第33章

Gahan leaped to his feet and rushed toward the great beast in the hope of dislodging it before it had succeeded in clambering aboard.At the same instant he saw that others of the banths were racing toward them with the quite evident intention of following their leader to the ship's deck.Should they reach it in any numbers he would be lost.There was but a single hope.Leaping for the altitude control Gahan pulled it wide.Simultaneously three banths leaped for the deck.The craft rose swiftly.Gahan felt the impact of a body against the keel, followed by the soft thuds of the great bodies as they struck the ground beneath.His act had not been an instant too soon.And now the leader had gained the deck and stood at the stern with glaring eyes and snarling jaws.Gahan drew his sword.The beast, possibly disconcerted by the novelty of its position, did not charge.

Instead it crept slowly toward its intended prey.The craft was rising and Gahan placed a foot upon the control and stopped the ascent.He did not wish to chance rising to some higher air current that would bear him away.Already the craft was moving slowly toward the tower, carried thither by the impetus of the banth's heavy body leaping upon it from astern.

The man watched the slow approach of the monster, the slavering jowls, the malignant expression of the devilish face.The creature, finding the deck stable, appeared to be gaining confidence, and then the man leaped suddenly to one side of the deck and the tiny flier heeled as suddenly in response.The banth slipped and clutched frantically at the deck.Gahan leaped in with his naked sword; the great beast caught itself and reared upon its hind legs to reach forth and seize this presumptuous mortal that dared question its right to the flesh it craved; and then the man sprang to the opposite side of the deck.The banth toppled sideways at the same instant that it attempted to spring;a raking talon passed close to Gahan's head at the moment that his sword lunged through the savage heart, and as the warrior wrenched his blade from the carcass it slipped silently over the side of the ship.

A glance below showed that the vessel was drifting in the direction of the tower to which Gahan had seen the prisoner led.

In another moment or two it would be directly over it.The man sprang to the control and let the craft drop quickly toward the ground where followed the banths, still hot for their prey.To land outside the enclosure spelled certain death, while inside he could see many forms huddled upon the ground as in sleep.The ship floated now but a few feet above the wall of the enclosure.

There was nothing for it but to risk all on a bold bid for fortune, or drift helplessly past without hope of returning through the banth-infested valley, from many points of which he could now hear the roars and growls of these fierce Barsoomian lions.

Slipping over the side Gahan descended by the trailing anchor-rope until his feet touched the top of the wall, where he had no difficulty in arresting the slow drifting of the ship.

Then he drew up the anchor and lowered it inside the enclosure.

Still there was no movement upon the part of the sleepers beneath--they lay as dead men.Dull lights shone from openings in the tower; but there was no sign of guard or waking inmate.

Clinging to the rope Gahan lowered himself within the enclosure, where he had his first close view of the creatures lying there in what he had thought sleep.With a half smothered exclamation of horror the man drew back from the headless bodies of the rykors.

At first he thought them the corpses of decapitated humans like himself, which was quite bad enough; but when he saw them move and realized that they were endowed with life, his horror and disgust became even greater.

Here then was the explanation of the thing he had witnessed that afternoon, when Tara of Helium had struck the back to its body.

And to think that the pearl of Helium was in the power of such hideous things as these.Again the man shuddered, but he hastened to make fast the flier, clamber again to its deck and lower it to the floor of the enclosure.Then he strode toward a door in the base of the tower, stepping lightly over the recumbent forms of the unconscious rykors, and crossing the threshold disappeared within.