第32章

The question now revolved solely about her rescue.He knew to which tower she had been taken--that much and no more.Of the number, the kind, or the disposition of her captors he renew nothing; nor did he care--for Tara of Helium he would face a hostile world alone.Rapidly he considered several plans for succoring her; but the one that appealed most strongly to him was that which offered the greatest chance of escape for the girl should he be successful in reaching her.His decision reached he turned his attention quickly toward the flier.Casting off its lashings he dragged it out from beneath the trees, and, mounting to the deck tested out the various controls.The motor started at a touch and purred sweetly, the buoyancy tanks were well stocked, and the ship answered perfectly to the controls which regulated her altitude.There was nothing needed but a propellor to make her fit for the long voyage to Helium.Gahan shrugged impatiently--there must not be a propellor within a thousand haads.But what mattered it? The craft even without a propellor would still answer the purpose his plan required of it--provided the captors of Tara of Helium were a people without ships, and he had seen nothing to suggest that they had ships.The architecture of their towers and enclosures assured him that they had not.

The sudden Barsoomian night had fallen.Cluros rode majestically the high heavens.The rumbling roar of a banth reverberated among the hills.Gahan of Gathol let the ship rise a few feet from the ground, then, seizing a bow rope, he dropped over the side.To tow the little craft was now a thing of ease, and as Gahan moved rapidly toward the brow of the hill above Bantoom the flier floated behind him as lightly as a swan upon a quiet lake.Now down the hill toward the tower dimly visible in the moonlight the Gatholian turned his steps.Closer behind him sounded the roar of the hunting banth.He wondered if the beast sought him or was following some other spoor.He could not be delayed now by any hungry beast of prey, for what might that very instant be befalling Tara of Helium he could not guess; and so he hastened his steps.But closer and closer came the horrid screams of the great carnivore, and now he heard the swift fall of padded feet upon the hillside behind him.He glanced back just in time to see the beast break into a rapid charge.His hand leaped to the hilt of his long-sword, but he did not draw, for in the same instant he saw the futility of armed resistance, since behind the first banth came a herd of at least a dozen others.There was but a single alternative to a futile stand and that he grasped in the instant that he saw the overwhelming numbers of his antagonists.

Springing lightly from the ground he swarmed up the rope toward the bow of the flier.His weight drew the craft slightly lower and at the very instant that the man drew himself to the deck at the bow of the vessel, the leading banth sprang for the stern.