THE MAGNET SWITCH
The guardsmen paid not the slightest attention to their wards, forthe red men could not move over two feet from the great rings towhich they were padlocked, though each had seized a weapon uponwhich he had been engaged when I entered the room, and stood readyto join me could they have but done so.
The yellow men devoted all their attention to me, nor were theylong in discovering that the three of them were none too many todefend the armory against John Carter. Would that I had had my owngood long-sword in my hand that day; but, as it was, I rendered asatisfactory account of myself with the unfamiliar weapon of theyellow man.
At first I had a time of it dodging their villainous hook-swords,but after a minute or two I had succeeded in wresting a secondstraight sword from one of the racks along the wall, and thereafter,using it to parry the hooks of my antagonists, I felt more evenlyequipped.
The three of them were on me at once, and but for a lucky circumstancemy end might have come quickly. The foremost guardsman madea vicious lunge for my side with his hook after the three of themhad backed me against the wall, but as I sidestepped and raised myarm his weapon but grazed my side, passing into a rack of javelins,where it became entangled.
Before he could release it I had run him through, and then, fallingback upon the tactics that have saved me a hundred times in tightpinches, I rushed the two remaining warriors, forcing them backwith a perfect torrent of cuts and thrusts, weaving my sword inand out about their guards until I had the fear of death upon them.
Then one of them commenced calling for help, but it was too lateto save them.
They were as putty in my hands now, and I backed them about thearmory as I would until I had them where I wanted them--within reachof the swords of the shackled slaves. In an instant both lay deadupon the floor. But their cries had not been entirely fruitless,for now I heard answering shouts and the footfalls of many menrunning and the clank of accouterments and the commands of officers.
"The door! Quick, John Carter, bar the door!" cried Tardos Mors.
Already the guard was in sight, charging across the open court thatwas visible through the doorway.
A dozen seconds would bring them into the tower. A single leapcarried me to the heavy portal. With a resounding bang I slammedit shut.
"The bar!" shouted Tardos Mors.
I tried to slip the huge fastening into place, but it defied myevery attempt.
"Raise it a little to release the catch," cried one of the red men.
I could hear the yellow warriors leaping along the flagging justbeyond the door. I raised the bar and shot it to the right justas the foremost of the guardsmen threw himself against the oppositeside of the massive panels.
The barrier held--I had been in time, but by the fraction of asecond only.
Now I turned my attention to the prisoners. To Tardos Mors I wentfirst, asking where the keys might be which would unfasten theirfetters.
"The officer of the guard has them," replied the Jeddak of Helium,"and he is among those without who seek entrance. You will haveto force them."
Most of the prisoners were already hacking at their bonds with theswords in their hands. The yellow men were battering at the doorwith javelins and axes.
I turned my attention to the chains that held Tardos Mors. Againand again I cut deep into the metal with my sharp blade, but everfaster and faster fell the torrent of blows upon the portal.
At last a link parted beneath my efforts, and a moment later TardosMors was free, though a few inches of trailing chain still dangledfrom his ankle.
A splinter of wood falling inward from the door announced theheadway that our enemies were making toward us.
The mighty panels trembled and bent beneath the furious onslaughtof the enraged yellow men.
What with the battering upon the door and the hacking of the redmen at their chains the din within the armory was appalling. Nosooner was Tardos Mors free than he turned his attention to anotherof the prisoners, while I set to work to liberate Mors Kajak.
We must work fast if we would have all those fetters cut beforethe door gave way. Now a panel crashed inward upon the floor, andMors Kajak sprang to the opening to defend the way until we shouldhave time to release the others.
With javelins snatched from the wall he wrought havoc among theforemost of the Okarians while we battled with the insensate metalthat stood between our fellows and freedom.
At length all but one of the prisoners were freed, and then the doorfell with a mighty crash before a hastily improvised battering-ram,and the yellow horde was upon us.
"To the upper chambers!" shouted the red man who was still fetteredto the floor. "To the upper chambers! There you may defend thetower against all Kadabra. Do not delay because of me, who couldpray for no better death than in the service of Tardos Mors andthe Prince of Helium."
But I would have sacrificed the life of every man of us ratherthan desert a single red man, much less the lion-hearted hero whobegged us to leave him.
"Cut his chains," I cried to two of the red men, "while the balanceof us hold off the foe."
There were ten of us now to do battle with the Okarian guard, and Iwarrant that that ancient watchtower never looked down upon a morehotly contested battle than took place that day within its own grimwalls.
The first inrushing wave of yellow warriors recoiled from theslashing blades of ten of Helium's veteran fighting men. A dozenOkarian corpses blocked the doorway, but over the gruesome barriera score more of their fellows dashed, shouting their hoarse andhideous war-cry.
Upon the bloody mound we met them, hand to hand, stabbing wherethe quarters were too close to cut, thrusting when we could pusha foeman to arm's length; and mingled with the wild cry of theOkarian there rose and fell the glorious words: "For Helium! ForHelium!" that for countless ages have spurred on the bravest of thebrave to those deeds of valor that have sent the fame of Helium'sheroes broadcast throughout the length and breadth of a world.
Now were the fetters struck from the last of the red men, andthirteen strong we met each new charge of the soldiers of SalensusOll. Scarce one of us but bled from a score of wounds, yet nonehad fallen.
From without we saw hundreds of guardsmen pouring into the courtyard,and along the lower corridor from which I had found my way to thearmory we could hear the clank of metal and the shouting of men.
In a moment we should be attacked from two sides, and with allour prowess we could not hope to withstand the unequal odds whichwould thus divide our attention and our small numbers.
"To the upper chambers!" cried Tardos Mors, and a moment later wefell back toward the runway that led to the floors above.
Here another bloody battle was waged with the force of yellow menwho charged into the armory as we fell back from the doorway. Herewe lost our first man, a noble fellow whom we could ill spare; butat length all had backed into the runway except myself, who remainedto hold back the Okarians until the others were safe above.
In the mouth of the narrow spiral but a single warrior could attackme at a time, so that I had little difficulty in holding them allback for the brief moment that was necessary. Then, backing slowlybefore them, I commenced the ascent of the spiral.
All the long way to the tower's top the guardsmen pressed me closely.When one went down before my sword another scrambled over the deadman to take his place; and thus, taking an awful toll with eachfew feet gained, I came to the spacious glass-walled watchtower ofKadabra.
Here my companions clustered ready to take my place, and for amoment's respite I stepped to one side while they held the enemyoff.
From the lofty perch a view could be had for miles in every direction.Toward the south stretched the rugged, ice-clad waste to the edgeof the mighty barrier. Toward the east and west, and dimly towardthe north I descried other Okarian cities, while in the immediateforeground, just beyond the walls of Kadabra, the grim guardianshaft reared its somber head.
Then I cast my eyes d
own into the streets of Kadabra, from whicha sudden tumult had arisen, and there I saw a battle raging, andbeyond the city's walls I saw armed men marching in great columnstoward a near-by gate.
Eagerly I pressed forward against the glass wall of the observatory,scarce daring to credit the testimony of my own eyes. But atlast I could doubt no longer, and with a shout of joy that rosestrangely in the midst of the cursing and groaning of the battlingmen at the entrance to the chamber, I called to Tardos Mors.
As he joined me I pointed down into the streets of Kadabra and tothe advancing columns beyond, above which floated bravely in thearctic air the flags and banners of Helium.
An instant later every red man in the lofty chamber had seen theinspiring sight, and such a shout of thanksgiving arose as I warrantnever before echoed through that age-old pile of stone.
But still we must fight on, for though our troops had enteredKadabra, the city was yet far from capitulation, nor had the palacebeen even assaulted. Turn and turn about we held the top of therunway while the others feasted their eyes upon the sight of ourvaliant countrymen battling far beneath us.
Now they have rushed the palace gate! Great battering-rams aredashed against its formidable surface. Now they are repulsed bya deadly shower of javelins from the wall's top!
Once again they charge, but a sortie by a large force of Okariansfrom an intersecting avenue crumples the head of the column, andthe men of Helium go down, fighting, beneath an overwhelming force.
The palace gate flies open and a force of the jeddak's own guard,picked men from the flower of the Okarian army, sallies forthto shatter the broken regiments. For a moment it looks as thoughnothing could avert defeat, and then I see a noble figure upona mighty thoat--not the tiny thoat of the red man, but one of hishuge cousins of the dead sea bottoms.
The warrior hews his way to the front, and behind him rally thedisorganized soldiers of Helium. As he raises his head aloft tofling a challenge at the men upon the palace walls I see his face,and my heart swells in pride and happiness as the red warriors leapto the side of their leader and win back the ground that they hadbut just lost--the face of him upon the mighty thoat is the faceof my son--Carthoris of Helium.
At his side fights a huge Martian war-hound, nor did I need asecond look to know that it was Woola--my faithful Woola who hadthus well performed his arduous task and brought the succoringlegions in the nick of time.
"In the nick of time?"
Who yet might say that they were not too late to save, but surelythey could avenge! And such retribution as that unconquered armywould deal out to the hateful Okarians! I sighed to think that Imight not be alive to witness it.
Again I turned to the windows. The red men had not yet forced theouter palace wall, but they were fighting nobly against the bestthat Okar afforded--valiant warriors who contested every inch ofthe way.
Now my attention was caught by a new element without the city wall--agreat body of mounted warriors looming large above the red men.They were the huge green allies of Helium--the savage hordes fromthe dead sea bottoms of the far south.
In grim and terrible silence they sped on toward the gate, thepadded hoofs of their frightful mounts giving forth no sound. Intothe doomed city they charged, and as they wheeled across the wideplaza before the palace of the Jeddak of Jeddaks I saw, riding attheir head, the mighty figure of their mighty leader--Tars Tarkas,Jeddak of Thark.
My wish, then, was to be gratified, for I was to see my old friendbattling once again, and though not shoulder to shoulder with him,I, too, would be fighting in the same cause here in the high towerof Okar.
Nor did it seem that our foes would ever cease their stubbornattacks, for still they came, though the way to our chamber wasoften clogged with the bodies of their dead. At times they wouldpause long enough to drag back the impeding corpses, and then freshwarriors would forge upward to taste the cup of death.
I had been taking my turn with the others in defending the approachto our lofty retreat when Mors Kajak, who had been watching thebattle in the street below, called aloud in sudden excitement.There was a note of apprehension in his voice that brought me tohis side the instant that I could turn my place over to another,and as I reached him he pointed far out across the waste of snowand ice toward the southern horizon.
"Alas!" he cried, "that I should be forced to witness cruel fatebetray them without power to warn or aid; but they be past eithernow."
As I looked in the direction he indicated I saw the cause of hisperturbation. A mighty fleet of fliers was approaching majesticallytoward Kadabra from the direction of the ice-barrier. On and onthey came with ever increasing velocity.
"The grim shaft that they call the Guardian of the North is beckoningto them," said Mors Kajak sadly, "just as it beckoned to TardosMors and his great fleet; see where they lie, crumpled and broken,a grim and terrible monument to the mighty force of destructionwhich naught can resist."
I, too, saw; but something else I saw that Mors Kajak did not; inmy mind's eye I saw a buried chamber whose walls were lined withstrange instruments and devices.
In the center of the chamber was a long table, and before it sat alittle, pop-eyed old man counting his money; but, plainest of all,I saw upon the wall a great switch with a small magnet inlaid withinthe surface of its black handle.
Then I glanced out at the fast-approaching fleet. In five minutesthat mighty armada of the skies would be bent and worthless scrap,lying at the base of the shaft beyond the city's wall, and yellowhordes would be loosed from another gate to rush out upon the fewsurvivors stumbling blindly down through the mass of wreckage;then the apts would come. I shuddered at the thought, for I couldvividly picture the whole horrible scene.
Quick have I always been to decide and act. The impulse that movesme and the doing of the thing seem simultaneous; for if my mindgoes through the tedious formality of reasoning, it must be asubconscious act of which I am not objectively aware. Psychologiststell me that, as the subconscious does not reason, too close ascrutiny of my mental activities might prove anything but flattering;but be that as it may, I have often won success while the thinkerwould have been still at the endless task of comparing variousjudgments.
And now celerity of action was the prime essential to the successof the thing that I had decided upon.
Grasping my sword more firmly in my hand, I called to the red manat the opening to the runway to stand aside.
"Way for the Prince of Helium!" I shouted; and before the astonishedyellow man whose misfortune it was to be at the fighting end ofthe line at that particular moment could gather his wits togethermy sword had decapitated him, and I was rushing like a mad bulldown upon those behind him.
"Way for the Prince of Helium!" I shouted as I cut a path throughthe astonished guardsmen of Salensus Oll.
Hewing to right and left, I beat my way down that warrior-chokedspiral until, near the bottom, those below, thinking that an armywas descending upon them, turned and fled.
The armory at the first floor was vacant when I entered it, thelast of the Okarians having fled into the courtyard, so none sawme continue down the spiral toward the corridor beneath.
Here I ran as rapidly as my legs would carry me toward the fivecorners, and there plunged into the passageway that led to thestation of the old miser.
Without the formality of a knock, I burst into the room. There satthe old man at his table; but as he saw me he sprang to his feet,drawing his sword.
With scarce more than a glance toward him I leaped for the greatswitch; but, quick as I was, that wiry old fellow was there beforeme.
How he did it I shall never know, nor does it seem credible thatany Martian-born creature could approximate the marvelous speed ofmy earthly muscles.
Like a tiger he turned upon me, and I was quick to see why Solanhad been chosen for this important duty.
Never in all my life have I seen such wondrous swordsmanship andsuch uncanny agility as that ancient bag of bones displayed. He wasin
forty places at the same time, and before I had half a chanceto awaken to my danger he was like to have made a monkey of me,and a dead monkey at that.
It is strange how new and unexpected conditions bring out unguessedability to meet them.
That day in the buried chamber beneath the palace of Salensus OllI learned what swordsmanship meant, and to what heights of swordmastery I could achieve when pitted against such a wizard of theblade as Solan.
For a time he liked to have bested me; but presently the latentpossibilities that must have been lying dormant within me for alifetime came to the fore, and I fought as I had never dreamed ahuman being could fight.
That that duel-royal should have taken place in the dark recessesof a cellar, without a single appreciative eye to witness it hasalways seemed to me almost a world calamity--at least from theviewpoint Barsoomian, where bloody strife is the first and greatestconsideration of individuals, nations, and races.
I was fighting to reach the switch, Solan to prevent me; and, thoughwe stood not three feet from it, I could not win an inch towardit, for he forced me back an inch for the first five minutes ofour battle.
I knew that if I were to throw it in time to save the oncomingfleet it must be done in the next few seconds, and so I tried myold rushing tactics; but I might as well have rushed a brick wallfor all that Solan gave way.
In fact, I came near to impaling myself upon his point for mypains; but right was on my side, and I think that that must give aman greater confidence than though he knew himself to be battlingin a wicked cause.
At least, I did not want in confidence; and when I next rushed Solanit was to one side with implicit confidence that he must turn tomeet my new line of attack, and turn he did, so that now we foughtwith our sides towards the coveted goal--the great switch stoodwithin my reach upon my right hand.
To uncover my breast for an instant would have been to court suddendeath, but I saw no other way than to chance it, if by so doing Imight rescue that oncoming, succoring fleet; and so, in the faceof a wicked sword-thrust, I reached out my point and caught thegreat switch a sudden blow that released it from its seating.
So surprised and horrified was Solan that he forgot to finish histhrust; instead, he wheeled toward the switch with a loud shriek--ashriek which was his last, for before his hand could touch thelever it sought, my sword's point had passed through his heart.