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Page 65
The outlook was not cheering. He could not guess that within a
few hours he would be blessing the fate that had thrown him into
the service of Dusar.
"Ah!" exclaimed Hal Vas. "Here is my father now. Kaor! Vas Kor.
Here is one you will be glad to meet--a doughty panthan--" He
hesitated.
"Turjun," interjected Carthoris, seizing upon the first appellation
that occurred to him.
As he spoke his eyes crossed quickly to the tall warrior who was
entering the room. Where before had he seen that giant figure,
that taciturn countenance, and the livid sword-cut from temple to
mouth?
"Vas Kor," repeated Carthoris mentally. "Vas Kor!" Where had he
seen the man before?
And then the noble spoke, and like a flash it all came back to
Carthoris--the forward servant upon the landing-stage at Ptarth
that time that he had been explaining the intricacies of his new
compass to Thuvan Dihn; the lone slave that had guarded his own hangar
that night he had left upon his ill-fated journey for Ptarth--the
journey that had brought him so mysteriously to far Aaanthor.
"Vas Kor," he repeated aloud, "blessed be your ancestors for this
meeting," nor did the Dusarian guess the wealth of meaning that lay
beneath that hackneyed phrase with which a Barsoomian acknowledges
an introduction.
"And blessed be yours, Turjun," replied Vas Kor.
Now came the introduction of Kar Komak to Vas Kor, and as Carthoris
went through the little ceremony there came to him the only
explanation he might make to account for the white skin and auburn
hair of the bowman; for he feared that the truth might not be
believed and thus suspicion be cast upon them both from the beginning.
"Kar Komak," he explained, "is, as you can see, a thern. He
has wandered far from his icebound southern temples in search of
adventure. I came upon him in the pits of Aaanthor; but though
I have known him so short a time, I can vouch for his bravery and
loyalty."
Since the destruction of the fabric of their false religion by
John Carter, the majority of the therns had gladly accepted the
new order of things, so that it was now no longer uncommon to see
them mingling with the multitudes of red men in any of the great
cities of the outer world, so Vas Kor neither felt nor expressed
any great astonishment.
All during the interview Carthoris watched, catlike, for some
indication that Vas Kor recognized in the battered panthan the
erstwhile gorgeous Prince of Helium; but the sleepless nights, the
long days of marching and fighting, the wounds and the dried blood
had evidently sufficed to obliterate the last remnant of his likeness
to his former self; and then Vas Kor had seen him but twice in all
his life. Little wonder that he did not know him.
During the evening Vas Kor announced that on the morrow they should
depart north toward Dusar, picking up recruits at various stations
along the way.
In a great field behind the house a flier lay--a fair-sized
cruiser-transport that would accommodate many men, yet swift and
well armed also. Here Carthoris slept, and Kar Komak, too, with
the other recruits, under guard of the regular Dusarian warriors
that manned the craft.
Toward midnight Vas Kor returned to the vessel from his son's
house, repairing at once to his cabin. Carthoris, with one of the
Dusarians, was on watch. It was with difficulty that the Heliumite
repressed a cold smile as the noble passed within a foot of
him--within a foot of the long, slim, Heliumitic blade that swung
in his harness.
How easy it would have been! How easy to avenge the cowardly
trick that had been played upon him--to avenge Helium and Ptarth
and Thuvia!
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