|
Chapter 4
So Llana of Gathol was lost to me again! That she had been captured by Hin Abtol`s warriors, there seemed little doubt. I asked Gan Hor for a thoat, that I might ride out and examine the spot at which the party had been taken; and he not only acceded to my request, but accompanied me with a detachment of his warriors.
There had evidently been a fight at the place that I had left them; the vegetation was trampled, and there was blood upon it; but so resilient is this mosslike carpeting of the dead sea bottoms of Mars, that, except for the blood, the last traces of the encounter were fast disappearing; and there was no indication of the direction taken by Llana`s captors.
"How far are their lines from here?" I asked Gan Hor.
"About nine haads," he replied--that is not quite three Earth miles.
"We might as well return to your camp," I said; "we haven`t a sufficiently strong force to accomplish anything now. I shall return after dark."
"We can make a little raid on one of their encampments tonight," suggested Gan Hor.
"I shall go alone," I told him; "I have a plan.
"But it won`t be safe," he objected. "I have a hundred men with whom I am constantly harassing them; we should be glad to ride with you."
"I am going only for information, Gan Hor; I can get that better alone."
We returned to camp, and with the help of one of Gan Hor`s warriors I applied to my face and body the red pigment that I always carry with me for use when I find it necessary to disguise myself as a native born red man--a copper colored ointment such as had first been given me by the Ptor brothers of Zodanga many years ago.
After dark I set out on thoatback, accompanied by Gan Hor and a couple of his warriors; as I had accepted his offer of transportation to a point much nearer the Panar lines. Fortunately the heavens were temporarily moonless, and we came quite close to the enemy`s first fires before I dismounted and bid my new friends goodby.
"Good luck!" said Gan Hor; "and you`ll need it."
Kor-an was one of the warriors who had accompanied us. "I`d like to go with you, Prince," he said; "thus I might atone for the thing I did."
"If I could take anyone, I`d take you, Kor-an," I assured him. "Anyway, you have nothing to atone for; but if you want to do something for me, promise that you will fight always for Tara of Helium and Llana of Gathol."
"On my sword, I swear it," he said; and then I left them and made my way cautiously toward the Panar camp.
Once again, as upon so many other occasions, I used the tactics of another race of red warriors--the Apaches of our own Southwest-- worming my way upon my belly closer and closer toward the lines of the enemy. I could see the forms of warriors clustered about their fires, and I could hear their voices and their rough laughter; and, as I drew nearer, the oaths and obscenities which seem to issue most naturally from the mouths of fighting men; and when a gust of wind blew from the camp toward me, I could even smell the sweat and the leather mingling with the acrid fumes of the smoke of their fires.
A sentry paced his post between me and the fires; when he came closest to me, I flattened myself upon the ground. I heard him yawn. When he was almost on top of me, I rose up before him; and before he could voice a warning cry, I seized him by the throat. Three times I drove my dagger into his heart. I hate to kill like that; but now there was no other way, and it was not for myself that I killed him--it was for Llana of Gathol, for Tara of Helium, and for Dejah Thoris, my beloved princess.
Just as I lowered his body to the ground, a warrior at a nearby fire arose and looked out toward us. "What was that?" he asked his fellows.
"The sentry," one of them replied; "there he is now." I was slowly pacing the post of the departed, hoping none would come to investigate.
"I could have sworn I saw two men scuffling there," said the first speaker.
"You are always seeing things," said a third.
I walked the post until they had ceased to discuss the matter and had turned their attention elsewhere; then I knelt beside the dead man and removed his harness and weapons, which I immediately donned. Now I was, to outward appearances anyway, a soldier of Hin Abtol, a Panar from some glazed, hothouse city of the frozen North.
Walking to the far end of my post, I left it and entered the camp at some distance from the group which included the warrior whose suspicions I had aroused. Although I passed close to another group of warriors, no one paid any attention to me. Other individuals were wandering around from fire to fire, and so my movements attracted no notice.
I must have walked fully a haad inside the lines away from my point of entry before I felt that it would be safe to stop and mix with the warriors. Finally I saw a lone warrior sitting beside a fire, and approached him.
"Kaor!" I said, using the universal greeting of Barsoom.
"Kaor!" he replied. "Sit down. I am a stranger here and have no friends in this dar." A dar is a unit of a thousand men, analogous to our Earthly regiment. "I just came down today with a fresh contingent from Pankor. It is good to move about and see the world again, after having been frozen in for fifty years."
"You haven`t been away from Pankor for fifty years!" I exclaimed, guessing that Pankor was the name of the Arctic city from which he hailed, and hoping that I was guessing right.
"No," he said; "and you! How long were you frozen in?"
"I have never been to Pankor," I said; "I am a panthan who has just joined up with Hin Abtol`s forces since they came south." I thought this the safest position to take, since I should be sure to arouse suspicion were I to claim familiarity with Pankor, when I had never been there.
"Well," said my companion, "you must be crazy."
"Why?" I asked.
"Nobody but a crazy man would put himself in the power of Hin Abtol. Well, you`ve done it; and now you`ll be taken to Pankor after this war is over, unless you`re lucky enough to be killed; and you`ll be frozen in there until Hin Abtol needs you for another campaign. What`s your name?"
"Dotor Sojat," I replied, falling back on that old time name the green Martian horde of Thark had given me so many years before.
"Mine is Em-tar; I am from Kobol."
"I thought you said you were from Pankor."
"I`m a Kobolian by birth," he explained. "Where are you from?"
"We panthans have no country," I reminded him.
"But you must have been born somewhere," he insisted.
"Perhaps the less said about that the better," I said, attempting a sly wink.
He laughed. "Sorry I asked," he said.
Sometimes, when a man has committed a political crime, a huge reward is offered for information concerning his whereabouts; so, as well as changing his name, he never divulges the name of his country. I let Em-tar think that I was a fugitive from justice.
"How do you think this campaign is going?" I asked.
"If Hin Abtol can starve them out, he may win," replied Em-tar; "but from what I have heard he could never take the city by storm. These Gatholians are great fighters, which is more than can be said for those who fight under Hin Abtol--our hearts aren`t in it; we have no feeling of loyalty for Hin Abtol; but these Gatholians now, they`re fighting for their homes and their jed; and they love `em both. They say that Gahan`s Princess is a daughter of The Warlord of Barsoom. Say, if he hears about this and brings a fleet and an army from Helium, we might just as well start digging our graves."
"Are we taking many prisoners?" I asked.
"Not many. Three were taken this morning; one of them was the daughter of Gahan, the Jed of Gathol; the other two were men."
"That`s interesting," I said; "I wonder what Hin Abtol will do with the daughter of Gahan."
"That I wouldn`t know," replied Em-tar, "but they say he`s sent her off to Pankor already. You hear a lot of rumors in an army, though; and most of them are wrong."
"I suppose Hin Abtol has a big fleet of fliers," I said.
"He`s got a lot of old junk, and not many men capable of flying what he has got."
"I`m a flier," I said.
"You`d better not let `em know it, or they`ll have you on board some old wreck," advised Em-tar.
"Where`s their landing field here?"
"Down that way about a haad;" he pointed in the direction I had been going when I stopped to talk with him.
"Well, goodby, Em-tar," I said, rising.
"Where are you going?"
"To fly for Hin Abtol of Pankor," I said.
|
