The Master Mind of Mars: Being a Tale of Weird and Wonderful Happenings on the Red Planet by Edgar Rice Burroughs

Author:Edgar Rice Burroughs
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Tags: Life on other planets -- Fiction, Science fiction, Mars (Planet) -- Fiction, Extraterrestrial beings -- Fiction
Publisher: Standard Ebooks
Published: 2025-09-15T18:29:19+00:00

IX

The Palace of Mu Tel

As the calot en­tered the niche I ex­pe­ri­enced, I be­lieve, all of the re­ac­tions of the cor­nered rat, and I cer­tain­ly know that I set my­self to fight in that prover­bial man­ner. The beast was al­most up­on me and I was metaphor­i­cal­ly kick­ing my­self for not hav­ing re­mained in the open where there were many tall trees when the sup­port at my back sud­den­ly gave way, a hand reached out of the dark­ness be­hind me and seized my har­ness and I was drawn swift­ly in­to inky black­ness. A door slammed and the sil­hou­ette of the calot against the moon­lit en­trance to the niche was blot­ted out.

A gruff voice spoke in my ear. “Come with me!” it said. A hand found mine and thus I was led along through the dark­ness of what I soon dis­cov­ered was a nar­row cor­ri­dor from the con­stant­ly re­cur­ring col­li­sions I had first with one side of it and then with the oth­er.

As­cend­ing grad­u­al­ly, the cor­ri­dor turned abrupt­ly at right an­gles and I saw be­yond my guide a dim lu­mi­nos­i­ty that grad­u­al­ly in­creased un­til an­oth­er turn brought us to the thresh­old of a bril­liant­ly light­ed cham­ber—a mag­nif­i­cent apart­ment, the gor­geous fur­nish­ings and dec­o­ra­tions of which beg­gar the mea­ger de­scrip­tive pow­ers of my na­tive tongue. Gold, ivory, pre­cious stones, mar­velous woods, re­splen­dent fab­rics, gor­geous furs and star­tling ar­chi­tec­ture com­bined to im­press up­on my earth­ly vi­sion such a pic­ture as I had nev­er even dreamed of dream­ing; and in the cen­ter of this room, sur­round­ed by a lit­tle group of Mar­tians, were my three com­pan­ions.

My guide con­duct­ed me to­wards the par­ty, the mem­bers of which had turned to­wards us as we en­tered the cham­ber, and stopped be­fore a tall Bar­soo­mi­an, re­splen­dent in jew­el en­crust­ed har­ness.

“Prince,” he said, “I was scarce a tal too soon. In fact, as I opened the door to step out in­to the gar­den in search of him, as you di­rect­ed, there he was up­on the op­po­site side with one of the calots of the gar­den al­most up­on him.”

“Good!” ex­claimed he who had been ad­dressed as prince, and then he turned to Gor Ha­jus. “This is he, my friend, of whom you told me?”

“This is Vad Varo, who claims to be from the plan­et Ja­soom,” replied Gor Ha­jus; “and this, Vad Varo, is Mu Tel, Prince of the House of Kan.”

I bowed and the prince ad­vanced and placed his right hand up­on my left shoul­der in true Bar­soo­mi­an ac­knowl­edg­ment of an in­tro­duc­tion; when I had done sim­i­lar­ly, the cer­e­mo­ny was over. There was no sil­ly pleased-to-meet-you, how-do-you-do? or it’s-a-plea­sure-I-as­sure-you.

At Mu Tel’s re­quest I nar­rat­ed briefly what had be­fall­en me be­tween the time I had be­come sep­a­rat­ed from my com­pan­ions and the mo­ment that one of his of­fi­cers had snatched me from im­pend­ing dis­as­ter. Mu Tel gave in­struc­tions that all traces of the dead pa­trol be re­moved be­fore dawn lest their dis­cov­ery bring up­on him the fur­ther sus­pi­cion of his un­cle, Vo­bis Kan, Jed­dak of Toonol, whom it seemed had long been

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