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their blue hair and blue eyebrows. They wore short close-fitting skirts of heavy
gold mesh and breastplates similarly fabricated of gold. For weapons, each wore
a long sword and a dagger. Their features were strong, their expressions stern
and somewhat forbidding.
I noted all these things in the few moments that the door remained open. I saw
both men glance at me and at Umka, and I was quite sure that neither of them
was
aware of the fact that they were quite visible to me. Had they known it, I am
sure that their facial expressions would have betrayed the fact.
I was tremendously delighted to find that I had been able to throw off the
strange spell that had been cast upon me; and after they had gone, I told Umka
that I had been able to both see and hear them.
He asked me to describe them; and when I had done so, he agreed that I had told
the truth.
"Sometimes people imagine things," he said, in explanation of his seeming doubt
as to my veracity.
The next day, in the middle of the forenoon, I heard a considerable commotion in
the corridor and on the stairway leading to our prison. Presently the door was
opened and fully twenty-five men filed into the room.
As I saw them, a plan occurred to me that I thought might possibly give me an
advantage over these people if an opportunity to escape presented itself later
on; and therefore I pretended that I did not see them. When looking in their
direction, I focused my eyes beyond them; but to lessen the difficulty of this
playacting I sought to concentrate my attention on Umka, whom they knew to be
visible to me.
I regretted that I had not thought of this plan before, in time to have
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explained it to Umka, for it was very possible that he might inadvertently
betray the fact that the Tarids were no longer invisible to me.
Twelve of the men came close to me, just out of reach. One man stood near the
door and issued commands; the others approached Umka, ordering him to place
his
hands behind his back.
Umka backed away and looked questioningly at me. I could see that he was
wondering if we might not make a break for liberty.
I tried to look as though I were unaware of the presence of the warriors. I did
not wish them to know that I could see them. Looking blankly past them, I turned
indifferently around until my back was toward them and I faced Umka; then I
winked at him.
I prayed to God that if he didn't know what a wink was some miracle would
enlighten him in this instance. As an added precaution, I placed a finger
against my lips, enjoining silence.
Umka looked dumb, and fortunately he remained dumb.
"Half of you get the Masena," ordered the officer in charge of the detachment;
"the rest of you take the black-haired one. As you can see, he does not know
that we are in the room; so he may be surprised and struggle when you touch
him.
Seize him firmly."
I guess Umka must have thought that I was again under the influence of the
hypnotic spell, for he was looking at me blankly when the warriors surrounded
and took him in hand.
Then twelve of them leaped upon me. I might have put up a fight, but I saw
nothing to be gained by doing so. As a matter of fact, I was anxious to leave
this room. I could accomplish nothing while I remained in it; but once out, some
whim of Fate might present an opportunity to me; so I did not struggle much, but
pretended that I was startled when they seized me.
They then led us from the room and down the long series of stairways up which I
had climbed weeks before and finally into the same great throne room through
which Zanda, Jat Or, and I had been conducted the morning of our capture. But
what a different scene it presented now that I had cast off the hypnotic spell
under which I had labored at that time.
No longer was the great room empty, no longer the two throne chairs
untenanted;
instead the audience chamber was a mass of light and color and humanity.
Men, women, and children lined the wide aisle down which Umka and I were
escorted toward the dais upon which stood the two throne chairs. Between solid
ranks of warriors, resplendent in gorgeous trappings, our escort marched us to a
little open space before the throne.
Congregated there under guard, their hands bound, were Jat Or, Zanda, Ur Jan,
another whom I knew must be Gar Nal, and my beloved princess, Dejah Thoris.
"My chieftain!" she exclaimed. "Fate is a little kind in that she has permitted [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]