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The Prince of Mars Returns




(1940)
Country of origin: U.S.A. USA
Available texts by the same author here Dokument


Chapter 8: I Rescue Lil-rin

   There, standing before me, stretching his arms wide and bowing with some difficulty, the first fat man I had seen on Mars.
   On the far side of the building I found were cage-like structures for the dogs and the dulyals. After ordering my animals to remain in them until I called, I followed the innkeeper back around the building to the metal door.
   From here, a circular ramp led down to the lower levels. I stopped at the first level to pay my board and lodging with the heavy little red beads (rubies, I think they were) that the Martians use for money, since gold is far too plentiful.
   I drew a puzzled glance from mine Martian host when I laughed because the little cage at which I paid was so much like a cashiers corner in innumerable little restaurants on a planet millions of miles away.
   My room proved to be on the third level down.
   I was shown from my room to the "moccor," which I suppose would be translated in English variously as "lobby," "barroom" or "restaurant." It was on the first level below ground. Here, gathered about the great solid, carved blocks of quartz that served as tables were seated some score or more of Martians, all of the Ildin class, or Freemen. This, I gathered from the green sashes they wore like my own with which Banur had outfitted me.
   In a far corner of the room was a little party of four, obviously strangers to the village, for like myself they seemed to be interested in their surroundings. They surveyed their neighbors with some curiosity. Two of them were Epsin-Lesser Lords. They wore the red sash distinctive of their class. The other pair were Ildin.
   A couple of slaves, obviously members of the party and not inn attendants, garbed in the black that denoted their position in life, hovered in the background with big bowls and jugs.
   There was a vacant table near the group, and I moved toward them, as unconcernedly as I could. They seemed to take no notice of me.
   Almost immediately the name "Gakko," although uttered in a hushed tone, caught my ear. I strained to hear more, but without much success for awhile, for one of the inn's servants was placing my food before me.
   Later I heard the city of Gakalu mentioned a few times, and there was something said about the seaworthiness of a certain wheel-boat, and the necessity of guarding someone well under pain of Gakko's violent displeasure.
   I had no doubt it was Lil-rin to whom they referred, and that this was the party I was after. Certainly there was something furtive about their manner, something sly that argued there was no good in the business that had brought them here.
   I felt for the little automatic under my shirt, and casually unfastened the garment a bit at the neck that I might reach it quickly. None of those in the room had taken particular notice of me as yet, and I was thankful for the rather dull light thrown by the crystal bowls placed in recesses along the walls, in which wicks floated.
   I was thankful, too, for the Martian custom that did not require men to uncover indoors, although women were supposed to—a curious reversal of the practice on Earth.
   I was trying to decide upon my next step when fate took the initiative.
   There was a sudden commotion near a triangular door that gave access to one of the lower level ramps. A slender girl in the black garb of a slave dodged frantically among the tables toward the group I was watching. Her progress was marked by growls and resentful glances.
   One or two Ildin half rose in their places, then sank back again quickly enough when they saw the red sashes of the Epsin, who had risen in some alarm as the slave girl fought her way toward them.
   But, once she had made her breathless report, the four men, followed by the girl and the two slaves, dashed for the ramp.
   In the excitement, I followed.
   A turn in the ramp muffled the commotion behind us, and I heard the patter of the conspirators' running feet as they circled downward. I leaped after them, closing the gap quickly, and stopped barely in time to avoid turning another corner and crashing full into them. They paused at the fourth level down and threw aside the leather curtain that concealed a triangular door. With a rush they were through.
   In addition to the two Epsin, there were four or five Ildin in the room, and several slaves of both sexes. They had spread out and were cautiously closing in on a far corner of the room where a slim girlish figure, almost denuded of clothing and bleeding from an ugly gash on the arm, stood at bay.
   In one hand she had a spring-gun, with which she kept threatening her enemies, as one or another of them took a chance and tried to advance a step. In her other hand she held my large automatic.
   Here then was Lil-rin of the Ta n'Ur, the golden-haired, blue-eyed Amazon of the Southern clan whom I had sworn to rescue. Lil-rin, gloriously waging the battle of her life against a band of Martian vultures, who leered evilly at her gleaming body, yet respected the deadliness of her weapons. Lil-rin—my wife! Her clear sweet voice rang out now with scorn as she taunted and defied them. And they howled back like a pack of wolves.
   "Stop this folly! Throw down that weapon!" roared one of the Epsin, who seemed to be the leader, as he pushed his way forward to face the girl.
   "Be careful, Uallo," cautioned the other noble at his elbow. "She means it. She'll do what she says. I know these clansmen of the South. And the Ta n'Ur are the most desperate warriors of them all." The other hesitated. "But this is ridiculous. She is only a girl, and—"
   "The daughter of their leader, their Myar-Lur," interpolated the cautious one. "It is best to take matters slowly."
   It was the psychological moment. I acted.
   Stepping inside the door, I raised my little automatic and fired a shot into the ceiling. The reverberation in that heavily walled room was terrific. It seemed to stun the Martians. Demoralization was in their faces as they swung about and saw me there like a statue, my gun half raised and a tiny wisp of smoke curling up from it. They shrank from me.
   "Come, Lil-rin," I said. "We must get out of here. You go first and clear the way. Use my gun if you have to, but I think there are none above who have an interest in stopping us. I'll hold this scum back."
   Lil-rin looked at me like one who sees a happy vision and doubts its reality. I never saw her look more beautiful than at that moment, disheveled as she was and bleeding from the rather ugly gash in her arm. But there was no indecision in the girl.
   With her little shoulders thrown back, her chin high and an expression of regal contempt for Uallo and all his followers, she stepped briskly to my side. For just an instant she paused and looked at me, an inscrutable something in her clear blue eyes. Then, she slipped through the curtained door and was gone.
   Her disappearance seemed to break the spell.
   "Stop them! At any cost!" Uallo roared, and threw himself recklessly at me.
   Instinctively the rest leaped with him. Three or four times my automatic roared; four of the enemy pitched headlong. But the distance between us had not been great, and even those who had stopped my bullets plunged into me as I went under from the combined rush, pulling the leather curtain on top of me as I fell outward through the door.
   As fast as I could press the muzzle of my gun against a new mark I pulled the trigger, but my head was entangled in the curtain and so many Martians had fallen on top of me that I could not at once wriggle free.
   It was then that I heard the heavier roar of Lil-rin's gun. Five times, at evenly spaced intervals, she fired, evidently aiming with calm deliberation. Then all was quiet, save for the groans of the Martians around me and the curtain was lifted from my head. I struggled to my feet, to meet Lil-rin's anxious and inquiring gaze.
   "Are you hurt, Danan-lih?" she exclaimed. "I was afraid they had gotten you. Now what shall we do?"
   In a few breathless sentences I explained to her how Banur had helped me, told her of my dulya cavalcade as we raced up the ramp. We found the moccor, the inn's public room, deserted. Nor did anyone appear to halt us before I blew a shrill call on the whistle Banur had given me. The great dogs and the yellow apes came racing to us around the corner of the building.
   I made two of the dulyals ride double, and Lil-rin leaped on the back of the spare dog after I had bound her injured arm with a strip torn from her garment. And then we were racing away from the village, through the yellow-green ferns and back across the plain toward Bartur's post.


Chapter 9 >