The Prison Isle Of Shador

: The Gods Of Mars

In the outer gardens to which the guard now escorted me, I found Xodar

surrounded by a crowd of noble blacks. They were reviling and cursing

him. The men slapped his face. The woman spat upon him.



When I appeared they turned their attentions toward me.



"Ah," cried one, "so this is the creature who overcame the great Xodar

bare-handed. Let us see how it was done."



"Let him b nd Thurid," suggested a beautiful woman, laughing. "Thurid

is a noble Dator. Let Thurid show the dog what it means to face a real

man."



"Yes, Thurid! Thurid!" cried a dozen voices.



"Here he is now," exclaimed another, and turning in the direction

indicated I saw a huge black weighed down with resplendent ornaments

and arms advancing with noble and gallant bearing toward us.



"What now?" he cried. "What would you of Thurid?"



Quickly a dozen voices explained.



Thurid turned toward Xodar, his eyes narrowing to two nasty slits.



"Calot!" he hissed. "Ever did I think you carried the heart of a sorak

in your putrid breast. Often have you bested me in the secret councils

of Issus, but now in the field of war where men are truly gauged your

scabby heart hath revealed its sores to all the world. Calot, I spurn

you with my foot," and with the words he turned to kick Xodar.



My blood was up. For minutes it had been boiling at the cowardly

treatment they had been according this once powerful comrade because he

had fallen from the favour of Issus. I had no love for Xodar, but I

cannot stand the sight of cowardly injustice and persecution without

seeing red as through a haze of bloody mist, and doing things on the

impulse of the moment that I presume I never should do after mature

deliberation.



I was standing close beside Xodar as Thurid swung his foot for the

cowardly kick. The degraded Dator stood erect and motionless as a

carven image. He was prepared to take whatever his former comrades had

to offer in the way of insults and reproaches, and take them in manly

silence and stoicism.



But as Thurid's foot swung so did mine, and I caught him a painful blow

upon the shin bone that saved Xodar from this added ignominy.



For a moment there was tense silence, then Thurid, with a roar of rage

sprang for my throat; just as Xodar had upon the deck of the cruiser.

The results were identical. I ducked beneath his outstretched arms,

and as he lunged past me planted a terrific right on the side of his

jaw.



The big fellow spun around like a top, his knees gave beneath him and

he crumpled to the ground at my feet.



The blacks gazed in astonishment, first at the still form of the proud

Dator lying there in the ruby dust of the pathway, then at me as though

they could not believe that such a thing could be.



"You asked me to bind Thurid," I cried; "behold!" And then I stooped

beside the prostrate form, tore the harness from it, and bound the

fellow's arms and legs securely.



"As you have done to Xodar, now do you likewise to Thurid. Take him

before Issus, bound in his own harness, that she may see with her own

eyes that there be one among you now who is greater than the First

Born."



"Who are you?" whispered the woman who had first suggested that I

attempt to bind Thurid.



"I am a citizen of two worlds; Captain John Carter of Virginia, Prince

of the House of Tardos Mors, Jeddak of Helium. Take this man to your

goddess, as I have said, and tell her, too, that as I have done to

Xodar and Thurid, so also can I do to the mightiest of her Dators.

With naked hands, with long-sword or with short-sword, I challenge the

flower of her fighting-men to combat."



"Come," said the officer who was guarding me back to Shador; "my orders

are imperative; there is to be no delay. Xodar, come you also."



There was little of disrespect in the tone that the man used in

addressing either Xodar or myself. It was evident that he felt less

contempt for the former Dator since he had witnessed the ease with

which I disposed of the powerful Thurid.



That his respect for me was greater than it should have been for a

slave was quite apparent from the fact that during the balance of the

return journey he walked or stood always behind me, a drawn short-sword

in his hand.



The return to the Sea of Omean was uneventful. We dropped down the

awful shaft in the same car that had brought us to the surface. There

we entered the submarine, taking the long dive to the tunnel far

beneath the upper world. Then through the tunnel and up again to the

pool from which we had had our first introduction to the wonderful

passageway from Omean to the Temple of Issus.



From the island of the submarine we were transported on a small cruiser

to the distant Isle of Shador. Here we found a small stone prison and

a guard of half a dozen blacks. There was no ceremony wasted in

completing our incarceration. One of the blacks opened the door of the

prison with a huge key, we walked in, the door closed behind us, the

lock grated, and with the sound there swept over me again that terrible

feeling of hopelessness that I had felt in the Chamber of Mystery in

the Golden Cliffs beneath the gardens of the Holy Therns.



Then Tars Tarkas had been with me, but now I was utterly alone in so

far as friendly companionship was concerned. I fell to wondering about

the fate of the great Thark, and of his beautiful companion, the girl,

Thuvia. Even should they by some miracle have escaped and been

received and spared by a friendly nation, what hope had I of the

succour which I knew they would gladly extend if it lay in their power.



They could not guess my whereabouts or my fate, for none on all Barsoom

even dream of such a place as this. Nor would it have advantaged me

any had they known the exact location of my prison, for who could hope

to penetrate to this buried sea in the face of the mighty navy of the

First Born? No: my case was hopeless.



Well, I would make the best of it, and, rising, I swept aside the

brooding despair that had been endeavouring to claim me. With the idea

of exploring my prison, I started to look around.



Xodar sat, with bowed head, upon a low stone bench near the centre of

the room in which we were. He had not spoken since Issus had degraded

him.



The building was roofless, the walls rising to a height of about thirty

feet. Half-way up were a couple of small, heavily barred windows. The

prison was divided into several rooms by partitions twenty feet high.

There was no one in the room which we occupied, but two doors which led

to other rooms were opened. I entered one of these rooms, but found it

vacant. Thus I continued through several of the chambers until in the

last one I found a young red Martian boy sleeping upon the stone bench

which constituted the only furniture of any of the prison cells.



Evidently he was the only other prisoner. As he slept I leaned over

and looked at him. There was something strangely familiar about his

face, and yet I could not place him.



His features were very regular and, like the proportions of his

graceful limbs and body, beautiful in the extreme. He was very light

in colour for a red man, but in other respects he seemed a typical

specimen of this handsome race.



I did not awaken him, for sleep in prison is such a priceless boon that

I have seen men transformed into raging brutes when robbed by one of

their fellow-prisoners of a few precious moments of it.



Returning to my own cell, I found Xodar still sitting in the same

position in which I had left him.



"Man," I cried, "it will profit you nothing to mope thus. It were no

disgrace to be bested by John Carter. You have seen that in the ease

with which I accounted for Thurid. You knew it before when on the

cruiser's deck you saw me slay three of your comrades."



"I would that you had dispatched me at the same time," he said.



"Come, come!" I cried. "There is hope yet. Neither of us is dead. We

are great fighters. Why not win to freedom?"



He looked at me in amazement.



"You know not of what you speak," he replied. "Issus is omnipotent.

Issus is omniscient. She hears now the words you speak. She knows the

thoughts you think. It is sacrilege even to dream of breaking her

commands."



"Rot, Xodar," I ejaculated impatiently.



He sprang to his feet in horror.



"The curse of Issus will fall upon you," he cried. "In another instant

you will be smitten down, writhing to your death in horrible agony."



"Do you believe that, Xodar?" I asked.



"Of course; who would dare doubt?"



"I doubt; yes, and further, I deny," I said. "Why, Xodar, you tell me

that she even knows my thoughts. The red men have all had that power

for ages. And another wonderful power. They can shut their minds so

that none may read their thoughts. I learned the first secret years

ago; the other I never had to learn, since upon all Barsoom is none who

can read what passes in the secret chambers of my brain.



"Your goddess cannot read my thoughts; nor can she read yours when you

are out of sight, unless you will it. Had she been able to read mine,

I am afraid that her pride would have suffered a rather severe shock

when I turned at her command to 'gaze upon the holy vision of her

radiant face.'"



"What do you mean?" he whispered in an affrighted voice, so low that I

could scarcely hear him.



"I mean that I thought her the most repulsive and vilely hideous

creature my eyes ever had rested upon."



For a moment he eyed me in horror-stricken amazement, and then with a

cry of "Blasphemer" he sprang upon me.



I did not wish to strike him again, nor was it necessary, since he was

unarmed and therefore quite harmless to me.



As he came I grasped his left wrist with my left hand, and, swinging my

right arm about his left shoulder, caught him beneath the chin with my

elbow and bore him backward across my thigh.



There he hung helpless for a moment, glaring up at me in impotent rage.



"Xodar," I said, "let us be friends. For a year, possibly, we may be

forced to live together in the narrow confines of this tiny room. I am

sorry to have offended you, but I could not dream that one who had

suffered from the cruel injustice of Issus still could believe her

divine.



"I will say a few more words, Xodar, with no intent to wound your

feelings further, but rather that you may give thought to the fact that

while we live we are still more the arbiters of our own fate than is

any god.



"Issus, you see, has not struck me dead, nor is she rescuing her

faithful Xodar from the clutches of the unbeliever who defamed her fair

beauty. No, Xodar, your Issus is a mortal old woman. Once out of her

clutches and she cannot harm you.



"With your knowledge of this strange land, and my knowledge of the

outer world, two such fighting-men as you and I should be able to win

our way to freedom. Even though we died in the attempt, would not our

memories be fairer than as though we remained in servile fear to be

butchered by a cruel and unjust tyrant--call her goddess or mortal, as

you will."



As I finished I raised Xodar to his feet and released him. He did not

renew the attack upon me, nor did he speak. Instead, he walked toward

the bench, and, sinking down upon it, remained lost in deep thought for

hours.



A long time afterward I heard a soft sound at the doorway leading to

one of the other apartments, and, looking up, beheld the red Martian

youth gazing intently at us.



"Kaor," I cried, after the red Martian manner of greeting.



"Kaor," he replied. "What do you here?"



"I await my death, I presume," I replied with a wry smile.



He too smiled, a brave and winning smile.



"I also," he said. "Mine will come soon. I looked upon the radiant

beauty of Issus nearly a year since. It has always been a source of

keen wonder to me that I did not drop dead at the first sight of that

hideous countenance. And her belly! By my first ancestor, but never

was there so grotesque a figure in all the universe. That they should

call such a one Goddess of Life Eternal, Goddess of Death, Mother of

the Nearer Moon, and fifty other equally impossible titles, is quite

beyond me."



"How came you here?" I asked.



"It is very simple. I was flying a one-man air scout far to the south

when the brilliant idea occurred to me that I should like to search for

the Lost Sea of Korus which tradition places near to the south pole. I

must have inherited from my father a wild lust for adventure, as well

as a hollow where my bump of reverence should be.



"I had reached the area of eternal ice when my port propeller jammed,

and I dropped to the ground to make repairs. Before I knew it the air

was black with fliers, and a hundred of these First Born devils were

leaping to the ground all about me.



"With drawn swords they made for me, but before I went down beneath

them they had tasted of the steel of my father's sword, and I had given

such an account of myself as I know would have pleased my sire had he

lived to witness it."



"Your father is dead?" I asked.



"He died before the shell broke to let me step out into a world that

has been very good to me. But for the sorrow that I had never the

honour to know my father, I have been very happy. My only sorrow now

is that my mother must mourn me as she has for ten long years mourned

my father."



"Who was your father?" I asked.



He was about to reply when the outer door of our prison opened and a

burly guard entered and ordered him to his own quarters for the night,

locking the door after him as he passed through into the further

chamber.



"It is Issus' wish that you two be confined in the same room," said the

guard when he had returned to our cell. "This cowardly slave of a

slave is to serve you well," he said to me, indicating Xodar with a

wave of his hand. "If he does not, you are to beat him into

submission. It is Issus' wish that you heap upon him every indignity

and degradation of which you can conceive."



With these words he left us.



Xodar still sat with his face buried in his hands. I walked to his

side and placed my hand upon his shoulder.



"Xodar," I said, "you have heard the commands of Issus, but you need

not fear that I shall attempt to put them into execution. You are a

brave man, Xodar. It is your own affair if you wish to be persecuted

and humiliated; but were I you I should assert my manhood and defy my

enemies."



"I have been thinking very hard, John Carter," he said, "of all the new

ideas you gave me a few hours since. Little by little I have been

piecing together the things that you said which sounded blasphemous to

me then with the things that I have seen in my past life and dared not

even think about for fear of bringing down upon me the wrath of Issus.



"I believe now that she is a fraud; no more divine than you or I. More

I am willing to concede--that the First Born are no holier than the

Holy Therns, nor the Holy Therns more holy than the red men.



"The whole fabric of our religion is based on superstitious belief in

lies that have been foisted upon us for ages by those directly above

us, to whose personal profit and aggrandizement it was to have us

continue to believe as they wished us to believe.



"I am ready to cast off the ties that have bound me. I am ready to

defy Issus herself; but what will it avail us? Be the First Born gods

or mortals, they are a powerful race, and we are as fast in their

clutches as though we were already dead. There is no escape."



"I have escaped from bad plights in the past, my friend," I replied;

"nor while life is in me shall I despair of escaping from the Isle of

Shador and the Sea of Omean."



"But we cannot escape even from the four walls of our prison," urged

Xodar. "Test this flint-like surface," he cried, smiting the solid

rock that confined us. "And look upon this polished surface; none

could cling to it to reach the top."



I smiled.



"That is the least of our troubles, Xodar," I replied. "I will

guarantee to scale the wall and take you with me, if you will help with

your knowledge of the customs here to appoint the best time for the

attempt, and guide me to the shaft that lets from the dome of this

abysmal sea to the light of God's pure air above."



"Night time is the best and offers the only slender chance we have, for

then men sleep, and only a dozing watch nods in the tops of the

battleships. No watch is kept upon the cruisers and smaller craft.

The watchers upon the larger vessels see to all about them. It is

night now."



"But," I exclaimed, "it is not dark! How can it be night, then?"



He smiled.



"You forget," he said, "that we are far below ground. The light of the

sun never penetrates here. There are no moons and no stars reflected

in the bosom of Omean. The phosphorescent light you now see pervading

this great subterranean vault emanates from the rocks that form its

dome; it is always thus upon Omean, just as the billows are always as

you see them--rolling, ever rolling over a windless sea.



"At the appointed hour of night upon the world above, the men whose

duties hold them here sleep, but the light is ever the same."



"It will make escape more difficult," I said, and then I shrugged my

shoulders; for what, pray, is the pleasure of doing an easy thing?



"Let us sleep on it to-night," said Xodar. "A plan may come with our

awakening."



So we threw ourselves upon the hard stone floor of our prison and slept

the sleep of tired men.