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Page 25
Both the girl and the green warrior stood silent in thought for
some moments. The former it was who eventually broke the silence.
"Never had I considered the matter in that light before," she said.
"Indeed would I give my life a thousand times if I could but save
a single soul from the awful life that I have led in this cruel
place. Yes, you are right, and I will go with you as far as we
can go; but I doubt that we ever shall escape."
I turned an inquiring glance toward the Thark.
"To the gates of Issus, or to the bottom of Korus," spoke the green
warrior; "to the snows to the north or to the snows to the south,
Tars Tarkas follows where John Carter leads. I have spoken."
"Come, then," I cried, "we must make the start, for we could not be
further from escape than we now are in the heart of this mountain
and within the four walls of this chamber of death."
"Come, then," said the girl, "but do not flatter yourself that
you can find no worse place than this within the territory of the
therns."
So saying she swung the secret panel that separated us from the
apartment in which I had found her, and we stepped through once
more into the presence of the other prisoners.
There were in all ten red Martians, men and women, and when we had
briefly explained our plan they decided to join forces with us,
though it was evident that it was with some considerable misgivings
that they thus tempted fate by opposing an ancient superstition,
even though each knew through cruel experience the fallacy of its
entire fabric.
Thuvia, the girl whom I had first freed, soon had the others at
liberty. Tars Tarkas and I stripped the bodies of the two therns
of their weapons, which included swords, daggers, and two revolvers
of the curious and deadly type manufactured by the red Martians.
We distributed the weapons as far as they would go among our
followers, giving the firearms to two of the women; Thuvia being
one so armed.
With the latter as our guide we set off rapidly but cautiously
through a maze of passages, crossing great chambers hewn from the
solid metal of the cliff, following winding corridors, ascending
steep inclines, and now and again concealing ourselves in dark
recesses at the sound of approaching footsteps.
Our destination, Thuvia said, was a distant storeroom where arms
and ammunition in plenty might be found. From there she was to
lead us to the summit of the cliffs, from where it would require
both wondrous wit and mighty fighting to win our way through the
very heart of the stronghold of the Holy Therns to the world without.
"And even then, O Prince," she cried, "the arm of the Holy Thern is
long. It reaches to every nation of Barsoom. His secret temples
are hidden in the heart of every community. Wherever we go should
we escape we shall find that word of our coming has preceded us, and
death awaits us before we may pollute the air with our blasphemies."
We had proceeded for possibly an hour without serious interruption,
and Thuvia had just whispered to me that we were approaching our
first destination, when on entering a great chamber we came upon
a man, evidently a thern.
He wore in addition to his leathern trappings and jewelled ornaments
a great circlet of gold about his brow in the exact centre of which
was set an immense stone, the exact counterpart of that which I
had seen upon the breast of the little old man at the atmosphere
plant nearly twenty years before.
It is the one priceless jewel of Barsoom. Only two are known to
exist, and these were worn as the insignia of their rank and position
by the two old men in whose charge was placed the operation of the
great engines which pump the artificial atmosphere to all parts
of Mars from the huge atmosphere plant, the secret to whose mighty
portals placed in my possession the ability to save from immediate
extinction the life of a whole world.
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