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Page 41
I turned an apprehensive glance behind me, and the sight that I
saw froze the new-born hope of freedom that had been springing up
within me.
A great battleship, forging silent and unlighted through the dark
night, loomed close astern.
CHAPTER VIII
THE DEPTHS OF OMEAN
Now I realized why the black pirate had kept me engrossed with his
strange tale. For miles he had sensed the approach of succour,
and but for that single tell-tale glance the battleship would have
been directly above us in another moment, and the boarding party
which was doubtless even now swinging in their harness from the
ship's keel, would have swarmed our deck, placing my rising hope
of escape in sudden and total eclipse.
I was too old a hand in aerial warfare to be at a loss now for the
right manoeuvre. Simultaneously I reversed the engines and dropped
the little vessel a sheer hundred feet.
Above my head I could see the dangling forms of the boarding party
as the battleship raced over us. Then I rose at a sharp angle,
throwing my speed lever to its last notch.
Like a bolt from a crossbow my splendid craft shot its steel prow
straight at the whirring propellers of the giant above us. If I
could but touch them the huge bulk would be disabled for hours and
escape once more possible.
At the same instant the sun shot above the horizon, disclosing a
hundred grim, black faces peering over the stern of the battleship
upon us.
At sight of us a shout of rage went up from a hundred throats. Orders
were shouted, but it was too late to save the giant propellers,
and with a crash we rammed them.
Instantly with the shock of impact I reversed my engine, but my
prow was wedged in the hole it had made in the battleship's stern.
Only a second I hung there before tearing away, but that second
was amply long to swarm my deck with black devils.
There was no fight. In the first place there was no room to fight.
We were simply submerged by numbers. Then as swords menaced me a
command from 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 personally
attended to my disarming and saw that I was properly bound. At
least he thought that the binding was secure. It would have been
had I been a Martian, but I had to smile at the puny strands that
confined my wrists. When the time came I could snap them as they
had been cotton string.
The girl they bound also, and then they fastened us together. In
the meantime 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.
Her decks were crowded with them as they pressed forward as far as
discipline would permit to get a glimpse of their captives.
The girl's beauty elicited many brutal comments and vulgar jests.
It was evident that these self-thought supermen were far inferior
to the red men of Barsoom in refinement and in chivalry.
My close-cropped black hair and thern complexion were the subjects
of much comment. When Xodar told his fellow nobles of my fighting
ability and strange origin they crowded about me with numerous
questions.
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