AS JERRY walked up to the dais on which the Torturer stood with Junia, he saw that the Princess was tightly bound, hand and foot.
Sarkis greeted him with a chuckle from the depths of his hideous mask.
“Now I have you both where I can kill you. I will die content.”
“What do you mean?” asked Jerry. “Do you think you could do that and get out of here alive?”
“Since this defeat, I have nothing left to live for,” said the Torturer. “I lured you here only for the purpose of revenge. First you shall see your beloved die; then you shall share her fate.”
He raised his dagger aloft, clutching the Princess by her glossy black hair as she struggled in his grasp. At the same instant Jerry lifted his hand to his head—a signal his men would understand. Then he sprang straight for the top of the dais.
The Earthman’s remarkable jumping powers were something Sarkis had overlooked; the startled Torturer turned to defend himself. As Jerry alighted he gripped the dagger wrist of Sarkis with his left hand, and with his right dealt him such a buffet on the side of the head as must have made his ears ring inside the golden helmet.
The Torturer released the girl and focused all his attention on the Earthman. The two struggled for a moment on the narrow top of the dais, then lost their balance at the edge, and toppling, rolled over and over to the floor.
At the same instant pandemonium broke loose within that vast chamber. Jerry’s men opened hostilities by hurling grenades into the packed mass of their foes. Then they charged. At this, some of the Torturer’s men turned and ran toward the dais. But to their utter astonishment they saw that a square section of the floor, supported on four metal shafts, had risen in front of the throne. Through the opening squirmed a white giant, followed by a black dwarf.
And after them poured a steady stream of the Commoner’s fierce fighting men.
In a few seconds the dais was completely surrounded by a ring of Jerry’s soldiers, whose numbers were constantly augmented by those who poured through from beneath. And now, the pitiful remnant of the Torturer’s army threw down their arms and surrendered.
Not so the Torturer. He wrenched himself free from Jerry’s grasp and with his dagger aimed a blow at his heart.
But the Earthman kicked the weapon from his hand and sprang back.
“Give me a sword,” he told Koha, “then cut the Princess free and stand guard over her. But see that no one molests the Torturer. He is mine alone to deal with.”
As the black dwarf pressed his sword into the Earthman’s hand, Sarkis drew his own weapon.
“Some days ago,” said Jerry, “you challenged me to a duel, but did not appear. Though I slew your substitute, I do not consider the affair settled. What is your opinion?”
“It will be settled when I have killed you,” grated Sarkis, lunging.
Jerry deflected the lunge with ease then before his opponent could recover, raked him across the chest with his point, cutting a long gash in his garment of golden mesh and revealing an expanse of shining steel beneath.
“Ah, a breastplate!” said Jerry. “We must remove it.”
Again they engaged, and again Jerry slit his enemy’s golden covering, so that one corner hung down. A third slash, and Sarkis wore a golden apron which flopped about his legs as he moved.
But Jerry had only begun. Systematically, he began undressing his opponent with his point. At the fourth slash, the Torturer was plainly revealed as a brown-skinned man. With his golden disguise cut away from him, his torso was naked save for the breastplate. Then the Earthman cut the straps that held it and it clattered to the floor.
At this Jerry heard a hearty laugh behind him, and turning for an instant, saw Manith Zovil, who had just come up with Numin Vil. The Vil was clutching the collar of a great black dalf, who was growling thunderously and seemed anxious to leap forward to the aid of the Earthman.
“Back, Neem,” said Jerry quickly.
Though the Torturer fought desperately, he was now badly hampered by his heavy golden garments, which he was compelled to hold up with one hand to keep them from slipping down around his legs and tripping him.
Suddenly Jerry avoided a lunge, and springing in, struck upward so that his pommel caught beneath the hooked nose of the hideous mask. It flew off revealing the features of Thoor Movil. Before his enemy could recover, Jerry turned and brought his blade down upon that of the brown prince with such force that the weapon was knocked from his grasp.
At this sudden revelation of the identity of the Torturer there were cries of amazement from the onlookers, and shouts of “Kill the false Vil! Slay the Torturer! Pierce his rotten heart!”
“Yield or die,” said Jerry, presenting his point to his enemy’s breast.
“I yield,” replied Thoor Movil.
“Take charge of the prisoner,” said Jerry, sheathing his sword. Two of his warriors sprang forward to do his bidding, and he turned to salute his royal guests. Junia had joined her father, and the Vil stood with his arm around her slight figure, while she fondled the head of Neem, the dalf.
Manith Zovil smiled broadly as he acknowledged Jerry’s salute.
“That was rare entertainment you just afforded us, my friend,” he said. “I’m glad you invited us here to witness it.
“But I didn’t,” replied Jerry. “I hoped to have it over with by the time you arrived.”
“Then Deza be thanked that you miscalculated. I wouldn’t have missed it for a million tayzos.”
Numin Vil was more brusque. “Now that you have seized my capital, what do you intend doing with it?”
“I believe you offered the hand of your daughter to the man who would recapture it for you,” Jerry replied.
“That offer was made to my friend Manith Zovil, and not to the murderer of my son,” thundered the Vil.
“One moment, majesty,” interrupted Manith Zovil. “It seems that between us we have done my friend Jerry Morgan a grave injustice. He did not kill your son.”
“Then who did?”
“I slew Shiev Zovil in self-defense,” replied the prince. “I met him in the corridor near Jerry Morgan’s apartment, and he lunged at me without a word of warning, when my sword was sheathed. I leaped back, and only the fact that the point was stopped by my breastbone saved my life.
“Then I drew my own weapon, and we had it out.”
The poker face of Numin Vil showed nothing of his feelings, but his rumbling voice grew suddenly tremulous. “I cannot understand why Shiev attacked you thus.”
“I can explain that, also,” replied Manith Zovil. “Thoor Movil poisoned his mind against me. He wished to marry Junia himself, and after putting you and the crown prince out of the way, to make himself Vil of Kalsivar. As you see, his plans underwent some slight changes through circumstances, but his central purpose has ever been the same.”
“It seems,” rumbled Numin Vil, turning and fixing the prisoner with his expressionless eyes, “that my nephew is responsible not only for the death of my son, but for all of our troubles and misunderstandings. Were he my prisoner . . . ”
“He is your prisoner, majesty,” interrupted Jerry. “I wish to turn him over to you, along with your capital and your empire, which I will tell you frankly that I do not want. All I ask is that you legally free those of my followers who have been slaves, pardon those who have broken your laws, and permit us all to go in peace.”
“Then you have no ambition to rule Kalsivar?”
“None whatever.”
The Vil again regarded his treacherous nephew. “Thoor Movil,” he said, “I sentence you . . . ”
At this moment there was an interruption. No one had paid any attention to the slight, brown-skinned girl attired in a gray slave habit, who had unobtrusively wormed her way through the crowd to a position behind Thoor Movil. Jerry’s first inkling of what was taking place was when he saw the glint of light on the blade of a dagger which she slipped into the prince’s right hand.
The feel of that weapon galvanized the desperate prince to sudden action. Before the two warriors who stood guard at either side of him had any idea what was taking place, he sprang forward, seized the Vil by his braided beard, and raised his dagger to plunge it into the monarch’s heart.
To all save Jerry this development was so unexpected, that they could only stand, gasping and helpless. But the Earthman had caught the glint of the dagger just in time. And so, when Thoor Movil leaped, Jerry was but a fraction of a second behind him. With a single, sweeping motion, his sword flashed from its scabbard and described a glittering arc. One moment the bystanders saw the brown prince standing with dagger raised for the death thrust; the next, they saw the upraised arm and sneering head leap upward and fly through the air, both severed by the same terrific blow.
Behind him Jerry heard a female voice screaming—cursing. He turned and saw Nisha Novil, wearing the gray of a slave girl, struggling in the grip of two of his warriors.
“What is this?” thundered Numin Vil. “Has my niece become a slave?”
“It was she who passed the dagger to Thoor Movil, majesty,” volunteered one of the men.
“Then she shall have the sentence I intended for her traitorous brother,” rumbled the monarch. “Nisha Novil, you are stripped of your royal rank, your wealth and lands. You have chosen to wear the habit of a slave girl as a disguise. Wear it now as your future apparel. And tomorrow you go on the auction block.”
He waved his hand, and the two warriors dragged her away, still kicking, cursing, biting and scratching.
“Deza help the man who buys her,” said Manith Zovil dryly.
The Vil turned to the Earthman.
“Jerry Morgan,” he said, “you have not only restored my daughter and my empire, but have saved my life. The rewards which I promised you on the Plains of Lav shall now be yours. A million tayzos and the Raddek of Dhoor.”
At this Jerry’s heart turned bitter within him. For a moment he was minded to hold the empire which lay within his grasp—to make Junia his own, despite the evident reluctance of the Vil to give his daughter to a commoner. But he remembered that the Princess had agreed to marry Manith Zovil, and he did not want the empire; it was only Junia he wanted—Junia and his freedom.
“I care not for your riches nor your titles,” he said. “The free, adventurous life of your deserts and marshes suits me better than your crowded city existence. I would sooner sleep beneath the jeweled vault of heaven than in a palace with a golden roof set with the most precious gems; would rather watch the sun rise over the sand dunes or through the morning mists that hang over the Atabah Marsh, than over the most ornate building in your vast city. I want to go back to my wild tribesmen—to ride and hunt and live and . . . ”
“And love?” asked Junia, coming quickly to his side and looking up at him with starry eyes, eloquent with a meaning which he could not mistake.
“And love!” he replied, taking her in his arms and possessing himself of her eager, upturned lips.
“Then take me with you, my Commoner,” she murmured.
He looked up at the Vil.
“On my world,” he said, “it is a custom for outlaws to say, ‘Your money or your life!’ You know that I hold all Kalsivar in the hollow of my hand. And I, the outlaw of Mars, now say to you, ‘Your empire or your daughter!’ It is up to you to choose.”
For a moment the Vil glared at him, speechless. Then the suspicion of a twinkle came to his usually expressionless eyes as he replied: “Since she, herself, has chosen you, take her, my boy, and may Deza bless you both.”
So Jerry Morgan, though he had renounced the throne of the greatest empire on all Mars, was very well content.
THE END