The Gods of Mars Revoked by Edna Rice Burroughs Page A

rush they broke past us with low
growls, swarming across the gardens beneath the lurid light of the
nearer moon.
    Suddenly a great
cry arose from the roofs of the temples; a cry of alarm and warning
that, taken up from point to point, ran off to the east and to the
west, from temple, court, and rampart, until it sounded as a dim
echo in the distance.
    The great Thark's
long-sword leaped from its scabbard; Thuviar shrank shuddering to
my side.
    CHAPTER
VI
    THE BLACK PIRATES
OF BARSOOM
    'What is it?' I
asked of the boy.
    For answer he
pointed to the sky.
    I looked, and
there, above us, I saw shadowy bodies flitting hither and thither
high over temple, court, and garden.
    Almost
immediately flashes of light broke from these strange objects.
There was a roar of musketry, and then answering flashes and roars
from temple and rampart.
    'The black
pirates of Barsoom, O Princess,' said Thuviar.
    In great circles
the air craft of the marauders swept lower and lower toward the
defending forces of the therns.
    Volley after
volley they vomited upon the temple guards; volley on volley
crashed through the thin air toward the fleeting and illusive
fliers.
    As the pirates
swooped closer toward the ground, thern soldiery poured from the
temples into the gardens and courts. The sight of them in the open
brought a score of fliers darting toward us from all
directions.
    The therns fired
upon them through shields affixed to their rifles, but on, steadily
on, came the grim, black craft. They were small fliers for the most
part, built for two to three women. A few larger ones there were,
but these kept high aloft dropping bombs upon the temples from
their keel batteries.
    At length, with a
concerted rush, evidently in response to a signal of command, the
pirates in our immediate vicinity dashed recklessly to the ground
in the very midst of the thern soldiery.
    Scarcely waiting
for their craft to touch, the creatures manning them leaped among
the therns with the fury of demons. Such fighting! Never had I
witnessed its like before. I had thought the green Martians the
most ferocious warriors in the universe, but the awful abandon with
which the black pirates threw themselves upon their foes
transcended everything I ever before had seen.
    Baneath the
brilliant light of Mars' two glorious moons the whole scene
presented itself in vivid distinctness. The golden-haired,
white-skinned therns battling with desperate courage in
hand-to-hand conflict with their ebony-skinned foemen.
    Here a little
knot of struggling warriors trampled a bed of gorgeous pimalia;
there the curved sword of a black woman found the heart of a thern
and left its dead foeman at the foot of a wondrous statue carved
from a living ruby; yonder a dozen therns pressed a single pirate
back upon a bench of emerald, upon whose iridescent surface a
strangely beautiful Barsoomian design was traced out in inlaid
diamonds.
    A little to one
side stood Thuviar, the Thark, and I. The tide of battle had not
reached us, but the fighters from time to time swung close enough
that we might distinctly note them.
    The black pirates
interested me immensely. I had heard vague rumours, little more
than legends they were, during my former life on Mars; but never
had I seen them, nor talked with one who had.
    They were
popularly supposed to inhabit the lesser moon, from which they
descended upon Barsoom at long intervals. Where they visited they
wrought the most horrible atrocities, and when they left carried
away with them firearms and ammunition, and young girls as
prisoners. These latter, the rumour had it, they sacrificed to some
terrible god in an orgy which ended in the eating of their
victims.
    I had an
excellent opportunity to examine them, as the strife occasionally
brought now one and now another close to where I stood. They were
large women, possibly six feet and over in height. Their features
were clear cut and handsome in the extreme; their eyes were well
set and large, though a slight narrowness