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Thuvia, maid of Mars

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Title: Thuvia, maid of Mars

Author: Edgar Rice Burroughs

 
Release date: July 1, 1993 [eBook #72]
 Most recently updated: May 26, 2022

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/72

Credits: Judith Boss and Charles Keller

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THUVIA, MAID OF MARS ***

Thuvia, Maid of Mars

by Edgar Rice Burroughs

Contents

 I. CARTHORIS AND THUVIA
 II. SLAVERY
 III. TREACHERY
 IV. A GREEN MAN'S CAPTIVE
 V. THE FAIR RACE
 VI. THE JEDDAK OF LOTHAR
 VII. THE PHANTOM BOWMEN
 VIII. THE HALL OF DOOM
 IX. THE BATTLE IN THE PLAIN
 X. KAR KOMAK, THE BOWMAN
 XI. GREEN MEN AND WHITE APES
 XII. TO SAVE DUSAR
 XIII. TURJUN, THE PANTHAN
 XIV. KULAN TITH'S SACRIFICE
 A GLOSSARY OF NAMES AND TERMS USED IN THE MARTIAN BOOKS

THUVIA, MAID OF MARS

CHAPTER I.
CARTHORIS AND THUVIA

Upon a massive bench of polished ersite beneath the gorgeous blooms of
a giant pimalia a woman sat. Her shapely, sandalled foot tapped
impatiently upon the jewel-strewn walk that wound beneath the stately
sorapus trees across the scarlet sward of the royal gardens of Thuvan
Dihn, Jeddak of Ptarth, as a dark-haired, red-skinned warrior bent low
toward her, whispering heated words close to her ear.

"Ah, Thuvia of Ptarth," he cried, "you are cold even before the fiery
blasts of my consuming love! No harder than your heart, nor colder is
the hard, cold ersite of this thrice happy bench which supports your
divine and fadeless form! Tell me, O Thuvia of Ptarth, that I may still
hope-that though you do not love me now, yet some day, some day, my
princess, I-"

The girl sprang to her feet with an exclamation of surprise and
displeasure. Her queenly head was poised haughtily upon her smooth red
shoulders. Her dark eyes looked angrily into those of the man.

"You forget yourself, and the customs of Barsoom, Astok," she said. "I
have given you no right thus to address the daughter of Thuvan Dihn,
nor have you won such a right."

The man reached suddenly forth and grasped her by the arm.

"You shall be my princess!" he cried. "By the breast of Issus, thou
shalt, nor shall any other come between Astok, Prince of Dusar, and his
heart's desire. Tell me that there is another, and I shall cut out his
foul heart and fling it to the wild calots of the dead sea-bottoms!"

At touch of the man's hand upon her flesh the girl went pallid beneath
her coppery skin, for the persons of the royal women of the courts of
Mars are held but little less than sacred. The act of Astok, Prince of
Dusar, was profanation. There was no terror in the eyes of Thuvia of
Ptarth-only horror for the thing the man had done and for its possible
consequences.

"Release me." Her voice was level-frigid.

The man muttered incoherently and drew her roughly toward him.

"Release me!" she repeated sharply, "or I call the guard, and the
Prince of Dusar knows what that will mean."

Quickly he threw his right arm about her shoulders and strove to draw
her face to his lips. With a little cry she struck him full in the
mouth with the massive bracelets that circled her free arm.

"Calot!" she exclaimed, and then: "The guard! The guard! Hasten in
protection of the Princess of Ptarth!"

In answer to her call a dozen guardsmen came racing across the scarlet
sward, their gleaming long-swords naked in the sun, the metal of their
accoutrements clanking against that of their leathern harness, and in
their throats hoarse shouts of rage at the sight which met their eyes.

But before they had passed half across the royal garden to where Astok
of Dusar still held the struggling girl in his grasp, another figure
sprang from a cluster of dense foliage that half hid a golden fountain
close at hand. A tall, straight youth he was, with black hair and keen
grey eyes; broad of shoulder and narrow of hip; a clean-limbed fighting
man. His skin was but faintly tinged with the copper colour that marks
the red men of Mars from the other races of the dying planet-he was
like them, and yet there was a subtle difference greater even than that
which lay in his lighter skin and his grey eyes.

There was a difference, too, in his movements. He came on in great
leaps that carried him so swiftly over the ground that the speed of the
guardsmen was as nothing by comparison.

Astok still clutched Thuvia's wrist as the young warrior confronted
him. The new-comer wasted no time and he spoke but a single word.

"Calot!" he snapped, and then his clenched fist landed beneath the
other's chin, lifting him high into the air and depositing him in a
crumpled heap within the centre of the pimalia bush beside the ersite
bench.

Her champion turned toward the girl. "Kaor, Thuvia of Ptarth!" he
cried. "It seems that fate timed my visit well."

"Kaor, Carthoris of Helium!" the princess returned the young man's
greeting, "and what less could one expect of the son of such a sire?"

He bowed his acknowledgment of the compliment to his father, John
Carter, Warlord of Mars. And then the guardsmen, panting from their
charge, came up just as the Prince of Dusar, bleeding at the mouth, and
with drawn sword, crawled from the entanglement of the pimalia.

Astok would have leaped to mortal combat with the son of Dejah Thoris,
but the guardsmen pressed about him, preventing, though it was clearly
evident that naught would have better pleased Carthoris of Helium.

"But say the word, Thuvia of Ptarth," he begged, "and naught will give
me greater pleasure than meting to this fellow the punishment he has
earned."

"It cannot be, Carthoris," she replied. "Even though he has forfeited
all claim upon my consideration, yet is he the guest of the jeddak, my
father, and to him alone may he account for the unpardonable act he has
committed."

"As you say, Thuvia," replied the Heliumite. "But afterward he shall
account to Carthoris, Prince of Helium, for this affront to the
daughter of my father's friend." As he spoke, though, there burned in
his eyes a fire that proclaimed a nearer, dearer cause for his
championship of this glorious daughter of Barsoom.

The maid's cheek darkened beneath the satin of her transparent skin,
and the eyes of Astok, Prince of Dusar, darkened, too, as he read that
which passed unspoken between the two in the royal gardens of the
jeddak.

"And thou to me," he snapped at Carthoris, answering the young man's
challenge.

The guard still surrounded Astok. It was a difficult position for the
young officer who commanded it. His prisoner was the son of a mighty
jeddak; he wa

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