CHAPTER XXVII
FROM JOY TO DEATH
For ten days the hordes of Thark and their wild allies were feasted
and entertained, and, then, loaded with costly presents and escorted
by ten thousand soldiers of Helium commanded by Mors Kajak, they
started on the return journey to their own lands. The jed of lesser
Helium with a small party of nobles accompanied them all the way to
Thark to cement more closely the new bonds of peace and friendship.
Sola also accompanied Tars Tarkas, her father, who before all his
chieftains had acknowledged her as his daughter.
Three weeks later, Mors Kajak and his officers, accompanied by Tars
Tarkas and Sola, returned upon a battleship that had been dispatched
to Thark to fetch them in time for the ceremony which made Dejah
Thoris and John Carter one.
For nine years I served in the councils and fought in the armies of
Helium as a prince of the house of Tardos Mors. The people seemed
never to tire of heaping honors upon me, and no day passed that
did not bring some new proof of their love for my princess, the
incomparable Dejah Thoris.
In a golden incubator upon the roof of our palace lay a snow-white
egg. For nearly five years ten soldiers of the jeddak's Guard had
constantly stood over it, and not a day passed when I was in the
city that Dejah Thoris and I did not stand hand in hand before our
little shrine planning for the future, when the delicate shell
should break.
Vivid in my memory is the picture of the last night as we sat there
talking in low tones of the strange romance which had woven our
lives together and of this wonder which was coming to augment our
happiness and fulfill our hopes.
In the distance we saw the bright-white light of an approaching
airship, but we attached no special significance to so common a
sight. Like a bolt of lightning it raced toward Helium until its
very speed bespoke the unusual.
Flashing the signals which proclaimed it a dispatch bearer for the
jeddak, it circled impatiently awaiting the tardy patrol boat which
must convoy it to the palace docks.
Ten minutes after it touched at the palace a message called me to
the council chamber, which I found filling with the members of that
body.
On the raised platform of the throne was Tardos Mors, pacing back
and forth with tense-drawn face. When all were in their seats he
turned toward us.
"This morning," he said, "word reached the several governments of
Barsoom that the keeper of the atmosphere plant had made no wireless
report for two days, nor had almost ceaseless calls upon him from a
score of capitals elicited a sign of response.
"The ambassadors of the other nations asked us to take the matter
in hand and hasten the assistant keeper to the plant. All day a
thousand cruisers have been searching for him until just now one
of them returns bearing his dead body, which was found in the pits
beneath his house horribly mutilated by some assassin.
"I do not need to tell you what this means to Barsoom. It would
take months to penetrate those mighty walls, in fact the work has
already commenced, and there would be little to fear were the engine
of the pumping plant to run as it should and as they all have for
hundreds of years now; but the worst, we fear, has happened. The
instruments show a rapidly decreasing air pressure on all parts of
Barsoom--the engine has stopped."
"My gentlemen," he concluded, "we have at best three days to live."
There was absolute silence for several minutes, and then a young
noble arose, and with his drawn sword held high above his head
addressed Tardos Mors.
"The men of Helium have prided themselves that they have ever shown
Barsoom how a nation of red men should live, now is our opportunity
to show them how they should die. Let us go about our duties as
though a thousand useful years still lay before us."
The chamber rang with applause and as there was nothing better to
do than to allay the fears of the people by our example we went our
ways with smiles upon our faces and sorrow gnawing at our hearts.
When I returned to my palace I found that the rumor already had
reached Dejah Thoris, so I told her all that I had heard.
"We have been very happy, John Carter," she said, "and I thank
whatever fate overtakes us that it permits us to die together."
The next two days brought no noticeable change in the supply of air,
but on the morning of the third day breathing became difficult at
the higher altitudes of the rooftops. The avenues and plazas of
Helium were filled with people. All business had ceased. For
the most part the people looked bravely into the face of their
unalterable doom. Here and there, however, men and women gave
way to quiet grief.
Toward the middle of the day many of the weaker commenced to succumb
and within an hour the people of Barsoom were sinking by thousands
into the unconsciousness which precedes death by asphyxiation.
Dejah Thoris and I with the other members of the royal family had
collected in a sunken garden within an inner courtyard of the
palace. We conversed in low tones, when we conversed at all, as
the awe of the grim shadow of death crept over us. Even Woola
seemed to feel the weight of the impending calamity, for he
pressed close to Dejah Thoris and to me, whining pitifully.
The little incubator had been brought from the roof of our palace
at request of Dejah Thoris and now she sat gazing longingly upon
the unknown little life that now she would never know.
As it was becoming perceptibly difficult to breathe Tardos Mors
arose, saying,
"Let us bid each other farewell. The days of the greatness of
Barsoom are over. Tomorrow's sun will look down upon a dead world
which through all eternity must go swinging through the heavens
peopled not even by memories. It is the end."
He stooped and kissed the women of his family, and laid his strong
hand upon the shoulders of the men.
As I turned sadly from him my eyes fell upon Dejah Thoris. Her head
was drooping upon her breast, to all appearances she was lifeless.
With a cry I sprang to her and raised her in my arms.
Her eyes opened and looked into mine.
"Kiss me, John Carter," she murmured. "I love you! I love you!
It is cruel that we must be torn apart who were just starting upon
a life of love and happiness."
As I pressed her dear lips to mine the old feeling of unconquerable
power and authority rose in me. The fighting blood of Virginia
sprang to life in my veins.
"It shall not be, my princess," I cried. "There is, there must be
some way, and John Carter, who has fought his way through a strange
world for love of you, will find it."
And with my words there crept above the threshold of my conscious
mind a series of nine long forgotten sounds. Like a flash of
lightning in the darkness their full purport dawned upon me--the
key to the three great doors of the atmosphere plant!
Turning suddenly toward Tardos Mors as I still clasped my dying love
to my breast I cried.
"A flier, Jeddak! Quick! Order your swiftest flier to the palace
top. I can save Barsoom yet."
He did not wait to question, but in an instant a guard was racing
to the nearest dock and though the air was thin and almost gone at
the rooftop they managed to launch the fastest one-man, air-scout
machine that the skill of Barsoom had ever produced.
Kissing Dejah Thoris a dozen times and commanding Woola, who would
have followed me, to remain and guard her, I bounded with my old
agility and strength to the high ramparts of the palace, and in
another moment I was headed toward the goal of the hopes of all
Barsoom.
I had to fly low to get sufficient air to breathe, but I took a
straight course across an old sea bottom and so had to rise only
a few feet above the ground.
I traveled with awful velocity for my errand was a race against time
with death. The face of Dejah Thoris hung always before me. As I
turned for a last look as I left the palace garden I had seen her
stagger and sink upon the ground beside the little incubator. That
she had dropped into the last coma which would end in death, if the
air supply remained unreplenished, I well knew, and so, throwing
caution to the winds, I flung overboard everything but the engine
and compass, even to my ornaments, and lying on my belly along the
deck with one hand on the steering wheel and the other pushing the
speed lever to its last notch I split the thin air of dying Mars
with the speed of a meteor.
An hour before dark the great walls of the atmosphere plant loomed
suddenly before me, and with a sickening thud I plunged to the
ground before the small door which was withholding the spark of
life from the inhabitants of an entire planet.
Beside the door a great crew of men had been laboring to pierce the
wall, but they had scarcely scratched the flint-like surface, and
now most of them lay in the last sleep from which not even air would
awaken them.
Conditions seemed much worse here than at Helium, and it was with
difficulty that I breathed at all. There were a few men still
conscious, and to one of these I spoke.
"If I can open these doors is there a man who can start the
engines?" I asked.
"I can," he replied, "if you open quickly. I can last but a few
moments more. But it is useless, they are both dead and no one else
upon Barsoom knew the secret of these awful locks. For three days
men crazed with fear have surged about this portal in vain attempts
to solve its mystery."
I had no time to talk, I was becoming very weak and it was with
difficulty that I controlled my mind at all.
But, with a final effort, as I sank weakly to my knees I hurled the
nine thought waves at that awful thing before me. The Martian had
crawled to my side and with staring eyes fixed on the single panel
before us we waited in the silence of death.
Slowly the mighty door receded before us. I attempted to rise and
follow it but I was too weak.
"After it," I cried to my companion, "and if you reach the pump room
turn loose all the pumps. It is the only chance Barsoom has to
exist tomorrow!"
From where I lay I opened the second door, and then the third, and
as I saw the hope of Barsoom crawling weakly on hands and knees
through the last doorway I sank unconscious upon the ground.
