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Page 26
That he was not discovered was a miracle, for mounted warriors were
constantly riding back and forth from the camp into the forest; but
the long day wore on and still he continued his seemingly fruitless
quest, until, near sunset, he came opposite a mighty gate in the
city's western wall.
Here seemed to be the principal force of the attacking horde.
Here a great platform had been erected whereon Carthoris could see
squatting a huge green warrior, surrounded by others of his kind.
This, then, must be the notorious Hortan Gur, Jeddak of Torquas,
the fierce old ogre of the south-western hemisphere, as only for
a jeddak are platforms raised in temporary camps or upon the march
by the green hordes of Barsoom.
As the Heliumite watched he saw another green warrior push his way
forward toward the rostrum. Beside him he dragged a captive, and
as the surrounding warriors parted to let the two pass, Carthoris
caught a fleeting glimpse of the prisoner.
His heart leaped in rejoicing. Thuvia of Ptarth still lived!
It was with difficulty that Carthoris restrained the impulse to
rush forward to the side of the Ptarthian princess; but in the end
his better judgment prevailed, for in the face of such odds he knew
that he should have been but throwing away, uselessly, any future
opportunity he might have to succour her.
He saw her dragged to the foot of the rostrum. He saw Hortan Gur
address her. He could not hear the creature's words, nor Thuvia's
reply; but it must have angered the green monster, for Carthoris
saw him leap toward the prisoner, striking her a cruel blow across
the face with his metal-banded arm.
Then the son of John Carter, Jeddak of Jeddaks, Warlord of Barsoom,
went mad. The old, blood-red haze through which his sire had glared
at countless foes, floated before his eyes.
His half-Earthly muscles, responding quickly to his will, sent
him in enormous leaps and bounds toward the green monster that had
struck the woman he loved.
The Torquasians were not looking in the direction of the forest.
All eyes had been upon the figures of the girl and their jeddak,
and loud was the hideous laughter that rang out in appreciation of
the wit of the green emperor's reply to his prisoner's appeal for
liberty.
Carthoris had covered about half the distance between the forest
and the green warriors, when a new factor succeeded in still further
directing the attention of the latter from him.
Upon a high tower within the beleaguered city a man appeared. From
his upturned mouth there issued a series of frightful shrieks;
uncanny shrieks that swept, shrill and terrifying, across the city's
walls, over the heads of the besiegers, and out across the forest
to the uttermost confines of the valley.
Once, twice, thrice the fearsome sound smote upon the ears of the
listening green men and then far, far off across the broad woods
came sharp and clear from the distance an answering shriek.
It was but the first. From every point rose similar savage cries,
until the world seemed to tremble to their reverberations.
The green warriors looked nervously this way and that. They knew
not fear, as Earth men may know it; but in the face of the unusual
their wonted self-assurance deserted them.
And then the great gate in the city wall opposite the platform of
Hortan Gur swung suddenly wide. From it issued as strange a sight
as Carthoris ever had witnessed, though at the moment he had time
to cast but a single fleeting glance at the tall bowmen emerging
through the portal behind their long, oval shields; to note their
flowing auburn hair; and to realize that the growling things at
their side were fierce Barsoomian lions.
Then he was in the midst of the astonished Torquasians. With
drawn long-sword he was among them, and to Thuvia of Ptarth, whose
startled eyes were the first to fall upon him, it seemed that she
was looking upon John Carter himself, so strangely similar to the
fighting of the father was that of the son.
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