Each of them wanted the other to have the honor of engaging me. As they retreated, they made futile passes at me with their points; and I was steadily pushing them into a corner when Fal Sivas took a hand in the affair.
Heretofore, he had contented himself with screaming shrill encouragement and commands to his men. Now he picked up a vase and hurled it at my head.
Just by chance, I saw it coming and dodged it; and it broke into a thousand fragments against the wall. Then he picked up something else and threw at me, and this time he hit my sword hand, and Phystal nearly got me then.
As I jumped back to avoid his thrust, Fal Sivas hurled another small object; and from the corner of my eye I saw Zanda catch it.
Neither Phystal nor Hamas was a good swordsman, and I could easily have overcome them in fair fight, but I could see that these new tactics of Fal Sivas were almost certain to prove my undoing. If I turned upon him, the others would be behind me; and how they would have taken advantage of such a God-given opportunity!
I tried to work them around so that they were between Fal Sivas and myself. In this way, they would shield me from his missiles, but that is something easier said than done when you are fighting two men in a comparatively small room.
I was terribly handicapped by the fact that I had to watch three men; and now, as I drove Hamas back with a cut, I cast a quick glance in the direction of Fal Sivas; and as I did so, I saw a missile strike him between the eyes. He fell to the floor like a log. Zanda had hoist him with his own petard.
I could not repress a smile as I turned my undivided attention upon Hamas and Phystal.
As I drove them into a corner, Hamas surprised me by throwing his sword aside and falling upon his knees.
“Spare me, spare me, Vandor!” he cried, “I did not want to attack you. Fal Sivas made me.” And then Phystal cast his weapon to the floor; and he, too, went upon his marrow bones. It was the most revolting exhibition of cowardice that I had ever witnessed. I felt like running them through, but I did not want to foul my blade with their putrid blood.
“Kill them,” counseled Zanda; “you cannot trust either of them.”
I shook my head. “We cannot kill unarmed men in cold blood,” I said.
“Unless you do, they will prevent our escape,” she said, “even if we can escape. There are others who will stop us on the lower level.”
“I have a better plan, Zanda,” I said, and forthwith I bound Hamas and Phystal securely in their own harness and then did the same with Fal Sivas, for he was not dead but only stunned. I also gagged all three of them so that they could not cry out.
This done, I told Zanda to follow me and went at once to the hangar where the ship rested on her scaffolding.
“Why did you come here?” asked Zanda. “We ought to be getting out of the building as quickly as possible—you are going to take me with you, aren’t you, Vandor?”
“Certainly I am,” I said, “and we are going out of the building very shortly. Come, perhaps I shall need your help with these doors,” and I led the way to the two great doors in the end of the hangar. They were well hung, however, and after being unlatched, slid easily to the sides of the opening.
Zanda stepped to the threshold and looked out. “We cannot escape this way,” she said; “it is fifty feet to the ground, and there is no ladder or other means of descent.”
“Nevertheless, we are going to escape through that doorway,” I told her, amused at her mystification. “Just come with me, and you will see how.”
We returned to the side of the ship, and I must say that I was far from being as assured of success as I tried to pretend, as I concentrated my thoughts upon the little metal sphere that held the mechanical brain in the nose of the craft.
I think my heart stopped beating as I waited, and then a great wave of relief surged through me as I saw the door open and the ladder lowering itself toward the floor.
Zanda looked on in wide-eyed amazement. “Who is in there?” she demanded.
“No one,” I said. “Now up with you, and be quick about it. We have no time to loiter here.”
She was evidently afraid, but she obeyed me like a good soldier, and I followed her up the ladder into the cabin. Then I directed the brain to hoist the ladder and close the door, as I went forward into the control room, followed by the girl.
Here I again focused my thoughts upon the mechanical brain just above my head.
Even with the demonstration that I had already had, I could not yet convince myself of the reality of what I was doing. It seemed impossible that that insensate thing could raise the craft from its scaffolding and guide it safely through the doorway, yet scarcely had I supplied that motivating thought when the ship rose a few feet and moved almost silently toward the aperture.
As we passed out into the still night, Zanda threw her arms about my neck. “Oh, Vandor, Vandor!” she cried, “you have saved me from the clutches of that horrible creature. I am free! I am free again!” she cried, hysterically. “Oh, Vandor, I am yours; I shall be your slave forever. Do with me whatever you will.”
I could see that she was distraught and hysterical.
“You are excited, Zanda,” I said, soothingly. “You owe me nothing. You are a free woman. You do not have to be my slave or the slave of any other.”
“I want to be your slave, Vandor,” she said, and then in a very low voice, “I love you.”
Gently I disengaged her arms from about my neck. “You do not know what you are saying, Zanda,” I told her; “your gratitude has carried you away. You must not love me; my heart belongs to someone else, and there is another reason why you must not say that you love me—a reason that you will learn sooner or later, and then you will wish that you had been stricken dumb before you ever told me that you loved me.”
I was thinking of her hatred of John Carter and her avowed desire to kill him.
“I do not know what you mean,” she said; “but if you tell me not to love you, I will try to obey you, for no matter what you say, I am your slave. I owe my life to you, and I shall always be your slave.”
“We will talk about that some other time,” I said; “just now I have something to tell you that may make you wish that I had left you in the house of Fal Sivas.”
She knitted her brows and looked at me questioningly. “Another mystery?” she asked. “Again you speak in riddles.”
“We are going on a long and dangerous journey in this ship, Zanda. I am forced to take you with me because I cannot risk detection by landing you anywhere in Zodanga; and, of course, it would be signing your death warrant to set you down far beyond the walls of the city.”
“I do not want to be set down in Zodanga or outside it,” she replied. “Wherever you are going, I want to go with you. Some day you may need me, Vandor; and then you will be glad that I am along.”
“Do you know where we are going, Zanda?” I asked.
“No,” she said, “and I do not care. It would make no difference to me, even if you were going to Thuria.”
I smiled at that, and turned my attention again to the mechanical brain, directing it to take us to the spot where Jat Or waited; and just then I heard the wailing signal of a patrol boat above us.
XIV. On to Thuria
Although I had realized the likelihood of our strange craft being discovered by a patrol boat, I had hoped that we might escape from the city without detection.
I knew that if we did not obey their command they would open fire on us, and a single hit might put an end to all my plans to reach Thuria and save Dejah Thoris.
While the armament of the ship, as described to me by Fal Sivas, would have given me an overwhelming advantage in an encounter with any patrol boat, I hesitated to stand and fight, because of the chance that a lucky shot from the enemy’s ship might disable us.