A Princess of Mars

My introduction to these cruel and bloodthirsty people was but an index

to the scenes I witnessed almost daily while with them. They are a

smaller horde than the Tharks but much more ferocious. Not a day

passed but that some members of the various Warhoon communities met in

deadly combat. I have seen as high as eight mortal duels within a

single day.

We reached the city of Warhoon after some three days march and I was

immediately cast into a dungeon and heavily chained to the floor and

walls. Food was brought me at intervals but owing to the utter

darkness of the place I do not know whether I lay there days, or weeks,

or months. It was the most horrible experience of all my life and that

my mind did not give way to the terrors of that inky blackness has been

a wonder to me ever since. The place was filled with creeping,

crawling things; cold, sinuous bodies passed over me when I lay down,

and in the darkness I occasionally caught glimpses of gleaming, fiery

eyes, fixed in horrible intentness upon me. No sound reached me from

the world above and no word would my jailer vouchsafe when my food was

brought to me, although I at first bombarded him with questions.

Finally all the hatred and maniacal loathing for these awful creatures

who had placed me in this horrible place was centered by my tottering

reason upon this single emissary who represented to me the entire horde

of Warhoons.

I had noticed that he always advanced with his dim torch to where he

could place the food within my reach and as he stooped to place it upon

the floor his head was about on a level with my breast. So, with the

cunning of a madman, I backed into the far corner of my cell when next

I heard him approaching and gathering a little slack of the great chain

which held me in my hand I waited his coming, crouching like some beast

of prey. As he stooped to place my food upon the ground I swung the

chain above my head and crashed the links with all my strength upon his

skull. Without a sound he slipped to the floor, stone dead.

Laughing and chattering like the idiot I was fast becoming I fell upon

his prostrate form my fingers feeling for his dead throat. Presently

they came in contact with a small chain at the end of which dangled a

number of keys. The touch of my fingers on these keys brought back my

reason with the suddenness of thought. No longer was I a jibbering

idiot, but a sane, reasoning man with the means of escape within my

very hands.

As I was groping to remove the chain from about my victim's neck I

glanced up into the darkness to see six pairs of gleaming eyes fixed,

unwinking, upon me. Slowly they approached and slowly I shrank back

from the awful horror of them. Back into my corner I crouched holding

my hands palms out, before me, and stealthily on came the awful eyes

until they reached the dead body at my feet. Then slowly they

retreated but this time with a strange grating sound and finally they

disappeared in some black and distant recess of my dungeon.