The Chamber Of Mystery

: The Gods Of Mars

For moments after that awful laugh had ceased reverberating through the

rocky room, Tars Tarkas and I stood in tense and expectant silence.

But no further sound broke the stillness, nor within the range of our

vision did aught move.



At length Tars Tarkas laughed softly, after the manner of his strange

kind when in the presence of the horrible or terrifying. It is not an

hysterical laugh, but rather the g nuine expression of the pleasure

they derive from the things that move Earth men to loathing or to tears.



Often and again have I seen them roll upon the ground in mad fits of

uncontrollable mirth when witnessing the death agonies of women and

little children beneath the torture of that hellish green Martian

fete--the Great Games.



I looked up at the Thark, a smile upon my own lips, for here in truth

was greater need for a smiling face than a trembling chin.



"What do you make of it all?" I asked. "Where in the deuce are we?"



He looked at me in surprise.



"Where are we?" he repeated. "Do you tell me, John Carter, that you

know not where you be?"



"That I am upon Barsoom is all that I can guess, and but for you and

the great white apes I should not even guess that, for the sights I

have seen this day are as unlike the things of my beloved Barsoom as I

knew it ten long years ago as they are unlike the world of my birth.



"No, Tars Tarkas, I know not where we be."



"Where have you been since you opened the mighty portals of the

atmosphere plant years ago, after the keeper had died and the engines

stopped and all Barsoom was dying, that had not already died, of

asphyxiation? Your body even was never found, though the men of a

whole world sought after it for years, though the Jeddak of Helium and

his granddaughter, your princess, offered such fabulous rewards that

even princes of royal blood joined in the search.



"There was but one conclusion to reach when all efforts to locate you

had failed, and that, that you had taken the long, last pilgrimage down

the mysterious River Iss, to await in the Valley Dor upon the shores of

the Lost Sea of Korus the beautiful Dejah Thoris, your princess.



"Why you had gone none could guess, for your princess still lived--"



"Thank God," I interrupted him. "I did not dare to ask you, for I

feared I might have been too late to save her--she was very low when I

left her in the royal gardens of Tardos Mors that long-gone night; so

very low that I scarcely hoped even then to reach the atmosphere plant

ere her dear spirit had fled from me for ever. And she lives yet?"



"She lives, John Carter."



"You have not told me where we are," I reminded him.



"We are where I expected to find you, John Carter--and another. Many

years ago you heard the story of the woman who taught me the thing that

green Martians are reared to hate, the woman who taught me to love.

You know the cruel tortures and the awful death her love won for her at

the hands of the beast, Tal Hajus.



"She, I thought, awaited me by the Lost Sea of Korus.



"You know that it was left for a man from another world, for yourself,

John Carter, to teach this cruel Thark what friendship is; and you, I

thought, also roamed the care-free Valley Dor.



"Thus were the two I most longed for at the end of the long pilgrimage

I must take some day, and so as the time had elapsed which Dejah Thoris

had hoped might bring you once more to her side, for she has always

tried to believe that you had but temporarily returned to your own

planet, I at last gave way to my great yearning and a month since I

started upon the journey, the end of which you have this day witnessed.

Do you understand now where you be, John Carter?"



"And that was the River Iss, emptying into the Lost Sea of Korus in the

Valley Dor?" I asked.



"This is the valley of love and peace and rest to which every

Barsoomian since time immemorial has longed to pilgrimage at the end of

a life of hate and strife and bloodshed," he replied. "This, John

Carter, is Heaven."



His tone was cold and ironical; its bitterness but reflecting the

terrible disappointment he had suffered. Such a fearful

disillusionment, such a blasting of life-long hopes and aspirations,

such an uprooting of age-old tradition might have excused a vastly

greater demonstration on the part of the Thark.



I laid my hand upon his shoulder.



"I am sorry," I said, nor did there seem aught else to say.



"Think, John Carter, of the countless billions of Barsoomians who have

taken the voluntary pilgrimage down this cruel river since the

beginning of time, only to fall into the ferocious clutches of the

terrible creatures that to-day assailed us.



"There is an ancient legend that once a red man returned from the banks

of the Lost Sea of Korus, returned from the Valley Dor, back through

the mysterious River Iss, and the legend has it that he narrated a

fearful blasphemy of horrid brutes that inhabited a valley of wondrous

loveliness, brutes that pounced upon each Barsoomian as he terminated

his pilgrimage and devoured him upon the banks of the Lost Sea where he

had looked to find love and peace and happiness; but the ancients

killed the blasphemer, as tradition has ordained that any shall be

killed who return from the bosom of the River of Mystery.



"But now we know that it was no blasphemy, that the legend is a true

one, and that the man told only of what he saw; but what does it profit

us, John Carter, since even should we escape, we also would be treated

as blasphemers? We are between the wild thoat of certainty and the mad

zitidar of fact--we can escape neither."



"As Earth men say, we are between the devil and the deep sea, Tars

Tarkas," I replied, nor could I help but smile at our dilemma.



"There is naught that we can do but take things as they come, and at

least have the satisfaction of knowing that whoever slays us eventually

will have far greater numbers of their own dead to count than they will

get in return. White ape or plant man, green Barsoomian or red man,

whosoever it shall be that takes the last toll from us will know that

it is costly in lives to wipe out John Carter, Prince of the House of

Tardos Mors, and Tars Tarkas, Jeddak of Thark, at the same time."



I could not help but laugh at him grim humour, and he joined in with me

in one of those rare laughs of real enjoyment which was one of the

attributes of this fierce Tharkian chief which marked him from the

others of his kind.



"But about yourself, John Carter," he cried at last. "If you have not

been here all these years where indeed have you been, and how is it

that I find you here to-day?"



"I have been back to Earth," I replied. "For ten long Earth years I

have been praying and hoping for the day that would carry me once more

to this grim old planet of yours, for which, with all its cruel and

terrible customs, I feel a bond of sympathy and love even greater than

for the world that gave me birth.



"For ten years have I been enduring a living death of uncertainty and

doubt as to whether Dejah Thoris lived, and now that for the first time

in all these years my prayers have been answered and my doubt relieved

I find myself, through a cruel whim of fate, hurled into the one tiny

spot of all Barsoom from which there is apparently no escape, and if

there were, at a price which would put out for ever the last flickering

hope which I may cling to of seeing my princess again in this life--and

you have seen to-day with what pitiful futility man yearns toward a

material hereafter.



"Only a bare half-hour before I saw you battling with the plant men I

was standing in the moonlight upon the banks of a broad river that taps

the eastern shore of Earth's most blessed land. I have answered you,

my friend. Do you believe?"



"I believe," replied Tars Tarkas, "though I cannot understand."



As we talked I had been searching the interior of the chamber with my

eyes. It was, perhaps, two hundred feet in length and half as broad,

with what appeared to be a doorway in the centre of the wall directly

opposite that through which we had entered.



The apartment was hewn from the material of the cliff, showing mostly

dull gold in the dim light which a single minute radium illuminator in

the centre of the roof diffused throughout its great dimensions. Here

and there polished surfaces of ruby, emerald, and diamond patched the

golden walls and ceiling. The floor was of another material, very

hard, and worn by much use to the smoothness of glass. Aside from the

two doors I could discern no sign of other aperture, and as one we knew

to be locked against us I approached the other.



As I extended my hand to search for the controlling button, that cruel

and mocking laugh rang out once more, so close to me this time that I

involuntarily shrank back, tightening my grip upon the hilt of my great

sword.



And then from the far corner of the great chamber a hollow voice

chanted: "There is no hope, there is no hope; the dead return not, the

dead return not; nor is there any resurrection. Hope not, for there is

no hope."



Though our eyes instantly turned toward the spot from which the voice

seemed to emanate, there was no one in sight, and I must admit that

cold shivers played along my spine and the short hairs at the base of

my head stiffened and rose up, as do those upon a hound's neck when in

the night his eyes see those uncanny things which are hidden from the

sight of man.



Quickly I walked toward the mournful voice, but it had ceased ere I

reached the further wall, and then from the other end of the chamber

came another voice, shrill and piercing:



"Fools! Fools!" it shrieked. "Thinkest thou to defeat the eternal

laws of life and death? Wouldst cheat the mysterious Issus, Goddess of

Death, of her just dues? Did not her mighty messenger, the ancient

Iss, bear you upon her leaden bosom at your own behest to the Valley

Dor?



"Thinkest thou, O fools, that Issus wilt give up her own? Thinkest

thou to escape from whence in all the countless ages but a single soul

has fled?



"Go back the way thou camest, to the merciful maws of the children of

the Tree of Life or the gleaming fangs of the great white apes, for

there lies speedy surcease from suffering; but insist in your rash

purpose to thread the mazes of the Golden Cliffs of the Mountains of

Otz, past the ramparts of the impregnable fortresses of the Holy

Therns, and upon your way Death in its most frightful form will

overtake you--a death so horrible that even the Holy Therns themselves,

who conceived both Life and Death, avert their eyes from its

fiendishness and close their ears against the hideous shrieks of its

victims.



"Go back, O fools, the way thou camest."



And then the awful laugh broke out from another part of the chamber.



"Most uncanny," I remarked, turning to Tars Tarkas.



"What shall we do?" he asked. "We cannot fight empty air; I would

almost sooner return and face foes into whose flesh I may feel my blade

bite and know that I am selling my carcass dearly before I go down to

that eternal oblivion which is evidently the fairest and most desirable

eternity that mortal man has the right to hope for."



"If, as you say, we cannot fight empty air, Tars Tarkas," I replied,

"neither, on the other hand, can empty air fight us. I, who have faced

and conquered in my time thousands of sinewy warriors and tempered

blades, shall not be turned back by wind; nor no more shall you, Thark."



"But unseen voices may emanate from unseen and unseeable creatures who

wield invisible blades," answered the green warrior.



"Rot, Tars Tarkas," I cried, "those voices come from beings as real as

you or as I. In their veins flows lifeblood that may be let as easily

as ours, and the fact that they remain invisible to us is the best

proof to my mind that they are mortal; nor overly courageous mortals at

that. Think you, Tars Tarkas, that John Carter will fly at the first

shriek of a cowardly foe who dare not come out into the open and face a

good blade?"



I had spoken in a loud voice that there might be no question that our

would-be terrorizers should hear me, for I was tiring of this

nerve-racking fiasco. It had occurred to me, too, that the whole

business was but a plan to frighten us back into the valley of death

from which we had escaped, that we might be quickly disposed of by the

savage creatures there.



For a long period there was silence, then of a sudden a soft, stealthy

sound behind me caused me to turn suddenly to behold a great

many-legged banth creeping sinuously upon me.



The banth is a fierce beast of prey that roams the low hills

surrounding the dead seas of ancient Mars. Like nearly all Martian

animals it is almost hairless, having only a great bristly mane about

its thick neck.



Its long, lithe body is supported by ten powerful legs, its enormous

jaws are equipped, like those of the calot, or Martian hound, with

several rows of long needle-like fangs; its mouth reaches to a point

far back of its tiny ears, while its enormous, protruding eyes of green

add the last touch of terror to its awful aspect.



As it crept toward me it lashed its powerful tail against its yellow

sides, and when it saw that it was discovered it emitted the terrifying

roar which often freezes its prey into momentary paralysis in the

instant that it makes its spring.



And so it launched its great bulk toward me, but its mighty voice had

held no paralysing terrors for me, and it met cold steel instead of the

tender flesh its cruel jaws gaped so widely to engulf.



An instant later I drew my blade from the still heart of this great

Barsoomian lion, and turning toward Tars Tarkas was surprised to see

him facing a similar monster.



No sooner had he dispatched his than I, turning, as though drawn by the

instinct of my guardian subconscious mind, beheld another of the savage

denizens of the Martian wilds leaping across the chamber toward me.



From then on for the better part of an hour one hideous creature after

another was launched upon us, springing apparently from the empty air

about us.



Tars Tarkas was satisfied; here was something tangible that he could

cut and slash with his great blade, while I, for my part, may say that

the diversion was a marked improvement over the uncanny voices from

unseen lips.



That there was nothing supernatural about our new foes was well

evidenced by their howls of rage and pain as they felt the sharp steel

at their vitals, and the very real blood which flowed from their

severed arteries as they died the real death.



I noticed during the period of this new persecution that the beasts

appeared only when our backs were turned; we never saw one really

materialize from thin air, nor did I for an instant sufficiently lose

my excellent reasoning faculties to be once deluded into the belief

that the beasts came into the room other than through some concealed

and well-contrived doorway.



Among the ornaments of Tars Tarkas' leather harness, which is the only

manner of clothing worn by Martians other than silk capes and robes of

silk and fur for protection from the cold after dark, was a small

mirror, about the bigness of a lady's hand glass, which hung midway

between his shoulders and his waist against his broad back.



Once as he stood looking down at a newly fallen antagonist my eyes

happened to fall upon this mirror and in its shiny surface I saw

pictured a sight that caused me to whisper:



"Move not, Tars Tarkas! Move not a muscle!"



He did not ask why, but stood like a graven image while my eyes watched

the strange thing that meant so much to us.



What I saw was the quick movement of a section of the wall behind me.

It was turning upon pivots, and with it a section of the floor directly

in front of it was turning. It was as though you placed a

visiting-card upon end on a silver dollar that you had laid flat upon a

table, so that the edge of the card perfectly bisected the surface of

the coin.



The card might represent the section of the wall that turned and the

silver dollar the section of the floor. Both were so nicely fitted

into the adjacent portions of the floor and wall that no crack had been

noticeable in the dim light of the chamber.



As the turn was half completed a great beast was revealed sitting upon

its haunches upon that part of the revolving floor that had been on the

opposite side before the wall commenced to move; when the section

stopped, the beast was facing toward me on our side of the

partition--it was very simple.



But what had interested me most was the sight that the half-turned

section had presented through the opening that it had made. A great

chamber, well lighted, in which were several men and women chained to

the wall, and in front of them, evidently directing and operating the

movement of the secret doorway, a wicked-faced man, neither red as are

the red men of Mars, nor green as are the green men, but white, like

myself, with a great mass of flowing yellow hair.



The prisoners behind him were red Martians. Chained with them were a

number of fierce beasts, such as had been turned upon us, and others

equally as ferocious.



As I turned to meet my new foe it was with a heart considerably

lightened.



"Watch the wall at your end of the chamber, Tars Tarkas," I cautioned,

"it is through secret doorways in the wall that the brutes are loosed

upon us." I was very close to him and spoke in a low whisper that my

knowledge of their secret might not be disclosed to our tormentors.



As long as we remained each facing an opposite end of the apartment no

further attacks were made upon us, so it was quite clear to me that the

partitions were in some way pierced that our actions might be observed

from without.



At length a plan of action occurred to me, and backing quite close to

Tars Tarkas I unfolded my scheme in a low whisper, keeping my eyes

still glued upon my end of the room.



The great Thark grunted his assent to my proposition when I had done,

and in accordance with my plan commenced backing toward the wall which

I faced while I advanced slowly ahead of him.



When we had reached a point some ten feet from the secret doorway I

halted my companion, and cautioning him to remain absolutely motionless

until I gave the prearranged signal I quickly turned my back to the

door through which I could almost feel the burning and baleful eyes of

our would be executioner.



Instantly my own eyes sought the mirror upon Tars Tarkas' back and in

another second I was closely watching the section of the wall which had

been disgorging its savage terrors upon us.



I had not long to wait, for presently the golden surface commenced to

move rapidly. Scarcely had it started than I gave the signal to Tars

Tarkas, simultaneously springing for the receding half of the pivoting

door. In like manner the Thark wheeled and leaped for the opening

being made by the inswinging section.



A single bound carried me completely through into the adjoining room

and brought me face to face with the fellow whose cruel face I had seen

before. He was about my own height and well muscled and in every

outward detail moulded precisely as are Earth men.



At his side hung a long-sword, a short-sword, a dagger, and one of the

destructive radium revolvers that are common upon Mars.



The fact that I was armed only with a long-sword, and so according to

the laws and ethics of battle everywhere upon Barsoom should only have

been met with a similar or lesser weapon, seemed to have no effect upon

the moral sense of my enemy, for he whipped out his revolver ere I

scarce had touched the floor by his side, but an uppercut from my

long-sword sent it flying from his grasp before he could discharge it.



Instantly he drew his long-sword, and thus evenly armed we set to in

earnest for one of the closest battles I ever have fought.



The fellow was a marvellous swordsman and evidently in practice, while

I had not gripped the hilt of a sword for ten long years before that

morning.



But it did not take me long to fall easily into my fighting stride, so

that in a few minutes the man began to realize that he had at last met

his match.



His face became livid with rage as he found my guard impregnable, while

blood flowed from a dozen minor wounds upon his face and body.



"Who are you, white man?" he hissed. "That you are no Barsoomian from

the outer world is evident from your colour. And you are not of us."



His last statement was almost a question.



"What if I were from the Temple of Issus?" I hazarded on a wild guess.



"Fate forfend!" he exclaimed, his face going white under the blood that

now nearly covered it.



I did not know how to follow up my lead, but I carefully laid the idea

away for future use should circumstances require it. His answer

indicated that for all he KNEW I might be from the Temple of Issus and

in it were men like unto myself, and either this man feared the inmates

of the temple or else he held their persons or their power in such

reverence that he trembled to think of the harm and indignities he had

heaped upon one of them.



But my present business with him was of a different nature than that

which requires any considerable abstract reasoning; it was to get my

sword between his ribs, and this I succeeded in doing within the next

few seconds, nor was I an instant too soon.



The chained prisoners had been watching the combat in tense silence;

not a sound had fallen in the room other than the clashing of our

contending blades, the soft shuffling of our naked feet and the few

whispered words we had hissed at each other through clenched teeth the

while we continued our mortal duel.



But as the body of my antagonist sank an inert mass to the floor a cry

of warning broke from one of the female prisoners.



"Turn! Turn! Behind you!" she shrieked, and as I wheeled at the first

note of her shrill cry I found myself facing a second man of the same

race as he who lay at my feet.



The fellow had crept stealthily from a dark corridor and was almost

upon me with raised sword ere I saw him. Tars Tarkas was nowhere in

sight and the secret panel in the wall, through which I had come, was

closed.



How I wished that he were by my side now! I had fought almost

continuously for many hours; I had passed through such experiences and

adventures as must sap the vitality of man, and with all this I had not

eaten for nearly twenty-four hours, nor slept.



I was fagged out, and for the first time in years felt a question as to

my ability to cope with an antagonist; but there was naught else for it

than to engage my man, and that as quickly and ferociously as lay in

me, for my only salvation was to rush him off his feet by the

impetuosity of my attack--I could not hope to win a long-drawn-out

battle.



But the fellow was evidently of another mind, for he backed and parried

and parried and sidestepped until I was almost completely fagged from

the exertion of attempting to finish him.



He was a more adroit swordsman, if possible, than my previous foe, and

I must admit that he led me a pretty chase and in the end came near to

making a sorry fool of me--and a dead one into the bargain.



I could feel myself growing weaker and weaker, until at length objects

commenced to blur before my eyes and I staggered and blundered about

more asleep than awake, and then it was that he worked his pretty

little coup that came near to losing me my life.



He had backed me around so that I stood in front of the corpse of his

fellow, and then he rushed me suddenly so that I was forced back upon

it, and as my heel struck it the impetus of my body flung me backward

across the dead man.



My head struck the hard pavement with a resounding whack, and to that

alone I owe my life, for it cleared my brain and the pain roused my

temper, so that I was equal for the moment to tearing my enemy to

pieces with my bare hands, and I verily believe that I should have

attempted it had not my right hand, in the act of raising my body from

the ground, come in contact with a bit of cold metal.



As the eyes of the layman so is the hand of the fighting man when it

comes in contact with an implement of his vocation, and thus I did not

need to look or reason to know that the dead man's revolver, lying

where it had fallen when I struck it from his grasp, was at my disposal.



The fellow whose ruse had put me down was springing toward me, the

point of his gleaming blade directed straight at my heart, and as he

came there rang from his lips the cruel and mocking peal of laughter

that I had heard within the Chamber of Mystery.



And so he died, his thin lips curled in the snarl of his hateful laugh,

and a bullet from the revolver of his dead companion bursting in his

heart.



His body, borne by the impetus of his headlong rush, plunged upon me.

The hilt of his sword must have struck my head, for with the impact of

the corpse I lost consciousness.