I backed away from them, my own sword ready to parry their thrusts and cuts.
“Wait!” I cried. “I do not want to kill you. Listen to me. I only want some information from you, and then I will go.”
“Oh, ho! He does not want to kill us,” shouted one of the men. “Come now,” he directed his fellow, “get on his left side, and I will take him on the right. So he does not want to kill us, eh?”
Sometimes I feel that I am entitled to very little credit for my countless successes in mortal combat. Always, it seems to me, and it certainly must appear even more so to my opponents, my flashing blade is a living thing inspired to its marvellous feats by a power beyond that of mortal man. It was so tonight.
As the two men charged me from opposite sides, my steel flashed so rapidly in parries, cuts, and thrusts that I am confident that the eyes of my opponents could not follow it.
The first man went down with a cloven skull the instant that he came within reach of my blade, and almost in the same second I ran his companion through the shoulder. Then I stepped back.
His sword arm was useless; it hung limp at his side. He could not escape. I was between him and the door; and he stood there, waiting for me to run him through the heart.
“I have no desire to kill you,” I told him. “Answer my questions truthfully, and I will let you live.”
“Who are you, and what do you want to know?” he growled.
“Never mind who I am. Answer my questions, and see that you answer them truthfully. When did Gar Nal’s ship sail?”
“Two nights ago.”
“Who was on board?”
“Gar Nal and Ur Jan.”
“No one else?” I demanded.
“No,” he replied.
“Where were they going?”
“How should I know?”
“It will be well for you, if you do know. Come now, where were they going; and who were they taking with them?”
“They were going to meet another ship somewhere near Helium, and there they were going to take aboard someone whose name I never heard mentioned.”
“Were they kidnaping someone for ransom?” I demanded.
He nodded. “I guess that was it,” he said.
“And you don’t know who it was?”
“No.”
“Where are they going to hide this person they are kidnaping?”
“Some place where no one will ever find her,” he said.
“Where is that?”
“I heard Gar Nal say he was going to Thuria.”
I had gained about all the information that this man could give me that would be of any value; so I made him lead me to a small door that opened onto the roof from which I had gained entrance to the hangar. I stepped out and waited until he had closed the door; then I crossed the roof and dropped to the top of the wall below, and from there into the alleyway.
As I made my way toward the house of Fal Sivas, I planned rapidly. I realized that I must take desperate chances, and that whatever the outcome of my adventure, its success or failure rested wholly upon my own shoulders.
I stopped at the public house where I had left Jat Or, and found him anxiously awaiting my return.
The place was now so filled with guests that we could not talk with privacy, and so I took him with me over to the eating-place that Rapas and I had frequented.
Here we found a table, and I narrated to him all that had occurred since I had left him after our arrival in Zodanga.
“And now,” I said, “tonight I hope that we may start for Thuria. When we separate here, go at once to the hangar and take out the flier. Keep an eye out for patrol boats; and if you succeed in leaving the city, go directly west on the thirtieth parallel for one hundred haads. Wait for me there. If I do not come in two days, you are free to act as you wish.”
XII. “We Both Must Die!”
Thuria! She had always intrigued my imagination; and now as I saw her swinging low through the sky above me, as Jat Or and I separated on the avenue in front of the eating-place, she dominated my entire being.
Somewhere between that blazing orb and Mars, a strange ship was bearing my lost love to some unknown fate.
How hopeless her situation must appear to her, who could not guess that any who loved her were even vaguely aware of her situation or whither her abductors were taking her. It was quite possible that she, herself, did not know. How I wished that I might transmit a message of hope to her.
With such thoughts was my mind occupied as I made my way in the direction of the house of Fal Sivas; but even though I was thus engrossed, my faculties, habituated to long years of danger, were fully alert, so that sounds of footsteps emerging from an avenue I had just crossed did not pass unnoticed.
Presently, I was aware that they had turned into the avenue that I was traversing and were following behind me, but I gave no outward indication that I heard them until it became evident that they were rapidly overtaking me.
I swung around then, my hand upon the hilt of my sword; and as I did so, the man who was following addressed me.
“I thought it was you,” he said, “but I was not certain.”
“It is I, Rapas,” I replied.
“Where have you been?” he asked. “I have been looking for you for the past two days.”
“Yes?” I inquired. “What do you want of me? You will have to be quick, Rapas; I am in a hurry.”
He hesitated. I could see that he was nervous. He acted as though he had something to say, but did not know how to begin, or else was afraid to broach the subject.
“Well, you see,” he commenced, lamely, “we haven’t seen each other for several days, and I just wanted to have a visit with you—just gossip a little, you know. Let’s go back and have a bite to eat.”
“I have just eaten,” I replied.
“How is old Fal Sivas?” he asked. “Do you know anything new?”
“Not a thing,” I lied. “Do you?”
“Oh, just gossip,” he replied. “They say that Ur Jan has kidnaped the Princess of Helium.” I could see him looking at me narrowly for my reaction.
“Is that so?” I inquired. “I should hate to be in Ur Jan’s shoes when the men of Helium lay hold of him.”
“They won’t lay hold of him,” said Rapas. “He has taken her where they will never find her.”
“I hope that he gets all that is coming to him, if he harms her,” I said; “and he probably will.” Then I turned as though to move away.
“Ur Jan won’t harm her, if the ransom is paid,” said Rapas.
“Ransom?” I inquired. “And what do they consider the Princess of Helium worth to the men of Helium?”
“Ur Jan is letting them off easy,” volunteered Rapas. “He is asking only two shiploads of treasure—all the gold and platinum and jewels that two great ships will carry.”
“Have they notified her people of their demand?” I asked.
“A friend of mine knows a man who is acquainted with one of Ur Jan’s assassins,” explained Rapas; “communication with the assassins could be opened up in this way.”
So he had finally gotten it out of his system. I could have laughed if I had not been so worried about Dejah Thoris. The situation was self-evident. Ur Jan and Rapas were both confident that I was either John Carter or one of his agents, and Rapas had been delegated to act as intermediary between the kidnapers and myself.
“It is all very interesting,” I said; “but, of course, it is nothing to me. I must be getting along. May you sleep well, Rapas.”
I venture to say that I left The Rat in a quandary as I turned on my heel and continued on my way toward the house of Fal Sivas. I imagine that he was not so sure as he had been that I was John Carter or even that I was an agent of the Warlord; for certainly either one or the other should have evinced more interest in his information than I had.
Of course, he had told me nothing that I did not already know; and therefore there had been nothing to induce within me either surprise or excitement.