The Gods of Mars | Page 7

had been
overtaken ere he had made half the distance to the forest, and now he
stood with his back to a boulder, while the herd, temporarily balked,
hissed and screeched about him.
With their single eyes in the centre of their heads and every eye turned
upon their prey, they did not note my soundless approach, so that I was
upon them with my great long-sword and four of them lay dead ere
they knew that I was among them.
For an instant they recoiled before my terrific onslaught, and in that
instant the green warrior rose to the occasion and, springing to my side,
laid to the right and left of him as I had never seen but one other
warrior do, with great circling strokes that formed a figure eight about
him and that never stopped until none stood living to oppose him, his
keen blade passing through flesh and bone and metal as though each
had been alike thin air.
As we bent to the slaughter, far above us rose that shrill, weird cry
which I had heard once before, and which had called the herd to the
attack upon their victims. Again and again it rose, but we were too
much engaged with the fierce and powerful creatures about us to
attempt to search out even with our eyes the author of the horrid notes.

Great tails lashed in frenzied anger about us, razor-like talons cut our
limbs and bodies, and a green and sticky syrup, such as oozes from a
crushed caterpillar, smeared us from head to foot, for every cut and
thrust of our longswords brought spurts of this stuff upon us from the
severed arteries of the plant men, through which it courses in its
sluggish viscidity in lieu of blood.
Once I felt the great weight of one of the monsters upon my back and
as keen talons sank into my flesh I experienced the frightful sensation
of moist lips sucking the lifeblood from the wounds to which the claws
still clung.
I was very much engaged with a ferocious fellow who was
endeavouring to reach my throat from in front, while two more, one on
either side, were lashing viciously at me with their tails.
The green warrior was much put to it to hold his own, and I felt that the
unequal struggle could last but a moment longer when the huge fellow
discovered my plight, and tearing himself from those that surrounded
him, he raked the assailant from my back with a single sweep of his
blade, and thus relieved I had little difficulty with the others.
Once together, we stood almost back to back against the great boulder,
and thus the creatures were prevented from soaring above us to deliver
their deadly blows, and as we were easily their match while they
remained upon the ground, we were making great headway in
dispatching what remained of them when our attention was again
attracted by the shrill wail of the caller above our heads.
This time I glanced up, and far above us upon a little natural balcony
on the face of the cliff stood a strange figure of a man shrieking out his
shrill signal, the while he waved one hand in the direction of the river's
mouth as though beckoning to some one there, and with the other
pointed and gesticulated toward us.
A glance in the direction toward which he was looking was sufficient to
apprise me of his aims and at the same time to fill me with the dread of
dire apprehension, for, streaming in from all directions across the

meadow, from out of the forest, and from the far distance of the flat
land across the river, I could see converging upon us a hundred
different lines of wildly leaping creatures such as we were now
engaged with, and with them some strange new monsters which ran
with great swiftness, now erect and now upon all fours.
"It will be a great death," I said to my companion. "Look!"
As he shot a quick glance in the direction I indicated he smiled.
"We may at least die fighting and as great warriors should, John
Carter," he replied.
We had just finished the last of our immediate antagonists as he spoke,
and I turned in surprised wonderment at the sound of my name.
And there before my astonished eyes I beheld the greatest of the green
men of Barsoom; their shrewdest statesman, their mightiest general, my
great and good friend, Tars Tarkas, Jeddak of Thark.
CHAPTER II
A FOREST BATTLE

Tars Tarkas and I found no time for an exchange of experiences as we
stood there before the great boulder surrounded by the corpses of our
grotesque assailants, for from all directions down the