Occasionally, we saw the campfires of savages, and faintly to our ears rose the chanting of barbaric songs and the booming of drums muffled by distance; all punctuated by the scream or bellow of some savage thing.
“The last of the great oceans,” said John Carter, who had joined me at the rail.
“Its eventual passing will doubtless mark the passing of a world, and Mars will hurtle on through all eternity peopled by not even a memory of its past grandeur.”
“It saddens me to think of it,” I said.
“And me, too,” he replied.
“But you could return to Earth,” I reminded him.
He smiled. “I do not think that either of us need worry about the end of Mars; at least, not for another million years, perhaps.”
I laughed. “Somehow, when you spoke of it, it seemed as though the end were very near,” I said.
“Comparatively speaking, it is,” he replied. “Here we have only a shallow marshland to remind us of the mighty oceans which once rolled across the major portion of Barsoom. On Earth, the waters cover three quarters of the globe, reaching a depth of over five miles; yet, eventually the same fate will overtake that planet. The mountains will wash down into the seas; the seas will evaporate; and some day all that will be left to mark their great oceans will be another Toonolian Marsh in some barren waste where the great Pacific Ocean rolls today.”
“You make me sad,” I said.
“Well, let’s not worry about it, then,” he laughed. “We have much more important matters to consider than the end of the two worlds. The fate of a friend transcends that of a planet. What shall you do if your body cannot be recovered?”
“I shall never return to Helium with this body,” I replied.
“I cannot blame you. We shall have to find you another body.”
“No,” I said. “I have given the matter a great deal of thought, and I have come to a final decision. If my own body has been destroyed, I shall destroy this body, too, and the brain with it. There are far more desirable bodies than mine, of course; and yet I am so attached to it that I should not care to live in the body of another.”
“Do not decide too hastily, Vor Daj.”
“Tor-dur-bar, my Prince,” I corrected.
“Why carry on the masquerade longer?” he demanded.
“Because she does not know,” I said.
He nodded. “You think it might make a difference with her?” he asked.
“I am afraid that she could never forget this inhuman face and body, and that she might always wonder if the brain, too, were not the brain of a hormad, even though it reposed in the skull of Vor Daj. No one knows but you and Ras Thavas and I, my prince. I beg of you that you will never divulge the truth to Janai.”
“As you wish,” he said; “though I am quite sure that you are making a mistake. If she cares for you, it will make no difference to her; if she does not care for you, it will make no difference to you.”
“No,” I said. “I want to forget Tor-dur-bar, myself, and I certainly want her to forget him.”
“That she will never do,” he said, “for, from what she has told me, she entertains a very strong affection for Tor-dur-bar! He is Vor Daj’s most dangerous rival.”
“Don’t,” I begged. “The very idea is repulsive.”
“It is the character that makes the man,” said John Carter, “not the clay which is its abode.”
“No, my friend,” I replied, “no amount of philosophizing could make Tor-dur-bar a suitable mate for any red woman; least of all, Janai.”
“Perhaps you are right,” he agreed; “but after the great sacrifice that you have made for her, I feel that you deserve a better reward than death by your own hand.”
“Well,” I replied, “tomorrow will probably decide the matter for us; and already I see the first streak of dawn above the horizon.”
He thought in silence for a few moments, and then he said, “Perhaps the least of the difficulties which may confront us will be reaching 3-17 and the body of Vor Daj. What concerns me more than that is the likelihood that the entire Laboratory Building may be filled with the mass from Vat Room No. 4, in which event it will be practically impossible to reach Ras Thavas’s laboratory which contains the necessary paraphernalia for the delicate operation of returning your brain to your own body.”
“I anticipated that,” I replied; “and on my way out of Morbus, I took everything that was necessary to 3-17.”
“Good!” he exclaimed. “My mind is greatly relieved. Ras Thavas and I have both been deeply concerned by what amounted to his practical certainty that we should never be able to reach his laboratory. He believes that it is going to be necessary to destroy Morbus before we can check the growth from Vat No. 4.”
It was daylight when we approached Morbus. The ships, with the exception of the Ruzaar, which carried us, were dispatched to circle the island to discover how far the mass from Vat Room No. 4 had spread.
The Ruzaar, dropping to within a few yards of the ground, approached the little island where lay the tunnel leading to 3-17; and, as we approached it, a sight of horror met our eyes. A wriggling, writhing mass of tissue had spread across the water from the main island of Morbus and now completely covered the little island. Hideous heads looked up at us screaming defiance; hands stretched forth futilely to clutch us.
I searched for the mouth of the tunnel; but it was not visible, being entirely covered by the writhing mass. My heart sank, for I felt certain that the mass must have entered the tunnel and found its way to 3-17; for I was sure that it would enter any opening and follow the line of least resistance until it met some impassable barrier.
However, I clung desperately to the hope that I had covered the mouth of the tunnel sufficiently well to have prevented the mass from starting down it. But even so, how could we hope to reach the tunnel through that hideous cordon of horror?
John Carter stood by the rail with several members of his staff. Janai, Ras Thavas, and I were close beside him. He was gazing down with evident horror upon Ras Thavas’s creation. Presently he issued instructions to the members of his staff, and two of them left to put them into effect. Then we waited, no one speaking, silenced by the horror surging beneath us, screaming, mouthing, gesticulating.
Janai was standing close to me, and presently she grasped my arm. It was the first time that she had ever voluntarily touched me. “How horrible!” she whispered. “It cannot be possible that Vor Daj’s body still exists, for that horrid mass must have spread everywhere through the buildings as well as out beyond the walls of the City.”
I shook my head. I had nothing to say. She pressed my arm tightly. “Tor-dur-bar, promise me that you will do nothing rash if the body of Vor Daj is lost.”
“Let’s not even think of it,” I said.
“But we must think of it; and you must promise me.”
I shook my head. “You are asking too much,” I said. “There can be no happiness for me as long as I retain the body of a hormad.” I realized then that I had given myself away, but she did not seem to notice it, but just stood in silence looking down upon the awful thing beneath us.
The Ruzaar was rising now, and it continued to do so until it had gained an altitude of five or six hundred feet. Then it remained stationary again, hanging directly over that part of the little islet where the cave mouth lay. Presently an incendiary bomb fell, and the mass writhed and screamed as it burst, spreading its flaming contents in all directions.
I shall not dwell upon the horror of it, but bomb after bomb was dropped until only a mass of charred and smoking flesh lay within a radius of a hundred feet of the cave opening. Then the Ruzaar dropped closer to the ground, and I was lowered by landing tackle; and following me came Ras Thavas and two hundred warriors, the latter armed with swords and flaming torches with which they immediately attacked the mass that was already creeping back to cover the ground that it had lost.
My heart was in my mouth as I fell to work to remove the earth and stones with which I had blocked the entrance to the tunnel; but as I worked, I saw no sign that it had been pierced, and presently it lay open before me and I could have shouted with joy, for the mouth of the tunnel was empty.
I cannot describe my feelings as I again traversed that long tunnel back to 3-17. Was my body still there? Was it safe and whole? I conjured all sorts of terrible things that might have happened to it during my long absence. I almost ran through the black tunnel in my haste to learn the truth, and at last with trembling hands I raised the cover of the trap that led from the tunnel up into the chamber. A moment later, I stood in 3-17.
Lying as I had left it was the body of Vor Daj.
Ras Thavas soon joined me; and I could see that he, too, breathed a sigh of relief as he discovered the body and paraphernalia intact.
Without waiting for instructions from Ras Thavas, I stretched myself upon the ersite slab beside my own body; and presently Ras Thavas was bending over me, I felt a slight incision and a little pain, and then consciousness left me.