Instantly the red warrior leaped for the aperture, while close behind him came Ghek.
«Look not upon the eyes of Luud,» warned the kaldane, «or you are lost.»
Within the chamber Gahan saw Tara of Helium in the clutches of a mighty body, while close to the wall upon the opposite side of the apartment crouched the hideous, spider-like Luud. Instantly the king realized the menace to himself and sought to fasten his eyes upon the eyes of Gahan, and in doing so he was forced to relax his concentration upon the rykor in whose embraces Tara struggled, so that almost immediately the girl found herself able to tear away from the awful, headless thing.
As she rose quickly to her feet she saw for the first time the cause of the interruption of Luud's plans. A red warrior! Her heart leaped in rejoicing and thanksgiving. What miracle of fate had sent him to her? She did not recognize him, though, this travel-worn warrior in the plain harness which showed no single jewel. How could she have guessed him the same as the scintillant creature of platinum and diamonds that she had seen for a brief hour under such different circumstances at the court of her august sire?
Luud saw Ghek following the strange warrior into the chamber. «Strike him down, Ghek!» commanded the king. «Strike down the stranger and your life shall be yours.»
Gahan glanced at the hideous face of the king.
«Seek not his eyes,» screamed Tara in warning; but it was too late. Already the horrid hypnotic gaze of the king kaldane had seized upon the eyes of Gahan. The red warrior hesitated in his stride. His sword point drooped slowly toward the floor. Tara glanced toward Ghek. She saw the creature glaring with his expressionless eyes upon the broad back of the stranger. She saw the hand of the creature's rykor creeping stealthily toward the hilt of its dagger.
And then Tara of Helium raised her eyes aloft and poured forth the notes of Mars' most beautiful melody, The Song of Love.
Ghek drew his dagger from its sheath. His eyes turned toward the singing girl. Luud's glance wavered from the eyes of the man to the face of Tara, and the instant that the latter's song distracted his attention from his victim, Gahan of Gathol shook himself and as with a supreme effort of will forced his eyes to the wall above Luud's hideous head. Ghek raised his dagger above his right shoulder, took a single quick step forward, and struck. The girl's song ended in a stifled scream as she leaped forward with the evident intention of frustrating the kaldane's purpose; but she was too late, and well it was, for an instant later she realized the purpose of Ghek's act as she saw the dagger fly from his hand, pass Gahan's shoulder, and sink full to the guard in the soft face of Luud.
«Come!» cried the assassin, «we have no time to lose,» and started for the aperture through which they had entered the chamber; but in his stride he paused as his glance was arrested by the form of the mighty rykor lying prone upon the floor-a king's rykor; the most beautiful, the most powerful, that the breeders of Bantoom could produce. Ghek realized that in his escape he could take with him but a single rykor, and there was none in Bantoom that could give him better service than this giant lying here. Quickly he transferred himself to the shoulders of the great, inert hulk. Instantly the latter was transformed to a sentient creature, filled with pulsing life and alert energy.
«Now,» said the kaldane, «we are ready. Let whoso would revert to nothingness impede me.» Even as he spoke he stooped and crawled into the chamber beyond, while Gahan, taking Tara by the arm, motioned her to follow. The girl looked him full in the eyes for the first time. «The Gods of my people have been kind,» she said; «you came just in time. To the thanks of Tara of Helium shall be added those of The Warlord of Barsoom and his people. Thy reward shall surpass thy greatest desires.»
Gahan of Gathol saw that she did not recognize him, and quickly he checked the warm greeting that had been upon his lips.
«Be thou Tara of Helium or another,» he replied, «is immaterial, to serve thus a red woman of Barsoom is in itself sufficient reward.»
As they spoke the girl was making her way through the aperture after Ghek, and presently all three had quitted the apartments of Luud and were moving rapidly along the winding corridors toward the tower. Ghek repeatedly urged them to greater speed, but the red men of Barsoom were never keen for retreat, and so the two that followed him moved all too slowly for the kaldane.
«There are none to impede our progress,» urged Gahan, «so why tax the strength of the Princess by needless haste?»
«I fear not so much opposition ahead, for there are none there who know the thing that has been done in Luud's chambers this night; but the kaldane of one of the warriors who stood guard before Luud's apartment escaped, and you may count it a truth that he lost no time in seeking aid. That it did not come before we left is due solely to the rapidity with which events transpired in the king's* room. Long before we reach the tower they will be upon us from behind, and that they will come in numbers far superior to ours and with great and powerful rykors I well know.»
* I have used the word king in describing the rulers or chiefs of the Bantoomian swarms, since the word itself is unpronounceable in English, nor does jed or jeddak of the red Martian tongue have quite the same meaning as the Bantoomian word, which has practically the same significance as the English word queen as applied to the leader of a swarm of bees.-J. C.
Nor was Ghek's prophecy long in fulfilment. Presently the sounds of pursuit became audible in the distant clanking of accouterments and the whistling call to arms of the kaldanes.
«The tower is but a short distance now,» cried Ghek. «Make haste while yet you may, and if we can barricade it until the sun rises we may yet escape.»
«We shall need no barricades for we shall not linger in the tower,» replied Gahan, moving more rapidly as he realized from the volume of sound behind them the great number of their pursuers.
«But we may not go further than the tower tonight,» insisted Ghek. «Beyond the tower await the banths and certain death.»
Gahan smiled. «Fear not the banths,» he assured them. «Can we but reach the enclosure a little ahead of our pursuers we have naught to fear from any evil power within this accursed valley.»
Ghek made no reply, nor did his expressionless face denote either belief or skepticism. The girl looked into the face of the man questioningly. She did not understand.
«Your flier,» he said. «It is moored before the tower.»
Her face lighted with pleasure and relief. «You found it!» she exclaimed. «What fortune!»
«It was fortune indeed,» he replied. «Since it not only told that you were a prisoner here; but it saved me from the banths as I was crossing the valley from the hills to this tower into which I saw them take you this afternoon after your brave attempt at escape.»
«How did you know it was I?» she asked, her puzzled brows scanning his face as though she sought to recall from past memories some scene in which he figured.
«Who is there but knows of the loss of the Princess Tara of Helium?» he replied. «And when I saw the device upon your flier I knew at once, though I had not known when I saw you among them in the fields a short time earlier. Too great was the distance for me to make certain whether the captive was man or woman. Had chance not divulged the hiding place of your flier I had gone my way, Tara of Helium. I shudder to think how close was the chance at that. But for the momentary shining of the sun upon the emblazoned device on the prow of your craft, I had passed on unknowing.»
The girl shuddered. «The Gods sent you,» she whispered reverently.
«The Gods sent me, Tara of Helium,» he replied.