CHAPTER VIII
THE DEPTHS OF OMEAN
Now I realized why the black pirate had kept me engrossed with hisstrange tale. For miles he had sensed the approach of succour, and butfor that single tell-tale glance the battleship would have beendirectly above us in another moment, and the boarding party which wasdoubtless even now swinging in their harness from the ship's keel,would have swarmed our deck, placing my rising hope of escape in suddenand total eclipse.
I was too old a hand in aerial warfare to be at a loss now for theright manoeuvre. Simultaneously I reversed the engines and dropped thelittle vessel a sheer hundred feet.
Above my head I could see the dangling forms of the boarding party asthe battleship raced over us. Then I rose at a sharp angle, throwingmy speed lever to its last notch.
Like a bolt from a crossbow my splendid craft shot its steel prowstraight at the whirring propellers of the giant above us. If I couldbut touch them the huge bulk would be disabled for hours and escapeonce more possible.
At the same instant the sun shot above the horizon, disclosing ahundred grim, black faces peering over the stern of the battleship uponus.
At sight of us a shout of rage went up from a hundred throats. Orderswere shouted, but it was too late to save the giant propellers, andwith a crash we rammed them.
Instantly with the shock of impact I reversed my engine, but my prowwas wedged in the hole it had made in the battleship's stern. Only asecond I hung there before tearing away, but that second was amply longto swarm my deck with black devils.
There was no fight. In the first place there was no room to fight. Wewere simply submerged by numbers. Then as swords menaced me a commandfrom Xodar stayed the hands of his fellows.
"Secure them," he said, "but do not injure them."
Several of the pirates already had released Xodar. He now personallyattended to my disarming and saw that I was properly bound. At leasthe thought that the binding was secure. It would have been had I beena Martian, but I had to smile at the puny strands that confined mywrists. When the time came I could snap them as they had been cottonstring.
The girl they bound also, and then they fastened us together. In themeantime they had brought our craft alongside the disabled battleship,and soon we were transported to the latter's deck.
Fully a thousand black men manned the great engine of destruction. Herdecks were crowded with them as they pressed forward as far asdiscipline would permit to get a glimpse of their captives.
The girl's beauty elicited many brutal comments and vulgar jests. Itwas evident that these self-thought supermen were far inferior to thered men of Barsoom in refinement and in chivalry.
My close-cropped black hair and thern complexion were the subjects ofmuch comment. When Xodar told his fellow nobles of my fighting abilityand strange origin they crowded about me with numerous questions.
The fact that I wore the harness and metal of a thern who had beenkilled by a member of my party convinced them that I was an enemy oftheir hereditary foes, and placed me on a better footing in theirestimation.
Without exception the blacks were handsome men, and well built. Theofficers were conspicuous through the wondrous magnificence of theirresplendent trappings. Many harnesses were so encrusted with gold,platinum, silver and precious stones as to entirely hide the leatherbeneath.
The harness of the commanding officer was a solid mass of diamonds.Against the ebony background of his skin they blazed out with apeculiarly accentuated effulgence. The whole scene was enchanting.The handsome men; the barbaric splendour of the accoutrements; thepolished skeel wood of the deck; the gloriously grained sorapus of thecabins, inlaid with priceless jewels and precious metals in intricateand beautiful design; the burnished gold of hand rails; the shiningmetal of the guns.
Phaidor and I were taken below decks, where, still fast bound, we werethrown into a small compartment which contained a single port-hole. Asour escort left us they barred the door behind them.
We could hear the men working on the broken propellers, and from theport-hole we could see that the vessel was drifting lazily toward thesouth.
For some time neither of us spoke. Each was occupied with his ownthoughts. For my part I was wondering as to the fate of Tars Tarkasand the girl, Thuvia.
Even if they succeeded in eluding pursuit they must eventually fallinto the hands of either red men or green, and as fugitives from theValley Dor they could look for but little else than a swift andterrible death.
How I wished that I might have accompanied them. It seemed to me thatI could not fail to impress upon the intelligent red men of Barsoom thewicked deception that a cruel and senseless superstition had foistedupon them.
Tardos Mors would believe me. Of that I was positive. And that hewould have the courage of his convictions my knowledge of his characterassured me. Dejah Thoris would believe me. Not a doubt as to thatentered my head. Then there were a thousand of my red and greenwarrior friends whom I knew would face eternal damnation gladly for mysake. Like Tars Tarkas, where I led they would follow.
My only danger lay in that should I ever escape the black pirates itmight be to fall into the hands of unfriendly red or green men. Thenit would mean short shrift for me.
Well, there seemed little to worry about on that score, for thelikelihood of my ever escaping the blacks was extremely remote.
The girl and I were linked together by a rope which permitted us tomove only about three or four feet from each other. When we hadentered the compartment we had seated ourselves upon a low benchbeneath the porthole. The bench was the only furniture of the room.It was of sorapus wood. The floor, ceiling and walls were ofcarborundum aluminum, a light, impenetrable composition extensivelyutilized in the construction of Martian fighting ships.
As I had sat meditating upon the future my eyes had been riveted uponthe port-hole which was just level with them as I sat. Suddenly Ilooked toward Phaidor. She was regarding me with a strange expressionI had not before seen upon her face. She was very beautiful then.
Instantly her white lids veiled her eyes, and I thought I discovered adelicate flush tingeing her cheek. Evidently she was embarrassed athaving been detected in the act of staring at a lesser creature, Ithought.
"Do you find the study of the lower orders interesting?" I asked,laughing.
She looked up again with a nervous but relieved little laugh.
"Oh very," she said, "especially when they have such excellentprofiles."
It was my turn to flush, but I did not. I felt that she was poking funat me, and I admired a brave heart that could look for humour on theroad to death, and so I laughed with her.
"Do you know where we are going?" she said.
"To solve the mystery of the eternal hereafter, I imagine," I replied.
"I am going to a worse fate than that," she said, with a little shudder.
"What do you mean?"
"I can only guess," she replied, "since no thern damsel of all themillions that have been stolen away by black pirates during the agesthey have raided our domains has ever returned to narrate herexperiences among them. That they never take a man prisoner lendsstrength to the belief that the fate of the girls they steal is worsethan death."
"Is it not a just retribution?" I could not help but ask.
"What do you mean?"
"Do not the therns themselves do likewise with the poor creatures whotake the voluntary pilgrimage down the River of Mystery? Was notThuvia for fifteen years a plaything and a slave? Is it less than justthat you should suffer as you have caused others to suffer?"
"You do not understand," she replied. "We therns are a holy race. Itis an honour to a lesser creature to be a slave among us. Did we notoccasionally save a few of the lower orders that stupidly float down anunknown river to an unknown end all would become the prey of the plantmen and the apes."
"But do you not by every means encourage the superstition among thoseof the outside world?" I argued. "That
is the wickedest of your deeds.Can you tell me why you foster the cruel deception?"
"All life on Barsoom," she said, "is created solely for the support ofthe race of therns. How else could we live did the outer world notfurnish our labour and our food? Think you that a thern would demeanhimself by labour?"
"It is true then that you eat human flesh?" I asked in horror.
She looked at me in pitying commiseration for my ignorance.
"Truly we eat the flesh of the lower orders. Do not you also?"
"The flesh of beasts, yes," I replied, "but not the flesh of man."
"As man may eat of the flesh of beasts, so may gods eat of the flesh ofman. The Holy Therns are the gods of Barsoom."
I was disgusted and I imagine that I showed it.
"You are an unbeliever now," she continued gently, "but should we befortunate enough to escape the clutches of the black pirates and comeagain to the court of Matai Shang I think that we shall find anargument to convince you of the error of your ways. And--," shehesitated, "perhaps we shall find a way to keep you as--as--one of us."
Again her eyes dropped to the floor, and a faint colour suffused hercheek. I could not understand her meaning; nor did I for a long time.Dejah Thoris was wont to say that in some things I was a veritablesimpleton, and I guess that she was right.
"I fear that I would ill requite your father's hospitality," Ianswered, "since the first thing that I should do were I a thern wouldbe to set an armed guard at the mouth of the River Iss to escort thepoor deluded voyagers back to the outer world. Also should I devote mylife to the extermination of the hideous plant men and their horriblecompanions, the great white apes."
She looked at me really horror struck.
"No, no," she cried, "you must not say such terribly sacrilegiousthings--you must not even think them. Should they ever guess that youentertained such frightful thoughts, should we chance to regain thetemples of the therns, they would mete out a frightful death to you.Not even my--my--" Again she flushed, and started over. "Not even Icould save you."
I said no more. Evidently it was useless. She was even more steepedin superstition than the Martians of the outer world. They onlyworshipped a beautiful hope for a life of love and peace and happinessin the hereafter. The therns worshipped the hideous plant men and theapes, or at least they reverenced them as the abodes of the departedspirits of their own dead.
At this point the door of our prison opened to admit Xodar.
He smiled pleasantly at me, and when he smiled his expression waskindly--anything but cruel or vindictive.
"Since you cannot escape under any circumstances," he said, "I cannotsee the necessity for keeping you confined below. I will cut yourbonds and you may come on deck. You will witness something veryinteresting, and as you never shall return to the outer world it willdo no harm to permit you to see it. You will see what no other thanthe First Born and their slaves know the existence of--the subterraneanentrance to the Holy Land, to the real heaven of Barsoom.
"It will be an excellent lesson for this daughter of the therns," headded, "for she shall see the Temple of Issus, and Issus, perchance,shall embrace her."
Phaidor's head went high.
"What blasphemy is this, dog of a pirate?" she cried. "Issus wouldwipe out your entire breed an' you ever came within sight of hertemple."
"You have much to learn, thern," replied Xodar, with an ugly smile,"nor do I envy you the manner in which you will learn it."
As we came on deck I saw to my surprise that the vessel was passingover a great field of snow and ice. As far as the eye could reach inany direction naught else was visible.
There could be but one solution to the mystery. We were above thesouth polar ice cap. Only at the poles of Mars is there ice or snowupon the planet. No sign of life appeared below us. Evidently we weretoo far south even for the great fur-bearing animals which the Martiansso delight in hunting.
Xodar was at my side as I stood looking out over the ship's rail.
"What course?" I asked him.
"A little west of south," he replied. "You will see the Otz Valleydirectly. We shall skirt it for a few hundred miles."
"The Otz Valley!" I exclaimed; "but, man, is not there where lie thedomains of the therns from which I but just escaped?"
"Yes," answered Xodar. "You crossed this ice field last night in thelong chase that you led us. The Otz Valley lies in a mighty depressionat the south pole. It is sunk thousands of feet below the level of thesurrounding country, like a great round bowl. A hundred miles from itsnorthern boundary rise the Otz Mountains which circle the inner Valleyof Dor, in the exact centre of which lies the Lost Sea of Korus. Onthe shore of this sea stands the Golden Temple of Issus in the Land ofthe First Born. It is there that we are bound."
As I looked I commenced to realize why it was that in all the ages onlyone had escaped from the Valley Dor. My only wonder was that even theone had been successful. To cross this frozen, wind-swept waste ofbleak ice alone and on foot would be impossible.
"Only by air boat could the journey be made," I finished aloud.
"It was thus that one did escape the therns in bygone times; but nonehas ever escaped the First Born," said Xodar, with a touch of pride inhis voice.
We had now reached the southernmost extremity of the great ice barrier.It ended abruptly in a sheer wall thousands of feet high at the base ofwhich stretched a level valley, broken here and there by low rollinghills and little clumps of forest, and with tiny rivers formed by themelting of the ice barrier at its base.
Once we passed far above what seemed to be a deep canyon-like riftstretching from the ice wall on the north across the valley as far asthe eye could reach. "That is the bed of the River Iss," said Xodar."It runs far beneath the ice field, and below the level of the ValleyOtz, but its canyon is open here."
Presently I descried what I took to be a village, and pointing it outto Xodar asked him what it might be.
"It is a village of lost souls," he answered, laughing. "This stripbetween the ice barrier and the mountains is considered neutral ground.Some turn off from their voluntary pilgrimage down the Iss, and,scaling the awful walls of its canyon below us, stop in the valley.Also a slave now and then escapes from the therns and makes his wayhither.
"They do not attempt to recapture such, since there is no escape fromthis outer valley, and as a matter of fact they fear the patrollingcruisers of the First Born too much to venture from their own domains.
"The poor creatures of this outer valley are not molested by us sincethey have nothing that we desire, nor are they numerically strongenough to give us an interesting fight--so we too leave them alone.
"There are several villages of them, but they have increased in numbersbut little in many years since they are always warring amongthemselves."
Now we swung a little north of west, leaving the valley of lost souls,and shortly I discerned over our starboard bow what appeared to be ablack mountain rising from the desolate waste of ice. It was not highand seemed to have a flat top.
Xodar had left us to attend to some duty on the vessel, and Phaidor andI stood alone beside the rail. The girl had not once spoken since wehad been brought to the deck.
"Is what he has been telling me true?" I asked her.
"In part, yes," she answered. "That about the outer valley is true,but what he says of the location of the Temple of Issus in the centreof his country is false. If it is not false--" she hesitated. "Oh itcannot be true, it cannot be true. For if it were true then forcountless ages have my people gone to torture and ignominious death atthe hands of their cruel enemies, instead of to the beautiful LifeEternal that we have been taught to believe Issus holds for us."
"As the lesser Barsoomians of the outer world have been lured by you tothe terrible Valley Dor, so may it be that the therns themselves havebeen lured by the First Born to an equally horrid fate," I suggested."It would be a stern and awful retribution, Phaidor; but a just one."
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"I cannot believe it," she said.
"We shall see," I answered, and then we fell silent again for we wererapidly approaching the black mountains, which in some indefinable wayseemed linked with the answer to our problem.
As we neared the dark, truncated cone the vessel's speed was diminisheduntil we barely moved. Then we topped the crest of the mountain andbelow us I saw yawning the mouth of a huge circular well, the bottom ofwhich was lost in inky blackness.
The diameter of this enormous pit was fully a thousand feet. The wallswere smooth and appeared to be composed of a black, basaltic rock.
For a moment the vessel hovered motionless directly above the centre ofthe gaping void, then slowly she began to settle into the black chasm.Lower and lower she sank until as darkness enveloped us her lights werethrown on and in the dim halo of her own radiance the monsterbattleship dropped on and on down into what seemed to me must be thevery bowels of Barsoom.
For quite half an hour we descended and then the shaft terminatedabruptly in the dome of a mighty subterranean world. Below us rose andfell the billows of a buried sea. A phosphorescent radianceilluminated the scene. Thousands of ships dotted the bosom of theocean. Little islands rose here and there to support the strange andcolourless vegetation of this strange world.
Slowly and with majestic grace the battleship dropped until she restedon the water. Her great propellers had been drawn and housed duringour descent of the shaft and in their place had been run out thesmaller but more powerful water propellers. As these commenced torevolve the ship took up its journey once more, riding the new elementas buoyantly and as safely as she had the air.
Phaidor and I were dumbfounded. Neither had either heard or dreamedthat such a world existed beneath the surface of Barsoom.
Nearly all the vessels we saw were war craft. There were a fewlighters and barges, but none of the great merchantmen such as ply theupper air between the cities of the outer world.
"Here is the harbour of the navy of the First Born," said a voicebehind us, and turning we saw Xodar watching us with an amused smile onhis lips.
"This sea," he continued, "is larger than Korus. It receives thewaters of the lesser sea above it. To keep it from filling above acertain level we have four great pumping stations that force theoversupply back into the reservoirs far north from which the red mendraw the water which irrigates their farm lands."
A new light burst on me with this explanation. The red men had alwaysconsidered it a miracle that caused great columns of water to spurtfrom the solid rock of their reservoir sides to increase the supply ofthe precious liquid which is so scarce in the outer world of Mars.
Never had their learned men been able to fathom the secret of thesource of this enormous volume of water. As ages passed they hadsimply come to accept it as a matter of course and ceased to questionits origin.
We passed several islands on which were strangely shaped circularbuildings, apparently roofless, and pierced midway between the groundand their tops with small, heavily barred windows. They bore theearmarks of prisons, which were further accentuated by the armed guardswho squatted on low benches without, or patrolled the short beach lines.
Few of these islets contained over an acre of ground, but presently wesighted a much larger one directly ahead. This proved to be ourdestination, and the great ship was soon made fast against the steepshore.
Xodar signalled us to follow him and with a half-dozen officers and menwe left the battleship and approached a large oval structure a coupleof hundred yards from the shore.
"You shall soon see Issus," said Xodar to Phaidor. "The few prisonerswe take are presented to her. Occasionally she selects slaves fromamong them to replenish the ranks of her handmaidens. None servesIssus above a single year," and there was a grim smile on the black'slips that lent a cruel and sinister meaning to his simple statement.
Phaidor, though loath to believe that Issus was allied to such asthese, had commenced to entertain doubts and fears. She clung veryclosely to me, no longer the proud daughter of the Master of Life andDeath upon Barsoom, but a young and frightened girl in the power ofrelentless enemies.
The building which we now entered was entirely roofless. In its centrewas a long tank of water, set below the level of the floor like theswimming pool of a natatorium. Near one side of the pool floated anodd-looking black object. Whether it were some strange monster ofthese buried waters, or a queer raft, I could not at once perceive.
We were soon to know, however, for as we reached the edge of the pooldirectly above the thing, Xodar cried out a few words in a strangetongue. Immediately a hatch cover was raised from the surface of theobject, and a black seaman sprang from the bowels of the strange craft.
Xodar addressed the seaman.
"Transmit to your officer," he said, "the commands of Dator Xodar. Sayto him that Dator Xodar, with officers and men, escorting twoprisoners, would be transported to the gardens of Issus beside theGolden Temple."
"Blessed be the shell of thy first ancestor, most noble Dator," repliedthe man. "It shall be done even as thou sayest," and raising bothhands, palms backward, above his head after the manner of salute whichis common to all races of Barsoom, he disappeared once more into theentrails of his ship.
A moment later an officer resplendent in the gorgeous trappings of hisrank appeared on deck and welcomed Xodar to the vessel, and in thelatter's wake we filed aboard and below.
The cabin in which we found ourselves extended entirely across theship, having port-holes on either side below the water line. No soonerwere all below than a number of commands were given, in accordance withwhich the hatch was closed and secured, and the vessel commenced tovibrate to the rhythmic purr of its machinery.
"Where can we be going in such a tiny pool of water?" asked Phaidor.
"Not up," I replied, "for I noticed particularly that while thebuilding is roofless it is covered with a strong metal grating."
"Then where?" she asked again.
"From the appearance of the craft I judge we are going down," I replied.
Phaidor shuddered. For such long ages have the waters of Barsoom'sseas been a thing of tradition only that even this daughter of thetherns, born as she had been within sight of Mars' only remaining sea,had the same terror of deep water as is a common attribute of allMartians.
Presently the sensation of sinking became very apparent. We were goingdown swiftly. Now we could hear the water rushing past the port-holes,and in the dim light that filtered through them to the water beyond theswirling eddies were plainly visible.
Phaidor grasped my arm.
"Save me!" she whispered. "Save me and your every wish shall begranted. Anything within the power of the Holy Therns to give will beyours. Phaidor--" she stumbled a little here, and then in a very lowvoice, "Phaidor already is yours."
I felt very sorry for the poor child, and placed my hand over herswhere it rested on my arm. I presume my motive was misunderstood, forwith a swift glance about the apartment to assure herself that we werealone, she threw both her arms about my neck and dragged my face downto hers.