Edgar Rice Burroughs - Mars Chronicles 04 - Thuvia Maid of.pdf

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Burroughs, Edgar Rice - Mars Chronicles 04 - Thuvia Maid of Mars.
XI Green Men and White Apes
XII To Save Dusar
XIII Turjun, the Panthan
XIV Kulan Tith's Sacrifice
Glossary of Names and Terms.
is the hard, cold ersite of this thrice happy bench which supports
your divine and fadeless form! Tell me, O Thuvia of Ptarth, that I
may still hope--that though you do not love me now, yet some day,
some day, my princess, I--"
The girl sprang to her feet with an exclamation of surprise and
displeasure. Her queenly head was poised haughtily upon her
smooth red shoulders. Her dark eyes looked angrily into those of
the man.
"You forget yourself, and the customs of Barsoom, Astok," she said.
"I have given you no right thus to address the daughter of Thuvan
Dihn, nor have you won such a right."
The man reached suddenly forth and grasped her by the arm.
"You shall be my princess!" he cried. "By the breast of Issus, thou
shalt, nor shall any other come between Astok, Prince of Dusar, and
his heart's desire. Tell me that there is another, and I shall cut out
his foul heart and fling it to the wild calots of the dead sea-
bottoms!"
At touch of the man's hand upon her flesh the girl went pallid
beneath her coppery skin, for the persons of the royal women of the
courts of Mars are held but little less than sacred. The act of Astok,
Prince of Dusar, was profanation. There was no terror in the eyes of
Thuvia of Ptarth--only horror for the thing the man had done and
for its possible consequences.
"Release me." Her voice was level--frigid.
The man muttered incoherently and drew her roughly toward him.
"Release me!" she repeated sharply, "or I call the guard, and the
Prince of Dusar knows what that will mean."
Quickly he threw his right arm about her shoulders and strove to
draw her face to his lips. With a little cry she struck him full in the
mouth with the massive bracelets that circled her free arm.."Calot!"
she exclaimed, and then: "The guard! The guard! Hasten in
protection of the Princess of Ptarth!"
copper colour that marks the red men of Mars from the other races
of the dying planet--he was like them, and yet there was a subtle
difference greater even than that which lay in his lighter skin and
his grey eyes.
There was a difference, too, in his movements. He came on in great
leaps that carried him so swiftly over the ground that the speed of
the guardsmen was as nothing by comparison. Astok still clutched
Thuvia's wrist as the young warrior confronted him. The new-comer
wasted no time and he spoke but a single word.
"Calot!" he snapped, and then his clenched fist landed beneath
the other's chin, lifting him high into the air and depositing him in a
crumpled heap within the centre of the pimalia bush beside the
ersite bench.
Her champion turned toward the girl. "Kaor, Thuvia of Ptarth!" he
cried. "It seems that fate timed my visit well."
"Kaor, Carthoris of Helium!" the princess returned the young man's
greeting, "and what less could one expect of the son of such a sire?"
He bowed his acknowledgment of the compliment to his father,
John Carter, Warlord of Mars. And then the guardsmen, panting
from their charge, came up just as the Prince of Dusar, bleeding at
the mouth, and with drawn sword, crawled from the entanglement
of the pimalia.
Astok would have leaped to mortal combat with the son of Dejah
Thoris, but the guardsmen pressed about him, preventing, though
it was clearly evident that naught would have better pleased
Carthoris of Helium.
"But say the word, Thuvia of Ptarth," he begged, "and naught will
give me greater pleasure than meting to this fellow the punishment
he has earned."
"It cannot be, Carthoris," she replied. "Even though he has
forfeited all claim upon my consideration, yet is he the guest of the
jeddak, my father, and to him alone may he account for the
man's challenge.
The guard still surrounded Astok. It was a difficult position for
the young officer who commanded it. His prisoner was the son of a
mighty jeddak; he was the guest of Thuvan Dihn--until but now an
honoured guest upon whom every royal dignity had been showered.
To arrest him forcibly could mean naught else than war, and yet he
had done that which in the eyes of the Ptarth warrior merited death.
The young man hesitated. He looked toward his princess. She,
too, guessed all that hung upon the action of the coming moment.
For many years Dusar and Ptarth had been at peace with each
other. Their great merchant ships plied back and forth between the
larger cities of the two nations. Even now, far above the gold-shot
scarlet dome of the jeddak's palace, she could see the huge bulk of
a giant freighter taking its majestic way through the thin
Barsoomian air toward the west and Dusar.
By a word she might plunge these two mighty nations into a
bloody conflict that would drain them of their bravest blood and
their incalculable riches, leaving them all helpless against the
inroads of their envious and less powerful neighbors, and at last a
prey to the savage green hordes of the dead sea-bottoms.
No sense of fear influenced her decision, for fear is seldom
known to the children of Mars. It was rather a sense of the
responsibility that she, the daughter of their jeddak, felt for the
welfare of her father's people.
"I called you, Padwar," she said to the lieutenant of the guard, "to
protect the person of your princess, and to keep the peace
that.must not be violated within the royal gardens of the jeddak.
That is
all. You will escort me to the palace, and the Prince of Helium will
accompany me."
Without another glance in the direction of Astok she turned, and
taking Carthoris' proffered hand, moved slowly toward the massive

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