CHAPTER XIII
LOVE-MAKING ON MARS
Following the battle with the air ships, the community remained withinthe city for several days, abandoning the homeward march until theycould feel reasonably assured that the ships would not return; for tobe caught on the open plains with a cavalcade of chariots and childrenwas far from the desire of even so warlike a people as the greenMartians.
During our period of inactivity, Tars Tarkas had instructed me in manyof the customs and arts of war familiar to the Tharks, includinglessons in riding and guiding the great beasts which bore the warriors.These creatures, which are known as thoats, are as dangerous andvicious as their masters, but when once subdued are sufficientlytractable for the purposes of the green Martians.
Two of these animals had fallen to me from the warriors whose metal Iwore, and in a short time I could handle them quite as well as thenative warriors. The method was not at all complicated. If the thoatsdid not respond with sufficient celerity to the telepathic instructionsof their riders they were dealt a terrific blow between the ears withthe butt of a pistol, and if they showed fight this treatment wascontinued until the brutes either were subdued, or had unseated theirriders.
In the latter case it became a life and death struggle between the manand the beast. If the former were quick enough with his pistol hemight live to ride again, though upon some other beast; if not, historn and mangled body was gathered up by his women and burned inaccordance with Tharkian custom.
My experience with Woola determined me to attempt the experiment ofkindness in my treatment of my thoats. First I taught them that theycould not unseat me, and even rapped them sharply between the ears toimpress upon them my authority and mastery. Then, by degrees, I wontheir confidence in much the same manner as I had adopted countlesstimes with my many mundane mounts. I was ever a good hand withanimals, and by inclination, as well as because it brought more lastingand satisfactory results, I was always kind and humane in my dealingswith the lower orders. I could take a human life, if necessary, withfar less compunction than that of a poor, unreasoning, irresponsiblebrute.
In the course of a few days my thoats were the wonder of the entirecommunity. They would follow me like dogs, rubbing their great snoutsagainst my body in awkward evidence of affection, and respond to myevery command with an alacrity and docility which caused the Martianwarriors to ascribe to me the possession of some earthly power unknownon Mars.
"How have you bewitched them?" asked Tars Tarkas one afternoon, when hehad seen me run my arm far between the great jaws of one of my thoatswhich had wedged a piece of stone between two of his teeth whilefeeding upon the moss-like vegetation within our court yard.
"By kindness," I replied. "You see, Tars Tarkas, the softer sentimentshave their value, even to a warrior. In the height of battle as wellas upon the march I know that my thoats will obey my every command, andtherefore my fighting efficiency is enhanced, and I am a better warriorfor the reason that I am a kind master. Your other warriors would findit to the advantage of themselves as well as of the community to adoptmy methods in this respect. Only a few days since you, yourself, toldme that these great brutes, by the uncertainty of their tempers, oftenwere the means of turning victory into defeat, since, at a crucialmoment, they might elect to unseat and rend their riders."
"Show me how you accomplish these results," was Tars Tarkas' onlyrejoinder.
And so I explained as carefully as I could the entire method oftraining I had adopted with my beasts, and later he had me repeat itbefore Lorquas Ptomel and the assembled warriors. That moment markedthe beginning of a new existence for the poor thoats, and before I leftthe community of Lorquas Ptomel I had the satisfaction of observing aregiment of as tractable and docile mounts as one might care to see.The effect on the precision and celerity of the military movements wasso remarkable that Lorquas Ptomel presented me with a massive anklet ofgold from his own leg, as a sign of his appreciation of my service tothe horde.
On the seventh day following the battle with the air craft we againtook up the march toward Thark, all probability of another attack beingdeemed remote by Lorquas Ptomel.
During the days just preceding our departure I had seen but little ofDejah Thoris, as I had been kept very busy by Tars Tarkas with mylessons in the art of Martian warfare, as well as in the training of mythoats. The few times I had visited her quarters she had been absent,walking upon the streets with Sola, or investigating the buildings inthe near vicinity of the plaza. I had warned them against venturingfar from the plaza for fear of the great white apes, whose ferocity Iwas only too well acquainted with. However, since Woola accompaniedthem on all their excursions, and as Sola was well armed, there wascomparatively little cause for fear.
On the evening before our departure I saw them approaching along one ofthe great avenues which lead into the plaza from the east. I advancedto meet them, and telling Sola that I would take the responsibility forDejah Thoris' safekeeping, I directed her to return to her quarters onsome trivial errand. I liked and trusted Sola, but for some reason Idesired to be alone with Dejah Thoris, who represented to me all that Ihad left behind upon Earth in agreeable and congenial companionship.There seemed bonds of mutual interest between us as powerful as thoughwe had been born under the same roof rather than upon differentplanets, hurtling through space some forty-eight million miles apart.
That she shared my sentiments in this respect I was positive, for on myapproach the look of pitiful hopelessness left her sweet countenance tobe replaced by a smile of joyful welcome, as she placed her littleright hand upon my left shoulder in true red Martian salute.
"Sarkoja told Sola that you had become a true Thark," she said, "andthat I would now see no more of you than of any of the other warriors."
"Sarkoja is a liar of the first magnitude," I replied, "notwithstandingthe proud claim of the Tharks to absolute verity."
Dejah Thoris laughed.
"I knew that even though you became a member of the community you wouldnot cease to be my friend; 'A warrior may change his metal, but not hisheart,' as the saying is upon Barsoom."
"I think they have been trying to keep us apart," she continued, "forwhenever you have been off duty one of the older women of Tars Tarkas'retinue has always arranged to trump up some excuse to get Sola and meout of sight. They have had me down in the pits below the buildingshelping them mix their awful radium powder, and make their terribleprojectiles. You know that these have to be manufactured by artificiallight, as exposure to sunlight always results in an explosion. Youhave noticed that their bullets explode when they strike an object?Well, the opaque, outer coating is broken by the impact, exposing aglass cylinder, almost solid, in the forward end of which is a minuteparticle of radium powder. The moment the sunlight, even thoughdiffused, strikes this powder it explodes with a violence which nothingcan withstand. If you ever witness a night battle you will note theabsence of these explosions, while the morning following the battlewill be filled at sunrise with the sharp detonations of explodingmissiles fired the preceding night. As a rule, however, non-explodingprojectiles are used at night." [I have used the word radium indescribing this powder because in the light of recent discoveries onEarth I believe it to be a mixture of which radium is the base. InCaptain Carter's manuscript it is mentioned always by the name used inthe written language of Helium and is spelled in hieroglyphics which itwould be difficult and useless to reproduce.]
While I was much interested in Dejah Thoris' explanation of thiswonderful adjunct to Martian warfare, I was more concerned by theimmediate problem of their treatment of her. That they were keepingher away from me was not a matter for surprise, but that they shouldsubject her to dangerous and arduous labor filled me with rage.
"Have they ever subjected you to cruelty and ignominy, Dejah Thoris?" Iasked, feeling the hot blood of my fighting ancestors leap in my veinsas I awaited her reply.
"Only in little ways, John Carter," she answered. "Nothing that canhar
m me outside my pride. They know that I am the daughter of tenthousand jeddaks, that I trace my ancestry straight back without abreak to the builder of the first great waterway, and they, who do noteven know their own mothers, are jealous of me. At heart they hatetheir horrid fates, and so wreak their poor spite on me who stand foreverything they have not, and for all they most crave and never canattain. Let us pity them, my chieftain, for even though we die attheir hands we can afford them pity, since we are greater than they andthey know it."
Had I known the significance of those words "my chieftain," as appliedby a red Martian woman to a man, I should have had the surprise of mylife, but I did not know at that time, nor for many months thereafter.Yes, I still had much to learn upon Barsoom.
"I presume it is the better part of wisdom that we bow to our fate withas good grace as possible, Dejah Thoris; but I hope, nevertheless, thatI may be present the next time that any Martian, green, red, pink, orviolet, has the temerity to even so much as frown on you, my princess."
Dejah Thoris caught her breath at my last words, and gazed upon me withdilated eyes and quickening breath, and then, with an odd little laugh,which brought roguish dimples to the corners of her mouth, she shookher head and cried:
"What a child! A great warrior and yet a stumbling little child."
"What have I done now?" I asked, in sore perplexity.
"Some day you shall know, John Carter, if we live; but I may not tellyou. And I, the daughter of Mors Kajak, son of Tardos Mors, havelistened without anger," she soliloquized in conclusion.
Then she broke out again into one of her gay, happy, laughing moods;joking with me on my prowess as a Thark warrior as contrasted with mysoft heart and natural kindliness.
"I presume that should you accidentally wound an enemy you would takehim home and nurse him back to health," she laughed.
"That is precisely what we do on Earth," I answered. "At least amongcivilized men."
This made her laugh again. She could not understand it, for, with allher tenderness and womanly sweetness, she was still a Martian, and to aMartian the only good enemy is a dead enemy; for every dead foemanmeans so much more to divide between those who live.
I was very curious to know what I had said or done to cause her so muchperturbation a moment before and so I continued to importune her toenlighten me.
"No," she exclaimed, "it is enough that you have said it and that Ihave listened. And when you learn, John Carter, and if I be dead, aslikely I shall be ere the further moon has circled Barsoom anothertwelve times, remember that I listened and that I--smiled."
It was all Greek to me, but the more I begged her to explain the morepositive became her denials of my request, and, so, in veryhopelessness, I desisted.
Day had now given away to night and as we wandered along the greatavenue lighted by the two moons of Barsoom, and with Earth looking downupon us out of her luminous green eye, it seemed that we were alone inthe universe, and I, at least, was content that it should be so.
The chill of the Martian night was upon us, and removing my silks Ithrew them across the shoulders of Dejah Thoris. As my arm rested foran instant upon her I felt a thrill pass through every fiber of mybeing such as contact with no other mortal had even produced; and itseemed to me that she had leaned slightly toward me, but of that I wasnot sure. Only I knew that as my arm rested there across her shoulderslonger than the act of adjusting the silk required she did not drawaway, nor did she speak. And so, in silence, we walked the surface ofa dying world, but in the breast of one of us at least had been bornthat which is ever oldest, yet ever new.
I loved Dejah Thoris. The touch of my arm upon her naked shoulder hadspoken to me in words I would not mistake, and I knew that I had lovedher since the first moment that my eyes had met hers that first time inthe plaza of the dead city of Korad.