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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. 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
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