Edgar Rice Burroughs - Mars Chronicles 05 - The Chessmen of.pdf - Edgar Rice Burroughs - margozap

X Entrapped

XI The Choice of Tara

XII Ghek Plays Pranks

XIII A Desperate Deed

XIV At Ghek's Command

XV The Old Man of the Pits

XVI Another Change of Name

XVII A Play to the Death

XVIII A Task for Loyalty

XIX The Menace of the Dead

XX The Charge of Cowardice

XXI A Risk for Love

XXII At the Moment of Marriage.

before sunrise; but instead I sat there before the chess table in the

library, idly blowing smoke at the dishonored head of my defeated

king.

While thus profitably employed I heard the east door of the

living-room open and someone enter. I thought it was Shea

returning to speak with me on some matter of tomorrow's work; but

when I raised my eyes to the doorway that connects the two rooms I

saw framed there the figure of a bronzed giant, his otherwise naked

body trapped with a jewel-encrusted harness from which there

hung at one side an ornate short-sword and at the other a pistol of

strange pattern. The black hair, the steel-gray eyes, brave and

smiling, the noble features--I recognized them at once, and leaping

to my feet I advanced with outstretched hand.

"John Carter!" I cried. "You?"

"None other, my son," he replied, taking my hand in one of his

and placing the other upon my shoulder.

"And what are you doing here?" I asked. "It has been long years

since you revisited Earth, and never before in the trappings of Mars.

Lord! but it is good to see you--and not a day older in appearance

than when you trotted me on your knee in my babyhood. How do

you explain it, John Carter, Warlord of Mars, or do you try to

explain it?"

"Why attempt to explain the inexplicable?" he replied. "As I have

told you before, I am a very old man. I do not know how old I am. I

recall no childhood; but recollect only having been always as you

see me now and as you saw me first when you were five years old.

You, yourself, have aged, though not as much as most men in a

corresponding number of years, which may be accounted for by the

fact that the same blood runs in our veins; but I have not aged at

all. I have discussed the question with a noted Martian scientist,

a.friend of mine; but his theories are still only theories. However, I

savage foeman; the harness with the devices of Helium and the

insignia of my rank; the pistol that was presented to me by Tars

Tarkas, Jeddak of Thark.

"Aside from seeing you, which is my principal reason for being

here, and satisfying myself that I can transport inanimate things

from Mars to Earth, and therefore animate things if I so desire, I

have no purpose. Earth is not for me. My every interest is upon

Barsoom--my wife, my children, my work; all are there. I will spend

a quiet evening with you and then back to the world I love even

better than I love life."

As he spoke he dropped into the chair upon the opposite side of

the chess table.

"You spoke of children," I said. "Have you more than Carthoris?"

"A daughter," he replied, "only a little younger than Carthoris,

and, barring one, the fairest thing that ever breathed the thin air of

dying Mars. Only Dejah Thoris, her mother, could be more beautiful

than Tara of Helium."

For a moment he fingered the chessmen idly. "We have a game

on Mars similar to chess," he said, "very similar.

And there is a race there that plays it grimly with men and naked

swords. We call the game jetan. It is played on a board like yours,

except that there are a hundred squares and we use twenty pieces

on each side. I never see it played without thinking of Tara of

Helium and what befell her among the chessmen of Barsoom.

Would you like to hear her story?"

I said that I would and so he told it to me, and now I shall try to

re-tell it for you as nearly in the words of The Warlord of Mars as I

can recall them, but in the third person. If there be inconsistencies

and errors, let the blame fall not upon John Carter, but rather upon

my faulty memory, where it belongs. It is a strange tale and utterly

Barsoomian..CHAPTER I TARA IN A TANTRUM

TARA of Helium rose from the pile of silks and soft furs upon

"Yes, Tara of Helium, they come," replied the slave. "I have seen

Kantos Kan, Overlord of the Navy, and Prince Soran of Ptarth, and

Djor Kantos, son of Kantos Kan," she shot a roguish glance at her

mistress as she mentioned Djor Kantos' name, "and--oh, there were

others, many have come."

"The bath, then, Uthia," said her mistress. "And why, Uthia," she

added, "do you look thus and smile when you mention the name of

Djor Kantos?"

The slave girl laughed gaily. "It is so plain to all that he worships

you," she replied.

"It is not plain to me," said Tara of Helium. "He is the friend

of my brother, Carthoris, and so he is here much; but not to see

me. It is his friendship for Carthoris that brings him thus often

to the palace of my father."

"But Carthoris is hunting in the north with Talu, Jeddak of

Okar," Uthia reminded her.

"My bath, Uthia!" cried Tara of Helium. "That tongue of yours will

bring you to some misadventure yet."

"The bath is ready, Tara of Helium," the girl responded, her eyes

still twinkling with merriment, for she well knew that in the heart of

her mistress was no anger that could displace the love of the

princess for her slave. Preceding the daughter of The Warlord she

opened the door of an adjoining room where lay the bath--a

gleaming pool of scented water in a marble basin. Golden

stanchions supported a chain of gold encircling it and leading down

into the water on either side of marble steps. A glass dome let in the

sun-light, which flooded the interior, glancing from the polished

white of the marble walls and the procession of bathers and

fishes,.which, in conventional design, were inlaid with gold in a

broad band

that circled the room.

Tara of Helium removed the scarf from about her and handed it

Edgar Rice Burroughs - Mars Chronicles 05 - The Chessmen of.pdf

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