To my surprise and delight, I found the window open. All was quiet inside the hangar-quiet and as dark as Erebus.
Sitting on the sill, I swung my legs through the window, turned over on my belly, and lowered myself into the interior of the hangar; then I let go of the sill and dropped.
Such a maneuver, naturally, is fraught with danger, as one never knows upon what he may alight.
I alighted upon a moveable bench, loaded with metal parts and tools. My weight upset it, and it crashed to the floor with a terrific din.
Scrambling to my feet, I stood there in the darkness waiting, listening. If there were anyone anywhere in the building, large as it appeared to be, it seemed unlikely that the racket I had made could pass unnoticed, nor did it.
Presently I heard footsteps. They seemed at a considerable distance, but they approached rapidly at first and then more slowly. Whoever was coming appeared to grow more cautious as he neared the hangar.
Presently a door at the far end was thrown open, and I saw two armed men silhouetted against the light of the room beyond.
It was not a very brilliant light that came from the adjoining chamber, but it was sufficient to partially dispel the gloom of the cavernous interior of the hangar and reveal the fact that there was no ship here. Gar Nal had sailed!
I had evidently been hoping against hope, for the discovery stunned me. Gar Nal was gone; and, unquestionably, Dejah Thoris was with him.
The two men were advancing cautiously into the hangar. "Do you see anyone?" I heard the man in the rear demand.
"No," replied the leader, and then, in a loud voice, "who is here?"
The floor of the hangar had a most untidy appearance. Barrels, crates, carboys, tools, parts-a thousand and one things-were scattered indiscriminately about it. Perhaps this was fortunate for me; as, among so many things, it would be difficult to discover me as long as I did not move, unless the men stumbled directly upon me.
I was kneeling in the shadow of a large box, planning upon my next move in the event that I was discovered.
The two men came slowly along the center of the room. They came opposite my hiding-place. They passed me. I glanced at the open door through which they had come. There seemed to be no one there. Evidently these two men had been on guard; and they, alone, had heard the noise that I had made.
Suddenly a plan flashed to my mind. I stepped out of my hiding-place and stood between them and the open door through which they had entered.
I had moved quietly, and they had not heard me. Then I spoke.
"Do not move," I said, "and you will be safe."
They stopped as though they had been shot, and wheeled about.
"Stand where you are," I commanded.
"Who are you?" asked one of the men.
"Never mind who I am. Answer my questions, and no harm will befall you."
Suddenly one of the men laughed. "No harm will befall us," he said. "You are alone, and we are two. Come!" he whispered to his companion; and drawing their swords, the two rushed upon me.
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."
CHAPTER 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.