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Page 33
"Do you understand now, O Prince," she said, "why a million warriors
guard the domains of the Holy Therns by day and by night?"
"The scene you are witnessing now is but a repetition of what I
have seen enacted a score of times during the fifteen years I have
been a prisoner here. From time immemorial the black pirates of
Barsoom have preyed upon the Holy Therns.
"Yet they never carry their expeditions to a point, as one might
readily believe it was in their power to do, where the extermination
of the race of therns is threatened. It is as though they but
utilized the race as playthings, with which they satisfy their
ferocious lust for fighting; and from whom they collect toll in
arms and ammunition and in prisoners."
"Why don't they jump in and destroy these fliers?" I asked. "That
would soon put a stop to the attacks, or at least the blacks would
scarce be so bold. Why, see how perfectly unguarded they leave
their craft, as though they were lying safe in their own hangars
at home."
"The therns do not dare. They tried it once, ages ago, but the
next night and for a whole moon thereafter a thousand great black
battleships circled the Mountains of Otz, pouring tons of projectiles
upon the temples, the gardens, and the courts, until every thern who
was not killed was driven for safety into the subterranean galleries.
"The therns know that they live at all only by the sufferance of
the black men. They were near to extermination that once and they
will not venture risking it again."
As she ceased talking a new element was instilled into the conflict.
It came from a source equally unlooked for by either thern or pirate.
The great banths which we had liberated in the garden had evidently
been awed at first by the sound of the battle, the yelling of the
warriors and the loud report of rifle and bomb.
But now they must have become angered by the continuous noise and
excited by the smell of new blood, for all of a sudden a great form
shot from a clump of low shrubbery into the midst of a struggling
mass of humanity. A horrid scream of bestial rage broke from the
banth as he felt warm flesh beneath his powerful talons.
As though his cry was but a signal to the others, the entire great
pack hurled themselves among the fighters. Panic reigned in an
instant. Thern and black man turned alike against the common enemy,
for the banths showed no partiality toward either.
The awful beasts bore down a hundred men by the mere weight of their
great bodies as they hurled themselves into the thick of the fight.
Leaping and clawing, they mowed down the warriors with their powerful
paws, turning for an instant to rend their victims with frightful
fangs.
The scene was fascinating in its terribleness, but suddenly it came
to me that we were wasting valuable time watching this conflict,
which in itself might prove a means of our escape.
The therns were so engaged with their terrible assailants that now,
if ever, escape should be comparatively easy. I turned to search
for an opening through the contending hordes. If we could but reach
the ramparts we might find that the pirates somewhere had thinned
the guarding forces and left a way open to us to the world without.
As my eyes wandered about the garden, the sight of the hundreds of
air craft lying unguarded around us suggested the simplest avenue
to freedom. Why it had not occurred to me before! I was thoroughly
familiar with the mechanism of every known make of flier on Barsoom.
For nine years I had sailed and fought with the navy of Helium.
I had raced through space on the tiny one-man air scout and I had
commanded the greatest battleship that ever had floated in the thin
air of dying Mars.
To think, with me, is to act. Grasping Thuvia by the arm, I
whispered to Tars Tarkas to follow me. Quickly we glided toward a
small flier which lay furthest from the battling warriors. Another
instant found us huddled on the tiny deck. My hand was on the
starting lever. I pressed my thumb upon the button which controls
the ray of repulsion, that splendid discovery of the Martians which
permits them to navigate the thin atmosphere of their planet in
huge ships that dwarf the dreadnoughts of our earthly navies into
pitiful significance.
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