Thuvia
: The Gods Of MarsIt was the sound of conflict that aroused me once more to the realities
of life. For a moment I could neither place my surroundings nor locate
the sounds which had aroused me. And then from beyond the blank wall
beside which I lay I heard the shuffling of feet, the snarling of grim
beasts, the clank of metal accoutrements, and the heavy breathing of a
man.
As I rose to my feet I glanced hurriedly about
had just encountered such a warm reception. The prisoners and the
savage brutes rested in their chains by the opposite wall eyeing me
with varying expressions of curiosity, sullen rage, surprise, and hope.
The latter emotion seemed plainly evident upon the handsome and
intelligent face of the young red Martian woman whose cry of warning
had been instrumental in saving my life.
She was the perfect type of that remarkably beautiful race whose
outward appearance is identical with the more god-like races of Earth
men, except that this higher race of Martians is of a light reddish
copper colour. As she was entirely unadorned I could not even guess
her station in life, though it was evident that she was either a
prisoner or slave in her present environment.
It was several seconds before the sounds upon the opposite side of the
partition jolted my slowly returning faculties into a realization of
their probable import, and then of a sudden I grasped the fact that
they were caused by Tars Tarkas in what was evidently a desperate
struggle with wild beasts or savage men.
With a cry of encouragement I threw my weight against the secret door,
but as well have assayed the down-hurling of the cliffs themselves.
Then I sought feverishly for the secret of the revolving panel, but my
search was fruitless, and I was about to raise my longsword against the
sullen gold when the young woman prisoner called out to me.
"Save thy sword, O Mighty Warrior, for thou shalt need it more where it
will avail to some purpose--shatter it not against senseless metal
which yields better to the lightest finger touch of one who knows its
secret."
"Know you the secret of it then?" I asked.
"Yes; release me and I will give you entrance to the other horror
chamber, if you wish. The keys to my fetters are upon the first dead
of thy foemen. But why would you return to face again the fierce
banth, or whatever other form of destruction they have loosed within
that awful trap?"
"Because my friend fights there alone," I answered, as I hastily sought
and found the keys upon the carcass of the dead custodian of this grim
chamber of horrors.
There were many keys upon the oval ring, but the fair Martian maid
quickly selected that which sprung the great lock at her waist, and
freed she hurried toward the secret panel.
Again she sought out a key upon the ring. This time a slender,
needle-like affair which she inserted in an almost invisible hole in
the wall. Instantly the door swung upon its pivot, and the contiguous
section of the floor upon which I was standing carried me with it into
the chamber where Tars Tarkas fought.
The great Thark stood with his back against an angle of the walls,
while facing him in a semi-circle a half-dozen huge monsters crouched
waiting for an opening. Their blood-streaked heads and shoulders
testified to the cause of their wariness as well as to the
swordsmanship of the green warrior whose glossy hide bore the same mute
but eloquent witness to the ferocity of the attacks that he had so far
withstood.
Sharp talons and cruel fangs had torn leg, arm, and breast literally to
ribbons. So weak was he from continued exertion and loss of blood that
but for the supporting wall I doubt that he even could have stood
erect. But with the tenacity and indomitable courage of his kind he
still faced his cruel and relentless foes--the personification of that
ancient proverb of his tribe: "Leave to a Thark his head and one hand
and he may yet conquer."
As he saw me enter, a grim smile touched those grim lips of his, but
whether the smile signified relief or merely amusement at the sight of
my own bloody and dishevelled condition I do not know.
As I was about to spring into the conflict with my sharp long-sword I
felt a gentle hand upon my shoulder and turning found, to my surprise,
that the young woman had followed me into the chamber.
"Wait," she whispered, "leave them to me," and pushing me advanced, all
defenceless and unarmed, upon the snarling banths.
When quite close to them she spoke a single Martian word in low but
peremptory tones. Like lightning the great beasts wheeled upon her,
and I looked to see her torn to pieces before I could reach her side,
but instead the creatures slunk to her feet like puppies that expect a
merited whipping.
Again she spoke to them, but in tones so low I could not catch the
words, and then she started toward the opposite side of the chamber
with the six mighty monsters trailing at heel. One by one she sent
them through the secret panel into the room beyond, and when the last
had passed from the chamber where we stood in wide-eyed amazement she
turned and smiled at us and then herself passed through, leaving us
alone.
For a moment neither of us spoke. Then Tars Tarkas said:
"I heard the fighting beyond the partition through which you passed,
but I did not fear for you, John Carter, until I heard the report of a
revolver shot. I knew that there lived no man upon all Barsoom who
could face you with naked steel and live, but the shot stripped the
last vestige of hope from me, since you I knew to be without firearms.
Tell me of it."
I did as he bade, and then together we sought the secret panel through
which I had just entered the apartment--the one at the opposite end of
the room from that through which the girl had led her savage companions.
To our disappointment the panel eluded our every effort to negotiate
its secret lock. We felt that once beyond it we might look with some
little hope of success for a passage to the outside world.
The fact that the prisoners within were securely chained led us to
believe that surely there must be an avenue of escape from the terrible
creatures which inhabited this unspeakable place.
Again and again we turned from one door to another, from the baffling
golden panel at one end of the chamber to its mate at the
other--equally baffling.
When we had about given up all hope one of the panels turned silently
toward us, and the young woman who had led away the banths stood once
more beside us.
"Who are you?" she asked, "and what your mission, that you have the
temerity to attempt to escape from the Valley Dor and the death you
have chosen?"
"I have chosen no death, maiden," I replied. "I am not of Barsoom, nor
have I taken yet the voluntary pilgrimage upon the River Iss. My
friend here is Jeddak of all the Tharks, and though he has not yet
expressed a desire to return to the living world, I am taking him with
me from the living lie that hath lured him to this frightful place.
"I am of another world. I am John Carter, Prince of the House of
Tardos Mors, Jeddak of Helium. Perchance some faint rumour of me may
have leaked within the confines of your hellish abode."
She smiled.
"Yes," she replied, "naught that passes in the world we have left is
unknown here. I have heard of you, many years ago. The therns have
ofttimes wondered whither you had flown, since you had neither taken
the pilgrimage, nor could be found upon the face of Barsoom."
"Tell me," I said, "and who be you, and why a prisoner, yet with power
over the ferocious beasts of the place that denotes familiarity and
authority far beyond that which might be expected of a prisoner or a
slave?"
"Slave I am," she answered. "For fifteen years a slave in this
terrible place, and now that they have tired of me and become fearful
of the power which my knowledge of their ways has given me I am but
recently condemned to die the death."
She shuddered.
"What death?" I asked.
"The Holy Therns eat human flesh," she answered me; "but only that
which has died beneath the sucking lips of a plant man--flesh from
which the defiling blood of life has been drawn. And to this cruel end
I have been condemned. It was to be within a few hours, had your
advent not caused an interruption of their plans."
"Was it then Holy Therns who felt the weight of John Carter's hand?" I
asked.
"Oh, no; those whom you laid low are lesser therns; but of the same
cruel and hateful race. The Holy Therns abide upon the outer slopes of
these grim hills, facing the broad world from which they harvest their
victims and their spoils.
"Labyrinthine passages connect these caves with the luxurious palaces
of the Holy Therns, and through them pass upon their many duties the
lesser therns, and hordes of slaves, and prisoners, and fierce beasts;
the grim inhabitants of this sunless world.
"There be within this vast network of winding passages and countless
chambers men, women, and beasts who, born within its dim and gruesome
underworld, have never seen the light of day--nor ever shall.
"They are kept to do the bidding of the race of therns; to furnish at
once their sport and their sustenance.
"Now and again some hapless pilgrim, drifting out upon the silent sea
from the cold Iss, escapes the plant men and the great white apes that
guard the Temple of Issus and falls into the remorseless clutches of
the therns; or, as was my misfortune, is coveted by the Holy Thern who
chances to be upon watch in the balcony above the river where it issues
from the bowels of the mountains through the cliffs of gold to empty
into the Lost Sea of Korus.
"All who reach the Valley Dor are, by custom, the rightful prey of the
plant men and the apes, while their arms and ornaments become the
portion of the therns; but if one escapes the terrible denizens of the
valley for even a few hours the therns may claim such a one as their
own. And again the Holy Thern on watch, should he see a victim he
covets, often tramples upon the rights of the unreasoning brutes of the
valley and takes his prize by foul means if he cannot gain it by fair.
"It is said that occasionally some deluded victim of Barsoomian
superstition will so far escape the clutches of the countless enemies
that beset his path from the moment that he emerges from the
subterranean passage through which the Iss flows for a thousand miles
before it enters the Valley Dor as to reach the very walls of the
Temple of Issus; but what fate awaits one there not even the Holy
Therns may guess, for who has passed within those gilded walls never
has returned to unfold the mysteries they have held since the beginning
of time.
"The Temple of Issus is to the therns what the Valley Dor is imagined
by the peoples of the outer world to be to them; it is the ultimate
haven of peace, refuge, and happiness to which they pass after this
life and wherein an eternity of eternities is spent amidst the delights
of the flesh which appeal most strongly to this race of mental giants
and moral pygmies."
"The Temple of Issus is, I take it, a heaven within a heaven," I said.
"Let us hope that there it will be meted to the therns as they have
meted it here unto others."
"Who knows?" the girl murmured.
"The therns, I judge from what you have said, are no less mortal than
we; and yet have I always heard them spoken of with the utmost awe and
reverence by the people of Barsoom, as one might speak of the gods
themselves."
"The therns are mortal," she replied. "They die from the same causes
as you or I might: those who do not live their allotted span of life,
one thousand years, when by the authority of custom they may take their
way in happiness through the long tunnel that leads to Issus.
"Those who die before are supposed to spend the balance of their
allotted time in the image of a plant man, and it is for this reason
that the plant men are held sacred by the therns, since they believe
that each of these hideous creatures was formerly a thern."
"And should a plant man die?" I asked.
"Should he die before the expiration of the thousand years from the
birth of the thern whose immortality abides within him then the soul
passes into a great white ape, but should the ape die short of the
exact hour that terminates the thousand years the soul is for ever lost
and passes for all eternity into the carcass of the slimy and fearsome
silian whose wriggling thousands seethe the silent sea beneath the
hurtling moons when the sun has gone and strange shapes walk through
the Valley Dor."
"We sent several Holy Therns to the silians to-day, then," said Tars
Tarkas, laughing.
"And so will your death be the more terrible when it comes," said the
maiden. "And come it will--you cannot escape."
"One has escaped, centuries ago," I reminded her, "and what has been
done may be done again."
"It is useless even to try," she answered hopelessly.
"But try we shall," I cried, "and you shall go with us, if you wish."
"To be put to death by mine own people, and render my memory a disgrace
to my family and my nation? A Prince of the House of Tardos Mors
should know better than to suggest such a thing."
Tars Tarkas listened in silence, but I could feel his eyes riveted upon
me and I knew that he awaited my answer as one might listen to the
reading of his sentence by the foreman of a jury.
What I advised the girl to do would seal our fate as well, since if I
bowed to the inevitable decree of age-old superstition we must all
remain and meet our fate in some horrible form within this awful abode
of horror and cruelty.
"We have the right to escape if we can," I answered. "Our own moral
senses will not be offended if we succeed, for we know that the fabled
life of love and peace in the blessed Valley of Dor is a rank and
wicked deception. We know that the valley is not sacred; we know that
the Holy Therns are not holy; that they are a race of cruel and
heartless mortals, knowing no more of the real life to come than we do.
"Not only is it our right to bend every effort to escape--it is a
solemn duty from which we should not shrink even though we know that we
should be reviled and tortured by our own peoples when we returned to
them.
"Only thus may we carry the truth to those without, and though the
likelihood of our narrative being given credence is, I grant you,
remote, so wedded are mortals to their stupid infatuation for
impossible superstitions, we should be craven cowards indeed were we to
shirk the plain duty which confronts us.
"Again there is a chance that with the weight of the testimony of
several of us the truth of our statements may be accepted, and at least
a compromise effected which will result in the dispatching of an
expedition of investigation to this hideous mockery of heaven."
Both the girl and the green warrior stood silent in thought for some
moments. The former it was who eventually broke the silence.
"Never had I considered the matter in that light before," she said.
"Indeed would I give my life a thousand times if I could but save a
single soul from the awful life that I have led in this cruel place.
Yes, you are right, and I will go with you as far as we can go; but I
doubt that we ever shall escape."
I turned an inquiring glance toward the Thark.
"To the gates of Issus, or to the bottom of Korus," spoke the green
warrior; "to the snows to the north or to the snows to the south, Tars
Tarkas follows where John Carter leads. I have spoken."
"Come, then," I cried, "we must make the start, for we could not be
further from escape than we now are in the heart of this mountain and
within the four walls of this chamber of death."
"Come, then," said the girl, "but do not flatter yourself that you can
find no worse place than this within the territory of the therns."
So saying she swung the secret panel that separated us from the
apartment in which I had found her, and we stepped through once more
into the presence of the other prisoners.
There were in all ten red Martians, men and women, and when we had
briefly explained our plan they decided to join forces with us, though
it was evident that it was with some considerable misgivings that they
thus tempted fate by opposing an ancient superstition, even though each
knew through cruel experience the fallacy of its entire fabric.
Thuvia, the girl whom I had first freed, soon had the others at
liberty. Tars Tarkas and I stripped the bodies of the two therns of
their weapons, which included swords, daggers, and two revolvers of the
curious and deadly type manufactured by the red Martians.
We distributed the weapons as far as they would go among our followers,
giving the firearms to two of the women; Thuvia being one so armed.
With the latter as our guide we set off rapidly but cautiously through
a maze of passages, crossing great chambers hewn from the solid metal
of the cliff, following winding corridors, ascending steep inclines,
and now and again concealing ourselves in dark recesses at the sound of
approaching footsteps.
Our destination, Thuvia said, was a distant storeroom where arms and
ammunition in plenty might be found. From there she was to lead us to
the summit of the cliffs, from where it would require both wondrous wit
and mighty fighting to win our way through the very heart of the
stronghold of the Holy Therns to the world without.
"And even then, O Prince," she cried, "the arm of the Holy Thern is
long. It reaches to every nation of Barsoom. His secret temples are
hidden in the heart of every community. Wherever we go should we
escape we shall find that word of our coming has preceded us, and death
awaits us before we may pollute the air with our blasphemies."
We had proceeded for possibly an hour without serious interruption, and
Thuvia had just whispered to me that we were approaching our first
destination, when on entering a great chamber we came upon a man,
evidently a thern.
He wore in addition to his leathern trappings and jewelled ornaments a
great circlet of gold about his brow in the exact centre of which was
set an immense stone, the exact counterpart of that which I had seen
upon the breast of the little old man at the atmosphere plant nearly
twenty years before.
It is the one priceless jewel of Barsoom. Only two are known to exist,
and these were worn as the insignia of their rank and position by the
two old men in whose charge was placed the operation of the great
engines which pump the artificial atmosphere to all parts of Mars from
the huge atmosphere plant, the secret to whose mighty portals placed in
my possession the ability to save from immediate extinction the life of
a whole world.
The stone worn by the thern who confronted us was of about the same
size as that which I had seen before; an inch in diameter I should say.
It scintillated nine different and distinct rays; the seven primary
colours of our earthly prism and the two rays which are unknown upon
Earth, but whose wondrous beauty is indescribable.
As the thern saw us his eyes narrowed to two nasty slits.
"Stop!" he cried. "What means this, Thuvia?"
For answer the girl raised her revolver and fired point-blank at him.
Without a sound he sank to the earth, dead.
"Beast!" she hissed. "After all these years I am at last revenged."
Then as she turned toward me, evidently with a word of explanation on
her lips, her eyes suddenly widened as they rested upon me, and with a
little exclamation she started toward me.
"O Prince," she cried, "Fate is indeed kind to us. The way is still
difficult, but through this vile thing upon the floor we may yet win to
the outer world. Notest thou not the remarkable resemblance between
this Holy Thern and thyself?"
The man was indeed of my precise stature, nor were his eyes and
features unlike mine; but his hair was a mass of flowing yellow locks,
like those of the two I had killed, while mine is black and close
cropped.
"What of the resemblance?" I asked the girl Thuvia. "Do you wish me
with my black, short hair to pose as a yellow-haired priest of this
infernal cult?"
She smiled, and for answer approached the body of the man she had
slain, and kneeling beside it removed the circlet of gold from the
forehead, and then to my utter amazement lifted the entire scalp bodily
from the corpse's head.
Rising, she advanced to my side and placing the yellow wig over my
black hair, crowned me with the golden circlet set with the magnificent
gem.
"Now don his harness, Prince," she said, "and you may pass where you
will in the realms of the therns, for Sator Throg was a Holy Thern of
the Tenth Cycle, and mighty among his kind."
As I stooped to the dead man to do her bidding I noted that not a hair
grew upon his head, which was quite as bald as an egg.
"They are all thus from birth," explained Thuvia noting my surprise.
"The race from which they sprang were crowned with a luxuriant growth
of golden hair, but for many ages the present race has been entirely
bald. The wig, however, has come to be a part of their apparel, and so
important a part do they consider it that it is cause for the deepest
disgrace were a thern to appear in public without it."
In another moment I stood garbed in the habiliments of a Holy Thern.
At Thuvia's suggestion two of the released prisoners bore the body of
the dead thern upon their shoulders with us as we continued our journey
toward the storeroom, which we reached without further mishap.
Here the keys which Thuvia bore from the dead thern of the prison vault
were the means of giving us immediate entrance to the chamber, and very
quickly we were thoroughly outfitted with arms and ammunition.
By this time I was so thoroughly fagged out that I could go no further,
so I threw myself upon the floor, bidding Tars Tarkas to do likewise,
and cautioning two of the released prisoners to keep careful watch.
In an instant I was asleep.
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He knew the theory of repairing the gizmo all right. He had that nicely taped. But there was the little matter of threading a wire through a too-small hole while under zero-g, and working in a spacesuit! ... Tinker's Dam
There is something very fundamental indeed about the ancient showman's trick--divert their attention from the thing you're really doing ... Illustrated by Schoenherr The call on the TV-phone came right in the middle of my shaving. ... To Kill!
The Rajah Muda Saffir, tiring of the excuses and delays which Bududreen interposed to postpone the fulfillment of his agreement with the former, whereby he was to deliver into the hands of the rajah a certain beautiful maiden, decided at last to a... To Save Dusar
Thuvia of Ptarth, battling for more than life against the lust of Jav, cast a quick glance over her shoulder toward the forest from which had rumbled the fierce growl. Jav looked, too. What they saw filled each with apprehension. It was Komal,... To Save The World
Two days later Alan and Miela were quietly married in Bay Head. She still wore the long cloak, and no one could have suspected she was other than a beautiful stranger in the little community. When we got back home Alan immediately made her take of... To The Unknown
WHEN, with elaborate genuflections and vows of allegiance, the governors of the six principal provinces of the mystic Kingdom had taken leave of Omar, we remained in consultation with the old sage for upwards of another hour. He told us many horri... Tom Bowcock Pitman
Lennard found himself standing outside the Trinity Street Station at Bolton a few minutes after six that evening. Of course it was raining. Rain and fine-spun cotton thread are Bolton's specialities, the two chief pillars of her fame and prosper... Tom Is Imprisoned
"Well, I must say he's a cool one," remarked Tom, as the echoes of Mr. Berg's steps died away. "The idea of thinking his boat better than ours! I don't like that man, dad. I'm suspicious of him. Do you think he came here to steal some of our ideas... Tony
St. Thomas, August 2571-February 2572 During the first week after Team Azrael reported to Middletown, Cortin got her men assigned quarters and the personal vehicles they were authorized, then made arrangements for them to have unlimited acces... Too Late
For a moment the two stood in silence; Bulan tortured by thoughts of the bitter humiliation that he must suffer when the girl should learn his identity; Virginia wondering at the sad lines that had come into the young man's face, and at his silenc... Too Many Warnings
For a moment, neither of the boys could say anything at all. From the time they had learned to talk, they had heard stories and tales that the miners and prospectors told about the Big Strike, the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, the wonde... Torres Straits
During the night of the 27th or 28th of December, the Nautilus left the shores of Vanikoro with great speed. Her course was south-westerly, and in three days she had gone over the 750 leagues that separated it from La Perouse's group and the south-... Toward The Eternal Fires
I WAS BORN IN CONNECTICUT ABOUT THIRTY YEARS ago. My name is David Innes. My father was a wealthy mine owner. When I was nineteen he died. All his property was to be mine when I had attained my majority--provided that I had devoted the two yea... Toy Shop
Because there were few adults in the crowd, and Colonel "Biff" Hawton stood over six feet tall, he could see every detail of the demonstration. The children--and most of the parents--gaped in wide-eyed wonder. Biff Hawton was too sophisticated to be... Transformation
Odeon was right; he didn't get any sleep. He'd left Medart as soon as a messenger from the ship delivered the materials the Ranger had ordered, and spent the next few hours comparing the Traditional Catholic Bible with the one he knew so well, ... Transformation
"You must make yourself over again," Ernest wrote to me. "You must cease to be. You must become another woman--and not merely in the clothes you wear, but inside your skin under the clothes. You must make yourself over again so that even I would n... Trapped
On along the tunnel they went. And as they progressed, Dennis got the answer to something that had troubled him a great deal before their entrance here--a problem which had been solved, rather amazingly, of itself. Termitaries, as far as the en... Traveling In Iceland
It ought, one would have thought, to have been night, even in the sixty-fifth parallel of latitude; but still the nocturnal illumination did not surprise me. For in Iceland, during the months of June and July, the sun never sets. The temperatur... Traveling With Terror
We made camp there beside the peaceful river. There Perry told me all that had befallen him since I had departed for the outer crust. It seemed that Hooja had made it appear that I had intentionally left Dian behind, and that I did not purpose ev... Treachery
The day following the coming of Vas Kor to the palace of the Prince of Helium great excitement reigned throughout the twin cities, reaching its climax in the palace of Carthoris. Word had come of the abduction of Thuvia of Ptarth from her father'... Treason
On their return to camp after her rescue Virginia talked a great deal to von Horn about the young giant who had rescued her, until the man feared that she was more interested in him than seemed good for his own plans. He had now cast from him t... Treasure And Treason
AT Omar's request a few days later I accompanied him alone through a private exit of the palace, and ere long we found ourselves unnoticed beyond the ponderous city walls, where two horses, held by a slave, were awaiting us. Mounting, we rode stra... Trial Of The Submarine
Tom felt such a relief at hearing of Captain Weston's ruse that his appetite, sharpened by an early breakfast and the sea air, came to him with a rush, and he had a second morning meal with the odd sea captain, who chuckled heartily when he though... Tricks Of Refraction
The doctor figured out that we should be quite insensible to any weight when we were seventy-five thousand miles from the Earth. At fifty thousand miles I would still weigh a pound, and when we had finished the first million miles, the entire proj... Trouble Times Two
The sun was glowing dull red as it slipped down behind the curving horizon of Mars, but Gregory Hunter was not able to see it. There was no viewscreen in the ship's cabin; it was too tiny for that. Greg twisted around in the cockpit that had bee... Troy Town
Constans awoke just as the footsteps died away; he listened, but again the stillness was profound. He felt his way to the secret door; the wainscot screen stood ajar. It was plain that some one had come to the Rat's-Hole only to discover that the ... Turjun The Panthan
The face of Carthoris of Helium gave no token of the emotions that convulsed him inwardly as he heard from the lips of Hal Vas that Helium was at war with Dusar, and that fate had thrown him into the service of the enemy. That he might utilize ... Turning The Tables
When the young inventor informed his father what he had overheard Mr. Berg saying, the aged inventor was not as much worried as his son anticipated. "All we'll have to do, Tom," he said, "is to keep quiet about where we are going. Once we have ... Twenty Minutes Past Ten To Forty-seven Minutes Past Ten P M
As ten o'clock struck, Michel Ardan, Barbicane, and Nicholl, took leave of the numerous friends they were leaving on the earth. The two dogs, destined to propagate the canine race on the lunar continents, were already shut up in the projectile. T... Two Men Resolve To Go Picnicking
One afternoon, the Doctor being at leisure, he and Denison talked long and earnestly of their never-failing theme, the aluminum globe. Denison finally said: "You know, Doctor, that I never go into anything without due consideration. I have stud... Tycho
It was now exactly six o'clock in the evening. The Sun, completely clear of all contact with the lunar disc, steeped the whole Projectile in his golden rays. The travellers, vertically over the Moon's south pole, were, as Barbican soon ascertained... Tycho
At six in the evening the projectile passed the south pole at less than forty miles off, a distance equal to that already reached at the north pole. The elliptical curve was being rigidly carried out. At this moment the travelers once more ent... Tydomin
Oceaxe sat down carelessly on the couch of mosses, and began eating the plums. "You see, you had to kill him, Maskull," she said, in a rather quizzical voice. He came away from the corpse and regarded her--still red, and still breathing hard. ... Under Arrest
As Carthoris, Xodar, Tars Tarkas, and I stood gazing at the magnificent vessel which meant so much to all of us, we saw a second and then a third top the summit of the hills and glide gracefully after their sister. Now a score of one-man air sc...