CHAPTER XV

THE OLD MAN OF THE PITS

"I shall not desert you, Ghek," said Tara of Helium, simply.

"Go! Go!" whispered the kaldane. "You can do me no good. Go, or all I

have done is for naught."

Tara shook her head. "I cannot," she said.

"They will slay her," said Ghek to Turan, and the panthan, torn between

loyalty to this strange creature who had offered its life for him, and

love of the woman, hesitated but a moment, then he swept Tara from her

feet and lifting her in his arms leaped up the steps that led to the

throne of Manator. Behind the throne he parted the arras and found the

secret opening. Into this he bore the girl and down a long, narrow

corridor and winding runways that led to lower levels until they came

to the pits of the palace of O-Tar. Here was a labyrinth of passages

and chambers presenting a thousand hiding-places.

As Turan bore Tara up the steps toward the throne a score of warriors

rose as though to rush forward to intercept them. "Stay!" cried Ghek,

"or your jeddak dies," and they halted in their tracks, waiting the

will of this strange, uncanny creature.

Presently Ghek took his eyes from the eyes of O-Tar and the jeddak

shook himself as one who would be rid of a bad dream and straightened

up, half dazed still.

"Look," said Ghek, then, "I have given your jeddak his life, nor have I

harmed one of those whom I might easily have slain when they were in my

power. No harm have I or my friends done in the city of Manator. Why

then should you persecute us? Give us our lives. Give us our liberty."

O-Tar, now in command of his faculties, stooped and regained his sword.

In the room was silence as all waited to hear the jeddak's answer.

"Just are the laws of Manator," he said at last. "Perhaps, after all,

there is truth in the words of the stranger. Return him then to the

pits and pursue the others and capture them. Through the mercy of O-Tar

they shall be permitted to win their freedom upon the Field of Jetan,

in the coming games."

Still ashen was the face of the jeddak as Ghek was led away and his

appearance was that of a man who had been snatched from the brink of

eternity into which he has gazed, not with the composure of great

courage, but with fear. There were those in the throne room who knew

that the execution of the three prisoners had but been delayed and the

responsibility placed upon the shoulders of others, and one of those

who knew was U-Thor, the great jed of Manatos. His curling lip

betokened his scorn of the jeddak who had chosen humiliation rather

than death. He knew that O-Tar had lost more of prestige in those few

moments than he could regain in a lifetime, for the Martians are

jealous of the courage of their chiefs--there can be no evasions of

stern duty, no temporizing with honor. That there were others in the

room who shared U-Thor's belief was evidenced by the silence and the

grim scowls.

O-Tar glanced quickly around. He must have sensed the hostility and

guessed its cause, for he went suddenly angry, and as one who seeks by

the vehemence of his words to establish the courage of his heart he

roared forth what could be considered as naught other than a challenge.

"The will of O-Tar, the jeddak, is the law of Manator," he cried, "and

the laws of Manator are just--they cannot err. U-Dor, dispatch those

who will search the palace, the pits, and the city, and return the

fugitives to their cells.

"And now for you, U-Thor of Manatos! Think you with impunity to

threaten your jeddak--to question his right to punish traitors and

instigators of treason? What am I to think of your own loyalty, who

takes to wife a woman I have banished from my court because of her

intrigues against the authority of her jeddak and her master? But O-Tar

is just. Make your explanations and your peace, then, before it is too

late."

"U-Thor has nothing to explain," replied the jed of Manatos; "nor is he

at war with his jeddak; but he has the right that every jed and every

warrior enjoys, of demanding justice at the hands of the jeddak for

whomsoever he believes to be persecuted. With increasing rigor has the

jeddak of Manator persecuted the slaves from Gathol since he took to

himself the unwilling Princess Haja. If the slaves from Gathol have

harbored thoughts of vengeance and escape 'tis no more than might be

expected from a proud and courageous people. Ever have I counselled

greater fairness in our treatment of our slaves, many of whom, in their

own lands, are people of great distinction and power; but always has

O-Tar, the jeddak, flouted with arrogance my every suggestion. Though

it has been through none of my seeking that the question has arisen now

I am glad that it has, for the time was bound to come when the jeds of

Manator would demand from O-Tar the respect and consideration that is

their due from the man who holds his high office at their pleasure.

Know, then, O-Tar, that you must free A-Kor, the dwar, forthwith or

bring him to fair trial before the assembled jeds of Manator. I have

spoken."

"You have spoken well and to the point, U-Thor," cried O-Tar, "for you

have revealed to your jeddak and your fellow jeds the depth of the

disloyalty that I have long suspected. A-Kor already has been tried and

sentenced by the supreme tribunal of Manator--O-Tar, the jeddak; and

you too shall receive justice from the same unfailing source. In the

meantime you are under arrest. To the pits with him! To the pits with

U-Thor the false jed!" He clapped his hands to summon the surrounding

warriors to do his bidding. A score leaped forward to seize U-Thor.

They were warriors of the palace, mostly; but two score leaped to

defend U-Thor, and with ringing steel they fought at the foot of the

steps to the throne of Manator where stood O-Tar, the jeddak, with

drawn sword ready to take his part in the melee.

At the clash of steel, palace guards rushed to the scene from other

parts of the great building until those who would have defended U-Thor

were outnumbered two to one, and then the jed of Manatos slowly

withdrew with his forces, and fighting his way through the corridors

and chambers of the palace came at last to the avenue. Here he was

reinforced by the little army that had marched with him into Manator.

Slowly they retreated toward The Gate of Enemies between the rows of

silent people looking down upon them from the balconies and there,

within the city walls, they made their stand.

In a dimly-lighted chamber beneath the palace of O-Tar the jeddak,

Turan the panthan lowered Tara of Helium from his arms and faced her.

"I am sorry, Princess," he said, "that I was forced to disobey your

commands, or to abandon Ghek; but there was no other way. Could he have

saved you I would have stayed in his place. Tell me that you forgive

me."

"How could I do less?" she replied graciously. "But it seemed cowardly

to abandon a friend."

"Had we been three fighting men it had been different," he said. "We

could only have remained and died together, fighting; but you know,

Tara of Helium, that we may not jeopardize a woman's safety even though

we risk the loss of honor."

"I know that, Turan," she said; "but no one may say that you have

risked honor, who knows the honor and bravery that are yours."

He heard her with surprise for these were the first words that she had

spoken to him that did not savor of the attitude of a princess to a

panthan--though it was more in her tone than the actual words that he

apprehended the difference. How at variance were they to her recent

repudiation of him! He could not fathom her, and so he blurted out the

question that had been in his mind since she had told O-Tar that she

did not know him.

"Tara of Helium," he said, "your words are balm to the wound you gave

me in the throne room of O-Tar. Tell me, Princess, why you denied me."

She turned her great, deep eyes up to his and in them was a little of

reproach.

"You did not guess," she asked, "that it was my lips alone and not my

heart that denied you? O-Tar had ordered that I die, more because I was

a companion of Ghek than because of any evidence against me, and so I

knew that if I acknowledged you as one of us, you would be slain, too."

"It was to save me, then?" he cried, his face suddenly lighting.

"It was to save my brave panthan," she said in a low voice.

"Tara of Helium," said the warrior, dropping to one knee, "your words

are as food to my hungry heart," and he took her fingers in his and

pressed them to his lips.

Gently she raised him to his feet. "You need not tell me, kneeling,"

she said, softly.

Her hand was still in his as he rose and they were very close, and the

man was still flushed with the contact of her body since he had carried

her from the throne room of O-Tar. He felt his heart pounding in his

breast and the hot blood surging through his veins as he looked at her

beautiful face, with its downcast eyes and the half-parted lips that he

would have given a kingdom to possess, and then he swept her to him and

as he crushed her against his breast his lips smothered hers with

kisses.

But only for an instant. Like a tigress the girl turned upon him,

striking him, and thrusting him away. She stepped back, her head high

and her eyes flashing fire. "You would dare?" she cried. "You would

dare thus defile a princess of Helium?"

His eyes met hers squarely and there was no shame and no remorse in

them.

"Yes, I would dare," he said. "I would dare love Tara of Helium; but I

would not dare defile her or any woman with kisses that were not

prompted by love of her alone." He stepped closer to her and laid his

hands upon her shoulders. "Look into my eyes, daughter of The Warlord,"

he said, "and tell me that you do not wish the love of Turan, the

panthan."

"I do not wish your love," she cried, pulling away. "I hate you!" and

then turning away she bent her head into the hollow of her arm, and

wept.

The man took a step toward her as though to comfort her when he was

arrested by the sound of a crackling laugh behind him. Wheeling about,

he discovered a strange figure of a man standing in a doorway. It was

one of those rarities occasionally to be seen upon Barsoom--an old man

with the signs of age upon him. Bent and wrinkled, he had more the

appearance of a mummy than a man.

"Love in the pits of O-Tar!" he cried, and again his thin laughter

jarred upon the silence of the subterranean vaults. "A strange place to

woo! A strange place to woo, indeed! When I was a young man we roamed

in the gardens beneath giant pimalias and stole our kisses in the brief

shadows of hurtling Thuria. We came not to the gloomy pits to speak of

love; but times have changed and ways have changed, though I had never

thought to live to see the time when the way of a man with a maid, or a

maid with a man would change. Ah, but we kissed them then! And what if

they objected, eh? What if they objected? Why, we kissed them more. Ey,

ey, those were the days!" and he cackled again. "Ey, well do I recall

the first of them I ever kissed, and I've kissed an army of them since;

she was a fine girl, but she tried to slip a dagger into me while I was

kissing her. Ey, ey, those were the days! But I kissed her. She's been

dead over a thousand years now, but she was never kissed again like

that while she lived, I'll swear, not since she's been dead, either.

And then there was that other--" but Turan, seeing a thousand or more

years of osculatory memoirs portending, interrupted.

"Tell me, ancient one," he said, "not of thy loves but of thyself. Who

are you? What do you here in the pits of O-Tar?"

"I might ask you the same, young man," replied the other. "Few there

are who visit the pits other than the dead, except my pupils--ey! That

is it--you are new pupils! Good! But never before have they sent a

woman to learn the great art from the greatest artist. But times have

changed. Now, in my day the women did no work--they were just for

kissing and loving. Ey, those were the women. I mind the one we

captured in the south--ey! she was a devil, but how she could love. She

had breasts of marble and a heart of fire. Why, she--"

"Yes, yes," interrupted Turan; "we are pupils, and we are anxious to

get to work. Lead on and we will follow."

"Ey, yes! Ey, yes! Come! All is rush and hurry as though there were not

another countless myriad of ages ahead. Ey, yes! as many as lie behind.

Two thousand years have passed since I broke my shell and always rush,

rush, rush, yet I cannot see that aught has been accomplished. Manator

is the same today as it was then--except the girls. We had the girls

then. There was one that I gained upon The Fields of Jetan. Ey, but you

should have seen--"

"Lead on!" cried Turan. "After we are at work you shall tell us of her."

"Ey, yes," said the old fellow and shuffled off down a dimly lighted

passage. "Follow me!"

"You are going with him?" asked Tara.

"Why not?" replied Turan. "We know not where we are, or the way from

these pits; for I know not east from west; but he doubtless knows and

if we are shrewd we may learn from him that which we would know. At

least we cannot afford to arouse his suspicions"; and so they followed

him--followed along winding corridors and through many chambers, until

they came at last to a room in which there were several marble slabs

raised upon pedestals some three feet above the floor and upon each

slab lay a human corpse.

"Here we are," exclaimed the old man. "These are fresh and we shall

have to get to work upon them soon. I am working now on one for The

Gate of Enemies. He slew many of our warriors. Truly is he entitled to

a place in The Gate. Come, you shall see him."

He led them to an adjoining apartment. Upon the floor were many fresh,

human bones and upon a marble slab a mass of shapeless flesh.

"You will learn this later," announced the old man; "but it will not

harm you to watch me now, for there are not many thus prepared, and it

may be long before you will have the opportunity to see another

prepared for The Gate of Enemies. First, you see, I remove all the

bones, carefully that the skin may be damaged as little as possible.

The skull is the most difficult, but it can be removed by a skilful

artist. You see, I have made but a single opening. This I now sew up,

and that done, the body is hung so," and he fastened a piece of rope to

the hair of the corpse and swung the horrid thing to a ring in the

ceiling. Directly below it was a circular manhole in the floor from

which he removed the cover revealing a well partially filled with a

reddish liquid. "Now we lower it into this, the formula for which you

shall learn in due time. We fasten it thus to the bottom of the cover,

which we now replace. In a year it will be ready; but it must be

examined often in the meantime and the liquid kept above the level of

its crown. It will be a very beautiful piece, this one, when it is

ready.

"And you are fortunate again, for there is one to come out today." He

crossed to the opposite side of the room and raised another cover,

reached in and dragged a grotesque looking figure from the hole. It was

a human body, shrunk by the action of the chemical in which it had been

immersed, to a little figure scarce a foot high.

"Ey! is it not fine?" cried the little old man. "Tomorrow it will take

its place in The Gate of Enemies." He dried it off with cloths and

packed it away carefully in a basket. "Perhaps you would like to see

some of my life work," he suggested, and without waiting for their

assent led them to another apartment, a large chamber in which were

forty or fifty people. All were sitting or standing quietly about the

walls, with the exception of one huge warrior who bestrode a great

thoat in the very center of the room, and all were motionless.

Instantly there sprang to the minds of Tara and Turan the rows of

silent people upon the balconies that lined the avenues of the city,

and the noble array of mounted warriors in The Hall of Chiefs, and the

same explanation came to both but neither dared voice the question that

was in his mind, for fear of revealing by his ignorance the fact that

they were strangers in Manator and therefore impostors in the guise of

pupils.

"It is very wonderful," said Turan. "It must require great skill and

patience and time."

"That it does," replied the old man, "though having done it so long I

am quicker than most; but mine are the most natural. Why, I would defy

the wife of that warrior to say that insofar as appearances are

concerned he does not live," and he pointed at the man upon the thoat.

"Many of them, of course, are brought here wasted or badly wounded and

these I have to repair. That is where great skill is required, for

everyone wants his dead to look as they did at their best in life; but

you shall learn--to mount them and paint them and repair them and

sometimes to make an ugly one look beautiful. And it will be a great

comfort to be able to mount your own. Why, for fifteen hundred years no

one has mounted my own dead but myself.

"I have many, my balconies are crowded with them; but I keep a great

room for my wives. I have them all, as far back as the first one, and

many is the evening I spend with them--quiet evenings and very

pleasant. And then the pleasure of preparing them and making them even

more beautiful than in life partially recompenses one for their loss. I

take my time with them, looking for a new one while I am working on the

old. When I am not sure about a new one I bring her to the chamber

where my wives are, and compare her charms with theirs, and there is

always a great satisfaction at such times in knowing that they will not

object. I love harmony."

"Did you prepare all the warriors in The Hall of Chiefs?" asked Turan.

"Yes, I prepare them and repair them," replied the old man. "O-Tar will

trust no other. Even now I have two in another room who were damaged in

some way and brought down to me. O-Tar does not like to have them gone

long, since it leaves two riderless thoats in the Hall; but I shall

have them ready presently. He wants them all there in the event any

momentous question arises upon which the living jeds cannot agree, or

do not agree with O-Tar. Such questions he carries to the jeds in The

Hall of Chiefs. There he shuts himself up alone with the great chiefs

who have attained wisdom through death. It is an excellent plan and

there is never any friction or misunderstandings. O-Tar has said that

it is the finest deliberative body upon Barsoom--much more intelligent

than that composed of the living jeds. But come, we must get to work;

come into the next chamber and I will begin your instruction."

He led the way into the chamber in which lay the several corpses upon

their marble slabs, and going to a cabinet he donned a pair of huge

spectacles and commenced to select various tools from little

compartments. This done he turned again toward his two pupils.

"Now let me have a look at you," he said. "My eyes are not what they

once were, and I need these powerful lenses for my work, or to see

distinctly the features of those around me."

He turned his eyes upon the two before him. Turan held his breath for

he knew that now the man must discover that they wore not the harness

or insignia of Manator. He had wondered before why the old fellow had

not noticed it, for he had not known that he was half blind. The other

examined their faces, his eyes lingering long upon the beauty of Tara

of Helium, and then they drifted to the harness of the two. Turan

thought that he noted an appreciable start of surprise on the part of

the taxidermist, but if the old man noticed anything his next words did

not reveal it.

"Come with I-Gos," he said to Turan. "I have materials in the next room

that I would have you fetch hither. Remain here, woman, we shall be

gone but a moment."

He led the way to one of the numerous doors opening into the chamber

and entered ahead of Turan. Just inside the door he stopped, and

pointing to a bundle of silks and furs upon the opposite side of the

room directed Turan to fetch them. The latter had crossed the room and

was stooping to raise the bundle when he heard the click of a lock

behind him. Wheeling instantly he saw that he was alone in the room and

that the single door was closed. Running rapidly to it he strove to

open it, only to find that he was a prisoner.

I-Gos, stepping out and locking the door behind him, turned toward Tara.

"Your leather betrayed you," he said, laughing his cackling laugh. "You

sought to deceive old I-Gos, but you found that though his eyes are

weak his brain is not. But it shall not go ill with you. You are

beautiful and I-Gos loves beautiful women. I might not have you

elsewhere in Manator, but here there is none to deny old I-Gos. Few

come to the pits of the dead--only those who bring the dead and they

hasten away as fast as they can. No one will know that I-Gos has a

beautiful woman locked with his dead. I shall ask you no questions and

then I will not have to give you up, for I will not know to whom you

belong, eh? And when you die I shall mount you beautifully and place

you in the chamber with my other women. Will not that be fine, eh?" He

had approached until he stood close beside the horrified girl. "Come!"

he cried, seizing her by the wrist. "Come to I-Gos!"