第14章

After a last drink at the stream, the longest and deepest she had allowed herself, she rose to retrace her steps toward the hills;but even as she did so she became suddenly tense with apprehension.What was that? She could have sworn that she saw something move in the shadows beneath a tree not far away.For a long minute the girl did not move--she scarce breathed.Her eyes remained fixed upon the dense shadows below the tree, her ears strained through the silence of the night.A low moaning came down from the hills where her flier was hidden.She knew it well--the weird note of the hunting banth.And the great carnivore lay directly in her path.But he was not so close as this other thing, hiding there in the shadows just a little way off.What was it? It was the strain of uncertainty that weighed heaviest upon her.Had she known the nature of the creature lurking there half its meanace 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 incredbily 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, andeven if they wandered out of sight would she dare risk the attempt?

She doubted it.

Hopeless indeed seemed her situation--hopeless it was.