The Chessmen of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs Read Free Book Online Page A

weighed
heaviest upon her. Had she known the nature of the creature
lurking there half its menace would have vanished. She cast
quickly about her in search of some haven of refuge should the
thing prove dangerous.
    Again arose the moaning from the hills, but this time closer.
Almost immediately it was answered from the opposite side of the
valley, behind her, and then from the distance to the right of
her, and twice upon her left. Her eyes had found a tree, quite
near. Slowly, and without taking her eyes from the shadows of
that other tree, she moved toward the overhanging branches that
might afford her sanctuary in the event of need, and at her first
move a low growl rose from the spot she had been watching and she
heard the sudden moving of a big body. Simultaneously the
creature shot into the moonlight in full charge upon her, its
tail erect, its tiny ears laid flat, its great mouth with its
multiple rows of sharp and powerful fangs already yawning for its
prey, its ten legs carrying it forward in great leaps, and now
from the beast's throat issued the frightful roar with which it
seeks to paralyze its prey. It was a banth—the great, maned lion
of Barsoom. Tara of Helium saw it coming and leaped for the tree
toward which she had been moving, and the banth realized her
intention and redoubled his speed. As his hideous roar awakened
the echoes in the hills, so too it awakened echoes in the valley;
but these echoes came from the living throats of others of his
kind, until it seemed to the girl that Fate had thrown her into
the midst of a countless multitude of these savage beasts.
    Almost incredibly swift is the speed of a charging banth, and
fortunate it was that the girl had not been caught farther in the
open. As it was, her margin of safety was next to negligible, for
as she swung nimbly to the lower branches the creature in pursuit
of her crashed among the foliage almost upon her as it sprang
upward to seize her. It was only a combination of good fortune
and agility that saved her. A stout branch deflected the raking
talons of the carnivore, but so close was the call that a giant
forearm brushed her flesh in the instant before she scrambled to
the higher branches.
    Baffled, the banth gave vent to his rage and disappointment in a
series of frightful roars that caused the very ground to tremble,
and to these were added the roarings and the growlings and the
moanings of his fellows as they approached from every direction,
in the hope of wresting from him whatever of his kill they could
take by craft or prowess. And now he turned snarling upon them as
they circled the tree, while the girl, huddled in a crotch above
them, looked down upon the gaunt, yellow monsters padding on
noiseless feet in a restless circle about her. She wondered now
at the strange freak of fate that had permitted her to come down
this far into the valley by night unharmed, but even more she
wondered how she was to return to the hills. She knew that she
would not dare venture it by night and she guessed, too, that by
day she might be confronted by even graver perils. To depend upon
this valley for sustenance she now saw to be beyond the pale of
possibility because of the banths that would keep her from food
and water by night, while the dwellers in the towers would
doubtless make it equally impossible for her to forage by day.
There was but one solution of her difficulty and that was to
return to her flier and pray that the wind would waft her to some
less terrorful land; but when might she return to the flier? The
banths gave little evidence of relinquishing hope of her, and even
if they wandered out of sight would she dare risk the attempt?
She doubted it.
    Hopeless indeed seemed her situation—hopeless it was.

Chapter IV — Captured
*
    As Thuria, swift racer of the night, shot again into the sky the
scene changed. As by magic a new aspect fell athwart the face of
Nature. It was as though in the instant one had been transported
from one planet to