"I would save you from Matai Shang," I heard him say."You know the fate that awaits you at his hands.Would you not choose me rather than the other?""I would choose neither," replied Dejah Thoris, "even were Ifree to choose, as you know well I am not.""You ARE free!" he cried."John Carter, Prince of Helium, is dead.""I know better than that; but even were he dead, and I must needs choose another mate, it should be a plant man or a great white ape in preference to either Matai Shang or you, black calot,"she answered with a sneer of contempt.
Of a sudden the vicious beast lost all control of himself, as with a vile oath he leaped at the slender woman, gripping her tender throat in his brute clutch.Thuvia screamed and sprang to aid her fellow-prisoner, and at the same instant I, too, went mad, and tearing at the bars that spanned my window I ripped them from their sockets as they had been but copper wire.
Hurling myself through the aperture I reached the garden, but a hundred feet from where the black was choking the life from my Dejah Thoris, and with a single great bound I was upon him.
I spoke no word as I tore his defiling fingers from that beautiful throat, nor did I utter a sound as I hurled him twenty feet from me.
Foaming with rage, Thurid regained his feet and charged me like a mad bull.
"Yellow man," he shrieked, "you knew not upon whom you had laid your vile hands, but ere I am done with you, you will know well what it means to offend the person of a First Born."Then he was upon me, reaching for my throat, and precisely as I had done that day in the courtyard of the Temple of Issus I did here in the garden of the palace of Salensus Oll.I ducked beneath his outstretched arms, and as he lunged past me I planted a terrific right upon the side of his jaw.
Just as he had done upon that other occasion he did now.Like a top he spun round, his knees gave beneath him, and he crumpled to the ground at my feet.Then I heard a voice behind me.
It was the deep voice of authority that marks the ruler of men, and when I turned to face the resplendent figure of a giant yellow man I did not need to ask to know that it was Salensus Oll.
At his right stood Matai Shang, and behind them a score of guardsmen.
"Who are you," he cried, "and what means this intrusion within the precincts of the women's garden? I do not recall your face.
How came you here?"
But for his last words I should have forgotten my disguise entirely and told him outright that I was John Carter, Prince of Helium; but his question recalled me to myself.
I pointed to the dislodged bars of the window above.
"I am an aspirant to membership in the palace guard," I said, "and from yonder window in the tower where I was confined awaiting the final test for fitness I saw this brute attack the this woman.
I could not stand idly by, O Jeddak, and see this thing done within the very palace grounds, and yet feel that I was fit to serve and guard your royal person."I had evidently made an impression upon the ruler of Okar by my fair words, and when he had turned to Dejah Thoris and Thuvia of Ptarth, and both had corroborated my statements it began to look pretty dark for Thurid.
I saw the ugly gleam in Matai Shang's evil eyes as Dejah Thoris narrated all that had passed between Thurid and herself, and when she came to that part which dealt with my interference with the dator of the First Born her gratitude was quite apparent, though I could see by her eyes that something puzzled her strangely.
I did not wonder at her attitude toward me while others were present;but that she should have denied me while she and Thuvia were the only occupants of the garden still cut me sorely.
As the examination proceeded I cast a glance at Thurid and startled him looking wide-eyed and wonderingly at me, and then of a sudden he laughed full in my face.
A moment later Salensus Oll turned toward the black.
"What have you to say in explanation of these charges?" he asked in a deep and terrible voice."Dare you aspire to one whom the Father of Therns has chosen--one who might even be a fit mate for the Jeddak of Jeddaks himself?"And then the black-bearded tyrant turned and cast a sudden greedy look upon Dejah Thoris, as though with the words a new thought and a new desire had sprung up within his mind and breast.
Thurid had been about to reply and, with a malicious grin upon his face, was pointing an accusing finger at me, when Salensus Oll's words and the expression of his face cut him short.
A cunning look crept into his eyes, and I knew from the expression of his face that his next words were not the ones he had intended to speak.
"O Mightiest of Jeddaks," he said, "the man and the women do not speak the truth.The fellow had come into the garden to assist them to escape.I was beyond and overheard their conversation, and when I entered, the woman screamed and the man sprang upon me and would have killed me.
"What know you of this man? He is a stranger to you, and Idare say that you will find him an enemy and a spy.Let him be put on trial, Salensus Oll, rather than your friend and guest, Thurid, Dator of the First Born."Salensus Oll looked puzzled.He turned again and looked upon Dejah Thoris, and then Thurid stepped quite close to him and whispered something in his ear--what, I know not.
Presently the yellow ruler turned to one of his officers.
"See that this man be securely confined until we have time to go deeper into this affair," he commanded, "and as bars alone seem inadequate to restrain him, let chains be added."Then he turned and left the garden, taking Dejah Thoris with him--his hand upon her shoulder.Thurid and Matai Shang went also, and as they reached the gateway the black turned and laughed again aloud in my face.
What could be the meaning of his sudden change toward me?
Could he suspect my true identity? It must be that, and the thing that had betrayed me was the trick and blow that had laid him low for the second time.
As the guards dragged me away my heart was very sad and bitter indeed, for now to the two relentless enemies that had hounded her for so long another and a more powerful one had been added, for I would have been but a fool had I not recognized the sudden love for Dejah Thoris that had just been born in the terrible breast of Salensus Oll, Jeddak of Jeddaks, ruler of Okar.