A Princess of Mars

There was one slight, desperate chance, and that I decided I must

take--it was for Dejah Thoris, and no man has lived who would not risk

a thousand deaths for such as she.

Clinging to the wall with my feet and one hand, I unloosened one of the

long leather straps of my trappings at the end of which dangled a great

hook by which air sailors are hung to the sides and bottoms of their

craft for various purposes of repair, and by means of which landing

parties are lowered to the ground from the battleships.

I swung this hook cautiously to the roof several times before it

finally found lodgment; gently I pulled on it to strengthen its hold,

but whether it would bear the weight of my body I did not know. It

might be barely caught upon the very outer verge of the roof, so that

as my body swung out at the end of the strap it would slip off and

launch me to the pavement a thousand feet below.

An instant I hesitated, and then, releasing my grasp upon the

supporting ornament, I swung out into space at the end of the strap.

Far below me lay the brilliantly lighted streets, the hard pavements,

and death. There was a little jerk at the top of the supporting eaves,

and a nasty slipping, grating sound which turned me cold with

apprehension; then the hook caught and I was safe.

Clambering quickly aloft I grasped the edge of the eaves and drew

myself to the surface of the roof above. As I gained my feet I was

confronted by the sentry on duty, into the muzzle of whose revolver I

found myself looking.

"Who are you and whence came you?" he cried.

"I am an air scout, friend, and very near a dead one, for just by the

merest chance I escaped falling to the avenue below," I replied.

"But how came you upon the roof, man? No one has landed or come up

from the building for the past hour. Quick, explain yourself, or I

call the guard."

"Look you here, sentry, and you shall see how I came and how close a

shave I had to not coming at all," I answered, turning toward the edge

of the roof, where, twenty feet below, at the end of my strap, hung all

my weapons.

The fellow, acting on impulse of curiosity, stepped to my side and to

his undoing, for as he leaned to peer over the eaves I grasped him by

his throat and his pistol arm and threw him heavily to the roof. The

weapon dropped from his grasp, and my fingers choked off his attempted

cry for assistance. I gagged and bound him and then hung him over the

edge of the roof as I myself had hung a few moments before. I knew it

would be morning before he would be discovered, and I needed all the

time that I could gain.