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Page 16
"But now we know that it was no blasphemy, that the legend is a
true one, and that the man told only of what he saw; but what does
it profit us, John Carter, since even should we escape, we also
would be treated as blasphemers? We are between the wild thoat of
certainty and the mad zitidar of fact--we can escape neither."
"As Earth men say, we are between the devil and the deep sea, Tars
Tarkas," I replied, nor could I help but smile at our dilemma.
"There is naught that we can do but take things as they come,
and at least have the satisfaction of knowing that whoever slays
us eventually will have far greater numbers of their own dead to
count than they will get in return. White ape or plant man, green
Barsoomian or red man, whosoever it shall be that takes the last
toll from us will know that it is costly in lives to wipe out John
Carter, Prince of the House of Tardos Mors, and Tars Tarkas, Jeddak
of Thark, at the same time."
I could not help but laugh at him grim humour, and he joined in with
me in one of those rare laughs of real enjoyment which was one of
the attributes of this fierce Tharkian chief which marked him from
the others of his kind.
"But about yourself, John Carter," he cried at last. "If you have
not been here all these years where indeed have you been, and how
is it that I find you here to-day?"
"I have been back to Earth," I replied. "For ten long Earth years I
have been praying and hoping for the day that would carry me once
more to this grim old planet of yours, for which, with all its
cruel and terrible customs, I feel a bond of sympathy and love even
greater than for the world that gave me birth.
"For ten years have I been enduring a living death of uncertainty
and doubt as to whether Dejah Thoris lived, and now that for the
first time in all these years my prayers have been answered and my
doubt relieved I find myself, through a cruel whim of fate, hurled
into the one tiny spot of all Barsoom from which there is apparently
no escape, and if there were, at a price which would put out for
ever the last flickering hope which I may cling to of seeing my
princess again in this life--and you have seen to-day with what
pitiful futility man yearns toward a material hereafter.
"Only a bare half-hour before I saw you battling with the plant
men I was standing in the moonlight upon the banks of a broad river
that taps the eastern shore of Earth's most blessed land. I have
answered you, my friend. Do you believe?"
"I believe," replied Tars Tarkas, "though I cannot understand."
As we talked I had been searching the interior of the chamber with
my eyes. It was, perhaps, two hundred feet in length and half as
broad, with what appeared to be a doorway in the centre of the wall
directly opposite that through which we had entered.
The apartment was hewn from the material of the cliff, showing
mostly dull gold in the dim light which a single minute radium
illuminator in the centre of the roof diffused throughout its great
dimensions. Here and there polished surfaces of ruby, emerald,
and diamond patched the golden walls and ceiling. The floor was of
another material, very hard, and worn by much use to the smoothness
of glass. Aside from the two doors I could discern no sign of other
aperture, and as one we knew to be locked against us I approached
the other.
As I extended my hand to search for the controlling button, that
cruel and mocking laugh rang out once more, so close to me this
time that I involuntarily shrank back, tightening my grip upon the
hilt of my great sword.
And then from the far corner of the great chamber a hollow voice
chanted: "There is no hope, there is no hope; the dead return not,
the dead return not; nor is there any resurrection. Hope not, for
there is no hope."
Though our eyes instantly turned toward the spot from which the
voice seemed to emanate, there was no one in sight, and I must
admit that cold shivers played along my spine and the short hairs
at the base of my head stiffened and rose up, as do those upon a
hound's neck when in the night his eyes see those uncanny things
which are hidden from the sight of man.
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