The Prince of Mars Returns
Philip Francis Nowlan (1940)
Country of origin: U.S.A.
Available texts by the same author here
Chapter 13: The Tables Are Turned
By this time, of course, our entire camp was aroused, and the Ta n'Ur, spring-guns and swords ready, came dashing up, Lil-rin in the lead. She was breathing hard, one little hand at her swelling breast as though to quell the beating of her heart as she stood before me."Oh, I didn't know—I—I couldn't think—I was so afraid that something had happened to you!"
"It was nothing to worry about, Little One," I said gently. "Except that a party of Gakalunin, in command of a rintar—whom you'll find over there with a bullet in him—surprised our sentry."
The girl's eyes widened. Disdainfully she touched one of the corpses with a cautious toe.
"Are you sure you got them all, Danan-lih? Because if you didn't, the warning may precede us to Gakalu."
I had had no time to count the fellows. "I don't know," I admitted. "I think I got them all, but I'm not sure. I only know that I plugged every one in sight."
Lil-rin was thoughtful for a moment. "The best thing for us to do is to dash on ahead at full speed. If any of those Gakalunin did escape, we ought to overtake them. We should be starting now, anyhow."
So we leaped for our saddles, and in a matter of moments were again galloping over the countryside in the weird Martian moonlight. But gallop as we might, we overtook no one.
As we raced on a thought struck me. "Lil-rin!" I called to her. "We should be able to trail the fugitives, if there were any, by the dogs. Let's give them the scent!"
She gave me a puzzled look. "Scent? Why, what do you mean, Danan-lih?"
"Let them smell something belonging to the enemy, and then trail them by the scent," I explained.
"What an odd thought!" Lil-rin exclaimed. "Can dogs on Earth do that? I never heard of a dog being able to smell."
So, the dogs of Mars differed from those of Earth in more than size! And my bright suggestion was something of a dud.
We had now reached very flat country in the region of fertile, cultivated plains, and the problem of concealment during the following day was a big one. If we were successful, one more dash through the night would bring us to Gakalu in the bleak silence just before dawn.
At this hour dulyals would be torpid with sleep, and we could count on meeting little opposition except from their masters. A headlong attack, pushed home silently at that hour, as the Ta n'Ur knew well how to do it, would probably put Gakko safely in our hands.
But the risk was great, particularly in the matter of concealment for the day. Finally, just before the eastern sky began to lighten, our scouts found an irrigation ditch, an artificial branch of a canal, along both sides of which melon patches stretched for miles.
The ditch was of no great depth, and it was filled with water. At this point then we decided to conceal ourselves. Fortunately, the banks of the ditch were sloping. So men and dogs lay down quietly, their heads pillowed on the shallow banks. If now and then a Ta n'Ur head might be seen from a distance, it would be of about the same size as a melon, and probably would attract no attention.
Lil-rin and I worked our way upstream about a quarter of a mile, to a spot where the ditch made an angled turn, raising our heads cautiously from time to time to gaze across the level ground. Two or three times we saw dulyals laboring in the distance under the lash of an overseer, but there was no sign that our presence in the district was suspected.
Closer we approached to the turn. Again we raised our heads cautiously, Lil-rin covering hers with her cloak, that her golden hair might not catch the glint of the sun. Yet, all seemed peaceful. No living creature was in sight, save in the distance. So we went on.
We had not gone twenty feet further before we were trapped. Here, on both sides of the ditch, the melon vines were unusually thick. And from them suddenly there sprang some dozen dulyals, launching themselves at us low and hard, smothering us under the water before we had even a chance to reach for our guns.
Coughing and spluttering we were dragged along rapidly, animal hands choking back our attempted outcries, while ropes of twisted vines bound our arms to our sides. Further struggle on our part at this time was useless.
Upstream a few hundred feet a Martian in the armor of a rintar crawled from the vines beside the ditch and whistled to the dulyals. They brought us to the spot where he waited, and then with a sudden rush swept us off our feet and dragged us up the bank.
At the same instant a number of large dogs bounded up from where they had been crouching low, and in a trice we were each tied to a dog saddle. The rintar and his dulyals leaped on the backs of the other animals. In a twinkling we were being raced across the plain.
I let out a lusty shout, for no dulyal paws were gagging me now, and twisted my head in the direction of the camp. But our capture had not yet been noticed. And my shout evidently did not carry that far; or so I thought.
As a matter of fact, the Ta n'Ur had seen our capture, had even heard my shout, but by this time they had also observed another thing that had escaped Lil-rin and myself.
The fields on either side of the ditch, but at some distance back, were thick with dulyals, some fifteen hundred or two thousand of them, whereas the Ta n'Ur numbered only some hundred odd.
Uldor, who had assumed command at once, saw that to go forward meant certain destruction without any hope of rescuing us. Without the encumbrance of false pride, he withdrew the clansmen swiftly and silently downstream, until they were far enough out of the trap to mount their dogs and race back southward in a well-simulated panic and at a pace which out-distanced pursuit.
But Lil-rin and I knew nothing of this at the time.
In no time at all we reached a road, the first I had seen on Mars, which ran beside another artificial irrigation ditch. River, perhaps would be a better word, for it was fully half a mile wide and, I gathered, quite deep.
At intervals of two or three miles were spaced little villages, similar to the one in which I had rescued Lil-rin from Gakko's followers. Villages or rather, groups of entrances to underground dwellings. And little gatherings of slaves and Ildin stood aside to watch us race past, eyeing with casual curiosity the slim figure of the golden-haired girl and the sturdy build of the man with strangely dark hair.
At length we came to a bridge, or more properly a causeway, for it was really more in the nature of a dam with many sluice-gates than a bridge.
Here we were met by a detachment of fifteen Ildin in command of an Eps, a Lesser Lord. And when Lil-rin saw them her face fell.
"For," she whispered to me, "they are in the uniforms of Gakko's bodyguards. Galdro would dignify no prisoners except those he thought of the utmost importance by an escort of this sort.
"While we were in the hands of a mere rintar and his dulyals, it looked as though our capture had been an accident. But now I am afraid Gakko knew of our coming all along. Someone ... someone has betrayed us, Danan-lih!"