When it became clear to me that Dejah Thoris was no longer in the throne room, I finally came to think of the black face I had seen with a glimpse of the cracks in the curtains behind the throne of Salensus Olli at the moment I so suddenly became a seer of strange spending in the room.
How could I have been so careless even though I had seen those evil faces? How could I have allowed a rapidly changing situation to evaporate such a threatening danger, in my view? But oh! Unnecessary lamentation could not eliminate the accident.
Once again, Dejah Thoris had fallen into the clutches of that main discovery, the first-born computer Thurid. Again, my whole arduous endeavor had waned empty. Now I understood the reason for the rage that was so clearly reflected from Matai Shang’s face, and the joy that had lingered in Phaidor’s features.
They had known or guessed how it was, and the hekkador of the holy therns, who had come here to nullify the deceptive intentions planned by Salensus Olli — for the high priest sought to get Dejah Thoris for himself — realized that Thurid had grabbed the prey right in front of his nose.
Phaidor’s joy, on the other hand, was due to the fact that he knew how badly this last bitter blow would affect me, and that his jealous anger at the Princess of Helium had become partially satisfied.
My first thought was to inspect the curtains behind the throne, for behind them I had seen Thurid. With one snatch, I tore the precious fabric from its fasteners. There was a narrow door in the wall in front of me.
It was immediately obvious to me that Thurid had escaped just that way, and if I had suspected it, my doubts would have evaporated when I saw a small gemstone decoration a few steps from the door on the floor of the hallway.
I captured the place and inspected it; it had the mark of the Princess Helium. I pressed it to my lips and set out to praise wildly like a madman along the winding corridor that descended gently toward the lower vaults of the palace.
After a short drive, I ended up in the room Solan had previously ruled. His body was still creeping in the same place as when I left, and there were no signs of anyone else visiting there afterwards. But I knew two people, Thurid, the black computer, and Dejah Thoris, had gone through this.
For a moment, I paused uncertainly to apricot, which of the numerous doors opening into the room would take me on the right path. I tried to recall the instructions Thurid had repeated to Solan, and slowly, like a thick mist, the words of the firstborn finally rose to my memory.
“I go to the corridor, along which I ignore the three right-hand side sidewalks; then the fourth right-branched corridor and the junction of the three corridors; one corridor without branches. ”
And I also remembered what door he had shown when he spoke.
Soon I was traversing an unknown road and I was not a little careful, even though I knew there could be great dangers lurking there.
In some places it was necessary to go dark, but for the most part it was moderately well lit. The darkest was at the point where I had to move all the way to the left wall to avoid the abyss, and I was about to deviate from the edge of the cliff to the depths before I intelligently arrived near the dangerous place.
Only a railing had been left, a barely thirty centimeters wide; by that, the person who knew the secret got past a creepy pit into which the strange would surely have deviated at the very first step. But at last I was on the other side of it, and after that it was so bright in the hallway to the end that the floor was clearly visible. After running someone else’s journey, I reached the end of a tunnel and stepped into the snow and ice field in daylight.
When I was dressed in the warmth of a glass-roofed Kadabra, the sudden transition to polar frost didn’t feel pleasant at all. But the worst part was that I certainly couldn’t stand the biting cold, for I was almost naked, but would freeze before I reached Thurid and Dejah Thoris.
It felt bitter that nature, which up to now was to discourage the smart people know and resourcefulness, now cut off in this way, my way, and hoippuessani back to the warm tunnel, I was as close to despair as I have ever had.
Of course, I had not given up on my intentions to continue the pursuit, for if necessary I would have been prepared to move forward, even though I would have collapsed before reaching my goal. But if there was a more certain way, then it was well worth lingering for some time to find out. Then I would come to Dejah Thoris again in such a condition that I could fight for him.
As soon as I returned to the hallway, I stumbled over the edge of a fur mantle that seemed to be stuck on the floor right next to the wall. In the twilight, I couldn’t tell how it was attached, but by palpation I found out it was squeezed between a closed door and a threshold.
I pushed the door open. I was on the doorstep of a small room. There were rows of hooks on the walls of the room, on which hung the perfect outdoor tams of the yellow people.
When the room was located at the entrance to the tunnel leading from the palace, it was obvious that it was a dressing room where Kadabra’s superiors dressed as they left the city and stripped when they returned, and that Thurid, knowing its existence, had stopped there to take ventured into the biting frost of the Arctic outside world.
In his hurry, he had dropped several pieces of clothing on the floor, and the gossiping skirt, which had been partially left in the hallway, had guided me to this place from which he would have most recently let me know nothing.
In a matter of seconds, I was wearing a proper Orluk leather suit and heavy, fur-lined boots on my feet, which are an essential part of the tunes if the mind is to successfully defy the glooms of the icy North and the incisively cold latter.
I stepped back into the open air and found fresh traces of Thurid and Dejah Thoris in the snow that had just rained. Now, at last, my task was easy, for even though the road was extremely difficult, I was no longer bothered by doubts about which direction I should go, and my resistance was not darkness or lurking dangers.
The road ran in a snow-covered gorge to a shallow cliff. On the other side of the anti-gorge dove second rising again half a mile from a pass, which is brought down to the edge of the rocky hill.
From the footsteps I saw that Dejah Thoris had been constantly struggling against him and that the black man had been forced to drag him with him. In places, only traces of a man visible, close to each other and sunk deep into the thick snow, were visible, and from that I thought he had to carry Dejah Thoris at that time. With the eyes of my imagination, I could well see how this raged violently against every step.
As I got around the high tongue protruding from the hill, a sight opened in front of me, making my blood circulate faster and my heart beating faster. In a small ravine between this and the next hill stood four people at the mouth of the cave, and next to them was a plane with a dazzling hanging, apparently just pulled out of its hiding place.
These four persons were Dejah Thoris, Phaidor, Thurid and Matai Shang. The two men quarreled with each other – the father of the therns threatened, while the black man teased him with mocking remarks while continuing his own business.
I sneaked carefully towards them to get as close as possible without being noticed. Eventually, there seemed to be some sort of reconciliation between the men, as they, with the help of Phaidor, set out together to drag the opposing Dejah Thoris to the deck of the ship.
After tying him to the deck, the men descended to the ground again to stop their departure preparations. Phaidor went to the small cabin on the deck of the plane.
When I was already about four hundred meters away from them, Matai Shang saw me. He grabbed Thurid’s shoulders, spun him around me, and pointed at me. I was now clearly visible, for as soon as the intelligence had come to light, I gave up all attempts at concealment and set off wildly toward the ship.
The men started the two more eagerly roaring to get the propeller they were currently on hand in order. It had apparently been taken out for some repair, and they put it in place.
They had completed their work before I was even halfway to the plane, and then they hurried down the stairs leading to the deck.
Thurid arrived on the stairs first, climbed the deck deftly like a monkey and pressed a button on the support tanks. The ship soared into the air, but not as fast as an aircraft in good condition.
When they got out of my reach, I was still about a hundred yards away.
Behind me, near the city of Kadabra, was a large fleet of magnificent planes — the ships of Helium and Ptart, which I had rescued from destruction earlier that day. But before I was with them, Thurid would have had time to escape to safety.
As I ran, I saw Matai Shang struggling up the steeply swinging stairs as Thurid watched him look mischievous looking overboard. A rope dragged from the stern of the ship, and it rekindled hope in me. If I could grab it before it was too high, then maybe I could still get to the deck with it.
It was obvious that there was some bad injury on board, as it only rose very slowly and remained despite the fact that on two occasions Thurid fumbled at the machine lever, motionless in place, drifting only slowly from the north with a quiet wind.
Matai Shang was now almost on the edge of the ship. A long hand resembling the claws of a bird of prey reached out to reach the metal end bar.
Thurid leaned lower toward his conspirator.
Suddenly a dagger flashed in a black raised hand. It struck down towards the pale face of the father of the therns. Unleashing a gleaming horror horror, the holy hekkador furiously grabbed the hand threatening him.
I was about to reach a tow rope. The ship continued to rise slowly while drifting away from me. Then I stumbled onto the glacier and struck as I fell far into my head on a rock just an arm’s distance from the rope whose head just then rose into the air.
I went unconscious from the concussion.
I had crawled unknowingly on the glacier for up to a few seconds as my sweetheart in the clutches of black revelation moved farther and farther away from me, as when I opened my eyes, the struggle between Thurid and Matai Shang continued and the ship hovered only about a hundred yards south – but now .
A miserable unfortunate coincidence that had overturned me, just as I was about to reach the rope I was about to reach, made my guts frantically frantic, and wildly like a madman I left to hang out to thank the ship. After reaching the wobbly head of the string, I pinched my muscles to the extreme.
I struggled with a powerful, cat-like jump to reach the shaky rope — the only way I could still get to my beloved leaving.
My fingers squeezed around the rope a foot above its head. But even though I felt how tight my grip was, I felt the string still slip out of my hand. I tried to raise my free hand to grab it from above the previous one, but as my position changed, my hand slid even faster towards the end of the rope.
I felt the rope slip slowly, teasingly out of my hands. After a moment, all my efforts would have failed, but then my fingers hit the knot at the end of the rope and the sliding stopped.
Thanksgiving prayer with my lips I began to climb up towards the deck of the ship. I couldn’t see Thurid and Matai Shang, but I heard the sounds of a fight and I knew they were still fighting – thern in front of their lives and black to make the ship rise better after releasing it from the weight of even one person.
If Matai Shang were to collapse before I got to the deck, then I would certainly have low hopes of getting there, for the black computer needed nothing more than to cut a string across the top to get me out of his way forever. You see, the ship had drifted into the abyss, so I would have deviated to a gaping depth and crushed into a shapeless pile if Thurid had cut the line right now.
I finally grabbed my hand at the extreme rod of the ship, but at the same time a horrible tanning echoed beneath me. Cold shivers ran down my back and as I glanced down, I saw my horror screaming and swirling creature plunging into the horrible abyss beneath me.
It was Matai Shang, the holy hekkador, the father of the therns, who had fallen into the last reckoning.
Then I pulled my head to the edge of the lid. Dagger in hand Thurid ran towards me. He was at the front of the cabin, while I climbed onto the deck near the stern. But the distance was only a few steps. It was impossible for me to get on deck before the furious black man was in my bouquet.
My end was coming. I knew it. But even if I had doubted it, the triumphant grin lurking on Thurid’s evil face would have evaporated all my doubts. Behind Thurid, I saw Dejah Thorisini shivering in his shackles with his eyes wide in horror. My bitter destiny seemed twice as bitter because he was forced to watch my terrible death.
I sensed the effort over the extreme bar. Instead, I grabbed it firmly with my left hand and pulled out my dagger.
At least I would die like I had lived – fighting.
When Thurid arrived at the cabin door, a new person intervened in a tragedy currently being performed on the deck of Matai Shang’s failed plane.
It was Phaidor.
His face flushed, his hair scattered, and his eyes damp from the newly shed tears — the mortal weakness above which this lofty goddess had always been pretending — he rushed to the deck in front of me.
He had a long, thin dagger in his hand. I took one last look at my lovely princess, smiling, as befits a man waiting for death. Then I turned to look at Phaidor – waiting for the blow.
I have never seen her beautiful face more beautiful than at that moment. It seemed incredible that such a charming creature’s lovely chest could pulsate with such a cruel and relentless heart. And now there was a new look in his miraculous eyes that I had never noticed in them before <- they reflected a rare gentleness and suffering. Thurid was by his side and rushed forward to be the first to attack me. Then everything went so fast that it was over before I really realized what had happened. Phaidor's delicate hand reached out and grabbed the wrist of the black hand holding the dagger. His right hand raised a flickering blade. "This is for Matai Shang!" he exclaimed and dipped his dagger all the way to the chest of the computer. "Here's to evil about Dejah Thoris!" And again, the biting steel pressed into the bloody skin. "And here and here and here," he shouted, "on behalf of Prince John Carter of Helium!" With each word, a sharp dagger pierced the filthy heart of the villain. Contemptuously, he then pushed the first-born body from the deck of the ship. In a horrible silence, Thurid derailed his victim. The amazement had paralyzed me to such an extent that I had not even tried to climb on the deck during the creepy play I saw. Now I had more and more reason to wonder, for as I remained in my place without slipping in the slightest, trying to hide my surprise, Phaidor reached out to me and helped me to the deck. There was a tired smile on her lips — not the cruel and proud smile of the goddess I had always seen with them before. "Are you wondering, John Carter," Phaidor asked, "the strange change that has taken place in me? I will tell you what has caused it. It is love - love for you." As I frowned at the unpleasant feeling evoked by his words, he raised his hand soothingly. "Wait!" he continued. "It's not my love - it's the love of your princess, Dejah Thoris. It has taught me to understand what true love is, what it should be, and how far away my selfish and jealous passion was from true love. "-. Now I have changed Now I could love, such as Dejah Thoris loves And therefore it is the only onnenani the knowledge that you and he are together again, as only he can make you really happy.. . "- But I'm unhappy I made all the evil I have a lot of sins, atonement, and I would say, immortal, after all, my life would be too short to rectify them. "- But there is another way, and although Phaidor, the daughter of the holy hecoror of the holy therns, has broken, she has already partially compensated for her transgressions today, and you do not doubt her sincerity of repentance and her assurance of a new love that extends to Dejah Thoris, she proves them right for the only way he has to offer - after saving you for each other, Phaidor will leave you in his embrace. " Having said that, he spun around and jumped from the deck of the ship into the depths. Screaming in horror, I hurried forward, trying to save the life of this man, whom I would have so gladly wished for the last two years dead. But my attempt was in vain. I didn't have time. With tears in my eyes, I turned away so I couldn’t see the awful sight beneath me. Moments later, I had shattered the shackles of Dejah Thoris, and as his arms twisted around my neck and his charming lips pressed into my mouth, I forgot the horrors I had seen intoxicated by my reward and the suffering I endured.
