and I succeeded in grasping the hand-rail,
but the boy would have plunged overboard had I not fortunately
grasped his ankle as he was already partially over.
Unguided, our vessel careened wildly in its mad flight, rising ever
nearer the rocks above. It took but an instant, however, for me
to regain the levers, and with the roof barely fifty feet above I
turned her nose once more into the horizontal plane and headed her
again for the black mouth of the shaft.
The collision had retarded our progress and now a hundred swift
scouts were close upon us. Xodar had told me that ascending the
shaft by virtue of our repulsive rays alone would give our enemies
their best chance to overtake us, since our propellers would be
idle and in rising we would be outclassed by many of our pursuers.
The swifter craft are seldom equipped with large buoyancy tanks,
since the added bulk of them tends to reduce a vessel's speed.
As many boats were now quite close to us it was inevitable that we
would be quickly overhauled in the shaft, and captured or killed
in short order.
To me there always seems a way to gain the opposite side of
an obstacle. If one cannot pass over it, or below it, or around
it, why then there is but a single alternative left, and that is
to pass through it. I could not get around the fact that many of
these other boats could rise faster than ours by the fact of their
greater buoyancy, but I was none the less determined to reach the
outer world far in advance of them or die a death of my own choosing
in event of failure.
"Reverse?" screamed Xodar, behind me. "For the love of your first
ancestor, reverse. We are at the shaft."
"Hold tight!" I screamed in reply. "Grasp the boy and hold tight--we
are going straight up the shaft."
The words were scarce out of my mouth as we swept beneath the
pitch-black opening. I threw the bow hard up, dragged the speed
lever to its last notch, and clutching a stanchion with one hand
and the steering-wheel with the other hung on like grim death and
consigned my soul to its author.
I heard a little exclamation of surprise from Xodar, followed by a
grim laugh. The boy laughed too and said something which I could
not catch for the whistling of the wind of our awful speed.
I looked above my head, hoping to catch the gleam of stars by which
I could direct our course and hold the hurtling thing that bore us
true to the centre of the shaft. To have touched the side at the
speed we were making would doubtless have resulted in instant death
for us all. But not a star showed above--only utter and impenetrable
darkness.
Then I glanced below me, and there I saw a rapidly diminishing
circle of light--the mouth of the opening above the phosphorescent
radiance of Omean. By this I steered, endeavouring to keep the
circle of light below me ever perfect. At best it was but a slender
cord that held us from destruction, and I think that I steered that
night more by intuition and blind faith than by skill or reason.
We were not long in the shaft, and possibly the very fact of our
enormous speed saved us, for evidently we started in the right
direction and so quickly were we out again that we had no time to
alter our course. Omean lies perhaps two miles below the surface
crust of Mars. Our speed must have approximated two hundred miles
an hour, for Martian fliers are swift, so that at most we were in
the shaft not over forty seconds.
We must have been out of it for some seconds before I realised that
we had accomplished the impossible. Black darkness enshrouded all
about us. There were neither moons nor stars. Never before had I
seen such a thing upon Mars, and for the moment I was nonplussed.
Then the explanation came to me. It was summer at the south pole.
The ice cap was melting and those meteoric phenomena, clouds, unknown
upon the greater part of Barsoom, were shutting out the light of
heaven from this portion of the planet.
Fortunate indeed it was for us, nor did it take me long to grasp
the opportunity for escape which this happy condition offered
us. Keeping the boat's nose at a stiff angle I raced her for the
impenetrable curtain which Nature had hung above this dying world
to shut us out from the sight of our pursuing enemies.
We plunged through the cold camp fog without diminishing our
speed, and in a moment emerged into the glorious light of the two
moons and the million stars. I dropped into a horizontal course
and headed due north. Our enemies were a good half-hour behind us
with no conception of our direction. We had performed the miraculous
and come through a thousand dangers unscathed--we had escaped from
the land of the First Born. No other prisoners in all the ages of
Barsoom had done this thing, and now as I looked back upon it it
did not seem to have been so difficult after all.
I said as much to Xodar, over my shoulder.
"It is very wonderful, nevertheless," he replied. "No one else
could have accomplished it but John Carter."
At the sound of that name the boy jumped to his feet.
"John Carter!" he cried. "John Carter! Why, man, John Carter,
Prince of Helium, has been dead for years. I am his son."
