edison's conquest of mars by garrett p. serviss chapter i. it is impossible that the stupendous events which followed the disastrous invasion of the earth by the martians should go without record, and circumstances having placed the facts at my disposal, i deem it a duty, both to posterity and to those who were witnesses of and participants in the avenging counterstroke that the earth dealt back at its ruthless enemy in the heavens, to write down the story in a connected form. the martians had nearly all perished, not through our puny efforts, but in consequence of disease, and the few survivors fled in one of their projectile cars, inflicting their cruelest blow in the act of departure. their mysterious explosive. they possessed a mysterious explosive, of unimaginable puissance, with whose aid they set their car in motion for mars from a point in bergen county, n. j., just back of the palisades. the force of the explosion may be imagined when it is recollected that they had to give the car a velocity of more than seven miles per second in order to overcome the attraction of the earth and the resistance of the atmosphere. the shock destroyed all of new york that had not already fallen a prey, and all the buildings yet standing in the surrounding towns and cities fell in one far-circling ruin. the palisades tumbled in vast sheets, starting a tidal wave in the hudson that drowned the opposite shore. thousands of victims. the victims of this ferocious explosion were numbered by tens of thousands, and the shock, transmitted through the rocky frame of the globe, was recorded by seismographic pendulums in england and on the continent of europe. the terrible results achieved by the invaders had produced everywhere a mingled feeling of consternation and hopelessness. the devastation was widespread. the death-dealing engines which the martians had brought with them had proved irresistible and the inhabitants of the earth possessed nothing capable of contending against them. there had been no protection for the great cities; no protection even for the open country. everything had gone down before the savage onslaught of those merciless invaders from space. savage ruins covered the sites of many formerly flourishing towns and villages, and the broken walls of great cities stared at the heavens like the exhumed skeletons of pompeii. the awful agencies had extirpated pastures and meadows and dried up the very springs of fertility in the earth where they had touched it. in some parts of the devastated lands pestilence broke out; elsewhere there was famine. despondency black as night brooded over some of the fairest portions of the globe. all not yet destroyed. yet all had not been destroyed, because all had not been reached by the withering hand of the destroyer. the martians had not had time to complete their work before they themselves fell a prey to the diseases that carried them off at the very culmination of their triumph. from those lands which had, fortunately, escaped invasion, relief was sent to the sufferers. the outburst of pity and of charity exceeded anything that the world had known. differences of race and religion were swallowed up in the universal sympathy which was felt for those who had suffered so terribly from an evil that was as unexpected as it was unimaginable in its enormity. but the worst was not yet. more dreadful than the actual suffering and the scenes of death and devastation which overspread the afflicted lands was the profound mental and moral depression that followed. this was shared even by those who had not seen the martians and had not witnessed the destructive effects of the frightful engines of war that they had imported for the conquest of the earth. all mankind was sunk deep in this universal despair, and it became tenfold blacker when the astronomers announced from their observatories that strange lights were visible, moving and flashing upon the red surface of the planet of war. these mysterious appearances could only be interpreted in the light of past experience to mean that the martians were preparing for another invasion of the earth, and who could doubt that with the invincible powers of destruction at their command they would this time make their work complete and final? a startling announcement. this startling announcement was the more pitiable in its effects because it served to unnerve and discourage those few of stouter hearts and more hopeful temperaments who had already begun the labor of restoration and reconstruction amid the embers of their desolated homes. in new york this feeling of hope and confidence, this determination to rise against disaster and to wipe out the evidences of its dreadful presence as quickly as possible, had especially manifested itself. already a company had been formed and a large amount of capital subscribed for the reconstruction of the destroyed bridges over the east river. already architects were busily at work planning new twenty-story hotels and apartment houses; new churches and new cathedrals on a grander scale than before. the martians returning. amid this stir of renewed life came the fatal news that mars was undoubtedly preparing to deal us a death blow. the sudden revulsion of feeling flitted like the shadow of an eclipse over the earth. the scenes that followed were indescribable. men lost their reason. the faint-hearted ended the suspense with self-destruction, the stout-hearted remained steadfast, but without hope and knowing not what to do. but there was a gleam of hope of which the general public as yet knew nothing. it was due to a few dauntless men of science, conspicuous among whom were lord kelvin, the great english savant; herr roentgen, the discoverer of the famous x ray, and especially thomas a. edison, the american genius of science. these men and a few others had examined with the utmost care the engines of war, the flying machines, the generators of mysterious destructive forces that the martians had produced, with the object of discovering, if possible, the sources of their power. suddenly from mr. edison's laboratory at orange flashed the startling intelligence that he had not only discovered the manner in which the invaders had been able to produce the mighty energies which they employed with such terrible effect, but that, going further, he had found a way to overcome them. the glad news was quickly circulated throughout the civilized world. luckily the atlantic cables had not been destroyed by the martians, so that communication between the eastern and western continents was uninterrupted. it was a proud day for america. even while the martians had been upon the earth, carrying everything before them, demonstrating to the confusion of the most optimistic that there was no possibility of standing against them, a feeling--a confidence had manifested itself in france, to a minor extent in england, and particularly in russia, that the americans might discover means to meet and master the invaders. now, it seemed, this hope and expectation were to be realized. too late, it is true, in a certain sense, but not too late to meet the new invasion which the astronomers had announced was impending. the effect was as wonderful and indescribable as that of the despondency which but a little while before had overspread the world. one could almost hear the universal sigh of relief which went up from humanity. to relief succeeded confidence--so quickly does the human spirit recover like an elastic spring, when pressure is released. "we are ready for them!" "let them come," was the almost joyous cry. "we shall be ready for them now. the americans have solved the problem. edison has placed the means of victory within our power." looking back upon that time now, i recall, with a thrill, the pride that stirred me at the thought that, after all, the inhabitants of the earth were a match for those terrible men from mars, despite all the advantage which they had gained from their millions of years of prior civilization and science. as good fortunes, like bad, never come singly, the news of mr. edison's discovery was quickly followed by additional glad tidings from that laboratory of marvels in the lap of the orange mountains. during their career of conquest the martians had astonished the inhabitants of the earth no less with their flying machines--which navigated our atmosphere as easily as they had that of their native planet--than with their more destructive inventions. these flying machines in themselves had given them an enormous advantage in the contest. high above the desolation that they had caused to reign on the surface of the earth, and, out of the range of our guns, they had hung safe in the upper air. from the clouds they had dropped death upon the earth. edison's flying machine. now, rumor declared that mr. edison had invented and perfected a flying machine much more complete and manageable than those of the martians had been. wonderful stories quickly found their way into the newspapers concerning what mr. edison had already accomplished with the aid of his model electrical balloon. his laboratory was carefully guarded against the invasion of the curious, because he rightly felt that a premature announcement, which should promise more than could be actually fulfilled, would, at this critical juncture, plunge mankind back again into the gulf of despair, out of which it had just begun to emerge. nevertheless, inklings of the truth leaked out. the flying machine had been seen by many persons hovering by night high above the orange hills and disappearing in the faint starlight as if it had gone away into the depths of space, out of which it would re-emerge before the morning light had streaked the east, and be seen settling down again within the walls that surrounded the laboratory of the great inventor. at length the rumor, gradually deepening into a conviction, spread that edison himself, accompanied by a few scientific friends, had made an experimental trip to the moon. at a time when the spirit of mankind was less profoundly stirred, such a story would have been received with complete incredulity, but now, rising on the wings of the new hope that was buoying up the earth, this extraordinary rumor became a day star of truth to the nations. a trip to the moon. and it was true. i had myself been one of the occupants of the car of the flying ship of space on that night when it silently left the earth, and rising out of the great shadow of the globe, sped on to the moon. we had landed upon the scarred and desolate face of the earth's satellite, and but that there are greater and more interesting events, the telling of which must not be delayed, i should undertake to describe the particulars of this first visit of men to another world. but, as i have already intimated, this was only an experimental trip. by visiting this little nearby island in the ocean of space, mr. edison simply wished to demonstrate the practicability of his invention, and to convince, first of all, himself and his scientific friends that it was possible for men--mortal men--to quit and to revisit the earth at their will. that aim this experimental trip triumphantly attained. it would carry me into technical details that would hardly interest the reader to describe the mechanism of mr. edison's flying machine. let it suffice to say that it depended upon the principal of electrical attraction and repulsion. by means of a most ingenious and complicated construction he had mastered the problem of how to produce, in a limited space, electricity of any desired potential and of any polarity, and that without danger to the experimenter or to the material experimented upon. it is gravitation, as everybody knows, that makes man a prisoner on the earth. if he could overcome, or neutralize, gravitation he could float away a free creature of interstellar space. mr. edison in his invention had pitted electricity against gravitation. nature, in fact, had done the same thing long before. every astronomer knew it, but none had been able to imitate or to reproduce this miracle of nature. when a comet approaches the sun, the orbit in which it travels indicates that it is moving under the impulse of the sun's gravitation. it is in reality falling in a great parabolic or elliptical curve through space. but, while a comet approaches the sun it begins to display--stretching out for millions, and sometimes hundreds of millions of miles on the side away from the sun--an immense luminous train called its tail. this train extends back into that part of space from which the comet is moving. thus the sun at one and the same time is drawing the comet toward itself and driving off from the comet in an opposite direction minute particles or atoms which, instead of obeying the gravitational force, are plainly compelled to disobey it. that this energy, which the sun exercises against its own gravitation, is electrical in its nature, hardly anybody will doubt. the head of the comet being comparatively heavy and massive, falls on toward the sun, despite the electrical repulsion. but the atoms which form the tail, being almost without weight, yield to the electrical rather than to the gravitational influence, and so fly away from the sun. gravity overcome. now, what mr. edison had done was, in effect, to create an electrified particle which might be compared to one of the atoms composing the tail of a comet, although in reality it was a kind of car, of metal, weighing some hundreds of pounds and capable of bearing some thousands of pounds with it in its flight. by producing, with the aid of the electrical generator contained in this car, an enormous charge of electricity, mr. edison was able to counterbalance, and a trifle more than counterbalance, the attraction of the earth, and thus cause the car to fly off from the earth as an electrified pith ball flies from the prime conductor. as we sat in the brilliantly lighted chamber that formed the interior of the car, and where stores of compressed air had been provided together with chemical apparatus, by means of which fresh supplies of oxygen and nitrogen might be obtained for our consumption during the flight through space, mr. edison touched a polished button, thus causing the generation of the required electrical charge on the exterior of the car, and immediately we began to rise. the moment and direction of our flight had been so timed and prearranged, that the original impulse would carry us straight toward the moon. a triumphant test. when we fell within the sphere of attraction of that orb it only became necessary to so manipulate the electrical charge upon our car as nearly, but not quite, to counterbalance the effect of the moon's attraction in order that we might gradually approach it and with an easy motion, settle, without shock, upon its surface. we did not remain to examine the wonders of the moon, although we could not fail to observe many curious things therein. having demonstrated the fact that we could not only leave the earth, but could journey through space and safely land upon the surface of another planet, mr. edison's immediate purpose was fulfilled, and we hastened back to the earth, employing in leaving the moon and landing again upon our own planet the same means of control over the electrical attraction and repulsion between the respective planets and our car which i have already described. telegraphing the news. when actual experiment had thus demonstrated the practicability of the invention, mr. edison no longer withheld the news of what he had been doing from the world. the telegraph lines and the ocean cables labored with the messages that in endless succession, and burdened with an infinity of detail, were sent all over the earth. everywhere the utmost enthusiasm was aroused. "let the martians come," was the cry. "if necessary, we can quit the earth as the athenians fled from athens before the advancing host of xerxes, and like them, take refuge upon our ships--these new ships of space, with which american inventiveness has furnished us." and then, like a flash, some genius struck out an idea that fired the world. "why should we wait? why should we run the risk of having our cities destroyed and our lands desolated a second time? let us go to mars. we have the means. let us beard the lion in his den. let us ourselves turn conquerors and take possession of that detestable planet, and if necessary, destroy it in order to relieve the earth of this perpetual threat which now hangs over us like the sword of damocles." chapter ii. this enthusiasm would have had but little justification had mr. edison done nothing more than invent a machine which could navigate the atmosphere and the regions of interplanetary space. he had, however, and this fact was generally known, although the details had not yet leaked out--invented also machines of war intended to meet the utmost that the martians could do for either offence or defence in the struggle which was now about to ensue. a wonderful instrument. acting upon the hint which had been conveyed from various investigations in the domain of physics, and concentrating upon the problem all those unmatched powers of intellect which distinguished him, the great inventor had succeeded in producing a little implement which one could carry in his hand, but which was more powerful than any battleship that ever floated. the details of its mechanism could not be easily explained, without the use of tedious technicalities and the employment of terms, diagrams and mathematical statements, all of which would lie outside the scope of this narrative. but the principle of the thing was simple enough. it was upon the great scientific doctrine, which we have since seen so completely and brilliantly developed, of the law of harmonic vibrations, extending from atoms and molecules at one end of the series up to worlds and suns at the other end, that mr. edison based his invention. every kind of substance has its own vibratory rhythm. that of iron differs from that of pine wood. the atoms of gold do not vibrate in the same time or through the same range as those of lead, and so on for all known substances, and all the chemical elements. so, on a larger scale, every massive body has its period of vibration. a great suspension bridge vibrates, under the impulse of forces that are applied to it, in long periods. no company of soldiers ever crosses such a bridge without breaking step. if they tramped together, and were followed by other companies keeping the same time with their feet, after a while the vibrations of the bridge would become so great and destructive that it would fall in pieces. so any structure, if its vibration rate is known, could easily be destroyed by a force applied to it in such a way that it should simply increase the swing of those vibrations up to the point of destruction. now mr. edison had been able to ascertain the vibratory swing of many well-known substances, and to produce, by means of the instrument which he had contrived, pulsations in the ether which were completely under his control, and which could be made long or short, quick or slow, at his will. he could run through the whole gamut from the slow vibrations of sound in air up to the four hundred and twenty-five millions of millions of vibrations per second of the ultra red rays. having obtained an instrument of such power, it only remained to concentrate its energy upon a given object in order that the atoms composing that object should be set into violent undulation, sufficient to burst it asunder and to scatter its molecules broadcast. this the inventor effected by the simplest means in the world--simply a parabolic reflector by which the destructive waves could be sent like a beam of light, but invisible, in any direction and focused upon any desired point. testing the "disintegrator." i had the good fortune to be present when this powerful engine of destruction was submitted to its first test. we had gone upon the roof of mr. edison's laboratory and the inventor held the little instrument, with its attached mirror, in his hand. we looked about for some object on which to try its powers. on a bare limb of a tree not far away, for it was late in the fall, sat a disconsolate crow. "good," said mr. edison, "that will do." he touched a button at the side of the instrument and a soft, whirring noise was heard. "feathers," said mr. edison, "have a vibration period of three hundred and eighty-six million per second." he adjusted the index as he spoke. then, through a sighting tube, he aimed at the bird. "now watch," he said. the crow's fate. another soft whirr in the instrument, a momentary flash of light close around it, and, behold, the crow had turned from black to white! "its feathers are gone," said the inventor; "they have been dissipated into their constituent atoms. now, we will finish the crow." instantly there was another adjustment of the index, another outshooting of vibratory force, a rapid up and down motion of the index to include a certain range of vibrations, and the crow itself was gone--vanished in empty space! there was the bare twig on which a moment before it had stood. behind, in the sky, was the white cloud against which its black form had been sharply outlined, but there was no more crow. bad for the martians. "that looks bad for the martians, doesn't it?" said the wizard. "i have ascertained the vibration rate of all the materials of which their war engines whose remains we have collected together are composed. they can be shattered into nothingness in the fraction of a second. even if the vibration period were not known, it could quickly be hit upon by simply running through the gamut." "hurrah!" cried one of the onlookers. "we have met the martians and they are ours." such in brief was the first of the contrivances which mr. edison invented for the approaching war with mars. and these facts had become widely known. additional experiments had completed the demonstration of the inventor's ability, with the aid of his wonderful instrument, to destroy any given object, or any part of an object, provided that that part differed in its atomic constitution, and consequently in its vibratory period, from the other parts. a most impressive public exhibition of the powers of the little disintegrator was given amid the ruins of new york. on lower broadway a part of the walls of one of the gigantic buildings, which had been destroyed by the martians, impended in such a manner that it threatened at any moment to fall upon the heads of the passers-by. the fire department did not dare touch it. to blow it up seemed a dangerous expedient, because already new buildings had been erected in its neighborhood, and their safety would be imperiled by the flying fragments. the fact happened to come to my knowledge. "here is an opportunity," i said to mr. edison, "to try the powers of your machine on a large scale." "capital!" he instantly replied. "i shall go at once." disintegrating a building. for the work now in hand it was necessary to employ a battery of disintegrators, since the field of destruction covered by each was comparatively limited. all of the impending portions of the wall must be destroyed at once and together, for otherwise the danger would rather be accentuated than annihilated. the disintegrators were placed upon the roof of a neighboring building, so adjusted that their fields of destruction overlapped one another upon the wall. their indexes were all set to correspond with the vibration period of the peculiar kind of brick of which the wall consisted. then the energy was turned on, and a shout of wonder arose from the multitudes which had assembled at a safe distance to witness the experiment. only a cloud remained. the wall did not fall; it did not break asunder; no fragments shot this way and that and high in the air; there was no explosion; no shock or noise disturbed the still atmosphere--only a soft whirr, that seemed to pervade everything and to tingle in the nerves of the spectators; and--what had been was not! the wall was gone! but high above and all around the place where it had hung over the street with its threat of death there appeared, swiftly billowing outward in every direction, a faint, bluish cloud. it was the scattered atoms of the destroyed wall. and now the cry "on to mars!" was heard on all sides. but for such an enterprise funds were needed--millions upon millions. yet some of the fairest and richest portions of the earth had been impoverished by the frightful ravages of those enemies who had dropped down upon them from the skies. still, the money must be had. the salvation of the planet, as everybody was now convinced, depended upon the successful negotiation of a gigantic war fund, in comparison with which all the expenditures in all of the wars that had been waged by the nations for , years would be insignificant. the electrical ships and the vibration engines must be constructed by scores and thousands. only mr. edison's immense resources and unrivaled equipment had enabled him to make the models whose powers had been so satisfactorily shown. but to multiply these upon a war scale was not only beyond the resources of any individual--hardly a nation on the globe in the period of its greatest prosperity could have undertaken such a work. all the nations, then, must now conjoin. they must unite their resources, and, if necessary, exhaust all their hoards, in order to raise the needed sum. the yankees lead. negotiations were at once begun. the united states naturally took the lead, and their leadership was never for a moment questioned abroad. washington was selected as the place of meeting for a great congress of the nations. washington, luckily, had been one of the places which had not been touched by the martians. but if washington had been a city composed of hotels alone, and every hotel so great as to be a little city in itself, it would have been utterly insufficient for the accommodation of the innumerable throngs which now flocked to the banks of the potomac. but when was american enterprise unequal to a crisis? the necessary hotels, lodging houses and restaurants were constructed with astounding rapidity. one could see the city growing and expanding day by day and week after week. it flowed over georgetown heights; it leaped the potomac; it spread east and west, south and north; square mile after square mile of territory was buried under the advancing buildings, until the gigantic city, which had thus grown up like a mushroom in a night, was fully capable of accommodating all its expected guests. at first it had been intended that the heads of the various governments should in person attend this universal congress, but as the enterprise went on, as the enthusiasm spread, as the necessity for haste became more apparent through the warning notes which were constantly sounded from the observatories where the astronomers were nightly beholding new evidences of threatening preparations in mars, the kings and queens of the old world felt that they could not remain at home; that their proper place was at the new focus and centre of the whole world--the city of washington. without concerted action, without interchange of suggestion, this impulse seemed to seize all the old world monarchs at once. suddenly cablegrams flashed to the government at washington, announcing that queen victoria, the emperor william, the czar nicholas, alphonso of spain, with his mother, maria christina; the old emperor francis joseph and the empress elizabeth, of austria; king oscar and queen sophia, of sweden and norway; king humbert and queen margherita, of italy; king george and queen olga, of greece; abdul hamid, of turkey; tsait'ien, emperor of china; mutsuhito, the japanese mikado, with his beautiful princess haruko; the president of france, the president of switzerland, the first syndic of the little republic of andorra, perched on the crest of the pyrenees, and the heads of all the central and south american republics, were coming to washington to take part in the deliberations, which, it was felt, were to settle the fate of earth and mars. one day, after this announcement had been received, and the additional news had come that nearly all the visiting monarchs had set out, attended by brilliant suites and convoyed by fleets of warships, for their destination, some coming across the atlantic to the port of new york, others across the pacific to san francisco, mr. edison said to me: "this will be a fine spectacle. would you like to watch it?" "certainly," i replied. a grand spectacle. the ship of space was immediately at our disposal. i think i have not yet mentioned the fact that the inventor's control over the electrical generator carried in the car was so perfect that by varying the potential or changing the polarity he could cause it slowly or swiftly, as might be desired, to approach or recede from any object. the only practical difficulty was presented when the polarity of the electrical charge upon an object in the neighborhood of the car was unknown to those in the car, and happened to be opposite to that of the charge which the car, at that particular moment, was bearing. in such a case, of course, the car would fly toward the object, whatever it might be, like a pith ball or a feather, attracted to the knob of an electrical machine. in this way, considerable danger was occasionally encountered, and a few accidents could not be avoided. fortunately, however, such cases were rare. it was only now and then that, owing to some local cause, electrical polarities unknown to or unexpected by the navigators, endangered the safety of the car. as i shall have occasion to relate, however, in the course of the narrative, this danger became more acute and assumed at times a most formidable phase, when we had ventured outside the sphere of the earth and were moving through the unexplored regions beyond. on this occasion, having embarked, we rose rapidly to a height of some thousands of feet and directed our course over the atlantic. when half way to ireland, we beheld, in the distance, steaming westward, the smoke of several fleets. as we drew nearer a marvellous spectacle unfolded itself to our eyes. from the northeast, their great guns flashing in the sunlight and their huge funnels belching black volumes that rested like thunder clouds upon the sea, came the mighty warships of england, with her meteor flag streaming red in the breeze, while the royal insignia, indicating the presence of the ruler of the british empire, was conspicuously displayed upon the flagship of the squadron. following a course more directly westward appeared, under another black cloud of smoke, the hulls and guns and burgeons of another great fleet, carrying the tri-color of france, and bearing in its midst the head of the magnificent republic of western europe. further south, beating up against the northerly winds, came a third fleet with the gold and red of spain fluttering from its masthead. this, too, was carrying its king westward, where now, indeed, the star of empire had taken its way. universal brotherhood. rising a little higher, so as to extend our horizon, we saw coming down the english channel, behind the british fleet, the black ships of russia. side by side, or following one another's lead, these war fleets were on a peaceful voyage that belied their threatening appearance. there had been no thought of danger to or from the forts and ports of rival nations which they had passed. there was no enmity, and no fear between them when the throats of their ponderous guns yawned at one another across the waves. they were now, in spirit, all one fleet, having one object, bearing against one enemy, ready to defend but one country, and that country was the entire earth. it was some time before we caught sight of the emperor william's fleet. it seems that the kaiser, although at first consenting to the arrangement by which washington had been selected as the assembling place for the nations, afterwards objected to it. kaiser wilhelm's jealousy. "i ought to do this thing myself," he had said. "my glorious ancestors would never have consented to allow these upstart republicans to lead in a warlike enterprise of this kind. what would my grandfather have said to it? i suspect that it is some scheme aimed at the divine right of kings." but the good sense of the german people would not suffer their ruler to place them in a position so false and so untenable. and swept along by their enthusiasm the kaiser had at last consented to embark on his flagship at kiel, and now he was following the other fleets on their great mission to the western continent. why did they bring their warships when their intentions were peaceable, do you ask? well, it was partly the effect of ancient habit, and partly due to the fact that such multitudes of officials and members of ruling families wished to embark for washington that the ordinary means of ocean communications would have been utterly inadequate to convey them. after we had feasted our eyes on this strange sight, mr. edison suddenly exclaimed: "now let us see the fellows from the rising sun." over the mississippi. the car was immediately directed toward the west. we rapidly approached the american coast, and as we sailed over the alleghany mountains and the broad plains of the ohio and the mississippi, we saw crawling beneath us from west, south and north, an endless succession of railway trains bearing their multitudes on to washington. with marvellous speed we rushed westward, rising high to skim over the snow-topped peaks of the rocky mountains and then the glittering rim of the pacific was before us. half way between the american coast and hawaii we met the fleets coming from china and japan. side by side they were ploughing the main, having forgotten, or laid aside, all the animosities of their former wars. i well remember how my heart was stirred at this impressive exhibition of the boundless influence which my country had come to exercise over all the people of the world, and i turned to look at the man to whose genius this uprising of the earth was due. but mr. edison, after his wont, appeared totally unconscious of the fact that he was personally responsible for what was going on. his mind, seemingly, was entirely absorbed in considering problems, the solution of which might be essential to our success in the terrific struggle which was soon to begin. back to washington. "well, have you seen enough?" he asked. "then let us go back to washington." as we speeded back across the continent we beheld beneath us again the burdened express trains rushing toward the atlantic, and hundreds of thousands of upturned eyes watched our swift progress, and volleys of cheers reached our ears, for every one knew that this was edison's electrical warship, on which the hope of the nation, and the hopes of all the nations, depended. these scenes were repeated again and again until the car hovered over the still expanding capital on the potomac, where the unceasing ring of hammers rose to the clouds. chapter iii. the day appointed for the assembling of the nations in washington opened bright and beautiful. arrangements had been made for the reception of the distinguished guests at the capitol. no time was to be wasted, and, having assembled in the senate chamber, the business that had called them together was to be immediately begun. the scene in pennsylvania avenue, when the procession of dignitaries and royalties passed up toward the capitol, was one never to be forgotten. bands were playing, magnificent equipages flashed in the morning sunlight, the flags of every nation on the earth fluttered in the breeze. queen victoria, with the prince of wales escorting her, and riding in an open carriage, was greeted with roars of cheers; the emperor william, following in another carriage with empress victoria at his side, condescended to bow and smile in response to the greetings of a free people. each of the other monarchs was received in a similar manner. the czar of russia proved to be an especial favorite with the multitude on account of the ancient friendship of his house for america. but the greatest applause of all came when the president of france, followed by the president of switzerland and the first syndic of the little republic of andorra, made their appearance. equally warm were the greetings extended to the representatives of mexico and the south american states. the sultan of turkey. the crowd apparently hardly knew at first how to receive the sultan of turkey, but the universal good feeling was in his favor, and finally rounds of hand clapping and cheers greeted his progress along the splendid avenue. a happy idea had apparently occurred to the emperor of china and the mikado of japan, for, attended by their intermingled suites, they rode together in a single carriage. this object lesson in the unity of international feeling immensely pleased the spectators. an unparallelled scene. the scene in the senate chamber stirred every one profoundly. that it was brilliant and magnificent goes without saying, but there was a seriousness, an intense feeling of expectancy, pervading both those who looked on and those who were to do the work for which these magnates of the earth had assembled, which produced an ineradicable impression. the president of the united states, of course, presided. representatives of the greater powers occupied the front seats, and some of them were honored with special chairs near the president. no time was wasted in preliminaries. the president made a brief speech. "we have come together," he said, "to consider a question that equally interests the whole earth. i need not remind you that unexpectedly and without provocation on our part the people--the monsters, i should rather say--of mars, recently came down upon the earth, attacked us in our homes and spread desolation around them. having the advantage of ages of evolution, which for us are yet in the future, they brought with them engines of death and of destruction against which we found it impossible to contend. it is within the memory of every one in reach of my voice that it was through the entirely unexpected succor which providence sent us that we were suddenly and effectually freed from the invaders. by our own efforts we could have done nothing." mckinley's tribute. "but, as you all know, the first feeling of relief which followed the death of our foes was quickly succeeded by the fearful news which came to us from the observatories, that the martians were undoubtedly preparing for a second invasion of our planet. against this we should have had no recourse and no hope but for the genius of one of my countrymen, who, as you are all aware, has perfected means which may enable us not only to withstand the attack of those awful enemies, but to meet them, and, let us hope, to conquer them on their own ground." "mr. edison is here to explain to you what those means are. but we have also another object. whether we send a fleet of interplanetary ships to invade mars or whether we simply confine our attention to works of defence, in either case it will be necessary to raise a very large sum of money. none of us has yet recovered from the effects of the recent invasion. the earth is poor to-day compared to its position a few years ago; yet we cannot allow our poverty to stand in the way. the money, the means, must be had. it will be part of our business here to raise a gigantic war fund by the aid of which we can construct the equipment and machinery that we shall require. this, i think, is all i need to say. let us proceed to business." "where is mr. edison?" cried a voice. "will mr. edison please step forward?" said the president. there was a stir in the assembly, and the iron-gray head of the great inventor was seen moving through the crowd. in his hand he carried one of his marvellous disintegrators. he was requested to explain and illustrate its operation. mr. edison smiled. edison to the rescue. "i can explain its details," he said, "to lord kelvin, for instance, but if their majesties will excuse me, i doubt whether i can make it plain to the crowned heads." the emperor william smiled superciliously. apparently he thought that another assault had been committed upon the divine right of kings. but the czar nicholas appeared to be amused, and the emperor of china, who had been studying english, laughed in his sleeve, as if he suspected that a joke had been perpetrated. "i think," said one of the deputies, "that a simple exhibition of the powers of the instrument, without a technical explanation of its method of working, will suffice for our purpose." this suggestion was immediately approved. in response to it, mr. edison, by a few simple experiments, showed how he could quickly and certainly shatter into its constituent atoms any object upon which the vibratory force of the disintegrator should be directed. in this manner he caused an inkstand to disappear under the very nose of the emperor william without a spot of ink being scattered upon his sacred person, but evidently the odor of the disunited atoms was not agreeable to the nostrils of the kaiser. mr. edison also explained in general terms the principle on which the instrument worked. he was greeted with round after round of applause, and the spirit of the assembly rose high. next the workings of the electrical ship were explained, and it was announced that after the meeting had adjourned an exhibition of the flying powers of the ship would be given in the open air. these experiments, together with the accompanying explanations, added to what had already been disseminated through the public press, were quite sufficient to convince all the representatives who had assembled in washington that the problem of how to conquer the martians had been solved. the means were plainly at hand. it only remained to apply them. for this purpose, as the president had pointed out, it would be necessary to raise a very large sum of money. "how much will be needed?" asked one of the english representatives. "at least ten thousand millions of dollars," replied the president. "it would be safer," said a senator from the pacific coast, "to make it twenty-five thousand millions." "i suggest," said the king of italy, "that the nations be called in alphabetical order, and that the representatives of each name a sum which it is ready and able to contribute." "we want the cash or its equivalent," shouted the pacific coast senator. "i shall not follow the alphabet strictly," said the president, "but shall begin with the larger nations first. perhaps, under the circumstances, it is proper that the united states should lead the way. mr. secretary," he continued, turning to the secretary of the treasury, "how much can we stand?" an enormous sum. "at least a thousand millions," replied the secretary of the treasury. a roar of applause that shook the room burst from the assembly. even some of the monarchs threw up their hats. the emperor tsait'ten smiled from ear to ear. one of the roko tuis, or native chiefs, from fiji, sprang up and brandished a war club. the president then proceeded to call the other nations, beginning with austria-hungary and ending with zanzibar, whose sultan, hamoud bin mahomed, had come to the congress in the escort of queen victoria. each contributed liberally. germany coming in alphabetical order just before great britain, had named, through its chancellor, the sum of $ , , , but when the first lord of the british treasury, not wishing to be behind the united states, named double that sum as the contribution of the british empire, the emperor william looked displeased. he spoke a word in the ear of the chancellor, who immediately raised his hand. a thousand million dollars. "we will give a thousand million dollars," said the chancellor. queen victoria seemed surprised, though not displeased. the first lord of the treasury met her eye, and then, rising in his place, said: "make it fifteen hundred million for great britain." emperor william consulted again with his chancellor, but evidently concluded not to increase his bid. but, at any rate, the fund had benefited to the amount of a thousand millions by this little outburst of imperial rivalry. the greatest surprise of all, however, came when the king of siam was called upon for his contribution. he had not been given a foremost place in the congress, but when the name of his country was pronounced he rose by his chair, dressed in a gorgeous specimen of the peculiar attire of his country, then slowly pushed his way to the front, stepped up to the president's desk and deposited upon it a small box. "this is our contribution," he said, in broken english. the cover was lifted, and there darted, shimmering in the half gloom of the chamber, a burst of iridescence from the box. the long lost treasure. "my friends of the western world," continued the king of siam, "will be interested in seeing this gem. only once before has the eye of a european been blessed with the sight of it. your books will tell you that in the seventeenth century a traveler, tavernier, saw in india an unmatched diamond which afterward disappeared like a meteor, and was thought to have been lost from the earth. you all know the name of that diamond and its history. it is the great mogul, and it lies before you. how it came into my possession i shall not explain. at any rate, it is honestly mine, and i freely contribute it here to aid in protecting my native planet against those enemies who appear determined to destroy it." when the excitement which the appearance of this long lost treasure, that had been the subject of so many romances and of such long and fruitless search, had subsided, the president continued calling the list, until he had completed it. upon taking the sum of the contributions (the great mogul was reckoned at three millions) it was found to be still one thousand millions short of the required amount. the secretary of the treasury was instantly on his feet. "mr. president," he said, "i think we can stand that addition. let it be added to the contribution of the united states of america." when the cheers that greeted the conclusion of the business were over, the president announced that the next affair of the congress was to select a director who should have entire charge of the preparations for the war. it was the universal sentiment that no man could be so well suited for this post as mr. edison himself. he was accordingly selected by the unanimous and enthusiastic choice of the great assembly. "how long a time do you require to put everything in readiness?" asked the president. "give me carte blanche," replied mr. edison, "and i believe i can have a hundred electric ships and three thousand disintegrators ready within six months." a tremendous cheer greeted this announcement. "your powers are unlimited," said the president, "draw on the fund for as much money as you need," whereupon the treasurer of the united states was made the disbursing officer of the fund, and the meeting adjourned. not less than , , people had assembled at washington from all parts of the world. every one of this immense multitude had been able to listen to the speeches and the cheers in the senate chamber, although not personally present there. wires had been run all over the city, and hundreds of improved telephonic receivers provided, so that every one could hear. even those who were unable to visit washington, people living in baltimore, new york, boston, and as far away as new orleans, st. louis and chicago, had also listened to the proceedings with the aid of these receivers. upon the whole, probably not less than , , people had heard the deliberations of the great congress of the nations. the excitement in washington. the telegraph and the cable had sent the news across the oceans to all the capitols of the earth. the exultation was so great that the people seemed mad with joy. the promised exhibition of the electrical ship took place the next day. enormous multitudes witnessed the experiment, and there was a struggle for places in the car. even queen victoria, accompanied by the prince of wales, ventured to take a ride in it, and they enjoyed it so much that mr. edison prolonged the journey as far as boston and the bunker hill monument. most of the other monarchs also took a high ride, but when the turn of the emperor of china came he repeated a fable which he said had come down from the time of confucius: a chinese legend. "once upon a time there was a chinaman living in the valley of the hoang-ho river, who was accustomed frequently to lie on his back, gazing at, and envying, the birds that he saw flying away in the sky. one day he saw a black speck which rapidly grew larger and larger, until as it got near he perceived that it was an enormous bird, which overshadowed the earth with its wings. it was the elephant of birds, the roc. 'come with me,' said the roc, 'and i will show you the wonders of the kingdom of the birds.' the man caught hold of its claw and nestled among its feathers, and they rapidly rose high in the air, and sailed away to the kuen-lun mountains. here, as they passed near the top of the peaks, another roc made its appearance. the wings of the two great birds brushed together, and immediately they fell to fighting. in the midst of the melee the man lost his hold and tumbled into the top of a tree, where his pigtail caught on a branch, and he remained suspended. there the unfortunate man hung helpless, until a rat, which had its home in the rocks at the foot of the tree, took compassion upon him, and, climbing up, gnawed off the branch. as the man slowly and painfully wended his weary way homeward, he said: 'this teaches me that creatures to whom nature has given neither feathers nor wings should leave the kingdom of the birds to those who are fitted to inhabit it.'" having told this story, tsait'ien turned his back on the electrical ship. the grand ball. after the exhibition was finished, and amid the fresh outburst of enthusiasm that followed, it was suggested that a proper way to wind up the congress and give suitable expression to the festive mood which now possessed mankind would be to have a grand ball. this suggestion met with immediate and universal approval. but for so gigantic an affair it was, of course, necessary to make special preparations. a convenient place was selected on the virginia side of the potomac; a space of ten acres was carefully levelled and covered with a polished floor, rows of columns one hundred feet apart were run across it in every direction, and these were decorated with electric lights, displaying every color of the spectrum. unsurpassed fireworks. above this immense space, rising in the centre to a height of more than a thousand feet, was anchored a vast number of balloons, all aglow with lights, and forming a tremendous dome, in which brilliant lamps were arranged in such a manner as to exhibit, in an endless succession of combinations, all the national colors, ensigns and insignia of the various countries represented at the congress. blazing eagles, lions, unicorns, dragons and other imaginary creatures that the different nations had chosen for their symbols appeared to hover high above the dancers, shedding a brilliant light upon the scene. circles of magnificent thrones were placed upon the floor in convenient locations for seeing. a thousand bands of music played, and tens of thousands of couples, gayly dressed and flashing with gems, whirled together upon the polished floor. queen victoria dances. the queen of england led the dance, on the arm of the president of the united states. the prince of wales led forth the fair daughter of the president, universally admired as the most beautiful woman upon the great ballroom floor. the emperor william, in his military dress, danced with the beauteous princess masaco, the daughter of the mikado, who wore for the occasion the ancient costume of the women of her country, sparkling with jewels, and glowing with quaint combinations of color like a gorgeous butterfly. the chinese emperor, with his pigtail flying high as he spun, danced with the empress of russia. the king of siam essayed a waltz with the queen ranavalona, of madagascar, while the sultan of turkey basked in the smiles of a chicago heiress to a hundred millions. the czar choose for his partner a dark-eyed beauty from peru, but king malietoa, of samoa, was suspicious of civilized charmers and, avoiding all of their allurements, expressed his joy and gave vent to his enthusiasm in a pas seul. in this he was quickly joined by a band of sioux indian chiefs, whose whoops and yells so startled the leader of a german band on their part of the floor that he dropped his baton and, followed by the musicians, took to his heels. this incident amused the good-natured emperor of china more than anything else that had occurred. "make muchee noisee," he said, indicating the fleeing musicians with his thumb. "allee same muchee flaid noisee," and then his round face dimpled into another laugh. the scene from the outside was even more imposing than that which greeted the eye within the brilliantly lighted enclosure. far away in the night, rising high among the stars, the vast dome of illuminated balloons seemed like some supernatural creation, too grand and glorious to have been constructed by the inhabitants of the earth. all around it, and from some of the balloons themselves, rose jets and fountains of fire, ceaselessly playing, and blotting out the constellations of the heavens by their splendor. the prince of wales's toast. the dance was followed by a grand banquet, at which the prince of wales proposed a toast to mr. edison: "it gives me much pleasure," he said, "to offer, in the name of the nations of the old world, this tribute of our admiration for, and our confidence in, the genius of the new world. perhaps on such an occasion as this, when all racial differences and prejudices ought to be, and are, buried and forgotten, i should not recall anything that might revive them; yet i cannot refrain from expressing my happiness in knowing that the champion who is to achieve the salvation of the earth has come forth from the bosom of the anglo-saxon race." several of the great potentates looked grave upon hearing the prince of wales's words, and the czar and the kaiser exchanged glances; but there was no interruption to the cheers that followed. mr. edison, whose modesty and dislike to display and to speechmaking were well known, simply said: "i think we have got the machine that can whip them. but we ought not to be wasting any time. probably they are not dancing on mars, but are getting ready to make us dance." haste to embark. these words instantly turned the current of feeling in the vast assembly. there was no longer any disposition to expend time in vain boastings and rejoicings. everywhere the cry now became, "let us make haste! let us get ready at once! who knows but the martians have already embarked, and are now on their way to destroy us?" under the impulse of this new feeling, which, it must be admitted, was very largely inspired by terror, the vast ballroom was quickly deserted. the lights were suddenly put out in the great dome of balloons, for someone had whispered: "suppose they should see that from mars? would they not guess what we were about, and redouble their preparations to finish us?" upon the suggestion of the president of the united states, an executive committee, representing all the principal nations, was appointed, and without delay a meeting of this committee was assembled at the white house. mr. edison was summoned before it, and asked to sketch briefly the plan upon which he proposed to work. thousands of men for mars. i need not enter into the details of what was done at this meeting. let it suffice to say that when it broke up, in the small hours of the morning, it had been unanimously resolved that as many thousands of men as mr. edison might require should be immediately placed at his disposal; that as far as possible all the great manufacturing establishments of the country should be instantly transformed into factories where electrical ships and disintegrators could be built, and upon the suggestion of professor sylvanus p. thompson, the celebrated english electrical expert, seconded by lord kelvin, it was resolved that all the leading men of science in the world should place their services at the disposal of mr. edison in any capacity in which, in his judgment, they might be useful to him. the members of this committee were disposed to congratulate one another on the good work which they had so promptly accomplished, when at the moment of their adjournment, a telegraphic dispatch was handed to the president from professor george e. hale, the director of the great yerkes observatory, in wisconsin. the telegram read: what's happening on mars? "professor barnard, watching mars to-night with the forty-inch telescope, saw a sudden outburst of reddish light, which we think indicates that something has been shot from the planet. spectroscopic observations of this moving light indicated that it was coming earthward, while visible, at the rate of not less than one hundred miles a second." hardly had the excitement caused by the reading of this dispatch subsided, when others of a similar import came from the lick observatory, in california; from the branch of the harvard observatory at arequipa, in peru, and from the royal observatory, at potsdam. when the telegram from this last-named place was read the emperor william turned to his chancellor and said: "i want to go home. if i am to die i prefer to leave my bones among those of my imperial ancestors, and not in this vulgar country, where no king has ever ruled. i don't like this atmosphere. it makes me feel limp." and now, whipped on by the lash of alternate hope and fear, the earth sprang to its work of preparation. chapter iv. it is not necessary for me to describe the manner in which mr. edison performed his tremendous task. he was as good as his word, and within six months from the first stroke of the hammer, a hundred electrical ships, each provided with a full battery of disintegrators, were floating in the air above the harbor and the partially rebuilt city of new york. it was a wonderful scene. the polished sides of the huge floating cars sparkled in the sunlight, and, as they slowly rose and fell, and swung this way and that, upon the tides of the air, as if held by invisible cables, the brilliant pennons streaming from their peaks waved up and down like the wings of an assemblage of gigantic humming birds. not knowing whether the atmosphere of mars would prove suitable to be breathed by inhabitants of the earth, mr. edison had made provision, by means of an abundance of glass-protected openings, to permit the inmates of the electrical ships to survey their surroundings without quitting the interior. it was possible by properly selecting the rate of undulation, to pass the vibratory impulse from the disintegrators through the glass windows of a car, without damage to the glass itself. the windows were so arranged that the disintegrators could sweep around the car on all sides, and could also be directed above or below, as necessity might dictate. to overcome the destructive forces employed by the martians no satisfactory plan had yet been devised, because there was no means to experiment with them. the production of those forces was still the secret of our enemies. but mr. edison had no doubt that if we could not resist their effects we might at least be able to avoid them by the rapidity of our motions. as he pointed out, the war machines which the martians had employed in their invasion of the earth, were really very awkward and unmanageable affairs. mr. edison's electrical ships, on the other hand, were marvels of speed and of manageability. they could dart about, turn, reverse their course, rise, fall, with the quickness and ease of a fish in the water. mr. edison calculated that even if mysterious bolts should fall upon our ships we could diminish their power to cause injury by our rapid evolutions. we might be deceived in our expectations, and might have overestimated our powers, but at any rate we must take our chances and try. watching the martians. a multitude, exceeding even that which had assembled during the great congress at washington, now thronged new york and its neighborhood to witness the mustering and the departure of the ships bound for mars. nothing further had been heard of the mysterious phenomenon reported from the observatories six months before, and which at the time was believed to indicate the departure of another expedition from mars for the invasion of the earth. if the martians had set out to attack us they had evidently gone astray; or, perhaps, it was some other world that they were aiming at this time. the expedition had, of course, profoundly stirred the interest of the scientific world, and representatives of every branch of science, from all the civilized nations, urged their claims to places in the ships. mr. edison was compelled, from lack of room, to refuse transportation to more than one in a thousand of those who now, on the plea that they might be able to bring back something of advantage to science, wished to embark for mars. as the great napoleon did. on the model of the celebrated corps of literary and scientific men which napoleon carried with him in his invasion of egypt, mr. edison selected a company of the foremost astronomers, archaeologists, anthropologists, botanists, bacteriologists, chemists, physicists, mathematicians, mechanicians, meteorologists and experts in mining, metallurgy and every other branch of practical science, as well as artists and photographers. it was but reasonable to believe that in another world, and a world so much older than the earth as mars was, these men would be able to gather materials in comparison with which the discoveries made among the ruins of ancient empires in egypt and babylonia would be insignificant indeed. to conquer another world. it was a wonderful undertaking and a strange spectacle. there was a feeling of uncertainty which awed the vast multitude whose eyes were upturned to the ships. the expedition was not large, considering the gigantic character of the undertaking. each of the electrical ships carried about twenty men, together with an abundant supply of compressed provisions, compressed air, scientific apparatus and so on. in all, there were about , men, who were going to conquer, if they could, another world! but though few in numbers, they represented the flower of the earth, the culmination of the genius of the planet. the greatest leaders in science, both theoretical and practical, were there. it was the evolution of the earth against the evolution of mars. it was a planet in the heyday of its strength matched against an aged and decrepit world which, nevertheless, in consequence of its long ages of existence, had acquired an experience which made it a most dangerous foe. on both sides there was desperation. the earth was desperate because it foresaw destruction unless it could first destroy its enemy. mars was desperate because nature was gradually depriving it of the means of supporting life, and its teeming population was compelled to swarm like the inmates of an overcrowded hive of bees, and find new homes elsewhere. in this respect the situation on mars, as we were well aware, resembled what had already been known upon the earth, where the older nations overflowing with population had sought new lands in which to settle, and for that purpose had driven out the native inhabitants, whenever those natives had proven unable to resist the invasion. no man could foresee the issue of what we were about to undertake, but the tremendous powers which the disintegrators had exhibited and the marvellous efficiency of the electrical ships bred almost universal confidence that we should be successful. master minds of the world. the car in which mr. edison travelled was, of course, the flagship of the squadron, and i had the good fortune to be included among its inmates. here, besides several leading men of science from our own country, were lord kelvin, lord rayleigh, professor roentgen, dr. moissan--the man who first made artificial diamonds--and several others whose fame had encircled the world. each of these men cherished hopes of wonderful discoveries, along his line of investigation, to be made in mars. an elaborate system of signals had, of course, to be devised for the control of the squadron. these signals consisted of brilliant electric lights displayed at night and so controlled that by their means long sentences and directions could be easily and quickly transmitted. a novel signal system. the day signals consisted partly of brightly colored pennons and flags, which were to serve only when, shadowed by clouds or other obstructions, the full sunlight should not fall upon the ships. this could naturally only occur near the surface of the earth or of another planet. once out of the shadow of the earth we should have no more clouds and no more night until we arrived at mars. in open space the sun would be continually shining. it would be perpetual day for us, except as, by artificial means, we furnished ourselves with darkness for the purpose of promoting sleep. in this region of perpetual day, then, the signals were also to be transmitted by flashes of light from mirrors reflecting the rays of the sun. perpetual night! yet this perpetual day would be also, in one sense, a perpetual night. there would be no more blue sky for us, because without an atmosphere the sunlight could not be diffused. objects would be illuminated only on the side toward the sun. anything that screened off the direct rays of sunlight would produce absolute darkness behind it. there would be no graduation of shadow. the sky would be as black as ink on all sides. while it was the intention to remain as much as possible within the cars, yet since it was probable that necessity would arise for occasionally quitting the interior of the electrical ships, mr. edison had provided for this emergency by inventing an air-tight dress constructed somewhat after the manner of a diver's suit, but of much lighter material. each ship was provided with several of these suits, by wearing which one could venture outside the car even when it was beyond the atmosphere of the earth. terrific cold anticipated. provision had been made to meet the terrific cold which we knew would be encountered the moment we had passed beyond the atmosphere--that awful absolute zero which men had measured by anticipation, but never yet experienced--by a simple system of producing within the air-tight suits a temperature sufficiently elevated to counteract the effects of the frigidity without. by means of long, flexible tubes, air could be continually supplied to the wearers of the suits, and by an ingenious contrivance a store of compressed air sufficient to last for several hours was provided for each suit, so that in case of necessity the wearer could throw off the tubes connecting him with the air tanks in the car. another object which had been kept in view in the preparation of these suits was the possible exploration of an airless planet, such as the moon. the necessity of some contrivance by means of which we should be enabled to converse with one another when on the outside of the cars in open space, or when in an airless world, like the moon, where there would be no medium by which the waves of sound could be conveyed as they are in the atmosphere of the earth, had been foreseen by our great inventor, and he had not found it difficult to contrive suitable devices for meeting the emergency. inside the headpiece of each of the electrical suits was the mouthpiece of a telephone. this was connected with a wire which, when not in use, could be conveniently coiled upon the arm of the wearer. near the ears, similarly connected with wires, were telephonic receivers. an aerial telegraph. when two persons wearing the air-tight dresses wished to converse with one another it was only necessary for them to connect themselves by the wires, and conversation could then be easily carried on. careful calculations of the precise distance of mars from the earth at the time when the expedition was to start had been made by a large number of experts in mathematical astronomy. but it was not mr. edison's intention to go direct to mars. with the exception of the first electrical ship, which he had completed, none had yet been tried in a long voyage. it was desirable that the qualities of each of the ships should first be carefully tested, and for this reason the leader of the expedition determined that the moon should be the first port of space at which the squadron would call. it chanced that the moon was so situated at this time as to be nearly in a line between the earth and mars, which latter was in opposition to the sun, and consequently as favorably situated as possible for the purposes of the voyage. what would be, then, for out of the ships of the squadron, a trial trip would at the same time be a step of a quarter of a million of miles gained in the direction of our journey, and so no time would be wasted. the departure from the earth was arranged to occur precisely at midnight. the moon near the full was hanging high over head, and a marvellous spectacle was presented to the eyes of those below as the great squadron of floating ships, with their signal lights ablaze, cast loose and began slowly to move away on their adventurous and unprecedented expedition into the great unknown. a tremendous cheer, billowing up from the throats of millions of excited men and women, seemed to rend the curtain of the night, and made the airships tremble with the atmospheric vibrations that were set in motion. magnificent fireworks. instantly magnificent fireworks were displayed in honor of our departure. rockets by hundreds of thousands shot heaven-ward, and then burst in constellations of fiery drops. the sudden illumination thus produced, overspreading hundreds of square miles of the surface of the earth with a light almost like that of day, must certainly have been visible to the inhabitants of mars, if they were watching us at the time. they might, or might not, correctly interpret its significance; but, at any rate, we did not care. we were off, and were confident that we could meet our enemy on his own ground before he could attack us again. and the earth was like a globe. and now, as we slowly rose higher, a marvellous scene was disclosed. at first the earth beneath us, buried as it was in night, resembled the hollow of a vast cup of ebony blackness, in the centre of which, like the molten lava run together at the bottom of a volcanic crater, shone the light of the illuminations around new york. but when we got beyond the atmosphere, and the earth still continued to recede below us, its aspect changed. the cup-shaped appearance was gone, and it began to round out beneath our eyes in the form of a vast globe--an enormous ball mysteriously suspended under us, glimmering over most of its surface, with the faint illumination of the moon, and showing toward its eastern edge the oncoming light of the rising sun. when we were still further away, having slightly varied our course so that the sun was once more entirely hidden behind the centre of the earth, we saw its atmosphere completely illuminated, all around it, with prismatic lights, like a gigantic rainbow in the form of a ring. another shift in our course rapidly carried us out of the shadow of the earth and into the all pervading sunshine. then the great planet beneath us hung unspeakable in its beauty. the outlines of several of the continents were clearly discernible on its surface, streaked and spotted with delicate shades of varying color, and the sunlight flashed and glowed in long lanes across the convex surface of the oceans. parallel with the equator and along the regions of the ever blowing trade winds, were vast belts of clouds, gorgeous with crimson and purple as the sunlight fell upon them. immense expanses of snow and ice lay like a glittering garment upon both land and sea around the north pole. farewell to this terrestrial sphere. as we gazed upon this magnificent spectacle, our hearts bounded within us. this was our earth--this was the planet we were going to defend--our home in the trackless wilderness of space. and it seemed to us indeed a home for which we might gladly expend our last breath. a new determination to conquer or die sprung up in our hearts, and i saw lord kelvin, after gazing at the beauteous scene which the earth presented through his eyeglass, turn about and peer in the direction in which we knew that mars lay, with a sudden frown that caused the glass to lose its grip and fall dangling from its string upon his breast. even mr. edison seemed moved. "i am glad i thought of the disintegrator," he said. "i shouldn't like to see that world down there laid waste again." "and it won't be," said professor sylvanus p. thompson, gripping the handle of an electric machine, "not if we can help it." chapter v. to prevent accidents, it had been arranged that the ships should keep a considerable distance apart. some of them gradually drifted away, until, on account of the neutral tint of their sides, they were swallowed up in the abyss of space. still it was possible to know where every member of the squadron was through the constant interchange of signals. these, as i have explained, were effected by means of mirrors flashing back the light of the sun. but, although it was now unceasing day for us, yet, there being no atmosphere to diffuse the sun's light, the stars were visible to us just as at night upon the earth, and they shone with extraordinary splendor against the intense black background of the firmament. the lights of some of the more distant ships of our squadron were not brighter than the stars in whose neighborhood they seemed to be. in some cases it was only possible to distinguish between the light of a ship and that of a star by the fact that the former was continually flashing while the star was steady in its radiance. an uncanny effect. the most uncanny effect was produced by the absence of atmosphere around us. inside the car, where there was air, the sunlight, streaming through one or more of the windows, was diffused and produced ordinary daylight. but when we ventured outside we could only see things by halves. the side of the car that the sun's rays touched was visible, the other side was invisible, the light from the stars not making it bright enough to affect the eye in contrast with the sun-illumined half. as i held up my arm before my eyes, half of it seemed to be shaved off lengthwise; a companion on the deck of the ship looked like half a man. so the other electrical ships near us appeared as half ships, only the illuminated sides being visible. we had now got so far away that the earth had taken on the appearance of a heavenly body like the moon. its colors had become all blended into a golden-reddish hue, which overspread nearly its entire surface, except at the poles, where there were broad patches of white. it was marvellous to look at this huge orb behind us, while far beyond it shone the blazing sun like an enormous star in the blackest of nights. in the opposite direction appeared the silver orb of the moon, and scattered all around were millions of brilliant stars, amid which, like fireflies, flashed and sparkled the signal lights of the squadron. danger manifests itself. a danger that might easily have been anticipated, that perhaps had been anticipated, but against which it would have been difficult, if not impossible, to provide, presently manifested itself. looking out of a window toward the right, i suddenly noticed the lights of a distant ship darting about in a curious curve. instantly afterward another member of the squadron, nearer by, behaved in the same inexplicable manner. then two or three of the floating cars seemed to be violently drawn from their courses and hurried rapidly in the direction of the flagship. immediately i perceived a small object, luridly flaming, which seemed to move with immense speed in our direction. the truth instantly flashed upon my mind, and i shouted to the other occupants of the car: struck by a meteor! "a meteor!" and such indeed it was. we had met this mysterious wanderer in space at a moment when we were moving in a direction at right angles to the path it was pursuing around the sun. small as it was, and its diameter probably did not exceed a single foot, it was yet an independent little world, and as such a member of the solar system. its distance from the sun being so near that of the earth, i knew that its velocity, assuming it to be travelling in a nearly circular orbit, must be about eighteen miles in a second. with this velocity, then, it plunged like a projectile shot by some mysterious enemy in space directly through our squadron. it had come and was gone before one could utter a sentence of three words. its appearance, and the effect it had produced upon the ships in whose neighborhood it passed, indicated that it bore an intense and tremendous charge of electricity. how it had become thus charged i cannot pretend to say. i simply record the fact. and this charge, it was evident, was opposite in polarity to that which the ships of the squadron bore. it therefore exerted an attractive influence upon them and thus drew them after it. i had just time to think how lucky it was that the meteor did not strike any of us, when, glancing at a ship just ahead, i perceived that an accident had occurred. the ship swayed violently from its course, dazzling flashes played around it, and two or three of the men forming its crew appeared for an instant on its exterior, wildly gesticulating, but almost instantly falling prone. it was evident at a glance that the car had been struck by the meteor. how serious the damage might be we could not instantly determine. the course of our ship was immediately altered, the electric polarity was changed, and we rapidly approached the disabled car. the men who had fallen lay upon its surface. one of the heavy circular glasses covering a window had been smashed to atoms. through this the meteor had passed, killing two or three men who stood in its course. then it had crashed through the opposite side of the car, and, passing on, disappeared into space. the store of air contained in the car had immediately rushed out through the openings, and when two or three of us, having donned our air-tight suits as quickly as possible, entered the wrecked car we found all its inmates stretched upon the floor in a condition of asphyxiation. they, as well as those who lay upon the exterior, were immediately removed to the flagship, restoratives were applied, and, fortunately, our aid had come so promptly that the lives of all of them were saved. but life had fled from the mangled bodies of those who had stood directly in the path of the fearful projectile. this strange accident had been witnessed by several of the members of the fleet, and they quickly drew together, in order to inquire for the particulars. as the flagship was now overcrowded by the addition of so many men to its crew, mr. edison had them distributed among the other cars. fortunately it happened that the disintegrators contained in the wrecked car were not injured. mr. edison thought that it would be possible to repair the car itself, and for that purpose he had it attached to the flagship in order that it might be carried on as far as the moon. the bodies of the dead were transported with it, as it was determined, instead of committing them to the fearful deep of space, where they would have wandered forever, or else have fallen like meteors upon the earth, to give them interment in the lunar soil. nearing the moon. as we now rapidly approached the moon the change which the appearance of its surface underwent was no less wonderful than that which the surface of the earth had presented in the reverse order while we were receding from it. from a pale silver orb, shining with comparative faintness among the stars, it slowly assumed the appearance of a vast mountainous desert. as we drew nearer its colors became more pronounced; the great flat regions appeared darker; the mountain peaks shone more brilliantly. the huge chasms seemed bottomless and blacker than midnight. gradually separate mountains appeared. what seemed like expanses of snow and immense glaciers streaming down their sides sparkled with great brilliancy in the perpendicular rays of the sun. our motion had now assumed the aspect of falling. we seemed to be dropping from an immeasurable height and with an inconceivable velocity, straight down upon those giant peaks. the mountains of luna. here and there curious lights glowed upon the mysterious surface of the moon. where the edge of the moon cut the sky behind it, it was broken and jagged with mountain masses. vast crater rings overspread its surface, and in some of these i imagined i could perceive a lurid illumination coming out of their deepest cavities, and the curling of mephitic vapors around their terrible jaws. we were approaching that part of the moon which is known to astronomers as the bay of rainbows. here a huge semi-circular region, as smooth almost as the surface of a prairie, lay beneath our eyes, stretching southward into a vast ocean-like expanse, while on the north it was enclosed by an enormous range of mountain cliffs, rising perpendicularly to a height of many thousands of feet, and rent and gashed in every direction by forces which seemed at some remote period to have labored at tearing this little world in pieces. a dead and mangled world. the moon's strange and ghastly surface in full view of man. it was a fearful spectacle; a dead and mangled world, too dreadful to look upon. the idea of the death of the moon was, of course, not a new one to many of us. we had long been aware that the earth's satellite was a body which had passed beyond the stage of life, if indeed it had ever been a life supporting globe; but none of us were prepared for the terrible spectacle which now smote our eyes. at each end of the semi-circular ridge that encloses the bay of rainbows there is a lofty promontory. that at the north-western extremity had long been known to astronomers under the name of cape laplace. the other promontory, at the southeastern termination, is called cape heraclides. it was toward the latter that we were approaching, and by interchange of signals all the members of the squadron had been informed that cape heraclides was to be our rendezvous upon the moon. i may say that i had been somewhat familiar with the scenery of this part of the lunar world, for i had often studied it from the earth with a telescope, and i had thought that if there was any part of the moon where one might, with fair expectation of success, look for inhabitants, or if not for inhabitants, at least for relics of life no longer existent there, this would surely be the place. it was, therefore, with no small degree of curiosity, notwithstanding the unexpectedly frightful and repulsive appearance that the surface of the moon presented, that i now saw myself rapidly approaching the region concerning whose secrets my imagination had so often busied itself. when mr. edison and i had paid our previous visit to the moon on the first experimental trip of the electrical ship, we had landed at a point on its surface remote from this, and, as i have before explained, we then made no effort to investigate its secrets. but now it was to be different, and we were at length to see something of the wonders of the moon. like a human face. i had often on the earth drawn a smile from my friends by showing them cape heraclides with a telescope, and calling their attention to the fact that the outline of the peak terminating the cape was such as to present a remarkable resemblance to a human face, unmistakably a feminine countenance, seen in profile, and possessing no small degree of beauty. to my astonishment, this curious human semblance still remained when we had approached so close to the moon that the mountains forming the cape filled nearly the whole field of view of the window from which i was watching it. the resemblance, indeed, was most startling. the resemblance disappears. "can this indeed be diana herself?" i said half aloud, but instantly afterward i was laughing at my fancy, for mr. edison had overheard me and exclaimed, "where is she?" "who?" "diana." "why, there," i said, pointing to the moon. but lo! the appearance was gone even while i spoke. a swift change had taken place in the line of sight by which we were viewing it, and the likeness had disappeared in consequence. a few moments later my astonishment was revived, but the cause this time was a very different one. we had been dropping rapidly toward the mountains, and the electrician in charge of the car was swiftly and constantly changing his potential, and, like a pilot who feels his way into an unknown harbor, endeavoring to approach the moon in such a manner that no hidden peril should surprise us. as we thus approached i suddenly perceived, crowning the very apex of the lofty peak near the termination of the cape, the ruins of what appeared to be an ancient watch tower. it was evidently composed of cyclopean blocks larger than any that i had ever seen even among the ruins of greece, egypt and asia minor. the moon was inhabited. here, then, was visible proof that the moon had been inhabited, although probably it was not inhabited now. i cannot describe the exultant feeling which took possession of me at this discovery. it settled so much that learned men had been disputing about for centuries. "what will they say," i exclaimed, "when i show them a photograph of that?" below the peak, stretching far to right and left, lay a barren beach which had evidently once been washed by sea waves, because it was marked by long curved ridges such as the advancing and retiring tide leaves upon the shore of the ocean. this beach sloped rapidly outward and downward toward a profound abyss, which had once, evidently, been the bed of a sea, but which now appeared to us simply as the empty, yawning shell of an ocean that had long vanished. it was with no small difficulty, and only after the expenditure of considerable time, that all the floating ships of the squadron were gradually brought to rest on this lone mountain top of the moon. in accordance with my request, mr. edison had the flagship moored in the interior of the great ruined watch tower that i have described. the other ships rested upon the slope of the mountain around us. although time pressed, for we knew that the safety of the earth depended upon our promptness in attacking mars, yet it was determined to remain here at least two or three days in order that the wrecked car might be repaired. it was found also that the passage of the highly electrified meteor had disarranged the electrical machinery in some of the other cars, so that there were many repairs to be made besides those needed to restore the wreck. burying the dead. moreover, we must bury our unfortunate companions who had been killed by the meteor. this, in fact, was the first work that we performed. strange was the sight, and stranger our feelings, as here on the surface of a world distant from the earth, and on soil which had never before been pressed by the foot of man, we performed that last ceremony of respect which mortals pay to mortality. in the ancient beach at the foot of the peak we made a deep opening, and there covered forever the faces of our friends, leaving them to sleep among the ruins of empires, and among the graves of races which had vanished probably ages before adam and eve appeared in paradise. while the repairs were being made several scientific expeditions were sent out in various directions across the moon. one went westward to investigate the great ring plain of plato, and the lunar alps. another crossed the ancient sea of showers toward the lunar apennines. one started to explore the immense crater of copernicus, which, yawning fifty miles across, presents a wonderful appearance even from the distance of the earth. the ship in which i, myself, had the good fortune to embark, was bound for the mysterious lunar mountain aristarchus. before these expeditions started, a careful exploration had been made in the neighborhood of cape heraclides. but, except that the broken walls of the watch tower on the peak, composed of blocks of enormous size, had evidently been the work of creatures endowed with human intelligence, no remains were found indicating the former presence of inhabitants upon this part of the moon. a gigantic human footprint. but along the shore of the old sea, just where the so-called bay of rainbows separates itself from the abyss of the sea of showers, there were found some stratified rocks in which the fascinated eyes of the explorer beheld the clear imprint of a gigantic human foot, measuring five feet in length from toe to heel. detailing the marvellous adventures of the earth's warriors in unknown worlds. the most minute search failed to reveal another trace of the presence of the ancient giant, who had left the impress of his foot in the wet sands of the beach here so many millions of years ago that even the imagination of the geologists shrank from the task of attempting to fix the precise period. the great footprint. around this gigantic footprint gathered most of the scientific members of the expedition, wearing their oddly shaped air-tight suits, connected with telephonic wires, and the spectacle, but for the impressiveness of the discovery, would have been laughable in the extreme. bending over the mark in the rock, nodding their heads together, pointing with their awkwardly accoutred arms, they looked like an assemblage of antediluvian monsters collected around their prey. their disappointment over the fact that no other marks of anything resembling human habitation could be discovered was very great. still this footprint in itself was quite sufficient, as they all declared, to settle the question of the former inhabitation of the moon, and it would serve for the production of many a learned volume after their return to the earth, even if no further discoveries should be made in other parts of the lunar world. expeditions over the moon. it was the hope of making such other discoveries that led to the dispatch of the other various expeditions which i have already named. i had chosen to accompany the car that was going to aristarchus, because, as every one who had viewed the moon from the earth was aware, there was something very mysterious about that mountain. i knew that it was a crater nearly thirty miles in diameter and very deep, although its floor was plainly visible. the glowing mountains. what rendered it remarkable was the fact that the floor and the walls of the crater, particularly on the inner side, glowed with a marvellous brightness which rendered them almost blinding when viewed with a powerful telescope. so bright were they, indeed, that the eye was unable to see many of the details which the telescope would have made visible but for the flood of light which poured from the mountains. sir william herschel had been so completely misled by this appearance that he supposed he was watching a lunar volcano in eruption. it had always been a difficult question what caused the extraordinary luminosity of aristarchus. no end of hypotheses had been invented to account for it. now i was to assist in settling these questions forever. from cape heraclides to aristarchus the distance in an air line was something over miles. our course lay across the north-eastern part of the sea of showers, with enormous cliffs, mountain masses and peaks shining on the right, while in the other direction the view was bounded by the distant range of the lunar apennines, some of whose towering peaks, when viewed from our immense elevation, appeared as sharp as the swiss matterhorn. when we had arrived within about a hundred miles of our destination we found ourselves floating directly over the so-called harbinger mountains. the serrated peaks of aristarchus then appeared ahead of us, fairly blazing in the sunshine. a gigantic string of diamonds. it seemed as if a gigantic string of diamonds, every one as great as a mountain peak, had been cast down upon the barren surface of the moon and left to waste their brilliance upon the desert air of this abandoned world. as we rapidly approached, the dazzling splendor of the mountain became almost unbearable to our eyes, and we were compelled to resort to the device, practiced by all climbers of lofty mountains, where the glare of sunlight upon snow surfaces is liable to cause temporary blindness, of protecting our eyes with neutral-tinted glasses. professor moissan, the great french chemist and maker of artificial diamonds, fairly danced with delight. "voila! voila! voila!" was all that he could say. a mountain of crystals. when we were comparatively near, the mountain no longer seemed to glow with a uniform radiance, evenly distributed over its entire surface, but now innumerable points of light, all as bright as so many little suns, blazed away at us. it was evident that we had before us a mountain composed of, or at least covered with, crystals. without stopping to alight on the outer slopes of the great ring-shaped range of peaks which composed aristarchus, we sailed over their rim and looked down into the interior. here the splendor of the crystals was greater than on the outer slopes, and the broad floor of the crater, thousands of feet beneath us, shone and sparkled with overwhelming radiance, as if it were an immense bin of diamonds, while a peak in the centre flamed like a stupendous tiara incrusted with selected gems. eager to see what these crystals were, the car was now allowed rapidly to drop into the interior of the crater. with great caution we brought it to rest upon the blazing ground, for the sharp edges of the crystals would certainly have torn the metallic sides of the car if it had come into violent contact with them. donning our air-tight suits and stepping carefully out upon this wonderful footing we attempted to detach some of the crystals. many of them were firmly fastened, but a few--some of astonishing size--were readily loosened. a wealth of gems. a moment's inspection showed that we had stumbled upon the most marvellous work of the forces of crystallization that human eyes had ever rested upon. some time in the past history of the moon there had been an enormous outflow of molten material from the crater. this had overspread the walls and partially filled up the interior, and later its surface had flowered into gems, as thick as blossoms in a bed of pansies. the whole mass flashed prismatic rays of indescribable beauty and intensity. we gazed at first speechless with amazement. "it cannot be, surely it cannot be," said professor moissan at length. "but it is," said another member of the party. "are these diamonds?" asked a third. "i cannot yet tell," replied the professor. "they have the brilliancy of diamonds, but they may be something else." "moon jewels," suggested a third. "and worth untold millions, whatever they are," remarked another. jewels from the moon. these magnificent crystals, some of which appeared to be almost flawless, varied in size from the dimensions of a hazelnut to geometrical solids several inches in diameter. we carefully selected as many as it was convenient to carry and placed them in the car for future examination. we had solved another long standing lunar problem and had, perhaps, opened up an inexhaustible mine of wealth which might eventually go far toward reimbursing the earth for the damage which it had suffered from the invasion of the martians. on returning to cape heraclides we found that the other expeditions had arrived at the rendezvous ahead of us. their members had wonderful stories to tell of what they had seen, but nothing caused quite so much astonishment as that which we had to tell and to show. the party which had gone to visit plato and the lunar alps brought back, however, information which, in a scientific sense, was no less interesting than what we had been able to gather. they had found within this curious ring of plato, which is a circle of mountains sixty miles in diameter, enclosing a level plain remarkably smooth over most of its surface, unmistakable evidences of former inhabitation. a gigantic city had evidently at one time existed near the centre of this great plain. the outlines of its walls and the foundation marks of some of its immense buildings were plainly made out, and elaborate plans of this vanished capital of the moon were prepared by several members of the party. more evidences of habitation. one of them was fortunate enough to discover an even more precious relic of the ancient lunarians. it was a piece of petrified skullbone, representing but a small portion of the head to which it had belonged, but yet sufficient to enable the anthropologists, who immediately fell to examining it, to draw ideal representations of the head as it must have been in life--the head of a giant of enormous size, which, if it had possessed a highly organized brain, of proportionate magnitude, must have given to its possessor intellectual powers immensely greater than any of the descendants of adam have ever been endowed with. giants in size. indeed, one of the professors was certain that some little concretions found on the interior of the piece of skull were petrified portions of the brain matter itself, and he set to work with the microscope to examine its organic quality. in the mean time, the repairs to the electrical ships had been completed, and, although these discoveries upon the moon had created a most profound sensation among the members of the expedition, and aroused an almost irresistible desire to continue the explorations thus happily begun, yet everybody knew that these things were aside from the main purpose in view, and that we should be false to our duty in wasting a moment more upon the moon than was absolutely necessary to put the ships in proper condition to proceed on their warlike voyage. departing from the moon. everything being prepared then, we left the moon with great regret, just forty-eight hours after we had landed upon its surface, carrying with us a determination to revisit it and to learn more of its wonderful secrets in case we should survive the dangers which we were now going to face. chapter vi. a day or two after leaving the moon we had another adventure with a wandering inhabitant of space which brought us into far greater peril than had our encounter with the meteor. the airships had been partitioned off so that a portion of the interior could be darkened in order to serve as a sleeping chamber, wherein, according to the regulations prescribed by the commander of the squadron each member of the expedition in his turn passed eight out of every twenty-four hours--sleeping if he could, if not, meditating, in a more or less dazed way, upon the wonderful things that he was seeing and doing--things far more incredible than the creations of a dream. one morning, if i may call by the name morning the time of my periodical emergence from the darkened chamber, glancing from one of the windows, i was startled to see in the black sky a brilliant comet. the adventure with the comet. a thrilling story of an encounter that nearly ended the great expedition. no periodical comet, as i knew, was at this time approaching the neighborhood of the sun, and no stranger of that kind had been detected from the observatories making its way sunward before we left the earth. here, however, was unmistakably a comet rushing toward the sun, flinging out a great gleaming tail behind it and so close to us that i wondered to see it remaining almost motionless in the sky. this phenomenon was soon explained to me, and the explanation was of a most disquieting character. the stranger had already been perceived, not only from the flagship, but from the other members of the squadron, and, as i now learned, efforts had been made to get out of the neighborhood, but for some reason the electrical apparatus did not work perfectly--some mysterious disturbing force acting upon it--and so it had been found impossible to avoid an encounter with the comet, not an actual coming into contact with it, but a falling into the sphere of its influence. in the wake of the comet. in fact, i was informed that for several hours the squadron had been dragging along in the wake of a comet, very much as boats are sometimes towed off by a wounded whale. every effort had been made to so adjust the electric charge upon the ships that they would be repelled from the cometic mass, but, owing apparently to eccentric changes continually going on in the electric charge affecting the clashing mass of meteoric bodies which constituted the head of the comet, we found it impossible to escape from its influence. at one instant the ships would be repelled; immediately afterward they would be attracted again, and thus they were dragged hither and thither, but never able to break from the invisible leash which the comet had cast upon them. the latter was moving with enormous velocity toward the sun, and, consequently, we were being carried back again, away from the object of our expedition, with a fair prospect of being dissipated in blazing vapors when the comet had dragged us, unwilling prisoners, into the immediate neighborhood of the solar furnace. even the most cool-headed lost his self-control in this terrible emergency. every kind of device that experience or the imagination could suggest was tried, but nothing would do. still on we rushed with the electrified atoms composing the tail of the comet sweeping to and fro over the members of the squadron, as they shifted their position, like the plume of smoke from a gigantic steamer, drifting over the sea birds that follow in its course. is this the end? was this to end it all, then? was this the fate that providence had in store for us? were the hopes of the earth thus to perish? was the expedition to be wrecked and its fate to remain forever unknown to the planet from which it had set forth? and was our beloved globe, which had seemed so fair to us when we last looked upon it near by, and in whose defence we had resolved to spend our last breath, to be left helpless and at the mercy of its implacable foe in the sky? at length we gave ourselves up for lost. there seemed to be no possible way to free ourselves from the baleful grip of this terrible and unlooked-for enemy. giving up all hope. as the comet approached the sun its electric energy rapidly increased, and watching it with telescopes, for we could not withdraw our fascinated eyes from it, we could clearly behold the fearful things that went on in its nucleus. this consisted of an immense number of separate meteors of no very great size individually, but which were in constant motion among one another, darting to and fro, clashing and smashing together, while fountains of blazing metallic particles and hot mineral vapors poured out in every direction. a flying hell. as i watched it, unable to withdraw my eyes, i saw imaginary forms revealing themselves amid the flaming meteors. they seemed like creatures in agony, tossing their arms, bewailing in their attitudes the awful fate that had overtaken them, and fairly chilling my blood with the pantomime of torture which they exhibited. i thought of an old superstition which i had often heard about the earth, and exclaimed: "yes, surely, this is a flying hell!" as the electric activity of the comet increased, its continued changes of potential and polarity became more frequent, and the electrical ships darted about with even greater confusion than before. occasionally one of them, seized with a sudden impulse, would spring forward toward the nucleus of the comet with a sudden access of velocity that would fling every one of its crew from his feet, and all would lie sprawling on the floor of the car while it rushed, as it seemed, to inevitable and instant destruction. saved on ruin's brink. then, either through the frantic efforts of the electrician struggling with the controller or through another change in the polarity of the comet, the ship would be saved on the very brink of ruin and stagger away out of immediate danger. thus the captured squadron was swept, swaying and darting hither and thither, but never able to get sufficiently far from the comet to break the bond of its fatal attraction. the earth again! so great was our excitement and so complete our absorption in the fearful peril that we had not noticed the precise direction in which the comet was carrying us. it was enough to know that the goal of the journey was the furnace of the sun. but presently someone in the flagship recalled us to a more accurate sense of our situation in space by exclaiming: "why, there is the earth!" thrilling adventures crowd each other in the great war upon mars. and there, indeed, it was, its great globe rolling under our eyes, with the contrasted colors of the continents and clouds and the watery gleam of the ocean spread beneath us. "we are going to strike it!" exclaimed somebody. "the comet is going to dash into the earth." such a collision at first seemed inevitable, but presently it was noticed that the direction of the comet's motion was such that while it might graze the earth it would not actually strike it. and so, like a swarm of giant insects circling about an electric light from whose magic influence they cannot escape, our ships went on, to be whipped against the earth in passing and then to continue their swift journey to destruction. unexpected aid. "thank god, this saves us," suddenly cried mr. edison. "what--what?" "why, the earth, of course. do you not see that as the comet sweeps close to the great planet the superior attraction of the latter will snatch us from its grasp, and that thus we shall be able to escape?" and it was indeed as mr. edison had predicted. in a blaze of falling meteors the comet swept the outer limits of the earth's atmosphere and passed on, while the swaying ships, having been instructed by signals what to do, desperately applied their electrical machinery to reverse the attraction and threw themselves into the arms of their mother earth. over the atlantic. in another instant we were all free, settling down through the quiet atmosphere with the atlantic ocean sparkling in the morning sun far below. we looked at one another in amazement. so this was the end of our voyage! this was the completion of our warlike enterprise. we had started out to conquer a world, and we had come back ignominiously dragged in the train of a comet. the earth which we were going to defend and protect had herself turned protector, and reaching out her strong arm had snatched her foolish children from the destruction which they had invited. it would be impossible to describe the chagrin of every member of the expedition. a feeling of shame. the electric ships rapidly assembled and hovered high in the air, while their commanders consulted about what should be done. a universal feeling of shame almost drove them to a decision not to land upon the surface of the planet, and if possible not to let its inhabitants know what had occurred. but it was too late for that. looking carefully beneath us, we saw that fate had brought us back to our very starting point, and signals displayed in the neighborhood of new york indicated that we had already been recognized. there was nothing for us then but to drop down and explain the situation. i shall not delay my narrative by undertaking to describe the astonishment and the disappointment of the inhabitants of the earth when, within a fortnight from our departure, they saw us back again, with no laurels of victory crowning our brows. at first they had hoped that we were returning in triumph, and we were overwhelmed with questions the moment we had dropped within speaking distance. "have you whipped them?" "how many are lost?" "is there any more danger?" "faix, have ye got one of thim men from mars?" but their rejoicings and their facetiousness were turned into wailing when the truth was imparted. a short stay on the earth. we made a short story of it, for we had not the heart to go into details. we told of our unfortunate comrades whom we had buried on the moon, and there was one gleam of satisfaction when we exhibited the wonderful crystals we had collected in the crater of aristarchus. mr. edison determined to stop only long enough to test the electrical machinery of the cars, which had been more or less seriously deranged during our wild chase after the comet, and then to start straight back for mars--this time on a through trip. mysterious lights on mars. the astronomers, who had been watching mars, since our departure, with their telescopes, reported that mysterious lights continued to be visible, but that nothing indicating the starting of another expedition for the earth had been seen. within twenty-four hours we were ready for our second start. the moon was now no longer in a position to help us on our way. it had moved out of the line between mars and the earth. high above us, in the centre of the heavens, glowed the red planet which was the goal of our journey. the needed computations of velocity and direction of flight having been repeated, and the ships being all in readiness, we started direct for mars. greater preparations made. an enormous charge of electricity was imparted to each member of the squadron, in order that as soon as we had reached the upper limits of the atmosphere, where the ships could move swiftly, without danger of being consumed by the heat developed by the friction of their passage through the air, a very great initial velocity could be imparted. once started off by this tremendous electrical kick, and with no atmosphere to resist our motion, we should be able to retain the same velocity, barring incidental encounters, until we arrived near the surface of mars. when we were free of the atmosphere, and the ships were moving away from the earth, with the highest velocity which we were able to impart to them, observations on the stars were made in order to determine the rate of our speed. ten miles a second! this was found to be ten miles in a second, or , miles in a day, a very much greater speed than that with which we had travelled on starting to touch at the moon. supposing this velocity to remain uniform, and, with no known resistance, it might reasonably be expected to do so, we should arrive at mars in a little less than forty-two days, the distance of the planet from the earth being, at this time, about thirty-six million miles. nothing occurred for many days to interrupt our journey. we became accustomed to our strange surroundings, and many entertainments were provided to while away the time. the astronomers in the expedition found plenty of occupation in studying the aspects of the stars and the other heavenly bodies from their new point of view. drawing near to mars. at the expiration of about thirty-five days we had drawn so near to mars that with our telescopes, which, though small, were of immense power, we could discern upon its surface features and details which no one had been able to glimpse from the earth. as the surface of this world, that we were approaching as a tiger hunter draws near the jungle, gradually unfolded itself to our inspection, there was hardly one of us willing to devote to sleep or idleness the prescribed eight hours that had been fixed as the time during which each member of the expedition must remain in the darkened chamber. we were too eager to watch for every new revelation upon mars. but something was in store that we had not expected. we were to meet the martians before arriving at the world they dwelt in. among the stars which shone in that quarter of the heavens where mars appeared as the master orb, there was one, lying directly in our path, which, to our astonishment, as we continued on, altered from the aspect of a star, underwent a gradual magnification, and soon presented itself in the form of a little planet. the asteroid. "it is an asteroid," said somebody. "yes, evidently; but how does it come inside the orbit of mars?" "oh, there are several asteroids," said one of the astronomers, "which travel inside the orbit of mars, along a part of their course, and, for aught we can tell, there may be many which have not yet been caught sight of from the earth, that are nearer to the sun than mars is." "this must be one of them." "manifestly so." as we drew nearer the mysterious little planet revealed itself to us as a perfectly formed globe not more than five miles in diameter. "what is that upon it?" asked lord kelvin, squinting intently at the little world through his glass. "as i live, it moves." a martian appears! the first glimpse of the horrible inhabitants of the red planet. "yes, yes!" exclaimed several others, "there are inhabitants upon it, but what giants!" "what monsters!" "don't you see?" exclaimed an excited savant. "they are the martians!" the startling truth burst upon the minds of all. here upon this little planetoid were several of the gigantic inhabitants of the world that we were going to attack. there was more than one man in the flagship who recognized them well, and who shuddered at the recognition, instinctively recalling the recent terrible experience of the earth. was this an outpost of the warlike mars? around these monstrous enemies we saw several of their engines of war. some of these appeared to have been wrecked, but at least one, as far as we could see, was still in a proper condition for use. how had these creatures got there? "why, that is easy enough to account for," i said, as a sudden recollection flashed into my mind. "don't you remember the report of the astronomers more than six months ago, at the end of the conference in washington, that something would seem to indicate the departure of a new expedition from mars had been noticed by them? we have heard nothing of that expedition since. we know that it did not reach the earth. it must have fallen foul of this asteroid, run upon this rock in the ocean of space and been wrecked here." "we've got 'em, then," shouted our electric steersman, who had been a workman in mr. edison's laboratory and had unlimited confidence in his chief. preparing to land. the electrical ships were immediately instructed by signal to slow down, an operation that was easily affected through the electrical repulsion of the asteroid. the nearer we got the more terrifying was the appearance of the gigantic creatures who were riding upon the little world before us like castaway sailors upon a block of ice. like men, and yet not like men, combining the human and the beast in their appearance, it required a steady nerve to look at them. if we had not known their malignity and their power to work evil, it would have been different, but in our eyes their moral character shone through their physical aspect and thus rendered them more terrible than they would otherwise have been. the martians recognize us. when we first saw them their appearance was most forlorn, and their attitudes indicated only despair and desperation, but as they caught sight of us their malign power of intellect instantly penetrated the mystery, and they recognized us for what we were. their despair immediately gave place to reawakened malevolence. on the instant they were astir, with such heart-chilling movements as those that characterize a venomous serpent preparing to strike. not imagining that they would be in a position to make serious resistance, we had been somewhat incautious in approaching. the awful heat ray. suddenly there was a quicker movement than usual among the martians, a swift adjustment of that one of their engines of war which, as already noticed, seemed to be practically uninjured, and then there darted from it and alighted upon one of the foremost ships a dazzling lightning stroke a mile in length, at whose touch the metallic sides of the car curled and withered and, licked for a moment by what seemed lambent flames, collapsed into a mere cinder. another ship destroyed. the death-dealing martians strike a fearful blow at the earth's warriors. for an instant not a word was spoken, so sudden and unexpected was the blow. we knew that every soul in the stricken car had perished. "back! back!" was the signal instantaneously flashed from the flagship, and reversing their polarities the members of the squadron sprang away from the little planet as rapidly as the electrical impulse could drive them. but before we were out of reach a second flaming tongue of death shot from the fearful engine, and another of our ships, with all its crew, was destroyed. a discouraging beginning. it was an inauspicious beginning for us. two of our electrical ships, with their entire crews, had been wiped out of existence, and this appalling blow had been dealt by a few stranded and disabled enemies floating on an asteroid. what hope would there be for us when we came to encounter the millions of mars itself on their own ground and prepared for war? however, it would not do to despond. we had been incautious, and we should take good care not to commit the same fault again. vengeance the first thing! the first thing to do was to avenge the death of our comrades. the question whether we were able to meet these martians and overcome them might as well be settled right here and now. they had proved what they could do, even when disabled and at a disadvantage. now it was our turn. chapter vii. the squadron had been rapidly withdrawn to a very considerable distance from the asteroid. the range of the mysterious artillery employed by the martians was unknown to us. we did not even know the limit of the effective range of our own disintegrators. if it should prove that the martians were able to deal their strokes at a distance greater than any we could reach, then they would of course have an insuperable advantage. on the other hand, if it should turn out that our range was greater than theirs, the advantage would be on our side. or--which was perhaps most probable--there might be practically no difference in the effective range of the engines. anyhow, we were going to find out how the case stood, and that without delay. ready with the disintegrator. everything being in readiness, the disintegrators all in working order, and the men who were able to handle them, most of whom were experienced marksmen, chosen from among the officers of the regular army of the united states, and accustomed to the straight shooting and the sure hits of the west, standing at their posts, the squadron again advanced. in order to distract the attention of the martians, the electrical ships had been distributed over a wide space. some dropped straight down toward the asteroid; others approached it by flank attack, from this side and that. the flagship moved straight in toward the point where the first disaster occurred. its intrepid commander felt that his post should be that of the greatest danger, and where the severest blows would be given and received. a strategic advance. the approach of the ships was made with great caution. watching the martians with our telescopes we could clearly see that they were disconcerted by the scattered order of our attack. even if all of their engines of war had been in proper condition for use it would have been impossible for them to meet the simultaneous assault of so many enemies dropping down upon them from the sky. but they were made of fighting metal, as we knew from old experience. it was no question of surrender. they did not know how to surrender, and we did not know how to demand a surrender. besides, the destruction of the two electrical ships with the forty men, many of whom bore names widely known upon the earth, had excited a kind of fury among the members of the squadron which called for vengeance. another attack. suddenly a repetition of the quick movement by the martians, which had been the forerunner of the former coup, was observed; again a blinding flash burst from their war engine and instantaneously a shiver ran through the frame of the flagship; the air within quivered with strange pulsations and seemed suddenly to have assumed the temperature of a blast furnace. we all gasped for breath. our throats and lungs seemed scorched in the act of breathing. some fell unconscious upon the floor. the marksmen, carrying the disintegrators ready for use, staggered, and one of them dropped his instrument. but we had not been destroyed like our comrades before us. in a moment the wave of heat passed; those who had fallen recovered from their momentary stupor and staggered to their feet. the electrical steersman stood hesitating at his post. "move on," said mr. edison sternly, his features set with determination and his eyes afire. "we are still beyond their effective range. let us get closer in order to make sure work when we strike." the ship moved on. one could hear the heartbeats of its inmates. the other members of the squadron, thinking for the moment that disaster had overtaken the flagship, had paused and seemed to be meditating flight. "signal them to move on," said mr. edison. the battle commences. the signal was given, and the circle of electrical ships closed in upon the asteroid. in the meantime mr. edison had been donning his air-tight suit. before we could clearly comprehend his intention he had passed through the double-trapped door which gave access to the exterior of the car without permitting the loss of air, and was standing upon what served as the deck of the ship. in his hand he carried a disintegrator. with a quick motion he sighted it. as quickly as possible i sprang to his side. i was just in time to note the familiar blue gleam about the instrument, which indicated that its terrific energies were at work. the whirring sound was absent, because here, in open space, where there was no atmosphere, there could be no sound. the disintegrator's power. my eyes were fixed upon the martians' engine, which had just dealt us a staggering, but not fatal, blow, and particularly i noticed a polished knob projecting from it, which seemed to have been the focus from which its destructive bolt emanated. a moment later the knob disappeared. the irresistible vibrations darted from the electrical disintegrator and had fallen upon it and instantaneously shattered it into atoms. "that fixes them," said mr. edison, turning to me with a smile. and indeed it did fix them. we had most effectually spiked their gun. it would deal no more death blows. the doings of the flagship had been closely watched throughout the squadron. the effect of its blow had been evident to all, and a moment later we saw, on some of the nearer ships, men dressed in their air suits, appearing upon the deck, swinging their arms and sending forth noiseless cheers into empty space. a telling stroke. the stroke that we had dealt was taken by several of the electrical ships as a signal for a common assault, and we saw two of the martians fall beside the ruin of their engine, their heads having been blown from their bodies. "signal them to stop firing," commanded mr. edison. "we have got them down, and we are not going to murder them without necessity." "besides," he added, "i want to capture some of them alive." the signal was given as he had ordered. the flagship then alone dropped slowly toward the place on the asteroid where the prostrate martians were. a terrible scene. as we got near them a terrible scene unfolded itself to our eyes. there had evidently been not more than half a dozen of the monsters in the beginning. two of these were stretched headless upon the ground. three others had suffered horrible injuries where the invisible vibratory beams from the disintegrators had grazed them, and they could not long survive. one only remained apparently uninjured. the gigantic martian. it is impossible for me to describe the appearance of this creature in terms that would be readily understood. was he like a man? yes and no. he possessed many human characteristics, but they were exaggerated and monstrous in scale and in detail. his head was of enormous size, and his huge projecting eyes gleamed with a strange fire of intelligence. his face was like a caricature, but not one to make the beholder laugh. drawing himself up, he towered to a height of at least fifteen feet. but let the reader not suppose from this inadequate description that the martians stirred in the beholder precisely the sensation that would be caused by the sight of a gorilla, or other repulsive inhabitant of one of our terrestrial jungles, suddenly confronting him in its native wilds. with all his horrible characteristics, and all his suggestions of beast and monster, nevertheless the martian produced the impression of being a person and not a mere animal. his frightened aspect. i have already referred to the enormous size of his head, and to the fact that his countenance bore considerable resemblance to that of a man. there was something in this face that sent a shiver through the soul of the beholder. one could feel in looking upon it that here was intellect, intelligence developed to the highest degree, but in the direction of evil instead of good. the sensations of one who had stood face to face with satan, when he was driven from the battlements of heaven by the swords of his fellow archangels, and had beheld him transformed from lucifer, the son of the morning, into the prince of night and hell, might not have been unlike those which we now experienced as we gazed upon this dreadful personage, who seemed to combine the intellectual powers of a man, raised to their highest pitch, with some of the physical features of a beast, and all the moral depravity of a fiend. the martian's rage. the appearance of the martian was indeed so threatening and repellent that we paused at the height of fifty feet above the ground, hesitating to approach nearer. a grin of rage and hate overspread his face. if he had been a man i should say he shook his fist at us. what he did was to express in even more telling pantomime his hatred and defiance, and his determination to grind us to shreds if he could once get us within his clutches. mr. edison and i still stood upon the deck of the ship, where several others had gathered around us. the atmosphere of the little asteroid was so rare that it practically amounted to nothing, and we could not possibly have survived if we had not continued to wear our air-tight suits. how the martians contrived to live here was a mystery to us. it was another of their secrets which we were yet to learn. mr. edison retained his disintegrator in his hand. "kill him," said someone. "he is too horrible to live." "if we do not kill him we shall never be able to land upon the asteroid," said another. shall we kill him? "no," said mr. edison, "i shall not kill him. we have got another use for him. tom," he continued, turning to one of his assistants, whom he had brought from his laboratory, "bring me the anaesthetizer." this was something entirely new to nearly all the members of the expedition. mr. edison, however, had confided to me before we left the earth the fact that he had invented a little instrument by means of which a bubble, strongly charged with a powerful anaesthetic agent, could be driven to a considerable distance into the face of an enemy, where, exploding without other damage, it would instantly put him to sleep. when tom had placed the instrument in his hands mr. edison ordered the electrical ship to forge slightly ahead and drop a little lower toward the martian, who, with watchful eyes and threatening gestures, noted our approach in the attitude of a wild beast on the spring. suddenly mr. edison discharged from the instrument in his hand a little gaseous globe, which glittered like a ball of tangled rainbows in the sunshine, and darted with astonishing velocity straight into the upturned face of the martian. it burst as it touched and the monster fell back senseless upon the ground. one of the bellicose martians falls into the hands of the worldians. "you have killed him!" exclaimed all. "no," said mr. edison, "he is not dead, only asleep. now we shall drop down and bind him tight before he can awake." when we came to bind our prisoner with strong ropes we were more than ever impressed with his gigantic stature and strength. evidently in single combat with equal weapons he would have been a match for twenty of us. all that i had read of giants had failed to produce upon my mind the impression of enormous size and tremendous physical energy which the sleeping body of this immense martian produced. he had fallen on his back, and was in a most profound slumber. all his features were relaxed, and yet even in that condition there was a devilishness about him that made the beholders instinctively shudder. the unconscious martian. so powerful was the effect of the anaesthetic which mr. edison had discharged into his face that he remained perfectly unconscious while we turned him half over in order the more securely to bind his muscular limbs. in the meantime the other electrical ships approached, and several of them made a landing upon the asteroid. everybody was eager to see this wonderful little world, which, as i have already remarked, was only five miles in diameter. exploring the planet. several of us from the flagship started out hastily to explore the miniature planet. and now our attention was recalled to an intensely interesting phenomenon which had engaged our thoughts not only when we were upon the moon, but during our flight through space. this was the almost entire absence of weight. on the moon, where the force of gravitation is one-sixth as great as upon the earth, we had found ourselves astonishingly light. five-sixths of our own weight, and of the weight of the air-tight suits in which we were incased, had magically dropped from us. it was therefore comparatively easy for us, encumbered as we were, to make our way about on the moon. but when we were far from both the earth and the moon, the loss of weight was more astonishing still--not astonishing because we had not known that it would be so, but nevertheless a surprising phenomenon in contrast with our lifelong experience on the earth. men without weight. in open space we were practically without weight. only the mass of the electrical car in which we were enclosed attracted us, and inside that we could place ourselves in any position without falling. we could float in the air. there were no up and no down, no top and no bottom for us. stepping outside the car, it would have been easy for us to spring away from it and leave it forever. one of the most startling experiences that i have ever had was one day when we were navigating space about half way between the earth and mars. i had stepped outside the car with lord kelvin, both of us, of course, wearing our air-tight suits. we were perfectly well aware what would be the consequence of detaching ourselves from the car as we moved along. we should still retain the forward motion of the car, and of course accompany it in its flight. there would be no falling one way or the other. the car would have a tendency to draw us back again by its attraction, but this tendency would be very slight, and practically inappreciable at a distance. stepping into space. "i am going to step off," i suddenly said to lord kelvin. "of course i shall keep right along with the car, and step aboard again when i am ready." "quite right on general principles, young man," replied the great savant, "but beware in what manner you step off. remember, if you give your body an impulse sufficient to carry it away from the car to any considerable distance, you will be unable to get back again, unless we can catch you with a boathook or a fishline. out there in empty space you will have nothing to kick against, and you will be unable to propel yourself in the direction of the car, and its attraction is so feeble that we should probably arrive at mars before it had drawn you back again." all this was, of course, perfectly self-evident, yet i believe that but for the warning word of lord kelvin, i should have been rash enough to step out into empty space with sufficient force to have separated myself hopelessly from the electrical ship. a reckless experiment. as it was, i took good care to retain a hold upon a projecting portion of the car. occasionally cautiously releasing my grip, i experienced for a few minutes the delicious, indescribable pleasure of being a little planet swinging through space, with nothing to hold me up and nothing to interfere with my motion. mr. edison, happening to come upon the deck of the ship at this time, and seeing what we were about, at once said: "i must provide against this danger. if i do not, there is a chance that we shall arrive at mars with the ships half empty and the crews floating helplessly around us." edison always prepared. mr. edison's way of guarding against the danger was by contriving a little apparatus, modeled after that which was the governing force of the electrical ships themselves, and which, being enclosed in the air-tight suits, enabled their wearers to manipulate the electrical charge upon them in such a way that they could make excursions from the cars into open space like steam launches from a ship, going and returning at their will. these little machines being rapidly manufactured, for mr. edison had a miniature laboratory aboard, were distributed about the squadron, and henceforth we had the pleasure of paying and receiving visits among the various members of the fleet. but to return from this digression to our experience of the asteroid. the latter being a body of some mass was, of course, able to impart to us a measurable degree of weight. being five miles in diameter, on the assumption that its mean density was the same as that of the earth, the weight of bodies on its surface should have borne the same ratio to their weight upon the earth that the radius of the asteroid bore to the radius of the earth; in other words, as to , . having made this mental calculation, i knew that my weight, being pounds on the earth, should on this asteroid be an ounce and a half. curious to see whether fact would bear out theory, i had myself weighed with a spring balance. mr. edison, lord kelvin and the other distinguished scientists stood by watching the operation with great interest. to our complete surprise, my weight, instead of coming out an ounce and a half, as it should have done, on the supposition that the mean density of the asteroid resembled that of the earth--a very liberal supposition on the side of the asteroid, by the way--actually came out five ounces and a quarter! "what in the world makes me so heavy?" i asked. "yes, indeed, what an elephant you have become," said mr. edison. lord kelvin screwed his eyeglass in his eye, and carefully inspected the balance. weight, five and a quarter ounces. "it's quite right," he said. "you do indeed weigh five ounces and a quarter. too much; altogether too much," he added. "you shouldn't do it, you know." "perhaps the fault is in the asteroid," suggested professor sylvanus p. thompson. "quite so," exclaimed lord kelvin, a look of sudden comprehension overspreading his features. "no doubt it is the internal constitution of the asteroid which is the cause of the anomaly. we must look into that. let me see? this gentleman's weight is three and one-half times as great as it ought to be. what element is there whose density exceeds the mean density of the earth in about that proportion?" "gold," exclaimed one of the party. the golden asteroid! for a moment we were startled beyond expression. the truth had flashed upon us. this must be a golden planet--this little asteroid. if it were not composed internally of gold it could never have made me weigh three times more than i ought to weigh. "but where is the gold?" cried one. "covered up, of course," said lord kelvin. "buried in star dust. this asteroid could not have continued to travel for millions of years through regions of space strewn with meteoric particles without becoming covered with the inevitable dust and grime of such a journey. we must dig down, and then doubtless we shall find the metal." this hint was instantly acted upon. something that would serve for a spade was seized by one of the men, and in a few minutes a hole had been dug in the comparatively light soil of the asteroid. the precious metal discovered. i shall never forget the sight, nor the exclamations of wonder that broke forth from all of us standing around, when the yellow gleam of the precious metal appeared under the "star dust." collected in huge masses it reflected the light of the sun from its hiding place. evidently the planet was not a solid ball of gold, formed like a bullet run in a mould, but was composed of nuggets of various sizes, which had come together here under the influence of their mutual gravitation, and formed a little metallic planet. judging by the test of weight which we had already tried, and which had led to the discovery of the gold, the composition of the asteroid must be the same to its very centre. an incredible phenomenon. in an assemblage of famous scientific men such as this the discovery of course immediately led to questions as to the origin of this incredible phenomenon. how did these masses of gold come together? how did it chance that, with the exception of the thin crust of the asteroid, nearly all its substance was composed of the precious metal? one asserted that it was quite impossible that there should be so much gold at so great a distance from the sun. "it is the general law," he said, "that the planets increase in density toward the sun. there is every reason to think that the inner planets possess the greater amount of dense elements, while the outer ones are comparatively light." whence came the treasure? but another referred to the old theory that there was once in this part of the solar system a planet which had been burst in pieces by some mysterious explosion, the fragments forming what we know as the asteroids. in his opinion, this planet might have contained a large quantity of gold, and in the course of ages the gold, having, in consequence of its superior atomic weight, not being so widely scattered by the explosion as some of the other elements of the planet, had collected itself together in this body. but i observed that lord kelvin and the other more distinguished men of science said nothing during this discussion. the truly learned man is the truly wise man. they were not going to set up theories without sufficient facts to sustain them. the one fact that the gold was here was all they had at present. until they could learn more they were not prepared to theorize as to how the gold got there. and in truth, it must be confessed, the greater number of us really cared less for the explanation of the wonderful fact than we did for the fact itself. gold is a thing which may make its appearance anywhere and at any time without offering any excuses or explanations. visions of mighty fortunes. "phew! won't we be rich?" exclaimed a voice. "how are we going to dig it and get it back to earth?" asked another. "carry it in your pockets," said one. "no need of staking claims here," remarked another. "there is enough for everybody." mr. edison suddenly turned the current of talk. "what do you suppose those martians were doing here?" "why, they were wrecked here." "not a bit of it," said mr. edison. "according to your own showing they could not have been wrecked here. this planet hasn't gravitation enough to wreck them by a fall, and besides i have been looking at their machines and i know there has been a fight." "a fight?" exclaimed several, pricking up their ears. "yes," said mr. edison; "those machines bear the marks of the lightning of the martians. they have been disabled, but they are made of some metal or some alloy of metals unknown to me, and consequently they have withstood the destructive force applied to them, as our electric ships were unable to withstand it. it is perfectly plain to me that they have been disabled in a battle. the martians must have been fighting among themselves." a martian civil war! "about the gold!" exclaimed one. "of course. what else was there to fight about?" at this instant one of our men came running from a considerable distance, waving his arms excitedly, but unable to give voice to his story, in the inappreciable atmosphere of the asteroid, until he had come up and made telephonic connection with us. "there is a lot of dead martians over there," he said. "they've been cleaning one another out." "that's it," said mr. edison. "i knew it when i saw the condition of those machines." "then this is not a wrecked expedition, directed against the earth?" "not at all." "this must be the great gold mine of mars," said the president of an australian mining company, opening both his eyes and his mouth as he spoke. "yes, evidently that's it. here's where they come to get their wealth." "and this," i said, "must be their harvest time. you notice that this asteroid, being several million miles nearer to the sun than mars is, must have an appreciably shorter period of revolution. when it is in conjunction with mars, or nearly so, as it is at present, the distance between the two is not very great, whereas when it is in the opposite part of its orbit they are separated by an enormous gap of space and the sun is between them." "manifestly in the latter case it would be perilous if not entirely impossible for the martians to visit the golden asteroid, but when it is near mars, as it is at present, and as it must be periodically for several years at a time, then is their opportunity." "with their projectile cars sent forth with the aid of the mysterious explosives which they possess, it is easy for them under such circumstances, to make visits to the asteroid." "having obtained all the gold they need, or all that they can carry, a comparatively slight impulse given to their car, the direction of which is carefully calculated, will carry them back again to mars." "if that's so," exclaimed a voice, "we had better look out for ourselves! we have got into a very hornet's nest! if this is the place where the martians come to dig gold, and if this is the height of their season, as you say, they are not likely to leave us here long undisturbed." "these fellows must have been pirates that they had the fight with," said another. "but what's become of the regulars, then?" "gone back to mars for help, probably, and they'll be here again pretty quick, i am afraid!" considerable alarm was caused by this view of the case, and orders were sent to several of the electrical ships to cruise out to a safe distance in the direction of mars and keep a sharp outlook for the approach of enemies. discovery that the asteroid is a solid mass of gold. meanwhile our prisoner awoke. he turned his eyes upon those standing about him, without any appearance of fear, but rather with a look of contempt, like that which gulliver must have felt for the lilliputians who had bound him under similar circumstances. there were both hatred and defiance in his glance. he attempted to free himself, and the ropes strained with the tremendous pressure that he put upon them, but he could not break loose. the martian safely bound. satisfied that the martian was safely bound, we left him where he lay, and, while awaiting news from the ships which had been sent to reconnoitre, continued the exploration of the little planet. at a point nearly opposite to that where we had landed we came upon the mine which the martians had been working. they had removed the thin coating of soil, laying bare the rich stores of gold beneath, and large quantities of the latter had been removed. some of it was so solidly packed that the strokes of the instruments by means of which they had detached it were visible like the streaks left by a knife cutting cheese. reason for astonishment. the more we saw of this golden planet the greater became our astonishment. what the martians had removed was a mere nothing in comparison with the entire bulk of the asteroid. had the celestial mine been easier to reach, perhaps they would have removed more, or, possibly, their political economists perfectly understood the necessity of properly controlling the amount of precious metal in circulation. very likely, we thought, the mining operations were under government control in mars and it might be that the majority of the people there knew nothing of this store of wealth floating in the firmament. that would account for the battle with the supposed pirates, who, no doubt, had organized a secret expedition to the asteroid and been caught red-handed at the mine. richer than the klondike. there were many detached masses of gold scattered about, and some of the men, on picking them up, exclaimed with astonishment at their lack of weight, forgetting for the moment that the same law which caused their own bodies to weigh so little must necessarily affect everything else in like degree. a mass of gold that on the earth no man would have been able to lift could here be tossed about like a hollow rubber ball. while we were examining the mine, one of the men left to guard the martian came running to inform us that the latter evidently wished to make some communication. mr. edison and others hurried to the side of the prisoner. he still lay on his back, from which position he was not able to move, notwithstanding all his efforts. but by the motion of his eyes, aided by a pantomime with his fingers, he made us understand that there was something in a metallic box fastened at his side which he wished to reach. the martian's treasure box. with some difficulty we succeeded in opening the box and in it there appeared a number of bright red pellets, as large as an ordinary egg. when the martian saw these in our hands he gave us to understand by the motion of his lips that he wished to swallow one of them. a pellet was accordingly placed in his mouth, and he instantly and with great eagerness swallowed it. the mysterious pellets. while trying to communicate his wishes to us, the prisoner had seemed to be in no little distress. he exhibited spasmodic movements which led some of the bystanders to think that he was on the point of dying, but within a few seconds after he had swallowed the pellet he appeared to be completely restored. all evidences of distress vanished, and a look of content came over his ugly face. "it must be a powerful medicine," said one of the bystanders. "i wonder what it is." "i will explain to you my notion," said professor moissan, the great french chemist. "i think it was a pill of the air, which he has taken." "what do you mean by that?" artificial atmosphere. "my meaning is," said professor moissan, "that the martian must have, for that he may live, the nitrogen and the oxygen. these can he not obtain here, where there is not the atmosphere. therefore must he get them in some other manner. this has he managed to do by combining in these pills the oxygen and the nitrogen in the proportions which make atmospheric air. doubtless upon mars there are the very great chemists. they have discovered how this may be done. when the martian has swallowed his little pill, the oxygen and the nitrogen are rendered to his blood as if he had breathed them, and so he can live with that air which has been distributed to him with the aid of his stomach in the place of his lungs." if monsieur moissan's explanation was not correct, at any rate it seemed the only one that would fit the facts before us. certainly the martian could not breathe where there was practically no air, yet just as certainly after he had swallowed his pill he seemed as comfortable as any of us. signals from a ship. suddenly, while we were gathered around the prisoner, and interested in this fresh evidence of the wonderful ingenuity of the martians, and of their control over the processes of nature, one of the electrical ships that had been sent off in the direction of mars was seen rapidly returning and displaying signals. the martians are coming. it reported that the martians were coming! chapter viii. the alarm was spread instantly among those upon the planet and through the remainder of the fleet. one of the men from the returning electrical ship dropped down upon the asteroid and gave a more detailed account of what they had seen. his ship had been the one which had gone to the greatest distance in the direction of mars. while cruising there, with all eyes intent, they had suddenly perceived a glittering object moving from the direction of the ruddy planet, and manifestly approaching them. a little inspection with the telescope had shown that it was one of the projectile cars used by the martians. our ship had ventured so far from the asteroid that for a moment it seemed doubtful whether it would be able to return in time to give warning, because the electrical influence of the asteroid was comparatively slight at such a distance, and, after they had reversed their polarity, and applied their intensifier, so as to make that influence effective, their motion was at first exceedingly slow. fortunately after a time they got under way with sufficient velocity to bring them back to us before the approaching martians could overtake them. the latter were not moving with great velocity, having evidently projected themselves from mars with only just sufficient force to throw them within the feeble sphere of gravitation of the asteroid, so that they should very gently land upon its surface. indeed, looking out behind the electrical ship which had brought us the warning, we immediately saw the projectile of the martians approaching. it sparkled like a star in the black sky as the sunlight fell upon it. ready for the enemy. the ships of the squadron whose crews had not landed upon the planet were signalled to prepare for action, while those who were upon the asteroid made ready for battle there. a number of disintegrators were trained upon the approaching martians, but mr. edison gave strict orders that no attempt should be made to discharge the vibratory force at random. "they do not know that we are here," he said, "and i am convinced that they are unable to control their motions as we can do with our electrical ships. they depend simply upon the force of gravitation. having passed the limit of the attraction of mars, they have now fallen within the attraction of the asteroid, and they must slowly sink to its surface." the martians cannot stop. "having, as i am convinced, no means of producing or controlling electrical attraction and repulsion, they cannot stop themselves, but must come down upon the asteroid. having got here they could never get away again, except as we know the survivors got away from earth, by propelling their projectile against gravitation with the aid of an explosive." "therefore, to a certain extent they will be at our mercy. let us allow them quietly to land upon the planet, and then i think, if it becomes necessary, we can master them." notwithstanding mr. edison's reassuring words and manner, the company upon the asteroid experienced a dreadful suspense while the projectile which seemed very formidable as it drew near, sank with a slow and graceful motion toward the surface of the ground. evidently it was about to land very near the spot where we stood awaiting it. its inmates had apparently just caught sight of us. they evinced signs of astonishment, and seemed at a loss exactly what to do. we could see projecting from the fore part of their car at least two of the polished knobs, whose fearful use and power we well comprehended. several of our men cried out to mr. edison in an extremity of terror: "why do you not destroy them? be quick, or we shall all perish." "no," said mr. edison, "there is no danger. you can see that they are not prepared. they will not attempt to attack us until they have made their landing." the martians land. and mr. edison was right. with gradually accelerated velocity, and yet very, very slowly in comparison with the speed they would have exhibited in falling upon such a planet as the earth, the martians and their car came down to the ground. we stood at a distance of perhaps three hundred feet from the point where they touched the asteroid. instantly a dozen of the giants sprang from the car and gazed about for a moment with a look of intense surprise. at first it was doubtful whether they meant to attack us at all. we stood on our guard, several carrying disintegrators in our hands, while a score more of these terrible engines were turned upon the martians from the electrical ships which hovered near. a speech from their leader. suddenly he who seemed to be the leader of the martians began to speak to them in pantomime, using his fingers after the manner in which they are used for conversation by deaf and dumb people. of course, we did not know what he was saying, but his meaning became perfectly evident a minute later. clearly they did not comprehend the powers of the insignificant-looking strangers with whom they had to deal. instead of turning their destructive engines upon us, they advanced on a run, with the evident purpose of making us prisoners or crushing us by main force. awed by the disintegrator. the soft whirr of the disintegrator in the hands of mr. edison standing near me came to my ears through the telephonic wire. he quickly swept the concentrating mirror a little up and down, and instantly the foremost martian vanished! part of some metallic dress that he wore fell upon the ground where he had stood, its vibratory rate not having been included in the range imparted to the disintegrator. his followers paused for a moment, amazed, stared about as if looking for their leader, and then hurried back to their projectile and disappeared within it. "now we've got business on our hands," said mr. edison. "look out for yourselves." as he spoke, i saw the death-dealing knob of the war engine contained in the car of the martians moving around toward us. in another instant it would have launched its destroying bolt. before that could occur, however, it had been dissipated into space by a vibratory stream from a disintegrator. but we were not to get the victory quite so easily. there was another of the war engines in the car, and before we could concentrate our fire upon it, its awful flash shot forth, and a dozen of our comrades perished before our eyes. "quick! quick!" shouted mr. edison to one of his electrical experts standing near. "there is something the matter with this disintegrator, and i cannot make it work. aim at the knob, and don't miss it." martians and terrestrians fight a terrible battle. but the aim was not well taken, and the vibratory force fell upon a portion of the car at a considerable distance from the knob, making a great breach, but leaving the engine uninjured. a section of the side of the car had been destroyed, and the vibratory energy had spread no further. to have attempted to sweep the car from end to end would have been futile, because the period of action of the disintegrators during each discharge did not exceed one second, and distributing the energy over so great a space would have seriously weakened its power to shatter apart the atoms of the resisting substance. the disintegrators were like firearms, in that after each discharge they must be readjusted before they could be used again. the martians are desperate. through the breach we saw the martians inside making desperate efforts to train their engine upon us, for after their first disastrous stroke we had rapidly shifted our position. swiftly the polished knob, which gleamed like an evil eye, moved round to sweep over us. instinctively, though incautiously, we had collected in a group. a single discharge would sweep us all into eternity. a ticklish position. "will no one fire upon them?" exclaimed mr. edison, struggling with the disintegrator in his hands, which still refused to work. at this fearful moment i glanced around upon our company, and was astonished at the spectacle. in the presence of the danger many of them had lost all self-command. a half dozen had dropped their disintegrators upon the ground. others stood as if frozen fast in their tracks. the expert electrician, whose poor aim had had such disastrous results, held in his hand an instrument which was in perfect condition, yet with mouth agape, he stood trembling like a captured bird. the electricians lose their heads. it was a disgraceful exhibition. mr. edison, however, had not lost his head. again and again he sighted at the dreadful knob with his disintegrator, but the vibratory force refused to respond. the means of safety were in our hands, and yet through a combination of ill luck and paralyzing terror we seemed unable to use them. in a second more it would be all over with us. the suspense in reality lasted only during the twinkling of an eye, though it seemed ages long. unable to endure it, i sharply struck the shoulder of the paralyzed electrician. to have attempted to seize the disintegrator from his hands would have been a fatal waste of time. luckily the blow either roused him from his stupor or caused an instinctive movement of his hand that set the little engine in operation. i am sure he took no aim, but providentially the vibratory force fell upon the desired point, and the knob disappeared. saved! we were saved! instantly half a dozen rushed toward the car of the martians. we bitterly repented their haste; they did not live to repent. unknown to us the martians carried hand engines, capable of launching bolts of death of the same character as those which emanated from the knobs of their larger machines. with these they fired, so to speak, through the breach in their car, and four of our men who were rushing upon them fell in heaps of cinders. the effect of the terrible fire was like that which the most powerful strokes of lightning occasionally produce on earth. the destruction of the threatening knob had instantaneously relieved the pressure upon the terror-stricken nerves of our company, and they had all regained their composure and self-command. but this new and unexpected disaster, following so close upon the fear which had recently overpowered them, produced a second panic, the effect of which was not to stiffen them in their tracks as before, but to send them scurrying in every direction in search of hiding places. a curious effect. and now a most curious effect of the smallness of the planet we were on began to play a conspicuous part in our adventures. standing on a globe only five miles in diameter was like being on the summit of a mountain whose sides sloped rapidly off in every direction, disappearing in the black sky on all sides, as if it were some stupendous peak rising out of an unfathomable abyss. in consequence of the quick rounding off of the sides of this globe, the line of the horizon was close at hand, and by running a distance of less than yards the fugitives disappeared down the sides of the asteroid, and behind the horizon, even from the elevation of about fifteen feet from which the martians were able to watch them. from our sight they disappeared much sooner. the slight attraction of the planet and their consequent almost entire lack of weight enabled the men to run with immense speed. the result, as i subsequently learned, was that after they had disappeared from our view they quitted the planet entirely, the force being sufficient to partially free them from its gravitation, so that they sailed out into space, whirling helplessly end over end, until the elliptical orbits in which they travelled eventually brought them back again to the planet on the side nearly opposite to that from which they had departed. hunting for the enemy. but several of us, with mr. edison, stood fast, watching for an opportunity to get the martians within range of the disintegrators. luckily we were enabled, by shifting our position a little to the left, to get out of the line of sight of our enemies concealed in the car. "if we cannot catch sight of them," said mr. edison, "we shall have to riddle the car on the chance of hitting them." "it will be like firing into a bush to kill a hidden bear," said one of the party. but help came from a quarter which was unexpected to us, although it should not have been so. several of the electric ships had been hovering above us during the fight, their commanders being apparently uncertain how to act--fearful, perhaps, of injuring us in the attempt to smite our enemy. but now the situation apparently lightened for them. they saw that we were at an immense disadvantage, and several of them immediately turned their batteries upon the car of the martians. they riddled it far more quickly and effectively than we could have done. every stroke of the vibratory emanation made a gap in the side of the car, and we could perceive from the commotion within that our enemies were being rapidly massacred in their fortification. so overwhelming was the force and the advantage of the ships that in a little while it was all over. mr. edison signalled them to stop firing because it was plain that all resistance had ceased and probably not one of the martians remained alive. we now approached the car, which had been transpierced in every direction, and whose remaining portions were glowing with heat in consequence of the spreading of the atomic vibrations. immediately we discovered that all our anticipations were correct and that all of our enemies had perished. the effect of the disintegrators upon them had been awful--too repulsive, indeed, to be described in detail. some of the bodies had evidently entirely vanished; only certain metal articles which they had worn remaining, as in the case of the first martian killed, to indicate that such beings had ever existed. the nature of the metal composing these articles was unknown to us. evidently its vibratory rhythm did not correspond with any included in the ordinary range of the disintegrators. the disintegrators' awful effect. some of the giants had been only partially destroyed, the vibratory current having grazed them, in such a manner that the shattering undulations had not acted upon the entire body. one thing that lends a peculiar horror to a terrestrial battlefield was absent; there was no bloodshed. the vibratory energy, not only completely destroyed whatever it fell upon but it seared the veins and arteries of the dismembered bodies so that there was no sanguinary exhibition connected with its murderous work. all this time the shackled martian had lain on his back where we had left him bound. what his feeling must have been may be imagined. at times, i caught a glimpse of his eyes, wildly rolling and exhibiting, when he saw that the victory was in our hands, the first indications of fear and terror shaking his soul that had yet appeared. "that fellow is afraid at last," i said to mr. edison. "well, i should think he ought to be afraid," was the reply. "so he ought, but if i am not mistaken this fear of his may be the beginning of a new discovery for us." "how so?" asked mr. edison. "in this way. when once he fears our power, and perceives that there would be no hope of contending against us, even if he were at liberty, he will respect us. this change in his mental attitude may tend to make him communicative. i do not see why we should despair of learning his language from him, and having done that, he will serve as our guide and interpreter, and will be of incalculable advantage to us when we have arrived at mars." "capital! capital!" said mr. edison. "we must concentrate the linguistic genius of our company upon that problem at once." the deserter's return. in the meantime some of the skulkers whose flight i have referred to began to return, chapfallen, but rejoicing in the disappearance of the danger. several of them, i am ashamed to say, had been army officers. yet possibly some excuse could be made for the terror by which they had been overcome. no man has a right to hold his fellow beings to account for the line of conduct they may pursue under circumstances which are not only entirely unexampled in their experience, but almost beyond the power of the imagination to picture. paralyzing terror had evidently seized them with the sudden comprehension of the unprecedented singularity of their situation. millions of miles away from the earth, confronted on an asteroid by these diabolical monsters from a maleficient planet, who were on the point of destroying them with a strange torment of death--perhaps it was really more than human nature, deprived of the support of human surroundings, could have been expected to bear. those who, as already described, had run with so great a speed that they were projected, all unwilling, into space, rising in elliptical orbits from the surface of the planet, describing great curves in what might be denominated its sky, and then coming back again to the little globe on another side, were so filled with the wonders of their remarkable adventure that they had almost forgotten the terror which had inspired it. there was nothing surprising in what had occurred to them the moment one considered the laws of gravitation on the asteroid, but their stories aroused an intense interest among all who listened to them. lord kelvin was particularly interested, and while mr. edison was hastening preparations to quit the asteroid and resume our voyage to mars, lord kelvin and a number of other scientific men instituted a series of remarkable experiments. jumping into empty space. it was one of the most laughable things imaginable to see lord kelvin, dressed in his air-tight suit, making tremendous jumps into empty space. it reminded me forcibly of what lord kelvin, then plain william thompson, and professor blackburn had done when spending a summer vacation at the seaside, while they were undergraduates of cambridge university. they had spent all their time, to the surprise of onlookers, in spinning rounded stones on the beach, their object being to obtain a practical solution of the mathematical problem of "precession." immediately lord kelvin was imitated by a dozen others. with what seemed very slight effort they projected themselves straight upward, rising to a height of four hundred feet or more, and then slowly settling back again to the surface of the asteroid. the time of rise and fall combined was between three and four minutes. on this little planet the acceleration of gravity or the velocity acquired by a falling body in one second was only four-fifths of an inch. a body required an entire minute to fall a distance of only feet. consequently, it was more like gradually settling than falling. the figures of these men of science, rising and sinking in this manner, appeared like so many gigantic marionettes bobbing up and down in a pneumatic bottle. "let us try that," said mr. edison, very much interested in the experiments. a delightful experience. both of us jumped together. at first, with great swiftness, but gradually losing speed, we rose to an immense height straight from the ground. when we had reached the utmost limit of our flight we seemed to come to rest for a moment, and then began slowly, but with accelerated velocity, to sink back again to the planet. it was not only a peculiar but a delicious sensation, and but for strict orders which were issued that the electrical ships should be immediately prepared for departure, our entire company might have remained for an indefinite period enjoying this new kind of athletic exercise in a world where gravitation had become so humble that it could be trifled with. while the final preparations for departure were being made, lord kelvin instituted other experiments that were no less unique in their results. the experience of those who had taken unpremeditated flights in elliptical orbits when they had run from the vicinity of the martians suggested the throwing of solid objects in various directions from the surface of the planet in order to determine the distance that they would go and the curves they would describe in returning. mars, the death-dealing planet, at length at hand! for these experiments there was nothing more convenient or abundant than chunks of gold from the martians' mine. these, accordingly, were hurled in various directions, and with every degree of velocity. a little calculation had shown that an initial velocity of thirty feet per second imparted to one of these chunks, moving at right angles to the radius of the asteroid, would, if the resistance of an almost inappreciable atmosphere were neglected, suffice to turn the piece of gold into a little satellite that would describe an orbit around the asteroid, and continue to do so forever, or at least until the slight atmospheric resistance should eventually bring it down to the surface. but a less velocity than thirty feet per second would cause the golden missile to fly only part way around, while a greater velocity would give it an elliptical instead of a circular orbit, and in this ellipse it would continue to revolve around the asteroid in the character of a satellite. if the direction of the original impulse were at more than a right angle to the radius of the asteroid, then the flying body would pass out to a greater or less distance in space in an elliptical orbit, eventually coming back again and falling upon the asteroid, but not at the same spot from which it had departed. interesting experiments. so many took part in these singular experiments, which assumed rather the appearance of outdoor sports than of scientific demonstrations, that in a short time we had provided the asteroid with a very large number of little moons, or satellites, of gold, which revolved around it in orbits of various degrees of ellipticity, taking, on the average, about three-quarters of an hour to complete a circuit. since, on completing a revolution, they must necessarily pass through the point from which they started, they kept us constantly on the qui vive to avoid being knocked over by them as they swept around in their orbits. finally the signal was given for all to embark, and with great regret the savants quitted their scientific games and prepared to return to the electric ships. just on the moment of departure, the fact was announced by one, who had been making a little calculation on a bit of paper, that the velocity with which a body must be thrown in order to escape forever the attraction of the asteroid, and to pass on to an infinite distance in any direction, was only about forty-two feet in a second. manifestly it would be quite easy to impart such a speed as that to the chunks of gold that we held in our hands. a message to the earth. "hurrah!" exclaimed one. "let's send some of this back to the earth." "where is the earth?" asked another. being appealed to, several astronomers turned their eyes in the direction of the sun, where the black firmament was ablaze with stars, and in a moment recognized the earth-star shining there, with the moon attending close at hand. "there," said one, "is the earth. can you throw straight enough to hit it?" "we'll try," was the reply, and immediately several threw huge golden nuggets in the direction of our far-away world, endeavoring to impart to them at least the required velocity of forty-two feet in a second, which would insure their passing beyond the attraction of the asteroid, and if there should be no disturbance on the way, and the aim were accurate, their eventual arrival upon the earth. "here's for you, old earth," said one of the throwers, "good luck, and more gold to you!" if these precious missiles ever reached the earth we knew that they would plunge into the atmosphere like meteors and that probably the heat developed by their passage would melt and dissipate them in golden vapors before they could touch the ground. yet, there was a chance that some of them--if the aim were true--might survive the fiery passage through the atmosphere and fall upon the surface of our planet where, perhaps, they would afterward be picked up by a prospector and lead him to believe that he had struck a new bonanza. but until we returned to the earth it would be impossible for us to tell what had become of the golden gifts which we had launched into space for our mother planet. chapter ix. all aboard for mars! "all aboard!" was the signal, and the squadron having assembled under the lead of the flagship, we started again for mars. this time, as it proved, there was to be no further interruption, and when next we paused it was in the presence of the world inhabited by our enemies, and facing their frowning batteries. difficulty in starting. we did not find it so easy to start from the asteroid as it had been to start from the earth; that is to say, we could not so readily generate a very high velocity. in consequence of the comparatively small size of the asteroid, its electric influence was very much less than that of the earth, and notwithstanding the appliances which we possessed for intensifying the electrical effect, it was not possible to produce a sufficient repulsion to start us off for mars with anything like the impulse which we had received from the earth on our original departure. the utmost velocity that we could generate did not exceed three miles in a second, and to get this required our utmost efforts. in fact, it had not seemed possible that we should attain even so great a speed as that. it was far more than we could have expected, and even mr. edison was surprised, as well as greatly gratified, when he found that we were moving with the velocity that i have named. mars , , miles away. we were still about , , miles from mars, so that, travelling three miles in a second, we should require at least twenty-three days to reach the immediate neighborhood of the planet. meanwhile we had a plenty of occupation to make the time pass quickly. our prisoner was transported along with us, and we now began our attempts to ascertain what his language was, and, if possible, to master it ourselves. before quitting the asteroid we had found that it was necessary for him to swallow one of his "air pills," as prof. moissan called them, at least three times in the course of every twenty-four hours. one of us supplied him regularly and i thought that i could detect evidences of a certain degree of gratitude in his expression. this was encouraging, because it gave additional promise of the possibility of our being able to communicate with him in some more effective way than by mere signs. but once inside the car, where we had a supply of air kept at the ordinary pressure experienced on the earth, he could breathe like the rest of us. learning the martians' language. the best linguists in the expedition, as mr. edison had suggested, were now assembled in the flagship, where the prisoner was, and they set to work to devise some means of ascertaining the manner in which he was accustomed to express his thoughts. we had not heard him speak, because until we carried him into our car there was no atmosphere capable of conveying any sounds he might attempt to utter. it seemed a fair assumption that the language of the martians would be scientific in its structure. we had so much evidence of the practical bent of their minds, and of the immense progress which they had made in the direction of the scientific conquest of nature, that it was not to be supposed their medium of communication with one another would be lacking in clearness, or would possess any of the puzzling and unnecessary ambiguities that characterized the languages spoken on the earth. "we shall not find them making he's and she's of stones, sticks and other inanimate objects," said one of the american linguists. "they must certainly have gotten rid of all that nonsense long ago." "ah," said a french professor from the sorbonne, one of the makers of the never-to-be-finished dictionary. "it will be like the language of my country. transparent, similar to the diamond, and sparkling as is the fountain." the volapuk of mars. "i think," said a german enthusiast, "that it will be a universal language, the volapuk of mars, spoken by all the inhabitants of that planet." "but all these speculations," broke in mr. edison, "do not help you much. why not begin in a practical manner by finding out what the martian calls himself, for instance." this seemed a good suggestion, and accordingly several of the bystanders began an expressive pantomime, intended to indicate to the giant, who was following all their motions with his eyes, that they wished to know by what name he called himself. pointing their fingers to their own breasts they repeated, one after the other, the word "man." if our prisoner had been a stupid savage, of course any such attempt as this to make him understand would have been idle. but it must be remembered that we were dealing with a personage who had presumably inherited from hundreds of generations the results of a civilization, and an intellectual advance, measured by the constant progress of millions of years. accordingly we were not very much astonished, when, after a few repetitions of the experiment, the martian--one of whose arms had been partially released from its bonds in order to give him a little freedom of motion--imitated the action of his interrogators by pressing his finger over his heart. the martian speaks. then, opening his mouth, he gave utterance to a sound which shook the air of the car like the hoarse roar of a lion. he seemed himself surprised by the noise he made, for he had not been used to speak in so dense an atmosphere. our ears were deafened and confused, and we recoiled in astonishment, not to say, half in terror. with an ugly grin distorting his face as if he enjoyed our discomfiture, the martian repeated the motion and the sound. "r-r-r-r-r-r-h!" it was not articulate to our ears, and not to be represented by any combination of letters. "faith," exclaimed a dublin university professor, "if that's what they call themselves, how shall we ever translate their names when we come to write the history of the conquest?" "whist, mon," replied a professor from the university of aberdeen, "let us whip the gillravaging villains first, and then we can describe than by any intitulation that may suit our deesposition." the beginning of our linguistic conquest was certainly not promising, at least if measured by our acquirement of words, but from another point of view it was very gratifying, inasmuch as it was plain that the martian understood what we were trying to do, and was, for the present, at least, disposed to aid us. these efforts to learn the language of mars were renewed and repeated every few hours, all the experience, learning and genius of the squadron being concentrated upon the work, and the result was that in the course of a few days we had actually succeeded in learning a dozen or more of the martian's words and were able to make him understand us when we pronounced them, as well as to understand him when our ears had become accustomed to the growling of his voice. finally, one day the prisoner, who seemed to be in an unusually cheerful frame of mind, indicated that he carried in his breast some object which he wished us to see. the martian's book. with our assistance he pulled out a book! actually, it was a book, not very unlike the books which we have upon the earth, but printed, of course, in characters that were entirely strange and unknown to us. yet these characters evidently gave expression to a highly intellectual language. all those who were standing by at the moment uttered a shout of wonder and of delight, and the cry of "a book! a book!" ran around the circle, and the good news was even promptly communicated to some of the neighboring electric ships of the squadron. several other learned men were summoned in haste from them to examine our new treasure. the martian, whose good nature had manifestly been growing day after day, watched our inspection of his book with evidences of great interest, not unmingled with amusement. finally he beckoned the holder of the book to his side, and placing his broad finger upon one of the huge letters--if letters they were, for they more nearly resembled the characters employed by the chinese printer--he uttered a sound which we, of course, took to be a word, but which was different from any we had yet heard. then he pointed to one after another of us standing around. "ah," explained everybody, the truth being apparent, "that is the word by which the martians designate us. they have a name, then, for the inhabitants of the earth." "or, perhaps, it is rather the name for the earth itself," said one. but this could not, of course, be at once determined. anyhow, the word, whatever its precise meaning might be, had now been added to our vocabulary, although as yet our organs of speech proved unable to reproduce it in a recognizable form. this promising and unexpected discovery of the martian's book lent added enthusiasm to those who were engaged in the work of trying to master the language of our prisoner, and the progress that they made in the course of the next few days was truly astonishing. if the prisoner had been unwilling to aid them, of course, it would have been impossible to proceed, but, fortunately for us, he seemed more and more to enter into the spirit of the undertaking, and actually to enjoy it himself. so bright and quick was his understanding that he was even able to indicate to us methods of mastering his language that would otherwise, probably, never have occurred to our minds. the prisoner teaches. in fact, in a very short time he had turned teacher and all these learned men, pressing around him with eager attention, had become his pupils. i cannot undertake to say precisely how much of the martian language had been acquired by the chief linguists of the expedition before the time when we arrived so near to mars that it became necessary for most of us to abandon our studies in order to make ready for the more serious business which now confronted us. but, at any rate, the acquisition was so considerable as to allow of the interchange of ordinary ideas with our prisoner, and there was no longer any doubt that he would be able to give us much information when we landed on his native planet. at the end of twenty-three days as measured by terrestrial time, since our departure from the asteroid, we arrived in the sky of mars. for a long time the ruddy planet had been growing larger and more formidable, gradually turning from a huge star into a great red moon, and then expanding more and more until it began to shut out from sight the constellations behind it. the curious markings on its surface, which from the earth can only be dimly glimpsed with a powerful telescope, began to reveal themselves clearly to our naked eyes. i have related how even before we had reached the asteroid, mars began to present a most imposing appearance as we saw it with our telescopes. now, however, that it was close at hand, the naked eye view of the planet was more wonderful than anything we had been able to see with telescopes when at a greater distance. mars in sight. we were approaching the southern hemisphere of mars in about latitude degrees south. it was near the time of the vernal equinox in that hemisphere of the planet, and under the stimulating influence of the spring sun, rising higher and higher every day, some such awakening of life and activity upon its surface as occurs on the earth under similar circumstances was evidently going on. around the south pole were spread immense fields of snow and ice, gleaming with great brilliance. cutting deep into the borders of these ice fields, we could see broad channels of open water, indicating the rapid breaking of the grip of the frost. almost directly beneath us was a broad oval region, light red in color, to which terrestrial astronomers had given the name of hellas. toward the south, between hellas and the borders of the polar ice, was a great belt of darkness that astronomers had always been inclined to regard as a sea. looking toward the north, we could perceive the immense red expanses of the continents of mars, with the long curved line of the syrtis major, or "the hour glass sea," sweeping through the midst of them toward the north until it disappeared under the horizon. crossing and recrossing the red continents, in every direction, were the canals of schiaparelli. mars reached at last--thrilling adventures. plentifully sprinkled over the surface we could see brilliant points, some of dazzling brightness, outshining the daylight. there was also an astonishing variety in the colors of the broad expanses beneath us. activity, vivacity and beauty, such as we were utterly unprepared to behold, expressed their presence on all sides. the excitement on the flagship and among the other members of the squadron was immense. it was certainly a thrilling scene. here, right under our feet, lay the world we had come to do battle with. its appearances, while recalling in some of their broader aspects those which it had presented when viewed from our observatories, were far more strange, complex and wonderful than any astronomer had ever dreamed of. suppose all of our anticipations about mars should prove to have been wrong, after all? there could be no longer any question that it was a world which, if not absolutely teeming with inhabitants, like a gigantic ant-hill, at any rate bore on every side the marks of their presence and of their incredible undertakings and achievements. here and there clouds of smoke arose and spread slowly through the atmosphere beneath us. floating higher above the surface of the planet were clouds of vapor, assuming the familiar forms of stratus and cumulus with which we were acquainted upon the earth. dense clouds appear. these clouds, however, seemed upon the whole to be much less dense than those to which we were accustomed at home. they had, too, a peculiar iridescent beauty as if there was something in their composition or their texture which split up the chromatic elements of the sunlight and thus produced internal rainbow effects that caused some of the heavier cloud masses to resemble immense collections of opals, alive with the play of ever-changing colors and magically suspended above the planet. as we continued to study the phenomena that was gradually unfolded beneath us we thought that we could detect in many places evidences of the existence of strong fortifications. the planet of war appeared to be prepared for the attacks of enemies. since, as our own experience had shown, it sometimes waged war with distant planets, it was but natural that it should be found prepared to resist foes who might be disposed to revenge themselves for injuries suffered at its hands. as had been expected, our prisoner now proved to be of very great assistance to us. apparently he took a certain pride in exhibiting to strangers from a distant world the beauties and wonders of his own planet. the martian is understood. we could not understand by any means all that he said, but we could readily comprehend, from his gestures, and from the manner in which his features lighted up at the recognition of familiar scenes and objects, what his sentiments in regard to them were, and, in a general way, what part they played in the life of the planet. he confirmed our opinion that certain of the works which we saw beneath us were fortifications, intended for the protection of the planet against invaders from outer space. a cunning and almost diabolical look came into his eyes as he pointed to one of these strongholds. cause for anxiety. his confidence and his mocking looks were not reassuring to us. he knew what his planet was capable of, and we did not. he had seen, on the asteroid, the extent of our power, and while its display served to intimidate him there, yet now that he and we together were facing the world of his birth, his fear had evidently fallen from him, and he had the manner of one who feels that the shield of an all-powerful protector had been extended over him. but it could not be long now before we should ascertain, by the irrevocable test of actual experience, whether the martians possessed the power to annihilate us or not. how shall i describe our feelings as we gazed at the scene spread beneath us? they were not quite the same as those of the discoverer of new lands upon the earth. this was a whole new world that we had discovered, and it was filled, as we could see, with inhabitants. but that was not all. we had not come with peaceful intentions. we were to make war on this new world. deducting our losses we had not more than men left. with these we were to undertake the conquest of a world containing we could not say how many millions! a hard task ahead. our enemies, instead of being below us in the scale of intelligence were, we had every reason to believe, greatly our superiors. they had proved that they possessed a command over the powers of nature such as we, up to the time when mr. edison made his inventions, had not even dreamed that it was possible for us to obtain. it was true that at present we appeared to have the advantage, both in our electrical ships and in our means of offence. the disintegrator was at least as powerful an engine of destruction as any that the martians had yet shown that they possessed. it did not seem that in that respect they could possibly excel us. during the brief war with the martians upon the earth it had been gunpowder against a mysterious force as much stronger than gunpowder as the latter was superior to the bows and arrows that preceded it. there had been no comparison whatever between the offensive means employed by the two parties in the struggle on the earth. but the genius of one man had suddenly put us on the level of our enemies in regard to fighting capacity. then, too, our electrical ships were far more effective for their purpose than the projectile cars used by the martians. in fact, the principle upon which they were based was, at bottom, so simple that it seemed astonishing the martians had not hit upon it. mr. edison himself was never tired of saying in reference to this matter: the martians a mystery. "i cannot understand why the martians did not invent these things. they have given ample proof that they understand electricity better than we do. why should they have resorted to the comparatively awkward and bungling means of getting from one planet to another that they have employed when they might have ridden through the solar system in such conveyances as ours with perfect ease?" "and besides," mr. edison would add, "i cannot understand why they did not employ the principle of harmonic vibrations in the construction of their engines of war. the lightning-like strokes that they deal from their machines are no doubt equally powerful, but i think the range of destruction covered by the disintegrators is greater." however, these questions must remain open until we could effect a landing on mars, and learn something of the condition of things there. the thing that gave us the most uneasiness was the fact that we did not yet know what powers the martians might have in reserve. it was but natural to suppose that here, on their own ground, they would possess means of defence even more effective than the offensive engines they had employed in attacking enemies so many millions of miles from home. it was important that we should waste no time, and it was equally important that we should select the most vulnerable point for attack. it was self-evident, therefore, that our first duty would be to reconnoitre the surface of the planet and determine its weakest point of defence. at first mr. edison contemplated sending the various ships in different directions around the planet in order that the work of exploration might be quickly accomplished. but upon second thought it seemed wiser to keep the squadron together, thus diminishing the chance of disaster. besides, the commander wished to see with his own eyes the exact situation of the various parts of the planet, where it might appear advisable for us to begin our assault. thus far we had remained suspended at so great a height above the planet that we had hardly entered into the perceptible limits of its atmosphere and there was no evidence that we had been seen by the inhabitants of mars; but before starting on our voyage of exploration it was determined to drop down closer to the surface in order that we might the more certainly identify the localities over which we passed. this manoeuvre nearly got us into serious trouble. a huge airship. when we had arrived within a distance of three miles from the surface of mars we suddenly perceived approaching from the eastward a large airship which was navigating the martian atmosphere at a height of perhaps half a mile above the ground. more stirring adventures of our warriors against mars. this airship moved rapidly on to a point nearly beneath us, when it suddenly paused, reversed its course, and evidently made signals, the purpose of which was not at first evident to us. but in a short time their meaning became perfectly plain, when we found ourselves surrounded by at least twenty similar aerostats approaching swiftly from different sides. it was a great mystery to us where so many airships had been concealed previous to their sudden appearance in answer to the signals. but the mystery was quickly solved when we saw detaching itself from the surface of the planet beneath us, where, while it remained immovable, its color had blended with that of the soil so as to render it invisible, another of the mysterious ships. then our startled eyes beheld on all sides these formidable-looking enemies rising from the ground beneath us like so many gigantic insects, disturbed by a sudden alarm. in a short time the atmosphere a mile or two below us, and to a distance of perhaps twenty miles around in every direction, was alive with airships of various sizes, and some of most extraordinary forms, exchanging signals, rushing to and fro, but all finally concentrating beneath the place where our squadron was suspended. we had poked the hornet's nest with a vengeance! as yet there had been no sting, but we might quickly expect to feel it if we did not get out of range. escaping danger. quickly instructions were flashed throughout the squadron to instantly reverse polarities and rise as swiftly as possible to a great height. it was evident that this manoeuvre would save us from danger if it were quickly effected, because the airships of the martians were simply airships and nothing more. they could only float in the atmosphere, and had no means of rising above it, or of navigating empty space. to have turned our disintegrators upon them, and to have begun a battle then and there, would have been folly. they overwhelmingly outnumbered us, the majority of them were yet at a considerable distance and we could not have done battle, even with our entire squadron acting together, with more than one-quarter of them simultaneously. in the meantime the others would have surrounded and might have destroyed us. we must first get some idea of the planet's means of defence before we ventured to assail it. having risen rapidly to a height of twenty-five or thirty miles, so that we could feel confident that our ships had vanished at least from the naked eye view of our enemies beneath, a brief consultation was held. it was determined to adhere to our original programme and to circumnavigate mars in every direction before proceeding to open the war. intimidated by the enemy. the overwhelming forces shown by the enemy had intimidated even some of the most courageous of our men, but still it was universally felt that it would not do to retreat without a blow struck. the more we saw of the power of the martians, the more we became convinced that there would be no hope for the earth, if these enemies ever again effected a landing upon its surface, the more especially since our squadron contained nearly all of the earth's force that would be effective in such a contest. with mr. edison and the other men of science away, they would not be able at home to construct such engines as we possessed, or to manage them even if they were constructed. our planet had staked everything on a single throw. these considerations again steeled our hearts, and made us bear up as bravely as possible in the face of the terrible odds that confronted us. turning the noses of our electrical ships toward the west, we began our circumnavigation. chapter x. at first we rose to a still greater height, in order more effectually to escape the watchful eyes of our enemies, and then, after having moved rapidly several hundred miles toward the west, we dropped down again within easy eyeshot of the surface of the planet, and commenced our inspection. when we originally reached mars, as i have related, it was at a point in its southern hemisphere, in latitude degrees south, and longitude degrees east, that we first closely approached its surface. underneath us was the land called "hellas," and it was over this land of hellas that the martian air fleet had suddenly made its appearance. our westward motion, while at a great height above the planet, had brought us over another oval-shaped land called "noachia," surrounded by the dark ocean, the "mare erytraeum." now approaching nearer the surface our course was changed so as to carry us toward the equator of mars. we passed over the curious, half-drowned continent known to terrestrial astronomers as the region of deucalion, then across another sea, or gulf, until we found ourselves floating, at a height of perhaps five miles, above a great continental land, at least three thousand miles broad from east to west, and which i immediately recognized as that to which astronomers had given the various names of "aeria," "edom," "arabia," and "eden." here the spectacle became of breathless interest. "wonderful! wonderful!" "who could have believed it!" such were the exclamations heard on all sides. when at first we were suspended above hellas, looking toward the north, the northeast and the northwest, we had seen at a distance some of these great red regions, and had perceived the curious network of canals by which they were intersected. but that was a far-off and imperfect view. now, when we were near at hand and straight above one of these singular lands, the magnificence of the panorama surpassed belief. from the earth about a dozen of the principal canals crossing the continent beneath us had been perceived, but we saw hundreds, nay, thousands of them! it was a double system, intended both for irrigation and for protection, and far more marvellous in its completeness than the boldest speculative minds among our astronomers had ever dared to imagine. "ha! that's what i always said," exclaimed a veteran from one of our great observatories. "mars is red because its soil and vegetation are red." and certainly appearances indicated that he was right. there were no green trees, and there was no green grass. both were red, not of a uniform red tint, but presenting an immense variety of shades which produced a most brilliant effect, fairly dazzling our eyes. but what trees! and what grass! and what flowers! gigantic vegetation. our telescopes showed that even the smaller trees must be or feet in height, and there were forests of giants, whose average height was evidently at least , feet. "that's all right," exclaimed the enthusiast i have just quoted. "i knew it would be so. the trees are big, for the same reason that the men are, because the planet is small, and they can grow big without becoming too heavy to stand." flashing in the sun on all sides were the roofs of metallic buildings, which were evidently the only kind of edifices that mars possessed. at any rate, if stone or wood were employed in their construction both were completely covered with metallic plates. this added immensely to the warlike aspect of the planet. for warlike it was. everywhere we recognized fortified stations, glittering with an array of the polished knobs of the lightning machines, such as we had seen in the land of hellas. from the land of edom, directly over the equator of the planet, we turned our faces westward, and, skirting the mare erytraeum, arrived above the place where the broad canal known as the indus empties into the sea. before us, and stretching away toward the northwest, now lay the continent of chryse, a vast red land, oval in outline, and surrounded and crossed by innumerable canals. chryse was not less than , miles across, and it, too, evidently swarmed with giant inhabitants. but the shadow of night lay upon the greater portion of the land of chryse. in our rapid motion westward we had out-stripped the sun and had now arrived at a point where day and night met upon the surface of the planet beneath us. behind all was brilliant with sunshine, but before us the face of mars gradually disappeared in the deepening gloom. through the darkness, far away, we could behold magnificent beams of electric light darting across the curtain of night, and evidently serving to illuminate towns and cities that lay beneath. we pushed on into the night for two or three hundred miles over that part of the continent of chryse whose inhabitants were doubtless enjoying the deep sleep that accompanies the dark hours immediately preceding the dawn. still everywhere splendid clusters of light lay like fallen constellations upon the ground, indicating the sites of great towns, which, like those of the earth, never sleep. but this scene, although weird and beautiful, could give us little of the kind of information we were in search of. accordingly it was resolved to turn back eastward until we had arrived in the twilight space separating day and night, and then hover over the planet at that point, allowing it to turn beneath us so that, as we looked down, we should see in succession the entire circuit of the globe of mars while it rolled under our eyes. the rotation of mars on its axis is performed in a period very little longer than that of the earth's rotation, so that the length of the day and night in the world of mars is only some forty minutes longer than their length upon the earth. in thus remaining suspended over the planet, on the line of daybreak, so to speak, we believed that we should be peculiarly safe from detection by the eyes of the inhabitants. even astronomers are not likely to be wide awake just at the peep of dawn. almost all of the inhabitants, we confidently believed, would still be sound asleep upon that part of the planet passing directly beneath us, and those who were awake would not be likely to watch for unexpected appearances in the sky. besides, our height was so great that notwithstanding the numbers of the squadron, we could not easily be seen from the surface of the planet, and if seen at all we might be mistaken for high-flying birds. mars passes below us. here we remained then through the entire course of twenty-four hours and saw in succession as they passed from night into day beneath our feet the land of chryse, the great continent of tharsis, the curious region of intersecting canals which puzzled astronomers on the earth had named the "gordian knot," the continental lands of memnonia, amazonia and aeolia, the mysterious centre where hundreds of vast canals came together from every direction, called the trivium charontis; the vast circle of elysium, a thousand miles across, and completely surrounded by a broad green canal; the continent of libya, which, as i remembered, had been half covered by a tremendous inundation whose effects were visible from the earth in the year , and finally the long, dark sea of the syrtis major, lying directly south of the land of hellas. the excitement and interest which we all experienced were so great that not one of us took a wink of sleep during the entire twenty-four hours of our marvellous watch. there are one or two things of special interest amid the multitude of wonderful observations that we made which i must mention here on account of their connection with the important events that followed soon after. just west of the land of chryse we saw the smaller land of ophir, in the midst of which is a singular spot called the juventae fons, and this fountain of youth, as our astronomers, by a sort of prophetic inspiration, had named it, proved later to be one of the most incredible marvels on the planet mars. further to the west, and north from the great continent of tharsis, we beheld the immense oval-shaped land of thaumasia containing in its centre the celebrated "lake of the sun," a circular body of water not less than miles in diameter, with dozens of great canals running away from it like the spokes of a wheel in every direction, thus connecting it with the ocean which surrounds it on the south and east, and with the still larger canals that encircle it toward the north and west. this lake of the sun came to play a great part in our subsequent adventures. it was evident to us from the beginning that it was the chief centre of population on the planet. it lies in latitude degrees south and longitude about degrees west. completing the circuit. having completed the circuit of the martian globe, we were moved by the same feeling which every discoverer of new lands experiences, and immediately returned to our original place above the land of hellas, because since that was the first part of mars that we had seen, we felt a greater degree of familiarity with it than with any other portion of the planet, and there, in a certain sense, we felt "at home." but, as it proved, our enemies were on the watch for us there. we had almost forgotten them, so absorbed were we by the great spectacles that had been unrolling themselves beneath our feet. we ought, of course, to have been a little more cautious in approaching the place where they first caught sight of us, since we might have known that they would remain on the watch near that spot. but at any rate they had seen us, and it was now too late to think of taking them again by surprise. they on their part had a surprise in store for us, which was greater than any we had yet experienced. we saw their ships assembling once more far down in the atmosphere beneath us, and we thought we could detect evidences of something unusual going on upon the surface of the planet. suddenly from the ships, and from various points on the ground beneath, there rose high in the air, and carried by invisible currents in every direction, immense volumes of black smoke, or vapor, which blotted out of sight everything below them! south, north, west and east, the curtain of blackness rapidly spread, until the whole face of the planet as far as our eyes could reach, and the airships thronging under us, were all concealed from sight! mars had played the game of the cuttlefish, which, when pursued by its enemies, darkens the water behind it by a sudden outgush of inky fluid, and thus escapes the eye of its foe. the great smoke cloud. our warriors find the martians to be foes worth fearing. the eyes of man had never beheld such a spectacle! where a few minutes before the sunny face of a beautiful and populous planet had been shining beneath us, there was now to be seen nothing but black, billowing clouds, swelling up everywhere like the mouse-colored smoke that pours from a great transatlantic liner when fresh coal has just been heaped upon her fires. in some places the smoke spouted upward in huge jets to the height of several miles; elsewhere it eddied in vast whirlpools of inky blackness. not a glimpse of the hidden world beneath was anywhere to be seen. mars wears its war mask. mars had put on its war mask, and fearful indeed was the aspect of it! after the first pause of surprise the squadron quickly backed away into the sky, rising rapidly, because, from one of the swirling eddies beneath us the smoke began suddenly to pile itself up in an enormous aerial mountain, whose peaks shot higher and higher, with apparently increasing velocity, until they seemed about to engulf us with their tumbling ebon masses. unaware what the nature of this mysterious smoke might be, and fearing it was something more than a shield for the planet, and might be destructive to life, we fled before it, as before the onward sweep of a pestilence. directly underneath the flagship, one of the aspiring smoke peaks grew with most portentous swiftness, and, notwithstanding all our efforts, in a little while it had enveloped us. the stifling smoke. several of us were standing on the deck of the electrical ship. we were almost stifled by the smoke, and were compelled to take refuge within the car, where, until the electric lights had been turned on, darkness so black that it oppressed the strained eyeballs prevailed. but in this brief experience, terrifying though it was, we had learned one thing. the smoke would kill by strangulation, but evidently there was nothing especially poisonous in its nature. this fact might be of use to us in our subsequent proceedings. "this spoils our plans," said the commander. "there is no use of remaining here for the present; let us see how far this thing extends." at first we rose straight away to a height of or miles, thus passing entirely beyond the sensible limits of the atmosphere, and far above the highest point that the smoke could reach. from this commanding point of view our line of sight extended to an immense distance over the surface of mars in all directions. everywhere the same appearance; the whole planet was evidently covered with the smoke. a wonderful system. a complete telegraphic system evidently connected all the strategic points upon mars, so that, at a signal from the central station, the wonderful curtain could be instantaneously drawn over the entire face of the planet. in order to make certain that no part of mars remained uncovered, we dropped down again nearer to the upper level of the smoke clouds, and then completely circumnavigated the planet. it was thought possible that on the night side no smoke would be found and that it would be practicable for us to make a descent there. but when we had arrived on that side of mars which was turned away from the sun, we no longer saw beneath us, as we had done on our previous visit to the night hemisphere of the planet, brilliant groups and clusters of electric lights beneath us. all was dark. in fact, so completely did the great shell of smoke conceal the planet that the place occupied by the latter seemed to be simply a vast black hole in the firmament. the sun was hidden behind it, and so dense was the smoke that even the solar rays were unable to penetrate it, and consequently there was no atmospheric halo visible around the concealed planet. all the sky around was filled with stars, but their countless host suddenly disappeared when our eyes turned in the direction of mars. the great black globe blotted them out without being visible itself. attempts to attack baffled. "apparently we can do nothing here," said mr. edison. "let us return to the daylight side." when we had arrived near the point where we had been when the wonderful phenomenon first made its appearance, we paused, and then, at the suggestion of one of the chemists, dropped close to the surface of the smoke curtain which had now settled down into comparative quiescence, in order that we might examine it a little more critically. the flagship was driven into the smoke cloud so deeply that for a minute we were again enveloped in night. a quantity of the smoke was entrapped in a glass jar. examining the smoke. rising again into the sunlight, the chemists began an examination of the constitution of the smoke. they were unable to determine its precise character, but they found that its density was astonishingly slight. this accounted for the rapidity with which it had risen, and the great height which it had attained in the comparatively light atmosphere of mars. "it is evident," said one of the chemists, "that this smoke does not extend down to the surface of the planet. from what the astronomers say as to the density of the air on mars, it is probable that a clear space of at least a mile in height exists between the surface of mars and the lower limit of the smoke curtain. just how deep the latter is we can only determine by experiment, but it would not be surprising if the thickness of this great blanket which mars has thrown around itself should prove to be a quarter or half a mile." "anyhow," said one of the united states army officers, "they have dodged out of sight, and i don't see why we should not dodge in and get at them. if there is clear air under the smoke, as you think, why couldn't the ships dart down through the curtain and come to a close tackle with the martians?" "it would not do at all," said the commander. "we might simply run ourselves into an ambush. no; we must stay outside, and if possible fight them from here." strategic measures employed. "they can't keep this thing up forever," said the officer. "perhaps the smoke will clear off after a while, and then we will have a chance." "not much hope of that, i am afraid," said the chemist who had originally spoken. "this smoke could remain floating in the atmosphere for weeks, and the only wonder to me is how they ever expect to get rid of it, when they think their enemies have gone and they want some sunshine again." "all that is mere speculation," said mr. edison; "let us get at something practical. we must do one of two things: either attack them shielded as they are, or wait until the smoke has cleared away. the only other alternative, that of plunging blindly down through the curtain, is at present not to be thought of." "i am afraid we couldn't stand a very long siege ourselves," suddenly remarked the chief commissary of the expedition, who was one of the members of the flagship's company. "what do you mean by that?" asked mr. edison sharply, turning to him. "well, sir, you see," said the commissary, stammering, "our provisions wouldn't hold out." "wouldn't hold out?" exclaimed mr. edison, in astonishment, "why, we have compressed and prepared provisions enough to last this squadron for three years." "we had, sir, when we left the earth," said the commissary, in apparent distress, "but i am sorry to say that something has happened." "something has happened! explain yourself!" accident to the stores. "i don't know what it is, but on inspecting some of the compressed stores, a short time ago, i found that a large number of them were destroyed, whether through leakage of air, or what, i am unable to say. i sent to inquire as to the condition of the stores in the other ships in the squadron and i found that a similar condition of things prevailed there." "the fact is," continued the commissary, "we have only provisions enough, in proper condition, for about ten days' consumption." "after that we shall have to forage on the country, then," said the army officer. "why did you not report this before?" demanded mr. edison. "because, sir," was the reply, "the discovery was not made until after we arrived close to mars, and since then there has been so much excitement that i have hardly had time to make an investigation and find out what the precise condition of affairs is; besides, i thought we should land upon the planet and then we would be able to renew our supplies." i closely watched mr. edison's expression in order to see how this most alarming news would affect him. although he fully comprehended its fearful significance, he did not lose his self-command. we must act quickly. "well, well," he said, "then it will become necessary for us to act quickly. evidently we cannot wait for the smoke to clear off, even if there were any hope of its clearing. we must get down on mars now, having conquered it first if possible, but anyway we must get down there, in order to avoid starvation." "it is very lucky," he continued, "that we have ten days' supply left. a great deal can be done in ten days." a few hours after this the commander called me aside, and said: "i have thought it all out. i am going to reconstruct some of our disintegrators, so as to increase their range and their power. then i am going to have some of the astronomers of the expedition locate for me the most vulnerable points upon the planet, where the population is densest and a hard blow would have the most effect, and i am going to pound away at them, through the smoke, and see whether we cannot draw them out of their shell." a plan arranged. with his expert assistants mr. edison set to work at once to transform a number of the disintegrators into still more formidable engines of the same description. one of these new weapons having been distributed to each of the members of the squadron, the next problem was to decide where to strike. when we first examined the surface of the planet it will be remembered that we had regarded the lake of the sun and its environs as being the very focus of the planet. while it might also be a strong point of defence, yet an effective blow struck there would go to the enemy's heart and be more likely to bring the martians promptly to terms than anything else. the first thing, then, was to locate the lake of the sun on the smoke-hidden surface of the planet beneath us. this was a problem that the astronomers could readily solve. fortunately, in the flagship itself there was one of the star-gazing gentlemen who had made a specialty of the study of mars. that planet, as i have already explained, was now in opposition to the earth. the astronomer had records in his pocket which enabled him, by a brief calculation, to say just when the lake of the sun would be on the meridian of mars as seen from the earth. our chronometers still kept terrestrial time; we knew the exact number of days and hours that had elapsed since we had departed, and so it was possible by placing ourselves in a line between the earth and mars to be practically in the situation of an astronomer in his observatory at home. then it was only necessary to wait for the hour when the lake of the sun would be upon the meridian of mars in order to be certain what the true direction of the latter from the flagship was. having thus located the heart of our foe behind its shield of darkness, we prepared to strike. the smoke must be shattered. "i have ascertained," said mr. edison, "the vibration period of the smoke, so that it will be easy for us to shatter it into invisible atoms. you will see that every stroke of the disintegrators will open a hole through the black curtain. if their field of destruction could be made wide enough, we might in that manner clear away the entire covering of smoke, but all that we shall really be able to do will be to puncture it with holes, which will, perhaps, enable us to catch glimpses of the surface beneath. in that manner we may be able more effectually to concentrate our fire upon the most vulnerable points." the blow--and its effect. everything being prepared, and the entire squadron having assembled to watch the effect of the opening blow and be ready to follow it up, mr. edison himself poised one of the new disintegrators, which was too large to be carried in the hand, and, following the direction indicated by the calculations of the astronomers, launched the vibratory discharge into the ocean of blackness beneath. a terrible encounter. the martians and our warriors fight a battle to the death. instantly there opened beneath us a huge well-shaped hole, from which the black clouds rolled violently back in every direction. through this opening we saw the gleam of brilliant lights beneath. we had made a hit. "it is the lake of the sun!" shouted the astronomer who furnished the calculation by means of which its position had been discovered. and, indeed, it was the lake of the sun. while the opening in the clouds made by the discharge was not wide, yet it sufficed to give us a view of a portion of the curving shore of the lake, which was ablaze with electric lights. whether our shot had done any damage, beyond making the circular opening in the cloud curtain, we could not tell, for almost immediately the surrounding black smoke masses billowed in to fill up the hole. but in the brief glimpse we had caught sight of two or three large air ships hovering in space above that part of the lake of the sun and its bordering city which we had beheld. it seemed to me in the brief glance i had that one ship had been touched by the discharge and was wandering in an erratic manner. but the clouds closed in so rapidly that i not be certain. penetrating the cloud. anyhow, we had demonstrated one thing, and that was that we could penetrate the cloud shield and reach the martians in their hiding place. it had been prearranged that the first discharge from the flagship should be a signal for the concentration of the fire of all the other ships upon the same spot. a little hesitation, however, occurred, and a half a minute had elapsed before the disintegrators from the other members of the squadron were got into play. the martians' artificial day. then, suddenly we saw an immense commotion in the cloud beneath us. it seemed to be beaten and hurled in every direction and punctured like a sieve with nearly a hundred great circular holes. through these gaps we could see clearly a large region of the planet's surface, with many airships floating above it, and the blaze of innumerable electric lights illuminating it. the martians had created an artificial day under the curtain. this time there was no question that the blow had been effective. four or five of the airships, partially destroyed, tumbled headlong toward the ground, while even from our great distance there was unmistakable evidence that fearful execution had been done among the crowded structures along the shore of the lake. as each of our ships possessed but one of the new disintegrators, and since a minute or so was required to adjust them for a fresh discharge, we remained for a little while inactive after delivering the blow. meanwhile the cloud curtain, though rent to shreds by the concentrated discharge of the disintegrators, quickly became a uniform black sheet again, hiding everything. we had just had time to congratulate ourselves on the successful opening of our bombardment, and the disintegrator of the flagship was poised for another discharge, when suddenly out of the black expanse beneath, quivered immense electric beams, clear cut and straight as bars of steel, but dazzling our eyes with unendurable brilliance. it was the reply of the martians to our attack. devastating our army. three or four of the electrical ships were seriously damaged, and one, close beside the flagship, changed color, withered and collapsed, with the same sickening phenomena that had made our hearts shudder when the first disaster of this kind occurred during our brief battle over the asteroid. another score of our comrades were gone, and yet we had hardly begun the fight. glancing at the other ships, which had been injured, i saw that the damage to them was not so serious, although they were evidently hors de combat for the present. our fighting blood was now boiling and we did not stop long to count our losses. "into the smoke!" was the signal, and the ninety and more electric ships which still remained in condition for action immediately shot downward. chapter xi. a dash into the smoke. it was a wild plunge. we kept off the decks while rushing through the blinding smoke, but the instant we emerged below, where we found ourselves still a mile above the ground, we were out again, ready to strike. i have simply a confused recollection of flashing lights beneath, and a great, dark arch of clouds above, out of which our ships seemed dropping on all sides, and then the fray burst upon and around us, and no man could see or notice anything except by half-comprehended glances. almost in an instant, it seemed, a swarm of airships surrounded us, while from what, for lack of a more descriptive name, i shall call the forts about the lake of the sun, leaped tongues of electric fire, before which some of our ships were driven like bits of flaming paper in a high wind, gleaming for a moment, then curling up and gone forever! never was such a conflict. it was an awful sight; but the battle fever was raging in us, and we, on our part, were not idle. every man carried a disintegrator, and these hand instruments, together with those of heavier calibre on the ships poured their resistless vibrations in every direction through the quivering air. the airships of the martians were destroyed by the score, but yet they flocked upon us thicker and faster. we dropped lower and our blows fell upon the forts, and upon the widespread city bordering the lake of the sun. we almost entirely silenced the fire of one of the forts; but there were forty more in full action within reach of our eyes! some of the metallic buildings were partly unroofed by the disintegrators and some had their walls riddled and fell with thundering crashes, whose sound rose to our ears above the hellish din of battle. i caught glimpses of giant forms struggling in the ruins and rushing wildly through the streets, but there was no time to see anything clearly. the flagship charmed! our flagship seemed charmed. a crowd of airships hung upon it like a swarm of angry bees, and, at times, one could not see for the lightning strokes--yet we escaped destruction, while ourselves dealing death on every hand. it was a glorious fight, but it was not war; no, it was not war. we really had no more chance of ultimate success amid that multitude of enemies than a prisoner running the gauntlet in a crowd of savages has of escape. a conviction of the hopelessness of the contest finally forced itself upon our minds, and the shattered squadron, which had kept well together amid the storm of death, was signalled to retreat. shaking off their pursuers, as a hunted bear shakes off the dogs, sixty of the electrical ships rose up through the clouds where more than ninety had gone down! madly we rushed upward through the vast curtain and continued our flight to a great elevation, far beyond the reach of the awful artillery of the enemy. forced to retreat. looking back it seemed the very mouth of hell that we had escaped from. the martians did not for an instant cease their fire, even when we were far beyond their reach. with furious persistence they blazed away through the cloud curtains, and the vivid spikes of lightning shuddered so swiftly on one another's track that they were like a flaming halo of electric lances around the frowning helmet of the war planet. but after a while they stopped their terrific sparring, and once more the immense globe assumed the appearance of a vast ball of black smoke, still wildly agitated by the recent disturbance, but exhibiting no opening through which we could discern what was going on beneath. evidently the martians believed they had finished us. despair seizes us. at no time since the beginning of our adventure had it appeared to me quite so hopeless, reckless and mad as it seemed at present. we had suffered fearful losses, and yet what had we accomplished? we had won two fights on the asteroid, it is true, but then we had overwhelming numbers on our side. now we were facing millions on their own ground, and our very first assault had resulted in a disastrous repulse, with the loss of at least thirty electric ships and men! evidently we could not endure this sort of thing. we must find some other means of assailing mars or else give up the attempt. but the latter was not to be thought of. it was no mere question of self-pride, however, and no consideration of the tremendous interests at stake, which would compel us to continue our apparently vain attempt. no hope in sight. our provisions could last only a few days longer. the supply would not carry us one-quarter of the way back to the earth, and we must therefore remain here and literally conquer or die. in this extremity a consultation of the principal officers was called upon the deck of the flagship. here the suggestion was made that we should attempt to effect by strategy what we had failed to do by force. an old army officer who had served in many wars against the cunning indians of the west, colonel alonzo jefferson smith, was the author of this suggestion. "let us circumvent them," he said. "we can do it in this way. the chances are that all of the available fighting force of the planet mars is now concentrated on this side and in the neighborhood of the lake of the sun." formulating a "last hope." "possibly, by some kind of x-ray business, they can only see us dimly through the clouds, and if we get a little further away they will not be able to see us at all." "now, i suggest that a certain number of the electrical ships be withdrawn from the squadron to a great distance, while the remainder stay here; or, better still, approach to a point just beyond the reach of those streaks of lightning, and begin a bombardment of the clouds without paying any attention to whether the strokes reach through the clouds and do any damage or not." "this will induce the martians to believe that we are determined to press our attack at this point." "in the meantime, while these ships are raising a hullabaloo on this side of the planet, and drawing their fire, as much as possible, without running into any actual danger, let the others which have been selected for the purpose, sail rapidly around to the other side of mars and take them in the rear." it was not perfectly clear what colonel smith intended to do after the landing had been effected in the rear of the martians, but still there seemed a good deal to be said for his suggestion, and it would, at any rate, if carried out, enable us to learn something about the condition of things on the planet, and perhaps furnish us with a hint as to how we could best proceed in the further prosecution of the siege. accordingly it was resolved that about twenty ships should be told off for this movement, and colonel smith himself was placed in command. at my desire i accompanied the new commander in his flagship. flank movements. rising to a considerable elevation in order that there might be no risk of being seen, we began our flank movement while the remaining ships, in accordance with the understanding, dropped nearer the curtain of cloud and commenced a bombardment with the disintegrators, which caused a tremendous commotion in the clouds, opening vast gaps in them, and occasionally revealing a glimpse of the electric lights on the planet, although it was evident that the vibratory currents did not reach the ground. the martians immediately replied to this renewed attack, and again the cloud-covered globe bristled with lightning, which flashed so fiercely out of the blackness below that the stoutest hearts among us quailed, although we were situated well beyond the danger. but this sublime spectacle rapidly vanished from our eyes when, having attained a proper elevation, we began our course toward the opposite hemisphere of the planet. we guided our flight by the stars, and from our knowledge of the rotation period of mars, and the position which the principal points on its surface must occupy at certain hours, we were able to tell what part of the planet lay beneath us. having completed our semi-circuit, we found ourselves on the night side of mars, and determined to lose no time in executing our coup. but it was deemed best that an exploration should first be made by a single electrical ship, and colonel smith naturally wished to undertake the adventure with his own vessel. dropping to the planet. we dropped rapidly through the black cloud curtain, which proved to be at least half a mile in thickness, and then suddenly emerged, as if suspended at the apex of an enormous dome, arching above the surface of the planet a mile beneath us, which sparkled on all sides with innumerable lights. these lights were so numerous and so brilliant as to produce a faint imitation of daylight, even at our immense height above the ground, and the dome of cloud out of which we had emerged assumed a soft fawn color that produced an indescribably beautiful effect. for a moment we recoiled from our undertaking, and arrested the motion of the electric ship. but on closely examining the surface beneath us we found that there was a broad region, where comparatively few bright lights were to be seen. from my knowledge of the geography of mars i knew that this was a part of the land of ausonia, situated a few hundred miles northeast of hellas, where we had first seen the planet. evidently it was not so thickly populated as some of the other parts of mars, and its comparative darkness was an attraction to us. we determined to approach within a few hundred feet of the ground with the electric ship, and then, in case no enemies appeared, to visit the soil itself. "perhaps we shall see or hear something that will be of use to us," said colonel smith, "and for the purposes of this first reconnaissance it is better that we should be few in number. the other ships will await our return, and at any rate we shall not be gone long." as our car approached the ground we found ourselves near the tops of some lofty trees. "this will do," said colonel smith, to the electrical steersman. "stay right here." he and i then lowered ourselves into the branches of the trees, each carrying a small disintegrator, and cautiously clambered down to the ground. landing on mars. we believed we were the first of the descendants of adam to set foot on the planet of mars. an experience on mars. the great planet exhibits its wonders to our warriors. at first we suffered somewhat from the effects of the rare atmosphere. it was so lacking in density that it resembled the air on the summits of the loftiest terrestrial mountains. having reached the foot of the tree in safety, we lay down for a moment on the ground to recover ourselves and to become accustomed to our new surroundings. a thrill, born half of wonder, half of incredulity, ran through me at the touch of the soil of mars. here was i, actually on that planet, which had seemed so far away, so inaccessible, and so full of mysteries when viewed from the earth. and yet, surrounding me, were things--gigantic, it is true--but still resembling and recalling the familiar sights of my own world. after a little while our lungs became accustomed to the rarity of the atmosphere and we experienced a certain stimulation in breathing. starting on our travels. we then got upon our feet and stepped out from under the shadow of the gigantic tree. high above we could faintly see our electrical ship, gently swaying in the air close to the treetop. there were no electric lights in our immediate neighborhood, but we noticed that the whole surface of the planet around us was gleaming with them, producing an effect like the glow of a great city seen from a distance at night. the glare was faintly reflected from the vast dome of clouds above, producing the general impression of a moonlight night upon the earth. it was a wonderfully quiet and beautiful spot where we had come down. the air had a delicate feel and a bracing temperature, while a soft breeze soughed through the leaves of the tree above our heads. not far away was the bank of a canal, bordered by a magnificent avenue shaded by a double row of immense umbrageous trees. we approached the canal, and, getting upon the road, turned to the left to make an exploration in that direction. the shadow of the trees falling upon the roadway produced a dense gloom, in the midst of which we felt that we should be safe, unless the martians had eyes like those of cats. an alarming encounter. as we pushed along, our hearts, i confess, beating a little quickly, a shadow stirred in front of us. something darker than the night itself approached. as it drew near it assumed the appearance of an enormous dog, as tall as an ox, which ran swiftly our way with a threatening motion of its head. but before it could even utter a snarl the whirr of colonel smith's disintegrator was heard and the creature vanished in the shadow. "gracious, did you ever see such a beast?" said the colonel. "why, he was as big as a grizzly." "the people he belonged to must be near by," i said. "very likely he was a watch on guard." "but i see no signs of a habitation." "true, but you observe there is a thick hedge on the side of the road opposite the canal. if we get through that perhaps we shall catch sight of something." a palace in view. cautiously we pushed our way through the hedge, which was composed of shrubs as large as small trees, and very thick at the bottom, and, having traversed it, found ourselves in a great meadow-like expanse which might have been a lawn. at a considerable distance, in the midst of a clump of trees, a large building towered skyward, its walls of some red metal, gleaming like polished copper in the soft light that fell from the cloud dome. there were no lights around the building itself, and we saw nothing corresponding to windows on that side which faced us, but toward the right a door was evidently open, and out of this streamed a brilliant shaft of illumination, which lay bright upon the lawn, then crossed the highway through an opening in the hedge, and gleamed on the water of the canal beyond. where we stood the ground had evidently been recently cleared, and there was no obstruction, but as we crept closer to the house--for our curiosity had now become irresistible--we found ourselves crawling through grass so tall that if we had stood erect it would have risen well above our heads. taking precautions. "this affords good protection," said colonel smith, recalling his adventures on the western plains. "we can get close in to the indians--i beg pardon, i mean the martians--without being seen." heavens, what an adventure was this! to be crawling about in the night on the face of another world and venturing, perhaps, into the jaws of a danger which human experience could not measure! but on we went, and in a little while we had emerged from the tall grass and were somewhat startled by the discovery that we had got close to the wall of the building. carefully we crept around toward the open door. as we neared it we suddenly stopped as if we had been stricken with instantaneous paralysis. out of the door floated, on the soft night air, the sweetest music i have ever listened to. a monstrous surprise. it carried me back in an instant to my own world. it was the music of the earth. it was the melodious expression of a human soul. it thrilled us both to the heart's core. "my god!" exclaimed colonel smith. "what can that be? are we dreaming, or where in heaven's name are we?" still the enchanting harmony floated out upon the air. what the instrument was i could not tell; but the sound seemed more nearly to resemble that of a violin than of anything else i could think of. magnificent music. when we first heard it the strains were gentle, sweet, caressing and full of an infinite depth of feeling, but in a little while its tone changed, and it became a magnificent march, throbbing upon the air in stirring notes that set our hearts beating in unison with its stride and inspiring in us a courage that we had not felt before. then it drifted into a wild fantasia, still inexpressibly sweet, and from that changed again into a requiem or lament, whose mellifluous tide of harmony swept our thoughts back again to the earth. "i can endure this no longer," i said. "i must see who it is that makes that music. it is the product of a human heart and must come from the touch of human fingers." we carefully shifted our position until we stood in the blaze of light that poured out of the door. the doorway was an immense arched opening, magnificently ornamented, rising to a height of, i should say, not less than twenty or twenty-five feet and broad in proportion. the door itself stood widely open and it, together with all of its fittings and surroundings, was composed of the same beautiful red metal. a beautiful girl! stepping out a little way into the light i could see within the door an immense apartment, glittering on all sides with metallic ornaments and gems and lighted from the centre by a great chandelier of electric candles. in the middle of the great floor, holding the instrument delicately poised, and still awaking its ravishing voice, stood a figure, the sight of which almost stopped my breath. it was a slender sylph of a girl! a girl of my own race: a human being here upon the planet mars! her hair was loosely coiled and she was attired in graceful white drapery. "by ----!" cried colonel smith, "she's human!" chapter xii. still the bewildering strains of the music came to our ears, and yet we stood there unperceived, though in the full glare of the chandelier. the girl's face was presented in profile. it was exquisite in beauty, pale, delicate with a certain pleading sadness which stirred us to the heart. an element of romance and a touch of personal interest such as we had not looked for suddenly entered into our adventure. colonel smith's mind still ran back to the perils of the plains. a human prisoner. "she is a prisoner," he said, "and by the seven devils of dona ana we'll not leave her here. but where are the hellhounds themselves?" our attention had been so absorbed by the sight of the girl that we had scarcely thought of looking to see if there was any one else in the room. glancing beyond her, i now perceived sitting in richly decorated chairs three or four gigantic martians. they were listening to the music as if charmed. the whole story told itself. this girl, if not their slave, was at any rate under their control, and she was furnishing entertainment for them by her musical skill. the fact that they could find pleasure in music so beautiful was, perhaps, an indication that they were not really as savage as they seemed. yet our hearts went out to the girl, and were turned against them with an uncontrollable hatred. they were of the same remorseless race with those who so lately had lain waste our fair earth and who would have completed its destruction had not providence interfered in our behalf. singularly enough, although we stood full in the light, they had not yet seen us. martians guarding her. suddenly the girl, moved by what impulse i know not, turned her face in our direction. her eyes fell upon us. she paused abruptly in her playing, and her instrument dropped to the floor. then she uttered a cry, and with extended arms ran toward us. but when she was near she stopped abruptly, the glad look fading from her face, and started back with terror-stricken eyes, as if, after all, she had found us not what she expected. then for an instant she looked more intently at us, her countenance cleared once more, and, overcome by some strange emotion, her eyes filled with tears, and, drawing a little nearer, she stretched forth her hands to us appealingly. meanwhile the martians had started to their feet. they looked down upon us in astonishment. we were like pigmies to them; like little gnomes which had sprung out of the ground at their feet. one of the giants seized some kind of a weapon and started forward with a threatening gesture. the girl appeals to us. the girl sprang to my side and grasped my arm with a cry of fear. this seemed to throw the martian into a sudden frenzy, and he raised his arms to strike. but the disintegrator was in my hand. my rage was equal to his. i felt the concentrated vengeance of the earth quivering through me as i pressed the button of the disintegrator and, sweeping it rapidly up and down, saw the gigantic form that confronted me melt into nothingness. there were three other giants in the room, and they had been on the point of following up the attack of their comrade. but when he disappeared from before their eyes, they paused, staring in amazement at the place where, but a moment before, he had stood, but where now only the metal weapon he had wielded lay on the floor. at first they started back, and seemed on the point of fleeing; then, with a second glance, perceiving again how small and insignificant we were, all three together advanced upon us. the girl sank trembling on her knees. in the meantime i had readjusted my disintegrator for another discharge, and colonel smith stood by me with the light of battle upon his face. "sweep the discharge across the three," i exclaimed. "otherwise there will be one left and before we can fire again he will crush us." the martians are killed. the whirr of the two instruments sounded simultaneously, and with a quick, horizontal motion we swept the lines of force around in such a manner that all three of the martians were caught by the vibratory streams and actually cut in two. long gaps were opened in the wall of the room behind them, where the destroying currents had passed, for with wrathful fierceness, we had run the vibrations through half a gamut on the index. the victory was ours. there were no other enemies, that we could see, in the house. yet at any moment others might make their appearance, and what more we did must be done quickly. the girl evidently was as much amazed as the martians had been by the effects which we had produced. still she was not terrified, and continued to cling to us and to glance beseechingly into our faces, expressing in her every look and gesture the fact that she knew we were of her own race. but clearly she could not speak our tongue, for the words she uttered were unintelligible. colonel smith, whose long experience in indian warfare had made him intensely practical, did not lose his military instincts, even in the midst of events so strange. "it occurs to me," he said, "that we have got a chance at the enemies' supplies. suppose we begin foraging right here. let's see if this girl can't show us the commissary department." he immediately began to make signs to the girl to indicate that he was hungry. the girl understands us. a look of comprehension flitted over her features, and, seizing our hands, she led us into an adjoining apartment and pointed to a number of metallic boxes. one of these she opened, taking out of it a kind of cake, which she placed between her teeth, breaking off a very small portion and then handing it to us, motioning that we should eat, but at the same time showing us that we ought to take only a small quantity. "thank god! it's compressed food," said colonel smith. "i thought these martians with their wonderful civilization would be up to that. and it's mighty lucky for us, because, without overburdening ourselves, if we can find one or two more caches like this we shall be able to reprovision the entire fleet. but we must get reinforcements before we can take possession of the fodder." the prisoner is rescued. accordingly we hurried out into the night, passed into the roadway, and, taking the girl with us, ran as rapidly as possible to the foot of the tree where we had made our descent. then we signalled to the electric ship to drop down to the level of the ground. this was quickly done, the girl was taken aboard, and a dozen men, under our guidance, hastened back to the house, where we loaded ourselves with the compressed provisions and conveyed them to the ship. beautiful girl prisoner. establishing the identity of the martians' captive. on this second trip to the mysterious house we had discovered another apartment containing a very large number of the metallic boxes, filled with compressed food. "by jove, it is a store house," said colonel smith. "we must get more force and carry it all off. gracious, but this is a lucky night. we can reprovision the whole fleet from this room." "i thought it singular," i said, "that with the exception of the girl whom we have rescued no women were seen in the house. evidently the lights over yonder indicate the location of a considerable town, and it is quite probable that this building, without windows, and so strongly constructed, is the common storehouse, where the provisions for the town are kept. the fellows we killed must have been the watchmen in charge of the storehouse, and they were treating themselves to a little music from the slave girl when we happened to come upon them." a new food supply. with the utmost haste several of the other electrical ships, waiting above the cloud curtain, were summoned to descend, and, with more than a hundred men, we returned to the building, and this time almost entirely exhausted its stores, each man carrying as much as he could stagger under. fortunately our proceedings had been conducted without much noise, and the storehouse being situated at a considerable distance from other buildings, none of the martians, except those who would never tell the story, had known of our arrival or of our doings on the planet. "now, we'll return and surprise edison with the news," said colonel smith. our ship was the last to pass up through the clouds, and it was a strange sight to watch the others as one after another they rose toward the great dome, entered it, though from below it resembled a solid vault of grayish-pink marble, and disappeared. sunshine again. we quickly followed them, and having penetrated the enormous curtain, were considerably surprised on emerging at the upper side to find that the sun was shining brilliantly upon us. it will be remembered that it was night on this side of mars when we went down, but our adventure had occupied several hours, and now mars had so far turned upon its axis that the portion of its surface over which we were had come around into the sunlight. we knew that the squadron which we had left besieging the lake of the sun must also have been carried around in a similar manner, passing into the night while the side of the planet where we were was emerging into day. our shortest way back would be by travelling westward, because then we should be moving in a direction opposite to that in which the planet rotated, and the main squadron, sharing that rotation, would be continually moving in our direction. but to travel westward was to penetrate once more into the night side of the planet. the prows, if i may so call them, of our ships were accordingly turned in the direction of the vast shadow which mars was invisibly projecting into space behind it, and on entering that shadow the sun disappeared from our eyes, and once more the huge hidden globe beneath us became a black chasm among the stars. now that we were in the neighborhood of a globe capable of imparting considerable weight to all things under the influence of its attraction that peculiar condition which i have before described as existing in the midst of space, where there was neither up nor down for us, had ceased. here where we had weight "up" and "down" had resumed their old meanings. "down" was toward the centre of mars, and "up" was away from that centre. the two moons of mars. standing on the deck, and looking overhead as we swiftly ploughed our smooth way at a great height through the now imperceptible atmosphere of the planet, i saw the two moons of mars meeting in the sky exactly above us. before our arrival at mars, there had been considerable discussion among the learned men as to the advisability of touching at one of their moons, and when the discovery was made that our provisions were nearly exhausted, it had been suggested that the martian satellites might furnish us with an additional supply. but it had appeared a sufficient reply to this suggestion that the moons of mars are both insignificant bodies, not much larger than the asteroid we had fallen in with, and that there could not possibly be any form of vegetation or other edible products upon them. this view having prevailed, we had ceased to take an interest in the satellites, further than to regard them as objects of great curiosity on account of their motions. the nearer of these moons, phobos, is only , miles from the surface of mars, and we watched it travelling around the planet three times in the course of every day. the more distant one, deimos, , miles away, required considerably more than one day to make its circuit. it now happened that the two had come into conjunction, as i have said, just over our heads, and, throwing myself down on my back on the deck of the electrical ship, for a long time i watched the race between the two satellites, until phobos, rapidly gaining upon the other, had left its rival far behind. suddenly colonel smith, who took very little interest in these astronomical curiosities, touched me, and pointing ahead, said: "there they are." rejoining the fleet. i looked, and sure enough there were the signal lights of the principal squadron, and as we gazed we occasionally saw, darting up from the vast cloud mass beneath, an electric bayonet, fiercely thrust into the sky, which showed that the siege was still actively going on, and that the martians were jabbing away at their invisible enemies outside the curtain. in a short time the two fleets had joined, and colonel smith and i immediately transferred ourselves to the flagship. "well, what have you done?" asked mr. edison, while others crowded around with eager attention. "if we have not captured their provision train," said colonel smith, "we have done something just about as good. we have foraged on the country, and have collected a supply that i reckon will last this fleet for at least a month." "what's that? what's that?" "it's just what i say," and colonel smith brought out of his pocket one of the square cakes of compressed food. "set your teeth in that, and see what you think of it, but don't take too much, for it's powerful strong." "i say," he continued, "we have got enough of that stuff to last us all for a month, but we've done more than that; we have got a surprise for you that will make you open your eyes. just wait a minute." caring for the rescued girl. colonel smith made a signal to the electrical ship which we had just quitted to draw near. it came alongside, so that one could step from its deck onto the flagship. colonel smith disappeared for a minute in the interior of his ship, then re-emerged, leading the girl whom we had found upon the planet. "take her inside, quick," he said, "for she is not used to this thin air." in fact, we were at so great an elevation that the rarity of the atmosphere now compelled us all to wear our air-tight suits, and the girl, not being thus attired, would have fallen unconscious on the deck if we had not instantly removed her to the interior of the car. there she quickly recovered from the effects of the deprivation of air and looked about her, pale, astonished, but yet apparently without fear. every motion of this girl convinced me that she not only recognized us as members of her own race, but that she felt that her only hope lay in our aid. therefore, strange as we were to her in many respects, nevertheless she did not think that she was in danger while among us. the circumstances under which we had found her were quickly explained. her beauty, her strange fate and the impenetrable mystery which surrounded her excited universal admiration and wonder. how came she on mars? "how did she get on mars?" was the question that everybody asked, and that nobody could answer. but while all were crowding around and overwhelming the poor girl with their staring, suddenly she burst into tears, and then, with arms outstretched in the same appealing manner which had so stirred our sympathies when we first saw her in the house of the martians, she broke forth in a wild recitation, which was half a song and half a wail. as she went on i noticed that a learned professor of languages from the university of heidelberg was listening to her with intense attention. several times he appeared to be on the point of breaking in with an exclamation. i could plainly see that he was becoming more and more excited as the words poured from the girl's lips. occasionally he nodded and muttered, smiling to himself. her song finished, the girl sank half-exhausted upon the floor. she was lifted and placed in a reclining position at the side of the car. then the heidelberg professor stepped to the centre of the car, in the sight of all, and in a most impressive manner said: "gentlemen, our sister." "i have her tongue recognized! the language that she speaks, the roots of the great indo-european, or aryan stock, contains." "this girl, gentlemen, to the oldest family of the human race belongs. her language every tongue that now upon the earth is spoken antedates. convinced am i that it that great original speech is from which have all the languages of the civilized world sprung." "how she here came, so many millions of miles from the earth, a great mystery is. but it shall be penetrated, and it is from her own lips that we the truth shall learn, because not difficult to us shall it be the language that she speaks to acquire since to our own it is akin." the professor's astonishing statement. this announcement of the heidelberg professor stirred us all most profoundly. it not only deepened our interest in the beautiful girl whom we had rescued, but, in a dim way, it gave us reason to hope that we should yet discover some means of mastering the martians by dealing them a blow from within. it had been expected, the reader will remember, that the martian whom we had made prisoner on the asteroid, might be of use to us in a similar way, and for that reason great efforts had been made to acquire his language, and considerable progress had been effected in that direction. but from the moment of our arrival at mars itself, and especially after the battles began, the prisoner had resumed his savage and uncommunicative disposition, and had seemed continually to be expecting that we would fall victims to the prowess of his fellow beings, and that he would be released. how an outlaw, such as he evidently was, who had been caught in the act of robbing the martian gold mines, could expect to escape punishment on returning to his native planet it was difficult to see. nevertheless, so strong are the ties of race we could plainly perceive that all his sympathies were for his own people. in fact, in consequence of his surly manner, and his attempts to escape, he had been more strictly bound than before and to get him out of the way had been removed from the flagship, which was already overcrowded, and placed in one of the other electric ships, and this ship--as it happened--was one of those which were lost in the great battle beneath the clouds. so after all, the martian had perished, by a vengeful stroke launched from his native globe. but providence had placed in our hands a far better interpreter than he could ever have been. this girl of our own race would need no urging, or coercion, on our part in order to induce her to reveal any secrets of the martians that might be useful in our further proceedings. but one thing was first necessary to be done. we must learn to talk with her. learning her language. but for the discovery of the store of provisions it would have been impossible for us to spare the time needed to acquire the language of the girl, but now that we had been saved from the danger of starvation, we could prolong the siege for several weeks, employing the intervening time to the best advantage. the terrible disaster which we had suffered in the great battle above the lake of the sun, wherein we had lost nearly a third of our entire force, had been quite sufficient to convince us that our only hope of victory lay in dealing the martians some paralyzing stroke that at one blow would deprive them of the power of resistance. a victory that cost us the loss of a single ship would be too dearly purchased now. how to deal that blow, and first of all, how to discover the means of dealing it, were at present the uppermost problems in our minds. the only hope for us lay in the girl. if, as there was every reason to believe, she was familiar with the ways and secrets of the martians, then she might be able to direct our efforts in such a manner as to render them effective. "we can spare two weeks for this," said mr. edison. "can you fellows of many tongues learn to talk with the girl in that time?" "we'll try it," said several. "it shall we do," cried the heidelberg professor more confidently. "then there is no use of staying here," continued the commander. "if we withdraw the martians will think that we have either given up the contest or been destroyed. perhaps they will then pull off their blanket and let us see their face once more. that will give us a better opportunity to strike effectively when we are again ready." preparing a rendezvous. "why not rendezvous at one of the moons?" said an astronomer. "neither of the two moons is of much consequence, as far as size goes, but still it would serve as a sort of anchorage ground, and while there, if we were careful to keep on the side away from mars, we should escape detection." this suggestion was immediately accepted, and the squadron having been signalled to assemble quickly bore off in the direction of the more distant moon of mars, deimos. we knew that it was slightly smaller than phobos but its greater distance gave promise that it would better serve our purpose of temporary concealment. the moons of mars, like the earth's moon, always keep the same face toward their master. by hiding behind deimos we should escape the prying eyes of the martians, even when they employed telescopes, and thus be able to remain comparatively close at hand, ready to pounce down upon them again after we had obtained, as we now had good hope of doing, information that would make us masters of the situation. chapter xiii. on one of mars' moons. deimos proved to be, as we had expected, about six miles in diameter. its mean density is not very great so that the acceleration of gravity did not exceed one two-thousandths of the earth's. consequently the weight of a man turning the scales at pounds at home was here only about one ounce. the result was that we could move about with greater ease than on the golden asteroid, and some of the scientific men eagerly resumed their interrupted experiments. but the attraction of this little satellite was so slight that we had to be very careful not to move too swiftly in going about lest we should involuntarily leave the ground and sail out into space, as, it will be remembered, happened to the fugitives during the fight on the asteroid. not only would such an adventure have been an uncomfortable experience, but it might have endangered the success of our scheme. our present distance from the surface of mars did not exceed , miles, and we had reason to believe that martians possessed telescopes powerful enough to enable them not merely to see the electrical ships at such a distance, but to also catch sight of us individually. although the cloud curtain still rested on the planet it was probable that the martians would send some of their airships up to its surface in order to determine what our fate had been. from that point of vantage, with their exceedingly powerful glasses, we feared that they might be able to detect anything unusual upon or in the neighborhood of deimos. the ships are moored. accordingly strict orders were given, not only that the ships should be moored on that side of the satellite which is perpetually turned away from mars, but that, without orders, no one should venture around on the other side of the little globe, or even on the edge of it, where he might be seen in profile against the sky. still, of course, it was essential that we, on our part, should keep a close watch, and so a number of sentinels were selected, whose duty it was to place themselves at the edge of deimos, where they could peep over the horizon, so to speak, and catch sight of the globe of our enemies. the distance of mars from us was only about three times its own diameter, consequently it shut off a large part of the sky, as viewed from our position. but in order to see its whole surface it was necessary to go a little beyond the edge of the satellite, on that side which faced mars. at the suggestion of colonel smith, who had so frequently stalked indians that devices of this kind readily occurred to his mind, the sentinels all wore garments corresponding in color to that of the soil of the asteroid, which was of a dark, reddish brown hue. this would tend to conceal them from the prying eyes of the martians. the commander himself frequently went around the edge of the planet in order to take a look at mars, and i often accompanied him. marvellous discoveries. the martians were the builders of the great sphinx and the pyramids. i shall never forget one occasion, when, lying flat on the ground, and cautiously worming our way around on the side toward mars, we had just begun to observe it with our telescopes, when i perceived, against the vast curtain of smoke, a small, glinting object, which i instantly suspected to be an airship. i called mr. edison's attention to it, and we both agreed that it was, undoubtedly, one of the martians' aerial vessels, probably on the lookout for us. a short time afterward a large number of airships made their appearance at the upper surface of the clouds, moving to and fro, and although, with our glasses, we could only make out the general form of the ships, without being able to discern the martians upon them, yet we had not the least doubt but they were sweeping the sky in every direction in order to determine whether we had been completely destroyed or had retreated to a distance from the planet. even when that side of mars on which we were looking had passed into night, we could still see the guardships circling above the clouds, their presence being betrayed by the faint twinkling of the electric lights that they bore. finally, after about a week had passed, the martians evidently made up their minds that they had annihilated us, and that there was no longer danger to be feared. convincing evidence that they believed we should not be heard from again was furnished when the withdrawal of the great curtain of cloud began. a great phenomenon. this phenomenon first manifested itself by a gradual thinning of the vaporous shield, until, at length, we began to perceive the red surface of the planet dimly shining through it. thinner and rarer it became, and, after the lapse of about eighteen hours, it had completely disappeared, and the huge globe shone out again, reflecting the light of the sun from its continents and oceans with a brightness that, in contrast with the all-enveloping night to which we had so long been subjected, seemed unbearable to our eyes. indeed, so brilliant was the illumination which fell upon the surface of deimos that the number of persons who had been permitted to pass around upon the exposed side of the satellite was carefully restricted. in the blaze of light which had been suddenly poured upon us we felt somewhat like malefactors unexpectedly enveloped in the illumination of a policeman's dark lantern. meanwhile, the object which we had in view in retreating to the satellite was not lost sight of, and the services of the chief linguists of the expedition were again called into use for the purpose of acquiring a new language. the experiment was conducted in the flagship. the fact that this time it was not a monster belonging to an utterly alien race upon whom we were to experiment, but a beautiful daughter of our common mother eve, added zest and interest as well as the most confident hopes of success to the efforts of those who were striving to understand the accents of her tongue. lingual difficulties ahead. still the difficulty was very great, notwithstanding the conviction of the professors that her language would turn out to be a form of the great indo-european speech from which the many tongues of civilized men upon the earth had been derived. the learned men, to tell the truth, gave the poor girl no rest. for hours at a time they would ply her with interrogations by voice and by gesture, until, at length, wearied beyond endurance, she would fall asleep before their faces. then she would be left undisturbed for a little while, but the moment her eyes opened again the merciless professors flocked about her once more, and resumed the tedious iteration of their experiments. our heidelberg professor was the chief inquisitor, and he revealed himself to us in a new and entirely unexpected light. no one could have anticipated the depth and variety of his resources. he placed himself in front of the girl and gestured and gesticulated, bowed, nodded, shrugged his shoulders, screwed his face into an infinite variety of expressions, smiled, laughed, scowled and accompanied all these dumb shows with posturings, exclamations, queries, only half expressed in words, and cadences which, by some ingenious manipulation of the tones of the voice, he managed to make as marvellous expressive of his desires. he was a universal actor--comedian, tragedian, buffoon--all in one. there was no shade of human emotion which he did not seem capable of giving expression to. the professor does his best. his every attitude was a symbol, and all his features became in quick succession types of thought and exponents of hidden feelings, while his inquisitive nose stood forth in the midst of their ceaseless play like a perpetual interrogation point that would have electrified the sphinx into life, and set its stone lips gabbling answers and explanations. the girl looked on, partly astonished, partly amused, and partly comprehending. sometimes she smiled, and then the beauty of her face became most captivating. occasionally she burst into a cheery laugh when the professor was executing some of his extraordinary gyrations before her. it was a marvellous exhibition of what the human intellect, when all its powers are concentrated upon a single object, is capable of achieving. it seemed to me, as i looked at the performance, that if all the races of men, who had been stricken asunder at the foot of the tower of babel by the miracle which made the tongues of each to speak a language unknown to the others, could be brought together again at the foot of the same tower, with all the advantages which thousands of years of education had in the meantime imparted to them, they would be able, without any miracle, to make themselves mutually understood. and it was evident that an understanding was actually growing between the girl and the professor. their minds were plainly meeting, and when both had become focused upon the same point, it was perfectly certain that the object of the experiment would be attained. whenever the professor got from the girl an intelligent reply to his pantomimic inquiries, or whenever he believed that he got such a reply, it was immediately jotted down in the ever open notebook which he carried in his hand. and then he would turn to us standing by, and with one hand on his heart, and the other sweeping grandly through the air, would make a profound bow and say: "the young lady and i great progress make already. i have her words comprehended. we shall wondrous mysteries solve. jawohl! wunderlich! make yourselves gentlemen easy. of the human race the ancestral stem have i here discovered." once i glanced over a page of his notebook, and there i read this: "mars--zahmor." "copper--hayez." "sword--anz." "i jump--altesna." "i slay--amoutha." "i cut off a head--ksutaskofa." "i sleep--zlcha." "i love--levza." aha, professor heidelberg! when i saw this last entry i looked suspiciously at the professor. was he trying to make love without our knowing it to the beautiful captive from mars? if so, i felt certain that he would get himself into difficulty. she had made a deep impression upon every man in the flagship, and i knew that there was more than one of the younger men who would have promptly called him to account if they had suspected him of trying to learn from those beautiful lips the words, "i love." i pictured to myself the state of mind of colonel alonzo jefferson smith if, in my place, he had glanced over the notebook and read what i had read. and then i thought of another handsome young fellow in the flagship--sidney phillips--who, if mere actions and looks could make him so, had become exceedingly devoted to this long lost and happily recovered daughter of eve. in fact, i had already questioned within my own mind whether the peace would be strictly kept between colonel smith and mr. phillips, for the former had, to my knowledge, noticed the young fellow's adoring glances, and had begun to regard him out of the corners of his eyes as if he considered him no better than an apache or a mexican greaser. jealousy crops out. "but what," i asked myself, "would be the vengeance that colonel smith would take upon this skinny professor from heidelberg if he thought that he, taking advantage of his linguistic powers, had stepped in between him and the damsel whom he had rescued?" however, when i took a second look at the professor, i became convinced that he was innocent of any such amorous intention, and that he had learned, or believed he had learned, the word for "love" simply in pursuance of the method by which he meant to acquire the language of the girl. there was one thing which gave some of us considerable misgiving, and that was the question whether, after all, the language the professor was acquiring was really the girl's own tongue or one that she had learned from the martians. but the professor bade us rest easy on that point. he assured us, in the first place, that this girl could not be the only human being living upon mars, but that she must have friends and relatives there. that being so, they unquestionably had a language of their own, which they spoke when they were among themselves. here finding herself among beings belonging to her own race, she would naturally speak her own tongue and not that which she had acquired from the martians. "moreover, gentlemen," he added, "i have in her speech many roots of the great aryan tongue already recognized." we were greatly relieved by this explanation, which seemed to all of us perfectly satisfactory. yet, really, there was no reason why one language should be any better than the other for our present purpose. in fact, it might be more useful to us to know the language of the martians themselves. still, we all felt that we should prefer to know her language rather than that of the monsters among whom she had lived. colonel smith expressed what was in all our minds when, after listening to the reasoning of the professor, he blurted out: "thank god, she doesn't speak any of their blamed lingo! by jove, it would soil her pretty lips." "but also that she speaks, too," said the man from heidelberg, turning to colonel smith with a grin. "we shall both of them eventually learn." a tedious language lesson. three entire weeks were passed in this manner. after the first week the girl herself materially assisted the linguists in their efforts to acquire her speech. at length the task was so far advanced that we could, in a certain sense, regard it as practically completed. the heidelberg professor declared that he had mastered the tongue of the ancient aryans. his delight was unbounded. with prodigious industry he set to work, scarcely stopping to eat or sleep, to form a grammar of the language. "you shall see," he said, "it will the speculations of my countrymen vindicate." no doubt the professor had an exaggerated opinion of the extent of his acquirements, but the fact remained that enough had been learned of the girl's language to enable him and several others to converse with her quite as readily as a person of good capacity who has studied under the instructions of a native teacher during a period of six months can converse in a foreign tongue. immediately almost every man in the squadron set vigorously at work to learn the language of this fair creature for himself. colonel smith and sidney phillips were neck and neck in the linguistic race. one of the first bits of information which the professor had given out was the name of the girl. we learn her name. it was aina (pronounced ah-ee-na). this news was flashed throughout the squadron, and the name of our beautiful captive was on the lips of all. after that came her story. it was a marvellous narrative. translated into our tongue it ran as follows: "the traditions of my fathers, handed down for generations so many that no one can number them, declare that the planet of mars was not the place of our origin." "ages and ages ago our forefathers dwelt on another and distant world that was nearer to the sun than this one is, and enjoyed brighter daylight than we have here." "they dwelt--as i have often heard the story from my father, who had learned it by heart from his father, and he from his--in a beautiful valley that was surrounded by enormous mountains towering into the clouds and white about their tops with snow that never melted. in the valley were lakes, around which clustered the dwellings of our race." "it was, the traditions say, a land wonderful for its fertility, filled with all things that the heart could desire, splendid with flowers and rich with luscious fruits." "it was a land of music, and the people who dwelt in it were very happy." while the girl was telling this part of her story the heidelberg professor became visibly more and more excited. presently he could keep quiet no longer, and suddenly exclaimed, turning to us who were listening, as the words of the girl were interpreted for us by one of the other linguists: "gentlemen, it is the vale of cashmere! has not my great countryman, adelung, so declared? has he not said that the valley of cashmere was the cradle of the human race already?" "from the valley of cashmere to the planet mars--what a romance!" exclaimed one of the bystanders. colonel smith appeared to be particularly moved, and i heard him humming under his breath, greatly to my astonishment, for this rough soldier was not much given to poetry or music: "who has not heard of the vale of cashmere, with its roses the brightest that earth ever gave; its temples, its grottoes, its fountains as clear, as the love-lighted eyes that hang over the wave." mr. sidney phillips, standing by, and also catching the murmur of colonel smith's words, showed in his handsome countenance some indications of distress, as if he wished he had thought of those lines himself. aina tells her story. the girl resumed her narrative: "suddenly there dropped down out of the sky strange gigantic enemies, armed with mysterious weapons, and began to slay and burn and make desolate. our forefathers could not withstand them. they seemed like demons, who had been sent from the abodes of evil to destroy our race." "some of the wise men said that this thing had come upon our people because they had been very wicked, and the gods in heaven were angry. some said they came from the moon, and some from the far-away stars. but of these things my forefathers knew nothing for a certainty." "the destroyers showed no mercy to the inhabitants of the beautiful valley. not content with making it a desert, they swept over other parts of the earth." "the tradition says that they carried off from the valley, which was our native land, a large number of our people, taking them first into a strange country, where there were oceans of sand, but where a great river, flowing through the midst of the sands, created a narrow land of fertility. here, after having slain and driven out the native inhabitants, they remained for many years, keeping our people, whom they had carried into captivity, as slaves." "and in this land of sand, it is said, they did many wonderful works." "they had been astonished at the sight of the great mountains which surrounded our valley, for on mars there are no mountains, and after they came into the land of sand they built there with huge blocks of stone mountains in imitation of what they had seen, and used them for purposes that our people did not understand." "then, too, it is said they left there at the foot of these mountains that they had made a gigantic image of the great chief who led them in their conquest of our world." at this point in the story the heidelberg professor again broke in, fairly trembling with excitement: the wonders of the martians! "gentlemen, gentlemen," he cried, "is it that you do not understand? this land of sand and of a wonderful fertilizing river--what can it be? gentlemen, it is egypt! these mountains of rock that the martians have erected, what are they? gentlemen, they are the great mystery of the land of the nile, the pyramids. the gigantic statue of their leader that they at the foot of their artificial mountains have set up--gentlemen, what is that? it is the sphinx!" the professor's agitation was so great that he could go no further. and indeed there was not one of us who did not fully share his excitement. to think that we should have come to the planet mars to solve one of the standing mysteries of the earth, which had puzzled mankind and defied all their efforts at solution for so many centuries! here, then, was the explanation of how those gigantic blocks that constitute the great pyramid of cheops had been swung to their lofty elevation. it was not the work of puny man, as many an engineer had declared that it could not be, but the work of these giants of mars. aina's wonderful story. the martians' beautiful prisoner recounts her marvellous adventures. aina resumed her story. "at length, our traditions say, a great pestilence broke out in the land of sand, and a partial vengeance was granted to us in the destruction of the larger number of our enemies. at last the giants who remained, fleeing before this scourge of the gods, used the mysterious means at their command, and, carrying our ancestors with them, returned to their own world, in which we have ever since lived." "then there are more of your people in mars?" said one of the professors. "alas, no," replied aina, her eyes filling with tears, "i alone am left." for a few minutes she was unable to speak. then she continued: an ancient martian conquest. "what fury possessed them i do not know, but not long ago an expedition departed from the planet, the purpose of which, as it was noised about over mars, was the conquest of a distant world. after a time a few survivors of that expedition returned. the story they told caused great excitement among our masters. they had been successful in their battles with the inhabitants of the world they had invaded, but as in the days of our forefathers, in the land of sand, a pestilence smote them, and but few survivors escaped." "not long after that, you, with your mysterious ships, appeared in the sky of mars. our masters studied you with their telescopes, and those who had returned from the unfortunate expedition declared that you were inhabitants of the world which they had invaded, come, doubtless, to take vengeance upon them." "some of my people who were permitted to look through the telescopes of the martians, saw you also, and recognized you as members of their own race. there were several thousand of us, altogether, and we were kept by the martians to serve them as slaves, and particularly to delight their ears with music, for our people have always been especially skilful in the playing of musical instruments, and in songs, and while the martians have but little musical skill themselves, they are exceedingly fond of these things." awaiting a rescue. "although mars had completed not less than five thousand circuits about the sun since our ancestors were brought as prisoners to its surface, yet the memory of our distant home had never perished from the hearts of our race, and when we recognized you, as we believed, our own brothers, come to rescue us from long imprisonment, there was great rejoicing. the news spread from mouth to mouth, wherever we were in the houses and families of our masters. we seemed to be powerless to aid you or to communicate with you in any manner. yet our hearts went out to you, as in your ships you hung above the planet, and preparations were secretly made by all the members of our race for your reception when, as we believed, would occur, you should effect a landing upon the planet and destroy our enemies." "but in some manner the fact that we had recognized you, and were preparing to welcome you, came to the ears of the martians." at this point the girl suddenly covered her eyes with her hands, shuddering and falling back in her seat. "oh, you do not know them as i do!" at length she exclaimed. "the monsters! their vengeance was too terrible! instantly the order went forth that we should all be butchered, and that awful command was executed!" "how, then, did you escape?" asked the heidelberg professor. aina seemed unable to speak for a while. finally mastering her emotion, she replied: her fortunate escape. "one of the chief officers of the martians wished me to remain alive. he, with his aides, carried me to one of the military depot of supplies, where i was found and rescued," and as she said this she turned toward colonel smith with a smile that reflected on his ruddy face and made it glow like a chinese lantern. "by ----!" muttered colonel smith, "that was the fellow we blew into nothing! blast him, he got off too easy!" the remainder of aina's story may be briefly told. when colonel smith and i entered the mysterious building which, as it now proved, was not a storehouse belonging to a village, as we had supposed, but one of the military depots of the martians, the girl, on catching sight of us, immediately recognized us as belonging to the strange squadron in the sky. as such she felt that we must be her friends, and saw in us her only possible hope of escape. for that reason she had instantly thrown herself under our protection. this accounted for the singular confidence which she had manifested in us from the beginning. her wonderful story had so captivated our imaginations that for a long time after it was finished we could not recover from the spell. it was told over and over again from mouth to mouth, and repeated from ship to ship, everywhere exciting the utmost astonishment. destiny seemed to have sent us on this expedition into space for the purpose of clearing off mysteries that had long puzzled the minds of men. when on the moon we had unexpectedly to ourselves settled the question that had been debated from the beginning of astronomical history of the former habitability of that globe. a question settled. now, on mars, we had put to rest no less mysterious questions relating to the past history of our own planet. adelung, as the heidelberg professor asserted, had named the vale of cashmere as the probable site of the garden of eden, and the place of origin of the human race, but later investigators had taken issue with this opinion, and the question where the aryans originated upon the earth had long been one of the most puzzling that science presented. this question seemed now to have been settled. aina had said that mars had completed , circuits about the sun since her people were brought to it as captives. one circuit of mars occupies days. more than , years had therefore elapsed since the first invasion of the earth by the martians. another great mystery--that of the origin of those gigantic and inexplicable monuments, the great pyramids and the sphinx, on the banks of the nile, had also apparently been solved by us, although these egyptian wonders had been the furthest things from our thoughts when we set out for the planet mars. we had travelled more than thirty millions of miles in order to get answers to questions which could not be solved at home. but from these speculations and retrospects we were recalled by the commander of the expedition. does aina hold the secret? "this is all very interesting and very romantic, gentlemen," he said, "but now let us get at the practical side of it. we have learned aina's language and have heard her story. let us next ascertain whether she cannot place in our hands some key which will place mars at our mercy. remember what we came here for, and remember that the earth expects every man of us to do his duty." this nelson-like summons again changed the current of our thoughts, and we instantly set to work to learn from aina if mars, like achilles, had not some vulnerable point where a blow would be mortal. chapter xiv. it was a curious scene when the momentous interview which was to determine our fate and that of mars began. aina had been warned of what was coming. we in the flagship had all learned to speak her language with more or less ease, but it was deemed best that the heidelberg professor, assisted by one of his colleagues, should act as interpreter. the girl, flushed with excitement of the novel situation, fully appreciating the importance of what was about to occur, and looking more charming than before, stood at one side of the principal apartment. directly facing her were the interpreters, and the rest of us, all with ears intent and eyes focused upon aina, stood in a double row behind them. as heretofore, i am setting down her words translated into our own tongue, having taken only so much liberty as to connect the sentences into a stricter sequence than they had when falling from her lips in reply to the questions that were showered upon her. she has a plan. "you will never be victorious," she said, "if you attack them openly as you have been doing. they are too strong and too numerous. they are well prepared for such attacks, because they have had to resist them before." "they have waged war with the inhabitants of the asteroid ceres, whose people are giants greater than themselves. their enemies from ceres have attacked them here. hence these fortifications, with weapons pointing skyward, and the great air fleets which you have encountered." "but there must be some point," said mr. edison, "where we can." "yes, yes," interrupted the girl quickly, "there is one blow you can deal them which they could not withstand." "what is that?" eagerly inquired the commander. "you can drown them out." "how? with the canals?" we must drown them out. "yes, i will explain to you. i have already told you, and, in fact, you must have seen it for yourselves, that there are almost no mountains on mars. a very learned man of my race used to say that the reason was because mars is so very old a world that the mountains it once had have been almost completely levelled, and the entire surface of the planet had become a great plain. there are depressions, however, most of which are occupied by the seas. the greater part of the land lies below the level of the oceans. in order at the same time to irrigate the soil and make it fruitful, and to protect themselves from overflows by the ocean breaking in upon them, the martians have constructed the immense and innumerable canals which you see running in all directions over the continents." "there is one period in the year, and that period has now arrived, when there is special danger of a great deluge. most of the oceans of mars lie in the southern hemisphere. when it is summer in that hemisphere, the great masses of ice and snow collected around the south pole melt rapidly away." "yes, that is so," broke in one of our astronomers, who was listening attentively. "many a time i have seen the vast snow fields around the southern pole of mars completely disappear as the summer sun rose high upon them." "with the melting of these snows," continued aina, "a rapid rise in the level of the water in the southern oceans occurs. on the side facing these oceans the continents of mars are sufficiently elevated to prevent an overflow, but nearer the equator the level of the land sinks lower." "with your telescopes you have no doubt noticed that there is a great bending sea connecting the oceans of the south with those of the north and running through the midst of the continents." "quite so," said the astronomer who had spoken before, "we call it the syrtis major." "that long narrow sea," aina went on, "forms a great channel through which the flood of waters caused by the melting of the southern polar snows flows swiftly toward the equator and then on toward the north until it reaches the sea basins which exist there. at that point it is rapidly turned into ice and snow, because, of course, while it is summer in the southern hemisphere it is winter in the northern." mars will be ours. "the syrtis major (i am giving our name to the channel of communication in place of that by which the girl called it) is like a great safety valve, which, by permitting the waters to flow northward, saves the continents from inundation." "but when mid-summer arrives, the snows around the pole having been completely melted away, the flood ceases and the water begins to recede. at this time, but for a device which the martians have employed, the canals connected with the oceans would run dry, and the vegetation, left without moisture under the summer sun, would quickly perish." "to prevent this they have built a series of enormous gates extending completely across the syrtis major at its narrowest point (latitude degrees south). these gates are all controlled by machinery collected at a single point on the shore of the strait. as soon as the flood in the syrtis major begins to recede, the gates are closed, and, the water being thus restrained, the irrigating canals are kept full long enough to mature the harvests." "the clew! the clew at last!" exclaimed mr. edison. "that is the place where we shall nip them. if we can close those gates now at the moment of high tide we shall flood the country. did you say," he continued, turning to aina, "that the movement of the gates was all controlled from a single point?" the great power house. "yes," said the girl. "there is a great building (power house) full of tremendous machinery which i once entered when my father was taken there by his master, and where i saw one martian, by turning a little handle, cause the great line of gates, stretching a hundred miles across the sea, to slowly shut in, edge to edge, until the flow of the water toward the north had been stopped." "how is the building protected?" "so completely," replied aina, "that my only fear is that you may not be able to reach it. on account of the danger from their enemies on ceres, the martians have fortified it strongly on all sides, and have even surrounded it and covered it overhead with a great electrical network, to touch which would be instant death." "ah," said mr. edison, "they have got an electric shield, have they? well, i think we shall be able to manage that." "anyhow," he continued, "we have got to get into that power house, and we have got to close those gates, and we must not lose much time in making up our minds how it is to be done. evidently this is our only chance. we have not force enough to contend in open battle with the martians, but if we can flood them out, and thereby render the engines contained in their fortifications useless, perhaps we shall be able to deal with the airships, which will be all the means of defence that will then remain to them." this idea commended itself to all the leaders of the expedition. it was determined to make a reconnaissance at once. but it would not do for us to approach the planet too hastily, and we certainly could not think of landing upon it in broad daylight. still, as long as we were yet at a considerable distance from mars, we felt that we should be safe from observation, because so much time had elapsed while we were hidden behind deimos that the martians had undoubtedly concluded that we were no longer in existence. so we boldly quitted the little satellite with our entire squadron and once more rapidly approached the red planet of war. this time it was to be a death grapple and our chances of victory still seemed good. ready for a death grapple. as soon as we arrived so near the planet that there was danger of our being actually seen, we took pains to keep continually in the shadow of mars, and the more surely to conceal our presence all lights upon the ships were extinguished. the precaution of the commander even went so far as to have the smooth metallic sides of the cars blackened over so that they should not reflect light, and thus become visible to the martians as shining specks, moving suspiciously among the stars. the precise location of the great power house on the shores of the syrtis major having been carefully ascertained, the squadron dropped down one night into the upper limits of the martian atmosphere, directly over the gulf. then a consultation was called on the flagship and a plan of campaign was quickly devised. it was deemed wise that the attempt should be made with a single electrical ship, but that the others should be kept hovering near, ready to respond on the instant to any signal for aid which might come from below. it was thought that, notwithstanding the wonderful defences, which, according to aina's account surrounded the building, a small party would have a better chance of success than a large one. mr. edison was certain that the electrical network which was described as covering the power house would not prove a serious obstruction to us, because by carefully sweeping the space where we intended to pass with the disintegrators before quitting the ship, the netting could be sufficiently cleared away to give us uninterrupted passage. at first the intention was to have twenty men, each armed with two disintegrators (that being the largest number that one person could carry to advantage) descend from the electrical ship and make the venture. but, after further discussion, this number was reduced; first to a dozen, and finally, to only four. these four consisted of mr. edison, colonel smith, mr. sidney phillips and myself. both by her own request and because we could not help feeling that her knowledge of the locality would be indispensable to us, aina was also included in our party, but not, of course, as a fighting member of it. it was about an hour after midnight when the ship in which we were to make the venture parted from the remainder of the squadron and dropped cautiously down. the blaze of electric lights running away in various directions indicated the lines of innumerable canals with habitations crowded along their banks, which came to a focus at a point on the continent of aeria, westward from the syrtis major. destroying the martians. with aina's aid our warriors prepare an awful revenge on the enemy. we stopped the electrical ship at an elevation of perhaps three hundred feet above the vast roof of a structure which aina assured us was the building we were in search of. here we remained for a few minutes, cautiously reconnoitring. on that side of the power house which was opposite to the shore of the syrtis major there was a thick grove of trees, lighted beneath, as was apparent from the illumination which here and there streamed up through the cover of leaves, but, nevertheless, dark and gloomy above the tree tops. "the electric network extends over the grove as well as over the building," said aina. this was lucky for us, because we wished to descend among the trees, and, by destroying part of the network over the tree tops, we could reach the shelter we desired and at the same time pass within the line of electric defences. with increased caution, and almost holding our breath lest we should make some noise that might reach the ears of the sentinels beneath, we caused the car to settle gently down until we caught sight of a metallic net stretched in the air between us and the trees. after our first encounter with the martians on the asteroid, where, as i have related, some metal which was included in their dress resisted the action of the disintegrators, mr. edison had readjusted the range of vibrations covered by the instruments, and since then we had found nothing that did not yield to them. consequently, we had no fear that the metal of the network would not be destroyed. there was danger, however, of arousing attention by shattering holes through the tree tops. this could be avoided by first carefully ascertaining how far away the network was, and then with the adjustable mirrors attached to the disintegrators focusing the vibratory discharge at that distance. overcoming their precautions. so successful were we that we opened a considerable gap in the network without doing any perceptible damage to the trees beneath. the ship was cautiously lowered through the opening and brought to rest among the upper branches of one of the tallest trees. colonel smith, mr. phillips, mr. edison and myself at once clambered out upon a strong limb. for a moment i feared our arrival had been betrayed on account of the altogether too noisy contest that arose between colonel smith and mr. phillips as to which of them should assist aina. to settle the dispute i took charge of her myself. at length we were all safely in the tree. then followed the still more dangerous undertaking of descending from this great height to the ground. fortunately, the branches were very close together and they extended down within a short distance of the soil. so the actual difficulties of the descent were not very great after all. the one thing that we had particularly to bear in mind was the absolute necessity of making no noise. at length the descent was successfully accomplished, and we all five stood together in the shadow at the foot of the great tree. the grove was so thick around that while there was an abundance of electric lights among the trees, their illumination did not fall upon us where we stood. peering cautiously through the vistas in various directions, we ascertained our location with respect to the wall of the building. like all the structures that we had seen on mars, it was composed of polished red metal. looking for an entrance. "where is the entrance?" inquired mr. edison, in a whisper. "come softly this way, and look out for the sentinel," replied aina. gripping our disintegrators firmly, and screwing up our courage, with noiseless steps we followed the girl among the shadows of the trees. we had one very great advantage. the martians had evidently placed so much confidence in the electric network which surrounded the power house that they never dreamed of enemies being able to penetrate it--at least, without giving warning of their coming. but the hole which we had blown in this network with the disintegrators had been made noiselessly, and mr. edison believed, since no enemies had appeared, that our operations had not been betrayed by any automatic signal to watchers inside the building. consequently, we had every reason to think that we now stood within the line of defence, in which they reposed the greatest confidence, without their having the least suspicion of our presence. aina assured us that on the occasion of her former visit to the power house there had been but two sentinels on guard at the entrance. at the inner end of a long passage leading to the interior, she said, there were two more. besides these there were three or four martian engineers watching the machinery in the interior of the building. a number of air ships were supposed to be on guard around the structure, but possibly their vigilance had been relaxed, because not long ago the martians had sent an expedition against ceres which had been so successful that the power of that planet to make an attack upon mars had for the present been destroyed. supposing us to have been annihilated in the recent battle among the clouds, they would have no fear or cause for vigilance on our account. the entrance to the great structure was low--at least, when measured by the stature of the martians. evidently the intention was that only one person at a time should find room to pass through it. drawing cautiously near, we discerned the outlines of two gigantic forms, standing in the darkness, one on either side of the door. colonel smith whispered to me: the disintegrator again. "if you will take the fellow on the right, i will attend to the other one." adjusting our aim as carefully as was possible in the gloom, colonel smith and i simultaneously discharged our disintegrators, sweeping them rapidly up and down in the manner which had become familiar to us when endeavoring to destroy one of the gigantic martians with a single stroke. and so successful were we that the two sentinels disappeared as if they had been ghosts of the night. instantly we all hurried forward and entered the door. before us extended a long, straight passage, brightly illuminated by a number of electric candles. its polished sides gleamed with blood-red reflections, and the gallery terminated, at a distance of two or three hundred feet, with an opening into a large chamber beyond, on the further side of which we could see part of a gigantic and complicated mass of machinery. making as little noise as possible, we pushed ahead along the passage, but when we had arrived within a distance of a dozen paces from the inner end, we stopped, and colonel smith, getting down upon his knees, crept forward until he had reached the inner end of the passage. there he peered cautiously around the edge into the chamber, and, turning his head a moment later, beckoned us to come forward. we crept to his side, and, looking out into the vast apartment, could perceive no enemies. what had become of the sentinels supposed to stand at the inner end of the passage we could not imagine. at any rate, they were not at their posts. in the great power house. the chamber was an immense square room at least a hundred feet in height and feet on a side, and almost filling the wall opposite to us was an intricate display of machinery, wheels, levers, rods and polished plates. this we had no doubt was one end of the great engine which opened and shut the great gates that could dam an ocean. "there is no one in sight," said colonel smith. "then we must act quickly," said mr. edison. "where," he said, turning to aina, "is the handle by turning which you saw the martian close the gates?" aina looked about in bewilderment. the mechanism before us was so complicated that even an expert mechanician would have been excusable for finding himself unable to understand it. there were scores of knobs and handles, all glistening in the electric light, any one of which, so far as the uninstructed could tell, might have been the master key that controlled the whole complex apparatus. the magic lever! "quick," said mr. edison, "where is it?" the girl in her confusion ran this way and that, gazing hopelessly upon the machinery, but evidently utterly unable to help us. to remain here inactive was not merely to invite destruction for ourselves, but was sure to bring certain failure upon the purpose of the expedition. all of us began instantly to look about in search of the proper handle, seizing every crank and wheel in sight and striving to turn it. "stop that!" shouted mr. edison, "you may set the whole thing wrong. don't touch anything until we have found the right lever." but to find that seemed to most of us now utterly beyond the power of man. it was at this critical moment that the wonderful depth and reach of mr. edison's mechanical genius displayed itself. he stepped back, ran his eye quickly over the whole immense mass of wheels, handles, bolts, bars and levers, paused for an instant, as if making up his mind, then said decidedly, "there it is," and, stepping quickly forward, selected a small wheel amid a dozen others, all furnished at the circumference with handles like those of a pilot's wheel, and, giving it a quick wrench, turned it half way around. surprised by the enemy. at this instant, a startling shout fell upon our ears. there was a thunderous clatter behind us, and, turning, we saw three gigantic martians rushing forward. chapter xv. "sweep them! sweep them!" cried colonel smith, as he brought his disintegrator to bear. mr. phillips and i instantly followed his example, and thus we swept the martians into eternity, while mr. edison coolly continued his manipulations of the wheel. the effect of what he was doing became apparent in less than half a minute. a shiver ran through the mass of machinery and shook the entire building. "look! look!" cried sidney phillips, who had stepped a little apart from the others. the grand canal. we all ran to his side and found ourselves in front of a great window which opened through the side of the engine, giving a view of what lay in front of it. there, gleaming in the electric lights, we saw the syrtis major, its waters washing high against the walls of the vast power house. running directly out from the shore, there was an immense metallic gate at least yards in length and rising feet above the present level of the water. this great gate was slowly swinging upon an invisible hinge in such a manner that in a few minutes it would evidently stand across the current of the syrtis major at right angles. beyond was a second gate, which was moving in the same manner. further on was a third gate, and then another, and another, as far as the eye could reach, evidently extending in an unbroken series completely across the great strait. as the gates, with accelerated motion when the current caught them, clanged together, we beheld a spectacle that almost stopped the beating of our hearts. a great rush of waters. the great syrtis seemed to gather itself for a moment, and then it leaped upon the obstruction and hurled its waters into one vast foaming geyser that seemed to shoot a thousand feet skyward. but the metal gates withstood the shock, though buried from our sight in the seething white mass, and the baffled waters instantly swirled round in ten thousand gigantic eddies, rising to the level of our window and beginning to inundate the power house before we fairly comprehended our peril. "we have done the work," said mr. edison, smiling grimly. "now we had better get out of this before the flood bursts upon us." the warning came none too soon. it was necessary to act upon it at once if we would save our lives. even before we could reach the entrance to the long passage through which we had come into the great engine room, the water had risen half way to our knees. colonel smith, catching aina under his arm, led the way. the roar of the maddened torrent behind deafened us. as we ran through the passage, the water followed us, with a wicked swishing sound, and within five seconds it was above our knees; in ten seconds up to our waists. the great danger now was that we should be swept from our feet, and once down in that torrent there would have been little chance of our ever getting our heads above its level. supporting ourselves as best we could with the aid of the walls, we partly ran, and were partly swept along, until, when we reached the outer end of the passage and emerged into the open air, the flood was swirling about our shoulders. escaping the water. here there was an opportunity to clutch some of the ornamental work surrounding the doorway, and thus we managed to stay our mad progress, and gradually to work out of the current until we found that the water, having now an abundance of room to spread, had fallen again as low as our knees. but suddenly we heard the thunder of the banks tumbling behind us, and to the right and left, and the savage growl of the released water as it sprang through the breaches. to my dying day, i think, i shall not forget the sight of a great fluid column that burst through the dyke at the edge of the grove of trees, and, by the tremendous impetus of its rush, seemed turned into a solid thing. like an enormous ram, it plowed the soil to a depth of twenty feet, uprooting acres of the immense trees like stubble turned over by the plowshare. the uproar was so awful that for an instant the coolest of us lost our self-control. yet we knew that we had not the fraction of a second to waste. the breaking of the banks had caused the water again rapidly to rise about us. in a little while it was once more as high as our waists. in the excitement and confusion, deafened by the noise and blinded by the flying foam, we were in danger of becoming separated in the flood. we no longer knew certainly in what direction was the tree by whose aid we had ascended from the electrical ship. we pushed first one way and then another, staggering through the rushing waters in search of it. finally we succeeded in locating it, and with all our strength hurried toward it. then there came a noise as if the globe of mars had been split asunder, and another great head of water hurled itself down upon the soil before us, and, without taking time to spread, bored a vast cavity in the ground, and scooped out the whole of the grove before our eyes as easily as a gardener lifts a sod with his spade. are we, too, destroyed? our last hope was gone. for a moment the level of the water around us sank again, as it poured into the immense excavation where the grove had stood, but in an instant it was reinforced from all sides and began once more rapidly to rise. we gave ourselves up for lost, and, indeed, there did not seem any possible hope of salvation. even in the extremity i saw colonel smith lifting the form of aina, who had fainted, above the surface of the surging water, while sidney phillips stood by his side and aided him in supporting the unconscious girl. "we stayed a little too long," was the only sound i heard from mr. edison. the huge bulk of the power house partially protected us against the force of the current, and the water spun around us in great eddies. these swept us this way and that, but yet we managed to cling together, determined not to be separated in death if we could avoid it. suddenly a cry rang out directly above our heads: "jump for your lives, and be quick!" at the same instant the ends of several ropes splashed into the water. we glanced upward, and there, within three or four yards of our heads, hung the electrical ship, which we had left moored at the top of the tree. tom, the expert electrician from mr. edison's shop, who had remained in charge of the ship, had never once dreamed of such a thing as deserting us. the moment he saw the water bursting over the dam, and evidently flooding the building which we had entered, he cast off his moorings, as we subsequently learned, and hovered over the entrance to the power house, getting as low down as possible and keeping a sharp watch for us. but most of the electric lights in the vicinity had been carried down by the first rush of water, and in the darkness he did not see us when we emerged from the entrance. it was only after the sweeping away of the grove of trees had allowed a flood of light to stream upon the scene from a cluster of electric lamps on a distant portion of the bank on the syrtis that had not yet given way that he caught sight of us. mars is ruined! immediately he began to shout to attract our attention, but in the awful uproar we could not hear him. getting together all the ropes that he could lay his hands on, he steered the ship to a point directly over us, and then dropped down within a few yards of the boiling flood. now as he hung over our heads, and saw the water up to our very necks and still swiftly rising, he shouted again: "catch hold, for god's sake!" the three men who were with him in the ship seconded his cries. but by the time we had fairly grasped the ropes, so rapidly was the flood rising, we were already afloat. with the assistance of tom and his men we were rapidly drawn up, and immediately tom reversed the electric polarity, and the ship began to rise. at that same instant, with a crash that shivered the air, the immense metallic power house gave way and was swept tumbling, like a hill torn loose from its base, over the very spot where a moment before we had stood. one second's hesitation on the part of tom, and the electrical ship would have been battered into a shapeless wad of metal by the careening mass. the deluge on mars. how the martians met their doom through aina's plans. when we had attained a considerable height, so that we could see to a great distance on either side, the spectacle became even more fearful than it was when we were close to the surface. on all sides banks and dykes were going down; trees were being uprooted; buildings were tumbling, and the ocean was achieving that victory over the land which had long been its due, but which the ingenuity of the inhabitants of mars had postponed for ages. far away we could see the front of the advancing wave crested with foam that sparkled in the electric lights, and as it swept on it changed the entire aspect of the planet--in front of it all life, behind it all death. eastward our view extended across the syrtis major toward the land of libya and the region of isidis. on that side also the dykes were giving way under the tremendous pressure, and the floods were rushing toward the sunrise, which had just begun to streak the eastern sky. the continents that were being overwhelmed on the western side of the syrtis were meroe, aeria, arabia, edom and eden. the water beneath us continually deepened. the current from the melting snows around the southern pole was at its strongest, and one could hardly have believed that any obstruction put in its path would have been able to arrest it and turn it into these two all-swallowing deluges, sweeping east and west. but, as we now perceived, the level of the land over a large part of its surface was hundreds of feet below the ocean, so that the latter, when once the barriers were broken, rushed into depressions that yawned to receive it. waiting for the flood. the point where we had dealt our blow was far removed from the great capital of mars, around the lake of the sun, and we knew that we should have to wait for the floods to reach that point before the desired effect could be produced. by the nearest way, the water had at least , miles to travel. we estimated that its speed where we hung above it was as much as a hundred miles an hour. even if that speed were maintained, more than two days and nights would be required for the floods to reach the lake of the sun. but as the water rushed on it would break the banks of all the canals intersecting the country, and these, being also elevated above the surface, would add the impetus of their escaping waters to hasten the advance of the flood. we calculated, therefore, that about two days would suffice to place the planet at our mercy. half way from the syrtis major to the lake of the sun another great connecting link between the southern and northern ocean basins, called on our maps of mars the indus, existed, and through this channel we knew that another great current must be setting from the south toward the north. the flood that we had started would reach and break the banks of the indus within one day. flooding hundreds of canals. the flood travelling in the other direction, towards the east, would have considerably further to go before reaching the neighborhood of the lake of the sun. it, too, would involve hundreds of great canals as it advanced and would come plunging upon the lake of the sun and its surrounding forts and cities, probably about half a day later than the arrival of the deluge that travelled towards the west. now that we had let the awful destroyer loose we almost shrank from the thought of the consequences which we had produced. how many millions would perish as the result of our deed we could not even guess. many of the victims, so far as we knew, might be entirely innocent of enmity toward us, or of the evil which had been done to our native planet. but this was a case in which the good--if they existed--must suffer with the bad on account of the wicked deeds of the latter. i have already remarked that the continents of mars were higher on their northern and southern borders where they faced the great oceans. these natural barriers bore to the main mass of the land somewhat the relation of the edge of a shallow dish to its bottom. their rise on the land side was too gradual to give them the appearance of hills, but on the side toward the sea they broke down in steep banks and cliffs several hundred feet in height. we guessed that it would be in the direction of these elevations that the inhabitants would flee, and those who had timely warning might thus be able to escape in case the flood did not--as it seemed possible it might in its first mad rush--overtop the highest elevations on mars. a dreadful scene. as day broke and the sun slowly rose upon the dreadful scene beneath us, we began to catch sight of some of the fleeing inhabitants. we had shifted the position of the fleet toward the south, and were now suspended above the southeastern corner of aeria. here a high bank of reddish rock confronted the sea, whose waters ran lashing and roaring along the bluffs to supply the rapid draught produced by the emptying of the syrtis major. along the shore there was a narrow line of land, hundreds of miles in length, but less than a quarter of a mile broad, which still rose slightly above the surface of the water, and this land of refuge was absolutely packed with the monstrous inhabitants of the planet who had fled hither on the first warning that the water was coming. in some places it was so crowded that the later comers could not find standing ground on dry land, but were continually slipping back and falling into the water. it was an awful sight to look at them. it reminded me of pictures that i had seen of the deluge in the days of noah, when the waters had risen to the mountain tops, and men, women and children were fighting for a foothold upon the last dry spots that the earth contained. we were all moved by a desire to help our enemies, for we were overwhelmed with feelings of pity and remorse, but to aid them was now utterly beyond our power. the mighty floods were out, and the end was in the hands of god. fortunately, we had little time for these thoughts, because no sooner had the day begun to dawn around us than the airships of the martians appeared. evidently the people in them were dazed by the disaster and uncertain what to do. it is doubtful whether at first they comprehended the fact that we were the agents who had produced the cataclysm. the flocking of the airships. but as the morning advanced the airships came flocking in greater and greater numbers from every direction, many swooping down close to the flood in order to rescue those who were drowning. hundreds gathered along the slip of land which was crowded as i have described, with refugees, while other hundreds rapidly assembled about us, evidently preparing for an attack. we had learned in our previous contests with the airships of the martians that our electrical ships had a great advantage over them, not merely in rapidity and facility of movement, but in the fact that our disintegrators could sweep in every direction, while it was only with much difficulty that the martian airships could discharge their electrical strokes at an enemy poised directly above their heads. accordingly, orders were instantly flashed to all the squadron to rise vertically to an elevation so great that the rarity of the atmosphere would prevent the airships from attaining the same level. outwitting the enemy. this manoeuvre was executed so quickly that the martians were unable to deal us a blow before we were poised above them in such a position that they could not easily reach us. still they did not mean to give up the conflict. presently we saw one of the largest of their ships manoeuvring in a very peculiar manner, the purpose of which we did not at first comprehend. its forward portion commenced slowly to rise, until it pointed upward like the nose of a fish approaching the surface of the water. the moment it was in this position, an electrical bolt was darted from its prow, and one of our ships received a shock which, although it did not prove fatal to the vessel itself, killed two or three men aboard it, disarranged its apparatus, and rendered it for the time being useless. "ah, that's their trick, is it?" said mr. edison. "we must look out for that. whenever you see one of the airships beginning to stick its nose up after that fashion blaze away at it." an order to this effect was transmitted throughout the squadron. at the same time several of the most powerful disintegrators were directed upon the ship which had executed the stratagem and, reduced to a wreck, it dropped, whirling like a broken kite until it fell into the flood beneath. a thousand martian ships. still the martians' ships came flocking in ever greater numbers from all directions. they made desperate attempts to attain the level at which we hung above them. this was impossible, but many, getting an impetus by a swift run in the denser portion of the atmosphere beneath, succeeded in rising so high that they could discharge their electric artillery with considerable effect. others, with more or less success, repeated the manoeuvre of the ship which had first attacked us, and thus the battle became gradually more general and more fierce, until, in the course of an hour or two, our squadron found itself engaged with probably a thousand airships, which blazed with incessant lightning strokes, and were able, all too frequently, to do us serious damage. but on our part the battle was waged with a cool determination and a consciousness of insuperable advantage which boded ill for the enemy. only three or four of our sixty electrical ships were seriously damaged, while the work of the disintegrators upon the crowded fleet that floated beneath us was terrible to look upon. they battle on in earnest. our strokes fell thick and fast on all sides. it was like firing into a flock of birds that could not get away. notwithstanding all their efforts they were practically at our mercy. shattered into unrecognizable fragments, hundreds of the airships continually dropped from their great height to be swallowed up in the boiling waters. yet they were game to the last. they made every effort to get at us, and in their frenzy they seemed to discharge their bolts without much regard to whether friends or foes were injured. our eyes were nearly blinded by the ceaseless glare beneath us, and the uproar was indescribable. at length, after this fearful contest had lasted for at least three hours, it became evident that the strength of the enemy was rapidly weakening. nearly the whole of their immense fleet of airships had been destroyed, or so far damaged that they were barely able to float. just so long, however, as they showed signs of resistance we continued to pour our merciless fire upon them, and the signal to cease was not given until the airships which had escaped serious damage began to flee in every direction. victory is ours! "thank god, the thing is over," said mr. edison. "we have got the victory at last, but how we shall make use of it is something that at present i do not see." "but will they not renew the attack," asked someone. "i do not think they can," was the reply. "we have destroyed the very flower of their fleet." "and better than that," said colonel smith, "we have destroyed their elan; we have made them afraid. their discipline is gone." but this was only the beginning of our victory. the floods below were achieving a still greater triumph, and now that we had conquered the airships we dropped within a few hundred feet of the surface of the water and then turned our faces westward in order to follow the advance of the deluge and see whether, as we had hoped, it would overwhelm our enemies in the very centre of their power. the flood advances. in a little while we had overtaken the front wave, which was still devouring everything. we saw it bursting the banks of the canals, sweeping away forests of gigantic trees, and swallowing cities and villages, leaving nothing but a broad expanse of swirling and eddying waters, which, in consequence of the prevailing red hue of the vegetation and the soil, looked, as shuddering we gazed down upon it, like an ocean of blood flecked with foam and steaming with the escaping life of the planet from whose veins it gushed. as we skirted the southern borders of the continent the same dreadful scenes which we had beheld on the coast of aeria presented themselves. crowds of refugees thronged the high border of the land and struggled with one another for a foothold against the continually rising flood. watching the destruction. we saw, too, flitting in every direction, but rapidly fleeing before our approach, many airships, evidently crowded with martians, but not armed either for offence or defence. these, of course, we did not disturb, for merciless as our proceedings seemed even to ourselves, we had no intention of making war upon the innocent, or upon those who had no means to resist. what we had done it had seemed to us necessary to do, but henceforth we were resolved to take no more lives if it could be avoided. thus, during the remainder of that day, all of the following night and all of the next day, we continued upon the heels of the advancing flood. chapter xvi. the second night we could perceive ahead of us the electric lights covering the land of thaumasia, in the midst of which lay the lake of the sun. the flood would be upon it by daybreak, and, assuming that the demoralization produced by the news of the coming of the waters, which we were aware had hours before been flashed to the capital of mars, would prevent the martians from effectively manning their forts, we thought it safe to hasten on with the flagship, and one or two others, in advance of the water, and to hover over the lake of the sun in the darkness, in order that we might watch the deluge perform its awful work in the morning. the giant woman drowned. she, like the rest, a prey to the devouring flood of the canals. thaumasia, as i have before remarked, was a broad, oval land, about , miles across, having the lake of the sun exactly in its centre. from this lake, which was four or five hundred miles in diameter, and circular in outline, many canals radiated, as straight as the spokes of a wheel, in every direction, and connected it with the surrounding seas. like all the other martian continents, thaumasia lay below the level of the sea, except toward the south, where it fronted the ocean. completely surrounding the lake was a great ring of cities constituting the capital of mars. here the genius of the martians had displayed itself to the full. the surrounding country was irrigated until it fairly bloomed with gigantic vegetation and flowers; the canals were carefully regulated with locks so that the supply of water was under complete control; the display of magnificent metallic buildings of all kinds and sizes produced a most dazzling effect, and the protection against enemies afforded by the innumerable fortifications surrounding the ringed city, and guarding the neighboring lands, seemed complete. waiting for the flood. suspended at a height of perhaps two miles from the surface, near the southern edge of the lake, we waited for the oncoming flood. with the dawn of day we began to perceive more clearly the effects which the news of the drowning of the planet had produced. it was evident that many of the inhabitants of the cities had already fled. airships on which the fugitives hung as thick as swarms of bees were seen, elevated but a short distance above the ground, and making their way rapidly toward the south. the martians knew that their only hope of escape lay in reaching the high southern border of the land before the floods were upon them. but they must have known also that that narrow beach would not suffice to contain one in ten of those who sought refuge there. the density of the population around the lake of the sun seemed to us incredible. again our hearts sank within us at the sight of the fearful destruction of life for which we were responsible. yet we comforted ourselves with the reflection that it was unavoidable. as colonel smith put it: "you couldn't trust these coyotes. the only thing to do was to drown them out. i am sorry for them, but i guess there will be as many left as will be good for us, anyhow." the crest of the waters. we had not long to wait for the flood. as the dawn began to streak the east we saw its awful crest moving out of the darkness, bursting across the canals and plowing its way in the direction of the crowded shores of the lake of the sun. the supply of water behind that great wave seemed inexhaustible. five thousand miles it had travelled, and yet its power was as great as when it started from the syrtis major. we caught sight of the oncoming water before it was visible to the martians beneath us. but while it was yet many miles away, the roar of it reached them, and then arose a chorus of terrified cries, the effect of which, coming to our ears out of the half gloom of the morning, was most uncanny and horrible. thousands upon thousands of the martians still remained here to become the victims of the deluge. some, perhaps, had doubted the truth of the reports that the banks were down and the floods were out; others, for one reason or another had been unable to get away; others, like the inhabitants of pompeii, had lingered too long, or had returned after beginning their flight to secure abandoned treasures, and now it was too late to get away. engulfing the city. with a roar that shook the planet the white wall rushed upon the great city beneath our feet, and in an instant it had been engulfed. on went the flood, swallowing up the lake of the sun itself, and in a little while, as far as our eyes could range, the land of thaumasia had been turned into a raging sea. we now turned our ships toward the southern border of the land, following the direction of the airships carrying the fugitives, a few of which were still navigating the atmosphere a mile beneath us. in their excitement and terror the martians paid little attention to us, although, as the morning brightened, they must have been aware of our presence over their heads. but, apparently, they no longer thought of resistance; their only object was escape from the immediate and appalling danger. when we had progressed to a point about half way from the lake of the sun to the border of the sea, having dropped down within a few hundred feet of the surface, there suddenly appeared, in the midst of the raging waters, a sight so remarkable that at first i rubbed my eyes in astonishment, not crediting their report of what they beheld. a woman forty feet high! standing on the apex of a sandy elevation, which still rose a few feet above the gathering flood, was the figure of a woman, as perfect in form and in classic beauty of feature as the venus of milo--a magnified human being not less than forty feet in height! but for her swaying and the wild motions of her arms, we should have mistaken her for a marble statue. aina, who happened to be looking, instantly exclaimed: "it is the woman from ceres. she was taken prisoner by the martians during their last invasion of that world, and since then has been a slave in the palace of the emperor." overtaken by the flood. apparently her great stature had enabled her to escape, while her masters had been drowned. she had fled like the others, toward the south, but being finally surrounded by the rising waters, had taken refuge on the hillock of sand, where we saw her. this was fast giving way under the assault of the waves, and even while we watched the water rose to her knees. "drop lower," was the order of the electrical steersman of the flagship, and as quickly as possible we approached the place where the towering figure stood. she had realized the hopelessness of her situation, and quickly ceased those appalling and despairing gestures, which at first served to convince us that it was indeed a living being on whom we were looking. save the woman from ceres! there she stood, with a light, white garment thrown about her, erect, half-defiant, half yielding to her fear, more graceful than any greek statue, her arms outstretched, yet motionless, and her eyes upcast, as if praying to her god to protect her. her hair, which shone like gold in the increasing light of day, streamed over her shoulders, and her great eyes were astare between terror and supplication. so wildly beautiful a sight not one of us had ever beheld. for a moment sympathy was absorbed in admiration. then: "save her! save her!" was the cry that arose throughout the ship. ropes were instantly thrown out, and one or two men prepared to let themselves down in order better to aid her. but when we were almost within reach, and so close that we could see the very expression of her eyes, which appeared to take no note of us, but to be fixed, with a far-away look upon something beyond human ken, suddenly the undermined bank on which she stood gave way, the blood-red flood swirled in from right to left, and then: "the waters closed above her face with many a ring." she, like the rest, is gone. "if but for that woman's sake, i am sorry we drowned the planet," exclaimed sidney phillips. but a moment afterward i saw that he regretted what he had said, for aina's eyes were fixed upon him. perhaps, however, she did not understand his remark, and perhaps if she did it gave her no offence. after this episode we pursued our way rapidly until we arrived at the shore of the southern ocean. there, as we had expected, was to be seen a narrow strip of land with the ocean on one side and the raging flood seeking to destroy it on the other. in some places it had been already broken through, so that the ocean was flowing in to assist in the drowning of thaumasia. but some parts of the coast were evidently so elevated that no matter how high the flood might rise it would not completely cover them. here the fugitives had gathered in dense throngs and above them hovered most of the airships, loaded down with others who were unable to find room upon the dry land. the martians not discouraged. on one of the loftiest and broadest of these elevations we noticed indications of military order in the alignment of the crowds and the shore all around was guarded by gigantic pickets, who mercilessly shoved back into the flood all the later comers, and thus prevented too great crowding upon the land. in the centre of this elevation rose a palatial structure of red metal which aina informed us was one of the residences of the emperor, and we concluded that the monarch himself was now present there. the absence of any signs of resistance on the part of the airships, and the complete drowning of all of the formidable fortifications on the surface of the planet, convinced us that all we now had to do in order to complete our conquest was to get possession of the person of the chief ruler. the fleet was, accordingly, concentrated, and we rapidly approached the great martian palace. as we came down within a hundred feet of them and boldly made our way among their airships, which retreated at our approach, the martians gazed at us with mingled fear and astonishment. we were their conquerors and they knew it. we were coming to demand their surrender, and they evidently understood that also. as we approached the palace signals were made from it with brilliant colored banners which aina informed us were intended as a token of truce. "we shall have to go down and have a confab with them, i suppose," said mr. edison. "we can't kill them off now that they are helpless, but we must manage somehow to make them understand that unconditional surrender is their only chance." a parley with the enemy. "let us take aina with us," i suggested, "and since she can speak the language of the martians we shall probably have no difficulty in arriving at an understanding." accordingly the flagship was carefully brought further down in front of the entrance to the palace, which had been kept clear by the martian guards, and while the remainder of the squadron assembled within a few feet directly over our heads with the disintegrators turned upon the palace and the crowd below. mr. edison and myself, accompanied by aina, stepped out upon the ground. there was a forward movement in the immense crowd, but the guards sternly kept everybody back. a party of a dozen giants, preceded by one who seemed to be their commander, gorgeously attired in jewelled garments, advanced from the entrance of the palace to meet us. aina addressed a few words to the leader, who replied sternly, and then, beckoning us to follow, retraced his steps into the palace. notwithstanding our confidence that all resistance had ceased, we did not deem it wise actually to venture into the lion's den without having taken every precaution against a surprise. accordingly, before following the martian into the palace, we had twenty of the electrical ships moored around it in such a position that they commanded not only the entrance but all of the principal windows, and then a party of forty picked men, each doubly armed with powerful disintegrators, were selected to attend us into the building. this party was placed under the command of colonel smith, and sidney phillips insisted on being a member of it. a nearer sight of the martians. in the meantime the martian with his attendants who had first invited us to enter, finding that we did not follow him, had returned to the front of the palace. he saw the disposition that we had made of our forces, and instantly comprehended its significance, for his manner changed somewhat, and he seemed more desirous than before to conciliate us. when he again beckoned us to enter, we unhesitatingly followed him, and, passing through the magnificent entrance, found ourselves in a vast ante-chamber, adorned after the manner of the martians in the most expensive manner. thence we passed into a great circular apartment, with a dome painted in imitation of the sky, and so lofty that to our eyes it seemed like the firmament itself. here we found ourselves approaching an elevated throne situated in the centre of the apartment, while long rows of brilliantly armored guards flanked us on either side, and, grouped around the throne, some standing and others reclining upon the flights of steps which appeared to be of solid gold, was an array of martian woman, beautifully and becomingly attired, all of whom greatly astonished us by the singular charm of their faces and bearing, so different from the aspect of most of the martians, whom we had already encountered. the martians' beautiful women. despite their stature--for these women averaged twelve or thirteen feet in height--the beauty of their complexions--of a dark, olive tint--was no less brilliant than that of the women of italy or spain. at the top of the steps on a magnificent golden throne, sat the emperor himself. there are some busts of caracalla which i have seen that are almost as ugly as the face of the martian ruler. he was of gigantic stature, larger than the majority of his subjects, and as near as i could judge must have been between fifteen and sixteen feet in height. as i looked at him i understood a remark which had been made by aina to the effect that the martians were not all alike, and that the peculiarities of their minds were imprinted on their faces and expressed in their forms in a very wonderful, and sometimes terrible manner. i had also learned from her that mars was under a military government, and that the military class had absolute control of the planet. i was somewhat startled, then, in looking at the head and centre of the great military system of mars, to find in his appearance a striking confirmation of the speculations of our terrestrial phrenologists. his broad, mis-shapen head bulged in those parts where they had placed the so-called organs of combativeness, destructiveness, etc. something learned about them. plainly, this was an effect of his training and education. his very brain had become a military engine; and the aspect of his face, the pitiless lines of his mouth and chin, the evil glare of his eyes, the attitude and carriage of his muscular body, all tended to complete the warlike ensemble. he was magnificently dressed in some vesture that had the lustre of a polished plate of gold, with the suppleness of velvet. as we approached he fixed his immense, deep-set eyes sternly upon our faces. the contrast between his truly terrible countenance and the eve-like features of the women who surrounded his throne was as great as if satan after his fall had here re-enthroned himself in the midst of angels. mr. edison, colonel smith, sidney phillips, aina and myself advanced at the head of the procession, our guard following in close order behind us. it had been evident from the moment that we entered the palace that aina was regarded with aversion by all of the martians. even the women about the throne gazed scowlingly at her as we drew near. apparently, the bitterness of feeling which had led to the awful massacre of all her race had not yet vanished. and, indeed, since the fact that she remained alive could have been known only to the martian who had abducted her and to his immediate companions, her reappearance with us must have been a great surprise to all those who now looked upon her. the enemy vanquished. the martians succumb at last, and are at our mercy. it was clear to me that the feeling aroused by her appearance was every moment becoming more intense. still, the thought of a violent outbreak did not occur to me, because our recent triumph had seemed so complete that i believed the martians would be awed by our presence, and would not undertake actually to injure the girl. i think we all had the same impression, but as the event proved, we were mistaken. suddenly one of the gigantic guards, as if actuated by a fit of ungovernable hatred, lifted his foot and kicked aina. with a loud shriek, she fell to the floor. aina attacked by a martian. the blow was so unexpected that for a second we all remained riveted to the spot. then i saw colonel smith's face turn livid, and at the same instant heard the whirr of his disintegrator, while sidney phillips, forgetting the deadly instrument that he carried in his hand, sprung madly toward the brute who had kicked aina, as if he intended to throttle him, colossus as he was. but colonel smith's aim, though instantaneously taken, as he had been accustomed to shoot on the plains, was true, and phillips, plunging madly forward, seemed wreathed in a faint blue mist--all that the disintegrator had left of the gigantic martian. swift vengeance. who could adequately describe the scene that followed? i remember that the martian emperor sprang to his feet, looking tenfold more terrible than before. i remember that there instantly burst from the line of guards on either side crinkling beams of death-fire that seemed to sear the eyeballs. i saw a half a dozen of our men fall in heaps of ashes, and even at that terrible moment i had time to wonder that a single one of us remained alive. rather by instinct than in consequence of any order given, we formed ourselves in a hollow square, with aina lying apparently lifeless in the centre, and then with gritted teeth we did our work. the lines of guards melted before the disintegrators like rows of snow men before a licking flame. a terrible battle. the discharge of the lightning engines in the hands of the martians in that confined space made an uproar so tremendous that it seemed to pass the bounds of human sense. more of our men fell before their awful fire, and for the second time since our arrival on this dreadful planet of war our annihilation seemed inevitable. but in a moment the whole scene changed. suddenly there was a discharge into the room which i knew came from one of the disintegrators of the electrical ships. it swept through the crowded throng like a destroying blast. instantly from another side swished a second discharge, no less destructive, and this was quickly followed by a third. our ships were firing through the windows. the power of the disintegrator. almost at the same moment i saw the flagship, which had been moored in the air close to the entrance and floating only three or four feet above the ground, pushing its way through the gigantic doorway from the ante-room, with its great disintegrators pointed upon the crowd like the muzzles of a cruiser's guns. and now the martians saw that the contest was hopeless for them, and their mad struggle to get out of the range of the disintegrators and to escape from the death chamber was more appalling to look upon than anything that had yet occurred. it was a panic of giants. they trod one another under foot; they yelled and screamed in their terror; they tore each other with their clawlike fingers. they no longer thought of resistance. the battle spirit had been blown out of them by a breath of terror that shivered their marrow. no pity for our foes. still the pitiless disintegrators played upon them until mr. edison, making himself heard, now that the thunder of their engines had ceased to reverberate through the chamber, commanded that our fire should cease. in the meantime the armed martians outside the palace, hearing the uproar within, seeing our men pouring their fire through the windows, and supposing that we were guilty at once of treachery and assassination, had attempted an attack upon the electrical ships stationed round the building. but fortunately they had none of their larger engines at hand, and with their hand arms alone they had not been able to stand up against the disintegrators. they were blown away before the withering fire of the ships by the hundred until, fleeing from destruction, they rushed madly, driving their unarmed companions before them into the seething waters of the flood close at hand. chapter xvii. the emperor survives. through all this terrible contest the emperor of the martians had remained standing upon his throne, gazing at the awful spectacle, and not moving from the spot. neither he nor the frightened woman gathered upon the steps of the throne had been injured by the disintegrators. their immunity was due to the fact that the position and elevation of the throne were such that it was not within the range of fire of the electrical ships which had poured their vibratory discharges through the windows, and we inside had only directed our fire toward the warriors who had attacked us. now that the struggle was over we turned our attention to aina. fortunately the girl had not been seriously injured and she was quickly restored to consciousness. had she been killed, we would have been practically helpless in attempting further negotiations, because the knowledge which we had acquired of the language of the martians from the prisoner captured on the golden asteroid, was not sufficient to meet the requirements of the occasion. the emperor our prisoner. when the martian monarch saw that we had ceased the work of death, he sank upon his throne. there he remained, leaning his chin upon his two hands and staring straight before him like that terrible doomed creature who fascinates the eyes of every beholder standing in the sistine chapel and gazing at michael angelo's dreadful painting of "the last judgement." this wicked martian also felt that he was in the grasp of pitiless and irresistible fate, and that a punishment too well deserved, and from which there was no possible escape, now confronted him. there he remained in a hopelessness which almost compelled our sympathy, until aina had so far recovered that she was once more able to act as our interpreter. then we made short work of the negotiations. speaking through aina, the commander said: "you know who we are. we have come from the earth, which, by your command, was laid waste. our commission was not revenge, but self-protection. what we have done has been accomplished with that in view. you have just witnessed an example of our power, the exercise of which was not dictated by our wish, but compelled by the attack wantonly made upon a helpless member of our own race under our protection." we dictate terms. "we have laid waste your planet, but it is simply a just retribution for what you did with ours. we are prepared to complete the destruction, leaving not a living being in this world of yours, or to grant you peace, at your choice. our condition of peace is simply this: 'all resistance must cease absolutely.'" "quite right," broke in colonel smith; "let the scorpion pull out his sting or we'll do it for him." "nothing that we could now do," continued the commander, "would in my opinion save you from ultimate destruction. the forces of nature which we have been compelled to let loose upon you will complete their own victory. but we do not wish, unnecessarily, to stain our hands further with your blood. we shall leave you in possession of your lives. preserve them if you can. but, in case the flood recedes before you have all perished from starvation, remember that you here take an oath, solemnly binding yourself and your descendants forever never again to make war upon the earth." we show mercy. "that's really the best we can do," said mr. edison, turning to us. "we can't possibly murder these people in cold blood. the probability is that the flood has hopelessly ruined all their engines of war. i do not believe that there is one chance in ten that the waters will drain off in time to enable them to get at their stores of provisions before they have perished from starvation." "it is my opinion," said lord kelvin, who had joined us (his pair of disintegrators hanging by his side, attached to a strap running over the back of his neck, very much as a farmer sometimes carries his big mittens), "it is my opinion that the flood will recede more rapidly than you think, and that the majority of these people will survive. but i quite agree with your merciful view of the matter. we must be guilty of no wanton destruction. probably more than nine-tenths of the inhabitants of mars have perished in the deluge. even if all the others survived ages would elapse before they could regain the power to injure us." the martians submit. i need not describe in detail how our propositions were received by the martian monarch. he knew, and his advisers, some of whom he had called in consultation, also knew, that everything was in our hands to do as we pleased. they readily agreed, therefore, that they would make no more resistance and that we and our electrical ships should be undisturbed while we remained upon mars. the monarch took the oath prescribed after the manner of his race: thus the business was completed. but through it all there had been the shadow of a sneer on the emperor's face which i did not like. but i said nothing. and now we began to think of our return home, and of the pleasure we should have in recounting our adventures to our friends on the earth, who were doubtless eagerly waiting for news from us. we knew they had been watching mars with powerful telescopes, and we were also eager to learn how much they had seen and how much they had been able to guess of our proceedings. but a day or two at least would be required to overhaul the electrical ships and to examine the state of our provisions. those which we had brought from the earth, it will be remembered, had been spoiled and we had been compelled to replace them from the compressed provisions found in the martians' storehouse. this compressed food had proved not only exceedingly agreeable to the taste, but very nourishing, and all of us had grown extremely fond of it. a new supply, however, would be needed in order to carry us back to the earth. at least sixty days would be required for the homeward journey, because we could hardly expect to start from mars with the same initial velocity which we had been able to generate on leaving home. in considering the matter of provisioning the fleet it finally became necessary to take an account of our losses. this was a thing that we had all shrunk from, because they had seemed to us almost too terrible to be borne. but now the facts had to be faced. out of the ships, carrying something more than two thousand souls, with which we had quitted the earth, there remained only fifty-five ships and , men! all the others had been lost in our terrific encounters with the martians, and particularly in our first disastrous battle beneath the clouds. preparing to return. among the lost were many men whose names were famous upon the earth, and whose death would be widely deplored when the news of it was received upon their native planet. fortunately this number did not include any of those whom i have had occasion to mention in the course of this narrative. the venerable lord kelvin, who, notwithstanding his age, and his pacific disposition, proper to a man of science, had behaved with the courage and coolness of a veteran in every crisis; monsieur moissan, the eminent chemist; prof. sylvanus p. thompson, and the heidelberg professor, to whom we all felt under special obligations because he had opened to our comprehension the charming lips of aina--all these had survived, and were about to return with us to the earth. it seemed to some of us almost heartless to deprive the martians who still remained alive of any of the provisions which they themselves would require to tide them over the long period which must elapse before the recession of the flood should enable them to discover the sites of their ruined homes, and to find the means of sustenance. but necessity was now our only law. we learned from aina that there must be stores of provisions in the neighborhood of the palace, because it was the custom of the martians to lay up such stores during the harvest time in each martian year in order to provide against the contingency of an extraordinary drought. it was not with very good grace that the martian emperor acceded to our demands that one of the storehouses should be opened, but resistance was useless, and of course we had our way. the supplies of water which we brought from the earth, owing to a peculiar process invented by monsieur moissan, had been kept in exceedingly good condition, but they were now running low and it became necessary to replenish them also. this was easily done from the southern ocean, for on mars, since the levelling of the continental elevations, brought about many years ago, there is comparatively little salinity in the sea waters. while these preparations were going on lord kelvin and the other men of science entered with the utmost eagerness upon those studies, the prosecution of which had been the principal inducement leading them to embark on the expedition. but, almost all of the face of the planet being covered with the flood, there was comparatively little that they could do. much, however, could be learned with the aid of aina from the martians, now crowded on the land about the palace. the results of these discoveries will in due time appear, fully elaborated in learned and authoritative treatises prepared by these savants themselves. i shall only call attention to one, which seemed to me very remarkable. i have already said that there were astonishing differences in the personal appearance of the martians, evidently arising from differences of character and education, which had impressed themselves in the physical aspect of the individuals. we now learned that these differences were more completely the result of education than we had at first supposed. looking about among the martians by whom we were surrounded, it soon became easy for us to tell who were the soldiers and who were the civilians, simply by the appearance of their bodies, and particularly of their heads. all members of the military class resembled, to a greater or less extent, the monarch himself, in that those parts of their skulls which our phrenologists had designated as the bumps of destructiveness, combativeness and so on were enormously and disproportionately developed. and all this, as we were assured, was completely under the control of the martians themselves. they had learned, or invented, methods by which the brain itself could be manipulated, so to speak, and any desired portions of it could be specially developed, while the other parts of it were left to their normal growth. the consequence was that in the martian schools and colleges there was no teaching in our sense of the word. it was all brain culture. a martian youth selected to be a soldier had his fighting faculties especially developed, together with those parts of the brain which impart courage and steadiness of nerve. he who was intended for scientific investigation had his brain developed into a mathematical machine, or an instrument of observation. poets and literary men had their heads bulging with the imaginative faculties. the heads of inventors were developed into a still different shape. "and so," said aina, translating for us the words of a professor in the imperial university of mars, from whom we derived the greater part of our information on this subject, "the martian boys do not study a subject; they do not have to learn it, but, when their brains have been sufficiently developed in the proper direction, they comprehend it instantly, by a kind of divine instinct." but among the women of mars, we saw none of these curious, and to our eyes monstrous, differences of development. while the men received, in addition to their special education, a broad general culture also, with the women there was no special education. it was all general in its character, yet thorough enough in that way. the consequence was that only female brains upon mars were entirely well balanced. this was the reason why we invariably found the martian women to be remarkably charming creatures, with none of those physical exaggerations and uncouth developments which disfigured their masculine companions. all the books of the martians, we ascertained, were books of history and of poetry. for scientific treatises they had no need, because, as i have explained, when the brains of those intended for scientific pursuits had been developed in the proper way the knowledge of nature's laws came to them without effort, as a spring bubbles from the rocks. one word of explanation may be needed concerning the failure of the martians, with all their marvellous powers, to invent electrical ships like those of mr. edison and engines of destruction comparable with our disintegrators. this failure was simply due to the fact that on mars there did not exist the peculiar metals by the combination of which mr. edison had been able to effect his wonders. the theory involved in our inventions was perfectly understood by them, and had they possessed the means, doubtless they would have been able to carry it into practice even more effectively than we had done. after two or three days all the preparations having been completed, the signal was given for our departure. the men of science were still unwilling to leave this strange world, but mr. edison decided that we could linger no longer. at the moment of starting a most tragic event occurred. our fleet was assembled around the palace, and the signal was given to rise slowly to a considerable height before imparting a great velocity to the electrical ships. as we slowly rose we saw the immense crowd of giants beneath us, with upturned faces, watching our departure. the martian monarch and all his suite had come out upon the terrace of the palace to look at us. at a moment when he probably supposed himself to be unwatched he shook his fist at the retreating fleet. my eyes and those of several others in the flagship chanced to be fixed upon him. just as he made the gesture one of the women of his suite, in her eagerness to watch us, apparently lost her balance and stumbled against him. without a moment's hesitation, with a tremendous blow, he felled her like an ox at his feet. a fearful oath broke from the lips of colonel smith, who was one of those looking on. it chanced that he stood near the principal disintegrator of the flagship. before anybody could interfere he had sighted and discharged it. the entire force of the terrible engine, almost capable of destroying a fort, fell upon the martian emperor, and not merely blew him into a cloud of atoms, but opened a great cavity in the ground on the spot where he had stood. a shout arose from the martians, but they were too much astounded at what had occurred to make any hostile demonstrations, and, anyhow, they knew well that they were completely at our mercy. mr. edison was on the point of rebuking colonel smith for what he had done, but aina interposed. "i am glad it was done," said she, "for now only can you be safe. that monster was more directly responsible than any other inhabitant of mars for all the wickedness of which they have been guilty." "the expedition against the earth was inspired solely by him. there is a tradition among the martians--which my people, however, could never credit--that he possessed a kind of immortality. they declared that it was he who led the former expedition against the earth when my ancestors were brought away prisoners from their happy home, and that it was his image which they had set up in stone in the midst of the land of sand. he prolonged his existence, according to this legend, by drinking the waters of a wonderful fountain, the secret of whose precise location was known to him alone, but which was situated at that point where in your maps of mars the name of the fons juventae occurs. he was personified wickedness, that i know; and he never would have kept his oath if power had returned to him again to injure the earth. in destroying him, you have made your victory secure." chapter xviii. when at length we once more saw our native planet, with its well-remembered features of land and sea, rolling beneath our eyes, the feeling of joy that came over us transcended all powers of expression. in order that all the nations which had united in sending out the expedition should have visual evidence of its triumphant return, it was decided to make the entire circuit of the earth before seeking our starting point and disembarking. brief accounts in all known languages, telling the story of what we had done were accordingly prepared, and then we dropped down through the air until again we saw the well-loved blue dome over our heads, and found ourselves suspended directly above the white-topped cone of fujiyama, the sacred mountain of japan. shifting our place toward the northeast, we hung above the city of tokio and dropped down into the crowds that had assembled to watch us, the prepared accounts of our journey, which, the moment they had been read and comprehended, led to such an outburst of rejoicing as it would be quite impossible to describe. one of the ships containing the japanese members of the expedition dropped to the ground, and we left them in the midst of their rejoicing countrymen. before we started--and we remained but a short time suspended above the japanese capital--millions had assembled to greet us with their cheers. we now repeated what we had done during our first examination of the surface of mars. we simply remained suspended in the atmosphere, allowing the earth to turn beneath us. as japan receded in the distance we found china beginning to appear. shifting our position a little toward the south we again came to rest over the city of pekin, where once more we parted with some of our companions, and where the outburst of universal rejoicing was repeated. from asia, crossing the caspian sea, we passed over russia, visiting in turn moscow and st. petersburg. still the great globe rolled steadily beneath, and still we kept the sun with us. now germany appeared, and now italy, and then france, and england, as we shifted our position, first north then south, in order to give all the world the opportunity to see that its warriors had returned victorious from their far conquest. and in each country as it passed beneath our feet, we left some of the comrades who had shared our perils and our adventures. at length the atlantic had rolled away under us, and we saw the spires of the new new york. the news of our coming had been flashed ahead from europe, and our countrymen were prepared to welcome us. we had originally started, it will be remembered, at midnight, and now again as we approached the new capital of the world the curtain of night was just beginning to be drawn over it. but our signal lights were ablaze, and through these they were aware of our approach. again the air was filled with bursting rockets and shaken with the roar of cannon, and with volleying cheers, poured from millions of throats, as we came to rest directly above the city. three days after the landing of the fleet, and when the first enthusiasm of our reception had a little passed, i received a beautifully engraved card inviting me to be present in trinity church at the wedding of aina and sidney phillips. when i arrived at the church, which had been splendidly decorated, i found there mr. edison, lord kelvin, and all the other members of the crew of the flagship, and, considerably to my surprise, colonel smith, appropriately attired, and with a grace for the possession of which i had not given him credit, gave away the beautiful bride. but alonzo jefferson smith was a man and a soldier, every inch of him. "i asked her for myself," he whispered to me after the ceremony, swallowing a great lump in his throat, "but she has had the desire of her heart. i am going back to the plains. i can get a command again, and i still know how to fight." and thus was united, for all future time, the first stem of the aryan race, which had been long lost, but not destroyed, with the latest offspring of that great family, and the link which had served to bring them together was the far-away planet of mars. (the end.) _what's he doing in there?_ by fritz leiber _he went where no martian ever went before--but would he come out--or had he gone for good?_ illustrated by bowman the professor was congratulating earth's first visitor from another planet on his wisdom in getting in touch with a cultural anthropologist before contacting any other scientists (or governments, god forbid!), and in learning english from radio and tv before landing from his orbit-parked rocket, when the martian stood up and said hesitantly, "excuse me, please, but where is it?" that baffled the professor and the martian seemed to grow anxious--at least his long mouth curved upward, and he had earlier explained that it curling downward was his smile--and he repeated, "please, where is it?" he was surprisingly humanoid in most respects, but his complexion was textured so like the rich dark armchair he'd just been occupying that the professor's pin-striped gray suit, which he had eagerly consented to wear, seemed an arbitrary interruption between him and the chair--a sort of mother hubbard dress on a phantom conjured from its leather. the professor's wife, always a perceptive hostess, came to her husband's rescue by saying with equal rapidity, "top of the stairs, end of the hall, last door." the martian's mouth curled happily downward and he said, "thank you very much," and was off. comprehension burst on the professor. he caught up with his guest at the foot of the stairs. "here, i'll show you the way," he said. "no, i can find it myself, thank you," the martian assured him. * * * * * something rather final in the martian's tone made the professor desist, and after watching his visitor sway up the stairs with an almost hypnotic softly jogging movement, he rejoined his wife in the study, saying wonderingly, "who'd have thought it, by george! function taboos as strict as our own!" "i'm glad some of your professional visitors maintain 'em," his wife said darkly. "but this one's from mars, darling, and to find out he's--well, similar in an aspect of his life is as thrilling as the discovery that water is burned hydrogen. when i think of the day not far distant when i'll put his entries in the cross-cultural index ..." he was still rhapsodizing when the professor's little son raced in. "pop, the martian's gone to the bathroom!" "hush, dear. manners." "now it's perfectly natural, darling, that the boy should notice and be excited. yes, son, the martian's not so very different from us." "oh, certainly," the professor's wife said with a trace of bitterness. "i don't imagine his turquoise complexion will cause any comment at all when you bring him to a faculty reception. they'll just figure he's had a hard night--and that he got that baby-elephant nose sniffing around for assistant professorships." "really, darling! he probably thinks of our noses as disagreeably amputated and paralyzed." "well, anyway, pop, he's in the bathroom. i followed him when he squiggled upstairs." "now, son, you shouldn't have done that. he's on a strange planet and it might make him nervous if he thought he was being spied on. we must show him every courtesy. by george, i can't wait to discuss these things with ackerly-ramsbottom! when i think of how much more this encounter has to give the anthropologist than even the physicist or astronomer ..." [illustration] he was still going strong on his second rhapsody when he was interrupted by another high-speed entrance. it was the professor's coltish daughter. "mom, pop, the martian's--" "hush, dear. we know." the professor's coltish daughter regained her adolescent poise, which was considerable. "well, he's still in there," she said. "i just tried the door and it was locked." "i'm glad it was!" the professor said while his wife added, "yes, you can't be sure what--" and caught herself. "really, dear, that was very bad manners." "i thought he'd come downstairs long ago," her daughter explained. "he's been in there an awfully long time. it must have been a half hour ago that i saw him gyre and gimbal upstairs in that real gone way he has, with nosy here following him." the professor's coltish daughter was currently soaking up both jive and _alice_. * * * * * when the professor checked his wristwatch, his expression grew troubled. "by george, he is taking his time! though, of course, we don't know how much time martians ... i wonder." "i listened for a while, pop," his son volunteered. "he was running the water a lot." "running the water, eh? we know mars is a water-starved planet. i suppose that in the presence of unlimited water, he might be seized by a kind of madness and ... but he seemed so well adjusted." then his wife spoke, voicing all their thoughts. her outlook on life gave her a naturally sepulchral voice. "_what's he doing in there?_" twenty minutes and at least as many fantastic suggestions later, the professor glanced again at his watch and nerved himself for action. motioning his family aside, he mounted the stairs and tiptoed down the hall. he paused only once to shake his head and mutter under his breath, "by george, i wish i had fenchurch or von gottschalk here. they're a shade better than i am on intercultural contracts, especially taboo-breakings and affronts ..." his family followed him at a short distance. the professor stopped in front of the bathroom door. everything was quiet as death. he listened for a minute and then rapped measuredly, steadying his hand by clutching its wrist with the other. there was a faint splashing, but no other sound. another minute passed. the professor rapped again. now there was no response at all. he very gingerly tried the knob. the door was still locked. when they had retreated to the stairs, it was the professor's wife who once more voiced their thoughts. this time her voice carried overtones of supernatural horror. "_what's he doing in there?_" "he may be dead or dying," the professor's coltish daughter suggested briskly. "maybe we ought to call the fire department, like they did for old mrs. frisbee." the professor winced. "i'm afraid you haven't visualized the complications, dear," he said gently. "no one but ourselves knows that the martian is on earth, or has even the slightest inkling that interplanetary travel has been achieved. whatever we do, it will have to be on our own. but to break in on a creature engaged in--well, we don't know what primal private activity--is against all anthropological practice. still--" "dying's a primal activity," his daughter said crisply. "so's ritual bathing before mass murder," his wife added. "please! still, as i was about to say, we do have the moral duty to succor him if, as you all too reasonably suggest, he has been incapacitated by a germ or virus or, more likely, by some simple environmental factor such as earth's greater gravity." "tell you what, pop--i can look in the bathroom window and see what he's doing. all i have to do is crawl out my bedroom window and along the gutter a little ways. it's safe as houses." * * * * * the professor's question beginning with, "son, how do you know--" died unuttered and he refused to notice the words his daughter was voicing silently at her brother. he glanced at his wife's sardonically composed face, thought once more of the fire department and of other and larger and even more jealous--or would it be skeptical?--government agencies, and clutched at the straw offered him. ten minutes later, he was quite unnecessarily assisting his son back through the bedroom window. "gee, pop, i couldn't see a sign of him. that's why i took so long. hey, pop, don't look so scared. he's in there, sure enough. it's just that the bathtub's under the window and you have to get real close up to see into it." "the martian's taking a bath?" "yep. got it full up and just the end of his little old schnozzle sticking out. your suit, pop, was hanging on the door." the one word the professor's wife spoke was like a death knell. "_drowned!_" "no, ma, i don't think so. his schnozzle was opening and closing regular like." "maybe he's a shape-changer," the professor's coltish daughter said in a burst of evil fantasy. "maybe he softens in water and thins out after a while until he's like an eel and then he'll go exploring through the sewer pipes. wouldn't it be funny if he went under the street and knocked on the stopper from underneath and crawled into the bathtub with president rexford, or mrs. president rexford, or maybe right into the middle of one of janey rexford's oh-i'm-so-sexy bubble baths?" "please!" the professor put his hand to his eyebrows and kept it there, cuddling the elbow in his other hand. "well, have you thought of something?" the professor's wife asked him after a bit. "what are you going to do?" the professor dropped his hand and blinked his eyes hard and took a deep breath. "telegraph fenchurch and ackerly-ramsbottom and then break in," he said in a resigned voice, into which, nevertheless, a note of hope seemed also to have come. "first, however, i'm going to wait until morning." and he sat down cross-legged in the hall a few yards from the bathroom door and folded his arms. * * * * * so the long vigil commenced. the professor's family shared it and he offered no objection. other and sterner men, he told himself, might claim to be able successfully to order their children to go to bed when there was a martian locked in the bathroom, but he would like to see them faced with the situation. finally dawn began to seep from the bedrooms. when the bulb in the hall had grown quite dim, the professor unfolded his arms. just then, there was a loud splashing in the bathroom. the professor's family looked toward the door. the splashing stopped and they heard the martian moving around. then the door opened and the martian appeared in the professor's gray pin-stripe suit. his mouth curled sharply downward in a broad alien smile as he saw the professor. "good morning!" the martian said happily. "i never slept better in my life, even in my own little wet bed back on mars." he looked around more closely and his mouth straightened. "but where did you all sleep?" he asked. "don't tell me you stayed dry all night! you _didn't_ give up your only bed to me?" his mouth curled upward in misery. "oh, dear," he said, "i'm afraid i've made a mistake somehow. yet i don't understand how. before i studied you, i didn't know what your sleeping habits would be, but that question was answered for me--in fact, it looked so reassuringly homelike--when i saw those brief tv scenes of your females ready for sleep in their little tubs. of course, on mars, only the fortunate can always be sure of sleeping wet, but here, with your abundance of water, i thought there would be wet beds for all." he paused. "it's true i had some doubts last night, wondering if i'd used the right words and all, but then when you rapped 'good night' to me, i splashed the sentiment back at you and went to sleep in a wink. but i'm afraid that somewhere i've blundered and--" "no, no, dear chap," the professor managed to say. he had been waving his hand in a gentle circle for some time in token that he wanted to interrupt. "everything is quite all right. it's true we stayed up all night, but please consider that as a watch--an honor guard, by george!--which we kept to indicate our esteem." --fritz leiber transcriber's note: this etext was produced from _galaxy science fiction_ december . extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the u.s. copyright on this publication was renewed. minor spelling and typographical errors have been corrected without note. [illustration: george du maurier] the martian a novel by george du maurier author of "trilby" "peter ibbetson" _with illustrations by the author_ "_après le plaisir vient la peine; après la peine, la vertu_"--anon new york harper & brothers publishers by george du maurier. trilby. illustrated by the author. post vo, cloth, ornamental, $ ; three-quarter calf, $ ; three-quarter crushed levant, $ . peter ibbetson. with an introduction by his cousin, lady ***** ("madge plunket"). edited and illustrated by george du maurier. post vo, cloth, ornamental, $ ; three-quarter calf, $ ; three-quarter levant, $ . english society. sketched by george du maurier. with an introduction by william dean howells. oblong to, cloth, ornamental, $ . published by harper & brothers, new york. copyright, , , by harper & brothers. _all rights reserved._ list of illustrations portrait of george du maurier _frontispiece_ institution f. brossard the new boy a little peace-maker loud runswick and antoinette josselin "'quel amour d'enfant!'" "amis, la matinÉe est belle" "too much 'monte cristo,' i'm afraid" le pÈre polyphÈme fanfaronnade mÉrovÉe rings the bell "weel may the keel row" a tertre-jouan to the rescue! mademoiselle marceline "'if he only knew!'" "'maurice au piquet!'" "quand on perd, par triste occurrence," etc. three little maids from school ( ) solitude "'pile ou face--heads or tails?'" "a little white point of interrogation" "'bonjour, monsieur bonzig'" "'demi-tasse--voilÀ, m'sieur'" peter the hermit au piquet "the carnival of venice" "'À vous, monsieur de la garde!'" "'i am a very altered person!'" "the moonlight sonata" enter mr. scatcherd barty gives himself away so near and yet so far "'hÉlas! mon jeune ami ...'" "'you ask me why i look so pale?'" "'you don't mean to say you're going to paint for hire!'" "'he might have thrown the handkerchief as he pleased'" dr. hasenclever and mrs. bletchley "'martia, i have done my best'" am rhein "'does she know you're very fond of her?'" "leah was summoned from below" "between two well known earls" "le dernier des abencerrages" "sardonyx" "'rataplan, rataplan'" "'he presents me first to madame josselin'" "'i don't think i ever heard him mention your name'" "'i'm a philistine, and am not ashamed'" "'ze brincess vould be so jarmt'" marty the martian "barty josselin is no more...." when so great a man dies, it is generally found that a tangled growth of more or less contentious literature has already gathered round his name during his lifetime. he has been so written about, so talked about, so riddled with praise or blame, that, to those who have never seen him in the flesh, he has become almost a tradition, a myth--and one runs the risk of losing all clew to his real personality. this is especially the case with the subject of this biography--one is in danger of forgetting what manner of man he was who has so taught and touched and charmed and amused us, and so happily changed for us the current of our lives. he has been idealized as an angel, a saint, and a demigod; he has been caricatured as a self-indulgent sensualist, a vulgar lothario, a buffoon, a joker of practical jokes. he was in reality the simplest, the most affectionate, and most good-natured of men, the very soul of honor, the best of husbands and fathers and friends, the most fascinating companion that ever lived, and one who kept to the last the freshness and joyous spirits of a school-boy and the heart of a child; one who never said or did an unkind thing; probably never even thought one. generous and open-handed to a fault, slow to condemn, quick to forgive, and gifted with a power of immediately inspiring affection and keeping it forever after, such as i have never known in any one else, he grew to be (for all his quick-tempered impulsiveness) one of the gentlest and meekest and most humble-minded of men! on me, a mere prosperous tradesman, and busy politician and man of the world, devolves the delicate and responsible task of being the first to write the life of the greatest literary genius this century has produced, _and of revealing the strange secret of that genius_, which has lighted up the darkness of these latter times as with a pillar of fire by night. this extraordinary secret has never been revealed before to any living soul but his wife and myself. and that is _one_ of my qualifications for this great labor of love. another is that for fifty years i have known him as never a man can quite have known his fellow-man before--that for all that time he has been more constantly and devotedly loved by me than any man can ever quite have been loved by father, son, brother, or bosom friend. good heavens! barty, man and boy, barty's wife, their children, their grandchildren, and all that ever concerned them or concerns them still--all this has been the world to me, and ever will be. he wished me to tell the _absolute truth_ about him, just as i know it; and i look upon the fulfilment of this wish of his as a sacred trust, and would sooner die any shameful death or brave any other dishonor than fail in fulfilling it to the letter. the responsibility before the world is appalling; and also the difficulty, to a man of such training as mine. i feel already conscious that i am trying to be literary myself, to seek for turns of phrase that i should never have dared to use in talking to barty, or even in writing to him; that i am not at my ease, in short--not _me_--but straining every nerve to be on my best behavior; and that's about the worst behavior there is. oh! may some kindly light, born of a life's devotion and the happy memories of half a century, lead me to mere naturalness and the use of simple homely words, even my own native telegraphese! that i may haply blunder at length into some fit form of expression which barty himself might have approved. one would think that any sincere person who has learnt how to spell his own language should at least be equal to such a modest achievement as this; and yet it is one of the most difficult things in the world! my life is so full of barty josselin that i can hardly be said to have ever had an existence apart from his; and i can think of no easier or better way to tell barty's history than just telling my own--from the days i first knew him--and in my own way; that is, in the best telegraphese i can manage--picking each precious word with care, just as though i were going to cable it, as soon as written, to boston or new york, where the love of barty josselin shines with even a brighter and warmer glow than here, or even in france; and where the hate of him, the hideous, odious odium theologicum--the _sæva indignatio_ of the church--that once burned at so white a heat, has burnt itself out at last, and is now as though it had never been, and never could be again. p. s.--(an after-thought): and here, in case misfortune should happen to me before this book comes out as a volume, i wish to record my thanks to my old friend mr. du maurier for the readiness with which he has promised to undertake, and the conscientiousness with which he will have performed, his share of the work as editor and illustrator. i also wish to state that it is to my beloved god-daughter, roberta beatrix hay (née josselin), that i dedicate this attempt at a biographical sketch of her illustrious father. robert maurice. part first "de paris à versailles, loo, là, de paris à versailles-- il y a de belles allées, vive le roi de france! il y a de belles allées, vivent les écoliers!" one sultry saturday afternoon in the summer of i sat at my desk in the junior school-room, or _salle d'études des petits_, of the institution f. brossard, rond-point de l'avenue de st.-cloud; or, as it is called now, avenue du bois de boulogne--or, as it was called during the second empire, avenue du prince impérial, or else de l'impératrice; i'm not sure. there is not much stability in such french names, i fancy; but their sound is charming, and always gives me the nostalgia of paris--royal paris, impérial paris, republican paris!... whatever they may call it ten or twelve years hence. paris is always paris, and always will be, in spite of the immortal haussmann, both for those who love it and for those who don't. all the four windows were open. two of them, freely and frankly, on to the now deserted play-ground, admitting the fragrance of lime and syringa and lilac, and other odors of a mixed quality. two other windows, defended by an elaborate network of iron wire and a formidable array of spiked iron rails beyond, opened on to the rond-point, or meeting of the cross-roads--one of which led northeast to paris through the arc de triomphe; the other three through woods and fields and country lanes to such quarters of the globe as still remain. the world is wide. in the middle of this open space a stone fountain sent up a jet of water three feet high, which fell back with a feeble splash into the basin beneath. there was comfort in the sound on such a hot day, and one listened for it half unconsciously; and tried not to hear, instead, weber's "invitation à la valse," which came rippling in intermittent waves from the open window of the distant _parloir_, where chardonnet was practising the piano. "tum-te-dum-tum-tum ... tum-te-dum-di, diddle-iddle um!" _e da capo_, again and again. chardonnet was no heaven-born musician. monsieur bonzig--or "le grand bonzig," as he was called behind his back--sat at his table on the estrade, correcting the exercises of the eighth class (huitième), which he coached in latin and french. it was the lowest class in the school; yet one learnt much in it that was of consequence; not, indeed, that balbus built a wall--as i'm told we learn over here (a small matter to make such a fuss about, after so many years)--but that the lord made heaven and earth in six days, and rested on the seventh. he (monsieur bonzig) seemed hot and weary, as well he might, and sighed, and looked up every now and then to mop his brow and think. and as he gazed into the green and azure depths beyond the north window, his dark brown eyes quivered and vibrated from side to side through his spectacles with a queer quick tremolo, such as i have never seen in any eyes but his. [illustration: institution f. brossard] about five-and-twenty boys sat at their desks; boys of all ages between seven and fourteen--many with closely cropped hair, "à la malcontent," like nice little innocent convicts; and nearly all in blouses, mostly blue; some with their garments loosely flowing; others confined at the waist by a tricolored ceinture de gymnastique, so deep and stiff it almost amounted to stays. as for the boys themselves, some were energetic and industrious--some listless and lazy and lolling, and quite languid with the heat--some fidgety and restless, on the lookout for excitement of any kind: a cab or carriage raising the dust on its way to the bois--a water-cart laying it (there were no hydrants then); a courier bearing royal despatches, or a mounted orderly; the passy omnibus, to or fro every ten or twelve minutes; the marchand de coco with his bell; a regiment of the line with its band; a chorus of peripatetic orphéonistes--a swallow, a butterfly, a humblebee; a far-off balloon, oh, joy!--any sight or sound to relieve the tedium of those two mortal school-hours that dragged their weary lengths from half past one till half past three--every day but sunday and thursday. (even now i find the early afternoon a little trying to wear through without a nap, say from two to four.) at . there would come a half-hour's interval of play, and then the class of french literature from four till dinner-time at six--a class that was more than endurable on account of the liveliness and charm of monsieur durosier, who journeyed all the way from the collége de france every saturday afternoon in june and july to tell us boys of the quatrième all about villon and ronsard, and marot and charles d'orléans (_exceptis excipiendis_, of course), and other pleasant people who didn't deal in greek or latin or mathematics, and knew better than to trouble themselves overmuch about formal french grammar and niggling french prosody. besides, everything was pleasant on a saturday afternoon on account of the nearness of the day of days-- "and that's the day that comes between the saturday and monday".... in france. i had just finished translating my twenty lines of virgil-- "infandum, regina, jubes renovare," etc. oh, crimini, but it _was_ hot! and how i disliked the pious Æneas! i couldn't have hated him worse if i'd been poor dido's favorite younger brother (not mentioned by publius vergilius maro, if i remember). palaiseau, who sat next to me, had a cold in his head, and kept sniffing in a manner that got on my nerves. "mouche-toi donc, animal!" i whispered; "tu me dégoûtes, à la fin!" palaiseau always sniffed, whether he had a cold or not. "taisez-vous, maurice--ou je vous donne cent vers à copier!" said m. bonzig, and his eyes quiveringly glittered through his glasses as he fixed me. palaiseau, in his brief triumph, sniffed louder. "palaiseau," said monsieur bonzig, "si vous vous serviez de votre mouchoir--hein? je crois que cela ne gênerait personne!" (if you were to use your pocket-handkerchief--eh? i don't think it would inconvenience anybody!) at this there was a general titter all round, which was immediately suppressed, as in a court of law; and palaiseau reluctantly and noisily did as he was told. in front of me that dishonest little sneak rapaud, with a tall parapet of books before him to serve as a screen, one hand shading his eyes, and an inkless pen in the other, was scratching his copy-book with noisy earnestness, as if time were too short for all he had to write about the pious Æneas's recitative, while he surreptitiously read the _comte de monte cristo_, which lay open in his lap--just at the part where the body, sewn up in a sack, was going to be hurled into the mediterranean. i knew the page well. there was a splash of red ink on it. it made my blood boil with virtuous indignation to watch him, and i coughed and hemmed again and again to attract his attention, for his back was nearly towards me. he heard me perfectly, but took no notice whatever, the deceitful little beast. he was to have given up _monte cristo_ to me at half-past two, and here it was twenty minutes to three! besides which, it was _my monte cristo_, bought with my own small savings, and smuggled into school by me at great risk to myself. "maurice!" said m. bonzig. "oui, m'sieur!" said i. i will translate: "you shall conjugate and copy out for me forty times the compound verb, 'i cough without necessity to distract the attention of my comrade rapaud from his latin exercise!'" "moi, m'sieur?" i ask, innocently. "oui, vous!" "bien, m'sieur!" just then there was a clatter by the fountain, and the shrill small pipe of d'aurigny, the youngest boy in the school, exclaimed: "hé! hé! oh là là! le roi qui passe!" [illustration: the new boy] and we all jumped up, and stood on forms, and craned our necks to see louis philippe i. and his queen drive quickly by in their big blue carriage and four, with their two blue-and-silver liveried outriders trotting in front, on their way from st.-cloud to the tuileries. "sponde! sélancy! fermez les fenêtres, ou je vous mets tous au pain sec pour un mois!" thundered m. bonzig, who did not approve of kings and queens--an appalling threat which appalled nobody, for when he forgot to forget he always relented; for instance, he quite forgot to insist on that formidable compound verb of mine. suddenly the door of the school-room flew open, and the tall, portly figure of monsieur brossard appeared, leading by the wrist a very fair-haired boy of thirteen or so, dressed in an eton jacket and light blue trousers, with a white chimney-pot silk hat, which he carried in his hand--an english boy, evidently; but of an aspect so singularly agreeable one didn't need to be english one's self to warm towards him at once. "monsieur bonzig, and gentlemen!" said the head master (in french, of course). "here is the new boy; he calls himself bartholomiou josselin. he is english, but he knows french as well as you. i hope you will find in him a good comrade, honorable and frank and brave, and that he will find the same in you.--maurice!" (that was me). "oui, m'sieur!" "i specially recommend josselin to you." "moi, m'sieur?" "yes, _you_; he is of your age, and one of your compatriots. don't forget." "bien, m'sieur." "and now, josselin, take that vacant desk, which will be yours henceforth. you will find the necessary books and copy-books inside; you will be in the fifth class, under monsieur dumollard. you will occupy yourself with the study of cornelius nepos, the commentaries of cæsar, and xenophon's retreat of the ten thousand. soyez diligent et attentif, mon ami; à plus tard!" he gave the boy a friendly pat on the cheek and left the room. josselin walked to his desk and sat down, between d'adhémar and laferté, both of whom were _en cinquième_. he pulled a cæsar out of his desk and tried to read it. he became an object of passionate interest to the whole school-room, till m. bonzig said: "the first who lifts his eyes from his desk to stare at '_le nouveau_' shall be _au piquet_ for half an hour!" (to be _au piquet_ is to stand with your back to a tree for part of the following play-time; and the play-time which was to follow would last just thirty minutes.) presently i looked up, in spite of piquet, and caught the new boy's eye, which was large and blue and soft, and very sad and sentimental, and looked as if he were thinking of his mammy, as i did constantly of mine during my first week at brossard's, three years before. soon, however, that sad eye slowly winked at me, with an expression so droll that i all but laughed aloud. then its owner felt in the inner breast pocket of his eton jacket with great care, and delicately drew forth by the tail a very fat white mouse, that seemed quite tame, and ran up his arm to his wide shirt collar, and tried to burrow there; and the boys began to interest themselves breathlessly in this engaging little quadruped. m. bonzig looked up again, furious; but his spectacles had grown misty from the heat and he couldn't see, and he wiped them; and meanwhile the mouse was quickly smuggled back to its former nest. josselin drew a large clean pocket-handkerchief from his trousers and buried his head in his desk, and there was silence. "la!--ré, fa!--la!--ré"-- so strummed, over and over again, poor chardonnet in his remote parlor--he was getting tired. i have heard "l'invitation à la valse" many hundreds of times since then, and in many countries, but never that bar without thinking of josselin and his little white mouse. "fermez votre pupitre, josselin," said m. bonzig, after a few minutes. josselin shut his desk and beamed genially at the usher. "what book have you got there, josselin--cæsar or cornelius nepos?" josselin held the book with its title-page open for m. bonzig to read. "are you dumb, josselin? can't you speak?" josselin tried to speak, but uttered no sound. "josselin, come here--opposite me." josselin came and stood opposite m. bonzig and made a nice little bow. "what have you got in your mouth, josselin--chocolate?--barley-sugar?--caoutchouc?--or an india-rubber ball?" josselin shrugged his shoulders and looked pensive, but spoke never a word. "open quick the mouth, josselin!" and monsieur bonzig, leaning over the table, deftly put his thumb and forefinger between the boy's lips, and drew forth slowly a large white pocket-handkerchief, which seemed never to end, and threw it on the floor with solemn dignity. the whole school-room was convulsed with laughter. "josselin--leave the room--you will be severely punished, as you deserve--you are a vulgar buffoon--a jo-crisse--a paltoquet, a mountebank! go, petit polisson--go!" the polisson picked up his pocket-handkerchief and went--quite quietly, with simple manly grace; and that's the first i ever saw of barty josselin--and it was some fifty years ago. * * * * * at . the bell sounded for the half-hour's recreation, and the boys came out to play. josselin was sitting alone on a bench, thoughtful, with his hand in the inner breast pocket of his eton jacket. m. bonzig went straight to him, buttoned up and severe--his eyes dancing, and glancing from right to left through his spectacles; and josselin stood up very politely. "sit down!" said m. bonzig; and sat beside him, and talked to him with grim austerity for ten minutes or more, and the boy seemed very penitent and sorry. presently he drew forth from his pocket his white mouse, and showed it to the long usher, who looked at it with great seeming interest for a long time, and finally took it into the palm of his own hand--where it stood on its hind legs--and stroked it with his little finger. soon josselin produced a small box of chocolate drops, which he opened and offered to m. bonzig, who took one and put it in his mouth, and seemed to like it. then they got up and walked to and fro together, and the usher put his arm round the boy's shoulder, and there was peace and good-will between them; and before they parted josselin had intrusted his white mouse to "le grand bonzig"--who intrusted it to mlle. marceline, the head lingère, a very kind and handsome person, who found for it a comfortable home in an old bonbon-box lined with blue satin, where it had a large family and fed on the best, and lived happily ever after. but things did not go smoothly for josselin all that saturday afternoon. when bonzig left, the boys gathered round "le nouveau," large and small, and asked questions. and just before the bell sounded for french literature, i saw him defending himself with his two british fists against dugit, a big boy with whiskers, who had him by the collar and was kicking him to rights. it seems that dugit had called him, in would-be english, "pretty voman," and this had so offended him that he had hit the whiskered one straight in the eye. then french literature for the _quatrième_ till six; then dinner for all--soup, boiled beef (not salt), lentils; and gruyère cheese, quite two ounces each; then french rounders till half past seven; then lesson preparation (with _monte cristos_ in one's lap, or _mysteries of paris_, or _wandering jews_) till nine. then, ding-dang-dong, and, at the sleepy usher's nod, a sleepy boy would rise and recite the perfunctory evening prayer in a dull singsong voice--beginning, "notre père, qui êtes aux cieux, vous dont le regard scrutateur pénêtre jusque dans les replis les plus profonds de nos coeurs," etc., etc., and ending, "au nom du père, du fils, et du st. esprit, ainsi soit-il!" and then, bed--josselin in my dormitory, but a long way off, between d'adhémar and laferté; while palaiseau snorted and sniffed himself to sleep in the bed next mine, and rapaud still tried to read the immortal works of the elder dumas by the light of a little oil-lamp six yards off, suspended from a nail in the blank wall over the chimney-piece. * * * * * [illustration: a little peace-maker] the institution f. brossard was a very expensive private school, just twice as expensive as the most expensive of the parisian public schools--ste.-barbe, françois premier, louis-le-grand, etc. these great colleges, which were good enough for the sons of louis philippe, were not thought good enough for me by my dear mother, who was irish, and whose only brother had been at eton, and was now captain in an english cavalry regiment--so she had aristocratic notions. it used to be rather an irish failing in those days. my father, james maurice, also english (and a little scotch), and by no means an aristocrat, was junior partner in the great firm of vougeot-conti et cie., wine merchants, dijon. and at dijon i had spent much of my childhood, and been to a day school there, and led a very happy life indeed. then i was sent to brossard's school, in the avenue de st.-cloud, paris, where i was again very happy, and fond of (nearly) everybody, from the splendid head master and his handsome son, monsieur mérovée, down to antoine and francisque, the men-servants, and père jaurion, the concierge, and his wife, who sold croquets and pains d'épices and "blom-boudingues," and sucre-d'orge and nougat and pâte de guimauve; also pralines, dragées, and gray sandy cakes of chocolate a penny apiece; and gave one unlimited credit; and never dunned one, unless bribed to do so by parents, so as to impress on us small boys a proper horror of debt. whatever principles i have held through life on this important subject i set down to a private interview my mother had with le père et la mère jaurion, to whom i had run in debt five francs during the horrible winter of ' - . they made my life a hideous burden to me for a whole summer term, and i have never owed any one a penny since. the institution consisted of four separate buildings, or "corps de logis." in the middle, dominating the situation, was a greco-roman pavilion, with a handsome doric portico elevated ten or twelve feet above the ground, on a large, handsome terrace paved with asphalt and shaded by horse-chestnut trees. under this noble esplanade, and ventilating themselves into it, were the kitchen and offices and pantry, and also the refectory--a long room, furnished with two parallel tables, covered at the top by a greenish oil-cloth spotted all over with small black disks; and alongside of these tables were wooden forms for the boys to sit together at meat--"la table des grands," "la table des petits," each big enough for thirty boys and three or four masters. m. brossard and his family breakfasted and dined apart, in their own private dining-room, close by. in this big refectory, three times daily, at . in the morning, at noon, and at p.m., boys and masters took their quotidian sustenance quite informally, without any laying of cloths or saying of grace either before or after; one ate there to live--one did not live merely to eat, at the pension brossard. breakfast consisted of a thick soup, rich in dark-hued garden produce, and a large hunk of bread--except on thursdays, when a pat of butter was served out to each boy instead of that spartan broth--that "brouet noir des lacédémoniens," as we called it. everybody who has lived in france knows how good french butter can often be--and french bread. we triturated each our pat with rock-salt and made a round ball of it, and dug a hole in our hunk to put it in, and ate it in the play-ground with clasp-knives, making it last as long as we could. this, and the half-holiday in the afternoon, made thursday a day to be marked with a white stone. when you are up at five in summer, at half past five in the winter, and have had an hour and a half or two hours' preparation before your first meal at . , french bread-and-butter is not a bad thing to break your fast with. then, from eight till twelve, class--latin, greek, french, english, german--and mathematics and geometry--history, geography, chemistry, physics--everything that you must get to know before you can hope to obtain your degree of bachelor of letters or sciences, or be admitted to the polytechnic school, or the normal, or the central, or that of mines, or that of roads and bridges, or the military school of st. cyr, or the naval school of the borda. all this was fifty years ago; of course names of schools may have changed, and even the sciences themselves. then, at twelve, the second breakfast, meat (or salt fish on fridays), a dish of vegetables, lentils, red or white beans, salad, potatoes, etc.; a dessert, which consisted of fruit or cheese, or a french pudding. this banquet over, a master would stand up in his place and call for silence, and read out loud the list of boys who were to be kept in during the play-hour that followed: "_À la retenue_, messieurs maurice, rapaud, de villars, jolivet, sponde," etc. then play till . ; and very good play, too; rounders, which are better and far more complicated in france than in england; "barres"; "barres traversières," as rough a game as football; fly the garter, or "la raie," etc., etc., according to the season. and then afternoon study, at the summons of that dreadful bell whose music was so sweet when it rang the hour for meals or recreation or sleep--so hideously discordant at . on a foggy december monday morning. altogether eleven hours work daily and four hours play, and sleep from nine till five or half past; i find this leaves half an hour unaccounted for, so i must have made a mistake somewhere. but it all happened fifty years ago, so it's not of much consequence now. probably they have changed all that in france by this time, and made school life a little easier there, especially for nice little english boys--and nice little french boys too. i hope so, very much; for french boys can be as nice as any, especially at such institutions as f. brossard's, if there are any left. most of my comrades, aged from seven to nineteen or twenty, were the sons of well-to-do fathers--soldiers, sailors, rentiers, owners of land, public officials, in professions or business or trade. a dozen or so were of aristocratic descent--three or four very great swells indeed; for instance, two marquises (one of whom spoke english, having an english mother); a count bearing a string of beautiful names a thousand years old, and even more--for they were constantly turning up in the classe d'histoire de france au moyen âge; a belgian viscount of immense wealth and immense good-nature; and several very rich jews, who were neither very clever nor very stupid, but, as a rule, rather popular. then we had a few of humble station--the son of the woman who washed for us; jules, the natural son of a brave old caporal in the trente-septième légère (a countryman of m. brossard's), who was not well off--so i suspect his son was taught and fed for nothing--the brossards were very liberal; filosel, the only child of a small retail hosier in the rue st.-denis (who thought no sacrifice too great to keep his son at such a first-rate private school), and others. during the seven years i spent at brossard's i never once heard paternal wealth (or the want of it) or paternal rank or position alluded to by master, pupil, or servant--especially never a word or an allusion that could have given a moment's umbrage to the most sensitive little only son of a well-to-do west end cheese-monger that ever got smuggled into a private suburban boarding-school kept "for the sons of gentlemen only," and was so chaffed and bullied there that his father had to take him away, and send him to eton instead, where the "sons of gentlemen" have better manners, it seems; or even to france, where "the sons of gentlemen" have the best manners of all--or used to have before a certain d of december--as distinctly i remember; nous avons changé tout cela! the head master was a famous republican, and after february, ' , was elected a "représentant du peuple" for the dauphiné, and sat in the chamber of deputies--for a very short time, alas! so i fancy that the titled and particled boys--"les nobles"--were of families that had drifted away from the lily and white flag of their loyal ancestors--from rome and the pope and the past. anyhow, none of our young nobles, when at home, seemed to live in the noble faubourg across the river, and there were no clericals or ultramontanes among us, high or low--we were all red, white, and blue in equal and impartial combination. all this _par parenthèse_. on the asphalt terrace also, but separated from the head master's classic habitation by a small square space, was the _lingerie_, managed by mlle. marceline and her two subordinates, constance and félicité; and beneath this, le père et la mère jaurion sold their cheap goodies, and jealously guarded the gates that secluded us from the wicked world outside--where women are, and merchants of tobacco, and cafés where you can sip the opalescent absinthe, and libraries where you can buy books more diverting than the _adventures of telemachus_! on the opposite, or western, side was the gymnastic ground, enclosed in a wire fence, but free of access at all times--a place of paramount importance in all french schools, public and private. from the doors of the refectory the general playground sloped gently down northwards to the rond-point, where it was bounded by double gates of wood and iron that were always shut; and on each hither side of these rose an oblong dwelling of red brick, two stories high, and capable of accommodating thirty boys, sleeping or waking, at work or rest or play; for in bad weather we played indoors, or tried to, chess, draughts, backgammon, and the like--even blind-man's-buff (_colin maillard_)--even puss in the corner (_aux quatre coins!_). all the class-rooms and school-rooms were on the ground-floor; above, the dormitories and masters' rooms. these two buildings were symmetrical; one held the boys over fourteen, from the third class up to the first; the other (into the "salle d'études" of which the reader has already been admitted), the boys from the fourth down to the eighth, or lowest, form of all--just the reverse of an english school. on either side of the play-ground were narrow strips of garden cultivated by boys whose tastes lay that way, and small arbors overgrown with convolvulus and other creepers--snug little verdant retreats, where one fed the mind on literature not sanctioned by the authorities, and smoked cigarettes of caporal, and even colored pipes, and was sick without fear of detection (_piquait son renard sans crainte d'être collé_). finally, behind père brossard's ciceronian villa, on the south, was a handsome garden (we called it tusculum); a green flowery pleasaunce reserved for the head master's married daughter (madame germain) and her family--good people with whom we had nothing to do. would i could subjoin a ground-plan of the institution f. brossard, where barty josselin spent four such happy years, and was so universally and singularly popular! why should i take such pains about all this, and dwell so laboriously on all these minute details? firstly, because it all concerns josselin and the story of his life--and i am so proud and happy to be the biographer of such a man, at his own often expressed desire, that i hardly know where to leave off and what to leave out. also, this is quite a new trade for me, who have only dealt hitherto in foreign wines, and british party politics, and bimetallism--and can only write in telegraphese! secondly, because i find it such a keen personal joy to evoke and follow out, and realize to myself by means of pen and pencil, all these personal reminiscences; and with such a capital excuse for prolixity! at the top of every page i have to pull myself together to remind myself that it is not of the right honorable sir robert maurice, bart., m.p., that i am telling the tale--any one can do that--but of a certain englishman who wrote _sardonyx_, to the everlasting joy and pride of the land of his _fathers_--and of a certain frenchman who wrote _berthe aux grands pieds_, and moved his _mother_-country to such delight of tears and tender laughter as it had never known before. dear me! the boys who lived and learnt at brossard's school fifty years ago, and the masters who taught there (peace to their ashes!), are far more to my taste than the actual human beings among whom my dull existence of business and politics and society is mostly spent in these days. the school must have broken up somewhere about the early fifties. the stuccoed doric dwelling was long since replaced by an important stone mansion, in a very different style of architecture--the abode of a wealthy banker--and this again, later, by a palace many stories high. the two school-houses in red brick are no more; the play-ground grew into a luxuriant garden, where a dozen very tall trees overtopped the rest; from their evident age and their position in regard to each other they must have been old friends of mine grown out of all knowledge. i saw them only twenty years ago, from the top of a passy omnibus, and recognized every one of them. i went from the arc de triomphe to passy and back quite a dozen times, on purpose--once for each tree! it touched me to think how often the author of _sardonyx_ has stood leaning his back against one of those giants--_au piquet_! they are now no more; and passy omnibuses no longer ply up and down the allée du bois de boulogne, which is now an avenue of palaces. an umbrageous lane that led from the rond-point to chaillot (that very forgettable, and by me quite forgotten, quarter) separated the institution f. brossard from the pensionnat mélanie jalabert--a beautiful pseudo-gothic castle which was tenanted for a while by prince de carabas-chenonceaux after mlle. jalabert had broken up her ladies' school in . my mother boarded and lodged there, with my little sister, in the summer of . there were one or two other english lady boarders, half-pupils--much younger than my mother--indeed, they may be alive now. if they are, and this should happen to meet their eye, may i ask them to remember kindly the irish wife of the scotch merchant of french wines who supplied them with the innocent vintage of mâcon (ah! who knows that innocence better than i?), and his pretty little daughter who played the piano so nicely; may i beg them also not to think it necessary to communicate with me on the subject, or, if they do, not to expect an answer? one night mlle. jalabert gave a small dance, and mérovée brossard was invited, and also half a dozen of his favorite pupils, and a fair-haired english boy of thirteen danced with the beautiful miss ----. they came to grief and fell together in a heap on the slippery floor; but no bones were broken, and there was much good-natured laughter at their expense. if miss ---- (that was) is still among the quick, and remembers, it may interest her to know that that fair-haired english boy's name was no less than bartholomew josselin; and that another english boy, somewhat thick-set and stumpy, and not much to look at, held her in deep love, admiration, and awe--and has not forgotten! if i happen to mention this, it is not with a view of tempting her into any correspondence about this little episode of bygone years, should this ever meet her eye. the sunday morning that followed barty's début at brossard's the boys went to church in the rue de l'Église, passy--and he with them, for he had been brought up a roman catholic. and i went round to mlle. jalabert's to see my mother and sister. i told them all about the new boy, and they were much interested. suddenly my mother exclaimed: "bartholomew josselin? why, dear me! that must be lord runswick's son--lord runswick, who was the eldest son of the present marquis of whitby. he was in the th lancers with your uncle charles, who was very fond of him. he left the army twenty years ago, and married lady selina jobhouse--and his wife went mad. then he fell in love with the famous antoinette josselin at the 'bouffes,' and wanted so much to marry her that he tried to get a divorce; it was tried in the house of lords, i believe; but he didn't succeed--so they--a--well--they contracted a--a _morganatic_ marriage, you know; and your friend was born. and poor lord runswick was killed in a duel about a dog, when his son was two years old; and his mother left the stage, and--" just here the beautiful miss ---- came in with her sister, and there was no more of josselin's family history; and i forgot all about it for the day. for i passionately loved the beautiful miss ----; i was just thirteen! but next morning i said to him at breakfast, in english, "wasn't your father killed in a duel?" "yes," said barty, looking grave. "wasn't he called lord runswick?" "yes," said barty, looking graver still. "then why are you called josselin?" "ask no questions and you'll get no lies," said barty, looking very grave indeed--and i dropped the subject. and here i may as well rapidly go through the well-known story of his birth and early childhood. his father, lord runswick, fell desperately in love with the beautiful antoinette josselin after his own wife had gone hopelessly mad. he failed to obtain a divorce, naturally; antoinette was as much in love with him, and they lived together as man and wife, and barty was born. they were said to be the handsomest couple in paris, and immensely popular among all who knew them, though of course society did not open its doors to la belle madame de ronsvic, as she was called. she was the daughter of poor fisher-folk in le pollet, dieppe. i, with barty for a guide, have seen the lowly dwelling where her infancy and childhood were spent, and which barty remembered well, and also such of her kin as was still alive in , and felt it was good to come of such a race, humble as they were. they were physically splendid people, almost as splendid as barty himself; and, as i was told by many who knew them well, as good to know and live with as they were good to look at--all that was easy to see--and their manners were delightful. when antoinette was twelve, she went to stay in paris with her uncle and aunt, who were concierges to prince scorchakoff in the rue du faubourg st.-honoré; next door, or next door but one, to the Élysée bourbon, as it was called then. and there the princess took a fancy to her, and had her carefully educated, especially in music; for the child had a charming voice and a great musical talent, besides being beautiful to the eye--gifts which her son inherited. then she became for three or four years a pupil at the conservatoire, and finally went on the stage, and was soon one of the most brilliant stars of the parisian theatre at its most brilliant period. then she met the handsome english lord, who was forty, and they fell in love with each other, and all happened as i have told. [illustration: lord runswick and antoinette josselin] in the spring of lord runswick was killed in a duel by lieutenant rondelis, of the deuxième spahis. antoinette's dog had jumped up to play with the lieutenant, who struck it with his cane (for he was "_en pékin_," it appears--in mufti); and lord runswick laid his own cane across the frenchman's back; and next morning they fought with swords, by the mare aux biches, in the bois de boulogne--a little secluded, sedgy pool, hardly more than six inches deep and six yards across. barty and i have often skated there as boys. the englishman was run through at the first lunge, and fell dead on the spot. a few years ago barty met the son of the man who killed lord runswick--it was at the french embassy in albert gate. they were introduced to each other, and m. rondelis told barty how his own father's life had been poisoned by sorrow and remorse at having had "la main si malheureuse" on that fatal morning by the mare aux biches. poor antoinette, mad with grief, left the stage, and went with her little boy to live in the pollet, near her parents. three years later she died there, of typhus, and barty was left an orphan and penniless; for lord runswick had been poor, and lived beyond his means, and died in debt. lord archibald rohan, a favorite younger brother of runswick's (not the heir), came to dieppe from dover (where he was quartered with his regiment, the th royal fusileers) to see the boy, and took a fancy to him, and brought him back to dover to show his wife, who was also french--a daughter of the old gascon family of lonlay-savignac, who had gone into trade (chocolate) and become immensely rich. they (the rohans) had been married eight years, and had as yet no children of their own. lady archibald was delighted with the child, who was quite beautiful. she fell in love with the little creature at the first sight of him--and fed him, on the evening of his arrival, with crumpets and buttered toast. and in return he danced "la dieppoise" for her, and sang her a little ungrammatical ditty in praise of wine and women. it began: "beuvons, beuvons, beuvons donc de ce vin le meilleur du monde ... beuvons, beuvons, beuvons donc de ce vin, car il est très-bon! si je n'en beuvions pas, j'aurions la pépi-e! ce qui me...." i have forgotten the rest--indeed, i am not quite sure that it is fit for the drawing-room! "ah, mon dieu! quel amour d'enfant! oh! gardons-le!" cried my lady, and they kept him. i can imagine the scene. indeed, lady archibald has described it to me, and barty remembered it well. it was his earliest english recollection, and he has loved buttered toast and crumpets ever since--as well as women and wine. and thus he was adopted by the archibald rohans. they got him an english governess and a pony; and in two years he went to a day school in dover, kept by a miss stone, who is actually alive at present and remembers him well; and so he became quite a little english boy, but kept up his french through lady archibald, who was passionately devoted to him, although by this time she had a little daughter of her own, whom barty always looked upon as his sister, and who is now dead. (she became lord frognal's wife--he died in --and she afterwards married mr. justice robertson.) barty's french grandfather and grandmother came over from dieppe once a year to see him, and were well pleased with the happy condition, of his new life; and the more lord and lady archibald saw of these grandparents of his, the more pleased they were that he had become the child of their adoption. for they were first-rate people to descend from, these simple toilers of the sea; better, perhaps, _cæteris paribus_, than even the rohans themselves. all this early phase of little josselin's life seems to have been singularly happy. every year at christmas he went with the rohans to castle rohan in yorkshire, where his english grandfather lived, the marquis of whitby--and where he was petted and made much of by all the members, young and old (especially female), of that very ancient family, which had originally come from brittany in france, as the name shows; but were not millionaires, and never had been. often, too, they went to paris--and in colonel lord archibald sold out, and they elected to go and live there, in the rue du bac; and barty was sent to the institution f. brossard, where he was soon destined to become the most popular boy, with boys and masters alike, that had ever been in the school (in any school, i should think), in spite of conduct that was too often the reverse of exemplary. indeed, even from his early boyhood he was the most extraordinarily gifted creature i have ever known, or even heard of; a kind of spontaneous humorous crichton, to whom all things came easily--and life itself as an uncommonly good joke. during that summer term of i did not see very much of him. he was in the class below mine, and took up with laferté and little bussy-rabutin, who were first-rate boys, and laughed at everything he said, and worshipped him. so did everybody else, sooner or later; indeed, it soon became evident that he was a most exceptional little person. [illustration: "'quel amour d'enfant!'"] in the first place, his beauty was absolutely angelic, as will be readily believed by all who have known him since. the mere sight of him as a boy made people pity his father and mother for being dead! then he had a charming gift of singing little french and english ditties, comic or touching, with his delightful fresh young pipe, and accompanying himself quite nicely on either piano or guitar without really knowing a note of music. then he could draw caricatures that we boys thought inimitable, much funnier than cham's or bertall's or gavarni's, and collected and treasured up. i have dozens of them now--they make me laugh still, and bring back memories of which the charm is indescribable; and their pathos, to me! and then how funny he was himself, without effort, and with a fun that never failed! he was a born buffoon of the graceful kind--more whelp or kitten than monkey--ever playing the fool, in and out of season, but somehow always _à propos_; and french boys love a boy for that more than anything else; or did, in those days. such very simple buffooneries as they were, too--that gave him (and us) such stupendous delight! for instance--he is sitting at evening study between bussy-rabutin and laferté; m. bonzig is usher for the evening. at . bussy-rabutin gives way; in a whisper he informs barty that he means to take a nap ("_piquer un chien_"), with his gradus opened before him, and his hand supporting his weary brow as though in deep study. "but," says he-- "if bonzig finds me out (si bonzig me colle), give me a gentle nudge!" "all right!" says barty--and off goes bussy-rabutin into his snooze. . .--poor fat little laferté falls into a snooze too, after giving barty just the same commission--to nudge him directly he's found out from the _chaire_. . .--intense silence; everybody hard at work. even bonzig is satisfied with the deep stillness and studious _recueillement_ that brood over the scene--steady pens going--quick turning over of leaves of the gradus ad parnassum. suddenly barty sticks out his elbows and nudges both his neighbors at once, and both jump up, exclaiming, in a loud voice: "non, m'sieur, je n'dors pas. j'travaille." sensation. even bonzig laughs--and barty is happy for a week. or else, again--a new usher, monsieur goupillon (from gascony) is on duty in the school-room during afternoon school. he has a peculiar way of saying "_oê, vô!_" instead of "_oui, vous!_" to any boy who says "moi, m'sieur?" on being found fault with; and perceiving this, barty manages to be found fault with every five minutes, and always says "moi, m'sieur?" so as to elicit the "_oê, vô!_" that gives him such delight. at length m. goupillon says, "josselin, if you force me to say '_oê, vô!_' to you once more, you shall be _à la retenue_ for a week!" "moi, m'sieur?" says josselin, quite innocently. "_oê, vô!_" shouts m. goupillon, glaring with all his might, but quite unconscious that barty has earned the threatened punishment! and again barty is happy for a week. and so are we. such was barty's humor, as a boy--mere drivel--but of such a kind that even his butts were fond of him. he would make m. bonzig laugh in the middle of his severest penal sentences, and thus demoralize the whole school-room and set a shocking example, and be ordered _à la porte_ of the salle d'études--an exile which was quite to his taste; for he would go straight off to the lingerie and entertain mlle. marceline and constance and félicité (who all three adored him) with comic songs and break-downs of his own invention, and imitations of everybody in the school. he was a born histrion--a kind of french arthur roberts--but very beautiful to the female eye, and also always dear to the female heart--a most delightful gift of god! then he was constantly being sent for when boys' friends and parents came to see them, that he might sing and play the fool and show off his tricks, and so forth. it was one of m. mérovée's greatest delights to put him through his paces. the message "on demande monsieur josselin au parloir" would be brought down once or twice a week, sometimes even in class or school room, and became quite a by-word in the school; and many of the masters thought it a mistake and a pity. but barty by no means disliked being made much of and showing off in this genial manner. he could turn le père brossard round his little finger, and mérovée too. whenever an extra holiday was to be begged for, or a favor obtained for any one, or the severity of a _pensum_ mitigated, barty was the messenger, and seldom failed. his constitution, inherited from a long line of frugal seafaring norman ancestors (not to mention another long line of well-fed, well-bred yorkshire squires), was magnificent. his spirits never failed. he could see the satellites of jupiter with the naked eye; this was often tested by m. dumollard, maître de mathématiques (et de cosmographie), who had a telescope, which, with a little good-will on the gazer's part, made jupiter look as big as the moon, and its moons like stars of the first magnitude. his sense of hearing was also exceptionally keen. he could hear a watch tick in the next room, and perceive very high sounds to which ordinary human ears are deaf (this was found out later); and when we played blind-man's-buff on a rainy day, he could, blindfolded, tell every boy he caught hold of--not by feeling him all over like the rest of us, but by the mere smell of his hair, or his hands, or his blouse! no wonder he was so much more alive than the rest of us! according to the amiable, modest, polite, delicately humorous, and even tolerant and considerate professor max nordau, this perfection of the olfactory sense proclaims poor barty a degenerate! i only wish there were a few more like him, and that i were a little more like him myself! by-the-way, how proud young germany must feel of its enlightened max, and how fond of him, to be sure! mes compliments! but the most astounding thing of all (it seems incredible, but all the world knows it by this time, and it will be accounted for later on) is that at certain times and seasons barty knew by an infallible instinct _where the north was_, to a point. most of my readers will remember his extraordinary evidence as a witness in the "rangoon" trial, and how this power was tested in open court, and how important were the issues involved, and how he refused to give any explanation of a gift so extraordinary. it was often tried at school by blindfolding him, and turning him round and round till he was giddy, and asking him to point out where the north pole was, or the north star, and seven or eight times out of ten the answer was unerringly right. when he failed, he knew beforehand that for the time being he had lost the power, but could never say why. little doctor larcher could never get over his surprise at this strange phenomenon, nor explain it, and often brought some scientific friend from paris to test it, who was equally nonplussed. when cross-examined, barty would merely say: "quelquefois je sais--quelquefois je ne sais pas--mais quand je sais, je sais, et il n'y a pas à s'y tromper!" indeed, on one occasion that i remember well, a very strange thing happened; he not only pointed out the north with absolute accuracy, as he stood carefully blindfolded in the gymnastic ground, after having been turned and twisted again and again--but, still blindfolded, he vaulted the wire fence and ran round to the refectory door which served as the home at rounders, all of us following; and there he danced a surprising dance of his own invention, that he called "la paladine," the most humorously graceful and grotesque exhibition i ever saw; and then, taking a ball out of his pocket, he shouted: "À l'amandier!" and threw the ball. straight and swift it flew, and hit the almond-tree, which was quite twenty yards off; and after this he ran round the yard from base to base, as at "la balle au camp," till he reached the camp again. "if ever he goes blind," said the wondering m. mérovée, "he'll never need a dog to lead him about." "he must have some special friend above!" said madame germain (méroveé's sister, who was looking on). _prophetic words!_ i have never forgotten them, nor the tear that glistened in each of her kind eyes as she spoke. she was a deeply religious and very emotional person, and loved barty almost as if he were a child of her own. such women have strange intuitions. barty was often asked to repeat this astonishing performance before sceptical people--parents of boys, visitors, etc.--who had been told of it, and who believed he could not have been properly blindfolded; but he could never be induced to do so. there was no mistake about the blindfolding--i helped in it myself; and he afterwards told me the whole thing was "aussi simple que bonjour" if once he felt the north--for then, with his back to the refectory door, he knew exactly the position and distance of every tree from where he was. "it's all nonsense about my going blind and being able to do without a dog"--he added; "i should be just as helpless as any other blind man, unless i was in a place i knew as well as my own pocket--like this play-ground! besides, _i_ sha'n't go blind; nothing will ever happen to _my_ eyes--they're the strongest and best in the whole school!" he said this exultingly, dilating his nostrils and chest; and looked proudly up and around, like ajax defying the lightning. "but what _do_ you feel when you feel the north, barty--a kind of tingling?" i asked. "oh--i feel where it is--as if i'd got a mariner's compass trembling inside my stomach--and as if i wasn't afraid of anybody or anything in the world--as if i could go and have my head chopped off and not care a fig." "ah, well--i can't make it out--i give it up," i exclaimed. "so do i," exclaims barty. "but tell me, barty," i whispered, "_have_ you--have you _really_ got a--a--_special friend above?_" "ask no questions and you'll get no lies," said barty, and winked at me one eye after the other--and went about his business. and i about mine. thus it is hardly to be wondered at that the spirit of this extraordinary boy seemed to pervade the pension f. brossard, almost from the day he came to the day he left it--a slender stripling over six feet high, beautiful as apollo but, alas! without his degree, and not an incipient hair on his lip or chin! of course the boy had his faults. he had a tremendous appetite, and was rather greedy--so was i, for that matter--and we were good customers to la mère jaurion; especially he, for he always had lots of pocket-money, and was fond of standing treat all round. yet, strange to say, he had such a loathing of meat that soon by special favoritism a separate dish of eggs and milk and succulent vegetables was cooked expressly for him--a savory mess that made all our mouths water merely to see and smell it, and filled us with envy, it was so good. aglaé the cook took care of that! "c'était pour monsieur josselin!" and of this he would eat as much as three ordinary boys could eat of anything in the world. then he was quick-tempered and impulsive, and in frequent fights--in which he generally came off second best; for he was fond of fighting with bigger boys than himself. victor or vanquished, he never bore malice--nor woke it in others, which is worse. but he would slap a face almost as soon as look at it, on rather slight provocation, i'm afraid--especially if it were an inch or two higher up than his own. and he was fond of showing off, and always wanted to throw farther and jump higher and run faster than any one else. not, indeed, that he ever wished to _mentally_ excel, or particularly admired those who did! also, he was apt to judge folk too much by their mere outward appearance and manner, and not very fond of dull, ugly, commonplace people--the very people, unfortunately, who were fondest of him; he really detested them, almost as much as they detest each other, in spite of many sterling qualities of the heart and head they sometimes possess. and yet he was their victim through life--for he was very soft, and never had the heart to snub the deadliest bores he ever writhed under, even undeserving ones! like ----, or ----, or the bishop of ----, or lord justice ----, or general ----, or admiral ----, or the duke of ----, etc., etc. and he very unjustly disliked people of the bourgeois type--the respectable middle class, _quorum pars magna fui_! especially if we were very well off and successful, and thought ourselves of some consequence (as we now very often are, i beg to say), and showed it (as, i'm afraid, we sometimes do). he preferred the commonest artisan to m. jourdain, the bourgeois gentilhomme, who was a very decent fellow, after all, and at least clean in his habits, and didn't use bad language or beat his wife! poor dear barty! what would have become of all those priceless copyrights and royalties and what not if his old school-fellow hadn't been a man of business? and where would barty himself have been without his wife, who came from that very class? and his admiration for an extremely good-looking person, even of his own sex, even a scavenger or a dustman, was almost snobbish. it was like a well-bred, well-educated englishman's frank fondness for a noble lord. and next to physical beauty he admired great physical strength; and i sometimes think that it is to my possession of this single gift i owe some of the warm friendship i feel sure he always bore me; for though he was a strong man, and topped me by an inch or two, i was stronger still--as a cart-horse is stronger than a racer. for his own personal appearance, of which he always took the greatest care, he had a naïve admiration that he did not disguise. his candor in this respect was comical; yet, strange to say, he was really without vanity. when he was in the guards he would tell you quite frankly he was "the handsomest chap in all the household brigade, bar three"--just as he would tell you he was twenty last birthday. and the fun of it was that the three exceptions he was good enough to make, splendid fellows as they were, seemed as satyrs to hyperion when compared with barty josselin. one (f. pepys) was three or four inches taller, it is true, being six foot seven or eight--a giant. the two others had immense whiskers, which barty openly envied, but could not emulate--and the mustache with which he would have been quite decently endowed in time was not permitted in an infantry regiment. to return to the pension brossard, and barty the school-boy: he adored monsieur mérovée because he was big and strong and handsome--not because he was one of the best fellows that ever lived. he disliked monsieur durosier, whom we were all so fond of, because he had a slight squint and a receding chin. as for the anglophobe, monsieur dumollard, who made no secret of his hatred and contempt for perfidious albion.... "dis donc, josselin!" says maurice, in english or french, as the case might be, "why don't you like monsieur dumollard? eh? he always favors you more than any other chap in the school. i suppose you dislike him because he hates the english so, and always runs them down before you and me--and says they're all traitors and sneaks and hypocrites and bullies and cowards and liars and snobs; and we can't answer him, because he's the mathematical master!" "ma foi, non!" says josselin--"c'est pas pour ça!" "pourquoi, alors?" says maurice (that's me). "c'est parce qu'il a le pied bourgeois et la jambe canaille!" says barty. (it's because he's got common legs and vulgar feet.) and that's about the lowest and meanest thing i ever heard him say in his life. also, he was not always very sympathetic, as a boy, when one was sick or sorry or out of sorts, for he had never been ill in his life, never known an ache or a pain--except once the mumps, which he seemed to thoroughly enjoy--and couldn't realize suffering of any kind, except such suffering as most school-boys all over the world are often fond of inflicting on dumb animals: this drove him frantic, and led to many a licking by bigger boys. i remember several such scenes--one especially. one frosty morning in january, ' , just after breakfast, jolivet trois (tertius) put a sparrow into his squirrel's cage, and the squirrel caught it in its claws, and cracked its skull like a nut and sucked its brain, while the poor bird still made a desperate struggle for life, and there was much laughter. there was also, in consequence, a quick fight between jolivet and josselin; in which barty got the worst, as usual--his foe was two years older, and quite an inch taller. afterwards, as the licked one sat on the edge of a small stone tank full of water and dabbed his swollen eye with a wet pocket-handkerchief, m. dumollard, the mathematical master, made cheap fun of britannic sentimentality about animals, and told us how the english noblesse were privileged to beat their wives with sticks no thicker than their ankles, and sell them "_au rabais_" in the horse-market of smissfeld; and that they paid men to box each other to death on the stage of drury lane, and all that--deplorable things that we all know and are sorry for and ashamed, but cannot put a stop to. the boys laughed, of course; they always did when dumollard tried to be funny, "and many a joke had he," although his wit never degenerated into mere humor. but they were so fond of barty that they forgave him his insular affectation; some even helped him to dab his sore eye; among them jolivet trois himself, who was a very good-natured chap, and very good-looking into the bargain; and he had received from barty a sore eye too--_gallicè_, "un pochon"--_scholasticè_, "un oeil au beurre noir!" by-the-way, _i_ fought with jolivet once--about Æsop's fables! he said that Æsop was a lame poet of lacedæmon--i, that Æsop was a little hunchback armenian jew; and i stuck to it. it was a sunday afternoon, on the terrace by the lingerie. he kicked as hard as he could, so i had to kick too. mlle. marceline ran out with constance and félicité and tried to separate us, and got kicked by both (unintentionally, of course). then up came père jaurion and kicked _me_! and they all took jolivet's part, and said i was in the wrong, because i was english! what did _they_ know about Æsop! so we made it up, and went in jaurion's loge and stood each other a blomboudingue on tick--and called jaurion bad names. "comme c'est bête, de s'battre, hein?" said jolivet, and i agreed with him. i don't know which of us really got the worst of it, for we hadn't disfigured each other in the least--and that's the best of kicking. anyhow he was two years older than i, and three or four inches taller; so i'm glad, on the whole, that that small battle was interrupted. it is really not for brag that i have lugged in this story--at least, i hope not. one never quite knows. to go back to barty: he was the most generous boy in the school. if i may paraphrase an old saying, he really didn't seem to know the difference betwixt tuum et meum. everything he had, books, clothes, pocket-money--even agate marbles, those priceless possessions to a french school-boy--seemed to be also everybody else's who chose. i came across a very characteristic letter of his the other day, written from the pension brossard to his favorite aunt, lady caroline grey (one of the rohans), who adored him. it begins: "my dear aunt caroline,--thank you so much for the magnifying-glass, which is not only magnifying, but magnifique. don't trouble to send any more gingerbread-nuts, as the boys are getting rather tired of them, especially laferté and bussy-rabutin. i think we should all like some scotch marmalade," etc., etc. and though fond of romancing a little now and then, and embellishing a good story, he was absolutely truthful in important matters, and to be relied upon implicitly. he seemed also to be quite without the sense of physical fear--a kind of callousness. such, roughly, was the boy who lived to write the _motes in a moonbeam_ and _la quatrième dimension_ before he was thirty; and such, roughly, he remained through life, except for one thing: he grew to be the very soul of passionate and compassionate sympathy, as who doesn't feel who has ever read a page of his work, or even had speech with him for half an hour? whatever weaknesses he yielded to when he grew to man's estate are such as the world only too readily condones in many a famous man less tempted than josselin was inevitably bound to be through life. men of the josselin type (there are not many--he stands pretty much alone) can scarcely be expected to journey from adolescence to middle age with that impeccable decorum which i--and no doubt many of my masculine readers--have found it so easy to achieve, and find it now so pleasant to remember and get credit for. let us think of _the footprints of aurora_, or _Étoiles mortes_, or _déjanire et dalila_, or even _les trépassées de françois villon!_ then let us look at rajon's etching of watts's portrait of him (the original is my own to look at whenever i like, and that is pretty often). and then let us not throw too many big stones, or too hard, at barty josselin. well, the summer term of wore smoothly to its close--a happy "trimestre" during which the institution f. brossard reached the high-water mark of its prosperity. there were sixty boys to be taught, and six house-masters to teach them, besides a few highly paid outsiders for special classes--such as the lively m. durosier for french literature, and m. le professeur martineau for the higher mathematics, and so forth; and crammers and coachers for st.-cyr, the polytechnic school, the École des ponts et chaussées. also fencing-masters, gymnastic masters, a dutch master who taught us german and italian--an irish master with a lovely brogue who taught us english. shall i ever forget the blessed day when ten or twelve of us were presented with an _ivanhoe_ apiece as a class-book, or how barty and i and bonneville (who knew english) devoured the immortal story in less than a week--to the disgust of rapaud, who refused to believe that we could possibly know such a beastly tongue as english well enough to read an english book for mere pleasure--on our desks in play-time, or on our laps in school, _en cachette_! "quelle sacrée pose!" he soon mislaid his own copy, did rapaud; just as he mislaid my _monte cristo_ and jolivet's illustrated _wandering jew_--and it was always: "dis donc, maurice!--prête-moi ton _ivanhoé_!" (with an accent on the e), whenever he had to construe his twenty lines of valtère scott--and what a hash he made of them! sometimes m. brossard himself would come, smoking his big meerschaum, and help the english class during preparation, and put us up to a thing or two worth knowing. "rapaud, comment dit-on '_pouvoir_' en anglais?" "sais pas, m'sieur!" "comment, petit crétin, tu ne sais pas!" and rapaud would receive a _pincée tordue_--a "twisted pinch"--on the back of his arm to quicken his memory. "oh, là, là!" he would howl--"je n' sais pas!" "et toi, maurice?" "Ça se dit '_to be able_,' m'sieur!" i would say. "mais non, mon ami--tu oublies ta langue natale--ça se dit, '_to can_'! maintenant, comment dirais-tu en anglais, '_je voudrais pouvoir_'?" "je dirais, '_i would like to be able._'" "comment, encore! petit cancre! allons--tu es anglais--tu sais bien que tu dirais, '_i vould vill to can_'!" then m. brossard turns to barty: "a ton tour, josselin!" "moi, m'sieur?" says barty. "oui, toi!--comment dirais-tu, '_je pourrais vouloir_'?" "je dirais '_i vould can to vill_,'" says barty, quite unabashed. "À la bonne heure! au moins tu sais ta langue, toi!" says père brossard, and pats him on the cheek; while barty winks at me, the wink of successful time-serving hypocrisy, and bonneville writhes with suppressed delight. what lives most in my remembrance of that summer is the lovely weather we had, and the joy of the passy swimming-bath every thursday and sunday from two till five or six; it comes back to me even now in heavenly dreams by night. i swim with giant side-strokes all round the Île des cygnes between passy and grenelle, where the École de natation was moored for the summer months. round and round the isle i go, up stream and down, and dive and float and wallow with bliss there is no telling--till the waters all dry up and disappear, and i am left wading in weeds and mud and drift and drought and desolation, and wake up shivering--and such is life. as for barty, he was all but amphibious, and reminded me of the seal at the jardin des plantes. he really seemed to spend most of the afternoon under water, coming up to breathe now and then at unexpected moments, with a stone in his mouth that he had picked up from the slimy bottom ten or twelve feet below--or a weed--or a dead mussel. part second "laissons les regrets et les pleurs À la vieillesse; jeunes, il faut cueillir les fleurs de la jeunesse!"--baïf. sometimes we spent the sunday morning in paris, barty and i--in picture-galleries and museums and wax-figure shows, churches and cemeteries, and the hôtel cluny and the baths of julian the apostate--or the jardin des plantes, or the morgue, or the knackers' yards at montfaucon--or lovely slums. then a swim at the bains deligny. then lunch at some restaurant on the quai voltaire, or in the quartier latin. then to some café on the boulevards, drinking our demi-tasse and our chasse-café, and smoking our cigarettes like men, and picking our teeth like gentlemen of france. once after lunch at vachette's with berquin (who was seventeen) and bonneville (the marquis who had got an english mother), we were sitting outside the café des variétés, in the midst of a crowd of consommateurs, and tasting to the full the joy of being alive, when a poor woman came up with a guitar, and tried to sing "le petit mousse noir," a song barty knew quite well--but she couldn't sing a bit, and nobody listened. "allons, josselin, chante-nous ça!" said berquin. and bonneville jumped up, and took the woman's guitar from her, and forced it into josselin's hands, while the crowd became much interested and began to applaud. thus encouraged, barty, who never in all his life knew what it is to be shy, stood up and piped away like a bird; and when he had finished the story of the little black cabin-boy who sings in the maintop halliards, the applause was so tremendous that he had to stand up on a chair and sing another, and yet another. "Écoute-moi bien, ma fleurette!" and "amis, la matinée est belle!" (from _la muette de portici_), while the pavement outside the variétés was rendered quite impassable by the crowd that had gathered round to look and listen--and who all joined in the chorus: "conduis ta barque avec prudence, pêcheur! parle bas! jette tes filets en silence pêcheur! parle bas! et le roi des mers ne nous échappera pas!" (_bis_). and the applause was deafening. meanwhile bonneville and berquin went round with the hat and gathered quite a considerable sum, in which there seemed to be almost as much silver as copper--and actually _two five-franc pieces and an english half-sovereign_! the poor woman wept with gratitude at coming into such a fortune, and insisted on kissing barty's hand. indeed it was a quite wonderful ovation, considering how unmistakably british was barty's appearance, and how unpopular we were in france just then! [illustration: "amis, la matinÉe est belle"] he had his new shiny black silk chimney-pot hat on, and his eton jacket, with the wide shirt collar. berquin, in a tightly fitting double-breasted brown cloth swallow-tailed coat with brass buttons, yellow nankin bell-mouthed trousers strapped over varnished boots, butter-colored gloves, a blue satin stock, and a very tall hairy hat with a wide curly brim, looked such an out-and-out young gentleman of france that we were all proud of being seen in his company--especially young de bonneville, who was still in mourning for his father and wore a crape band round his arm, and a common cloth cap with a leather peak, and thick blucher boots; though he was quite sixteen, and already had a little black mustache like an eyebrow, and inhaled the smoke of his cigarette without coughing and quite naturally, and ordered the waiters about just as if he already wore the uniform of the École st.-cyr, for which he destined himself (and was not disappointed. he should be a marshal of france by now--perhaps he is). then we went to the café mulhouse on the boulevard des italiens (on the "_boul. des it._," as we called it, to be in the fashion)--that we might gaze at señor joaquin eliezegui, the spanish giant, who was eight feet high and a trifle over (or under--i forget which): he told us himself. barty had a passion for gazing at very tall men; like frederic the great (or was it his majesty's royal father?). then we went to the boulevard bonne-nouvelle, where, in a painted wooden shed, a most beautiful circassian slave, miraculously rescued from some abominable seraglio in constantinople, sold pen'orths of "galette du gymnase." on her raven hair she wore a silk turban all over sequins, silver and gold, with a yashmak that fell down behind, leaving her adorable face exposed: she had an amber vest of silk, embroidered with pearls as big as walnuts, and turkish pantalettes--what her slippers were we couldn't see, but they must have been lovely, like all the rest of her. barty had a passion for gazing at very beautiful female faces--like his father before him. there was a regular queue of postulants to see this heavenly eastern houri and buy her confection, which is very like scotch butter-cake, but not so digestible; and even more filling at the price. and three of us sat on a bench, while three times running barty took his place in that procession--soldiers, sailors, workmen, chiffonniers, people of all sorts, women as many as men--all of them hungry for galette, but hungrier still for a good humanizing stare at a beautiful female face; and he made the slow and toilsome journey to the little wooden booth three times--and brought us each a pen'orth on each return journey; and the third time, katidjah (such was her sweet oriental name) leaned forward over her counter and kissed him on both cheeks, and whispered in his ear (in english--and with the accent of stratford-atte-bowe): "you little _duck_! _your_ name is _brown_, _i_ know!" and he came away, his face pale with conflicting emotions, and told us! how excited we were! bonneville (who spoke english quite well) went for a pen'orth on his own account, and said: "my name's brown too, miss katidjah!" but he didn't get a kiss. (she soon after married a mr. ----, of ----, the well-known ---- of ----shire, in ----land. she may be alive now.) then to the palais royal, to dine at the "dîner européen" with m. berquin père, a famous engineer; and finally to stalls at the "français" to see the two first acts of _le cid_; and this was rather an anticlimax--for we had too much "cid" at the institution f. brossard already! and then, at last, to the omnibus station in the rue de rivoli, whence the "accélérées" (en correspondence avec les constantines) started for passy every ten minutes; and thus, up the gas-lighted champs-Élysées, and by the arc de triomphe, to the rond-point de l'avenue de st.-cloud; tired out, but happy--happy--happy _comme on ne l'est plus_! before the school broke up for the holidays there were very severe examinations--but no "distribution de prix"; we were above that kind of thing at brossard's, just as we were above wearing a uniform or taking in day boarders. barty didn't come off very well in this competition; but he came off anyhow much better than i, who had failed to be "diligent and attentive"--too much _monte cristo_, i'm afraid. at all events barty got five marks for english history, because he remembered a good deal about richard coeur de lion, and john, and friar tuck, and robin hood, and especially one cedric the saxon, a historical personage of whom the examiner (a decorated gentleman from the collège de france) had never even heard! * * * * * and then (to the tune of "au clair de la lune"): "vivent les vacances-- _denique tandèm_; et les pénitences-- _habebunt finèm_! les pions intraitables, _vultu barbarò_, s'en iront aux diables, _gaudio nostrò_." n.b.--the accent is always on the last syllable in french latin--and _pion_ means an usher. [illustration: "too much 'monte cristo,' i'm afraid"] barty went to yorkshire with the rohans, and i spent most of my holidays with my mother and sister (and the beautiful miss ----) at mademoiselle jalabert's, next door--coming back to school for most of my meals, and at night to sleep, with a whole dormitory to myself, and no dreadful bell at five in the morning; and so much time to spare that i never found any leisure for my holiday task, that skeleton at the feast; no more did jules, the sergeant's son; no more did caillard, who spent his vacation at brossard's because his parents lived in russia, and his "correspondant" in paris was ill. the only master who remained behind was bonzig, who passed his time painting ships and sailors, in oil-colors; it was a passion with him: corvettes, brigantines, british whalers, fishing-smacks, revenue-cutters, feluccas, caïques, even chinese junks--all was fish that came to his net. he got them all from _la france maritime_, an illustrated periodical much in vogue at brossard's; and also his storms and his calms, his rocks and piers and light-houses--for he had never seen the sea he was so fond of. he took us every morning to the passy swimming-baths, and in the afternoon for long walks in paris, and all about and around, and especially to the musée de marine at the louvre, that we might gaze with him at the beautiful models of three-deckers. he evidently pitied our forlorn condition, and told us delightful stories about seafaring life, like mr. clark russell's; and how he, some day, hoped to see the ocean for himself before he died--and with his own eyes. i really don't know how jules and caillard would have got through the hideous _ennui_ of that idle september without him. even i, with my mother and sister and the beautiful miss ---- within such easy reach, found time hang heavily at times. one can't be always reading, even alexandre dumas; nor always loafing about, even in paris, by one's self (jules and caillard were not allowed outside the gates without bonzig); and beautiful english girls of eighteen, like miss ----s, don't always want a small boy dangling after them, and show it sometimes; which i thought very hard. it was almost a relief when school began again in october, and the boys came back with their wonderful stories of the good time they had all had (especially some of the big boys, who were "en rhétorique et en philosophie")--and all the game that had fallen to their guns--wild-boars, roebucks, cerfs-dix-cors, and what not; of perilous swims in stormy seas--tremendous adventures in fishing-smacks on moonlight nights (it seemed that the moon had been at the full all through those wonderful six weeks); rides _ventre à terre_ on mettlesome arab steeds through gloomy wolf-haunted forests with charming female cousins; flirtations and "good fortunes" with beautiful but not happily married women in old mediæval castle keeps. toujours au clair de la lune! they didn't believe each other in the least, these gay young romancers--nor expect to be believed themselves; but it was very exciting all the same; and they listened, and were listened to in turn, without a gesture of incredulity--nor even a smile! and we small boys held our tongues in reverence and awe. when josselin came back he had wondrous things to tell too--but so preposterous that they disbelieved him quite openly, and told him so. how in london he had seen a poor woman so tipsy in the street that she had to be carried away by two policemen on a stretcher. how he had seen brewers' dray-horses nearly six feet high at the shoulder--and one or two of them with a heavy cavalry mustache drooping from its upper lip. how he had been presented to the lord mayor of london, and even shaken hands with him, in leadenhall market, and that his lordship was quite plainly dressed; and how english lord mayors were not necessarily "hommes du monde," nor always hand in glove with queen victoria! splendide mendax! but they forgave him all his mendacity for the sake of a new accomplishment he had brought back with him, and which beat all his others. he could actually turn a somersault backwards with all the ease and finish of a professional acrobat. how he got to do this i don't know. it must have been natural to him and he never found it out before; he was always good at gymnastics--and all things that required grace and agility more than absolute strength. also he brought back with him (from leadenhall market, no doubt) a gigantic horned owl, fairly tame--and with eyes that reminded us of le grand bonzig's. school began, and with it the long evenings with an hour's play by lamp-light in the warm salle d'études; and the cold lamp-lit ninety minutes' preparation on an empty stomach, after the short perfunctory morning prayer--which didn't differ much from the evening one. barty was still _en cinquième_, at the top! and i at the tail of the class immediately above--so near and yet so far! so i did not have many chances of improving my acquaintance with him that term; for he still stuck to laferté and bussy-rabutin--they were inseparable, those three. at mid-day play-time the weather was too cold for anything but games, which were endless in their variety and excitement; it would take a chapter to describe them. it is a mistake to think that french school-boys are (or were) worse off than ours in this. i will not say that any one french game is quite so good as cricket or football for a permanency. but i remember a great many that are very nearly so. indeed, french rounders (la balle au camp) seems to me the best game that ever was--on account of the quick rush and struggle of the fielders to get home when an inside boy is hit between the bases, lest he should pick the ball up in time to hit one of them with it before the camp is reached; in which case there is a most exciting scrimmage for the ball, etc., etc. barty was good at all games, especially la balle au camp. i used to envy the graceful, easy way he threw the ball--so quick and straight it seemed to have no curve at all in its trajectory: and how it bounded off the boy it nearly always hit between the shoulders! at evening, play in the school-room, besides draughts and chess and backgammon; m. bonzig, when _de service_, would tell us thrilling stories, with "la suite au prochain numéro" when the bell rang at . ; a long series that lasted through the winter of ' -' . _le tueur de daims_, _le lac ontario_, _le dernier des mohicans_, _les pionniers_, _la prairie_--by one fénimore coupère; all of which he had read in m. defauconpret's admirable translations. i have read some of them in their native american since then, myself. i loved them always--but they seemed to lack some of the terror, the freshness, and the charm his fluent utterance and solemn nasal voice put into them as he sat and smoked his endless cigarettes with his back against the big stone stove, and his eyes dancing sideways through his glasses. never did that "ding-dang-dong" sound more hateful than when le grand bonzig was telling the tale of bas-de-cuir's doings, from his innocent youth to his noble and pathetic death by sunset, with his ever-faithful and still-serviceable but no longer deadly rifle (the friend of sixty years) lying across his knees. i quote from memory; what a gun that was! then on thursdays, long walks, two by two, in paris, with bonzig or dumollard; or else in the bois to play rounders or prisoners' base in a clearing, or skate on the mare aux biches, which was always so hard to find in the dense thicket ... poor lord runswick! _he_ found it once too often! la mare d'auteuil was too deep, and too popular with "la flotte de passy," as we called the passy voyous, big and small, who came there in their hundreds--to slide and pick up quarrels with well-dressed and respectable school-boys. liberté--égalité--fraternité! ou la mort! vive la république! (this, by-the-way, applies to the winter that came _next_.) so time wore on with us gently; through the short vacation at new-year's day till the d or th of february, when the revolution broke out, and louis philippe premier had to fly for his life. it was a very troublous time, and the school for a whole week was in a state of quite heavenly demoralization! ten times a day, or in the dead of night, the drum would beat _le rappel_ or _la générale_. a warm wet wind was blowing--the most violent wind i can remember that was not an absolute gale. it didn't rain, but the clouds hurried across the sky all day long, and the tops of the trees tried to bend themselves in two; and their leafless boughs and black broken twigs littered the deserted playground--for we all sat on the parapet of the terrace by the lingerie; boys and servants, le père et la mere jaurion, mlle. marceline and the rest, looking towards paris--all feeling bound to each other by a common danger, like wild beasts in a flood. dear me! i'm out of breath from sheer pleasure in the remembrance. one night we had to sleep on the floor for fear of stray bullets; and that was a fearful joy never to be forgotten--it almost kept us awake! peering out of the school-room windows at dusk, we saw great fires, three or four at a time. suburban retreats of the over-wealthy, in full conflagration; and all day the rattle of distant musketry and the boom of cannon a long way off, near montmartre and montfaucon, kept us alive. most of the boys went home, and some of them never came back--and from that day the school began to slowly decline. père brossard--an ancient "brigand de la loire," as the republicans of his youth were called--was elected a representative of his native town at the chamber of deputies; and possibly that did the school more harm than good--ne sutor ultra crepidam! as he was so fond of impressing on _us_! however, we went on pretty much as usual through spring and summer--with occasional alarms (which we loved), and beatings of _le rappel_--till the july insurrection broke out. my mother and sister had left mlle. jalabert's, and now lived with my father near the boulevard montmartre. and when the fighting was at its height they came to fetch me home, and invited barty, for the rohans were away from paris. so home we walked, quite leisurely, on a lovely peaceful summer evening, while the muskets rattled and the cannons roared round us, but at a proper distance; women picking linen for lint and chatting genially the while at shop doors and porter's lodge-gates; and a piquet of soldiers at the corner of every street, who felt us all over for hidden cartridges before they let us through; it was all entrancing! the subtle scent of gunpowder was in the air--the most suggestive smell there can be. even now, here in england, the night of the fifth of november never comes round but i am pleasantly reminded of the days when i was "en pleine révolution" in the streets of paris with my father and mother, and barty and my little sister--and genial _piou-pious_ made such a conscientious examination of our garments. nothing brings back the past like a sound or a smell--even those of a penny squib! every now and then a litter borne by soldiers came by, on which lay a dead or wounded officer. and then one's laugh died suddenly out, and one felt one's self face to face with the horrors that were going on. barty shared my bed, and we lay awake talking half the night; dreadful as it all was, one couldn't help being jolly! every ten minutes the sentinel on duty in the court-yard below would sententiously intone: "sentinelles, prenez-garde à vous!" and other sentinels would repeat the cry till it died away in the distance, like an echo. and all next day, or the day after--or else the day after that, when the long rattle of the musketry had left off--we heard at intervals the "feu de peloton" in a field behind the church of st.-vincent de paul, and knew that at every discharge a dozen poor devils of insurgents, caught red-handed, fell dead in a pool of blood! i need hardly say that before three days were over the irrepressible barty had made a complete conquest of my small family. my sister (i hasten to say this) has loved him as a brother ever since; and as long as my parents lived, and wherever they made their home, that home has ever been his--and he has been their son--almost their eldest born, though he was younger than i by seven months. things have been reversed, however, for now thirty years and more; and his has ever been the home for me, and his people have been my people, and ever will be--and the god of his worship mine! what children and grandchildren of my own could ever be to me as these of barty josselin's? "ce sacré josselin--il avait tous les talents!" and the happiest of these gifts, and not the least important, was the gift he had of imparting to his offspring all that was most brilliant and amiable and attractive in himself, and leaving in them unimpaired all that was strongest and best in the woman i loved as well as he did, and have loved as long--and have grown to look upon as belonging to the highest female type that can be; for doubtless the creator, in his infinite wisdom, might have created a better and a nicer woman than mrs. barty josselin that was to be, had he thought fit to do so; but doubtless also he never did. alas! the worst of us is that the best of us are those that want the longest knowing to find it out. my kind-hearted but cold-mannered and undemonstrative scotch father, evangelical, a total abstainer, with a horror of tobacco--surely the austerest dealer in french wines that ever was--a puritanical hater of bar sinisters, and profligacy, and rome, and rank, and the army, and especially the stage--he always lumped them together more or less--a despiser of all things french, except their wines, which he never drank himself--remained devoted to barty till the day of his death; and so with my dear genial mother, whose heart yet always yearned towards serious boys who worked hard at school and college, and passed brilliant examinations, and got scholarships and fellowships in england, and state sinecures in france, and married early, and let their mothers choose their wives for them, and train up their children in the way they should go. she had lived so long in france that she was frencher than the french themselves. and they both loved good music--mozart, bach, beethoven--and were almost priggish in their contempt for anything of a lighter kind; especially with a lightness english or french! it was only the musical lightness of germany they could endure at all! but whether in paris or london, enter barty josselin, idle school-boy, or dandy dissipated guardsman, and fashionable man about town, or bohemian art student; and bach, lebewohl! good-bye, beethoven! bonsoir le bon mozart! all was changed: and welcome, instead, the last comic song from the château des fleurs, or evans's in covent garden; the latest patriotic or sentimental ditty by loïsa puget, or frédéric bérat, or eliza cook, or mr. henry russell. and then, what would barty like for breakfast, dinner, supper after the play, and which of all those burgundies would do barty good without giving him a headache next morning? and where was barty to have his smoke?--in the library, of course. "light the fire in the library, mary; and mr. bob [that was me] can smoke there, too, instead of going outside," etc., etc., etc. it is small wonder that he grew a bit selfish at times. though i was a little joyous now and then, it is quite without a shadow of bitterness or envy that i write all this. i have lived for fifty years under the charm of that genial, unconscious, irresistible tyranny; and, unlike my dear parents, i have lived to read and know barty josselin, nor merely to see and hear and love him for himself alone. indeed, it was quite impossible to know barty at all intimately and not do whatever he wanted you to do. whatever he wanted, he wanted so intensely, and at once; and he had such a droll and engaging way of expressing that hurry and intensity, and especially of expressing his gratitude and delight when what he wanted was what he got--that you could not for the life of you hold your own! tout vient à qui ne sait pas attendre! besides which, every now and then, if things didn't go quite as he wished, he would fly into comic rages, and become quite violent and intractable for at least five minutes, and for quite five minutes more he would silently sulk. and then, just as suddenly, he would forget all about it, and become once more the genial, affectionate, and caressing creature he always was. but this is going ahead too fast! revenons. at the examinations this year barty was almost brilliant, and i was hopeless as usual; my only consolation being that after the holidays we should at last be in the same class together, _en quatrième_, and all through this hopelessness of mine! laferté was told by his father that he might invite two of his school-fellows to their country-house for the vacation, so he asked josselin and bussy-rabutin. but bussy couldn't go--and, to my delight, i went instead. that ride all through the sweet august night, the three of us on the impériale of the five-horsed diligence, just behind the conductor and the driver--and freedom, and a full moon, or nearly so--and a tremendous saucisson de lyon (à l'ail, bound in silver paper)--and petits pains--and six bottles of bière de mars--and cigarettes ad libitum, which of course we made ourselves! the lafertés lived in the department of la sarthe, in a delightful country-house, with a large garden sloping down to a transparent stream, which had willows and alders and poplars all along its both banks, and a beautiful country beyond. outside the grounds (where there were the old brick walls, all overgrown with peaches and pears and apricots, of some forgotten mediæval convent) was a large farm; and close by, a water-mill that never stopped. a road, with thick hedge-rows on either side, led to a small and very pretty town called la tremblaye, three miles off. and hard by the garden gates began the big forest of that name: one heard the stags calling, and the owls hooting, and the fox giving tongue as it hunted the hares at night. there might have been wolves and wild-boars. i like to think so very much. m. laferté was a man of about fifty--entre les deux âges; a retired maître de forges, or iron-master, or else the son of one: i forget which. he had a charming wife and two pretty little daughters, jeanne et marie, aged fourteen and twelve. he seldom moved from his country home, which was called "le gué des aulnes," except to go shooting in the forest; for he was a great sportsman and cared for little else. he was of gigantic stature--six foot six or seven, and looked taller still, as he had a very small head and high shoulders. he was not an adonis, and could only see out of one eye--the other (the left one, fortunately) was fixed as if it were made of glass--perhaps it was--and this gave him a stern and rather forbidding expression of face. he had just been elected mayor of la tremblaye, beating the comte de la tremblaye by many votes. the comte was a royalist and not popular. the republican m. laferté (who was immensely charitable and very just) was very popular indeed, in spite of a morose and gloomy manner. he could even be violent at times, and then he was terrible to see and hear. of course his wife and daughters were gentleness itself, and so was his son, and everybody who came into contact with him. _si vis pacem, para bellum_, as père brossard used to impress upon us. it was the strangest country household i have ever seen, in france or anywhere else. they were evidently very well off, yet they preferred to eat their mid-day meal in the kitchen, which was immense; and so was the mid-day meal--and of a succulency!... an old wolf-hound always lay by the huge log fire; often with two or three fidgety cats fighting for the soft places on him and making him growl; five or six other dogs, non-sporting, were always about at meal-time. the servants--three or four peasant women who waited on us--talked all the time; and were _tutoyées_ by the family. farm-laborers came in and discussed agricultural matters, manures, etc., quite informally, squeezing their bonnets de coton in their hands. the postman sat by the fire and drank a glass of cider and smoked his pipe up the chimney while the letters were read--most of them out loud--and were commented upon by everybody in the most friendly spirit. all this made the meal last a long time. m. laferté always wore his blouse--except in the evening, and then he wore a brown woollen vareuse, or jersey; unless there were guests, when he wore his sunday morning best. he nearly always spoke like a peasant, although he was really a decently educated man--or should have been. his old mother, who was of good family and eighty years of age lived in a quite humble cottage in a small street in la tremblaye, with two little peasant girls to wait on her; and the la tremblayes, with whom m. laferté was not on speaking terms, were always coming into the village to see her and bring her fruit and flowers and game. she was a most accomplished old lady, and an excellent musician, and had known monsieur de lafayette. we breakfasted with her when we alighted from the diligence at six in the morning; and she took such a fancy to barty that her own grandson was almost forgotten. he sang to her, and she sang to him, and showed him autograph letters of lafayette, and a lock of her hair when she was seventeen, and old-fashioned miniatures of her father and mother, monsieur and madame de something i've quite forgotten. m. laferté kept a pack of bassets (a kind of bow-legged beagle), and went shooting with them every day in the forest, wet or dry; sometimes we three boys with him. he lent us guns--an old single-barrelled flint-lock cavalry musket or carbine fell to my share; and i knew happiness such as i had never known yet. barty was evidently not meant for a sportsman. on a very warm august morning, as he and i squatted "à l'affût" at the end of a long straight ditch outside a thicket which the bassets were hunting, we saw a hare running full tilt at us along the ditch, and we both fired together. the hare shrieked, and turned a big somersault and fell on its back and kicked convulsively--its legs still galloping--and its face and neck were covered with blood; and, to my astonishment, barty became quite hysterical with grief at what we had done. it's the only time i ever saw him cry. "_caïn! caïn! qu'as-tu fait de ton frère?_" he shrieked again and again, in a high voice, like a small child's--like the hare's. i calmed him down and promised i wouldn't tell, and he recovered himself and bagged the game--but he never came out shooting with us again! so i inherited his gun, which was double-barrelled. barty's accomplishments soon became the principal recreation of the laferté ladies; and even m. laferté himself would start for the forest an hour or two later or come back an hour sooner to make barty go through his bag of tricks. he would have an arm-chair brought out on the lawn after breakfast and light his short black pipe and settle the programme himself. first, "_le saut périlleux_"--the somersault backwards--over and over again, at intervals of two or three minutes, so as to give himself time for thought and chuckles, while he smoked his pipe in silent stodgy jubilation. then, two or three songs--they would be stopped, if m. laferté didn't like them, after the first verse, and another one started instead; and if it pleased him, it was encored two or three times. then, pen and ink and paper were brought, and a small table and a kitchen chair, and barty had to draw caricatures, of which m. laferté chose the subject. "maintenant, fais-moi le profil de mon vieil ami m. bonzig, que j' n' connais pas, que j' n'ai jamais vu, mais q' j'aime beaucoup." (now do me the side face of my old friend m. bonzig, whom i don't know, but am very fond of.) and so on for twenty minutes. then barty had to be blindfolded and twisted round and round, and point out the north--when he felt up to it. then a pause for reflection. then: "dis-moi qué'q' chose en anglais." "how do you do very well hey diddle-diddle chichester church in chichester church-yard!" says barty. "qué'q' çà veut dire?" "il s'agit d'une église et d'un cimetière!" says barty--rather sadly, with a wink at me. "c'est pas gai! qué vilaine langue, hein? j' suis joliment content que j' sais pas i'anglais, moi!" (it's not lively! what a beastly language, eh? i'm precious glad _i_ don't know english.) then: "démontre-moi un problème de géométrie." barty would then do a simple problem out of legendre (the french euclid), and m. laferté would look on with deep interest and admiration, but evidently no comprehension whatever. then he would take the pen himself, and draw a shapeless figure, with a's and b's and c's and d's stuck all over it in impossible places, and quite at hazard, and say: "démontre-moi que a + b est plus grand que c + d." it was mere idiotic nonsense, and he didn't know better! but barty would manage to demonstrate it all the same, and m. laferté would sigh deeply, and exclaim, "c'est joliment beau, la géométrie!" then: "danse!" and barty danced "la paladine," and did scotch reels and irish jigs and break-downs of his own invention, amidst roars of laughter from all the family. finally the gentlemen of the party went down to the river for a swim--and old laferté would sit on the bank and smoke his brûle-gueule, and throw carefully selected stones for barty to dive after--and feel he'd scored off barty when the proper stone wasn't found, and roar in his triumph. after which he would go and pick the finest peach he could find, and peel it with his pocket-knife very neatly, and when barty was dressed, present it to him with a kindly look in both eyes at once. "mange-moi ça--ça t' fera du bien!" then, suddenly: "pourquoi q' tu n'aimes pas la chasse? t'as pas peur, j'espère!" (why don't you like shooting? you're not afraid, i hope!) [illustration: le pÈre polyphÈme] "'sais pas,'" said josselin; "don't like killing things, i suppose.'" so barty became quite indispensable to the happiness and comfort of père polyphème, as he called him, as well as of his amiable family. on the st of september there was a grand breakfast in honor of the partridges (not in the kitchen this time), and many guests were invited; and barty had to sing and talk and play the fool all through breakfast; and got very tipsy, and had to be put to bed for the rest of the day. it was no fault of his, and madame lafertó declared that "ces messieurs" ought to be ashamed of themselves, and watched over barty like a mother. he has often declared he was never quite the same after that debauch--and couldn't feel the north for a month. the house was soon full of guests, and barty and i slept in m. laferté's bedroom--his wife in a room adjoining. every morning old polyphemus would wake us up by roaring out: "hé! ma femme!" "voilà, voilà, mon ami!" from the next room. "viens vite panser mon cautère!" and in came madame l. in her dressing-gown, and dressed a blister he wore on his big arm. then: "café!" and coffee came, and he drank it in bed. then: "pipe!" and his pipe was brought and filled, and he lit it. then: "josselin!" "oui, m'sieur laferté." "tire moi une gamme." "dorémifasollasido--dosilasolfamirédo!" sang josselin, up and down, in beautiful tune, with his fresh bird-like soprano. "ah! q' ça fait du bien!" says m. l.; then a pause, and puffs of smoke and grunts and sighs of satisfaction. "josselin?" "oui, m'sieur laferté!" "'la brune thérèse!'" and josselin would sing about the dark-haired thérèsa--three verses. "tu as changé la fin du second couplet--tu as dit '_des comtesses_' au lieu de dire '_des duchesses_'--recommence!" (you changed the end of the second verse--you said "countesses" instead of "duchesses"--begin again.) and barty would re-sing it, as desired, and bring in the duchesses. "maintenant, 'colin, disait lisette!'" and barty would sing that charming little song, most charmingly: "'colin,' disait lisette, 'je voudrais passer l'eau! mais je suis trop pauvrette pour payer le bateau!' 'entrez, entrez, ma belle! entrez, entrez toujours! et vogue la nacelle qui porte mes amours!" and old l. would smoke and listen with an air of heavenly beatitude almost pathetic. "elle était bien gentille, lisette--n'est-ce pas, petiot?--recommence!" (she was very nice, lisette; wasn't she, sonny?--being again!) "now both get up and wash and go to breakfast. come here, josselin--you see this little silver dagger" (producing it from under his pillow). "it's rather pointy, but not at all dangerous. my mother gave it me when i was just your age--to cut books with; it's for you. allons, file! [cut along] no thanks!--but look here--are you coming with us à la chasse to-day?" "non, m. laferté!" "pourquoi?--t'as pas peur, j'espère!" "sais pas. j' n'aime pas les choses mortes--ça saigne--et ça n' sent pas bon--ça m'fait mal au coeur." (don't know. i'm not fond of dead things. they bleed--and they don't smell nice--it makes me sick.) and two or three times a day would barty receive some costly token of this queer old giant's affection, till he got quite unhappy about it. he feared he was despoiling the house of laferté of all its treasures in silver and gold; but he soothed his troubled conscience later on by giving them all away to favorite boys and masters at brossard's--especially m. bonzig, who had taken charge of his white mouse (and her family, now quite grown up--children and grandchildren and all) when mlle. marceline went for her fortnight's holiday. indeed, he had made a beautiful cage for them out of wood and wire, with little pasteboard mangers (which they nibbled away). well, the men of the party and young laferté and i would go off with the dogs and keepers into the forest--and barty would pick filberts and fruit with jeanne and marie, and eat them with bread-and-butter and jam and _cernaux_ (unripe walnuts mixed with salt and water and verjuice--quite the nicest thing in the world). then he would find his way into the heart of the forest, which he loved--and where he had scraped up a warm friendship with some charcoal-burners, whose huts were near an old yellow-watered pond, very brackish and stagnant and deep, and full of leeches and water-spiders. it was in the densest part of the forest, where the trees were so tall and leafy that the sun never fell on it, even at noon. the charcoal-burners told him that in ' a young de la tremblaye was taken there at sunset to be hanged on a giant oak-tree--but he talked so agreeably and was so pleasant all round that they relented, and sent for bread and wine and cider and made a night of it, and didn't hang him till dawn next day; after which they tied a stone to his ankles and dropped him into the pond, which was called "the pond of the respite" ever since; and his young wife, claire Élisabeth, drowned herself there the week after, and their bones lie at the bottom to this very day. and, ghastly to relate, the ringleader in this horrible tragedy was a beautiful young woman, a daughter of the people, it seems--one séraphine doucet, whom the young viscount had betrayed before marriage--le droit du seigneur!--and but for whom he would have been let off after that festive night. ten or fifteen years later, smitten with incurable remorse, she hanged herself on the very branch of the very tree where they had strung up her noble lover; and still walks round the pond at night, wringing her hands and wailing. it's a sad story--let us hope it isn't true. barty josselin evidently had this pond in his mind when he wrote in "Âmes en peine": sous la berge hantée l'eau morne croupit-- sous la sombre futaie le renard glapit, et le cerf-dix-cors brame, et les daims viennent boire à l'Étang du répit. "lâchez-moi, loupgaroux!" que sinistre est la mare quand tombe la nuit; la chouette s'effare-- le blaireau s'enfuit! l'on y sent que les morts se réveillent--qu'une ombre sans nom vous poursuit. "lâchez-moi, loup-garoux!" forêt! forêt! what a magic there is in that little french dissyllable! morne forêt! is it the lost "s," and the heavy "^" that makes up for it, which lend such a mysterious and gloomy fascination? forest! that sounds rather tame--almost cheerful! if _we_ want a forest dream we have to go so far back for it, and dream of robin hood and his merrie men! and even then epping forces itself into our dream--and even chingford, where there was never a were-wolf within the memory of man. give us at least the _virgin_ forest, in some far guyana or brazil--or even the forest primeval-- "... where the murmuring pines and the hemlocks, bearded with moss and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight, stand like druids of eld, with voices sad and prophetic, stand like harpers hoar"-- that we may dream of scalp-hunting mingoes, and grizzly-bears, and moose, and buffalo, and the beloved bas-de-cuir with that magic rifle of his, that so seldom missed its mark and never got out of repair. "prom'nons nous dans les bois pendant que le loup n'y est pas...." that's the first song i ever heard. céline used to sing it, my nurse--who was very lovely, though she had a cast in her eye and wore a black cap, and cotton in her ears, and was pitted with the smallpox. it was in burgundy, which was rich in forests, with plenty of wolves in them, and wild-boars too--and that was only a hundred years ago, when that i was a little tiny boy. it's just an old nursery rhyme to lull children to sleep with, or set them dancing--pas aut' chose--but there's a deal of old france in it! there i go again--digressing as usual and quoting poetry and trying to be literary and all that! c'est plus fort que moi.... one beautiful evening after dinner we went, the whole lot of us, fishing for crayfish in the meadows beyond the home farm. as we set about waiting for the crayfish to assemble round the bits of dead frog that served for bait and were tied to the wire scales (which were left in the water), a procession of cows came past us from the farm. one of them had a wound in her flank--a large tumor. "it's the bull who did that," said marie. "il est très méchant!" presently the bull appeared, following the herd in sulky dignity. we all got up and crossed the stream on a narrow plank--all but josselin, who remained sitting on a camp-stool. "josselin! josselin! venez donc! il est très mauvais, le taureau!" barty didn't move. the bull came by; and suddenly, seeing him, walked straight to within a yard of him--and stared at him for five minutes at least, lashing its tail. barty didn't stir. our hearts were in our mouths! then the big brindled brute turned quietly round with a friendly snort and went after the cows--and barty got up and made it a courtly farewell salute, saying, "bon voyage--au plaisir!" after which he joined the rest of us across the stream, and came in for a good scolding and much passionate admiration from the ladies, and huggings and tears of relief from madame laferté. "i knew well he wouldn't be afraid!" said m. laferté; "they are all like that, those english--le sang-froid du diable! nom d'un vellington! it is we who were afraid--we are not so brave as the little josselin! plucky little josselin! but why did you not come with us? temerity is not valor, josselin!" "because i wanted to show off [_faire le fanfaron_]!" said barty, with extreme simplicity. "ah, diable! anyhow, it was brave of you to sit still when he came and looked at you in the white of the eyes! it was just the right thing to do; ces anglais! je n'en reviens pas! à quatorze ans! hein, ma femme?" "pardi!" said barty, "i was in such a blue funk [j'avais une venette si bleue] that i couldn't have moved a finger to save my life!" at this, old polyphemus went into a homeric peal of laughter. "ces anglais! what originals--they tell you the real truth at any cost [ils vous disent la vraie vérité, coûte que coûte]!" and his affection for barty seemed to increase, if possible, from that evening. [illustration: fanfaronnade] now this was barty all over--all through life. he always gave himself away with a liberality quite uncalled for--so he ought to have some allowances made for that reckless and impulsive indiscretion which caused him to be so popular in general society, but got him into so many awkward scrapes in after-life, and made him such mean enemies, and gave his friends so much anxiety and distress. (and here i think it right to apologize for so much translating of such a well-known language as french; i feel quite like another ollendorf--who must have been a german, by-the-way--but m. laferté's grammar and accent would sometimes have puzzled ollendorf himself!) * * * * * towards the close of september, m. laferté took it into his head to make a tour of provincial visits _en famille_. he had never done such a thing before, and i really believe it was all to show off barty to his friends and relations. it was the happiest time i ever had, and shines out by itself in that already so unforgettably delightful vacation. we went in a large charabancs drawn by two stout horses, starting at six in the morning, and driving right through the forest of la tremblaye; and just ahead of us, to show us the way, m. laferté driving himself in an old cabriolet, with josselin (from whom he refused to be parted) by his side, singing or talking, according to order, or cracking jokes; we could hear the big laugh of polyphemus! we travelled very leisurely; i forget whether we ever changed horses or not--but we got over a good deal of ground. we put up at the country houses of friends and relations of the lafertés; and visited old historical castles and mediæval ruins--châteaudun and others--and fished in beautiful pellucid tributaries of the loire--shot over "des chiens anglais"--danced half the night with charming people--wandered in lovely parks and woods, and beautiful old formal gardens with fishponds, terraces, statues, marble fountains; charmilles, pelouses, quinconces; and all the flowers and all the fruits of france! and the sun shone every day and all day long--and in one's dreams all night. and the peasants in that happy country of the loire spoke the most beautiful french, and had the most beautiful manners in the world. they're famous for it. it all seems like a fairy tale. if being made much of, and petted and patted and admired and wondered at, make up the sum of human bliss, barty came in for as full a share of felicity during that festive week as should last an ordinary mortal for a twelvemonth. _figaro quà, figaro là_, from morning till night in three departments of france! but he didn't seem to care very much about it all; he would have been far happier singing and tumbling and romancing away to his charbonniers by the pond in the forest of la tremblaye. he declared he was never quite himself unless he could feel the north for at least an hour or two every day, and all night long in his sleep--and that he should never feel the north again--that it was gone forever; that he had drunk it all away at that fatal breakfast--and it made him lonely to wake up in the middle of the night and not know which way he lay! "dépaysé," as he called it--"désorienté--perdu!" and laughing, he would add, "ayez pitié d'un pauvre orphelin!" * * * * * then back to le gué des aulnes. and one evening, after a good supper at grandmaman laferté's, the diligence de paris came jingling and rumbling through the main street of la tremblaye, flashing right and left its two big lamps, red and blue. and we three boys, after the most grateful and affectionate farewells, packed ourselves into the coupé, which had been retained for us, and rumbled back to paris through the night. there was quite a crowd to see us off. not only lafertés, but others--all sorts and conditions of men, women, and children--and among them three or four of barty's charcoal-burning friends; one of whom, an old man with magnificent black eyes and an immense beard, that would have been white if he hadn't been a charcoal-burner, kissed barty on both cheeks, and gave him a huge bag full of some kind of forest berry that is good to eat; also a young cuckoo (which barty restored to liberty an hour later); also a dormouse and a large green lizard; also, in a little pasteboard box, a gigantic pale green caterpillar four inches long and thicker than your thumb, with a row of shiny blue stars in relief all along each side of its back--the most beautiful thing of the kind you ever saw. "pioche bien ta géométrie, mon bon petit josselin! c'est la plus belle science au monde, crois-moi!" said m. laferté to barty, and gave him the hug of a grizzly-bear; and to me he gave a terrific hand-squeeze, and a beautiful double-barrelled gun by lefaucheux, for which i felt too supremely grateful to find suitable thanks. i have it now, but i have long given up killing things with it. i had grown immensely fond of this colossal old "bourru bienfaisant," as he was called in la tremblaye, and believe that all his moroseness and brutality were put on, to hide one of the warmest, simplest, and tenderest hearts in the world. before dawn barty woke up with such a start that he woke me: "enfin! ça y est! quelle chance!" he exclaimed. "quoi, quoi, quoi?" said i, quacking like a duck. "le nord--c'est revenu--it's just ahead of us--a little to the left!" we were nearing paris. and thus ended the proudest and happiest time i ever had in my life. indeed i almost had an adventure on my own account--_une bonne fortune_, as it was called at brossard's by boys hardly older than myself. i did not brag of it, however, when i got back to school. it was at "les laiteries," or "les poteries," or "les crucheries," or some such place, the charming abode of monsieur et madame pélisson--only their name wasn't pélisson, or anything like it. at dinner i sat next to a miss ----, who was very tall and wore blond side ringlets. i think she must have been the english governess. we talked very much together, in english; and after dinner we walked in the garden together by starlight arm in arm, and she was so kind and genial to me in english that i felt quite chivalrous and romantic, and ready to do doughty deeds for her sake. then, at m. pélisson's request, all the company assembled in a group for evening prayer, under a spreading chestnut-tree on the lawn: the prayer sounded very much like the morning or evening prayer at brossard's, except that the almighty was addressed as "toi" instead of "vous"; it began: "notre père qui es aux cieux--toi dont le regard scrutateur pénètre jusque dans les replis les plus profonds de nos coeurs"--and ended, "ainsi soit-il!" the night was very dark, and i stood close to miss ----, who stood as it seemed with her hands somewhere behind her back. i was so grateful to her for having talked to me so nicely, and so fond of her for being english, that the impulse seized me to steal my hand into hers--and her hand met mine with a gentle squeeze which i returned; but soon the pressure of her hand increased, and by the time m. le curé had got to "au nom du père" the pressure of her hand had become an agony--a thing to make one shriek! "ainsi soit-il!" said m. le curé, and the little group broke up, and miss ---- walked quietly indoors with her arm around madame pélisson's waist, and without even wishing me good-night--and my hand was being squeezed worse than ever. "ah ha! lequel de nous deux est volé, petit coquin?" hissed an angry male voice in my ear--(which of us two is sold, you little rascal?). and i found my hand in that of monsieur pélisson, whose name was something else--and i couldn't make it out, nor why he was so angry. it has dawned upon me since that each of us took the other's hand by mistake for that of the english governess! all this is beastly and cynical and french, and i apologize for it--but it's true. * * * * * october! it was a black monday for me when school began again after that ideal vacation. the skies they were ashen and sober, and the leaves they were crisped and sere. but anyhow i was still _en quatrième_, and barty was in it too--and we sat next to each other in "l'étude des grands." there was only one étude now; only half the boys came back, and the pavillon des petits was shut up, study, class-rooms, dormitories, and all--except that two masters slept there still. [illustration: mÉrovÉe rings the bell] eight or ten small boys were put in a small school-room in the same house as ours, and had a small dormitory to themselves, with m. bonzig to superintend them. i made up my mind that i would no longer be a _cancre_ and a _crétin_, but work hard and do my little best, so that i might keep up with barty and pass into the _troisième_ with him, and then into _rhétorique_ (seconde), and then into _philosophie_ (première)--that we might do our humanities and take our degree together--our "_bachot_," which is short for _baccalauréat-ès-lettres_. most especially did i love monsieur durosier's class of french literature--for which mérovée always rang the bell himself. my mother and sister were still at ste.-adresse, hâvre, with my father; so i spent my first sunday that term at the archibald rohans', in the rue du bac. i had often seen them at brossard's, when they came to see barty, but had never been at their house before. they were very charming people. lord archibald was dressing when we got there that sunday morning, and we sat with him while he shaved--in an immense dressing-room where there were half a dozen towel-horses with about thirty pairs of newly ironed trousers on them instead of towels, and quite thirty pairs of shiny boots on trees were ranged along the wall. james, an impeccable english valet, waited on "his lordship," and never spoke unless spoken to. "hullo, barty! who's your friend?" "bob maurice, uncle archie." and uncle archie shook hands with me most cordially. "and how's the north pole this morning?" "nicely, thanks, uncle archie." lord archibald was a very tall and handsome man, about fifty--very droll and full of anecdote; he had stories to tell about everything in the room. for instance, how major welsh of the th hussars had given him that pair of wellingtons, which fitted him better than any boots hoby ever made him to measure; they were too tight for poor welsh, who was a head shorter than himself. how kerlewis made him that frock-coat fifteen years ago, and it wasn't threadbare yet, and fitted him as well as ever--for he hadn't changed his weight for thirty years, etc. how that pair of braces had been made by "my lady" out of a pair of garters she wore on the day they were married. and then he told us how to keep trousers from bagging at the knees, and how cloth coats should be ironed, and how often--and how to fold an umbrella. it suddenly occurs to me that perhaps these little anecdotes may not be so amusing to the general reader as they were to me when he told them, so i won't tell any more. indeed, i have often noticed that things look sometimes rather dull in print that were so surprisingly witty when said in spontaneous talk a great many years ago! then we went to breakfast with my lady and daphne, their charming little daughter--barty's sister, as he called her--"m'amour"--and who spoke both french and english equally well. but we didn't breakfast at once, ravenous as we boys were, for lady archibald took a sudden dislike to lord a.'s cravat, which, it seems, he had never worn before. it was in brown satin, and lady a. declared that loulou (so she called him) never looked "_en beauté_" with a brown cravat; and there was quite a little quarrel between husband and wife on the subject--so that he had to go back to his dressing-room and put on a blue one. at breakfast he talked about french soldiers of the line, and their marching kit (as it would be called now), quite earnestly, and, as it seemed to me, very sensibly--though he went through little mimicries that made his wife scream with laughter, and me too; and in the middle of breakfast barty sang "le chant du départ" as well as he could for laughing: "la victoire en chantant nous ouvre la carrière! la liberté-é gui-i-de nos pas" ... while lord a. went through an expressive pantomime of an overladen foot-soldier up and down the room, in time to the music. the only person who didn't laugh was james--which i thought ungenial. then lady a. had _her_ innings, and sang "rule britannia, britannia rule de vaves"--and declared it was far more ridiculous really than the "chant du départ," and she made it seem so, for she went through a pantomime too. she was a most delightful person, and spoke english quite well when she chose; and seemed as fond of barty as if he were her own and only son--and so did lord archibald. she would say: "quel dommage qu'on ne peut pas avoir des crompettes [crumpets]! barty les aime tant! n'est-ce pas, mon chou, tu aimes bien les crompettes? voici venir du buttered toast--c'est toujours ça!" and, "mon dieu, comme il a bonne mine, ce cher barty--n'est-ce pas, mon amour, que tu as bonne mine? regarde-toi dans la glace." and, "si nous allions à l'hippodrôme cette après-midi voir la belle écuyère madame richard? barty adore les jolies femmes, comme son oncle! n'est-ce pas, méchant petit barty, que tu adores les jolies femmes? et tu n'as jamais vu madame richard? tu m'en diras des nouvelles! et vous, mon ami [this to me], est-ce que vous adorez aussi les jolies femmes?" "Ô oui," says daphne, "allons voir m'ame richard; it'll be _such_ fun! oh, bully!" so after breakfast we went for a walk, and to a café on the quai d'orsay, and then to the hippodrôme, and saw the beautiful écuyère in graceful feats of la haute école, and lost our hearts--especially lord archibald, though him she knew; for she kissed her hand to him, and he his to her. then we dined at the palais royal, and afterwards went to the café des aveugles, an underground coffee-house near the café de la rotonde, and where blind men made instrumental music; and we had a capital evening. i have met in my time more intellectual people, perhaps, than the archibald rohans--but never people more amiable, or with kinder, simpler manners, or who made one feel more quickly and thoroughly at home--and the more i got to know them, the more i grew to like them; and their fondness for each other and daphne, and for barty too, was quite touching; as was his for them. so the winter sped happily till february, when a sad thing happened. i had spent sunday with my mother and sister, who now lived on the ground-floor of champs Élysées. i slept there that sunday night, and walked back to school next morning. to my surprise, as i got to a large field through which a diagonal footpath led to père jaurion's loge, i saw five or six boys sitting on the terrace parapet with their legs dangling outside. they should have been in class, by rights. they watched me cross the field, but made no sign. "what on earth _can_ be the matter?" thought i. the cordon was pulled, and i came on a group of boys all stiff and silent. "qu'est-ce que vous avez donc, tous?" i asked. "le père brossard est mort!" said de villars. poor m. brossard had died of apoplexy on the previous afternoon. he had run to catch the passy omnibus directly after lunch, and had fallen down in a fit and died immediately. "il est tombé du haut mal"--as they expressed it. his son mérovée and his daughter madame germain were distracted. the whole of that day was spent by the boys in a strange, unnatural state of _désoeuvrement_ and suppressed excitement for which no outlet was possible. the meals, especially, were all but unbearable. one was ashamed of having an appetite, and yet one had--almost keener than usual, if i may judge by myself--and for some undiscovered reason the food was better than on other mondays! next morning we all went up in sorrowful procession to kiss our poor dear head-master's cold forehead as he lay dead in his bed, with sprigs of boxwood on his pillow, and above his head a jar of holy water with which we sprinkled him. he looked very serene and majestic, but it was a harrowing ceremony. mérovée stood by with swollen eyes and deathly pale--incarnate grief. on wednesday afternoon m. brossard was buried in the cimetière de passy, a tremendous crowd following the hearse; the boys and masters just behind mérovée and m. germain, the chief male mourners. the women walked in another separate procession behind. béranger and alphonse karr were present among the notabilities, and speeches were made over his open grave, for he was a very distinguished man. and, tragical to relate, that evening in the study barty and i fell out, and it led to a stand-up fight next day. there was no preparation that evening; he and i sat side by side reading out of a book by châteaubriand--either _atala_, or _rené_ or _les natchez_, i forget which. i have never seen either since. the study was hushed; m. dumollard was _de service_ as _maître d'études_, although there was no attempt to do anything but sadly read improving books. if i remember aright, rené, a very sentimental young frenchman, who had loved the wrong person not wisely, but too well (a very wrong person indeed, in his case), emigrated to north america, and there he met a beautiful indian maiden, one atala, of the natchez tribe, who had rosy heels and was charming, and whose entire skin was probably a warm dark red, although this is not insisted upon. she also had a brother, whose name was outogamiz. well, rené loved atala, atala loved rené, and they were married; and outogamiz went through some ceremony besides, which made him blood brother and bosom friend to rené--a bond which involved certain obligatory rites and duties and self-sacrifices. atala died and was buried. rené died and was buried also; and every day, as in duty bound, poor outogamiz went and pricked a vein and bled over rene's tomb, till he died himself of exhaustion before he was many weeks older. i quote entirely from memory. this simple story was told in very touching and beautiful language, by no means telegraphese, and barty and i were deeply affected by it. "i say, bob!" barty whispered to me, with a break in his voice, "some day i'll marry your sister, and we'll all go off to america together, and she'll die, and _i_'ll die, and you shall bleed yourself to death on my tomb!" "no," said i, after a moment's thought. "no--look here! _i_'ll marry _your_ sister, and _i_'ll die, and _you_ shall bleed over _my_ tomb!" then, after a pause: "i haven't got a sister, as you know quite well--and if i had she wouldn't be for _you_!" says barty. "why not?" "because you're not good-looking enough!" says barty. at this, just for fun, i gave him a nudge in the wind with my elbow--and he gave me a "twisted pinch" on the arm--and i kicked him on the ankle, but so much harder than i intended that it hurt him, and he gave me a tremendous box on the ear, and we set to fighting like a couple of wild-cats, without even getting up, to the scandal of the whole study and the indignant disgust of m. dumollard, who separated us, and read us a pretty lecture: "voilà bien les anglais!--rien n'est sacré pour eux, pas même la mort! rien que les chiens et les chevaux." (nothing, not even death, is sacred to englishmen--nothing but dogs and horses.) when we went up to bed the head-boy of the school--a first-rate boy called d'orthez, and berquin (another first-rate boy), who had each a bedroom to himself, came into the dormitory and took up the quarrel, and discussed what should be done. both of us were english--ergo, both of us ought to box away the insult with our fists; so "they set a combat us between, to fecht it in the dawing"--that is, just after breakfast, in the school-room. i went to bed very unhappy, and so, i think, did barty. next morning at six, just after the morning prayer, m. mérovée came into the school-room and made us a most straightforward, manly, and affecting speech; in which he told us he meant to keep on the school, and thanked us, boys and masters, for our sympathy. we were all moved to our very depths--and sat at our work solemn and sorrowful all through that lamp-lit hour and a half; we hardly dared to cough, and never looked up from our desks. then . --ding-dang-dong and breakfast. thursday--bread-and-butter morning! i felt hungry and greedy and very sad, and disinclined to fight. barty and i had sat turned away from each other, and made no attempt at reconciliation. we all went to the réfectoire: it was raining fast. i made my ball of salt and butter, and put it in a hole in my hunk of bread, and ran back to the study, where i locked these treasures in my desk. the study soon filled with boys: no masters ever came there during that half-hour; they generally smoked and read their newspapers in the gymnastic ground, or else in their own rooms when it was wet outside. d'orthez and berquin moved one or two desks and forms out of the way so as make a ring--l'arène, as they called it--with comfortable seats all round. small boys stood on forms and window-sills eating their bread-and-butter with a tremendous relish. "dites donc, vous autres," says bonneville, the wit of the school, who was in very high spirits; "it's like the roman empire during the decadence--'_panem et circenses_!'" "what's that, _circenses_? what does it mean?" says rapaud, with his mouth full. "why, _butter_, you idiot! didn't you know _that_?" says bonneville. barty and i stood opposite each other; at his sides as seconds were d'orthez and berquin; at mine, jolivet trois (the only jolivet now left in the school) and big du tertre-jouan (the young marquis who wasn't bonneville). we began to spar at each other in as knowing and english a way as we knew how--keeping a very respectful distance indeed, and trying to bear ourselves as scientifically as we could, with a keen expression of the eye. when i looked into barty's face i felt that nothing on earth would ever make me hit such a face as that--whatever he might do to mine. my blood wasn't up; besides, i was a coarse-grained, thick-set, bullet-headed little chap with no nerves to speak of, and didn't mind punishment the least bit. no more did barty, for that matter, though he was the most highly wrought creature that ever lived. at length they all got impatient, and d'orthez said: "allez donc, godems--ce n'est pas un quadrille! nous n'sommes pas à la salle valentino!" and barty was pushed from behind so roughly that he came at me, all his science to the winds and slogging like a french boy; and i, quite without meaning to, in the hurry, hit out just as he fell over me, and we both rolled together over jolivet's foot--barty on top (he was taller, though not heavier, than i); and i saw the blood flow from his nose down his lip and chin, and some of it fell on my blouse. says barty to me, in english, as we lay struggling on the dusty floor: "look here, it's no good. i _can't_ fight to-day; poor mérovée, you know. let's make it up!" "all right!" says i. so up we got and shook hands, barty saying, with mock dignity: "messieurs, le sang a coulé; l'honneur britannique est sauf;" and the combat was over. "cristi! j'ai joliment faim!" says barty, mopping his nose with his handkerchief. "i left my crust on the bench outside the réfectoire. i wish one of you fellows would get it for me." "rapaud finished your crust [ta miche] while you were fighting," says jolivet. "i saw him." says rapaud: "ah, dame, it was getting prettily wet, your crust, and i was prettily hungry too; and i thought you didn't want it, naturally." i then produced _my_ crust and cut it in two, butter and all, and gave barty half, and we sat very happily side by side, and breakfasted together in peace and amity. i never felt happier or hungrier. "cristi, comme ils se sont bien battus," says little vaissière to little cormenu. "as-tu vu? josselin a saigné tout plein sur la blouse à maurice." (how well they fought! josselin bled all over maurice's blouse!) then says josselin, in french, turning to me with that delightful jolly smile that always reminded one of the sun breaking through a mist: "i would sooner bleed on your blouse than on your tomb." (j'aime mieux saigner sur ta blouse que sur ta tombe.) so ended the only quarrel we ever had. part third "que ne puis-je aller où s'en vont les roses, et n'attendre pas ces regrets navrants que la fin des choses nous garde ici-bas!"--anon. barty worked very hard, and so did i--for _me_! horace--homer--Æschylus--plato--etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., and all there was to learn in that french school-boy's encyclopædia--"le manuel du baccalauréat"; a very thick book in very small print. and i came to the conclusion that it is good to work hard: it makes one enjoy food and play and sleep so keenly--and thursday afternoons. the school was all the pleasanter for having fewer boys; we got more intimate with each other, and with the masters too. during the winter m. bonzig told us capital stories--_modeste mignon_, by balzac--_le chevalier de maison-rouge_, by a. dumas père--etc., etc. in the summer the passy swimming-bath was more delightful than ever. both winter and summer we passionately fenced with a pupil (un prévôt) of the famous m. bonnet, and did gymnastics with m. louis, the gymnastic master of the collège charlemagne--the finest man i ever saw--a gigantic dwarf six feet high, all made up of lumps of sinew and muscles, like.... also, we were taught equitation at the riding-school in the rue duphot. on saturday nights barty would draw a lovely female profile, with a beautiful big black eye, in pen and ink, and carefully shade it; especially the hair, which was always as the raven's wing! and on sunday morning he and i used to walk together to champs Élysées and enter the rez-de-chaussée (where my mother and sister lived) by the window, before my mother was up. then barty took out his lovely female pen-and-ink profile to gaze at, and rolled himself a cigarette and lit it, and lay back on the sofa, and made my sister play her lightest music--"la pluie de perles," by osborne--and "indiana," a beautiful valse by marcailhou--and thus combine three or four perfect blisses in one happy quart d'heure. then my mother would appear, and we would have breakfast--after which barty and i would depart by the window as we had come, and go and do our bit of boulevard and palais royal. then to the rue du bac for another breakfast with the rohans; and then, "_au petit bonheur_"; that is, trusting to providence for whatever turned up. the programme didn't vary very much: either i dined with him at the rohans', or he with me at . then, back to brossard's at ten--tired and happy. one sunday i remember well we stayed in school, for old josselin the fisherman came to see us there--barty's grandfather, now a widower; and m. mérovée asked him to lunch with us, and go to the baths in the afternoon. imagine old bonzig's delight in this "_vieux loup de mer_," as he called him! that was a happy day for the old fisherman also; i shall never forget his surprise at m. dumollard's telescope--and how clever he was on the subject. he came to the baths, and admired and criticised the good swimming of the boys--especially barty's, which was really remarkable. i don't believe he could swim a stroke himself. then we went and dined together at lord archibald's, in the rue du bac--"mon colonel," as the old fisherman always called him. he was a very humorous and intelligent person, this fisher, though nearer eighty than seventy; very big, and of a singularly picturesque appearance--for he had not _endimanché_ himself in the least; and very clean. a splendid old man; oddly enough, somewhat semitic of aspect--as though he had just come from a miraculous draught of fishes in the sea of galilee, out of a cartoon by raphael! i recollect admiring how easily and pleasantly everything went during dinner, and all through the perfection of this ancient sea-toiler's breeding in all essentials. of course the poor all over the world are less nice in their habits than the rich, and less correct in their grammar and accent, and narrower in their views of life; but in every other respect there seemed little to choose between josselins and rohans and lonlay-savignacs; and indeed, according to lord archibald, the best manners were to be found at these two opposite poles--or even wider still. he would have it that royalty and chimney-sweeps were the best-bred people all over the world--because there was no possible mistake about their social status. i felt a little indignant--after all, lady archibald was built out of chocolate, for all her lonlay and her savignac! just as i was built out of beaune and chambertin. i'm afraid i shall be looked upon as a snob and a traitor to my class if i say that i have at last come to be of the same opinion myself. that is, if absolute simplicity, and the absence of all possible temptation to try and seem an inch higher up than we really are--but there! this is a very delicate question, about which i don't care a straw; and there are such exceptions, and so many, to confirm any such rule! anyhow, i saw how barty _couldn't help_ having the manners we all so loved him for. after dinner lady archibald showed old josselin some of barty's lovely female profiles--a sight that affected him strangely. he would have it that they were all exact portraits of his beloved antoinette, barty's mother. they were certainly singularly like each other, these little chefs-d'oeuvre of barty's, and singularly handsome--an ideal type of his own; and the old grandfather was allowed his choice, and touchingly grateful at being presented with such treasures. the scene made a great impression on me. * * * * * so spent itself that year--a happy year that had no history--except for one little incident that i will tell because it concerns barty, and illustrates him. one beautiful sunday morning the yellow omnibus was waiting for some of us as we dawdled about in the school-room, titivating; the masters nowhere, as usual on a sunday morning; and some of the boys began to sing in chorus a not very edifying _chanson_, which they did not "bowdlerize," about a holy capuchin friar; it began (if i remember rightly): "c'était un capucin, oui bien, un père capucin, qui confessait trois filles-- itou, itou, itou, là là là! qui confessait trois filles au fond de son jardin-- oui bien-- au fond de son jardin! il dit à la plus jeune-- itou, itou, itou, là là là! il dit à la plus jeune ... 'vous reviendrez demain!'" etc, etc., etc. i have quite forgotten the rest. now this little song, which begins so innocently, like a sweet old idyl of mediæval france--"_un écho du temps passé_"--seems to have been a somewhat rabelaisian ditty; by no means proper singing for a sunday morning in a boys' school. but boys will be boys, even in france; and the famous "esprit gaulois" was somewhat precocious in the forties, i suppose. perhaps it is now, if it still exists (which i doubt--the dirt remains, but all the fun seems to have evaporated). suddenly m. dumollard bursts into the room in his violent sneaky way, pale with rage, and says: "je vais gifler tous ceux qui ont chanté" (i'll box the ears of every boy who sang). so he puts all in a row and begins: "rubinel, sur votre parole d'honneur, avez-vous chanté?" "non, m'sieur!" "caillard, avez-vous chanté?" "non, m'sieur!" "lipmann, avez-vous chanté?" "non, m'sieur!" "maurice, avez-vous chanté?" "non, m'sieur" (which, for a wonder, was true, for i happened not to know either the words or the tune). "josselin, avez-vous chanté?" "_oui, m'sieur!_" and down went barty his full length on the floor, from a tremendous open-handed box on the ear. dumollard was a very herculean person--though by no means gigantic. barty got up and made dumollard a polite little bow, and walked out of the room. "vous êtes tous consignés!" says m. dumollard--and the omnibus went away empty, and we spent all that sunday morning as best we might. in the afternoon we went out walking in the bois. dumollard had recovered his serenity and came with us; for he was _de service_ that day. says lipmann to him: "josselin drapes himself in his english dignity--he sulks like achilles and walks by himself." "josselin is at least a _man_," says dumollard. "he tells the truth, and doesn't know fear--and i'm sorry he's english!" and later, at the mare d'auteuil, he put out his hand to barty and said: "let's make it up, josselin--au moins vous avez du coeur, vous. promettez-moi que vous ne chanterez plus cette sale histoire de capucin!" josselin took the usher's hand, and smiled his open, toothy smile, and said: "pas le dimanche matin toujours--quand c'est vous qui serez de service, m. dumollard!" (anyhow not sunday morning when _you_'re on duty, mr. d.) and mr. d. left off running down the english in public after that--except to say that they _couldn't_ be simple and natural if they tried; and that they affected a ridiculous accent when they spoke french--not josselin and maurice, but all the others he had ever met. as if plain french, which had been good enough for william the conqueror, wasn't good enough for the subjects of her britannic majesty to-day! the only event of any importance in barty's life that year was his first communion, which he took with several others of about his own age. an event that did not seem to make much impression on him--nothing seemed to make much impression on barty josselin when he was very young. he was just a lively, irresponsible, irrepressible human animal--always in perfect health and exuberant spirits, with an immense appetite for food and fun and frolic; like a squirrel, a collie pup, or a kitten. père bonamy, the priest who confirmed him, was fonder of the boy than of any one, boy or girl, that he had ever prepared for communion, and could hardly speak of him with decent gravity, on account of his extraordinary confessions--all of which were concocted in the depths of barty's imagination for the sole purpose of making the kind old curé laugh; and the kind old curé was just as fond of laughing as was barty of playing the fool, in and out of season. i wonder if he always thought himself bound to respect the secrets of the confessional in barty's case! and barty would sing to him--even in the confessional: "stabat mater dolorosa juxta crucem lachrymosa dum pendebat fllius" ... in a voice so sweet and innocent and pathetic that it would almost bring the tears to the good old curé's eyelash. "ah! ma chère mamzelle marceline!" he would say--"au moins s'ils étaient tous comme ce petit josselin! çà irait comme sur des roulettes! il est innocent comme un jeune veau, ce mioche anglais! il a le bon dieu dans le coeur!" "et une boussole dans l'estomac!" said mlle. marceline. i don't think he was quite so _innocent_ as all that, perhaps--but no young beast of the field was ever more _harmless_. that year the examinations were good all round; even _i_ did not disgrace myself, and barty was brilliant. but there were no delightful holidays for me to record. barty went to yorkshire, and i remained in paris with my mother. there is only one thing more worth mentioning that year. my father had inherited from _his_ father a system of shorthand, which he called _blaze_--i don't know why! _his_ father had learnt it of a dutch jew. it is, i think, the best kind of cipher ever invented (i have taken interest in these things and studied them). it is very difficult to learn, but i learnt it as a child--and it was of immense use to me at lectures we used to attend at the sorbonne and collège de france. barty was very anxious to know it, and after some trouble i obtained my father's permission to impart this calligraphic crypt to barty, on condition he should swear on his honor never to reveal it: and this he did. with his extraordinary quickness and the perseverance he always had when he wished a thing very much, he made himself a complete master of this occult science before he left school, two or three years later: it took _me_ seven years--beginning when i was four! it does equally well for french or english, and it played an important part in barty's career. my sister knew it, but imperfectly; my mother not at all--for all she tried so hard and was so persevering; it must be learnt young. as far as i am aware, no one else knows it in england or france--or even the world--although it is such a useful invention; quite a marvel of simple ingenuity when one has mastered the symbols, which certainly take a long time and a deal of hard work. barty and i got to talk it on our fingers as rapidly as ordinary speech and with the slightest possible gestures: this was _his_ improvement. * * * * * barty came back from his holidays full of whitby, and its sailors and whalers, and fishermen and cobles and cliffs--all of which had evidently had an immense attraction for him. he was always fond of that class; possibly also some vague atavistic sympathy for the toilers of the sea lay dormant in his blood like an inherited memory. and he brought back many tokens of these good people's regard--two formidable clasp-knives (for each of which he had to pay the giver one farthing in current coin of the realm); spirit-flasks, leather bottles, jet ornaments; woollen jerseys and comforters knitted for him by their wives and daughters; fossil ammonites and coprolites; a couple of young sea-gulls to add to his menagerie; and many old english marine ditties, which he had to sing to m. bonzig with his now cracked voice, and then translate into french. indeed, bonzig and barty became inseparable companions during the thursday promenade, on the strength of their common interest in ships and the sea; and barty never wearied of describing the place he loved, nor bonzig of listening and commenting. "ah! mon cher! ce que je donnerais, moi, pour voir le retour d'un baleinier à ouittebé! quelle 'marine' ça ferait! hein? avec la grande falaise, et la bonne petite église en haut, près de la vieille abbaye--et les toits rouges qui fument, et les trois jetées en pierre, et le vieux pont-levis--et toute cette grouille de mariniers avec leurs femmes et leurs enfants--et ces braves filles qui attendent le retour du bien-aimé! nom d'un nom! dire que vous avez vu tout ça, vous--qui n'avez pas encore seize ans ... quelle chance!... dites--qu'est-ce que ça veut bien dire, ce 'ouïle mé sekile rô!' chantez-moi ça encore une fois!" and barty, whose voice was breaking, would raucously sing him the good old ditty for the sixth time: "weel may the keel row, the keel row, the keel row, weel may the keel row that brings my laddie home!" which he would find rather difficult to render literally into colloquial seafaring french! he translated it thus: "vogue la carène, vogue la carène qui me ramène mon bien aimé!" "ah! vous verrez," says bonzig--"vous verrez, aux prochaines vacances de pâques--je ferai un si joli tableau de tout ça! avec la brume du soir qui tombe, vous savez--et le soleil qui disparait--et la marée qui monte et la lune qui se lève à l'horizon! et les mouettes et les goëlands--et les bruyères lointaines--et le vieux manoir seigneurial de votre grand-père ... c'est bien ça, n'est-ce pas?" "oui, oui, m'sieur bonzig--vous y êtes, en plein!" and the good usher in his excitement would light himself a cigarette of caporal, and inhale the smoke as if it were a sea-breeze, and exhale it like a regular sou'-wester! and sing: "ouïle--mé--sekile rô, tat brinn my laddé ôme!" barty also brought back with him the complete poetical works of byron and thomas moore, the gift of his noble grandfather, who adored these two bards to the exclusion of all other bards that ever wrote in english. and during that year we both got to know them, possibly as well as lord whitby himself. especially "don juan," in which we grew to be as word-perfect as in _polyeucte_, _le misanthrope_, _athalie_, _philoctète_, _le lutrin_, the first six books of the Æneid and the iliad, the _ars poetica_, and the _art poétique_ (boileau). every line of these has gone out of my head--long ago, alas! but i could still stand a pretty severe examination in the now all-but-forgotten english epic--from dan to beersheba--i mean from "i want a hero" to "the phantom of her frolic grace, fitz-fulke!" barty, however, remembered everything--what he ought to, and what he ought not! he had the most astounding memory: wax to receive and marble to retain; also a wonderful facility for writing verse, mostly comic, both in english and french. greek and latin verse were not taught us at brossard's, for good french reasons, into which i will not enter now. we also grew very fond of lamartine and victor hugo, quite openly--and of de musset under the rose. "c'était dans la nuit brune sur le clocher jauni, la lune, comme un point sur son i!" (not for the young person). [illustration: "weel may the keel row"] i have a vague but pleasant impression of that year. its weathers, its changing seasons, its severe frosts, with sunday skatings on the dangerous canals, st.-ouen and de l'ourcq; its genial spring, all convolvulus and gobéas, and early almond blossom and later horse-chestnut spikes, and more lime and syringa than ever; its warm soft summer and the ever-delightful school of notation by the isle of swans. this particular temptation led us into trouble. we would rise before dawn, barty and jolivet and i, and let ourselves over the wall and run the two miles, and get a heavenly swim and a promise of silence for a franc apiece; and run back again and jump into bed a few minutes before the five-o'clock bell rang the réveillé. but we did this once too often--for m. dumollard had been looking at venus with his telescope (i _think_ it was venus) one morning before sunrise, and spied us out _en flagrant délit_; perhaps with that very telescope. anyhow, he pounced on us when we came back. and our punishment would have been extremely harsh but for barty, who turned it all into a joke. after breakfast m. mérovée pronounced a very severe sentence on us under the acacia. i forget what it was--but his manner was very short and dignified, and he walked away very stiffly towards the door of the étude. barty ran after him without noise, and just touching his shoulders with the tips of his fingers, cleared him at a bound from behind, as one clears a post. m. mérovée, in a _real_ rage this time, forgot his dignity, and pursued him all over the school--through open windows and back again--into his own garden (tusculum)--over trellis railings--all along the top of a wall--and finally, quite blown out, sat down on the edge of the tank: the whole school was in fits by this time, even m. dumollard--and at last mérovée began to laugh too. so the thing had to be forgiven--but only that once! once also, that year, but in the winter, a great compliment was paid to la perfide albion in the persons of mm. josselin et maurice, which i cannot help recording with a little complacency. on a thursday walk in the bois de boulogne a boy called out "À bas dumollard!" in a falsetto squeak. dumollard, who was on duty that walk, was furious, of course--but he couldn't identify the boy by the sound of his voice. he made his complaint to m. mérovée--and next morning, after prayers, mérovée came into the school-room, and told us he should go the round of the boys there and then, and ask each boy separately to own up if it were he who had uttered the seditious cry. "and mind you!" he said--"you are all and each of you on your 'word of honor'--_l'étude entière_!" so round he went, from boy to boy, deliberately fixing each boy with his eye, and severely asking--"est-ce _toi_?" "est-ce _toi_?" "est-ce _toi_?" etc., and waiting very deliberately indeed for the answer, and even asking for it again if it were not given in a firm and audible voice. and the answer was always, "non, m'sieur, ce n'est pas moi!" but when he came to each of _us_ (josselin and me) he just mumbled his "est-ce toi?" in a quite perfunctory voice, and didn't even wait for the answer! when he got to the last boy of all, who said "non, m'sieur," like all the rest, he left the room, saying, tragically (and, as i thought, rather theatrically for _him_): "je m'en vais le coeur navré--il y a un lâche parmi vous!" (my heart is harrowed--there's a coward among you.) there was an awkward silence for a few moments. presently rapaud got up and went out. we all knew that rapaud was the delinquent--he had bragged about it so--overnight in the dormitory. he went straight to m. mérovée and confessed, stating that he did not like to be put on his word of honor before the whole school. i forget whether he was punished or not, or how. he had to make his apologies to m. dumollard, of course. to put the whole school on its word of honor was thought a very severe measure, coming as it did from the head master in person. "la parole d'honneur" was held to be very sacred between boy and boy, and even between boy and head master. the boy who broke it was always "mis à la quarantaine" (sent to coventry) by the rest of the school. "i wonder why he let off josselin and maurice so easily?" said jolivet, at breakfast. "parce qu'il aime les anglais, ma foi!" said m. dumollard--"affaire de goût!" "ma foi, il n'a pas tort!" said m. bonzig. dumollard looked askance at bonzig (between whom and himself not much love was lost) and walked off, jauntily twirling his mustache, and whistling a few bars of a very ungainly melody, to which the words ran: "non! jamais en france, jamais anglais ne règnera!" as if we wanted to, good heavens! (by-the-way, i suddenly remember that both berquin and d'orthez were let off as easily as josselin and i. but they were eighteen or nineteen, and "en philosophie," the highest class in the school--and very first-rate boys indeed. it's only fair that i should add this.) by-the-way, also, m. dumollard took it into his head to persecute me because once i refused to fetch and carry for him and be his "moricaud," or black slave (as du tertre-jouan called it): a mean and petty persecution which lasted two years, and somewhat embitters my memory of those happy days. it was always "maurice au piquet pour une heure!"... "maurice à la retenue!"... "maurice privé de bain!"... "maurice consigné dimanche prochain!" ... for the slightest possible offence. but i forgive him freely. first, because he is probably dead, and "de mortibus nil desperandum!" as rapaud once said--and for saying which he received a "twisted pinch" from mérovée brossard himself. secondly, because he made chemistry, cosmography, and physics so pleasant--and even reconciled me at last to the differential and integral calculus (but never barty!). he could be rather snobbish at times, which was not a common french fault in the forties--we didn't even know what to call it. for instance, he was fond of bragging to us boys about the golden splendors of his sunday dissipation, and his grand acquaintances, even in class. he would even interrupt himself in the middle of an equation at the blackboard to do so. "you mustn't imagine to yourselves, messieurs, that because i teach you boys science at the pension brossard, and take you out walking on thursday afternoons, and all that, that i do not associate _avec des gens du monde_! last night, for example, i was dining at the café de paris with a very intimate friend of mine--he's a marquis--and when the bill was brought, what do you think it came to? you give it up?" (vous donnez votre langue aux chats?). "well, it came to fifty-seven francs, fifty centimes! we tossed up who should pay--et, ma foi, le sort a favorisé m. le marquis!" to this there was nothing to say; so none of us said anything, except du tertre-jouan, _our_ marquis (no. ), who said, in his sulky, insolent, peasantlike manner: "et comment q'ça s'appelle, vot' marquis?" (what does it call itself, your marquis?) upon which m. dumollard turns very red ("pique un soleil"), and says: "monsieur le marquis paul--françois--victor du tertre-jouan de haultcastel de st.-paterne, vous êtes un paltoquet et un rustre!..." and goes back to his equations. du tertre-jouan was nearly six feet high, and afraid of nobody--a kind of clodhopping young rustic hercules, and had proved his mettle quite recently--when a brutal usher, whom i will call monsieur boulot (though his real name was patachou), a méridional with a horrible divergent squint, made poor rapaud go down on his knees in the classe de géographie ancienne, and slapped him violently on the face twice running--a way he had with rapaud. it happened like this. it was a kind of penitential class for dunces during play-time. m. boulot drew in chalk an outline of ancient greece on the blackboard, and under it he wrote-- "timeo danaos, et dona ferentes!" "rapaud, translate me that line of virgil!" says boulot. "j'estime les danois et leurs dents de fer!" says poor rapaud (i esteem the danish and their iron teeth). and we all laughed. for which he underwent the brutal slapping. [illustration: a tertre-jouan to the rescue!] the window was ajar, and outside i saw du tertre-jouan, jolivet, and berquin, listening and peeping through. suddenly the window bursts wide open, and du tertre-jouan vaults the sill, gets between boulot and his victim, and says: "le troisième coup fait feu, vous savez! touchez-y encore, à ce moutard, et j'vous assomme sur place!" (touch him again, that kid, and i'll break your head where you stand!). there was an awful row, of course--and du tertre-jouan had to make a public apology to m. boulot, who disappeared from the school the very same day; and tertre-jouan would have been canonized by us all, but that he was so deplorably dull and narrow-minded, and suspected of being a royalist in disguise. he was an orphan and very rich, and didn't fash himself about examinations. he left school that year without taking any degree--and i don't know what became of him. this year also barty conceived a tender passion for mlle. marceline. it was after the mumps, which we both had together in a double-bedded infirmerie next to the lingerie--a place where it was a pleasure to be ill; for she was in and out all day, and told us all that was going on, and gave us nice drinks and tisanes of her own making--and laughed at all barty's jokes, and some of mine! and wore the most coquettish caps ever seen. besides, she was an uncommonly good-looking woman--a tall blonde with beautiful teeth, and wonderfully genial, good-humored, and lively--an ideal nurse, but a terrible postponer of cures! lord archibald quite fell in love with her. "c'est moi qui voudrais bien avoir les oreillons ici!" he said to her. "je retarderais ma convalescence autant que possible!" [illustration: mademoiselle marceline] "comme il sait bien le français, votre oncle--et comme il est poli!" said marceline to the convalescent barty, who was in no hurry to get well either! when we did get well again, barty would spend much of his play-time fetching and carrying for mlle. marceline--even getting dumollard's socks for her to darn--and talking to her by the hour as he sat by her pleasant window, out of which one could see the arch of triumph, which so triumphantly dominated paris and its suburbs, and does so still--no eiffel tower can kill that arch! i, being less precocious, did not begin my passion for mlle. marceline till next year, just as bonneville and jolivet trois were getting over theirs. nous avons tous passé par là! what a fresh and kind and jolly woman she was, to be sure! i wonder none of the masters married her. perhaps they did! let us hope it wasn't m. dumollard! it is such a pleasure to recall every incident of this epoch of my life and barty's that i should like to go through our joint lives day by day, hour by hour, microscopically--to describe every book we read, every game we played, every _pensum_ (_i.e._, imposition) we performed; every lark we were punished for--every meal we ate. but space forbids this self-indulgence, and other considerations make it unadvisable--so i will resist the temptation. la pension brossard! how often have we both talked of it, barty and i, as middle-aged men; in the billiard-room of the marathoneum, let us say, sitting together on a comfortable couch, with tea and cigarettes--and always in french whispers! we could only talk of brossard's in french. "te rappelles-tu l'habit neuf de berquin, et son chapeau haute-forme?" [illustration: "'if he only knew!'"] "te souviens-tu de la vieille chatte angora du père jaurion?" etc., etc., etc. idiotic reminiscences! as charming to revive as any old song with words of little meaning that meant so much when one was four--five--six years old! before one knew even how to spell them! "paille à dine--paille à chine-- paille à suzette et martine-- bon lit à la dumaine!" céline, my nurse, used to sing this--and i never knew what it meant; nor do i now! but it was charming indeed. even now i dream that i go back to school, to get coached by dumollard in a little more algebra. i wander about the playground; but all the boys are new, and don't even know my name; and silent, sad, and ugly, every one! again dumollard persecutes me. and in the middle of it i reflect that, after all, he is a person of no importance whatever, and that i am a member of the british parliament--a baronet--a millionaire--and one of her majesty's privy councillors! and that m. dumollard must be singularly "out of it," even for a frenchman, not to be aware of this. "if he only knew!" says i to myself, says i--in my dream. besides, can't the man see with his own eyes that i'm grown up, and big enough to tuck him under my left arm, and spank him just as if he were a little naughty boy--confound the brute! then, suddenly: "maurice, au piquet pour une heure!" "moi, m'sieur?" "oui, vous!" "pourquoi, m'sieur!" "parce que ça me plaît!" and i wake--and could almost weep to find how old i am! and barty josselin is no more--oh! my god! ... and his dear wife survived him just twenty-four hours! * * * * * behold us both "en philosophie!" and barty the head boy of the school, though not the oldest--and the brilliant show-boy of the class. just before easter ( ) he and i and rapaud and laferté and jolivet trois (who was nineteen) and palaiseau and bussy-rabutin went up for our "bachot" at the sorbonne. we sat in a kind of big musty school-room with about thirty other boys from other schools and colleges. there we sat side by side from ten till twelve at long desks, and had a long piece of latin dictated to us, with the punctuation in french: "un point--point et virgule--deux points--point d'exclamation--guillemets--ouvrez la parenthèse," etc., etc.--monotonous details that enervate one at such a moment! then we set to work with our dictionaries and wrote out a translation according to our lights--a _pion_ walking about and watching us narrowly for cribs, in case we should happen to have one for this particular extract, which was most unlikely. barty's nose bled, i remember--and this made him nervous. then we went and lunched at the café de l'odéon, on the best omelet we had ever tasted. "te rappelles-tu cette omelette?" said poor barty to me only last christmas as ever was! then we went back with our hearts in our mouths to find if we had qualified ourselves by our "version écrite" for the oral examination that comes after, and which is so easy to pass--the examiners having lunched themselves into good-nature. there we stood panting, some fifty boys and masters, in a small, whitewashed room like a prison. an official comes in and puts the list of candidates in a frame on the wall, and we crane our necks over each other's shoulders. and, lo! barty is plucked--_collé_! and i have passed, and actually rapaud--and no one else from brossard's! an old man--a parent or grandparent probably of some unsuccessful candidate--bursts into tears and exclaims, "oh! qué malheur--qué malheur!" a shabby, tall, pallid youth, in the uniform of the collège ste.-barbe, rushes down the stone stair's shrieking, "Ça pue l'injustice, ici!" one hears him all over the place: terrible heartburns and tragic disappointments in the beginning of life resulted from failure in this first step--a failure which disqualified one for all the little government appointments so dear to the heart of the frugal french parent. "mille francs par an! c'est le pactole!" * * * * * barty took his defeat pretty easily--he put it all down to his nose bleeding--and seemed so pleased at my success, and my dear mother's delight in it, that he was soon quite consoled; he was always like that. to m. mérovée, barty's failure was as great a disappointment as it was a painful surprise. [illustration: "'maurice au piquet!'"] "try again josselin! don't leave here till you have passed. if you are content to fail in this, at the very outset of your career, you will never succeed in anything through life! stay with us as my guest till you can go up again, and again if necessary. _do_, my dear child--it will make me so happy! i shall feel it as a proof that you reciprocate in some degree the warm friendship i have always borne you--in common with everybody in the school! je t'en prie, mon garçon!" then he went to the rohans and tried to persuade them. but lord archibald didn't care much about bachots, nor his wife either. they were going back to live in england, besides; and barty was going into the guards. i left school also--with a mixture of hope and elation, and yet the most poignant regret. i can hardly find words to express the gratitude and affection i felt for mérovée brossard when i bade him farewell. except his father before him, he was the best and finest frenchman i ever knew. there is nothing invidious in my saying this, and in this way. i merely speak of the brossards, father and son, as frenchmen in this connection, because their admirable qualities of heart and mind were so essentially french; they would have done equal honor to any country in the world. i corresponded with him regularly for a few years, and so did barty; and then our letters grew fewer and farther between, and finally left off altogether--as nearly always happens in such cases, i think. and i never saw him again; for when he broke up the school he went to his own province in the southeast, and lived there till twenty years ago, when he died--unmarried, i believe. then there was monsieur bonzig, and mlle. marceline, and others--and three or four boys with whom both barty and i were on terms of warm and intimate friendship. none of these boys that i know of have risen to any world-wide fame; and, oddly enough, none of them have ever given sign of life to barty josselin, who is just as famous in france for his french literary work as on this side of the channel for all he has done in english. he towers just as much there as here; and this double eminence now dominates the entire globe, and we are beginning at last to realize everywhere that this bright luminary in our firmament is no planet, like mars or jupiter, but, like sirius, a sun. yet never a line from an old comrade in that school where he lived for four years and was so strangely popular--and which he so filled with his extraordinary personality! * * * * * so much for barty josselin's school life and mine. i fear i may have dwelt on them at too great a length. no period of time has ever been for me so bright and happy as those seven years i spent at the institution f. brossard--especially the four years i spent there with barty josselin. the older i get, the more i love to recall the trivial little incidents that made for us both the sum of existence in those happy days. la chasse aux souvenirs d'enfance! what better sport can there be, or more bloodless, at my time of life? and all the lonely pathetic pains and pleasures of it, now that _he_ is gone! the winter twilight has just set in--"betwixt dog and wolf." i wander alone (but for barty's old mastiff, who follows me willy-nilly) in the woods and lanes that surround marsfield on the thames, the picturesque abode of the josselins. darker and darker it grows. i no longer make out the familiar trees and hedges, and forget how cold it is and how dreary. "je marcherai les yeux fixés sur mes pensées, sans rien voir au dehors, sans entendre aucun bruit-- seul, inconnu, le dos courbé, les mains croisées: triste--et le jour pour moi sera comme la nuit." (this is victor hugo, not barty josselin.) it's really far away i am--across the sea; across the years, o posthumus! in a sunny play-ground that has been built over long ago, or overgrown with lawns and flower-beds and costly shrubs. up rises some vague little rudiment of a hint of a ghost of a sunny, funny old french remembrance long forgotten--a brand-new old remembrance--a kind of will-o'-the-wisp. chut! my soul stalks it on tiptoe, while these earthly legs bear this poor old body of clay, by mere reflex action, straight home to the beautiful elisabethan house on the hill; through the great warm hall, up the broad oak stairs, into the big cheerful music-room like a studio--ruddy and bright with the huge log-fire opposite the large window. all is on an ample scale at marsfield, people and things! and i! sixteen stone, good lord! how often that window has been my beacon on dark nights! i used to watch for it from the train--a landmark in a land of milk and honey--the kindliest light that ever led me yet on earth. i sit me down in my own particular chimney-corner, in my own cane-bottomed chair by the fender, and stare at the blaze with my friend the mastiff. an old war-battered tomcat barty was fond of jumps up and makes friends too. there goes my funny little french remembrance, trying to fly up the chimney like a burnt love-letter.... barty's eldest daughter (roberta), a stately, tall hebe in black, brings me a very sizable cup of tea, just as i like it. a well-grown little son of hers, a very ganymede, beau comme le jour, brings me a cigarette, and insists on lighting it for me himself. i like that too. another daughter of barty's, "la rossignolle," as we call her--though there is no such word that i know of--goes to the piano and sings little french songs of forty, fifty years ago--songs that she has learnt from her dear papa. heavens! what a voice! and how like his, but for the difference of sex and her long and careful training (which he never had); and the accent, how perfect! then suddenly: "À saint-blaize, à la zuecca ... vous étiez, vous étiez bien aise! À saint-blaize, à la zuecca ... nous étions, nous étions bien là! mais de vous en souvenir prendrez-vous la peine? mais de vous en souvenir, et d'y revenir? À saint-blaize, à la zuecca ... vivre et mourir là!" so sings mrs. trevor (mary josselin that was) in the richest, sweetest voice i know. and behold! at last i have caught my little french remembrance, just as the lamps are being lit--and i transfix it with my pen and write it down.... and then with a sigh i scratch it all out again, sunny and funny as it is. for it's all about a comical adventure i had with palaiseau, the sniffer at the fête de st.-cloud--all about a tame magpie, a gendarme, a blanchisseuse, and a volume of de musset's poems, and doesn't concern barty in the least; for it so happened that barty wasn't there! * * * * * thus, in the summer of , barty josselin and i bade adieu forever to our happy school life--and for a few years to our beloved paris--and for many years to our close intimacy of every hour in the day. i remember spending two or three afternoons with him at the great exhibition in hyde park just before he went on a visit to his grandfather, lord whitby, in yorkshire--and happy afternoons they were! and we made the most of them. we saw all there was to be seen there, i think; and found ourselves always drifting back to the "amazon" and the "greek slave," for both of which barty's admiration was boundless. and so was mine. they made the female fashions for quite deplorable by contrast--especially the shoes, and the way of dressing the hair; we almost came to the conclusion that female beauty when unadorned is adorned the most. it awes and chastens one so! and wakes up the knight-errant inside! even the smartest french boots can't do this! not the pinkest silken hose in all paris! not all the frills and underfrills and wonderfrills that m. paul bourget can so eloquently describe! my father had taken a house for us in brunswick square, next to the foundling hospital. he was about to start an english branch of the vougeot-conti firm in the city. i will not trouble the reader with any details about this enterprise, which presented many difficulties at first, and indeed rather crippled our means. [illustration: "'quand on perd, par triste occurrence, son espÉrance, et sa gaÎtÉ, le remÈde au mÉlancolique c'est la musique et la beautÉ'" ] my mother was anxious that i should go to one of the universities, oxford or cambridge; but this my father could not afford. she had a great dislike to business--and so had i; from different motives, i fancy. i had the wish to become a man of science--a passion that had been fired by m. dumollard, whose special chemistry class at the pension brossard, with its attractive experiments, had been of the deepest interest to me. i have not described it because barty did not come in. fortunately for my desire, my good father had great sympathy with me in this; so i was entered as a student at the laboratory of chemistry at university college, close by--in october, --and studied there for two years, instead of going at once into my father's business in barge yard, bucklersbury, which would have pleased him even more. at about the same time barty was presented with a commission in the second battalion of the grenadier guards, and joined immediately. nothing could have been more widely apart than the lives we led, or the society we severally frequented. i lived at home with my people; he in rooms on a second floor in st. james's street; he had a semi-grand piano, and luxurious furniture, and bookcases already well filled, and nicely colored lithograph engravings on the walls--beautiful female faces--the gift of lady archibald, who had superintended barty's installation with kindly maternal interest, but little appreciation of high art. there were also foils, boxing-gloves, dumbbells, and indian clubs; and many weapons, ancient and modern, belonging more especially to his own martial profession. they were most enviable quarters. but he often came to see us in brunswick square, and dined with us once or twice a week, and was made much of--even by my father, who thoroughly disapproved of everything about him except his own genial and agreeable self, which hadn't altered in the least. my father was much away--in paris and dijon--and barty made rain and fine weather in our dull abode, to use a french expression--_il y faisait la pluie et le beau temps_. that is, it rained there when he was away, and he brought the fine weather with him; and we spoke french all round. the greatest pleasure i could have was to breakfast with barty in st. james's street on sunday mornings, when he was not serving his queen and country--either alone with him or with two or three of his friends--mostly young carpet warriors like himself; and very charming young fellows they were. i have always been fond of warriors, young or old, and of whatever rank, and wish to goodness i had been a warrior myself. i feel sure i should have made a fairly good one! then we would spend an hour or two in athletic exercises and smoke many pipes. and after this, in the summer, we would walk in kensington gardens and see the rank and fashion. in those days the rank and fashion were not above showing themselves in the kensington gardens of a sunday afternoon, crossing the serpentine bridge again and again between prince's gate and bayswater. then for dinner we went to some pleasant foreign pot-house in or near leicester square, where they spoke french--and ate and drank it!--and then back again to his rooms. sometimes we would be alone, which i liked best: we would read and smoke and be happy; or he would sketch, or pick out accompaniments on his guitar; often not exchanging a word, but with a delightful sense of close companionship which silence almost intensified. sometimes we were in very jolly company: more warriors; young robson, the actor who became so famous; a big negro pugilist, called snowdrop; two medical students from st. george's hospital, who boxed well and were capital fellows; and an academy art student, who died a royal academician, and who did not approve of barty's mural decorations and laughed at the colored lithographs; and many others of all sorts. there used to be much turf talk, and sometimes a little card-playing and mild gambling--but barty's tastes did not lie that way. his idea of a pleasant evening was putting on the gloves with snowdrop, or any one else who chose--or fencing--or else making music; or being funny in any way one could; and for this he had quite a special gift: he had sudden droll inspirations that made one absolutely hysterical--mere things of suggestive look or sound or gesture, reminding one of robson himself, but quite original; absolute senseless rot and drivel, but still it made one laugh till one's sides ached. and he never failed of success in achieving this. among the dullest and gravest of us, and even some of the most high-minded, there is often a latent longing for this kind of happy idiotic fooling, and a grateful fondness for those who can supply it without effort and who delight in doing so. barty was the precursor of the arthur robertses and fred leslies and dan lenos of our day, although he developed in quite another direction! then of a sudden he would sing some little twopenny love-ballad or sentimental nigger melody so touchingly that one had the lump in the throat; poor snowdrop would weep by spoonfuls! by-the-way, it suddenly occurs to me that i'm mixing things up--confusing sundays and week-days; of course our sunday evenings were quiet and respectable, and i much preferred them when he and i were alone; he was then another person altogether--a thoughtful and intelligent young frenchman, who loved reading poetry aloud or being read to; especially english poetry--byron! he was faithful to his "don juan," his hebrew melodies--his "o'er the glad waters of the deep blue sea." we knew them all by heart, or nearly so, and yet we read them still; and victor hugo and lamartine, and dear alfred de musset.... and one day i discovered another alfred who wrote verses--alfred the great, as we called him--one alfred tennyson, who had written a certain poem, among others, called "in memoriam"--which i carried off to barty's and read out aloud one wet sunday evening, and the sunday evening after, and other sunday evenings; and other poems by the same hand: "locksley hall," "ulysses," "the lotos-eaters," "the lady of shalott"--and the chord of byron passed in music out of sight. then shelley dawned upon us, and john keats, and wordsworth--and our sunday evenings were of a happiness to be remembered forever; at least they were so to me! if barty josselin were on duty on the sabbath, it was a blank day for robert maurice. for it was not very lively at home--especially when my father was there. he was the best and kindest man that ever lived, but his businesslike seriousness about this world, and his anxiety about the next, and his scotch sabbatarianism, were deadly depressing; combined with the aspect of london on the lord's day--london east of russell square! oh, paris ... paris ... and the yellow omnibus that took us both there together, barty and me, at eight on a sunday morning in may or june, and didn't bring us back to school till fourteen hours later! i shall never forget one gloomy wintry sunday--somewhere in or , if i'm not mistaken, towards the end of barty's career as a guardsman. twice after lunch i had called at barty's, who was to have been on duty in barracks or at the tower that morning; he had not come back; i called for him at his club, but he hadn't been there either--and i turned my face eastward and homeward with a sickening sense of desolate ennui and deep disgust of london for which i could find no terms that are fit for publication! and this was not lessened by the bitter reproaches i made myself for being such a selfish and unworthy son and brother. it was precious dull at home for my mother and sister--and my place was _there_. they were just lighting the lamps as i got to the arcade in the quadrant--and there i ran against the cheerful barty. joy! what a change in the aspect of everything! it rained light! he pulled a new book out of his pocket, which he had just borrowed from some fair lady--and showed it to me. it was called _maud_. we dined at pergolese's, in rupert street--and went back to barty's--and read the lovely poem out loud, taking it by turns; and that is the most delightful recollection i have since i left the institution f. brossard! occasionally i dined with him "on guard" at st. james's palace--and well i could understand all the attractions of his life, so different from mine, and see what a good fellow he was to come so often to brunswick square, and seem so happy with us. the reader will conclude that i was a kind of over-affectionate pestering dull dog, who made this brilliant youth's life a burden to him. it was really not so; we had very many tastes in common; and with all his various temptations, he had a singularly constant and affectionate nature--and was of a frenchness that made french thought and talk and commune almost a daily necessity. we nearly always spoke french when together alone, or with my mother and sister. it would have seemed almost unnatural not to have done so. i always feel a special tenderness towards young people whose lives have been such that those two languages are exactly the same to them. it means so many things to me. it doubles them in my estimation, and i seem to understand them through and through. nor did he seem to care much for the smart society of which he saw so much; perhaps the bar sinister may have made him feel less at his ease in general society than among his intimates and old friends. i feel sure he took this to heart more than any one would have thought possible from his careless manner. he only once alluded directly to this when we were together. i was speaking to him of the enviable brilliancy of his lot. he looked at me pensively for a minute or two, and said, in english: "you've got a kink in your nose, bob--if it weren't for that you'd be a deuced good-looking fellow--like me; but you ain't." "thanks--anything else?" said i. "well, i've got a kink in my birth, you see--and that's as big a kill-joy as i know. i hate it!" it _was_ hard luck. he would have made such a splendid marquis of whitby! and done such honor to the proud old family motto: "roy ne puis, prince ne daigne, rohan je suis!" instead of which he got himself a signet-ring, and on it he caused to be engraved a zero within a naught, and round them: "rohan ne puis, roi ne daigne. rien ne suis!" soon it became pretty evident that a subtle change was being wrought in him. he had quite lost his power of feeling the north, and missed it dreadfully; he could no longer turn his back-somersault with ease and safety; he had overcome his loathing for meat, and also his dislike for sport--he had, indeed, become a very good shot. but he could still hear and see and smell with all the keenness of a young animal or a savage. and that must have made his sense of being alive very much more vivid than is the case with other mortals. he had also corrected his quick impulsive tendency to slap faces that were an inch or two higher up than his own. he didn't often come across one, for one thing--then it would not have been considered "good form" in her majesty's household brigade. when he was a boy, as the reader may recollect, he was fond of drawing lovely female profiles with black hair and an immense black eye, and gazing at them as he smoked a cigarette and listened to pretty, light music. he developed a most ardent admiration for female beauty, and mixed more and more in worldly and fashionable circles (of which i saw nothing whatever); circles where the heavenly gift of beauty is made more of, perhaps, than is quite good for its possessors, whether female or male. he was himself of a personal beauty so exceptional that incredible temptations came his way. aristocratic people all over the world make great allowance for beauty-born frailties that would spell ruin and everlasting disgrace for women of the class to which it is my privilege to belong. barty, of course, did not confide his love-adventures to me; in this he was no frenchman. but i saw quite enough to know he was more pursued than pursuing; and what a pursuer, to a man built like that! no innocent, impulsive young girl, no simple maiden in her flower--no elaine. but a magnificent full-blown peeress, who knew her own mind and had nothing to fear, for her husband was no better than herself. but for that, a guinevere and vivien rolled into one, _plus_ messalina! nor was she the only light o' love; there are many naughty "grandes dames de par le monde" whose easy virtue fits them like a silk stocking, and who live and love pretty much as they please without loss of caste, so long as they keep clear of any open scandal. it is one of the privileges of high rank. then there were the ladies gay, frankly of the half-world, these--laughter-loving hetæræ, with perilously soft hearts for such as barty josselin! there was even poor, listless, lazy, languid jenny, "fond of a kiss and fond of a guinea!" his heart was never touched--of that i feel sure; and he was not vain of these triumphs; but he was a very reckless youth, a kind of young john churchill before sarah jennings took him in hand--absolutely non-moral about such things, rather than immoral. he grew to be a quite notorious young man about town; and, most unfortunately for him, lord (and even lady) archibald rohan were so fond of him, and so proud, and so amiably non-moral themselves, that he was left to go as he might. he also developed some very rowdy tastes indeed--and so did i! it was the fashion for our golden youth in the fifties to do so. every night in the haymarket there was a kind of noisy saturnalia, in which golden youths joined hands with youths who were by no means golden, to give much trouble to the police, and fill the pockets of the keepers of night-houses--"bob croft's," "kate hamilton's," "the piccadilly saloon," and other haunts equally well pulled down and forgotten. it was good, in these regions, to be young and big and strong like barty and me, and well versed in the "handling of one's daddles." i suppose london was the only great city in the world where such things could be. i am afraid that many strange people of both sexes called us bob and barty; people the mere sight or hearing of whom would have given my poor dear father fits! then there was a little public-house in st. martin's lane, kept by big ben the prize-fighter. in a room at the top of the house there used to be much sparring. we both of us took a high degree in the noble art--especially i, if it be not bragging to say so; mostly on account of my weight, which was considerable for my age. it was in fencing that he beat me hollow: he was quite the best fencer i ever met; the lessons at school of bonnet's prévôt had borne good fruit in his case. then there were squalid dens frequented by touts and betting-men and medical students, where people sang and fought and laid the odds and got very drunk--and where barty's performances as a vocalist, comic and sentimental (especially the latter), raised enthusiasm that seems almost incredible among such a brutalized and hardened crew. one night he and i and a medical student called ticklets, who had a fine bass voice, disguised ourselves as paupers, and went singing for money about camden town and mornington crescent and regent's park. it took us about an hour to make eighteen pence. barty played the guitar, ticklets the tambourine, and i the bones. then we went to the haymarket, and barty made five pounds in no time; most of it in silver donations from unfortunate women--english, of course--who are among the softest-hearted and most generous creatures in the world. "o lachrymarum fons!" i forget what use we made of the money--a good one, i feel sure. i am sorry to reveal all this, but barty wished it. forty years ago such things did not seem so horrible as they would now, and the word "bounder" had not been invented. * * * * * my sister ida, when about fourteen ( ), became a pupil at the junior school in the ladies' college, bedford square. she soon made friends--nice young girls, who came to our house, and it was much the livelier. i used to hear much of them, and knew them well before i ever saw them--especially leah gibson, who lived in tavistock square, and was ida's special friend; at last i was quite anxious to see this paragon. one morning, as i carried ida's books on her way to school, she pointed out to me three girls of her own age, or less, who stood talking together at the gates of the foundling hospital. they were all three very pretty children--quite singularly so--and became great beauties; one golden-haired, one chestnut-brown, one blue-black. the black-haired one was the youngest and the tallest--a fine, straight, bony child of twelve, with a flat back and square shoulders; she was very well dressed, and had nice brown boots with brown elastic sides on arched and straight-heeled slender feet, and white stockings on her long legs--a fashion in hose that has long gone out. she also wore a thick plait of black hair all down her back--another departed mode, and one not to be regretted, i think; and she swung her books round her as she talked, with easy movements, like a strong boy. "that's leah gibson," says my sister; "the tall one, with the long black plait." leah gibson turned round and nodded to my sister and smiled--showing a delicate narrow face, a clear pale complexion, very beautiful white pearly teeth between very red lips, and an extraordinary pair of large black eyes--rather close together--the blackest i ever saw, but with an expression so quick and penetrating and keen, and yet so good and frank and friendly, that they positively sent a little warm thrill through me--though she was only twelve years old, and not a bit older than her age, and i a fast youth nearly twenty! and finding her very much to my taste, i said to my sister, just for fun, "oh--_that's_ leah gibson, is it? then some day leah gibson shall be mrs. robert maurice!" from which it may be inferred that i looked on leah gibson, at the first sight of her, as likely to become some day an extremely desirable person. she did. the gibsons lived in a very good house in tavistock square. they seemed very well off. mrs. gibson had a nice carriage, which she kept entirely with her own money. her father, who was dead, had been a wealthy solicitor. he had left a large family, and to each of them property worth £ a year, and a very liberal allowance of good looks. mr. gibson was in business in the city. [illustration: three little maids from school ( )] leah, their only child, was the darling of their hearts and the apple of their eyes. to dress her beautifully, to give her all the best masters money could procure, and treat her to every amusement in london--theatres, the opera, all the concerts and shows there were, and give endless young parties for her pleasure--all this seemed the principal interest of their lives. soon after my first introduction to leah, ida and i received an invitation to a kind of juvenile festivity at the gibsons', and went, and spent a delightful evening. we were received by mrs. gibson most cordially. she was such an extremely pretty person, and so charmingly dressed, and had such winning, natural, genial manners, that i fell in love with her at first sight; she was also very playful and fond of romping; for she was young still, having married at seventeen. her mother, mrs. bletchley (who was present), was a spanish jewess--a most magnificent and beautiful old person in splendid attire, tall and straight, with white hair and thick black eyebrows, and large eyes as black as night. in leah the high sephardic jewish type was more marked than in mrs. gibson (who was not jewish at all in aspect, and took after her father, the late mr. bletchley). it is a type that sometimes, just now and again, can be so pathetically noble and beautiful in a woman, so suggestive of chastity and the most passionate love combined--love conjugal and filial and maternal--love that implies all the big practical obligations and responsibilities of human life, that the mere term "jewess" (and especially its french equivalent) brings to my mind some vague, mysterious, exotically poetic image of all i love best in woman. i find myself dreaming of rebecca of york, as i used to dream of her in the english class at brossard's, where i so pitied poor ivanhoe for his misplaced constancy. if rebecca at fifty-five, was at all like mrs. bletchley, poor old sir wilfred's regrets must have been all that thackeray made them out to be in his immortal story of _rebecca and rowena_. mr. gibson was a good-looking man, some twelve or fifteen years older than his wife; his real vocation was to be a low comedian; this showed itself on my first introduction to him. he informally winked at me and said: "esker voo ker jer dwaw lah vee? ah! kel bonnure!" this idiotic speech (all the french he knew) was delivered in so droll and natural a manner that i took to him at once. barty himself couldn't have been funnier! well, we had games of forfeits and danced, and ida played charming things by mendelssohn on the piano, and leah sang very nicely in a fine, bold, frank, deep voice, like a choir-boy's, and mrs. gibson danced a spanish fandango, and displayed feet and ankles of which she was very proud, and had every right to be; and then mr. gibson played a solo on the flute, and sang "my pretty jane"--both badly enough to be very funny without any conscious effort or straining on his part. then we supped, and the food was good, and we were all very jolly indeed; and after supper mr. gibson said to me: "now, mister parleyvoo--can't _you_ do something to amuse the company? you're _big_ enough!" i professed my willingness to do _anything_--and wished i was as barty more than ever! "well, then," says he--"kneel to the wittiest, bow to the prettiest--and kiss the one you love best." this was rather a large order--but i did as well as i could. i went down on my knees to mr. gibson and craved his paternal blessing; and made my best french bow with my heels together to old mrs. bletchley; and kissed my sister, warmly thanking her in public for having introduced me to mrs. gibson: and as far as mere social success is worth anything, i was the barty of that party! anyhow, mr. gibson conceived for me an admiration he never failed to express when we met afterwards, and though this was fun, of course, i had really won his heart. it is but a humble sort of triumph to crow over--and where does barty josselin come in? pazienza! "well--what do you think of leah gibson?" said my sister, as we walked home together through torrington square. "i think she's a regular stunner," said i--"like her mother and her grandmother before her, and probably her _great_-grandmother too." and being a poetical youth, and well up in my byron, i declaimed: "she walks in beauty, like the night of cloudless climes and starry skies; and all that's best of dark and bright meet in her aspect and her eyes."... old fogy as i am, and still given to poetical quotations, i never made a more felicitous quotation than that. i little guessed then to what splendor that bony black-eyed damsel would reach in time. * * * * * all through this period of high life and low dissipation barty kept his unalterable good-humor and high spirits--and especially the kindly grace of manner and tact and good-breeding that kept him from ever offending the most fastidious, in spite of his high spirits, and made him many a poor grateful outcast's friend and darling. i remember once dining with him at greenwich in very distinguished company; i don't remember how i came to be invited--through barty, no doubt. he got me many invitations that i often thought it better not to accept. "ne sutor ultra crepidam!" it was a fish dinner, and barty ate and drank a surprising amount--and so did i, and liked it very much. we were all late and hurried for the last train, some twenty of us--and barty, lord archibald, and i, and a colonel walker lindsay, who has since become a peer and a field-marshal (and is now dead), were all pushed together into a carriage, already occupied by a distinguished clergyman and a charming young lady--probably his daughter; from his dress, he was either a dean or a bishop, and i sat opposite to him--in the corner. barty was very noisy and excited as the train moved off; he was rather tipsy, in fact--and i was alarmed, on account of the clerical gentleman and his female companion. as we journeyed on, barty began to romp and play the fool and perform fantastic tricks--to the immense delight of the future field-marshal. he twisted two pocket-handkerchiefs into human figures, one on each hand, and made them sing to each other--like grisi and mario in the _huguenots_--and clever drivel of that kind. lord archibald and colonel lindsay were beside themselves with glee at all this; they also had dined well. then he imitated a poor man fishing in st. james's park and not catching any fish. and this really was uncommonly good and true to life--with wonderful artistic details, that showed keen observation. i saw that the bishop and his daughter (if such they were) grew deeply interested, and laughed and chuckled discreetly; the young lady had a charming expression on her face as she watched the idiotic barty, who got more idiotic with every mile--and this was to be the man who wrote _sardonyx_! as the train slowed into the london station, the bishop leant forward towards me and inquired, in a whisper, "may i ask the name of your singularly delightful young friend?" "his name is barty josselin," i answered. "not of the grenadier guards?" "yes." "oh, indeed! a--yes--i've heard of him--" and his lordship's face became hard and stern--and soon we all got out. part fourth "la cigale ayant chanté tout l'été, se trouva fort dépourvue quand la bise fut venue."... --lafontaine. sometimes i went to see lord and lady archibald, who lived in clarges street; and lady archibald was kind enough to call on my mother, who was charmed with her, and returned her call in due time. also, at about this period ( ) my uncle charles (captain blake, late th lancers), who had been lord runswick's crony twenty years before, patched up some feud he had with my father, and came to see us in brunswick square. he had just married a charming girl, young enough to be his daughter. i took him to see barty, and they became fast friends. my uncle charles was a very accomplished man, and spoke french as well as any of us; and barty liked him, and it ended, oddly enough, in uncle charles becoming lord whitby's land-agent and living in st. hilda's terrace, whitby. he was a very good fellow and a thorough man of the world, and was of great service to barty in many ways. but, alas and alas! he was not able to prevent or make up the disastrous quarrel that happened between barty and lord archibald, with such terrible results to my friend--to both. it is all difficult even to hint at--but some of it must be more than hinted at. lord archibald, like his nephew, was a very passionate admirer of lovely woman. he had been for many years a faithful and devoted husband to the excellent frenchwoman who brought him wealth--and such affection! then a terrible temptation came in his way. he fell in love with a very beautiful and fascinating lady, whose birth and principles and antecedents were alike very unfortunate, and barty was mixed up in all this: it's the saddest thing i ever heard. the beautiful lady conceived for barty one of those frantic passions that must lead to somebody's ruin; it led to his; but he was never to blame, except for the careless indiscretion which allowed of his being concerned in the miserable business at all, and to this frantic passion he did not respond. "_spretæ injuria formæ._" so at least _she_ fancied; it was not so. barty was no laggard in love; but he dearly loved his uncle archie, and was loyal to him all through. "his honor rooted in dishonor stood, and faith unfaithful kept him falsely true." where he was unfaithful was to his beloved and adoring lady archibald--his second mother--at miserable cost of undying remorse to himself for ever having sunk to become lord archibald's confidant and love-messenger, and bearer of nosegays and _billets doux_, and singer of little french songs. he was only twenty, and thought of such things as jokes; he had lived among some of the pleasantest, best-bred, and most corrupt people in london. the beautiful frail lady told the most infamous lies, and stuck to them through thick and thin. the story is not new; it's as old as the pharaohs. and barty and his uncle quarrelled beyond recall. the boy was too proud even to defend himself, beyond one simple denial. then another thing happened. lady archibald died, quite suddenly, of peritonitis--fortunately in ignorance of what was happening, and with her husband and daughter and barty round her bedside at the end. she died deceived and happy. lord archibald was beside himself with grief; but in six months he married the beautiful lady, and went to the bad altogether--went under, in fact; and daphne, his daughter of fourteen or fifteen, was taken by the whitbys. so now barty, thoroughly sick of smart society, found himself in an unexpected position--without an allowance, in a crack regiment, and never a penny to look forward to! for old lord whitby, who loved him, was a poor man with a large family; and every penny of lady archibald's fortune that didn't go to her husband and daughter went back to her own family of lonlay-savignac. she had made no will--no provision for her beloved, her adopted son! so barty never went to the crimea, after all, but sold out, and found himself the possessor of seven or eight hundred pounds--most of which he owed--and with the world before him; but i am going too fast. * * * * * in the winter of , just before christmas, my father fitted up for me a chemical laboratory at the top of the fine old house in barge yard, bucklersbury, where his wine business was carried on, a splendid mansion, with panelled rooms and a carved-oak staircase--once the abode of some dick whittington, no doubt a lord mayor of london; and i began my professional career, which consisted in analyzing anything i could get to analyze for hire, from a sample of gold or copper ore to a poisoned stomach. lord whitby very kindly sent me different samples of soil from different fields on his estate, and i analyzed them carefully and found them singularly like each other. i don't think the estate benefited much by my scientific investigation. it was my first job, and brought me twenty pounds (out of which i bought two beautiful fans--one for my sister, the other for leah gibson--and got a new evening suit for myself at barty's tailor's). when this job of mine was finished i had a good deal of time on my hands, and read many novels and smoked many pipes, as i sat by my chemical stove and distilled water, and dried chlorate of potash to keep the damp out of my scales, and toasted cheese, and fried sausages, and mulled burgundy, and brewed nice drinks, hot or cold--a specialty of mine. i also made my laboratory a very pleasant place. my father wouldn't permit a piano, nor could i afford one; but i smuggled in a guitar (for barty), and also a concertina, which i could play a little myself. barty often came with friends of his, of whom my father did not approve--mostly guardsmen; also friends of my own--medical students, and one or two fellow-chemists, who were serious, and pleased my father. we often had a capital time: chemical experiments and explosions, and fearful stinks, and poisoned waters of enchanting hue; also oysters, lobsters, dressed crab for lunch--and my burgundy was good, i promise you, whether white or red! [illustration: solitude] we also had songs and music of every description. barty's taste had improved. he could sing beethoven's "adelaida" in english, german, and italian, and schubert's "serenade" in french--quite charmingly, to his own ingenious accompaniment on the guitar. we had another vocalist, a little hebrew art-student, with a heavenly tenor (i've forgotten his name); and ticklets, the bass; and a guardsman who could yodel and imitate a woman's voice--one pepys, whom barty loved because he was a giant, and, according to barty, "the handsomest chap in london." these debauches generally happened when my father was abroad--always, in fact. i'm greatly ashamed of it all now; even then my heart smote me heavily at times when i thought of the pride and pleasure he took in all my scientific appliances, and the money they cost him--twenty guineas for a pair of scales! poor dear old man! he loved to weigh things in them--a feather, a minute crumb of cork, an infinitesimal wisp of cotton wool!... however, i've made it all up to him since in many ways; and he has told me that i have been a good son, after all! and that is good to think of now that i am older than he was when he died! * * * * * one fine morning, before going to business, i escorted my sister to bedford square, calling for leah gibson on the way; as we walked up great russell street (that being the longest way round i could think of), we met barty, looking as fresh as a school-boy, and resplendent as usual. i remember he had on a long blue frock-coat, check trousers, an elaborate waistcoat and scarf, and white hat--as was the fashion--and that he looked singularly out of place (and uncommonly agreeable to the eye) in such an austere and learned neighborhood. he was coming to call for me in brunswick square. my sister introduced him to her friend, and he looked down at leah with a surprised glance of delicate fatherly admiration--he might have been fifty. then we left the young ladies and went off together citywards; my father was abroad. "by jove, what a stunner that girl is! i'm blest if i don't marry her some day--you see if i don't!" "that's just what _i_ mean to do," said i. and we had a good laugh at the idea of two such desperadoes, as we thought ourselves, talking like this about a little school-girl. "we'll toss up," says barty; and we did, and he won. this, i remember, was before his quarrel with lord archibald. she was then about fourteen, and her subtle and singular beauty was just beginning to make itself felt. i never knew till long after how deep had been the impression produced by this glimpse of a mere child on a fast young man about town--or i should not have been amused. for there were times when i myself thought quite seriously of leah gibson, and what she might be in the long future! she looked a year or two older than she really was, being very tall and extremely sedate. also, both my father and mother had conceived such a liking for her that they constantly talked of the possibility of our falling in love with each other some day. castles in spain! as for me, my admiration for the child was immense, and my respect for her character unbounded; and i felt myself such a base unworthy brute that i couldn't bear to think of myself in such a connection--until i had cleansed myself heart and soul (which would take time)! and as for showing by my manner to her that such an idea had ever crossed my mind, the thought never entered my head. she was just my dear sister's devoted friend; her petticoat hem was still some inches from the ground, and her hair in a plait all down her back.... girlish innocence and purity incarnate--that is what she seemed; and what she was. "la plus forte des forces est un coeur innocent," said victor hugo--and if you translate this literally into english, it comes to exactly the same, both in rhythm and sense. * * * * * when barty sold out, he first thought he would like to go on the stage, but it turned out that he was too tall to play anything but serious footmen. then he thought he would be a singer. we used to go to the opera at drury lane, where they gave in english a different italian opera every night;--and this was always followed by _acis and galatea_. we got our seats in the stalls every evening for a couple of weeks, through the kindness of mr. hamilton braham, whom barty knew, and who played polyphemus in handel's famous serenata. i remember our first night; they gave _masaniello_, which i had never seen; and when the tenor sang, "behold how brightly breaks the morning," it came on us both as a delicious surprise--it was such a favorite song at brossard's--"_amis! la matinée est belle_...." indeed, it was one of the songs barty sang on the boulevard for the poor woman, six or seven years back. the tenor, mr. elliot galer, had a lovely voice; and that was a moment never to be forgotten. then came _acis and galatea_, which was so odd and old-fashioned we could scarcely sit it out. [illustration: "'pile ou face--heads or tails?'"] next night, _lucia_--charming; then again _acis and galatea_, because we had nowhere else to go. "tiens, tiens!" says barty, as the lovers sang "the flocks shall leave the mountains"; "c'est diantrement joli, ça!--écoute!" next night, _la sonnambula_--then again _acis and galatea_. "mais, nom d'une pipe--elle est _divine_, cette musique-là!" says barty. and the nights after we could scarcely sit out the italian opera that preceded what we have looked upon ever since as among the divinest music in the world. so one must not judge music at a first hearing; nor poetry; nor pictures at first sight; unless one be poet or painter or musician one's self--not even then! i may live to love thee yet, oh _tannhäuser_! lucy escott, fanny huddart, elliot galer, and hamilton braham--that was the cast; i hear their voices now.... one morning hamilton braham tried barty's voice on the empty stage at st. james's theatre--made him sing "when other lips." "sing _out_, man--sing _out_!" said the big bass. and barty shouted his loudest--a method which did not suit him. i sat in the pit, with half a dozen guardsmen, who were deeply interested in barty's operatic aspirations. it turned out that barty was neither tenor nor barytone; and that his light voice, so charming in a room, would never do for the operatic stage; although his figure, in spite of his great height, would have suited heroic parts so admirably. besides, three or four years' training in italy were needed--a different production altogether. so barty gave up this idea and made up his mind to be an artist. he got permission to work in the british museum, and drew the "discobolus," and sent his drawing to the royal academy, in the hope of being admitted there as a student. he was not. then an immense overwhelming homesickness for paris came over him, and he felt he must go and study art there, and succeed or perish. my father talked to him like a father, my mother like a mother; we all hung about him and entreated. he was as obdurate as tennyson's sailor-boy whom the mermaiden forewarned so fiercely! he was even offered a handsome appointment in the london house of vougeot-conti & co. but his mind was made up, and to my sorrow, and the sorrow of all who knew him, he fixed the date of his departure for the d of may ( ),--this being the day after a party at the gibsons'--a young dance in honor of leah's fifteenth birthday, on the st--and to which my sister had procured him an invitation. he had never been to the gibsons' before. they belonged to a world so different to anything he had been accustomed to--indeed, to a class that he then so much disliked and despised (both as ex-guardsman and as the descendant of french toilers of the sea, who hate and scorn the bourgeois)--that i was curious to see how he would bear himself there; and rather nervous, for it would have grieved me that he should look down on people of whom i was getting very fond. it was his theory that all successful business people were pompous and purse-proud and vulgar. i admit that in the fifties we very often were. there may perhaps be a few survivals of that period: _old_ nouveaux riches, who are still modestly jocose on the subject of each other's millions when they meet, and indulge in pompous little pleasantries about their pet economics, and drop a pompous little _h_ now and then, and pretend they only did it for fun. but, dear me, there are other things to be vulgar about in this world besides money and uncertain aspirates. if to be pompous and pretentious and insincere is to be vulgar, i really think the vulgar of our time are not these old plutocrats--not even their grandsons, who hunt and shoot and yacht and swagger with the best--but those solemn little prigs who have done well at school or college, and become radicals and agnostics before they've even had time to find out what men and women are made of, or what sex they belong to themselves (if any), and loathe all fun and sport and athletics, and rave about pictures and books and music they don't understand, and would pretend to despise if they did--things that were not even _meant_ to be understood. it doesn't take three generations to make a prig--worse luck! at the gibsons' there was neither pompousness nor insincerity nor pretension of any kind, and therefore no real vulgarity. it is true they were a little bit noisy there sometimes, but only in fun. when we arrived at that most hospitable house the two pretty drawing-rooms were already crammed with young people, and the dancing was in full swing. i presented barty to mrs. gibson, who received him with her usual easy cordiality, just as she would have received one of her husband's clerks, or the prime minister; or the prince consort himself, for that matter. but she looked up into his face with such frank unabashed admiration that i couldn't help laughing--nor could he! she presented him to mr. gibson, who drew himself back and folded his arms and frowned; then suddenly, striking a beautiful stage attitude of surprised emotion, with his hand on his heart, he exclaimed: "oh! monsewer! esker-voo ker jer dwaw lah vee?--ah! kel bonnure!" and this so tickled barty that he forgot his manners and went into peals of laughter. and from that moment i ceased to exist as the bright particular star in mr. gibson's firmament of eligible young men: for in spite of the kink in my nose, and my stolid gravity, which was really and merely the result of my shyness, he had always looked upon me as an exceptionally presentable, proper, and goodly youth, and a most exemplary--that is, if my sister was to be trusted in the matter; for she was my informant. i'm afraid barty was not so immediately popular with the young cavaliers of the party--but all came right in due time. for after supper, which was early, barty played the fool with mr. gibson, and taught him how to do a mechanical wax figure, of which he himself was the showman; and the laughter, both baritone and soprano, might have been heard in russell square. then they sang an extempore italian duet together which was screamingly droll--and so forth. leah distinguished herself as usual by being attentive to the material wants of the company: comfortable seats, ices, syrups, footstools for mammas, and wraps; safety from thorough draughts for grandpapas--the inherited hospitality of the clan of gibson took this form with the sole daughter of their house and home; she had no "parlor tricks." we remained the latest. it was a full moon, or nearly so--as usual on a balcony; for i remember standing on the balcony with leah. a belated italian organ-grinder stopped beneath us and played a tune from _i lombardi_, called "la mia letizia." leah's hair was done up for the first time--in two heavy black bands that hid her little ears and framed her narrow chinny face--with a yellow bow plastered on behind. such was the fashion then, a hideous fashion enough--but we knew no better. to me she looked so lovely in her long white frock--long for the first time--that tavistock square became a broad venetian moonlit lagoon, and the dome of university college an old italian church, and "la mia letizia" the song of adria's gondolier. i asked her what she thought of barty. "i really don't know," she said. "he's not a bit romantic, _is_ he?" "no; but he's very handsome. don't you think so?" "oh yes, indeed--much too handsome for a man. it seems such waste. why, i now remember seeing him when i was quite a little girl, three or four years ago, at the duke of wellington's funeral. he had his bearskin on. papa pointed him out to us, and said he looked like such a pretty girl! and we all wondered who he could be! and so sad he looked! i suppose it was for the duke. "i couldn't think where i'd seen him before, and now i remember--and there's a photograph of him in a stall at the crystal palace. have you seen it? not that he looks like a girl now! not a bit! i suppose you're very fond of him? ida is! she talks as much about mr. josselin as she does about you! _barty_, she calls him." "yes, indeed; he's like our brother. we were boys at school together in france. my sister calls him _thee_ and _thou_; in french, you know." [illustration: "a little white point of interrogation"] "and was he always like that--funny and jolly and good-natured?" "always; he hasn't changed a bit." "and is he very sincere?" just then barty came on to the balcony: it was time to go. my sister had been fetched away already (in her gondola). so barty made his farewells, and bent his gallant, irresistible look of mirthful chivalry and delicate middle-aged admiration on leah's upturned face, and her eyes looked up more piercing and blacker than ever; and in each of them a little high light shone like a point of interrogation--the reflection of some white window-curtain, i suppose; and i felt cold all down my back. (barty's daughter, mary trevor, often sings a little song of de musset's. it is quite lovely, and begins: "beau chevalier qui partez pour la guerre, qu'allez-vous faire si loin d'ici? voyez-vous pas que la nuit est profonde, et que le monde n'est que souci?" it is called "la chanson de barberine," and i never hear it but i think of that sweet little white virginal _point d'interrogation_, and barty going away to france.) then he thanked mrs. gibson and said pretty things, and finally called mr. gibson dreadful french fancy-names: "cascamèche--moutardier du pape, tromblon-bolivard, vieux coquelicot"; to each of which the delighted mr. g. answered: "voos ayt oon ôter--voos ayt oon ôter!" and then barty whisked himself away in a silver cloud of glory. a good exit! outside was a hansom waiting, with a carpet-bag on the top, and we got into it and drove up to hampstead heath, to some little inn called the bull and bush, near north-end. barty lit his pipe, and said: "what capital people! hanged if they're not the nicest people i ever met!" "yes," said i. and that's all that was said during that long drive. at north-end we found two or three other hansoms, and pepys and ticklets and the little hebrew tenor art student whose name i've forgotten, and several others. we had another supper, and made a night of it. there was a piano in a small room opening on to a kind of little terrace, with geraniums, over a bow-window. we had music and singing of all sorts. even _i_ sang--"the standard-bearer"--and rather well. my sister had coached me; but i did not obtain an encore. the next day dawned, and barty had a wash and changed his clothes, and we walked all over hampstead heath, and saw london lying in a dun mist, with the dome and gilded cross of st. paul's rising into the pale blue dawn; and i thought what a beastly place london would be without barty--but that leah was there still, safe and sound asleep in tavistock square! then back to the inn for breakfast. barty, as usual, fresh as paint. happy barty, off to paris! and then we all drove down to london bridge to see him safe into the boulogne steamer. all his luggage was on board. his late soldier-servant was there--a splendid fellow, chosen for his length and breadth as well as his fidelity; also the snowdrop, who was lachrymose and in great grief. it was a most affectionate farewell all round. "good-bye, bob. _i_ won that toss--_didn't_ i?" oddly enough, _i_ was thinking of that, and didn't like it. "what rot! it's only a joke, old fellow!" said barty. all this about an innocent little girl just fifteen, the daughter of a low-comedy john gilpin: a still somewhat gaunt little girl, whose budding charms of color, shape, and surface were already such that it didn't matter whether she were good or bad, gentle or simple, rich or poor, sensible or an utter fool. c'est toujours comme ça! we watched the steamer pick its sunny way down the thames, with barty waving his hat by the man at the wheel; and i walked westward with the little hebrew artist, who was so affected at parting with his hero that he had tears in his lovely voice. it was not till i had complimented him on his wonderful b-flat that he got consoled; and he talked about himself, and his b-flat, and his middle g, and his physical strength, and his eye for color, all the way from the mansion house to the foundling hospital; when we parted, and he went straight to his drawing-board at the british museum--an anticlimax! i found my mother and sister at their late breakfast, and was scolded; and i told them barty had got off, and wouldn't come back for long--it might not be for years! "thank heaven!" said my dear mother, and i was not pleased. says my sister: "do you know, he's actually stolen leah's photograph, that she gave me for my birthday. he asked me for it and i wouldn't give it him--and it's gone!" then i washed and put on my work-a-day clothes, and went straight to barge yard, bucklersbury, and made myself a bed on the floor with my great-coat, and slept all day. * * * * * oh heavens! what a dull book this would be, and how dismally it would drag its weary length along, if it weren't all about the author of _sardonyx_! but is there a lost corner anywhere in this planet where english is spoken (or french) in which _the martian_ won't be bought and treasured and spelt over and over again like a novel by dickens or scott (or dumas)--for josselin's dear sake! what a fortune my publishers would make if i were not a man of business and they were not the best and most generous publishers in the world! and all josselin's publishers--french, english, german, and what not--down to modern sanscrit! what millionaires--if it hadn't been for this little busy bee of a bob maurice! poor barty! i am here! à bon chat, bon rat! and what on earth do _i_ want a fortune for? barty's dead, and i've got so much more than i need, who am of a frugal mind--and what i've got is all going to little josselins, who have already got so much more than _they_ need, what with their late father and me; and my sister, who is a widow and childless, and "riche à millions" too! and cares for nobody in all this wide world but little josselins, who don't care for money in the least, and would sooner work for their living--even break stones on the road--anything sooner than loaf and laze and loll through life. we all have to give most of it away--not that i need proclaim it from the house-tops! it is but a dull and futile hobby, giving away to those who deserve; they soon leave off deserving. how fortunate that so much money is really wanted by people who don't deserve it any more than i do; and who, besides, are so weak and stupid and lazy and honest--or so incurably dishonest--that they can't make it for themselves! i have to look after a good many of these people. barty was fond of them, honest or not. they are so incurably prolific; and so was he, poor dear boy! but, oh, the difference! grapes don't grow on thorns, nor figs on thistles! i'm a thorn, alas! in my own side, more often than not--and a thistle in the sides of a good many donkeys, whom i feed because they're too stupid or too lazy to feed themselves! but at least i know my place, and the knowledge is more bother to me than all my money, and the race of maurice will soon be extinct. * * * * * when barty went to foreign parts, on the d of may, , i didn't trouble myself about such questions as these. life was so horribly stale in london without barty that i became a quite exemplary young man when i woke up from that long nap on the floor of my laboratory in barge yard, bucklersbury; a reformed character: from sheer grief, i really believe! i thought of many things--ugly things--very ugly things indeed--and meant to have done with them. i thought of some very handsome things too--a pair of beautiful crown-jewels, each rare as the black tulip--and in each of them a bright little sign like this:? i don't believe i ever gave my father another bad quarter of an hour from that moment. i even went to church on sunday mornings quite regularly; not his own somewhat severe place of worship, it is true! but the foundling hospital. there, in the gallery, would i sit with my sister, and listen to miss dolby and miss louisa pyne and mr. lawler the bass--and a tenor and alto whose names i cannot recall; and i thought they sang as they ought to have sung, and was deeply moved and comforted--more than by any preachments in the world; and just in the opposite gallery sat leah with her mother; and i grew fond of nice clean little boys and girls who sing pretty hymns in unison; and afterwards i watched them eat their roast beef, small mites of three and four or five, some of them, and thought how touching it all was--i don't know why! love or grief? or that touch of nature that makes the whole world kin at about p.m. on sunday? one would think that barty had exerted a bad influence on me, since he seems to have kept me out of all this that was so sweet and new and fresh and wholesome! he would have been just as susceptible to such impressions as i; even more so, if the same chance had arisen for him--for he was singularly fond of children, the smaller and the poorer the better, even gutter children! and their poor mothers loved him, he was so jolly and generous and kind. sometimes i got a letter from him in blaze, my father's shorthand cipher; it was always brief and bright and hopeful, and full of jokes and funny sketches. and i answered him in blaze that was long and probably dull. all that i will tell of him now is not taken from his blaze letters, but from what he has told me later, by word of mouth--for he was as fond of talking of himself as i of listening--since he was droll and sincere and without guile or vanity; and would have been just as sympathetic a listener as i, if i had cared to talk about mr. robert maurice, of barge yard, bucklersbury. besides, i am good at hearing between the words and reading between the lines, and all that--and love to exercise this faculty. * * * * * well, he reached paris in due time, and took a small bedroom on a third floor in the rue du faubourg poissonnière--over a cheap hatter's--opposite the conservatoire de musique. on the first night he was awoke by a terrible invasion--such malodorous swarms of all sizes, from a tiny brown speck to a full-grown lentil, that they darkened his bed; and he slept on the tiled floor after making an island of himself by pouring cold water all round him as a kind of moat; and so he slept for a week of nights, until he had managed to poison off most of these invaders with _poudre insecticide_ ... "mort aux punaises!" in the daytime he first of all went for a swim at the passy baths--an immense joy, full of the ghosts of bygone times; then he would spend the rest of his day revisiting old haunts--often sitting on the edge of the stone fountain in the rond-point of the avenue du prince impérial, or de l'impératrice, or whatever it was--to gaze comfortably at the outside of the old school, which was now a pensionnat de demoiselles: soon to be pulled down and make room for a new house altogether. he did not attempt to invade these precincts of maiden innocence; but gazed and gazed, and remembered and realized and dreamt: it all gave him unspeakable excitement, and a strange tender wistful melancholy delight for which there is no name. je connais ça! i also, ghostlike, have paced round the haunts of my childhood. when the joy of this faded, as it always must when indulged in too freely, he amused himself by sitting in his bedroom and painting leah's portrait, enlarged and in oils; partly from the very vivid image he had preserved of her in his mind, partly from the stolen photograph. at first he got it very like; then he lost all the likeness and could not recover it; and he worked and worked till he got stupid over it, and his mental image faded quite away. but for a time this minute examination of the photograph (through a powerful lens he bought on purpose), and this delving search into his own deep consciousness of her, into his keen remembrance of every detail of feature and color and shade of expression, made him realize and idealize and foresee what the face might be some day--and what its owner might become. and a horror of his life in london came over him like a revelation--a blast--a horrible surprise! mere sin is ugly when it's no more; and _so_ beastly to remember, unless the sinner be thoroughly acclimatized; and barty was only twenty-two, and hated deceit and cruelty in any form. oh, poor, weak, frail fellow-sinner--whether vivien or guinevere! how sadly unjust that loathing and satiety and harsh male contempt should kill man's ruth and pity for thee, that wast so kind to man! what a hellish after-math! poor barty hadn't the ghost of a notion how to set to work about becoming a painter, and didn't know a soul in paris he cared to go and consult, although there were many people he might have discovered whom he had known: old school-fellows, and friends of the archibald rohans--who would have been only too glad. so he took to wandering listlessly about, lunching and dining at cheap suburban restaurants, taking long walks, sitting on benches, leaning over parapets, and longing to tell people who he was, his age, how little money he'd got, what lots of friends he had in england, what a nice little english girl he knew, whose portrait he didn't know how to paint--any idiotic nonsense that came into his head, so at least he might talk about something or somebody that interested him. there is no city like paris, no crowd like a parisian crowd, to make you feel your solitude if you are alone in its midst! at night he read french novels in bed and drank eau sucrée and smoked till he was sleepy; then he cunningly put out his light, and lit it again in a quarter of an hour or so, and exploded what remained of the invading hordes as they came crawling down the wall from above. their numbers were reduced at last; they were disappearing. then he put out his candle for good, and went to sleep happy--having at least scored for once in the twenty-four hours. mort aux punaises! twice he went to the opéra comique, and saw _richard coeur de lion_ and _le pré aux clercs_ from the gallery, and was disappointed, and couldn't understand why _he_ shouldn't sing as well as that--he thought he could sing much better, poor fellow! he had a delightful voice, and charm, and the sense of tune and rhythm, and could please quite wonderfully--but he had no technical knowledge whatever, and couldn't be depended upon to sing a song twice the same! he trusted to the inspiration of the moment--like an amateur. of course he had to be very economical, even about candle ends, and almost liked such economy for a change; but he got sick of his loneliness, beyond expression--he was a fish out of water. then he took it into his head to go and copy a picture at the louvre--an old master; in this he felt he could not go wrong. he obtained the necessary permission, bought a canvas six feet high, and sat himself before a picture by nicolas poussin, i think: a group of angelic women carrying another woman though the air up to heaven. they were not very much to his taste, but more so than any others. his chief notion about women in pictures was that they should be very beautiful--since they cannot make themselves agreeable in any other way; and they are not always so in the works of the great masters. at least, _he_ thought not. these are matters of taste, of course. he had no notion of how to divide his canvas into squares--a device by which one makes it easier to get the copy into proper proportion, it seems. he began by sketching the head of the principal woman roughly in the middle of his canvas, and then he wanted to begin painting it at once--he was so impatient. students, female students especially, came and interested themselves in his work, and some _rapins_ asked him questions, and tried to help him and give him tips. but the more they told him, the more helpless and hopeless he grew. he soon felt conscious he was becoming quite a funny man again--a centre of interest--in a new line; but it gave him no pleasure whatever. after a week of this mistaken drudgery he sat despondent one afternoon on a bench in the champs Élysées and watched the gay people, and thought himself very down on his luck; he was tired and hot and miserable--it was the beginning of july. if he had known how, he would almost have shed tears. his loneliness was not to be borne, and his longing to feel once more the north had become a chronic ache. a tall, thin, shabby man came and sat by his side, and made himself a cigarette, and hummed a tune--a well-known quartier-latin song--about "mon aldegonde, ma blonde," and "ma rodogune, ma brune." barty just glanced at this jovial person and found he didn't look jovial at all, but rather sad and seedy and out at elbows--by no means of the kind that the fair aldegonde or her dark sister would have much to say to. also that he wore very strong spectacles, and that his brown eyes, when turned barty's way, vibrated with a quick, tremulous motion and sideways, as if they had the "gigs." much moved and excited, barty got up and put out his hand to the stranger, and said: "bonjour, monsieur bonzig! comment allez-vous?" bonzig opened his eyes at this well-dressed briton (for barty had clothes to last him a french lifetime). "pardonnez-moi, monsieur--mais je n'ai pas l'honneur de vous remettre!" "je m'appelle josselin--de chez brossard!" "ah! mon dieu, mon cher, mon très-cher!" said bonzig, and got up and seized barty's both hands--and all but hugged him. "mais quel bonheur de vous revoir! je pense à vous si souvent, et à ouittebé! comme vous êtes changé--et quel beau garçon vous êtes! qui vous aurait reconnu! dieu de dieu--c'est un rêve! je n'en reviens pas!" etc., etc.... and they walked off together, and told the other each an epitome of his history since they parted; and dined together cheaply, and spent a happy evening walking up and down the boulevards, and smoking many cigarettes--from the madeleine to the porte st.-martin and back--again and again. [illustration: "'bonjour, monsieur bonzig'"] "non, mon cher josselin," said bonzig, in answer to a question of barty's--"non, i have not yet seen the sea ..; it will come in time. but at least i am no longer a damned usher (un sacré pion d'études); i am an artist--un peintre de marines--at last! it is a happy existence. i fear my talent is not very imposing, but my perseverance is exceptional, and i am only forty-five. anyhow, i am able to support myself--not in splendor, certainly; but my wants are few and my health is perfect. i will put you up to many things, my dear boy.... we will storm the citadel of fame together...." bonzig had a garret somewhere, and painted in the studio of a friend, not far from barty's lodging. this friend, one lirieux, was a very clever young man--a genius, according to bonzig. he drew illustrations on wood with surprising quickness and facility and verve, and painted little oil-pictures of sporting life--a garde champêtre in a wood with his dog, or with his dog on a dusty road, or crossing a stream, or getting over a stile, and so forth. the dog was never left out; and these things he would sell for twenty, thirty, even fifty francs. he painted very quick and very well. he was also a capital good fellow, industrious and cultivated and refined, and full of self-respect. next to his studio he had a small bedroom which he shared with a younger brother, who had just got a small government appointment that kept him at work all day, in some ministère. in this studio bonzig painted his marines--still helping himself from _la france maritime_, as he used to do at brossard's. he was good at masts and cordage against an evening sky--"l'heure où le jaune de naples rentre dans la nature," as he called it. he was also excellent at foam, and far-off breakers, and sea-gulls, but very bad at the human figure--sailors and fishermen and their wives. sometimes lirieux would put one in for him with a few dabs. as soon as bonzig had finished a picture, which didn't take very long, he carried it round, still wet, to the small dealers, bearing it very carefully aloft, so as not to smudge it. sometimes (if there were a sailor by lirieux) he would get five or even ten francs for it; and then it was "mon aldegonde" with him all the rest of the day; for success always took the form, in his case, of nasally humming that amorous refrain. but it very often happened that he was dumb, poor fellow--no supper, no song! lirieux conceived such a liking for barty that he insisted on taking him into his studio as a pupil-assistant, and setting him to draw things under his own eye; and barty would fill bonzig's french sea pieces with whitby fishermen, and bonzig got to sing "mon aldegonde" much oftener than before. and chumming with these two delightful men, barty grew to know a clean, quiet happiness which more than made up for lost past splendors and dissipations and gay dishonor. he wasn't even funny; they wouldn't have understood it. well-bred frenchmen don't understand english fun--not even in the quartier latin, as a general rule. not that it's too subtle for them; _that's_ not why! thus pleasantly august wore itself away, bonzig and barty nearly always dining together for about a franc apiece, including the waiter, and not badly. bonzig knew all the cheap eating-houses in paris, and what each was specially renowned for--"bonne friture," "fricassée de lapin," "pommes sautées," "soupe aux choux," etc., etc. then, after dinner, a long walk and talk and cigarettes--or they would look in at a café chantant, a bal de barrière, the gallery of a cheap theatre--then a bock outside a café--et bonsoir la compagnie! on september the st, lirieux and his brother went to see their people in the south, leaving the studio to bonzig and barty, who made the most of it, though greatly missing the genial young painter, both as a companion and a master and guide. one beautiful morning bonzig called for barty at his crémerie, and proposed they should go by train to some village near paris and spend a happy day in the country, lunching on bread and wine and sugar at some little roadside inn. bonzig made a great deal of this lunch. it had evidently preoccupied him. barty was only too delighted. they went on the impériale of the versailles train and got out at ville d'avray, and found the kind of little pothouse they wanted. and barty had to admit that no better lunch for the price could be than "small blue wine" sweetened with sugar, and a hunch of bread sopped in it. then they had a long walk in pretty woods and meadows, sketching by the way, chatting to laborers and soldiers and farm-people, smoking endless cigarettes of caporal; and finally they got back to paris the way they came--so hungry that barty proposed they should treat themselves for once to a "prix-fixe" dinner at carmagnol's, in the passage choiseul, where they gave you hors-d'oeuvres, potage, three courses and dessert and a bottle of wine, for two francs fifty--and everything scrupulously clean. so to the passage choiseul they went; but just on the threshold of the famous restaurant (which filled the entire arcade with its appetizing exhalations) bonzig suddenly remembered, to his great regret, that close by there lived a young married couple of the name of lousteau, who were great friends of his, and who expected him to dine with them at least once a week. "i haven't been near them for a fortnight, mon cher, and it is just their dinner hour. i am afraid i must really just run in and eat an _aile de poulet_ and a _pêche au vin_ with them, and give them of my news, or they will be mortally offended. i'll be back with you just when you are '_entre la poire et le fromage_'--so, sans adieu!" and he bolted. barty went in and selected his menu; and waiting for his hors-d'oeuvre, he just peeped out of the door and looked up and down the arcade, which was always festive and lively at that hour. to his great surprise he saw bonzig leisurely flâning about with his cigarette in his mouth, his hands in his pockets, his long spectacled nose in the air--gazing at the shop windows. suddenly the good man dived into a baker's shop, and came out again in half a minute with a large brown roll, and began to munch it--still gazing at the shop windows, and apparently quite content. barty rushed after and caught hold of him, and breathlessly heaped bitter reproaches on him for his base and unfriendly want of confidence--snatched his roll and threw it away, dragged him by main force into carmagnol's, and made him order the dinner he preferred and sit opposite. "ma foi, mon cher!" said bonzig--"i own to you that i am almost at the end of my resources for the moment--and also that the prospect of a good dinner in your amiable company is the reverse of disagreeable to me. i thank you in advance, with all my heart!" "my dear m'sieur bonzig," says barty, "you will wound me deeply if you don't look on me like a brother, as i do you; i can't tell you how deeply you _have_ wounded me already! give me your word of honor that you will share ma mangeaille with me till i haven't a sou left!" and so they made it up, and had a capital dinner and a capital evening, and barty insisted that in future they should always mess together at his expense till better days--and they did. but barty found that his own money was just giving out, and wrote to his bankers in london for more. somehow it didn't arrive for nearly a week; and they knew at last what it was to dine for five sous each ( - / _d._)--with loss of appetite just before the meal instead of after. of course barty might very well have pawned his watch or his scarf-pin; but whatever trinkets he possessed had been given him by his beloved lady archibald--everything pawnable he had in the world, even his guitar! and he could not bear the idea of taking them to the "mont de piété." so he was well pleased one sunday morning when his remittance arrived, and he went in search of his friend, that they might compensate themselves for a week's abstinence by a famous déjeuner. but bonzig was not to be found; and barty spent that day alone, and gorged in solitude and guzzled in silence--moult tristement, à l'anglaise. he was aroused from his first sleep that night by the irruption of bonzig in a tremendous state of excitement. it seems that a certain baron (whose name i've forgotten), and whose little son the ex-usher had once coached in early latin and greek, had written, begging him to call and see him at his château near melun; that bonzig had walked there that very day--thirty miles; and found the baron was leaving next morning for a villa he possessed near Étretat, and wished him to join him there the day after, and stay with him for a couple of months--to coach his son in more classics for a couple of hours in the forenoon. bonzig was to dispose of the rest of his time as he liked, except that he was commissioned to paint six "marines" for the baronial dining-room; and the baron had most considerately given him four hundred francs in advance! "so, then, to-morrow afternoon at six, my dear josselin, you dine with _me_, for once--not in the passage choiseul this time, good as it is there! but at babet's, en plein palais royal! un jour de séparation, vous comprenez! the dinner will be good, i promise you: a calf's head à la vinaigrette--they are famous for that, at babet's--and for their pauillac and their st.-estèphe; at least, i'm told so! nous en ferons l'expérience.... and now i bid you good-night, as i have to be up before the day--so many things to buy and settle and arrange--first of all to procure myself a 'maillot' and a 'peignoir,' and shoes for the beach! i know where to get these things much cheaper than at the seaside. oh! la mer, la mer! enfin je vais piquer ma tête [take my header] là dedans--_et pas plus tard qu'après-demain soir_.... À demain, très-cher camarade--six heures--chez babet!" and, delirious with joyful anticipations, the good bonzig ran away--all but "piquant sa tête" down the narrow staircase, and whistling "mon aldegonde" at the very top of his whistle; and even outside he shouted: "ouïle--mé--sekile rô, sekile rô, sekile rô ... ouïle--mé--sekile rô tat brinn my laddé ôme!" he had to be silenced by a sergent de ville. and next day they dined at babet's, and bonzig was so happy he had to beg pardon for his want of feeling at seeming so exuberant "un jour de séparation! mais venez aussi, josselin--nous piquerons nos têtes ensemble, et nagerons de conserve...." but barty could not afford this little outing, and he was very sad--with a sadness that not all the pauillac and st.-estèphe in m. babet's cellars could have dispelled. he made his friend a present of a beautiful pair of razors--english razors, which he no longer needed, since he no longer meant to shave--"en signe de mon deuil!" as he said. they had been the gift of lord archibald in happier days. alas! he had forgotten to give his uncle archie the traditional halfpenny, but he took good care to extract a sou from le grand bonzig! so ended this little episode in barty's life. he never saw bonzig again, nor heard from him, and _of_ him only once more. that sou was wasted. it was at blankenberghe, on the coast of belgium, that he at last had news of him--a year later--at the café on the plage, and in such an odd and unexpected manner that i can't help telling how it happened. one afternoon a corner of the big coffee-room was being arranged for private theatricals, in which barty was to perform the part of a waiter. he had just borrowed the real waiter's jacket and apron, and was dusting the little tables for the amusement of mlle. solange, the dame de comptoir, and of the waiter, prosper, who had on barty's own shooting-jacket. suddenly an old gentleman came in and beckoned to barty and ordered a demi-tasse and petit-verre. there were no other customers at that hour. [illustration: "'demi-tasse--voilÀ, m'sieur'"] mlle. solange was horrified; but barty insisted on waiting on the old gentleman in person, and helped him to his coffee and pousse-café with all the humorous grace i can so well imagine, and handed him the _indépendance belge_, and went back to superintend the arrangements for the coming play. presently the old gentleman looked up from his paper and became interested, and soon he grew uneasy, and finally he rose and went up to barty and bowed, and said (in french, of course): "monsieur, i have made a very stupid mistake. i am near-sighted, and that must be my apology. besides, you have revenged yourself 'avec tant d'esprit,' that you will not bear me _rancune_! may i ask you to accept my card, with my sincere excuses?..." and lo! it was bonzig's famous baron! barty immediately inquired after his lost friend. "bonzig? ah, monsieur--what a terrible tragedy! poor bonzig, the best of men--he came to me at Étretat. i invited him there from sheer friendship! he was drowned the very evening he arrived. "he went and bathed after sunset--on his own responsibility and without mentioning it to any one. how it happened i don't know--nobody knows. he was a good swimmer, i believe, but very blind without his glasses. he undressed behind a rock on the shore, which is against the regulations. his body was not found till two days after, three leagues down the coast. "he had an aged mother, who came to Étretat. it was harrowing! they were people who had seen better days," etc., etc., etc. and so no more of le grand bonzig. nor did barty ever again meet lirieux, in whose existence a change had also been wrought by fortune; but whether for good or evil i can't say. he was taken to italy and greece by a wealthy relative. what happened to him there--whether he ever came back, or succeeded or failed--barty never heard! he dropped out of barty's life as completely as if he had been drowned like his old friend. these episodes, like many others past and to come in this biography, had no particular influence on barty josselin's career, and no reference to them is to be found in anything he has ever written. my only reason for telling them is that i found them so interesting when he told _me_, and so characteristic of himself. he was "bon raconteur." i'm afraid i'm not, and that i've lugged these good people in by the hair of the head; but i'm doing my best. "la plus belle fille au monde ne peut donner que ce qu'elle a!" i look to my editor to edit me--and to my illustrator to pull me through. * * * * * that autumn ( ) my father went to france for six weeks, on business. my sister ida went with the gibsons to ramsgate, and i remained in london with my mother. i did my best to replace my father in barge yard, and when he came back he was so pleased with me (and i think with himself also) that he gave me twenty pounds, and said, "go to paris for a week, bob, and see barty, and give him this, with my love." and "this" was another twenty-pound note. he had never given me such a sum in my life--not a quarter of it; and "this" was the first time he had ever tipped barty. things were beginning at last to go well with him. he had arranged to sell the vintages of bordeaux and champagne, as well as those of burgundy; and was dreaming of those of germany and portugal and spain. fortune was beginning to smile on barge yard, and ours was to become the largest wine business in the world--comme tout un chacun sait. i started for paris that very night, and knocked at barty's bedroom door by six next morning; it was hardly daylight--a morning to be remembered; and what a breakfasting at babet's, after a rather cold swim in the passy school of natation, and a walk all round the outside of the school that was once ours! barty looked very well, but very thin, and his small sprouting beard and mustache had quite altered the character of his face. i shall distress my lady readers if i tell them the alteration was not an improvement; so i won't. what a happy week that was to me i leave to the reader's imagination. we took a large double-bedded room at the hôtel de lille et d'albion in case we might want to smoke and talk all night; we did, i think, and had our coffee brought up to us in the morning. i will not attempt to describe the sensations of a young man going back to his beloved paris "after five years." tout ça, c'est de l'histoire ancienne. and barty and paris together--that is not for such a pen as mine. i showed him a new photograph of leah gibson--a very large one and an excellent. he gazed at it a long time with his magnifying-glass and without, all his keen perceptions on the alert; and i watched his face narrowly. "my eyes! she _is_ a beautiful young woman, and no mistake!" he said, with a sigh. "you mustn't let her slip through your fingers, bob!" "how about that toss?" said i, and laughed. "oh, i resign _my_ claim; she's not for the likes o' me. you're going to be a great capitalist--a citizen of credit and renown. i'm mr. nobody, of nowhere. go in and win, my boy; you have my best wishes. if i can scrape together enough money to buy myself a white waistcoat and a decent coat, i'll be your best man; or some left-off things of yours might do--we're about of a size, aren't we? you've become très bel homme, bob, plutôt bel homme que joli garçon, hein? that's what women are fond of; english women especially. i'm nowhere now, without my uniform and the rest. is it still skinner who builds for you? good old skinner! mes compliments!" this simple little speech took a hidden weight off my mind and left me very happy. i confided frankly to the good barty that no sally in any alley had ever been more warmly adored by any industrious young london apprentice than was leah gibson by me! "Ça y est, alors! je te félicite d'avance, et je garde mes larmes pour quand tu seras parti. allons dîner chez babet: j'ai soif de boire à ton bonheur!" before i left we met an english artist he had known at the british museum--an excellent fellow, one walters, who took him under his wing, and was the means of his entering the atelier troplong in the rue des belges as an art student. and thus barty began his art studies in a proper and legitimate way. it was characteristic of him that this should never have occurred to him before. so when i parted with the dear fellow things were looking a little brighter for him too. all through the winter he worked very hard--the first to come, the last to go; and enjoyed his studio life thoroughly. such readers as i am likely to have will not require to be told what the interior of a french atelier of the kind is like, nor its domestic economy; nor will i attempt to describe all the fun and the frolic, although i heard it all from barty in after-years, and very good it was. i almost felt i'd studied there myself! he was a prime favorite--"le beau josselin," as he was called. he made very rapid progress, and had already begun to work in colors by the spring. he made many friends, but led a quiet, industrious life, unrelieved (as far as i know) by any of those light episodes one associates with student life in paris. his principal amusements through the long winter evenings were the café and the brasserie, mild écarté, a game at billiards or dominoes, and long talks about art and literature with the usual unkempt young geniuses of the place and time--french, english, american. then he suddenly took it into his head to go to antwerp; i don't know who influenced him in this direction, but i arranged to meet him there at the end of april--and we spent a delightful week together, staying at the "grand laboureur" in the place de meer. the town was still surrounded by the old walls and the moat, and of a picturesqueness that seemed as if it would never pall. twice or three times that week british tourists and travelers landed at the quai by the place verte from _the baron osy_--and this landing was barty's delight. the sight of fair, fresh english girls, with huge crinolines, and their hair done up in chenille nets, made him long for england again, and the sound of their voices went nigh to weakening his resolve. but he stood firm to the last, and saw me off by _the baron_. i felt a strange "serrement de coeur" as i left him standing there, so firm, as if he had been put "au piquet" by m. dumollard! and so thin and tall and slender--and his boyish face so grave. good heavens! how much alone he seemed, who was so little built to live alone! it is really not too much to say that i would have given up to him everything i possessed in the world--every blessed thing! except leah--and leah was not mine to give! now and again barty's face would take on a look so ineffably, pathetically, angelically simple and childlike that it moved one to the very depths, and made one feel like father and mother to him in one! it was the true revelation of his innermost soul, which in many ways remained that of a child even in his middle age and till he died. all his life he never quite put away childish things! i really believe that in bygone ages he would have moved the world with that look, and been another peter the hermit! he became a pupil at the academy under de keyser and van lerius, and worked harder than ever. he took a room nearly all window on a second floor in the marché aux oeufs, just under the shadow of the gigantic spire which rings a fragment of melody every seven minutes and a half--and the whole tune at midnight, fortissimo. he laid in a stock of cigars at less than a centime apiece, and dried them in the sun; they left as he smoked them a firm white ash two inches long; and he grew so fond of them that he cared to smoke nothing else. he rose before the dawn, and went for a swim more than a mile away--got to the academy at six--worked till eight--breakfasted on a little roll called a pistolet, and a cup of coffee; then the academy again from nine till twelve--when dinner, the cheapest he had ever known, but not the worst. then work again all the afternoon, copying old masters at the gallery. then a cheap supper, a long walk along the quais or ramparts or outside--a game of dominoes, and a glass or two of "malines" or "louvain"--then bed, without invading hordes; the flemish are as clean as the dutch; and there he would soon smoke and read himself to sleep in spite of chimes--which lull you, when once you get "achimatized," as he called it, meaning of course to be funny: a villainous kind of fun--caught, i fear, in barge yard, bucklersbury. it used to rain puns in the city--especially in the stock exchange, which is close to barge yard. it was a happy life, and he grew to like it better than any life he had led yet; besides, he improved rapidly, as his facility was great--for painting as for everything he tried his hand at. he also had a very agreeable social existence. one morning at the academy, two or three days after his arrival, he was accosted by a fellow-student--one tescheles--who introduced himself as an old pupil of troplong's in the rue des belges. they had a long chat in french about the old paris studio. among other things, tescheles asked if there were still any english there. "oui"--says barty--"un nommé valtères".... barty pronounced this name as if it were french; and noticed that tescheles smiled, exclaiming: "parbleu, ce bon valtères--je l'connais bien!" next day tescheles came up to an english student called fox and said: "well, old stick-in-the-mud, how are _you_ getting on?" "why, you don't mean to say _you're_ an englishman?" says barty to tescheles. [illustration: peter the hermit au piquet] "good heavens! you don't mean to say _you_ are! fancy your calling poor old walters _vàltères_!" and after that they became very intimate, and that was a good thing for barty. the polyglot tescheles was of a famous musical family, of mixed german and russian origin, naturalized in england and domiciled in france--a true cosmopolite and a wonderful linguist, besides being also a cultivated musician and excellent painter; and all the musicians, famous or otherwise, that passed through antwerp made his rooms a favorite resort and house of call. and barty was introduced into a world as delightful to him as it was new--and to music that ravished his soul with a novel enchantment: chopin, liszt, wagner, schumann--and he found that schubert had written a few other songs besides the famous "serenade"! one evening he was even asked if he could make music himself, and actually volunteered to sing--and sang that famous ballad of balfe's which seems destined to become immortal in this country--"when other lips" ... _alias_, "then you'll remember me!" strange to say, it was absolutely new to this high musical circle, but they went quite mad over it; and the beautiful melody got naturalized from that moment in belgium and beyond, and barty was proclaimed the primo tenore of antwerp--although he was only a barytone! a fortnight after this barty heard "when other lips" played by the "guides" band in the park at brussels. its first appearance out of england--and all through him. then he belonged to the antwerp "cercle artistique," where he made many friends and was very popular, as i can well imagine. thus he was happier than he had ever been in his life; but for one thing that plagued him now and again: his oft-recurring desire to be conscious once more of the north, which he had not felt for four or five years. the want of this sensation at certain periods--especially at night--would send a chill thrill of desolation through him like a wave; a wild panic, a quick agony, as though the true meaning of absolute loneliness were suddenly realized by a lightning flash of insight, and it were to last for ever and ever. this would pass away in a second or two, but left a haunting recollection behind for many hours. and then all was again sunshine, and the world was made of many friends--and solitude was impossible evermore. one memorable morning this happiness received a check and a great horror befell him. it was towards the end of summer--just before the vacation. with a dozen others, he was painting the head of an old man from the life, when he became quite suddenly conscious of something strange in his sight. first he shut his left eye and saw with his right quite perfectly; then he shut the right, and lo! whatever he looked at with the left dwindled to a vanishing point and became invisible. no rubbing or bathing of his eye would alter the terrible fact, and he knew what great fear really means, for the first time. much kind concern was expressed, and van lerius told him to go at once to a monsieur noiret, a professor at the catholic university of louvain, who had attended _him_ for the eyes, and had the reputation of being the first oculist in belgium. barty wrote immediately and an appointment was made, and in three days he saw the great man, half professor, half priest, who took him into a dark chamber lighted by a lamp, and dilated his pupil with atropine, and looked into his eye with the newly discovered "ophthalmoscope." professor noiret told him it was merely a congestion of the retina--for which no cause could be assigned; and that he would be cured in less than a month. that he was to have a seton let into the back of his neck, dry-cup himself on the chest and thighs night and morning, and take a preparation of mercury three times a day. also that he must go to the seaside immediately--and he recommended ostend. barty told him that he was an impecunious art student, and that ostend was a very expensive place. noiret considerately recommended blankenberghe, which was cheap; asked for and took his full fee, and said, with a courtly priestly bow: "if you are not cured, come back in a month. _au revoir!_" so poor barty had the seton put in by a kind of barber-surgeon, and was told how to dress it night and morning; got his medicines and his dry-cupping apparatus, and went off to blankenberghe quite hopeful. and there things happened to him which i really think are worth telling; in the first place, because, even if they did not concern barty josselin, they should be amusing for their own sake--that is, if i could only tell them as he told me afterwards; and i will do my best! and then he was nearing the end of the time when he was to remain as other mortals are. his new life was soon to open, the great change to which we owe the barty josselin who had changed the world for _us_! besides, this is a biography--not a novel--not literature! so what does it matter how it's written, so long as it's all true! part fifth "Ô céleste haine, comment t'assouvir? Ô souffrance humaine, qui te peut guérir? si lourde est ma peine j'en voudrais mourir-- tel est mon désir! "navré de comprendre, las de compatir, pour ne plus entendre, ni voir, ni sentir, je suis prêt à rendre mon dernier soupir-- et c'est mon désir! "ne plus rien connaître, ni me souvenir-- ne jamais renaître, ni me rendormir-- ne plus jamais être, mais en bien finir-- voilà mon désir!"--anon. barty went third class to bruges, and saw all over it, and slept at the "fleur de blé," and heard new chimes, and remembered his longfellow. next morning, a very fine one, as he was hopefully smoking his centime cigar with immense relish near the little three-horsed wagonette that was to bear him to blankenberghe, he saw that he was to have three fellow-passengers, with a considerable amount of very interesting luggage, and rejoiced. first, a tall man about thirty, in a very smart white summer suit, surmounted by a jaunty little straw hat with a yellow ribbon. he was strikingly handsome, and wore immense black whiskers but no mustache, and had a most magnificent double row of white, pearly teeth, which he showed very much when he smiled, and he smiled very often. he was evidently a personage of importance and very well off, for he gave himself great airs and ordered people about and chaffed them, and it made them laugh instead of making them angry; and he was obeyed with wonderful alacrity. he spoke french fluently, but with a marked italian accent. next, a very blond lady of about the same age, not beautiful, but rather overdressed, and whose accent, when she spoke french, was very german, and who looked as if she might be easily moved to wrath. now and then she spoke to the gentleman in a very audible italian aside, and barty was able to gather that her italian was about as rudimentary as his own. last and least, a pale, plain, pathetic little girl of six or eight, with a nose rather swollen, and a black plait down her back, and large black eyes, something like leah gibson's; and she never took these eyes off barty's face. their luggage consisted of two big trunks, a guitar and violin (in their cases), and music-books bound together by a rope. "vous allez à blankenberghe, mossié?" said the italian, with a winning smile. barty answered in the affirmative, and the italian smiled ecstatic delight. "jé souis bienn content--nous férons route ensiemblé...." i will translate: "i call myself carlo veronese--first barytone of the theatre of la scala, milan. the signora is my second wife; she is prima donna assoluta of the grand opera, naples. the little ragazza is my daughter by my first wife. she is the greatest violinist of her age now living--un' prodige, mossié--un' fenomeno!" barty, charmed with his new acquaintance, gave the signore his card, and carlo veronese invited him graciously to take a seat in the wagonette, as if it were his own private carriage. barty, who was the most easily impressed person that ever lived, accepted with as much sincere gratitude as if he hadn't already paid for his place, and they started on their sunny drive of eight miles along the dusty straight belgian chaussée, bordered with poplars on either side, and paved with flagstones all the way to blankenberghe. signor veronese informed barty that on their holiday travels they always managed to combine profit with pleasure, and that he proposed giving a grand concert at the café on the plage, or the kursaal, next day; that he was going to sing figaro's great song in the _barbiere_, and the signora would give "_roberto, toua qué z'aime_" in french (or, rather, "_ropert, doi que ch'aime_," as _she_ called it, correcting his accent), and the fenomeno, whose name was marianina, would play an arrangement of the "carnival of venice" by paganini. "ma vous aussi, vous êtes mousicien--jé vois ça par la votre figoure!" barty modestly disclaimed all pretensions, and said he was only an art student--a painter. "all the arts are brothers," said the signore, and the little signorina stole her hand into barty's and left it there. "listen," said the signore; "why not arrange to live together, you and we? i hate throwing away money on mere pomposity and grandiosity and show. we always take a little furnished apartment, elle et moi. then i go and buy provisions, bon marché--and she cooks them--and we have our meals better than at the hotel and at half the price! join us, unless you like to throw your money by the window!" the signorina marianina's little brown hand gave barty's a little warm squeeze, and barty was only too delighted to accept an arrangement that promised to be so agreeable and so practically wise. they arrived at blankenberghe, and, leaving their luggage at the wagonette station, went in search of lodgings. these were soon found in a large attic at the top of a house, over a bakery. one little mansarde, with a truckle-bed and wash-hand stand, did for the family of veronese; another, smaller still, for barty. other mansardes also opened on to the large attic, or grenier, where there were sacks of grain and of flour, and a sweet smell of cleanliness. barty wondered that such economical arrangements could suit his new friends, but was well pleased; a weight was taken off his mind. he feared a style of living he could not have afforded to share, and here were all difficulties smoothed away without any trouble whatever. they got in their luggage, and barty went with the signore in search of bread and meat and wine and ground coffee. when they got back, a little stove was ready lighted in the veronese garret; they cooked the food in a frying-pan, opening the window wide and closing the door, as the signore thought it useless to inform the world by the sense of smell that they did their cooking _en famille_; and barty enjoyed the meal immensely, and almost forgot his trouble, but for the pain of his seton. after lunch the signore produced his placards, already printed by hand, and made some paste in an iron pot, and the signora made coffee. and veronese tuned his guitar and said: "jé vais vous canter couelquécose--una piccola cosa da niente!--vous comprenez l'italien?" "oh yes," said barty: he had picked up a deal of italian and many pretty italian canzonets from his friend old pergolese, who kept the italian eating-house in rupert street. "sing me a stornella--je les adore." and he set himself to listen, with his heart in his mouth from sheer pleasurable anticipation. the signore sang a pretty little song, by gordigiani, called "il vero amore." barty knew it well. "e lo mio amor è andato a soggiornare a lucca bella--e diventar signore...." alas for lost illusions! the signore's voice was a coarse, unsympathetic, strident buffo bass, not always quite in the middle of the note; nor, in spite of his native liveliness of accent and expression, did he make the song interesting or pretty in the least. poor barty had fallen from the skies; but he did his best not to show his disenchantment, and this, from a kind and amiable way he always had and a constant wish to please, was not difficult. then the signora sang "Ô mon fernand!" from the _favorita_, in french, but with a hideous german accent and a screech as of some teutonic peacock, and without a single sympathetic note; though otherwise well in tune, and with a certain professional knowledge of what she was about. and then poor marianina was made to stand up on six music-books, opposite a small music-easel, and play her "carnival of venice" on the violin. every time she made a false note in the difficult variations, her father, with his long, thick, hairy middle finger, gave her a fierce fillip on the nose, and she had to swallow her tears and play on. barty was almost wild with angry pity, but dissembled, for fear of making her worse enemies in her father and stepmother. not that the poor little thing played badly; indeed, she played surprisingly well for her age, and barty was sincere in his warm commendation of her talent. "et vous ne cantez pas du tout--du tout?" said veronese. "oh, si, quelquefois!" "cantez couelquécoze--zé vous accompagnerai sous la guitare!--n'ayez pas paoure--nous sommes indoulgents, elle et moi--" "oh--je m'accompagnerai bien moi-même comme je pourrai--" said barty, and took the guitar, and sang a little french tyrolienne called "fleur des alpes," which he could always sing quite beautifully; and the effect was droll indeed. marianina wept; the signore went down on his knees in a theatrical manner to him, and called him "maestro" and other big italian names; the frau signora, with tears in her eyes, asked permission to kiss his hand, which his modesty refused--he kissed hers instead. "he was a great genius, a bird of god, who had amused himself by making fools of poor, innocent, humble, wandering minstrels. oh, would he not be generous as he was great and be one of them for a few days, and take half the profits--more--whatever he liked?" etc. [illustration: "the carnival of venice"] and indeed they immediately saw the business side of the question, and were, to do them justice, immensely liberal in their conditions of partnership--and also most distressingly persistent, with adulations that got more and more fulsome the more he held back. there was a long discussion. barty had to be quite brutal at the end--told them he was not a musician, but a painter, and that nothing on earth should induce him to join them in their concert. and finally, much crestfallen and somewhat huffed, the pair went out to post their placards all over the town, and barty went for a bath and a long walk--suddenly feeling sad again and horribly one-eyed and maimed, and more wofully northless and homeless and friendless than ever. blankenberghe was already very full, and when he got back he saw the famous placards everywhere. and found his friends cooking their dinner, and was pressed to join them; and did so--producing a magnificent pasty and some hot-house grapes and two bottles of wine as a peace-offering--and was forgiven. and after dinner they all sat on grain-sacks together in the large granary, and made music--with lady's-maids and valets and servants of the house for a most genial and appreciative audience--and had a very pleasant evening; and barty came to the conclusion that he had mistaken his trade--that he sang devilish well, in fact; and so he did. whatever his technical shortcomings might be, he could make any tune sound pretty when he sang it. he had the native gift of ease, pathos, rhythm, humor, and charm--and a delightful sympathetic twang in his voice. his mother must have sung something like that; and all paris went mad about her. no technical teaching in the world can ever match a genuine inheritance; and that's a fact. next morning they all bathed together, and barty unheroically and quite obscurely saved a life. the signore and his fat white signora went dancing out into the sunny waves and right away seawards. then came barty with an all-round shirt-collar round his neck and a white tie on, to conceal his seton, and a pair of blue spectacles for the glare. and behind him marianina, hopping on and following as best she might. he turned round to encourage her, and she had suddenly disappeared; half uneasy, he went back a step or two, and saw her little pale-brown face gasping just beneath the surface--she had just got out of her depth. he snatched her out, and she clung to him like a small monkey and cried dreadfully, and was sick all over him and herself. he managed to get her back on shore and washed and dried and consoled her before her people came back--and had the tact not to mention this adventure, guessing what fillips she would catch on her poor little pink nose for her stupidity. she looked her gratitude for this reticence of his in the most touching way, with her big black eyes--and had a cunning smile of delight at their common tacit understanding. her rescuer from a watery grave did not apply for the "médaille de sauvetage"! barty took an immense walk that day to avoid the common repast; he was getting very tired of the two senior veroneses. the concert in the evening was a tremendous success. the blatant signore sang his figaro song very well indeed--it suited him better than little feminine love-ditties. the signora was loud and passionate and dramatic in "roberto"; and belgians make more allowance for a german accent in french than parisians; besides, it was not _quite_ their own language that was being murdered before them. it _may_ be, some day! i sincerely hope so. je leur veux du bien. poor little marianina stood on her six music-books and played with immense care and earnestness, just like a frightened but well-trained poodle walking on its hind-legs--one eye on her music and the tail of the other on her father, who accompanied her with his guitar. she got an encore, to barty's great relief; and to hers too, no doubt--if she hadn't, fillips on the nose for supper that night! then there were more solos and duets, with obbligatos for the violin. next day veronese and his wife were in high feather at the kursaal, where they had sung the night before. a very distinguished military foreigner, in attendance on some august personage from spain or portugal (and later from ostend), warmly and publicly complimented the signore on "his admirable rendering of 'largo al factotum'--which, as his dear old friend rossini had once told him (the general), he (rossini) had always modestly looked upon as the one thing he had ever written with which he was _almost_ pleased!" marianina also received warm commendation from this agreeable old soldier, while quite a fashionable crowd was listening; and veronese arranged for another concert that evening, and placarded the town accordingly. barty managed to escape any more meals in the casa veronese, but took marianina for one or two pleasant walks, and told her stories and sang to her in the grenier, while she improvised for him clever little obbligatos on her fiddle. he found a cheap eating-house and picked up a companion or two to chat with. he also killed time with his seton-dressing and self dry-cupping--and hired french novels and read them as much as he dared with his remaining eye, about which he was morbidly nervous; he always fancied it would get its retina congested like the other, in which no improvement manifested itself whatever--and this depressed him very much. he was a most impatient patient. to return. the second concert was as conspicuous a failure as the first had been a success: the attendance was small and less distinguished, and there was no enthusiasm. the frau signora slipped a note and lost her temper in the middle of "roberto," and sang out of tune and with careless, open contempt of her audience, and this the audience seemed to understand and openly resent. poor marianina was frightened, and played very wrong notes under the furious gaze of her papa, and finally broke down and cried, and there were some hisses for him, as well as kind and encouraging applause for the child. then up jumps barty and gets on the platform and takes the signore's guitar and twangs it, and smiles all round benignly--immense applause! then he pats marianina's thin pale cheek and wipes her eyes and gives her a kiss. frantic applause! then "fleur des alpes!" ovation! encore! bis! ter! and for a third encore he sings a very pretty little flemish ballad about the rose without a thorn--"het roosje uit de dorne." it is the only flemish song he knows, and i hope i have spelt it right! and the audience goes quite crazy with enthusiasm, and everybody goes home happy, even the veroneses--and marianina does not get filliped that night. after this the veroneses tried humbler spheres for the display of their talents, and in less than a week exhausted every pothouse and beer-tavern and low drinking-shop in blankenberghe! and at last they took to performing for casual coppers in the open street, and went very rapidly down hill. the signore lost his jauntiness and grew sordid and soiled and shabby and humble; the signora looked like a sulky, dirty, draggle-tailed fury, ready to break out into violence on the slightest provocation; poor marianina got paler and thinner, and barty was very unhappy about her. the only things left rosy about her were her bruised nose, and her fingers, that always seemed stiff with cold; indeed, they were blue rather than rosy--and anything but clean. one evening he bought her a little warm gray cloak that took his fancy; when he went home after dinner to give it her he found the three birds of song had taken flight--sans tambour ni trompette, and leaving no message for him. the baker-landlord had turned them adrift--sent them about their business, sacrificing some of his rent to get rid of them; not a heavy loss, i fancy. barty went after them all over the little town, but did not find them; he heard they were last seen marching off with guitar and fiddle in a southerly direction along the coast, and found that their luggage was to be sent to ostend. he felt very sorry for marianina and missed her--and gave the cloak to some poor child in the town, and was very lonely. one morning as he loafed about dejectedly with his hands in his pockets, he found his way to the little hôtel de ville, whence issued sounds of music. he went in. it was like a kind of reading-room and concert-room combined; there was a piano there, and a young lady practising, with her mother knitting by her side; and two or three other people, friends of theirs, lounging about and looking at the papers. the mamma was a very handsome person of aristocratic appearance. the pretty daughter was practicing the soprano part in a duet by campana, which barty knew well; it was "una sera d' amore." the tenor had apparently not kept his appointment, and madame expressed some irritation at this; first to a friend, in french, but with a slight english accent--then in english to her daughter; and barty grew interested. after a little while, catching the mamma's eye (which was not difficult, as she very frankly and persistently gazed at him, and with a singularly tender and wistful expression of face), he got up and asked in english if he could be of any use--seeing that he knew the music well and had often sung it. the lady was delighted, and barty and mademoiselle sang the duet in capital style to the mamma's accompaniment: "guarda che bianca luna," etc. "what a lovely voice you've got! may i ask your name?" says the mamma. "josselin." "english, of course?" "upon my word i hardly know whether i'm english or french!" said barty, and he and the lady fell into conversation. it turned out that she was irish, and married to a belgian soldier, le général comte de clèves (who was a tremendous swell, it seems--but just then in brussels). barty told madame de clèves the story of his eye--he was always very communicative about his eye; and she suddenly buried her face in her hands and wept; and mademoiselle told him in a whisper that her eldest brother had gone blind and died three or four years ago, and that he was extraordinarily like barty both in face and figure. presently another son of madame de clèves came in--an officer of dragoons in undress uniform, a splendid youth. he was the missing tenor, and made his excuses for being late, and sang very well indeed. and barty became the intimate friend of these good people, who made blankenberghe a different place to him--and conceived for him a violent liking, and introduced him to all their smart belgian friends; they were quite a set--bathing together, making music and dancing, taking excursions, and so forth. and before a fortnight was over barty had become the most popular young man in the town, the gayest of the gay, the young guardsman once more, throwing dull care to the winds; and in spite of his impecuniosity (of which he made no secret whatever) the _boute-en-train_ of the company. and this led to many droll adventures--of which i will tell one as a sample. a certain belgian viscount, who had a very pretty french wife, took a dislike to barty. he had the reputation of being a tremendous fire-eater. his wife, a light-hearted little flirt (but with not much harm in her), took a great fancy to him, on the contrary. one day she asked him for a wax impression of the seal-ring he wore on his finger, and the following morning he sealed an empty envelope and stamped it with his ring, and handed it to her on the plage. she snatched it with a quick gesture and slipped it into her pocket with quite a guilty little coquettish look of mutual understanding. monsieur jean (as the viscount was called) noticed this, and jostled rudely against josselin, who jostled back again and laughed. then the whole party walked off to the "tir," or shooting-gallery on the plage; some wager was on, i believe, and when they got there they all began to shoot--at different distances, ladies and gentlemen; all but barty; it was a kind of handicap. monsieur jean, after a fierce and significant look at barty, slowly raised his pistol, took a deliberate aim at the small target, and fired--hitting it just half an inch over the bull's-eye; a capital shot. barty couldn't have done better himself. then taking another loaded pistol, he presented it to my friend by the butt and said, with a solemn bow: "À vous, monsieur de la garde." "messieurs de la garde doivent toujours tirer les premiers!" said barty, laughing; and carelessly let off his pistol in the direction of the target without even taking aim. a little bell rang, and there was a shout of applause; and barty was conscious that by an extraordinary fluke he had hit the bull's-eye in the middle, and saw the situation at once. suddenly looking very grave and very sad, he threw the pistol away, and said: "je ne tire plus--j'ai trop peur d'avoir la main malheureuse un jour!" and smiled benignly at m. jean. a moment's silence fell on the party and m. jean turned very pale. barty went up to madame jean: "will you forgive me for giving you with my seal an empty envelope? i couldn't think of anything pretty enough to write you--so i gave it up. tear it and forgive me. i'll do better next time!" the lady blushed and pulled the letter out of her pocket and held it up to the light, and it was, as barty said, merely an empty envelope and a red seal. she then held it out to her husband and exclaimed: "le cachet de monsieur josselin, que je lui avais demandé...!" so bloodshed was perhaps avoided, and monsieur jean took care not to jostle josselin any more. indeed, they became great friends. for next day barty strolled into the salle d'armes, rue des dunes--and there he found monsieur jean fencing with young de clèves, the dragoon. both were good fencers, but barty was the finest fencer i ever met in my life, and always kept it up; and remembering his adventure of the previous day, it amused him to affect a careless nonchalance about such trivial things--"des enfantillages!" "_you_ take a turn with jean, josselin!" said the dragoon. "oh! i'm out of practice--and i've only got one eye...." "je vous en prie, monsieur de la garde!" said the viscount. "cette fois, alors, nous allons tirer _ensemble_!" says barty, and languidly dons the mask with an affected air, and makes a fuss about the glove not suiting him; and then, in spite of his defective sight, which seems to make no difference, he lightly and gracefully gives m. jean such a dressing as that gentleman had never got in his life--not even from his maître d'armes: and afterwards to young de clèves the same. well i knew his way of doing this kind of thing! so barty and m. and madame jean became quite intimate--and with his usual indiscretion barty told them how he fluked that bull's-eye, and they were charmed! "vous êtes impayable, savez-vous, mon cher!" says m. jean--"vous avez tous les talents, et un million dans le gosier par-dessus le marché! si jamais je puis vous être de service, savez-vous, comptez sur moi pour la vie ..." said the impulsive viscount when they bade each other good-bye at the end. [illustration: "'À vous, monsieur de la garde!'"] "et plus jamais d'enveloppes vides, quand vous m'écrirez!" says madame. * * * * * so frivolous time wore on, and barty found it pleasant to frivol in such pleasant company--very pleasant indeed! but when alone in his garret, with his seton-dressing and dry-cuppings, it was not so gay. he had to confess to himself that his eye was getting slowly worse instead of better; darkening day by day; and a little more retina had been taken in by the strange disease--"la peau de chagrin," as he nicknamed this wretched retina of his, after balzac's famous story. he could still see with the left of it and at the bottom, but a veil had come over the middle and all the rest; by daylight he could see through this veil, but every object he saw was discolored and distorted and deformed--it was worse than darkness itself; and this was so distressing, and so interfered with the sight of the other eye, that when the sun went down, the total darkness in the ruined portion of his left retina came as a positive relief. he took all this very desperately to heart and had very terrible forebodings. for he had never known an ache or a pain, and had innocently gloried all his life in the singular perfection of his five wits. then his money was coming to an end; he would soon have to sing in the streets, like veronese, with lady archibald's guitar. dear lady archibald! when things went wrong with her she would always laugh, and say: "les misères du jour font le bonheur du lendemain!" this he would say or sing to himself over and over again, and go to bed at night quite hopeful and sanguine after a merry day spent among his many friends; and soon sink into sleep, persuaded that his trouble was a bad dream which next morning would scatter and dispel. but when he woke, it was to find the grim reality sitting by his pillow, and he couldn't dry-cup it away. the very sunshine was an ache as he went out and got his breakfast with his blue spectacles on; and black care would link its bony arm in his as he listlessly strolled by the much-sounding sea--and cling to him close as he swam or dived; and he would wonder what he had ever done that so serious and tragic a calamity should have befallen so light a person as himself; who could only dance and sing and play the fool to make people laugh--rigoletto--triboulet--a mere grasshopper, no ant or bee or spider, not even a third-class beetle--surely this was not according to the eternal fitness of things! and thus in the unutterable utterness of his dejection he would make himself such evil cheer that he sickened with envy at the mere sight of any living thing that could see out of two eyes--a homeless irresponsible dog, a hunchback beggar, a crippled organ-grinder and his monkey--till he met some acquaintance; even but a rolling fisherman with a brown face and honest blue eyes--a pair of them--and then he would forget his sorrow and his envy in chat and jokes and laughter with him over each a centime cigar; and was set up in good spirits for the day! such was barty josselin, the most ready lover of his kind that ever existed, the slave of his last impression. and thus he lived under the shadow of the sword of damocles for many months; on and off, for years--indeed, as long as he lived at all. it is good discipline. it rids one of much superfluous self-complacency and puts a wholesome check on our keeping too good a conceit of ourselves; it prevents us from caring too meanly about mean things--too keenly about our own infinitesimal personalities; it makes us feel quick sympathy for those who live under a like condition: there are many such weapons dangling over the heads of us poor mortals by just a hair--a panoply, an armory, a very arsenal! and we grow to learn in time that when the hair gives way and the big thing falls, the blow is not half so bad as the fright had been, even if it kills us; and more often than not it is but the shadow of a sword, after all; a bogie that has kept us off many an evil track--perhaps even a blessing in disguise! and in the end, down comes some other sword from somewhere else and cuts for us the gordian knot of our brief tangled existence, and solves the riddle and sets us free. this is a world of surprises, where little ever happens but the unforeseen, which is seldom worth meeting halfway! and these moral reflections of mine are quite unnecessary and somewhat obvious, but they harm nobody, and are very soothing to make and utter at my time of life. pity the sorrows of a poor old man and forgive him his maudlin garrulity.... * * * * * one afternoon, lolling in deep dejection on the top of a little sandy hillock, a "dune," and plucking the long coarse grass, he saw a very tall elderly lady, accompanied by her maid, coming his way along the asphalt path that overlooked the sea--or rather, that prevented the sea from overlooking the land and overflowing it! she was in deep black and wore a thick veil. with a little jump of surprise he recognized his aunt caroline--lady caroline grey--of all his aunts the aunt who had loved him the best as a boy--whom he had loved the best. she was a roman catholic, and very devout indeed--a widow, and childless now. and between her and barty a coolness had fallen during the last few years--a heavy raw thick mist of cold estrangement; and all on account of his london life and the notoriety he had achieved there; things of which she disapproved entirely, and thought "unworthy of a gentleman": and who can blame her for thinking so? she had at first written to him long letters of remonstrance and good advice; which he gave up answering, after a while. and when they met in society, her manner had grown chill and distant and severe. he hadn't seen or heard of his aunt caroline for three or four years; but at the sudden sight of her a wave of tender childish remembrance swept over him, and his heart beat quite warmly to her: affliction is a solvent of many things, and first-cousin to forgiveness. she passed without looking his way, and he jumped up and followed her, and said: "oh, aunt caroline! won't you even speak to me?" she started violently, and turned round, and cried: "oh, barty, barty, where have you been all these years?" and seized both his hands, and shook all over. "oh, barty--my beloved little barty--take me somewhere where we can sit down and talk. i've been thinking of you very much, barty--i've lost my poor son--he died last christmas! i was afraid you had forgotten my existence! i was thinking of you the very moment you spoke!" the maid left them, and she took his arm and they found a seat. she put up her veil and looked at him: there was a great likeness between them in spite of the difference of age. she had been his father's favorite sister (some ten years younger than lord runswick); and she was very handsome still, though about fifty-five. "oh, barty, my darling--how things have gone wrong between us! is it _all_ my doing? oh, i hope not!..." and she kissed him. "how like, how like! and you're getting a little black and bulgy under the eyes--especially the left one--and so did _he_, at just about your age! and how thin you are!" "i don't think anything need ever go wrong between us again, aunt caroline! i am a very altered person, and a very unlucky one!" "tell me, dear!" and he told her all his story, from the fatal quarrel with her brother lord archibald--and the true history of that quarrel; and all that had happened since: he had nothing to keep back. she frequently wept a little, for truth was in every tone of his voice; and when it came to the story of his lost eye, she wept very much indeed. and his need of affection, of female affection especially, and of kinship, was so immense that he clung to this most kind and loving woman as if she'd been his mother come back from the grave, or his dear lady archibald. [illustration: "'i am a very altered person!'"] this meeting made a great difference to barty in many ways--made amends! lady caroline meant to pass the winter at malines, of all places in the world. the archbishop was her friend, and she was friends also with one or two priests at the seminary there. she was by no means rich, having but an annuity of not quite three hundred a year; and it soon became the dearest wish of her heart that barty should live with her for a while, and be nursed by her if he wanted nursing; and she thought he did. besides, it would be convenient on account of his doctor, m. noiret, of the university of louvain, which was near malines--half an hour by train. and barty was only too glad; this warm old love and devotion had suddenly dropped on to him by some happy enchantment out of the skies at a moment of sore need. and it was with a passion of gratitude that he accepted his aunt's proposals. he well knew, also, how it was in him to brighten her lonely life, almost every hour of it--and promised himself that she should not be a loser by her kindness to mr. nobody of nowhere. he remembered her love of fun, and pretty poetry, and little french songs, and droll chat--and nice cheerful meals tête-à-tête--and he was good at all these things. and how fond she was of reading out loud to him! the time might soon arrive when that would be a blessing indeed. indeed, a new interest had come into his life--not altogether a selfish interest either--but one well worth living for, though it was so unlike any interest that had ever filled his life before. he had been essentially a man's man hitherto, in spite of his gay light love for lovely woman; a good comrade par excellence, a frolicsome chum, a rollicking boon-companion, a jolly pal! he wanted quite desperately to love something staid and feminine and gainly and well bred, whatever its age! some kind soft warm thing in petticoats and thin shoes, with no hair on its face, and a voice that wasn't male! nor did her piety frighten him very much. he soon found that she was no longer the over-zealous proselytizing busybody of the cross--but immensely a woman of the world, making immense allowances. all roads lead to rome (dit-on!), except a few which converge in the opposite direction; but even roman roads lead to this wide tolerance in the end--for those of a rich warm nature who have been well battered by life; and lady caroline had been very thoroughly battered indeed: a bad husband--a bad son, her only child! both dead, but deeply loved and lamented; and in her heart of hearts there lurked a sad suspicion that her piety (so deep and earnest and sincere) had not bettered their badness--on the contrary, perhaps! and had driven her barty from her when he needed her most. now that his need of her was so great, greater than it had ever been before, she would take good care that no piety of hers should ever drive him away from her again; she felt almost penitent and apologetic for having done what she had known to be right--the woman in her had at last outgrown the nun. she almost began to doubt whether she had not been led to selfishly overrate the paramount importance of the exclusive salvation of her own particular soul! and then his frank, fresh look and manner, and honest boyish voice, so unmistakably sincere, and that mild and magnificent eye, so bright and humorous still, "so like--so like!" which couldn't even see her loving, anxious face.... thank heaven, there was still one eye left that she could appeal to with both her own! and what a child he had been, poor dear--the very pearl of the rohans! what rohan of them all was ever a patch on this poor bastard of antoinette josselin's, either for beauty, pluck, or mother-wit--or even for honor, if it came to that? why, a quixotic scruple of honor had ruined him, and she was rohan enough to understand what the temptation had been the other way: she had seen the beautiful bad lady! and, pure as her own life had been, she was no puritan, but of a church well versed in the deepest knowledge of our poor weak frail humanity; she has told me all about it, and i listened between the words. so during the remainder of her stay at blankenberghe he was very much with lady caroline, and rediscovered what a pleasant and lively companion she could be--especially at meals (she was fond of good food of a plain and wholesome kind, and took good care to get it). she had her little narrownesses, to be sure, and was not hail-fellow-well-met with everybody, like him; and did not think very much of giddy little viscountesses with straddling loud-voiced flemish husbands, nor of familiar facetious commercial millionaires, of whom barty numbered two or three among his adorers; nor even of the "highly born" irish wives of belgian generals and all that. madame de clèves was an o'brien. these were old ingrained rohan prejudices, and she was too old herself to alter. but she loved the good fishermen whose picturesque boats made such a charming group on the sands at sunset, and also their wives and children; and here she and her nephew were "bien d'accord." i fear her ladyship would not have appreciated very keenly the rising splendor of a certain not altogether unimportant modern house in barge yard, bucklersbury--and here she would have been wrong. the time has come when we throw the handkerchief at female rohans, we maurices and our like. i have not done so myself, it is true; but not from any rooted antipathy to any daughter of a hundred earls--nor yet from any particular diffidence on my own part. anyhow, lady caroline loved to hear all barty had to say of his gay life among the beauty, rank, and fashion of blankenberghe. she was very civil to the handsome irish madame de clèves, _née_ o'brien, and listened politely to the family history of the o'briens and that of the de clèveses too: and learnt, without indecent surprise, or any emotion of any kind whatever, what she had never heard before--namely, that in the early part of the twelfth century a rohan de whitby had married an o'brien of ballywrotte; and other prehistoric facts of equal probability and importance. she didn't believe much in people's twelfth--century reminiscences; she didn't even believe in those of her own family, who didn't believe in them either, or trouble about them in the least; and i dare say they were quite right. anyhow, when people solemnly talked about such things it made her rather sorry. but she bore up for barty's sake, and the resigned, half-humorous courtesy with which she assented to these fables was really more humiliating to a sensitive, haughty soul than any mere supercilious disdain; not that she ever wished to humiliate, but she was easily bored, and thought that kind of conversation vulgar, futile, and rather grotesque. indeed, she grew quite fond of madame de clèves and the splendid young dragoon, and the sweet little black-haired daughter with lovely blue eyes, who sang so charmingly. for they were singularly charming people in every way, the de clèveses; and that's a way irish people often have--as well as of being proud of their ancient blood. there is no more innocent weakness. i have it very strongly--moi qui vous parle--on the maternal side. my mother was a blake of derrydown, a fact that nobody would have known unless she now and then accidentally happened to mention it herself, or else my father did. and so i take the opportunity of slipping it in here--just out of filial piety! so the late autumn of that year found barty and his aunt at malines, or mechelen, as it calls itself in its native tongue. they had comfortable lodgings of extraordinary cheapness in one of the dullest streets of that most picturesque but dead-alive little town, where the grass grew so thick between the paving-stones here and there that the brewers' dray-horses might have browsed in the "grand brul"--a magnificent but generally deserted thoroughfare leading from the railway station to the place d'armes, where rose still unfinished the colossal tower of one of the oldest and finest cathedrals in the world, whose chimes wafted themselves every half-quarter of an hour across the dreamy flats for miles and miles, according to the wind, that one might realize how slow was the flight of time in that particular part of king leopold's dominions. "'and from a tall tower in the town death looks gigantically down!'" said barty to his aunt--quoting (or misquoting) a bard they were very fond of just then, as they slowly walked down the "grand brul" in solitude together, from the nineteenth century to the fourteenth in less than twenty minutes--or three chimes from st. rombault, or fifty skrieks from the railway station. but for these a spirit of stillness and mediæval melancholy brooded over the quaint old city and great archiepiscopal see and most important railway station in all belgium. magnificent old houses in carved stone with wrought-iron balconies were to be had for rents that were almost nominal. from the tall windows of some of these a frugal, sleepy, priest-ridden old nobility looked down on broad and splendid streets hardly ever trodden by any feet but their own, or those of some stealthy jesuit priest, or sister of mercy. only during the kermesse, or at carnival-time, when noisy revelers of either sex and ungainly processions of tipsy masques and mummers waked mechelen out of its long sleep, and all the town seemed one vast estaminet, did one feel one's self to be alive. even at night, and in the small hours, frisky masques and dominoes walked the moonlit streets, and made loud old flemish mediæval love, à la teniers. there was a beautiful botanical garden, through which a river flowed under tall trees, and turned the wheels of the oldest flour-mills in flanders. this was a favorite resort of barty's,--and he had it pretty much to himself. and for lady caroline there were, besides st. rombault, quite half-a-dozen churches almost as magnificent if not so big, and in them as many as you could wish of old flemish masters, beginning with peter paul rubens, who pervades the land of his birth very much as michael angelo pervades florence and rome. and these dim places of catholic worship were generously open to all, every day and all day long, and never empty of worshippers, high and low, prostrate in the dust, or kneeling with their arms extended and their heads in the air, their wide-open, immovable, unblinking eyes hypnotized into stone by the cross and the crown of thorns. mostly peasant women, these: with their black hoods falling from their shoulders, and stiff little close white caps that hid the hair. out of cool shadowy recesses of fretted stone and admirably carved wood emanations seemed to rise as from the long-forgotten past--tons of incense burnt hundreds of years ago, and millions of closely packed supplicants, rich and poor, following each other in secula seculorum! lady caroline spent many of her hours haunting these crypts--and praying there. at the back of their house in the rue des ursulines blanches, barty's bedroom window overlooked the playground of the convent "des soeurs rédemptoristines": all noble ladies, most beautifully dressed in scarlet and ultramarine, with long snowy veils, and who were waited upon by non-noble sisters in garments of a like hue but less expensive texture. so at least said little finche torfs, the daughter of the house--little frau, as lady caroline called her, and who seems to have been one of the best creatures in the world; she became warmly attached to both her lodgers, who reciprocated the feeling in full; it was her chief pleasure to wait on them and look after them at all times of the day, though lady caroline had already a devoted maid of her own. little frau's father was a well-to-do burgher with a prosperous ironmongery in the "petit brul." this was his private house, where he pursued his hobby, for he was an amateur photographer, very fond of photographing his kind and simple-minded old wife, who was always attired in rich brussels silks and mechelen lace on purpose. she even cooked in them, though not for her lodgers, whose mid-day and evening meals were sent from "la cigogne," close by, in four large round tins that fitted into each other, and were carried in a wicker-work cylindrical basket. and it was little frau's delight to descant on the qualities of the menu as she dished and served it. i will not attempt to do so. but after little frau had cleared it all away, barty would descant on the qualities of certain english dishes he remembered, to the immense amusement of aunt caroline, who was reasonably fond of what is good to eat. he would paint in words (he was better in words than any other medium--oil, water, or distemper) the boiled leg of mutton, not overdone; the mashed turnips; the mealy potato; the caper-sauce. he would imitate the action of the carver and the sound of the carving-knife making its first keen cut while the hot pink gravy runs down the sides. then he would wordily paint a french roast chicken and its rich brown gravy and its water-cresses; the pommes sautées; the crisp, curly salade aux fines herbes! and lady caroline, still hungry, would laugh till her eyes watered, as well as her mouth. when it came to the sweets, the apple-puddings and gooseberry-pies and devonshire cream and brown sugar, there was no more laughing, for then barty's talent soared to real genius--and genius is a serious thing. and as to his celery and stilton cheese--but there! it's lunch-time, and i'm beginning to feel a little puckish myself.... every morning when it was fine barty and his aunt would take an airing round the town, which was enclosed by a ditch where there was good skating in the winter, on long skates that went very fast, but couldn't cut figures, or ! there were no fortifications or ramparts left. but a few of the magnificent old brick gateways still remained, admitting you to the most wonderful old streets with tall pointed houses--clean little slums, where women sat on their door-steps making the most beautiful lace in the world--odd nooks and corners and narrow ways where it was easy to lose one's self, small as the town really was; innumerable little toy bridges over toy canals one could have leaped at a bound, overlooked by quaint, irregular little dwellings, of colors that had once been as those of the rainbow, but which time had mellowed into divine harmonies, as it does all it touches--from grand old masters to oak palings round english parks; from venice to mechelen and its lace; from a disappointed first love to a great sorrow. occasionally a certain distinguished old man of soldier-like aspect would pass them on horseback, and gaze at their two tall british figures with a look of curious and benign interest, as if he mentally wished them well, and well away from this drear limbo of penitence and exile and expiation. they learnt that he was french, and a famous general, and that his name was changarnier; and they understood that public virtue has to be atoned for. and he somehow got into the habit of bowing to them with a good smile, and they would smile and bow back again. beyond this they never exchanged a word, but this little outward show and ceremony of kindly look and sympathetic gesture always gave them a pleasant moment and helped to pass the morning. all the people they met were to lady caroline like people in a dream: silent priests; velvet-footed nuns, who were much to her taste; quiet peasant women, in black cloaks and hoods, driving bullock-carts or carts drawn by dogs, six or eight of these inextricably harnessed together and panting for dear life; blue-bloused men in french caps, but bigger and blonder than frenchmen, and less given to epigrammatic repartee, with mild, blue, beery eyes, _à fleur de tête_, and a look of health and stolid amiability; sturdy green-coated little soldiers with cock-feathered brigand hats of shiny black, the brim turned up over the right eye and ear that they might the more conveniently take a good aim at the foe before he skedaddled at the mere sight of them; fat, comfortable burgesses and their wives, so like their ancestors who drink beer out of long glasses and smoke long clay pipes on the walls of the louvre and the national gallery that they seemed like old friends; and quaint old heavy children who didn't make much noise! and whenever they spoke french to you, these good people, they said "savez-vous?" every other second; and whenever they spoke flemish to each other it sounded so much like your own tongue as it is spoken in the north of england that you wondered why on earth you couldn't understand a single word. now and then, from under a hood, a handsome dark face with spanish eyes would peer out--eloquent of the past history of the low countries, which barty knew much better than i. but i believe there was once a spanish invasion or occupation of some kind, and i dare say the fair belgians are none the worse for it to-day. (it might even have been good for some of us, perhaps, if that ill-starred armada hadn't come so entirely to grief. i'm fond of big, tawny-black eyes.) all this, so novel and so strange, was a perpetual feast for lady caroline. and they bought nice, cheap, savory things on the way home, to eke out the lunch from "la cigogne." in the afternoon barty would take a solitary walk in the open country, or along one of those endless straight _chaussées_, paved in the middle, and bordered by equidistant poplars on either side, and leading from town to town, and the monotonous perspective of which is so desolating to heart and eye; backwards or forwards, it is always the same, with a flat sameness of outlook to right and left, and every seconds the chime would boom and flounder heavily by, with a dozen sharp railway whistles after it, like swordfish after a whale, piercing it through and through. barty evidently had all this in his mind when he wrote the song of the seminarist in "gleams," beginning: "twas april, and the sky was clear, an east wind blowing keenly; the sun gave out but little cheer, for all it shone serenely. the wayside poplars, all arow, for many a weary mile did throw down on the dusty flags below their shadows, picked out cleanly." etc., etc., etc. (isn't it just like barty to begin a lyric that will probably last as long as the english language with an innocent jingle worthy of a school-boy?) after dinner, in the evening, it was lady caroline's delight to read aloud, while barty smoked his cigarettes and inexpensive cigars--a concession on her part to make him happy, and keep him as much with her as she could; and she grew even to like the smell so much that once or twice, when he went to antwerp for a couple of days to stay with tescheles, she actually had to burn some of his tobacco on a red-hot shovel, for the scent of it seemed to spell his name for her and make his absence less complete. thus she read to him _esmond_, _hypatia_, _never too late to mend_, _les maîtres sonneurs_, _la mare au diable_, and other delightful books, english and french, which were sent once a week from a circulating library in brussels. how they blessed thy name, good baron tauchnitz! "oh, aunt caroline, if i could _only_ illustrate books! if i could only illustrate _esmond_ and draw a passable beatrix coming down the old staircase at castlewood with her candle!" said barty, one night. that was not to be. another was to illustrate _esmond_, a poor devil who, oddly enough, was then living in the next street and suffering from a like disorder.[ ] [footnote : ("un malheureux, vêtu de noir, qui me ressemblait comme un frère ..."--ed.)] as a return, barty would sing to her all he knew, in five languages--three of which neither of them quite understood--accompanying himself on the piano or guitar. sometimes she would play for him accompaniments that were beyond his reach, for she was a decently taught musician who could read fairly well at sight; whereas barty didn't know a single note, and picked up everything by ear. she practised these accompaniments every afternoon, as assiduously as any school-girl. then they would sit up very late, as they always had so much to talk about--what had just been read or played or sung, and many other things: the present, the past, and the future. all their old affection for each other had come back, trebled and quadrupled by pity on one side, gratitude on the other--and a little remorse on both. and there were long arrears to make up, and life was short and uncertain. sometimes l'abbé lefebvre, one of the professors at the séminaire and an old friend of lady caroline's, would come to drink tea, and talk politics, which ran high in mechelen. he was a most accomplished and delightful frenchman, who wrote poetry and adored balzac--and even owned to a fondness for good old paul de kock, of whom it is said that when the news of his death reached pius the ninth, his holiness dropped a tear and exclaimed: "mio caro paolo di kocco!" now and then the abbé would bring with him a distinguished young priest, a dominican--also a professor; father louis, of the princely house of aremberg, who died a cardinal three years ago. father louis had an admirable and highly cultivated musical gift, and played to them beethoven and mozart, schubert, chopin, and schumann--and this music, as long as it lasted (and for some time after), was to barty as great a source of consolation as of unspeakable delight; and therefore to his aunt also. though i'm afraid she preferred any little french song of barty's to all the schumanns in the world. first of all, the priest would play the "moonlight sonata," let us say; and barty would lean back and listen with his eyes shut, and almost believe that beethoven was talking to him like a father, and pointing out to him how small was the difference, really, between the greatest earthly joy and the greatest earthly sorrow: these were not like black and white, but merely different shades of gray, as on moonlit things a long way off! and time, what a reconciler it was--like distance! and death, what a perfect resolution of all possible discords, and how certain! and our own little life, how short, and without importance! what matters whether it's to-day, this small individual flutter of ours; or was a hundred years ago; or will be a hundred years hence! it has or had to be got through--and it's better past than to come. [illustration: "the moonlight sonata"] "it all leads to the same divine issue, my poor friend," said beethoven; "why, just see here--i'm stone-deaf, and can't hear a note of what i'm singing to you! but it is not about _that_ i weep, when i am weeping. it was terrible when it first came on, my deafness, and i could no longer hear the shepherd's pipe or the song of the lark; but it's well worth going deaf, to hear all that _i_ do. i have to write everything down, and read it to myself; and my tears fall on the ruled paper, and blister the lines, and make the notes run into each other; and when i try to blot it all out, there's that still left on the page, which, turned into sound by good father louis the dominican, will tell you, if you can only hear it aright, what is not to be told in any human speech; not even that of plato, or marcus aurelius, or erasmus, or shakespeare; not even that of christ himself, who speaks through me from his unknown grave, because i am deaf and cannot hear the distracting words of men--poor, paltry words at their best, which mean so many things at once that they mean just nothing at all. it's a tower of babel. just stop your ears and listen with your heart and you will hear all that you can see when you shut your eyes or have lost them--and those are the only realities, mein armer barty!" then the good mozart would say: "lieber barty--i'm so stupid about earthly things that i could never even say boh to a goose, so i can't give you any good advice; all my heart overflowed into my brain when i was quite a little boy and made music for grown-up people to hear; from the day of my birth to my fifth birthday i had gone on remembering everything, but learning nothing new--remembering all that music! "and i went on remembering more and more till i was thirty-five; and even then there was such a lot more of it where that came from that it tired me to try and remember so much--and i went back thither. and thither back shall you go too, barty--when you are some thirty years older! "and you already know from me how pleasant life is there--how sunny and genial and gay; and how graceful and innocent and amiable and well-bred the natives--and what beautiful prayers we sing, and what lovely gavottes and minuets we dance--and how tenderly we make love--and what funny tricks we play! and how handsome and well dressed and kind we all are--and the likes of you, how welcome! thirty years is soon over, barty, barty! bel mazetto! ha, ha! good!" then says the good schubert: "i'm a loud, rollicking, beer-drinking kerl, i am! ich bin ein lustiger student, mein pardy; and full of droll practical jokes; worse than even you, when you were a young scapegrace in the guards, and wrenched off knockers, and ran away with a poor policeman's hat! but i don't put my practical jokes into my music; if i did, i shouldn't be the poor devil i am! i'm very hungry when i go to bed, and when i wake up in the morning i have katzenjammer (from an empty stomach) and a headache, and a heartache, and penitence and shame and remorse; and know there is nothing in this world or beyond it worth a moment's care but love, love, love! liebe, liebe! the good love that knows neither concealment nor shame--from the love of the brave man for the pure maiden whom he weds, to the young nun's love of the lord! and all the other good loves lie between these two, and are inside them, or come out of them, ... and that's the love i put into my music. indeed, my music is the only love i know, since i am not beautiful to the eye, and can only care for tunes!... "but you, pardy, are handsome and gallant and gay, and have always been well beloved by man and woman and child, and always will be; and know how to love back again--even a dog! however blind you go, you will always have that, the loving heart--and as long as you can hear and sing, you will always have my tunes to fall back upon...." "and mine!" says chopin. "if there's one thing sweeter than love, it's the sadness that it can't last; _she_ loved me once--and now she loves _tout le monde_! and that's a little sweet melodic sadness of mine that will never fail you, as long as there's a piano within your reach, and a friend who knows how to play me on it for you to hear. you shall revel in my sadness till you forget your own. oh, the sorrow of my sweet pipings! whatever becomes of your eyes, keep your two ears for _my_ sake; and for your sake too! you don't know what exquisite ears you've got. you are like me--you and i are made of silk, barty--as other men are made of sackcloth; and their love, of ashes; and their joys, of dust! "even the good priest who plays me to you so glibly doesn't understand what i am talking about half so well as _you_ do, who can't read a word i write! he had to learn my language note by note from the best music-master in brussels. it's your mother-tongue! you learned it as you sucked at your sweet young mother's breast, my poor love-child! and all through her, your ears, like your remaining eye, are worth a hatful of the common kind--and some day it will be the same with your heart and brain...." "yes"--continues schumann--"but you'll have to suffer first--like me, who will have to kill myself very soon; because i am going mad--and that's worse than any blindness! and like beethoven who went deaf, poor demigod! and like all the rest of us who've been singing to you to-night; that's why our songs never pall--because we are acquainted with grief, and have good memories, and are quite sincere. the older you get, the more you will love us and our songs: other songs may come and go in the ear; but ours go ringing in the heart forever!" in some such fashion did the great masters of tune and tone discourse to barty through father louis's well-trained finger-tips. they always discourse to you a little about yourself, these great masters, always; and always in a manner pleasing to your self-love! the finger-tips (whosesoever's finger-tips they be) have only to be intelligent and well trained, and play just what's put before them in a true, reverent spirit. anything beyond may be unpardonable impertinence, both to the great masters and yourself. musicians will tell you that all this is nonsense from beginning to end; you mustn't believe musicians about music, nor wine-merchants about wine--but vice versa! when father louis got up from the music-stool, the abbé would say to barty, in his delightful, pure french: "and now, mon ami--just for _me_, you know--a little song of autrefois." "all right, m. l'abbé--i will sing you the 'adelaïde,' of beethoven ... if father louis will play for me." "oh, non, mon ami, do not throw away such a beautiful organ as yours on such really beautiful music, which doesn't want it; it would be sinful waste; it's not so much the tune that i want to hear as the fresh young voice; sing me something french, something light, something amiable and droll; that i may forget the song, and only remember the singer." "all right, m. l'abbé," and barty sings a delightful little song by gustave nadaud, called "petit bonhomme vit encore." and the good abbé is in the seventh heaven, and quite forgets to forget the song. and so, cakes and wine, and good-night--and m. l'abbé goes humming all the way home.... "hé, quoi! pour des peccadilles gronder ces pauvres amours? les femmes sont si gentilles, et l'on n'aime pas toujours! c'est bonhomme qu'on me nomme.... ma gaîté, c'est mon trésor! et bonhomme vit encor'-- et bonhomme vit encor'!" an extraordinary susceptibility to musical sound was growing in barty since his trouble had overtaken him, and with it an extraordinary sensitiveness to the troubles of other people, their partings and bereavements and wants, and aches and pains, even those of people he didn't know; and especially the woes of children, and dogs and cats and horses, and aged folk--and all the live things that have to be driven to market and killed for our eating--or shot at for our fun! all his old loathing of sport had come back, and he was getting his old dislike of meat once more, and to sicken at the sight of a butcher's shop; and the sight of a blind man stirred him to the depths ... even when he learnt how happy a blind man can be! these unhappy things that can't be helped preoccupied him as if he had been twenty, thirty, fifty years older; and the world seemed to him a shocking place, a gray, bleak, melancholy hell where there was nothing but sadness, and badness, and madness. and bit by bit, but very soon, all his old trust in an all-merciful, all-powerful ruler of the universe fell from him; he shed it like an old skin; it sloughed itself away; and with it all his old conceit of himself as a very fine fellow, taller, handsomer, cleverer than anybody else, "bar two or three"! such darling beliefs are the best stays we can have; and he found life hard to face without them. and he got as careful of his aunt caroline, and as anxious about her little fads and fancies and ailments, as if he'd been an old woman himself. imagine how she grew to dote on him! and he quite lost his old liability to sudden freaks and fits of noisy fractiousness about trifles--when he would stamp and rave and curse and swear, and be quite pacified in a moment: "_soupe-au-lait_," as he was nicknamed in troplong's studio! * * * * * besides his seton and his cuppings, dry and wet, and his blisters on his arms and back, and his mustard poultices on his feet and legs, and his doses of mercury and alteratives, he had also to deplete himself of blood three times a week by a dozen or twenty leeches behind his left ear and on his temple. all this softens and relaxes the heart towards others, as a good tonic will harden it. so that he looked a mere shadow of his former self when i went over to spend my christmas with him. and his eye was getting worse instead of better; at night he couldn't sleep for the fireworks it let off in the dark. by day the trouble was even worse, as it so interfered with the sight of the other eye--even if he wore a patch, which he hated. he never knew peace but when his aunt was reading to him in the dimly lighted room, and he forgot himself in listening. yet he was as lively and droll as ever, with a wan face as eloquent of grief as any face i ever saw; he had it in his head that the right eye would go the same way as the left. he could no longer see the satellites of jupiter with it: hardly jupiter itself, except as a luminous blur; indeed, it was getting quite near-sighted, and full of spots and specks and little movable clouds--_muscæ volitantes_, as i believe they are called by the faculty. he was always on the lookout for new symptoms, and never in vain; and his burden was as much as he could bear. he would half sincerely long for death, of which he yet had such a horror that he was often tempted to kill himself to get the bother of it well over at once. the idea of death _in the dark_, however remote--an idea that constantly haunted him as his own most probable end--so appalled him that it would stir the roots of his hair! lady caroline confided to me her terrible anxiety, which she managed to hide from him. she herself had been to see m. noiret, who was no longer so confident and cocksure about recovery. i went to see him too, without letting barty know. i did not like the man--he was stealthy in look and manner, and priestly and feline and sleek: but he seemed very intelligent, and managed to persuade me that no other treatment was even to be thought of. i inquired about him in brussels, and found his reputation was of the highest. what could i do? i knew nothing of such things! and what a responsibility for me to volunteer advice! i could see that my deep affection for barty was a source of immense comfort to lady caroline, for whom i conceived a great and warm regard, besides being very much charmed with her. she was one of those gentle, genial, kindly, intelligent women of the world, absolutely natural and sincere, in whom it is impossible not to confide and trust. when i left off talking about barty, because there was really nothing more to say, i fell into talking about myself: it was irresistible--she _made_ one! i even showed her leah's last photograph, and told her of my secret aspirations; and she was so warmly sympathetic and said such beautiful things to me about leah's face and aspect and all they promised of good that i have never forgotten them, and never shall--they showed such a prophetic insight! they fanned a flame that needed no fanning, good heavens! and rang in my ears and my heart all the way to barge yard, bucklersbury--while my eyes were full of barty's figure as he again watched me depart by the _baron osy_ from the quai de la place verte in antwerp; a sight that wrung me, when i remembered what a magnificent figure of a youth he looked as he left the wharf at london bridge on the boulogne steamer, hardly more than two short years ago. when i got back to london, after spending my christmas holiday with barty, i found the beginning of a little trouble of my own. my father was abroad; my mother and sister were staying with some friends in chiselhurst, and after having settled all business matters in barge yard i called at the gibsons', in tavistock square, just after dusk. mrs. gibson and leah were at home, and three or four young men were there, also calling. there had been a party on christmas-eve. i'm afraid i did not think much, as a rule, of the young men i met at the gibsons'. they were mostly in business, like myself; and why i should have felt at all supercilious i can't quite see! but i did. was it because i was very tall, and dressed by barty's tailor, in jermyn street? was it because i knew french? was it because i was a friend of barty the guardsman, who had never been supercilious towards anybody in his life? or was it those maternally ancestral irish blakes of derrydown stirring within me? the simplest excuse i can make for myself is that i was a young snob, and couldn't help it. many fellows are at that age. some grow out of it, and some don't. and the gibsons were by way of spoiling me, because i was leah's bosom friend's brother, and i gave myself airs in consequence. as i sat perfectly content, telling leah all about poor barty, another visitor was announced--a mr. scatcherd, whom i didn't know; but i saw at a glance that it would not do to be supercilious with mr. scatcherd. he was quite as tall as i, for one thing, if not taller. his tailor might have been poole himself; and he was extremely good-looking, and had all the appearance and manners of a man of the world. he might have been a guardsman. he was not that, it seemed--only a barrister. he had been at eton, had taken his degree at cambridge, and ignored me just as frankly as i ignored tom, dick, and harry--whoever they were; and i didn't like it at all. he ignored everybody but leah and her mamma: her papa was not there. it turned out that he was the only son of the great wholesale furrier in ludgate hill, the largest house of the kind in the world, with a branch in new york and another in quebec or montreal. he had been called to the bar to please a whim of his father's. he had been at the gibson party on christmas-eve, and had paid leah much attention there; and came to tell them that his mother hoped to call on mrs. gibson on the following day. i was savagely glad that he did not succeed in monopolizing leah; not even i could do that. she was kind to us all round, and never made any differences in her own house. mr. scatcherd soon took his departure, and it was then that i heard all about him. [illustration: enter mr. scatcherd] there was no doubt that mr. and mrs. gibson were immensely flattered by the civilities of this very important and somewhat consequential young man, and those of his mother, which were to follow; for within a week the gibsons and leah dined with mr. and mrs. scatcherd in portland place. on this occasion mr. gibson was, as usual, very funny, it seems. whether his fun was appreciated i doubt, for he confided to me that mr. scatcherd, senior, was a pompous and stuck-up old ass. people have such different notions of what is funny. nobody roared at mr. gibson's funniments more than i did; but he was leah's papa. "let him joke his bellyful; i'll bear it all for sally!" young scatcherd was fond of his joke too--a kind of supersubtly satirical cambridgy banter that was not to my taste at all; for i am no cantab, and the wit of the london stock exchange is subtle enough for me. his father did not joke. indeed he was full of useful information, and only too fond of imparting it, and he always made use of the choicest language in doing so; and mrs. scatcherd was immensely genteel. young scatcherd became the plague of my life. the worst of it is that he grew quite civil--seemed to take a liking. his hobby was to become a good french scholar, and he practised his french--which was uncommonly good of its english kind--on me. and i am bound to say that his manners were so agreeable (when he wasn't joking), and he was such a thoroughly good fellow, that it was impossible to snub him; besides, he wouldn't have cared if i had. once or twice he actually asked me to dine with him at his club, and i actually did; and actually he with me, at mine! and we spoke french all through dinner, and i taught him a lot of french school-boy slang, with which he was delighted. then he came to see me in barge yard, and i even introduced him to my mother and sister, who couldn't help being charmed with him. he was fond of the best music only (he had no ear whatever, and didn't know a note), and only cared for old pictures--the national gallery, and all that; and read no novels but french--balzac and george sand--and that only for practice for he was a singularly pure young man, the purest in all cambridge, and in those days i thought him a quite unforgivable prig. so scatcherd was in my thoughts all day and in my dreams all night--a kind of incubus; and my mother made herself very unhappy about him, on leah's account and mine; except that now and then she would fancy it was ida he was thinking of. and that would have pleased my mother very much; and me too! his mother called on mine, who returned the call--but there was no invitation for us to dine in portland place. nothing of all this interrupted for a moment the bosom-friendship between my sister and leah; nothing ever altered the genial sweetness of leah's manners to me, nor indeed the cordiality of her parents: mr. gibson could not get on without that big guffaw of mine, at whatever he looked or said or did; no scatcherd could laugh as loudly and as readily as i! but i was very wretched indeed, and poured out my woes to barty in long letters of poetical blaze, and he would bid me hope and be of good cheer in his droll way; and a blaze letter from him would hearten me up wonderfully--till i was told of leah's going to the theatre with mrs. scatcherd and her son, or saw his horses and groom parading up and down tavistock square while he was at the gibsons', or heard of his dining there without ida or me! then one fine day in april (the first, i verily believe) young scatcherd proposed to leah--and was refused--unconditionally refused--to the deep distress and dismay of her father and mother, who had thoroughly set their hearts on this match; and no wonder! but leah was an obstinate young woman, it seems, and thoroughly knew her own mind, though she was so young--not seventeen. was i a happy man? ah, wasn't i! i was sent to bordeaux by my father that very week on business--and promised myself i would soon be quite as good a catch or match as scatcherd himself. i found bordeaux the sunniest, sweetest town i had ever been in--and the bordelais the jolliest men on earth; and as for the beautiful bordelaises--ma foi! they might have been monkeys, for me! there was but one woman among women--one lily among flowers--everything else was a weed! poor scatcherd! when i met him, a few days later, he must have been struck by the sudden warmth of my friendship--the quick idiomatic cordiality of my french to him. this mutual friendship of ours lasted till his death in ' . and so did our mutual french! except barty, i never loved a man better; two years after his refusal by leah he married my sister--a happy marriage, though a childless one; and except myself, barty never had a more devoted friend. and now to barty i will return. part sixth "from the east to western ind, no jewel is like rosalind. her worth, being mounted on the wind, through all the world bears rosalind. all the pictures, fairest lin'd, are but black to rosalind. let no fair be kept in mind, but the fair of rosalind. * * * * * "thus rosalind of many parts by heavenly synod was devis'd, of many faces, eyes, and hearts, to have the touches dearest priz'd." --_as you like it._ for many months barty and his aunt lived their usual life in the rue des ursulines blanches. he always looked back on those dreary months as on a long nightmare. spring, summer, autumn, and another christmas! his eye got worse and worse, and so interfered with the sight of the other that he had no peace till it was darkened wholly. he tried another doctor--monsieur goyers, professor at the liberal university of ghent--who consulted with dr. noiret about him one day in brussels, and afterwards told him that noiret of louvain, whom he described as a miserable jesuit, was blinding him, and that he, this goyers of ghent, would cure him in six weeks. "mettez-vous au régime des viandes saignantes!" had said noiret; and barty had put himself on a diet of underdone beef and mutton. "mettez-vous au lait!" said goyers--so he metted himself at the milk, as he called it--and put himself in goyers's hands; and in six weeks got so much worse that he went back to noiret and the regimen of the bleeding meats, which he loathed. then, in his long and wretched _désoeuvrement_, his melancholia, he drifted into an indiscreet flirtation with a beautiful lady--he (as had happened before) being more the pursued than the pursuer. and so ardent was the pursuit that one fine morning the beautiful lady found herself gravely compromised--and there was a bother and a row. "amour, amour, quand tu nous tiens, on peut bien dire 'adieu prudence!'" all this gave lady caroline great distress, and ended most unhappily--in a duel with the lady's husband, who was a colonel of artillery, and meant business! they fought with swords in a little wood near laeken. barty, who could have run his fat antagonist through a dozen times during the five minutes they fought, allowed himself to be badly wounded in the side, just above the hip, and spent a month in bed. he had hoped to manage for himself a slighter wound, and catch his adversary's point on his elbow. afterwards, lady caroline, who had so disapproved of the flirtation, did not, strange to say, so disapprove of this bloody encounter, and thoroughly approved of the way barty had let himself be pinked! and nursed him devotedly; no mother could have nursed him better--no sister--no wife! not even the wife of that belgian colonel of artillery! [illustration: barty gives himself away] "il s'est conduit en homme de coeur!" said the good abbé. "il s'est conduit en bon gentilhomme!" said the aristocratic father louis, of the princely house of aremberg. on the other hand, young de clèves the dragoon, and monsieur jean the viscount, who had served as barty's seconds (i was in america), were very angry with him for giving himself away in this "idiotically quixotic manner." besides which, colonel lecornu was a notorious bully, it seems; and a fool into the bargain; and belonged to a branch of the service they detested. the only other thing worth mentioning is that barty and father louis became great friends--almost inseparable during such hours as the dominican could spare from the duties of his professorate. it speaks volumes for all that was good in each of them that this should have been so, since they were wide apart as the poles in questions of immense moment: questions on which i will not enlarge, strongly as i feel about them myself--for this is not a novel, but a biography, and therefore no fit place for the airing of one's own opinion on matters so grave and important. when they parted they constantly wrote to each other--an intimate correspondence that was only ended by the father's death. barty also made one or two other friends in malines, and was often in antwerp and brussels, but seldom, for more than a few hours, as he did not like to leave his aunt alone. one day came, in april, on which she had to leave him. [illustration: so near and yet so far] a message arrived that her father, the old marquis (barty's grandfather), was at the point of death. he was ninety-six. he had expressed a wish to see her once more, although he had long been childish. so barty saw her off, with her maid, by the _baron osy_. she promised to be back as soon as all was over. even this short parting was a pain--they had grown so indispensable to each other. tescheles was away from antwerp, and the disconsolate barty went back to malines and dined by himself; and little frau waited on him with extra care. it turned out that her mother had cooked for him a special dish of consolation--sausage-meat stewed inside a red cabbage, with apples and cloves, till it all gets mixed up. it is a dish not to be beaten when you are young and flemish and hungry and happy and well (even then you mustn't take more than one helping). when you are not all this it is good to wash it down with half a bottle of the best burgundy--and this barty did (from vougeot-conti and co.). then he went out and wandered about in the dark and lost himself in a dreamy dædalus of little streets and bridges and canals and ditches. a huge comet (encke's, i believe) was flaring all over the sky. he suddenly came across the lighted window of a small estaminet, and went in. it was a little beer-shop of the humblest kind--and just started. at a little deal table, brand-new, a middle-aged burgher of prosperous appearance was sitting next to the barmaid, who had deserted her post at the bar--and to whom he seemed somewhat attentive; for their chairs were close together, and their arms round each other's waists, and they drank out of the same glass. there was no one else in the room, and barty was about to make himself scarce, but they pressed him to come in; so he sat at another little new deal table on a little new straw-bottomed chair, and she brought him a glass of beer. she was a very handsome girl, with a tall, graceful figure and spanish eyes. he lit a cigar, and she went back to her beau quite simply--and they all three fell into conversation about an operetta by victor massé, which had been performed in malines the previous night, called _les noces de jeannette_. the barmaid and her monsieur were trying to remember the beautiful air jeannette sings as she mends her angry husband's breeches: "cours, mon aiguille, dans la laine! ne te casse pas dans ma main; avec de bons baisers demain jean nous paîra de notre peine!" so barty sang it to them; and so beautifully that they were all but melted to tears--especially the monsieur, who was evidently very sentimental and very much in love. besides, there was that ineffable charm of the pure french intonation, so caressing to the belgian ear, so dear to the belgian soul, so unattainable by flemish lips. it was one of barty's most successful ditties--and if i were a middle-aged burgher of mechelen, i shouldn't much like to have a young french barty singing "cours, mon aiguille" to the girl of my heart. then, at their desire, he went on singing things till it was time to leave, and he found he had spent quite a happy evening; nothing gave him greater pleasure than singing to people who liked it--and he went singing on his way home, dreamily staring at the rare gas-lamps and the huge comet, and thinking of his old grandfather who lay dying or dead: "cours, mon aiguille, it is good to live--it is good to die!" suddenly he discovered that when he looked at one lamp, another lamp close to it on the right was completely eclipsed--and he soon found that a portion of his right eye, not far from the centre, was totally sightless. the shock was so great that he had to lean against a buttress of st. rombault for support. when he got home he tested the sight of his eye with a two-franc piece on the green table-cloth, and found there was no mistake--a portion of his remaining eye was stone-blind. he spent a miserable night, and went next day to louvain, to see the oculist. m. noiret heard his story, arranged the dark room and the lamp, dilated the right pupil with atropine, and made a minute examination with the ophthalmoscope. then he became very thoughtful, and led the way to his library and begged barty to sit down; and began to talk to him very seriously indeed, like a father--patting the while a small italian greyhound that lay and shivered and whined in a little round cot by the fire. m. noiret began by inquiring into his circumstances, which were not nourishing, as we know--and barty made no secret of them; then he asked him if he were fond of music, and was pleased to hear that he was, since it is such an immense resource; then he asked him if he belonged to the roman catholic faith, and again was pleased. "for"--said he--"you will need all your courage and all your religion to hear and bear what it is my misfortune to have to tell you. i hope you will have more fortitude than another young patient of mine (also an artist) to whom i was obliged to make a similar communication. he blew out his brains on my door-step!" "i promise you i will not do that. i suppose i am going blind?" "hélas! mon jeune ami! i grieve to say that the fatal disease, congestion and detachment of the retina, which has so obstinately and irrevocably destroyed your left eye, has begun its terrible work on the right. we will fight for every inch of the way. but i fear i must not give you any hope, after the careful examination i have just made. it is my duty to be frank with you." then he said much about the will of god, and where true comfort was to be found, at the foot of the cross; in fact, he said all he ought to have said according to his lights, as he fondled his little greyhound--and finally took barty to the door, which he opened for him, most politely bowing with his black velvet skull-cap; and pocketed his full fee (ten francs) with his usual grace of careless indifference, and gently shut the door on him. there was nothing else to do. barty stood there for some time, quite dazed; partly because his pupil was so dilated he could hardly see--partly (he thinks) because he in some way became unconscious; although when he woke from this little seeming trance, which may have lasted for more than a minute, he found himself still standing upright on his legs. what woke him was the _sudden consciousness of the north_, which he hadn't felt for many years; and this gave him extraordinary confidence in himself, and such a wholesome sense of power and courage that he quickly recovered his wits; and when the glad surprise of this had worn itself away he was able to think and realize the terrible thing that had happened. he was almost pleased that his aunt caroline was away. he felt he could not have faced her with such news--it was a thing easier to write and prepare her for than to tell by word of mouth. he walked about louvain for several hours, to tire himself. then he went to brussels and dined, and again walked about the lamp-lit streets and up and down the station, and finally went back to malines by a late train--very nervous--expecting that the retina of his right eye would suddenly go pop--yet hugging himself all the while in his renewed old comfortable feeling of companionship with the north pole, that made him feel like a boy again; that inexplicable sensation so intimately associated with all the best reminiscences of his innocent and happy childhood. he had been talking to himself like a father all day, though not in the same strain as m. noiret; and had almost arrived at framing the programme of a possible existence--singing at cafés with his guitar--singing anywhere: he felt sure of a living for himself, and for the little boy who would have to lead him about--if the worst came to the worst. if but the feeling of self-orientation which was so necessary to him could only be depended upon, he felt that in time he would have pluck enough to bear anything. indeed, total eclipse was less appalling, in its finality, than that miserable sword of damocles which had been hanging over him for months--robbing him of his manhood--poisoning all the springs of life. why not make life-long endurance of evil a study, a hobby, and a pride; and be patient as bronze or marble, and ever wear an invincible smile at grief, even when in darkness and alone? why not, indeed! and he set himself then and there to smile invincibly, meaning to keep on smiling for fifty years at least--the blind live long. [illustration: "'helas! mon jeune ami ... '"] so he chatted to himself, saying _sursum cor! sursum corda!_ all the way home; and walking down the grand brul, he had a little adventure which absolutely gave him a hearty guffaw and sent him almost laughing to bed. there was a noisy squabble between some soldiers and civilians on the opposite side of the way, and a group of men in blouses were looking on. barty stood leaning against a lamp-post, and looked on too. suddenly a small soldier rushed at the blouses, brandishing his short straight sword (or _coupe-choux_, as it is called in civilian slang), and saying: "Ça ne vous regarde pas, savez-vous! allez-vous en bien vite, ou je vous ..." the blouses fled like sheep. then as he caught sight of barty he reached at him. "Ça ne vous regarde pas, savez-vous!..." (it doesn't concern you.) "non--c'est moi qui regarde, savez-vous!" said barty. "qu'est-ce que vous regardez?" "je regarde la lune et les étoiles. je regarde la comète!" "voulez-vous bien vous en aller bien vite?" "une autre fois!" says barty. "allez-vous en, je vous dis!" "après-demain!" "vous ... ne ... voulez ... pas ... vous ... en ... aller?" says the soldier, on tiptoe, his chest against barty's stomach, his nose almost up to barty's chin, glaring up like a fiend and poising his _coupe-choux_ for a death-stroke. "_non_, sacré petit pousse-cailloux du diable!" roars barty. "eh bien, restez où vous êtes!" and the little man plunged back into the fray on the opposite side--and no blood was shed after all. barty dreamt of this adventure, and woke up laughing at it in the small hours of that night. then, suddenly, in the dark, he remembered the horror of what had happened. it overwhelmed him. he realized, as in a sudden illuminating flash, what life meant for him hence-forward--life that might last for so many years. vitality is at its lowest ebb at that time of night; though the brain is quick to perceive, and so clear that its logic seems inexorable. it was hell. it was not to be borne a moment longer. it must be put an end to at once. he tried to feel the north, but could not. he would kill himself then and there, while his aunt was away; so that the horror of the sight of him, after, should at least be spared her. he jumped out of bed and struck a light. thank heaven, he wasn't blind yet, though he saw all the bogies, as he called them, that had made his life a burden to him for the last two years--the retina floating loose about his left eye, tumbling and deforming every lighted thing it reflected--and also the new dark spot in his right. he partially dressed, and stole up-stairs to old torfs's photographic studio. he knew where he could find a bottle full of cyanide of potassium, used for removing finger-stains left by silver nitrate; there was enough of it to poison a whole regiment. that was better than taking a header off the roof. he seized a handful of the stuff, and came down and put it into a tumbler by his bedside and poured some water over it. then he got his writing-case and a pen and ink, and jumped into bed; and there he wrote four letters: one to lady caroline, one to father louis, one to lord archibald, and one to me in blaze. the cyanide was slow in melting. he crushed it angrily in the glass with his penholder--and the scent of bitter-almonds filled the room. just then the sense of the north came back to him in full; but it only strengthened his resolve and made him all the calmer. he lay staring at the tumbler, watching little bubbles, revelling in what remained of his exquisite faculty of minute sight--with a feeling of great peace; and thought prayerfully; lost himself in a kind of formless prayer without words--lost himself completely. it was as if the wished-for dissolution were coming of its own accord; nirvana--an ecstasy of conscious annihilation--the blessed end, the end of all! as though he were passing "... du sommeil au songe-- du songe à la mort." it was not so.... * * * * * he was aroused by a knock at the door, which was locked. it was broad daylight. "il est dix heures, savez-vous?" said little frau outside--"voulez-vous votre café dans votre chambre?" "o christ!" said barty--and jumped out of bed. "it's all got to be done now!" but something very strange had happened. the tumbler was still there, but the cyanide had disappeared; so had the four letters he had written. his pen and ink were on the table, and on his open writing-case lay a letter in blaze--in his own handwriting. the north was strong in him. he called out to finche torfs to leave his coffee in the drawing-room, and read his blaze letter--and this is what he read: "my dear barty,--don't be in the least alarmed on reading this hasty scrawl, after waking from the sleep you meant to sleep forever. there is no sleep without a live body to sleep in--no such thing as everlasting sleep. self-destruction seems a very simple thing--more often a duty than not; but it's not to be done! it is quite impossible not to be, when once you have been. "if i were to let you destroy your body, as you were so bent on doing, the strongest interest i have on earth would cease to exist. "i love you, barty, with a love passing the love of woman; and have done so from the day you were born. i loved your father and mother before you--and theirs; ça date de loin, mon pauvre ami! and especially i love your splendid body and all that belongs to it--brain, stomach, heart, and the rest; even your poor remaining eye, which is worth all the eyes of argus! "so i have used your own pen and ink and paper, your own right hand and brain, your own cipher, and the words that are yours, to write you this--in english. i like english better than french. "listen. monsieur noiret is a fool; and you are a poor self-deluded hypochondriac. "i am convinced your right eye is safe for many years to come--probably for the rest of your life. "you have quite deceived yourself in fancying that the symptom you perceived in your right eye threatens the disease which has destroyed your left--for the sight of that, alas! is irretrievably gone; so don't trouble about it any more. it will always be charming to _look at_, but it will never _see_ again. some day i will tell you how you came to lose the use of it. i think i know. "m. noiret is new to the ophthalmoscope. the old humbug never saw your right retina at all--nor your left one either, for that matter. he only pretended, and judged entirely by what you told him; and you didn't tell him very clearly. he's a belgian, you know, and a priest, and doesn't think very quick. "_i_ saw your retina, although but with _his_ eye. there is no sign of congestion or coming detachment whatever. that blind portion you discovered is in _every_ eye. it is called the '_punctum coecum_.' it is where the optic nerve enters the retina and spreads out. it is only with one eye shut that an ordinary person can find it, for each eye supplements this defect of the other. to-morrow morning try the experiment on little finche torfs; on any one you meet. you will find it in everybody. "so don't trouble about either eye any more. i'm not infallible, of course; it's only _your_ brain i'm using now. but your brain is infinitely better than that of poor m. noiret, who doesn't know what his eye really perceives, and takes it for something else! your brain is the best brain i know, although you are not aware of this, and have never even used it, except for trash and nonsense. but you _shall_--some day. _i'll_ take care of that, and the world shall wonder. "trust me. live on, and i will never desert you again, unless you again force me to by your conduct. i have come back to you in the hour of your need. "i have managed to make you, in your sleep, throw away your poison where it will injure nobody but the rats, and no one will be a bit the wiser. i have made you burn your touching letters of farewell; you will find the ashes inside the stove. yours is a good heart! "now take a cold bath and have a good breakfast, and go to antwerp or brussels and see people and amuse yourself. "never see m. noiret again. but when your aunt comes back you must both clear out of this depressing priestly hole; it doesn't suit either of you, body or mind. go to düsseldorf, in prussia. close by, at a village called riffrath, lives an old doctor, dr. hasenclever, who understands a deal about the human heart and something about the human body; and even a little about the human eye, for he is a famous oculist. he can't cure, but he'll give you things that at least will do you no harm. he won't rid you of the eye that remains! you will meet some pleasant english people, whom i particularly wish you to meet, and make friends, and have a holiday from trouble, and begin the world anew. "as to who _i_ am, you shall know in time. my power to help you is very limited, but my devotion to you (for very good reasons) has no limits at all. "take it that my name is martia. when you have finished reading this letter look at yourself in your looking-glass and say (loud enough for your own ears to hear you): "'i trust you, martia!' "then i will leave you for a while, and come back at night, as in the old days. whenever the north is in you, there am ~i~; seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, feeling with your five splendid wits by day--sleeping your lovely sleep at night; but only able to think with _your_ brain, it seems, and then only when you are fast asleep. i only found it out just now, and saved your earthly life, mon beau somnambule! it was a great surprise to me! "don't mention this to any living soul till i give you leave. you will only hear from me on great occasions. "martia." "p. s.--always leave something to write with by your bedside at night, in case the great occasion should arise. on ne sait pas ce qui peut arriver!" bewildered, beside himself, barty ran to his looking-glass, and stared himself out of countenance, and almost shouted: "i trust you, martia!" and ceased suddenly to feel the north. then he dressed and went to breakfast. little frau thought he had gone mad, for he put a five-franc piece upon the carpet, and made her stand a few feet off from it and cover her left eye with her hand. "now follow the point of my stick with your right eye," says he, "and tell me if the five-franc piece disappears." and he slowly drew with the point of his stick an imaginary line from the five-franc piece to the left of her, at right angles to where she stood. when the point of the stick was about two feet from the coin, she said: "tiens, tiens, i no longer see the piece!" when the point of the stick had got a foot farther on, she said, "now i can see the piece again quite plain." then he tried the same experiment on her left eye, rightwards, with the same result. then he experimented with equal success on her father and mother, and found that every eye at no. rue des ursulines blanches had exactly the same blind spot as his own. then off he went to antwerp to see his friends with a light heart--the first light heart he had known for many months; but when he got there he was so preoccupied with what had happened that he did not care to see anybody. he walked about the ramparts and along the scheldt, and read and re-read that extraordinary letter. who and what could martia be? the reminiscence of some antenatal incarnation of his own soul? the soul of some ancestor or ancestress--of his mother, perhaps? or, perhaps, some occult portion of himself--of his own brain in unconscious cerebration during sleep? as a child and a small boy, and even as a very young man, he had often dreamt at night of a strange, dim land by the sea, a land unlike any land he had ever beheld with the waking eye, where beautiful aquatic people, mermen and mermaids and charming little mer-children (of which he was one) lived an amphibious life by day, diving and sporting in the waves. splendid caverns, decorated with precious stones, and hung with soft moss, and shining with a strange light; heavenly music, sweet, affectionate caresses--and then total darkness; and yet one knew who and what and where everything and everybody was by some keener sense than that of sight. it all seemed strange and delightful, but so vague and shadowy it was impossible to remember anything clearly; but ever pervading all things was that feeling of the north which had always been such a comfort to him. was this extraordinary letter the result of some such forgotten dream he may have had during the previous night, and which may have prompted him to write it in his sleep? some internal knowledge of the anatomy of his own eye which was denied to him when awake? anyhow, it was evidently true about that blind spot in the retina (the _punctum coecum_), and that he had been frightening himself out of his wits for nothing, and that his right eye was really sound; and, all through this wondrous yet simple revelation, it was time this old hysterical mock-disease should die. once more life was full of hopes and possibilities, and with such inarticulate and mysterious promptings as he often felt within his soul, and such a hidden gift to guide them, what might he not one day develop into? then he went and found tescheles, and they dined together with a famous pianist, louis brassin, and afterwards there was music, and barty felt the north, and his bliss was transcendent as he went back to malines by the last train--talking to martia (as he expressed it to himself) in a confidential whisper which he made audible to his own ear (that she, if it was a she, might hear too); almost praying, in a fervor of hope and gratitude; and begging for further guidance; and he went warmly to sleep, hugging close within himself, somewhere about the region of the diaphragm, an ineffable imaginary something which he felt to be more precious than any possession that had ever yet been his--more precious even than the apple of his remaining eye; and when he awoke next morning he felt he had been most blissfully dreaming all night long, but could not remember anything of his dreams, and on a piece of paper he had left by his bedside was written in pencil, in his own blaze: "you must depend upon yourself, barty, not on me. follow your own instincts when you feel you can do so without self-reproach, and all will be well with you.--m." his instincts led him to spend the day in brussels, and he followed them; he still wanted to walk about and muse and ponder, and brussels is a very nice, gay, and civilized city for such a purpose--a little paris, with charming streets and shops and a charming arcade, and very good places to eat and drink in, and hear pretty music. he did all this, and spent a happy day. ho came to the conclusion that the only way to keenly appreciate and thoroughly enjoy the priceless gift of sight in one eye was to lose that of the other; in the kingdom of the blind the one-eyed is king, and he fully revelled in the royalty that was now his, he hoped, for evermore; but wished for himself as limited a kingdom and as few subjects as possible. then back to malines by the last train--and the sensation of the north, and a good-night; but no message in the morning--no message from martia for many mornings to come. he received, however, a long letter from lady caroline. the old marquis had died without pain, and with nearly all his family round him; but perfectly childish, as he had been for two or three years. he was to be buried on the following monday. barty wrote a long letter in reply, telling his aunt how much better he had suddenly become in health and spirits; how he had thought of things, and quite reconciled himself at last to the loss of his left eye, and meant to keep the other and make the best of it he could; how he had heard of a certain doctor hasenclever, a famous oculist near düsseldorf, and would like to consult him; how düsseldorf was such a healthy town, charming and gay, full of painters and soldiers, the best and nicest people in the world--and also very cheap. mightn't they try it? he was very anxious indeed to go back to his painting, and düsseldorf was as good a school as any, etc., etc., etc. he wrote pages--of the kind he knew she would like, for it was of the kind he liked writing to her; they understood each other thoroughly, he and lady caroline, and well he knew that she could only be quite happy in doing whatever he had most at heart. how he longed to tell her everything! but that must not be. i can imagine all the deep discomfort to poor barty of having to be discreet for the first time in his life, of having to keep a secret--and from his beloved aunt caroline of all people in the world! that was a happy week he spent--mostly in antwerp among the painters. he got no more letters from martia, not for many days to come; but he felt the north every night as he sank into healthy sleep, and woke in the morning full of hope and confidence in himself--at last _sans peur et sans reproche_. one day in brussels he met m. noiret, who naturally put on a very grave face; they shook hands, and barty inquired affectionately after the little italian greyhound, and asked what was the french for "_punctum coecum_." said noiret: "Ça s'appelle _le point caché_--c'est une portion de la rétine avec laquelle on ne peut pas voir...." barty laughed and shook hands again, and left the professor staring. then he was a great deal with father louis. they went to ghent together, and other places of interest; and to concerts in brussels. the good dominican was very sorrowful at the prospect of soon losing his friend. poor barty! the trial it was to him not to reveal his secret to this singularly kind and sympathetic comrade; not even under the seal of confession! so he did not confess at all; although he would have confessed anything to father louis, even if father louis had not been a priest. there are the high catholics, who understand the souls of others, and all the difficulties of the conscience, and do not proselytize in a hurry; and the low catholics, the converts of the day before yesterday, who will not let a body be! father louis was a very high catholic indeed. the lady caroline grey, a scamore place, london, to m. josselin, rue des ursulines blanches, malines: "my dear little barty,--your nice long letter made me very happy--happy beyond description; it makes me almost jealous to think that you should have suddenly got so much better in your health and spirits while i was away: you won't want me any more! that doesn't prevent my longing to get back to you. you must put up with your poor old aunty for a little while yet. "and now for _my_ news--i couldn't write before. poor papa was buried on monday, and we all came back here next day. he has left you £ : c'est toujours ça! everything seems in a great mess. your uncle runswick[ ] is going to be very poor indeed; he is going to let castle rohan, and live here all the year round. poor fellow, he looks as old as his father did ten years ago, and he's only sixty-three! if algy could only make a good marriage! at forty that's easier said than done. [footnote : the new marquis of whitby.] "archibald and his wife are at a place called monte carlo, where there are gaming-tables: she gambles fearfully, it seems; and they lead a cat-and-dog life. she is _plus que coquette_, and extravagant to a degree; and he is quite shrunk and prematurely old, and almost shabby, and drinks more brandy than he ought. "daphne is charming, and is to come out next spring; she will have £ a year, lucky child; all out of chocolate. what nonsense we've all talked about trade! we shall all have to take to it in time. the lonlay-savignac people were wise in their generation. "and what do you think? young digby-dobbs wants to marry her, out of the school-room! he'll be lord frognal, you know; and very soon, for his father is drinking himself to death. "he's in your old regiment, and a great favorite; not yet twenty--he only left eton last christmas twelvemonth. she says she won't have him at any price, because he stammers. "she declares you haven't written to her for three months, and that you owe her an illustrated letter in french, with priests and nuns, and dogs harnessed to a cart. "and now for news that will delight you: she is to come abroad with me for a twelvemonth, and wishes to go with you and me to düsseldorf first! _isn't_ that a happy coincidence? we would all spend the summer there, and then italy for the winter; you too, if you can (so you must be economical with that £ ). "i have already heard wonders about dr. hasenclever, even before your letter came; he cured general baines, who was given up by everybody here, lady palmerston told me; she was here yesterday, by-the-bye, and the duchess of bermondsey, and both inquired most kindly after you. "the duchess looked as handsome as ever, and as proud as a peacock; for last year she presented her niece, julia royce, 'the divine julia,' the greatest beauty ever seen, i am told--with many thousands a year, if you please--lady jane royce's daughter, an only child, and her father's dead. she's six feet high, so you would go mad about her. she's already refused sixty offers, good ones; among them little lord orrisroot, the hunchback, who'll have £ a day (including sundays) when he comes into the title--and that can't be very far off, for the wicked old duke of deptford has got creeping paralysis, like his father and grandfather before him, and is now quite mad, and thinks himself a postman, and rat-tats all day long on the furniture. lady jane is furious with her for not accepting; and when julia told her, she slapped her face before the maid! "there's another gigantic beauty that people have gone mad about--a polish pianist, who's just married young harcourt, who's a grandson of that old scamp the duke of towers. "talking of beauties, whom do you think i met yesterday in the park? whom but your stalwart friend mr. maurice (_he_ wasn't the beauty), with his sister, your old paris playfellow, and the lovely miss gibson. he introduced them both, and i was delighted with them, and we walked together by the serpentine; and after five minutes i came to the conclusion that miss gibson is as beautiful as it is possible for a dark beauty to be, and as nice as she looks. she isn't dark really, only her eyes and hair; her complexion is like cream: she's a freak of nature. lucky young maurice if she is to be his fate--and both well off, i suppose. "upon my word, if you were king cophetua and she the beggar-maid, i would give you both my blessing. but how is it you never fell in love with the fair _ida_? you never told me how handsome she is. she too complained of you as a correspondent, and declares that she gets one letter in return for three she writes you. "i have bought you some pretty new songs, among others one by charles kingsley, which is lovely; about three fishermen and their wives: it reminds one of our dear whitby! i can play the accompaniment in perfection, and all by heart! "give my kindest remembrances to father louis and the dear abbé lefebvre, and say kind things from me to the torfses. martha sends her love to little frau, and so do i. "we hope to be in antwerp in a fortnight, and shall put up at the grand laboureur. i shall go to malines, of course, to say good-bye to people. "tell the torfses to get my things ready for moving. there will be five of us: i and martha, and daphne and two servants of her own; for daphne's got to take old mrs. richards, who won't be parted from her. "good-bye for the present. my dear boy, i thank god on my knees, night and morning for having given you back to me in my old age. "your ever affectionate aunt, "caroline. "p. s.--you remember pretty little kitty hardwicke you used to flirt with, who married young st. clair, who's now lord kidderminster? she's just had three at a birth; she had twins only last year; the queen's delighted. pray be careful about never getting wet feet--" one stormy evening in may, mrs. gibson drove ida and leah and me and mr. babbage, a middle-aged but very dapper war office clerk (who was a friend of the gibson family), to chelsea, that we might explore cheyne walk and its classic neighborhood. i rode on the box by the coachman. we alighted by the steamboat pier and explored, i walking with leah. we came to a very narrow street, quite straight, the narrowest street that could call itself a street at all, and rather long; we were the only people in it. it has since disappeared, with all that particular part of chelsea. suddenly we saw a runaway horse without a rider coming along it at full gallop, straight at us, with a most demoralizing sharp clatter of its iron hoofs on the stone pavement. "your backs to the wall!" cried mr. babbage, and we flattened ourselves to let the maddened brute go by, bridle and stirrups flying--poor mrs. gibson almost faint with terror. leah, instead of flattening herself against the wall, put her arms round her mother, making of her own body a shield for her, and looked round at the horse as it came tearing up the street, striking sparks from the flag-stones. nobody was hurt, for a wonder; but mrs. gibson was quite overcome. mr. babbage was very angry with leah, whose back the horse actually grazed, as he all but caught his hoofs in her crinoline and hit her with a stirrup on the shoulder. i could only think of leah's face as she looked round at the approaching horse, with her protecting arms round her mother. it was such a sudden revelation to me of what she really was, and its expression was so hauntingly impressive that i could think of nothing else. its mild, calm courage, its utter carelessness of self, its immense tenderness--all blazed out in such beautiful lines, in such beautiful white and black, that i lost all self-control; and when we walked back to the pier, following the rest of the party, i asked her to be my wife. she turned very pale again, and the flesh of her chin quivered as she told me that was _quite impossible--and could never be_. i asked her if there was anybody else, and she said there was nobody, but that she did not wish ever to marry; that, beyond her parents and ida, she loved and respected me more than anybody else in the whole world, but that she could never marry me. she was much agitated, and said the sweetest, kindest things, but put all hope out of the question at once. it was the greatest blow i have ever had in my life. three days after, i went to america; and before i came back i had started in new york the american branch of the house of vougeot-conti, and laid the real foundation of the largest fortune that has ever yet been made by selling wine, and of the long political career about which i will say nothing in these pages. on my voyage out i wrote a long blaze letter to barty, and poured out all my grief, and my resignation to the decree which i felt to be irrevocable. i reminded him of that playful toss-up in southampton row, and told him that, having surrendered all claims myself, the best thing that could happen to me was that she should some day marry _him_ (which i certainly did not think at all likely). so henceforward, reader, you will not be troubled by your obedient servant with the loves of a prosperous merchant of wines. had those loves been more successful, and the wines less so, you would never have heard of either. whether or not i should have been a happier man in the long-run i really can't say--mine has been, on the whole, a very happy life, as men's lives go; but i am bound to admit, in all due modesty, that the universe would probably have been the poorer by some very splendid people, and perhaps by some very splendid things it could ill have spared; and one great and beautifully borne sorrow the less would have been ushered into this world of many sorrows. * * * * * it was a bright may morning (a year after this) when barty and his aunt caroline and his cousin daphne and their servants left antwerp for düsseldorf on the rhine. at malines they had to change trains, and spent half an hour at the station waiting for the express from brussels and bidding farewell to their mechlin friends, who had come there to wish them god-speed: the abbé lefebvre, father louis, and others; and the torfses, père et mère; and little frau, who wept freely as lady caroline kissed her and gave her a pretty little diamond brooch. barty gave her a gold cross and a hearty shake of the hand, and she seemed quite heart-broken. then up came the long, full train, and their luggage was swallowed, and they got in, and the two guards blew their horns, and they left malines behind them--with a mixed feeling of elation and regret. they had not been very happy there, but many people had been very kind; and the place, with all its dreariness, had a strange, still charm, and was full of historic beauty and romantic associations. passing louvain, barty shook his fist at the catholic university and its scientific priestly professors, who condemned one so lightly to a living death. he hated the aspect of the place, the very smell of it. at verviers they left the belgian train; they had reached the limits of king leopold's dominions. there was half an hour for lunch in the big refreshment-room, over which his majesty and the queen of the belgians presided from the wall--nearly seven feet high each of them, and in their regal robes. just as the rohans ordered their repast another english party came to their table and ordered theirs--a distinguished old gentleman of naval bearing and aspect; a still young middle-aged lady, very handsome, with blue spectacles; and an immensely tall, fair girl, very fully developed, and so astonishingly beautiful that it almost took one's breath away merely to catch sight of her; and people were distracted from ordering their mid-day meal merely to stare at this magnificent goddess, who was evidently born to be a mother of heroes. these british travellers had a valet, a courier, and two maids, and were evidently people of consequence. suddenly the lady with the blue spectacles (who had seated herself close to the rohan party) got up and came round the table to barty's aunt and said: "you don't remember me, lady caroline; lady jane royce!" and an old acquaintance was renewed in this informal manner--possibly some old feud patched up. then everybody was introduced to everybody else, and they all lunched together, a scramble! it turned out that lady jane royce was in some alarm about her eyes, and was going to consult the famous dr. hasenclever, and had brought her daughter with her, just as the london season had begun. her daughter was the "divine julia" who had refused so many splendid offers--among them the little hunchback lord who was to have a thousand a day, "including sundays"; a most unreasonable young woman, and a thorn in her mother's flesh. the elderly gentleman, admiral royce, was lady jane's uncle-in-law, whose eyes were also giving him a little anxiety. he was a charming old stoic, by no means pompous or formal, or a martinet, and declared he remembered hearing of barty as the naughtiest boy in the guards; and took an immediate fancy to him in consequence. they had come from brussels in the same train that had brought the rohans from malines, and they all journeyed together from verviers to düsseldorf in the same first-class carriage, as became english swells of the first water--for in those days no one ever thought of going first-class in germany except the british aristocracy and a few native royalties. the divine julia turned out as fascinating as she was fair, being possessed of those high spirits that result from youth and health and fancy-freedom, and no cares to speak of. she was evidently also a very clever and accomplished young lady, absolutely without affectation of any kind, and amiable and frolicsome to the highest degree--a kind of younger barty josselin in petticoats; oddly enough, so like him in the face she might have been his sister. indeed, it was a lively party that journeyed to düsseldorf that afternoon in that gorgeously gilded compartment, though three out of the six were in deep mourning; the only person not quite happy being lady jane, who, in addition to her trouble about her eyes (which was really nothing to speak of), began to fidget herself miserably about barty josselin; for that wretched young detrimental was evidently beginning to ingratiate himself with the divine julia as no young man had ever been known to do before, keeping her in fits of laughter, and also laughing at everything she said herself. alas for lady jane! it was to escape the attentions of a far less dangerous detrimental, and a far less ineligible one, that she had brought her daughter with her all the way to riffrath--"from charybdis to scylla," as we used to say at brossard's, putting the cart before the horse, _more latino_! i ought also to mention that a young captain graham-reece was a patient of dr. hasenclever's just then--and captain graham-reece was heir to the octogenarian earl of ironsides, who was one of the four wealthiest peers in the united kingdom, and had no direct descendants. when they reached düsseldorf they all went to the breidenbacher hotel, where rooms had been retained for them, all but barty, who, as became his humbler means, chose the cheaper hotel domhardt, which overlooks the market-place adorned by the statue of the elector that heine has made so famous. he took a long evening walk through the vernal hof gardens and by the rhine, and thought of the beauty and splendor of the divine julia; and sighed, and remembered that he was mr. nobody of nowhere, _pictor ignotus_, with only one eye he could see with, and possessed of a fortune which invested in the per cents would bring him in just £ a year--and made up his mind he would stick to his painting and keep as much away from her divinity as possible. "o martia, martia!" he said, aloud, as he suddenly felt the north at the right of him, "i hope that you are some loving female soul, and that you know my weakness--namely, that one woman in every ten thousand has a face that drives me mad; and that i can see just as well with one eye as with two, in spite of my _punctum coecum_! and that when that face is all but on a level with mine, good lord! then am i lost indeed! i am but a poor penniless devil, without a name; oh, keep me from that ten-thousandth face, and cover my retreat!" next morning lady jane and julia and the admiral left for riffrath--and barty and his aunt and cousin went in search of lodgings; sweet it was, and bright and sunny, as they strolled down the broad allée strasse; a regiment of uhlans came along on horseback, splendid fellows, the band playing the "lorelei." in the fulness of their hearts daphne and barty squeezed each other's hand to express the joy and elation they felt at the pleasantness of everything. she was his little sister once more, from whom he had so long been parted, and they loved each other very dearly. "que me voilà donc bien contente, mon petit barty--et toi? la jolie ville, hein?" "c'est le ciel, tout bonnement--et tu vas m'apprendre l'allemand, n'est-ce-pas, m'amour?" "oui, et nous lirons _heine_ ensemble; tiens, à propos! regarde le nom de la rue qui fait le coin! _bolker strasse!_ c'est là qu'il est né, le pauvre heine! Ôte ton chapeau!" (barty nearly always spoke french with daphne, as he did with my sister and me, and said "thee and thou.") they found a furnished house that suited them in the schadow strasse, opposite geissler's, where for two hours every thursday and sunday afternoon you might sit for sixpence in a pretty garden and drink coffee, beer, or maitrank, and listen to lovely music, and dance in the evening under cover to strains of strauss, lanner, and gungl, and other heavenly waltz-makers! with all their faults, they know how to make the best of their lives, these good vaterlanders, and how to dance, and especially how to make music--and also how to fight! so we won't quarrel with them, after all! barty found for himself a cheap bedroom, high up in an immense house tenanted by many painters--some of them english and some american. he never forgot the delight with which he awoke next morning and opened his window and saw the silver rhine among the trees, and the fir-clad hills of grafenberg, and heard the gay painter fellows singing as they dressed; and he called out to the good-humored slavy in the garden below: "johanna, mein frühstück, bitte!" a phrase he had carefully rehearsed with daphne the evening before. and, to his delight and surprise, johanna understood the mysterious jargon quite easily, and brought him what he wanted with the most good-humored grin he had ever seen on a female face. coffee and a roll and a pat of butter. first of all, he went to see dr. hasenclever at riffrath, which was about half an hour by train, and then half an hour's walk--an immensely prosperous village, which owed its prosperity to the famous doctor, who attracted patients from all parts of the globe, even from america. the train that took barty thither was full of them; for some chose to live in düsseldorf. the great man saw his patients on the ground-floor of the könig's hotel, the principal hotel in riffrath, the hall of which was always crowded with these afflicted ones--patiently waiting each his turn, or hers; and there barty took his place at four in the afternoon; he had sent in his name at a.m., and been told that he would be seen after four o'clock. then he walked about the village, which was charming, with its gabled white houses, ornamented like the cottages in the richter albums by black beams--and full of english, many of them with green shades or blue spectacles or a black patch over one eye; some of them being led, or picking their way by means of a stick, alas! barty met the three royces, walking with an old gentleman of aristocratic appearance, and a very nice-looking young one (who was captain graham-reece). the admiral gave him a friendly nod--lady jane a nod that almost amounted to a cut direct. but the divine julia gave him a look and a smile that were warm enough to make up for much maternal frigidity. later on, in a tobacconist's shop, he again met the admiral, who introduced him to the aristocratic old gentleman, mr. beresford duff, secretary to the admiralty--who evidently knew all about him, and inquired quite affectionately after lady caroline, and invited him to come and drink tea at five o'clock: a new form of hospitality of his own invention--it has caught on! barty lunched at the könig's hotel table d'hôte, which was crowded, principally with english people, none of whom he had ever met or heard of. but from these he heard a good deal of the royces and captain graham-reece and mr. beresford duff, and other smart people who lived in furnished houses or expensive apartments away from the rest of the world, and were objects of general interest and curiosity among the smaller british fry. riffrath was a microcosm of english society, from the lower middle class upwards, with all its respectabilities and incompatibilities and disabilities--its narrownesses and meannesses and snobbishnesses, its gossipings and backbitings and toadyings and snubbings--delicate little social things of england that foreigners don't understand! the sensation of the hour was the advent of julia, the divine julia! gossip was already rife about her and captain reece. they had taken a long walk in the woods together the day before--with lady jane and the admiral far behind, out of ear-shot, almost out of sight. in the afternoon, between four and five, barty had his interview with the doctor--a splendid, white-haired old man, of benign and intelligent aspect, almost mesmeric, with his assistant sitting by him. he used no new-fangled ophthalmoscope, but asked many questions in fairly good french, and felt with his fingers, and had many german asides with the assistant. he told barty that he had lost the sight of his left eye forever; but that with care he would keep that of the right one for the rest of his life--barring accidents, of course. that he must never eat cheese nor drink beer. that he (the doctor) would like to see him once a week or fortnight or so for a few months yet--and gave him a prescription for an eye-lotion and dismissed him happy. half a loaf is so much better than no bread, if you can only count upon it! barty went straight to mr. beresford duff's, and there found a very agreeable party, including the divine julia, who was singing little songs very prettily and accompanying herself on a guitar. "'you ask me why i look so pale?'" sang julia, just as barty entered: and red as a rose was she. lady jane didn't seem at all overjoyed to see barty, but julia did, and did not disguise the seeming. there were eight or ten people there, and they all appeared to know about him, and all that concerned or belonged to him. it was the old london world over again, in little! the same tittle-tattle about well-known people, and nothing else--as if nothing else existed; a genial, easy-going, good-natured world, that he had so often found charming for a time, but in which he was never quite happy and had no proper place of his own, all through that fatal bar-sinister--la barre de bâtardise; a world that was his and yet not his, and in whose midst his position was a false one, but where every one took him for granted at once as one of _them_, so long as he never trespassed beyond that sufferance; that there must be no love-making to lovely young heiresses by the bastard of antoinette josselin was taken for granted also! [illustration: "'you ask me why i look so pale?'"] before barty had been there half an hour two or three people had evidently lost their hearts to him in friendship; among them, to lady jane's great discomfiture, the handsome and amiable graham-reece, the cynosure of all female eyes in riffrath; and when barty (after very little pressing by miss royce) twanged her guitar and sang little songs--french and english, funny and sentimental--he became, as he had so often become in other scenes, the rigoletto of the company; and riffrath was a kingdom in which he might be court jester in ordinary if he chose, whenever he elected to honor it with his gracious and facetious musical presence. so much for his début in that strange little overgrown busy village! what must it be like now? dr. hasenclever has been gathered to his fathers long ago, and nobody that i know of has taken his place. all those new hotels and lodging-houses and smart shops--what can they have been turned into? barracks? prisons? military hospitals and sanatoriums? how dull! lady caroline and daphne and barty between them added considerably to the gayety of düsseldorf that summer--especially when royces and reeces and duffs and such like people came there from riffrath to lunch, or tea, or dinner, or for walks or drives or rides to grafenberg or neanderthal, or steamboatings to neuss. there were one or two other english families in düsseldorf, living there for economy's sake, but yet of the world--of the kind that got to be friends with the rohans; half-pay old soldiers and sailors and their families, who introduced agreeable and handsome uhlans and hussars--from their serene highnesses the princes fritz and hans von eselbraten--himmelsblutwürst--silberschinken, each passing rich on £ a year, down to poor lieutenants von this or von that, with nothing but their pay and their thirty-two quarterings. also a few counts and barons, and princes not serene, but with fine german fortunes looming for them in the future, though none amounting to £ a day, like little lord orrisroot's! soon there was hardly a military heart left whole in the town; julia had eaten them all up, except one or two that had been unconsciously nibbled by little daphne. barty did not join in these aristocratic revels; he had become a pupil of herr duffenthaler, and worked hard in his master's studio with two brothers of the brush--one english, the other american; delightful men who remained his friends for life. indeed, he lived among the painters, who all got to love "der schöne barty josselin" like a brother. now and then, of an evening, being much pressed by his aunt, he would show himself at a small party in schadow strasse, and sing and be funny, and attentive to the ladies, and render himself discreetly useful and agreeable all round--and make that party go off. lady caroline would have been far happier had he lived with them altogether. but she felt herself responsible for her innocent and wealthy little niece. it was an article of faith with lady caroline that no normal and properly constituted young woman could see much of barty without falling over head and ears in love with him--and this would never do for daphne. besides, they were first-cousins. so she acquiesced in the independence of his life apart from them. she was not responsible for the divine julia, who might fall in love with him just as she pleased, and welcome! that was lady jane's lookout, and captain graham-reece's. but barty always dined with his aunt and cousin on thursdays and sundays, after listening to the music in geissler's garden, opposite, and drinking coffee with them there, and also with prince fritz and prince hans, who always joined the party and smoked their cheap cigars; and sometimes the divine julia would make one of the party too, with her mother and uncle and captain reece; and the good painter fellows would envy from afar their beloved but too fortunate comrade; and the hussars and uhlans, von this and von that, would find seats and tables as near the princely company as possible. and every time a general officer entered the garden, up stood every officer of inferior rank till the great man had comfortably seated himself somewhere in the azure sunshine of julia's forget-me-not warm glance. and before the summer had fulfilled itself, and the roses at geissler's were overblown, it became evident to lady caroline, if to none other, that julia had eyes for no one else in the world but barty josselin. i had it from lady caroline herself. but barty josselin had eyes only (such eyes as they were) for his work at herr duffenthaler's, and lived laborious days, except on thursday and sunday afternoons, and shunned delights, except to dine at the runsberg speiserei with his two fellow-pupils, and henley and armstrong and bancroft and du maurier and others, all painters, mostly british and yankee; and an uncommonly lively and agreeable repast that was! and afterwards, long walks by moon or star light, or music at each other's rooms, and that engrossing technical shop talk that never palls on those who talk it. no guardsman's talk of turf or sport or the ballet had ever been so good as this, in barty's estimation; no agreeable society gossip at mr. beresford duff's riffrath tea-parties! [illustration: "'you don't mean to say you're going to paint for hire!'"] once in every fortnight or so barty would report himself to dr. hasenclever, and spend the day in riffrath and lunch with the good old beresford duff, who was very fond of him, and who lamented over his loss of caste in devoting himself professionally to art. "god bless me--my dear barty, you don't mean to say you're going to paint for _hire_!" "indeed i am, if any one will hire me. how else am i to live?" "well, _you_ know best, my dear boy; but i should have thought the rohans might have got you something better than _that_. it's true, buckner does it, and swinton, and francis grant! but _still_, you know ... there _are_ other ways of getting on for a fellow like you. look at prince gelbioso, who ran away with the duchess of flitwick! he didn't sing a bit better than you do, and as for looks, you beat him hollow, my dear boy; yet all london went mad about prince gelbioso, and so did she; and off she bolted with him, bag and baggage, leaving husband and children and friends and all! and she'd got ten thousand a year of her own; and when the duke divorced her they were married, and lived happily ever after--in italy; and some of the best people called upon 'em, by george!... just to spite the duke!" barty felt it would seem priggish or even insincere if he were to disclaim any wish to emulate prince gelbioso; so he merely said he thought painting easier on the whole, and not so risky; and the good beresford duff talked of other things--of the divine julia, and what a good thing it would be if she and graham-reece could make a match of it. "two of the finest fortunes in england, by george! they _ought_ to come together, if only just for the fun of the thing! not that she is a bit in love with him--i'll eat my hat if she is! what a pity _you_ ain't goin' to be lord ironsides, barty!" barty frankly confessed _he_ shouldn't much object, for one. "but, 'ni l'or ni la grandeur ne nous rendent heureux,' as we used to be taught at school." "ah, that's all gammon; wait till you're _my_ age, my young friend, and as poor as _i_ am," said beresford duff. and so the two friends talked on, mentor and telemachus--and we needn't listen any further. part seventh "old winter was gone in his weakness back to the mountains hoar, and the spring came down from the planet that hovers upon the shore where the sea of sunlight encroaches on the limits of wintry night; if the land, and the air, and the sea rejoice not when spring approaches, we did not rejoice in thee, ginevra!" --shelley. riffrath, besides its natives and its regular english colony of residents, had a floating population that constantly changed. and every day new faces were to be found drinking tea with mr. beresford duff--and all these faces were well known in society at home, you may be sure; and barty made capital caricatures of them all, which were treasured up and carried back to england; one or two of them turn up now and then at a sale at christie's and fetch a great price. i got a little pen-and-ink outline of captain reece there, drawn before he came into the title. i had to give forty-seven pounds ten for it, not only because it was a speaking likeness of the late lord ironsides as a young man, but on account of the little "b. j." in the corner. and only the other evening i sat at dinner next to the dowager countess. heavens! what a beautiful creature she still is, with her prematurely white hair and her long thick neck! and after dinner we talked of barty--she with that delightful frankness that always characterized her through life, i am told: "dear barty josselin! how desperately in love i was with that man, to be sure! everybody was--he might have thrown the handkerchief as he pleased in riffrath, i can tell you, sir robert! he was the handsomest man i ever saw, and wore a black pork-pie hat and a little yellow vandyck beard and mustache; just the color of turkish tobacco, like his hair! all that sounds odd now, doesn't it? fashions have changed--but not for the better! and what a figure! and such fun he was! and always in such good spirits, poor boy! and now he's dead, and it's one of the greatest names in all the world! well, if he'd thrown that handkerchief at me just about then, i should have picked it up--and you're welcome to tell all the world so, sir robert!" * * * * * and next day i got a kind and pretty little letter: "dear sir robert,--i was quite serious last night. barty josselin was _mes premières amours_! whether he ever guessed it or not, i can't say. if not, he was very obtuse! perhaps he feared to fall, and didn't feel fain to climb in consequence. i all but proposed to him, in fact! anyhow, i am proud my girlish fancy should have fallen on such a man! "i told him so myself only last year, and we had a good laugh over old times; and then i told his wife, and she seemed much pleased. i can understand his preference, and am old enough to forgive it and laugh--although there is even now a tear in the laughter. you know his daughter, julia mainwaring, is my godchild; sometimes she sings her father's old songs to me: "'petit chagrin de notre enfance coûte un soupir!' "do you remember? "poor ironsides knew all about it when he married me, and often declared i had amply made up to him for that and many other things--over and over again. il avait bien raison; and made of me a very happy wife and a most unhappy widow. "put this in your book, if you like. "sincerely yours, "julia ironsides." thus time flowed smoothly and pleasantly for barty all through the summer. in august the royces left, and also captain reece--they for scotland, he for algiers--and appointed to meet again in riffrath next spring. in october lady caroline took her niece to rome, and barty was left behind to his work, very much to her grief and daphne's. he wrote to them every monday, and always got a letter back on the saturday following. barty spent the winter hard at work, but with lots of play between, and was happy among his painter fellows--and sketching and caricaturing, and skating and sleighing with the english who remained in düsseldorf, and young von this and young von that. i have many of his letters describing this genial, easy life--letters full of droll and charming sketches. [illustration: "he might have thrown the handkerchief as he pleased"] he does not mention the fair julia much, but there is no doubt that the remembrance of her much preoccupied him, and kept him from losing his heart to any of the fair damsels, english and german, whom he skated and danced with, and sketched and sang to. as a matter of fact, he had never yet lost his heart in his life--not even to julia. he never said much about his love-making with julia to me. but his aunt did--and i listened between the words, as i always do. his four or five years' career in london as a thoroughgoing young rake had given him a very deep insight into woman's nature--an insight rare at his age, for all his perceptions were astonishingly acute, and his unconscious faculty of sympathetic observation and induction and deduction immense. and, strange to say, if that heart had never been touched, it had never been corrupted either, and probably for that very reason--that he had never been in love with these sirens. it is only when true love fades away at last in the arms of lust that the youthful, manly heart is wrecked and ruined and befouled. he made up his mind that art should be his sole mistress henceforward, and that the devotion of a lifetime would not be price enough to pay for her favors, if but she would one day be kind. he had to make up for so much lost time, and had begun his wooing so late! then he was so happy with his male friends! whatever void remained in him when his work was done for the day could be so thoroughly filled up by henley and bancroft and armstrong and du maurier and the rest that there was no room for any other and warmer passion. work was a joy by itself; the rest from it as great a joy; and these alternations were enough to fill a life. to how many great artists had they sufficed! and what happy lives had been led, with no other distraction, and how glorious and successful! only the divine julia, in all the universe, was worthy to be weighed in the scales with these, and she was not for the likes of mr. nobody of nowhere. besides, there was the faithful martia. punctually every evening the ever-comforting sense of the north filled him as he jumped into bed; and he whispered his prayers audibly to this helpful spirit, or whatever it might be, that had given him a sign and saved him from a cowardly death, and filled his life and thoughts as even no julia could. and yet, although he loved best to forgather with those of his own sex, woman meant much for him! there _must_ be a woman somewhere in the world--a needle in a bottle of hay--a nature that could dovetail and fit in with his own; but what a life-long quest to find her! she must be young and beautiful, like julia--rien que ça!--and as kind and clever and simple and well-bred and easy to live with as aunt caroline, and, heavens! how many things besides, before poor mr. nobody of nowhere could make her happy, and be made happy by her! so mr. nobody of nowhere gave it up, and stuck to his work, and made much progress, and was well content with things as they were. he had begun late, and found many difficulties in spite of his great natural facility. his principal stock in trade was his keen perception of human beauty, of shape and feature and expression, male or female--of face or figure or movement; and a great love and appreciation of human limbs, especially hands and feet. with a very few little pen-strokes he could give the most marvellously subtle likenesses of people he knew--beautiful or ordinary or plain or hideous; and the beauty of the beautiful people, just hinted in mere outline, was so keen and true and fascinating that this extraordinary power of expressing it amounted to real genius. it is a difficult thing, even for a master, to fully render with an ordinary steel pen and a drop of common ink (and of a size no bigger than your little finger nail) the full face of a beautiful woman, let us say; or a child, in sadness or merriment or thoughtful contemplation; and make it as easily and unmistakably recognizable as a good photograph, but with all the subtle human charm and individuality of expression delicately emphasized in a way that no photograph has ever achieved yet. and this he could always do in a minute from sheer memory and unconscious observation; and in another few minutes he would add on the body, in movement or repose, and of a resemblance so wonderful and a grace so enchanting, or a humor so happily, naïvely droll, that one forgot to criticise the technique, which was quite that of an amateur; indeed, with all the success he achieved as an artist, he remained an amateur all his life. yet his greatest admirers were among the most consummate and finished artists of their day, both here and abroad. it was with his art as with his singing: both were all wrong, yet both gave extraordinary pleasure; one almost feared that regular training would mar the gift of god, so much of the charm we all so keenly felt lay in the very imperfections themselves--just as one loved him personally as much for his faults as for his virtues. "il a les qualités de ses défauts, le beau josselin," said m. taine one day. "mon cher," said m. renan, "ses défauts sont ses meilleures qualités." so he spent a tranquil happy winter, and wrote of his happiness and his tranquillity to lady caroline and daphne and ida and me; and before he knew where he was, or we, the almond-trees blossomed again, and then the lilacs and limes and horse-chestnuts and syringas; and the fireflies flew in and out of his bedroom at night, and the many nightingales made such music in the hof gardens that he could scarcely sleep for them; and other nightingales came to make music for him too--most memorable music! stockhausen, jenny ney, joachim, madame schumann; for the triennial musik festival was held in düsseldorf that year (a month later than usual); and musical festivals are things they manage uncommonly well in germany. barty, unseen and unheard, as becomes a chorus-singer, sang in the choruses of gluck's _iphigenia_, and heard and saw everything for nothing. but, before this, captain reece came back to riffrath, and, according to appointment, admiral royce and lady jane, and julia, lovelier than ever; and all the sweetness she was so full of rose in her heart and gathered in her eyes as they once more looked on barty josselin. he steeled and stiffened himself like a man who knew that the divine julias of this world were for his betters--not for him! nevertheless, as he went to bed, and thought of the melting gaze that had met his, he was deeply stirred; and actually, though the north was in him, he forgot, for the first time in all that twelvemonth, for the first time since that terrible night in malines, to say his prayers to martia--and next morning he found a letter by his bedside in pencil-written blaze of his own handwriting: "barty my beloved,--a crisis has come in your affairs, which are mine; and, great as the cost is to me, i must write again, at the risk of betraying what amounts to a sacred trust; a secret that i have innocently surprised, the secret of a noble woman's heart. "one of the richest girls in england, one of the healthiest and most beautiful women in the whole world, a bride fit for an emperor, is yours for the asking. it is my passionate wish, and a matter of life and death to me, that you and julia royce should become man and wife; when you are, you shall both know why. "mr. nobody of nowhere--as you are so fond of calling yourself--you shall be such, some day, that the best and highest in the land will be only too proud to be your humble friends and followers; no woman is too good for you--only one good enough! and she loves you: of that i feel sure--and it is impossible you should not love her back again. "i have known her from a baby, and her father and mother also; i have inhabited her, as i have inhabited you, although i have never been able to give her the slightest intimation of the fact. you are both, physically, the most perfect human beings i was ever in; and in heart and mind the most simply made, the most richly gifted, and the most admirably balanced; and i have inhabited many thousands, and in all parts of the globe. "you, barty, are the only one i have ever been able to hold communication with, or make to feel my presence; it was a strange chance, that--a happy accident; it saved your life. i am the only one, among many thousands of homeless spirits, who has ever been able to influence an earthly human being, or even make him feel the magnetic current that flows through us all, and by which we are able to exist; all the rappings and table-turnings are mere hysterical imaginations, or worse--the cheapest form of either trickery or self-deception that can be. barty, your unborn children are of a moment to me beyond anything you can realize or imagine, and julia must be their mother; julia royce, and no other woman in the world. "it is in you to become so great when you are ripe that she will worship the ground you walk upon; but you can only become as great as that through her and through me, who have a message to deliver to mankind here on earth, and none but you to give it a voice--not one. but i must have my reward, and that can only come through your marriage with julia. "when you have read this, barty, go straight to riffrath, and see julia if you can, and be to her as you have so often been to any women you wished to please, and who were not worth pleasing. her heart is her own to give, like her fortune; she can do what she likes with them both, and will--her mother notwithstanding, and in the teeth of the whole world. "poor as you are, maimed as you are, irregularly born as you are, it is better for her that she should be your wife than the wife of any man living, whoever he be. "look at yourself in the glass, and say at once, "'martia, i'm off to riffrath as soon as i've swallowed my breakfast!' "and then i'll go about my business with a light heart and an easy mind. "martia." much moved and excited, barty looked in the glass and did as he was bid, and the north left him; and johanna brought him his breakfast, and he started for riffrath. * * * * * all through this winter that was so happily spent by barty in düsseldorf things did not go very happily in london for the gibsons. mr. gibson was not meant for business; nature intended him as a rival to keeley or buckstone. he was extravagant, and so was his wife; they were both given to frequent and most expensive hospitalities; and he to cards, and she to dressing herself and her daughter more beautifully than quite became their position in life. the handsome and prosperous shop in cheapside--the "emporium," as he loved to call it--was not enough to provide for all these luxuries; so he took another in conduit street, and decorated it and stocked it at immense expense, and called it the "universal fur company," and himself the "head of a west end firm." then he speculated, and was not successful, and his affairs got into tangle. and a day came when he found he could not keep up these two shops and his private house in tavistock square as well; the carriage was put down first--a great distress to mrs. gibson; and finally, to her intense grief, it became necessary to give up the pretty house itself. it was decided that their home in future must be over the new emporium in conduit street; mrs. gibson had a properly constituted english shopkeeper's wife's horror of living over her husband's shop--the idea almost broke her heart; and as a little consolation, while the necessary changes were being wrought for their altered mode of life, mr. gibson treated her and leah and my sister to a trip up the rhine--and mrs. bletchley, the splendid old jewess (leah's grandmother), who suffered, or fancied she suffered, in her eyesight, took it into her head that she would like to see the famous dr. hasenclever in riffrath, and elected to journey with them--at all events as far as düsseldorf. i would have escorted them, but that my father was ill, and i had to replace him in barge yard; besides, i was not yet quite cured of my unhappy passion, though in an advanced stage of convalescence; and i did not wish to put myself under conditions that might retard my complete recovery, or even bring on a relapse. i wished to love leah as a sister; in time i succeeded in doing so; she has been fortunate in her brother, though i say it who shouldn't--and, o heavens! haven't i been fortunate in my sister leah? my own sister ida wrote to barty to find rooms and meet them at the station, and fixed the day and hour of their arrival; and commissioned him to take seats for gluck's _iphigenia_. she thought more of _iphigenia_ than of the drachenfels or ehrenbreitstein; and was overjoyed at the prospect of once more being with barty, whom she loved as well as she loved me, if not even better. he was fortunate in his sister, too! and the rhine in may did very well as a background to all these delights. so mr. babbage (the friend of the family) and i saw them safely on board the _baron osy_ ("the ank-works package," as mrs. gamp called it), which landed them safely in the place verte at antwerp; and then they took train for düsseldorf, changing at malines and verviers; and looked forward eagerly, especially ida, to the meeting with barty at the little station by the rhine. * * * * * barty, as we know, started for riffrath at martia's written command, his head full of perplexing thoughts. who was martia? what was she? "a disembodied conscience?" whose? not his own, which counselled the opposite course. he had once seen a man at a show with a third rudimentary leg sticking out behind, and was told this extra limb belonged to a twin, the remaining portions of whom had not succeeded in getting themselves begotten and born. could martia be a frustrated and undeveloped twin sister of his own, that interested herself in his affairs, and could see with his eyes and hear with his ears, and had found the way of communicating with him during his sleep--and was yet apart from him, as phenomenal twins are apart from each other, however closely linked--and had, moreover, not managed to have any part of her body born into this world at all? she wrote like him; her epistolary style was his very own, every turn of phrase, every little mannerism. the mystery of it overwhelmed him again, though he had grown somewhat accustomed to the idea during the last twelvemonth. _why_ was she so anxious he should marry julia? had he, situated as he was, the right to win the love of this splendid creature, in the face of the world's opposition and her family's--he, a beggar and a bastard? would it be right and honest and fair to her? and then, again, was he so desperately in love with her, after all, that he should give up the life of art and toil he had planned for himself and go through existence as the husband of a rich and beautiful woman belonging, first of all, to the world and society, of which she was so brilliant an ornament that her husband must needs remain in the background forever, even if he were a gartered duke or a belted earl? what success of his own would he ever hope to achieve, handicapped as he would be by all the ease and luxury she would bring him? he had grown to love the poverty which ever lends such strenuousness to endeavor. he thought of an engraving he had once taken a fancy to in brussels, and purchased and hung up in his bedroom. _i_ have it now! it is after gallait, and represents a picturesquely poor violinist and his violin in a garret, and underneath is written "art et liberté." then he thought of julia's lovely face and magnificent body--and all his manhood thrilled as he recalled the look in her eyes when they met his the day before. this was the strongest kind of temptation by which his nature could ever be assailed--he knew himself to be weak as water when that came his way, the ten-thousandth face (and the figure to match)! he had often prayed to martia to deliver him from such a lure. but here was martia on the side of the too sweet enemy! the train stopped for a few minutes at neanderthal, and he thought he could think better if he got out and walked in that beautiful valley an hour or two--there was no hurry; he would take another train later, in time to meet julia at beresford duff's, where she was sure to be. so he walked among the rocks, the lonely rocks, and sat and pondered in the famous cave where the skull was found--that simple prehistoric cranium which could never have been so pathetically nonplussed by such a dilemma as this when it was a human head! and the more he pondered the less he came to a conclusion. it seemed as though there were the "tug of war" between martia and all that he felt to be best in himself--his own conscience, his independence as a man, his sense of honor. he took her letter out of his pocket to re-read, and with it came another letter; it was from my sister, ida maurice. it told him when they would arrive in düsseldorf. he jumped up in alarm--it was that very day. he had quite forgotten! he ran off to the station, and missed a train, and had to wait an hour for another; but he got himself to the rhine station in düsseldorf a few minutes before the train from belgium arrived. everything was ready for the gibson party--lodgings and tea and supper to follow--he had seen to all that before; so there he walked up and down, waiting, and still revolving over and over again in his mind the troublous question that so bewildered and oppressed him. who was martia? what was she--that he should take her for a guide in the most momentous business of his life; and what were her credentials? and what was love? was it love he felt for this young goddess with yellow hair and light-blue eyes so like his own, who towered in her full-blown frolicsome splendor among the sons and daughters of men, with her moist, ripe lips so richly framed for happy love and laughter--that royal milk-white fawn that had only lain in the roses and fed on the lilies of life? "oh, mr. nobody of nowhere! be at least a man; let no one ever call you the basest thing an able-bodied man can become, a fortune-hunting adventurer!" then a bell rang, and the smoke of the coming train was visible--ten minutes late. the tickets were taken, and it slowed into the station and stopped. ida's head and face were seen peering through one of the second-class windows, on the lookout, and barty opened the door and there was a warm and affectionate greeting between them; the meeting was joy to both. then he was warmly greeted by mrs. gibson, who introduced him to her mother; then he was conscious of somebody he had not seen yet because she stood at his blind side (indeed, he had all but forgotten her existence); namely, the presence of a very tall and most beautiful dark-haired young lady, holding out her slender gloved hand and gazing up into his face with the most piercing and strangest and blackest eyes that ever were; yet so soft and quick and calm and large and kind and wise and gentle that their piercingness was but an added seduction; one felt they could never pierce too deep for the happiness of the heart they pronged and riddled and perforated through and through! involuntarily came into barty's mind, as he shook the slender hand, a little song of schubert's he had just learnt: "du dist die ruh', der friede mild!" and wasn't it odd?--all his doubts and perplexities resolved themselves at once, as by some enchantment, into a lovely, unexpected chord of extreme simplicity; and martia was gently but firmly put aside, and the divine julia quietly relegated to the gilded throne which was her fit and proper apanage. barty saw to the luggage, and sent it on, and they all went on foot behind it. the bridge of boats across the rhine was open in the middle to let a wood-raft go by down stream. this raft from some distant forest was so long they had to wait nearly twenty minutes; and the prow of it had all but lost itself in the western purple and gold and dun of sky and river while it was still passing the bridge. all this was new and delightful to the londoners, who were also delighted with the rooms barty had taken for them in the könig's allee and the tea that awaited them there. leah made tea, and gave a cup to barty. that was a good cup of tea, better even than the tea julia was making (that very moment, no doubt) at beresford duff's. then the elder ladies rested, and barty took leah and ida for a walk in the hof gardens. they were charmed with everything--especially the fire-flies at dusk. leah said little; she was not a very talkative person outside her immediate family circle. but ida and barty had much to say. then home to supper at the gibsons' lodgings, and barty sat opposite leah, and drank in the beauty of her face, which had so wonderfully ripened and accentuated and individualized itself since he had seen her last, three years before. as he discreetly gazed, whenever she was not looking his way, saying to himself, like geraint: "'here by god's rood is the one maid for me,'" he suddenly felt the north, and started with a kind of terror as he remembered martia. he bade the company a hasty good-night, and went for a long walk by the rhine, and had a long talk with his egeria. "martia," said he, in a low but audible voice, "it's no good, i _can't_; c'est plus fort que moi. i can't sell myself to a woman for gold; besides, i can't fall in love with julia; i don't know why, but i _can't_; i will never marry her. i don't deserve that she should care for me; perhaps she doesn't, perhaps you're quite mistaken, and if she does, it's only a young girl's fancy. what does a girl of that age really know about her own heart? and how base i should be to take advantage of her innocence and inexperience!" and then he went on in a passionate and eager voice to explain all he had thought of during the day and still further defend his recalcitrancy. "give me at least your reasons, martia; tell me, for god's sake, who you are and what! are you _me_? are you the spirit of my mother? why do you love me, as you say you do, with a love passing the love of woman? what am i to you? why are you so bent on worldly things?" this monologue lasted more than an hour, and he threw himself on to his bed quite worn out, and slept at once, in spite of the nightingales, who filled the starlit, breezy, balmy night with their shrill, sweet clamor. next morning, as he expected, he found a letter: "barty, you are ruining me and breaking my life, and wrecking the plans of many years--plans made before you were, born or thought of. "who am i, indeed? who is this demure young black-eyed witch that has come between us, this friend of ida maurice's? "she's the cause of all my misery, i feel sure; with ida's eyes i saw you look at her; you never yet looked at julia like that!--never at any woman before! "who is she? no mate for a man like you, i feel sure. in the first place, she is not rich; i could tell that by the querulous complaints of her middle-class mother. she's just fit to be some pious quaker's wife, or a sister of charity, or a governess, or a hospital nurse, or a nun--no companion for a man destined to move the world! "barty, you don't _know_ what you are; you have never _thought_; you have never yet looked _within_! "barty, with julia by your side and me at your back, you will be a leader of men, and sway the destinies of your country, and raise it above all other nations, and make it the arbiter of europe--of the whole world--and your seed will ever be first among the foremost of the earth. "will you give up all this for a pair of bright black eyes and a pretty white skin? isn't julia white enough for you? "a painter? what a trade for a man built like you! take the greatest of them; what have they ever really mattered? what do they matter now, except to those who want to imitate them and can't, or to those who live by buying cheap the fruits of their long labors, and selling them dear as so much wall furniture for the vulgar rich? besides, you will never be a great painter; you've begun too late! "think of yourself ten years hence--a king among men, with the world at your feet, and at those of the glorious woman who will have smoothed your path to greatness and fame and power! mistress and wife--goddess and queen in one! "think of the poor struggling painter, painting his poor little pictures in his obscure corner to feed half a dozen hungry children and the anxious, careworn wife, whose beauty has long faded away in the petty, sordid, hopeless domestic struggle, just as her husband's little talent has long been wasted and used up in wretched pot-boilers for mere bread; think of poverty, debt, and degradation, and all the miserable ugliness of life--the truest, tritest, and oldest story in the world! love soon flies out of the window when these wolves snarl at the door. "think of all this, barty, and think of the despair you are bringing on one lost lonely soul who loves you as a mother loves her first-born, and has founded such hopes on you; dismiss this pretty little middle-class puritan from your thoughts and go back to julia. "i will not hurry your decision; i will come back in exactly a week from to-night. i am at your mercy. "martia." this letter made barty very unhappy. it was a strange dilemma. what is it that now and again makes a woman in a single moment take such a powerful grip of a man's fancy that he can never shake himself free again, and never wants to? tunes can be like that, sometimes. not the pretty little tinkling tunes that please everybody at once; the pleasure of them can fade in a year, a month--even a week, a day! but those from a great mint, and whose charm will last a man his lifetime! many years ago a great pianist, to amuse some friends (of whom i was one), played a series of waltzes by schubert which i had never heard before--the "soirées de vienne," i think they were called. they were lovely from beginning to end; but one short measure in particular was full of such extraordinary enchantment for me that it has really haunted me through life. it is as if it were made on purpose for me alone, a little intimate aside à mon intention--the gainliest, happiest thought i had ever heard expressed in music. for nobody else seemed to think those particular bars were more beautiful than all the rest; but, oh! the difference to me! and said i to myself: "that's leah; and all the rest is some heavenly garden of roses she's walking in!" tempo di valsa: _rum_--tiddle-iddle _um_ tum tum, _tid_dle-tiddle-iddle-iddle _um_ tum, tum _tum_ tiddle iddle-iddle _um_ tum, tum _tid_dle-iddle, iddle-_hay!_ ... etc., etc. that's how the little measure begins, and it goes on just for a couple of pages. i can't write music, unfortunately, and i've nobody by me at just this moment who can; but if the reader is musical and knows the "soirées de vienne," he will guess the particular waltz i mean. well, the düsseldorf railway station is not a garden of roses; but when leah stepped out of that second-class carriage and looked straight at barty, _dans le blanc des yeux_, he fitted her to the tune _he_ loved best just then (not knowing the "soirées de vienne"), and it's one of the tunes that last forever: "du bist die ruh', der friede mild!" barty's senses were not as other men's senses. with his one eye he saw much that most of _us_ can't see with two; i feel sure of this. and he suddenly saw in leah's face, now she was quite grown up, that which bound him to her for life--some veiled promise, i suppose; we can't explain these things. * * * * * barty escorted the gibson party to riffrath, and put down mrs. bletchley's name for dr. hasenclever, and then took them to the woods of hammerfest, close by, with which they were charmed. on the way back to the hotel they met lady jane and miss royce and the good beresford duff, who all bowed to barty, and julia's blue glance crossed leah's black one. "oh, what a lovely girl!" said leah to barty. "what a pity she's so tall; why, i'm sure she's half a head taller than even i, and they make _my_ life a burden to me at home because i'm such a giantess! who is she? you know her well, i suppose?" "she's a miss julia royce, a great heiress. her father's dead; he was a wealthy norfolk squire, and she was his only child." "then i suppose she's a very aristocratic person; she looks so, i'm sure!" "very much so indeed," said barty. "dear me! it seems unfair, doesn't it, having everything like that; no wonder she looks so happy!" [illustration: dr. hasenclever and mrs. bletchley] then they went back to the hotel to lunch; and in the afternoon mrs. bletchley saw the doctor, who gave her a prescription for spectacles, and said she had nothing to fear; and was charming to leah and to ida, who spoke french so well, and to the pretty and lively mrs. gibson, who lost her heart to him and spoke the most preposterous french he had ever heard. he was fond of pretty english women, the good german doctor, whatever french they spoke. they were quite an hour there. meanwhile barty went to beresford duff's, and found julia and lady jane drinking tea, as usual at that hour. "who are your uncommonly well-dressed friends, barty?" said mr. duff. "i never met any of them that _i_ can remember." "well--they're just from london--the elder lady is a mrs. bletchley." "not one of the berkshire bletchleys, eh?" "oh no--she's the widow of a london solicitor." "dear me! and the lovely, tall, black-eyed _damigella_--who's she?" "she's a miss gibson, and her father's a furrier in cheapside." "and the pretty girl in blue with the fair hair?" "she's the sister of a very old friend of mine, robert maurice--he's a wine merchant." "you don't say so! why, i took them for people of condition!" said mr. beresford duff, who was a trifle old-fashioned in his ways of speech. "anyhow, they're uncommonly nice to look at." "oh yes," said the not too priggishly grammatical lady jane; "nowadays those sort of people dress like duchesses, and think themselves as good as any one." "they're good enough for _me_, at all events," said barty, who was not pleased. "i'm sure miss gibson's good enough for _anybody in the world_!" said julia. "she's the most beautiful girl i ever saw!" and she gave barty a cup of tea. barty drank it, and felt fond of julia, and bade them all good-bye, and went and waited in the hall of the könig's hotel for his friends, and took them back to düsseldorf. next day the gibsons started for their little trip up the rhine, and barty was left to his own reflections, and he reflected a great deal; not about what he meant to do himself, but about how he should tell martia what he meant to do. as for himself, his mind was thoroughly made up: he would break at once and forever with a world he did not properly belong to, and fight his own little battle unaided, and be a painter--a good one, if he could. if not, so much the worse for him. life is short. when he would have settled his affairs and paid his small debts in düsseldorf, he would have some ten or fifteen pounds to the good. he would go back to london with the gibsons and ida maurice. there were no friends for him in the world like the maurices. there was no woman for him in the world like leah, whether she would ever care for him or not. rich or poor, he didn't mind! she was leah; she had the hands, the feet, the lips, the hair, the eyes! that was enough for him! he was absolutely sure of his own feelings; absolutely certain that this path was not only the pleasant path he liked, but the right one for a man in his position to follow: a thorny path indeed, but the thorns were thorns of roses! all this time he was busily rehearsing his part in the chorus of _iphigenia_; he had applied for the post of second tenor chorister; the conditions were that he should be able to read music at sight. this he could not do, and his utter incapacity was tested at the mahlcasten, before a crowd of artists, by the conductor. barty failed signally, amid much laughter; and he impudently sang quite a little tune of his own, an improvisation. the conductor laughed too; but barty was admitted all the same; his voice was good, and he must learn his part by heart--that was all; anybody could teach him. the gibsons came back to düsseldorf in time for the performance, which was admirable, in spite of barty. from his coign of vantage, amongst the second tenors, he could see julia's head with its golden fleece; julia, that rose without a thorn-- "het roosje uit de dorne!" she was sitting between lady jane and the captain. he looked in vain for the gibsons, as he sang his loudest, yet couldn't hear himself sing (he was one of a chorus of avenging furies, i believe). but there were three vacant seats in the same row as the royces'. presently three ladies, silken hooded and cloaked--one in yellow, one in pink, and one in blue--made their way to the empty places, just as the chorus ceased, and sat down. just then orestes (stockhausen) stood up and lifted his noble barytone. "die ruhe kehret mir zurück"-- and the yellow-hooded lady unhooded a shapely little black head, and it was leah's. "_prosit omen!_" thought barty--and it seemed as if his whole heart melted within him. he could see that leah and julia often looked at each other; he could also see, during the intervals, how many double-barrelled opera-glasses were levelled at both; it was impossible to say which of these two lovely women was the loveliest; probably most votes would have been for julia, the fair-haired one, the prima donna assoluta, the soprano, the rowena, who always gets the biggest salary and most of the applause. the brunette, the contralto, the rebecca, dazzles less, but touches the heart all the more deeply, perhaps; anyhow, barty had no doubt as to which of the two voices was the voice for him. his passion was as that of brian de bois-guilbert for mere strength, except that he was bound by no vows of celibacy. there were no moonlit platonics about barty's robust love, but all the chivalry and tenderness and romance of a knight-errant underlay its vigorous complexity. he was a good knight, though not sir galahad! also he felt very patriotic, as a good knight should ever feel, and proud of a country which could grow such a rose as julia, and such a lily as leah gibson. next to julia sat captain reece, romantic and handsome as ever, with manly love and devotion expressed in every line of his face, every movement of his body; and the heaviest mustache and the most beautiful brown whiskers in the world. he was either a hussar or a lancer; i forget which. "by my halidom," mentally ejaculated barty, "i sincerely wish thee joy and life-long happiness, good sir wilfred of ivanhoe. thou art a right fit mate for her, peerless as she may be among women! a benison on you both from your poor wamba, the son of witless." as he went home that night, after the concert, to his tryst with martia, the north came back to him--through the open window as it were, with the fire-flies and fragrances, and the song of fifty nightingales. it was for him a moment of deep and harassing emotion and keen anxiety. he leaned over the window-sill and looked out on the starlit heavens, and whispered aloud the little speech he had prepared: "martia, i have done my best. i would make any sacrifice to obey you, but i cannot give up my freedom to love the woman that attracts me as i have never been attracted before. i would sooner live a poor and unsuccessful straggler in the art i have chosen, with her to help me live, than be the mightiest man in england without her--even with julia, whom i admire as much, and even more! "one can't help these things. they may be fancies, and one may live to repent them; but while they last they are imperious, not to be resisted. it's an instinct, i suppose; perhaps even a form of insanity! but i love leah's little-finger nail better than julia's lovely face and splendid body and all her thousands. "besides, i will not drag julia down from her high position in the world's eye, even for a day, nor owe anything to either man or woman except love and fidelity! it grieves me deeply to disappoint you, though i cannot understand your motives. if you love me as you say you do, you ought to think of my happiness and honor before my worldly success and prosperity, about which i don't care a button, except for leah's sake. "besides, i know myself better than you know me. i'm not one of those hard, strong, stern, purposeful, napoleonic men, with wills of iron, that clever, ambitious women conceive great passions for! [illustration: "'martia, i have done my best'"] "i'm only a 'funny man'--a _gringalet-jocrisse!_ and now that i'm quite grown up, and all my little funniments are over, i'm only fit to sit and paint, with my one eye, in my little corner, with a contented little wife, who won't want me to do great things and astonish the world. there's no place like home; faire la popotte ensemble au coin du feu--c'est le ciel! "and if i'm half as clever as you say, it'll all come out in my painting, and i shall be rich and famous, and all off my own bat. i'd sooner be sir edwin landseer than sir robert peel, or pam, or dizzy! "even to retain your love and protection and interest in me, which i value almost as much as i value life itself, i can't do as you wish. don't desert me, martia. i may be able to make it all up to you some day; after all, you can't foresee and command the future, nor can i. it wouldn't be worth living for if we could! it would all be discounted in advance! "i may yet succeed in leading a useful, happy life; and that should be enough for you if it's enough for me, since i am your beloved, and as you love me as your son.... anyhow, my mind is made up for good and all, and...." here the sensation of the north suddenly left him, and he went to his bed with the sense of bereavement that had punished him all the preceding week: desperately sad, all but heart-broken, and feeling almost like a culprit, although his conscience, whatever that was worth, was thoroughly at ease, and his intent inflexible. a day or two after this he must have received a note from julia, making an appointment to meet him at the ausstellung, in the allee strasse, a pretty little picture-gallery, since he was seen there sitting in deep conversation with miss royce in a corner, and both seeming much moved; neither the admiral nor lady jane was with them, and there was some gossip about it in the british colony both in düsseldorf and riffrath. barty, who of late years has talked to me so much, and with such affectionate admiration, of "julia countess," as he called her, never happened to have mentioned this interview; he was very reticent about his love-makings, especially about any love that was made to him. i made so bold as to write to julia, lady ironsides, and ask her if it were true they had met like this, and if i might print her answer, and received almost by return of post the following kind and characteristic letter: " grosvenor square. "dear sir robert,--you're quite right; i did meet him, and i've no objection whatever to telling you how it all happened--and you may do as you like. "it happened just like this (you must remember that i was only just out, and had always had my own way in everything). "mamma and i and uncle james (the admiral) and freddy reece (ironsides, you know) went to the musikfest in düsseldorf. barty was singing in the chorus. i saw him opening and shutting his mouth and could almost fancy i heard him, poor dear boy. "leah gibson, as she was then, sat near to me, with her mother and your sister. leah gibson looked like--well, _you_ know what she looked like in those days. by-the-way, i can't make out how it is you weren't over head and ears in love with her yourself! i thought her the loveliest girl i had ever seen, and felt very unhappy. "we slept at the hotel that night, and on the way back to riffrath next morning freddy reece proposed to me. "i told him i couldn't marry him--but that i loved him as a sister, and all that; i really was very fond of him indeed, but i didn't want to marry him; i wanted to marry barty, in fact; and make him rich and famous, as i felt sure he would be some day, whether i married him or not. "but there was that lovely leah gibson, the furrier's daughter! "when we got home to riffrath mamma found she'd got a cold, and had a fancy for a french thing called a 'loch'; i think her cold was suddenly brought on by my refusing poor freddy's offer! "i went with grissel, the maid (who knew about _lochs_), to the riffrath chemist's, but he didn't even know what we meant--so i told mamma i would go and get a _loch_ in düsseldorf next day if she liked, with uncle james. mamma was only too delighted, for next day was mr. josselin's day for coming to riffrath; but he didn't, for i wrote to him to meet me at twelve at a little picture-gallery i knew of in the allee strasse--as i wanted to have a talk with him. "uncle james had caught a cold too, so i went with grissel; and found a chemist who'd been in france, and knew what a loch was and made one for me; and then i went to the gallery, and there was poor barty sitting on a crimson velvet couch, under a picture of milton dictating _paradise lost_ to his daughters (i bought it afterwards, and i've got it now). "we said how d'ye do, and sat on the couch together, and i felt dreadfully nervous and ashamed. "then i said: "'you must think me very odd, mr. josselin, to ask you to meet me like this!' "'i think it's a very great honor!' he said; 'i only wish i deserved it.' "and then he said nothing for quite five minutes, and i think he felt as uncomfortable as i did. [illustration: am rhein "led we not there a jolly life betwixt the sun and shade?"] "'captain graham-reece has asked me to be his wife, and i refused,' i said. "'why did you refuse? he's one of the best fellows i've ever met,' said barty. "'he's to be so rich, and so am i,' i said. "no answer. "'it would be right for me to marry a _poor_ man--man with brains and no money, you know, and help him to make his way.' "'reece has plenty of brains too,' said barty. "'oh, mr. josselin--don't misunderstand me'--and then i began to stammer and look foolish. "'miss royce--i've only got £ in the world, and with that i mean to go to london and be an artist; and comfort myself during the struggle by the delightful remembrance of riffrath and reece and yourself--and the happy hope of meeting you both again some day, when i shall no longer be the poor devil i am now, and am quite content to be! and when you and he are among the great of the earth, if you will give me each a commission to paint your portraits i will do my very best!' (and he smiled his irresistible smile). 'you will be kind, i am sure, to mr. nobody of nowhere, the famous portrait-painter--who doesn't even bear his father's name--as he has no right to it.' "i could have flung my arms round his neck and kissed him! what did _i_ care about his father's name? "'will you think me dreadfully bold and indiscreet, mr. josselin, if i--if i--' (i stammered fearfully.) "'if you _what_, miss royce?' "'if i--if i ask you if you--if you--think miss gibson the most beautiful girl you ever saw?' "'honestly, i think _you_ the most beautiful girl i ever saw!' "'oh, that's _nonsense_, mr. josselin, although i ought to have known you would say that! i'm not fit to tie her shoes. what i mean is--a--a--oh! forgive me--are you very _fond_ of her, as i'm sure she deserves, you know?' "'oh yes, miss royce, very fond of her indeed; she's poor, she's of no family, she's miss nobody of nowhere, you know; she's all that i am, except that she has a right to her honest father's name--' "'does she _know_ you're very fond of her?' "'no; but i hope to tell her so some day.' "then we were silent, and i felt very red, and very much inclined to cry, but i managed to keep in my tears. "then i got up, and so did he--and he made some joke about grissel and the loch-bottle; and we both laughed quite naturally and looked at the pictures, and he told me he was going back to london with the gibsons that very week, and thanked me warmly for my kind interest in him, and assured me he thoroughly deserved it--and talked so funnily and so nicely that i quite forgave myself. i really don't think he guessed for one moment what i had been driving at all the while; i got back all my self-respect; i felt so grateful to him that i was fonder of him than ever, though no longer so idiotically in love. he was not for me. he had somehow laughed me into love with him, and laughed me out of it. "then i bade him good-bye, and squeezed his hand with all my heart, and told him how much i should like some day to meet miss gibson and be her friend if she would let me. "then i went back to riffrath and took mamma her loch; but she no longer wanted it, for i told her i had changed my mind about freddy, and that cured her like magic; and she kissed me on both cheeks and called me her dear, darling, divine julia. poor, sweet mamma! "i had given her many a bad quarter of an hour, but this good moment made up for them all. "she was eighty-two last birthday, and can still read josselin's works in the cheap edition without spectacles--thanks, no doubt, to the famous doctor hasenclever! she reads nothing else! "et voilà comment ça s'est passé. "it's i that'll be the proud woman when i read this letter, printed, in your life of josselin. "yours sincerely, "julia ironsides. "p. s.--i've actually just told mamma--and i'm still her dear, darling, divine julia!" * * * * * charming as were barty's remembrances of düsseldorf, the most charming of all was his remembrance of going aboard the little steamboat bound for rotterdam, one night at the end of may, with old mrs. bletchley, mrs. gibson and her daughter, and my sister ida. the little boat was crowded; the ladies found what accommodation they could in what served for a ladies' cabin, and expostulated and bribed their best; fortunately for them, no doubt, there were no english on board to bribe against them. barty spent the night on deck, supine, with a carpet-bag for a pillow; we will take the full moon for granted. from düsseldorf to rotterdam there is little to see on either side of a rhine steamboat, except the rhine--especially at night. [illustration: "'does she _know_ you're very fond of her?'"] next day, after breakfast, he made the ladies as comfortable as he could on the after-deck, and read to them from _maud_, from the _idylls of the king_, from the _mill on the floss_. then windmills came into sight--dutch windmills; then rotterdam, almost too soon. they went to the big hotel on the boompjes and fed, and then explored rotterdam, and found it a most delightful city. next day they got on board the steamboat bound for st. katharine's wharf; the wind had freshened and they soon separated, and met at breakfast next morning in the thames. barty declared he smelt great britain as distinctly as one can smell a scotch haggis, or a welsh rabbit, or an irish stew, and the old familiar smell made him glad. however little you may be english, if you are english at all you are more english than anything else, _et plus royaliste que le roi_! according to heine, an englishman loves liberty as a good husband loves his wife; that is also how he loves the land of his birth; at all events, england has a kind of wifely embrace for the home-coming briton, especially if he comes home by the thames. it is not unexpected, nor madly exciting, perhaps; but it is singularly warm and sweet if the conjugal relations have not been strained in the meanwhile. and as the thames narrows itself, the closer, the more genial, the more grateful and comforting this long-anticipated and tenderly intimate uxorious dalliance seems to grow. barty felt very happy as he stood leaning over the bulwarks in the sunshine, between ida and leah, and looked at rotherhithe, and promised himself he would paint it some day, and even sell the picture! then he made himself so pleasant to the custom-house officers that they all but forgot to examine the gibson luggage. was i delighted to grasp his hand at st. katharine's wharf, after so many months? ah!... mr. gibson was there, funny as ever, and the gibsons went home with him to conduit street in a hired fly. alas! poor mrs. gibson's home-coming was the saddest part for her of the delightful little journey. and barty and ida and i went our own way in a four-wheeler to eat the fatted calf in brunswick square, washed down with i will not say what vintage. there were so many available from all the wine-growing lands of europe that i've forgotten which was chosen to celebrate the wanderers' return! let us say romané-conti, which is the "cru" that barty loved best. * * * * * next morning barty left us early, with a portfolio of sketches under his arm, and his heart full of sanguine expectation, and spent the day in fleet street, or there-abouts, calling on publishers of illustrated books and periodicals, and came back to us at dinner-time very fagged, and with a long and piteous but very droll story of his ignominious non-success: his weary waitings in dull, dingy, little business back rooms, the patronizing and snubbing he and his works had met with, the sense that he had everything to learn--he, who thought he was going to take the publishing world by storm. next day it was just the same, and the day after, and the day after that--every day of the week he spent under our roof. then he insisted on leaving us, and took for himself a room in newman street--a studio by day, a bedroom by night, a pleasant smoking-room at all hours, and very soon a place of rendezvous for all sorts and conditions of jolly fellows, old friends and new, from guardsmen to young stars of the art world, mostly idle apprentices. gradually boxing-gloves crept in, and foils and masks, and the faithful snowdrop (whose condition three or four attacks of delirium tremens during barty's exile had not improved). and fellows who sang, and told good stories, and imitated popular actors--all as it used to be in the good old days of st. james's street. but barty was changed all the same. these amusements were no longer the serious business of life for him. in the midst of all the racket he would sit at his small easel and work. he declared he couldn't find inspiration in silence and solitude, and, bereft of martia, he could not bear to be alone. then he looked up other old friends, and left cards and got invitations to dinners and drums. one of his first visits was to his old tailor in jermyn street, to whom he still owed money, and who welcomed him with open arms--almost hugged him--and made him two or three beautiful suits; i believe he would have dressed barty for nothing, as a mere advertisement. at all events, he wouldn't hear of payment "for many years to come! the finest figure in the whole household brigade!--the idea!" soon barty got a few sketches into obscure illustrated papers, and thought his fortune was made. the first was a little sketch in the manner of john leech, which he took to the _british lion_, just started as a rival to _punch_. the _british lion_ died before the sketch appeared, but he got a guinea for it, and bought a beautiful volume of tennyson, illustrated by millais, holman hunt, rossetti, and others, and made a sketch on the fly-leaf of a lovely female with black hair and black eyes, and gave it to leah gibson. it was his old female face of ten years ago; yet, strange to say, the very image of leah herself (as it had once been that of his mother). the great happiness of his life just then was to go to the opera with mrs. gibson and leah and mr. babbage (the family friend), who could get a box whenever he liked, and then to sup with them afterwards in conduit street, over the emporium of the "universal fur company," and to imitate signor giuglini for the delectation of mr. gibson, whose fondness for barty soon grew into absolute worship! and leah, so reserved and self-contained in general company, would laugh till the tears ran down her cheeks; and the music of her laughter, which was deep and low, rang more agreeably to barty's ear than even the ravishing strains of adelina patti--the last of the great prime donne of our time, i think--whose voice still stirs me to the depths, with vague remembrance of fresh girlish innocence turned into sound. long life to her and to her voice! lovely voices should never fade, nor pretty faces either! sometimes i replaced mr. babbage and escorted mrs. gibson to the opera, leaving leah to barty; for on fine nights we walked there, and the ladies took off their bonnets and shawls in the box, which was generally on the upper tier, and we looked down on scatcherd and my mother and sister in the stalls. then back to conduit street to supper. it was easy with half an eye to see the way things were going. i can't say i liked it. no man would, i suppose. but i reconciled myself to the inevitable, and bore up like a stoic. l'amitié est l'amour sans ailes! a happy intimate friendship, a wingless love that has lasted more than thirty years without a break, is no bad substitute for tumultuous passions that have missed their mark! i have been as close a friend to barty's wife as to barty himself, and all the happiness i have ever known has come from them and theirs. walking home, poor mrs. gibson would confide to me her woes and anxieties, and wail over the past glories of tavistock square and all the nice people who lived there, and in russell square and bedford street and gower street, many of whom had given up calling on her now that she lived over a shop. not all the liveliness of bond street and regent street combined (which conduit street so broadly and genially connected with each other) could compensate her for the lost gentility, the aristocratic dulness and quiet and repose, "almost equal to that of a west end square." then she believed that business was not going on well, since mr. gibson talked of giving up his cheapside establishment; he said it was too much for him to look after. but he had lost much of his fun, and seemed harassed and thin, and muttered in his sleep; and the poor woman was full of forebodings, some of which were to be justified by the events that followed. about this time leah, who had forebodings too, took it into her head to attend a class for book-keeping, and in a short time thoroughly mastered the science in all its details. i'm afraid she was better at this kind of work than at either drawing or music, both of which she had been so perseveringly taught. she could read off any music at sight quite glibly and easily, it is true--the result of hard plodding--but could never play to give real pleasure, and she gave it up. and with singing it was the same; her voice was excellent and had been well trained, but when she heard the untaught barty she felt she was no singer, and never would be, and left off trying. yet nobody got more pleasure out of the singing of others--especially barty's and that of young mr. santley, who was her pet and darling, and whom she far preferred to that sweetest and suavest of tenors, giuglini, about whom we all went mad. i agreed with her. giuglini's voice was like green chartreuse in a liqueur-glass; santley's like a bumper of the very best burgundy that ever was! oh that high g! romané-conti, again; and in a quart-pot! en veux-tu? en voilà! and as for her drawing, it was as that of all intelligent young ladies who have been well taught, but have no original talent whatever; nor did she derive any special pleasure from the masterpieces in the national gallery; the royal academy was far more to her taste; and to mine, i frankly admit; and, i fear, to barty's taste also, in those days. enough of the guardsman still remained in him to quite unfit his brain and ear and eye for what was best in literature and art. he was mildly fond of the "bacchus and ariadne," and rembrandt's portrait of himself, and a few others; as he was of the works of shakespeare and milton. but mantegna and botticelli and signorelli made him sad, and almost morose. the only great things he genuinely loved and revered were the elgin marbles. he was constantly sketching them. and i am told that they have had great influence on his work and that he owes much to them. i have grown to admire them immensely myself in consequence, though i used to find that part of the british museum a rather dreary lounge in the days when barty used to draw there. i am the proud possessor of a velasquez, two titians, and a rembrandt; but, as a rule, i like to encourage the art of my own time and country and that of modern france. and i suppose there's hardly a great painter living, or recently dead, some of whose work is not represented on my walls, either in london, paris, or scotland; or at marsfield, where so much of my time is spent; although the house is not mine, it's my real home; and thither i have always been allowed to send my best pictures, and my best bric-à-brac, my favorite horses and dogs, and the oldest and choicest liquors that were ever stored in the cellars of vougeot-conti & co. old bachelor friends have their privileges, and uncle bob has known how to make himself at home in marsfield. barty soon got better off, and moved into better lodgings in berners street; a sitting-room and bedroom at no. b, which has now disappeared. and there he worked all day, without haste and without rest, and at last in solitude; and found he could work twice as well with no companion but his pipe and his lay figure, from which he made most elaborate studies of drapery, in pen and ink; first in the manner of sandys and albert dürer! later in the manner of millais, walker, and keene. also he acquired the art of using the living model for his little illustrations. it had become the fashion; a new school had been founded with _once a week_ and the _cornhill magazine_, it seems; besides those already named, there were lawless, du maurier, poynter, not to mention holman hunt and f. leighton; and a host of new draughtsmen, most industrious apprentices, whose talk and example soon weaned barty from a mixed and somewhat rowdy crew. and all became more or less friends of his; a very good thing, for they were admirable in industry and talent, thorough artists and very good fellows all round. need i say they have all risen to fame and fortune--as becomes poetical justice? he also kept in touch with his old brother officers, and that was a good thing too. but there were others he got to know, rickety, unwholesome geniuses, whose genius (such as it was) had allied itself to madness; and who were just as conceited about the madness as about the genius, and took more pains to cultivate it. it brought them a quicker kudos, and was so much more visible to the naked eye. at first barty was fascinated by the madness, and took the genius on trust, i suppose. they made much of him, painted him, wrote music and verses about him, raved about his greekness, his beauty, his yellow hair, and his voice and what not, as if he had been a woman. he even stood that, he admired them so! or rather, this genius of theirs. he introduced me to this little clique, who called themselves a school, and each other "master": "the neo-priapists," or something of that sort, and they worshipped the tuberose. they disliked me at sight, and i them, and we did not dissemble! like barty, i am fond of men's society; but at least i like them to be unmistakably men of my own sex, manly men, and clean; not little misshapen troglodytes with foul minds and perverted passions, or self-advertising little mountebanks with enlarged and diseased vanities; creatures who would stand in a pillory sooner than not be stared at or talked about at all. whatever their genius might be, it almost made me sick--it almost made me kick, to see the humorous and masculine barty prostrate in admiration before these inspired epicenes, these gifted epileptoids, these anæmic little self-satisfied nincompoops, whose proper place, it seemed to me, was either earlswood, or colney hatch, or broadmoor. that is, if their madness was genuine, which i doubt. he and i had many a quarrel about them, till he found them out and cut them for good and all--a great relief to me; for one got a bad name by being friends with such nondescripts. "dis-moi qui tu hantes, je te dirai ce que tu es!" need i say they all died long ago, without leaving the ghost of a name?--and nobody cared. poetical justice again! how encouraging it is to think there are no such people now, and that the breed has been thoroughly stamped out![ ] [footnote : editor.] barty never succeeded as an illustrator on wood. he got into a way of doing very slight sketches of pretty people in fancy dress and coloring them lightly, and sold them at a shop in the strand, now no more. then he made up little stories, which he illustrated himself, something like the picture-books of the later caldecott, and i found him a publisher, and he was soon able to put aside a few pounds and pay his debts. part eighth "and now i see with eyes serene the very pulse of the machine; a being breathing thoughtful breath, a traveller betwixt life and death; the reason firm, the temperate will, endurance, foresight, strength, and skill; a perfect woman, nobly planned to warn and comfort and command; and yet a spirit too and bright with something of an angel-light." --wordsworth. when barty had been six months in england, poor mr. gibson's affairs went suddenly smash. my father saved him from absolute bankruptcy, and there was lamentation and wailing for a month or so in conduit street; but things were so managed that mr. gibson was able to keep on the "west end firm," and make with it a new start. he had long been complaining of his cashier, and had to dismiss him and look out for another; but here his daughter came in and insisted on being cashier herself--(to her mother's horror). so she took her place at a railed-in desk at the back of the shop, and was not only cashier and bookkeeper, but overseer of all things in general, and was not above seeing any exacting and importunate customer whom the shopmen couldn't manage. she actually liked her work, and declared she had found her real vocation, and quite ceased to regret tavistock square. her authority in the emporium was even greater than her father's, who was too fond of being funny. she awed the shopmen into a kind of affectionate servility, and they were prostrate as before a goddess, in spite of her never-failing politeness to them. customers soon got into a way of asking to see miss gibson, especially when they were accompanied by husbands or brothers or male friends; and miss gibson soon found she sold better than any shopman, and became one of the notables in the quarter. all mr. gibson's fun came back, and he was as proud of his daughter as if she'd been proposed to by an earl. but mrs. gibson couldn't help shedding tears over leah's loss of caste--leah, on whose beauty and good breeding she had founded such hopes; it is but fair to add that she was most anxious to keep the books herself, so that her daughter might be spared this degradation; for no "gentleman," she felt sure, would ever propose to her daughter now. but she was mistaken. one night barty and i dined at a little cagmag he used to frequent, where he fared well--so he said--for a shilling, which included a glass of stout. it was a disgusting little place, but he liked it, and therefore so did i. then we called for mrs. gibson and leah, and took them to the princess's to see fechter in ruy blas, and escorted them home, and had supper with them, a very good supper--nothing ever interfered with the luxuriously hospitable instincts of the gibsons--and a very merry one. barty imitated fechter to the life. "i 'av ze garrb of a _lacquais_--you 'av ze sôle of _wawn_!" this he said to mr. gibson, who was in fits of delight. mr. gibson had just come home from his club, and the cards had been propitious; leah was more reserved than usual, and didn't laugh at barty, for a wonder, but gazed at him with love in her eyes. when we left them, barty took my arm and walked home with me, down oxford street and up southampton row, and talked of ruy blas and fechter, whom he had often seen in paris. just where a little footway leads from the row to queen square and great ormond street, he stopped and said: "bob, do you remember how we tossed up for leah gibson at this very spot?" "i should think i did," said i. "well, you had a fair field and no favor, old boy, didn't you?" "oh yes, i've long resigned any pretensions, as i wrote you more than a year ago; you may go in and win--si le coeur t'en dit!" "well, then, your congratulations, please. i asked her to marry me as we crossed regent circus, oxford street, on the way home; a hansom came by and scattered and splashed us. then we came together again, and just opposite peter robinson's, she asked me if my mind was quite made up--if i was sure i wouldn't ever change. i swore by the eternal gods, and she said she would be my wife; so there we are, an engaged couple." i must ask the reader to believe that i was equal to the occasion, and said what i ought to have said. * * * * * mrs. gibson was happy at last; she was satisfied that barty was a "gentleman," in spite of the kink in his birth; and as for his prospects, money was a thing that never entered mrs. gibson's head, and she loved barty as a son--was a little bit in love with him herself, i believe; she was not yet forty, and as pretty as she could be. besides, a week after, who should call upon her over the shop--there was a private entrance of course--but the right honorable lady caroline grey and her niece, miss daphne rohan, granddaughter of the late and niece of the present marquis of whitby! and mrs. gibson felt as much at home with them in five minutes as if she'd known them all her life. leah was summoned from below, and kissed and congratulated by the two aristocratic relatives of barty's, and relieved of her shyness in a very short time indeed. [illustration: "leah was summoned from below"] as a matter of fact, lady caroline, who knew her nephew well, and thoroughly understood his position, was really well pleased; she had never forgotten her impression of leah when she met her in the park with ida and me a year back, and we all walked by the serpentine together--a certain kind of beauty seems to break down all barriers of rank; and she knew leah's character both from barty and me, and from her own native shrewdness of observation. she had been delighted to hear from barty of leah's resolute participation in her father's troubles, and in his attempt--so successful through her--to rehabilitate his business. to her old-fashioned aristocratic way of looking at things, there was little to choose between a respectable west end shopkeeper and a medical practitioner or dentist or solicitor or architect--or even an artist, like barty himself. once outside the church, the army and navy, or a government office, what on earth did it matter _who_ or _what_ one was, or wasn't? the only thing she couldn't stand was that horrid form of bourgeois gentility, the pretension to seem something better than you really are. mrs. gibson was so naïvely honest in her little laments over her lost grandeur that she could hardly be called vulgar about it. mr. gibson didn't appear; he was overawed, and distrusted himself. i doubt if lady caroline would have liked anything in the shape of jocose familiarity; and i fear her naturalness and simplicity and cordiality of manner, and the extreme plainness of her attire, might have put him at his ease almost a trifle too much. whether her ladyship would have been so sympathetic about this engagement if barty had been a legitimate rohan--say a son of her own--is perhaps to be doubted; but anyhow she had quite made up her mind that leah was a quite exceptional person, both in mind and manners. she has often said as much to me, and has always had as high a regard for barty's wife as for any woman she knows, and has still--the rohans are a long-lived family. she has often told me she never knew a better, sincerer, nobler, or more sensible woman than barty's wife. besides which, as i have been told, the ancient yorkshire house of rohan has always been singularly free from aristocratic hauteur; perhaps their religion may have accounted for this, and also their poverty. this memorable visit, it must be remembered, happened nearly forty years ago, when social demarcations in england were far more rigidly defined than at present; then, the wife of a costermonger with a donkey did not visit the wife of a costermonger who had to wheel his barrow himself. we are more sensible in these days, as all who like mr. chevalier's admirable coster-songs are aware. old europe itself has become less tolerant of distinctions of rank; even austria is becoming so. it is only in southeastern bulgaria--and even of this i am not absolutely sure--that the navvy who happens to be of noble birth refuses to work in the same gang with the navvy who isn't; and that's what i call real "esprit de corps," without which no aristocracy can ever hope to hold its own in these degenerate days. noblesse oblige! why, i've got a lord arthur in my new york agency, and two hon'bles in barge yard, and another at cape town; and devilish good men of business they are, besides being good fellows all round. they hope to become partners some day; and, by jove! they shall. now i've said it, i'll stick to it. the fact is, i'm rather fond of noble lords: why shouldn't i be? i might have been one myself any day these last ten years; i might now, if i chose; but there! charles lamb knew a man who wanted to be a tailor once, but hadn't got the spirit. i find i haven't got the spirit to be a noble lord. even barty might have been a lord--he, a mere man of letters!--but he refused every honor and distinction that was ever offered to him, either here or abroad--even the prussian order of merit! alfred tennyson was a lord, so what is there to make such a fuss about. give me lords who can't help themselves, because they were born so, and the stupider the better; and the older--for the older they are the grander their manners and the manners of their womankind. take, for instance, that splendid old dow, penelope, duchess of rumtifoozleland--i always give nicknames to my grand acquaintances; not that she's particularly old herself, but she belongs to an antiquated order of things that is passing away--for she was a fitztartan, a daughter of the ducal house of comtesbois (pronounced county boyce); and she's very handsome still. have you ever been presented to her grace, o reader? if so, you must have been struck by the grace of her grace's manner, as with a ducal gesture and a few courtly words she recognizes the value of whatever immense achievements yours must have been to have procured you such an honor as such an introduction, and expresses her surprise and regret that she has not known you before. the formula is always the same, on every possible occasion. i ought to know, for i've had the honor of being presented to her grace seven times this year. now this lofty forgetting of your poor existence--or mine--is not aristocratic hauteur or patrician insolence; it is _bêtise pure et simple_, as they call it in france. she was a daughter of the house of comtesbois, and the fitztartans were not the inventors of gunpowder, nor was she. but for a stately, magnificent grande dame of the ancient régime, to meet for the seventh time, and be presented to--for the seventh time--with all due ceremony in the midst of a distinguished conservative crowd--say at a ball at buckingham palace--give me penelope, dowager duchess of rumtifoozleland! (this seems a somewhat uncalled-for digression. but, anyhow, it shows that when it pleases me to do so i move in the very best society--just like barty josselin.) * * * * * so here was mr. nobody of nowhere taking unto himself a wife from among the daughters of heth; from the class he had always disliked, the buyers cheap and the sellers dear--whose sole aim in life is the making of money, and who are proud when they succeed and ashamed when they fail--and getting actually fond of his future father and mother in law, as i was! when i laughed to him about old gibson--john gilpin, as we used to call him--being a tradesman, he said: "yes; but what an _unsuccessful_ tradesman, my dear fellow!" as if that in itself atoned or made amends for everything. "besides, he's leah's father! and as for mrs. gilpin, she's a _dear_, although she's always on pleasure bent; at all events, she's not of a frugal mind; and she's so pretty and dresses so well--and what a foot!--and she's got such easy manners, too; she reminds me of dear lady archibald! that's a mother-in-law i shall get on with.... i wish she didn't make such a fuss about living over the shop; i call that being above one's business in every way." "je suis au-dessus de mes affaires," as old bonzig proudly said when he took a garret over the mont de piété, in the rue des averses. * * * * * barty's courtship didn't last long--only five or six months--during which he made lots of money by sketching little full-length portraits of people in outline and filling up with tints in water-color. he thus immortalized my father and mother, and ida scatcherd and her husband, and the old scatcherds, and lots of other people. it was not high art, i suppose; he was not a high artist; but it paid well, and made him more tolerant of trade than ever. he took the upper part of a house in southampton row, and furnished it almost entirely with wedding-gifts; among other things, a beautiful semi-grand piano by Érard--the gift of my father. everything was charming there and in the best taste. leah was better at furnishing a house than at drawing and music-making; it was an occupation she revelled in. it is not perhaps for me to say that their cellar might hold its own with that of any beginners in their rank of life! well, and so they were married at marylebone church, and i was barty's best man (he was to have been mine, and for that very bride). nobody else was there but the family, and ida, whose husband was abroad; the sun shone, though it was not yet may--and then we breakfasted; and john gilpin made a very funny speech, though with tears in his voice; and as for poor maman-belle-mère, as barty called her, she was a very niobe. they went for a fortnight to boulogne. i wished them joy from the bottom of my heart, and flung a charming little white satin slipper of mrs. gibson's; it alighted on the carriage--_our_ carriage, by-the-way; we had just started one, and now lived at lancaster gate. it was a sharp pang--almost unbearable, but, also, almost the last. the last was when she came back and i saw how radiant she looked. and as for barty, he was like "the herald mercury, new lighted on a heaven-kissing hill!" and he had shaved off his beard and mustache to please his wife. * * * * * "from george du maurier, esqre., a.r.w.s., hampstead heath, to the right honble. sir robert maurice, bart., m.p.: "my dear maurice,--in answer to your kind letter, i shall be proud and happy to illustrate your biography of barty josselin; but as for editing it, _vous plaisantez, mon ami; un amateur comme moi!_ who'll edit the editor? _quis custodiet?_... "you're mistaken about malines. i only got back there a week or two before he left it. i remember often seeing him there, arm in arm with his aunt, lady caroline grey, and being told that he was a _monsieur anglais, qui avait mal aux yeux_ (like me); but in düsseldorf, during the following winter, i knew him very well indeed. "we, and the others you tell me you mention, had a capital time in düsseldorf. i remember the beautiful miss royce they were all so mad about, and also miss gibson, whom i admired much the most of the two, although she wasn't quite so tall--you know my craze for lovely giantesses. "josselin and i came to london at about the same time, and there again i saw much of him, and was immensely attracted by him, of course--as we all were, in the very pleasant little artistic clique you tell me you describe; but somehow i was never very intimate with him--none of us were, except, perhaps, charles keene. "he went a great deal into smart society, and a little of the guardsman still clung to him, and this was an unpardonable crime in those bohemian days. "he was once seen walking between two well-known earls, in the burlington arcade, arm in arm! "z---- (to whom a noble lord was as a red rag to a bull) all but cut him for this, and we none of us approved of his swell friends, guardsmen and others. how we've all changed, especially z----, who hasn't missed a levée for twenty years, nor his wife a drawing-room! "josselin and i acted in a little french musical farce together at cornelys's; he had a charming voice and sang beautifully, as you know. "then he married, and a year after i did the same; and though we lived near each other for a little while, we didn't meet very often, beyond dining together once or twice at each other's houses. they lived very much in the world. "it will be very difficult to draw his wife. i really think mrs. josselin was the most beautiful woman i ever saw; but she used to be very reserved in those early days, and i never felt quite at my ease with her. i'm sure she was sweetness and kindness itself; she was certainly charming at her own dinner-table, where she was less shy. "millais's portrait of her is very good, and so is watts's; but the best idea of her is to be got from josselin's little outlines in 'the discreet princess,' and these are out of print. if you have any, please lend them to me, and i will faithfully return them. i have more than once tried to draw her in _punch_, from memory, but never with success. "i used to call her '_la belle dame sans merci._' "i've often, however, drawn josselin, as you must remember, and people have recognized him at once. thanks for all his old sketches of school, etc., which will be very useful. "i wish i had known the josselins better. but when one lives in hampstead one has to forego many delightful friendships; and then he grew to be such a tremendous swell! good heavens!--_sardonyx_, etc. i never could muster courage even to write and congratulate him. "it never occurred to any of us, either in düsseldorf or london, to think him what is called _clever_; he never said anything very witty or profound. but he was always funny in a good-natured, jovial manner, and made me laugh more than any one else. "as for satire, good heavens! that seemed not in him. he was always well dressed, always in high spirits and a good temper, and very demonstrative and caressing; putting his arm round one, and slapping one on the back or lifting one up in the air; a kind of jolty, noisy, boisterous boon-companion--rather uproarious, in fact, and with no disdain for a good bottle of wine or a good bottle of beer. his artistic tastes were very catholic, for he was prostrate in admiration before millais, burne-jones, fred walker, and charles keene, with the latter of whom he used to sing old english duets. oddly enough, charles keene had for josselin's little amateur pencillings the most enthusiastic admiration--probably because they were the very antipodes of his own splendid work. i believe he managed to get some little initial letters of josselin's into _punch_ and _once a week_; but they weren't signed, and made no mark, and i've forgotten them. "josselin didn't really get his foot in the stirrup till a year or two after his marriage. [illustration: "between two well-known earls"] "and that was by his illustrations to his own _sardonyx_, which are almost worthy of the letter-press, i think; though still somewhat lacking in freedom and looseness, and especially in the sense of tone. the feeling for beauty and character in them (especially that of women and children) is so utterly beyond anything else of the kind that has ever been attempted, that technical considerations no longer count. i think you will find all of us, in or outside the academy, agreed upon this point. "i saw very little of him after he bought marsfield; but i sometimes meet his sons and daughters, _de par le monde_. "and what a pleasure that is to an artist of my particular bent you can readily understand. i would go a good way to see or talk to any daughter of josselin's; and to hear mrs. trevor sing, what miles! i'm told the grandchildren are splendid--chips of the old block too. "and now, my dear maurice, i will do my best; you may count upon that, for old-times' sake, and for josselin's, and for that of '_la belle dame sans merci_,' whom i used to admire so enthusiastically. it grieves me deeply to think of them both gone--and all so sudden! "sincerely yours, "george du maurier. "p. s.--very many thanks for the château yquem and the steinberger cabinet; _je tâcherai de ne pas en abuser trop!_ "i send you a little sketch of graham-reece (lord ironsides), taken by me on a little bridge in düsselthal, near düsseldorf. he stood for me there in . it was thought very like at the time." * * * * * when the josselins came back from their honeymoon and were settled in southampton row many people of all kinds called on the newly married pair; invitations came pouring in, and they went very much into the world. they were considered the handsomest couple in london that year, and became quite the fashion, and were asked everywhere, and made much of, and raved about, and had a glorious time till the following season, when somebody else became the fashion, and they had grown tired of being lionized themselves, and discovered they were people of no social importance whatever, as leah had long perceived; and it did them good. barty was in his element. the admiration his wife excited filled him with delight; it was a kind of reflected glory, that pleased him more than any glory he could possibly achieve for himself. i doubt if leah was quite so happy. the grand people, the famous people, the clever, worldly people she met made her very shy at first, as may be easily imagined. she was rather embarrassed by the attentions many smart men paid her as to a very pretty woman, and not always pleased or edified. her deep sense of humor was often tickled by this new position in which she found herself, and which she put down entirely to the fact that she was barty's wife. she never thought much of her own beauty, which had never been made much of at home, where beauty of a very different order was admired, and where she was thought too tall, too pale, too slim, and especially too quiet and sedate. dimpled little rosy plumpness for mr. and mrs. john gilpin, and the never-ending lively chatter, and the ever-ready laugh that results from an entire lack of the real sense of humor and a laudable desire to show one's pretty teeth. leah's only vanity was her fondness for being very well dressed; it had become a second nature, especially her fondness for beautiful french boots and shoes, an instinct inherited from her mother. for these, and for pretty furniture and hangings, she had the truly æsthetic eye, and was in advance of her time by at least a year. she shone most in her own home--by her great faculty of making others at home there, too, and disinclined to leave it. her instinct of hospitality was a true inheritance; she was good at the ordering of all such things--food, wines, flowers, waiting, every little detail of the dinner-table, and especially who should be asked to meet whom, and which particular guests should be chosen to sit by each other. all things of which barty had no idea whatever. i remember their first dinner-party well, and how pleasant it was. how good the fare, and how simple; and how quick the hired waiting--and the wines! how--(but i won't talk of that); and how lively we all were, and how handsome the women. lady caroline and miss daphne rohan, mr. and mrs. graham-reece, scatcherd and my sister; g. du maurier (then a bachelor) and myself--that was the party, a very lively one. after dinner du maurier and barty sang capital songs of the quartier latin, and told stories of the atelier, and even danced a kind of cancan together--an invention of their own--which they called "_le dernier des abencerrages_." we were in fits of laughter, especially lady caroline and mrs. graham-reece. i hope d. m. has not forgotten that scene, and will do justice to it in this book. there was still more of the bohemian than the guardsman left in barty, and his wife's natural tastes were far more in the direction of bohemia than of fashionable west end society, as it was called by some people who were not in it, whatever it consists of; there was more of her father in her than her mother, and she was not sensitive to the world's opinion of her social status. [illustration: "le dernier des abencerrages"] sometimes leah and barty and i would dine together and go to the gallery of the opera, let us say, or to see fechter and miss kate terry in the _duke's motto_, or robson in shylock, or the _porter's knot_, or whatever was good. then on the way home to southampton row barty would buy a big lobster, and leah would make a salad of it, with innovations of her own devising which were much appreciated; and then we would feast, and afterwards leah would mull some claret in a silver saucepan, and then we (barty and i) would drink and smoke and chat of pleasant things till it was very late indeed and i had to be turned out neck and crop. and the kindness of the two dear people! once, when my father and mother were away in the isle of wight and the scatcherds in paris, i felt so seedy i had to leave barge yard and go home to lancaster gate. i had felt pretty bad for two or three days. like all people who are never ill, i was nervous and thought i was going to die, and sent for barty. in less than twenty minutes leah drove up in a hansom. barty was in hampton court for the day, sketching. when she had seen me and how ill i looked, off she went for the doctor, and brought him back with her in no time. he saw i was sickening for typhoid, and must go to bed at once and engage two nurses. leah insisted on taking me straight off to southampton row, and the doctor came with us. there i was soon in bed and the nurses engaged, and everything done for me as if i'd been barty himself--all this at considerable inconvenience to the josselins. and i had my typhoid most pleasantly. and i shall never forget the joys of convalescence, nor what an angel that woman was in a sick-room--nor what a companion when the worst was over; nor how she so bore herself through all this forced intimacy that no unruly regrets or jealousies mingled in my deep affection and admiration for her, and my passionate gratitude. she was such a person to tell all one's affairs to, even dry business affairs! such a listener, and said such sensible things, and sometimes made suggestions that were invaluable; and of a discretion! a very tomb for momentous secrets. how on earth barty would have ever managed to get through existence without her is not to be conceived. upon my word, i hardly see how i should have got on myself without these two people to fill my life with; and in all matters of real importance to me she was the nearest of the two, for barty was so light about things, and couldn't listen long to anything that was at all intricate. such matters bored him, and that extraordinary good sense which underlies all his brilliant criticism of life was apt to fail him in practical matters; he was too headstrong and impulsive, and by no means discreet. it was quite amusing to watch the way his wife managed him without ever letting him suspect what she was doing, and how, after his raging and fuming and storming and stamping--for all his old fractiousness had come back--she would gradually make him work his way round--of his own accord, as he thought--to complete concession all along the line, and take great credit to himself in consequence; and she would very gravely and slowly give way to a delicate little wink in my direction, but never a smile at what was all so really funny. i've no doubt she often got me to do what she thought right in just the same way--_à mon insu_--and shot her little wink at barty. * * * * * in due time--namely, late in the evening of december , --barty hailed a hansom, and went first to summon his good friend dr. knight, in orchard street; and then he drove to brixton, and woke up and brought back with him a very respectable, middle-aged, and motherly woman whose name was jones; and next morning, which was a very sunny, frosty one, my dear little god-daughter was ushered into this sinful world, a fact which was chronicled the very next day in leah's diary by the simple entry: "jan. .--roberta was born and the coals came in." when roberta was first shown to her papa by the nurse, he was in despair and ran and shut himself up in his studio, and, i believe, almost wept. he feared he had brought a monster into the world. he had always thought that female babies were born with large blue eyes framed with long lashes, a beautiful complexion of the lily and the rose, and their shining, flaxen curls already parted in the middle. and this little bald, wrinkled, dark-red, howling lump of humanity all but made him ill. but soon the doctor came and knocked at the door, and said: "i congratulate you, old fellow, on having produced the most magnificent little she i ever saw in my life--bar none; she might be shown for money." and it turned out that this was not the coarse, unfeeling chaff poor barty took it for at first, but the pure and simple truth. so, my blessed roberta, pride of your silly old godfather's heart and apple of his eye, mother of cupid and ganymede and aurora and the infant hercules, think of your poor young father weeping in solitude at the first sight of you, because you were so hideous in his eyes! you were not so in mine. next day--you had improved, no doubt--i took you in my arms and thought well of you, especially your little hands that were very prehensile, and your little feet turned in, with rosy toes and little pink nails like shiny gems; and i was complimented by mrs. jones on the skill with which i dandled you. i have dandled your sons and daughters, roberta, and may i live to dandle theirs! so then barty dried his tears, if he really shed them--and he swears he did--and went and sat by his wife's bedside, and felt unutterably, as i believe all good men do under similar circumstances; and lo!--proh!--to his wonderment and delight, in the middle of it all, the sense of the north came back like a tide, like an overwhelming avalanche. he declared he all but fainted in the double ineffability of his bliss. that night he arranged by his bedside writing materials chosen with extra care, and before he went to bed he looked out of window at the stars, and filled his lungs with the clean, frozen, virtuous air of bloomsbury, and whispered a most passionate invocation to martia, and implored her forgiveness, and went to sleep hugging the thought of her to his manly breast, now widowed for quite a month to come. next morning there was a long letter in bold, vigorous blaze: "my more than ever beloved barty,--it is for me to implore pardon, not for _you_! your first-born is proof enough to me how right you were in letting your own instinct guide you in the choice of a wife. "ah! and well now i know her worth and your good-fortune. i have inhabited her for many months, little as she knows it, dear thing! "although she was not the woman i first wanted for you, and had watched so many years, she is all that i could wish, in body and mind, in beauty and sense and goodness of heart and intelligence, in health and strength, and especially in the love with which she has so easily, and i trust so lastingly, filled your heart--for that is the most precious thing of all to me, as you shall know some day, and why; and you will then understand and forgive me for seeming such a shameless egotist and caring so desperately for my own ends. "barty, i will never doubt you again, and we will do great things together. they will not be quite what i used to hope, but they will be worth doing, and all the doing will be yours. all i can do is to set your brains in motion--those innocent brains that don't know their own strength any more than a herd of bullocks which any little butcher boy can drive to the slaughter-house. "as soon as leah is well enough you must tell her all about me--all you know, that is. she won't believe you at first, and she'll think you've gone mad; but she'll have to believe you in time, and she's to be trusted with any secret, and so will you be when once you've shared it with her. "(by-the-way, i wish you weren't so slipshod and colloquial in your english, barty--guardsman's english, i suppose--which i have to use, as it's yours; your french is much more educated and correct. you remember dear m. durosier at the pension brossard? he taught you well. you must read, and cultivate a decent english style, for the bulk of our joint work must be in english, i think; and i can only use your own words to make you immortal, and your own way of using them.) "we will be simple, barty--as simple as lemuel gulliver and the good robinson crusoe--and cultivate a fondness for words of one syllable, and if that doesn't do we'll try french. "now listen, or, rather, read: "first of all, i will write out for you a list of books, which you must study whenever you feel i'm inside you--and this more for me than for yourself. those marked with a cross you must read constantly and carefully at home, the others you must read at the british museum. "get a reading ticket at once, and read the books in the order i put down. never forget to leave paper and pencil by your bedside. leah will soon get accustomed to your quiet somnambulism; i will never trouble your rest for more than an hour or so each night, but you can make up for it by staying in bed an hour or two longer. you will have to work during the day from the pencil notes in blaze you will have written during the night, and in the evening, or at any time you are conscious of my presence, read what you have written during the day, and leave it by your bedside when you go to bed, that i may make you correct and alter and suggest--during your sleep. "only write on one side of a page, leaving a margin and plenty of space between the lines, and let it be in copybooks, so that the page on the left-hand side be left for additions and corrections from my blaze notes, and so forth; you'll soon get into the way of it. "then when each copybook is complete--i will let you know--get leah to copy it out; she writes a very good, legible business hand. all will arrange itself.... "and now, get the books and begin reading them. i shall not be ready to write, nor will you, for more than a month. "keep this from everybody but leah; don't even mention it to maurice until i give you leave--not but what's he's to be thoroughly trusted. you are fortunate in your wife and your friend--i hope the day will come when you will find you have been fortunate in your "martia." here follows a list of books, but it has been more or less carefully erased; and though some of the names are still to be made out, i conclude that barty did not wish them to be made public. * * * * * before roberta was born, leah had reserved herself an hour every morning and every afternoon for what she called the cultivation of her mind--the careful reading of good standard books, french and english, that she might qualify herself in time, as she said, for the intellectual society in which she hoped to mix some day; she built castles in the air, being somewhat of a hero-worshipper in secret, and dreamt of meeting her heroes in the flesh, now that she was barty's wife. but when she became a mother there was not only roberta who required much attention, but barty himself made great calls upon her time besides. to his friends' astonishment he had taken it into his head to write a book. good heavens! barty writing a book! what on earth could the dear boy have to write about? he wrote much of the book at night in bed, and corrected and put it into shape during the daytime; and finally leah had to copy it all out neatly in her best handwriting, and this copying out of barty's books became to her an all but daily task for many years--a happy labor of love, and one she would depute to no one else; no hired hand should interfere with these precious productions of her husband's genius. so that most of the standard works, english and french, that she grew to thoroughly master were of her husband's writing--not a bad education, i venture to think! besides, it was more in her nature and in the circumstances of her life that she should become a woman of business and a woman of the world rather than a reader of books--one who grew to thoroughly understand life as it presented itself to her; and men and women, and especially children; and the management of a large and much frequented house; for they soon moved away from southampton row. she quickly arrived at a complete mastery of all such science as this--and it is a science; such a mastery as i have never seen surpassed by any other woman, of whatever world. she would have made a splendid marchioness of whitby, this daughter of a low-comedy john gilpin; she would have beaten the whitby record! she developed into a woman of the world in the best sense--full of sympathy, full of observation and quick understanding of others' needs and thoughts and feelings; absolutely sincere, of a constant and even temper, and a cheerfulness that never failed--the result of her splendid health; without caprice, without a spark of vanity, without selfishness of any kind--generous, open-handed, charitable to a fault; always taking the large and generous view of everything and everybody; a little impulsive perhaps, but not often having to regret her impulses; of unwearied devotion to her husband, and capable of any heroism or self-sacrifice for his sake; of that i feel sure. no one is perfect, of course. unfortunately, she was apt to be somewhat jealous at first of his singularly catholic and very frankly expressed admiration of every opposite type of female beauty; but she soon grew to see that there was safety in numbers, and she was made to feel in time that her own type was the arch-type of all in his eyes, and herself the arch-representative of that type in his heart. she was also jealous in her friendships, and was not happy unless constantly assured of her friends' warm love--ida's, mine, even that of her own father and mother. good heavens! had ever a woman less cause for doubt or complaint on that score! then, like all extremely conscientious people who always know their own mind and do their very best, she did not like to be found fault with; she secretly found such fault with herself that she thought that was fault-finding enough. also, she was somewhat rigid in sticking to the ways she thought were right, and in the selection of these ways she was not always quite infallible. _on a les défauts de ses qualités_; and a little obstinacy is often the fault of a very noble quality indeed! though somewhat shy and standoffish during the first year or two of her married life, she soon became "_joliment dégourdie_," as barty called it; and i can scarcely conceive any position in which she would have been awkward or embarrassed for a moment, so ready was she always with just the right thing to say--or to withhold, if silence were better than speech; and her fit and proper place in the world as a great man's wife--and a good and beautiful woman--was always conceded to her with due honor, even by the most impertinent among the highly placed of her own sex, without any necessity for self-assertion on her part whatever--without assumption of any kind. it was a strange and peculiar personal ascendency she managed to exert with so little effort, an ascendency partly physical, no doubt; and the practice of it had begun in the west end emporium of the "universal fur company, limited." [illustration: "sardonyx"] how admirably she filled the high and arduous position of wife to such a man as barty josselin is well known to the world at large. it was no sinecure! but she gloried in it; and to her thorough apprehension and management of their joint lives and all that came of them, as well as to her beauty and sense and genial warmth, was due her great popularity for many years in an immense and ever-widening circle, where the memory of her is still preserved and cherished as one of the most remarkable women of her time. with all this power of passionate self-surrender to her husband in all things, little and big, she was not of the type that cannot see the faults of the beloved one, and barty was very often frankly pulled up for his shortcomings, and by no means had it all his own way when his own way wasn't good for him. she was a person to reckon with, and incapable of the slightest flattery, even to barty, who was so fond of it from her, and in spite of her unbounded admiration for him. such was your mother, my dear roberta, in the bloom of her early twenties and ever after; till her death, in fact--on the day following his! * * * * * somewhere about the spring of she said to me: "bob, barty has written a book. either i'm an idiot, or blinded by conjugal conceit, or else barty's book--which i've copied out myself in my very best handwriting--is one of the most beautiful and important books ever written. come and dine with me to-night; barty's dining in the city with the fishmongers--you shall have what you like best: pickled pork and pease-pudding, a dressed crab and a welsh rabbit to follow, and draught stout--and after dinner i will read you the beginning of _sardonyx_--that's what he's called it--and i should like to have your opinion." i dined with her as she wished. we were alone, and she told me how he wrote every night in bed, in a kind of ecstasy--between two and four, in blaze--and then elaborated his work during the day, and made sketches for it. and after dinner she read me the first part of _sardonyx_; it took three hours. then barty came home, having dined well, and in very high spirits. "well, old fellow! how do you like _sardonyx_?" i was so moved and excited i could say nothing--i couldn't even smoke. i was allowed to take the precious manuscript away with me, and finished it during the night. next morning i wrote to him out of the fulness of my heart. i read it aloud to my father and mother, and then lent it to scatcherd, who read it to ida. in twenty-four hours our gay and genial barty--our robin goodfellow and merry andrew, our funny man--had become for us a demi-god; for all but my father, who looked upon him as a splendid but irretrievably lost soul, and mourned over him as over a son of his own. and in two months _sardonyx_ was before the reading world, and the middle-aged reader will remember the wild enthusiasm and the storm it raised. all that is ancient history, and i will do no more than allude to the unparalleled bitterness of the attacks made by the church on a book which is now quoted again and again from every pulpit in england--in the world--and has been translated into almost every language under the sun. thus he leaped into fame and fortune at a bound, and at first they delighted him. he would take little roberta on to the top of his head and dance "la paladine" on his hearth-rug, singing: "rataplan, rataplan, i'm a celebrated man--" in imitation of sergeant bouncer in _cox and box_. but in less than a year celebrity had quite palled, and all his money bored him--as mine does me. he had a very small appetite for either the praise or the pudding which were served out to him in such excess all through his life. it was only his fondness for the work itself that kept his nose so constantly to the grindstone. within six months of the _sardonyx_ barty wrote _la quatrième dimension_ in french, which was published by dollfus-moïs frères, in paris, with if possible a greater success; for the clerical opposition was even more virulent. the english translation, which is admirable, is by scatcherd. then came _motes in a moonbeam, interstellar harmonics_, and _berthe aux grands pieds_ within eighteen months, so that before he was quite thirty, in the space of two years, barty had produced five works--three in english and two in french--which, though merely novels and novelettes, have had as wide and far-reaching an influence on modern thought as the _origin of species_, that appeared about the same time, and which are such, for simplicity of expression, exposition, and idea, that an intelligent ploughboy can get all the good and all the pleasure from them almost as easily as any philosopher or sage. such was barty's début as a man of letters. this is not the place to criticise his literary work, nor am i the proper person to do so; enough has been written already about barty josselin during his lifetime to fill a large library--in nearly every language there is. i tremble to think of what has yet to follow! [illustration: "'rataplan, rataplan'"] _sardonyx_ came of age nearly twelve years ago--what a coming of age that was the reader will remember well. i shall not forget its celebration at marsfield; it happened to coincide with the birth of barty's first grandchild, at that very house. i will now go back to barty's private life, which is the sole object of this humble attempt at book-making on my part. during the next ten years barty's literary activity was immense. beautiful books followed each other in rapid succession--and so did beautiful little bartys, and leah's hands were full. and as each book, english or french, was more beautiful than the last; so was each little barty, male or female. all over kensington and campden hill--for they took gretna lodge, next door to cornelys, the sculptor's--the splendor of these little bartys, their size, their beauty, their health and high spirits, became almost a joke, and their mother became almost a comic character in consequence--like the old lady who lived in a shoe. money poured in with a profusion few writers of good books have ever known before, and every penny not wanted for immediate household expenses was pounced upon by scatcherd or by me to be invested in the manner we thought best: nous avons eu la main heureuse! the josselins kept open house, and money was not to be despised, little as barty ever thought of money. then every autumn the entire smalah migrated to the coast of normandy, or picardy, or brittany, or to the highlands of inverness, and with them the scatcherds and the chronicler of these happy times--not to mention cats, dogs, and squirrels, and guinea-pigs, and white mice, and birds of all kinds, from which the children would not be parted, and the real care of which, both at home and abroad, ultimately devolved on poor mrs. josselin--who was not so fond of animals as all that--so that her life was full to overflowing of household cares. another duty had devolved upon her also: that of answering the passionate letters that her husband received by every post from all parts of the world--especially america--and which he could never be induced to answer himself. every morning regularly he would begin his day's work by writing "yours truly--b. josselin" on quite a score of square bits of paper, to be sent through the post to fair english and american autograph collectors who forwarded stamped envelopes, and sometimes photographs of themselves, that he might study the features of those who loved him at a respectful distance, and who so frankly told their love; all of which bored barty to extinction, and was a source of endless amusement to his wife. but even _she_ was annoyed when a large unstamped or insufficiently stamped parcel arrived by post from america, enclosing a photograph of her husband to which his signature was desired, and containing no stamps to frank it on its return journey! and the photographers he had to sit to! and the interviewers, male and female, to whom he had to deny himself! life was too short! how often has a sturdy laborer or artisan come up to him, as he and i walked together, with: "i should very much like to shake you by the hand, mr. josselin, if i might make so bold, sir!" and such an appeal as this would please him far more than the most fervently written outpourings of the female hearts he had touched. they, of course, received endless invitations to stay at country-houses all over the united kingdom, where they might have been lionized to their hearts' content, if such had been their wish; but these they never accepted. they never spent a single night away from their own house till most of their children were grown up--or ever wanted to; and every year they got less and less into the way of dining out, or spending the evening from home--and i don't wonder; no gayer or jollier home ever was than that they made for themselves, and each other, and their intimate friends; not even at cornelys's, next door, was better music to be heard; for barty was friends with all the music-makers, english and foreign, who cater for us in and out of the season; even _they_ read his books, and understood them; and they sang and played better for barty--and for cornelys, next door--than even for the music-loving multitude who filled their pockets with british gold. and the difference between barty's house and that of cornelys was that at the former the gatherings were smaller and more intimate--as became the smaller house--and one was happier there in consequence. barty gave himself up entirely to his writing, and left everything else to his wife, or to me, or to scatcherd. she was really a mother to him, as well as a passionately loving and devoted helpmeet. to make up for this, whenever she was ill, which didn't often happen--except, of course, when she had a baby--he forgot all his writing in his anxiety about her; and in his care of her, and his solicitude for her ease and comfort, he became quite a motherly old woman, a better nurse than mrs. jones or mrs. gibson--as practical and sensible and full of authority as dr. knight himself. and when it was all over, all his amiable carelessness came back, and with it his genius, his school-boy high spirits, his tomfooling, his romps with his children, and his utter irresponsibility, and absolute disdain for all the ordinary business of life; and the happy, genial temper that never seemed to know a moment's depression or nourish an unkind thought. poor barty! what would he have done without us all, and what should we have done without barty? as scatcherd said of him, "he's having his portion in this life." but it was not really so. then, in , he bought that charming house, mansfield, by the thames, which he rechristened marsfield; and which he--with the help of the scatcherds and myself, for it became our hobby--made into one of the most delightful abodes in england. it was the real home for all of us; i really think it is one of the loveliest spots on earth. it was a bargain, but it cost a lot of money; altogether, never was money better spent--even as a mere investment. when i think of what it is worth now! je suis homme d'affaires! what a house-warming that was on the very day that france and germany went to war; we little guessed what was to come for the country we all loved so dearly, or we should not have been so glad. i am conscious that all this is rather dull reading. alas! merry england is a devilish dull place compared to foreign parts--and success, respectability, and domestic bliss are the dullest things to write--or read--about that i know--and with middle age to follow too! it was during that first summer at marsfield that barty told me the extraordinary story of martia, and i really thought he had gone mad. for i knew him to be the most truthful person alive. even now i hardly know what to think, nor did leah--nor did barty himself up to the day of his death. he showed me all her letters, _which i may deem it advisable to publish some day_: not only the blaze suggestions for his books, and all her corrections; things to occupy him for life--all, of course, in his own handwriting; but many letters about herself, also written in sleep and by his own hand; and the style is barty's--not the style in which he wrote his books, and which is not to be matched; but that in which he wrote his blaze letters to me. if her story is true--and i never read a piece of documentary evidence more convincing--these letters constitute the most astonishing revelation ever yet vouchsafed to this earth. but her story cannot be true! that barty's version of his relations with "the martian" is absolutely sincere it is impossible to doubt. he was quite unconscious of the genesis of every book he ever wrote. his first hint of every one of them was the elaborately worked out suggestion he found by his bedside in the morning--written by himself in his sleep during the preceding night, with his eyes wide open, while more often than not his wife anxiously watched him at his unconscious work, careful not to wake or disturb him in any way. roughly epitomized, martia's story was this: for an immense time she had gone through countless incarnations, from the lowest form to the highest, in the cold and dreary planet we call mars, the outermost of the four inhabited worlds of our system, where the sun seems no bigger than an orange, and which but for its moist, thin, rich atmosphere and peculiar magnetic conditions that differ from ours would be too cold above ground for human or animal or vegetable life. as it is, it is only inhabited now in the neighborhood of its equator, and even there during its long winter it is colder and more desolate than cape horn or spitzbergen--except that the shallow, fresh-water sea does not freeze except for a few months at either pole. all these incarnations were forgotten by her but the last; nothing remained of them all but a vague consciousness that they had once been, until their culmination in what would be in mars the equivalent of a woman on our earth. man in mars is, it appears, a very different being from what he is here. he is amphibious, and descends from no monkey, but from a small animal that seems to be something between our seal and our sea-lion. according to martia, his beauty is to that of the seal as that of the theseus or antinous to that of an orangoutang. his five senses are extraordinarily acute, even the sense of touch in his webbed fingers and toes; and in addition to these he possesses a sixth, that comes from his keen and unintermittent sense of the magnetic current, which is far stronger in mars than on the earth, and far more complicated, and more thoroughly understood. when any object is too delicate and minute to be examined by the sense of touch and sight, the martian shuts his eyes and puts it against the pit of his stomach, and knows all about it, even its inside. in the absolute dark, or with his eyes shut, and when he stops his ears, he is more intensely conscious of what immediately surrounds him than at any other time, except that all color-perception ceases; conscious not only of material objects, but of what is passing in his fellow-martian's mind--and this for an area of many hundreds of cubic yards. in the course of its evolutions this extraordinary faculty--which exists on earth in a rudimentary state, but only among some birds and fish and insects and in the lower forms of animal life--has developed the martian mind in a direction very different from ours, since no inner life apart from the rest, no privacy, no concealment is possible except at a distance involving absolute isolation; not even thought is free; yet in some incomprehensible way there is, as a matter of fact, a really greater freedom of thought than is conceivable among ourselves: absolute liberty in absolute obedience to law, a paradox beyond our comprehension. their habits are as simple as those we attribute to the cave-dwellers during the prehistoric periods of the earth's existence. but their moral sense is so far in advance of ours that we haven't even a terminology by which to express it. in comparison, the highest and best of us are monsters of iniquity and egoism, cruelty and corruption; and our planet (a very heaven for warmth and brilliancy and beauty, in spite of earthquakes and cyclones and tornadoes) is a very hell through the creatures that people it--a shambles, a place of torture, a grotesque and impure pandemonium. these exemplary martians wear no clothes but the exquisite fur with which nature has endowed them, and which constitutes a part of their immense beauty, according to martia. they feed exclusively on edible moss and roots and submarine seaweed, which they know how to grow and prepare and preserve. except for heavy-winged bat-like birds, and big fish, which they have domesticated and use for their own purposes in an incredible manner (incarnating a portion of themselves and their consciousness at will in their bodies), they have cleared mars of all useless and harmful and mutually destructive forms of animal life. a sorry fauna, the martian--even at its best--and a flora beneath contempt, compared to ours. they are great engineers and excavators, great irrigators, great workers in delicate metal, stone, marble, and precious gems (there is no wood to speak of); great sculptors and decorators of the beautiful caves, so fancifully and so intricately connected, in which they live, and which have taken thousands of years to design and excavate and ventilate and adorn, and which they warm and light up at will in a beautiful manner by means of the tremendous magnetic current. this richly parti-colored light is part of their mental and moral life in a way it is not in us to apprehend, and has its exact equivalent in sound--and vice versa. they have no language of words, and do not need it, since they can only be isolated in thought from each other by a distance greater than that which any vocal sound can traverse; but their organs of voice and hearing are far more complex and perfect than ours, and their atmosphere infinitely more conductive of phonal vibrations. it seems that everything which can be apprehended by the eye or hand is capable of absolute sonorous translation: light, color, texture, shape in its three dimensions, weight, and density. the phonal expression and comprehension of all these are acquired by the martian baby almost as soon as it knows how to swim or dive, or move upright and erect on dry land or beneath it; and the mechanical translation of such expression by means of wind and wire and sounding texture and curved surface of extraordinary elaboration is the principal business of the martian life--an art by which all the combined past experience and future aspirations of the race receive the fullest utterance. here again personal magnetism plays an enormous part. and it is by means of this long and patiently evolved and highly trained faculty that the race is still developing towards perfection with constant strain and effort--although the planet is far advanced in its decadence and within measurable distance of its unfitness for life of any kind. all is so evenly and harmoniously balanced, whether above ground or beneath, that existence is full of joy in spite of the tremendous strain of life, in spite also of a dreariness of outlook, on barren nature, which is not to be matched by the most inhospitable regions of the earth; and death is looked upon as the crowning joy of all, although life is prolonged by all the means in their power. for when the life of the body ceases and the body itself is burned and its ashes scattered to the winds and waves, the infinitesimal, imponderable, and indestructible something _we_ call the _soul_ is known to lose itself in a sunbeam and make for the sun, with all its memories about it, that it may then receive further development, fitting it for other systems altogether beyond conception; and the longer it has lived in mars the better for its eternal life in the future. but it often, on its journey sunwards, gets entangled in other beams, and finds its way to some intermediate planet--mercury, venus, or the earth; and putting on flesh and blood and bone once more, and losing for a space all its knowledge of its own past, it has to undergo another mortal incarnation--a new personal experience, beginning with its new birth; a dream and a forgetting, till it awakens again after the pangs of dissolution, and finds itself a step further on the way to freedom. martia, it seems, came to our earth in a shower of shooting-stars a hundred years ago. she had not lived her full measure of years in mars; she had elected to be suppressed, through some unfitness, physical or mental or moral, which rendered it inexpedient that she should become a mother of martians, for they are very particular about that sort of thing in mars: we shall have to be so here some day, or else we shall degenerate and become extinct; or even worse! many martian souls come to our planet in this way, it seems, and hasten to incarnate themselves in as promising unborn though just begotten men and women as they find, that they may the sooner be free to hie them sunwards with all their collected memories. according to martia, most of the best and finest of our race have souls that have lived forgotten lives in mars. but martia was in no hurry; she was full of intelligent curiosity, and for ten years she went up and down the earth, revelling in the open air, lodging herself in the brains and bodies of birds, beasts, and fishes, insects, and animals of all kinds--like a hermit crab in a shell that belongs to another--but without the slightest inconvenience to the legitimate owners, who were always quite unconscious of her presence, although she made what use she could of what wits they had. thus she had a heavenly time on this sunlit earth of ours--now a worm, now a porpoise, now a sea-gull or a dragon-fly, now some fleet-footed, keen-eyed quadruped that did not live by slaying, for she had a horror of bloodshed. she could only go where these creatures chose to take her, since she had no power to control their actions in the slightest degree; but she saw, heard, smelled and touched and tasted with their organs of sense, and was as conscious of their animal life as they were themselves. her description of this phase of her earthly career is full of extraordinary interest, and sometimes extremely funny--though quite unconsciously so, no doubt. for instance, she tells how happy she once was when she inhabited a small brown pomeranian dog called "schnapfel," in cologne, and belonging to a jewish family who dealt in old clothes near the cathedral; and how she loved them and looked up to them--how she revelled in fried fish and the smell of it--and in all the stinks in every street of the famous city--all except one, that arose from herr johann maria farina's renowned emporium in the julichs platz, which so offended the canine nostrils that she had to give up inhabiting that small pomeranian dog forever, etc. then she took to man, and inhabited man and woman, and especially child, in all parts of the globe for many years; and, finally, for the last fifty or sixty years or so, she settled herself exclusively among the best and healthiest english she could find. she took a great fancy to the rohans, who are singularly well endowed in health of mind and body, and physical beauty, and happiness of temper. she became especially fond of the ill-fated but amiable lord runswick--barty's father. then through him she knew antoinette, and loved her so well that she determined to incarnate herself at last as their child; but she had become very cautious and worldly during her wandering life on earth, and felt that she would not be quite happy either as a man or a woman in western europe unless she were reborn in holy wedlock--a concession she made to our british prejudices in favor of respectability; she describes herself as the only martian philistine and snob. evil communications corrupt good manners, and poor martia, to her infinite sorrow and self-reproach, was conscious of a sad lowering of her moral tone after this long frequentation of the best earthly human beings--even the best english. she grew to admire worldly success, rank, social distinction, the perishable beauty of outward form, the lust of the flesh and the pride of the eye--the pomps and vanities of this wicked world--and to basely long for these in her own person! then when barty was born she loved to inhabit his singularly well constituted little body better than any other, and to identify herself with his happy child-life, and enjoy his singularly perfect senses, and sleep his beautiful sleep, and revel in the dreams he so completely forgot when he woke--reminiscent dreams, that she was actually able to weave out of the unconscious brain that was his: absolutely using his dormant organs of memory for purposes of her own, to remember and relive her own past pleasures and pains, so sensitively and highly organized was he; and to her immense surprise she found she could make him feel her presence even when awake by means of the magnetic sense that pervaded her strongly as it pervades all martian souls, till they reincarnate themselves among us and forget. and thus he was conscious of the north whenever she enjoyed the hospitality of his young body. she stuck to him for many years, till he offended her taste by his looseness of life as a guardsman (for she was extremely straitlaced); and she inhabited him no more for some time, though she often watched him through the eyes of others, and always loved him and lamented sorely over his faults and follies. then one memorable night, in the energy of her despair at his resolve to slip that splendid body of his, she was able to influence him in his sleep, and saved his life; and all her love came back tenfold. she had never been able to impose a fraction of her will on any being, animal or human, that she had ever inhabited on earth until that memorable night in malines, where she made him write at her dictation. then she conceived an immense desire that he should marry the splendid julia, whom she had often inhabited also, that she might one day be a child of his by such a mother, and go through her earthly incarnation in the happiest conceivable circumstances; but herein she was balked by barty's instinctive preference for leah, and again gave him up in a huff. but she soon took to inhabiting leah a great deal, and found her just as much to her taste for her own future earthly mother as the divine julia herself, and made up her mind she would make barty great and famous by a clever management of his very extraordinary brains, of which she had discovered the hidden capacity, and influence the earth for its good--for she had grown to love the beautiful earth, in spite of its iniquities--and finally be a child of barty and leah, every new child of whom seemed an improvement on the last, as though practice made perfect. such is, roughly, the story of martia. there is no doubt--both barty and leah agreed with me in this--that it is an easy story to invent, though it is curiously convincing to read in the original shape, with all its minute details and their verisimilitude; but even then there is nothing in it that the author of _sardonyx_ could not have easily imagined and made more convincing still. he declared that all through life on awaking from his night's sleep he always felt conscious of having had extraordinary dreams--even as a child--but that he forgot them in the very act of waking, in spite of strenuous efforts to recall them. but now and again on sinking into sleep the vague memory of those forgotten dreams would come back, and they were all of a strange life under new conditions--just such a life as martia had described--where arabesques of artificial light and interwoven curves of subtle sound had a significance undreamt of by mortal eyes or ears, and served as conductors to a heavenly bliss unknown to earth--revelations denied to us here, or we should be very different beings from what we most unhappily are. he thought it quite possible that his brain in sleep had at last become so active through the exhausting and depleting medical régime that he went through in malines that it actually was able to dictate its will to his body, and that everything might have happened to him as it did then and afterwards without any supernatural or ultranatural agency whatever--without a martia! he might, in short, have led a kind of dual life, and martia might be a simple fancy or invention of his brain in an abnormal state of activity during slumber; and both leah and i inclined to this belief (but for a strange thing which happened later, and which i will tell in due time). indeed, it all seems so silly and far-fetched, so "out of the question," that one feels almost ashamed at bringing this martia into a serious biography of a great man--un conte à dormir debout! but you must wait for the end. anyhow, the singular fact remains that in some way inexplicable to himself barty has influenced the world in a direction which it never entered his thoughts even to conceive, so far as he remembered. think of all he has done. he has robbed death of nearly all its terrors; even for the young it is no longer the grisly phantom it once was for ourselves, but rather of an aspect mellow and benign; for to the most sceptical he (and only he) has restored that absolute conviction of an indestructible germ of immortality within us, born of remembrance made perfect and complete after dissolution: he alone has built the golden bridge in the middle of which science and faith can shake hands over at least one common possibility--nay, one common certainty for those who have read him aright. there is no longer despair in bereavement--all bereavement is but a half parting; there is no real parting except for those who survive, and the longest earthly life is but a span. whatever the future may be, the past will be ours forever, and that means our punishment and our reward and reunion with those we loved. it is a happy phrase, that which closes the career of _sardonyx_. it has become as universal as the lord's prayer! to think that so simple and obvious a solution should have lain hidden all these æons, to turn up at last as though by chance in a little illustrated story-book! what a nugget! où avions-nous donc la tête et les yeux? physical pain and the origin of evil seem the only questions with which he has not been able to grapple. and yet if those difficulties are ever dealt with and mastered and overcome for us it can only be by some follower of barty's methods. it is true, no doubt, that through him suicide has become the normal way out of our troubles when these are beyond remedy. i will not express any opinion as to the ethical significance of this admitted result of his teaching, which many of us still find it so hard to reconcile with their conscience. then, by a dexterous manipulation of our sympathies that amounts to absolute conjuring, he has given the death-blow to all cruelty that serves for our amusement, and killed the pride and pomp and circumstance of glorious sport, and made them ridiculous with his lusty laugh; even the bull-fights in spain are coming to an end, and all through a spanish translation of _life-blood_. all the cruelties of the world are bound to follow in time, and this not so much because they are cruel as because they are ridiculous and mean and ugly, and would make us laugh if they didn't make us cry. and to whom but barty josselin do we owe it that our race is on an average already from four to six inches taller than it was thirty years ago, men and women alike; that strength and beauty are rapidly becoming the rule among us, and weakness and ugliness the exception? he has been hard on these; he has been cruel to be kind, and they have received notice to quit, and been generously compensated in advance, i think! who in these days would dare to enter the holy state of wedlock unless they were pronounced physically, morally, and mentally fit--to procreate their kind--not only by their own conscience, but by the common consent of all who know them? and that beauty, health, and strength are a part of that fitness, and old age a bar to it, who would dare deny? i'm no adonis myself. i've got a long upper lip and an irish kink in my nose, inherited perhaps from some maternally ancestral blake of derrydown, who may have been a proper blackguard! and that kink should be now, no doubt, the lawful property of some ruffianly cattle-houghing moonlighter, whose nose--which should have been mine--is probably as straight as barty's. for in ireland are to be found the handsomest and ugliest people in all great britain, and in great britain the handsomest and ugliest people in the whole world. anyhow, i have known my place. i have not perpetuated that kink, and with it, possibly, the base and cowardly instincts of which it was meant to be the outward and visible sign--though it isn't in my case--that my fellow-men might give me a wide berth. leah's girlish instinct was a right one when she said me nay that afternoon by the chelsea pier--for how could she see inside me, poor child? how could beauty guess the beast was a prince in disguise? it was no fairy-tale! things have got mixed up; but they're all coming right, and all through barty josselin. and what vulgar pride and narrownesses and meannesses and vanities and uglinesses of life, in mass and class and individual, are now impossible!--and all through barty josselin and his quaint ironies of pen and pencil, forever trembling between tears and laughter, with never a cynical spark or a hint of bitterness. how he has held his own against the world! how he has scourged its wickedness and folly, this gigantic optimist, who never wrote a single line in his own defence! how quickly their laugh recoiled on those early laughers! and how barty alone laughed well because he laughed the last, and taught the laughers to laugh on his side! people thought he was always laughing. it was not so. part ninth "cara deûm soboles, magnum jovis incrementum." --virgil. the immense fame and success that barty josselin achieved were to him a source of constant disquiet. he could take neither pride nor pleasure in what seemed to him not his; he thought himself a fraud. yet only the mere skeleton of his work was built up for him by his demon; all the beauty of form and color, all the grace of movement and outer garb, are absolutely his own. it has been noticed how few eminent men of letters were intimate with the josselins, though the best among them--except, of course, thomas carlyle--have been so enthusiastic and outspoken in their love and admiration of his work. he was never at his ease in their society, and felt himself a kind of charlatan. the fact is, the general talk of such men was often apt to be over his head, as it would have been over mine, and often made him painfully diffident and shy. he needn't have been; he little knew the kind of feeling he inspired among the highest and best. why, one day at the marathonæum, the first and foremost of them all, the champion smiter of the philistines, the apostle of culture and sweetness and light, told me that, putting barty's books out of the question, he always got more profit and pleasure out of barty's society than that of any man he knew. "it does me good to be in the same room with him; the freshness of the man, his voice, his aspect, his splendid vitality and mother-wit, his boyish spirit, and the towering genius behind it all. i only wish to goodness i was an intimate friend of his as you are; it would be a liberal education to me!" but barty's reverence and admiration for true scholarship and great literary culture in others amounted to absolute awe, and filled him with self-distrust. there is no doubt that until he was universally accepted, the crudeness of his literary method was duly criticised with great severity by those professional literary critics who sometimes carp with such a big mouth at their betters, and occasionally kill the keatses of this world! in writing, as in everything else, he was an amateur, and more or less remained one for life; but the greatest of his time accepted him at once, and laughed and wept, and loved him for his obvious faults as well as for his qualities. tous les genres sont bons, hormis le genre ennuyeux! and barty was so delightfully the reverse of a bore! dear me! what matters it how faultlessly we paint or write or sing if no one will care to look or read or listen? he is all fault that hath no fault at all, and we poor outsiders all but yawn in his face for his pains. they should only paint and write and sing for each other, these impeccables, who so despise success and revile the successful. how do they live, i wonder? do they take in each other's washing, or review each other's books? it edifies one to see what a lot of trouble these deriders of other people's popularity will often take to advertise themselves, and how they yearn for that popular acclaim they so scornfully denounce. barty was not a well-read man by any means; his scholarship was that of an idle french boy who leaves school at seventeen, after having been plucked for a cheap french degree, and goes straightway into her majesty's household brigade. at the beginning of his literary career it would cut him to the quick to find himself alluded to as that inspired anglo-gallic buffoon, the ex-guardsman, whose real vocation, when he wasn't twaddling about the music of the spheres, or writing moral french books, was to be mr. toole's understudy. he was even impressed by the smartness of those second-rate decadents, french and english, who so gloried in their own degeneracy--as though one were to glory in scrofula or rickets; those unpleasant little anthropoids with the sexless little muse and the dirty little eros, who would ride their angry, jealous little tilt at him in the vain hope of provoking some retort which would have lifted them up to glory! where are they now? he has improved them all away! who ever hears of decadents nowadays? then there were the grubs of grub street, who sometimes manage to squirt a drop from their slime-bags on to the swiftly passing boot that scorns to squash them. he had no notion of what manner of creatures they really were, these gentles! he did not meet them at any club he belonged to--it was not likely. clubs have a way of blackballing grubs--especially grubs that are out of the common grubby; nor did he sit down to dinner with them at any dinner-table, or come across them at any house he was by way of frequenting; but he imagined they were quite important persons because they did not sign their articles! and he quite mistook their place in the economy of creation. c'était un naïf, le beau josselin! big fleas have little fleas, and they've got to put up with them! there is no "poudre insecticide" for literary vermin--and more's the pity! (good heavens! what would the generous and delicate-minded barty say, if he were alive, at my delivering myself in this unworthy fashion about these long-forgotten assailants of his, and at my age too--he who never penned a line in retaliation! he would say i was the most unseemly grub of them all, and he would be quite right; so i am just now, and ought to know better--but it amuses me.) then there were the melodious bardlets who imitate those who imitate those who imitate the forgotten minor poets of the olden time and log-roll each other in quaint old english. they did not log-roll barty, whom they thought coarse and vulgar, and wrote to that effect in very plain english that was not old, but quite up to date. "how splendidly they write verse!" he would say, and actually once or twice he would pick up one or two of their cheap little archaic mannerisms and proudly use them as his own, and be quite angry to find that leah had carefully expunged them in her copy. "a _fair_ and _gracious_ garden indeed!" says leah. "i _won't_ have you use such ridiculous words, barty--you mean a _pretty_ garden, and you shall say so; or even a _beautiful_ garden if you like!--and no more '_manifolds_,' and '_there-anents_,' and '_in veriest sooths_,' and '_waters wan_,' and '_wan waters_,' and all that. i won't stand it; they don't suit your style at all!" she and scatcherd and i between us soon laughed him out of these innocent little literary vagaries, and he remained content with the homely words he had inherited from his barbarian ancestors in england (they speak good english, our barbarians), and the simple phrasing he had learnt from m. durosier's classe de littérature at the institution brossard. one language helps another; even the smattering of a dead language is better than no extra language at all, and that's why, at such cost of time and labor and paternal cash, we learn to smatter greek and latin, i suppose. "arma virumque cano"--"tityre tu patulæ?"--"mæcenas atavis"--"[greek: mênin aeide]"--and there you are! it sticks in the memory, and it's as simple as "how d'ye do?" anyhow, it is pretty generally admitted, both here and in france, that for grace and ease and elegance and absolute clearness combined, barty josselin's literary style has never been surpassed and very seldom equalled; and whatever his other faults, when he was at his ease he had the same graceful gift in his talk, both french and english. it might be worth while my translating here the record of an impression made by barty and his surroundings on a very accomplished frenchman, m. paroly, of the _débats_, who paid him a visit in the summer of , at campden hill. i may mention that barty hated to be interviewed and questioned about his literary work--he declared he was afraid of being found out. but if once the interviewer managed to evade the lynx-eyed leah, who had a horror of him, and get inside the studio, and make good his footing there, and were a decently pleasant fellow to boot, barty would soon get over his aversion--utterly forget he was being interviewed--and talk as to an old friend; especially if the reviewer were a frenchman or an american. the interviewer is an insidious and wily person, and often presents himself to the soft-hearted celebrity in such humble and pathetic guise that one really hasn't the courage to snub him. he has come such a long way for such a little thing! it is such a lowly function he plies at the foot of that tall tree whose top you reached at a single bound! and he is supposed to be a "gentleman," and has no other means of keeping body and soul together! then he is so prostrate in admiration before your immensity.... so you give way, and out comes the little note-book, and out comes the little cross-examination. as a rule, you are none the worse and the world is none the better; we know all about you already--all, at least, that we want to know; we have heard it all before, over and over again. but a poor fellow-creature has earned his crust, and goes home the happier for having talked to you about yourself and been treated like a man and a brother. but sometimes the reviewer is very terrible indeed in his jaunty vulgarization of your distinguished personality, and you have to wince and redden, and rue the day you let him inside your house, and live down those light familiar paragraphs in which he describes you and the way you dress and how you look and what jolly things you say; and on what free and easy terms _he_ is with you, of all people in the world! but the most terrible of all is the pleasant gentleman from america, who has yearned to know you for _so_ many years, and comes perhaps with a letter of introduction--or even without!--not to interview you or write about you (good heavens! he hates and scorns that modern pest, the interviewer), but to sit at your feet and worship at your shrine, and tell you of all the good you have done him and his, all the happiness you have given them all--"the debt of a lifetime!" and you let yourself go before him, and so do your family, and so do your old friends; is _he_ not also a friend, though not an old one? you part with him almost in sorrow, he's so nice! and in three weeks some kind person sends you from the other side such a printed account of you and yours--so abominably true, so abominably false--that the remembrance of it makes you wake up in the dead of night, and most unjustly loathe an entire continent for breeding and harboring such a shameless type of press reptile! i feel hard-hearted towards the interviewer, i own. i wish him, and those who employ him, a better trade; and a better taste to whoever reads what he writes. but barty could be hard-hearted to nobody, and always regretted having granted the interview when he saw the published outcome of it. fortunately, m. paroly was decently discreet. "i've got a frenchman coming this afternoon--a tremendous swell," said barty, at lunch. * * * * * _leah._ "who is he?" _barty._ "m. paroly, of the _débats_." _leah._ "what is he when he's at home?" _barty._ "a famous journalist; as you'd know if you'd read the french newspapers sometimes, which you never do." _leah._ "haven't got the time. he's coming to interview you, i suppose, and make french newspaper copy out of you." _barty._ "why shouldn't he come just for the pleasure of making my acquaintance?" _leah._ "and mine--i'll be there and talk to him, too!" _barty._ "my dear, he probably doesn't speak a word of english; and your french, you know! you never _would_ learn french properly, although you've had me to practise on for so many years--not to mention bob and ida." _leah._ "how unkind of you, barty! when have i had time to trouble about french? besides, you always laugh at my french accent and mimic it--and _that's_ not encouraging!" _barty._ "my dear, i _adore_ your french accent; it's so unaffected! i only wish i heard it a little oftener." _leah._ "you shall hear it this afternoon. at what o'clock is he coming, your monsieur paroly?" _barty._ "at four-thirty." _leah._ "oh, barty, _don't_ give yourself away--don't talk to him about your writings, or about yourself, or about your family. he'll vulgarize you all over france. surely you've not forgotten that nice 'gentleman' from america who came to see you, and who told you that _he_ was no interviewer, not _he_! but came merely as a friend and admirer--a distant but constant worshipper for many years! and how you talked to him like a long-lost brother, in consequence! 'there's nobody in the world like the best americans,' you said. you adored them _all_, and wanted to be an american yourself--till a month after, when he published every word you said, and more, and what sort of cravat you had on, and how silent and cold and uncommunicative your good, motherly english wife was--you, the brilliant and talkative barty josselin, who should have mated with a countrywoman of his own! and how your bosom friend was a huge, overgrown everyday briton with a broken nose! _i_ saw what he was at, from the low cunning in his face as he listened; and felt that every single unguarded word you dropped was a dollar in his pocket! how we've all had to live down that dreadfully facetious and grotesque and familiar article he printed about us all in those twenty american newspapers that have got the largest circulation in the world! and how you stamped and raved, barty, and swore that never another american 'gentleman' should enter your house! what names you called him: 'cad!' 'sweep!' 'low-bred, little yankee penny-a-liner!' don't you remember? why, he described you as a quite nice-looking man somewhat over the middle height!" "oh yes; damn him, _i_ remember!" said barty, who was three or four inches over six feet, and quite openly vain of his good looks. _leah._ "well, then, pray be cautious with this monsieur paroly you think so much of because he's french. let _him_ talk--interview _him_--ask him all about his family, if he's got one--his children, and all that; play a game of billiards with him--talk french politics--dance 'la paladine'--make him laugh--make him smoke one of those strong trichinopoli cigars bob gave you for the tops of omnibuses--make him feel your biceps--teach him how to play cup and ball--give him a sketch--then bring him in to tea. madame cornelys will be there, and julia ironsides, and ida, who'll talk french by the yard. then we'll show him the st. bernards and minerva, and i'll give him an armful of gloire de dijon roses, and shake him warmly by the hand, so that he won't feel ill-natured towards us; and we'll get him out of the house as quick as possible." * * * * * thus prepared, barty awaited m. paroly, and this is a free rendering of what m. paroly afterwards wrote about him: "with a mixture of feelings difficult to analyze and define, i bade adieu to the sage and philosopher of cheyne row, and had myself transported in my hansom to the abode of the other great _sommité littéraire_ in london, the light one--m. josselin, to whom we in france also are so deeply in debt. "after a longish drive through sordid streets we reached a bright historic vicinity and a charming hill, and my invisible jehu guided me at the great trot by verdant country lanes. we turned through lodge gates into a narrow drive in a well-kept garden where there was a lawn of english greenness, on which were children and nurses and many dogs, and young people who played at the lawn-tennis. "the door of the house was opened by a charming young woman in black with a white apron and cap, like a waitress at the bouillon duval, who guided me through a bright corridor full of pictures and panoplies, and then through a handsome studio to a billiard-room, where m. josselin was playing at _the_ billiard to himself all alone. "m. josselin receives me with jovial cordiality; he is enormously tall, enormously handsome, like a drum-major of the imperial guard, except that his lip and chin are shaved and he has slight whiskers; very well dressed, with thick curly hair, and regular features, and a singularly sympathetic voice: he is about thirty-five. "i have to decline a game of billiards, and refuse a cigar, a very formidable cigar, very black and very thick and very long. i don't smoke, and am no hand at a cue. besides, i want to talk about _Étoiles mortes_, about _les trépassées de françois villon_, about _déjanire et dalila_! [illustration: "'he presents me first to madame josselin'"] "m. josselin speaks french as he writes it, in absolute perfection; his mother, he tells me, was from normandy--the daughter of fisherfolk in dieppe; he was at school in paris, and has lived there as an art student. "he does not care to talk about _les trépassées_ or _les Étoiles_, or any of his immortal works. "he asks me if i'm a good swimmer, and can do _la coupe_ properly; and leaning over his billiard-table he shows me how it ought to be done, and dilates on the merits of that mode of getting through the water. he confides to me that he suffers from a terrible nostalgia--a consuming desire to do _la coupe_ in the swimming-baths of passy against the current; to take a header _à la hussarde_ with his eyes open and explore the bed of the seine between grenelle and the Île des cygnes--as he used to do when he was a school-boy--and pick up mussels with his teeth. "then he explains to me the peculiar virtues of his stove, which is almost entirely an invention of his own, and shows me how he can regulate the heat of the room to the fraction of a degree centigrade, which he prefers to fahrenheit--just as he prefers metres and centimetres to inches and feet--and ten to twelve! "after this he performs some very clever tricks with billiard-balls; juggles three of them in each hand simultaneously, and explains to me that this is an exceptional achievement, as he only sees out of one eye, and that no acrobat living could do the same with one eye shut. "i quite believe him, and wonder and admire, and his face beams with honest satisfaction--and this is the man who wrote _la quatrième dimension_! "then he tells me some very funny french school-boy stories; he delights in my hearty laughter; they are capital stories, but i had heard them all before--when i was at school. "'and now, m. josselin,' i say, 'à propos of that last story you've just told me; in the _trépassées de françois villon_ you have omitted "la très-sage héloïse" altogether.' "'oh, have i? how stupid of me!--abélard and all that! ah well--there's plenty of time--nous allons arranger tout ça! all that sort of thing comes to me in the night, you know, when i'm half asleep in bed--a--a--i mean after lunch in the afternoon, when i take my siesta.' "then he leads me into his studio and shows me pencil studies from the life, things of ineffable beauty of form and expression--things that haunt the memory. "'show me a study for déjanire,' i say. "'oh! i'll draw déjanire for you,' and he takes a soft pencil and a piece of smooth card-board, and in five minutes draws me an outline of a naked woman on a centaur's back, a creature of touching beauty no other hand in the world could produce--so aristocratically delicately english and of to-day--so severely, so nobly and classically greek. c'est la chasteté même--mais ce n'est pas déjanire! "he gives me this sketch, which i rechristen godiva, and value as i value few things i possess. "then he shows me pencil studies of children's heads, from nature, and i exclaim: "'o heaven, what a dream of childhood! childhood is never so beautiful as that.' "'oh yes it is, in england, i assure you,' says he. 'i'll show you _my_ children presently; and you, have you any children?' "'alas! no,' i reply; 'i am a bachelor.' "i remark that from time to time, just as the moon veils itself behind a passing cloud, the radiance of his brilliant and jovial physiognomy is eclipsed by the expression of a sadness immense, mysterious, infinite; this is followed by a look of angelic candor and sweetness and gentle heroism, that moves you strangely, even to the heart, and makes appeal to all your warmest and deepest sympathies--the look of a very masculine joan of arc! you don't know why, but you feel you would make any sacrifice for a man who looks at you like that, follow him to the death--lead a forlorn hope at his bidding. "he does not exact from me anything so arduous as this, but passing round my neck his powerful arm, he says: "'come and drink some tea; i should like to present you to my wife.' "and he leads me through another corridor to a charming drawing-room that gives on to the green lawn of the garden. "there are several people there taking the tea. "he presents me first to madame josselin. if the husband is enormously handsome, the wife is a beauty absolutely divine; she, also, is very tall--très élégante; she has soft wavy black hair, and eyes and eyebrows d'un noir de jais, and a complexion d'une blancheur de lis, with just a point of carmine in the cheeks. she does not say much--she speaks french with difficulty; but she expresses with her smiling eyes so cordial and sincere a welcome that one feels glad to be in the same room with her, one feels it is a happy privilege, it does one good--one ceases to feel one may possibly be an intruder--one almost feels one is wanted there. "i am then presented to three or four other ladies; and it would seem that the greatest beauties of london have given each other rendezvous in madame josselin's salon--this london, where are to be found the most beautiful women in the world and the ugliest. "first, i salute the countess of ironsides--ah, mon dieu, la diane chasseresse--la sapho de pradier! then madame cornelys, the wife of the great sculptor, who lives next door--a daughter of the ancient gods of greece! then a magnificent blonde, an old friend of theirs, who speaks french absolutely like a frenchwoman, and says thee and thou to m. josselin, and introduces me to her brother, un vrai type de colosse bon enfant, d'une tenue irréprochable [thank you, m. paroly], who also speaks the french of france, for he was at school there--a school-fellow of our host. "there are two or three children, girls, more beautiful than anything or anybody else in the house--in the world, i think! they give me tea and cakes, and bread and butter; most delicious tartines, as thin as wafers, and speak french well, and relate to me the biographies of their animals, une vraie ménagerie which i afterwards have to visit--immense dogs, rabbits, hedgehogs, squirrels, white mice, and a gigantic owl, who answers to the name of minerva. "i find myself, ma foi, very happy among these wonderful people, and preserve an impression of beauty, of bonhomie, of naturalness and domestic felicity quite unlike anything i have ever been privileged to see--an impression never to be forgotten. "but as for _Étoiles mortes_ and _les trépassées de françois villon_, i really have to give them up; the beautiful big dogs are more important than all the books in the world, even the master's--even the master himself! "however, i want no explanation to see and understand how m. josselin has written most of his chefs-d'oeuvre from the depths of a happy consciousness habituated to all that is most graceful and charming and seductive in real life--and a deeply sympathetic, poignant, and compassionate sense of the contrast to all this. "happy mortal, happy family, happy country where grow (poussent) such people, and where such children flourish! the souvenir of that so brief hour spent at gretna lodge is one of the most beautiful souvenirs of my life--and, above all, the souvenir of the belle châtelaine who filled my hansom with beautiful roses culled by her own fair hand, which gave me at parting that cordial english pressure so much more suggestive of _au revoir_ than _adieu_! "it is with sincere regret one leaves people who part with one so regretfully. "alphonse paroly." * * * * * except that good and happy women have no history, i should almost like to write the history of barty's wife, and call it the history of the busiest and most hard-working woman in great britain. barty left everything to her--to the very signing of cheques. he would have nothing to do with any business of any kind. he wouldn't even carve at lunch or dinner. leah did, unless _i_ was there. it is but fair to say he worked as hard as any man i know. when he was not writing or drawing, he was thinking about drawing or writing; when they got to marsfield, he hardly ever stirred outside the grounds. there he would garden with gardeners or cut down trees, or do carpenter's work at his short intervals of rest, or groom a horse. how often have i seen him suddenly drop a spade or axe or saw or curry-comb, and go straight off to a thatched gazebo he had built himself, where writing materials were left, and write down the happy thought that had occurred; and then, pipe in mouth, back to his gardening or the rest! i also had a gazebo close to his, where i read blue-books and wrote my endless correspondence with the help of a secretary--only too glad, both of us, to be disturbed by festive and frolicsome young bartys of either sex--by their dogs--by their mother! leah's province it was to attend to all the machinery by which life was carried on in this big house, and social intercourse, and the education of the young, and endless hospitalities. she would even try to coach her boys in latin and euclid during their preparation times for the school where they spent the day, two miles off. such latin! such geometry! she could never master the ablative absolute, nor what used to be called at brossard's _le que retranché_, nor see the necessity of demonstrating by a + b what was sufficiently obvious to her without. "who helps you in your latin, my boy?" says the master, with a grin. "my father," says geoffrey, too loyal to admit it was his mother who had coached him wrong. "ah, i suppose he helps you with your euclid also?" says the master, with a broader grin still. "yes, sir," says geoffrey. "your father's french, i suppose?" "i dare say, sir," says geoffrey. "ah, i thought so!" all of which was very unfair to barty, whose latin, like that of most boys who have been brought up at a french school, was probably quite as good as the english school-master's own, except for its innocence of quantities; and blanchet and legendre are easier to learn than euclid, and stick longer in the memory; and barty remembered well. then, besides the many friends who came to the pleasant house to stay, or else for lunch or tea or dinner, there were pious pilgrims from all parts of the world, as to a shrine--from paris, from germany, italy, norway, and sweden; from america especially. leah had to play the hostess almost every day of her life, and show off her lion and make him roar and wag his tail and stand on his hind legs--a lion that was not always in the mood to tumble and be shown off, unless the pilgrims were pretty and of the female sex. barty was a man's man par excellence, and loved to forgather with men. the only men he couldn't stand were those we have agreed to call in modern english the philistines and the prigs--or both combined, as they can sometimes be; and this objection of his would have considerably narrowed his circle of male acquaintances but that the philistines and the prigs, who so detest each other, were so dotingly fond of barty, and ran him to earth in marsfield. the philistines loved him for his world-wide popularity; the prigs in spite of it! they loved him for himself alone--because they couldn't help it, i suppose--and lamented over him as over a fallen angel. he was happiest of all with the good denizens of bohemia, who have known want and temptation and come unscathed out of the fire, but with their affectations and insincerities and conventionalities all burnt away. good old bohemia--alma mater dolorosa; stern old gray she-wolf with the dry teats--marâtre au coeur de pierre! it is not a bad school in which to graduate, if you can do so without loss of principle or sacrifice of the delicate bloom of honor and self-respect. next to these i think he loved the barbarians he belonged to on his father's side, who, whatever their faults, are seldom prigs or philistines; and then he loved the proletarians, who had good, straightforward manners and no pretension--the laborer, the skilled artisan, especially the toilers of the sea. in spite of his love of his own sex, he was of the kind that can go to the devil for a pretty woman. he did not do this; he married one instead, fortunately for himself and for his children and for her, and stuck to her and preferred her society to any society in the world. her mere presence seemed to have an extraordinarily soothing influence on him; it was as though life were short, and he could never see enough of her in the allotted time and space; the chronic necessity of her nearness to him became a habit and a second nature--like his pipe, as he would say. still, he was such a slave to his own æsthetic eye and ever-youthful heart that the sight of lovely woman pleased him more than the sight of anything else on earth; he delighted in her proximity, in the rustle of her garments, in the sound of her voice; and lovely woman's instinct told her this, so that she was very fond of barty in return. he was especially popular with sweet, pretty young girls, to whom his genial, happy, paternal manner always endeared him. they felt as safe with barty as with any father or uncle, for all his facetious love-making; he made them laugh, and they loved him for it, and they forgot his apolloship, and his lionhood, and his general immensity, which he never remembered himself. it is to be feared that women who lacked the heavenly gift of good looks did not interest him quite so much, whatever other gifts they might possess, unless it were the gift of making lovely music. the little brown nightingale outshone the brilliant bird of paradise if she were a true nightingale; if she were very brown indeed, he would shut his eyes and listen with all his ears, rapt, as in a heavenly dream. and the closed lids would moisten, especially the lid that hid the eye that couldn't see--the emotional one!--although he was the least lachrymose of men, since it was with such a dry eye he wrote what i could scarcely read for my tears. but his natural kindliness and geniality made him always try and please those who tried to please him, beautiful or the reverse, whether they succeeded or not; and he was just as popular with the ducks and geese as with the swans and peacocks and nightingales and birds of paradise. the dull, commonplace dames who prosed and buzzed and bored, the elderly intellectual virgins who knew nothing of life but what they had read--or written--in "tendenz" novels, yet sadly rebuked him, more in sorrow than in anger, for this passage or that in his books, about things out of their ken altogether, etc. his playful amenity disarmed the most aggressive bluestocking, orthodox or unitarian, catholic or hebrew--radicals, agnostics, vegetarians, teetotalers, anti-vaccinationists, anti-vivisectionists--even anti-things that don't concern decent women at all, whether married or single. it was only when his privacy was invaded by some patronizing, loud-voiced nouvelle-riche with a low-bred physiognomy that no millions on earth could gild or refine, and manners to match; some foolish, fashionable, would-be worldling, who combined the arch little coquetries and impertinent affectations of a spoilt beauty with the ugliness of an aztec or an esquimau; some silly, titled old frump who frankly ignored his tea-making wife and daughters and talked to _him_ only--and only about her grotesque and ugly self--and told him of all the famous painters who had wanted to paint her for the last hundred years--it was only then he grew glum and reserved and depressed and made an unfavorable impression on the other sex. what it must have cost him not to express his disgust more frankly! for reticence on any matter was almost a torture to him. most of us have a mental sanctum to which we retire at times, locking the door behind us; and there we think of high and beautiful things, and hold commune with our maker; or count our money, or improvise that repartee the gods withheld last night, and shake hands with ourselves for our wit; or caress the thought of some darling, secret wickedness or vice; or revel in dreams of some hidden hate, or some love we mustn't own; and curse those we have to be civil to whether we like them or not, and nurse our little envies till we almost get to like them. there we remember all the stupid and unkind things we've ever said or thought or done, and all the slights that have ever been put on us, and secretly plan the revenge that never comes off--because time has softened our hearts, let us hope, when opportunity serves at last! that barty had no such holy of holies to creep into i feel pretty sure--unless it was the wifely heart of leah; whatever came into his head came straight out of his mouth; he had nothing to conceal, and thought aloud, for all the world to hear; and it does credit, i think, to the singular goodness and guilelessness of his nature that he could afford to be so outspoken through life and yet give so little offence to others as he did. his indiscretion did very little harm, and his naïve self-revelation only made him the more lovable to those who knew him well. they were poor creatures, the daws who pecked at that manly heart, so stanch and warm and constant. as for leah, it was easy to see that she looked upon her husband as a fixed star, and was well pleased to tend and minister and revolve, and shine with no other light than his; it was in reality an absolute adoration on her part. but she very cleverly managed to hide it from him; she was not the kind of woman that makes a doormat of herself for the man she loves. she kept him in very good order indeed. it was her theory that female adoration is not good for masculine vanity, and that he got quite enough of it outside his own home; and she would make such fun of him and his female adorers all over the world that he grew to laugh at them himself, and to value a pat on the back and a hearty "well done, barty!" from his wife more than "the blandishments of all the womankind in europe and america combined." gentle and kind and polite as she was, however, she could do battle in defence of her great man, who was so backward at defending himself; and very effective battle too. as an instance among many, illustrating her method of warfare: once at an important house a very immense personage (who had an eye for a pretty woman) had asked to be introduced to her and had taken her down to supper; a very immense personage indeed, whose fame had penetrated to the uttermost ends of the earth and deservedly made his name a beloved household word wherever our tongue is spoken, so that it was in every englishman's mouth all over the world--as barty's is now. leah was immensely impressed, and treated his elderly immensity to a very full measure of the deference that was his due; and such open homage is not always good for even the immensest immensities--it sometimes makes them give themselves immense airs. so that this particular immensity began mildly but firmly to patronize leah. this she didn't mind on her own account, but when he said, quite casually: "by-the-way, i forget if i _know_ your good husband; _do_ i?" --she was not pleased, and immediately answered: "i really can't say; i don't think i ever heard him mention your name!" this was not absolutely veracious on leah's part; for to barty in those days this particular great man was a god, and he was always full of him. but it brought the immense one back to his bearings at once, and he left off patronizing and was almost humble. anyhow, it was a lie so white that the recording angel will probably delete what there is of it with a genial smile, and leave a little blank in its place. * * * * * in an old diary of leah's i find the following entry: "march th, .--mamma and ida scatcherd came to stay. in the evening our sixth daughter and eighth child was born." julia (mrs. mainwaring) was this favored person--and is still. julia and her predecessors have all lived and flourished up to now. the josselins had been exceptionally fortunate in their children; each new specimen seemed an even finer specimen than the last. the health of this remarkable family had been exemplary--measles, and mumps, and whooping-cough their only ailments. during the month of leah's confinement barty's nocturnal literary activity was unusually great. night after night he wrote in his sleep, and accumulated enough raw material to last him a lifetime; for the older he grew and the more practised his hand the longer it took him to give his work the shape he wished; he became more fastidious year by year as he became less of an amateur. one morning, a day or two before his wife's complete recovery, he found a long personal letter from martia by his bedside--a letter that moved him very deeply, and gave him food for thought during many weeks and months and years: * * * * * "my beloved barty,--the time has come at last when i must bid you farewell. "i have outstayed my proper welcome on earth as a disembodied conscience by just a hundred years, and my desire for reincarnation has become an imperious passion not to be resisted. "it is more than a desire--it is a duty as well, a duty far too long deferred. "barty, i am going to be your next child. i can conceive no greater earthly felicity than to be a child of yours and leah's. i should have been one long before, but that you and i have had so much to do together for this beautiful earth--a great debt to pay: you, for being as you are; i, for having known you. "barty, you have no conception what you are to me and always have been. [illustration: "'i don't think i ever heard him mention your name'"] "i am to you but a name, a vague idea, a mysterious inspiration; sometimes a questionable guide, i fear. you don't even believe all i have told you about myself--you think it all a somnambulistic invention of your own; and so does your wife, and so does your friend. "o that i could connect myself in your mind with the shape i wore when i was last a living thing! no shape on earth, not either yours or leah's or that of any child yet born to you both, is more beautiful to the eye that has learned how to see than the fashion of that lost face and body of mine. "_you_ wore the shape once, and so did your father and mother, for you were martians. leah was a martian, and wore it too; there are many of them here--they are the best on earth, the very salt thereof. i mean to be the best of them all, and one of the happiest. oh, help me to that! "barty, when i am a splendid son of yours or a sweet and lovely daughter, all remembrance of what i was before will have been wiped out of me until i die. but _you_ will remember, and so will leah, and both will love me with such a love as no earthly parents have ever felt for any child of theirs yet. "think of the poor loving soul, lone, wandering, but not lost, that will so trustfully look up at you out of those gleeful innocent eyes! "how that soul has suffered both here and elsewhere you don't know, and never will, till the secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed; and i am going to forget it myself for a few decades--sixty, seventy, eighty years perhaps; such happy years, i hope--with you for my father and leah for my mother during some of them at least--and sweet grandchildren of yours, i hope, for my sons and daughters! why, life to me now will be almost a holiday. "oh, train me up the way i should go! bring me up to be healthy and chaste and strong and brave--never to know a mean ambition or think an ungenerous thought--never to yield to a base or unworthy temptation. "if i'm a boy--and i want to be a boy very much (although, perhaps, a girl would be dearer to your heart)--don't let me be either a soldier or a sailor, however much i may wish it as a josselin or a rohan; don't bring me up to buy or sell like a gibson, or deal in law like a bletchley. "bring me up to invent, or make something useful, if it's only pickles or soap, but not to buy and sell them; bring me up to build or heal or paint or write or make music--to help or teach or please. "if i'm a girl, bring me up to be as much like leah as you can, and marry me to just such another as yourself, if you can find him. whether i'm a girl or a boy, call me marty, that my name may rhyme with yours. "when my conscience re-embodies itself, i want it never to know another pang of self-reproach. and when i'm grown up, if you think it right to do so, tell me who and what i once was, that i may love you both the more; tell me how fondly i loved you when i was a bland and fleeting little animalcule, without a body, but making my home in yours--so that when you die i may know how irrevocably bound up together we must forever be, we three; and rejoice the more in your death and leah's and my own. teach me over again all i've ever taught you, barty--over and over again! "alas! perhaps you don't believe all this! how can i give you a sign. "there are many ways; but a law, of necessity inexorable, forbids it. such little entity as i possess would cease to be; it was all but lost when i saved your life--and again when i told you that you were the beloved of julia royce. it would not do for us martians to meddle with earthly things; the fat would soon be in the fire, i can tell you! "try and trust me, barty, and give me the benefit of any doubt. "you have work planned out for many years to come, and are now yourself so trained that you can do without me. you know what you have still to say to mankind; never write a line about which you are not sure. "for another night or two you will be my host, and this splendid frame of yours my hostelry; on y est très bien. be hospitable still for a little while--make the most of me; hug me tight, squeeze me warm! "as soon as leah is up and about and herself again you will know me no more, and no more feel the north. "ah! you will never realize what it is for me to bid you good-bye, my barty, my barty! all that is in your big heart and powerful brain to feel of grief belongs to me, now that you are fast asleep. and your genius for sorrow, which you have never really tested yet, is as great as any gift you possess. "happy barty, who have got to forty years without sounding the great depths, and all through me! what will you do without your poor devoted unknown martia to keep watch over you and ward--to fight for you like a wild-cat, if necessary? "leah must be your wild-cat now. she has it in her to be a tigress when you are concerned, or any of her children! next to you, leah is the darling of my heart; for it's your heart i make use of to love her with. "i want you to tell the world all about your martia some day. they may disbelieve, as you do; but good fruit will come of it in the future. martians will have a freer hand with you all, and that will be a good thing for the earth; they were trained in a good hard school--they are the spartans of our universe. "such things will come to pass, before many years are over, as are little dreamt of now, and all through your wanting to swallow that dose of cyanide at no. rue des ursulines blanches, and my having the gumption to prevent you! "it's a good seed that we have sown, you and i. it was not right that this beautiful planet should go much longer drifting through space without a single hope that is not an illusion, without a single hint of what life should really be, without a goal. "why such darkness under so bright a sun! such blindness to what is so patent! such a deaf ear to the roaring of that thunderous harmony which you call the eternal silence!--you of the earth, earthy, who can hear the little trumpet of the mosquito so well that it makes you fidget and fret and fume all night, and robs you of your rest. then the sun rises and frightens the mosquitoes away, and you think that's what the sun is for and are thankful; but why the deuce a mosquito should sting you, you can't make out!--mystery of mysteries! "at the back of your brain is a little speck of perishable matter, barty; it is no bigger than a needle's point, but it is bigger in you than in anybody else i know, except in leah; and in your children it is bigger still--almost as big as the point of a pin! "if they pair well, and it is in them to do so if they follow their inherited instinct, their children and their children's children will have that speck still bigger. when that speck becomes as big as a millet-seed in your remote posterity, then it will be as big as in a martian, and the earth will be a very different place, and man of earth greater and even better than the martian by all the greatness of his ampler, subtler, and more complex brain; his sense of the deity will be as an eagle's sense of the sun at noon in a cloudless tropical sky; and he will know how to bear that effulgence without a blink, as he stands on his lonely summit, ringed by the azure world. "indeed, there will be no more martians in mars by that time; they are near the end of their lease; all good martians will have gone to venus, let us hope; if not, to the sun itself! "man has many thousands of years before him yet ere his little ball of earth gets too cold for him; the little speck in his brain may grow to the size of a pea, a cherry, a walnut, an egg, an orange! he will have in him the magnetic consciousness of the entire solar system, and hold the keys of time and space as long and as far as the sun shines for us all--and then there will be the beginning of everything. and all through that little episode in the street of those white ursulines! and the seed of barty and leah will overflow to the uttermost ends of the earth, and finally blossom and bear fruit for ever and ever beyond the stars. "what a beginning for a new order of things! what a getting up-stairs! what an awakening! what an annunciation! "do you remember that knock at the door? "'il est dix heures, savez-vous? voulez-vous votre café dans votre chambre?' "she little knew, poor little frau! humble little finche torfs, lowly flemish virgin, who loved you as the moth loves the star; vilain mangeur de coeurs que vous êtes! "barty, i wish your wife to hear nothing of this till the child who once was your martia shall have seen the light of day with eyes of its own; tell her that i have left you at last, but don't tell her why or how; tell her some day, years hence, if you think she will love me the better for it; not otherwise. "when you wake, barty, i shall still be inside you; say to me in your mezza voce all the kind things you can think of--such things as you would have said to your mother had she lived till now, and you were speeding her on a long and uncertain journey. "how you would have loved your mother! she was most beautiful, and of the type so dear to you. her skin was almost as white as leah's, her eyes almost as black, her hair even blacker; like leah, she was tall and slim and lithe and graceful. she might have been leah's mother, too, for the likeness between them. how often you remind me of her when you laugh or sing, and when you're funny in french; those droll, quick gestures and quaint intonations, that ease and freedom and deftness as you move! and then you become english in a moment, and your big, burly, fair-haired father has come back with his high voice, and his high spirits, and his frank blue eyes, like yours, so kind and brave and genial. "and _you_, dear, what a baby you were--a very prince among babies; ah! if i can only be like that when i begin again! "the people in the tuileries garden used to turn round and stare and smile at you when rosalie with the long blue streamers bore you along as proudly as if louis philippe were your grandfather and she the royal wet-nurse; and later, after that hideous quarrel about nothing, and the fatal fight by the 'mare aux biches,' how the good fisher people of le pollet adored you! 'un vrai petit st. jean! il nous portera bonheur, bien sûr!' "you have been thoroughly well loved all your life, my barty, but most of all by me--never forget that! "i have been your father and your mother when they sat and watched your baby-sleep; i have been rosalie when she gave you the breast; i have been your french grandfather and grandmother quarrelling as to which of the two should nurse you as they sat and sunned themselves on their humble doorstep in the rue des guignes! "i have been your doting wife when you sang to her, your children when you made them laugh till they cried. i've been lady archibald when you danced the dieppoise after tea, in dover, with your little bare legs; and aunt caroline, too, as she nursed you in malines after that silly duel where you behaved so well; and i've been by turns mérovée brossard, bonzig, old laferté, mlle. marceline, finche torfs, poor little marianina, julia royce, father louis, the old abbé, bob maurice--all the people you've ever charmed, or amused, or been kind to--a legion; good heavens! i have been them all! what a snowball made up of all these loves i've been rolling after you all these years! and now it has all got to melt away in a single night, and with it the remembrance of all i've ever been during ages untold. "and i've no voice to bid you good-bye, my beloved; no arms to hug you with, no eyes to weep--i, a daughter of the most affectionate, and clinging, and caressing race of little people in existence! such eyes as i once had, too; such warm, soft, furry arms, and such a voice--it would have wanted no words to express all that i feel now; that voice--nous savons notre orthographie en musique là bas! "how it will please, perhaps, to remember even this farewell some day, when we're all together again, with nothing to come between! "and now, my beloved, there is no such thing as good-bye; it is a word that has no real meaning; but it is so english and pretty and sweet and child-like and nonsensical that i could write it over and over again--just for fun! "so good-bye! good-bye! good-bye! till i wake up once more after a long living sleep of many years, i hope; a sleep filled with happy dreams of you, dear, delightful people, whom i've got to live with and love, and learn to lose once more; and then--no more good-byes! "martia." * * * * * so much for martia--whoever or whatever it was that went by that name in barty's consciousness. after such close companionship for so many years, the loss of her--or it--was like the loss of a sixth and most valuable sense, worse almost than the loss of his sight would have been; and with this he was constantly threatened, for he most unmercifully taxed his remaining eye, and the field of his vision had narrowed year by year. but this impending calamity did not frighten him as in the old days. his wife was with him now, and as long as she was by his side he could have borne anything--blindness, poverty, dishonor--anything in the world. if he lost her, he would survive her loss just long enough to put his affairs in order, and no more. but most distressfully he missed the physical feeling of the north--even in his sleep. this strange bereavement drew him and leah even more closely together, if that were possible; and she was well content to reign alone in the heart of her fractious, unreasonable but most affectionate, humorous, and irresistible great man. although her rival had been but a name and an idea, a mere abstraction in which she had never really believed, she did not find it altogether displeasing to herself that the lively martia was no more; she has almost told me as much. and thus began for them both the happiest and most beautiful period of their joint lives, in spite of sorrows yet to come. she took such care of him that he might have been as blind as belisarius himself, and he seemed almost to depend upon her as much--so wrapt up was he in the work of his life, so indifferent to all mundane and practical affairs. what eyesight was not wanted for his pen and pencil he reserved to look at her with--at his beloved children, and the things of beauty in and outside marsfield: pictures, old china, skies, hills, trees, and river; and what wits remained he kept to amuse his family and his friends--there was enough and to spare. the older he grew the more he teemed and seethed and bubbled and shone--and set others shining round him--even myself. it is no wonder marsfield became such a singularly agreeable abode for all who dwelt there, even for the men-servants and the maid-servants, and the birds and the beasts, and the stranger within its gates--and for me a kind of earthly paradise. * * * * * and now, gentle reader, i want very badly to talk about myself a little, if you don't mind--just for half a dozen pages or so, which you can skip if you like. whether you do so or not, it will not hurt you--and it will do me a great deal of good. i feel uncommonly sad, and very lonely indeed, now that barty is gone; and with him my beloved comrade leah. [illustration: "'i'm a philistine, and am not ashamed'"] the only people left to me that i'm really fond of--except my dear widowed sister, ida scatcherd--are all so young. they're josselins, of course--one and all--and they're all that's kind and droll and charming, and i adore them. but they can't quite realize what this sort of bereavement means to a man of just my age, who has still got some years of life before him, probably--and is yet an old man. the right honorable sir robert maurice, bart., m. p., etc., etc., etc. that's me. i take up a whole line of manuscript. i might be a noble lord if i chose, and take up two! i'm a liberal conservative, an opportunist, a pessi-optimist, an in-medio-tutissimist, and attend divine service at the temple church. i'm a philistine, and not ashamed; so was molière--so was cervantes. so, if you like, was the late martin farquhar tupper--and those who read him; we're of all sorts in philistia, the great and the small, the good and the bad. i'm in the sixties--sound of wind and limb--only two false teeth--one at each side, bicuspids, merely for show. i'm rather bald, but it suits my style; a little fat, perhaps--a pound and a half over sixteen stone! but i'm an inch and a half over six feet, and very big-boned. altogether, diablement bien conservé! i sleep well, the sleep of the just; i have a good appetite and a good digestion, and a good conceit of myself still, thank heaven--though nothing like what it used to be! one can survive the loss of one's self-respect; but of one's vanity, never. what a prosperous and happy life mine has been, to be sure, up to a few short months ago--hardly ever an ache or a pain!--my only real griefs, my dear mother's death ten years back, and my father's in . yes, i have warmed both hands at the fire of life, and even burnt my fingers now and then, but not severely. one love disappointment. the sting of it lasted a couple of years, the compensation more than thirty! i loved her all the better, perhaps, that i did not marry her. i'm afraid it is not in me to love a very good wife of my own as much as i really ought! and i love her children as well as if they'd been mine, and her grandchildren even better. they are irresistible, these grandchildren of barty's and leah's--mine wouldn't have been a patch on them; besides, i get all the fun and none of the bother and anxiety. evidently it was my true vocation to remain single--and be a tame cat in a large, warm house, where there are lots of nice children. o happy bob maurice! o happy sexagenarian! "o me fortunatum, mea si bona nôrim!" (what would père brossard say at this? he would give me a twisted pinch on the arm--and serve me right!) i'm very glad i've been successful, though it's not a very high achievement to make a very large fortune by buying and selling that which put into a man's mouth is said to steal away his brains! but it does better things than this. it reconciles and solves and resolves mental discords, like music. it makes music for people who have no ear--and there are so many of these in the world that i'm a millionaire, and franz schubert died a pauper. so i prefer to drink beer--as _he_ did; and i never miss a monday pop if i can help it. _i_ have done better things, too. i have helped to govern my country and make its laws; but it all came out of wine to begin with--all from learning how to buy and sell. we're a nation of shopkeepers, although the french keep better shops than ours, and more of them. i'm glad i'm successful because of barty, although success, which brings the world to our feet, does not always endear us to the friend of our bosom. if i had been a failure barty would have stuck to me like a brick, i feel sure, instead of my sticking to him like a leech! and the sight of his success might have soured me--that eternal chorus of praise, that perpetual feast of pudding in which i should have had no part but to take my share as a mere guest, and listen and look on and applaud, and wish i'd never been born! as it is, i listened and looked on and clapped my hands with as much pride and pleasure as if barty had been my son--and my share of the pudding never stuck in my throat! i should have been always on the watch to take him down a peg when he was pleased with himself--to hold him cheap and overpraise some duffer in his hearing--so that i might save my own self-esteem; to pay him bad little left-handed compliments, him and his, whenever i was out of humor; and i should have been always out of humor, having failed in life. and then i should have gone home wretched--for i have a conscience--and woke up in the middle of the night and thought of barty; and what a kind, genial, jolly, large-minded, and generous-hearted old chap he was and always had been--and buried my face in my pillow, and muttered: "ach! what a poor, mean, jealous beast i am--un fruit sec! un malheureux raté!" with all my success, this life-long exclusive cultivation of barty's society, and that of his artistic friends, which has somehow unfitted me for the society of my brother-merchants of wine--and most merchants of everything else--has not, i regret to say, quite fitted me to hold my own among the "leaders of intellectual modern thought," whose company i would fain seek and keep in preference to any other. my very wealth seems to depress and disgust them, as it does me--and i'm no genius, i admit, and a poor conversationalist. to amass wealth is an engrossing pursuit--and now that i have amassed a good deal more than i quite know what to do with, it seems to me a very ignoble one. it chokes up everything that makes life worth living; it leaves so little time for the constant and regular practice of those ingenuous arts which faithfully to have learned is said to soften the manners, and make one an agreeable person all round. it is even more _abrutissant_ than the mere pursuit of sport or pleasure. how many a noble lord i know who's almost as beastly rich as myself, and twice as big a fool by nature, and perhaps not a better fellow at bottom--yet who can command the society of all there is of the best in science, literature, and art! not but what they will come and dine with me fast enough, these shining lights of culture and intellect--my food is very good, although i say it, and i get noble lords to meet them. but they talk their real talk to each other--not to me--and to the noble lords who sit by them at my table, and who try to understand what they say. with me they fall back on politics and bimetallism, for all the pains i've taken to get up the subjects that interest them, and keep myself posted in all they've written and done. precious little they know about bimetallism or politics! is it only on account of their pretty manners that my titled friends are such favorites with these highly intellectual guests of mine--and with me? if so, then pretty manners should come before everything else in the world, and be taught instead of latin and greek. but if it's only because they're noble lords, then i'm beginning to think with mr. labouchere that it's high time the upper house were abolished, and its denizens wafted into space, since they make such snobs of us all--including your humble servant, of course, who at least is not quite so snobbish as to know himself for a damned snob and pretend he isn't one. anyhow, i'm glad my life has been such a success. but would i live it all over again? even the best of it? the "forty year"? taking one consideration with another, most decidedly not. i have only met two men of my own age who would live their lives over again. they both cared more for their meals than for anything else in the world--and they have always had four of these every day; sometimes even five! plenty of variety, and never a meal to disagree with them! affaire d'estomac! they simply want to eat all those meals once more. they lived to feed, and to refeed would re-live! my meals have never disagreed with me either--but i have always found them monotonous; they have always been so simple and so regular when i've had the ordering of them! fried soles, chops or steaks, and that sort of thing, and a pint of lager-beer--no wine for me, thank you; i sell it--and all this just to serve as a mere foundation for a smoke--and a chat with barty, if possible! hardly ever an ache or a pain, and i wouldn't live it all over again! yet i hope to live another twenty years, if only to take leah's unborn great-grandchildren to the dentist's, and tip them at school, and treat them to the pantomime and madame tussaud's, as i did their mothers and grandmothers before them--or their fathers and grandfathers. this seems rather inconsistent! for would i care, twenty years hence, to re-live these coming twenty years? evidently not--it's out of the question. so why don't i give up at once? i know how to do it, without pain, without scandal, without even invalidating my life-insurance, about which i don't care a rap! why don't i? why don't _you_, o middle-aged reader--with all the infirmities of age before you and all the pleasures of youth behind? anyhow, we don't, either you or i--and so there's an end on't. o pandora! i have promised myself that i would take a great-grandchild of barty's on a flying-machine from marsfield to london and back in half an hour--and that great-grandchild can't well be born for several years--perhaps not for another twenty! and now, gentle reader, i've had my little say, and i'm a good deal better, thanks, and i'll try not to talk about myself any more. except just to mention that in the summer of i contested east rosherville in the conservative interest and was successful--and owed my success to the canvassing of barty and leah, who had no politics of their own whatever, and would have canvassed for me just as conscientiously if i'd been a radical, probably more so! for if barty had permitted himself any politics at all, he would have been a red-hot radical, i fear--and his wife would have followed suit. and so, perhaps, would i! part tenth "je suis allé de bon matin cueillir la violette, et l'aubépine, et le jasmin, pour célébrer ta fête. j'ai lié de ma propre main bouton de rose et romarin pour couronner ta blonde tête. "mais de ta royale beauté sois humble, je te prie. ici tout meurt, la fleur, l'été, la jeunesse et la vie: bientôt, bientôt ce jour sera, ma belle, où l'on te portera dans un linceul, pâle et flétrie." --a _favorite song of_ mary trevor's. that was a pleasant summer. first of all we went to ste. adresse, a suburb of hâvre, where there is very good bathing--with rafts, _périssoires_, _pique-têtes_ to dive from--all those aquatic delights the french are so clever at inventing, and which make a "station balnéaire" so much more amusing than a mere british watering-place. we made a large party and bathed together every morning; and barty and i taught the young ones to dive and do "la coupe" in the true orthodox form, with that free horizontal sweep of each alternate arm that gives it such distinction. it was very good fun to see those rosy boys and girls taking their "hussardes" neatly without a splash from the little platform at the top of the pole, and solemnly performing "la coupe" in the wake of their papa; one on his back. right out to sea they went, i bringing up the rear--and the faithful jean-baptiste in attendance with his boat, and leah inside it--her anxious eyes on the stretch to count those curly heads again and again. she was a good mathematician, and the tale always came right in the end; and home was reached at last, and no one a bit the worse for a good long swim in those well-aired, sunlit waves. once we went on the top of the diligence to Étretat for the day, and there we talked of poor bonzig and his first and last dip in the sea; and did "la coupe" in the waters that had been so fatal to him, poor fellow! then we went by the steamer _jean bart_ to trouville and deauville, and up the seine in a steam-launch to rouen. in the afternoons and evenings we took long country walks and caught moths, or went to hâvre by tramway and cleared out all the pastry-cooks in the rue de paris, and watched the transatlantic steamers, out or home, from that gay pier which so happily combines business with pleasure--utile dulci, as père brossard would have said--and walked home by the charming côte d'ingouville, sacred to the memory of modeste mignon. and then, a little later on, i was a good uncle bob, and took the whole party to auteuil, near paris, and hired two lordly mansions next door to each other in the villa montmorency, and turned their gardens into one. altogether, with the scatcherds and ourselves, eight children, governesses, nurses, and other servants, and dogs and the smaller animals, we were a very large party, and a very lively one. i like this sort of thing better than anything else in the world. i hired carriages and horses galore, and for six weeks we made ourselves thoroughly comfortable and at home in paris and around. that was the happiest holiday i ever had since the vacation barty and i spent at the lafertés' in the gué des aulnes when we were school-boys. and such was our love for the sport he called "_la chasse aux souvenirs_" that one day we actually went there, travelling by train to la tremblaye, where we spent the night. it was a sad disenchantment! the old lafertés were dead, the young ones had left that part of the country; and the house and what remained of the gardens now belonged to another family, and had become formal and mean and business-like in aspect, and much reduced in size. much of the outskirts of the forest had been cleared and was being cleared still, and cheap little houses run up for workmen; an immense and evil-smelling factory with a tall chimney had replaced the old home-farm, and was connected by a single line of rails with the station of la tremblaye. the clear, pellucid stream where we used to catch crayfish had been canalized--"s'est encanaillé," as barty called it--its waters fouled by barge traffic and all kinds of horrors. we soon found the haunted pond that barty was so fond of--but quite in the open, close to an enormous brick-field, and only half full; and with all its trees cut down, including the tree on which they had hanged the gay young viscount who had behaved so badly to séraphine doucet, and on which séraphine doucet afterwards hanged herself in remorse. no more friendly charcoal-burners, no more wolves or boars or cerfs--dix-cors; and as for were-wolves, the very memory of them had died out. there seems no greater desecration to me than cutting down an old and well-remembered french forest i have loved; and solving all its mystery, and laying bare the nakedness of the land in a way so brutal and expeditious and unexpected. it reminds one of the manner in which french market-women will pluck a goose before it's quite dead; you bristle with indignation to see it, but you mustn't interfere. la tremblaye itself had become a flourishing manufacturing town, and to our jaundiced and disillusioned eyes everybody and everything was as ugly as could be--and i can't say we made much of a bag in the way of souvenirs. we were told that young laferté was a barrister at angers, prosperous and married. we deliberated whether we would hunt him up and talk of old times. then we reflected how curiously cold and inhospitable frenchmen can sometimes be to old english friends in circumstances like these--and how little they care to talk of old times and all that, unless it's the englishman who plays the host. ask a quite ordinary frenchman to come and dine with you in london, and see what a genial and charming person he can be--what a quick bosom friend, and with what a glib and silver tongue to praise the warmth of your british welcome. then go and call on him when you find yourself in paris--and you will soon learn to leave quite ordinary frenchmen alone, on their own side of the channel. happily, there are exceptions to this rule! thus the sweet laferté remembrance, which had so often come back to me in my dreams, was forever spoiled by this unlucky trip. it had turned that leaf from the tablets of my memory into a kind of palimpsest, so that i could no longer quite make out the old handwriting for the new, which would not be obliterated, and these were confused lines it was hard to read between--with all my skill! altogether we were uncommonly glad to get back to the villa montmorency--from the distorted shadows of a nightmare to happy reality. there, all was fresh and delightful; as boys we had often seen the outside walls of that fine property which had come to the speculative builder at last, but never a glimpse within; so that there was no desecration for us in the modern laying out of that beautiful double garden of ours, whatever there might have been for such ghosts of montmorencys as chose to revisit the glimpses of the moon. we haunted auteuil, passy, point du jour, suresnes, courbevoie, neuilly, meudon--all the familiar places. especially we often haunted the neighborhood of the rond point de l'avenue du bois de boulogne. one afternoon, as he and i and leah and ida were driving round what once was our old school, we stopped in the lane not far from the porte-cochère, and barty stood up on the box and tried to look over the wall. presently, from the grand stone loge which had replaced jaurion's den, a nice old concierge came out and asked if we desired anything. we told him how once we had been at school on that very spot, and were trying to make out the old trees that had served as bases in "la balle au camp," and that if we really desired anything just then it was that we might become school-boys once more! "ah, ma foi! je comprends ça, messieurs--moi aussi, j'ai été écolier, et j'aimais bien la balle au camp," said the good old man, who had been a soldier. he informed us the family were away, but that if we liked to come inside and see the garden he was sure his master would have no objection. we jumped at this kind offer and spent quite an hour there, and if i were barty i could so describe the emotions of that hour that the reader would feel quite as tearfully grateful to me as to barty josselin for chapters iii. and iv. in _le fil de la vierge_, which are really founded, _mutatis mutandis_, on this self-same little adventure of ours. nothing remained of our old school--not even the outer walls; nothing but the big trees and the absolute ground they grew out of. beautiful lawns, flower-beds, conservatories, summer-houses, ferns, and evergreen shrubs made the place seem even larger than it had once been--the very reverse of what usually happens--and softened for us the disenchantment of the change. here, at least, was no desecration of a hallowed spot. when the past has been dead and buried a long while ago there is no sweeter decking for its grave than a rich autumn tangle, all yellow and brown and pale and hectic red, with glossy evergreens and soft, damp moss to keep up the illusion of spring and summer all the year round. much to the amusement of the old concierge and his wife, barty insisted on climbing into a huge horse-chestnut tree, in which was a natural seat, very high up, where, well hidden by the dense foliage, he and i used to color pipes for boys who couldn't smoke without feeling sick. nothing would suit him now but that he must smoke a pipe there while we talked to the good old couple below. "moi aussi, je fumais quand c'était défendu; que voulez-vous? il faut bien que jeunesse se passe, n'est ce pas?" said the old soldier. "ah, dame!" said his old wife, and sighed. every tree in this enchanted place had its history--every corner, every square yard of soil. i will not inflict these histories on the reader; i will restrain myself with all my might, and merely state that just as the old school had been replaced by this noble dwelling the noble dwelling itself has now been replaced, trees and garden and all, by a stately palace many stories high, which rears itself among so many other stately palaces that i can't even identify the spot where once stood the institution f. brossard! later, barty made me solemnly pledge my word that if he and leah should pre-decease me i would see to their due cremating and the final mingling of their ashes; that a portion of these--say half--should be set apart to be scattered on french soil, in places he would indicate in his will, and that the lion's share of that half should be sprinkled over the ground that once was our play-ground, with--or without--the legitimate owner's permission. (alas! and ah me! these instructions would have been carried out to the letter but that the place itself is no more; and, with a conviction that i should be merely acting just as they would have wished, i took it on myself to mingle with their ashes those of a very sweet and darling child of theirs, dearer to them and to me and to us all than any creature ever born into this cruel universe; and i scattered a portion of these precious remains to the four winds, close by the old spot we so loved.) * * * * * yes, that was a memorable holiday; the charming fête de st. cloud was in full swing--it was delightful to haunt it once more with those dear young people so little dreamt of when barty and i first got into scrapes there, and were duly punished by latin verbs to conjugate in our best handwriting for bonzig or dumollard. then he and i would explore the so changed bois de boulogne for the little "mare aux biches," where his father had fallen under the sword of lieutenant rondelys; but we never managed to find it: perhaps it had evaporated; perhaps the does had drunk it all up, before they, too, had been made to vanish, before the german invader--or inside him; for he was fond of french venison, as well as of french clocks! he was a most omnivorous person. then paris had endless charms for us both, and we relieved ourselves at last of that long homesickness of years, and could almost believe we were boys again, as we dived into such old and well-remembered streets as yet remained. there were still some slums we had loved; one or two of them exist even now. only the other day i saw the rue de cléry, the rue de la lune, the rue de la montagne--all three on the south side of the boulevard bonne nouvelle: they are still terrible to look at from the genial boulevard, even by broad daylight--the houses so tall, so irregular, the streets so narrow and winding and black. they seemed to us boys terrible, indeed, between eight and nine on a winter's evening, with just a lamp here and there to make their darkness visible. whither they led i can't say; we never dared explore their obscure and mysterious recesses. they may have ended in the _cour des miracles_ for all we knew--it was nearly fifty years ago--and they may be quite virtuous abodes of poverty to-day; but they seemed to us then strange, labyrinthine abysses of crime and secret dens of infamy, where dreadful deeds were done in the dead of long winter nights. evidently, to us in those days, whoever should lose himself there would never see daylight again; so we loved to visit them after dark, with our hearts in our mouths, before going back to school. we would sit on posts within call of the cheerful boulevard, and watch mysterious women hurry up and down in the cold, out of darkness into light and back again, poor creatures--dingy moths, silent but ominous night-jars, forlorn women of the town--ill-favored and ill-dressed, some of them all but middle-aged, in common caps and aprons, with cotton umbrellas, like cooks looking for a situation. they never spoke to us, and seemed to be often brutally repulsed by whatever men they did speak to--mostly men in blouses. "Ô dis-donc, _hôr_tense! qu'y _faît_ froid! quand donc qu'y s'ra _ônze_ heures, q'nous allions nous _coû_cher?" so said one of them to another one cold, drizzly night, in a raucous voice, with low intonations of the gutter. the dimly felt horror and despair and pathos of it sent us away shivering to our passy omnibus as fast as our legs could carry us. that phrase has stuck in my memory ever since. thank heaven! the eleventh hour must have struck long ago, and hortense and her friend must be fast asleep and well out of the cold by now--they need walk those evil streets no more.... when we had exhausted it all, and we felt homesick for england again, it was good to get back to marsfield, high up over the thames--so beautiful in its rich october colors which the river reflected--with its old trees that grew down to the water's edge, and brooded by the boat-house there in the mellow sunshine. and then again when it became cold and dreary, at christmas-time there was my big house at lancaster gate, where josselins were fond of spending some of the winter months, and where i managed to find room for them all--with a little squeezing during the christmas holidays when the boys came home from school. what good times they were! * * * * * "on may th, at marsfield, berks, the wife of bartholomew josselin, of a daughter"--or, as leah put it in her diary, "our seventh daughter and ninth child--to be called martia, or marty for short." it seems that marty, prepared by her first ablution for this life, and as she lay being powdered on mrs. jones's motherly lap, was of a different type to her predecessors--much whiter, and lighter, and slighter; and she made no exhibition of that lusty lung-power which had so characterized the other little barties on their introduction to this vale of tears. her face was more regularly formed and more highly finished, and in a few weeks grew of a beauty so solemn and pathetic that it would sometimes make mrs. jones, who had lost babies of her own, shed motherly tears merely to look at her. even _i_ felt sentimental about the child; and as for barty, he could talk of nothing else, and made those rough and hasty silver-point studies of her head and face--mere sketches--which, being full of obvious faults, became so quickly famous among æsthetic and exclusive people who had long given up barty as a writer on account of his scandalous popularity. alas! even those silver-points have become popular now, and their photogravures are in the shop-windows of sea-side resorts and in the back parlors of the lower middle-class; so that the æsthetic exclusives who are up to date have had to give up barty altogether. no one is sacred in those days--not even shakespeare and michael angelo. we shall be hearing schumann and wagner on the piano-organ, and "_nous autres_" of the cultured classes will have to fall back on balfe and byron and landseer. in a few months little marty became famous for this extra beauty all over henley and maidenhead. she soon grew to be the idol of her father's heart, and her mother's, and ida's. but i really think that if there was one person who idolized her more than all the rest, it was i, bob maurice. she was extremely delicate, and gave us much anxiety and many alarms, and dr. knight was a very constant visitor at marsfield lodge. it was fortunate, for her sake, that the josselins had left campden hill and made their home in marsfield. nine of these children--including one not yet born then--developed there into the finest and completest human beings, take them for all in all, that i have ever known; nine--a good number! "numero deus impare gaudet." or, as poor rapaud translated this (and was pinched black and blue by père brossard in consequence): "le numéro deux se réjouit d'être impair!" (number two takes a pleasure in being odd!) the three sons--one of them now in the army, as becomes a rohan; and one a sailor, as becomes a josselin; and one a famous actor, the true josselin of all--are the very types of what i should like for the fathers of my grandchildren, if i had marriageable daughters of my own. and as for barty's daughters, they are all--but one--so well known in society and the world--so famous, i may say--that i need hardly mention them here; all but marty, my sweet little "maid of dove." when barty took marsfield he and i had entered what i have ever since considered the happiest decade of a successful and healthy man's life--the forties. "wait till you get to _forty year_!" so sang thackeray, but with a very different experience to mine. he seemed to look upon the fifth decade as the grave of all tender illusions and emotions, and exult! my tender illusions and emotions became realties--things to live by and for. as barty and i "dipped our noses in the gascon wine"--vougeot-conti & co.--i blessed my stars for being free of marsfield, which was, and is still, my real home, and for the warm friendship of its inhabitants who have been my real family, and for several years of unclouded happiness all round. even in winter what a joy it was, after a long solitary walk, or ride, or drive, or railway journey, to suddenly find myself at dusk in the midst of all that warmth and light and gayety; what a contrast to the house of commons; what a relief after barge yard or downing street; what tea that was, what crumpets and buttered toast, what a cigarette; what romps and jokes, and really jolly good fun; and all that delightful untaught music that afterwards became so cultivated! music was a special inherited gift of the entire family, and no trouble or expense was ever spared to make the best and the most of it. roberta became the most finished and charming amateur pianist i ever heard, and as for mary _la rossignolle_--mrs. trevor--she's almost as famous as if she had made singing her profession, as she once so wished to do. she married happily instead, a better profession still; and though her songs are as highly paid for as any--except, perhaps, madame patti's--every penny goes to the poor. she can make a nigger melody sound worthy of schubert and a song of schumann go down with the common herd as if it were a nigger melody, and obtain a genuine encore for it from quite simple people. why, only the other night she and her husband dined with me at the bristol, and we went to baron schwartzkind's in piccadilly to meet royal highnesses. up comes the baron with: "ach, mrs. drefor! vill you not zing zomzing? ze brincess vould be so jarmt." "i'll sing as much as you like, baron, if you promise me you'll send a checque for £ to the foundling hospital to-morrow morning," says mary. "_i_'ll send _another_ fifty, baron," says bob maurice. and the baron had to comply, and mary sang again and again, and the princess was more than charmed. she declared herself enchanted, and yet it was brahms and schumann that mary sang; no pretty little english ballad, no french, no italian. "aus meinen thränen spriessen viel' blühende blumen hervor; und meine seufze werden ein nachtigallen chor...." so sang mary, and i declare some of the royal eyes were moist. they all sang and played, these josselins; and tumbled and acted, and were droll and original and fetching, as their father had been and was still; and, like him, amiable and full of exuberant life; and, like their mother, kind and appreciative and sympathetic and ever thoughtful of others, without a grain of selfishness or conceit. [illustration: "'ze brincess vould be so jarmt'"] they were also great athletes, boys and girls alike; good swimmers and riders, and first-rate oars. and though not as good at books and lessons as they might have been, they did not absolutely disgrace themselves, being so quick and intelligent. amid all this geniality and liveliness at home and this beauty of surrounding nature abroad, little marty seemed to outgrow in a measure her constitutional delicacy. it was her ambition to become as athletic as a boy, and she was persevering in all physical exercises--and throw stones very straight and far, with a quite easy masculine sweep of the arm; i taught her myself. it was also her ambition to draw, and she would sit for an hour or more on a high stool by her father, or on the arm of his chair, and watch him at his work in silence. then she would get herself paper and pencil, and try and do likewise; but discouragement would overtake her, and she would have to give it up in despair, with a heavy sigh and a clouded look on her lovely little pale face; and yet they were surprisingly clever, these attempts of hers. then she took to dictating a novel to her sisters and to me: it was all about an immense dog and three naughty boys, who were awful dunces at school and ran away to sea, dog and all; and performed heroic deeds in central africa, and grew up there, "booted and bearded, and burnt to a brick!" and never married or fell in love, or stooped to any nonsense of that kind. this novel, begun in the handwriting of all of us, and continued in her own, remained unfinished; and the precious ms. is now in my possession. i have read it oftener than any other novel, french or english, except, perhaps, _vanity fair_! i may say that i had something to do with the development of her literary faculty, as i read many good books to her before she could read quite comfortably for herself: _evenings at home_, _the swiss family robinson_, _gulliver_, _robinson crusoe_, books by ballantyne, marryat, mayne reid, jules verne, etc., and _treasure island_, _tom sawyer_, _huckleberry finn_, _the wreck of the grosvenor_, and then her father's books, or some of them. but even better than her famous novel were the stories she improvised to me in a small boat which i often rowed up-stream while she steered--one story, in particular, that had no end; she would take it up at any time. she had imagined a world where all trees and flowers and vegetation (and some birds) were the size they are now; but men and beasts no bigger than lilliputians, with houses and churches and buildings to match--and a family called josselin living in a beautiful house called marsfield, as big as a piano organ. endless were the adventures by flood and field of these little people: in the huge forest and on the gigantic river which it took them nearly an hour to cross in a steam-launch when the wind was high, or riding trained carrier-pigeons to distant counties, and the coasts of normandy, brittany, and picardy, where everything was on a similar scale. it would astonish me to find how vivid and real she could make these imaginations of hers, and to me how fascinating--oddly enough she reserved them for me only, and told no one else. there was always an immensely big strong man, one bobby maurice, a good-natured giant, nearly three inches high and over two ounces in weight, who among other feats would eat a whole pea at a sitting, and hold out an acorn at arm's-length, and throw a pepper-corn over two yards--which has remained the record. then, coming back down-stream, she would take the sculls and i the tiller, and i would tell her (in french) all about our school adventures at brossard's and bonzig, and the lafertés, and the revolution of february; and in that way she picked up a lot of useful and idiomatic parisian which considerably astonished fräulein werner, the german governess, who yet knew french almost as well as her own language--almost as well as mr. ollendorff himself. she also changed one of the heroes in her famous novel, _tommy holt_, into a french boy, and called him _rapaud_! she was even more devoted to animals than the rest of the family: the beautiful angora, kitty, died when marty was five, from an abscess in her cheek, where she'd been bitten by a strange bull-terrier; and marty tearfully wrote her epitaph in a beautiful round hand-- "here lies kitty, full of grace; died of an _abbess_ in her face!" this was her first attempt at verse-making, and here's her last, from the french of sully-prudhomme: "if you but knew what tears, alas! one weeps for kinship unbestowed, in pity you would sometimes pass my poor abode! "if you but knew what balm, for all despond, lies in an angel's glance, your looks would on my window fall as though by chance! "if you but knew the heart's delight to feel its fellow-heart is by, you'd linger, as a sister might, these gates anigh! "if you but knew how oft i yearn for one sweet voice, one presence dear, perhaps you'd even simply turn and enter here!" she was only just seventeen when she wrote them, and, upon my word, i think they're almost as good as the original! her intimate friendship with chucker-out, the huge st. bernard, lasted for nearly both their lives, alas! it began when they both weighed exactly the same, and i could carry both in one arm. when he died he turned the scale at sixteen stone, like me. it has lately become the fashion to paint big dogs and little girls, and engravings of these pictures are to be seen in all the print-sellers' shops. it always touches me very much to look at these works of art, although--and i hope it is not libellous to say so--the big dog is always hopelessly inferior in beauty and dignity and charm to chucker-out, who was champion of his day. and as for the little girls--_ah, mon dieu!_ such pictures are not high art of course, and that is why i don't possess one, as i've got an æsthetic character to keep up; but why they shouldn't be i can't guess. is it because no high artist--except briton riviere--will stoop to so easily understood a subject? a great master would not be above painting a small child or a big dog separately--why should he be above putting them both in the same picture? it would be too obvious, i suppose--like a melody by mozart, or handel's "harmonious blacksmith," or schubert's serenade, and other catchpenny tunes of the same description. _i_ was also very intimate with chucker-out, who made more of me than he even did of his master. one night i got very late to marsfield by the last train, and, letting myself in with my key, i found chucker-out waiting for me in the hall, and apparently in a very anxious frame of mind, and extremely demonstrative, wanting to say something more than usual--to confide a trouble, to confess! we went up into the big music-room, which was still lighted, and lay on a couch together; he, with his head on my knees, whimpering softly as i smoked and read a paper. presently leah came in and said: "such an unfortunate thing happened; marty and chucker-out were playing on the slope, and he knocked her down and sprained her knee." as soon as chucker-out heard marty's name he sat up and whined piteously, and pawed me down with great violence; pawed three buttons off my waistcoat and broke my watch-chain--couldn't be comforted; the misadventure had been preying on his mind for hours. i give this subject to mr. briton riviere, who can paint both dogs and children, and everything else he likes. i will sit for him myself, if he wishes, and as a catholic priest! he might call it a confession--and an absolution! or, "the secrets of the confessional." the good dog became more careful in future, and restrained his exuberance even going down-stairs with marty on the way to a ramble in the woods, which excited him more than anything; if he came down-stairs with anybody else, the violence of his joy was such that one had to hold on by the banisters. he was a dear, good beast, and a splendid body-guard for marty in her solitary woodland rambles--never left her side for a second. i have often watched him from a distance, unbeknown to both; he was proud of his responsibility--almost fussy about it. i have been fond of many dogs, but never yet loved a dog as i loved big chucker-out--or _choucroûte_, as coralie, the french maid, called him, to fräulein werner's annoyance (choucroûte is french for sauerkraut); and i like to remember him in his splendid prime, guarding his sweet little mistress, whom i loved better than anything else on earth. she was to me a kind of pet marjorie, and said such droll and touching things that i could almost fill a book with them. i kept a diary on purpose, and called it martiana. she was tall, but lamentably thin and slight, poor dear, with her mother's piercing black eyes and the very fair curly locks of her papa--a curious and most effective contrast--and features and a complexion of such extraordinary delicacy and loveliness that it almost gave one pain in the midst of the keen pleasure one had in the mere looking at her. heavens! how that face would light up suddenly at catching the unexpected sight of some one she was fond of! how often it has lighted up at the unexpected sight of "uncle bob"! the mere remembrance of that sweet illumination brightens my old age for me now; and i could almost wish her back again, in my senile selfishness and inconsistency. pazienza! sometimes she was quite embarrassing in her simplicity, and reminded me of her father. once in dieppe--when she was about eight--she and i had gone through the Établissement to bathe, and people had stared at her even more than usual and whispered to each other. "i bet you don't know why they all stare so, uncle bob?" "i give it up," said i. "it's because i'm so _handsome_--we're _all_ handsome, you know, and i'm the handsomest of the lot, it seems! _you_'re _not_ handsome, uncle bob. but oh! aren't you _strong_! why, you could tuck a piou-piou under one arm and a postman under the other and walk up to the castle with them and pitch them into the sea, _couldn't_ you? and that's better than being handsome, _isn't_ it? i wish _i_ was like that." and here she cuddled and kissed my hand. when mary began to sing (under signor r.) it was her custom of an afternoon to lock herself up alone with a tuning-fork in a large garret and practise, as she was shy of singing exercises before any one else. her voice, even practising scales, would give marty extraordinary pleasure, and me, too. marty and i have often sat outside and listened to mary's rich and fluent vocalizings; and i hoped that marty would develop a great voice also, as she was so like mary in face and disposition, except that mary's eyes were blue and her hair very black, and her health unexceptionable. marty did not develop a real voice, although she sang very prettily and confidentially to me, and worked hard at the piano with roberta; she learned harmony and composed little songs, and wrote words to them, and mary or her father would sing them to her and make her happy beyond description. happy! she was always happy during the first few years of her life--from five or six to twelve. i like to think her happiness was so great for this brief period, that she had her full share of human felicity just as if she had lived to the age of the psalmist. it seemed everybody's business at marsfield to see that marty had a good time. this was an easy task, as she was so easy to amuse; and when amused, herself so amusing to others. as for me, it is hardly too much to say that every hour i could spare from business and the cares of state was spent in organizing the amusement of little marty josselin, and i was foolish enough to be almost jealous of her own father and mother's devotion to the same object. unlike her brothers and sisters, she was a studious little person, and fond of books--too much so indeed, for all she was such a tomboy; and all this amusement was designed by us with the purpose of winning her away from the too sedulous pursuit of knowledge. i may add that in temper and sweetness of disposition the child was simply angelic, and could not be spoiled by any spoiling. it was during these happy years at marsfield that barty, although bereft of his martia ever since that farewell letter, managed, nevertheless, to do his best work, on lines previously laid down for him by her. for the first year or two he missed the feeling of the north most painfully--it was like the loss of a sense--but he grew in time accustomed to the privation, and quite resigned; and marty, whom he worshipped--as did her mother--compensated him for the loss of his demon. _inaccessible heights_, _floréal et fructidor_, _the infinitely little_, _the northern pactolus_, _pandore et sa boîte_, _cancer and capricorn_, _phoebus et séléné_ followed each other in leisurely succession. and he also found time for those controversies that so moved and amused the world; among others, his famous and triumphant confutation of canon ----, on one hand, and professor ----, the famous scientist, on the other, which has been compared to the classic litigation about the oyster, since the oyster itself fell to barty's share, and a shell to each of the two disputants. orthodox and agnostic are as the poles asunder, yet they could not but both agree with barty josselin, who so cleverly extended a hand to each, and acted as a conductor between them. that irresistible optimism which so forces itself upon all josselin's readers, who number by now half the world, and will probably one day include the whole of it--when the whole of it is civilized--belonged to him by nature, by virtue of his health and his magnificent physique and his happy circumstances, and an admirably balanced mind, which was better fitted for his particular work and for the world's good than any special gift of genius in one direction. his literary and artistic work never cost him the slightest effort. it amused him to draw and write more than did anything else in the world, and he always took great pains, and delighted in taking them; but himself he never took seriously for one moment--never realized what happiness he gave, and was quite unconscious of the true value of all he thought and wrought and taught! he laughed good-humoredly at the passionate praise that for thirty years was poured upon him from all quarters of the globe, and shrugged his shoulders at the coarse invective of those whose religious susceptibilities he had so innocently wounded; left all published insults unanswered; never noticed any lie printed about himself--never wrote a paragraph in explanation or self-defence, but smoked many pipes and mildly wondered. indeed he was mildly wondering all his life: at his luck--at all the ease and success and warm domestic bliss that had so compensated him for the loss of his left eye and would almost have compensated him for the loss of both. "it's all because i'm so deuced good-looking!" says barty--"and so's leah!" and all his life he sorrowed for those who were less fortunate than himself. his charities and those of his wife were immense--he gave all the money, and she took all the trouble. "c'est papa qui paie et maman qui régale," as marty would say; and never were funds distributed more wisely. but often at odd moments the weltschmerz, the sorrow of the world, would pierce this man who no longer felt sorrows of his own--stab him through and through--bring the sweat to his temples--fill his eyes with that strange pity and trouble that moved you so deeply when you caught the look; and soon the complicated anguish of that dim regard would resolve itself into gleams of a quite celestial sweetness--and a heavenly message would go forth to mankind in such simple words that all might read who ran.... all these endowments of the heart and brain, which in him were masculine and active, were possessed in a passive form by his wife; instead of the buoyant energy and boisterous high spirits, she had patience and persistency that one felt to be indomitable, and a silent sympathy that never failed, and a fund of cheerfulness and good sense on which any call might be made by life without fear of bankruptcy; she was of those who could play a losing game and help others to play it--and she never had a losing game to play! these gifts were inherited by their children, who, more-over, were so fed on their father's books--so imbued with them--that one felt sure of their courage, endurance, and virtue, whatever misfortunes or temptations might assail them in this life. one felt this especially with the youngest but one, marty, who, with even more than her due share of those gifts of the head and heart they had all inherited from their two parents, had not inherited their splendid frames and invincible health. roderick, _alias_ mark tapley, _alias_ chips, who is now the sailor, was, oddly enough, the strongest and the hardiest of the whole family, and yet he was born two years after marty. she always declared she brought him up and made a man of him, and taught him how to throw stones, and how to row and ride and swim; and that it was entirely to her he owed it that he was worthy to be a sailor--her ideal profession for a man. he was devoted to her, and a splendid little chap, and in the holidays he and she and i were inseparable, and of course chucker-out, who went with us wherever it was--hâvre, dieppe, dinard, the highlands, whitby, etc. once we were privileged to settle ourselves for two months in castle rohan, through the kindness of lord whitby; and that was the best holiday of all--for the young people especially. and more especially for barty himself, who had such delightful boyish recollections of that delightful place, and found many old friends among the sailors and fisher people--who remembered him as a boy. chips and marty and i and the faithful chucker-out were never happier than on those staiths where there is always such an ancient and fishlike smell; we never tired of watching the miraculous draughts of silver herring being disentangled from the nets and counted into baskets, which were carried on the heads of the stalwart, scaly fishwomen, and packed with salt and ice in innumerable barrels for billingsgate and other great markets; or else the sales by auction of huge cod and dark-gray dog-fish as they lay helpless all of a row on the wet flags amid a crowd of sturdy mariners looking on, with their hands in their pockets and their pipes in their mouths. then over that restless little bridge to the picturesque old town, and through its long, narrow street, and up the many stone steps to the ruined abbey and the old church on the east cliff; and the old churchyard, where there are so many stones in memory of those who were lost at sea. it was good to be there, in such good company, on a sunny august morning, and look around and about and down below: the miles and miles of purple moor, the woods of castle rohan, the wide north sea, which turns such a heavenly blue beneath a cloudless sky; the two stone piers, with each its lighthouse, and little people patiently looking across the waves for heaven knows what! the busy harbor full of life and animation; under our feet the red roofs of the old town and the little clock tower of the market-place; across the stream the long quay with its ale-houses and emporiums and jet shops and lively traffic; its old gabled dwellings and their rotting wooden balconies. and rising out of all this, tier upon tier, up the opposite cliff, the whitby of the visitors, dominated by a gigantic windmill that is--or was--almost as important a landmark as the old abbey itself. to the south the shining river ebbs and flows, between its big ship-building yards and the railway to york, under endless moving craft and a forest of masts, now straight on end, now slanting helplessly on one side when there's not water enough to float their keels; and the long row of cornish fishing-smacks, two or three deep. how the blue smoke of their cooking wreathes upward in savory whiffs and whirls! they are good cooks, these rovers from penzance, and do themselves well, and remind us that it is time to go and get lunch at the hotel. we do, and do ourselves uncommonly well also; and afterwards we take a boat, we four (if the tide serves), and row up for a mile or so to a certain dam at ruswarp, and there we take another boat on a lovely little secluded river, which is quite independent of tides, and where for a mile or more the trees bend over us from either side as we leisurely paddle along and watch the leaping salmon-trout, pulling now and then under a drooping ash or weeping-willow to gaze and dream or chat, or read out loud from _sylvia's lovers_; sylvia robson once lived in a little farm-house near upgang, which we know well, and at whitby every one reads about sylvia robson; or else we tell stories, or inform each other what a jolly time we're having, and tease old chucker-out, who gets quite excited, and we admire the discretion with which he disposes of his huge body as ballast to trim the boat, and remains perfectly still in spite of his excitement for fear he should upset us. indeed, he has been learning all his life how to behave in boats, and how to get in and out of them. and so on till tea-time at five, and we remember there's a little inn at sleights, where the scones are good; or, better still, a leafy garden full of raspberry-bushes at cock mill, where they give excellent jam with your tea, and from which there are three ways of walking back to whitby when there's not enough water to row--and which is the most delightful of those three ways has never been decided yet. then from the stone pier we watch a hundred brown-sailed cornish fishing-smacks follow each other in single file across the harbor bar and go sailing out into the west as the sun goes down--a most beautiful sight, of which marty feels all the mystery and the charm and the pathos, and chips all the jollity and danger and romance. then to the trap, and home all four of us _au grand trot_, between the hedge-rows and through the splendid woods of castle rohan; there at last we find all the warmth and light and music and fun of marsfield, and many good things besides: supper, dinner, tea--all in one; and happy, healthy, hungry, indefatigable boys and girls who've been trapesing over miles and miles of moor and fell, to beautiful mills and dells and waterfalls--too many miles for slender marty or little chips; or even bob and chucker-out--who weigh thirty-two stone between them, and are getting lazy in their old age, and fat and scant of breath. whitby is an ideal place for young people; it almost makes old people feel young themselves there when the young are about; there is so much to do. i, being the eldest of the large party, chummed most of the time with the two youngest and became a boy again; so much so that i felt myself almost a sneak when i tactfully tried to restrain such exuberance of spirits on their part as might have led them into mischief: indeed it was difficult not to lead them into mischief myself; all the old inventiveness (that had got me and others into so many scrapes at brossard's) seemed to come back, enhanced by experience and maturity. at all events, marty and chips were happier with me than without--of that i feel quite sure, for i tested it in many ways. i always took immense pains to devise the kinds of excursion that would please them best, and these never seemed to fail of their object; and i was provident and well skilled in all details of the commissariat (chips was healthily alimentative); i was a very _bradshaw_ at trains and times and distances, and also, if i am not bragging too much, and making myself out an admirable crichton, extremely weatherwise, and good at carrying small people pickaback when they got tired. marty was well up in local folk-lore, and had mastered the history of whitby and st. hilda, and sylvia robson; and of the old obsolete whaling-trade, in which she took a passionate interest; and fixed poor little chips's mind with a passion for the polar regions (he is now on the coast of senegambia). we were much on the open sea ourselves, in cobles; sometimes the big dog with us--"joomboa," as the fishermen called him; and they marvelled at his good manners and stately immobility in a boat. one afternoon--a perfect afternoon--we took tea at runswick, from which charming little village the whitbys take their second title, and had ourselves rowed round the cliffs to staithes, which we reached just before sunset; chips and his sister also taking an oar between them, and i another. there, on the brink of the little bay, with the singularly quaint and picturesque old village behind it, were fifty fishing-boats side by side waiting to be launched, and all the fishing population of staithes were there to launch them--men, women and children; as we landed we were immediately pressed into the service. marty and chips, wild with enthusiasm, pushed and yo-ho'd with the best; and i also won some commendation by my hearty efforts in the common cause. soon the coast was clear of all but old men and boys, women and children, and our four selves; and the boats all sailed westward, in a cluster, and lost themselves in the golden haze. it was the prettiest sight i ever saw, and we were all quite romantic about it. chucker-out held a small court on the sands, and was worshipped and fed with stale fish by a crowd of good-looking and agreeable little lasses and lads who called him "joomboa," and pressed chips and marty for biographical details about him, and were not disappointed. and i smoked a pipe of pipes with some splendid old salts, and shared my honeydew among them. nous étions bien, là! so sped those happy weeks--with something new and exciting every day--even on rainy days, when we wore waterproofs and big india-rubber boots and sou'westers, and chucker-out's coat got so heavy with the soak that he could hardly drag himself along: and we settled, we three at least, that we would never go to france or scotland--never any more--never anywhere in the world but whitby, jolly whitby-- ah me! l'homme propose.... marty always wore a red woollen fisherman's cap that hung down behind over the waving masses of her long, thick yellow hair--a blue jersey of the elaborate kind women knit on the whitby quay--a short, striped petticoat like a boulogne fishwife's, and light brown stockings on her long, thin legs. i have a photograph of her like that, holding a shrimping-net; with a magnifying-glass, i can see the little high-light in the middle of each jet-black eye--and every detail and charm and perfection of her childish face. of all the art-treasures i've amassed in my long life, that is to me the most beautiful, far and away--but i can't look at it yet for more than a second at a time.... "o tempo passato, perchè non ritorni?" as mary is so fond of singing to me sometimes, when she thinks i've got the blues. as if i haven't always got the blues! all barty's teaching is thrown away on me, now that he's not here himself to point his moral-- "et je m'en vais au vent mauvais qui m'emporte deçà, delà, pareil à la feuille morte...." heaven bless thee, mary dear, rossignolet de mon âme! would thou wert ever by my side! fain would i keep thee for myself in a golden cage, and feed thee on the tongues of other nightingales, so thou mightst warble every day, and all day long. by some strange congenital mystery the native tuning of thy voice is such, for me, that all the pleasure of my past years seems to go forever ringing in every single note. thy dear mother speaks again, thy gay young father rollicks and jokes and sings, and little marty laughs her happy laugh. _da capo, e da capo_, mary--only at night shouldst thou cease from thy sweet pipings, that i might smoke myself to sleep, and dream that all is once more as it used to be. * * * * * the writing, such as it is, of this life of barty josselin--which always means the writing of so much of my own--has been to me, up to the present moment, a great source of consolation, almost of delight, when the pen was in my hand and i dived into the past. but now the story becomes such a record of my own personal grief that i have scarcely the courage to go on; i will get through it as quickly as i can. it was at the beginning of the present decade that the bitter thing arose--medio de fonte leporum; just as all seemed so happy and secure at marsfield. one afternoon in may i arrived at the house, and nobody was at home; but i was told that marty was in the wood with old chucker-out, and i went thither to find her, loudly whistling a bar which served as a rallying signal to the family. it was not answered, but after a long hunt i found marty lying on the ground at the foot of a tree, and chucker-out licking her face and hands. she had been crying, and seemed half-unconscious. when i spoke to her she opened her eyes and said: "oh, uncle bob, i _have_ hurt myself so! i fell down that tree. do you think you could carry me home?" beside myself with terror and anxiety, i took her up as gently as i could, and made my way to the house. she had hurt the base of her spine as she fell on the roots of the tree; but she seemed to get better as soon as sparrow, the nurse, had undressed her and put her to bed. i sent for the doctor, however, and he thought, after seeing her, that i should do well to send for dr. knight. just then leah and barty came in, and we telegraphed for dr. knight, who came at once. next day dr. knight thought he had better have sir ---- ----, and there was a consultation. marty kept her bed for two or three days, and then seemed to have completely recovered but for a slight internal disturbance, brought on by the concussion, and which did not improve. one day dr. knight told me he feared very much that this would end in a kind of ataxia of the lower limbs--it might be sooner or later; indeed, it was sir ---- ----'s opinion that it would be sure to do so in the end--that spinal paralysis would set in, and that the child would become a cripple for life, and for a life that would not be long. i had to tell this to her father and mother. * * * * * marty, however, recovered all her high spirits. it was as if nothing had happened or could happen, and during six months everything at marsfield went on as usual but for the sickening fear that we three managed to conceal in our hearts, even from each other. at length, one day as marty and i were playing lawn-tennis, she suddenly told me that her feet felt as if they were made of lead, and i knew that the terrible thing had come.... i must really pass over the next few months. in the summer of the following year she could scarcely walk without assistance, and soon she had to go about in a bath-chair. soon, also, she ceased to be conscious when her lower limbs were pinched and pricked till an interval of about a second had elapsed, and this interval increased every month. she had no natural consciousness of her legs and feet whatever unless she saw them, although she could move them still and even get in and out of bed, or in and out of her bath-chair, without much assistance, so long as she could see her lower limbs. often she would stumble and fall down, even on a grassy lawn. in the dark she could not control her movements at all. she was also in constant pain, and her face took on permanently the expression that barty's often wore when he thought he was going blind in malines, although, like him in those days, she was always lively and droll, in spite of this heavy misfortune, which seemed to break every heart at marsfield except her own. for, alas! barty josselin, who has so lightened for us the sorrow of mere bereavement, and made quick-coming death a little thing--for some of us, indeed, a lovely thing--has not taught us how to bear the sufferings of those we love, the woeful ache of pity for pangs we are powerless to relieve and can only try to share. endeavor as i will, i find i cannot tell this part of my story as it should be told; it should be a beautiful story of sweet young feminine fortitude and heroic resignation--an angel's story. during the four years that martia's illness lasted the only comfort i could find in life was to be with her--reading to her, teaching her blaze, rowing her on the river, driving her, pushing or dragging her bath-chair; but, alas! watching her fade day by day. strangely enough, she grew to be the tallest of all her sisters, and the most beautiful in the face; she was so wasted and thin she could hardly be said to have had a body or limbs at all. i think the greatest pleasure she had was to lie and be sung to by mary or her father, or played to by roberta, or chatted to about domestic matters by leah, or read to by me. she took the keenest interest in everything that concerned us all; she lived out of herself entirely, and from day to day, taking short views of life. it filled her with animation to see the people who came to the house and talk with them; and among these she made many passionately devoted friends. there were also poor children from the families of laborers in the neighborhood, in whom she had always taken a warm interest. she now organized them into regular classes, and taught and amused them and told them stories, sang funny songs to them, and clothed and fed them with nice things, and they grew to her an immense hobby and constant occupation. she also became a quite surprising performer on the banjo, which her father had taught her when she was quite a little girl, and invented charming tunes and effects and modulations that had never been tried on that humble instrument before. she could have made a handsome living out of it, crippled as she was. she seemed the busiest, drollest, and most contented person in marsfield; she all but consoled us for the dreadful thing that had happened to herself, and laughingly pitied us for pitying her. so much for the teaching of barty josselin, whose books she knew by heart, and constantly read and reread. and thus, in spite of all, the old, happy, resonant cheerfulness gradually found its way back to marsfield, as though nothing had happened; and poor broken marty, who had always been our idol, became our goddess, our prop and mainstay, the angel in the house, the person for every one to tell their troubles to--little or big--their jokes, their good stories; there was never a laugh like hers, so charged with keen appreciation of the humorous thing, the relish of which would come back to her again and again at any time--even in the middle of the night when she could not always sleep for her pain; and she would laugh anew. ida scatcherd and i, with good nurse sparrow to help, wished to take her to italy--to egypt--but she would not leave marsfield, unless it were to spend the winter months with all of us at lancaster gate, or the autumn in the highlands or on the coast of normandy. [illustration: marty] and indeed neither barty nor leah nor the rest could have got on without her; they would have had to come, too--brothers, sisters, young husbands, grandchildren, and all. never but once did she give way. it was one june evening, when i was reading to her some favorite short poems out of browning's _men and women_ on a small lawn surrounded with roses, and of which she was fond. the rest of the family were on the river, except her father and mother, who were dressing to go and dine with some neighbors; for a wonder, as they seldom dined away from home. the carriage drove up to the door to fetch them, and they came out on the lawn to wish us good-night. never had i been more struck with the splendor of barty and his wife, now verging towards middle age, as they bent over to kiss their daughter, and he cut capers and cracked little jokes to make her laugh. leah's hair was slightly gray and her magnificent figure somewhat matronly, but there were no other signs of autumn; her beautiful white skin was still as delicate as a baby's, her jet-black eyes as bright and full, her teeth just as they were thirty years back. tall as she was, her husband towered over her, the finest and handsomest man of his age i have ever seen. and marty gazed after them with her heart in her eyes as they drove off. "how splendid they are, uncle bob!" then she looked down at her own shrunken figure and limbs--her long, wasted legs and her thin, slight feet that were yet so beautifully shaped. and, hiding her face in her hands, she began to cry: "and i'm their poor little daughter--oh dear, oh dear!" she wept silently for a while, and i said nothing, but endured an agony such as i cannot describe. then she dried her eyes and smiled, and said: "what a goose i am," and, looking at me-- "oh! uncle bob, forgive me; i've made you very unhappy--it shall never happen again!" suddenly the spirit moved me to tell her the story of martia. leah and barty and i had often discussed whether she should be told this extraordinary thing, in which we never knew whether to believe or not, and which, if there were a possibility of its being true, concerned marty so directly. they settled that they would leave it entirely to me--to tell her or not, as my own instinct would prompt me, should the opportunity occur. my instinct prompted me to do so now. i shall not forget that evening. the full moon rose before the sun had quite set, and i talked on and on. the others came in to dinner. she and i had some dinner brought to us out there, and on i talked--and she could scarcely eat for listening. i wrapped her well up, and lit pipe after pipe, and went on talking, and a nightingale sang, but quite unheard by marty josselin. she did not even hear her sister mary, whose voice went lightly up to heaven through the open window: "oh that we two were maying!" and when we parted that night she thanked and kissed me so effusively i felt that i had been happily inspired. "i believe every word of it's true; i know it, i feel it! uncle bob, you have changed my life; i have often desponded when nobody knew--but never again! dear papa! only think of him! as if any human being alive could write what he has written without help from above or outside. of course it's all true; i sometimes think i can almost remember things.... i'm sure i can." barty and leah were well pleased with me when they came home that night. that marty was doomed to an early death did not very deeply distress them. it is astonishing how lightly they thought of death, these people for whom life seemed so full of joy; but that she should ever be conscious of the anguish of her lot while she lived was to them intolerable--a haunting preoccupation. to me, a narrower and more selfish person, marty had almost become to me life itself--her calamity had made her mine forever; and life without her had become a thing not to be conceived: her life was my life. that life of hers was to be even shorter than we thought, and i love to think that what remained of it was made so smooth and sweet by what i told her that night. i read all martia's blaze letters to her, and helped her to read them for herself, and so did barty. she got to know them by heart--especially the last; she grew to talk as martia wrote; she told me of strange dreams she had often had--dreams she had told sparrow and her own brothers and sisters when she was a child--wondrous dreams, in their seeming confirmation of what seemed to us so impossible. her pains grew slighter and ceased. and now her whole existence had become a dream--a tranquil, happy dream; it showed itself in her face, its transfigured, unearthly beauty--in her cheerful talk, her eager sympathy; a kind of heavenly pity she seemed to feel for those who had to go on living out their normal length of days. and always the old love of fun and frolic and pretty tunes. her father would make her laugh till she cried, and the same fount of tears would serve when mary sang brahms and schubert and lassen to her--and roberta played chopin and schumann by the hour. so she might have lived on for a few years--four or five--even ten. but she died at seventeen, of mere influenza, very quickly and without much pain. her father and mother were by her bedside when her spirit passed away, and dr. knight, who had brought her into the world. she woke from a gentle doze and raised her head, and called out in a clear voice: "_barty--leah--come, to me, come!_" and fell back dead. barty bowed his head and face on her hand, and remained there as if asleep. it was leah who drew her eyelids down. an hour later dr. knight came to me, his face distorted with grief. "it's all over?" i said. "yes, it's all over." "and leah?" "mrs. josselin is with her husband. she's a noble woman; she seems to bear it well." "and barty?" "barty josselin is no more." the end glossary [first figure indicates page; second figure, line.] , . _odium theologicum_--theological hatred. , . _sæva indignatio_--fierce indignation. , . "_de paris à versailles_," etc.-- "from paris to versailles, lon, là, from paris to versailles-- there are many fine walks, hurrah for the king of france! there are many fine walks, hurrah for the school-boys!" , . _salle d'études des petits_--study-room of the smaller boys. , . _parloir_--parlor. , . _e da capo_--and over again. , . _le grand bonzig_--the big bonzig. , . _estrade_--platform. , . _à la malcontent_--convict style. , . _ceinture de gymnastique_--a wide gymnasium belt. , . _marchand de coco_--licorice-water seller. , . _orphéonistes_--members of musical societies. , . _exceptis excipiendis_--exceptions being made. , . "_infandum, regina, jubes renovare_" ("_dolorem_"), etc. "thou orderest me, o queen, to renew the unutterable grief." , . "_mouche-toi donc, animal! tu me dégoûtes, à la fin!_"--"blow your nose, you beast, you disgust me!" , . "_taisez-vous, maurice--ou je vous donne cent vers à copier!_ "--"hold your tongue, maurice, or i will give you a hundred lines to copy!" , . "_oui, m'sieur!_"--"yes, sir!" , . "_moi, m'sieur?_"--"i, sir?" , . "_oui, vous!_"--"yes, you!" , . "_bien, m'sieur!_"--"very well, sir!" , . "_le roi qui passe!_"--"there goes the king!" , . "_fermez les fenêtres, ou je vous mets tous au pain sec pour un mois!_"--"shut the windows, or i will put you all on dry bread for a month!" , . "_soyez diligent et attentif, mon ami; à plus tard!_"--"be diligent and attentive, my friend; i will see you later!" , . _en cinquième_--in the fifth class. , . _le nouveau_--the new boy. , . "_fermez votre pupitre_"--"shut your desk." , . _jocrisse_--effeminate man. , . _paltoquet_--clown. _petit polisson_--little scamp. , . _lingère_--seamstress. , . _quatrième_--fourth class. , . "_notre père, ... les replies les plus profonds de nos coeurs_"--"our father, who art in heaven, thou whose searching glance penetrates even to the inmost recesses of our hearts." , . "_au nom du père, du fils, et du st. esprit, ainsi soit-il!_"--"in the name of the father, the son, and the holy ghost, so be it!" , . _concierge_--janitor. _croquets_--crisp almond cakes. , . _blom-boudingues_--plum puddings. _pains d'épices_--gingerbreads. _sucre-d'orge_--barley sugar. , . _nougat_--almond cake. _pâte de guimauve_--marshmallow paste. _pralines_--burnt almonds. _dragées_--sugarplums. , . _le père et la mère_--father and mother. , . _corps de logis_--main buildings. , . _la table des grands_--the big boys' table. _la table des petits_--the little boys' table. , . _brouet noir des lacédémoniens_--the black broth of the spartans. , . _À la retenue_--to be kept in. , . _barres traversières_--crossbars. , . _la raie_--leap-frog. , . _rentiers_--stockholders. , . _classe d'histoire de france au moyen âge_--class of the history of france during the middle ages. , . _trente-septième légère_--thirty-seventh light infantry. , . _nous avons changé tout cela!_--we have changed all that! , . _représentant du peuple_--representative of the people. , . _les nobles_--the nobles. , . _par parenthèse_--by way of parenthesis. , . _lingerie_--place where linen is kept. , . _berthe aux grands pieds_--bertha of the big feet. (she was the mother of charlemagne, and is mentioned in the poem that du maurier elsewhere calls "that never to be translated, never to be imitated lament, the immortal 'ballade des dames du temps jadis'" of françois villon.) , . _allée du bois de boulogne_--lane of the bois de boulogne. , . _pensionnat_--boarding-school. , . _la belle madame de ronsvic_--the beautiful lady runswick. , . _deuxième spahis_--second spahi regiment. , . _mare aux biches_--the roes pool. , . _la main si malheureuse_--such an unfortunate hand. . . _la dieppoise_--a dance of dieppe. , . "_beuvons, donc_," etc. "let's drink, drink, drink then of this, the best wine in the world ... let's drink, drink, drink then of this, the very best wine! for if i didn't drink it, i might get the pip! which would make me...." , . "_ah, mon dieu! quel amour d'enfant! oh! gardons-le!_"--"ah, my lord! what a love of a child! oh! let us keep him!" , . _cæteris paribus_--other things being equal. , . _à propos_--seasonable. , . _chaire_--master's raised desk. , . _recueillement_--contemplation. , . "_non, m'sieur, je n'dors pas. j' travaille._"--"no, sir, i'm not asleep. i'm working." , . _à la porte_--to leave the room. , . _on demande monsieur josselin au parloir_--mr. josselin is wanted in the parlor. , . _pensum_--a task. , . _maître de mathématiques_ (_et de cosmographie_)--teacher of mathematics (and cosmography). , . _mes compliments_--my compliments. , . "_quelquefois je sais ... il n'y a pas à s'y tromper!_"--"sometimes i know--sometimes i don't--but when i know, i know, and there is no mistake about it!" , . "_À l'amandier!_"--"at the almond-tree!" , . _la balle au camp_--french baseball. , . _aussi simple que bonjour_--as easy as saying good-day. , . "_c'était pour monsieur josselin._"--"it was for mr. josselin!" , . _quorum pars magna fui_--of which i was a great part. , . _bourgeois gentilhomme_--citizen gentleman. (the title of one of molière's comedies in which m. jourdain is the principal character.) , . _dis donc_--say now. , . "_ma foi, non! c'est pas pour ça!_"--"my word, no! it isn't for that!" , . "_pourquoi, alors?_"--"why, then?" , . _jolivet trois_--the third jolivet. , . _au rabais_--at bargain sales. , . "_comme c'est bête, de s'battre, hein?_"--"how stupid it is to fight, eh?" , . _tuum et meum_--thine and mine. , . _magnifique_--magnificent. , . _la quatrième dimension_--the fourth dimension. , . _Étoiles mortes_--dead stars. , . _les trépassées de françois villon_--the dead of françois villon. , . _École des ponts et chaussées_--school of bridges and roads. , . _en cachette_--in hiding. _quelle sacrée pose!_--what a damned bluff! , . "_dis donc, maurice!--prête-moi ton ivanhoé!_"--"say now, maurice!--lend me your _ivanhoe_!" , . "_rapaud, comment dit-on 'pouvoir' en anglais?_"--"rapaud, how do they say 'to be able' in english?" , . "_sais pas, m'sieur!_"--"don't know, sir!" , . "_comment, petit crétin, tu ne sais pas!_"--"what, little idiot, you don't know!" , . "_je n' sais pas!_"--"i don't know!" , . "_et toi, maurice_"--"and you, maurice?" , . "_Ça se dit 'to be able' m'sieur!_"--"they would say 'to be able,' sir!" , . "_mais non, mon ami ... 'je voudrais pouvoir'?_"--"why no, my friend--you forget your native language--they would say 'to can'! now, how would you say, 'i would like to be able' in english?" , . _je dirais_--i would say. , . "_comment, encore! petit cancre! allons--tu es anglais--tu sais bien que tu dirais!_"--"what, again! little dunce--come, you are english--you know very well that you would say, ..." , . _À ton tour_--your turn. , . "_oui, toi--comment dirais-tu, 'je pourrais vouloir'?_"--"yes, you--how would you say 'i would be able to will'?" , . "_À la bonne heure! au moins tu sais ta langue, toi!_"--"well and good! you at least know your language!" , . _Île des cygnes_--isle of swans. , . _École de natation_--swimming-school. , . _jardin des plantes_--the paris zoological gardens. , . "_laissons les regrets et les pleurs a la vieillesse; jeunes, il faut cueillir les fleurs de la jeunesse!_"--baïf. "let us leave regrets and tears to age; young, we must gather the flowers of youth." , . _demi-tasse_--small cup of coffee. , . _chasse-café_--drink taken after coffee. , . _consommateur_--consumer. , . _le petit mousse noir_--the little black cabin boy. , . "_allons, josselin, chante-nous ça!_"--"come, josselin, sing that to us!" , . "_Écoute-moi bien, ma fleurette_"--"listen well to me, my fleurette." "_amis, la matinée est belle_"--"friends, the morning is fine." , . "_conduis ta barque avec prudence_," etc. "steer thy bark with prudence, fisherman! speak low! throw thy nets in silence, fisherman! speak low! and through our toils the king of the seas can never go." , . _boulevard bonne nouvelle_--boulevard of good news. , . _galette du gymnase_--flat cake, sold in booths near the theatre du gymnase. , . _yashmak_--a double veil worn by turkish women. , . _queue_--in a line. , . _chiffonniers_--rag-pickers. , . _accélérées (en correspondence avec les constantines)_--express omnibuses (connecting with the constantine line). , . _comme on ne l'est plus_--as one is no longer. , . _distribution de prix_--prize distribution. , . "_au clair de la lune!_"--"by the light of the moon!" (a french nursery rhyme. readers of "trilby" will remember her rendering of this song at her paris concert.) , . "_vivent les vacances-- ... gaudio nostrò._" "hurrah for the vacations-- come at length; and the punishments will have ended! the ushers uncivil, with barbarous countenance, will go to the devil, to our joy." , . _musée de marine_--marine museum. , . _ennui_--tedium. , . _en rhétorique et en philosophie_--in the rhetoric and philosophy classes. , . _cerf-dix-cors_--ten-branched stags. , . _ventre à terre_--at full speed. , . _toujours au clair de la lune_--always by moonlight. , . _hommes du monde_--men of the world (in society). , . _splendide mendax_--nobly false. . . _salle d'études_--school-room. , . _en cinquième_--in the fifth class. , . _de service_--on duty. , . _la suite au prochain numéro_--to be continued in our next. . . _le tueur de daims_--the deerslayer. , . _le lac ontario_--the lake ontario. _le dernier des mohicans_--the last of the mohicans. _les pionniers_--the pioneers. , . _bas-de-cuir_--leather-stocking. , . _la flotte de passy_--the passy crowd. _voyous_--blackguards. , . _liberté--égalité--fraternité! ou la mort! vive la république_--liberty--equality--fraternity! or death! hurrah for the republic! , . _le rappel_--to arms. _la générale_--the fire drum. , . _brigand de la loire_--brigand of the loire. , . _en pleine révolution_--in the midst of the revolution. , . _piou-piou_--the french equivalent of tommy atkins. a private soldier. , . _sentinelles, prenez-garde à vous_--sentinels, keep on the alert. , . _feu de peloton_--platoon fire. , . "_ce sacré josselin--il avait tous les talents!_"--"that confounded josselin--he had all the talents!" , . _lebewohl_--farewell. , . _bonsoir, le bon mozart_--good-night, good mozart. , . _château des fleurs_--castle of flowers. , . _tout vient à qui ne sait pas attendre_--everything comes to him who does not know how to wait. , . _revenons_--let us go back. , . _impériale_--outside seat. , . _saucisson de lyon à l'ail_--a lyons sausage flavored with garlic. , . _petits pains_--rolls of bread. , . _bière de mars_--mars beer. , . _entre les deux âges_--between the two ages. , . _le gué des aulnes_--alders ford. , . _si vis pacem, para bellum_--if you wish peace, prepare for war. , . _tutoyées_--addressed as "thee" and "thou," usual only among familiars. , . _bonnets de coton_--cotton caps. , . _à l'affût_--on the watch. , . "_caïn! caïn! qu'as-tu fait de ton frère?_"--"caïn! caïn! what hast thou done with thy brother?" , . _le saut périlleux_--the perilous leap. , . _que j' n'ai jamais vu_--whom i've never seen. , . "_dis-moi qué'q' chose en anglais._"--"tell me something in english." , . "_qué'q' çà veut dire?_"--"what's that mean?" , . "_il s'agit d'une église et d'un cimetière!_"--"it's about a church and a cemetery!" , . "_démontre-moi un problème de géométrie_"--"demonstrate to me a problem of geometry." , . "_démontre-moi que a + b est plus grand que c + d._"--"demonstrate to me that a + b is greater than c + d." , . "_c'est joliment beau, la géométrie!_"--"it's mighty fine, this geometry!" , . _brûle-gueule_--jaw-burner (a short pipe). , . "_mange-moi ça--ça t' fera du bien!_"--"eat that for me; it'll do you good!" , . _sais pas_--don't know. , . _père polyphème_--father polyphemus. , . _ces messieurs_--those gentlemen. , . "_hé! ma femme!_"--"hey! my wife!" , . "_voilà, voilà, mon ami!_"--"here, here, my friend!" , . "_viens vite panser mon cautère!_"--"come quick and dress my cautery!" , . _café_--coffee. , . "_oui, m'sieur laferté_"--"yes, m'sieur laferté." , . "_tire moi une gamme_"--"fire off a scale for me." , . "_ah! q' ça fait du bien!_"--"ah! that does one good!" , . "_'colin,' disait lisette_," etc.-- "'colin,' said lisette, 'i want to cross the water! but i am too poor to pay for the boat!' 'get in, get in, my beauty! get in, get in, nevertheless! and off with the wherry that carries my love!'" , . _le droit du seigneur_--the right of the lord of the manor. , . _Àmes en peine_--souls in pain. , . _sous la berge hantée_, etc. under the haunted bank the stagnant water lies-- under the sombre woods the dog-fox cries, and the ten-branched stag bells, and the deer come to drink at the pond of respite. "let me go, were-wolf!" how dark is the pool when falls the night-- the owl is scared, and the badger takes flight! and one feels that the dead are awake--that a nameless shadow pursues. "let me go, were-wolf!" , . "_prom'nons-nous dans les bois pendant que le loup n'y est pas_." "let us walk in the woods while the wolf is not there." , . _pas aut' chose_--nothing else. , . _c'est plus fort que moi_--it is stronger than i. , . "_il est très méchant!_"--"he is very malicious!" , . "_venez donc! il est très mauvais, le taureau!_"--"come now! the bull is very mischievous!" , . _bon voyage! au plaisir_--pleasant journey! to the pleasure (of seeing you again). , . "_le sang-froid du diable! nom d'un vellington!_"--"the devil's own coolness, by wellington!" , . _diable_--devil. , . "_ces anglais! je n'en reviens pas! à quatorze ans! hein, ma femme?_"--"those english! i can't get over it! at fourteen! eh, my wife?" , . _en famille_--at home. , . _charabancs_--wagonettes. , . _des chiens anglais_--english dogs. , . _charmilles_--hedges. _pelouses_--lawns. _quinconces_--quincunxes. , . _figaro quà, figaro là_--figaro here, figaro there. , . _charbonniers_--charcoal burners. , . _dépaysé_--away from home. _désorienté_--out of his bearings. , . _perdu_--lost. , . "_ayez pitié d'un pauvre orphelin!_"--"pity a poor orphan!" , . "_pioche bien ta géométrie, mon bon petit josselin! c'est la plus belle science au monde, crois-moi!_"--"dig away at your geometry, my good little josselin! it's the finest science in the world, believe me!" , . _bourru bienfaisant_--a gruff but good-natured man. , . "_enfin! Ça y est! quelle chance!_"--"at last! i've got it! what luck!" , . _quoi_--what. , . "_le nord--c'est revenu!_"--"the north--it's come back!" , . _une bonne fortune_--a love adventure. , . _les laiteries_--the dairies. _les poteries_--the potteries. _les crucheries_--the pitcheries (also the stupidities). , . _toi_--thou. , . _vous_--you. , . _notre père_, etc.--see note to page , line . , . _ainsi soit-il_--so be it. , . _au nom du père_--in the name of the father. , . _pavillon des petits_--building occupied by the younger boys. , . _cancre_--dunce. , . _crétin_--idiot. , . _troisième_--third class. , . _rhétorique_ (_seconde_)--rhetoric (second class). , . _philosophie_ (_première_)--philosophy (first class). , . _baccalauréat-ès-lettres_--bachelor of letters. , . _m'amour_ (_mon amour_)--my love. , . _en beauté_--at his best. , . "_le chant du départ_"--"the song of departure." , . "_la victoire en chantant nous ouvre la carrière! la liberté-é gui-i-de nos pas_" ... "victory shows us our course with song! liberty guides our steps" ... , . "_quel dommage ... c'est toujours ça!_"--"what a pity that we can't have crumpets! barty likes them so much. don't you like crumpets, my dear? here comes some buttered toast--it's always that!" , . "_mon dieu, comme il a bonne mine ... dans la glace_"--"good heavens, how well he looks, the dear barty!--don't you think so, my love, that you look well? look at yourself in the glass." , . "_si nous allions à l'hippodrôme ... aussi les jolies femmes?_"--"if we went to the hippodrome this afternoon, to see the lovely equestrian madame richard? barty adores pretty women, like his uncle! don't you adore pretty women, you naughty little barty? and you have never seen madame richard. you'll tell me what you think of her; and you, my friend, do you also adore pretty women?" , . "_Ô oui, allons voir madame richard_"--"oh yes! let us go and see madame richard." , . _la haute école_--the high-school (of horsemanship). , . _café des aveugles_--café of the blind. , . "_qu'est-ce que vous avez donc, tous?_"--"what's the matter with you all?" , . "_le père brassard est mort!_"--"father brossard is dead!" , . "_il est tombé du haut mal_"--"he died of the falling sickness." , . _désoeuvrement_--idleness. , . _de service as maître d'études_--on duty as study-master. , . "_dites donc, vous autres_"--"say now, you others." , . _panem et circenses_--bread and games. , . "_allez donc ... à la salle valentino_"--"go it, godems--this is not a quadrille! we're not at valentino hall!" , . "_messieurs ... est sauf_"--"gentlemen, blood has flown; britannic honor is safe." , . "_j'ai joliment faim!_"--"i'm mighty hungry!" , . "_que ne puis-je aller_," etc. "why can i not go where the roses go, and not await the heartbreaking regrets which the end of things keeps for us here?" , . "_le manuel du baccalauréat_"--"the baccalaureat's manual." , . _un prévôt_--a fencing-master's assistant. , . _rez-de-chaussée_--ground floor. , . "_la pluie de perles_"--"the shower of pearls." , . _quart d'heure_--quarter of an hour. , . _au petit bonheur_--come what may. , . _vieux loup de mer_--old sea-wolf. , . _mon colonel_--my colonel. , . _endimanché_--sundayfied (dressed up). , . _chefs-d'oeuvre_--masterpieces. , . _chanson_--song. , . "_c'était un capucin_," etc. "it was a capuchin, oh yes, a capuchin father, who confessed three girls-- itou, itou, itou, là là là! who confessed three girls at the bottom of his garden-- oh yes-- at the bottom of his garden! he said to the youngest-- itou, itou, itou, là là là! he said to the youngest ... 'you will come back to-morrow.'" , . _un écho du temps passé_--an echo of the olden times. , . _esprit gaulois_--old french wit. , . "_sur votre parole d'honneur, avez-vous chanté?_"--"on your word of honor, have you sung?" , . "_non, m'sieur!_"--"no, sir!" , . "_oui, m'sieur!_"--"yes, sir." , . "_vous êtes tous consignés!_"--"you are all kept in!" , . _de service_--on duty. , . "_au moins vous avez du coeur ... sale histoire de capucin!_"--"you at least have spirit. promise me that you will not again sing that dirty story about the capuchin!" , . "_stabat mater_," etc. "by the cross, sad vigil keeping, stood the mournful mother weeping, while on it the saviour hung" ... , . "_ah! ma chère mamzelle marceline!... et une boussole dans l'estomac!_"--"ah! my dear miss marceline, if they were only all like that little josselin! things would go as if they were on wheels! that english youngster is as innocent as a young calf! he has god in his heart." "and a compass in his stomach!" , . "_ah! mon cher!... chantez-moi ça encore une fois!_"--"ah! my dear! what wouldn't i give to see the return of a whaler at whitby! what a 'marine' that would make! eh? with the high cliff and the nice little church on top, near the old abbey--and the red smoking roofs, and the three stone piers, and the old drawbridge--and all that swarm of watermen with their wives and children--and those fine girls who are waiting for the return of the loved one! by jove! to think that you have seen all that, you who are not yet sixteen ... what luck! ... say--what does that really mean?--that 'weel may the keel row!' sing that to me once again!" , . "_ah! vous verrez ... vous y êtes, en plein!_"--"ah! you will see, during the easter holidays i will make such a fine picture of all that! with the evening mist that gathers, you know--and the setting sun, and the rising tide, and the moon coming up on the horizon, and the sea-mews and the gulls, and the far-off heaths, and your grandfather's lordly old manor; that's it, isn't it?" "yes, yes, mr. bonzig--you are right in it." , . "_c'était dans la nuit brune_," etc. "'twas in the dusky night on the yellowed steeple, the moon, like a dot on an i!" , . _en flagrant délit_--in the very act. , . _la perfide albion_--perfidious albion. , . "_À bas dumollard!_"--"down with dumollard!" , . _l'étude entière_--the whole school. , . "_est-ce toi?_"--"is it thou?" , . "_non, m'sieur, ce n'est pas moi!_"--"no, sir, it isn't me!" , . "_parce qu'il aime les anglais, ma foi--affaire de goût!_"--"because he likes the english, in faith--a matter of taste!" , . "_ma foi, il n'a pas tort!_"--"in faith, he's not wrong!" , . "_non! jamais en france, jamais anglais ne régnera!_" "no! never in france, never shall englishman reign!" , . _au piquet pour une heure_--in the corner for an hour. _a la retenue_--kept in. , . _privé de bain_--not to go swimming. _consigné dimanche prochain_--kept in next sunday. , . _de mortibus nil desperandum_--an incorrect version of _de mortuis nil nisi bonum_: of the dead nothing but good. , . _avec des gens du monde_--with people in society. , . _et, ma foi, le sort a favorisé m. le marquis_--and, in faith, fortune favored m. le marquis. , . _vous êtes un paltoquet et un rustre_--you are a clown and a boor. , . _classe de géographie ancienne_--class of ancient geography. , . "_timeo danaos et dona ferentes!_"--"i fear the greeks even when they bear gifts!" , . "_le troisième coup fait feu, vous savez_"--"the third blow strikes fire, you know." , . _tisanes_--infusions. , . "_c'est moi qui voudrais ... comme il est poli_"--"it's myself that would like to have the mumps here. i should delay my convalescence as much as possible!" "how well your uncle knows french, and how polite he is!" , . _nous avons tous passé par là_--we have all been through it. , . "_te rappelles-tu ... du père jaurion?_"--"do you recall berquin's new coat and his high-hat?" "do you remember father jaurion's old angora cat?" , . "_paille à dine_," etc., is literally: "straw for dine--straw for chine-- straw for suzette and martine-- good bed for the dumaine!" , . "_pourquoi, m'sieur?_" "_parce que ça me plaît!_" "what for, sir?" "because it pleases me!" , . _un point_, etc.--a period--semi-colon--colon--exclamation --inverted commas--begin a parenthesis. , . "_te rappelles-tu cette omelette?_"--"do you remember that omelette?" , . _version écrite_--written version. , . _que malheur!_--what a misfortune! , . "_Ça pue l'injustice, ici!_"--"it stinks of injustice, here!" , . "_mille francs par an! ç'est le pactole!_"--"a thousand francs a year! it is a pactolus!" , . "_je t'en prie, mon garçon!_"--"i pray you, my boy!" , . _la chasse aux souvenirs d'enfance!_--hunting remembrances of childhood! , . "_je marcherai les yeux fixés sur mes pensées_," etc. "i will walk with my eyes fixed on my thoughts, seeing nothing outside, without hearing a sound-- by myself, unknown, with bowed back and hands crossed: sad--and the day will for me be as night." , . _beau comme le jour_--beautiful as day. , . _la rossignolle_--the nightingale (feminine.) , . "_a saint-blaize, à la zuecca_" etc. "at st. blaize, and at zuecca ... you were, you were very well! at st. blaize, and at zuecca ... we were, we were happy there! but to think of it again will you ever care? will you think of it again? will you come once more? at st. blaize, and at zuecca ... to live there and to die!" , . _fête de st.-cloud_--festival of st. cloud. , . _blanchisseuse_--laundress. , . "_roy ne puis, prince ne daigne, rohan je suis!_"--"king i cannot be, prince i would not be, rohan i am!" , . "_rohan ne puis, roi ne daigne. rien je suis!_"--"rohan i cannot be, king i would not be. nothing i am!" , . _grandes dames de par le monde_--great ladies of the world. , . "_o lachrymarum fons!_"--"o font of tears!" , . jewess is in french, _juive_. , . "_esker voo her jer dwaw lah vee? ah! kel bonnure!_" anglo-french for "_est ce que vous que je dois laver. ah! quel bonheur!_"--"is it that you that i must wash? ah! what happiness!" , . _pazienza_--patience. , . "_ne sulor ultra crepidam!_"--"a cobbler should stick to his last!" , . "_la cigale ayant chanté_," etc. "the grasshopper, having sung the summer through, found herself destitute when the north wind came."... , . "_spretæ injuria formæ_"--"the insult to her despised beauty." , . _billets doux_--love letters. , . "_la plus forte des forces est un coeur innocent_"--"the strongest of strengths is an innocent heart." , . "_tiens, tiens!... écoute!_"--"there, there! it's deucedly pretty that--listen!" , . "_mais, nom d'une pipe--elle est divine, cette musique--là!_"--"but, by jingo, it's divine, that music!" , . _bourgeois_--the middle class. , . _nouveaux riches_--newly rich people. , . "_la mia letizia!_"--"my joy!" , . "_beau chevalier qui partez pour la guerre_," etc. "brave cavalier, off to the war, what will you do so far from here? do you not see that the night is dark, and that the world is only care?" , . "_la chanson de barberine_"--"the song of barberine." , . _cascamèche_--nightcap tassel. _moutardier du pape_--pope's mustardman. _tromblon-bolivard_--broad-brimmed blunderbuss. , . _vieux coquelicot_--old poppy. , . "_voos ayt oon ôter!_" anglo-french for "_vous êtes un autre!_"--"you are another!" , . _c'est toujours comme ça_--it's always like that. , . _à bon chat, bon rat_--a roland for an oliver. , . _poudre insecticide_--insect-powder. _mort aux punaises_--death to the bugs. , . _pensionnat de demoiselles_--young ladies' boarding-school. , . _je connais ça_--i know that. , . _eau sucrée_--sweetened water. , . _coeur de lion_--lion heart. _le pré aux clercs_--parson's green. , . _rapins_--art students. , . "_bonjour, monsieur bonzig! comment allez-vous?_"--"good-day, mr. bonzig! how do you do?" , . "_pardonnez-moi, monsieur--mais je n'ai pas l'honneur de vous remettre!_"--"pardon me, sir--but i have not the honor to remember your face!" , . "_je m'appelle josselin--de chez brossard!_"--"my name is josselin--from brossard's!" , . "_ah! mon dieu, mon cher, mon très-cher!_"--"ah! my god, my dear, my very dear!" , . "_mais quel bonheur.... je n'en reviens pas!_"--"but what good luck it is to see you again. i think of you so often, and of whitby! how you have altered! and what a fine-looking fellow you are! who would have recognized you! lord of lords--it's a dream! i can't get over it!" , . "_non, mon cher josselin_"--"no, my dear josselin." , . _un peintre de marines_--a painter of marines. , . _garde champêtre_--park-keeper. , . _ministère_--public office. , . "_l'heure où le jaune de naples rentre dans la nature_"--"the hour when naples yellow comes again into nature." , . _bonne friture_--good fried fish. , . _fricassée de lapin_--rabbit fricasee. _pommes sautées_--french fried potatoes. _soupe aux choux_--cabbage soup. , . _café chantant_--music-hall. _bal de barrière_--ball held in the outer districts of paris, usually composed of the rougher element. , . _bonsoir la compagnie_--good-night to the company. , . _prix-fixe_--fixed price. , . _aile de poulet_--chicken's wing. _pêche au vin_--peach preserved in wine. , . _entre la poire et le fromage_--between pear and cheese. , . _flâning_--from _flâner_, to lounge. , . "_ma foi, mon cher!_"--"my word, my dear!" , . _ma mangeaille_--my victuals. , . _mont de piété_--pawnshop. , . _moult tristement, à l'anglaise_--with much sadness, after the english fashion. , . _un jour de séparation, vous comprenez_--a day of separation, you understand. , . _à la vinaigrette_--with vinegar sauce. , . _nous en ferons l'expérience_--we will try it. , . _maillot_--bathing-suit. _peignoir_--wrapper. , . "_oh! la mer! ... chez babet!_"--"oh! the sea, the sea! at last i am going to take my header into it--and not later than to-morrow evening.... till to-morrow, my dear comrade--six o'clock--at babet's!" , . _piquant sa tête_--taking his header. , . _sergent de ville_--policeman. , . "_un jour de séparation ... nagerons de conserve_"--"a day of separation! but come also, josselin--we will take our headers together, and swim in each other's company." , . "_en signe de mon deuil_"--"as a token of my mourning." , . _plage_--beach. , . _dame de comptoir_--the lady at the counter. , . _demi-tasse_--small cup of coffee. _petit-verre_--small glass of brandy. , . _avec tant d'esprit_--so wittily. , . _rancune_--grudge. , . _bon raconteur_--good story-teller. , . "_la plus belle fille ... ce qu'elle a!_"--"the fairest girl in the world can give only what she has!" , ._ comme tout un chacun sait_--as each and every one knows. , . _tout ça, c'est de l'histoire ancienne_--that's all ancient history. , . "_très bel homme ... que joli garçon hein?_"--"fine man, bob; more of the fine man than the handsome fellow, eh?" , . _mes compliments_--my compliments. , . "_Ça y est, alors! ... à ton bonheur!_"--"so it's settled, then! i congratulate you beforehand, and i keep my tears for when you have gone. let us go and dine at babet's: i long to drink to your welfare!" , . _atelier_--art studio. , . _le beau josselin_--the handsome josselin. , . _serrement de coeur_--heart burning. , . _marché aux oeufs_--egg market. , . "_malines_" or "_louvain_"--belgian beers. , . "_oui; un nommé valtères_"--"yes; one called valtères" (french pronunciation of walters). , . "_parbleu, ce bon valtères--je l'connais bien!_"--"zounds, good old walters--i know him well!" , . _primo tenore_--first tenor. , . _guides_--a belgian cavalry regiment. , . _cercle artistique_--art club. , . "_o céleste haine_," etc. "o celestial hate, how canst thou be appeased? o human suffering, who can cure thee? my pain is so heavy i wish it would kill me-- such is my desire. "heart-broken by thought, weary of compassion, to hear no more, nor see, nor feel, i am ready to give my parting breath-- and this is my desire. "to know nothing more, nor remember myself-- never again to rise, nor go to sleep-- no longer to be, but to have done-- that is my desire!" , . _fleur de blé_--corn-flower. , . "_vous allez à blankenberghe, mossiê?_"--"you go to blankenberghe, sah?" , . "_je souis bienn content--nous ferons route ensiemblè!_" (_je suis bien content--nous ferons route ensemble_)--"i am fery glad--ve will make ze journey togezzar!" , . _ragazza_--girl. , . "_un' prodige, mossié--un' fenomeno!_"--"a prodigy, sah--a phenomenon!" , . _robert, toi que j'aime_--robert, thou whom i love. , . "_ma vous aussi, vous êtes mousicien--jé vois ça par la votre figoure!" (mais vous aussi vous etes musicien--je vois ça par votre figure!)_--"but you also, you are a moosician--i see zat by your face!" , . _elle et moi_--she and i. , . _bon marché_--cheap. , . _en famille_--at home. , . "_jé vais vous canter couelquê cose (je vais vous chanter quelque-chose)--una piccola cosa da niente!--vous comprenez l'italien?_"--"i vill sing to you somezing--a leetle zing of nozzing!--you understand ze italian?" , . _je les adore_--i adore them. , . "_il vero amore_"--"true love." , . "_e la mio amor è andato a soggiornare a lucca bella--e diventar signore...._" "and my love has gone to dwell in beautiful lucca--and become a gentleman...." , . "_o mon fernand!_"--"o my fernand!" , . "_et vous ne cantez pas ... comme je pourrai._" "and you do not sing at all, at all?" "oh yes, sometimes!" "sing somezing--i vill accompany you on ze guitar!--do not be afraid--ve vill not be hard on you, she and i--" "oh--i'll do my best to accompany myself." , . "_fleur des alpes_"--"flower of the alps." , . _médaille de sauvetage_--medal for saving life. , . _je leur veux du bien_--i wish them well. , . _largo al factotum_--make way for the factotum. , . _bis! ter!_--a second time! a third time! , . "_het roosje uit de dorne_"--"the rose without the thorn." , . _sans tambour ni trompette_--without drum or trumpet (french leave). , . _hôtel de ville_--town-hall. , . "_una sera d' amore_"--"an evening of love." , . "_guarda che bianca luna_"--"behold the silver moon." , . _boute-en-train_--life and soul. , . "_À vous, monsieur de la garde ... tirer les premiers!_" "your turn, gentleman of the guard." "the gentlemen of the guard should always fire the first!" , . "_je ne tire plus ... main malheureuse un jour!_"--"i will fire no more--i am too much afraid that some day my hand may be unfortunate!" , . "_le cachet ... je lui avais demandé!_"--"mr. josselin's seal, which i had asked him for!" , . _salle d'armes_--fencing-school. , . _des enfantillages_--child's play. , . "_je vous en prie, monsieur de la garde!_"--"i pray you, gentleman of the guard!" , . "_cette fois, alors, nous allons tirer ensemble!_"--"this time, then, we will draw together!" , . _maître d'armes_--fencing-master. , . "_vous êtes impayable ... pour la vie_"--"you are extraordinary, you know, my dear fellow; you have every talent, and a million in your throat into the bargain! if ever i can do anything for you, you know, always count upon me." , . "_et plus jamais ... quand vous m'écrirez!_"--"and no more empty envelopes when you write to me!" , . _la peau de chagrin_--the shagreen skin. (the hero of this story, by balzac, is given a piece of shagreen, on the condition that all his wishes will be gratified, but that every wish will cause the leather to shrink, and that when it disappears his life will come to an end. _chagrin_ also means sorrow, so that barty's retina was indeed "a skin of sorrow," continually shrinking.) , . "_les misères du jour font le bonheur du lendemain!_"--"the misery of to-day is the happiness of to-morrow!" , . _dune_--a low sand-hill. (they are to be found all along the belgian coast.) , . _par_--by. . . _dit-on_--they say. , . _bien d'accord_--of the same mind. , . _née_--by birth. , . _moi qui vous parle_--i who speak to you. , . _kermesse_--fair. , . _estaminet_--a drinking and smoking resort. , . _à la teniers_--after the manner of teniers, the painter. , . _in secula seculorum!_--for ages of ages! , . _rue des ursulines blanches_--street of the white ursulines. , . _des soeurs rédemptoristines_--sisters of the redemption. , . _frau_--mrs. (this is german; the flemish is _juffrow_.) , . "_la cigogne_"--"the stork inn." , . _salade aux fines herbes_--salad made of a mixture of herbs. , . _à fleur de tête_--on a level with their heads. , . _savez vous?_--do you know? , . _chaussées_--roads. , . _les maîtres sonneurs_--the master ringers. _la mare au diable_--the devil's pool. , . _séminaire_--clerical seminary. , . "_mio caro paolo di kocco!_"--"my dear paul de kock!" , . "_un malheureux_" etc. "an unfortunate dressed in black, who resembled me like a brother." (du maurier himself.) , . _mein armer_--my poor. , . _lieber_--dear. , . _bel mazetto_--beautiful mazetto. , . "_ich bin ein lustiger student, mein pardy_"--"i am a jolly student, my barty." , . _katzenjammer_--sore head. , . _liebe_--love. , . _tout le monde_--everybody. , . _autrefois_--the times of yore. , . "_oh, non, mon ami_"--"oh, no, my friend." , . "_petit bonhomme vit encore_"--"good little fellow still alive." , ."_hé quoi! pour des peccadilles_," etc. "eh, what! for peccadilloes to scold those little loves? women are so pretty, and one does not love forever! good fellow they call me ... my gayety is my treasure! and the good fellow is still alive-- and the good fellow is still alive!" , . _soupe-au-lait_--milk porridge. , . _muscæ volitantes_--(literally) hovering flies. , . "_mettez-vous au régime des viandes saignantes!_"--"put yourself on a diet of rare meat!" , . "_mettez-vous au lait!_"--"take to milk!" , . _désoeuvrement_--idleness. , . "_amour, amour_," etc. "love, love, when you hold us, well may we say: 'prudence, good-bye!'" , . "_il s'est conduit en homme de coeur!_"--"he has behaved like a man of spirit!" , . "_il s'est conduit en bon gentilhomme_"--"he has behaved like a thorough gentleman!" , . _les noces de jeannette_--jeannette's wedding. , . "_cours, mon aiguille ... de notre peine!_" "run, my needle, through the wool! do not break off in my hand; for to-morrow with good kisses jean will pay us for our trouble!" , . "_hélas! mon jeune ami!_"--"alas! my young friend!" , . _sursum cor! sursum corda!_--lift up your heart! lift up your hearts! , . _coupe-choux_--cabbage-cutter. , . "_Ça ne vous regarde pas, ... ou je vous ..._"--"it's none of your business, you know! take yourselves off at once, or i'll ..." , . "_non--c'est moi qui regarde, savez-vous!_"--"no--it is i who am looking, you know!" , . "_qu'est-ce que vous regardez?... vous ne voulez pas vous en aller?_" "what are you looking at?" "i am looking at the moon and the stars. i am looking at the comet!" "will you take yourself off at once?" "some other time!" "take yourself off, i tell you!" "the day after to-morrow!" "you ... will ... not ... take ... yourself ... off?" , . "_non, sacré petit ... restez où vous êtes!_" "no, you confounded little devil's gravel-pusher!" "all right, stay where you are!" , . "_... du sommeil au songe-- du songe à la mort._" "... from sleep to dream-- from dream to death." , . "_il est dix heures ... dans votre chambre?_"--"it's ten o'clock, you know? will you have your coffee in your room?" , . _ça date de loin, mon pauvre ami_--it goes a long way back, my poor friend. , . _punctum coecum_--blind spot. , . _mon beau somnambule_--my handsome somnambulist. , . _on ne sait pas ce qui peut arriver_--one never knows what may happen. , . _tiens_--look. , . _sans peur et sans reproche_--without fear and without reproach. , . "_Ça s'appelle le point caché--c'est une portion de la rétine avec laquelle on ne peut pas voir...._"--"it is called the blind spot--it is a part of the retina with which we cannot see...." , . _c'est toujours ça_--that's always the way. , . _plus que coquette_--more than coquettish. , . _père et mère_--father and mother. , . _more latino_--in the latin manner. , . _pictor ignotus_--the unknown painter. , . "_que me voilà.... Ôte ton chapeau!_" "how happy i am, my little barty--and you? what a pretty town, eh?" "it's heaven, pure and simple--and you are going to teach me german, aren't you, my dear?" "yes, and we will read heine together; by the way, look! do you see the name of the street at the corner? bolker strasse! that's where he was born, poor heine! take off your hat!" , . _maitrank_--may drink. (an infusion of woodruff in light white wine.) , . "_johanna, mein frühstück, bitte!_"--"johanna, my breakfast, please!" , . _la barre de bâtardise_--the bar of bastardy. , . _der schöne_--the handsome. , . _speiserei_--eating-house. , . "_ni l'or ni la grandeur ne nous rendent heureux_"--"neither gold nor greatness makes us happy." , . _mes premières amours_--my first loves. , . "_petit chagrin ... un soupir!_" "little sorrow of childhood costing a sigh!" , . _il avait bien raison_--he was quite right. , . _rien que ça_--nothing but that. , . "_il a les qualités ... sont ses meilleures qualités._" "the handsome josselin has the qualities of his faults." "my dear, his faults are his best qualities." , . _art et liberté_--art and liberty. , . "_du bist die ruh', der friede mild!_"--"thou art rest, sweet peace!" , . _c'est plus fort que moi_--it is stronger than i. , . _dans le blanc des yeux_--straight in the eyes. , . _damigella_--maiden. , . "_die ruhe kehret mir zurück_"--"peace comes back to me." , . _prosit omen_--may the omen be propitious. , . _prima donna assoluta_--the absolute first lady. (grand opera, the "leading lady.") , . _gringalet-jocrisse_--an effeminate fellow. , . _faire la popotte ensemble au coin du feu; c'est le ciel_--to potter round the fire together; that is heaven. , . _ausstellung_--exhibition. , . _loch_--a medicine of the consistence of honey, taken by licking or sucking. , . "_et voilà comment ça s'est passé_"--"and that's how it happened." , . _et plus royaliste que le roi_--and more of a royalist than the king. , . _cru_--growth. , . _l'amitié est l'amour sans ailes_--friendship is love without wings. , . _en veux-tu? en voilà!_--do you want some? here it is! , . _kudos_--glory. , . _dis-moi qui tu hantes, je te dirai ce que tu es_--tell me who are your friends, and i will tell you what you are. , . _si le coeur t'en dit_--if your heart prompts you. , . _esprit de corps_--brotherhood. , . _noblesse oblige_--nobility imposes the obligation of nobleness. , . _bêtise pure et simple_--downright folly. , . _je suis au-dessus de mes affaires_--i am above my business. , . _maman-belle-mère_--mama-mother-in-law. , . _vous plaisantez, mon ami; un amateur comme moi_--you are joking, my friend; an amateur like myself. , . _quis custodiet (ipsos custodes)?_--who shall guard the guards themselves? , . _monsieur anglais, qui avait mal aux yeux_--english gentleman, who had something the matter with his eyes. , . _la belle dame sans merci_--the fair lady merciless. , . _de par le monde_--in society. , . _je tâcherai de ne pas en abuser trop!_--i will try not to take too much of it! , . _le dernier des abencerrages_--the last of the abencerrages. (the title of a story by châteaubriand.) , . _à mon insu_--unknown to me. , . _on a les défauts de ses qualités_--one has the faults of one's virtues. , . _joliment dégourdie_--finely sharpened. , . _la quatrième dimension_--the fourth dimension. , . _nous avons eu la main heureuse_--we have been fortunate. , . _smalah_--encampment of an arab chieftain. , . _je suis homme d'affaires_--i am a man of business. , . _un conte à dormir debout_--a story to bore one to sleep. , . _ou avions-nous donc la tête et les yeux?_--what were we doing with our minds and eyes? , . "_cara deúm soboles, magnum jovis incrementum_"--"the dear offspring of god, the increase of jove." , . _tous les genres sont bons, hormis le genre ennuyeux_--all kinds are good, except the boring kind. , . _c'était un naïf, le beau josselin_--he was ingenuous, the handsome josselin. , . _arma virumque cano_--arms and the man i sing.--the first words of virgil's _Æneid_. _tityre tu patulæ (recubans sub tegmine fagi)_--thou, tityrus, reclining beneath the shade of a spreading beech.--the first line of the first _eclogue_ of virgil. _mæcenas atavis (edite regibus)_--mæcenas descended from royal ancestors.--horace, _odes_, , , l. , . [greek: mênin aeide]--sing the wrath.--the first words of homer's _iliad_. , . _débats--le journal des débats_,--a parisian literary newspaper. , . _sommité littéraire_--literary pinnacle. , . _rouillon duval_--a class of cheap restaurants in paris. , . _Étoiles mortes_--dead stars. , . _la coupe_--the cutwater. , . _à la hussarde_--head first. , . _la très-sage héloïse_--the most learned heloise. (another of the ladies mentioned in villon's "ballade of the ladies of olden time." see note to page , line .) , . _nous allons arranger tout ça_--we'll arrange all that. , . _c'est la chasteté même, mais ce n'est pas dèjanire_--it is chastity itself, but it is not dèjanire. , . _très élégante_--very elegant. , . _d'un noir de jais, d'une blancheur de lis_--jet black, lily white. , . _ah, mon dieu, la diane chasseresse, la sapho de pradier!_--ah, my god, diana the huntress, pradier's sappho! , . _un vrai type de colosse bon enfant, d'une tenue irréprochable_--a perfect image of a good-natured colossus, of irreproachable bearing. , . _tartines_--slices of bread and butter. , . _une vraie ménagerie_--a perfect menagerie. , . _belle châtelaine_--beautiful chatelaine. , . _gazebo_--summer-house. , . _le que retranché_--name given in some french-latin grammars to the latin form which expresses by the infinitive verb and the accusative noun what in french is expressed by "que" between two verbs. , . _alma mater dolorosa_--the tender and sorrowful mother. , . _marâtre au coeur de pierre_--stony-hearted mother. , . _tendenz novels_--novels with a purpose. , . _nouvelle-riche_--newly rich. , . _on y est très bien_--one is very well there. , . "_il est dix heures_" etc.--see note to page , line . , . _vilain mangeur de coeurs que vous êtes_--wretched eater of hearts that you are. , . _un vrai petit st. jean! il nous portera bonheur, bien sûr_--a perfect little st. john! he will bring us good luck, for sure. , . _nous savons notre orthographie en musique là bas_--we know our musical a b c's over there. , . _in-medio-tutissimus (ibis)_--you will go safest in the middle. , . _diablement bien conservé_--deucedly well preserved. , . _o me fortunatum, mea si bona nôrim!_--o happy me, had i known my own blessings! , . _un malheureux raté_--an unfortunate failure , . _abrutissant_--stupefying. , . _affaire d'estomac_--a matter of stomach. , . "_je suis allé de bon matin_," etc. "i went at early morn to pick the violet, and hawthorne, and jasmine, to celebrate thy birthday. with my own hands i bound the rosebuds and the rosemary to crown thy golden head. "but for thy royal beauty be humble, i pray thee. here all things die, flower, summer, youth and life: soon, soon the day will be, my fair one, when they'll carry thee faded and pale in a winding-sheet." , . _périssoires_--paddle-boats. _pique-têtes_--diving-boards. , . _station balnéaire_--bathing resort. , . _utile dulci_--the useful with the pleasant. , . _la chasse aux souvenirs_--the hunt after remembrances. , , _s'est encanaillé_--keeps low company. , . _porte-cochère_--carriage entrance. , . "_ah, ma foi!... la balle au camp_"--"ah, my word, i understand that, gentlemen--i, too, was a school-boy once, and was fond of rounders." , . _le fils de la vierge_--the virgin's son. , . _mutatis mutandis_--the necessary changes being made. , . "_moi aussi, je fumais ... n'est ce pas?_"--"i too smoked when it was forbidden; what do you expect? youth must have its day, musn't it?" , . _dame_--indeed. , . _cour des miracles_--the court of miracles. (a meeting-place of beggars described in hugo's "notre dame de paris." so called on account of the sudden change in the appearance of the pretended cripples who came there.) , . "_Ô dis-donc, hórtense_," etc.--"oh say, hortense, how cold it is! whenever will it be eleven o'clock, so that we can go to bed?" , . _nous autres_--we others. , . _numero deus impare gaudet_--the god delights in uneven numbers. , . "_aus meinen thränen spriessen_," etc. "out of my tear-drops springeth a harvest of beautiful flowers; and my sighing turneth to a choir of nightingales." heine. , . _ah, mon dieu!_--ah, my god! , . _Établissement_--establishment. , . _pandore et sa boîte_--pandore and her box. , . "_c'est papa qui paie et maman qui régale_"--"papa pays and mamma treats." , . _au grande trot_--at a full trot. , . _nous étions bien, là_--we were well, there. , . _l'homme propose_--man proposes. , . "_o tempo passato, perchè non ritorni?_"--"o bygone days, why do you not return?" , . "_et je m'en vais,"_ etc. "and off i go on the evil wind which carries me here and there like the leaf that is dead." . . _rossignolet de mon âme_--little nightingale of my soul. , . _da capo, e da capo_--over and over again. , . _medio de fonte leporum (surgit amari aliquid)_--from the midst of the fountain of delights something bitter arises. by george du maurier * * * * * trilby written and illustrated by george du maurier. post vo, cloth, ornamental, $ ; three-quarter calf, $ ; three-quarter levant, $ . it is the secret of the extraordinary charm of this story that it does not appear to be a story; it has almost no marks of artifice; it hardly appears to have been planned; it affects us as a record, kept in the simplest and most informal way, of certain very interesting events and persons.--_outlook_, n. y. a book that every one will like because it has the essential qualities of wit, passion, character, and human nature; a book that has the grace and charm of a finely artistic style all through, and that is likely to rest on our shelves long after most of the novels of this year of grace have passed out of our remembrance.--_st. james's gazette_, london. peter ibbetson with an introduction by his cousin, lady ***** ("madge plunket"). edited and illustrated by george du maurier. post vo, cloth, ornamental, $ ; three-quarter calf, $ ; three-quarter levant, $ . there are so many beauties, so many singularities, so much that is fresh and original in mr. du maurier's story that it is difficult to treat it at all adequately from the point of view of criticism. that it is one of the most remarkable books that have appeared for a long time is, however, indisputable.--_n. y. tribune._ english society sketched by george du maurier. to, oblong, cloth, $ . in it a searching observer of many phases of humanity, charming in his wit and without the blemish of malice, presents with his pencil as much of his social philosophy as he could give with his pen in a hundred novels. in spite of its title and origin, a collection of mr. du maurier's sketches covers any society; and in looking it over one is only too content that the artist chose to exploit a society which affords the beauty and elegance of the du maurier type.--_n. y. sun._ the kindly humor of du maurier, the quiet incisiveness of his satire, and his inimitable skill at the portrayal of social types are delightfully manifested in this series of one hundred plates, ending up with the melodramatic death-bed scene of trilby.--_boston beacon._ in bohemia with du maurier by felix moscheles. with sixty-three illustrations by george du maurier. vo, cloth, gilt tops and uncut edges, $ . for these, and for a few references to the originals of the characters in the novel, and to the hypnotic experiments in which du maurier was interested in his youth, the book will doubtless be bought. but he must be a dull person who does not find another charm in mr. moscheles's artless narrative, mostly about nothing at all, or about the nothings that make up the joy of living to madcap boys.--_n. y. mail and express._ it possesses the literary quality that marked his more mature illustrations, and evinces the quality of reticence that preserved his humor from becoming caricature. he has often been compared to thackeray; this work suggests hood, and it would be interesting to know how much he cared for his english predecessors and assimilated.--_philadelphia press._ published by harper & brothers, new york _the above works are for sale by all booksellers, or will be sent by the publishers by mail, postage prepaid, on receipt of the price._ _they came to mars inquiring after the stuff of empire. they got--_ the terrible answer by arthur g. hill they came down to mars ahead of the rest because larkin had bought an unfair advantage--a copy of the primary report. there were seven of them, all varying in appearance, but with one thing in common; in the eyes of each glowed the greed for empire. they came down in a flash of orange tail-fire and they looked first at the martians. "green," marveled evans. "what a queer shade of green!" "not important," cleve, the psychologist, replied. "merely a matter of pigmentation. white, yellow, black, green. it proves only that god loves variety." "and lord how they grin!" cleve peered learnedly. "doesn't indicate a thing. they were born with those grins. they'll die with them." of the seven strong men, larkin exuded the most power. thus, his role of leader was a natural one. no man would ever stand in front of larkin. he said, "to hell with color or the shape of their mouths. what we're after lies inside. come on. let's set up a camp." "for the time being," cleve cautioned, "we must ignore them. later--we know what to do. i'll give the nod." they brought what they needed out of the ship. they brought the plastic tents, broke the small, attached cylinders, and watched the tents bulge up into living quarters. they set up the vapor condenser and it began filling the water tank from the air about them. they plugged a line into the ship and attached it to the tent-line. immediately the gasses in the plastic tents began to glow and give off both light and heat. they did many things while the martians stood silently by with their arms hanging, their splay-feet flat on the ground, their slash-mouths grinning. the seven sat down to their first meal under the martian stars and while they ate the rich, delicate foods, they listened to the words of larkin. "a new empire waiting to be built. a whole planet--virgin--new." "not new," dane, the archeologist, said. "it's older than earth. it's been worked before." larkin waved an impatient hand. "but hardly scratched. it can have risen and fallen a thousand times for all we care. the important thing is the vital ingredient of empire. is it here? can it be harnessed? are we or are we not, on the threshold of wealth, splendor, and progress so great as to take away the breath?" and as larkin spoke, all seven men looked at the martians; looked covertly while appearing to study the rolling plain and the purple ridges far away; the texture of the soil; the color of the sky; the food on their plates; the steaming fragrance of their coffee. they looked at all these things but they studied the martians. "stupid-looking animals," evans muttered. "odd though. so like us--yet so different." at first there had been only a handful of martians to grin at the landing of the ship. now they numbered over a hundred, their ranks augmented by stragglers who came to stare with their fellows in happy silence. "the prospects are excellent," cleve said. then he jerked his attention back to larkin from whom it had momentarily wandered. when larkin spoke, one listened. * * * * * larkin had been directing his words toward a young man named smith. smith had inherited a great deal of money which was fine. but larkin wasn't too sure of his qualifications otherwise. "--the pyramids," larkin was saying. "would they have ever been built if the men up above--the men with vision--had had to worry about a payroll?" smith regarded the martians with not quite the impersonal stare of the other six earthlings. once or twice he grinned back at them. "i'll grant the truth of what you say," he told larkin, "but what good were the pyramids? they're something i could never figure." smith had a sardonic twist of mouth that annoyed larkin. "let's not quibble, man. i merely used the pyramids as an example. call them empire; call them any empire on earth from the beginning of known history and let's face facts." "facts?" smith asked. he had been looking at a six-foot-six martian, thinking what a magnificent specimen he was. if only they'd wipe off those silly grins. "yes, facts. the building must be done. it is a law of nature. man must progress or not. and what empire can arise without free labor? can we develop this planet at union scale? impossible! yet it's crying to be developed." cleve knocked the ashes off his cigar and frowned. being a man of direct action, he inquired. "do you want your money back, smith?" the latter shook his head. "oh no! don't get me wrong, gentlemen. i'm for empire first, last and always. and if we can lay the foundations of one on the backs of these stupid creatures, i'm for it." "i still don't like your--" "my outspoken manner? don't give it a thought, old man. i just don't want to be all cloyed up with platitudes. if we're going to chain the children of israel into the house of bondage, let's get on with it." "i don't like your attitude," larkin said stubbornly. "in the long run, it will benefit these people." "let's say, rather, that it may benefit their children. i doubt if these jokers will be around very long after we start cracking the whip." dane was stirred. "the whip," he murmured. "symbol of empire." but nobody heard him. they were too busy listening to larkin and smith--and watching the martians. the martians stood around grinning, waiting patiently for something to happen. larkin's attitude toward them had changed again. first there had been curiosity. then a narrow-eyed calculation; now he regarded them with contempt. the careful, studied checks and tests would be made of course. but larkin, a man of sure instincts, had already made up his mind. he stretched luxuriously. "let's call it a day and turn in. tomorrow we'll go about the business at hand with clearer heads." "a good idea," cleve said, "but first, one little gesture. i think it would be judicious." he eyed the martians, settling finally upon one--a male--standing close and somewhat apart from the rest. cleve scowled. standing erect, he called, "hey--you!" he interpreted the words with a beckoning gesture of his arm. "come here! here, boy! over here!" the martian reacted with a typically earthian gesture. he pointed to his own chest with one green finger, while a questioning expression reflected through the eternal grin. "yes, you! on the double." * * * * * the martian came forward. there was in his manner a slight hesitation, and smith expected to see his hind quarters wriggle like that of a dog--uncertain, but eager to please. cleve pointed with a martinet gesture toward the smoked-out cigar butt he'd thrown to the ground. "pick it up!" the martian stood motionless. "pick--it--_up_, you stupid lout!" [illustration: _larkin--now beyond sanity--was gibbering in the grave._] the martian understood. with a glad little whimper, he bent over and took the cigar butt in his hand. "there," cleve said. "garbage can! get it? _garbage can._ place for trash--for cigar butts. put it in there." smith wasn't sure whether the grin deepened or not. he thought it did, as the martian laid the cigar butt carefully into the trash can. "okay, you fella," cleve barked, still scowling. "back and away now. stay out there! get it? only come when you're called." it took a few eloquent gestures, including the pantomime of swinging a whip, before the martian understood and complied. after he backed into the circle of his fellows, cleve dropped the cruel overseer manner and turned with satisfaction to larkin. "i think there will be no trouble at all," he said. "tomorrow we'll really get down to cases. i predict smooth sailing." they said goodnight to each other and went about the business of preparing for slumber. as he raised the glowing flap of his tent, larkin saw smith lounging in a chair before the electric heat unit. "aren't you going to get some sleep?" "in a little while. i'm going to wait around until those two famous moons come. want to see them first hand." "a waste of time," larkin said. "better keep your mind on more important things." "goodnight," smith said. larkin did not reply, and smith turned his head to look at the martians. he wondered where they had come from. they probably had a village somewhere over the rise. he regarded them without fear or apprehension of what might occur during the sleeping hours. he had read the primary report, brought back by the pioneer expedition. these people were entirely harmless. also they were possessed of remarkable stamina. they had stood for days, watching the first expedition, grinning at it, without nourishment of any kind. maybe they live off the atmosphere, smith told himself dreamily. at any rate, they were ideal specimens to use as the foundation stones of an empire. he lay back, thinking of larkin; he did not like larkin personally, but he had to admire the steel in the man; the unswerving determination that had made him what he was. his mind drifted back to the things of beauty around him. the far purple ridges had changed now, as a light bloomed behind them to gleam like azure through old crystal. then the two moons shot over the horizon; huge silver bullets riding the thin atmosphere. the oldest planet. had it ever been great? were the bones of any dead civilizations mouldering beneath this strange yellow soil? smith closed his eyes while the cool martian breezes soothed his face. greatness. what was greatness after all? merely a matter of viewpoint perhaps. smith got up and moved slowly toward his tent. out in the shadows he could feel the grins of the martians. "goodnight," he called. but there was no answer. * * * * * "i put them out there," cleve said. "it seemed as good a place as any." "fine," larkin rumbled. he wore boots and britches and a big, wide-brimmed hat. he had on soft leather gloves. he looked like an empire builder. the martians were standing around grinning at the pile of shovels lying in the fuzz-bush. the martians seemed interested and appeared to communicate with one another in some imperceptible manner. larkin shoved through the circle of green men, pushing rudely. he stopped, picked up one of the shovels; thrust it toward a martian. the martian took it in his hands. "it's very important that you _tell_ them--that you don't show them," cleve said. "you must not do any of the work yourself." "i'll handle it," larkin snapped. "now, you--all of you! grab a shovel. pick 'em up, see? pick 'em up! we've got work to do. a ditch to dig." larkin's pantomime was a universal language. "we start the ditch here. right here--you fella! get digging! and put your back into that shovel. hit hard or maybe it gives the whip--understand?" larkin made a threatening motion toward the lash coiled at his belt. smith, already on the scene, turned as evans and dane arrived carrying undefined plastic. they snapped the cylinders and chairs appeared; chairs--and a table upon which carter and lewis, bringing up the rear, placed a pitcher of beer, glasses and a box of cigars. cleve, the psychologist, looked with satisfaction upon the string of martians manipulating the shovels. "all right," he said. "let's sit down. pour the beer, one of you." "allow me," smith said. he fought to straighten the smile bending his lips. he picked up the pitcher and poured beer into the glasses. it all seemed so absurd; these grim-faced men acting out an asinine tableau. cleve caught the smile. "i wish you'd take this seriously," he said. "it's a mighty touchy and important business." "sorry," smith said, raising his glass. "here's to empire." larkin was striding up and down the line of straining martians. the scowl had become a part of him. _it's getting him_, smith marveled. _act or no act, he likes it. experiment or not, he's in his element._ the six men sat drinking their beer and watching larkin. but only cleve was aware of the skill with which the man worked. the gradual application of pressure; the careful moving forward from bog to bog with the path of retreat always open. from sharpness to brusqueness. from the brusque to the harsh. from the harsh to the brutal. "will you tell me," smith asked, "why we have to sit here drinking like a pack of fools? i don't like beer." "i'm not enjoying it, either," cleve said. "but you can certainly understand that the roles must be set right from the beginning. they must understand we are their masters, so we must conduct ourselves in that manner. never any sign that could be interpreted as compromise." larkin, satisfied with the progress of the entirely useless ditch, came to the table and raised a glass of beer. he wiped the foam from his mustache and asked, "what do you think?" directing the question toward cleve. * * * * * the latter regarded the sweating martians with calculating eyes. "it's going entirely as i predicted. the next step is in order, i believe." "you think it's safe?" "i'm certain of it." smith, studying larkin, saw the latter smile, and was again struck by its quality. _whatever the test, larkin's for it, even above the call of scientific experimentation._ larkin was uncoiling the whip from his belt. he strode toward the fast-deepening ditch. he selected a subject. "you--fella. you're lazy, huh? you like to gold-brick it? then see how you like this!" he laid the whip across the green shoulders of the martian. the martian winced. he raised an arm to shield off the whip. again it curled against his flesh. he whimpered. his grin was stark, inquiring. "hit that shovel, you green bastard!" larkin roared. the martian understood. so did the other martians. their muscles quivered as they drove into their work. larkin came back, smiling--almost dreamily, smith thought. cleve said, "excellent. i'd hardly hoped for such conformity. hardly expected it." "you mean," smith asked, "that this little scene can be projected from a dozen to a hundred? from a hundred to a thousand--?" "from this little plot to the whole, surface of the planet," cleve said. "the mass is nothing more than a collection of individuals. control the individual and you've got the mob. that is if you follow through with the original method. set the hard pattern." "then we're in--is that it? they've passed every test with flying colors." "i'm sure they will," cleve said, frowning. "but we must be thorough." "there's still another test?" "yes. the test of final and complete subservience. it must be proven beyond all doubt that they know their masters." "you don't think they're aware yet that we _are_ their masters?" "i'm sure they know. it only remains to be proven." cleve glanced up at larkin. "maybe this is as far as we should go today. we've made marvelous progress." that characteristic wave of larkin's hand; the gesture of the empire builder brushing away mountains. "why wait? i want to get this thing over with. you said yourself they're under our thumb." cleve pondered, staring at the martians. "very well. there's really no reason to wait." larkin smiled and turned toward the diggers, only half visible now from the depths of the ditch. he walked forward, appearing to exercise more care, this time, in the selection of his subject. finally, he pointed at one of the martians. "you--fella! come here!" several of them looked at one another a trifle confused. "you--damn it! what are you waiting for?" one of them climbed slowly from the trench. while he was engaged in so doing, smith noticed two things. he saw the look of rage, simulated or otherwise, that came into larkin's face. and he saw cleve's fingers tighten on the edge of the table. larkin had a gun in his fist; a roar in his voice. "when i talk--you jump! get that? all of you!" he fired three bullets into the martian's brain. the latter slumped grinning to the ground. larkin, his breath coming jerkily, stood poised on the balls of his feet. the men at the table sat frozen--waiting. around them--on the plain--some two hundred martians stood motionless. _the final test_, smith thought. _to prove they're cattle._ * * * * * a full minute passed after the echo of the gun faded out. silence. and nothing. the earthmen picked up their breathing where they'd dropped it. larkin's breath exploded in savage voice--triumphant voice. the martians were his. "come on, some of you! dig a hole and bury that carrion! and if anybody still wonders who's boss around here--let him step forward!" "they took it!" cleve whispered. "glory be--they took it!" four martians climbed grinning from the trench. they faced larkin and stood as though awaiting instructions. "dig there," larkin said. they went stolidly to work and larkin pocketed his gun, making the pocketing a gesture of contempt. "you see," cleve said, with the tone of one explaining an abstract problem, "we were at somewhat of a disadvantage because they are incapable of indicating emotion by facial expression. thus the last test was necessary. if we could have judged the degree of fear previously instilled, that last might not have been necessary." "just as well to have a double check nonetheless," dane said. "look at them! you'd think nothing out of the ordinary had happened." larkin strode back to the table. "glad we got it over with," he said. "now we _know_. cleve can head back for earth tomorrow. initial supplies will come to about twenty million, i estimate. the rest of us can stay here and really drive these beggars. get the foundations dug; get the rock down from the hills." "a planet in glorious resurrection," said dane, the poet of the group. "they've got the grave dug," cleve observed. "they're waiting for orders." "such cattle," evans muttered. larkin strode back to the grave. he pointed. "him--body into the grave. snap into it. we've got work to do." the martians put the body into the grave. then a tall, green man appeared behind larkin. he put his arms around larkin's body. another martian took the gun from larkin's pocket. and they pushed the screaming earthman down into the grave. smith sprang to his feet. "for god's sake!" "sit down, you fool!" cleve hissed. "do you want to die? we've miscalculated. something's wrong." the big martian was standing on larkin. the others threw in the soil. larkin, now beyond sanity, was gibbering like an animal. smith sat down. the earthman presented a frozen tableau. soon the gibbering could no longer be heard and the big martian stepped out of the grave. "leave everything," cleve whispered. "get up very casually and walk back to the ship. get inside it." "may god help us," dane quavered. "shut up! act natural." they went back and got into the ship while the martians stood patiently about waiting for something to happen. their patience was rewarded when the ship arose on a great flaming tail from the surface of the planet. it was a sight worth waiting for. the end transcriber's note: this etext was produced from _if worlds of science fiction_ july . extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the u.s. copyright on this publication was renewed. minor spelling and typographical errors have been corrected without note. blind spot by bascom jones, jr. illustrated by kossin _everyone supported the martian program--until it struck home!_ johnny stark, director of the department of interplanetary relations for mars' settlement one, reread the final paragraph of the note which he had found on his desk, upon returning from lunch earlier in the day. his eye flicked rapidly over the moistly smeared martian scrawl, ignoring the bitterness directed at him in the first paragraphs. he was vaguely troubled by the last sentences. but he hadn't been able to pin the feeling down. _... our civilization predates that of earth's by millions of years. we are an advanced, peaceful race. yet, since earth's first rocket landed here thirteen years ago, we have been looked upon as freaks and contemptuously called 'bug-men' behind our backs! this is our planet. we gave of our far-advanced knowledge and science freely, so that earth would be a better place. we asked nothing in return, but we were rewarded by having forced upon us foreign ideas of government, religion, and behavior. our protests have been silenced by an armed-police and punitive system we've never before needed. someday you will awaken to this injustice. on that day in your life, you have my sympathy and pity!_ stark knew that the settlement's investigations lab could readily determine the identity of the martian who had written the note. but he hesitated to send it over. under the new system, such troublemakers were banished to the slave-labor details of the precious-earth mines to the north. crumpling the note in sudden decision, stark dropped it into the office incendiary tube. the morning visi-report had shown that there were more than , workers at the mines. only five had been earthlings. let the armed-police system find the martian through their own channels. it wasn't his job. * * * * * a glance at the solar clock on the far wall reminded him there was still time for one more interview before the last bell, so he impatiently signaled his secretary to send in the waiting couple. ordinarily, he liked his work and time meant little to him. he had jumped from interpreter to director in the ten years since the department had been created. but this day was different. stark was to announce his engagement at the chief's monthly dinner party that evening and time had seemed to drag since his lunch with carol. when the door opened, he rose and nodded to the plump, freckle-faced girl who entered. the girl topped five feet by one or two inches, but she was no taller than the martian man who followed her at the prescribed four feet. after the girl had seated herself, stark and the martian sat down. stark opened the folder, which his secretary had placed on his desk earlier. "your names are ruth and ralph gilraut? and you want permission to move into housing perimeter d?" it was merely a formality, since the information was in the folder. when the girl nodded, stark placed a small check mark in the space beside her name. then he turned to the martian. the large, single red eye set deep in the martian's smooth, green forehead above the two brown ones blinked twice before he answered. he spoke deliberately. "as is required of all martians under the new system, i have taken the name of one of the early earthlings to write and pronounce." the large red eye blinked again. "my wife would like to move into housing perimeter d. by regulation, i respect her wish." [illustration] stark placed a check mark by the martian's name. he wiped the smudge of ink off his hand and said, "you both know, of course, that perimeter d is reserved for couples who have intermarried and are about to have offspring?" the girl and the martian nodded, and the girl passed stark a medical report. stark looked over the report and then made a notation on a small pink slip. he said, "this permit certifies that you are eligible to move from perimeter e to housing perimeter d. it also certifies that your husband has no record as a troublemaker." stark looked at the girl. "you understand that you may visit your friends in perimeter e, but, by law, they will not be allowed to enter perimeter d to visit you. and, of course, the new law clearly states that neither of you may visit earthlings in housing perimeter a, b or c." the girl looked down at her hands. her voice was almost inaudible. "my husband and i are familiar with the advantages and disadvantages listed under the section pertaining to intermarriage in the new law, mr. stark. thank you." * * * * * stark rose as they left. for a brief moment, he thought he had detected a sense of rebellion in their attitude. but that was not possible. the new law provided equality for all. and his department had been created to iron out relations between the two races--excepting complaints originated by troublemakers for the purpose of weakening the new system. in such cases, investigations had stepped in and the martian or earthling troublemaker had been sent to the rare-earth mines. the reddish light filtering in through the quartz and lead wall of his office showed that it was almost time for the last bell. on the street below, shoppers were streaming out of the stores on their way to the various housing perimeters. earthlings were climbing into their speedy little jet cars for the short trip to the recently modernized inner perimeters. martians were waiting for the slower auto buses. the traffic problem had been solved, under the new system, by restricting the use of the martian-built jet cars to persons living in the inner perimeters. as stark watched, a black jet car impatiently hurtled out of the line of traffic, bowled through a crowd of martians waiting for an auto bus, and skidded to a stop at the curb in front of the building. a tall girl got out. the red evening glow reflecting from her golden hair, made her breathing globe almost amber. male martians and earthlings alike turned to stare in appreciation as she pushed her way through the crowd to the building's compressor lock. carol was that kind of girl. * * * * * almost at the exact moment that carol opened the door into stark's office, the yellow visi-screen of the vocal box upon stark's desk flashed on brilliantly and the chief's booming voice filled the office. the light from the screen picked up the highlights on the furniture and gave a sallow, greenish cast to stark's features. carol stepped back into the doorway to stay out of range of the two-way unit. "stark!" the automatic tuner on the box corrected to bring the chief's image in wire-sharp focus. "yes, sir?" "about the dinner tonight. just checking to make sure you're planning to be there. we want a full turnout. an inspection team has come up from earth and we have two visiting dignitaries from venus." stark nodded and waited for the chief to say something else, but the visi-screen blanked out. carol said, "that was dad, wasn't it?" stark felt very depressed suddenly. "haven't you told him yet?" "no. he's been tied up with those inspectors all afternoon. and you know how dad is, johnny. there's a right and a wrong time to tell him things. right now, he's only interested in hearing about earth." "but we're supposed to announce our engagement tonight at the dinner." he shook his head. "we can't go on forever with just a few stolen moments here and there, eating an occasional lunch or third meal together in little out-of-the-way places." carol laughed, the youthful swell of her breasts against the soft, spun-glass material of her blouse. "don't worry so, johnny! i'm a big girl now. this is my eighteenth birthday. dad's bark is much worse than his bite. i'll tell him about us on the way home." she moved closer to him, until he could feel the warmth of her body. he could see the warm, damp indentation where her breathing globe had rested against her shoulders and chest. she asked teasingly, "what did you get me for my birthday, johnny? something real nice?" "what did you want?" johnny asked her gently. * * * * * and suddenly she wasn't teasing any more. she put her arms around him. "dad and my brother would say i'm crazy. but all i want, johnny, is you. just you! you know that." stark had picked out her birthday present, but he wanted it to be a surprise for that night. he said, "i already saw one of your presents. a black jet car!" "how did you know that?" "i saw you drive up in it a few minutes ago." carol giggled. "dad gave it to me. did you see me plow through that crowd waiting for the auto bus?" "did your brother send you anything?" she nodded. "three new outfits from earth. they were on the same liner that brought the inspection team to the settlement this morning. oh, yes, and the captain of the liner brought me this." she showed him the tiny pin she wore attached to her collar. the pin itself was a carefully wrought but cruel caricature of an awkward buglike creature. a small ruby set in the center of its face served as its eye. stark frowned. "carol, you shouldn't be wearing that." he reached up and unpinned it. "that's the sort of thing our department is fighting." "but the captain said it was the latest rage back on earth. they're even making toys like it. i'm sure they're not designed to ... to poke fun at anyone." stark started to say something, but the last bell interrupted him. he said, "if you're going to take your father home and tell him about us before the dinner, you'd better hurry. i'll come early." carol kissed him and said good-by. she left the pin on stark's desk and was smiling at him as she closed the door. * * * * * after waiting until the first rush of workers had gone and the building was quiet, stark caught the elevator down. the overhead lights in the compressor lock were reflected in the twin rows of breathing globes. the green-tinted ones had to be used by martians in the building, and the clear ones were used by earthmen when they were outside in the martian atmosphere. stark stopped in at a little open shop down one of the many side streets. the sign said "closed," but he rang the bell until a little, dried-up martian appeared. the storekeeper handed him a small box. stark opened it to examine the ring--carol's birthday present. the single, large diamond set in the thin precious-metal band dated back to an all-but-forgotten custom practiced on earth. stark thought the engagement ring would please carol, though. standing in the compressor lock at the chief's home later, stark rubbed the diamond against the sleeve of his tunic. he fumbled with his breathing globe and then pushed the button that activated the door. the tele-guard beyond the opening door scanned him rapidly. as he stepped forward, a red light above the tele-guard flashed on and the door began to close again. stark threw all his strength against the door and squeezed through into the house. throughout the house, stark could hear the alarm bell. a taped voice, activated by the tele-guard, said, "do not enter! do not enter!" he found carol and the chief in the library alone. nearly purple with rage, the chief drew himself up to his full six feet. the chief bellowed, "stark! are you crazy?" the growing feeling of sickness spread through stark. "who do you think you are?" the chief yelled. "get back to your office and consider yourself under arrest as a troublemaker. give you people an inch and you try to walk away with everything. why, i wouldn't let you touch my daughter if you were the last living being in the universe!" carol didn't look up. she stood through it all, silently, without moving. stark knew now where his blind spot had been. he turned and left them. * * * * * back at his office, he waited for the police. stark stared down at his reflection in the polished top of the desk. a yellow, moist film of sweat covered his face. the red eye set in his forehead blinked. but the pain visible just behind the surface of that eye was not over carol or himself. the pain was for what he was seeing for the first time ... now. --bascom jones, jr. transcriber's note: this etext was produced from _galaxy science fiction_ february . extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the u.s. copyright on this publication was renewed. minor spelling and typographical errors have been corrected without note. transcriber's note: this etext was produced from the september issue of if. extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the u.s. copyright on this publication was renewed. star performer by robert j. shea illustrated by dick francis _blue boy's rating was high and his fans were loyal to the death--anyone's death!_ * * * * * gavir gingerly fitted the round opening in the bottom of the silvery globe over the top of his hairless blue skull. he pulled the globe down until he felt tiny filaments touching his scalp. the tips of the wires were cold. the moderator then said, "_dreaming through the universe_ tonight brings you the first native martian to appear on the dreamwaves--gavir of the desert men. with him is his guardian, dr. malcomb rice, the noted anthropologist." [illustration] [illustration] then the moderator questioned malcomb, while gavir nervously awaited the moment when his thoughts would be transmitted to millions of earthmen. malcomb told how he had been struck by gavir's intelligence and missionary-taught ability to speak earth's language, and had decided to bring gavir to earth. the moderator turned to gavir. "are you anxious to get back to mars?" _no!_ gavir thought. back behind the preserve barrier that killed you instantly if you stepped too close to it? back to the constant fear of being seized by mdc guards for a labor pool, to wind up in the mdc mines? mars was where gavir's father had been pinned, bayonets through his hands and feet, to the wall of a shack just the other side of the barrier, to die slowly, out of gavir's reach. father james told gavir that the head of mdc himself had ordered the killing, because gavir's father had tried to organize resistance to the corporation. mars was where the magic powers of the earthmen and the helplessness of the martian tribes would always protect the head of mdc from gavir's vengeance. back to that world of hopeless fear and hatred? _i never want to go back to mars! i want to stay here!_ but that wasn't what he was supposed to think. quickly he said, "i will be happy to return to my people." a movement caught his eye. the producer, reclining on a divan in a far corner of the small studio, was making some kind of signal by beating his fist against his forehead. "well, enough of that!" the moderator said briskly. "how about singing one of your tribal songs for us?" gavir said, "i will sing the _song of going to hunt_." he heaved himself up from the divan, and, feet planted wide apart, threw back his head and began to howl. he was considered a poor singer in his tribe, and he was not surprised that malcomb and the moderator winced. but malcomb had told him that it wouldn't matter. the dreamees receiving the dreamcast would hear the song as it _should_ sound, as gavir heard it in his mind. everything that gavir saw and heard and felt in his mind, the dreamees could see and hear and feel.... * * * * * it was cold, bitter cold, on the plain. the hunter stood at the edge of the camp as the shriveled martian sun struck the tops of the shakam hills. the hunter hefted the long, balanced narvoon, the throwing knife, in his hand. he had faith in the knife, and in his skill with it. the hunter filled his lungs, the cold air reaching deep into his chest. he shouted out his throat-bursting hunting cry. he began to run across the plain. crouching behind crumbling red rocks, racing over flat expanses of orange sand, the hunter sought traces of the seegee, the great slow desert beast whose body provided his tribe with all the essentials of existence. at last he saw tracks. he mounted a dune. out on the plain before him a great brown seegee lumbered patiently, unaware of its danger. the hunter was about to strike out after it, when a dark form leaped at him. the hunter saw it out of the corner of his eye at the last moment. his startled sidestep saved him from the neck-breaking snap of the great jaws. the drock's long body was armored with black scales. curving fangs protruded from its upper jaw. its hand-like forepaws ended in hooked claws, to grasp and tear its prey. it was larger, stronger, faster than the hunter. the thin martian air carried weirdly high-pitched cries which proclaimed its craving to sink its fangs into the hunter's body. the drock's huge hind legs coiled back on their triple joints, and it sprang. the hunter thrust the gleaming knife out before him, so that the dark body would land on its gleaming blade. the drock twisted in mid-air and landed to one side of the hunter. now, before it could gather itself for another spring, there was time for one cast of the blade. it had to be done at once. it had to be perfect. if it failed, the knife would be lost and the drock would have its kill. the hunter grasped the weapon by the blade, drew his arm back, and snapped it forward. the blade struck deep into the throat of the drock. the drock screamed eerily and jumped clumsily. the hunter threw himself at the great, dark body and retrieved the knife. he struck with it again and again into the gray twitching belly. colorless blood ran out over the hard, tightly-stretched skin. the drock fell, gave a last convulsion, and lay still. the hunter plunged the blade into the red sand to clean it. he threw back his head and bellowed his hunting cry. there was great glory in killing the drock, for it showed that the desert man and not the drock, was lord of the red waste.... * * * * * gavir sat down on the divan, exhausted, his song finished. he didn't hear the moderator winding up the dreamcast. then the producer of the program was upon him. he began shouting even before gavir removed his headset. "what kind of a fool are you? before you started that song, you dreamed things about the martian development corporation that were libelous! i got the whole thing--the barrier, the guards, the labor pools and mines, the father crucified. it was awful! mdc is one of our biggest sponsors." malcomb said, "you can't expect an untrained young martian to control his very thoughts. and may i point out that your tone is hostile?" at this a sudden change came over the producer. the standard earth expression--invincible benignity--took control of his face. "i apologize for having spoken sharply, but dreamcasting is a nerve-wracking business. if it weren't for ethical conditioning, i don't know how i'd control my aggressive impulses. the suppression of aggression is the foundation of civilization, eh?" malcomb smiled. "ethical conditioning keeps society from fissioning." he shook hands with the producer. "come around tomorrow at and collect your fee," said the producer. "good night, gentlemen." as they left the global dreamcasting system building, gavir said to malcomb, "can we go to a bookstore tonight?" "tomorrow. i'm taking you to your hotel and then i'm going back to my apartment. we both need sleep. and don't forget, you've been warned not to go prowling around the city by yourself...." as soon as gavir was sure that malcomb was out of the hotel and well on his way home, he left his room and went out into the city. in a pitifully few days he would be back in the preserve, back with the fear of mdc, with hunger and the hopeless desire to find and kill the man who had ordered his father's death. now he had an opportunity to learn more about the universe of the earthmen. despite malcomb's orders, he was going to find a seller of books. during a reading class at the mission school, father james had said, "in books there is power. all that you call magic in our earth civilization is explained in books." gavir wanted to learn. it was his only hope to find an alternative to the short, fear-ridden, impoverished life he foresaw for himself. a river of force carried him, along with thousands of earthmen--godlike beings in their perfect health and their impregnable benignity--through the streets of the city. platforms of force raised and lowered him through the city's multiple levels.... and, as has always happened to outlanders in cities, he became lost. * * * * * he was in a quarter where furtive red and violet lights danced in the shadows of hunched buildings. a half-dozen earthmen approached him, stopped and stared. gavir stared back. the earthmen wore black garments and furs and metal ornaments. the biggest of them wore a black suit, a long black cape, and a broad-brimmed black hat. he carried a coiled whip in one hand. the earthmen turned to one another. "a martian." "let's give pain and death to the martian! it will be a new experience--one to savor." "take pain, martian!" the earthman with the black hat raised his arm, and the long heavy lash fell on gavir. he felt a savage sting in the arm he had thrown up to protect his eyes. gavir leaped at the earthmen. he clubbed the man with the whip across the face. as the others rushed in, gavir flailed about him with long arms and heavy fists. he began to enjoy it. it was rare that a martian had an opportunity to knock earthmen down. the mood of the _song of going to hunt_ came over him. he sprang free of his attackers and drew his glittering narvoon. the man with the whip yelled. they looked at his knife, and then all at once turned and ran. gavir drew back his arm and threw the knife with a practiced catapult-snap of shoulder, elbow, and wrist. to his surprise, the blade clattered to the street far short of his retreating enemies. then he remembered: you couldn't throw far in the gravity of earth. the earthmen disappeared into a lift-force field. gavir decided not to pursue them. he walked forward and picked up his narvoon, and saw that the street on which it lay was solid black pavement, not a force-field. he must be in the lowest level of the city. he didn't know his way around; he might meet more enemies. he forgot about the books he'd wanted, and began to search for his hotel. * * * * * when he got back to his room, he went immediately to bed. he slept late. malcomb woke him at . gavir told malcomb about the strangely-dressed men who had tried to kill him. "i told you not to wander around alone." "but you did not tell me that earthmen might try to kill me. you have told me that earthmen are good and peace-loving, that there have been no acts of violence on earth for many decades. you have told me that only the mdc men are exceptions, because they are living off earth, and this somehow makes them different." "well, those people you ran into are another exception." "why?" "you know about the regeneration and rejuvenation treatment we have here on earth. a variation of it was given you to acclimate you to earth's gravity and atmosphere. well, since the r&r treatment was developed, we earthmen have a life-expectancy of about one hundred fifty years. those people who attacked you were century-plus. they are over a hundred years old, but as healthy, physically, as ever." "what is wrong with them?" "they seem to have outgrown their ethical conditioning. they live wildly. violently. it's a problem without precedent, and we don't know what to do with them. the fact is, senile delinquency is our number one problem." "why not punish them?" said gavir. "they're too powerful. they are often people who've pursued successful careers and acquired a good deal of property and position. and there are getting to be more of them all the time. but come on. you and i have to go over to global dreamcasting and collect our fee." * * * * * the impeccably affable producer of _dreaming through the universe_ gave malcomb a check and then asked them to follow him. "mr. davery wants to see you. mr. _hoppy_ davery, executive vice-president in charge of production. scion of one of earth's oldest communications media families!" they went with the producer to the upper reaches of the global dreamcasting building. there they were ushered into a huge office. they found mr. hoppy davery lounging on a divan the size of a space-port. he was youthful in appearance, as were all earthmen, but a soft plumpness and a receding hairline made him look slightly older than average. he pointed a rigid finger at malcomb and gavir. "i want you two to hear a condensed recording of statements taken from calls we received last night." gavir stiffened. they _had_ gotten into trouble because of his thoughts about mdc. a voice boomed out of the ceiling. "that martian boy has power. that song was a fist in the jaw. more!" a woman's voice followed: "if you let that boy go back to mars i'll never dream a global program again." more voices: "enormous!" "potent!" "that hunting song drove me mad. i _like_ being mad!" "keep him on earth." hoppy davery pressed a button in the control panel on his divan, and the voices fell silent. "those callers that admitted their age were all century-plus. the boy appeals to the century-plus mentality. i want to try him again. this time on a really big dream-show, not just an educational 'cast. got a spot on next week's farfel flisket show. if he gets the right response, we talk about a contract. okay?" malcomb said, "his visa expires--" "we'll take care of his visa." gavir trembled with joy. hoppy davery pressed another button and a secretary entered with papers. she was followed by another woman. the second woman was dark-haired and slender. she wore leather boots and tight brown breeches. she was bare from the waist up and her breasts were young and full. a jewelled clip fastened a scarlet cape at her neck. her lips were a disconcertingly vivid red, apparently an artificial color. she kissed hoppy davery on the forehead, leaving red blotches on his pink dome. he wiped his forehead and looked at his hand. "do you have to wear that barbaric face-paint?" hoppy turned sad eyes on gavir and malcomb. "gentlemen, my mother, sylvie davery." a senile delinquent! thought gavir. she looked like davery's younger sister. malcomb stared at her apprehensively, and gavir wondered if she were somehow going to attack them. she looked at gavir. "mmm. what a body, what gorgeous blue skin. how tall are you, blue boy?" "he's approximately seven feet tall, sylvie," said hoppy, "and what do you want here, anyway?" "just came up to see blue boy. one of the crowd dreamed him last night. positively manic about him. i found out he'd be with you." "see?" said hoppy to gavir. "the century-plus mentality. you've got something they go for. undoubtedly because you're--forgive me--such a complete barbarian. that's what they're all trying to be." "spare me another lecture on senile delinquency, our number one problem." she walked to the door and gavir watched her all the way. she turned with a swirl of scarlet and a dramatic display of healthy young flesh. "see you again, blue boy." after sylvie left, hoppy davery said, "that might be a good professional name--blue boy. gavir doesn't _mean_ anything. now what kind of a song could you do for the farfel flisket show?" gavir thought. "perhaps you would like the _song of creation_." "it's part of a fertility rite," malcomb explained. "great! give the senile delinquents another workout. it's not quite ethical, but its good for us. but for heaven's sake, blue boy, keep your mind off mdc!" * * * * * the following week, gavir sang the _song of creation_ on the farfel flisket show, and transmitted the images which it brought up in his mind to his audience. a jubilant hoppy davery called him at his hotel next morning. "best response i've ever seen! the century-plussers have been rioting and throwing mass orgies ever since you sang. but they take time out to call us up and beg for more. i've got a sponsor and a two-year contract lined up for you." the sponsor was pacing back and forth in hoppy davery's office when malcomb and gavir arrived. hoppy introduced him proudly. "mr. jarvis spurling, president of the martian development corporation." gavir's hand leaped at the narvoon under his doublet. then he stopped himself. he turned the gesture into the proffer of a handshake. "how do you do?" he said quietly. in his mind he congratulated himself. he had learned emotional control from the earthmen. here was the man who had ordered his father crucified! yet he had managed to hide his instant desire to strike, to kill, to carry out the oath of the blood feud then and there. jarvis spurling ignored gavir's hand and stared coldly at him. there was not a trace of the usual earthman's kindliness in his square, battered face. "i'm told you got talent. okay, but a bluie is a bluie. i'll pay you because a bluie on dreamvision is good publicity for mdc products. but one slip like on your first 'cast and you go back to the preserve." "mr. spurling!" said malcomb. "your tone is hostile!" "damn right. that ethical conditioning slop doesn't work on me. i've lived too long on the frontier. and i know bluies." * * * * * "i will sign the contract," said gavir. as he drew his signature pictograph on the contract, sylvie davery sauntered in. she held a white tube between her painted lips. the end of the tube was glowing and giving off clouds of smoke. hoppy davery coughed and sylvie winked at gavir. gavir straightened up, and she took a long look at his seven feet. "all finished, blue boy? come on, let's go have a drink at lucifer grotto." caution told gavir to refuse. but before he could speak spurling snapped, "disgusting! an earth woman and a bluie! if you were on mars, lady, we'd deport you so fast your tail would burn. and god help the bluie!" sylvie blew a cloud of smoke at spurling. "you're not on mars, jack. you're back in civilization where we do what we damned well please." spurling laughed. "i've heard about you century-plussers. you're all sick." "you can't claim any monopoly on mental health. not with that concentration camp you run on mars. coming, gavir?" gavir grinned at spurling. "the contract, i believe, does not cover my private life." hoppy davery said, "sylvie, i don't think this is wise." sylvie uttered a short, sharp obscenity, linked arms with gavir, and strolled out. "you screwball senile delinquent," spurling yelled after sylvie, "you oughtta be locked up!" * * * * * lucifer grotto was in that same quarter in which gavir had been attacked. sylvie told him it was _the_ hangout for wealthier new york century-plussers. gavir told her about the attack, and she laughed. "it won't happen again. you're a hero to the senile delinquents now. by the way, the big fellow with the broad-brimmed hat, he's one of the most prominent senile delinquents of our day. he's president of the biggest privately-owned space line, but he likes to call himself the hat rat. you must be one of the few people who ever got away from him alive." "he seemed happy to get away from me," said gavir. an arrangement of force-planes and v projections made the front of lucifer grotto appear to be a curtain of flames. gavir hung back, but sylvie inserted a tiny gold pitchfork into a small aperture in the glowing, rippling surface. the flames swept aside, revealing a doorway. a bearded man in black tights escorted them through a luridly-lit bar to a private room. when they were alone, sylvie dropped her cape to the floor, sat on the edge of a huge, pink divan, and smiled at gavir. gavir contemplated her. that she was over a hundred years old was a little frightening. but the skin of her face and her bare upper body was a warm color, and tautly filled. she had lashed out at spurling, and he liked her for that. but in one way she was like spurling. she didn't fit into the bland, non-violent world of malcomb and hoppy. he shook his head. he said, "sylvie, why--well, why are you the way you are? why--and how--have you broken away from ethical conditioning?" sylvie frowned. she spoke a few words into the air, ordering drinks. she said, "i didn't do it deliberately. when i reached the age of about a hundred it stopped working for me. i suddenly wanted to do what _i_ wanted to do. and then i found out that i didn't _know_ what i wanted to do. it was ethical conditioning or nothing, so i picked nothing. and here i am, chasing nothing." "how do you chase nothing?" she set fire to a white tube. "this, for instance. they used to do it before they found out it caused cancer. now there's no more cancer, but even if there were, i'd still smoke. that's the attitude i have. you try things. you live in the past, if you're inclined, adopt the costumes and manners of some more colorful time. you try ridiculous things, disgusting things, vicious things. you know they're all nothing, but you have to do something, so you go on doing nothing, elaborately and violently." a tray of drinks rose through the floor. sylvie frowned as she noticed a folded paper tucked between the glasses. she picked it up and read it, chuckled, and read it again, aloud. "sir: i beg you to forgive the presumption of my recent attack on you. since then you have captured my imagination. i now hold you to be the noblest savage of them all. henceforward please consider me, your obedient servant, hat rat." "you've impressed him," said sylvie. "but you impress me even more. come here." she held out slim arms to him. he had no wish to refuse her. she was not like a martian woman, but he found the differences exciting and attractive. he went to her, and he forgot entirely that she was over a hundred years old. * * * * * in the months that followed, gavir's fame spread over earth. by spring, the rating computers credited him with an audience of eight hundred million--ninety-five percent of whom were century-plussers. davery doubled gavir's salary. gavir toured the world with sylvie, mobbed everywhere by worshipful century-plussers. male century-plussers by the millions adopted blue doublets and blue kilts in honor of their hero. blue-dyed hair was now _de rigueur_ among the ladies of lucifer grotto. the hat rat himself, who often appeared at a respectful distance in crowds around gavir, now wore a wide-brimmed hat of brightest blue. then there came the dreamcast on which gavir sang the _song of complaint_. it was an ancient song, a desert man's outcry against injustice, enemies, false friends and callous leaders. it was a protest against sufferings that could neither be borne nor prevented. at the climax of the song gavir pictured a tribal chief who refused to make fair division of the spoils of a hunt with his warriors. gradually he allowed this image to turn into a picture of hoppy davery withholding bundles of money from a starving gavir. then he ended the song. hoppy sent for him next morning. "why did you do that?" he said. "listen to this." a recorded voice boomed: "this is hat rat. pay the blue boy what he deserves, or i will give you death. it will be a personal thing between you and me. i will besprinkle you with corrosive acids; i will burn out your eyes; i will--" hoppy cut the voice off. gavir saw that he was sweating. "there were _dozens_ like that. if you want more money, i'll _give_ you more money. say something nice about me on your next dreamcast, for heaven's sake!" gavir spread his big blue hands. "i am sorry. i don't want more money. i cannot always control the pictures i make. these images come into my mind even though they have nothing to do with me." hoppy shook his head. "that's because you haven't had ethical conditioning. we don't have this trouble with our other performers. you just must remember that dreamvision is the most potent communications medium ever devised. be _careful_." "i will," said gavir. * * * * * on his next dreamcast gavir sang the _song of the blood feud_. he pictured a desert man whose father had been killed by a drock. the desert man ran over the red sand, and he found the drock. he did not throw his knife. that would not have satisfied his hatred. he fell upon the drock and stabbed and stabbed. the desert man howled his hunting-cry over the body of his enemy, and spat into its face. and the fanged face of the drock turned into the square, battered face of jarvis spurling. gavir held the image in his mind for a long moment. when the dreamcast was over, a studio page ran up to gavir. "mr. spurling wants to see you at once, at his office." "let him come and find me," said gavir. "let us go, sylvie." they went to lucifer grotto, where gavir's wealthiest admirers among the senile delinquents were giving a party for him in the pandemonium room. the only prominent person missing, as sylvie remarked after surveying the crowd, was the hat rat. they wondered about it, but no one knew where he was. sheets of flame illuminated the wild features and strange garments of over a hundred century-plus ladies and gentlemen. gouts of flame leaped from the walls to light antique-style cigarettes. drinks were refilled from nozzles of molded fire. an hour passed from the time of gavir's arrival. then jarvis spurling joined the party. there was a heavy frontier sonic pistol strapped at his waist. a protesting malcomb was behind him. jarvis spurling's square face was dark with anger. "you deliberately put my face on that animal! you want to make the public hate me. i pay your salary and keep you here on earth, and this is what i get for it. all right. a bluie is a bluie, and i'll treat you like a bluie should be treated." he unsnapped his holster and drew the square, heavy pistol out and pointed it at gavir. gavir stood up. his right hand plucked at his doublet. "you're itching to go for that throwing knife," said spurling. "go on! take it out and get ready to throw it. i'll give you that much chance. let's make a game out of this. we'll make like we're back on mars, bluie, and you're out hunting a drock. and you find one, only this drock has a gun. how about that, bluie?" gavir took out the narvoon, grasped the blade, and drew his arm back. "gavir!" it was the hat rat. he stood between pillars of flame in the doorway of the pandemonium room of lucifer grotto, and there was a peculiar contrivance of dark brown wood and black metal tubing cradled in his arm. "this ancient shotgun i dedicate to your blood feud. i shall hunt down your enemy, gavir!" spurling turned. the hat rat saw him. "the enemy!" the hat rat shouted. the shotgun exploded. spurling's body was thrown back against gavir. gavir saw a huge ragged red caved-in place in spurling's chest. spurling's body sagged to the floor and lay there face up, eyes open. the senile delinquents of lucifer grotto leaned forward to grin at the tattered body. still holding the narvoon, gavir stood over his dead enemy. he threw back his head and howled out the hunting cry of the desert men. then he looked down and spat in jarvis spurling's dead face. end * * * * * thuvia, maid of mars by edgar rice burroughs contents chapter i carthoris and thuvia ii slavery iii treachery iv a green man's captive v the fair race vi the jeddak of lothar vii the phantom bowmen viii the hall of doom ix the battle in the plain x kar komak, the bowman xi green men and white apes xii to save dusar xiii turjun, the panthan xiv kulan tith's sacrifice glossary of names and terms thuvia, maid of mars chapter i carthoris and thuvia upon a massive bench of polished ersite beneath the gorgeous blooms of a giant pimalia a woman sat. her shapely, sandalled foot tapped impatiently upon the jewel-strewn walk that wound beneath the stately sorapus trees across the scarlet sward of the royal gardens of thuvan dihn, jeddak of ptarth, as a dark-haired, red-skinned warrior bent low toward her, whispering heated words close to her ear. "ah, thuvia of ptarth," he cried, "you are cold even before the fiery blasts of my consuming love! no harder than your heart, nor colder is the hard, cold ersite of this thrice happy bench which supports your divine and fadeless form! tell me, o thuvia of ptarth, that i may still hope--that though you do not love me now, yet some day, some day, my princess, i--" the girl sprang to her feet with an exclamation of surprise and displeasure. her queenly head was poised haughtily upon her smooth red shoulders. her dark eyes looked angrily into those of the man. "you forget yourself, and the customs of barsoom, astok," she said. "i have given you no right thus to address the daughter of thuvan dihn, nor have you won such a right." the man reached suddenly forth and grasped her by the arm. "you shall be my princess!" he cried. "by the breast of issus, thou shalt, nor shall any other come between astok, prince of dusar, and his heart's desire. tell me that there is another, and i shall cut out his foul heart and fling it to the wild calots of the dead sea-bottoms!" at touch of the man's hand upon her flesh the girl went pallid beneath her coppery skin, for the persons of the royal women of the courts of mars are held but little less than sacred. the act of astok, prince of dusar, was profanation. there was no terror in the eyes of thuvia of ptarth--only horror for the thing the man had done and for its possible consequences. "release me." her voice was level--frigid. the man muttered incoherently and drew her roughly toward him. "release me!" she repeated sharply, "or i call the guard, and the prince of dusar knows what that will mean." quickly he threw his right arm about her shoulders and strove to draw her face to his lips. with a little cry she struck him full in the mouth with the massive bracelets that circled her free arm. "calot!" she exclaimed, and then: "the guard! the guard! hasten in protection of the princess of ptarth!" in answer to her call a dozen guardsmen came racing across the scarlet sward, their gleaming long-swords naked in the sun, the metal of their accoutrements clanking against that of their leathern harness, and in their throats hoarse shouts of rage at the sight which met their eyes. but before they had passed half across the royal garden to where astok of dusar still held the struggling girl in his grasp, another figure sprang from a cluster of dense foliage that half hid a golden fountain close at hand. a tall, straight youth he was, with black hair and keen grey eyes; broad of shoulder and narrow of hip; a clean-limbed fighting man. his skin was but faintly tinged with the copper colour that marks the red men of mars from the other races of the dying planet--he was like them, and yet there was a subtle difference greater even than that which lay in his lighter skin and his grey eyes. there was a difference, too, in his movements. he came on in great leaps that carried him so swiftly over the ground that the speed of the guardsmen was as nothing by comparison. astok still clutched thuvia's wrist as the young warrior confronted him. the new-comer wasted no time and he spoke but a single word. "calot!" he snapped, and then his clenched fist landed beneath the other's chin, lifting him high into the air and depositing him in a crumpled heap within the centre of the pimalia bush beside the ersite bench. her champion turned toward the girl. "kaor, thuvia of ptarth!" he cried. "it seems that fate timed my visit well." "kaor, carthoris of helium!" the princess returned the young man's greeting, "and what less could one expect of the son of such a sire?" he bowed his acknowledgment of the compliment to his father, john carter, warlord of mars. and then the guardsmen, panting from their charge, came up just as the prince of dusar, bleeding at the mouth, and with drawn sword, crawled from the entanglement of the pimalia. astok would have leaped to mortal combat with the son of dejah thoris, but the guardsmen pressed about him, preventing, though it was clearly evident that naught would have better pleased carthoris of helium. "but say the word, thuvia of ptarth," he begged, "and naught will give me greater pleasure than meting to this fellow the punishment he has earned." "it cannot be, carthoris," she replied. "even though he has forfeited all claim upon my consideration, yet is he the guest of the jeddak, my father, and to him alone may he account for the unpardonable act he has committed." "as you say, thuvia," replied the heliumite. "but afterward he shall account to carthoris, prince of helium, for this affront to the daughter of my father's friend." as he spoke, though, there burned in his eyes a fire that proclaimed a nearer, dearer cause for his championship of this glorious daughter of barsoom. the maid's cheek darkened beneath the satin of her transparent skin, and the eyes of astok, prince of dusar, darkened, too, as he read that which passed unspoken between the two in the royal gardens of the jeddak. "and thou to me," he snapped at carthoris, answering the young man's challenge. the guard still surrounded astok. it was a difficult position for the young officer who commanded it. his prisoner was the son of a mighty jeddak; he was the guest of thuvan dihn--until but now an honoured guest upon whom every royal dignity had been showered. to arrest him forcibly could mean naught else than war, and yet he had done that which in the eyes of the ptarth warrior merited death. the young man hesitated. he looked toward his princess. she, too, guessed all that hung upon the action of the coming moment. for many years dusar and ptarth had been at peace with each other. their great merchant ships plied back and forth between the larger cities of the two nations. even now, far above the gold-shot scarlet dome of the jeddak's palace, she could see the huge bulk of a giant freighter taking its majestic way through the thin barsoomian air toward the west and dusar. by a word she might plunge these two mighty nations into a bloody conflict that would drain them of their bravest blood and their incalculable riches, leaving them all helpless against the inroads of their envious and less powerful neighbors, and at last a prey to the savage green hordes of the dead sea-bottoms. no sense of fear influenced her decision, for fear is seldom known to the children of mars. it was rather a sense of the responsibility that she, the daughter of their jeddak, felt for the welfare of her father's people. "i called you, padwar," she said to the lieutenant of the guard, "to protect the person of your princess, and to keep the peace that must not be violated within the royal gardens of the jeddak. that is all. you will escort me to the palace, and the prince of helium will accompany me." without another glance in the direction of astok she turned, and taking carthoris' proffered hand, moved slowly toward the massive marble pile that housed the ruler of ptarth and his glittering court. on either side marched a file of guardsmen. thus thuvia of ptarth found a way out of a dilemma, escaping the necessity of placing her father's royal guest under forcible restraint, and at the same time separating the two princes, who otherwise would have been at each other's throat the moment she and the guard had departed. beside the pimalia stood astok, his dark eyes narrowed to mere slits of hate beneath his lowering brows as he watched the retreating forms of the woman who had aroused the fiercest passions of his nature and the man whom he now believed to be the one who stood between his love and its consummation. as they disappeared within the structure astok shrugged his shoulders, and with a murmured oath crossed the gardens toward another wing of the building where he and his retinue were housed. that night he took formal leave of thuvan dihn, and though no mention was made of the happening within the garden, it was plain to see through the cold mask of the jeddak's courtesy that only the customs of royal hospitality restrained him from voicing the contempt he felt for the prince of dusar. carthoris was not present at the leave-taking, nor was thuvia. the ceremony was as stiff and formal as court etiquette could make it, and when the last of the dusarians clambered over the rail of the battleship that had brought them upon this fateful visit to the court of ptarth, and the mighty engine of destruction had risen slowly from the ways of the landing-stage, a note of relief was apparent in the voice of thuvan dihn as he turned to one of his officers with a word of comment upon a subject foreign to that which had been uppermost in the minds of all for hours. but, after all, was it so foreign? "inform prince sovan," he directed, "that it is our wish that the fleet which departed for kaol this morning be recalled to cruise to the west of ptarth." as the warship, bearing astok back to the court of his father, turned toward the west, thuvia of ptarth, sitting upon the same bench where the prince of dusar had affronted her, watched the twinkling lights of the craft growing smaller in the distance. beside her, in the brilliant light of the nearer moon, sat carthoris. his eyes were not upon the dim bulk of the battleship, but on the profile of the girl's upturned face. "thuvia," he whispered. the girl turned her eyes toward his. his hand stole out to find hers, but she drew her own gently away. "thuvia of ptarth, i love you!" cried the young warrior. "tell me that it does not offend." she shook her head sadly. "the love of carthoris of helium," she said simply, "could be naught but an honour to any woman; but you must not speak, my friend, of bestowing upon me that which i may not reciprocate." the young man got slowly to his feet. his eyes were wide in astonishment. it never had occurred to the prince of helium that thuvia of ptarth might love another. "but at kadabra!" he exclaimed. "and later here at your father's court, what did you do, thuvia of ptarth, that might have warned me that you could not return my love?" "and what did i do, carthoris of helium," she returned, "that might lead you to believe that i did return it?" he paused in thought, and then shook his head. "nothing, thuvia, that is true; yet i could have sworn you loved me. indeed, you well knew how near to worship has been my love for you." "and how might i know it, carthoris?" she asked innocently. "did you ever tell me as much? ever before have words of love for me fallen from your lips?" "but you must have known it!" he exclaimed. "i am like my father--witless in matters of the heart, and of a poor way with women; yet the jewels that strew these royal garden paths--the trees, the flowers, the sward--all must have read the love that has filled my heart since first my eyes were made new by imaging your perfect face and form; so how could you alone have been blind to it?" "do the maids of helium pay court to their men?" asked thuvia. "you are playing with me!" exclaimed carthoris. "say that you are but playing, and that after all you love me, thuvia!" "i cannot tell you that, carthoris, for i am promised to another." her tone was level, but was there not within it the hint of an infinite depth of sadness? who may say? "promised to another?" carthoris scarcely breathed the words. his face went almost white, and then his head came up as befitted him in whose veins flowed the blood of the overlord of a world. "carthoris of helium wishes you every happiness with the man of your choice," he said. "with--" and then he hesitated, waiting for her to fill in the name. "kulan tith, jeddak of kaol," she replied. "my father's friend and ptarth's most puissant ally." the young man looked at her intently for a moment before he spoke again. "you love him, thuvia of ptarth?" he asked. "i am promised to him," she replied simply. he did not press her. "he is of barsoom's noblest blood and mightiest fighters," mused carthoris. "my father's friend and mine--would that it might have been another!" he muttered almost savagely. what the girl thought was hidden by the mask of her expression, which was tinged only by a little shadow of sadness that might have been for carthoris, herself, or for them both. carthoris of helium did not ask, though he noted it, for his loyalty to kulan tith was the loyalty of the blood of john carter of virginia for a friend, greater than which could be no loyalty. he raised a jewel-encrusted bit of the girl's magnificent trappings to his lips. "to the honour and happiness of kulan tith and the priceless jewel that has been bestowed upon him," he said, and though his voice was husky there was the true ring of sincerity in it. "i told you that i loved you, thuvia, before i knew that you were promised to another. i may not tell you it again, but i am glad that you know it, for there is no dishonour in it either to you or to kulan tith or to myself. my love is such that it may embrace as well kulan tith--if you love him." there was almost a question in the statement. "i am promised to him," she replied. carthoris backed slowly away. he laid one hand upon his heart, the other upon the pommel of his long-sword. "these are yours--always," he said. a moment later he had entered the palace, and was gone from the girl's sight. had he returned at once he would have found her prone upon the ersite bench, her face buried in her arms. was she weeping? there was none to see. carthoris of helium had come all unannounced to the court of his father's friend that day. he had come alone in a small flier, sure of the same welcome that always awaited him at ptarth. as there had been no formality in his coming there was no need of formality in his going. to thuvan dihn he explained that he had been but testing an invention of his own with which his flier was equipped--a clever improvement of the ordinary martian air compass, which, when set for a certain destination, will remain constantly fixed thereon, making it only necessary to keep a vessel's prow always in the direction of the compass needle to reach any given point upon barsoom by the shortest route. carthoris' improvement upon this consisted of an auxiliary device which steered the craft mechanically in the direction of the compass, and upon arrival directly over the point for which the compass was set, brought the craft to a standstill and lowered it, also automatically, to the ground. "you readily discern the advantages of this invention," he was saying to thuvan dihn, who had accompanied him to the landing-stage upon the palace roof to inspect the compass and bid his young friend farewell. a dozen officers of the court with several body servants were grouped behind the jeddak and his guest, eager listeners to the conversation--so eager on the part of one of the servants that he was twice rebuked by a noble for his forwardness in pushing himself ahead of his betters to view the intricate mechanism of the wonderful "controlling destination compass," as the thing was called. "for example," continued carthoris, "i have an all-night trip before me, as to-night. i set the pointer here upon the right-hand dial which represents the eastern hemisphere of barsoom, so that the point rests upon the exact latitude and longitude of helium. then i start the engine, roll up in my sleeping silks and furs, and with lights burning, race through the air toward helium, confident that at the appointed hour i shall drop gently toward the landing-stage upon my own palace, whether i am still asleep or no." "provided," suggested thuvan dihn, "you do not chance to collide with some other night wanderer in the meanwhile." carthoris smiled. "no danger of that," he replied. "see here," and he indicated a device at the right of the destination compass. "this is my 'obstruction evader,' as i call it. this visible device is the switch which throws the mechanism on or off. the instrument itself is below deck, geared both to the steering apparatus and the control levers. "it is quite simple, being nothing more than a radium generator diffusing radio-activity in all directions to a distance of a hundred yards or so from the flier. should this enveloping force be interrupted in any direction a delicate instrument immediately apprehends the irregularity, at the same time imparting an impulse to a magnetic device which in turn actuates the steering mechanism, diverting the bow of the flier away from the obstacle until the craft's radio-activity sphere is no longer in contact with the obstruction, then she falls once more into her normal course. should the disturbance approach from the rear, as in case of a faster-moving craft overhauling me, the mechanism actuates the speed control as well as the steering gear, and the flier shoots ahead and either up or down, as the oncoming vessel is upon a lower or higher plane than herself. "in aggravated cases, that is when the obstructions are many, or of such a nature as to deflect the bow more than forty-five degrees in any direction, or when the craft has reached its destination and dropped to within a hundred yards of the ground, the mechanism brings her to a full stop, at the same time sounding a loud alarm which will instantly awaken the pilot. you see i have anticipated almost every contingency." thuvan dihn smiled his appreciation of the marvellous device. the forward servant pushed almost to the flier's side. his eyes were narrowed to slits. "all but one," he said. the nobles looked at him in astonishment, and one of them grasped the fellow none too gently by the shoulder to push him back to his proper place. carthoris raised his hand. "wait," he urged. "let us hear what the man has to say--no creation of mortal mind is perfect. perchance he has detected a weakness that it will be well to know at once. come, my good fellow, and what may be the one contingency i have overlooked?" as he spoke carthoris observed the servant closely for the first time. he saw a man of giant stature and handsome, as are all those of the race of martian red men; but the fellow's lips were thin and cruel, and across one cheek was the faint, white line of a sword-cut from the right temple to the corner of the mouth. "come," urged the prince of helium. "speak!" the man hesitated. it was evident that he regretted the temerity that had made him the centre of interested observation. but at last, seeing no alternative, he spoke. "it might be tampered with," he said, "by an enemy." carthoris drew a small key from his leathern pocket-pouch. "look at this," he said, handing it to the man. "if you know aught of locks, you will know that the mechanism which this unlooses is beyond the cunning of a picker of locks. it guards the vitals of the instrument from crafty tampering. without it an enemy must half wreck the device to reach its heart, leaving his handiwork apparent to the most casual observer." the servant took the key, glanced at it shrewdly, and then as he made to return it to carthoris dropped it upon the marble flagging. turning to look for it he planted the sole of his sandal full upon the glittering object. for an instant he bore all his weight upon the foot that covered the key, then he stepped back and with an exclamation as of pleasure that he had found it, stooped, recovered it, and returned it to the heliumite. then he dropped back to his station behind the nobles and was forgotten. a moment later carthoris had made his adieux to thuvan dihn and his nobles, and with lights twinkling had risen into the star-shot void of the martian night. chapter ii slavery as the ruler of ptarth, followed by his courtiers, descended from the landing-stage above the palace, the servants dropped into their places in the rear of their royal or noble masters, and behind the others one lingered to the last. then quickly stooping he snatched the sandal from his right foot, slipping it into his pocket-pouch. when the party had come to the lower levels, and the jeddak had dispersed them by a sign, none noticed that the forward fellow who had drawn so much attention to himself before the prince of helium departed, was no longer among the other servants. to whose retinue he had been attached none had thought to inquire, for the followers of a martian noble are many, coming and going at the whim of their master, so that a new face is scarcely ever questioned, as the fact that a man has passed within the palace walls is considered proof positive that his loyalty to the jeddak is beyond question, so rigid is the examination of each who seeks service with the nobles of the court. a good rule that, and only relaxed by courtesy in favour of the retinue of visiting royalty from a friendly foreign power. it was late in the morning of the next day that a giant serving man in the harness of the house of a great ptarth noble passed out into the city from the palace gates. along one broad avenue and then another he strode briskly until he had passed beyond the district of the nobles and had come to the place of shops. here he sought a pretentious building that rose spire-like toward the heavens, its outer walls elaborately wrought with delicate carvings and intricate mosaics. it was the palace of peace in which were housed the representatives of the foreign powers, or rather in which were located their embassies; for the ministers themselves dwelt in gorgeous palaces within the district occupied by the nobles. here the man sought the embassy of dusar. a clerk arose questioningly as he entered, and at his request to have a word with the minister asked his credentials. the visitor slipped a plain metal armlet from above his elbow, and pointing to an inscription upon its inner surface, whispered a word or two to the clerk. the latter's eyes went wide, and his attitude turned at once to one of deference. he bowed the stranger to a seat, and hastened to an inner room with the armlet in his hand. a moment later he reappeared and conducted the caller into the presence of the minister. for a long time the two were closeted together, and when at last the giant serving man emerged from the inner office his expression was cast in a smile of sinister satisfaction. from the palace of peace he hurried directly to the palace of the dusarian minister. that night two swift fliers left the same palace top. one sped its rapid course toward helium; the other-- thuvia of ptarth strolled in the gardens of her father's palace, as was her nightly custom before retiring. her silks and furs were drawn about her, for the air of mars is chill after the sun has taken his quick plunge beneath the planet's western verge. the girl's thoughts wandered from her impending nuptials, that would make her empress of kaol, to the person of the trim young heliumite who had laid his heart at her feet the preceding day. whether it was pity or regret that saddened her expression as she gazed toward the southern heavens where she had watched the lights of his flier disappear the previous night, it would be difficult to say. so, too, is it impossible to conjecture just what her emotions may have been as she discerned the lights of a flier speeding rapidly out of the distance from that very direction, as though impelled toward her garden by the very intensity of the princess' thoughts. she saw it circle lower above the palace until she was positive that it but hovered in preparation for a landing. presently the powerful rays of its searchlight shot downward from the bow. they fell upon the landing-stage for a brief instant, revealing the figures of the ptarthian guard, picking into brilliant points of fire the gems upon their gorgeous harnesses. then the blazing eye swept onward across the burnished domes and graceful minarets, down into court and park and garden to pause at last upon the ersite bench and the girl standing there beside it, her face upturned full toward the flier. for but an instant the searchlight halted upon thuvia of ptarth, then it was extinguished as suddenly as it had come to life. the flier passed on above her to disappear beyond a grove of lofty skeel trees that grew within the palace grounds. the girl stood for some time as it had left her, except that her head was bent and her eyes downcast in thought. who but carthoris could it have been? she tried to feel anger that he should have returned thus, spying upon her; but she found it difficult to be angry with the young prince of helium. what mad caprice could have induced him so to transgress the etiquette of nations? for lesser things great powers had gone to war. the princess in her was shocked and angered--but what of the girl! and the guard--what of them? evidently they, too, had been so much surprised by the unprecedented action of the stranger that they had not even challenged; but that they had no thought to let the thing go unnoticed was quickly evidenced by the skirring of motors upon the landing-stage and the quick shooting airward of a long-lined patrol boat. thuvia watched it dart swiftly eastward. so, too, did other eyes watch. within the dense shadows of the skeel grove, in a wide avenue beneath o'erspreading foliage, a flier hung a dozen feet above the ground. from its deck keen eyes watched the far-fanning searchlight of the patrol boat. no light shone from the enshadowed craft. upon its deck was the silence of the tomb. its crew of a half-dozen red warriors watched the lights of the patrol boat diminishing in the distance. "the intellects of our ancestors are with us to-night," said one in a low tone. "no plan ever carried better," returned another. "they did precisely as the prince foretold." he who had first spoken turned toward the man who squatted before the control board. "now!" he whispered. there was no other order given. every man upon the craft had evidently been well schooled in each detail of that night's work. silently the dark hull crept beneath the cathedral arches of the dark and silent grove. thuvia of ptarth, gazing toward the east, saw the blacker blot against the blackness of the trees as the craft topped the buttressed garden wall. she saw the dim bulk incline gently downward toward the scarlet sward of the garden. she knew that men came not thus with honourable intent. yet she did not cry aloud to alarm the near-by guardsmen, nor did she flee to the safety of the palace. why? i can see her shrug her shapely shoulders in reply as she voices the age-old, universal answer of the woman: because! scarce had the flier touched the ground when four men leaped from its deck. they ran forward toward the girl. still she made no sign of alarm, standing as though hypnotized. or could it have been as one who awaited a welcome visitor? not until they were quite close to her did she move. then the nearer moon, rising above the surrounding foliage, touched their faces, lighting all with the brilliancy of her silver rays. thuvia of ptarth saw only strangers--warriors in the harness of dusar. now she took fright, but too late! before she could voice but a single cry, rough hands seized her. a heavy silken scarf was wound about her head. she was lifted in strong arms and borne to the deck of the flier. there was the sudden whirl of propellers, the rushing of air against her body, and, from far beneath the shouting and the challenge from the guard. racing toward the south another flier sped toward helium. in its cabin a tall red man bent over the soft sole of an upturned sandal. with delicate instruments he measured the faint imprint of a small object which appeared there. upon a pad beside him was the outline of a key, and here he noted the results of his measurements. a smile played upon his lips as he completed his task and turned to one who waited at the opposite side of the table. "the man is a genius," he remarked. "only a genius could have evolved such a lock as this is designed to spring. here, take the sketch, larok, and give all thine own genius full and unfettered freedom in reproducing it in metal." the warrior-artificer bowed. "man builds naught," he said, "that man may not destroy." then he left the cabin with the sketch. as dawn broke upon the lofty towers which mark the twin cities of helium--the scarlet tower of one and the yellow tower of its sister--a flier floated lazily out of the north. upon its bow was emblazoned the signia of a lesser noble of a far city of the empire of helium. its leisurely approach and the evident confidence with which it moved across the city aroused no suspicion in the minds of the sleepy guard. their round of duty nearly done, they had little thought beyond the coming of those who were to relieve them. peace reigned throughout helium. stagnant, emasculating peace. helium had no enemies. there was naught to fear. without haste the nearest air patrol swung sluggishly about and approached the stranger. at easy speaking distance the officer upon her deck hailed the incoming craft. the cheery "kaor!" and the plausible explanation that the owner had come from distant parts for a few days of pleasure in gay helium sufficed. the air-patrol boat sheered off, passing again upon its way. the stranger continued toward a public landing-stage, where she dropped into the ways and came to rest. at about the same time a warrior entered her cabin. "it is done, vas kor," he said, handing a small metal key to the tall noble who had just risen from his sleeping silks and furs. "good!" exclaimed the latter. "you must have worked upon it all during the night, larok." the warrior nodded. "now fetch me the heliumetic metal you wrought some days since," commanded vas kor. this done, the warrior assisted his master to replace the handsome jewelled metal of his harness with the plainer ornaments of an ordinary fighting man of helium, and with the insignia of the same house that appeared upon the bow of the flier. vas kor breakfasted on board. then he emerged upon the aerial dock, entered an elevator, and was borne quickly to the street below, where he was soon engulfed by the early morning throng of workers hastening to their daily duties. among them his warrior trappings were no more remarkable than is a pair of trousers upon broadway. all martian men are warriors, save those physically unable to bear arms. the tradesman and his clerk clank with their martial trappings as they pursue their vocations. the schoolboy, coming into the world, as he does, almost adult from the snowy shell that has encompassed his development for five long years, knows so little of life without a sword at his hip that he would feel the same discomfiture at going abroad unarmed that an earth boy would experience in walking the streets knicker-bockerless. vas kor's destination lay in greater helium, which lies some seventy-five miles across the level plain from lesser helium. he had landed at the latter city because the air patrol is less suspicious and alert than that above the larger metropolis where lies the palace of the jeddak. as he moved with the throng in the parklike canyon of the thoroughfare the life of an awakening martian city was in evidence about him. houses, raised high upon their slender metal columns for the night were dropping gently toward the ground. among the flowers upon the scarlet sward which lies about the buildings children were already playing, and comely women laughing and chatting with their neighbours as they culled gorgeous blossoms for the vases within doors. the pleasant "kaor" of the barsoomian greeting fell continually upon the ears of the stranger as friends and neighbours took up the duties of a new day. the district in which he had landed was residential--a district of merchants of the more prosperous sort. everywhere were evidences of luxury and wealth. slaves appeared upon every housetop with gorgeous silks and costly furs, laying them in the sun for airing. jewel-encrusted women lolled even thus early upon the carven balconies before their sleeping apartments. later in the day they would repair to the roofs when the slaves had arranged couches and pitched silken canopies to shade them from the sun. strains of inspiring music broke pleasantly from open windows, for the martians have solved the problem of attuning the nerves pleasantly to the sudden transition from sleep to waking that proves so difficult a thing for most earth folk. above him raced the long, light passenger fliers, plying, each in its proper plane, between the numerous landing-stages for internal passenger traffic. landing-stages that tower high into the heavens are for the great international passenger liners. freighters have other landing-stages at various lower levels, to within a couple of hundred feet of the ground; nor dare any flier rise or drop from one plane to another except in certain restricted districts where horizontal traffic is forbidden. along the close-cropped sward which paves the avenue ground fliers were moving in continuous lines in opposite directions. for the greater part they skimmed along the surface of the sward, soaring gracefully into the air at times to pass over a slower-going driver ahead, or at intersections, where the north and south traffic has the right of way and the east and west must rise above it. from private hangars upon many a roof top fliers were darting into the line of traffic. gay farewells and parting admonitions mingled with the whirring of motors and the subdued noises of the city. yet with all the swift movement and the countless thousands rushing hither and thither, the predominant suggestion was that of luxurious ease and soft noiselessness. martians dislike harsh, discordant clamour. the only loud noises they can abide are the martial sounds of war, the clash of arms, the collision of two mighty dreadnoughts of the air. to them there is no sweeter music than this. at the intersection of two broad avenues vas kor descended from the street level to one of the great pneumatic stations of the city. here he paid before a little wicket the fare to his destination with a couple of the dull, oval coins of helium. beyond the gatekeeper he came to a slowly moving line of what to earthly eyes would have appeared to be conical-nosed, eight-foot projectiles for some giant gun. in slow procession the things moved in single file along a grooved track. a half dozen attendants assisted passengers to enter, or directed these carriers to their proper destination. vas kor approached one that was empty. upon its nose was a dial and a pointer. he set the pointer for a certain station in greater helium, raised the arched lid of the thing, stepped in and lay down upon the upholstered bottom. an attendant closed the lid, which locked with a little click, and the carrier continued its slow way. presently it switched itself automatically to another track, to enter, a moment later, one of the series of dark-mouthed tubes. the instant that its entire length was within the black aperture it sprang forward with the speed of a rifle ball. there was an instant of whizzing--a soft, though sudden, stop, and slowly the carrier emerged upon another platform, another attendant raised the lid and vas kor stepped out at the station beneath the centre of greater helium, seventy-five miles from the point at which he had embarked. here he sought the street level, stepping immediately into a waiting ground flier. he spoke no word to the slave sitting in the driver's seat. it was evident that he had been expected, and that the fellow had received his instructions before his coming. scarcely had vas kor taken his seat when the flier went quickly into the fast-moving procession, turning presently from the broad and crowded avenue into a less congested street. presently it left the thronged district behind to enter a section of small shops, where it stopped before the entrance to one which bore the sign of a dealer in foreign silks. vas kor entered the low-ceiling room. a man at the far end motioned him toward an inner apartment, giving no further sign of recognition until he had passed in after the caller and closed the door. then he faced his visitor, saluting deferentially. "most noble--" he commenced, but vas kor silenced him with a gesture. "no formalities," he said. "we must forget that i am aught other than your slave. if all has been as carefully carried out as it has been planned, we have no time to waste. instead we should be upon our way to the slave market. are you ready?" the merchant nodded, and, turning to a great chest, produced the unemblazoned trappings of a slave. these vas kor immediately donned. then the two passed from the shop through a rear door, traversed a winding alley to an avenue beyond, where they entered a flier which awaited them. five minutes later the merchant was leading his slave to the public market, where a great concourse of people filled the great open space in the centre of which stood the slave block. the crowds were enormous to-day, for carthoris, prince of helium, was to be the principal bidder. one by one the masters mounted the rostrum beside the slave block upon which stood their chattels. briefly and clearly each recounted the virtues of his particular offering. when all were done, the major-domo of the prince of helium recalled to the block such as had favourably impressed him. for such he had made a fair offer. there was little haggling as to price, and none at all when vas kor was placed upon the block. his merchant-master accepted the first offer that was made for him, and thus a dusarian noble entered the household of carthoris. chapter iii treachery the day following the coming of vas kor to the palace of the prince of helium great excitement reigned throughout the twin cities, reaching its climax in the palace of carthoris. word had come of the abduction of thuvia of ptarth from her father's court, and with it the veiled hint that the prince of helium might be suspected of considerable knowledge of the act and the whereabouts of the princess. in the council chamber of john carter, warlord of mars, was tardos mors, jeddak of helium; mors kajak, his son, jed of lesser helium; carthoris, and a score of the great nobles of the empire. "there must be no war between ptarth and helium, my son," said john carter. "that you are innocent of the charge that has been placed against you by insinuation, we well know; but thuvan dihn must know it well, too. "there is but one who may convince him, and that one be you. you must hasten at once to the court of ptarth, and by your presence there as well as by your words assure him that his suspicions are groundless. bear with you the authority of the warlord of barsoom, and of the jeddak of helium to offer every resource of the allied powers to assist thuvan dihn to recover his daughter and punish her abductors, whomsoever they may be. "go! i know that i do not need to urge upon you the necessity for haste." carthoris left the council chamber, and hastened to his palace. here slaves were busy in a moment setting things to rights for the departure of their master. several worked about the swift flier that would bear the prince of helium rapidly toward ptarth. at last all was done. but two armed slaves remained on guard. the setting sun hung low above the horizon. in a moment darkness would envelop all. one of the guardsmen, a giant of a fellow across whose right cheek there ran a thin scar from temple to mouth, approached his companion. his gaze was directed beyond and above his comrade. when he had come quite close he spoke. "what strange craft is that?" he asked. the other turned about quickly to gaze heavenward. scarce was his back turned toward the giant than the short-sword of the latter was plunged beneath his left shoulder blade, straight through his heart. voiceless, the soldier sank in his tracks--stone dead. quickly the murderer dragged the corpse into the black shadows within the hangar. then he returned to the flier. drawing a cunningly wrought key from his pocket-pouch, he removed the cover of the right-hand dial of the controlling destination compass. for a moment he studied the construction of the mechanism beneath. then he returned the dial to its place, set the pointer, and removed it again to note the resultant change in the position of the parts affected by the act. a smile crossed his lips. with a pair of cutters he snipped off the projection which extended through the dial from the external pointer--now the latter might be moved to any point upon the dial without affecting the mechanism below. in other words, the eastern hemisphere dial was useless. now he turned his attention to the western dial. this he set upon a certain point. afterward he removed the cover of this dial also, and with keen tool cut the steel finger from the under side of the pointer. as quickly as possible he replaced the second dial cover, and resumed his place on guard. to all intents and purposes the compass was as efficient as before; but, as a matter of fact, the moving of the pointers upon the dials resulted now in no corresponding shift of the mechanism beneath--and the device was set, immovably, upon a destination of the slave's own choosing. presently came carthoris, accompanied by but a handful of his gentlemen. he cast but a casual glance upon the single slave who stood guard. the fellow's thin, cruel lips, and the sword-cut that ran from temple to mouth aroused the suggestion of an unpleasant memory within him. he wondered where saran tal had found the man-- then the matter faded from his thoughts, and in another moment the prince of helium was laughing and chatting with his companions, though below the surface his heart was cold with dread, for what contingencies confronted thuvia of ptarth he could not even guess. first to his mind, naturally, had sprung the thought that astok of dusar had stolen the fair ptarthian; but almost simultaneously with the report of the abduction had come news of the great fetes at dusar in honour of the return of the jeddak's son to the court of his father. it could not have been he, thought carthoris, for on the very night that thuvia was taken astok had been in dusar, and yet-- he entered the flier, exchanging casual remarks with his companions as he unlocked the mechanism of the compass and set the pointer upon the capital city of ptarth. with a word of farewell he touched the button which controlled the repulsive rays, and as the flier rose lightly into the air, the engine purred in answer to the touch of his finger upon a second button, the propellers whirred as his hand drew back the speed lever, and carthoris, prince of helium, was off into the gorgeous martian night beneath the hurtling moons and the million stars. scarce had the flier found its speed ere the man, wrapping his sleeping silks and furs about him, stretched at full length upon the narrow deck to sleep. but sleep did not come at once at his bidding. instead, his thoughts ran riot in his brain, driving sleep away. he recalled the words of thuvia of ptarth, words that had half assured him that she loved him; for when he had asked her if she loved kulan tith, she had answered only that she was promised to him. now he saw that her reply was open to more than a single construction. it might, of course, mean that she did not love kulan tith; and so, by inference, be taken to mean that she loved another. but what assurance was there that the other was carthoris of helium? the more he thought upon it the more positive he became that not only was there no assurance in her words that she loved him, but none either in any act of hers. no, the fact was, she did not love him. she loved another. she had not been abducted--she had fled willingly with her lover. with such pleasant thoughts filling him alternately with despair and rage, carthoris at last dropped into the sleep of utter mental exhaustion. the breaking of the sudden dawn found him still asleep. his flier was rushing swiftly above a barren, ochre plain--the world-old bottom of a long-dead martian sea. in the distance rose low hills. toward these the craft was headed. as it approached them, a great promontory might have been seen from its deck, stretching out into what had once been a mighty ocean, and circling back once more to enclose the forgotten harbour of a forgotten city, which still stretched back from its deserted quays, an imposing pile of wondrous architecture of a long-dead past. the countless dismal windows, vacant and forlorn, stared, sightless, from their marble walls; the whole sad city taking on the semblance of scattered mounds of dead men's sun-bleached skulls--the casements having the appearance of eyeless sockets, the portals, grinning jaws. closer came the flier, but now its speed was diminishing--yet this was not ptarth. above the central plaza it stopped, slowly settling marsward. within a hundred yards of the ground it came to rest, floating gently in the light air, and at the same instant an alarm sounded at the sleeper's ear. carthoris sprang to his feet. below him he looked to see the teeming metropolis of ptarth. beside him, already, there should have been an air patrol. he gazed about in bewildered astonishment. there indeed was a great city, but it was not ptarth. no multitudes surged through its broad avenues. no signs of life broke the dead monotony of its deserted roof tops. no gorgeous silks, no priceless furs lent life and colour to the cold marble and the gleaming ersite. no patrol boat lay ready with its familiar challenge. silent and empty lay the great city--empty and silent the surrounding air. what had happened? carthoris examined the dial of his compass. the pointer was set upon ptarth. could the creature of his genius have thus betrayed him? he would not believe it. quickly he unlocked the cover, turning it back upon its hinge. a single glance showed him the truth, or at least a part of it--the steel projection that communicated the movement of the pointer upon the dial to the heart of the mechanism beneath had been severed. who could have done the thing--and why? carthoris could not hazard even a faint guess. but the thing now was to learn in what portion of the world he was, and then take up his interrupted journey once more. if it had been the purpose of some enemy to delay him, he had succeeded well, thought carthoris, as he unlocked the cover of the second dial the first having shown that its pointer had not been set at all. beneath the second dial he found the steel pin severed as in the other, but the controlling mechanism had first been set for a point upon the western hemisphere. he had just time to judge his location roughly at some place south-west of helium, and at a considerable distance from the twin cities, when he was startled by a woman's scream beneath him. leaning over the side of the flier, he saw what appeared to be a red woman being dragged across the plaza by a huge green warrior--one of those fierce, cruel denizens of the dead sea-bottoms and deserted cities of dying mars. carthoris waited to see no more. reaching for the control board, he sent his craft racing plummet-like toward the ground. the green man was hurrying his captive toward a huge thoat that browsed upon the ochre vegetation of the once scarlet-gorgeous plaza. at the same instant a dozen red warriors leaped from the entrance of a nearby ersite palace, pursuing the abductor with naked swords and shouts of rageful warning. once the woman turned her face upward toward the falling flier, and in the single swift glance carthoris saw that it was thuvia of ptarth! chapter iv a green man's captive when the light of day broke upon the little craft to whose deck the princess of ptarth had been snatched from her father's garden, thuvia saw that the night had wrought a change in her abductors. no longer did their trappings gleam with the metal of dusar, but instead there was emblazoned there the insignia of the prince of helium. the girl felt renewed hope, for she could not believe that in the heart of carthoris could lie intent to harm her. she spoke to the warrior squatting before the control board. "last night you wore the trappings of a dusarian," she said. "now your metal is that of helium. what means it?" the man looked at her with a grin. "the prince of helium is no fool," he said. just then an officer emerged from the tiny cabin. he reprimanded the warrior for conversing with the prisoner, nor would he himself reply to any of her inquiries. no harm was offered her during the journey, and so they came at last to their destination with the girl no wiser as to her abductors or their purpose than at first. here the flier settled slowly into the plaza of one of those mute monuments of mars' dead and forgotten past--the deserted cities that fringe the sad ochre sea-bottoms where once rolled the mighty floods upon whose bosoms moved the maritime commerce of the peoples that are gone for ever. thuvia of ptarth was no stranger to such places. during her wanderings in search of the river iss, that time she had set out upon what, for countless ages, had been the last, long pilgrimage of martians, toward the valley dor, where lies the lost sea of korus, she had encountered several of these sad reminders of the greatness and the glory of ancient barsoom. and again, during her flight from the temples of the holy therns with tars tarkas, jeddak of thark, she had seen them, with their weird and ghostly inmates, the great white apes of barsoom. she knew, too, that many of them were used now by the nomadic tribes of green men, but that among them all was no city that the red men did not shun, for without exception they stood amidst vast, waterless tracts, unsuited for the continued sustenance of the dominant race of martians. why, then, should they be bringing her to such a place? there was but a single answer. such was the nature of their work that they must needs seek the seclusion that a dead city afforded. the girl trembled at thought of her plight. for two days her captors kept her within a huge palace that even in decay reflected the splendour of the age which its youth had known. just before dawn on the third day she had been aroused by the voices of two of her abductors. "he should be here by dawn," one was saying. "have her in readiness upon the plaza--else he will never land. the moment he finds that he is in a strange country he will turn about--methinks the prince's plan is weak in this one spot." "there was no other way," replied the other. "it is wondrous work to get them both here at all, and even if we do not succeed in luring him to the ground, we shall have accomplished much." just then the speaker caught the eyes of thuvia upon him, revealed by the quick-moving patch of light cast by thuria in her mad race through the heavens. with a quick sign to the other, he ceased speaking, and advancing toward the girl, motioned her to rise. then he led her out into the night toward the centre of the great plaza. "stand here," he commanded, "until we come for you. we shall be watching, and should you attempt to escape it will go ill with you--much worse than death. such are the prince's orders." then he turned and retraced his steps toward the palace, leaving her alone in the midst of the unseen terrors of the haunted city, for in truth these places are haunted in the belief of many martians who still cling to an ancient superstition which teaches that the spirits of holy therns who die before their allotted one thousand years, pass, on occasions, into the bodies of the great white apes. to thuvia, however, the real danger of attack by one of these ferocious, manlike beasts was quite sufficient. she no longer believed in the weird soul transmigration that the therns had taught her before she was rescued from their clutches by john carter; but she well knew the horrid fate that awaited her should one of the terrible beasts chance to spy her during its nocturnal prowlings. what was that? surely she could not be mistaken. something had moved, stealthily, in the shadow of one of the great monoliths that line the avenue where it entered the plaza opposite her! thar ban, jed among the hordes of torquas, rode swiftly across the ochre vegetation of the dead sea-bottom toward the ruins of ancient aaanthor. he had ridden far that night, and fast, for he had but come from the despoiling of the incubator of a neighbouring green horde with which the hordes of torquas were perpetually warring. his giant thoat was far from jaded, yet it would be well, thought thar ban, to permit him to graze upon the ochre moss which grows to greater height within the protected courtyards of deserted cities, where the soil is richer than on the sea-bottoms, and the plants partly shaded from the sun during the cloudless martian day. within the tiny stems of this dry-seeming plant is sufficient moisture for the needs of the huge bodies of the mighty thoats, which can exist for months without water, and for days without even the slight moisture which the ochre moss contains. as thar ban rode noiselessly up the broad avenue which leads from the quays of aaanthor to the great central plaza, he and his mount might have been mistaken for spectres from a world of dreams, so grotesque the man and beast, so soundless the great thoat's padded, nailless feet upon the moss-grown flagging of the ancient pavement. the man was a splendid specimen of his race. fully fifteen feet towered his great height from sole to pate. the moonlight glistened against his glossy green hide, sparkling the jewels of his heavy harness and the ornaments that weighted his four muscular arms, while the upcurving tusks that protruded from his lower jaw gleamed white and terrible. at the side of his thoat were slung his long radium rifle and his great, forty-foot, metal-shod spear, while from his own harness depended his long-sword and his short-sword, as well as his lesser weapons. his protruding eyes and antennae-like ears were turning constantly hither and thither, for thar ban was yet in the country of the enemy, and, too, there was always the menace of the great white apes, which, john carter was wont to say, are the only creatures that can arouse in the breasts of these fierce denizens of the dead sea-bottoms even the remotest semblance of fear. as the rider neared the plaza, he reined suddenly in. his slender, tubular ears pointed rigidly forward. an unwonted sound had reached them. voices! and where there were voices, outside of torquas, there, too, were enemies. all the world of wide barsoom contained naught but enemies for the fierce torquasians. thar ban dismounted. keeping in the shadows of the great monoliths that line the avenue of quays of sleeping aaanthor, he approached the plaza. directly behind him, as a hound at heel, came the slate-grey thoat, his white belly shadowed by his barrel, his vivid yellow feet merging into the yellow of the moss beneath them. in the centre of the plaza thar ban saw the figure of a red woman. a red warrior was conversing with her. now the man turned and retraced his steps toward the palace at the opposite side of the plaza. thar ban watched until he had disappeared within the yawning portal. here was a captive worth having! seldom did a female of their hereditary enemies fall to the lot of a green man. thar ban licked his thin lips. thuvia of ptarth watched the shadow behind the monolith at the opening to the avenue opposite her. she hoped that it might be but the figment of an overwrought imagination. but no! now, clearly and distinctly, she saw it move. it came from behind the screening shelter of the ersite shaft. the sudden light of the rising sun fell upon it. the girl trembled. the thing was a huge green warrior! swiftly it sprang toward her. she screamed and tried to flee; but she had scarce turned toward the palace when a giant hand fell upon her arm, she was whirled about, and half dragged, half carried toward a huge thoat that was slowly grazing out of the avenue's mouth on to the ochre moss of the plaza. at the same instant she turned her face upward toward the whirring sound of something above her, and there she saw a swift flier dropping toward her, the head and shoulders of a man leaning far over the side; but the man's features were deeply shadowed, so that she did not recognize them. now from behind her came the shouts of her red abductors. they were racing madly after him who dared to steal what they already had stolen. as thar ban reached the side of his mount he snatched his long radium rifle from its boot, and, wheeling, poured three shots into the oncoming red men. such is the uncanny marksmanship of these martian savages that three red warriors dropped in their tracks as three projectiles exploded in their vitals. the others halted, nor did they dare return the fire for fear of wounding the girl. then thar ban vaulted to the back of his thoat, thuvia of ptarth still in his arms, and with a savage cry of triumph disappeared down the black canyon of the avenue of quays between the sullen palaces of forgotten aaanthor. carthoris' flier had not touched the ground before he had sprung from its deck to race after the swift thoat, whose eight long legs were sending it down the avenue at the rate of an express train; but the men of dusar who still remained alive had no mind to permit so valuable a capture to escape them. they had lost the girl. that would be a difficult thing to explain to astok; but some leniency might be expected could they carry the prince of helium to their master instead. so the three who remained set upon carthoris with their long-swords, crying to him to surrender; but they might as successfully have cried aloud to thuria to cease her mad hurtling through the barsoomian sky, for carthoris of helium was a true son of the warlord of mars and his incomparable dejah thoris. carthoris' long-sword had been already in his hand as he leaped from the deck of the flier, so the instant that he realized the menace of the three red warriors, he wheeled to face them, meeting their onslaught as only john carter himself might have done. so swift his sword, so mighty and agile his half-earthly muscles, that one of his opponents was down, crimsoning the ochre moss with his life-blood, when he had scarce made a single pass at carthoris. now the two remaining dusarians rushed simultaneously upon the heliumite. three long-swords clashed and sparkled in the moonlight, until the great white apes, roused from their slumbers, crept to the lowering windows of the dead city to view the bloody scene beneath them. thrice was carthoris touched, so that the red blood ran down his face, blinding him and dyeing his broad chest. with his free hand he wiped the gore from his eyes, and with the fighting smile of his father touching his lips, leaped upon his antagonists with renewed fury. a single cut of his heavy sword severed the head of one of them, and then the other, backing away clear of that point of death, turned and fled toward the palace at his back. carthoris made no step to pursue. he had other concern than the meting of even well-deserved punishment to strange men who masqueraded in the metal of his own house, for he had seen that these men were tricked out in the insignia that marked his personal followers. turning quickly toward his flier, he was soon rising from the plaza in pursuit of thar ban. the red warrior whom he had put to flight turned in the entrance to the palace, and, seeing carthoris' intent, snatched a rifle from those that he and his fellows had left leaning against the wall as they had rushed out with drawn swords to prevent the theft of their prisoner. few red men are good shots, for the sword is their chosen weapon; so now as the dusarian drew bead upon the rising flier, and touched the button upon his rifle's stock, it was more to chance than proficiency that he owed the partial success of his aim. the projectile grazed the flier's side, the opaque coating breaking sufficiently to permit daylight to strike in upon the powder phial within the bullet's nose. there was a sharp explosion. carthoris felt his craft reel drunkenly beneath him, and the engine stopped. the momentum the air boat had gained carried her on over the city toward the sea-bottom beyond. the red warrior in the plaza fired several more shots, none of which scored. then a lofty minaret shut the drifting quarry from his view. in the distance before him carthoris could see the green warrior bearing thuvia of ptarth away upon his mighty thoat. the direction of his flight was toward the north-west of aaanthor, where lay a mountainous country little known to red men. the heliumite now gave his attention to his injured craft. a close examination revealed the fact that one of the buoyancy tanks had been punctured, but the engine itself was uninjured. a splinter from the projectile had damaged one of the control levers beyond the possibility of repair outside a machine shop; but after considerable tinkering, carthoris was able to propel his wounded flier at low speed, a rate which could not approach the rapid gait of the thoat, whose eight long, powerful legs carried it over the ochre vegetation of the dead sea-bottom at terrific speed. the prince of helium chafed and fretted at the slowness of his pursuit, yet he was thankful that the damage was no worse, for now he could at least move more rapidly than on foot. but even this meagre satisfaction was soon to be denied him, for presently the flier commenced to sag toward the port and by the bow. the damage to the buoyancy tanks had evidently been more grievous than he had at first believed. all the balance of that long day carthoris crawled erratically through the still air, the bow of the flier sinking lower and lower, and the list to port becoming more and more alarming, until at last, near dark, he was floating almost bowdown, his harness buckled to a heavy deck ring to keep him from being precipitated to the ground below. his forward movement was now confined to a slow drifting with the gentle breeze that blew out of the south-east, and when this died down with the setting of the sun, he let the flier sink gently to the mossy carpet beneath. far before him loomed the mountains toward which the green man had been fleeing when last he had seen him, and with dogged resolution the son of john carter, endowed with the indomitable will of his mighty sire, took up the pursuit on foot. all that night he forged ahead until, with the dawning of a new day, he entered the low foothills that guard the approach to the fastness of the mountains of torquas. rugged, granitic walls towered before him. nowhere could he discern an opening through the formidable barrier; yet somewhere into this inhospitable world of stone the green warrior had borne the woman of the red man's heart's desire. across the yielding moss of the sea-bottom there had been no spoor to follow, for the soft pads of the thoat but pressed down in his swift passage the resilient vegetation which sprang up again behind his fleeting feet, leaving no sign. but here in the hills, where loose rock occasionally strewed the way; where black loam and wild flowers partially replaced the sombre monotony of the waste places of the lowlands, carthoris hoped to find some sign that would lead him in the right direction. yet, search as he would, the baffling mystery of the trail seemed likely to remain for ever unsolved. it was drawing toward the day's close once more when the keen eyes of the heliumite discerned the tawny yellow of a sleek hide moving among the boulders several hundred yards to his left. crouching quickly behind a large rock, carthoris watched the thing before him. it was a huge banth, one of those savage barsoomian lions that roam the desolate hills of the dying planet. the creature's nose was close to the ground. it was evident that he was following the spoor of meat by scent. as carthoris watched him, a great hope leaped into the man's heart. here, possibly, might lie the solution to the mystery he had been endeavouring to solve. this hungry carnivore, keen always for the flesh of man, might even now be trailing the two whom carthoris sought. cautiously the youth crept out upon the trail of the man-eater. along the foot of the perpendicular cliff the creature moved, sniffing at the invisible spoor, and now and then emitting the low moan of the hunting banth. carthoris had followed the creature for but a few minutes when it disappeared as suddenly and mysteriously as though dissolved into thin air. the man leaped to his feet. not again was he to be cheated as the man had cheated him. he sprang forward at a reckless pace to the spot at which he last had seen the great, skulking brute. before him loomed the sheer cliff, its face unbroken by any aperture into which the huge banth might have wormed its great carcass. beside him was a small, flat boulder, not larger than the deck of a ten-man flier, nor standing to a greater height than twice his own stature. perhaps the banth was in hiding behind this? the brute might have discovered the man upon his trail, and even now be lying in wait for his easy prey. cautiously, with drawn long-sword, carthoris crept around the corner of the rock. there was no banth there, but something which surprised him infinitely more than would the presence of twenty banths. before him yawned the mouth of a dark cave leading downward into the ground. through this the banth must have disappeared. was it his lair? within its dark and forbidding interior might there not lurk not one but many of the fearsome creatures? carthoris did not know, nor, with the thought that had been spurring him onward upon the trail of the creature uppermost in his mind, did he much care; for into this gloomy cavern he was sure the banth had trailed the green man and his captive, and into it he, too, would follow, content to give his life in the service of the woman he loved. not an instant did he hesitate, nor yet did he advance rashly; but with ready sword and cautious steps, for the way was dark, he stole on. as he advanced, the obscurity became impenetrable blackness. chapter v the fair race downward along a smooth, broad floor led the strange tunnel, for such carthoris was now convinced was the nature of the shaft he at first had thought but a cave. before him he could hear the occasional low moans of the banth, and presently from behind came a similar uncanny note. another banth had entered the passageway on his trail! his position was anything but pleasant. his eyes could not penetrate the darkness even to the distinguishing of his hand before his face, while the banths, he knew, could see quite well, though absence of light were utter. no other sounds came to his ears than the dismal, bloodthirsty moanings of the beast ahead and the beast behind. the tunnel had led straight, from where he had entered it beneath the side of the rock furthest from the unscaleable cliffs, toward the mighty barrier that had baffled him so long. now it was running almost level, and presently he noted a gradual ascent. the beast behind him was gaining upon him, crowding him perilously close upon the heels of the beast in front. presently he should have to do battle with one, or both. more firmly he gripped his weapon. now he could hear the breathing of the banth at his heels. not for much longer could he delay the encounter. long since he had become assured that the tunnel led beneath the cliffs to the opposite side of the barrier, and he had hoped that he might reach the moonlit open before being compelled to grapple with either of the monsters. the sun had been setting as he entered the tunnel, and the way had been sufficiently long to assure him that darkness now reigned upon the world without. he glanced behind him. blazing out of the darkness, seemingly not ten paces behind, glared two flaming points of fire. as the savage eyes met his, the beast emitted a frightful roar and then he charged. to face that savage mountain of onrushing ferocity, to stand unshaken before the hideous fangs that he knew were bared in slavering blood-thirstiness, though he could not see them, required nerves of steel; but of such were the nerves of carthoris of helium. he had the brute's eyes to guide his point, and, as true as the sword hand of his mighty sire, his guided the keen point to one of those blazing orbs, even as he leaped lightly to one side. with a hideous scream of pain and rage, the wounded banth hurtled, clawing, past him. then it turned to charge once more; but this time carthoris saw but a single gleaming point of fiery hate directed upon him. again the needle point met its flashing target. again the horrid cry of the stricken beast reverberated through the rocky tunnel, shocking in its torture-laden shrillness, deafening in its terrific volume. but now, as it turned to charge again, the man had no guide whereby to direct his point. he heard the scraping of the padded feet upon the rocky floor. he knew the thing was charging down upon him once again, but he could see nothing. yet, if he could not see his antagonist, neither could his antagonist now see him. leaping, as he thought, to the exact centre of the tunnel, he held his sword point ready on a line with the beast's chest. it was all that he could do, hoping that chance might send the point into the savage heart as he went down beneath the great body. so quickly was the thing over that carthoris could scarce believe his senses as the mighty body rushed madly past him. either he had not placed himself in the centre of the tunnel, or else the blinded banth had erred in its calculations. however, the huge body missed him by a foot, and the creature continued on down the tunnel as though in pursuit of the prey that had eluded him. carthoris, too, followed the same direction, nor was it long before his heart was gladdened by the sight of the moonlit exit from the long, dark passage. before him lay a deep hollow, entirely surrounded by gigantic cliffs. the surface of the valley was dotted with enormous trees, a strange sight so far from a martian waterway. the ground itself was clothed in brilliant scarlet sward, picked out with innumerable patches of gorgeous wild flowers. beneath the glorious effulgence of the two moons the scene was one of indescribable loveliness, tinged with the weirdness of strange enchantment. for only an instant, however, did his gaze rest upon the natural beauties outspread before him. almost immediately they were riveted upon the figure of a great banth standing across the carcass of a new-killed thoat. the huge beast, his tawny mane bristling around his hideous head, kept his eyes fixed upon another banth that charged erratically hither and thither, with shrill screams of pain, and horrid roars of hate and rage. carthoris quickly guessed that the second brute was the one he had blinded during the fight in the tunnel, but it was the dead thoat that centred his interest more than either of the savage carnivores. the harness was still upon the body of the huge martian mount, and carthoris could not doubt but that this was the very animal upon which the green warrior had borne away thuvia of ptarth. but where were the rider and his prisoner? the prince of helium shuddered as he thought upon the probability of the fate that had overtaken them. human flesh is the food most craved by the fierce barsoomian lion, whose great carcass and giant thews require enormous quantities of meat to sustain them. two human bodies would have but whetted the creature's appetite, and that he had killed and eaten the green man and the red girl seemed only too likely to carthoris. he had left the carcass of the mighty thoat to be devoured after having consumed the more tooth-some portion of his banquet. now the sightless banth, in its savage, aimless charging and counter-charging, had passed beyond the kill of its fellow, and there the light breeze that was blowing wafted the scent of new blood to its nostrils. no longer were its movements erratic. with outstretched tail and foaming jaws it charged straight as an arrow, for the body of the thoat and the mighty creature of destruction that stood with forepaws upon the slate-grey side, waiting to defend its meat. when the charging banth was twenty paces from the dead thoat the killer gave vent to its hideous challenge, and with a mighty spring leaped forward to meet it. the battle that ensued awed even the warlike barsoomian. the mad rending, the hideous and deafening roaring, the implacable savagery of the blood-stained beasts held him in the paralysis of fascination, and when it was over and the two creatures, their heads and shoulders torn to ribbons, lay with their dead jaws still buried in each other's bodies, carthoris tore himself from the spell only by an effort of the will. hurrying to the side of the dead thoat, he searched for traces of the girl he feared had shared the thoat's fate, but nowhere could he discover anything to confirm his fears. with slightly lightened heart he started out to explore the valley, but scarce a dozen steps had he taken when the glistening of a jewelled bauble lying on the sward caught his eye. as he picked it up his first glance showed him that it was a woman's hair ornament, and emblazoned upon it was the insignia of the royal house of ptarth. but, sinister discovery, blood, still wet, splotched the magnificent jewels of the setting. carthoris half choked as the dire possibilities which the thing suggested presented themselves to his imagination. yet he could not, would not believe it. it was impossible that that radiant creature could have met so hideous an end. it was incredible that the glorious thuvia should ever cease to be. upon his already jewel-encrusted harness, to the strap that crossed his great chest beneath which beat his loyal heart, carthoris, prince of helium, fastened the gleaming thing that thuvia of ptarth had worn, and wearing, had made holy to the heliumite. then he proceeded upon his way into the heart of the unknown valley. for the most part the giant trees shut off his view to any but the most limited distances. occasionally he caught glimpses of the towering hills that bounded the valley upon every side, and though they stood out clear beneath the light of the two moons, he knew that they were far off, and that the extent of the valley was immense. for half the night he continued his search, until presently he was brought to a sudden halt by the distant sound of squealing thoats. guided by the noise of these habitually angry beasts, he stole forward through the trees until at last he came upon a level, treeless plain, in the centre of which a mighty city reared its burnished domes and vividly coloured towers. about the walled city the red man saw a huge encampment of the green warriors of the dead sea-bottoms, and as he let his eyes rove carefully over the city he realized that here was no deserted metropolis of a dead past. but what city could it be? his studies had taught him that in this little-explored portion of barsoom the fierce tribe of torquasian green men ruled supreme, and that as yet no red man had succeeded in piercing to the heart of their domain to return again to the world of civilization. the men of torquas had perfected huge guns with which their uncanny marksmanship had permitted them to repulse the few determined efforts that near-by red nations had made to explore their country by means of battle fleets of airships. that he was within the boundary of torquas, carthoris was sure, but that there existed there such a wondrous city he never had dreamed, nor had the chronicles of the past even hinted at such a possibility, for the torquasians were known to live, as did the other green men of mars, within the deserted cities that dotted the dying planet, nor ever had any green horde built so much as a single edifice, other than the low-walled incubators where their young are hatched by the sun's heat. the encircling camp of green warriors lay about five hundred yards from the city's walls. between it and the city was no semblance of breastwork or other protection against rifle or cannon fire; yet distinctly now in the light of the rising sun carthoris could see many figures moving along the summit of the high wall, and upon the roof tops beyond. that they were beings like himself he was sure, though they were at too great distance from him for him to be positive that they were red men. almost immediately after sunrise the green warriors commenced firing upon the little figures upon the wall. to carthoris' surprise the fire was not returned, but presently the last of the city's inhabitants had sought shelter from the weird marksmanship of the green men, and no further sign of life was visible beyond the wall. then carthoris, keeping within the shelter of the trees that fringed the plain, began circling the rear of the besiegers' line, hoping against hope that somewhere he would obtain sight of thuvia of ptarth, for even now he could not believe that she was dead. that he was not discovered was a miracle, for mounted warriors were constantly riding back and forth from the camp into the forest; but the long day wore on and still he continued his seemingly fruitless quest, until, near sunset, he came opposite a mighty gate in the city's western wall. here seemed to be the principal force of the attacking horde. here a great platform had been erected whereon carthoris could see squatting a huge green warrior, surrounded by others of his kind. this, then, must be the notorious hortan gur, jeddak of torquas, the fierce old ogre of the south-western hemisphere, as only for a jeddak are platforms raised in temporary camps or upon the march by the green hordes of barsoom. as the heliumite watched he saw another green warrior push his way forward toward the rostrum. beside him he dragged a captive, and as the surrounding warriors parted to let the two pass, carthoris caught a fleeting glimpse of the prisoner. his heart leaped in rejoicing. thuvia of ptarth still lived! it was with difficulty that carthoris restrained the impulse to rush forward to the side of the ptarthian princess; but in the end his better judgment prevailed, for in the face of such odds he knew that he should have been but throwing away, uselessly, any future opportunity he might have to succour her. he saw her dragged to the foot of the rostrum. he saw hortan gur address her. he could not hear the creature's words, nor thuvia's reply; but it must have angered the green monster, for carthoris saw him leap toward the prisoner, striking her a cruel blow across the face with his metal-banded arm. then the son of john carter, jeddak of jeddaks, warlord of barsoom, went mad. the old, blood-red haze through which his sire had glared at countless foes, floated before his eyes. his half-earthly muscles, responding quickly to his will, sent him in enormous leaps and bounds toward the green monster that had struck the woman he loved. the torquasians were not looking in the direction of the forest. all eyes had been upon the figures of the girl and their jeddak, and loud was the hideous laughter that rang out in appreciation of the wit of the green emperor's reply to his prisoner's appeal for liberty. carthoris had covered about half the distance between the forest and the green warriors, when a new factor succeeded in still further directing the attention of the latter from him. upon a high tower within the beleaguered city a man appeared. from his upturned mouth there issued a series of frightful shrieks; uncanny shrieks that swept, shrill and terrifying, across the city's walls, over the heads of the besiegers, and out across the forest to the uttermost confines of the valley. once, twice, thrice the fearsome sound smote upon the ears of the listening green men and then far, far off across the broad woods came sharp and clear from the distance an answering shriek. it was but the first. from every point rose similar savage cries, until the world seemed to tremble to their reverberations. the green warriors looked nervously this way and that. they knew not fear, as earth men may know it; but in the face of the unusual their wonted self-assurance deserted them. and then the great gate in the city wall opposite the platform of hortan gur swung suddenly wide. from it issued as strange a sight as carthoris ever had witnessed, though at the moment he had time to cast but a single fleeting glance at the tall bowmen emerging through the portal behind their long, oval shields; to note their flowing auburn hair; and to realize that the growling things at their side were fierce barsoomian lions. then he was in the midst of the astonished torquasians. with drawn long-sword he was among them, and to thuvia of ptarth, whose startled eyes were the first to fall upon him, it seemed that she was looking upon john carter himself, so strangely similar to the fighting of the father was that of the son. even to the famous fighting smile of the virginian was the resemblance true. and the sword arm! ah, the subtleness of it, and the speed! all about was turmoil and confusion. green warriors were leaping to the backs of their restive, squealing thoats. calots were growling out their savage gutturals, whining to be at the throats of the oncoming foemen. thar ban and another by the side of the rostrum had been the first to note the coming of carthoris, and it was with them he battled for possession of the red girl, while the others hastened to meet the host advancing from the beleaguered city. carthoris sought both to defend thuvia of ptarth and reach the side of the hideous hortan gur that he might avenge the blow the creature had struck the girl. he succeeded in reaching the rostrum, over the dead bodies of two warriors who had turned to join thar ban and his companion in repulsing this adventurous red man, just as hortan gur was about to leap from it to the back of his thoat. the attention of the green warriors turned principally upon the bowmen advancing upon them from the city, and upon the savage banths that paced beside them--cruel beasts of war, infinitely more terrible than their own savage calots. as carthoris leaped to the rostrum he drew thuvia up beside him, and then he turned upon the departing jeddak with an angry challenge and a sword thrust. as the heliumite's point pricked his green hide, hortan gur turned upon his adversary with a snarl, but at the same instant two of his chieftains called to him to hasten, for the charge of the fair-skinned inhabitants of the city was developing into a more serious matter than the torquasians had anticipated. instead of remaining to battle with the red man, hortan gur promised him his attention after he had disposed of the presumptuous citizens of the walled city, and, leaping astride his thoat, galloped off to meet the rapidly advancing bowmen. the other warriors quickly followed their jeddak, leaving thuvia and carthoris alone upon the platform. between them and the city raged a terrific battle. the fair-skinned warriors, armed only with their long bows and a kind of short-handled war-axe, were almost helpless beneath the savage mounted green men at close quarters; but at a distance their sharp arrows did fully as much execution as the radium projectiles of the green men. but if the warriors themselves were outclassed, not so their savage companions, the fierce banths. scarce had the two lines come together when hundreds of these appalling creatures had leaped among the torquasians, dragging warriors from their thoats--dragging down the huge thoats themselves, and bringing consternation to all before them. the numbers of the citizenry, too, was to their advantage, for it seemed that scarce a warrior fell but his place was taken by a score more, in such a constant stream did they pour from the city's great gate. and so it came, what with the ferocity of the banths and the numbers of the bowmen, that at last the torquasians fell back, until presently the platform upon which stood carthoris and thuvia lay directly in the centre of the fight. that neither was struck by a bullet or an arrow seemed a miracle to both; but at last the tide had rolled completely past them, so that they were alone between the fighters and the city, except for the dying and the dead, and a score or so of growling banths, less well trained than their fellows, who prowled among the corpses seeking meat. to carthoris the strangest part of the battle had been the terrific toll taken by the bowmen with their relatively puny weapons. nowhere that he could see was there a single wounded green man, but the corpses of their dead lay thick upon the field of battle. death seemed to follow instantly the slightest pinprick of a bowman's arrow, nor apparently did one ever miss its goal. there could be but one explanation: the missiles were poison-tipped. presently the sounds of conflict died in the distant forest. quiet reigned, broken only by the growling of the devouring banths. carthoris turned toward thuvia of ptarth. as yet neither had spoken. "where are we, thuvia?" he asked. the girl looked at him questioningly. his very presence had seemed to proclaim a guilty knowledge of her abduction. how else might he have known the destination of the flier that brought her! "who should know better than the prince of helium?" she asked in return. "did he not come hither of his own free will?" "from aaanthor i came voluntarily upon the trail of the green man who had stolen you, thuvia," he replied; "but from the time i left helium until i awoke above aaanthor i thought myself bound for ptarth. "it had been intimated that i had guilty knowledge of your abduction," he explained simply, "and i was hastening to the jeddak, your father, to convince him of the falsity of the charge, and to give my service to your recovery. before i left helium some one tampered with my compass, so that it bore me to aaanthor instead of to ptarth. that is all. you believe me?" "but the warriors who stole me from the garden!" she exclaimed. "after we arrived at aaanthor they wore the metal of the prince of helium. when they took me they were trapped in dusarian harness. there seemed but a single explanation. whoever dared the outrage wished to put the onus upon another, should he be detected in the act; but once safely away from ptarth he felt safe in having his minions return to their own harness." "you believe that i did this thing, thuvia?" he asked. "ah, carthoris," she replied sadly, "i did not wish to believe it; but when everything pointed to you--even then i would not believe it." "i did not do it, thuvia," he said. "but let me be entirely honest with you. as much as i love your father, as much as i respect kulan tith, to whom you are betrothed, as well as i know the frightful consequences that must have followed such an act of mine, hurling into war, as it would, three of the greatest nations of barsoom--yet, notwithstanding all this, i should not have hesitated to take you thus, thuvia of ptarth, had you even hinted that it would not have displeased you. "but you did nothing of the kind, and so i am here, not in my own service, but in yours, and in the service of the man to whom you are promised, to save you for him, if it lies within the power of man to do so," he concluded, almost bitterly. thuvia of ptarth looked into his face for several moments. her breast was rising and falling as though to some resistless emotion. she half took a step toward him. her lips parted as though to speak--swiftly and impetuously. and then she conquered whatever had moved her. "the future acts of the prince of helium," she said coldly, "must constitute the proof of his past honesty of purpose." carthoris was hurt by the girl's tone, as much as by the doubt as to his integrity which her words implied. he had half hoped that she might hint that his love would be acceptable--certainly there was due him at least a little gratitude for his recent acts in her behalf; but the best he received was cold skepticism. the prince of helium shrugged his broad shoulders. the girl noted it, and the little smile that touched his lips, so that it became her turn to be hurt. of course she had not meant to hurt him. he might have known that after what he had said she could not do anything to encourage him! but he need not have made his indifference quite so palpable. the men of helium were noted for their gallantry--not for boorishness. possibly it was the earth blood that flowed in his veins. how could she know that the shrug was but carthoris' way of attempting, by physical effort, to cast blighting sorrow from his heart, or that the smile upon his lips was the fighting smile of his father with which the son gave outward evidence of the determination he had reached to submerge his own great love in his efforts to save thuvia of ptarth for another, because he believed that she loved this other! he reverted to his original question. "where are we?" he asked. "i do not know." "nor i," replied the girl. "those who stole me from ptarth spoke among themselves of aaanthor, so that i thought it possible that the ancient city to which they took me was that famous ruin; but where we may be now i have no idea." "when the bowmen return we shall doubtless learn all that there is to know," said carthoris. "let us hope that they prove friendly. what race may they be? only in the most ancient of our legends and in the mural paintings of the deserted cities of the dead sea-bottoms are depicted such a race of auburn-haired, fair-skinned people. can it be that we have stumbled upon a surviving city of the past which all barsoom believes buried beneath the ages?" thuvia was looking toward the forest into which the green men and the pursuing bowmen had disappeared. from a great distance came the hideous cries of banths, and an occasional shot. "it is strange that they do not return," said the girl. "one would expect to see the wounded limping or being carried back to the city," replied carthoris, with a puzzled frown. "but how about the wounded nearer the city? have they carried them within?" both turned their eyes toward the field between them and the walled city, where the fighting had been most furious. there were the banths, still growling about their hideous feast. carthoris looked at thuvia in astonishment. then he pointed toward the field. "where are they?" he whispered. "what has become of their dead and wounded?" chapter vi the jeddak of lothar the girl looked her incredulity. "they lay in piles," she murmured. "there were thousands of them but a minute ago." "and now," continued carthoris, "there remain but the banths and the carcasses of the green men." "they must have sent forth and carried the dead bowmen away while we were talking," said the girl. "it is impossible!" replied carthoris. "thousands of dead lay there upon the field but a moment since. it would have required many hours to have removed them. the thing is uncanny." "i had hoped," said thuvia, "that we might find an asylum with these fair-skinned people. notwithstanding their valour upon the field of battle, they did not strike me as a ferocious or warlike people. i had been about to suggest that we seek entrance to the city, but now i scarce know if i care to venture among people whose dead vanish into thin air." "let us chance it," replied carthoris. "we can be no worse off within their walls than without. here we may fall prey to the banths or the no less fierce torquasians. there, at least, we shall find beings moulded after our own images. "all that causes me to hesitate," he added, "is the danger of taking you past so many banths. a single sword would scarce prevail were even a couple of them to charge simultaneously." "do not fear on that score," replied the girl, smiling. "the banths will not harm us." as she spoke she descended from the platform, and with carthoris at her side stepped fearlessly out upon the bloody field in the direction of the walled city of mystery. they had advanced but a short distance when a banth, looking up from its gory feast, descried them. with an angry roar the beast walked quickly in their direction, and at the sound of its voice a score of others followed its example. carthoris drew his long-sword. the girl stole a quick glance at his face. she saw the smile upon his lips, and it was as wine to sick nerves; for even upon warlike barsoom where all men are brave, woman reacts quickly to quiet indifference to danger--to dare-deviltry that is without bombast. "you may return your sword," she said. "i told you that the banths would not harm us. look!" and as she spoke she stepped quickly toward the nearest animal. carthoris would have leaped after her to protect her, but with a gesture she motioned him back. he heard her calling to the banths in a low, singsong voice that was half purr. instantly the great heads went up and all the wicked eyes were riveted upon the figure of the girl. then, stealthily, they commenced moving toward her. she had stopped now and was standing waiting them. one, closer to her than the others, hesitated. she spoke to him imperiously, as a master might speak to a refractory hound. the great carnivore let its head droop, and with tail between its legs came slinking to the girl's feet, and after it came the others until she was entirely surrounded by the savage maneaters. turning she led them to where carthoris stood. they growled a little as they neared the man, but a few sharp words of command put them in their places. "how do you do it?" exclaimed carthoris. "your father once asked me that same question in the galleries of the golden cliffs within the otz mountains, beneath the temples of the therns. i could not answer him, nor can i answer you. i do not know whence comes my power over them, but ever since the day that sator throg threw me among them in the banth pit of the holy therns, and the great creatures fawned upon instead of devouring me, i ever have had the same strange power over them. they come at my call and do my bidding, even as the faithful woola does the bidding of your mighty sire." with a word the girl dispersed the fierce pack. roaring, they returned to their interrupted feast, while carthoris and thuvia passed among them toward the walled city. as they advanced the man looked with wonder upon the dead bodies of those of the green men that had not been devoured or mauled by the banths. he called the girl's attention to them. no arrows protruded from the great carcasses. nowhere upon any of them was the sign of mortal wound, nor even slightest scratch or abrasion. before the bowmen's dead had disappeared the corpses of the torquasians had bristled with the deadly arrows of their foes. where had the slender messengers of death departed? what unseen hand had plucked them from the bodies of the slain? despite himself carthoris could scarce repress a shudder of apprehension as he glanced toward the silent city before them. no longer was sign of life visible upon wall or roof top. all was quiet--brooding, ominous quiet. yet he was sure that eyes watched them from somewhere behind that blank wall. he glanced at thuvia. she was advancing with wide eyes fixed upon the city gate. he looked in the direction of her gaze, but saw nothing. his gaze upon her seemed to arouse her as from a lethargy. she glanced up at him, a quick, brave smile touching her lips, and then, as though the act was involuntary, she came close to his side and placed one of her hands in his. he guessed that something within her that was beyond her conscious control was appealing to him for protection. he threw an arm about her, and thus they crossed the field. she did not draw away from him. it is doubtful that she realized that his arm was there, so engrossed was she in the mystery of the strange city before them. they stopped before the gate. it was a mighty thing. from its construction carthoris could but dimly speculate upon its unthinkable antiquity. it was circular, closing a circular aperture, and the heliumite knew from his study of ancient barsoomian architecture that it rolled to one side, like a huge wheel, into an aperture in the wall. even such world-old cities as ancient aaanthor were as yet undreamed of when the races lived that built such gates as these. as he stood speculating upon the identity of this forgotten city, a voice spoke to them from above. both looked up. there, leaning over the edge of the high wall, was a man. his hair was auburn, his skin fair--fairer even than that of john carter, the virginian. his forehead was high, his eyes large and intelligent. the language that he used was intelligible to the two below, yet there was a marked difference between it and their barsoomian tongue. "who are you?" he asked. "and what do you here before the gate of lothar?" "we are friends," replied carthoris. "this be the princess, thuvia of ptarth, who was captured by the torquasian horde. i am carthoris of helium, prince of the house of tardos mors, jeddak of helium, and son of john carter, warlord of mars, and of his wife, dejah thoris." "'ptarth'?" repeated the man. "'helium'?" he shook his head. "i never have heard of these places, nor did i know that there dwelt upon barsoom a race of thy strange colour. where may these cities lie, of which you speak? from our loftiest tower we have never seen another city than lothar." carthoris pointed toward the north-east. "in that direction lie helium and ptarth," he said. "helium is over eight thousand haads from lothar, while ptarth lies nine thousand five hundred haads north-east of helium."[ ] [ ]on barsoom the ad is the basis of linear measurement. it is the equivalent of an earthly foot, measuring about . earth inches. as has been my custom in the past, i have generally translated barsoomian symbols of time, distance, etc., into their earthly equivalent, as being more easily understood by earth readers. for those of a more studious turn of mind it may be interesting to know the martian table of linear measurement, and so i give it here: sofads = ad ads = haad haads = karad karads = circumference of mars at equator. a haad, or barsoomian mile, contains about , earth feet. a karad is one degree. a sofad about . earth inches. still the man shook his head. "i know of nothing beyond the lotharian hills," he said. "naught may live there beside the hideous green hordes of torquas. they have conquered all barsoom except this single valley and the city of lothar. here we have defied them for countless ages, though periodically they renew their attempts to destroy us. from whence you come i cannot guess unless you be descended from the slaves the torquasians captured in early times when they reduced the outer world to their vassalage; but we had heard that they destroyed all other races but their own." carthoris tried to explain that the torquasians ruled but a relatively tiny part of the surface of barsoom, and even this only because their domain held nothing to attract the red race; but the lotharian could not seem to conceive of anything beyond the valley of lothar other than a trackless waste peopled by the ferocious green hordes of torquas. after considerable parleying he consented to admit them to the city, and a moment later the wheel-like gate rolled back within its niche, and thuvia and carthoris entered the city of lothar. all about them were evidences of fabulous wealth. the facades of the buildings fronting upon the avenue within the wall were richly carven, and about the windows and doors were ofttimes set foot-wide borders of precious stones, intricate mosaics, or tablets of beaten gold bearing bas-reliefs depicting what may have been bits of the history of this forgotten people. he with whom they had conversed across the wall was in the avenue to receive them. about him were a hundred or more men of the same race. all were clothed in flowing robes and all were beardless. their attitude was more of fearful suspicion than antagonism. they followed the new-comers with their eyes; but spoke no word to them. carthoris could not but notice the fact that though the city had been but a short time before surrounded by a horde of bloodthirsty demons yet none of the citizens appeared to be armed, nor was there sign of soldiery about. he wondered if all the fighting men had sallied forth in one supreme effort to rout the foe, leaving the city all unguarded. he asked their host. the man smiled. "no creature other than a score or so of our sacred banths has left lothar to-day," he replied. "but the soldiers--the bowmen!" exclaimed carthoris. "we saw thousands emerge from this very gate, overwhelming the hordes of torquas and putting them to rout with their deadly arrows and their fierce banths." still the man smiled his knowing smile. "look!" he cried, and pointed down a broad avenue before him. carthoris and thuvia followed the direction indicated, and there, marching bravely in the sunlight, they saw advancing toward them a great army of bowmen. "ah!" exclaimed thuvia. "they have returned through another gate, or perchance these be the troops that remained to defend the city?" again the fellow smiled his uncanny smile. "there are no soldiers in lothar," he said. "look!" both carthoris and thuvia had turned toward him while he spoke, and now as they turned back again toward the advancing regiments their eyes went wide in astonishment, for the broad avenue before them was as deserted as the tomb. "and those who marched out upon the hordes to-day?" whispered carthoris. "they, too, were unreal?" the man nodded. "but their arrows slew the green warriors," insisted thuvia. "let us go before tario," replied the lotharian. "he will tell you that which he deems it best you know. i might tell you too much." "who is tario?" asked carthoris. "jeddak of lothar," replied the guide, leading them up the broad avenue down which they had but a moment since seen the phantom army marching. for half an hour they walked along lovely avenues between the most gorgeous buildings that the two had ever seen. few people were in evidence. carthoris could not but note the deserted appearance of the mighty city. at last they came to the royal palace. carthoris saw it from a distance, and guessing the nature of the magnificent pile wondered that even here there should be so little sign of activity and life. not even a single guard was visible before the great entrance gate, nor in the gardens beyond, into which he could see, was there sign of the myriad life that pulses within the precincts of the royal estates of the red jeddaks. "here," said their guide, "is the palace of tario." as he spoke carthoris again let his gaze rest upon the wondrous palace. with a startled exclamation he rubbed his eyes and looked again. no! he could not be mistaken. before the massive gate stood a score of sentries. within, the avenue leading to the main building was lined on either side by ranks of bowmen. the gardens were dotted with officers and soldiers moving quickly to and fro, as though bent upon the duties of the minute. what manner of people were these who could conjure an army out of thin air? he glanced toward thuvia. she, too, evidently had witnessed the transformation. with a little shudder she pressed more closely toward him. "what do you make of it?" she whispered. "it is most uncanny." "i cannot account for it," replied carthoris, "unless we have gone mad." carthoris turned quickly toward the lotharian. the fellow was smiling broadly. "i thought that you just said that there were no soldiers in lothar," said the heliumite, with a gesture toward the guardsmen. "what are these?" "ask tario," replied the other. "we shall soon be before him." nor was it long before they entered a lofty chamber at one end of which a man reclined upon a rich couch that stood upon a high dais. as the trio approached, the man turned dreamy eyes sleepily upon them. twenty feet from the dais their conductor halted, and, whispering to thuvia and carthoris to follow his example, threw himself headlong to the floor. then rising to hands and knees, he commenced crawling toward the foot of the throne, swinging his head to and fro and wiggling his body as you have seen a hound do when approaching its master. thuvia glanced quickly toward carthoris. he was standing erect, with high-held head and arms folded across his broad chest. a haughty smile curved his lips. the man upon the dais was eyeing him intently, and carthoris of helium was looking straight in the other's face. "who be these, jav?" asked the man of him who crawled upon his belly along the floor. "o tario, most glorious jeddak," replied jav, "these be strangers who came with the hordes of torquas to our gates, saying that they were prisoners of the green men. they tell strange tales of cities far beyond lothar." "arise, jav," commanded tario, "and ask these two why they show not to tario the respect that is his due." jav arose and faced the strangers. at sight of their erect positions his face went livid. he leaped toward them. "creatures!" he screamed. "down! down upon your bellies before the last of the jeddaks of barsoom!" chapter vii the phantom bowmen as jav leaped toward him carthoris laid his hand upon the hilt of his long-sword. the lotharian halted. the great apartment was empty save for the four at the dais, yet as jav stepped back from the menace of the heliumite's threatening attitude the latter found himself surrounded by a score of bowmen. from whence had they sprung? both carthoris and thuvia looked their astonishment. now the former's sword leaped from its scabbard, and at the same instant the bowmen drew back their slim shafts. tario had half raised himself upon one elbow. for the first time he saw the full figure of thuvia, who had been concealed behind the person of carthoris. "enough!" cried the jeddak, raising a protesting hand, but at that very instant the sword of the heliumite cut viciously at its nearest antagonist. as the keen edge reached its goal carthoris let the point fall to the floor, as with wide eyes he stepped backward in consternation, throwing the back of his left hand across his brow. his steel had cut but empty air--his antagonist had vanished--there were no bowmen in the room! "it is evident that these are strangers," said tario to jav. "let us first determine that they knowingly affronted us before we take measures for punishment." then he turned to carthoris, but ever his gaze wandered to the perfect lines of thuvia's glorious figure, which the harness of a barsoomian princess accentuated rather than concealed. "who are you," he asked, "who knows not the etiquette of the court of the last of jeddaks?" "i am carthoris, prince of helium," replied the heliumite. "and this is thuvia, princess of ptarth. in the courts of our fathers men do not prostrate themselves before royalty. not since the first born tore their immortal goddess limb from limb have men crawled upon their bellies to any throne upon barsoom. now think you that the daughter of one mighty jeddak and the son of another would so humiliate themselves?" tario looked at carthoris for a long time. at last he spoke. "there is no other jeddak upon barsoom than tario," he said. "there is no other race than that of lothar, unless the hordes of torquas may be dignified by such an appellation. lotharians are white; your skins are red. there are no women left upon barsoom. your companion is a woman." he half rose from the couch, leaning far forward and pointing an accusing finger at carthoris. "you are a lie!" he shrieked. "you are both lies, and you dare to come before tario, last and mightiest of the jeddaks of barsoom, and assert your reality. some one shall pay well for this, jav, and unless i mistake it is yourself who has dared thus flippantly to trifle with the good nature of your jeddak. "remove the man. leave the woman. we shall see if both be lies. and later, jav, you shall suffer for your temerity. there be few of us left, but--komal must be fed. go!" carthoris could see that jav trembled as he prostrated himself once more before his ruler, and then, rising, turned toward the prince of helium. "come!" he said. "and leave the princess of ptarth here alone?" cried carthoris. jav brushed closely past him, whispering: "follow me--he cannot harm her, except to kill; and that he can do whether you remain or not. we had best go now--trust me." carthoris did not understand, but something in the urgency of the other's tone assured him, and so he turned away, but not without a glance toward thuvia in which he attempted to make her understand that it was in her own interest that he left her. for answer she turned her back full upon him, but not without first throwing him such a look of contempt that brought the scarlet to his cheek. then he hesitated, but jav seized him by the wrist. "come!" he whispered. "or he will have the bowmen upon you, and this time there will be no escape. did you not see how futile is your steel against thin air!" carthoris turned unwillingly to follow. as the two left the room he turned to his companion. "if i may not kill thin air," he asked, "how, then, shall i fear that thin air may kill me?" "you saw the torquasians fall before the bowmen?" asked jav. carthoris nodded. "so would you fall before them, and without one single chance for self-defence or revenge." as they talked jav led carthoris to a small room in one of the numerous towers of the palace. here were couches, and jav bid the heliumite be seated. for several minutes the lotharian eyed his prisoner, for such carthoris now realized himself to be. "i am half convinced that you are real," he said at last. carthoris laughed. "of course i am real," he said. "what caused you to doubt it? can you not see me, feel me?" "so may i see and feel the bowmen," replied jav, "and yet we all know that they, at least, are not real." carthoris showed by the expression of his face his puzzlement at each new reference to the mysterious bowmen--the vanishing soldiery of lothar. "what, then, may they be?" he asked. "you really do not know?" asked jav. carthoris shook his head negatively. "i can almost believe that you have told us the truth and that you are really from another part of barsoom, or from another world. but tell me, in your own country have you no bowmen to strike terror to the hearts of the green hordesmen as they slay in company with the fierce banths of war?" "we have soldiers," replied carthoris. "we of the red race are all soldiers, but we have no bowmen to defend us, such as yours. we defend ourselves." "you go out and get killed by your enemies!" cried jav incredulously. "certainly," replied carthoris. "how do the lotharians?" "you have seen," replied the other. "we send out our deathless archers--deathless because they are lifeless, existing only in the imaginations of our enemies. it is really our giant minds that defend us, sending out legions of imaginary warriors to materialize before the mind's eye of the foe. "they see them--they see their bows drawn back--they see their slender arrows speed with unerring precision toward their hearts. and they die--killed by the power of suggestion." "but the archers that are slain?" exclaimed carthoris. "you call them deathless, and yet i saw their dead bodies piled high upon the battlefield. how may that be?" "it is but to lend reality to the scene," replied jav. "we picture many of our own defenders killed that the torquasians may not guess that there are really no flesh and blood creatures opposing them. "once that truth became implanted in their minds, it is the theory of many of us, no longer would they fall prey to the suggestion of the deadly arrows, for greater would be the suggestion of the truth, and the more powerful suggestion would prevail--it is law." "and the banths?" questioned carthoris. "they, too, were but creatures of suggestion?" "some of them were real," replied jav. "those that accompanied the archers in pursuit of the torquasians were unreal. like the archers, they never returned, but, having served their purpose, vanished with the bowmen when the rout of the enemy was assured. "those that remained about the field were real. those we loosed as scavengers to devour the bodies of the dead of torquas. this thing is demanded by the realists among us. i am a realist. tario is an etherealist. "the etherealists maintain that there is no such thing as matter--that all is mind. they say that none of us exists, except in the imagination of his fellows, other than as an intangible, invisible mentality. "according to tario, it is but necessary that we all unite in imagining that there are no dead torquasians beneath our walls, and there will be none, nor any need of scavenging banths." "you, then, do not hold tario's beliefs?" asked carthoris. "in part only," replied the lotharian. "i believe, in fact i know, that there are some truly ethereal creatures. tario is one, i am convinced. he has no existence except in the imaginations of his people. "of course, it is the contention of all us realists that all etherealists are but figments of the imagination. they contend that no food is necessary, nor do they eat; but any one of the most rudimentary intelligence must realize that food is a necessity to creatures having actual existence." "yes," agreed carthoris, "not having eaten to-day i can readily agree with you." "ah, pardon me," exclaimed jav. "pray be seated and satisfy your hunger," and with a wave of his hand he indicated a bountifully laden table that had not been there an instant before he spoke. of that carthoris was positive, for he had searched the room diligently with his eyes several times. "it is well," continued jav, "that you did not fall into the hands of an etherealist. then, indeed, would you have gone hungry." "but," exclaimed carthoris, "this is not real food--it was not here an instant since, and real food does not materialize out of thin air." jav looked hurt. "there is no real food or water in lothar," he said; "nor has there been for countless ages. upon such as you now see before you have we existed since the dawn of history. upon such, then, may you exist." "but i thought you were a realist," exclaimed carthoris. "indeed," cried jav, "what more realistic than this bounteous feast? it is just here that we differ most from the etherealists. they claim that it is unnecessary to imagine food; but we have found that for the maintenance of life we must thrice daily sit down to hearty meals. "the food that one eats is supposed to undergo certain chemical changes during the process of digestion and assimilation, the result, of course, being the rebuilding of wasted tissue. "now we all know that mind is all, though we may differ in the interpretation of its various manifestations. tario maintains that there is no such thing as substance, all being created from the substanceless matter of the brain. "we realists, however, know better. we know that mind has the power to maintain substance even though it may not be able to create substance--the latter is still an open question. and so we know that in order to maintain our physical bodies we must cause all our organs properly to function. "this we accomplish by materializing food-thoughts, and by partaking of the food thus created. we chew, we swallow, we digest. all our organs function precisely as if we had partaken of material food. and what is the result? what must be the result? the chemical changes take place through both direct and indirect suggestion, and we live and thrive." carthoris eyed the food before him. it seemed real enough. he lifted a morsel to his lips. there was substance indeed. and flavour as well. yes, even his palate was deceived. jav watched him, smiling, as he ate. "is it not entirely satisfying?" he asked. "i must admit that it is," replied carthoris. "but tell me, how does tario live, and the other etherealists who maintain that food is unnecessary?" jav scratched his head. "that is a question we often discuss," he replied. "it is the strongest evidence we have of the non-existence of the etherealists; but who may know other than komal?" "who is komal?" asked carthoris. "i heard your jeddak speak of him." jav bent low toward the ear of the heliumite, looking fearfully about before he spoke. "komal is the essence," he whispered. "even the etherealists admit that mind itself must have substance in order to transmit to imaginings the appearance of substance. for if there really was no such thing as substance it could not be suggested--what never has been cannot be imagined. do you follow me?" "i am groping," replied carthoris dryly. "so the essence must be substance," continued jav. "komal is the essence of the all, as it were. he is maintained by substance. he eats. he eats the real. to be explicit, he eats the realists. that is tario's work. "he says that inasmuch as we maintain that we alone are real we should, to be consistent, admit that we alone are proper food for komal. sometimes, as to-day, we find other food for him. he is very fond of torquasians." "and komal is a man?" asked carthoris. "he is all, i told you," replied jav. "i know not how to explain him in words that you will understand. he is the beginning and the end. all life emanates from komal, since the substance which feeds the brain with imaginings radiates from the body of komal. "should komal cease to eat, all life upon barsoom would cease to be. he cannot die, but he might cease to eat, and, thus, to radiate." "and he feeds upon the men and women of your belief?" cried carthoris. "women!" exclaimed jav. "there are no women in lothar. the last of the lotharian females perished ages since, upon that cruel and terrible journey across the muddy plains that fringed the half-dried seas, when the green hordes scourged us across the world to this our last hiding-place--our impregnable fortress of lothar. "scarce twenty thousand men of all the countless millions of our race lived to reach lothar. among us were no women and no children. all these had perished by the way. "as time went on, we, too, were dying and the race fast approaching extinction, when the great truth was revealed to us, that mind is all. many more died before we perfected our powers, but at last we were able to defy death when we fully understood that death was merely a state of mind. "then came the creation of mind-people, or rather the materialization of imaginings. we first put these to practical use when the torquasians discovered our retreat, and fortunate for us it was that it required ages of search upon their part before they found the single tiny entrance to the valley of lothar. "that day we threw our first bowmen against them. the intention was purely to frighten them away by the vast numbers of bowmen which we could muster upon our walls. all lothar bristled with the bows and arrows of our ethereal host. "but the torquasians did not frighten. they are lower than the beasts--they know no fear. they rushed upon our walls, and standing upon the shoulders of others they built human approaches to the wall tops, and were on the very point of surging in upon us and overwhelming us. "not an arrow had been discharged by our bowmen--we did but cause them to run to and fro along the wall top, screaming taunts and threats at the enemy. "presently i thought to attempt the thing--the great thing. i centred all my mighty intellect upon the bowmen of my own creation--each of us produces and directs as many bowmen as his mentality and imagination is capable of. "i caused them to fit arrows to their bows for the first time. i made them take aim at the hearts of the green men. i made the green men see all this, and then i made them see the arrows fly, and i made them think that the points pierced their hearts. "it was all that was necessary. by hundreds they toppled from our walls, and when my fellows saw what i had done they were quick to follow my example, so that presently the hordes of torquas had retreated beyond the range of our arrows. "we might have killed them at any distance, but one rule of war we have maintained from the first--the rule of realism. we do nothing, or rather we cause our bowmen to do nothing within sight of the enemy that is beyond the understanding of the foe. otherwise they might guess the truth, and that would be the end of us. "but after the torquasians had retreated beyond bowshot, they turned upon us with their terrible rifles, and by constant popping at us made life miserable within our walls. "so then i bethought the scheme to hurl our bowmen through the gates upon them. you have seen this day how well it works. for ages they have come down upon us at intervals, but always with the same results." "and all this is due to your intellect, jav?" asked carthoris. "i should think that you would be high in the councils of your people." "i am," replied jav, proudly. "i am next to tario." "but why, then, your cringing manner of approaching the throne?" "tario demands it. he is jealous of me. he only awaits the slightest excuse to feed me to komal. he fears that i may some day usurp his power." carthoris suddenly sprang from the table. "jav!" he exclaimed. "i am a beast! here i have been eating my fill, while the princess of ptarth may perchance be still without food. let us return and find some means of furnishing her with nourishment." the lotharian shook his head. "tario would not permit it," he said. "he will, doubtless, make an etherealist of her." "but i must go to her," insisted carthoris. "you say that there are no women in lothar. then she must be among men, and if this be so i intend to be near where i may defend her if the need arises." "tario will have his way," insisted jav. "he sent you away and you may not return until he sends for you." "then i shall go without waiting to be sent for." "do not forget the bowmen," cautioned jav. "i do not forget them," replied carthoris, but he did not tell jav that he remembered something else that the lotharian had let drop--something that was but a conjecture, possibly, and yet one well worth pinning a forlorn hope to, should necessity arise. carthoris started to leave the room. jav stepped before him, barring his way. "i have learned to like you, red man," he said; "but do not forget that tario is still my jeddak, and that tario has commanded that you remain here." carthoris was about to reply, when there came faintly to the ears of both a woman's cry for help. with a sweep of his arm the prince of helium brushed the lotharian aside, and with drawn sword sprang into the corridor without. chapter viii the hall of doom as thuvia of ptarth saw carthoris depart from the presence of tario, leaving her alone with the man, a sudden qualm of terror seized her. there was an air of mystery pervading the stately chamber. its furnishings and appointments bespoke wealth and culture, and carried the suggestion that the room was often the scene of royal functions which filled it to its capacity. and yet nowhere about her, in antechamber or corridor, was there sign of any other being than herself and the recumbent figure of tario, the jeddak, who watched her through half-closed eyes from the gorgeous trappings of his regal couch. for a time after the departure of jav and carthoris the man eyed her intently. then he spoke. "come nearer," he said, and, as she approached: "whose creature are you? who has dared materialize his imaginings of woman? it is contrary to the customs and the royal edicts of lothar. tell me, woman, from whose brain have you sprung? jav's? no, do not deny it. i know that it could be no other than that envious realist. he seeks to tempt me. he would see me fall beneath the spell of your charms, and then he, your master, would direct my destiny and--my end. i see it all! i see it all!" the blood of indignation and anger had been rising to thuvia's face. her chin was up, a haughty curve upon her perfect lips. "i know naught," she cried, "of what you are prating! i am thuvia, princess of ptarth. i am no man's 'creature.' never before to-day did i lay eyes upon him you call jav, nor upon your ridiculous city, of which even the greatest nations of barsoom have never dreamed. "my charms are not for you, nor such as you. they are not for sale or barter, even though the price were a real throne. and as for using them to win your worse than futile power--" she ended her sentence with a shrug of her shapely shoulders, and a little scornful laugh. when she had finished tario was sitting upon the edge of his couch, his feet upon the floor. he was leaning forward with eyes no longer half closed, but wide with a startled expression in them. he did not seem to note the lese majeste of her words and manner. there was evidently something more startling and compelling about her speech than that. slowly he came to his feet. "by the fangs of komal!" he muttered. "but you are real! a real woman! no dream! no vain and foolish figment of the mind!" he took a step toward her, with hands outstretched. "come!" he whispered. "come, woman! for countless ages have i dreamed that some day you would come. and now that you are here i can scarce believe the testimony of my eyes. even now, knowing that you are real, i still half dread that you may be a lie." thuvia shrank back. she thought the man mad. her hand stole to the jewelled hilt of her dagger. the man saw the move, and stopped. a cunning expression entered his eyes. then they became at once dreamy and penetrating as they fairly bored into the girl's brain. thuvia suddenly felt a change coming over her. what the cause of it she did not guess; but somehow the man before her began to assume a new relationship within her heart. no longer was he a strange and mysterious enemy, but an old and trusted friend. her hand slipped from the dagger's hilt. tario came closer. he spoke gentle, friendly words, and she answered him in a voice that seemed hers and yet another's. he was beside her now. his hand was up her shoulder. his eyes were down-bent toward hers. she looked up into his face. his gaze seemed to bore straight through her to some hidden spring of sentiment within her. her lips parted in sudden awe and wonder at the strange revealment of her inner self that was being laid bare before her consciousness. she had known tario for ever. he was more than friend to her. she moved a little closer to him. in one swift flood of light she knew the truth. she loved tario, jeddak of lothar! she had always loved him. the man, seeing the success of his strategy, could not restrain a faint smile of satisfaction. whether there was something in the expression of his face, or whether from carthoris of helium in a far chamber of the palace came a more powerful suggestion, who may say? but something there was that suddenly dispelled the strange, hypnotic influence of the man. as though a mask had been torn from her eyes, thuvia suddenly saw tario as she had formerly seen him, and, accustomed as she was to the strange manifestations of highly developed mentality which are common upon barsoom, she quickly guessed enough of the truth to know that she was in grave danger. quickly she took a step backward, tearing herself from his grasp. but the momentary contact had aroused within tario all the long-buried passions of his loveless existence. with a muffled cry he sprang upon her, throwing his arms about her and attempting to drag her lips to his. "woman!" he cried. "lovely woman! tario would make you queen of lothar. listen to me! listen to the love of the last of the jeddaks of barsoom." thuvia struggled to free herself from his embrace. "stop, creature!" she cried. "stop! i do not love you. stop, or i shall scream for help!" tario laughed in her face. "'scream for help,'" he mimicked. "and who within the halls of lothar is there who might come in answer to your call? who would dare enter the presence of tario, unsummoned?" "there is one," she replied, "who would come, and, coming, dare to cut you down upon your own throne, if he thought that you had offered affront to thuvia of ptarth!" "who, jav?" asked tario. "not jav, nor any other soft-skinned lotharian," she replied; "but a real man, a real warrior--carthoris of helium!" again the man laughed at her. "you forget the bowmen," he reminded her. "what could your red warrior accomplish against my fearless legions?" again he caught her roughly to him, dragging her towards his couch. "if you will not be my queen," he said, "you shall be my slave." "neither!" cried the girl. as she spoke the single word there was a quick move of her right hand; tario, releasing her, staggered back, both hands pressed to his side. at the same instant the room filled with bowmen, and then the jeddak of lothar sank senseless to the marble floor. at the instant that he lost consciousness the bowmen were about to release their arrows into thuvia's heart. involuntarily she gave a single cry for help, though she knew that not even carthoris of helium could save her now. then she closed her eyes and waited for the end. no slender shafts pierced her tender side. she raised her lids to see what stayed the hand of her executioners. the room was empty save for herself and the still form of the jeddak of lothar lying at her feet, a little pool of crimson staining the white marble of the floor beside him. tario was unconscious. thuvia was amazed. where were the bowmen? why had they not loosed their shafts? what could it all mean? an instant before the room had been mysteriously filled with armed men, evidently called to protect their jeddak; yet now, with the evidence of her deed plain before them, they had vanished as mysteriously as they had come, leaving her alone with the body of their ruler, into whose side she had slipped her long, keen blade. the girl glanced apprehensively about, first for signs of the return of the bowmen, and then for some means of escape. the wall behind the dais was pierced by two small doorways, hidden by heavy hangings. thuvia was running quickly towards one of these when she heard the clank of a warrior's metal at the end of the apartment behind her. ah, if she had but an instant more of time she could have reached that screening arras and, perchance, have found some avenue of escape behind it; but now it was too late--she had been discovered! with a feeling that was akin to apathy she turned to meet her fate, and there, before her, running swiftly across the broad chamber to her side, was carthoris, his naked long-sword gleaming in his hand. for days she had doubted the intentions of the heliumite. she had thought him a party to her abduction. since fate had thrown them together she had scarce favoured him with more than the most perfunctory replies to his remarks, unless at such times as the weird and uncanny happenings at lothar had surprised her out of her reserve. she knew that carthoris of helium would fight for her; but whether to save her for himself or another, she was in doubt. he knew that she was promised to kulan tith, jeddak of kaol, but if he had been instrumental in her abduction, his motives could not be prompted by loyalty to his friend, or regard for her honour. and yet, as she saw him coming across the marble floor of the audience chamber of tario of lothar, his fine eyes filled with apprehension for her safety, his splendid figure personifying all that is finest in the fighting men of martial mars, she could not believe that any faintest trace of perfidy lurked beneath so glorious an exterior. never, she thought, in all her life had the sight of any man been so welcome to her. it was with difficulty that she refrained from rushing forward to meet him. she knew that he loved her; but, in time, she recalled that she was promised to kulan tith. not even might she trust herself to show too great gratitude to the heliumite, lest he misunderstand. carthoris was by her side now. his quick glance had taken in the scene within the room--the still figure of the jeddak sprawled upon the floor--the girl hastening toward a shrouded exit. "did he harm you, thuvia?" he asked. she held up her crimsoned blade that he might see it. "no," she said, "he did not harm me." a grim smile lighted carthoris' face. "praised be our first ancestor!" he murmured. "and now let us see if we may not make good our escape from this accursed city before the lotharians discover that their jeddak is no more." with the firm authority that sat so well upon him in whose veins flowed the blood of john carter of virginia and dejah thoris of helium, he grasped her hand and, turning back across the hall, strode toward the great doorway through which jav had brought them into the presence of the jeddak earlier in the day. they had almost reached the threshold when a figure sprang into the apartment through another entrance. it was jav. he, too, took in the scene within at a glance. carthoris turned to face him, his sword ready in his hand, and his great body shielding the slender figure of the girl. "come, jav of lothar!" he cried. "let us face the issue at once, for only one of us may leave this chamber alive with thuvia of ptarth." then, seeing that the man wore no sword, he exclaimed: "bring on your bowmen, then, or come with us as my prisoner until we have safely passed the outer portals of thy ghostly city." "you have killed tario!" exclaimed jav, ignoring the other's challenge. "you have killed tario! i see his blood upon the floor--real blood--real death. tario was, after all, as real as i. yet he was an etherealist. he would not materialize his sustenance. can it be that they are right? well, we, too, are right. and all these ages we have been quarrelling--each saying that the other was wrong! "however, he is dead now. of that i am glad. now shall jav come into his own. now shall jav be jeddak of lothar!" as he finished, tario opened his eyes and then quickly sat up. "traitor! assassin!" he screamed, and then: "kadar! kadar!" which is the barsoomian for guard. jav went sickly white. he fell upon his belly, wriggling toward tario. "oh, my jeddak, my jeddak!" he whimpered. "jav had no hand in this. jav, your faithful jav, but just this instant entered the apartment to find you lying prone upon the floor and these two strangers about to leave. how it happened i know not. believe me, most glorious jeddak!" "cease, knave!" cried tario. "i heard your words: 'however, he is dead now. of that i am glad. now shall jav come into his own. now shall jav be jeddak of lothar.' "at last, traitor, i have found you out. your own words have condemned you as surely as the acts of these red creatures have sealed their fates--unless--" he paused. "unless the woman--" but he got no further. carthoris guessed what he would have said, and before the words could be uttered he had sprung forward and struck the man across the mouth with his open palm. tario frothed in rage and mortification. "and should you again affront the princess of ptarth," warned the heliumite, "i shall forget that you wear no sword--not for ever may i control my itching sword hand." tario shrank back toward the little doorways behind the dais. he was trying to speak, but so hideously were the muscles of his face working that he could utter no word for several minutes. at last he managed to articulate intelligibly. "die!" he shrieked. "die!" and then he turned toward the exit at his back. jav leaped forward, screaming in terror. "have pity, tario! have pity! remember the long ages that i have served you faithfully. remember all that i have done for lothar. do not condemn me now to the death hideous. save me! save me!" but tario only laughed a mocking laugh and continued to back toward the hangings that hid the little doorway. jav turned toward carthoris. "stop him!" he screamed. "stop him! if you love life, let him not leave this room," and as he spoke he leaped in pursuit of his jeddak. carthoris followed jav's example, but the "last of the jeddaks of barsoom" was too quick for them. by the time they reached the arras behind which he had disappeared, they found a heavy stone door blocking their further progress. jav sank to the floor in a spasm of terror. "come, man!" cried carthoris. "we are not dead yet. let us hasten to the avenues and make an attempt to leave the city. we are still alive, and while we live we may yet endeavour to direct our own destinies. of what avail, to sink spineless to the floor? come, be a man!" jav but shook his head. "did you not hear him call the guards?" he moaned. "ah, if we could have but intercepted him! then there might have been hope; but, alas, he was too quick for us." "well, well," exclaimed carthoris impatiently. "what if he did call the guards? there will be time enough to worry about that after they come--at present i see no indication that they have any idea of over-exerting themselves to obey their jeddak's summons." jav shook his head mournfully. "you do not understand," he said. "the guards have already come--and gone. they have done their work and we are lost. look to the various exits." carthoris and thuvia turned their eyes in the direction of the several doorways which pierced the walls of the great chamber. each was tightly closed by huge stone doors. "well?" asked carthoris. "we are to die the death," whispered jav faintly. further than that he would not say. he just sat upon the edge of the jeddak's couch and waited. carthoris moved to thuvia's side, and, standing there with naked sword, he let his brave eyes roam ceaselessly about the great chamber, that no foe might spring upon them unseen. for what seemed hours no sound broke the silence of their living tomb. no sign gave their executioners of the time or manner of their death. the suspense was terrible. even carthoris of helium began to feel the terrible strain upon his nerves. if he could but know how and whence the hand of death was to strike, he could meet it unafraid, but to suffer longer the hideous tension of this blighting ignorance of the plans of their assassins was telling upon him grievously. thuvia of ptarth drew quite close to him. she felt safer with the feel of his arm against hers, and with the contact of her the man took a new grip upon himself. with his old-time smile he turned toward her. "it would seem that they are trying to frighten us to death," he said, laughing; "and, shame be upon me that i should confess it, i think they were close to accomplishing their designs upon me." she was about to make some reply when a fearful shriek broke from the lips of the lotharian. "the end is coming!" he cried. "the end is coming! the floor! the floor! oh, komal, be merciful!" thuvia and carthoris did not need to look at the floor to be aware of the strange movement that was taking place. slowly the marble flagging was sinking in all directions toward the centre. at first the movement, being gradual, was scarce noticeable; but presently the angle of the floor became such that one might stand easily only by bending one knee considerably. jav was shrieking still, and clawing at the royal couch that had already commenced to slide toward the centre of the room, where both thuvia and carthoris suddenly noted a small orifice which grew in diameter as the floor assumed more closely a funnel-like contour. now it became more and more difficult to cling to the dizzy inclination of the smooth and polished marble. carthoris tried to support thuvia, but himself commenced to slide and slip toward the ever-enlarging aperture. better to cling to the smooth stone he kicked off his sandals of zitidar hide and with his bare feet braced himself against the sickening tilt, at the same time throwing his arms supportingly about the girl. in her terror her own hands clasped about the man's neck. her cheek was close to his. death, unseen and of unknown form, seemed close upon them, and because unseen and unknowable infinitely more terrifying. "courage, my princess," he whispered. she looked up into his face to see smiling lips above hers and brave eyes, untouched by terror, drinking deeply of her own. then the floor sagged and tilted more swiftly. there was a sudden slipping rush as they were precipitated toward the aperture. jav's screams rose weird and horrible in their ears, and then the three found themselves piled upon the royal couch of tario, which had stuck within the aperture at the base of the marble funnel. for a moment they breathed more freely, but presently they discovered that the aperture was continuing to enlarge. the couch slipped downward. jav shrieked again. there was a sickening sensation as they felt all let go beneath them, as they fell through darkness to an unknown death. chapter ix the battle in the plain the distance from the bottom of the funnel to the floor of the chamber beneath it could not have been great, for all three of the victims of tario's wrath alighted unscathed. carthoris, still clasping thuvia tightly to his breast, came to the ground catlike, upon his feet, breaking the shock for the girl. scarce had his feet touched the rough stone flagging of this new chamber than his sword flashed out ready for instant use. but though the room was lighted, there was no sign of enemy about. carthoris looked toward jav. the man was pasty white with fear. "what is to be our fate?" asked the heliumite. "tell me, man! shake off your terror long enough to tell me, so i may be prepared to sell my life and that of the princess of ptarth as dearly as possible." "komal!" whispered jav. "we are to be devoured by komal!" "your deity?" asked carthoris. the lotharian nodded his head. then he pointed toward a low doorway at one end of the chamber. "from thence will he come upon us. lay aside your puny sword, fool. it will but enrage him the more and make our sufferings the worse." carthoris smiled, gripping his long-sword the more firmly. presently jav gave a horrified moan, at the same time pointing toward the door. "he has come," he whimpered. carthoris and thuvia looked in the direction the lotharian had indicated, expecting to see some strange and fearful creature in human form; but to their astonishment they saw the broad head and great-maned shoulders of a huge banth, the largest that either ever had seen. slowly and with dignity the mighty beast advanced into the room. jav had fallen to the floor, and was wriggling his body in the same servile manner that he had adopted toward tario. he spoke to the fierce beast as he would have spoken to a human being, pleading with it for mercy. carthoris stepped between thuvia and the banth, his sword ready to contest the beast's victory over them. thuvia turned toward jav. "is this komal, your god?" she asked. jav nodded affirmatively. the girl smiled, and then, brushing past carthoris, she stepped swiftly toward the growling carnivore. in low, firm tones she spoke to it as she had spoken to the banths of the golden cliffs and the scavengers before the walls of lothar. the beast ceased its growling. with lowered head and catlike purr, it came slinking to the girl's feet. thuvia turned toward carthoris. "it is but a banth," she said. "we have nothing to fear from it." carthoris smiled. "i did not fear it," he replied, "for i, too, believed it to be only a banth, and i have my long-sword." jav sat up and gazed at the spectacle before him--the slender girl weaving her fingers in the tawny mane of the huge creature that he had thought divine, while komal rubbed his hideous snout against her side. "so this is your god!" laughed thuvia. jav looked bewildered. he scarce knew whether he dare chance offending komal or not, for so strong is the power of superstition that even though we know that we have been reverencing a sham, yet still we hesitate to admit the validity of our new-found convictions. "yes," he said, "this is komal. for ages the enemies of tario have been hurled to this pit to fill his maw, for komal must be fed." "is there any way out of this chamber to the avenues of the city?" asked carthoris. jav shrugged. "i do not know," he replied. "never have i been here before, nor ever have i cared to do so." "come," suggested thuvia, "let us explore. there must be a way out." together the three approached the doorway through which komal had entered the apartment that was to have witnessed their deaths. beyond was a low-roofed lair, with a small door at the far end. this, to their delight, opened to the lifting of an ordinary latch, letting them into a circular arena, surrounded by tiers of seats. "here is where komal is fed in public," explained jav. "had tario dared it would have been here that our fates had been sealed; but he feared too much thy keen blade, red man, and so he hurled us all downward to the pit. i did not know how closely connected were the two chambers. now we may easily reach the avenues and the city gates. only the bowmen may dispute the right of way, and, knowing their secret, i doubt that they have power to harm us." another door led to a flight of steps that rose from the arena level upward through the seats to an exit at the back of the hall. beyond this was a straight, broad corridor, running directly through the palace to the gardens at the side. no one appeared to question them as they advanced, mighty komal pacing by the girl's side. "where are the people of the palace--the jeddak's retinue?" asked carthoris. "even in the city streets as we came through i scarce saw sign of a human being, yet all about are evidences of a mighty population." jav sighed. "poor lothar," he said. "it is indeed a city of ghosts. there are scarce a thousand of us left, who once were numbered in the millions. our great city is peopled by the creatures of our own imaginings. for our own needs we do not take the trouble to materialize these peoples of our brain, yet they are apparent to us. "even now i see great throngs lining the avenue, hastening to and fro in the round of their duties. i see women and children laughing on the balconies--these we are forbidden to materialize; but yet i see them--they are here. . . . but why not?" he mused. "no longer need i fear tario--he has done his worst, and failed. why not indeed? "stay, friends," he continued. "would you see lothar in all her glory?" carthoris and thuvia nodded their assent, more out of courtesy than because they fully grasped the import of his mutterings. jav gazed at them penetratingly for an instant, then, with a wave of his hand, cried: "look!" the sight that met them was awe-inspiring. where before there had been naught but deserted pavements and scarlet swards, yawning windows and tenantless doors, now swarmed a countless multitude of happy, laughing people. "it is the past," said jav in a low voice. "they do not see us--they but live the old dead past of ancient lothar--the dead and crumbled lothar of antiquity, which stood upon the shore of throxus, mightiest of the five oceans. "see those fine, upstanding men swinging along the broad avenue? see the young girls and the women smile upon them? see the men greet them with love and respect? those be seafarers coming up from their ships which lie at the quays at the city's edge. "brave men, they--ah, but the glory of lothar has faded! see their weapons. they alone bore arms, for they crossed the five seas to strange places where dangers were. with their passing passed the martial spirit of the lotharians, leaving, as the ages rolled by, a race of spineless cowards. "we hated war, and so we trained not our youth in warlike ways. thus followed our undoing, for when the seas dried and the green hordes encroached upon us we could do naught but flee. but we remembered the seafaring bowmen of the days of our glory--it is the memory of these which we hurl upon our enemies." as jav ceased speaking, the picture faded, and once more, the three took up their way toward the distant gates, along deserted avenues. twice they sighted lotharians of flesh and blood. at sight of them and the huge banth which they must have recognized as komal, the citizens turned and fled. "they will carry word of our flight to tario," cried jav, "and soon he will send his bowmen after us. let us hope that our theory is correct, and that their shafts are powerless against minds cognizant of their unreality. otherwise we are doomed. "explain, red man, to the woman the truths that i have explained to you, that she may meet the arrows with a stronger counter-suggestion of immunity." carthoris did as jav bid him; but they came to the great gates without sign of pursuit developing. here jav set in motion the mechanism that rolled the huge, wheel-like gate aside, and a moment later the three, accompanied by the banth, stepped out into the plain before lothar. scarce had they covered a hundred yards when the sound of many men shouting arose behind them. as they turned they saw a company of bowmen debouching upon the plain from the gate through which they had but just passed. upon the wall above the gate were a number of lotharians, among whom jav recognized tario. the jeddak stood glaring at them, evidently concentrating all the forces of his trained mind upon them. that he was making a supreme effort to render his imaginary creatures deadly was apparent. jav turned white, and commenced to tremble. at the crucial moment he appeared to lose the courage of his conviction. the great banth turned back toward the advancing bowmen and growled. carthoris placed himself between thuvia and the enemy and, facing them, awaited the outcome of their charge. suddenly an inspiration came to carthoris. "hurl your own bowmen against tario's!" he cried to jav. "let us see a materialized battle between two mentalities." the suggestion seemed to hearten the lotharian, and in another moment the three stood behind solid ranks of huge bowmen who hurled taunts and menaces at the advancing company emerging from the walled city. jav was a new man the moment his battalions stood between him and tario. one could almost have sworn the man believed these creatures of his strange hypnotic power to be real flesh and blood. with hoarse battle cries they charged the bowmen of tario. barbed shafts flew thick and fast. men fell, and the ground was red with gore. carthoris and thuvia had difficulty in reconciling the reality of it all with their knowledge of the truth. they saw utan after utan march from the gate in perfect step to reinforce the outnumbered company which tario had first sent forth to arrest them. they saw jav's forces grow correspondingly until all about them rolled a sea of fighting, cursing warriors, and the dead lay in heaps about the field. jav and tario seemed to have forgotten all else beside the struggling bowmen that surged to and fro, filling the broad field between the forest and the city. the wood loomed close behind thuvia and carthoris. the latter cast a glance toward jav. "come!" he whispered to the girl. "let them fight out their empty battle--neither, evidently, has power to harm the other. they are like two controversialists hurling words at one another. while they are engaged we may as well be devoting our energies to an attempt to find the passage through the cliffs to the plain beyond." as he spoke, jav, turning from the battle for an instant, caught his words. he saw the girl move to accompany the heliumite. a cunning look leaped to the lotharian's eyes. the thing that lay beyond that look had been deep in his heart since first he had laid eyes upon thuvia of ptarth. he had not recognized it, however, until now that she seemed about to pass out of his existence. he centred his mind upon the heliumite and the girl for an instant. carthoris saw thuvia of ptarth step forward with outstretched hand. he was surprised at this sudden softening toward him, and it was with a full heart that he let his fingers close upon hers, as together they turned away from forgotten lothar, into the woods, and bent their steps toward the distant mountains. as the lotharian had turned toward them, thuvia had been surprised to hear carthoris suddenly voice a new plan. "remain here with jav," she had heard him say, "while i go to search for the passage through the cliffs." she had dropped back in surprise and disappointment, for she knew that there was no reason why she should not have accompanied him. certainly she should have been safer with him than left here alone with the lotharian. and jav watched the two and smiled his cunning smile. when carthoris had disappeared within the wood, thuvia seated herself apathetically upon the scarlet sward to watch the seemingly interminable struggles of the bowmen. the long afternoon dragged its weary way toward darkness, and still the imaginary legions charged and retreated. the sun was about to set when tario commenced to withdraw his troops slowly toward the city. his plan for cessation of hostilities through the night evidently met with jav's entire approval, for he caused his forces to form themselves in orderly utans and march just within the edge of the wood, where they were soon busily engaged in preparing their evening meal, and spreading down their sleeping silks and furs for the night. thuvia could scarce repress a smile as she noted the scrupulous care with which jav's imaginary men attended to each tiny detail of deportment as truly as if they had been real flesh and blood. sentries were posted between the camp and the city. officers clanked hither and thither issuing commands and seeing to it that they were properly carried out. thuvia turned toward jav. "why is it," she asked, "that you observe such careful nicety in the regulation of your creatures when tario knows quite as well as you that they are but figments of your brain? why not permit them simply to dissolve into thin air until you again require their futile service?" "you do not understand them," replied jav. "while they exist they are real. i do but call them into being now, and in a way direct their general actions. but thereafter, until i dissolve them, they are as actual as you or i. their officers command them, under my guidance. i am the general--that is all. and the psychological effect upon the enemy is far greater than were i to treat them merely as substanceless vagaries. "then, too," continued the lotharian, "there is always the hope, which with us is little short of belief, that some day these materializations will merge into the real--that they will remain, some of them, after we have dissolved their fellows, and that thus we shall have discovered a means for perpetuating our dying race. "some there are who claim already to have accomplished the thing. it is generally supposed that the etherealists have quite a few among their number who are permanent materializations. it is even said that such is tario, but that cannot be, for he existed before we had discovered the full possibilities of suggestion. "there are others among us who insist that none of us is real. that we could not have existed all these ages without material food and water had we ourselves been material. although i am a realist, i rather incline toward this belief myself. "it seems well and sensibly based upon the belief that our ancient forbears developed before their extinction such wondrous mentalities that some of the stronger minds among them lived after the death of their bodies--that we are but the deathless minds of individuals long dead. "it would appear possible, and yet in so far as i am concerned i have all the attributes of corporeal existence. i eat, i sleep"--he paused, casting a meaning look upon the girl--"i love!" thuvia could not mistake the palpable meaning of his words and expression. she turned away with a little shrug of disgust that was not lost upon the lotharian. he came close to her and seized her arm. "why not jav?" he cried. "who more honourable than the second of the world's most ancient race? your heliumite? he has gone. he has deserted you to your fate to save himself. come, be jav's!" thuvia of ptarth rose to her full height, her lifted shoulder turned toward the man, her haughty chin upraised, a scornful twist to her lips. "you lie!" she said quietly, "the heliumite knows less of disloyalty than he knows of fear, and of fear he is as ignorant as the unhatched young." "then where is he?" taunted the lotharian. "i tell you he has fled the valley. he has left you to your fate. but jav will see that it is a pleasant one. to-morrow we shall return into lothar at the head of my victorious army, and i shall be jeddak and you shall be my consort. come!" and he attempted to crush her to his breast. the girl struggled to free herself, striking at the man with her metal armlets. yet still he drew her toward him, until both were suddenly startled by a hideous growl that rumbled from the dark wood close behind them. chapter x kar komak, the bowman as carthoris moved through the forest toward the distant cliffs with thuvia's hand still tight pressed in his, he wondered a little at the girl's continued silence, yet the contact of her cool palm against his was so pleasant that he feared to break the spell of her new-found reliance in him by speaking. onward through the dim wood they passed until the shadows of the quick coming martian night commenced to close down upon them. then it was that carthoris turned to speak to the girl at his side. they must plan together for the future. it was his idea to pass through the cliffs at once if they could locate the passage, and he was quite positive that they were now close to it; but he wanted her assent to the proposition. as his eyes rested upon her, he was struck by her strangely ethereal appearance. she seemed suddenly to have dissolved into the tenuous substance of a dream, and as he continued to gaze upon her, she faded slowly from his sight. for an instant he was dumbfounded, and then the whole truth flashed suddenly upon him. jav had caused him to believe that thuvia was accompanying him through the wood while, as a matter of fact, he had detained the girl for himself! carthoris was horrified. he cursed himself for his stupidity, and yet he knew that the fiendish power which the lotharian had invoked to confuse him might have deceived any. scarce had he realized the truth than he had started to retrace his steps toward lothar, but now he moved at a trot, the earthly thews that he had inherited from his father carrying him swiftly over the soft carpet of fallen leaves and rank grass. thuria's brilliant light flooded the plain before the walled city of lothar as carthoris broke from the wood opposite the great gate that had given the fugitives egress from the city earlier in the day. at first he saw no indication that there was another than himself anywhere about. the plain was deserted. no myriad bowmen camped now beneath the overhanging verdure of the giant trees. no gory heaps of tortured dead defaced the beauty of the scarlet sward. all was silence. all was peace. the heliumite, scarce pausing at the forest's verge, pushed on across the plain toward the city, when presently he descried a huddled form in the grass at his feet. it was the body of a man, lying prone. carthoris turned the figure over upon its back. it was jav, but torn and mangled almost beyond recognition. the prince bent low to note if any spark of life remained, and as he did so the lids raised and dull, suffering eyes looked up into his. "the princess of ptarth!" cried carthoris. "where is she? answer me, man, or i complete the work that another has so well begun." "komal," muttered jav. "he sprang upon me . . . and would have devoured me but for the girl. then they went away together into the wood--the girl and the great banth . . . her fingers twined in his tawny mane." "which way went they?" asked carthoris. "there," replied jav faintly, "toward the passage through the cliffs." the prince of helium waited to hear no more, but springing to his feet, raced back again into the forest. it was dawn when he reached the mouth of the dark tunnel that would lead him to the other world beyond this valley of ghostly memories and strange hypnotic influences and menaces. within the long, dark passages he met with no accident or obstacle, coming at last into the light of day beyond the mountains, and no great distance from the southern verge of the domains of the torquasians, not more than one hundred and fifty haad at the most. from the boundary of torquas to the city of aaanthor is a distance of some two hundred haads, so that the heliumite had before him a journey of more than one hundred and fifty earth miles between him and aaanthor. he could at best but hazard a chance guess that toward aaanthor thuvia would take her flight. there lay the nearest water, and there might be expected some day a rescuing party from her father's empire; for carthoris knew thuvan dihn well enough to know that he would leave no stone unturned until he had tracked down the truth as to his daughter's abduction, and learned all that there might be to learn of her whereabouts. he realized, of course, that the trick which had laid suspicion upon him would greatly delay the discovery of the truth, but little did he guess to what vast proportions had the results of the villainy of astok of dusar already grown. even as he emerged from the mouth of the passage to look across the foothills in the direction of aaanthor, a ptarth battle fleet was winging its majestic way slowly toward the twin cities of helium, while from far distant kaol raced another mighty armada to join forces with its ally. he did not know that in the face of the circumstantial evidence against him even his own people had commenced to entertain suspicions that he might have stolen the ptarthian princess. he did not know of the lengths to which the dusarians had gone to disrupt the friendship and alliance which existed between the three great powers of the eastern hemisphere--helium, ptarth and kaol. how dusarian emissaries had found employment in important posts in the foreign offices of the three great nations, and how, through these men, messages from one jeddak to another were altered and garbled until the patience and pride of the three rulers and former friends could no longer endure the humiliations and insults contained in these falsified papers--not any of this he knew. nor did he know how even to the last john carter, warlord of mars, had refused to permit the jeddak of helium to declare war against either ptarth or kaol, because of his implicit belief in his son, and that eventually all would be satisfactorily explained. and now two great fleets were moving upon helium, while the dusarian spies at the court of tardos mors saw to it that the twin cities remained in ignorance of their danger. war had been declared by thuvan dihn, but the messenger who had been dispatched with the proclamation had been a dusarian who had seen to it that no word of warning reached the twin cities of the approach of a hostile fleet. for several days diplomatic relations had been severed between helium and her two most powerful neighbors, and with the departure of the ministers had come a total cessation of wireless communication between the disputants, as is usual upon barsoom. but of all this carthoris was ignorant. all that interested him at present was the finding of thuvia of ptarth. her trail beside that of the huge banth had been well marked to the tunnel, and was once more visible leading southward into the foothills. as he followed rapidly downward toward the dead sea-bottom, where he knew he must lose the spoor in the resilient ochre vegetation, he was suddenly surprised to see a naked man approaching him from the north-east. as the fellow drew closer, carthoris halted to await his coming. he knew that the man was unarmed, and that he was apparently a lotharian, for his skin was white and his hair auburn. he approached the heliumite without sign of fear, and when quite close called out the cheery barsoomian "kaor" of greeting. "who are you?" asked carthoris. "i am kar komak, odwar of the bowmen," replied the other. "a strange thing has happened to me. for ages tario has been bringing me into existence as he needed the services of the army of his mind. of all the bowmen it has been kar komak who has been oftenest materialized. "for a long time tario has been concentrating his mind upon my permanent materialization. it has been an obsession with him that some day this thing could be accomplished and the future of lothar assured. he asserted that matter was nonexistent except in the imagination of man--that all was mental, and so he believed that by persisting in his suggestion he could eventually make of me a permanent suggestion in the minds of all creatures. "yesterday he succeeded, but at such a time! it must have come all unknown to him, as it came to me without my knowledge, as, with my horde of yelling bowmen, i pursued the fleeing torquasians back to their ochre plains. "as darkness settled and the time came for us to fade once more into thin air, i suddenly found myself alone upon the edge of the great plain which lies yonder at the foot of the low hills. "my men were gone back to the nothingness from which they had sprung, but i remained--naked and unarmed. "at first i could not understand, but at last came a realization of what had occurred. tario's long suggestions had at last prevailed, and kar komak had become a reality in the world of men; but my harness and my weapons had faded away with my fellows, leaving me naked and unarmed in a hostile country far from lothar." "you wish to return to lothar?" asked carthoris. "no!" replied kar komak quickly. "i have no love for tario. being a creature of his mind, i know him too well. he is cruel and tyrannical--a master i have no desire to serve. now that he has succeeded in accomplishing my permanent materialization, he will be unbearable, and he will go on until he has filled lothar with his creatures. i wonder if he has succeeded as well with the maid of lothar." "i thought there were no women there," said carthoris. "in a hidden apartment in the palace of tario," replied kar komak, "the jeddak has maintained the suggestion of a beautiful girl, hoping that some day she would become permanent. i have seen her there. she is wonderful! but for her sake i hope that tario succeeds not so well with her as he has with me. "now, red man, i have told you of myself--what of you?" carthoris liked the face and manner of the bowman. there had been no sign of doubt or fear in his expression as he had approached the heavily-armed heliumite, and he had spoken directly and to the point. so the prince of helium told the bowman of lothar who he was and what adventure had brought him to this far country. "good!" exclaimed the other, when he had done. "kar komak will accompany you. together we shall find the princess of ptarth and with you kar komak will return to the world of men--such a world as he knew in the long-gone past when the ships of mighty lothar ploughed angry throxus, and the roaring surf beat against the barrier of these parched and dreary hills." "what mean you?" asked carthoris. "had you really a former actual existence?" "most assuredly," replied kar komak. "in my day i commanded the fleets of lothar--mightiest of all the fleets that sailed the five salt seas. "wherever men lived upon barsoom there was the name of kar komak known and respected. peaceful were the land races in those distant days--only the seafarers were warriors; but now has the glory of the past faded, nor did i think until i met you that there remained upon barsoom a single person of our own mould who lived and loved and fought as did the ancient seafarers of my time. "ah, but it will seem good to see men once again--real men! never had i much respect for the landsmen of my day. they remained in their walled cities wasting their time in play, depending for their protection entirely upon the sea race. and the poor creatures who remain, the tarios and javs of lothar, are even worse than their ancient forbears." carthoris was a trifle skeptical as to the wisdom of permitting the stranger to attach himself to him. there was always the chance that he was but the essence of some hypnotic treachery which tario or jav was attempting to exert upon the heliumite; and yet, so sincere had been the manner and the words of the bowman, so much the fighting man did he seem, but carthoris could not find it in his heart to doubt him. the outcome of the matter was that he gave the naked odwar leave to accompany him, and together they set out upon the spoor of thuvia and komal. down to the ochre sea-bottom the trail led. there it disappeared, as carthoris had known that it would; but where it entered the plain its direction had been toward aaanthor and so toward aaanthor the two turned their faces. it was a long and tedious journey, fraught with many dangers. the bowman could not travel at the pace set by carthoris, whose muscles carried him with great rapidity over the face of the small planet, the force of gravity of which exerts so much less retarding power than that of the earth. fifty miles a day is a fair average for a barsoomian, but the son of john carter might easily have covered a hundred or more miles had he cared to desert his new-found comrade. all the way they were in constant danger of discovery by roving bands of torquasians, and especially was this true before they reached the boundary of torquas. good fortune was with them, however, and although they sighted two detachments of the savage green men, they were not themselves seen. and so they came, upon the morning of the third day, within sight of the glistening domes of distant aaanthor. throughout the journey carthoris had ever strained his eyes ahead in search of thuvia and the great banth; but not till now had he seen aught to give him hope. this morning, far ahead, half-way between themselves and aaanthor, the men saw two tiny figures moving toward the city. for a moment they watched them intently. then carthoris, convinced, leaped forward at a rapid run, kar komak following as swiftly as he could. the heliumite shouted to attract the girl's attention, and presently he was rewarded by seeing her turn and stand looking toward him. at her side the great banth stood with up-pricked ears, watching the approaching man. not yet could thuvia of ptarth have recognized carthoris, though that it was he she must have been convinced, for she waited there for him without sign of fear. presently he saw her point toward the northwest, beyond him. without slackening his pace, he turned his eyes in the direction she indicated. racing silently over the thick vegetation, not half a mile behind, came a score of fierce green warriors, charging him upon their mighty thoats. to their right was kar komak, naked and unarmed, yet running valiantly toward carthoris and shouting warning as though he, too, had but just discovered the silent, menacing company that moved so swiftly forward with couched spears and ready long-swords. carthoris shouted to the lotharian, warning him back, for he knew that he could but uselessly sacrifice his life by placing himself, all unarmed, in the path of the cruel and relentless savages. but kar komak never hesitated. with shouts of encouragement to his new friend, he hurried onward toward the prince of helium. the red man's heart leaped in response to this exhibition of courage and self-sacrifice. he regretted now that he had not thought to give kar komak one of his swords; but it was too late to attempt it, for should he wait for the lotharian to overtake him or return to meet him, the torquasians would reach thuvia of ptarth before he could do so. even as it was, it would be nip and tuck as to who came first to her side. again he turned his face in her direction, and now, from aaanthor way, he saw a new force hastening toward them--two medium-sized war craft--and even at the distance they still were from him he discerned the device of dusar upon their bows. now, indeed, seemed little hope for thuvia of ptarth. with savage warriors of the hordes of torquas charging toward her from one direction, and no less implacable enemies, in the form of the creatures of astok, prince of dusar, bearing down upon her from another, while only a banth, a red warrior, and an unarmed bowman were near to defend her, her plight was quite hopeless and her cause already lost ere ever it was contested. as thuvia saw carthoris approaching, she felt again that unaccountable sensation of entire relief from responsibility and fear that she had experienced upon a former occasion. nor could she account for it while her mind still tried to convince her heart that the prince of helium had been instrumental in her abduction from her father's court. she only knew that she was glad when he was by her side, and that with him there all things seemed possible--even such impossible things as escape from her present predicament. now had he stopped, panting, before her. a brave smile of encouragement lit his face. "courage, my princess," he whispered. to the girl's memory flashed the occasion upon which he had used those same words--in the throne-room of tario of lothar as they had commenced to slip down the sinking marble floor toward an unknown fate. then she had not chidden him for the use of that familiar salutation, nor did she chide him now, though she was promised to another. she wondered at herself--flushing at her own turpitude; for upon barsoom it is a shameful thing for a woman to listen to those two words from another than her husband or her betrothed. carthoris saw her flush of mortification, and in an instant regretted his words. there was but a moment before the green warriors would be upon them. "forgive me!" said the man in a low voice. "let my great love be my excuse--that, and the belief that i have but a moment more of life," and with the words he turned to meet the foremost of the green warriors. the fellow was charging with couched spear, but carthoris leaped to one side, and as the great thoat and its rider hurtled harmlessly past him he swung his long-sword in a mighty cut that clove the green carcass in twain. at the same moment kar komak leaped with bare hands clawing at the leg of another of the huge riders; the balance of the horde raced in to close quarters, dismounting the better to wield their favourite long-swords; the dusarian fliers touched the soft carpet of the ochre-clad sea-bottom, disgorging fifty fighting men from their bowels; and into the swirling sea of cutting, slashing swords sprang komal, the great banth. chapter xi green men and white apes a torquasian sword smote a glancing blow across the forehead of carthoris. he had a fleeting vision of soft arms about his neck, and warm lips close to his before he lost consciousness. how long he lay there senseless he could not guess; but when he opened his eyes again he was alone, except for the bodies of the dead green men and dusarians, and the carcass of a great banth that lay half across his own. thuvia was gone, nor was the body of kar komak among the dead. weak from loss of blood, carthoris made his way slowly toward aaanthor, reaching its outskirts at dark. he wanted water more than any other thing, and so he kept on up a broad avenue toward the great central plaza, where he knew the precious fluid was to be found in a half-ruined building opposite the great palace of the ancient jeddak, who once had ruled this mighty city. disheartened and discouraged by the strange sequence of events that seemed fore-ordained to thwart his every attempt to serve the princess of ptarth, he paid little or no attention to his surroundings, moving through the deserted city as though no great white apes lurked in the black shadows of the mystery-haunted piles that flanked the broad avenues and the great plaza. but if carthoris was careless of his surroundings, not so other eyes that watched his entrance into the plaza, and followed his slow footsteps toward the marble pile that housed the tiny, half-choked spring whose water one might gain only by scratching a deep hole in the red sand that covered it. and as the heliumite entered the small building a dozen mighty, grotesque figures emerged from the doorway of the palace to speed noiselessly across the plaza toward him. for half an hour carthoris remained in the building, digging for water and gaining the few much-needed drops which were the fruits of his labour. then he rose and slowly left the structure. scarce had he stepped beyond the threshold than twelve torquasian warriors leaped upon him. no time then to draw long-sword; but swift from his harness flew his long, slim dagger, and as he went down beneath them more than a single green heart ceased beating at the bite of that keen point. then they overpowered him and took his weapons away; but only nine of the twelve warriors who had crossed the plaza returned with their prize. they dragged their prisoner roughly to the palace pits, where in utter darkness they chained him with rusty links to the solid masonry of the wall. "to-morrow thar ban will speak with you," they said. "now he sleeps. but great will be his pleasure when he learns who has wandered amongst us--and great will be the pleasure of hortan gur when thar ban drags before him the mad fool who dared prick the great jeddak with his sword." then they left him to the silence and the darkness. for what seemed hours carthoris squatted upon the stone floor of his prison, his back against the wall in which was sunk the heavy eye-bolt that secured the chain which held him. then, from out of the mysterious blackness before him, there came to his ears the sound of naked feet moving stealthily upon stone--approaching nearer and nearer to where he lay, unarmed and defenceless. minutes passed--minutes that seemed hours--during which time periods of sepulchral silence would be followed by a repetition of the uncanny scraping of naked feet slinking warily upon him. at last he heard a sudden rush of unshod soles across the empty blackness, and at a little distance a scuffling sound, heavy breathing, and once what he thought the muttered imprecation of a man battling against great odds. then the clanging of a chain, and a noise as of the snapping back against stone of a broken link. again came silence. but for a moment only. now he heard once more the soft feet approaching him. he thought that he discerned wicked eyes gleaming fearfully at him through the darkness. he knew that he could hear the heavy breathing of powerful lungs. then came the rush of many feet toward him, and the things were upon him. hands terminating in manlike fingers clutched at his throat and arms and legs. hairy bodies strained and struggled against his own smooth hide as he battled in grim silence against these horrid foemen in the darkness of the pits of ancient aaanthor. thewed like some giant god was carthoris of helium, yet in the clutches of these unseen creatures of the pit's stygian night he was helpless as a frail woman. yet he battled on, striking futile blows against great, hispid breasts he could not see; feeling thick, squat throats beneath his fingers; the drool of saliva upon his cheek, and hot, foul breath in his nostrils. fangs, too, mighty fangs, he knew were close, and why they did not sink into his flesh he could not guess. at last he became aware of the mighty surging of a number of his antagonists back and forth upon the great chain that held him, and presently came the same sound that he had heard at a little distance from him a short time before he had been attacked--his chain had parted and the broken end snapped back against the stone wall. now he was seized upon either side and dragged at a rapid pace through the dark corridors--toward what fate he could not even guess. at first he had thought his foes might be of the tribe of torquas, but their hairy bodies belied that belief. now he was at last quite sure of their identity, though why they had not killed and devoured him at once he could not imagine. after half an hour or more of rapid racing through the underground passages that are a distinguishing feature of all barsoomian cities, modern as well as ancient, his captors suddenly emerged into the moonlight of a courtyard, far from the central plaza. immediately carthoris saw that he was in the power of a tribe of the great white apes of barsoom. all that had caused him doubt before as to the identity of his attackers was the hairiness of their breasts, for the white apes are entirely hairless except for a great shock bristling from their heads. now he saw the cause of that which had deceived him--across the chest of each of them were strips of hairy hide, usually of banth, in imitation of the harness of the green warriors who so often camped at their deserted city. carthoris had read of the existence of tribes of apes that seemed to be progressing slowly toward higher standards of intelligence. into the hands of such, he realized, he had fallen; but--what were their intentions toward him? as he glanced about the courtyard, he saw fully fifty of the hideous beasts, squatting on their haunches, and at a little distance from him another human being, closely guarded. as his eyes met those of his fellow-captive a smile lit the other's face, and: "kaor, red man!" burst from his lips. it was kar komak, the bowman. "kaor!" cried carthoris, in response. "how came you here, and what befell the princess?" "red men like yourself descended in mighty ships that sailed the air, even as the great ships of my distant day sailed the five seas," replied kar komak. "they fought with the green men of torquas. they slew komal, god of lothar. i thought they were your friends, and i was glad when finally those of them who survived the battle carried the red girl to one of the ships and sailed away with her into the safety of the high air. "then the green men seized me, and carried me to a great, empty city, where they chained me to a wall in a black pit. afterward came these and dragged me hither. and what of you, red man?" carthoris related all that had befallen him, and as the two men talked the great apes squatted about them watching them intently. "what are we to do now?" asked the bowman. "our case looks rather hopeless," replied carthoris ruefully. "these creatures are born man-eaters. why they have not already devoured us i cannot imagine--there!" he whispered. "see? the end is coming." kar komak looked in the direction carthoris indicated to see a huge ape advancing with a mighty bludgeon. "it is thus they like best to kill their prey," said carthoris. "must we die without a struggle?" asked kar komak. "not i," replied carthoris, "though i know how futile our best defence must be against these mighty brutes! oh, for a long-sword!" "or a good bow," added kar komak, "and a utan of bowmen." at the words carthoris half sprang to his feet, only to be dragged roughly down by his guard. "kar komak!" he cried. "why cannot you do what tario and jav did? they had no bowmen other than those of their own creation. you must know the secret of their power. call forth your own utan, kar komak!" the lotharian looked at carthoris in wide-eyed astonishment as the full purport of the suggestion bore in upon his understanding. "why not?" he murmured. the savage ape bearing the mighty bludgeon was slinking toward carthoris. the heliumite's fingers were working as he kept his eyes upon his executioner. kar komak bent his gaze penetratingly upon the apes. the effort of his mind was evidenced in the sweat upon his contracted brows. the creature that was to slay the red man was almost within arm's reach of his prey when carthoris heard a hoarse shout from the opposite side of the courtyard. in common with the squatting apes and the demon with the club he turned in the direction of the sound, to see a company of sturdy bowmen rushing from the doorway of a near-by building. with screams of rage the apes leaped to their feet to meet the charge. a volley of arrows met them half-way, sending a dozen rolling lifeless to the ground. then the apes closed with their adversaries. all their attention was occupied by the attackers--even the guard had deserted the prisoners to join in the battle. "come!" whispered kar komak. "now may we escape while their attention is diverted from us by my bowmen." "and leave those brave fellows leaderless?" cried carthoris, whose loyal nature revolted at the merest suggestion of such a thing. kar komak laughed. "you forget," he said, "that they are but thin air--figments of my brain. they will vanish, unscathed, when we have no further need for them. praised be your first ancestor, redman, that you thought of this chance in time! it would never have occurred to me to imagine that i might wield the same power that brought me into existence." "you are right," said carthoris. "still, i hate to leave them, though there is naught else to do," and so the two turned from the courtyard, and making their way into one of the broad avenues, crept stealthily in the shadows of the building toward the great central plaza upon which were the buildings occupied by the green warriors when they visited the deserted city. when they had come to the plaza's edge carthoris halted. "wait here," he whispered. "i go to fetch thoats, since on foot we may never hope to escape the clutches of these green fiends." to reach the courtyard where the thoats were kept it was necessary for carthoris to pass through one of the buildings which surrounded the square. which were occupied and which not he could not even guess, so he was compelled to take considerable chances to gain the enclosure in which he could hear the restless beasts squealing and quarrelling among themselves. chance carried him through a dark doorway into a large chamber in which lay a score or more green warriors wrapped in their sleeping silks and furs. scarce had carthoris passed through the short hallway that connected the door of the building and the great room beyond it than he became aware of the presence of something or some one in the hallway through which he had but just passed. he heard a man yawn, and then, behind him, he saw the figure of a sentry rise from where the fellow had been dozing, and stretching himself resume his wakeful watchfulness. carthoris realized that he must have passed within a foot of the warrior, doubtless rousing him from his slumber. to retreat now would be impossible. yet to cross through that roomful of sleeping warriors seemed almost equally beyond the pale of possibility. carthoris shrugged his broad shoulders and chose the lesser evil. warily he entered the room. at his right, against the wall, leaned several swords and rifles and spears--extra weapons which the warriors had stacked here ready to their hands should there be a night alarm calling them suddenly from slumber. beside each sleeper lay his weapon--these were never far from their owners from childhood to death. the sight of the swords made the young man's palm itch. he stepped quickly to them, selecting two short-swords--one for kar komak, the other for himself; also some trappings for his naked comrade. then he started directly across the centre of the apartment among the sleeping torquasians. not a man of them moved until carthoris had completed more than half of the short though dangerous journey. then a fellow directly in his path turned restlessly upon his sleeping silks and furs. the heliumite paused above him, one of the short-swords in readiness should the warrior awaken. for what seemed an eternity to the young prince the green man continued to move uneasily upon his couch, then, as though actuated by springs, he leaped to his feet and faced the red man. instantly carthoris struck, but not before a savage grunt escaped the other's lips. in an instant the room was in turmoil. warriors leaped to their feet, grasping their weapons as they rose, and shouting to one another for an explanation of the disturbance. to carthoris all within the room was plainly visible in the dim light reflected from without, for the further moon stood directly at zenith; but to the eyes of the newly-awakened green men objects as yet had not taken on familiar forms--they but saw vaguely the figures of warriors moving about their apartment. now one stumbled against the corpse of him whom carthoris had slain. the fellow stooped and his hand came in contact with the cleft skull. he saw about him the giant figures of other green men, and so he jumped to the only conclusion that was open to him. "the thurds!" he cried. "the thurds are upon us! rise, warriors of torquas, and drive home your swords within the hearts of torquas' ancient enemies!" instantly the green men began to fall upon one another with naked swords. their savage lust of battle was aroused. to fight, to kill, to die with cold steel buried in their vitals! ah, that to them was nirvana. carthoris was quick to guess their error and take advantage of it. he knew that in the pleasure of killing they might fight on long after they had discovered their mistake, unless their attention was distracted by sight of the real cause of the altercation, and so he lost no time in continuing across the room to the doorway upon the opposite side, which opened into the inner court, where the savage thoats were squealing and fighting among themselves. once here he had no easy task before him. to catch and mount one of these habitually rageful and intractable beasts was no child's play under the best of conditions; but now, when silence and time were such important considerations, it might well have seemed quite hopeless to a less resourceful and optimistic man than the son of the great warlord. from his father he had learned much concerning the traits of these mighty beasts, and from tars tarkas, also, when he had visited that great green jeddak among his horde at thark. so now he centred upon the work in hand all that he had ever learned about them from others and from his own experience, for he, too, had ridden and handled them many times. the temper of the thoats of torquas appeared even shorter than their vicious cousins among the tharks and warhoons, and for a time it seemed unlikely that he should escape a savage charge on the part of a couple of old bulls that circled, squealing, about him; but at last he managed to get close enough to one of them to touch the beast. with the feel of his hand upon the sleek hide the creature quieted, and in answer to the telepathic command of the red man sank to its knees. in a moment carthoris was upon its back, guiding it toward the great gate that leads from the courtyard through a large building at one end into an avenue beyond. the other bull, still squealing and enraged, followed after his fellow. there was no bridle upon either, for these strange creatures are controlled entirely by suggestion--when they are controlled at all. even in the hands of the giant green men bridle reins would be hopelessly futile against the mad savagery and mastodonic strength of the thoat, and so they are guided by that strange telepathic power with which the men of mars have learned to communicate in a crude way with the lower orders of their planet. with difficulty carthoris urged the two beasts to the gate, where, leaning down, he raised the latch. then the thoat that he was riding placed his great shoulder to the skeel-wood planking, pushed through, and a moment later the man and the two beasts were swinging silently down the avenue to the edge of the plaza, where kar komak hid. here carthoris found considerable difficulty in subduing the second thoat, and as kar komak had never before ridden one of the beasts, it seemed a most hopeless job; but at last the bowman managed to scramble to the sleek back, and again the two beasts fled softly down the moss-grown avenues toward the open sea-bottom beyond the city. all that night and the following day and the second night they rode toward the north-east. no indication of pursuit developed, and at dawn of the second day carthoris saw in the distance the waving ribbon of great trees that marked one of the long barsoomian water-ways. immediately they abandoned their thoats and approached the cultivated district on foot. carthoris also discarded the metal from his harness, or such of it as might serve to identify him as a heliumite, or of royal blood, for he did not know to what nation belonged this waterway, and upon mars it is always well to assume every man and nation your enemy until you have learned the contrary. it was mid-forenoon when the two at last entered one of the roads that cut through the cultivated districts at regular intervals, joining the arid wastes on either side with the great, white, central highway that follows through the centre from end to end of the far-reaching, threadlike farm lands. the high wall surrounding the fields served as a protection against surprise by raiding green hordes, as well as keeping the savage banths and other carnivora from the domestic animals and the human beings upon the farms. carthoris stopped before the first gate he came to, pounding for admission. the young man who answered his summons greeted the two hospitably, though he looked with considerable wonder upon the white skin and auburn hair of the bowman. after he had listened for a moment to a partial narration of their escape from the torquasians, he invited them within, took them to his house and bade the servants there prepare food for them. as they waited in the low-ceiled, pleasant living room of the farmhouse until the meal should be ready, carthoris drew his host into conversation that he might learn his nationality, and thus the nation under whose dominion lay the waterway where circumstance had placed him. "i am hal vas," said the young man, "son of vas kor, of dusar, a noble in the retinue of astok, prince of dusar. at present i am dwar of the road for this district." carthoris was very glad that he had not disclosed his identity, for though he had no idea of anything that had transpired since he had left helium, or that astok was at the bottom of all his misfortunes, he well knew that the dusarian had no love for him, and that he could hope for no assistance within the dominions of dusar. "and who are you?" asked hal vas. "by your appearance i take you for a fighting man, but i see no insignia upon your harness. can it be that you are a panthan?" now, these wandering soldiers of fortune are common upon barsoom, where most men love to fight. they sell their services wherever war exists, and in the occasional brief intervals when there is no organized warfare between the red nations, they join one of the numerous expeditions that are constantly being dispatched against the green men in protection of the waterways that traverse the wilder portions of the globe. when their service is over they discard the metal of the nation they have been serving until they shall have found a new master. in the intervals they wear no insignia, their war-worn harness and grim weapons being sufficient to attest their calling. the suggestion was a happy one, and carthoris embraced the chance it afforded to account satisfactorily for himself. there was, however, a single drawback. in times of war such panthans as happened to be within the domain of a belligerent nation were compelled to don the insignia of that nation and fight with her warriors. as far as carthoris knew dusar was not at war with any other nation, but there was never any telling when one red nation would be flying at the throat of a neighbour, even though the great and powerful alliance at the head of which was his father, john carter, had managed to maintain a long peace upon the greater portion of barsoom. a pleasant smile lighted hal vas' face as carthoris admitted his vocation. "it is well," exclaimed the young man, "that you chanced to come hither, for here you will find the means of obtaining service in short order. my father, vas kor, is even now with me, having come hither to recruit a force for the new war against helium." chapter xii to save dusar thuvia of ptarth, battling for more than life against the lust of jav, cast a quick glance over her shoulder toward the forest from which had rumbled the fierce growl. jav looked, too. what they saw filled each with apprehension. it was komal, the banth-god, rushing wide-jawed upon them! which had he chosen for his prey? or was it to be both? they had not long to wait, for though the lotharian attempted to hold the girl between himself and the terrible fangs, the great beast found him at last. then, shrieking, he attempted to fly toward lothar, after pushing thuvia bodily into the face of the man-eater. but his flight was of short duration. in a moment komal was upon him, rending his throat and chest with demoniacal fury. the girl reached their side a moment later, but it was with difficulty that she tore the mad beast from its prey. still growling and casting hungry glances back upon jav, the banth at last permitted itself to be led away into the wood. with her giant protector by her side thuvia set forth to find the passage through the cliffs, that she might attempt the seemingly impossible feat of reaching far-distant ptarth across the more than seventeen thousand haads of savage barsoom. she could not believe that carthoris had deliberately deserted her, and so she kept a constant watch for him; but as she bore too far to the north in her search for the tunnel she passed the heliumite as he was returning to lothar in search of her. thuvia of ptarth was having difficulty in determining the exact status of the prince of helium in her heart. she could not admit even to herself that she loved him, and yet she had permitted him to apply to her that term of endearment and possession to which a barsoomian maid should turn deaf ears when voiced by other lips than those of her husband or fiance--"my princess." kulan tith, jeddak of kaol, to whom she was affianced, commanded her respect and admiration. had it been that she had surrendered to her father's wishes because of pique that the handsome heliumite had not taken advantage of his visits to her father's court to push the suit for her hand that she had been quite sure he had contemplated since that distant day the two had sat together upon the carved seat within the gorgeous garden of the jeddaks that graced the inner courtyard of the palace of salensus oll at kadabra? did she love kulan tith? bravely she tried to believe that she did; but all the while her eyes wandered through the coming darkness for the figure of a clean-limbed fighting man--black-haired and grey-eyed. black was the hair of kulan tith; but his eyes were brown. it was almost dark when she found the entrance to the tunnel. safely she passed through to the hills beyond, and here, under the bright light of mars' two moons, she halted to plan her future action. should she wait here in the hope that carthoris would return in search of her? or should she continue her way north-east toward ptarth? where, first, would carthoris have gone after leaving the valley of lothar? her parched throat and dry tongue gave her the answer--toward aaanthor and water. well, she, too, would go first to aaanthor, where she might find more than the water she needed. with komal by her side she felt little fear, for he would protect her from all other savage beasts. even the great white apes would flee the mighty banth in terror. men only need she fear, but she must take this and many other chances before she could hope to reach her father's court again. when at last carthoris found her, only to be struck down by the long-sword of a green man, thuvia prayed that the same fate might overtake her. the sight of the red warriors leaping from their fliers had, for a moment, filled her with renewed hope--hope that carthoris of helium might be only stunned and that they would rescue him; but when she saw the dusarian metal upon their harness, and that they sought only to escape with her alone from the charging torquasians, she gave up. komal, too, was dead--dead across the body of the heliumite. she was, indeed, alone now. there was none to protect her. the dusarian warriors dragged her to the deck of the nearest flier. all about them the green warriors surged in an attempt to wrest her from the red. at last those who had not died in the conflict gained the decks of the two craft. the engines throbbed and purred--the propellers whirred. quickly the swift boats shot heavenward. thuvia of ptarth glanced about her. a man stood near, smiling down into her face. with a gasp of recognition she looked full into his eyes, and then with a little moan of terror and understanding she buried her face in her hands and sank to the polished skeel-wood deck. it was astok, prince of dusar, who bent above her. swift were the fliers of astok of dusar, and great the need for reaching his father's court as quickly as possible, for the fleets of war of helium and ptarth and kaol were scattered far and wide above barsoom. nor would it go well with astok of dusar should any one of them discover thuvia of ptarth a prisoner upon his own vessel. aaanthor lies in fifty south latitude, and forty east of horz, the deserted seat of ancient barsoomian culture and learning, while dusar lies fifteen degrees north of the equator and twenty degrees east from horz. great though the distance is, the fliers covered it without a stop. long before they had reached their destination thuvia of ptarth had learned several things that cleared up the doubts that had assailed her mind for many days. scarce had they risen above aaanthor than she recognized one of the crew as a member of the crew of that other flier that had borne her from her father's gardens to aaanthor. the presence of astok upon the craft settled the whole question. she had been stolen by emissaries of the dusarian prince--carthoris of helium had had nothing to do with it. nor did astok deny the charge when she accused him. he only smiled and pleaded his love for her. "i would sooner mate with a white ape!" she cried, when he would have urged his suit. astok glowered sullenly upon her. "you shall mate with me, thuvia of ptarth," he growled, "or, by your first ancestor, you shall have your preference--and mate with a white ape." the girl made no reply, nor could he draw her into conversation during the balance of the journey. as a matter of fact astok was a trifle awed by the proportions of the conflict which his abduction of the ptarthian princess had induced, nor was he over comfortable with the weight of responsibility which the possession of such a prisoner entailed. his one thought was to get her to dusar, and there let his father assume the responsibility. in the meantime he would be as careful as possible to do nothing to affront her, lest they all might be captured and he have to account for his treatment of the girl to one of the great jeddaks whose interest centred in her. and so at last they came to dusar, where astok hid his prisoner in a secret room high in the east tower of his own palace. he had sworn his men to silence in the matter of the identity of the girl, for until he had seen his father, nutus, jeddak of dusar, he dared not let any one know whom he had brought with him from the south. but when he appeared in the great audience chamber before the cruel-lipped man who was his sire, he found his courage oozing, and he dared not speak of the princess hid within his palace. it occurred to him to test his father's sentiments upon the subject, and so he told a tale of capturing one who claimed to know the whereabouts of thuvia of ptarth. "and if you command it, sire," he said, "i will go and capture her--fetching her here to dusar." nutus frowned and shook his head. "you have done enough already to set ptarth and kaol and helium all three upon us at once should they learn your part in the theft of the ptarth princess. that you succeeded in shifting the guilt upon the prince of helium was fortunate, and a masterly move of strategy; but were the girl to know the truth and ever return to her father's court, all dusar would have to pay the penalty, and to have her here a prisoner amongst us would be an admission of guilt from the consequences of which naught could save us. it would cost me my throne, astok, and that i have no mind to lose. "if we had her here--" the elder man suddenly commenced to muse, repeating the phrase again and again. "if we had her here, astok," he exclaimed fiercely. "ah, if we but had her here and none knew that she was here! can you not guess, man? the guilt of dusar might be for ever buried with her bones," he concluded in a low, savage whisper. astok, prince of dusar, shuddered. weak he was; yes, and wicked, too; but the suggestion that his father's words implied turned him cold with horror. cruel to their enemies are the men of mars; but the word "enemies" is commonly interpreted to mean men only. assassination runs riot in the great barsoomian cities; yet to murder a woman is a crime so unthinkable that even the most hardened of the paid assassins would shrink from you in horror should you suggest such a thing to him. nutus was apparently oblivious to his son's all-too-patent terror at his suggestion. presently he continued: "you say that you know where the girl lies hid, since she was stolen from your people at aaanthor. should she be found by any one of the three powers, her unsupported story would be sufficient to turn them all against us. "there is but one way, astok," cried the older man. "you must return at once to her hiding-place and fetch her hither in all secrecy. and, look you here! return not to dusar without her, upon pain of death!" astok, prince of dusar, well knew his royal father's temper. he knew that in the tyrant's heart there pulsed no single throb of love for any creature. astok's mother had been a slave woman. nutus had never loved her. he had never loved another. in youth he had tried to find a bride at the courts of several of his powerful neighbours, but their women would have none of him. after a dozen daughters of his own nobility had sought self-destruction rather than wed him he had given up. and then it had been that he had legally wed one of his slaves that he might have a son to stand among the jeds when nutus died and a new jeddak was chosen. slowly astok withdrew from the presence of his father. with white face and shaking limbs he made his way to his own palace. as he crossed the courtyard his glance chanced to wander to the great east tower looming high against the azure of the sky. at sight of it beads of sweat broke out upon his brow. issus! no other hand than his could be trusted to do the horrid thing. with his own fingers he must crush the life from that perfect throat, or plunge the silent blade into the red, red heart. her heart! the heart that he had hoped would brim with love for him! but had it done so? he recalled the haughty contempt with which his protestations of love had been received. he went cold and then hot to the memory of it. his compunctions cooled as the self-satisfaction of a near revenge crowded out the finer instincts that had for a moment asserted themselves--the good that he had inherited from the slave woman was once again submerged in the bad blood that had come down to him from his royal sire; as, in the end, it always was. a cold smile supplanted the terror that had dilated his eyes. he turned his steps toward the tower. he would see her before he set out upon the journey that was to blind his father to the fact that the girl was already in dusar. quietly he passed in through the secret way, ascending a spiral runway to the apartment in which the princess of ptarth was immured. as he entered the room he saw the girl leaning upon the sill of the east casement, gazing out across the roof tops of dusar toward distant ptarth. he hated ptarth. the thought of it filled him with rage. why not finish her now and have it done with? at the sound of his step she turned quickly toward him. ah, how beautiful she was! his sudden determination faded beneath the glorious light of her wondrous beauty. he would wait until he had returned from his little journey of deception--maybe there might be some other way then. some other hand to strike the blow--with that face, with those eyes before him, he could never do it. of that he was positive. he had always gloried in the cruelty of his nature, but, issus! he was not that cruel. no, another must be found--one whom he could trust. he was still looking at her as she stood there before him meeting his gaze steadily and unafraid. he felt the hot passion of his love mounting higher and higher. why not sue once more? if she would relent, all might yet be well. even if his father could not be persuaded, they could fly to ptarth, laying all the blame of the knavery and intrigue that had thrown four great nations into war, upon the shoulders of nutus. and who was there that would doubt the justice of the charge? "thuvia," he said, "i come once again, for the last time, to lay my heart at your feet. ptarth and kaol and dusar are battling with helium because of you. wed me, thuvia, and all may yet be as it should be." the girl shook her head. "wait!" he commanded, before she could speak. "know the truth before you speak words that may seal, not only your own fate, but that of the thousands of warriors who battle because of you. "refuse to wed me willingly, and dusar would be laid waste should ever the truth be known to ptarth and kaol and helium. they would raze our cities, leaving not one stone upon another. they would scatter our peoples across the face of barsoom from the frozen north to the frozen south, hunting them down and slaying them, until this great nation remained only as a hated memory in the minds of men. "but while they are exterminating the dusarians, countless thousands of their own warriors must perish--and all because of the stubbornness of a single woman who would not wed the prince who loves her. "refuse, thuvia of ptarth, and there remains but a single alternative--no man must ever know your fate. only a handful of loyal servitors besides my royal father and myself know that you were stolen from the gardens of thuvan dihn by astok, prince of dusar, or that to-day you be imprisoned in my palace. "refuse, thuvia of ptarth, and you must die to save dusar--there is no other way. nutus, the jeddak, has so decreed. i have spoken." for a long moment the girl let her level gaze rest full upon the face of astok of dusar. then she spoke, and though the words were few, the unimpassioned tone carried unfathomable depths of cold contempt. "better all that you have threatened," she said, "than you." then she turned her back upon him and went to stand once more before the east window, gazing with sad eyes toward distant ptarth. astok wheeled and left the room, returning after a short interval of time with food and drink. "here," he said, "is sustenance until i return again. the next to enter this apartment will be your executioner. commend yourself to your ancestors, thuvia of ptarth, for within a few days you shall be with them." then he was gone. half an hour later he was interviewing an officer high in the navy of dusar. "whither went vas kor?" he asked. "he is not at his palace." "south, to the great waterway that skirts torquas," replied the other. "his son, hal vas, is dwar of the road there, and thither has vas kor gone to enlist recruits among the workers on the farms." "good," said astok, and a half-hour more found him rising above dusar in his swiftest flier. chapter xiii turjun, the panthan the face of carthoris of helium gave no token of the emotions that convulsed him inwardly as he heard from the lips of hal vas that helium was at war with dusar, and that fate had thrown him into the service of the enemy. that he might utilize this opportunity to the good of helium scarce sufficed to outweigh the chagrin he felt that he was not fighting in the open at the head of his own loyal troops. to escape the dusarians might prove an easy matter; and then again it might not. should they suspect his loyalty (and the loyalty of an impressed panthan was always open to suspicion), he might not find an opportunity to elude their vigilance until after the termination of the war, which might occur within days, or, again, only after long and weary years of bloodshed. he recalled that history recorded wars in which actual military operations had been carried on without cessation for five or six hundred years, and even now there were nations upon barsoom with which helium had made no peace within the history of man. the outlook was not cheering. he could not guess that within a few hours he would be blessing the fate that had thrown him into the service of dusar. "ah!" exclaimed hal vas. "here is my father now. kaor! vas kor. here is one you will be glad to meet--a doughty panthan--" he hesitated. "turjun," interjected carthoris, seizing upon the first appellation that occurred to him. as he spoke his eyes crossed quickly to the tall warrior who was entering the room. where before had he seen that giant figure, that taciturn countenance, and the livid sword-cut from temple to mouth? "vas kor," repeated carthoris mentally. "vas kor!" where had he seen the man before? and then the noble spoke, and like a flash it all came back to carthoris--the forward servant upon the landing-stage at ptarth that time that he had been explaining the intricacies of his new compass to thuvan dihn; the lone slave that had guarded his own hangar that night he had left upon his ill-fated journey for ptarth--the journey that had brought him so mysteriously to far aaanthor. "vas kor," he repeated aloud, "blessed be your ancestors for this meeting," nor did the dusarian guess the wealth of meaning that lay beneath that hackneyed phrase with which a barsoomian acknowledges an introduction. "and blessed be yours, turjun," replied vas kor. now came the introduction of kar komak to vas kor, and as carthoris went through the little ceremony there came to him the only explanation he might make to account for the white skin and auburn hair of the bowman; for he feared that the truth might not be believed and thus suspicion be cast upon them both from the beginning. "kar komak," he explained, "is, as you can see, a thern. he has wandered far from his icebound southern temples in search of adventure. i came upon him in the pits of aaanthor; but though i have known him so short a time, i can vouch for his bravery and loyalty." since the destruction of the fabric of their false religion by john carter, the majority of the therns had gladly accepted the new order of things, so that it was now no longer uncommon to see them mingling with the multitudes of red men in any of the great cities of the outer world, so vas kor neither felt nor expressed any great astonishment. all during the interview carthoris watched, catlike, for some indication that vas kor recognized in the battered panthan the erstwhile gorgeous prince of helium; but the sleepless nights, the long days of marching and fighting, the wounds and the dried blood had evidently sufficed to obliterate the last remnant of his likeness to his former self; and then vas kor had seen him but twice in all his life. little wonder that he did not know him. during the evening vas kor announced that on the morrow they should depart north toward dusar, picking up recruits at various stations along the way. in a great field behind the house a flier lay--a fair-sized cruiser-transport that would accommodate many men, yet swift and well armed also. here carthoris slept, and kar komak, too, with the other recruits, under guard of the regular dusarian warriors that manned the craft. toward midnight vas kor returned to the vessel from his son's house, repairing at once to his cabin. carthoris, with one of the dusarians, was on watch. it was with difficulty that the heliumite repressed a cold smile as the noble passed within a foot of him--within a foot of the long, slim, heliumitic blade that swung in his harness. how easy it would have been! how easy to avenge the cowardly trick that had been played upon him--to avenge helium and ptarth and thuvia! but his hand moved not toward the dagger's hilt, for first vas kor must serve a better purpose--he might know where thuvia of ptarth lay hidden now, if it had truly been dusarians that had spirited her away during the fight before aaanthor. and then, too, there was the instigator of the entire foul plot. he must pay the penalty; and who better than vas kor could lead the prince of helium to astok of dusar? faintly out of the night there came to carthoris's ears the purring of a distant motor. he scanned the heavens. yes, there it was far in the north, dimly outlined against the dark void of space that stretched illimitably beyond it, the faint suggestion of a flier passing, unlighted, through the barsoomian night. carthoris, knowing not whether the craft might be friend or foe of dusar, gave no sign that he had seen, but turned his eyes in another direction, leaving the matter to the dusarian who stood watch with him. presently the fellow discovered the oncoming craft, and sounded the low alarm which brought the balance of the watch and an officer from their sleeping silks and furs upon the deck near by. the cruiser-transport lay without lights, and, resting as she was upon the ground, must have been entirely invisible to the oncoming flier, which all presently recognized as a small craft. it soon became evident that the stranger intended making a landing, for she was now spiraling slowly above them, dropping lower and lower in each graceful curve. "it is the thuria," whispered one of the dusarian warriors. "i would know her in the blackness of the pits among ten thousand other craft." "right you are!" exclaimed vas kor, who had come on deck. and then he hailed: "kaor, thuria!" "kaor!" came presently from above after a brief silence. then: "what ship?" "cruiser-transport kalksus, vas kor of dusar." "good!" came from above. "is there safe landing alongside?" "yes, close in to starboard. wait, we will show our lights," and a moment later the smaller craft settled close beside the kalksus, and the lights of the latter were immediately extinguished once more. several figures could be seen slipping over the side of the thuria and advancing toward the kalksus. ever suspicious, the dusarians stood ready to receive the visitors as friends or foes as closer inspection might prove them. carthoris stood quite near the rail, ready to take sides with the new-comers should chance have it that they were heliumites playing a bold stroke of strategy upon this lone dusarian ship. he had led like parties himself, and knew that such a contingency was quite possible. but the face of the first man to cross the rail undeceived him with a shock that was not at all unpleasurable--it was the face of astok, prince of dusar. scarce noticing the others upon the deck of the kalksus, astok strode forward to accept vas kor's greeting, then he summoned the noble below. the warriors and officers returned to their sleeping silks and furs, and once more the deck was deserted except for the dusarian warrior and turjun, the panthan, who stood guard. the latter walked quietly to and fro. the former leaned across the rail, wishing for the hour that would bring him relief. he did not see his companion approach the lights of the cabin of vas kor. he did not see him stoop with ear close pressed to a tiny ventilator. "may the white apes take us all," cried astok ruefully, "if we are not in as ugly a snarl as you have ever seen! nutus thinks that we have her in hiding far away from dusar. he has bidden me bring her here." he paused. no man should have heard from his lips the thing he was trying to tell. it should have been for ever the secret of nutus and astok, for upon it rested the safety of a throne. with that knowledge any man could wrest from the jeddak of dusar whatever he listed. but astok was afraid, and he wanted from this older man the suggestion of an alternative. he went on. "i am to kill her," he whispered, looking fearfully around. "nutus merely wishes to see the body that he may know his commands have been executed. i am now supposed to be gone to the spot where we have her hidden that i may fetch her in secrecy to dusar. none is to know that she has ever been in the keeping of a dusarian. i do not need to tell you what would befall dusar should ptarth and helium and kaol ever learn the truth." the jaws of the listener at the ventilator clicked together with a vicious snap. before he had but guessed at the identity of the subject of this conversation. now he knew. and they were to kill her! his muscular fingers clenched until the nails bit into the palms. "and you wish me to go with you while you fetch her to dusar," vas kor was saying. "where is she?" astok bent close and whispered into the other's ear. the suggestion of a smile crossed the cruel features of vas kor. he realized the power that lay within his grasp. he should be a jed at least. "and how may i help you, my prince?" asked the older man suavely. "i cannot kill her," said astok. "issus! i cannot do it! when she turns those eyes upon me my heart becomes water." vas kor's eyes narrowed. "and you wish--" he paused, the interrogation unfinished, yet complete. astok nodded. "you do not love her," he said. "but i love my life--though i am only a lesser noble," he concluded meaningly. "you shall be a greater noble--a noble of the first rank!" exclaimed astok. "i would be a jed," said vas kor bluntly. astok hesitated. "a jed must die before there can be another jed," he pleaded. "jeds have died before," snapped vas kor. "it would doubtless be not difficult for you to find a jed you do not love, astok--there are many who do not love you." already vas kor was commencing to presume upon his power over the young prince. astok was quick to note and appreciate the subtle change in his lieutenant. a cunning scheme entered his weak and wicked brain. "as you say, vas kor!" he exclaimed. "you shall be a jed when the thing is done," and then, to himself: "nor will it then be difficult for me to find a jed i do not love." "when shall we return to dusar?" asked the noble. "at once," replied astok. "let us get under way now--there is naught to keep you here?" "i had intended sailing on the morrow, picking up such recruits as the various dwars of the roads might have collected for me, as we returned to dusar." "let the recruits wait," said astok. "or, better still, come you to dusar upon the thuria, leaving the kalksus to follow and pick up the recruits." "yes," acquiesced vas kor; "that is the better plan. come; i am ready," and he rose to accompany astok to the latter's flier. the listener at the ventilator came to his feet slowly, like an old man. his face was drawn and pinched and very white beneath the light copper of his skin. she was to die! and he helpless to avert the tragedy. he did not even know where she was imprisoned. the two men were ascending from the cabin to the deck. turjun, the panthan, crept close to the companionway, his sinuous fingers closing tightly upon the hilt of his dagger. could he despatch them both before he was overpowered? he smiled. he could slay an entire utan of her enemies in his present state of mind. they were almost abreast of him now. astok was speaking. "bring a couple of your men along, vas kor," he said. "we are short-handed upon the thuria, so quickly did we depart." the panthan's fingers dropped from the dagger's hilt. his quick mind had grasped here a chance for succouring thuvia of ptarth. he might be chosen as one to accompany the assassins, and once he had learned where the captive lay he could dispatch astok and vas kor as well as now. to kill them before he knew where thuvia was hid was simply to leave her to death at the hands of others; for sooner or later nutus would learn her whereabouts, and nutus, jeddak of dusar, could not afford to let her live. turjun put himself in the path of vas kor that he might not be overlooked. the noble aroused the men sleeping upon the deck, but always before him the strange panthan whom he had recruited that same day found means for keeping himself to the fore. vas kor turned to his lieutenant, giving instruction for the bringing of the kalksus to dusar, and the gathering up of the recruits; then he signed to two warriors who stood close behind the padwar. "you two accompany us to the thuria," he said, "and put yourselves at the disposal of her dwar." it was dark upon the deck of the kalksus, so vas kor had not a good look at the faces of the two he chose; but that was of no moment, for they were but common warriors to assist with the ordinary duties upon a flier, and to fight if need be. one of the two was kar komak, the bowman. the other was not carthoris. the heliumite was mad with disappointment. he snatched his dagger from his harness; but already astok had left the deck of the kalksus, and he knew that before he could overtake him, should he dispatch vas kor, he would be killed by the dusarian warriors, who now were thick upon the deck. with either one of the two alive thuvia was in as great danger as though both lived--it must be both! as vas kor descended to the ground carthoris boldly followed him, nor did any attempt to halt him, thinking, doubtless, that he was one of the party. after him came kar komak and the dusarian warrior who had been detailed to duty upon the thuria. carthoris walked close to the left side of the latter. now they came to the dense shadow under the side of the thuria. it was very dark there, so that they had to grope for the ladder. kar komak preceded the dusarian. the latter reached upward for the swinging rounds, and as he did so steel fingers closed upon his windpipe and a steel blade pierced the very centre of his heart. turjun, the panthan, was the last to clamber over the rail of the thuria, drawing the rope ladder in after him. a moment later the flier was rising rapidly, headed for the north. at the rail kar komak turned to speak to the warrior who had been detailed to accompany him. his eyes went wide as they rested upon the face of the young man whom he had met beside the granite cliffs that guard mysterious lothar. how had he come in place of the dusarian? a quick sign, and kar komak turned once more to find the thuria's dwar that he might report himself for duty. behind him followed the panthan. carthoris blessed the chance that had caused vas kor to choose the bowman of all others, for had it been another dusarian there would have been questions to answer as to the whereabouts of the warrior who lay so quietly in the field beyond the residence of hal vas, dwar of the southern road; and carthoris had no answer to that question other than his sword point, which alone was scarce adequate to convince the entire crew of the thuria. the journey to dusar seemed interminable to the impatient carthoris, though as a matter of fact it was quickly accomplished. some time before they reached their destination they met and spoke with another dusarian war flier. from it they learned that a great battle was soon to be fought south-east of dusar. the combined navies of dusar, ptarth and kaol had been intercepted in their advance toward helium by the mighty heliumitic navy--the most formidable upon barsoom, not alone in numbers and armament, but in the training and courage of its officers and warriors, and the zitidaric proportions of many of its monster battleships. not for many a day had there been the promise of such a battle. four jeddaks were in direct command of their own fleets--kulan tith of kaol, thuvan dihn of ptarth, and nutus of dusar upon one side; while upon the other was tardos mors, jeddak of helium. with the latter was john carter, warlord of mars. from the far north another force was moving south across the barrier cliffs--the new navy of talu, jeddak of okar, coming in response to the call from the warlord. upon the decks of the sullen ships of war black-bearded yellow men looked over eagerly toward the south. gorgeous were they in their splendid cloaks of orluk and apt. fierce, formidable fighters from the hothouse cities of the frozen north. and from the distant south, from the sea of omean and the cliffs of gold, from the temples of the therns and the garden of issus, other thousands sailed into the north at the call of the great man they all had learned to respect, and, respecting, love. pacing the flagship of this mighty fleet, second only to the navy of helium, was the ebon xodar, jeddak of the first born, his heart beating strong in anticipation of the coming moment when he should hurl his savage crews and the weight of his mighty ships upon the enemies of the warlord. but would these allies reach the theatre of war in time to be of avail to helium? or, would helium need them? carthoris, with the other members of the crew of the thuria, heard the gossip and the rumours. none knew of the two fleets, the one from the south and the other from the north, that were coming to support the ships of helium, and all of dusar were convinced that nothing now could save the ancient power of helium from being wiped for ever from the upper air of barsoom. carthoris, too, loyal son of helium that he was, felt that even his beloved navy might not be able to cope successfully with the combined forces of three great powers. now the thuria touched the landing-stage above the palace of astok. hurriedly the prince and vas kor disembarked and entered the drop that would carry them to the lower levels of the palace. close beside it was another drop that was utilized by common warriors. carthoris touched kar komak upon the arm. "come!" he whispered. "you are my only friend among a nation of enemies. will you stand by me?" "to the death," replied kar komak. the two approached the drop. a slave operated it. "where are your passes?" he asked. carthoris fumbled in his pocket pouch as though in search of them, at the same time entering the cage. kar komak followed him, closing the door. the slave did not start the cage downward. every second counted. they must reach the lower level as soon as possible after astok and vas kor if they would know whither the two went. carthoris turned suddenly upon the slave, hurling him to the opposite side of the cage. "bind and gag him, kar komak!" he cried. then he grasped the control lever, and as the cage shot downward at sickening speed, the bowman grappled with the slave. carthoris could not leave the control to assist his companion, for should they touch the lowest level at the speed at which they were going, all would be dashed to instant death. below him he could now see the top of astok's cage in the parallel shaft, and he reduced the speed of his to that of the other. the slave commenced to scream. "silence him!" cried carthoris. a moment later a limp form crumpled to the floor of the cage. "he is silenced," said kar komak. carthoris brought the cage to a sudden stop at one of the higher levels of the palace. opening the door, he grasped the still form of the slave and pushed it out upon the floor. then he banged the gate and resumed the downward drop. once more he sighted the top of the cage that held astok and vas kor. an instant later it had stopped, and as he brought his car to a halt, he saw the two men disappear through one of the exits of the corridor beyond. chapter xiv kulan tith's sacrifice the morning of the second day of her incarceration in the east tower of the palace of astok, prince of dusar, found thuvia of ptarth waiting in dull apathy the coming of the assassin. she had exhausted every possibility of escape, going over and over again the door and the windows, the floor and the walls. the solid ersite slabs she could not even scratch; the tough barsoomian glass of the windows would have shattered to nothing less than a heavy sledge in the hands of a strong man. the door and the lock were impregnable. there was no escape. and they had stripped her of her weapons so that she could not even anticipate the hour of her doom, thus robbing them of the satisfaction of witnessing her last moments. when would they come? would astok do the deed with his own hands? she doubted that he had the courage for it. at heart he was a coward--she had known it since first she had heard him brag as, a visitor at the court of her father, he had sought to impress her with his valour. she could not help but compare him with another. and with whom would an affianced bride compare an unsuccessful suitor? with her betrothed? and did thuvia of ptarth now measure astok of dusar by the standards of kulan tith, jeddak of kaol? she was about to die; her thoughts were her own to do with as she pleased; yet furthest from them was kulan tith. instead the figure of the tall and comely heliumite filled her mind, crowding therefrom all other images. she dreamed of his noble face, the quiet dignity of his bearing, the smile that lit his eyes as he conversed with his friends, and the smile that touched his lips as he fought with his enemies--the fighting smile of his virginian sire. and thuvia of ptarth, true daughter of barsoom, found her breath quickening and heart leaping to the memory of this other smile--the smile that she would never see again. with a little half-sob the girl sank to the pile of silks and furs that were tumbled in confusion beneath the east windows, burying her face in her arms. in the corridor outside her prison-room two men had paused in heated argument. "i tell you again, astok," one was saying, "that i shall not do this thing unless you be present in the room." there was little of the respect due royalty in the tone of the speaker's voice. the other, noting it, flushed. "do not impose too far upon my friendship for you, vas kor," he snapped. "there is a limit to my patience." "there is no question of royal prerogative here," returned vas kor. "you ask me to become an assassin in your stead, and against your jeddak's strict injunctions. you are in no position, astok, to dictate to me; but rather should you be glad to accede to my reasonable request that you be present, thus sharing the guilt with me. why should i bear it all?" the younger man scowled, but he advanced toward the locked door, and as it swung in upon its hinges, he entered the room beyond at the side of vas kor. across the chamber the girl, hearing them enter, rose to her feet and faced them. under the soft copper of her skin she blanched just a trifle; but her eyes were brave and level, and the haughty tilt of her firm little chin was eloquent of loathing and contempt. "you still prefer death?" asked astok. "to you, yes," replied the girl coldly. the prince of dusar turned to vas kor and nodded. the noble drew his short-sword and crossed the room toward thuvia. "kneel!" he commanded. "i prefer to die standing," she replied. "as you will," said vas kor, feeling the point of his blade with his left thumb. "in the name of nutus, jeddak of dusar!" he cried, and ran quickly toward her. "in the name of carthoris, prince of helium!" came in low tones from the doorway. vas kor turned to see the panthan he had recruited at his son's house leaping across the floor toward him. the fellow brushed past astok with an: "after him, you--calot!" vas kor wheeled to meet the charging man. "what means this treason?" he cried. astok, with bared sword, leaped to vas kor's assistance. the panthan's sword clashed against that of the noble, and in the first encounter vas kor knew that he faced a master swordsman. before he half realized the stranger's purpose he found the man between himself and thuvia of ptarth, at bay facing the two swords of the dusarians. but he fought not like a man at bay. ever was he the aggressor, and though always he kept his flashing blade between the girl and her enemies, yet he managed to force them hither and thither about the room, calling to the girl to follow close behind him. until it was too late neither vas kor nor astok dreamed of that which lay in the panthan's mind; but at last as the fellow stood with his back toward the door, both understood--they were penned in their own prison, and now the intruder could slay them at his will, for thuvia of ptarth was bolting the door at the man's direction, first taking the key from the opposite side, where astok had left it when they had entered. astok, as was his way, finding that the enemy did not fall immediately before their swords, was leaving the brunt of the fighting to vas kor, and now as his eyes appraised the panthan carefully they presently went wider and wider, for slowly he had come to recognize the features of the prince of helium. the heliumite was pressing close upon vas kor. the noble was bleeding from a dozen wounds. astok saw that he could not for long withstand the cunning craft of that terrible sword hand. "courage, vas kor!" he whispered in the other's ear. "i have a plan. hold him but a moment longer and all will be well," but the balance of the sentence, "with astok, prince of dusar," he did not voice aloud. vas kor, dreaming no treachery, nodded his head, and for a moment succeeded in holding carthoris at bay. then the heliumite and the girl saw the dusarian prince run swiftly to the opposite side of the chamber, touch something in the wall that sent a great panel swinging inward, and disappear into the black vault beyond. it was done so quickly that by no possibility could they have intercepted him. carthoris, fearful lest vas kor might similarly elude him, or astok return immediately with reinforcements, sprang viciously in upon his antagonist, and a moment later the headless body of the dusarian noble rolled upon the ersite floor. "come!" cried carthoris. "there is no time to be lost. astok will be back in a moment with enough warriors to overpower me." but astok had no such plan in mind, for such a move would have meant the spreading of the fact among the palace gossips that the ptarthian princess was a prisoner in the east tower. quickly would the word have come to his father, and no amount of falsifying could have explained away the facts that the jeddak's investigation would have brought to light. instead astok was racing madly through a long corridor to reach the door of the tower-room before carthoris and thuvia left the apartment. he had seen the girl remove the key and place it in her pocket-pouch, and he knew that a dagger point driven into the keyhole from the opposite side would imprison them in the secret chamber till eight dead worlds circled a cold, dead sun. as fast as he could run astok entered the main corridor that led to the tower chamber. would he reach the door in time? what if the heliumite should have already emerged and he should run upon him in the passageway? astok felt a cold chill run up his spine. he had no stomach to face that uncanny blade. he was almost at the door. around the next turn of the corridor it stood. no, they had not left the apartment. evidently vas kor was still holding the heliumite! astok could scarce repress a grin at the clever manner in which he had outwitted the noble and disposed of him at the same time. and then he rounded the turn and came face to face with an auburn-haired, white giant. the fellow did not wait to ask the reason for his coming; instead he leaped upon him with a long-sword, so that astok had to parry a dozen vicious cuts before he could disengage himself and flee back down the runway. a moment later carthoris and thuvia entered the corridor from the secret chamber. "well, kar komak?" asked the heliumite. "it is fortunate that you left me here, red man," said the bowman. "i but just now intercepted one who seemed over-anxious to reach this door--it was he whom they call astok, prince of dusar." carthoris smiled. "where is he now?" he asked. "he escaped my blade, and ran down this corridor," replied kar komak. "we must lose no time, then!" exclaimed carthoris. "he will have the guard upon us yet!" together the three hastened along the winding passages through which carthoris and kar komak had tracked the dusarians by the marks of the latter's sandals in the thin dust that overspread the floors of these seldom-used passage-ways. they had come to the chamber at the entrances to the lifts before they met with opposition. here they found a handful of guardsmen, and an officer, who, seeing that they were strangers, questioned their presence in the palace of astok. once more carthoris and kar komak had recourse to their blades, and before they had won their way to one of the lifts the noise of the conflict must have aroused the entire palace, for they heard men shouting, and as they passed the many levels on their quick passage to the landing-stage they saw armed men running hither and thither in search of the cause of the commotion. beside the stage lay the thuria, with three warriors on guard. again the heliumite and the lotharian fought shoulder to shoulder, but the battle was soon over, for the prince of helium alone would have been a match for any three that dusar could produce. scarce had the thuria risen from the ways ere a hundred or more fighting men leaped to view upon the landing-stage. at their head was astok of dusar, and as he saw the two he had thought so safely in his power slipping from his grasp, he danced with rage and chagrin, shaking his fists and hurling abuse and vile insults at them. with her bow inclined upward at a dizzy angle, the thuria shot meteor-like into the sky. from a dozen points swift patrol boats darted after her, for the scene upon the landing-stage above the palace of the prince of dusar had not gone unnoticed. a dozen times shots grazed the thuria's side, and as carthoris could not leave the control levers, thuvia of ptarth turned the muzzles of the craft's rapid-fire guns upon the enemy as she clung to the steep and slippery surface of the deck. it was a noble race and a noble fight. one against a score now, for other dusarian craft had joined in the pursuit; but astok, prince of dusar, had built well when he built the thuria. none in the navy of his sire possessed a swifter flier; no other craft so well armoured or so well armed. one by one the pursuers were distanced, and as the last of them fell out of range behind, carthoris dropped the thuria's nose to a horizontal plane, as with lever drawn to the last notch, she tore through the thin air of dying mars toward the east and ptarth. thirteen and a half thousand haads away lay ptarth--a stiff thirty-hour journey for the swiftest of fliers, and between dusar and ptarth might lie half the navy of dusar, for in this direction was the reported seat of the great naval battle that even now might be in progress. could carthoris have known precisely where the great fleets of the contending nations lay, he would have hastened to them without delay, for in the return of thuvia to her sire lay the greatest hope of peace. half the distance they covered without sighting a single warship, and then kar komak called carthoris's attention to a distant craft that rested upon the ochre vegetation of the great dead sea-bottom, above which the thuria was speeding. about the vessel many figures could be seen swarming. with the aid of powerful glasses, the heliumite saw that they were green warriors, and that they were repeatedly charging down upon the crew of the stranded airship. the nationality of the latter he could not make out at so great a distance. it was not necessary to change the course of the thuria to permit of passing directly above the scene of battle, but carthoris dropped his craft a few hundred feet that he might have a better and closer view. if the ship was of a friendly power, he could do no less than stop and direct his guns upon her enemies, though with the precious freight he carried he scarcely felt justified in landing, for he could offer but two swords in reinforcement--scarce enough to warrant jeopardizing the safety of the princess of ptarth. as they came close above the stricken ship, they could see that it would be but a question of minutes before the green horde would swarm across the armoured bulwarks to glut the ferocity of their bloodlust upon the defenders. "it would be futile to descend," said carthoris to thuvia. "the craft may even be of dusar--she shows no insignia. all that we may do is fire upon the hordesmen"; and as he spoke he stepped to one of the guns and deflected its muzzle toward the green warriors at the ship's side. at the first shot from the thuria those upon the vessel below evidently discovered her for the first time. immediately a device fluttered from the bow of the warship on the ground. thuvia of ptarth caught her breath quickly, glancing at carthoris. the device was that of kulan tith, jeddak of kaol--the man to whom the princess of ptarth was betrothed! how easy for the heliumite to pass on, leaving his rival to the fate that could not for long be averted! no man could accuse him of cowardice or treachery, for kulan tith was in arms against helium, and, further, upon the thuria were not enough swords to delay even temporarily the outcome that already was a foregone conclusion in the minds of the watchers. what would carthoris, prince of helium, do? scarce had the device broken to the faint breeze ere the bow of the thuria dropped at a sharp angle toward the ground. "can you navigate her?" asked carthoris of thuvia. the girl nodded. "i am going to try to take the survivors aboard," he continued. "it will need both kar komak and myself to man the guns while the kaolians take to the boarding tackle. keep her bow depressed against the rifle fire. she can bear it better in her forward armour, and at the same time the propellers will be protected." he hurried to the cabin as thuvia took the control. a moment later the boarding tackle dropped from the keel of the thuria, and from a dozen points along either side stout, knotted leathern lines trailed downward. at the same time a signal broke from her bow: "prepare to board us." a shout arose from the deck of the kaolian warship. carthoris, who by this time had returned from the cabin, smiled sadly. he was about to snatch from the jaws of death the man who stood between himself and the woman he loved. "take the port bow gun, kar komak," he called to the bowman, and himself stepped to the gun upon the starboard bow. they could now feel the sharp shock of the explosions of the green warriors' projectiles against the armoured sides of the staunch _thuria_. it was a forlorn hope at best. at any moment the repulsive ray tanks might be pierced. the men upon the kaolian ship were battling with renewed hope. in the bow stood kulan tith, a brave figure fighting beside his brave warriors, beating back the ferocious green men. the thuria came low above the other craft. the kaolians were forming under their officers in readiness to board, and then a sudden fierce fusillade from the rifles of the green warriors vomited their hail of death and destruction into the side of the brave flier. like a wounded bird she dived suddenly marsward careening drunkenly. thuvia turned the bow upward in an effort to avert the imminent tragedy, but she succeeded only in lessening the shock of the flier's impact as she struck the ground beside the kaolian ship. when the green men saw only two warriors and a woman upon the deck of the thuria, a savage shout of triumph arose from their ranks, while an answering groan broke from the lips of the kaolians. the former now turned their attention upon the new arrival, for they saw her defenders could soon be overcome and that from her deck they could command the deck of the better-manned ship. as they charged a shout of warning came from kulan tith, upon the bridge of his own ship, and with it an appreciation of the valour of the act that had put the smaller vessel in these sore straits. "who is it," he cried, "that offers his life in the service of kulan tith? never was wrought a nobler deed of self-sacrifice upon barsoom!" the green horde was scrambling over the thuria's side as there broke from the bow the device of carthoris, prince of helium, in reply to the query of the jeddak of kaol. none upon the smaller flier had opportunity to note the effect of this announcement upon the kaolians, for their attention was claimed slowly now by that which was transpiring upon their own deck. kar komak stood behind the gun he had been operating, staring with wide eyes at the onrushing hideous green warriors. carthoris, seeing him thus, felt a pang of regret that, after all, this man that he had thought so valorous should prove, in the hour of need, as spineless as jav or tario. "kar komak--the man!" he shouted. "grip yourself! remember the days of the glory of the seafarers of lothar. fight! fight, man! fight as never man fought before. all that remains to us is to die fighting." kar komak turned toward the heliumite, a grim smile upon his lips. "why should we fight," he asked. "against such fearful odds? there is another way--a better way. look!" he pointed toward the companion-way that led below deck. the green men, a handful of them, had already reached the thuria's deck, as carthoris glanced in the direction the lotharian had indicated. the sight that met his eyes set his heart to thumping in joy and relief--thuvia of ptarth might yet be saved? for from below there poured a stream of giant bowmen, grim and terrible. not the bowmen of tario or jav, but the bowmen of an odwar of bowmen--savage fighting men, eager for the fray. the green warriors paused in momentary surprise and consternation, but only for a moment. then with horrid war-cries they leaped forward to meet these strange, new foemen. a volley of arrows stopped them in their tracks. in a moment the only green warriors upon the deck of the thuria were dead warriors, and the bowmen of kar komak were leaping over the vessel's sides to charge the hordesmen upon the ground. utan after utan tumbled from the bowels of the thuria to launch themselves upon the unfortunate green men. kulan tith and his kaolians stood wide-eyed and speechless with amazement as they saw thousands of these strange, fierce warriors emerge from the companion-way of the small craft that could not comfortably have accommodated more than fifty. at last the green men could withstand the onslaught of overwhelming numbers no longer. slowly, at first, they fell back across the ochre plain. the bowmen pursued them. kar komak, standing upon the deck of the thuria, trembled with excitement. at the top of his lungs he voiced the savage war-cry of his forgotten day. he roared encouragement and commands at his battling utans, and then, as they charged further and further from the thuria, he could no longer withstand the lure of battle. leaping over the ship's side to the ground, he joined the last of his bowmen as they raced off over the dead sea-bottom in pursuit of the fleeing green horde. beyond a low promontory of what once had been an island the green men were disappearing toward the west. close upon their heels raced the fleet bowmen of a bygone day, and forging steadily ahead among them carthoris and thuvia could see the mighty figure of kar komak, brandishing aloft the torquasian short-sword with which he was armed, as he urged his creatures after the retreating enemy. as the last of them disappeared behind the promontory, carthoris turned toward thuvia of ptarth. "they have taught me a lesson, these vanishing bowmen of lothar," he said. "when they have served their purpose they remain not to embarrass their masters by their presence. kulan tith and his warriors are here to protect you. my acts have constituted the proof of my honesty of purpose. good-bye," and he knelt at her feet, raising a bit of her harness to his lips. the girl reached out a hand and laid it upon the thick black hair of the head bent before her. softly she asked: "where are you going, carthoris?" "with kar komak, the bowman," he replied. "there will be fighting and forgetfulness." the girl put her hands before her eyes, as though to shut out some mighty temptation from her sight. "may my ancestors have mercy upon me," she cried, "if i say the thing i have no right to say; but i cannot see you cast your life away, carthoris, prince of helium! stay, my chieftain. stay--i love you!" a cough behind them brought both about, and there they saw standing, not two paces from them kulan tith, jeddak of kaol. for a long moment none spoke. then kulan tith cleared his throat. "i could not help hearing all that passed," he said. "i am no fool, to be blind to the love that lies between you. nor am i blind to the lofty honour that has caused you, carthoris, to risk your life and hers to save mine, though you thought that that very act would rob you of the chance to keep her for your own. "nor can i fail to appreciate the virtue that has kept your lips sealed against words of love for this heliumite, thuvia, for i know that i have but just heard the first declaration of your passion for him. i do not condemn you. rather should i have condemned you had you entered a loveless marriage with me. "take back your liberty, thuvia of ptarth," he cried, "and bestow it where your heart already lies enchained, and when the golden collars are clasped about your necks you will see that kulan tith's is the first sword to be raised in declaration of eternal friendship for the new princess of helium and her royal mate!" a glossary of names and terms used in the martian books aaanthor. a dead city of ancient mars. aisle of hope. an aisle leading to the court-room in helium. apt. an arctic monster. a huge, white-furred creature with six limbs, four of which, short and heavy, carry it over the snow and ice; the other two, which grow forward from its shoulders on either side of its long, powerful neck, terminate in white, hairless hands with which it seizes and holds its prey. its head and mouth are similar in appearance to those of a hippopotamus, except that from the sides of the lower jawbone two mighty horns curve slightly downward toward the front. its two huge eyes extend in two vast oval patches from the centre of the top of the cranium down either side of the head to below the roots of the horns, so that these weapons really grow out from the lower part of the eyes, which are composed of several thousand ocelli each. each ocellus is furnished with its own lid, and the apt can, at will, close as many of the facets of his huge eyes as he chooses. (see the warlord of mars.) astok. prince of dusar. avenue of ancestors. a street in helium. banth. barsoomian lion. a fierce beast of prey that roams the low hills surrounding the dead seas of ancient mars. it is almost hairless, having only a great, bristly mane about its thick neck. its long, lithe body is supported by ten powerful legs, its enormous jaws are equipped with several rows of long needle-like fangs, and its mouth reaches to a point far back of its tiny ears. it has enormous protruding eyes of green. (see the gods of mars.) bar comas. jeddak of warhoon. (see a princess of mars.) barsoom. mars. black pirates of barsoom. men six feet and over in height. have clear-cut and handsome features; their eyes are well set and large, though a slight narrowness lends them a crafty appearance. the iris is extremely black while the eyeball itself is quite white and clear. their skin has the appearance of polished ebony. (see the gods of mars.) calot. a dog. about the size of a shetland pony and has ten short legs. the head bears a slight resemblance to that of a frog, except that the jaws are equipped with three rows of long, sharp tusks. (see a princess of mars.) carter, john. warlord of mars. carthoris of helium. son of john carter and dejah thoris. dak kova. jed among the warhoons (later jeddak). darseen. chameleon-like reptile. dator. chief or prince among the first born. dejah thoris. princess of helium. djor kantos. son of kantos kan; padwar of the fifth utan. dor. valley of heaven. dotar sojat. john carter's martian name, from the surnames of the first two warrior chieftains he killed. dusar. a martian kingdom. dwar. captain. ersite. a kind of stone. father of therns. high priest of religious cult. first born. black race; black pirates. kar komak. odwar of lotharian bowmen. gate of jeddaks. a gate in helium. gozava. tars tarkas' dead wife. gur tus. dwar of the tenth utan. haad. martian mile. hal vas. son of vas kor the dusarian noble. hastor. a city of helium. hekkador. title of father of therns. helium. the empire of the grandfather of dejah thoris. holy therns. a martian religious cult. hortan gur. jeddak of torquas. hor vastus. padwar in the navy of helium. horz. deserted city; barsoomian greenwich. illall. a city of okar. iss. river of death. (see a princess of mars.) issus. goddess of death, whose abode is upon the banks of the lost sea of korus. (see the gods of mars.) jav. a lotharian. jed. king. jeddak. emperor. kab kadja. jeddak of the warhoons of the south. kadabra. capital of okar. kadar. guard. kalksus. cruiser; transport under vas kor. kantos kan. padwar in the helium navy. kaol. a martian kingdom in the eastern hemisphere. kaor. greeting. karad. martian degree. komal. the lotharian god; a huge banth. korad. a dead city of ancient mars. (see a princess of mars.) korus. the lost sea of dor. kulan tith. jeddak of kaol. (see the warlord of mars.) lakor. a thern. larok. a dusarian warrior; artificer. lorquas ptomel. jed among the tharks. (see a princess of mars.) lothar. the forgotten city. marentina. a principality of okar. matai shang. father of therns. (see the gods of mars.) mors kajak. a jed of lesser helium. notan. royal psychologist of zodanga. nutus. jeddak of dusar. od. martian foot. odwar. a commander, or general. okar. land of the yellow men. old ben (or uncle ben). the writer's body-servant (coloured). omad. man with one name. omean. the buried sea. orluk. a black and yellow striped arctic monster. otz mountains. surrounding the valley dor and the lost sea of korus. padwar. lieutenant. panthan. a soldier of fortune. parthak. the zodangan who brought food to john carter in the pits of zat arras. (see the gods of mars.) pedestal of truth. within the courtroom of helium. phaidor. daughter of matai shang. (see the gods of mars.) pimalia. gorgeous flowering plant. plant men of barsoom. a race inhabiting the valley dor. they are ten or twelve feet in height when standing erect; their arms are very short and fashioned after the manner of an elephant's trunk, being sinuous; the body is hairless and ghoulish blue except for a broad band of white which encircles the protruding, single eye, the pupil, iris and ball of which are dead white. the nose is a ragged, inflamed, circular hole in the centre of the blank face, resembling a fresh bullet wound which has not yet commenced to bleed. there is no mouth in the head. with the exception of the face, the head is covered by a tangled mass of jet-black hair some eight or ten inches in length. each hair is about the thickness of a large angleworm. the body, legs and feet are of human shape but of monstrous proportions, the feet being fully three feet long and very flat and broad. the method of feeding consists in running their odd hands over the surface of the turf, cropping off the tender vegetation with razor-like talons and sucking it up from two mouths, which lie one in the palm of each hand. they are equipped with a massive tail about six feet long, quite round where it joins the body, but tapering to a flat, thin blade toward the end, which trails at right angles to the ground. (see the gods of mars.) prince soran. overlord of the navy of ptarth. ptarth. a martian kingdom. ptor. family name of three zodangan brothers. sab than. prince of zodanga. (see a princess of mars.) safad. a martian inch. sak. jump. salensus oll. jeddak of okar. (see the warlord of mars.) saran tal. carthoris' major-domo. sarkoja. a green martian woman. (see a princess of mars.) sator throg. a holy thern of the tenth cycle. shador. island in omean used as a prison. silian. slimy reptiles inhabiting the sea of korus. sith. hornet-like monster. bald-faced and about the size of a hereford bull. has frightful jaws in front and mighty poisoned sting behind. the eyes, of myriad facets, cover three-fourths of the head, permitting the creature to see in all directions at one and the same time. (see the warlord of mars.) skeel. a martian hardwood. sola. a young green martian woman. solan. an official of the palace. sompus. a kind of tree. sorak. a little pet animal among the red martian women, about the size of a cat. sorapus. a martian hardwood. sorav. an officer of salensus oll. tal. a martian second. tal hajus. jeddak of thark. talu. rebel prince of marentina. tan gama. warhoon warrior. tardos mors. grandfather of dejah thoris and jeddak of helium. tario. jeddak of lothar. tars tarkas. a green man, chieftain of the tharks. temple of reward. in helium. tenth cycle. a sphere, or plane of eminence, among the holy therns. thabis. issus' chief. than kosis. jeddak of zodanga. (see a princess of mars.) thark. city and name of a green martian horde. thoat. a green martian horse. ten feet high at the shoulder, with four legs on either side; a broad, flat tail, larger at the tip than at the root which it holds straight out behind while running; a mouth splitting its head from snout to the long, massive neck. it is entirely devoid of hair and is of a dark slate colour and exceedingly smooth and glossy. it has a white belly and the legs are shaded from slate at the shoulders and hips to a vivid yellow at the feet. the feet are heavily padded and nailless. (see a princess of mars.) thor ban. jed among the green men of torquas. thorian. chief of the lesser therns. throne of righteousness. in the court-room of helium. throxus. mightiest of the five oceans. thurds. a green horde inimical to torquas. thuria. the nearer moon. thurid. a black dator. thuvan dihn. jeddak of ptarth. thuvia. princess of ptarth. torith. officer of the guards at submarine pool. torkar bar. kaolian noble; dwar of the kaolian road. torquas. a green horde. turjun. carthoris' alias. utan. a company of one hundred men (military). vas kor. a dusarian noble. warhoon. a community of green men; enemy of thark. woola. a barsoomian calot. xat. a martian minute. xavarian. a helium warship. xodar. dator among the first born. yersted. commander of the submarine. zad. tharkian warrior. zat arras. jed of zodanga. zithad. dator of the guards of issus. (see the gods of mars.) zitidars. mastodonian draught animals. zodanga. martian city of red men at war with helium. zode. a martian hour. edison's conquest of mars by garrett p. serviss. with an introduction by a. langley searles, ph. d. carcosa house los angeles the special contents of this volume are copyright by carcosa house. first edition [transcriber's note: this is a rule clearance. pg has not been able to find a u.s. copyright renewal] dedicated to garrett putman serviss a cosmopolite in time - table of contents _introduction_ chapter one _"let us go to mars"_ chapter two _the disintegrator_ chapter three _the congress of nations_ chapter four _to conquer another world_ chapter five _the footprint on the moon_ chapter six _the monsters on the asteroid_ chapter seven _a planet of gold_ chapter eight _"the martians are coming!"_ chapter nine _journey's end_ chapter ten _the great smoke barrier_ chapter eleven _the earth girl_ chapter twelve _retreat to deimos_ chapter thirteen _there were giants in the earth_ chapter fourteen _the flood gates of mars_ chapter fifteen _vengeance is ours_ chapter sixteen _the woman from ceres_ chapter seventeen _the fearful oaths of colonel smith_ chapter eighteen _the great ovation_ _bibliography_ illustrations _"like men, and yet not like men...."_ _"... rising out of the shadow of the globe...."_ _"a consultation in wizard edison's laboratory...."_ _"through this the meteor had passed...."_ _"... the ruins of ... an ancient watch tower."_ _"... another of our ships ... was destroyed."_ _"two of the martians were stretched dead upon the ground."_ _"he might have been a match for twenty of us."_ _"... he proceeded to teach us ... words of his language."_ _"... approaching from the eastward a large airship...."_ _"... a human being here on mars!"_ _"the gigantic statue of their leader is the great sphinx!"_ _"it was a panic of giants."_ these illustrations are a selection of the best from the original newspaper installments and were redrawn for this volume by bernard manley, jr., of chicago, illinois. introduction if you picked up a magazine and read in it a story mentioning a passenger-carrying rocket driven by atomic power furnished by a substance prepared from uranium, you probably would not be greatly surprised. after all, such an invention is today but a step or two ahead of cold fact. but you might be surprised to learn that if this story was _a columbus of space_, the one i happen to have in mind, your grand-parents may well have read it before you were born--for _a columbus of space_ was published in _all-story_ magazine in , thirty years before the potentialities of u were realized, and nearly forty before the atomic bomb became a problem for people to think about. did the author of this story simply make a lucky shot in the dark? perhaps; but let me tell those who are inclined to think so that he was a carnegie lecturer, a member of half-a-dozen learned societies, one of the first to write a book on einstein's theory of relativity, and an internationally known figure in his specialty, astronomy. his name is garrett putman serviss. he was born on march , , at sharon springs, new york, of native new england stock. his interest in astronomy began as a boy, and was greatly stimulated when he began to examine the beauties of the heavens through a small telescope, the gift of his older brother. this encouraged his enrolling in the course of science at cornell university in (its opening year) from which he was graduated in . there followed two years at the columbia college law school, which he left as an ll. b.; and in june, he was admitted to the bar. he did not practice law, however, but turned instead to newspaper reporting. whence came this interest in law and journalism? we can only guess, tracing its onset to the man's college days. as a cornell sophomore, he was the class poet; as a senior, its historian; and on commencement day delivered an oration on "the perpetuity of the heroic element." but whatever the origin of the interest, unquestioned ability supported it. from the position of reporter and correspondent with the new york _tribune_ he rose to the post of copy editor on the staff of the _sun_. finally he became night editor, a position which he held for a full decade. during this period we can see the old interest in science gradually assert itself. at first it took the form of anonymous articles, mainly on matters astronomical. these usually appeared on the editorial page and, partly because they were then a novelty, partly because of a quirk of fate--editor-in-chief charles dana frequently had them set up in bold type, believing their logic was a fine counter-irritant for heated political campaigns of the day--the attention of subscribers was focused on them more sharply than usual. in fact, readers over the entire country were soon conjecturing about the identity of "the _sun's_ astronomer." very few knew that it was garrett serviss, who successfully cloaked his identity for years. success in written popularizing of science led him to attempt its duplication on the lecture platform. there his triumphs were such as to lead him to resign as night editor of the _sun_ in and make astronomy his life work. until he was occupied with "the urania lectures." these were sponsored by andrew carnegie, and dealt with geology, astronomy, archeology and similar scientific topics. with them serviss successfully toured the country, and it was only because of the great difficulty in transporting the elaborate staging equipment they required that they were eventually discontinued. he continued to give popular lectures, however, and one of his few biographers has credited his greatness on the rostrum to "a pleasant voice, a charming personality, and a genuine enthusiasm for his subject." one cannot doubt this enthusiasm; it shines forth unmistakably from all his writings. probably, too, it played the major part in enabling him to reach a wider reading public than any other astronomer before or after him. for he never abandoned the pen. up until his death, which occurred on may , , he wrote continually, syndicated newspaper columns, magazine articles, books on astronomy, fiction. his first book, _astronomy with an opera glass_, appeared in . he was responsible for several other scientific titles (the reader is referred to the bibliography at the end of this volume for a detailed listing); they include _einstein's theory of relativity_, which is a companion work to the motion picture of the same name. he was also editor-in-chief of collier's sixteen-volume _popular science library_. it might be added that much of the editing and captioning of the einstein film was his work, and that he collaborated with leon barritt in the invention of the barritt-serviss star and planet finder, a device still in use. in comparison with his other writings his output of fiction is small: five novels and a single short story. it is, however, characterized by the same logic and interest, this time tossed aloft to soar on the wings of romantic imagination. two of these works deal in some detail with the world of the future as he thought it might be--prophetic fiction, if you will; another two give us a picture of life on neighboring planets; and the final couple, although they maintain a terrestrial locale, show as wide a scope of creative invention. in only one of these does astronomy fail to play at least a supporting role. that is _the sky pirate_ ( ), which is an adventure story laid in the year . its plot revolves around an abduction for ransom in a period which is visualized as rampant with piracy because of the general adoption of air transportation. as usual, fact has outmoded prophecy, for long before airplane speeds exceeded the miles per hour serviss predicted. we still need, though, his invention which enables badly damaged aircraft to drift slowly down to a safe landing. _the moon metal_ ( ) deals with the problem of a strange, lunar metal used as a monetary standard to replace gold when, in , huge new deposits of that metal rendered it common as iron. this is of short story length, and amply demonstrates the author's mastery of that medium. from the prophetic as well as the entertainment standpoint, one of garrett serviss' most interesting novels is _a columbus of space_. here he visualizes atomic energy liberated and harnessed to drive a rocket to the planet venus. his conception is uncannily close to truth; he names uranium as the raw material from which is extracted the vital substance, a "crystallized powder" which releases its energy on proper treatment. no less intriguing is the description of the intelligent civilizations on venus which explorers from this world find. two later novels came from his pen: _the moon maiden_ ( ) and _the second deluge_ ( ). the former is a scientific mystery, and probably the least distinguished of his works. the latter, conversely, is probably his best. it tells of a watery nebula which collides with the earth, flooding it with a second deluge; and of how the human race is saved through the wisdom of one man who foresaw the coming disaster in time to build a second ark. a new civilization which has mastered the secret of atomic energy springs up on the planet as the waters recede. the canvas is a broad one, and the author does it full justice. serviss' outstanding stories have been published abroad and re-printed in this country several times, a deserved tribute to their quality and popularity. his very first work of fiction, however, has been shrouded in obscurity for nearly half a century. indeed, among collectors and aficionados of the fantastic there was for a time debate as to its actual existence. this is hardly surprising, for until its reprinting in this book _edison's conquest of mars_ lay buried in the congressional library's file of the ephemeral new york _evening journal_, where it ran serially in early . this is a remarkable work. first of all, as many readers will quickly discern, it is in a sense a sequel to h. g. wells' well known _war of the worlds_. the latter novel was serialized by _cosmopolitan_ magazine in ; it caught the public's fickle fancy, and was widely commented upon. all evidence indicates that serviss also read it: he was a regular contributor to _cosmopolitan_. yet i am inclined to doubt that mere reading of _the war of the worlds_ in itself prompted him to produce a work in the same vein. wells' effort was not concluded until the december, number of the magazine, and _edison's conquest of mars_ began on the following january th--a scant six weeks later. for serviss it was the initial excursion into the realm of fiction, and it is hard to conceive his so hastily adopting a new metier on personal impulse alone. these circumstances, in conjunction with the context of the novel itself, clearly stamp the entire business as clever capitalization on already existent publicity. again, i doubt if he thought of it at first in that light; his name was well enough known so that he could live by his knowledge, not his wits. but to a newspaper editor the prospect of combining the authority of a nationally known and reputable astronomer with a work designed to satisfy a reading public's waiting appetite for the unusual--in short, presenting legitimatized sensationalism at the psychological moment--this must have had irresistible appeal. that _edison's conquest of mars_ was written on editorial commission, perhaps as fast as it appeared, seems, then, the most probable interpretation. historically, the work is one of the earliest to employ the interplanetary theme. it is the first to portray a battle fought by space craft in the airless void; and possibly the first also to propose the use of sealed suits that enable men to traverse a vacuum. of the more minor twists of plot initially found here that have since become parts of the "pulp" science-fiction writers' standard stock-in-trade, there are literally too many to mention. the novel opens with a description of the ruins of eastern america. although the martians who survived terrestrial bacteria have left the planet, astronomical observations show a recurrence on the red planet of the same lights that were a prelude to the first onslaught. the conclusion is inevitable: a second invasion is on the way. serviss pictures the gathering together of the most famous scientists of the day--edison, roentgen, lord kelvin and others. the martian machines and weapons left behind are dismantled; their principles of operation are discovered and duplicated; and a defense against their forces is perfected. armed with this knowledge and with the "disintegrator," a device invented by edison which is capable of reducing to atoms any substance at which it is aimed, the nations of the world pool their resources and launch an invasion of mars across interplanetary space. more by way of explanation than justification, it should be stated that science today is diminishing the number of critics who are wont to label plots of this nature "too fantastic." for them to say that the colossal has become more important than the rational is, i feel, misleading. for this is a branch of literature that is in many respects the most rational of all: it is a symptom of progress. these same critics also complain that a fantastic plot is frequently developed at the expense of characterization. to this, one may answer that at times what happens can be more important than the people to whom it happens. in essence, both charges derive from laying undue stress upon psychology as the only legitimate fibre from which a fictional cloth may be woven. undoubtedly psychology is necessary--but it can be a warp alone if a strong woof is supplied. let me cite two imaginary examples. if a single scientist had released atomic energy and was in doubt as to whether he should destroy his secret or reveal it, the psychological processes that determine his decision become more relevant to consideration than the decision itself. but if that same scientist managed by the aid of atomic energy to transport himself to mars, i would unquestionably be more interested in what he found on that planet than in why an oedipus complex drove him there in the first place. in the fiction of garrett serviss the sweeping magnitude of events described gives them the leading role. yet within the limits he has set for himself he has used human psychology to good advantage. his stories do not lack empathy, and they are rich in pictorial detail. inevitably they reflect the mores of the time, but do not emphasize them unduly. as a consequence they remain readable and entertaining even to this day. they show, too, that he was familiar with the works of the few authors in the genre who preceeded him. _a columbus of space_ was dedicated "to the readers of jules verne's romances," not because the author flatters himself that he can walk in the footsteps of that immortal dreamer, but because, like jules verne, he believes that the world of imagination is as legitimate a domain of the human mind as the world of fact. garrett serviss modestly underestimated his abilities. with the perspective we possess today it can be seen that he is easily the equal of verne, standing with him and h. g. wells as one of the foremost science-fiction writers of his day. a. langley searles _new york, n. y._ _may _ edison's conquest of mars chapter one _"let us go to mars"_ it is impossible that the stupendous events which followed the disastrous invasion of the earth by the martians should go without record, and circumstances having placed the facts at my disposal, i deem it a duty, both to posterity and to those who were witnesses of and participants in the avenging counterstroke that the earth dealt back at its ruthless enemy in the heavens, to write down the story in a connected form. the martians had nearly all perished, not through our puny efforts, but in consequence of disease, and the few survivors fled in one of their projectile cars, inflicting their crudest blow in the act of departure. they possessed a mysterious explosive, of unimaginable puissance, with whose aid they set their car in motion for mars from a point in bergen county, n. j., just back of the palisades. the force of the explosion may be imagined when it is recollected that they had to give the car a velocity of more than seven miles per second in order to overcome the attraction of the earth and the resistance of the atmosphere. the shock destroyed all of new york that had not already fallen a prey, and all the buildings yet standing in the surrounding towns and cities fell in one far-circling ruin. the palisades tumbled in vast sheets, starting a tidal wave in the hudson that drowned the opposite shore. the victims of this ferocious explosion were numbered by tens of thousands, and the shock, transmitted through the rocky frame of the globe, was recorded by seismographic pendulums in england and on the continent of europe. the terrible results achieved by the invaders had produced everywhere a mingled feeling of consternation and hopelessness. the devastation was widespread. the death-dealing engines which the martians had brought with them had proved irresistible and the inhabitants of the earth possessed nothing capable of contending against them. there had been no protection for the great cities; no protection even for the open country. everything had gone down before the savage onslaught of those merciless invaders from space. savage ruins covered the sites of many formerly flourishing towns and villages, and the broken walls of great cities stared at the heavens like the exhumed skeletons of pompeii. the awful agencies had extirpated pastures and meadows and dried up the very springs of fertility in the earth where they had touched it. in some parts of the devastated lands pestilence broke out; elsewhere there was famine. despondency black as night brooded over some of the fairest portions of the globe. yet all had not been destroyed, because all had not been reached by the withering hand of the destroyer. the martians had not had time to complete their work before they themselves fell a prey to the diseases that carried them off at the very culmination of their triumph. from those lands which had, fortunately, escaped invasion, relief was sent to the sufferers. the outburst of pity and of charity exceeded anything that the world had known. differences of race and religion were swallowed up in the universal sympathy which was felt for those who had suffered so terribly from an evil that was as unexpected as it was unimaginable in its enormity. but the worst was not yet. more dreadful than the actual suffering and the scenes of death and devastation which overspread the afflicted lands was the profound mental and moral depression that followed. this was shared even by those who had not seen the martians and had not witnessed the destructive effects of the frightful engines of war that they had imported for the conquest of the earth. all mankind was sunk deep in this universal despair, and it became tenfold blacker when the astronomers announced from their observatories that strange lights were visible, moving and flashing upon the red surface of the planet of war. these mysterious appearances could only be interpreted in the light of past experience to mean that the martians were preparing for another invasion of the earth, and who could doubt that with the invincible powers of destruction at their command they would this time make their work complete and final? this startling announcement was the more pitiable in its effects because it served to unnerve and discourage those few of stouter hearts and more hopeful temperaments who had already begun the labor of restoration and reconstruction amid the embers of their desolated homes. in new york this feeling of hope and confidence, this determination to rise against disaster and to wipe out the evidences of its dreadful presence as quickly as possible, had especially manifested itself. already a company had been formed and a large amount of capital subscribed for the reconstruction of the destroyed bridges over the east river. already architects were busily at work planning new twenty-story hotels and apartment houses; new churches and new cathedrals on a grander scale than before. amid this stir of renewed life came the fatal news that mars was undoubtedly preparing to deal us a death blow. the sudden revulsion of feeling flitted like the shadow of an eclipse over the earth. the scenes that followed were indescribable. men lost their reason. the faint-hearted ended the suspense with self-destruction, the stout-hearted remained steadfast, but without hope and knowing not what to do. but there was a gleam of hope of which the general public as yet knew nothing. it was due to a few dauntless men of science, conspicuous among whom were lord kelvin, the great english savant; herr roentgen, the discover of the famous x-ray, and especially thomas a. edison, the american genius of science. these men and a few others had examined with the utmost care the engines of war, the flying machines, the generators of mysterious destructive forces that the martians had produced, with the object of discovering, if possible, the sources of their power. suddenly from mr. edison's laboratory at orange flashed the startling intelligence that he had not only discovered the manner in which the invaders had been able to produce the mighty energies which they employed with such terrible effect, but that, going further, he had found a way to overcome them. the glad news was quickly circulated throughout the civilized world. luckily the atlantic cables had not been destroyed by the martians, so that communication between the eastern and western continents was uninterrupted. it was a proud day for america. even while the martians had been upon the earth, carrying everything before them, demonstrating to the confusion of the most optimistic that there was no possibility of standing against them, a feeling--a confidence had manifested itself in france, to a minor extent in england, and particularly in russia, that the americans might discover means to meet and master the invaders. now, it seemed, this hope and expectation was to be realized. too late, it is true, in a certain sense, but not too late to meet the new invasion which the astronomers had announced was impending. the effect was as wonderful and indescribable as that of the despondency which but a little while before had overspread the world. one could almost hear the universal sigh of relief which went up from humanity. to relief succeeded confidence--so quickly does the human spirit recover like an elastic spring, when pressure is released. "let them come," was the almost joyous cry. "we shall be ready for them now. the americans have solved the problem. edison has placed the means of victory within our power." looking back upon that time now, i recall, with a thrill, the pride that stirred me at the thought that, after all, the inhabitants of the earth were a match for those terrible men from mars, despite all the advantage which they had gained from their millions of years of prior civilization and science. as good fortunes, like bad, never come singly, the news of mr. edison's discovery was quickly followed by additional glad tidings from that laboratory of marvels in the lap of the orange mountains. during their career of conquest the martians had astonished the inhabitants of the earth no less with their flying machines--which navigated our atmosphere as easily as they had that of their native planet--than with their more destructive inventions. these flying machines in themselves had given them an enormous advantage in the contest. high above the desolation that they had caused to reign on the surface of the earth, and, out of the range of our guns, they had hung safe in the upper air. from the clouds they had dropped death upon the earth. now, rumor declared that mr. edison had invented and perfected a flying machine much more complete and manageable than those of the martians had been. wonderful stories quickly found their way into the newspapers concerning what mr. edison had already accomplished with the aid of his model electrical balloon. his laboratory was carefully guarded against the invasion of the curious, because he rightly felt that a premature announcement, which should promise more than could actually be fulfilled, would, at this critical juncture, plunge mankind back again into the gulf of despair, out of which it had just begun to emerge. nevertheless, inklings of the truth leaked out. the flying machine had been seen by many persons hovering by night high above the orange hills and disappearing in the faint starlight as if it had gone away into the depths of space, out of which it would re-emerge before the morning light had streaked the east, and be seen settling down again within the walls that surrounded the laboratory of the great inventor. at length the rumor, gradually deepening into a conviction, spread that edison himself, accompanied by a few scientific friends, had made an experimental trip to the moon. at a time when the spirit of mankind was less profoundly stirred, such a story would have been received with complete incredulity, but now, rising on the wings of the new hope that was buoying up the earth, this extraordinary rumor became a day star of truth to the nations. and it was true. i had myself been one of the occupants of the car of the flying ship of space on that night when it silently left the earth, and rising out of the great shadow of the globe, sped on to the moon. we had landed upon the scarred and desolate face of the earth's satellite, and but that there are greater and more interesting events, the telling of which must not be delayed, i should undertake to describe the particulars of this first visit of men to another world. [illustration: _i had myself been one of the occupants of the car of the flying ship of space on that night, when it silently left the earth, and, rising out of the great shadow of the globe, sped on to the moon._] but, as i have already intimated, this was only an experimental trip. by visiting this little nearby island in the ocean of space, mr. edison simply wished to demonstrate the practicability of his invention, and to convince, first of all, himself and his scientific friends that it was possible for men--mortal men--to quit and to revisit the earth at their will. that aim this experimental trip triumphantly attained. it would carry me into technical details that would hardly interest the reader to describe the mechanism of mr. edison's flying machine. let it suffice to say that it depended upon the principal of electrical attraction and repulsion. by means of a most ingenious and complicated construction he had mastered the problem of how to produce, in a limited space, electricity of any desired potential and of any polarity, and that without danger to the experimenter or to the material experimented upon. it is gravitation, as everybody knows, that makes man a prisoner on the earth. if he could overcome, or neutralize, gravitation he could float away, a free creature of interstellar space. mr. edison in his invention had pitted electricity against gravitation. nature, in fact, had done the same thing long before. every astronomer knew it, but none had been able to imitate or to reproduce this miracle of nature. when a comet approaches the sun, the orbit in which it travels indicates that it is moving under the impulse of the sun's gravitation. it is in reality falling in a great parabolic or elliptical curve through space. but, while a comet approaches the sun it begins to display--stretching out for millions, and sometimes hundreds of millions of miles on the side away from the sun--an immense luminous train called its tail. this train extends back into that part of space from which the comet is moving. thus the sun at one and the same time is drawing the comet toward itself and driving off from the comet in an opposite direction minute particles or atoms which, instead of obeying the gravitational force, are plainly compelled to disobey it. that this energy, which the sun exercises against its own gravitation, is electrical in its nature, hardly anybody will doubt. the head of the comet being comparatively heavy and massive, falls on toward the sun, despite the electrical repulsion. but the atoms which form the tail, being almost without weight, yield to the electrical rather than to the gravitational influence, and so fly away from the sun. now, what mr. edison had done was, in effect, to create an electrified particle which might be compared to one of the atoms composing the tail of a comet, although in reality it was a kind of car, of metal, weighing some hundreds of pounds and capable of bearing some thousands of pounds with it in its flight. by producing, with the aid of the electrical generator contained in this car, an enormous charge of electricity, mr. edison was able to counterbalance, and a trifle more than counterbalance, the attraction of the earth, and thus cause the car to fly off from the earth as an electrified pithball flies from the prime conductor. as we sat in the brilliantly lighted chamber that formed the interior of the car, and where stores of compressed air had been provided together with chemical apparatus, by means of which fresh supplies of oxygen and nitrogen might be obtained for our consumption during the flight through space, mr. edison touched a polished button, thus causing the generation of the required electrical charge on the exterior of the car, and immediately we began to rise. the moment and direction of our flight had been so timed and prearranged, that the original impulse would carry us straight toward the moon. when we fell within the sphere of attraction of that orb it only became necessary to so manipulate the electrical charge upon our car as nearly, but not quite, to counterbalance the effect of the moon's attraction in order that we might gradually approach it and with an easy motion, settle, without shock, upon its surface. we did not remain to examine the wonders of the moon, although we could not fail to observe many curious things therein. having demonstrated the fact that we could not only leave the earth, but could journey through space and safely land upon the surface of another planet, mr. edison's immediate purpose was fulfilled, and we hastened back to the earth, employing in leaving the moon and landing again upon our own planet the same means of control over the electrical attraction and repulsion between the respective planets and our car which i have already described. when actual experiment had thus demonstrated the practicability of the invention, mr. edison no longer withheld the news of what he had been doing from the world. the telegraph lines and the ocean cables labored with the messages that in endless succession, and burdened with an infinity of detail, were sent all over the earth. everywhere the utmost enthusiasm was aroused. "let the martians come," was the cry. "if necessary, we can quit the earth as the athenians fled from athens before the advancing host of xerxes, and like them, take refuge upon our ships--these new ships of space, with which american inventiveness has furnished us." and then, like a flash, some genius struck out an idea that fired the world. "why should we wait? why should we run the risk of having our cities destroyed and our lands desolated a second time? let us go to mars. we have the means. let us beard the lion in his den. let us ourselves turn conquerors and take possession of that detestable planet, and if necessary, destroy it in order to relieve the earth of this perpetual threat which now hangs over us like the sword of damocles." chapter two _the disintegrator_ this enthusiasm would have had but little justification had mr. edison done nothing more than invent a machine which could navigate the atmosphere and the regions of interplanetary space. he had, however, and this fact was generally known, although the details had not yet leaked out--invented also machines of war intended to meet the utmost that the martians could do for either offence or defence in the struggle which was now about to ensue. acting upon the hint which had been conveyed from various investigations in the domain of physics, and concentrating upon the problem all those unmatched powers of intellect which distinguished him, the great inventor had succeeded in producing a little implement which one could carry in his hand, but which was more powerful than any battleship that ever floated. the details of its mechanism could not be easily explained, without the use of tedious technicalities and the employment of terms, diagrams and mathematical statements, all of which would lie outside the scope of this narrative. but the principle of the thing was simple enough. it was upon the great scientific doctrine, which we have since seen so completely and brilliantly developed, of the law of harmonic vibrations, extending from atoms and molecules at one end of the series up to the worlds and suns at the other end, that mr. edison based his invention. every kind of substance has its own vibratory rhythm. that of iron differs from that of pine wood. the atoms of gold do not vibrate in the same time or through the same range as those of lead, and so on for all known substances, and all the chemical elements. so, on a larger scale, every massive body has its period of vibration. a great suspension bridge vibrates, under the impulse of forces that are applied to it, in long periods. no company of soldiers ever crosses such a bridge without breaking step. if they tramped together, and were followed by other companies keeping the same time with their feet, after a while the vibrations of the bridge would become so great and destructive that it would fall in pieces. so any structure, if its vibration rate is known, could easily be destroyed by a force applied to it in such a way that it should simply increase the swing of those vibrations up to the point of destruction. now mr. edison had been able to ascertain the vibratory swing of many well known substances, and to produce, by means of the instrument which he had contrived, pulsations in the ether which were completely under his control, and which could be made long or short, quick or slow, at his will. he could run through the whole gamut from the slow vibrations of sound in air up to the four hundred and twenty-five millions of millions of vibrations per second of the ultra red rays. having obtained an instrument of such power, it only remained to concentrate its energy upon a given object in order that the atoms composing that object should be set into violent undulation, sufficient to burst it asunder and to scatter its molecules broadcast. this the inventor effected by the simplest means in the world--simply a parabolic reflector by which the destructive waves could be sent like a beam of light, but invisible, in any direction and focused upon any desired point. i had the good fortune to be present when this powerful engine of destruction was submitted to its first test. we had gone upon the roof of mr. edison's laboratory and the inventor held the little instrument, with its attached mirror, in his hand. we looked about for some object on which to try its powers. on a bare limb of a tree not far away, for it was late in fall, sat a disconsolate crow. "good," said mr. edison, "that will do." he touched a button at the side of the instrument and a soft, whirring noise was heard. "feathers," said mr. edison, "have a vibration period of three hundred and eighty-six million per second." he adjusted the index as he spoke. then, through a sighting tube, he aimed at the bird. "now watch," he said. another soft whirr in the instrument, a momentary flash of light close around it, and, behold, the crow had turned from black to white! "its feathers are gone," said the inventor; "they have been dissipated into their constituent atoms. now, we will finish the crow." instantly there was another adjustment of the index, another outshooting of vibratory force, a rapid up and down motion of the index to include a certain range of vibrations, and the crow itself was gone--vanished in empty space! there was the bare twig on which a moment before it had stood. behind, in the sky, was the white cloud against which its black form had been sharply outlined, but there was no more crow. "that looks bad for the martians, doesn't it?" said the wizard. "i have ascertained the vibration rate of all the materials of which their war engines, whose remains we have collected together, are composed. they can be shattered into nothingness in the fraction of a second. even if the vibration period were not known, it could quickly be hit upon by simply running through the gamut." "hurrah!" cried one of the onlookers. "we have met the martians and they are ours." such in brief was the first of the contrivances which mr. edison invented for the approaching war with mars. and these facts had become widely known. additional experiments had completed the demonstration of the inventor's ability, with the aid of his wonderful instrument, to destroy any given object, or any part of an object, provided that that part differed in its atomic constitution, and consequently in its vibratory period, from the other parts. a most impressive public exhibit of the powers of the little disintegrator was given amid the ruins of new york. on lower broadway a part of the walls of one of the gigantic buildings, which had been destroyed by the martians, impended in such a manner that it threatened at any moment to fall upon the heads of the passersby. the fire department did not dare touch it. to blow it up seemed a dangerous expedient, because already new buildings had been erected in its neighborhood, and their safety would be imperilled by the flying fragments. the fact happened to come to my knowledge. "here is an opportunity," i said to mr. edison, "to try the powers of your machine on a large scale." "capital," he instantly replied. "i shall go at once." for the work now in hand it was necessary to employ a battery of disintegrators, since the field of destruction covered by each was comparatively limited. all of the impending portions of the wall must be destroyed at once and together, for otherwise the danger would rather be accentuated rather than annihilated. the disintegrators were placed upon the roof of a neighboring building, so adjusted that their fields of destruction overlapped one another upon the wall. their indexes were all set to correspond with the vibration period of the peculiar kind of brick of which the wall consisted. then the energy was turned on, and a shout of wonder arose from the multitudes which had assembled at a safe distance to witness the experiment. the wall did not fall; it did not break asunder; no fragments shot this way and that and high in the air; there was no explosion; no shock or noise disturbed the still atmosphere--only a soft whirr, that seemed to pervade everything and to tingle in the nerves of the spectators; and--what had been was not! the wall was gone! but high above and all around the place where it had hung over the street with its threat of death there appeared, swiftly billowing outward in every direction, a faint bluish cloud. it was the scattered atoms of the destroyed wall. and now the cry "on to mars!" was heard on all sides. but for such an enterprise funds were needed--millions upon millions. yet some of the fairest and richest portions of the earth had been impoverished by the frightful ravages of those enemies who had dropped down upon them from the skies. still, the money must be had. the salvation of the planet, as everyone was now convinced, depended upon the successful negotiation of a gigantic war fund, in comparison with which all the expenditures in all of the wars that had been waged by the nations for , years would be insignificant. the electrical ships and the vibration engines must be constructed by scores and thousands. only mr. edison's immense resources and unrivaled equipment had enabled him to make the models whose powers had been so satisfactorily shown. but to multiply these upon a war scale was not only beyond the resources of any individual--hardly a nation on the globe in the period of its greatest prosperity could have undertaken such a work. all the nations, then, must now conjoin. they must unite their resources, and if necessary, exhaust all their hoards, in order to raise the needed sum. negotiations were at once begun. the united states naturally took the lead, and their leadership was never for a moment questioned abroad. washington was selected as the place of meeting for a great congress of nations. washington, luckily, had been one of the places which had not been touched by the martians. but if washington had been a city composed of hotels alone, and every hotel so great as to be a little city in itself, it would have been utterly insufficient for the accommodation of the innumerable throngs which now flocked to the banks of the potomac. but when was american enterprise unequal to a crisis? the necessary hotels, lodging-houses and restaurants were constructed with astounding rapidity. one could see the city growing and expanding day by day and week after week. it flowed over georgetown heights; it leaped the potomac; it spread east and west, south and north; square mile after square mile of territory was buried under the advancing buildings, until the gigantic city, which had thus grown up like a mushroom in a night, was fully capable of accommodating all its expected guests. at first it had been intended that the heads of the various governments should in person attend this universal congress, but as the enterprise went on, as the enthusiasm spread, as the necessity for haste became more apparent through the warning notes which were constantly sounded from the observatories where the astronomers were nightly beholding new evidences of threatening preparations in mars, the kings and queens of the old world felt that they could not remain at home; that their proper place was at the new focus and center of the whole world--the city of washington. without concerted action, without interchange of suggestion, this impulse seemed to seize all the old world monarchs at once. suddenly cablegrams flashed to the government at washington, announcing that queen victoria, the emperor william, the czar nicholas, alphonso of spain, with his mother, maria christina; the old emperor francis joseph and the empress elizabeth, of austria; king oscar and queen sophia, of sweden and norway; king humbert and queen margherita, of italy; king george and queen olga, of greece; abdul hamid, of turkey; tsait'ien, emperor of china; mutsuhito, the japanese mikado, with his beautiful princess haruko; the president of france, the president of switzerland, the first syndic of the little republic of andorra, perched on the crest of the pyrenees, and the heads of all the central and south american republics, were coming to washington to take part in the deliberations, which, it was felt, were to settle the fate of earth and mars. one day, after this announcement had been received, and the additional news had come that nearly all the visiting monarchs had set out, attended by brilliant suites and convoyed by fleets of warships, for their destination, some coming across the atlantic to the port of new york, others across the pacific to san francisco, mr. edison said to me: "this will be a fine spectacle. would you like to watch it?" "certainly," i replied. the ship of space was immediately at our disposal. i think i have not yet mentioned the fact that the inventor's control over the electrical generator carried in the car was so perfect that by varying the potential or changing the polarity he could cause it slowly or swiftly, as might be desired, to approach or recede from any object. the only practical difficulty was presented when the polarity of the electrical charge upon an object in the neighborhood of the car was unknown to those in the car, and happened to be opposite to that of the charge to which the car, at that particular moment was bearing. in such a case, of course, the car would fly toward the object, whatever it might be, like a pithball or a feather, attracted to the knob of an electrical machine. in this way, considerable danger was occasionally encountered, and a few accidents could not be avoided. fortunately, however, such cases were rare. it was only now and then that, owing to some local cause, electrical polarities unknown to or unexpected by the navigators, endangered the safety of the car. as i shall have occasion to relate however, in the course of the narrative, this danger became more acute and assumed at times a most formidable phase, when we had ventured outside the sphere of the earth and were moving through the unexplored regions beyond. on this occasion, having embarked, we rose rapidly to a height of some thousands of feet and directed our course over the atlantic. when half-way to ireland, we beheld, in the distance, steaming westward, the smoke of several fleets. as we drew nearer a marvelous spectacle unfolded itself to our eyes. from the northeast, their great guns flashing in the sunlight and their huge funnels belching black volumes that rested like thunder clouds upon the sea, came the mighty warships of england, with her meteor flag streaming red in the breeze, while the royal insignia, indicating the presence of the ruler of the british empire, was conspicuously displayed upon the flagship of the squadron. following a course more directly westward there appeared, under another black cloud of smoke, the hulls and guns and burgeons of another great fleet, carrying the tri-color of france, and bearing in its midst the head of the magnificent republic of western europe. further south, beating up against the northerly winds came a third fleet with the gold and red of spain fluttering from its masthead. this, too, was carrying its king westward, where now, indeed, the star of empire had taken its way. rising a little higher, so as to extend our horizon, we saw coming down the english channel, behind the british fleet, the black ships of russia. side by side, or following one another's lead, these war fleets were on a peaceful voyage that belied their threatening appearance. there had been no thought of danger to or from the forts and ports of rival nations which they had passed. there was no enmity, and no fear between them when the throats of their ponderous guns yawned at one another across the waves. they were now, in spirit, all one fleet, having one object, bearing against one enemy, ready to defend but one country, and that country was the entire earth. it was some time before we caught sight of the emperor william's fleet. it seems that the kaiser, although at first consenting to the arrangement by which washington had been selected as the assembling place for the nations, afterwards objected to it. "i ought to do this thing myself," he had said. "my glorious ancestors would never have consented to allow these upstart republicans to lead in a warlike enterprise of this kind. what would my grandfather have said to it? i suspect that it is some scheme aimed at the divine right of kings." but the good sense of the german people would not suffer their ruler to place them in a position so false and so untenable. and swept along by their enthusiasm the kaiser had at last consented to embark upon his flagship at kiel, and now he was following the other fleets on their great mission to the western continent. why did they bring their warships when their intentions were peaceable, do you ask? well, it was partly the effect of ancient habit, and partly due to the fact that such multitudes of officials and members of ruling families wished to embark for washington that the ordinary means of ocean communications would have been utterly inadequate to convey them. after we had feasted our eyes on this strange sight, mr. edison suddenly exclaimed: "now let us see the fellows from the rising sun." the car was immediately directed toward the west. we rapidly approached the american coast, and as we sailed over the allegheny mountains and the broad plains of the ohio and the mississippi, we saw crawling beneath us from west, south and north, an endless succession of railway trains bearing their multitudes on toward washington. with marvelous speed we rushed westward, rising high to skim over the snow-topped peaks of the rocky mountains and then the glittering rim of the pacific was before us. half-way between the american coast and hawaii we met the fleets coming from china and japan. side by side they were plowing the main, having forgotten, or laid aside, all the animosities of their former wars. i well remember how my heart was stirred at this impressive exhibition of the boundless influence which my country had come to exercise over all the people of the world, and i turned to look at the man to whose genius this uprising of the earth was due. but mr. edison, after his wont, appeared totally unconscious of the fact that he was personally responsible for what was going on. his mind, seemingly, was entirely absorbed in considering problems, the solution of which might be essential to our success in the terrific struggle which was soon to begin. "well, have you seen enough?" he asked. "then let us go back to washington." as we speeded back across the continent we beheld beneath us again the burdened express trains rushing toward the atlantic, and hundreds of thousands of upturned eyes watched our swift progress, and volleys of cheers reached our ears, for everyone knew that this was edison's electrical warship, on which the hope of the nation, and the hopes of all the nations, depended. these scenes were repeated again and again until the car hovered over the still expanding capitol on the potomac, where the unceasing ring of hammers rose to the clouds. [illustration: _a consultation in wizard edison's laboratory between him and professor serviss on the best means of repaying the damage wrought upon this planet by the martians._] chapter three _the congress of nations_ the day appointed for the assembling of the nations in washington opened bright and beautiful. arrangements had been made for the reception of the distinguished guests at the capitol. no time was to be wasted, and having assembled in the senate chamber, the business that had called them together was to be immediately begun. the scene in pennsylvania avenue, when the procession of dignitaries and royalties passed up toward the capitol was one never to be forgotten. bands were playing, magnificent equipages flashed in the morning sunlight, the flags of every nation on the earth fluttered in the breeze. queen victoria, with the prince of wales escorting her, and riding in an open carriage, was greeted with roars of cheers; the emperor william, following in another carriage with empress victoria at his side, condescended to bow and smile in response to the greetings of a free people. each of the other monarchs was received in a similar manner. the czar of russia proved to be an especial favorite with the multitude on account of the ancient friendship of his house for america. but the greatest applause of all came when the president of france, followed by the president of switzerland and the first syndic of the little republic of andorra, made their appearance. equally warm were the greetings extended to the representatives of mexico and the south american states. the crowd apparently hardly knew at first how to receive the sultan of turkey, but the universal good feeling was in his favor, and finally rounds of hand clapping and cheers greeted his progress along the splendid avenue. a happy idea had apparently occurred to the emperor of china and the mikado of japan, for, attended by their intermingled suites, they rode together in a single carriage. this object lesson in the unity of international feeling immensely pleased the spectators. the scene in the senate chamber stirred everyone profoundly. that it was brilliant and magnificent goes without saying, but there was a seriousness, an intense feeling of expectancy, pervading both those who looked on and those who were to do the work for which these magnates of the earth had assembled, which produced an ineradicable impression. the president of the united states, of course, presided. representatives of the greater powers occupied the front seats, and some of them were honored with special chairs near the president. no time was wasted in preliminaries. the president made a brief speech. "we have come together," he said, "to consider a question that equally interests the whole earth. i need not remind you that unexpectedly and without provocation on our part the people--the monsters, i should rather say--of mars, recently came down upon the earth, attacked us in our homes and spread desolation around them. having the advantage of ages of evolution, which for us are yet in the future, they brought with them engines of death and destruction against which we found it impossible to contend. it is within the memory of every one within reach of my voice that it was through the entirely unexpected succor which providence sent us that we were suddenly and effectually freed from the invaders. by our own efforts we could have done nothing. "but, as you all know, the first feeling of relief which followed the death of our foes was quickly succeeded by the fearful news which came to us from the observatories, that the martians were undoubtedly preparing for a second invasion of our planet. against this we should have had no recourse and no hope but for the genius of one of my countrymen, who, as you are all aware, has perfected means which may enable us not only to withstand the attack of those awful enemies, but to meet them, and, let us hope, to conquer them on their own ground. "mr. edison is here to explain to you what those means are. but we have also another object. whether we send a fleet of interplanetary ships to invade mars or whether we simply confine our attention to works of defense, in either case it will be necessary to raise a very large sum of money. none of us has yet recovered from the effects of the recent invasion. the earth is poor today compared to its position a few years ago; yet we can not allow our poverty to stand in the way. the money, the means, must be had. it will be part of our business here to raise a gigantic war fund by the aid of which we can construct the equipment and machinery that we shall require. this, i think, is all i need to say. let us proceed to business." "where is mr. edison?" cried a voice. "will mr. edison please step forward?" said the president. there was a stir in the assembly, and the iron-grey head of the great inventor was seen moving through the crowd. in his hand he carried one of his marvelous disintegrators. he was requested to explain and illustrate its operation. mr. edison smiled. "i can explain its details," he said, "to lord kelvin, for instance, but if their majesties will excuse me, i doubt whether i can make it plain to the crown heads." the emperor william smiled superciliously. apparently he thought that another assault had been committed upon the divine right of kings. but the czar nicholas appeared to be amused, and the emperor of china, who had been studying english, laughed in his sleeve, as if he suspected that a joke had been perpetrated. "i think," said one of the deputies, "that a simple exhibition of the powers of the instrument, without a technical explanation of its method of working, will suffice for our purpose." this suggestion was immediately approved. in response to it, mr. edison, by a few simple experiments, showed how he could quickly and certainly shatter into its constituent atoms any object upon which the vibratory force of the disintegrator should be directed. in this manner he caused an inkstand to disappear under the very nose of the emperor william without a spot of ink being scattered upon his sacred person, but evidently the odor of the disunited atoms was not agreeable to the nostrils of the kaiser. mr. edison also explained in general terms the principle on which the instrument worked. he was greeted with round after round of applause, and the spirit of the assembly rose high. next the workings of the electrical ship were explained, and it was announced that after the meeting had adjourned an exhibition of the flying powers of the ship would be given in the open air. these experiments, together with the accompanying explanations, added to what had already been disseminated through the public press, were quite sufficient to convince all the representatives who had assembled in washington that the problem of how to conquer the martians had been solved. the means were plainly at hand. it only remained to apply them. for this purpose, as the president had pointed out, it would be necessary to raise a very large sum of money. "how much will be needed?" asked one of the english representatives. "at least ten thousand millions of dollars," replied the president. "it would be safer," said a senator from the pacific coast, "to make it twenty five thousand millions." "i suggest," said the king of italy, "that the nations be called in alphabetical order, and that the representatives of each name a sum which he is ready and able to contribute." "we want the cash or its equivalent," shouted the pacific coast senator. "i shall not follow the alphabet strictly," said the president, "but shall begin with the larger nations first. perhaps, under the circumstances, it is proper that the united states should lead the way. mr. secretary," he continued, turning to the secretary of the treasury, "how much can we stand?" "at least a thousand millions," replied the secretary of the treasury. a roar of applause that shook the room burst from the assembly. even some of the monarchs threw up their hats. the emperor tsait'ien smiled from ear to ear. one of the roko tuis, or native chiefs, from fiji, sprang up and brandished a war club. the president then proceeded to call the other nations, beginning with austria-hungary and ending with zanzibar, whose sultan, hamoud bin mahomed, had come to the congress in the escort of queen victoria. each contributed liberally. germany, coming in alphabetical order just before great britain, had named, through its chancellor, the sum of $ , , , but when the first lord of the british treasury, not wishing to be behind the united states, named double that sum as the contribution of the british empire, the emperor william looked displeased. he spoke a word in the ear of the chancellor who immediately raised his hand. "we will give a thousand million dollars," said the chancellor. queen victoria seemed surprised, though not displeased. the first lord of the treasury met her eye, and then, rising in his place, said: "make it fifteen hundred million for great britain." emperor william consulted again with his chancellor, but evidently concluded not to increase his bid. but, at any rate, the fund had benefited to the amount of a thousand millions by this little outburst of imperial rivalry. the greatest surprise of all, however, came when the king of siam was called upon for his contribution. he had not been given a foremost place in the congress, but when the name of his country was pronounced he rose by his chair, dressed in a gorgeous specimen of the peculiar attire of his country, then slowly pushed his way to the front, stepped up to the president's desk and deposited upon it a small box. "this is our contribution," he said in broken english. the cover was lifted, and there darted, shimmering in the half-gloom of the chamber, a burst of iridescence from the box. "my friends of the western world," continued the king of siam, "will be interested in seeing this gem. only once before has the eye of a european been blessed with the sight of it. your books will tell you that in the seventeenth century a traveller, tavernier, saw in india an unmatched diamond which afterward disappeared like a meteor, and was thought to have been lost from the earth. you all know the name of that diamond and its history. it is the great mogul, and it lies before you. how it came into my possession i shall not explain. at any rate, it is honestly mine, and i freely contribute it here to aid in protecting my native planet against those enemies who appear determined to destroy it." when the excitement which the appearance of this long lost treasure, that had been the subject of so many romances and of such long and fruitless search, had subsided, the president continued calling the list, until he had completed it. upon taking the sum of the contributions (the great mogul was reckoned at three millions) it was found to be still one thousand millions short of the required amount. the secretary of the treasury was instantly on his feet. "mr. president," he said, "i think we can stand that addition. let it be added to the contribution of the united states of america." when the cheers that greeted the conclusion of the business were over, the president announced that the next affair of the congress was to select a director who should have entire charge of the preparations for the war. it was the universal sentiment that no man could be so well suited for this post as mr. edison himself. he was accordingly selected by the unanimous and enthusiastic choice of the great assembly. "how long a time do you require to put everything in readiness?" asked the president. "give me _carte blanche_," replied mr. edison, "and i believe i can have a hundred electric ships and three thousand disintegrators ready within six months." a tremendous cheer greeted this announcement. "your powers are unlimited," said the president, "draw on the fund for as much money as you need," whereupon the treasurer of the united states was made the disbursing officer of the fund, and the meeting adjourned. not less than , , people had assembled at washington from all parts of the world. every one of this immense multitude had been able to listen to the speeches and the cheers in the senate chamber, although not personally present there. wires had been run all over the city, and hundreds of improved telephonic receivers provided, so that everyone could hear. even those who were unable to visit washington, people living in baltimore, new york, boston, and as far away as new orleans, st. louis and chicago, had also listened to the proceedings with the aid of these receivers. upon the whole, probably not less than , , people had heard the deliberations of the great congress of the nations. the telegraph and the cable had sent the news across the oceans to all the capitols of the earth. the exultation was so great that the people seemed mad with joy. the promised exhibition of the electrical ship took place the next day. enormous multitudes witnessed the experiment, and there was a struggle for places in the car. even queen victoria, accompanied by the prince of wales, ventured to take a ride in it, and they enjoyed it so much that mr. edison prolonged the journey as far as boston and the bunker hill monument. most of the other monarchs also took a high ride, but when the turn of the emperor of china came he repeated a fable which he said had come down from the time of confucius: "once upon a time there was a chinaman living in the valley of the hoang-ho river, who was accustomed frequently to lie on his back, gazing at, and envying, the birds that he saw flying away in the sky. one day he saw a black speck which rapidly grew larger and larger, until as it got near he perceived that it was an enormous bird, which overshadowed the earth with its wings. it was the elephant of birds, the roc. 'come with me,' said the roc, 'and i will show you the wonders of the kingdom of the birds.' the man caught hold of its claw and nestled among its feathers, and they rapidly rose high in the air, and sailed away to the kuen-lun mountains. here, as they passed near the top of the peaks, another roc made its appearance. the wings of the two great birds brushed together, and immediately they fell to fighting. in the midst of the melee the man lost his hold and tumbled into the top of a tree, where his pigtail caught on a branch, and he remained suspended. there the unfortunate man hung helpless, until a rat, which had its home in the rocks at the foot of the tree, took compassion upon him, and, climbing up, gnawed off the branch. as the man slowly and painfully wended his weary way homeward, he said: 'this teaches me that creatures to whom nature has given neither feathers nor wings should leave the kingdom of the birds to those who are fitted to inhabit it.'" having told this story, tsait'ien turned his back on the electrical ship. after the exhibition was finished, and amid the fresh outburst of enthusiasm that followed, it was suggested that a proper way to wind up the congress and give suitable expression to the festive mood which now possessed mankind would be to have a grand ball. this suggestion met with immediate and universal approval. but for so gigantic an affair it was, of course, necessary to make special preparations. a convenient place was selected on the virginia side of the potomac; a space of ten acres was carefully levelled and covered with a polished floor, rows of columns one hundred feet apart were run across it in every direction, and these were decorated with electric lights, displaying every color of the spectrum. above this immense space, rising in the center to a height of more than a thousand feet, was anchored a vast number of balloons, all aglow with lights, and forming a tremendous dome, in which brilliant lamps were arranged in such a manner as to exhibit, in an endless succession of combinations, all the national colors, ensigns and insignia of the various countries represented at the congress. blazing eagles, lions, unicorns, dragons and other imaginary creatures that the different nations had chosen for their symbols appeared to hover high above the dancers, shedding a brilliant light upon the scene. circles of magnificent thrones were placed upon the floor in convenient locations for seeing. a thousand bands of music played, and tens of thousands of couples, gayly dressed and flashing with gems, whirled together upon the polished floor. the queen of england led the dance, on the arm of the president of the united states. the prince of wales led forth the fair daughter of the president, universally admired as the most beautiful woman on the great ballroom floor. the emperor william, in his military dress, danced with the beauteous princess masaco, the daughter of the mikado, who wore for the occasion the ancient costume of the women of her country, sparkling with jewels, and glowing with quaint combinations of color like a gorgeous butterfly. the chinese emperor, with his pigtail flying high as he spun, danced with the empress of russia. the king of siam essayed a waltz with the queen ranavalona of madagascar, while the sultan of turkey basked in the smiles of a chicago heiress to a hundred millions. the czar chose for his partner a dark-eyed beauty from peru, but king malietoa, of samoa, was suspicious of civilized charmers and, avoiding all of their allurements, expressed his joy and gave vent to his enthusiasm in a _pas seul_. in this he was quickly joined by a band of sioux indian chiefs, whose whoops and yells so startled the leader of a german band on their part of the floor that he dropped his baton, and followed by the musicians, took to his heels. this incident amused the good-natured emperor of china more than anything else that had occurred. "make muchee noisee," he said, indicating the fleeing musicians with his thumb. "allee samee muchee flaid noisee," and then his round face dimpled into another laugh. the scene from the outside was even more imposing than that which greeted the eye within the brilliantly lighted enclosure. far away in the night, rising high among the stars, the vast dome of illuminated balloons seemed, like some supernatural creation, too grand and glorious to have been constructed by the inhabitants of the earth. all around it, and from some of the balloons themselves, rose jets and fountains of fire, ceasingly playing, and blotting out the constellations of the heavens by their splendor. the dance was followed by a grand banquet, at which the prince of wales proposed a toast to mr. edison: "it gives me much pleasure," he said, "to offer, in the name of the nations of the old world, this tribute of our admiration for, and our confidence in, the genius of the new world. perhaps on such an occasion as this, when all racial differences and prejudices ought to be, and are, buried and forgotten, i should not recall anything that might revive them; yet i cannot refrain from expressing my happiness in knowing that the champion who is to achieve the salvation of the earth has come forth from the bosom of the anglo-saxon race." several of the great potentates looked grave upon hearing the prince of wales' words, and the czar and the kaiser exchanged glances; but there was no interruption to the cheers that followed. mr. edison, whose modesty and dislike to display and to speechmaking were well known, simply said: "i think we have got the machine that can whip them. but we ought not to be wasting any time. probably they are not dancing on mars, but are getting ready to make us dance." these words instantly turned the current of feeling in the vast assembly. there was no longer any disposition to expend time in vain boastings and rejoicings. everywhere the cry now became, "let us make haste! let us get ready at once! who knows but the martians have already embarked, and are now on their way to destroy us?" under the impulse of this new feeling, which, it must be admitted, was very largely inspired by terror, the vast ballroom was quickly deserted. the lights were suddenly put out in the great dome of balloons, for someone had whispered: "suppose they should see that from mars? would they not guess what we were about, and redouble their preparations to finish us?" upon the suggestion of the president of the united states, an executive committee, representing all the principal nations, was appointed, and without delay a meeting of this committee was assembled at the white house. mr. edison was summoned before it, and asked to sketch briefly the plan upon which he proposed to work. i need not enter into the details of what was done at this meeting. let it suffice to say that when it broke up, in the small hours of the morning, it had been unanimously resolved that as many thousands of men as mr. edison might require should be immediately placed at his disposal; that as far as possible all the great manufacturing establishments of the country should be instantly transformed into factories where electrical ships and disintegrators could be built, and upon the suggestion of professor sylvanus p. thompson, the celebrated english electrical expert, seconded by lord kelvin, it was resolved that all the leading men of science in the world should place their services at the disposal of mr. edison in any capacity in which, in his judgement, they might be useful to him. the members of this committee were disposed to congratulate one another on the good work which they had so promptly accomplished, when at the moment of their adjournment, a telegraphic dispatch was handed to the president from professor george e. hale, the director of the great yerkes observatory, in wisconsin. the telegram read: "professor barnard, watching mars tonight with the forty-inch telescope, saw a sudden outburst of reddish light, which we think indicates that something has been shot from the planet. spectroscopic observations of this moving light indicated that it was coming earthward, while visible, at the rate of not less than one hundred miles a second." hardly had the excitement caused by the reading of this dispatch subsided, when others of a similar import came from the lick observatory, in california; from the branch of the harvard observatory at arequipa, in peru, and from the royal observatory, at potsdam. when the telegram from this last named place was read the emperor william turned to his chancellor and said: "i want to go home. if i am to die i prefer to leave my bones among those of my imperial ancestors and not in this vulgar country, where no king has ever ruled. i don't like this atmosphere. it makes me limp." and now, whipped on by the lash of alternate hope and fear, the earth sprang to its work of preparation. chapter four _to conquer another world_ it is not necessary for me to describe the manner in which mr. edison performed his tremendous task. he was as good as his word, and within six months from the first stroke of the hammer, a hundred electrical ships, each provided with a full battery of disintegrators, were floating in the air above the harbor and the partially rebuilt city of new york. it was a wonderful scene. the polished sides of the huge floating cars sparkled in the sunlight, and, as they slowly rose and fell, and swung this way and that, upon the tides of the air, as if held by invisible cables, the brilliant pennons streaming from their peaks waved up and down like the wings of an assemblage of gigantic humming birds. not knowing whether the atmosphere of mars would prove suitable to be breathed by inhabitants of the earth, mr. edison had made provision, by means of an abundance of glass-protected openings, to permit the inmates of the electrical ships to survey their surroundings without quitting the interior. it was possible by properly selecting the rate of undulation, to pass the vibratory impulse from the disintegrators through the glass windows of a car without damage to the glass itself. the windows were so arranged that the disintegrators could sweep around the car on all sides, and could also be directed above or below, as necessity might dictate. to overcome the destructive forces employed by the martians no satisfactory plan had yet been devised, because there was no means to experiment with them. the production of those forces was still the secret of our enemies. but mr. edison had no doubt that if we could not resist their efforts we might at least be able to avoid them by the rapidity of our motions. as he pointed out, the war machines which the martians had employed in their invasion of the earth, were really very awkward and unmanageable affairs. mr. edison's electrical ships, on the other hand, were marvels of speed and of manageability. they could dart about, turn, reverse their course, rise, fall, with the quickness and ease of a fish in the water. mr. edison calculated that even if mysterious bolts should fall upon our ships we could diminish their power to cause injury by our rapid evolutions. we might be deceived in our expectations, and might have overestimated our powers, but at any rate we must take our chances and try. a multitude, exceeding even that which had assembled during the great congress in washington, now thronged new york and its neighborhood to witness the mustering and the departure of the ships bound for mars. nothing further had been heard of the mysterious phenomenon reported from the observatories six months before, and which at the time was believed to indicate the departure of another expedition from mars for the invasion of the earth. if the martians had set out to attack us they had evidently gone astray; or, perhaps, it was some other world that they were aiming at this time. the expedition had, of course, profoundly stirred the interest of the scientific world, and representatives of every branch of science, from all the civilized nations, urged their claims to places in the ships. mr. edison was compelled, from lack of room, to refuse transportation to more than one in a thousand of those who now, on the plea that they might be able to bring back something of advantage to science, wished to embark for mars. on the model of the celebrated corps of literary and scientific men which napoleon carried with him in his invasion of egypt, mr. edison selected a company of the foremost astronomers, archaeologists, anthropologists, botanists, bacteriologists, chemists, physicists, mathematicians, mechanics, meteorologists and experts in mining, metallurgy and every other branch of practical science, as well as artists and photographers. it was but reasonable to believe that in another world, and a world so much older than the earth as mars was, these men would be able to gather materials in comparison with which the discoveries made among the ruins of ancient empires in egypt and babylonia would be insignificant indeed. it was a wonderful undertaking and a strange spectacle. there was a feeling of uncertainty which awed the vast multitude whose eyes were upturned to the ships. the expedition was not large, considering the gigantic character of the undertaking. each of the electrical ships carried about twenty men, together with an abundant supply of compressed provisions, compressed air, scientific apparatus and so on. in all, there were about , men, who were going to conquer, if they could, another world! but though few in numbers, they represented the flower of the earth, the culmination of the genius of the planet. the greatest leaders in science, both theoretical and practical, were there. it was the evolution of the earth against the evolution of mars. it was a planet in the hey-day of its strength matched against an aged and decrepit world which, nevertheless, in consequence of its long ages of existence, had acquired an experience which made it a most dangerous foe. on both sides there was desperation. the earth was desperate because it foresaw destruction unless it could first destroy its enemy. mars was desperate because nature was gradually depriving it of the means of supporting life, and its teeming population was compelled to swarm like the inmates of an overcrowded hive of bees, and find new homes elsewhere. in this respect the situation on mars, as we were well aware, resembled what had already been known upon the earth, where the older nations overflowing with population had sought new lands in which to settle, and for that purpose had driven out the native inhabitants, whenever those natives had proven unable to resist the invasion. no man could foresee the issue of what we were about to undertake, but the tremendous powers which the disintegrators had exhibited and the marvelous efficiency of the electrical ships bred almost universal confidence that we should be successful. the car in which mr. edison travelled was, of course, the flagship of the squadron, and i had the good fortune to be included among its inmates. here, besides several leading men of science from our own country, were lord kelvin, lord rayleigh, professor roentgen, dr. moissan--the man who first made artificial diamonds--and several others whose fame had encircled the world. each of these men cherished hopes of wonderful discoveries, along his line of investigation, to be made in mars. an elaborate system of signals had, of course, to be devised for the control of the squadron. these signals consisted of brilliant electric lights displayed at night and so controlled that by their means long sentences and directions could be easily and quickly transmitted. the day signals consisted partly of brightly colored pennons and flags, which were to serve only when, shadowed by clouds or other obstructions, the full sunlight could not fall upon the ship. this could naturally only occur near the surface of the earth or of another planet. once out of the shadow of the earth we should have no more clouds and no more night until we arrived at mars. in open space the sun would be continually shining. it would be perpetual day for us, except as, by artificial means, we furnished ourselves with darkness for the purpose of promoting sleep. in this region of perpetual day, then, the signals were also to be transmitted by flashes of light from mirrors reflecting the rays of the sun. yet this perpetual day would be also, in one sense, a perpetual night. there would be no more blue sky for us, because without an atmosphere the sunlight could not be diffused. objects would be illuminated only on the side toward the sun. anything that screened off the direct rays of sunlight would produce absolute darkness behind it. there would be no graduation of shadow. the sky would be as black as ink on all sides. while it was the intention to remain as much as possible within the cars, yet since it was probable that necessity would arise for occasionally quitting the interior of the electrical ships, mr. edison had provided for this emergency by inventing an air-tight dress constructed somewhat after the manner of a diver's suit, but of much lighter material. each ship was provided with several of these suits, by wearing which one could venture outside the ship even when it was beyond the atmosphere of the earth. provision had been made to meet the terrific cold which we knew would be encountered the moment we had passed beyond the atmosphere--that awful absolute zero which men had measured by anticipation, but never yet experienced--by a simple system of producing within the air-tight suits a temperature sufficiently elevated to counteract the effects of the frigidity without. by means of long, flexible tubes, air could be continually supplied to the wearers of the suits, and by an ingenious contrivance a store of compressed air sufficient to last for several hours was provided for each suit, so that in case of necessity the wearer could throw off the tubes connecting him with the air tanks in the car. another object which had been kept in view in the preparation of these suits was the possible exploration of an airless planet, such as the moon. the necessity of some contrivance by means of which we should be enabled to converse with one another while outside the cars in open space, or when in an airless world, like the moon, where there would be no medium by which the waves of sound could be conveyed as they are in the atmosphere of the earth, had been foreseen by our great inventor, and he had not found it difficult to contrive suitable devices for meeting the emergency. inside the headpiece of each of the electrical suits was the mouthpiece of a telephone. this was connected to a wire which, when not in use, could be conveniently coiled upon the arm of the wearer. near the ears, similarly connected with wires, were telephonic receivers. when two persons wearing the air-tight dresses wished to converse with one another it was only necessary for them to connect themselves by the wires, and conversation could then be easily carried on. careful calculations of the precise distance of mars from the earth at the time when the expedition was to start had been made by a large number of experts in mathematical astronomy. but it was not mr. edison's intention to go direct to mars. with the exception of the first electrical ship, which he had completed, none had yet been tried in a long voyage. it was desirable that the qualities of each of the ships should first be carefully tested, and for this reason the leader of the expedition determined that the moon should be the first port of space at which the squadron would call. it chanced that the moon was so situated at this time as to be nearly in a line between the earth and mars, which latter was in opposition to the sun, and consequently as favorably situated as possible for the purposes of the voyage. what would be, then, for out of the ships of the squadron, a trial trip would at the same time be a step of a quarter of a million of miles gained in the direction of our journey, and so no time would be wasted. the departure from the earth was arranged to occur precisely at midnight. the moon near the full was hanging high over head, and a marvelous spectacle was presented to the eyes of those below as the great squadron of floating ships, with their insignia lights ablaze, cast loose and began slowly to move away on their adventurous and unprecedented expedition into the great unknown. a tremendous cheer, billowing up from the throats of millions of excited men and women, seemed to rend the curtain of the night, and made the airships tremble with the atmospheric vibrations that were set in motion. instantly magnificent fireworks were displayed in honor of our departure. rockets by hundreds of thousands shot heaven-ward, and then burst in constellations of firey drops. the sudden illumination thus produced, overspreading hundreds of square miles of the surface of the earth with a light almost like that of day, must certainly have been visible to the inhabitants of mars, if they were watching us at the time. they might, or might not, correctly interpret its significance; but, at any rate, we did not care. we were off, and were confident that we could meet our enemy on his own ground before he could attack us again. and now, as we slowly rose higher, a marvelous scene was disclosed. at first the earth beneath us, buried as it was in night, resembled the hollow of a vast cup of ebony blackness, in the center of which, like the molten lava run together at the bottom of a volcanic crater, shone the light of the illuminations around new york. but when we got beyond the atmosphere, and the earth still continued to recede below us, its aspect changed. the cup-shaped appearance was gone, and it began to round out beneath our eyes in the form of a vast globe--an enormous ball mysteriously suspended under us, glimmering over most of its surface, with the faint illumination of the moon, and showing toward its eastern edge the oncoming light of the rising sun. when we were still further away, having slightly varied our course so that the sun was once more entirely hidden behind the center of the earth, we saw its atmosphere completely illuminated, all around it, with prismatic lights, like a gigantic rainbow in the form of a ring. another shift in our course rapidly carried us out of the shadow of the earth and into that all pervading sunshine. then the great planet beneath us hung unspeakable in its beauty. the outlines of several of the continents were clearly discernible on its surface, streaked and spotted with delicate shades of varying color, and the sunlight flashed and glowed in long lanes across the convex surface of the oceans. parallel with the equator and along the regions of the ever blowing trade winds, were vast belts of clouds, gorgeous with crimson and purple as the sunlight fell upon them. immense expanses of snow and ice lay like a glittering garment upon both land and sea around the north pole. as we gazed upon this magnificent spectacle, our hearts bounded within us. this was our earth--this was the planet we were going to defend--our home in the trackless wilderness of space. and it seemed to us indeed a home for which we might gladly expend our last breath. a new determination to conquer or die sprang up in our hearts, and i saw lord kelvin, after gazing at the beauteous scene which the earth presented through his eyeglass, turn about and peer in the direction in which we knew that mars lay, with a sudden frown that caused the glass to lose its grip and fall dangling from its string upon his breast. even mr. edison seemed moved. "i am glad i thought of the disintegrator," he said. "i shouldn't like to see that world down there laid waste again." "and it won't be," said professor sylvanus p. thompson, gripping the handle of an electric machine, "not if we can help it." chapter five _the footprint on the moon_ to prevent accidents, it had been arranged that the ships should keep a considerable distance apart. some of them gradually drifted away, until, on account of the neutral tint of their sides, they were swallowed up in the abyss of space. still it was possible to know where every member of the squadron was through the constant interchange of signals. these, as i have explained, were effected by means of mirrors flashing back the light of the sun. but, although it was now unceasing day for us, yet, there being no atmosphere to diffuse the sun's light, the stars were visible to us just as at night upon the earth, and they shone with extraordinary splendor against the intense black background of the firmament. the lights of some of the more distant ships of our squadron were not brighter than the stars in whose neighborhood they seemed to be. in some cases it was only possible to distinguish between the light of a ship and that of a star by the fact that the former was continually flashing while the star was steady in its radiance. the most uncanny effect was produced by the absence of atmosphere around us. inside the car, where there was air, the sunlight, streaming through one or more of the windows, was diffused and produced ordinary daylight. but when we ventured outside we could only see things by halves. the side of the car that the sun's rays touched was visible, the other side was invisible, the light from the stars not making it bright enough to affect the eye in contrast with the sun-illumined half. as i held up my arm before my eyes, half of it seemed to be shaved off lengthwise; a companion on the deck of the ship looked like half a man. so the other electrical ships near us appeared as half ships, only the illumined sides being visible. we had now gotten so far away that the earth had taken on the appearance of a heavenly body like the moon. its colors had become all blended into a golden-reddish hue, which overspread nearly its entire surface, except at the poles, where there were broad patches of white. it was marvelous to look at this huge orb behind us, while far beyond it shone the blazing sun like an enormous star in the blackest of nights. in the opposite direction appeared the silver orb of the moon, and scattered all around were millions of brilliant stars, amid which, like fireflies, flashed and sparkled the signal lights of the squadron. a danger that might easily have been anticipated, that perhaps had been anticipated, but against which it had been difficult, if not impossible, to provide, presently manifested itself. looking out of a window toward the right, i suddenly noticed the lights of a distant ship darting about in a curious curve. instantly afterward, another member of the squadron, nearer by, behaved in the same inexplicable manner. then two or three of the floating cars seemed to be violently drawn from their courses and hurried rapidly in the direction of the flagship. immediately i perceived a small object, luridly flaming, which seemed to move with immense speed in our direction. the truth instantly flashed upon my mind, and i shouted to the other occupants of the car: "a meteor!" and such indeed it was. we had met this mysterious wanderer in space at a moment when we were moving in a direction at right angles to the path it was pursuing around the sun. small as it was, and its diameter probably did not exceed a single foot, it was yet an independent little world, and as such a member of the solar system. its distance from the sun being so near that of the earth, i knew that its velocity, assuming it to be travelling in a nearly circular orbit, must be about eighteen miles in a second. with this velocity, then, it plunged like a projectile shot by some mysterious enemy in space directly through our squadron. it had come and was gone before one could utter a sentence of three words. its appearance, and the effect it had produced upon the ships in whose neighborhood it passed, indicated that it bore an intense and tremendous charge of electricity. how it had become thus charged i cannot pretend to say. i simply record the fact. and this charge, it was evident, was opposite in polarity to that which the ships of the squadron bore. it therefore exerted an attractive influence upon them and thus drew them after it. i had just time to think how lucky it was that the meteor did not strike any of us, when, glancing at a ship just ahead, i perceived that an accident had occurred. the ship swayed violently from its course, dazzling flashes played around it, and two or three of the men forming its crew appeared for an instant on its exterior, wildly gesticulating, but almost instantly falling prone. it was evident at a glance that the car had been struck by the meteor. how serious the damage might be we could not instantly determine. the course of our ship was immediately altered, the electric polarity was changed and we rapidly approached the disabled car. the men who had fallen lay upon its surface. one of the heavy circular glasses covering a window had been smashed to atoms. through this the meteor had passed, killing two or three men who stood in its course. then it had crashed through the opposite side of the car, and, passing on, had disappeared into space. the store of air contained in the car had immediately rushed out through the openings, and when two or three of us, having donned our air-tight suits as quickly as possible, entered the wrecked car we found all its inmates stretched upon the floor in a condition of asphyxiation. they, as well as those who lay upon the exterior, were immediately removed to the flagship, restoratives were applied, and, fortunately, our aid had come so promptly that the lives of all of them were saved. but life had fled from the mangled bodies of those who had stood directly in the path of the fearful projectile. [illustration: _"through this the meteor had passed, killing two or three men who stood in its course."_] this strange accident had been witnessed by several of the members of the fleet, and they quickly drew together, in order to inquire for the particulars. as the flagship was now overcrowded by the addition of so many men to its crew, mr. edison had them distributed among the other cars. fortunately it happened that the disintegrators contained in the wrecked car were not injured. mr. edison thought that it would be possible to repair the car itself, and for that purpose he had it attached to the flagship in order that it might be carried on as far as the moon. the bodies of the dead were transported with it, as it was determined, instead of committing them to the fearful deep of space, where they would have wandered forever, or else have fallen like meteors upon the earth, to give them interment in the lunar soil. as we now rapidly approached the moon the change which the appearance of its surface underwent was no less wonderful than that which the surface of the earth had presented in the reverse order while we were receding from it. from a pale silver orb, shining with comparative faintness among the stars, it slowly assumed the appearance of a vast mountainous desert. as we drew nearer its colors became more pronounced; the great flat regions appeared darker; the mountain peaks shone more brilliantly. the huge chasms seemed bottomless and blacker than midnight. gradually separate mountains appeared. what seemed like expanses of snow and immense glaciers streaming down their sides sparkled with great brilliancy in the perpendicular rays of the sun. our motion had now assumed the aspect of falling. we seemed to be dropping from an immeasurable height, and with an inconceivable velocity, straight down upon those giant peaks. here and there curious lights glowed upon the mysterious surface of the moon. where the edge of the moon cut the sky behind it, it was broken and jagged with mountain masses. vast crater rings overspread its surface, and in some of these i imagined i could perceive a lurid illumination coming out of their deepest cavities, and the curling of mephitic vapors around their terrible jaws. we were approaching that part of the moon which is known to the astronomers as the bay of rainbows. here a huge semi-circular region, as smooth almost as the surface of a prairie, lay beneath our eyes, stretching southward into a vast ocean-like expanse, while on the north it was enclosed by an enormous range of mountain cliffs, rising perpendicularly to a height of many thousands of feet, and rent and gashed in every direction by forces which seemed at some remote period to have labored at tearing this little world in pieces. it was a fearful spectacle; a dead and mangled world, too dreadful to look upon. the idea of the death of the moon was, of course, not a new one to many of us. we had long been aware that the earth's satellite was a body which had passed beyond the stage of life, if indeed it had ever been a life supporting globe; but none of us were prepared for the terrible spectacle which now smote our eyes. at each end of the semi-circular ridge that encloses the bay of rainbows there is a lofty promontory. that at the northwestern extremity had long been known to the astronomers under the name of cape laplace. the other promontory, at the southeastern termination, is called cape heraclides. it was toward the latter that we were approaching, and by interchange of signals all the members of the squadron had been informed that cape heraclides was to be our rendezvous upon the moon. i may say that i had been somewhat familiar with the scenery of this part of the lunar world, for i had often studied it from the earth with a telescope, and i had thought that if there was any part of the moon where one might, with fair expectation of success, look for inhabitants, or if not inhabitants, at least for relics of life no longer existant there, this would surely be the place. it was, therefore, with no small degree of curiosity, notwithstanding the unexpectedly frightful and repulsive appearance that the surface of the moon presented, that i now saw myself rapidly approaching the region concerning whose secrets my imagination had so often busied itself. when mr. edison and i had paid our previous trip to the moon on our first experimental trip of the electrical ship we had landed at a point on its surface remote from this, and, as i have before explained, we then made no effort to investigate its secrets. but now it was to be different, and we were at length to see something of the wonders of the moon. i had often on the earth drawn a smile from my friends by showing them cape heraclides with a telescope, and calling their attention to the fact that the outline of the peak terminating the cape was such as to present a remarkable resemblance to a human face, unmistakably a feminine countenance, seen in profile, and possessing no small degree of beauty. to my astonishment, this curious human semblance still remained when we had approached so close to the moon that the mountains forming the cape filled nearly the whole field of view of the window from which i was watching it. the resemblance, indeed, was most startling. "can this indeed be diana herself?" i said half-aloud, but instantly afterward i was laughing at my fancy, for mr. edison had overhead me and exclaimed, "where is she?" "who?" "diana." "why, there," i said, pointing to the moon. but lo! the appearance was gone even while i spoke. a swift change had taken place in the line of sight by which we were viewing it, and the likeness had disappeared in consequence. a few moments later my astonishment was revived, but the cause this time was a very different one. we had been dropping rapidly toward the mountains, and the electrician in charge of the car was swiftly and constantly changing his potential, and, like a pilot who feels his way into an unknown harbor, endeavoring to approach the moon in such a manner that no hidden peril should surprise us. as we thus approached i suddenly perceived, crowning the very apex of the lofty peak near the termination of the cape, the ruins of what appeared to be an ancient watch tower. it was evidently composed of cyclopean blocks larger than any that i had ever seen even among the ruins of greece, egypt and asia minor. [illustration: _"as we thus approached i suddenly perceived, crowning the very apex of the lofty peak near the termination of the cape, the ruins of what appeared to be the ancient watch-tower."_] here, then, was visible proof that the moon had been inhabited, although probably it was not inhabited now. i cannot describe the exultant feeling which took possession of me at this discovery. it settled so much that learned men had been disputing about for centuries. "what will they say," i exclaimed, "when i show them a photograph of that?" below the peak, stretching far to right and left, lay a barren beach which had evidently once been washed by sea waves, because it was marked by long curved ridges such as the advancing and retiring tide leaves upon the shore of the ocean. this beach sloped rapidly outward and downward toward a profound abyss, which had once, evidently, been the bed of a sea, but which now appeared to us simply as the empty, yawning shell of an ocean that had long vanished. it was with no small difficulty, and only after the expenditure of considerable time, that all the floating ships of the squadron were gradually brought to rest on this lone mountain top of the moon. in accordance with my request, mr. edison had the flagship moored in the interior of the great ruined watch tower that i have described. the other ships rested upon the slope of the mountain around us. although time pressed, for we knew that the safety of the earth depended upon our promptness in attacking mars, yet it was determined to remain here at least two or three days in order that the wrecked car might be repaired. it was found also that the passage of the highly electrified meteor had disarranged the electrical machinery in some of the other cars, so that there were many repairs to be made besides those needed to restore the wreck. moreover, we must bury our unfortunate companions who had been killed by the meteor. this, in fact, was the first work that we performed. strange was the sight, and stranger our feelings, as here on the surface of a world distant from the earth, and on soil which had never before been pressed by the foot of man, we performed that last ceremony of respect which mortals pay to mortality. in the ancient beach at the foot of the peak we made a deep opening, and there covered forever the faces of our friends, leaving them to sleep among the ruins of empires, and among the graves of races which had vanished probably ages before adam and eve appeared in paradise. while the repairs were being made several scientific expeditions were sent out in various directions across the moon. one went westward to investigate the great ring of plato, and the lunar alps. another crossed the ancient sea of showers toward the inner appenines. one started to explore the immense crater of copernicus, which, yawning fifty miles across, presents a wonderful appearance even from the distance of the earth. the ship in which i, myself, had the good fortune to embark, was bound for the mysterious inner mountain aristarchus. before these expeditions started, a careful exploration had been made in the neighborhood of cape heraclides. but, except that the broken walls of the watch tower on the peak, composed of blocks of enormous size, had evidently been the work of creatures endowed with human intelligence, no remains were found indicating the former presence of inhabitants upon this part of the moon. but along the shore of the old sea, just where the so-called bay of rainbows separates itself from the abyss of the sea of showers, there were found some stratified rocks in which the fascinated eyes of the explorer beheld the clear imprint of a gigantic human foot, measuring five feet in length from toe to heel. the most minute search failed to reveal another trace of the presence of the ancient giant, who had left the impress of his foot in the wet sands of the beach here so many millions of years ago that even the imagination of the geologists shrank from the task of attempting to fix the precise period. around this gigantic footprint gathered most of the scientific members of the expedition, wearing their oddly shaped air-tight suits, connected with telephonic wires, and the spectacle, but for the impressiveness of the discovery, would have been laughable in the extreme. bending over the mark in the rock, nodding their heads together, pointing with their awkwardly accoutered arms, they looked like an assemblage of antidiluvian monsters collected around their prey. their disappointment over the fact that no other marks of anything resembling human habitation could be discovered was very great. still this footprint in itself was quite sufficient, as they all declared, to settle the question of the former habitation of the moon, and it would serve for the production of many a learned volume after their return to earth, even if no further discoveries should be made in other parts of the lunar world. it was the hope of making such other discoveries that led to the dispatch of the other various expeditions which i have already named. i was chosen to accompany the car that was going to aristarchus, because, as every one who had viewed the moon from the earth was aware, there was something very mysterious about that mountain. i knew that it was a crater nearly thirty miles in diameter and very deep, although its floor was plainly visible. what rendered it remarkable was the fact that the floor and the walls of the crater, particularly on the inner side, glowed with a marvelous brightness which rendered them almost blinding when viewed with a powerful telescope. so bright were they, indeed, that the eye was unable to see many of the details which the telescope would have made visible but for the flood of light which poured from the mountains. sir william hershel had been so completely misled by this appearance that he supposed he was watching a lunar volcano in eruption. it had always been a difficult question what caused the extraordinary luminosity of aristarchus. no end of hypothesis had been invented to account for it. now i was to assist in settling these questions forever. from cape heraclides to aristarchus the distance in air line was something over miles. our course lay across the northeastern part of the sea of showers, with enormous cliffs, mountain masses and peaks shining on the right, while in the other direction the view was bounded by the distant range of the lunar appenines, some of whose towering peaks, when viewed from our immense elevation, appeared as sharp as the swiss matterhorn. when we had arrived within about a hundred miles of our destination we found ourselves, floating directly over the so-called harbinger mountains. the serrated peaks of aristarchus then appeared ahead of us, fairly blazing in the sunshine. it seemed as if a gigantic string of diamonds, every one as great as a mountain peak, had been cast down upon the barren surface of the moon and left to waste their brilliance upon the desert air of this abandoned world. as we rapidly approached the dazzling splendor of the mountain became almost unbearable to our eyes, and we were compelled to resort to the devise, practised by all climbers of lofty mountains, where the glare of sunlight on snow surfaces is liable to cause temporary blindness, of protecting our eyes with neutral-tinted glasses. professor moissan, the great french chemist and maker of artificial diamonds, fairly danced with delight. "voila! voila! voila!" was all that he could say. when we were comparatively near, the mountain no longer seemed to glow with a uniform radiance, evenly distributed over its entire surface, but now innumerable points of light, all as bright as so many little suns, blazed away at us. it was evident that we had before us a mountain composed of, or at least covered with, crystals. without stopping to alight on the outer slopes of the great ring-shaped range of peaks which composed aristarchus, we sailed over their rim and looked down into the interior. here the splendor of the crystals was greater than on the outer slopes, and the broad floor of the crater, thousands of feet beneath us, shone and sparkled with overwhelming radiance, as if it were an immense bin of diamonds, while a peak in the center flamed like a stupendous tiara incrusted with selected gems. eager to see what these crystals were, the car was now allowed rapidly to drop into the interior of the crater. with great caution we brought it to rest upon the blazing ground, for the sharp edges of the crystals would certainly have torn the metallic sides of the car if it had come into violent contact with them. donning our air-tight suits and stepping carefully out upon this wonderful footing we attempted to detach some of the crystals. many of them were firmly fastened, but a few--some of astonishing size--were readily loosened. a moment's inspection showed that we had stumbled upon the most marvelous work of the forces of crystalization that human eyes had ever rested upon. some time in the past history of the moon there had been an enormous outflow of molten material from the crater. this had overspread the walls and partially filled up the interior, and later its surface had flowered into gems, as thick as blossoms in a bed of pansies. the whole mass flashed prismatic rays of indescribable beauty and intensity. we gazed at first speechless with amazement. "it cannot be, surely it cannot be," said professor moissan at length. "but it is," said another member of the party. "are these diamonds?" asked a third. "i cannot yet tell," replied the professor. "they have the brilliancy of diamonds, but they may be something else." "moon jewels," suggested a third. "and worth untold millions, whatever they are," remarked another. these magnificent crystals, some of which appeared to be almost flawless, varied in size from the dimensions of a hazelnut to geometrical solids several inches in diameter. we carefully selected as many as it was convenient to carry and placed them in the car for future examination. we had solved another long standing lunar problem and had, perhaps, opened up an inexhaustible future mine of wealth which might eventually go far toward reimbursing the earth for the damage which it had suffered from the invasion of the martians. on returning to cape heraclides we found that the other expeditions had arrived at the rendezvous ahead of us. their members had wonderful stories to tell of what they had seen, but nothing caused quite so much astonishment as that which we had to tell and to show. the party which had gone to visit plato and the lunar alps brought back, however, information which, in a scientific sense, was no less interesting than what we had been able to gather. they had found within this curious ring of plato, which is a circle of mountains sixty miles in diameter, enclosing a level plain remarkably smooth over most of its surface, unmistakable evidences of former habitation. a gigantic city had evidently at one time existed near the center of this great plain. the outlines of its walls and the foundation marks of some of its immense buildings were plainly made out, and elaborate plans of this vanished capitol of the moon were prepared by several members of the party. one of them was fortunate enough to discover an even more precious relic of the ancient lunarians. it was a piece of petrified skullbone, representing but a small portion of the head to which it had belonged, but yet sufficient to enable the anthropologists, who immediately fell to examining it, to draw ideal representations of the head as it must have been in life--the head of a giant of enormous size, which, if it had possessed a highly organized brain, of proportionate magnitude, must have given to its possessor intellectual powers immensely greater than any of the descendants of adam have ever been endowed with. indeed, one of the professors was certain that some little concretions found on the interior of the piece of skull were petrified portions of the brain matter itself, and he set to work with the microscope to examine its organic quality. in the meantime, the repairs to the electrical ships had been completed, and, although these discoveries on the moon had created a most profound sensation among the members of the expedition, and aroused an almost irresistable desire to continue the explorations thus happily begun, yet everybody knew that these things were aside from the main purpose in view, and that we should be false to our duty in wasting a moment more upon the moon than was absolutely necessary to put the ships in proper condition to proceed on their warlike voyage. everything being prepared then, we left the moon with great regret, just forty-eight hours after we had landed upon its surface, carrying with us a determination to revisit it and to learn more of its wonderful secrets in case we should survive the dangers which we were now going to face. chapter six _the monsters on the asteroid_ a day or two after leaving the moon, we had another adventure with a wandering inhabitant of space which brought us into far greater peril than had our encounter with the meteor. the airships had been partitioned off so that a portion of the interior could be darkened in order to serve as a sleeping chamber, wherein, according to the regulations prescribed by the commander of the squadron each member of the expedition in his turn passed eight out of every twenty-four hours--sleeping if he could, if not, meditating in a more or less dazed way, upon the wonderful things that he was seeing and doing--things far more incredible than the creations of a dream. one morning, if i may call by the name morning the time of my periodical emergence from the darkened chamber, glancing from one of the windows, i was startled to see in the black sky a brilliant comet. no periodical comet, as i knew, was at this time approaching the neighborhood of the sun, and no stranger of that kind had been detected from the observatories making its way sunward before we left the earth. here, however, was unmistakably a comet rushing toward the sun, flinging out a great gleaming tail behind it and so close to us that i wondered to see it remaining almost motionless in the sky. this phenomenon was soon explained to me, and the explanation was of a most disquieting character. the stranger had already been perceived, not only from the flagship, but from the other members of the squadron, and, as i now learned, efforts had been made to get out of the neighborhood, but for some reason the electrical apparatus did not work perfectly--some mysterious disturbing force acting upon it--and so it had been found impossible to avoid an encounter with the comet, not an actual coming into contact with it, but a falling into the sphere of its influence. in fact, i was informed that for several hours the squadron had been dragging along in the wake of a comet, very much as boats are sometimes towed off by a wounded whale. every effort had been made to so adjust the electric charge upon the ships that they would be repelled from the cometic mass, but, owing apparently to electric changes affecting the clashing mass of meteoric bodies which constituted the head of the comet, we found it impossible to escape from its influence. at one instant the ships would be repelled; immediately afterward they would be attracted again, and thus they were dragged hither and thither, but never able to break from the invisible leash which the comet had cast upon them. the latter was moving with enormous velocity toward the sun, and, consequently, we were being carried back again, away from the object of our expedition, with a fair prospect of being dissipated in blazing vapors when the comet had dragged us, unwilling prisoners, into the immediate neighborhood of the solar furnace. even the most cool-headed lost his self control in this terrible emergency. every kind of devise that experience or the imagination could suggest was tried, but nothing would do. still on we rushed with the electrified atoms composing the tail of the comet swinging to and fro over the members of the squadron, as they shifted their position, like the plume of smoke from a gigantic steamer, drifting over the sea birds that follow in its course. was this to end it all, then? was this the fate that providence had in store for us? were the hopes of the earth thus to perish? was the expedition to be wrecked and its fate to remain for ever unknown to the planet from which it had set forth? and was our beloved globe, which had seemed so fair to us when we last looked upon it nearby, and in whose defense we had resolved to spend our last breath, to be left helpless and at the mercy of its implacable foe in the sky? at length we gave ourselves up for lost. there seemed to be no possible way to free ourselves from the baleful grip of this terrible and unlooked for enemy. as the comet approached the sun its electrical energy rapidly increased, and watching it with telescopes, for we could not withdraw our fascinated eyes from it, we could clearly behold the fearful things that went on in its nucleus. this consisted of an immense number of separate meteors of no very great size individually, but which were in constant motion among one another, darting to and fro, clashing and smashing together, while fountains of blazing metallic particles and hot mineral vapours poured out in every direction. as i watched it, unable to withdraw my eyes, i saw imaginary forms revealing themselves amid the flaming meteors. they seemed like creatures in agony, tossing their arms, bewailing in their attitudes the awful fate that had overtaken them, and fairly chilling my blood with the pantomime of torture which they exhibited. i thought of an old superstition which i had often heard about the earth, and exclaimed: "yes, surely, this is a flying hell!" as the electric activity of the comet increased, its continued changes of potential and polarity became more frequent, and the electrical ships darted about with even greater confusion than before. occasionally one of them, seized with a sudden impulse, would spring forward toward the nucleus of the comet with a sudden access of velocity that would fling every one of its crew from his feet, and all would lie sprawling on the floor of the car while it rushed, as it seemed, to inevitable and instant destruction. then, either through the frantic efforts of the electrician struggling with the controller or through another change in the polarity of the comet, the ship would be saved on the very brink of ruin and stagger away out of immediate danger. thus the captured squadron was swept, swaying and darting hither and thither, but never able to get sufficiently far from the comet to break the bond of its fatal attraction. so great was our excitement and so complete our absorption in the fearful peril that we had not noticed the precise direction in which the comet was carrying us. it was enough to know that the goal of the journey was the furnace of the sun. but presently someone in the flagship recalled us to a more accurate sense of our situation in space by exclaiming: "why, there is the earth!" and there, indeed, it was, its great globe rolling under our eyes, with the contrasted colors of the continents and clouds and the watery gleam of the oceans spread beneath us. "we're going to strike it!" exclaimed somebody. "the comet is going to dash us into the earth." such a collision at first seemed inevitable, but presently it was noticed that the direction of the comet's motion was such that while it might graze the earth it would not actually strike it. and so, like a swarm of giant insects circling about an electric light from whose magic influence they could not escape, our ships went on, to be whipped against the earth in passing and then to continue their swift journey to destruction. "thank god, this saves us," suddenly cried mr. edison. "what-what?" "why, the earth, of course. do you not see that as the comet sweeps close to the great planet the superior attraction of the latter will snatch us from its grasp, and that thus we shall be able to escape." and it was indeed as mr. edison had predicted. in a blaze of falling meteors the comet swept the outer limits of the earth's atmosphere and passed on, while the swaying ships, having been instructed by signals what to do, desperately applied their electrical machinery to reverse the attraction and threw themselves into the arms of their mother earth. in another instant we were all free, settling down through the quiet atmosphere with the atlantic ocean sparkling in the morning sun far below. we looked at one another in amazement. so this was the end of our voyage! this was the completion of our warlike enterprise. we had started out to conquer a world, and we had come back ignominiously dragged in the train of a comet. the earth which we were going to defend and protect had herself turned protector, and reaching out her strong arm had snatched her foolish children from the destruction which they had invited. it would be impossible to describe the chagrin of every member of the expedition. the electric ships rapidly assembled and hovered high in the air, while their commanders consulted about what should be done. a universal feeling of shame almost drove them to a decision not to land upon the surface of the planet, and if possible not to let its inhabitants know what had occurred. but it was too late for that. looking carefully beneath us, we saw that fate had brought us back to our very starting point, and signals displayed in the neighborhood of new york indicated that we had already been recognized. there was nothing for us then but to drop down and explain the situation. i shall not delay my narrative by undertaking to describe the astonishment and the disappointment of the inhabitants of the earth when, within a fortnight from our departure, they saw us back again, with no laurels of victory crowning our brows. at first they had hoped that we were returning in triumph, and we were overwhelmed with questions the moment we had dropped within speaking distance. "have you whipped them?" "how many are lost?" "is there any more danger?" "faix, have ye got one of thim men from mars?" but their rejoicing and their facetiousness were turned into wailing when the truth was imparted. we made a short story of it, for we had not the heart to go into details. we told of our unfortunate comrades whom we had buried upon the moon, and there was one gleam of satisfaction when we exhibited the wonderful crystals we had collected in the crater of aristarchus. mr. edison determined to stop only long enough to test the electrical machinery of the cars, which had been more or less seriously deranged during our wild chase after the comet, and then to start straight back for mars--this time on a through trip. the astronomers, who had been watching mars, since our departure, with their telescopes, reported that mysterious lights continued to be visible, but that nothing indicating the starting of another expedition for the earth had been seen. within twenty-four hours we were ready for our second start. the moon was now no longer in a position to help us on our way. it had moved out of line between mars and the earth. high above us, in the center of the heavens, glowed the red planet which was the goal of our journey. the needed computations of velocity and direction of flight having been repeated, and the ships being all in readiness, we started direct for mars. an enormous charge of electricity was imparted to each member of the squadron, in order that as soon as we had reached the upper limits of the atmosphere, where the ships could move swiftly, without danger of being consumed by the heat developed by the friction of their passage through the air, a very great initial velocity could be imparted. once started off by this tremendous electrical kick, and with no atmosphere to resist our motion, we should be able to retain the same velocity, baring incidental encounters, until we arrived near the surface of mars. when we were free of the atmosphere, and the ships were moving away from the earth, with the highest velocity which we were able to impart to them, observations on the stars were made in order to determine the rate of our speed. this was found to be ten miles in a second, or , miles in a day, a very much greater speed than that with which we had travelled on starting to touch at the moon. supposing this velocity to remain uniform, and, with no known resistance, it might reasonably be expected to do so, we should arrive at mars in a little less than forty-two days, the distance of the planet from the earth being at this time, about thirty-six million miles. nothing occurred for many days to interrupt our journey. we became accustomed to our strange surroundings, and many entertainments were provided to while away the time. the astronomers in the expedition found plenty of occupation in studying the aspects of the stars and the other heavenly bodies from their new point of view. at the expiration of about thirty-five days we had drawn so near to mars that with our telescopes, which, though small, were of immense power, we could discern upon its surface features and details which no one had been able to glimpse from the earth. as the surface of this world, that we were approaching as a tiger hunter draws near the jungle, gradually unfolded itself to our inspection, there was hardly one of us willing to devote to sleep or idleness the prescribed eight hours that had been fixed as the time during which each member of the expedition must remain in the darkened chamber. we were too eager to watch for every new revelation upon mars. but something was in store that we had not expected. we were to meet the martians before arriving at the world in which they dwelt. among the stars which shone in that quarter of the heavens where mars appeared as the master orb, there was one, lying directly in our path, which, to our astonishment, as we continued on, altered from the aspect of a star, underwent a gradual magnification, and soon presented itself in the form of a little planet. "it is an asteroid," said somebody. "yes, evidently; but how does it come inside the orbit of mars?" "oh, there are several asteroids," said one of the astronomers, "which travel inside the orbit of mars, along a part of their course, and, for aught we can tell, there may be many which have not yet been caught sight of from the earth, that are nearer to the sun than mars is." "this must be one of them." "manifestly so." as we drew nearer the mysterious little planet revealed itself to us as a perfectly formed globe not more than five miles in diameter. "what is that upon it?" asked lord kelvin, squinting intently at the little world through his glass. "as i live, it moves." "yes, yes!" exclaimed several others, "there are inhabitants upon it, but what giants!" "what monsters!" "don't you see?" exclaimed an excited savant. "they are the martians!" the startling truth burst upon the minds of all. here upon this little planetoid were several of the gigantic inhabitants of the world that we were going to attack. there was more than one man in the flagship who recognized them well, and who shuddered at the recognition, instinctively recalling the recent terrible experience of the earth. was this an outpost of the warlike mars? around these monstrous enemies we saw several of their engines of war. some of these appeared to have been wrecked, but at least one, as far as we could see, was still in a proper condition for use. how had these creatures got there? "why, that is easy enough to account for," i said, as a sudden recollection flashed into my mind. "don't you remember the report of the astronomers more than six months ago, at the end of the conference in washington, that something would seem to indicate the departure of a new expedition from mars had been noticed by them? we have heard nothing of that expedition since. we know that it did not reach the earth. it must have fallen foul of this asteroid, run upon this rock in the ocean of space and been wrecked here." "we've got 'em, then," shouted our electric steersman, who had been a workman in mr. edison's laboratory and had unlimited confidence in his chief. the electrical ships were immediately instructed by signal to slow down, an operation that was easily affected through the electrical repulsion of the asteroid. the nearer we got the more terrifying was the appearance of the gigantic creatures who were riding upon the little world before us like castaway sailors upon a block of ice. like men, and yet not like men, combining the human and the beast in their appearance, it required a steady nerve to look at them. if we had not known their malignity and their power to work evil, it would have been different, but in our eyes their moral character shone through their physical aspect and thus rendered them more terrible than they would otherwise have been. when we first saw them their appearance was most forlorn, and their attitudes indicated only despair and desperation, but as they caught sight of us their malign power of intellect instantly penetrated the mystery, and they recognized us for what we were. their despair immediately gave place to reawakened malevolence. on the instant they were astir, with such heart-chilling movements as those that characterize a venomous serpent preparing to strike. not imagining that they would be in a position to make serious resistance, we had been somewhat incautious in approaching. suddenly there was a quicker movement than usual among the martians, a swift adjustment of that one of their engines of war which, as already noticed, seemed to be practically uninjured, then there darted from it and alighted upon one of the foremost ships, a dazzling lightning stroke a mile in length, at whose touch the metallic sides of the car curled and withered and, licked for a moment by what seemed lambent flames, collapsed into a mere cinder. for an instant not a word was spoken, so sudden and unexpected was the blow. we knew that every soul in the stricken car had perished. "back! back!" was the signal instantly flashed from the flagship, and reversing their polarities the members of the squadron sprang away from the little planet as rapidly as the electrical impulse could drive them. but before we were out of reach a second flaming tongue of death shot from the fearful engine, and another of our ships, with all its crew, was destroyed. [illustration: _"back! back!" was the signal instantaneously flashed from the flag ship, and the members of the squadron sprang away from the little planet. but before we were out of reach a second tongue of death shot from the fearful engine, and another of our ships, with all its crew, was destroyed._] it was an inauspicious beginning for us. two of our electrical ships, with their entire crews, had been wiped out of existence, and this appalling blow had been dealt by a few stranded and disabled enemies floating on an asteroid. what hope would there be for us when we came to encounter the millions of mars itself on their own ground and prepared for war? however, it would not do to despond. we had been incautious, and we should take good care not to commit the same fault again. the first thing to do was to avenge the death of our comrades. the question whether we were able to meet these martians and overcome them might as well be settled right here and now. they had proved what they could do, even when disabled and at a disadvantage. now it was our turn. chapter seven _a planet of gold_ the squadron had been rapidly withdrawn to a very considerable distance from the asteroid. the range of the mysterious artillery employed by the martians was unknown to us. we did not even know the limit of the effective range of our own disintegrators. if it should prove that the martians were able to deal their strokes at a distance greater than any we could reach, then they would of course have an insuperable advantage. on the other hand, if it should turn out that our range was greater than theirs, the advantage would be on our side. or--which was perhaps most probable--there might be practically no difference in the effective range of the engines. anyhow, we were going to find out how the case stood, and that without delay. everything being in readiness, the disintegrators all in working order, and the men who were able to handle them, most of whom were experienced marksmen, chosen from among the officers of the regular army of the united states, and accustomed to the straight shooting and the sure hits of the west, standing at their posts, the squadron again advanced. in order to distract the attention of the martians, the electrical ships had been distributed over a wide space. some dropped straight down toward the asteroid; others approached it by flank attack, from this side and that. the flagship moved straight in toward the point where the first disaster occurred. its intrepid commander felt that his post should be that of the greatest danger, and where the severest blows would be given and received. the approach of the ships was made with great caution. watching the martians with our telescopes we could clearly see that they were disconcerted by the scattered order of our attack. even if all of their engines of war had been in proper condition for use it would have been impossible for them to meet the simultaneous assault of so many enemies dropping down upon them from the sky. but they were made of fighting mettle, as we knew from old experience. it was no question of surrender. they did not know how to surrender, and we did not know how to demand their surrender. besides, the destruction of the two electrical ships with the forty men, many of whom bore names widely known upon the earth, had excited a kind of fury among the members of the squadron which called for vengeance. suddenly a repetition of the quick movement by the martians, which had been the forerunner of the former coup, was observed; again a blinding flash burst from their war engines and instantaneously a shiver ran through the frame of the flagship; the air within quivered with strange pulsations and seemed suddenly to have assumed the temperature of a blast furnace. we all gasped for breath. our throats and lungs seemed scorched in the act of breathing. some fell unconscious upon the floor. the marksmen, carrying the disintegrators ready for use, staggered, and one of them dropped his instrument. but we had not been destroyed like our comrades before us. in a moment the wave of heat passed; those who had fallen recovered from their momentary stupor and staggered to their feet. the electrical steersman stood hesitating at his post. "move on," said mr. edison sternly, his features set with determination and his eyes afire. "we are still beyond their effective range. let us get closer in order to make sure work when we strike." the ship moved on. one could hear the heartbeats of its inmates. the other members of the squadron, thinking for the moment that disaster had overtaken the flagship, had paused and seemed to be meditating flight. "signal them to move on," said mr. edison. the signal was given, and the circle of electrical ships closed in upon the asteroid. in the meantime mr. edison had been donning his air-tight suit. before we could clearly comprehend his intention he had passed through the double trapped door which gave access to the exterior of the car without permitting the loss of air, and was standing upon what served as the deck of the ship. in his hand he carried a disintegrator. with a quick motion he sighted it. as quickly as possible i sprang to his side. i was just in time to note the familiar blue gleam about the instrument, which indicated that its terrific energies were at work. the whirring sound was absent, because here, in open space, where there was no atmosphere, there could be no sound. my eyes were fixed upon the martian's engine, which had just dealt us a staggering, but not fatal, blow, and particularly i noticed a polished knob projecting from it which seemed to have been the focus from which its destructive bolt emanated. a moment later the knob disappeared. the irresistible vibrations darted from the electrical disintegrator and had fallen upon it and instantaneously shattered it into atoms. "that fixes them," said mr. edison, turning to me with a smile. and indeed it did fix them. we had most effectually spiked their gun. it would deal no more death blows. the doings of the flagship had been closely watched throughout the squadron. the effect of its blow had been evident to all, and a moment later we saw, on some of the nearer ships, men dressed in their air suits, appearing upon the deck, swinging their arms and sending forth soundless cheers into empty space. the stroke that we had dealt was taken by several of the electrical ships as a signal for a common assault, and we saw two of the martians fall beside the ruins of their engine, their heads having been blown from their bodies. "signal them to stop firing," commanded mr. edison. "we have got them down, and we are not going to murder them without necessity." "besides," he added, "i want to capture some of them alive." the signal was given as he had ordered. the flagship then alone dropped slowly toward the place on the asteroid where the prostrate martians were. as we got near them a terrible scene unfolded itself to our eyes. there had evidentially been not more than a half dozen of the monsters in the beginning. two of these were stretched headless upon the ground. three others had suffered horrible injuries where the invisible vibratory beams from the disintegrators had grazed them, and they could not long survive. one only remained apparently uninjured. [illustration: _as we got near them a terrible scene unfolded itself. two of the martians were stretched headless upon the ground. three others had suffered horrible injuries, and only one remained apparently unhurt._] it is impossible for me to describe the appearance of this creature in terms that would be readily understood. was he like a man? yes and no. he possessed many human characteristics, but they were exaggerated and monstrous in scale and in detail. his head was of enormous size, and his huge projecting eyes gleamed with a strange fire of intelligence. his face was like a caricature, but not one to make the beholder laugh. drawing himself up, he towered to a height of at least fifteen feet. but let the reader not suppose from this inadequate description that the martians stirred in the beholder precisely the sensation that would be caused by the sight of a gorilla, or other repulsive inhabitant of our terrestrial jungles, suddenly confronting him in its native wilds. with all his horrible characteristics, and all his suggestions of beast and monster, nevertheless the martian produced the impression of being a person and not a mere animal. i have already referred to the enormous size of his head, and to the fact that his countenance bore considerable resemblance to that of a man. there was something in his face that sent a shiver through the soul of the beholder. one could feel in looking upon it that here was intellect, intelligence developed to the highest degree, but in the direction of evil instead of good. the sensations of one who had stood face to face with satan, when he was driven from the battlements of heaven by the swords of his fellow archangels, and had beheld him transformed from lucifer, the son of the morning, into the prince of night and hell, might not have been unlike those which we now experienced as we gazed upon this dreadful personage, who seemed to combine the intellectual powers of a man, raised to their highest pitch, with some of the physical features of a beast, and all the moral depravity of a fiend. the appearance of the martian was indeed so threatening and repellent that we paused at the height of fifty feet above the ground, hesitating to approach nearer. a grin of rage and hate overspread his face. if he had been a man i should say he shook his fist at us. what he did was to express in even more telling pantomime his hatred and defiance, and his determination to grind us to shreds if he could once get us within his clutches. mr. edison and i still stood upon the deck of the ship, where several others had gathered around us. the atmosphere of the little asteroid was so rare that it practically amounted to nothing, and we could not possibly have survived if we had not continued to wear our air tight suits. how the martians contrived to live here was a mystery to us. it was another of their secrets which we were yet to learn. mr. edison retained his disintegrator in his hand. "kill him," said someone. "he is too horrible to live." "if we do not kill him we shall never be able to land upon the asteroid," said another. "no," said mr. edison. "i shall not kill him. we have got another use for him. tom," he continued, turning to one of his assistants, whom he had brought from his laboratory, "bring me the anaesthetic." this was something entirely new to nearly all the members of the expedition. mr. edison, however, had confided to me before we left the earth the fact that he had invented a little instrument by means of which a bubble, strongly charged with a powerful anaesthetic agent, could be driven to a considerable distance into the face of an enemy, where exploding without other damage, it would instantly put him to sleep. when tom had placed the instrument in his hands mr. edison ordered the electrical ship to forge slightly ahead and drop a little lower toward the martian, who, with watchful eyes and threatening gestures, noted our approach in the attitude of a wild beast on the spring. suddenly mr. edison discharged from the instrument in his hand a little gaseous globe, which glittered like a ball of tangled rainbows in the sunshine, and darted with astonishing velocity straight into the upturned face of the martian. it burst as it touched and the monster fell back senseless upon the ground. "you have killed him!" exclaimed all. "no," said mr. edison. "he is not dead, only asleep. now we shall drop down and bind him tight before he can awake." when we came to bind our prisoner with strong ropes we were more than ever impressed with his gigantic stature and strength. evidentially in single combat with equal weapons he would have been a match for twenty of us. [illustration: _"when we came to bind our prisoner with strong ropes we were more than ever impressed with his gigantic stature and strength. he might have been a match for twenty of us."_] all that i had read of giants had failed to produce upon my mind the impression of enormous size and tremendous physical energy which the sleeping body of this immense martian produced. he had fallen on his back, and was in a most profound slumber. all his features were relaxed, and yet even in that condition there was a devilishness about him that made the beholders instinctively shudder. so powerful was the effect of the anaesthetic which mr. edison had discharged into his face that he remained perfectly unconscious while we turned him half over in order the more securely to bind his muscular limbs. in the meantime the other electrical ships approached, and several of them made a landing upon the asteroid. everybody was eager to see this wonderful little world, which, as i have already remarked, was only five miles in diameter. several of us from the flagship started out hastily to explore the miniature planet. and now our attention was recalled to an intensely interesting phenomenon which had engaged our thoughts not only when we were upon the moon, but during our flight through space. this was the almost entire absence of weight. on the moon, where the force of gravitation is one-sixths as great as upon the earth, we had found ourselves astonishingly light. five-sixths of our own weight, and of the weight of the air-tight suits in which we were encased, had magically dropped from us. it was therefore comparatively easy for us, encumbered, as we were, to make our way about on the moon. but when we were far from both the earth and the moon, the loss of weight was more astonishing still--not astonishing because we had not known that it would be so, but nevertheless a surprising phenomenon in contrast with our lifelong experience on the earth. in open space we were practically without weight. only the mass of the electrical car in which we were enclosed attracted us, and inside that we could place ourselves in any position without falling. we could float in the air. there was no up and no down, no top and no bottom for us. stepping outside the car, it would have been easy for us to spring away from it and leave it forever. one of the most startling experiences that i have ever had was one day when we were navigating space about half way between the earth and mars. i had stepped outside the car with lord kelvin, both of us, of course, wearing our air-tight suits. we were perfectly well aware what would be the consequence of detaching ourselves from the car as we moved along. we should still retain the forward motion of the car, and of course accompany it in its flight. there would be no falling one way or the other. the car would have a tendency to draw us back again by its attraction, but this tendency would be very slight, and practically inappreciable at a distance. "i am going to step off," i suddenly said to lord kelvin. "of course i shall keep right along with the car, and step aboard again when i am ready." "quite right on general principles, young man," replied the great savant, "but beware in what manner you step off. remember, if you give your body an impulse sufficient to carry it away from the car to any considerable distance, you will be unable to get back again, unless we can catch you with a boathook or a fishline. out there in empty space you will have nothing to kick against, and you will be unable to propel yourself in the direction of the car, and its attraction is so feeble that we should probably arrive at mars before it had drawn you back again." all this was, of course, perfectly self-evident, yet i believe that but for the warning words of lord kelvin i should have been rash enough to step out into empty space, with sufficient force to have separated myself hopelessly from the electrical ship. as it was, i took good care to retain a hold upon a projecting portion of the car. occasionally cautiously releasing my grip, i experienced for a few minutes the delicious, indescribable pleasure of being a little planet swinging through space, with nothing to hold me up and nothing to interfere with my motion. mr. edison, happening to come upon the deck of the ship at this time, and seeing what we were about at once said: "i must provide against this danger. if i do not, there is a chance that we shall arrive at mars with the ships half empty and the crews floating helplessly around us." mr. edison's way of guarding against the danger was by contriving a little apparatus, modeled after that which was the governing force of the electrical ships themselves, and which, being enclosed in the air-tight suits, enabled their wearers to manipulate the electrical charge upon them in such a way that they could make excursions from the cars into open space like steam launches from a ship, going and returning at their will. these little machines being rapidly manufactured, for mr. edison had a miniature laboratory aboard, were distributed about the squadron, and henceforth we had the pleasure of paying and receiving visits among the various members of the fleet. but to return from this digression to our experience of the asteroid. the latter being a body of some mass was, of course, able to impart to us a measurable degree of weight. being five miles in diameter, on the assumption that its mean density was the same as that of the earth, the weight of bodies on its surface should have borne the same ratio to their weight upon the earth that the radius of the asteroid bore to the radius of the earth; in other words, as to , . having made this mental calculation, i knew that my weight, being pounds on the earth, should on this asteroid be an ounce and a half. curious to see whether fact would bear out theory, i had myself weighed with a spring balance. mr. edison, lord kelvin and the other distinguished scientists stood by watching the operation with great interest. to our complete surprise, my weight instead of coming out an ounce and a half, as it should have done, on the supposition that the mean density of the asteroid resembled that of the earth--a very liberal supposition on the side of the asteroid, by the way--actually came out five ounces and a quarter! "what in the world makes me so heavy?" i asked. "yes, indeed, what an elephant you have become," said mr. edison. lord kelvin screwed his eyeglass in his eye, and carefully inspected the balance. "it's quite right," he said. "you do indeed weigh five ounces and a quarter. too much; altogether too much," he added. "you shouldn't do it, you know." "perhaps the fault is in the asteroid," suggested professor sylvanus p. thompson. "quite so," exclaimed lord kelvin, a look of sudden comprehension overspreading his features. "no doubt it is the internal constitution of the asteroid which is the cause of the anomaly. we must look into that. let me see? this gentleman's weight is three and one-half times as great as it ought to be. what element is there whose density exceeds the mean density of the earth in about that proportion?" "gold," exclaimed one of the party. for a moment we were startled beyond expression. the truth had flashed upon us. this must be a golden planet this little asteroid. if it were not composed internally of gold it could never have made me weight three times more than i ought to weight. "but where is the gold?" cried one. "covered up, of course," said lord kelvin. "buried in stardust. this asteroid could not have continued to travel for millions of years through legions of space strewn with meteoric particles without becoming covered with the inevitable dust and grime of such a journey. we must dig now, and then doubtless we shall find the metal." this hint was instantly acted upon. something that would serve as a spade was seized by one of the men, and in a few minutes a hole had been dug in the comparatively light soil of the asteroid. i shall never forget the sight, nor the exclamations of wonder that broke forth from all of us standing around, when the yellow gleam of the precious metal appeared under the "star dust." collected in huge masses it reflected the light of the sun from its hiding place. evidently the planet was not a solid ball of gold, formed like a bullet run in a mold, but was composed of nuggets of various sizes, which had come together here under the influence of their mutual gravitation, and formed a little metallic planet. judging by the test of weight which we had already tried, and which had led to the discovery of the gold, the composition of the asteroid must be the same to its very center. in an assemblage of famous scientific men such as this the discovery of course, immediately led to questions as to the origin of this incredible phenomenon. how did these masses of gold come together? how did it chance that, with the exception of the thin crust of the asteroid nearly all its substance was composed of the precious metal? one asserted that it was quite impossible that there should be so much gold at so great a distance from the sun. "it is the general law," he said, "that the planets increase in density towards the sun. there is every reason to think that the inner planets possess the greater amount of dense elements, while the outer ones are comparatively light." but another referred to the old theory that there was once in this part of the solar system a planet which had been burst in pieces by some mysterious explosion, the fragments forming what we know as the asteroids. in his opinion, this planet might have contained, a large quantity of gold, and in the course of ages the gold, having, in consequence of its superior atomic weight, not being so widely scattered by the explosion as some of the other elements of the planet, had collected itself together in this body. but i observed that lord kelvin and the other more distinguished men of science said nothing during this discussion. the truly learned man is the truly wise man. they were not going to set up the theories without sufficient facts to substain them. the one fact that the gold was here was all they had at present. until they could learn more they were not prepared to theorize as to how the gold got there. and in truth, it must be confessed, the greater number of us really cared less for the explanation of the wonderful fact than we did for the fact itself. gold is a thing which may make its appearance anywhere and at any time without offering any excuses or explanations. "phew! won't we be rich?" exclaimed a voice. "how are we going to dig it and get it back to earth?" asked another. "carry it in your pockets," said one. "no need of staking claims here," remarked another. "there is enough for everybody." mr. edison suddenly turned the current of talk. "what do you suppose those martians were doing here?" "why, they were wrecked here." "not a bit of it," said mr. edison. "according to your own showing they could not have been wrecked here. this planet hasn't gravitation enough to wreck them by a fall, and besides i have been looking at their machines and i know there has been a fight." "a fight?" exclaimed several, pricking up their ears. "yes," said mr. edison. "those machines bear the marks of the lightning of the martians. they have been disabled, but they are made of some metal or some alloy of metals unknown to me, and consequently they have withstood the destructive force applied to them, as our electric ships were unable to withstand it. it is perfectly plain to me that they have been disabled in a battle. the martians must have been fighting among themselves." "about the gold!" exclaimed one. "of course. what else was there to fight about?" at this instant one of our men came running from a considerable distance, waving his arms excitedly, but unable to give voice to his story, in the inappreciable atmosphere of the asteroid, until he had come up and made telephonic connection with us. "there are a lot of dead martians over there," he said. "they've been cleaning one another out." "that's it," said mr. edison. "i knew it when i saw the condition of those machines." "then this is not a wrecked expedition, directed against the earth?" "not at all." "this must be the great gold mine of mars," said the president of an australian mining company, opening both his eyes and his mouth as he spoke. "yes, evidently that's it. here's where they come to get their wealth." "and this," i said, "must be their harvest time. you notice that this asteroid, being several million miles nearer to the sun than mars is, must have an appreciably shorter period of revolution. when it is in conjunction with mars, or nearly so, as it is at present, the distance between the two is not very great, whereas when it is in the opposite part of its orbit they are separated by an enormous gap in space and the sun is between them. "manifestly in the latter case it would be perilous if not entirely impossible for the martians to visit the golden asteroid, but when it is near mars, as it is at present, and as it must be periodically for several years at a time, then is their opportunity. "with their projectile cars sent forth with the aid of the mysterious explosives which they possess, it is easy for them under such circumstances, to make visits to the asteroid. "having obtained all the gold they need or all that they can carry, a comparatively slight impulse given to their car, the direction of which is carefully calculated, will carry them back again to mars." "if that's so," exclaimed a voice, "we had better look out for ourselves! we have got into a very hornet's nest! if this is the place where the martians come to dig gold, and if this is the height of their season, as you say, they are not likely to leave us here long undisturbed." "these fellows must have been pirates that they had the fight with," said another. "but what's become of the regulars, then?" "gone back to mars for help, probably, and they'll be here again pretty quick, i am afraid!" considerable alarm was caused by this view of the case, and orders were sent to several of the electrical ships to cruise out to a safe distance in the direction of mars and keep a sharp outlook for the approach of enemies. meanwhile our prisoner awoke. he turned his eyes upon those standing about him, without any appearance of fear, but rather with a look of contempt, like that which gulliver must have felt for the lilliputians who had bound him under similar circumstances. there were both hatred and defiance in his glance. he attempted to free himself, and the ropes strained with the tremendous pressure that he put upon them, but he could not break loose. satisfied that the martian was safely bound, we left him where he lay, and, while awaiting news from the ships which had been sent to reconnoitre, continued the exploration of the little planet. at a point nearly opposite to that where we had landed we came upon the mine which the martians had been working. they had removed the thin coating of soil, laying bare the rich stores of gold beneath, and large quantities of the latter had been removed. some of it was so solidly packed that the strokes of the instruments by means of which they had detached it were visible like the streaks left by a knife cutting cheese. the more we saw of this golden planet the greater became our astonishment. what the martians had removed was a mere nothing in comparison with the entire bulk of the asteroid. had the celestial mine been easier to reach, perhaps they would have removed more, or, possibly, their political economists perfectly understood the necessity of properly controlling the amount of precious metal in circulation. very likely, we thought, the mining operations were under government control in mars and it might be that the majority of the people there knew nothing of this store of wealth floating in the firmament. that would account for the battle with the supposed pirates, who, no doubt had organized a secret expedition to the asteroid and had been caught red-handed at the mine. there were many detached masses of gold scattered about, and some of the men, on picking them up, exclaimed with astonishment at their lack of weight, forgetting for the moment that the same law which caused their own bodies to weigh so little must necessarily affect everything else in a like degree. a mass of gold that on the earth no man would have been able to lift could here be tossed about like a hollow rubber ball. while we were examining the mine, one of the men left to guard the martian came running to inform us that the latter evidently wished to make some communication. mr. edison and the others hurried to the side of the prisoner. he still lay on his back, from which position he was not able to move, notwithstanding all his efforts. but by the motion of his eyes, aided by the pantomime with his fingers, he made us understand that there was something in a metallic box fastened at his side which he wished to reach. with some difficulty we succeeded in opening the box and in it there appeared a number of bright red pellets, as large as an ordinary egg. when the martians saw these in our hands he gave us to understand by the motion of his lips that he wished to swallow one of them. a pellet was accordingly placed in his mouth, and he instantly and with great eagerness swallowed it. while trying to communicate his wishes to us, the prisoner had seemed to be in no little distress. he exhibited spasmodic movements which led some of the bystanders to think that he was on the point of dying, but within a few seconds after he had swallowed the pellet he appeared to be completely restored. all evidence of distress vanished, and a look of content came over his ugly face. "it must be a powerful medicine," said one of the bystanders. "i wonder what it is?" "i will explain to you my notion," said professor moissan, the great french chemist. "i think it was a pill of the air, which he has taken." "what do you mean by that?" "my meaning is," said professor moissan, "that the martian must have, for that he may live, the nitrogen and the oxygen. these can he not obtain here, where there is not the atmosphere. therefore must he get them in some other manner. this has he managed to do by combining in these pills the oxygen and the nitrogen in the proportions which make atmospheric air. doubtless upon mars there are the very great chemists. they have discovered how this may be done. when the martian has swallowed his little pill, the oxygen and the nitrogen are rendered to his blood as if he had breathed them, and so he can live with that air which has been distributed to him with the aid of his stomach in place of his lungs." if monsieur moissan's explanation was not correct, at any rate it seemed the only one which would fit the facts before us. certainly the martian could not breathe where there was practically no air, yet just as certainly after he had swallowed his pill he seemed as comfortable as any of us. suddenly, while we were gathered around the prisoner, and interested in this fresh evidence of the wonderful ingenuity of the martians, and of their control over the processes of nature, one of the electrical ships that had been sent off in the direction of mars was seen rapidly returning and displaying signals. it reported that the martians were coming! chapter eight _"the martians are coming!"_ the alarm was spread instantly among those upon the planet and through the remainder of the fleet. one of the men from the returning electrical ship dropped down upon the asteroid and gave a more detailed account of what they had seen. his ship had been the one which had gone to the greatest distance, in the direction of mars. while cruising there, with all eyes intent, they had suddenly perceived a glittering object moving from the direction of the ruddy planet, and manifestly approaching them. a little inspection with the telescope had shown them that it was one of the projectile cars used by the martians. our ship had ventured so far from the asteroid that for a moment it seemed doubtful whether it would be able to return in time to give warning, because the electrical influence of the asteroid was comparatively slight at such a distance, and, after they had reversed their polarity, and applied their intensifier, so as to make that influence effective, their motion was at first exceedingly slow. fortunately after a time they got under way with sufficient velocity to bring them back to us before the approaching martians could overtake them. the latter were not moving with great velocity, having evidently projected themselves from mars with only just sufficient force to throw them within the feeble sphere of gravitation of the asteroid, so that they should very gently land upon its surface. indeed, looking out behind the electrical ship which had brought us the warning, we immediately saw the projectile of the martians approaching. it sparkled like a star in the black sky as the sunlight fell upon it. the ships of the squadron whose crews had not landed upon the planet were signaled to prepare for action, while those who were upon the asteroid made ready for battle there. a number of disintegrators were trained upon the approaching martians, but mr. edison gave strict orders that no attempt should be made to discharge the vibratory force at random. "they do not know that we are here," he said, "and i am convinced that they are unable to control their motions as we can do with our electrical ships. they depend simply upon the force of gravitation. having passed the limit of the attraction of mars, they have now fallen within the attraction of the asteroid, and they must slowly sink to its surface. "having, as i am convinced, no means of producing or controlling electrical attraction and repulsion, they cannot stop themselves, but must come down upon the asteroid. having got here, they could never get away again, except as we know the survivors got away from earth, by propelling their projectile against gravitation with the aid of an explosive. "therefore, to a certain extent they will be at our mercy. let us allow them quietly to land upon the planet, and then i think, if it becomes necessary, we can master them." notwithstanding mr. edison's reassuring words and manner, the company upon the asteroid experienced a dreadful suspense while the projectile which seemed very formidable as it drew near, sank with a slow and graceful motion toward the surface of the ground. evidently it was about to land very near the spot where we stood awaiting it. its inmates had apparently just caught sight of us. they evinced signs of astonishment, and seemed at a loss exactly what to do. we could see projecting from the fore part of their car at least two of the polished knobs, whose fearful use and power we well comprehended. several of our men cried out to mr. edison in an extremity of terror: "why do you not destroy them? be quick, or we shall all perish." "no," said mr. edison, "there is no danger. you can see that they are not prepared. they will not attempt to attack us until they have made their landing." and mr. edison was right. with gradually accelerated velocity, and yet very, very slowly in comparison with the speed they would have exhibited in falling upon such a planet as the earth, the martians and their car came down to the ground. we stood at a distance of perhaps three hundred feet from the point where they touched the asteroid. instantly a dozen of the giants sprang from the car and gazed about for a moment with a look of intense surprise. at first it was doubtful whether they meant to attack us at all. we stood on our guard, several carrying disintegrators in our hands, while a score more of these terrible engines were turned upon the martians from the electrical ships which hovered near. suddenly he who seemed to be the leader of the martians began to speak to them in pantomime, using his fingers after the manner in which they are used for conversation by deaf and dumb people. of course, we did not know what he was saying, but his meaning became perfectly evident a minute later. clearly they did not comprehend the powers of the insignificant looking strangers with whom they had to deal. instead of turning their destructive engines on us, they advanced on a run, with the evident purpose of making us prisoners or crushing us by main force. the soft whirr of the disintegrator in the hands of mr. edison standing near me came to my ears through the telephonic wire. he quickly swept the concentrating mirror a little up and down, and instantly the foremost martian vanished! part of some metallic dress that he wore fell upon the ground where he had stood, its vibratory rate not having been included in the range imparted to the disintegrator. his followers paused for a moment, amazed, stared about as if looking for their leader, and then hurried back to their projectile and disappeared within it. "now we've got business on our hands," said mr. edison. "look out for yourselves." as he spoke, i saw the death-dealing knob of the war engine contained in the car of the martians moving around toward us. in another instant it would have launched its destroying bolt. before that could occur, however, it had been dissipated into space by a vibratory stream from a disintegrator. but we were not to get the victory quite so easily. there was another of the war engines in the car, and before we could concentrate our fire upon it, its awful flash shot forth, and a dozen of our comrades perished before our eyes. "quick! quick!" shouted mr. edison to one of his electrical experts standing near. "there is something the matter with this disintegrator, and i cannot make it work. aim at the knob, and don't miss it." but the aim was not well taken, and the vibratory force fell upon a portion of the car at a considerable distance from the knob, making a great breach, but leaving the engine uninjured. a section of the side of the car had been destroyed, and the vibratory energy had spread no further. to have attempted to sweep the car from end to end would have been futile, because the period of action of the disintegrators during each discharge did not exceed one second, and distributing the energy over so great a space would have seriously weakened its power to shatter apart the atoms of the resisting substance. the disintegrators were like firearms, in that after each discharge they must be readjusted before they could be used again. through the breach we saw the martians inside making desperate efforts to train their engine upon us, for after their first disastrous stroke we had rapidly shifted our position. swiftly the polished knob, which gleamed like an evil eye, moved round to sweep over us. instinctively, though incautiously, we had collected in a group. a single discharge would sweep us all into eternity. "will no one fire upon them?" exclaimed mr. edison, struggling with the disintegrator in his hands which still refused to work. at this fearful moment i glanced around upon our company, and was astonished at the spectacle. in the presence of the danger many of them had lost all self-command. a half dozen had dropped their disintegrators upon the ground. others stood as if frozen fast in their tracks. the expert electrician, whose poor aim had had such disastrous results, held in his hand an instrument which was in perfect condition, yet with mouth agape, he stood trembling like a captured bird. it was a disgraceful exhibition. mr. edison, however, had not lost his head. again and again he sighted at the dreadful knob with his disintegrator, but the vibratory force refused to respond. the means of safety were in our hands, and yet through a combination of ill luck and paralyzing terror, we seemed unable to use them. in a second more it would be all over with us. the suspense in reality lasted only during the twinkling of an eye, though it seemed ages long. unable to endure it, i sharply struck the shoulder of the paralyzed electrician. to have attempted to seize the disintegrator from his hands would have been a fatal waste of time. luckily the blow either roused him from his stupor or caused an instinctive movement of his hand that set the little engine in operation. i am sure he took no aim, but providentially the vibratory force fell upon the desired point, and the knob disappeared. we were saved! instantly half a dozen rushed toward the car of the martians. we bitterly repented their haste; they did not live to repent. unknown to us the martians carried hand engines, capable of launching bolts of death of the same character as those which emanated from the knobs of their larger machines. with these they fired, so to speak, through the breach in their car, and four of our men who were rushing upon them fell in heaps of cinders. the effect of the terrible fire was like that which the most powerful strokes of lightning occasionally produce on earth. the destruction of the threatening knob had instantaneously relieved the pressure upon the terror-stricken nerves of our company, and they had all regained their composure and self-command. but this new and unexpected disaster, following so close upon the fear which had recently overpowered them, produced a second panic, the effect of which was not to stiffen them in their tracks as before, but to send them scurrying in every direction in search of hiding places. and now a most curious effect of the smallness of the planet we were on began to play a conspicuous part in our adventures. standing on a globe only five miles in diameter was like being on the summit of a mountain whose sides sloped rapidly off in every direction, disappearing in the black sky on all sides, as if it were some stupendous peak rising out of an unfathomable abyss. in consequence of the quick rounding off of the sides of this globe, the line of the horizon was close at hand, and by running a distance of less that yards the fugitives disappeared down the sides of the asteroid, and behind the horizon, even from the elevation of about fifteen feet from which the martians were able to watch them. from our sight they disappeared much sooner. the slight attraction of the planet and their consequent almost entire lack of weight enabled the men to run with immense speed. the result, as i have subsequently learned, was that after they had disappeared from our view they quitted the planet entirely, the force being sufficient to partially free them from its gravitation, so that they sailed out into space, whirling helplessly end over end, until the elliptical orbits in which they travelled eventually brought them back again to the planet on the side nearly opposite to that from which they had departed. but several of us, with mr. edison, stood fast, watching for an opportunity to get the martians within range of the disintegrators. luckily we were enabled, by shifting our position a little to the left, to get out of the line of sight of our enemies concealed in the car. "if we cannot catch sight of them," said mr. edison, "we shall have to riddle the car on the chance of hitting them." "it will be like firing into a bush to kill a hidden bear," said one of the party. but help came from a quarter which was unexpected to us, although it should not have been so. several of the electric ships had been hovering above us during the fight, their commanders being apparently uncertain how to act--fearful, perhaps, of injuring us in the attempt to smite our enemy. but now the situation apparently lightened for them. they saw that we were at an immense disadvantage, and several of them immediately turned their batteries upon the car of the martians. they riddled it far more quickly and effectively than we could have done. every stroke of the vibratory emanation made a gap in the side of the car, and we could perceive from the commotion within that our enemies were being rapidly massacred in their fortification. so overwhelming was the force and the advantage of the ships that in a little while it was all over. mr. edison signaled them to stop firing because it was plain that all resistance had ceased and probably not one of the martians remained alive. we now approached the car, which had been transpierced in every direction, and whose remaining portions were glowing with heat in consequence of the spreading of the atomic vibrations. immediately we discovered that all our anticipations were correct and that all of our enemies had perished. the effect of the disintegrators upon them had been awful--too repulsive, indeed, to be described in detail. some of the bodies had evidently entirely vanished; only certain metal articles which they had worn remaining, as in the case of the first martian killed, to indicate that such beings had ever existed. the nature of the metal composing these articles was unknown to us. evidently its vibratory rhythm did not correspond with any included in the ordinary range of the disintegrators. some of the giants had been only partially destroyed, the vibratory current having grazed them, in such a manner that the shattering undulations had not acted upon the entire body. one thing that lends a peculiar horror to a terrestrial battlefield was absent; there was no bloodshed. the vibratory energy, not only completely destroyed whatever it fell upon but it seared the veins and arteries of the dismembered bodies so that there was no sanguinary exhibition connected with its murderous work. all this time the shackled martian had lain on his back where we had left him bound. what his feeling must have been may be imagined. at times, i caught a glimpse of his eyes, wildly rolling and exhibiting, when he saw that the victory was in our hands, the first indications of fear and terror shaking his soul that had yet appeared. "that fellow is afraid at last," i said to mr. edison. "well, i should think he ought to be afraid," was the reply. "so he ought, but if i am not mistaken this fear of his may be the beginning of a new discovery for us." "how so?" asked mr. edison. "in this way. when once he fears our power, and perceives that there would be no hope of contending against us, even if he were at liberty, he will respect us. this change in his mental attitude may tend to make him communicative. i do not see why we should despair of learning his language from him, and having done that, he will serve as our guide and interpreter, and will be of incalculable advantage to us when we have arrived at mars." "capital! capital!" said mr. edison. "we must concentrate the linguistic genius of our company upon that problem at once." in the meantime some of the skulkers whose flight i have referred to began to return, crestfallen, but rejoicing in the disappearance of the danger. several of them, i am ashamed to say, had been army officers. yet possibly some excuse could be made for the terror by which they had been overcome. no man has a right to hold his fellow beings to account for the line of conduct they may pursue under circumstances which are not only entirely unexampled in their experience, but almost beyond the power of the imagination to picture. paralyzing terror had evidently seized them with the sudden comprehension of the unprecedented singularity of their situation. millions of miles away from the earth, confronted on an asteroid by these diabolical monsters from a maleficent planet, who were on the point of destroying them with a strange torment of death--perhaps it was really more than human nature, deprived of the support of human surroundings, could be expected to bear. those who, as already described, had run with so great a speed that they were projected, all unwilling, into space, rising in elliptical orbits from the surface of the planet, describing great curves in what might be denominated its sky, and then coming back again to the little globe on another side, were so filled with the wonders of their remarkable adventure that they had almost forgotten the terror which had inspired it. there was nothing surprising in what had occurred to them the moment one considered the laws of gravitation on the asteroid, but their stories aroused an intense interest among all who listened to them. lord kelvin was particularly interested, and while mr. edison was hastening preparations to quit the asteroid and resume our voyage to mars, lord kelvin and a number of other scientific men instituted a series of remarkable experiments. it was one of the most laughable things imaginable to see lord kelvin, dressed in his air-tight suit, making tremendous jumps in empty space. it reminded me forcibly of what lord kelvin, then plain william thompson, and professor blackburn had done when spending a summer vacation at the seaside, while they were undergraduates of cambridge university. they had spent all their time, to the surprise of onlookers, in spinning rounded stones on the beach, their object being to obtain a practical solution of the mathematical problem of "precession." immediately lord kelvin was imitated by a dozen others. with what seemed very slight effort they projected themselves straight upwards, rising to a height of four hundred feet or more, and then slowly settling back again to the surface of the asteroid. the time of rise and fall combined was between three and four minutes. on this little planet the acceleration of gravity or the velocity acquired by a falling body in one second was only four-fifths of an inch. a body required an entire minute to fall a distance of only feet. consequently, it was more like gradually settling than falling. the figures of these men of science, rising and sinking in this manner, appeared like so many gigantic marionettes bobbing up and down in a pneumatic bottle. "let us try that," said mr. edison, very much interested in the experiments. both of us jumped together. at first, with great swiftness, but gradually losing speed, we rose to an immense height straight from the ground. when we had reached the utmost limit of our flight we seemed to come to rest for a moment, and then began slowly, but with accelerated velocity, to sink back again to the planet. it was not only a peculiar but a delicious sensation, and but for strict orders which were issued that the electrical ships should be immediately prepared for departure, our entire company might have remained for an indefinite period enjoying this new kind of athletic exercise in a world where gravitation had become so humble that it could be trifled with. while the final preparations for departure were being made, lord kelvin instituted other experiments that were no less unique in their results. the experience of those who had taken unpremeditated flights in elliptical orbits when they had run from the vicinity of the martians suggested the throwing of solid objects in various directions from the surface of the planet in order to determine the distance they would go and the curves they would describe in returning. for these experiments there was nothing more convenient or abundant than chunks of gold from the martians' mine. these, accordingly, were hurled in different directions and with every degree of velocity. a little calculation had shown that an initial velocity of thirty feet per second imparted to one of these chunks, moving at right angles to the radius of the asteroid, would, if the resistance of an almost inappreciable atmosphere were neglected, suffice to turn the piece of gold into a little satellite that would describe an orbit around the asteroid, and continue to do so forever, or at least until the slight atmospheric resistance should eventually bring it down to the surface. but a less velocity than thirty feet per second would cause the golden missile to fly only part way around, while a greater velocity would give it an elliptical instead of a circular orbit, and in this ellipse it would continue to revolve around the asteroid in the character of a satellite. if the direction of the original impulse were at more than a right angle to the radius of the asteroid, then the flying body would pass out to a greater or less distance in space in an elliptical orbit, eventually coming back again and falling upon the asteroid, but not at the same spot from which it had departed. so many took part in these singular experiments, which assumed rather the appearance of outdoor sports than of scientific demonstrations, that in a short time we had provided the asteroid with a very large number of little moons, or satellites, of gold, which revolved around it in orbits of various degrees of ellipticity, taking, on the average, about three-quarters of an hour to complete a circuit. since, on completing a revolution, they must necessarily pass through the point from which they started, they kept us constantly on the _qui vive_ to avoid being knocked over by them as they swept around in their orbits. finally the signal was given for all to embark, and with great regret the savants quitted their scientific games, and prepared to return to the electric ships. just on the moment of departure, the fact was announced by one, who had been making a little calculation on a bit of paper, that the velocity with which a body must be thrown in order to escape forever the attraction of the asteroid, and to pass on to an infinite distance in any direction, was only about forty-two feet in a second. manifestly it would be quite easy to impart such a speed as that to the chunks of gold that we held in our hands. "hurrah!" exclaimed one. "let's send some of this back to the earth." "where is the earth?" asked another. being appealed to, several astronomers turned their eyes in the direction of the sun, where the black firmament was ablaze with stars, and in a moment recognized the earth-star shining there, with the moon attending close at hand. "there," said one, "is the earth. can you throw straight enough to hit it?" "we'll try," was the reply, and immediately several threw huge golden nuggets in the direction of our far-away world, endeavoring to impart to them at least the required velocity of forty-two feet in a second, which would insure their passing beyond the attraction of the asteroid, and if there should be no disturbance on the way, and the aim were accurate, their eventual arrival upon the earth. "here's for you, old earth," said one of the throwers, "good luck, and more gold to you!" if these precious missiles ever reached the earth we knew that they would plunge into the atmosphere like meteors and that probably the heat developed by their passage would melt and dissipate them in golden vapors before they could touch the ground. yet there was a chance that some of them--if the aim were true--might survive the fiery passage through the atmosphere and fall upon the surface of our planet where, perhaps, they would afterward be picked up by a prospector and lead him to believe that he had struck a new bonanza. but until we returned to the earth it would be impossible for us to tell what had become of the golden gifts which we had launched into space for our mother planet. chapter nine _journey's end_ "all aboard!" was the signal, and the squadron having assembled under the lead of the flagship, we started again for mars. this time, as it proved, there was to be no further interruption, and when next we paused it was in the presence of the world inhabited by our enemies, and facing their frowning batteries. we did not find it so easy to start from the asteroid as it had been to start from the earth; that is to say, we could not so readily generate a very high velocity. in consequence of the comparatively small size of the asteroid, its electric influence was very much less than that of the earth, and notwithstanding the appliances which we possessed for intensifying the electrical effect, it was not possible to produce a sufficient repulsion to start us off for mars with anything like the impulse which we had received from the earth on our original departure. the utmost velocity that we could generate did not exceed three miles in a second, and to get this required our utmost efforts. in fact, it had not seemed possible that we should attain even so great a speed as that. it was far more than we could have expected, and even mr. edison was surprised, as well as greatly gratified, when he found that we were moving with the velocity that i have named. we were still about , , miles from mars, so that, traveling three miles in a second, we should require at least twenty-three days to reach the immediate neighborhood of the planet. meanwhile we had plenty of occupation to make the time pass quickly. our prisoner was transported along with us, and we now began our attempts to ascertain what his language was, and, if possible, to master it ourselves. before quitting the asteroid we had found that it was necessary for him to swallow one of his "air pills," as professor moissan had called them, at least three times in the course of every twenty-four hours. one of us supplied him regularly and i thought that i could detect evidences of a certain degree of gratitude in his expression. this was encouraging, because it gave additional promise of the possibility of our being able to communicate with him in some more effective way than by mere signs. but once inside the car, where we had a supply of air kept at the ordinary pressure experienced on the earth, he could breathe like the rest of us. the best linguists in the expedition, as mr. edison had suggested, were now assembled in the flagship, where the prisoner was, and they set to work to devise some means of ascertaining the manner in which he was accustomed to express his thoughts. we had not heard him speak, because until we carried him into our car there was no atmosphere capable of conveying any sounds he might attempt to utter. it seemed a fair assumption that the language of the martians would be scientific in its structure. we had so much evidence of the practical bent of their minds, and of the immense progress which they had made in the direction of the scientific conquest of nature, that it was not to be supposed their medium of communication with one another would be lacking in clearness, or would possess any of the puzzling and unnecessary ambiguities that characterized the languages spoken on the earth. "we shall not find them making he's and she's of stones, sticks and other inanimate objects," said one of the american linguists. "they must certainly have gotten rid of all that nonsense long ago." "ah," said a french professor from the sorbonne, one of the makers of the never-to-be-finished dictionary. "it will be like the language of my country. transparent, similar to the diamond, and sparkling as is the fountain." "i think," said a german enthusiast, "that it will be a universal language, the volapuk of mars, spoken by all the inhabitants of that planet." "but all these speculations," broke in mr. edison, "do not help you much. why not begin in a practical manner by finding out what the martian calls himself, for instance." this seemed a good suggestion, and accordingly several of the bystanders began an expressive pantomime, intended to indicate to the giant, who was following all their motions with his eyes, that they wished to know by what name he called himself. pointing their fingers to their own breast they repeated, one after the other, the word "man." if our prisoner had been a stupid savage, of course any such attempt as this to make him understand would have been idle. but it must be remembered that we were dealing with a personage who had presumably inherited from hundreds of generations the results of a civilization, and an intellectual advance, measured by the constant progress of millions of years. accordingly we were not very much astonished, when, after a few repetitions of the experiment, the martian--one of whose arms had been partially released from its bonds in order to give him a little freedom of motion--imitated the action of his interrogators by pressing his finger over his heart. then, opening his mouth, he gave utterance to a sound which shook the air of the car like the hoarse roar of a lion. he seemed himself surprised by the noise he made, for he had not been used to speak in so dense an atmosphere. our ears were deafened and confused, and we recoiled in astonishment, not to say, half in terror. with an ugly grin distorting his face as if he enjoyed our discomfiture, the martian repeated the motion and the sound. "r-r-r-r-r-r-h!" it was not articulate to our ears and not to be represented by any combination of letters. "faith," exclaimed a dublin university professor, "if that's what they call themselves, how shall we ever translate their names when we come to write the history of the conquest?" "whist, mon," replied a professor from the university of aberdeen, "let us whip the gillravaging villains first, and then we can describe them by any intitulation that may suit our deesposition." the beginning of our linguistic conquest was certainly not promising, at least if measured by our acquirement of words, but from another point of view it was very gratifying, inasmuch as it was plain that the martian understood what we were trying to do, and was, for the present, at least, disposed to aid us. these efforts to learn the language of mars were renewed and repeated every few hours, all the experience, learning and genius of the squadron being concentrated upon the work, and the result was that in the course of a few days we had actually succeeded in learning a dozen or more of the martian's words and were able to make him understand us when we pronounced them, as well as to understand him when our ears had become accustomed to the growling of his voice. finally, one day the prisoner, who seemed to be in an unusually cheerful frame of mind, indicated that he carried in his breast some object which he wished us to see. with our assistance he pulled out a book! actually, it was a book, not very unlike the books which we have upon the earth, but printed, of course, in characters that were entirely strange and unknown to us. yet these characters evidently gave expression to a highly intellectual language. all those who were standing by at the moment uttered a shout of wonder and of delight, and the cry of "a book! a book!" ran around the circle, and the good news was even promptly communicated to some of the neighboring electric ships of the squadron. several other learned men were summoned in haste from them to examine our new treasure. [illustration: _actually, it was a book that the prisoner produced, and then he proceeded to teach us, as well as he could, several words of his language._] the martian, whose good nature had manifestly been growing day after day, watched our inspection of his book with evidences of great interest, not unmingled with amusement. finally he beckoned the holder of the book to his side, and placing his broad finger upon one of the huge letters--if letters they were, for they more nearly resembled the characters employed by the chinese printer--he uttered a sound which we, of course, took to be a word, but which was different from any we had yet heard. then he pointed to one after another of us standing around. "ah," explained everybody, the truth being apparent, "that is the word by which the martians designate us. they have a name, then, for the inhabitants of the earth." "or, perhaps, it is rather the name for the earth itself," said one. but this could not, of course, be at once determined. anyhow, the word, whatever its precise meaning might be, had now been added to our vocabulary, although as yet our organs of speech proved unable to reproduce it in a recognizable form. this promising and unexpected discovery of the martian's book lent added enthusiasm to those who were engaged in the work of trying to master the language of our prisoner, and the progress that they made in the course of the next few days was truly astonishing. if the prisoner had been unwilling to aid them, of course, it would have been impossible to proceed, but, fortunately for us, he seemed more and more to enter into the spirit of the undertaking, and actually to enjoy it himself. so bright and quick was his understanding that he was even able to indicate to us methods of mastering his language that would otherwise, probably, never have occurred to our minds. in fact, in a very short time he had turned teacher and all these learned men, pressing around him with eager attention, had become his pupils. i cannot undertake to say precisely how much of the martian language had been acquired by the chief linguists of the expedition before the time when we arrived so near to mars that it became necessary for most of us to abandon our studies in order to make ready for the more serious business which now confronted us. but, at any rate, the acquisition was so considerable as to allow of the interchange of ordinary ideas with our prisoner, and there was no longer any doubt that he would be able to give us much information when we landed on his native planet. at the end of twenty-three days as measured by terrestrial time, since our departure from the asteroid, we arrived in the sky of mars. for a long time the ruddy planet had been growing larger and more formidable, gradually turning from a huge star into a great red moon, and then expanding more and more until it began to shut out from sight the constellations behind it. the curious markings on its surface, which from the earth can only be dimly glimpsed with a powerful telescope, began to reveal themselves clearly to our naked eyes. i have related how even before we had reached the asteroid, mars began to present a most imposing appearance as we saw it with our telescopes. now, however, that it was close at hand, the naked eye view of the planet was more wonderful than anything we had been able to see with telescopes when at a greater distance. we were approaching the southern hemisphere of mars in about latitude degrees south. it was near the time of the vernal equinox in that hemisphere of the planet, and under the stimulating influence of the spring sun, rising higher and higher every day, some such awakening of life and activity upon its surface as occurs on the earth under similar circumstances was evidently going on. around the south pole were spread immense fields of snow and ice, gleaming with great brilliance. cutting deep into the borders of these ice-fields, we could see broad channels of open water, indicating the rapid breaking of the grip of the frost. almost directly beneath us was a broad oval region, light red in color, to which terrestrial astronomers had given the name of hellas. toward the south, between hellas and the borders of the polar ice, was a great belt of darkness that astronomers had always been inclined to regard as a sea. looking toward the north, we could perceive the immense red expanses of the continent of mars, with the long curved line of the syrtis major, or "the hour-glass sea," sweeping through the midst of them toward the north until it disappeared under the horizon. crossing and recrossing the red continent, in every direction, were the canals of schiaparelli. plentifully sprinkled over the surface we could see brilliant points, some of dazzling brightness, outshining the daylight. there was also an astonishing variety in the colors of the broad expanses beneath us. activity, vivacity and beauty, such as we were utterly unprepared to behold, expressed their presence on all sides. the excitement on the flagship and among the other members of the squadron was immense. it was certainly a thrilling scene. here, right under our feet, lay the world we had come to do battle with. its appearances, while recalling in some of their broader aspects those which it had presented when viewed from our observatories, were far more strange, complex and wonderful than any astronomer had ever dreamed. suppose all of our anticipations about mars should prove to have been wrong, after all? there could be no longer any question that it was a world which, if not absolutely teeming with inhabitants, like a gigantic ant-hill, at any rate bore on every side the marks of their presence and of their incredible undertakings and achievements. here and there clouds of smoke arose and spread slowly through the atmosphere beneath us. floating higher above the surface of the planet were clouds of vapor, assuming the familiar forms of stratus and cumulus with which we were acquainted upon the earth. these clouds, however, seemed upon the whole to be much less dense than those to which we were accustomed at home. they had, too, a peculiar iridescent beauty as if there was something in their composition or their texture which split up the chromatic elements of the sunlight and thus produced internal rainbow effects that caused some of the heavier cloud masses to resemble immense collections of opals, alive with the play of ever-changing colors and magically suspended above the planet. as we continued to study the phenomena that was gradually unfolded beneath us we thought we could detect in many places evidences of the existence of strong fortifications. the planet of war appeared to be prepared for the attacks of enemies. since, as our own experience had shown, it sometimes waged war with distant planets, it was but natural that it should be found prepared to resist foes who might be disposed to revenge themselves for injuries suffered at its hands. as had been expected, our prisoner now proved to be of very great assistance to us. apparently he took a certain pride in exhibiting to strangers from a distant world the beauties and wonders of his own planet. we could not understand by any means all that he said, but we could readily comprehend, from his gestures, and from the manner in which his features lighted up at the recognition of familiar scenes and objects, what his sentiments in regard to them were, and, in a general way, what part they played in the life of the planet. he confirmed our opinion that certain of the works which we saw beneath us were fortifications, intended for the protection of the planet against invaders from outer space. a cunning and almost diabolical look came into his eyes as he pointed to one of these strongholds. his confidence and his mocking looks were not reassuring to us. he knew what his planet was capable of, and we did not. he had seen, on the asteroid, the extent of our power, and while its display served to intimidate him there, yet now that he and we together were facing the world of his birth, his fear had evidently fallen from him, and he had the manner of one who feels that the shield of an all-powerful protector had been extended over him. but it could not be long now before we could ascertain, by the irrevocable test of actual experience, whether the martians possessed the power to annihilate us or not. how shall i describe our feelings as we gazed at the scene spread beneath us? they were not quite the same as those of the discoverer of new lands upon the earth. this was a whole new world that we had discovered, and it was filled, as we could see, with inhabitants. but that was not all. we had not come with peaceful intentions. we were to make war on this new world. deducting our losses we had not more than men left. with these we were to undertake the conquest of a world containing we could not say how many millions! our enemies, instead of being below us in the scale of intelligence were, we had every reason to believe, greatly our superiors. they had proved that they possessed a command over the powers of nature such as we, up to the time when mr. edison made his inventions, had not even dreamed that it was possible for us to obtain. it was true that at present we appeared to have the advantage, both in our electrical ships and in our means of offense. the disintegrator was at least as powerful an engine of destruction as any that the martians had yet shown that they possessed. it did not seem that in that respect they could possibly excel us. during the brief war with the martians upon the earth it had been gunpowder against a mysterious force as much stronger than gunpowder as the latter was superior to the bows and arrows that preceded it. there had been no comparison whatever between the offensive means employed by the two parties in the struggle on the earth. but the genius of one man had suddenly put us on the level of our enemies in regard to fighting capacity. then, too, our electrical ships were far more effective for their purpose than the projectile cars used by the martians. in fact, the principle upon which they were based was, at bottom, so simple that it seemed astonishing the martians had not hit upon it. mr. edison himself was never tired of saying in reference to this matter: "i cannot understand why the martians did not invent these things. they have given ample proof that they understand electricity better than we do. why should they have resorted to the comparatively awkward and bungling means of getting from one planet to another that they have employed when they might have ridden through the solar system in such conveyances as ours with perfect ease?" "and besides," mr. edison would add, "i cannot understand why they did not employ the principle of harmonic vibrations in the construction of their engines of war. the lightning-like strokes which they dealt from their machines are no doubt equally powerful, but i think the range of destruction covered by the disintegrators is greater." however, these questions must remain open until we could effect a landing on mars, and learn something of the condition of things there. the thing that gave us the most uneasiness was the fact that we did not yet know what powers the martians might have in reserve. it was but natural to suppose that here, on their own ground, they would possess means of defense even more effective than the offensive engines they had employed in attacking enemies so many millions of miles from home. it was important that we should waste no time, and it was equally important that we should select the most vulnerable point for attack. it was self-evident, therefore, that our first duty would be to reconnoiter the surface of the planet and determine its weakest point of defense. at first mr. edison contemplated sending the various ships in different directions around the planet in order that the work of exploration might be quickly accomplished. but upon second thought it seemed wiser to keep the squadron together, thus diminishing the chance of disaster. besides, the commander wished to see with his own eyes the exact situation of the various parts of the planet, where it might appear advisable for us to begin our assault. thus far we had remained suspended at so great a height above the planet that we had hardly entered into the perceptible limits of its atmosphere and there was no evidence that we had been seen by the inhabitants of mars; but before starting on our voyage of exploration it was determined to drop down closer to the surface in order that we might the more certainly identify the localities over which we passed. this maneuver nearly got us into serious trouble. when we had arrived within a distance of three miles from the surface of mars we suddenly perceived approaching from the eastward a large airship which was navigating the martian atmosphere at a height of perhaps half a mile above the ground. [illustration: _when we arrived within a distance of three miles from the surface of mars we suddenly perceived approaching from the eastward a large airship, which was navigating the martian atmosphere at a height of perhaps half a mile above the ground._] this airship moved rapidly on to a point nearly beneath us, when it suddenly paused, reversed its course, and evidently made signals, the purpose of which was not at first evident to us. but in a short time their meaning became perfectly plain, when we found ourselves surrounded by at least twenty similar aerostats approaching swiftly from different sides. it was a great mystery to us where so many airships had been concealed previous to their sudden appearance in answer to the signals. but the mystery was quickly solved when we saw detaching itself from the surface of the planet beneath us, where, while it remained immovable, its color had blended with that of the soil so as to render it invisible, another of the mysterious ships. then our startled eyes beheld on all sides these formidable-looking enemies rising from the ground beneath us like so many gigantic insects, disturbed by a sudden alarm. in a short time the atmosphere a mile or two below us, and to a distance of perhaps twenty miles around in every direction, was alive with airships of various sizes, and some of most extraordinary forms, exchanging signals, rushing to and fro, but all finally concentrating beneath the place where our squadron was suspended. we had poked the hornet's nest with a vengeance! as yet there had been no sting, but we might quickly expect to feel it if we did not get out of range. quickly instructions were flashed to the squadrons to rise as rapidly as possible to a great height. it was evident that this maneuver would save us from danger if it were quickly effected, because the airships of the martians were simply airships and nothing more. they could only float in the atmosphere, and had no means of rising above it, or of navigating empty space. to have turned our disintegrators upon them, and to have begun a battle then and there, would have been folly. they overwhelmingly outnumbered us, the majority of them were yet at a considerable distance and we could not have done battle, even with our entire squadron acting together, with more than one-quarter of them simultaneously. in the meantime the others would have surrounded and might have destroyed us. we must first get some idea of the planet's means of defence before we ventured to assail it. having risen rapidly to a height of twenty-five or thirty miles, so that we could feel confident that our ships had vanished at least from the naked eye view of our enemies beneath, a brief consultation was held. it was determined to adhere to our original program and to circumnavigate mars in every direction before proceeding to open the war. the overwhelming forces shown by the enemy had intimidated even some of the most courageous of our men, but still it was universally felt that it would not do to retreat without a blow struck. the more we saw of the power of the martians, the more we became convinced that there would be no hope for the earth, if these enemies ever again effected a landing upon its surface, the more especially since our squadron contained nearly all of the earth's force that would be effective in such a contest. with mr. edison and the other men of science away, they would not be able at home to construct such engines as we possessed, or to manage them even if they were constructed. our planet had staked everything on a single throw. these considerations again steeled our hearts, and made us bear up as bravely as possible in the face of the terrible odds that confronted us. turning the noses of our electrical ships toward the west, we began our circumnavigation. chapter ten _the great smoke barrier_ at first we rose to a still greater height, in order more effectually to escape the watchful eyes of our enemies, and then, after having moved rapidly several hundred miles toward the west, we dropped down again within easy eyeshot of the surface of the planet, and commenced our inspection. when we originally reached mars, as i have related, it was at a point in its southern hemisphere, in latitude degrees south, and longitude degrees east, that we first closely approached its surface. underneath us was the land called "hellas," and it was over this land of hellas that the martian air fleet had suddenly made its appearance. our westward motion, while at a great height above the planet, had brought us over another oval-shaped land called "noachia," surrounded by the dark ocean, the "mare erytræum." now approaching nearer the surface our course was changed so as to carry us toward the equator of mars. we passed over the curious half-drowned continent known to terrestrial astronomers as the region of deucalion, then across another sea, or gulf, until we found ourselves floating at a height of perhaps five miles, above a great continental land, at least three thousand miles broad from east to west, and which i immediately recognized as that to which astronomers had given the various names of "aeria," "edom," "arabia," and "eden." here the spectacle became of breathless interest. "wonderful! wonderful!" "who could have believed it!" such were the exclamations heard on all sides. when at first we were suspended above hellas, looking toward the north, the northeast and the northwest, we had seen at a distance some of these great red regions, and had perceived the curious network of canals by which they were intersected. but that was a far-off and imperfect view. now, when we were near at hand and straight above one of these singular lands, the magnificence of the panorama surpassed belief. from the earth about a dozen of the principal canals crossing the continent beneath us had been perceived, but we saw hundreds, nay thousands of them! it was a double system, intended both for irrigation and for protection, and far more marvelous in its completeness than the boldest speculative minds among our astronomers had ever dared to imagine. "ha! that's what i always said," exclaimed a veteran from one of our great observatories. "mars is red because its soil and vegetation are red." and certainly appearances indicated that he was right. there were no green trees, and there was no green grass. both were red, not of a uniform red tint, but presenting an immense variety of shades which produced a most brilliant effect, fairly dazzling our eyes. but what trees! and what grass! and what flowers! our telescopes showed that even the smaller trees must be or feet in height, and there were forests of giants, whose average height was evidently at least , feet. "that's all right," exclaimed the enthusiast i have just quoted. "i knew it would be so. the trees are big for the same reason that the men are, because the planet is small, and they can grow big without becoming too heavy to stand." flashing in the sun on all sides were the roofs of metallic buildings, which were evidently the only kind of edifices which mars possessed. at any rate, if stone or wood were employed in their construction both were completely covered with metallic plates. this added immensely to the warlike aspect of the planet. for warlike it was. everywhere we recognized fortified stations, glittering with an array of the polished knobs of the lightning machines, such as we had seen in the land of hellas. from the land of edom, directly over the equator of the planet, we turned our faces westward, and, skirting the mare erytræum, arrived above the place where the broad canal known as the indus empties into the sea. before us, and stretching away to the northwest, now lay the continent of chryse, a vast red land, oval in outline, and surrounded and crossed by innumerable canals. chryse was not less than , miles across and it, too, evidently swarmed with giant inhabitants. but the shadow of night lay upon the greater portion of the land of chryse. in our rapid motion westward we had outstripped the sun and had now arrived at a point where day and night met upon the surface of the planet beneath us. behind all was brilliant with sunshine, but before us the face of mars gradually disappeared in the deepening gloom. through the darkness, far away, we could behold magnificent beams of electric light darting across the curtain of night, and evidently serving to illuminate towns and cities that lay beneath. we pushed on into the night for two or three hundred miles over that part of the continent of chryse whose inhabitants were doubtless enjoying the deep sleep that accompanies the dark hours immediately preceding the dawn. still everywhere splendid clusters of light lay like fallen constellations upon the ground, indicating the sites of great towns, which, like those of the earth never sleep. but this scene, although weird and beautiful, could give us little of the kind of information of which we were in search. accordingly it was resolved to turn back eastward until we had arrived in the twilight space separating day and night, and then hover over the planet at that point, allowing it to turn beneath us so that, as we looked down, we should see in succession the entire circuit of the globe of mars while it rolled under our eyes. the rotation of mars on its axis is performed in a period very little longer than the earth's rotation, so that the length of the day and night in the world of mars is only some forty minutes longer than their length upon the earth. in thus remaining suspended over the planet, on the line of daybreak, so to speak, we believed that we should be peculiarly safe from detection by the eyes of the inhabitants. even astronomers are not likely to be wide awake just at the peep of dawn. almost all of the inhabitants, we confidently believed, would still be sound asleep upon that part of the planet passing directly beneath us, and those who were awake would not be likely to watch for unexpected appearances in the sky. besides, our height was so great that notwithstanding the numbers of the squadron, we could not easily be seen from the surface of the planet, and if seen at all we might be mistaken for high-flying birds. here we remained then through the entire course of twenty-four hours and saw in succession as they passed from night into day beneath our feet the land of chryse, the great continent of tharsis, the curious region of intersecting canals which puzzled astronomers on the earth had named the "gordian knot." the continental lands of memnonia, amozonia and aeolia, the mysterious center where hundreds of vast canals came together from every direction, called the triviun charontis; the vast circle of elysium, a thousand miles across, and completely surrounded by a broad green canal; the continent of libya, which, as i remembered, had been half covered by a tremendous inundation whose effects were visible from the earth in , and finally the long, dark sea of the syrtis major, lying directly south of the land of hellas. the excitement and interest which we all experienced were so great that not one of us took a wink of sleep during the entire twenty-four hours of our marvelous watch. there are one or two things of special interest amid the multitude of wonderful observations that we made which i must mention here on account of their connection with the important events that followed soon after. just west of the land of chryse we saw the smaller land of ophir, in the midst of which is a singular spot called the juventae fons, and this fountain of youth, as our astronomers, by a sort of prophetic inspiration, had named it, proved later to be one of the most incredible marvels on the planet of mars. further to the west, and north from the great continent of tharsis, we beheld the immense oval-shaped land of thaumasia containing in its center the celebrated "lake of the sun," a circular body of water not less than five hundred miles in diameter, with dozens of great canals running away from it like the spokes of a wheel in every direction, thus connecting it with the ocean which surrounds it on the south and east, and with the still larger canals that encircle it toward the north and west. this lake of the sun came to play a great part in our subsequent adventures. it was evident to us from the beginning that it was the chief center of population on the planet. it lies in latitude degrees south and longitude about degrees west. having completed the circuit of the martian globe, we were moved by the same feeling which every discoverer of new lands experiences, and immediately returned to our original place above the land of hellas, because since that was the first part of mars which we had seen, we felt a greater degree of familiarity with it than with any portion of the planet, and there, in a certain sense, we felt "at home." but, as it proved, our enemies were on the watch for us there. we had almost forgotten them, so absorbed were we by the great spectacles that had been unrolling themselves beneath our feet. we ought, of course, to have been a little more cautious in approaching the place where they first caught sight of us, since we might have known that they would remain on the watch near that spot. but at any rate they had seen us, and it was now too late to think of taking them again by surprise. they on their part had a surprise in store for us, which was greater than any we had yet experienced. we saw their ships assembling once more far down in the atmosphere beneath us, and we thought we could detect evidences of something unusual going on upon the surface of the planet. suddenly from the ships, and from various points on the ground beneath, there rose high in the air, and carried by invisible currents in every direction, immense volumes of black smoke, or vapor, which blotted out of sight everything below them! south, north, west and east, the curtain of blackness rapidly spread, until the whole face of the planet as far as our eyes could reach, and the airships thronging under us, were all concealed from sight! mars had played the game of the cuttlefish, which when pursued by its enemies darkens the water behind it by a sudden outgush of inky fluid and thus escapes the eye of its foe. the eyes of man had never beheld such a spectacle! where a few minutes before the sunny face of a beautiful and populous planet had been shining beneath us, there was now to be seen nothing but black, billowing clouds, swelling up everywhere like the mouse-colored smoke that pours from a great transatlantic liner when fresh coal has just been heaped upon her fires. in some places the smoke spouted upward in huge jets to the height of several miles; elsewhere it eddied in vast whirlpools of inky blackness. not a glimpse of the hidden world beneath us was anywhere to be seen. mars had put on its war mask, and fearful indeed was the aspect of it! after the first pause of surprise the squadron quickly backed away into the sky, rising rapidly, because, from one of the swirling eddies beneath us the smoke began suddenly to pile itself up in an enormous aerial mountain, whose peaks shot higher and higher, with apparently increasing velocity, until they seemed about to engulf us with their tumbling ebon masses. unaware what the nature of this mysterious smoke might be, and fearing that it was something more than a shield for the planet, and might be destructive to life, we fled before it, as before the onward sweep of a pestilence. directly underneath the flagship, one of the aspiring smoke peaks grew with most portentous swiftness, and, notwithstanding all our efforts, in a little while it had enveloped us. several of us were standing on the deck of the electrical ship. we were almost stifled by the smoke, and were compelled to take refuge within the car, where, until the electric lights had been turned on, darkness so black that it oppressed the strained eyeballs prevailed. but in this brief experience, terrifying though it was, we had learned one thing. the smoke would kill by strangulation, but evidently there was nothing especially poisonous in its nature. this fact might be of use to us in our subsequent proceedings. "this spoils our plans," said the commander. "there is no use of remaining here for the present; let us see how far this thing extends." at first we rose straight away to a height of or miles, thus passing entirely beyond the sensible limits of the atmosphere, and far above the highest point that the smoke could reach. from this commanding point of view our line of sight extended to an immense distance over the surface of mars in all directions. everywhere the same appearance; the whole planet was evidently covered with the smoke. a complete telegraphic system evidently connected all the strategic points upon mars, so that, at a signal from the central station, the wonderful curtain could be instantaneously drawn over the entire face of the planet. in order to make certain that no part of mars remained uncovered, we dropped down again nearer to the upper level of the smoke clouds, and then completely circumnavigated the planet. it was thought possible that on the night side no smoke would be found and that it would be practicable for us to make a descent there. but when we had arrived on that side of mars which was turned away from the sun, we no longer saw beneath us, as we had done on our previous visit to the night hemisphere of the planet, brilliant groups and clusters of electric lights beneath us. all was dark. in fact, so completely did the great shell of smoke conceal the planet that the place occupied by the latter seemed to be simply a vast black hole in the firmament. the sun was hidden behind it, and so dense was the smoke that even the solar rays were unable to penetrate it, and consequently there was no atmospheric halo visible around the concealed planet. all the sky around was filled with stars, but their countless host suddenly disappeared when our eyes turned in the direction of mars. the great black globe blotted them out without being visible itself. "apparently we can do nothing here," said mr. edison. "let us return to the daylight side." when we had arrived near the point where we had been when the wonderful phenomenon first made its appearance, we paused, and then, at the suggestion of one of the chemists, dropped close to the surface of the smoke curtain which had now settled down into comparative quiescence, in order that we might examine it a little more critically. the flagship was driven into the smoke cloud so deeply that for a minute we were again enveloped in night. a quantity of the smoke was entrapped in a glass jar. rising again into the sunlight, the chemists began an examination of the constitution of the smoke. they were unable to determine its precise character, but they found that its density was astonishingly slight. this accounted for the rapidity with which it had risen, and the great height which it had attained in the comparatively light atmosphere of mars. "it is evident," said one of the chemists, "that this smoke does not extend down to the surface of the planet. from what the astronomers say as to the density of the air on mars, it is probable that a clear space of at least a mile in height exists between the surface of mars and the lower limit of the smoke curtain. just how deep the latter is we can only determine by experiment, but it would not be surprising if the thickness of this great blanket which mars has thrown around itself should prove to be a quarter or half a mile." "anyhow," said one of the united states army officers, "they have dodged out of sight, and i don't see why we should not dodge in and get at them. if there is clear air under the smoke, as you think, why couldn't the ships dart down through the curtain and come to a close tackle with the martians?" "it would not do at all," said the commander. "we might simply run ourselves into an ambush. no; we must stay outside, and if possible fight them from here." "they can't keep this thing up forever," said the officer. "perhaps the smoke will clear off after a while, and then we will have a chance." "not much hope of that, i am afraid," said the chemist who had originally spoken. "this smoke could remain floating in the atmosphere for weeks, and the only wonder to me is how they ever expect to get rid of it, when they think their enemies have gone and they want some sunshine again." "all that is mere speculation," said mr. edison; "let us get at something practical. we must do one of two things; either attack them shielded as they are, or wait until the smoke has cleared away. the only other alternative, that of plunging blindly down through the curtain is at present not to be thought of." "i am afraid we couldn't stand a very long siege ourselves," suddenly remarked the chief commissary of the expedition, who was one of the members of the flagship's company. "what do you mean by that?" asked mr. edison sharply, turning to him. "well, sir, you see," said the commissary, stammering, "our provisions wouldn't hold out." "wouldn't hold out?" exclaimed mr. edison, in astonishment, "why we have compressed and prepared provisions enough to last this squadron for three years." "we had, sir, when we left the earth," said the commissary, in apparent distress, "but i am sorry to say that something has happened." "something has happened! explain yourself!" "i don't know what it is, but on inspecting some of the compressed stores, a short time ago, i found that a large number of them were destroyed, whether through leakage of air, or what, i am unable to say. i sent to inquire as to the condition of the stores in the other ships in the squadron and i found that a similar condition of things prevailed there. "the fact is," continued the commissary, "we have only provisions enough, in proper condition, for about ten days' consumption." "after that we shall have to forage on the country, then," said the army officer. "why did you not report this before?" demanded mr. edison. "because, sir," was the reply, "the discovery was not made until after we arrived close to mars, and since then there has been so much excitement that i have hardly had time to make an investigation and find out what the precise condition of affairs is; besides, i thought we should land upon the planet and then we would be able to renew our supplies." i closely watched mr. edison's expression in order to see how this most alarming news would affect him. although he fully comprehended its fearful significance, he did not lose his self-command. "well, well," he said, "then it will become necessary for us to act quickly. evidently we cannot wait for the smoke to clear off, even if there was any hope of its clearing. we must get down on mars now, having conquered it first if possible, but anyway we must get down there, in order to avoid starvation." "it is very lucky," he continued, "that we have ten days' supply left. a great deal can be done in ten days." a few hours after this the commander called me aside, and said: "i have thought it all out. i am going to reconstruct some of our disintegrators, so as to increase their range and their power. then i am going to have some of the astronomers of the expedition locate for me the most vulnerable points upon the planet, where the population is densest and a hard blow would have the most effect, and i am going to pound away at them, through the smoke, and see whether we cannot draw them out of their shell." with his expert assistants mr. edison set to work at once to transform a number of the disintegrators into still more formidable engines of the same description. one of these new weapons having been distributed to each of the members of the squadron, the next problem was to decide where to strike. when we first examined the surface of the planet it will be remembered that we had regarded the lake of the sun and its environs as being the very focus of the planet. while it might also be a strong point of defence, yet an effective blow struck there would go to the enemy's heart and be more likely to bring the martians promptly to terms than anything else. the first thing, then, was to locate the lake of the sun on the smoke hidden surface of the planet beneath us. this was a problem that the astronomers could readily solve. fortunately, in the flagship itself there was one of the star-gazing gentlemen who had made a specialty of the study of mars. that planet, as i have already explained, was now in opposition to the earth. the astronomer had records in his pocket which enabled him, by a brief calculation, to say just when the lakes of the sun would be on the meridian of mars as seen from the earth. our chronometers still kept terrestrial time; we knew the exact number of days and hours that had elapsed since we had departed, and so it was possible by placing ourselves in a line between the earth and mars to be practically in the situation of an astronomer in his observatory at home. then it was only necessary to wait for the hour when the lake of the sun would be upon the meridian of mars in order to be certain what was the true direction of the latter from the flagship. having thus located the heart of our foe behind its shield of darkness, we prepared to strike. "i have ascertained," said mr. edison, "the vibration period of the smoke, so that it will be easy for us to shatter it into invisible atoms. you will see that every stroke of the disintegrators will open a hole through the black curtain. if their field of destruction could be made wide enough, we might in that manner clear away the entire covering of smoke, but all that we shall really be able to do will be to puncture it with holes, which will, perhaps, enable us to catch glimpses of the surface beneath. in that manner we may be able more effectually to concentrate our fire upon the most vulnerable points." everything being prepared, and the entire squadron having assembled to watch the effect of the opening blow and be ready to follow it up, mr. edison himself poised one of the new disintegrators, which was too large to be carried in the hand, and, following the direction indicated by the calculations of the astronomers, launched the vibratory discharge into the ocean of blackness beneath. instantly there opened beneath us a huge well-shaped hole from which the black clouds rolled violently back in every direction. through this opening we saw the gleam of brilliant lights beneath. we had made a hit. "it's the lake of the sun!" shouted the astronomer who furnished the calculation by means of which its position had been discovered. and, indeed, it was the lake of the sun. while the opening in the clouds made by the discharge was not wide, yet it sufficed to give us a view of a portion of the curving shore of the lake, which was ablaze with electric lights. whether our shot had done any damage, beyond making the circular opening in the cloud curtain, we could not tell, for almost immediately the surrounding black smoke masses billowed in to fill up the hole. but in the brief glimpse we had caught sight of two or three large airships hovering in space above that part of the lake of the sun and its bordering city which we had beheld. it seemed to me in the brief glance i had that one ship had been touched by the discharge and was wandering in an erratic manner. but the clouds closed in so rapidly that i could not be certain. anyhow, we had demonstrated one thing, and that was that we could penetrate the cloud shield and reach the martians in their hiding place. it had been prearranged that the first discharge from the flagship should be a signal for the concentration of the fire of all the other ships upon the same spot. a little hesitation, however, occurred, and a half a minute had elapsed before the disintegrators from the other members of the squadron were got into play. then, suddenly we saw an immense commotion in the cloud beneath us. it seemed to be beaten and hurried in every direction and punctured like a sieve with nearly a hundred great circular holes. through these gaps we could see clearly a large region of the planet's surface, with many airships floating above it and the blaze of innumerable electric lights illuminating it. the martians had created an artificial day under the curtain. this time there was no question that the blow had been effective. four or five of the airships, partially destroyed, tumbled headlong toward the ground, while even from our great distance there was unmistakable evidence that fearful execution had been done among the crowded structures along the shore of the lake. as each of our ships possessed but one of the new disintegrators, and since a minute or so was required to adjust them for a fresh discharge, we remained for a little while inactive after delivering the blow. meanwhile the cloud curtain, though rent to shreds by the concentrated discharge of the disintegrators, quickly became a uniform black sheet again, hiding everything. we had just had time to congratulate ourselves on the successful opening of our bombardment, and the disintegrator of the flagship was poised for another discharge, when suddenly out of the black expanse beneath, quivered immense electric beams, clear cut and straight as bars of steel, but dazzling our eyes with unendurable brilliance. it was the reply of the martians to our attack. three or four of the electrical ships were seriously damaged, and one, close beside the flagship, changed color, withered and collapsed, with the same sickening phenomena that had made our hearts shudder when the first disaster of this kind occurred during our brief battle over the asteroid. another score of our comrades were gone, and yet we had hardly begun the fight. glancing at the other ships which had been injured, i saw that the damage to them was not so serious, although they were evidently _hors de combat_ for the present. our fighting blood was now boiling and we did not stop long to count our losses. "into the smoke!" was the signal, and the ninety and more electric ships which still remained in condition for action immediately shot downward. chapter eleven _the earth girl_ it was a wild plunge. we kept off the decks while rushing through the blinding smoke, but the instant we emerged below, where we found ourselves still a mile above the ground, we were out again, ready to strike. i have simply a confused recollection of flashing lights beneath, and a great, dark arch of clouds above, out of which our ships seemed dropping on all sides, and then the fray burst on and around us, and no man could see or notice anything except by half-comprehended glances. almost in an instant, it seemed, a swarm of airships surrounded us, while from what, for lack of a more descriptive name, i shall call the forts about the lake of the sun, leaped tongues of electric fire, before which some of our ships, were driven like bits of flaming paper in a high wind, gleaming for a moment, then curling up and gone forever! it was an awful sight; but the battle fever was raging within us, and we, on our part, were not idle. every man carried a disintegrator, and these hand instruments, together with those of heavier caliber on the ship poured their resistless vibrations in every direction through the quivering air. the airships of the martians were destroyed by the score, and yet they flocked upon us thicker and faster. we dropped lower and our blows fell upon the forts, and upon the wide spread city bordering the lake of the sun. we almost entirely silenced the fire of one of the forts; but there were forty more in full action within reach of our eyes! some of the metallic buildings were partly unroofed by the disintegrators and some had their walls riddled and fell with thundering crashes, whose sound rose to our ears above the hellish din of battle. i caught glimpses of giant forms struggling in the ruins and rushing wildly through the streets, but there was no time to see anything clearly. our flagship seemed charmed. a crowd of airships hung upon it like a swarm of angry bees, and, at times, one could not see for the lightning strokes--yet we escaped destruction, while ourselves dealing death on every hand. it was a glorious fight, but it was not war; no, it was not war. we really had no more chance of ultimate success amid that multitude of enemies than a prisoner running the gauntlet in a crowd of savages has of escape. a conviction of the hopelessness of the contest finally forced itself upon our minds, and the shattered squadron, which had kept well together amid the storm of death, was signalled to retreat. shaking off their pursuers, as a hunted bear shakes off the dogs, sixty of the electrical ships rose up through the clouds where more than ninety had gone down! madly we rushed upward through the vast curtain and continued our flight to a great elevation, far beyond the reach of the awful artillery of the enemy. looking back it seemed the very mouth of hell from which we had escaped. the martians did not for an instant cease their fire, even when we were far beyond their reach. with furious persistence they blazed away through the cloud curtain, and the vivid spikes of lightning shuddered so swiftly on one another's track that they were like a flaming halo of electric lances around the frowning helmet of the war planet. but after a while they stopped their terrific sparring, and once more the immense globe assumed the appearance of a vast ball of black smoke still widely agitated by the recent disturbance, but exhibiting no opening through which we could discern what was going on beneath. evidently the martians believed they had finished us. at no time since the beginning of our adventure had it appeared to me quite so hopeless, reckless and mad as it seemed at present. we had suffered fearful losses, and yet what had we accomplished? we had won two fights on the asteroid, it is true, but then we had overwhelming numbers on our side. now we were facing millions on their own ground, and our very first assault had resulted in a disastrous repulse, with the loss of at least thirty electric ships and men! evidently we could not endure this sort of thing. we must find some other means of assailing mars or else give up the attempt. but the latter was not to be thought. it was no mere question of self-pride, however, and no consideration of the tremendous interests at stake, which would compel us to continue our apparently vain attempt. our provisions could last only a few days longer. the supply would not carry us one-quarter of the way back to earth, and we must therefore remain here and literally conquer or die. in this extremity a consultation of the principal officers was called upon the deck of the flagship. here the suggestion was made that we should attempt to effect by strategy what we had failed to do by force. an old army officer who had served in many wars against the cunning indians of the west, colonel alonzo jefferson smith, was the author of this suggestion. "let us circumvent them," he said. "we can do it in this way. the chances are that all of the available fighting force of the planet mars is now concentrated on this side and in the neighborhood of the lake of the sun. "possibly, by some kind of x-ray business, they can only see us dimly through the clouds, and if we get a little further away they will not be able to see us at all. "now, i suggest that a certain number of the electrical ships be withdrawn from the squadron to a great distance, while the remainder stay here; or, better still, approach to a point just beyond the reach of those streaks of lightning, and begin a bombardment of the clouds without paying any attention to whether the strokes reach through the clouds and do any damage or not. "this will induce the martians to believe that we are determined to press our attack at this point. "in the meantime, while these ships are raising a hulabaloo on this side of the planet, and drawing their fire, as much as possible, without running into any actual danger, let the others which have been selected for the purpose, sail rapidly around to the other side of mars and take them in the rear." it was not perfectly clear what colonel smith intended to do after the landing had been effected in the rear of the martians, but still there seemed a good deal to be said for his suggestion, and it would, at any rate, if carried out, enable us to learn something about the condition of things on the planet, and perhaps furnish us with a hint as to how we could best proceed in the further prosecution of the siege. accordingly it was resolved that about twenty ships should be told off for this movement, and colonel smith himself was placed in command. at my desire i accompanied the new commander in his flagship. rising to a considerable elevation in order that there might be no risk of being seen, we began our flank movement while the remaining ships, in accordance with the understanding, dropped nearer the curtain of cloud and commenced a bombardment with the disintegrators, which caused a tremendous commotion in the clouds, opening vast gaps in them, and occasionally revealing a glimpse of the electric lights on the planet, although it was evident that the vibratory currents did not reach the ground. the martians immediately replied to this renewed attack, and again the cloud covered globe bristled with lightning, which flashed so fiercely out of the blackness below that the stoutest hearts among us quailed, although we were situated well beyond the danger. but this sublime spectacle rapidly vanished from our eyes when, having attained a proper elevation, we began our course toward the opposite hemisphere of the planet. we guided our flight by the stars, and from our knowledge of the rotation period of mars, and the position which the principal points on its surface must occupy at certain hours, we were able to tell what part of the planet lay beneath us. having completed our semi-circuit we found ourselves on the night side of mars, and determined to lose no time in executing our coup. but it was deemed best that an exploration should first be made by a single electrical ship, and colonel smith naturally wished to undertake the adventure with his own vessel. we dropped rapidly through the black cloud curtain, which proved to be at least half a mile in thickness, and then suddenly emerged, as if suspended at the apex of an enormous dome, arching above the surface of the planet a mile beneath us, which sparkled on all sides with innumerable lights. these lights were so numerous and so brilliant as to produce a faint imitation of daylight, even at our immense height above the ground, and the dome of cloud out of which we had emerged assumed a soft fawn color which produced an indescribably beautiful effect. for a moment we recoiled from our undertaking, and arrested the motion of the electric ship. but on closely examining the surface beneath us we found that there was a broad region, where comparatively few bright lights were to be seen. from my knowledge of the geography of mars i knew that this was a part of the land of ausonia, situated a few hundred miles northeast of hellas, where we had first seen the planet. evidently it was not so thickly populated as some of the other parts of mars, and its comparative darkness was an attraction to us. we determined to approach within a few hundred feet of the ground with the electric ship, and then, in case no enemies appeared, to visit the soil itself. "perhaps we shall see or hear something that will be of use to us," said colonel smith, "and for the purposes of this first reconnaissance it is better that we should be few in number. the other ships will await our return, and at any rate we shall not be gone long." as our car approached the ground we found ourselves near the tops of some lofty trees. "this will do," said colonel smith to the electrical steersman, "stay right here." he and i then lowered ourselves into the branches of the trees, each carrying a small disintegrator, and cautiously clambered down to the ground. we believed we were the first of the descendants of adam to set foot on the planet of mars. at first we suffered somewhat from the effects of the rare atmosphere. it was so lacking in density that it resembled the air on the summits of the loftiest terrestrial mountains. having reached the foot of the tree in safety, we lay down for a moment on the ground to recover ourselves and to become accustomed to our new surroundings. a thrill, born half of wonder, half of incredulity, ran through me at the touch of the soil of mars. here was i, actually on that planet, which had seemed so far away, so inaccessible, and so full of mysteries when viewed from the earth. and yet, surrounding me, were things--gigantic, it is true--but still resembling and recalling the familiar sights of my own world. after a little while our lungs became accustomed to the rarity of the atmosphere and we experienced a certain stimulation in breathing. we then got upon our feet and stepped out from under the shadow of the gigantic tree. high above we could faintly see our electrical ship, gently swaying in the air close to the tree top. there were no electric lights in our immediate neighborhood, but we noticed that the whole surface of the planet around us was gleaming with them, producing an effect like the glow of a great city seen from a distance at night. the glare was faintly reflected from the vast dome of clouds above, producing the general impression of a moonlight night upon the earth. it was a wonderfully quiet and beautiful spot where we had come down. the air had a delicate feel and a bracing temperature, while a soft breeze soughed through the leaves of the tree above our heads. not far away was the bank of a canal, bordered by a magnificent avenue shaded by a double row of immense umbrageous trees. we approached the canal, and, getting upon the road, turned to the left to make an exploration in that direction. the shadow of the trees falling upon the roadway produced a dense gloom, in the midst of which we felt that we should be safe, unless the martians had eyes like those of cats. as we pushed along, our hearts, i confess, beating a little quickly, a shadow stirred in front of us. something darker than the night itself approached. as it drew near it assumed the appearance of an enormous dog, as tall as an ox, which ran swiftly our way with a threatening motion of its head. but before it could even utter a snarl, the whirr of colonel smith's disintegrator was heard and the creature vanished in the shadow. "gracious, did you ever see such a beast?" said the colonel. "why he was as big as a grizzly." "the people he belonged to must be near by," i said. "very likely he was a watch on guard." "but i see no signs of a habitation." "true, but you observe there is a thick hedge on the side of the road opposite the canal. if we get through that perhaps we shall catch sight of something." cautiously we pushed our way through the hedge, which was composed of shrubs as large as small trees, and very thick at the bottom, and, having traversed it, found ourselves in a great meadow-like expanse which might have been a lawn. at a considerable distance, in the midst of a clump of trees, a large building towered skyward, its walls of some red metal, gleaming like polished copper in the soft light that fell from the cloud dome. there were no lights around the building itself, and we saw nothing corresponding to windows on that side which faced us, but toward the right a door was evidently open, and out of this streamed a brilliant shaft of illumination, which lay bright upon the lawn, then crossed the highway through an opening in the hedge, and gleamed on the water of the canal beyond. where we stood the ground had evidently been recently cleared, and there was no obstruction, but as we crept closer to the house--for our curiosity had now become irresistible--we found ourselves crawling through grass so tall that if we had stood erect it would have risen well above our heads. "this affords good protection," said colonel smith, recalling his adventures on the western plains. "we can get close in to the indians--i beg pardon, i mean the martians--without being seen." heavens, what an adventure was this! to be crawling about in the night on the face of another world and venturing, perhaps, into the jaws of a danger which human experience could not measure! but on we went, and in a little while we had emerged from the tall grass and were somewhat startled by the discovery that we had got close to the wall of the building. carefully we crept around to the open door. as we neared it we suddenly stopped as if we had been stricken with instantaneous paralysis. out of the door floated, on the soft night air, the sweetest music to which i have ever listened. it carried me back in an instant to my own world. it was the music of the earth. it was the melodious expression of a human soul. it thrilled us both to the heart's core. "my god!" exclaimed colonel smith. "what can that be? are we dreaming, or where in heaven's name are we?" still the enchanting harmony floated out upon the air. what the instrument was i could not tell, but the sound seemed more nearly to resemble that of a violin than anything else of which i could think. when we first heard it the strains were gentle, sweet, caressing and full of an infinite depth of feeling, but in a little while its tone changed, and it became a magnificent march, throbbing upon the air in stirring notes that set our hearts beating in unison with its stride and inspiring in us a courage that we had not felt before. then it drifted into a wild fantasia, still inexpressibly sweet, and from that changed again into a requiem or lament, whose mellifluous tide of harmony swept our thoughts back again to the earth. "i can endure this no longer," i said. "i must see who it is that makes that music. it is the product of a human heart and must come from the touch of human fingers." we carefully shifted our position until we stood in the blaze of light that poured out of the door. the doorway was an immense arched opening, magnificently ornamented, rising to a height of, i should say, not less than twenty or twenty-five feet and broad in proportion. the door itself stood widely open and it, together with all of its fittings and surroundings, was composed of the same beautiful red metal. stepping out a little way into the light i could see within the door an immense apartment, glittering on all sides with metallic ornaments and gems and lighted from the center by a great chandelier of electric candles. in the middle of the great floor, holding the instrument delicately poised, and still awaking its ravishing voice, stood a figure, the sight of which almost stopped my breath. it was a slender sylph of a girl! a girl of my own race; a human being here upon the planet mars! [illustration: _"in the middle of the great floor, holding the instrument delicately poised, and still awaking its ravishing voice, stood a figure, the sight of which almost stopped my breath! it was a slender sylph of a girl! a girl of my own race; a human being here on mars!"_] her hair was loosely coiled and she was attired in graceful white drapery. "by god!" cried colonel smith, "she's human!" chapter twelve _retreat to deimos_ still the bewildering strains of the music came to our ears, and yet we stood there unperceived, though in the full glare of the chandelier. the girl's face was presented in profile. it was exquisite in beauty, pale, delicate with a certain pleading sadness which stirred us to the heart. an element of romance and a touch of personal interest such as we had not looked for suddenly entered into our adventure. colonel smith's mind still ran back to the perils of the plains. "she is a prisoner," he said, "and by the seven devils of dona ana we'll not leave her here. but where are the hellhounds themselves?" our attention had been so absorbed by the sight of the girl that we had scarcely thought of looking to see if there was any one else in the room. glancing beyond her, i now perceived sitting in richly decorated chairs three or four gigantic martians. they were listening to the music as if charmed. the whole story told itself. this girl, if not their slave, was at any rate under their control, and she was furnishing entertainment for them by her musical skill. the fact that they could find pleasure in music so beautiful was, perhaps, an indication that they were not really as savage as they seemed. yet our hearts went out to the girl, and were turned against them with an uncontrollable hatred. they were of the same remorseless race with those who had so lately lain waste our fair earth and who would have completed its destruction had not providence interferred in our behalf. singularly enough, although we stood full in the light, they had not yet seen us. suddenly the girl, moved by what impulse i know not, turned her face in our direction. her eyes fell upon us. she paused abruptly in her playing, and her instrument dropped to the floor. then she uttered a cry, and with extended arms ran toward us. but when she was near she stopped abruptly, the glad look fading from her face, and started back with terror-stricken eyes, as if, after all, she had found us not what she expected. then for an instant she looked more intently at us, her countenance cleared once more, and, overcome by some strange emotion, her eyes filled with tears, and, drawing a little nearer, she stretched forth her hands to us appealingly. meanwhile the martians had started to their feet. they looked down upon us in astonishment. we were like pygmies to them; like little gnomes which had sprung out of the ground at their feet. one of the giants seized some kind of a weapon and started forward with a threatening gesture. the girl sprang to my side and grasped my arm with a cry of fear. this seemed to throw the martian into a sudden frenzy, and he raised his arms to strike. but the disintegrator was in my hand. my rage was equal to his. i felt the concentrated vengeance of the earth quivering through me as i pressed the button of the disintegrator and, sweeping it rapidly up and down, saw the gigantic form that confronted me melt into nothingness. there were three other giants in the room, and they had been on the point of following up the attack of their comrade. but when he disappeared from before their eyes, they paused, staring in amazement at the place where, but a moment before, he had stood, but where now only the metal weapon he had wielded lay on the floor. at first they started back, and seemed on the point of fleeing; then, with a second glance, perceiving again how small and insignificant we were, all three together advanced upon us. the girl sank trembling on her knees. in the meantime i had readjusted my disintegrator for another discharge, and colonel smith stood by me with the light of battle upon his face. "sweep the discharge across the three," i exclaimed. "otherwise there will be one left and before we can fire again he will crush us." the whirr of the two instruments sounded simultaneously, and with a quick horizontal motion we swept the lines of force around in such a manner that all three of the martians were caught by the vibratory streams and actually cut in two. long gaps were opened in the wall of the room behind them, where the destroying currents had passed, for with wrathful fierceness, we had ran the vibrations through half a gamut on the index. the victory was ours. there were no other enemies, that we could see, in the house. yet at any moment others might make their appearance, and what more we did must be done quickly. the girl evidently was as much amazed as the martians had been by the effects which we had produced. still she was not terrified, and continued to cling to us and glance beseechingly into our faces, expressing in her every look and gesture the fact that she knew we were of her own race. but clearly she could not speak our tongue, for the words she uttered were unintelligible. colonel smith, whose long experience in indian warfare had made him intensely practical, did not lose his military instincts, even in the midst of events so strange. "it occurs to me," he said, "that we have got a chance at the enemies' supplies. suppose we begin foraging right here. let's see if this girl can't show us the commissary department." he immediately began to make signs to the girl to indicate that he was hungry. a look of comprehension flitted over her features, and, seizing our hands, she led us into an adjoining apartment, and pointed to a number of metallic boxes. one of these she opened, taking out of it a kind of cake, which she placed between her teeth, breaking off a very small portion and then handing it to us, motioning that we should eat, but at the same time showing us that we ought to take only a small quantity. "thank god! it's compressed food," said colonel smith. "i thought these martians with their wonderful civilization would be up to that. and it's mighty lucky for us, because, without overburdening ourselves, if we can find one or two more caches like this we shall be able to reprovision the entire fleet. but we must get reinforcements before we can take possession of the fodder." accordingly we hurried out into the night, passed into the roadway, and, taking the girl with us, ran as rapidly as possible to the foot of the tree where we had made our descent. then we signalled to the electric ship to drop down to the level of the ground. this was quickly done, the girl was taken aboard, and a dozen men, under our guidance, hastened back to the house, where we loaded ourselves with the compressed provisions and conveyed them to the ship. on this second trip to the mysterious house we had discovered another apartment containing a very large number of the metallic boxes, filled with compressed food. "by jove, it is a storehouse," said colonel smith. "we must get more force and carry it all off. gracious, but this is a lucky night. we can reprovision the whole fleet from this room." "i thought it singular," i said, "that with the exception of the girl whom we have rescued no women were seen in the house. evidently the lights over yonder indicate the location of a considerable town, and it is quite probable that this building, without windows, and so strongly constructed, is the common storehouse, where the provisions for the town are kept. the fellows we killed must have been the watchmen in charge of the storehouse, and they were treating themselves to a little music from the slave girl when we happened to come upon them." with the utmost haste several of the other electrical ships, waiting above the cloud curtain, were summoned to descend, and, with more than a hundred men, we returned to the building, and this time almost entirely exhausted its stores, each man carrying as much as he could stagger under. fortunately our proceedings had been conducted without much noise, and the storehouse being situated at a considerable distance from other buildings, none of the martians, except those who would never tell the story, had known of our arrival or of our doings on the planet. "now, we'll return and surprise edison with the news," said colonel smith. our ship was the last to pass up through the clouds, and it was a strange sight to watch the others as one after another they rose toward the great dome, entered it, though from below it resembled a solid vault of grayish-pink marble, and disappeared. we quickly followed them, and having penetrated the enormous curtain, were considerably surprised on emerging at the other side to find that the sun was shining brilliantly upon us. it will be remembered that it was night on this side of mars when we went down, but our adventure had occupied several hours, and now mars had so turned upon its axis that the portion of its surface over which we were had come around into the sunlight. we knew that the squadron which we had left besieging the lake of the sun must also have been carried around in a similar manner, passing into the night while the side of the planet where we were was emerging into day. our shortest way back would be by traveling westward, because then we should be moving in a direction opposite to that in which the planet rotated, and the main squadron, sharing that rotation, would be continually moving in our direction. but to travel westward was to penetrate once more into the night side of the planet. the prows, if i may so call them, of our ships were accordingly turned in the direction of the vast shadow which mars was invisibly projecting into space behind it, and on entering that shadow the sun disappeared from our eyes, and once more the huge hidden globe beneath us became a black chasm among the stars. now that we were in the neighborhood of a globe capable of imparting considerable weight to all things under the influence of its attraction that peculiar condition which i have before described as existing in the midst of space, where there was neither up nor down for us, had ceased. here where we had weight "up" and "down" had resumed their old meanings. "down" was toward the center of mars, and "up" was away from that center. standing on the deck, and looking overhead as we swiftly ploughed our smooth way at a great height through the now imperceptible atmosphere of the planet, i saw the two moons of mars meeting in the sky exactly above us. before our arrival at mars, there had been considerable discussion among the learned men as to the advisability of touching at one of their moons, and when the discovery was made that our provisions were nearly exhausted, it had been suggested that the martian satellites might furnish us with an additional supply. but it had appeared a sufficient reply to this suggestion that the moons of mars are both insignificant bodies, not much larger than the asteroid we had fallen in with, and that there could not possibly be any form of vegetation or other edible products upon them. this view having prevailed, we had ceased to take an interest in the satellites, further than to regard them as objects of great curiosity on account of their motions. the nearer of these moons, phobos, is only , miles from the surface of mars, and we watched it traveling around the planet three times in the course of every day. the more distant one, deimos, , miles away, required considerably more than one day to make its circuit. it now happened that the two had come into conjunction, as i have said, just over our heads, and, throwing myself down on my back on the deck of the electrical ship, for a long time i watched the race between the two satellites, until phobos, rapidly gaining upon the other, had left its rival far behind. suddenly colonel smith, who took very little interest in these astronomical curiosities, touched me, and pointing ahead, said: "there they are." i looked, and sure enough there were the signal lights of the principal squadron, and as we gazed we occasionally saw, darting up from the vast cloud mass beneath, an electric bayonet, fiercely thrust into the sky, which showed that the siege was still actively going on, and that the martians were jabbing away at their invisible enemies outside the curtain. in a short time the two fleets had joined, and colonel smith and i immediately transferred ourselves to the flagship. "well, what have you done?" asked mr. edison, while others crowded around with eager attention. "if we have not captured their provision train," said colonel smith, "we have done something just about as good. we have foraged on the country, and have collected a supply that i reckon will last this fleet for at least a month." "what's that? what's that?" "it's just what i say," and colonel smith brought out of his pocket one of the square cakes of compressed food. "set your teeth in that, and see what you think of it, but don't take too much, for its powerful strong." "i say," he continued, "we have got enough of that stuff to last us all for a month, but we've done more than that; we have got a surprise for you that will make you open your eyes. just wait a minute." colonel smith made a signal to the electrical ship which we had just quitted to draw near. it came alongside, so that one could step from its deck onto the flagship. colonel smith disappeared for a minute in the interior of his ship, then re-emerged, leading the girl whom we had found upon the planet. "take her inside, quick," he said, "for she is not used to this thin air." in fact, we were at so great an elevation that the rarity of the atmosphere now compelled us all to wear our air-tight suits, and the girl, not being thus attired, would have fallen unconscious on the deck if we had not instantly removed her to the interior of the car. there she quickly recovered from the effects of the deprivation of air and looked about her, pale, astonished, but yet apparently without fear. every motion of this girl convinced me that she not only recognized us as members of her own race, but that she felt that her only hope lay in our aid. therefore, strange as we were to her in many respects, nevertheless she did not think that she was in danger while among us. the circumstances under which we had found her were quickly explained. her beauty, her strange fate and the impenetrable mystery which surrounded her excited universal admiration and wonder. "how did she get on mars?" was the question that everybody asked, and that nobody could answer. but while all were crowding around and overwhelming the poor girl with their staring, suddenly she burst into tears, and then, with arms outstretched in the same appealing manner which had so stirred our sympathies when we first saw her in the house of the martians, she broke forth in a wild recitation, which was half a song and half a wail. as she went on i noticed that a learned professor of languages from the university of heidelberg was listening to her with intense attention. several times he appeared to be on the point of breaking in with an exclamation. i could plainly see that he was becoming more and more excited as the words poured from the girl's lips. occasionally he nodded and muttered, smiling to himself. her song finished, the girl sank half-exhausted upon the floor. she was lifted and placed in a reclining position at the side of the car. then the heidelberg professor stepped to the center of the car, in the sight of all, and in a most impressive manner said: "gentlemen, our sister. "i have her tongue recognized! the language that she speaks, the roots of the great indo-european, or aryan stock, contains. "this girl, gentlemen, to the oldest family of the human race belongs. her language every tongue that now upon the earth is spoken antedates. convinced am i that it that great original speech is from which have all the languages of the civilized world sprung. "how she here came, so many millions of miles from the earth, a great mystery is. but it shall be penetrated, and it is from her own lips that we shall the truth learn, because not difficult to us shall it be the language that she speaks to acquire since to our own it is akin." this announcement of the heidelberg professor stirred us all most profoundly. it not only deepened our interest in the beautiful girl whom we had rescued, but, in a dim way, it gave us reason to hope that we should yet discover some means of mastering the martians by dealing them a blow from within. it had been expected, the reader will remember, that the martian whom we had made prisoner on the asteroid, might be of use to us in a similar way, and for that reason great efforts had been made to acquire his language, and considerable progress had been effected in that direction. but from the moment of our arrival at mars itself, and especially after the battles began, the prisoner had resumed his savage and uncommunicative disposition, and had seemed continually to be expecting that we would fall victims to the prowess of his fellow beings, and that he would be released. how an outlaw, such as he evidently was, who had been caught in the act of robbing the martian gold mines, could expect to escape punishment on returning to his native planet it was difficult to see. nevertheless, so strong are the ties of race we could plainly perceive that all his sympathies were for his own people. in fact, in consequence of his surly manner, and his attempts to escape, he had been more strictly bound than before and to get him out of the way had been removed from the flagship, which was already overcrowded, and placed in one of the other electric ships, and this ship--as it happened--was one of those which were lost in the great battle beneath the clouds. so after all, the martian had perished, by a vengeful stroke launched from his native globe. but providence had placed in our hands a far better interpreter than he could ever have been. this girl of our own race would need no urging, or coercion, on our part in order to induce her to reveal any secrets of the martians that might be useful in our further proceedings. but one thing was first necessary to be done. we must learn to talk with her. but for the discovery of the store of provisions it would have been impossible for us to spare the time needed to acquire the language of the girl, but now that we had been saved from the danger of starvation, we could prolong the siege for several weeks, employing the intervening time to the best advantage. the terrible disaster which we had suffered in the great battle above the lake of the sun, wherein we had lost nearly a third of our entire force, had been quite sufficient to convince us that our only hope of victory lay in dealing the martians some paralyzing stroke that at one blow would deprive them of the power of resistance. a victory that cost us the loss of a single ship would be too dearly purchased now. how to deal that blow, and first of all, how to discover the means of dealing it, were at present the uppermost problems in our minds. the only hope for us lay in the girl. if, as there was every reason to believe, she was familiar with the ways and secrets of the martians, then she might be able to direct our efforts in such a manner as to render them effective. "we can spare two weeks for this," said mr. edison. "can you fellows of many tongues learn to talk with the girl in that time?" "we'll try it," said several. "it shall we do," cried the heidelberg professor more confidently. "then there is no use of staying here," continued the commander. "if we withdraw the martians will think that we have either given up the earth's moon, always keep the same face toward their master. by blanket and let us see their face once more. that will give us a better opportunity to strike effectively when we are again ready." "why not rendezvous at one of the moons?" said an astronomer. "neither of the two moons is of much consequence, as far as size goes, but still it would serve as sort of an anchorage ground, and while there, if we were careful to keep on the side away from mars, we should escape detection." this suggestion was immediately accepted, and the squadron having been signalled to assemble quickly bore off in the direction of the more distant moon of mars, deimos. we knew that it was slightly smaller than phobos, but its greater distance gave promise that it would better serve our purpose of temporary concealment. the moons of mars, like the earth's moon, always kept the same face toward their master. by hiding behind deimos we should escape the prying eyes of the martians, even when they employed telescopes, and thus be able to remain comparatively close at hand, ready to pounce down upon them again, after we had obtained, as we now had good hope of doing, information that would make us masters of the situation. chapter thirteen _there were giants in the earth_ deimos proved to be, as we had expected, about six miles in diameter. its mean density is not very great so that the acceleration of gravity did not exceed one-two-thousandths of the earth's. consequently the weight of a man turning the scales at pounds at home was here only about one ounce. the result was that we could move about with greater ease than on the golden asteroid, and some of the scientific men eagerly resumed their interrupted experiments. but the attraction of this little satellite was so slight that we had to be very careful not to move too swiftly in going about lest we should involuntarily leave the ground and sail out into space, as, it will be remembered, happened to the fugitives from the fight on the asteroid. not only would such an adventure have been an uncomfortable experience, but it might have endangered the success of our scheme. our present distance from the surface of mars did not exceed , miles, and we had reasons to believe the martians possessed telescopes powerful enough to enable them not merely to see the electrical ships at such a distance, but to also catch sight of us individually. although the cloud curtain still rested on the planet it was probable that the martians would send some of their airships up to its surface in order to determine what our fate had been. from that point of vantage with their exceedingly powerful glasses, we feared that they might be able to detect anything unusual upon or in the neighborhood of deimos. accordingly strict orders were given, not only that the ships should be moored on that side of the satellite which is perpetually turned away from mars, but that, without orders, no one should venture around on the other side of the little globe or even on the edge of it, where he might be seen in profile against the sky. still, of course, it was essential that we, on our part, should keep a close watch, and so a number of sentinels were selected, whose duty it was to place themselves at the edge of deimos, where they could peep over the horizon, so to speak, and catch sight of the globe of our enemies. the distance of mars from us was only about three times its own diameter, consequently it shut off a large part of the sky, as viewed from our position. but in order to see its whole surface it was necessary to go a little beyond the edge of the satellite, on that side which faced mars. at the suggestion of colonel smith, who had so frequently stalked indians that devices of this kind readily occurred to his mind, the sentinels all wore garments corresponding in color to that of the soil of the asteroid, which was of a dark, reddish brown hue. this would tend to conceal them from the prying eyes of the martians. the commander himself frequently went around the edge of the planet in order to take a look at mars, and i often accompanied him. i shall never forget one occasion, when, lying flat on the ground, and cautiously worming our way around on the side toward mars, we had just begun to observe it with our telescopes, when i perceived, against the vast curtain of smoke, a small, glinting object, which i instantly suspected to be an airship. i called mr. edison's attention to it, and we both agreed that it was, undoubtedly, one of the martian's aerial vessels, probably on the lookout for us. a short time afterward a large number of airships made their appearance at the upper surface of the clouds, moving to and fro, and although, with our glasses, we could only make out the general form of the ships, without being able to discern the martians upon them, yet we had not the least doubt but they were sweeping the sky in every direction in order to determine whether we had been completely destroyed or had retreated to a distance from the planet. even when that side of mars on which we were looking had passed into night, we could still see the guardships circling above the clouds, their presence being betrayed by the faint twinkling of the electric lights that they bore. finally, after about a week had passed, the martians evidently made up their minds that they had annihilated us, and that there was no longer danger to be feared. convincing evidence that they believed we should not be heard from again was furnished when the withdrawal of the great curtain of cloud began. this phenomenon first manifested itself by a gradual thinning of the vaporous shield, until, at length, we began to perceive the red surface of the planet dimly shining through it. thinner and rarer it became, and, after the lapse of about eighteen hours, it had completely disappeared, and the huge globe shone out again, reflecting the light of the sun from its continents and oceans with a brightness that, in contrast with the all-enveloping night to which we had so long been subjected, seemed unbearable to our eyes. indeed, so brilliant was the illumination which fell upon the surface of deimos that the number of persons who had been permitted to pass around on the exposed side of the satellite was carefully restricted. in the blaze of light which had been suddenly poured upon us we felt somewhat like malefactors unexpectedly enveloped in the illumination of a policeman's dark lantern. meanwhile, the object which we had in view in retreating to the satellite was not lost sight of, and the services of the chief linguists of the expedition were again called into use for the purpose of acquiring a new language. the experiment was conducted in the flagship. the fact that this time it was not a monster belonging to an utterly alien race upon whom we were to experiment, but a beautiful daughter of our common mother eve, added zest and interest as well as the most confident hopes of success to the efforts of those who were striving to understand the accents of her tongue. still the difficulty was very great, notwithstanding the conviction of the professors that her language would turn out to be a form of the great indo-european speech from which the many tongues of civilized men upon the earth had been derived. the learned men, to tell the truth, gave the poor girl no rest. for hours at a time they would ply her with interrogations by voice and by gesture, until, at length, wearied beyond endurance, she would fall asleep before their faces. then she would be left undisturbed for a little while, but the moment her eyes opened again the merciless professors flocked about her once more, and resumed the tedious iteration of their experiments. our heidelberg professor was the chief inquisitor, and he revealed himself to us in a new and entirely unexpected light. no one could have anticipated the depth and variety of his resources. he placed himself in front of the girl and gestured and gesticulated, bowed, nodded, shrugged his shoulders, screwed his face into an infinite variety of expressions, smiled, laughed, scowled and accompanied all these dumb shows with posturings, exclamations, queries, only half expressed in words and cadences which, by some ingenious manipulation of the tones of the voice, he managed to make expressive of his desires. he was a universal actor--comedian, tragedian, buffoon--all in one. there was no shade of human emotions to which he did not seem capable of giving expression. his every attitude was a symbol, and all his features became in quick succession types of thought and exponents of hidden feelings, while his inquisitive nose stood forth in the midst of their ceaseless play like a perpetual interrogation point that would have electrified the sphinx into life, and set its stone lips gabbling answers and explanations. the girl looked on, partly astonished, partly amused, and partly comprehending. sometimes she smiled, and then the beauty of her face became most captivating. occasionally she burst into a cherry laugh when the professor was executing some of his extraordinary gyrations before her. it was a marvelous exhibition of what the human intellect, when all its powers are concentrated upon a single object, is capable of achieving. it seemed to me, as i looked at the performance, that if all the races of men, who had been stricken asunder at the foot of the tower of babel by the miracle which made the tongues of each to speak a language unknown to the others, could be brought together again at the foot of the same tower, with all the advantages which thousands of years of education had in the meantime imparted to them, they would be able, without any miracle, to make themselves mutually understood. and it was evident that an understanding was actually growing between the girl and the professor. their minds were plainly meeting, and when both had become focused upon the same point, it was perfectly certain that the object of the experiment would be attained. whenever the professor got from the girl an intelligent reply to his pantomimic inquiries, or whenever he believed that he got such a reply, it was immediately jotted down in the ever open note book which he carried in his hand. and then he would turn to us standing by, and with one hand on his heart, and the other sweeping grandly through the air, would make a profound bow and say: "the young lady and i great progress make already. i have her words comprehended. we shall wondrous mysteries solve. jawohl! wunderlich! make yourselves gentlemen easy. of the human race the ancestral stem have i here discovered." once i glanced over a page of his notebook and there i read this: "mars--zahmor "copper--hayez "sword--anz "i jump--altesna "i slay--amoutha "i cut off a head--ksutaskofa "i sleep--zlcha "i love--levza" when i saw this last entry i looked suspiciously at the professor. was he trying to make love without our knowing it to the beautiful captive from mars? if so, i felt certain that he would get himself into difficulty. she had made a deep impression upon every man in the flagship, and i knew that there was more than one of the younger men who would promptly have called him to account if they had suspected him of trying to learn from those beautiful lips the words, "i love." i pictured to myself the state of mind of colonel alonzo jefferson smith if, in my place, he had glanced over the notebook and read what i had read. and then i thought of another handsome young fellow in the flagship--sydney phillips--who, if mere actions and looks could make him so, had become exceedingly devoted to this long lost and happily recovered daughter of eve. in fact, i had already questioned within my own mind whether the peace would be strictly kept between colonel smith and mr. phillips, for the former had, to my knowledge, noticed the young fellow's adoring glances, and had begun to regard him out of the corners of his eyes as if he considered him no better than an apache. "but what," i asked myself, "would be the vengeance that colonel smith would take upon this skinny professor from heidelberg if he thought that he, taking advantage of his linguistic powers, had stepped in between him and the damsel whom he had rescued?" however, when i took a second look at the professor, i became convinced that he was innocent of any such amorous intentions, and that he had learned, or believed he had learned, the word for "love" simply in pursuances of the method by which he meant to acquire the language of the girl. there was one thing which gave some of us considerable misgivings, and that was the question whether, after all, the language the professor was acquiring was really the girl's own tongue or one that she had learned from the martians. but the professor bade us rest easy on that point. he assured us, in the first place, that this girl could not be the only human being living upon mars, but that she must have friends and relatives there. that being so, they unquestionably had a language of their own, which they spoke when they were among themselves. here finding herself among beings belonging to her own race, she would naturally speak her own tongue and not that which she had acquired from the martians. "moreover, gentlemen," he added, "i have in her speech many roots of the great aryan tongue already recognized." we were greatly relieved by this explanation, which seemed to all of us perfectly satisfactory. yet, really, there was no reason why one language should be any better than the other for our present purpose. in fact, it might be more useful to us to know the language of the martians themselves. still, we all felt that we should prefer to know her language rather than that of the monsters among whom she had lived. colonel smith expressed what was in all our minds when, after listening to the reasoning of the professor, he blurted out: "thank god, she doesn't speak any of their blamed lingo! by jove, it would soil her pretty lips." "but also that she speaks, too," said the man from heidelberg, turning to colonel smith with a grin. "we shall both of them eventually learn." three entire weeks were passed in this manner. after the first week the girl herself materially assisted the linguists in their efforts to ac-quire her speech. at length the task was so far advanced that we could, in a certain sense, regard it as practically completed. the heidelberg professor declared that he had mastered the tongue of the ancient aryans. his delight was unbounded. with prodigious industry he set to work, scarcely stopping to eat or sleep, to form a grammar of the language. "you shall see," he said, "it will the speculations of my countrymen vindicate." no doubt the professor had an exaggerated opinion of the extent of his acquirements, but the fact remained that enough had been learned of the girl's language to enable him and several others to converse with her quite as readily as a person of good capacity who has studied under the instructions of a native teacher during a period of six months can converse in a foreign tongue. immediately almost every man in the squadron set vigorously at work to learn the language of this fair creature for himself. colonel smith and sydney phillips were neck and neck in the linguistic race. one of the first bits of information which the professor had given out was the name of the girl. it was aina (pronounced ah-ee-na). this news was flashed throughout the squadron, and the name of our beautiful captive was on the lips of all. after that came her story. it was a marvelous narrative. translated into our tongue it ran as follows: "the traditions of my fathers, handed down for generations so many that no one can number them, declare that the planet of mars was not the place of our origin. "ages and ages ago our forefathers dwelt on another and distant world that was nearer the sun than this one is, and enjoyed brighter daylight than we have here. "they dwelt--as i have often heard the story from my father, who had learned it by heart from his father, and he from his--in a beautiful valley that was surrounded by enormous mountains towering into the clouds and white about their tops with snow that never melted. in the valley were lakes, around which clustered the dwellings of our race. "it was, the traditions say, a land wonderful for its fertility, filled with all things that the heart could desire, splendid with flowers and rich with luscious fruits. "it was a land of music, and the people who dwelt in it were very happy." while the girl was telling this part of her story the heidelberg professor became visibly more and more excited. presently he could keep quiet no longer, and suddenly exclaimed, turning to us who were listening, as the words of the girl were interpreted for us by one of the other linguists: "gentlemen, it is the vale of cashmere! has not my great countryman, adelung, so declared? has he not said that the valley of cashmere was the cradle of the human race already?" "from the valley of cashmere to the planet mars--what a romance!" exclaimed one of the bystanders. colonel smith appeared to be particularly moved, and i heard him humming under his breath, greatly to my astonishment, for this rough soldier was not much given to poetry or music: "who has not heard of the vale of cashmere, with its roses the brightest that earth ever gave; its temples, its grottoes, its fountains as clear, as the love-lighted eyes that hang 'oer the wave." mr. sydney phillips, standing by, and also catching the murmur of colonel smith's words, showed in his handsome countenance some indications of distress, as if he wished he had thought of those lines himself. the girl resumed her narrative: "suddenly there dropped down out of the sky strange gigantic enemies, armed with mysterious weapons, and began to slay and burn and make desolate. our forefathers could not withstand them. they seemed like demons, who had been sent from the abodes of evil to destroy our race. "some of the wise men said that this thing had come upon our people because they had been very wicked, and the gods in heaven were angry. some said they came from the moon, and some from the far-away stars. but of these things my forefathers knew nothing for a certainty. "the destroyers showed no mercy to the inhabitants of the beautiful valley. not content with making it a desert, they swept over other parts of the earth. "the tradition says that they carried off from the valley, which was our native land, a large number of our people, taking them first into a strange country, where there were oceans of sand, but where a great river, flowing through the midst of the sands, created a narrow land of fertility. here, after having slain and driven out the native inhabitants, they remained for many years, keeping our people, whom they had carried into captivity, as slaves. "and in this land of sand, it is said, they did many wonderful works. "they had been astonished at the sight of the great mountains which surrounded our valley, for on mars there are no mountains, and after they came into the land of sand they built there, with huge blocks of stone, mountains in imitation of what they had seen, and used them for purposes my people did not understand. "then, too, it is said they left there at the foot of these mountains that they had made a gigantic image of the great chief who led them in their conquest of our world." at this point in the story the heidelberg professor again broke in, fairly trembling with excitement: "gentlemen, gentlemen," he cried, "is it that you do not understand? this land of sand and of a wonderful fertilizing river--what can it be? gentleman, it is egypt! these mountains of rock that the martians have erected, what are they? gentlemen, they are the great mystery of the land of the nile, the pyramids. the gigantic statue of their leader that they at the foot of their artificial mountains have set up--gentlemen, what is that? it is the sphinx!" [illustration: _"gentlemen," exclaimed the professor, "these mountains of rock that the martians built are the pyramids of egypt. the gigantic statue of their leader is the great sphinx!"_] the professor's agitation was so great that he could not go on further. and indeed there was not one of us who did not fully share his excitement. to think that we should have come to the planet mars to solve one of the standing mysteries of the earth, which had puzzled mankind and defied all their efforts at solution for so many centuries! here, then, was the explanation of how those gigantic blocks that constitute the great pyramid of cheops had been swung to their lofty elevation. it was not the work of puny man, as many an engineer had declared that it could not be, but the work of these giants of mars. at length, our traditions say, a great pestilence broke out in the land of sand, and a partial vengeance was granted to us in the destruction of the larger number of our enemies. at last the giants who remained, fleeing before this scourge of the gods, used the mysterious means at their command, and, carrying our ancestors with them, returned to their own world, in which we have ever since lived. "then there are more of your people in mars?" said one of the professors. "alas, no," replied aina, her eyes filling with tears, "i alone am left." for a few minutes she was unable to speak. then she continued: "what fury possessed them i do not know, but not long ago an expedition departed from the planet, the purpose of which, as it was noised about over mars, was the conquest of a distant world. after a time a few survivors of that expedition returned. the story they told caused great excitement among our masters. they had been successful in their battles with the inhabitants of the world they had invaded, but as in the days of our forefathers, in the land of sand, a pestilence smote them, and but few survivors escaped. "not long after that, you, with your mysterious ships, appeared in the sky of mars. our masters studied you with their telescopes, and those who had returned from the unfortunate expedition declared that you were inhabitants of the world which they had invaded, come, doubtless, to take vengeance upon them. "some of my people who were permitted to look through the telescopes of the martians, saw you also, and recognized you as members of their own race. there were several thousand of us all together, and we were kept by the martians to serve them as slaves, and particularly to delight their ears with music, for our people have always been especially skillful in the playing of musical instruments, and in songs, and while the martians have but little musical skill themselves, they are exceedingly fond of these things. "although mars had completed not less than five thousand circuits about the sun since our ancestors were brought as prisoners to its surface, yet the memory of our distant home had never perished from the hearts of our race, and when we recognized you, as we believed, our own brothers, come to rescue us from long imprisonment, there was great rejoicing. the news spread from mouth to mouth, wherever we were in houses and families of our masters. we seemed to be powerless to aid you or to communicate with you in any manner. yet our hearts went out to you, as in your ships you hung above the planet, and preparations were secretly made by all the members of our race for your reception when, as we believed, would occur, you should effect a landing upon the planet and destroy our enemies. "but in some manner the fact that we had recognized you, and were preparing to welcome you, came to the ears of the martians." at this point the girl suddenly covered her eyes with her hands, shuddering and falling back in her seat. "oh, you do not know them as i do!" at length she exclaimed. "the monsters! their vengeance was too terrible! instantly the order went forth that we should all be butchered, and that awful command was executed!" "how, then, did you escape?" asked the heidelberg professor. aina seemed unable to speak for a while. finally mastering her emotion, she replied: "one of the chief officers of the martians wished me to remain alive. he, with his aides, carried me to one of the military depots of supplies, where i was found and rescued," and as she said this she turned toward colonel smith with a smile that reflected on his ruddy face and made it glow like a chinese lantern. "by god!" muttered colonel smith, "that was the fellow we blew into nothing! blast him, he got off too easy!" the remainder of aina's story may be briefly told. when colonel smith and i entered the mysterious building which, as it now proved, was not a storehouse belonging to a village, as we had supposed, but one of the military depots of the martians, the girl, on catching sight of us, immediately recognized us as belonging to the strange squadron in the sky. as such she felt that we must be her friends, and saw in us her only possible hope of escape. for that reason she had instantly thrown herself under our protection. this accounted for the singular confidence which she had manifested in us from the beginning. her wonderful story had so captivated our imaginations that for a long time after it was finished we could not recover from the spell. it was told over and over again, from mouth to mouth, and repeated from ship to ship, everywhere exciting the utmost astonishment. destiny seemed to have sent us on this expedition into space for the purpose of clearing off mysteries that had long puzzled the minds of men. when on the moon we had unexpectedly to ourselves settled the question that had been debated from the beginning of astronomical history of the former habitability of that globe. now, on mars, we had put to rest no less mysterious questions relating to the past history of our own planet. adelung, as the heidelberg professor asserted, had named the vale of cashmere, as the probable site of the garden of eden, and the place of origin of the human race, but later investigators had taken issue with this opinion and the question where the aryans originated on the earth had long been one of the most puzzling that science presented. this question seemed now to have been settled. aina had said that mars had completed , circuits about the sun since her people were brought to it as captives. one circuit of mars occupies days. more than years had therefore elapsed since the first invasion of the earth by the martians. another great mystery--that of the origin of those gigantic and inexplicable monuments, the great pyramids and the sphinx, on the banks of the nile, had also apparently been solved by us, although these egyptian wonders had been the furthest things from our thoughts when we set out for the planet mars. we had traveled more than thirty millions of miles in order to get answers to questions which could not be solved at home. but from these speculations and retrospects we were recalled by the commander of the expedition. "this is all very interesting and very romantic, gentlemen," he said, "but now let us get at the practical side of it. we have learned aina's language and heard her story. let us next ascertain whether she can not place in our hands some key which will place mars at our mercy. remember what we came here for, and remember that the earth expects every man of us to do his duty." this nelson-like summons again changed the current of our thoughts, and we instantly set to work to learn from aina if mars, like achilles, had not some vulnerable point where a blow would be mortal. chapter fourteen _the flood gates of mars_ it was a curious scene when the momentous interview which was to determine our fate and that of mars began. aina had been warned of what was coming. we in the flagship had all learned to speak her language with more or less ease, but it was deemed best that the heidelberg professor, assisted by one of his colleagues, should act as interpreter. the girl, flushed with excitement of the novel situation, fully appreciating the importance of what was about to occur, and looking more charming than before, stood at one side of the principal apartment. directly facing her were the interpreters, and the rest of us, all with ears intent and eyes focused upon aina, stood in a double row behind them. as heretofore, i am setting down her words translated into our own tongue, having taken only so much liberty as to connect the sentences into a stricter sequence than they had when falling from her lips in reply to the questions which were showered upon her. "you will never be victorious," she said, "if you attack them openly as you have been doing. they are too strong and too numerous. they are well prepared for such attacks, because they have had to resist them before. "they have waged war with the inhabitants of the asteroid ceres, whose people are giants greater than themselves. their enemies from ceres have attacked them here. hence these fortifications, with weapons pointing skyward, and the great air fleets which you have encountered." "but there must be some point," said mr. edison, "where we can." "yes, yes," interrupted the girl quickly, "there is one blow you can deal them which they could not withstand." "what is that?" eagerly inquired the commander. "you can drown them out." "how? with the canals?" "yes, i will explain to you. i have already told you, and, in fact, you must have seen for yourselves, that there are almost no mountains on mars. a very learned man of my race used to say that the reason was because mars is so very old a world that the mountains it once had have been almost completely leveled, and the entire surface of the planet had become a great plain. there are depressions, however, most of which are occupied by the seas. the greater part of the land lies below the level of the ocean. in order at the same time to irrigate the soil and make it fruitful, and to protect themselves from overflows by the ocean breaking in upon them, the martians have constructed the immense and innumerable canals which you see running in all directions over the continents. "there is one period in the year, and that period has now arrived when there is special danger of a great deluge. most of the oceans of mars lie in the southern hemisphere. when it is summer in that hemisphere, the great masses of ice and snow collected around the south pole melt rapidly away." "yes, that is so," broke in one of the astronomers, who was listening attentively. "many a time i have seen the vast snow fields around the southern pole of mars completely disappear as the summer sun rose high upon them." "with the melting of these snows," continued aina, "a rapid rise in the level of the water in the southern oceans occurs. on the side facing these oceans the continents of mars are sufficiently elevated to prevent an overflow, but nearer the equator the level of the land sinks lower. "with your telescopes you have no doubt noticed that there is a great bending sea connecting the oceans of the south with those of the north and running through the midst of the continents." "quite so," said the astronomer who had spoken before, "we call it the syrtis major." "that long narrow sea," aina went on, "forms a great channel through which the flood of waters caused by the melting of the southern polar snows flows swiftly toward the equator and then on toward the north until it reaches the sea basins which exist there. at that point it is rapidly turned into ice and snow, because, of course, while it is summer in the southern hemisphere it is winter in the northern. "the syrtis major (i am giving our name to the channel of communication in place of that by which the girl called it) is like a great safety valve, which, by permitting the waters to flow northward, saves the continents from inundation. "but when mid-summer arrives, the snows around the pole, having been completely melted away, the flood ceases and the water begins to recede. at this time, but for a device which the martians have employed, the canals connected with the oceans would run dry, and the vegetation left without moisture under the summer sun, would quickly perish. "to prevent this they have built a series of enormous gates extending completely across the syrtis major at its narrowest point (latitude degrees south). these gates are all controlled by machinery collected at a single point on the shore of the strait. as soon as the flood in the syrtis major begins to recede, the gates are closed, and, the water being thus restrained, the irrigating canals are kept full long enough to mature the harvests." "the clue! the clue at last!" exclaimed mr. edison. "that is the place where we shall nip them. if we can close those gates now at the moment of high tide we shall flood the country. did you say," he continued, turning to aina, "that the movement of the gates was all controlled from a single point?" "yes," said the girl. "there is a great building (power house) full of tremendous machinery which i once entered when my father was taken there by his master, and where i saw one martian, by turning a little handle, cause the great line of gates, stretching a hundred miles across the sea, to slowly shut in, edge to edge, until the flow of the water toward the north had been stopped." "how is the building protected?" "so completely," said aina, "that my only fear is that you may not be able to reach it. on account of the danger from their enemies on ceres, the martians have fortified it strongly on all sides, and have even surrounded it and covered it overhead with a great electrical network, to touch which would be instant death." "ah," said mr. edison, "they have got an electric shield, have they? well, i think we shall be able to manage that." "anyhow," he continued, "we have got to get into that power house, and we have got to close those gates, and we must not lose much time in making up our minds how it is to be done. evidently this is our only chance. we have not force enough to contend in open battle with the martians, but if we can flood them out, and thereby render the engines contained in their fortifications useless, perhaps we shall be able to deal with the airships, which will be all the means of defense that will then remain to them." this idea commended itself to all the leaders of the expedition. it was determined to make a reconnaissance at once. but it would not do for us to approach the planet too hastily, and we certainly could not think of landing upon it in broad daylight. still, as long as we were yet a considerable distance from mars, we felt that we should be safe from observation because so much time had elapsed while we were hidden behind deimos that the martians had undoubtedly concluded that we were no longer in existance. so we boldly quitted the little satellite with our entire squadron and once more rapidly approached the red planet of war. this time it was to be a death grapple and our chances of victory still seemed good. as soon as we arrived so near the planet that there was danger of our being actually seen, we took pains to keep continually in the shadow of mars, and the more surely to conceal our presence all lights upon the ships were extinguished. the precaution of the commander even went so far as to have the smooth metallic sides of the cars blackened over so that they should not reflect light, and thus become visible to the martians as shining specks, moving suspiciously among the stars. the precise location of the great power house on the shores of the syrtis major having been carefully ascertained, the squadron dropped down one night into the upper limits of the martian atmosphere, directly over the gulf. then a consultation was called on the flagship and a plan of campaign was quickly devised. it was deemed wise that the attempt should be made with a single electric ship, but that the others should be kept hovering near, ready to respond on the instant to any signal for aid which might come from below. it was thought that, notwithstanding the wonderful defences, which, according to aina's account surrounded the building, a small party would have a better chance of success than a large one. mr. edison was certain that the electrical network which was described as covering the power house would not prove a serious obstruction to us, because by carefully sweeping the space where we intended to pass with the disintegrators before quitting the ship, the netting could be sufficiently cleared away to give us uninterrupted passage. at first the intention was to have twenty men, each armed with two disintegrators (that being the largest number one person could carry to advantage) descend from the electrical ship and make the venture. but, after further discussion, this number was reduced; first to a dozen, and finally, to only four. these four consisted of mr. edison, colonel smith, mr. sydney phillips and myself. both by her own request and because we could not help feeling that her knowledge of the locality would be indispensable to us, aina was also included in our party, but not, of course, as a fighting member of it. it was about an hour after midnight when the ship in which we were to make the venture parted from the remainder of the squadron and dropped cautiously down. the blaze of electric lights running away in various directions indicated the lines of innumerable canals with habitations crowded along their banks, which came to a focus at a point on the continent of aeria, westward from the syrtis major. we stopped the electrical ship at an elevation of perhaps three hundred feet above the vast roof of a structure which aina assured us was the building of which we were in search. here we remained for a few minutes, cautiously reconnoitering. on that side of the power house which was opposite to the shore of the syrtis major there was a thick grove of trees, lighted beneath, as was apparent from the illumination which here and there streamed up through the cover of leaves, but, nevertheless, dark and gloomy above the tree tops. "the electric network extends over the grove as well as over the building," said aina. this was lucky for us, because we wished to descend among the trees, and, by destroying part of the network over the tree tops, we could reach the shelter we desired and at the same time pass within the line of electric defenses. with increased caution, and almost holding our breath lest we should make some noise that might reach the ears of the sentinels below, we caused the car to settle gently down until we caught sight of a metallic net stretched in the air between us and the trees. after our first encounter with the martians on the asteroid, where, as i have related, some metal which was included in their dress resisted the action of the disintegrators, mr. edison had readjusted the range of vibrations covered by the instruments, and since then we had found nothing that did not yield to them. consequently, we had no fear that the metal of the network would not be destroyed. there was danger, however, of arousing attention by shattering holes through the tree tops. this could be avoided by first carefully ascertaining how far away the network was and then with the adjustable mirrors attached to the disintegrators focusing the vibratory discharge at that distance. so successful were we that we opened a considerable gap in the network without doing any perceptible damage to the trees beneath. the ship was cautiously lowered through the opening and brought to rest among the upper branches of one of the tallest trees. colonel smith, mr. phillips, mr. edison and myself at once clambered out upon a strong limb. for a moment i feared our arrival had been betrayed on account of the altogether too noisy contest that arose between colonel smith and mr. phillips as to which of them should assist aina. to settle the dispute i took charge of her myself. at length we were all safely in the tree. then followed the still more dangerous undertaking of descending from this great height to the ground. fortunately, the branches were very close together and they extended down within a short distance of the soil. so the actual difficulties of the descent were not very great after all. the one thing that we had particularly to bear in mind was the absolute necessity of making no noise. at length the descent was successfully accomplished, and we all five stood together in the shadow at the foot of the great tree. the grove was so thick around that while there was an abundance of electric lights among the trees, their illumination did not fall upon us where we stood. peering cautiously through the vistas in various directions, we ascertained our location with respect to the wall of the building. like all the structures which we had seen on mars, it was composed of polished red metal. "where is the entrance?" inquired mr. edison, in a whisper. "come softly this way, and look out for the sentinel," replied aina. gripping our disintegrators firmly, and screwing up our courage, with noiseless steps we followed the girl among the shadows of the trees. we had one-very great advantage. the martians had evidently placed so much confidence in the electric network which surrounded the power house that they never dreamed of enemies being able to penetrate it--at least, without giving warning of their coming. but the hole which we had blown in this network with the disintegrators had been made noiselessly, and mr. edison believed, since no enemies had appeared, that our operations had not been betrayed by any automatic signal to watchers inside the building. consequently, we had every reason to think that we now stood within the line of defense, in which they reposed the greatest confidence, without their having the least suspicion of our presence. aina assured us that on the occasion of her former visit to the power house there had been but two sentinels on guard at the entrance. at the inner end of a long passage leading to the interior, she said, there were two more. besides these there were three or four martian engineers watching the machinery in the interior of the building. a number of airships were supposed to be on guard around the structure, but possibly their vigilance had been relaxed, because not long ago the martians had sent an expedition against ceres which had been so successful that the power of that planet to make any attack upon mars had, for the present been destroyed. supposing us to have been annihilated in the recent battle among the clouds, they would have no fear or cause for vigilance on our account. the entrance to the great structure was low--at least, when measured by the stature of the martians. evidently the intention was that only one person at a time should find room to pass through it. drawing cautiously near, we discerned the outlines of two gigantic forms, standing in the darkness, one on either side of the door. colonel smith whispered to me: "if you will take the fellow on the right, i will attend to the other one." adjusting our aim as carefully as was possible in the gloom, colonel smith and i simultaneously discharged our disintegrators, sweeping them rapidly up and down in the manner which had become familiar to us when endeavoring to destroy one of the gigantic martians with a single stroke. and so successful were we that the two sentinels disappeared as if they were ghosts of the night. instantly we all hurried forward and entered the door. before us extended a long, straight passage, brightly illuminated by a number of electric candles. its polished sides gleamed with blood-red reflections, and the gallery terminated, at a distance of two or three hundred feet, with an opening into a large chamber beyond, on the further side of which we could see part of a gigantic and complicated mass of machinery. making as little noise as possible, we pushed ahead along the passage, but when we had arrived within the distance of a dozen paces from the inner end, we stopped, and colonel smith, getting down upon his knees, crept forward, until he had reached the inner end of the passage. there he peered cautiously around the edge into the chamber, and, turning his head a moment later, beckoned us to come forward. we crept to his side, and, looking out into the vast apartment, could perceive no enemies. what had become of the sentinels supposed to stand at the inner end the passage we could not imagine. at any rate, they were not at their posts. the chamber was an immense square room at least a hundred feet in height and feet on a side, and almost filling the wall opposite to us was an intricate display of machinery, wheels, levers, rods and polished plates. this we had no doubt was one end of the engine which opened and shut the great gates that could dam an ocean. "there is no one in sight," said colonel smith. "then we must act quickly," said mr. edison. "where," he said, turning to aina, "is the handle by turning which you saw the martian close the gates?" aina looked about in bewilderment. the mechanism before us was so complicated that even an expert mechanic would have been excusable for finding himself unable to understand it. there were scores of knobs and handles, all glistening in the electric light, any one of which, so far as the uninstructed could tell, might have been the master key that controlled the whole complex apparatus. "quick," said mr. edison, "where is it?" the girl in her confusion ran this way and that, gazing hopelessly upon the machinery, but evidently utterly unable to help us. to remain here inactive was not merely to invite destruction for ourselves, but was sure to bring certain failure upon the purpose of the expedition. all of us began instantly to look about in search of the proper handle, seizing every crank and wheel in sight and striving to turn it. "stop that!" shouted mr. edison, "you may set the whole thing wrong. don't touch anything until we have found the right lever." but to find that seemed to most of us now utterly beyond the power of man. it was at this critical moment that the wonderful depth and reach of mr. edison's mechanical genius displayed itself. he stepped back, ran his eyes quickly over the whole immense mass of wheels, handles, bolts, bars and levers, paused for an instant, as if making up his mind, then said decidedly, "there it is," and stepping quickly forward, selected a small wheel amid a dozen others, all furnished at the circumference with handles like those of a pilot's wheel, and giving it a quick wrench, turned it half-way around. at this instant, a startling shout fell upon our ears. there was a thunderous clatter behind us, and, turning, we saw three gigantic martians rushing forward. chapter fifteen _vengeance is ours_ "sweep them! sweep them!" shouted colonel smith, as he brought his disintegrator to bear. mr. phillips and i instantly followed his example, and thus we swept the martians into eternity, while mr. edison coolly continued his manipulations of the wheel. the effect of what he was doing became apparent in less than half a minute. a shiver ran through the mass of machinery and shook the entire building. "look! look!" cried sydney phillips, who had stepped a little apart from the others. we all ran to his side and found ourselves in front of a great window which opened through the side of the engine, giving a view of what lay in front of it. there, gleaming in the electric lights, we saw syrtis major, its waters washing high against the walls of the vast power house. running directly out from the shore, there was an immense metallic gate at least yards in length and rising three hundred feet above the present level of the water. this great gate was slowly swinging upon an invisible hinge in such a manner that in a few minutes it would evidently stand across the current of the syrtis major at right angles. beyond was a second gate, which was moving in the same manner. further on was a third gate, and then another, and another, as far as the eye could reach, evidently extending in an unbroken series completely across the great strait. as the gates, with accelerated motion when the current caught them, clanged together, we beheld a spectacle that almost stopped the beating of our hearts. the great syrtis seemed to gather itself for a moment, and then it leaped upon the obstruction and buried its waters into one vast foaming geyser that seemed to shoot a thousand feet skyward. but the metal gates withstood the shock, though buried from our sight in the seething white mass, and the baffled waters instantly swirled around in ten thousand gigantic eddies, rising to the level of our window and beginning to inundate the power house before we fairly comprehended our peril. "we have done the work," said mr. edison, smiling grimly. "now we had better get out of this before the flood bursts upon us." the warning came none too soon. it was necessary to act upon it at once if we would save our lives. even before we could reach the entrance to the long passage through which we had come into the great engine room, the water had risen half-way to our knees. colonel smith, catching aina under his arm, led the way. the roar of the maddened torrent behind deafened us. as we ran through the passage the water followed us, with a wicked swishing sound, and within five seconds it was above our knees; in ten seconds up to our waists. the great danger now was that we should be swept from our feet, and once down in that torrent there would have been little chance of our ever getting our heads above its level. supporting ourselves as best we could with the aid of the walls, we partly ran, and were partly swept along, until when we reached the outer end of the passage and emerged into the open air, the flood was swirling about our shoulders. here there was an opportunity to clutch some of the ornamental work surrounding the doorway, and thus we managed to stay our mad progress, and gradually to work out of the current until we found that the water, having now an abundance of room to spread, had fallen again as low as our knees. but suddenly we heard the thunder of the banks tumbling behind us, and to the right and left, and the savage growl of the released water as it sprang through the breaches. to my dying day, i think, i shall not forget the sight of a great fluid column that burst through the dike at the edge of the grove of trees, and, by the tremendous impetus of its rush, seemed turned into a solid thing. like an enormous ram, it plowed the soil to a depth of twenty feet, uprooting acres of the immense trees like stubble turned over by the plowshare. the uproar was so awful that for an instant the coolest of us lost our self-control. yet we knew that we had not the fraction of a second to waste. the breaking of the banks had caused the water again rapidly to rise about us. in a little while it was once more as high as our waists. in the excitement and confusion, deafened by the noise and blinded by the flying foam, we were in danger of becoming separated in the flood. we no longer knew certainly in what direction was the tree by whose aid we had ascended from the electrical ship. we pushed first one way and then another, staggering through the rushing waters in search of it. finally we succeeded in locating it, and with all our strength hurried toward it. then there came a noise as if the globe of mars had been split asunder, and another great head of water hurled itself down upon the soil before us, and, without taking time to spread, bored a vast cavity in the ground, and scooped out the whole of the grove before our eyes as easily as a gardener lifts a sod with his spade. our last hope was gone. for a moment the level of the water around us sank again, as it poured into the immense excavation where the grove had stood, but in an instant it was reinforced from all sides and began once more rapidly to rise. we gave ourselves up for lost, and, indeed, there did not seem any possible hope of salvation. even in the extremity i saw colonel smith lifting the form of aina, who had fainted, above the surface of the surging water, while sydney phillips stood by his side and aided him in supporting the unconscious girl. "we stayed a little too long," was the only sound i heard from mr. edison. the huge bulk of the power house partially protected us against the force of the current, and the water spun us around in great eddies. these swept us this way and that, but yet we managed to cling together, determined not to be separated in death if we could avoid it. suddenly a cry rang out directly above our heads: "jump for your lives, and be quick!" at the same instant the ends of several ropes splashed into the water. we glanced upward, and there, within three or four yards of our heads, hung the electrical ship, which we had left moored at the top of the tree. tom, the expert electrician from mr. edison's shop, who had remained in charge of the ship, had never once dreamed of such a thing as deserting us. the moment he saw the water bursting over the dam, and evidently flooding the building which we had entered, he cast off his moorings, as we subsequently learned, and hovered over the entrance to the power house, getting as low down as possible and keeping a sharp watch for us. but most of the electric lights in the vicinity had been carried down by the first rush of water, and in the darkness he did not see us when we emerged from the entrance. it was only after the sweeping away of the grove of trees had allowed a flood of light to stream upon the scene from a cluster of electric lamps on a distant portion of the bank on the syrtis that had not yet given way that he caught sight of us. immediately he began to shout to attract our attention, but in the awful uproar we could not hear him. getting together all the ropes that he could lay his hands on, he steered the ship to a point directly over us, and then dropped down within a few yards of the boiling flood. now as he hung over our heads, and saw the water up to our very necks and still swiftly rising, he shouted again: "catch hold, for god's sake!" the three men who were with him in the ship seconded his cries. but by the time we had fairly grasped the ropes, so rapidly was the flood rising, we were already afloat. with the assistance of tom and his men we were rapidly drawn up, and immediately tom reversed the electric polarity, and the ship began to rise. at that same instant, with a crash that shivered the air, the immense metallic power house gave way and was swept tumbling, like a hill torn loose from its base, over the very spot where a moment before we had stood. one second's hesitation on the part of tom, and the electrical ship would have been battered into a shapeless wad of metal by the careening mass. when we had attained a considerable height, so that we could see a great distance on either side, the spectacle became even more fearful than it was when we were close to the surface. on all sides banks and dykes were going down; trees were being uprooted; buildings were tumbling, and the ocean was achieving that victory over the land which had long been its due, but which the ingenuity of the inhabitants of mars had postponed for ages. far away we could see the front of the advancing wave crested with foam that sparkled in the electric lights, and as it swept on it changed the entire aspect of the planet--in front of it all life, behind it all death. eastward our view extended across the syrtis major toward the land of libya and the region of isidis. on that side also the dykes were giving way under the tremendous pressure, and the floods were rushing toward the sunrise, which had just began to streak the eastern sky. the continents that were being overwhelmed on the western side of the syrtis were meroc, aeria, arabia, edom and eden. the water beneath us continually deepened. the current from the melting snows around the southern pole was at its strongest, and one could hardly have believed that any obstruction put in its path would have been able to arrest it and turn it into these two all-swallowing deluges, sweeping east and west. but, as we now perceived, the level of the land over a large part of its surface was hundreds of feet below the ocean, so that the latter, when once the barriers were broken, rushed into depressions that yawned to receive it. the point where we had dealt our blow was far removed from the great capitol of mars, around the lake of the sun, and we knew that we should have to wait for the floods to reach that point before the desired effect could be produced. by the nearest way, the water had at least , miles to travel. we estimated that its speed where we hung above it was as much as a hundred miles an hour. even if that speed were maintained, more than two days and nights would be required for the floods to reach the lake of the sun. but as the water rushed on it would break the banks of all the canals intersecting the country, and these, being also elevated above the surface, would add the impetus of their escaping waters to hasten the advance of the flood. we calculated, therefore, that about two days would suffice to place the planet at our mercy. half way from the syrtis major to the lake of the sun another great connecting link between the southern and northern ocean basins, called on our maps of mars the indus, existed, and through this channel we knew that another great current must be setting from the south toward the north. the flood that we had started would reach and break the banks of the indus within one day. the flood traveling in the other direction, toward the east, would have considerably further to go before reaching the neighborhood of the lake of the sun. it, too, would involve hundreds of great canals as it advanced and would come plunging upon the lake of the sun and its surrounding forts and cities, probably about half a day later than the arrival of the deluge that traveled toward the west. now that we had let the awful destroyer loose we almost shrank from the thought of the consequences which we had produced. how many millions would perish as the result of our deed we could not even guess. many of the victims, so far as we knew, might be entirely innocent of enmity toward us, or of the evil which had been done to our native planet. but this was a case in which the good--if they existed--must suffer with the bad on account of the wicked deeds of the latter. i have already remarked that the continents of mars were higher on their northern and southern borders where they faced the great oceans. these natural barriers bore to the main mass of land somewhat the relation of the edge of a shallow dish to its bottom. their rise on the land side was too gradual to give them the appearance of hills, but on the side toward the sea they broke down in steep banks and cliffs several hundred feet in height. we guessed that it would be in the direction of these elevations that the inhabitants would flee, and those who had timely warning might thus be able to escape in case the flood did not--as it seemed possible it might in its first mad rush--overtop the highest elevations on mars. as day broke and the sun slowly rose upon the dreadful scene beneath us, we began to catch sight of some of the fleeing inhabitants. we had shifted the position of the fleet toward the south, and were now suspended above the southeastern corner of aeria. here a high bank of reddish rock confronted the sea, whose waters ran lashing and roaring along the bluffs to supply the rapid drought produced by the emptying of syrtis major. along the shore there was a narrow line of land, hundreds of miles in length, but less than a quarter of a mile broad, which still rose slightly above the surface of the water, and this land of refuge was absolutely packed with the monstrous inhabitants of the planet who had fled hither on the first warning that the water was coming. in some places it was so crowded that the later comers could not find standing ground on dry land, but were continually slipping back and falling into the water. it was an awful sight to look at them. it reminded me of pictures i had seen of the deluge in the days of noah, when the waters had risen to the mountain tops, and men, women and children were fighting for a foothold upon the last dry spots the earth contained. we were all moved by a desire to help our enemies, for we were overwhelmed with feelings of pity and remorse, but to aid them was now utterly beyond our power. the mighty floods were out, and the end was in the hands of god. fortunately, we had little time for these thoughts, because no sooner had the day begun to dawn around us than the airships of the martians appeared. evidently the people in them were dazed by the disaster and uncertain what to do. it is doubtful whether at first they comprehended the fact that we were the agents who had produced the cataclysm. but as the morning advanced the airships came flocking in greater and greater numbers from every direction, many swooping down close to the flood in order to rescue those who were drowning. hundreds gathered along the slip of land which was crowded as i have described, with refugees, while other hundreds rapidly assembled about us, evidently preparing for an attack. we had learned in our previous contests with the airships of the martians that our electrical ships had a great advantage over them, not merely in rapidity and facility of movement, but in the fact that our disintegrators could sweep in every direction, while it was only with much difficulty that the martian airships could discharge their electrical strokes at an enemy poised directly above their heads. accordingly, orders were instantly flashed to all the squadrons to rise vertically to an elevation so great that the rarity of the atmosphere would prevent the airships from attaining the same level. this maneuver was executed so quickly that the martians were unable to deal us a blow before we were poised above them in such a position that they could not easily reach us. still they did not mean to give up the conflict. presently we saw one of the largest of their ships maneuvering in a very peculiar manner, the purpose of which we did not at first comprehend. its forward portion commenced slowly to rise, until it pointed upward like the nose of a fish approaching the surface of the water. the moment it was in this position, an electrical bolt was darted from its prow, and one of our ships received a shock which, although it did not prove fatal to the vessel itself, killed two or three men aboard it, disarranged its apparatus, and rendered it for the time being useless. "ah, that's their trick, is it?" said mr. edison. "we must look out for that. whenever you see one of the airships beginning to stick its nose up after that fashion blaze away at it." an order to this effect was transmitted throughout the squadron. at the same time several of the most powerful disintegrators were directed upon the ship which had executed the stratagem and, reduced to a wreck, it dropped, whirling like a broken kite until it fell into the flood beneath. still the martian ships came flocking in ever greater numbers from all directions. they made desperate attempts to attain the level at which we hung above them. this was impossible, but many, getting an impetus by a swift run in the denser portion of the atmosphere beneath, succeeded in rising so high that they could discharge their electric artillery with considerable effect. others, with more or less success, repeated the maneuver of the ship which had first attacked us, and thus the battle gradually became more general and more fierce, until, in the course of an hour or two, our squadron found itself engaged with probably a thousand airships, which blazed with incessant lightning strokes, and were able, all too frequently, to do us serious damage. but on our part the battle was waged with a cool determination and a consciousness of insuperable advantage which boded ill for the enemy. only three or four of our sixty electrical ships were seriously damaged, while the work of the disintegrators upon the crowded fleet that floated beneath us was terrible to look upon. our strokes fell thick and fast on all sides. it was like firing into a flock of birds that could not get away. notwithstanding all their efforts they were practically at our mercy. shattered into unrecognizable fragments, hundreds of the airships continually dropped from their great height to be swallowed up in the boiling waters. yet they were game to the last. they made every effort to get at us, and in their frenzy they seemed to discharge their bolts without much regard to whether friends or foes were injured. our eyes were nearly blinded by the ceaseless glare beneath us, and the uproar was indescribable. at length, after this fearful contest had lasted for at least three hours, it became evident that the strength of the enemy was rapidly weakening. nearly the whole of their immense fleet of airships had been destroyed, or so far damaged that they were barely able to float. just so long, however, as they showed signs of resistance we continued to pour our merciless fire upon them, and the signal to cease was not given until the airships, which had escaped serious damage began to flee in every direction. "thank god, the thing is over," said mr. edison. "we have got the victory at last, but how we shall make use of it is something that at present i do not see." "but will they not renew the attack?" asked someone. "i do not think they can," was the reply. "we have destroyed the very flower of their fleet." "and better than that," said colonel smith, "we have destroyed their clan; we have made them afraid. their discipline is gone." but this was only the beginning of our victory. the floods below were achieving a still greater triumph, and now that we had conquered the airships we dropped within a few hundred feet of the surface of the water and then turned our faces westward in order to follow the advance of the deluge and see whether, as we hoped, it would overwhelm our enemies in the very center of their power. in a little while we had overtaken the first wave, which was still devouring everything. we saw it bursting the banks of the canal, sweeping away forests of gigantic trees, and swallowing cities and villages, leaving nothing but a broad expanse of swirling and eddying waters, which, in consequence of the prevailing red hue of the vegetation and the soil, looked, as shuddering we gazed down upon it, like an ocean of blood flecked with foam and steaming with the escaping life of the planet from whose veins it gushed. as we skirted the southern borders of the continent the same dreadful scenes which we had beheld on the coast of aeria presented themselves. crowds of refugees thronged the high borders of the land and struggled with one another for a foothold against the continually rising flood. we saw, too, flitting in every direction, but rapidly fleeing before our approach, many airships, evidently crowded with martians, but not armed either for offense or defense. these, of course, we did not disturb, for merciless as our proceedings seemed even to ourselves, we had no intention of making war upon the innocent, or upon those who had no means to resist. what we had done it had seemed to us necessary to do, but henceforth we were resolved to take no more lives if it could be avoided. thus, during the remainder of that day, all of the following night and all of the next day, we continued upon the heels of the advancing flood. chapter sixteen _the woman from ceres_ the second night we could perceive ahead of us the electric lights covering the land of thaumasia, in the midst of which lay the lake of the sun. the flood would be upon it by daybreak, and, assuming that the demoralization produced by the news of the coming of the waters, which we were aware had hours before been flashed to the capitol of mars, would prevent the martians from effectively manning their forts, we thought it safe to hasten on with the flagship, and one or two others, in advance of the waters, and to hover over the lake of the sun, in the darkness, in order that we might watch the deluge perform its awful work in the morning. thaumasia, as we have before remarked, was a broad, oval-shaped land, about , miles across, having the lake of the sun exactly in its center. from this lake, which was four or five hundred miles in diameter, and circular in outline, many canals radiated, as straight as the spokes of a wheel, in every direction, and connected it with the surrounding seas. like all the other martian continents, thaumasia lay below the level of the sea, except toward the south, where it fronted the ocean. completely surrounding the lake was a great ring of cities constituting the capitol of mars. here the genius of the martians had displayed itself to the full. the surrounding country was irrigated until it fairly bloomed with gigantic vegetation and flowers; the canals were carefully regulated with locks so that the supply of water was under complete control; the display of magnificent metallic buildings of all kinds and sizes produced a most dazzling effect, and the protection against enemies afforded by the innumerable fortifications surrounding the ringed city, and guarding the neighboring lands, seemed complete. suspended at a height of perhaps two miles from the surface, near the southern edge of the lake, we waited for the oncoming flood. with the dawn of day we began to perceive more clearly the effects which the news of the drowning of the planet had produced. it was evident that many of the inhabitants of the cities had already fled. airships on which the fugitives hung as thick as swarms of bees were seen, elevated but a short distance above the ground, and making their way rapidly toward the south. the martians knew that their only hope of escape lay in reaching the high southern border of the land before the floods were upon them. but they must have known also that that narrow beach would not suffice to contain one in ten of those who sought refuge there. the density of the population around the lake of the sun seemed to us incredible. again our hearts sank within us at the sight of the fearful destruction of life for which we were responsible. yet we comforted ourselves with the reflection that it was unavoidable. as colonel smith put it: "you couldn't trust these coyotes. the only thing to do was to drown them out. i am sorry for them, but i guess there will be as many left as will be good for us, anyhow." we had not long to wait for the flood. as the dawn began to streak the east, we saw its awful crest moving out of the darkness, bursting across the canals and plowing its way into the direction of the crowded shores of the lake of the sun. the supply of water behind that great wave seemed inexhaustible. five thousand miles it had traveled, and yet its power was as great as when it started from the syrtis major. we caught sight of the oncoming water before it was visible to the martians beneath us. but while it was yet many miles away, the roar of it reached them, and then arose a chorus of terrified cries, the effect of which, coming to our ears out of the half gloom of the morning, was most uncanny and horrible. thousands upon thousands of the martians still remained here to become victims of the deluge. some, perhaps, had doubted the truth of the reports that the banks were down and the floods were out; others, for one reason or another had been unable to get away; others, like the inhabitants of pompeii, had lingered too long, or had returned after beginning their flight to secure abandoned treasures, and now it was too late to get away. with a roar that shook the planet the white wall rushed upon the great city beneath our feet, and in an instant it had been engulfed. on went the flood, swallowing up the lake of the sun itself, and in a little while, as far as our eyes could range, the land of thaumasia had been turned into a raging sea. we now turned our ships toward the southern border of the land, following the direction of the airships carrying the fugitives, a few of which were still navigating the atmosphere a mile beneath us. in their excitement and terror the martians paid little attention to us, although, as the morning brightened, they must have been aware of our presence over their heads. but, apparently, they no longer thought of resistance; their only object was escape from the immediate and appalling danger. when we had progressed to a point about half way from the lake of the sun to the border of the sea, having dropped down within a few hundred feet of the surface, there suddenly appeared, in the midst of the raging waters, a sight so remarkable that at first i rubbed my eyes in astonishment, not crediting their report of what they beheld. standing on the apex of a sandy elevation, which still rose a few feet above the gathering flood, was a figure of a woman, as perfect in form and in classic beauty of feature as the venus of milo--a magnified human being not less than forty feet in height! but for her swaying and the wild motions of her arms, we should have mistaken her for a marble statue. aina, who happened to be looking, instantly exclaimed: "it is the woman from ceres. she was taken prisoner by the martians during their last invasion of that world, and since then has been a slave in the palace of the emperor." apparently her great stature had enabled her to escape, while her masters had been drowned. she had fled like the others, toward the south, but being finally surrounded by the rising waters, had taken refuge on the hillock of sand, where we saw her. this was fast giving way under the assault of the waves, and even while we watched the water rose to her knees. "drop lower," was the order of the electrical steersman of the flagship, and as quickly as possible we approached the place where the towering figure stood. she had realized the hopelessness of her situation, and quickly ceased those appalling and despairing gestures, which had at first served to convince us that it was indeed a living being on whom we were looking. there she stood, with a light, white garment thrown about her, erect, half-defiant, half yielding to her fear, more graceful than any greek statue, her arms outstretched, yet motionless, and her eyes upcast, as if praying to her god to protect her. her hair, which shone like gold in the increasing light of day, streamed over her shoulders, and her great eyes were astare between terror and supplication. so wildly beautiful a sight not one of us had ever beheld. for a moment sympathy was absorbed in admiration. then: "save her! save her!" was the cry that arose throughout the ship. ropes were instantly thrown out, and one or two men prepared to let themselves down in order better to aid her. but when we were almost within reach, and so close that we could see the very expression of her eyes, which appeared to take no note of us, but to be fixed, with a far away look upon something beyond human ken, suddenly the undermined bank on which she stood gave way, the blood red flood swirled in from right to left, and then: "the waters closed above her face with many a ring." "if but for that woman's sake, i am sorry we drowned the planet," exclaimed sydney phillips. but a moment afterward i saw that he regretted what he had said, for aina's eyes were fixed upon him. perhaps, however, she did not understand his remark, and perhaps if she did it gave her no offence. after this episode we pursued our way rapidly until we arrived at the shore of the southern ocean. there, as we had expected, was to be seen a narrow strip of land with the ocean on one side and the raging flood seeking to destroy it on the other. in some places it had already broken through, so that the ocean was flowing in to assist in the drowning of thaumasia. but some parts of the coast were evidently so elevated that no matter how high the flood might rise it would not completely cover them. here the fugitives had gathered in dense throngs and above them hovered most of the airships, loaded down with others who were unable to find room upon the dry land. on one of the loftiest and broadest of these elevations we noticed indications of military order in the alignment of the crowds and the shore all around was guarded by gigantic pickets, who mercilessly shoved back into the flood all the later comers, and thus prevented too great crowding upon the land. in the center of this elevation rose a palatial structure of red metal which aina informed us was one of the residences of the emperor, and we concluded that the monarch himself was now present there. the absence of any signs of resistance on the part of the airships, and the complete drowning of all of the formidable fortifications on the surface of the planet, convinced us that all we had to do in order to complete our conquest was to get possession of the person of the chief ruler. the fleet was, accordingly, concentrated, and we rapidly approached the great martian palace. as we came down within a hundred feet of them and boldly made our way among their airships, which retreated at our approach, the martians gazed at us with mingled fear and astonishment. we were their conquerors and they knew it. we were coming to demand their surrender, and they evidently understood that also. as we approached the palace signals were made from it with brilliant colored banners which aina informed us were intended as a token of truce. "we shall have to go down and have a confab with them, i suppose," said mr. edison. "we can't kill them off now that they are helpless, but we must manage somehow to make them understand that unconditional surrender is their only chance." "let us take aina with us," i suggested, "and since she can speak the language of the martians we shall probably have no difficulty in arriving at an understanding." accordingly the flagship was carefully brought further down in front of the entrance to the palace, which had been kept clear by the martian guards, and while the remainder of the squadron assembled within a few feet directly over our heads with the disintegrators turned upon the palace and the crowd below, mr. edison and myself, accompanied by aina, stepped out upon the ground. there was a forward movement in the immense crowd, but the guards sternly kept everybody back. a party of a dozen giants, preceded by one who seemed to be their commander, gorgeously attired in jewelled garments, advanced from the entrance of the palace to meet us. aina addressed a few words to the leader, who replied sternly, and then, beckoning us to follow, retraced his steps into the palace. notwithstanding our confidence that all resistance had ceased, we did not deem it wise actually to venture into the lion's den without having taken every precaution against a surprise. accordingly, before following the martian into the palace, we had twenty of the electrical ships moored around it in such a position that they commanded not only the entrance but all of the principal windows, and then a party of forty picked men, each doubly armed with powerful disintegrators, were selected to attend us into the building. this party was placed under the command of colonel smith, and sydney phillips insisted on being a member of it. in the meantime the martian with his attendants who had first invited us to enter, finding that we did not follow him, had returned to the front of the palace. he saw the disposition that we had made of our forces, and instantly comprehended its significance, for his manner changed somewhat, and he seemed more desirous than before to conciliate us. when he again beckoned us to enter, we unhesitatingly followed him, and passing through the magnificent entrance, found ourselves in a vast ante-chamber, adorned after the manner of the martians in the most expensive manner. thence we passed into a great circular apartment, with a dome painted in imitation of the sky, and so lofty that to our eyes it seemed like the firmament itself. here we found ourselves approaching an elevated throne situated in the center of the apartment, while long rows of brilliantly armored guards flanked us on either side, and grouped around the throne, some standing and others reclining upon the flights of steps which appeared to be of solid gold, was an array of martian woman, beautifully and becomingly attired, all of whom greatly astonished us by the singular charm of their faces and bearing, so different from the aspect of most of the martians whom we had encountered. despite their stature--for these women averaged twelve or thirteen feet in height--the beauty of their complexions--of a dark olive tint--was no less brilliant than that of the women of italy or spain. at the top of the steps on a magnificent golden throne, sat the emperor himself. there are some busts of caracalla which i have seen that are almost as ugly as the face of the martian ruler. he was of gigantic stature, larger than the majority of his subjects, and as near as i could judge must have been between fifteen and sixteen feet in height. as i looked at him i understood a remark which had been made by aina to the effect that the martians were not all alike, and that the peculiarities of their minds were imprinted on their faces and expressed in their forms in a very wonderful, and sometimes terrible manner. i had also learned from her that mars was under a military government, and that the military class had absolute control of the planet. i was somewhat startled, then, in looking at the head and center of the great military system of mars, to find in his appearance a striking conformation of the speculations of our terrestrial phrenologists. his broad, mis-shapen head bulged in those parts where they had placed the so-called organs of combativeness, destructiveness, etc. plainly, this was an effect of his training and education. his very brain had become a military engine; and the aspect of his face, the pitiless lines of his mouth and chin, the evil glare of his eyes, the attitude and carriage of his muscular body, all tended to complete the warlike ensemble. he was magnificently dressed in some vesture that had the luster of a polished plate of gold, and the suppleness of velvet. as we approached he fixed his immense, deep-set eyes sternly upon our faces. the contrast between his truly terrible countenance and the eve-like features of the women which surrounded his throne was as great as if satan after his fall had here re-enthroned himself in the midst of angels. mr. edison, colonel smith, sydney phillips, aina and myself advanced at the head of the procession, our guard following in close order behind us. it had been evident from the moment that we entered the palace that aina was regarded with aversion by all of the martians. even the women about the throne gazed scowlingly at her as we drew near. apparently, the bitterness of feeing which had led to the massacre of all of her race had not yet vanished. and, indeed, since the fact that she remained alive could have been known only to the martian who had abducted her and to his immediate companions, her reappearance with us must have been a great surprise to all those who now looked upon her. it was clear to me that the feeling aroused by her appearance was every moment becoming more intense. still, the thought of a violent outbreak did not occur to me, because our recent triumph had seemed so complete that i believed the martians would be awed by our presence, and would not undertake actually to injure the girl. i think we all had the same impression, but as the event proved, we were mistaken. suddenly one of the gigantic guards, as if actuated by a fit of ungovernable hatred, lifted his foot and kicked aina. with a loud shriek she fell to the floor. the blow was so unexpected that for a second we all stood riveted to the spot. then i saw colonel smith's face turn livid, and at the same instant heard the whirr of his disintegrator, while sydney phillips, forgetting the deadly instrument he carried in his hand, sprung madly toward the brute who had kicked aina, as if he intended to throttle him, colossus that he was. but colonel smith's aim, though instantaneously taken, as he had been accustomed to shoot on the plains, was true, and phillips, plunging madly forward, seemed wreathed in a faint blue mist--all that the disintegrator had left of the gigantic martian. who could adequately describe the scene that followed? i remember that the martian emperor sprang to his feet, looking tenfold more terrible than before. i remember that there instantly burst from the line of guards on either side crinkling beams of death-fire that seemed to sear the eyeballs. i saw a half a dozen of our men fall in heaps of ashes, and even at that terrible moment i had time to wonder that a single one of us remained alive. rather by instinct than in consequence of any order given, we formed ourselves in a hollow square, with aina lying apparently lifeless in the center, and then with gritted teeth we did our work. the lines of guards melted before the disintegrators like rows of snow men before a licking flame. the discharge of the lightning engines in the hands of the martians in that confined space made an uproar so tremendous that it seemed to pass the bounds of human sense. more of our men fell before their awful fire, and for the second time since our arrival on this deadful planet of war our annihilation seemed inevitable. but in a moment the whole scene changed. suddenly there was a discharge into the room which i knew came from one of the disintegrators of the electrical ships. it swept through the crowded throng like a destroying blast. instantly from another side, swished a second discharge, no less destructive, and this was quickly followed by a third. our ships were firing through the windows. almost at the same moment i saw the flagship, which had been moored in the air close to the entrance and floating only three or four feet above the ground, pushing its way through the gigantic doorway from the ante-room, with its great disintegrators pointed upon the crowd like the muzzles of a cruiser's guns. and now the martians saw that the contest was hopeless for them, and their mad struggle to get out of the range of the disintegrators and to escape from the death chamber was more appalling to look upon than anything that had yet occurred. [illustration: _"suddenly there was a discharge into the room which i knew came from one of the disintegrators of the electrical ships. it swept through the crowded throng like a destroying blast. it was a panic of giants!"_] it was a panic of giants. they trod one another under foot; they yelled and screamed in their terror; they tore each other with their claw-like fingers. they no longer thought of resistance. the battle spirit had been blown out of them by a breath of terror that shivered their marrow. still the pitiless disintegrators played upon them until mr. edison, making himself heard, now that the thunder of their engines had ceased to reverberate through the chamber, commanded that our fire should cease. in the meantime the armed martians outside the palace, hearing the uproar within, seeing our men pouring their fire through the windows, and supposing that we were guilty at once of treachery and assassination, had attempted an attack upon the electrical ships stationed round the building. but fortunately they had none of their larger engines at hand, and with their hand arms alone they had not been able to stand up against the disintegrators. they were blown away before the withering fire of the ships by the hundreds until, fleeing from destruction, they rushed madly, driving their unarmed companions before them into the seething waters of the flood close at hand. chapter seventeen _the fearful oaths of colonel smith_ through all this terrible contest the emperor of the martians had remained standing upon his throne, gazing at the awful spectacle, and not moving from the spot. neither he nor the frightened woman gathered upon the steps of the throne had been injured by the disintegrators. their immunity was due to the fact that the position and elevation of the throne were such that, it was not within the range of fire of the electrical ships which had poured their vibratory discharges through the windows, and we inside had only directed our fire toward the warriors who had attacked us. now that the struggle was over we turned our attention to aina. fortunately the girl had not been seriously injured and she was quickly restored to consciousness. had she been killed, we would have been practically helpless in attempting further negotiations, because the knowledge which we had acquired of the language of the martians from the prisoner captured on the golden asteroid, was not sufficient to meet the requirements of the occasion. when the martian monarch saw that we ceased the work of death, he sank upon his throne. there he remained, leaning his chin upon his two hands and staring straight before him like that terrible doomed creature who fascinates the eyes of every beholder standing in the sistine chapel and gazing at micheal angeleo's dreadful painting of "the last judgement." this wicked martian also felt that he was in the grasp of pitiless and irresistible fate, and that a punishment too well deserved, and from which there was no possible escape, now confronted him. there he remained in a hopelessness which almost compelled our sympathy, until aina had so far recovered that she was once more able to act as our interpreter. then we made short work of the negotiations. speaking through aina, the commander said: "you know who we are. we have come from the earth, which, by your command, was laid waste. our commission was not revenge, but self-protection. what we have done has been accomplished with that in view. you have just witnessed an example of our power, the exercise of which was not dictated by our wish, but compelled by the attack wantonly made upon a helpless member of our own race under our protection. "we have laid waste your planet, but it is simply a just retribution for what you did with ours. we are prepared to complete the destruction, leaving not a living being in this world of yours, or to grant you peace, at your choice. our condition of peace is simply this: all resistance must cease absolutely." "quite right," broke in colonel smith; "let the scorpion pull out his sting or we shall do it for him." "nothing that we could do now," continued the commander, "would in my opinion save you from ultimate destruction. the forces of nature which we have been compelled to let loose upon you will complete their own victory. but we do not wish, unnecessarily, to stain our hands further with your blood. we shall leave you in possession of your lives. preserve them if you can. but, in case the flood recedes before you have all perished from starvation, remember that you here take an oath, solemnly binding yourself and your descendants forever never again to make war upon the earth." "that's really the best we can do," said mr. edison, turning to us. "we can't possibly murder these people in cold blood. the probability is that the flood has hopelessly ruined all their engines of war. i do not believe that there is one chance in ten that the waters will drain off in time to enable them to get at their stores of provisions before they have perished from starvation." "it is my opinion," said lord kelvin, who had joined us (his pair of disintegrators hanging by his side, attached to a strap running over the back of his neck, very much as a farmer sometimes carries his big mittens), "it is my opinion that the flood will recede more rapidly than you think, and that the majority of these people will survive. but i quite agree with your merciful view of the matter. we must be guilty of no wanton destruction. probably more than nine-tenths of the inhabitants of mars have perished in the deluge. even if all the others survived ages would elapse before they could regain the power to injure us." i need not describe in detail how our propositions were received by the martian monarch. he knew, and his advisors, some of whom he had called in consultation, also knew, that everything was in our hands to do as we pleased. they readily agreed, therefore, that they would make no more resistance and that we and our electrical ships should be undisturbed while we remained upon mars. the monarch took the oath prescribed after the manner of his race; thus the business was completed. but through it all there had been a shadow of a sneer on the emperor's face which i did not like. but i said nothing. and now we began to think of our return home, and of the pleasure we should have in recounting our adventures to our friends on the earth, who undoubtedly were eagerly awaiting news from us. we knew that they had been watching mars with powerful telescopes, and we were also eager to learn how much they had seen and how much they had been able to guess of our proceedings. but a day or two at least would be required to overhaul the electrical ships and examine the state of our provisions. those which we had brought from the earth, it will be remembered, had been spoiled and we had been compelled to replace them from the compressed provisions found in the martian's storehouse. this compressed food had proved not only exceedingly agreeable to the taste, but very nourishing, and all of us had grown extremely fond of it. a new supply, however, would be needed in order to carry us back to the earth. at least sixty days would be required for the homeward journey, because we could hardly expect to start from mars with the same initial velocity which we had been able to generate on leaving home. in considering the matter of provisioning the fleet it finally became necessary to take an account of our losses. this was a thing that we had all shrunk from, because they had seemed to us almost too terrible to be borne. but now the facts had to be faced. out of the one hundred ships, carrying something more than two thousand souls, with which we had quitted the earth, there remained only fifty-five ships and men! all the others had been lost in our terrible encounters with the martians, and particularly in our first disastrous battle beneath the clouds. among the lost were many men whose names were famous upon the earth, and whose death would be widely deplored when the news of it was received upon their native planet. fortunately this number did not include any of those whom i have had occasion to mention in the course of this narrative. the venerable lord kelvin, who, notwithstanding his age, and his pacific disposition, proper to a man of science, had behaved with the courage and coolness of a veteran in every crisis; monsieur moissan, the eminent chemist; professor sylvanus p. thompson, and the heidelberg professor, to whom we all felt under special obligations because he had opened to our comprehension the charming lips of aina--all these had survived, and were about to return with us to the earth. it seemed to some of us almost heartless to deprive the martians who still remained alive of any of the provisions which they themselves would require to tide them over the long period which must elapse before the recession of the flood should enable them to discover the sites of their ruined homes, and to find the means of sustenance. but necessity was now our only law. we learned from aina that there must be stores of provisions in the neighborhood of the palace, because it was the custom of the martians to lay up such stores during the harvest time in each martian year in order to provide against the contingency of an extraordinary drought. it was not with very good grace that the martian emperor acceded to our demands that one of the storehouses should be opened, but resistance was useless and of course we had our way. the supplies of water which we brought from the earth, owing to a peculiar process invented by monsieur moissan, had been kept in exceedingly good condition, but they were now running low and it became necessary to replenish them also. this was easily done from the southern ocean, for on mars, since the levelling of the continental elevations, brought about many years ago, there is comparatively little salinity in the sea waters. while these preparations were going on lord kelvin and the other men of science entered with the utmost eagerness upon those studies, the prosecution of which had been the principal inducement leading them to embark on the expedition. but, almost all of the face of the planet being covered with the flood, there was comparatively little that they could do. much, however, could be learned with the aid of aina from the martians, now crowded on the land above the palace. the results of these discoveries will in due time appear, fully elaborated in learned and authoratative treatises prepared by these savants' themselves. i shall only call attention to one, which seemed to me very remarkable. i have already said that there were astonishing differences in the personal appearance of the martians evidently arising from differences of character and education, which had impressed themselves in the physical aspect of the individuals. we now learned that these differences were more completely the result of education than we had at first supposed. looking about among the martians by whom we were surrounded, it soon became easy for us to tell who were the soldiers and who were the civilians, simply by the appearance of their bodies, and particularly of their heads. all members of the military class resembled, to a greater or less extent, the monarch himself, in that those parts of their skulls which our phrenologists had designated as the bumps of destructiveness, combativeness and so on were enormously and disproportionately developed. and all this, we were assured, was completely under the control of the martians themselves. they had learned, or invented, methods by which the brain itself could be manipulated, so to speak, and any desired portions of it could be especially developed, while other parts of it were left to their normal growth. the consequence was that in the martian schools and colleges there was no teaching in our sense of the word. it was all brain culture. a martian youth selected to be a soldier had his fighting faculties especially developed, together with those parts of the brain which impart courage and steadiness of nerve. he who was intended for scientific investigation had his brain developed into a mathematical machine, or an instrument of observation. poets and literary men had their heads bulging with the imaginative faculties. the heads of the inventors were developed into a still different shape. "and so," said aina, translating for us the words of a professor in the imperial university of mars, from whom we derived the greater part of our information on this subject, "the martian boys do not study a subject; they do not have to learn it, but, when their brains have been sufficiently developed in the proper direction, they comprehend it instantly, by a kind of divine instinct." but among the women of mars, we saw none of these curious, and to our eyes, monstrous differences of development. while the men received, in addition to their special education, a broad general culture also, with the women there was no special education. it was all general in its character, yet thorough enough in that way. the consequence was that only female brains upon mars were entirely well balanced. this was the reason why we invariably found the martian women to be remarkably charming creatures, with none of those physical exaggerations and uncouth developments which disfigured their masculine companions. all the books of the martians, we ascertained, were books of history and of poetry. for scientific treatises they had no need, because, as i have explained, when the brains of those intended for scientific pursuits had been developed in the proper way the knowledge of nature's laws came to them without effort, as a spring bubbles from the rocks. one word of explanation may be needed concerning the failure of the martians, with all their marvelous powers, to invent electrical ships like those of mr. edison's and engines of destruction comparable with our disintegrators. this failure was simply due to the fact that on mars there did not exist the peculiar metals by the combination of which mr. edison had been able to effect his wonders. the theory involved by our inventions was perfectly understood by them and had they possessed the means, doubtless they would have been able to carry it into practice even more effectively than we had done. after two or three days all the preparations having been completed the signal was given for our departure. the men of science were still unwilling to leave this strange world, but mr. edison decided we could linger no longer. at the moment of starting a most tragic event occured. our fleet was assembled around the palace, and the signal was given to rise slowly to a considerable height before imparting a great velocity to the electrical ships. as we slowly rose we saw the immense crowd of giants beneath us, with upturned faces, watching our departure. the martian monarch and all his suite had come out upon the terrace of the palace to look at us. at a moment when he probably supposed himself to be unwatched he shook his fist at the retreating fleet. my eyes and those of several others in the flagship chanced to be fixed upon him. just as he made the gesture one of the women of his suite, in her eagerness to watch us, apparently lost her balance and stumbled against him. without a moment's hesitation, with a tremendous blow, he felled her like an ox at his feet. a fearful oath broke from the lips of colonel smith, who was one of those looking on. it chanced that he stood near the principal disintegrator of the flagship. before anybody could interfere he had sighted and discharged it. the entire force of the terrible engine, almost capable of destroying a fort, fell upon the martian emperor and not merely blew him into a cloud of atoms but opened a great cavity in the ground on the spot where he had stood. a shout arose from the martians, but they were too much astounded at what had occurred to make any hostile demonstrations, and, anyhow, they knew well that they were completely at our mercy. mr. edison was on the point of rebuking colonel smith for what he had done, but aina interposed. "i am glad it was done," said she "for now only can you be safe. that monster was more directly responsible than any other inhabitant of mars for all the wickedness of which they have been guilty. "the expedition against the earth was inspired solely by him. there is a tradition among the martians--which my people, however, could never credit--that he possessed a kind of immortality. they declared that it was he who led the former expedition against the earth when my ancestors were brought away prisoners from their happy home, and that it was his image which they had set up in stone in the midst of the land of sand. he prolonged his existence, according to this legend, by drinking the waters of a wonderful fountain, the secret of whose precise location was known to him alone but which was situated at that point where in your maps of mars the name of the fons juventae occurs. he was personified wickedness, that i know; and he never would have kept his oath if power had returned to him again to injure the earth. in destroying him, you have made your victory secure." chapter eighteen _the great ovation_ when at length we once more saw our native planet, with its well-remembered features of land and sea, rolling beneath our eyes, the feeling of joy that came over us transcended all powers of expression. in order that all the nations which had united in sending out the expedition should have visual evidence of its triumphal return, it was decided to make the entire circuit of the earth before seeking our starting point and disembarking. brief accounts in all known languages, telling the story of what we had done was accordingly prepared, and then we dropped down through the air until again we saw the well-loved blue dome over our heads, and found ourselves suspended directly above the white topped cone of fujiyama, the sacred mountain of japan. shifting our position toward the northeast, we hung above the city of tokyo and dropped down into the crowds which had assembled to watch us, the prepared accounts of our journey, which, the moment they had been read and comprehended, led to such an outburst of rejoicing as it would be quite impossible to describe. one of the ships containing the japanese members of the expedition, dropped to the ground, and we left them in the midst of their rejoicing countrymen. before we started--and we remained but a short time suspended above the japanese capitol--millions had assembled to greet us with their cheers. we now repeated what we had done during our first examination of the surface of mars. we simply remained suspended in the atmosphere, allowing the earth to turn beneath us. as japan receded in the distance we found china beginning to appear. shifting our position a little toward the south, we again came to rest over the city of pekin, where once more we parted with some of our companions, and where the outburst of universal rejoicing was repeated. from asia, crossing the caspian sea, we passed over russia, visiting in turn moscow and st. petersburg. still the great globe rolled steadily beneath, and still we kept the sun with us. now germany appeared, and now italy, and then france, and england, as we shifted our position, first north then south, in order to give all the world the opportunity to see that its warriors had returned victorious from its far conquest. and in each country as it passed beneath our feet, we left some of the comrades who had shared our perils and our adventures. at length the atlantic had rolled away under us, and we saw the spires of the new new york. the news of our coming had been flashed ahead from europe and our countrymen were prepared to welcome us. we had originally started, it will be remembered, at midnight, and now again as we approached the new capitol of the world the curtain of night was just beginning to be drawn over it. but our signal lights were ablaze, and through these they were aware of our approach. again the air was filled with bursting rockets and shaken with the roar of cannon, and with volleying cheers, poured from millions of throats, as we came to rest directly above the city. three days after the landing of the fleet, and when the first enthusiasm of our reception had a little passed, i received a beautifully engraved card inviting me to be present in trinity church at the wedding of aina and sydney phillips. when i arrived at the church, which had been splendidly decorated, i found there mr. edison, lord kelvin, and all the other members of the crew of the flagship, and, considerably to my surprise, colonel smith, appropriately attired, and with a grace for the possession of which i had not given him credit, gave away the beautiful bride. but alonzo jefferson smith was a man and a soldier, every inch of him. "i asked her for myself," he whispered to me after the ceremony, swallowing a great lump in his throat, "but she has had the desire of her heart. i am going back to the plains. i can get a command again, and i still know how to fight." and thus was united, for all future time, the first stem of the aryan race, which had been long lost, but not destroyed, with the latest offspring of that great family, and the link which had served to bring them together was the far-away planet of mars. * * * * * _bibliography of garrett putman serviss_ compiled by elizabeth dew searles _non-fiction: magazine articles_ achievements of astronomical photography. outlook _ _, - (april , ) alexander graham bell. cosmopolitan _ _, - (may ) alpha centauri. harper's weekly _ _, (may , ) among the stars with an opera-glass. sidereal messenger _ _, - (may ) another theory about mars. harper's weekly _ _, - (may , ) arcturus, the greatest of all suns. scientific american _ _, (may , ) are there planets among the stars? popular science monthly _ _, - (december ) artificial creation of life. cosmopolitan _ _, - (september ) astronomy with an opera-glass: (this series was enlarged and published in book form; see the following section.) stars of spring. popular science monthly _ _, - (april ) stars of summer. ibid. _ _, - (june ) moon and the sun. ibid. _ _, - (august ) stars of autumn. ibid. _ _, - (november ) stars of winter. ibid. _ _, - (february ) astronomy in the th century. popular astronomy _ _, - (may ) auriga's wonderful star. harper's weekly _ _, (may , ) a belt of sun-spots. popular science monthly _ _, - (december ) can we always count upon the sun? popular science monthly _ _, - (september ) celebrated american astronomers. harper's weekly _ _, - (dec. , ) digging up cæsar's camp. harper's weekly _ _, - (dec. , ) the dimensions of the universe. chautaquan _ _, - (may ) edelweiss. nature magazine _ _, (july ) facts and fancies about mars. harper's weekly _ _, (sept. , ) from chaos to man; illustrated lecture in the urania scientific theater, at carnegie hall. scientific american _ _, , - (june , ) greenland's icy mountains. mentor _ _, - (february ) how burbank produces new flowers and fruit. cosmopolitan _ _, - (december ) is mars inhabited? harper's weekly _ _, (july , ) the kite principle in aerial navigation. scientific american _ _, (june , ) latest marvels of astronomy. mentor _ _, - (october ) luther burbank. chautaquan _ _, - (may ) new conquest of the heavens. cosmopolitan _ _, - (april ) new light on a lunar mystery. popular science monthly _ _, - (december ) new philosopher's stone. cosmopolitan _ _, - (may ) new shakespeare--bacon controversy. cosmopolitan _ _, - (march ) opposition of mars. harper's weekly _ _, (aug. , ) pleasures of the telescope: (cf. the book "_pleasures of the telescope_" listed in the following section.) the selection and testing of a glass. popular science monthly _ _, - (june ) in the starry heavens. ibid. _ _, - (january ) the starry heavens (cont'd). ibid. _ _, - (february ) virgo and her neighbors. ibid. _ _, - (april ) in summer starlands. ibid. _ _, - (june ) from lyra to eridanus. ibid. _ _, - (august ) pisces, aries, taurus, and the northern stars. ibid. _ _, - (october ) progress of science. cosmopolitan _ _, - (july ) recent magnetic storms and sun-spots. popular science monthly _ _, - (june ) riding through space. mentor _ _, - (november ) rome of the gravel walk. harper's weekly _ _, - (july , ) scenes on the planets. popular science monthly _ _, - (january ) the sky from pike's peak. astronomy and astrophysics _ _, - (february ) soaring flight. scientific american _ _, (april , ) solving the mystery of the stars. cosmopolitan _ _, - (august ) star streams and nebulæ. popular science monthly _ _, - (january ) strange markings on mars. popular science monthly _ _, - (may ) studies in astronomy. chautaquan _ _, - , - , - , - , - , - ; _ _, - , - , - (october -june ) the sun and his family. outlook _ _, - (march , ) transforming the world of plants. cosmopolitan _ _, - (november ) what a five-inch telescope will show. popular astronomy _ _, - (april ) what is astronomy? chautaquan _ _, - (february ) what is the music of the spheres? mentor _ _, - (december ) what the stars are made of. chautaquan _ _, - (april ) what we know about the planets. chautaquan _ _, - (february ) when shall we have another glacial epoch? publications of the astronomical society of the pacific , - (jan. , ) _non-fiction: books, pamphlets, etc._ astronomy in a nutshell, the chief facts and principles explained in popular language for the general reader and for schools. new york and london: g.p. putnam's sons, . xi, p. front., illus., plates, diagrs. cm. astronomy with an opera-glass: a popular introduction to the study of the starry heavens with the simplest of optical instruments, with maps and directions to facilitate the recognition of the constellations and the principal stars visible to the naked eye. new york and london: d. appleton and co., . vi, p. incl. illus., maps. cm. (enlarged from a series of articles in _popular science monthly_; see the preceding section.) astronomy with the naked eye; a new geography of the heavens, with descriptions and charts of constellations, stars, and planets. new york and london: harper and brothers, . xiii, (l)p., ., p., . illus., xiv charts ( double). cm. curiosities of the sky; a popular presentation of the great riddles and mysteries of astronomy. new york and london: harper & brothers, . xvi p., ., , ( ) p. incl. front., plates, charts. cm. the einstein theory of relativity ... with illustrations and photos taken directly from the einstein relativity film, illustrations by r. d. crandall. new york: e. m. fadman, inc., (c ). p. front., illus. cm. ----. london: american book supply, . p. cm. eloquence, counsel on the art of public speaking; with many illustrative examples showing the style and method of famous orators. new york and london: harper & brothers, . iv p., ., l p. front, (port.). - / cm. how to use the popular science library ... (and) history of science, by arthur selwyn-brown; general index. new york: p. f. collier & son co., (c ). p.l., - p. front., plates, ports. - / cm. (added t.-p.: popular science library, editor-in-chief, g. p. serviss, vol. xvi). the moon; a popular treatise. new york: d. appleton and co., . xii, p. front., illus., pl. cm. ----. london: d. appleton and co., . p. illus. cm. the moon _in_ frederick h. law (ed.), science in literature. new york: harper and brothers, . p. - . napoleon bonaparte _in_ thomas b. reed (ed.), modern eloquence. philadelphia: john d. morris and co., . vol. , p. - . other worlds; their nature, possibilities and habitability in the light of the latest discoveries. new york: d. appleton and co., . xv, p. front. (chart), illus., plates. - / cm. ----. london: hirschfeld brothers, . p. charts, illus. - / cm. pleasures of the telescope; an illustrated guide for amateur astronomers and a popular description of the chief wonders of the heavens for general readers. new york: d. appleton and co., . viii, p. illus. (incl. maps). cm. ----. london: hirschfeld brothers, . p. cm. round the year with the stars; the chief beauties of the starry heavens as seen with the naked eye ... with maps showing the aspect of the sky in each of the four seasons and charts revealing the outlines of the constellations. new york and london: harper & brothers, . , ( ) p., ., - , ( ) p. incl. charts. cm. solar and planetary evolution _in_ evolution; popular lectures and discussions before the brooklyn ethical association. boston: james h. west, . p. - ; discussion, p. - . the story of the moon; a description of the scenery of the lunar world as it would appear to a visitor spending a month on the moon ... illustrated with a complete series of photographs taken at the yerkes observatory. new york, london: d. appleton and co., (c ). xii, , ( ) p. front., illus., plates, diagrs. cm. (first published under the title: the moon) wonders of the lunar world, or a trip to the moon. (new york): publisher not given, c . p. / cm. (urania series. no.l) _fiction_ a columbus of space. new york and london: d. appleton and co., . vii p., ., , ( ) p. col. front., col. plates. cm. ----. all-story _ _, - , - , - , - ; , - , - (january-june ) ----. amazing stories _ _, - , - , - , - , (august-october ) edison's conquest of mars. new york evening journal, jan. -feb. , . the moon maiden. argosy _ _, - (may ) the moon metal. new york and london: harper & brothers, . p.l., , ( ) p. - / cm. ----. all-story _ _, - (may ) ----. amazing stories _ _, - , (july ) ----. famous fantastic mysteries _ _, - (november ). the second deluge. new york: mcbride, nast & co., . p.l., - p. front., plates. / cm. ----. london: grant richards, . p. / cm. ----. amazing stories _ _, - , - , - , - , - (november -february ). ----. amazing stories quarterly _ _, - (winter ). ----. cavalier _ _, - , - , - ; _ _, - , - , - , - (july -january ). the sky pirate. scrap book _ _, - , - , - ; _ _, - , - , - (april-september ). note: in addition to his books and magazine articles, garrett p. serviss wrote extensively for newspapers, having been a staff writer on the new york _sun_ at the beginning of his career and having written later for a newspaper syndicate. this bibliography does not include any of serviss' newspaper writings, with the exception of _edison's conquest of mars_, since the effort involved in compiling a list of his writings from so ephemeral a medium would not be warranted by the questionable completeness of such a list, much of his writing for newspapers having been anonymous. gulliver of mars by edwin l. arnold original title: lieut. gulliver jones chapter i dare i say it? dare i say that i, a plain, prosaic lieutenant in the republican service have done the incredible things here set out for the love of a woman--for a chimera in female shape; for a pale, vapid ghost of woman-loveliness? at times i tell myself i dare not: that you will laugh, and cast me aside as a fabricator; and then again i pick up my pen and collect the scattered pages, for i must write it--the pallid splendour of that thing i loved, and won, and lost is ever before me, and will not be forgotten. the tumult of the struggle into which that vision led me still throbs in my mind, the soft, lisping voices of the planet i ransacked for its sake and the roar of the destruction which followed me back from the quest drowns all other sounds in my ears! i must and will write--it relieves me; read and believe as you list. at the moment this story commences i was thinking of grilled steak and tomatoes--steak crisp and brown on both sides, and tomatoes red as a setting sun! much else though i have forgotten, that fact remains as clear as the last sight of a well-remembered shore in the mind of some wave-tossed traveller. and the occasion which produced that prosaic thought was a night well calculated to make one think of supper and fireside, though the one might be frugal and the other lonely, and as i, gulliver jones, the poor foresaid navy lieutenant, with the honoured stars of our republic on my collar, and an undeserved snub from those in authority rankling in my heart, picked my way homeward by a short cut through the dismalness of a new york slum i longed for steak and stout, slippers and a pipe, with all the pathetic keenness of a troubled soul. it was a wild, black kind of night, and the weirdness of it showed up as i passed from light to light or crossed the mouths of dim alleys leading heaven knows to what infernal dens of mystery and crime even in this latter-day city of ours. the moon was up as far as the church steeples; large vapoury clouds scudding across the sky between us and her, and a strong, gusty wind, laden with big raindrops snarled angrily round corners and sighed in the parapets like strange voices talking about things not of human interest. it made no difference to me, of course. new york in this year of grace is not the place for the supernatural be the time never so fit for witch-riding and the night wind in the chimney-stacks sound never so much like the last gurgling cries of throttled men. no! the world was very matter-of-fact, and particularly so to me, a poor younger son with five dollars in my purse by way of fortune, a packet of unpaid bills in my breastpocket, and round my neck a locket with a portrait therein of that dear buxom, freckled, stub-nosed girl away in a little southern seaport town whom i thought i loved with a magnificent affection. gods! i had not even touched the fringe of that affliction. thus sauntering along moodily, my chin on my chest and much too absorbed in reflection to have any nice appreciation of what was happening about me, i was crossing in front of a dilapidated block of houses, dating back nearly to the time of the pilgrim fathers, when i had a vague consciousness of something dark suddenly sweeping by me--a thing like a huge bat, or a solid shadow, if such a thing could be, and the next instant there was a thud and a bump, a bump again, a half-stifled cry, and then a hurried vision of some black carpeting that flapped and shook as though all the winds of eblis were in its folds, and then apparently disgorged from its inmost recesses a little man. before my first start of half-amused surprise was over i saw him by the flickering lamp-light clutch at space as he tried to steady himself, stumble on the slippery curb, and the next moment go down on the back of his head with a most ugly thud. now i was not destitute of feeling, though it had been my lot to see men die in many ways, and i ran over to that motionless form without an idea that anything but an ordinary accident had occurred. there he lay, silent and, as it turned out afterwards, dead as a door-nail, the strangest old fellow ever eyes looked upon, dressed in shabby sorrel-coloured clothes of antique cut, with a long grey beard upon his chin, pent-roof eyebrows, and a wizened complexion so puckered and tanned by exposure to heaven only knew what weathers that it was impossible to guess his nationality. i lifted him up out of the puddle of black blood in which he was lying, and his head dropped back over my arm as though it had been fixed to his body with string alone. there was neither heart-beat nor breath in him, and the last flicker of life faded out of that gaunt face even as i watched. it was not altogether a pleasant situation, and the only thing to do appeared to be to get the dead man into proper care (though little good it could do him now!) as speedily as possible. so, sending a chance passer-by into the main street for a cab, i placed him into it as soon as it came, and there being nobody else to go, got in with him myself, telling the driver at the same time to take us to the nearest hospital. "is this your rug, captain?" asked a bystander just as we were driving off. "not mine," i answered somewhat roughly. "you don't suppose i go about at this time of night with turkey carpets under my arm, do you? it belongs to this old chap here who has just dropped out of the skies on to his head; chuck it on top and shut the door!" and that rug, the very mainspring of the startling things which followed, was thus carelessly thrown on to the carriage, and off we went. well, to be brief, i handed in that stark old traveller from nowhere at the hospital, and as a matter of curiosity sat in the waiting-room while they examined him. in five minutes the house-surgeon on duty came in to see me, and with a shake of his head said briefly-- "gone, sir--clean gone! broke his neck like a pipe-stem. most strange-looking man, and none of us can even guess at his age. not a friend of yours, i suppose?" "nothing whatever to do with me, sir. he slipped on the pavement and fell in front of me just now, and as a matter of common charity i brought him in here. were there any means of identification on him?" "none whatever," answered the doctor, taking out his notebook and, as a matter of form, writing down my name and address and a few brief particulars, "nothing whatever except this curious-looking bead hung round his neck by a blackened thong of leather," and he handed me a thing about as big as a filbert nut with a loop for suspension and apparently of rock crystal, though so begrimed and dull its nature was difficult to speak of with certainty. the bead was of no seeming value and slipped unintentionally into my waistcoat pocket as i chatted for a few minutes more with the doctor, and then, shaking hands, i said goodbye, and went back to the cab which was still waiting outside. it was only on reaching home i noticed the hospital porters had omitted to take the dead man's carpet from the roof of the cab when they carried him in, and as the cabman did not care about driving back to the hospital with it, and it could not well be left in the street, i somewhat reluctantly carried it indoors with me. once in the shine of my own lamp and a cigar in my mouth i had a closer look at that ancient piece of art work from heaven, or the other place, only knows what ancient loom. a big, strong rug of faded oriental colouring, it covered half the floor of my sitting-room, the substance being of a material more like camel's hair than anything else, and running across, when examined closely, were some dark fibres so long and fine that surely they must have come from the tail of solomon's favourite black stallion itself. but the strangest thing about that carpet was its pattern. it was threadbare enough to all conscience in places, yet the design still lived in solemn, age-wasted hues, and, as i dragged it to my stove-front and spread it out, it seemed to me that it was as much like a star map done by a scribe who had lately recovered from delirium tremens as anything else. in the centre appeared a round such as might be taken for the sun, while here and there, "in the field," as heralds say, were lesser orbs which from their size and position could represent smaller worlds circling about it. between these orbs were dotted lines and arrow-heads of the oldest form pointing in all directions, while all the intervening spaces were filled up with woven characters half-way in appearance between runes and cryptic-sanskrit. round the borders these characters ran into a wild maze, a perfect jungle of an alphabet through which none but a wizard could have forced a way in search of meaning. altogether, i thought as i kicked it out straight upon my floor, it was a strange and not unhandsome article of furniture--it would do nicely for the mess-room on the carolina, and if any representatives of yonder poor old fellow turned up tomorrow, why, i would give them a couple of dollars for it. little did i guess how dear it would be at any price! meanwhile that steak was late, and now that the temporary excitement of the evening was wearing off i fell dull again. what a dark, sodden world it was that frowned in on me as i moved over to the window and opened it for the benefit of the cool air, and how the wind howled about the roof tops. how lonely i was! what a fool i had been to ask for long leave and come ashore like this, to curry favour with a set of stubborn dunderheads who cared nothing for me--or polly, and could not or would not understand how important it was to the best interests of the service that i should get that promotion which alone would send me back to her an eligible wooer! what a fool i was not to have volunteered for some desperate service instead of wasting time like this! then at least life would have been interesting; now it was dull as ditch-water, with wretched vistas of stagnant waiting between now and that joyful day when i could claim that dear, rosy-checked girl for my own. what a fool i had been! "i wish, i wish," i exclaimed, walking round the little room, "i wish i were--" while these unfinished exclamations were actually passing my lips i chanced to cross that infernal mat, and it is no more startling than true, but at my word a quiver of expectation ran through that gaunt web--a rustle of anticipation filled its ancient fabric, and one frayed corner surged up, and as i passed off its surface in my stride, the sentence still unfinished on my lips, wrapped itself about my left leg with extraordinary swiftness and so effectively that i nearly fell into the arms of my landlady, who opened the door at the moment and came in with a tray and the steak and tomatoes mentioned more than once already. it was the draught caused by the opening door, of course, that had made the dead man's rug lift so strangely--what else could it have been? i made this apology to the good woman, and when she had set the table and closed the door took another turn or two about my den, continuing as i did so my angry thoughts. "yes, yes," i said at last, returning to the stove and taking my stand, hands in pockets, in front of it, "anything were better than this, any enterprise however wild, any adventure however desperate. oh, i wish i were anywhere but here, anywhere out of this redtape-ridden world of ours! i wish i were in the planet mars!" how can i describe what followed those luckless words? even as i spoke the magic carpet quivered responsively under my feet, and an undulation went all round the fringe as though a sudden wind were shaking it. it humped up in the middle so abruptly that i came down sitting with a shock that numbed me for the moment. it threw me on my back and billowed up round me as though i were in the trough of a stormy sea. quicker than i can write it lapped a corner over and rolled me in its folds like a chrysalis in a cocoon. i gave a wild yell and made one frantic struggle, but it was too late. with the leathery strength of a giant and the swiftness of an accomplished cigar-roller covering a "core" with leaf, it swamped my efforts, straightened my limbs, rolled me over, lapped me in fold after fold till head and feet and everything were gone--crushed life and breath back into my innermost being, and then, with the last particle of consciousness, i felt myself lifted from the floor, pass once round the room, and finally shoot out, point foremost, into space through the open window, and go up and up and up with a sound of rending atmospheres that seemed to tear like riven silk in one prolonged shriek under my head, and to close up in thunder astern until my reeling senses could stand it no longer, and time and space and circumstances all lost their meaning to me. chapter ii how long that wild rush lasted i have no means of judging. it may have been an hour, a day, or many days, for i was throughout in a state of suspended animation, but presently my senses began to return and with them a sensation of lessening speed, a grateful relief to a heavy pressure which had held my life crushed in its grasp, without destroying it completely. it was just that sort of sensation though more keen which, drowsy in his bunk, a traveller feels when he is aware, without special perception, harbour is reached and a voyage comes to an end. but in my case the slowing down was for a long time comparative. yet the sensation served to revive my scattered senses, and just as i was awakening to a lively sense of amazement, an incredible doubt of my own emotions, and an eager desire to know what had happened, my strange conveyance oscillated once or twice, undulated lightly up and down, like a woodpecker flying from tree to tree, and then grounded, bows first, rolled over several times, then steadied again, and, coming at last to rest, the next minute the infernal rug opened, quivering along all its borders in its peculiar way, and humping up in the middle shot me five feet into the air like a cat tossed from a schoolboy's blanket. as i turned over i had a dim vision of a clear light like the shine of dawn, and solid ground sloping away below me. upon that slope was ranged a crowd of squatting people, and a staid-looking individual with his back turned stood nearer by. afterwards i found he was lecturing all those sitters on the ethics of gravity and the inherent properties of falling bodies; at the moment i only knew he was directly in my line as i descended, and him round the waist i seized, giddy with the light and fresh air, waltzed him down the slope with the force of my impetus, and, tripping at the bottom, rolled over and over recklessly with him sheer into the arms of the gaping crowd below. over and over we went into the thickest mass of bodies, making a way through the people, until at last we came to a stop in a perfect mound of writhing forms and waving legs and arms. when we had done the mass disentangled itself and i was able to raise my head from the shoulder of someone on whom i had fallen, lifting him, or her--which was it?--into a sitting posture alongside of me at the same time, while the others rose about us like wheat-stalks after a storm, and edged shyly off, as well as they might. such a sleek, slim youth it was who sat up facing me, with a flush of gentle surprise on his face, and dapper hands that felt cautiously about his anatomy for injured places. he looked so quaintly rueful yet withal so good-tempered that i could not help bursting into laughter in spite of my own amazement. then he laughed too, a sedate, musical chuckle, and said something incomprehensible, pointing at the same time to a cut upon my finger that was bleeding a little. i shook my head, meaning thereby that it was nothing, but the stranger with graceful solicitude took my hand, and, after examining the hurt, deliberately tore a strip of cloth from a bright yellow toga-like garment he was wearing and bound the place up with a woman's tenderness. meanwhile, as he ministered, there was time to look about me. where was i? it was not the broadway; it was not staten island on a saturday afternoon. the night was just over, and the sun on the point of rising. yet it was still shadowy all about, the air being marvellously tepid and pleasant to the senses. quaint, soft aromas like the breath of a new world--the fragrance of unknown flowers, and the dewy scent of never-trodden fields drifted to my nostrils; and to my ears came a sound of laughter scarcely more human than the murmur of the wind in the trees, and a pretty undulating whisper as though a great concourse of people were talking softly in their sleep. i gazed about scarcely knowing how much of my senses or surroundings were real and how much fanciful, until i presently became aware the rosy twilight was broadening into day, and under the increasing shine a strange scene was fashioning itself. at first it was an opal sea i looked on of mist, shot along its upper surface with the rosy gold and pinks of dawn. then, as that soft, translucent lake ebbed, jutting hills came through it, black and crimson, and as they seemed to mount into the air other lower hills showed through the veil with rounded forest knobs till at last the brightening day dispelled the mist, and as the rosy-coloured gauzy fragments went slowly floating away a wonderfully fair country lay at my feet, with a broad sea glimmering in many arms and bays in the distance beyond. it was all dim and unreal at first, the mountains shadowy, the ocean unreal, the flowery fields between it and me vacant and shadowy. yet were they vacant? as my eyes cleared and day brightened still more, and i turned my head this way and that, it presently dawned upon me all the meadow coppices and terraces northwards of where i lay, all that blue and spacious ground i had thought to be bare and vacant, were alive with a teeming city of booths and tents; now i came to look more closely there was a whole town upon the slope, built as might be in a night of boughs and branches still unwithered, the streets and ways of that city in the shadows thronged with expectant people moving in groups and shifting to and fro in lively streams--chatting at the stalls and clustering round the tent doors in soft, gauzy, parti-coloured crowds in a way both fascinating and perplexing. i stared about me like a child at its first pantomime, dimly understanding all i saw was novel, but more allured to the colour and life of the picture than concerned with its exact meaning; and while i stared and turned my finger was bandaged, and my new friend had been lisping away to me without getting anything in turn but a shake of the head. this made him thoughtful, and thereon followed a curious incident which i cannot explain. i doubt even whether you will believe it; but what am i to do in that case? you have already accepted the episode of my coming, or you would have shut the covers before arriving at this page of my modest narrative, and this emboldens me. i may strengthen my claim on your credulity by pointing out the extraordinary marvels which science is teaching you even on our own little world. to quote a single instance: if any one had declared ten years ago that it would shortly be practicable and easy for two persons to converse from shore to shore across the atlantic without any intervening medium, he would have been laughed at as a possibly amusing but certainly extravagant romancer. yet that picturesque lie of yesterday is amongst the accomplished facts of today! therefore i am encouraged to ask your indulgence, in the name of your previous errors, for the following and any other instances in which i may appear to trifle with strict veracity. there is no such thing as the impossible in our universe! when my friendly companion found i could not understand him, he looked serious for a minute or two, then shortened his brilliant yellow toga, as though he had arrived at some resolve, and knelt down directly in front of me. he next took my face between his hands, and putting his nose within an inch of mine, stared into my eyes with all his might. at first i was inclined to laugh, but before long the most curious sensations took hold of me. they commenced with a thrill which passed all up my body, and next all feeling save the consciousness of the loud beating of my heart ceased. then it seemed that boy's eyes were inside my head and not outside, while along with them an intangible something pervaded my brain. the sensation at first was like the application of ether to the skin--a cool, numbing emotion. it was followed by a curious tingling feeling, as some dormant cells in my mind answered to the thought-transfer, and were filled and fertilised! my other brain-cells most distinctly felt the vitalising of their companions, and for about a minute i experienced extreme nausea and a headache such as comes from over-study, though both passed swiftly off. i presume that in the future we shall all obtain knowledge in this way. the professors of a later day will perhaps keep shops for the sale of miscellaneous information, and we shall drop in and be inflated with learning just as the bicyclist gets his tire pumped up, or the motorist is recharged with electricity at so much per unit. examinations will then become matters of capacity in the real meaning of that word, and we shall be tempted to invest our pocket-money by advertisements of "a cheap line in astrology," "try our double-strength, two-minute course of classics," "this is remnant day for trigonometry and metaphysics," and so on. my friend did not get as far as that. with him the process did not take more than a minute, but it was startling in its results, and reduced me to an extraordinary state of hypnotic receptibility. when it was over my instructor tapped with a finger on my lips, uttering aloud as he did so the words-- "know none; know some; know little; know morel" again and again; and the strangest part of it is that as he spoke i did know at first a little, then more, and still more, by swift accumulation, of his speech and meaning. in fact, when presently he suddenly laid a hand over my eyes and then let go of my head with a pleasantly put question as to how i felt, i had no difficulty whatever in answering him in his own tongue, and rose from the ground as one gets from a hair-dresser's chair, with a vague idea of looking round for my hat and offering him his fee. "my word, sir!" i said, in lisping martian, as i pulled down my cuffs and put my cravat straight, "that was a quick process. i once heard of a man who learnt a language in the moments he gave each day to having his boots blacked; but this beats all. i trust i was a docile pupil?" "oh, fairly, sir," answered the soft, musical voice of the strange being by me; "but your head is thick and your brain tough. i could have taught another in half the time." "curiously enough," was my response, "those are almost the very words with which my dear old tutor dismissed me the morning i left college. never mind, the thing is done. shall i pay you anything?" "i do not understand." "any honorarium, then? some people understand one word and not the other." but the boy only shook his head in answer. strangely enough, i was not greatly surprised all this time either at the novelty of my whereabouts or at the hypnotic instruction in a new language just received. perhaps it was because my head still spun too giddily with that flight in the old rug for much thought; perhaps because i did not yet fully realise the thing that had happened. but, anyhow, there is the fact, which, like so many others in my narrative, must, alas! remain unexplained for the moment. the rug, by the way, had completely disappeared, my friend comforting me on this score, however, by saying he had seen it rolled up and taken away by one whom he knew. "we are very tidy people here, stranger," he said, "and everything found lying about goes back to the palace store-rooms. you will laugh to see the lumber there, for few of us ever take the trouble to reclaim our property." heaven knows i was in no laughing mood when i saw that enchanted web again! when i had lain and watched the brightening scene for a time, i got up, and having stretched and shaken my clothes into some sort of order, we strolled down the hill and joined the light-hearted crowds that twined across the plain and through the streets of their city of booths. they were the prettiest, daintiest folk ever eyes looked upon, well-formed and like to us as could be in the main, but slender and willowy, so dainty and light, both the men and the women, so pretty of cheek and hair, so mild of aspect, i felt, as i strode amongst them, i could have plucked them like flowers and bound them up in bunches with my belt. and yet somehow i liked them from the first minute; such a happy, careless, light-hearted race, again i say, never was seen before. there was not a stain of thought or care on a single one of those white foreheads that eddied round me under their peaked, blossom-like caps, the perpetual smile their faces wore never suffered rebuke anywhere; their very movements were graceful and slow, their laughter was low and musical, there was an odour of friendly, slothful happiness about them that made me admire whether i would or no. unfortunately i was not able to live on laughter, as they appeared to be, so presently turning to my acquaintance, who had told me his name was the plain monosyllabic an, and clapping my hand on his shoulder as he stood lost in sleepy reflection, said, in a good, hearty way, "hullo, friend yellow-jerkin! if a stranger might set himself athwart the cheerful current of your meditations, may such a one ask how far 'tis to the nearest wine-shop or a booth where a thirsty man may get a mug of ale at a moderate reckoning?" that gilded youth staggered under my friendly blow as though the hammer of thor himself had suddenly lit upon his shoulder, and ruefully rubbing his tender skin, he turned on me mild, handsome eyes, answering after a moment, during which his native mildness struggled with the pain i had unwittingly given him-- "if your thirst be as emphatic as your greeting, friend heavy-fist, it will certainly be a kindly deed to lead you to the drinking-place. my shoulder tingles with your good-fellowship," he added, keeping two arms'-lengths clear of me. "do you wish," he said, "merely to cleanse a dusty throat, or for blue or pink oblivion?" "why," i answered laughingly, "i have come a longish journey since yesterday night--a journey out of count of all reasonable mileage--and i might fairly plead a dusty throat as excuse for a beginning; but as to the other things mentioned, those tinted forgetfulnesses, i do not even know what you mean." "undoubtedly you are a stranger," said the friendly youth, eyeing me from top to toe with renewed wonder, "and by your unknown garb one from afar." "from how far no man can say--not even i--but from very far, in truth. let that stay your curiosity for the time. and now to bench and ale-mug, on good fellow!--the shortest way. i was never so thirsty as this since our water-butts went overboard when i sailed the southern seas as a tramp apprentice, and for three days we had to damp our black tongues with the puddles the night-dews left in the lift of our mainsail." without more words, being a little awed of me, i thought, the boy led me through the good-humoured crowd to where, facing the main road to the town, but a little sheltered by a thicket of trees covered with gigantic pink blossoms, stood a drinking-place--a cluster of tables set round an open grass-plot. here he brought me a platter of some light inefficient cakes which merely served to make hunger more self-conscious, and some fine aromatic wine contained in a triple-bodied flask, each division containing vintage of a separate hue. we broke our biscuits, sipped that mysterious wine, and talked of many things until at last something set us on the subject of astronomy, a study i found my dapper gallant had some knowledge of--which was not to be wondered at seeing he dwelt under skies each night set thick above his curly head with tawny planets, and glittering constellations sprinkled through space like flowers in may meadows. he knew what worlds went round the sun, larger or lesser, and seeing this i began to question him, for i was uneasy in my innermost mind and, you will remember, so far had no certain knowledge of where i was, only a dim, restless suspicion that i had come beyond the ken of all men's knowledge. therefore, sweeping clear the board with my sleeve, and breaking the wafer cake i was eating, i set down one central piece for the sun, and, "see here!" i said, "good fellow! this morsel shall stand for that sun you have just been welcoming back with quaint ritual. now stretch your starry knowledge to the utmost, and put down that tankard for a moment. if this be yonder sun and this lesser crumb be the outermost one of our revolving system, and this the next within, and this the next, and so on; now if this be so tell me which of these fragmentary orbs is ours--which of all these crumbs from the hand of the primordial would be that we stand upon?" and i waited with an anxiety a light manner thinly hid, to hear his answer. it came at once. laughing as though the question were too trivial, and more to humour my wayward fancy than aught else, that boy circled his rosy thumb about a minute and brought it down on the planet mars! i started and stared at him; then all of a tremble cried, "you trifle with me! choose again--there, see, i will set the symbols and name them to you anew. there now, on your soul tell me truly which this planet is, the one here at our feet?" and again the boy shook his head, wondering at my eagerness, and pointed to mars, saying gently as he did so the fact was certain as the day above us, nothing was marvellous but my questioning. mars! oh, dreadful, tremendous, unexpected! with a cry of affright, and bringing my fist down on the table till all the cups upon it leapt, i told him he lied--lied like a simpleton whose astronomy was as rotten as his wit--smote the table and scowled at him for a spell, then turned away and let my chin fall upon my breast and my hands upon my lap. and yet, and yet, it might be so! everything about me was new and strange, the crisp, thin air i breathed was new; the lukewarm sunshine new; the sleek, long, ivory faces of the people new! yesterday--was it yesterday?--i was back there--away in a world that pines to know of other worlds, and one fantastic wish of mine, backed by a hideous, infernal chance, had swung back the doors of space and shot me--if that boy spoke true--into the outer void where never living man had been before: all my wits about me, all the horrible bathos of my earthly clothing on me, all my terrestrial hungers in my veins! i sprang to my feet and swept my hands across my eyes. was that a dream, or this? no, no, both were too real. the hum of my faraway city still rang in my ears: a swift vision of the girl i had loved; of the men i had hated; of the things i had hoped for rose before me, still dazing my inner eye. and these about me were real people, too; it was real earth; real skies, trees, and rocks--had the infernal gods indeed heard, i asked myself, the foolish wish that started from my lips in a moment of fierce discontent, and swept me into another sphere, another existence? i looked at the boy as though he could answer that question, but there was nothing in his face but vacuous wonder; i clapped my hands together and beat my breast; it was true; my soul within me said it was true; the boy had not lied; the djins had heard; i was just in the flesh i had; my common human hungers still unsatisfied where never mortal man had hungered before; and scarcely knowing whether i feared or not, whether to laugh or cry, but with all the wonder and terror of that great remove sweeping suddenly upon me i staggered back to my seat, and dropping my arms upon the table, leant my head heavily upon them and strove to choke back the passion which beset me. chapter iii it was the light touch of the boy an upon my shoulder which roused me. he was bending down, his pretty face full of concernful sympathy, and in a minute said--knowing nothing of my thoughts, of course. "it is the wine, stranger, the pink oblivion, it sometimes makes one feel like that until enough is taken; you stopped just short of what you should have had, and the next cup would have been delight--i should have told you." "ay," i answered, glad he should think so, "it was the wine, no doubt; your quaint drink, sir, tangled up my senses for the moment, but they are clearer now, and i am eager past expression to learn a little more of this strange country i have wandered into." "i would rather," said the boy, relapsing again into his state of kindly lethargy, "that you learnt things as you went, for talking is work, and work we hate, but today we are all new and fresh, and if ever you are to ask questions now is certainly the time. come with me to the city yonder, and as we go i will answer the things you wish to know;" and i went with him, for i was humble and amazed, and, in truth, at that moment, had not a word to say for myself. all the way from the plain where i had awoke to the walls of the city stood booths, drinking-places, and gardens divided by labyrinths of canals, and embowered in shrubberies that seemed coming into leaf and flower as we looked, so swift was the process of their growth. these waterways were covered with skiffs being pushed and rowed in every direction; the cheerful rowers calling to each other through the leafy screens separating one lane from another till the place was full of their happy chirruping. every booth and way-side halting-place was thronged with these delicate and sprightly people, so friendly, so gracious, and withal so purposeless. i began to think we should never reach the town itself, for first my guide would sit down on a green stream-bank, his feet a-dangle in the clear water, and bandy wit with a passing boat as though there were nothing else in the world to think of. and when i dragged him out of that, whispering in his ear, "the town, my dear boy! the town! i am all agape to see it," he would saunter reluctantly to a booth a hundred yards further on and fall to eating strange confections or sipping coloured wines with chance acquaintances, till again i plucked him by the sleeve and said: "seth, good comrade--was it not so you called your city just now?--take me to the gates, and i will be grateful to you," then on again down a flowery lane, aimless and happy, wasting my time and his, with placid civility i was led by that simple guide. wherever we went the people stared at me, as well they might, as i walked through them overtopping the tallest by a head or more. the drinking-cups paused half-way to their mouths; the jests died away upon their lips; and the blinking eyes of the drinkers shone with a momentary sparkle of wonder as their minds reeled down those many-tinted floods to the realms of oblivion they loved. i heard men whisper one to another, "who is he?"; "whence does he come?"; "is he a tribute-taker?" as i strolled amongst them, my mind still so thrilled with doubt and wonder that to me they seemed hardly more than painted puppets, the vistas of their lovely glades and the ivory town beyond only the fancy of a dream, and their talk as incontinent as the babble of a stream. then happily, as i walked along with bent head brooding over the incredible thing that had happened, my companion's shapely legs gave out, and with a sigh of fatigue he suggested we should take a skiff amongst the many lying about upon the margins and sail towards the town, "for," said he, "the breeze blows thitherward, and 'tis a shame to use one's limbs when nature will carry us for nothing!" "but have you a boat of your own hereabouts?" i queried; "for to tell the truth i came from home myself somewhat poorly provided with means to buy or barter, and if your purse be not heavier than mine we must still do as poor men do." "oh!" said an, "there is no need to think of that, no one here to hire or hire of; we will just take the first skiff we see that suits us." "and what if the owner should come along and find his boat gone?" "why, what should he do but take the next along the bank, and the master of that the next again--how else could it be?" said the martian, and shrugging my shoulders, for i was in no great mood to argue, we went down to the waterway, through a thicket of budding trees underlaid with a carpet of small red flowers filling the air with a scent of honey, and soon found a diminutive craft pulled up on the bank. there were some dainty cloaks and wraps in it which an took out and laid under a tree. but first he felt in the pouch of one for a sweetmeat which his fine nostrils, acute as a squirrel's, told him was there, and taking the lump out bit a piece from it, afterwards replacing it in the owner's pocket with the frankest simplicity. then we pushed off, hoisted the slender mast, set the smallest lug-sail that ever a sailor smiled at, and, myself at the helm, and that golden youth amidships, away we drifted under thickets of drooping canes tasselled with yellow catkin-flowers, up the blue alley of the water into the broader open river beyond with its rapid flow and crowding boats, the white city front now towering clear before us. the air was full of sunshine and merry voices; birds were singing, trees were budding; only my heart was heavy, my mind confused. yet why should i be sad, i said to myself presently? life beat in my pulses; what had i to fear? this world i had tumbled into was new and strange, no doubt, but tomorrow it would be old and familiar; it discredited my manhood to sit brow-bent like that, so with an effort i roused myself. "old chap!" i said to my companion, as he sat astride of a thwart slowly chewing something sticky and eyeing me out of the corner of his eyes with vapid wonder, "tell me something of this land of yours, or something about yourself--which reminds me i have a question to ask. it is a bit delicate, but you look a sensible sort of fellow, and will take no offence. the fact is, i have noticed as we came along half your population dresses in all the colours of the rainbow--'fancy suitings' our tailors could call it at home--and this half of the census are undoubtedly men and women. the rub is that the other half, to which you belong, all dress alike in yellow, and i will be fired from the biggest gun on the carolina's main deck if i can tell what sex you belong to! i took you for a boy in the beginning, and the way you closed with the idea of having a drink with me seemed to show i was dead on the right course. then a little later on i heard you and a friend abusing our sex from an outside point of view in a way which was very disconcerting. this, and some other things, have set me all abroad again, and as fate seems determined to make us chums for this voyage--why--well, frankly, i should be glad to know if you be boy or girl? if you are as i am, no more nor less then--for i like you--there's my hand in comradeship. if you are otherwise, as those sleek outlines seem to promise--why, here's my hand again! but man or woman you must be--come, which is it?" if i had been perplexed before, to watch that boy now was more curious than ever. he drew back from me with a show of wounded dignity, then bit his lips, and sighed, and stared, and frowned. "come," i said laughingly, "speak! it engenders ambiguity to be so ambiguous of gender! 'tis no great matter, yes or no, a plain answer will set us fairly in our friendship; if it is comrade, then comrade let it be; if maid, why, i shall not quarrel with that, though it cost me a likely messmate." "you mock me." "not i, i never mocked any one." "and does my robe tell you nothing?" "nothing so much; a yellow tunic and becoming enough, but nothing about it to hang a deduction on. come! are you a girl, after all?" "i do not count myself a girl." "why, then, you are the most blooming boy that ever eyes were set upon; and though 'tis with some tinge of regret, yet cheerfully i welcome you into the ranks of manhood." "i hate your manhood, send it after the maidhood; it fits me just as badly." "but an, be reasonable; man or maid you must be." "must be; why?" "why?" was ever such a question put to a sane mortal before? i stared at that ambiguous thing before me, and then, a little wroth to be played with, growled out something about martians being all drunk or mad. "'tis you yourself are one or other," said that individual, by this time pink with anger, "and if you think because i am what i am you can safely taunt me, you are wrong. see! i have a sting," and like a thwarted child my companion half drew from the folds of the yellow tunic-dress the daintiest, most harmless-looking little dagger that was ever seen. "oh, if it comes to that," i answered, touching the navy scabbard still at my hip, and regaining my temper at the sight of hers, "why, i have a sting also--and twice as long as yours! but in truth, an, let us not talk of these things; if something in what i have said has offended nice martian scruples i am sorry, and will question no more, leaving my wonder for time to settle." "no," said the other, "it was my fault to be hasty of offence; i am not so angered once a year. but in truth your question moves us yellow robes deeply. did you not really know that we who wear this saffron tunic are slaves,--a race apart, despised by all." "'slaves,' no; how should i know it?" "i thought you must understand a thing so fundamental, and it was that thought which made your questions seem unkind. but if indeed you have come so far as not to understand even this, then let me tell you once we of this garb were women--priestesses of the immaculate conceptions of humanity; guardians of those great hopes and longings which die so easily. and because we forgot our high station and took to aping another sex the gods deserted and men despised us, giving us, in the fierceness of their contempt, what we asked for. we are the slave ants of the nest, the work-bees of the hive, come, in truth, of those here who still be men and women of a sort, but toilers only; unknown in love, unregretted in death--those who dangle all children but their own--slaves cursed with the accomplishment of their own ambition." there was no doubt poor an believed what she said, for her attitude was one of extreme dejection while she spoke, and to cheer her i laughed. "oh! come, it can't be as bad as that. surely sometimes some of you win back to womanhood? you yourself do not look so far gone but what some deed of abnegation, some strong love if you could but conceive it would set you right again. surely you of the primrose robes can sometimes love?" whereat unwittingly i troubled the waters in the placid soul of that outcast martian! i cannot exactly describe how it was, but she bent her head silently for a moment or two, and then, with a sigh, lifting her eyes suddenly to mine, said quietly, "yes, sometimes; sometimes--but very seldom," while for an instant across her face there flashed the summer lightning of a new hope, a single transient glance of wistful, timid entreaty; of wonder and delight that dared not even yet acknowledge itself. then it was my turn to sit silent, and the pause was so awkward that in a minute, to break it, i exclaimed-- "let's drop personalities, old chap--i mean my dear miss an. tell me something about your people, and let us begin properly at the top: have you got a king, for instance?" to this the girl, pulling herself out of the pleasant slough of her listlessness, and falling into my vein, answered-- "both yes and no, sir traveller from afar--no chiefly, and yet perhaps yes. if it were no then it were so, and if yes then hath were our king." "a mild king i should judge by your uncertainty. in the place where i came from kings press their individualities somewhat more clearly on their subjects' minds. is hath here in the city? does he come to your feasts today?" an nodded. hath was on the river, he had been to see the sunrise; even now she thought the laughter and singing down behind the bend might be the king's barge coming up citywards. "he will not be late," said my companion, "because the marriage-feast is set for tomorrow in the palace." i became interested. kings, palaces, marriage-feasts--why, here was something substantial to go upon; after all these gauzy folk might turn out good fellows, jolly comrades to sojourn amongst--and marriage-feasts reminded me again i was hungry. "who is it," i asked, with more interest in my tone, "who gets married?--is it your ambiguous king himself?" whereat an's purple eyes broadened with wonder: then as though she would not be uncivil she checked herself, and answered with smothered pity for my ignorance, "not only hath himself, but every one, stranger, they are all married tomorrow; you would not have them married one at a time, would you?"--this with inexpressible derision. i said, with humility, something like that happened in the place i came from, asking her how it chanced the convenience of so many came to one climax at the same moment. "surely, an, this is a marvel of arrangement. where i dwelt wooings would sometimes be long or sometimes short, and all maids were not complacent by such universal agreement." the girl was clearly perplexed. she stared at me a space, then said, "what have wooings long or short to do with weddings? you talk as if you did your wooing first and then came to marriage--we get married first and woo afterwards!" "'tis not a bad idea, and i can see it might lend an ease and certainty to the pastime which our method lacks. but if the woman is got first and sued subsequently, who brings you together? who sees to the essential preliminaries of assortment?" an, looking at my shoes as though she speculated on the remoteness of the journey i had come if it were measured by my ignorance, replied, "the urn, stranger, the urn does that--what else? how it may be in that out-fashioned region you have come from i cannot tell, but here--'tis so commonplace i should have thought you must have known it--we put each new year the names of all womenkind into an urn and the men draw for them, each town, each village by itself, and those they draw are theirs; is it conceivable your race has other methods?" i told her it was so--we picked and chose for ourselves, beseeching the damsels, fighting for them, and holding the sun of romance was at its setting just where the martians held it to rise. whereat an burst out laughing--a clear, ringing laugh that set all the light-hearted folk in the nearest boats laughing in sympathy. but when the grotesqueness of the idea had somewhat worn off, she turned grave and asked me if such a fancy did not lead to spite, envy, and bickerings. "why, it seems to me," she said, shaking her curly head, "such a plan might fire cities, desolate plains, and empty palaces--" "such things have been." "ah! our way is much the better. see!" quoth that gentle philosopher. "'here,' one of our women would say, 'am i to-day, unwed, as free of thought as yonder bird chasing the catkin down; tomorrow i shall be married, with a whole summer to make love in, relieved at one bound of all those uncertainties you acknowledge to, with nothing to do but lie about on sunny banks with him whom chance sends me, come to the goal of love without any travelling to get there.' why, you must acknowledge this is the perfection of ease." "but supposing," i said, "chance dealt unkindly to you from your nuptial urn, supposing the man was not to your liking, or another coveted him?" to which an answered, with some shrewdness-- "in the first case we should do what we might, being no worse off than those in your land who had played ill providence to themselves. in the second, no maid would covet him whom fate had given to another, it were too fatiguing, or if such a thing did happen, then one of them would waive his claims, for no man or woman ever born was worth a wrangle, and it is allowed us to barter and change a little." all this was strange enough. i could not but laugh, while an laughed at the lightest invitation, and thus chatting and deriding each other's social arrangements we floated idly townwards and presently came out into the main waterway perhaps a mile wide and flowing rapidly, as streams will on the threshold of the spring, with brash or waste of distant beaches riding down it, and every now and then a broken branch or tree-stem glancing through waves whose crests a fresh wind lifted and sowed in golden showers in the intervening furrows. the martians seemed expert upon the water, steering nimbly between these floating dangers when they met them, but for the most part hugging the shore where a more placid stream better suited their fancies, and for a time all went well. an, as we went along, was telling me more of her strange country, pointing out birds or flowers and naming them to me. "now that," she said, pointing to a small grey owl who sat reflective on a floating log we were approaching--"that is a bird of omen; cover your face and look away, for it is not well to watch it." whereat i laughed. "oh!" i answered, "so those ancient follies have come as far as this, have they? but it is no bird grey or black or white that can frighten folk where i come from; see, i will ruffle his philosophy for him," and suiting the action to the words i lifted a pebble that happened to lie at the bottom of the boat and flung it at that creature with the melancholy eyes. away went the owl, dipping his wings into the water at every stroke, and as he went wailing out a ghostly cry, which even amongst sunshine and glitter made one's flesh creep. an shook her head. "you should not have done that," she said; "our dead whom we send down over the falls come back in the body of yonder little bird. but he has gone now," she added, with relief; "see, he settles far up stream upon the point of yonder rotten bough; i would not disturb him again if i were you--" whatever more an would have said was lost, for amidst a sound of flutes and singing round the bend of the river below came a crowd of boats decked with flowers and garlands, all clustering round a barge barely able to move, so thick those lesser skiffs pressed upon it. so close those wherries hung about that the garlanded rowers who sat at the oars could scarcely pull, but, here as everywhere, it was the same good temper, the same carelessness of order, as like a flowery island in the dancing blue water the motley fleet came up. i steered our skiff a space out from the bank to get a better view, while an clapped her hands together and laughed. "it is hath--he himself and those of the palace with him. steer a little nearer still, friend--so! between yon floating rubbish flats, for those with hath are good to look at." nothing loth i made out into mid-stream to see that strange prince go by, little thinking in a few minutes i should be shaking hands with him, a wet and dripping hero. the crowd came up, and having the advantage of the wind, it did not take me long to get a front place in the ruck, whence i set to work, with republican interest in royalty, to stare at the man who an said was the head of martian society. he did not make me desire to renounce my democratic principles. the royal fellow was sitting in the centre of the barge under a canopy and on a throne which was a mass of flowers, not bunched together as they would have been with us, but so cunningly arranged that they rose from the footstool to the pinnacle in a rhythm of colour, a poem in bud and petals the like of which for harmonious beauty i could not have imagined possible. and in this fairy den was a thin, gaunt young man, dressed in some sort of black stuff so nondescript that it amounted to little more than a shadow. i took it for granted that a substance of bone and muscle was covered by that gloomy suit, but it was the face above that alone riveted my gaze and made me return the stare he gave me as we came up with redoubled interest. it was not an unhandsome face, but ashy grey in colour and amongst the insipid countenances of the martians about him marvellously thoughtful. i do not know whether those who had killed themselves by learning ever leave ghosts behind, but if so this was the very ideal for such a one. at his feet i noticed, when i unhooked my eyes from his at last, sat a girl in a loose coral pink gown who was his very antipode. princess heru, for so she was called, was resting one arm upon his knee at our approach and pulling a blue convolvulus bud to pieces--a charming picture of dainty idleness. anything so soft, so silken as that little lady was never seen before. who am i, a poor quarter-deck loafer, that i should attempt to describe what poet and painter alike would have failed to realise? i know, of course, your stock descriptives: the melting eye, the coral lip, the peachy cheek, the raven tress; but these were coined for mortal woman--and this was not one of them. i will not attempt to describe the glorious tenderness of those eyes she turned upon me presently; the glowing radiance of her skin; the infinite grace of every action; the incredible soul-searching harmony of her voice, when later on i heard it--you must gather something of these things as i go--suffice it to say that when i saw her there for the first time in the plenitude of her beauty i fell desperately, wildly in love with her. meanwhile, even the most infatuated of mortals cannot stare for ever without saying something. the grating of our prow against the garlanded side of the royal barge roused me from my reverie, and nodding to an, to imply i would be back presently, i lightly jumped on to hath's vessel, and, with the assurance of a free and independent american voter, approached that individual, holding out my palm, and saying as i did so, "shake hands, mr. president!" the prince came forward at my bidding and extending his hand for mine. he bowed slow and sedately, in that peculiar way the martians have, a ripple of gratified civility passing up his flesh; lower and lower he bowed, until his face was over our clasped hands, and then, with simple courtesy, he kissed my finger-tips! this was somewhat embarrassing. it was not like the procedure followed in courts nearer to washington than this one, as far as my reading went, and, withdrawing my fingers hastily, i turned to the princess, who had risen, and was eyeing her somewhat awkwardly, the while wondering what kind of salutation would be suitable in her case when a startling incident happened. the river, as said, was full of floating rubbish brought down from some far-away uplands by a spring freshet while the royal convoy was making slow progress upstream and thus met it all bow on. some of this stuff was heavy timber, and when a sudden warning cry went up from the leading boats it did not take my sailor instinct long to guess what was amiss. those in front shot side to side, those behind tried to drop back as, bearing straight down on the royal barge, there came a log of black wood twenty feet long and as thick as the mainmast of an old three-decker. hath's boat could no more escape than if it had been planted on a rocky pedestal, garlands and curtains trailing in the water hung so heavy on it. the gilded paddles of the slender rowers were so feeble--they had but made a half-turn from that great javelin's road when down it came upon them, knocking the first few pretty oarsmen head over heels and crackling through their oars like a bull through dry maize stalks. i sprang forward, and snatching a pole from a half-hearted slave, jammed the end into the head of the log and bore with all my weight upon it, diverting it a little, and thereby perhaps saving the ship herself, but not enough. as it flashed by a branch caught upon the trailing tapestry, hurling me to the deck, and tearing away with it all that finery. then the great spar, tossing half its dripping length into the air, went plunging downstream with shreds of silk and flowers trailing from it, and white water bubbling in its rear. when i scrambled to my feet all was ludicrous confusion on board. hath still stood by his throne--an island in a sea of disorder--staring at me; all else was chaos. the rowers and courtiers were kicking and wallowing in the "waist" of the ship like fish newly shot out of a trawl net, but the princess was gone. where was she? i brushed the spray from my eyes, and stared overboard. she was not in the bubbling blue water alongside. then i glanced aft to where the log, now fifteen yards away, was splashing through the sunshine, and, as i looked, a fair arm came up from underneath and white fingers clutched convulsively at the sky. what man could need more? down the barge i rushed, and dropping only my swordbelt, leapt in to her rescue. the gentle martians were too numb to raise a hand in help; but it was not necessary. i had the tide with me, and gained at every stroke. meanwhile that accursed tree, with poor heru's skirts caught on a branch, was drowning her at its leisure; lifting her up as it rose upon the crests, a fair, helpless bundle, and then sousing her in its fall into the nether water, where i could see her gleam now and again like pink coral. i redoubled my efforts and got alongside, clutching the rind of that old stump, and swimming and scrambling, at last was within reach of the princess. thereon the log lifted her playfully to my arms, and when i had laid hold came down, a crushing weight, and forced us far into the clammy bosom of martian sea. again we came up, coughing and choking--i tugging furiously at that tangled raiment, and the lady, a mere lump of sweetness in my other arm--then down again with that log upon me and all the noises of eblis in my ears. up and down we went, over and over, till strength was spent and my ribs seemed breaking; then, with a last desperate effort, i got a knee against the stem, and by sheer strength freed my princess--the spiteful timber made a last ugly thrust at us as it rolled away--and we were free! i turned upon my back, and, sure of rescue now, took the lady's head upon my chest, holding her sweet, white fists in mine the while, and, floating, waited for help. it came only too quickly. the gallant martians, when they saw the princess saved, came swiftly down upon us. over the lapping of the water in my ears i heard their sigh--like cries of admiration and surprise, the rattle of spray on the canoe sides mingled with the splash of oars, the flitting shadows of their prows were all about us, and in less time than it takes to write we were hauled aboard, revived, and taken to hath's barge. again the prince's lips were on my fingertips; again the flutes and music struck up; and as i squeezed the water out of my hair, and tried to keep my eyes off the outline of heru, whose loveliness shone through her damp, clinging, pink robe, as if that robe were but a gauzy fancy, i vaguely heard hath saying wondrous things of my gallantry, and, what was more to the purpose, asking me to come with him and stay that night at the palace. chapter iv they lodged me like a prince in a tributary country that first night. i was tired. 'twas a stiff stage i had come the day before, and they gave me a couch whose ethereal softness seemed to close like the wings of a bird as i plunged at its touch into fathomless slumbers. but the next day had hardly broken when i was awake, and, stretching my limbs upon the piled silk of a legless bed upon the floor, found myself in a great chamber with a purple tapestry across the entrance, and a square arch leading to a flat terrace outside. it was a glorious daybreak, making my heart light within me, the air like new milk, and the colours of the sunrise lay purple and yellow in bars across my room. i yawned and stretched, then rising, wrapped a silken quilt about me and went out into the flat terrace top, wherefrom all the city could be seen stretched in an ivory and emerald patchwork, with open, blue water on one side, and the martian plain trending away in illimitable distance upon the other. directly underneath in the great square at the bottom of hath's palace steps were gathered a concourse of people, brilliant in many-coloured dresses. they were sitting or lying about just as they might for all i knew have done through the warm night, without much order, save that where the black streaks of inlaid stone marked a carriageway across the square none were stationed. while i wondered what would bring so many together thus early, there came a sound of flutes--for these people can do nothing without piping like finches in a thicket in may--and from the storehouses half-way over to the harbour there streamed a line of carts piled high with provender. down came the teams attended by their slaves, circling and wheeling into the open place, and as they passed each group those lazy, lolling beggars crowded round and took the dole they were too thriftless to earn themselves. it was strange to see how listless they were about the meal, even though providence itself put it into their hands; to note how the yellow-girted slaves scudded amongst them, serving out the loaves, themselves had grown, harvested, and baked; slipping from group to group, rousing, exhorting, administering to a helpless throng that took their efforts without thought or thanks. i stood there a long time, one foot upon the coping and my chin upon my hand, noting the beauty of the ruined town and wondering how such a feeble race as that which lay about, breakfasting in the limpid sunshine, could have come by a city like this, or kept even the ruins of its walls and buildings from the covetousness of others, until presently there was a rustle of primrose garments and my friend of the day before stood by me. "are you rested, traveller?" she questioned in that pretty voice of hers. "rested ambrosially, an." "it is well; i will tell the government and it will come up to wash and dress you, afterwards giving you breakfast." "for the breakfast, damsel, i shall be grateful, but as for the washing and dressing i will defend myself to the last gasp sooner than submit to such administration." "how strange! do you never wash in your country?" "yes, but it is a matter left largely to our own discretion; so, my dear girl, if you will leave me for a minute or two in quest of that meal you have mentioned, i will guarantee to be ready when it comes." away she slipped, with a shrug of her rosy shoulders, to return presently, carrying a tray covered with a white cloth, whereon were half a dozen glittering covers whence came most fragrant odours of cooked things. "why, comrade," i said, sitting down and lifting lid by lid, for the cold, sweet air outside had made me hungry, "this is better than was hoped for; i thought from what i saw down yonder i should have to trot behind a tumbril for my breakfast, and eat it on my heels amongst your sleepy friends below." an replied, "the stranger is a prince, we take it, in his own country, and princes fare not quite like common people, even here." "so," i said, my mouth full of a strange, unknown fish, and a cake soft as milk and white as cotton in the pod. "now that makes me feel at home!" "would you have had it otherwise with us?" "no! now i come to think of it, it is most natural things should be much alike in all the corners of the universe; the splendid simplicity that rules the spheres, works much the same, no doubt, upon one side of the sun as upon the other. yet, somehow--you can hardly wonder at it--yesterday i looked to find your world, when i realised where i had tumbled to, a world of djin and giants; of mad possibilities over realised, and here i see you dwellers by the utterly remote little more marvellous than if i had come amongst you on the introduction of a cheap tourist ticket, and round some neglected corner of my own distant world!" "i hardly follow your meaning, sir." "no, no, of course you cannot. i was forgetting you did not know! there, pass me the stuff on yonder platter that looks like caked mud from an anchor fluke, and swells like breath of paradise, and let me question you;" and while i sat and drank with that yellow servitor sitting in front of me, i plied her with questions, just as a baby might who had come into the world with a full-blown gift of speech. but though she was ready and willing enough to answer, and laughed gaily at my quaint ignorance of simple things, yet there was little water in the well. "had they any kind of crafts or science; any cult of stars or figures?" but again she shook her head, and said, "hath might know, hath understood most things, but herself knew little of either." "armies or navies?" and again the martian shrugged her shoulders, questioning in turn-- "what for?" "what for!" i cried, a little angry with her engaging dulness, "why, to keep that which the strong hand got, and to get more for those who come next; navies to sweep yonder blue seas, and armies to ward what they should bring home, or guard the city walls against all enemies,--for i suppose, an," i said, putting down my knife as the cheering thought came on me,--"i suppose, an, you have some enemies? it is not like providence to give such riches as you possess, such lands, such cities, and not to supply the antidote in some one poor enough to covet them." at once the girl's face clouded over, and it was obvious a tender subject had been chanced upon. she waved her hand impatiently as though to change the subject, but i would not be put off. "come," i said, "this is better than breakfast. it was the one thing--this unknown enemy of yours--wanting to lever the dull mass of your too peacefulness. what is he like? how strong? how stands the quarrel between you? i was a soldier myself before the sea allured me, and love horse and sword best of all things." "you would not jest if you knew our enemy!" "that is as it may be. i have laughed in the face of many a stronger foe than yours is like to prove; but anyhow, give me a chance to judge. come, who is it that frightens all the blood out of your cheeks by a bare mention and may not be laughed at even behind these substantial walls?" "first, then, you know, of course, that long ago this land of ours was harried from the west." "not i." "no!" said an, with a little warmth. "if it comes to that, you know nothing." whereat i laughed, and, saying the reply was just, vowed i would not interrupt again; so she wont on saying how hath--that interminable hath!--would know it all better than she did, but long ago the land was overrun by a people from beyond the broad, blue waters outside; a people huge of person, hairy and savage, uncouth, unlettered, and poor an's voice trembled even to describe them; a people without mercy or compunction, dwellers in woods, eaters of flesh, who burnt, plundered, and destroyed all before them, and had toppled over this city along with many others in an ancient foray, the horrors of which, still burnt lurid in her people's minds. "ever since then," went on the girl, "these odious terrors of the outer land have been a nightmare to us, making hectic our pleasures, and filling our peace with horrid thoughts of what might be, should they chance to come again." "'tis unfortunate, no doubt, lady," i answered. "yet it was long ago, and the plunderers are far away. why not rise and raid them in turn? to live under such a nightmare is miserable, and a poet on my side of the ether has said-- "'he either fears his fate too much, or his deserts are small, who will not put it to the touch, to win or lose it all.' it seems to me you must either bustle and fight again, or sit tamely down, and by paying the coward's fee for peace, buy at heavy price, indulgence from the victor." "we," said an simply, and with no show of shame, "would rather die than fight, and so we take the easier way, though a heavy one it is. look!" she said, drawing me to the broad window whence we could get a glimpse of the westward town and the harbour out beyond the walls. "look! see yonder long row of boats with brown sails hanging loose reefed from every yard ranged all along the quay. even from here you can make out the thin stream of porter slaves passing to and fro between them and the granaries like ants on a sunny path. those are our tax-men's ships, they came yesterday from far out across the sea, as punctual as fate with the first day of spring, and two or three nights hence we trust will go again: and glad shall we be to see them start, although they leave scupper deep with our cloth, our corn, and gold." "is that what they take for tribute?" "that and one girl--the fairest they can find." "one--only one! 'tis very moderate, all things considered." "she is for the thither king, ar-hap, and though only one as you say, stranger, yet he who loses her is apt sometimes to think her one too many lost." "by jupiter himself it is well said! if i were that man i would stir up heaven and hell until i got her back; neither man, nor beast, nor devil should stay me in my quest!" as i spoke i thought for a minute an's fingers trembled a little as she fixed a flower upon my coat, while there was something like a sigh in her voice as she said-- "the maids of this country are not accustomed, sir, to be so strongly loved." by this time, breakfasted and rehabilitated, i was ready to go forth. the girl swung back the heavy curtain that served in place of door across the entrance of my chamber, and leading the way by a corridor and marble steps while i followed, and whether it was the martian air or the meal i know not, but thinking mighty well of myself until we came presently onto the main palace stairs, which led by stately flights from the upper galleries to the wide square below. as we passed into the full sunshine--and no sunshine is so crisply golden as the martian--amongst twined flowers and shrubs and gay, quaint birds building in the cornices, a sleek youth rose slowly from where he had spread his cloak as couch upon a step and approaching asked-- "you are the stranger of yesterday?" "yes," i answered. "then i bring a message from prince hath, saying it would pleasure him greatly if you would eat the morning meal with him." "why," i answered, "it is very civil indeed, but i have breakfasted already." "and so has hath," said the boy, gently yawning. "you see i came here early this morning, but knowing you would pass sooner or later i thought it would save me the trouble if i lay down till you came--those quaint people who built these places were so prodigal of steps," and smiling apologetically he sank back on his couch and began toying with a leaf. "sweet fellow," i said, and you will note how i was getting into their style of conversation, "get back to hath when you have rested, give him my most gracious thanks for the intended courtesy, but tell him the invitation should have started a week earlier; tell him from me, you nimble-footed messenger, that i will post-date his kindness and come tomorrow; say that meanwhile i pray him to send any ill news he has for me by you. is the message too bulky for your slender shoulders?" "no," said the boy, rousing himself slowly, "i will take it," and then he prepared to go. he turned again and said, without a trace of incivility, "but indeed, stranger, i wish you would take the message yourself. this is the third flight of stairs i have been up today." everywhere it was the same friendly indolence. half the breakfasters were lying on coloured shawls in groups about the square; the other half were strolling off--all in one direction, i noticed--as slowly as could be towards the open fields beyond; no one was active or had anything to do save the yellow folk who flitted to and fro fostering the others, and doing the city work as though it were their only thought in life. there were no shops in that strange city, for there were no needs; some booths i saw indeed, and temple-like places, but hollow, and used for birds and beasts--things these lazy martians love. there was no tramp of busy feet, for no one was busy; no clank of swords or armour in those peaceful streets, for no one was warlike; no hustle, for no one hurried; no wide-packed asses nodding down the lanes, for there was nothing to fill their packs with, and though a cart sometimes came by with a load of lolling men and maids, or a small horse, for horses they had, paced along, itself nearly as lazy as the master he bore, with trappings sewed over bits of coloured shell and coral, yet somehow it was all extraordinarily unreal. it was a city full of the ghosts of the life which once pulsed through its ways. the streets were peopled, the chatter of voices everywhere, the singing boys and laughing girls wandering, arms linked together, down the ways filled every echo with their merriment, yet somehow it was all so shallow that again and again i rubbed my eyes, wondering if i were indeed awake, or whether it were not a prolonged sleep of which the tomorrow were still to come. "what strikes me as strangest of all, good comrade," i observed pleasantly to the tripping presence at my elbow, "is that these countrymen of yours who shirk to climb a flight of steps, and have palms as soft as rose petals, these wide ways paved with stones as hard as a usurer's heart." an laughed. "the stones were still in their native quarries had it been left to us to seek them; we are like the conies in the ruins, sir, the inheritors of what other hands have done." "ay, and undone, i think, as well, for coming along i have noted axe chippings upon the walls, smudges of ancient fire and smoke upon the cornices." an winced a little and stared uneasily at the walls, muttering below her breath something about trying to hide with flower garlands the marks they could not banish, but it was plain the conversation was not pleasing to her. so unpleasant was talk or sight of woodmen (thither-folk, as she called them, in contradiction to the hither people about us here), that the girl was clearly relieved when we were free of the town and out into the open playground of the people. the whole place down there was a gay, shifting crowd. the booths of yesterday, the arcades, the archways, were still standing, and during the night unknown hands had redecked them with flowers, while another day's sunshine had opened the coppice buds so that the whole place was brilliant past expression. and here the hither folk were varying their idleness by a general holiday. they were standing about in groups, or lying ranked like new-plucked flowers on the banks, piping to each other through reeds as soft and melodious as running water. they were playing inconsequent games and breaking off in the middle of them like children looking for new pleasures. they were idling about the drinking booths, delicately stupid with quaint, thin wines, dealt out to all who asked; the maids were ready to chevy or be chevied through the blossoming thickets by anyone who chanced upon them, the men slipped their arms round slender waists and wandered down the paths, scarce seeming to care even whose waist it was they circled or into whose ear they whispered the remainder of the love-tale they had begun to some one else. and everywhere it was "hi," and "ha," and "so," and "see," as these quaint people called to one another, knowing each other as familiarly as ants of a nest, and by the same magic it seemed to me. "an," i said presently, when we had wandered an hour or so through the drifting throng, "have these good countrymen of yours no other names but monosyllabic, nothing to designate them but these chirruping syllables?" "is it not enough?" answered my companion. "once indeed i think we had longer names, but," she added, smiling, "how much trouble it saves to limit each one to a single sound. it is uncivil to one's neighbours to burden their tongues with double duty when half would do." "but have you no patronymics--nothing to show the child comes of the same source as his father came?" "we have no fathers." "what! no fathers?" i said, starting and staring at her. "no, nor mothers either, or at least none that we remember, for again, why should we? mayhap in that strange district you come from you keep count of these things, but what have we to do with either when their initial duty is done. look at that painted butterfly swinging on the honey-laden catkin there. what knows she of the mother who shed her life into a flowercup and forgot which flower it was the minute afterwards. we, too, are insects, stranger." "and do you mean to say of this great concourse here, that every atom is solitary, individual, and can claim no kindred with another save the loose bonds of a general fraternity--a specious idea, horrible, impracticable!" whereat an laughed. "ask the grasshoppers if it is impracticable; ask the little buzzing things of grass and leaves who drift hither and thither upon each breath of wind, finding kinsmen never but comrades everywhere--ask them if it is horrible." this made me melancholy, and somehow set me thinking of the friends immeasurably distant i had left but yesterday. what were they doing? did they miss me? i was to have called for my pay this afternoon, and tomorrow was to have run down south to see that freckled lady of mine. what would she think of my absence? what would she think if she knew where i was? gods, it was too mad, too absurd! i thrust my hands into my pockets in fierce desperation, and there they clutched an old dance programme and an out-of-date check for a new york ferry-boat. i scowled about on that sunny, helpless people, and laying my hand bitterly upon my heart felt in the breast-pocket beneath a packet of unpaid boston tailors' bills and a note from my landlady asking if i would let her aunt do my washing while i was on shore. oh! what would they all think of me? would they brand me as a deserter, a poltroon, and a thief, letting my name presently sink down in shame and mystery in the shadowy realm of the forgotten? dreadful thoughts! i would think no more. maybe an had marked my melancholy, for presently she led me to a stall where in fantastic vases wines of sorts i have described before were put out for all who came to try them. there was medicine here for every kind of dulness--not the gross cure which earthly wine effects, but so nicely proportioned to each specific need that one could regulate one's debauch to a hairbreadth, rising through all the gamut of satisfaction, from the staid contentment coming of that flask there to the wild extravagances of the furthermost vase. so my stripling told me, running her finger down the line of beakers carved with strange figures and cased in silver, each in its cluster of little attendant drinking-cups, like-coloured, and waiting round on the white napkins as the shore boats wait to unload a cargo round the sides of a merchant vessel. "and what," i said, after curiously examining each liquor in turn, "what is that which stands alone there in the humble earthen jar, as though unworthy of the company of the others." "oh, that," said my friend, "is the most essential of them all--that is the wine of recovery, without which all the others were deadly poisons." "the which, lady, looks as if it had a moral attaching to it." "it may have; indeed i think it has, but i have forgotten. prince hath would know! meanwhile let me give you to drink, great stranger, let me get you something." "well, then," i laughed, "reach me down an antidote to fate, a specific for an absent mistress, and forgetful friends." "what was she like?" said an, hesitating a little and frowning. "nay, good friend," was my answer, "what can that matter to you?" "oh, nothing, of course," answered that martian, and while she took from the table a cup and filled it with fluid i felt in the pouch of my sword-belt to see if by chance a bit of money was lying there, but there was none, only the pips of an orange poor polly had sucked and laughingly thrown at me. however, it did not matter. the girl handed me the cup, and i put my lips to it. the first taste was bitter and acrid, like the liquor of long-steeped wood. at the second taste a shiver of pleasure ran through me, and i opened my eyes and stared hard. the third taste grossness and heaviness and chagrin dropped from my heart; all the complexion of providence altered in a flash, and a stupid irresistible joy, unreasoning, uncontrollable took possession of my fibre. i sank upon a mossy bank and, lolling my head, beamed idiotically on the lolling martians all about me. how long i was like that i cannot say. the heavy minutes of sodden contentment slipped by unnoticed, unnumbered, till presently i felt the touch of a wine-cup at my lips again, and drinking of another liquor dulness vanished from my mind, my eyes cleared, my heart throbbed; a fantastic gaiety seized upon my limbs; i bounded to my feet, and seizing an's two hands in mine, swung that damsel round in a giddy dance, capering as never dancer danced before, till spent and weary i sank down again from sheer lack of breath, and only knew thereafter that an was sitting by me saying, "drink! drink stranger, drink and forget!" and as a third time a cup was pressed to my lips, aches and pleasures, stupidness and joy, life itself, seemed slipping away into a splendid golden vacuity, a hazy episode of unconscious elysium, indefinite, and unfathomable. chapter v when i woke, feeling as refreshed as though i had been dreaming through a long night, an, seeing me open-eyed, helped me to my feet, and when i had recovered my senses a little, asked if we should go on. i was myself again by this time, so willingly took her hand, and soon came out of the tangle into the open spaces. i must have been under the spell of the martian wines longer than it seemed, for already it was late in the afternoon, the shadows of trees were lying deep and far-reaching over the motley crowds of people. out here as the day waned they had developed some sort of method in their sports. in front of us was a broad, grassy course marked off with garlanded finger-posts, and in this space rallies of workfolk were taking part in all manner of games under the eyes of a great concourse of spectators, doing the martians' pleasures for them as they did their labours. an led me gently on, leaning on my arm heavier, i thought, than she had done in the morning, and ever and anon turning her gazelle-like eyes upon me with a look i could not understand. as we sauntered forward i noticed all about lesser circles where the yellow-girted ones were drawing delighted laughter from good-tempered crowds by tricks of sleight-of-hand, and posturing, or tossing gilded cups and balls as though they were catering, as indeed they were, for outgrown children. others fluted or sang songs in chorus to the slow clapping of hands, while others were doing i knew not what, sitting silent amongst silent spectators who every now and then burst out laughing for no cause that i could see. but an would not let me stop, and so we pushed on through the crowd till we came to the main enclosures where a dozen slaves had run a race for the amusement of those too lazy to race themselves, and were sitting panting on the grass. to give them time to get their breath, perhaps, a man stepped out of the crowd dressed in a dark blue tunic, a strange vacuous-looking fellow, and throwing down a sheaf of javelins marched off a dozen paces, then, facing round, called out loudly he would give sixteen suits of "summer cloth" to any one who could prick him with a javelin from the heap. "why," i said in amazement, "this is the best of fools--no one could miss from such a distance." "ay but," replied my guide, "he is a gifted one, versed in mystics." i was just going to say a good javelin, shod with iron, was a stronger argument than any mystic i had ever heard of could stand, when out of the crowd stepped a youth, and amid the derisive cheers of his friends chose a reed from the bundle. he poised it in his hand a minute to get the middle, then turned on the living target. whatever else they might be, these martians were certainly beautiful as the daytime. never had i seen such a perfect embodiment of grace and elegance as that boy as he stood there for a moment poised to the throw; the afternoon sunshine warm and strong on his bunched brown hair, a girlish flush of shyness on his handsome face, and the sleek perfection of his limbs, clear cut against the dusky background beyond. and now the javelin was going. surely the mystic would think better of it at the last moment! no! the initiate held his ground with tight-shut lips and retrospective eyes, and even as i looked the weapon flew upon its errand. "there goes the soul of a fool!" i exclaimed, and as the words were uttered the spear struck, or seemed to, between the neck and shoulder, but instead of piercing rose high into the air, quivering and flashing, and presently turning over, fell back, and plunged deep into the turf, while a low murmur of indifferent pleasure went round amongst the onlookers. thereat an, yawning gently, looked to me and said, "a strong-willed fellow, isn't he, friend?" i hesitated a minute and then asked, "was it will which turned that shaft?" she answered with simplicity, "why, of course--what else?" by this time another boy had stepped out, and having chosen a javelin, tested it with hand and foot, then retiring a pace or two rushed up to the throwing mark and flung it straight and true into the bared bosom of the man. and as though it had struck a wall of brass, the shaft leapt back falling quivering at the thrower's feet. another and another tried unsuccessfully, until at last, vexed at their futility, i said, "i have a somewhat scanty wardrobe that would be all the better for that fellow's summer suiting, by your leave i will venture a throw against him." "it is useless," answered an; "none but one who knows more magic than he, or is especially befriended by the fates can touch him through the envelope he has put on." "still, i think i will try." "it is hopeless, i would not willingly see you fail," whispered the girl, with a sudden show of friendship. "and what," i said, bending down, "would you give me if i succeeded?" whereat an laughed a little uneasily, and, withdrawing her hand from mine, half turned away. so i pushed through the spectators and stepped into the ring. i went straight up to the pile of weapons, and having chosen one went over to the mystic. "good fellow," i cried out ostentatiously, trying the sharpness of the javelin-point with my finger, "where are all of those sixteen summer suits of yours lying hid?" "it matters nothing," said the man, as if he were asleep. "ay, but by the stars it does, for it will vex the quiet repose of your soul tomorrow if your heirs should swear they could not find them." "it matters nothing," muttered the will-wrapped visionary. "it will matter something if i take you at your word. come, friend purple-jerkin, will you take the council with your legs and run while there is yet time, or stand up to be thrown at?" "i stand here immoveable in the confidence of my initiation." "then, by thunder, i will initiate you into the mysteries of a javelin-end, and your blood be on your head." the martians were all craning their necks in hushed eagerness as i turned to the casting-place, and, poising the javelin, faced the magician. would he run at the last moment? i half hoped so; for a minute i gave him the chance, then, as he showed no sign of wavering, i drew my hand back, shook the javelin back till it bent like a reed, and hurled it at him. the martians' heads turned as though all on one pivot as the spear sped through the air, expecting no doubt to see it recoil as others had done. but it took him full in the centre of his chest, and with a wild wave of arms and a flutter of purple raiment sent him backwards, and down, and over and over in a shapeless heap of limbs and flying raiment, while a low murmur of awed surprise rose from the spectators. they crowded round him in a dense ring, as an came flitting to me with a startled face. "oh, stranger," she burst out, "you have surely killed him!" but more astounded i had broken down his guard than grieved at his injury. "no," i answered smilingly; "a sore chest he may have tomorrow, but dead he is not, for i turned the lance-point back as i spun it, and it was the butt-end i threw at him!" "it was none the less wonderful; i thought you were a common man, a prince mayhap, come but from over the hills, but now something tells me you are more than that," and she lapsed into thoughtful silence for a time. neither of us were wishful to go back amongst those who were raising the bruised magician to his legs, but wandered away instead through the deepening twilight towards the city over meadows whose damp, soft fragrance loaded the air with sleepy pleasure, neither of us saying a word till the dusk deepened and the quick night descended, while we came amongst the gardened houses, the thousand lights of an unreal city rising like a jewelled bank before us, and there an said she would leave me for a time, meeting me again in the palace square later on, "to see princess heru read the destinies of the year." "what!" i exclaimed, "more magic? i have been brought up on more substantial mental stuff than this." "nevertheless, i would advise you to come to the square," persisted my companion. "it affects us all, and--who knows?--may affect you more than any." therein poor an was unconsciously wearing the cloak of prophesy herself, and, shrugging my shoulders good-humouredly, i kissed her chin, little realising, as i let her fingers slip from mine, that i should see her no more. turning back alone, through the city, through ways twinkling with myriad lights as little lamps began to blink out amongst garlands and flower-decked booths on every hand, i walked on, lost in varying thoughts, until, fairly tired and hungry, i found myself outside a stall where many martians stood eating and drinking to their hearts' content. i was known to none of them, and, forgetting past experience, was looking on rather enviously, when there came a touch upon my arm, and-- "are you hungry, sir?" asked a bystander. "ay," i said, "hungry, good friend, and with all the zest which an empty purse lends to that condition." "then here is what you need, sir, even from here the wine smells good, and the fried fruit would make a mouse's eye twinkle. why do you wait?" "why wait? why, because though the rich man's dinner goes in at his mouth, the poor man must often be content to dine through his nose. i tell you i have nothing to get me a meal with." the stranger seemed to speculate on this for a time, and then he said, "i cannot fathom your meaning, sir. buying and selling, gold and money, all these have no meaning to me. surely the twin blessings of an appetite and food abundant ready and free before you are enough." "what! free is it--free like the breakfast served out this morning?" "why, of course," said the youth, with mild depreciation; "everything here is free. everything is his who will take it, without exception. what else is the good of a coherent society and a government if it cannot provide you with so rudimentary a thing as a meal?" whereat joyfully i undid my belt, and, without nicely examining the argument, marched into the booth, and there put martian hospitality to the test, eating and drinking, but this time with growing wisdom, till i was a new man, and then, paying my leaving with a wave of the hand to the yellow-girted one who dispensed the common provender, i sauntered on again, caring little or nothing which way the road went, and soon across the current of my meditations a peal of laughter broke, accompanied by the piping of a flute somewhere close at hand, and the next minute i found myself amid a ring of light-hearted roisterers who were linking hands for a dance to the music a curly-headed fellow was making close by. they made me join them! one rosey-faced damsel at the hither end of the chain drew up to me, and, without a word, slipped her soft, baby fingers into my hand; on the other side another came with melting eyes, breath like a bed of violets, and banked-up fun puckering her dainty mouth. what could i do but give her a hand as well? the flute began to gurgle anew, like a drinking spout in spring-time, and away we went, faster and faster each minute, the boys and girls swinging themselves in time to the tune, and capering presently till their tender feet were twinkling over the ground in gay confusion. faster and faster till, as the infection of the dance spread even to the outside groups, i capered too. my word! if they could have seen me that night from the deck of the old carolina, how they would have laughed--sword swinging, coat-tails flying--faster and faster, round and round we went, till limbs could stand no more; the gasping piper blew himself quite out, and the dance ended as abruptly as it commenced, the dancers melting away to join others or casting themselves panting on the turf. certainly these martian girls were blessed with an ingratiating simplicity. my new friend of the violet-scented breath hung back a little, then after looking at me demurely for a minute or two, like a child that chooses a new playmate, came softly up, and, standing on tiptoe, kissed me on the cheek. it was not unpleasant, so i turned the other, whereon, guessing my meaning, without the smallest hesitation, she reached up again, and pressed her pretty mouth to my bronzed skin a second time. then, with a little sigh of satisfaction, she ran an arm through mine, saying, "comrade, from what country have you come? i never saw one quite like you before." "from what country had i come?" again the frown dropped down upon my forehead. was i dreaming--was i mad? where indeed had i come from? i stared back over my shoulder, and there, as if in answer to my thought--there, where the black tracery of flowering shrubs waved in the soft night wind, over a gap in the crumbling ivory ramparts, the sky was brightening. as i looked into the centre of that glow, a planet, magnified by the wonderful air, came swinging up, pale but splendid, and mapped by soft colours--green, violet, and red. i knew it on the minute, heaven only knows how, but i knew it, and a desperate thrill of loneliness swept over me, a spasm of comprehension of the horrible void dividing us. never did yearning babe stretch arms more wistfully to an unattainable mother than i at that moment to my mother earth. all her meanness and prosaicness was forgotten, all her imperfections and shortcomings; it was home, the one tangible thing in the glittering emptiness of the spheres. all my soul went into my eyes, and then i sneezed violently, and turning round, found that sweet damsel whose silky head nestled so friendly on my shoulder was tickling my nose with a feather she had picked up. womanlike, she had forgotten all about her first question, and now asked another, "will you come to supper with me, stranger? 'tis nearly ready, i think." "to be able to say no to such an invitation, lady, is the first thing a young man should learn," i answered lightly; but then, seeing there was nothing save the most innocent friendliness in those hazel eyes, i went on, "but that stern rule may admit of variance. only, as it chances, i have just supped at the public expense. if, instead, you would be a sailor's sweetheart for an hour, and take me to this show of yours--your princess's benefit, or whatever it is--i shall be obliged; my previous guide is hull down over the horizon, and i am clean out of my reckoning in this crowd." by way of reply, the little lady, light as an elf, took me by the fingertips, and, gleefully skipping forward, piloted me through the mazes of her city until we came out into the great square fronting on the palace, which rose beyond it like a white chalk cliff in the dull light. not a taper showed anywhere round its circumference, but a mysterious kind of radiance like sea phosphorescence beamed from the palace porch. all was in such deathlike silence that the nails in my "ammunition" boots made an unpleasant clanking as they struck on the marble pavement; yet, by the uncertain starlight, i saw, to my surprise, the whole square was thronged with martians, all facing towards the porch, as still, graven images, and as voiceless, for once, as though they had indeed been marble. it was strange to see them sitting there in the twilight, waiting for i knew not what, and my friend's voice at my elbow almost startled me as she said, in a whisper, "the princess knows you are in the crowd, and desires you to go up upon the steps near where she will be." "who brought her message?" i asked, gazing vaguely round, for none had spoken to us for an hour or more. "no one," said my companion, gently pushing me up an open way towards the palace steps left clear by the sitting martians. "it came direct from her to me this minute." "but how?" i persisted. "nay," said the girl, "if we stop to talk like this we shall not be placed before she comes, and thus throw a whole year's knowledge out." so, bottling my speculations, i allowed myself to be led up the first flight of worn, white steps to where, on the terrace between them and the next flight leading directly to the palace portico, was a flat, having a circle about twenty feet across, inlaid upon the marble with darker coloured blocks. inside that circle, as i sat down close by it in the twilight, showed another circle, and then a final one in whose inmost middle stood a tall iron tripod and something atop of it covered by a cloth. and all round the outer circle were magic symbols--i started as i recognised the meaning of some of them--within these again the inner circle held what looked like the representations of planets, ending, as i have said, in that dished hollow made by countless dancers' feet, and its solitary tripod. back again, i glanced towards the square where the great concourse--ten thousand of them, perhaps--were sitting mute and silent in the deepening shadows, then back to the magic circles, till the silence and expectancy of a strange scene began to possess me. shadow down below, star-dusted heaven above, and not a figure moving; when suddenly something like a long-drawn sigh came from the lips of the expectant multitude, and i was aware every eye had suddenly turned back to the palace porch, where, as we looked, a figure, wrapped in pale blue robes, appeared and stood for a minute, then stole down the steps with an eagerness in every movement holding us spellbound. i have seen many splendid pageants and many sights, each of which might be the talk of a lifetime, but somehow nothing ever so engrossing, so thrilling, as that ghostly figure in flowing robes stealing across the piazza in starlight and silence--the princess of a broken kingdom, the priestess of a forgotten faith coming to her station to perform a jugglery of which she knew not even the meaning. it was my versatile friend heru, and with quick, incisive steps, her whole frame ambent for the time with the fervour of her mission, she came swiftly down to within a dozen yards of where i stood. heru, indeed, but not the same princess as in the morning; an inspired priestess rather, her slim body wrapped in blue and quivering with emotion, her face ashine with delphic fire, her hair loose, her feet bare, until at last when, as she stood within the limit of the magic circle, her white hands upon her breast, her eyes flashing like planets themselves in the starshine she looked so ghostly and unreal i felt for a minute i was dreaming. then began a strange, weird dance amongst the imagery of the rings, over which my earth planet was beginning to throw a haze of light. at first it was hardly more than a walk, a slow procession round the twin circumferences of the centred tripod. but soon it increased to an extraordinary graceful measure, a cadenced step without music or sound that riveted my eyes to the dancer. presently i saw those mystic, twinkling feet of hers--as the dance became swifter--were performing a measured round amongst the planet signs--spelling out something, i knew not what, with quick, light touch amongst the zodiac figures, dancing out a soundless invocation of some kind as a dumb man might spell a message by touching letters. quicker and quicker, for minute after minute, grew the dance, swifter and swifter the swing of the light blue drapery as the priestess, with eager face and staring eyes, swung panting round upon her orbit, and redder and redder over the city tops rose the circumference of the earth. it seemed to me all the silent multitude were breathing heavily as we watched that giddy dance, and whatever they felt, all my own senses seemed to be winding up upon that revolving figure as thread winds on a spindle. "when will she stop?" i whispered to my friend under my breath. "when the earth-star rests in the roof-niche of the temple it is climbing," she answered back. "and then?" "on the tripod is a globe of water. in it she will see the destiny of the year, and will tell us. the whiter the water stays, the better for us; it never varies from white. but we must not talk; see! she is stopping." and as i looked back, the dance was certainly ebbing now with such smoothly decreasing undulations, that every heart began to beat calmer in response. there was a minute or two of such slow cessation, and then to say she stopped were too gross a description. motion rather died away from her, and the priestess grounded as smoothly as a ship grounds in fine weather on a sandy bank. there she was at last, crouched behind the tripod, one corner of the cloth covering it grasped in her hand, and her eyes fixed on the shining round just poised upon the distant run. keenly the girl watched it slide into zenith, then the cloth was snatched from the tripod-top. as it fell it uncovered a beautiful and perfect globe of clear white glass, a foot or so in diameter, and obviously filled with the thinnest, most limpid water imaginable. at first it seemed to me, who stood near to the priestess of mars, with that beaming sphere directly between us, and the newly risen world, that its smooth and flawless face was absolutely devoid of sign or colouring. then, as the distant planet became stronger in the magnifying martian air, or my eyes better accustomed to that sudden nucleus of brilliancy, a delicate and infinitely lovely network of colours came upon it. they were like the radiant prisms that sometimes flush the surface of a bubble more than aught else for a time. but as i watched that mosaic of yellow and purple creep softly to and fro upon the globe it seemed they slowly took form and meaning. another minute or two and they had certainly congealed into a settled plan, and then, as i stared and wondered, it burst upon me in a minute that i was looking upon a picture, faithful in every detail, of the world i stood on; all its ruddy forests, its sapphire sea, both broad and narrow ones, its white peaked mountains, and unnumbered islands being mapped out with startling clearness for a spell upon that beaming orb. then a strange thing happened. heru, who had been crouching in a tremulous heap by the tripod, rose stealthily and passed her hands a few times across the sphere. colour and picture vanished at her touch like breath from a mirror. again all was clear and pellucid. "now," said my companion, "now listen! for heru reads the destiny; the whiter the globe stays the better for us--" and then i felt her hand tighten on mine with a startled grasp as the words died away upon her lips. even as the girl spoke, the sphere, which had been beaming in the centre of the silent square like a mighty white jewel, began to flush with angry red. redder and redder grew the gleam--a fiery glow which seemed curdling in the interior of the round as though it were filled with flame; redder and redder, until the princess, staring into it, seemed turned against the jet-black night behind, into a form of molten metal. a spasm of terror passed across her as she stared; her limbs stiffened; her frightened hands were clutched in front, and she stood cowering under that great crimson nucleus like one bereft of power and life, and lost to every sense but that of agony. not a syllable came from her lips, not a movement stirred her body, only that dumb, stupid stare of horror, at the something she saw in the globe. what could i do? i could not sit and see her soul come out at her frightened eyes, and not a martian moved a finger to her rescue; the red shine gleamed on empty faces, tier above tier, and flung its broad flush over the endless rank of open-mouthed spectators, then back i looked to heru--that winsome little lady for whom, you will remember, i had already more than a passing fancy--and saw with a thrill of emotion that while she still kept her eyes on the flaming globe like one in a horrible dream her hands were slowly, very slowly, rising in supplication to me! it was not vanity. there was no mistaking the direction of that silent, imploring appeal. not a man of her countrymen moved, not even black hath! there was not a sound in the world, it seemed, but the noisy clatter of my own shoenails on the marble flags. in the great red eye of that unholy globe the martians glimmered like a picture multitude under the red cliff of their ruined palace. i glared round at them with contempt for a minute, then sprang forward and snatched the princess up. it was like pulling a flower up by the roots. she was stiff and stark when i lay hold of her, but when i tore her from the magic ground she suddenly gave a piercing shriek, and fainted in my arms. then as i turned upon my heels with her upon my breast my foot caught upon the cloths still wound about the tripod of the sphere. over went that implement of a thousand years of sorcery, and out went the red fire. but little i cared--the princess was safe! and up the palace steps, amidst a low, wailing hum of consternation from the recovering martians, i bore that bundle of limp and senseless loveliness up into the pale shine of her own porch, and there, laying her down upon a couch, watched her recover presently amongst her women with a varied assortment of emotions tingling in my veins. chapter vi beyond the first flutter of surprise, the martians had shown no interest in the abrupt termination of the year's divinations. they melted away, a trifle more silently perhaps than usual, when i shattered the magic globe, but with their invariable indifference, and having handed the reviving heru over to some women who led her away, apparently already half forgetful of the things that had just happened, i was left alone on the palace steps, not even an beside me, and only the shadow of a passerby now and then to break the solitude. whereon a great loneliness took hold upon me, and, pacing to and fro along the ancient terrace with bent head and folded arms, i bewailed my fate. to and fro i walked, heedless and melancholy, thinking of the old world, that was so far and this near world so distant from me in everything making life worth living, thinking, as i strode gloomily here and there, how gladly i would exchange these poor puppets and the mockery of a town they dwelt in, for a sight of my comrades and a corner in the poorest wine-shop salon in new york or 'frisco; idly speculating why, and how, i came here, as i sauntered down amongst the glistening, shell-like fragments of the shattered globe, and finding no answer. how could i? it was too fair, i thought, standing there in the open; there was a fatal sweetness in the air, a deadly sufficiency in the beauty of everything around falling on the lax senses like some sleepy draught of pleasure. not a leaf stirred, the wide purple roof of the sky was unbroken by the healthy promise of a cloud from rim to rim, the splendid country, teeming with its spring-time richness, lay in rank perfection everywhere; and just as rank and sleek and passionless were those who owned it. why, even i, who yesterday was strong, began to come under the spell of it. but yesterday the spirit of the old world was still strong within me, yet how much things were now changing. the well-strung muscles loosening, the heart beating a slower measure, the busy mind drowsing off to listlessness. was i, too, destined to become like these? was the red stuff in my veins to be watered down to pallid martian sap? was ambition and hope to desert me, and idleness itself become laborious, while life ran to seed in gilded uselessness? little did i guess how unnecessary my fears were, or of the incredible fairy tale of adventure into which fate was going to plunge me. still engrossed the next morning by these thoughts, i decided i would go to hath. hath was a man--at least they said so--he might sympathise even though he could not help, and so, dressing finished, i went down towards the innermost palace whence for an hour or two had come sounds of unwonted bustle. asking for the way occasionally from sleepy folk lolling about the corridors, waiting as it seemed for their breakfasts to come to them, and embarrassed by the new daylight, i wandered to and fro in the labyrinths of that stony ant-heap until i chanced upon a curtained doorway which admitted to a long chamber, high-roofed, ample in proportions, with colonnades on either side separated from the main aisle by rows of flowery figures and emblematic scroll-work, meaning i knew not what. above those pillars ran a gallery with many windows looking out over the ruined city. while at the further end of the chamber stood three broad steps leading to a dais. as i entered, the whole place was full of bustling girls, their yellow garments like a bed of flowers in the sunlight trickling through the casements, and all intent on the spreading of a feast on long tables ranged up and down the hall. the morning light streamed in on the white cloths. it glittered on the glass and the gold they were putting on the trestles, and gave resplendent depths of colour to the ribbon bands round the pillars. all were so busy no one noticed me standing in the twilight by the door, but presently, laying a hand on a worker's shoulder, i asked who they banqueted for, and why such unwonted preparation? "it is the marriage-feast tonight, stranger, and a marvel you did not know it. you, too, are to be wed." "i had not heard of it, damsel; a paternal forethought of your government, i suppose? have you any idea who the lady is?" "how should i know?" she answered laughingly. "that is the secret of the urn. meanwhile, we have set you a place at the table-head near princess heru, and tonight you dip and have your chance like all of them; may luck send you a rosy bride, and save her from ar-hap." "ay, now i remember; an told me of this before; ar-hap is the sovereign with whom your people have a little difference, and shares unbidden in the free distribution of brides to-night. this promises to be interesting; depend on it i will come; if you will keep me a place where i can hear the speeches, and not forget me when the turtle soup goes round, i shall be more than grateful. now to another matter. i want to get a few minutes with your president, prince hath. he concentrates the fluid intelligence of this sphere, i am told. where can i find him?" "he is drunk, in the library, sir!" "my word! it is early in the day for that, and a singular conjunction of place and circumstance." "where," said the girl, "could he safer be? we can always fetch him if we want him, and sunk in blue oblivion he will not come to harm." "a cheerful view, miss, which is worthy of the attention of our reformers. nevertheless, i will go to him. i have known men tell more truth in that state than in any other." the servitor directed me to the library, and after desolate wanderings up crumbling steps and down mouldering corridors, sunny and lovely in decay, i came to the immense lumber-shed of knowledge they had told me of, a city of dead books, a place of dusty cathedral aisles stored with forgotten learning. at a table sat hath the purposeless, enthroned in leather and vellum, snoring in divine content amongst all that wasted labour, and nothing i could do was sufficient to shake him into semblance of intelligence. so perforce i turned away till he should have come to himself, and wandering round the splendid litter of a noble library, presently amongst the ruck of volumes on the floor, amongst those lordly tomes in tattered green and gold, and ivory, my eye lit upon a volume propped up curiously on end, and going to it through the confusion i saw by the dried fruit rind upon the sticks supporting it, that the grave and reverend tome was set to catch a mouse! it was a splendid book when i looked more closely, bound as a king might bind his choicest treasure, the sweet-scented leather on it was no doubt frayed; the golden arabesques upon the covers had long since shed their eyes of inset gems, the jewelled clasp locking its learning up from vulgar gaze was bent and open. yet it was a lordly tome with an odour of sanctity about it, and lifting it with difficulty, i noticed on its cover a red stain of mouse's blood. those who put it to this quaint use of mouse-trap had already had some sport, but surely never was a mouse crushed before under so much learning. and while i stood guessing at what the book might hold within, heru, the princess, came tripping in to me, and with the abrupt familiarity of her kind, laid a velvet hand upon my wrist, conned the title over to herself. "what does it say, sweet girl?" i asked. "the matter is learned, by its feel," and that maid, pursing up her pretty lips, read the title to me--"the secret of the gods." "the secret of the gods," i murmured. "was it possible other worlds had struggled hopelessly to come within the barest ken of that great knowledge, while here the same was set to catch a mouse with?" i said, "silver-footed, sit down and read me a passage or two," and propping the mighty volume upon a table drew a bench before it and pulled her down beside me. "oh! a horrid, dry old book for certain," cried that lady, her pink fingertips falling as lightly on the musty leaves as almond petals on march dust. "where shall i begin? it is all equally dull." "dip in," was my answer. "'tis no great matter where, but near the beginning. what says the writer of his intention? what sets he out to prove?" "he says that is the secret of the first great truth, descended straight to him--" "many have said so much, yet have lied." "he says that which is written in his book is through him but not of him, past criticism and beyond cavil. 'tis all in ancient and crabbed characters going back to the threshold of my learning, but here upon this passage-top where they are writ large i make them out to say, 'only the man who has died many times begins to live.'" "a pregnant passage! turn another page, and try again; i have an inkling of the book already." "'tis poor, silly stuff," said the girl, slipping a hand covertly into my own. "why will you make me read it? i have a book on pomatums worth twice as much as this." "nevertheless, dip in again, dear lady. what says the next heading?" and with a little sigh at the heaviness of her task, heru read out: "sometimes the gods themselves forget the answers to their own riddles." "lady, i knew it! "all this is still preliminary to the great matter of the book, but the mutterings of the priest who draws back the curtains of the shrine--and here, after the scribe has left these two yellow pages blank as though to set a space of reverence between himself and what comes next--here speaks the truth, the voice, the fact of all life." but "oh! jones," she said, turning from the dusty pages and clasping her young, milk-warm hands over mine and leaning towards me until her blushing cheek was near to my shoulder and the incense of her breath upon me. "oh! gulliver jones," she said. "make me read no more; my soul revolts from the task, the crazy brown letters swim before my eyes. is there no learning near at hand that would be pleasanter reading than this silly book of yours? what, after all," she said, growing bolder at the sound of her own voice, "what, after all, is the musty reticence of gods to the whispered secret of a maid? jones, splendid stranger for whom all men stand aside and women look over shoulders, oh, let me be your book!" she whispered, slipping on to my knee and winding her arms round my neck till, through the white glimmer of her single vest, i could feel her heart beating against mine. "newest and dearest of friends, put by this dreary learning and look in my eyes; is there nothing to be spelt out there?" and i was constrained to do as she bid me, for she was as fresh as an almond blossom touched by the sun, and looking down into two swimming blue lakes where shyness and passion were contending--books easy enough, in truth, to be read, i saw that she loved me, with the unconventional ardour of her nature. it was a pleasant discovery, if its abruptness was embarrassing, for she was a maid in a thousand; and half ashamed and half laughing i let her escalade me, throwing now and then a rueful look at the secret of the gods, and all that priceless knowledge treated so unworthily. what else could i do? besides, i loved her myself! and if there was a momentary chagrin at having yonder golden knowledge put off by this lovely interruption, yet i was flesh and blood, the gods could wait--they had to wait long and often before, and when this sweet interpreter was comforted we would have another try. so it happened i took her into my heart and gave her the answer she asked for. for a long time we sat in the dusky grandeur of the royal library, my mind revolving between wonder and admiration of the neglected knowledge all about, and the stirrings of a new love, while heru herself, lapsed again into martian calm, lay half sleeping on my shoulder, but presently, unwinding her arms, i put her down. "there, sweetheart," i whispered, "enough of this for the moment; tonight, perhaps, some more, but while we are here amongst all this lordly litter, i can think of nothing else." again i bid her turn the pages, noting as she did so how each chapter was headed by the coloured configuration of a world. page by page we turned of crackling parchment, until by chance, at the top of one, my eye caught a coloured round i could not fail to recognise--'twas the spinning button on the blue breast of the immeasurable that yesterday i inhabited. "read here," i cried, clapping my finger upon the page midway down, where there were some signs looking like egyptian writing. "says this quaint dabbler in all knowledge anything of isis, anything of phra, of ammon, of ammon top?" "and who was isis? who ammon top?" asked the lady. "nay, read," i answered, and down the page her slender fingers went awandering till at a spot of knotted signs they stopped. "why, here is something about thy isis," exclaimed heru, as though amused at my perspicuity. "here, halfway down this chapter of earth-history, it says," and putting one pink knee across the other to better prop the book she read: "and the priests of thebes were gone; the sand stood untrampled on the temple steps a thousand years; the wild bees sang the song of desolation in the ears of isis; the wild cats littered in the stony lap of ammon; ay, another thousand years went by, and earth was tilled of unseen hands and sown with yellow grain from paradise, and the thin veil that separates the known from the unknown was rent, and men walked to and fro." "go on," i said. "nay," laughed the other, "the little mice in their eagerness have been before you--see, all this corner is gnawed away." "read on again," i said, "where the page is whole; those sips of knowledge you have given make me thirsty for more. there, begin where this blazonry of initialed red and gold looks so like the carpet spread by the scribe for the feet of a sovereign truth--what says he here?" and she, half pouting to be set back once more to that task, half wondering as she gazed on those magic letters, let her eyes run down the page, then began: "and it was the beginning, and in the centre void presently there came a nucleus of light: and the light brightened in the grey primeval morning and became definite and articulate. and from the midst of that natal splendour, behind which was the unknowable, the life came hitherward; from the midst of that nucleus undescribed, undescribable, there issued presently the primeval sigh that breathed the breath of life into all things. and that sigh thrilled through the empty spaces of the illimitable: it breathed the breath of promise over the frozen hills of the outside planets where the night-frost had lasted without beginning: and the waters of ten thousand nameless oceans, girding nameless planets, were stirred, trembling into their depth. it crossed the illimitable spaces where the herding aerolites swirl forever through space in the wake of careering world, and all their whistling wings answered to it. it reverberated through the grey wastes of vacuity, and crossed the dark oceans of the outside, even to the black shores of the eternal night beyond. "and hardly had echo of that breath died away in the hollow of the heavens and the empty wombs of a million barren worlds, when the light brightened again, and drawing in upon itself became definite and took form, and therefrom, at the moment of primitive conception, there came--" and just then, as she had read so far as that, when all my faculties were aching to know what came next--whether this were but the idle scribbling of a vacuous fool, or something else--there rose the sound of soft flutes and tinkling bells in the corridors, as seneschals wandered piping round the palace to call folk to meals, a smell of roast meat and grilling fish as that procession lifted the curtains between the halls, and-- "dinner!" shouted my sweet martian, slapping the covers of the secret of the gods together and pushing the stately tome headlong from the table. "dinner! 'tis worth a hundred thousand planets to the hungry!" nothing i could say would keep her, and, scarcely knowing whether to laugh or to be angry at so unseemly an interruption, but both being purposeless i dug my hands into my pockets, and somewhat sulkily refusing heru's invitation to luncheon in the corridor (navy rations had not fitted my stomach for these constant debauches of gossamer food), strolled into the town again in no very pleasant frame of mind. chapter vii it was only at moments like these i had any time to reflect on my circumstances or that giddy chance which had shot me into space in this fashion, and, frankly, the opportunities, when they did come, brought such an extraordinary depressing train of thought, i by no means invited them. even with the time available the occasion was always awry for such reflection. these dainty triflers made sulking as impossible amongst them as philosophy in a ballroom. when i stalked out like that from the library in fine mood to moralise and apostrophise heaven in a way that would no doubt have looked fine upon these pages, one sprightly damsel, just as the gloomy rhetoric was bursting from my lips, thrust a flower under my nose whose scent brought on a violent attack of sneezing, her companions joining hands and dancing round me while they imitated my agony. then, when i burst away from them and rushed down a narrow arcade of crumbling mansions, another stopped me in mid-career, and taking the honey-stick she was sucking from her lips, put it to mine, like a pretty, playful child. another asked me to dance, another to drink pink oblivion with her, and so on. how could one lament amongst all this irritating cheerfulness? an might have helped me, for poor an was intelligent for a martian, but she had disappeared, and the terrible vacuity of life in the planet was forced upon me when i realised that possessing no cognomen, no fixed address, or rating, it would be the merest chance if i ever came across her again. looking for my friendly guide and getting more and more at sea amongst a maze of comely but similar faces, i made chance acquaintance with another of her kind who cheerfully drank my health at the government's expense, and chatted on things martian. she took me to see a funeral by way of amusement, and i found these people floated their dead off on flower-decked rafts instead of burying them, the send-offs all taking place upon a certain swift-flowing stream, which carried the dead away into the vast region of northern ice, but more exactly whither my informant seemed to have no idea. the voyager on this occasion was old, and this brought to my mind the curious fact that i had observed few children in the city, and no elders, all, except perhaps hath, being in a state of sleek youthfulness. my new friend explained the peculiarity by declaring martians ripened with extraordinary rapidity from infancy to the equivalent of about twenty-five years of age, with us, and then remained at that period however long they might live; only when they died did their accumulated seasons come upon them; the girl turning pale, and wringing her pretty hands in sympathetic concern when i told her there was a land where decrepitude was not so happily postponed. the martians, she said, arranged their calendar by the varying colours of the seasons, and loved blue as an antidote to the generally red and rusty character of their soil. discussing such things as these we lightly squandered the day away, and i know of nothing more to note until the evening was come again: that wonderful purple evening which creeps over the outer worlds at sunset, a seductive darkness gemmed with ten thousand stars riding so low in the heaven they seem scarcely more than mast high. when that hour was come my friend tiptoed again to my cheek, and then, pointing to the palace and laughingly hoping fate would send me a bride "as soft as catkin and as sweet as honey," slipped away into the darkness. then i remembered all on a sudden this was the connubial evening of my sprightly friends--the occasion when, as an had told me, the government constituted itself into a gigantic matrimonial agency, and, with the cheerful carelessness of the place, shuffled the matrimonial pack anew, and dealt a fresh hand to all the players. now i had no wish to avail myself of a sailor's privilege of a bride in every port, but surely this game would be interesting enough to see, even if i were but a disinterested spectator. as a matter of fact i was something more than that, and had been thinking a good deal of heru during the day. i do not know whether i actually aspired to her hand--that were a large order, even if there had been no suspicion in my mind she was already bespoke in some vague way by the invisible hath, most abortive of princes. but she was undeniably a lovely girl; the more one thought of her the more she grew upon the fancy, and then the preference she had shown myself was very gratifying. yes, i would certainly see this quaint ceremonial, even if i took no leading part in it. the great centre hall of the palace was full of a radiant light bringing up its ruined columns and intruding creepers to the best effect when i entered. dinner also was just being served, as they would say in another, and alas! very distant place, and the whole building thronged with folk. down the centre low tables with room for four hundred people were ranged, but they looked quaint enough since but two hundred were sitting there, all brand-new bachelors about to be turned into brand new benedicts, and taking it mightily calmly it seemed. across the hall-top was a raised table similarly arranged and ornamented; and entering into the spirit of the thing, and little guessing how stern a reality was to come from the evening, i sat down in a vacant place near to the dais, and only a few paces from where the pale, ghost-eyed hath was already seated. almost immediately afterwards music began to buzz all about the hall--music of the kind the people loved which always seemed to me as though it were exuding from the tables and benches, so disembodied and difficult it was to locate; all the sleepy gallants raised their flower-encircled heads at the same time, seizing their wine-cups, already filled to the brim, and the door at the bottom of the hall opening, the ladies, preceded by one carrying a mysterious vase covered with a glittering cloth, came in. now, being somewhat thirsty, i had already drunk half the wine in my beaker, and whether it was that draught, drugged as all martian wines are, or the sheer loveliness of the maids themselves, i cannot say, but as the procession entered, and, dividing, circled round under the colonnades of the hall, a sensation of extraordinary felicity came over me--an emotion of divine contentment purged of all grossness--and i stared and stared at the circling loveliness, gossamer-clad, flower-girdled, tripping by me with vapid delight. either the wine was budding in my head, or there was little to choose from amongst them, for had any of those ladies sat down in the vacant place beside me, i should certainly have accepted her as a gift from heaven, without question or cavil. but one after another they slipped by, modestly taking their places in the shadows until at last came princess heru, and at the sight of her my soul was stirred. she came undulating over the white marble, the loveliness of her fairy person dimmed but scarcely hidden by a robe of softest lawn in colour like rose-petals, her eyes aglitter with excitement and a charming blush upon her face. she came straight up to me, and, resting a dainty hand upon my shoulder, whispered, "are you come as a spectator only, dear mr. jones, or do you join in our custom tonight?" "i came only as a bystander, lady, but the fascination of the opportunity is deadly--" "and have you any preference?"--this in the softest little voice from somewhere in the nape of my neck. "strangers sometimes say there are fair women in seth." "none--till you came; and now, as was said a long time ago, 'all is dross that is not helen.' dearest lady," i ran on, detaining her by the fingertips and gazing up into those shy and star-like eyes, "must i indeed put all the hopes your kindness has roused in me these last few days to a shuffle in yonder urn, taking my chance with all these lazy fellows? in that land whereof i was, we would not have had it so, we loaded our dice in these matters, a strong man there might have a willing maid though all heaven were set against him! but give me leave, sweet lady, and i will ruffle with these fellows; give me a glance and i will barter my life for your billet when it is drawn, but to stand idly by and see you won by a cold chance, i cannot do it." that lady laughed a little and said, "men make laws, dear jones, for women to keep. it is the rule, and we must not break it." then, gently tugging at her imprisoned fingers and gathering up her skirts to go, she added, "but it might happen that wit here were better than sword." then she hesitated, and freeing herself at last slipped from my side, yet before she was quite gone half turned again and whispered so low that no one but i could hear it, "a golden pool, and a silver fish, and a line no thicker than a hair!" and before i could beg a meaning of her, had passed down the hall and taken a place with the other expectant damsels. "a golden pool," i said to myself, "a silver fish, and a line of hair." what could she mean? yet that she meant something, and something clearly of importance, i could not doubt. "a golden pool, and a silver fish--" i buried my chin in my chest and thought deeply but without effect while the preparations were made and the fateful urn, each maid having slipped her name tablet within, was brought down to us, covered in a beautiful web of rose-coloured tissue, and commenced its round, passing slowly from hand to hand as each of those handsome, impassive, fawn-eyed gallants lifted a corner of the web in turn and helped themselves to fate. "a golden pool," i muttered, "and a silver fish"--so absorbed in my own thoughts i hardly noticed the great cup begin its journey, but when it had gone three or four places the glitter of the lights upon it caught my eye. it was of pure gold, round-brimmed, and circled about with a string of the blue convolvulus, which implies delight to these people. ay! and each man was plunging his hand into the dark and taking in his turn a small notch-edged mother-of-pearl billet from it that flashed soft and silvery as he turned it in his hand to read the name engraved in unknown characters thereon. "why," i said, with a start, "surely this might be the golden pool and these the silver fish--but the hair-fine line?" and again i meditated deeply, with all my senses on the watch. slowly the urn crept round, and as each man took a ticket from it, and passed it, smiling, to the seneschal behind him, that official read out the name upon it, and a blushing damsel slipped from the crowd above, crossing over to the side of the man with whom chance had thus lightly linked her for the brief martian year, and putting her hands in his they kissed before all the company, and sat down to their places at the table as calmly as country folk might choose partners at a village fair in hay-time. but not so with me. each time a name was called i started and stared at the drawer in a way which should have filled him with alarm had alarm been possible to the peace-soaked triflers, then turned to glance to where, amongst the women, my tender little princess was leaning against a pillar, with drooping head, slowly pulling a convolvulus bud to pieces. none drew, though all were thinking of her, as i could tell in my fingertips. keener and keener grew the suspense as name after name was told and each slim white damsel skipped to the place allotted her. and all the time i kept muttering to myself about that "golden pool," wondering and wondering until the urn had passed half round the tables and was only some three men up from me--and then an idea flashed across my mind. i dipped my fingers in the scented water-basin on the table, drying them carefully on a napkin, and waiting, outwardly as calm as any, yet inwardly wrung by those tremors which beset all male creation in such circumstances. and now at last it was my turn. the great urn, blazing golden, through its rosy covering, was in front, and all eyes on me. i clapped a sunburnt hand upon its top as though i would take all remaining in it to myself and stared round at that company--only her herself i durst not look at! then, with a beating heart, i lifted a corner of the web and slipped my hand into the dark inside, muttering to myself as i did so, "a golden pool, and a silver fish, and a line no thicker than a hair." i touched in turn twenty perplexing tablets and was no whit the wiser, and felt about the sides yet came to nothing, groping here and there with a rising despair, until as my fingers, still damp and fine of touch, went round the sides a second time, yes! there was something, something in the hollow of the fluting, a thought, a thread, and yet enough. i took it unseen, lifting it with infinite forbearance, and the end was weighted, the other tablets slipped and rattled as from their midst, hanging to that one fine virgin hair, up came a pearly billet. i doubted no longer, but snapped the thread, and showed the tablet, heard heru's name, read from it amongst the soft applause of that luxurious company with all the unconcern i could muster. there she was in a moment, lip to lip with me, before them all, her eyes more than ever like planets from her native skies, and only the quick heave of her bosom, slowly subsiding like a ground swell after a storm, remaining to tell that even martian blood could sometimes beat quicker than usual! she sat down in her place by me in the simplest way, and soon everything was as merry as could be. the main meal came on now, and as far as i could see those martian gallants had extremely good appetites, though they drank at first but little, wisely remembering the strength of their wines. as for me, i ate of fishes that never swam in earthly seas, and of strange fowl that never flapped a way through thick terrestrial air, ate and drank as happy as a king, and falling each moment more and more in love with the wonderfully beautiful girl at my side who was a real woman of flesh and blood i knew, yet somehow so dainty, so pink and white, so unlike other girls in the smoothness of her outlines, in the subtle grace of each unthinking attitude, that again and again i looked at her over the rim of my tankard half fearing she might dissolve into nothing, being the half-fairy which she was. presently she asked, "did that deed of mine, the hair in the urn, offend you, stranger?" "offend me, lady!" i laughed. "why, had it been the blackest crime that ever came out of a perverse imagination it would have brought its own pardon with it; i, least of all in this room, have least cause to be offended." "i risked much for you and broke our rules." "why, no doubt that was so, but 'tis the privilege of your kind to have some say in this little matter of giving and taking in marriage. i only marvel that your countrywomen submit so tamely to the quaintest game of chance i ever played at. "ay, and it is women's nature no doubt to keep the laws which others make, as you have said yourself. yet this rule, lady, is one broken with more credit than kept, and if you have offended no one more than me, your penance is easily done." "but i have offended some one," she said, laying her hand on mine with gentle nervousness in its touch, "one who has the power to hurt, and enough energy to resent. hath, up there at the cross-table, have i offended deeply tonight, for he hoped to have me, and would have compelled any other man to barter me for the maid chance assigned to him; but of you, somehow, he is afraid--i have seen him staring at you, and changing colour as though he knew something no one else knows--" "briefly, charming girl," i said, for the wine was beginning to sing in my head, and my eyes were blinking stupidly--"briefly, hath hath thee not, and there's an end of it. i would spit a score of haths, as these figs are spit on this golden skewer, before i would relinquish a hair of your head to him, or to any man," and as everything about the great hall began to look gauzy and unreal through the gathering fumes of my confusion, i smiled on that gracious lady, and began to whisper i know not what to her, and whisper and doze, and doze-- i know not how long afterwards it was, whether a minute or an hour, but when i lifted my head suddenly from the lady's shoulder all the place was in confusion, every one upon their feet, the talk and the drinking ceased, and all eyes turned to the far doorway where the curtains were just dropping again as i looked, while in front of them were standing three men. these newcomers were utterly unlike any others--a frightful vision of ugly strength amidst the lolling loveliness all about. low of stature, broad of shoulder, hairy, deep-chested, with sharp, twinkling eyes, set far back under bushy eyebrows, retreating foreheads, and flat noses in faces tanned to a dusky copper hue by exposure to every kind of weather that racks the extreme martian climate they were so opposite to all about me, so quaint and grim amongst those mild, fair-skinned folk, that at first i thought they were but a disordered creation of my fancy. i rubbed my eyes and stared and blinked, but no! they were real men, of flesh and blood, and now they had come down with as much stateliness as their bandy legs would admit of, into the full glare of the lights to the centre table where hath sat. i saw their splendid apparel, the great strings of rudely polished gems hung round their hairy necks and wrists, the cunningly dyed skins of soft-furred animals, green and red and black, wherewith their limbs were swathed, and then i heard some one by me whisper in a frightened tone, "the envoys from over seas." "oh," i thought sleepily to myself, "so these are the ape-men of the western woods, are they? those who long ago vanquished my white-skinned friends and yearly come to claim their tribute. jove, what hay they must have made of them! how those peach-skinned girls must have screamed and the downy striplings by them felt their dimpled knees knock together, as the mad flood of barbarians came pouring over from the forest, and long ago stormed their citadels like a stream of red lava, as deadly, as irresistible, as remorseless!" and i lay asprawl upon my arms on the table watching them with the stupid indifference i thought i could so well afford. meanwhile hath was on foot, pale and obsequious like others in the presence of those dread ambassadors, but more collected, i thought. with the deepest bows he welcomed them, handing them drink in a golden state cup, and when they had drunk (i heard the liquor running down their great throats, in the frightened hush, like water in a runnel on a wet day), they wiped their fierce lips upon their furry sleeves, and the leader began reciting the tribute for the year. so much corn, so much wine--and very much it was--so many thousands ells of cloth and webbing, and so much hammered gold, and sinah and lar, precious metal of which i knew nothing as yet; and ever as he went growling through the list in his harsh animal voice, he refreshed his memory with a coloured stick whereon a notch was made for every item, the woodmen not having come as yet, apparently, to the gentler art of written signs and symbols. longer and longer that caravan of unearned wealth stretched out before my fancy, but at last it was done, or all but done, and the head envoy, passing the painted stick to a man behind, folded his bare, sinewy arms, upon which the red fell bristles as it does upon a gorilla's, across his ample chest, and, including us all in one general scowl, turned to hath as he said-- "all this for ar-hap, the wood-king, my master and yours; all this, and the most beautiful woman here tonight at your tables!" "an item," i smiled stupidly to myself, for indeed i was very sleepy and had no nice perception of things, "which shows his majesty with the two-pronged name is a jolly fellow after all, and knows wealth is incomplete without the crown and priming of all riches. i wonder how the martian boys will like this postscript," and chin on hand, and eyes that would hardly stay open, i watched to see what would happen next. there was a little conversation between the prince and the ape-man; then i saw hath the traitor point in my direction and say-- "since you ask and will be advised, then, mighty sir, there can be no doubt of it, the most beautiful woman here tonight is undoubtedly she who sits yonder by him in blue." "a very pretty compliment!" i thought, too dull to see what was coming quickly, "and handsome of hath, all things considered." and so i dozed and dozed, and then started, and stared! was i in my senses? was i mad, or dreaming? the drunkenness dropped from me like a mantle; with a single, smothered cry i came to myself and saw that it was all too true. the savage envoy had come down the hall at hath's vindictive prompting, had lifted my fair girl to her feet, and there, even as i looked, had drawn her, white as death, into the red circle of his arm, and with one hand under her chin had raised her sweet face to within an inch of his, and was staring at her with small, ugly eyes. "yes," said the enjoy, more interestedly than he had spoken yet, "it will do; the tribute is accepted--for ar-hap, my master!" and taking shrinking heru by the wrist, and laying a heavy hand upon her shoulder, he was about to lead her up the hall. i was sober enough then. i was on foot in an instant, and before all the glittering company, before those simpering girls and pale martian youths, who sat mumbling their fingers, too frightened to lift their eyes from off their half-finished dinners, i sprang at the envoy. i struck him with my clenched fist on the side of his bullet head, and he let go of heru, who slipped insensible from his hairy chest like a white cloud slipping down the slopes of a hill at sunrise, and turned on me with a snort of rage. we stared at each other for a minute, and then i felt the wine fumes roaring in my head; i rushed at him and closed. it was like embracing a mountain bull, and he responded with a hug that made my ribs crackle. for a minute we were locked together like that, swinging here and there, and then getting a hand loose, i belaboured him so unmercifully that he put his head down, and that was what i wanted. i got a new hold of him as we staggered and plunged, roaring the while like the wild beasts we were, the teeth chattering in the martian heads as they watched us, and then, exerting all my strength, lifted him fairly from his feet and with supreme effort swung him up, shoulder high, and with a mighty heave hurled him across the tables, flung that ambassador, whom no martian dared look upon, crashing and sprawling through the gold and silver of the feast, whirled him round with such a splendid send that bench and trestle, tankards and flagons, chairs and cloths and candelabras all went down into thundering chaos with him, and the envoy only stayed when his sacred person came to harbour amongst the westral odds and ends, the soiled linen, and dirty platters of our wedding feast. i remember seeing him there on hands and knees, and then the liquor i had had would not be denied. in vain i drew my hands across my drooping eyelids, in vain i tried to master my knees that knocked together. the spell of the love-drink that heru, blushing, had held to my lips was on me. its soft, overwhelming influence rose like a prismatic fog between me and my enemy, everything again became hazy and dreamlike, and feebly calling on heru, my chin dropped upon my chest, my limbs relaxed, and i slipped down in drowsy oblivion before my rival. chapter viii they must have carried me, still under the influence of wine fumes, to the chamber where i slept that night, for when i woke the following morning my surroundings were familiar enough, though a glorious maze of uncertainties rocked to and fro in my mind. was it a real feast we had shared in overnight, or only a quaint dream? was heru real or only a lovely fancy? and those hairy ruffians of whom a horrible vision danced before my waking eyes, were they fancy too? no, my wrists still ached with the strain of the tussle, the quaint, sad wine taste was still on my lips--it was all real enough, i decided, starting up in bed; and if it was real where was the little princess? what had they done with her? surely they had not given her to the ape-men--cowards though they were they could not have been cowards enough for that. and as i wondered a keen, bright picture of the hapless maid as i saw her last blossomed before my mind's eye, the ambassadors on either side holding her wrists, and she shrinking from them in horror while her poor, white face turned to me for rescue in desperate pleading--oh! i must find her at all costs; and leaping from bed i snatched up those trousers without which the best of heroes is nothing, and had hardly got into them when there came the patter of light feet without and a martian, in a hurry for once, with half a dozen others behind him, swept aside the curtains of my doorway. they peeped and peered all about the room, then one said, "is princess heru with you, sir?" "no," i answered roughly. "saints alive, man, do you think i would have you tumbling in here over each other's heels if she were?" "then it must indeed have been heru," he said, speaking in an awed voice to his fellows, "whom we saw carried down to the harbour at daybreak by yonder woodmen," and the pink upon their pretty cheeks faded to nothing at the suggestion. "what!" i roared, "heru taken from the palace by a handful of men and none of you infernal rascals--none of you white-livered abortions lifted a hand to save her--curse on you a thousand times. out of my way, you churls!" and snatching up coat and hat and sword i rushed furiously down the long, marble stairs just as the short martian night was giving place to lavender-coloured light of morning. i found my way somehow down the deserted corridors where the air was heavy with aromatic vapours; i flew by curtained niches and chambers where amongst mounds of half-withered flowers the martian lovers were slowly waking. down into the banquethall i sped, and there in the twilight was the litter of the feast still about--gold cups and silver, broken bread and meat, the convolvulus flowers all turning their pallid faces to the rosy daylight, making pools of brightness between the shadows. amongst the litter little sapphire-coloured finches were feeding, twittering merrily to themselves as they hopped about, and here and there down the long tables lay asprawl a belated reveller, his empty oblivion-phial before him, his curly head upon his arms, dreaming perhaps of last night's feast and a neglected bride dozing dispassionate in some distant chamber. but heru was not there and little i cared for twittering finches or sighing damsels. with hasty feet i rushed down the hall out into the cool, sweet air of the planet morning. there i met one whom i knew, and he told me he had been among the crowd and had heard the woodmen had gone no farther than the river gate, that heru was with them beyond a doubt. i would not listen to more. "good!" i shouted. "get me a horse and just a handful of your sleek kindred and we will pull the prize from the bear's paw even yet! surely," i said, turning to a knot of martian youths who stood listening a few steps away, "surely some of you will come with me at this pinch? the big bullies are very few; the sea runs behind them; the maid in their clutch is worth fighting for; it needs but one good onset, five minutes' gallantry, and she is ours again. think how fine it will look to bring her back before yon sleepy fellows have found their weapons. you, there, with the blue tunic! you look a proper fellow, and something of a heart should beat under such gay wrappings, will you come with me?" but blue-mantle, biting his thumbs, murmured he had not breakfasted yet and edged away behind his companions. wherever i looked eyes dropped and timid hands fidgeted as their owners backed off from my dangerous enthusiasm. there was obviously no help to be had from them, and meantime the precious moments were flying, so with a disdainful glance i turned on my heels and set off alone as hard as i could go for the harbour. but it was too late. i rushed through the marketplace where all was silent and deserted; i ran on to the wharves beyond and they were empty save for the litter and embers of the fires ar-hap's men had made during their stay; i dashed out to the landing-place, and there at the hythe the last boat-loads of the villains were just embarking, two boatloads of them twenty yards from shore, and another still upon the beach. this latter was careening over as a dusky group of men lifted aboard to a heap of tumbled silks and stuffs in the stern such a sweet piece of insensible merchandise as no man, i at least of all, could mistake. it was heru herself, and the rogues were ladling her on board like so much sandal-wood or cotton sheeting. i did not wait for more, but out came my sword, and yielding to a reckless impulse, for which perhaps last night's wine was as much to blame as anything, i sprang down the steps and leapt aboard of the boat just as it was pushed off upon the swift tide. full of bersark rage, i cut one brawny copper-coloured thief down, and struck another with my fist between the eyes so that he went headlong into the water, sinking like lead, and deep into the great target of his neighbour's chest i drove my blade. had there been a man beside me, had there been but two or three of all those silken triflers, too late come on the terraces above to watch, we might have won. but all alone what could i do? that last red beast turned on my blade, and as he fell dragged me half down with him. i staggered up, and tugging the metal from him turned on the next. at that moment the cause of all the turmoil, roused by the fighting, came to herself, and sitting up on the piled plunder in the boat stared round for a moment with a childish horror at the barbarians whose prize she was, then at me, then at the dead man at my feet whose blood was welling in a red tide from the wound in his breast. as the full meaning of the scene dawned upon her she started to her feet, looking wonderfully beautiful amongst those dusky forms, and extending her hands to me began to cry in the most piteous way. i sprang forward, and as i did so saw an ape-man clap his hairy paw over her mouth and face--it was like an eclipse of the moon by a red earth-shadow, i thought at the moment--and drag her roughly back, but that was about the last i remembered. as i turned to hit him standing on the slippery thwart, another rogue crept up behind and let drive with a club he had in hand. the cudgel caught me sideways on the head, a glancing shot. i can recall a blaze of light, a strange medley of sounds in my ears, and then, clutching at a pile of stuffs as i fell, a tall bower of spray rising on either hand, and the cool shock of the blue sea as i plunged headlong in--but nothing after that! how long after i know not, but presently a tissue of daylight crept into my eyes, and i awoke again. it was better than nothing perhaps, yet it was a poor awakening. the big sun lay low down, and the day was all but done; so much i guessed as i rocked in that light with an undulating movement, and then as my senses returned more fully, recognised with a start of wonder that i was still in the water, floating on a swift current into the unknown on an air-filled pile of silken stuffs which had been pulled down with me from the boat when i got my ganging from yonder rascal's mace. it was a wet couch, sodden and chilly, but as the freshening evening wind blew on my face and the darkening water lapped against my forehead i revived more fully. where had we come to? i turned an aching neck, and all along on both sides seemed to stretch steep, straight coasts about a mile or so apart, in the shadow of the setting sun black as ebony. between the two the hampered water ran quickly, with, away on the right, some shallow sandy spits and islands covered with dwarf bushes--chilly, inhospitable-looking places they seemed as i turned my eyes upon them; but he who rides helpless down an evening tide stands out for no great niceties of landing-place; could i but reach them they would make at least a drier bed than this of mine, and at that thought, turning over, i found all my muscles as stiff as iron, the sinews of my neck and forearms a mass of agonies and no more fit to swim me to those reedy swamps, which now, as pain and hunger began to tell, seemed to wear the aspects of paradise. with a groan i dropped back upon my raft and watched the islands slipping by, while over my feet the southern sky darkened to purple. there was no help there, but glancing round away on the left and a few furlongs from me, i noticed on the surface of the water two converging strands of brightness, an angle the point of which seemed to be coming towards me. nearer it came and nearer, right across my road, until i could see a black dot at the point, a head presently developed, then as we approached the ears and antlers of a swimming stag. it was a huge beast as it loomed up against the glow, bigger than any mortal stag ever was--the kind of fellow-traveller no one would willingly accost, but even if i had wished to get out of its path i had no power to do so. closer and closer we came, one of us drifting helplessly, and the other swimming strongly for the islands. when we were about a furlong apart the great beast seemed to change its course, mayhap it took the wreckage on which i floated for an outlying shoal, something on which it could rest a space in that long swim. be this as it may, the beast came hurtling down on me lip deep in the waves, a mighty brown head with pricked ears that flicked the water from them now and then, small bright eyes set far back, and wide palmated antlers on a mighty forehead, like the dead branches of a tree. what that martian mountain elk had hoped for can only be guessed, what he met with was a tangle of floating finery carrying a numbed traveller on it, and with a snort of disappointment he turned again. it was a poor chance, but better than nothing, and as he turned i tried to throw a strand of silk i had unwound from the sodden mass over his branching tines. quick as thought the beast twisted his head aside and tossed his antlers so that the try was fruitless. but was i to lose my only chance of shore? with all my strength i hurled myself upon him, missing my clutch again by a hair's-breadth and going headlong into the salt furrow his chest was turning up. happily i kept hold of the web, for the great elk then turned back, passing between me and the ruck of stuff and getting thereby the silk under his chin, and as i came gasping to the top once more round came that dainty wreckage over his back, and i clutched it, and sooner than it takes to tell i was towing to the shore as perhaps no one was ever towed before. the big beast dragged the ruck like withered weed behind him, bellowing all the time with a voice which made the hills echo all round; and then, when he got his feet upon the shallows, rose dripping and mountainous, a very cliff of black hide and limb against the night shine, and with a single sweep of his antlers tore the webbing from me, who lay prone and breathless in the mud, and, thinking it was his enemy, hurled the limp bundle on the beach, and then, having pounded it with his cloven feet into formless shreds, bellowed again victoriously and went off into the darkness of the forests. chapter ix i landed, stiff enough as you will guess, but pleased to be on shore again. it was a melancholy neighbourhood of low islands, overgrown with rank grass and bushes, salt water encircling them, and inside sandy dunes and hummocks with shallow pools, gleaming ghostly in the retreating daylight, while beyond these rose the black bosses of what looked like a forest. thither i made my way, plunging uncomfortably through shallows, and tripping over blackened branches which, lying just below the surface, quivered like snakes as the evening breeze ruffled each surface, until the ground hardened under foot, and presently i was standing, hungry and faint but safe, on dry land again. the forest was so close to the sea, one could not advance without entering it, and once within its dark arcades every way looked equally gloomy and hopeless. i struggled through tangles night made more and more impenetrable each minute, until presently i could go no further, and where a dense canopy of trees overhead gave out for a minute on the edge of a swampy hollow, i determined to wait for daylight. never was there a more wet or weary traveller, or one more desperately lonely than he who wrapped himself up in the miserable insufficiency of his wet rags, and without fire or supper crept amongst the exposed roots of a tree growing out of a bank, and prepared to hope grimly for morning. round and round meanwhile was drawn the close screen of night, till the clearing in front was blotted out, and only the tree-tops, black as rugged hills one behind the other, stood out against the heavy purple of the circlet of sky above. as the evening deepened the quaintest noises began on every hand--noises so strange and bewildering that as i cowered down with my teeth chattering, and stared hard into the impenetrable, they could be likened to nothing but the crying of all the souls of dead things since the beginning. never was there such an infernal chorus as that which played up the martian stars. down there in front, where hummock grass was growing, some beast squeaked continuously, till i shouted at him, then he stopped a minute, and began again in entirely another note. away on the hills two rival monsters were calling to each other in tones so hollow they seemed as i listened to penetrate through me, and echo out of my heart again. far overhead, gigantic bats were flitting, the shadow of their wings dimming a dozen universes at once, and crying to each other in shrill tones that rent the air like tearing silk. as i listened to those vampires discussing their infernal loves under the stars, from a branch right overhead broke such a deathly howl from the throat of a wandering forest cat that everything else was hushed for a moment. all about a myriad insects were making night giddy with their ghostly fires, while underground and from the labyrinths of matted roots came quaint sounds of rustling snakes and forest pigs, and all the lesser things that dig and scratch and growl. yet i was desperately sleepy, my sword hung heavy as lead at my side, my eyelids drooped, and so at last i dozed uneasily for an hour or two. then, all on a sudden, i came wide awake with a shock. the night was quieter now; away in the forest depth strange noises still arose, but close at hand was a strange hush, like the hush of expectation, and, listening wonderingly, i was aware of slow, heavy footsteps coming up from the river, now two or three steps together, then a pause, then another step or two, and as i bent towards the approaching thing, staring into the darkness, my strained senses were conscious of another approach, as like as could be, coming from behind me. on they came, making the very ground quake with their weight, till i judged that both were about on the edge of the clearing, two vast rat-like shadows, but as big as elephants, and bringing a most intolerable smell of sour slime with them. there, on the edge of the amphitheatre, each for the first time appeared to become aware of the other's presence--the footsteps stopped dead. i could hear the water dripping from the fur of those giant brutes amongst the shadows and the deep breathing of the one nearest me, a scanty ten paces off, but not another sound in the stillness. minute after minute passed, yet neither moved. a half-hour grew to a full hour, and that hour lengthened amid the keenest tension till my ears ached with listening, and my eyes were sore with straining into the blackness. at last i began to wonder whether those earth-shaking beasts had not been an evil dream, and was just venturing to stretch out a cramped leg, and rally myself upon my cowardice, when, without warning, at my elbow rose the most ear-piercing scream of rage that ever came from a living throat. there was a sweeping rush in the darkness which i could feel but not see, and with a shock the two gladiators met in the midst of the arena. over and over they went screaming and struggling, and slipping and plunging. i could hear them tearing at each other, and the sharp cries of pain, first one and then another gave as claw or tooth got home, and all the time, though the ground was quaking under their struggles and the air full of horrible uproar, not a thing was to be seen. i did not even know what manner of beasts they were who rocked and rolled and tore at each other's throats, but i heard their teeth snapping, and their fierce breath in the pauses of the struggle, and could but wait in a huddle amongst the roots until it was over. to and fro they went, now at the far side of the dark clearing, now so close that hot drops of blood from their jaws fell on my face like rain in the darkness. it seemed as though the fight would never end, but presently there was more of worrying in it and less of snapping; it was clear one or the other had had enough and as i marked this those black shadows came gasping and struggling towards me. there was a sudden sharp cry, a desperate final tussle--before which strong trees snapped and bushes were flattened out like grass, not twenty yards away--and then for a minute all was silent. one of them had killed, and as i sat rooted to the spot i was forced to listen while his enemy tore him up and ate him. many a banquet have i been at, but never an uglier one than that. i sat in the darkness while the unknown thing at my feet ripped the flesh from his half-dead rival in strips, and across the damp night wind came the reek of that abominable feast--the reek of blood and spilt entrails--until i turned away my face in loathing, and was nearly starting to my feet to venture a rush into the forest shadows. but i was spellbound, and remained listening to the heavy munch of blood-stained jaws until presently i was aware other and lesser feasters were coming. there was a twinkle of hungry eyes all about the limits of the area, the shine of green points of envious fire that circled round in decreasing orbits, as the little foxes and jackals came crowding in. one fellow took me for a rock, so still i sat, putting his hot, soft paws upon my knee for a space, and others passed me so near i could all but touch them. the big beast had taken himself off by this time, and there must have been several hundreds of these newcomers. a merry time they had of it; the whole place was full of the green, hurrying eyes, and amidst the snap of teeth and yapping and quarrelling i could hear the flesh being torn from the red bones in every direction. one wolf-like individual brought a mass of hot liver to eat between my feet, but i gave him a kick, and sent him away much to his surprise. gradually, however, the sound of this unholy feast died away, and, though you may hardly believe it, i fell off into a doze. it was not sleep, but it served the purpose, and when in an hour or two a draught of cool air roused me, i awoke, feeling more myself again. slowly morning came, and the black wall of forest around became full of purple interstices as the east brightened. those glimmers of light between bough and trunk turned to yellow and red, the day-shine presently stretched like a canopy from point to point of the treetops on either side of my sleeping-place, and i arose. all my limbs were stiff with cold, my veins emptied by hunger and wounds, and for a space i had not even strength to move. but a little rubbing softened my cramped muscles presently and limping painfully down to the place of combat, i surveyed the traces of that midnight fight. i will not dwell upon it. it was ugly and grim; the trampled grass, the giant footmarks, each enringing its pool of curdled blood; the broken bushes, the grooved mud-slides where the unknown brutes had slid in deadly embrace; the hollows, the splintered boughs, their ragged points tufted with skin and hair--all was sickening to me. yet so hungry was i that when i turned towards the odious remnants of the vanquished--a shapeless mass of abomination--my thoughts flew at once to breakfasting! i went down and inspected the victim cautiously--a huge rat-like beast as far as might be judged from the bare uprising ribs--all that was left of him looking like the framework of a schooner yacht. his heart lay amongst the offal, and my knife came out to cut a meal from it, but i could not do it. three times i essayed the task, hunger and disgust contending for mastery; three times turned back in loathing. at last i could stand the sight no more, and, slamming the knife up again, turned on my heels, and fairly ran for fresh air and the shore, where the sea was beginning to glimmer in the light a few score yards through the forest stems. there, once more out on the open, on a pebbly beach, i stripped, spreading my things out to dry on the stones, and laying myself down with the lapping of the waves in my ears, and the first yellow sunshine thawing my limbs, tried to piece together the hurrying events of the last few days. what were my gay martians doing? lazy dogs to let me, a stranger, be the only one to draw sword in defence of their own princess! where was poor heru, that sweet maiden wife? the thought of her in the hands of the ape-men was odious. and yet was i not mad to try to rescue, or even to follow her alone? if by any chance i could get off this beast-haunted place and catch up with the ravishers, what had i to look for from them except speedy extinction, and that likely enough by the most painful process they were acquainted with? the other alternative of going back empty handed was terribly ignominious. i had lectured the amiable young manhood of seth so soundly on the subject of gallantry, and set them such a good example on two occasions, that it would be bathos to saunter back, hands in pockets, and confess i knew nothing of the lady's fate and had been daunted by the first night alone in the forest. besides, how dull it would be in that beautiful, tumble-down old city without heru, with no expectation day by day of seeing her sylph-like form and hearing the merry tinkle of her fairy laughter as she scoffed at the unknown learning collected by her ancestors in a thousand laborious years. no! i would go on for certain. i was young, in love, and angry, and before those qualifications difficulties became light. meanwhile, the first essential was breakfast of some kind. i arose, stretched, put on my half-dried clothes, and mounting a low hummock on the forest edge looked around. the sun was riding up finely into the sky, and the sea to the eastward shone for leagues and leagues in the loveliest azure. where it rippled on my own beach and those of the low islands noted over night, a wonderful fire of blue and red played on the sands as though the broken water were full of living gems. the sky was full of strange gulls with long, forked tails, and a lovely little flying lizard with transparent wings of the palest green--like those of a grasshopper--was flitting about picking up insect stragglers. all this was very charming, but what i kept saying to myself was "streaky rashers and hot coffee: rashers and coffee and rolls," and, indeed, had the gates of paradise themselves opened at that moment i fear my first look down the celestial streets within would have been for a restaurant. they did not, and i was just turning away disconsolate when my eye caught, ascending from behind the next bluff down the beach, a thin strand of smoke rising into the morning air. it was nothing so much in itself--a thin spiral creeping upwards mast-high, then flattening out into a mushroom head--but it meant everything to me. where there was fire there must be humanity, and where there was humanity--ay, to the very outlayers of the universe--there must be breakfast. it was a splendid thought; i rushed down the hillock and went gaily for that blue thread amongst the reeds. it was not two hundred yards away, and soon below me was a tiny bay with bluest water frilling a silver beach, and in the midst of it a fire on a hearth dancing round a pot that simmered gloriously. but of an owner there was nothing to be seen. i peered here and there on the shore, but nothing moved, while out to sea the water was shining like molten metal with not a dot upon it!--what did it matter? i laughed as, pleased and hungry, i slipped down the bank and strode across the sands; it pleased fate to play bandy with me, and if it sent me supperless to bed, why, here was restitution in the way of breakfast. i took up a morsel of the stuff in the kettle on a handy stick and found it good--indeed, i knew it at once as a very dainty mess made from the roots of a herb the martians greatly liked; an had piled my platter with it when we supped that night in the market-place of seth, and the sweet white stuff had melted into my corporal essence, it seemed, without any gross intermediate process of digestion. and here i was again, hungry, sniffing the fragrant breath of a full meal and not a soul in sight--i should have been a fool not to have eaten. so thinking, down i sat, taking the pot from its place, and when it was a little cool plunging my hands into it and feasting with as good an appetite as ever a man had before. it was gloriously ambrosial, and deeper and deeper i went, with the tall stalk of the smoke in front growing from the hearth-stones like some strange new plant, the pleasant sunshine on my back, and never a thought for anything but the task in hand. deeper and deeper, oblivious of all else, until to get the very last drops i lifted the pipkin up and putting back my head drank in that fashion. it was only when with a sigh of pleasure i lowered it slowly again that over the rim as it sank there dawned upon me the vision of a martian standing by an empty canoe on the edge of the water and regarding me with calm amazement. i was, in fact, so astonished that for a minute the empty pot stood still before my face, and over its edge we stared at each other in mute surprise, then with all the dignity that might be i laid the vessel down between my feet and waited for the newcomer to speak. she was a girl by her yellow garb, a fisherwoman, it seemed, for in the prow of her craft was piled a net upon which the scales of fishes were twinkling--a martian, obviously, but something more robust than most of them, a savour of honest work about her sunburnt face which my pallid friends away yonder were lacking in, and when we had stared at each other for a few moments in silence she came forward a step or two and said without a trace of fear or shyness, "are you a spirit, sir? "why," i answered, "about as much, no more and no less, than most of us." "aye," she said. "i thought you were, for none but spirits live here upon this island; are you for good or evil?" "far better for the breakfast of which i fear i have robbed you, but wandering along the shore and finding this pot boiling with no owner, i ventured to sample it, and it was so good my appetite got the better of manners." the girl bowed, and standing at a respectful distance asked if i would like some fish as well; she had some, but not many, and if i would eat she would cook them for me in a minute--it was not often, she added lightly, she had met one of my kind before. in fact, it was obvious that simple person did actually take me for a being of another world, and was it for me to say she was wrong? so adopting a dignity worthy of my reputation i nodded gravely to her offer. she fetched from the boat four little fishes of the daintiest kind imaginable. they were each about as big as a hand and pale blue when you looked down upon them, but so clear against the light that every bone and vein in their bodies could be traced. these were wrapped just as they were in a broad, green leaf and then the martian, taking a pointed stick, made a hollow in the white ashes, laid them in side by side, and drew the hot dust over again. while they cooked we chatted as though the acquaintance were the most casual thing in the world, and i found it was indeed an island we were on and not the mainland, as i had hoped at first. seth, she told me, was far away to the eastward, and if the woodmen had gone by in their ships they would have passed round to the north-west of where we were. i spent an hour or two with that amiable individual, and, it is to be hoped, sustained the character of a spiritual visitant with considerable dignity. in one particular at least, that, namely, of appetite, i did honour to my supposed source, and as my entertainer would not hear of payment in material kind, all i could do was to show her some conjuring tricks, which greatly increased her belief in my supernatural origin, and to teach her some new hitches and knots, using her fishing-line as a means of illustration, a demonstration which called from her the natural observation that we must be good sailors "up aloft" since we knew so much about cordage, then we parted. she had seen nothing of the woodmen, though she had heard they had been to seth and thought, from some niceties of geographical calculation which i could not follow, they would have crossed to the north, as just stated, of her island. there she told me, with much surprise at my desire for the information, how i might, by following the forest track to the westward coast, make my way to a fishing village, where they would give me a canoe and direct me, since such was my extraordinary wish, to the place where, if anywhere, the wild men had touched on their way home. she filled my wallet with dried honey-cakes and my mouth with sugar plums from her little store, then down on her knees went that poor waif of a worn-out civilisation and kissed my hands in humble farewell, and i, blushing to be so saluted, and after all but a sailor, got her by the rosy fingers and lifted her up shoulder high, and getting one hand under her chin and the other behind her head kissed her twice upon her pretty cheeks; and so, i say, we parted. chapter x off into the forest i went, feeling a boyish elation to be so free nor taking heed or count of the reckless adventure before me. the martian weather for the moment was lovely and the many-coloured grass lush and soft under foot. mile after mile i went, heeding the distance lightly, the air was so elastic. now pressing forward as the main interest of my errand took the upper hand, and remembrance of poor heru like a crushed white flower in the red grip of those cruel ravishers came upon me, and then pausing to sigh with pleasure or stand agape--forgetful even of her--in wonder of the unknown loveliness about me. and well might i stare! everything in that forest was wonderful! there were plants which turned from colour to colour with the varying hours of the day. while others had a growth so swift it was dangerous to sit in their neighbourhood since the long, succulent tendrils clambering from the parent stem would weave you into a helpless tangle while you gazed, fascinated, upon them. there were plants that climbed and walked; sighing plants who called the winged things of the air to them with a noise so like to a girl sobbing that again and again i stopped in the tangled path to listen. there were green bladder-mosses which swam about the surface of the still pools like gigantic frog-broods. there were on the ridges warrior trees burning in the vindictiveness of a long forgotten cause--a blaze of crimson scimitar thorns from root to topmost twig; and down again in the cool hollows were lady-bushes making twilight of the green gloom with their cloudy ivory blossoms and filling the shadows with such a heavy scent that head and heart reeled with fatal pleasure as one pushed aside their branches. every river-bed was full of mighty reeds, whose stems clattered together when the wind blew like swords on shields, and every now and then a bit of forest was woven together with the ropey stems of giant creepers till no man or beast could have passed save for the paths which constant use had kept open through the mazes. all day long i wandered on through those wonderful woodlands, and in fact loitered so much over their infinite marvels that when sundown came all too soon there was still undulating forest everywhere, vistas of fairy glades on every hand, peopled with incredible things and echoing with sounds that excited the ears as much as other things fascinated the eyes, but no sign of the sea or my fishing village anywhere. it did not matter; a little of the martian leisureliness was getting into my blood: "if not today, why then tomorrow," as an would have said; and with this for comfort i selected a warm, sandy hollow under the roots of a big tree, made my brief arrangements for the night, ate some honey cakes, and was soon sleeping blissfully. i woke early next morning, after many hours of interrupted dreams, and having nothing to do till the white haze had lifted and made it possible to start again, rested idly a time on my elbow and watched the sunshine filter into the recesses. very pretty it was to see the thick canopy overhead, by star-light so impenetrable, open its chinks and fissures as the searching sun came upon it; to see the pin-hole gaps shine like spangles presently, the spaces broaden into lesser suns, and even the thick leafage brighten and shine down on me with a soft sea-green radiance. the sunward sides of the tree-stems took a glow, and the dew that ran dripping down their mossy sides trickled blood-red to earth. elsewhere the shadows were still black, and strange things began to move in them--things we in our middle-aged world have never seen the likeness of: beasts half birds, birds half creeping things, and creeping things which it seemed to me passed through lesser creations down to the basest life that crawls without interruption or division. it was not for me, a sailor, to know much of such things, yet some i could not fail to notice. on one grey branch overhead, jutting from a tree-stem where a patch of velvet moss made in the morning glint a fairy bed, a wonderful flower unfolded. it was a splendid bud, ivory white, cushioned in leaves, and secured to its place by naked white roots that clipped the branch like fingers of a lady's hand. even as i looked it opened, a pale white star, and hung pensive and inviting on its mossy cushion. from it came such a ravishing odour that even i, at the further end of the great scale of life, felt my pulses quicken and my eyes brighten with cupidity. i was in the very act of climbing the tree, but before i could move hand or foot two things happened, whether you take my word for them or no. firstly, up through a glade in the underwood, attracted by the odour, came an ugly brown bird with a capacious beak and shining claws. he perched near by, and peeped and peered until he made out the flower pining on her virgin stem, whereat off he hopped to her branch and there, with a cynical chuckle, strutted to and fro between her and the main stem like an ill genius guarding a fairy princess. surely heaven would not allow him to tamper with so chaste a bud! my hand reached for a stone to throw at him when happened the second thing. there came a gentle pat upon the woodland floor, and from a tree overhead dropped down another living plant like to the one above yet not exactly similar, a male, my instincts told me, in full solitary blossom like her above, cinctured with leaves, and supported by half a score of thick white roots that worked, as i looked, like the limbs of a crab. in a twinkling that parti-coloured gentleman vegetable near me was off to the stem upon which grew his lady love; running and scrambling, dragging the finery of his tasselled petals behind, it was laughable to watch his eagerness. he got a grip of the tree and up he went, "hand over hand," root over root. i had just time to note others of his species had dropped here and there upon the ground, and were hurrying with frantic haste to the same destination when he reached the fatal branch, and was straddling victoriously down it, blind to all but love and longing. that ill-omened bird who stood above the maiden-flower let him come within a stalk's length, so near that the white splendour of his sleeping lady gleamed within arms' reach, then the great beak was opened, the great claws made a clutch, the gallant's head was yanked from his neck, and as it went tumbling down the maw of the feathered thing his white legs fell spinning through space, and lay knotting themselves in agony upon the ground for a minute or two before they relaxed and became flaccid in the repose of death. another and another vegetable suitor made for that fatal tryst, and as each came up the snap of the brown bird's beak was all their obsequies. at last no more came, and then that nemesis of claws and quills walked over to the girl-flower, his stomach feathers ruffled with repletion, the green blood of her lovers dripping from his claws, and pulled her golden heart out, tore her white limbs one from the other, and swallowed her piecemeal before my very eyes! then up in wrath i jumped and yelled at him till the woods echoed, but too late to stay his sacrilege. by this time the sun was bathing everything in splendour, and turning away from the wonders about me, i set off at best pace along the well-trodden path which led without turning to the west coast village where the canoes were. it proved far closer than expected. as a matter of fact the forest in this direction grew right down to the water's edge; the salt-loving trees actually overhanging the waves--one of the pleasantest sights in nature--and thus i came right out on top of the hamlet before there had been an indication of its presence. it occupied two sides of a pretty little bay, the third side being flat land given over to the cultivation of an enormous species of gourd whose characteristic yellow flowers and green, succulent leaves were discernible even at this distance. i branched off along the edge of the surf and down a dainty little flowery path, noticing meanwhile how the whole bay was filled by hundreds of empty canoes, while scores of others were drawn up on the strand, and then the first thing i chanced upon was a group of people--youthful, of course, with the eternal martian bloom--and in the splendid simplicity of almost complete nakedness. my first idea was that they were bathing, and fixing my eyes on the tree-tops with great propriety, i gave a warning cough. at that sound instead of getting to cover, or clothes, all started up and stood staring for a time like a herd of startled cattle. it was highly embarrassing; they were right in the path, a round dozen of them, naked and so little ashamed that when i edged away modestly they began to run after me. and the farther they came forward the more i retired, till we were playing a kind of game of hide-and-seek round the tree-stems. in the middle of it my heel caught in a root and down i went very hard and very ignominiously, whereon those laughing, light-hearted folk rushed in, and with smiles and jests helped me to my feet. "was i the traveller who had come from seth?" "yes." "oh, then that was well. they had heard such a traveller was on the road, and had come a little way down the path, as far as might be without fatigue, to meet him." "would i eat with them?" these amiable strangers asked, pushing their soft warm fingers into mine and ringing me round with a circle. "but firstly might they help me out of my clothes? it was hot, and these things were cumbersome." as to the eating, i was agreeable enough seeing how casual meals had been with me lately, but my clothes, though heaven knows they were getting horribly ragged and travel-stained, i clung to desperately. my new friends shrugged their dimpled shoulders and, arguments being tedious, at once squatted round me in the dappled shade of a big tree and produced their stores of never failing provisions. after a pleasant little meal taken thus in the open and with all the simplicity martians delight in, we got to talking about those yellow canoes which were bobbing about on the blue waters of the bay. "would you like to see where they are grown?" asked an individual basking by my side. "grown!" i answered with incredulity. "built, you mean. never in my life did i hear of growing boats." "but then, sir," observed the girl as she sucked the honey out of the stalk of an azure convolvulus flower and threw the remains at a butterfly that sailed across the sunshine, "you know so little! you have come from afar, from some barbarous and barren district. here we undoubtedly grow our boats, and though we know the thither folk and such uncultivated races make their craft by cumbrous methods of flat planks, yet we prefer our own way, for one thing because it saves trouble," and as she murmured that all-sufficient reason the gentle damsel nodded reflectively. but one of her companions, more lively for the moment, tickled her with a straw until she roused, and then said, "let us take the stranger to the boat garden now. the current will drift us round the bay, and we can come back when it turns. if we wait we shall have to row in both directions, or even walk," and again planetary slothfulness carried the day. so down to the beach we strolled and launched one of the golden-hued skiffs upon the pretty dancing wavelets just where they ran, lipped with jewelled spray, on the shore, and then only had i a chance to scrutinise their material. i patted that one we were upon inside and out. i noted with a seaman's admiration its lightness, elasticity, and supreme sleekness, its marvellous buoyancy and fairy-like "lines," and after some minutes' consideration it suddenly flashed across me that it was all of gourd rind. and as if to supply confirmation, the flat land we were approaching on the opposite side of the bay was covered by the characteristic verdure of these plants with a touch here and there of splendid yellow blossoms, but all of gigantic proportions. "ay," said a martian damsel lying on the bottom, and taking and kissing my hand as she spoke, in the simple-hearted way of her people, "i see you have guessed how we make our boats. is it the same in your distant country?" "no, my girl, and what's more, i am a bit uneasy as to what the fellows on the carolina will say if they ever hear i went to sea in a hollowed-out pumpkin, and with a young lady--well, dressed as you are--for crew. even now i cannot imagine how you get your ships so trim and shapely--there is not a seam or a patch anywhere, it looks as if you had run them into a mould." "that's just what we have done, sir, and now you will witness the moulds at work, for here we are," and the little skiff was pulled ashore and the martians and i jumped out on the shelving beach, hauled our boat up high and dry, and there right over us, like great green umbrellas, spread the fronds of the outmost garden of this strangest of all ship-building yards. briefly, and not to make this part of my story too long, those gilded boys and girls took me ashore, and chattering like finches in the evening, showed how they planted their gourd seed, nourished the gigantic plants as they grew with brackish water and the burnt ashes; then, when they flowered, mated the male and female blossoms, glorious funnels of golden hue big enough for one to live in; and when the young fruit was of the bigness of an ordinary bolster, how they slipped it into a double mould of open reed-work something like the two halves of a walnut-shell; and how, growing day by day in this, it soon took every curve and line they chose to give it, even the hanging keel below, the strengthened bulwarks, and tall prow-piece. it was so ingenious, yet simple; and i confess i laughed over my first skiff "on the stalk," and fell to bantering the martians, asking whether it was a good season for navies, whether their cunarders were spreading nicely, if they could give me a pinch of barge seed, or a yacht in bud to show to my friends at home. but those lazy people took the matter seriously enough. they led me down green alleys arched over with huge melon-like leaves; they led me along innumerable byways, making me peep and peer through the chequered sunlight at ocean-growing craft, that had budded twelve months before, already filling their moulds to the last inch of space. they told me that when the growing process was sufficiently advanced, they loosened the casing, and cutting a hole into the interior of each giant fruit, scooped out all its seed, thereby checking more advance, and throwing into the rind strength that would otherwise have gone to reproductiveness. they said each fruit made two vessels, but the upper half was always best and used for long salt-water journeys, the lower piece being but for punting or fishing on their lakes. they cut them in half while still green, scraped out the light remaining pulp when dry, and dragged them down with the minimum of trouble, light as feathers, tenacious as steel plate, and already in the form and fashion of dainty craft from five to twenty feet in length, when the process was completed. by the time we had explored this strangest of ship-building yards, and i had seen last year's crop on the stocks being polished and fitted with seats and gear, the sun was going down; and the martian twilight, owing to the comparative steepness of the little planet's sides, being brief, we strolled back to the village, and there they gave me harbourage for the night, ambrosial supper, and a deep draught of the wine of forgetfulness, under the gauzy spell of which the real and unreal melted into the vistas of rosy oblivion, and i slept. chapter xi with the new morning came fresh energy and a spasm of conscience as i thought of poor heru and the shabby sort of rescuer i was to lie about with these pretty triflers while she remained in peril. so i had a bath and a swim, a breakfast, and, to my shame be it acknowledged, a sort of farewell merry-go-round dance on the yellow sands with a dozen young persons all light-hearted as the morning, beautiful as the flowers that bound their hair, and in the extremity of statuesque attire. then at last i got them to give me a sea-going canoe, a stock of cakes and fresh water; and with many parting injunctions how to find the woodman trail, since i would not listen to reason and lie all the rest of my life with them in the sunshine, they pushed me off on my lonely voyage. "over the blue waters!" they shouted in chorus as i dipped my paddle into the diamond-crested wavelets. "six hours, adventurous stranger, with the sun behind you! then into the broad river behind the yellow sand-bar. but not the black northward river! not the strong, black river, above all things, stranger! for that is the river of the dead, by which many go but none come back. goodbye!" and waving them adieu, i sternly turned my eyes from delights behind and faced the fascination of perils in front. in four hours (for the martians had forgotten in their calculations that my muscles were something better than theirs) i "rose" the further shore, and then the question was, where ran that westward river of theirs? it turned out afterwards that, knowing nothing of their tides, i had drifted much too far to northward, and consequently the coast had closed up the estuary mouth i should have entered. not a sign of an opening showed anywhere, and having nothing whatever for guidance i turned northward, eagerly scanning an endless line of low cliffs, as the day lessened, for the promised sand-bar or inlet. about dusk my canoe, flying swiftly forward at its own sweet will, brought me into a bight, a bare, desolate-looking country with no vegetation save grass and sedge on the near marshes and stony hills rising up beyond, with others beyond them mounting step by step to a long line of ridges and peaks still covered in winter snow. the outlook was anything but cheering. not a trace of habitation had been seen for a long time, not a single living being in whose neighbourhood i could land and ask the way; nothing living anywhere but a monstrous kind of sea-slug, as big as a dog, battening on the waterside garbage, and gaunt birds like vultures who croaked on the mud-flats, and half-spread wings of funereal blackness as they gambolled here and there. where was poor heru? where pink-shouldered an? where those wild men who had taken the princess from us? lastly, but not least, where was i? all the first stars of the martian sky were strange to me, and my boat whirling round and round on the current confused what little geography i might otherwise have retained. it was a cheerless look out, and again and again i cursed my folly for coming on such a fool's errand as i sat, chin in hand, staring at a landscape that grew more and more depressing every mile. to go on looked like destruction, to go back was almost impossible without a guide; and while i was still wondering which of the two might be the lesser evil, the stream i was on turned a corner, and in a moment we were upon water which ran with swift, oily smoothness straight for the snow-ranges now beginning to loom unpleasantly close ahead. by this time the night was coming on apace, the last of the evil-looking birds had winged its way across the red sunset glare, and though it was clear enough in mid-river under the banks, now steep and unclimbable, it was already evening. and with the darkness came a wondrous cold breath from off the ice-fields, blowing through my lowland wrappings as though they were but tissue. i munched a bit of honey-cake, took a cautious sip of wine, and though i will not own i was frightened, yet no one will deny that the circumstances were discouraging. standing up in the frail canoe and looking around, at the second glance an object caught my eye coming with the stream, and rapidly overtaking me on a strong sluice of water. it was a raft of some sort, and something extra-ordinarily like a sitting martian on it! nearer and nearer it came, bobbing to the rise and fall of each wavelet with the last icy sunlight touching it up with reds and golds, nearer and nearer in the deadly hush of that forsaken region, and then at last so near it showed quite plainly on the purple water, a raft with some one sitting under a canopy. with a thrill of delight i waved my cap aloft and shouted-- "ship-ahoy! hullo, messmate, where are we bound to?" but never an answer came from that swiftly-passing stranger, so again i hailed-- "put up your helm, mr. skipper; i have lost my bearings, and the chronometer has run down," but without a pause or sound that strange craft went slipping by. that silence was more than i could stand. it was against all sea courtesies, and the last chance of learning where i was passing away. so, angrily the paddle was snatched from the canoe bottom, and roaring out again-- "stop, i say, you d---- lubber, stop, or by all the gods i will make you!" i plunged the paddle into the water and shot my little craft slantingly across the stream to intercept the newcomer. a single stroke sent me into mid-stream, a second brought me within touch of that strange craft. it was a flat raft, undoubtedly, though so disguised by flowers and silk trailers that its shape was difficult to make out. in the centre was a chair of ceremony bedecked with greenery and great pale buds, hardly yet withered--oh, where had i seen such a chair and such a raft before? and the riddle did not long remain unanswered. upon that seat, as i swept up alongside and laid a sunburnt hand upon its edge, was a girl, and another look told me she was dead! such a sweet, pallid, martian maid, her fair head lolling back against the rear of the chair and gently moving to and fro with the rise and fall of her craft. her face in the pale light of the evening like carved ivory, and not less passionless and still; her arms bare, and her poor fingers still closed in her lap upon the beautiful buds they had put into them. i fairly gasped with amazement at the dreadful sweetness of that solitary lady, and could hardly believe she was really a corpse! but, alas! there was no doubt of it, and i stared at her, half in admiration and half in fear; noting how the last sunset flush lent a hectic beauty to her face for a moment, and then how fair and ghostly she stood out against the purpling sky; how her light drapery lifted to the icy wind, and how dreadfully strange all those soft-scented flowers and trappings seemed as we sped along side by side into the country of night and snow. then all of a sudden the true meaning of her being there burst upon me, and with a start and a cry i looked around. we were flying swiftly down that river of the dead they had told me of that has no outlet and no returning! with frantic haste i snatched up a paddle again and tried to paddle against the great black current sweeping us forward. i worked until the perspiration stood in beads on my forehead, and all the time i worked the river, like some black snake, hissed and twined, and that pretty lady rode cheerily along at my side. overhead stars of unearthly brilliancy were coming out in the frosty sky, while on either hand the banks were high and the shadows under them black as ink. in those shadows now and then i noticed with a horrible indifference other rafts were travelling, and presently, as the stream narrowed, they came out and joined us, dead martians, budding boys and girls; older voyagers with their age quickening upon them in the martian manner, just as some fruit only ripens after it falls; yellow-girt slaves staring into the night in front, quite a merry crew all clustered about i and that gentle lady, and more far ahead and more behind, all bobbing and jostling forward as we hurried to the dreadful graveyard in the martian regions of eternal winter none had ever seen and no one came to! i cried aloud in my desolation and fear and hid my face in my hands, while the icy cliffs mocked my cry and the dead maid, tripping alongside, rolled her head over, and stared at me with stony, unseeing eyes. well, i am no fine writer. i sat down to tell a plain, unvarnished tale, and i will not let the weird horror of that ride get into my pen. we careened forward, i and those lost martians, until pretty near on midnight, by which time the great light-giving planets were up, and never a chance did fate give me all that time of parting company with them. about midnight we were right into the region of snow and ice, not the actual polar region of the planet, as i afterwards guessed, but one of those long outliers which follow the course of the broad waterways almost into fertile regions, and the cold, though intense, was somewhat modified by the complete stillness of the air. it was just then that i began to be aware of a low, rumbling sound ahead, increasing steadily until there could not be any doubt the journey was nearly over and we were approaching those great falls an had told me of, over which the dead tumble to perpetual oblivion. there was no opportunity for action, and, luckily, little time for thought. i remember clapping my hand to my heart as i muttered an imperfect prayer, and laughing a little as i felt in my pocket, between it and that organ, an envelope containing some corn-plaster and a packet of unpaid tailors' bills. then i pulled out that locket with poor forgotten polly's photograph, and while i was still kissing it fervently, and the dead girl on my right was jealously nudging my canoe with the corner of her raft, we plunged into a narrow gully as black as hell, shot round a sharp corner at a tremendous pace, and the moment afterwards entered a lake in the midst of an unbroken amphitheatre of cliffs gleaming in soft light all round. even to this moment i can recall the blue shine of those terrible ice crags framing the weird picture in on every hand, and the strange effect upon my mind as we passed out of the darkness of the gully down which we had come into the sepulchral radiance of that place. but though it fixed with one instantaneous flash its impression on my mind forever, there was no time to admire it. as we swept on to the lake's surface, and a glance of light coming over a dip in the ice walls to the left lit up the dead faces and half-withered flowers of my fellow-travellers with startling distinctness, i noticed with a new terror at the lower end of the lake towards which we were hurrying the water suddenly disappeared in a cloud of frosty spray, and it was from thence came the low, ominous rumble which had sounded up the ravine as we approached. it was the fall, and beyond the stream dropped down glassy step after step, in wild pools and rapids, through which no boat could live for a moment, to a black cavern entrance, where it was swallowed up in eternal night. i would not go that way! with a yell such as those solitudes had probably never heard since the planet was fashioned out of the void, i seized the paddle again and struck out furiously from the main current, with the result of postponing the crisis for a time, and finding myself bobbing round towards the northern amphitheatre, where the light fell clearest from planets overhead. it was like a great ballroom with those constellations for tapers, and a ghastly crowd of martians were doing cotillions and waltzes all about me on their rafts as the troubled water, icy cold and clear as glass, eddied us here and there in solemn confusion. on the narrow beaches at the cliff foot were hundreds of wrecked voyagers--the wall-flowers of that ghostly assembly-room--and i went jostling and twirling round the circle as though looking for a likely partner, until my brain spun and my heart was sick. for twenty minutes fate played with me, and then the deadly suck of the stream got me down again close to where the water began to race for the falls. i vowed savagely i would not go over them if it could be helped, and struggled furiously. on the left, in shadow, a narrow beach seemed to lie between the water and the cliff foot; towards it i fought. at the very first stroke i fouled a raft; the occupant thereof came tumbling aboard and nearly swamped me. but now it was a fight for life, so him i seized without ceremony by clammy neck and leg and threw back into the water. then another playful martian butted the behind part of my canoe and set it spinning, so that all the stars seemed to be dancing giddily in the sky. with a yell i shoved him off, but only to find his comrades were closing round me in a solid ring as we sucked down to the abyss at ever-increasing speed. then i fought like a fury, hacking, pushing, and paddling shorewards, crying out in my excitement, and spinning and bumping and twisting ever downwards. for every foot i gained they pushed me on a yard, as though determined their fate should be mine also. they crowded round me in a compact circle, their poor flower-girt heads nodding as the swift current curtsied their crafts. they hemmed me in with desperate persistency as we spun through the ghostly starlight in a swirling mass down to destruction! and in a minute we were so close to the edge of the fall i could see the water break into ridges as it felt the solid bottom give way under it. we were so close that already the foremost rafts, ten yards ahead, were tipping and their occupants one by one waving their arms about and tumbling from their funeral chairs as they shot into the spray veil and went out of sight under a faint rainbow that was arched over there, the symbol of peace and the only lovely thing in that gruesome region. another minute and i must have gone with them. it was too late to think of getting out of the tangle then; the water behind was heavy with trailing silks and flowers. we were jammed together almost like one huge float and in that latter fact lay my one chance. on the left was a low ledge of rocks leading back to the narrow beach already mentioned, and the ledge came out to within a few feet of where the outmost boat on that side would pass it. it was the only chance and a poor one, but already the first rank of my fleet was trembling on the brink, and without stopping to weigh matters i bounded off my own canoe on to the raft alongside, which rocked with my weight like a tea-tray. from that i leapt, with such hearty good-will as i had never had before, on to a second and third. i jumped from the footstool of one martian to the knee of another, steadying myself by a free use of their nodding heads as i passed. and every time i jumped a ship collapsed behind me. as i staggered with my spring into the last and outermost boat the ledge was still six feet away, half hidden in a smother of foam, and the rim of the great fall just under it. then i drew all my sailor agility together and just as the little vessel was going bow up over the edge i leapt from her--came down blinded with spray on the ledge, rolled over and over, clutched frantically at the frozen soil, and was safe for the moment, but only a few inches from the vortex below! as soon as i picked myself up and got breath, i walked shorewards and found, with great satisfaction, that the ledge joined the shelving beach, and so walked on in the blue obscurity of the cliff shadow back from the falls in the bare hope that the beach might lead by some way into the gully through which we had come and open country beyond. but after a couple of hundred yards this hope ended as abruptly as the spit itself in deep water, and there i was, as far as the darkness would allow me to ascertain, as utterly trapped as any mortal could be. i will not dwell on the next few minutes, for no one likes to acknowledge that he has been unmanned even for a space. when those minutes were over calmness and consideration returned, and i was able to look about. all the opposite cliffs, rising sheer from the water, were in light, their cold blue and white surfaces rising far up into the black starfields overhead. looking at them intently from this vantage-point i saw without at first understanding that along them horizontally, tier above tier, were rows of objects, like--like--why, good heavens, they were like men and women in all sorts of strange postures and positions! rubbing my eyes and looking again i perceived with a start and a strange creepy feeling down my back that they were men and women!--hundreds of them, thousands, all in rows as cormorants stand upon sea-side cliffs, myriads and myriads now i looked about, in every conceivable pose and attitude but never a sound, never a movement amongst the vast concourse. then i turned back to the cliffs behind me. yes! they ere there too, dimmer by reason of the shadows, but there for certain, from the snowfields far above down, down--good heavens! to the very level where i stood. there was one of them not ten yards away half in and half out of the ice wall, and setting my teeth i walked over and examined him. and there was another further in behind as i peered into the clear blue depth, another behind that one, another behind him--just like cherries in a jelly. it was startling and almost incredible, yet so many wonderful things had happened of late that wonders were losing their sharpness, and i was soon examining the cliff almost as coolly as though it were only some trivial geological "section," some new kind of petrified sea-urchins which had caught my attention and not a whole nation in ice, a huge amphitheatre of fossilised humanity which stared down on me. the matter was simple enough when you came to look at it with philosophy. the martians had sent their dead down here for many thousand years and as they came they were frozen in, the bands and zones in which they sat indicating perhaps alternating seasons. then after nature had been storing them like that for long ages some upheaval happened, and this cleft and lake opened through the heart of the preserve. probably the river once ran far up there where the starlight was crowning the blue cliffs with a silver diadem of light, only when this hollow opened did it slowly deepen a lower course, spreading out in a lake, and eventually tumbling down those icy steps lose itself in the dark roots of the hills. it was very simple, no doubt, but incredibly weird and wonderful to me who stood, the sole living thing in that immense concourse of dead humanity. look where i would it was the same everywhere. those endless rows of frozen bodies lying, sitting, or standing stared at me from every niche and cornice. it almost seemed, as the light veered slowly round, as though they smiled and frowned at times, but never a word was there amongst those millions; the silence itself was audible, and save the dull low thunder of the fall, so monotonous the ear became accustomed to and soon disregarded it, there was not a sound anywhere, not a rustle, not a whisper broke the eternal calm of that great caravansary of the dead. the very rattle of the shingle under my feet and the jingle of my navy scabbard seemed offensive in the perfect hush, and, too awed to be frightened, i presently turned away from the dreadful shine of those cliffs and felt my way along the base of the wall on my own side. there was no means of escape that way, and presently the shingle beach itself gave out as stated, where the cliff wall rose straight from the surface of the lake, so i turned back, and finding a grotto in the ice determined to make myself as comfortable as might be until daylight came. chapter xii fortunately there was a good deal of broken timber thrown up at "high-water" mark, and with a stack of this at the mouth of the little cave a pleasant fire was soon made by help of a flint pebble and the steel back of my sword. it was a hearty blaze and lit up all the near cliffs with a ruddy jumping glow which gave their occupants a marvellous appearance of life. the heat also brought off the dull rime upon the side of my recess, leaving it clear as polished glass, and i was a little startled to see, only an inch or so back in the ice and standing as erect as ever he had been in life, the figure of an imposing grey clad man. his arms were folded, his chin dropped upon his chest, his robes of the finest stuff, the very flowers they had decked his head with frozen with immortality, and under them, round his crisp and iron-grey hair, a simple band of gold with strange runes and figures engraved upon it. there was something very simple yet stately about him, though his face was hidden and as i gazed long and intently the idea got hold of me that he had been a king over an undegenerate martian race, and had stood waiting for the dawn a very, very long time. i wished a little that he had not been quite so near the glassy surface of the ice down which the warmth was bringing quick moisture drops. had he been back there in the blue depths where others were sitting and crouching it would have been much more comfortable. but i was a sailor, and misfortune makes strange companions, so i piled up the fire again, and lying down presently on the dry shingle with my back to him stared moodily at the blaze till slowly the fatigues of the day told, my eyelids dropped and, with many a fitful start and turn, at length i slept. it was an hour before dawn, the fire had burnt low and i was dreaming of an angry discussion with my tailor in new york as to the sit of my last new trousers when a faint sound of moving shingle caught my quick seaman ear, and before i could raise my head or lift a hand, a man's weight was on me--a heavy, strong man who bore me down with irresistible force. i felt the slap of his ice-cold hand upon my throat and his teeth in the back of my neck! in an instant, though but half awake, with a yell of surprise and anger i grappled with the enemy, and exerting all my strength rolled him over. over and over we went struggling towards the fire, and when i got him within a foot or so of it i came out on top, and, digging my knuckles into his throttle, banged his head upon the stony floor in reckless rage, until all of a sudden it seemed to me he was done for. i relaxed my grip, but the other man never moved. i shook him again, like a terrier with a rat, but he never resented it. had i killed him? how limp and cold he was! and then all of a sudden an uneasy feeling came upon me. i reached out, and throwing a handful of dried stuff upon the embers the fire danced gaily up into the air, and the blaze showed me i was savagely holding down to the gravel and kneeling on the chest of that long-dead king from my grotto wall! it was the man out of the ice without a doubt. there was the very niche he had fallen from under the influence of the fire heat, the very recess, exactly in his shape in every detail, whence he had stood gazing into vacuity all those years. i left go my hold, and after the flutter in my heart had gone down, apologetically set him up against the wall of the cavern whence he had fallen; then built up the fire until twirling flames danced to the very roof in the blue light of dawn, and hobgoblin shadows leapt and capered about us. then once more i sat down on the opposite side of the blaze, resting my chin upon my hands, and stared into the frozen eyes of that grim stranger, who, with his chin upon his knees, stared back at me with irresistible, remorseless steadfastness. he was as fresh as if he had died but yesterday, yet by his clothing and something in his appearance, which was not that of the martian of to-day, i knew he might be many thousand years old. what things he had seen, what wonders he knew! what a story might be put into his mouth if i were a capable writer gifted with time and imagination instead of a poor outcast, ill-paid lieutenant whose literary wit is often taxed hardly to fill even a log-book entry! i stared at him so long and hard, and he at me through the blinking flames, that again i dozed--and dozed--and dozed again until at last when i woke in good earnest it was daylight. by this time hunger was very aggressive. the fire was naught but a circlet of grey ashes; the dead king, still sitting against the cave-side, looked very blue and cold, and with an uncomfortable realisation of my position i shook myself together, picked up and pocketed without much thought the queer gold circlet that had dropped from his forehead, and went outside to see what prospect of escape the new day had brought. it was not much. upriver there was not the remotest chance. not even a niagara steamer could have forged back against the sluice coming down from the gulch there. looking round, the sides of the icy amphitheatre--just lighting up now with glorious gold and crimson glimmers of morning--were as steep as a wall face; only back towards the falls was there a possibility of getting out of the dreadful trap, so thither i went, after a last look at the poor old king, along my narrow beach with all the eagerness begotten of a final chance. up to the very brink it looked hopeless enough, but, looking downwards when that was reached, instead of a sheer drop the slope seemed to be a wild "staircase" of rocks and icy ledges with here and there a little patch of sand on a cornice, and far below, five hundred feet or so, a good big spread of gravel an acre or two in extent close by where the river plunged out of sight into the nethermost cavern mouth. it was so hopeless up above it, it could not possibly be worse further down, and there was the ugly black flood running into the hole to trust myself to as a last resource; so slipping and sliding i began the descent. had i been a schoolboy with a good breakfast ahead the incident might have been amusing enough. the travelling was mostly done on the seat of my trousers, which consequently became caked with mud and glacial loam. some was accomplished on hands and knees, with now and then a bit down a snow slope, in good, honest head-over-heels fashion. the result was a fine appetite for the next meal when it should please providence to send it, and an abrupt arrival on the bottom beach about five minutes after leaving the upper circles. i came to behind a cluster of breast-high rocks, and before moving took a look round. judge then of my astonishment and delight at the second glance to perceive about a hundred yards away a brown object, looking like an ape in the half light, meandering slowly up the margin of the water towards me. every now and then it stopped, stooping down to pick up something or other from the scum along the torrent, and it was the fact that these trifles, whatever they were, were put into a wallet by the vision's side--not into his mouth--which first made me understand with a joyful thrill that it was a man before me--a real, living man in this huge chamber of dead horrors! then again it flashed across my mind in a luminous moment that where one man could come, or go, or live, another could do likewise, and never did cat watch mouse with more concentrated eagerness than i that quaint, bent-shouldered thing hobbling about in the blue morning shadows where all else was silence. nearer and nearer he came, till so close face and garb were discernible, and then there could no longer be any doubt, it was a woodman, an old man, with grizzled monkey-face, stooping gait, and a shaggy fur cloak, utterly unlike the airy garments of my hither folk, who now stood before me. it gave me quite a start to recognise him there, for it showed i was in a new land, and since he was going so cheerfully about his business, whatever it might chance to be, there must be some way out of this accursed pit in which i had fallen. so very cautiously i edged out, taking advantage of all the cover possible until we were only twenty yards apart, and then suddenly standing up, and putting on the most affable smile, i called out-- "hullo, mess-mate!" the effect was electrical. that quaint old fellow sprang a yard into air as though a spring had shot him up. then, coming down, he stood transfixed at his full height as stiff as a ramrod, staring at me with incredible wonder. he looked so funny that in spite of hunger and loneliness i burst out laughing, whereat the woodman, suddenly recovering his senses, turned on his heels and set off at his best pace in the opposite direction. this would never do! i wanted him to be my guide, philosopher, and friend. he was my sole visible link with the outside world, so after him i went at tip-top speed, and catching him up in fifty yards along the shingle laid hold of his nether garments. whereat the old fellow stopping suddenly i shot clean over his back, coming down on my shoulder in the gravel. but i was much younger than he, and in a minute was in chase again. this time i laid hold of his cloak, and the moment he felt my grip he slipped the neck-thongs and left me with only the mangy garment in my hands. again we set off, dodging and scampering with all our might upon that frozen bit of beach. the activity of that old fellow was marvellous, but i could not and would not lose him. i made a rush and grappled him, but he tossed his head round and slipped away once more under my arm, as though he had been brought up by a chinese wrestler. then he got on one side of a flat rock, i the other, and for three or four minutes we waltzed round that slab in the most insane manner. but by this time we were both pretty well spent--he with age and i with faintness from my long fast, and we came presently to a standstill. after glaring at me for a time, the woodman gasped out as he struggled for breath-- "oh, mighty and dreadful spirit! oh, dweller in primordial ice, say from which niche of the cliffs has the breath of chance thawed you?" "never a niche at all, mr. hunter-for-haddocks'-eyes," i answered as soon as i could speak. "i am just a castaway wrecked last night on this shore of yours, and very grateful indeed will i be if you can show me the way to some breakfast first, and afterwards to the outside world." but the old fellow would not believe. "spirits such as you," he said sullenly, "need no food, and go whither they will by wish alone." "i tell you i am not a spirit, and as hungry as i don't particularly want to be again. here, look at the back of my trousers, caked three inches deep in mud. if i were a spirit, do you think i would slide about on my coat-tails like that? do you think that if i could travel by volition i would slip down these infernal cliffs on my pants' seat as i have just done? and as for materialism--look at this fist; it punched you just now! surely there was nothing spiritual in that knock?'' "no," said the savage, rubbing his head, "it was a good, honest rap, so i must take you at your word. if you are indeed man, and hungry, it will be a charity to feed you; if you are a spirit, it will at least be interesting to watch you eat; so sit down, and let's see what i have in my wallet." so cross-legged we squatted opposite each other on the table rock, and, feeling like another sindbad the sailor, i watched my new friend fumble in his bag and lay out at his side all sorts of odds and ends of string, fish-hooks, chewing-gum, material for making a fire, and so on, until at last he came to a package (done up, i noted with delight, in a broad, green leaf which had certainly been growing that morning), and unrolling it, displayed a lump of dried meat, a few biscuits, much thicker and heavier than the honey-cakes of the hither folk, and something that looked and smelt like strong, white cheese. he signed to me to eat, and you may depend upon it i was not slow in accepting the invitation. that tough biltong tasted to me like the tenderest steak that ever came from a grill; the biscuits were ambrosial; the cheese melted in my mouth as butter melts in that of the virtuous; but when the old man finished the quaint picnic by inviting me to accompany him down to the waterside for a drink, i shook my head. i had a great respect for dead queens and kings, i said, but there were too many of them up above to make me thirsty this morning; my respect did not go to making me desire to imbibe them in solution! afterwards i chanced to ask him what he had been picking up just now along the margin, and after looking at me suspiciously for a minute he asked-- "you are not a thief?" on being reassured on that point he continued: "and you will not attempt to rob me of the harvest for which i venture into this ghost-haunted glen, which you and i alone of living men have seen?" "no." whatever they were, i said, i would respect his earnings. "very well, then," said the old man, "look here! i come hither to pick up those pretty trifles which yonder lords and ladies have done with," and plunging his hand into another bag he brought out a perfect fistful of splendid gems and jewels, some set and some unset. "they wash from the hands and wrists of those who have lodgings in the crevices of the falls above," he explained. "after a time the beach here will be thick with them. could i get up whence you came down, they might be gathered by the sackful. come! there is an eddy still unsearched, and i will show you how they lie." it was very fascinating, and i and that old man set to work amongst the gravels, and, to be brief, in half an hour found enough glittering stuff to set up a fifth avenue jeweller's shop. but to tell the truth, now that i had breakfasted, and felt manhood in my veins again, i was eager to be off, and out of the close, death-tainted atmosphere of that valley. consequently i presently stood up and said-- "look here, old man, this is fine sport no doubt, but just at present i have a big job on hand--one which will not wait, and i must be going. see, luck and young eyes have favoured me; here is twice as much gold and stones as you have got together--it is all yours without a question if you will show me the way out of this den and afterwards put me on the road to your big city, for thither i am bound with an errand to your king, ar-hap." the sight of my gems, backed, perhaps, with the mention of ar-hap's name, appealed to the old fellow; and after a grunt or two about "losing a tide" just when spoil was so abundant, he accepted the bargain, shouldered his belongings, and led me towards the far corner of the beach. it looked as if we were walking right against the towering ice wall, but when we were within a yard or two of it a narrow cleft, only eighteen inches wide, and wonderfully masked by an ice column, showed to the left, and into this we squeezed ourselves, the entrance by which we had come appearing to close up instantly we had gone a pace or two, so perfectly did the ice walls match each other. it was the most uncanny thoroughfare conceivable--a sheer, sharp crack in the blue ice cliffs extending from where the sunlight shone in a dazzling golden band five hundred feet overhead to where bottom was touched in blue obscurity of the ice-foot. it was so narrow we had to travel sideways for the most part, a fact which brought my face close against the clear blue glass walls, and enabled me from time to time to see, far back in those translucent depths, more and more and evermore frozen martians waiting in stony silence for their release. but the fact of facts was that slowly the floor of the cleft trended upwards, whilst the sky strip appeared to come downwards to meet it. a mile, perhaps, we growled and squeezed up that wonderful gully; then with a feeling of incredible joy i felt the clear, outer air smiting upon me. in my hurry and delight i put my head into the small of the back of the puffing old man who blocked the way in front and forced him forward, until at last--before we expected it--the cleft suddenly ended, and he and i tumbled headlong over each other on to a glittering, frozen snowslope; the sky azure overhead, the sunshine warm as a tepid bath, and a wide prospect of mountain and plain extending all around. so delightful was the sudden change of circumstances that i became quite boyish, and seizing the old man in my exuberance by the hands, dragged him to his feet, and danced him round and round in a circle, while his ancient hair flapped about his head, his skin cloak waved from his shoulders like a pair of dusky wings and half-eaten cakes, dried flesh, glittering jewels, broken diadems, and golden finger-rings were flung in an arc about us. we capered till fairly out of breath, and then, slapping him on the back shoulder, i asked whose land all this was about us. he replied that it was no one's, all waste from verge to verge. "what!" was my exclamation. "all ownerless, and with so much treasure hidden hereabout! why, i shall annex it to my country, and you and i will peg out original settlers' claims!" and, still excited by the mountain air, i whipped out my sword, and in default of a star-spangled banner to plant on the newly-acquired territory, traced in gigantic letters on the snow-crust--u.s.a. "and now," i added, wiping the rime off my blade with the lappet of my coat, "let us stop capering about here and get to business. you have promised to put me on the way to your big city." "come on then," said the little man, gathering up his property. "this white hillside leads to nowhere; we must get into the valley first, and then you shall see your road." and right well that quaint barbarian kept his promise. chapter xiii it was half a day's march from those glittering snow-fields into the low country, and when that was reached i found myself amongst quite another people. the land was no longer fat and flowery, giving every kind of produce for the asking, but stony for the most part, and, where we first came on vegetation, overgrown by firs, with a pine which looked to me like a species which went to make the coal measures in my dear but distant planet. more than this i cannot say, for there are no places in the world like mess-room and quarter-deck for forgetting school learning. instead of the glorious wealth of parti-coloured vegetation my eyes had been accustomed to lately, here they rested on infertile stretches of marshland intersected by moss-covered gravel shoots, looking as though they had been pushed into the plains in front of extinct glaciers coming down from the region behind us. on the low hills away from the sea those sombre evergreen forests with an undergrowth of moss and red lichens were more variegated with light foliage, and indeed the pines proved to be but a fringe to the arctic ice, giving way rapidly to more typical martian vegetation each mile we marched to the southward. as for the inhabitants, they seemed, like my guide, rough, uncouth fellows, but honest enough when you came to know them. an introduction, however, was highly desirable. i chanced upon the first native as he was gathering reindeer-moss. my companion was some little way behind at the moment, and when the gentle aborigine saw the stranger he stared hard for a moment, then, turning on his heels, with extraordinary swiftness flung at me half a pound of hard flint stone. had his aim been a little more careful this humble narrative had never appeared on the broadway bookstalls. as it was, the pebble, missing my head by an inch or two, splintered into a hundred fragments on a rock behind, and while i was debating whether a revengeful rush at the slinger or a strategic advance to the rear were more advisable, my guide called out to his countryman-- "ho! you base prowler in the morasses; you eater of unclean vegetation, do you not see this is a ghost i am conducting, a dweller in the ice cliffs, a spirit ten thousand years old? put by your sling lest he wither you with a glance." and, very reasonably, surprised, the aborigine did as he was bid and cautiously advanced to inspect me. the news soon spread over the countryside that my jewel-hunter was bringing a live "spook" along with him, considerable curiosity mixed with an awe all to my advantage characterising the people we met thereafter. yet the wonder was not so great as might have been expected, for these people were accustomed to meeting the tags of lost races, and though they stared hard, their interest was chiefly in hearing how, when, and where i had been found, whether i bit or kicked, or had any other vices, and if i possessed any commercial value. my guide's throat must have ached with the repetition of the narrative, but as he made the story redound greatly to his own glory, he put up cheerfully with the hoarseness. in this way, walking and talking alternately, we travelled during daylight through a country which slowly lost its rugged features and became more and more inhabited, the hardy people living in scattered villages in contradiction to the debased city-loving hither folk. about nightfall we came to a sea-fishers' hamlet, where, after the old man had explained my exalted nature and venerable antiquity, i was offered shelter for the night. my host was the headman, and i must say his bearing towards the supernatural was most unaffected. if it had been an avenue hotel i could not have found more handsome treatment than in that reed-thatched hut. they made me wash and rest, and then were all agog for my history; but that i postponed, contenting myself with telling them i had been lately in seth, and had come thence to see them via the ice valley--to all of which they listened with the simplicity of children. afterwards i turned on them, and openly marvelled that so small a geographical distance as there was between that land and this could make so vast a human difference. "the truth, o dweller in blue shadows of primordial ice, is," said the most intelligent of the thither folk as we sat over fried deer-steak in his hut that evening, "we who are men, not peri-zad, not overstayed fairies like those you have been amongst, are newcomers here on this shore. we came but a few generations ago from where the gold curtains of the sun lie behind the westward pine-trees, and as we came we drove, year by year, those fays, those spent triflers, back before us. all this land was theirs once, and more and more towards our old home. you may still see traces of harbours dug and cities built thousands of years ago, when the hither folk were living men and women--not their shadows. the big water outside stops us for a space, but," he added, laughing gruffly and taking a draught of a strong beer he had been heating by the fire, "king ar-hap has their pretty noses between his fingers; he takes tribute and girls while he gets ready--they say he is nearly ready this summer, and if he is, it will not be much of an excuse he will need to lick up the last of those triflers, those pretences of manhood." then we fell to talking of ar-hap, his subjects and town, and i learned the tides had swept me a long way to the northward of the proper route between the capitals of the two races, that day they carried me into the dead-men's ice, as these entertainers of mine called the northern snows. to get back to the place previously aimed at, where the woodmen road came out on the seashore, it was necessary to go either by boat, a roundabout way through a maze of channels, "as tangled as the grass roots in autumn"; or, secondly, by a couple of days' marching due southward across the base of the great peninsula we were on, and so strike blue water again at the long-sought-for harbour. as i lay dozing and dreaming on a pile of strange furs in the corner of the hut that evening i made up my mind for the land journey tomorrow, having had enough for the moment of nautical martian adventures; and this point settled, fell again to wondering what made me follow so reckless a quest in the way i was doing; asking myself again and again what was gazelle-eyed heru to me after all, and why should it matter even as much as the value of a brass waist-coat button whether hath had her or ar-hap? what a fool i was to risk myself day by day in quaint and dangerous adventures, wearing out good government shoe-leather in other men's quarrels, all for a silly slip of royal girlhood who, by this time, was probably making herself comfortable and forgetting both hath and me in the arms of her rough new lord. and from heru my mind drifted back dreamily to poor an, and seth, the city of fallen magnificence, where the spent masters of a strange planet now lived on sufferance--the ghosts of their former selves. where was an, where the revellers on the morning--so long ago it seemed!--when first that infernal rug of mine translated a chance wish into a horrible reality and shot me down here, a stranger and an outcast? where was the magic rug itself? where my steak and tomato supper? who had eaten it? who was drawing my pay? if i could but find the rug when i got back to seth, gods! but i would try if it would not return whence i had come, and as swiftly, out of all these silly coils and adventuring. so musing, presently the firelight died down, and bulky forms of hide-wrapped woodmen sleeping on the floor slowly disappeared in obscurity like ranges of mountains disappearing in the darkness of night. all those uncouth forms, and the throb of the sea outside, presently faded upon my senses, and i slept the heavy sleep of one whose wakefulness gives way before an imperious physical demand. all through the long hours of the night, while the waves outside champed upon the gravels, and the woodmen snored and grunted uneasily as they simultaneously dreamt of the day's hunting and digested its proceeds, i slept; and then when dawn began to break i passed from that heavy stupor into another and lighter realm, wherein fancy again rose superior to bodily fatigue, and events of the last few days passed in procession through my mind. i dreamt i was lunching at a fashionable seaside resort with polly at my side, and an kept bringing us melons, which grew so monstrous every time a knife was put into them that poor polly screamed aloud. i dreamt i was afloat on a raft, hotly pursued by my tailor, whose bare and shiny head--may providence be good to him!--was garlanded with roses, while in his fist was a bunch of unpaid bills, the which he waved aloft, shouting to me to stop. and thus we danced down an ink-black river until he had chiveyed me into the vast hall of the admiralty, where a fearsome secretary, whose golden teeth rattled and dropped from his head with mingled cold and anger, towered above me as he asked why i was absent from my ship without leave. and i was just mumbling out excuses while stooping to pick up his golden dentistry, when some one stirring in the hut aroused me. i started up on my elbow and looked around. where was i? for a minute all was confused and dark. the heavy mound-like forms of sleeping men, the dim outlines of their hunting gear upon the walls, the pale sea beyond, half seen through the open doorway, just turning livid in the morning light; and then as my eyes grew more accustomed to the obscurity, and my stupid senses returned, i recognised the surroundings, and, with a sigh, remembered yesterday's adventures. however, it would never do to mope; so, rising silently and picking a way through human lumber on the floor, i went out and down to the water's edge, where "shore-going" clothes, as we sailors call them, were slipped off, and i plunged into the sea for a swim. it was a welcome dip, for i needed the plunge physically and intellectually, but it came to an abrupt conclusion. the thither folk apparently had never heard of this form of enjoyment; to them water stood for drinking or drowning, nothing else, and since one could not drink the sea, to be in it meant, even for a ghost, to drown. consequently, when the word went round the just rousing villages that "he-on-foot-from-afar" was adrift in the waves, rescue parties were hurriedly organised, a boat launched, and, in spite of all my kicking and shouting (which they took to be evidence of my semi-moribund condition), i was speedily hauled out by hairy and powerful hands, pungent herbs burnt under my nose, and my heels held high in the air in order that the water might run out of me. it was only with the greatest difficulty those rough but honest fellows were eventually got to believe me saved. the breakfast i made of grilled deer flesh and a fish not unlike salmon, however, convinced them of my recovery, and afterward we parted very good friends; for there was something in the nature of those rugged barbarians just coming into the dawn of civilisation that won my liking far more than the effete gentleness of others across the water. when the time of parting came they showed no curiosity as to my errand, but just gave me some food in a fish-skin bag, thrust a heavy stone-headed axe into my hand, "in case i had to talk to a thief on the road," and pointed out on the southern horizon a forked mountain, under which, they said, was the harbour and high-road to king ar-hap's capital. then they hugged me to their hairy chests in turn, and let me go with a traveller's blessing. there i was again, all alone, none but my thoughts for companions, and nothing but youth to excuse the folly in thus venturing on a reckless quest! however, who can gainsay that same youth? the very spice of danger made my steps light and the way pleasant. for a mile or two the track was plain enough, through an undulating country gradually becoming more and more wooded with vegetation, changing rapidly from alpine to sub-tropical. the air also grew warmer, and when the dividing ridge was crossed and a thick forest entered, the snows and dreadful region of deadmen's ice already seemed leagues and leagues away. probably a warm ocean current played on one side of the peninsula, while a cold one swept the other, but for scientific aspects of the question i cared little in my joy at being anew in a soft climate, amongst beautiful flowers and vivid life again. mile after mile slipped quickly by as i strode along, whistling "yankee doodle" to myself and revelling in the change. at one place i met a rough-looking martian woodcutter, who wanted to fight until he found i also wanted to, when he turned very civil and as talkative as a solitary liver often is when his tongue gets started. he particularly desired to know where i came from, and, as in the case with so many other of his countrymen, took it for granted, and with very little surprise, that i was either a spirit or an inhabitant of another world. with this idea in his mind he gave me a curious piece of information, which, unfortunately, i was never able to follow up. "i don't think you can be a spirit," he said, critically eyeing my clothes, which were now getting ragged and dirty beyond description. "they are finer-looking things than you, and i doubt if their toes come through their shoes like yours do. if you are a wanderer from the stars, you are not like that other one we have down yonder," and he pointed to the southward. "what!" i asked, pricking my ears in amazement, "another wanderer from the outside world! does he come from the earth?"--using the word an had given me to signify my own planet. "no, not from there; from the one that burns blue in evening between sun and sea. men say he worked as a stoker or something of the kind when he was at home, and got trifling with a volcano tap, and was lapped in hot mud, and blown out here. my brother saw him about a week ago." "now what you say is down right curious. i thought i had a monopoly of that kind of business in this sphere of yours. i should be tremendously interested to see him." "no you wouldn't," briefly answered the woodman. "he is the stupidest fool ever blown from one world to another--more stupid to look at than you are. he is a gaseous, wavey thing, so glum you can't get two words a week out of him, and so unstable that you never know when you are with him and when the breeze has drifted him somewhere else." i could but laugh and insist, with all respect to the woodcutter, such an individual were worth the knowing however unstable his constitution; at which the man shrugged his shoulders and changed the conversation, as though the subject were too trivial to be worth much consideration. this individual gave me the pleasure of his company until nearly sundown, and finding i took an interest in things of the forest, pointed out more curious plants and trees than i have space to mention. two of them, however, cling to my memory very tenaciously. one was a very circe amongst plants, the horrible charm of which can never be forgotten. we were going down a glade when a most ravishing odour fell upon my nostrils. it was heavenly sweet yet withal there lurked an incredibly, unexpressibly tempting spice of wickedness in it. the moment he caught that ambrosial invitation in the air my woodman spit fiercely on the ground, and taking a plug of wool from his pouch stuffed his nostrils up. then he beckoned me to come away. but the odour was too ravishing, i was bound to see whence it arose, and finding me deaf to all warnings, the man reluctantly turned aside down the enticing trail. we pushed about a hundred yards through bushes until we came to a little arena full in sunshine where there were neither birds nor butterflies, but a death-like hush upon everything. indeed, the place seemed shunned in spite of the sodden loveliness of that scent which monopolised and mounted to my brain until i was beginning to be drunk with the sheer pleasure of it. and there in the centre of the space stood a plant not unlike a tree fern, about six feet high, and crowned by one huge and lovely blossom. it resembled a vast passion-flower of incredible splendour. there were four petals, with points resting on the ground, each six feet long, ivory-white inside, exquisitely patterned with glittering silver veins. from the base of these rose upright a gauzy veil of azure filaments of the same length as the petals, wirelike, yet soft as silk, and inside them again rested a chalice of silver holding a tiny pool of limpid golden honey. circe, indeed! it was from that cup the scent arose, and my throat grew dry with longing as i looked at it; my eyes strained through the blue tendrils towards that liquid nectar, and my giddy senses felt they must drink or die! i glanced at the woodman with a smile of drunken happiness, then turned tottering legs towards the blossom. a stride up the smooth causeway of white petals, a push through the azure haze, and the wine of the wood enchantress would be mine--molten amber wine, hotter and more golden than the sunshine; the fire of it was in my veins, the recklessness of intoxication was on me, life itself as nothing compared to a sip from that chalice, my lips must taste or my soul would die, and with trembling hand and strained face i began to climb. but the woodman pulled me back. "back, stranger!" he cried. "those who drink there never live again." "blessed oblivion! if i had a thousand lives the price were still too cheap," and once more i essayed to scramble up. but the man was a big fellow, and with nostrils plugged, and eyes averted from the deadly glamour, he seized me by the collar and threw me back. three times i tried, three times he hurled me down, far too faint and absorbed to heed the personal violence. then standing between us, "look," he said, "look and learn." he had killed a small ape that morning, meaning later on to take its fur for clothing, and this he now unslung from his shoulder, and hitching the handle of his axe into the loose skin at the back of its neck, cautiously advanced to the witch plant, and gently hoisted the monkey over the blue palings. the moment its limp, dead feet touched the golden pool a shudder passed through the plant, and a bird somewhere far back in the forest cried out in horror. quick as thought, a spasm of life shot up the tendrils, and like tongues of blue flame they closed round the victim, lapping his miserable body in their embrace. at the same time the petals began to rise, showing as they did so hard, leathery, unlovely outer rinds, and by the time the woodman was back at my side the flower was closed. closer and closer wound the blue tendrils; tighter and tighter closed the cruel petals with their iron grip, until at last we heard the ape's bones crackling like dry firewood; then next his head burst, his brains came oozing through the crevices, while blood and entrails followed them through every cranny, and the horrible mess with the overflow of the chalice curled down the stem in a hundred steaming rills, till at last the petals locked with an ugly snap upon their ghastly meal, and i turned away from the sight in dread and loathing. that was plant number one. plant number two was of milder disposition, and won a hearty laugh for my friendly woodman. in fact, being of a childlike nature, his success as a professor of botany quite pleased him, and not content with answering my questions, he set to work to find new vegetable surprises, greatly enjoying my wonder and the sense of importance it gave him. in this way we came, later on in the day, to a spot where herbage was somewhat scantier, the grass coarse, and soil shallow. here i espied a tree of small size, apparently withered, but still bearing a few parched leaves on its uppermost twigs. "now that," quoth the professor, "is a highly curious tree, and i should like you to make a close acquaintance with it. it grows from a seed in the course of a single springtime, perishes in the summer; but a few specimens stand throughout the winter, provided the situation is sheltered, as this one has done. if you will kindly go down and shake its stem i believe you will learn something interesting." so, very willing to humour him, away i went to the tree, which was perfect in every detail, but apparently very dry, clasped it with both hands, and, pulling myself together, gave it a mighty shake. the result was instantaneous. the whole thing was nothing but a skin of dust, whence all fibre and sap had gone, and at my touch it dissolved into a cloud of powder, a huge puff of white dust which descended on me as though a couple of flour-bags had been inverted over my head; and as i staggered out sneezing and blinking, white as a miller from face to foot, the martian burst into a wild, joyous peal of laughter that made the woods ring again. his merriment was so sincere i had not the heart to be angry, and soon laughed as loud as he did; though, for the future, i took his botanical essays with a little more caution. chapter xiv that woodman friend of mine proved so engaging it was difficult to get away, and thus when, dusk upon us, and my object still a long distance off, he asked me to spend the night at his hut, i gladly assented. we soon reached the cabin where the man lived by himself whilst working in the forest. it was a picturesque little place on a tree-overhung lagoon, thatched, wattled, and all about were piles of a pleasant-scented bark, collected for the purpose of tanning hides, and i could not but marvel that such a familiar process should be practised identically on two sides of the universal ether. but as a matter of fact the similarity of many details of existence here and there was the most striking of the things i learned whilst in the red planet. within the hut stood a hearth in the centre of the floor, whereon a comfortable blaze soon sparkled, and upon the walls hung various implements, hides, and a store of dried fruits of various novel kinds. my host, when he had somewhat disdainfully watched me wash in a rill of water close by, suggested supper, and i agreed with heartiest good will. "nothing wonderful! oh, mr. blue-coat!" he said, prancing about as he made his hospitable arrangements. "no fine meat or scented wine to unlock, one by one, all the doors of paradise, such as i have heard they have in lands beyond the sea; but fare good enough for plain men who eat but to live. so! reach me down yonder bunch of yellow aru fruit, and don't upset that calabash, for all my funniest stories lurk at the bottom of it." i did as he bid, and soon we were squatting by the fire toasting arus on pointed sticks, the doorway closed with a wattle hurdle, and the black and gold firelight filling the hut with fantastic shadows. then when the banana-like fruit was ready, the man fetched from a recess a loaf of bread savoured with the dust of dried and pounded fish, put the foresaid calabash of strong ale to warm, and down we sat to supper with real woodman appetites. seldom have i enjoyed a meal so much, and when we had finished the fruit and the wheat cake my guide snatched up the great gourd of ale, and putting it to his lips called out: "here's to you, stranger; here's to your country; here's to your girl, if you have one, and death to your enemies!" then he drank deep and long, and, passed the stuff to me. "here's to you, bully host, and the missus, and the children, if there are any, and more power to your elbow!"--the which gratified him greatly, though probably he had small idea of my meaning. and right merry we were that evening. the host was a jolly good fellow, and his ale, with a pleasant savour of mint in it, was the heartiest drink i ever set lips to. we talked and laughed till the very jackals yapped in sympathy outside. and when he had told a score of wonderful wood stories as pungent of the life of these fairy forests as the aromatic scent of his bark-heaps outside, as iridescent with the colours of another world as the rainbow bubbles riding down his starlit rill, i took a turn, and told him of the commonplaces of my world so far away, whereat he laughed gloriously again. the greater the commonplace the larger his joy. the humblest story, hardly calculated to impress a griffin between watches on the main-deck, was a masterpiece of wit to that gentle savage; and when i "took off" the tricks and foibles of some of my superiors--heaven forgive me for such treason!--he listened with the exquisite open-mouthed delight of one who wanders in a brand-new world of mirth. we drank and laughed over that strong beer till the little owls outside raised their voice in combined accord, and then the woodman, shaking the last remnant of his sleepy wits together, and giving a reproachful look at me for finally passing him the gourd empty to the last drop, rose, threw a fur on a pile of dead grass at one side of the hut, and bid me sleep, "for his brain was giddy with the wonders of the incredible and ludicrous sphere which i had lately inhabited." slowly the fire died away; slowly the quivering gold and black arabesques on the walls merged in a red haze as the sticks dropped into tinder, and the great black outline of the hairy monster who had thrown himself down by the embers rose up the walls against that flush like the outline of a range of hills against a sunset glow. i listened drowsily for a space to his snoring and the laughing answer of the brook outside, and then that ambrosial sleep which is the gentle attendant of hardship and danger touched my tired eyelids, and i, too, slept. my friend was glum the next morning, as they who stay over-long at the supper flagon are apt to be. he had been at work an hour on his bark-heaps when i came out into the open, and it was only by a good deal of diplomacy and some material help in sorting his faggots that he was got into a better frame of mind. i could not, however, trust his mood completely, and as i did not want to end so jovial a friendship with a quarrel, i hurried through our breakfast of dry bread, with hard-boiled lizard eggs, and then settling my reckoning with one of the brass buttons from my coat, which he immediately threaded, with every evidence of extreme gratification, on a string of trinkets hanging round his neck, asked him the way to ar-hap's capital. "your way is easy, friend, as long as you keep to the straight path and have yonder two-humped mountain in front. to the left is the sea, and behind the hill runs the canal and road by which all traffic comes or goes to ar-hap. but above all things pass not to the hills right, for no man goes there; there away the forests are thick as night, and in their perpetual shadows are the ruins of a hither city, a haunted fairy town to which some travellers have been, but whence none ever returned alive." "by the great jove, that sounds promising! i would like to see that town if my errand were not so urgent." but the old fellow shook his shaggy head and turned a shade yellower. "it is no place for decent folk," he growled. "i myself once passed within a mile of its outskirts at dusk, and saw the unholy little people's lanterned processions starting for the shrine of queen yang, who, tradition says, killed herself and a thousand babies with her when we took this land." "my word, that was a holocaust! couldn't i drop in there to lunch? it would make a fine paper for an antiquarian society." again the woodman frowned. "do as i bid you, son. you are too young and green to go on ventures by yourself. keep to the straight road: shun the swamps and the fairy forest, else will you never see ar-hap." "and as i have very urgent and very important business with him, comrade, no doubt your advice is good. i will call on princess yang some other day. and now goodbye! rougher but friendlier shelter than you have given me no man could ask for. i am downright sorry to part with you in this lonely land. if ever we meet again--" but we never did! the honest old churl clasped me into his hairy bosom three times, stuffed my wallet with dry fruit and bread, and once more repeating his directions, sent me on my lonely way. i confess i sighed while turning into the forest, and looked back more than once at his retreating form. the loneliness of my position, the hopelessness of my venture, welled up in my heart after that good comradeship, and when the hut was out of sight i went forward down the green grass road, chin on chest, for twenty minutes in the deepest dejection. but, thank heaven, i was born with a tough spirit, and possess a mind which has learned in many fights to give brave counsel to my spirit, and thus presently i shook myself together, setting my face boldly to the quest and the day's work. it was not so clear a morning as the previous one, and a steamy wind on what at sea i should have called the starboard bow, as i pressed forward to the distant hill, had a curiously subduing effect on my thoughts, and filled the forest glades with a tremulous unreality like to nothing on our earth, and distinctly embarrassing to a stranger in a strange land. small birds in that quaint atmospheric haze looked like condors, butterflies like giant fowl, and the simplest objects of the forest like the imaginations of a disordered dream. behind that gauzy hallucination a fine white mist came up, and the sun spread out flat and red in the sky, while the pent-in heat became almost unendurable. still i plodded on, growling to myself that in christian latitudes all the evidences would have been held to betoken a storm before night, whatever they might do here, but for the most part lost in my own gloomy speculations. that was the more pity since, in thinking the walk over now, it seems to me that i passed many marvels, saw many glorious vistas in those nameless forests, many spreads of colour, many incidents that, could i but remember them more distinctly, would supply material for making my fortune as a descriptive traveller. but what would you? i have forgotten, and am too virtuous to draw on my imagination, as it is sometimes said other travellers have done when picturesque facts were deficient. yes, i have forgotten all about that day, save that it was sultry hot, that i took off my coat and waistcoat to be cooler, carrying them, like the tramp i was, across my arm, and thus dishevelled passed some time in the afternoon an encampment of forest folk, wherefrom almost all the men were gone, and the women shy and surly. in no very social humour myself, i walked round their woodland village, and on the outskirts, by a brook, just as i was wishing there were some one to eat my solitary lunch with, chanced upon a fellow busily engaged in hammering stones into weapons upon a flint anvil. he was an ugly-looking individual at best, yet i was hard up for company, so i put my coat down, and, seating myself on a log opposite, proceeded to open my wallet, and take out the frugal stores the woodman had given me that morning. the man was seated upon the ground holding a stone anvil between his feet, while with his hands he turned and chipped with great skill a spear-head he was making out of flint. it was about the only pastime he had, and his little yellow eyes gleamed with a craftsman's pleasure, his shaggy round shoulders were bent over the task, the chips flew in quick particles, and the wood echoed musically as the artificer watched the thing under his hands take form and fashion. presently i spoke, and the worker looked up, not too pleased at being thus interrupted. but he was easy of propitiation, and over a handful of dried raisins communicative. how, i asked, knowing a craftsman's craft is often nearest to his heart, how was it such things as that he chipped came to be thought of by him and his? whereon the woodman, having spit out the raisin-stones and wiped his fingers on his fur, said in substance that the first weapon was fashioned when the earliest ape hurled the first stone in wrath. "but, chum," i said, taking up his half-finished spear and touching the razor-fine edge with admiring caution, "from hurling the crude pebble to fashioning such as this is a long stride. who first edged and pointed the primitive malice? what man with the soul of a thousand unborn fighters in him notched and sharpened your natural rock?" whereon the chipper grinned, and answered that, when the woodmen had found stones that would crack skulls, it came upon them presently that they would crack nuts as well. and cracking nuts between two stones one day a flint shattered, and there on the grass was the golden secret of the edge--the thing that has made man what he is. "yet again, good fellow," i queried, "even this happy chance only gives us a weapon, sharp, no doubt, and calculated to do a hundred services for any ten the original pebble could have done, but still unhandled, small in force, imperfect--now tell me, which of your amiable ancestors first put a handle to the fashioned flint, and how he thought of it?" the workman had done his flake by now, and wrapping it in a bit of skin, put it carefully in his belt before turning to answer my question. "who made the first handle for the first flint, you of the many questions? she did--she, the mother," he suddenly cried, patting the earth with his brown hand, and working himself up as he spoke, "made it in her heart for us her first-born. see, here is such as the first handled weapon that ever came out of darkness," and he snatched from the ground, where it had lain hidden under his fox-skin cloak, a heavy club. i saw in an instant how it was. the club had been a sapling, and the sapling's roots had grown about and circled with a splendid grip a lump of native flint. a woodman had pulled the sapling, found the flint, and fashioned the two in a moment of happy inspiration, the one to an axe-head and the other to a handle, as they lay nature-welded! "this, i say, is the first--the first!" screamed the old fellow as though i were contradicting him, thumping the ground with his weapon, and working himself up to a fury as its black magic entered his being. "this is the first: with this i slew hetter and gur, and those who plundered my hiding-places in the woods; with this i have killed a score of others, bursting their heads, and cracking their bones like dry sticks. with this--with this--" but here his rage rendered him inarticulate; he stammered and stuttered for a minute, and then as the killing fury settled on him his yellow teeth shut with a sudden snap, while through them his breath rattled like wind through dead pine branches in december, the sinews sat up on his hands as his fingers tightened upon the axe-heft like the roots of the same pines from the ground when winter rain has washed the soil from beneath them; his small eyes gleamed like baleful planets; every hair upon his shaggy back grew stiff and erect--another minute and my span were ended. with a leap from where i sat i flew at that hairy beast, and sinking my fists deep in his throttle, shook him till his eyes blazed with delirious fires. we waltzed across the short greensward, and in and about the tree-trunks, shaking, pulling, and hitting as we went, till at last i felt the man's vigour dying within him; a little more shaking, a sudden twist, and he was lying on the ground before me, senseless and civil! that is the worst of some orators, i thought to myself, as i gloomily gathered up the scattered fragments of my lunch; they never know when they have said enough, and are too apt to be carried away by their own arguments. that inhospitable village was left behind in full belief the mountain looming in the south could be reached before nightfall, while the road to its left would serve as a sure guide to food and shelter for the evening. but, as it turned out, the morning's haze developed a strong mist ere the afternoon was half gone, through which it was impossible to see more than twenty yards. my hill loomed gigantic for a time with a tantalising appearance of being only a mile or two ahead, then wavered, became visionary, and finally disappeared as completely as though the forest mist had drunk it up bodily. there was still the road to guide me, a fairly well-beaten track twining through the glades; but even the best of highways are difficult in fog, and this one was complicated by various side paths, made probably by hunters or bark-cutters, and without compass or guide marks it was necessary to advance with extreme caution, or get helplessly mazed. an hour's steady tramping brought me nowhere in particular, and stopping for a minute to consider, i picked a few wild fruit, such as my wood-cutter friend had eaten, from an overhanging bush, and in so doing slipped, the soil having now become damp, and in falling broke a branch off. the incident was only important from what follows. picking myself up, perhaps a little shaken by the jolt, i set off again upon what seemed the plain road, and being by this time displeased by my surroundings, determined to make a push for "civilization" before the rapidly gathering darkness settled down. hands in pockets and collar up, i marched forward at a good round pace for an hour, constantly straining eyes for a sight of the hill and ears for some indications of living beings in the deathly hush of the shrouded woods, and at the end of that time, feeling sure habitations must now be near, arrived at what looked like a little open space, somehow seeming rather familiar in its vague outlines. where had i seen such a place before? sauntering round the margin, a bush with a broken branch suddenly attracted my attention--a broken bush with a long slide in the mud below it, and the stamp of navy boots in the soft turf! i glared at those signs for a moment, then with an exclamation of chagrin recognised them only too well--it was the bush whence i had picked the fruit, and the mark of my fall. an hour's hard walking round some accursed woodland track had brought me exactly back to the point i had started from--i was lost! it really seemed to get twenty per cent darker as i made that abominable discovery, and the position dawned in all its uncomfortable intensity. there was nothing for it but to start off again, this time judging my direction only by a light breath of air drifting the mist tangles before it; and therein i made a great mistake, for the breeze had shifted several points from the quarter whence it blew in the morning. knowing nothing of this, i went forward with as much lightheartedness as could be managed, humming a song to myself, and carefully putting aside thoughts of warmth and supper, while the dusk increased and the great forest vegetation seemed to grow ranker and closer at every step. another disconcerting thing was that the ground sloped gradually downwards, not upwards as it should have done, till it seemed the path lay across the flats of a forest-covered plain, which did not conform to my wish of striking a road on the foot-hills of the mountain. however, i plodded on, drawing some small comfort from the fact that as darkness came the mist rose from the ground and appeared to condense in a ghostly curtain twenty feet overhead, where it hung between me and a clear night sky, presently illumined by starlight with the strangest effect. tired, footsore, and dejected, i struggled on a little further. oh for a cab, i laughed bitterly to myself. oh for even the humble necessary omnibus of civilisation. oh for the humblest tuck-shop where a mug of hot coffee and a snack could be had by a homeless wanderer; and as i thought and plodded savagely on, collar up, hands in pockets, through the black tangles of that endless wood, suddenly the sound of wailing children caught my ear! it was the softest, saddest music ever mortal listened to. it was as though scores of babes in pain were dropping to sleep on their mothers' breasts, and all hushing their sorrows with one accord in a common melancholy chorus. i stood spell-bound at that elfin wailing, the first sound to break the deathly stillness of the road for an hour or more, and my blood tingled as i listened to it. nevertheless, here was what i was looking for; where there were weeping children there must be habitations, and shelter, and--splendid thought!--supper. poor little babes! their crying was the deadliest, sweetest thing in sorrows i ever listened to. if it was cholic--why, i knew a little of medicine, and in gratitude for that prospective supper, i had a soul big enough to cure a thousand; and if they were in disgrace, and by some quaint martian fashion had suffered simultaneous punishment for baby offences, i would plead for them. in fact, i fairly set off at the run towards the sobbing, in the black, wet, night air ahead, and, tripping as i ran, looked down and saw in the filtering starlight that the forest grass had given place to an ancient roadway, paved with moss-grown flag-stones, such as they still used in seth. without stopping to think what that might mean i hurried on, the wailing now right ahead, a tremulous tumult of gentle grief rising and falling on the night air like the sound of a sea after a storm; and so, presently, in a minute or two, came upon a ruined archway spanning the lonely road, held together by great masses of black-fingered creepers, gaunt and ghostly in the shadows, an extraordinary and unexpected vision; and as i stopped with a jerk under that forbidding gateway and glared at its tumbled masonry and great portals hanging rotten at their hinges, suddenly the truth flashed upon me. i had taken the forbidden road after all. i was in the ancient, ghost-haunted city of queen yang! chapter xv the dark forest seemed to shut behind as i entered the gateway of the deserted hither town, against which my wood-cutter friend had warned me, while inside the soft mist hung in the starlight like grey drapery over endless vistas of ruins. what was i to do? without all was black and cheerless, inside there was at least shelter. wet and cold, my courage was not to be put down by the stories of a silly savage; i would go on whatever happened. besides, the soft sound of crying, now apparently all about, seemed companionable, and i had heard so much of ghosts of late, the sharp edge of fear at their presence was wearing off. so in i went: up a broad, decayed street, its flagstones heaved everywhere by the roots of gnarled trees, and finding nothing save ruin, tried to rest under a wall. but the night air was chilly and the shelter poor, so out i came again, with the wailing in the shadows so close about now that i stopped, and mustering up courage called aloud: "hullo, you who weep there in the dark, are you living or dead?" and after a minute from the hollows of the empty hearths around came the sad little responsive echo: "are you living or dead?" it was very delusive and unsatisfactory, and i was wondering what to do next when a slant of warmer wind came up behind me under the mist, and immediately little tongues of blue flame blossomed without visible cause in every darksome crevice; pale flickers of miasmic light rising pallid from every lurking nook and corner in the black desolation as though a thousand lamps were lit by unseen fingers, and, knee high, floated out into the thoroughfare where they oscillated gently in airy grace, and then, forming into procession, began drifting before the tepid air towards the city centre. at once i thought of what the woodcutter had seen, but was too wet and sulky by this time to care. the fascination of the place was on me, and dropping into rear of the march, i went forward with it. by this time the wailing had stopped, though now and then it seemed a dark form moved in the empty doorways on either hand, while the mist, parting into gossamers before the wind, took marvellously human forms in every alley and lane we passed. thus i, a sodden giant, led by those elfin torches, paced through the city until we came to an open square with a great lumber of ruins in the centre all marred and spoiled by vegetation; and here the lights wavered, and went out by scores and hundreds, just as the petals drop from spent flowers, while it seemed, though it may have been only wind in the rank grass, that the air was full of most plaintive sighs as each little lamp slipped into oblivion. the big pile was a mass of fallen masonry, which, from the broken pillars all about, might have been a palace or temple once. i pushed in, but it was as dark as hades here, so, after struggling for a time in a labyrinth of chambers, chose a sandy recess, with some dry herbage by way of bedding in a corner, and there, thankful at least for shelter, my night's wanderings came to an end and i coiled myself down, ate a last handful of dry fruit, and, strange as it may seem, was soon sleeping peacefully. i dreamed that night that a woman, with a face as white as ivory, came and bent over me. she led a babe by either hand, while behind her were scores of other ones, with lovely faces, but all as pale as the stars themselves, who looked and sighed, but said nothing, and when they had stared their fill, dropped out one by one, leaving a wonderful blank in the monotony where they had been; but beyond that dream nothing happened. it was a fine morning when i woke again, and obviously broad day outside, the sunshine coming down through cracks in the old palace roof, and lying in golden pools on the floor with dazzling effect. rubbing my eyes and sitting up, it took me some time to get my senses together, and at first an uneasy feeling possessed me that i was somehow dematerialised and in an unreal world. but a twinge of cramp in my left arm, and a healthy sneeze, which frightened a score of bats overhead nearly out of their senses, was reassuring on this point, and rubbing away the cramp and staggering to my feet, i looked about at the strange surroundings. it was cavernous chaos on every side: magnificent architecture reduced to the confusion of a debris-heap, only the hollow chambers being here and there preserved by massive columns meeting overhead. into these the yellow light filtered wherever a rent in a cupola or side-wall admitted it, and allured by the vision of corridors one beyond the other, i presently set off on a tour of discovery. twenty minutes' scrambling brought me to a place where the fallen jambs of a fine doorway lay so close together that there was barely room to pass between them. however, seeing light beyond, i squeezed through, and i found myself in the best-preserved chamber of all--a wide, roomy hall with a domed roof, a haze of mural paintings on the walls, and a marble floor nearly hidden in a century of fallen dust. i stumbled over something at the threshold, and picking it up, found it was a baby's skull! and there were more of them now that my eyes became accustomed to the light. the whole floor was mottled with them--scores and hundreds of bones and those poor little relics of humanity jutting out of the sand everywhere. in the hush of that great dead nursery the little white trophies seemed inexpressibly pathetic, and i should have turned back reverently from that chamber of forgotten sorrows but that something caught my eye in the centre of it. it was an oblong pile of white stone, very ill-used and chipped, wrist-deep in dust, yet when a slant of light came in from above and fell straight upon it, the marble against the black gloom beyond blazed like living pearl. it was dazzling; and shading my eyes and going tenderly over through the poor dead babes, i looked, and there, full in the shine, lay a woman's skeleton, still wrapped in a robe of which little was left save the hard gold embroidery. her brown hair, wonderful to say, still lay like lank, dead seaweed about her, and amongst it was a fillet crown of plain iron set with gems such as eye never looked upon before. there were not many, but enough to make the proud simplicity of that circlet glisten like a little band of fire--a gleaming halo on her dead forehead infinitely fascinating. at her sides were two other little bleached human flowers, and i stood before them for a long time in silent sympathy. could this be queen yang, of whom the woodcutter had told me? it must be--who else? and if it were, what strange chance had brought me here--a stranger, yet the first to come, since her sorrow, from her distant kindred? and if it were, then that fillet belonged of right to heru, the last representative of her kind. ought i not to take it to her rather than leave it as spoil to the first idle thief with pluck enough to deride the mysteries of the haunted city? long time i thought over it in the faint, heavy atmosphere of that hall, and then very gently unwound the hair, lifted the circlet, and, scarcely knowing what i did, put it in my shoulder-bag. after that i went more cheerfully into the outside sunshine, and setting my clothes to dry on a stone, took stock of the situation. the place was, perhaps, not quite so romantic by day as by night, and the scattered trees, matted by creepers, with which the whole were overgrown, prevented anything like an extensive view of the ruined city being obtained. but what gave me great satisfaction was to note over these trees to the eastward a two-humped mountain, not more than six or seven miles distant--the very one i had mislaid the day before. here was reality and a chance of getting back to civilisation. i was as glad as if home were in sight, and not, perhaps, the less so because the hill meant villages and food; and you who have doubtless lunched well and lately will please bear in mind i had had nothing since breakfast the day before; and though this may look picturesque on paper, in practice it is a painful item in one's programme. well, i gave my damp clothes but a turn or two more in the sun, and then, arguing that from the bare ground where the forest ended half-way up the hill, a wide view would be obtained, hurried into my garments and set off thither right gleefully. a turn or two down the blank streets, now prosaic enough, an easy scramble through a gap in the crumbling battlements, and there was the open forest again, with a friendly path well marked by the passage of those wild animals who made the city their lair trending towards my landmark. a light breakfast of soft green nuts, plucked on the way, and then the ground began to bend upwards and the woods to thin a little. with infinite ardour, just before midday, i scrambled on to a bare knoll on the very hillside, and fell exhausted before the top could be reached. but what were hunger or fatigue to the satisfaction of that moment? there was the sea before me, the clear, strong, gracious sea, blue leagues of it, furrowed by the white ridges of some distant storm. i could smell the scent of it even here, and my sailor heart rose in pride at the companionship of that alien ocean. lovely and blessed thing! how often have i turned from the shallow trivialities of the land and found consolation in the strength of your stately solitudes! how often have i turned from the tinselled presence of the shore, the infinite pretensions of dry land that make life a sorry, hectic sham, and found in the black bosom of the great mother solace and comfort! dear, lovely sea, man--half of every sphere, as far removed in the sequence of your strong emotions from the painted fripperies of the woman-land as pole from pole--the grateful blessing of the humblest of your followers on you! the mere sight of salt water did me good. heaven knows our separation had not been long, and many an unkind slap has the mother given me in the bygone; yet the mere sight of her was tonic, a lethe of troubles, a sedative for tired nerves; and i gazed that morning at the illimitable blue, the great, unfettered road to everywhere, the ever-varied, the immutable, the thing which was before everything and shall be last of all, in an ecstasy of affection. there was also other satisfaction at hand. not a mile away lay a well-defined road--doubtless the one spoken of by the wood-cutter--and where the track pointed to the seashore the low roofs and circling smoke of a thither township showed. there i went hot-footed, and, much too hungry to be nice in formality, swung up to the largest building on the waterside quay and demanded breakfast of the man who was lounging by its doorway chewing a honey reed. he looked me up and down without emotion, then, falling into the common mistake, said, "this is not a hostel for ghosts, sir. we do not board and lodge phantoms here; this is a dry fish shop." "thrice blessed trade!" i answered. "give me some dried fish, good fellow, or, for the matter of that, dried horse or dog, or anything mortal teeth can bite through, and i will show you my tastes are altogether mundane." but he shook his head. "this is no place for the likes of you, who come, mayhap, from the city of yang or some other abode of disembodied spirits--you, who come for mischief and pay harbourage with mischance--is it likely you could eat wholesome food?" "indeed i could, and plenty of it, seeing i have dined and breakfasted along the hedges with the blackbirds this two days. look here, i will pay in advance. will that get me a meal?" and, whipping out my knife, cut off another of my fast-receding coat buttons. the man took it with great interest, as i hoped he would, the yellow metal being apparently a very scarce commodity in his part of the planet. "gold?" he asked. "well--ahem! i forgot to ask the man who sewed them on for me what they were exactly, but it looks like gold, doesn't it?" "yes," he answered, turning it to and fro admiringly in his hand, "you are the first ghost i ever knew to pay in advance, and plenty of them go to and fro through here. such a pretty thing is well worth a meal--if, indeed, you can stomach our rough fare. here, you woman within," he called to the lady whom i presume was his wife, "here is a gentleman from the nether regions who wants some breakfast and has paid in advance. give him some of your best, for he has paid well." "and what," said a female voice from inside, "what if i refused to serve another of these plaguy wanderers you are always foisting upon me?" "don't mind her tongue, sir. it's the worst part of her, though she is mighty proud of it. go in and she will see you do not come out hungry," and the thither man returned calmly to his honey stick. "come on, you soul-with-a-man's-stomach," growled the woman, and too hungry to be particular about the tone of invitation, i strode into the parlour of that strange refreshment place. the woman was the first i had seen of the outer race, and better than might have been expected in appearance. big, strong, and ruddy, she was a mental shock after the slender slips of girlhood on the far side of the water, half a dozen of whom she could have carried off without effort in her long arms. yet there was about her the credential of rough health, the dignity of muscle, an upright carriage, an animal grace of movement, and withal a comely though strongly featured face, which pleased me at once, and later on i had great cause to remember her with gratitude. she eyed me sulkily for a minute, then her frown gradually softened, and the instinctive love of the woman for the supernatural mastered her other feelings. "is that how you looked in another world?" she asked. "yes, exactly, cap to boots. what do you think of the attire, ma'am?" "not much," replied the good woman frankly. "it could not have been becoming even when new, and you appear as though you had taken a muddy road since then. what did you die of?" "i will tell you so much as this, madam--that what i am like to die of now is hunger, plain, unvarnished hunger, so, in heaven's name, get out what you have and let me fall-to, for my last meal was yesterday morning." whereat, with a shrug of her shoulders at the eccentricities of nether folk, the woman went to the rear of the house, and presently came back with a meal which showed her husband had done scant justice to the establishment by calling it a dry fish shop. it is true, fish supplied the staple of the repast, as was inevitable in a seaport, but, like all martian fish, it was of ambrosial kind, with a savour about it of wine and sunshine such as no fish on our side of space can boast of. then there were cakes, steaming and hot, vegetables which fitted into the previous course with exquisite nicety, and, lastly, a wooden tankard of the invariable thither beer to finish off. such a meal as a hungry man might consider himself fortunate to meet with any day. the woman watched me eat with much satisfaction, and when i had answered a score of artless questions about my previous state, or present condition and prospects, more or less to her satisfaction, she supplied me in turn with some information which was really valuable to me just then. first i learned that ar-hap's men, with the abducted heru, had passed through this very port two days before, and by this time were probably in the main town, which, it appeared, was only about twelve hours' rowing up the salt-water estuary outside. here was news! heru, the prize and object of my wild adventure, close at hand and well. it brought a whole new train of thoughts, for the last few days had been so full of the stress of travel, the bare, hard necessity of getting forward, that the object of my quest, illogical as it may seem, had gone into the background before these things. and here again, as i finished the last cake and drank down to the bottom of the ale tankard, the extreme folly of the venture came upon me, the madness of venturing single-handed into the den of the wood king. what had i to hope for? what chance, however remote, was there of successfully wresting that blooming prize from the arms of her captor? force was out of the question; stealth was utterly impractical; as for cajolery, apparently the sole remaining means of winning back the princess--why, one might as well try the persuasion of a penny flute upon a hungry eagle as seek to rouse ar-hap's sympathies for bereaved hath in that way. surely to go forward would mean my own certain destruction, with no advantage, no help to heru; and if i was ever to turn back or stop in the idle quest, here was the place and time. my hither friends were behind the sea; to them i could return before it was too late, and here were the rough but honest thither folk, who would doubtless let me live amongst them if that was to be my fate. one or other alternative were better than going to torture and death. "you seem to take the fate of that hither girl of yours mightily to heart, stranger," quoth my hostess, with a touch of feminine jealousy, as she watched my hesitation. "do you know anything of her?" "yes," i answered gloomily. "i have seen her once or twice away in seth." "ah, that reminds me! when they brought her up here from the boats to dry her wet clothes, she cried and called in her grief for just such a one as you, saying he alone who struck down our men at her feast could rescue her--" "what! heru here in this room but yesterday! how did she look? was she hurt? how had they treated her?" my eagerness gave me away. the woman looked at me through her half-shut eyes a space, and then said, "oh! sits the wind in that quarter? so you can love as well as eat. i must say you are well-conditioned for a spirit." i got up and walked about the room a space, then, feeling very friendless, and knowing no woman was ever born who was not interested in another woman's loves, i boldly drew my hostess aside and told her about heru, and that i was in pursuit of her, dwelling on the girl's gentle helplessness, my own hare-brained adventure, and frankly asking what sort of a sovereign ar-hap was, what the customs of his court might be, and whether she could suggest any means, temporal or spiritual, by which he might be moved to give back heru to her kindred. nor was my confidence misplaced. the woman, as i guessed, was touched somewhere back in her female heart by my melting love-tale, by my anxiety and heru's peril. besides, a ghost in search of a fairy lady--and such the slender folk of seth were still considered to be by the race which had supplanted them--this was romance indeed. to be brief, that good woman proved invaluable. she told me, firstly, that ar-hap was believed to be away at war, "weekending" as was his custom, amongst rebellious tribes, and by starting at once up the water, i should very probably get to the town before he did. secondly, she thought if i kept clear of private brawls there was little chance of my receiving injury, from the people at all events, as they were accustomed to strange visitors, and civil enough until they were fired by war. "sickle cold, sword hot," was one of their proverbs, meaning thereby that in peaceful times they were lambs, however lionlike they might be in contest. this was reassuring, but as to recovering the lady, that was another matter over which the good woman shook her head. it was ill coming between ar-hap and his tribute, she said; still, if i wanted to see heru once again, this was my opportunity, and, for the rest, that chance, which often favours the enamoured, must be my help. briefly, though i should probably have gone forward in any case out of sheer obstinacy, had it been to certain destruction, this better aspect of the situation hastened my resolution. i thanked the woman for help, and then the man outside was called in to advise as to the best and speediest way of getting within earshot of his hairy sovereignty, the monarch of thitherland. chapter xvi the martian told me of a merchant boat with ten rowers which was going up to the capital in a couple of hours, and as the skipper was a friend of his they would no doubt take me as supercargo, thereby saving the necessity of passenger fees, which was obviously a consideration with me. it was not altogether a romantic approach to the dungeon of an imprisoned beauty, but it was practical, which is often better if not so pleasant. so the offer was gladly closed with, and curling myself in a rug of foxskins, for i was tired with much walking, sailors never being good foot-gangers, i slept soundly fill they came to tell me it was time to go on board. the vessel was more like a canal barge than anything else, lean and long, with the cargo piled in a ridge down the centre as farmers store their winter turnips, the rowers sitting on either side of this plying oars like dessert-spoons with long handles, while they chanted a monotonous cadence of monosyllables: oh, ho, oh, oh, ho, oh, how high, how high. and then again after a pause-- how high, how high oh, ho, oh, oh, ho, oh. the which was infinitely sleep-provoking if not a refrain of a high intellectual order. i shut my eyes as we pulled away from the wharfs of that nameless emporium and picked a passage through a crowd of quaint shipping, wondering where i was, and asking myself whether i was mentally rising equal to my extraordinary surroundings, whether i adequately appreciated the immensity of my remove from those other seas on which i had last travelled, tiller-ropes in hand, piloting a captain's galley from a wharf. good heavens, what would my comrades on my ship say if they could see me now steering a load of hairy savages up one of those waterways which our biggest telescopes magnify but to the thickness of an indication? no, i was not rising equal to the occasion, and could not. the human mind is of but limited capacity after all, and such freaks of fortune are beyond its conception. i knew i was where i was, but i knew i should probably never get the chance of telling of it, and that no one would ever believe me if i did, and i resigned myself to the inevitable with sullen acquiescence, smothering the wonder that might have been overwhelming in passing interests of the moment. there is little to record of that voyage. we passed through a fleet of ar-hap's warships, empty and at anchor in double line, serviceable half-decked cutters, built of solid timber, not pumpkin rind it was pleasant to notice, and then the town dropped away as we proceeded up a stream about as broad as the hudson at its widest, and profusely studded with islands. this water was bitterly salt and joined another sea on the other side of the martian continent. yet it had a pronounced flow against us eastward, this tide running for three spring months and being followed, i learned, as ocean temperatures varied, by a flow in the opposite direction throughout the summer. just at present the current was so strong eastwards, the moisture beaded upon my rowers' tawny hides as they struggled against it, and their melancholy song dawdled in "linked sweetness long drawn out," while the swing of their oars grew longer and longer. truly it was very hot, far hotter than was usual for the season, these men declared, and possibly this robbed me of my wonted energy, and you, gentle reader, of a description of all the strange things we passed upon that highway. suffice it to say we spent a scorching afternoon, the greater part of a stifling night moored under a mud-bank with a grove of trees on top from which gigantic fire-flies hung as though the place were illuminated for a garden fete, and then, rowing on again in the comparatively cool hours before dawn, turned into a backwater at cock-crow. the skipper of our cargo boat roused me just as we turned, putting under my sleepy nostrils a handful of toasted beans on a leaf, and a small cup full of something that was not coffee, but smelt as good as that matutinal beverage always does to the tired traveller. over our prow was an immense arch of foliage, and underneath a long arcade of cool black shadows, sheltering still water, till water and shadow suddenly ended a quarter of a mile down in a patch of brilliant colour. it was as peaceful as could be in the first morning light, and to me over all there was the inexpressible attraction of the unknown. as our boat slipped silently forward up this leafy lane, a thin white "feather" in her mouth alone breaking the steely surface of the stream, the men rested from their work and began, as sailors will, to put on their shore-going clothes, the while they chatted in low tones over the profits of the voyage. overhead flying squirrels were flitting to and fro like bats, or shelling fruit whereof the husks fell with a pleasant splash about us, and on one bank a couple of early mothers were washing their babies, whose smothered protests were almost the only sound in this morning world. another silent dip or two of the oars and the colour ahead crystallised into a town. if i said it was like an african village on a large scale, i should probably give you the best description in the fewest words. from the very water's edge up to the crown of a low hill inland, extended a mass of huts and wooden buildings, embowered and partly hidden in bright green foliage, with here and there patches of millet, or some such food plant, and the flowers that grow everywhere so abundantly in this country. it was all arcadian and peaceful enough at the moment, and as we drew near the men were just coming out to the quays along the harbour front, the streets filling and the town waking to busy life. a turn to the left through a watergate defended by towers of wood and mud, and we were in the city harbour itself; boats of many kinds moored on every side; quaint craft from the gulfs and bays of nowhere, full of unheard-of merchandise, and manned by strange-faced crews, every vessel a romance of nameless seas, an epitome of an undiscovered world, and every moment the scene grew busier as the breakfast smoke arose, and wharf and gangway set to work upon the day's labours. our boat--loaded, as it turned out, with spoil from seth--was run to a place of honour at the bottom of the town square, and was an object of much curiosity to a small crowd which speedily collected and lent a hand with the mooring ropes, the while chatting excitedly with the crew about further tribute and the latest news from overseas. at the same time a swarthy barbarian, whose trappings showed him to be some sort of functionary, came down to our "captain," much wagging of heads and counting of notched sticks taking place between them. i, indeed, was apparently the least interesting item of the cargo, and this was embarrassing. no hero likes to be neglected, it is fatal to his part. i had said my prayers and steeled myself to all sorts of fine endurance on the way up, and here, when it came to the crisis, no one was anxious to play the necessary villain. they just helped me ashore civilly enough, the captain nodded his head at me, muttering something in an indifferent tone to the functionary about a ghost who had wandered overseas and begged a passage up the canal; the group about the quay stared a little, but that was all. once i remember seeing a squatting, life-size heathen idol hoisted from a vessel's hold and deposited on a sugar-box on a new york quay. some ribald passer-by put a battered felt hat upon vishnu's sacred curls, and there the poor image sat, an alien in an indifferent land, a sack across its shoulders, a "billycock" upon its head, and honoured at most with a passing stare. i thought of that lonely image as almost as lonely i stood on the thither men's quay, without the support of friends or heroics, wondering what to do next. however, a cheerful disposition is sometimes better than a banking account, and not having the one i cultivated the other, sunning myself amongst the bales for a time, and then, since none seemed interested in me, wandered off into the town, partly to satisfy my curiosity, and partly in the vague hope of ascertaining if my princess was really here, and, if possible, getting sight of her. meanwhile it turned hot with a supernatural, heavy sort of heat altogether, i overheard passersby exclaiming, out of the common, and after wandering for an hour through gardens and endless streets of thatched huts, i was glad enough to throw myself down in the shadow of some trees on the outskirts of the great central pile of buildings, a whole village in itself of beam-built towers and dwelling-place, suggesting by its superior size that it might actually be ar-hap's palace. hotter and hotter it grew, while a curious secondary sunrise in the west, the like of which i never saw before seemed to add to the heat, and heavier and heavier my eyelids, till i dozed at last, and finally slept uncomfortably for a time. rousing up suddenly, imagine my surprise to see sitting, chin on knees, about a yard away, a slender girlish figure, infinitely out of place in that world of rough barbarians. was it possible? was i dreaming? no, there was no doubt about it, she was a girl of the hither folk, slim and pretty, but with a wonderfully sad look in her gazelle eyes, and scarcely a sign of the indolent happiness of seth in the pale little face regarding me so fixedly. "good gracious, miss," i said, still rubbing my eyes and doubting my senses, "have you dropped from the skies? you are the very last person i expected to see in this barbarian place." "and you too, sir. oh, it is lovely to see one so newly from home, and free-seeming--not a slave." "how did you know i was from seth?" "oh, that was easy enough," and with a little laugh she pointed to a pebble lying between us, on which was a piece of battered sweetmeat in a perforated bamboo box. poor an had given me something just like that in a playful mood, and i had kept it in my pocket for her sake, being, as you will have doubtless observed, a sentimental young man, and now i clapped my hand where it should have been, but it was gone. "yes," said my new friend, "that is yours. i smelt the sweetmeat coming up the hill, and crossed the grass until i found you here asleep. oh, it was lovely! i took it from your pocket, and white seth rose up before my swimming eyes, even at the scent of it. i am si, well named, for that in our land means sadness, si, the daughter of prince hath's chief sweetmeat-maker, so i should know something of such stuff. may i, please, nibble a little piece?" "eat it all, my lass, and welcome. how came you here? but i can guess. do not answer if you would rather not." "ay, but i will. it is not every day i can speak to ears so friendly as yours. i am a slave, chosen for my luckless beauty as last year's tribute to ar-hap." "and now?" "and now the slave of ar-hap's horse-keeper, set aside to make room for a fresher face." "and do you know whose face that is?" "not i, a hapless maid sent into this land of horrors, to bear ignominy and stripes, to eat coarse food and do coarse work, the miserable plaything of some brute in semi-human form, with but the one consolation of dying early as we tribute-women always die. poor comrade in exile, i only know her as yet by sympathy." "what if i said it was heru, the princess?" the martian girl sprang to her feet, and clasping her hands exclaimed, "heru, the slender! then the end comes, for it is written in our books that the last tribute is paid when the best is paid. oh, how splendid if she gave herself of free will to this slavery to end it once for all. was it so?" "i think, si, your princess could not have known of that tradition; she did not come willingly. besides, i am come to fetch her back, if it may be, and that spoils the look of sacrifice." "you to fetch her back, and from ar-hap's arms? my word, sir spirit, you must know some potent charms; or, what is less likely, my countrymen must have amazingly improved in pluck since i left them. have you a great army at hand?" but i only shook my head, and, touching my sword, said that here was the only army coming to rescue heru. whereon the lady replied that she thought my valour did me more honour than my discretion. how did i propose to take the princess from her captors? "to tell the truth, damsel, that is a matter which will have to be left to your invention, or the kindness of such as you. i am here on a hare-brained errand, playing knight-errant in a way that shocks my common sense. but since the matter has gone so far i will see it through, or die in the attempt. your bully lord shall either give me heru, stock, lock, and block, or hang me from a yard-arm. but i would rather have the lady. come, you will help me; and, as a beginning, if she is in yonder shanty get me speech with her." poor si's eyes dilated at the peril of the suggestion, and i saw the sluggish martian nature at war against her better feelings. but presently the latter conquered. "i will try," she said. "what matter a few stripes more or less?" pointing to her rosy shoulders where red scars crisscross upon one another showed how the martian girls fared in ar-hap's palace when their novelty wore off. "i will try to help you; and if they kill me for it--why, that will not matter much." and forthwith in that blazing forenoon under the flickering shadow of the trees we put our heads together to see what we might do for heru. it was not much for the moment. try what we would that afternoon, i could not persuade those who had charge of the princess to let me even approach her place of imprisonment, but si, as a woman, was more successful, actually seeing her for a few moments, and managed to whisper in her ear that i had come, the spirit-with-the-gold-buttons-down-his front, afterwards describing to me in flowing martian imagery--but doubtless not more highly coloured than poor heru's emotion warranted--how delightedly that lady had received the news. si also did me another service, presenting me to the porter's wife, who kept a kind of boarding-house at the gates of ar-hap's palace for gentlemen and ladies with grievances. i had heard of lobbying before, and the presentation of petitions, though i had never indulged myself in the pastime; but the crowd of petitioners here, with petitions as wild and picturesque as their own motley appearances, was surely the strangest that ever gathered round a seat of supreme authority. si whispered in the ear of that good woman the nature of my errand, with doubtless some blandishment of her own; and my errand being one so much above the vulgar and so nearly touching the sovereign, i was at once accorded a separate room in the gate-house, whence i could look down in comparative peace on the common herd of suitors, and listen to the buzz of their invective as they practised speeches which i calculated it would take ar-hap all the rest of his reign to listen to, without allowing him any time for pronouncing verdicts on them. here i made myself comfortable, and awaited the return of the sovereign as placidly as might be. meanwhile fate was playing into my feeble hands. i have said it was hot weather. at first this seemed but an outcome of the martian climate, but as the hours went by the heat developed to an incredible extent. also that red glare previously noted in the west grew in intensity, till, as the hours slipped by, all the town was staring at it in panting horror. i have seen a prairie on fire, luckily from the far side of a comfortably broad river, and have ridden through a pine-forest when every tree for miles was an uplifted torch, and pungent yellow smoke rolled down each corrie side in grey rivers crested with dancing flame. but that martian glare was more sombre and terrible than either. "what is it?" i asked of poor si, who came out gasping to speak to me by the gate-house. "none of us know, and unless the gods these thither folk believe in are angry, and intend to destroy the world with yonder red sword in the sky, i cannot guess. perhaps," she added, with a sudden flash of inspiration, "it comes by your machinations for heru's help." "no!" "if not by your wish, then, in the name of all you love, set your wish against it. if you know any incantations suitable for the occasion, oh, practise them now at once, for look, even the very grass is withering; birds are dropping from trees; fishes, horribly bloated, are beginning to float down the steaming rills; and i, with all others, have a nameless dread upon me." hotter and hotter it grew, until about sunset the red blaze upon the sky slowly opened, and showed us for about half an hour, through the opening a lurid, flame-coloured meteor far out in space beyond; then the cleft closed again, and through that abominable red curtain came the very breath of hades. what was really happening i am not astronomer enough to say, though on cooler consideration i have come to the conclusion that our planet, in going out to its summer pastures in the remoter fields of space, had somehow come across a wandering lesser world and got pretty well singed in passing. this is purely my own opinion, and i have not yet submitted it to the kindly authorities of the lick observatory for verification. all i can say for certain is that in an incredibly short space of time the face of the country changed from green to sear, flowers drooped; streams (there were not many in the neighbourhood apparently) dried up; fishes died; a mighty thirst there was nothing to quench settled down on man and beast, and we all felt that unless providence listened to the prayers and imprecations which the whole town set to work with frantic zeal to hurl at it, or that abominable comet in the sky sheered off on another tack with the least possible delay, we should all be reduced to cinders in a very brief space of time. chapter xvii the evening of the second day had already come, when ar-hap arrived home after weekending amongst a tribe of rebellious subjects. but any imposing state entry which might have been intended was rendered impossible by the heat and the threat of that baleful world in the western sky. it was a lurid but disordered spectacle which i witnessed from my room in the gate-house just after nightfall. the returning army had apparently fallen away exhausted on its march through the town; only some three hundred of the bodyguard straggled up the hill, limp and sweating, behind a group of pennons, in the midst of which rode a horseman whose commanding presence and splendid war harness impressed me, though i could not make out his features; a wild, impressionist scene of black outlines, tossing headgear, and spears glittering and vanishing in front of the red glare in the sky, but nothing more. even the dry throats of the suitors in the courtyard hardly mustered a husky cry of welcome as the cavalcade trooped into the enclosure, and then the shadows enfolded them up in silence, and, too hot and listless to care much what the morrow brought forth, i threw myself on the bare floor, tossing and turning in a vain endeavour to sleep until dawn came once more. a thin mist which fell with daybreak drew a veil over the horrible glare in the west for an hour or two, and taking advantage of the slight alleviation of heat, i rose and went into the gardens to enjoy a dip in a pool, making, with its surrounding jungle of flowers, one of the pleasantest things about the wood-king's forest citadel. the very earth seemed scorched and baking underfoot--and the pool was gone! it had run as dry as a limekiln; nothing remained of the pretty fall which had fed it but a miserable trickle of drops from the cascade above. down beyond the town shone a gleam of water where the bitter canal steamed and simmered in the first grey of the morning, but up here six months of scorching drought could not have worked more havoc. the very leaves were dropping from the trees, and the luxuriant growths of the day before looked as though a simoon had played upon them. i staggered back in disgust, and found some show of official activity about the palace. it was the king's custom, it appeared, to hear petitions and redress wrongs as soon after his return as possible, but today the ceremony was to be cut short as his majesty was going out with all his court to a neighbouring mountain to "pray away the comet," which by this time was causing dire alarm all through the city. "heaven's own particular blessing on his prayers, my friend," i said to the man who told me this. "unless his majesty's orisons are fruitful, we shall all be cooked like baked potatoes before nightfall, and though i have faced many kinds of death, that is not the one i would choose by preference. is there a chance of myself being heard at the throne? your peculiar climate tempts me to hurry up with my business and begone if i may." "not only may you be heard, sir, but you are summoned. the king has heard of you somehow, and sent me to find and bring you into his presence at once." "so be it," i said, too hot to care what happened. "i have no levee dress with me. i lost my luggage check some time ago, but if you will wait outside i will be with you in a moment." hastily tidying myself up, and giving my hair a comb, as though just off to see mr. secretary for the navy, or on the way to get a senator to push a new patent medicine for me, i rejoined my guide outside, and together we crossed the wide courtyard, entered the great log-built portals of ar-hap's house, and immediately afterwards found ourselves in a vast hall dimly lit by rays coming in through square spaces under the eaves, and crowded on both sides with guards, courtiers, and supplicants. the heat was tremendous, the odour of thither men and the ill-dressed hides they wore almost overpowering. yet little i recked for either, for there at the top of the room, seated on a dais made of rough-hewn wood inlet with gold and covered with splendid furs, was ar-hap himself. a fine fellow, swarthy, huge, and hairy, at any other time or place i could have given him due admiration as an admirable example of the savage on the borderland of grace and culture, but now i only glanced at him, and then to where at his side a girl was crouching, a gem of human loveliness against that dusky setting. it was heru, my ravished princess, and, still clad in her diaphanous hither robes, her face white with anxiety, her eyes bright as stars, the embodiment of helpless, flowery beauty, my heart turned over at sight of her. poor girl! when she saw me stride into the hall she rose swiftly from ar-hap's side, clasped her pretty hands, and giving a cry of joy would have rushed towards me, but the king laid a mighty paw upon her, under which she subsided with a shiver as though the touch had blanched all the life within. "good morning, your majesty," i said, walking boldly up to the lower step of the dais. "good morning, most singular-looking vagrant from the unknown," answered the monarch. "in what way can i be of service to you?'' "i have come about that girl," i said, nodding to where heru lay blossoming in the hot gloom like some night-flowering bud. "i do not know whether your majesty is aware how she came here, but it is a highly discreditable incident in what is doubtless your otherwise blameless reign. some rough scullions intrusted with the duty of collecting your majesty's customs asked prince hath of the hither people to point out the most attractive young person at his wedding feast, and the prince indicated that lady there at your side. it was a dirty trick, and all the worse because it was inspired by malice, which is the meanest of all weaknesses. i had the pleasure of knocking down some of your majesty's representatives, but they stole the girl away while i slept, and, briefly, i have come to fetch her back." the monarch had followed my speech, the longest ever made in my life, with fierce, blinking eyes, and when it stopped looked at poor shrinking heru as though for explanation, then round the circle of his awestruck courtiers, and reading dismay at my boldness in their faces, burst into a guttural laugh. "i suppose you have the great and puissant hither nation behind you in this request, mr. spirit?" "no, i came alone, hoping to find justice here, and, if not, then prepared to do all i could to make your majesty curse the day your servants maltreated my friends." "tall words, stranger! may i ask what you propose to do if ar-hap, in his own palace, amongst his people and soldiers, refuses to disgorge a pretty prize at the bidding of one shabby interloper--muddy and friendless?" "what should i do?" "yes," said the king, with a haughty frown. "what would you do?" i do not know what prompted the reply. for a moment i was completely at a loss what to say to this very obvious question, and then all on a sudden, remembering they held me to be some kind of disembodied spirit, by a happy inspiration, fixing my eyes grimly on the king, i answered, "what would i do? why, i would haunt you!" it may not seem a great stroke of genius here, but the effect on the martian was instantaneous. he sat straight up, his hands tightened, his eyes dilated, and then fidgeting uneasily, after a minute he beckoned to an over-dressed individual, whom heru afterwards told me was the court necromancer, and began whispering in his ear. after a minute's consultation he turned again, a rather frightened civility struggling in his face with anger, and said, "we have no wish, of course, stranger, to offend you or those who had the honour of your patronage. perhaps the princess here was a little roughly handled, and, i confess, if she were altogether as reluctant as she seems, a lesser maid would have done as well. i could have wooed this one in seth, where i may shortly come, and our espousals would possibly have lent, in the eyes of your friends, quite a cheerful aspect to my arrival. but my ambassadors have had no great schooling in diplomacy; they have brought princess heru here, and how can i hand her over to one i know nothing of? how do i know you are a ghost, after all? how do i know you have anything but a rusty sword and much impertinence to back your astounding claim?" "oh, let it be just as you like," i said, calmly shelling and eating a nut i had picked up. "only if you do not give the maid back, why, then--" and i stopped as though the sequel were too painful to put into words. again that superstitious monarch of a land thronged with malicious spirits called up his magician, and, after they had consulted a moment, turned more cheerfully to me. "look here, mister-from-nowhere, if you are really a spirit, and have the power to hurt as you say, you will have the power also to go and come between the living and the dead, between the present and the past. now i will set you an errand, and give you five minutes to do it in." "five minutes!" i exclaimed in incautious alarm. "five minutes," said the monarch savagely. "and if in that time the errand is not done, i shall hold you to be an impostor, an impudent thief from some scoundrel tribe of this world of mine, and will make of you an example which shall keep men's ears tingling for a century or two." poor heru dropped in a limp and lovely heap at that dire threat, while i am bound to say i felt somewhat uncomfortable, not unnaturally when all the circumstances are considered, but contented myself with remarking, with as much bravado as could be managed, "and now to the errand, ar-hap. what can i do for your majesty?" the king consulted with the rogue at his elbow, and then nodding and chuckling in expectancy of his triumph, addressed me. "listen," he cried, smiting a huge hairy hand upon his knee, "listen, and do or die. my magician tells me it is recorded in his books that once, some five thousand years ago, when this land belonged to the hither people, there lived here a king. it is a pity he died, for he seems to have been a jovial old fellow; but he did die, and, according to their custom, they floated him down the stream that flows to the regions of eternal ice, where doubtless he is at this present moment, caked up with ten million of his subjects. now just go and find that sovereign for me, oh you bold-tongued dweller in other worlds!" "and if i go how am i to know your ancient king, as you say, amongst ten million others?" "that is easy enough," quoth ar-hap lightly. "you have only to pass to and fro through the ice mountains, opening the mouths of the dead men and women you meet, and when you come to a middle-sized man with a fillet on his head and a jaw mended with gold, that will be he whom you look for. bring me that fillet here within five minutes and the maid is yours." i started, and stared hard in amazement. was this a dream? was the royal savage in front playing with me? by what incredible chance had he hit upon the very errand i could answer to best, the very trophy i had brought away from the grim valley of ice and death, and had still in my shoulder-bag? no, he was not playing; he was staring hard in turn, joying in my apparent confusion, and clearly thinking he had cornered me beyond hope of redemption. "surely your mightiness is not daunted by so simple a task," scowled the sovereign, playing with the hilt of his huge hunting-knife, "and all amongst your friends' kindred too. on a hot day like this it ought to be a pleasant saunter for a spirit such as yourself." "not daunted," i answered coldly, turning on my heels towards the door, "only marvelling that your majesty's skull and your necromancer's could not between them have devised a harder task." out into the courtyard i went, with my heart beating finely in spite of my assumed indifference; got the bag from a peg in my sleeping-room, and was back before the log throne ere four minutes were gone. "the old hither king's compliments to your majesty," i said, bowing, while a deathly hush fell on all the assembly, "and he says though your ancestors little liked to hear his voice while alive, he says he has no objection to giving you some jaw now he is dead," and i threw down on the floor the golden circlet of the frozen king. ar-hap's eyes almost started from his head as, with his courtiers, he glared in silent amazement at that shining thing while the great drops of fear and perspiration trickled down his forehead. as for poor heru, she rose like a spirit behind them, gazed at the jaw-bone of her mythical ancestor, and then suddenly realising my errand was done and she apparently free, held out her hands, and, with a tremulous cry, would have come to me. but ar-hap was too quick for her. all the black savage blood swelled into his veins as he swept her away with one great arm, and then with his foot gave the luckless jaw a kick that sent it glittering and spinning through the far doorway out into the sunshine. "sit down," he roared, "you brazen wench, who are so eager to leave a king's side for a nameless vagrant's care! and you, sir," turning to me, and fairly trembling with rage and dread, "i will not gainsay that you have done the errand set you, but it might this once be chance that got you that cursed token, some one happy turn of luck. i will not yield my prize on one throw of the dice. another task you must do. once might be chance, but such chance comes not twice." "you swore to give me the maid this time." "and why should i keep my word to a half-proved spirit such as you?" "there are some particularly good reasons why you should," i said, striking an attitude which i had once seen a music-hall dramatist take when he was going to blast somebody's future--a stick with a star on top of it in his hand and forty lines of blank verse in his mouth. the king writhed, and begged me with a sign to desist. "we have no wish to anger you. do us this other task and none will doubt that you are a potent spirit, and even i, ar-hap, will listen to you." "well, then," i answered sulkily, "what is it to be this time?" after a minute's consultation, and speaking slowly as though conscious of how much hung on his words, the king said, "listen! my soothsayer tells me that somewhere there is a city lost in a forest, and a temple lost in the city, and a tomb lost in the temple; a city of ghosts and djins given over to bad spirits, wherefore all human men shun it by day and night. and on the tomb is she who was once queen there, and by her lies her crown. quick! oh you to whom all distances are nothing, and who see, by your finer essence, into all times and places. away to that city! jostle the memories of the unclean things that hide in its shadows; ask which amongst them knows where dead queen yang still lies in dusty state. get guides amongst your comrade ghosts. find queen yang, and bring me here in five minutes the bloody circlet from her hair." then, and then for the first time, i believed the planet was haunted indeed, and i myself unknowingly under some strange and watchful influence. spirits, demons! oh! what but some incomprehensible power, some unseen influence shaping my efforts to its ends, could have moved that hairy barbarian to play a second time into my hands like this, to choose from the endless records of his world the second of the two incidents i had touched in hasty travel through it? i was almost overcome for a minute; then, pulling myself together, strode forward fiercely, and, speaking so that all could hear me, cried, "base king, who neither knows the capacities of a spirit nor has learned as yet to dread its anger, see! your commission is executed in a thought, just as your punishment might be. heru, come here." and when the girl, speechless with amazement, had risen and slipped over to me, i straightened her pretty hair from her forehead, and then, in a way which would make my fortune if i could repeat it at a conjuror's table, whipped poor yang's gemmy crown from my pocket, flashed its baleful splendour in the eyes of the courtiers, and placed it on the tresses of the first royal lady who had worn it since its rightful owner died a hundred years before. a heavy silence fell on the hall as i finished, and nothing was heard for a time save heru sobbing on my breast and a thirsty baby somewhere outside calling to its mother for the water that was not to be had. but presently on those sounds came the fall of anxious feet, and a messenger, entering the doorway, approached the throne, laid himself out flat twice, after which obeisance he proceeded to remind the king of the morning's ceremonial on a distant hill to "pray away the comet," telling his majesty that all was ready and the procession anxiously awaiting him. whereon ar-hap, obviously very well content to change the subject, rose, and, coming down from the dais, gave me his hand. he was a fine fellow, as i have said, strong and bold, and had not behaved badly for an autocrat, so that i gripped his mighty fist with great pleasure. "i cannot deny, stranger," he said, "that you have done all that has been asked of you, and the maid is fairly yours. yet before you take away the prize i must have some assurance of what you yourself will do with her. therefore, for the moment, until this horrible thing in the sky which threatens my people with destruction has gone, let it be truce between us--you to your lodgings, and the princess back, unharmed, amongst my women till we meet again." "but--" "no, no," said the king, waving his hand. "be content with your advantage. and now to business more important than ten thousand silly wenches," and gathering up his robes over his splendid war-gear the wood king stalked haughtily from the hall. chapter xviii hotter and hotter grew that stifling spell, more and more languid man and beast, drier and drier the parching earth. all the water gave out on the morning after i had bearded ar-hap in his den, and our strength went with it. no earthly heat was ever like it, and it drank our vitality up from every pore. water there was down below in the bitter, streaming gulf, but so noisome that we dared not even bathe there; here there was none but the faintest trickle. all discipline was at an end; all desire save such as was born of thirst. heru i saw as often as i wished as she lay gasping, with poor si at her feet, in the women's verandah; but the heat was so tremendous that i gazed at her with lack-lustre eyes, staggering to and fro amongst the courtyard shadows, without nerve to plot her rescue or strength to carry out anything my mind might have conceived. we prayed for rain and respite. ar-hap had prayed with a wealth of picturesque ceremonial. we had all prayed and cursed by turns, but still the heavens would not relent, and the rain came not. at last the stifling heat and vapour reached an almost intolerable pitch. the earth reeked with unwholesome humours no common summer could draw from it, the air was sulphurous and heavy, while overhead the sky seemed a tawny dome, from edge to edge of angry clouds, parting now and then to let us see the red disc threatening us. hour after hour slipped by until, when evening was upon us, the clouds drew together, and thunder, with a continuous low rumble, began to rock from sky to sky. fitful showers of rain, odorous and heavy, but unsatisfying, fell, and birds and beasts of the woodlands came slinking in to our streets and courtyards. ever since the sky first darkened our own animals had become strangely familiar, and now here were these wild things of the woods slinking in for companionship, sagheaded and frightened. to me especially they came, until that last evening as i staggered dying about the streets or sat staring into the remorseless sky from the steps of heru's prison house, all sorts of beasts drew softly in and crowded about, whether i sat or moved, all asking for the hope i had not to give them. at another time this might have been embarrassing; then it seemed pure commonplace. it was a sight to see them slink in between the useless showers, which fell like hot tears upon us--sleek panthers with lolling tongues; russet-red wood dogs; bears and sloths from the dark arcades of the remote forests, all casting themselves down gasping in the palace shadows; strange deer, who staggered to the garden plots and lay there heaving their lives out; mighty boars, who came from the river marshes and silently nozzled a place amongst their enemies to die in! even the wolves came off the hills, and, with bloodshot eyes and tongues that dripped foam, flung themselves down in my shadow. all along the tall stockades apes sat sad and listless, and on the roof-ridges storks were dying. over the branches of the trees, whose leaves were as thin as though we had had a six months' drought, the toucans and martian parrots hung limp and fashionless like gaudy rags, and in the courtyard ground the corn-rats came up from their tunnels in the scorching earth to die, squeaking in scores along under the walls. our common sorrow made us as sociable as though i were noah, and ar-hap's palace mound another ararat. hour after hour i sat amongst all these lesser beasts in the hot darkness, waiting for the end. every now and then the heavy clouds parted, changing the gloom to sudden fiery daylight as the great red eye in the west looked upon us through the crevice, and, taking advantage of those gleams, i would reel across to where, under a spout leading from a dried rivulet, i had placed a cup to collect the slow and tepid drops that were all now coming down the reed for heru. and as i went back each time with that sickly spoonful at the bottom of the vessel all the dying beasts lifted their heads and watched--the thirsty wolves shambling after me; the boars half sat up and grunted plaintively; the panthers, too weak to rise, beat the dusty ground with their tails; and from the portico the blue storks, with trailing wings, croaked husky greeting. but slower and slower came the dripping water, more and more intolerable the heat. at last i could stand it no longer. what purpose did it serve to lay gasping like this, dying cruelly without a hope of rescue, when a shorter way was at my side? i had not drank for a day and a half. i was past active reviling; my head swam; my reason was clouded. no! i would not stand it any longer. once more i would take heru and poor si the cup that was but a mockery after all, then fix my sword into the ground and try what next the fates had in store for me. so once again the leathern mug was fetched and carried through the prostrate guards to where the martian girl lay, like a withered flower, upon her couch. once again i moistened those fair lips, while my own tongue was black and swollen in my throat, then told si, who had had none all the afternoon, to drink half and leave half for heru. poor si put her aching lips to the cup and tilted it a little, then passed it to her mistress. and heru drank it all, and si cried a few hot tears behind her hands, for she had taken none, and she knew it was her life! again picking a way through the courtyard, scarce noticing how the beasts lifted their heads as i passed, i went instinctively, cup in hand, to the well, and then hesitated. was i a coward to leave heru so? ought i not to stay and see it out to the bitter end? well, i would compound with fate. i would give the malicious gods one more chance. i would put the cup down again, and until seven drops had fallen into it i would wait. that there might be no mistake about it, no sooner was the mug in place under the nozzle wherefrom the moisture beads collected and fell with infinite slowness, than my sword, on which i meant to throw myself, was bared and the hilt forced into a gaping crack in the ground, and sullenly contented to leave my fate so, i sat down beside it. i turned grimly to the spout and saw the first drop fall, then another, and another later on, but still no help came. there was a long rift in the clouds now, and a glare like that from an open furnace door was upon me. i had noticed when i came to the spring how the comet which was killing us hung poised exactly upon the point of a distant hill. if he had passed his horrible meridian, if he was going from us, if he sunk but a hair's breadth before that seventh drop should fall, i could tell it would mean salvation. but the fourth drop fell, and he was big as ever. the fifth drop fell, and a hot, pleasing nose was thrust into my hand, and looking down i saw a grey wolf had dragged herself across the court and was asking with eloquent eyes for the help i could not give. the sixth drop gathered, and fell; already the seventh was like a seedling pearl in its place. the dying wolf yanked affectionately at my hand, but i put her by and undid my tunic. big and bright that drop hung to the spout lip; another minute and it would fall. a beautiful drop, i laughed, peering closely at it, many-coloured, prismatic, flushing red and pink, a tiny living ruby, hanging by a touch to the green rim above; enough! enough! the quiver of an eyelash would unhinge it now; and angry with the life i already felt was behind me, and turning in defiant expectation to the new to come, i rose, saw the red gleam of my sword jutting like a fiery spear from the cracking soil where i had planted it, then looked once more at the drop and glanced for the last time at the sullen red terror on the hill. were my eyes dazed, my senses reeling? i said a space ago that the meteor stood exactly on the mountain-top and if it sunk a hair's breadth i should note it; and now, why, there was a flaw in its lower margin, a flattening of the great red foot that before had been round and perfect. i turned my smarting eyes away a minute,--saw the seventh drop fall with a melodious tingle into the cup, then back again,--there was no mistake--the truant fire was a fraction less, it had shrunk a fraction behind the hill even since i looked, and thereon all my life ran back into its channels, the world danced before me, and "heru!" i shouted hoarsely, reeling back towards the palace, "heru, 'tis well; the worst is past!" but the little princess was unconscious, and at her feet was poor si, quite dead, still reclining with her head in her hands just as i had left her. then my own senses gave out, and dropping down by them i remembered no more. i must have lain there an hour or two, for when consciousness came again it was night--black, cool, profound night, with an inky sky low down upon the tree-tops, and out of it such a glorious deluge of rain descending swiftly and silently as filled my veins even to listen to. eagerly i shuffled away to the porch steps, down them into the swimming courtyard, and ankle-deep in the glorious flood, set to work lapping furiously at the first puddle, drinking with gasps of pleasure, gasping and drinking again, feeling my body filling out like the thirsty steaming earth below me. then, as i still drank insatiably, there came a gleam of lightning out of the gloom overhead, a brilliant yellow blaze, and by it i saw a few yards away a panther drinking at the same pool as myself, his gleaming eyes low down like mine upon the water, and by his side two apes, the black water running in at their gaping mouths, while out beyond were more pools, more drinking animals. everything was drinking. i saw their outlined forms, the gleam shining on wet skins as though they were cut out in silver against the darkness, each beast steaming like a volcano as the heaven-sent rain smoked from his fevered hide, all drinking for their lives, heedless of aught else--and then came the thunder. it ran across the cloudy vault as though the very sky were being ripped apart, rolling in mighty echoes here and there before it died away. as it stopped, the rain also fell less heavily for a minute, and as i lay with my face low down i heard the low, contented lapping of numberless tongues unceasing, insatiable. then came the lightning again, lighting up everything as though it were daytime. the twin black apes were still drinking, but the panther across the puddle had had enough; i saw him lift his grateful head up to the flare; saw the limp red tongue licking the black nose, the green eyes shining like opals, the water dripping in threads of diamonds from the hairy tag under his chin and every tuft upon his chest--then darkness again. to and fro the green blaze rocked between the thunder crashes. it struck a house a hundred yards away, stripping every shingle from the roof better than a master builder could in a week. it fell a minute after on a tall tree by the courtyard gate, and as the trunk burst into white splinters i saw every leaf upon the feathery top turn light side up against the violet reflection in the sky beyond, and then the whole mass came down to earth with a thud that crushed the courtyard palings into nothing for twenty yards and shook me even across the square. another time i might have stopped to marvel or to watch, as i have often watched with sympathetic pleasure, the gods thus at play; but tonight there were other things on hand. when i had drunk, i picked up an earthen crock, filled it, and went to heru. it was a rough drinking-vessel for those dainty lips, and an indifferent draught, being as much mud as aught else, but its effect was wonderful. at the first touch of that turgid stuff a shiver of delight passed through the drowsy lady. at the second she gave a sigh, and her hand tightened on my arm. i fetched another crockful, and by the flickering light rocking to and fro in the sky, took her head upon my shoulder, like a prodigal new come into riches, squandering the stuff, giving her to drink and bathing face and neck till presently, to my delight, the princess's eyes opened. then she sat up, and taking the basin from me drank as never lady drank before, and soon was almost herself again. i went out into the portico, there snuffing the deep, strong breath of the fragrant black earth receiving back into its gaping self what the last few days had taken from it, while quick succeeding thoughts of escape and flight passed across my brain. all through the fiery time we had just had the chance of escaping with the fair booty yonder had been present. without her, flight would have been easy enough, but that was not worth considering for a moment. with her it was more difficult, yet, as i had watched the woodmen, accustomed to cool forest shades, faint under the fiery glare of the world above, to make a dash for liberty seemed each hour more easy. i had seen the men in the streets drop one by one, and the spears fall from the hands of guards about the pallisades; i had seen messengers who came to and fro collapse before their errands were accomplished, and the forest women, who were heru's gaolers, groan and drop across the thresholds of her prison, until at length the way was clear--a babe might have taken what he would from that half-scorched town and asked no man's leave. yet what did it avail me? heru was helpless, my own spirit burnt in a nerveless frame, and so we stayed. but with rain strength came back to both of us. the guards, lying about like black logs, were only slowly returning to consciousness; the town still slept, and darkness favoured; before they missed us in the morning light we might be far on the way back to seth--a dangerous way truly, but we were like to tread a rougher one if we stayed. in fact, directly my strength returned with the cooler air, i made up my mind to the venture and went to heru, who by this time was much recovered. to her i whispered my plot, and that gentle lady, as was only natural, trembled at its dangers. but i put it to her that no time could be better than the present: the storm was going over; morning would "line the black mantle of the night with a pink dawn of promise"; before any one stirred we might be far off, shaping a course by our luck and the stars for her kindred, at whose name she sighed. if we stayed, i argued, and the king changed his mind, then death for me, and for heru the arms of that surly monarch, and all the rest of her life caged in these pallisades amongst the uncouth forms about us. the lady gave a frightened little shiver at the picture, but after a moment, laying her head upon my shoulder, answered, "oh, my guardian spirit and helper in adversity, i too have thought of tomorrow, and doubt whether that horror, that great swine who has me, will not invent an excuse for keeping me. therefore, though the forest roads are dreadful, and seth very far away, i will come; i give myself into your hands. do what you will with me." "then the sooner the better, princess. how soon can you be prepared?" she smiled, and stooping picked up her slippers, saying as she did so, "i am ready!" there were no arrangements to be made. every instant was of value. so, to be brief, i threw a dark cloak over the damsel's shoulders, for indeed she was clad in little more than her loveliness and the gauziest filaments of a hither girl's underwear, and hand in hand led her down the log steps, over the splashing, ankle-deep courtyard, and into the shadows of the gateway beyond. down the slope we went; along towards the harbour, through a score of deserted lanes where nothing was to be heard but the roar of rain and the lapping of men and beasts, drinking in the shadows as though they never would stop, and so we came at last unmolested to the wharf. there i hid royal seth between two piles of merchandise, and went to look for a boat suitable to our needs. there were plenty of small craft moored to rings along the quay, and selecting a canoe--it was no time to stand on niceties of property--easily managed by a single paddle, i brought it round to the steps, put in a fresh water-pot, and went for the princess. with her safely stowed in the prow, a helpless, sodden little morsel of feminine loveliness, things began to appear more hopeful and an escape down to blue water, my only idea, for the first time possible. yet i must needs go and well nigh spoil everything by over-solicitude for my charge. had we pushed off at once there can be no doubt my credit as a spirit would have been established for all time in the thither capital, and the belief universally held that heru had been wafted away by my enchantment to the regions of the unknown. the idea would have gradually grown into a tradition, receiving embellishments in succeeding generations, until little wood children at their mother's knees came to listen in awe to the story of how, once upon a time, the sun-god loved a beautiful maiden, and drove his fiery chariot across the black night-fields to her prison door, scorching to death all who strove to gainsay him. how she flew into his arms and drove away before all men's eyes, in his red car, into the west, and was never seen again--the foresaid sun-god being i, gulliver jones, a much under-paid lieutenant in the glorious united states navy, with a packet of overdue tailors' bills in my pocket, and nothing lovable about me save a partiality for meddling with other people's affairs. this is how it might have been, but i spoiled a pretty fairy story and changed the whole course of martian history by going back at that moment in search of a wrap for my prize. right on top of the steps was a man with a lantern, and half a glance showed me it was the harbour master met with on my first landing. "good evening," he said suspiciously. "may i ask what you are doing on the quay at such an hour as this?" "doing? oh, nothing in particular, just going out for a little fishing." "and your companion the lady--is she too fond of fishing?" i swore between my teeth, but could not prevent the fellow walking to the quay edge and casting his light full upon the figure of the girl below. i hate people who interfere with other people's business! "unless i am very much mistaken your fishing friend is the hither woman brought here a few days ago as tribute to ar-hap." "well," i answered, getting into a nice temper, for i had been very much harrassed of late, "put it at that. what would you do if it were so?" "call up my rain-drunk guards, and give you in charge as a thief caught meddling with the king's property." "thanks, but as my interviews with ar-hap have already begun to grow tedious, we will settle this little matter here between ourselves at once." and without more to-do i closed with him. there was a brief scuffle and then i got in a blow upon his jaw which sent the harbour master flying back head over heels amongst the sugar bales and potatoes. without waiting to see how he fared i ran down the steps, jumped on board, loosened the rope, and pushed out into the river. but my heart was angry and sore, for i knew, as turned out to be the case, that our secret was one no more; in a short time we should have the savage king in pursuit, and now there was nothing for it but headlong flight with only a small chance of getting away to distant seth. luckily the harbour master lay insensible until he was found at dawn, so that we had a good start, and the moment the canoe passed from the arcade-like approach to the town the current swung her head automatically seaward, and away we went down stream at a pace once more filling me with hope. chapter xix all went well and we fled down the bitter stream of the martian gulf at a pace leaving me little to do but guide our course just clear of snags and promontories on the port shore. just before dawn, however, with a thin mist on the water and flocks of a flamingo-like bird croaking as they flew southward overhead, we were nearly captured again. drifting silently down on a rocky island, i was having a drink at the water-pitcher at the moment, while heru, her hair beaded with prismatic moisture and looking more ethereal than ever, sat in the bows timorously inhaling the breath of freedom, when all on a sudden voices invisible in the mist, came round a corner. it was one of ar-hap's war-canoes toiling up-stream. heru and i ducked down into the haze like dab-chicks and held our breath. straight on towards us came the toiling ship, the dip of oars resonant in the hollow fog and a ripple babbling on her cutwater plainly discernible. oh, oh! hoo, hoo! how high, how high!" sounded the sleepy song of the rowers till they were looming right abreast and we could smell their damp hides in the morning air. then they stopped suddenly and some one asked, "is there not something like a boat away on the right?" "it is nothing," said another, "but the lees of last night's beer curdling in your stupid brain." "but i saw it move." "that must have been in dreams." "what is all that talking about?" growled a sleepy voice of authority from the stern. "bow man, sir, says he can see a boat." "and what does it matter if he can? are we to delay every time that lazy ruffian spying a shadow makes it an excuse to stop to yawn and scratch? go on, you plankful of lubbers, or i'll give you something worth thinking about!" and joyfully, oh, so joyfully, we heard the sullen dip of oars commence again. nothing more happened after that till the sun at length shone on the little harbour town at the estuary mouth, making the masts of fishing craft clustering there like a golden reed-bed against the cool, clean blue of the sea beyond. right glad we were to see it, and keeping now in shadow of the banks, made all haste while light was faint and mist hung about to reach the town, finally pushing through the boats and gaining a safe hiding-place without hostile notice before it was clear daylight. covering heru up and knowing well all our chances of escape lay in expedition, i went at once, in pursuance of a plan made during the night, to the good dame at what, for lack of a better name, must still continue to be called the fish-shop, and finding her alone, frankly told her the salient points of my story. when she learned i had "robbed the lion of his prey" and taken his new wife singlehanded from the dreaded ar-hap her astonishment was unbounded. nothing would do but she must look upon the princess, so back we went to the hiding-place, and when heru knew that on this woman depended our lives she stepped ashore, taking the rugged martian hand in her dainty fingers and begging her help so sweetly that my own heart was moved, and, thrusting hands in pocket, i went aside, leaving those two to settle it in their own female way. and when i looked back in five minutes, royal seth had her arms round the woman's neck, kissing the homely cheeks with more than imperial fervour, so i knew all was well thus far, and stopped expectorating at the little fishes in the water below and went over to them. it was time! we had hardly spoken together a minute when a couple of war-canoes filled with men appeared round the nearest promontory, coming down the swift water with arrow-like rapidity. "quick!" said the fishwife, "or we are all lost. into your canoe and paddle up this creek. it runs out to the sea behind the town, and at the bar is my man's fishing-boat amongst many others. lie hidden there till he comes if you value your lives." so in we got, and while that good samaritan went back to her house we cautiously paddled through a deserted backwater to where it presently turned through low sandbanks to the gulf. there were the boats, and we hid the canoe and lay down amongst them till, soon after, a man, easily recognised as the husband of our friend, came sauntering down from the village. at first he was sullen, not unreasonably alarmed at the danger into which his good woman was running him. but when he set eyes on heru he softened immediately. probably that thick-bodied fellow had never seen so much female loveliness in so small a bulk in all his life, and, being a man, he surrendered at discretion. "in with you, then," he growled, "since i must needs risk my neck for a pair of runaways who better deserve to be hung than i do. in with you both into this fishing-cobble of mine, and i will cover you with nets while i go for a mast and sail, and mind you lie as still as logs. the town is already full of soldiers looking for you, and it will be short shrift for us all if you are seen." well aware of the fact and now in the hands of destiny, the princess and i lay down as bidden in the prow, and the man covered us lightly over with one of those fine meshed seines used by these people to catch the little fish i had breakfasted on more than once. materially i could have enjoyed the half-hour which followed, since such rest after exertion was welcome, the sun warm, the lapping of sea on shingle infinitely soothing, and, above all, heru was in my arms! how sweet and childlike she was! i could feel her little heart beating through her scanty clothing, while every now and then she turned her gazelle eyes to mine with a trust and admiration infinitely alluring. yes! as far as that went i could have lain there with that slip of maiden royalty for ever, but the fascination of the moment was marred by the thought of our danger. what was to prevent these new friends giving us away? they knew we had no money to recompense them for the risk they were running. they were poor, and a splendid reward, wealth itself to them, would doubtless be theirs if they betrayed us even by a look. yet somehow i trusted them as i have trusted the poor before with the happiest results, and telling myself this and comforting heru, i listened and waited. minute by minute went by. it seemed an age since the fisherman had gone, but presently the sound of voices interrupted the sea's murmur. cautiously stealing a glance through a chink imagine my feelings on perceiving half a dozen of ar-hap's soldiers coming down the beach straight towards us! then my heart was bitter within me, and i tasted of defeat, even with heru in my arms. luckily even in that moment of agony i kept still, and another peep showed the men were now wandering about rather aimlessly. perhaps after all they did not know of our nearness? then they took to horseplay, as idle soldiers will even in mars, pelting each other with bits of wood and dead fish, and thereon i breathed again. nearer they came and nearer, my heart beating fast as they strolled amongst the boats until they were actually "larking" round the one next to ours. a minute or two of this, and another footstep crunched on the pebbles, a quick, nervous one, which my instinct told me was that of our returning friend. "hullo old sprat-catcher! going for a sail?" called out a soldier, and i knew that the group were all round our boat, heru trembling so violently in my breast that i thought she would make the vessel shake. "yes," said the man gruffly. "let's go with him," cried several voices. "here, old dried haddock, will you take us if we help haul your nets for you?" "no, i won't. your ugly faces would frighten all the fish out of the sea." "and yours, you old chunk of dried mahogany, is meant to attract them no doubt." "let's tie him to a post and go fishing in his boat ourselves," some one suggested. meanwhile two of them began rocking the cobble violently from side to side. this was awful, and every moment i expected the net and the sail which our friend had thrown down unceremoniously upon us would roll off. "oh, stop that," said the martian, who was no doubt quite as well aware of the danger as we were. "the tide's full, the shoals are in the bay--stop your nonsense, and help me launch like good fellows." "well, take two of us, then. we will sit on this heap of nets as quiet as mice, and stand you a drink when we get back." "no, not one of you," quoth the plucky fellow, "and here's my staff in my hand, and if you don't leave my gear alone i will crack some of your ugly heads." "that's a pity," i thought to myself, "for if they take to fighting it will be six to one--long odds against our chances." there was indeed a scuffle, and then a yell of pain, as though a soldier had been hit across the knuckles; but in a minute the best disposed called out, "oh, cease your fun, boys, and let the fellow get off if he wants to. you know the fleet will be down directly, and ar-hap has promised something worth having to the man who can find that lost bit of crackling of his. it's my opinion she's in the town, and i for one would rather look for her than go haddock fishing any day." "right you are, mates," said our friend with visible relief. "and, what's more, if you help me launch this boat and then go to my missus and tell her what you've done, she'll understand, and give you the biggest pumpkinful of beer in the place. ah, she will understand, and bless your soft hearts and heads while you drink it--she's a cute one is my missus." "and aren't you afraid to leave her with us?" "not i, my daisy, unless it were that a sight of your pretty face might give her hysterics. now lend a hand, your accursed chatter has already cost me half an hour of the best fishing time." "in with you, old buck!" shouted the soldiers; i felt the fisherman step in, as a matter of fact he stepped in on to my toes; a dozen hands were on the gunwales: six soldier yells resounded, it seemed, in my very ears: there was the grit and rush of pebbles under the keel: a sudden lurch up of the bows, which brought the fairy lady's honey-scented lips to mine, and then the gentle lapping of deep blue waters underneath us! there is little more to be said of that voyage. we pulled until out of sight of the town, then hoisted sail, and, with a fair wind, held upon one tack until we made an island where there was a small colony of hither folk. here our friend turned back. i gave him another gold button from my coat, and the princess a kiss upon either cheek, which he seemed to like even more than the button. it was small payment, but the best we had. doubtless he got safely home, and i can but hope that providence somehow or other paid him and his wife for a good deed bravely done. those islanders in turn lent us another boat, with a guide, who had business in the hither capital, and on the evening of the second day, the direct route being very short in comparison, we were under the crumbling marble walls of seth. chapter xx it was like turning into a hothouse from a keen winter walk, our arrival at the beautiful but nerveless city after my life amongst the woodmen. as for the people, they were delighted to have their princess back, but with the delight of children, fawning about her, singing, clapping hands, yet asking no questions as to where she had been, showing no appreciation of our adventures--a serious offence in my eyes--and, perhaps most important of all, no understanding of what i may call the political bearings of heru's restoration, and how far their arch enemies beyond the sea might be inclined to attempt her recovery. they were just delighted to have the princess back, and that was the end of it. theirs was the joy of a vast nursery let loose. flower processions were organised, garlands woven by the mile, a general order issued that the nation might stay up for an hour after bedtime, and in the vortex of that gentle rejoicing heru was taken from me, and i saw her no more, till there happened the wildest scene of all you have shared with me so patiently. overlooked, unthanked, i turned sulky, and when this mood, one i can never maintain for long, wore off, i threw myself into the dissipation about me with angry zeal. i am frankly ashamed of the confession, but i was "a sailor ashore," and can only claim the indulgences proper to the situation. i laughed, danced, drank, through the night; i drank deep of a dozen rosy ways to forgetfulness, till my mind was a great confusion, full of flitting pictures of loveliness, till life itself was an illusive pantomime, and my will but thistle-down on the folly of the moment. i drank with those gentle roisterers all through their starlit night, and if we stopped when morning came it was more from weariness than virtue. then the yellow-robed slaves gave us the wine of recovery--alas! my faithful an was not amongst them--and all through the day we lay about in sodden happiness. towards nightfall i was myself again, not unfortunately with the headache well earned, but sufficiently remorseful to be in a vein to make good resolutions for the future. in this mood i mingled with a happy crowd, all purposeless and cheerful as usual, but before long began to feel the influence of one of those drifts, a universal turning in one direction, as seaweed turns when the tide changes, so characteristic of martian society. it was dusk, a lovely soft velvet dusk, but not dark yet, and i said to a yellow-robed fairy at my side: "whither away, comrade? it is not eight bells yet. surely we are not going to be put to bed so early as this?" "no," said that smiling individual, "it is the princess. we are going to listen to princess heru in the palace square. she reads the globe on the terrace again tonight, to see if omens are propitious for her marriage. she must marry, and you know the ceremony has been unavoidably postponed so far." "unavoidably postponed?" yes, heaven wotted i was aware of the fact. and was heru going to marry black hath in such a hurry? and after all i had done for her? it was scarcely decent, and i tried to rouse myself to rage over it, but somehow the seductive martian contentment with any fate was getting into my veins. i was not yet altogether sunk in their slothful acceptance of the inevitable, but there was not the slightest doubt the hot red blood in me was turning to vapid stuff such as did duty for the article in their veins. i mustered up a half-hearted frown at this unwelcome intelligence, turning with it on my face towards the slave girl; but she had slipped away into the throng, so the frown evaporated, and shrugging my shoulders i said to myself, "what does it matter? there are twenty others will do as well for me. if not one, why then obviously another, 'tis the only rational way to think, and at all events there is the magic globe. that may tell us something." and slipping my arm round the waist of the first disengaged girl--we were not then, mind you, in atlantic city--i kissed her dimpling cheek unreproached, and gaily followed in the drift of humanity, trending with a low hum of pleasure towards the great white terraces under the palace porch. how well i knew them! it was just such an evening heru had consulted fate in the same place once before; how much had happened since then! but there was little time or inclination to think of those things now. the whole phantom city's population had drifted to one common centre. the crumbling seaward ramparts were all deserted; no soldier watch was kept to note if angry woodmen came from over seas; a soft wind blew in from off the brine, but told no tales; the streets were empty, and, when as we waited far away in the southern sky the earth planet presently got up, by its light heru, herself again, came tripping down the steps to read her fate. they had placed another magic globe under a shroud on a tripod for her. it stood within the charmed circle upon the terrace, and i was close by, although the princess did not see me. again that weird, fantastic dance commenced, the princess working herself up from the drowsiest undulations to a hurricane of emotion. then she stopped close by the orb, and seized the corner of the web covering it. we saw the globe begin to beam with veiled magnificence at her touch. not an eye wavered, not a thought wandered from her in all that silent multitude. it was a moment of the keenest suspense, and just when it was at its height there came a strange sound of hurrying feet behind the outermost crowd, a murmur such as a great pack of wolves might make rushing through snow, while a soft long wail went up from the darkness. whether heru understood it or not i cannot say, but she hesitated a moment, then swept the cloth from the orb of her fate. and as its ghostly, self-emitting light beamed up in the darkness with weird brilliancy, there by it, in gold and furs and war panoply, huge, fierce, and lowering, stood--ar-hap himself! ay, and behind him, towering over the crouching martians, blocking every outlet and street, were scores and hundreds of his men. never was surprise so utter, ambush more complete. even i was transfixed with astonishment, staring with open-mouthed horror at the splendid figure of the barbarian king as he stood aglitter in the ruddy light, scowling defiance at the throng around him. so silently had he come on his errand of vengeance it was difficult to believe he was a reality, and not some clever piece of stageplay, some vision conjured up by martian necromancy. but he was good reality. in a minute comedy turned to tragedy. ar-hap gave a sign with his hand, whereon all his men set up a terrible warcry, the like of which seth had not heard for very long, and as far as i could make out in the half light began hacking and hewing my luckless friends with all their might. meanwhile the king made at heru, feeling sure of her this time, and doubtless intending to make her taste his vengeance to the dregs; and seeing her handled like that, and hearing her plaintive cries, wrath took the place of stupid surprise in me. i was on my feet in a second, across the intervening space, and with all my force gave the king a blow upon the jaw which sent even him staggering backwards. before i could close again, so swift was the sequence of events in those flying minutes, a wild mob of people, victims and executioners in one disordered throng, was between us. how the king fared i know not, nor stopped to ask, but half dragging, half carrying heru through the shrieking mob, got her up the palace steps and in at the great doors, which a couple of yellow-clad slaves, more frightened of the barbarians than thoughtful of the crowd without, promptly clapped to, and shot the bolts. thus we were safe for a moment, and putting the princess on a couch, i ran up a short flight of stairs and looked out of a front window to see if there were a chance of succouring those in the palace square. but it was all hopeless chaos with the town already beginning to burn and not a show of fight anywhere which i could join. i glared out on that infernal tumult for a moment or two in an agony of impotent rage, then turned towards the harbour and saw in the shine of the burning town below the ancient battlements and towers of seth begin to gleam out, like a splendid frost work of living metal clear-cut against the smooth, black night behind, and never a show of resistance there either. ay, and by this time ar-hap's men were battering in our gates with a big beam, and somehow, i do not know how it happened, the palace itself away on the right, where the dry-as-dust library lay, was also beginning to burn. it was hopeless outside, and nothing to be done but to save heru, so down i went, and, with the slaves, carried her away from the hall through a vestibule or two, and into an anteroom, where some yellow-girt individuals were already engaged in the suggestive work of tying up palace plate in bundles, amongst other things, alas! the great gold love-bowl from which--oh! so long ago--i had drawn heru's marriage billet. these individuals told me in tremulous accents they had got a boat on a secret waterway behind the palace whence flight to the main river and so, far away inland, to another smaller but more peaceful city of their race would be quite practical; and joyfully hearing this news, i handed over to them the princess while i went to look for hath. and the search was not long. dashing into the banquet-hall, still littered with the remains of a feast, and looking down its deserted vistas, there at the farther end, on his throne, clad in the sombre garments he affected, chin on hand, sedate in royal melancholy, listening unmoved to the sack of his town outside, sat the prince himself. strange, gloomy man, the great dead intelligence of his race shining in his face as weird and out of place as a lonely sea beacon fading to nothing before the glow of sunrise, never had he appeared so mysterious as at that moment. even in the heat of excitement i stared at him in amazement, wishing in a hasty thought the confusion of the past few weeks had given me opportunity to penetrate the recesses of his mind, and therefrom retell you things better worth listening to than all the incident of my adventures. but now there was no time to think, scarce time to act. "hath!" i cried, rushing over to him, "wake up, your majesty. the thither men are outside, killing and burning!" "i know it." "and the palace is on fire. you can smell the reek even here." "yes." "then what are you going to do?" "nothing." "my word, that is a fine proposition for a prince! if you care nothing for town or palace perhaps you will bestir yourself for princess heru." a faint glimmer of interest rose upon the alabaster calm of his face at that name, but it faded instantly, and he said quietly, "the slaves will save her. she will live. i looked into the book of her fate yesterday. she will escape, and forget, and sit at another marriage feast, and be a mother, and give the people yet one more prince to keep the faint glimmer of our ancestry alive. i am content." "but, d--- it, man, i am not! i take a deal more interest in the young lady than you seem to, and have scoured half this precious planet of yours on her account, and will be hanged if i sit idly twiddling my thumbs while her pretty skin is in danger." but hath was lost in contemplation of his shoe-strings. "come, sir," i said, shaking his majesty by the shoulder, "don't be down on your luck. there has been some rivalry between us, but never mind about that just now. the princess wants you. i am going to save both her and you, you must come with her." "no." "but you shall come." "no!" by this time the palace was blazing like a bonfire and the uproar outside was terrible. what was i to do? as i hesitated the arras at the further end of the hall was swept aside, a disordered mob of slaves bearing bundles and dragging heru with them rushing down to the door near us. as heru was carried swiftly by she stretched her milk-white arms towards the prince and turned her face, lovely as a convolvulus flower even in its pallor, upon him. it was a heart-moving appeal from a woman with the heart of a child, and hath rose to his feet while for a moment there shone a look of responsible manhood in his eyes. but it faded quickly; he bowed slowly as though he had received an address of condolence on the condition of his empire, and the next moment the frightened slaves, stumbling under their burdens, had swept poor heru through the doorway. i glanced savagely round at the curling smoke overhead, the red tendrils of fire climbing up a distant wall, and there on a table by us was a half-finished flask of the lovely tinted wine of forgetfulness. if hath would not come sober perhaps he might come drunk. "here," i cried, "drink to tomorrow, your majesty, a sovereign toast in all ages, and better luck next time with these hairy gentlemen battering at your majesty's doors," and splashing out a goblet full of the stuff i handed it to him. he took it and looked rather lovingly into the limpid pool, then deliberately poured it on the step in front of him, and throwing the cup away said pleasantly, "not tonight, good comrade; tonight i drink a deeper draught of oblivion than that,--and here come my cup-bearers." even while he spoke the palace gates had given way; there was a horrible medley of shrieks and cries, a quick sound of running feet; then again the arras lifted and in poured a horde of ar-hap's men-at-arms. the moment they caught sight of us about a dozen of them, armed with bows, drew the thick hide strings to their ears and down the hall came a ravening flight of shafts. one went through my cap, two stuck quivering in the throne, and one, winged with owl feather, caught black hath full in the bosom. he had stood out boldly at the first coming of that onset, arms crossed on breast, chin up, and looking more of a gentleman than i had ever seen him look before; and now, stricken, he smiled gravely, then without flinching, and still eyeing his enemies with gentle calm, his knees unlocked, his frame trembled, then down he went headlong, his red blood running forth in rivulets amongst the wine of oblivion he had just poured out. there was no time for sentiment. i shrugged my shoulders, and turning on my heels, with the woodmen close after me, sprang through the near doorway. where was heru? i flew down the corridor by which it seemed she had retreated, and then, hesitating a moment where it divided in two, took the left one. this to my chagrin presently began to trend upwards, whereas i knew heru was making for the river down below. but it was impossible to go back, and whenever i stopped in those deserted passages i could hear the wolflike patter of men's feet upon my trail. on again into the stony labyrinths of the old palace, ever upwards, in spite of my desire to go down, until at last, the pursuers off the track for a moment, i came to a north window in the palace wall, and, hot and breathless, stayed to look out. all was peace here; the sky a lovely lavender, a promise of coming morning in it, and a gold-spangled curtain of stars out yonder on the horizon. not a soul moved. below appeared a sheer drop of a hundred feet into a moat winding through thickets of heavy-scented convolvulus flowers to the waterways beyond. and as i looked a skiff with half a dozen rowers came swiftly out of the darkness of the wall and passed like a shadow amongst the thickets. in the prow was all hath's wedding plate, and in the stern, a faint vision of unconscious loveliness, lay heru! before i could lift a finger or call out, even if i had had a mind to do so, the shadow had gone round a bend, and a shout within the palace told me i was sighted again. on once more, hotly pursued, until the last corridor ended in two doors leading into a half-lit gallery with open windows at the further end. there was a wilderness of lumber down the sides of the great garret, and now i come to think of it more calmly i imagine it was hath's lost property office, the vast receptacle where his slaves deposited everything lazy martians forgot or left about in their daily life. at that moment it only represented a last refuge, and into it i dashed, swung the doors to and fastened them just as the foremost of ar-hap's men hurled themselves upon the barrier from outside. there i was like a rat in a trap, and like a rat i made up my mind to fight savagely to the end, without for a moment deceiving myself as to what that end must be. even up there the horrible roar of destruction was plainly audible as the barbarians sacked and burned the ancient town, and i was glad from the bottom of my heart my poor little princess was safely out of it. nor did i bear her or hers the least resentment for making off while there was yet time and leaving me to my fate--anything else would have been contrary to martian nature. doubtless she would get away, as hath had said, and elsewhere drop a few pearly tears and then over her sugar-candy and lotus-eating forget with happy completeness--most blessed gift! and meanwhile the foresaid barbarians were battering on my doors, while over their heads choking smoke was pouring in in ever-increasing volumes. in burst the first panel, then another, and i could see through the gaps a medley of tossing weapons and wild faces without. short shrift for me if they came through, so in the obstinacy of desperation i set to work to pile old furniture and dry goods against the barricade. and as they yelled and hammered outside i screamed back defiance from within, sweating, tugging, and hauling with the strength of ten men, piling up the old martian lumber against the opening till, so fierce was the attack outside, little was left of the original doorway and nothing between me and the besiegers but a rampart of broken woodwork half seen in a smother of smoke and flames. still they came on, thrusting spears and javelins through every crevice and my strength began to go. i threw two tables into a gap, and brained a besieger with a sweetmeat-seller's block and smothered another, and overturned a great chest against my barricade; but what was the purpose of it all? they were fifty to one and my rampart quaked before them. the smoke was stifling, and the pains of dissolution in my heart. they burst in and clambered up the rampart like black ants. i looked round for still one more thing to hurl into the breach. my eyes lit on a roll of carpet: i seized it by one corner meaning to drag it to the doorway, and it came undone at a touch. that strange, that incredible pattern! where in all the vicissitudes of a chequered career had i seen such a one before? i stared at it in amazement under the very spears of the woodmen in the red glare of hath's burning palace. then all on a sudden it burst upon me that it was the accursed rug, the very one which in response to a careless wish had swept me out of my own dear world, and forced me to take as wild a journey into space as ever fell to a man's lot since the universe was made! and in another second it occurred to me that if it had brought me hither it might take me hence. it was but a chance, yet worth trying when all other chances were against me. as ar-hap's men came shouting over the barricade i threw myself down upon that incredible carpet and cried from the bottom of my heart, "i wish--i wish i were in new york!" yes! a moment of thrilling suspense and then the corners lifted as though a strong breeze were playing upon them. another moment and they had curled over like an incoming surge. one swift glance i got at the smoke and flames, the glittering spears and angry faces, and then fold upon fold, a stifling, all-enveloping embrace, a lift, a sense of super-human speed--and then forgetfulness. when i came to, as reporters say, i was aware the rug had ejected me on solid ground and disappeared, forever. where was i! it was cool, damp, and muddy. there were some iron railings close at hand and a street lamp overhead. these things showed clearly to me, sitting on a doorstep under that light, head in hand, amazed and giddy--so amazed that when slowly the recognition came of the incredible fact my wish was gratified and i was home again, the stupendous incident scarcely appealed to my tingling senses more than one of the many others i had lately undergone. very slowly i rose to my feet, and as like a discreditable reveller as could be, climbed the steps. the front door was open, and entering the oh, so familiar hall a sound of voices in my sitting-room on the right caught my ear. "oh no, mrs. brown," said one, which i recognised at once as my polly's, "he is dead for certain, and my heart is breaking. he would never, never have left me so long without writing if he had been alive," and then came a great sound of sobbing. "bless your kind heart, miss," said the voice of my landlady in reply, "but you don't know as much about young gentlemen as i do. it is not likely, if he has gone off on the razzle-dazzle, as i am sure he has, he is going to write every post and tell you about it. now you go off to your ma at the hotel like a dear, and forget all about him till he comes back--that's my advice." "i cannot, i cannot, mrs. brown. i cannot rest by day or sleep by night for thinking of him; for wondering why he went away so suddenly, and for hungering for news of him. oh, i am miserable. gully! gully! come to me," and then there were sounds of troubled footsteps pacing to and fro and of a woman's grief. that was more than i could stand. i flung the door open, and, dirty, dishevelled, with unsteady steps, advanced into the room. "ahem!" coughed mrs. brown, "just as i expected!" but i had no eyes for her. "polly! polly!" i cried, and that dear girl, after a startled scream and a glance to make sure it was indeed the recovered prodigal, rushed over and threw all her weight of dear, warm, comfortable womanhood into my arms, and the moment after burst into a passion of happy tears down my collar. "humph!" quoth the landlady, "that is not what brown gets when he forgets his self. no, not by any means." but she was a good old soul at heart, and, seeing how matters stood, with a parting glance of scorn in my direction and a toss of her head, went out of the room, and closed the door behind her. need i tell in detail what followed? polly behaved like an angel, and when in answer to her gentle reproaches i told her the outlines of my marvellous story she almost believed me! over there on the writing-desk lay a whole row of the unopened letters she had showered upon me during my absence, and amongst them an official one. we went and opened it together, and it was an intimation of my promotion, a much better "step" than i had ever dared to hope for. holding that missive in my hand a thought suddenly occurred to me. "polly dear, this letter makes me able to maintain you as you ought to be maintained, and there is still a fortnight of vacation for me. polly, will you marry me tomorrow?" "no, certainly not, sir." "then will you marry me on monday?" "do you truly, truly want me to?" "truly, truly." "then, yes," and the dear girl again came blushing into my arms. while we were thus the door opened, and in came her parents who were staying at a neighbouring hotel while inquiries were made as to my mysterious absence. not unnaturally my appearance went a long way to confirm suspicions such as mrs. brown had confessed to, and, after they had given me cold salutations, polly's mother, fixing gold glasses on the bridge of her nose and eyeing me haughtily therefrom, observed, "and now that you are safely at home again, lieutenant gulliver jones, i think i will take my daughter away with me. tomorrow her father will ascertain the true state of her feelings after this unpleasant experience, and subsequently he will no doubt communicate with you on the subject." this very icily. but i was too happy to be lightly put down. "my dear madam," i replied, "i am happy to be able to save her father that trouble. i have already communicated with this young lady as to the state of her feelings, and as an outcome i am delighted to be able to tell you we are to be married on monday." "oh yes, mother, it is true, and if you do not want to make me the most miserable of girls again you will not be unkind to us." in brief, that sweet champion spoke so prettily and smoothed things so cleverly that i was "forgiven," and later on in the evening allowed to escort polly back to her hotel. "and oh!" she said, in her charmingly enthusiastic way when we were saying goodnight, "you shall write a book about that extraordinary story you told me just now. only you must promise me one thing." "what is it?" "to leave out all about heru--i don't like that part at all." this with the prettiest little pout. "but, polly dear, see how important she was to the narrative. i cannot quite do that." "then you will say as little as you can about her?" "no more than the story compels me to." "and you are quite sure you like me much the best, and will not go after her again?" "quite sure." the compact was sealed in the most approved fashion; and here, indulgent reader, is the artless narrative that resulted--an incident so incredible in this prosaic latter-day world that i dare not ask you to believe, and must humbly content myself with hoping that if i fail to convince yet i may at least claim the consolation of having amused you. the martian based upon the third prize ($ . ) winning plot of the interplanetary plot contest won by allen glasser, university ave., new york by a. r. hilliard and allen glasser [transcriber's note: this etext was produced from wonder stories quarterly winter . extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the u.s. copyright on this publication was renewed.] [illustration: the water was evaporated by the ever-shining sun until there was none left for the thirsty plants. every year more workers died in misery.] * * * * * [illustration: allen glasser who furnished the plot] [illustration:a. rowley hilliard who wrote the story] many writers of science fiction, who have not given the matter much thought, assume that a man of intelligence from one planet would meet a cordial and sympathetic welcome on another world. it is assumed that people are everywhere educated, curious about other worlds and other cultures, and eager to help a visitor from an alien race. unfortunately there is no assurance that such is the case. even were the members of another race, on another world possessed of education, there would be bound to be among them low and brutish elements. and if a stranger from another world, dazed by new conditions and unable to make his wants known, were to fall into their hands his fate might not be happy. we have read no story that pictures with such clarity and insight the experiences of a man on another world than his own, than does this present story. with the basis of a splendid plot mr. hilliard has worked up a simply marvelous story. * * * * * the rolling, yellow sand reflected the heat of the sun in little, shimmering waves. it reflected the sun's light blindingly throughout all its visible expanse, with the exception of one spot where lay a circular shadow. in the great steely-blue dome of the sky there were no clouds. the shadow, although not large, was very dark and distinct. the curved, even line of its circumference was precisely drawn. in the air was a persistent rattle of sound--a series of closely spaced explosions, ever rising in intensity. suddenly a small, uneven shadow detached itself from the circular one; and floated swiftly across the sand. the rattling sound increased to a tremendous booming roar, and the large shadow began to fade. at the same time, the smaller one grew steadily darker. high above the sand, a man was falling--much too swiftly. the surface of the sand had been shaped into hills by the prevailing winds. these long, ridge-like hills, or dunes, were convex and gradual in slope on their windward sides, but on their lee sides they were concave, and very steep. it was near the top of one of these steep slopes that the man landed. his frail legs and body crumpled under the weight of his head; he pitched forward, and half rolled, half slid to the bottom where he came to rest more gently, the target of a small avalanche of sand. immediately, he began to struggle; and, failing in his attempts to rise, stretched his slim arms skyward and uttered a sharp, squealing cry, painfully prolonged. far above him a spherical object rapidly diminished in size. fixedly he watched the sunlight glinting on its polished grey sides; watched it shrink to a tiny ball, a point, and then--nothing. he was alone. the pressure was horrible. he buried his head in the hot sand, and clapped his ears in a vain attempt to ease the throbbing pain. they must have underestimated the weight of the toonian atmosphere if they had expected him to live long here! it did not hurt his body, but his head was being crushed. he knew that he would soon die--and was glad. this wild, senseless punishment would be at an end. he opened his eyes again, and stared in growing fascination and wonder at the great arched blue dome above him. gradually the spectacle of this weirdly beautiful canopy occupied his whole attention. it was like a soft curtain of light blue material hiding the blackness of the sky and the gleaming stars;--yet the sun shone through. for a moment he forgot his loneliness, his pain, in rapt contemplation of the immense perfection above him--but only for a moment. then the explanation came to him. that beautiful blue was the heavy atmosphere of toon, which was slowly crushing him to death! he closed his eyes. the heat was terrific, but not as intense as he had expected. toon was nearer the sun than was his own world--millions of miles nearer; yet he was not badly burnt, and this puzzled him. the explanation must again lie in the heavy atmosphere--serving as insulation, he finally decided.... he didn't care. he felt strangely detached. what signifies life--or death--to a tiny being separated by fifty million miles from any of its kind? deposited on this strange planet, he had no hopes of survival; his only emotion was astonishment that he had lived a moment. he struggled to remove the parachute that had been so inadequate in easing his fall. movement--even the raising of an arm was serious effort. he was glued to the ground by the tremendous gravitational pull of a planet so much greater in size than his own. he relaxed. why struggle? with the passing of hope, all incentive to effort passes also. he felt no distress at the thought of death. life, not death, would be freakish in this great wasteland. and he was past anger now. what they had done to him they had done through hate and fear. only hate and fear could conceive of so fantastic a torture for a fellow being. there was no satisfaction now in the knowledge that they had feared him; nor did he care about their hate.... they had won. they would have their way, and all the people of the loten would suffer in consequence.... loten! a wave of sick loneliness swept over him.... a point in the sky, obscured by a weird curtain of blue--his home! * * * * * certainly, no man had ever suffered thus! a surge of self-pity welled up within him. certainly no being had ever been forced to long for the world--the globe which gave it birth! this horror was reserved for him alone.... he clenched his fists. reason returned to rescue him from emotion. loten did not exist for him. he was outside of the world--a tiny flame of consciousness in space. and what did that amount to, after all, he asked himself.... what, but death?... for a long time he lay there in the sand, quite motionless. the sun was sinking. its blazing heat was abating somewhat; its face was large, and red. for miles, across the surface of the sand, the shadows of the dunes were stretching out.... and out of the sunset a tiny speck of black appeared. where he lay the man heard the sound of it--a steady drone, or buzz. at first it did not catch his attention, its inception was so gradual; but soon it became a roar, and he opened his eyes with a start. he had heard no sound since the departure of the space ship--had expected none. an uneasy excitement gripped him. he strained his eyes upward.... suddenly, over the dune against which he lay, there shot a something, roaring thunderously. he cowered down, stunned by the terrific sound of it; but he watched it with wide eyes, as it moved across the sky. it was t-shaped; with the cross-piece going before. beneath it hung two wheels. it gleamed metallically. without attempting to rise, he howled shrilly, time after time, catching his breath in gasps--while the thing moved steadily away. following an undeviating line, it left him far behind, diminished to a speck, and disappeared. the sound of it lingered when he could see it no longer. his breath came quickly, spasmodically, through parted lips; his throat was tight, and his heart pounded. the staggering surprise of what he had seen and heard left him incapable of thought. his mind was a racing turmoil of questions. his contentment, his resignation were gone--destroyed in a moment; and in their place rose a great uneasiness. the return of hope, to a man who has definitely put it away from him, is a joy closely akin to pain in its intensity. his whole body shook as he struggled with the sand, attempting to rise. he had seen a machine, he knew. it could not have been an animal. it was not alive, and it was made of metal.... a machine meant reasoning beings. there must be reasoning beings on toon--where loten's scientists had argued that they could not be! and machines that travelled through space! perhaps.... as the new possibilities of his situation burst upon him, his homesickness returned a thousandfold; and he knew that he could rest no longer--could not wait in the sand for death. he must struggle--he must strive, until the end came--because there was a chance! immediately, his mind became purposeful, and he took stock of his position. he knew that the whole of toon was not like this great stretch of sand. thousands of years of observation of the bright planet had convinced the scientists of the loten that it bore vegetation--and probably animal life of some sort.... but rational beings! his astonishment re-asserted itself. five thousand years of systematic signalling had brought no response, and the project had lately been abandoned. yet.... he shook his head, and returned to his problem. he must not waste time now. he had food enough in his stomach to last three days at least, and he would not need water for even longer. he suddenly realized, with enormous satisfaction, that the pain in his head was considerably less than at first. perhaps his system would be able to adjust itself to the atmospheric pressure.... the great question was where--and how--to go. he must go somewhere. only motion would satisfy his craving for accomplishment of some sort. he would get no help on this great, sterile plain. he had no guarantee that another of the flying machines would come near him, and even if it did there was not much hope of attracting its attention. no, he must move.... he decided to follow in the direction the machine had taken. its destination might be near-by--or it might be thousands of miles away. the probability seemed to be in favor of the former hypothesis, because the machine had been moving so very slowly.... anyway, it was a chance! pulling his legs up under him, he made another determined attempt to rise; and finally succeeded in standing erect. but it made his legs ache terribly; and when he tried a step he slipped, falling back with a jarring thud. he would have to crawl. * * * * * ridding himself of the parachute, and with no further hesitation, he set out, crawling slowly and laboriously, keeping the sun at his back. the heat was less oppressive now. the sun had sunk to a point where its rays were no hotter than at midday on his loten; and he marvelled at the similarity of the two climates. he had seen none of the water vapors that astronomers described as almost constantly enveloping toon. toon--what he had seen of it--seemed to be as dry as the loten, if not more so. he climbed the long, gradual slope of a dune; and, after surveying the endless stretch of sand which met his view at the top, slid down the steep side, and crawled doggedly on. night was falling. the blue dome above him steadily darkened until it began to take on the appearance of his own native sky. he was dead tired within an hour. he lay still for a time, breathing deeply--marshalling his strength. he was in excellent physical condition, but here his body was so heavy that the slightest motion was a strain. soon, however, his eager spirit drove him onward. at the end of another hour, happening to raise his head, he uttered an involuntary cry. points of light glimmered in the sky.... so he was to see the stars after all!--though only at night, it seemed. he was relieved. in the back of his mind had been the ever-growing certainty that he would not be able to keep a direct course. he rested again, and picked out certain designs that would be helpful as guides. he wondered if one of them were loten. they were very dim and they blinked strangely; and their arrangement was meaningless to him. he fixed upon one of them--the brightest--and imagined that it might be _his_ world--where his friends were, and his enemies; where his wives grieved for him perhaps; where his children laughed and played; where he might one day return.... he crawled along through the sand. it was not really dark--only twilight. he wondered if this were night on toon. it must be. almost directly ahead of him--just a little to the right--was a radiance close to the horizon. it puzzled him. soon it was spreading over the sky--a pale, ghostly light. then a bright point appeared--a line; it grew. he stared in abject wonder while a great, white disk mounted into the sky, illuminating the scene around. he rested a while, and watched it. it was toon's satellite. it could be nothing else. but beside it the two luminaries of his own world were as pygmies. he was still watching it, fascinated, when he resumed his journey. chapter ii. signs of life all through the night he travelled; and into the rising sun. the noonday heat forced him to take a prolonged rest, but he fought on as soon as possible; and sunset found him crawling weakly onward. the cool of night revived him somewhat. he knew that the strain under which he labored would hasten his time of sleep, and that worried him. even now, he was often in a semi-conscious state. still, he could not stop. when the sun rose again, it shone through trees; and far across the yellow sand his tired eyes saw green hills. the sight invigorated him--spurred him on to stronger efforts. soon after midday he lay panting in the shade of trees. the trees astonished him. they towered above him, fully five times as high as any he had ever seen. their stems were of enormous girth--rough and hard to the touch. there seemed to be something moving in their heavy foliage, far above him, and he heard faint, sharp whistling sounds. he looked around uneasily. the size of the trees worried him. if there were animal life, it might be proportionately large. he shuddered. the desert, although uncomfortable, had had one advantage: he had been alone there. still, it was not loneliness that he was seeking, he thought grimly. obviously, he.... he stiffened. he had been staring abstractedly at the coarse grass which grew thickly around him. now his eyes became focussed upon a movement there--not three feet away. the grass was waving strangely, in a peculiar, uneven line; and he caught sight of something slim and green, that was not the grass. his throat contracted painfully. the thing did not seem to move, yet it was coming nearer. whenever he caught sight of a part of its body, it appeared stationary; yet the waving of the grass was closer, and ever closer. it was very close now.... suddenly his power of locomotion returned. he rolled over backward, and scrambled along the ground to a tree. grasping the rough trunk, he pulled himself erect; and held himself in that position, panting. he could see the thing more plainly now. it was like a long, green whip in the grass. its forepart was raised in the air, and terminated in a triangular head, with two bright eyes whose steady, unwinking stare made him tremble weakly. with an effort he took his eyes from the creature; and, pushing himself away from the tree, ran desperately, as far as his legs would carry him. when he fell, he continued to crawl--farther, and ever farther into the green woods. he wondered if all creatures crawled in this world of toon. perhaps the great gravitational pull made erect postures impossible. for a long time he climbed steadily, threading his way through the underbrush, skirting fallen trees. he felt increasingly drowsy. his sleep period would come soon, he knew. he could not stave it off much longer. and when he had slept, he must eat.... he came to level ground. ahead was an opening in the trees, where a wide ledge of stone was revealed. out upon this he crawled, and gazed at the scene that opened out below. miles of waving tree tops met his view; but what held his attention was a strip of silver cutting the green. he felt a warm glow of satisfaction. water, in his mind, was closely associated with organization, transportation facilities, reasoning beings.... yet he must be wary. he had no idea what sort of beings they might be. this might be a canal, but it was strangely irregular in its course. at least he was making progress.... a peculiar, ringing sound came from the trees below. it was utterly unfamiliar to him. nerving himself, he determined to discover what it was. he climbed down from the stone, and began the journey down the hill. as he progressed the sound became louder, and others were added. he was puzzled by a low, intermittent muttering. it made him vaguely uneasy, and with every moment his agitation increased. the muttering was now very definitely spaced into irregular but continuous tones. and he knew that he was listening to a conversation. he was frightened. now that he was so near to what he had been seeking, his courage left him; and he lay trembling, flat on the ground, awed by the booming voices of the creatures. they must be very large, he thought, to utter such deep tones. he had lain there for perhaps five minutes, when, suddenly, there came a rending crash; and, peering ahead, he saw the green top of a tree sway violently, sink, and disappear from sight. at the same time there came a louder cry, followed by the blending of two thunderous voices, speaking simultaneously.... then a heavy thud, and another cry.... * * * * * he crawled cautiously forward. he reached the fallen tree. its trunk was suspended above the ground by the projection of a number of its large branches. he peered beneath it. directly before him, in a small clearing, two creatures were struggling together. they stood erect upon their huge legs, using their crudely bulky arms and hands to strike and tug at each other. they were tremendous in size--fully three times human stature; yet their heads were smaller than men's. their erect posture gave them a weirdly half-human look, which was belied by the brutal savagery of their aspects. their brows were low; their heads were covered with long hair; and in their gaping mouths he saw rows of sharp, white fangs. their skin, instead of being golden, was a dirty grey in color, and was covered with short curling hair or fur. but he could see very little of their bodies, because--and this sight seemed to him the strangest of all--they were almost entirely covered with cloth. this woven material was brown in color, and shaped to hang close to their bodies, even over the arms and legs. he lay very still, watching the titanic struggle with ever growing wonder. they appeared to be evenly matched. once, one of them was hurled heavily to the ground, but he leaped effortlessly to his feet. both of them grunted and uttered sharp exclamations at intervals. they tramped back and forth, tearing up the grass, crushing down the small bushes. they must greatly hate each other, he thought--or perhaps it was natural for them to fight like this. now one of them was tiring--the smaller. its movements were slower, and it stepped almost constantly backward. suddenly from its bulbous nose spurted a red stream. he shuddered. the sight of these two strangely man-like creatures beating and tearing at one another sickened him. the larger creature was pressing its advantage, advancing upon the other with cruel, flailing blows. suddenly the smaller one crumpled to the ground, and lay still. the other turned away. it seemed satisfied. it grasped an object which was leaning against a tree--a cutting tool apparently, consisting of an edged block of metal attached to a long handle of wood; and without a backward glance at its fallen foe, made off through the trees. the creature on the ground was alive. he could see the rise and fall of its breathing under the cloth covering of its breast. but the bright, red blood was still running out of the nose. it had lost an astonishing amount; and he feared that, unassisted, it would soon die. he must try to help. with wildly beating heart, he crawled under the tree trunk and out into the clearing. as he moved through the grass, he made a slight rustling sound, which the creature heard. it turned its head, and stared directly at him. he stopped fearfully.... the creature uttered a loud cry, and scrambled to its feet. he raised one hand, attempting a friendly gesture; but the creature, after watching him for a moment with wide eyes, bounded swiftly away into the woods. he heard the thumping and crashing of its passage through the underbrush long after it had disappeared from sight. his first sensation was one of immense relief. he had been desperately afraid. evidently the thing had been afraid of him, too. and that was surprising.... clearly, these could not be the reasoning things that had built the flying machine he had seen. his relief was quickly followed by disappointment. for a moment he had imagined that his first objective had been reached. now he realized that he might be as far from it as ever. toon was immense. probably, now, he was in a country inhabited by inferior beings--beings that would be constantly hostile and dangerous to him. if that were so, his quest would end here, he knew. sleep could not be warded off any longer. he could not protect himself. soon he must eat--and there was no food. he crawled into the bushes; and lay down, lonely and sick. he would stay here. this was failure--and the end. but he was not sorry for having tried.... above him the sky was not blue, now; but a strange, dead grey. nowhere could he see the sun. the wind sighed mournfully in the trees. he slept. chapter iii. in confinement he awakened in shivering terror. his entire body was wet. water was falling on him. it was falling on the ground all around and on the trees--thousands, millions of drops. he choked, as he tried to breathe the damp, saturated air. desperately he looked around for some protection, but there was none. he covered his face as best he could with his folded arms, and cried out in fear. there came a shout; and he heard something moving toward him, but he did not care. horror of the falling water crowded all other emotions from his mind. one of the creatures was standing over him. he heard others approaching. they were shouting loudly back and forth to one another. in a moment, there was a circle of them, all around him. he was too distressed to pay them any attention. after a time one of them bent down and grasped him under the armpits. he felt himself lifted into the air. he did not struggle, even when their faces were all around him--very close. now they were walking through the trees, one of them carrying him in its huge arms, quite gently. he was scarcely conscious of his surroundings. it was becoming more and more difficult to breathe. then he felt himself laid down on something soft and dry. the water was not falling on him now. he opened his eyes. they had placed him under a shelter. he could hear the water on the black covering above him. there was one of them on each side of him, where he lay on what seemed to be a cushioned seat.... suddenly there came a rumble, and the seat beneath him quivered and shook. he struggled to sit up. one of the creatures aided him, and wrapped a dry cloth about his body. he was grateful. the seat was bumping up and down violently. on each side, he could see the trees moving slowly backward. he realized that he was in a vehicle. it jolted constantly, and he imagined that it must run directly on the rough ground. it made a continuous and tremendous noise. but it was a machine of transportation, however crude; and he quickly forgot his bodily discomfort, as the implications of this fact crowded through his mind. he looked with a new interest at his captors. they were talking together excitedly--evidently about him, for they never removed their eyes from him. in spite of their strangeness and savagery, they must have reasoning minds. he could be pretty sure of that, now.... the vehicle came to rest, and to either side he saw structures, made, evidently, of cut trees. then his heart leaped again, as he saw that they had glass. so they knew how to make that! there were only a few pieces of it let into the walls--but it was certainly glass, and his hopes rose a bit higher. they carried him into one of the houses. it was quite dark. they set him down upon a large table. they were increasing rapidly in numbers, jostling in through the door and crowding around the table. in the wall near him there was one of the pieces of glass. abashed by the dozens of staring eyes, he looked through this, and saw a broad field, its soil turned up in long, straight rows--evidently for planting. near the center of the field were two creatures, which immediately commanded his attention. they were not alike. one was similar to those he had already seen, but the other was even larger and of a different shape. four legs carried the great, bulky body, which rested in a horizontal position, as did the thick neck and long, tapering head. it was dragging the tool which turned up the furrows of soil, while the other followed behind, governing its directions. clearly, he thought, there were many types of creatures on toon. he would have to try to understand their relations to one another.... inside the room there was much noise, and the air was hot, damp, and very unpleasant to breathe. he was not afraid of the creatures now; and instinctively he realized that it was curiosity that brought them here, and that they meant him no harm. a few were trying to speak to him, looking directly into his eyes and making monosyllabic sounds. this amused him at first. they would not be quite so hopeful if they understood from where he had come. but in another moment his amusement had vanished. one of the creatures, standing near, placed a finger close to where he sat, at the same time uttering a short disyllabic sound: "table!" a thrill shot through him. he had expected no such intelligence on the part of his captors. a new wave of hope surged up within him.... carefully, he repeated the gesture and the word. * * * * * his action was followed by a burst of excited conversation in the room. several made sharp, guttural noises which he guessed meant gratification or amusement. immediately a number of them took up the game; and he eagerly did his part, repeating the sounds they made and identifying them with objects. with every possible gesture he tried to indicate to them his pleasure and gratification. he was sorry when they began to go away. it had been getting steadily darker for some time, when, suddenly, the room was brilliantly illuminated; and, looking quickly around, he saw a number of bright globes. this event brought him to a high pitch of elation. the character of the vehicle in which he had ridden had made him fear that they knew nothing of electricity, but here was tangible evidence that they did. his dream of a return to loten seemed less like a wild imagining at every moment. he was beginning to think of these creatures as people, almost human beings. now, only two of them remained. from their glances he knew that they were talking about him. finally, one of them lifted him from the table; and, walking swiftly, carried him through the door, across a short stretch of open ground, and into a smaller and darker structure, there laying him down upon a bed of cloths and cushions in one corner of the single room. the other followed them in, carrying a china dish and cup. setting these beside him, they both pointed with their fingers to their open mouths. he understood immediately, and was glad. he needed nourishment badly. but when he looked into the dish his pleasure abated. it contained an assortment of what appeared to be parts of plants and--he tried to conceal his horror--animal flesh. looking up, he nodded--a gesture that he had quickly learned; and to his great relief they turned and left the room, closing the door. he heard a sharp click. the flesh he immediately put aside. he did not like to think what its origin might be. he studied the plants. they had evidently been subjected to a heat process, but had not been chemically refined in any way. the percentage of nourishment in them must be very low, and it would be necessary for him to eat great quantities to sustain his strength. he wondered how long his stomach could stand it. these people must eat almost daily to sustain themselves on such fare, he reasoned, marvelling. with a pronged implement that they had given him, he set to work to mash the food into as soft a mass as possible. this process they accomplished easily with their fangs, he knew. the taste was anything but pleasing, and he had great difficulty in swallowing; but he finally managed to assuage his hunger, and felt better. he drank a little water from the cup, which contained enough to supply him for at least five days. this done, he stretched himself out upon the bed, and gave himself over to pleasant reflection. a far cry, he thought, from the man lying helpless in the desert, devoid of all hope, to the one who had established contact with a race of intelligent beings who would doubtless be willing to help him return to his own native world. he reflected that if the flying ship had hot happened to come near him, he would most certainly have perished by now--perished in a foreign world, far away from those he loved, never knowing there was a chance for his salvation. but now he had taken the first step.... anything was possible now. his attention returned to his surroundings. the bare room was lighted by a bulb hanging from wires in the center. from it dangled a cord, the purpose of which he quickly guessed. the walls and floor were bare wood, and rough. along the whole length of one wall extended a low, narrow table, or bench, strewn with a miscellaneous collection of objects which aroused his curiosity. he crawled to the bench, and pulled himself erect by grasping its edge. he was just tall enough to see along its surface. near him rested a large roll of what he first thought was cord; but on closer examination he decided that it was metal wire covered with a fibre insulation. obviously it was for the conduction of electricity. scattered around it were a number of cylinders of varying sizes, which he saw were wound closely with very fine wires. clearly, these people did more with electricity than make light, he thought, encouraged. * * * * * there was nothing else in the room except a pile of rusty metal in one corner. the whole place was depressingly dirty and dreary. he thought that he would feel better without the light. he made his way to the center of the room, and stretched upwards. finding that he could just reach the cord, he jerked it; and returned in the darkness to his cot. he lay there quietly, trying to calm his nerves. he wondered what they would do with him.... he was still wondering the same thing at the end of four days. they did not move him. they did nothing except come and look at him--a great many of them at first, but less and less as time went on. they came in the daytime--never at night. they fed him; and a few still tried to talk to him. this pleased him, and he strove eagerly to understand and imitate; but they soon got tired and stopped. he learned to distinguish the males and females among the people that came, by differences in stature, length of hair, and clothing. he observed, with complete bewilderment, that the males often carried in their hands burning cylinders which they raised regularly to their mouths, blowing out smoke into the air. he guessed, finally, that this must be some sort of sanitary precaution. now, however, he was left alone most of the time. they brought him food, and then went away. he was uneasy. physically, he felt far from well. the damp air made his throat and chest ache; and he feared that the long deprivation of sunlight was hurting him. he could not understand. gathering his courage one day, he attempted to open the door. he reached up and turned the knob the way he had seen the people do. but it would not move when he pushed. he remembered the clicking sound he had heard every time after they went out. he became frightened. he did not understand this confinement. why would they not let him out? there passed another day, of mental torture. would they let him die in this dark, dreary place? had all his efforts merely led to a lonely, purposeless death? he wondered what they would do if he went out of his own accord; and finally decided that he must do it, even at the risk of offending them. further inactivity he could not bear. within five minutes he had formed a plan of action. it was night--the best time to work; for he must work undisturbed for a time. he made his way to the bench, and collected three of the wound wire coils, which he dropped to the floor. with a cutting tool that he found he managed to get a length of wire from the large roll. the tool was very heavy. next, he crawled to the corner, and selected a number of small pieces of metal. he rested for a while, studying the light bulb which hung in the center of the room. from the light it gave and the size of the filament, he roughly estimated the power of the current. then, with a graphite writing instrument that he had found, he drew a diagram on the floor. he took a very long time doing this, and labeled it carefully. when he had finished, the little window at the end of the room showed that dawn was breaking outside. hurriedly then, he set to work with the metal, the coils, and the wire,--twisting, winding, connecting and cross-connecting--constantly glancing at his diagram and at the window. finally, when it was broad daylight outside, he gave a sigh of satisfaction. he had achieved an ugly, jumbled apparatus, vaguely cylindrical in shape with a point of metal at one end. he laid it on the floor; and making his way to the bench, secured two more lengths of wire. he crawled under the bench to where the power line for the light ran down the wall, and there connected them. then, securing his cup of water, he dipped into it the ends of his two wires, and observed them for a moment. satisfied, he carried them to his cylindrical apparatus, and connected one of them at the end opposite the metal point. the other he did not immediately connect. chapter iv. the circus he was breathing hard now, and his face was flushed. for a long time he sat very still and listened, but he heard no sound. at last, moving very slowly, he carried his cylinder to the door. he raised it, and placed the point against the metal lock, under the knob. he pressed his lips tightly together, and set his jaw.... with the end of the wire which he had not connected he touched a point on the cylinder. there was no sound. there was no movement of the cylinder. yet the metal lock dissolved, and daylight shot through the place where it had been. a cloud of light grey dust drifted lazily to the floor. he disconnected the wires. carefully he hid the thing under the cushions of his bed. then he pushed open the door, and crawled out into the sunlight. the sun felt warm and pleasant on his back. he heard a cry, and looked up fearfully. one of the men of toon was running towards him carrying a dish. it was the man that brought his food. his throat was tight, and he was trembling. he knew that this was the supreme moment. he nodded his head and smiled. he raised one hand, palm upward. the man stopped directly in front of him, and growled--then raised an arm, pointing at the door of his prison. he made a little murmuring sound to the man; and raising his face to the sun, smiled and nodded once more. the man pushed him backwards with one foot, always pointing at the door. he turned, and crawled back into the shed. dully he watched the man; who stood for a long time staring at the door where the lock had been--then strode to the pile of metal and picked up a chain. he did not move when he felt the chain around his body. he closed his eyes, and did not open them until he heard the door shut. he did not move all that day. he only watched the little window. when, finally, the little window grew black, he drew his machine from under the cushions, and connected it again at the wall. the chain was fastened to a leg of the bench, and allowed him to do this. he destroyed a portion of the chain, and loosened it from his body. he crawled to the wall farthest from the house where the people lived. moving the machine in a slow arc, he cut a hole in the wall. disconnecting the wires, he used them to fasten the machine around his waist. then he went out into the night. he did not know where he was going--except that he was going away from these beings that held him prisoner without a reason. at first they had seemed kind--but they were kind no longer. something had changed them, he thought; but he could not guess what.... he had progressed less than a hundred yards when a sudden tumult of sound froze him with terror. it was coming at him through the dark, a hoarse, senseless, animal cry. and bounding toward him he saw the dark shadow of a beast. he knew instinctively that here was an unreasoning creature--and all the strength went out of him. he lay flat and limp on his face. now he heard its panting breath, and felt the heat of it on his body.... at the same time, but only semi-consciously, he heard the loud shouts of men. as in a dream, he felt himself grasped roughly and lifted from the ground. soon he knew that he was back in the shed again. he saw a man standing above him holding his machine. he felt strangely detached--as if he were not there at all. he saw the man look at the machine; look at the door; look at the chain; look at the hole in the wall; look at the light cord. he saw the man connecting his machine to the light cord; he felt powerless to warn the man that he might be connecting it wrong--that there were two ways: one right, one wrong.... an explosion threw the man heavily against the wall. he could see the man struggling slowly up--coming towards him--kicking him. but he could hardly feel the kick at all--and everything got dark.... when light came back it was just a small square above him. that puzzled him, until he reached out and found wooden walls all around him--very close. he was in a box. he became suddenly fully conscious of the fact. looking down at him from above he saw the faces of two of the men of toon. he cried out involuntarily, struggling to escape. one of the creatures shook a heavy piece of metal threateningly over his head. he cowered down, shuddering, at sight of the merciless gleam in its eyes. the light was blotted out, as they placed a cover over him; and he was deafened by a long and thunderous pounding. then began a time of horror in the darkness. his active mind had nothing to feed upon but fear. only too clearly was it brought to him that he did not know the ways of these creatures of toon. what was deadly fear to him might be commonplace to them. he had hoped to find them friendly, merciful--yet friendship and mercy were qualities of his own experience in a world different from theirs. why had he thought to find them here? * * * * * he had no measure of time. for endless hours he lay there in the dark, bracing himself against the sides to protect his head and body as much as possible; for the box seemed almost constantly in motion--jolting, tilting, and bumping until he was weak and breathless from the strain. his mind, worn out by its relentless self-torture, sank at last to semi-consciousness. suddenly light returned, and he was dragged roughly from his prison. he was in a large room where the combination of odor, heat, and noise was overpowering. great numbers of the men of toon were there, hurrying in all directions, seemingly very busy. he noted immediately that their clothing was different from that which he had seen, and wondered what the significance of that might be.... he felt strangely calm, now. before him was an immense, bulky man, who stood with legs apart and arms folded, staring at him with wide, unwinking eyes. this man had a face that was light red in color and rounded, almost swollen-looking in shape. he nodded, and his cheeks shook loosely. he nodded several times, and seemed very pleased. he spoke sharply; and others, standing around, sprang into action. they brought a red cloth, and tied it around the captive's loins. they forced him to crawl back and forth on the floor, while the big man looked on, nodding and chuckling. then the big man ran hot, cushion-like hands over his head and body; pried open his mouth; grasped his hand and shook it vigorously up and down; and, with a final nod, turned and walked away. he understood none of this, and was very unhappy. they placed him upon a high, draped platform, where there was a small chair and nothing else. there were a number of similar platforms in the room. it was impossible for him to maintain his previous indifference to his surroundings. around the walls of the room were long rows of barred enclosures, containing creatures of every conceivable size, shape, and color. some were hideous; some were strangely beautiful; all were absorbingly interesting. for a time, he forgot everything else while he watched them and listened to the sounds that they made. certainly, he thought, a scientist of the loten would give twenty years of his life for the opportunity to see these creatures! some of them were amazingly like reconstructions that had been made from fossilized bones found on the loten. they brought him food, which he judged must be the cooked seeds of grain. it was soft, and he forced himself to eat a little, although he was not hungry. he feared that he would have to learn to eat daily, for food concentrates seemed to be unknown here. his mind was occupied trying to understand the meaning of this place. great numbers of people were crowding into the room, now. rows of them stood around his platform. the other platforms were now occupied also. on them were beings resembling the people around them, but each one differing in some strange way from the normal. some were enormously large, some small. and he saw one which was shaped like the men of toon, yet was no taller than himself. an endless stream of people surged through the room, circulating around the platforms and cages--gazing fixedly at their occupants. he began to understand. these were exhibits--creatures strange to the crowds who came to look at them. toon was very large; and transportation methods were poorly developed. perhaps, therefore, these people had never seen many of the parts of their own globe. their staring eyes made him uncomfortable. wherever he looked they were--staring eyes and gaping mouths. he felt suddenly ashamed. he wanted to hide himself--but they would not let him do that, he knew. how long would they keep him here, he wondered? there seemed to be no limit to the crowds. this must be a great center of population.... and in a flash he had forgotten the people, with their staring eyes, forgotten his shame, forgotten his bodily discomfort.... a center of population! those words blazed in his mind. once more, he knew the joy of hope. with a sudden clear perception he realized that they could not have helped him more if they had done it consciously. he had arrived at a goal, which, a few days ago, had seemed impossible of attainment. here, if anywhere, he would find help.... he must learn the language. that was imperative.... and again his good fortune amazed him. these people were constantly talking. his position was ideal for studying their speech. from what he already knew, it was quite simple; and it should not take long to learn enough to serve his purpose. * * * * * it took longer than he had expected, mainly because the people were not there all of the time. they came only at certain periods of the day; and he soon made a surprising discovery--that they slept during a great part of every night. in fact, almost one third of their time seemed to be spent in an unconscious state. the creatures in the cages slept even more. he could see no signs of intelligence in these caged creatures. they were dumb, and were completely dominated by the men. he missed the sun badly. these people, in their dark houses and their draped bodies, did not seem to need it. often he felt quite ill, but tried not to worry about his health. at night, when alone, he practiced the sounds he had learned; and rehearsed the things he was going to say when his chance came. he passed through a sleep period; and then, on the ninth day, decided that he was ready. to the attendant who brought his food he said: "i talk." the man started violently, and gaped at him. "talk?" he repeated blankly. "yes!" the attendant looked at him uncertainly for a long time, and then walked slowly away. he was disappointed. but he was not kept waiting long. soon the man returned, accompanied by another. "blumberg wants to see you," they said. he did not understand that, and shook his head. however, they lifted him from his platform, and carried him out of the room. they took him up a long series of steps and through dark corridors, into a small room. here it was cool and light. in the center was a desk, and behind it sat the large man he had seen once before. "set him on the desk here," ordered the large man. "now, little feller--they tell me you're talking!" "i talk." "well, well, well!" said the large man jovially. "what'll we talk about?... i'm blumberg, and i run this circus.... who are you?" he understood only the last words, but they were what he was waiting for. "i am man of loten," he said carefully. "loten is world more far from heat star." "what? say that again!" "i not live in your world--in this world...." "the hell you don't." again he did not understand what the large man meant, and looked around helplessly. then he saw a writing instrument on the desk, and picked it up. blumberg pushed forward a piece of white paper. quickly he drew, in its center, a large circle with lines extending from its circumference to indicate radiation. outside it he drew four small circles at varying distances from the central one. "hey, edgar--come here!" called blumberg. a pale young man who had been sitting in a corner approached the desk, saying, "yes?" he looked pleadingly at the pale young man. he placed his fingertip on the large circle, and said, "heat star!" "sun," said the young man quickly. "sun!" he repeated gratefully. next he indicated the third little circle from the center. "this world?" he said. "earth," said the young man. "earth? this world is earth?" "yes." blumberg grumbled: "what is this--a joke?" he could not understand blumberg. eagerly he looked into the face of the pale young man, and indicated the fourth little circle. "mars," said edgar. "mars!" he cried jubilantly. he pointed his finger at himself. "i am man of mars," he said. there was silence in the room, while they both stared at him. then the big man began to laugh. his body shook, and his red cheeks jumped up and down. "so you are a martian--eh?" "yes--a martian." blumberg was still laughing. "that oughta go big in the show--huh, edgar?" he said. "yes, sir," said the young man. "if you live on mars, what're you doing here?" the martian had been expecting this question. "they send me away to earth." "why did they send you away to earth?" chapter v. blumberg promises the martian began to speak slowly, carefully. through long days and nights he had rehearsed his story, knowing he would have to tell it. the pale young man helped him often, at points where he lacked words.... he told of the scarcity of water on mars--of how there was only a little, that had to be preserved carefully. here blumberg interrupted. "how much water has this chap been drinking?" "less than a cup, sir--in almost ten days," said edgar. "the attendant was telling me ..." blumberg grunted. "go on!" he said. he told of the social order of mars--of the three great classes: the aristocrats, the scientists, and the workers. the aristocrats, he explained, were the rulers, who utilized the knowledge of the scientists and the energy of the workers to build up a state for themselves. he told how, once a year, the water rushed down the canals from the melting polar ice caps, spreading vegetation over the face of the planet, and of how quickly this precious water disappeared, evaporated by the ever-shining sun, until there was none left for the thirsty plants, and they died. thus, every year the famine was worse on mars, and more workers died. he told how he, and other scientists, had wanted to spread oil on the canals to stop evaporation, and of how the aristocrats had forbidden them to do it. he told of the plan he had conceived to control the waters at the head of the canals when the ice melted in the spring, so as to force the aristocrats to come to terms. and finally, he told of their premature discovery of his plan; of their great anger and fear; of their determination to punish him as no man had ever been punished before; of his banishment from the very world in which he lived. there was a long silence when he had finished. at last blumberg coughed, and shook himself. "that's a fine story," he grumbled, "but you left somethin' out.... what i wanta know is: how did you get _here_?" "in a space traveller," said the martian. "what's that?" carefully, laboriously, he described the space ship. with the pencil he sketched diagram after diagram, while the pale young man helped him and labeled them as he directed. the young man was becoming visibly excited. when the martian had finished, he burst out: "by god, it would--it _would_ do it!... look--" "shut up!" said blumberg. the perspiration was standing out in large beads on his forehead. "fellow," he said heavily, "if you're lying, you've got one hell of an imagination!" "you not have space travellers?" asked the martian tensely. "no.... just ships that travel in air," answered the pale young man. he heard the other's painful catch of breath, and continued quickly: "but with these diagrams it would be easy to--" "shut up, edgar.... shut up--an' get outta here!" barked the big man. the other turned, and left the room without a word. "now, look here, fellow," said blumberg, "i'm goin' to take your word for it. i'm probably crazy to believe you; but i've seen most of the funny critters of this world in my time, an' i ain't ever seen one like you. so you may come from mars, for all i know." the other looked at him eagerly, trying to understand his words. "you think i am man of lo--of mars?" "yes--that's right." the martian quivered with excitement. he held out his arms in a gesture of appeal. "you help me?..." "yes." "you help me go to mars?" blumberg looked down at the desktop, and was silent. "yes. i'll help you," said blumberg suddenly. he stood up, and patted the other softly on the head.... "sure ... you bet!" * * * * * the martian lay upon his back on a leather couch in a small room where they had taken him. his eyes were wide and shining. his hands clenched and opened convulsively. it seemed to him that he had been waiting for days. the door opened, and blumberg entered, followed by a smaller man. as the martian struggled to his knees to greet him, he spoke heartily. "hello there! think i wasn't comin'? no use being in too much of a hurry, y'know.... meet dr. smith. he's a scientist like you...." the martian nodded and smiled at them happily. dr. smith looked at him long and curiously, meanwhile automatically seating himself in a chair close to the couch. blumberg, who was pacing the room, cleared his throat. "now, look here," he said, "i'm willing to help you, but you've got to help me do it ...--" the martian understood him immediately. "yes!" he replied quickly. "yes." "good!... now, dr. smith is going to ask you questions about things we need to know. you tell him all you can." "yes ... i tell him!" dr. smith had many questions to ask, on many and diverse subjects. at first, communication between the two was very difficult; but both were highly intelligent and understanding men, and before long they became fairly successful in exchanging ideas. blumberg paced constantly about the room. occasionally he went out, but always returned quickly. the catechism went on for hours; and ended only to be resumed early the next day. and so it continued on the following day, and on the day after. the martian was puzzled. they seemed to want to know so many things! dr. smith had questioned him on every subject--mechanics, electricity, magnetism, chemistry, colloids, catalysts, transmutation of metals--everything. he feared that they were wasting time, but did not think it proper to object when they were going to so much trouble on his account. nevertheless, he could not help worrying; and that night, when the pale young man brought him his food, he asked timidly: "do they make the ship?..." the pale young man looked at the floor, biting his lips. then he went to the door, opened it, and looked out into the hall. he closed the door softly, and came near the couch. he looked straight into the martian's eyes. "there is no ship!" "no ship?" "no." the young man was flushed and angry. he spoke very fast: "that fat crook is not helping you.... but you are helping him--you bet!..." "does--does he not think--think i am the martian?..." "oh, he thinks you're a martian, all right! he knows you are. he's taking out patents already." the other shook his head uncomprehendingly. "don't you see it? where you come from they know things that they never even imagined here. you got knowledge in your head worth millions of dollars; i mean, you have facts which are of great value to blumberg. why, already you've told him to make gold out of lead--something very precious from something worthless. and a hundred other things besides. "he does not care about you; he cares about your knowledge.... do you see?" "yes." the young man's anger suddenly abated, and he glanced fearfully at the door. "i'm sorry," he said gruffly, "but somebody had to tell you. you won't get any help here!" he turned, and almost ran from the room. * * * * * the martian sat perfectly still for a long time. then he climbed down from the couch, and crawled to the door. he reached up and grasped the knob. the young man had left it unlocked, and in a moment he was in the dim hallway. he crawled along, keeping close to the wall, until he came to the top of a stairway. he felt the cool night air on his face. very slowly he lowered himself down the steps. he came to a wide door leading out into the open. seated in a chair by this doorway was a man, whistling. the martian waited patiently in the shadows until the man stood up, yawned, and strolled away. outside, there were high, dark buildings all around him. he found himself in a narrow canyon running between them. he crawled down this canyon to the right, close against the buildings. the paving beneath him was hard, and hurt his knees. but he did not stop. someone was walking towards him. he could not escape being seen. he was near a large light on a pole. he raised his hand in a gesture of greeting.... it was a woman. suddenly she saw him, and gasped. then she screamed--piercingly. the sound echoed and re-echoed between the high walls of the buildings. windows and doors banged. footsteps pounded on the pavement. soon there were many people around him. some of them were holding the woman. she hung limply in their arms. a man strode into the group, swinging a club, and speaking authoritatively: "here! what's the trouble? move on there!" he glanced at the woman. "fainted? take her to a drug store, somebody. she'll be all right.... what's this?" he grasped the martian by the arm, and raised him to the light.... "well, i'm damned!" followed by the curious crowd, he half carried, half dragged his captive along the street, around a corner, and through a lighted doorway. he slammed the door shut. "found a freak, yer honor.... scared a woman half to death! it musta got outa the 'garden'; i found it on forty-ninth street...." the man seated behind the high desk nodded, and picked up a telephone. into this he spoke in a low voice, waited, and then spoke again. finally he laid it down, and said, "he is coming over. hold on to it." he resumed his writing. the martian watched the man writing on the high desk. he thought that this man must be some person of authority--some ruler of the people, perhaps. after long and painful uncertainty, he nerved himself to speak: "please help me...." the man behind the desk looked up and smiled. "yes. that is what we are here for.... only be patient," he said, and returned to his writing. the martian remained quiet. he would not dare disturb the man again, but he kept watching him.... "good morning, your honor!" at the sound of the voice, he gave a start of surprise and fear. blumberg walked towards him, smiling. he struggled, and averted his eyes. but his captor held him tightly. blumberg patted him on the head with his large, soft hand. he trembled. "one of yours?" said the man behind the high desk. "what is the trouble with him? he seems distressed." blumberg smiled at the other, and tapped his own head three times with his fingertip. the other raised his eyebrows. "tell the judge about yourself," said blumberg softly. "he is a great man, and he can help you." the martian was surprised that blumberg would allow him to speak. he made a desperate effort: "i am a native of mars. please, i must return home. please help me.... i--" "see!" said blumberg. he was laughing. the judge nodded. "can you handle him?" he asked. "sure! they get along better with me than in--other places. i know how to treat 'em; and they make a good living." "all right," said the judge. "take him along. but don't let me catch him running around the streets again, or you might rate a fine." "don't worry! we're going on the road in a couple of days now. you won't see him again.... well, good morning to you!" "good morning!" said the judge. the martian lay, face down, on the leather couch. over him stood blumberg, breathing hard. with a light cane that he carried he struck the martian sharply on his frail back. "don't try it again, or you'll get more of that!" he said softly. the martian did not move or utter a sound until he heard the door slam. then he made his way to the table; and, grasping the edge, pulled himself erect. there was something on the table that he wanted.... the door opened softly, and the pale young man came in. "you should not have tried it," he whispered. the martian pointed to the window. over the top of a building lower than its neighbors a small, square patch of sky was visible, and in this patch a few stars twinkled faintly. "is mars there?" he asked. the young man was silent for a moment, looking at the floor and biting his lips. then: "yes," he said. "as it happens, it is. mars is the brightest of those stars, and the topmost." "thank you," said the martian. "you have been very kind to me!" the pale young man looked at him, and at the table. then he turned, without a word, and left the room. the martian did not take his eyes from the little point of light. but one of his hands reached over the table, and grasped a knife which lay there. his eyes still on loten--his home, he plunged the knife into his heart. and the little point of light, while he fixedly watched it, flickered--and died. the end. transcriber's note: this etext was produced from galaxy science fiction august . extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the u.s. copyright on this publication was renewed. stamped caution by raymond z. gallun illustrated by kossin _it's a funny thing, but most monsters seem to be of the opinion that it's men who are the monsters. you know, they have a point._ * * * * * ten minutes after the crackup, somebody phoned for the army. that meant us. the black smoke of the fire, and the oily residues, which were later analyzed, proved the presence of a probable petroleum derivative. the oil was heavily tainted with radioactivity. most likely it was fuel from the odd, conchlike reaction-motors, the exact principles of which died, as far as we were concerned, with the crash. [illustration] the craft was mainly of aluminum, magnesium and a kind of stainless steel, proving that, confronted with problems similar to ones we had encountered, aliens might solve them in similar ways. from the crumpled-up wreckage which we dug out of that missouri hillside, klein even noticed a familiar method of making girders and braces lighter. circular holes were punched out of them at spaced intervals. i kept hunting conviction by telling myself that, for the first time in all remembered history, we were peeking behind the veil of another planet. this should be the beginning of a new era, one of immensely widened horizons, and of high romance--but with a dark side, too. the sky was no longer a limit. there were things beyond it that would have to be reckoned with. and how does unknown meet unknown? suppose one has no hand to shake? the mass of that wreck reeked like a hot cinder-pile and a burning garbage dump combined. it oozed blackened goo. there were crushed pieces of calcined material that looked like cuttlebone. the thin plates of charred stuff might almost have been pressed cardboard. foot-long tubes of thin, tin-coated iron contained combined chemicals identifiable as proteins, carbohydrates and fats. food, we decided. * * * * * naturally, we figured that here was a wonderful clue to the plant and animal life of another world. take a can of ordinary beef goulash; you can see the fibrous muscle and fat structure of the meat, and the cellular components of the vegetables. and here it was true, too, to a lesser degree. there were thin flakes and small, segmented cylinders which must have been parts of plants. but most was a homogeneous mush like gelatin. evidently there had been three occupants of the craft. but the crash and the fire had almost destroyed their forms. craig, our biologist, made careful slides of the remains, tagging this as horny epidermis, this as nerve or brain tissue, this as skeletal substance, and this as muscle from a tactile member--the original had been as thin as spaghetti, and dark-blooded. under the microscope, muscle cells proved to be very long and thin. nerve cells were large and extremely complex. yet you could say that nature, starting from scratch in another place, and working through other and perhaps more numerous millions of years, had arrived at somewhat the same results as it had achieved on earth. i wonder how an other-world entity, ignorant of humans, would explain a shaving-kit or a lipstick. probably for like reasons, much of the stuff mashed into that wreck had to remain incomprehensible to us. wrenches and screwdrivers, however, we could make sense of, even though the grips of those tools were not _hand_-grips. we saw screws and bolts, too. one device we found had been a simple crystal diaphragm with metal details--a radio. there were also queer rifles. lord knows how many people have wondered what the extraterrestrial equivalents of common human devices would look like. well, here were some answers. a few of the instruments even had dials with pointers. and the numeral _ _ used on them was a vertical bar, almost like our own. but zero was a plus sign. and they counted by twelves, not tens. but all these parallels with our own culture seemed canceled by the fact that, even when this ship was in its original undamaged state, no man could have gotten inside it. the difficulty was less a matter of human size than of shape and physical behavior. the craft seemed to have been circular, with compartmentation in spiral form, like a chambered nautilus. * * * * * this complete divergence from things we knew sent frost imps racing up and down my spine. and it prompted blaine to say: "i suppose that emotions, drives, and purposes among off-earth intelligences must be utterly inconceivable to us." we were assembled in the big trailer that had been brought out for us to live in, while we made a preliminary survey of the wreck. "only about halfway, blaine," miller answered. "granting that the life-chemistry of those intelligences is the same as ours--the need for food creates the drive of hunger. awareness of death is balanced by the urge to avoid it. there you have fear and combativeness. and is it so hard to tack on the drives of curiosity, invention, and ambition, especially when you know that these beings made a spaceship? cast an intelligence in any outward form, anywhere, it ought to come out much the same. still, there are bound to be wide differences of detail--with wide variations of viewpoint. they could be horrible to us. and most likely it's mutual." i felt that miller was right. the duplication of a human race on other worlds by another chain of evolution was highly improbable. and to suppose that we might get along with other entities on a human basis seemed pitifully naive. with all our scientific thoroughness, when it came to examining, photographing and recording everything in the wreck, there was no better evidence of the clumsy way we were investigating unknown things than the fact that at first we neglected our supreme find almost entirely. it was a round lump of dried red mud, the size of a soft baseball. when craig finally did get around to x-raying it, indications of a less dense interior and feathery markings suggesting a soft bone structure showed up on the plate. not entirely sure that it was the right thing to do, he opened the shell carefully. think of an artichoke ... but not a vegetable. dusky pink, with thin, translucent mouth-flaps moving feebly. the blood in the tiny arteries was very red--rich in hemoglobin, for a rare atmosphere. as a youngster, i had once opened a chicken egg, when it was ten days short of hatching. the memory came back now. "it looks like a growing embryo of some kind," klein stated. "close the lump again, craig," miller ordered softly. the biologist obeyed. "a highly intelligent race of beings wouldn't encase their developing young in mud, would they?" klein almost whispered. "you're judging by a human esthetic standard," craig offered. "actually, mud can be as sterile as the cleanest surgical gauze." * * * * * the discussion was developing unspoken and shadowy ramifications. the thing in the dusty red lump--whether the young of a dominant species, or merely a lower animal--had been born, hatched, started in life probably during the weeks or months of a vast space journey. nobody would know anything about its true nature until, and if, it manifested itself. and we had no idea of what that manifestation might be. the creature might emerge an infant or an adult. friendly or malevolent. or even deadly. blaine shrugged. something scared and half-savage showed in his face. "what'll we do with the thing?" he asked. "keep it safe and see what happens. yet it might be best to get rid of it fast--with chloroform, cyanide or the back of a shovel." miller's smile was very gentle. "could be you're right, blaine." i'd never known miller to pull rank on any of the bunch. only deliberate thought would remind us that he was a colonel. but he wasn't really a military man; he was a scientist whom the army had called in to keep a finger on a possibility that they had long known might be realized. yes--space travel. and miller was the right guy for the job. he had the dream even in the wrinkles around his deep-set gray eyes. blaine wasn't the right guy. he was a fine technician, good at machinery, radar--anything of the sort. and a nice fellow. maybe he'd just blown off steam--uncertainty, tension. i knew that no paper relating to him would be marked, "psychologically unsuited for task in hand." but i knew just as surely that he would be quietly transferred. in a big thing like this, miller would surround himself only with men who saw things his way. that night we moved everything to our labs on the outskirts of st. louis. every particle of that extraterrestrial wreck had been packed and crated with utmost care. klein and craig went to work to build a special refuge for that mud lump and what was in it. they were top men. but i had got tied up with miller more or less by chance, and i figured i'd be replaced by an expert. i can say that i was a college man, but that's nothing. i guess you can't give up participation in high romance without some regret. yet i wasn't too sorry. i liked things the way they'd always been. my beer. my saturday night dates with alice. on the job, the atmosphere was getting a bit too rich and futuristic. * * * * * later that evening, miller drew me aside. "you've handled carrier pigeons and you've trained dogs, nolan," he said. "you were good at both." "here i go, back to the farm-yard." "in a way. but you expand your operations, nolan. you specialize as nurse for a piece of off-the-earth animal life." "look, miller," i pointed out. "ten thousand professors are a million times better qualified, and rarin' to go." "they're liable to _think_ they're well qualified, when no man could be--yet. that's bad, nolan. the one who does it has to be humble enough to be wary--ready for whatever _might_ happen. i think a knack with animals might help. that's the best i can do, nolan." "thanks, miller." i felt proud--and a little like a damn fool. "i haven't finished talking yet," miller said. "we know that real contact between our kind and the inhabitants of another world can't be far off. either they'll send another ship or we'll build one on earth. i like the idea, nolan, but it also scares the hell out of me. men have had plenty of trouble with other ethnic groups of their own species, through prejudice, misunderstanding, honest suspicion. how will it be at the first critical meeting of two kinds of things that will look like hallucinations to each other? i suspect an awful and inevitable feeling of separateness that nothing can bridge--except maybe an impulse to do murder. "it could be a real menace. but it doesn't have to be. so we've got to find out what we're up against, if we can. we've got to prepare and scheme. otherwise, even if intentions on that other world are okay, there's liable to be an incident at that first meeting that can spoil a contact across space for all time, and make interplanetary travel not the success it ought to be, but a constant danger. so do you see our main objective, nolan?" i told miller that i understood. that same night, klein and craig put the lump of mud in a small glass case from which two-thirds of the air had been exhausted. the remainder was kept dehydrated and chilled. it was guess work, backed up by evidence: the rusty red of that mud; the high hemoglobin content of the alien blood we had seen; the dead-air cells--resistant to cold--in the shreds of rough skin that we had examined. and then there was the fair proximity of mars and earth in their orbits at the time. my job didn't really begin till the following evening, when craig and klein had completed a much larger glass cage, to which my outlandish--or, rather, outworldish--ward was transferred. miller provided me with a wire-braced, airtight costume and oxygen helmet, the kind fliers use at extreme altitudes. okay, call it a spacesuit. he also gave me a small tear-gas pistol, an automatic, and a knife. all there was to pit such armament against was a seemingly helpless lump of protoplasm, two inches in diameter. still, here was an illustration of how cautiously you are prompted to treat so unknown a quantity. you are unable to gauge its powers, or lack of them, for you have nothing on which to base a judgment. i became like a monk--my pressure armor was my robe; the chilly semi-vacuum inside that glass cage, my cell. nights out with alice were going to be far between. * * * * * on the third evening, that lump of mud, resting in dried-out soil similar to itself, split along the line where craig had originally cut it. out onto the cage floor crept what the records designated as _e.t.l._--extra-terrestrial-life. it was finished with the mud shell that had enabled it to survive a crash and fire. craig, klein, miller and a lot of news reporters stared into the glass cage from outside. there was nothing for me to do just then except watch that tiny monster, and try to read, in its every clumsy, dragging movement, some fragmentary unveiling of many riddles. although it might have shrunk a bit since i had last seen it, it looked more complete. the dusky pink of its wrinkled integument was darker. it had dozens of short tendrils, hardly thicker than horsehair, with which it pulled itself along. it had lost some leaflike pieces of skin. laterally, two eyes gleamed, clear and slit-pupiled. its jaws, hinged on a horizontal plane, opened and closed between fleshy flaps. through the thin plastic of my oxygen helmet, i heard a querulous "chip-chip-chip," which reminded me of the squeaking of an infant bat. the e.t.l. crept in a small looping course on the cage floor, back to one half of the mud shell that had encased it. it tried to mount this, perhaps to gain a vantage point for better observation. but it fell and turned over. its ventral surface was ceiling-ward; its tendrils writhed furiously as it tried to right itself. i thought of a horseshoe crab, stranded on its back and kicking helplessly. but this thing's form and movement were even more alien. after a moment, i followed an impulse which was part duty to my job and part pity. i tipped the little horror back on its bottom, glad that there was a glove between me and it. then i did the same thing i would do with a pet puppy or kitten. i set a dish of food--chemically prepared to duplicate the contents of the tubes we had found in the wreck--right down in front of the e.t.l. it fumbled at the stuff and, possibly because of a gravity two-and-a-half times as great as it was made for, it almost got itself stuck in the mess. but it freed itself. its mouth-flaps began to make lapping movements as it sucked the nourishment. i felt prematurely relieved. this was no potentially dominant wizard in a strange body, i told myself. this was pure animal. over my helmet radiophone--there was a mike outside the cage, so they could communicate with me when i was inside--i heard miller say to the reporters: "the feeding instinct. they've got it, too. now we know for sure...." * * * * * i think that the e.t.l. had colic from that first meal, though, like any half-smart puppy trainer, i tried not to let it eat too much. it writhed for a while, as if in pain. and i was on pins. how was i supposed to know just what was best to feed the thing, so it would survive? everything was guesswork, varying formulas cautiously, groping. and it wasn't only the food. there was the searching for the temperature, the air-pressure and the degree of dryness at which the e.t.l. seemed most comfortable. and there was also the fiddling around with light-composition and intensities, variable in the sun lamps, to find what seemed best. we seemed to have figured things out right--or else the monster was just rugged. it shed several skins, thrived and grew active. its size increased steadily. and other things began to grow in that cage. odd, hard-shelled, bluish-green weeds; lichenous patches, dry as dust; invisible, un-earthly bacteria--all were harmless, possibly even beneficial, to my charge. how did all this stuff come into being? miller and craig had examined the dried clay of the e.t.l.'s discarded casing with microscopes. they scraped dust from every fragment of the wreck that hadn't been blasted too much with fire, and made cultures. they were looking for spores and seeds and microbes. and it wasn't long before they had classified quite a list of other-world biological forms. the most common of these they transplanted into the cage. often i even slept inside the cage, clad in my armor. that's devotion to a purpose for you. in a way, it was like living on a little piece of mars. often enough i was bored stiff. but plenty did happen. from the start etl--we began calling the thing that--showed an almost electrically intense curiosity for everything. some of the habits of its kind were written in its instincts. it basked in strong light, but it liked dark corners, too. at night--when we turned the sun lamps off, that is--it would bury itself in the dusty soil. protection against nocturnal cold might have been the reason for that. * * * * * when he was a month and two days out of his clay shell, etl tried to rear up vertically on his tendrils. he kept toppling over. maybe he was trying to "walk." but there were no bones in those tendrils and, of course, the strong earth gravity defeated him. lots of times i tried to see what he could do. a real scientist would call this "making tests." i just called it fooling around. i made him climb a stool for his food. he seemed to make a careful survey first, eying each rung; then he drew himself up in one motion. during one of my rare nights in town--to get a refresher from outlandish stuff in alice's company--i bought some toys. when i came back to relieve craig, who had taken care of etl during my absence, i said: "etl, here's a rubber ball. let's play." he caught it on the second try, in those swift, dextrous tendrils. there was a savagery in the way he did it. i thought of a dog snapping a bumblebee out of the air. yet my idea that etl was just an animal had almost vanished by then. i got into the habit of talking to him the way you do to a pup. sort of crooning. "good fella, etl. smart. you learn fast, don't you?" stuff like that. and i'd coax him to climb up the front of my spacesuit. there were fine, barb-like prongs along the length of his many tentacles; i could feel them pulling in the tough, rubberized fabric, like the claws of a climbing kitten. and he would make a kind of contented chirping that might have had affection in it. but then there was the time when he bit me. i don't know the reason, unless it was that i had held onto his ball too long. he got my finger, through the glove, with his snaggy, chalk-hued mandibles, while he made a thin hissing noise. pretty soon my hand swelled up to twice its size, and i felt sick. klein had to relieve me in the cage for a while. the bite turned out to be mildly venomous. before that, i'd had a rash on my arms. an allergy, probably; maybe some substance from those martian plants had gotten inside my spacesuit and rubbed onto my skin. who knows? perhaps earthly flesh can sense alien life, and reddens to fight it off. and there you have one of the potential disadvantages of contact with unknown worlds. * * * * * that poisoned bite was one thing. but etl's show of rage was another--a sign of the mixed nature of all his kind, emerging a bit from the shadows of enigma. here revealed was the emotion on which things like murder are based. these creatures had it, just as we did. maybe it's necessary for any kind of thing that can progress upward from nothing. still, people did not find it reassuring when they heard about it on the newscast. after that, popular opinion insisted that the cage be constantly surrounded by four manned machine-guns pointing inward. and tanks of cyanogen were so arranged that the poison gas could be sent gushing into the cage at any time. part of my mind felt these precautions were completely exaggerated. there is a certain, ever-present segment of any public, whose jittery imagination is a constant fuse-cap for panic. such cowardice angered me. but the rest of me went along with miller when he said: "we're in the dark, nolan. for all we know, we might be up against very swift maturity and inherited memory. and we've got to go on testing etl ... with toys, psychological apparatus and tools and devices made by his own people. suppose he 'remembers' skills from his ancestors, and can build dangerous new devices, or make old ones work again? if his kind are bent on being enemies, we'd better find it out as soon as possible, too, hadn't we? no, i don't truly expect any serious developments, nolan. still--just for insurance--eh?" * * * * * a year passed without great mishap--unless i should mention that alice and i got married. but it didn't spoil anything, and it raised my morale. we got a bungalow right on the lab grounds. a lot had been accomplished, otherwise. once i let etl play with my gun, minus cartridges. he was avidly interested; but he paid no attention to the hopalong cap pistol that i left in its place when i took the gun back. he figured out how to grip simple martian tools, threading his tactile members through the holes in their handles; but complicated devices of the same origin seemed more of a puzzle to him than to the rest of us. so our inherited-memory idea faded out. etl liked to work with those slender tendrils of his. the dexterity and speed with which he soon learned to build many things with a construction set seemed to prove a race background of perhaps ages of such activities. i made a tower or a bridge, while he watched. then he was ready to try it on his own, using screwdrivers that klein had made with special grips. of course we tried dozens of intelligence tests on etl, mostly of the puzzle variety, like fitting odd-shaped pieces of plastic together to form a sphere or a cube. he was hard to rate on any common human i.q. scale. even for an earthian, an i.q. rating is pretty much of a makeshift proposition. there are too many scattered factors that can't be touched. with etl, it was even tougher. but at the end of that first year miller had him pegged at about , judging him on the same basis as a five-year-old child. this score scared people a lot, because it seemed to hint at a race of super-beings. but miller wasn't jumping to conclusions. he pointed out to the reporters that etl's kind seemed to grow up very rapidly; was only twenty points above the norm--not uncommon among earth youngsters, especially those from more gifted families. etl seemed to have sprung from corresponding parentage, he said, for it seemed clear that they had been of the kind that does big things. they'd made a pioneering voyage across space, hadn't they? * * * * * etl could make chirps and squeaks and weird animal cries. human speech, however, was beyond his vocal powers, though i knew that he could understand simple orders. he had a large tympanic membrane or "ear" on his ventral surface. of course we wondered how his kind communicated with one another. the way he groped at my fingers with certain of his tentacles gave us a clue. there were tiny, nerve-like threads at their extremities. seeing them prompted miller to do something as brave as it was foolhardy. he called in a surgeon and had a nerve in his arm bared. it must have hurt like the devil, but he let etl clutch it with those thread-like members. i was cockeyed enough to follow miller's example and found out how much it really hurt. the idea was to establish a nerve channel, brain to brain, along which thoughts might pass. but nothing came through except a vague and restless questioning, mixed with the pain of our experiment. "it doesn't work with us, nolan," miller said regretfully. "our nervous systems aren't hooked up right for this sort of stunt, or etl's nerve cells are too different from ours." so we had to fall back on simpler methods of communication with etl. we tried teaching him sign language, but it didn't work too well, because tentacles aren't hands. klein's inventive ability, plus some pointers from me about how etl used his tendrils, finally solved the problem. klein made a cylindrical apparatus with a tonal buzzer, operated by electricity, at one end. it had dozens of stops and controls, their grips in the shape of tiny metal rings, along the sides of the cylinder. first i had to learn a little about how to work that instrument with my big fingers. the trick was to mold the sounds of the buzzer, as human lips and tongue mold and shape tones of the vocal cords, so that they became syllables and words. "hell-oh-g-g-et-t-l-l.... chee-s-s-ee-whad-d i-ee got-t?" it was tougher for me than learning to play a saxophone is for a boy of ten. and the noises were almost as bad. i turned the apparatus over to etl as soon as i could. let him figure out how to use it. i'd just give him the words, the ideas. of course he had to get educated, learn his cat, dog and rat, and his arithmetic, the same as a human kid, even if he was from another world. in a way, it was the law. you can't let a youngster, capable of learning, stay home from school. and i was etl's tutor. i thought what a crazy situation we had here; an entity from one planet being brought up on another, without any real knowledge of his own folks, and unable to be very close to those entities by whom he was being reared. it was strange and sad and a little comic. for a while i thought i had a stammering parrot on my hands: "hel-l-l-l-o ... hell-oh-g-o ... n-n-ol-l-an-n-n ... hell-lo-oh." etl never lost that habit of repetition. but he made progress in his studies. "one, two, t'ree, fo', fibe, siss ... one time one ee one, toot time one ee two...." picture it the way it was--i, clad in a spacesuit, crouching beside etl in the cold, thin air inside that cage, tracing numbers and words in the dusty soil on the floor, while he read aloud with his voice tube or copied my words and figures with a sharp stick. outside the transparent cage, the television cameras would be watching. and i would think that maybe in a way etl was like tarzan, being raised by apes. * * * * * four more years went by. i had offspring of my own. patty and ron. good-looking, lovable brats. but etl was my job--and maybe a little more than that. at the end of two years, he stopped growing. he weighed fifty-two pounds and he was the ugliest-looking, elongated, gray-pink, leathery ovoid that you could imagine. but with his voice tube clutched in his tendrils, he could talk like a man. he could take the finest watch, apart, repair and clean it in jig-time--and this was just one skill among scores. toward the end of the four years, a professor jonas was coming in regularly and getting into a spacesuit to give him lessons in physics, chemistry, college math, astronomy and biology. etl was having his troubles with calculus. and etl could at least ape the outward aspects of the thoughts and feelings of men. there were things he said to me that were characteristic, though they came out of apparent sullenness that, for all i knew, had seeds of murder in it: "you're my pal, nolan. sort of my uncle. i won't say my father; you wouldn't like that." nice, embarrassing sentiment, on the surface. maybe it was just cool mimicry--a keen mind adding up human ways from observation of me and my kids, and making up something that sounded the same, without being the same at all. yet somehow i hoped that etl was sincere. almost from the building of the cage, of course, we'd kept photographs and drawings of mars inside for etl to see. hundreds of times i had said to him things like: "it's a ninety-nine and ninety-nine hundredths per cent probability that your race lives on that world, etl. before the ship that brought you crashed on earth, we weren't at all sure that it was inhabited, and it's still an awful mystery. i guess maybe you'll want to go there. maybe you'll help us make contact and establish amicable relations with the inhabitants--if there's any way we can do that." during those five years, no more ships came to earth from space, as far as we knew. i guessed that the martians understood how supremely hard it would be to make friendly contact between the peoples of two worlds that had always been separate. there was difference of form, and certainly difference of esthetic concepts. of custom, nothing could be the same. we didn't have even an inkling of what the martian civilization would be like. * * * * * one thing happened during the third year of etl's existence. and his presence on earth was responsible. enough serious interest in space travel was built up to overcome the human inertia that had counteracted the long-standing knowledge that such things were possible. a hydrogen-fusion reaction motor was built into a rocket, which was then hurled to the moon. miller went along, ostensibly to help establish the first army experimental station there, but mostly to acquire the practical experience for a far longer leap. in a way, i wished i could have gone, too; but, after all, the shadows in etl's background were far more intriguing than the dead and airless craters and plains of the lunar surface. before miller and the other moon-voyagers even returned, detroit was busy forging, casting and machining the parts for a better, larger and much longer-range rocket, to be assembled in white sands, new mexico. when miller got back, he was too eager and busy to say much about the moon. for the next two and a half years, he was mostly out in white sands. but during the first of our now infrequent meetings, he said to craig and klein and me: "when i go out to mars, i'd like to keep my old bunch as crew. i need men i'm used to working with, those who understand the problems we're up against. i have a plan that makes sense. the trouble is, to join this expedition, a man has to be part damn-fool." klein chuckled. "i'll sell you some of mine." i just nodded my way in. i'd never thought of backing out. craig grabbed miller's hand and shook it. miller gave etl a chance to say no. "you can stay on earth if you want to, etl." but the creature said: "i have lived all my life with the idea of going, miller. thank you." * * * * * miller briefed us about his plan. then he, klein, craig and i all took a lot of psych tests--trick questioning and so forth to reveal defects of conviction and control. but we were all pretty well indoctrinated and steady. etl had taken so many tests already that, if there were any flaws still hidden in him, they would probably never be found. mars and earth were approaching closer to each other again in their orbital positions. a month before takeoff time, craig, klein and i took etl, in a small air-conditioned cage, to white sands. the ship towered there, silvery, already completed. we knew its structure and the function of its machinery intimately from study of its blueprints. but our acquaintance with it had to be actual, too. so we went over it again and again, under miller's tutelage. miller wrote a last message, to be handed to the newscast boys after our departure: "_if by martian action, we fail to return, don't blame the martians too quickly, because there is a difference and a doubt. contact between worlds is worth more than the poison of a grudge...._" i said good-by to alice and the kids, who had come out to see me off. i felt pretty punk. maybe i was a stinker, going off like that. but, on the other hand, that wasn't entirely the right way to look at things, because patty's and ron's faces fairly glowed with pride for their pa. the tough part, then, was for alice, who knew what it was all about. yet she looked proud, too. and she didn't go damp. "if it weren't for the kids, i'd be trying to go along, louie," she told me. "take care of yourself." she knew that a guy has to do what's in his heart. i think that the basic and initial motive of exploration is that richest of human commodities--high romance. the metallic ores and other commercial stuff that get involved later are only cheap by-products. to make the dream of space travel a reality was one of our purposes. but to try to forestall the danger behind it was at least as important. * * * * * we blasted off in a rush of fire that must have knocked down some self-operating television cameras. we endured the strangling thrust of acceleration, and then the weightlessness of just coasting on our built-up velocity. we saw the stars and the black sky of space. we saw the earth dwindle away behind us. but the journey itself, though it lasted ninety days, was no real adventure--comparatively speaking. there was nothing unpredictable in it. space conditions were known. we even knew about the tension of nostalgia. but we understood, too, the mental attitudes that could lessen the strain. crossing space to another world under the tremendous power of atomic fusion, and under the precise guidance of mathematics and piloting devices, reduces the process almost to a formula. if things go right, you get where you're going; if not, there isn't much you can do. anyway, we had the feeling that the technical side of interplanetary travel was the simplest part. there is a marking near the martian equator shaped like the funnel of a gigantic tornado. it is the red planet's most conspicuous feature and it includes probably the least arid territory of a cold, arid world. syrtis major, it is called. astronomers had always supposed it to be an ancient sea-bottom. that was where our piloting devices were set to take us. over it, our retarding fore-jets blazed for the last time. our retractable wings slid from their sockets and took hold of the thin atmosphere with a thump and a soft rustle. on great rubber-tired wheels, our ship--horizontal now, like a plane--landed in a broad valley that must have been cleared of boulders by martian engineers countless ages before. our craft stopped rumbling. we peered from the windows of our cabin, saw the deep blue of the sky and the smaller but brilliant sun. we saw little dusty whirlwinds, carven monoliths that were weathering away, strange blue-green vegetation, some of which we could recognize. to the east, a metal tower glinted. and a mile beyond it there was a tremendous flat structure. an expanse of glassy roof shone. what might have been a highway curved like a white ribbon into the distance. the scene was quiet, beautiful and sad. you could feel that here maybe a hundred civilizations had risen, and had sunk back into the dust. mars was no older than the earth; but it was smaller, had cooled faster and must have borne life sooner. perhaps some of those earlier cultures had achieved space travel. but, if so, it had been forgotten until recent years. very soon now its result would be tested. the meeting of alien entity with alien entity was at hand. i looked at etl, still in his air-conditioned cage. his stalked eyes had a glow and they swayed nervously. here was the home-planet that he had never seen. was he eager or frightened, or both? his education and experience were earthly. he knew no more of mars than we did. yet, now that he was here and probably at home, did difference of physical structure and emotion make him feel that the rest of us were enemies, forever too different for friendly contact? my hide began to pucker. * * * * * high in the sky, some kind of aircraft glistened. on the distant turnpike there were the shining specks of vehicles that vanished from sight behind a ridge shaggy with vegetation. miller had a tight, nervous smile. "remember, men," he said. "passivity. three men can't afford to get into a fight with a whole planet." we put on spacesuits, which we'd need if someone damaged our rocket. it had been known for years that martian air was too thin and far too poor in oxygen for human lungs. even etl, in his cage, had an oxygen mask that klein had made for him. we had provided him with this because the martian atmosphere, drifting away through the ages, might be even leaner than the mixture we'd given etl on earth. that had been based on spectroscopic analyses at to million miles' distance, which isn't close enough for any certainty. now all we could do was wait and see what would happen. i know that some jerks, trying to make contact with the inhabitants of an unknown world, would just barge in and take over. maybe they'd wave a few times and grin. if instead of being met like brothers, they were shot at, they'd be inclined to start shooting. if they got out alive, their hatred would be everlasting. we had more sense. yet _passivity_ was a word that i didn't entirely like. it sounded spineless. the art of balancing naive trust exactly against hard cynicism, to try to produce something that makes a little sense, isn't always easy. though we knew something of martians, we didn't know nearly enough. our plan might be wrong; we might turn out to be dead idiots in a short time. still, it was the best thing that we could think of. the afternoon wore on. with the dropping temperature, a cold pearly haze began to form around the horizon. the landscape around us was too quiet. and there was plenty of vegetation at hand to provide cover. maybe it had been a mistake to land here. but we couldn't see that an arid place would be any good either. we had needed to come to a region that was probably inhabited. we saw a martian only once--scampering across an open glade, holding himself high on his stiffened tentacles. here, where the gravity was only thirty-eight percent of the terrestrial, that was possible. it lessened the eeriness a lot to know beforehand what a martian looked like. he looked like etl. * * * * * later, something pinged savagely against the flank of our rocket. so there were trigger-happy individuals here, too. but i remembered how, on earth, etl's cage had been surrounded by machine-guns and cyanogen tanks, rigged to kill him quickly if it became necessary. that hadn't been malice, only sensible precaution against the unpredictable. and wasn't our being surrounded by weapons here only the same thing, from another viewpoint? yet it didn't feel pleasant, sensible or not. there were no more shots for half an hour. but our tension mounted with the waiting. finally klein said through his helmet phone: "maybe etl ought to go out and scout around now." etl was naturally the only one of us who had much chance for success. "go only if you really want to, etl," miller said. "it could be dangerous even for you." but etl had already put on his oxygen mask. air hissed into his cage from the greater pressure outside as he turned a valve. then he unlatched the cage-door. he wouldn't be harmed by the brief exposure to atmosphere of earth-density while he moved to our rocket's airlock. now he was getting around high on his tendrils. like a true martian. he left his specially built pistol behind, according to plan. we had weapons, but we didn't mean to use them unless everything went dead wrong. etl's tendrils touched the dusty surface of mars. a minute later, he disappeared behind some scrub growths. then, for ten minutes, the pendant silence was heavy. it was broken by the sound of a shot, coming back to us thinly through the rarefied air. "maybe they got him," craig said anxiously. nobody answered. i thought of an old story i'd read about a boy being brought up by wolves. his ways were so like an animal's that hunters had shot him. he had come back to civilization dead. perhaps there was no other way. by sundown, etl had not returned. so three things seemed possible: he had been murdered. he had been captured. or else he had deserted to his own kind. i began to wonder. what if we were complete fools? what if there were more than differences of body and background, plus the dread of newness, between earthmen and martians, preventing their friendship? what if martians were basically malevolent? but speculation was useless now. we were committed to a line of action. we had to follow it through. we ate a meager supper. the brief dusk changed to a night blazing with frigid stars. but the darkness on the ground remained until the jagged lump of light that was phobos, the nearer moon, arose out of the west. then we saw two shapes rushing toward our ship to find cover closer to it. as they hid themselves behind a clump of cactiform shrubs, i had only the memory of how i had seen them for a moment, their odd masks and accoutrements glinting, their supporting tendrils looking like tattered rags come alive in the dim moonlight. * * * * * we'd turned the light out in our cabin, so we couldn't be seen through the windows. but now we heard soft, scraping sounds against the outer skin of our rocket. probably they meant that the martians were trying to get in. i began to sweat all over, because i knew what miller meant to do. here was a situation that we had visualized beforehand. "we could shut them out till dawn, miller," i whispered hoarsely. "we'd all feel better if the meeting took place in day-light. and there'd be less chance of things going wrong." but miller said, "we can't tell what they'd be doing in the dark meanwhile, nolan. maybe fixing to blow us up. so we'd better get this thing over with now." i knew he was right. active resistance to the martians could never save us, if they intended to destroy us. we might have taken the rocket off the ground like a plane, seeking safety in the upper air for a while, if we could get it launched that way from the rough terrain. but using our jets might kill some of the martians just outside. they could interpret it as a hostile act. we didn't matter much, except to ourselves. and our primary objective was to make friendly contact with the beings of this planet, without friction, if it could be done. if we failed, space travel might become a genuine menace to earth. at miller's order, craig turned on our cabin lights. miller pressed the controls of our ship's airlock. while its outer valve remained wide, the inner valve unsealed itself and swung slowly toward us. our air whooshed out. the opening of that inner valve meant we were letting horror in. we kept out of line of possible fire through the open door. our idea was to control our instinctive reactions to strangeness, to remain passive, giving the martians a chance to get over their own probable terror of us by finding out that we meant no harm. otherwise we might be murdering each other. the long wait was agony. in spite of the dehumidifying unit of my spacesuit, i could feel the sweat from my body collecting in puddles in the bottoms of my boots. a dozen times there were soft rustles and scrapes at the airlock; then sounds of hurried retreat. but at last a mass of gray-pink tendrils intruded over the threshold. and we saw the stalked eyes, faintly luminous in the shadowy interior of the lock. grotesquely up-ended on its tentacles, the monster seemed to flow into the cabin. over its mouth-palps was the cup of what must have been its oxygen mask. what was clearly the muzzle of some kind of pistol, smoothly machined, was held ready by a mass of tendrils that suggested gorgon hair. behind the first monster was a second, similarly armed. behind him was a third. after that i lost count, as the horde, impelled by fear to grab control in one savage rush, spilled into the cabin with a dry-leaf rustle. * * * * * all my instincts urged me to yank my automatic out of my belt and let go at that flood of horror. yes, that was in me, although i'd been in intimate association with etl for four years. psychologists say that no will power could keep a man's reflexes from withdrawing his hand from a hot stove for very long. and going for my gun seemed almost a reflex action. there was plenty of sound logic to back up the urge to shoot. in the presence of the unfathomable, how could you replace the tried defenses of instinct with intellectual ideas of good will? [illustration] on the other hand, to shoot now would be suicide and ruin our hopes, besides. so maybe there'd have to be human sacrifices to faith between the planets. if we succeeded in following the plan, our faith would be proven either right or wrong. if we didn't act passively, the failure would be partly our fault. in any case, if we didn't get back to earth, hatred and fear of the martians would inevitably arise there, whether it had been the martians' fault or ours. the message that miller had left for newscast might only give people the self-righteous attitude that earthly intentions had been good. if another expedition ever came to mars, it might shoot any inhabitants on sight, and maybe get wiped out itself. still, how could we know that the martians weren't preparing the kind of invasion of earth that has been imagined so often? it was a corny notion, but the basis for it remained sound. mars was a dying world. couldn't the martians still want a new planet to move to? all these old thoughts popped back into my head during that very bad moment. and if i was almost going for my pistol, how much worse was it for craig, klein and miller, who hadn't been as friendly with etl as i had been? maybe we should have put our weapons out of our own reach, in preparation for this incident. then there would have been no danger of our using them. but any freedom of action was swiftly wrested from us. the martians rolled over us in a wave. thousands of dark tendrils with fine, sawlike spines latched onto our bodies. i was glad that i wore a spacesuit, as much from the revulsion i felt at a direct contact as for the small protection it gave against injury. * * * * * i am sure that there was panic behind that wild martian rush. to get us pinned down and helpless quickly, they drove themselves in spite of their own fear of the horrid human forms. for did i feel a tremor in those tendrils, a tendency to recoil from me? i was trembling and sweating. still, my impressions were vivid. those monsters held us down as if they were malay beaters holding down trapped pythons. maybe they had known beforehand what men looked like--from previous, secret expeditions to earth. just as we had known about martians from etl. but it wouldn't have made any difference. or perhaps they weren't even aware that we were from the neighboring planet. but it would be obvious that we were from another world; nothing from their own planet could be so strange. our own reactions to the situation differed a little. craig gasped curses through his helmet phones. miller said, "easy, men! easy!" it was as if he were trying to build up his own morale, too. i couldn't utter a sound. it wasn't hard for our captors to recognize our weapons. we were disarmed. they carried us out into the night and around a hill. we were piled onto a flat metallic surface. a vehicle under us began to throb and move; you could have called it a truck. the nature of its mechanism was hinted at only by a small, frosty wisp of steam or vapor up front. perhaps it came from a leak. the martians continued to hold us down as savagely as ever. now and then a pair of them would join the nerve-ends of tendrils, perhaps to converse. others would chirp or hoot for no reason that i could understand. the highway rolled away behind us, under the light of phobos. buildings passed, vague as buildings along a road usually are at night. it was the same with the clumps of vegetation. lights, which might have been electrical, flashed into my eyes and passed by. in a deep valley through which we moved in part of our short trip, a dense, stratified fog arose between the lights and me. i noticed with an odd detachment that the fog was composed of minute ice crystals, which glinted in the glow of the strange lamps. i tried to remember our course. i knew that it was generally east. off in the night there were clangings and hisses that might have been factory noises. once miller asked, "is everybody okay?" klein's and craig's responses were gruff and unsteady in the phones. "sure...." "more or less--if heart-failure doesn't get me." "i guess our skins are still intact," i said. we didn't talk after that. * * * * * at last we entered a long, downward-slanting tunnel, full of soft luminescence that seemed to come out of the white-tiled walls themselves. my attention grew a little vague. it could be that my mind turned in on itself, like a turtle drawing in its head for protection. in that state of semiconsciousness, i experienced a phantasm. i imagined i was a helpless grub being dragged down into the depths of an ant-hill. but such a grub belongs in an ant-hill a lot more than a man belonged where i was going. this became plainer when the large tunnel ended, and we were dragged and carried along winding burrows, never more than three feet in diameter. mostly they were tiled, but often their walls were of bare rock or soil. twice we passed through air-locks. i couldn't describe too much of what i saw or the noises i heard in those warrens. in one place, incandescence glowed and wheels turned. in a great low-ceilinged chamber full of artificial sun-rays there was a garden with strange blooms. the architecture of the city was not altogether utilitarian and it was not unpleasing. i saw a lot more. but my mind was somewhat fuzzy, probably from shock and fatigue. i know we traversed another chamber, where trays full of round lumps of soil were set in frames. a martian nursery, no doubt. some minutes later, my companions and i were left in a small room, high enough so that we could stand erect in it. here the martians let go of us. we sprawled on the floor, faces down. we'd had a busy day. our nerve-energy was burned out. hopelessness warped all of my thoughts. i must have slipped into the coma of exhaustion. i had jangled dreams about alice and the kids and home, and almost imagined i was there. half awake again, i had a cursing spree, calling myself fifty kinds of a numbskull. be passive before the people of other worlds! reassure them! how did we ever think up that one? we'd been crazy. why didn't we at least use our guns when we'd had the chance? it wouldn't have made any difference to be killed right away. now we were sacrificial lambs on the altar of a featherbrained idea that the inhabitants of worlds that had always been separate from the beginning should become friends, learn to swap and to benefit from the diverse phases of each other's cultures. how could martians who hatched out of lumps of mud be like humans at all? klein, craig, miller and i were alone in that room. there were crystal-glazed spy-windows in the walls. perhaps we were still being observed. * * * * * while i was sleeping, the exit had been sealed with a circular piece of glassy stuff. near the floor there were vents through which air was being forced into the room. hidden pumps, which must have been hastily rigged for our reception, throbbed steadily. miller, beside me, had removed his oxygen helmet. his grin was slightly warped as he said to me: "well, nolan, here's another parallel with what we've known before. we had to keep etl alive in a cage. now the same thing is being done to us." this could be regarded as a service, a favor. yet i was more inclined to feel that i was like something locked up in a zoo. maybe etl's case was a little different. for the first thing he had known in life was his cage. i removed my oxygen helmet, too, mainly to conserve its air-purifier unit, which i hoped i might need sometime soon--in an escape. "don't look so glum, nolan," miller told me. "here we have just what we need, a chance to observe and learn and know the martians better. and it's the same for them in relation to us. it's the best situation possible for both worlds." i was thinking mostly--belatedly--of my wife and kids. right then, miller was a crackpot to me, a monomaniac, a guy whose philosophical viewpoint went way beyond the healthy norm. and i soon found that craig and klein agreed with me now. something in our attitude had shifted. i don't know how long we were in that sealed room. a week, perhaps. we couldn't see the day-light. our watches had vanished along with our weapons. sometimes there were sounds of much movement in the tunnels around us; sometimes little. but the variation was too irregular to indicate a change based on night and day. lots of things happened to us. the air we breathed had a chemical smell. and the martians kept changing its composition and density constantly--experimenting, no doubt. now it would be oppressively heavy and humid; now it would be so dry and thin that we began to feel faint. they also varied the temperature, from below freezing to earthly desert heat. and i suspected that at times there was a drug in the air. food was lowered to us in metal containers from a circular airlock in the ceiling. it was the same kind of gelatinous stuff that we had found in the wreck of the ship that had brought the infant etl to earth. we knew that it was nourishing. its bland sweetishness was not to our taste, but we had to eat. various apparatus was also lowered to us. there were odd mechanical puzzles that made me think how grotesquely earthly martian scientific attitudes were. and there was s little globe on a wire, the purpose of which we never figured out, though miller got an electric shock from it. * * * * * i kept looking for etl among the martians at the spy-windows, hoping that he'd turn up again. i had noticed that martians showed variations of appearance, like humans--longer or shorter eye-stalks, lighter or darker tendrils.... i figured i'd recognize etl. but i didn't see him. we were none of us quite ourselves. not even miller, whose scientific interest in the things around him sustained him even in captivity. mine had worn out. and klein and craig were no better off. i was desperately homesick, and i felt a little ill, besides. i managed to loosen the metal heel-plate from one of my boots, and with this, when i thought that no martian was watching, i started to dig the gummy cement from around the circular glassy disc with which the main exit of our quarters had been sealed. craig, klein and i worked at it in brief and sporadic shifts. we didn't really hope that we could escape. it was just something to do. "we're going to try to get to the ship, miller, if it's still there," i whispered once. "probably it won't work. want to join up with the rest of us?" i just didn't think of him as being in command now. and he seemed to agree, because he didn't protest against my high-handed way of talking. also, he didn't argue against a projected rashness that could easily get us killed. apparently he understood that our lives weren't worth much to us as things were. he smiled a little. "i'll stick around, nolan. if you do manage to get back to earth, don't make the martians sound too bad." "i won't," i answered, troubled by an odd sense of regret. loosening that exit disc proved in the end to be no special trick. then we just waited for a lull in the activity in the tunnels around us. we all put on our oxygen helmets, miller included, for the air-pressure here in our "cage" would drop as soon as the loosened disc was dislodged. we put our shoulders against it and pushed. it popped outward. then the three of us, with miller staying behind, scrambled on hands and knees through the tunnel that lay before us. * * * * * a crazy kind of luck seemed to be with us. for one thing, we didn't have to retrace our way along the complicated route by which we had been brought down to our prison. in a minute we reached a wide tunnel that slanted upward. a glassy rotary airlock worked by a simple lever--for, of course, most of the city's air would be pressurized to some extent for the martians--led into it. the main passage wasn't exactly deserted, but we traversed it in leaps and bounds, taking advantage of the weak martian gravity. shapes scattered before us, chirping and squeaking. we reached the surface quickly. it was frigid night. we stumbled away into it, taking cover under some lichenous bushes, while we looked for the highway. it was there, plain to see, in the light of phobos. we dashed on toward it, across what seemed to be a planted field. a white layer of ice-crystal mist flowed between and over those tough cold-endured growths. for a minute, just as two shots rang out behind us, we were concealed by it completely. [illustration] i thought to myself that, to the martians, we were like escaped tigers or leopards--only worse. for a moment i felt that we had jumped from the frying pan into the fire. but, as we reached the highway, my spirits began to soar. perhaps--only perhaps--i'd see my family again before too long. there was traffic on the road, trains of great soft-tired wagons, pulled by powered vehicles ahead. i wondered if, like on earth, much freight was moved at night to avoid congestion. "when i was a college kid, i used to hitchhike sometimes," craig remarked. "i don't guess we had better try that here," klein said. "what we can do is more of a hobo stunt." we found the westerly direction we needed easily enough from the stars. the constellations naturally looked the same as they did at home. we hid behind some rustling leaves, dry as paper, and waited for the next truck train to pass. when one came, we used the agility which martian gravity gave us and rushed for the tail-end wagon and scrambled aboard. there we hid ourselves under a kind of coarse-fibered tarpaulin. peering past boxes and bales, we kept cautious watch of the road. we saw strange placques, which might have served as highway signs. again we saw buildings and passing lights. we were dopes, of course, ever to think that we were going to get away with this. our overwrought nerves had urged us to unreasoning rebellion, and we had yielded to them. * * * * * our last hope was punctured when at last we saw the flood-lights that bathed our ship. the taste on my tongue was suddenly bitter. there were roughly three things we could do now, and none of the choices was especially attractive. we could go back where we had come from. we could try to keep concealed in the countryside, until we were finally hunted down, or until our helmet air-purifiers wore out and we smothered. or we could proceed to our rocket, which was now surrounded by a horde of martians. whichever one we chose, it looked as if the end would be the same--death. "i'm for going on to the ship," klein said in a harsh whisper. "the same with me," craig agreed. "it's where we want to go. if they're going to kill or capture us, it might as well be there." suddenly, for no good reason, i thought of something. no special safeguards had been set up around that sealed room in the city. escape had been easy. what did that mean? "okay," i said. "maybe you've both got the same hunch i just got. we walk very slowly toward our rocket. we get into the light as soon as possible. does that sound right to you? we'd be going back to the plan. and, it could be, to common sense." "all right," klein answered. "we'll give it a whirl," craig agreed. we jumped off that freight wagon at the proper moment and moved toward the rocket. nothing that we'd done on mars--not even making our first acquaintance with the inhabitants--was as ticklish an act. * * * * * step after slow step, we approached the floodlighted area, keeping close together before that horde which still looked horrible to us. one thing in our favor was that the martians here had probably been warned of our escape by whatever means of communication they used. and they could certainly guess that our first objective would be our ship. hence they would not be startled into violence by our sudden appearance. one of them fired a shot which passed over our heads. but we kept on going, making our movements as unfrightening as we could to counteract the dread of us that they must have still felt. panic and the instinctive fear of the strange were balanced in our minds against reason. we got to the nose of our ship, then to the open doors of its airlock. the horde kept moving back before us and we clambered inside. martian eyes remained wary, but no more action was taken against us. our cabin had been ransacked. most of the loose stuff had been removed ... even my picture of alice, and our two kids. "who cares about trifles?" i muttered. "rap on wood, guys--i think we've won. so have the local people." "you're right," klein breathed. "what other reason can there be for their not jumping us? miller's passive strategy must've worked the first time. the story that we meant no harm must have gotten around. they don't want to make trouble, either. and who, with any sense does?" i felt good--maybe too good. i wondered if the martians felt the same eager fascination for the enigmas of space that we felt, in spite of the same fear of the nameless that we too could feel. my guess was that they did. undoubtedly they also wanted interplanetary relations to be smooth. they could control their instinctive doubts to help attain this objective. if they coveted earth's resources, it was still far away, and could defend itself. besides, they were not built to live in comfort under the raw conditions of its strange environment. commerce was the only answer. suddenly mars was no longer a hostile region to me, out in the reaches of space. again it was full of endless, intriguing mysteries. it was beautiful. and knowledge of that beauty and mystery had been won, in spite of some blundering. the scheme that we had practiced, and that miller had stuck to, had paid off. it had broken down that first inevitable barrier of alienness between earthmen and martians enough so that they now had a chance to start looking for the countless similarities between us. a fraction of our food stores aboard the rocket had been taken, probably for analysis. but there was plenty more. we closed the airlock, repressurized the cabin from air-tanks, and cooked ourselves a meal. then we slept in shifts, one of us always awake as guard. at dawn, miller hammered at a window. he'd been brought out from the city. we weren't too surprised by then. * * * * * etl turned up at noon. he came in a kind of plane, which landed right beside our rocket, making quite a noise. i recognized him easily enough; i'd know those eye-stalks anywhere. besides, as he came out of the plane, he was carrying the speech-tube that klein had made for him. we let him into the cabin. "hello, gang," he said, manipulating the tube with his tendrils. "i see you passed your tests almost as well as i did on those weird things you were always making me take on earth." "so they were tests," i said. "sure. otherwise, why do you think i didn't come to you before? they said you had to solve your own problems." "how did they treat you?" miller wanted to know. "mostly my people were nice to me. they took me to a great desert city, far away. sort of the capital of mars. it's in an 'oasis' where a network of 'canals' join. the canals fit an old theory of your astronomers. they're ribbons of irrigated vegetation. but the water is piped underground. i spoke to my people in the way that you once thought i would, trying to convince them that you were okay. but i guess that you did most of the job yourselves." "in spite of a lot of blunders, maybe we did, etl," i replied dryly. "what are your plans? going to stay here now? or will you come back with us?" i sensed that he would stay. it was natural. maybe i even sensed a remoteness in him, a kind of withdrawal. not unfriendly, but ... we both knew it was the parting of the ways. "it's best for what we're trying to accomplish, nolan," he said. "i can tell my people about earth; you can tell yours about mars. besides, i like it here. but i'll be back on earth some time. just so you'll come here again. thanks to you guys for everything." "i'd like to stay too, nolan," miller said, smiling. "if they'll have me. under etl's instructions, they might improve my quarters." * * * * * so that much was settled. i felt a certain longing myself now. but i'm a family man, with home still in my blood. klein and craig weren't tied as i was, but they had a lot to hold them to earth. besides, somebody had to report back. we were on mars two days longer, though we didn't go any farther than back to the neighboring city. we took thousands of photographs. we were given samples of common martian apparatus, pieces of jade that were covered with queer, beautiful carvings made millions of years before, bars of radioactive metal. earth was still near enough in its orbit to be reached without too much trouble. we jacked our rocket into a vertical position, from which an interplanetary takeoff could best be made. the cabin, swinging on its universal joints, stayed level. martians watched, interested, but still obviously not quite ready to cast aside their deeper suspicions. yet, when we blasted clear, we knew that a ship of theirs, halfway around the planet, was doing the same and would follow us back to earth. ambassadors, of course, and commercial attachés. i'd lost my picture of alice, patty and ron to some local souvenir hunter. but i knew that i was going to see them.... the friendly contact between earth and mars can still be queered by somebody's silly blunder, of course. human or martian. you have to be careful. but a beginning has been made. --raymond z. gallun * * * * * innocent at large by poul and karen anderson illustrated by wood [transcriber's note: this etext was produced from galaxy science fiction july . extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the u.s. copyright on this publication was renewed.] a hayseed martian among big-planet slickers ... of course he would get into trouble. but that was nothing compared to the trouble he would be in if he did not get into trouble! the visiphone chimed when peri had just gotten into her dinner gown. she peeled it off again and slipped on a casual bathrobe: a wisp of translucence which had set the president of antarctic enterprise--or had it been the chairman of the board?--back several thousand dollars. then she pulled a lock of lion-colored hair down over one eye, checked with a mirror, rumpled it a tiny bit more and wrapped the robe loosely on top and tight around the hips. after all, some of the men who knew her private number were important. she undulated to the phone and pressed its accept. "hello-o, there," she said automatically. "so sorry to keep you waiting. i was just taking a bath and--oh. it's you." gus doran's prawnlike eyes popped at her. "holy success," he whispered in awe. "you sure the wires can carry that much voltage?" "well, hurry up with whatever it is," snapped peri. "i got a date tonight." "i'll say you do! with a martian!" * * * * * peri narrowed her silver-blue gaze and looked icily at him. "you must have heard wrong, gus. he's the heir apparent of indonesia, inc., that's who, and if you called up to ask for a piece of him, you can just blank right out again. i saw him first!" doran's thin sharp face grinned. "you break that date, peri. put it off or something. i got this martian for you, see?" "so? since when has all mars had as much spending money as one big-time marijuana rancher? not to mention the heir ap--" "sure, sure. but how much are those boys going to spend on any girl, even a high-level type like you? listen, i need you just for tonight, see? this martian is strictly from gone. he is here on official business, but he is a yokel and i do mean hayseed. like he asked me what the christmas decorations in all the stores were! and here is the solar nexus of it, peri, kid." doran leaned forward as if to climb out of the screen. "he has got a hundred million dollars expense money, and they are not going to audit his accounts at home. one hundred million good green certificates, legal tender anywhere in the united protectorates. and he has about as much backbone as a piece of steak alga. kid, if i did not happen to have experience otherwise with a small nephew, i would say this will be like taking candy from a baby." peri's peaches-and-cream countenance began to resemble peaches and cream left overnight on pluto. "badger?" she asked. "sure. you and sam wendt handle the routine. i will take the go-between angle, so he will think of me as still his friend, because i have other plans for him too. but if we can't shake a million out of him for this one night's work, there is something akilter. and your share of a million is three hundred thirty-three--" "is five hundred thousand flat," said peri. "too bad i just got an awful headache and can't see mr. sastro tonight. where you at, gus?" * * * * * the gravity was not as hard to take as peter matheny had expected. three generations on mars might lengthen the legs and expand the chest a trifle, but the genes had come from earth and the organism readjusts. what set him gasping was the air. it weighed like a ton of wool and had apparently sopped up half the atlantic ocean. ears trained to listen through the martian atmosphere shuddered from the racket conducted by earth's. the passport official seemed to bellow at him. "pardon me for asking this. the united protectorates welcome all visitors to earth and i assure you, sir, an ordinary five-year visa provokes no questions. but since you came on an official courier boat of your planet, mr. matheny, regulations force me to ask your business." "well--recruiting." the official patted his comfortable stomach, iridescent in neolon, and chuckled patronizingly. "i am afraid, sir, you won't find many people who wish to leave. they wouldn't be able to see the teamsters hour on mars, would they?" "oh, we don't expect immigration," said matheny shyly. he was a fairly young man, but small, with a dark-thatched, snub-nosed, gray-eyed head that seemed too large for his slender body. "we learned long ago that no one is interested any more in giving up even second-class citizenship on earth to live in the republic. but we only wanted to hire----uh, i mean engage--an, an advisor. we're not businessmen. we know our export trade hasn't a chance among all your corporations unless we get some--a five-year contract...?" he heard his words trailing off idiotically, and swore at himself. "well, good luck." the official's tone was skeptical. he stamped the passport and handed it back. "there, now, you are free to travel anywhere in the protectorates. but i would advise you to leave the capital and get into the sticks--um, i mean the provinces. i am sure there must be tolerably competent sales executives in russia or congolese belgium or such regions. frankly, sir, i do not believe you can attract anyone out of newer york." "thanks," said matheny, "but, you see, i--we need--that is.... oh, well. thanks. good-by." he backed out of the office. * * * * * a dropshaft deposited him on a walkway. the crowd, a rainbow of men in pajamas and robes, women in neo-sino dresses and goldleaf hats, swept him against the rail. for a moment, squashed to the wire, he stared a hundred feet down at the river of automobiles. _phobos!_ he thought wildly. _if the barrier gives, i'll be sliced in two by a dorsal fin before i hit the pavement!_ the august twilight wrapped him in heat and stickiness. he could see neither stars nor even moon through the city's blaze. the forest of multi-colored towers, cataracting half a mile skyward across more acreage than his eyes reached, was impressive and all that, but--he used to stroll out in the rock garden behind his cottage and smoke a pipe in company with orion. on summer evenings, that is, when the temperature wasn't too far below zero. _why did they tap me for this job?_ he asked himself in a surge of homesickness. _what the hell is the martian embassy here for?_ he, peter matheny, was no more than a peaceful professor of sociodynamics at devil's kettle university. of course, he had advised his government before now--in fact, the red ankh society had been his idea--but still he was at ease only with his books and his chess and his mineral collection, a faculty poker party on tenthday night and an occasional trip to swindletown-- _my god_, thought matheny, _here i am, one solitary outlander in the greatest commercial empire the human race has ever seen, and i'm supposed to find my planet a con man!_ he began walking, disconsolately, at random. his lizardskin shirt and black culottes drew glances, but derisive ones: their cut was forty years out of date. he should find himself a hotel, he thought drearily, but he wasn't tired; the spaceport would pneumo his baggage to him whenever he did check in. the few martians who had been to earth had gone into ecstasies over the automation which put any service you could name on a twenty-four-hour basis. but it would be a long time before mars had such machines. if ever. the city roared at him. he fumbled after his pipe. _of course_, he told himself, _that's why the embassy can't act. i may find it advisable to go outside the law. please, sir, where can i contact the underworld?_ he wished gambling were legal on earth. the constitution of the martian republic forbade sumptuary and moral legislation; quite apart from the rambunctious individualism which that document formulated, the article was a practical necessity. life was bleak enough on the deserts, without being denied the pleasure of trying to bottom-deal some friend who was happily trying to mark the cards. matheny would have found a few spins of roulette soothing: it was always an intellectual challenge to work out the system by which the management operated a wheel. but more, he would have been among people he understood. the frightful thing about the earthman was the way he seemed to exist only in organized masses. a gypsy snake oil peddler, plodding his syrtosaur wagon across martian sands, just didn't have a prayer against, say, the grant, harding & adams public relations agency. * * * * * matheny puffed smoke and looked around. his feet ached from the weight on them. where could a man sit down? it was hard to make out any individual sign through all that flimmering neon. his eye fell on one that was distinguished by relative austerity. the church of choice _enter, play, pray_ that would do. he took an upward slideramp through several hundred feet of altitude, stepped past an aurora curtain, and found himself in a marble lobby next to an inspirational newsstand. "ah, brother, welcome," said a red-haired usherette in demure black leotards. "the peace that passeth all understanding be with you. the restaurant is right up those stairs." "i--i'm not hungry," stammered matheny. "i just wanted to sit in--" "to your left, sir." the martian crossed the lobby. his pipe went out in the breeze from an animated angel. organ music sighed through an open doorway. the series of rooms beyond was dim, gothic, interminable. "get your chips right here, sir," said the girl in the booth. "hm?" said matheny. she explained. he bought a few hundred-dollar tokens, dropped a fifty-buck coin down a slot marked contributions, and sipped the martini he got back while he strolled around studying the games. he stopped, frowned. bingo? no, he didn't want to bother learning something new. he decided that the roulette wheels were either honest or too deep for him. he'd have to relax with a crap game instead. he had been standing at the table for some time before the rest of the congregation really noticed him. then it was with awe. the first few passes he had made were unsuccessful. earth gravity threw him off. but when he got the rhythm of it, he tossed a row of sevens. it was a customary form of challenge on mars. here, though, they simply pushed chips toward him. he missed a throw, as anyone would at home: simple courtesy. the next time around, he threw for a seven just to get the feel. he got a seven. the dice had not been substituted on him. "i say!" he exclaimed. he looked up into eyes and eyes, all around the green table. "i'm sorry. i guess i don't know your rules." "you did all right, brother," said a middle-aged lady with an obviously surgical bodice. "but--i mean--when do we start actually _playing_? what happened to the cocked dice?" * * * * * the lady drew herself up and jutted an indignant brow at him. "sir! this is a church!" "oh--i see--excuse me, i, i, i--" matheny backed out of the crowd, shuddering. he looked around for some place to hide his burning ears. "you forgot your chips, pal," said a voice. "oh. thanks. thanks ever so much. i, i, that is--" matheny cursed his knotting tongue. _damn it, just because they're so much more sophisticated than i, do i have to talk like a leaky boiler?_ the helpful earthman was not tall. he was dark and chisel-faced and sleekly pomaded, dapper in blue pajamas with a red zigzag, a sleighbell cloak and curly-toed slippers. "you're from mars, aren't you?" he asked in the friendliest tone matheny had yet heard. "yes. yes, i am. m-my name's peter matheny. i, i--" he stuck out his hand to shake and chips rolled over the floor. "damn! oh, excuse me, i forgot this was a church. never mind the chips. no, please. i just want to g-g-get the hell out of here." "good idea. how about a drink? i know a bar downshaft." matheny sighed. "a drink is what i need the very most." "my name's doran. gus doran. call me gus." they walked back to the deaconette's booth and matheny cashed what remained of his winnings. "i don't want to--i mean if you're busy tonight, mr. doran--" "nah. i am not doing one thing in particular. besides, i have never met a martian. i am very interested." "there aren't many of us on earth," agreed matheny. "just a small embassy staff and an occasional like me." "i should think you would do a lot of traveling here. the old mother planet and so on." "we can't afford it," said matheny. "what with gravitation and distance, such voyages are much too expensive for us to make them for pleasure. not to mention our dollar shortage." as they entered the shaft, he added wistfully: "you earth people have that kind of money, at least in your more prosperous brackets. why don't you send a few tourists to us?" "i always wanted to," said doran. "i would like to see the what they call city of time, and so on. as a matter of fact, i have given my girl one of those old martian rings last ike's birthday and she was just gazoo about it. a jewel dug out of the city of time, like, made a million years ago by a, uh, extinct race ... i tell you, she _appreciated_ me for it!" he winked and nudged. "oh," said matheny. * * * * * he felt a certain guilt. doran was too pleasant a little man to deserve-- "of course," matheny said ritually, "i agree with all the archeologists it's a crime to sell such scientifically priceless artifacts, but what can we do? we must live, and the tourist trade is almost nonexistent." "trouble with it is, i hear mars is not so comfortable," said doran. "i mean, do not get me wrong, i don't want to insult you or anything, but people come back saying you have given the planet just barely enough air to keep a man alive. and there are no cities, just little towns and villages and ranches out in the bush. i mean you are being pioneers and making a new nation and all that, but people paying half a megabuck for their ticket expect some comfort and, uh, you know." "i do know," said matheny. "but we're poor--a handful of people trying to make a world of dust and sand and scrub thorn into fields and woods and seas. we can't do it without substantial help from earth, equipment and supplies--which can only be paid for in earth dollars--and we can't export enough to earth to earn those dollars." by that time, they were entering the paul bunyan knotty pine bar & grill, on the rd level. matheny's jaw clanked down. "whassa matter?" asked doran. "ain't you ever seen a ecdysiastic technician before?" "uh, yes, but--well, not in a -d image under ten magnifications." matheny followed doran past a sign announcing that this show was for purely artistic purposes, into a booth. there a soundproof curtain reduced the noise level enough so they could talk in normal voices. "what'll you have?" asked doran. "it's on me." "oh, i couldn't let you. i mean--" "nonsense. welcome to earth! care for a thyle and vermouth?" matheny shuddered. "good lord, no!" "huh? but they make thyle right on mars, don't they?" "yes. and it all goes to earth and sells at dollars a fifth. but you don't think we'd _drink_ it, do you? i mean--well, i imagine it doesn't absolutely _ruin_ vermouth. but we don't see those earthside commercials about how sophisticated people like it so much." * * * * * "well, i'll be a socialist creeper!" doran's face split in a grin. "you know, all my life i've hated the stuff and never dared admit it!" he raised a hand. "don't worry, i won't blabbo. but i am wondering, if you control the thyle industry and sell all those relics at fancy prices, why do you call yourselves poor?" "because we are," said matheny. "by the time the shipping costs have been paid on a bottle, and the earth wholesaler and jobber and sales engineer and so on, down to the retailer, have taken their percentage, and the advertising agency has been paid, and about fifty separate earth taxes--there's very little profit going back to the distillery on mars. the same principle is what's strangling us on everything. old martian artifacts aren't really rare, for instance, but freight charges and the middlemen here put them out of the mass market." "have you not got some other business?" "well, we do sell a lot of color slides, postcards, baggage labels and so on to people who like to act cosmopolitan, and i understand our travel posters are quite popular as wall decoration. but all that has to be printed on earth, and the printer and distributor keep most of the money. we've sold some books and show tapes, of course, but only one has been really successful--_i was a slave girl on mars_. "our most prominent novelist was co-opted to ghostwrite that one. again, though, local income taxes took most of the money; authors never have been protected the way a businessman is. we do make a high percentage of profit on those little certificates you see around--you know, the title deeds to one square inch of mars--but expressed absolutely, in dollars, it doesn't amount to much when we start shopping for bulldozers and thermonuclear power plants." "how about postage stamps?" inquired doran. "philately is a big business, i have heard." "it was our mainstay," admitted matheny, "but it's been overworked. martian stamps are a drug on the market. what we'd like to operate is a sweepstakes, but the anti-gambling laws on earth forbid that." * * * * * doran whistled. "i got to give your people credit for enterprise, anyway!" he fingered his mustache. "uh, pardon me, but have you tried to, well, attract capital from earth?" "of course," said matheny bitterly. "we offer the most liberal concessions in the solar system. any little mining company or transport firm or--or anybody--who wanted to come and actually invest a few dollars in mars--why, we'd probably give him the president's daughter as security. no, the minister of ecology has a better-looking one. but who's interested? we haven't a thing that earth hasn't got more of. we're only the descendants of a few scientists, a few political malcontents, oddballs who happen to prefer elbow room and a bill of liberties to the incorporated state--what could general nucleonics hope to get from mars?" "i see. well, what are you having to drink?" "beer," said matheny without hesitation. "huh? look, pal, this is on me." "the only beer on mars comes forty million miles, with interplanetary freight charges tacked on," said matheny. "heineken's!" doran shrugged, dialed the dispenser and fed it coins. "this is a real interesting talk, pete," he said. "you are being very frank with me. i like a man that is frank." matheny shrugged. "i haven't told you anything that isn't known to every economist." _of course i haven't. i've not so much as mentioned the red ankh, for instance. but, in principle, i have told him the truth, told him of our need; for even the secret operations do not yield us enough._ the beer arrived. matheny engulfed himself in it. doran sipped at a whiskey sour and unobtrusively set another full bottle in front of the martian. "ahhh!" said matheny. "bless you, my friend." "a pleasure." "but now you must let me buy you one." "that is not necessary. after all," said doran with great tact, "with the situation as you have been describing--" "oh, we're not _that_ poor! my expense allowance assumes i will entertain quite a bit." doran's brows lifted a few minutes of arc. "you're here on business, then?" "yes. i told you we haven't any tourists. i was sent to hire a business manager for the martian export trade." "what's wrong with your own people? i mean, pete, it is not your fault there are so many rackets--uh, taxes--and middlemen and agencies and et cetera. that is just the way earth is set up these days." * * * * * matheny's finger stabbed in the general direction of doran's pajama top. "exactly. and who set it up that way? earthmen. we martians are babes in the desert. what chance do we have to earn dollars on the scale we need them, in competition with corporations which could buy and sell our whole planet before breakfast? why, we couldn't afford three seconds of commercial time on a lullaby pillow 'cast. what we need, what we have to hire, is an executive who knows earth, who's an earthman himself. let him tell us what will appeal to your people, and how to dodge the tax bite and--and--well, you see how it goes, that sort of, uh, thing." matheny felt his eloquence running down and grabbed for the second bottle of beer. "but where do i start?" he asked plaintively, for his loneliness smote him anew. "i'm just a college professor at home. how would i even get to see--" "it might be arranged," said doran in a thoughtful tone. "it just might. how much could you pay this fellow?" "a hundred megabucks a year, if he'll sign a five-year contract. that's earth years, mind you." "i'm sorry to tell you this, pete," said doran, "but while that is not bad money, it is not what a high-powered sales scientist gets in newer york. plus his retirement benefits, which he would lose if he quit where he is now at. and i am sure he would not want to settle on mars permanently." "i could offer a certain amount of, uh, lagniappe," said matheny. "that is, well, i can draw up to a hundred megabucks myself for, uh, expenses and, well ... let me buy you a drink!" doran's black eyes frogged at him. "you might at that," said the earthman very softly. "yes, you might at that." matheny found himself warming. gus doran was an authentic bobber. a hell of a swell chap. he explained modestly that he was a free-lance business consultant and it was barely possible that he could arrange some contacts.... "no, no, no commission, all done in the interest of interplanetary friendship ... well, anyhow, let's not talk business now. if you have got to stick to beer, pete, make it a chaser to akvavit. what is akvavit? well, i will just take and show you." a hell of a good bloke. he knew some very funny stories, too, and he laughed at matheny's, though they were probably too rustic for a big-city taste like his. "what i really want," said matheny, "what i really want--i mean what mars really needs, get me?--is a confidence man." "a what?" "the best and slickest one on earth, to operate a world-size con game for us and make us some real money." "con man? oh. a slipstring." "a con by any other name," said matheny, pouring down an akvavit. * * * * * doran squinted through cigarette smoke. "you are interesting me strangely, my friend. say on." "no." matheny realized his head was a bit smoky. the walls of the booth seemed odd, somehow. they were just leatheroid walls, but they had an odd quality. "no, sorry, gus," he said. "i spoke too much." "okay. forget it. i do not like a man that pries. but look, let's bomb out of here, how about it? go have a little fun." "by all means." matheny disposed of his last beer. "i could use some gaiety." "you have come to the right town then. but let us get you a hotel room first and some more up-to-date clothes." "_allez_," said matheny. "if i don't mean _allons_, or maybe _alors_." the drop down to cab-ramp level and the short ride afterward sobered him; the room rate at the jupiter-astoria sobered him still more. _oh, well_, he thought, _if i succeed in this job, no one at home will quibble._ and the chamber to which he and doran were shown was spectacular enough, with a pneumo direct to the bar and a full-wall transparency to show the vertical incandescence of the towers. "whoof!" matheny sat down. the chair slithered sensuously about his contours. he jumped. "what the dusty hell--oh." he tried to grin, but his face burned. "i see." "that is a sexy type of furniture, all right," agreed doran. he lowered himself into another chair, cocked his feet on the -d and waved a cigarette. "which speaking of, what say we get some girls? it is not too late to catch them at home. a date here will usually start around hours earliest." "what?" "you know. dames. like a certain blonde warhead with twin radar and swivel mounting, and she just loves exotics. such as you." "me?" matheny heard his voice climb to a schoolboy squeak. "me? exotic? why, i'm just a little college professor. i g-g-g, that is--" his tongue got stuck on his palate. he pulled it loose and moistened uncertain lips. "you are from mars. okay? so you fought bushcats barehanded in an abandoned canal." "what's a bushcat? and we don't have canals. the evaporation rate--" "look, pete," said doran patiently. "she don't have to know that, does she?" "well--well, no. i guess not no." "let's order you some clothes on the pneumo," said doran. "i recommend you buy from schwartzherz. everybody knows he is expensive." * * * * * while matheny jittered about, shaving and showering and struggling with his new raiment, doran kept him supplied with akvavit and beer. "you said one thing, pete," doran remarked. "about needing a slipstring. a con man, you would call it." "forget that. please. i spoke out of turn." "well, you see, maybe a man like that is just what mars does need. and maybe i have got a few contacts." "what?" matheny gaped out of the bathroom. doran cupped his hands around a fresh cigarette, not looking at him. "i am not that man," he said frankly. "but in my line i get a lot of contacts, and not all of them go topside. see what i mean? like if, say, you wanted somebody terminated and could pay for it, i could not do it. i would not want to know anything about it. but i could tell you a phone number." he shrugged and gave the martian a sidelong glance. "sure, you may not be interested. but if you are, well, pete, i was not born yesterday. i got tolerance. like the book says, if you want to get ahead, you have got to think positively." matheny hesitated. if only he hadn't taken that last shot! it made him want to say yes, immediately, without reservations. and therefore maybe he became overcautious. they had instructed him on mars to take chances if he must. "i could tell you a thing or two that might give you a better idea," he said slowly. "but it would have to be under security." "okay by me. room service can send us up an oath box right now." "what? but--but--" matheny hung onto himself and tried to believe that he had landed on earth less than six hours ago. in the end, he did call room service and the machine was trundled in. doran swallowed the pill and donned the conditioner helmet without an instant's hesitation. "i shall never reveal to any person unauthorized by yourself whatever you may tell me under security, now or at any other time," he recited. then, cheerfully: "and that formula, pete, happens to be the honest-to-zebra truth." "i know." matheny stared, embarrassed, at the carpet. "i'm sorry to--to--i mean of course i trust you, but--" "forget it. i take a hundred security oaths a year, in my line of work. maybe i can help you. i like you, pete, damn if i don't. and, sure, i might stand to get an agent's cut, if i arrange--go ahead, boy, go ahead." doran crossed his legs and leaned back. "oh, it's simple enough," said matheny. "it's only that we already are operating con games." "on mars, you mean?" "yes. there never were any old martians. we erected the ruins fifty years ago for the billingsworth expedition to find. we've been manufacturing relics ever since." "_huh?_ well, why, but--" "in this case, it helps to be at the far end of an interplanetary haul," said matheny. "not many terrestrial archeologists get to mars and they depend on our people to--well, anyhow--" "i will be clopped! good for you!" * * * * * doran blew up in laughter. "that is one thing i would never spill, even without security. i told you about my girl friend, didn't i?" "yes, and that calls to mind the little girl," said matheny apologetically. "she was another official project." "who?" "remember junie o'brien? the little golden-haired girl on mars, a mathematical prodigy, but dying of an incurable disease? she collected earth coins." "oh, that. sure, i remember--hey! you didn't!" "yes. we made about a billion dollars on that one." "i will be double damned. you know, pete, i sent her a hundred-buck piece myself. say, how is junie o'brien?" "oh, fine. under a different name, she's now our finance minister." matheny stared out the wall, his hands twisting nervously behind his back. "there were no lies involved. she really does have a fatal disease. so do you and i. every day we grow older." "uh!" exclaimed doran. "and then the red ankh society. you must have seen or heard their ads. 'what mysterious knowledge did the old martians possess? what was the secret wisdom of the ancient aliens? now the incredibly powerful semantics of the red ankh (not a religious organization) is available to a select few--' that's our largest dollar-earning enterprise." he would have liked to say it was his suggestion originally, but it would have been too presumptuous. he was talking to an earthman, who had heard everything already. doran whistled. "that's about all, so far," confessed matheny. "perhaps a con is our only hope. i've been wondering, maybe we could organize a martian bucket shop, handling martian securities, but--well, i don't know." "i think--" doran removed the helmet and stood up. "yes?" matheny faced around, shivering with his own tension. "i may be able to find the man you want," said doran. "i just may. it will take a few days and might get a little expensive." "you mean.... mr. doran--gus--you could actually--" "i cannot promise anything yet except that i will try. now you finish dressing. i will be down in the bar. and i will call up this girl i know. we deserve a celebration!" * * * * * peri was tall. peri was slim. peri smoldered when she walked and exploded when she stretched. her apartment was ivory and ebony, her sea-green dress was poured on, and the neo-sino mode had obviously been engineered to her personal specifications. she waved twelve inches of jade cigarette holder, lifted her glass and murmured throatily: "to you, pete. to mars." "i, i, i," stammered matheny. he raised his own glass. it slopped over. "oh, damn! i mean ... gosh, i'm so sorry, i--" "no harm done. you aren't used to our gravity yet." peri extended a flawless leg out of her slit skirt and turned it about on the couch, presumably in search of a more comfortable position. "and it must seem terribly cramped here on earth, pete," she continued. "after roaming the desert, hunting, sleeping under the twin moons. two moons! why, what girl could resist that?" "uh, well, as a matter of fact, the moons are barely visible," floundered matheny. "must you spoil my dreams?" she said. "when i think of mars, the frontier, where men are still men, why, my breast swells with emotion." "uh, yes." matheny gulped. "swell. yes." she leaned closer to his chair. "now that i've got you, don't think you'll get away," she smiled. "a live martian, trapped!" doran looked at his watch. "well," he said, "i have got to get up tomorrow, so i had better run along now." "ta-ta," said peri. matheny rose. she pulled him down beside her. "oh, no, you don't, mars lad. i'm not through with you yet!" "but, but, but," said matheny. doran chuckled. "i'll meet you on the terrace at fourteen hundred hours tomorrow," he said. "have fun, pete." the door closed on him. peri slithered toward her guest. he felt a nudge and looked down. she had not actually touched him with her hands. "gus is a good squiff," she said, "but i wondered if he'd ever go." "why, why ... what do you mean?" croaked matheny. "haven't you guessed?" she kissed him. it was rather like being caught in a nuclear turbine with soft blades. _matheny_, said matheny, _you represent your planet._ _matheny_, said matheny, _shut up._ time passed. "have another drink," said peri, "while i slip into something more comfortable." her idea of comfort was modest in one sense of the word: a nightdress or something, like a breath of smoke, and a seat on matheny's lap. "if you kiss me like that just once more," she breathed, "i'll forget i'm a nice girl." matheny kissed her like that. the door crashed open. a large man stood there, breathing heavily. "what are you doing with my wife?" he bawled. "sam!" screamed peri. "i thought you were in australia!" * * * * * "and he said he might settle out of court," finished matheny. he stared in a numb fashion at his beer. "he'll come to my hotel room this afternoon. what am i going to do?" "it is a great shame," said doran. "i never thought.... you know, he told everybody he would be gone on business for weeks yet. pete, i am more sorry than i can express." "if he thinks i'll pay his miserable blackmail," bristled matheny, "he can take his head and stick--" doran shook his own. "i am sorry, pete, but i would pay if i was you. he does have a case. it is too bad he just happened to be carrying that loaded camera, but he is a photographer and our laws on earth are pretty strict about unlicensed correspondents. you could be very heavily fined as well as deported, plus all the civil-damage claims and the publicity. it would ruin your mission and even make trouble for the next man mars sent." "but," stuttered matheny, "b-but it's a badger game!" "look," said doran. he leaned over the table and gripped the martian's shoulder. "i am your friend, see? i feel real bad this happened. in a way, it is my fault and i want to help you. so let me go talk to sam wendt. i will cool him off if i can. i will talk down his figure. it will still cost you, pete, but you can pad your expense account, can't you? so we will both come see you today. that way there will be two people on your side, you and me, and sam will not throw his weight around so much. you pay up in cash and it will be the end of the affair. i will see to that, pal!" matheny stared at the small dapper man. his aloneness came to him like a blow in the stomach. _et tu, brute_, he thought. he bit his lip. "thanks, gus," he said. "you are a real friend." * * * * * sam blocked the doorway with his shoulders as he entered the room. doran followed like a diminutive tug pushing a very large liner. they closed the door. matheny stood up, avoiding sam's glare. "okay, louse," said sam. "you got a better pal here than you deserve, but he ain't managed to talk me into settling for nothing." "let me get this--i mean--well," said matheny. "look, sir, you claim that i, i mean that your wife and i were, uh, well, we weren't. i was only visiting--" "stow it, stow it." sam towered over the martian. "shoot it to the moon. you had your fun. it'll cost you. one million dollars." "_one mil_--but--but--gus," wailed matheny, "this is out of all reason! i thought you said--" doran shrugged. "i am sorry, pete. i could not get him any farther down. he started asking fifty. you better pay him." "no!" matheny scuttled behind a chair. "no, look here! i, peter matheny of the martian republic, declare you are blackmailing me!" "i'm asking compensation for damages," growled sam. "hand it over or i'll go talk to a lawyer. that ain't blackmail. you got your choice, don't you?" matheny wilted. "yes." "a megabuck isn't so bad, pete," soothed doran. "i personally will see that you earn it back in--" "oh, never mind." tears stood in matheny's eyes. "you win." he took out his checkbook. "none of that," rapped sam. "cash. now." "but you claimed this was a legitimate--" "you heard me." "well--could i have a receipt?" begged matheny. sam grinned. "i just thought i'd ask," said matheny. he opened a drawer and counted out one hundred ten-kilo-buck bills. "there! and, and, and i hope you choke on it!" sam stuffed the money in a pocket and lumbered out. doran lingered. "look here, pete," he said, "i will make this up to you. honest. all you have got to do is trust me." "sure." matheny slumped on the bed. "not your fault. let me alone for a while, will you?" "listen, i will come back in a few hours and buy you the best dinner in all the protectorates and--" "sure," said matheny. "sure." doran left, closing the door with great gentleness. * * * * * he returned at , entered, and stopped dead. the floor space was half taken up by a screen and a film projector. "what happened, pete?" he asked uncertainly. matheny smiled. "i took some tourist movies," he said. "self-developing soundtrack film. sit down and i'll show you." "well, thanks, but i am not so much for home movies." "it won't take long. please." doran shrugged, found a chair and took out a cigarette. "you seem pretty well cheered up now," he remarked. "that is a spirit i like to see. you have got to have faith." "i'm thinking of a sideline business in live photography," said the martian. "get back my losses of today, you know." "well, now, pete, i like your spirit, like i say. but if you are really interested in making some of that old baroom, and i think you are, then listen--" "i'll sell prints to people for home viewing," went on matheny. "i'd like your opinion of this first effort." he dimmed the transparency and started the projector. the screen sprang into colored motion. sam wendt blocked the doorway with his shoulders. "who knows, i might even sell you one of the several prints i made today," said matheny. "okay, louse," said sam. "life is hard on mars," commented matheny in an idle tone, "and we're an individualistic culture. the result is pretty fierce competition, though on a person-to-person rather than organizational basis. all friendly enough, but--oh, by the way, how do you like our martian camera technology? i wore this one inside my buttonhole." doran in the screen shrugged and said: "i am sorry, pete." doran in the chair stubbed out his cigarette, very carefully, and asked, "how much do you want for that film?" "would a megabuck be a fair price?" inquired matheny. "uh ... huh." "of course, i am hoping sam will want a copy too." doran swallowed. "yeah. yes, i think i can talk him into it." "good." matheny stopped the projector. he sat down on the edge of the table, swinging one leg, and lit his pipe. its bowl glowed in the dimness like the eye of a small demon. "by the way," he said irrelevantly, "if you check the newscast tapes, you'll find i was runner-up in last year's all-martian pistol contest. it's a tough contest to win. there are no bad shots on mars--survival of the fittest, you know." * * * * * doran wet his lips. "uh, no hard feelings. no, none at all. but say, in case you are, well, you know, looking for a slipstring, what i came here for was to tell you i have located the very guy you want. only he is in jail right now, see, and it will cost--" "oh, no!" groaned matheny. "not the syrtis prospector! kids are taught that swindle in kindergarten." doran bowed his head. "we call it the spanish prisoner here," he said. he got up. "i will send the price of those films around in the morning." "you'll call your bank and have the cash pneumoed here tonight," said matheny. "also sam's share. i daresay he can pay you back." "no harm in trying, was there?" asked doran humbly. "none at all." matheny chuckled. "in fact, i'm grateful to you. you helped me solve my major problem." "huh? i did what? how?" "i'll have to investigate further, but i'm sure my hunch will be confirmed. you see, we martians have stood in awe of earthmen. and since for a long time there's been very little contact between the two planets except the purely official, impersonal sort, there's been nothing to disabuse us. it's certainly true that our organizations can't compete with yours, because your whole society is based on organizations. but now, by the same token, i wonder if your individuals can match ours. ever hear of the third moon? no? the whipsaw play? the aqueduct squeeze? good lord, can't you even load a derrel set?" matheny licked his chops. "so there's our martian export to earth. martian con men. i tell you this under security, of course--not that anyone would believe you, till our boys walk home with the shirt off the terrestrial back." he waved an imperious pipe-stem. "hurry up and pay me, please. i've a date tonight with peri. i just called her up and explained the situation and she really _does_ seem to like martians." dawningsburgh by wallace west illustrated by ruvidich [transcriber's note: this etext was produced from galaxy magazine june . extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the u.s. copyright on this publication was renewed.] a lean wind wails through the age-old avenues of dawningsburgh. mornings, it brings sand from surrounding hills and scrubs at fresh paint, neon signs endlessly proclaiming the city's synthetic name and street markers in seven languages. at sunrise it prepares the dunes for footprints of scurrying guided tourists. when icy night clamps down and the intruders scamper to their hotels, the wind howls as it flings after them a day's collection of paper cups, bottle caps and other picnic offal. * * * * * vacation at storied dawningsburgh _the cradle of martian civilization_ restored! repopulated! tour scarlet deserts dine on exotic foods dance cocktails free make new friends _fare only $ , up a full year to pay_ see your travel agent or your nearest trans-planetary office now! * * * * * "liars! cheats!" whimpered betsy o'reilly as she tossed on the lumpy bed of her third class room and recalled the sky poster that had hypnotized her. now, betsy was disappointed and bored. slim, pretty, freckled and pert, but ten years older than she wished, she had mortgaged her secretarial salary to engage once more in the eternal quest. and, as always, the quest was proving futile. eligible bachelors shunned dawningsburgh as they did other expensive tourist traps. the "new friends" she had made were either loudmouthed, hairy miners en route to or from the orichalcum diggings, or middle-aged couples on tragic second honeymoons, or self-styled emigre artists and novelists intent on cadging free meals and any other favors that lonely females might grant. but maybe, betsy tried to console herself, there was something real here; something glamorous that she could find and cling to during the long months back in new york when she would have to subsist on soups and salads in order to pay her debt to trans-plan. mars had been great, the guides insisted. once, they said, it had even colonized atlantis. perhaps, under the sham and away from those awful conducted tours, something was still left that could make her feel a trifle less forlorn. betsy jumped out of bed and rummaged in a closet. there it was! a heated emergency garment equipped with plastic helmet, air pack and a searchlight. required by law but seldom used, since tourists were told to stay off the ° below zero streets at night. wriggling into the clumsy thing, she tested valves and switches as she had been instructed. then she tiptoed out of her cubbyhole, down a corridor and into the hotel lobby. the room clerk did not greet her with its usual trill. a robot, built on earth as a "stand-in" for one of the vanished martians, it had turned itself off when the last tourists left the dining room for their beds. but how lifelike it still looked, balancing on a perch behind the ornate plastic desk. and how human too, despite the obviously avian ancestry of the race it mimicked. what was it the guides had said about the way in which all intelligent lifeforms so far discovered closely resembled one another? why, even artificial martians made the average human look drab and clumsy. betsy circled the overdecorated room like a shadow and pushed against the street door. escaping air whistled through the crack. "miss!" squawked the clerk, triggered alive by the noise. "don't...." she was outside by then and running through the crazy half-light thrown by mars's nearer and farther moons. wind howled and tugged at her. cold turned the breath from her helmet vent into snow. * * * * * when no pursuit developed she stopped, gasping, before one of the open-air shops she had toured that afternoon. five "martians" bent stiffly over lathes and other machines, just where they had stopped after the last visitor departed. hoarfrost mottled their leather harness, their downy red skins and the scars on their shoulders where atrophied wings had supposedly been amputated. no breath came from their nostrils. how cold and small they looked! on impulse, she approached briskly. "yes, miss?" the robot proprietor unkinked as its automatic relays turned it on. it came forward with a grimace meant to represent a smile. "you're out very late. what may i show you?" its voice was like a rusted bird song. "tell me," said she, "what the martians really made here." "why, we design jewelry, miss. i have some nice...." "no, no!" she interrupted. "what did the real martians make here? surely not junk jewelry for tasteless tourists. something beautiful, it must have been. wind bells? dreams? snowflakes? please tell me." the robot twittered and flinched like a badly made toy. "i d-do not understand," it ventured at last. "i am not programmed to answer such questions. perhaps the guides can do so. now may i show you...." "thank you, no." she touched the thing's cold, six-fingered hand with quick compassion. "but i'll ask the guides. good night." back in the street, she began to retrace her tour of the afternoon. here was what the guide had called a "typical home." this time she did not disturb the mother, father and one furry child with budding wings who clustered about what experts thought must have been a telepathic amplifier. it did not work any longer--none but the coarsest martian machines did--yet the frost-rimed robots sat stiffly enchanted before it, as they would do until the sun rose and tourists resumed their endless tramp. (the day's last, she noted, had left an empty pop bottle in the mother's lap.) farther on she met a "policeman", resplendent in metal harness, leaning forlornly against an anachronistic lamppost. some late-prowling jokester had stuck a cigarette between its still lips. surely not policemen here? she looked up at the fairy towers that laced the stars. surely not in this grave place. it must be one of those human touches introduced by trans-planetary to make tourists smile and feel superior. nevertheless, she removed the cigarette and ground it under her heel. after walking half a mile through the sand-whipped night, betsy paused before a structure of translucent spires and flying buttresses where a library had once been housed. no robots were on duty there and no serious attempt had been made at restoration. no champollion had appeared in the early days of exploration to decipher some martian rosetta stone, and by now the historical record had been hopelessly scrambled by souvenir hunters. but that didn't matter really, they said. outside of the tourist trade the only really valuable things on the dying planet were extensive deposits of orichalcum, an ore rich in pure radium. thanks to the impartial mining monopoly established by trans-planetary twenty years ago, orichalcum supplied the nations of earth with sinews of war which they had not yet dared use, and fuel for ships that were questing greedily farther and farther out into the darkness of space. so metal-paged books had long vanished from the library's stacks and its sand-strewn halls were littered with broken rolls of tape. how long would it be, she wondered as she passed on with a sigh, before the guides realized that even those mute tapes could be sold as souvenirs? * * * * * phobos had set by now. she turned on the searchlight, checked her air tank--the gauge showed enough reserve for another hour--and defiantly opened the face plate of her helmet. the atmosphere was cold; cold as a naked blade. it had a heady tang and she stood taking in great gulps of it until a warning dizziness forced her to close the plate. the guides were wrong again! a human could learn to breathe this air! leaving the gutted library, betsy breasted the wind as she ploughed through shifting dunes toward a structure shimmering on the other side of the plaza. this, the guides pattered, was a cathedral. when the place now called dawningsburgh had been alive, they said, its inhabitants gathered at the shrine each evening to sip one ceremonial drink of precious water, shed two ceremonial tears for the days when mars had been young and worship a flock of atavistic winged princesses who performed ceremonial flights under a pressurized, transparent dome in the rays of the setting sun. this showplace had, of course, been restored right down to its last perch, and had been equipped with a full complement of "worshippers." at the climax of each day's final guided tour, visitors jammed themselves into the nave, sipped cocktails, "ohed", "ahed" and even shed tears along with the robots as they gawked at mannequins flying above them on invisible wires in the best peter pan tradition. ducking under the electric eye that would have started a performance, betsy tiptoed into the structure. it was quieter than any grave. several hundred robots huddled there on their perches, drinks in hand, ready to go into their act. at the far end of the transept a soaring mural, gleaming phosphorescently, hinted at the lakes, seas and forests of mars's prehistory. under the dome a single flyer dangled, its plumes trailing. for long minutes betsy stood in the dimness, seeking to capture the mystery and wonder of this place. in ruins, it would have swept her with ecstasy, as had her moonlit view of the parthenon. restored and "repopulated," it made her sick and ashamed of her race ... no, not of her race, exactly, but of the few hucksters who debased its thirst for knowledge and beauty. then a bird started to sing! a bird? on mars? this must be a tape, triggered on somehow despite her care in avoiding the electric eye. any moment now, the robots would begin their mindless worship. she shuddered and turned to escape. but something held her. she crept instead, step by soundless step, toward the source of that exquisite music. an almost naked male robot had materialized before the mural. it was singing, far better than any nightingale, its strange hands outstretched to the radiance. such notes could not ... should not ... spring from the throat of a machine. heart in mouth, betsy advanced with infinite care. by the mural's light she saw that the newcomer had no hoarfrost coating. and the moisture of its breath condensed and fell to the floor like a blessing. she reached out a small hand to touch its scarred shoulder, then jerked back. the shoulder was warm! * * * * * "greetings, girl," betsy's brain whispered to her. "you're out late. just let me finish this thing and we'll have a chat." the music soared, uninterrupted, to a climax sparkling with grace notes and glittering with chromatic trills. "now," fluted the creature, turning and fixing her with golden, freewheeling eyes, "what brings a tourist" (the word was a curse) "here at this hour?" "l-love," she gulped, hardly knowing what she said. "i-i mean, i wanted to find out if anything real was left. and, well, i ran away from the hotel. they'll be coming after me, i suppose." "don't fret. martians can play tricks with time. i'll return you to your room well before they get here." "you--you're not just another, fancier, robot?" "i'm alive enough." he bowed with a sweep that seemed to invest him with wings. "pitaret mura, at your service. a princeling of sorts. an iconoclast. and an atavist like you." "there are others here?" her eyes grew round. "most of the others have finished with this outgrown eyrie and are away on larger affairs. only i return with a few friends once each year to sing of past glories and weep over present desecrations." "two ceremonial tears?" she asked with a return of bitterness. there was something in his attitude that she found disquieting. "many more than two. but...." he shrugged angrily, "i grow tired of weeping. on this visit i plan to wipe out you little humans who foul the nest of my ancestors." "how?" she gripped his arm, fear racing through her. "tomorrow all this junk--" he nodded his handsome head at the robots--"will have been replaced by real martians ... youngsters out for a lark with me. we'll tend shop, make jewelry and all that until i give a signal. perhaps this shrine would be the best place. when it's crowded, just at sunset. then we pounce!" mura ruffled himself up and sprang at her so convincingly that she shrieked. "how juvenile!" she managed to laugh shakily. "what did you say, human?" the pitaret was taken aback by this unexpected thrust. "i said your plan is childish!" she stamped her foot. "so you cut the throats of a few stupid people. then earth sends up cobalt bombs and blows this cradle of martian civilization to smithereens. the others won't like that, even if they are occupied with larger affairs. you would be in real trouble." "hmmm!" he looked at her with new respect and a faint tinge of uncertainty. "but some punishment is justified. even you can see that." "yes," she admitted, wrinkling her nose at him, now that the worst was over. "this place is a horror. and we tourists are horrors too, for having let ourselves be taken in by it. but death isn't punishment, just an ending." "i hadn't thought of it that way." mura slipped an arm around her shoulders and looked down at her impishly. "_you_ suggest a fitting punishment then." * * * * * here was the final test. if she could keep the hold that she had somehow gained over this immature superman, horrible things might be averted. her thoughts raced in circles. "martians can play tricks with time?" she asked at last. "oh, yes. time is like this mural. let me show you: aim your light at the left-hand corner of the picture. see the sun and its planets forming out of cosmic dust? now move the beam toward the right. slowly.... slowly! notice how martian oceans form and living things crawl out of them. "now continue. there you see the winged martians with their cities that long have crumbled to dust. next, water grows scarce and canals are built. here all but a few of us have lost our wings. "here we colonize earth ... to our eternal regret. finally, you see us abandon mars rather than risk another test of strength with you pushing troglodytes." "i-i don't understand," she whispered, strangely moved. "that searchlight beam represents the living present. where it shines, life pulses briefly on a vast mural that is painted across time, from its beginning to its end. martians manipulate the light of the present as we please, living when we please, so long as we please." "how dreadful.... wonderful, i mean." she gazed at him worshipfully. "and you can do this for humans too?" "for short periods, yes. but stop fluttering your lovely eyelashes at me. punished you are going to be. if you can suggest nothing better than my plan, i'll go back to it and take the consequences. otherwise i'll be the laughing stock of my friends." "and you couldn't stand that, could you, poor boy?" she patted his hand before he snatched it away. "how is this, then, for an alternative? tonight, when i couldn't sleep, i got to thinking that there could be no more fitting punishment for tourists than to be forced to live, for years and years, in a plush hotel at atlantic city, las vegas ... or dawningsburgh. think how miserable they would become if they had to take the same tours over and over with the same guides; stuff themselves on the same meals; dance to the same orchestras with the same new friends. can you hold your time spotlight still here for, say, ten years?" "of course," mura crowed as he swept her into his downy arms and danced her about among the robot perches. "a wonderful idea. you're a genius. even the others may come back, now, to watch humans squirm, yawn--and perhaps learn to respect their elders. how can i repay you?" * * * * * "let me go back to new york," she said, feeling like a traitor. "that wouldn't be fair. you're a tourist. you came here to prove to yourself that, as your bible puts it, 'a living dog is better than a dead lion.' you must learn your lessons along with others." "i suppose you're right." she felt cleaner now, even though the prospect of a decade at dawningsburgh, with the quest unfinished, appalled her. to be forty-one and still single when she returned to earth! two tears trickled down her freckled nose. "that's better," the pitaret sang happily. "you're already beginning to understand the meaning of our ancient ceremonial. give me ten years and i'll make a real martian of you!" outside, the lean wind echoed his glee as it tossed a hatful of good humor sticks and sand-coated lollipops against the cathedral wall. the moons of mars by dean evans illustrated by willer [transcriber's note: this etext was produced from galaxy science fiction september . extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the u.s. copyright on this publication was renewed.] every boy should be able to whistle, except, of course, martians. but this one did! he seemed a very little boy to be carrying so large a butterfly net. he swung it in his chubby right fist as he walked, and at first glance you couldn't be sure if he were carrying it, or it carrying _him_. he came whistling. all little boys whistle. to little boys, whistling is as natural as breathing. however, there was something peculiar about this particular little boy's whistling. or, rather, there were two things peculiar, but each was related to the other. the first was that he was a martian little boy. you could be very sure of that, for earth little boys have earlobes while martian little boys do not--and he most certainly didn't. the second was the tune he whistled--a somehow familiar tune, but one which i should have thought not very appealing to a little boy. "hi, there," i said when he came near enough. "what's that you're whistling?" he stopped whistling and he stopped walking, both at the same time, as though he had pulled a switch or turned a tap that shut them off. then he lifted his little head and stared up into my eyes. "'the calm'," he said in a sober, little-boy voice. "the _what_?" i asked. "from the william tell overture," he explained, still looking up at me. he said it deadpan, and his wide brown eyes never once batted. "oh," i said. "and where did you learn that?" "my mother taught me." i blinked at him. he didn't blink back. his round little face still held no expression, but if it had, i knew it would have matched the title of the tune he whistled. "you whistle very well," i told him. that pleased him. his eyes lit up and an almost-smile flirted with the corners of his small mouth. he nodded grave agreement. "been after butterflies, i see. i'll bet you didn't get any. this is the wrong season." the light in his eyes snapped off. "well, good-by," he said abruptly and very relevantly. "good-by," i said. his whistling and his walking started up again in the same spot where they had left off. i mean the note he resumed on was the note which followed the one interrupted; and the step he took was with the left foot, which was the one he would have used if i hadn't stopped him. i followed him with my eyes. an unusual little boy. a most precisely _mechanical_ little boy. when he was almost out of sight, i took off after him, wondering. the house he went into was over in that crumbling section which forms a curving boundary line, marking the limits of those frantic and ugly original mine-workings made many years ago by the early colonists. it seems that someone had told someone who had told someone else that here, a mere twenty feet beneath the surface, was a vein as wide as a house and as long as a fisherman's alibi, of pure--_pure_, mind you--gold. back in those days, to be a colonist meant to be a rugged individual. and to be a rugged individual meant to not give a damn one way or another. and to not give a damn one way or another meant to make one hell of a mess on the placid face of mars. there had not been any gold found, of course, and now, for the most part, the mining shacks so hastily thrown up were only fever scars of a sickness long gone and little remembered. a few of the houses were still occupied, like the one into which the martian boy had just disappeared. so his _mother_ had taught him the william tell overture, had she? that tickling thought made me chuckle as i stood before the ramshackle building. and then, suddenly, i stopped chuckling and began to think, instead, of something quite astonishing: how had it been possible for her to teach, and for him to whistle? _all martians are as tone-deaf as a bucket of lead._ i went up three slab steps and rapped loudly on the weather-beaten door. * * * * * the woman who faced me may have been as young as twenty-two, but she didn't look it. that shocked look, which comes with the first realization that youth has slipped quietly away downstream in the middle of the night, and left nothing but frightening rocks of middle age to show cold and gray in the hard light of dawn, was like the validation stamp of time itself in her wide, wise eyes. and her voice wasn't young any more, either. "well? and what did i do now?" "i beg your pardon?" i said. "you're mobile security, aren't you? or is that badge you're wearing just something to cover a hole in your shirt?" "yes, i'm security, but does it have to mean something?" i asked. "all i did was knock on your door." "i heard it." her lips were curled slightly at one corner. i worked up a smile for her and let her see it for a few seconds before i answered: "as a matter of fact, i don't want to see _you_ at all. i didn't know you lived here and i don't know who you are. i'm not even interested in who you are. it's the little boy who just went in here that i was interested in. the little martian boy, i mean." her eyes spread as though somebody had put fingers on her lids at the outside corners and then cruelly jerked them apart. "come in," she almost gasped. i followed her. when i leaned back against the plain door, it closed protestingly. i looked around. it wasn't much of a room, but then you couldn't expect much of a room in a little ghost of a place like this. a few knickknacks of the locality stood about on two tables and a shelf, bits of rock with streak-veins of fused corundum; not bad if you like the appearance of squeezed blood. there were two chairs and a large table intended to match the chairs, and a rough divan kind of thing made of discarded cratings which had probably been hauled here from the international spaceport, ten miles to the west. in the back wall of the room was a doorway that led dimly to somewhere else in the house. nowhere did i see the little boy. i looked once again at the woman. "what about him?" she whispered. her eyes were still startled. i smiled reassuringly. "nothing, lady, nothing. i'm sorry i upset you. i was just being nosy is all, and that's the truth of it. you see, the little boy went by me a while ago and he was whistling. he whistles remarkably well. i asked him what the name of the tune was and he told me it was the 'calm' from william tell. he also told me his mother had taught him." her eyes hadn't budged from mine, hadn't flickered. they might have been bright, moist marbles glued above her cheeks. she said one word only: "well?" "nothing," i answered. "except that martians are supposed to be tone-deaf, aren't they? it's something lacking in their sense of hearing. so when i heard this little boy, and saw he was a martian, and when he told me his _mother_ had taught him--" i shrugged and laughed a little. "like i said before, i guess i got just plain nosy." she nodded. "we agree on that last part." perhaps it was her eyes. or perhaps it was the tone of her voice. or perhaps, and more simply, it was her attitude in general. but whatever it was, i suddenly felt that, nosy or not, i was being treated shabbily. "i would like to speak to the martian lady," i said. "there isn't any martian lady." "there _has_ to be, doesn't there?" i said it with little sharp prickers on the words. but she did, too: "_does there?_" i gawked at her and she stared back. and the stare she gave me was hard and at the same time curiously defiant--as though she would dare me to go on with it. as though she figured i hadn't the guts. for a moment, i just blinked stupidly at her, as i had blinked stupidly at the little boy when he told me his mother had taught him how to whistle. and then--after what seemed to me a very long while--i slowly tumbled to what she meant. her eyes were telling me that the little martian boy wasn't a little martian boy at all, that he was cross-breed, a little chap who had a martian father and a human, earthwoman mother. it was a startling thought, for there just aren't any such mixed marriages. or at least i had thought there weren't. physically, spiritually, mentally, or by any other standard you can think of, compared to a human male the martian isn't anything you'd want around the house. i finally said: "so that is why he is able to whistle." she didn't answer. even before i spoke, her eyes had seen the correct guess which had probably flashed naked and astounded in my own eyes. and then she swallowed with a labored breath that went trembling down inside her. "there isn't anything to be ashamed of," i said gently. "back on earth there's a lot of mixtures, you know. some people even claim there's no such thing as a pure race. i don't know, but i guess we all started somewhere and intermarried plenty since." she nodded. somehow her eyes didn't look defiant any more. "where's his father?" i asked. "h-he's dead." "i'm sorry. are you all right? i mean do you get along okay and everything, now that...?" i stopped. i wanted to ask her if she was starving by slow degrees and needed help. lord knows the careworn look about her didn't show it was luxurious living she was doing--at least not lately. "look," i said suddenly. "would you like to go home to earth? i could fix--" but that was the wrong approach. her eyes snapped and her shoulders stiffened angrily and the words that ripped out of her mouth were not coated with honey. "get the hell out of here, you fool!" i blinked again. when the flame in her eyes suddenly seemed to grow even hotter, i turned on my heel and went to the door. i opened it, went out on the top slab step. i turned back to close the door--and looked straight into her eyes. she was crying, but that didn't mean exactly what it looked like it might mean. her right hand had the door edge gripped tightly and she was swinging it with all the strength she possessed. and while i still stared, the door slammed savagely into the casing with a shock that jarred the slab under my feet, and flying splinters from the rotten woodwork stung my flinching cheeks. i shrugged and turned around and went down the steps. "and that is the way it goes," i muttered disgustedly to myself. thinking to be helpful with the firewood problem, you give a woman a nice sharp axe and she immediately puts it to use--on you. i looked up just in time to avoid running into a spread-legged man who was standing motionless directly in the middle of the sand-path in front of the door. his hands were on his hips and there was something in his eyes which might have been a leer. * * * * * "pulled a howler in there, eh, mate?" he said. he chuckled hoarsely in his throat. "not being exactly deaf, i heard the tail end of it." his chuckle was a lewd thing, a thing usually reserved--if it ever was reserved at all--for the mens' rooms of some of the lower class dives. and then he stopped chuckling and frowned instead and said complainingly: "regular little spitfire, ain't she? i ask you now, wouldn't you think a gal which had got herself in a little jam, so to speak, would be more reasonable--" his words chopped short and he almost choked on the final unuttered syllable. his glance had dropped to my badge and the look on his face was one of startled surprise. "i--" he said. i cocked a frown of my own at him. "well, so long, mate," he grunted, and spun around and dug his toes in the sand and was away. i stood there staring at his rapidly disappearing form for a few moments and then looked back once more at the house. a tattered cotton curtain was just swinging to in the dirty, sand-blown window. that seemed to mean the woman had been watching. i sighed, shrugged again and went away myself. when i got back to security headquarters, i went to the file and began to rifle through pictures. i didn't find the woman, but i did find the man. he was a killer named harry smythe. i took the picture into the chief's office and laid it on his desk, waited for him to look down at it and study it for an instant, and then to look back up to me. which he did. "so?" he said. "wanted, isn't he?" he nodded. "but a lot of good that'll do. he's holed up somewhere back on earth." "no," i said. "he's right here. i just saw him." "_what?_" he nearly leaped out of his chair. "i didn't know who he was at first," i said. "it wasn't until i looked in the files--" he cut me off. his hand darted into his desk drawer and pulled out an authority card. he shoved the card at me. he growled: "kill or capture, i'm not especially fussy which. just _get_ him!" i nodded and took the card. as i left the office, i was thinking of something which struck me as somewhat more than odd. i had idly listened to a little half-breed martian boy whistling part of the william tell overture, and it had led me to a wanted killer named harry smythe. * * * * * understandably, mr. smythe did not produce himself on a silver platter. i spent the remainder of the afternoon trying to get a lead on him and got nowhere. if he was hiding in any of the places i went to, then he was doing it with mirrors, for on mars an authority card is the big stick than which there is no bigger. not solely is it a warrant, it is a commandeer of help from anyone to whom it is presented; and wherever i showed it i got respect. i got instant attention. i got even more: those wraithlike tremblings in the darker corners of saloons, those corners where light never seems quite to penetrate. you don't look into those. not if you're anything more than a ghoul, you don't. not finding him wasn't especially alarming. what was alarming, though, was not finding the earthwoman and her little half-breed martian son when i went back to the tumbledown shack where they lived. it was empty. she had moved fast. she hadn't even left me a note saying good-by. that night i went into the great northern desert to the haremheb reservation, where the martians still try to act like martians. it was festival night, and when i got there they were doing the dance to the two moons. at times like this you want to leave the martians alone. with that thought in mind, i pinned my authority card to my lapel directly above my badge, and went through the gates. the huge circle fire was burning and the dance was in progress. briefly, this can be described as something like the ceremonial dances put on centuries ago by the ancient aborigines of north america. there was one important exception, however. instead of a central fire, the martians dig a huge circular trench and fill it with dried roots of the _belu_ tree and set fire to it. being pitch-like, the gnarled fragments burn for hours. inside this ring sit the spectators, and in the exact center are the dancers. for music, they use the drums. the dancers were both men and women and they were as naked as martians can get, but their dance was a thing of grace and loveliness. for an instant--before anyone observed me--i stood motionless and watched the sinuously undulating movements, and i thought, as i have often thought before, that this is the one thing the martians can still do beautifully. which, in a sad sort of way, is a commentary on the way things have gone since the first rocket-blasting ship set down on these purple sands. i felt the knife dig my spine. carefully i turned around and pointed my index finger to my badge and card. bared teeth glittered at me in the flickering light, and then the knife disappeared as quickly as it had come. "wahanhk," i said. "the chief. take me to him." the martian turned, went away from the half-light of the circle. he led me some yards off to the north to a swooping-tent. then he stopped, pointed. "wahanhk," he said. i watched him slip away. wahanhk is an old martian. i don't think any martian before him has ever lived so long--and doubtless none after him will, either. his leathery, almost purple-black skin was rough and had a charred look about it, and up around the eyes were little plaits and folds that had the appearance of being done deliberately by a martian sand-artist. "good evening," i said, and sat down before him and crossed my legs. he nodded slowly. his old eyes went to my badge. from there they went to the authority card. "power sign of the earthmen," he muttered. "not necessarily," i said. "i'm not here for trouble. i know as well as you do that, before tonight is finished, more than half of your men and women will be drunk on illegal whiskey." he didn't reply to that. "and i don't give a damn about it," i added distinctly. his eyes came deliberately up to mine and stopped there. he said nothing. he waited. outside, the drums throbbed, slowly at first, then moderated in tempo. it was like the throbbing--or sobbing, if you prefer--of the old, old pumps whose shafts go so tirelessly down into the planet for such pitifully thin streams of water. "i'm looking for an earthwoman," i said. "this particular earthwoman took a martian for a husband." "that is impossible," he grunted bitterly. "i would have said so, too," i agreed. "until this afternoon, that is." his old, dried lips began to purse and wrinkle. "i met her little son," i went on. "a little semi-human boy with martian features. or, if you want to turn it around and look at the other side, a little martian boy who whistles." his teeth went together with a snap. i nodded and smiled. "you know who i'm talking about." for a long long while he didn't answer. his eyes remained unblinking on mine and if, earlier in the day, i had thought the little boy's face was expressionless, then i didn't completely appreciate the meaning of that word. wahanhk's face was more than expressionless; it was simply blank. "they disappeared from the shack they were living in," i said. "they went in a hurry--a very great hurry." that one he didn't answer, either. "i would like to know where she is." "why?" his whisper was brittle. "she's not in trouble," i told him quickly. "she's not wanted. nor her child, either. it's just that i have to talk to her." "why?" i pulled out the file photo of harry smythe and handed it across to him. his wrinkled hand took it, pinched it, held it up close to a lamp hanging from one of the ridge poles. his eyes squinted at it for a long moment before he handed it back. "i have never seen this earthman," he said. "all right," i answered. "there wasn't anything that made me think you had. the point is that he knows the woman. it follows, naturally, that she might know him." "this one is _wanted_?" his old, broken tones went up slightly on the last word. i nodded. "for murder." "murder." he spat the word. "but not for the murder of a martian, eh? martians are not that important any more." his old eyes hated me with an intensity i didn't relish. "you said that, old man, not i." a little time went by. the drums began to beat faster. they were rolling out a lively tempo now, a tempo you could put music to. he said at last: "i do not know where the woman is. nor the child." he looked me straight in the eyes when he said it--and almost before the words were out of his mouth, they were whipped in again on a drawn-back, great, sucking breath. for, somewhere outside, somewhere near that dancing circle, in perfect time with the lively beat of the drums, somebody was whistling. it was a clear, clean sound, a merry, bright, happy sound, as sharp and as precise as the thrust of a razor through a piece of soft yellow cheese. "in your teeth, wahanhk! right in your teeth!" he only looked at me for another dull instant and then his eyes slowly closed and his hands folded together in his lap. being caught in a lie only bores a martian. i got up and went out of the tent. * * * * * the woman never heard me approach. her eyes were toward the flaming circle and the dancers within, and, too, i suppose, to her small son who was somewhere in that circle with them, whistling. she leaned against the bole of a _belu_ tree with her arms down and slightly curled backward around it. "that's considered bad luck," i said. her head jerked around with my words, reflected flames from the circle fire still flickering in her eyes. "that's a _belu_ tree," i said. "embracing it like that is like looking for a ladder to walk under. or didn't you know?" "would it make any difference?" she spoke softly, but the words came to me above the drums and the shouts of the dancers. "how much bad luck can you have in one lifetime, anyway?" i ignored that. "why did you pull out of that shack? i told you you had nothing to fear from me." she didn't answer. "i'm looking for the man you saw me talking with this morning," i went on. "lady, he's wanted. and this thing, on my lapel is an authority card. assuming you know what it means, i'm asking you where he is." "what man?" her words were flat. "his name is harry smythe." if that meant anything to her, i couldn't tell. in the flickering light from the fires, subtle changes in expression weren't easily detected. "why should i care about an earthman? my husband was a martian. and he's dead, see? dead. just a martian. not fit for anything, like all martians. just a bum who fell in love with an earthwoman and had the guts to marry her. do you understand? so somebody murdered him for it. ain't that pretty? ain't that something to make you throw back your head and be proud about? well, ain't it? and let me tell you, mister, whoever it was, i'll get him. _i'll get him!_" i could see her face now, all right. it was a twisted, tortured thing that writhed at me in its agony. it was small yellow teeth that bared at me in viciousness. it was eyes that brimmed with boiling, bubbling hate like a ladle of molten steel splashing down on bare, white flesh. or, simply, it was the face of a woman who wanted to kill the killer of her man. and then, suddenly, it wasn't. even though the noise of the dance and the dancers was loud enough to command the attention and the senses. i could still hear her quiet sobbing, and i could see the heaving of the small, thin shoulders. and i knew then the reason for old wahanhk's bitterness when he had said to me, "but not for the murder of a martian, eh? martians are not that important any more." what i said then probably sounded as weak as it really was: "i'm sorry, kid. but look, just staking out in that old shack of yours and trying to pry information out of the type of men who drifted your way--well, i mean there wasn't much sense in that, now was there?" i put an arm around her shoulders. "he must have been a pretty nice guy," i said. "i don't think you'd have married him if he wasn't." i stopped. even in my own ears, my words sounded comfortless. i looked up, over at the flaming circle and at the sweat-laved dancers within it. the sound of the drums was a wild cacophonous tattoo now, a rattle of speed and savagery combined; and those who moved to its frenetic jabberings were not dancers any more, but only frenzied, jerking figurines on the strings of a puppeteer gone mad. i looked down again at the woman. "your little boy and his butterfly net," i said softly. "in a season when no butterflies can be found. what was that for? was he part of the plan, too, and the net just the alibi that gave him a passport to wander where he chose? so that he could listen, pick up a little information here, a little there?" she didn't answer. she didn't have to answer. my guesses can be as good as anybody's. after a long while she looked up into my eyes. "his name was tahily," she said. "he had the secret. he knew where the gold vein was. and soon, in a couple of years maybe, when all the prospectors were gone and he knew it would be safe, he was going to stake a claim and go after it. for us. for the three of us." i sighed. there wasn't, isn't, never will be any gold on this planet. but who in the name of god could have the heart to ruin a dream like that? * * * * * next day i followed the little boy. he left the reservation in a cheery frame of mind, his whistle sounding loud and clear on the thin morning air. he didn't go in the direction of town, but the other way--toward the ruins of the ancient temple city of the moons. i watched his chubby arm and the swinging of the big butterfly net on the end of that arm. then i followed along in his sandy tracks. it was desert country, of course. there wasn't any chance of tailing him without his knowledge and i knew it. i also knew that before long he'd know it, too. and he did--but he didn't let me know he did until we came to the rag-cliffs, those filigree walls of stone that hide the entrance to the valley of the two moons. once there, he paused and placed his butterfly net on a rock ledge and then calmly sat down and took off his shoes to dump the sand while he waited for me. "well," i said. "good morning." he looked up at me. he nodded politely. then he put on his shoes again and got to his feet. "you've been following me," he said, and his brown eyes stared accusingly into mine. "i have?" "that isn't an honorable thing to do," he said very gravely. "a gentleman doesn't do that to another gentleman." i didn't smile. "and what would you have me do about it?" "stop following me, of course, sir." "very well," i said. "i won't follow you any more. will that be satisfactory?" "quite, sir." without another word, he picked up his butterfly net and disappeared along a path that led through a rock crevice. only then did i allow myself to grin. it was a sad and pitying and affectionate kind of grin. i sat down and did with my shoes as he had done. there wasn't any hurry; i knew where he was going. there could only be one place, of course--the city of deimos and phobos. other than that he had no choice. and i thought i knew the reason for his going. several times in the past, there have been men who, bitten with the fever of an idea that somewhere on this red planet there must be gold, have done prospecting among the ruins of the old temples. he had probably heard that there were men there now, and he was carrying out with the thoroughness of his precise little mind the job he had set himself of finding the killer of his daddy. i took a short-cut over the rag-cliffs and went down a winding, sand-worn path. the temple stones stood out barren and dry-looking, like breast bones from the desiccated carcass of an animal. for a moment i stopped and stared down at the ruins. i didn't see the boy. he was somewhere down there, though, still swinging his butterfly net and, probably, still whistling. i started up once more. and then i heard it--a shrill blast of sound in an octave of urgency; a whistle, sure, but a warning one. i stopped in my tracks from the shock of it. yes, i knew from whom it had come, all right. but i didn't know why. and then the whistle broke off short. one instant it was in the air, shrieking with a message. the next it was gone. but it left tailings, like the echo of a death cry slowly floating back over the dead body of the creature that uttered it. i dropped behind a fragment of the rag-cliff. a shot barked out angrily. splinters of the rock crazed the morning air. the little boy screamed. just once. i waited. there was a long silence after that. then, finally, i took off my hat and threw it out into the valley. the gun roared once more. this time i placed it a little to the left below me. i took careful sighting on the hand that held that gun--and i didn't miss it. it was harry smythe, of course. when i reached him, he had the injured hand tucked tightly in the pit of his other arm. there was a grim look in his eyes and he nodded as i approached him. "good shooting, mate. should be a promotion in it for you. shooting like that, i mean." "that's nice to think about," i said. "where's the boy? i owe him a little something. if he hadn't whistled a warning, you could have picked me off neat." "i would." he nodded calmly. "where is he?" "behind the rock there. in that little alcove, sort of." he indicated with his chin. i started forward. i watched him, but i went toward the rock. "just a minute, mate." i stopped. i didn't lower my gun. "that bloody wench we spoke about yesterday. you know, out in front of that shack? well, just a thought, of course, but if you pull me in and if i get _it_, what'll become of her, do you suppose? mean to say, i couldn't support her when i was dead, could i?" "support her?" surprise jumped into my voice. "what i said. she's my wife, you know. back on earth, i mean. i skipped out on her a few years back, but yesterday i was on my way to looking her up when you--" "she didn't recognize the name harry smythe," i said coldly. "i'm afraid you'll have to think a little faster." "of course she didn't! how could she? that ain't my name. what made you think it was?" bright beads of sweat sparkled on his forehead, and his lips had that frantic looseness of lips not entirely under control. "you left her," i grunted. "but you followed her across space anyway. just to tell her you were sorry and you wanted to come back. is that it?" "well--" his eyes were calculating. "not the god's honest, mate, no. i didn't know she was here. not at first. but there was this spider, see? this martian. his name was tahily and he used to hang around the saloons and he talked a lot, see? then's when i knew...." "so it was you who killed him," i said. "one murder wasn't enough back on earth; you had to pile them up on the planets." i could feel something begin to churn inside of me. "wait! sure, i knocked off the martian. but a fair fight, see? that spider jumped my claim. a fair fight it was, and anybody'd done the same. but even without that, he had it coming anyway, wouldn't you say? bigamist and all that, you know? i mean marrying a woman already married." his lips were beginning to slobber. i watched them with revulsion in my stomach. "wouldn't you say, mate? just a lousy, stinking martian, i mean!" i swallowed. i turned away and went around the rock and looked down. one look was enough. blood was running down the cheek of the prone little martian boy, and it was coming from his mouth. then i turned back to the shaking man. "like i say, mate! i mean, what would you've done in my place? whistling always did drive me crazy. i can't stand it. a phobia, you know. people _suffer_ from phobias!" "what did you do?" i took three steps toward him. i felt my lips straining back from my teeth. "wait now, mate! like i say, it's a phobia. i can't stand whistling. it makes me suffer--" "so you cut out his tongue?" i didn't wait for his answer. i couldn't wait. while i was still calm, i raised my gun on his trembling figure. i didn't put the gun up again until his body stopped twitching and his fingers stopped clawing in the sands. * * * * * from the desk to the outside door, the hospital corridor runs just a few feet. but i'd have known her at any distance. i sighed, got to my feet and met her halfway. she stopped before me and stared up into my eyes. she must have run all the way when she got my message, for although she was standing as rigid as a pole in concrete, something of her exhaustion showed in her eyes. "tell me," she said in a panting whisper. "your boy is going to be okay." i put my arm around her. "everything's under control. the doctors say he's going to live and pull through and...." i stopped. i wondered what words i was going to use when no words that i had ever heard in my life would be the right ones. "tell me." she pulled from my grasp and tilted her head so that she could look up into my eyes and read them like a printed page. "_tell me!_" "he cut out the boy's--he said he couldn't stand whistling. it was a phobia, he claimed. eight bullets cured his phobia, if any." "he cut out what?" "your son's tongue." i put my arm around her again, but it wasn't necessary. she didn't cry out, she didn't slump. her head did go down and her eyes did blink once or twice, but that was all. "he was the only little boy on mars who could whistle," she said. all of the emotion within her was somehow squeezed into those few words. * * * * * i couldn't get it out of my mind for a long while. i used to lie in bed and think of it somewhat like this: there was this man, with his feet planted in the purple sands, and he looked up into the night sky when the moon called deimos was in perigee, and he studied it. and he said to himself, "well, i shall write a book and i shall say in this book that the moon of mars is thus and so. and i will be accurately describing it, for in truth the moon _is_ thus and so." and on the other side of the planet there was another man. and he, too, looked up into the night sky. and he began to study the moon called _phobos_. and he, too, decided to write a book. and he knew he could accurately describe the moon of mars, for his own eyes had told him it looked like thus and so. and his own eyes did not lie. i thought of it in a manner somewhat like that. i could tell the woman that harry smythe, her first husband, was the man who had killed tahily, the martian she loved. i could tell her smythe had killed him in a fair fight because the martian had tried to jump a claim. and her heart would be set to rest, for she would know that the whole thing was erased and done with, at last. or, on the other hand, i could do what i eventually did do. i could tell her absolutely nothing, in the knowledge that that way she would at least have the strength of hate with which to sustain herself through the years of her life. the strength of her hate against this man, whoever he might be, plus the chill joy of anticipating the day--maybe not tomorrow, but some day--when, like the dream of finding gold on mars, she'd finally track him down and kill him. i couldn't leave her without a reason for living. her man was dead and her son would never whistle again. she had to have something to live for, didn't she? a gift for terra by fox b. holden illustrated by paul orban [transcriber note: this etext was produced from if worlds of science fiction september . extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the u.s. copyright on this publication was renewed.] [sidenote: _the good martian samaritans rescued johnny love and offered him "the stars". now, maybe, johnny didn't look closely enough into the "gift horse's" mouth, but there were others who did ... and found therein the answer to life...._] his head hurt like blazes, but he was alive, and to be alive meant fighting like hell to stay that way. that was the first thing returning consciousness told him. the next was that his helmet should have been cracked wide open when the bum landing had wrenched the acceleration hammocks out of their suspension sockets and heaved his suited body across the buckled conning deck. it should've been, but it wasn't. the third thing he knew was that ferris' helmet had been smashed into a million pieces, and that ferris was dead. sand sifted in a cold, red river through the gaping rent in the side of the ship, trying to bury him before he could stand up and get his balance on the crazily tilted deck. he shook loose with more strength than he needed, gave the rest of the muscles in his blocky body a try, and there wasn't any hurt worse than a bruise. funny. ferris was dead. he had a feeling somewhere at the edge of his brain that there was going to be more to it than just checking his oxygen and food-concentrate supply and walking away from the ship. a man didn't complete the first earth-mars flight ever made, smash his ship to hell, and then just walk away from it. his astrogeologer-navigator was dead, and the planet was dead, so a man just didn't walk away. there was plenty of room for him to scramble through the yawning rip in the buckled hullplates--just a matter of crawling up the river of red sand and out; it was as easy as that. then johnny love was on his feet again, and the sand clutched at his heavy boots as though to keep him from leaving ferris and the ship, but it didn't, and he was walking away.... * * * * * even one hundred and forty million miles from the sun, the unfiltered daylight was harsh and the reflection of it from the crimson sand hurt his eyes. the vault of the blue-black sky was too high; the desert plain was too flat and too silent, and save for the thin martian wind that whorled delicately-fluted traceries in the low dunes that were the only interruption in the flatness, there was no motion, and the planet was too still. johnny love stopped his walking. even in the lesser gravity, it seemed too great an effort to place one booted foot before the other. he looked back, and the plume of still-rising smoke from the broken thing that had been his ship was like a solid black pillar that had been hastily built by some evil djinn. how far had he walked; how long? he turned his back on the glinting speck and made his legs move again, and there was the hollow sound of laughter in his helmet. here he was, johnny love, the first martian! and the last! using the last of the strength in his bruised body to go forward, when there was no forward and no backward, no direction at all; breathing when there was no purpose in breathing. why not shut off the valves now? he was too tired for hysteria. men had died alone before. _alone, but never without hope! and here there was no hope, for there was no life, and no man had ever lived where there was not life!_ but he had come to see, and he was seeing, and in the remaining hours left to him he would see what no man had seen in a half a million years. harrison and janes or lamson and fowler would not be down for twenty days at the inside; that had been the time-table. twenty days, twenty years ... he heard himself laugh again. time-table! he and ferris first. then harrison and janes. then lamson and fowler, all at twenty-day intervals. if all landed safely, they would use exploration plan i, condition optimum. if only two crews made it down, plan ii; condition limited. and if only one made the -day journey from the orbit of terra--that would be plan iii; condition untenable, return. the twenty-day interval idea had come from some earth-bound swivel-chair genius who had probably never even set foot in a satellite operations room. somebody had impressed on him when he was young that egg-carrying was a safer mission with a multiplicity of baskets; it was common sense that if anything happened to mars-i touching down, at least it wouldn't happen to ii and iii at the same time. common sense, johnny thought, and he laughed again. space was not common, and it was not sensible. and nobody had ever taught it the rules men made. he kept walking, seeing, thinking and breathing. for a long time. he fell once or twice and picked himself up again to walk some more, and then he fell a final time, and did not get up. red sand whispered over him, danced lightly, drifted.... * * * * * the flat, wide-tracked vehicle swerved in a tight arc, throwing up low ruby-colored clouds on either side. its engines throbbed a new note of power, and it scuttled in a straight line across the desert floor like a fleck of shiny metal drawn by an unseen magnet. behind it rose a thinning monument of green-black smoke, and between its tracks was a wavering line of indentations in the sand already half-obliterated by the weight of their own shallow walls. but they became deeper as the vehicle raced ahead; and then at length they ended, and the vehicle halted. there was a mound of sand that the winds, in their caprice, would not have made alone, for they sculptured in a freer symmetry. and the child-like figures seemed to realize that at once. with quick precision they levelled the mound and found johnny love. they took him into their vehicle, and deftly matched and replenished the waning gas mixture in the cylindrical tanks on his back. then they drove away with him. * * * * * "ferris?" "ferris was your astrogeologer-navigator. he died when you crashed." "harrison ... _janes_?" "harrison and janes are not due for nine more days. but you are in no danger." there was darkness and warmth; his throat was dry and it burned. it was hard to talk, and ferris was dead. harrison and janes were not due for nine more days. somebody said so. nine more days and then everything would be-- panic shook him, sent blood throbbing to his head and brought consciousness back hard. his eyes opened and he was suddenly sitting bolt upright. "but lamson, you were twenty days behind--" and the racing thought froze solid in his fumbling brain. then there was a torrent of thoughts and memory overran them, buried them, and red desert was rushing up to engulf him. he screamed and fell back with his hands clawing at his eyes. "you are in no danger. you had thought our planet lifeless; it was an error. we live underground, john love. that is why you did not see us, or surface indications of our existence. a group of us speak your language, because for eleven days we have been studying your brain and analyzing your thought-patterns." johnny was bolt upright again, and now his eyes were wide and his hands were knotted, and where there had been only light and shadow before there was full sight now. swiftly he was off the low cot and on his feet looking for the speaker, arms ready to lash out and hit. but he was alone in the small, sterile-looking chamber, and his muscles were so much excess baggage. he tried to recover his balance: he had forgotten about the slight gravity. he tried too hard, and his body crashed, confused, into a wall. a--damn them, a _padded_ wall! he regained his feet. stood still, and raced his eyes about him. there it was--above the cot. a small round, shuttered opening--some sort of two-way communication system. he wondered if they could see him, too. if they could, that part of it worked only one way. "all right, whoever you are, so you've analyzed me!" he had to direct his sudden anger at something, so he shouted at the shuttered aperture. "now what...." there was silence for a tiny eternity, and he could feel them probing, evaluating him, as a human scientist would study a rare species in a cage. the feeling ignited a new anger in him, and made him want to curse the teachings that had conditioned his lifetime of thinking to the belief that man _was_ more than an animal. he'd been sold short.... "damn you! god damn you, what are you going to do to me?" in a corner of his mind he was aware of a gentle hissing sound, but he did not listen. the fear and terror had to be broken. make them tell, _make_ them tell.... his muscles grew heavy and his face was feverish with his effort, and his eyes stung. something ... like roses. but there were no roses on dead planets-- "earthman, can you still hear?" "i can hear," johnny said. it was suddenly easier to talk. even easier to understand. they had done something.... "we are surprised that your state of shock was not more severe. in the process of analyzing you, we discovered that you were totally unprepared for space-flight, and therefore--" "unprepared? what do you think all those months of physical conditioning were for? yeah, and all those damned textbooks? you think that barrel i cracked up was built in a kindergarten class--" "space-flight requires but a relative minimum of those things, earthman. required most is psychological and philosophical conditioning." "to what?" "to all things unreal. because they are the most real; infinity applies to probability and possibility far more directly than to simple space and time. but--are you calm now?" the voice was growing deeper, and seemed almost friendly. johnny tried his muscles; they weren't paralyzed--he could move easily, and his head was clear. and there was no anger, now. no "shock." "go ahead," he said. "our examination of you has indicated that your race is a potentially effective one, with a superior survival factor. we feel that, properly instructed and assisted, such a race might be of great value as a friend and ally. in short, we receive you in peace and friendship, earthman. will you accept us in like manner?" johnny tried to think. hard thoughts, the way men were supposed to think. what kind of game was it? what were the strings? the angles ... the gimmicks. what did they really want? his lips were dry and barely moved over his teeth, but the words came easily. "who says you're a friend?" "we would have learned as much about you by examining your corpse, earthman." so he was alive, and that had to prove something. and it might have been a lot of trouble to keep him that way. the hell of it was you couldn't _know_ ... _anything_ ... you couldn't know anything when you were tossed into the middle of the impossible. he felt the skin on the back of his neck chill and tighten. but who held out their hand like this? whoever did anything like that? no. "we wish to help you, earthman, and your race. we have observed your kind at close quarters, yet we have never landed among you nor attempted communication because of fear for ourselves. but with proper help, there need be no fear between us. we offer you friendship and progress." "you keep talking about what _we_ get out of it." johnny stared upward at the ceiling, got his eyes off the little shuttered aperture. he wished he had a cigarette. "you sound too damned much like a politician." "perhaps at this point you should be informed that your ship is completely repaired, and ready for your return to earth whenever you desire." "so, it's--you said harrison and janis would be here in nine days! that means i've been out for nearly two weeks! for a nap that's a long time, but nobody could get that bucket back in one piece in eleven days! not after what i did to it--" "your ship is completely repaired, earthman." johnny knew somehow that the voice wasn't lying. so maybe when you got off of earth miracles did happen. he just didn't _know_ enough. "we wish to give you data to take back to your earth which will banish disease for you--_all_ disease. data which will give you spacecraft that match our own in technical perfection. data that will make you the undisputed masters of your environment. we offer you the stars, earthman." he shut a thousand racing thoughts out of his head. "maybe i'll believe this fairy tale of yours on one condition," johnny said, "because i can't intelligently do otherwise." "and that--condition?" "tell me _why_." there was a pause, and it was as though something forever unknowable to men hung in the silence. "picture, if you can, earthman," the answer came at last, "several small islands in the center of a great sea; all without life, save two. the men on one have learned to build boats which can successfully sail the sea within certain limits--they can visit the other islands, but are too frail and too limited in power to venture past the horizon. it is infinitely frustrating to them. the only places to which they may go are dead places. save for one--only one, and it becomes magnified in importance--it becomes an entire _raison d'etre_ in itself. for without it, the men with the boats sail uselessly.... "we are old, earthman. we have watched you--waited for you for a long time. and now you have grown up. you have burst your tiny bubble of human experience. you have set out upon the sea yourselves...." "you guys should give graduation talks. i didn't ask for a scaled-down philosophy. you tell me that you want to give us every trick in your hat--for free, no questions asked. so i asked why. and the question isn't changing any." "the answer should be self-evident, earthman. we are old. and we are lonely." * * * * * there was a logic at work somewhere in his brain even during the dream. it told him that he was exhausted from the day's tour with the child-like men of mars, and that the dream was only the vagaries of a reeling, tired mind of a badly jarred subconscious. it told him that the things he had seen had been too alien for his relatively inflexible adult earth mind to accept without painful reaction, and this was the reaction. this, the dream. that was all it was; his logic said so. faith spread out before the undisciplined eye of his dreaming brain, and the near-conscious instant of logic faded. the fertile plains that once had been yellow desert-land mounted golden fruits to a temperate sun, and beyond the distant green of gently-rolling hills spread the resplendent city, and there were other cities as gracefully civilized beyond the untroubled horizon. and in the dream, these were all things men had done, as though sanity had invaded their minds overnight. it was the earth that men had intended, rather than that which they had built. the sun dimmed. the air chilled, and the grains and fruits wilted, and the rolling hills were a darker hue than green as the shadow lengthened, spread to the gleaming cities beyond and then as it touched them and ran soundlessly the length and breadth of their wide malls, there were other changes.... skeletons, reaching upward to a puffy, leaden sky. the horizon split into jagged, broken moats of dark flame, and earth was no longer what men had built, but what they eternally feared they must one day create.... then johnny love was suddenly awake bolt upright in his cot and his eyes were open wide. his muscles were taut and cramped. and he was afraid although the men of mars had offered friendship and told him that there was nothing for him to fear. slowly, he lay down again. and gradually, the cold perspiration that had encased him vanished; his body relaxed, and the fear subsided. the day's tour had been exhausting both mentally and physically, and there was the excitement of knowing that in five more days harrison and janes would land. if they did not, his own ship would carry him safely back to earth on the day following, for the little men had miraculously repaired it; they had shown him. they had shown him, and he wanted to go home. johnny love rolled over on the wide, soft cot, sighed, and went back to sleep. * * * * * "_he sleeps again, andruul._" "_yes, but the damage is probably done._" "_no, or he would not sleep again so easily. his kind do not have such emotional control._" _the two turned away from the fading transparency of the sleeping-room wall, and their short, thin bodies were in incongruous contrast to the spaciousness of the metal-sheathed corridor down which they walked._ "_psychoanalysis showed up the difference in his brain structure--that apparently accounts for the poor efficiency our screens are showing. what does kaarn say?_" "_he says we should never have allowed the theft._" _andruul cursed. "allowed it! those nomadic scum are like flies! no matter how many you exterminate, they never fail to come back in double their number. and they strike at the precise moment you are certain the bones of the last one are sinking beneath the sand. somehow central patrol has got to get that unit back._" "_you're certain it was a theft, then?_" "_don't be an idiot. since when can those gypsies build anything more complex than a crude electrical generator? let alone a psibeam unit? they've forgotten what little their civilization ever knew._" "_they are clever enough at evading directed over-surface missiles._" _andruul muttered something, and lapsed into silence._ "_well there is one thing for certain at any rate.... a psibeam unit is unaccounted for, and despite our protective screening, the earthman was visibly disturbed in his sleep. his encephalotapes show that clearly. they know about him, andruul, and they're making their bid. central patrol had better be quick and certain this time._" _andruul kept his silence. but he thought. he thought central patrol was getting less efficient and more stupid every day._ * * * * * it was a strange feeling; a feeling with which no human was emotionally equipped to deal. johnny looked at his flawlessly renovated ship, poised like a snub-nosed bullet against the blue-black brittleness of the martian sky, and then looked behind him at the crescent-shaped formation of tracked vehicles that had escorted him back across the sucking red sand to this place. with each heavy-booted step away from them he closed the short distance between them and his ship, and there was not enough time to think about the feeling. or about the heavy sealed tube they had given him to take back to his people. usually, when a man ventured beyond the bounds of familiar existence, there was conflict. either a struggle to win, or, immediately recognizable success, with no struggle or hint of conflict at all. but not this. not this success that seemed--what was the _word_? hostile? that was ridiculous. these people were friendly. _but somehow--there was an empty ring--_ hell! they had saved his life. rebuilt his ship. given him the tube that contained transcriptions, in his own language, of every scientific secret his people could ever hope to learn for themselves in the next thousand years! and, they had even buried ferris.... use the brains of a mature man, johnny love! you've pulled it off without even trying! the most stupendous thing any man in any age has ever pulled off ... without even trying! for god's sake don't question--don't question things you don't understand! take the credit and let the soul-searching go! he looked behind him again. they were still there. a special, smiling farewell escort, watching a single, solitary figure cross a short expanse of sand to a towering, glistening thing of power. he raised a booted foot to the bottom fin-step, hauled himself up by the stern mounting rungs, hammered the outer lock stud with his gloved fist and the hatch swung open. like a trap. he could feel the skin at the back of his neck tighten but he forced himself to ignore it. the lock cycled up to thirteen psi and the inner port swung automatically inward, and then he was inside, clambering up the narrow ladder past the titanium alloy fuel tanks and the spidery catwalks between them to the tiny control room in the forehull. he would not be waiting for harrison and janes. he would get the hell out of here and then radio them and let them make all the decisions from there. earth for him. home. he ached for it. he strapped himself in the hammock, punched the warming studs for each engine, and there was a dull, muffled throb below him as each jumped into subdued life. the banks of dials that curved in front of him glowed softly, and he started an almost automatic blast-off check. it took twelve precious minutes. then he was ready. scanners on, heat up ... ready. the martian sky was like frozen ink above him and his hands were wet inside his gloves and there was a choking dryness in his throat. _now...._ and he could not move. there was a sudden, awful nausea and his head spun, and before his eyes there spread a bleeding earth; the sun dimmed, and fertile plains were cast in sudden shadow.... the air chilled, the shadow spread, and there were skeletons reaching upward to a puffy, leaden sky! _and earth was no longer what men had built!_ then the horror in his head was gone, and he felt an awful pressure on each side of it. his hands ... he had been pressing with insane strength at both sides of his skull as if to crush it with his bare hands.... his face was wet, and he was breathing, choking, in strangling gulps. a scanner alarm clanged. he forced his eyes to focus on the center screen. "earthman! emergency! there has been a flaw discovered in the repair of your ship! do not blast off! do not...." the other image caught him as his arm was in mid-flight toward the control bank. sweet and warm ... the fertile plains mounting their golden fruits to a mellowed sun, and beyond the distant gently-rolling hills spread the resplendent city, and there were other cities.... but his arm kept going, its muscles loose, and it fell. heavily. squarely on the stud-complex toward which its fist had been aimed a split-second before. the engines roared, and the ship lurched upward from the red sand. * * * * * _the command flicked into the captain's brain like a lash of ice._ "_slaazar! converge, sheaf!_" "_converging, sir...." it would be no use, of course. if the high brass had been content to rely on the beams rather than on their own subtlety in the first place, the earthman would never have fallen prey to the nomads, even for a second. but they had wanted to be as forthright as possible--force, they said, would only arouse suspicion. psibeam units only as a last resort.... the lowliest patrol lancer could have told them the folly of that!_ _hastily, slaazar issued orders to his battery crews tracking the ascending spaceship, their units already nearing overload potential. but the desert-scum would see some real psi-power now! they'd see it wasted completely if they saw it at all.... because they'd outmaneuvered the brass again!_ "_convergence impossible, sir._" _as he had expected._ "_colonel truul, this is captain slaazar. target has passed critical planetary curvature. convergence impossible. standing by, sir._" _for several moments after that, the thin atmosphere of mars was warmed a little...._ * * * * * acceleration blackout had not been total; leaving mars was even easier than leaving the surface of earth for the orbits of the stations. but there was a period of no-thought, no-time, no-being. and then full consciousness seeped back slowly. but not as it was supposed to. johnny love knew he had come to because he could see the banked instruments glowing palely before him; because he could realize from reading them that his ship was doing its job to perfection. almost ready to complete the blast-off ogee, and-- angrily he belted the scanner switches off and the dull red sphere faded from the viewplates. and he could feel the sweat start again all over his body. no, the returning consciousness was all wrong.... all wrong, and the image wouldn't go away.... red desert he had seen before, yet had not seen. there were dark ridges of brown-green at its horizon; oddly-formed crater-places that might once have held placid lakes. and on all the vast surface there was no hint of the patrol tracks, no sign of--anything. but he had to descend to the place. he did not know how to locate it, but the image told him that it did not matter. the image said merely that he must begin cutting his power. there was no strength in his arms and hands, yet they moved in front of him as though things detached from his body; skillfully, surely, playing deftly across the colored studs. scanners on. scanners on, kid.... he watched the screens again, unconscious of what his fingers did on the panels. the dull red sphere loomed large once more. the picture was off-center; without knowing what he did he rectified course with the bow jets; it was centered again. but it was a different place. still the desert, but with ridges of brown-green at its horizon; oddly-formed crater-places.... it was coming up fast, now; faster, until the horizon was only a gentle arc against a thin span of blackness, and the rest was cold red. hardly knowing what he did, his fingers suddenly raced over the control console, even before the scanner-alarms began their ear-splitting clanging! the ship lurched into a direction-change that threatened to wrench the hull apart, and the picture in the scanner reeled crazily. he knew his own brain was not dictating the commands of control to his fingertips, nor was it evaluating for itself the madly fluctuating values indicated on the panels. a human brain could not have done it, he knew that.... he had cut power. at least there was no power. he was falling at a crazy angle and the desert was rushing up now, hurtling up to smash him. they'd hit him, then, yet he'd felt nothing.... it was getting hot. his hull must be glowing, now, even in the thin atmosphere of mars--it was a long fall. slower than a fall on earth, through thinner air layers, yet he was glowing like a torch. the ocean of sand rushed up. and suddenly his left hand rammed the full-power stud. it was as though he'd been hit from behind with all the brute force of some gigantic fist, and there were two things. there was the split-second glimpse of a crescent formation suddenly wheeling toward him and there was the clang of the scanner-alarm. there were those two things his brain registered before the titanic force of full power squeezed consciousness from it and left him helpless. * * * * * he was running. in a nightmare of a dead planet that was not dead, he ran, away from something. that was how his consciousness returned. while he ran. he stopped, stumbling, turned to look behind him. and the ship was there. landed perfectly, stubby bullet-nose pointing to the sky. and above it-- _run!_ the command hit his brain with almost physical force. a will that was not his own took hold of his whole being, and he was running again, plowing his way through the sucking sand with strength summoned from a well of energy within his body that had never been there before. through the thin glassite walls of his helmet he could hear the _thuk, thuk, thuk_ of his boots as they pounded somewhere below him, and there was another pounding, a deadly rhythmic bursting pressure in his chest. and a whine in his ears.... the wind-strewn sand stretched flat and infinitely before him. then leaped at him headlong and there was no horizon; there was only the sudden awful wrench of concussion, a tremor of pure sound which would, in denser atmosphere, have destroyed him with the inertia of his own body. he could not move. only cling to the shifting desert floor that rocked sickeningly beneath his outstretched body ... cling to it for dear life. there was no thought, no understanding. only a sensation which he could not comprehend, and the sure knowledge that none of this was real. not real, but the end of survival nonetheless. * * * * * pain, and seeing two bright objects transiting the darkness at which he looked; seeing something then between. his brain began identifying. the darkness; sky. the bright objects; diemos, phobos.... and the something between-- it was a transparency of some sort; curved, or he would not have been able to detect it at all. a vaulted ceiling through which he could see.... his full consciousness came flooding back, then. he tried the muscles in his neck, they hurt, but they worked, and he could move his head from side to side. there was the same transparency, as though he were covered by some huge, invisible bowl. and there were men. big, muscular creatures, yet thin, tall.... not like the others at all.... he sat bolt upright, and they did not move. it was not the same as before. no small room. no voice that he could not see. they had not even removed his suit or his helmet, and he was lying on a hard, cold substance. then he saw what they were doing. there were two of them apart from the others, working to bring a compact-looking machine into position near him. a gleaming, short cylinder, swung on gymbals between slender forks, mounted on a thin wheeled standard. they were aiming it at him. "no! _no_--" he tried to get to his knees, but it was as though there were no muscles in his body. "man of--earth! we are friendly. is that understood?" the thought-words formed in his brain as the strange images had before, and then he knew. _should have guessed it_, part of his mind was telling him in a fantastically detached way, _the dreams ... the compulsions over which he had had no control in the ship.... this--thing. it probably--_ "you are quite astute, earthman. but it is not our technology which created this device. to save you and the civilization which you represent--and ultimately, our own--it was necessary for us to steal it. it cost six lives." "steal...." "from your former captors. it is their invention, as are so many things with which they destroy. with this instrument, they have succeeded in taking one of nature's more subtle phenomenon--psychokinesis--and amplifying its energies nearly a million-fold. those stepped-up energies can then be projected in a tight or fanned beam at will. "they can make a man 'dream,' as you did--or they can destroy him outright, depending on which of the 'psi' factors, esp or pk, is given dominance during projection. but we are not skilled in its operation--they detected our use of it on you while you slept, and from that moment on you were so well screened that even at the risk of burning this unit out, we were not able to project powerfully enough to do more than merely touch your brain--" * * * * * there was a strange calm in his mind, now. he understood the words and accepted them as matter-of-factly as they were given. even now they were manipulating him like some intangible puppet, yet he was convinced it was not a malevolent manipulation. convinced. the conviction--manipulation, too.... "only partly, earthman. we said we are friendly, and we are. we have calmed you and erased your fear. from this point on, we will use this instrument only for communication." and then he felt the fear in him again, gnawing, and his body was again damp and cold. but he had control, now. control enough to speak. they stood before him, immobile, watching. somewhere, johnny love found his voice. "look, i've been through this 'friendly' act before...." he hesitated, and they did not try to interrupt him. "well don't just stand there!" the fear was suddenly turning to the bitter anger of frustration, they had him whipped, and he was tired. "tell me why! you stick that thing into my head when i'm blasting for home. you force me to drop back. you blow up my ship. real friendly! real sports!" for a moment he had run out of words, and again they made no effort to answer him. "all right! i don't understand you--i don't know what you want. but nobody is trying to hurt you, nobody's after your little desert paradise. we had an idea, that's all. we thought we could make it work. people have been talking 'go to mars' on my planet for longer than most of 'em can remember. so we finally gave it a whirl! sorry!" he looked at them hard, then, and thought that there was something almost like a smile on the face of one. smile, then, damn you.... "we want nothing, earthman, but to prevent from happening on your planet the thing that happened on this. if they succeed in destroying you as they have us, then this system will always be under their heel, and we shall never be rid of them. understand, their numbers were too few ever to conquer a planet with a civilization as large and as highly organized as that of earth, by physical means. "knowing that, we--they call us gypsies, nomads, desert-scum today--we were not too alarmed when they landed here two centuries ago. we were glad to take from them, without paying a price. we were awed by their gifts. their papers and their books, which would show us how to rebuild our waning civilization--advance us a thousand years in less than fifty; restore to us our lost arts.... and compared to you, we were so very few. "in return, they said that all they wanted was permission to set up a research site. they told us they were a scientific expedition from far out-system. aldeberan, they said. part of a vast exploratory program which they had been conducting for centuries. "we believed them--why not? one day, we thought, we too will be in space. and with that day would begin one of the greatest projects of exploration that our race had ever known. so we agreed, and gladly." "hold it, hold it! 'they'--who the hell are 'they'? you can spare the suspense...." and then there was no more words. the pictures formed in his mind as before, only stronger, now, and there were no details left out. the weapons of war had been built, not by the out-system men, but by their hosts. the plans had not proven too difficult to follow.... the new knowledge was not hoarded, was not held under jealous guard by those who had given it, but by those to whom it had been given. one man from another; one group of men from another. states and nations from each other. until there was no trust left on all the planet. there were the wars, then. and when they were over, the new masters had established their first beachhead in the new system. "but, it was only a beachhead, and had been only intended as such--" the pictures broke off; the unspoken words resumed. "your planet was the ultimate target, but at first, your civilization was not adequately advanced to fall prey to their technique. their weapon is knowledge, but the potentialities of that knowledge must be understood by a people before it can be effectively used to destroy them. "the rest must be self-evident. after we destroyed ourselves, they sank their infectious, hollow roots into our planet. and from then, investigated your earth from time to time ... and waited.... "waited, because they knew you would be coming. and they knew what kind of men you would be. strong men, with the light of the stars in your eyes. yet confused, weak men, with the darkness of suspicion and jealousy still in your souls. such are humans, after all.... "that is why we stopped you, johnny love. once your blast-off ogee had carried you beyond the curvature of their horizon and brought you over us, our psibeam was effective and theirs were not. we are sorry about your ship. once they realize that you were under our influence, and were returning rather than taking their precious data to your people, they zeroed-in with those damnable guided juggernauts--" "it wasn't you, then. you mean they--" "there is little that they cannot do. destruction is their forte. they could not keep us from preventing your taking their 'gift' to your people, but they could keep that 'gift' from falling into our hands--and they did. they do not always win. but they never lose." "but i--" johnny's thoughts raced. the ship, gone. and harrison and janes, lamson, and fowler. they would be landing in a few days. they-- "yes," the thoughts of the true martians before him answered. "and they will be given a 'gift' for terra as you were. if your friends return successfully to your planet with that 'gift'--then--" the thought was not completed. but it did not have to be. a beachhead was one thing. these scattered, struggling people who had once been masters of mars might one day unseat it, for they were not yet beaten people, and their will to survive was yet strong. but beyond that-- earth taken, the system taken. there it was. there was a sudden coldness inside him now that the fact had crystallized, had become real. here was no fantasy; no wild surmise. they left him in silence while he thought, their psibeam turned away, now. harrison and janes. lamson, and fowler. had to stop them. stop them, and then somehow, get home. he ached for home. he thought about ferris, who had given his life for this thing. no, ferris would not be going home. ferris was dead. he signalled for the psibeam to be turned toward him again. "you'd have to know their positions out there to make contact, wouldn't you?" they did not answer. he worked to get the words formed, and there was a fleeting thought of a green, lush planet far away, its wide streets and rolling fields bathed in warm sunlight. "i can figure 'em," he said. "i know blast-off schedules, speeds. i know the works! _those_ things they had in the books. then you guys can do the rest with--that thing. right?" they answered him, then. "thank you," they said. and that was all. * * * * * "answer me!" the general barked again. "you, janes! lamson! fowler--harrison! for the last time, what happened out there?" the four stood silently before the nervous figure of their commander, and it was fowler who finally spoke. "plan iii, sir, as we've already said. condition untenable--return...." "that is all you can say?" "that is--all, sir." the general turned away. there was frustration and anger in his face, and it hid the fear beneath it like a mask. plan iii. it would be plan iii for a long time yet. it was the thing he saw in the faces of the four men that told him that. there had been too many giant steps, too fast. he had seen this thing in the faces of men before, but never so nakedly. one day, perhaps, men could think of plan i again. one day, but not now. he turned back to the four, and looked once more into their faces. plan iii. condition untenable. "dismissed!" the general said. education of a martian by joseph shallit illustrated by emsh [transcriber's note: this etext was produced from galaxy science fiction august . extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the u.s. copyright on this publication was renewed.] it was for his ideals joyce loved the alien. but ideals are conditioned reflexes.... walter harley glowered across the room at his daughter. he didn't like the willful tone that crept into her voice these days; he didn't like the way her gray eyes spread wide at him, the way her lips tensed, the way she drew herself up, tall and slim, an arch of determination. the darned girl had grown up too fast, that was the trouble. joyce faced up to his scowl, shaky as she was. she knew what he was thinking, because he had told her enough times--she was a headstrong girl without a brain cell to her name; her college education had been a waste; worse than that, it had pumped her full of crazy ideas, had knocked her sense of values upside down. "how anybody in their right mind...." he growled at her. "listen, you've already been to mars. you've seen it. what do you want to go to that miserable, dried-up hole again for?" "because ... because i was happy there," she said tremulously. "what? with those miserable savages?" he slapped his euphoria pipe down on the table. "ethel, will you listen to that?" joyce's mother, plump and round-shouldered and vague-eyed, was deep in her reclining chair, the miniature transviewer on her lap, watching a garden party in rome. "what is it, dear?" she asked unhappily. "this crazy girl wants to take her vacation on mars again." "well ... it _is_ educational," ethel said. harley made a wild, exasperated sound. "what do you know about it? you've never been there. it's a dried-up hole, i tell you. it's a slum--it's one great big slum. just one decent hotel in the whole place, and that's only because some of our boys went out there and put it up for them." "that awful hotel--" joyce caught herself. not an argument about this, please! there was trouble enough waiting for her. "i wouldn't stay at the hotel," she said quietly. "what do you mean? where would you stay?" "with some people i know there." she saw his heavy eyebrows clench, saw his eyes search her suspiciously. she heard her mother's uneasy movements. she sat tautly, her hands in her lap. "who," harley said finally, "are these people?" "just ... some friends," joyce said. now it was coming, now, now. "what friends?" her father's voice was lower, harsher. "just some people i met when i was there last time." "just some.... say! is this why we've been running up these solarphone bills? what've you been doing--talking to these people every week?" "only a few times." "look here. look at me. joyce, answer me. have you been talking to that fellow you told us about--the one you met on your other trip?" she let it out, a tiny, miserable, "yes." harley's hand slammed down on the table. he wrestled his heavy body up out of his chair, stamped halfway across the room toward her and stopped. "young lady, i'm not going to have this. i'm not going to have anything like this! you hear? you want to get tangled up with him? my god, you've been communicating with him for a _year_?" "whenever i was able to," joyce said hoarsely, looking at the floor. "joyce!" he came to her, reached down and lifted her chin. "joyce, you're not--you're not in love with this--this creature!" she nodded, suddenly angered at her weakness, angered at the wetness in her eyes. "oh, my god!" harley raised his arms, brought them down with a slap against his thighs. he turned away from her. he glared at his wife, who was drifting nervously up out of her chair. he turned back to joyce. "you're not serious. you can't be. this can't--this just can't happen to us. you'll have to get this foolishness out of your head right now. right this minute. my god, the next thing you know, you'll be wanting to marry one of those things." "i do...." the sound barely came out. she swallowed, forced her voice up. "i am going to marry him." * * * * * a blast of silence swept the room, but, strangely, the shock of it didn't touch her. all at once, she was calm, quiet. she had said it, and now she was armored against everything. "no," her father was saying dully. "no, joyce. no." "i'm sorry, dad," she said all in a rush. "i've thought about it a long time. i thought i'd forget him after a little while. i wasn't able to. i'm in love with him--i'll always be in love with him. when i come back, i'm bringing him with me. we're going to be married here." now, finally, the storm broke out of him. he yelled at her, he stamped around, his fists pounded the air--it was just as she had pictured it, dreaded it. yet she was unshaken now, detachedly able to watch him as if he were some unruly, unintelligent child. i am going to marry him, she had said, and once the words were out, everything else was easy. there were no problems. there was nothing to be afraid of. "his name is gregrill," she said. "they don't have last names. we'll have to make one up or perhaps use mine." "i'll see my daughter dead before i let her marry a martian!" harley roared. "but if she really loves him--" ethel intruded timorously. "loves him? love that miserable scum?" "dad, please," joyce said quietly. "you're condemning somebody you've never seen." "i don't have to see him! he's a martian, isn't he? he has horns, doesn't he?" "they're not horns. they're antennae." "call them what you like, they're horns!" "they're antennae, dad," joyce repeated firmly. "they're proof of advanced development. they can communicate with each other hundreds of miles. they can sense instantly--" "i don't want to hear about it!" "but, dear," ethel tried again, "sometimes, when they marry an earthling girl, they cut those horns off, and then they look just like us." "i wouldn't let him--" joyce bit off each word--"do any such thing. i'd be utterly ashamed of him. i wouldn't marry him if he knuckled under to our prejudices like that. what does he have to be apologetic about? he's a superior being--" "superior?" her father howled at her, but his voice was losing its power. * * * * * "in spite of our buildings and machines and things, they're far richer than we are, really. they have such a richness of feeling, such warmth, such sensitivity. they understand and feel so much more than we do. it's--it's fantastic. it's just something we can't comprehend." "i see," he said bitterly. "and how are you going to comprehend them?" "gregrill can speak earthling as well as i can," joyce said. "he's a graduate of the university there in memnonia. maybe, with his guidance, i'll eventually get some insight into--" "my god," harley said dully. he walked unsteadily away from her and fell into his chair. "a daughter of mine...." he looked at her again. "joyce, can't you see it's impossible? it couldn't work. these mixed marriages have never worked out. never! don't you see how it would be? you'd be an outcast. none of your friends would ever want to see you again." "well, if they should happen to be stupid and prejudiced--" "_i'm_ that stupid and prejudiced! i wouldn't let a martian in my house! they're the scum of the solar system!" "dad, i won't listen to you talk like that." "what do you want to do--be the wife of a janitor?" he went on relentlessly. "porters and janitors, that's all they're fit for." "if they were ever given a chance--" "a chance? what would they do with it? loaf around dreamily, get nowhere. nowhere at all! and pull us down to their level while they're fouling up our civilization!" joyce stood up, her hands trembling. "you're not going to mars!" harley shouted. "you're not going, you hear? you're staying right here on earth!" "i'm afraid," she said unsteadily, "that you're too late. i already have my ticket. i expected you'd make a fuss. my--my trunk is at the spaceport. nothing can stop me now, dad." "i'll stop you. you'll never marry that scum. by god, if i have to take it to the panterrestrial court--" "good-by, dad. i'm not booked to sail till thursday, but i think it's better if i spend the remaining days in a hotel. it'll be more comfortable for all of us." "joyce, come back here!" "good-by, dad." she waved a shaky hand at her mother. "good-by, mom. see you soon." "joyce! come back!" she went out, quietly closing the door behind her. * * * * * the huge -passenger spaceship settled down slowly toward the landing field, its braking jets making a queer whistling sound in the thin martian air. the passengers crowded to the windows. most of them were already in their thermosuits, though the daylight temperature was close to fifty degrees. some were even adjusting their oxygen packs. these weren't necessary at all, except for long hikes or intense exertion, which few of the visitors would indulge in. but they'd bought the things and they were going to use them--it was part of the adventure. most of the passengers were working people on vacation, taking advantage of the special two-in-a-room rate. there were a few salesmen, nervous but hopeful about the possibilities of opening up the hinterlands; so far, only memnonia, the martian capital, had provided earthlings with any business. in the bow of the spaceship was a crowd of girls, a college graduating class. some of them were dressed in the new skin-tight thermosuits which were stirring up so much fuss in the fashion magazines. listening to their ecstatic, senseless chatter, joyce suddenly felt immensely older. the day, thirteen months ago, when she first sighted the memnonian landscape with her own class, seemed impossibly long ago.... the ship nestled in against the vast loading ramp. a whistle sounded. the doors slid open. husky, bare-chested martian porters crowded aboard, began wheeling out the luggage. joyce stepped out into the pale sunlight. the clear, thin air tingled at her nostrils, dizzied her, as she'd known it would till she got used to it. she followed her porter down the ramp. it seemed to her, in her giddiness, that gregrill himself was down there, down at the end of the ramp, bronzed, bare-armed, coming toward her-- it _was_ he! he had made the two-hundred-mile trip to meet her! she began to run. she stumbled, caught herself on somebody's arm, ran again, plunged against him, lost herself against his big, powerful chest. "oh, greg! greg, you're here!" it was a long while before she could pull herself away to look at him. she had forgotten his strength, the magnificent arch of his chest. he was wearing a white fiber vest in the traditional style, sleeveless, cut low in front. his sun-washed skin glowed like polished bronze. the highlights shone on the strong, high arc of his nose, the ridge of his cheekbones. his fragile russet antennae swayed like wheat stalks in the wind. there were muttered complaints around her. she was being shoved, prodded. she'd hardly realized they were standing in the midst of the swarming passengers. "oh," she laughed tremulously, "let's move. my luggage. where--oh, there it is, that man over there with the cart." "i will get it," gregrill said. "oh, no, please." but he was already striding away, big and powerful, towering over most of the earthlings who were scurrying past. she saw him give something to the martian porter, watched him swing the trunk up on his shoulder. it writhed in her, it devastated her, her father's contemptuous dismissal--"porters and janitors, that's all they're fit for." "greg, put it down," she said frantically. "i won't have you carrying it!" he smiled at her indulgently. "it is not heavy." "i don't want you to," she pleaded. "why do you not want me to?" he asked puzzledly. "somebody must." but how could she say it? how could she discuss it at all? she walked beside him, dumbly. they went down the ramp to where the aircabs were loading. an earthling company had put in all the air transport here; the martians themselves had never bothered to develop anything more advanced than the _eshbrug_, a lumbering, three-wheeled, sun-powered vehicle. "we shall take the airbus," gregrill said. "oh, do we have to?" she asked. "how else can we go?" "can't we get an _eshbrug_?" he looked at her wonderingly. "to travel three times as long? i am aware that you are tired--" "i'm tired of a lot of things," she blurted. "i'm tired of all the smooth, cynical, streamlined--right now, i'd rather walk the whole way than step into an earthling airbus." he gave an uncertain laugh. "i am not sure that i understand your meaning." "i'll explain it some time." but how could she ever? he thought earthlings were all such noble, shining, gifted creatures. how could she tell him of the rot at the heart of so many of them? "come on," she insisted desperately. "let's find an _eshbrug_." * * * * * the driver let them out at gregrill's road. gregrill shouldered the trunk, and they walked down past the irregular row of red, sunbaked, dome-shaped houses, each with its big tank in the rear for catching mars' meager rainfall. joyce felt a quickening, a surge of warmth, when she saw them and the quiet, open-faced people in their doorways, smiling their shy welcomes. she was coming home. she was coming home.... gregrill's mother and father were waiting just inside their door. they opened their arms; they hardly said a word. joyce ran to them, folded them against her. she didn't mind the tears. she let them lead her into the main room, let them seat her, put pillows around her. she sat there bathing in their tenderness, their simple good-heartedness. couldn't everybody see it? why couldn't her father know it? these were the best people in the universe! dinner was an earthling meal. joyce had been looking forward to a dish of _mrila_, the martian rice, and _krulevak_, the white fruit that tasted like luscious chicken meat. but gregrill's parents had obviously felt that their humble foods were too mean for her exalted taste and they had gone to the expense of bringing in vegetables and meats from the earthling import shop in memnonia. joyce hid her disappointment. she had an impulse to say, "please, please don't mimic our earthling ways. stay the way you are. don't spoil anything. don't lose what you have." after dinner, gregrill took her for a walk. joyce had her thermosuit on now. the sun was setting, and the startling cold of the martian night was coming in fast. gregrill changed his fiber vest for a sleeved jacket, though of the same light material. it was incredible how little protection these people needed against the cold. but, of course, they'd adapted to it. they walked along the edge of the gorge that cut through the stunted forest half a mile from gregrill's home. the rough sides of the gorge rose sheer and splendid, a marvel of glittering color--red, orange, yellow, brown. far down on the rocky bed, a shallow stream flowed sluggishly to the south. soon, as summer came on, the stream would quickly deepen. from the northern ice fields, a torrent of blue water would come rushing down the gorges, and the heavy rains would come, and the red ground underfoot would turn to a miraculous green, and the _mrila_ would sprout up like a rug of green velvet across the wide fields and the terraced hills. if she could only stay here, if they could only build their lives here with these simple, good-hearted people.... but she knew it couldn't be. gregrill would be wasted here. earth, despite all its hatefulness for her, was the only place where his genius would have a chance to unfold and display its potentialities. "it is time that we go back?" gregrill asked. "you are cold?" suddenly, helplessly, joyce began to laugh. "what is it?" gregrill said, confused by the sudden laughter. "the funny stiff way you talk!" she laughed on and on. she couldn't stop. "i am sorry," he said, turning aside, his face full of hurt. "oh, no!" she caught his arm. "don't misunderstand. i love the way you talk. i want you always to talk the way you do now. don't change--please don't ever change. i love you just as you are." * * * * * gregrill got his visa five days later. it was a complicated affair. joyce had to sign half a dozen affidavits at the earthling consulate, all certifying in one way or another that she intended to marry gregrill as soon as they reached earth, and that she guaranteed he wouldn't become a public charge. it was practically the only way a martian had of getting to earth. it infuriated her, this stupid legislation by which earth denied itself everything these people could contribute to its culture. a few years ago, the earthling government had admitted several thousand martians to fill the pressing shortage of menial labor, and had permitted venusians to take jobs as room stewards and waiters on the spaceships; and by that trivial concession, it had felt it was fulfilling its obligations to the interplanetary union. when would it learn what its narrow prejudices were costing? would it have to wait till someone like gregrill stepped forward and demonstrated all the richness it was missing? the formal good-bys had been said. the neighbors had held a party for them. it had been in a clearing behind the houses, out in the clean, lemon-yellow sunlight. they had eaten roasted _trork_, the crustacean delicacy from the northern gorges, and _mrila_ made into candied patties. gregrill's mother and father had danced the grave, stately farewell dance. and now, on their final evening on mars, joyce and gregrill were taking their last walk along the deep, echoing gorge. she had just been watching him finish his packing, and the pain of it still sat in her throat. he had included his college books--every one of his texts and notebooks--packing them in so reverently, so pathetically confident that all he had to do was follow his classroom precepts, and recognition and success would come tumbling into his hands.... "i hope that your parents will like me as well as my parents like you," gregrill said. "oh, yes," joyce assured him hoarsely. "perhaps they will not be pleased that you marry a martian." "no, greg, no. they'll--" but she couldn't carry it on. he turned to face her; he looked at her hard. he was starting to speak, to ask the obvious questions, but she flung herself against him. "greg! let's get married here! let's get married before we leave." he held her away from him so he could look at her. "but you had wished to be married on earth," he said bewilderedly. "i know, but i've changed my mind. i want it here, now. oh, greg, i'm afraid...." his big russet eyes narrowed, his high-winged nostrils flared, scenting danger. "you are afraid of what?" he asked quietly. "i don't know, greg. i--i'm just afraid something will happen, something will go wrong, i don't know what." she couldn't look him in the eyes. "let's get married here, in the morning, before we leave. then we'll be married. "nothing can go wrong." "will not your parents be angered that you--" "no, no, greg. it'll be all right. this is the best way, believe me." "i believe you," he said gravely. and it caught her again, his small-boy solemnity. she was caught in a burst of helpless laughter. "oh, greg, i love you!" * * * * * they were married by a martian priest in a small red-draped temple in memnonia, not far from the spaceport. the ceremony was without words, like all religious rites on mars. the tall, round-bodied priest, a huge cylinder of a man in heavy ritual fiber robes, stood facing them, his hands stiff against his sides, his eyes closed, his heavy features motionless. joyce closed her eyes, too. she strained to hear, feel, sense something of what was passing between the priest and gregrill. surely, if she strained hard enough, she would catch some echo, some aura. but the air defied her; she was deaf, blind, insensate; she was cut off irrevocably from this higher level of communication. perhaps their children.... "he is saying the words now," gregrill whispered in her ear. "you two together ... comfort each other ... against the darkness and the drought ... through the long dry misery of winter ... when the water is locked and nothing grows ... till the glad day of rain and running streams ... you two together ... comfort each other...." "say yes, my darling," gregrill told her. "yes, yes! oh, yes!" they were outside, striding exultantly through the sunshine, the light wind tossing their hair, and the words kept singing to her: "through the long dry misery of winter ... till the glad day of rain...." oh, yes, greg! yes! when they reached the spaceship, their bags had already been taken to their stateroom, unpacked, the clothing arranged in the dressers--the meticulous work of the venusian stewards. even the bedcovers were turned down, her nightgown laid out. "greg," she said in a rush of embarrassment, "let's go out and watch the ... watch how we take off." "you go, and i shall join you soon," he said. "i must wash and anoint myself as a bridegroom." joyce went down the corridor into the observation rotunda. the huge semicircular window was cluttered with jabbering passengers. she squeezed in among them, but she stayed only a moment. she pushed her way back out and went to a table near the head of the corridor, and waited restlessly for him. midway down the corridor, a venusian steward, a scrawny little gray-skinned, long-beaked fellow, was running a cleaning machine over the floor. she smiled at him, but he turned his face shyly away. and then gregrill came, moving up the corridor with his lithe, magnificent grace. his wet hair glistened. "greg, you look wonderful!" she cried, instantly aware of how foolish she sounded. he speeded his steps. he didn't see the cleaning hose in his path. the venusian moved quickly to pull it aside, but it caught gregrill's foot. he stumbled, caught himself on the corridor rail. swiftly he turned, his arm swung out, his forearm slammed against the jaw of the little venusian, sending him crashing down against his cleaning machine. gregrill looked down at him a moment. then he turned, gave joyce a broad smile and walked to her table. "greg." her throat was dry. "why did you do that? he didn't mean it." "it is his duty to avoid such accidents," gregrill said. "but look, he's still lying there. let's go help him." "leave him there," he said. "he is only a venusian." "only a--?" "venusian." his lips curled. "they are the scum of the solar system." the tremor that went through her was lost in the thrust of the jets as the ship took off. "they are not even fit for cleaning floors," gregrill said. he suddenly smiled. "do you not see the change i have made?" he gestured at his head. through tear-blinded eyes, she saw his glossy waves of hair. the antennae were gone! "it hurt only a little," he said. "i could not wait until i had them off. i have been ashamed of them for so long." lord, who was this person she had married? _she didn't know him!_ "i see that you are still upset," he said. "please understand that these venusians must be kept in their place." it was some stranger. she couldn't be married to him. she couldn't! "i wonder if i look like an earthling now," he said. "tell me, do you think that i look a little like your father and his friends?" she answered him wearily, defeatedly: "yes, greg. you do. exactly." the patriot by charles l. fontenay _earth was through with war. and while it is right that man have peace, it is also right that he have freedom. but mars was in slavery, and to mars cornel lorensse dedicated his life and his talent...._ [transcriber's note: this etext was produced from worlds of if science fiction, august . extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the u.s. copyright on this publication was renewed.] _the martianne_ is heard occasionally these days as a stirring concert or band selection. but there was a time when its playing was punishable by death--and its defiant strains challenged the harried police in tavern and drawing room all over the earth. in the days just before one _marche militaire_ changed two worlds, earth was weary of war, afraid of war, and desired to put behind it all reminders of war. the psychosociologists said uniforms of policemen, of postmen, of airline pilots, of lodge brethren, of theater ushers, were militaristic, and they were abolished. the psychosociologists said the march rhythm in music was nationalistic and instigated combative feelings, and it was banned. the scenes, the sounds, the sights of antagonisms between men were forbidden. the _polonaise_, the _marseillaise_, the _march of the toys_, all suffered the same fate. sousa's marches and tschaikovsky's _ overture_ went the same way. _dixie_ and the _hawaiian war chant_ were treated alike. all were relegated to tape in dusty archives, and their sale or public performance forbidden on pain of fine and prison sentence. whatever unlawful violence there might be on faraway mars, earth was through with all forms of war and its trappings. into these circumstances, cornel lorensse intruded on the night of december , . he pressed his thin face against the steam-misted window of _the avatar_ in nuyork and saw a piano standing idle inside. _the avatar_ was one of those small restaurants sunk a few feet below sidewalk level, which catered with exotic dishes to the tastes of a select group. it was well-populated at this hour, and cornel licked his lips hungrily at the epicurean delights unveiled at each table. he felt in the pocket of his worn coveralls. a single coin answered the exploration of his fingers. he was down to his last resource, and he was no nearer to finding the friends than he had been when he landed. he looked again at the piano, hesitated, then went down the three steps to the restaurant's door, pushed it open and went in. it was his good fortune that wan ti, owner of _the avatar_ was receiving his guests in person at the moment. "i'll play you a concert for a meal," said cornel, gesturing toward the piano. wan ti's dark eyes swept over him, taking in the battered coveralls, the earnest face, the untrimmed blond hair, the slender hands. wan ti's yellow countenance remained bland. "i have a piano player," said wan ti. cornel laughed, with a note of desperation in his tone. "let me play one selection," he urged. "if you want to stop me then, you can kick me out." what wan ti thought could not be gauged from his expression, but he had not built his clientele against fierce competition by turning his face away from the unusual. he inclined his head slightly, and waved cornel to the piano. cornel sat down at the keyboard, brushed his hair back from his eyes, and flexed his long fingers. thrusting the tantalizing aroma of food to the back of his mind, he played. the murmur of conversation in _the avatar_ faltered and died as the fervid melody of beethoven's _sonata appassionata_ filled the air. it was unusual music to people accustomed to hearing the more modern compositions of schonberg, harris and westine. the comparison of cornel's inspired touch to the mechanical renditions of wan ti's regular piano player was noticeable even to those who were unfamiliar with music. when the final movements of the _allegro ma non troppo_ faded, cornel sat back and looked toward wan ti. the proprietor cocked an ear toward the rare applause, smiled and nodded slightly. exultantly, cornel swung into chopin's _fantasie-impromptu_ and followed it, not pausing, with liszt's _waldesrauschen_ and schubert's _serenade_. the applause was just as enthusiastic, but by now the hum of voices and the click of eating utensils had begun to rise again. frowning slightly, cornel hunched his shoulders and began a composition the most musical of his audience had never heard before. like the molten notes of the nightingale, the music floated and throbbed above the diners, almost a physical thing. the people in the restaurant paused with food halfway to their lips. they turned to see the artist, carefully, so that no chair would scrape. the waiters stopped with trays in their hands. wan ti stopped a newly arriving couple, his fingers at his lips. in the midst of the applause that roared through the room when cornel had finished, a waiter tapped his shoulder. "excuse me, sir," he said. "miss meta erosine asks that you join her at her table." rising and bowing to his audience, cornel followed the man to a table at the rear of the room, where a woman sat with her escort. meta erosine's pale, heart-shaped face, with its mop of short black hair and luminous black eyes, was widely known on earth, but cornel had never been to earth before. her vibrant beauty blazed on a victim unprepared for it. she was clad in the cretan-can-can style just then becoming popular, with breasts exposed over a tight bodice and a short, ruffled skirt gathered in front to reveal the knees. she smoked a long-stemmed, tiny-bowled pipe, studded with jewels. beside her sat a sleek, mustached young man in ruffled lavender shirt and pink tights, his fingers covered with rings. "sit down and eat with me, musician," invited meta. somewhat dubiously, cornel took a seat at her right, across the table from the beruffled escort. "meta, i wish you wouldn't demean yourself by taking up with tramps and guttersnipes," objected her companion, wrinkling his nose. "leave me, passo," she ordered, waving an imperious hand. "why should i sup with painted popinjays when i can adore genius?" passo flushed and his mouth fell open. but he arose and slunk quietly away. "now, musician," said meta, leaning over the table so that her powdered breasts brushed the glassware, "tell me, what was that last number you played?" "one of my own compositions," he said diffidently. the odor of food was too much for him, and he leaned across the table to appropriate passo's untouched salad. "its name is _wind in the canals_." "it should be _le vent dans les canals_," she said. "you should title your compositions in french--they will be more fashionable." "i don't know french," he said, munching a stick of celery. "we don't speak french on mars." she laughed, a laugh like the music of his playing. "you will, my genius," she promised him. her eyes ran over his lean face, his unkempt hair. "you look as though you could use shelter and clothing. come home with me tonight. i shall give your genius to the world." * * * * * cornel never had experienced such luxury as was his in the apartment meta assigned to him in her magnificent home in jersi. he had his personal servant. new clothes were waiting for him. a barber cut his hair when he had finished a hot, scented bath, and the big bed in which he slept was soft as down. meta asked no information of him until they met at a late breakfast the next morning. there, beautiful in translucent white negligee, she sipped her coffee and asked questions. "i came from mars to get help for my people," he said. "we need guns and supplies, food and oxygen equipment." "you're one of the charax rebels?" she asked. "rebels?" he snorted. "we're free people, fighting for our freedom. we want self-government, we want to own our land and our homes, we want the right to rule our own lives." "that's guaranteed in the constitution," said meta. "earth's constitution. mars isn't earth. the mars corporation controls both spaceports. it owns all business and industry on mars. it's milking the planet dry of resources and profits, and it's set up a company government that makes the people of mars no better than slaves." he smiled a bitter smile. "earth's government protects the freedom of earth's people," he said, "but the people of earth don't know what's happening on mars. the mars corporation has its senators and representatives, bought and paid for, so the earth government sends troops and supplies to mars to fight the battles of the mars corporation. we aren't rebels, we're fighting for our just freedom." "if the mars corporation controls the spaceports, how did you get to earth?" she demanded. "we have three battered ships hidden in the desert near syrtis major," said cornel. "it takes a long time for us to get fuel to take one of them up, but they thought it worthwhile if i could get to earth and get help for my people." "why you?" "my music is well known on mars, and my people know that the people of earth love music. here on earth, where there is peace and prosperity, people pay to hear good music and good musicians. our plan was for me to give great concerts and at each concert ask the people of earth to help their martian brothers gain their freedom." "a good way to get arrested," said meta dryly. "you'd be convicted of inciting military action and sentenced to prison in any court of earth." "i didn't know that, but i suppose the friends would have a way." "the friends?" "the friends of mars. it's an organization of earth people trying to help us. i suppose it must be a secret and illegal organization, for i found that the man i was supposed to get in touch with had been arrested, and i haven't been able to find out anything more about the friends." "such an organization would be illegal on earth," said meta. "come here, cornel. i want to show you something." taking him by the arm, she led him from the breakfast room to a terrace overlooking a snowy valley. she moved closer to him in the chill wind that billowed her thin garments around her, and waved her hand at the scene below them. "this is earth," she said. "look at those mountain peaks, the blue sky and the white clouds. in summer, this valley is clothed with green, and warm breezes bring the scent of flowers to this terrace. have you ever seen anything like this on mars?" "no," he said softly. "mars is always cold and dusty, and the sky is nearly black." "cornel," she said softly, you're a great musician. mars is rough frontier territory, and the frontier has no place for music. last night you saw what your music could mean here. "forget mars. you belong to earth." * * * * * the meteoric rise of cornel lorensse to fame in and now commands a full column in the _encyclopaedia terrestriana_. brushed off in a single sentence in the encyclopaedia, but much discussed in that day, was his close relationship with meta erosine, his patroness. for half a decade, wealthy, beautiful meta erosine had been the toast of earth. she was an actress, a painter, a singer, a socialite, and she had changed men almost as often as she changed the dresses she wore. her face was familiar in newspapers and on television screens, her husky songs were on a million recording tapes, her colorful antics were the grist for magazine articles and the subject of denunciations from the pulpit. in cornel she seemed to have found a vehicle for all the burning fire of her energy. she pushed him, she groomed him, she threw the power of her wealth behind him. his slender figure clad in a black velvet suit sat at polished pianos on a hundred stages; and for each concert, the auditoriums and the audiences were bigger. meta was with him on these concert tours; and between tours he stayed in seclusion at the big house in jersi, putting into music his memories of his native mars. each tour introduced to the world the new compositions of cornel lorensse. what he wrote and played was the haunting music of the deserts, the canals and the marches. into his music he poured the loneliness of the red sands and the violence of the desert winds, the beauty of sable skies jeweled with enormous stars, the happiness of the helmeted traveler when he reaches the green valleys of the canals, the hopes and joys of human lovers gathered in bubble-like domes amid the chill wastelands. he did not, as meta had wanted to, give his compositions french titles. he named them as he would have named them on mars: _the desert wanderer_, _swift phobos_, _marsh gardens_, names that were strange to earth, but were familiar themes of his own people. his melodies took music-loving earth by storm. they burst upon a world in which th century dissonance had strangled th century romanticism, like flowers in a garden of crystal. it was cornel lorensse and those pioneer composers who avidly aped him who began the st century renaissance in music. without shame, cornel lived on the largesse of his patroness, for his growing fees and royalties all went for one purpose. he had found the society called the friends of mars, and everything that he earned he poured into their coffers to finance privateer space vessels able to elude the mars corporation's company-owned warships and to keep a thin line of supplies flowing to the free martian people scattered in their desert strongholds. like any secret society in a hostile culture, the friends of mars maintained dissociated chapters, connected by the slenderest and most carefully guarded lines of communication. cornel knew of only one chapter, in nuyork, and to this he took his contributions when he was between concert tours. during one of those visits, late in the summer of , javan tomlin, chief of the chapter, told him that all he contributed was still not enough for mars to become free. "our base of support isn't broad enough," said javan. "ships cost money, fuel costs money, supplies cost money. guns and ammunition are most expensive of all, because military weapons are illegal. no one man can support such an operation, even when he makes the kind of money you're making." there were half a dozen of the friends of mars, besides cornel and javan, in the meeting room. the others nodded agreement at javan's words. "none of us are wealthy and we can't contribute much but our time and work," said one of them. "the wealthy people all sympathize with the mars corporation." "that's too much of a blanket indictment," said javan. "the mars corporation controls the spacelines to mars, and what little information comes back to earth is censored and heavily propagandized in their favor. most people don't know what's happening on mars. our people need a powerful radio transmitter to broadcast to earth, cornel." cornel shook his head. "what information the people of earth get must be disseminated on earth," he said. "powerful radio equipment would take up space and weight needed for arms. besides, the mars corporation forces have air power and directional finders. they'd bomb a permanent installation before it had a chance to send out its second broadcast." "all we can do is work and hope," said javan gloomily. "if we had a fleet of about a dozen good ships, we might be able to swing it, but we have only two and a third abuilding." "there are three on mars," cornel pointed out. "one was blasted in space last week, and they're too old to lift more than half cargo, anyhow," said javan. "the corporation controls the earth space stations, through the government, and we have to use direct drive stage-rockets." cornel left, not feeling very optimistic. at the curb outside the club, he looked up and down the street for a cab to take him to the heliport where his copter was parked. there was no cab in sight, but from a side street a little distance away a long black limousine swung into the boulevard, sped swiftly to the club entrance and halted. the back door opened and meta leaned out, beckoning. "get in, quick!" she urged. "we've got to get away from here!" not understanding, cornel got in. the car roared away with a burst of acceleration that thrust him back on the cushions beside her. "what in saturn?" he demanded and turned to look out the rear window. a squad of police cars was converging on the club he had just left. sirens screaming, they pulled up, blocking the street, and armed officers in plain clothes leaped out and hurried into the club. meta put her arms around his neck and drew his head down to her lap. "they're raiding the friends of mars," she said, and a soothing note crept into her tone. "you're safe, darling. they don't know you were there." "but how did they know? how did you know?" he demanded, struggling unsuccessfully to free himself from the imprisonment of her embrace. the sound of the sirens had died in the distance behind them. "i told them," meta said firmly. "where do you think i get the wealth you've been living on, darling? i own a fourth of the stock of the mars corporation." * * * * * the next morning, cornel had disappeared. meta was frantic. every available agency was pressed into service, but nuyork was a city of fifteen million people and cornel had vanished. it was two weeks before he returned. when he did, he was gaunt and grim and dirty as he had been the night meta had first seen him in _the avatar_. "darling, why did you run away?" she asked, holding him close in her arms. "i came back because i love you," he answered tiredly. "but i came back, too, because i love mars more, meta. i had to go away and think what i was to do." "it's all right now," she soothed. "you understand that the odds against your rebels are just too heavy. you have a life on earth to live." "yes," he said in a low voice. "but there'll be no concerts this season, meta." "cornel, you can't cancel now! the schedule's all arranged." "i shall cancel," he said firmly. "you want me to live on earth, so you must let me learn about earth. i intend to spend this winter studying psychosociology and terrestrial law--and composing." her brow cleared. "if you'll continue your composing, it's all right," she said. "next season's concerts can be the greatest ever. i'll pay off the promoters, darling." so it was done. that season the admirers of cornel lorensse's music had to content themselves with recordings. cornel himself spent his time quietly at nuyork university and at the house in jersi. as she had said, the concert season was cornel's greatest, right from the start. in part it was due to meta's own efforts, for she spent tremendous sums of money and utilized her own famous personality to great advantage in promotional work. across the nation, across the the world, the tour swept, snowballing constantly. christmas of , and cornel lorensse introduced a great new hymn, _from the polar caps_. new year's day, , and _the years to come_ was introduced by radio and television at a thousand parties. there had been some quibbling at the beginning of the season, because the business directors of the tour had wanted to combine the drawing power of cornel's name with that of well-known concert orchestras. cornel insisted on using his own orchestra, built up carefully during his year of study. as the season progressed, it became apparent that cornel's name alone was enough of a drawing card. february, march, , and every network had bought into the schedule. when cornel lorensse's weekly concerts were on the air, there was nothing else on radio or television, anywhere in the world, except on the non-affiliated local stations. april passed triumphantly, and the final concert was scheduled for may in rome. the d'annunzio colosseum, built in , was filled to capacity. careful staging was necessary, to care for all the cameras and microphones of the various television and radio networks. the program was not a long one: debussy's _clair de lune_, lorensse's _swift phobos_, beethoven's _moonlight sonata_, waco's _variations on a theme by altdown_--and the words "to be announced." it was a familiar phrase, and it always meant the introduction of a new composition by cornel lorensse. the concert went smoothly before--how many listeners? fifty million? a hundred million? two hundred million? on the great, brightly lighted stage cornel played the concert grand with superb mastery and bowed to the applause, a pale, solemn figure in black. when he had acknowledged the acclamation after the waco piece, the audience waited in hushed silence for his announcement of the final number on the program. "the composition i am about to play is the culmination of my musical career," cornel said quietly into the microphones. "it is a product of my studies, not only of music, but of psychosociology and law. "in hypnoschool last year, i studied the effects of music on the human mind. it is a new field, and many of you are aware of it only through the fact that certain kinds of music are forbidden by law as dangerous to peace on earth. "i have tried to go into it much more deeply than that." he smiled bitterly. "most of you know that i am a martian, one of the so-called martian rebels," he said. "i think much of the appeal of my music to you has been its martian quality. to the people of earth, most of whom have never seen mars, it has pictured my planet. "my latest composition will do so even more graphically, for it has been composed on a deliberate psychological foundation. this song will show mars to you. it will show you my people, and what my people want. "i may add that i have studied the law carefully, and i can assure you that this composition is not military in nature. "ladies and gentlemen of earth, accompanied by the orchestra i shall now play _the martianne_." in the control rooms of the auditorium and of relay points throughout the world, censors, vaguely alarmed by cornel's words, hovered with their fingers on cutoff keys. then they relaxed. cornel had told the truth. there was nothing of a military nature in the opening bars of _the martianne_. it was a theme handled, but less competently, in some of his other compositions. the woodwinds began on a soft, sad note, gradually rising in power, like the thin winds that moaned across the martian desert sands. into this, almost inaudibly at first, crept the clear piano notes that marked the cautious, wondering intrusion of humanity on an alien world. the drums beat the construction of the domes, the horns blared the landing of the spaceships, the violins cried the hopes of the men and women who went to mars to find a new life. it was a picture in music, so skilfully drawn that when the first discordance crept in, every listener could identify it instantly as the age-old greed of man seeking to subvert frontier freedoms to his own selfish ends. when the blare of trumpets and the ruffle of drums thundered into the final militant theme of _the martianne_, every listener knew it bespoke the valiant fight of men for freedom against an oppressor. every listener knew what he heard was music that had been prohibited on earth for a decade--yet they listened. the censors, shocked, galvanized, started to act, to cut off the broadcast--and could not. the powerful music had crept insidiously into their minds, and their fingers were paralyzed above the keys while _the martianne_ flamed triumphant through the air of earth. when the final note had died away, cornel stood up at his piano and said into the microphones: "that is the music of mars. remember it, people of earth." it was a brief trial. cornel was admittedly guilty of violating the law against inciting the public to military action, but because of meta's influence and the temper of the people, he was not sentenced to prison. he was deported to mars, freed to return to his own people. spurred by the mars corporation, the earth government acted quickly. _the martianne_ was the most dangerous of any music the psychosociologists had banned. its performance was prohibited on pain of death, possession of a tape of it was punishable by fine and imprisonment. but too many tapes had been home-recorded on the night of cornel's last concert. too many people remembered the basic strains, the theme of _the martianne_. laws could not confine it. it was hummed, at first secretly, then openly and defiantly. and too many people had hung on every televised instant of cornel's trial and had heard him say, simply and earnestly, why he had violated the laws designed to protect the peace of earth, why he had willingly endangered his life. "it is right that men should have peace," said cornel on the witness stand, "but first, it is right that they should have freedom." at first secretly, then openly and defiantly, the friends of mars grew into an organization that poured the contributions of the people of earth into ships and guns for the free people of mars. every martian year they play it formally now, on the anniversary of the signing of the mars charter. in solemn ceremonies, the military band of mars plays _the martianne_ before the imposing edifice erected at charax by meta erosine in memory of cornel lorensse, the patriot who died in action during the final siege of mars city. +--------------------------------------------------------------+ | | | transcriber's note: | | | | this story was published in _if: worlds of science fiction_, | | november . extensive research did not uncover any | | evidence that the u.s. copyright on this publication was | | renewed. | | | +--------------------------------------------------------------+ _illustrated by kelly freas_ the hitch hikers _the rell, a great and ancient martian race, faced extinction when all moisture was swept from their planet. then, one day, a lone visitor--a strange, two-legged creature composed mostly of water--landed on mars..._ by vernon l. mc cain the dehydration of the planet had taken centuries in all. the rell had still been a great race when the process started. construction of the canals was a prodigious feat but not a truly remarkable one. but what use are even canals when there is nothing to fill them? what cosmic influences might have caused the disaster baffled even the group-mind of the rell. through the eons the atmosphere had drifted into space; and with it went the life-giving moisture. originally a liquid paradise, the planet was now a dry, hostile husk. the large groups of rell had been the first to suffer. but in time even the tiny villages containing mere quadrillions of the submicroscopic entities had found too little moisture left to satisfy their thirst and the journey ever southward toward the pole had commenced. the new life was bitter and difficult and as their resources were depleted so also did their numbers diminish. [illustration] huddled at their last retreat the rell watched the ever smaller ice cap annually diminish and lived with the knowledge they faced extinction. a mere thousand years more would see even this trifling remainder gone. oh, you might say there was hope ... of a sort. there might be rell in the northern hemisphere. the canals girdled the globe and a similar ice cap could well exist at the opposite pole. rell perhaps survived there also. but this was scant comfort. the fate of the rell in the south was sealed. what hope of any brighter future for those in the north? and if they survived a few hundred thousand years longer ... or if they had perished a similar period earlier, what actual difference did it make? there was no one more aware of this gloomy future than raeillo/ee . in the old days a single unit of the group-mind of the rell would have possessed but a single function and exercised this function perhaps a dozen times during his life. but due to the inexorable shrinkage only the most important problems now could command mind-action and each unit had been forced to forsake specialization for multi-purpose endeavors. thus raeillo/ee and his mate raellu// were two of the five thousand units whose task was to multiply in any group-mind action involving mathematical prediction. naturally raeillo/ee and raellu// did not waste their abilities in mundane problems not involving prediction. nor did they divide, add, or subtract. that was assigned to other units just as several million of the upper groups had the task of sorting and interpreting their results. raeillo/ee and raellu// multiplied only. and it must be admitted they did it very well. it is a pity the rell could not have multiplied physically as easily as raeillo/ee and raellu// multiplied mentally. with the exception of an occasional comet or meteor the rell were seldom diverted by anything of a physical nature. the ice cap was their sole concern. but one afternoon a rare physical phenomenon was reported by a bank of observer rell. "in the sky's northwest portion," an excited injunction came through. "observe that patch of flaming red!" more observer rell were quickly focused on the novel sight and further data was rapidly fed into the interpretive bank. the rell were justifiably proud of their interpreters. with the race shrinkage it had proved impossible to properly train new interpreters. so, not without a great deal of sacrifice, the old interpreters, dating back to when the canals still flowed with water, had been kept alive. they were incredibly ancient but there was no doubt as to their ability. it was a truism among the rell that the interpretive banks arrived at their conclusions faster than any other group and that these conclusions could be checked to hundreds of decimal places without finding inaccuracy. so it was no surprise to have the interpretive bank respond almost instantly, "it is quite odd but the flame appears to be of artificial origin." "artificial!" came the rough and questing probe of the speculative bank. "but how could rell possibly be out there?" "who mentioned rell?" was the interpretive bank's smug answer. they were not utterly averse to demonstrating their superior mental abilities on occasion. the speculative bank replied, "artificial implies intelligence, and intelligence means rell..." "does it?" the interpretive bank interrupted. the speculative bank waited but the interpretive bank failed to enlarge on the provocative query. the rell had found certain disadvantages accrued to abnormal prolongation of life and thus were not unused to the interpretive bank's occasional tendency to talk in riddles. "perhaps not," the speculative bank replied after a quick check with the logical formulae held in reserve by the historical bank. "it is theoretically possible that rell-like individuals might have developed elsewhere, and perhaps even have developed intelligence, although, according to the historical bank, such an idea has never before been subjected to consideration. but what is the flame doing?" they continued, a trifle resentful at having been left to do work properly in the interpretive bank's province. the observation and interpretive banks once more came into play, studying the situation for several minutes. "the flame appears to be the exhaust of a fairly crude vessel," the interpretive bank finally reported, "propelled by ignition of some gaseous mixture." "is it moving?" "quite rapidly." "where is it going?" this called into play the prophecy division of the mind and raeillo/ee and raellu// , who had been merely interested onlookers before, hurriedly meshed themselves with the other forty nine hundred odd of their fellows. (it was impossible to say at any given time just how many there were in their computer section, as several births and deaths had occurred among the group since beginning the current observations. these would be suspended for the next several moments, however, as there was a strict prohibition against anyone being born, dying, or otherwise engaging in extraneous activity while their particular bank was either alerted or in action.) raeillo/ee and raellu// felt the group discipline take hold much more firmly than the free-and-easy mesh which each unit enjoyed with the complete group-mind during periods of leisure. with a speed that would have been dizzying and incomprehensible to any individual unit, the observing banks relayed huge masses of extraneous data to the interpretive bank. they strained out the salient facts and in turn passed these to the computing:prediction section. here they were routed to the groups who would deal with them. raeillo/ee and raellu// found their own talents pressed into service a dozen or more times in the space of the minute and a half it took the computing:prediction and interpretive banks to arrive at the answer. "it's aimed here," the interpretive bank reported. "here!" a jumble of incoherent and anarchistic thoughts resounded from many shocked and temporarily out-of-mesh units. "order!" came a sharp command from the elite corp of three thousand disciplinary units. as stillness settled back over the group-mind the speculative bank once more came in. "by here ... do you mean _right_ here?" "approximately," replied the interpretive bank with what would have sounded suspiciously like a chuckle in a human reply. "according to calculations the craft should land within half a mile of our present location." "let's go there then and wait for it!" that thought from the now seldom used reservation of impulse. the speculative bank murmured, "i wonder if there would be any danger. how hot is that exhaust?" calculations were rapidly made and the answer arrived at. the rell prudently decided to remain where they were for the present. * * * * * captain leonard brown, usaf, hunched over the instruments in the cramped control cabin which, being the only available space in the ship, doubled as living quarters. a larger man would have found the arrangement impossible. brown, being ' " and weighing pounds found it merely intolerable. at the moment he was temporarily able to forget his discomfort, however. the many tiny dials and indicators told a story all their own to brown's trained vision. "just another half hour," he whispered to himself. "just thirty more minutes and i'll land. it may be just a dead planet but i'll still be the first." there really wasn't a great deal for brown to do. the ship was self-guided. the air force had trusted robot mechanisms more than human reactions. thus brown's entire active contribution to the flight consisted in watching the dials (which recorded everything so even watching them was unnecessary) and in pressing the button which would cause the ship to start its return journey. of course the scientists could have constructed another mechanism to press the button and made it a completely robot ship. but despite their frailties and imperfections, human beings have certain advantages. humans can talk. machines may see and detect far more than their human creators but all they can do is record. they can neither interpret nor satisfactorily describe. brown was present not only to report a human's reactions to the first mars flight; he was also along to see that which the machines might miss. "we've never satisfactorily defined life," one of his instructors had told brown shortly after he started the three grueling years of training which had been necessary, "so we can't very well build a foolproof machine for detecting it. that's why we've left room for pounds of dead weight." "meaning me?" "meaning you." "and i'm your foolproof machine for detecting life?" "let's say you're the closest we can come to it at present. we're banking everything on this first trip. it'll be at least eighteen months later before we can get a second ship into space. so it's up to you to get everything you can ... some evidence of life, preferably animal, if possible. with public support it'll be a hell of a lot easier squeezing appropriations out of congress for the next ship and to get public support we need the biggest possible play in the newspapers. if anything is newsworthy on mars it should be evidence of life ... even plant life." so here he was, pounds of concentrated knowledge and anticipation, itching with the desire for action and also from more basic causes having to do with two months confinement in a small space with a minimum of water. "life is most probable at the poles," the instructor had said. "you won't be able to stay long so we'll try to set you down right at the south pole. you won't have room to bring back specimens. so keep your eyes open and absorb everything you see. don't forget anything. what you bring back in your mind weighs nothing." "it's just sitting there," the observing banks reported, "and the red flame has gone out." "is it safe now?" enquired the speculative bank. "in what way?" "is it safe to go near that thing?" "it's very huge," ventured the observing banks unasked. there was a stir of activity which encompassed practically all except the most simple units and which lasted for perhaps five minutes while the speculative bank's last question was processed. finally the interpretive bank reluctantly admitted, "we can't arrive at a positive answer. too many unknown elements are present. we don't know for sure what caused the flame, when it might start again, or what, if anything, is inside." "but you said it was a work of intelligence. doesn't that mean rell would be inside?" "not necessarily. they could have constructed the thing to operate itself." it was just then that the observing banks reported, "it's opening." the speculative bank quickly responded, "this is an emergency. we must be able to observe from close up. we'll have to approach it." "the entire mind?" enquired the disciplinary corps. the speculative bank hesitated. "no, we'll need to split up. one-fifth of us will go, the rest remain here. it's a short distance and we'll still be able to continue in complete contact." those who were to go were quickly sorted out and raeillo/ee was quite thrilled to find he and raellu// were included in the scouting party. the group set off briskly toward their objective but had moved hardly one hundred yards when a vertigo seemed to overtake them. raeillo/ee found himself swimming helplessly in a vortex of darkness and isolation, blanked off from not only the group-mind and his bank but also from raellu// . frantically he grasped for some sort of stasis, but dependence on the group-mind was too ingrained and he was unable to stir his long-dormant powers of sight and education. then the isolation cleared to be replaced by a brief impression of chaos with perhaps a tinge of alienness. another instant of vertigo followed and then everything was normal once more as the comfortable familiar mesh took hold. "what was that?" even the speculative bank sounded frightened. "sorry." the usually silent meshing bank sounded abashed. "we weren't prepared for that. some sort of thought wave is issuing from the opening and it disrupted the group mesh till we were able to take it into calculation and rebuild the mesh around it." "thought wave? then there _are_ rell in that thing." "do not compute before the mesh is set," the interpretive bank cautioned. "the presence of rell, while extremely probable, is not yet entirely certain." without waiting for a suggestion from elsewhere the disciplinary group ordered the entire mind forward. perhaps, in time of stress, dormant qualities tend to emerge, raeillo/ee mused. certainly everyone, himself included, appeared to be exercising speculative qualities. not that specialization isn't a marvelous blessing, he hastily added, in case the disciplinary corps might be scanning his bank. but the disciplinary corps itself was as fascinated by the phenomenon ahead as raeillo/ee . emerging from the infinitely huge upright thing was a mobile being, also infinitely huge. not that they were the same size. the mobile one was small enough to fit easily through the opening in the lower portion of the larger. but beyond a certain point words lose meaning and infinitely huge was the closest measurement the tiny rell could find for either the upright pointed thing or the knobby one which had emerged and was quickly identified as the source of the disrupting thought patterns. * * * * * leonard brown was enjoying himself thoroughly. the inside of a space suit can scarcely be termed comfortable but at least you can move around in it and brown was making the most of this sensation after two months cramped in his tiny cell. he was, in fact, comporting himself much as a three-year-old might have done after a similar release. but before long he settled down to the serious business of observing and mentally recording everything in sight. there were none of the mysterious 'canals' in view, which was disappointing; one piece of glamour the publicity boys would necessarily forego until the next trip. the ice cap itself, if such it could be called, was almost equally disappointing. on earth it would have been dismissed as a mere frost patch, if this section was typical. for a radius of many yards the ground was blasted bare by the action of the exhaust and nowhere in sight did there appear to be more than the flimsiest covering of white over the brown sandy soil. "not even lichens," muttered brown in disgust. but disgust cannot long stand against the magic of a fresh new planet and brown continued his avid, though barren, search until hunger forced his return to the ship. he had been able to detect no life and was completely unaware of his close proximity to the planet's dominant species. it had been considered neither practical nor particularly desirable to build a microscope into the space suit. simplicity and the least possible weight had been the watchwords here as with everything designed to go aboard the ship. in any case, a microscope would have done brown little good in trying to detect the submicroscopic beings of the rell. the rell, who had somewhat lost their fear of brown, hastily retreated when they saw him returning to the still awesome ship. "but are you _sure_ he's _completely_ self-powered?" the speculative bank queried. "no rell inside him at all?" "there are many rell-like beings in various parts of him," replied the interpretive bank. "some help digest his food, others are predators, and still others their enemies. but most are too big and clumsy to have developed intelligence, and even the small ones appear completely mindless." "but where do the thought waves come from? we all felt them." "it's hard to accept but we are almost forced to conclude they are emanating from the mobile unit itself, or rather from the living part within the cocoon." "you're positive they aren't the product of some of the rell-beings inside?" "almost positive. the mesh insists not. in fact, it claims this is an un-rell like type of intelligence, though that appears to be a contradiction in terms. the thought pattern is completely outside our experience. in fact, it is so alien we haven't broken it down yet to the meaning behind it." "but if the rell inside are too large to have developed intelligence, how could this gigantic monster in which they live have done so?" "we cannot yet say. remember, the theory that intelligence cannot develop in creatures above a certain size is unproven, even though never before challenged. we've watched other races die through failure to adapt to change so apparently it is true of rell-like creatures on this world. but who can say about organisms on another world or of the unprecedented size of this one? completely different physical laws may apply." it was later that afternoon after the rell had spent much time observing brown while brown was busy observing the landscape that the interpretive bank made the triumphant announcement, "we have it! we've broken the thought waves down to their meanings and know what he's thinking. what would you like to know first?" "check and see if there are any rell inside the other thing or on his home world. they might have constructed him." "apparently there are none, or at least no intelligent rell, on his world. we can't guide his mind but the memory bank recorded all the thoughts we've received and some time ago he was thinking of something he termed 'vermin'. apparently these are sometimes rell-like creatures, although far larger. he regards them as a great nuisance, but mindless. the big thing, by the way, he calls a 'ship' and it is utterly lifeless. we needn't fear the flame until this creature leaves." "what about him? what is he like?" "that's the most exciting part! he thought of his bodily needs once and we glimpsed a concept dealing with his physical construction. it's incredible! his body is composed almost entirely of water ... there's enough water in him alone to prolong the life of the rell many ages. further, the air in his 'ship' is heavily impregnated with moisture and he even has reserve supplies of water for his needs." at this, not only raeillo/ee , but all except perhaps the most responsible units felt a shiver of primitive longing and perhaps even greed. not for millennia had there been such a plentitude of water so close! "then can't we appropriate at least part of it?" asked the speculative bank. "unfortunately both the 'man', as he calls himself, and his 'ship' are sealed so tightly that we could not penetrate either. worse yet, almost half his time here is already gone. we don't quite understand his purpose here. his thoughts seem to say he is searching for rell for some unfathomable reason yet he seems to know nothing of the rell and cannot even detect us." * * * * * it was the next day when the time was almost all gone that the two big discoveries were made. during a routine check, the mesh came across a thought of the man's return and a visualization of his home world. it was so startling that the interpretive bank was recalled from its effort to try to devise a means through the spacesuit and set at the new problem. a hasty check of the man's subconscious thoughts revealed the big news. "do you know," the interpretive bank announced, "not only does this being's home world have a moist atmosphere like that in his ship but two thirds of the surface of his world is _liquid water_!" even the speculative bank was silent for a full two seconds after this news. then a hasty impulse was sent to the disciplinary corps and the entire mind called into action. an extreme emergency upon which the fate of the race hinged called for the utmost effort by even the humblest members of the group. the rell worked diligently and many blind alleys were explored, but it was not for some time that anyone thought of enquiring of the not-too-bright feeding bank how they were managing to keep the mind operating at considerably more than normal power with no frost within feeding distance. "we're taking moisture from the air," was the answer. "where is the moisture coming from?" the interpretive bank was asked. the answer didn't take long. rapid measurements supplied it. "some of it is vaporized frost but that wouldn't be enough for our needs. the only other possibility is that moisture must be seeping away from either the man or his ship despite his sureness that they were both airtight and our own investigations which confirmed it." they had maintained a cautious distance from the ship for the most part despite the interpretive bank's assurance of no immediate danger. but now they swarmed over both it and the spacesuit determined to detect the leak. they found none. and now the man was returning to his ship. "this is the last time," the mesh warned. it was now or never. for a second there was conflict over control of the circuits to the disciplinary corps which carried with it command of the organism during the emergency. the speculative bank customarily assumed this responsibility, but a slight schism had developed between it and the interpretive bank. the latter's greater age and skill came into play and victory was quickly won. from the disciplinary corps came the order, "stay close to the 'man'." the interpretive bank explained, "he breathes the air so he'll have to get to it some way." the defeated speculative bank maintained a sulky silence. thus it was that the entire mind of the rell rode into the interior of the ship through the airlock while clustered around brown. the rell had grasped that the man lived and traveled inside his ship and the necessity for it to be airtight. but so desperate were the two races' needs that the necessity for an airlock and the consequent slight seepage each time it was used had not occurred to even the interpretive bank. inside, many rell, suddenly intoxicated by the heady moisture-laden air, commenced uniting with each other then splitting away, each such union resulting in another unit of rell, naturally. the interpretive bank again seized control. "stop it! stop it this instant!" it snapped. "reproduction must be kept to the former minimum for now. that is a firm order." reluctantly the process was halted. the interpretive bank explained, "it would not take long for us to use up the entire supply of water if we indulged in uncontrolled reproduction. that might endanger the whole trip." "what do we do now?" the speculative bank finally asked. "there is no way of knowing positively whether the man uses this same atmosphere until he returns to his world or not. for our own safety it would seem best, since rell-like creatures already inhabit him, that we join them. if any place is safe it will be his interior. and there is plenty of moisture within to sustain us. but we must be good parasites," the interpretive bank warned. "remember, no undue reproduction no matter how many quarts of moisture seem to be going to waste inside this 'man'. he may need it himself and if he does not survive the ship might not complete its trip." brown was just emerging from his space suit so the rell chose his closest available body opening and flowed as a group into his mouth and nostrils. "ahchoo!" sneezed brown, violently evicting half the rell. they re-entered a bit more cautiously in order not to irritate the sensitive membrane again. "dammit," said brown, "don't tell me i've caught a cold clear out here on mars. hope i didn't pick up any martian germs." but he needn't have worried. by the time he reached earth he was far less germ-ridden, even if considerably more itchy on the exterior, than when he'd left. the rell were good at self defense and a surprising number of mindless but voracious creatures in brown's interior had been eliminated. brown dreaded having to give the news he carried but he needn't have. he was a conquering hero. so much fuss was made over the first flight to mars that congress promptly voted twice the appropriation for the second ship that the air force had requested, despite strong opposition from the navy and headlines which read: no life on mars actually, as it happened, the headlines were one hundred percent correct, but they neglected to mention, chiefly because the headline writers didn't know it, that there were now two races of intelligent life on earth. communication by charles fontenay _everyone knows that earth's the third planet from the sun. but how about looking at it from an alien point of view?_ [transcriber's note: this etext was produced from worlds of if science fiction, october . extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the u.s. copyright on this publication was renewed.] the first terrestrial expedition to mars didn't find any martians. neither did the second. since there are so few martians left, those facts are less surprising than that the third did. for many years before space flight was accomplished, there had been discussions and theories about how to communicate with martians, if any existed. but, of course, nobody was ready when the time came. they fell back on that antiquated gimmick. * * * * * von frisch, riley and smith watched the half dozen martians approach, and their watching was not without some trepidation. except that they were about twenty miles away from their g-boat--the planetary landing craft--they probably would have fled. except that they had their orders, they probably would have shot first and asked questions later. "sir, this is von frisch," said the engineer into the microphone of his helmet. he was a little breathless about it. "we're being approached by martians!" "how do they act?" asked captains powers back at the g-boat, immediately. "they don't act hostile, sir." "stand by, then, but don't take any chances. what do they look like?" "they're quite a bit taller than we are, but their bodies are round and not much bigger than a child's. they've got real long legs and arms, and big heads with big eyes and ears." "are they intelligent? are they civilized? how do they breathe?" "wait a minute, captain," protested von frisch. "you're going a little too fast, sir. they've just come up to us. i don't know whether that's fur on them or whether they're wearing clothes." "well, try to communicate with them, man!" exclaimed powers excitedly. von frisch did his best. the martians appeared friendly enough, and interested. von frisch tried to communicate in the only method he had heard about. while his companions watched curiously, he shut his ears to the running fire of questions from powers, squatted and drew a right angled triangle in the red desert sand. by one of the sides he drew three marks, by another four. then he stepped back and looked questioningly at the martians. one of the martians squatted in a tangle of pipestem arms and legs, and with a long finger drew five lines beside the triangle's hypotenuse. "they understand the pythagorean theorem, sir!" exclaimed von frisch. "good! they undoubtedly know some astronomy, then. go on." von frisch hesitated a moment, then erased the triangle. he drew a small circle with rays from it, for the sun. he drew four larger concentric circles around it, with small circles for planets on the rim of each one. he pointed to the third planet, then at himself, then at his companions, one by one. then he pointed at the fourth planet and at the martians, one by one. to complete the matter, he pointed at the sky. "we are earthmen," he said. "you are martians." the trouble was that the earthmen didn't realize the things the martians had were weapons until they used them. they didn't realize it then, as a matter of fact, because the earthmen were dead, all three of them. _the martian hunting party came back from the desert with word of the strange creatures who came, apparently, from another world._ _"whether they have weapons, we do not know," said the leader of the hunting party. "but they wished to harm our people, so we killed them all."_ _"that is desperate action," said the patriarch of the village. "in what way were they dangerous to us?"_ _"foolishly they disclosed their intention to us," replied the leader of the hunting party. "they informed us they planned to take over our world and to drive our people farther from the sun, to the great planet jupiter."_ _"then you did right," said the patriarch, blinking his big eyes._ biggs and golden were working near the g-boat. their helmet radios were set to a different channel from that used by the exploring party, so they were unable to hear captain powers shouting frantically into his microphone and getting no answer. it was just after sunset, and biggs was looking into the west. "we ought to see it now, but it ain't there," commented biggs. "what ain't there?" demanded golden. "mercury," said biggs, who prided himself on being an amateur astronomer. "i reckon you can't see it from mars without a telescope. too close to the sun." he chuckled. "if there are any martians," he added, "i reckon they think _they_ live on the third planet. that's funny, ain't it?" in the jag-whiffing service by david r. bunch _the jag-stuff in those black rings was wonderful, but why did they have to package it with so many extra accessories?_ [transcriber's note: this etext was produced from worlds of if science fiction, february . extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the u.s. copyright on this publication was renewed.] i had always said there was an easier way. and i think, when we invade, i'll be proved right. but you know how things get started, and how powerful tradition can be and how old-line thinking can keep people, even a whole planet, in a rut. the big cargo saucers were getting bigger and bigger each year, what with the growing popularity of the jag-whiff places, and the jag-whiff places themselves were growing in number with more and more people going "on the jag" because--well, partly because--of troubles in the sky, like strange balls whirling around and unexplainable objects going _beep_ and _wuff_ and _wuff wuff_. we of the saucers had slipped past these first baby objects o.k. and knew they were just little old harmless ping-pongs that chattered a little now and then like a greeting going past. but tell the people that! they'd throw a big glass on one of the whirlers and see spikes sticking out and maybe a big pair of eyes inside and a nose and a long red tongue hanging down. "the earthits!" they'd scream like they'd just fallen into one of the hot canals, and they'd race off to a jag-whiff jag like judgment-day-of-sins itself was after them. and the funny part of it is, i guess the people were right being scared like that, the way things turned out. but is it any wonder we were having to increase the size of the saucers to space-haul all that jag-whiff up through the rattleballs? and a big reason makes me think it could have been done more efficiently, we were having to take so much junk stuff, extra accessories i guess you'd call it, to get the jag-whiff. our earthit contacts were always giving us the old breeze about cost of labor, cost of materials, improvement in design and next year's inventories. apparently the dealers didn't understand at all what the play was with us because they'd give us so much blab-blab that didn't apply, all about futuristic design and about how one jag-whiffer machine had it all over another jag-whiffer machine, which to us didn't mean a thing. and we didn't talk, because we'd heard already how some earthits feared the saucers, and how some earthits said they didn't exist at all, and how some other earthits were on the fence, saying maybe they did maybe they didn't so what? and how there was wide fear and great unrest among the earthits in general. and when it's like that, and you're a possible source of the wide fear and unrest, a whole planet full of people can easily decide they don't want any part of contributing to your pleasure. and that's what the jag-whiff was to us actually, pleasure. back home when our troubles had us down, or maybe we just felt like raising a little dust, we'd go to a jag-whiff place. we'd plunk down our pay-pictures, and the whiff-tender would wheel out one of those black rings, which they have to keep under special pressures in our climate. then he'd screw on the tube with the face piece and we'd take our whiff and something out of the black ring--just seemed like real thick chest filler to me--would spread all through to the farthest reaches of our breath bags and go into our blood and suddenly all five of our eye sticks would start whirling and focusing and zeroing-in for dames and our arms and legs would start a kick and a slap dance, enough to shake the planet down. and when our face spines and head tubes would go into that special sharp buzz of contentment, we'd know we were on our jag, full and warm and happy with as much pleasure as any martian is ever supposed to know. but we never revealed the play to our earthit contacts, just slipped in at night in our noiseless saucers with all lights dimmed, cleared our cargo tubes of the tons of pay-picture we'd brought (green copy of the earthits' currency) and took on as many of the gleaming jag-whiffer machines as our cargo tubes would hold. * * * * * but it is ten years now since a jag-whiffer captain has steered his saucer through the whirling balls. it got so the satellites would drum on the saucer from a long way out. deafening! dreadful! we saw what was coming and we tried to beat it. we saucered around the clock for a while trying to stockpile enough jag-whiff to last us. but of course we couldn't. we are about out of it now, and our land is strewn with the glittery shells that were once attached to the black tubes of the jag-whiff. and it could all have been done so different. i'm sure it could. that stuff wasn't just in the tubes of the jag-whiffer machines down there, i'm convinced of that. that stuff may have been all around us down there. i believe it was. but our government would insist we get into these suits, about so far out, you see, about the time we'd start contacting the rattle balls. and they threatened us with removal of the contacts if we broke the rules about the suits. in addition to that, they said we'd die anyway. so you see how life can be--grim and fuzzy and unsafe most of the time. and to make things even more uncertain, just because they couldn't duplicate the product we were hauling, our scientists got uppity and ignored the whole problem. except to run off to the jag-whiff places of course to ease their frustrations, which they did plenty often when they thought they wouldn't be seen. but when we invade down through there, which we plan to do soon now, with our special equipment to catch and explode the whirlyballs, i think we're going to find out plenty. among other things, i think we're going to find out that the stuff we cargoed up here at such great cost, that was so inefficiently packaged, is all around us down there. i think when we take over down there, with the right filtering equipment, jag-whiffing may become as common and economical as breathing. and another thing, i think we're going to find out we were taken for quite a ride by the earthits with their silly way of packaging jag-whiff. imagine having to buy all that chrome and steel, guaranteed to go over one hundred miles per hour, just to get four little black rings of whiff. and for all the earthits talked about it, the rings with the white sidewalls didn't whiff one bit better than the others! new lamps by robert moore williams [transcriber's note: this etext was produced from other worlds may . extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the u.s. copyright on this publication was renewed.] ronson came to the red planet on the strangest mission of all ... he only knew he wanted to see les ro, but he didn't know exactly why. it was because he knew that les ro had the answer to something that had never been answered before, if indeed, it had ever been asked! for les ro traded new lamps for old--and they were the lamps of life itself! on mars, the dust is yellow, and microscopically fine. with the result that it penetrates to the sensitive lung tissues of a human being, causing distress. crossing the street toward the dive set into the towering wall of the cliff overhead, jim ronson sneezed violently. he wished fervidly that he might get another glimpse of what robert heinlein, two centuries before, had nostalgically called _the cool green hills of earth_, and again smell air that had no dust in it. deep inside of him a small voice whispered that he would be very lucky if he ever saw the green hills of earth again. somewhere ahead of him, in the granite core of the mountain, was something that no human had ever seen. rumors of what was here had reached jim ronson. they had been sufficiently exciting to lift him out of an earth laboratory and to bring him on a space ship to mars, feverishly sleep-learning the martian language as he made the hop, to investigate what might be here in this granite mountain near the south pole of the red planet. some martians knew what was here. in mars port, ronson had talked to one who obviously knew. but the martian either could not or would not tell what he knew. across the street, squatting against the wall, were a dozen martians. one was segregated from the rest. they watched the human get out of the _dothar_ drawn cart that had brought him from the jet taxi that had landed on the sand outside this village, pay his fare, and come toward them. taking a half-hitch around his courage, ronson moved past them. he glanced down at the one sitting apart from the rest, then averted his eyes, unease and discomfort rising in him. the martian was a leper. ronson forced himself to look again. the sores were clearly visible, the eyes were dull and apathetic, without hope. as if some of the leper's hopelessness were communicated to him, ronson felt a touch of despair. in this place, if the rumors were true, how could there be a leper? how--he paused as one of the martians squatting on the sidewalk rose to bar his way. on the red planet, humans were strictly on their own. if they got themselves into trouble, no consular agent was available to help them. if they got killed, no representative of earth law came to ask why or to bring the killers to human justice. no amount of argument or persuasion on the part of delegates from earth had ever produced a treaty guaranteeing the lives or even the safety of humans who went beyond the limits of mars port. the martians simply could not see any reason for protecting these strange creatures who had come uninvited across space. let humans look out for themselves! the martian who rose in front of ronson was big and looked mean. four knives hung from the belt circling his waist. ronson did not doubt that the fellow could stab very expertly with the knives or that he could throw them with the accuracy of a bullet within a range of thirty feet. in the side pocket of the heavy _dothar_-skin coat that he wore, ronson had a _zen_ gun which he had purchased before leaving mars port. the little weapon threw an explosive bullet guaranteed to change forever the mind of any human or any martian who got in the way of it. ronson did not doubt that he could draw and fire the gun before the martian could use one of the knives but he also knew that he did not want to start a fight here in the street. what was inside the mountain was too important to risk. "happy wind time," ronson said. this greeting was good manners anywhere on mars. he bowed to the martian. as he bowed, the fellow snatched his hat, held it aloft as a trophy. laughter echoed through the watching martians. only the leper was unmoved. the martian put the hat on his own head, where it sank down over his ears. he wiggled his scalp and the hat danced. the laughter grew stronger. ronson kept his temper. "i'll take my hat back," he said, politely. "ho!" the martian said. "try and get it." "i want my hat back," ronson said, a little less politely. inside, he was coming to a boil. like a stupid child, this martian was playing a silly game. to them, this was fun. to the human, it was not fun. a wrong move on his part, or even no move, and they might be on him like wolves, endangering the purpose that had brought him here. or had les ro, catching wind somehow of his visit, set these stupid creatures across his path? at the thought, the anger rising inside of him became a feeling of cold. "i want--" another squatting martian rose. "i'll take his coat," the second one announced. a third was rising. "me for his breeks!" they were going to disrobe him, strip him naked, for the sake of his clothes. ronson did not in the least doubt that they would do it, or try to do it. the only law protecting humans on this planet was what they could make up as individuals and enforce for themselves. he reached for the gun in the side pocket of the _dothar_ skin coat. the martian who had taken his hat reached out and grabbed his arm. the fellow had steel claws for hands instead of flesh and blood. the claws clamped over ronson's arm with a paralyzing grip that seemed to squeeze the very nerves in their sheaths. ronson slugged with his left fist, very hard and very fast, a blow that landed flush on the jaw of the martian. the fellow blinked but was not damaged. he grinned. "ho! human wants to fight!" he seemed to find satisfaction in the idea. he reached out with his other hand, grasping for ronson's neck this time. ronson had not been in a rough and tumble fight since he was a kid but he discovered that he had not forgotten how to bring up his knee and jab his antagonist in the stomach. only this time it didn't work. the martian brought down an elbow and deflected the rising leg. his groping fingers found ronson's neck, closed there with a grip that was as tight as the grip around the human's right arm. the other martians drew closer. as soon as te hold had subdued this alien, they intended to have his clothes right down to the skin. maybe they would take the skin too, if they could find any value in it. they were so engrossed in watching te hold tame this human that they did not notice the door of the joint open behind them. nor did they see the girl come out. she was not in the least surprised at the fight in the street, nor was she in any doubt as to what to do about it. in her hand, she had a spring gun, one of those little weapons that are spring powered and which throw steel needles coated with the extremely powerful synthetic narcotic, thormoline. hardly seeming to take aim, she shot the martian who was holding ronson in the back. te hold jumped as the needle stung him but he did not let go of ronson. the spring gun pinged again as the girl put another needle in his back. te hold jumped again. he released his grip on ronson's throat. the human gulped air, and slugged te hold again, harder this time. the fast-acting narcotic was already taking effect. te hold went over like a falling tree. jim ronson snatched the zen gun from his pocket, then saw that he did not need it. the girl had been busy with the needle weapon. two of the martians were also down and the rest were in full flight, except the leper, who had not moved. standing in front of the door, the girl was calmly shooting needles at their legs as they ran. not until then did ronson really see the girl. he blinked startled eyes at her. human women were rare on mars, here in this place near the south pole they should not exist at all. no woman in her right mind would come here. but one was here, and a darned attractive one at that. she was tall, lithe, and full breasted. the hair peeping out from under the tight fitting-helmet was a shade of red. if she had a fault in her figure, it was the fact that her hips were too narrow--she was as slender as a boy--but ronson was not inclined to criticize her for that. not when she had just saved his clothes and maybe his life. as the last martian dodged around the corner, she turned her attention to him. a smile lit her face. "dr. ronson! a privilege to meet you, sir." hand outstretched, smiling, she moved around the victims of her needle gun and came toward him. ronson stared at her in bewildered consternation. he had not thought that anyone on mars would even know his name, he had not wanted anyone to know his identity. especially not in this place. he barely remembered his manners in time to take the hand offered him. "i'm jennie ware," the girl said. "it's nice to meet you, miss ware." where had he heard or seen this name before? "i want--ah--to thank you for helping me out of a spot." "it was nothing," she said smiling. "always glad to help my fellow men." "you certainly went into action fast." he glanced at te hold, sleeping in the street. on the sidewalk near the corner, another martian was taking a nap. only the leper was still in sight and awake. "i had these needles coated with a special narcotic designed to affect the martian nervous system. as to my going into action fast, i've discovered that you have to be firm with these martians," she answered smiling. stooping, he retrieved his hat. "how did you know me?" a little flicker of amusement showed in her eyes. "why shouldn't i recognize earth's foremost bio-physicist and leading authority on cellular structure? come on in. i'll buy you a drink. you'll love this place. they've even got a waiter who thinks he can speak english." "thanks," ronson said. "i'll take you up on that." he was astonished and bewildered by this woman. he had spent most of his life in the laboratories of earth. the women who had been there had been flat-breasted, pale creatures in low-heeled shoes who had called him "sir," and "doctor," and who had obviously been greatly in awe of him but who had apparently never had a red-blooded thought in their lives. he had regarded them as a sort of neuter sex, creatures who had obviously been intended by nature to be female but who had gotten their hormones mixed up somewhere along the line. this girl was different. her name, somehow, had a haunting familiarity, as if he had heard it somewhere before. but he couldn't remember where. she went through the door ahead of him. as ronson passed through, a martian thrust his head around the corner outside and threw a knife. the steel blade buried in the door facing within six inches of the human's head. he hastily ducked through the door. looking annoyed, the girl started back to the street outside. "i'll fix him," she said, pulling the needle gun. ronson caught her shoulder. "let well enough alone," he said firmly. "anyhow you were going to buy me a drink." her eyes held a curious mixture of annoyance, defiance, and longing. her gaze went down to his hand on her shoulder. ronson grinned at her. "you look as if you are about to bite me," he said. "go ahead, if you want to." he did not move his hand. wonder came into her face. "a great many men have tried to paw me, without getting very far. but somehow, i don't think you're trying to do that." "about that drink?" ronson said. "sure." she moved toward a table set against the far wall. ronson dared to breathe again. whatever else this girl was, she was certainly full of fight and fury. she could have gone out into the street, in the face of thrown knives, if he hadn't stopped her. as she moved toward the table, he had a chance to look at the place in which he found himself. what he saw was not reassuring. except for a big circle in the center of the room, the place was crammed with martian males of all sizes and descriptions. waiters scurried through the crowd. the circle on the floor was outlined in red. no customer and no martian ventured within it. ronson glanced at it, asked the girl a question. "i just got here too," she said. "i haven't had time to find out about it. some superstition of theirs, i think." she led him to the table. two glasses were already on it. a waiter appeared out of nowhere. "this is the one who speaks english. talk to the gentleman, tocko." "oh, yessen, missen. me talken ze english and but very gooden. me learnen ze human talken at mars porten. don't i talk him gooden?" the last was directed at ronson. "you speak him very wonderfullen," ronson answered. the waiter beamed. "bring the gentleman a mariwaukee," the girl said. "oh, yessen, missen." "on second thought, make it a double shot," the girl said. "the gentleman looks like he needs it." she nodded brightly to ronson as if she had selected the very medicine he needed. "now tell me what you are doing on mars, dr. ronson?" ronson glanced hastily at the waiter, to make certain that he was out of earshot. "i--i came here on a vacation," he said firmly and loudly. "i've wanted to see mars ever since i was a kid. who--ah--was sitting here with you before i came?" "a man," she answered. "he went to the little boy's room just before you got into trouble in the street. i guess he's still there, if some martian hasn't slit his throat. are you enjoying your vacation?" "of course." "do you mind if i call you jim?" she smiled at him. "i would be very pleased." "good. you can call me jennie." "thanks." "then you are enjoying your vacation." her smile was very sweet. "are you also enjoying trying to lie to me--jim?" ronson caught his start of surprise. jennie ware bewildered him but this was a game that two could play. "of course i'm enjoying it. lying to a woman as beautiful as you are is always a pleasure--jennie." he grinned at her and watched the anger come up on her face. why should she be angry? the anger was gone as swiftly as it had come. she leaned across the table, put her hand on his. "i like you jim. i really do. and not because you called me a beautiful woman but because you kicked me in the teeth with my own act. i had it coming and you gave it to me very neatly." the touch of her hand was very pleasant. "no hard feelings. what--ah--are you doing here, jennie?" she smiled sweetly at him. "i'm on a vacation too, jim." "touche!" the females in the laboratories back on earth had never touched his hand or called him by his first name. he wondered about the man with whom she had been drinking. also he was very uneasy about her real reason for being here. no woman with good sense would make the rough rocket trip to mars for a vacation; presuming she did come to mars, she would not willingly come to this place. but jennie ware was here, an enigma wrapped up in a beautiful smile. he took his eyes off her long enough to look around the place again. in mars port, he had seen the native dives, but mars port had nothing like this. to the natives, this was a place of pleasure, filled with sights, sounds, and smells that made them happy. over against the farther wall a tribal chieftan was absorbing _narseeth_ through the skin of his hands, thrusting them again and again into the sirupy, smoky-colored mixture in the bowl in front of him. every so often he stopped, whereupon the martian female with him carefully dried his hands. after they were dry, he made fumbling passes at her. she accepted the passes without resistance. ronson stared at the sight. "relax. you'll get used to it," jennie ware said. at another table a huge martian was sitting. two others were with him. one sat facing the rear, the other faced the front. ronson had the impression of two alert dogs guarding their master. a little chill passed through him at the thought. odors were in the place, of sweat dried into _dothar_ skin garments, of stale drinks. dim but distinct was the all-pervading clinging, cloying odor of _tamil_, the martian equivalent of musk. through an opening at the right, ronson could see females lounging at ease in what was apparently a reception room to a brothel. unease came up in him again. how could this place be the way to les ro? but the rumors he had picked up and carefully checked in mars port had all been in agreement, if you wanted to see les ro, you came here. what happened after that was obviously fate. watching, ronson saw that no martian entered the circle on the floor. he nodded toward the martian females. "what do you think of this?" "oh, a girl has to live," she said, shrugging. "what do you think?" "oh, a martian has to have fun, i suppose." his shrug was as indifferent as hers had been. for an instant, he thought she was going to spit at him. the waiter arrived with the drink. "i have putten you on ze listen," he said, confidentially, to ronson. "on the _listen_?" "he means _list_," jennie ware said. "what list?" ronson asked. "on ze listen of zozen waiten to see ze great les ro," the waiter answered. inside of him, ronson felt cold come up. strictly on his own, he had to decide how he was going to handle this. he made up his mind on impulse. "who the devil is les ro?" across the table, jennie ware lifted startled eyes toward ronson. the waiter's face showed astonishment, then embarrassment, at the idea that anyone existed who had not heard of les ro, ronson thought. "you do not knowen ze great les ro. he is ze greatest zinker, ze greatest doer, ze greatest--" "stinker?" jennie ware said. "that sounds about right." "you are maken ze kidden wiz me," the waiter said, indignation in his voice. "you have hearden of ze great les ro. you came here to see him. you musten haven. everybody who comes here, comes to see him." the waiter spoke with authority. "i'm sorry," ronson said. "if he is that important, i would like to talk to him, of course. but do you mean all of these martians are waiting to see him?" a wave of his hand indicated the group in the room. the waiter, mollified, leered at ronson. "ze girls didn't. ze girls come here for anuzzer purpose." the leering gesture included jennie ware in it. it said that obviously she had come here for the same purpose. what other purpose was there? the girl gasped. fire shot from her eyes. "i'll have you know--" "shut up," ronson said. fire flashed at him. "hasn't it occurred to you that you are in danger of getting your pretty little throat slit if you talk out of turn here?" ronson whispered. "even ze noffers outside are on ze listen," the waiter added. "what about me? am i on it?" jennie asked. the waiter showed great astonishment. "but of course not. you are a female." "what difference does that make?" this time the fire really shot from her eyes. "how long do you have to wait after you're on the listen?" ronson hastily asked. the waiter spread his hands and twisted his shoulders. "who knows? some of ze noffers outside have been waiting since last wind time--" "almost an earth year," ronson said, calculating rapidly. once during each circle of the sun the great winds blew across mars. this was the biggest natural event on the planet. since it occurred with the regularity of clock work, it served as the starting point for their year. "sometimes ze great les ro call you right away," the waiter said. "how will i know if i'm called?" ronson said. a shudder passed over the waiter. "you vill know. of a most certain, you vill know. ze messenger vill call." the shudder came again. as if he had already said too much, the waiter hurried away. ronson turned back to jennie ware. she was sparkling with fury. "if they think they're going to keep me from seeing les ro just because i'm a woman--" "why do you want to see him? he probably isn't pretty." "because i want to write a book about him." "a book--" ronson's memory suddenly came alive and he remembered where he had seen her name before. he stared at her, startled and almost aghast. back on earth, this woman was almost a legend. every tabloid and every sunday supplement had carried her picture and stories about her. the programs beamed to space had carried tales of her exploits. she had explored the depths of the venusian jungles, she had ridden a _dothar_ across half of mars. when deep space flight one had blasted off from pluto, bound for the exploration of deep space, the news telecasts back to earth had carried the information that a stowaway had been discovered and ejected from the ship just before blast off. no one had been surprised when this stowaway had turned out to be jennie ware. subsequent rumors had whispered that she had practically torn pluto dome apart because she had been ejected from the ship. even the fact that the ship had never returned had not cooled her anger. in addition, she was also a very competent author. ronson had read two of her books and had admired her deft touch with words and the deep sincerity that had showed through in even the most hard-boiled and raucous passages. unquestionably jennie ware was a very unusual human being. but in spite of this, ronson stared at her in growing horror. her reputation across the solar system was that of an uninhibited vixen. here in this place, where their lives might ride on the blinking of an eye-lash, or on not blinking it, a temper tantrum thrown by jennie ware--or by anybody else--was the last thing he wanted to see. a tall figure loomed beside the table. a deep voice asked, laughingly, "well, jim, since you've already met our lady authoress, how do you like her?" ronson looked up, then got up, his hand going out, a grin spurting to his face. the man standing there, sam crick, took the outstretched hand and grinned back at him. crick was tall and lean. his skin was tanned a deep brown, a color that had resulted from facing all the winds that had ever blown on mars and all the sun that had ever shown there. crick was something of a legend on the red planet. he was the eternal adventurer, the lonely wanderer of the waste place, the type of human who was always looking for something that lay just over the edge of the horizon. jim ronson and sam crick had grown up together as boys on earth. ronson had gone into a laboratory, crick had hopped a freighter bound for mars. ronson had not seen his old friend in many years, but he had heard from him and about him. a feeling of deep warmth came up inside the scientist at the sight of the tanned face grinning at him. "then you did get my space radio?" ronson said. "i couldn't locate you in mars port and i was never sure." relief at finding crick here was a surging feeling deep within him. with crick here, he not only had a man experienced in martian ways and customs to help him, but what was more important, he had a friend. crick's face lost its smile. wrinkles showed on his forehead. "what space radio, jim?" "the one i sent you, asking you to meet me here. quit kidding me. if you didn't get my space radio, how does it happen that you're here? don't tell me this is a coincidence." crick shook his head. a doleful expression appeared on his face. "i sure didn't get it, jim. as to what i'm doing here, i'm chaperoning our lady authoress. meet my boss." he nodded to jennie ware. ronson turned startled eyes toward the girl. "i caught him flat broke in mars port just before you arrived," she answered. "since he was broke, i took advantage of him and hired him as my bodyguard. not that i would really need a bodyguard, but in case i fell and broke a leg, he might be handy. but his being here wasn't a coincidence." "eh?" ronson said. it was difficult to follow her thinking. she seemed to say a lot, or nothing, all with the same words, the only difference being the voice tone she used. if she chose, she had all the gifts of a man in concealing her true feelings and real opinions. her voice was calm, her face expressionless. "the grapevine in mars port said the earth's top-flight bio-physicist was coming here, that old les ro was thought to have something that human scientists were all hotted up about, and that you were coming here to investigate, and to chisel les ro out of a piece of it, if he would stand still for such treatment." ronson blinked at her. she had delivered a bombshell and she had done it as if she thought what she said was of no importance: "i'm not trying to chisel les ro or anybody out of anything." his calm matched her aplomb. "that's not the way the grapevine had it." "i don't care how the grapevine had it. i know my own motives and my purpose in coming here." an edge crept into his voice as he realized one possible result of what she was saying. "that may be true. but do the martians know them?" ronson was silent, his thinking perturbed. "so i hired sam and came here," jennie ware continued. "if les ro was big enough to attract you, he was also big enough to provide me with copy for my next book." "so you could find copy for a damned book, you risked my neck!" ronson said, his voice hot. "i didn't risk it a tenth as much as you're doing, by yelling at the top of your lungs where half of mars can hear you. anyhow, i saved your clothes and maybe your hide out in front a while ago. doesn't that count for something?" "sorry," ronson said abruptly. "i lost my temper." "i'd like to make one point," crick said. "we've got a mighty hot collection of thieves, crooks, and killers present in this joint." jennie ware and jim ronson stared at him. crick gestured toward the martian with the two guards. "that's tal bock. he belongs in the upper lentz country, where he is the leader of a gang of killers and thieves. the one over there soaking his hands in smoke is kus dorken. he's not any better than tal bock." "what are they doing here?" the girl asked. "i don't know," crick answered. "unless maybe they've been listening in on the grapevine too." for a moment, it looked as if jennie ware was about to cry. she seemed, suddenly, to become a small girl who had done something wrong and was very sorry for it and was trying to find some way to express her sorrow. her hand came across the table again, touched ronson's hand hesitantly. "i'm sorry, jim, if i got you into trouble. but i knew your reputation. if you were coming here, something big was here. i--i wanted to be in on it. i guess all my life i've wanted to be in on something big. if i actually got you into trouble, sam and i are here to help you get out of it. isn't that right, sam?" "right, jennie." a growl sounded in the tall adventurer's voice. "thanks, both of you," ronson said. he was deeply touched. in spite of the shell of bravado that she wore, and her sudden spurting anger, he liked this girl. she might have the reputation of an uninhibited vixen, but somewhere inside of her was a small girl looking out from awed and wondering eyes at the vastness of the world. "watch it!" crick's whisper was shrill and sharp. his eyes were focused on the ceiling. all the sounds of the place, the rattle of glasses, the sharp giggling of soliciting women, the deep voices of the martian males, had gone into sudden and complete silence. like crick, they were looking upward. ronson followed their gaze to the ceiling. jennie ware gave a quick cry. glass tinkled and broke as she dropped her drink. jim ronson did not hear the sound. his entire attention was focused on what was happening on the ceiling. the dive itself had been cut into the side of the cliff. the solid rock of the ceiling had not been disguised or masked. at first glance, ronson thought his eyes were deceiving him. the solid stone itself seemed to be in motion. a sort of melting, shifting flow seemed to be taking place as if the molecules and perhaps even the atoms themselves were dissolving. "that's atomic disintegration, or atomic shifting, under control!" sam crick gasped. "it's a mirage," jennie ware whispered. "it must be." "if it's a mirage, everybody in the place is seeing it," ronson said. there was not a sound in the huge room. the waiters had come to attention like trained soldiers. the females had abruptly lost all interest in what they were doing. out of the corner of his eyes, ronson saw one female make a sudden darting movement across the room. one foot touched the circle on the floor as she ran. she took two more steps and fell, sagging downward as if every muscle in her body had suddenly refused to function. she lay on the floor without moving. not a head was turned toward her, not a martian moved to help her. in her action ronson saw one reason why the martians avoided the circle on the floor. something was definitely wrong with that circle. looking at the roof, he saw the reason. the flowing, shifting movement there had formed into a circle the same size as the circle on the floor and directly above it. little flickers of light, like the discharge of high frequency currents, were flowing between the two circles. swiftly the flickers of light became an opaque cylinder of misty flame extending from the ceiling to the floor. from the opaque cylinder of light, a martian stepped. without quite knowing how he knew it, ronson knew that this was les ro's messenger. the messenger was old, perhaps as old as the granite mountain above them, if the network of fine wrinkles on his face were an accurate indication of his age. with age, calmness and serenity had come to this martian. his eyes gave the impression that they had seen everything. what they had not seen, the brain behind them had imagined. peace was in the eyes and on the face, the deep peace that many human saints had sought and had found. "i like him," jennie ware whispered. the messenger carried himself with a sureness that was full of meaning. he glanced around the room. his eyes settled on the three humans at the table. a sort of a glow appeared on his face, lighting it as if with a halo. he moved toward them, stopped and stood looking down at them. for a moment, his face was blank, and even his eyes seemed to be withdrawn. "esp!" crick whispered. "guard your thinking." the eyes flicked toward crick, then came to ronson. the human felt a touch that was feather-light appear in his brain. it seemed to run like lightning through the nerve cells. then it was withdrawn. the smile came back to the face of the messenger. "les ro has waited a long time for one like you, my son. he will see you." the voice was deep and pleasant. somewhere in it were tones that were bell pure. ronson rose to his feet. "watch it!" crick whispered. "this may not be on the up and up." "i came here to see les ro." ronson answered. "i'm not going to back out now. which way do i go?" the last was spoken to the messenger. the martian bowed. the wave of his hand indicated the cylinder of misty radiance flowing from the ceiling to the floor. "just step into the light, my son." "jim!" jennie's voice had a frantic plea in it. "may my friends go with me?" ronson said. the messenger shook his head. his face said he was very sorry but that the answer was no. "i have no instructions for them. only you, my son. les ro has waited very long for someone like you." ronson did not know whether he was pleased or not. but he knew he was greatly excited. if the rumors had been right, if the grapevine had reported correctly, something was here in the heart of the martian mountain that had never existed before in the solar system--and perhaps not in the universe. he stepped boldly into the opaque radiance. to jennie ware and sam crick it looked as if he had stepped out of existence. to jim ronson, when he stepped into the light, it seemed to him that millions of tiny hands instantly grasped him. they lifted him upward. it seemed as if they changed directions, but he could not be sure of that. the motion stopped. he felt a firm substance under his feet. the tiny hands released him, the opaque light fell away from him. he was standing in the center of a circle in a room cut out of solid stone, a room that had no exit and no entrance except the one under his feet, the solid stone floor through which the microscopic hands had lifted him. panic came up in him then and his hand dived for the gun in his coat pocket. it came away empty. the gun had been removed without his knowledge on the transit upward. examination revealed that every bit of metal had been removed from his pockets. only his wrist watch had been left and that apparently because the metal strap around his wrist had resisted removal. automatically he pushed the button on the side of the watch. on the dial the tiny green light glowed. neither the light that had lifted him upward nor this room contained lethal radiations. the sight of the green light made him feel better. but not much. sweat appeared on his skin as he waited. inside his chest, he felt his heart begin to speed up its beating. light danced in the wall. the stone seemed to dissolve. the messenger came through. the wrinkles on the fine face glowed like ivory at the sight of ronson. "i hope you will forgive me for keeping you waiting. other--ah--tasks demanded my attention at the moment." "it's quite all right. finding myself here unexpectedly was a little hard on my nerves but the chance to see les ro will be worth the shock to my nervous system. i assume this is the way." ronson moved toward the light dancing on the wall, then stopped as he saw the martian was not following. "what's wrong?" the smile was gone from the face of the messenger. "one must prove himself worthy of seeing les ro." "eh?" a little touch of fear came up in the human. "worthy?" "also, it would be well to tell me why you want to see les ro. i will carry your request to him." "but you said les ro wanted to see me, that he had waited a long time for someone like me. though how he knows anything about me--" ronson's voice went into uneasy silence. had the grapevine reported his coming here? or had crick's whisper about extra-sensory perception in operation had some basis in fact? "i said les ro waited a long time for someone _like_ you." for a moment hope showed on the wrinkled face. "but not necessarily for you. you have certain qualities that les ro seeks, but until you have proved that you have other qualities as well--" sadness replaced the hope. "tell me what you seek here?" ronson felt rebellion come up in him. then he remembered that on mars the only law protecting humans was what they could make and enforce for themselves. "rumors have reached us on earth of les ro's great accomplishments. it is our hope that we can share our knowledge, pool our discoveries. it is our belief that great advances can come from this sharing--for both humans and martians." ronson spoke quietly. only the tone of his voice expressed the very deep and very real feeling he was putting into words. yet in the quietly spoken words his dream was expressed--and the dream of every real scientist in the history of earth--of progress, of forward motion, of leaving behind them a world a little better than the one they had known. once this dream had been only for humans. now it included martians too, and every other race within the solar system. the messenger smiled at the words. but under the smile was concern. "do you mean that you humans still face problems that you cannot solve? but you have made tremendous scientific advances, much greater than we of mars have made. space flight is only one illustration--" "unfortunately, many of our scientific advances have brought more problems than they have solved." grimness crept into ronson's voice "before atomic energy was released, it was prophesied that the release of this energy would solve all the problems of our planet. this was over two hundred years ago. we are still striving to regain the losses suffered in the first and second atomic wars." "wars?" the face of the martian showed amazement. "you humans are fools." "we are trying to stop being fools. or some of us are. but something seems to defeat our efforts." "yes." keen interest showed on the face of the martian. "do you have this problem too? i wonder if it's the same something--" "we live in the same universe." "can you state the problem more exactly?" "i can give you an illustration of it. at the same time, i will give you my reason for being here." ronson took a deep breath, considered the words he was going to use. "i'm a bio-physicist. this means that my specialty is the living cell and the changes that can and do take place in it. we have a name for one of the changes that may take place there--cancer." "a disease." "yes. and a very serious one. often tied up with radioactivity, it is a change that takes place in the interior of a living cell." "i know--" "no less than eight times in the past hundred years, human doctors have found a cure for this mutation within the cell. each cure worked, perfectly, for a time." "and then--" "then this something defeated their efforts. a change took place. a new form of cancer appeared, which did not yield to the treatment that had been effective previously." ronson found his breathing was becoming heavier. the messenger moved up and down the cell, pacing, his right hand rubbing his chin. "yes, it is the same something. les ro has talked of it often. it has defeated even him. he calls it _change_. there seems to be a law in this universe against anything remaining the same--but why did you come here? do you seek a new way to cure this disease called cancer?" "yes. a permanent way. a way that goes behind the law of change." "do you think you could find such a thing here?" "yes. and here i have proof. detailed reports from human physicians at mars port. in three instances, martian patients admitted to the human hospital there were found to be suffering from inoperable cancer. each was discharged, as incurable. within the following two years, each patient returned to the hospital there, one to have a knife wound treated, a second to have a broken bone set, a third because of injuries suffered in an accident. as soon as they were admitted, the records were checked, and the previous diagnosis of cancer was found. each case of cancer had been cured. each martian told the same story, that he had been here, and that les ro had cured the disease." "and you came here seeking the ninth solution from les ro for your people?" "yes. and for one other reason." "eh?" "the cancer i am trying hardest to cure is--here." very gently, jim ronson rubbed his chest. at the action, and at his thought, his heart picked up an anxious beat. for an instant, the face of the martian showed blank astonishment. compassion followed the astonishment, a flood of it. "my son!" the voice had pity and understanding and sympathy in it. "les ro will see you." "good!" relief surged up inside jim ronson. he had travelled many a weary mile for this moment. he had faced frustration and despair. the best doctors on earth had told him they could do nothing for him. now, here, in the heart of a mountain near the south pole of mars-- "follow me," the messenger said. the wall swirled in front of him. he stepped into the misty opaqueness and ronson followed him. inside the light, the human felt the millions of microscopic hands take hold of him. their touch was gentle and caressing, softly tender. suddenly their touch was firm and strong. he felt them seize his clothing and rip it from his body. their gentle, caressing touch was gone. in its place was an almost manic fury. a scream ripped involuntarily from his throat. the scream was flung into complete silence. no echo of it came back to his ears. blackness beat at him, flowed in over him, flowed through him. the blackness ransacked every nook and corner of his body. it probed to the bottom of his soul. it swallowed him whole. it dissected his consciousness, tore it to shreds, then yanked away even the shreds. he seemed to be falling into a black hole that had no end. ronson did not know how long the blackness lasted. the first sense to come back was hearing. somewhere near him he heard a grunt. then the sense of feeling came back and he realized he was lying naked on sand. he didn't much want to open his eyes. finally he forced them open. his vision was blurred and vague. when it cleared he saw the source of the grunt. the sound had come from tal bock, squatting on the sand near him. tal bock was also naked. unlike ronson, the millions of microscopic hands in the darkness had not left even a wrist watch on the martian. "happy--ah--wind time," ronson said. tal bock grunted, but did not answer. "where are we?" "hell," tal bock said. he got up and walked into the shrubbery behind him. ronson rose. he was shaky, his legs seemed too long to reach the sand, a subjective impression that almost amused him, but didn't quite. to the left another martian was squatting cross-legged on the sand. ronson looked, then looked again. he moved toward the martian to make certain. it was the leper who had been on the street outside the dive. without the rags, the martian was hardly recognizable. the sores provided a certain means of identification. there was no mistaking them. "how did you get here?" ronson asked. the leper made a weak gesture with his hands which said, "go away." his attitude was resigned but about his manner was an air of expectancy. ronson discovered that the place in which he had found himself was a cavern about half a mile in diameter. it was adequately lighted though the light sprang from no source that he could detect. the place was pleasant enough. there was water here. it flowed in little rills set in stonework. grass and desert shrubs grew here. the air was moist, with a fragrant sweetness somewhere about it. something was in the air besides the moisture and the fragrant sweetness. it was intangible, almost imperceptible. ronson cocked his head, trying to catch this something. it was always out of the range of his sensory perception, an intangible, elusive quality that perplexed him. "subliminal," he thought. "maybe super-sonic sound just above the range of hearing." why super-sonic sound? he did not know. he felt dazed. there was a heavy feeling through his whole body. why was he here? he had been told he would see les ro. there was also talk about a man proving if he was worthy-- he did not like this thinking. he tried to shut it off, but it was a persistent gadfly that returned to buzz again and again in his brain. the out-of-hearing sound seemed to buzz with it, slipping in and out of hearing too fast for the mind to grasp it. each time it slipped into hearing for the fractional part of a second, it brought a flick of agony with it. at the touch, he became almost giddy. alarm bells rang suddenly inside his head. the note went out of hearing again, the giddiness passed, the alarm bells went into silence. in the shrubbery ahead of him, a figure moved--kus dorken. two of the worst killers on mars were here in this place. a leper. a human. unease came up inside jim ronson, a sharp stab of it. inside his chest a surge of pain broke through the barriers he had erected around it, reminding him of what was there. he had come here seeking relief for that surge of pain. instead of getting what he had asked for, he had been thrust into place. with two killers and a leper and--a shout broke into his thinking. a martian was running along the walls, seeking for an exit. it was te hold. te hold had recovered from the effect of the thormoline and had been brought here. ronson watched the martian run along the walls, searching desperately for a way out. te hold screamed as he ran but he didn't find an exit. the screams died out as he reached the far end of the oval, then grew stronger as he came back again upon his own steps. kus dorken slid out of sight. tal bock was somewhere in that shrubbery too, where, ronson didn't know. and didn't care. a feeling of hopelessness was coming up in him. he moved back to the leper, squatted on the sand beside the man, asked a question. the leper's eyes flicked at him in response but there was no other answer. an ecstacy was in the eyes now. the leper was so lost in this ecstacy that such things as grunted noises from a member of an alien race made no impression on him. ronson envied him. the leper was close to death but he was so lost in some inner ecstacy that death was unimportant to him. "did les ro's messenger promise you that you would be cured of your leprosy?" ronson asked, persisting. the leper nodded. again his hand waved in the "go away," gesture. "go away and let you die in peace?" ronson said. "just go away," the leper answered. ronson rose to his feet, angry. what farce was being perpetrated here? what--the super-sonic note came into hearing. pain stabbed at his chest. he lifted his hand involuntarily. the sight of the dial on his wrist watch forced itself through the pulses of pain. as a part of his research into cell structure, ronson had worked extensively with radioactivity. in order to protect himself, he had had a microscopically small radiation detector built into the watch itself. three tiny glow tubes were set into the dial. if the green tube glowed, radiation was present but was safe. if the amber light glowed, be wary. if the red light glowed, _get out fast_! the red light was glowing now. as ronson stared, it winked out. before he could take his eyes away from the dial, the red light flicked on again. the super-sonic note came with it. a flick of very real pain came with the note. the red light flicked out, the note vanished. the pain was gone. "regular pulsations of radiation are being poured through this place!" ronson whispered. it was being done deliberately. the whole cavern was being flooded periodically with bursts of radiation. this meant deliberate intention, purpose, plan. he did not know what impact this radiation might have on martian flesh but he could guess the effect it might have on human tissue. fear came up in him, a flood of it. anger followed it. the lights on his watch danced. pain, agony, and the shrill note of the super-sonic came again. grimly, he began to prowl the cavern, searching for the source of the radiations. the radiation counter in his watch led him to it, by the increased intensity of its glow. the radiations were coming from a single spot in the wall of the cavern. so far as he could tell, the wall was solid stone at this place, but he had seen solid stone walls dissolve in this madhouse. behind this spot there was intelligent direction of the bursts of radiation. back there les ro, or someone with him, was playing games of life and death with-- te hold came past him, screaming. the martian was beginning to stumble as he ran. the screams were only gasping sounds in his throat. voices rose in shouted argument somewhere in the shrubbery. ronson moved away. "what's going on there?" he asked the leper. "tal bock--and kus dorken--have disagreed--as to which is the bigger killer--and therefore which is the more worthy. they fight--to decide the problem." the words were quietly spoken. the tone said the matter was of no importance. after he had finished speaking, the leper's eyes went back to the inner ecstacy that he seemed to be watching. or was it _future_ ecstacy that he was imagining? "i hope there is a heaven for martians," ronson said. so far as he knew, only in heaven could this leper's health be restored. was the same true for him? voices screamed in the shrubbery. giving ground before the heavy blows tal bock was striking at him, kus dorken came stumbling backward. he slipped in the sand and fell heavily. tal bock leaped at him. kus dorken screamed once, a sound that gasped into silence as tal bock's fingers closed over his throat. for a time, they threshed in the sand. then kus dorken went limp. viciously tal bock slapped his foe across the face. when there was no response, he poured sand into kus dorken's mouth, scooping it up in handfuls and cramming it down his foe's gullet. tal bock got to his feet. the scream that ripped from his lips was pure triumph. utterly naked, he stood beside the body of his victim, shaking his fist at the roof of the cavern, screaming defiance at the universe. ronson fervidly hoped that the radiation flowing through the martian would strike him dead. the scream went into silence. tal bock's gaze fell on the leper, he moved in that direction. viciously he kicked the leper. the sick martian slipped from his squatting position and lay inert. ronson moved forward. with all the strength that he possessed, he hit tal bock behind the ear. as he struck the blow, the super-sonic note screamed through him. ronson's blow knocked tal bock sprawling. like a gigantic cat, the martian came to his feet. _ping!_ tal bock moved toward ronson in little short steps. he was like a cat getting ready to pounce. the grin on his face said he was going to anticipate destroying this human. _ping!_ tal bock lost his footing. he fell heavily and tried to rise. a confused expression was on his face. the effort to rise was more than he could manage. collapsing, he lay without moving. "jim! here! quick!" the voice came from the shrubbery. his first thought was that he was hallucinating. jennie ware and sam crick could not be there in that shrubbery, fully clothed, jennie beckoning frantically to him, crick with a needle gun in his hand. they came to him, on the run. jennie caught one arm, crick caught the other. supporting him between them, they ran through the shrubbery. in the opposite wall, a hole showed, an honest opening, not a light-swirling mirage. inside it, crick swung shut a door. a martian lay on the floor of the tunnel. "how--how did you get here?" ronson gasped. crick nodded to the martian on the floor. "we persuaded tocko to bring us. he knew a little more about this place than he ever let on. after he brought us here, we gave him a needle, to keep him quiet while we rescued you." the tall adventurer grinned as he spoke. "come on, jim. we know the way out of here. if we get out before they discover what has happened--" the girl was all frantic motion moving toward escape. "i'm not going," ronson said. "what?" the girl gasped. ronson turned to crick. "do you have an extra gun?" "of course. but, jim--" "lend it to me, will you? i may need it before i'm finished here." "eh?" crick was startled. ronson explained what he meant. crick's face grew grim. he took an extra needle gun out of his coat pocket. "i guess maybe you could use a little help on this job, jim. eh, jennie?" he glanced at the girl. fear was on her face. she wanted to run, to get away, forever, from this place of horror. but some things were more important than running. "we'll make it a threesome," she said. "good girl!" ronson spoke. a passage circled the oval cavern. with ronson in the lead, they followed it until they came to the spot from which the radiations were being poured into the cavern. here was a large room. the passage led directly into it. inside the room was a tremendous array of complex electrical apparatus. ronson had never seen anything as good as this in even the best laboratories back on earth. he could not even guess the purpose of most of the equipment, it had been designed by a martian mind and constructed by martian hands--with a martian goal in view. set in the middle of the room were the control panels of the equipment. directly above the panels was a smoky visio screen that revealed dimly what was happening in the cavern. just rising from his place at the controls was--the messenger. he looked up and into the muzzle of the needle gun ronson was holding. a tiny startled reaction played across his poised face, disturbing the many wrinkles there, then was gone. a smile replaced it. "ah, yes. i had just discovered you were missing and i was starting to look for you." behind him, ronson heard jennie ware catch her breath. he knew she was thinking that they should have run while they had the chance. "we saved you the trouble, les ro," ronson said. the startled reaction was more pronounced this time. "you guessed?" "that les ro and his messenger were one and the same? it was obvious when you did not need to communicate what i had said to les ro. how many others are here with you?" the question was important. their own survival depended on the number of martians here. the startled reaction was very real this time. "no one else is here?" "you are alone!" "i am alone. many times i have longed--" "watch him jim." crick whispered. "this doesn't smell right to me." "do you mean to tell me that you alone built this apparatus?" ronson gestured toward the array of equipment in the room. "this? this is only a part. it was a long task. many weary years i have spent here--" "he's telling the truth, jim," jennie ware whispered. "but one pair of hands, to build all of this." shock was in ronson, perhaps even greater shock than he had experienced in the cavern. he stared at les ro. respect was in him and admiration, if not liking. "then you are indeed a genius. the rumors were partly right, after all." "thank you." "but why couldn't you get someone to help you?" sadness showed on les ro's face. "you have seen the people in the drinking room below. which of them could understand how an electron circles in its orbit? many times i have tried to train the brightest of them. the result was inevitable failure. that is why, when you came--" longing came into les ro's eyes. "watch him, jim," crick whispered. "i know it doesn't track," ronson said. his voice grew grim and hard. bitterness boiled in it. he was facing his own frustration here, in the failure of his deep hopes in coming to this place. a touch of pain moving through his chest told him what that failure meant to him. he gestured toward the cavern. "out there i saw martians destroying each other. in this, they were wiser than they knew. the ones who died quickly were lucky. the choice was between a quick death and slow, horrible death from the radiation pouring through that place." pain and consternation showed on les ro's face. he seemed to hear only ronson's last words. "how did you detect the radiation?" "with this." ronson nodded toward his watch. "this is wonderful. you humans actually have a reliable method of detecting radiation! i have striven so hard to build such a device. let me see it." he moved toward ronson as if nothing else were of any importance in comparison to the detector. "stand back. kus dorken and te hold and the leper would not have thought the radiation pouring through them was wonderful, if they had known about it. nor will tal bock, before he dies." real pain darkened the fine patina of the martian's face. "do you really believe this of me?" "i saw it happen," ronson answered. "i was there. i saw tal bock destroy kus dorken--" "one moment, please." les ro's hand moved among the controls. ronson's hand tightened on the trigger. he held off firing. somewhere a relay thudded home. power surged. the wall in the front of the room began to glow with light. "wait, please! walt!" the leper came first through the swirling mistiness. he walked erect, his back straight and his head up. the light of eager anticipation was still in his eyes but something new had been added now--realization. "but tal bock killed him. i saw it," ronson whispered. "no," les ro gently negated. "when tal bock attacked him, i put him into a trance condition, to save him." ronson hardly heard the answer. his eyes were fixed on something else. "the sores--" the sores were not gone but they had diminished in size. replacing the rotten tissue, new flesh had already begun to form. "this is what he asked, when he came to me," les ro said. "this is what he got." "but this is a miracle." again les ro denied the statement. "this is natural law in operation, though to you the laws may be unknown. watch." the leper would have dropped to his knees and kissed les ro's hand, but the martian forbade it, sending him to wait elsewhere. te hold came through the swirling light--a te hold who was without fear. then, kus dorken came. he was still spitting sand out of his mouth but the bluster and the bravado and the anger were gone from him. he was a new kus dorken. inside, he had been subtly changed. flowing outward, the change showed on his face as a gentle kindliness. "he was a killer when i saw him first," jennie ware said. "now--he looks like a saint." les ro smiled at her. "he will be a saint, from now on. he knows how to be one, now. as to tal bock, he has not yet recovered from your needles. when he does recover, he will come out of the cavern a saint too." "but why didn't you tell me about this?" ronson whispered. "why did you just thrust me, and presumably the others too, in there without warning. why didn't you tell us?" "to have told you, might have defeated my purpose, or prolonged its achievement. i put all who come to me in the cavern. there, the killer will try to kill, the coward will run, the brave man will fight. as the killer tries to kill, he will use the reaction patterns he has known all his life. as he uses them, i throw bursts of energy at him. i disconnect the kill patterns. the energy penetrates right down to the levels of the cells, and even goes lower than that, changing old patterns--" "new lamps for old," the girl whispered. ronson was silent. his thinking was perturbed, almost bewildered. what les ro had said made sense. reaction patterns had to change down to and through the cellular level. if the patterns were struck by bursts of radiant energy--but this was the method nature used! this was the method of the _something_ they had sought but which had always eluded them. the change in the cells that was called cancer--again pain flicked through his chest--more often than not this change was brought about by radiant energy operating on cellular structure! les ro had organized this something, this wild talent of nature, and was making it do useful work. "but it did not work for me," ronson protested. "human cellular structure and martian cellular structure are different," les ro answered. "this is the first opportunity i have had to work with humans. more time is needed to produce the changes in them. that is all." a beatific smile lit the face of the old martian. it went slowly away as his eyes came to focus on the girl. ronson turned, gasped when he saw what she was doing. she was stripping herself. without embarrassment and shame, she took off her clothes. she stood before them, naked. "a human woman!" les ro said. "outside, i'm a woman," jennie ware answered. "but inside i've got more of the organization of a man than a woman. the result has been that all my life there's been a fight within me. instead of being a woman, i have only succeeded in being a bitch, all jangle of nerves, always trying to do what the men did, but knowing i really couldn't, because i was a woman. i'm tired of this. i'm sick and tired of it!" her voice grew frantic for a moment. then she was calm again. "i want to be a woman. do you think that if i went in there--" she gestured toward the cavern, "that you could help me be a--woman?" the appeal in her eyes and in her voice begged for one answer. "i have never worked with a human woman--" "then use me as a guinea pig!" as if the answer were predetermined, her chin up, with not a look behind her, she moved through the misty light and out of sight--like eve stepping into the garden of eden in the dawn of a new world. les ro's hands moved over the switches. jim ronson dropped the needle gun. for a split second, he hesitated. then he walked toward the swirling light. les ro's voice stopped him. "when you are cured, my son, when you are finished in there, come back, and we will work together on the problems of your world and mine. this i have dreamed of since the first day i began work here, that someone with sufficient intelligence might come to work beside me." ronson smiled, nodded. as he stepped into the mistiness, les ro's face beamed at him, enhaloed, like a saint. the girl was wandering through the shrubbery. she seemed not to see him but when he came into step beside her, she looked up and smiled. arm in arm, they walked together, in a place that had been hell, but was now heaven, waiting for the miracle to take place within them. and little by little, in minute bursts of spurting quanta, jim ronson felt the pain in his chest go away. the girl beside him was no longer the bitter harriden who had almost turned pluto dome upside down when she had been ejected from a space ship that never returned. she was no longer the unhappy roamer who had wandered the paths of the planets, defying all creation and herself. she was becoming something else--a woman. the fact showed in the gentleness of her smile. his arm went around her and she came closer without hesitation. a glow came up inside of both them, and grew stronger. the end message from mars by clifford d. simak fifty-five pioneers had died on the "bridge of bones" that spanned the void to the rusty plains of mars. now the fifty-sixth stood on the red planet, his only ship a total wreck--and knew that earth was doomed unless he could send a warning within hours. [transcriber's note: this etext was produced from planet stories fall . extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the u.s. copyright on this publication was renewed.] "you're crazy, man," snapped steven alexander, "you can't take off for mars alone!" scott nixon thumped the desk in sudden irritation. "why not?" he shouted. "one man can run a rocket. jack riley's sick and there are no other pilots here. the rocket blasts in fifteen minutes and we can't wait. this is the last chance. the only chance we'll have for months." jerry palmer, sitting in front of the massive radio, reached for a bottle of scotch and slopped a drink into the tumbler at his elbow. "hell, doc," he said, "let him go. it won't make any difference. he won't reach mars. he's just going out in space to die like all the rest of them." alexander snapped savagely at him. "you don't know what you're saying. you drink too much." "forget it, doc," said scott. "he's telling the truth. i won't get to mars, of course. you know what they're saying down in the base camp, don't you? about the bridge of bones. walking to mars over a bridge of bones." the old man stared at him. "you have lost faith? you don't think you'll go to mars?" scott shook his head. "i haven't lost my faith. someone will get there ... sometime. but it's too soon yet. look at that tablet, will you!" he waved his hand at a bronze plate set into the wall. "the roll of honor," said scott, bitterly. "look at the names. you'll have to buy another soon. there won't be room enough." one nixon already was on that scroll of bronze. hugh nixon, fifty-fourth from the top. and under that the name of harry decker, the man who had gone out with him. the radio blurted suddenly at them, jabbering, squealing, howling in anguish. scott stiffened, ears tensed as the code sputtered across millions of miles. but it was the same old routine. the same old message, repeated over and over again ... the same old warning hurled out from the ruddy planet. "_no. no. no come. danger._" scott turned toward the window, started up into the sky at the crimson eye of mars. what was the use of keeping hope alive? hope that hugh might have reached mars, that someday the martian code would bring some word of him. hugh had died ... like all the rest of them. like those whose names were graven in the bronze there on the wall. the maw of space had swallowed him. he had flown into the face of silence and the silence was unbroken. the door of the office creaked open, letting in a gust of chilly air. jimmy baldwin shut the door behind him and looked at them vacantly. "nice night to go to mars," he said. "you shouldn't be up here, jimmy," said alexander gently. "you should be down at the base, tending to your flowers." "there're lots of flowers on mars," said jimmy. "maybe someday i'll go to mars and see." "wait until somebody else goes first," said palmer bitterly. jimmy turned about, hesitantly, like a man who had a purpose but had forgotten what it was. he moved slowly toward the door and opened it. "i got to go," he said. the door closed heavily but the chill did not vanish from the room. for it wasn't the chill of the mountain's peak, but another kind of chill ... a chill that had walked in with jimmy baldwin and now refused to leave. palmer tipped the bottle, sloshed the whiskey in the glass. "the greatest pilot that ever lived," he said. "now look at him!" "he still holds the record," alexander reminded the radio operator. "eight times to the moon and still alive." the accident had happened as jimmy's ship was approaching earth on that eighth return trip. a tiny meteor had struck the hull, drilling a sharp-cut hole. it had struck andy mason, jimmy's best friend, squarely between the eyes. the cabin had been filled with the scream of escaping air, had turned cold with the deadly breath of space and frost crystals had danced in front of jimmy's eyes. somehow jimmy had patched the hole in the hull, had reached earth in a smashing rocket drive, knowing he had little air, that every minute was a borrowed eternity. most pilots would have killed themselves or blown up their ships in that reckless race for earth, but jimmy, ace of all the space-men of his day, had made it. but he had walked from the ship with a blank face and babbling lips. he still lived at the rocket camp because it was home to him. he puttered among his flowers. he watched the rockets come and go without a flutter of expression. and everyone was kind to him, for in his face they read a fate that might be theirs. "all of us are crazy," said scott. "everyone of us. myself included. that's why i'm blasting off alone." "i refuse to let you go," said alexander firmly. scott rested his knuckles on the desk. "you can't stop me. i have my orders to make the trip. whether i go alone or with an assistant pilot makes no difference. that rocket blasts on time, and i'm in it when it goes." "but it's foolishness," protested alexander. "you'll go space-mad. think of the loneliness!" "think of the coordinates," snapped scott. "delay the blast-off and you have to work out a set of new ones. days of work and then it'll be too late. mars will be too far away." alexander spread his hands. "all right then. i hope you make it." scott turned away but alexander called him back. "you're sure of the routine?" scott nodded. he knew the routine by heart. so many hours out to the moon, landing on the moon to take on extra fuel, taking off for mars at an exact angle at a certain minute. "i'll come out and see you off," said alexander. he heaved himself up and slid into a heavy coat. palmer shouted after scott. "so long, big boy. it was nice knowing you." scott shrugged. palmer was a little drunk and very bitter. he'd watched them go too long. his nerves were wearing out. * * * * * stars shone like hard, bright jewels in the african sky. a sharp wind blew over the summit of mt. kenya, a wind that whined among the ice-bound rocks and bit deep into the flesh. far below blazed the lights of the base camp, hundreds of feet down the slope from the main rocket camp here atop the mountain set squarely on the earth's equator. the rasping voice of a radio newscaster came from the open door of the machine shop. "new york," shrieked the announcer. "austin gordon, famous african explorer, announced this afternoon he will leave soon for the congo valley, where he will investigate reports of a strange metallic city deep in the interior. natives, bringing reports of the discovery out of the jungle, claim the city is inhabited by strange metallic insects." someone slammed the door and the voice was cut off. scott hunched into the wind to light a cigarette. "the explorers are going crazy, too," he said. probably, later on in the program the announcer would have mentioned scott nixon and jack riley would blast off in a few minutes in another attempt to reach mars. but it would be well along in the program and it wouldn't take much time. ten years ago mars had been big news. today it rated small heads in the press, slight mention on the air. but the newscaster would have been wrong about jack riley. jack riley lay in the base camp hospital with an attack of ptomaine. only an hour before jack had clasped scott's hand and grinned at him and wished him luck. he needed luck. for in this business a man didn't have even an inside chance. * * * * * scott walked toward the tilted rocket. he could hear the crunch of alexander's feet as the man moved with him. "it won't be new to you," alexander was saying, "you've been to the moon before." yes, he had been to the moon three times and he was still alive. but, then, he had been lucky. your luck just simply didn't hold forever. there was too much to gamble on in space. fuel, for one thing. men had experimented with fuel for ten years now and still the only thing they had was a combination of liquid oxygen and gasoline. they had tried liquid hydrogen but that had proved too cold, too difficult to confine, treacherous to handle, too bulky because of its low density. liquid oxygen could be put under pressure, condensed into little space. it was safe to handle, safe until it combined with gasoline and then it was sheer death to anything that got within its reach. of course, there had been some improvements. better handling of the fuel, for instance. combustion chambers stood up better now because they were designed better. feed lines didn't freeze so readily now as when the first coffins took to space. rocket motors were more efficient, but still cranky. but there were other things. meteors, for one, and you couldn't do much about them. not until someone designed a screen, and no one had. radiations were another. space was full of radiations and, despite the insulating jacket of ozone some of them seeped through. scott climbed through the rocket valve and turned to close it. he hesitated for a moment, drinking in the smell and sight of earth. there wasn't much that one could see. the anxious face of alexander, the huddled shadows that were watching men, the twinkling base camp lights. with a curse at his own weakness, scott slammed the valve lock, twirled it home. fitting himself into the shock absorbent chair, he fastened the straps that held him. his right foot reached out and found the trip that would fire the rockets. then he lifted his wrist in front of his eyes and watched the second hand of the watch. ten seconds. eight. now five. the hand was creeping up, ticking off the time. it rested on the zero mark and he slammed down his foot. cruel weight smashed down upon him, driving his body back into the padded chair. his lungs were flattened, the air driven from them. his heart thumped. nausea seized him, and black mists swam before his eyes. he seemed to be slipping into a midnight chasm and he cried out weakly. his body went limp, sagging in the chair. twin streams of blood trickled from his nose and down his lip. he was far out in space when he struggled back to consciousness. for a time he did not stir. lying in the chair, it took long minutes to realize where he was. gradually his brain cleared and his eyes focused and made impressions on his senses. slowly he became aware of the lighted instrument board, of the rectangle of quartz that formed the vision panel. his ears registered the silence that steeped the ship, the weird, deathly silence of outer space. weakly he stirred and sat upright, his eyes automatically studying the panel. the fuel pressure was all right, atmospheric pressure was holding, speed was satisfactory. he leaned back in the chair and waited, resting, storing his strength. automatically his hand reached up and wiped the blood from his lips and chin. ii he was in space. headed for the moon and from there for mars. but even the realization of this failed to rouse him from the lethargy of battered body and tortured brain. taking off in a rocket was punishment. severe, terrible punishment. only men who were perfect physical specimens could attempt it. an imperfect heart would simply stop under the jarring impact of the blast-off. some day rockets would be perfected. some day rockets would rise gently from the earth, shaking off earth's gravity by gradual application of power rather than by tremendous thrusts that kicked steel and glass and men out into space. but not yet, not for many years. perhaps not for many generations. for many years men would risk their lives in blasting projectiles that ripped loose from the earth by the sheer savagery of exploding oxygen and gasoline. a moan came from the rear of the ship, a stifled pitiful moan that brought scott upright in the chair, tearing with nervous hands at the buckles of his belt. with belt loosened, body tensed, he waited for a second, hardly believing he had heard the sound. it came again, a piteous human cry. scott leaped to his feet, staggered under the lack of gravitation. the rocket was coasting on momentum now and, while its forward motion gave it a simulation of gravity, enough so a man could orient himself, there was in actuality no positive gravity center in the shell. a bundle of heavy blankets lay in a corner formed by a lashed down pile of boxes ... and the bundle was moving feebly. with a cry in his throat, scott leaped forward and tore the blankets aside. under them lay a battered man, crumpled, with a pool of blood soaking into a blanket that lay beneath him. scott lifted the body. the head flopped over and he stared down into the vacant, blood-streaked face of jimmy baldwin. jimmy's eyes fluttered open, then closed again. scott squatted on his heels, wild thoughts hammering in his head. jimmy's eyes opened again and regarded the pilot. he raised a feeble hand in greeting. the lips moved, but jimmy's voice was faint. "hello, scott." "what are you doing here?" scott demanded fiercely. "i don't know," said jimmy weakly. "i don't know. i meant to do something, but i forgot." scott rose and took a bottle of water from a case. wetting his handkerchief, he bathed the bloodied face. his hands ran over jimmy's body but found no broken bones. it was a wonder the man hadn't been killed outright. some more baldwin luck! "where are we, scott?" jimmy asked. "we're in space," said scott. "we're going out to mars." no use of telling him anything but the truth. "space," said jimmy. "i use to go out in space. then something happened." he shook his head wearily. mercifully, the memory of that _something_ had been wiped from his brain. half dragging, half carrying, scott got him to the assistant pilot's seat, strapped him in, gave him a drink of water. jimmy's eyes closed and he sank back into the cushions. scott resumed his chair, leaned forward to look out into space. there was little to see. space, viewed from any angle, unless one was near a large body, looked pretty much the same. the moon was still out of his range of vision. it would be hours before it would move upward to intersect the path of the rocket's flight. * * * * * scott leaned back and looked at jimmy. apparently the man had sneaked aboard just before the take-off. no one paid much attention to him. everyone was kind to him and he was allowed to do as he pleased. for he was not insane. the tragedy of those few minutes years before had merely wiped out his memory, given him the outlook of a child. perhaps when he had gotten into the ship he had held some reason for his action, but now even that purpose had escaped him. once again jimmy baldwin was a bewildered child's brain in the body of a man. "anyway," said scott, half speaking to himself, half to the silent form, "you're the first rocket stowaway." they would miss jimmy back at the camp, would wonder what had happened to him. perhaps they'd organize a posse and search for him. the possibility was they would never know what happened, for there was slight chance, scott told himself, that he or jimmy or the ship would ever get back to earth again. someone else would have to tend jimmy's flowers now, but probably no one would, for his flowers were the martian lilies. and martian lilies no longer were a novelty. it had been the lilies that started the whole thing, this crazy parade of men who went into space and died. slightly over twelve years ago, dr. steven alexander reported that, from his observatory on mt. kenya, he had communicated with mars by ultrashort wave radio. it had been a long and arduous process. first the signals from earth, repeated in definite series, at definite intervals. and then, finally, the answer from the red planet. after months of labor slow understanding came. "_we send you_," signalled the martians. "_we send you._" over and over again. a meaningless phrase. what were they sending? slowly alexander untangled the simple skein of thought. mars finally messaged: "_we send you token!_" that word "token" had been hard. it represented thought, an abstract thought. the world waited breathlessly for the token. finally it came, a rocket winging its way across space, a rocket that flashed and glinted in the depth of space as it neared earth. kept informed of its location by the martians, earth's telescopes watched it come. it landed near mt. kenya, a roaring, screaming streak of light that flashed across the midnight sky. dug up, it yielded an inner container, well-insulated against heat and cold, against radiation and shock. opened, it was found to contain seeds. planted, jealously guarded, carefully tended, the seeds grew, were the martian lilies. they multiplied rapidly, spread quickly over the earth. back on earth today the martian lilies grew in every hamlet, clogged the fence rows of every farm. relieved of whatever natural enemies and checks they might have had on their native planet, they flourished and spread, became a weed that every farmer cursed whole-heartedly. their root structure probed deep into the soil. drought could not kill them. they grew rapidly, springing to full growth almost overnight. they went to unkillable seed. which was what might have been expected of any plant nurtured on the stubborn soil of mars. earth, to the martian lilies, was a paradise of air and water and sunlight. and, as if that first token-load had not been enough, the martians kept on sending rocket loads of seeds. at each opposition the rockets came, each announced by the messages from the martian transmitter. and each of them landed almost precisely on the spot where the first had landed. that took mathematics! mathematics and a superb knowledge of rocketry. the rockets apparently were automatic. there was no intelligence to guide them once they were shot into space. their courses must have been plotted to the finest detail, with every factor determined in advance. for the martian rockets were not aimed at earth as one broad target but at a certain spot on earth and so far every one of them had hit that mark! at the rocket camp each martian rocket was waited anxiously, with the hope it would bring some new pay load. but the rockets never brought anything but seeds ... more martian lily seeds. * * * * * jimmy stirred restlessly, opened his eyes and looked out the vision plate. but there was no terror in his eyes, no surprise nor regret. "space?" he asked. scott nodded. "we're going to the moon?" "to the moon first," said scott. "from there we go to mars." jimmy lapsed into silence. there was no change upon his face. there never was any change upon his face. i hope he doesn't make any trouble, scott told himself. it was bad enough just to have him along. bad enough to have this added responsibility. for space flight was a dangerous job. ever since the international mars communication center had been formed, with alexander in charge, space had flung men aside. ship after ship, pilot after pilot. the task, alone, of reaching the moon had taken terrible toll. men had died. some had died before they reached the moon, some had died on the moon but mostly they had died heading back for earth. for landing on earth, jockeying a rocket through earth's dense atmosphere, is a tricky job. others had died enroute to mars, ships flaring in space or simply disappearing, going on and on, never coming back. that was the way it had been with hugh. and now his brother, scott, was following the trail that hugh had blazed, the trail to the moon and out beyond. following in a bomb of potential death, with a blank-faced stowaway in the chair beside him. * * * * * half way to mars and the ship was still intact. running true to course, running on schedule, flashing through space under the thrust of momentum built up during the blast-out from the moon. half way to mars and still alive! but too early yet to hope. perhaps other men had gotten as far as this and then something had happened. scott watched the depths of space, the leering, jeering emptiness of star-studded velvet that stretched on and on. there had been days of waiting and of watching. more days of waiting and of watching loomed ahead. waiting for that warning flicker on the instrument panel, that split second warning before red ruin struck as cranky fuel went haywire. waiting for the "tick" of a tiny meteor against the ship's steel wall ... the tiny, ringing sound that would be the prelude to disaster. waiting for something else ... for that unknown factor of accident that would spatter the ship and the two men in it through many empty miles. endless hours of watching and of waiting, hastily snatched cat-naps in the chair, hastily snatched meals. listening to the babbling jimmy baldwin who wondered how his flowers were getting on, speculated on what the boys were doing back in the rocket camp on earth. one thing hammered at scott nixon's brain ... the message of the martian radio, the message that had been coming now for many years. "_no. no. no come. danger._" always that and little else. no explanation of what the danger was. no suggestion for circumventing or correcting that danger. no helpfulness in earthmen's struggle to cross the miles of space between two neighboring planets. almost as if the martians didn't want earthmen to come. almost as if they were trying to discourage space travel. but that would hardly be the case, for the martians had readily co-operated in establishing communications, had exhibited real intelligence and earnestness in working out the code that flashed words and thoughts across millions of miles. without a doubt, had they wished, the martians could have helped. for it was with seemingly little effort that they sent their own rockets to earth. and why had each martian rocket carried the same load each time? could there be some significance in those martian lily seeds? some hidden meaning the earth had failed to grasp? some meaning that the things from mars hoped would be read with each new rocket-load? why hadn't the martians come themselves? if they could shoot automatic rockets across the miles of space, certainly they could navigate rockets carrying themselves. the martian rockets had been closely studied back on earth but had yielded no secrets. the fuel always was exhausted. more than likely the martians knew, to the last drop, how much was needed. the construction was not unlike earth rockets, but fashioned of a steel that was hardened and toughened beyond anything earth could produce. so for ten years earthmen had worked unaided to cross the bridge of space, launching ships from the earth's most favored take-off point, from the top of mt. kenya, heading out eastward into space, taking advantage of the mountain's three mile height, the earth's rotation speed of yards per second at the equator. scott reviewed his flight, checked the clocklike routine he had followed. blast-off from earth. landing in the drear, desolate mare serenitatis on the moon, refueling the ship from the buried storage tanks, using the caterpillar tractor from the underground garage to haul the rocket onto the great turn-table cradle. setting the cradle at the correct angle and direction, blasting off again at the precise second, carrying a full load of fuel, something impossible to do and still take off from earth. taking advantage of the moon's lower gravity, its lack of atmosphere. using the moon as a stepping stone to outer space. now he was headed for mars. if he landed there safely, he could spend two days, no more, no less, before he blasted off for earth again. but probably he wouldn't reach mars. probably he and jimmy baldwin, in the end, would be just a few more bones to pave the road to mars. iii a gigantic building, rising to several hundred feet in height, domed, without door or window, stood lonely in the vastness of the red plain that stretched to the far-off black horizon. the building and nothing more. no other single sign of habitation. no other evidence of intelligent life. the martian lilies were everywhere, great fields of them, bright scarlet against the redness of the sand. but in its native soil the martian lily was a sorry thing, a poor apology for the kind of flower that grew on earth. stunted, low-growing, with smaller and less brilliant flowers. the sand gritted under scott's boots as he took a slow step forward. so this was mars! here, at the north pole ... the single building ... the only evidence of intelligence on the entire planet. as the ship had circled the planet, cutting down its tremendous speed, he had studied the surface in the telescopic glass and this building had been the only habitation he had seen. it stood there, made of shimmering metal, glinting in the pale sunlight. "bugs," said jimmy, at scott's elbow. "what do you mean, bugs?" asked scott. "bugs in the air," said jimmy. "flying bugs." scott saw them then. things that looked like streaks of light in the feeble sunshine. swarms of them hovered about the great building and others darted busily about. "bees," suggested jimmy. but scott shook his head. they weren't bees. they glinted and flashed when the sun's light struck them and they seemed more mechanical than life-like. "where are the martians?" jimmy demanded. "i don't know, jimmy," declared scott. "damned if i do." he had envisioned the first earthmen reaching mars as receiving thunderous ovation, a mighty welcome from the martians. but there weren't any martians. nothing stirred except the shining bugs and the lilies that nodded in a thin, cold breeze. there was no sound, no movement. like a quiet summer afternoon back on earth, with a veil of quietness drawn over the flaming desert and the shimmering building. he took another step, walking toward the great building. the sand grated protestingly beneath his boot-heels. slowly he approached the building, alert, watching, ready for some evidence that he and jimmy had been seen. but no sign came. the bugs droned overhead, the lilies nodded sleepily. that was all. scott looked at the thermometer strapped to the wrist of his oxygen suit. the needle registered above, centigrade. warm enough, but the suits were necessary, for the air was far too thin for human consumption. deep shadow lay at the base of the building and as he neared it, scott made out something that gleamed whitely in the shadow. something that struck a chord of remembrance in his brain, something he had seen back on earth. as he hurried forward he saw it was a cross. a white cross thrust into the sand. with a cry he broke into a run. before the cross he dropped to his knees and read the crudely carved inscription on the wood. just two words. the name of a man, carven with a jack-knife: harry decker harry decker! scott felt his brain swimming crazily. harry decker here! harry decker under the red sand of mars! but that couldn't be. harry decker's name couldn't be here. it was back on earth, graven on that scroll of bronze. graven there directly beneath the name of hugh nixon. he staggered to his feet and stood swaying for a moment. from somewhere far away he heard a shout and swinging around, ran toward the corner of the building. rounding it, he stopped in amazement. there, in the shelter of the building, lay a rusted space ship and running across the sand toward him was a space-suited figure, a figure that yelled as it ran and carried a bag over its shoulder, the bag bouncing at every leap. "hugh!" yelled scott. and the grotesque figure bellowed back. "scott, you old devil! i knew you'd do it! i knew it was you the minute i heard the rocket blasts!" * * * * * "it's nice and warm here now," said hugh, "but you'd ought to spend a winter here. an arctic blizzard is a gentle breeze compared with the martian pole in winter time. you don't see the sun for almost ten months and the mercury goes down to below, centigrade. hoar frost piles up three and four feet thick and a man can't stir out of the ship." he gestured at the bag. "i was getting ready for another winter. just like a squirrel. my supplies got low before this spring and i had to find something to store up against another season. i found a half dozen different kinds of bulbs and roots and some berries. i've been gathering them all summer, storing them away." "but the martians?" protested scott. "wouldn't the martians help you?" his brother looked at him curiously. "the martians?" he asked. "yes, the martians." "scott," hugh said, "i haven't found the martians." scott stared at him. "let's get this straight now. you mean you don't know who the martians are?" hugh nodded. "that's exactly it. i tried to find them hard enough. i did all sorts of screwy things to contact that intelligence which talked with the earth and sent the rockets full of seed, but i've gotten exactly nowhere. i've finally given up." "those bugs," suggested scott. "the shining bugs." hugh shook his head. "no soap. i got the same idea and managed to bat down a couple of them. but they're mechanical. that's all. just machines. operated by radium. "it almost drove me nuts at first. those bugs flying around and the building standing there and the martian lilies all around, but no signs of any intelligence. i tried to get into the building but there aren't any doors or windows. just little holes the bugs fly in and out of. "i couldn't understand a thing. nothing seemed right. no purpose to any of it. no apparent reason. only one thing i could understand. over on the other side of the building i found the cradle that is used to shoot the rockets to earth. i've watched that done." "but what happened?" asked scott. "why didn't you come back? what happened to the ship?" "we had no fuel," said hugh. scott nodded his head. "a meteor in space." "not that," hugh told him, "harry simply turned the petcocks, let our gasoline run into the sand." "good lord! was he crazy?" "that's exactly what he was," hugh declared. "batty as a bedbug. touch of space madness. i felt sorry for him. he cowered like a mad animal, beaten by the sense of loneliness and space. he was afraid of shadows. he got so he didn't act like a man. i was glad for him when he died." "but even a crazy man would want to get back to earth!" protested scott. "it wasn't harry," hugh explained. "it was the martians, i am sure. whatever or wherever they are, they probably have intelligences greater than ours. it would be no feat for them, perhaps, to gain control of the brain of a demented man. they might not be able to dominate us, but a man whose thought processes were all tangled up by space madness would be an easy mark for them. they could make him do and think whatever they wanted him to think or do. it wasn't harry who opened those petcocks, scott. it was the martians." he leaned against the pitted side of the ship and stared up at the massive building. "i was plenty sore at him when i caught him at it," he said. "i gave him one hell of a beating. i've always been sorry for that." "what finally happened to him?" asked scott. "he ran out of the airlock without his suit," hugh explained. "it took me half an hour to run him down and bring him back. he took pneumonia. you have to be careful here. exposure to the martian atmosphere plays hell with a man's lung tissues. you can breathe it all right ... might even be able to live in it for a few hours, but it's deadly just the same." "well, it's all over now," declared scott. "we'll get my ship squared around and we'll blast off for earth. we made it here and we can make it back. and you'll be the first man who ever set his foot on mars." hugh grinned. "that will be something, won't it, scott? but somehow i'm not satisfied. i haven't accomplished a thing. i haven't even found the martians. i know they're here. an intelligance that's at least capable of thinking along parallel lines with us although its thought processes may not be parallel with ours." "we'll talk it over later," said scott. "after we get a cup of coffee into you. i bet you haven't had one in weeks." "weeks," jeered hugh. "man, it's been ten months." "okay, then," said scott. "let's round up jimmy. he must be around here somewhere. i don't like to let him get out of my sight too much." * * * * * the silence of the dreaming red deserts was shattered by a smashing report that drummed with a mighty clap against the sky above. a gush of red flame spouted over the domed top of the mighty building and metal shards hammered spitefully against the sides, setting up a metallic undertone to the ear-shattering explosion. sick with dread, scott plunged to the corner of the building and felt the sick dread deepen. where his space ship had lain a mighty hole was blasted in the sand. the ship was gone. no part of it was left. it had been torn into tiny fragments and hurled across the desert. wisps of smoke crept slowly from the pit in the sand, twisting in the air currents that still swirled from the blast. scott knew what had happened. there was no need to guess. only one thing could have happened. the liquid oxygen had united with the gasoline, making an explosive that was sheer death itself. a single tremor, a thrown stone, a vibration ... anything would set it off. across the space between himself and the ship came the tattered figure of a man. a man whose clothes were torn. a man covered with blood, weaving, head down, feet dragging. "jimmy!" yelled scott. he sprinted forward but before he could reach his side, jimmy had collapsed. kneeling beside him, scott lifted the man's head. the eyes rolled open and the lips twitched. slow, tortured words oozed out. "i'm sorry ... scott. i don't know why...." the eyes closed but opened again, a faint flutter, and more words bubbled from the bloody lips. "_i wonder why i did it!_" scott looked up and saw his brother standing in front of him. hugh nodded. "the martians again, scott. they could use jimmy's mind. they could get hold of him. that blasted brain of his...." scott looked down at the man in his arms. the head had fallen back, the eyes were staring, blood was dripping on the sand. "hugh," he whispered, "jimmy's dead." hugh stared across the sand at the little glimmer of white in the shadow of the building. "we'll make another cross," he said. iv the martians hadn't wanted them to to come. that much, at least, was clear. but having gotten here, the martians had no intention of letting them return to earth again. they didn't want them to carry back the word that it was possible to navigate across space to the outer planet. maybe the martians were committed to a policy of isolation. maybe there was a "hands off" sign set up on mars. maybe a "no trespassing" sign. but if that had been the case, why had the martians answered the radio calls from earth? why had they co-operated with dr. alexander in working out the code that made communication possible? and why did they continue sending messages and rockets to the earth? why didn't they sever diplomatic relationship entirely, retire into their isolation? if they didn't want earthmen to come to mars why hadn't they trained guns on the two ships as they came down to the scarlet sand, wiped them out without compunction? why did they resort to the expedient of forcing earthmen to bring about their own destruction? and why, now that harry decker and jimmy baldwin were dead, didn't the martians wipe out the remaining two of the unwanted race? perhaps the martians were merely efficient, not vindictive. maybe they realized that the remaining two earthmen constituted no menace? and maybe, on the other hand, the martians had no weapons. perhaps they never had held a need for weapons. it might be they had never had to fight for self preservation. and above and beyond all ... what and where were the martians? in that huge building? invisible? in caverns beneath the surface? at some point far away? maybe ... perhaps ... why? speculation and wonderment. but there was no answer. not even the slightest hint. just the building shimmering in the unsetting sun, the metallic bugs buzzing in the air, the lilies nodding in the breeze that blew across the desert. * * * * * scott nixon reached the rim of the plateau and lowered the bag of roots from his shoulder, resting and waiting for hugh to toil up the remaining few yards of the slope. before him, slightly over four miles across the plain, loomed the martian building. squatting at its base was the battered, pitted space ship. there was too much ozone in the atmosphere here for the steel in the ship to stand up. before many years had passed it would fall to pieces, would rust away. but that made little difference, for by that time they probably wouldn't need it. by that time another ship would have arrived or they would be dead. scott grinned grimly. a hard way to look at things. but the only way. one had to be realistic here. hard-headed planning was the only thing that would carry them through. the food supply was short and while they'd probably be able to gather enough for the coming winter, there was always the possibility that the next season would find them short. but there was hope to cling to. always hope. hope that the summer would bring another ship winging out of space ... that this time, armed by past experience, they could prevent its destruction. hugh came up with scott, slid the bag of roots to the ground and sat upon it. he nodded at the building across the desert. "that's the nerve center of the whole business," he declared. "if we could get into it...." his voice trailed away. "but we can't," scott reminded him. "we've tried and we can't. there are no doors. no openings. just those little holes the bugs fly in and out of." "there's a door somewhere," said hugh. "a hidden door. the bugs use it to bring out machines to do the work when they shoot a rocket out for earth. i've seen the machines. screwy looking things. work units pure and simple but so efficient you'd swear they possessed intelligence. i've tried to find the door but i never could and the bugs always waited until i wasn't around before they moved the machines in or out of the building." he chuckled, scrubbing his bearded face with a horny hand. "that rocket business saved my life," he said. "if the power lead running out of the building to the cradle hadn't been there i'd been sunk. but there it was, full of good, old electricity. so i just tapped the thing and that gave me plenty of power ... power for heat, for electrolysis, for atmospheric condensation." scott sank down heavily on his sack. "it's enough to drive a man nuts," he declared. "we can reach out and touch the building with our hand. just a few feet away from the explanation of all this screwiness. inside that building we'd find things we'd be able to use. machines, tools...." hugh hummed under his breath. "maybe," he said, "maybe not. maybe we couldn't recognize the machines, fathom the tools. mechanical and technical development here probably wasn't any more parallel to ours than intelligence development." "there's the rocket cradle," retorted scott. "same principle as we use on earth. and they must have a radio in there. and a telescope. we'd be able to figure them out. might even be able to send doc alexander a message." "yeah," agreed hugh, "i thought of that, too. but we can't get in the building and that settles it." "the bugs get under my skin," scott complained. "always buzzing around. always busy. but busy at what? like a bunch of hornets." "they're the straw bosses of the outfit," declared hugh. "carrying out the orders of the martians. the martians' hands and eyes you might say." he dug at the sand with the toe of his space boot. "another swarm of them took off just before we started out on this trip," he said. "while you were in the ship. i watched them until they disappeared. straight up and out until you couldn't see them. just like they were taking off for space." he kicked savagely at the sand. "i sure as hell would like to know where they go," he said. "there've been quite a few of them leaving lately," said scott. "as if the building were a hive and they were new swarms of bees. maybe they're going out to start new living centers. maybe they're going to build more buildings...." * * * * * he stopped and stared straight ahead of him, his eyes unseeing. going out to start new living centers! going out to build new buildings! shining metallic buildings! like a cold wind from the past it came to him, a picture of that last night on earth. he heard the whining wind on mt. kenya once again, the blaring of the radio from the machine shop door, the voice of the newscaster. "_austin gordon ... congo valley ... strange metallic city ... inhabited by strange metallic insects!_" the memory shook him from head to foot, left him cold and shivery with his knowledge. "hugh!" he croaked. "hugh, i know what it's all about!" his brother stared at him: "take it easy, kid. don't let it get you. stick with me, kid. we're going to make it all right." "but, hugh," scott yelled, "there's nothing wrong with me. don't you see, i know the answer to all this martian business now. the lilies are the martians! those bugs are migrating to earth. they're machines. don't you see ... they could cross space and the lilies would be there to direct them." he jumped to his feet. "they're already building cities in the congo!" he yelled. "lord knows how many other places. they're taking over the earth! the martians are invading the earth, but earth doesn't know it!" "hold on," hugh yelled back at him. "how could flowers build cities?" "they can't," said scott breathlessly. "but the bugs can. back on earth they are wondering why the martians don't use their rockets to come to earth. and that's exactly what the martians are doing. those rockets full of seeds aren't tokens at all. they're colonization parties!" "wait a minute. slow down," hugh pleaded. "tell me this. if the lilies are the martians and they sent seeds to earth twelve years ago, why hadn't they sent them before?" "because before that it would have been useless," scott told him. "they had to have someone to open the rockets and plant the seeds for them. we did that. they tricked us into it. "they may have sent rockets of seeds before but if they did, nothing came of it. for the seeds would have been useless if they weren't taken from the rocket. the rocket probably would have weathered away in time, releasing the seeds but by that time the seeds would have lost their germinating power." hugh shook his head. "it seems impossible," he declared. "impossible that plants could have real intelligence ... that flowers could hold the mastery of a planet. i'm ready to accept almost any theory but that one...." "your mind sticks on parallel evolution," scott argued. "there's no premise for it. on earth animals took the spotlight, pushing the plants into a subordinate position. animals got the head start, jumped the gun on the plants. but there's absolutely no reason why plants should not develop along precisely the same lines here that animals developed on earth." * * * * * "but the martian lily lives only one season ... ten months ... and then it dies," hugh protested. "the next season's growth comes from seed. how could plants build intelligence? each new crop would have to start all over again." "not necessarily," declared scott. "animals are born with instinct, which is nothing more or less than inherited intelligence. in mankind there are strange evidences of racial memory. why couldn't the plants do the same thing with their seed ... progress even a step further? why couldn't the seed carry, along with its other attributes, all the intelligence and knowledge of the preceding generation? that way the new plant wouldn't have to start from scratch, but would start with all the accumulated knowledge of its immediate ancestor ... and would add to that knowledge and pass the sum total on to the generation that was to follow." hugh kicked absent-mindedly at the sand. "there would be advantages in that sort of development," he agreed. "it might even be the logical course of survival on a planet like mars. some old martian race, for all we know, might deliberately have shaped their development toward a plant existence when they realized the conditions toward which the planet was headed." "a plant society would be a strange one," said scott. "a sort of totalitarian society. not the kind of a society animals would build ... for an animal is an individual and a plant is not. in a plant race individuality would count for nothing, the race would count for everything. the driving force would be the preservation and advancement of the race as a whole. that would make a difference." hugh glanced up sharply. "you're damned right that would make a difference," he said. "they would be a deadly race. once they got started, nothing could stop that singleness of purpose." his face seemed to blanch under the tan. "do you realize what's happening?" he shouted. "for millions of years these plants have fought for bare existence on mars. every ounce of their effort has been toward race preservation. every fall the bugs carefully gather all the seeds and carry them inside the building, bring them out and plant them in the spring. if it hadn't been for some arrangement like that they probably would have died out years ago. only a few scattered patches of them left now...." "but on earth...." said scott. and the two of them, white-faced, stared at one another. on earth the martian lilies would not have to carry on a desperate fight for their very existence. on earth they had plenty of water, plenty of sunlight, plenty of good, rich soil. on earth they grew larger and stronger and straighter. under such conditions what would be the limit of their alien powers? with the lilies multiplying each year, growing in every fence row, every garden, crowding out the farmers' crops, lining every stream, clogging every forest ... with swarm after swarm of the metallic bugs driving out into space, heading for the earth ... what would happen? how long would the lilies wait? how would they attack? would they simply crowd out every other living thing, conquering by a sort of population pressure? or would they develop more fully those powers of forcing animal minds to do their bidding? or did they have, perhaps, even stronger weapons? "hugh," scott rasped, "we have to warn earth. somehow we have to let them know." "yes," hugh agreed, "but how?" together, limned against the harsh horizon, they stood, looking across the desert toward the martian building. tiny figures, dimmed by distance, scurried about the building. scott squinted his eyes against the desert glare. "what are those?" he asked. hugh seemed to jerk out of a trance. "the machines again," he said wearily. "they're getting ready to shoot another rocket out to earth. it'll be the last one of the season. earth is drawing away again." "more seeds," said scott. hugh nodded. "more seeds. and more bugs going out. and the worst of it is that earth doesn't know. no man in his right mind on earth could even dimly speculate upon the possibility of high intelligence in plant life. there's no reason to. no precedent upon which to base such a speculation. earth plants have never had intelligence." "a message is all we need," declared scott. "just get word to the earth. they'd root up every plant on the face of the entire globe. they'd...." he stopped abruptly and stared out across the desert. "the rocket," he whispered. "the rocket is going to earth!" hugh swung on him fiercely. "what are you...." "we could send a message by the rocket!" yelled scott. "they always watch for them ... always hoping each one will carry something new. some new thing from mars. it's the only way we can get a message back to earth." "but they won't let us near," protested hugh. "i've tried to get up close to the cradle when they were launching one and those machines always drove me away. didn't hurt me ... but threatened." "we have guns," said scott. "guns," said hugh, "wouldn't be worth a damn against them. the bullets would just glance off. even explosive bullets wouldn't harm them." "sledges then," said scott. "we'll make junk out of the damn things. we've got a couple of sledges in the ship." hugh looked at him levelly. "okay, kid, let's get going." v the machines paid them no attention. no higher than a man's waist, they curiously resembled grotesque spiders. gangling rods and arms sprouted out all over them and from their trunks sprouted waving, steel antennae. overhead hung a swarm of the metallic bugs evidently directing the work of making the rocket ready. "it takes just three minutes or thereabouts from the time they finally have her ready until she blasts," said hugh. "whatever we are going to do has to be done in those three minutes. and we've got to hold them off until the rocket blasts. they'll suspect there's something wrong and will try to stop it but if we can hold them off...." "they must already have radioed earth the rocket is coming," said scott. "we always got word days in advance. probably they won't follow up with their location messages but doc will be watching for it anyhow." they stood tensed, waiting, each grasping a heavy hammer. the space about the cradle was a scene of intense, but efficient activity. last minute adjustments were made. readings and settings were checked. each machine seemed to act by rote, while overhead hung the cloud of humming bugs. "we know what we're to do," said hugh. "we've simply got to do it." scott nodded. hugh shot a glance at him. "think you can hold them off, kid? it'll take a while to unscrew the inner and outer caps and we have got to get that message inside the inner container or it'll burn when the rocket hits atmosphere." "you just get that message in and the caps back on," said scott. "i'll hold them off for you." suddenly the machines scurried back from the cradle leaving a clear space of several yards around it. "now!" hugh shouted and the two men charged. the attack was a surprise. their rush carried the line of machines between them and the cradle. one machine barred scott's way and he smashed at it savagely with the heavy hammer. the blow flung it aside, crippled, dented, half-smashed. hugh was already at the cradle, clambering up the superstructure. a machine rushed at scott, steel arms flailing. ducking a murderous swipe, the earthman brought his sledge into play. it sheared through the arms, smashed into the body of the machine. the stricken mechanism seemed to reel, staggered erratically, then collapsed upon the sand. in two leaps scott gained the superstructure, scaled it and straddled the cradle. his sledge smashed savagely upon a climbing mechanism, flung it to the ground. but others were swarming up the steel lattice work. tentacles snaked out, seeking to entrap him. a wicked blow on the leg almost brought him down. his sledge worked steadily and at the foot of the cradle broken mechanisms bore testimony to its execution. [illustration: _the spider-machines attacked in a grim deadly silence._] out of the corner of his eye he saw that hugh had inserted the envelope carrying the message in the inner container with the seeds, was tightening the screwcap. all that remained was to screw on the larger, heavier outer cap. but only seconds must remain, precious seconds before the rocket blasted. and before that happened they had to be away from the cradle, for the backlash of flames would burn them to a cinder. scott felt perspiration streaming over his body, running off his eyelids, blearing his sight, trickling down his nose. he heard the rasp of metal as hugh drove home the cap with savage thrusts of the wrench. a machine rushed up the lattice at him and he smashed at it with unreasoning fury. the head of the sledge bit deep into the metal body. a tentacle wrapped about his leg and jerked. he felt himself losing his balance, tumbling off the cradle into the melee of threshing metal things beneath him. * * * * * then he was on the ground, buffeted and pounded by the maddened metal creatures. he fought savagely, blindly staggering forward. the shatterproof glass in his vision plate had been "broken," its texture smashed into a million tiny crisscross lines, until it was like frosted glass. he heard the tough fabric of his suit rip with a screeching sound. the bugs still were hammering against him. the thin, acrid atmosphere of mars burned into his nose and his lungs labored. unseeingly, he swung his sledge in swathlike circles. shrieking like a wild indian, he felt it smash and slam into the bodies of his metallic opponents. then the world was blotted out by a resounding roar, a niagara of sound that beat in waves against one's body. that was the rocket leaving. "hugh!" he yelled insanely. "hugh, we did it!" the attack had fallen away and he stood unsteadily on his feet, panting, stiff from punishment, but filled with exultation. they had won. he and hugh had sent the message. earth would be warned and mars would lose its hope of conquering a new and younger world. whatever dreams of conquest this old red planet may have nurtured would never come to be. he put his hands up and ripped the helmet from his head, flinging it on the ground. the metallic machines were ringed around him, motionless, almost as if they were looking at him. almost as if they were waiting for his next move. wildly he whooped at them. "start something, damn you! just start something!" but the line in front of him parted and he saw the blackened thing that lay upon the sand. the twisted, blasted, crumpled thing that huddled there. scott dropped his sledge and a sob rose in his throat. his hands clenched at his side and he tottered slowly forward. he stood above the body of his brother, flung there on the sand by the searing backlash of the rocket blast. "hugh!" he cried, "hugh!" but the blackened bundle didn't stir. hugh nixon was dead. eyes bleared, scott stared around at the machines. they were breaking up, scattering, moving away. "damn you," he screamed, "don't you even care?" * * * * * but even as he spoke, he knew they didn't care. the plant civilization of mars was an unemotional society. it knew no love, no triumph, no defeat, no revenge. it was mechanistic, cold, logical. it did only those things which aimed at a definite end. so long as there was a chance of protecting the rocket, so long as there was hope of halting its flight after it had been tampered with, that civilization would act. but now that it was in space, now that it could not be recalled, the incident was over. there would be no further action. scott looked down at the man at his feet. harry decker and jimmy baldwin and now hugh nixon. three men had died here on mars. he was the only one left. and he probably would die, too, for no man could for long breathe that martian air and live. what was it hugh had said that first day? "_it plays hell with the tissues of your lungs._" he stared around him, saw the interminable red deserts and the scarlet patches of martian lilies, nodding in the breeze. saw the humming bugs flashing in the pale sunlight. saw the shimmer of the mighty building that had no doors or windows. his lungs were aching now and his throat was raw. it was harder and harder to breathe. he knelt in the sand and lifted the blackened body. cradling it in his arms, he staggered along. "i have to make another cross," he said. far overhead, in the depths of space, twinkled the blue planet whose life would never know the slavery of the emotionless race of a dying world. the tantalus death by ross rocklynne "give us water, or we perish!" but the conclave of nations denied the red planet's frantic plea. so began the reign of terror ... a martian judgement that plunged the earth into hideous chaos. [transcriber's note: this etext was produced from planet stories spring . extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the u.s. copyright on this publication was renewed.] the master conclave of the sectional governors of the world state was in its first day of session. the speaker, about to call for a motion of adjournment, rose, looked about the packed tiers of seats as if searching for someone. relief came to his face--and was replaced by annoyance as the huge, double doors swung open. a being, resplendent in colorful uniform, of human shape but twelve feet tall, entered. in the resigned silence that followed, the doorman announced, "olduk, the martian ambassador!" all eyes followed the massive, wrinkled old form as it made its way slowly through the aisles. the speaker bit his lip. he said, "the conclave welcomes you, olduk. we had feared that you would not be present." olduk paused and bowed. he said, in his guttural, unnatural tones, "olduk thanks you." "you wished to speak before the assembly?" "yes, please. the rostrum may i use?" "yes," said the speaker, "the rostrum you may use." a titter of laughter spread through the tiered seats. olduk paid none or small attention, even to the whisperings of two secretaries that his receptive, large ears picked up. "why does he keep up with this farce?" one asked. "every year he gets up on the rostrum, and makes a speech, asking, as usual, for water. he's been denied exactly ten times." "he'll get it in the neck this time," olduk heard the other say knowingly. "the spanish and japanese sectional governors have had several bills thrown out this session, and they're spoiling for an argument. and whatever they say, they'll be speaking for the world." olduk--called jokingly the old duck--wended his way between the aisles toward the rostrum, drawing his cape about him. the cape was not an affectation. he realized that as a martian he possessed several unhuman appendages which human beings did not care to look upon. he faced the session, his wrinkled old face expressionless, though his double-lidded eyes conveyed the seriousness with which he faced his problem. "honorable speaker," he said, bowing to the speaker. "honorable fellow delegates," he added, and bowed low. "i drink to you." he seized a beaker of water in a horny hand, and drained it in a single gulp. he set the beaker down. his reddish eyes swept the assembly. he said, "i am ever thankful you me to speak allow. think, i will tell you what i wish, fellow delegates. "difficult me to talk this language, though here i have lived on earth twenty years, making friends with earthmen. i am not as i was in leaving mars. i am changed with sundry operations, that i may live here well. thus my voice is hard to speak, and harder still to learn difficult language. laughing i will not like, please?" he paused. his abnormally receptive ears again picked up the whisperings of the two secretaries. "he's said exactly the same thing the past five sessions." olduk said in his impersonal voice: "before i make my plea for the water my planet needs, let me tell a myth that i read with enjoyment. it is the story of tantalus, fellow delegates. tantalus was placed by the gods in a river of purest water; when he wished to drink, recede the water would. so his thirst for ages tortured him. "poor tantalus," said olduk. he seized the refilled beaker, and drained it at a single gulp. "shall mars be tantalus? or shall earth be tantalus?" "mars is tantalus," a whisper floated from the gallery. the laughter came again, a little insolently this time. * * * * * the japanese sectional governor rose, and said, sucking in his breath, "why does not the thirsty olduk speak, instead of drinking all the speaker's water?" this time the laughter was more open. the speaker rapped with his gavel, and order was restored. olduk said, "there is more water on earth than five billion olduks could drink. "but i will speak, as i have spoken years in and years over. "i shall review the history of things. forty-five years ago great swarms of martians descended on earth and engaged in war. they wished to conquer earth. fortunately succeeded not. there became a hatred between the two peoples. this hatred has endured, without reason." "without reason?" said the japanese governor. "doubtless," said olduk, "you have neglected to follow history, of own people and of what occurred before martians made war. not until after the war did martians know that earthmen could be peaceful. before the war, earthmen slaughtered great numbers of martians. so martians did not feel bad when they wished to slaughter numbers of earthmen." "there was the second war," sarcastically. "the second war the war of water, as the first. earth no good for us, see? wished water only. the second war we fought because earth would not sell us water any price at; so we would conquer her and levy water tribute. fortunately did not succeed. try more friendly means, which is why i, olduk and seven of associates, changed by operations from real martians, are here." olduk paused. he resumed carefully, cocking his massive head to one side. "come to earth, i and seven. give earth scientific secrets. learn earth language and customs. prove friendliness for water." the spanish governor rose, cleared his throat. "bribes!" he said loudly. "bribes?" said olduk. "bribes! gentlemen, olduk has made his plea for ten years, and for ten years, in the best interests of the world state, we have refused him. why? because if you sell the martians water, their population will increase to the point where they are able to conquer earth. remember that it was our numbers and not our science that won out over the martians in the two wars. "this question has been an annoyance! from now on, i vote no on the subject, and move to have this question off our hands for good. furthermore, i move that the act which gave the martians the right to sit on the master conclave be stricken out of the world constitution!" olduk said, "my people will die--" when every member of the conclave rose and shouted out his agreement with the spanish governor. olduk drew his cape tighter around his twelve-foot body. he said, "then i have been refused forever. but i have no feelings of enmity. allow me fully to explain situation once more, so that you may possibly feel sorry for my people. we are million in number--ideal, yes? not canned like sardines on earth, yes? million enough, fortunately. but without water, in century, none. see? our birth rate falls. "but no, my people do not suffer of thirst. there become less people to drink. but it is cruel of earth to kill a race because they hate. therefore, all read story of tantalus--interesting, see? "poor tantalus," in his expressively expressionless voice. "poor tantalus. many persons of earth would not like to be tantalus, thus receive justice reserved for poets." olduk walked over to the speaker and said something to him. the speaker frowned, and then resignedly signaled an orderly. "a gallon of water for mr. olduk." the session erupted with a wave of general laughter. the water was brought. olduk placed the beaker to his thin lips, tossed the contents off. he swept the assembly with his eyes. his left arm--or what appeared to be a left arm, so covered with the cape was it--fumbled at his right wrist. he said once more, gutturally, "yes, poor tantalus." he stepped down from the rostrum, and with slow dignified step left the conclave room. * * * * * the hundred odd members of the conclave settled back in their seats after olduk had gone. the session was resumed. the speaker, listening to the monotonous reading of a bill, reached absently for the water carafe, tilted it. the water did not pour. the speaker tilted the carafe further--and further--suddenly the water made its exit. it fell from the carafe, the entire contents, struck against the glass, knocked the glass over, bounced off the table into the air, and thence to the floor. there the water, a half-gallon of it, tightly rolled into a neat, compact sphere, bounced up and down several times, and then subsided on the floor as clear and flawless as crystal glass. the speaker stared at it. the members of the conclave stared at it. the speaker turned to the gaping orderly. "that's a glass ball," he said harshly, accusingly. "no, it isn't," the orderly chattered. "that's water! i filled the carafe with water." the speaker looked at it again, and then walked to the sphere, the conclave watching him in fascination. the speaker scooped up the ball in two hands. then he tried to drop it. he couldn't. his fingers seemed curled around the ball, crushed close together. his hands couldn't draw apart. he tried to shake the sphere away. he tried harder, and then violently, working himself into a sudden frenzy. the sphere of water clung to his hands, and his hands were locked as effectively as if handcuffs had been placed around the wrists. he got control of himself and turned to face the conclave, white-faced. "it can't be water," he said hoarsely, "but i think it is!" and looking at the glass ball, he was conscious of a sudden thirst; but he knew he couldn't drink, although he held in his hands four times more water than he needed to quench his thirst. * * * * * in the martian legation building, olduk faced his seven associates. "it is done," he said, in the martian dialect of his native state. "the earthmen have chosen their hell and will soon experience it. you have your tickets? then go at once." the youngest of the attaches said pleadingly, "sir, we can't go and leave you. who knows how long the earthmen will hold out?" "all that will happen will happen to olduk. go, before you are refused permission to leave. tell our people they are to be relentless, until the earthmen give in. now go." the attaches no longer questioned his commands. olduk was left alone. the gong sounded on his television screen; olduk threw the switch. the face of the manager of world broadcasters appeared. "you will appear and speak in two minutes," he said. olduk stood before the television screen, waiting until the proper second. he had planned the time of this speech and the "hell" chosen by earth would not begin until he was well into it. the speaker of the conclave had not yet thirsted. the moment came, and olduk was introduced briefly, as his image broadcasted. "olduk, the martian ambassador, speaking for his people--" olduk said gutturally, "olduk greets you, people of earth, and regrets that he cannot drink with you. "all read story of tantalus, people of earth. an old grecian myth it is, come true. interesting, see? "olduk is sorry. will you believe olduk? he is sorry. olduk says, please do not touch water. please do not touch water...." * * * * * the diving champion of the world puffed out his chest, feigning complete nonchalance as five thousand admiring people looked up at him where he stood as resplendant as an angel on the diving platform. "ladeeeeeees and gentlemannnnnnnn!" the loudspeaker blared. "pedro morestes, the handsomest man in the world, and the most perfect physical specimen by the olivar test, is about to break the world's diving record of all time. four hundred feet lie between him and the glistening surface of this world-famed pool! "watch him, hold your breath, ladees and gentleman, there he goooooooosssss--" pedro morestes ran with light graceful steps toward the end of the diving board. the board flung him upward, and he seemed to stop for an infinitesimal second, poised like a bird, with the pool far below, and gasping people staring upward. one of those people watching had his wrist radio tuned to world broadcasters. "please," said olduk's clearly audible radio voice, "do not touch water. if things strange happen to water, do not touch, please?" pedro morestes began his dazzling drop downward, twisting, twining, going through all the intricate convolutions that four hundred feet would allow him. now! a loop, a twist, straighten out for the last fifty feet, cut the water as clean as an arrow cutting the air. pedro morestes eyes popped. a hoarse scream escaped his lips. where was the flat surface that should receive him? where were the little wavelets that usually betokened the presence of water? why did the entire pool bulge up in the middle, and drop at the sides? why was it that the whole pool had been replaced by an immense _hemisphere of glass_? pedro morestes screamed, squirmed, twisted, came down with a bone crushing shock on the bulging surface, his posterior foremost. he bounced upward for fifty feet, fell again, bounced again, fell, bounced, fell--and was locked, flat on his back, by an invisible vise that not only held him rigid, but threatened to crush him from all sides. the crowd stared in pure fright. the pool of water had become--a hemisphere of glass? and pedro morestes, world's diving champion, lay atop that gleaming sphere, ribs and one leg broken, unable to move a muscle.... * * * * * "damn that kid," said sam, throwing his newspaper to the floor. "i wanna drink," wailed the damned kid, from the bedroom. "all right, keep your pants on," growled sam surlily. he went out to the kitchen, leaving the radio on. it had been jabbering for some time, something about olduk. "please," said the radio voice of olduk, "do not touch water. tell your friends, my friends, not to touch water...." sam got a glass out of the cupboard, held it under the faucet, turned the faucet on. the water came out, well enough, but it wasn't water. "what the hell," sam said incredulously. a big drop was suspended from the faucet, was growing bigger as the faucet fed it. sam watched while it became six inches, a foot in diameter. the glass fell from his paralyzed fingers. "what the hell!" he yelled hoarsely. "i wanna glass of water," the damned kid wailed. olduk said, clearly and distinctly, "i am sorry you are not able to drink, see?..." "all right, you'll get your water," sam panted excitedly, only vaguely conscious that the radio was going. he watched the spheroid grow and grow. still suspended from the faucet, it touched the sink. then the "drop" grew up around the faucet until the faucet was completely enclosed. the drop began to overlap the sink, still maintaining a spherical shape. suddenly there was a loud, metallic _pop_. the drop broke away from the faucet, of its own weight, fell to the linoleumed floor with a dull barrrrooooommmmmmm. it was three feet in diameter; and another one was growing from the faucet. "i wanna drink of water," said the damned kid, waddling into the kitchen, rubbing its eyes. those eyes brightened as they saw the gleaming sphere. a grimy hand reached out and touched it. against his will, the whole arm of the kid was drawn against the sphere, and the rest of the body was drawn with it, legs snapped together, one arm locked to its side, the other curled to the breaking point over its head. sam roared but he was too late. the bewildered kid's nose touched the sphere, and his whole face was drawn, in, so that all air was cut off. sam grabbed hold of him, and pulled frantically, madly, until he was panting. then he let go, screaming, and ran for the cupboard. it was some seconds before he found an ax. by the time he got back, the second drop had fallen, had merged with the first, forming a sphere five feet in diameter, with the kid plastered against it. sam swung the ax. the sharp blade hit, actually penetrated the sphere. sam yelled. the ax was literally sucked in. sam refused to let go, and his hands went into the water after the ax. there was a terrible contratcile force on his wrists. then something seemed rushing up his arms. the something enclosed his body with the speed of a striking snake. the next thing he knew, water had smothered his nose, his mouth, and he was _inside_, looking _out_. he was staring into the smothered face of the damned kid. shortly after that he drowned. he couldn't get out. another drop fell, another, and another, another, another, adding themselves to the original mass.... * * * * * on the high seas, the s.s. _wilcox_ battered through rising, flooding seas. the captain stood on the bridge, yelling orders to his men below. the first mate flung water from his face, gritted, "we'll never make port." a sailor came up the companionway, steadying himself on the handrail. "there's water pouring through a hole in a forward section," he gasped hoarsely. "we can't caulk it. she's sinking at the stem." "mr. jones," said the captain, "sound the signal to abandon ship." the first officer said to himself, "in these seas?" but he obeyed and went down to the cargo hold where the alarm apparatus was stationed. above the roar of the elements sounded seven short hoarse blasts, and a long one. the "all hands on deck" signal vibrated through the ship. the captain watched while sailors donned lifebelts, jumped to boat stations. boats were swung out, and eased down by the rail. passengers, herded by calm officers, came on to the deck. the ship gave another sickening roll. a lifeboat was dashed to matchsticks. "it's no use," the quartermaster said hoarsely. he gripped the rail, staring out over the raging sea, where mountainous waves were sending the s.s. _wilcox_ to her doom. the captain said slowly, "i wish i were what cadmus wished he was. i wish i could command the waves of the sea to vanish." ... an astounding thing happened. as if a gigantic beer skimmer had been run over the surface of the sea in all directions, the tops of the waves seemed abruptly to round. the troughs filled, the crests dropped. the roar of water against the flanks of the ship ceased. the waves ceased, though the wind still roared, and whined. the quartermaster's eyes widened in startled terror, and he looked askance at his captain. the captain said blankly, "god or the devil or me!" the waves were gone. the s.s. _wilcox_ ceased pitching. a sailor came up and told the captain that although the hole was still there, the water of the open sea visible through it had seemed to turn into a rigid surface that wouldn't let the water in. the ship was no longer sinking. as far as the eye could see the atlantic ocean was a calm smooth stretch of water, with the inflexible rigidity of glass.... * * * * * the champion of the world was saved by the bell. his excited, panic-stricken manager picked up a pitcher of water, and threw the entire contents in the heavy-weight's face. the entire contents was in the form of a hard sphere of water. the sphere struck the dazed, almost unconscious fighter on the forehead. it was the only case on record of a fighter being knocked out between rounds.... * * * * * "i am sorry you are not able to drink, when there is so much water around you. but you must not touch it, see? olduk must not touch it either. tell all your friends. thank you," olduk concluded. he bowed and turned away, leaving the station manager to do the rest. then he placed his twelve foot body into a specially made chair, and waited. the waiting was not long. a knock came on the door, and the door was thrust open. five men in civilian clothes stood there. "you, olduk," said one in an ugly tone. "you're under arrest." the five men circled him. olduk drew his cape tighter about him. "very well," he complied, and led the way out of the room, thinking wistfully of his native planet. * * * * * he was taken before the chief of the secret service of the world state. the speaker of the master conclave, and the japanese and spanish sectional governors were there. he was forced to a seat. olduk's eyes rested on the sphere of the water in the speaker's hands. his eyes flickered briefly. the speaker glared at him wildly. "the longer i hold this thing," he whispered, panting, "the thirstier i get. and i can't drink! what will i do?" olduk said emotionlessly, "honorable sir, you will have to hold it until there is an agreement to give my people water. now we are all tantaluses." the iron-gray individual who was the chief of the secret service, ran his tongue around in his dry mouth. "you did this?" he said huskily. "yes," said olduk. the man took a paper off his desk, unfolded it in front of olduk's eyes. olduk read the headline emotionlessly: world in turmoil; drinking impossible "i did that, yes," said olduk quietly. "many people will die. tantalus, yes? but there is a tantalus on mars, too." the iron-gray man struck him harshly across the mouth. "how did you do it?" he rasped. "a water-tight ship lies buried ten miles beneath the surface of the atlantic ocean. a simple radio signal started the mechanism that eventually released the force." "what force?" "the force that will make it impossible for people of earth to drink, honorable sir." "what signal will make the mechanism stop?" again olduk was struck across the face, harshly, brutally. a thin yellow ichor started to run down olduk's impassive face. "the signal is known only to my people on mars. thus it was arranged." "you're a liar, olduk!" the man lit a cigar, and while the speaker turned away, sickened, he brought it closer to olduk, meanwhile talking rapidly. "liners are stranded in the ocean, unable to move. their passengers can't drink. the power house at niagara is useless; the water comes over the falls in drops as big as houses. people are beginning to suffer from thirst. i know a martian named olduk who's going to burn alive if he doesn't tell us how to stop the mechanism." the cigar contacted, lingered. there was a sulphurous odor. tiny muscles on the martian's face began to tense. sweat broke out on his face. "you cannot harm me," he said steadily. "can only kill me. if you kill me, mankind die. we of mars have then a planet of water to ourselves. that's my warning. heed me." fifteen minutes passed. olduk's face was a mass of blood and burns. every nerve in his body was quivering. he had answered none of the questions hurled at him. he had refused to divulge the location of the buried ship. finally his muscles relaxed, and his double-lidded eyes sagged shut. the chief of the secret service said ragingly, "throw him into a cell, the dirty--! we'll work on him later!" after olduk was taken away, the iron-gray man looked at the speaker. "what do we do now?" the speaker looked in horror at the sphere of water in his hand. "we'll have to give in--" "damned if we will," the other snarled, pacing up and down. "if we could find out where that ship is, we could send a super-tension ship down and blow it to--" he stopped, his eyes lighting. he wheeled. "didn't olduk say 'ten miles' below the surface? damn! there aren't many places that deep--" he snapped his fingers, and reached for a phone. * * * * * three hours later, a bullet-shaped rocket ship, able to withstand thousands of tons' pressure, and reinforced with an intangible force-field, fled away from the continent, bound for the maracot deep; for such was the first choice, and, as it happened, it was the last. high above the ocean, the pilot turned the craft nose-down, and poured full power into his jets. the craft plunged for the surface of the hard ocean, at frightful velocity; struck; penetrated; was under, velocity broken almost in three by the terrific impact. the ship bored down, powerful searchlights playing on swarms of startled fishes. down, down. the pilot made an exclamation, grinned his triumph. here, ten miles down, they saw the hulk of the ship that was causing such destruction in the world above. the pilot signaled one of his subordinates. the man pulled a lever. the craft's entire load of super-explosives sank downward toward the menace. the pilot sent his ship blasting for the surface. seconds later he heard and felt the tremendous vibration that, he knew, heralded the end of the menace. he went toward the surface, and when within fifty feet of it, sent a blast of power into his jets. the ship struck something, like a wall, hard, unyielding, and the pilot and his assistants were thrown against the instrument board. they recovered their senses. the pilot looked at the other men. "ten tons of helio-hydrogen didn't do the trick," he said softly. "what will? you know, i almost forgot. the science of the martians is way ahead of ours. naturally, that ship wouldn't be exactly tender...." he knew it was useless. he had no more explosives. he shoved every atom of power he had into his jets, but the ship could not move more than forty miles an hour under water. for a moment it seemed the blunt nose of the ship was going to penetrate the incredibly tough under-surface of that film, but no.... the pilot said, grinning crookedly, "say your prayers, boys, and here's hoping they give the old duck what he wants--quick." two days passed. three billion people stared into the face of eternity. rivers, lakes, oceans were full. there were reservoirs of clear, sparkling water, from which laboring pumps could take water, pumping it to homes, making it accessible, forcing it out of faucets. but it was untouchable. the water came out in impenetrable spheres. they lay like jewels in the homes of most people. people stood around and stared at them, longingly, yet not daring to touch them. they had heard several stories about people who _had_ touched them. within the spheres, the water was clearly visible for what it was; which made it all the harder to resist. the world now knew, by the word of scientists, that nothing but a thin surface of molecules, strengthened by a million times, lay between them and the water their bodies thirsted for. surface tension, acted upon by a strange force, broadcasted from a mechanism ten miles beneath the surface of the atlantic. another day passed. the mills of industry, working by steam, and the things that depended on water, came to a halt. power was weak, for it was fed from fast depleting accumulators. the tide machines were useless, for the ocean no longer fell or rose more than a foot in any one place. numberless ships were stranded on the oceans, their screws able to turn, but their bows unable to push against the enormous contractile force that the surface of the ocean possessed. crowds roved through the streets, aimless, purposeless, their voices dry, racking, their eyes bloodshot, cheeks sunken. beer and soft drinks, the only drinkable liquids that were not affected, were selling for ten dollars a bottle. the supply was fast dwindling, and the price was being jacked up. water was all around them, but they were the children of tantalus. newspapers began to demand, in stringent tones, that the situation be remedied. crowds gathered outside the world administration building, shouting for water, and they were fully willing to go to the extreme of meeting the demands of the martians to get it. * * * * * the speaker of the master conclave, and the japanese and spanish sectional governors, stood in a room on the upper floor of the world administration building. the room was a kitchen. on the floor lay a huge, polished, glistening drop of water. "that's what it is, gentlemen," said the speaker. "a drop of water, just what you'd expect if the surface tension of water increased a million times. the surface film acts like a tight skin or jacket surrounding a drop of water, and the jacket contracts down to the least possible area, a sphere. if you put your hands on it--the way i've got my hands on this damned _thing_--you increase the 'coastline,' and the surface film doesn't like that. it tries to decrease the coastline formed by your fingers, so your fingers are crushed together. if you managed to actually penetrate the film, and get your hands wet, the terrific capillary action of the molecules would cause the surface film to literally envelop you, and you'd be inside, and you couldn't get out.... what are we going to do about it?" his face was drawn and haggard and sunken. the spanish governor said hoarsely, "we couldn't give in, could we?" "no!" the japanese governor lashed out savagely; but in a moment a fleeting smile crossed his face. "send for olduk," he said. olduk entered the room, unsteadily, supported by two plain-clothesmen. his face was clean of blood, but the little, horrible marks inflicted on him were all too evident. "you wished to see me?" he said in a hoarse whisper. his eyes were bloodshot. "yes. what do you want of earth, explicitly?" "water, honorable sir. water for my people. as much as we wish, when we wish it, at a reasonable price; and we also desire friendship, so that we may help each other." the japanese sucked in his breath, quivering angrily. "you want our friendship. yet you do this to our people!" "you do no less to my people, honorable sir. olduk is sorry, see?" he weaved, caught onto a chair to support himself. his leathery, parchment face seemed more wrinkled and bloodless than ever before. his reddish eyes held a deep, pleading hope. "we are children of tantalus, all," he whispered. "it is not right that we live in a mythical hades, see, honorable sirs? give my people water--" he pitched forward on his face. the speaker started toward him, his eternal sphere of water in his hands, but the japanese stopped him, held him back from the sprawling, twelve-foot figure. he said, "have you ever studied martian psychology?" "n-no," said the speaker, puzzled. "the theory is that they are incapable of dishonesty, and therefore they do not believe it exists. of course, it's only a theory, and nobody believes it, but why couldn't we try it out?" the speaker was startled. "you mean we should give them our word, and then back out on it?" "yes," the japanese sucked in his breath. he saw the hesitation on the speaker's face, and said with icy, mocking disdain, "are you going to give water to a race whose sole purpose will be to increase their population so they can conquer earth? think, fool! do you want to hold that sphere of water in your hands forever?" he smirked. "in the interval of peace, we can go to the maracot deep, lift that sunken ship out without having to worry about a surface film. we can take it to dry land, and with a little work, cut the ship open, destroy the mechanism. with that destroyed--" his contempt, and his reference to the maddening sphere of water the speaker held, wilted the speaker. "we'll do it," he said slowly, casting an uneasy look at the sprawled martian. * * * * * thirty minutes later, the three men watched the sphere of water in the speaker's hands. a radiogram had been sent across , , miles to mars. mars' answer, if it was affirmative and entirely trusting, would come not in the form of a radiogram but in the immediate return of earth to its natural fluid state. they watched the rigid sphere in fascination. even now, the radio signal that would cause the mechanism to cease might be winging its way across space between two planets. when the sphere broke, if it did, three billion thirsty human beings would drink with the maddening impatience of tantalus himself, released from his eternal doom. ... the sphere seemed to quiver. suddenly it sagged, flattened out without a sound, its sphericity gone. the speaker uttered a cry, and dashed his hands to his face, gulping in as much of the precious stuff as he could before it dribbled away from his hands. the japanese and spanish governors turned rapidly to faucets, and the water, clear, sparkling, normal, streamed out.... for a short time the three of them were like animals. then, gradually, they stopped drinking, and stood back, slightly ashamed. the spanish governor said, suggestively, "we'd better get that ship fished out before the martians realize they are not going to get water after all. otherwise--" the speaker nodded. he turned away, to go into his study, when he stumbled over the prone body of olduk, the martian. a twinge of guilt assailed him. he stooped and turned olduk over. olduk's double-lidded eyes were open. olduk's skin was as dry as his native sands. olduk was either dead or dying. the speaker troubledly called a doctor. the doctor made a brief examination, handling the body distastefully. suddenly he stifled an exclamation. "i can't believe this!" he said hoarsely. he got to his feet, stared first at the speaker, then at olduk again. "do you know what he died from?" he stammered. "do you know, gentlemen!" and the speaker knew. * * * * * the master conclave was again assembled, for the fourth and last day, its members well-watered, and well satisfied with themselves. the speaker said, standing on the rostrum where olduk had stood four days before, "i want to make a short talk, and call for a standing vote. "earth has water again. we acquired it by a simple trick, that of dishonesty. i was fully to blame. men are now at work in the maracot deep, in super-tension ships raising the martian ship to the surface. there is no reason to doubt that a means to destroy the mechanism that caused so much trouble will be found. we won't have to keep our agreement with the martians. i want to know if this action of mine meets with your approval." the entire body stood to its feet. "we were forced to it," the japanese governor said to the assembly at large. the speaker waved them to their seats again. "i did not call for a standing vote, yet. i have more to say before i ask for your filial decision." he resumed carefully, giving each word its proper significance. "the old duck was a martian--but in body he was not a martian. he told us that. he had been changed with 'sundry operations,' so that he could live in this climate, so different from that of mars. air pressure, oxygen content, moisture, content gravity. to each he was acclimated by surgical operations. "yes," continued the speaker, something catching in his voice, "he was changed in such a way that the terrific amount of moisture in the atmosphere of the earth could be taken care of by his body. in order to make that possible, _his twelve-foot body was given a capacity for water proportionately three times greater than that of any terrestrial_! "gentlemen," said the speaker, while an air of startled tenseness grew in the tiered seats, "olduk died of thirst." he was silent. he said strainedly, "i wanted to know if my action of deceit met with your approval. i require a standing vote." the japanese governor rose slowly. he had to. he sent a look at the spanish governor. the spanish governor kept his seat. the japanese governor stood alone, like a monument to the thoughtless guilt of the others. * * * * * the speaker sat that night before his desk, drinking a glass of water. he said to the shadows, "i drink with you, olduk!" he slowly wrote out a treasury requisition, and in the space marked reason for application wrote: "for the free transportation of a gift of ten million gallons of water to the martians, as a gesture of friendship from earth." cave-dwellers of saturn by john wiggin across earth's radiant civilization lay the death-shot shadows of the hideous globe-headed dwarfs from mars. one lone earth-ship dared the treachery blockade, risking the planetoid peril to find earth's life element on mysterious saturn of the ten terrible rings. [transcriber's note: this etext was produced from planet stories winter . extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the u.s. copyright on this publication was renewed.] it was a crisp, clear morning in the city of copia. a cold winter's sun glinted on the myriad roof tops of the vast spreading metropolis. to the north, snow-covered hills gleamed whitely, but the streets of copia were dry and clean. there were not many people stirring at such an early hour. the dozen broad avenues which converged like the spokes of a great wheel on government city in the center of copia were quite deserted. there was little apparent activity around and about the majestic government buildings, but the four mammoth gates were open, indicating that government city was open for business. at the north gate the sentry, sitting behind his black panel with its clusters of little lights, switches, and push-buttons, glanced upward. there was a faint humming and a man was circling downward about a hundred feet above him. the rays of the early sun flashed off a helmet and the sentry knew that this man was a soldier. the newcomer dropped rapidly, the stubbed wings on his back a gray blur. then the humming ceased as the soldier switched off his oscillator and landed lightly on the ground before the sentry. the sentry's swift glance took in the immensely tall, broad-shouldered figure, covered to the ankles in the green cloak. he took in also the pink, smiling face and merry blue eyes, and the lock of bright red hair which showed as the soldier pushed his helmet backward off his forehead. "your business?" asked the sentry. "i have orders to report to the commander-in-chief," said the soldier, with a pleasant smile. "let's see," said the sentry, glancing at the insignia on the helmet, "you're a decurion of the eightieth division. and the name?" "dynamon," said the soldier. "oh, yes," said the sentry, with a recollective smile, "i remember you as an athlete. didn't i see you in the regional games two years ago?" "yes," said the soldier, with pleased surprise. "i was on the team from north central b." "i thought so," the sentry chuckled. "as i remember you walked away with practically everything but the stadium. hold on a minute now and i'll clear the channels for you." the sentry bent over the panels, punched some buttons, threw a switch, and recited a few words in a monotone. he listened for a moment, then threw the switch back and looked up. "it seems you're expected," he said, "third building to the right and they'll take care of you there." ten minutes later dynamon stood in the doorway of a large, beautiful room and saluted. the salute was answered by a grizzled, dark-skinned man sitting behind an enormous desk. this man was argallum, commander-in-chief of the armies of the world. he rose and beckoned to the young soldier. "this way, dynamon," said he, opening a small door. "what we have to talk about requires platinum walls." dynamon's face was a mask as he followed the commander-in-chief into the little room, but his heart was pounding and his mind working fast. the platinum room! that meant that he was about to learn a secret of the most vital importance to the world. he remembered now, that there was a delegation of martians in copia. they had arrived about a week before, ostensibly to carry on negotiations in an effort to avert the ugly crisis that was developing between earth and mars. but the conviction was growing among the citizens of copia that the chief object of the martian delegation was to spy. it was a well-known fact that the grotesque little men from the red planet had a superhuman sense of hearing that seemed to enable them to tune in on spoken conversations miles away, much as human beings tuned radio sets. they could hear through walls of brick, stone or steel; the one substance they could not hear through was platinum. hence the little room off the commander-in-chief's office which was entirely sheathed in this precious metal. * * * * * argallum sat down heavily behind a little desk and gestured dynamon to be seated opposite him. "on the basis of your fine record," said argallum, "i have selected you, dynamon, to lead a dangerous expedition. you may refuse the assignment after you hear about it, and no blame will attach to you if you do. it is dangerous, and your chances of returning from it are unknown. but here it is, anyway. "the situation with mars is growing worse each month. they are making demands on us which, if we accepted them, would destroy the sovereign independence of the world-state. we would become a mere political satellite of mars. but if we don't accept their demands, we are liable to a sudden attack from them which we could not withstand. they have got us in a military way and they know it. we might be able to stand them off for a while with our fine air force, but if they ever got a foothold with their land forces, then it's good-bye. they have a new weapon called the photo-atomic ray against which we have absolutely no defense. it's a secret lethal ray which far outranges our voltage-bombs and which penetrates any armor or insulation we've got." "now, of course, our council of scientists has been working on the problem of a defense against the ray. but the only thing they've come up with is a vague idea. they believe that there is a substance which they call 'tridium,' which would absorb or neutralize the photo-atomic ray. they don't know what tridium looks like, but by spectro-analysis they know that it exists on the planet saturn. so i am sending you with an expedition to saturn to find, if you can, the substance known as 'tridium,' and bring some of it back if possible." "saturn!" gasped the decurion. "i said it would be dangerous," argallum said, bleakly. "no human being has ever set foot on the planet, and very little is known about it. but that's where you'll find tridium, if we're to believe saturn's spectrum. you will have the latest, fastest cosmos carrier. you will have a completely equipped expedition. you will have for assistants the best young men we can find. as head of the expedition, you will be promoted to the rank of centurion. do you accept the assignment?" "yes, sir," said dynamon, unhesitatingly, "i accept the assignment." * * * * * dynamon walked thoughtfully out of government city by the north gate. the sentry noticed that his helmet was now adorned with the badge of centurion, and came to a smart salute. dynamon went past him without seeing him, and the sentry glared after the new centurion disapprovingly. lost in thought, dynamon kept on walking until he came to with a start, and found himself in the middle of the shopping district. the sun was getting uncomfortably warm and dynamon switched off the electric current that heated his long cloak and looked around him. a sign in a shop window said, "only fourteen more shopping days before the twenty-fifth of december." dynamon sighed. he wouldn't be around on this twenty-fifth and it was going to be a very gay one. it was to be the nine hundredth anniversary of the great armistice--from which had come the unification of all the peoples of the earth. dynamon sighed again. the long peace was threatened. the earth, in this year of grace , was a wonderful place to live in, and copia was the political and cultural center of the earth. for nine hundred years now, the peoples of the earth had lived at peace with one another as members of a single integrated community. the world-state had grown into something which that war-torn handful of people back in could scarcely have imagined. no longer did region war against region, or group against group, or class against class. humanity had finally united to fight the common enemies--death, disease, old age, starvation. and on this nine hundredth anniversary of the great armistice, the people of the world would have a great deal to celebrate. disease was now unknown, as was starvation. arduous physical labor was abolished, for now, the heaviest and the slightest tasks were performed by machines. pain had been reduced, both physical and mental. helpless senility was a thing of the past. death alone remained. but even death had been postponed. human beings now lived to be almost three hundred years old. all in all, dynamon mused, as he strolled along the broad avenue, the human race had evolved a pretty satisfactory civilization. more was the pity, then, that human restlessness and vaulting ambition should have led to the construction of the great cosmos carriers. if man had been content to stay on his own little planet, then communication would never have been established with the jealous little men of mars, and this beautiful civilization would not now be threatened by a visitation of the terrible martians and their frightful photo-atomic ray. dynamon's deep chest swelled a little with pride at the thought that he had been selected by the commander-in-chief to take an important part in the coming conflict. * * * * * he turned the corner and found himself standing before an imposing building. across the top of the facade in block letters was the legend, "state theater of comedy." a few minutes later he stood in front of a doorway at the side of the great theater building. the door opened and a tall, lovely girl appeared. "dynamon!" she exclaimed, "i didn't expect to see you for another ten days." she stepped out of the doorway, and reached her arms up impulsively, kissing dynamon. the tall young soldier gripped her shoulders hard for a minute, and then stepped back and looked down into her soft brown eyes. "yes, i know, keltry," he said soberly. "i had to report on short notice." "oh!" said the girl called keltry, "are you here on duty?" "very secret duty," said dynamon with a meaning look. he twiddled an imaginary radio-dial in his ear and looked around mysteriously. the smile died on keltry's smooth brown face, to be replaced by an expression of concern. "you mean--them?" she whispered. dynamon nodded. "yes, i am being transferred to a new post," he said slowly, "and i thought, if you had no objections, i would ask to have you transferred along with me." "do you need to ask a question like that?" said keltry. "you know perfectly well i'd have a lot of objections if you didn't ask for my transfer." "there may be some danger," he said, giving her an eloquent look. "all the more reason why i should be with you," keltry said quietly. * * * * * four days later, a conference was breaking up in the platinum room behind the commander-in-chief's office. argallum stood up behind his desk and carefully folded a number of big charts. he laid one on top of another, making a neat stack on the desk, then he looked keenly at the four young men standing before him. "once more, gentlemen," argallum said, "for the sake of emphasis, i repeat--dynamon has complete authority over the expedition. you, mortoch"--looking at a lean, hawk-nosed man in a soldier's helmet--"are in command of the soldiers. and you, thamon"--turning to a studious, stoop-shouldered man--"are in charge of civilian activities. and borion"--glancing at a stocky, broad-shouldered figure--"you are responsible for the carrier. but in the last analysis, you are all under dynamon's orders. this is a desperate venture you're going on and there can be no division of authority." there was a moment of silence. argallum seemed satisfied with the set, determined expressions on the four men in the room with him. "are there any further questions?" he said. dynamon shifted his feet uneasily. "is the decision--on keltry, final?" he said huskily. "i'm afraid it is, dynamon," said argallum, gently. "i had the director of the theater over here for half an hour trying to talk him around, but it was no good. he said he would under no circumstances spare keltry. he said she was the most promising young actress in copia, and that he would forbid her to go on any dangerous trip. inasmuch as keltry is still an apprentice, the director has full authority over her. i can do nothing." dynamon drew himself up to his full height and squared his shoulders. "yes, sir," he said briefly. "very well then," said argallum, "i won't see you again. you will take off from vanadium field promptly at four o'clock tomorrow morning. every one of the one hundred and twenty-nine people on the expedition has his secret orders to be there at three. dynamon, you have a hand-picked personnel and every possible resource that our scientists could think of to help you. may you succeed in your mission." "thank you, sir," they chorused. argallum shook hands separately with each of the four men, after which they filed out of the platinum room. outside the war building, mortoch, the decurion, and borion, the navigator, took their leave of dynamon and strolled away toward the west gate. but thamon, the scientist, fell in stride with dynamon. "for your sake, i'm sorry," said the stoop-shouldered scientist shyly, "i mean--about keltry." "thanks, thamon," said the centurion. "it was a nasty blow. i don't know how i'm going to get along without her. i guess i'll just have to." "well--i just wanted you to know," said thamon, "that i sympathized." * * * * * in the middle of vanadium field a great gray shape, like a vast slumbering whale, could be indistinctly seen in the soft half-light of the false dawn. no lights showed on the field and no sound was heard. but scores of people clustered around the sides of the cosmos carrier, dwarfed to ant-like proportions by its great size. inside the carrier, standing near the thick double doors in the carrier's belly, was dynamon, near him his three chief lieutenants, mortoch, thamon, and borion. the members of the little expeditionary force filed past the youthful commander, each one halting before him for a brief inspection. one hundred brawny soldiers, divided into squads of ten, stepped through the double doors, each squad led by its decurion. dynamon ran a practiced eye over the equipment of each man and then for good measure turned him over to the scrutiny of the chief decurion, mortoch. then came twenty-five civilians, including ten engineers, four dieticians, five administrators, and six scientists. but for a cruel prank of fate, dynamon reflected, his own dear keltry would be a member of the expedition. but there was no time for regretting that which could not be. dynamon turned and walked toward borion. "are you satisfied?" he asked the navigator. borion nodded, and mortoch and thamon likewise nodded in answer to dynamon's unspoken question. "all right," said the young centurion. "stations!" a moment later the great outer door of the cosmos carrier swung silently shut, after which the thick inner door was secured and the great ship hermetically sealed. dynamon followed the navigator into the control room. "this is a gorgeous ship!" said borion. "it's absolutely the last word. there's a cluster of magnets underneath our feet that are brutes and yet they can be so finely controlled, i'll guarantee you won't feel a bump at any time. dynamon, these magnets are so strong that this ship will go at least ten times faster than anything that has yet been built. once we get up out of the stratosphere, beyond the danger of friction, we can go almost twenty miles a second. you ready for the take-off? if you want to use the loud speaker system just throw that switch." dynamon nodded; a moment later his voice was heard in every compartment of the cosmos carrier. "men, we are taking off. hold your stations for five minutes, after which you may take your ease until further commands." "come and watch the altimeter," borion said after dynamon closed the loud speaker switch. "you won't believe we're off the ground, these controls are so smooth." the centurion watched the needle creep gently upward a few feet at a time. but he could feel no trace of motion. "i'm going to take her up vertically to two thousand feet," said borion. "then we'll be clear of all obstacles and can pick up our course horizontally--" "yes, good," dynamon broke in quickly, "but don't tell me your course until we are out of the stratosphere." "aye, aye, sir," said borion with a wink, "little pitchers have big ears, don't they?" "how soon will we get out of the stratosphere?" dynamon asked. "well, i'm lifting her very slowly," answered the navigator, "i don't want to take any chances on friction. i would say in about three hours from now we will be ready to go." "i will be with you then," said dynamon, and walked out the door. * * * * * the young centurion had in mind to make a thorough inspection of the entire ship, but he had scarcely been ten minutes away from the control room when the loud-speaker system boomed forth. "centurion dynamon is requested to come to the control room." dynamon hurried up a metal staircase and then through a companionway. as he threw open the door to the control room, borion turned quickly and laid a finger on his lips. then the navigator gestured dynamon toward a series of glass panels. there were six of these panels, each about a foot square, and ranged in two vertical rows of three each. one word, "periscopes," was stenciled at the top, and beside each mirror were other labels, "port bow," "port beam," "port quarter." the other three panels were labeled in the same way, designating their location on the starboard side. borion flicked the switch beside the "starboard quarter" panel and it become dimly illuminated. dynamon threw a swift glance at the altimeter, and saw that it said two thousand feet. then he bent over and peered into the periscope panel. a wide panorama of twinkling lights spread out before him, the street lights of copia. but the pale blue of approaching dawn was creeping fast over the city, shedding just enough light to reveal a dark shape a mile behind the cosmos carrier, and perhaps a thousand feet below. as dynamon stared into the periscope screen, he thought he could detect a faint glow of red in the following shape. he turned questioningly to borion. the navigator was writing rapidly on a piece of paper. a second later he handed the paper to dynamon. it said: "i queried headquarters and was told that the conference with the martian delegation is still officially going on. but that carrier following us is bright red, the color of the martian carriers." * * * * * dynamon held the piece of paper in his hand for a minute and gazed doubtfully into the periscope screen. then he took the pencil from borion and, bending over, wrote the following: "i don't like the looks of this. can we out-run them once we get out of the atmosphere?" borion nodded slowly. "as far as i know, we can," he said, "unless--" he reached for the paper in dynamon's hand and wrote "--unless they have developed a new wrinkle in their carriers that we don't know anything about." "well," said dynamon, "we won't waste time worrying about things over which we have no control. proceed as usual." there followed some anxious hours, which dynamon spent with his eyes glued to the periscope mirror. in a short time the early golden rays of the sun appeared, and the martian carrier followed behind inexorably, glowed an ugly menacing crimson. once dynamon instructed his communications officer to speak to the martian ship. "lovely morning, mars. where are you bound for?" was the casual message. there came back a terse answer, "test flight, and you?" "we're testing, too," dynamon's communications officer said. "we'll show you some tricks up beyond the stratosphere." all so elaborately casual, dynamon thought grimly. it was fairly evident that the martian ship intended to follow the earth carrier to find out where it was going. those inhuman devils! why did the earth's people ever have to come in contact with them? dynamon's thoughts went back to his childhood, to that terrible time when the men of mars had abruptly declared war and descended suddenly onto the earth in thousands of cosmos carriers. only the timely invention of that remarkable substance, geistfactor, had saved earth then. it was a creamy liquid, which spread over any surface, rendered the object invisible. the principle underlying geistfactor was simplicity itself, being merely an application of ultra high-frequency color waves. but it saved the day for earth. the world armies, cloaked in their new-found invisibility, struck in a dozen places at the ravaging hordes from mars. the invaders, in spite of their prodigious intellectual powers, could not defend themselves against an unseen enemy, and had been forced to withdraw the remnants of their army and sue for peace. but the unremitting jealousy and hatred of the little men with the giant heads for earth's creatures was leading to new trouble. it enraged the martians to think that human beings, whom they despised as inferior creatures, should have first thought of spanning the yawning distances between the planets of the solar system. it was doubly humiliating to the martians that when they, too, followed suit and went in for interplanetary travel, they could do no better than to copy faithfully the human invention of the cosmos carrier. it was only too evident that mars was gathering its strength for another lightning thrust at the earth. this time, with the photo-atomic ray, there was no doubt that they intended to destroy or subjugate earth's peoples for good. and to that end the martians had been inventing new bones of contention and had been contriving new crises. a peace-minded world government had been trying to stave off the inevitable conflict with conference after conference. but to those on the inside it was only too evident that the martians could invent pretexts for war faster than earth could evade them. * * * * * dynamon, watching the blood-red carrier in the periscope mirror, felt a surging bitterness at the martians. if they could only be reasonable, he reflected, if only they could be _human_, then he, dynamon, would not now be floating away on a dangerous mission far from the earth and the woman he loved. he tried to imagine what keltry was doing at that moment. in his mind's eye he could see her on the stage of the theater of comedy, enthralling audiences with her youthful charm as she played a part in the latest witty comedy, or sang a gay ballad in a new revue. he broke out of his reverie and tossed a glance at the altimeter. the needle was moving much faster now, climbing steadily toward seventy thousand feet. "it's about time to go now, isn't it?" he asked borion. the navigator nodded. "just about," he said, and put his hand on a lever marked "gravity repellor." as the navigator pushed the lever smoothly forward, dynamon turned back to the periscope mirror and saw the red ship behind suddenly dwindle in size. the new cosmos carrier was beginning to show its speed. apparently, the martians were momentarily caught off guard. the red carrier diminished to a tiny speck against the dark background of the earth. but then it began to grow in size again as the martians unleashed the power in their great magnets. "borion, how about friction?" dynamon asked. "we don't have to worry about that yet," was the answer, "we're not going fast enough. and the temperature outside is about sixty-five below." dynamon nodded and glanced again at the altimeter. the needle was steadily climbing, a mile every ten seconds. once again he looked into the screen of the periscope. the earth was now far enough away so that the young centurion could begin to make out the broad arc which was a part of the curving circumference of the globe. silently he said a final good-bye to keltry and turned to speak to borion. at that moment the door of the control room burst open and an engineer stepped in and saluted the navigator. "stowaway, sir," the engineer said. "just found her in the munitions compartment." dynamon stared out through the open door at the woman who stood out there between two soldiers. it was keltry. * * * * * it was a harried and heartsick centurion who, a few minutes later, called a conference in his own quarters. borion and thamon sat regarding him gravely, while mortoch, the second in command, lounged against the wall, a faint, derisive smile on his lean face. "we are faced with a situation," dynamon said heavily. "i would like to hear some opinions." "flagrant case of indiscipline," mortoch said promptly; "that is, if we can regard this impersonally." "personalities," said dynamon sharply, "will have no influence on my final decision." "in that case," said mortoch harshly, "it seems to me, you are bound to put back to earth and hand the woman over to the right people for corrective action." "good heavens!" cried borion, "i hope we don't have to do that. we already have a problem on our hands in the shape of that martian carrier." "what do you say, thamon?" the centurion asked after a significant pause. "well," said the scientist quietly, "you can't altogether regard the situation without considering personalities. keltry stowed away for a very personal reason, and one which it is hard to condemn entirely. i think we are over-emphasizing the official breach of discipline. i, personally, can't see that it makes so much difference. after all, we on this expedition are on our own and are likely to remain so for some time to come. i am in favor of going along about our business and forgetting how keltry came aboard." "spoken like a civilian," said mortoch sourly, "and i hold to my opinion. just because dynamon was promoted over my head, i see no reason for trying to curry favor with him." there was an awkward silence during which dynamon's face grew very pink and his blue eyes grew cold. "i'm going to forget what you just said, mortoch," he said. "you are a valued member of this expedition, and you are much too good a soldier to overlook the danger that lies in that kind of talk. without my participation, you are out-voted two to one. we will not turn back." he stood up with a gesture of dismissal and the three lieutenants filed out of the door. he paced the floor of his quarters for a few minutes, then walked to the door and gave orders for the prisoner to be sent in. "ah, keltry darling," he said after the guard had left the two of them alone, "you have put me in an impossible position." "i don't see why it should be that bad," keltry answered. "it was an inhuman thing to do to separate us and i just wasn't going to permit it." "yes, but don't you see?" said dynamon, "i will be accused of playing favorites because i don't turn around and take you back to earth." "i'm not asking favors," keltry retorted calmly, "i just want to be a member of this expedition." whatever dynamon was going to answer to that, it was interrupted by the loud-speaker booming: "centurion dynamon is requested at the control room." dynamon leapt to his feet, crushed keltry to him in a swift brief embrace and then opened the door. "escort the prisoner to the scientist's quarters," he ordered, "and release her." * * * * * dynamon walked into the control room and saw that borion's face was gray. the navigator was standing in front of the periscope screens looking from one to another. the centurion walked over and stood beside him. "the martians are showing their hand finally," said borion. "they have decided that we're headed for another planet, and i don't think that they want to let us carry out our intention. see, here and here?" dynamon peered into the port and starboard bow panels. he could see dozens of little red specks rapidly growing larger. "they will try and surround us," borion said, "and blanket our magnets with their own." "that's not so good, is it?" dynamon murmured. "what is our altitude from earth?" "forty miles," was the reply, "and i think they still may be able to overhear our conversation." "let them," said dynamon quietly, "we have no secrets from them and they may as well know that we're going to out-run them. full speed, borion!" the navigator advanced the "repellor" lever as far as it would go. there was a slight jerk under foot. then he adjusted a needle on a large dial and moved the "attractor" lever to its full distance. there was another jerk as the great carrier lunged forward through space. borion smiled. "i put the attractor beam on the moon," he said, "and we'll be hitting it up close to nineteen miles a second in a few minutes. we should walk away from those drops of blood, over there." "are we pointing away from them enough?" dynamon asked. "what's to prevent them from changing their course and cutting over to intercept us? see, that's what they appear to be doing now." the navigator peered critically at the forward periscope screens. "it may be a close shave at that," he admitted. "but please trust me, dynamon, i'll make it past them." * * * * * the tiny red specks in the periscope screens were growing shockingly fast, indicating the frightful speed at which the earth-carrier was traveling. bigger and bigger they grew under dynamon's fascinated gaze. the centurion darted a glance at borion. in this fantastic encounter, every second counted. could the navigator elude the pursuing red carriers? borion haunched tensely over the control levers, his eyes glued to the screens. the martian ships were as big as cigars now and tripling their size with every heartbeat. dynamon clenched his fist involuntarily and fought down an impulse to shout a warning. that would be worse than useless now--the fate of the expedition was entirely in the hands of borion. dynamon held his breath as a flash of red flicked across the port bow periscope screen. the carrier heaved under his feet for a second then quickly settled to an even keel again. the sweat stood out in little drops on borion's forehead. "too close for comfort," muttered the navigator. his eyes widened as another huge red shape loomed up in the starboard bow screen. borion's hands flicked over a dial spinning a needle around. then he hung desperately back on the repellor. there was a momentary shock. the carrier seemed to bounce off something. borion staggered and dynamon hurled forward and crashed into the forward bulkhead of the control room. then borion shouted, "we're through!" dynamon picked himself up off the floor with a rueful smile. "i thought we were _all_ through for a minute," he observed. "well! that was a bad minute there!" said borion excitedly. "i thought that one fellow was going to get us, but i kicked him off by throwing the beam on him and giving him the repellor. but you can see for yourself, they are far behind now, and they'll never in the world be able to catch up." dynamon peered into the port and starboard quarter screens and saw a group of rapidly diminishing red specks. he looked up with a sigh of relief. "good work, borion," he said, and the navigator grinned. "i don't think we will have to worry any more about the martian ships from now on, if we're careful," borion said. "i'm going to run for the shadow of the moon and from there i'll plot a course straight for jupiter, avoiding mars entirely." * * * * * the door to the control room opened, and a smiling, spectacled face peered in. it was thamon, the scientist. "that was quite a bump," thamon observed. "were we trying to knock down an asteroid?" dynamon gave a short laugh. "no, that was merely some of our friends from mars trying to head us off. but they're far behind now and we don't anticipate any trouble for a good many days." "ah, round one to the earth people," thamon observed. "in that case, dynamon, have you decided how you are going to conduct affairs within the carrier in the immediate future?" "not quite," dynamon replied. "suppose we discuss that, in my quarters?" thamon nodded. "i'm at your disposal, centurion." dynamon led the way down the little stair and into the compartment that served as his office. once there, he threw off his long military cloak and sat down at a little table, his great bronzed shoulders gleaming in the soft artificial light. "i suppose the first question," said thamon, sitting down opposite the centurion, "is whether to institute suspended animation on board?" "i think we'd better, don't you?" said dynamon. "it would save a lot of food and oxygen," the scientist replied. "you see, even at our tremendous rate of speed now, it will take two hundred and twenty-six days to reach the outer layer of saturn's atmosphere. until we actually land the ship, there is no conceivable emergency that couldn't be handled by a skeleton crew." "quite right," said dynamon. "i'll have mortoch take charge of the arrangements, if you will stand by to supervise the technical side." "it's as good as done," said thamon. "we have the newest type of refrigeration system in the main saloon. i can drop the temperature one hundred and fifty degrees in one-fifth of a second. by the way, i was a little worried by that outburst of mortoch's when we were talking about keltry." "oh, well," said dynamon, "mortoch is only human. he was a senior decurion and i was passed over him for this job. he couldn't help but be a little jealous. but he will be all right, he's a soldier, after all." "i hope so," said thamon, doubtfully. "why certainly," dynamon affirmed. "as a matter of fact, i wish he had been given the command in the first place. between you and me, i'm not too keen about this expedition to a comparatively unknown planet. thamon, why on earth weren't human beings content to stay at home? why did they have to go to such endless pains to construct these cosmos carriers? before these things were invented, the inhabitants of earth and the inhabitants of mars didn't know that each other existed, and they were perfectly happy about it. but when they both began spinning around through space between the planets, all of a sudden the solar system was not big enough to hold both peoples." "it's some fatal restlessness in the make-up of human beings," thamon replied. "do you realize how far back man has been trying to reach out to other planets?" "well, the first successful trip in a cosmos carrier was made seventy-eight years ago," said dynamon. thamon chuckled. "as far as we _know_, that was the first successful trip," the scientist corrected. "as a matter of fact, the first cosmos carrier was anticipated hundreds of years ago. just the other day in the library, i found a very interesting account of an archaeological discovery made up in north central a--the island that the ancients called britain. a complete set of drawings and building plans was found in an admirable state of preservation. the date on the plans was , and as you will remember from your school history, all of north central by that time had been terribly ravaged by the wars. the inventor, whose name was leonard bolton, called his contrivance a 'space ship.' wonderful, those old names, aren't they? but the most remarkable thing of all, is, that the designs for that 'space ship' were very practical. if the man ever had a chance to build one, which he probably didn't, it might very well have been a successful vehicle." "that's very interesting," said dynamon. "were there any clues as to what happened to leonard bolton?" "none at all," the scientist replied. "all we know about him is that he designed the 'space ship' and then was presumably blotted out by the savage weapons used in the warfare of those days. but, as i say, the remarkable thing is that when we got around to building a cosmos carrier eighty years ago, we were able to use several of leonard bolton's ideas. which all goes to show, i suppose, there's nothing new under the sun." "i'm not so sure about that," said dynamon with a smile. "i've an idea that we're going to bump into several things new to us on the planet saturn." "as to that," thamon nodded, "i shouldn't be surprised if you are right. now i suppose i'd better go and make arrangements for the refrigeration job. will mortoch be responsible for providing each individual with a hypodermic and return-to-life tablets?" "that will be taken care of," said dynamon. "i'll see you later." * * * * * dynamon stood beside borion in the control room, staring fascinatedly at the periscope screens. the images that were reflected in the six panels made up a composite scene that was awe-inspiring and fearsome. the great cosmos carrier was finally arriving at the end of its seven months' journey. in front of the earthcraft, a vast, barren expanse, uniformly dark gray in color spread for thousands of miles. to one side of the carrier a wide belt of mist and shimmering particles stretched upward from the planet out toward space. dynamon realized that this was a small section of the great ring encircling saturn, that could be seen in the powerful telescopes from earth. glancing at the stern vision screens, dynamon saw the sun twinkling. so far away it was now, that it was hardly bigger than a large star and gave off not much more light. even though they were coming to saturn in the middle of a saturnian day, there was no more than a gloomy half-light to illumine their way. "saturn revolves on its axis with such speed," observed borion, "that i should imagine there will be tremendous prevailing winds on the surface. i think i can see a range of steep mountains down there; it might not be a bad idea if we landed in the lee of them." "yes," agreed dynamon, "i think that would be a good idea. as a matter of fact, we may have to dig below the surface entirely to prevent being blown away. how is the gravitation pull?" "it's a curious thing," borion replied. "it should be tremendous but the centrifugal force is so strong that it counterbalances to a certain extent. the ship is handling very easily." "how soon do you think we'll make the surface?" said dynamon. "i should estimate somewhere around six hours from now," the navigator answered. "i could make it sooner but i'm feeling my way." "that suits me," said dynamon. "that will give us just time to turn off the refrigeration and bring our people back to life. lucky devils to be able to sleep through this trip--have you ever been so bored in your life?" "never," agreed borion. "but i am not bored now." dynamon walked across the control room and threw a large switch in the wall panel. "decurion mortoch and scientist thamon," he said into the loud-speaker system. "proceed at once to remove the suspension-of-life condition in the main saloon. as soon as everyone is revived, stand by to take landing stations." as the centurion closed the switch and turned away, borion called him over again to the periscope screens. "that _is_ a range of mountains," said the navigator. "i can see it more clearly now. i think i'll slow up our descent a little bit so that by the time we're ready to land it will be midday again. as you probably know, saturn makes a complete revolution in only a little more than ten hours." "that sounds sensible," said dynamon. "we'll need all the light we can get to make a safe landing." borion nodded and reached toward the repellor lever. he pushed it gently forward and then looked at his altimeter. he seemed to be dissatisfied with the altimeter reading and pushed forward the repellor lever a little more. then he looked again at the altimeter, and an expression of bewilderment came over his face. with a muttered exclamation he jammed the repellor lever as far ahead as it would go, at the same time watching the altimeter. dynamon sensed that something was wrong as he watched the color drain out of the navigator's face. "the saints preserve us!" the navigator cried hoarsly. "something has gone terribly wrong--the repellor isn't working! we're dropping at a frightful rate of speed--!" borion leapt to the loud-speaker system and issued rapid orders to the navigating engineers. "what's going to happen to us?" dynamon demanded. "i don't know," borion said, his face ashen. "i think it is just a simple mechanical failure in the controls from the repellor lever down to the magnets. i don't know how soon my workers can discover the trouble and repair it. in the mean time--" "in the mean time," dynamon broke in gloomily, "we may all be spattered all over that gray landscape." "either that," borion gritted, "or we burn to a crisp from the atmospheric friction. i can feel it getting warmer in here already." * * * * * dynamon fought down the sickening sensation of panic that was starting to creep over him. "how long do you think we have got?" he said with an effort. "at the most," said borion staring, white lipped, at the altimeter, "at the most, i should say a half an hour." the door to the control room burst open and thamon rushed in closely followed by keltry. "i heard you talking to your engineers, borion," the scientist said rapidly. "are we in trouble?" "we are," said borion, "and it may be the last trouble any of us ever have. our repellor has gone out for some reason. and we're heading for the surface of saturn like a meteorite." "can't anything be done?" said thamon. "my engineers are doing all they can to find the source of the trouble," borion replied. "but until they do, i can't slow the ship up." keltry's great brown eyes were enormous as she moved over beside dynamon and took his right hand in hers. "as long as i'm with you, dynamon," she said in a low voice, "i'm not afraid to die. but i hate to see your expedition fail. perhaps the fate of the earth depends on us here in this carrier." "i know," said dynamon, squeezing her hand. his eyes followed borion as the navigator went to the loud-speaker system again. but apparently the news from below was not encouraging, and borion's shoulders sagged as he turned to face the other three people in the control room. "they haven't found the source of the trouble yet," he said dully, "and there's not a thing to be done until they do. i'm sorry that, as navigator of this carrier, i am plunging you all to your death. but it's a case of a simple mechanical failure which i couldn't foresee." keltry stepped forward impulsively and laid her hand on the navigator's wrist. "nobody could blame you, borion," she said gently. "it isn't your fault if the attractor or the repellor lever, whichever it is, gets broken. you are already--" "wait a minute!" borion shouted, eyes darting out of his head. "the attractor! in my excitement i forgot!" the navigator leapt to the control levers, spun the dial and put his hand on the attractor lever. "if--i'm only--on time!" he muttered agonizedly. "it's just possible--the counter-attraction of jupiter--lord it's hot!" the control room was silent as death as the navigator eased the attractor lever carefully forward. dynamon whipped a glance at the periscope screens. the ground was rushing up at a terrific rate, and out behind the carrier, a dense cloud of black smoke was forming. the veins were standing out in borion's forehead as he inched the attractor lever forward. the girl and the two men watched him with bated breath as he slowly raised his eyes to the altimeter. a wild incredulous expression appearing on the navigator's face. "_it's--it's working!_" borion muttered hoarsly, "_the attractor beam from jupiter is slowing us up!_" * * * * * dynamon's heart leapt and he sprang back to the periscope screens. the column of smoke behind them was still there but it seemed to be thinning out. but the surface of saturn seemed to be rushing upward just as fast as ever. dynamon twisted his head around to look at borion. a feverish smile was lighting up the navigator's face as he pressed forward on the attractor lever. "we may just make it!" he breathed, and dynamon said a little prayer. in the screen a range of dark gray mountains stood out in bold relief and seemed to reach claw-like peaks toward the speeding carrier. but the smoke had ceased to whip past, and only a small black cloud far behind served to remind dynamon of the fearful friction that the surface of the ship had been subjected to. at the same time dynamon felt an invisible force dragging him toward the front bulkhead of the control room, and he knew that the carrier was slowing up its forward speed. through the bow periscopes the jagged range of mountains seemed so close that dynamon almost felt he could reach out and touch them. miraculously, they rose up to one side of the ship. a moment later a voice sounded in the loud-speaker system. "the magnet room calling the navigator. a break in the control shaft has been discovered and repaired. throw the repellor lever into neutral and then advance it." borion gave a little sob, flicked back the repellor and then pushed it forward again. the floor of the control room heaved for a minute and then settled on an even keel, dynamon stared unbelievingly at the starboard midship's periscope screens and saw that the great carrier was resting immobile not more than twenty feet above the gray soil of saturn. "saved!" cried borion hysterically, "and it was keltry who did it! in my excitement i would have let all of us plunge to our death, if keltry hadn't reminded me that there was such a thing as an attractor lever! dynamon, thamon, we should get down on our knees and thank our stars that keltry was in here!" the door of the control room opened and mortoch stepped in. "do you have to toss us around like that?" the lean decurion said. "i had a near-panic on my hands with some of those people just coming out of their suspended animation. oh!--" mortoch smiled ironically--"i begin to see why we had such a rough passage. if beautiful stowaways are given the run of the control room, i should imagine it would be hard for the navigator to keep his mind on his work." borion started forward with a snarl but dynamon's voice cracked like a whip. "attention! both of you! try and remember that you are modern, civilized men, not twentieth century brutes." borion's hands fell to his sides, and he began to laugh. "you're absolutely right, dynamon," he said, "i don't know why i should let myself be annoyed by this crude soldier. after all, the cream of the joke is that mortoch would never have been able to come in here and make sarcastic remarks about keltry, if keltry hadn't been here for the past half hour." "what do you mean by that?" said mortoch suspiciously. "i mean," said borion, "that if keltry had not been in here, you and everybody else aboard this carrier would now be dead." "now!" said dynamon. "i think we have had enough of personalities. suppose we get a little work done. mortoch, prepare the first decuria for reconnaissance duty. each man should be equipped with cloak, oxygen mask, counter-gravity helmets, and a supply of voltage bombs, and each man's radio should be set at eighty-one thousand meters. have them ready at the main door in fifteen minutes. i will lead them on a short tour of exploration and thamon will accompany me. in the mean time, mortoch, you will remain in charge of the carrier until i get back." * * * * * dynamon's heart was pounding with excitement as he and thamon walked through the main saloon toward the group of cloaked figures standing by the big round door. as far as he knew he was going to be the first human being ever to step foot on the planet saturn. he mentally checked over his own equipment and made sure that it was all in place, including the hard rubber box slung over his shoulder on a strap. that box contained his supply of voltage bombs--little glass spheroids, smaller than golf balls, which, when hurled at an enemy, burst releasing a tremendous electric charge. there was little likelihood that these bombs would be needed, because the periscope screens had shown no sign of life anywhere in the gray, arid valley in which the cosmos carrier was lying. however, dynamon was taking no chances. he glanced briefly at thamon beside him. the scientist was unarmed, carrying the light metal staff which was the badge of his profession. dynamon stepped forward and ran his eyes quickly over the masked, muffled figures of the first decuria. then he signed to an engineer who quickly unfastened the great door. dynamon then stepped through and his party followed him crowding into the air lock between the inner and outer doors. thamon stepped forward, maneuvered a lever, the outer door swung open and saturn lay waiting for the touch of dynamon's foot. it was not an especially inviting prospect. a blast of unbelievably cold air swirled through the open door, carrying with it particles of fine, gray sand. in the dim, murky twilight, tall gray mountains loomed ominously across the valley floor. dynamon shivered and turned up the heat in his electric cloak. then with one hand on the knob of his counter-gravity helmet he stepped gingerly out on to the ground. instantly he sank to his knees in gray sand that was as light and powdery as fresh snow. with a quick twist of the knob on his helmet he kicked his feet free and stood lightly on the surface again. "attention, first decuria!" he said into the transmitter of his radio phone. "adjust counter-gravitation to approximately plus ten pounds." stepping backward, he turned and watched the masked figures of his command leave the carrier one by one. thamon came out first, followed by the decurion, and after him the soldiers. mechanically, dynamon counted them. as the tenth soldier stepped out on the gray soil, dynamon started to turn away when to his astonishment an eleventh cloaked figure came out of the door of the carrier. "decurion!" dynamon said sharply into his transmitter, "since when have you had eleven men in your command?" "never," came back the prompt answer in dynamon's ears. as the decurion faced about to count his men, one of them moved over beside dynamon. "forgive me, dynamon," came a soft feminine voice, "but i had to come with you. it's keltry. please don't send me back, i promise not to be any trouble." dynamon hesitated, then reluctantly agreed to allow her to come along. "stay close to thamon," he warned, and started off down the valley, the rest of the party following him. lightened as they were to keep from sinking deep into the treacherous powdery sand, the humans made fast progress, accelerated by the strong breeze that blew at their backs down the valley. at that, dynamon realized that the lofty mountains on either side provided protection against immeasurably stronger winds higher up. from the saw-toothed peaks on the left, dark streamers of sand stood out for yards, indicating constant winds of gale proportions up there. * * * * * the valley itself, as far as dynamon could see in the dim half-light, was barren of any kind of life. there was no sign of a creeping, crawling, or flying creature; nor was there any vegetation, trees or grass. dynamon led his column nearly a mile down the unchanging gray of the valley and then called a halt. "thamon," he said, beckoning the scientist to him, "can you see any possibility of human habitation in this valley?" "off-hand, i don't, not on the surface," the scientist replied. "i would have to test the atmosphere for oxygen, but i doubt if there is a large enough proportion. my guess is that there is nothing but nitrogen in this air. that won't support human life, or any other kind of life except possibly certain kinds of plants." "what about tridium?" said dynamon. "how do you go about looking for it?" "electrophysiological tests of all kinds," said thamon. "i must say this valley doesn't look very encouraging. it looks like burned out volcanic ash. say! what's that up the valley?" dynamon gazed back in the direction of the cosmos carrier, and felt an uneasy prickling along his spine. the desert valley floor behind them seemed suddenly to have sprouted some tall bushes. there were possibly a dozen of them standing at intervals of twenty yards. they were too far away--perhaps one eighth of a mile--for dynamon to see them very well, but they appeared to consist of a score of leafless branches radiating outward in all directions from a small core. it was as if a basket ball was bristling with ten-foot javelins. "where did they come from?" dynamon gasped. "i didn't see them when we walked over that ground a few minutes ago." "nor i," agreed thamon. "i can't imagine where they came from." just then one of the bushes apparently moved a few feet as if blown by the wind. "good lord!" exclaimed thamon. "did you see that? one of those things rolled forward!" then another of the fantastic bushes started to roll, and another, and another. in a moment all twelve of the extraordinary apparitions were rolling rapidly down the wind toward the humans. dynamon felt the hair on the back of his neck stiffen, and he sprang into action, commanding his soldiers to converge around him. "thamon, what _are_ those things!" dynamon cried. "i don't know," the scientist replied. "i don't think they can be animals. but they might be rootless nitrogen-feeding plants of some kind. look! those branches are covered with long thorns!" the fantastic creatures were rolling swiftly down on the little group of humans, and dynamon could see the sharp thorns around the end of each branch. he reached into the box at his hip. "decuria, ready with voltage bombs," he commanded, and looking around saw that each man held one of the little glass bombs in his hand. the bushes were only fifty feet away now, rolling lightly over the gray sand on their spindly branches. "ready?" warned dynamon, "throw!" a shower of glistening glass balls flew through the air into the midst of the menacing apparitions. there was a series of blinding flashes and loud reports. some jagged white lines appeared among the black branches of the monsters, but they kept right on rolling downwind. dynamon felt a surge of dismay. those voltage bombs had been, for years, man's best weapon. "they're plants all right!" came thamon's voice. "you can't kill them with electricity any more than you can kill a tree!" dynamon looked at the men huddled about him and thought quickly. "all we can do, men, is to try and dodge them," he announced. "spread out and as soon as one of those things passes you run upwind! keltry! thamon! stay close to me." * * * * * the line of rolling bushes was almost upon them as the soldiers deployed in all directions. seizing keltry by the hand, dynamon leapt to one side dragging her out of the path of one of the spiney monsters. thamon gasped a warning, and dynamon, turning his head, felt a thrill of horror as he saw another of the creatures almost on top of them. acting instinctively, dynamon snatched the metal staff from thamon's hands and flailed frantically at the black, thorny branches. to his amazement, they shivered and snapped under the metal rod like matchwood. hardly daring to believe his eyes, dynamon struck again and again at the horrible creature, until in a few minutes it was nothing but a pile of scattered, broken faggots on the gray sand. but cries for help and screams of anguish sounded in dynamon's ear phones, and he saw that five of the soldiers were on the ground impaled on the cruel thorns of others of the monsters. he ran toward them and beat them to pieces with the rod but too late to save the lives of the men. they lay pierced in a dozen places by long, black thorns. the rest of the decuria had managed to dodge the whirling branches of the other bushes and now stood safely up wind of them. dynamon summoned the survivors around him. "what do you think, thamon?" he asked. "in your opinion are there likely to be more of these horrible things around?" "there may easily be," the scientist replied promptly. "but since the only defense against them is this one metal rod, i recommend that we leave our unfortunate comrades here and head immediately for the mountains over there. those poor fellows are beyond our help and we should be able to find better protection from these blood-thirsty thorn-bushes among the foot hills. when we get there we can work upwind until we're opposite the carrier again." "that sounds like good advice," said dynamon. "and we'll act on it. it's getting so dark now that we couldn't see to protect ourselves if any more of those creatures came rolling down the wind. everyone join hands and follow me." * * * * * after a nerve-racking march of about twenty-five minutes through the gathering darkness, the party of nine humans felt the ground rising beneath their feet. dynamon halted and hurled a voltage bomb forward and upward. as the bomb exploded, the momentary flash revealed to the party that they were at the foot of a steep, rock-strewn declivity. dynamon led the party upward, feeling his way over the great boulders. after a few minutes of climbing, he called another halt and again threw a voltage bomb. "we'll stay here for a few hours," the centurion announced, "until it gets light enough to see our way. we will be safe in the lee of these big rocks, so make yourselves comfortable." nine dim figures spread out on the sloping ground. then one of them drifted apart from the rest, up hill. "who is that?" dynamon demanded. "keltry," came the answer. "i am just going up hill a little distance. when you exploded that last bomb i thought i saw something that looked like the edge of a volcanic crater." "you can't see anything in this darkness," said dynamon. "wait till it gets light again before you do any exploring." "oh, i won't go far," said keltry. "really, i won't." "well, be sure that you don't," dynamon smiled into his transmitter. then he said, "thamon, where are you?" "right here," and a figure moved over beside the centurion. dynamon's question was casual. "did you see anything that looked like a volcanic crater?" "come to think of it," the scientist replied, "i think i did. it's just up here a few yards." "shall we go along and have a look at it too, then?" said dynamon, getting up on his feet. just then, he stood rooted with horror as a piercing scream rang in his ear phone. "dynamon! dynamon, i'm falling!" "keltry!" the centurion exclaimed. "what's the matter? has something happened to your helmet?" "yes!" keltry's voice was fainter. "i've lost it! it was unfastened, and when i stumbled, it rolled off!" fainter and fainter grew the voice. "i'm falling down a black hole a mile a minute!" with a muttered sob, dynamon scrambled up the slope. a moment later, his foot stepped out on empty space. he started to fall into nothingness. "keltry!" he cried into his transmitter. "where are you? answer me!" straining his ears dynamon heard a tiny voice far away saying, "i'm still falling." "i'm coming after you, keltry!" the centurion yelled, and reaching up to the knob on his helmet, twisted frantically. by doing that, he multiplied the gravitational pull of the planet and was now falling much more swiftly than keltry. how deep this black pit was, dynamon had no idea, but he prayed it would be deep enough so that he could catch up with keltry before she hit the bottom. it was a desperate chance but dynamon was willing to take it. "keltry!" he shouted into the transmitter. "can you hear me? i'm coming for you." "yes, i hear you, dynamon," came the answer, and dynamon's heart leapt as it seemed to him that the voice sounded a little stronger. "keep your courage up, keltry," he said, trying to sound calm. "i'm falling faster than you are. there doesn't seem to be any bottom to this pit so i'm bound to catch up with you." "oh, dynamon! you shouldn't have jumped after me. there's--there's only--one chance in a million that we don't crash." * * * * * keltry was bravely trying to hide the despair and terror in her voice, but most important of all to dynamon was the fact that she sounded--still nearer! he resolutely put out of his mind the frightful probability that at any second, first keltry and then he, would be dashed to pieces at the bottom of the pit. it seemed to him that he had been falling for miles, and he thought that there was beginning to be more air resistance now. he bent his head and peered downward, trying to pierce the inky blackness with his eyes, but he could see nothing. it was a fantastic sensation or, better still, a lack of all sensation. he seemed to be resting immobile in a black nothingness, with only the rushing air tearing at his cloak to indicate that he was falling. "keep talking, keltry," he cried. "oh, you sound so much nearer!" there was a note of incredulous hope in keltry's voice. "i told you i'd catch up with you!" dynamon exulted. suddenly, his heart gave a great bound. he was still peering downward and it seemed to him that far away he could see a tiny pin point of light. "keltry!" he cried, "am i seeing things? or is there something that looks like a star; way down there?" "oh, i think i see it!" keltry answered breathlessly. "dynamon, what could that mean?" "i don't know," said dynamon, "but it seems to be growing larger, and i'm getting much nearer to you." under his fascinated eyes, the star grew bigger and brighter by the second. in a few moments dynamon, hardly daring to believe his eyes, thought he could make out the outlines of a flying figure between him and the light. "keltry!" he shouted. "i've almost caught up with you! hold your hands up over your head." "oh dynamon! i think i can see you." the point of light which dynamon thought was a star, was growing into a larger, brighter disk. keltry's body was sharply outlined against it now, and she seemed to be scarcely ten feet away. dynamon bent himself into a jack-knife dive and kicked his feet up behind him. the air pressure was tremendous now, and dynamon began to realize that it was no star, or sun, or planet down below but the bottom of the pit. rays of light spread upward, illuminating the smooth, shiny sides of the shaft. a few more agonizing seconds went past and dynamon's hands grazed the tips of keltry's upraised fingers. dynamon dared not estimate how far above the bottom of the pit they were, but concentrated on gaining the few inches he needed to get a grip on one of keltry's wrists. "we've--almost--made it!" he panted. "here--grab my right arm and hang on for dear life!" an involuntary shout of relief came from dynamon's lips as he felt keltry's strong fingers close over his arm. "hang on!" he shouted, and his left hand flew up to his helmet and carefully turned the counter-gravitation knob. at the same time, he twisted his back around and fought his feet downward. a moment later, he gripped keltry's torso under the arms with his knees. frantically, he tried to estimate how far above the bottom of the pit they were. they might be five thousand feet--or five hundred feet. slowly he turned the dial on his helmet, resisting the almost insuperable impulse to twist the knob too fast. if he tried to stop their fall too quickly it would tear their bodies apart. slowly, ever slowly, the air-rush diminished. by now, they were well down into the area illuminated from the bottom of the pit. and they could see that they were falling through a round shaft perhaps one hundred feet in diameter. dynamon judged that they were less than one hundred feet off the bottom. "look out, keltry," he said. "i've got to put on the brakes hard." he gritted his teeth, and flicked the knob on his helmet. he stifled a groan as invisible ropes attached to his feet and hands seemed to be trying to pull him apart. but gradually the terrific pressure released. he moved the knob a shade, and released the grip of his knees on keltry. "there!" he grunted as they both landed lightly on solid ground. "there wasn't two seconds to spare." * * * * * keltry drew a shuddering sigh and put a hand on dynamon's arm for support. "oh, dynamon!" she whispered, "if i weren't such a well brought-up girl i would break down and cry from sheer relief." "i don't blame you," said dynamon in a voice that shook a little. "that was quite an experience, but we came out of it all right. now, where do you suppose we are? how do you suppose this pit was ever formed?" the two earth-people stared around them curiously. they were bathed in a bright light, and yet there was no apparent source of illumination. it began to dawn on them that the rocks which formed the side walls at the base of the shaft, were themselves luminous, glowing with a curious greenish light. dynamon tilted his head back and stared up into the darkening shaft. suddenly, he uttered an exclamation and, seizing keltry by the wrist dragged her to one side. a few seconds later, a round object dropped out of the shaft and bounced on the ground. it was keltry's counter-gravity helmet. dynamon reached down and picked it up. "it's a good thing that these things are well built," he remarked with a smile, "or this would be smashed to bits. the knob is still set for plus ten pounds, and that was quite a fall. i wonder whether it still works." he twisted the knob experimentally and the helmet started to sail upward. "say!" dynamon cried. "it works, all right! here, put it on keltry." keltry accepted the helmet with a laugh, put it on her head and was buckling it under her chin when her blood suddenly congealed in her veins. a loud shout rang echoingly through the shaft. dynamon whirled around and beheld a curious figure standing in front of a rock not sixty feet away. it stood upright on two legs, and cradled a sort of club in its arms. its head was covered with long, yellow hair that fell down on to its shoulders, and the lower half of its face was covered with coarse, yellow hair. blue eyes glinted from under shaggy brows in a menacing glare at the two earth-people. "it looks quite human, doesn't it?" whispered keltry. dynamon nodded and slid his ear phone off his right ear as he saw the stranger's hairy mouth opening and closing. keltry followed his example in time to hear the stranger's rumbling voice. "whoo-yoo?" dynamon touched keltry's hand. "that sounded like 'who are you' didn't it?" he said wonderingly. "it certainly did," keltry answered. "i think that's some kind of human." "if it's a human," dynamon said, "then there must be some sort of breathable atmosphere down here. you notice he's not wearing any oxygen mask." "whoo-yoo?" the stranger repeated, "an whey cum fum?" "he's speaking a kind of english!" said keltry excitedly. "he said, 'who are you' and 'where do you come from'!" "by jupiter!" cried dynamon. "i think you're right. if he can breathe without a mask, so can we. i'll have a little talk with him." a moment later the centurion stood bare-headed, helmet and oxygen mask in hand. "we're humans from earth," he told the stranger, pronouncing each word carefully. "who are you?" the stranger's eyes and mouth flew open in astonishment and the rod sagged in his hands. "humes! fum earth!" he cried hoarsely, then turned his head, and gave an ear-splitting yell. * * * * * a moment later, a dozen or more short, hairy-faced creatures closely resembling the first stranger came tumbling through a passageway behind him and stood rooted with astonishment at the sight of dynamon and keltry. their bodies were completely covered, the torsoes, with loose, gray tunics, and the legs with ugly, baggy tubes. they advanced cautiously on the two people from earth. "take off your helmet and mask," dynamon directed keltry, "the air is perfectly good. we'll try and find out the mystery of how these humans ever got here." he turned and addressed the first stranger, again enunciating slowly and carefully. immediately the whole crowd burst into excited jabbering. here and there dynamon thought he recognized a word. finally, one man taller than the rest stepped forward. "yoo cum thus," he declared. "certainly," dynamon nodded with a smile, and reached out a hand to keltry. the crowd, with wondering eyes, opened up a line and the two young people from earth followed their self-appointed guide through it. a short narrow passageway led off at a sharp angle through the rocky wall of the pit, and presently dynamon and keltry found themselves on what appeared to be a hill top. both of them gave little gasps as a vast and magnificent panorama spread out before their astonished eyes. it was as if they had stepped into a new world. a gently undulating plain stretched away in three directions as far as their eyes could see. it was predominantly gray in color, but here and there, were scattered long, narrow strips of green. these green strips all had shimmering, silvery borders, and dynamon couldn't help recalling to mind some arid spots back on the earth that were criss-crossed with irrigation ditches. there were no trees on this vast plain, but strewn around in a haphazard way, were a quantity of great boulders. and these rocks, like the rocks at the base of the pit, glowed luminously. however, the landscape was clearly illuminated by some other source than those scattered rocks. dynamon lifted his eyes upward and saw that above them, and stretching as far as the eye could reach, there was a softly luminous ceiling. there was no way of telling how high up this ceiling was. it might be twenty feet or twenty miles. the effect was like that of certain days on the earth, when wide-spread clouds blanket the sky and diffuse the sun's rays. the plain was by no means deserted. here and there along the green strips four-legged creatures moved slowly, creatures that, on earth dynamon would have said were cows. nearer at hand, a flock of small white creatures milled around aimlessly, and dynamon could have sworn he heard the cackle of hens. dynamon glanced over his shoulder and saw that the little hairy-faced men were filing out of the passageway to the pit. the guide tugged at his sleeve. "this oo-ay," he said and pointed to his right. still holding keltry's hand, dynamon turned and followed the man, and the others fell in behind them. their way eventually led toward a tall set of cliffs at the base of which a score or so of cave-like openings could be seen. "these _are_ humans, aren't they, dynamon?" keltry whispered. "they certainly look like it," dynamon answered, "although obviously they're very primitive." "then how and when did they come to saturn?" keltry persisted. "i haven't the faintest idea," dynamon shrugged. "perhaps we'll find out." other strange humans came running up the hill and joined the crowd behind them. apparently they were not all men, for some of them had no hair on their faces and wore long robes over their bodies. the guide led them straight to one of the openings in the cliff, then halted and faced the two adventurers impressively. "the koo-een!" he announced in a loud tone. dynamon and keltry looked wonderingly at each other and then back to the guide. at that moment a woman appeared at the mouth of the cave. she was small and delicately formed and strikingly beautiful. she had the bluest of eyes and golden hair that fell away on either side of a marble brow. a long-sleeved white garment gathered at the waist covered her from neck to toe, but its shapeless folds could scarcely conceal the delicious curves of her little body. "humes!" the guide shouted proudly, "fum earth!" * * * * * the woman's blue eyes widened as she stared solemnly at dynamon and keltry. "are you from earth?" she said in slow musical tones. "so strange! so wonderful! how did you come?" dynamon grinned. "we came in a cosmos carrier," he said easily. "and to us, it seems even more strange and more wonderful that we find humans already on saturn." a shy answering smile came over the woman's beautiful face. "we have been here hundreds of years," she replied in the same slow accents. "but come inside the palace and we will talk." she turned with an inviting look and the two adventurers from earth followed her through a passageway lined with the, by now, familiar luminous rocks. they came out in a fairly large, high-ceilinged room, in the center of which was a sort of table made out of a long, trimmed slab of rock. at one end of this table was a high-back chair made of woven reeds. the woman walked over to the chair and sitting down in it, indicated stools on either side of her. "sit down," she said, "and tell me more about yourselves." "thank you," dynamon answered, and turning to his companion said, "it's warm in here, i think we might take off these cloaks." keltry nodded, and putting her hand to the throat fastening, zipped it downward. dynamon did likewise and the two stepped out of their cloaks. there was a sudden scream from the beautiful little woman, and her hands flew up in front of her eyes. "what are you doing?" she squealed. "why you're--you're practically naked! you're positively immodest!" keltry threw a startled glance at dynamon's long, brown legs. "why, not at all," she said quietly. "we are dressed like everyone else on earth at the present time. modesty with us, nowadays, is something much more important than lengths of cloth." the little woman kept her hands before her eyes and shook her head vigorously. "it's immodest," she insisted, "and you must put on your clothes at once. don't you realize that i'm the queen?" reluctantly, keltry and dynamon stepped back into their heavy cloaks and zipped them up the front. "well! that's better," said the little queen primly. "my goodness," she said with a slight glance, "is everybody on earth as big and brown as you two?" "we're about average, i should say," keltry answered with a smile. "and seriously, we didn't mean to offend you in the matter of clothes." "well we, on saturn," said the little queen, "don't believe in indecent exposure. now, you say you came in some kind of a carrier?" "yes," said dynamon. "it's up on the surface. we were exploring in the darkness and fell down the long shaft." "why weren't you killed?" said the queen, blue eyes wide. dynamon explained the counter-gravity helmets. it took considerable explanation, because the queen was inclined to disbelieve the whole story. she finally accepted it, however, and then launched into a long series of questions about the cosmos carrier and about the state of the earth. eventually dynamon found an opening and started asking questions on his part. "we're anxious to know about you and your people on saturn," he suggested. "have you a name or are you addressed only as queen?" "i am queen diana," the little woman stated. "the last of my line. i am a bolton, and the boltons have been rulers of saturn ever since we came here." "bolton!" dynamon shouted. "are you a descendant of leonard bolton?" "yes!" replied the queen, with a delighted smile. "do they still remember leonard bolton on earth?" "we know that he designed a contrivance called a 'space ship', but that's all. did he actually build such a ship, and is that how you come to be here so many thousands of miles from earth?" "yes," said queen diana, proudly. "it's all down in some books which i will show you. leonard bolton built a space ship which was big enough to hold ten families and their belongings. there was a terrible war going on and he thought the only place to find safety was another planet. so the 'space ship' left the earth by means of a thing called a 'rocket,' whatever that is. and they wandered around for years in space till they finally came into saturn's orbit, and the tremendous gravity pulled the ship right through the light outer crust into this nether world. i don't know how many years ago that was, but we have been here ever since." "well that is an amazing story," said dynamon. "and i would like to see those books you mentioned. how incredibly fortunate that the 'space ship' broke through into this nether world, where there is an atmosphere that will support life. and it is pretty miraculous too, that the 'space ship' didn't break up from the force of hitting the outer crust." "well, the books say that it was broken up somewhat," the queen answered, "but nobody was hurt. and after they unloaded the ship, they took it apart so that they could use the metal in it for other things." she was eyeing him admiringly. "and the colony has survived over a thousand years," dynamon mused. he could not help thinking how, in comparison with the people on earth, the survivors of bolton's expedition were a rather poor lot. they had made no progress at all in the thousand years, mentally or culturally; from all evidences they had, on the contrary, retrogressed at least to a degree. then across his mind flitted a picture of the hardships these brave souls had to endure in establishing themselves on the new planet. at no time could they have even hoped to return to earth. with their limited equipment they had set out to make the most of their new world. the great caves offered natural shelter so it was small wonder that they made their homes in them. dynamon, although a soldier to his finger tips, had none of the haughtiness and cruelty which are so often found in the warriors of today. quickly his pity for the colonists turned into admiration, and he turned gently to face queen diana again. "tell me," he asked, "are we the first strangers you have seen? you haven't, by any chance, been visited by martians, have you?" "martians," said the queen. "what are they?" "at present, they are just about the worst enemies of human beings," dynamon replied tersely. "no," said the queen, "our only enemies here are the _land-krakens_. we have been fighting them for hundreds of years and we have never been able to exterminate them, because they're so hard to kill." "land-krakens," said dynamon. "what sort of creature are they?" "they are great, crawling monsters," the queen told him. "they have a dozen long, flexible arms that curl around their victims and strangle them. they lie in wait for our cows and kill them easily, and now and then, they catch a human being. they're terribly hard to kill even with bullets--they seem to be made of gristle and jelly." just as the queen spoke, there was a chorus of shouts outside the cave, followed by three or four sharp reports, in rapid succession. the queen stood up quickly, as one of her subjects rushed into the cave. "land-kraken!" he shouted. "ter'ble biggun!" * * * * * without a word, the queen picked up her long skirts and ran to the entrance of the cave, dynamon and keltry following close behind. an extraordinary sight met their eyes. at the fool of the little hill, fifty or sixty shouting men were ringed around a horrible mass of thrashing, gray tentacles. several of the men were pointing their black rods at the beast. "oh, it _is_ a big one," the queen cried. "our guns will be useless against that thick hide--the bullets will just skim off." there were several more reports and smoke curled from the ends of the rods. several long, grey tentacles rose up above the mass, and the crowd surged backward in all directions. suddenly one of the slimy arms streaked downward and outward, and a moment later a struggling, screaming human was lifted high in the air. a thrill of horror went through dynamon, and keltry clutched his arm. "their ancient fire-arms are useless," she said in a tense whisper. "perhaps a voltage bomb--" but dynamon was already running down the slope, fumbling at the black box at his hip. the concerted groan of despair from the crowd suddenly changed to a shout as the unfortunate human somehow tore loose from the encircling tentacle and dropped to the ground. just as the land-kraken was reaching for the doomed man with another long arm, dynamon hurled a voltage bomb over the heads of the crowd. the little glass ball landed squarely in the middle of the writhing gray mass. there was a blinding flash and a loud report. a convulsive shudder rippled over the gray monster and its twelve tentacles suddenly went limp. the crowd looked at it in stunned silence for a second, and then raised a yell of triumph. a noisy mob of little bearded men escorted dynamon back up the hill to where the beautiful little queen stood, waiting, her blue eyes shining. "how marvelous! how heroic!" she breathed, as dynamon came up to her. "you killed the kraken with one blow. how did you do it?" "well, you see, queen diana," dynamon replied, patting the black box, "these little voltage bombs have long ago entirely replaced fire-arms on earth. their range is shorter but they are far more deadly." "oh! so wonderful!" the queen gasped. "i am so glad you came. you shall marry me and i'll make you king of saturn." "i am most honored and flattered by your proposal, queen diana," dynamon smiled, "but i am afraid that isn't possible. keltry and i must go back up the shaft and rejoin our expedition." "oh, but you can't!" said the queen suddenly. "send the girl away if you want"--she waved a careless hand at keltry-"but you must stay here with me forever." * * * * * dynamon saw keltry's startled eyes on him and he felt an acute embarrassment. it was an impossible situation. he could not repress a little glow within him from the frank approval of the beautiful, imperious little queen. but at the same time, he knew that he must soon devise some means of making a graceful exit from her presence. his thoughts were interrupted by a sudden cry from the edge of the surrounding crowd. he turned his head and looked along the base of the cliff. a column of cloaked figures, helmeted and masked, were streaming out of the passageway to the pit. "it's a search party coming after us!" cried keltry. they were twenty or so of the soldiers from earth, and they covered the distance toward dynamon and keltry in a short time and forced their way through the crowd of bearded saturnians. the one in the lead unfastened his oxygen mask and revealed the spectacled face of thamon. "thank goodness, you're alive!" said the scientist fervently. "we never expected to find you. what a fantastic place this is!" "you are in the kingdom of the boltons," said dynamon, "and this is queen diana." the man behind thamon unmasked, revealing the lean, dark features of mortoch. "congratulations, dynamon," said the chief decurion, dryly, as he in turn was presented to the wide-eyed little queen. "you certainly picked a sort of paradise to fall into. a paradise, i might add, presided over by an angel." a coy smile crept over the queen's face, then died away at mortoch's next words. "i bring you grave news, dynamon," the chief decurion said. "there are two martian carriers in the vicinity. we haven't seen them yet, but we intercepted a long-wave conversation between them. what do you intend to do about it?" "why, i think we should go right back to the surface," dynamon replied. "could you tell from their conversation whether they knew that we were on saturn?" "apparently they knew we were somewhere around," said mortoch, "but hadn't located us yet." "well, we'd better hurry right on up then," said dynamon, "so that we can get back to our carrier before they find it." "oh, but you can't go!" said the little queen in a shrill voice, "i forbid it." "i wish we could stay, queen diana," dynamon answered, "but there's dangerous work to be done up on the surface." "but why go to the surface at all?" the queen demanded. "why not stay down here and keep away from the danger?" "no, queen diana," dynamon said, keenly conscious of mortoch's lurking smile. "duty calls and we must go. perhaps when we have finished our work we will pay you another visit. all right, men, here we go." * * * * * the centurion, keltry by his side, led the way back to the entrance to the pit, while the saturnians, grouped around their little queen, gaped after them. as the little force stood in the bottom of the pit adjusting their helmets and oxygen masks preparatory to ascending to the surface, mortoch leaned over to dynamon. "that wasn't such a bad idea of the beautiful diana's," he murmured. "personally, i wouldn't mind spending a few safe years down there with her. it would be better than facing those deadly photo-atomic rays of the martians." "if it's safety you're interested in, mortoch," said dynamon, dryly, "we'll try and get you, as soon as possible, to the safety of the carrier. anyway, perhaps the martians are just exploring and didn't come equipped with the ray." but as the centurion turned the knob in his helmet and shot up through the great shaft, he felt in his heart no great hope that such, indeed, would be the case. if the martian carrier were in the vicinity of saturn it was altogether likely that they had come prepared to destroy the earth carrier, and would be equipped with their best weapon. dynamon hoped against hope that he and the little force would reach the surface in time to get to their own carrier, whose thick walls the martians' ray could not penetrate. after that, it would be a case of maneuvering the carrier in such a way as to try to disable the martians' ships. the humans, their gravity repellors turned up full strength, whizzed up the black shaft at a tremendous rate of speed. even so, it seemed hours before a small gray disc above him warned dynamon that they were nearing the top. he spoke some words of command into his radio phone and cut down his upward speed. in a few moments he stepped over the rim of the shaft into the gray light of the saturnian midday. he glanced down into the valley in the direction of the carrier and felt a shock of dismay go through him. * * * * * the gray earth carrier was in the same place, but a half a mile on either side of it were two flaming red martian carriers. and out on the gray sand far from any of the ships a furious battle was going on. some twenty tall, human figures were ringed around by a swarm of tiny, globular martians. a continuous series of white flashes showed that the humans were desperately hurling their voltage bombs, but the encircling martians were keeping well out of range and a dozen still forms on the ground showed that the invisible photo-atomic ray was doing its deadly work. all too clearly, dynamon saw what had happened. in the absence of a commanding officer, himself or mortoch, borion had unwarily sent a force of soldiers out scouting. the martians had swooped down, landed swiftly, and cut off the force from the carrier. the humans were desperately trying to cut through to safety, but their situation looked hopeless. quickly, dynamon turned and faced the men behind him and held up his hands in a gesture signifying that no one should use his radio phone. he had determined to try and help his beleaguered soldiers down in the valley, and the only way that could successfully be done was to surprise-attack swiftly on the rear of the martians. he motioned keltry and thamon back into the pit and then, sweeping his arm forward in a wide arc, he plunged down the hillside. but before he had covered half the distance to the combat in the valley, dynamon realized that his attack was coming too late. the photo-atomic ray was cutting down the little force of humans like an invisible scythe. there were only nine of them left now and one by one these were falling. a thousand thoughts raced through dynamon's head. should he go ahead with the attack, courting on getting within bombing distance of the martians unnoticed, before they could swing their photo-atomic ray around? or, should he change direction, skirting the enemy, and make a run for the carrier? suddenly, his blood froze in his veins as a voice sounded in his ear phones. "this is suicide, dynamon!" it was mortoch's voice. "it's suicide now!" said dynamon through clenched teeth. "you fool! you have given us away!" there was an instant reaction from the swarming martians in the valley. a large group of them broke away from the combat and rolled over the gray sand toward dynamon's detachment. the centurion halted his men abruptly. it was sure annihilation to try and stand in the face of the oncoming men of mars. "back to the pit!" dynamon commanded. "it's our only chance. once we get down there we'll decide what to do later." the little force just barely made it to the mouth of the shaft. the martians were coming up rapidly behind them, and dynamon could see the big, black cones which produced the invisible ray. * * * * * the descent down the shaft was rapid, dynamon being the last to land on the shiny floor. immediately, he marched his men through the passageway into the nether world and detailed two men to remain and guard the entrance to the pit. "i don't believe the martians will follow us down," he said. "if they do, we can easily defend the passageway." then he turned and singled out the chief decurion. "mortoch," he announced, "you are under arrest. you disobeyed my orders in regard to using the radio phone, and by doing so you betrayed our presence to the enemy. i will dispose of your case later." mortoch stepped forward, a sardonic gleam in his dark eyes. "and suppose i refuse to be arrested?" he said. "if i had not disobeyed the order, you would have led us into certain death." mortoch swept the crowd of soldiers with a burning look. "men, i proclaim that dynamon is incompetent to command you. henceforth, you will take your orders from me--and _you_, dynamon, are the one who is under arrest." "mortoch!" dynamon cried. "you are out of your mind!" "not at all," mortoch returned. "i am merely assuming the command which should have been mine to begin with. put your hands up in the air, dynamon, and backward march till i tell you to stop. and let nobody else make a move"--mortoch's rasping voice rose to a shout--"i have in each hand a voltage bomb which i shall not hesitate to throw if anybody attempts to cross my will." "this is madness!" dynamon cried hoarsely. "you can't hope to get away with this!" he strode forward angrily. "back!" roared mortoch, and raised his right hand threateningly. dynamon staggered back in bewilderment from the soldiers who stood in silence, too shocked to make a move. helpless against the voltage bombs in mortoch's hands, the centurion stepped slowly backward, arms upraised. it was an impossible situation, and for the moment, dynamon felt powerless to do anything about it. he reproached himself bitterly for not being more wary of mortoch. up till now he had been conscious of the chief ducurion's enmity, but he had never thought that the man would erupt into open mutiny. dynamon threw a swift glance over his shoulder and saw that he was only two paces away from one of those curious, luminous rocks. it was approximately cylindrical in shape, six feet wide and perhaps twenty feet tall. dynamon took another step backward and turned his head to face mortoch. his back was almost touching the rock now, and a desperate plan formed in his head. that was to make a sudden leap around the rock. once behind it and protected by its mass, he would have time to pull out one of his own voltage bombs and await mortoch's next move. * * * * * but dynamon had not truly measured the state of mortoch's mind. there was a sudden scream from keltry as mortoch, with a lightning movement, drew back his right arm and flung the voltage bomb straight at dynamon's chest. the little glass ball sped unerringly across the intervening twenty feet. there was no time to dodge. dynamon pressed his back against the rock and closed his eyes. it was the end. dynamon felt the little bomb bump his chest. but--wonder of wonders! there was no blinding flash--no explosion. there was just a silvery tinkle as the glass ball shattered at his feet. dynamon opened his eyes and found that he was still alive. an incredulous shout went up from the horrified crowd and thamon started running toward him. "tridium!" shouted the scientist. "you have discovered tridium!" as in a dream, dynamon saw the soldiers overpowering mortoch and heard himself say, "what do you mean? where is the tridium?" he stared about in wonder. "the rock!" cried thamon excitedly. "you touched the rock and were instantly insulated against the electric charge. great heavens! what a discovery! every one of these luminous rocks must be made of tridium." dynamon turned around and placed a hand on the glowing rock. instantly, he felt himself enveloped in an extraordinary transparent aura. "you see!" cried thamon, and struck at the rock with his metal rod. evidently, it was almost as soft as chalk, for several pieces as big as a man's fist chipped off and fell to the ground. thamon stooped down and picked one of the pieces up and immediately he, too, stood in a curious, gleaming aura. "it's tridium, all right!" exclaimed the scientist. "there can be no doubt about it. we knew it was on saturn and we knew what its properties were, but we didn't know what it looked like. do you realize what this means, dynamon? it means that we may finally have found the defense against the photo-atomic ray!" dynamon felt a little dizzy. not only had he been snatched from what appeared to be certain death but he had inadvertently made a discovery that might save the people of the world from conquest at the hands of the martians. "thamon, are you quite sure?" he said. "are you quite sure that this will work against the ray?" "no," replied thamon promptly. "i won't be _quite_ sure until we've tested it out. from a theoretical standpoint, this glowing cloud, this aura that surrounds us as we touch a piece of tridium should insulate us against the ray. but to be absolutely certain, somebody will have to expose himself to the ray. someone among us must go up to the surface holding a piece of tridium in his hand and face the martians. if he is killed, then i'm wrong. but if he is not killed, then the martians are at our mercy. we can walk up to them untouched and crush their egg-shell skulls with our bare fists." "i see," said dynamon gravely. "then, one of us must be a heroic experimental guinea pig?" "exactly," said thamon. dynamon looked over the silent group of soldiers, at mortoch, shoulders hunched in the grip of two stalwarts. then he bowed his head in thought for a moment. "men," he said, finally, "this is not a case of calling for volunteers. i think any one of us is brave enough to offer his life for the good of the rest of the human beings, but i think we should decide who is to do this dirty work by drawing lots." "no!" it was mortoch. in his eyes was a wild, hunted look, and his voice was hoarse, but there was deep sincerity in his tones. "dynamon," said the chief decurion, "i went off my head with jealousy a minute ago. the madness is gone now, and i would give anything if i could undo what i did. you must give me the chance to redeem myself. if i am killed, so much the better for me. and if i am not, so much the better for all the human beings in the world." dynamon looked long and searchingly at the decurion. finally he said, "mortoch, i cannot deny your appeal. take this piece of tridium and go up the shaft. we will be close behind you to observe the experiment." just then, there was a shout from the two soldiers who were guarding the passageway to the pit. "martians!" they cried. "they are coming down on us! the shaft is full of them!" dynamon walked straight toward mortoch and placed the piece of tridium in his hand. "your ordeal is at hand," he said simply, as, in a flash, the bright aura transferred itself to the person of mortoch. * * * * * the two soldiers guarding the entrance to the pit were backing away to either side and throwing voltage bombs into the passageway as mortoch ran toward them. "stop!" he shouted, never slackening his pace. "this is my job! get out of range!" he halted six feet away from the mouth of the passage and raised his arms up in a gesture of defiance. an admiring gasp went up from the crowd of watching humans at the tall, lean figure bathed in its luminous glow. then a deathly silence shut down abruptly as four little figures erupted through the passageway. martians! they were scarcely two feet tall, with spindly little bodies and legs, but their heads were more than twice the size of human heads and looked doubly grotesque in their combination helmet-masks. one of them was holding a big, black cone--the photo-atomic generator. quickly the little creature leveled it at mortoch and pulled a lever on the side. an ominous high-pitched hum filled the air and everyone knew that the death ray was being poured in all its deadly violence on mortoch. thamon was the first to raise his voice in a shout as mortoch, unharmed, strode forward and felled the martian with one blow of his fist. the air rang with human cheers as mortoch seized two more scurrying martians by the legs and dashed their brains out on the ground. "it works!" thamon yelled, hysterically. "it's tridium! we're saved!" the scientist was hacking crazily at the rock with his metal staff and jubilant soldiers swarmed around him, picking up pieces of tridium. in a few moments the whole force, every man surrounded by the luminous aura, was bolting through the passageway into the bottom of the pit. for a short time the martians tried to put up a battle. but with their chief weapon nullified, they were slaughtered by the dozen, and the survivors began flitting up the shaft. in the midst of the turmoil, dynamon kept his wits about him. he knew that in order to realize the full value of the tridium discovery, the martians on the surface must be kept from learning about it. he raised his voice in a mighty shout over the clamor. "masks on! up the shaft at full speed! we must not allow a single martian to reach the surface!" swiftly the earth-soldiers fastened their masks and took off straight upward. each one of them clung to their precious lumps of tridium, and in a short time the dark shaft presented an extraordinary spectacle. each of the twenty-odd humans was bathed in his own ghostly envelope of light, and the fleeing martians, looking downward, must have felt as if they were being pursued by a squadron of giant fireflies. the survivors of the massacre below had a head start of their pursuers, but being so much lighter in weight, their gravity-repellors could not push them up through the atmosphere as fast as the humans could go. gradually they were overtaken and destroyed by dynamon's force--the last martian being caught just at the upper mouth of the pit. * * * * * dynamon quickly gathered his men about him while he took stock of the situation in the valley. the three carriers were in the same position as they were before, but there were no earth-soldiers left standing. a little circle of fallen bodies offered mute testimony to the hopeless battle put up by the force of three decuria which had made that ill-fated sortie from the carrier. now, the martians from both of the red ships--excluding, of course, the group that had been cut to pieces in the pit--were gathered in a body near the earth carrier. dynamon guessed that they were waiting to see what the earth people were going to do next. they would soon find out, the centurion thought grimly. even though there were probably close to two hundred of the evil little creatures down there, they would be no match for the brawny humans insulated against the photo-atomic ray. swiftly, dynamon formulated a plan of action. his first consideration was to try and seize both martian carriers. if possible, they must be prevented from leaving the ground and carrying back to mars the warning that, at last, the humans had found a defense against the ray. with that in mind, the centurion divided his little force in two. one decuria with its decurion he put under mortoch, and the other, he commanded himself. each group was to strike boldly at one of the martian ships, mortoch, the nearer one; himself, the farther one. dynamon issued his commands by signs, hoping to remain unnoticed by the enemy if he refrained from using the radio-phone. but as he led his group off along the hillside, a sudden activity among the martians in the valley told him that he had been sighted. they came streaming across the valley floor toward the heights on a shallow crescent, each wing spreading to perform an enveloping movement. what an unpleasant surprise the nasty little devils are going to get, thought dynamon, and he switched on his radio-phone. "follow me, now, on the dead run!" he dug his toes into the yielding gray sand and ran along the hillside, bending low into the wind. it was heavy going, but the humans were able to make faster progress than their enemies because of their greater weight. dynamon saw that he and his group were outrunning the martians and would probably reach their objective sooner. two thoughts arose in his mind to worry him. one was, that the martians inside the red ships might lock their doors and take off before he and mortoch, respectively, could reach them. the other was the fear that borion, inside the earth-carrier, not knowing of the new defense against the ray, would sally out in a desperate attempt to save--as he might think--the two isolated detachments of humans. however, dynamon reflected, those were eventualities over which he had no control. all he could do under the circumstances was pray for good luck. * * * * * a glance down into the valley told him that he and his little force were abreast of the earth-carrier by now, with a half a mile still to go to reach the martian ship. the martians, running parallel, were falling behind a little. rapping out a command into his transmitter, dynamon changed his direction slightly, and swung downhill on a direct line with the red ship. at the same time, he and his men readjusted their gravity-control so that their speed was almost doubled. away to their left, the martian horde was dropping behind. dynamon gave an involuntary shout of triumph. he and his party was going to win the race. as the little knot of speeding humans approached within a hundred yards of the martian carrier, another cheer broke from dynamon's lips. the door at the side of the carrier swung open and a score of little creatures carrying the once-dreaded black cones tumbled out. the martians inside the ship, far from running away, were coming out to fight--mistakingly confident that the twelve humans were at their mercy! quickly, dynamon issued orders that two of his men should immediately penetrate the inside of the carrier and seize the control-room, while the rest stayed outside and engaged the martian warriors. then, panting for breath, but none the less confident, the decuria closed in on the martians. they were within twenty-five yards of the dwarf-like little creatures before the martians discovered that something was amiss with the photo-atomic ray. the ugly little men hesitated in momentary dismay, and then started to make a dash for the inside of the carrier. but by that time, it was too late. the twelve humans, clothed in their life-preserving auras, swept down on the martians like avenging angels. all the pent-up hatred against this diabolically cruel enemy now found release. at last, the martian superiority in weapons was broken. dynamon and his men waded implacably into the terrified little ogres and slew them without mercy. the whole business was over in less than two minutes. without the loss of a man, dynamon had annihilated the defenders of the carrier, and two of his soldiers were inside in possession of the control-room. there remained now the job of handling the hundred or so martians who were moving over the gray sand toward his victorious decuria. but this force of the enemy had realized that something was radically wrong. they were no longer running, but, in fact, were slowing up to a halt about fifty yards away. dynamon swung an arm and began to walk toward them. the black cones came up, pointing, all along the long line of martians. dynamon's men fanned out on either side of him, walking forward slowly, inexorably. the line of martians wavered uncertainly, and then began to fall back in terrified confusion, as the humans remained unharmed by the ray. dynamon's voice crackled in nine sets of ear-phones, and the decuria lunged forward. in a moment, they were in the midst of a panic-stricken mass of scurrying martians. again, the soldiers from earth slew pitilessly, until in a short while, fifty-odd of the harried little creatures lay dead. the rest were scattered in headlong flight over the valley. * * * * * the business was accomplished none too soon. the thing which dynamon had feared might happen earlier, happened now. a force of humans, unprotected by tridium, emerged from the big gray carrier and hastened toward dynamon. a few minutes earlier and these men would have been mowed down by the ray. the centurion sighed with relief and ordered the newcomers back to the cosmos carrier. the danger was over. twenty minutes later, dynamon had joined forces again with mortoch's detachment and was marching back to the mouth of the pit, where keltry and thamon were waiting. the past hour had seen a complete and sweeping triumph for the humans. mortoch's attack on the other martian ship had been as successful as dynamon's. now, both of the martian carriers were captured, and their crews and warriors cut to pieces. and, all this had been accomplished with the loss of but one man. one of mortoch's soldiers had fallen and dropped his lump of tridium. the man had instantly died under the photo-atomic ray. there remained only one more piece of business to conclude successfully the expedition to saturn, and dynamon set about it promptly. once again he led the way down the pit to the nether world. there was great excitement at the bottom of the shaft. the saturnians were disposing of the bodies of the martians who had fallen in the first onslaught when mortoch had proven the efficacy of tridium. and, as dynamon landed among them, closely followed by thamon, keltry and the soldiers, the saturnians crowded around in a condition bordering on hysteria. they had never before seen martians, or even dreamed of their existence, so it was not to be wondered at that the primitive humans of the nether world were excited when the sudden, fierce combat broke out almost in their midst. with the greatest difficulty, dynamon quieted them down enough so that they heard and complied with his request to be taken to their queen. "queen diana," he said directly, "in your kingdom, you have any quantity--thousands of tons--of this luminous rock which we have identified as tridium. this substance is the one thing which can save the people of the earth from the death-ray of the martians. will you give me your permission to carry away some of these rocks back to earth, so that our armies can defend themselves against our enemies?" the little queen gave dynamon a long languorous look. "if you stay here and be my king," she answered, at length, "i will permit your people to carry away as many of the rocks as they want." dynamon's heart sank. he had hoped that queen diana had got over that idea. what was he going to do? "well, queen diana," he said, slowly, trying frantically to think of some way out, "i can't tell you how flattered i am at your proposal, but i don't see how i can accept it." "why not?" the queen demanded, imperiously. * * * * * dynamon shook his head helplessly. he was trying to think of some tactful way of telling this spoiled little woman that his heart already belonged to keltry. "well, perhaps you have noticed," he began, "that someone else on this expedition has a--a claim--er--" "who do you mean?" the queen interrupted, "the tall, dark man? the one called mortoch?" "mortoch?" said dynamon wonderingly. "yes, isn't that what you're trying to tell me? mortoch! that's very interesting," said the queen dreamily, "come to think of it, i _had_ noticed that he looked at me very intensely." a great light dawned on dynamon. the queen was jumping to a quite different set of conclusions. he had tried to tell her that he was in love with keltry, and she thought he was telling her that mortoch was in love with her, the queen! "i think that is very generous of you, dynamon," said the queen with a brilliant smile. "you are standing aside in favor of mortoch because in your eyes, his bravery in facing the martians gives him a greater claim on my hand." dynamon nodded wisely. "he is a very handsome man," the queen went on, looking off into space, "perhaps you're right." "he is just outside," said dynamon rising. "let me bring him in to you." before the little queen could say anything more, dynamon walked briskly out to the mouth of the cave and hailed mortoch. "i remember hearing you say," he said, as the chief decurion came up to him, "that you wouldn't mind staying here with queen diana. well, it seems that you are to have your wish. the queen is determined to marry one of us, and right at this moment, she is inclining toward you as a husband. i think it's a fine idea." mortoch turned startled eyes on the centurion. then he began to grin. "is that a command?" he asked. "it is," dynamon replied. "i could do lots worse," said mortoch, "although i'm liable to get homesick now and then." "don't forget," said dynamon, "you'll be king of saturn, or at least, of this part of saturn. go on inside, now, she's waiting for you." not long afterwards, queen diana, her eyes shining, appeared at the entrance to her cave. her hand rested lightly on mortoch's arm, and she announced to her people that at last she was taking a husband and giving the nether world of saturn, a king. as cheer after cheer went up from the bearded saturnians, dynamon bent over the queen's hand and kissed it. he, then, received gracious permission to take away as much tridium as he needed. * * * * * keltry stood between dynamon and thamon and the three of them stared into the bow periscope screens in the control-room of the carrier. borion came over and joined them. "well, there she is," said the navigator, fondly. "there was a time back there on saturn when i kind of doubted that any of us would ever see her again." the chief image in the screens was a glowing sphere about the size of a man's head. it was earth. already, the watchers in the control-room could make out the outlines of the continents. "but at that, i guess we got off lightly," continued borion, "we lost thirty-nine men--including mortoch--but just think what we're bringing back! we've got enough tridium in these three carriers to divide up among ten thousand men. i was afraid we might have trouble with so much of the stuff--afraid it might affect the magnets." "no, it's a curiously inert substance," said thamon, "i suppose that's why it can absorb the terrific shock of the photo-atomic ray so easily. what's the news from headquarters, dynamon?" "it's pretty sketchy," said the centurion, "argallum was afraid to say too much for fear the martians might be able to decode the message. but it looks as if we are going to be just about in the nick of time. the martian invasion began ten months ago, just about the time we were leaving saturn. even though they came without warning in thousands of ships, our people managed to beat them off for quite a while. some cities were destroyed, but copia wasn't touched--too well guarded. but then, even though our people maintained, and still do maintain, superiority in the air, those martian devils found some remote desert spot unguarded and landed thousands of their men. they were all equipped with the ray, of course, and our land forces simply couldn't stand up against them. they've been driving steadily ever since, and right now, they're within seventy miles of copia." "whew!" gasped borion. "i should say we _are_ in the nick of time," said keltry. "heavens!" exclaimed thamon, "i shudder to think what would happen to the world right now, keltry, if you hadn't fallen down that pit!" "that's right," laughed dynamon. just then, a communications man walked into the control-room and handed dynamon a message. he read it avidly. "that's good news," the centurion remarked, looking up from the piece of paper, "argallum is sending a heavy convoy to meet us. how soon will we be landing, borion?" "well, we should hit the top of the stratosphere in less than an hour," the navigator replied. "from there on down--at reduced speed--will probably take another two hours." "in that case," said dynamon, "i think we'd better shut down on all conversation. even argallum doesn't know what we're bringing back--i'm taking no chances on having our secret get out to the enemy. he only knows that we are returning with two captured martian carriers. so, make your dispositions, borion, because in five minutes i'm going to order everyone on all three ships to landing stations." * * * * * the next three hours were tense ones for the returning expedition. even though a convoy had been promised, dynamon was apprehensive about possible attacks by the martians, who, he was sure, must know something of what was going on. but as it worked out, a perfect cloud of gray cosmos carriers came out to meet the voyagers from saturn, and dynamon was able to set his ships down at vanadium field without mishap. a heavy guard was thrown around the precious cargoes, and the young centurion was whisked away to government city. "what did you find?" the commander-in-chief's face was haggard. "we found tridium," said dynamon, "tons of it. we had an opportunity to test it, and it proved to be a complete defense against the ray." "how difficult is it to get at?" "not difficult at all," said dynamon, "we brought back enough to equip nearly ten thousand men." "heaven be praised!" said argallum fervently, "we might pull out of this situation yet. those devils have been sweeping everything before them. we cut off their communications with our air power but that didn't stop them. they've been living off the land, and they're so powerful that they've been able to overrun territory at will." dynamon glanced at his watch. "it is almost noon," he said, "it will take just one counter-attack to break through their line and roll it up in both directions. if you throw attack-units forward as fast as they can be equipped with tridium, you will have the martians in a rout before sundown." and it was so. dynamon stood beside argallum two hours later, on a little knoll sixty miles out of copia. a wide plain stretched before their eyes and across its width, a beaten, discouraged army of humans gave ground slowly before hordes of tiny, malevolent creatures from another planet. as the two men watched, a fresh column of earth-soldiers issued forth from a woods in the center of the plain. there was a curious greenish shimmer surrounding this new column--a will-o'-the-wisp, mirage-like quality--and it advanced without hesitation straight into the serried ranks of the terrible martians. "great heavens!" cried argallum, "they're walking right up to them! and not a man is down! look! the martians are reeling back! our voltage bombs are killing them like flies!" dynamon turned away from the scene of carnage with a curious smile. he knew that argallum in his gratitude would probably want to throw every conceivable honor and promotion at him. for bringing three carrier loads of tridium back from saturn, he, dynamon, would very likely become a world-wide hero. and yet, he reflected, it was a feat which could never have been accomplished if it hadn't been for a series of unrelated incidents. if keltry hadn't stowed away, she couldn't have fallen down the pit, thus leading to the discovery of queen diana's nether world. if mortoch had not rebelled and tried to kill him with a voltage bomb--. if he hadn't happened to touch the rock with his back--. dynamon turned and looked out on to the battle field where the victorious earth-soldiers in their tridium-auras were vengefully slaughtering the hideous martians. and he thought of the incident which had to precede all the other incidents so that he could bring back the tridium. that was the incident which had occurred hundreds of years before, when a man named leonard bolton had built a "space ship" and had traveled to saturn in it, breaking through the burnt-out crust into the nether world, boring the long hole with his clumsy medieval carrier. that was the hole that keltry had fallen into. dynamon shook his head. leonard bolton had built his "space ship" in the year , the last year but one of the long series of frightful wars, in which the divided peoples of the world tried to destroy one another--and very nearly succeeded. pied piper of mars by frederic arnold kummer, jr. elath taen made mad music for the men of mars. the red planet lived and would die to the soul-tearing tunes of his fiendish piping. [transcriber's note: this etext was produced from planet stories spring . extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the u.s. copyright on this publication was renewed.] in all the solar system there is no city quite like mercis, capital of mars. solis, on venus, is perhaps more beautiful, some cities of earth certainly have more drive and dynamitism, but there is a strange inscrutable air about mercis which even terrestials of twenty years' residence cannot explain. outwardly a tourists' mecca, with white plastoid buildings, rich gardens, and whispering canals, it has another and darker side, ever present, ever hidden. while earthmen work and plan, building, repairing, bringing their vast energy and progress to decadent mars, the silent little reddies go their devious ways, following ancient laws which no amount of terrestial logic can shake. time-bound ritual, mysterious passions and hates, torturous, devious logic ... all these, like dark winding underground streams run beneath the tall fair city that brings such thrilled superlatives to the lips of the terrestial tourists. steve ranson, mounting the steps of the old house facing the han canal, was in no mood for the bizarre beauties of martian scenery. for one thing, mercis was an old story to him; his work with terrestial intelligence had brought him here often in the past, on other strange cases. and for another thing, his mission concerned more vital matters. jared haller, as head of the state-owned martian broadcasting system, was next in importance to the august governor winship himself. as far back as the hitlerian wars on earth it had been known that he who controls propaganda, controls the nation ... or planet. martian broadcasting was an important factor in controlling the fierce warlike little reddies, keeping the terrestial-imposed peace on the red planet. and when jared haller sent to earth for one of the terrestial intelligence, that silent efficient corps of trouble-shooters, something was definitely up. the house was provided with double doors as protection against the sudden fierce sandstorms which so often, in the month of tol, sweep in from the plains of psidis to engulf mercis in a red choking haze. ranson passed the conventional electric eye and a polite robot voice asked his name. he gave it, and the inner door opened. a smiling little martian butler met him in the hall, showed him into haller's study. the head of m.b.c. stood at one end of the big library, the walls of which were lined with vivavox rolls and old-fashioned books. as ranson entered, he swung about, frowning, one hand dropping to a pocket that bulged unmistakably. "ranson, terrestial intelligence." the special agent offered his card. "you sent to earth a while ago for an operator?" jared haller nodded. he was a big, rough-featured individual with gray leonine hair. a battering-ram of a man, one would think, who hammered his way through life by sheer force and drive. but as ranson looked closer, he could see lines of worry, of fear, etched about the strong mouth, and a species of terror within the shaggy-browed eyes. "yes," said jared haller. "i sent for an operator. you got here quickly, mr. ranson!" "seven days out of earth on the express-liner _arrow_." ranson wondered why haller didn't come to the point. even terrestial intelligence headquarters in new york hadn't known why a t.i. man was wanted on mars ... but haller was one of the few persons sufficiently important to have an operator sent without explanation as to why he was wanted. ranson put it directly. "why did you require the help of t.i., mr. haller?" he asked. "because we're up against something a little too big for the mercian police force to handle." jared haller's strong hands tapped nervously upon the desk. "no one has greater respect for our local authorities than myself. captain maxwell is a personal friend of mine. but i understood that t.i. men had the benefit of certain amazing devices, remarkable inventions, which make it easy for them to track down criminals." ranson nodded. that was true. t.i. didn't allow its secret devices to be used by any other agency, for fear they might become known to the criminals and outlaws of the solar system. but haller still hadn't told what crime had taken place. this time ranson applied the spur of silence. it worked. "mr. ranson," haller leaned forward, his face a gray grim mask, "someone, something, is working to gain control of the martian broadcasting company! and i don't have to tell you that whoever controls m.b.c. controls mars! here's the set-up! our company, although state owned, is largely free from red-tape, so long as we stress the good work we terrestials are doing on mars and keep any revolutionary propaganda off the air-waves. except for myself, and half a dozen other earthmen in responsible positions, our staff is largely martian. that's in line with our policy of teaching mars our civilization until it's ready for autonomy. which it isn't yet, by quite some. as you know." ranson nodded, eyes intent as the pattern unfolded. "all right." haller snapped. "you see the situation. remove us ... the few terrestials at the top of m.b.c ... and martian staff would carry on until new men came out from earth to take our places. but suppose during that period with no check on their activities, they started to dish out nationalist propaganda? one hour's program, with the old martian war-songs being played and some rabble-rouser yelling 'down with the terrestial oppressors' and there'd be a revolution. millions of reddies against a few police, a couple of regiments of the foreign legion. it'd be a cinch." "but," ... ranson frowned ... "this is only an interesting supposition. the reddies are civilized, peaceful." "outwardly," haller snapped. "but what do you or any other earthmen know about what goes on in their round red heads? and the proof that some revolt is planned lies in what's been happening the past few weeks! look here!" haller bent forward, the lines about his mouth tighter than ever. "three weeks ago my technical advisor, rawlins, committed suicide. not a care in the world, but he killed himself. a week later harris, head of the television department, went insane. declared a feud with the whole planet, began shooting at everyone he saw. the police rayed him in the struggle. the following week pegram, the musical director, died of a heart attack. died with the most terrorized expression on his face i've ever seen. fear, causing the heart attack, his doctor said. you begin to see the set-up? three men, each a vital power in m.b.c. gone within three weeks! and who's next? who?" jared haller's eyes were bright with fear. "suicide, insanity, heart attack." ranson shrugged. "all perfectly normal. coincidence that they should happen within three weeks. what makes you think there's been foul play?" for a long brittle moment jared haller stared out at the graceful white city, wan in the light of the twin moons. when he turned to face ranson again, his eyes were bleak as a lunar plain. "one thing," he said slowly. "the music." "music?" ranson echoed. "look here, mr. haller, you...." "it's all right." jared haller grinned crookedly. "i'm not insane. yet. look, mr. ranson! there's just one clue to these mysterious deaths! and that's the music! in each instance the servants told of hearing, very faintly, a strange melody. music that did queer things to them, even though they could hear it only vaguely. music like none they'd ever heard. like the devil's pipes, playing on their souls, while.... almighty god!" jared haller froze, his face gray as lead, his eyes blue horror. ranson was like a man in a trance, bent forward, lips pressed tight until they resembled a livid scar. the room was silent as a tomb; outside, they could hear the vague rumbling of the city, with the distant swish of canal boats, the staccato roar of rockets as some earth-bound freighter leaped from the spaceport. familiar, homey sounds, these, but beneath them, like an undercurrent of madness, ran the macabre melody. * * * * * there was, there had never been, ranson knew, any music like this. it was the pipes of pan, the chant of robots, the crying of souls in torment. it was a cloudy purple haze that engulfed the mind, it was a silver knife plucking a cruel obligato on taut nerves, it was a thin dark snake writhing its endless coils into the room. neither man moved. ranson knew all the tricks of visual hypnotism, the whirling mirror, the waving hands, the pool of ink ... but this was the hypnotism of sound. louder and clearer the music sounded, in eerie overtones, quavering sobbing minors, fierce reverberating bass. sharp shards of sound pierced their ears, deep throbbing underrhythm shook them as a cat shakes a mouse. "god!" haller snarled. "what ... what is it?" "don't know." ranson felt a queer irritation growing within him. he strode stiffly to the window, peered out. in the darkness, the broad han canal lay placid; the stars caught in its jet meshes gently drifted toward the bank, shattered on the white marble. along the embankment were great fragrant clumps of _fayeh_ bushes. it was among these, he decided, that their unknown serenader lay concealed. suddenly the elfin melody changed. fierce, harsh, it rose, until ranson felt as though a file were rasping his nerves. he knew that he should dash down, seize the invisible musician below ... but logic, facts and duty, all were fading from his mind. the music was a spur, goading him to wild unreasoning anger. the red mists of hate swirled through his brain, a strange unreasoning bloodlust grew with the savage beat of the wild music. berserk rage sounded in each shivering note and ranson felt an insane desire to run amok. to inflict pain, to see red blood flow, to kill ... kill! blindly he whirled, groping for his gun, as the music rose in a frenzied death-wail. turning, ranson found himself face to face with jared haller. but the tall flinty magnate was now another person. primitive, atavistic rage distorted his features, insane murder lurked in his eyes. the music was his master, and it was driving him to frenzy. "kill!" the weird rhythm screamed, "kill!" and jared haller obeyed. he snatched the flame-gun from his pocket, levelled it at ranson. whether it was the deadly melody outside, or the instinct of self-preservation, ranson never knew, but he drove at haller with grim fury. the flame-gun hissed, filling the room with a greenish glare, its beam passing so close to ranson's hair as to singe it. ranson came up, grinning furiously, and in a moment both men were struggling, teeth bared in animalistic grins, breath coming in choked gasps, whirling in a mad dance of death as the macabre music distilled deadly poison within their brains. the end came with startling suddenness. ranson, twisting his opponent's arm back, felt the searing blast of the flame-gun past his hand. jared haller, a ghastly blackened corpse, toppled to the floor. at that moment the lethal rhythm outside changed abruptly. from the fierce maddening beat of a few minutes before, the chords took on a yearning seductive tone. a call, it seemed, irresistible, soft, with a thousand promises. this was the song the sirens sang to ulysses, the call of the pied piper, the chant of the houris in paradise. it conjured up pictures in ranson's mind ... pictures of fairyland, of exquisitely beautiful scenes, of women lovely beyond imagination. all of man's hopes, man's dreams, were in that music, and it drew ranson as a moth is drawn to a flame. the piping of pan, the fragile fantasies of childhood, the voices of those beyond life.... ranson walked stiffly toward the source of the music, like a man drugged. as he approached the window the melody grew louder. the hypnotism of sound, he knew, but he didn't care. it was enthralling, irresistible. like a sleepwalker he climbed to the sill, stood outlined in the tall window. twenty feet to the ground, almost certain death ... but ranson was lost in the golden world that the elfin melody conjured up. he straightened his shoulders, was about to step out. then suddenly there was a roar of atomic motors, a flashing of lights. a police boat, flinging up clouds of spray, swept up the canal, stopped. ranson shook himself, like a man awakening from a nightmare, saw uniformed figures leaping to the bank. from the shadow of the _fayeh_ bushes a slight form sprang, dodged along the embankment. flame-guns cut the gloom but the slight figure swung to the left, disappeared among the twisting narrow streets. bathed in cold sweat, ranson stepped back into the room, where the still, terrible form of jared haller lay. ranson stared at it, as though seeing it for the first time. outside, there were pounding feet; the canal-patrolmen raced through the house, toward the study. and then, his brain weary as if it had been cudgelled, ranson slid limply to the floor. * * * * * headquarters of the martian canal-patrol was brilliantly lighted by a dozen big _astralux_ arcs. captain maxwell chewed at his gray mustache, staring curiously at ranson. "then you admit killing haller?" he demanded. "yes." ranson nodded sombrely. "in the struggle. self-defense. but even if it hadn't been self-defense, i probably would have fought with him. that music was madness, i tell you! madness! nobody's responsible when under its influence! i...." "you killed haller," captain maxwell said. "and you blame it on this alleged music. i might believe you, ranson, but how many other people would? even members of terrestial intelligence aren't sacro sanct. i'll have to hold you for trial." "hold me for trial?" ranson leaned forward, his gaunt face intent. "while the real killer, the person playing that music, gets away? look! let me out of here for twelve hours! that's all i ask! and if i don't track down whoever was outside haller's house, you can...." "sorry." captain maxwell shook his head. "you know i'd like to, ranson. but this is murder. to let a confessed murderer, even though he is a t.i. man, go free, is impossible." the captain drew a deep breath, motioned to the two gray-uniformed patrolmen. "take mr. ranson." and then steve ranson went into action. in one blinding burst of speed, he lunged across the desk, tore captain maxwell's pistol from its holster. before the captain and the two patrolmen knew what had happened, they were staring into the ugly muzzle of the flame-gun. "sorry." ranson said tightly. "but it had to be done. there's hell loose on mars, the devil's melody! and it's got to be stopped before it turns this planet upside down!" "you can't get away with this, ranson!" captain maxwell shook his head. "it'll only make it tougher for you when we nab you again! be sensible! put down that gun." "no good. got to work fast." ranson backed toward the door, gun in hand. "let this mad music go unchecked and it's death to all terrestials on mars! and i'm going to stop it! so long, captain! you can try me for murder if you want, after i've done my job here!" ranson took the key from the massive plastic door as he backed through the entrance. once in the hall, he slammed the door shut, locked maxwell and his men in the room. then, dropping the gun into his pocket, he ran swiftly down the corridor to the main entrance of headquarters. in the hall a patrolman glanced at him suspiciously, halted him, but a wave of ranson's t.i. card put the man aside. free of headquarters, ranson began to run. only a few moments, he knew, before maxwell and his men blasted a way to freedom, set out in pursuit. like a lean gray shadow ranson ran, twisting, dodging, among the narrow streets, heading toward haller's house. mercis was a dream city in the wan light of the moons. one in either side of the heavens, they threw weird double shadows across the rippling canals, the aimless streets. sleek canal-cabs roared along the dark waterways, throwing up clouds of spray, and on the embankments, green-eyed, bulge-headed little reddies padded, silent, inscrutable, themselves a part of the eternal mystery of mars. haller's house stood dark and brooding beside the canal. captain maxwell's men had completed their examination and the place was deserted. ranson stepped into the shadow of the clump of fragrant _fayeh_ bushes, where the unknown musician had stood; there was little danger, he felt, of patrolmen hunting for him at haller's house. the captain had little faith in copybook maxims about the murderer returning to the scene of the crime. ranson stood motionless for a moment as a canal boat swept by, then drew from his pocket a heavy black tube. he tugged, and it extended telescopically to a cane some four feet long. the cane was hollow, a tube, and the head of it was large as a man's two fists and covered with small dials, gauges. this was the t.i.'s most cherished secret, the famous "electric bloodhound," by which criminals could be tracked. ranson touched a lever and a tiny electric motor in the head of the cane hummed, drawing air up along the tube. he tapped the bank where the unknown musician had stood, eyes on the gauges. molecules of matter, left by the mysterious serenader, were sucked up the tube, registered on a sensitive plate, just as delicate color shades register on the plate of a color camera. ranson tapped the cane carefully upon the ground, avoiding those places where he had stood. few people crossed this overgrown embankment, and it was a safe bet that no one other than the strange musician had been there recently. the scent was a clear one, and the dials on the head of the cane read r- -b, the numerical classification of the tiny bits of matter left behind by the unknown. the theory behind it was quite simple. the t.i. scientists had reasoned that the sense of smell is merely the effect of suspended molecules in the air acting upon sensitive nerve filaments, and they knew that any normal human can follow a trail of some strong odor such as perfumes, or gasoline, while animals, possessing more sensitive perceptions, can follow less distinct trails. to duplicate this mechanically had proven more difficult than an electric eye or artificial hearing device, but in the end they had triumphed. their efforts had resulted in the machine ranson now carried. the trial was, at the start, clear. ranson tapped the long tube on the ground like a blind man, eyes on the dial. along the embankment, into a side street, he made his way. there were few abroad in this old quarter of the city; from the spaceport came the roar of freighters, the rumble of machinery, but here in the narrow winding streets there was only the faint murmur of voices behind latticed windows, the rustle of the wind, the rattle of sand from the red desert beyond the city. * * * * * as ranson plunged further into the old martian quarter, the trail grew more and more confused, crossed by scores of other trails left by passersby. he was forced to stop, cast about like a bloodhound, tapping every square foot of the street before the r- -b on the dial showed that he had once more picked up the faint elusive scent. deeper and deeper ranson plunged into the dark slums of mercis. smoky gambling dens, dives full of drunken spacehands and slim red-skinned girls, maudlin singing ... even the yellow glare of the forbidden san-rays, as they filtered through drawn windows. unsteady figures made their way along the streets. mighty-thewed jovian blasters, languid venusians, boisterous earthmen ... and the little martians padding softly along, wrapped in their loose dust-robes. at the end of an alley where the purple shadows lay like stagnant pools, ranson paused. the alley was a cul-de-sac, which meant that the person he was trailing must have entered one of the houses. very softly he tapped the long tube on the ground. again with a hesitant swinging of dials, r- -b showed up, on the low step in front of one of the dilapidated, dome-shaped houses. ranson's eyes narrowed. so the person who had played the mad murder melody had entered that house! might still be there! quickly he telescoped the "electric bloodhound," dropped it into his pocket, and drew his flame-gun. the old house was dark, with an air of morbid deadly calm about it. ranson tried the door, found it locked. a quick spurt from his flame-gun melted the lock; he glanced about to make sure no one had observed the greenish glare, then stepped inside. the hallway was shadowy, its walls hung with ancient martian tapestries which, from their stilted symbolic ideographs must have dated back to the days of the canal-builders. at the end of the hallway, however, light jetted through a half-open door. ranson moved toward it, silent as a phantom, muscles tense. gripping his flame-gun, he pushed the door wide ... and a sudden exclamation broke from his lips. before him lay a gleaming laboratory, lined with vials of strange liquids, shining test-tubes, and queer apparatus. beside a table, pouring a black fluid from a beaker into a test-tube, stood a man. half-terrestial, half-martian, he seemed, with the large hairless head of the red planet, and the clean features of an earthman. his eyes, behind their glasses, were like green ice, and the hand pouring the black fluid did not so much as waver at ranson's entrance. ranson gasped. the bizarre figure was that of dr. elath taen, master-scientist, sought by the t.i. for years, in vain! elath taen, outlaw and renegade, whose sole desire was the extermination of all terrestials on mars, a revival of the ancient glories of the red planet. the tales told about him were fabulous; and this was the man behind the unholy music! "good evening, mr. ranson," elath taen smiled. "had i known t.i. men were on mars i should have taken infinitely more precautions. however...." as he spoke, his hand moved suddenly, as though to hurl the test tube at ranson. quick as he was, the t.i. man was quicker. a spurt of flame leapt from his gun, shattering the tube. the dark liquid hissed, smoking, on to the floor. "well done, mr. ranson." elath taen nodded calmly. "had the acid struck you, it would have rendered you blind." "that's about enough of your tricks!" ranson grated. "come along, dr. taen! we're going to headquarters!" "since you insist." elath taen removed his chemist's smock, began, very deliberately, to strip off his rubber gloves. "quit stalling!" ranson snapped. "get going! i...." the words faded on the t.i. man's lips. faintly, in the distance, came the strains of soft eerie music! "good god!" ranson's eyes darted about the laboratory. "that ... that's the same as haller and i...." "exactly, mr. ranson." elath taen smiled thinly. "listen!" the music was a caress, soft as a woman's skin. slow, drowsy, like the hum of bees on a hot summer's afternoon. soothing, soporific, in dreamy, crooning chords. a lullaby, that seemed to hang lead weights upon the eyelids. audible hypnotism, as potent as some drug. clearer with each second, the melody grew, coming nearer and nearer the laboratory. "come ... come on," ranson said thickly. "got to get out of here." but his words held no force, and elath taen was nodding sleepily under the influence of the weird dream-music. ranson knew he should act, swiftly, while he could; but the movement of a single muscle seemed an intolerable effort. his skin felt as though it were being rubbed with velvet, a strange purring sensation filled his brain. he tried to think, to move, but his will seemed in a padded vise. the music was dragging him down, down, into the gray mists of oblivion. across the laboratory elath taen had slumped to the floor, a vague smile of triumph on his face. ranson turned to the direction of the music, tried to raise his gun, but the weapon slipped from his fingers, he fell to his knees. sleep ... that was all that mattered ... sleep. the music was like chloroform, its notes stroked his brain. through half-shut eyes he saw a door at the rear of the laboratory open, saw a slim, dark, exotic girl step through into the room. slung about her neck in the manner of an accordian, was a square box, with keys studding its top. for a long moment ranson stared at the dark, enigmatic girl, watched her hands dance over the keys to produce the soft lulling music. about her head, he noticed, was a queer copper helmet, of a type he had never before seen. and then the girl, elath taen, the laboratory, all faded into a kaleidoscopic whirl. ranson felt himself falling down into the gray mists, and consciousness disappeared. * * * * * steve ranson awoke to find himself still in the laboratory, bound securely hand and foot. opposite him elath taen was just struggling to his feet, aided by the dark-haired, feline girl. "i ... i'm all right, zeila," taen muttered. "it was necessary that i, also, hear the sleep-melody, in order to overcome our snooping friend here. but look--he's coming to!" the girl's gold-flecked eyes turned to ranson, studied him impassively. elath taen gave a mocking smile. "my daughter zeila, mr. ranson," he murmured. "the consolation of my declining years. she, too, has devoted her life to the great cause of martian freedom, the overthrow of terra!" "to be expected from your daughter," ranson grunted. "i might have known you were at the bottom of this, taen! killing off the officials of the martian broadcasting company!" "killing?" taen smiled, glanced at the queer box slung about the girl's neck. "we only serenaded them. induce the necessary moods for murder, suicide, madness. you have played our tunes to the remaining two, zeila?" the girl nodded impassively. "cartwright unfortunately ended his own life," she said. "rankin heard the song of hate, went berserk and was killed. yla-tu, one of our own people, is in charge of m.b.c. until more terrestial executives arrive from earth." "by which time we will have played our melodies to all mars," taen murmured. "one swift, merciless uprising, and the red planet is free! an hour or so over m.b.c.'s network...." "you're nuts!" ranson laughed. "if you think...." "i don't think," elath taen smiled. "i _know_, mr. ranson. before the night is out, all terrestials on mars will be imprisoned or dead. our people need only something to awaken them, to arouse their hate! and i can do that! i am the master of moods!" he took a copper helmet similar to the one the girl wore, from a shelf, placed it on his head. "a shield against supersonics," he explained. "it produces vibrations which nullify those set up by the _sonovox_." he faced the langorous zeila. "play, child! convince mr. ranson of our powers!" again the girl's fingers danced over the keys in a wild melody of hate. red mists rose before ranson's eyes and he fought against the bonds that held him. then the song changed to a dirge-like melody and ranson fell into the black abyss of despair. this was more than music, he knew; it was something deeper that played upon the soul. again the notes changed and crawling fear enveloped ranson until he felt sick with horror of the unknown. emotion after emotion gripped him, and had he not been helpless, bound, he would have obeyed the moods that swept his brain. he was himself like an instrument upon which a thousand tunes were played ... and through it all elath taen smiled with a vague detached air, while the girl's eyes burned into his own. suddenly elath taen raised his hand. "enough, zeila," he said. "he is exhausted." the music ceased and ranson fell back weakly, worn by the storm of emotions that had surged in waves over him. "you.... you win!" he gasped. "what kind of deviltry is this?" "deviltry?" dr. taen laughed. "but it is so simple. music, even normal music, can produce moods. the uplift of the ancient earthsong, 'marsailles,' the melancholy of the 'valse triste,' the passion of the 'bolero.' indeed, many years ago on terra, there was a strange song entitled, 'gloomy sunday,' which caused numerous suicides on the part of those who heard it. as for the instrument, it's merely an electrical sound producer such as your electric organ, theremins, and so on. but to it i have added a full range of supersonic notes, which, though inaudible, are the real mood-changers." "supersonics?" ranson exclaimed. "you mean they're what created the emotions inside me just now?" "exactly." elath taen nodded. "the audible music helps, but it is the supersonics that determine the emotions! their effect is upon the brain, and nothing can shut them out except counter-notes such as are set up by our helmets!" he tapped the copper dome that encased his head. "the effects of supersonics upon the emotions is interesting, mr. ranson. i first got my idea from old twentieth-century records on terra itself. i read how, in the days of motion pictures before television was perfected, one of your hollywood companies introduced a supersonic note onto the sound-track of a film in hopes of creating an atmosphere of horror at a certain point in the picture. but so great was the terror induced at the private showing that the supersonic note was immediately cut from the sound-track, and the records of the case filed away. it was the discovery and study of these records that started me on the trail of super-music. thus with cosmic irony, mr. ranson, earth has created the weapon which will destroy her! supersonics!" ranson stared at elath taen, bewildered. supersonics creating emotions! that was what had infuriated haller and himself, had driven the other officials of m.b.c. to various forms of death! and now, with m.b.c. in the hands of taen's followers, they planned to arouse the silent little reddies of mars to revolt! "but why?" ranson demanded. "earthmen have brought new life, new progress to mars! we've built roads, canals, spaceports, taught your people our science...." "you are aliens!" elath taen cried. "you must be wiped out!" he drew a whistle from his pocket, blew a shrill blast. there was a pattering of feet, and a squat martian, his arms scarred by flame-gun burns, entered the room. "place the terrestial in safe keeping," elath taen commanded. "watch him well." he glanced at the blinking red light of a time-signal on the wall. "come zeila! it's time to go!" the girl nodded, picked up the _sonovox_. at the door she paused, glanced back at ranson. "music for the men of mars," she murmured. "when we return our own people will rule this planet!" her eyes, brooding on the earthman, were inscrutable. "_alotah_, stephen ranson!" then she and her father had left the laboratory, and the burly guard was forcing ranson toward a small iron-barred door at the rear of the room. bound, helpless, he staggered into the cell, heard the door clang shut behind him. the scarred, ugly guard stationed himself across the laboratory, where he could keep an eye on the cell. * * * * * ranson lay there in the shadows, suddenly bitter. a nice mess he'd made of things! wanted for murder by captain maxwell, tricked by elath taen and his daughter when he had them in his grasp, and now a prisoner here, while they sent their musical madness, their deadly supersonic notes, over the planet-wide chain of m.b.c. ranson knew what that would mean. except for the foreign legion, a few rocket-plane squadrons, mars was undefended. if elath taen's supersonics aroused the reddies to revolt, his dream of making himself emperor of mars would be at last fulfilled. ranson shot a glance at his guard. the scarred little martian was leaning back in his chair, eyes on the cell door. but it seemed unlikely that he could see what went on within the shadowy cell. in one swift movement the t.i. man smashed his wrist-watch against the wall, then, picking up a sliver of glass with his fingertips, began to saw at his bonds. at length the ropes fell from ranson's aching arms. swiftly he freed his legs. the guard was still sitting in the well-lighted laboratory, unmoved. ranson glanced at the door. steel bars, impossible to penetrate. and seconds ticking away! a dark fighting grin spread over ranson's lean face. there was one chance. a wild, desperate chance, but if it worked.... hastily he slipped off his shoes, placed them on the floor beside him. then, thrusting his hand into his coat pocket, he bulged the cloth out with his finger to simulate a gun. "don't move!" he said in sibilant martian. "drop your flame-gun! try anything and i'll shoot!" the guard sprang to his feet, his bulging hairless head gleaming in the bright light, his green eyes cold with rage. as ranson had expected, he gave no indication of surrender. instead, he raised his weapon, fired. at the moment that the guard pressed the trigger, the terrestial leaped to one side, seeking cover of the wall at the side of the door. a savage greenish flash spat from the gun, a terrible wave of heat swept the cell. half-blinded, sick from the searing heat, ranson lay in his corner and watched the door. under the fiery blast, the iron bars turned white, ran, until only pools of molten metal lay between him and freedom. the squat martian snapped off the ray, approached the glowing door cautiously, to find out if there was life in ranson's inert body. there was ... more than the little reddy had bargained for. the earthman's arm swung in an arc and one of his shoes, flying through the blasted, melted door, caught the little martian's wrist, knocked the flame-gun from his hand. the other shoe, following swiftly, landed alongside his head, sent him reeling and staggering back into a shelf of test-tubes and beakers. "and that's how we do it on earth!" grinning tightly, ranson leaped the puddles of molten metal, plunged through the blasted, glowing remains of the door. before the ugly little guard could recover, a hard knotted terrestial fist had slammed against his chin, sent him, limp and unconscious to the floor. [illustration: _before the ugly little guard could recover, a hard terrestial fist had slammed against his chin._] swiftly ranson ripped wires from the masses of intricate machinery, bound the inert reddy, then, snatching up the flame-gun, ran from the house. twisting, turning, he came to the embankment of the psidian canal. a sleek water-cab slid into view, its atomic motors humming. ranson hailed it, hand on his gun, but the wizened reddy at the wheel had apparently not heard of elath taen's mad melody. "martian broadcasting building," ranson grated. "step on it!" the driver nodded, and, when his passenger was aboard, sent the boat surging along the canal, throwing up clouds of spray. racing, roaring, dodging heavily-laden freight boats, the cab tore over the dark cold water that flowed, via the intricate networks of canals, from the polar caps. * * * * * as they neared the center of the city, the atmosphere of tension grew. little bands of terrestial police patrolled the embankments, a squadron of rocket-planes droned above the towering metropolis, the light of their exhausts throwing weird shadows. occasional shouts, the green flash of flame-guns, issued from the darkness and the crowds of reddies gathered before their radios in houses, shops, and public squares, were seething with excitement. the roar of the cab's motors drowned out the sound of the music and elath taen's exultant voice, but the driver moved uneasily. "looks like somethin's up," he muttered. "i'll see if we can get a bulletin." before ranson could stop him, he had snapped on the radio within the cab. the wild, frenzied music filled the small cabin, tearing at both men's minds, while taen's voice urged revolt. then, under the influence of the supersonics, red flames of hatred leaped through their brains, banishing all thought, logic. the little martian driver whirled about, only to have the butt of ranson's gun crash down upon his head. slumping forward, his body fell against the radio, shattering its fragile tubes. ranson shook himself as the infernal music abruptly ceased. the m.b.c. building lay just before them. ranson swung the cab to the embankment, sprang out. the tall plastoid building towered white and spectral above the canal. ranson burst through the door. several reddies on guard sprang forward, but a blast from the terrestial's gun cleared the great hall. he sprang into an elevator, jabbed at a button, and the car shot upward. the elevator stopped at the top floor, where the broadcasting studios were located. ranson hurtled along the corridor, plunged through the door. before him lay a large room, blocked at one end by a thick, double-paned glass. and on the other side of the glass stood elath taen, crouched before a television set, his fingers running over the keys of the _sonovox_, his face exultant as he poured out the supersonics of his song of hate. musical madness for the men of mars, making them forget all that terra had done for the red planet, driving them to insane mass murder! and as he played upon the _sonovox_, taen spoke into the microphone, urging them to revolt! already they were starting their reign of terror; when he reached his climax they would pour from their houses to kill all who had terrestial blood. unless.... ranson leaped forward. even the supersonics were kept from the outer room by the vacuum-insulated double glass panes; elath taen was like a silent marionette in the broadcasting booth, his green eyes flickering with apprehension, his head encased by the shielding copper helmet. "drop your gun, mr. ranson!" zeila's voice came from behind him. ranson whirled; the girl had been standing behind the door, unnoticed, as he burst into the room. her exotic face was pale, but the flame-gun in her hand was steady. ranson obeyed, smiling. "as you wish," he said. "but t.i. has one trick we use as a last resort. look!" from his pocket he drew a flat metal case. "supposedly cigarettes, but really the most powerful explosive devised by our laboratories. shoot me with that flame gun and the heat sets it off. you, your charming father, and i, will all be blown to atoms. so you won't dare shoot!" zeila stared at him, lips a crimson slash across her face. "you won't get away with it!" she exclaimed. "it's bluff!" "shoot, then," ranson said. "blow the whole top of this building to bits!" he reached out for her gun. the girl's eyes were fixed on the metal case, and there was fear in them. ranson took another step toward her. elath taen could not watch since he was forced to keep his eyes on the intricate keyboard of the _sonovox_. "blown to bits," ranson repeated sardonically. "me, too, but at least i'll have removed the leaders of the revolt. this explosive is the last resort of t.i. men. squeeze that trigger and the heat will set it off! now give me that gun!" zeila taen broke suddenly, shuddering at the thought of her vivid beauty torn to shreds by an explosion. "take it!" she snarled. "it's too late, anyhow! mars is in revolt! no one can stop them now! fool! my father will be emperor after the insurrection! you might have been prince." * * * * * ranson didn't wait to hear more. one blast of the heat gun and the glass partition shattered to a thousand fragments. "no good, mr. ranson." elath taen lifted his hands from the keyboard, smiling thinly. "the flame is lit and cannot be put out! the red flame of revolt! already my people are fighting! loud-speakers in every public square have carried the sound of mad, blind fury! i am the mood-master!" "get back to that sound-box!" ranson grated. "play those sleep-producing notes! play, or i'll blast your lovely daughter here to a cinder! you claim you're the mood-master! well, if your damned supersonics started this, they can end it!" he swung his gun to cover zeila's sleek figure. "play, dr. taen! i've never killed a woman yet, but it's her life or those of all terrestials on mars! back to your _sonovox_!" for a long moment elath taen stared at his daughter, then nodded his hairless head somberly. "again you win, mr. ranson," he said softly. "i should have killed you or won you to my side, long ago." turning to the _sonovox_, he began to play. ranson stood tense, covering the girl with his gun. soft, lulling music, supersonic notes that seemed to caress his brain, filled the room. the drowsy sound of rain on a roof, of rustling leaves, of a soothing night wind ... all these were bound up in the melody. peace, rest, sleep ... every nerve seemed to relax, every muscle seemed limp, as the dreamy musical hypnosis took effect. elath taen and the girl were watching him covertly. there was a thin smile on the doctor's dark saturnine face. dully ranson tried to reason out why elath taen should be smiling, but somehow his mind refused to function. those cloudy mists rising before his eyes! miles away taen was speaking, above the soporific sounds. "too bad," he was saying. "you forgot that whatever these supersonics may do to my people, they also affect you. zeila and i are protected from the short-wave emanations by our helmets. but you, mr. ranson, are not! already you are helpless and in a moment you will sleep, as you did in our laboratory! then, with you secure, i shall arouse my people once more!" ranson tried to move, tried to act, but the music was a silken noose binding him, and he had no will power left. sleep ... nothing else mattered.... as in a dream he saw zeila coming toward him, felt himself crumple to the floor. vaguely he remembered bright flashes, shouts, and then all was grey oblivion. "ranson! ranson!" the words beat like fists upon his drugged brain. the t.i. man stirred restlessly; out of the whirling mists captain maxwell's face became a stern reality. "what happened?" the police officer was saying. "first the reddies go kill-crazy, then start passing out! almost went nutty ourselves, down at headquarters, listening! but then the murder-music stopped and we heard your voice, talking to elath taen! so we came here pronto. just in time." "taen! and zeila!" ranson gasped. "where are they?" "gone." captain maxwell motioned to a door at the rear of the room. "ducked out and down the elevator. blasted the cables when they hit the bottom so we weren't able to follow." he shook his head. "you were right about that music! no wonder you and haller went berserk! don't worry about any trial for murder! mars has been mad, this night!" ranson struggled to his feet. taen and his daughter escaped! with the secret of the supersonic notes! but it would be a long time before they dared return to mars. still groggy, ranson drew the metal cigarette case from his pocket. "how were you able to force your way in here?" captain maxwell demanded. "to make them change the tune and break up the revolt?" ranson opened the metal case. "bluff," he said, taking a cigarette from the container and lighting it. "that's what saved mars! just ... bluff!" grinning, he blew a cloud of smoke. the last martian by raymond van houten the great pumps of mars were slowly stopping. unless the strange being from far-off gamtl could renew their life-giving flow, a once-mighty planet would die. [transcriber's note: this etext was produced from planet stories spring . extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the u.s. copyright on this publication was renewed.] peetn drew his cloak more firmly about his furry shoulders as the sun began to sink through the martian sky and the wind throbbed a deeper note in the gathering darkness. he stood gazing silently as the fading light painted the sky in somber colors, preparing to disappear for another night of screaming wind and penetrating sub-zero cold. he watched until the twilight deepened to purple and then stalked laboriously into the wind, up the gentle slope toward the little hollow where he went each night. his tall, articulated form strode across the dusty plain. by the time he had reached the foot of the bank the sky was totally blank, except for the stars, and he could barely propel himself forward against the raging world-wide currents of atmosphere. the last few yards he crawled on his bellyplates. he tumbled into the central hollow and lay exhausted, his lungs sucking in and out-- the cry of a martian _odlat_ would not be audible to human ears, but the screech which emanated within an inch of peetn's ear-cupulas sent paralyzing waves of terror washing to the tip of his spiny tail. he skirled in agony as inch-long teeth crunched savagely into his shoulder, and the _odlat_, startled, let go. peetn's tentacles shot beneath the flapping folds of his cloak and the night-dark was shattered in a hissing blaze of light. the headless corpse of the _odlat_ thudded to the ground. black reaction smote peetn a blow somewhere inside, and the martian lost consciousness. it was after midnight that he awoke to the agonizing throb of his poisoned shoulder. his faculties returned somewhat, and he crawled painfully over to a little niche in the rocks, where he kept his scant stores. extracting a few pieces of twisted root which had a slight medicinal quality, he plugged the holes left by the _odlat's_ fangs. soon, under the soporific influence of the whining wind, he dropped off into a feverish, agitated sleep. the martian awoke just before noon of the next day and found that the crude poultices he had applied to his wounds had been more effective than he had expected. the shoulder still hurt, but with the gentle ache of healing tissues rather than the savage bite of newly-torn nerves. the effect of the _odlat_ poison had worn off, and outside of a slight weakness and dizziness, peetn felt nothing amiss in his interior. he slowly unwound from where he lay and stretched to his full height. the body of the _odlat_ lay where it had fallen the night before, headless and beginning to stiffen. the dominant race of mars could use little of this altogether useless and dangerous beast, namely the ears and eyeballs, and if the animal were not too old, the tail. this fierce old reprobate was entirely worthless therefore, and peetn dragged it out into the desert and threw it into a pit. it could not be left lying near his hollow to draw other _odlats_ to the spot. he returned from his errand and prepared for another day at his appointed duties. the routine of caring for a martian water-station is neither complicated nor arduous, being hardly more than a daily inspection tour. no martian alive understood the methods or mechanisms which drew and pumped water from the massive ice-cap into the pool of the colony; no one could alter the flow of liquid through the pipes, or shut it off, for the valves had long ago corroded into their seats. even the inspection was a mere gesture. * * * * * peetn always started his rounds in the underground pump room, partly because most of the machinery was there, but mostly because of a subconscious certainty that there something was wrong. somehow the conglomeration of squeaks, hisses, and shudders suggested things that shouldn't be. day after day he had gone over the maze of pipes and cylinders, looking for a dreaded break, but always he found everything the way he had left it the night before. he couldn't know of oilless bearings burning slowly out during the centuries. the martian artificers had built for incredible durability in that long-gone age of martian glory, but they had not anticipated the mining of the last drop of oil or the last flake of graphite, which had occurred millennium before peetn's time. once again he began to go over the machinery which he didn't vaguely understand. in the center of the floor squatted a huge, inscrutable mass of metal from which plumed the beginning of all the pipes. peetn traced with his sight organs the spidery lengths of hard, grey tubing to where they disappeared into the housings of the chugging pumps. it was the pumps which emitted the disturbing noises most of all. peetn stuck his head close and listened to the discords in their tune. it sounded like rasping, like two raw bones being rubbed together under the flesh. he shook his bald head sadly and let his tentacle-tips flicker lightly over the smooth metal. as long as they didn't stop-- he watched the four bulky pipes crawl along the floor and up the wall, where they pushed through the ceiling into the valve-house above. he glanced over the gauges, meaningless to him, but still faithfully recording the surge of water passing through the pipes. it had lessened by about four-fifths since this station had been in operation, but nobody noticed the difference. those that had seen the greater flow were less than dust these ages past. he trudged back up the stairs counting them mechanically, and was in the outer air again. the change from semi-darkness to light brought his multiple eyelids winking shut, screening his sight. he squinted toward the southern horizon, seeing nothing but wastes. what was that? from the tail of his eye he thought he saw a flash of light far out toward the west, but although he gazed at the spot for several minutes, it did not repeat. dismissing it as a result of the glare, he stopped and entered the valve-house, which stood in the shadow of the towering reservoir. he finished his useless routine, touching gently the same things and looking in the same places as every day, and came outside. this time it was unmistakable. something flashed in the sunlight out in the desert to the west, a piece of polished metal or glass. or a weapon. somebody was on the desert! he was immediately prompted to run atop the knoll, whistle and wave his tentacles so that they would not miss him, but some primal caution held him back until reason took hold of his chaotic mind. out there was either a friend or an enemy. if it were a friend, it could only be his relief, and he wasn't due for another three years. besides, he would be coming from the south. therefore it was an enemy, some members of another colony coming to raid the water station! bending low, he raced up the hill and threw himself into the central hollow, facing west. he drew from its holster the flash gun, which had killed the _odlat_, and cradled it beside him. his eyes strained on their stalks across the western wastes, ready for the first hint of suspicious movement. intra-mural war had again broken out on mars! it disturbed peetn to have the first responsibility fall on him, but recollecting the tales that the oldsters used to tell him, he was a little proud too. the little band of water-station defenders had been heroes in those days of the past, not useless, forgotten automatons. there had been a real and vital reason for their bitter existence in the north. peetn's presence, up till now, had been a formality. for a long time he lay sweeping the desert before him, waiting for another glimpse of his attackers, until suddenly he realized that another night was near. the sky had already begun to edge toward the dark end of the spectrum, and the light was lessening visibly. peetn grew uneasy as the shadow of the box-like reservoir left its source and began a sinister march to the horizon behind him. the rising nightwind send cold _odlat_-tongues up and down his spindly back, and although he knew that no living thing could stand on the open desert during a martian night, the coming of darkness brought fear rather than a sense of security. * * * * * the dusky sun touched the western plains and the wind howled higher in anticipation of the darkness. abruptly, from out of the dull glare in the west, a figure, small from distance, moved. peetn's limbs and tentacles tensed as he watched, and amazement riveted his gaze. that small, chunky, ballooning figure was no martian! carried onward by the wind, staggering weakly on its thick legs, the figure came on, weaving from side to side, blundering over the bare rock and hard-packed sand. peetn made no move to lift the projector as the thing came within range. possibly the sight of this apparition had driven all thought of it from his mind; or possibly his analytical subconscious had reasoned that all the menace of the unknown attacker had vanished, since this was obviously no raiding martians from another colony. whatever it was, it seemed in no way belligerent. in fact, peetn guessed that the creature was in trouble, possibly dying. it made no effort to hold back against the driving wind, as he would have done, and the erratic course which it followed bespoke numbed faculties. the strange figure passed peetn's hillcrest hollow a few rods to the north and brought up with a thud against the sheer side of the reservoir, where it toppled limply over and lay still on the ground. banks of sand began to accumulate against the windward sides of the bloated legs and body. peetn hesitated only long enough to jam the flash pistol back into its holster, where it would be safe from the blasting sand, before he scuttled, bent double, toward the mysterious intruder's prone body. the thought that it was a corpse flashed through the martian's mind, but the chance that a living being lay in travail decided him in favor of the risk. he was down on his tentacles and knees when he reached the reservoir wall, and he burrowed down behind the inert form for a moment before attempting the more arduous trip back with the dead weight dragging behind. he found to his surprise that it was covered by a case of metal! inch by inch, minute by minute, he conquered the two-score feet back to the small safety of his hilltop. keeping the limp form between himself and the wind, he strained against the uphill drag until finally he topped the crest and slid down into the familiar haven. dizzy from exertion and gulping air and sand indiscriminately, he relaxed on the fringes of oblivion while the martian wind bawled in jovian defeat. returning vigor brought renewed interest in his prize of war, and he raised himself on his bony knees, peering breathlessly into the transparent faceplate of the metal suit. nausea, fear, and amazement flooded his brain at the sight of the alien face which returned his stare with sightless, open eyes. it was the face of a martian nightmare; square, with jutting chin-bone; straight long nose, pierced under the lobes by wide slits; hideous blue eyes with single skin-like lids; and a mouth--a long, gaping crack rimmed with soft red flesh and filled with gleaming teeth, like a carnivorous beast's! and that mouth breathed! it was not dead! peetn's tentacles fumbled with the unfamiliar drawcatch of the creature's locked faceplate, until with a grating of sand crystals between metal, it slid out, and he lifted the glass off. a puff of evil-smelling vapor flew into the martian's face, and he recoiled. the awful face beneath writhed, and a low groan from the pulpy lips made peetn's eye-sacs pale in terror. he watched fascinated as the returning light of consciousness slowly dissolved the glaze over the bluish eyes. one metal-clad hand raised feebly to the open faceplate and then dropped like lead as if the owner had used the last bit of energy in his storm-beaten body for the effort. the monstrosity lay panting for breath and making murmuring sounds. peetn bent closer to listen, submerging his revulsion with curiosity. "water! water!" it was saying over and over. a wave of deep compassion engulfed peetn's twin hearts as he looked into that twisted face beneath its mat of stiff bristly black fur. he realized instantly that this thing was suffering, probably from lack of the things which kept it alive. he closed the faceplate again to keep out the whirling sand and rummaged out the last of his _merrl_ root and a small quantity of water, on the chance that his food might be suitable to the alien tastes of this being. an avid light sparkled in the cloudy eyes as peetn held the food and water close, and in a spasmodic burst of energy it grasped the metal container and splashed the precious fluid into its sucking mouth. peetn averted his eye-stalks from the horrible, yet pitiful sight. the _merrl_ root was snatched from his tentacle and crammed between the red lips with revolting smacking sounds and gasps of pleasure. strength seemed to flow back into the stranger, and he assayed to sit up. he slumped into peetn's supporting tentacles with a weak grin and closed his eyes, dropping immediately into a deep sleep. peetn lay the inert figure back on the ground and gazed fascinated at the face, now relaxed in repose. from whence had this stranger come? mars could never have spawned such a creature! this was a being from another world, maybe from _gamtl_ itself! peetn thrilled at the thought as he lay himself down to a food-and-water-less bed. * * * * * long, long ago the savants had predicted the death of mars, the gradual wasting away of its ability to support life, until finally the last martian would die alone. they pointed with eagerness and envy in their telescopes at the soft green sphere of the third planet, picturing it as the martian eden, teeming with life-giving food and water. space ships were built. there was not nearly enough room for the entire population of mars aboard, so it was agreed that they should act as ferries, shuttling back and forth until mars was evacuated. the first contingent departed one day on the long trek to another world, and the people left behind waited with renewed hope for their turn to go. hope turned to uneasiness as a second fleet of ships rocketed toward paradise, many years after the first ones should have returned. a third and fourth fleet followed at ever-lengthening intervals, and with ever-lessening numbers, but all vanished into obscurity with the same finality. weakening civilization soon could no longer strain the necessary resources from the perishing planet to send another fleet; gamtl, the lush, life-choked pleasure-laden paradise, became a myth of the past, and then even the myth became dim and half-remembered. life was a sodden series of hungry days and frigid nights. the energies of each individual were strictly circumscribed to activities designed to give his colony one more day, one more hour of life. birth, when it was allowed at all, was limited to the replacement of necessary personnel to carry on the food gathering of the community. all contact, outside of occasional meetings between scouts searching for new patches of _merrl_ bushes, was lost between the colonies, which had settled on the dust-covered sites of the ancient cities because of the trickle of water which still issued from the massive pipes. even the sporadic raids made on the water stations were abandoned, and as the danger of attack lessened, small and smaller numbers of guards were spared from the duties of procuring _merrl_ from the desert wastes, until finally only one made the food-and water-less trip into the northern steppes of the polar region. every fifth year another was sent to relieve him, but the oldest man in the colony could not remember when one had returned. what privation, what utter loneliness these martyrs endured would never be known. what acts of heroism they might perform would go forever unsung. peetn had been very young when he had set out for the far north and five years of martian hell at the water station, but the two years that had passed so far had left him a dead-hearted, middle-aged martian. wrinkles had appeared on his eye-sacs, and his fur had become sparse and gray. his mind, too, had turned gray, had withered from watching too many sunsets. he came to feel inside that he would never see his colony again, just like the others. * * * * * in spite of his activity the day before, peetn was up and about early the next morning and went into the desert for _merrl_. before he left, however, he placed the metal container half-full of water beside the still-sleeping figure in the metal suit. an intermittent buzzing sound issuing from its mouth startled him, and he opened the faceplate. the sonorous sound stopped abruptly with a snort, and the stranger mumbled a few words and squirmed in his sleep. peetn hastily but softly closed the lid and ambled off into the sea of rock and sand. when he returned, his visitor was standing shakily on his feet, watching him stilt across the plain toward him. peetn emptied his pockets of the succulent _merrl_ he had gathered and faced the stranger with a whistle of greeting, extending a friendly tentacle. it was grasped by the prehensile tip of the creature's queer tentacle and gently oscillated up and down. peetn interpreted the gesture as meaning friendship and enthusiastically entered into the spirit of it, pumping the thick arm up and down until the being cried out. the martian, noticing that his companion's eyes were fastened on the _merrl_ root which he had brought, snatched up one of the tubers and offered it to him. they broke their fast in genial camaraderie, this decadent martian and his un-martian visitant, so utterly divergent in form, so different in many ways. but such is the yearning of loneliness and bewilderment that all this was forgotten. peetn was about to leave on his daily inspection when a gentle hand restrained him. the stranger was making sounds at him, meaningless and unfamiliar, but it was apparent that he wanted peetn to stay and listen. so the martian stayed and listened solemnly, strange thoughts milling through his head. "i know you're not going to understand a word of this," his companion was saying, "but i'm going to tell it to you, anyway--just for luck. my name is harrison clark, late of san francisco, u.s.a., earth. i cracked up, like a damn fool, in the first rocket to reach mars about two hundred miles out there in the desert. my food and water gave out, and the air inside my ship was getting bad, so i crawled into my can and started out, looking for god knows what! i was about done when you must have found me, for i don't remember anything for a long time back. you saved my life, and now i want to do something for you. got any lawns you want mowed, or houses i can haunt? i'll bet i'm quite a fright in these parts!" he grinned broadly. peetn listened gravely to this address, and when it was over, he extended a tentacle and shook hands. "i get it, pal!" laughed harry clark. "we're friends no matter what i look like. you'd be a sixteen cylinder haunt back on earth yourself!" peetn disengaged his tentacle-tip and strode off down the slope to the subterranean entrance of the pump room. clark hesitated a moment and then followed, more slowly because of his wasted strength, peetn turned and waited for him at the head of the steps, and they entered the cavern together. clark could not see for a few minutes in the gloom, and he stood still, while peetn, with his more adaptable sight organs, moved about with ease in the familiar surroundings. the multiple noises which rebounded in the enclosed space beat through the earthman's open faceplate, betraying the secret of the darkly looming masses. "machinery," he said softly. peetn went through his customary routine, conscious of the stranger's eyes watching his every move, and conscious also of a pitying wonder in them. they quit the underground room, peetn gently tugging clark away from the four gauges which measured the water-flow through the monster pipes, and entered the valve-house. peetn's tentacles caressed the valve-wheels and giant housings reverently--and uselessly--while the stranger once again watched with interest. peetn was suddenly startled by a gusty, explosive sound from the alien. "what a hell of a mechanic you are!" laughed the earthman. "i don't believe you know the first thing about all this, and yet you're obviously the caretaker around here. the pumps down there are in a bad way. why don't you oil them?" peetn stuck out his tentacle and they shook hands. "yeah, we're pals, but i still think you're a bust. look," he walked over to one of the valve wheels and grasped it by the rim, "there's hardly a trickle going through the pipes. why don't you open her up, like this--" the valve creaked protestingly and moved a fraction of an inch under the earthman's effort. gauges on the wall quivered slightly and advanced an imperceptible amount along their calibrated scales. peetn went suddenly berserk. he lashed out with his tentacles and caught harrison clark's straining figure about the waist, flinging him across the narrow room with a metallic clangor. he stood over the cowering figure, his tentacles poised threateningly. this creature was meddling with the machinery! "hey, wait a minute!" shouted the shaken earthman, raising himself on an elbow and looking up into the inscrutable face of the martian. "i'm not trying to hurt anything! sorry if i've done anything wrong. here, shake hands!" he extended his hand and reluctantly the martian took it. they went back to the little hollow, clark limping a bit from his fall. peetn enclosed himself in a shell of reticence after the episode in the valve-house, and it was only by dint of hard labor that the earthman was able to coax him out of it. * * * * * the days went by, and sandwiched between them were the martian nights with their savage fury. slowly the two mis-matched companions evolved a crude method of making themselves understood to each other, and a dawning comprehension of the incredible state of martian life came to harry clark. he spent much time in wandering about the water station, and slowly he pieced together the puzzle. he knew that it was water which was contained in the pipes almost the first day he had been there. the intake pipes burrowed under the ground toward the north direction of the ice cap, while the outlets stretched away to the south to an unknown destination. this, then, must be some kind of intermediary, where the ice of the polar cap was transformed into water and then pumped south to some place where it was needed. examination of the huge machine in the center of the pump cavern convinced him that this must be where the ice was turned into water. how the ice was transported over the five hundred miles from the polar cap he could not discover. water came out, however, so ice must go in. the pumps carried the water up into the high-sided reservoir, from where it started its journey south after passing through the main valves. but something was missing. where did the trickle of water go? why was it so small? why had the martian gone off the deep end when he had tried to increase the volume of water flowing through _the_ pipes? he made up his mind to worm the answers out of peetn at the first opportunity. peetn's mind was in a turmoil as he grubbed in the desert sands at the base of the stubby, tree-like plant. he mechanically pulled up the bulbous roots, tearing them loose, but always leaving enough of a stem so that a new one would grow back on, but his thoughts were upon what the stranger had made known to him by the diagram he had drawn in the sand. this being was from gamtl! gamtl, the mythical eden, the planet to which legend told all good martians would go some day. some day, it was said, the ghostly ships of space would return, and all mars would be happy again. this monstrosity claimed to have come from there. could this be the time of resurrection which mars was promised by the old myth? how could this thick-tentacled, hideous-faced being bring mars back to its old lost glory? such were peetn's thoughts as he approached the water station with his pockets half full of _merrl_. the now familiar figure of the being from gamtl stood atop the knoll beckoning to him. they shook hands solemnly after peetn had dumped his load of food, and the stranger drew peetn over to a patch of cleared sand. bending down, he drew with his finger a crude diagram of the water-station, pointing to it, and then to the reservoir, pump-cavern, and the valve-house, indicating each in the sand in turn. he then drew a line from the pump-cavern northward, and connected it to a large scrawl which peetn decided was supposed to represent the ice-cap. he nodded his head in a gesture which he had learned from the earthman, indicating that he understood, and that the diagram was right. clark then drew a line from the valve-house south. by means of much pointing and insistent signs, the martian finally discovered that he wished to know where it led, and what was at the end. peetn jack-knifed his gangly legs and sank to his knees. the tip of his tentacles traced a picture in the sand. it looked like a series of small circles interlinked by little curved lines. peetn pointed to himself, then at the circles. then he made eighty-two little dashes in the sand. the earthman understood immediately. so that was it! this water-station supplied a colony of eighty-two martians with drinking water, vital to their existence! they must live very far south near the equator, in the warmest zone of the planet, where food and heat were more abundant. of course! and beany was shipped up here as watchman. clark looked with new respect at the martian, thinking of the soul-deadening loneliness he must have known. he certainly wasn't much good as a mechanic; why, he couldn't even have known that the flow of water could be increased by opening those valves wider! naturally, he had thought that clark had tried to sabotage the plant when he had laid hands on the machinery. those pumps--it was a wonder that they hadn't frozen stiff long before this. harrison clark made up his mind. next morning when peetn arose, the man from gamtl was gone. so was a three-day supply of _merrl_ and water. * * * * * it was eight days later when the martian emerged from the valve-house and saw the tiny figure come trudging out of the west. it was the alien, and behind him dragged a curious object, a black, cylinder-like affair trundling along on four wheels and pulled by a rope in the stranger's hands. peetn stalked out to meet him and after they had shaken hands, he curled a few tentacles about the rope and together they pulled the mysterious object into the water-station. peetn watched with his curiosity aroused as clark heaved and grunted the thing down the thirty-one steps into the underground pump room, talking all the while. "you know what this is, beany, old boy?" he said. "it's oil--for the pumps. it'll take the squeaks out of 'em for a while anyway. it won't last forever, but before it's gone, maybe you and i can figure out something else. lucky i had this barrel left on the ship. there!" he stood up and dusted off his hands. "if we can get those pumps to stop chattering, we can open up the valves and let a _real_ head of water through to your pals. be afraid to do it with the things in this condition." he unscrewed the cap and peered in, sniffing. he turned to the martian with a broad grin. "about three-quarters full," he announced, marking the level on the outside of the drum with his hand. peetn, deciding that the mystery had progressed just about far enough for his martian tastes, stilted over and inserted his tube-like proboscis into the hole left by the screw cap, and inhaled. he straightened up abruptly and whistled, tears dropping from his yellow, sac-like eyes. clark laughed excitedly. "that's oil, you beanpole! we're going to rebuild mars with that drum! you poor guys must have had a hell of a time living in this hole," he continued, becoming serious and pensive and indicating the desert with a wave of his hand. "it would take one of you a life-time to find food enough to live that long. your civilization has sunk right down to rock bottom, but i think we're going to change all that." he shook his head doubtfully. "it's according to how long we can make this oil last. those machines which your ancestors made are the real mccoy, all right, but god knows how long they've been pounding away dry as a bone. the oil might pour out of every crack as fast as we pour it in. well," he finished, shrugging his shoulders, "there's only one way of finding out!" carefully, lest he spill a drop of the priceless fluid, he filled a water container with the lubricant. "keep your tentacles crossed!" he shot at peetn, who looked down upon him from his superior height as the earthman slowly poured the contents of his container into the oil-cup on the main bearing of no. pump. he allowed the dregs to drain into the capacious pocket and then bent with hands on knees, looking for signs of a leak below. peetn followed his every move tensely, wondering whether or not to force a halt to this tampering with the vital machines, but somehow he trusted this monster from gamtl. he seemed to know what he was about, and there _was_ a chance that after he was through the disturbing noises in the machines would be gone. so he watched and waited, always on the alert to prevent any outright damage. he couldn't see, anyway, how pouring some of that evil-smelling stuff into those little cups would change anything. and then suddenly, the song of the pumps changed! the thumping and creaking lessened to an almost imperceptible amount as a tiny ring of oil appeared around the periphery of the bearing. the pump rose to a new level of activity, the parts whirling and plunging at a greater speed. peetn thrilled in surprise. his interest increased ten-fold as clark filled the cups on the other three pumps in turn. each one's voice dropped from a shout to a whisper, and all chugged with more vigor under the relaxing influence of the lubricating oil. peetn trembled all over as he noted that the protesting groans which had worried him so were gone. this was unbelievable! this stranger from gamtl was indeed a friend! "our work isn't done, beany," said clark, as he dumped what was left of the oil back into the drum and wiped his hands in the sand. "the really important part is yet to come. this is just preparing; now we've got to knock those rusty valves loose from their eye-teeth!" he screwed the barrel-cap back into place and, followed by peetn whose animation was visibly increased over his usual lethargic, fatalistic state, he trod the stairs into the open air. the earthman gave a preliminary tug or two at the valve-wheels, and then muttered under his breath. peetn scowled inwardly. it was not good, tampering with the machines. then the martian went all weak and fluttery inside as the stranger picked up a short metal bar which had been lying in a dusty corner and began banging on the tops of the machines! he was upon clark like a flash, and the tendons in the earthman's arms cracked agonizingly as the martian giant wrested the bar away from him in mid-blow. clark relaxed as the tense tableau threatened to continue for a protracted length of time. "look, beany," he said pleadingly. "i'm only trying to jar the rust loose inside. gimme back that thing and let me alone. i know what i'm doing." the martian, of course, didn't understand a word, and he stood toying with the length of metal rod, his yellow eyes blank and inscrutable. then with a sudden gesture, he handed it back to clark and extended a tentacle. "he trusts me!" gasped the earthman as he pumped the furry limb up and down enthusiastically. using the bar as a lever, he twisted the spoked wheel around several turns, watching the meters on the wall as the valve grated wider and wider. the indicator crept up and up, revealing the increased flow to clark's anxious eyes. the noise from the pumps below drifting through the open archway thundered with new energy to catch up with the added drain on their powers. trembling with triumph, he disentangled the bar from the spokes and turned the handle on the petcock from which peetn drained their drinking water every morning. a stout stream as thick as his thumb spattered to the ground with a heavenly gurgling sound. peetn's knees must have given way at the sight, for he folded up and sat down on the floor ungently, his eyes glued to that stream of life which issued from the pipette. * * * * * several weeks later, harry clark stood by with an amused grin on his face as peetn tweedled excitedly to the three martians who had come stilting out of the south the evening before. the whistling of the martians was less than gibberish to him, but he got the idea from the various tentacle-wavings and yellow-eyed stares in his direction that peetn was giving them the dirt about himself. and that was exactly what peetn was doing. "the monster is from gamtl, the paradise of the old legend," he was whistling. "many days ago the wind blew him into the water-station, sick and dying from lack of life essentials. he was clad in the strange metal suit which you still see upon him. he is a very strange and alien being. it seems inexplicable, but i believe that he understands more about them than we for whom they exist. well, one day in the valve-house, he laid tentacles on one of the machines, and i had to pull him bodily away from it. his interest did not carry him quite so far as that in succeeding days, but about a week later i arose in the morning to find him gone! "his return, which i didn't expect, was the queerest sight i ever saw. he came across the desert at about midday, from the direction he first came, dragging behind him a cylindrical object which i later found to be hollow and filled with a very amazing liquid. he took this container down into the cavern of the chugging machines and unscrewed a small circular section in the top. i smelled its contents; it smelled like the juice of the _merrl_ plant when it was crushed, a very unpleasant odor, i assure you. it also had the same consistency and texture, as i discovered surreptitiously afterwards. "well, he poured some of it into the chugging machines, and the noises which they had been making--stopped! it was the most amazing thing i have ever experienced. he seemed to wield some un-martian control over them! "then he did a thing which makes me shudder to recount! he picked up a bar of metal half as long as my tentacle and began belaboring the machines from which i had pulled him a few weeks before! quickly i stopped him, but something, perhaps the memory of how he had quieted the chugging machines, told me that this being could be trusted, and that he knew what he was doing. i--i took an awful chance. i squirm inside when i think of what might have happened if my trust in this gamtlian had been misplaced. i gave him back the bar and allowed him to continue! "he stopped banging before he broke anything, and then he did a peculiar thing. he turned the outer edge of the round machines in there," peetn indicated the valve-house, "so that the whole top moved around itself. then the miracle happened." "yes, go on," twittered the other one excitedly. "what did he do?" peetn paused for a moment to gather weight, and then proceeded solemnly. "he opened the little machine from which i draw my drinking water, and a stream shot forth as thick as my tentacle and spattered all about the room!" he allowed himself to exaggerate. "an unbelievable quantity of water poured out in the short space of time that i watched it." the newcomers seemed slightly disappointed at the tale peetn told, expecting to hear about gigantic super-martian operations by the stranger from gamtl, the martian spirit-world. "why that's just about what happened down at the colony, about the water, i mean," said one of them. "all of a sudden a flood came gushing out of the supply pipe and overflowed the pool and spreading out over the surrounding desert. a funny thing, too, was the way that the _merrl_ plants grew where the water had spread. when we left, our colony had a full fifteen days' stock, and all of it was gathered within a five-minute walk of the caves!" peetn had a faraway look in his usually inexpressive, yellow eyes. a quiver was noticeable in his whistle as he replied. "can this be the fulfilment of the old legend of gamtl?" he asked. "already we owe this alien much; our lives have been made easier to live. who knows, with the awful burden of food-gathering and water-conserving lifted from our colony, we may be able to gain back some of the lost glory of our ancestors; may again be able to build water-stations and flash-guns! yes, my friends, the day that stranger staggered into this water-station was the first day of the rebirth of mars!" * * * * * harrison clark, for the first time since he had crashed on the martian desert in the rocket, did not dream so longingly of earth as he lay in the little hollow he had come to know as home. he had work to do here. a feeling of mingled exultation and determination had possessed him when peetn had shown him the liquid which resulted from crushing _merrl_. it was a very heavy and durable vegetable oil, quite capable of continuing the job of lubricating the machinery after his petroleum was gone. mars could be re-awakened with it; the task was his. then, too, some day another rocket might arrive from earth, one that wouldn't crash. the american rocket society wouldn't give up because their first rocket failed to return. in examining the pumps a day or so ago, he thought he found what made them go. a small, ridiculously small box, no larger than his two fists fastened to the eccentric. obviously atomic power, or something as efficient and ever-lasting. earth could use something like that. a sense of warmth and friendship suffused him, in spite of the frigid wind which blew all around, as he thought of the martian monsters which lay sleeping beside him. they were _his_ people now! for when peetn had stopped whistling to them, one by one they had filed past, and every damn one had shaken his hand! meteor-men of mars by harry cord and otis adelbert kline like tiny meteors, the space-ships plunged into earth's atmosphere, carrying death for all who opposed their flight. the fate of a world rested in hammond's hands--and his wrists were fettered at his sides. [transcriber's note: this etext was produced from planet stories winter . extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the u.s. copyright on this publication was renewed.] it came out of the dawn sky, slanting like a fiery meteor out of the east. the two men in the skiff saw the glowing streak in the sky and heard the sound of its passage, like the loosing of a nest of angry snakes overhead, a scant second before it plummeted into the calm waters of the sound. a geyser of water and steam shot up not a hundred yards from the maroon and gold skiff. the boat rocked and pitched to the disturbance. frank hammond, seated at the bow, clamped a taped hand over the side to hold himself, surprise quickening the intentness of his dark, handsome face. he was a lithe, bronzed figure, clad only in blue trunks and rope sandals. stroking for his college crew in years that were warm memories had padded naturally wide shoulders. "what the devil?" he ejaculated. "did you see that, pete?" peter storm grinned. two inches under his companion's six foot length, he weighed ten pounds more--a heavily muscled figure who could move with deceptive speed as many an opposing eleven had found out in his college football days. blond, phlegmatic of nature, he took things easier than his more restless friend. "meteor, you dummox!" he jibed, good-naturedly. "ever hear of one before?" hammond stared at the spot where the agitation was quieting. "i heard of them," he said shortly. "but this is the first time one ever fell this close to me." storm shrugged. "forget it. this is our last day before going back to the grind. let's make the most of it. remember that bet we--boy!" he broke off, standing up to haul in. his catch proved to be a bluefish, a three pounder. he unhooked it, disgustedly, while frank, measuring it with a quick glance, gave him a bronx cheer. "if you can't do better than that that new hat's in the bag," he jeered. they went back to their heaving and hauling, bantering good naturedly over every catch, completely forgetting the strange visitor from the skies. both were research chemists for the new york analytical laboratories; both were unmarried. they had been inseparable comrades since their college days, when both wore identical crew cuts, dressed alike, and always either double-dated or stagged it. in memory of those days their skiff, the _crawfish_, had been painted maroon inside and a golden yellow outside, maroon and gold having been their school colors. their vacation camp was on ramson's island, just off ramson's point on the connecticut shore. the rocky island was uninhabited. they had left camp early, intent on making the most of their last day. reaching the fishing "hole" they had anchored. both men taped their hands, and each prepared his jig, a long bar of lead to which a hook was attached, and began the process of "heaving and hauling" used in the vicinity for luring bluefish. they had been at it for about an hour when the "meteor" landed. fifteen minutes later they had forgotten it. * * * * * the sun was a huge red ball balanced on the rim of the sea when frank suddenly felt a jerk on his line that nearly wrenched his arm from its socket. he said nothing. his lips merely tightened, eagerly, as he wished to surprise his companion by hauling in the big one unexpectedly. but this proved harder than he thought. his potential catch darted off with such a burst of speed and strength that it dragged boat, anchor and all! "hey!" yelled storm, clutching the boat sides to hold himself. "what's on that jig? a shark? better cut that line before it swamps us!" "like heck i will!" hammond grunted, hanging on to the line with both taped hands. "this must be the grandfather of all big blues. that new hat's in the bag!" with both feet braced against the thwarts, he leaned back and pulled with all his strength. bit by bit he hauled the "big one" in close, till finally he was able to lift it out of the water and into the boat. both men exclaimed in amazement at the thing which came over the side and clanked to the bottom of the boat. it was neither a giant bluefish nor a shark. it was a shiny, iridescent object, slightly shaped like a shark, but quiescent now, and seemingly lifeless. "what kind of a fish do you call that?" asked storm disgustedly, leaning forward for better view of the catch. "it looks like a cross between a shark and a toy submarine." "damned if it don't!" hammond replied, staring bewilderedly at his catch. the thing was about thirty inches in length, with both vertical and dorsal fins. but instead of one dorsal fin it was equipped with four fins placed equidistantly around the body. these fins contained numerous tubular quills or spines with round openings at the ends, and hammond's hook had caught between two of these spines. it was as heavy as if made of steel, but despite its weight and metallic sound when struck, it appeared to be constructed entirely of a bluish, iridescent mother-of-pearl. hammond removed his hook from between the spines, and lifted his catch onto the empty boat seat between them. "better heave it overboard," advised storm, seriously. "it might be a new-fangled type of mine or bomb. i don't like the looks--" he stood, open-mouthed, as the "thing" suddenly shot off the boat seat with a hissing roar like that of a small rocket. it scorched the paint as it took off with small, orange-green flares emanating from the tubular quills. it shot upward with incredible speed and was almost immediately lost to view. storm's mouth closed slowly. "hell!" he said, a little dazedly. "i'm afraid to start fishing again, frank. might catch a cross between a battleship and a whale." "i'm hauling up anchor," hammond countered, grimly. "i don't like the looks of this at all. the coast guard ought to hear of this." he got one hand on the anchor rope and was starting to hoist in when the strange "catch" suddenly reappeared. it came down in a long slant, circled over the skiff a few times, and finally settled on the scorched seat from which it had taken off. hammond stared at the thing and swore. peter storm took a firm hold of his oar. holes suddenly appeared in the strange craft. hammond noticed that there were no doors in evidence. the holes seemed to dilate open, like camera shutters, in the gleaming body. from these openings a host of small creatures crawled. they swarmed out toward both ends of the boat seat. storm straightened, oar in hand. "ants!" he snapped, disgustedly. he began to swing the ash blade down on the scurrying creatures. the things continued to move about, apparently unharmed. dents appeared in the oar and in the seat. hammond bent over the scurrying creatures and studied them. "no use, pete," he muttered. "they're not ants. there's no division of head, thorax and abdomen. they're eight-legged and cephalothoracic--more like the arachnids." his startled surprise was fading under the prod of scientific curiosity. "funny thing, pete--the legs and shells seem to be composed of the same substance as the 'thing' they come from. look!" storm dropped his oar and came forward. the boat rocked a little to his shift of weight. a faint humming came from the "thing" on the seat, catching his attention. but hammond, intent on one of the small creatures he was about to pick up, did not notice. not until pete's hoarse shout jerked him away. "look out, frank! that tube--" hammond straightened up to face his friend. but peter storm had vanished, as if he had never been! between hammond and where storm had been was the "thing" on the seat. the humming emanating from it now was distinctly audible, and ominous! a shining tube, mounted in a turret, had appeared in one of the openings. the tube was swinging around, lining itself on hammond. the dazed chemist did not think. he reacted instinctively, knowing, somehow, that that tube was related to storm's disappearance. he twisted, violently, and tried to dive over the boat side. something halted him in the act. he felt a strange numbness wrap itself about him, and a cold like nothing he had ever experienced penetrated to his very vitals. then he felt himself falling, as if through an endless blackness.... * * * * * the darkness faded, slowly. he felt his feet jar on solid ground, and the terrible cold left him. but for long moments frank hammond stood rigid, his dazed mind trying to accept the strange world he had fallen into. the landscape about him was maroon in color. irregular ridges and gullies of apparently molten stone hemmed him in. off to his left he could see a huge, bubbly pit that reminded him of fumaroles he had seen in the national yellowstone park. far in the distance, to his right and left, maroon cliffs towered into blue mists. hammond stared at the weird scene. under him he could feel the slow rise and sway of the entire land, as if it were unstable, rocking in space! for the first few moments hammond thought he was dreaming. he must have been rendered unconscious by the strange "thing" on the boat. soon he would awaken-- but the slightly swaying maroon landscape persisted. hammond looked down at his nearly naked, bronzed body. he hadn't changed. he took a few tentative steps toward the bubbly pit, and the sudden realization that all this _was_ real sickened him. where was he? what had happened to him and storm? a harsh, metallic rattle answered him. hammond whirled. topping one of the far ridges appeared an eight-legged monster of gigantic size. it was without head or tail. its unsegmented body was an iridescent blue, and shaped like a giant pumpkin seed. the thing flashed menacingly in the bright light of a sun that was but a huge blur in the misty sky. it headed for hammond with incredible speed, a huge foreleg stretching out in readiness. hammond wasted no time in speculation. his dazed mind reacted to but one impulse. flight! turning, he ran for the nearest gully. he went down in a half scramble, and ran along it, the walls looming over his head. but his huge pursuer gained on him. he could hear the metallic rattle of those flashing legs close behind him. despair gripped the young chemist as he scrambled out of the gully and ran up the nearest ridge. the landscape ahead of him was dipping down as he ran, seemingly being tilted by his weight. the thought came back to hammond that this must be a nightmare. the eight-legged, colossal thing pursuing him was exactly like the tiny antlike creatures that had swarmed out of the strange "catch" he pulled into the _crawfish_ but a few hours ago. or was it a few hours? he didn't know. he no longer knew anything. grim-faced, his breath beginning to come in gasps, he slid down a steep maroon bank, and raced along the shadowed cut that gradually deepened. it was a hopeless flight. behind him the clattering monster came, running along the top of the ravine which was too narrow to allow it to enter. the steep-walled cut suddenly ended. the sides here were steep and smooth--a perfect cul-de-sac. hammond turned, his brown fists clenched. the walls hemming him in were perhaps fifteen feet above his head. the metal monster halted on the rim. a strange light blinked on in the nose of that creature, or mechanism. it probed down at him, spotlighting him. a giant foreleg, ending in a formidable pair of forceps, reached down along the light beam for him. the focussing light, swinging along the opposite wall before steadying on hammond, had revealed to the desperate research chemist a transverse fissure, barely wide enough to admit him. hammond took the chance. the giant claw was but a foot above his head when he twisted, sprang away from the wall. the forcep jerked, swung after him. hammond beat it to the fissure by a foot. he didn't stop. he kept running, looking back over his shoulder to see if the monster was following. he didn't notice the fissure ended abruptly in space. not until he suddenly felt himself treading empty air. then he began to fall, turning slowly, like a slow motion diver in the newsreels. * * * * * he fell a long way. in terms of feet, as he judged it, the drop was incredible. below him a huge mass loomed out of a brown, heaving sea. above him--he saw it, once, as he faced upward in his turning fall--he glimpsed what was a gigantic span of maroon earth, hundreds of feet thick, that was supported by the huge, maroon cliffs at either side. it was from that span he had fallen! a strange, numbing thought came to him, then, so incredible in its implication he discarded it. but it persisted, kept tapping at the back of his mind-- he was still in the _crawfish_! the thought was fantastic. yet it was less incredible than if it were not true. the turreted tube, evidently, had sprayed an invisible ray that had so changed him in size that the antlike things he had been about to examine now loomed like colossi over him. the ridges and gullies and fumaroles were brush marks and paint bubbles in the maroon paint of the seat, and the towering cliffs were the boat sides. the high span from which he was falling must be nothing less than the boat seat! and the huge, elliptical land mass toward which he was falling must be-- he landed then. the substance beneath his feet was soft, spongy. it broke his fall. around him was a momentary red glow, as of the sun shining through a filter that blocked out all waves above the red band. he passed through slimy pools within the huge mass, and momentary revulsion gripped him. then he emerged out into brief daylight, riding a huge disc to the brown, heaving sea. he hit with a splash. fathoms deep to him, he went directly to the bottom, as if he were composed of a substance many times heavier than lead. and he remained on the bottom. not even his instinctive attempt to swim upward could lift him to the surface. the ironic thought hit him then, as death stared at him with grinning face. the huge mass through which he had plunged must have been the body of one of the bluefish they had caught. evidently, though incredibly reduced in size, his weight in relation to the earth's pull, was still one hundred and eighty pounds. and the brown, heaving sea at the bottom of which he now rested, was merely the bilge water of the _crawfish_. and in the next minute or two he, frank hammond, was going to drown in it! he turned, instinctively, and ran for the boat side. again he felt the boat tip to his unbalancing weight. overhead the bilge water rushed to lap high against his side. there was danger that his weight would so tip the skiff that it would ship water from the sound. but he had to chance it, or drown where he stood. his lungs were nearly bursting when he came upon the dark, gigantic loom of the boat side. and strangely, at this moment, the steep slant of the floor began to level--the bilge water washed back from the side. the thought came to hammond, then, that peter storm must be running for the opposite side of the boat, instinctively realizing the need of keeping this strange world on an even keel. lungs bursting, hammond started the climb up the dark wall. like some tiny mite, almost invisible to the naked eye, hammond finally emerged from the bilge water. aching lungs drew in great draughts of clean air. spent, still somewhat dazed by the incredible truth, he did not notice the eight-legged colossus that came down along the cliff toward him. not until it loomed over him, and a giant claw reached down for him, did he become aware of it. and then it was too late. he gasped, tried to dodge. a giant forcep grasped him about the middle, and with a quick, deft motion another claw-like appendage clipped a small, parachute-like metal harness over his shoulders. then the first forcep lifted him, easily, and drew him up to the metal monster where a round port dilated open and he was thrust inside. * * * * * the huge claw withdrew, and the port closed. hammond blinked his eyes. he was in a big room, the ceiling of which was transparent, letting in a subdued light. ringing him, in a circle two deep, were warriors of an ancient era. amazons, complete to breast plates and oval shields, cinctures and sandals. lithe, beautiful, yet erect and disciplined, they watched him as a trainer watches a jungle cat on its first day in the arena. hammond waited. the thought came to him, now, that these were very modern amazons. for beside the shield they carried a weapon that closely resembled a modern rifle. and on their shoulders each carried an identical parachute-like contrivance similar to the one fastened on hammond. the young chemist took a deep breath. he said: "what's the idea, girls? this some kind of a new game?" the sound of his voice seemed to startle them. a golden haired warrior, perhaps a minor officer, for she wore a green armlet, made a short, quick gesture. the ringing warriors closed in on hammond. instinct moved the young chemist's arms--the instinct to fight, to win free of this strange experience he could not understand. but crippling that instinct were the habits of civilization. he couldn't bring himself to hit these girls, warriors or no. yet he tried to win free. he pushed the first two off their feet, whirled, and bucked the rest of the line with his shoulders. they parted under his assault. but with disciplined movement the others closed in and fairly smothered him under them. he felt metal clasped about his arms and legs, and suddenly he was unable to struggle, to heave free of that pinning mass. panting, his face grim, he subsided. * * * * * the amazons reformed ranks. he was left with arms and legs chained in a manner that allowed him, when on his feet, to take short steps forward. the officer with the green armband gestured again, and gave with it a verbal order. her voice was musical, in a tongue entirely alien to hammond. two warriors marched forward, bent, helped hammond to his feet. the officer took hold of the free length of blue chain, and started to walk hammond toward the far end of the big room. hammond followed. behind him the two warriors kept pace, rifle-like weapons held ready. a door dilated open in the wall, and hammond found himself in a long, softly lighted runway. he was marched along this to another door, and motioned within. the door closed behind him. it was a small room, bare and blank on three sides save for a number of iron handgrips on the walls. the fourth wall was transparent. hammond shuffled to it. at the same moment the floor under him pitched and rolled, and the clank of machinery rumbled through the iron monster. he grasped the nearest handgrip, and clung. looking out through the transparent wall, he could see that the monster tank (for now he guessed the eight-legged antlike thing to be) was climbing up the boat side to the seat. the tank leveled off. above him towered the outlines of the "big one." scores of the monster tanks were climbing back up the parent side, to disappear in as many openings. the tank which held hammond moved steadily, nosed into its compartment. the door closed after them. the tank rumbled on across a large, dimly lighted room, more like some enormous storage garage, for hammond could glimpse the bulks of dozens of the huge tanks along the far walls, and in one corner he saw several of what resembled fast, ultra streamlined, all metal planes. the tank came to a halt. the door of hammond's cell opened, and the officer with the two guards came in. hammond was motioned to follow her out. he was led out of the tank which was immediately maneuvered to its niche among the vague bulks along the wall. a door dilated open at the officer's approach, and they passed through it into another long, green lighted runway. they went along this for some distance, then turned into another room, as huge as the colossal garage into which the tank had entered. thousands of the wiry amazons were swarming in through a hundred doorways to this room. evidently they were members of the expedition which had been sent to locate and capture him, and which must have consisted of nearly a hundred of the strange, ambulatory war tanks. the amazon officer led him across this huge room which reminded hammond of a railway or bus terminal, and into another corridor. it was then that the hugeness of the "big one" became evident to hammond. they marched through a number of huge rooms, climbed three spiral ramps, and popped into a half dozen tranverse corridors. and only on these upper levels, in rooms that held banks of whirring machinery, did hammond see the males. they carried no weapons. they all wore white, collarless crew neck garments that resembled smocks which came down to their knees. they sported bearded chins and jowls, but smooth shaven upper lips. the beards were all trimmed to sharp points, and they looked alike as stenciled copies. but here and there among them were some with remarkable physical characteristics. each of these occasional individuals had a tremendously large left arm, fully as big as one of his legs. it was carried crooked at the elbow, with the forearm held horizontally in front of him. the right arm, on the contrary, was spindly and underdeveloped. these males had thin, scraggy beards, and strange dull eyes that followed hammond as he was marched past. if the other males noticed him they gave no sign. they seemed completely subordinated in this huge craft. the spiral ramps kept leading upward. finally they reached a corridor with a transparent ceiling, and hammond realized that he was now at the top of the strange craft. a moment later he was led before a door at either side of which stood a stiff amazon guard. the guards saluted the officer by raising the right hand to the heart. then they stepped aside. the officer stared at the closed door. her forehead furrowed slightly. then she nodded. turning, she removed the shackles from hammond, stepped back. the door dilated open. the officer made a sharp, unmistakable gesture with her right hand, and the armed guard took a stolid step forward. hammond shrugged. ducking a little to clear the top of the doorway, he stepped inside. * * * * * across the well lighted room, close to the transparent prow of the ship, was a huge, metal desk. papers and small charts lay scattered upon it. but hammond's eyes scarcely noticed. he stopped, just within the room, the door closing silently behind him. then he took a deep breath, and grinned: "now i know i must be dreaming!" the girl behind the desk did not smile. she looked at him, solemnly, then a strange, quick fire leaped across her startlingly beautiful face. she lowered her gaze abruptly, and her hands stiffened on the desk. she rose, and when she looked again at hammond there was a hardness, a piercing penetration to her sea-green eyes that seemed to probe like a surgeon's scalpel into hammond's very brain. a fire seemed to spread, quickly, through his mind, as though long dormant cells were stirring, growing to awareness. and with it, impacting strangely on his ears, the girl spoke, her voice low and musical. "earthman, your thoughts are unpleasant to me. i, gena, commander of the spacecraft, _vandar iii_, with a million warriors at my disposal, am not for you." hammond's grin changed to a startled gape. confusion moiled in his brain. how had she known what he was thinking? and where had she learned english! she spoke it like an american. the girl smiled, as if hearing his confusion. she was a tall, lissome girl; a corn-yellow blond of remarkable beauty. but there was an imperiousness in her manner, a quiet dignity to her regard, a grace to her movements that set her above the amazons that had captured hammond. that she was a warrior also, albeit, the commanding officer of this strange craft, was evinced by her attire which was the same as that of the other female fighters. on a small table to her left was a shield, differing from the plain blue of the others by the single, glowing white star in its center. with it reposed one of the rifle-like weapons. on her left arm she wore a metal band, like that of the minor officer that had escorted hammond here. but this band was of gold, and it held the same symbol of high status, the single white star of glowing stone that writhed with a strange white fire. hammond took control of his confused thoughts. he said: "i'm sorry if i've offended you, gena. but i can't control my thoughts, and they were sincere." his handsome face lighted with his quick, infectious grin. "you are very beautiful, and very desirable." the quick fire leaped across the girl's face again, and in hammond's mind there suddenly beat a tumultuous surge of emotions other than his own. then the girl's face went sombre, and the strange surge in hammond abruptly ceased. "you are a very impetuous young barbarian," she said, coldly. "but perhaps your uncouthness can be excused. you will indeed prove an interesting specimen to present to aleea, the queen mother." hammond frowned. he had almost forgotten the utter strangeness of the entire experience, but it came back to him now, and with it the clamor for explanation. the girl read his thoughts. "i, gena, am not of earth. nor did i, before you entered this room, know your language, or know that your people call this planet earth and the planet from which i come mars. all this, and as much of earth and your civilization as you know i have probed from your mind while you stood there." she came around the desk, smiling now. "your thoughts are confused. you do not readily believe. mars--impossible! no ship has yet been constructed that can negotiate the airless void of space--no _earthian_ craft!" she emphasized. "but we of mars have." hammond looked about him, out through the transparent hull wall to the far low maroon cliffs that he knew were the boat sides. he shrugged. fantastic or no, this was the reality, and with a true scientist's adaptable mind he accepted it. "how is it then," he questioned calmly, "that the warriors that captured me did not learn my language, nor read my thoughts?" gena's imperial features held dignity. "i am a commander," she answered. "which means that i am a thorough master of that which your scientists call esp--extra-sensory perception--as well as its opposite, which they have not yet recognized, but which they might call est--extra-sensory transmission. it takes a certain type of personality, even on mars, and years of training to attain to the power to perceive what is in other minds, plus the power to transmit to them, selectively, and at will, that which i wish them to know, understand, or obey." hammond relaxed, his keen mind enjoying itself. "then you are not speaking to me in american? yet to me it seems you are talking my language." gena's eyes quickened. "precisely. i am speaking the language of the mind. your mind reinterprets what i say in the phonetic symbols you call american, due to speech habits, just as it interprets such phonetic symbols as thoughts and ideas. if you spoke another language the written symbols and sounds conjured up by your mind would be different, but the thoughts and ideas conveyed would be the same." hammond frowned. "then, if you and your people use only the language of the mind, how does it happen that i heard spoken words which i did not understand?" "i did not say we use _only_ the language of the mind. we have our own phonetic symbols; in fact, i am talking audibly to you now. when you first entered i probed your mind, and put you _en rapport_ as you might call it, not only with our mind language, but with our thought symbols, so you now reinterpret both as your own language." hammond shook his head. "but i still speak in american." "no, you are only thinking in american. you are now vocalizing in our language as naturally as if you were speaking your tongue. here, look at this chart." * * * * * hammond glanced at the chart she held before him. it seemed written in english, though the ideas conveyed were somewhat startling and foreign, having to do with intricate calculation of space travel. yet hammond recalled that only a few moments before they had been in strange and unintelligible symbols. he nodded, slowly, a little awed. "you have advanced far on mars. and here on earth we smugly pride ourselves on our knowledge, on a civilization that even now is tearing itself to shreds. surely, you of mars, with your advanced science, have succeeded in founding a better and more peaceful world." the girl's eyes clouded, and for a moment her thought control slipped. hammond had a wondering sensation of fear and anxiety. "we have come far, earthman," she nodded. "evolution seems to have started from the same base on mars, and taken the same general course as that of earth. with variations, of course. we, the metiphrons, the mammals of mars, have achieved to high civilization. our cities are united and at peace--among ourselves. our science has wrought wondrous changes. we have crossed space, and we have harnessed as well as condensed the atom. on mars we are of normal size, which is to say we average about the size and weight of you americans. this space ship, those tanks, our weapons--all weigh and bulk accordingly. but for space travel, and for certain doubtful ventures, we have condensed the atoms of our bodies and that of this craft and all our weapons, without changing their mass or qualitative characteristics. the electrical particles are all there, and in precisely the same proportion. but in each atom the particles are much closer together, moving in smaller orbits." hammond nodded. "then i still weigh one hundred and eighty pounds?" "you did, till your weight was reduced by the degravitator strapped to your back. remove it, and your body, without changing size, will once more attract and be attracted by your planet sufficiently to weigh one hundred and eighty pounds. this ship, small as it no doubt appeared to you and your companion, weighs countless tons. were it not for the giant degravitator in the central room it would plummet down to the ocean depths." hammond nodded, slowly. "with such science, and at peace among yourselves, you must be supreme on your planet. and yet--" his gaze shifted to shield and weapon on the small table. "you seem a warrior people." gena's face clouded. "life is a struggle, earthman. forever and beyond, perhaps. we metiphrons have achieved to unity and peace. but on mars evolution took two parallel paths. that which culminated in the metiphrons, my people, arising as on earth from the lowly protozoa. and with it, keeping pace, that of the crustacean--culminating in the opposite life form of mars--the sediphrons. for centuries now they have fought us for mastery of the planet. somewhat related to your arachnidæ, their later evolution has been consciously anthropomorphic, as they strove to imitate us in everything, even in bodily shape. their motives?" the girl smiled bleakly. "the ancient motives of life--to enslave us, to be dominant on the planet, to infuse our blood with their own in order to speed their anthropomorphic evolution--and finally, to use as food those of us not suitable for slaves or to bear their hybrid progeny. "you can see why the very thought of them is repugnant to us. why every female bears arms from infancy. and why we hoped to find aid, from the females here on earth, for our fight to crush the sediphrons." hammond nodded. "then the metiphron males don't bear arms?" "bear arms?" gena smiled. "the males attend to our machinery, take care of the incubators and watch our young until they are able to take care of themselves. but fight?" she shook her head, as if the idea were strange and almost laughable. hammond grinned. "things are somewhat changed around on earth, gena. the women do plenty of scrapping here, of course--and there's some who would insist they have it over the males, most of the time, in domestic life. but the really big blowoffs, like the ones going on in europe and in asia--they're still strictly for males." the girl commander shrugged, dubiously. "men are too phlegmatic to make good fighters." she broke off, caught by a warning red signal that suddenly flashed to life on a complicated instrument board to left of the desk. for the space of several seconds she concentrated, her pretty brow slightly furrowed. when she turned to hammond there was a worried frown in her eyes. "my audiodetector indicates the proximity of a strange space ship. its commander does not answer my telepathic inquiries. something is definitely wrong. i must place my sub-officers on the alert. also ardiné, my division commander, who is conducting the search for your friend, peter storm." once more she concentrated on the issuance of telepathic orders. * * * * * the floor suddenly lurched violently beneath them. hammond thrown off balance, went down to his hands. he twisted erect, supple as a cat, and reached out a supporting arm for gena, who had been thrown against the desk. a strange thrill tingled through him at the softness of her. the girl was half turned, facing the transparent prow wall. she said: "zuggoth, the sediphron king!" there was fear in her, momentarily. then she stiffened, her brow furrowing in telepathic concentration, evidently issuing orders to the defense posts of the _vandar iii_. hammond, glancing over her shoulder, saw that a second craft, exactly like the one he was in, had alighted on the boat seat beside them. holes were already dilating open in the gleaming side. ugly muzzles, huge and ominous to hammond's changed perspective, thrust through these holes. a moment later the flash and roar of heavy artillery shattered the quiet. at the same time hundreds of the eight legged war tanks swarmed out of holes in the lower part of the space cruiser. some of these charged toward the _vandar iii_, and were immediately met in combat by the divisions gena had ordered out to assist sub-commander ardiné in her search for peter storm. others scuttled off to engage the separated scouters. gena seemed to have forgotten hammond. she watched the heavy electronic artillery from the hostile war cruiser, her mind sending telepathic command after command to the various sections of the ship. the _vandar's_ own artillery was firing, but spasmodically, as if trouble was aboard. gena's brow furrowed. * * * * * hammond watched the strange battle. the ambulant tanks, he saw, were not only fighting with similar guns of lighter calibre, but were engaging each other with their clawed feet, like crustaceans. the guns did not fire projectiles, but flashes of electronic force which resembled lightning. the armor of the space ships held under the primary blasts, but was eroded by them, and repeated bolts, striking in the same spot, would eventually break through. the quick flame of combat surged through hammond as he watched. "why don't you maneuver the ship?" he shouted, forgetting the girl-commander could read his thoughts. "circle over them, come down on them from some blind spot. you can't win in this position. they've got more guns!" the girl faced him, as if suddenly aware he was by her side. her features were white, and there was strain in her, in her flashing eyes. "i can't!" she replied. "there were traitors among the men in my crew. sediphrons, disguised as hybrids. they have seized the control room, and wrecked many of our big guns. we've lost!" "no!" hammond cried, roughly. "the control room! maybe we can still take over, if there's not too many of them. if they haven't wrecked the driving mechanism we might still get away. where is it, gena?" the girl looked at him, strangely. "the males of earth are indeed a different breed," she commented. then: "come! perhaps we have a chance." she gathered up her shield and electronic rifle, and headed for what seemed a blank wall. hammond followed. a door suddenly dilated open before gena, and they passed through, hurried down a short, deserted ramp that spiraled downward for about a hundred feet. it ended at an open doorway. beyond, in the midst of electronic crackle and strange battle shouts, a dozen hybrids were holding the control room against a company of amazons trying to force their way in from another doorway across the room. two of gena's operators were on the floor, evidently dead. three others struggled in the grip of the scraggy bearded, huge-armed "fifth column" hybrids. other hybrids were smashing the delicate controls. these saw gena and hammond first. they swung around, reaching for electronic rifles. gena succeeded in killing two of them. hammond, closing in quickly behind her, noticed that the rifles were fired, not from the shoulder, but held with the stock beneath the arm, and manouvered with one hand while the shield was held with the others. before she could fire again gena became the target for two of the traitors. she caught the flash from one rifle on her shield, but could not raise it in time to ward off the other. the electronic bolt caught her squarely on her helmet. with a muffled growl hammond charged. the scraggy bearded traitor fired hurriedly, evidently disconcerted by sight of a bronzed, muscled male diving for him. the blast seared lightly across hammond's back muscles. then his hurtling body smashed into his opponent, hurling him down. he swore monotonously, viciously, clubbed with savage fists at the bearded, screaming face. his victim screamed for aid. at the next instant a wave of the fighting amazons, evidently spurred to frenzy by sight of their fallen leader, surged forward, blasting into the room. hammond clung to the struggling saboteur he had floored. the sediphron had lost rifle and shield, and was gouging at hammond's eyes with the fingers of his dwarfed right hand. the other, huge and leg-like, was locked behind the chemist's neck in a bone crushing grip. hammond's shoulder muscles writhed. he thrust his right hand up to a scraggy bearded chin. to his surprise, not only the chin but the whole face came away, revealing another beneath it. a hideous, crablike face with popping eyes that stood out on stalks. it was covered with a green chitinous armor. startled, the sediphron "fifth columnist" relaxed its grip on his neck. hammond wrenched free. his hand clamped down on the huge arm. the sediphron surged back, leaving the artificial limb in the chemist's hand. a huge, toothed claw was revealed. the sediphron surged in, reaching for hammond. the earthman twisted, a faint sneer writhing his lips. the sediphron was unbelievably clumsy. hammond caught the descending claw and gave a sharp, quick twist. the entire limb came off in his hands, broken cleanly at the shoulder joint. swinging the heavy limb in a swift moulinet the earthman brought it down with crushing force beneath the popping eyes of his adversary. it crashed through the chitinous skull as if it were an eggshell. hammond whirled back to the fallen girl-commander, bent by her limp body. her fallen rifle caught his eye, and he reached for it, sensing the swift swirl of battle swing toward him. his fingers fell short. a numbing pain lashed through his head, bringing quick blackness. * * * * * consciousness returned slowly to hammond. he felt himself being carried. but it was the sharp barked order that lingered in his mind, that seemed to rift the blackness that shrouded his aching brain. his eyes opened. he found himself looking up into the hideous, crablike face of a sediphron who carried him by the shoulders. the sharp, imperious voice came again, halting hammond's carriers. the young chemist was put on his feet, flanked immediately by a half dozen sediphrons with menacing electronic rifles. hammond stiffened. he was back in gena's big observation and chart room. a horde of armed sediphrons filled the room, drawn up in stiff military array. behind the metal desk sat a huge man-like crustacean, deep green in color. an enormous, toothed claw rested before him on the scattered flight charts. the crablike mouth moved constantly. words drummed against hammond's ear, in a language he strangely understood. "bring in the other earth specimen, vard. and the metiphron sub-commander, ardiné." hammond turned. only then did he see gena, flanked by a sediphron guard, facing the hideous crustacean behind the desk. their eyes met, and a warm surge of thankfulness enveloped hammond. "thank god, gena!" he thought, forcefully, "you're unharmed." the girl-commander smiled wanly. "this is the end, earthman. zuggoth has won." the crablike thing behind the desk teetered a little in the chair. his thoughts interrupted harshly. "not the end, gena, for you. you and your sub-commander will round out my harem back on syrrvi. this daring, primitive earthian male and his companion will be minutely examined." back of hammond a door dilated open. grim-faced, with a gash over his left eye, stocky peter storm was pushed into the room by a squad of sediphrons. a flashing-eyed brunette, reaching barely to storm's shoulder, walked by his side, head erect. storm's grim face relaxed as he saw hammond. his mouth cracked into a wry grin. "so they got you, too, frank!" he said in english. hammond nodded, gravely. "how'd they get you, pete?" storm shrugged, looked down at the brunette by his side. "ardiné finally cornered me, with one of those eight-legged tanks. _under a nail in the boat seat!_" storm shook his head, as if the thing was crazy. "we were heading back for the 'big one' when the other space cruiser landed on the seat and started blasting. three sediphron tanks cornered us and wrecked our vehicle. ardiné," he glanced down at her again, in a manner that flicked understanding into hammond's eyes, "put up a good fight. but they finally got us, and marched us here. looks like this zuggoth has taken the ship. a division of his blitzkrieg panzers are mopping up--" zuggoth's harsh order suddenly obtruded. "silence!" storm shrugged. the sediphron warriors in the room stiffened expectantly. the hideous crablike mouth worked. "imperial orders of zuggoth, first in command over kulaav, land of the sediphrons! all the males of the _vandar iii_ shall be immediately put to death, and stored in the cargo rooms, along with the female warriors who have been killed in battle. these we shall use for food on our journey back to syrrvi. the unharmed females shall be divided among you, according to rank, and placed in your harem. all but these two--" his huge claw lifted to indicate gena and ardiné. "they are reserved for the first one!" a low, satisfied beat of sound came from the attentive warriors. "the machinery of the _vandar iii_ shall be immediately repaired for our triumphant return to kulaav. these two strange males, natives of earth, i personally wish to dissect in the laboratory. important information concerning future forays in greater force to this green planet may be obtained in this manner." the huge claw waved imperiously. "i, zuggoth, first in command, have spoken." for a moment there was silence. in that stillness hammond's desperate gaze sought storm's. death, so casually pronounced, death on the dissecting table. it was monstrous. it was storm who moved first. he took a quick sidestep, and swung, without preamble. his still taped, solid fist crushed through the green chitinous armor of the nearest guard's face. then he was whirling, striking again, and hammond was joining him, lashing at the nearest guard, trying to slash a path to zuggoth, first in command. it was a bitter battle while it lasted. hammond nearly made it. he saw zuggoth rear back in alarm, half lift his electronic rifle--then a clubbed weapon sank the fighting chemist to his knees, and a moment later he was smothered under a pile of bodies. chains were shackled about his wrists and ankles. he was jerked erect to face zuggoth, who had relaxed again in his chair. the ball-like eyes of the sediphron king glared at him. "take them to the dissecting rooms at once!" he ordered. "there shall i cut the wild life from them, slowly, with much pain!" hammond shook the hair from his eyes and met storm's battered grin with one of his own. then his gaze sought gena's. the girl's face was white, her lips trembling. her thoughts reached him, heavy with regret. "goodbye, earthman!" the chemist's lips went grim. "goodbye, gena," he answered. then a sediphron guard shoved him roughly toward the door, after storm. * * * * * the dissecting room was high-walled, white, full of strange apparatus that only vaguely resembled similar machines of earth. there was the martian fluoroscope with which storm and hammond were minutely examined, and notes taken on a martian "talkie"--evidently a highly advanced type camera with sound track arrangement which recorded that revealed by the fluoroscope and the comments of the observer. the fluoroscope was a vast improvement over the earth type. hammond, watching storm being examined with it, saw that any part of his companion's internal anatomy could be brought into sharp focus on the screen. heart, lungs, bone structure, arteries. each was minutely examined, probed into--the while the martian "talkie" hummed softly. a number of strange drugs were needled into them as they stood behind the fluoroscope. drugs that burned like fire, contorting their bodies with convulsions, and which were immediately eased by the introduction of a neutralizing drug. others that paralyzed motor nerves, and that deadened the sensory cells. all was recorded by the laboratory scientists. finally, hammond and storm were strapped on the dissecting tables. a blinding, white light beat down on their almost naked bodies. zuggoth came into the laboratory then. for a few moments he and the laboratory scientists held a consultation. hammond, craning his neck, could see the sediphron king's crablike mouth work, see the ball-like eyes wave on the end of their stalks. the martian "talkie" was run for him, the picture sequences thrown against a special screen that held the scenes clear without the dimming of the bright laboratory lights. zuggoth watched attentively, only his revolting eyes swaying. then he waved his huge claw. the "talkie" was shut off. huge, hideous, he walked to the dissecting tables. a smaller table, holding a gleaming array of scalpels and cutting instruments of all types was wheeled to his side. [illustration: _zuggoth turned to hammond. his dwarfed right hand, humanlike, with tiny fingers, picked up a glittering knife._] he turned to hammond. his dwarfed right hand, humanlike, with tiny fingers, picked up a knife. * * * * * at that moment a hidden bell began to clang incessantly. zuggoth paused, half turned. the laboratory assistants fidgeted. one of them said: "it is the alarm signal, first one. something has happened in the ship!" zuggoth hesitated. then he flung the knife down on the small table. "keep guard over the earthians, cuzzvi," he snapped to the head scientist. "i will see what's causing the trouble!" hammond's tightened muscles relaxed: the sweat on his forehead felt cool. unexpectedly, he had been given a breathing spell. but for how long? instinctively he tested the flexible, silken straps that held him to the table. they did not give, though his muscles bunched and strained. there was a silken thong about his neck, holding his head down. he turned his head, slowly, till he faced storm. "looks like our friend zuggoth never heard of an anesthetic," he muttered, with an attempt at casualness he did not feel. "funny thing, pete, it still doesn't seem real. all this, i mean. just a few hours ago we were in a skiff, fishing for blues. now--" pete managed a grin. "now we're still in the boat. only it isn't--" looking toward hammond, he was facing the laboratory door, and he saw them first. hybrids, armed with shield and electronic rifles. two of them. one of them carried red and green insignia on its dwarfed right arm. hammond turned his head, warned by the look on storm's face. the laboratory head, cuzzvi, saw the intruders a moment later. he drew up stiffly, evidently noting the rank of the foremost hybrid. then, all at once, he whirled, gave a short cry of warning to his assistants, and reached for an electronic rifle in a wall rack. the rifles in the hands of the strange hybrids lanced their electronic bolts. cuzzvi staggered against the fluoroscope, his green face fused into black mess. the other two assistants made a dash for a door in the far end of the room. neither reached it. a moment later the hybrid officer was bending over hammond, releasing him. the other hybrid was doing the same for storm. hammond's mind whirled. he said: "thanks, boys. we sure--" he gasped, his fingers tightening on the hybrid's huge arm. the scraggy bearded face had been pushed back, revealing beneath the disguise gena's beautiful features. "come!" she said sharply, drawing forth a similar hybrid disguise from within the garment. "get into this, earthman. we have no time to lose. we must get away from here before zuggoth returns." hammond and storm obeyed with alacrity. they got into the hybrid costumes zuggoth's sediphrons had used to plant themselves in gena's ship. they padded out the huge left arm with a soft, cottonlike material they found in the laboratory. ardiné helped them in the task. in the meantime gena disappeared in a closet-like room at the far end of the laboratory. when she returned she held two strange-looking metal objects, like long, dull tubes with a dial face and a knob. she tucked these away under her costume without explaining. ardiné, also, had been foraging. she came back to them with what seemed like two small flashlights. her voice was hurried. "the size reducing and expanding ray guns. perhaps we'll have use for them." gena nodded. her voice was quick, determined. "earthmen, ardiné and i are going to make an attempt to capture zuggoth's ship, and escape back to mars. the _vandar iii_ is being repaired, but it will take hours. our only hope is the unharmed sediphron craft." hammond caught up one of the electronic rifles. "we're with you, gena," he said grimly. "lead the way!" * * * * * the door dilated open as they approached. a moment later they were marching stiffly down a long corridor. hammond gripped the electronic rifle he had taken from cuzzvi, his eyes hard under the strange optical openings in the hybrid mask. the ship was swarming with sediphrons, searching for the girls who had escaped from zuggoth's harem. at any moment-- as if in answer to his worst fears a sediphron squad appeared from a side corridor. they halted abruptly. the leader eyed the insignia on gena's arm. then he raised his huge left arm at a diagonal across his chest, evidently in salute. gena's thoughts rasped: "the engine rooms. the first one orders. the escaped metiphrons have been sighted." the sediphron guard wheeled, went down the corridor at a shuffling gait. hammond relaxed, feeling sweat in the palms of his hands, on his brow. "this way!" gena ordered. they cut down the side corridor from which the guard had emerged, and took a long ramp downward. several times they met squads of the ugly crustaceans, but their disguise and gena's harsh commands got them by. they were well down in the ship, cutting across a big machine room, deserted by the metiphron workers who tended the whirring machines when gena halted. ardiné and the earthmen waited while she darted down a long aisle and vanished into a smaller room beyond where a huge, turbine-like thing of glinting metal spun with high-pitched hum. the girl-commander had withdrawn one of the dull metal tubes before leaving them. she turned the knob, which moved the dial hand, evidently setting it to desired position. several minutes later she was back without the tube. ardiné's voice was shaken. "gena--how long?" "four hours!" gena replied. "four hours until the degravitator of the _vandar iii_ blows up." there was regret in her voice. hammond kept his silence. but the need for haste now, dogged them as they followed ramp after ramp down into the ship. "hurry!" gena said again and again. some of the route was familiar to hammond, who remembered being led along it on his way to gena's navigation room. he was sure of it when they stepped into the huge garage where row upon row of war tanks stood dark and unmoving along the walls. there was no guard about. across the room a tank was just rumbling in, its eight legs clanking metallically. evidently it was one of the sediphron scouts that had been combing the boat for any of gena's tanks that might have escaped the surprise attack. gena led the way swiftly. they clambered into one of the squat parked vehicles. a moment later it clanked out, passing the larger one that was sidling into parking position nearer the door. they weren't stopped. a moment later they were climbing down the side of the "big one" to the boat seat, and scurrying across the ridges and gullies that were strewn with the wrecks of sediphron and metiphron war vehicles. through the observation prow hammond could see the vague maroon cliff that was the near boat side. for a moment longing assailed him--longing to be in his own world again, to be out of this fantastic world of ultra-smallness. his thoughts turned to the ray guns ardiné carried, then he dismissed the thought that came to him. he owed gena and ardiné his life; and for what it would be worth he was with them in this suicidal attempt to wrest from zuggoth and his crustacean horde the huge battle craft that had followed the _vandar iii_ across space. zuggoth's ship finally loomed up, like a colossus over the small tank. unhesitatingly gena sent the ambulatory vehicle up the spiny side. the sediphron craft was an exact copy of gena's ship, and the girl-commander guided the small tank unerringly to one of the dilating doors that opened to a telepathic command. the huge room they entered was an exact duplicate of that which they had left in the _vandar iii_. a sediphron guard watched them slide the small tank into parking space. then his telepathic order crackled into their thoughts. "who enters the flagship of the first one? answer." hammond kept his mind blank. he saw gena's brow furrow slightly. the words seemed to sound in his ears. "volkzv, second in command of hybrid intelligence. searching flagship on order of zuggoth, the first one. gena, commander of the _vandar iii_, and her sub-commander, ardiné, have escaped with the two earthmen. all squads dispatched to the search. zuggoth orders!" there was a moment of hesitation. the hideous sediphron squad leader's eyes swayed gently. then his reply came. "proceed, volkzv. we stay to guard the tank room." hammond kept a grip on his thoughts. stiff-legged, marching with the shuffling gait of the hybrids, he followed gena and ardiné and storm out of the war tank, and across the vast chamber to the corridor. zuggoth's ship was practically deserted. evidently only a skeleton guard had been left behind. all others had been ordered out to battle, and were now concentrated in the captured metiphron space cruiser. hammond breathed a sigh of relief. it looked as if gena's desperate plan might succeed. the sudden clanging of a huge bell somewhere in the ship's bowels stiffened them. storm's quick voice sounded. "the alarm signal! the tank room guard must have suspected--" "come!" gena snapped. "the control room. if we can take over, and seal ourselves in--" * * * * * they hurried along the corridor, ducking into side rooms to avoid being sighted by squads of the green crustaceans that suddenly sprouted into being. thus, playing a grim game of hide and seek, they finally made their way up to the control room. but here they ran into a huge, massed group of the sediphrons, who had evidently been ordered to await any such move on the part of the desperate fugitives. the lurid crackle of electronic bolts fused against the corridor walls. storm and hammond worked their rifles with grim methodicalness, blasting a half dozen of the green crustaceans into oblivion. but there were too many of them. they had to fall back along the corridor. then ardiné received a partial shock from a glancing bolt that dropped her. storm sprang for her, heedless of the bursting bolts, and caught her up in his strong arms. gena and hammond covered him under a steady flare of bolts. with storm ahead of them they turned and ran. it was up to gena. the earthmen followed blindly, lost in the bewildering maze of ramps, rooms and corridors. as if in a grim nightmare they fought their way back through the ship, escaping annihilation many times by gena's unerring knowledge of dilating doors that gave temporary safety. once hammond saw gena glance down at her chronometer, and he felt the rise of alarm in her thoughts before she blanked them out. and the chemist remembered then the time-bomb she had planted in the degravitator room of the _vandar iii_. they crossed a momentarily deserted corridor, storm still carrying the unconscious ardiné, and went into a long room that held a maze of long metal pipe overhead and squat machinery with smaller feeders leading up to the huge conductors. gena's thoughts came to hammond as they paused here. "if we _must_ die, let us at least take zuggoth and his hideous horde with us. i can't let them get back to mars now." hammond said: "gena! wait!" but the lithe, young amazon was already running along a row of banked machinery, withdrawing the second time-bomb from under her hybrid disguise. in the far wall a green light glowed as she approached. a door dilated open, and a sediphron appeared in the opening. for a moment he hesitated, stalk eyes swaying toward gena. then suspicion fused to purpose, and he swung his electron to target her. hammond's rifle lashed out first. gena scarcely slowed in her run. she stepped over the crustacean's green body, and vanished into the degravitator room. sweat gathered on hammond's brow as he waited, rifle held tight in his right hand. storm was stroking ardiné's forehead, his face grim. the high-pitched hum of the giant degravitator filled the room. then gena returned, swiftly, tearing off her hybrid disguise. "one hour, earthmen!" she said, unevenly, her eyes dark with the terrible strain. "one hour, and then we go down with zuggoth and his hideous horde!" "no!" hammond's voice was rough. he ripped the disguise from him, flung it aside. bronzed and rangy, his square jaw set, he faced the girl-commander. "you've handled this so far, gena. but we're not giving up. we're getting out of here if we have to blast our way through every foot!" * * * * * his ringing cry seemed to whip hope into gena. the strain in her white face seemed to ease, and a strange smile touched her full lips. "earthman, i think i shall like your breed. it does not easily give up!" they turned away, crossed the huge room just as a squad of sediphrons burst in at the other end. hammond dropped behind, his rifle covering the burdened storm and gena, the girl he loved. in a swift rearguard engagement, they fought their way out of the room. gena's aimed electronic bolt fused the hidden mechanism of the dilating door through which they escaped, momentarily holding up the rush of the hideous crustaceans. "the tank rooms!" hammond barked, taking command. "you know how to reach one of them, gena?" the girl nodded. tensed, grim-faced, hammond followed the girl, keeping storm and ardiné between them, electronic rifle held ready. a small sediphron squad patrolled the area, evidently on the alert for such a break. but the sudden appearance of the earthmen and the girls caught them by surprise. there were eight of them, and four went down to the combined fire of gena and hammond before they could train their rifles. then storm, laying ardiné on the hard floor, took a hand. only one of that crustacean squad emerged from that withering fire. he succeeded in reaching a huge wall switch. a moment later the huge bell clanged its harsh alarm through the ship. hammond killed him, without regret. they took the nearest war tank, a small, fast scout vehicle. gena sent it clattering toward the far wall just as zuggoth and a horde of sediphrons burst into the room. the electronic rifle bolts splattered harmlessly against the armor of the speeding tank. unharmed the fugitives passed through the dilating door, and dipped down the side of the huge space craft. hammond hung on to the hand grips, watching storm. the blond american held ardiné in the curve of his strong arm, anxiety in his face. only when the brunette began to stir, open her eyes, did relief finally ease the grimness of storm's face. the girl smiled up at him, her arms tightening. hammond took his gaze away from the oblivious pair, and peered through the observation windows. gena was guiding the small tank along the huge ledge that was the boat side. back of them a score of bigger war tanks were following. huge rays were blasting at them, burning scars in the ledge about them. the small tank finally dipped down the boat side onto the far seat. for a moment they were safe, out of range of the bigger tank batteries. gena brought the tank to an abrupt halt. "our only chance!" she snapped. "we must use the size-expanding ray!" they clambered quickly out. far across the void between seats the "big ones" loomed. nearer, coming toward them along the heaving boat side, clattered the sediphron war tanks. for a brief moment gena's eyes mirrored a deep regret. then she set the adjustment on her ray gun, and turned it on hammond, while ardiné did the same to storm. the familiar, whirling darkness, the bitter cold, claimed hammond. the darkness faded. he found himself facing storm on the boat seat. the skiff was rocking crazily. hammond teetered, stumbled back into the stern, and at the same moment ardiné and gena appeared. a wave shipped over the side, washing tiny, antlike things that a moment before had loomed as colossal war tanks, into the bottom of the boat. and at the same moment gena stiffened. thrusting from a turret in the sediphron space craft appeared a small, glinting tube, similar to the one gena had used to change them to tiny mites. in another moment they would experience again the sickening change to ultra-smallness. the twin reports, like small firecrackers going off inside the "big ones," cut across hammond's instinctive yell to dive overboard. the space cruisers on the boat seat, with the degravitators gone, seemed suddenly sucked down with irresistible force. they crashed through the seat, through the bottom of the skiff, and vanished in a swirl of water. * * * * * the _crawfish_ foundered, precipitating hammond and his companions into the sound. hammond stroked instinctively to gena's side, but the girl was as good a swimmer as he. ardiné and storm swam alongside, and together they idled, looking back to where the _crawfish_ barely showed between swells, her thwarts awash. "that's the end of zuggoth and his crustacean horde!" storm remarked with relief. "both ships must be buried deep in the muck and rock of the sound!" gena's eyes clouded. hammond had the sudden knowledge she was thinking of the amazon warriors that had gone down with the _vandar iii_. yet he knew, too, that it was better this way, than the more horrible fate that had been in store for them. gena stroked closer, her shoulder brushing his. she was still staring at the bobbing skiff, a strange half-fearful doubt tightening her wet face. hammond sensed the trend of her thoughts. the occupants of the pursuing war tanks, unfitted for water travel, must have surely drowned. but the huge space craft were water tight. it might be that zuggoth and his crustacean horde, buried in the muck of the sound, by their tremendous weight relative to their size, would yet succeed in repairing the degravitator of his ship and win free before death overtook them. hammond thrust the chill apprehension from him. he grinned reassuringly as gena looked up at him, eyes dark with uncertainty--with sudden loneliness. she was no longer master of a million warriors--commander of a mighty ship of space. she was just a girl, now, soft and lovely and somewhat afraid. "frank," she said softly, tremulously. "what is it like--on earth? we are lost, ardiné and i--" "not lost, gena," frank answered, his voice serious. over the girl's wet shoulder, in the west, he could see the swollen red orb of sun setting behind the wooded island. he saw farther, into tomorrow, and after. to his friends in the lab--to a story he knew would be incredulously received--to a world he and storm would have to try to explain to these girls from across the star hung void. "you'll be with me, gena," he said, his voice gentle. "as my wife. and perhaps some day, with your knowledge, and ardiné's--" the girl smiled, and followed the line of his upward glance. the shadows were lengthening across the heaving sound. but in the still, flushed sky a pin point of light beckoned, like a smiling answer--the brilliant disc of glowing mars. exit from asteroid by d. l. james strange things were happening on echo, weird martian satellite. but none stranger than the two earthlings who hurtled into the star-lanes from its deep, hidden core. [transcriber's note: this etext was produced from planet stories winter . extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the u.s. copyright on this publication was renewed.] echo is naturally magnetic, probably more so than any other planetoid--and neal bormon cursed softly, just to relieve his feelings, as that magnetism gripped the small iron plates on the soles of the rough boots with which the martians had provided him. slavery--and in the twenty-ninth century! it was difficult to conceive of it, but it was all too painfully true. his hands, inside their air-tight gauntlets, wadded into fists; little knots of muscle bulged along his lean jaw, and he stared at the darkness around him as if realizing it for the first time. this gang had plenty of guts, to shanghai men from the earth-mars transport lines. they'd never get by with it. and yet, they had--until now. first, keith calbur, and then himself. of course, there had been others before calbur, but not personal friends of neal bormon. men just disappeared. and you could do that in the martian spaceport of quessel without arousing much comment--unless you were a high official. but when calbur failed to show up in time for a return voyage to earth, bormon had taken up the search. vague clews had led him into that pleasure palace in quessel--a joint frequented alike by human beings and martians--a fantasmagoria of tinkling soul-lights; gossamer arms of frozen music that set your senses reeling when they floated near you; lyric forms that lived and danced and died like thoughts. then someone had crushed a bead of reverie-gas, probably held in a martian tentacle, under bormon's nostrils, and now--here he was on echo. he gave an angry yank at the chain which was locked around his left wrist. the other end was fastened to a large metal basket partly filled with lumps of whitish-gray ore, and the basket bobbed and scraped along behind him as he advanced. of the hundred or more earthmen, prisoners here on echo, only seven or eight were within sight of bormon, visible as mere crawling spots of light; but he knew that each was provided with a basket and rock-pick similar to his own. as yet he had not identified anyone of them as keith calbur. suddenly the metallic voice of a martian guard sounded in bormon's ears. "attention. one-seven-two. your basket is not yet half filled, your oxygen tank is nearly empty. you will receive no more food or oxygen until you deliver your quota of ore. get busy." "to hell with you!" fumed bormon--quite vainly, as he well knew, for the helmet of his space suit was not provided with voice-sending equipment. nevertheless, after a swift glance at the oxygen gauge, he began to swing his rock-pick with renewed vigor, pausing now and then to toss the loosened lumps of ore into the latticed basket. on earth, that huge container, filled with ore, would have weighed over a ton; here on echo its weight was only a few pounds. neal bormon had the average spaceman's dread of oxygen shortage. and so, working steadily, he at last had the huge basket filled with ore--almost pure rhodium--judging by the color and weight of the lumps. nearby, a jagged gash of light on the almost black shoulder of echo indicated the location of that tremendous chasm which cut two-thirds of the way through the small asteroid, and in which the martians had installed their machine for consuming ore. locating this gash of light, bormon set out toward it, dragging the basket of ore behind him over the rough, rocky surface. the ultimate purpose of that gargantuan mechanism, and why this side of the planetoid apparently never turned toward the sun, were mysteries with which his mind struggled but could not fathom. * * * * * presently, having reached the rim of the abyss, with only a narrow margin of oxygen left, he commenced the downward passage, his iron-shod boots clinging to the vertical wall of metallic rock, and as he advanced this magnetic attraction became ever more intense. the blaze of lights before him grew brighter and seemed to expand. dimly, two hundred yards over his head, he could glimpse the opposite wall of the chasm like the opposing jaw of an enormous vise. he joined the slow-moving stream of workers. they were filing past a guard and out on a narrow metal catwalk that seemed to be suspended--or rather poised--by thin rods in close proximity to a spacious disk which extended from wall to wall of the chasm. they moved in absolute silence. even when tilted ore-baskets dumped a ton or more ore into the gaping orifice in the center of the disk, there was still no sound--for echo, small and barren of native life, lacked even the suggestion of a sound-carrying atmosphere. and that weird soundlessness of the action around him brought a giddy sense of unreality to neal bormon. only the harsh, mechanical voice of the martian guard, intoning orders with cold and impersonal precision, seemed actually real. "attention. one-seven-two. dump your ore...." these earthmen were apparently known by numbers only. bormon's own number-- --was on a thin metal stencil stretched across the outer surface of the glass vision plate of his helmet; he couldn't forget it. he obeyed the martian's order. then he noticed that men with empty baskets were moving along a curved ramp, like a corkscrew, which led to a different level, whether above or below he could not possibly tell without a distinct mental effort. he decided it was to a lower level as he moved onward, for the huge disk lost its circularity and became like the curving wall of a cylinder, or drum, down the outside of which the ramp twisted. fresh ore was also being brought from this direction. and seeming to extend out indefinitely into blackness was a misty shaft, like the beam of a searchlight. presently the ramp gave way to a tunnel-like passage. flexible metal-sheathed tubes dangled from the ceiling. these tubes were labeled: oxygen, water, nutrient. * * * * * bormon, patterning the actions of those he observed around him began to replenish his supply of these three essentials to life. his space suit was of conventional design, with flasks in front for water and nutrient fluid, and oxygen tank across the shoulders. by attaching the proper tubes and opening valves--except the oxygen inlet valve, which was automatic--he soon had his suit provisioned to capacity. he had just finished this operation when someone touched his arm. he glanced up at the bulky, tall figure--an unmistakable form that even a month's sojourn on echo had not been able to rob of a certain virility and youthful eclat. for a moment they stared into each other's eyes through the vision plates of their helmets and bormon was struck dumb by the change, the stark and utterly nerve-fagged hopelessness expressed on keith calbur's features. then calbur tried to grin a welcome, and the effect was ghastly! for a moment his helmet clicked into contact with bormon's. "neal," he said, his voice sounding far away, "so they got you, too! we can't talk here.... i'm pretty well shot. lived in this damn walking tent for ages. no sleep, not since they took me.... some powder, drug, they put in the nutrient fluid--it's supposed to take the place of sleep--and you can't sleep! only it doesn't.... you come along with me." the darkness swallowed them up. bormon had thrown his rock-pick into his empty basket. and now, by keeping one hand in contact with calbur's basket, as it bobbed and jerked on ahead, he was able, even in the inky blackness, to keep from straying aside. after seemingly interminable groping and stumbling, calbur's light flashed on. they had entered a pocket in the rocks, bormon realized, a small cavern whose walls would prevent the light from betraying their presence to the guard. calbur threw himself exhaustedly down, signifying that bormon should do likewise, and with their helmets touching, a strange conversation ensued. bormon explained, as well as he was able, his presence there. "when you didn't show up, keith, in time to blast for earth," he said, "all we could do was to report your absence to the space police. but they're swamped; too many disappearances lately. moreover, they're trying to relocate that stream of meteoric matter which wrecked a freighter some time back. they know something is in the wind, but they'll never guess this! for weeks they've had the patrol ship, _alert_, scouting around mars. so, after making the run to earth and back to mars--i had to do that, you know--i got back in quessel again and commenced to pry around, sort of inviting the same thing to happen to me that had happened to you--and here we are." "we're here for keeps, looks like," answered calbur grimly, his voice having lost part of that overtone of strained nerves. "a man doesn't last long, so the other prisoners say, two months at the most. these marts use earthmen because we're tougher, here at least, and last longer than marts.... hell, what wouldn't i give for a smoke!" "but the purpose, keith? what's the scheme?" "i thought you knew. just marts with fighting ideas--a crowd backed by wealthy, middle-class martians who call themselves lords of conquest. they're building ships, weapons. first, they're going to take over mars from the present government, which is friendly to earth, and then they're going to subdue earth." * * * * * calbur had switched off his light, as a matter of precaution, and his voice came to bormon from a seemingly far distant point--a voice from out of the darkness, fraught with fantastic suggestion. "ships? you say they're building ships? where?" bormon asked, his own voice reverberating harshly within the confines of his helmet. "in a cavern they've blasted out near the south magnetic pole of mars. you know that's an immense, barren region--lifeless, cold--bordered on the north by impenetrable reed thickets. they need rhodium in large quantities for hull alloys and firing chambers. that's why they're mining it, here on echo." "they'll never get it to mars," bormon declared quickly. "every freighter is checked and licensed by the joint governments of earth and mars." "they won't?" calbur laughed, distantly. "listen, neal--every crateful of ore that's dumped into their machine, here on echo, gets to mars within a few hours. and it isn't carried by ships, either!" "you mean--?" "i didn't get the answer, myself, until i'd been here for some time. you see, echo is just a gob of metal--mostly magnetite, except for these granules of rhodium--forty miles in diameter, but far from round. then there's that chasm, a mammoth crack that's gaped open, cutting the planetoid almost in half. the whole thing is magnetic--like a terrestrial lodestone--and there's a mighty potent field of force across that gap in the chasm. the walls are really poles of a bigger magnet than was ever built by martians or human being. and of what does a big magnet remind you?" after a moment of thought, bormon replied, "cyclotronic action." there was a short silence, then calbur resumed. "these marts shoot the ore across space to the south magnetic pole of mars. a ground crew gathers it up and transports it to their underground laboratories. as a prisoner explained it, it was simple; those old-time cyclotrons used to build up the velocity of particles, ions mostly, by whirling them in spiral orbits in a vacuum-enclosed magnetic field. well, there's a vacuum all around echo, and clear to mars. by giving these lumps of ore a static charge, they act just like ions. when the stream of ore comes out of the machine, it passes through a magnetic lens which focuses it like a beam of light on mars' south pole. and there you have it. maybe you saw what looked like a streak of light shooting off through the chasm. that's the ore stream. it comes out on the day side of echo, and so on to mars. they aim it by turning the whole planetoid." "hm-m-m, i understand, now, why it's always dark here--they keep this side of echo facing away from mars and the sun." "right," said calbur. "now we'll have to move. these marts are heartless. they'll let you die for lack of oxygen if you don't turn in baskets of ore regularly. but we'll meet here again." "just give me time to size things up," bormon agreed. the effects of the reverie-gas was wearing off and he was beginning to feel thoroughly alive again and aware of the serious situation which confronted them. "don't let it get you down, keith," he added. "we'll find a way out." but his words expressed a confidence that the passing of time did not justify. again and again he filled his ore-basket, dragged it to the hungry mouth of that prodigious mechanism in the abyss, and in return he received the essentials for continued life. during this time he formed a better idea of conditions around him. once he wandered far from the martian's headquarters, so far that he nearly blinded himself in the raw sunlight that bombarded the day side of the tiny planetoid. again, he was strangely comforted with the discovery of a small space ship anchored deep in the abyss although he was not permitted to go near it. * * * * * he soon found that nothing was to be expected of the horde of earthmen who slaved like automatons over the few miles of echo immediately adjacent to the chasm's rim. the accumulative effect of the drug seemed to render them almost insensible of existence. but with calbur, who had served for a shorter time, it was different. "keith, we've got to tackle one of the mart guards," bormon told him, during one of their conferences in the cave. "we'll take its ray-tubes, fight our way to that ship they've cached in the chasm below the cyclotron power plant, and blast away from here." "how?" asked calbur. "if you make a move toward one, it'll burn you down--i've seen it happen!" "listen, i've spent hours figuring this out. suppose one of us were to stay here in this cave, helmet-light on, and near enough to the opening so that his light would show dimly on the outside. wouldn't a mart guard be sure to come along to investigate?" "yes, practically sure," agreed calbur, but with no great interest. hour by hour he was sinking closer to that animate coma which gripped the other earthmen. "but what would that get you? if you lose too much time, you'll be cut off from rations." "i know, but suppose also that one of us--i, for instance--was hiding in the rocks above the cave, with a big chunk of ore, ready to heave it down on the mart?" calbur seemed to be thinking this over, and for a moment there was silence. "when shall we try it?" he demanded suddenly, and there was a note of eagerness and hope in his voice. "it's simple enough. it might actually work." "right now! if we put it off, it'll soon be too late." they discussed details, laying their plans carefully, bormon prudently refraining any suggestion that this move was one born of sheer desperation on his part. everything settled, calbur moved up near the opening, so that his helmet-light could be dimly seen from outside the cave. bormon, dragging his ore-basket, climbed up in the rocks directly over the entrance, and presently found concealment that suited him. near at hand he placed a loose chunk of rock which on earth would have weighed perhaps eighty pounds. the trap was set. he settled himself to wait. his own light was, of course, extinguished. far off he could see crawling blobs of luminance as guards and human workers moved slowly over the surface of echo. otherwise stygian darkness surrounded him. but he had chosen a position which, he hoped, would not be revealed by the light of any martian bent on investigating the cave. there were, he had learned, actually less than a score of martians here on echo; about half of them stayed around that cyclotronic ore-hurler in the chasm. they depended on secrecy, and were in constant communication, by ether-wave, with spies not only on earth and mars but among the personnel of the space police itself. these spies were in a position to warn them to shut down operations in case the ore stream through space attracted notice and was in danger of being investigated. it was all being conducted with true martian insidiousness. thus bormon's thoughts were wandering when, at last, he became aware that a martian guard was approaching. his cramped muscles suddenly grew tense. his heart began to pound; it was now or never--and he must not fail! * * * * * the martian, reeling along rapidly on the mechanical legs attached to its space armor, appeared to suspect nothing. it approached amid a rosette of light which seemed to chase back the shadows into a surrounding black wall. it had evidently seen the gleam of calbur's helmet-light, for it was heading directly toward the mouth of the cave above which bormon crouched. the moment for action arrived. tense as a tirhco spring, bormon leaped erect, hurled the jagged lump of rock down on the rounded dome of the martian's armor. then, without pausing to ascertain the result, he grasped the rim of his ore-basket and swinging it in a wide arc before him, leaped downward-- for a moment martian, basket and earthman were in a mad tangle. bormon realized that the martian had been toppled over, and that one of its ray-tubes was sending out a coruscating plume of fire as it ate into the rocks. the moment seemed propitious to bormon! hands gripping and searching desperately, he found the oddly-shaped clamp that bound the two halves of the martian's space armor together--and released it. there was a hiss of escaping gas. abruptly those metal handlers ceased to thrash about.... bormon, thrilling with success, rose to his feet, turned off the martian's ray-tube just as calbur, delayed with having to drag his ore-basket, through the rather narrow opening, dashed into view. there was no need for words. bormon handed him a ray-tube. within a matter of seconds, each had burned through a link of the chain around his wrist. they were free from those accursed baskets! calbur secreted the weapon in a pouch of his space suit, then swiftly they set to work, for their next move had been carefully planned. opening the armor fully, they began to remove the dead martian, puffed up like a kernel of pop-corn by the sudden loss of its air pressure. having cleared the armor, bormon climbed inside--space suit and all--folding up like a pocket knife so as to resemble somewhat the alien shape it was intended to hold, and tested the semi-automatic controls. everything appeared to be in working order. assuring himself of this as well as his knowledge of martian mechanics would permit, he crawled out again to help calbur. calbur was scrambling to collect ore. and under their combined efforts one of the baskets was presently filled--for the last time, bormon fervently hoped! again he entered that strange conveyance, the martian's armor, and after some experimental manipulation of the push-button controls, managed to get the thing upright on its jointed, metal legs and start it moving awkwardly in the direction of the chasm. behind him came calbur, dragging the basket of ore--for lacking a disguise such as bormon's, he must have some excuse for returning to the cabin, and he had wrapped the chain around his wrist to conceal the fact that it had been severed. bormon, in the narrow confines of his armor, disconnected the mechanical voder used by its deposed owner, for all martians are voiceless. his greatest fear was that one of the martian guards would attempt to communicate with him. this would disclose the imposture immediately, since he would be unable to reply. for all martian communication, even by ether-wave, is visual--the medium being a complicated series of symbols based on their ancient sign language, the waving of tentacles, which no human brain has ever fully understood. the means of producing these conventionalized symbols was a tiny keyboard, just below an oval, silvery screen, and as bormon sent his odd conveyance stalking down the side of the chasm, toward that sweeping disk which he now knew to be formed by the ends of two cyclotronic d-chambers facing each other, he kept one eye on this silvery screen, but it remained blank. he moved on down past the catwalk to the lower ramp. here he must pass close to a martian guard. but this martian seemed to give him no attention whatever. reaching a point opposite the ship, bormon stepped from the ramp. still that oval screen remained blank. no martian was apparently paying enough attention to him to question his movements. again he caused the armor to advance slowly, picking his way along the rock surface. he reached the ship. for a moment he was hidden behind the hull. one glance sent his hopes plunging utterly. neither of the two fuel caps were clamped down, which could mean but one thing--the ship's tanks were empty! it was a stunning blow. no wonder the martians felt safe in leaving the ship practically unguarded. after a moment, anger began to mount above bormon's disappointment. he would start to kill off martians! if he and calbur couldn't get away from echo, then he'd see that at least some of these marts didn't either. he might even wipe them all out. calbur, too, had a ray-tube. but what of calbur? quickly bormon moved from behind the ship. calbur was loitering on the ramp, ore-basket empty, evidently on the point of making a break to join him. frantically, bormon focused the ether-wave on calbur's helmet, hurling a warning. "stay where you are. it's a washout! no fuel...." he began moving across the rocks toward the power-plant. that was the most likely spot to commence--more marts close at hand. he'd take them by surprise. suddenly he was cold, calculating, purposeful. after all, there wasn't much chance of wiping them all out--and yet he might. he should strike at a vital point, cripple them, so as to give calbur and the others a chance in case he only managed to kill a few before passing out of the picture. a glittering neutrochrome helix on top of the power-plant gave him a suggestion. why not destroy their communications, fix things so they couldn't call for help from mars? * * * * * abruptly he realized something was wrong. that silver oval six inches from his face was flashing a bewildering complexity of symbols. simultaneously the martian on the ramp began to move quickly and questioningly toward him. the moment had arrived. bormon swung the metal handler bearing the ray-tube into line and pressed the firing button.... amid a splatter of coruscating sparks the martian went down. "number one!" growled bormon. everything now depended on prompt action and luck--mostly luck! as quickly as possible he heeled around, aimed at the helix on the power-plant. it swayed slowly as that pale blue shaft ate into its supports, then drifted away. he had lost sight of calbur. absolute silence still reigned, but on airless echo that silence was portentous. along the rim of the chasm he could see the glitter of martian armor against the blackness of space. the alarm had been given. but for the moment he was more concerned with the imminent danger from those who tended the intricate controls in the power-plant, and the guard at the far end of the catwalk. this guard was protected by the catwalk itself and the stream of earthmen slaves still moving uncomprehendingly along it. bormon sent his space armor reeling forward, intent on seeking shelter behind the bulk of the power-plant. he almost reached that protection. but suddenly sparks plumed around him, and his armor slumped forward--one leg missing. he fell, fortunately, just within the shelter of the power-plant. desperately he struggled to open the armor, so as to get the ray-tube in his own hand. but when he finally crawled forth it was to face three martians grouped around him, their weapons--six in number--unwaveringly centered on him. "earthman," said the mechanical speaker coldly inside his helmet, "you have killed a martian." and then, with true martian decisiveness and cruelty, they pronounced inhuman judgment on him. "we in our kindness shall not immediately demand your life as forfeit. you shall wander unhindered over echo, dying slowly, until your oxygen is gone. do not ask for more; it is sealed from you. do not again enter the chasm; it is death to you. now go." * * * * * hours later bormon was indeed wandering, hopeless as a lost soul, over nighted echo, awaiting the consummation of his sentence, which now seemed very near. already his oxygen gauge indicated zero and he was face to face with the "dying slowly" process promised by the martians--the terrible death of suffocation. now, as things began to seem vague and unreal around him, bormon was drawing near that hidden cave where he and calbur had often met for like a final flash of inspiration had come the thought that here, if anywhere, he would find calbur. it was strange, he reflected, how the life in a man forces him on and on, always hoping, to the very end. for now it seemed that the most important thing in the universe was to find calbur. he had husbanded the last of his oxygen to the utmost. but panting, now, for breath, he opened the valve a fraction of a turn and staggered on in the darkness. and suddenly, dimly as in a dream, he knew that at last he had found calbur.... and calbur was doing a queer thing. gauntleted hands moving hastily in the chalky radiance cast by his helmet-light, he was tossing chunks of rhodium from his filled ore-basket-- then their helmets clicked together, and he heard calbur's voice, faint, urgent: "climb in the basket! i'll cover you with ore so they won't see you. i'll drag you in. well get your tank filled--i swear it!" the next instant, it seemed, bormon felt himself being tumbled into the ore-basket. chunks of ore began pressing down lightly on his body. then the basket commenced to pitch and scrape over the rocks. but his lungs were bursting! could he last? he had to. he couldn't fool calbur by passing out--not now. something like destiny was working, and he'd have to see it through. something was tapping on his helmet. bormon opened his eyes, and light was trickling down between the chunks of ore. no longer was there any scraping vibrations. something, metallic, snakelike, was being pressed into his hand. and then bormon remembered. the oxygen tube! with a final rallying of forces only partly physical, he managed to stab the tube over the intake of his tank. the automatic valve clicked and a stream of pure delight swept into his lungs! for a time he lay there, his body trembling with the exquisite torture of vitality reawakening, slowly closing the helmet-valve to balance the increase of pressure in the tank. suddenly that snakelike tube was jerked away from between the chunks of ore, and again the basket began a scraping advance. bormon's new lease on life brought its problems. what was about to happen? in a moment, now, calbur would be ordered by the guard to dump his ore. they wouldn't have a chance, there on the catwalk. for bormon's abrupt reappearance would bring swift extinction, probably to both. the basket stopped. they had reached the ore-dump. calbur's head and shoulders appeared. behind the vision plate in his helmet there was a queer, set expression on his thin face. he thrust the ray-tube into bormon's hands. bormon sprang erect, leaped from the basket. for a moment he stared around, locating the guard at the end of the catwalk. as yet the guard appeared not to have noticed anything unusual. but where was calbur? "attention. one-six-nine. dump your ore," ordered the guard, coldly, mechanically. something seemed to draw bormon's eyes into focus on his own number stencil. one-six-nine, he read. calbur's number! and then, suddenly, he realized the dreadful, admirable thing keith calbur had done.... for calbur had leaped through the ore-chute, into the cyclotron's maelstromic heart! despairing, he had chosen a way out. he had forfeited his life so that bormon could take his place. "dump your ore," repeated the martian guard, coldly. "to hell with you!" snarled bormon, and blasted with the tube. he missed the martian. still weakened by the ordeal he had just passed through, and overwrought as an effect of calbur's last despairing act, his aim was not true. nevertheless, that coruscating shaft was fraught with far-reaching consequence. passing three feet to the left of the martian, it snapped two of the rods which braced the catwalk in position over the cyclotron drum. thus released at the far end, the metal ribbon--for the catwalk was little more than that--curled and twisted like a tirhco spring, pitching bormon, as from a catapult, straight along the path so recently chosen by calbur. destiny had indeed provided them both with a strange exit from echo, for in that split second bormon realized that he was being hurled squarely into the gaping orifice of the cyclotron. * * * * * far out in the vacuity between echo and mars, captain dunstan sat in his cabin aboard the patrol ship _alert_--most powerful and, therefore, speediest craft possessed by the earth-mars space police. on his desk lay two jagged pieces of ore, whitish-gray in color, which he had been examining. his speculations were interrupted by the sudden bursting open of the cabin door. an officer, spruce in gray uniform and silver braid, entered hurriedly, his face flushed with excitement. "captain dunstan, the most extraordinary thing has happened! we've just picked up two men--two men drifting with the meteoric stream, and in space suits--and they're alive!" captain dunstan rose slowly. "alive, and adrift in space? then it's the first such occurrence in the history of space travel! who are they?" "i don't know, sir. so far we've got only one out of his suit. but i have reason to believe they're the men recently reported as missing by the e.m.t. lines. he babbled something about echo--that there's hell to pay on echo. i imagine he means asteroid no. . but--" "lead the way," said the captain, stepping quickly toward the doorway. "there's something mighty queer going on." * * * * * and so, by a lucky break, neal bormon found himself snatched from death and aboard the _alert_, arriving there by a route as hazardous and strange as was ever experienced by spaceman. and no less strange and unexpected came the knowledge of keith calbur's arrival there ahead of him. bormon, who was last to be drawn in by the grapple-ray and helped out of his space suit by the willing hands of the _alert's_ crew, was still capable of giving an understandable account of things; although calbur, until the effects of the martian drug wore off, would be likely to remain in his somewhat neurotic condition of bewilderment. "these marts," said bormon, after a great deal of explaining on both sides, "don't know that you have discovered their stream of ore. they won't know it until their communications have been repaired." captain dunstan nodded. "that explains why we were able, on this occasion, to approach the meteoric stream without its immediate disappearance. but i cannot understand," he confessed, "how two men could have passed through such an apparatus as you describe, and remain alive." "perhaps i can offer a possible explanation," said an officer whose insignia was that of chief electrobiologist. "if, as we suspect, this martian invention is founded on the old and well-known cyclotronic principle, then we have nothing but reciprocal interaction of electric fields and magnetic fields. and these fields, as such, are entirely harmless to living organisms, just as harmless as gravitational fields. moreover, any static charge carried by the bodies of these men would have been slowly dissipated through the grapple-ray with which they were drawn out of the ore stream." this explanation appeared to satisfy the captain. "you say," he questioned, addressing bormon, "that there are other men on echo--earthmen being used as slaves?" "yes, more than a hundred." captain dunstan's mouth became a fighting, grim line. he gave several swift orders to his officers, who scattered immediately. somewhat later, bormon found his way into the surgery where calbur lay--not sleeping yet, but resting peacefully. assuring himself of this, bormon, too, let his long frame slump down on a near-by cot--not to sleep, either, but to contemplate pleasantly the wiping-up process soon to take place on echo, and elsewhere. peril of the blue world by robert abernathy the first earth expedition was the scouting force of the conquering martians. but conditions were totally different from those expected, and science was of no value--for on earth were "beings" that weapons could not fight. [transcriber's note: this etext was produced from planet stories winter . extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the u.s. copyright on this publication was renewed.] there are those who have criticized the wisdom of the members of the first earth expedition in returning to mars so precipitately, without completing the observations and explorations which it had been intended they should make. for some time now, we who were with the expedition and knew the real reason for that return have chosen to ignore these few but noisy individuals; but latterly some of the hot-headed younger generation, but lately out of the egg and unwilling to trust to the wisdom of their elders, have begun to talk of launching a second expedition to the blue planet. therefore, i, shapplo with the long proboscis, interpreter to the first expedition, have been commissioned by the crew of the earth rocket to tell the full and unexpurgated story of our adventures on earth, and the reasons for our contention that the planet must forever remain closed to martian colonization. i will pass over the details of the interplanetary voyage, which consists chiefly of scientific data and figures not calculated to interest the average reader. suffice it to say that the earth rocket, with the twenty-three members of its crew alive and intact, came safely to rest on the crest of a gently-swelling hill in the midst of an island in the northern hemisphere of earth. this island is located by our astronomers as - - -( ) north, but is called by its inhabitants, engelond or britannia. we landed in the southern portion of this island, on a hilltop as before stated; and, after conditioning our lungs and wearing gravity belts against earth's dense atmosphere and correspondingly strong gravity, we threw open the exit ports and trooped out, led by our captain, tutwa with the crooked ears, our second in command, ikleek from gnoxwid, and myself; also, immediately behind us, came our zoologist, zesmo who fell in the canal when an infant. the first thing noticed by all of us, but particularly by zesmo who fell in the canal, was the riparian-appearing profusion of earthly life which at once displayed itself. plants of every size and shape, invariably green in color but bearing blossoms of all shades, covered the hillside, and all of the rolling landscape that was visible from our point of vantage. among the leaves and flowers fluttered bright-colored objects which we soon perceived, with great surprise, to be living creatures. "what a planet!" exclaimed the captain philosophically. "even the lower animals can fly; what then may we expect of the higher creatures, the intelligent races?" "you'll notice, however," said zesmo, who had in the meantime succeeded in capturing one of these aerial dancers, "that they fly entirely without artificial aids. it is made possible by the dense atmosphere of earth." * * * * * as we moved forward among the thick and moderately lofty vegetation, small, furred, four-legged creatures leaped out of the underbrush and scampered rapidly away. using ray-guns at low power, we paralyzed several of these; but, after close examination, we were forced to conclude that we must look further for the intelligent inhabitants of the planet. "it's quite possible that there isn't any intelligent race," said zesmo gloomily. "if they were very bright, i should think they'd have crossed space to mars before now." "don't expect too much of the poor earthman, zesmo," retorted ikleek. "remember that our own race discovered space travel only three generations ago, and that ours is the first rocket powerful enough to dare earth's gravitational field. due to the high velocity of escape, the development of space travel by earthman would be very much retarded. they might have a high civilization and never get off the ground." "aerial flight should be easy," argued zesmo. "look at even those ignorant little--" he was interrupted by a shrill shout from one of the crew. one and all, we turned toward the sound, and saw him hastening toward us through the trees as fast as earth's tremendous gravity would let him, waving his tentacles and glowing with terror. "a monster!" he sputtered. "a metal monster!" we hastily adjusted our ray-guns to full power, and awaited anxiously the onslaught of whatever formidable being might come against us. we had not long to wait, for in a moment we saw approaching among the trees a fantastic creature. for some moments we gaped foolishly at the thing before we realized that it was actually a compound monster--two animals in one, so to speak. except that one was not an animal, but evidently a machine! the earth-monster had not yet seen us; and at this juncture i took the opportunity to hastily scribble some notes which i very shortly regretted. however, to illustrate the fact that anyone may make mistakes and that even the most apparent truths may be misinterpreted, i will here reproduce what i wrote: "the intelligent inhabitants of earth somewhat resemble us in the possession of four limbs, two eyes, and two elongated protuberances which are very likely ears. the sensory organs are mostly located on, or about, the front of the head. the feet are sheathed in horny coverings which may be either natural or artificial. the caudal appendage is of considerable length and bears long dense hairs, thus differing from the rest of the body, over which the hairy covering is short and flat-lying. no real proboscis is present, but the head is much elongated in front, with the snout directed downward...." enough of this. at least, tremendous as my error was, it was at the time shared by all the others present. the animal above described formed the lower portion of the compound being which confronted us. mounted astride of it was a gleaming metal creature, constructed on the same lines, but with jointed arms and legs of metal, without a tail, and seated erect instead of going slavishly on all fours. in one hand it grasped a long pole with a sharp metal point, and other accouterments which might be weapons were girded about it. "a robot!" ejaculated the captain. he had jumped to the same natural conclusion as the rest of us. "what do you say to an intelligent race now, zesmo?" hissed ikleek. "obviously the earthmen were _too_ intelligent. they built a high civilization and were enslaved by their own machines!" "perhaps we martians are destined to free this oppressed race from ignoble servitude!" exclaimed zesmo. "if we can just paralyze and capture the machine--" he began adjusting his ray-gun to low power. * * * * * the creature may have heard our voices, muffled as they were by the heavy air. at any rate, it suddenly turned toward us, displaying an expressionless metal face with a curious grille arrangement in front; and, recovering in a trice from its evident astonishment, it drove feet armed with dagger-sharp points into the flanks of its mount, and came galloping toward us. as it came it lowered its long spear, with the obvious intention of impaling upon it one or more of our number. zesmo's right tentacle whipped up with his ray-gun; there was a sharp crackle of invisible energy in the air, blue sparks leaped about the thing's metal joints, and both it and its mount toppled heavily to the earth and lay in an inert heap. [illustration: _zesmo's right tentacle whipped up; there was the sharp crackle of energy in the air; sparks leaped about the thing's metal joints._] we approached them with caution--none too cautiously, as it developed, because abruptly the robot stirred and scrambled dizzily to its feet. its metal sheathing had absorbed most of the ray-gun's merely paralyzing energy. with a swift, practiced motion, it drew from its side a long, straight, sharp blade, which i subconsciously identified as a primitive weapon operating on the wedge principle, even as i was raising and aiming my ray-gun. taking cognizance of the fact that we would much prefer to capture the machine in an undamaged state, but also of the fact that unless steps were taken it would very shortly hack me into small pieces, i aimed at the upraised weapon and pressed the firing button. the ray, at full power, struck the blade, which glowed red-hot and partially fused. the robot dropped it with a sharp exclamation of uncertain meaning, probably expressing considerable annoyance. in the meantime zesmo had stepped to close range, and now he gave the metal man a considerably augmented dosage of the ray. with a hiss and crackle, the robot collapsed and gave us no more trouble. zesmo had begun to examine the prostrate animal upon which it had ridden, with a view to resuscitation, then ikleek, who had turned his attention to the robot, abruptly straightened up and began to rock to and fro in amusement. "would you mind telling me what you're so happy about?" inquired zesmo with pardonable acerbity. "merely that we've all made a _very_ silly mistake," gurgled ikleek, recovering a portion of his composure. he flipped a contemptuous tentacle toward the animal which zesmo had been examining. "intelligent creature, bah!" he began to rock back and forth uncontrollably once more. "explain yourself," ordered captain tutwa sternly. for answer, the second in command bent over the "robot," and, wrenching off its metal head-covering, revealed the face of an unconscious living being. i need not describe the earthman, since the form and appearance of this race have become familiar to all martians from the photographs and descriptions which we brought back from earth. i will only mention that this specimen was a male, and consequently was rather hairy about the lower portion of the face as well as on the top and back of the head. zesmo made no comment, but popped his eyes in and out of his head at an expressive rate. "here's your earthman!" chortled ikleek gleefully, tapping on the creature's metal chest-protector. "he's only wearing armor, a great deal like a spacesuit." "maybe he'll die if you leave his helmet off," exclaimed zesmo in alarm. i picked up the helmet and examined it. "his armor isn't airtight," i informed the company. "it must be worn for some other reason." we were all considerably puzzled by this, and determined to revive the earthman as soon as possible, in order to question him on this subject and others. with some difficulty we carried him back to the ship. * * * * * unable to use drugs, due to the possibility of essential differences between earthly and martian chemical constitutions, we were forced to resort to purely physical means for his resuscitation; but we were very shortly successful to the extent that the earthman stirred, opened his lidded eyes, and sat up groggily--then, seeing us crowding about him curiously with waving tentacles and proboscides, uttered an insane yell and attempted to leave the ship at once. it was with much difficulty that we succeeded in overpowering the frantic earthman without his breaking the glass oxygen helmet which we had placed over his head to allow him to breathe air at the normal earthly pressure of between fourteen and fifteen pounds to the square inch. with the aid of a dozen members of the crew, however, we eventually subdued him, not without ourselves sustaining some damage. the tip of one left tentacle was somehow broken off in the scuffle, and by the time i had located the fragment and fastened it back on with medicated adhesive to facilitate healing, the earthman had been strapped to a table and the telepathor set up. since i was interpreter for the expedition, due to my training in the arts and sciences of telepathy, psychology, and linguistics, i, at once, took charge, checked over the apparatus, and began to experiment with a view to discovering the vibration frequency of the earthman's mind. at last i found it, surprisingly far down in the scale. the earthmen have exceedingly slow minds, which do not allow them to think quickly in an emergency; this, however, does not prevent them from acting quickly. having finally attuned the transformer of the telepathor to step down my mental frequency to the earthman's level, i succeeded in entering into telepathic communication with him. i will not attempt to reproduce this conversation in words, but will merely give the gist of it, which was about all that i grasped at the time, having no familiarity with earthly idioms of thought. this earthman's name, i gathered, was sir henry de long, the initial "sir" being some sort of title of more or less vague meaning. he was also a "knight"; this, too, was an honor of some sort, and was intimately connected with the wearing of a considerable quantity of heavy iron and the possession of a horse--the animal upon which the earthman had been mounted when we first made his acquaintance. in addition to his knighthood, he was an "englishman," which he also appeared to consider a distinction. on further questioning, it developed that being an englishman meant having been born in this island of engelond; i was unable to perceive why this accident should be a cause for personal pride, but concluded that there must be some reason buried deep in earthly psychology. when i inquired about his armor, i discovered that it had something to do with his being a knight; furthermore, he seemed to be proud of the armor. in fact, this remarkable individual was proud of almost everything connected with himself. this is one of the characteristics of a certain class of earthmen, to which this specimen belonged; we discovered later that the vast majority of the race is educated to a becoming humility, while a limited group is allowed to consider itself out of the ordinary and infinitely better than the rest. this is quite proper, of course; those who are superior should be accorded fitting distinction. during our brief stay on earth, however, we were unable to ascertain the basis on which the superiority of this class is determined. i succeeded in assuring de long of our kindly intentions toward him, and obtained his promise not to make trouble if released. considering the high respect in which this queer fellow held himself, i was reasonably certain that he would refrain from breaking his "word of honor." i learned also that de long's home was not far from our present location. on due consideration, we decided to move the ship to this place and gain an opportunity to observe these people in their natural habitat. * * * * * the earth rocket, accordingly, lifted and flew several miles to the east, landing near the castle, or great fortress-like building of stone, which was our guest's usual habitation. the earthman was overwhelmed by the actuality of flight; we learned, when he finally came out of his daze, that artificial flying was here believed impossible. we were somewhat startled by the sensation produced by our appearance on the scene; of course, these people had never seen a flying machine, but their excitement seemed to us wholly disproportionate. however, it is a characteristic of earthman psychology to believe anything you have never seen or heard of impossible, and accordingly to be very much alarmed when it actually appears. after we had entered the castle with de long in our midst, we were disagreeably surprised to learn that on observing our approach the people in the fortress had prepared quantities of boiling oil and heavy stones with the idea of dropping them on us when we passed under the walls, and had only been deterred by the presence of their chieftain. it was not a pleasant thought. nevertheless, after their terror had been dissipated by our pacificatory policy, these people became childishly curious, and wherever any one of us went, he could be sure of a crowd of gaping earthmen following on his heels to observe his every action. zesmo was a bit disappointed by the low state of advancement in which we found the earthmen. they have no electricity and no self-powered machines; they depend entirely upon muscle, either their own--which is far from inconsiderable in proportion to their intellect--or that of their various slave animals. in some things they display striking ingenuity, in other remarkable obtusity. during our several days' stay near the castle of de long, zesmo and our sociologist, plagu long legs, gathered an immense body of data on the life and characteristics of the earthmen, which may be found in almost any public library in more or less condensed form. therefore i will avoid going into it here. so far, we had found no great danger on earth, and no hint of the horrors which must forever prohibit exploration of the planet. one day, however, when i was pursuing an investigation of their socialistic society in a telepathor conversation with de long, he happened to mention that one of the occupations of a good knight was killing dragons. "dragons?" i inquired, recording the word in my notebook. "wot ye not what dragons be?" exclaimed de long, with raised eyebrows--an expression of mild surprise with the earthmen. "a dragon is a huge beast, the greatest on the earth. from its mouth and nostrils, it breathes flame and smoke, so that but to approach it is deadly peril." "uh--where do these brutes live?" i wanted to know, somewhat apprehensively. "there are not many in engelond in these latter days, st. george and many another valiant champion having harried them full sore, slaying many and putting the fear of god into the rest. but in ireland and other lands many remain and are the terror of all men living." * * * * * this was a bit of a shock, to say the least. we had expected dangers on earth, naturally; but no such fearsome beasts as de long described. our ray guns might prove quite ineffective against these terrible animals. "are these the most dangerous creatures on earth?" i inquired, with some hesitancy. de long leaned back and emitted a series of explosive sounds indicative of amusement. "far from it," he declared. "for though dragons be vasty and terrible, yet are there other creatures no whit less perilous to mortal men, and some far more so. we have many fiends of divers sorts even here in engelond, some of which are friends to man and hold no malice, but the most of which are ill-natured and lose no opportunity to do a mischief. they say that when the rovers came from noroway in the days of the good king aelfred, they brought with them in their long black galleys, together with many a thirsty spear, the devils and hobgoblins that were their pagan gods; and that these have stayed after them and are yet the foes of all true englishmen." "we have seen no such creatures," said i doubtfully. "nay, for men rarely see them. for the most part, they do their evil deeds by night; and many are able to become invisible at their will. and some take divers forms: such are the werewolves, which are by day men, by night ravenous man-eating beasts." this was decidedly discouraging. i was still not sure, though, that de long was not merely jesting. "are these things likely to be dangerous to martians?" i demanded. "i know not--but here in engelond, as i have said before, there are much fewer of these fiends than elsewhere," he reassured me. i glanced nervously about the room. "is it--is it possible that an invisible fiend might be present even here?" i knew that our scientists had produced invisibility in the laboratory, but it was hard to believe-- de long nodded gravely. "quite possible," he affirmed, adding sententiously, "even walls have ears; speak of the devil and his imps will appear." "excuse me," i said falteringly. "i just remembered an important engagement--" i switched off the telepathor, gathered it up and made a hasty exit. i wanted to consult with captain tutwa. the captain listened with skepticism to my retelling of de long's account of the dangers of the blue planet. "bah!" he said, when i had finished. "the earthman was probably lying, for some reason or other. these fellows have strange motives." "but why should he tell me such tales?" i persisted. "he seemed perfectly serious. and if such dangers _do_ exist on earth--" "the motive becomes perfectly plain to me!" exclaimed the captain, snapping a tentacle in the air. "by telling us of imaginary dangers, the earthman intends to frighten us away and preserve his sovereignty over the planet." "that sounds like a plausible reason," i admitted. "but--if he _is_ telling the truth, we are risking martian lives every moment we remain here! we should at least check the facts." "well...." the captain turned blue with concentration. "the council, in chartering the earth expedition, expressed a fear that the planet might prove unavailable for colonization, due to possible inimical life forms. it's so much nearer the sun, and so moist, that we had anticipated just such a canalbank jungle as does exist; and it's possible that the pressure of evolutionary competition might develop strange and fearful creatures.... but, remember that we haven't seen even one of these 'fiends.'" "de long said that a great many of them are invisible." "hmm!" said the captain. "of course, that's within the bounds of possibility, though not of probability; but before we came here i'd have said flying animals were improbable. we had best investigate." "eh?" "it's simple. we'll merely put de long under the lie detector." * * * * * i was struck by the beautiful simplicity of this idea, which should have been right in my province. "i leave it to you to maneuver de long into a position where we can use the detector without his knowledge," said the captain. "very well," i said joyfully. it was not difficult to get de long aboard the ship; he had never had a chance to satisfy his curiosity concerning it. i showed him through several of the cabins without doing anything to arouse his suspicions, and finally got him seated within the effective radius of the lie detector. "er--i've been wondering about--about those werewolves you were telling me of, sir henry," i improvised. "just what are their habits?" "they are a dangerous sort of demon," replied the earthman readily. "by day they appear to be ordinary men, save that they may be distinguished by the first finger of the right hand being longer than the second; but in the dead of night the craving for human flesh comes upon them, they grow hairy, their nails become claws and their jaws lengthen, and they are wolves. they may not be slain by any weapon while in the beast form, but must be taken in human shape." i quivered in spite of myself. the lie detector indicator had not moved from center--what he was saying must be the dreadful truth! "are--are they the worst sort of fiend common around here?" i ventured to ask. de long constricted the skin above his eyes judiciously. "the vampire is likewise a direful demon, though little known in these parts," he declared. "it is the soul of an unsanctified corpse, which rises in the night from its grave and goes forth to suck blood and life from living men." * * * * * i sprang to my feet, unable to remain still any longer. de long stared. "is aught amiss?" he exclaimed anxiously. "no--nothing," i muttered, and the lie detector needle leaped clear against its stop pins. "that is--i rather think we'll be leaving earth before very long." with lame excuses, we managed to get the earthman outside. captain tutwa thoroughly agreed with me that we must leave this noxious planet at once, never to return, and that earth must be declared unfit for martian colonization. i can solemnly say that the blue planet is a veritable inferno; we of mars will do well to keep clear of it in future interplanetary explorations. i am sure that you can well see that earth can never be colonized from mars, that it must be forever shunned as a plague spot. if any of our hot-headed youth is now so foolhardy as to brave the horrors of that planet of fear, their blood is on their own heads. in the th day of the nd year of the invention of the steam engine, (signed) shapplo with the long proboscis, interpreter, first earth expedition. city of the living flame by henry hasse the legendary city of m'tonak lay hidden beneath mar's polar cap, its heart a pulsing flame from outer space. jim landor found the fabulous green flame, found it sentiently, evilly alive--and that its living meant death for all mankind. [transcriber's note: this etext was produced from planet stories fall . extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the u.s. copyright on this publication was renewed.] startled into action, jim landor straightened in his seat. he peered eagerly through the forward visiplate of the tiny rocket-plane. from the martian metropolis that nestled in the opposite hemisphere, thirteen hundred miles away, he had taken the poorly-mapped, wearisome, rocket-course of the polar route in order to save time. thus he avoided being hampered by the magnetic storms raging over the red desert at this season. at least, so he'd told his friends. but the real, the all-important reason he had kept to himself. it was not only that they would have laughed at him, that mattered little; but that a growing, nameless dread made him even more reserved than usual. he smiled thinly now as he visualized their reactions had he dared mention the mythical city of m'tonak. m'tonak, city of forgotten men, where reposed the fabulous emerald large enough to ransom a world! yes, jim thought without bitterness; at last he had joined the fatal number of men, usually earthmen, who had searched for m'tonak. he was persuaded against all reason that it did exist somewhere among the polar wastes, and it was most imperative that he find it! he was sure that then he would find his brother too, who had disappeared scarcely a month before. in his perilous passage above the cap, jim had zig-zagged the rocket-plane dangerously off its course, searching the limitless white wastes with the intentness of desperation. but in vain. "well," he murmured now, "no m'tonak, so i'll settle for riida--for the time being." the tiny martian town was beneath him, its crazy conical structures reaching up like pointing forefingers. jim's hand came down on the descent lever. a ghostly whirr disturbed the stillness as the plane's stubby wings sliced the atmosphere on its downward glide. it contacted gently, plowing a shallow furrow in the powdery sand that rose cloud-fine to engulf him as he climbed out. already he saw two men hurrying toward him from the town. "one of them must be conley," he decided and went forward to meet the mine superintendent. * * * * * "hello, jim landor, welcome to riida!" conley shook hands with a quiet, unobtrusive pleasure that seemed sincere. jim liked him immediately. he noted his straight-forward eyes, the faint burr of his booming irish voice and the little mannerism of thoughtfully rubbing his hand across his massive chin. the other earthman, conley introduced as wessel, the newly arrived surveying engineer for "tri-planetary mining." as jim glanced at the thin features and small wiry frame, he sensed something hard behind the man's clouded eyes. wessel remained silent, smiling inscrutably as he listened to their conversation. "so you came across the cap, eh landor?" conley said friendily, taking jim's arm as they trudged toward the town. "any sign of m'tonak?" and as jim looked at him sharply he hastened to add: "not that i'm poking fun at you, lad. but you're news now, you know, same as anyone who goes seeking for m'tonak. heard a news-story about you on the trans-telector not more'n a couple hours ago." "i thought my flight was a secret." "ah, no! no man's flight is secret who comes over the martian cap. that can mean but one thing. yep, the legend of m'tonak is rife once more, first time in two years. you're supposed to be searching for the lost city ... now, what would ye be wanting with an emerald that big?" conley half joked, lapsing into his irish brogue. "faith an' it makes a man's head swim to think of such riches." jim landor did not smile. he looked at conley seriously. "i've only been on mars a year, but naturally i'd heard stories of m'tonak long before that. _you_ called it a legend just now. tell me, what is your honest opinion?" "well, lad. certainly there's _something_ up there to cause these stories to persist." conley rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "maybe it's an ancient city called m'tonak and maybe it ain't. but men in search for it have disappeared too regularly, hardly men who wouldn't ordinarily fail to return from the polar wastes. and--and if there is a m'tonak, your brother may have reached it." "i shall find my brother," jim said with a soft certainty. "that's why i'm here. what about that martian, the one you said accompanied frank into the cap? is he here now?" "he is, and you shall talk to him. but, lad, i'm afraid he can't tell you any more than i did in the letter." "i want to hear it first hand." "sure," conley nodded understandingly. they walked in silence through the powdery sand, nearing the town. jim glanced at wessel, silent still, his hieratic smile barely perceptible. there was an uncanny aura to the man as if he were immersed in a world of his own where jim and conley had no part. "there's frank's mine," conley pointed beyond the town toward a low line of hills. "if you look close you can see his shack over there. as you probably know, he was--well, the independent type. refused to sell out to tri-planetary mining. that's why he went on north when his claim petered out, in an effort to find the source of the radite veins. want to go over there and look around?" "later," jim said shortly. they entered the sprawling town with its curious martian dwellings. jim had never ceased to marvel at them. they were conical and glistening, built of a reddish manufactured silica. they were surrounded by an ascending spiral dotted with entrances to the very top. jim sometimes wondered, too, at the manner in which martians tolerated so much from the earthmen. but then, it was well known that activity to a martian was the final degradation. they looked upon the exertions of the earthman in a mixture of uncomprehending wonder and supercilious amusement, much as a human might watch the eternal hustle of a colony of ants. theirs was a world of philosophic contemplation, peace and indolence. now, as they proceeded along the straggling main street of riida, jim wondered about them even more. from various ramps of the conical buildings residents watched them silently. tall, wasp-waisted martians, dark and leathery, passed them leisurely on the street without a word. they weren't sullen, it was as though they didn't care. jim peered into their heavy-lidden eyes. colorless eyes, always. he was startled at the somnolence he saw there. it struck a vague disturbing note in his brain that was dashed away by conley's booming voice: "here we are!" * * * * * they had reached a squat, basaltic building which bore the legend tri-planetary mining corporation. "enter the lair of the octopus," conley laughed, glancing at the gilded sign above him. wessel frowned at the words, and by that token jim knew that he was a corporation man to the hilt. within, jim found himself in an atmosphere as far removed from mars as day is from night. the office was plain and unpretentious. there was an old-fashioned desk, a few chairs and some iron lockers against the wall. on the walls, in curious contrast, were pictures of cinema stars several years out of date, and a few yellowed maps of the company's workings. "not only has frank's claim petered out," conley explained, "but tri-planet is beginning to. that's the reason wessel's here, to try and trace these radite veins to their source. we think they must stem from somewhere up in the cap." jim nodded. "you haven't many earthmen here now, have you?" "about a dozen," conley shrugged. "more than enough to handle what little radite's left." "and we wouldn't even need them," wessel spoke for the first time, "if we could get these damn lazy martians to stir themselves." jim turned his gaze on the man with slowly dawning wonderment, and would have spoken, but was interrupted by conley: "jim, we thought we'd head up into the cap in the morning, four or five of us. wessel wanted to leave several days ago, but i insisted on waiting for you. however, i can't say how far north we'll be going. it all depends on the radite traces." "thanks, conley, i really appreciate it. all i know about this polar cap is what i saw flying over it. what do we do, make the trek afoot?" "afoot, he says!" wessel scoffed before conley could answer. "man, what a lot you've got to learn yet about that country up there!" "no," conley answered, with a distasteful glance at wessel. "most men who've tried it afoot have not come back. we're trying it with a couple of sleds. motor-driven, of course, of very little metal alloy. furnished benignantly by tri-planet mining, since it's to their advantage that we find new radite deposits." the slight scorn in his voice was not lost on wessel. "we figure it'll be a two or three day trip each way." "but of course," wessel said suavely, "if we find m'tonak or any other cities up there with big fabulous emeralds, we'll forget about the radite." jim was fast learning to dislike this man; he turned to conley. "i think i'll see this martian you were telling me about, the one who accompanied my brother." "kaarji? sure. i'll go fetch him." "better take me to him instead, i'd rather talk to him alone." * * * * * as conley had said, kaarji wasn't of much help. the tall, leathery, heavy-chested martian was even more taciturn than the usual members of his race. he seemed to show a distrust of jim. however, he did agree to accompany jim across the mile strip of desert to frank landor's mine nestled against the hills. as they trudged through the sand in silence, jim glanced occasionally at kaarji. he was sure he had made it plain that he was frank landor's brother. the martian wasn't dumb, he knew why jim was here. with a friendly and almost instinctive gesture jim offered the martian a cigarette. kaarji accepted it, looked at it with distaste as though he had tried them before and abhorred them; but he placed it clumsily in his lips nevertheless and smoked it valiantly. at the same time he reached into his pocket and handed jim a few tiny purplish objects. jim accepted them, looked at them and shuddered. he had heard of martian _tsith_ stems and knew that they made almost all earthmen violently ill. nevertheless he plopped them into his mouth and began chewing. kaarji looked at him approvingly and gave a grotesque smile. as though the earthman's act were a signal, he began talking. "i don't like it in town," kaarji said. "too many earthmen. i like it over here." "at frank's mine, you mean?" "yes. frank landor was a fine man. i am sorry he did not come back." "perhaps he will come back," jim suggested. but kaarji shook his head. it took very little effort then to get the entire story. it seemed that frank landor and kaarji had trekked four days into the martian cap. only kaarji had ever gone that far before. late on the fourth day, as they camped, kaarji was awakened by a shout from frank. he had leaped up and glimpsed frank landor running toward a vehicle that rested at the bottom of an icy decline.... here kaarji faltered slightly in his story. he had not seen the vehicle plainly enough nor long enough to describe it as other than a car, seemingly unlike any he had ever seen before. it was simply round and grayish and metallic, and completely enclosed. it had a bluish beam of light in the front of it. frank landor had seemed to enter the car--and then it sped away with him. "kaarji, try to remember," jim said to the martian now. "frank entered the car of his own volition? you saw no one else, no other person?" "no one else." kaarji seemed sure of it. jim shook his head in puzzlement. this was the same story kaarji had told conley, there were no discrepancies. they walked on to the mine in silence. jim examined several tunnels leading back into the hills and saw that frank's claim had indeed petered out. in his iron-walled cabin, everything was left as though frank had merely gone and intended to return in a few days. "let's go back," jim said finally. "nothing we can do here." on the walk back to riida, jim thought that kaarji looked at him several times as though he were going to speak. but when jim questioned him, the martian shook his head negatively. he offered kaarji another cigarette but this time it was declined. it was not until then that jim realized he was still chewing on the martian _tsith_ stems, and that kaarji was grinning at him. it was not until he reached the edge of town that he became violently ill. ii the sun rose on a crystal clear morning and glanced beckoningly from the white expanse that capped the cliffs a few miles distant. five men were making the trip: jim and kaarji, conley, wessel and lewis, the latter, one of the workmen who had had some polar experience. the motor-sled parts were light but bulky, and it took a dozen men to transport them across to the cliffs and up into the cap, where they would be assembled. "i want to tell you something about kaarji," conley said, walking beside jim as the trek began. "he's not like other martians, not philosophic and indolent. on the contrary he seems--well, _restless_." "i know the type," jim nodded. "i've seen a few of them myself, even in the capitol city; amazingly energetic for martians, restless and perpetually wandering as though seeking for--for something vague and unknown even to them." "that describes kaarji, all right," conley nodded emphatically. "jim, three times in the past year he's left here abruptly and trekked alone up into those polar wastes. he'd be gone for days and then show up here again, exhausted and brooding, as if he'd just missed his goal. and the last time was with frank landor. that mean anything to you?" jim shook his head puzzledly. "now i wonder," conley murmured, "what he always finds so interesting up there in that wilderness?" "probably doesn't find anything. maybe he's only--seeking. perpetually seeking." "seeking m'tonak?" "maybe." conley scoffed. "now what would kaarji do with the emerald of m'tonak if he did find it? of what value would it be to _any_ martian, to the whole dying martian race?" "maybe it isn't the emerald the martians are interested in." conley was startled, glanced sharply at him, but jim kept his eyes on the huge bulk of kaarji ahead. they reached the black cliffs and entered a narrow defile that led gradually upward, tortuously. the rock was a soft, igneous basalt which at times made footing extremely hazardous. after an hour of this kaarji stopped abruptly in a level place. they leaned thankfully against the cliff wall, and stared out upon the curving gleam of the red desert far below. there the hazes of pinkish dust were beginning to drift and the sun was beginning to bite. they continued when kaarji continued. an hour later the air had become a chilling blast sweeping down the widening ravine. luckily the ascent was becoming less steep as they neared the top. it levelled off into a shallow little gorge, then they were beyond that, emerging out onto the plateau. scattered patches of dark rocky terrain showed here, where green growing things struggled pitifully to maintain a meagre existence. less than a mile away the real cap began, dazzling white and forbidding. reaching there, the two sleds were assembled in a few minutes. the five who were to make the trip now readjusted their packs and put on the priceless coats of praaka fur, unbelievably light and cold repelling. they also painstakingly tightened the high fabricord leggings conley had insisted they wear. jim wondered why, but asked no questions as he followed suit. the supplies were on the sleds, but each man carried a fully charged electro-pistol and a small, light metal tank strapped to his side. "acid spray," conley explained laconically. "don't worry, you'll realize the use for it before long." * * * * * now the real trip began. "kaarji, you and lewis take the first sled," conley instructed. "we'll follow." the martian nodded. the motors purred and the sleds moved slowly away. "yes, we'll follow him," wessel murmured. "just as long as he sticks fairly close to the radite veins, we will. _this_ is what i'm going by." and he touched the little metallic device at his wrist, which jim knew was susceptible through super-sensitive coils to all radite emanations within a radius of several miles. conley frowned but nodded mute agreement. and now for the first time it really dawned on jim that he and kaarji were apart from these other men. he and the martian were up here seeking, not radite deposits, but something else. the same thing but for different reasons. jim determined to try, at the first opportunity, to probe into that big martian's mind. now they were speeding into the real polar vastness. kaarji's sled ahead of them dipped and rose across long icy undulations. the terrain was wide and white and peaceful as far as jim could see. he began to wonder why men had never been able to penetrate very far up here. even afoot it ought not to be hard, but this was ridiculously easy! as he huddled there in his place on the sled he was very warm and cozy beneath his coat of praaka fur. he began to get drowsy.... * * * * * jim awoke with a start from the deep, firm depths of somnolence. he was aware that they had been moving for a long time, probably many hours. now the sky was dark above him and he could see a few stars. but _something_ had shattered his drowsiness to jerk him back to reality, and he wondered what it was. then he knew, as it came again. there was a sudden movement beneath them. the sled lurched crazily. conley was shouting something, as their sled pulled up beside kaarji's, which was lying half on its side. the men stepped down. again there came that sudden movement, and jim nearly fell! startled, he looked down and saw that the very ice cap was moving beneath their feet, or rather it was expanding! long lines began to appear in every direction. as far as he could see, the surface was a vast mosaic pattern. conley stood there with his hands on his hips, staring around. wessel was cursing softly and looked angry. "this wouldn't have happened," wessel said, "if you'd taken my advice and left two days ago! tomorrow it'll be worse. it'll slow us to a walk. we may as well not have brought along any sleds." "it would've happened anyway!" conley snapped testily. "it's just our damnable luck that it had to come early this year. i didn't expect this to start for another month yet. well, we may as well camp here and get a good start in the morning." jim looked at the mosaic pattern across the ice and was relieved to see that it had stopped moving. he peered down into a crack an inch wide, where a billowing powdery stuff exuded to spread thinly over the surface. he touched the stuff with his bare hand. it was uncannily different from snow, being infinitely more powdery yet dazzling white and deadly cold. "you're witnessing the start of the polar cap's receding," conley explained with a wry smile. "it does that twice a year, you know, getting smaller to about half its present size. "receding!" jim exclaimed. "the damn stuff's expanding, you mean." "it only looks that way. this is just the preliminary. soon the extreme edges will vanish away and then the entire cap will begin receding, for some strange reason. when that starts to happen, too bad for any man caught up here. frankly, jim, i should say that, if this continues tomorrow, we ought to head back." that struck an ominous note in jim's heart, but he said nothing. to return now would mean they must wait several months before making another attempt. it was while helping to unroll the wide fabricoid mats that jim felt the sharp, biting pain just above his knee. he ignored it at first. then it came again, and he looked down. he saw a pale blue, tubular thing about four inches long. it had bitten through his clothing and into his flesh above the knee. quiescent now, it clung there, and its transparent bluish tint was taking on a crimson flush as it fed upon his blood. * * * * * with a loathing horror jim reached down and pulled the thing from him. it did not come away easily. he flung it to the ice and tried to crush it with his heel. it seemed amazingly rubbery, resilient, as it darted away from under his foot. then he saw that others had attached to his fabricoid leggings, and were inching their way upward. desperately he tried to brush them off, but they clung tenaciously. another one bit through his trouser leg and into the flesh. it was cold and loathesome to the touch, but he tore it away with his fingers. then he staggered back, as he saw that the ice was swarming with the things. "your acid tube, man, use it!" he heard conley cry. "that's all that'll stop 'em!" already the men were up-ending the sleds, using them as a barricade from behind which they swept the ice with a thin misty spray. not wishing to chance that acid on his own person, jim tore the things from his legs one at a time and flung them out into the spray. they writhed and shrivelled and curled upon themselves, lifeless and blackened. others were coming up from the crevices now. the ice was a thick, bluish writhing mass of them. jim added his spray to the others, sweeping it low across the ice. the acid misted and clung there close to the surface, until gradually the greater mass of the bluish things retreated back into the depths. kaarji opened a pouch he carried always with him, took out some _tsith_ stems and placed them in his mouth. he arose and stood gazing out to the north. jim watched him. "whew!" conley gasped, wiping beads of cold perspiration from his brow. "just in time! let those things once get a foothold up here and there's no stopping them. i guess we've settled for most of them, though, they won't come again." "but what the devil are they?" jim asked. "and how can they subsist in this barren country?" "it's not so barren. far below the ice are green growing things, at least this far south there is. those blue tube-things ride down with the ice twice a year, feed, and then migrate back to the north. "vegetarians, eh?" jim grunted. "then what were those two chewing on me for?" "blood's something comparatively new to them, and it seems to drive them wild. they can sense it for amazing distances. they come flocking beneath the ice to wherever anyone stops. there's a story of an earthman who was lost up here once, and--well, never mind. anyway we'll take turns on guard tonight." * * * * * jim slept fitfully. there were fragmentary nightmares of the ice opening to spew hordes of bluish tube creatures up at him. he was glad when kaarji awakened him for his turn at guard. but kaarji did not return to sleep either. he seemed restless and brooding. he sat beside jim against one of the sleds, and for a long time there was silence as he stared far out to the north with troubled eyes. "jim landor," he broke the silence at last, "there is one thing i did not tell you." "i thought there was." "frank landor and i found something. the body of a man in the ice far to the north of here. it had been there a long time." jim merely waited for him to go on. "in his clothing we found some of these." kaarji fumbled in his pocket, and handed something to jim. it was a piece of metal, flat, round and amazingly light. it seemed to have once been part of some ornamentation. what interested jim, however, was not what it might have been, but rather the metal itself. it was a dull greenish-gray in color and strangely different to the touch from any metal he had ever known. it was somehow reminiscent of radite, but only faintly. in it was a subtle suggestion of--yes, of fabulous strength and power! in the dim grayness of that polar night jim looked at kaarji and said in a voice he did not recognize as his own: "kaarji, do you realize what this means? up here somewhere there is a city, a former civilization--a m'tonak! that man you found dead--_he_ reached m'tonak and was coming back with the news when disaster overtook him! but that might have been many years ago.... "tell me something, kaarji. why have you come up here three times before? are you seeking m'tonak?" "i do not know. something calls me. something inside. and i only know that i must go." "is that all, just something calling you?" "that is all. except that this time it is different. this time i know that i shall reach--whatever is calling me, and i shall not return. i am sure of it." jim sat there for a long time, pondering, watching kaarji pace restlessly back and forth. the martian was in a strange mood this night. a foreboding mood. jim gave up puzzling about it, and examined again that strange piece of metal. here at last was proof of m'tonak, perhaps the first proof any man outside had ever had! he felt an exuberant hope rising in him. "anyway, kaarji, thanks for telling me about this. mind if i keep it a while?" "i want you to have it, jim landor." iii they were away early the next morning, speeding ahead of a graying dawn. wessel was wrong, the ice no longer shifted beneath them; but the biting sun had not yet risen. now jim noticed that wessel constantly consulted the device at his waist, which registered the proximity of any radite. apparently, however, he was satisfied with the route kaarji was taking. it was about noon when the terrain began to surge gently again as though with a life of its own, and the mosaic pattern of cracks re-appeared. but this was not enough, as yet, to stop them. what did stop them was wessel, who called a halt a few hours later. "must be some floaters near here," he told conley. "i can tell by the way this thing's acting." he tapped the radite-finder, whose needle was gyrating erratically. "floaters?" jim asked. "what are they?" "trouble," conley groaned. "more denizens for you to get acquainted with. you'll see before long." "there they come now," wessel pointed. "we may as well wait here, and get rid of them once and for all." a long line of tiny dots had appeared low on the horizon. they came rapidly nearer and proved to be perfect spheres about a foot in diameter, apparently with an uncanny power of levitation! there were several dozens of them. hovering in the air, they circled around the men. a few of them darted in close, experimentally. jim threw up a hand instinctively as one zoomed too near his head. his fist contacted the taut, metallic skin of the thing. he felt a slight but inconsequential electric shock. the floater bounced back lightly as a feather. it hovered there, took on a shimmering, greenish iridescence as though it were glaring at the earthman. jim felt an uncanny chill across his brain. he was sure these things were intelligent! again it zoomed in, but again jim shoved it back easily. "that's it," conley said in general to the men who were staving off the pesky things. "make them keep their distance. they're really not dangerous, if we keep them away from the metal sleds. that's what they want." the floaters at last seemed to call a council of war. they gathered in a group behind the men. conley took advantage of this, and gave the order to move again. but the floaters followed slowly, longingly. a few of them made tentative darting attempts, but the men were too wary. suddenly then, _en masse_, the floaters launched their real attack. they came from all sides and the men were overwhelmed. a few of the spheres alighted on a sled. the metal began to crumble. cursing, conley knocked them away; but others alighted. "protect the sleds!" conley yelled. the men were trying to. a sphere attached itself to the metal fastenings of a pack, and clung there voraciously. the metal crumbled, disappeared, and the pack spewed its contents over the ice. instantly the floater darted to the contents, seeking more metal. lewis drew his electro-pistol, but immediately a floater attached itself to it; the weapon dissolved, disappeared, as the creature took on a rosy radiance of heat-energy. "holy hannah!" lewis gasped. conley was cursing volubly now, but he was suddenly cool. "all right, you men, let 'em have it--all at once! blast 'em out of the air." they threw themselves flat on the ice and swept their weapons around in a solid, crackling barrage. that was the beginning of the end for the floaters. they exploded in corruscating riots of bluish sparks wherever the electro-beams touched. soon the ice was littered with their lifeless, deflated husks. the remaining ones sped far away out of danger, and they did not return. "i hated to do that," conley sighed, "'cause i kind of like those creatures. they have intelligence of a sort. they're harmless enough ordinarily, except for their voracious appetites for metal!" "the damn things sometimes visit our mines to the south," wessel said, "but i'm kind of surprised to find 'em away up _here_. that can only mean one thing, though. we're on the right track! the radite must stem from one huge central deposit somewhere up here!" his eyes gleamed at the thought. to jim it meant even more. the converging radite veins, kaarji's story of the perpetual lure that tormented him, and most of all that mysterious bit of strange metal--all this pointed to one thing, a secret somewhere to the north. and that secret was m'tonak. jim was sure of it now. he was sure they would reach it, that they were _meant_ to reach it. the thought surged within him, made him restless and foreboding. so that when, late that day, the car came--the silent mysterious vehicle from out of the north, just as kaarji had described--jim was not surprised. he had been almost expecting it. * * * * * it was while they were making camp. they were rolling out the fabricoid mats and setting up the little atomo-stoves. jim missed kaarji, looked around and saw the martian at the crest of the long, smooth rise at the foot of which they had stopped. jim drew his coat of praaka fur closer around him and walked out to where kaarji stood. not until he had gained the crest of the slight ascent did he see that the martian was in his strange mood again, standing quite still, staring out to the north. jim approached very silently. he stood unmoving by kaarji's side. now he almost felt it too, an eerie feeling as though ghostly, insistent fingers were tugging at his brain. almost, a fascinating wisp of a voice created an urgency within him. but that was imagination! he knew it, even as he drew back. for a full minute they stood there in silence. then kaarji, without even glancing at him, spoke in his curiously clipped monnotone: "so you feel it too, jim landor." "i--i thought i felt something." "the same thing that i have felt. but i have felt it stronger." stretching out below was a long gentle decline, and beyond were the familiar vastnesses of the polar wastes. now jim found himself scanning the far horizon. he felt on the very verge of something strange--and momentous. kaarji leaned tensely, suddenly forward. not the slightest show of emotion was in his voice as he stated: "it is coming. i know it. it will be here very soon." jim did not ask what was coming. he knew. he had known all the time. he stared outward, following kaarji's gaze, but could see nothing. he waited impatiently as the martian never once removed his eyes from the horizon. minutes passed. * * * * * then ... much nearer and so clear that even jim could not mistake it, a dot of light flashed across their vision. immediately it was gone, hugging the terrain closely as though it had dipped behind an ice dune. it appeared again in the near distance, moving swiftly, unerringly toward them. it resolved itself into a penetrant beam of bluish light, the forward light on a speeding ghostly vehicle. abruptly it slowed. it crept silently to the very foot of the slight slope below them. breathless with wonderment, jim waited for something to happen. nothing happened except that the bluish light blinked abruptly off. no door opened. no one nor nothing emerged. even at this close distance the conveyance was discernible only as a grayish, ghostly shape. then kaarji was running down toward it. jim was suddenly torn between two desires. he stared after kaarji and then back at the camp. he shouted to conley and the others, and saw them look up and start toward him; then he was dashing madly after kaarji who had almost reached the ghostly conveyance now. when jim reached there, kaarji was staring at a dark, narrow entrance in the metal hull. "it was already open," the martian murmured. then, as though it were expected of him, he stepped unhesitatingly inside. jim waited for a single instant during which he surveyed the hull of the vessel. it was not any type of sled, as he had thought; indeed it did not touch the surface at all, but hovered a full foot above the ground. he heard a gentle humming as though of ionization beams. he followed kaarji inside. there were no sort of controls that he could see; only a long row of seats filled the entire space. kaarji had found a button that turned on some overhead lights. still nothing happened. by this time the other men had reached there. conley was stammering, "jim, we--we can't leave the supplies! the sleds!" "sleds be damned!" jim exclaimed in an ecstasy of excitement. "this is better than a hundred sleds! do you want to find your radite or don't you? are you going to m'tonak or not!" hesitantly, conley entered the strange craft. the others glanced nervously, then quickly followed, as though not wishing to be left alone. "i--" conley began doubtfully. that seemed to be a signal. instantly a well-oiled metal door slid shut behind them. motors began to purr gently beneath their feet. the car swung around in a great circle, and they were heading into the north. from one of the comfortable pneumatic seats jim watched the white unending landscape flashing past. he felt strangely exhilarated now that he was on the very threshold of his quest; for that they were being taken to the long-hidden, legendary city of m'tonak, he did not for a moment doubt. it had not yet occurred to him to wonder why they were being taken. but of one thing he was sure. he said, turning to conley: "why do you suppose they sent the car for us? it must be that they _know_ whenever anyone is approaching m'tonak! always! other expeditions must have reached here in the same manner, else why were they never found by the men who came later?" conley nodded soberly. "and that must mean that, once inside m'tonak, men are unable to leave." iv it seemed minutes later, but it might have been hours, that jim landor sat up with a start, aware that the softly purring motors had lulled him to sleep. he wondered how long they had been travelling. now their speed seemed to have diminished considerably. but something else seemed strange. he turned to the tiny window, and was startled to see no more polar cap, no more expanse of white ice. instead they were in a strange dark place. it was several seconds before he could adjust his eyes sufficiently to see that a wall was very close. it seemed to be moving backward and slightly upward. he knew then that they were descending somewhere at about a thirty degree angle. "when did this begin?" he asked, turning to conley. "about twenty minutes ago. we must be a mile below the ice by now." so m'tonak lay somewhere _beneath_ the polar cap! that was why men in ages past had been unable to find it, until it became a legend on a par with earth's lost atlantis! jim tensed in his seat now as he thought of all the conflicting reports he had heard about m'tonak; vague questions crossed his mind to which there were only vaguer answers. now the passage through which they sped seemed to widen. simultaneously they were in a sea of softly diffused, pale greenish light. this light increased as they went on, but did not become intense or glaring; rather it seemed to permeate the very atmosphere from some subtle, unknown source. then, with breath-taking suddenness they burst out into a vast open place and looked upon the city of m'tonak. m'tonak lay in the center of a vast, shallow bowl several miles wide. in the first start of amazement jim thought they must have somehow emerged again upon the planet's surface; but this thought was immediately discarded when he gazed across at the opposite horizon. it was concave rather than convex, which meant they were in a cavern of inconceivable dimensions. far overhead he saw something vague and misty that must have been a roof. that soothing green light was everywhere but he still could not determine its source, it simply seemed to exist. now they were gliding gently down into the city which consisted of low-structured, white-marble buildings of peculiar architecture. wide, empty avenues stretched away in a perfect geometric pattern. "this city must be inconceivably old!" conley gasped. "there's no other architecture like this anywhere on mars!" their car was slowing now. it came to rest in a wide circular plaza. the door slid smoothly, invitingly open. jim glanced at the others who made no move to leave. he didn't blame them for not moving, for there was something strange and devilishly pre-arranged about all this. "end of the line!" he said with a jocularity he did not feel. he moved to the door and stepped out. instantly he was aware of a strange difference. it might have been that alien green-tinged atmosphere, as if he had suddenly stepped into another dimension. every fiber of his being now seemed to tingle in a peculiarly delightful way. it was very slight, scarcely felt, but there was no mistaking it. as the others stepped out jim looked at them closely. they felt it too, he noticed--especially kaarji. kaarji's usually dark and expressionless face was now alight with a feverish excitement. they looked at the radiating streets about them. all were utterly empty, eerily silent. "where in blazes," muttered conley, "is the welcoming committee? we were brought here, but why? surely the place isn't uninhabited!" "it isn't!" jim said in that instant. "look. here comes your welcoming committee!" there was a peculiar note, almost a shrillness of disbelief in his voice. the others whirled, their combined gaze following his pointing finger across to the opposite side of the plaza. * * * * * toward them slowly came a single lone figure. it was a martian, of that there could be no doubt; but a martian inconceivably old! he was stooped and withered, he leaned heavily on a stout cane, but he moved forward briskly for all of that. there was a certain purposefulness about him. he stopped before them, and leaned forward with both hands on top of his cane. his chin almost rested on his hands as he peered around at them. none of the men moved or spoke. jim, who was nearest, was fascinated by that grayish leathery face criss-crossed with thousands of tiny lines, in which were set, like jewels, four unwinking black eyes incongruously bright and alert with cunning. there was an uncanny aura of evil about this bent little martian, an evil made audible as he spoke: "there are only four of you--and one martian. strange, i thought there were more. but it is all right. four earthmen, intelligent earthmen too. earthmen are always welcome here." he pointedly ignored kaarji and turned his eyes upon jim. then he chuckled, as though with secret glee. it was a dry metallic wheeze that reminded jim of an empty rocket tube when the fuel is burned out. jim was glad of the comfortable weight of his electro-pistol in his pocket. "my name is jim landor," he said. "who are you, and why were we brought here? did you have anything to do with it?" the old martian gave a quirk of a smile as if faintly amused by jim's impetuosity. but he answered the questions promptly and in order. "my name? it is bhruulo. here i am the overseer--the co-ordinator--call it what you will. as to why you were brought here, did you not seek m'tonak, as have innumerable men in ages past? now you have attained m'tonak, and you should thank me. yes, it was i who sent the surface car for you. i send it for all men who come far into the polar cap." "you still haven't explained why we were brought here." "that," bhruulo said with a tinge of sarcasm, "i am sure you will learn from the others far better than you could from me." "then there are _others_ here!" "yes, there are others. you need not fear, you are free to come and go here as you please. i give you--m'tonak! but you will excuse me now, i must leave you. i am sure you will find--the others." with that, the old martian whirled upon his cane and hurried across the plaza in the direction whence he had come. * * * * * "wait a minute, lad," conley put out a restraining hand as jim leaped forward. "let him play his game for the time being. let's see where his hangout is, so we can find him later." they watched as bhruulo, without a backward glance, entered a columnaded building that was different from the others by reason of its imposing height. jim nodded and decided to remember that building. "now, jim, let's find those others he speaks of. there are other earthmen here, i'm convinced of it now." conley had begun to lose his skepticism of m'tonak--now that he had found it!--and his eyes were agleam with a growing excitement. but search as they would, they saw no other occupants. they traversed streets that were dead and empty and silent. that palely diffused greenish radiance was everywhere, coloring all with a ghostly brightness. for several hours they explored, wandering far from that central plaza. kaarji stayed very close to jim now, his original excitement having faded; indeed he seemed appalled, if not a little frightened, as he stared around in the abysmal stillness, and several times jim noticed the martian pass his hand in a puzzled manner across his brow. wessel's mien brightened, as he watched the needle of his radite-finder gyrating wildly as if at any moment it would jump its bearings. "it must mean we're now in the very center of the main deposit!" he exclaimed. "if only we--" it was then they saw the figure of an earthman emerge from a building hardly fifty yards away. he saw them at the same time. he turned quickly indoors again, and shouted something that sounded like: "new arrivals!" then three other men emerged, and they all walked toward the little group of five. * * * * * "we're friendly," one of them said as they neared, and jim's hand fell away from his weapon. "because we have to be, here. hmmm. when did _you_ arrive?" "a few hours ago." "uh-huh. and you met the funny little man, i suppose?" "if you mean bhruulo," conley said with a grimace, "we sure did! is he head man here?" "more about that later. my name's spurlin. ross, fleming, adams," he introduced the others. jim was staring at the speaker, a huge man with a purposeful set to his unshaven jaw. "then you're gregg spurlin, who headed the scientific expedition three years ago in the search for m'tonak!" "and found it, as you can see. found it too damn well. but we weren't the first. what about you?" briefly, jim told of their trek, and of his search for his brother. "what about him?" he said in imitation of spurlin's own brusqueness. "frank landor. he should have arrived here weeks ago, unless--" he stopped there, looking from one to the other. the men were looking uncomfortably at each other. "no frank landor ever showed up here," adams said. fleming nodded agreement, a little too hurriedly, jim thought, and none of the men would look directly at him. "they're lying to you," spurlin said. "you might as well know the truth; but before i tell you about it let's get back inside, out of this green hell." he led the way back into the building whence they had emerged. but once inside they did not stop. the greenish radiance penetrated even there. they hurried over to a wide metal door that slid silently open when spurlin pressed a hidden button. revealed to their gaze was a dark narrow tunnel, leading downward. "what about the martian?" ross said, addressing spurlin. "he goes along!" jim snapped, and kaarji looked at him gratefully. "all right," spurlin murmured softly. "no harm if he comes. but i don't think he'll last long, no martian ever does in this city." if kaarji heard the words he did not show it, as he followed jim into the tunnel. "about your brother," spurlin spoke brusquely out of the darkness as they moved along. "yes, he arrived here all right. for a while, frank landor was with our secret little group down here below. but--there's something about that greenish atmosphere, something exhilerating but also deadly, in a very subtle and insidious way. sometimes it increases, penetrates even down to us, through walls and things. but there are some men who--" "yes, i know," jim's voice was as dead as the hope within him. "frank was one of those men. he couldn't stay cooped up here. he was curious, he had to find out--things, and the reason for things. that what you're trying to tell me?" "that's about it. like others who have come here he had to go up into the city, searching, trying to solve its secret. every day he and a few others went up. always they returned to us here, exhausted, until one day--they just didn't come back." in silence they continued along the winding passage. jim was thinking of his brother now, with a dawning realization that he would probably never again see him alive. he was thinking of other things too. of that menacing greenness in the city above. of spurlin who seemed so calloused and unconcerned. of the legendary emerald of m'tonak, the lure for countless men in ages past. * * * * * spurlin's voice shattered the silence. "here we are." now he was flashing a tiny light upon a massive metal door. and jim's heart leaped, for he saw it as a metal new, and yet not new to him. it was the same dull, greenish-gray metal as the piece kaarji had given him. jim passed his fingers lightly across it to make sure, but said nothing. for more than any of these things he was thinking of a bent and shrivelled old martian named bhruulo, who had chuckled with a secret evil glee. the door swung ponderously open. they stepped into a huge oval room, and many men came hurrying toward them. the walls of this room, jim noticed, were of the same peculiar metal. "introductions later," spurlin said, as the men came crowding around. "right now i want you newcomers to see the work we're engaged in here. you look like the sort who can help us in the job." he led them to another room where a long, skeletal shape was under construction. it rested on curved cradles, pointing upward. only a few outer plates had as yet been put into place, plates of the same strange metal jim identified with everything here. "a spaceship!" he exclaimed unbelievingly. "but--why a spacer here, so far beneath mars' surface?" "a spacer it is, jim landor. one such as you never saw before, and it's being built under conditions such as you cannot imagine. we have to mine and fashion the metal in the few tiny furnaces we have here, and it's inconceivably slow due to the scarcity and crudeness of tools. we've been at work on this one spacer for three years. "as for this new metal, it's to be found here in huge deposits. in some ways it's like radite, it might even _be_ radite, strangely changed through the centuries by those peculiar green radiations. anyway, it's amazingly light and tough, almost expansive under fuel pressure and it's going to revolutionize spacer construction if we can only get any from here and make it known!" "but how, man? how do you propose--" "to get the spacer out of here?" spurlin smiled confidently. "in one super blast we're going to hurl through this roof to the city above, and through _that_ cavern roof onto the surface of mars. i'm fully convinced this metal is capable of withstanding it. we're building a double hull. and we have enough fuel hoarded here to take us clear to earth if we wish." jim nodded, but he was not enthusiastic. "how long, do you think, before you finish it?" "perhaps only another month now! the ore's damnably hard to get out, and we can only stay up there on the surface a few hours at a time--but with the added help of you new men...." * * * * * "we're with you to the finish!" conley exclaimed, and the others nodded enthusiastically. wessel, especially, had listened with an eager intentness to spurlin's description of the new metal. wessel had come seeking new radite deposits, and had stumbled upon something vast beyond his fondest dreams! even his loyalty to tri-planetary mining was fast beginning to waver. "what i want to know," jim voiced the thought uppermost in his mind, "is the status of that little old martian, bhruulo." spurlin frowned. "no one seems to have found out, and most of us don't care. he's incredibly old, of course. he seems to have been here always. in some strange manner, he seems to know when men come into the polar cap, and he always sends that surface vehicle out for them. however, he completely ignores us here. i'm not even sure that he knows we're working on this spaceship! we try to keep out of his sight, and i've personally not seen him more than twice in the past year." "but isn't it incredible that in three years he hasn't found out or guessed what you are doing?" "not so incredible. we don't know what he's doing. we leave him alone and he leaves us alone." "but," jim exclaimed unbelievingly, "he brought you here, and you're not even curious to know why?" "let me remind you that certain men have been curious--and they have disappeared. anyway our sole purpose now is in completing the spacer for our escape." jim gestured disdainfully. "and you, spurlin--you once claimed to be a scientist! you have not even the scientific mind--" "one's mind," spurlin interrupted softly, "somehow, does not seem to be the same after three years in this place." "all right. but before _i_ leave here i'm going to find out what bhruulo's purpose is! i don't like the way that old martian grinned at me. he's got something up his sleeve, and i think you men'll find it out too late." spurlin smiled sadly. "all right, jim landor. each man is his own boss here. at least i wish you would accompany a few of us tomorrow. we're getting more of the metal out, and trying to determine the proper spot to blast through with our spacer. you'll become more acquainted with the city and the general terrain, and maybe it'll change your mind." "sure, i'll go," jim agreed. but he didn't think it would change his mind. he had wanted to find m'tonak, here he was in m'tonak and he was gong to solve the mystery of m'tonak. more than that, he was going to learn once and for all what had happened to his brother. v the following day a dozen men ventured up into the city. spurlin seemed disappointed as they stepped out into the street from their secret building. "not an ideal day for it," he commented gruffly. and at jim's querulous look, he explained, "those emanations seem stronger today. i give us only two or three hours, at the most." they went into the rocky terrain beyond the city, toward the near horizon where the cave roof tapered down. that was hardly a mile away. jim found it hard to believe that over their heads was the polar cap, vast and desolate. glancing up, he barely made out the dim contour of their roof; and it suddenly occurred to him to wonder what sustained it, why it didn't collapse under that tremendous pressure of rock and ice! he knew why, only a minute later. there came a sudden, smooth hum in his ears. the very air around them seemed surcharged with energy, or rather all energy seemed to be rushing _away_ from them! "this way!" spurlin exclaimed, making a hasty detour from the spot. barely a hundred yards away jim could discern a vague swirling mistiness, in the form of a huge column that reached up to touch the roof. suddenly, he knew what it was, knew also that it would be death for any man who ventured too close. "ionization zone." spurlin voiced jim's own thoughts as they hurried in the detour. "an electronic tower of strength! there are usually six of them in a straight line across this cave, but once in a while new ones spring up out of nowhere. i think bhruulo controls them." jim nodded uncomfortably, and tried not to think what would happen if all those electronic zones failed, with millions of tons of ice above them. they reached their objective at last. tunnels were in evidence where the men had been taking out the ore. they resumed work at once, but it was slow and heart-breaking. their tools were crude, and the ore was the most difficult jim had ever handled. wessel worked harder than any of them, his eyes agleam with a new excitement. "look at that stuff," he said once to conley. "over fifty per cent pure content, most of it!" it was perhaps an hour later when spurlin called a halt. "enough for today. we'll try again tomorrow." jim didn't need to ask why they must stop. already he felt that strange tingling in every fiber of his being, which increased as the minutes passed, and he knew that here was a dangerous thing. "we have so little time in which to work up here," spurlin said as they hurried back. "do you see now, jim landor, why it's taken us close to three years?" jim saw, indeed. within him there surged a vast admiration for these men who had persevered in the face of almost insurmountable difficulties, to build their spaceship from the barest resources around them. yet close upon this there leaped to jim's mind another thought, unannounced and without reason. it was simply a feeling that there was something _vastly, terribly wrong with what these men were doing_! it was more than a feeling, it was a certainty! it didn't make sense--that they shouldn't escape from m'tonak--but now jim knew it! before he could think long upon it, however, they had come in sight of their building and jim saw a familiar figure emerge. it was kaarji, but there seemed something vaguely wrong with him. he looked in their direction but seemed not to see them at all, as he turned and walked away with a long, purposeful stride. something struck another ominous note in jim's brain. the men reached their building and entered it, but he did not stop. he hurried after kaarji. "landor! you damn fool, come back here!" spurlin cried after him. but jim waved a hand, not looking back. he hurried after the martian. those emanations were almost unbearable now, but he didn't seem to mind. there was something ominous about them, but something else as well that he could not resist. he had miscalculated kaarji's distance, however, because somewhere in the maze of streets he lost him. but he knew where the martian was going--where they were both going. hours later it seemed, but could only have been minutes, when he came in sight of the imposing edifice where he had last seen bhruulo disappear. * * * * * now he hesitated. his mind was crystal clear, clearer than he had ever known it before. but somehow it did not seem to be his own. he struggled a little, but the result was inevitable, he seemed to know it. he gave up almost voluntarily. he continued toward the building and entered its portals that were open wide and waiting. he faced a long, greenish-gloomy corridor of marble. with hardly a pause he continued along it. tall imposing doors, tightly closed, were on either side of him, but he gave little heed to them. the corridor turned sharply once, and then again, and then it seemed to lead a little downward. jim could not be sure. he only knew that he was being led _somewhere_, that he was to face something. a cold fear caught his brain, but he could only go on. now the corridor walls seemed to waver, seemed to swim beneath a sort of radiance. but it was a glaucous radiance, ineffably green as the light beneath the waters of a shallow sea. it increased in intensity, however, as he went on. it became almost tangible, it beat against him, it seemed to pluck with evil intentness at the fibers of his mind. jim laughed once, laughed wildly, but did not pause in his stride. the corridor made one more turn and then he was walking into a light so blinding that it staggered him momentarily. it flared up once in a great greenish effulgence, then died down into a steady pulsation. now, jim knew, he must be approaching the very source of that all-pervading light which had so puzzled him since his arrival at m'tonak. but now he had a vaguely uncomfortable feeling. it was as though a million eyes were watching him, observing every move. it was as though a million tiny fingers were tearing away the shreds of his mind with secret, silent amusement. jim did not look about him as he walked on, for he knew no one was there. it had something to do with this light, that much he knew. now he could see the end of the corridor through the pulsing greenish haze. something seemed to be there, something towering and opalescent--and waiting. he came very near before he saw what it was, a huge circular glass-enclosed well that towered up to the ceiling fifty feet above. it was from this well that the light came. jim could see the gentle pulsing of it, with streamers of a darker color flashing through it vertically. those millions of eyes now were very near. those millions of fingers probed into his brain unbearably. jim pressed his hands to his throbbing temples, but the pain continued to expand within his skull. he could not turn and flee, for something held him there. he tried to cry out against it, but his throat seemed to contract and no sound would emerge. he had no knowledge whether it was minutes or hours that he stood there; but when at last he felt his legs giving way beneath him, and glimpsed the blur of the floor rushing up, it was with a profound sense of gratitude for the oblivion that would be his. * * * * * but this was not to be. no sooner did he feel the floor beneath him, than the force which had beaten him down partially withdrew. jim staggered to his feet, weak and a little dazed. now something else was happening behind that glassite-encased well. the green pillar of light was lowering, coalescing upon itself with a slowly swirling motion. and then, as the tower of light lessened, jim saw what rode atop it. he saw a shape, huge, iridescent and apparently weightless. it seemed at first simply a larger area of greenish light, but for a single second he glimpsed more. he saw the massive core of it. he felt his stomach turning over in a prodigious yawn, and his brain churned in chaotic horror. the thing he saw was a roughly globular, quasi-amorphous shape that was in a state of constant fluxion. it was partly tentacular, it writhed and pulsed, it seemed to project itself at will. darkish tendrils came uncurling from it as if it were reaching for something not quite attainable. simultaneously it spun slowly atop its pillar of light which seemed also a part of itself, somehow. _it was alive, a thinking, intelligent entity._ that much jim knew. it would even have been an entity of beauty, with its whirling greenish effulgence, were it not for one thing. _it was evil._ terribly, undeniably so. jim could feel the impact of it almost physically. almost he felt that here was the essence of all the evil of another universe, compressed into that one horribly writhing mass that was now trying to expend itself but could not. and he had the feeling that although it could be moved to terrible, devastating anger, it was now for some reason gleeful. it came riding down, light as a feather atop its light, until it hovered just a few feet above jim's head. jim knew that he was being examined microscopically, perhaps even fourth-dimensionally. he shivered a little. he tried to take a step back but could not. there came a sudden chuckling within his own brain, and then mentally he heard the entity speak. "yes, earthman, you were right in your estimate of me. i am 'evil' to such as you. at least that is what bhruulo tells me, and i have come to believe bhruulo." jim crouched before the thing, staring up at it. he still felt its probing mental fingers in his mind, and the fingers were ... _unclean_. he spoke aloud at last, in a voice he hardly recognized as his own. "what--_what in heaven's name are you_?" * * * * * there came that chuckling note again, as the thing spoke. "whatever i am, earthman, it is not in heaven's name. i do not exactly know myself what i am. i personally have no conception or remembrance of how i came here. i only know what bhruulo has told me. it pleases me to tell you." the mental voice ceased abruptly. then sudden, vivid pictures flashed stereoptically across jim's brain and were as quickly gone. he saw a city he recognized as m'tonak, and the city was teeming with people. jim knew that must have been many, many years ago. the scene changed. as through another's eyes, he caught a blurry vision of this evil entity flashing from out of the sky to land near the city. he felt some of the consternation and then horror as the populace died by the score in the streets. there was no apparent reason except the presence of the alien thing. just to look at the blinding brilliance of it was to die. jim caught confused pictures of all available weapons being rushed to the scene to do battle with the thing, but to no avail; as the m'tonakians died, the entity grew tremendous in proportions and in power. these pictures flashed away and jim saw others; the last few scientists of m'tonak, in a barricaded place where they worked frantically on a weapon with which to battle the alien thing. they completed the weapon but they could not destroy the entity. after a terrific struggle they subdued it temporarily by means of certain rays and beams. in this manner they at last brought it into captivity within the glassite well. "bhruulo says all this happened hundreds of years ago," the voice came again within jim's brain. "he is the last of that final group of scientists who subdued me. _i_ have only a vague remembrance--" "bhruulo says!" jim gasped, struggling with the significance of the idea. he looked up and saw the spherish, effulgent thing spinning with silent amusement. "is bhruulo's longevity, then, such an unusual thing? i do not know. your time-scheme means little to me. perhaps bhruulo's great age is due to his perpetual proximity to me, i only know that, unlike other martians and earthmen, he is immune to my strongest powers now." jim sensed a certain bitterness in that mental voice, almost a hatred for bhruulo. looking up at the greenish, brooding globe, jim ventured a daring question. "don't you sometimes long to be--free again?" he felt the tendril-fingers grasp his mind again with a fierce tenacity. he cried out against the physical pain of it, but even through the pain he heard the throbbing answer. "free! yes, earthman! bhruulo glories that he has me trapped here. often i remember those olden days when i almost conquered the city of m'tonak and the planet mars! bhruulo has promised me those days again, and much more. he says he is preparing for it, but i do not know what he means. i only know that i tire of waiting!" there were more mental words, but jim only heard them through a mist about his brain. he knew that here, at last, he had solved the mystery of m'tonak! this evil entity from out of another universe or another dimension was the "emeralds" of m'tonak which had lured men up here in ages past for its own, or bhruulo's, devilish purpose. but what was that purpose? something vastly imminent, jim knew! perhaps it was something the entity even now was trying to tell him in its strangely confidential mood. * * * * * "that is enough. you have said enough! i have warned you about this!" that was not the thing's mental voice! jim knew it, even as he whirled to face bhruulo who had come from nowhere to stand behind him. bhruulo was furious. his grayish, lined face was a mask of hate--but not for jim. he hurried forward like a scuttling crab, supporting himself on his cane with both hands. he approached the glassite barrier, and began to manipulate tiny wheels there which jim had not noticed before. a network of wiring led down to several complicated box-like affairs set in the floor. then a very curious thing happened. if a writhing, pulsing, spinning globe of evil can cower, that is what the entity did! no sooner had bhruulo's hands touched the wheels, than the entity sank down to the floor, then darted frightenedly up again, to cringe against the furthermost confines of its prison. it poised there, hesitant, as if watching bhruulo. it ventured out from the wall and then back again. it hardly pulsed at all now, as if holding its breath in fear. a tiny hum came from the machinery bhruulo was manipulating. it rose to a shrill whine and then passed beyond the audible. a sudden criss-cross of pencil-thin beams leaped about the confines of the well. they were pale, scarcely visible, but jim sensed the power of them. he heard a mental shriek of agony from the spinning globe, then it was tumbling up the sides of the well, out of range. it vanished fifty feet overhead, in a haze of greenish light. using his cane as a pivot, bhruulo pirouetted slowly to face jim. "now," he said, "we can talk to each other without interruption from that thing. too bad that it hates me and i hate it. for we need each other. "i do not know," bhruulo continued, "how much the dim-ing told you of itself or of me and my plans. it does not particularly matter, now." "dim-ing?" jim repeated querulously, trying to focus his mind again. "yes. 'dimensional-thing.' facetious? i have my moments of humor. _it_ has only a dim remembrance of its past before it came to mars; but through certain conversation with it i have come to the conclusion that it somehow had birth in another dimension impinging delicately upon ours. how or why it was flung across to us we shall never know. but it is nearly finished on mars." something caught at jim's brain. he started a little. bhruulo laughed shrilly. * * * * * "yes. had you not guessed before? the dim-ing feeds upon the minds of men. oh, very subtly, of course. but for the presence of such sustenance on mars it would have died long, long ago. at first the accumulative mental sustenance of mars was more than sufficient. i was careful to keep the dim-ing under my control, even as now. but as the years passed--more years than you think, earthman--i saw what was happening. _we were hastening the eventual decease of the martian race!_ the dim-ing absorbed, at first, all _evil_ from the total martian mind. and then--even more. "no doubt, earthman, you have read something of martian history. you will remember that several centuries ago a frightful war raged across three major continents of mars. almost abruptly, that is to say within the space of a few years, it ceased mutually and without apparent reason! it was the dim-ing and i who indirectly caused that. then, you will remember, there came an almost utopian state for something like a few score of years. it quickly passed as the dim-ing sent out its subtle radiations almost desperately, across the surface of mars. the martians became the inactive, indolent, dying race you see now. in the last few scores of years, sustenance for the dim-ing has been meager indeed." jim only stared at this martian who according to the entity was hundreds of years old. a horror crept into jim's brain, and a subtle warning. here, he knew, was the one to be guarded against. here in this bent little martian was the ultimate evil. his was the controlling hand. * * * * * jim had been listening in a slowly dawning horror. now he found his voice at last, as he took a single tense step toward bhruulo. "and you--you tell me this! this thing that has been happening to the martian race! you, yourself a martian--" bhruulo did not move and the expression on his face did not change. "it is not what i am, or once was, that matters. it is what i _shall_ be. with the tool that i have now, immortality lies within my grasp. that, and eternal power. i shall continue. "within the last fifty years, you earthmen came. i need not say that you were a godsend. the dim-ing was at a very low ebb indeed. "even at the height of their scientific accomplishments the martians never quite achieved space travel. by what miracle you earthmen achieved it shall always remain a mystery to me. but i thank you. you came when i needed you most. "i discovered that your earthian minds are stubborn, very stubborn indeed. the dim-ing likes that. it can subsist much longer on an earthian mind than on a martian. furthermore, i learned that the earthian mind is curious--one of the inherent qualities of your race. therefore, i embellished somewhat the existing legend of m'tonak. and you all came searching greedily; if not in droves, at least, in sufficient numbers. "and now you are building a spaceship for me. i have known it all along! i have brought you here for that purpose! i know it is very near completion, this spaceship which shall carry, not earthmen back to earth, but the dim-ing and myself." "but it shall not!" jim had let bhruulo talk on, knowing what was coming. in his mind now was no room for horror; his mind was quickly alert and his hand was even quicker, as it flashed to the electro-pistol in his belt. but bhruulo made a motion too, so fast that, paradoxically, there was a certain casualness about it. he still smiled. he raised his cane on which he had been leaning with both hands. from a lens-covered bore in the end of it came a thick whitish light, touching jim's hand and holding it motionless. it expanded, enveloped all of his body so that he could not move. it surged a little upward, full into his face. jim landor crumpled noiselessly and lay still. vi his mind came surging slowly back up from the dark depths of nightmare. his head ached unbearably. he had thought an insistent, warning voice was crying out at him. he opened his eyes. this was no nightmare, for memory came back in a rushing flood, and he still heard the voice, low and warning and very close to his ear. "do not move, jim landor. do not say anything, just listen. this is kaarji, i am here close by you." kaarji! jim had almost forgotten about kaarji. then he took the warning and tried not even to think, he just listened, in a detached manner. "we are in a room off the corridor. that dim-ing thing is only a few hundred feet away. i hope it has not contacted your mind again, for i have something important to tell you. it is a good thing you followed me here so closely, for the dim-ing withdrew its concentration from me and centered it on you. thus i was able to slip past this place, and i explored a little. jim landor, below these corridors i have discovered a huge room full of machinery. i cannot understand it all, for i have not a scientific mind; but i thought if we could escape from here, and i could take you to this place--" slowly, jim allowed his mind to relax. he felt no more of the probing mental fingers in his brain. "it's all right, kaarji, we can speak freely now. i suppose that's where bhruulo caught you, in that secret room?" "yes. it seems to be his living quarters as well." "i think i know what that machinery is, kaarji. it's vital to the existence of m'tonak. if only we can get back there--" jim rose to his feet and looked about the room. it was small and empty, the walls were of marble. he walked over to the single door leading to the corridor. he tried it, and to his surprise it opened easily! * * * * * but he staggered back as from a violent physical blow, as the radiations from the dim-ing lashed against him. "hum, our little playmate again." jim rubbed his half-blinded eyes. "clever devil, that bhruulo. he knows that no man could escape through _that_. he was so sure of it that he didn't even remove my electro-pistol from me." as the pain passed from his eyes, he removed his pistol and felt the comfortable weight of it in his hand; but he thrust it back into his belt again, knowing it was useless against the dim-ing. then an idea struck him like a thunderbolt. "kaarji, we may walk from this room yet! i have one weapon that bhruulo hasn't counted on, and that is--the dim-ing's hatred of bhruulo!" hurrying to the door again, he opened it infinitesimally. and he leaped back to the furthermost confines of the room as the dim-ing's thought-emanations came flooding inside, in a gentle greenish haze. jim centered all of his mind, now, on the one all-important thought. "bhruulo! i shall kill him! he thinks he will keep me here and feed my mind to the dim-ing--but somehow i'll escape from here and kill bhruulo. i swear it!" he strove to arouse an overwhelming hatred in his mind for the ages-old little martian. the dim-ing's power surged anew. he felt the alien entity's mental fingers grab hold of his mind again. he stifled the rising exultance and reiterated his resolution to kill bhruulo. now he noticed that the dim-ing's mental presence was expanding through the very marble walls themselves. as never before, he began to appreciate the potential power of the thing. but with an effort he repeated his oath to kill bhruulo; it became now not so much an oath as a promise, for he knew the dim-ing had tightly grasped his mind and was listening. it was easy. so ridiculously easy that jim should have been suspicious, but was not. "if you mean it," the dim-ing spoke to jim's mind at last. "if i thought you really would--" "i mean it!" jim flashed the thought fervently. "let me out of here and i will rid you of bhruulo, once and for all!" he almost laughed aloud. slowly, hesitantly the thing's mental barrier was fading away. jim stepped to the door and opened it widely. nothing beat him back now. he motioned to kaarji, who followed him almost frightenedly out into the corridor. there the mental power of the dim-ing was a little more in evidence, but not enough to stop them. it was as though it were watching.... "this way," kaarji breathed at last. he led jim in the opposite direction from the dim-ing, then into a cross-corridor that extended interminably. at last they reached a door that opened onto stone steps leading downward. "careful," kaarji warned as he led the way slowly. he didn't need to warn jim. the latter was wary as never before, and he kept a hand always near his electro-pistol. something was vaguely wrong about all this but he didn't know what. for one thing it seemed too easy. at the bottom of the steps was another sliding door. kaarji paused before it and whispered, "this is the room!" * * * * * jim stood still, listening. there was no sound from beyond that door. the silence was a vast womb about them, menacing. jim slid the door noiselessly open; they stepped inside and stared around. they saw huge circling tiers of peculiarly constructed dynamos. they were in operation, jim knew that, for he could feel a certain surge of power even though there was no sound. a bewildering network of cables led from the dynamos to a central, predominating machine that towered fan-like above them all. it was this electronic tower, he knew, that created the swirling pillars of strength that surged upward and outward to support the vast cavern roof overhead. then they saw bhruulo. he was in a little glassite room at the foot of the electronic tower. tiny wheels and dials were banked around him, and he was busy making delicate adjustments. so busy that he didn't see them standing just inside the door. now jim heard the insistent voice of the dim-ing in his mind again: "kill him! do it at once! do as you promised...." jim didn't need the prompting voice, but he wasn't going to ray a man down from behind; besides, he doubted if his beam would penetrate that glassite cage. he stepped quickly to one of the dynamo stanchions, and drew kaarji down beside him. he waited, despite the dim-ing's impatience that he could feel seething within him. bhruulo finished his adjustments at last, and stepped out of the cage. he was still a good fifty feet from jim. he turned, to go deeper into the maze of machinery. jim arose and said quietly: "bhruulo!" the aged martian whirled with amazing agility. jim saw the look of incredulity that leaped into his eyes. bhruulo leaned heavily forward, his two hands gnarling about his cane. then his lips quirked into a toothless smile, and he started to say something. that was to throw jim off guard. simultaneous with his speech he lifted his hands lightning-like, and the cane levelled. but jim was expecting that. with a single sinuous movement his pistol was in his hand, its bluish beam was pencilling out. it caught bhruulo squarely in the chest before he could press the button on his own weapon. he staggered forward, his cane-weapon sagged; he tried to level it again but could not. still he staggered forward, hatred mingled with horror in his eyes. with amazing strength his spindly legs carried him across the room, as he mouthed unintelligible martian words. [illustration: the electronic beam caught bhruulo squarely in his chest.] jim fell back a step. he hoped bhruulo would not find strength in his arms. would that damned martian never die? jim knew his beam had bored a hole clear through the creature's chest; he could see the blackish blood oozing from it. jim felt a cold horror gnawing at the pit of his stomach even as he aimed carefully and the electro-beam flashed out three more times. he saw three more holes rake across the martian's chest. bhruulo fell with a crash right at jim's feet, and the cane clattered from his fingers. even the mask of death could not erase the hate from those ebon eyes as bhruulo stared lifelessly up at him. jim shuddered once, then reached out with his foot and turned bhruulo over so that he lay face downward. * * * * * he was aware of kaarji standing beside him, and kaarji saying quickly, tensely: "jim landor! you remember when i said that this time i should not return from the polar wastes? this is what i meant, i know now what i must do. but you must hurry, get back and tell the other men, or none of you will ever leave m'tonak!" jim stared at him uncomprehendingly, trying to listen at the same time to kaarji and to the jubilant voice of the dim-ing that was surging in him again. "kaarji--what do you mean?" "i mean, jim landor, that i know the intentions of the dim-ing! i know at last what has happened to my race and what might happen to earth. but it shall not happen!" kaarji leaped toward the glassite cage at the foot of the electronic tower. in a few strides he was there, had hurled himself within it and barred the door behind him. his eyes were glowing and purposeful, as he stared out at jim who came running. "you had better hurry, jim landor, and warn the others. do not try to stop me, for i have a feeling this cage is impregnable. in a very short time i can wreck these controls, the electronic zones will cease and the entire cavern roof will collapse under the pressure of millions of tons! get back to the others and escape from m'tonak." he turned deliberately and examined the controls banked around him. he reached to his pouch of _tsith_ stems, and placed a few of them in his mouth before he continued. "i suggest you try to distract the dim-ing's thought as much as possible, so it won't center on me here. i will try to hold out for half an hour at least, longer if possible. but hurry!" conflicting emotions swept across jim like a flood, but were beaten down by the cold realization that kaarji intended to carry this thing through without compromise. the martian would destroy all of m'tonak, including the dim-ing and himself, in an endeavor to save earth from the thing that had happened so subtly on mars. jim whirled, started to race away but turned back. "all right, kaarji. thanks seems a pretty feeble word for what you are doing, but if i get back to earth i shall see that you are never forgotten for this. now give me the rest of those _tsith_ stems--i have an idea!" without question kaarji opened the glassite door, and tossed out the pouch of stems. jim snatched it up and raced away without a backward glance. he hurried from the room and up the stone stairs to the corridors again. * * * * * there the dim-ing's power struck more forcefully into his mind. it seemed somehow diabolically gleeful now. but jim hurried on, hurried _toward_ the evil entity. finally he stood at the foot of the towering well, and saw the spinning globular shape descend upon its coalescing pillar of light. "you did it well," the thought came flashing. "you kept your promise. the thing i have dreamed of for ages has happened, bhruulo is out of my way and i have a free hand! yes, earthman, now i see in your mind everything that bhruulo told you. there are other earthmen here, completing a huge ship by which to go back to your planet. _that_ is what bhruulo was counting on, _that_ is what he would not tell me. he had planned to take me to earth and there keep me under his control, as he has here. but now that you have so kindly removed bhruulo, i can do this by myself! i need only wait until the men have completed their ship, then blast their minds to annihilation!" this dim-ing was the ultimate evil, not bhruulo! jim had known it all along, and now he realized how he had played into its hands! a momentary panic seized him. he could picture the thing landing the spaceship on earth's northern or southern polar ice, or in the unexplored depths of brazilian jungle. hidden from the sight and knowledge of men for years, it would carry on the subtle destruction of earthian minds as it had martian; and now, unhampered by bhruulo, it would grow in size and potency until who could say what the end would be! perhaps there would be no end; there were other planets besides mars and earth.... "thank you, earthman, that is a thought i will remember. but your mental pictures of the terrain of earth were rather vague. show me more clearly." jim felt the agonizing mental fingers tearing the tissues of his brain apart. at the base of the well he saw the obscure little door bhruulo had opened to manipulate the pale, pencilling beams. instantly, jim was on his knees, had wrenched it open. he did not try to work the beams, knowing the dim-ing could have stopped him in an instant; he merely tossed the pouch of _tsith_ stems out into the center floor of the well, and rose quickly. "there's an offering for you! i kept my promise and killed bhruulo, now you keep yours and let me go!" the entity had made no such promise and jim knew it. but he whirled and raced down the corridor unheeded. it was only the element of surprise that would carry him through now, surprise and utter wildness. he even laughed wildly aloud as he ran on. and nothing stopped him! nothing stopped him until he was halfway to the outer door leading to the street. then he felt a terrific impact, he stumbled, fell to his knees and toppled forward on his face. he arose against a tremendous physical pressure and staggered on. again he felt that impact, as he was battered against the marble corridor walls. but with a fierce tenacity he kept his feet, and kept going. he reached the street. his legs were heavy as if he were fighting against a hundred gravities. he felt that the dim-ing was merely toying with him, as a cat with a mouse. as jim hurried on, or tried to hurry, to the place where he would find conley and spurlin and the score of other men, he knew that one man could not hope to stand against that awful power. but perhaps many men, in perfect mental accord.... again he felt the strange, fierce tingling in every fiber of his being until he thought he was walking in a sluggish sea of fire. it seemed hours later when he reached the familiar building and hurried along the metal-lined tunnel where the dim-ing's radiations seemed a little less intense. it was with a feeling of profound gratitude that he pushed through a final door, and sank down into a soothing oblivion. but not before he glimpsed many men rushing toward him, with surprised shouts. among them he saw conley. vii jim opened his eyes and stared up into conley's worried face. he coughed a little on the stinging liquor the latter was pouring down his throat. "how long have i been here?" he asked urgently. "just a minute or two, lad. you're mighty battered and tired, but you'll be all right now. just rest a while." "rest!" jim repeated, and climbed quickly to his feet. "none of us can rest now--there's no time! it may be too late already--but we've got to make a fight for it, if for no other reason than because kaarji's counting on it! no, conley, i'm not delirious." he waved the worried irishman away. "listen, you men! i've solved the mystery of m'tonak, and we've got to get out of here!" in an anxious rush of words he explained the situation, told briefly of his discovery of the dim-ing and what it was, and of kaarji's avowal to destroy all of m'tonak. "in another few weeks, spurlin, your spaceship would have been finished, and the greatest horror the universe has ever known would have launched itself upon earth! it still might happen! _we've got to get back out there at once, en masse, and hold that thing's attention before it discovers what kaarji's up to!_" it had all happened too suddenly for the men to quite believe him. they looked askance at each other. "but after three years of heart-breaking work," spurlin said, "to give up my spaceship now! that's what you're asking." "a hell of a lot of good your spaceship will be, with millions of tons of rock and ice heaped on it! that's gonna happen about fifteen minutes from now, or less! man, don't you understand? kaarji said he'd give me a half-hour--" "it's a trick!" wessel squawked loudly. "damned funny that he ever got back here to us at all! he's discovered a protection against those greenish rays, he's trying to lure us all outside to our death, so he can have all this new metal for himself!" jim strode back to the door, pausing only long enough to cry, "all right, stay here, then, and die. all of you! if you won't help me, that means our last chance is gone. i'll die too, but it'll be out there fighting that thing to the last!" "i'm with you, jim. i believe you." it was conley's voice he heard and conley's friendly hand on his shoulder, but he didn't pause in his hurried stride back up through the tunnel. he heard other men coming behind them, following conley's example, but he felt that it was too late now. there could only be a few minutes left. kaarji might even be dead. the dim-ing in its subtle way might have known the plot from the first. that would mean the dim-ing had won, for no man could ever be able to get back down to that control room. as they reached the street, jim felt the power of the entity withdraw a little, as if that were necessary in order for it to embrace all their minds. a sudden new hope surged in jim, a feeling that their combined forces might be a match for this thing yet! and even as they were racing back toward the central plaza, he was evolving a plan that might work providing they had enough time. "spurlin! you remember that surface car that brought us all here at various times? do you suppose you might discover its secret? there are hidden electronic motors, i believe." "we thought of that before, but no man was ever able to get near enough--" "you'll get there this time, we'll see to it! spurlin, when we reach the plaza you take one man and head for that car. you spent three years building a spaceship, but now in as many minutes you've got a tougher job--you've got to find those motors and solve them and have them ready for a quick departure! "the rest of you men, listen. i've had a few dealings with this dim-ing and i think i know its weakness. it's grossly egotistic! that's the angle we're going to play on, but our minds will have to be in perfect accord. i want you all to be silent, but listen carefully to my every word, and concur with me _mentally_ in everything i say!" * * * * * strangely those mental fingers had withdrawn a little, and jim wondered why. there was something almost cunning about it. they reached the plaza, and spurlin with one man hurried to the surface car on the opposite side of the square. the others, more than a score in all, stopped before the building that housed the entity. jim knew that there could only be minutes now. even as he was formulating words in his mind, he felt the dim-ing's faculties expand again, surge out prodigiously to envelop them all. and with it came raucous mental laughter. the thing was laughing at them! "steady, you men," jim said in a quick undertone. "get ready now." and jim laughed in return, laughed aloud and shortly. for beneath the dim-ing's laughter he thought he detected a false note! he felt that it was bluffing, stalling for time! but why? "all right," he called aloud, "you have won! you have defeated us here, but in defeat we can laugh, for this will be your last victory! you will get to earth but there you will meet your end!" jim felt the power of the thing reaching out in a fierce resentment, but he continued tauntingly. "you will see that the earthian mind does not fear you, they will seek you out. we have weapons to combat you that the martians know nothing of--you will not last long on earth! if bhruulo alone kept you here in thrall, earthman can do that and much more--" jim had other words to say, mocking words, but he did not get a chance. the dim-ing lashed out with a terrible, unsuspected force. for a single second, all of m'tonak was livid under a garish unbearable green, as the men were beaten down to their knees in a huddled miserable group. buildings blurred and wavered and seemed to topple. the earthmen's consciousness dangled by a thread. "that is only a tiny sample of my power," the thought came lashing at them. "that is to teach you not to drive me to anger again." the men rose painfully to their feet, clinging together. but jim was exultant now. he could not have told why, but he felt that in that one supreme burst of anger the dim-ing had expended most of its power, and that is what he had been counting on! "your earthian minds are stubborn, very stubborn. but i like that. i think i shall like earth. tell me more about the weapons you have there, the scientific devices you will use to combat me." what about spurlin? had he failed? that single, surface car was their only escape from here! it seemed hours since spurlin had raced across the plaza toward it. "we're lost, jim," conley whispered wearily. "we're beaten...." * * * * * "oh, no we're not!" for suddenly, strangely, the dim-ing did not grasp their minds any more! it was slipping away, and they felt strangely free and buoyant. but why? why should it withdraw in its moment of triumph, just as it was learning what it wanted to know about earth? in an awful moment of panic jim thought: "did it read in my mind something about kaarji--does it know what kaarji is doing?" simultaneously, there came a shout from spurlin across the way, and it was a triumphant cry. "hurry up, you men! we've got these motors going, but lord knows--" spurlin's welcome voice! jim found himself pounding across the plaza, behind the others. as in a dream he could hear the smooth threnody of the motors. and for one last time he felt the mental power of the dim-ing reaching out, but it was half-hearted and uncertain, it wavered a little and seemed vaguely bewildered. jim even paused in his stride and looked back defiantly. he felt it trying once more to grasp his mind, then it fell away disheartened. not until then did the truth burst upon jim, and he realized what was happening! he reached the car last of all, and dropped exhausted across the threshold, as the re-action of all he had undergone suddenly hit him. he felt hands pulling him in and other hands sliding the door closed behind him. even then the car was moving away, gathering speed toward the single obscure tunnel leading up and out of the vast cave of m'tonak. viii jim knew nothing more until he struggled up again from the vast depths of darkness. this time, his mind felt blessedly alive and buoyant and free. he simply lay there against the soft cushion and let the strength flow back to him. he sat suddenly erect. he was alone, and the car had stopped. he looked out into the white expanse of the polar cap once more. he hurried to the door, and was relieved to see the rest of the men gathered outside, staring at something and talking excitedly. he joined them. conley greeted him and pointed silently. barely a mile to the north, from whence they had come, a great greenish display suffused the lowering sky. "that started a moment ago," conley said. "i think we got out of there just in time." hardly had he spoken, when all of the ice-capped terrain beneath the light collapsed into a vast hollow, miles wide. it happened silently, abruptly; seconds later faint rumbling shook the ground. it was final. the greenish display had vanished and only the hollow remained, as if a giant had plunged his thumb into a rotten apple. conley sighed and turned away. "when i think of poor wessel and the others, buried a mile below there--" "they got," jim replied caustically, "just what they asked for. you'd better hope that entity is as dead as they are!" "no doubt about that. but i can't understand it, jim. i thought sure we were lost, when it was brow-beating us there in the plaza. what happened after that? all i remember is running for the car." "what happened," jim replied softly, "is that a wild hunch of mine worked. did you ever indulge in martian _tsith_ stems, conley? it's horrible, vile stuff; makes anyone, except an addict, violently ill. and it hits you suddenly, like a barrage of rocket-blasts. well, i gave a whole pouch full--kaarji's--to that dim-ing! d'you know, despite it being an other-dimensional entity, it had some very human qualities? apparently it was curious, as well as egotistic; it must have investigated and then absorbed those _tsith_ stems, and it became violently ill--at just the right time for us!" spurlin had been trying desperately to get the motors started again, but to no avail. now he approached the others with a worried frown. "those motors are so constructed that they can work in two ways. first, they can operate from a direct electronic beam--that's how bhruulo controlled the car from a distance, and that's the way we've come as far as we have now. but with the destruction of m'tonak, all the beams are gone!" "then you mean--we're stranded here?" conley pictured hundreds of miles of ice still lying before them. he remembered that the cap had already started its break-up, and no man could ever get across it now. not afoot! "on the other hand," spurlin was saying hopelessly, "the motors _should_ work from the electronic emanations of that new metal we found. even a tiny amount of it. but," he waved his hand to the north, "there it all lies buried and we'll never get to it in a million years!" defeat was in his voice. for a moment the men milled about, looking at each other helplessly, before jim remembered something. "i've gone through too much," he grinned, "in the past few days to let a minor thing like this stymie me." with a feigned nonchalance, he reached into his pocket and drew forth a piece of metal. it was the rounded medallion which kaarji had given him, and he'd forgotten until now. spurlin's eyes lighted, he seized it eagerly and went back to work. jim looked again toward the vast hollow to the north, and he spoke softly to conley standing beside him: "spurlin's wrong, though. we'll get to that metal again, and spurlin will see his super spaceship come true. it'll be a tremendous mining job, but--well, at least we know the metal's there, and it'll wait for us." the sudden hum of the motors was a welcome sound in their ears, and minutes later they were speeding smoothly back to the south. black-out by joseph farrell the destiny of a dying world lay in another--a blue planet which could not control its own. [transcriber's note: this etext was produced from planet stories winter . extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the u.s. copyright on this publication was renewed.] old thak watched fondly as the new telescope was being put into its place. he had been a long time persuading the elders to build this instrument, a duplicate of the one destroyed in the latest great war. it was as fine a telescope as mars could produce, and only thak's assurances that the work was of the greatest importance had secured him this luxury. his project must succeed, he felt, glancing at his students. like him, they were almost spherical in shape, with fine arm-like appendages ringing their middles. they were young and enthusiastic, and thak believed they could revive the science of astronomy. he, the last astronomer of mars, would teach them all he knew. the overseer of the workers was disgusted. "you waste our resources, thak," he declared. "you have taken two years of labor by dozens of workers, and for what? so that you may look at the sky!" thak's tentacles purpled, a sign of irritation. "you military men!" he retorted. "it was your kind, mitfpa, that destroyed our civilization and reduced our race to a few hungry thousands. you have ruined progress and science forever. you have hastened the death of our race. unless--" he waved through the open doorway, pointing out the early evening sky. just rising over the horizon was a blue body that was of a dazzling brilliance, outshining all the other heavenly bodies. thak's voice became emotional. "on that planet," he said, "are civilized beings. they hold the only hope for the salvation of our race. we must work to contact them, as long as there is one of us to carry on!" "what is this, thak?" mitfpa demanded angrily. "how can you say, old one, that people of intelligence live on the blue planet? you will tell me next that you have been there!" the soldier laughed scornfully, but thak's voice was unruffled as he explained. "this is no mere fancy of mine. these people have been signalling to us for some time. and when i signalled back by creating a network of space-warping lines through our entire power system, they strengthened their signals. then came your war--" "space warps?" mitfpa growled. "more power wasted? how was this accomplished?" the workers were bolting the last legs of the telescope into position, and the students were making happy squeaks. thak looked gratefully toward his new instrument, and toward the scholars. a fine lot of young ones, these. perhaps, in them, astronomy would become once more a science of great importance. perhaps they would be the salvation of mars. he answered mitfpa's questions. "the power used was very small. you have heard of controlled space warps?" "what about it?" grumbled the soldier. "an interesting laboratory trick. but it also occurs in nature. as a youth i once saw the light of stars bent around the sun in a selector-scope; indeed, it was this very phenomenon that showed our scientists how to make their own warps." "enough of your lecture, old one. what was the result of this scientific trickery?" "one as stupid as you would not understand the method," thak replied levelly, "but the result of warping all of our power beams was a network of opaque lines that to an observer would be an obvious signal. and now, if you are quite ready to leave--?" * * * * * grumbling, mitfpa departed, taking his soldier-worker with him. thak checked the placement of the telescope, finally nodding in satisfaction as he found everything in proper order. the four students crowded around, watching with interest. he gazed good-naturedly at them. "our work is a great one," he declared. "we must communicate with the third planet by means of a system of signals that we shall work out--in time. but there is so little time...." his tentacles curled thoughtfully about him. "you have followed the work of our last great physicist, _mor_ gran?" "you mean," asked an alert youngster named rofan, "the probability tables worked out by him? showing that the end is near for our race?" thak nodded sadly. "indeed, lad, the future appears dark. war and its disorganization must inevitably strangle civilization. even now our race is thinned in numbers, and the beasts of the desert multiply." "there," he went on, waving toward the blue planet, "is our only hope. if we can effect communication with them, and be guided by their superior wisdom, we may yet rally. they may have some secret--some way to prevent wars--" [illustration: _"there!" thak said. "there lies our only hope."_] "you continue to speak of their superior wisdom, _mor_ thak," said rofan. "how can you be so very sure of that?" "it is obvious, lad. their signal system consists of spots of light over the greater part of the land surface of their planet. i have shown you the old photographs, taken before the last war, showing these lights. even with the small telescope i have been forced to use during these lean years, i have watched the lights. what a mighty science theirs must be that can make the night time light merely to signal another planet! for that can be the only purpose of the lights." rofan let his tentacles curl about him as he concentrated. "you must be right," he finally agreed. "i was going to suggest that they might be the lights of cities. i noticed many of them were situated where a city would be likely--but there must be millions of beings to populate so many cities--" one of the other pupils made a loud amused noise. "whoever heard of a city without a roof?" he demanded. "could lights be seen through a roof?" rofan was embarrassed, and he remained very quiet for a while, wondering how he could have made such a stupid error. of course lights could not be seen through a roof. and who had ever heard of a city without a roof! thak, paying no attention to the byplay, focused his lens with great care. the students gathered about the concave bowl of white quartz. the lights were lowered, and into the bowl moved a blurred sphere. as thak's tentacles moved the lenses closer and closer into focus, the sphere resolved itself with more and more clarity, until it was a fine image of the third planet. awed by the splendor of the sight, the students could only stare. and indeed it was a breathtaking spectacle, as if they were gathered in the immense void of space itself, looking at the planet from a height of several thousand miles. there were five continents in two major land masses, thak had told them. in addition, there were several islands of great size, at last one being practically of continental dimensions, besides a host of islands large and small which dotted the surface of the planet. the hemisphere on which they gazed was mostly water. the larger land mass was passing from sight. and half of the smaller mass was presented to their vision, a double continent that spread almost from pole to pole, with a narrow isthmus joining north and south. like all martians, they thrilled to a scene of fearful beauty, and they stood around the quartz bowl for a long time, not speaking, merely watching the twin continents come into full view. none noticed old thak's eyes peering desperately at the image of the third planet. nor did they see the look of utter despair that grew in his face. they were too intent on the strange scene. * * * * * it was rofan who first felt that something was wrong. the novelty was wearing off, and an elusive thought made him uncomfortable. something was wrong with the picture ... what was it? suddenly he realized. he turned to thak. "but--the lights, _mor_ thak? the signals--" thak's face looked as old as mars itself as he gazed at his pupil. he started to speak several times before he could manage. "we have failed," he said, in heavy tones. "our signals must have been too weak for the beings of the blue planet to detect. i had hoped--" he arose and looked sadly into the evening sky. "i had hoped i was wrong. for two years now--our years--i have watched through my small telescope, and the lights have been disappearing, one by one, sometimes, but more often several at a time. i thought it was the weakness of my instrument. i was wrong. every light on the blue planet has been blacked out..." his voice was a low wail. "_and--the blacking out of those lights means a blackout of life on mars. a planet-wide blackout...._" queen of the blue world by basil wells blue vegetation, red insect-men, hideous green _thuftars_.... earth was a strange sight to those first space-spanning martians. [transcriber's note: this etext was produced from planet stories winter . extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the u.s. copyright on this publication was renewed.] "no sign of the _indra_!" shouted rurak dun, with an angry toss of his wet hair away from his aching forehead. it was hot there in the tiny cabin of the wing with the rocket blasts thrumming behind them. rurak dropped the sweat-sticky circle of his radiophone and peered down at the foul blueness of the swampland. a range of low hills shouldered aside the oozy floor of liquid mud, and blue jungle crept high up along their rocky slopes almost to their barren upper tips. beyond the hills he could see where the outer limits of the coastal swamp ended and the level stretches of the mossy plains spread away endlessly. insect-men, or yzaps, with almost human intelligence and organization inhabited earth--or more properly soora in the martian tongue--and bat-like monstrosities swarmed thick above the rocky uplands between the blue swamplands and the plains of moss that stretched now before his gaze. rurak dun felt the sweat bead on the tip of his nose. the thick humid air of terra choked him and he wondered. after so many years would there be any shred of the wreckage left above the lush foliage of the jungle? after the light-helioed message that the _indra_ was about to crash on earth there had been no other message from prince hudar kel and his party. and now, seventeen years later, another space ship had been sent to search for prince kel. his father, the emperor, had died and within three days both his elder brothers succumbed to the same mysterious malady that had taken their father's life. before the new year a new ruler must be found ... and earth and mars were again in apposition! "nidan," clicked the mandibles of the hideous insect man who shared the cabin with rurak dun, "i see a ship-from-the-sky." rurak's gray eyes narrowed in the golden flesh of his sweating face. then he shouted and snapped on his radiophone. "gor!" he shouted, "gor." "uh?" grunted a lazy voice in his receiver. "i've found them," rurak told him swiftly. "on a level hilltop in the swamp! the _indra_ seems rather battered--trees growing up through one section of her hull--but there are signs of life about her. probably yzaps who have built a village there. going down to investigate." "nidan!" shrieked the earthling tis, brandishing the old metal knife the _tekna's_ cook had given him, "thuftars attacking! many thuftars!" rurak dropped the mouthpiece and swung his visual scope around the horizon. scores of vast green thuftars were circling above and about him, their hideous green shapes, travesties of the human form, gathering for a concerted attack upon his frail wing. they wheeled easily through earth's atmosphere, although no wings or any other evidence of how they maintained flight was visible. their scaly bodies terminated in horny, reptilian hands and feet, and their triple-spiked ears lent the ultimate in grotesquerie to their appearance. the thuftars' shrill whistling skirled hideously and constantly as they dove in toward the wing. rurak tripped the guns again and again as he dove and climbed among that circling swarm of scaly harpies and many a thuftar's greenish blood sprayed from its burst body over its fellows. tis had climbed into the gun turret in the cabin's narrow rear but he understood nothing of how to fire that weapon. rurak regretted that he had not brought along one of his own comrades. perhaps together they could have driven off the thuftars. the wing bucked and spun in a tight circle while rurak let his guns spray at their ultimate capacity. thuftars fell, many of them, but scores of them remained. they were too many. rurak dove away then, sounding for the ground. perhaps under the trees of the hilltop beside the _indra_ he could take shelter--drive the scaly beings off. blue lacy fronds of the hilltop forest were almost beneath his landing gear when he felt the first impact of a diving thuftar's weight. again and again the wing quivered as more thuftars struck and clung. the controls were frozen. slowly the wing nosed over and sideslipped, and then the upper branches of the forest swallowed them all. rurak saw a network of interlacing great branches and thick vines snaking through them. a wall of blue jungle came smashing inward against the wing's frail cabin and then a prolonged splintering crash sounded as though from a great distance. curiously he watched himself grope feebly among the shattered debris of what had been the instrument panel for the radiophone. he laughed even as he watched. the wing was a hopeless wreck. tis, the yzap native, crawled out of the shattered turret and helped rurak to climb into the vine-latticed branches about them. he hoped that rurak would remember to take along his rocket pistol and some shells and was pleased to see rurak obediently follow his will. it was strange to float here impartially a few feet above his own dazed body. there was no pain, just a dull aching void far back in his brain. he watched the figures of rurak dun and tis slowly descending and somehow he was descending with them. they dropped a last few feet to the mossy soil beneath the great trees and he felt the jar jolt up to his brain. the misty something that seemed to have separated him from his body was dissolving. he could feel pain and taste the salty warmth of sweat in his mouth. an ominous black wall of metal reared itself out of the jungle a few yards away and he sensed that here was the handiwork of some intelligent creature. there was an oval window of transparent material staring like some empty eyesocket out of the wall at him. memory jabbed feebly at him and presently he recalled what this must be.... the _indra_! * * * * * voices were shouting something in a tongue that was familiar; whether yzap or rurak's own beloved martian he could not tell. and then he saw a knot of dark shapes, red insect men, crawling toward him through the blue jungle. but it was not the sudden appearance of these creatures that made rurak gape in wonderment. for circling to a landing above the heads of the insect men was a small golden chariot drawn by two gigantic crimson birds. and standing in the sky-chariot was the most beautiful woman rurak dun had ever seen. as the queer conveyance swooped gracefully to rest in the small clearing the girl stepped out and walked swiftly toward them. her amazingly golden hair floated freely about her rounded, shapely shoulders as she approached the dumb-founded group. rurak dun remembered that he was still gaping rudely. he colored, and started an apology, but with upraised hand, the girl brushed it aside. "i am nitha kel, daughter of hudar kel," she explained tersely. now he could see that her brief vest of golden cloth and her short skirt were made of the carefully tanned hide of some earthly beast. sandals of thick hide were upon her shapely feet and there was a regal unconscious poise to her whole body that stamped her as the princess that she claimed to be. "and i," he said, forcing himself to speak, "am rurak dun, fifth officer of the _tekna_, come to rescue your royal father if he yet lives." "father is alive," she said puzzled, "and is even now fighting off the attack of one of our renegade crew and his party of yzaps. but why this sudden interest in our whereabouts? is it only because our two planets are in apposition? surely a third son of a martian emperor is not worthy of a special expedition?" "your father is now our emperor," said rurak gravely, "if he returns to claim his throne before the new year. and the time is drawing short. will you take me to him at once?" she nodded, then turned and ran back to her strange conveyance. a word of command, and the two giant birds rose gracefully into the air. they did not disappear, but hovered above nitha kel and rurak dun as they made their way on foot through the jungle. "they are attacking the south cliff today," nitha told rurak as they walked along. "jokar ged and his ferocious inpo warriors are climbing ladders of lashed poles and young trees to try to take this hilltop. we will beat them back of course but many of our brave yzaps will die." "why do you fight?" rurak wanted to know. "what does jokar ged desire so greatly here upon the hilltop--the wrecked _indra_?" nitha laughed. "he desires me," she said. "i am the only woman on earth. my mother died soon after i was born and since then all of the six members of our crew, save jokar ged, have cared for me. last year jokar ged tried to take me away with him but i escaped and reported his treachery to father. there has been war between them since that hour." "i do not wonder that jokar ged was in love with you," rurak dun said boldly. "you are lovelier than all the beautiful women of mars." nitha's clear blue eyes looked coldly into rurak's admiring gray eyes and he knew that he had offended her. so in silence they hurried along the forest ways with tis and the friendly insect men of the hilltop trailing along behind them, and the crimson birds circling above. * * * * * it happened so suddenly they had no chance to seek cover. one moment they were crossing a round hilltop, surrounded by the strange, jagged blue peaks of this unbelievable world. the next, with a sound of rushing wind, one of the hideous green thuftars was in their midst. before rurak could draw his ray-gun and fire, he felt the creature's scaly, lizard fingers wrapped about the protective collar of his throat. the world spun crazily, then began slowly to go black before his eyes. he was dimly aware of nitha's voice. "trak! odap! down, quickly," and the beating of pinions as the mighty birds settled to earth. then miraculously the pressure about his throat was gone, and he shook his head to clear his sight. blurred at first, then stronger he saw a startling scene. nitha had mounted her chariot, and now, sharp spear poised stiffly before her, had sent her weird team into a headlong charge at the thuftar. the enraged beast tried to launch itself into the air to parry the attack, but he had waited too long. there was the sound of metal against a scaly breast, then nitha and her bird-chariot had passed by, and the thuftar was clawing futilely at the shaft of the long spear that was buried deep within its body. with a last convulsive effort, he tore it loose, and foul green blood gushed from the jagged hole. he staggered a few steps, then fell gasping to the rocky ground. he twitched convulsively once, then lay still. nitha again descended, and ran swiftly to rurak. he raised himself on one knee and elbow, still breathing gaspingly. the insect men crowded about him with queer clacking noises. he staggered weakly to his feet. "i'm--i'm all right," he gasped. "let's get on before more of them come." he smiled twistedly. "and thanks for the favor. i guess i wasn't much help." nitha waved aside his thanks perfunctorily, and once again the little party moved forward. they came abruptly to the brink of a sheer cliff that dropped away perhaps thirty feet to a rock-strewn brushy slope. down there a burly golden man, his massive chest and arms shaggy with a tangled mat of reddish hair, led a hideous horde of yzaps from the distant mossy plains on to the attack. ladders, a dozen or more of them constructed of massive limbs of wood and stout saplings for uprights, leaned against the cliff almost at its top. sprawling heaps of yzaps, their glistening black exoskeletons spattered with their own yellowish blood, attested to the failure of the preceding assaults. but this time the yzaps carried heavy shields of sticks two or three layers in thickness before them as they advanced. spears drove up from below and other spears smashed down into the attackers' crude shields without doing any apparent damage. rurak shot a quick glance along the cliff-top on either hand and saw that a thin line of fierce looking yzap warriors, with here and there a golden martian to direct their defense, held firm. none of the martians, however, was armed with anything save crude spears and crossbows such as martian boys have constructed since time immemorable. then the insect men of jokar ged swept up to the ladders and swiftly mounted toward the hilltop above. * * * * * crossbow bolts and spears could not drive back that swarming horde. the defenders tried with poles to fend off the ladders and their loads of bloodthirsty yzaps but spears from below soon put an end to their endeavor. then they hurled great rocks down upon the enemy, sweeping many of them off but never for an instant halting that dogged advance. rurak dun saw that the tide was turning against the defenders of the hilltop even as he slipped his rocket pistol over the rim of the cliff and started picking off the attackers one by one. fear of the explosion as much as the sudden death that struck among them made the plains' yzaps falter and then come to a halt. "only a popgun!" jokar ged was bellowing as he dashed among his startled followers. "will you be driven back by a little stick that spits lead? come along, up the ladder with you." his heavy fists were lashing out, trying to beat courage into the insect men. rurak shot at him again and again but the luck of droog must have protected his evil carcass from death. all around him the yzaps were falling dead with bullets in their heads. the weapons of the other defenders now increased their fire and shortly the demoralized ranks of the renegade martian's party were straggling away among the brushy cover that the lower slopes afforded. for the time there would be respite from battle. "a martian!" a hearty voice boomed beside rurak dun and he spun about to face a grag-bearded giant of a man, "a martian come to rescue us at an opportune moment. jokar ged grows more cunning with every fresh attack and soon this little hilltop will fall before his superior forces. "but tell me, stranger," he went on, "how you came here. did you come to find where my ship crashed, or are you merely carrying out a routine exploration of this planet? what has happened on mars?" "you are prince hudar kel?" inquired rurak. "yes," nodded the bearded giant. "then i have news for you, my emperor," rurak told him, "that will perhaps not be pleasant. your father, the emperor, and your two brothers have all died. we have come to find you and take you back to mars before the new year." the bearded giant's hard fingers sunk convulsively into rurak's shoulder and he said nothing for a time. then his tall body stiffened proudly and he smiled gravely down at the young martian. "i am ready to return and assume my duties," he said simply. * * * * * "two days we have been floating down this stinking river," squat elko sohm groaned as he wielded his crude native paddle. "two days with the blistering hot rain scalding our poor backs and the stench of mouldering purple vegetation in our nostrils. hurry, you tell me, that we may reach the _tekna_ before she blasts off again for mars. "if you ask me we'd better have stayed with the old _indra_ and waited for them to find us. for seventeen long years, figuring by the shorter year of this soggy hell of a planet, we lived there on that hilltop. there was no danger from the swampland monsters and only the green-scaled thuftars could get near us. and now you take me, a warped wreck of an old man, and plunge into the thick of this unknown hell." rurak grinned crookedly through lips that insect-bites had swollen grotesquely. ahead of him the glistening form of tis dipped his paddle rhythmically into the liquid scum that floored the sluggish river. tis was at home here in the watery blue marshes and liquid mud flats of the continent's eastern shore. somewhere ahead the huge bulk of the _tekna_ wallowed atop a marshy island not far from one of the myriad crystalline growths that dotted this three-tailed continent's marshy places. seeking always the marshy seaboards or inland rivers and lakes these colonies of linked, silicon-based, crystalline cells--sometimes called the "cities" of earth by imaginative astronomers--spread over miles of area and soared in fantastic towers and spires hundreds of feet into the thick moist air of earth's heavens. and toward that crystal signboard beside the great sea they were driving their rude dugout to carry the glad news that the new emperor was found. two days had they waited for another flying wing to contact the hilltop and on the second night old elko sohm, tis, and rurak had slipped away in the darkness and headed eastward. past native villages of thatch and mud floating upon living rafts of vegetation they raced and through dense water-lanes where the blue and purple of foliage shut off the murky light of the swollen sun.... "elko sohm! rurak dun!" the cry sounded faintly from the foggy depths of the river behind them. tis guided the clumsy boat into the arched cave of a swamp tree's roots and picked up his spear. elko sohm grunted as he stripped the oiled leather case from about his sturdy crossbow. "the voice of a woman," he announced resignedly. "nitha has for some reason trailed us this far." "elko!" the voice called again and now they could see another smaller dugout, stolen perhaps from the same yzap village where they had found theirs, with but two passengers aboard. "here," announced elko sohm sadly, "under this tree's roots with water dripping from the moss down along my raw-fleshed back and the swamp vermin chewing away at the little hair left upon my skull." the tiny craft followed their own ragged trail through the bluish broken scum upon the river and shortly the two dugouts were warped side by side. nitha was there, well smeared with the sticky blue gum of a swamp tree against the onslaught of insects and with her golden hair bound tight within an ugly skin cap, and with her was an yzap from the village, called thod. nitha laughed as she saw the swollen features of the two martians and handed a leaf-wrapped gob of the sticky blue gum that she had smeared upon her own skin. "not very attractive," she admitted, "but very effective." * * * * * "and now," rurak demanded, "why did you follow us? this journey is dangerous enough without a woman trailing along." "ill bred young man isn't he?" asked nitha of elko sohm. "however i suppose i might as well tell _you_ all about it, elko. he can listen in if he really wants to know. "the same night you left," she went on, "jokar ged and his yzaps came in the darkness and attacked the village. all who could escape came inside the _indra's_ metal shell. they built fires against the hull hoping to drive us out but the insulation prevented any great passage of heat. but there were few provisions stored there and practically no water. "with early morning i slipped out through an escape lock with thod as my guide and at a safe distance showed myself to the horde of jokar ged. as i had known he would, he sent all his forces after me--it was for me that he stormed the hilltop--and my people were free to emerge from the _indra_ again. "i knew that you had headed for the coast to bring help and so thod and i picked up your trail. only now have we come up with you." "jokar ged?" demanded rurak. "close behind," the girl answered, "with ten dugouts loaded with his insect warriors." "then shove off!" ordered rurak. "we will bring up the rear and stand them off as best we can." even as he spoke and the two heavy boats slid away from the sheltering tree-roots a shout of hideous triumph sounded from further upstream as a flotilla of hollowed-out logs manned by the clicking, whistling yzaps of jokar ged swept into view. the fugitives bent to their paddles then and slowly the gap between ceased to narrow. several times rurak lifted his rocket pistol and sent a bullet crashing through a savage yzap's head. every time the insect men hurled a volley of spears in return that always fell woefully short. but soon jokar ged saw that most of his men were weaponless, save for their stone knives and short knotted clubs, and he forbade them to waste any more spears uselessly. "floating village," clicked tis and they swept around an abrupt wedge of jungle growth and swung back toward the left into a widening of the river. "big one," grunted elko sohm. "twenty-odd huts and a central dome. better hug the shore. bad medicine, these swamp yzaps." "too late," tis told them. "already warriors in round boats coming to attack." a dozen bowl-shaped craft of reeds daubed with some sticky waterproof substance were shoving off from the u shaped island of buoyant, linked water plants. before the conical low domes of slime-smeared reeds and branches there swarmed the mates and young of the hideous yzaps, urging their warriors on to the attack of these two hapless dugouts from further upstream. the insect men paddled their clumsy-seeming boats swiftly across the path of the martians and their two loyal yzaps and then started to encircle them. they closed in. the insect men swung up their spears ready to hurl them into the bodies of their five victims and in that instant two things happened that saved the martians from death beneath those bristling shafts. from far up the river a piercing challenge of hatred and savage challenge rolled up as the yzaps of the renegade martian swung into view, and beneath the dugouts of the trapped ones a vast saurian bulk, dulled-yellow-scaled and vast, heaved upward. * * * * * rurak felt the hollow log spill over and in that instant caught a glimpse of the other boat in a like predicament. the bowl-boats of the swamp dwellers were scattered, racing madly away from the great shape emerging from the muddy thickness of the river. then the foul scum of the water's surface closed over his head and he was fighting madly to reach the surface again. a long snaky neck, strangely pink and innocent of bony plates or scales, had sprouted from the saurian thing's vague bulk and vast ridged jaws were gaping wide just above one of the fleeing boats as rurak's head broke through to the surface. the yzaps whistled in wild terror and made as though to leap over the side but that enormous maw engulfed them and they disappeared from view. only a few shreds of the bowl-boat dropped from the corners of the _thing's_ mouth. then it was gone. the ten dugouts of jokar ged swept down upon the demoralized swamp dwellers and soon yzap fought yzap in hand-to-hand combat. "nidan!" called tis from nearby. now rurak could see four more heads in the muddy stream about him. they were all safe then! tis was swimming toward the downstream side of the artificial floating island of the yzaps. "we hide here until night," tis told them all as they gathered about him swimming. "no place to go ashore. only swamp. we steal a boat tonight. go on down river in it." "yzaps on the island!" gasped elko sohm, looking like some befouled bladder-doll of the primitive martian tribes. "they watch the battle," tis clicked. up to the low bank of the floating island they swam and then tis and thod started to slash an opening into the cheesy structure of the watery growth. for perhaps three feet they slashed with their knives and then broke through into a low, moist tunnel. "_trak's_ burrow," tis explained. "the floating islands and low rises of mud are honeycombed with them." * * * * * tis and thod cleared out the soggy passages that underlay the floating island and found a way that led to the upstream side. five of the many-legged _traks_ they encountered and killed with the thrust of a shortened spear or a skilfully wielded knife, shoving the gruesome lizard carcasses into the gaping watery pits that opened along the low tunnels they traversed. rurak left elko to guard nitha and crept on hands and knees after the two yzaps. he came up with them just as they had pierced an eyehole through the living wall of the island's upper side. "jokar ged is being beaten!" tis clicked. "more of the swamp dwellers are coming from the island and from the swamps. there are many of them. they kill the yzaps of jokar ged with spears and fishing harpoons. "jokar ged is wounded! blood, red blood, comes from his body! his boats are turning.... they paddle away up the river. spears thrown by the swamp people strike among them.... a boat overturns...." "let me see, tis," ordered rurak. a glimpse of the fleeing knot of dugouts, five of them now, with the circling score or more bowl-boats closing in, was all that rurak could see before the wedge-shaped arm of jungle just upstream blotted out vision. he saw jokar ged sagging weakly in one of the fleeing boats, the spear that had wounded him yet hanging in the wound. then he saw the overturned dugout drifting toward the island. he turned to the earthmen. "could one of you swim out there and steer that boat around to the lower side of the island?" he demanded. "yes, nidan," clicked thod and with a slash of his crude stone knife he made an opening and was gone. rurak waited until he saw the derelict craft shift its drifting course and move away downriver and then he led the way back to the others. if they could sink the boat or conceal it under the bulk of the island until darkness came.... * * * * * "a close shave that," elko sohm growled as he paddled the boat along a salty watercourse parallel with the great sea, "if the yzaps had come back before thod reached us and we hid the boat we would all be dead. i'm thinking yet we should have remained on the hilltop. a foolhardy undertaking this." "all that happened a week ago," nitha laughed up into elko's stubby, filthy, moon of a face, "and still you're grumbling. we got away didn't we?" "almost there," rurak said to elko. "around the second loop ahead of us lies the edge of the crystalline horde near which we landed. before long we will be with our friends and then back to mars. home again, elko!" abruptly the ominous hushed sounds of the swamplands, the hum of insects and the raucous cries of the flying lizards among the treetops, was smashed across by a vast explosion. it was a continuous explosion that swelled louder as it continued, a rapid series of controlled blasts. "the _tekna_!" cried rurak in despair, "blasting off for mars!" a long gleaming pencil of metal soared on a long slant into the sky overhead; the flame of her rocket jets boomed a thunderous farewell, and then the _tekna_ was gone. half-heartedly the five passengers of the little dugout took up their makeshift paddles and held to their course. at least there would be the plastic dome they had erected beside the _tekna_ to prevent the overcrowding of the ship and perhaps there would be a stock of provisions and weapons left behind for rurak if he should ever find his way back to the coast. the dome was still standing although blackened somewhat by the blast of the takeoff. into the dome the martians hurried to find it well stocked with all sorts of provisions and equipment. there was a message left there too in a heavy transparent case bolted to one of the uprights supporting the dome. "listen to this, nitha!" cried rurak. "they made contact with your father's crew after all. the time was too near for them to wait for us--the new year you know--so they blasted off for mars with your father. and next year, or the year after, another expedition will come to earth. until then...." "yes," asked nitha, smiling, "until then?" rurak felt the warmth of her woman's body beside him as he looked around the snug little dome. tis and thod were clicking softly together near the entrance and elko sohm was squinting along the sights of an automatic rocket rifle. "two more years in this blue hell," he groaned hopelessly. "an old man like me abandoned here on this sponge of a world!" south to propontis by henry andrew ackermann to the south lay propontis, capital of mars. but between it and the homesick earth-youth stretched a burning desert--lair of the deadly _avis gladiator_! [transcriber's note: this etext was produced from planet stories fall . extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the u.s. copyright on this publication was renewed.] it wasn't the grim thought that he would be dead in a few moments that filled the mind of don moffat so much as the bitter realization that a sixteen-year-old suspicion had been confirmed too late. across the small room a mad light burned in the blood-shot eyes of his uncle. in spite of the raw liquor he had drunk, the grimy paw that held the old electronic gun was steady. beyond the battered hut's open door heat-blasted desert pulsated as a tiny sun beat savagely down on the arid, sterile wastes from the inferno's distant rim. it was that southern rim, a mere uneven thread of rust, to which don had raised his eyes so many times that day, his heart light with the thought that he was going to propontis. and from propontis to a greener world beyond--a world he had dreamed of one day seeing; a world where water wasn't priceless. earth! just entering his twenties, he had spent his life on the martian wastelands, a motherless kid who had trailed a diamond-mad father over the wilderness of sand and rock. don had been seven when they struck the suzie lode. there were plenty of the rough stones, and his father sent for the boy's uncle and his own brother. together they were to mine and share alike. shortly after his uncle had arrived don found his father with a charred hole in his heart, bleaching on the sand. uncle fred had cursed at him when he wept. later, though, the man explained that it must have been one of the native martians. don believed him then, but as he grew and came to know his uncle, he began to doubt. that morning uncle fred had abruptly announced that they were through, that the last gem had been mined from the suzie lode. but there were many diamonds in the plastic boxes, enough to satisfy any man. they would pack their iguana, gecko, and make ready for the long trek. so don had stowed the saddle-bags and water-tanks. gecko was ready and waiting outside. don's last act was to gather his own scanty belongings. he was in the hut alone when uncle fred came in. don raised his eyes to find himself staring into the belled muzzle of the electronic gun. "desert brat," said uncle fred thickly. "i'll blow you so wide open that there won't be a square meal left for a _wirler_!" and now don knew that he was to die by the same hand that had killed his father. and fred was through with him. the boy had helped to mine the gems, but his uncle had never intended that he should live to share them. that was why uncle fred had been drinking all day--to bolster up his courage to do deliberate murder. he raised the gun an inch. don saw his finger tighten on the trigger. he closed his eyes, knowing that it would be all over in a moment. the paper-thin walls of the hut vibrated with the thunderous crash of an electronic pistol. donald's jaw went slack. for a paralyzing second he could only gape at his uncle. the man had uttered a choking cry, his fingers loosening the gun. then he pitched to the floor in a limp heap. in the open doorway stood a bullet-headed, brown-eyed man, holding a still-glowing electronic pistol. over his shoulder peered a bearded, thick-lipped companion. * * * * * bullet-head shifted his gaze to the boy. "glad we showed up?" he asked, grinning. "sure am. thanks," said don, eying the two men closely. they weren't settlers nor native-born sons of settlers. for the strangers walked with difficulty. they had yet to learn the gliding stride that was second nature to don. and their complexions had never been won on mars. "you must be don," said bullet-head. "right," said don shortly. "what's your tag?" "call me pete. i heard about you from your uncle last time he was in strada." strada was the diamond center of mars, don knew. his uncle had been there a month ago with some specimens. there were only three kinds of people in strada, the boy thought; business men, police and thieves. hastily he ruled out the first two. his uncle must have told too much about his pay-load. these men had decided to cash in before it had reached a civilized city. pete's brown eyes wrinkled. "right, son," he said amiably. "we're here for the diamonds. consider yourself lucky to be alive. now just keep your mouth shut and pack that lizard of yours. we're going to propontis." don didn't ask any more questions. while he was filling the water tanks from their stores he thought with desperate clarity and speed. they were city men--earthmen, and could have hoofed it all the way. he knew how an iguana could go sullen and completely intractable if it were mishandled; that, he guessed, was what had happened to the outlaw's pack-lizards. from the thin crust of sand on their boots the boy guessed that they hadn't had to walk more than a few miles. don turned, and caught a glance that the two outlaws exchanged. in that look the boy read an answer to any other question in his mind. don knew then that he had escaped death at his uncle's hands only to face it eventually from these two. pete eyed him quizzically. "let's get going," said the outlaw. "we'll put some distance between us and this shack before we camp for the night." the boy gave gecko a friendly whack on the tail. the lizard cocked a lazy eye and ambled off, the rest following. behind him don could hear the two men talking in low undertones. only one snatch of conversstion was clear. "dumb martian!" pete had grunted, and his friend had snickered agreement. the boy smiled to himself. yes, he thought, he was a dumb martian. what chance had he had to learn in a land where everything withered under the scorching sun, and where only ugly venomous creatures survived? true, he had read his father's old books, but he had only half understood them. they were mostly treatises on practical mining and engineering, the rest unreal blood-and-thunder tales of life in the space lanes. two hours later pete called a halt. he never took his eyes off don as preparations were made for the night camp. his companion cooked a meal out of tins; the outlaws ate most of it and flung the scraps to the boy. "brought plenty of water?" asked pete, tilting a canteen. don nodded. "that's good. because if we run short you'll be the first to do without. when's the soonest we can expect to get to propontis?" "four days," said don shortly. pete raised his brows. "that long?" he asked. "we'd better bunk for the night." he pulled out his sleeping bag and dropped it on the bare sand. don smiled grimly. that was no way to live on the desert, he knew. the boy burrowed down until he struck the red layer of sand that retained the day's heat. there he spread his sleeping-bag and crawled carefully in after taking off his heavy sand-shoes. with his free arms he banked the red sand over his legs before unfolding the top flap. "kid!" called out pete. "yes?" said don, stopping short in his preparations. "i thought i'd tell you--i have my blaster under my pillow. and i'm a light sleeper. get that?" "yes," said don coolly. he went on with his bedding. the boy had no intention at all of running away. the desert was his friend, but the most implacable enemy that these city men could hope to find. * * * * * whether or not pete slept lightly don didn't know. he awoke snug and warm when dawn was striping the wastelands with rosy hues. as he looked into the horizon he knew that the day would be a blistering one. the outlaws awoke stiff and lame, barely able to crawl out of their sleeping-bags and not even knowing that they had made the mistake of sleeping on the hard-packing top layer of sand. by the time they had started and eaten a meager breakfast the outlaws had swilled down a full quart of water apiece. don wisely contented himself with the moisture to be found in the green food he had packed. as the full glare of the sun began to strike the scorching sands the two earthmen began to lag. don slowed his gait for them. they called for water often; so often that at last he was forced to remind them that they were drinking too much. pete glared at him out of his red-rimmed eyes, false geniality gone. "brat!" he snarled. "you'd like to see us die of thirst, wouldn't you?" don didn't answer, and silently gave them water whenever they called for it. by noon both men were suffering from the choking heat. in the early afternoon pete called a halt, coughing dryly. "we're stopping here," he said hoarsely, raising a limp arm at an outcropping of rock that shelved over a stretch of sand, casting a jet-black shadow. the boy did not speak, but he knew that these rock formations were little less than refractory furnaces, concentrating in one innocuous spot the terrible radiations of the desert sun. pete coughed again, his smooth skin paling. suddenly a sort of sympathy came over the boy. "look," he said, tossing a bit of vegetation under the rock. it crisped and blackened. the outlaws stared, first at the cinder and then at don. pete's face twitched with strain as he spoke: "smart kid? maybe you're too smart for us!" his hand fell to his belt, where he wore his bell-mouthed electronic pistol. the other of the two laid a hand on his arm. "cut that out," he said slowly. then, turning to don, "thanks, kid." stolidly he spread out his sleeping-bag and squatted down on it to await the night. pete sprawled face-down, breathing heavily till the darkness fell. then don, who had bedded down gecko the iguana, and the other slid him into the sleeping-bag. before he put up the flap of his own bag don turned to the silent outlaw and said: "half a tank of water left. ought to hold out if we're easy on it. there's a water-hole ahead--there was once, i mean. maybe it isn't dried up. but it's the wrong season." "right," said the outlaw. nothing more was said that night. in the morning, after packing, don measured out the remaining water into three canteens. he gave one to each of the outlaws and put his own on gecko's back. the heat was worse than the day before. by noon gecko was voluntarily picking up speed, the spines on his horny back moving first one way and then the other. don knew the signs. the lizard sensed water ahead. "we can't be sure," don shortly told the earthmen. "it might not be drinking water--for us." thirty minutes later they came upon it, a small patch of rust-red mud and slime. one of the outlaws groaned. "dried up," whispered pete dully. don said nothing. there was some coarse growth that the pack-lizard began to eat. the boy was glad of that. he had begun to worry about gecko, but now the iguana would be good for a longer trek than the one before them. pete was on his knees, clawing at the mud. the other watched him for a moment, then looked at don inquiringly, who shook his head. "he'll only poison himself," said the boy. the outlaw took his companion by the collar, hoisted him to his feet. "take this," he said slowly, offering his canteen. "that mud's deadly." pete took the canteen and tilted it, swallowing convulsively. his companion pulled away the precious container. "that's enough," he said. "it has to last." a wild curse ripped from pete's lips. he snatched back the canteen and drew his gun. in a voice that was hard to recognize as human, he rasped: "stand back--you an' the brat!" his finger whitened on the trigger of the blaster. and then there sounded about them a curiously soft, derisive hooting, seemingly from every point of the horizon. pete stared wildly about him. there had risen from the sand, it seemed, ghostly shapes--tall, spindly creatures holding recognizable blowguns against their lips. the outlaw's gun lowered, and he looked at don. "native martians," said the boy. "don't shoot--they know how to use those blowguns. they might not harm us." there was no time to say more, for the weird creatures had noiselessly advanced on them, holding spread before them what seemed to be heavy draperies. don hadn't even to wonder before one of the things was clapped over his head. he felt himself being picked up and carried. * * * * * part of the time consumed by the enforced journey he dozed fitfully, but while he was awake he thought with strange clarity and precision, dreaming of the other greener world he had hoped to see. the boy was almost stifled under the heavy folds of the blanket when, after hours of travel, the martians removed it. free of the torment, he drew a deep breath, blinking his eyes as he looked about him. the first thing he saw were the two earthmen peering dazedly about them, their eyes not yet accustomed to the sudden change of light. and when don looked beyond the outlaws he gasped in stunned astonishment. fronting them were the ruins of an old city! that, he thought, must have been why they had been covered with the blankets. the martians wanted to keep the location of the place a secret. it seemed to the wondering boy that giants had played here a while. he saw great statues, perhaps of forgotten gods, misshapen things with cruel faces, tumbled over on one side. he saw vast paving-stones, hewn from solid rock, thrust up from their bed of sand, standing at all angles, cracked and split. he saw great buildings, strong as fortresses, fallen into ruins. in one place that must have been a public square a tide of sand broke in still waves about the base of a truncated pyramid. "where are we?" choked pete, the first of the three to recover from the shock. he stared about blankly. "it's like a city of the dead," he whispered hoarsely. "you're right," don told him. "it is a city of the dead. an ancient, long deserted city of the martians, the ancestors of the degenerates who hold us captive. this band uses it as their base from which they launch raiding parties." don had no time to say more. the martians goaded their captives ahead of them down streets that had once echoed to the tread of a thousand feet. the humans picking through squares where multitudes had shouted saw no other living thing but a shimmering green lizard that basked on a fallen god. there was no sound but that of the ever-creeping sands. the old people were gone leaving only ghosts, and the hand of time in its unhurried way had long since set about the task of wiping out all trace of their existence. the party turned suddenly around the jutting corner of an immense white stone edifice. then don saw something that took his breath away. before him was a great towering structure, a temple judging by the cryptic signs that adorned its face. before the temple was a sunken triangular amphitheater of shining yellow stuff. a glance told don that the great pit was made of shining bars and heavy slabs of hand-hammered and hand-polished metal. don wondered why the outlaws were eying the sunken pit so intently. since he had been raised on mars, don had never heard of gold. but it was the birds perched on the top ledge of the amphitheater that caught donald's attention as he neared the temple. there were hundreds of them--_wirlers_ with plump bodies and pinkish eyes, iridescent _zloth_ poking busily with their long, sharp beaks, spotted _cotasi_ standing in somber dignity, and everywhere huge black _sominas_. don paused. these birds made him cold in his stomach. "what are those?" asked pete, his smooth face uneasy. "birds native to mars," said the boy. "but i've never seen them in such numbers." the martians and their prisoners halted before a small, square stone building. pete was singled out by one of the gangling creatures, and yanked inside the little structure. the other outlaw was forced in after him. don watched with a strange feeling of detachment as the two vanished into the building. it was the heat, the withering heat, that caused that. it sapped all the strength from one's body and left him feeling slow and dim-witted. as he stood there he noticed belatedly something he had been looking at all the while but had not really noticed. it was a small clump of stunted trees, growing a few paces back from the edge of the amphitheater. their crooked branches were overladen with the globes of some bright red fruit. a sudden impulse came on him. he could just touch one of the limbs. a moment later one of the red fruit was in his pocket. he forgot about the thing as soon as he saw pete and his guards emerge from the building. "what happened?" the boy asked. the outlaw coughed dryly. "they showed me some kind of machine--motor--something. i don't know what they wanted." he grinned feebly. a moment later the man backed away in alarm as one of their captors approached him. deliberately the martians flung the contents of a clay gourd into the outlaw's face. the martian laughed, a hollow, croaking boom that sounded like sacrilege in that city of the dead. he gave some order in his gobbling tongue, and two martians unceremoniously shoved the weakly struggling earthman into the deep pit of the amphitheater. the martians looked on stolidly as the outlaw raved and cursed, berating them. then, suddenly, the air above the pit seemed to blast wide open. a shrieking, unhuman sound beat at the ears of the boy; he jerked his arms up to shield his face. for the hundreds of birds clustered grimly about the city were in flight--necks outstretched, eyes glittering, feathered bullets. pete screamed faintly and fell to the ground shielding himself. then he was overwhelmed by the dark, whirring mass. * * * * * the birds had gone berserk. they drove straight for the man's face, hundreds of them. his flailing arms smashed against their soft bodies, batting them out of the air, crushing them to the ground, but hundreds more took their places, pecking at him with frenzied beaks, uttering harsh, discordant cries. it had all happened so quickly that it caught don off guard. it was incredible--birds attacking a human being! he jerked forward. immediately martians rushed to the aid of his guards. his young muscles strained to break their grip, but in their hands he was powerless. agonized, he watched pete die, a swaying, staggering figure seen dimly through a heaving whir of wings and stabbing beaks. finally it was over and the birds, flying heavily, reeled through the air to their old posts, leaving behind them a hundred dead and dying of their kind, the result of the outlaw's frantic blows. the boy turned his eyes away from the gory mess on the floor of the amphitheater. in spite of his horror his mind was working with desperate clarity. birds do not attack human beings. it was against nature. what had maddened them to their deed? his eyes widened as he saw the second of the outlaws dragged from the little building, his face dripping with the fluid. and then a forgotten memory linked itself with what he saw. the liquid that had been poured on the earthmen was _xtholla_--martian language for "bird-lure." it could be distilled from certain wasteland plants which the birds ate as a natural tonic and medicine. but the concentrate of these plants had no mild effect of stimulation. birds went mad when they smelled its faint pungent odor. it had a tropic effect on their ganglia; they _had_ to go to it, gobble it down and wallow in the stuff. they pecked savagely at anything that had on it the slightest trace of the distillate. "the pit!" called the boy frantically. "don't let them--" but one of his guards struck his mouth and he fell silent, knowing that there was nothing more he could do to avert the fate that was before the outlaw. the man was wholly paralyzed with fear. the martians laughed as they hurled him into the pit. again the birds swooped, converging on the terror-stricken man from all points of the compass. they flung their soft bodies against him at murderous speed, sharp beaks stabbing till he bled from a myriad wounds. when don looked up again the birds were reeling back through the air. the boy could not bring himself to look at the thing in the arena. a sudden chill gripped him as his guards grimly took his arms. they were leading him to the little building from which had come the earthmen, he thought swiftly, and he was to undergo a life-or-death test. he held himself tense as they passed through the ancient doors of the structure. the walls, he saw, were studded with tubes that had not lit for untold millennia; machinery of bizarre design covered the floor. the boy jumped as a martian touched his arm. the gangling travesty on humanity pointed grimly at a device that alone of the machinery seemed to have been dusted off and wiped with oil. it was a small motor. the motionless belts and brushes seemed oddly familiar to the boy. then he had it! he had seen pictures of just such motors in one of the old books of his father. but what did the martians expect him to do? obviously the natives wanted him to start their machine but how could he? he had none of the sources from which electricity was derived--no steam, no water-power, as they called it on his father's planet. as don glanced at the open door and saw the crowd of demoniac faces framed in its portals, he knew what fate awaited him if he failed. the same ruthless sentence that had been executed on the outlaw earthmen would fall on him. the eyes of his guard became dull and deadly as he saw don did nothing to the motor. then the idea came. feverishly the boy went to work, racking his brains for all the details in that old book, "electricity for the practical miner." he remembered the title clearly, and ground his knuckles into his eyes to bring before them the simple diagrams that he once had learned. hesitantly he salvaged from a pile of scrap in one corner of the room two metal plates and lengths of wire. one, he fervently prayed, was copper and the other zinc. but he could not be sure. the boy clumsily connected the two terminal wires of the motor, one to each of the plates. then he did what seemed a foolish thing. he took the globe of red fruit from his pocket and sliced it neatly into thin layers. don laid the dripping slices atop the copper plate, and then, his heart cold as ice, laid the zinc plate atop the fruit. the martians watched coldly, grunting to themselves. their eyes were on the world-old motor. slowly, incredibly, the thing turned over. the straps sped over the drums; the brushes fizzed and emitted inch-long blue sparks. and from overhead came a sudden, terrifying wail like nothing that had been heard on mars for countless ages. it was not the cry of an animal nor of a man--that was all the boy knew as he backed against a wall of the building. the noise rose sickeningly in a demoniacal shriek. the martians seemed paralyzed by the awful sound. then, with choking cries, they broke ground and ran, their eyes popping and the shout, "_kursah-ekh!_" bursting from their lips. don knew little of the language, but he did know that their cry was "demons!" the natives fled with the speed of wild things, and the boy found himself alone. no, not quite alone, for into the door of the little building poked the familiar old head of gecko, don's pack-lizard. he nearly embraced the ugly creature. it would have been hell to go without water for another minute. from the canteen on the iguana's back don took a long, refreshing swig. then he turned again to the motor. it was still turning over, but more slowly. he was about to separate the plates when it stopped of its own accord and the fiendish wail from above died away. the boy nimbly scaled the web-work construction and pried about the tangle of machinery until he found the obvious answer. it had been a blower operated by the motor, to which had been attached a simple siren. burglar-alarm, perhaps, or danger signal, he thought. at any rate it had saved him. he laughed as he descended slowly. the old book had been right. fruit acid between zinc and copper made the simplest sort of generating battery cell. what knowledge he had possessed he had used to the full. he drank again from the canteen. and a few moments later with gecko at his side, he left the city of the dead behind, don was going to a greener world. colony of the unfit by manfred a. carter mars had become the prison planet for earth's afflicted, for the leaders had exiled them to a living death beneath its red surface. but the leaders had erred in their cold-blooded calculations--mars held a secret beyond their ken. [transcriber's note: this etext was produced from planet stories winter . extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the u.s. copyright on this publication was renewed.] john greely looked at hilda's freshly gloved, artificial hand, as she adjusted her note book to a clip concealed in the palm. the hand fascinated him horribly. beauty should never be crippled. she sensed his morbid stare, but smiled and rose gracefully, saying, "o.k., boss. let's go." she flashed bantering eyes at her editor, with a last pat of her heavily ringed right hand on the rich rolling waves of blonde hair that were always in place. the startling pale beauty of her young face was contrasted by glowing dark brown eyes. theirs was a comfortable friendship, this of the young editor and his society staff and secretary, but a limited one. he said, gruffly, "let me carry the raditype." "no, you're the dignity, i'm the beast of burden. come on, hurry! we've only five minutes to reach the district hospital." john slipped on his transparent all-weather coat and helped hilda with hers. his reddish brown hair flipped in the march wind as they stepped out from the _daily home recorder_ building. his almost boyishly round cheeks glowed with color. hilda liked the way his shoulders snapped up as he faced the cold. she liked the way he took her arm, but she must always be casual.... "do you suppose it's just another rumor?" she asked, as they stepped into a low, cigar shaped car. "look like straight dope to me. the universal news service is pretty conservative." "how could things have changed so while we were away? it doesn't seem like the same world. those men in washington must be mad." "i know, hilda, but perhaps we are the ones who are out of step. this is the day of directed evolution." "but, john--how horrible, to take all those sick folks and banish them on a space tramp!" john drove past the old wooden houses of their small city and then let out speed on the highway before he answered, "the leader says that is what we should do--harden our emotions for the sake of a better race. you and i are in the minority. those years on the moon trip have left us out of date." they were silent for a little while before she continued, "do you suppose we really are in the minority? the people who listen in to our raditype service seem just about as they did before we went away. their letters prove that. i saw an old lady's scrap book the other day, of her clippings. i read it through because i had been wondering how much of the printed recording was ever reread. most people are content to glance at the screen when the news first comes on. she had saved the old type sentimental items, just as an old lady would have five or ten years ago." "yes, the small towns are slow to change. that's why _they_ hate the little news services like ours. prepared news hastens the new day." "do you suppose they'll talk to us?" "they'll have to," he said grimly, "with all those folks watching and listening in. i wonder what the patients think about the new idea--or if they know." "where do you think they will be sent? why don't the authorities just put them to sleep with a lethal drug?" "search me, honey. well, here we are." their street roller drew up silently before a huge gray building in the open country and john turned the magnetic parking control. they stepped out from the grass-lined curb, and john pushed the moving sidewalk half-speed handle, sliding them quickly up to an entrance. it opened automatically and in a moment they were standing before a large silver reception screen. a white haired doctor, in his long surgical gown, glowed rapidly into focus before them. his eyes darted at john like the incision of a lancet. "what's the press want this morning?" "we'd like an interview on the universe news story." hilda held her raditype transmitter open toward the screen, secure in the crook of her arm, while she made private stenographic notes on the pad. every home in the brownville section, which happened to be tuned in, was seeing the doctor and he suddenly realized it enough to smile slightly. he inwardly cursed the freedom of the press in small towns, but remarked with forced graciousness, "i'll have a nurse conduct you to the surgery. we can talk while i supervise some minor operations." "fine!" * * * * * they walked past the mental case wards in silence. it had been fifty years since the most degenerate of these poor unfortunates had been allowed to vociferate their wild discords. hypnosis and drugs had achieved permanent quiet at last, but there was still a low percentage of actual cures. beyond these wards they came to the surgical division, and presently sat with dr. henderson in a small circular screened room, where a dozen operations were simultaneously shown. he hardly glanced at them, but kept his eyes constantly on the moving screen before him, touching buttons occasionally before making some brief comment into the transmitter. john ignored his seeming lack of attention. "what about this story that the central medical division is moving all these patients out on a space ship?" "some wild rumor--nothing in it." "any objection to our taking a round of observation?" "no, go ahead. might as well do it now. we can finish the interview later. i want to concentrate on that brain section transfer. it's rather tricky." they stepped into an observation car and slid slowly around the overhead track, looking down on crowded wards below. "john! there _is_ something happening here. look at the patients' faces. they're afraid." "does seem to be a lot of activity." "let's slide down into that convalescent ward and see what they have to say." "o.k., sister, but you know it is forbidden. we'll probably get thrown out and reported." they had hardly stepped out of the slide when a group of white gowned orderlies came down the next corridor. hilda saw them and whispered tensely. "here! sit in this wheel chair, and i'll visit you--help me fold our coats so that you can sit on them." john obeyed and lolled back in the chair, winking at her before he half closed his eyes. the orderlies wheeled in a low carrier, piled high with transparent plastic overcoats, old fashioned sweaters, woolen mackinaws, and rubber raincoats--any sort of an outdated covering. most of the patients in these district hospitals were poor, and largely living in the meager comforts of the early part of the century. they made no protest, but donned their variegated assortment of coverings and lined up obediently to march out. "let's go with them," hilda whispered. "quick! behind those screens and into the end of the line," he directed, "the press joins the army of decrepitude." "john, there are hundreds of ambulance planes outside!" "got your transmitter on?" "yes, it's been on all the time." a white faced man ahead of them began to struggle between two guards as they reached the open air. a male nurse, walking behind them, deftly thrust a large hypodermic into the patient's arm, while the orderlies held him and pushed back his sleeve. the rebellious one quieted and was carried into one of the planes. there were a few other struggles of resistance. here and there a patient ran a few yards before being caught and subdued. for the most part the unhappy crowd showed only a quiet despairing obedience. john urged in a low worried tone, "let's make a dash for our roller--this is no place for you." "no, this is horrible--we must see it through. pretend to be sick and go along." "don't be sentimental, hilda. get ready to run for it when we pass that wall." he took her right hand in his left and snapped off the raditype. "now!" she had no choice, but, as they ran around the corner of the wall, they crashed into a group of surgeons coming toward the planes. "hold them!" cried dr. henderson. "they've done damage enough already. put them on a plane. perhaps we can claim the first broadcast was an impersonation, if they are gone." john broke one pair of spectacles and started one nosebleed dripping down a doctor's immaculate gown, but muscles haven't much chance against the rigidity serum. he yielded to the hypodermic and did not come to during the brief ambulance ride, nor while they were being loaded onto the battered old space tramp. hilda continued to scribble her antiquated shorthand surreptitiously on the pad, but they had appropriated her raditype. she was not given the rigidity serum until she was strapped onto a sleeping shelf in the ship. only a small group of officers in the control room were conscious of the sudden inertia strain, when the rockets thundered out through earth's atmosphere. all the patients were mercifully in the long sleep that would seem like a minute of time, when awakened after months of racing through silent outer space. * * * * * john felt the prick of the needle that awakened him to consciousness, through a vague haze of half forgetfulness. suddenly he remembered, and tore feverishly at the straps holding him down. in a moment he was free from their restraint, but laughing in vexation at his forgetfulness when his exertions threw him upward, and he hung suspended in the cabin space dangling from the strap still held in his right hand. he had forgotten they had left gravity behind. he pulled himself down and seized the sleeping shelf with his left hand. clinging to it, he sidled along toward the forward port. patients, under their straps as he passed, were slowly coming back to life, and they stared at him frightened, or amused or indifferent, according to their conditions. the attendants had gone from the cabin. at last john could see through a six foot plate of hardened glass. the view was slightly hazy, and unreal. below their plunging ship was the red planet, still a vague sphere. the orange glow, familiar to earth telescopes, was gone now. the vast stretches of red desert and darker marsh areas became faintly distinguishable. those regular lines of water channels from the opposing polar caps became visible to the naked eye, and were far less geometrical than earth pictures had shown them. it was summer in the northern hemisphere, and its polar cap had receded. the one previous expedition to this dying planet had been given little publicity and john was fascinated by the view before him. at last they entered the thin atmosphere. instant by instant, the deserts and low rounded hills grew visible. lines of vegetation along the water channels turned green. finally, the forward jets of the ship roared and john was crashed against the rear cabin wall, by the change of speed. he crawled painfully back to his sleeping shelf and strapped himself in. the rumor was true--he was on a ship of doom--and hilda--where was she? had she escaped? there was nothing he could do. the ship screamed into thicker, lower atmosphere and vibrations penetrated her thick hull. john's memory of previous space trips told him they were nearly ready to land. there was hardly a jar, as they grounded and tilted slowly to rest. sleepy eyed orderlies came in unsteadily, affected by the lighter gravity. they were pushing a truck full of helmets and oxygen tanks, which they deftly adjusted to the patients. the men in this cabin were all able to walk and were soon outside the air lock. following them came stretcher bearers, street roller ambulances, men on crutches, even a few of the more demented in glassite water jackets, from which they peered with dull eyes, as if they were drugged. hilda burst free from the second group of women and cried, "john! oh, john, i'm so glad to find you." she threw her arms around him and pillowed her head on his shoulder. he held her happily, his blood racing. this was a different girl from the hard and casual newspaper woman. suddenly, she recovered. "sorry. guess i have the old time jitters--i'll try not to let it happen again." she covered her gloved left hand with her right and turned away. "see what a hopeless pitiful mob," she said, after a moment. "yes, and i wonder what next. i've read that most of the old dwelling places are underground. the martians made their last stand against desolation in cave cities." "there's an entrance." "yes, and here come the guards." the long procession of the lame, the blind, and the sick was soon in weaving motion over red sand toward a great metal door set into a low cliff. their oxygen helmets bobbed almost comically. there were few guards and these made little attempt at restraint. john and hilda went hand in hand toward a group in the lead, the seemingly able bodied ones. "i suppose most of these are alcoholics and drug addicts," john remarked, absently, as they followed. "maybe this will really cure them. they certainly can't escape or bribe their way to intoxication here." "what's the use of getting cured on this desert?" "don't give up, john. oh, you're thinking that there will be no more elks club balls!" she took his arm and smiled derisively. "yes, maybe--" "and all the susies, and mabels, and evelyns were left behind--too bad!" "aw--cut it--we've got to figure out something--" * * * * * the guards were not unkind, but herded them like cattle, impersonally and silently. the great steel door clanged, and they were able to remove their helmets in the air conditioned interior. this strange crowd of the banished drew together in a vast open cave, dimly lighted by weak electric globes. in the distance they could hear the throbbing of an old fashioned generator. dr. henderson stood on an overturned packing case with one of the primitive sound amplifiers set up before him. he spoke calmly now, more at ease than at home, as if relieved. "men and women," he began, "we are not here to harm you. this great experiment is being conducted in the interests of humanity. the constant presence of the sick is disturbing to eugenic controls and ideals. the leader and the earth council have wisely established this colony. you will still be treated by the best of our skill. any who recover will be placed in an isolated and independent colony. the slightly crippled will be given handicraft and factory tasks. their products will be shipped to earth and sold to maintain the supply line." "where do we live?" blurted a portly, middle aged man near john. "there are separated quarters a few miles down the passage--of course rather primitive--but you can make yourselves fairly comfortable." hilda noticed one of the nurses standing near the doctor. her tightly waved blonde hair was gleaming in the dim light near the speaker's improvised platform. her large blue eyes were slightly closed and her full red lips sagged almost hopelessly, but she was strikingly beautiful, with strong, clean cut features and a clear skin. beyond were other nurses and doctors in white uniforms, scattered like lonely ghosts among the five hundred and more patients. hilda wondered what had induced these people to voluntarily leave the comforts of civilization. were they derelicts of time, idealists, or just out of work? "there is one difference in this colony," went on dr. henderson in a lower tone. "if any of you find it too difficult to exist under the new conditions, euthanasia will be permitted--a sleeping pill in the white room--and your troubles are over." "yeah--and the state saves money!" snarled the white faced man who had rebelled at the hospital entrance before them. "it will be purely voluntary," said dr. henderson calmly. "oh, i'll bet they'll use hypnotics!" whispered hilda, in a shocked voice, "they'll make them want to--what a twisted code of ethics. they don't dare to face their own attitudes. such hypocrisy! why not just line us up and use the ray guns?" doctor henderson ended his address with additional promises and then stepped down. in a few minutes the crowd was broken up into small units. john and hilda walked with the group of alcoholics and arrested mental cases. they began to talk and sought acquaintanceship to cancel fear. it was almost a relief to leave the congregation of pain behind them. there was only one doctor with this group, old doctor smithson, a retired psychiatrist who had begun working at the district hospital after losing his fortune in the stock market. he was now too old for general practice. his thin, bent shoulders straightened as he walked. his words became crisp and cheerful as if he welcomed the adventure. with him were two nurses, mary, the blonde girl hilda had noticed, and a little, red headed, freckled faced woman of indeterminate years. near hilda and john walked major henry mattson, a psychiatric casualty of the war of , seemingly cured. the rebellious one, twice noticed by the reporters before, walked ahead. he said his name was tony pacina. a tall, white haired man with thick glasses, recently cured of a cataract, introduced himself as mark hemingway and said that he was a chemist and had been in the surgery at the hospital for his operation because of confidence in dr. henderson. if this should prove true his accidental presence might be helpful. * * * * * around them were the others they would seek to know later. the group tramped briskly behind dr. smithson. they were the "cured" ones. with health, happiness is possible anywhere. they felt themselves beginning a strange comradeship, even cheerfulness. "i wonder where they're taking us," said hilda, clinging to john's arm to keep up with the brisk pace, and laughing at the way a little jump could lift her up and far ahead. "i wonder, too. well, honey, if i must be cast away--i'm glad it's with you." she squeezed his arm, but said nothing. there was light ahead at the end of the long tunnel. they entered a large open chamber. it was not a luxurious room, but neither was it a prison. there was sufficient heat, and the mattresses and sheets were clean. there were two shower and bath rooms beyond but no ultra violet equipment. cloth curtains were hung to drop around their beds. one side of the room was lined half way to the ceiling with frayed and battered books. one wall had a moving picture screen. there was no television. one noted the absence of buttons to push and gadgets for speed and comfort. there were no sliding floors. "our legs will ache with all the walking in this city," said hilda, rather doubtfully. "i'll like that. i'd enjoy developing a little muscle again." "i wonder where those passages go. do you suppose they'll permit us to go out?" "let's see." as they stepped to the door, mary came forward and gave them each a folded paper map, and a double holster holding a radilight and a gas pellet gun. hilda buckled hers on, laughing at its weight. john stared at his thoughtfully. "no real danger here," said the blonde nurse, "but our instruction manuals say there are mars rats--something like the jack rabbits on western sage plains back home. they run around the cave area. nothing larger has been left in the passages. they aren't very good to eat, so we just gas them and leave them to recover. dr. henderson wants a reserve food supply in case of emergency. they are about twice the size of rabbits back home, and their bite is infectious. if you go beyond any of the air doors, you may need oxygen helmets, the atmosphere is pretty thin. it will take you a bit of time to get used to the lighter gravity, but that's sort of fun." she said it all with professional cheeriness, as if it were memorized, but she paid very little attention to them. "want to come along?" asked john. "sorry. i have to stay here to help dr. smithson. i'd like to--maybe another time. we are both on duty today." she smiled, and the settled sadness of her face was gone for a moment. "well, thanks," said john, unfolding his map slowly. "oh, yes," she added, "and never go beyond sight of the entrance if you go out on the desert. you can see for miles even though the horizon is nearer up here. if danger comes you can make it back to the door easily. but there are very unpleasant things on this planet. the safety is all underground. maybe you'd better have one of the manuals. it will be light outside and you can read." she took a thin booklet from the bundle of papers in her hand and gave it to hilda, then walked briskly away. they pushed open the room door, and stepped cautiously down a dry, dark passageway. old marks of ray blast on the sandstone walls showed that all this underground world was artificial. red desert sand underfoot was hard, dry and clean. "oh, john, it does seem good to be by ourselves again. all these sick folks depress me." "yes, and what depresses me is how i'm going to get you back to earth. it may be months before another ship comes. and they won't dare to let us go back and tell, until the experiment is well established." he folded the map carefully. "think of all the hundreds of families back home who must be frantic." john's voice was savage as he answered, "i found out a bit about that from the major. it seems that every family got a printed letter, telling about the new colony and claiming it was mostly for the good of the patients. and there is a systematic health propaganda planned to follow that up, conditioning the minds of their relatives to the undertaking in all its implications. i believe the patients are even allowed to write letters--censored, of course, and delivered once in two years. you know there is no radio contact." they walked on, in understanding silence, until she took his arm and indicated a great copper door. "look, john, on the map it says that door is an outside entrance. let's go and see." ii they adjusted helmets and manipulated the manual locks of the double doors, with some experiment. john finally convinced himself that he could re-enter without difficulty. then the two earth people stepped out into a weird atmosphere under a strangely small sun. the sky was dark blue, tending toward black. stars glittered, though it was still day. their helmets provided a mixture of oxygen with the planet's natural atmosphere. "it's like a dream, john." the hills were old and worn out but there were no trees. deep shadows folded into the distance in the cold slanting sunlight, tracing sandy curves with velvet-like smoothness. john answered her thought, "those vivid colors and deceptive distances remind me of my boyhood in idaho. i'll bet there's the same difference between light and shade, too. let's step into the shadow of that rock and see if it isn't suddenly much cooler." he led her to a pyramid-like rock projecting about twenty feet out of the sand, and casting a shadow toward them. hilda exclaimed, "yes, it is colder. why?" "the thin air always diffuses heat less than moist heavy air near the sea, and at a lower altitude. i'll bet on a cold day you could get frozen out of the sunlight before you realized." "and there are no clouds. what a strange dark sky!" "i've read that there are often yellowish clouds of dust but it is only at night, when the cold comes with sunset, that moisture clouds are formed. nights are too cold for human existence without special protection." she shivered. "i'd get to hate that sky after a time. it is pitiless." "you certainly would if you were lost on this desert." "let's rest a bit, john, and see what the manual has to say." "fine! we can lean our backs against this rock." "we'd better get on the sunny side of it." they walked around the rock, and slid down to the hard sand. faint twists of sand curled around the sides of the rock but they were sheltered from the wind, and out of sight of the entrance, as if in a world of their own. she rested her head on his shoulder contentedly as he turned the old, crudely typeset pages of the manual. there were pen and ink illustrations of strange beasts, but no chapters on inhabitants. "we're the only people here--" said hilda, in an awed tone. "regular adam and eve picnic, with clothes on." "i'd hate to be without clothes on this desert. no garden here." "that's right. no place for a nudist colony on mars." she sat up suddenly, looking past the rock at a distant shadow. her face grew pale, and she whispered fearfully, "look, john! there's something moving over by those rocks." he leaped to his feet. "yes--and it's a mars coyote. i noticed a picture on page three. harmless, i guess, but we'd better get back. it's close. we should have been watching." * * * * * they rose hastily and walked around the boulder, back toward the entrance. hilda started and stifled a scream as they left the shelter. john drew his clumsy gas gun and stepped in front of her. before them, on the red stretch of sand toward the entrance, were hundreds of the reddish-gray, smooth haired animals, with pointed noses and wickedly gleaming eyes. these moved back silently as the two humans approached, but only a little way. "the book says they're cowardly," she gasped, "but there are so many!" "too damned many--i wonder if i ought to shoot one, to keep the others away." the red-gray circle bent away from them slowly, as they walked steadily across the weirdly shadowed sand toward the gleaming metal door, so far ahead. the animals massed thickly before them, and were finally crowded up against the cliff and its door. they slid out sidewise but tumbled into each other. one made a dash forward, but john dropped it with the little gas pellet that broke against its hide, with a sinking yellow cloud of gas. there was also an injection of paralysis fluid from the plastic point of the pellet. the little gun made no noise as it was operated by a spring. john levered another pellet into the firing tube. after the yellow gas had blown away in the strong wind, the red-gray bodies crept toward their fallen comrade and suddenly rushed in, with a horrible clicking of teeth and fierce, silent ripping of flesh. "oh--" cried hilda--"and it's still alive. they're eating it alive!" "not much difference," grunted john as he aimed and fired rapidly at three more. then he led her around the circle of rolling, crowding bodies. one coyote at the edge of the circle howled dismally. there were still a dozen or more between them and the door. * * * * * john tried a new trick. he shot one of the beasts and ran quickly forward with his radilight in the cliff's shadow, frightening the others back. then, while hilda held her gun ready, he quickly scooped up the fallen coyote by its bushy tail and whirled it round his head to heave it far out over the milling mass of hungry bodies. each hairy carcass felt unbelievably light to him, and he could cast them thirty feet away. when most of the coyotes were facing the living food away from the door john dragged her toward the great copper portal, shooting as they ran. the lighter gravity had made the work fairly easy, but even so, he was sweating and his hands trembled as he seized the last one and tossed it into the air. hilda was fumbling with the door. "let me do it!" he gasped, "i remember--" [illustration: _the shot exploded in a burst of light._] just then a shadow fell over them, and they were so startled as to look up from the door and step back. about fifty feet in the air hovered a small, almost spherical air boat, with no visible means of suspension or power. a port slid open on its under side and a square black muzzle pointed at them. hilda seized john's arm in terror, as they felt themselves lifted by invisible force from the ground, above the great pack of startled coyotes. john noticed that the beasts were looking up and many of them yelping as they ran into the rubble of rocks beyond the cliff. there wasn't time to see how many fled, for he and hilda were quickly sucked up into the open port by invisible tractor rays, the metal hull clanged shut, and they were thrown roughly on a hard floor. john had a blurred vision of a circle of white, long-bearded faces, on slender bodied old men, before a gleaming mirror-like reflector dazzled him and he felt his hold on reality slipping. he struggled to his feet and reached for one of the old men, managing to seize a tangled silky beard before he fell forward into darkness. * * * * * they came to consciousness lying on soft low mattresses in a room softly illuminated with blue light. the air was slightly overwarm and humid but comfortable. they were dressed in skin fitting, silvery garments, partly transparent with skirts of blue, velvety cloth. their hair was wrapped in transparent turbans. hilda recovered enough to blush uncomfortably and curl back on the couch. "i feel as if--i were wrapped in cellophane," she faltered. "you're swell," gulped john gallantly, "an improvement in fact. i suppose they had to fumigate our own clothes or something. this superheated air suggests that our captors are old and delicate." "the cellophane idea makes me wonder if we're wrapped up like rolls, or something, from the baker for--dinner." "meaning cannibalism? this kind of a room was never made by primitives, honey." "that's right--it's like a dream place." she rose up on her elbow again to look around. there were no windows. it was utterly bare of ornament. john walked slowly around the circle of their walls. the only door opened to a tiny bath cubicle. blue light, reflected upward from the juncture of floor and wall, cast no shadow, indicating its perfect diffusion. he paused with an exclamation. "what is it, john?" "here's some kind of a control button, with symbols carved over it. their language perhaps. i wonder what it's for." "better leave it alone--i'd sort of like to catch up with myself--" but, at that moment, the button clicked in of its own accord--and one side of the wall glowed with rose colored light. a large screen showed an old man half reclining on a purple couch, dressed in a white, silver trimmed robe. he was smiling at them as he turned away from some recording device into which he spoke. his face was incredibly old, and wrinkled in a fine network of lines. his skin, strangely, seemed of some soft, young texture. the bones of his cheeks were prominent, and his hands were delicately pink white. he moved gracefully, and in leisurely fashion, from the couch to a small black box at the side of the room, and pressed a button. on a small screen in the old man's room, visible on their own wall, began to flash words in red script. "say! that's in german," cried john. "i don't read german, but i know the script." "and that looks like chinese--" "ah--that's better--" in red square blocked letters on the little screen were the words in english, "we mean you no harm." the old man observed their excitement, and stopped the flow of the screen so that the message steadied. then, under that sentence, appeared another "be patient we must finish transcribing your language. it will take a few more time. eat--sleep--rest." the screen on their room faded out. the old man's face was gone. and through a slit near the floor of their room slid a tray of food, moved by some invisible force on small rollers, over toward the mattress where hilda was still sitting. "oh boy--food! and could i use some--" "wait until you're properly served, mister." she spread out the pale yellow cloth on the floor and arranged the food in orderly fashion. it was moulded into various patterns and colors, and was firm enough to eat with their fingers, which was fortunate as there were no eating utensils. they both ate hungrily and were nearly finished when soft music came into the air from some invisible source. it was hauntingly mingled in composition, but all vaguely familiar, drifting from the limited scale of the orient to waltzes and furious russian symphonies. the hill billy band that finally played seemed oddly out of harmony and yet aroused a nostalgia for home in their hearts. "i feel like a nap--" said hilda, yawning. "so do i--wonder if there was a drug--in--that--milk." it seemed only a moment to john that he had been sleeping, but his muscles were rested, his weariness was gone, and he felt invigorated. he looked for his watch, but it was not there. in fact there were no pockets. then he remembered! hilda was splashing around in the bath cubicle, and singing. "hello, sleepy!" she said, emerging and adjusting a strap in the strange silvery clothing. "so--it wasn't a dream--" "no, and hurry up with your bath. your head is tousled. maybe they'll feed us again. i don't want to eat opposite that mop." "yes, dear--" he said, attempting scorn, but only achieving a new tenderness. she looked down, and instinctively dropped her crippled arm behind her back. the glove was no longer fresh, but stained from the desert, though wrinkled where she had tried to launder it. under the transparency of her sleeve the ugly stump of her arm revealed itself discordantly. with a forced gaiety, she crossed the room and pretended to hunt for their breakfast. but it didn't come. "maybe they don't know our eating habits," remarked john glumly, as he plastered his unruly locks with his hands. "wish i had a comb." * * * * * at last the slide opened in the wall and a tray came in, but on it, instead of food, was a book. hilda seized it eagerly, crying, "it's a lexicon. see, here are the english words, and the signs for their language. the ink still smells fresh. they must have just printed it." "what's the sign for ham and eggs?" "maybe we'd better try just 'food'--can't be too particular." "what'll we write with?" "here's a kind of pencil, but no lead on it." "look, hilda, there's a new white spot on the wall. let me have that pencil thing." a blue line followed his tracing, and it glowed with a faint edging of fire. "some kind of a transfer current i suppose. well, here goes--let me see that food character." "here it is--just a round circle, with three dots at the side." "fine, sister, here's hoping the dots mean eggs and that you get one of them." "pig!" there were no eggs, but the little round cakes, appearing a moment later, proved delicious. a warm liquid in the crystal cups was almost a substitute for coffee. in fact, it proved much more stimulating. after breakfast, john boldly pressed the visi-screen control. this time, instead of one old man, they faced a group of them around a green table, covered with lexicons, other books, and charts. they recognized the spokesman who stepped forward into a close up perspective and began the conversation. "i hope you will forgive our seeming--" he paused. "aloofness," supplied one of the other men, after hastily examining a lexicon. "that's right, our aloofness, but we are products of an artificial world. your primitive contagion would be dangerous for us. "i am also sorry," he went on, "that the conversation must be one direction until you learn more of our language, and we can pronounce more finely and hear. we have had difficulty even in assembling visual information about you. there was a collection of earth photographs which we have magnified so that we could read your street signs. and the first expedition left a few scraps of paper. we had never considered it worth learning your way of speech before." he paused, as if this part of the address had been memorized. then he continued slowly, with hesitations and stumbling pronunciation. "we are trying to vocalize your words from those we have heard you speak--but our ears are poor--i mean inadequate." the other old men rustled charts and books and nodded at his correction. the address went on with more pauses and confirmations. occasionally john had to write "repeat" on the wall chart. the martians spoke with a strange sibilant hiss, and accents followed a different system, changing even common words enough to make it difficult to understand. in general, this was their explanation.... "our scientists discovered your world several thousands years ago, but as it was a more primitive one, progressing slowly, they could not see any advantage in making contact. the one danger to us here, a lack of water, could not be remedied by travel to the blue planet. instead, our wise ones devoted themselves to developing an underground civilization, free from the extremes of temperature on our planet. atomic energy had given us all the heat and power we needed, and in a short time we were able to devote our energies to aesthetics, as soon as the physical necessities were satisfied." "each year the flooding polar caps supply us with natural vegetation along the water channels and in the marshes. these plants are harvested and chemically treated for efficiency of use. when the last moisture fails, the remnant of our people must migrate, but that will not be for several of our generations. it may surprise you to know that each of us is over two hundred years old, that is of your years. our younger men spend fifty years in attaining an education, under very sheltered conditions. we do not wish to disturb them by curiosity about you--at least not for the present. our women live a very specialized existence, as the birth rate is low, and it takes nearly all of their energy to protect young life and to keep our population from diminishing too rapidly." * * * * * john thumbed feverishly through the little book until he found the word for "space ship" then another for "earth--" he puzzled for other words and wrote, "many years--last--not see--" it was incoherent but these old men had an uncanny way of guessing context of meaning. "you mean, why did previous expeditions not find us? we took care of that, since we knew, long before they started, that they were coming. much of the life on your world is transmitted to us by devices your mind have not yet dreamed. when the ships came we covered--no, camouflaged--our entrances. we were not discovered. you two have been brought here for a medical reason--" john wrote, "question." "yes, we want to know about your woman companion's arm, and about the others in the cave--what has happened on earth--?" the old man's face peered, suddenly eager, closer up to the screen. his eyes watered, and the calm manner was gone. his thin fingers tapped a lexicon nervously. hilda pointed to words in her lexicon and john wrote, "cripple--colony." the old scientist grew pale and he staggered a bit as he turned to the others. their white beards bent in an almost comical cluster over the little green table and bobbed excitedly. their hissing syllables were shrill. suddenly the screen blanked out. "well, what do you know about that?" "john, do you remember what they said about 'primitive contagion'?" "yes, i get it--you mean they are afraid." "of many things--other colonies to follow this--their eventual discovery--diseases! perhaps it is partly that we cripples offend their sense of beauty--" "forget it, kid, you've got more pep in one hand than any girl i ever knew had in two." she smiled at him gratefully, before she turned away, and then her voice was still gay--"that isn't what you say to all the girls--well, what next?" john stood with his feet apart as if alert to danger. he combed his fingers through the already tousled mop of reddish brown hair. after a moment of silence, he said, "do you suppose that will make a difference in their attitude toward us?" "perhaps not--after all, most of the trouble came with the ship. they are not angry with us--we'll just have to wait and see." it wasn't a long wait. a larger opening in the wall allowed the sliding entrance of a small glass-like dome, containing their earth clothes and oxygen helmets on a low bench inside. the old scientist who had been talking to them before, appeared again on the screen. he ordered, impersonally, "dress yourselves, lift the cover, and then strap yourselves to the seat inside. we are going to take you for a trip. the dome is to protect us from you." "isn't much else to do, is there?" said john hopelessly. "let's assume they are friendly, until they prove otherwise." their tiny glass cage slid away down a dimly lighted corridor, with no visible means of power, and clicked into place in the cabin of the same round aircraft that had captured them. several of the old men were seated in padded and swinging chairs which moved rhythmically at moments of unsteadiness. they, too, were strapped in place, as if ready for any violent action of the ship, and the arc of each swaying chair was limited. in an hour they were hovering over the desert area again. heavy sunset clouds were rich in coloring. the desert sands were whirling into a gathering dusk and the whole sky was overcast. the speed slowed, and john recognized the familiar rock and cliff entrance where they had been captured. at last their small ship settled down on the sand and the little cage slid out gently on the hard sand. "maybe they're just going to let us go, john." "i hope not--i want to know more about them." a crackling and distorted voice spoke electrically in their ears, "please get out and walk quietly toward the entrance. we mean you no harm. your friends are coming--" "well, that's that!" john rolled back the cover and straddled over the edge, turning to help hilda follow him. they gasped as the intense cold of sunset struck through their thin clothing. then they turned and ran toward the metal door, leaning into the wind and sheltering their hands from the blowing sand. the door slid open and doctor smithson came running toward them with fur coats in his arms. behind him walked mary, the nurse, bundled up and smiling. even more slowly, old jake adams hobbled on crutches. doctor smithson cast uneasy glances at the strange airship, but came steadily toward them. just as he was helping john into a coat, the lower port of the mars ship opened and that square black projection came thrusting through. john saw it and cried, disgustedly, "don't be afraid. this won't hurt--we're going for a ride upstairs!..." his last words were spoken from a distance of ten feet above ground.... in a few minutes, the five of them were crowded into that little glass cage, and sat staring at the old men in resentment. jake had lost his crutches and lay, in a ridiculous posture, on the floor, his two wooden pegs spread out at a wide angle. he scowled truculently at the old men. iii it was warm in the round mars ship and cage. in a few minutes, they were sailing into rapidly falling darkness. john lost all sense of direction. at last, blue lights flashed in the cold night above a dim floor of thick plant life, and their little ship slid sidewise to a stop inside a massive hillside door. they could not understand why jake was rayed into unconsciousness and taken away, before they were sent sliding and unattended down the long corridor to their former room. there were now four of the low beds and a fresh tray of food had been prepared. they ate, and fell into drugged sleep. life went on quietly, back in this observation cage, nearly a week. every morning they were questioned for an hour or more by the council of scientists through the wall screen. hilda persuaded john to be as co-operative as possible, hoping that the old men's intentions were still kind. the questions were especially centered about details of health on earth, medicine, eugenic control, the number of sick people, and about the possibility of future colonies. mary and dr. smithson proved fascinating companions in the long idle hours, with a dramatic story to tell of their recent trip to venus. earth's first expedition to that world in had not yet been reported in the public press. it was on the sixth day that they saw jake adams again. he came sliding in on a rolling stretcher, propelled by unseen forces, and his eyes were closed. mary gasped, "look at his legs!" john stepped quickly to the stretcher and ran his hands over jake's body, then stood and cried. "they're warm--and alive!" during their brief wait in the cave they had seen the old soldier stumping around on two wooden legs, supplemented by crutches. he was spry and cheerful for a man nearly seventy years old, and his hands and arms were abnormally strong. hilda had been indignant that the army should neglect this old hero and fail to provide him with suitable artificial limbs. her own handicap made her feel a special sympathy, and she had stopped to talk with the old fellow briefly. he told her that he had been wounded in the battle against the japs in the marshall islands during . now the old soldier lay, with a slightly flushed face, breathing quietly, and in place of the wooden pegs were _two perfectly formed legs wrapped in silvery transparent leggings_! as they watched, the old man slowly awakened, but lay still as if dazed. then an expression of alarm or amazement began to open his eyes. he moved his toes, and then lay back muttering, "no, it's just another of them nerve tricks--the way i used to feel about the weather!" but he slowly raised his head, as if fascinated. when his eyes focused on the new feet, he snapped suddenly to a sitting position and reached for his ankles. "i can feel! i can feel--they're alive!" he screamed. then he saw john bending over him, and the others in the background. "how did you do it--what's happened--am i dreaming?" "no, old chap, it's real enough, but the old ones must have done it for you." a high, thin voice interrupted--"we're glad you are pleased." they whirled toward the wall screen. old senegar faced them from his purple couch, leaning wearily on an elbow--"it was quite a bit of trouble, but interesting." john fumbled through his lexicon and found the word for "how?" and scribbled it on the white wall plate. "we thought you would want to know--sit down, it will take a few minutes. i will try to be elementary in my discussion." they squatted in a half circle on the floor, all except jake--who refused to sit, and teetered around feeling the muscles of his new legs, jumping, stretching, rocking on his toes, but listening all the while. "to us, it is relatively simple," went on the old man. "first we stimulate the bone cells to grow down a plastic hollow tube. this is done by depositing a calcium compound in the tube and focusing a ray of complex force upon it. of course, the tube is made to order in relationship to measurements of the patient's other bones. artificial veins and arteries are introduced. we do not bother with all the tiny capillaries. they will grow in later. synthetic cell tissue is moulded into the shape of muscles and stimulated with pinealin, which we have at last isolated. strangely, one of the most difficult techniques is that of skin grafting. we grow skin on a hairless type of laboratory animal and patch it on with grafting glue. the healing is hastened by a special ultra violet and electrodynamic apparatus. of course, the artificial arteries are connected when installed. their wall composition allows blood to flow out into the cell tissue in about two days. with the arteries is laid down a series of main nerve sheaths. we do not try to restore all the original sensitivity, because the procedure is too complex. we find that a clumsy subsidiary nervous tentacle is developed, under high pressure electric nerve currents introduced briefly through the central nervous system before the lower frequency body current is allowed its own way. his legs will never be quite as effective as the original pair but do well enough, and only a doctor could detect the difference." * * * * * hilda stepped forward and wrote on the white square the words she had been finding in her lexicon. "your kindness is almost beyond our understanding. i knew you were good people. we wish we could do something in return." senegar rolled his spare body off the couch and his high voice was almost senile in his excitement--"you can, my dear--you can!" "anything--we will do anything," she answered. "it will be rather unpleasant for you at first." "what do you want?" added john standing at hilda's side. "sit down, sit down! i will tell you." the group of earth people relaxed but with upturned faces, held fascinated by the old one's earnestness. john's hands were clasped tightly around his knees. doctor smithson kept hitching his lean frame forward. the old man's voice was low as he went on. "this is the trouble, my children, your people are a menace to us. all this ugliness would be bad enough, but the danger of infection is terrible. our wise ones are fragile beings. we restore the flesh when there is injury or sickness, but we always lose a little of the original vitality. we cannot be killed, but we slowly wear out and must be protected. our young ones are too few to risk contact with you. thus we are forced to the logical conclusion that the earth colony of sick ones must be destroyed and the next ship discouraged from returning." "no!--no, that's inhuman!" gasped mary. "nothing will happen to you five--we wish to retain you for medical and breeding purposes. but the others must go. come, now, why should you care about them? you admitted they are all strangers to you. think of the joy of living several hundred years." "but those sick ones--they are human!" cried hilda to john, weeping. "they must find some other way--how could they do such a thing, when they have just shown us such kindness?" "self protection, my dear," murmured the old man, reading her face and catching some of the words. "self preservation and security for the qualitatively higher civilization of mars. let men from the blue planet continue to settle here, and in a hundred years we will be extinct. the universe needs our wisdom. those primitives must die, as you would kill your pet animals in a famine, or send sons to fight in one of your mad wars." "you can have your--i mean my legs back," growled jake, "gimme my pegs again." his pantomime may have been understood. senegar smiled, faintly. "think it over carefully. do not let your simple emotions confuse you. i will see you again tomorrow. we need your help." the screen faded slowly into a blur, and in a moment they were alone in the plain, blue lighted room--five human beings, terror stricken in a place of comfort. "my head aches," grunted jake, "that machine they used on me first left a sore spot." "what kind of a machine was it?" "i dunno--some kind of a thing. they kept asking me questions and wrote down the answers even before i spoke--that was funny! and sometimes when i lied to them--about some of the things i did, on shore leave and so on, they laughed. it was almost like they partly read my mind." "perhaps they did," remarked doctor smithson, who had been very quiet during all the excitement. his eyes gleamed with an almost impersonal interest. "our psychoanalysis is very clumsy. i have always wished there were some kind of mechanical means of intuitively reaching to the under experiences of the subconscious." suddenly he got to his feet from the low mattress bed where he had been sitting alone since the stunning proposal. he began to pace the floor, clasping and unclasping his thin arms. "i wonder--" he seemed to have forgotten their presence, "i wonder if they can stimulate brain tissue with pinealin. i'll wager half of those mental cases back underground could be cured by these men in a week! if i could only persuade them to talk to me." "look who's here," remarked jake quietly, as if nothing in this strange room could surprise him. a slight young man, with brown hair and keen blue eyes, stood in a flowing white robe marked by silver trimmings and a red diagonal stripe running from his shoulder to the floor. there was no sign of a door where he had entered. "i heard what you said, doctor smithson, or at least part of it," he remarked quietly in a soft musical voice. "i am zingar. some of us younger ones think the old men are too fearful--i wish i could go back to earth with you and assist your struggling medical men." john paged through the book hurriedly, hunting for words. "just a moment," interrupted the young stranger. he stepped to the wall and tapped a code sign. at his feet a slit opened and a dark gray, complicated machine slid into the room. "that's one of them things they hitched to my head," said jake excitedly. * * * * * zingar drew out a cord from the gray machine, with a small black disk at the end, and laid it against the side of john's head, where it remained as if glued. "now think what you wish to say, and i will know the essence of your meaning," remarked zingar. "it will not convey words or technical matter but blurred pictures of experience. i will ask questions to guide your memory. and if you will think aloud it may help as i already have memorized much of your spoken language." john tried to think coherently, but, under his conscious sentences when he spoke aloud was a flickering jumble of excitement, ideas for escape, thoughts of hilda as he looked at her, memories of their recent conversations with senegar. "relax, young man," ordered the martian youth, "i find it difficult to receive. this device only registers your subvocal thoughts. your mind is like a kaleidoscope at present. try not to think of the young lady." hilda drew in her breath quickly and blushed. john's face was red from his neck to his hair. "young man, yourself," he blurted, "how old do you think i am?" "young in comparison to me. i am seventy five. now think of what your hospital was like back on earth." john steadied his mind and visualized the events of their last day on earth. "there--that's better," said zingar quietly. "if this could have registered technical matter the old ones wouldn't have to bother to learn your language." he shifted the black disk to doctor smithson's bony forehead. "if you believe we should be helped, why not let us escape--even go with us," urged john. "i have thought of it," he replied calmly. mary came up to him quickly--"oh, please do. i know you are good--i _love_ those sick people back there underground. there are a few who think only of their sickness but most of them are really much finer than selfish normal people. their handicaps have made them strong and kind. they can even laugh at pain." zingar abruptly removed the disk from doctor smithson, to the latter's disgust, and placed it gently on mary's golden waves. "please repeat--remember we cannot understand your words very clearly, but we can receive your picture thoughts. i heard part of what you said." mary repeated her plea, but she also blushed, as if the sudden nakedness of her secret mind before him was embarrassing. he smiled appreciatively and they withdrew to one of the low mattresses and sat together for an hour or more, apart from the others. they seemed to forget the present world entirely, but zingar's questions were too low for john to hear, and he was still curious at the story back of mary's quiet sadness. hilda thought, why they can get as much acquainted in an hour as we do ordinarily in years. i never have really known what john thought about my hand.... both of them glanced at mary occasionally and it seemed, after a long time, that some of the strain passed from her face and a strange quiet happiness flowed over it. finally they arose and came to the center of the room, where their companions were still talking excitedly. "i will do it--tonight," said zingar with dignity. "i will go with you, and be one of you--even back to the earth. but first i must prepare and i want to bring my twin sister with me. we are inseparable." he walked to the blank wall of the room and again tapped rhythmically on it until a low doorway opened. he stooped and disappeared. john immediately tried to repeat the tapping combination, but the wall remained as solid as if it were stone. in the quiet room there was little sense of time. food came in to them automatically after an hour or so. they were too excited to think of sleep. at last the wall opening appeared again and zingar returned, leading a beautiful, brown-haired girl by the hand. she was tall and dressed in pale blue transparencies, with a tight purple girdle, and a gleaming silver star surmounted her soft hair like a coronet. john stared. in all his many and easy adventures with women he had never seen anyone like her. there was a fragility to her body yet the glow of health. her eyes were luminous, of a warm green shade, and they seemed to hold strange secrets. her body was identical with an earth woman's except that the fingers were smoothly longer and the high forehead was slightly more prominent. he felt some hypnotic influence flow from her into his mind, and involuntarily stepped forward, then stopped, suddenly remembering his companion. he had not thrilled like this since he was seventeen. across the room, hilda clasped the wrinkled glove on her artificial hand, until the fingers of her right hand were white, but she smiled and talked to doctor smithson as if she had not noticed. "we will go now," said zingar, taking command of the little party. "in the hallway are insulated suits for protection against our midnight cold. the ship will be warm, but we must step from the desert to your underground entrance. i do not think we will be hindered. the old ones sleep soundly." it was almost miraculous that his accent and hesitation disappeared so rapidly, perhaps because he was still relatively young and adaptable. * * * * * their small round ship flared over the blackened planet; its rays, that had been invisible in the daylight, were now gleaming silent jets on the dimly starlit desert. dr. smithson, jake, and hilda sat together at the rear of their cabin compartment. john and zingar's lovely sister stared into the night ahead. he had not touched her yet, but he felt drawn to her with a strange compulsion, partly spiritual. her name was molaee. mary and zingar were now frankly in love, and sat with arms around each other, quietly content, as if they had never been strangers. the mind sounder was attached to her gleaming hair by its smooth round disk and she seemed to be pouring her whole life into zingar's eager mind. all maidenly reserve had vanished. none of his questions embarrassed her. that's a good thing, thought john, noticing them. mary will keep him with us, and he will make her come to life. they had flashed on through the night for about half an hour when jake yelled, "they're after us!" like tiny streaming rockets a fleet of the little ships danced over the horizon in pursuit, still so distant as to seem but fireflies. "don't be alarmed," said zingar, leaving mary and staring behind them, somberly, "they will slowly overtake us but we will make the underground city in time. they have no weapons, for our civilization had no need for them. it will take time to invent and manufacture the means of destruction." in half an hour, their ship slid slowly to the ground as zingar deftly manipulated the controls. they donned the opaque and clumsy insulation garments, fastened helmets above them, and ran across the frozen sand toward the great copper door, dull in the starlight. john fumbled at the hand lock, but finally got it open, just as the first of the pursuing ships began its perpendicular descent from the higher air. the second metal door slid noisily into place before the lifting rays could touch them, and hilda snapped on her radilight flash to guide the party down the sandy tunnel toward the colony. in another half hour they were sitting in council, with major mattson, hemingway, the old chemist, dr. henderson and other officials. dr. henderson paid little attention to his recovered companions but questioned zingar rapidly. the mind sounder and an occasional written question, or reference to a lexicon, kept the interview going smoothly. finally zingar stood and addressed the entire group. "my people are ruthless and unemotional, but they are not equipped for war. i think this will be their plan of attack. they will set their machinery to work, producing the war weapons of several of the primitive planets, but that will take time, perhaps six months. meanwhile they will try strategy, and perhaps drive the mars beasts at us with their ship flares at night." "what's them martian beasts like?" grunted jake. "that's maybe something i could fight." "oh, they're horrible!" murmured mary. "here, look at the pictures in this manual." the old marine's weatherbeaten face paled a bit, but his voice was steady, as he said, "well, anyway, they can't get through them copper doors." "no, but my people will batter those down," said zingar in a low tone. "then we must prepare for defense," cried dr. henderson, "if they can break down the front door we must barricade every passageway and fight them back foot by foot. what is the substance of your ship's hull?" "it is a very dense metal, unknown to you. none of your rays will penetrate it except the atom cannon." "and we only have one old cannon, with hardly any of the power jackets--" groaned dr. henderson, desperately. "we will save that for the last attack," said zingar, calmly. "the disintegrators will hold the beasts back for a long time, but there are thousands of them. how many of the half-hour disintegrator charges do you have?" "not very many--the earth council was limited in its budget. perhaps they would last one day of continuous firing." iv in two days the whole underground city was buzzing with activity. mark hemingway had improvised a laboratory and was isolating the various minerals of the corridor walls, seeking materials for ammunition. major mattson drilled all the able-bodied men and organized them under group officers. the crippled men and women were soon co-operating in a central factory unit, where hand forges, and smelting pits, were producing crude weapons of war. there were many women working, even at the heavier tasks. the enfeebled patients lay on their cots and rolled bandages, or did other light tasks. great stores of cooked food were being prepared against the day when every cook would be in the fighting lines. the able-bodied soldiers divided their time between drilling under major mattson, and erecting barriers as directed by old jake, whose practical ingenuity used the abundant supply of cheap blasting powder to skillfully crumble corridor walls. their one power crane heaped the rubble into thick barriers, each with a narrow defensible slit. huge boulders were balanced, ready to fall into the opening when a flash match should be applied to a cloth fuse. they had been working a few minutes, on the third morning, when, the radio outpost at the farthest entrance announced, "the beasts are coming!" there were no television screens, but the announcer's description was horrible enough. "they've got walking snakes in front--with triangular heads like rattlers--probably poisonous--but a bite from one of those babies would be enough anyway, they're twenty feet long. now they are nearer--i wondered how they could come so fast--_they're running._ every damned one of them has a row of little short legs, that hustle them along.... their hissing sounds like steam from hundreds of locomotives, even in this atmosphere." the announcer quieted down to a sense of awe--"off to the side, there's a group of big things ... big as six elephants, with long, heavy tails dragging, and small heads. they seem to be covered with some kind of scales. "up in the air is a flight of flying lizards, about six feet long i should guess, and i can see their teeth flashing when a ship gets near. they keep trying to turn back, but the ships herd them in the air like a flock of flying sheep. probably only dangerous when cornered. i wonder if they are poisonous. "there's a space of several miles of clear desert behind, and beyond there is a dark wave of beasts clear to the sky line. i can't see them, because it is still too dark.... it looks like a black ocean rolling at us!" the announcer's voice stopped and the silence was oppressive. "hell, i've seen worse than that in the d.t.'s," cracked one of the alcoholics, but his hands trembled as he picked up the largest of the crude stone throwers. "this pop gun might stop one of the birds, but it wouldn't do much to the giant elephants." major mattson roared into a megaphone in the huge drill room. "well, boys, this is it--we've got plenty to fight and damned little to fight with. if we can get all the big beasts with the disintegrators before they break down the barriers, we'll be o.k. the mars colony expects every man to shoot his damndest--_let's go!_" the cheering mob, in loose order, ran down the corridors with their pathetic little guns, major mattson and jake in the lead. jake leaped on his new legs like a man of twenty, and roared as if he had found a new hold on life. the buzz and hum of activity behind them continued. forges flared, hammers clanged, and in the distance some of the patients were singing a martial hymn. * * * * * john watched the dark tide approaching the cliff entrance, from his observation slit high overhead. he leaned as close to it as his oxygen helmet would allow and spoke quietly into the transmitter. "they're bringing up the magnadons. i can see that there is a strange ape-like creature riding each one and steering it with some kind of a burning rod. these are about the size of men but they look small in comparison. i wonder if those apes are in communication with the ships, or just ordinary desert anthropoids." he left the explanation to zingar, back in headquarters, and continued to report the dawn approach. overhead, almost a hundred ships hovered close above the seething flow of animal and reptile life. several were near the entrance, and the defenders experimentally tried out their weapons. the first barrage was from old explosive shell weapons. but as each shell flashed and roared toward the ships it seemed to hit an invisible wall of force about fifty feet from the hull where it exploded in empty air. the ships were not even rocked, but the magnadons squealed in terror. vibrations of the explosions jarred the door frame, even the cliff itself. the disintegrator artillery scarred the thick hulls slightly but the invisible rays failed to penetrate far, even in a direct hit, and the weaving ships took most of these shots at glancing angles with no damage. the defenders tried their thunder-spreading atomic cannon once. its lightning flash struck one of the tiny ships full center and a gaping hole burst inward and out the rear section of the hull, so that the morning sky showed through. the defenders cheered when this was reported. the little ship lurched up into the air, and others drew near, grappling it with more tractor rays. john, could see the unconscious forms of old men carried past the ragged hole by helmeted figures and into another ship, through joined hulls. when the crippled craft was released it crashed quickly on the still frozen desert sand. then it rolled over and lay still. but one shot from the atomic cannon took the force of one power jacket--and there were only nine jackets left! dr. henderson ordered the atomic cannon withdrawn to the central defense area, against that time when the martian ships would be flying down the high corridors, directing a river of snakes and flying lizards. the battle went on with disintegrator rays dropping scores of the air-screaming, twisting mars snakes, and one or two of the smaller group of magnadons. but the martian ships, finding that the atomic cannon was no longer in operation shielded one of the magnadons with their hulls as the great beast approached and put its shoulders against the copper door. the locks held until the doors buckled in the center, as if hit by a giant battering ram. air hissed out, and a moment later the gigantic beast burst through, only to fall trumpeting to the ground under a disintegrator ray. in thirty seconds it was dead. but behind it slithered and ran the great snakes, with their gaping jaws and long dripping fangs. they seemed as numerous as the white flashing waves of an angry ocean shore. overhead, the roof was black with flying lizards, bumping and crowding in the dim shadows, with ridiculous faint mewing sounds. stone throwers dropped hundreds of these, and disintegrators stopped dozens more of the running snakes, until a wall of dead flesh protected the second defensive barrier. * * * * * major mattson gave the order, and a flash and roar of blasting powder dropped a great boulder into place. the corridor seemed almost still, shut off from the jungle sounds of their inhuman enemies. the men retreated in good order to the next defense wall. they realized that their ammunition must be conserved against the real menace, the thundering herd of magnadons, with their guiding, sheltering ships.... the first corridor entrance was burst through after ten minutes by one of the great beasts, which fell in the gap and had to be pulled back by the ships. boulders rolled out like pebbles from further blows, until the opening was wide enough for a protecting ship to fly through, low over the sandy floor, with a magnadon nosing behind it. the great feet thumped deliberately down toward the earthmen, plunging ten inch tracks into the packed sand, each as large as a small round table. shooting the apes from their backs did not stop them. john had withdrawn from the lookout post just as the first entrance door crashed. he then operated one of the disintegrator batteries, until recalled to the council chamber. from there he learned that the same battle scene was being repeated at each barrier. sometimes a magnadon was killed before it broke through, sometimes after. the martians protected the great beasts as well as they could, hoarding their supply. zingar said it would take two months to bring a new herd from the swamp lands, as there was no way to transport them except on slow surface sleds. because of the strange nature of this combat the defenders suffered no casualties. the snakes and flying lizards were killed and piled up in front of each barrier. after each firing slit was sealed there was a brief rest. at last the defenders attempted strategy. seeing that under the present conditions it was only a matter of time, major mattson called for volunteers to attempt the capture of a shipload of the martians to hold as hostages. about a dozen men made a sortie against the snakes, knowing it was futile, but succeeding in drawing the ship down over them. they were sucked up by the tractor rays, and pulled into the little hull but every man's pockets had been filled with gas capsules, and, as they fell unconscious under the paralysis mirrors, yellow clouds of gas filled the ship's cabin until the white bearded old martians were unconscious too. the battle had proceeded nearly to the central defense area, and now the atomic cannon flashed a hole through the mars ship, high up in the hull, causing it to crash. a desperate charge of all the defenders kept the mars snakes back long enough to allow the unconscious enemies and volunteers to be brought back behind the last and strongest barrier. they made it just before the first of the rescuing ships reached the spot. several of the battered and atom shocked men never recovered consciousness. all were carried to the hospital behind the fighting front. then came a lull in the battle. the magnadons and ships withdrew, leaving only the hissing and twisting snakes in the corridor, and a small observation ship down the tunnel out of range. the flying lizards took this opportunity to escape. a few snakes that had crawled through were disintegrated. this was the situation faced by the council of war, at noon. dr. henderson's white coat was now spattered with blood, where he had carried and treated some of the wounded. his face seemed old and drawn, as he addressed the council. "it looks bad--if we had a hundred atomic power jackets left, instead of eight, we might make it. i wonder if they know how limited our supply is." * * * * * under the emotional situation, zingar's accent was more pronounced but intelligible, "every word we speak is amplified by their distance receivers. a race that can faintly hear train whistles on earth, and can see the surface of your planet as if with a large telescope from the moon, doesn't have much trouble to know what our situation is. but we have one bargaining point. old senegar was in that first ship, and his intelligence is in ratio to that of the other martians as one hundred to one. they would concede almost anything to preserve his safety." "but how can we bargain, since we have no way to escape the planet?" asked john. "we might hold the old man as a permanent hostage until the time when mars is in proximity to earth again, a year from next august, and the colony supply ship comes," suggested mark hemingway. "the old man wouldn't live that long," said zingar quietly. "this atmosphere would be fatal to him--let me talk to my father." "_your father!_" cried mary. quickly adjusting the headphone of the mind sounder she poured out her unconscious sympathy to her lover's receiving mind. he drew her to him gently, and then turned and faced the others, still holding her. "let me talk to him," he said, "i think i have an idea." the group walked hurriedly behind zingar and dr. henderson toward the field hospital area. there was a silent drama of sympathy in the expression of these two martians, as zingar stood near his father's hospital cot. they spoke rapidly but quietly in their own language. "what's he sayin'?" growled jake. "can we trust the young squirt?" "i don't understand," said john. "i only know a few of their words. but they keep repeating one word which means 'cripples,' or 'sick'." at last the young martian turned and spoke to them, but mostly to mary--"how much do you love your native planet? would you be willing to stay with us--all of you to be healed and made well, and serve to invigorate the stock of the mars men?" there was a buzz of excitement and argument. most of the earthmen who had not seen the hidden martian city were violently opposed, but a few were too sick to care--and many remembered that they were lost anyway, when the atomic power jackets should be exhausted. john stood close to molaee and looked at her questioningly. "don't stay for my sake, john," she said sadly, "our instincts draw us to each other, but our minds are a whole generation apart. we would have constant misunderstandings. remember, i am as old as zingar." he hesitated a moment, then wrote, "but mary and zingar are planning to be married." "that is their business," she replied looking at mary. "perhaps it is a reasonable chance to take when the husband is the older mentality, but i don't want a mental child for a husband. besides i--i have been remembering nogar, my former lover--before i saw you." their isolated dialogue was only a small murmur in the vocal excitement of the throng of earth people, which suddenly quieted as major mattson boomed over the crowd with his megaphone--"well, shall we vote on it?" but zingar raised his hand and cried, "wait!--my father should speak first." the old man sat painfully up in his bed and spoke into the microphone of the old amplifying set so that his sibilant whispering voice echoed the broken accents down the high vaulted ceilings of the great cave space. "listen to me well, o selected people of a youthful race--this violence has been a vast folly. i should have realized before.... my sense of the aesthetic was offended by your ugliness, especially by the sick and crippled among you, so that i did not realize your one great virtue which cancels all the rest. i have observed the co-operative efficiency of your defenses, especially the strange spirit of sacrifice in the little band who came out to trick us. we were not ready for that, for we have no such spirit of unselfishness among us. it is a virtue that mars needs. your very handicaps have taught you a lesson of group action--a lesson of inestimable worth. we need every one of your unique personalities in our community life. it will be a simple thing to heal you of your diseases, and to prolong your lives. the memory of your sufferings will give new youth and a new spirit to mars--life, perhaps even prove a biological salvation. stay with us--we wish you well...." the old man fell back exhausted--and closed his eyes. john leaped to the platform, and cried to the several hundred men and women before him, "that settles it! i'm for staying...." he made an impassioned speech and stepped down. others followed, but he was not very attentive to their words. hilda crept to him, unobserved in the excitement. she said, "oh, john, my hand can be healed--now i will be proud to marry you--as you asked me three years ago, if you still want me...." "why, you dumb bunny! as if a bum flipper had anything to do with that...." he took her in his arms. they did not even vote when the hands were called for--or know that the decision had been made.... * * * * * when the supply ship arrived, a year and a half later, there were no signs of the colony left. spread around on the sand were various artificial limbs, crutches, spectacles, hearing devices, and bits of clothing, scattered in between many bleached and weather beaten bones.... the ship's crew gathered up these medical relics as proof and sadly turned away. the captain thought it rather a pity since the ship had been sent to bring the sick ones home, in response to a wave of indignation aroused two years before by hilda's broadcast from the district hospital. they carried a few of the bones back, carelessly scooped up by the electric shovel that gathered the crutches and other paraphernalia. an obscure scientist's assistant at johns hopkins tried to arouse excitement by claiming that these were not human bones, but from anthropoid apes--however, there was another war brewing, and nobody would listen to him. joe carson's weapon by james r. adams from mars they had come, these vanguards of a ruthless horde that would conquer earth--if they could steal the weapon of joe carson's fertile mind. [transcriber's note: this etext was produced from planet stories spring . extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the u.s. copyright on this publication was renewed.] joe carson grinned broadly and again reread his letter to the editor of _galactic adventures_. _galactic adventures_ was joe's favorite science-fiction magazine and he had spent many happy hours roaming the cold of space and inventing ponderous machines through the medium of its pages. the latest issue lay open on the desk before him, its garish cover mercifully hidden from view. the cover was joe's main reason for writing his missive, although he had several minor motives, not the least of them being his desire to see his name in print. the book was opened to the readers' section, which contained various vituperative gripes, complaints and kicks in the pants for the editor, intermingled with gushy, complimentary notes that praised the magazine to high heaven. boy! that one from henry snade (_the obscure organism_) was a lulu. it told the editor, in no uncertain terms, where to go and gave half a page of reasons why he should never return. joe had all but bashed his brains out trying to pen a letter half as entertaining as the one from snade and now his eyes flickered with appreciation as he scanned the product of his efforts. ye humble ed: once again the keeper has negligently left my door unlatched and i slyly crawl from my cage, drawn by one, irrevocable purpose. glancing hither and yon, to make sure i am unobserved, i dash to the fence and clear it with a prodigious leap that carries me half way to the corner drugstore. snatching a tricycle from a gawping kid, i push his face in the mud and pedal furiously the remaining distance to the store. leaping off, i rush in and batter my way through the screaming throng, shouting imprecations at all who stand in my way. panting with exhaustion, i at last reach my goal and clutch it to my breast. the crowd surges forward and frantic hands grab at the prize. "it's mine! all mine!" i shout in their faces. "no one can take it from me!" galloping madly from the store i race swiftly across yards and up alleys, quickly losing the howling mob in the distance. squatting under a street-lamp, i sneak a triumphant look at the treasure. what is it? yep, you guessed it--_galactic adventures_! but--shades of major mars!--what is that horrible monstrosity on the cover? a bem, no less ... an abominable, wretched bem. why, oh why, can't we have at least one different cover painting? wesley is no good. get marlini or sidney to do the covers. i don't mind a bem now and then, but a steady diet of them soon palls on the palate. (heh heh.) all joking aside, your covers are terrific. now we come to the task of rating the stories. only one stands out in my mind as being of excellent quality. i refer to arthur m. ron's super-epic, _the infinite finite_. the other stories paled into insignificance in comparison to this classic. more power to ron! _percival's puissant pulveriser_ and _nothing is something_ follow ron's story in that order. the rest are not worth mentioning. the interior illustrations are somewhat better than the cover, although, for the most part, they are inaccurate and do not follow the themes of the stories. ye gods! can't your artists read? so much for the art, which wasn't so much. * * * * * say! what does that jerk, _the amphibious android_, mean by calling me a "mere child"? his assertion that i'm but a youth of fifteen is a good way off the beam. i've been reading _galactic adventures_ for the past eight years and i was nine years old when i picked up my first copy, so figure it out for yourself. a jug of sour _zeni_ to him. may fire burst out in his s.f. collection and utterly destroy it. no! i retract that. that's too horrible a fate, even to visit upon _the amphibious android_. let him wallow in his ignorance. i, _the super intellect_, will smile down on him and forgive him his sins. that's an interesting letter from charlie lane. _the miserable mutant_ has propounded an amazing theory that has set me to wondering. perhaps g. a. can induce one of its authors to work this theory into a story. i'm reserving my four wooden nickels right now for the tale, if it is written. i'll even suggest a title--_those who are froze in the cosmos_. how's that? well, i didn't like it either. once again i tear my hair and roar: give us trimmed edges! ye ed must know by now that the majority of fandom is in favor of trimmed edges. as it is, one comes suddenly to the most interesting part of a story, at the very bottom of a page and spends several moments feverishly attempting to gain a hold on the ragged edge and go on to the next passage. by the time he has accomplished this, he is a raving lunatic, a martyr to trimmed edges. i am not a crusader, as is _the misled biped_, but i insist on seeing justice done. as a whole, this is a fair issue. i might even call it good, if it were not for the artwork and stories. ron's epic will live forever in my mind, although its ending was rather weak and it could have been developed into a more powerful tale by having the slads all die in the inferno. i enter my plea for longer stories. a long novel by m. s. jensen would be appreciated. his last, _dr. higbaum's strange manifestation_, was a gem. on the other hand, short stories are not without merit and good old g. a. wouldn't be the same without them. i believe the story policy had best remain as is. give higgins a rest. his yarns are rapidly degenerating into hack, with only four out of the last five meeting with this reader's approval. i don't like to be finicky, but it seems like he isn't contributing his best material to g. a. well, this missive is growing to huge proportions and i would like to see it in print, so i'd better sign off. oh, yeh, almost forgot to comment on the departments. they are all good, with _the reader's opinion_ being the most interesting. ye ed's ruminations come in for a close second. do not change the departments in any way, although the quiz and the _strange phenomena_ feature could be discontinued, without any great loss. before i close, i wish to make a revelation which will rock the world. yes, ed, i have a secret weapon! nothing can stand against this terrible invention and, with it, i could even destroy earth, with mars and pluto thrown in for good measure. beware, ed, lest you arouse my ire and cause me, in my wrath, to unleash this vast force upon helpless, trusting mankind. having read g. a. from cover to cover, i crawl back to my cage, drooling with delight. prying up a loose stone in the center of the floor, i tenderly deposit the mag among the other issues of my golden hoard. replacing the stone, i sigh contentedly and manipulate my lower lip with two fingers to indicate complete satisfaction. see you next issue! joe carson _the super intellect_ joe carefully placed the letter in a previously addressed envelope, mentally complimenting himself for authoring such a masterpiece. slapping a stamp on the back, he sealed the envelope and rushed forth to post it at the nearest mail-box. * * * * * harl and kir-um slowly materialized and glanced about to take stock of their surroundings. they were on the roof of some tall building and night pressed in all about them, relieved only by the intermittent winking of a huge neon sign anchored on the roof. they had come from far off mars to draw out and discover the weaknesses of earth--for the great invasion was not far in the offing and the grand councilor had deemed it wise to know in advance where best to strike and in what manner. mars was in its final death throes and its inhabitants must soon immigrate to a new world or perish. their sister planet, earth, was best adapted to their particular form of life, thus it had been selected for subjugation to their purpose. the atoms that were harl and kir-um were hurled, in a state of fluidity, through space, to be reassembled on earth. for the purpose of escaping detection, they had assumed the bodies of terrestrials and now they stood, staring triumphantly out over this world that was soon to be theirs. the conquering hordes would follow later in spaceships, as soon as harl and kir-um had gathered the necessary data. harl spoke--mastering the strange vocal-cords with an ease that amazed him. to be sure, he spoke an alien, unintelligible tongue. we translate: "well, kir-um, what now? we have arrived at our destination, but i haven't the slightest idea what to do next." kir-um pondered this a moment and eventually answered: "the situation suggests we first descend to the surface of this world and, from there, perhaps we can map a line of attack." "e-e-e-ump!" harl made the noise, which, on mars, denoted extreme pleasure. "excellent, kir-um. how can a decadent civilization, such as this one undoubtedly is, stand against such brilliant minds as ours?" "you are right, as usual, harl," kir-um agreed. "my analysis of the problem was only typical of a martian. now, let us proceed to the base of this crude structure." by diligent search, they finally located a stair leading downward and cautiously made their way into the bowels of the building. reaching the fifth floor, kir-um placed a restraining hand on harl's shoulder and pointed excitedly to a door at the far end of the hall. light streamed from beneath it and glowed faintly through the frosted glass panel set in its upper half. scarcely daring to breathe, they approached the door and stood, regarding it with apprehensive eyes. harl noted the gold-leaf lettering on the glass panel, but the cryptic legend had no meaning to his martian mind. but, to an earthly member of that rabid army known as scientification fans, the words would have brought a tinge of awe. for this was the room where far-flung systems were denied existence, by one shake of a firm, unyielding head; where the most expressive cuss-words of super villains were brutally censored with a fiendish swipe of a little, blue pencil--the editorial office of _galactic adventures_. "harl," kir-um whispered softly. "there's a _creature_ in that room! do you not detect its thought vibrations?" harl opened his mind to reception and stood a moment, as if in a trance. his eyes slowly dilated and he gasped in astonishment. "yes, kir-um, there is a creature in there. a strange, horrible _creature_, possessed of mad, meaningless thoughts. i--i wonder what _it_ looks like?" * * * * * kir-um pointed to a small, oddly-shaped aperture, which undoubtedly was some sort of device for locking the door. hesitantly he stepped forward and placed his eye to the hole. inside the room, newt jorgsen, the building's janitor, was hugely enjoying the contents of a letter he had retrieved from the wastebasket. tears streamed from his blurry eyes and his bent, bony shoulders shook with spasms of laughter. his gunboat feet were planted firmly on the editor's desk and a tall bottle of beer, smuggled in by devious means and of which newt was inordinately fond, sat on the floor at his side. the letter was from one joe carson and the mirth it provoked almost caused newt to spill from his precarious perch and brought numerous, gleeful shouts of, "oh, yimminy!" from his foam-flecked lips. kir-um stared in amazement at this tableau and uttered a quick, staccato, "ickly-unc!" luckily, newt did not hear the martian's expression of surprise, but continued his perusal of the letter. kir-um drew back and silently motioned harl to look. harl sucked in his breath, but dutifully bent forward to the door. newt had just placed the bottle to his lips and harl gasped with horror as he half-emptied it, with one, tremendous gulp. on mars, such wanton waste of moisture would be punished with swift death, without benefit of trial. but this wasn't mars: this was earth, the planet of abundance. kir-um plucked at harl's sleeve. "why do we cringe at the sight of this _creature_, harl?" he whispered. "after all, _it_ is no more repulsive than are these wretched bodies we have nobly assumed, for the glory of our race. we are great, harl. unselfishly, we have foregone the pleasures and conveniences of our magnificent physiques, so that our civilization might once again take its rightful place in the destiny of our system." harl's mind wistfully conjured a picture of his own, splendid body, with its bulbous head, sleek, furry torso and many sensitive tentacles, and he sighed heavily. "yes, we are truly martyrs. my only regret is, i have but nine tentacles to give for my species." the two ceased their council of self-glorification and stood "listening" to the thoughts of the being inside. their first impression was that the earthman was insane, so the mad cogitations of his mind would indicate. such random notions as: "corner drugstore ... bem ... amphibious android ... trimmed edges ..." had no significance to them. but, quite suddenly, they picked up a thought that electrified their very beings and caused a quick glance of fear to pass between them. at the same time, it was a glance of elation, for here they had found what was probably earth's most invulnerable armament. intently, they concentrated on the astonishing thought unraveling in the creature's brain. newt had reached the next to the last paragraph of joe carson's letter and he was now reading it, with great enthusiasm. the hearty chuckles it gave newt were lost on the martians, for they did not know the meaning of humor. they understood only that here was the greatest force against which they would have to contend; the biggest obstacle in the path of the coming invasion; a barrier that would have to be battered down and made impotent. "this is incredible, harl," kir-um whispered in awe. "imagine it--a weapon powerful enough to destroy all earth! with such a thing, they could completely annihilate our invading forces." "it causes me no little alarm," harl agreed. "i can't conceive of such a fantastic weapon, but perhaps these earthlings possess more intelligence than we give them credit for. perhaps they have anticipated our invasion and have prepared for it." "harl," kir-um said with great solemnity, "i believe we are standing in a citadel of science. a place where great, new theories and devices are propounded and deliberated. and that _creature_ in there is the guiding hand of this stronghold of knowledge. the letter he is reading was undoubtedly written by the highest intellect of this world. as you say, this genius may have foreseen our coming and moved to nullify it. spurred on by desperation, he created this marvelous weapon and thought to surprise our onrushing, confident armies with an impregnable defense. quite by chance, we have stumbled upon this dastardly plot, before it could be brought to bear." "but what can we do?" harl despaired. "the letter does not reveal the nature of this weapon. how can we combat something of which we know absolutely nothing? i am of the opinion we should abandon our conquest and die a slow, peaceful death on our own aging world." kir-um deliberated this advice, the deciding factor being a vision of the grand councilor rising up in all his wrath and condemning the two who had brought the bad news. "no, harl. the grand councilor might not approve of such a course. to suggest such a thing would be to admit we have failed, and the councilor does not tolerate failure. without thought of the consequences, he might order us executed and deprive our planet of two of its greatest minds. no, that won't do." "we have no alternative," harl pointed out, still whispering. "we cannot stand against such a weapon, and better to sacrifice ourselves than have our entire space fleet meet with destruction. if only our armies could come through the ato-decomposera twunend-materializationa tutherend, perhaps we could surprise these scheming earthlings and overwhelm them, before they could bring this tremendous force into play. but, unfortunately, we don't have the metal to build enough of the machines." kir-um nodded thoughtfully. "no, we can't stand against this weapon. but we can gain possession of it and put it to our own use!" harl stared uncomprehendingly at kir-um. "you mean, ferret out this genius and force him to divulge the plans of his invention?" there was a gleam in kir-um's eye now. "not only that, we'll secure a working model and take it with us, to study and build from. no doubt the weapon is complicated and, in this manner, we can gain first-hand knowledge of its working." "e-e-e-ump," harl murmured softly. "good, good, kir-um. it amazes me that i didn't think of the very same thing. but, of course, you're one hundred and thirty nine years older than i and, naturally, your mind is more alert." "naturally," kir-um nodded. "but to get back to more vital matters.... we shall go to this joe carson, who, according to the thoughts of that _creature_ inside, resides in a place called majestic, maine. i also receive the impression this town is three hundred miles north of here, in a straight line. the problem of transportation is easily solved; we will purloin some sort of vehicle for the purpose. once there, we shall question this intellect, under influence of a hypnotic sleep, and lay bare his secret. the plan will move forward of its own momentum then. let us go." the two alien beings from a far world eventually gained the ground floor and, easily forcing the, to them, crude lock, made their way out into the night. for a long moment, they stood, looking up at the black, impassive sky. something within their hearts called out to the mocking void for reassurance; pleading for a tiny shred of encouragement. but no answer came from the hollow emptiness that surrounded them. then, placing a thumb and finger to their nostrils, in the ageless martian gesture signifying complete unity of purpose, harl and kir-um strode forth to meet the destiny that awaited them. * * * * * joe carson glanced back uneasily at the two disheveled, unkempt figures pedaling along wearily behind him. he was returning home from the nearest drugstore, having purchased there all the latest science-fiction magazines he could lay his hands on. the mysterious strangers had appeared suddenly from a side-street, four blocks back, and had clung doggedly to his trail, from that point on. joe didn't know what they were up to, but he was keeping a wary eye on them. harl and kir-um had performed a somewhat remarkable feat in driving two stolen bicycles across three hundred odd miles of steaming, strength-sapping, concrete highways and bumpy, bone-dry country lanes, that weren't much more than wagon-ruts through the woods. they had made many false starts and had fallen prey to numerous mishaps, such as punctures and broken spokes. they had subsisted on berries, small game and whatever food they could glean from a farmer's field. since they had not yet mastered the tongue of these earth people, they couldn't ask for food at the small road-stands that dotted the way. nor could they ask directions to their destination. but, by dint of stubborn adherence to their purpose, they had, at last, arrived at the little, prosaic town of majestic. covered with dust from head to foot and ready to topple, from sheer exhaustion, they made their way through the streets, feeling a dull conviction of defeat growing within them. for they were unable to read the names of the streets or the numbers of the houses lined tidily along each side, like proud soldiers. it was night again and the uncompromising gloom only added to their despair. the glaring street-lamps winked gleefully at their plight and cast strange shadows to confuse their tired minds. the plain natives who passed them paid no attention to the martians. being of a farming community, they were used to seeing men encrusted with dirt and grime, going home to a hard-earned night's rest. harl and kir-um were about ready to concede failure, when they had turned from a side-street into the main thoroughfare. there, a thought impinged upon their ever-receptive minds that lent new zest to their sinking spirits. the reflection they received was: "boy! you're a lucky stiff, joe carson. you'll sure have some good reading tonight!" joe carson! the name struck a vibrant chord in their brains and sent a feeling of elation surging through their bodies. here was the object of their quest. the person whom they had travelled across scores of miles of terrifying, unfamiliar terrain to find. immediately they took up a close orbit in his wake, determined not to lose this brilliant inventor of strange weapons in the darkness of the night. joe was at once aware of his shadows, but he thought perhaps they merely happened to be going his way. as block followed block, however, with no let-up of the pursuit, he began to suspicion a dire purpose behind their actions. harl and kir-um were slowly overtaking the object of their chase, making no attempt to conceal themselves. squeezing out every last bit of energy, they matched pace with joe, as he speeded up his pedaling in an effort to pull away. joe was beginning to get a little bit scared. what could he have that the strangers would want? certainly not his bike, for it was worth only a few dollars and had just about seen the end of its years of usefulness. he laughed mentally at the fantastic thought that maybe they were after his science-fiction magazines. then, what? they were approaching joe's house now and his fear mounted steadily. his parents were gone, away at some social function, and they wouldn't return for three or four hours yet. there was nothing else to do, and so joe, philosophically deciding to let fate take its course leaped from his bike and made a sudden dash for the shelter of the house. * * * * * instantly they were after him, pounding across the dew-laden sod with all the agility and grace of a couple of rampaging hippopotamuses. joe bounded through the front door and swung to snap the night-lock. at that moment, something grasped his mind in a firm, unrelenting grip. he no longer had any desire to resist the intruders and stood waiting for them to enter and make him prisoner. quickly harl and kir-um forced him into a chair and stared down at their victim with triumphant eyes. "so," harl panted. "at last we shall learn the secret of joe carson, earth's most amazing genius. kir-um, he is but a youth. i shudder at the thought of one so young possessing so much knowledge. could it be that we have made a mistake?" kir-um looked up at harl reprovingly. "do martians ever err?" he demanded. "no, this boy has a powerful, secret weapon and we must get it from him, at all costs. i can't understand you, harl. it would seem as if you actually sympathize with these puny earth people. the councilor wouldn't like to hear that, harl. i would hate to see my best friend put to death because he was too friendly with the enemy." "i'm not friendly with these earthlings, kir-um," harl hastily objected. "i merely think we should be cautious and not proceed at too fast a pace but what we shall be lured into some sort of death trap." "well and good," kir-um nodded. "i believe we both realize our task calls for vigilance and a meticulous sifting of fact from fancy. that much goes unsaid. conceding this genius is merely a boy, perhaps he is a child prodigy or, then again, he may have invented this weapon by accident. that is of little import, however. he has the weapon, we want it and we shall have it." harl bowed humbly. "you are right again, kir-um. your deductive powers constantly amaze me. shall we begin the questioning?" kir-um wasted no time in preliminaries, but came right to the point. "where is your secret weapon, boy?" he snapped. he spoke in his native martian tongue, but the thought behind the words was quite clear in joe carson's receptive mind. joe fumbled for words and finally answered: "weapon? what weapon? the only kind of weapon i've got is my daisy b-b gun, and that's no secret. mr. jones, next door, found out about it yesterday when i shot out his front room window. boy, was he sore!" kir-um nodded knowingly at harl and said, in an aside: "he's trying to mislead us. but he won't succeed. the truth will out." harl leaned forward to try his hand at the cross-examination. "you know very well what weapon we mean, creature. you have kept your secret well, but now you must relinquish it. do not try to delude us with fanciful stories and false denials." "somebody's been feeding you a line, chum," joe laughed. "your trolley's jumped the track. go on back to your cage, pa, and dream up another one. you bore me." the martians realized the youth's mental barrier was going to be more difficult to break through than they had anticipated. the situation called for tact, yet the amount of time left to them necessitated a direct attack. kir-um summoned all the powers of concentration at his command and slowly, but surely, forced joe's mind into a state of passiveness. satisfied, at last, the earthling would give direct replies to his questions, kir-um once more took over the interrogating duties. "you cannot deceive us, boy," he began. "a few days ago, you wrote a letter to earth's great science center, _galactic ventures_, i believe it is. in this letter, you stated you possessed a secret weapon, powerful enough to destroy this whole planet. you did not divulge the details of this invention, but promised dire happenings to anyone unfortunate enough to have this weapon directed upon them. we want the plans of this amazing contrivance and you will do well to place them in our hands, without delay." "oh, that," joe's voice came dull and emotionless. "that's just a joke. just something i dreamed up to give the ed. a laugh." harl and kir-um didn't know what a 'laugh' was, but they did know that they were finally making some progress. a meaningful glance passed between them and they silently congratulated themselves for uncovering the genius' secret in such short order. "and these _jokes_, creature," harl spoke, "does anyone beside yourself possess them?" * * * * * the martians feared perhaps this strange scientist had already distributed his weapon among his fellowmen, in preparation to resist the coming attack. joe's next revelation immediately justified their fears and shocked them to the point of frustration. "sure. all the stf. fans have their little jokes, and they never miss a chance to use them on some dumb ninny. once i saw the _misled biped_ pull a joke on a guy and he nearly went into epileptic fits. of course, it was a low-grade joke, or it would have laid him out cold as a mackeral. you better never meet up with a fan when he's in a joking mood, 'cause they don't have a bit of mercy and he'd probably play you till you busted wide open." the goggling intruders had visions of their marvelous bodies, bloated till they were but horrible travesties of themselves, then to burst apart like rotten bladders. their eyes tried to pierce the forbidding blackness of the suddenly-alive corners of the room and sandpaper tongues darted nervously across dry lips. this bland-faced boy seated in front of them was suddenly a repulsive gargoyle, squatting in his evil throne and reveling in his fiendish power. harl coughed and made a feeble effort to compose himself. he had been right--this was too big for them to cope with. they may as well return to mars and forget their dream of conquest. the grand councilor was a fool for ever sending them on such a foolhardy expedition and he and kir-um were still bigger fools for accepting the task. yet, how could they have known they would have to face a smoothly-geared organization consisting of bloodthirsty monsters and power-mad geniuses who dreamed up fantastic weapons just as an idle pastime? it was a plain case of underestimation of the foe, a miserable, stupid failure. "don't give up so easily, harl," kir-um had intercepted harl's unguarded thoughts and, realizing utter despair was rapidly pulling them down to the point of bolting for the door and making a frantic exit from this mad world, grimly purchased a new hold on his waning optimism. "don't forget," he added, carefully shielding his thoughts from the ugly earth-creature, "once this force is in our hands, we will be as powerful as they. more so, in fact, by virtue of our superior intelligence and our ability to improve the _jokes_ and make of them weapons far surpassing the crude originals in performance. the mere mention of a _joke_ seems to cause a strange emotion in this youth; an odd, violent vibrating of the entire body, accompanied by spasmodic grunts and squeaks. probably it is his passionate reaction to the thought of the magnitude of his terrible deed. it is like nothing a martian has ever known. but it is proof this earthling regards his own creation with apprehensive fear and is reverently aware of its immense potentialities. we must also realize only a portion of the population of this world has _jokes_ at their command, which will make our invasion easier and our victory far more certain. true, many of us will die, but, in the end, we will have earth and all its wondrous resources for our very own. would you place your own personal valuation above the continuation of our species, harl? do you respect the wishes of the councilor--dibble-ibble, bless him--or do you love your own precious fur in preference to honor and glory? reflect a moment, harl, and i know you'll see the wrongness of your decision." harl's chin was already halfway down to his feet and his shamed blushing indicated he had reconsidered and repented. he still had his doubts, but they had been squelched to a bare fraction of their former greatness by kir-um's defaming tirade. kir-um reminded harl of their determination by pinching his nostrils together and, assured of harl's co-operation, resumed the questioning of the youth. "do you have a _joke_ with you now, creature?" he asked curiously. "you bet," joe replied. "i'm lousy with 'em. wanta hear one? i got one that'll simply kill you." the martians recoiled in terror. "no," kir-um said sternly. "we do not wish to have the _joke_ demonstrated on us. the first suspicious move you make, earthling, and you are dead. you may exhibit the _joke_ and operate it, if you wish, but do not direct it at us, for your life." "okay," joe agreed amiably. "i'll just give you sort of a sample. here goes: why did the moron plant dynamite in the dairy? he wanted to see a boom in the ice cream industry!" joe bent double, clasping his hands to his stomach and emitting loud "haws" and raucous "hee hees." his head bobbed back and forth like an apple in a tub and his feet played a staccato rhythm on the carpeted floor. * * * * * harl and kir-um looked on in confused wonder. they could see no reason for the boy's sudden outburst. they looked in vain for the weapon joe had promised to display. then the light dawned in kir-um's mind and he let go with a tremendous: "e-e-e-ump!" "harl!" he said excitedly. "don't you see--it's the words! the words are the weapon; his _joke_, as he calls it. imagine it--words built into a complex pattern to form a destructive force! it is in an embryo stage though, harl. this creature barely averted disaster just now when his _joke_ back-fired on him. the pain must be excruciating, the way he is retching and gasping for breath. we may consider ourselves lucky he didn't aim the weapon at us. i shudder at the thought." harl was shuddering, too. they were indeed fortunate they were not the object of the force joe had unleashed, or they would probably now be nothing but lifeless hulks, rotting on the weird world that had betrayed them. he could not understand how words could cause such havoc, but undoubtedly they could, for wasn't the pitiful thing before them even now contorted with the paralyzing torture he had accidentally inflicted upon himself? harl knew he could never forget the gruesome drama he was now witnessing. why, even the creature they had encountered at the citadel of science must have been a victim of a _joke_, for he had acted in the same strange manner. "that's the only possible explanation, harl," kir-um was speaking again. "this earthling has discovered a way to assemble words in such a formation as to cause a violent agitation in whatever they are directed upon. i suspect, harl, if this genius had received the full force of that _joke_, it would have shaken him apart, utterly and completely. in other words, it would have decomposed his atoms and spread them from here to dibble-ibble knows where. now, we must learn how to form these word patterns, thus to use them against our foe in the coming invasion. creature, have you a treatise on _jokes_?" joe ceased his giggling and thought a moment. yes, he did have a treatise on jokes and they would find it in his desk upstairs. be sure and not touch his perpetual-motion machine, though, for it was delicately balanced. kir-um immediately dispatched harl to procure the valuable document and waited impatiently till his companion returned. he accepted the book reverently and placed it safely in an inside pocket. "good," he muttered. "now, creature, you will forget all that took place here." joe nodded dully. "i understand. you guys are strictly from dreams. i won't remember a thing about you when i come out of my coma." * * * * * the martians walked to the door and turned to stare triumphantly at their strange companion of the evening. there was a slight twinge of pity in harl's heart, as he thought of this boy as nothing but a bunch of jumbled atoms flying helter-skelter through the universe, all because he had made a _joke_. "you will awaken an hour after we leave," kir-um directed. "sixty minutes to the dot," joe affirmed. harl and kir-um stepped through the door and breathed deeply of the night air. it all seemed like a nightmare now, but the significant bulge in kir-um's coat pocket confirmed their brief interlude with the amazing genius, joe carson. kir-um withdrew the book and painfully deciphered the title, by the light streaming from a window. it read: _joe miller's joke book_. the printer must have made a mistake, he reflected. it should read: _joe carson's joke book_. but no matter. in the martians' minds, a picture formed. it was a beautiful picture. hundreds of sleek, fast spaceships hurtled down on earth, forming almost a solid sky of steel above the hapless planet. they were strange spaceships, for apparently they carried no armament. the metal that would have been used to equip the ships with guns had, instead, gone into the building of more dreadnaughts of space, for they possessed a weapon far more destructive than any bolt from a ray-gun or blast of a disintegrator-cannon. on the bridge of each ship stood a renowned martian scientist, a small book clutched tightly in his hand. and on the flagship, the grand councilor himself occupied the place of honor, the original copy of the weapon open on a stand before him. as the huge armada entered earth's atmosphere, gigantic amplifiers blared forth messages of doom to the inhabitants. words with horrible meaning assailed the ears of the population: 'why doesn't a chicken cross the road? it doesn't want on the other side!' 'who was that wife i seen you with last night? that was no wife, that was a lady!' human creatures screamed in agony and fell in the streets. ghastly moans of 'ha haw oh hee!' escaped from clenched teeth and bodies retched with the unbearable pain of their torture. slowly their bodies decomposed, losing a couple of billion atoms with each convulsion. soon, not a human remained on earth and this beautiful world and all its riches passed into the hands of the proven superior species--the martians. ah! it was a lovely dream. but soon it would be more than a dream--it would be happy reality. harl and kir-um both sighed together. [illustration: _spacers would hover, their mighty weapons blaring forth._] they pressed buttons concealed under their coats and slowly began to fade, their outlines becoming indistinct and hazy. kir-um raised a hand to his head in salute. "poor, foolish earthlings," he murmured, "this is the end. always remember, if it had not been for joe carson's _joke_, you would never have found your demise. i salute you, strange creatures." and they were gone. alien equivalent by richard r. smith _martians were weak, sensitive, a dying race, frail and impotent before the superiority of master earthmen. only in the sly and mentally skillful game of duchal might sons of the red planet emerge gloriously from their shells._ [transcriber's note: this etext was produced from planet stories summer . extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the u.s. copyright on this publication was renewed.] chester farrell emerged from the narrow alley and paused before the barbed wire fence. behind him, the martian city was a maze of strange sounds, angular buildings, acrid odors and dark shadows. before him, beyond the fence, three spaceships pointed their bows toward a star-studded sky. the slender ships gleamed dully in the starlight as they rested on the red desert. he touched the money in his pocket to reassure himself that at last, he had the fare for the trip to earth. his eyes scanned the heavens, searched for the bright light that was earth. earth! in itself, the planet meant little to him. the seas, mountains, valleys and forests did not cause the burning desire inside him. he closed his eyes and remembered a brick house in cleveland and the brown-haired woman and chubby boy who lived there. he recalled slender, soft fingers that touched him gently and a small form that waddled uncertainly across their living room floor. three years ago, he had left louise and sammy on earth. he had come to mars to make a small fortune. the dream had not materialized: the mars mining corporation didn't want to pay their employees good salaries although the ores transported to earth sold for tremendous profits. they paid their employees as little as possible. it was simple: governments wanted colonists on mars to exploit the planet. mars mining wanted colonists to remain and operate their mines. the two groups, political and business, collaborated and ... while the trip to mars cost only a hundred dollars, the return trip to earth cost one thousand dollars. because of the high price of living on mars and the low salaries, the fee was an encouragement to remain on the planet. it had taken him three years to save enough money to rejoin his family. bitterness filled him as he studied the motionless ships. convertible spaceships. the bulkheads inside the hull were collapsible and the space in a ship was constantly adjusted into different size storage holds and passenger compartments. during the voyage to earth, he would be the only passenger and would occupy a coffin-like compartment. every other available foot of space would be filled with valuable ores. when the ship returned to mars, the passenger compartments would be spacious, luxurious and comfortable. they would be filled with hundreds of propaganda-fed, eager colonists who were unaware of the economic trap before them. as he turned and followed the fence toward the spaceport's office buildings he heard the faint sounds behind him. a whisper of movement across the red sand. an animal? he glanced uneasily at the tiny lights from the office buildings. in the thin atmosphere, light carried a long distance and was deceptive. the lights seemed near but he knew he still had a fifteen minute walk ahead of him. once more he heard the indefinable sound behind him. his imagination? a martian? an earthman, a sound of harsh breathing informed him. * * * * * he leaped to one side as the sounds neared his back. too late. something crashed into the side of his head and bright lights danced gaily inside his skull. he fell and rolled frantically across the soft sand. as he scrambled to his feet he saw his attacker, a husky, powerfully built man. a blackjack dangled loosely from a hand. before he could rise a knee struck him on the jaw. he sank to the ground. the man was on him, pinning him to the sand. farrell's nostrils were filled with the man's acrid body odor. a knife glittered in the starlight as it was pressed gently against his throat. "tell me where the money is," the man ordered. "it'll save time." too stunned to speak, farrell nodded at his coat pocket. the man removed the money and counted rapidly, somehow managing to keep the knife in his hand while he flipped the bills. satisfied, he stuffed the bills in a pocket and raised the knife for a fatal lunge. his arms pinned at his sides by the man's knees, farrell knew only one thing could save him: words. "i can get you five times that much," he said quickly, the words crowding each other in their haste. it worked: the knife wavered, hesitated. if he had screamed, "don't kill me!" he would have been killed instantly but the simple statement had aroused his assailant's curiosity. "five times that much?" the man repeated gruffly. phobos, the largest and closest of the two moons, moved visibly across the dark sky. suddenly, they were no longer in the shadow of a building. moonlight flowed across the man's face and for the first time, he saw his features. he looked up at a rough, almost brutal face with thick lips, fierce eyes, blunt, broken nose and bushy eyebrows. "five thousand dollars," farrell confirmed. "where?" "dankor city. you've heard of a martian game called rhakal?" he frowned. "yeah, i heard of it. i also heard earthmen don't win very often." "i won," farrell told him. "five thousand. i spent most of it but i saved the thousand to go back to earth. if you don't kill me, i'll win five thousand for you." his adversary grinned wryly and lowered the knife toward farrell's throat. "this sounds like a trick." "trick? how can i trick you? dankor is off limits to earthmen. you and i will be the only--" the man cocked his head and asked, "you have any martian friends in dankor?" farrell laughed at the thought, "martian _friends_?" some of the wariness left the other's face. everyone knew no earthman had a martian friend. the martians were a fading but proud race. they resented earthmen and submitted bitterly to their presence. martians did not associate with earthmen. to do so would mean loss of social standing and almost always loss of their lives by the hand of some fanatical anti-earth group. martians submitted to the invasion of their planet by colonists because they had no choice: they were few in number, a weak, dying race. inwardly, they hated earthmen and, given the chance, would rid mars of all colonists. while his antagonist considered the offer, farrell's mind whirled rapidly. how could he escape? his body was trapped beneath the man's weight, unable to move. call for help? he quickly discarded the idea: on one side was a martian city and on the other was the spaceport. the group of crude stone buildings were inhabited by aliens. martians might come and watch him die if he called for help but they'd never try to save him. the spaceport was deserted except for the empty, waiting spaceships and the office buildings were too far away for anyone to hear a cry. he could do nothing. "i'll give you a chance," his enemy said as he rose to his feet. "you win five thousand for me and i'll let you keep the thousand and your life." he placed the knife in a sheath and drew a stubby revolver from a pocket. "if you make a wrong move, i'll blast you in half. i don't like to use this thing because it's noisy, but--" he waved the gun and the action seemed to complete the sentence in itself. * * * * * "let's take a taxi," farrell suggested as he rose shakily and brushed red sand from his clothes. "no." "it'll take an hour to walk there," farrell protested mildly. "we'll walk," the man stated. "we'll walk and we'll take the most deserted streets." farrell led the way through the small martian city that bordered the spaceport and across a narrow stretch of desert to dankor canal. at the canal, he turned and followed it northward, walking on the huge, weather-smoothed stones that formed one wall of the large waterway. thousands of feet below them, muddy water gurgled roaringly as it moved southward to the martian farmlands. in the clear atmosphere, the opposite wall of the canal ten miles away was a thin, dark line. "what's your name?" farrell asked suddenly. "tharp." "where do you work?" "none of your business." they walked in silence, the two moons casting double shadows from each of their bodies. with a sinking sensation in his stomach, farrell realized the odds were against his seeing his family again. "how did you learn i had the money?" farrell asked. tharp grinned broadly. "when anyone makes a reservation on the flight to earth, the news gets around. it got around to me." his laughter sounded brittle in the thin atmosphere. after what seemed like years, they arrived at the outskirts of dankor. although it was off-limits, the police patrolled infrequently and even those patrols were publicly known schedules. dankor was a small cluster of low crumbling buildings. the streets were littered with filth and pale martians dressed in rags shuffled aimlessly with blank eyes as if their world had already died. jars of brilliant fireflies on roof tops illuminated the village. imprisoned in the transparent containers, the fluttering insects cast an eerie, pulsating glow on the dismal buildings. farrell paused before a thick wooden door and kicked it with his right foot. "the first time i came here," he explained, "i almost broke my knuckles before they heard me." a few minutes later, the door opened. "come in," a bony, wizened martian invited. tharp remained a few paces behind farrell as they entered the room. the stench of the place made their stomachs churn sickly. a group of listless martians sat in the center of the floor and watched a large cube-shaped object. two martians on opposite sides of the cube sat before small control panels. the earthmen watched as one martian touched a button on his control panel. a green ball inside the cube rose a few inches. the other martian pushed a button and a brown ball at the top of the hollow cube dropped a few inches. a thin martian with grey hair and watery eyes asked, "you vish gamble?" farrell nodded his head affirmatively. the martian smiled weakly and inquired in broken english, "vhot is vager? monee or duchal?" "what in hell is duchal?" tharp asked. "it's hard to explain," farrell confessed. "but, we'll have to wait until those marties are through and you'll see what duchal is when they finish." farrell squatted on the cold floor. tharp sat two yards to one side. silently they watched the martian gamblers. several minutes later the emaciated aliens rose from their positions behind the small control boards. "is the game over?" tharp asked. "yes. see the martian with the green tunic? he's the one who lost the game. the winner will receive a certain measure of duchal from him." * * * * * they watched intently as a strange machine was brought into the room. the two gamblers sat close to each other. a third martian attached electrodes to their heads, then flipped a lever on the ancient, rusty machine. the martian who lost the game grimaced with pain. a needle on the machine's single dial moved all the way to the right, then quickly returned to its original position. an expression of joy spread the victor's thin lips into a wide smile. a few seconds later, the electrodes were removed from their heads. tharp grunted his bafflement. "duchal," farrell explained quickly, "means an expression of sorrow or pain. by means of that machine, the winner was able to receive in his brain the sensation of the loser's physical and mental agony at losing the game." "that's what they were betting?" tharp asked unbelievingly. "yes. it's the same principle as humans who play games merely for the disappointed expression on the loser's face. the martians do it a little differently: they have a machine that transmits the loser's pain into the victor's brain. the martians are constructed in such a way that the agony of another person, implanted in their minds, is very pleasant to them." "they must be crazy!" farrell shrugged his shoulders. "maybe. anyway, you have a choice. you can bet the thousand dollars or a certain amount of duchal." "if we bet duchal and lost, we'd only have to pay the martians a little ... sensation of agony at losing the game?" "right." tharp laughed. "hell, let's bet duchal. that'd be better than losing a thousand bucks if we should lose the game." he slipped his hand into a pocket and the cloth bulged in farrell's direction. "and we'd better win!" _what's the difference?_ farrell thought. _if we win or lose, you'll kill me. you can't leave me alive to report you to the police!_ "you can play the game," farrell suggested. "i'll tell you what buttons to push." "okay. tell the martians we want to bet an amount of duchal worth five thousand. how much would that be on the dial on that gimmick?" farrell pointed at the graduation to the extreme right of the dial. "see that line? that would be worth five thousand in duchal. the same amount the martian bet." tharp smiled as he remembered how easily the martian gambler had paid that amount of duchal. if they lost the game, he'd have no trouble paying the gambling debt. "five thousand," farrell told the waiting martian. "we'll bet duchal." the martian smiled happily, disappeared for a few minutes and returned with a large bag. without ceremony he spilled the contents on the stone floor. tharp gasped when he saw the golden earrings, cups, anklets, rings and bracelets studded with diamonds. they were easily worth more than eight thousand dollars. "why the hell are they living in dumps like this when they have that kind of stuff? they could buy--" he hesitated as if the incompleted sentence indicated an infinite list of articles. "it means nothing to them," farrell explained. "they have a different monetary system. most martians are so poor, even the rich ones can't buy anything more valuable than food, clothes and shelter. and the martians are too stubborn to trade with earthmen." he reflected idly that on all of mars the only place where the two races associated was in gambling rooms like this. even there, the martians' attitude was stiff and business-like. the group of aliens shuffled about uneasily, impatient for the game to begin. "you ready to start?" farrell asked. "sure." * * * * * "the object of the game is to get those balls at the top of the cube to the bottom level. the martian will try to get the ones at the bottom to the top. the balls are governed by the control panels. it's like three dimension chinese checkers." "sasush rhakol," a martian said loudly. "the game has started. push the top green button." tharp thrust with a grimy finger. the game lasted several minutes. each time it was their turn to move, farrell told tharp what button to push. even while the game progressed, the husky man watched farrell out of the corners of his eyes. farrell realized that even with the distraction of the game, he'd have no chance to launch a surprise attack on his enemy. finally the martian gambler rose. his colorless lips spread in a wide grin of anticipation. "we lost!" tharp exclaimed. farrell agreed, "we lost. anyway, all we lost was a little duchal." the martians gathered around the two earthmen; attached electrodes from the alien machine to tharp's head. three minutes later, tharp still sat with the electrodes attached to his skull. the martians were impatient. "what's the matter?" tharp inquired angrily. "the game between the martians, it only took the loser a few seconds to pay the duchal!" "that's right," farrell agreed. "but look at the dial." tharp stared at the motionless instrument. "duchal is an expression of mental or physical agony," farrell reminded him. "concentrate and feel sorry you lost." he assumed a thoughtful expression. the indicator wavered slightly. "not so good. see, there are ten graduations on the dial. the needle has to touch the tenth before you pay the amount of duchal you owe. so far, the needle hasn't passed the first graduation. in other words, you haven't paid a tenth of the duchal!" tharp drew his revolver. the martians did not like the sight of a gun in an earthman's hand. they had no way of knowing that it was meant for farrell and not themselves. a dozen aliens threw themselves on tharp and quickly disarmed him. ten martians held an outraged tharp motionless while an eleventh removed alien handcuffs from his tunic and placed pairs around his wrists and ankles. farrell recovered his money. "martians aren't thieves," he informed the angry man who struggled in vain at the metal bindings. "and therefore, they like to see everyone pay their debts. they'll keep you here until you pay the wager. you see, by being behind the control board and pushing the buttons, you're the one who has to pay the duchal although i told you what buttons to push." "a trick!" tharp screamed. tharp's face reddened. "you won't get far," he threatened. "i'll pay this duchal in a few minutes; they'll let me free and i'll--" "you don't realize," farrell interrupted, "martians are sickly, sensitive people and they're adept at projecting sensations of agony from their brains. on the other hand, earthmen are strong physically and know nothing about projecting physical or mental pain--" he paused to watch three martians who removed gleaming, sharp knives from their tunics. they pressed the blades against tharp's arms. the knives cut through his coat, shirt and flesh. the cloth reddened quickly. "they want their duchal payment," farrell informed him. "they'll get it if they have to slice you to ribbons." tharp's wild eyes stared at the dial before him. the needle touched the second graduation, then settled to the " " position. "you see," farrell continued, "it's a matter of equivalent. earthmen are so strong, they have to really _suffer_ physically before they can match a duchal payment that a martian can create as easy as snapping his fingers!" once more, the glittering knives bit into tharp's flesh. he screamed with pain. "_get help! get help before they kill me!_" farrell went for help. but, once beyond the thick door that suddenly suffocated tharp's shrill screams of pain, he didn't run for help. he walked slowly. vandals of the void by robert wilson the void had spawned these hell-creatures of destruction, had sown them deep within earth's soil. and now earth was reaping a whirlwind of death--weapons futile against the immortal conquerors from another space. [transcriber's note: this etext was produced from planet stories spring . extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the u.s. copyright on this publication was renewed.] art douglas saw one of the very first of them, found and brought in by two drivers from the huge steel burrowing worm which was at that time conducting the sub-crust explorations many miles below the rolling kansas prairies. why the men should have brought the discovery to an organization such as the interplanetary research institute, was something not quite clear to art. they must have known, he reflected bitterly, how utterly bogged down the institute was, how close to absolute disintegration, from inability to work or progress, and the resultant effect on the morale of the highly trained scientists who made up its staff. but the weird organism which lay before him on the laboratory bench dispelled all such thoughts immediately. his imaginative, yet scientific brain leaped to meet the challenge and the interplanetary research institute became only a workshop full of tools, ready for his use. it was only natural that he should first assume that the creature-plants were probably native to the level at which they had been found, and that this was their natural environment. how terribly wrong this was to prove! of the terrible menace in the thing before him, douglas could not dream; although he could plainly see its potentialities. for it had been found boring through solid rock. it seemed to have been designed for just that. its form was that of spiral screw, about a foot long, tapering from a diameter of about an inch at one end, to four inches at the other. in color it was a dull blue-black, the surface fine textured and smooth, and steely hard. its strength was of steel also, for it was constantly whipping about, trying to fasten its three needle sharp jaws, which were located at the smaller end, in anything it might find. one of the men who brought it had suffered a frightful gash in the forearm before they had learned that this could be avoided by picking it up at the larger end. the creature could not quite achieve the feat of bending itself double. art found that once it had hooked those fierce jaws into anything, it started boring and could not be torn loose. however, it would bore _only upward_! when laid on a flat table, it merely writhed about, looking for some object above it. he held a thick piece of board over it. the head had bored through in a few seconds, but when he turned the board over, it backed out hastily, and flopped to the table again, where it resumed its endless searching, searching for something, anything overhead, in which it could fasten its tenuous grip. art called and had a huge two ton block of granite brought in by the overhead crane. in its lower side he ordered some workmen to chip a cavity, a little larger than the creature on the table. the thing was dropped on the floor, and the block carefully lowered over it, so that it was imprisoned in the cavity. art had a hunch that it would have made little difference to the creature whether it was allowed the cavity, or merely had the block dropped on it. a little shudder ran through him at the thought of such unearthly strength. he decided to go to lunch, before he got too deeply involved. * * * * * passing through the outer office, he met elene moor, lovely secretary to doctor theller, chief director of the institute and his immediate superior. he had known elene in college before securing this position, and he remembered the sudden elation he had felt when he discovered that he would be working near the girl for whom he had felt such a hopeless yearning in school. she had been so popular, so surrounded by young men whose zest for life, talent for fun, and supply of ready cash had utterly overwhelmed him. now, after five years of interplanetary, such a dull apathy had settled over him that even elene's golden loveliness failed to stir him. "might as well lunch with me, elene," he said, seeing that she was about to leave. "i have an interesting topic of conversation for the first time in ages, it seems. in fact, i'm very anxious to tell you about it." she looked at him closely. something certainly had aroused his interest. his keen blue eyes were alight, and his rugged frame seemed to be invested with a nervous energy which had long been dormant. elene was glad; he almost looked like the art she had loved, and had such hopes for, when he had first come to the institute. but his fine intellect had seemingly withered, stultified by the impossible situation which existed at interplanetary in the year . several centuries of scientific struggling had finally produced a mode of interplanetary travel. in , successful landings and safe returns had been made to and from mars. a year later, venus was also reached. but fifty-one years had produced little knowledge of any value; progress was at a standstill. certainly the martians had been found to be a highly developed and scientific race. they were peaceful and friendly. but they were also very wise. they were acquainted with the history of man on earth as far back as the time of christ. their astronomical instruments made it possible to see plainly events there, under the proper conditions. with the coming of wireless, they had been able to intercept any and all signals they chose. they knew about all they needed or wanted to know about earth. that was what made them so wary. for they had seen the torture of the early christians, and the cruel subjugation of the known world by the romans. they had seen in turn, the overrunning of rome by the barbarian hordes. they had known attila the hun. they had witnessed the spanish inquisition. they had seen the slaughter of the aborigines in the new world, their gradual extinction by the white colonists. they had known napoleon, and most monstrous and horrible of all, hitler. they had finally seen the great gas war, which had so decimated the ranks of mankind, that it had been necessary to set up the international peace council, which established peace by the only method which mankind seemed to be able to understand--force. * * * * * it was rather simple. the laws were very strict: briefly, the manufacture, transporting, or even possession of any kind of murder weapon, other than what might be carried by a man for his personal defense, was considered sufficient evidence of intent to kill, and carried a death penalty. the agents and inspectors of the council were everywhere, entering any machine shop or factory at will, constantly checking all sources of raw material, making almost impossible any secret manufacture of any type of armament. but even this could not convince the canny martians--for they knew that thousands of years of barbarism were covered only by a thin veneer. at any time, man's innate desire to conquer, pillage, and exterminate another race might break through. the martians well knew the age-old tactics of infiltration used by colonists of earth. consequently, only a few scheduled rocket trips per year were permitted. the personnel of each expedition was restricted to a few scientists, who were carefully investigated. they were allowed to study the language, customs, and art of mars. but scientific achievements and secrets were taboo. no earthman was permitted to roam at will on mars--the knowledge they acquired there was given them by an interviewing committee of high ranking martians, whose ability to sidestep a direct question was uncanny. of course, there were a few political hotheads on earth who advocated building a huge fleet of rocket ships, powered with disintegrators, and sending an expedition to subdue the red planet. naturally, this merely served to corroborate the bad opinion of earth held by the superscientists of mars. a few men, such as doctor theller and art, knew what awful disasters such a move would bring. not only did the martians have weapons which made the terribly effective, but uncontrollable, atomic disintegrator look like a clumsy toy, but they could also throw up a force field around their entire planet, at an unknown height, against which any invading ship would smash into blazing fragments. true, there was venus. venus, the jungle planet. there were two environments of venus--water and jungle. both were filled with a teeming growth of nightmarish monsters, among which had been found no intelligent beings. the creatures of venus were born, fought and ate one another, bred and died. that was all. the whole thing was one vast aquarium. most of the species had been classified during the ten years following the first landing. there had been many expeditions at first. but gradually they tapered off. attempts at colonization were given up as hopeless. the climate was sultry and oppressive, but worst of all was the fact that practically all of the vegetation of venus was poisonous to humans. any food crops introduced from earth were strangled by the lush native vegetation, which grew at an incredible rate. venus had no economic value. minerals there were, but the expense of freighting them back to earth by rocket ship made mining impractical. as elene mulled over these gloomy thoughts, she and art had covered the short distance from the office to the tube that led to food center. as they entered, she saw that he also was preoccupied. in good time, he would tell her what had aroused his sudden enthusiasm. an empty car came by. a photoelectric cell registered their presence in the tube. it stopped, art dropped a token in a slot in its side, and the door slid silently open. as they entered, art grinned and said: "they're junking these cars next year. seems they have developed a new model. they were losing money on these--they waste a lot of time. they always stop for you whether you want a car or not; perhaps you're just waiting to meet someone, or just got off a car." "i hardly see what they can do about that," laughed elene. "telepathic communication between man and a machine is something considered pretty far in the future." "they still use the photo cell," answered art, "but now it registers a complete picture of you. by a system of hand signals the prospective passenger will be able to indicate whether he wants a car, where he is going, et cetera. even the control panel, which we now set for our destination, will be eliminated." * * * * * soon they were seated in the one huge cafeteria which served the entire city of washington. various levels were frequented by different classes of citizens, and art and elene chose a quiet one, usually patronized by scientific and medical students. their meal was ordered by dialing from a numbered menu and arrived automatically in a few seconds, piping hot. once they were settled, art began to tell the girl of the weird thing that had been brought him. "i've had no time at all to work on it, of course," he began, "but this much i can almost say for sure--this thing is not an organism like anything else on earth's crust. its life processes do not depend on oxidation. it's not composed, as we are, principally of hydrogen, oxygen, and carbon. carbon, perhaps, yes; that might give it some of its hardness--but it's inert, not involved in any chemical action. the thing neither breathes nor eats!" "please, art, start at the beginning--you haven't told me what it looks like, or anything!" "o.k., o.k.," he grinned, and obligingly did so, concluding with, "it's not much, maybe--hasn't anything to do with planetary research, but it's a job--something to keep me busy. that's hard enough to find, these days." "art," she said quickly, "it seems to me that there's plenty to do now, as never before; so much untapped knowledge right at our fingertips--" "i don't see how you can say that," he interrupted bitterly. "i wouldn't exactly call mars at our fingertips." "why mars? it's always mars, mars. you don't have to go there. find out the secrets they know for yourself. just because you're stymied that doesn't mean you can't go ahead yourself. a young man with initiative could--" "so i haven't any initiative!" he flared. "well, how about yourself? after all, a woman now is as good as a man, you know--with modern advantages, physical strength and endurance aren't so important. a woman with enough courage and will power can do as much as any man." "yes, art, but a woman is still a woman. all the scientific progress in the world can't change that--she still plays the passive role. woman would cease to be feminine otherwise. that was proved way back in the twentieth century." "i suppose you're right," he muttered. it had set him thinking. was he losing his manhood? the human race didn't have so much need for expansion any more. only greed and craving for adventure would set a man exploring now. and he had neither. or had he? he thought of the daydreams he sometimes had--of roaming through the primitive jungles of venus, searching perhaps for a trace of a near human, intelligent civilization, blasting his way through hordes of threatening monsters. but all that was silly; he was a trained man, and it would be very foolish to risk such a brain as his in that hotbed of violence. still, what good was that precious brain doing anyone at interplanetary? the shortage of radium prevented their going ahead with the program of experiments which dr. theller had mapped out. the idea of wasting their dwindling supply in a roundabout process of learning what the martians could so easily tell them, had turned the staff of the institute into a pack of frustrated malcontents. * * * * * the earth easily supported its population of ten billion. masterpieces of engineering had irrigated and made fertile practically all of the earth's surface, except around the poles. there was no need to grow crops, anyway, other than that fresh natural foods were more palatable. enough food for a hundred billion people could be manufactured synthetically from the sun's rays. there was no need, say, for colonizing venus, but such a project would certainly provide an outlet for the energies of a bored young scientist. art still sulked as they returned to the laboratory, but the idea had been planted in his mind, and the more he thought, the nearer he came to admitting that elene was right. little did he dream that he would soon be so busy that looking for thrills would be the least of his worries. a white faced attendant met them at the front door of the laboratory. "dr. douglas! that thing--we can't control it--it's--" art ran to the room where he had left the creature. the granite block was where he had left it, but had a neat round hole in its top. then he looked at the opposite wall of the room. it was a crumbling ruin. the wormlike animal had evidently wriggled its way to the plastocrete wall where it had started boring. as the wall was only five or six inches thick, it had kept emerging from one side or another, dropping to the floor, and starting all over again. the attendants, not knowing how to pick it up, had left it alone after suffering several gashes. they were afraid to handle it too roughly, for fear of damaging it. art smiled grimly at this. he picked the thing up, threw it on the table. he decided that he would dissect the specimen here and now, find the secret of its mighty strength. but at that moment dr. theller came in. "well, art, i hope you've thoroughly familiarized yourself with that creature because--" "to tell you the truth, dr. theller, i don't know a darn thing about it!" retorted art cheerfully. "you're going to learn, art--and mighty soon! i'm going to send you out to los angeles. something catastrophic is happening out there. i can't get anything very clear over the televisor--i see confused pictures of buildings crashing, utter panic everywhere. all the accounts i've heard are garbled--but creatures like this seem to have something to do with it! "find out what you can, do what you can, then report back. of course, the city has no defenses, other than the police force, and they are armed only with shock guns." it was true--war was non-existent; defensive armament was unnecessary. everything was fireproof, making a fire department likewise unnecessary. art took off in his strato flier from the roof of the laboratory, climbing rapidly until he reached the thin isothermal layer, ten miles up. then he leveled off, and accelerated slowly to a speed of over one thousand mph. at this rate, he would be able to reach los angeles in not over two and a half hours. the time dragged as art tried to picture the disaster that had overtaken the west coast city, and just how it could have been caused by animals like the one he had seen. art always disliked riding the strato layer. too far below him were the rich, rolling prairies, the mountains covered with mighty timber trees and lush greenery. there was no desert, no wasteland. any land not level enough to grow crops, or occupied by cities, was covered by thick forest. the only exceptions were the higher peaks of the rockies, brilliant white patches against the green carpet. it was a beautiful old planet, this mother earth. far ahead and to his right, art finally glimpsed the sparkle of sunlight of the inland sea. once there had been a ghastly blazing hot desert there, called death valley, art remembered from his school geography. two centuries ago, engineers had dug a tunnel and let the water of the pacific in, thereby giving the surrounding desert land a much moister climate. such a primitive measure would not have been necessary in modern times. distilled sea water could be piped anywhere, in any desired amount, for irrigation. ii the sighting of the inland sea was a signal to start decelerating. the los angeles zone signal appeared, a red light on his control panel. the l.a. beam picked him up, swung him gently to the left, and brought him in automatically. below him he saw swarms of family fliers, all coming from the city. as he dropped down he found the traffic system entirely disorganized. outgoing fliers were filling the incoming lanes. after narrowly missing sudden death several times, art savagely dialed traffic center. the televisor screen lit up--but instead of a picture of the control officer seated at his switchboard, art saw only an empty chair. it was only then that he realized the extent of the panic that gripped los angeles--for the control officer was sworn to remain at his post through the direst emergencies. now he was over the city--the vast terraced, pyramidical structures of the metropolitan area, each a mile square at the base, with a narrow rim of landing strip around each level. but as he descended lower he saw that they were no longer structures, but ruins. even as he watched, they were crumbling and caving in on themselves. some of them were already mere vast heaps of rubble. projecting his helicopter propellers, he dropped down and hovered over one of them. everywhere the broken plastoglass was covered with writhing, squirming duplicates of the creature back in his laboratory. art fished out his code book, found the wave length of los angeles police commissioner horne, and rapidly dialled it. the strained and perspiring face of the commissioner appeared, sitting at the controls of his ship as he vainly tried to straighten out the evacuating traffic. "douglas of the institute reporting, commissioner." "hope you brought some disintegrators!" barked the chief. "they're the only thing that will touch these beasts. the shock ray has no effect whatsoever on them. an electron torch will burn them, but that's no good--you can't go about killing them one by one. there are billions of them--they're everywhere!" "possibly you'd better describe the situation from the beginning for my benefit, commissioner," art interposed. "what!" roared horne. "theller gave me to understand that you had had experience with these things, and understood them. now you tell me--" "easy, commissioner. i've seen one of these things before for a few minutes, and that's all. you asked for help and dr. theller sent me out here in good faith to do what i can." this served to quiet the policeman somewhat, for he merely grunted, "o.k., meet me at the top level of the administration group; that's the silver one, the only one that still has a top level. you'll have to find it. we had to move out the traffic control--that section of the building's ready to go any minute now." a dull grinding roar rose from everywhere below art as he crossed the city. clouds of dust billowed up as the huge pyramids fell in upon themselves piece by piece. he saw now the grimly effective way in which the creatures did their job. as long as there was one piece left standing on another, they would bore and chew until it was reduced to fragments. blind instinct, rather than malice, seemed to impel them. but the effect was equally devastating. art saw scores of people wiped out by falling wreckage when the rapidly shuttling overloaded fliers failed to remove them in time. he saw one man, trapped amidst a mass of the writhing horrors, make a sudden dash for freedom, and go down screaming in agony as dozens of savage jaws instantly fastened themselves in his flesh. art shuddered. something had to be done to stop this carnage. * * * * * by the time he sighted the commissioner's flier atop the silver pyramid of the civic center, he had evolved the rudiments of a plan. he wasted no time on amenities as he met the police chief, but came to the point immediately. "here's my idea of it, horne. los angeles as a city is doomed. but i think we can save most of the people who are still here." "how about those disintegrators?" cut in horne. the disintegrator, being still in the experimental stage, was dynamite in the hands of the untrained. the terrific atomic explosions it set up were uncontrollable and unpredictable. only the most highly respected and trusted scientists were even allowed to handle one. horne nursed an idea that all his patrolmen should have been issued one to pack on their hips, and that if they had, this would never have happened. "i have a couple with me. we can use them, but we'll have to be extremely careful. my main proposal is to get to san francisco, los vegas, and all the other principal cities around here organized. have them send millions of civilian fliers. did you ever hear of the battle of dunkirk in world war ii? the british saved their army to fight again another day, just in that manner." "do you suppose i haven't thought of that?" snapped the chief. "i've already asked them. they're afraid to come. only a few ships have trickled in." "we've got to convince them that it's safe for a flier," insisted art. "show them on the televisor--send your patrolmen out to explain--anything!" "all right," agreed horne. "we'll try it. but i don't believe we can get them all out in time even so. do you know that there are ten million people out in the poorer residential section, very few of whom own a flier, who depend on the public surface cars for their transportation? central power is dead--not a car moves in the city. my patrolmen have been out in la brea six hours, trying to find an avenue of escape, through which they can lead those people out on foot. every time they run into a new growth of these--these damnable monsters, and have to start all over again." "that's where we'll use our disintegrators," explained art. "we'll blast a path through which we can lead these people to safety." art got on the televisor and contacted the government broadcasting center in san francisco. "do you have a news broadcast on now?" he asked. the girl clerk answered in the affirmative. "please put me on," art begged. "i'm from interplanetary research. here's my badge. this is a serious emergency. the lives of millions of people are hanging in the balance. you must put me on the air!" a moment later, the news broadcast which was even then picturing the catastrophe in billions of homes all over the world, was abruptly cut off, and art's face appeared in its stead. "fellow citizens, you all know the desperate situation here in los angeles--but do you know that you can save a life, perhaps a dozen? there are ten million people here who face a terrible death unless they are picked up immediately. hop in your fliers and get right down here! there is no danger for a ship which hovers a little above the ground. _do not try to land!_ the los angeles traffic patrol will guide you to proper zones. please hurry. thank you." art snapped off the switch and turned to the chief. "now, let's try to make some kind of map of the already devastated areas. we'll have to check in some manner to be sure there are no living people left in them, then blast our path through with the disintegrators." * * * * * horne readily assented to this plan, and dispatched a number of patrolmen to examine closely the ruined sections. all vicinities which had been taken over entirely by the destroyers, were to be marked by dropping tiny smoke bombs which would send up a dense column of smoke. as the commissioner and art entered the latter's flier and took off, art explained the difficulties of using a disintegrator. "the atomic disintegration of a lump of matter the size of your fist sets off an explosion strong enough to blow one of these big buildings to small fragments. you can imagine what would happen to yourself and the surrounding country if you merely turned a disintegrator beam on the ground, or against a building near you. we tone down the effect somewhat by causing these pistols which i have here, to project a ray about the diameter of a hair from your head. not only that, but the ray is immediately cut off, lasting only for the duration of one wave length. even so, the firing of one is a plenty tricky business." in an hour's time the air patrolmen had laid out a winding, serpentine trail over ten miles long through the bristling mounds of debris. a warning broadcast was sent directing all citizens within sight of the smoke to get underground, lie low, and plug their ears. "here we go," said art, stationing himself at a tiny port in the rear of his flier. "zoom down over that first signal--as soon as you've passed over it, kick her up again at a slight angle." horne obeyed. they passed the target; nothing happened. he was beginning to wonder what art was waiting for, when a half mile past the smoke column, art fired. the resulting concussion surprised even art. he felt the ship lurch as it was thrown like a huge projectile high above the city. he grinned as he watched horne, cursing and fighting until he had the bucking ship under control. [illustration: _the disintegrator blasted, and hell exploded on the ground._] "let's take a look," he said, sobering at once. he had an uneasy feeling concerning the way in which the grounded population was taking the shock. but his fears were not realized--the stranded folk nearest the explosion cheered and gave the ancient thumbs-up sign, as they skimmed low above the rooftops. evidently most of the force of the explosion had expended itself upward. "get below--here we come again!" shouted art through an open port. the sun was descending beyond the blue pacific, but they went on with their work of continually blasting, blasting, far into the night. clouds of private fliers began to appear from neighboring california and other southwest cities. art's desperate appeal had had its effect. by midnight, people were beginning to stumble through the string of smoking craters that had been made for them, toward the untouched open fields and groves to the north. by four o'clock, they were stringing out on the many roads and streets which left the city in that direction. busses and private cars had been summoned, and were picking them up, to scatter them through neighboring cities where they might find accommodations. art and horne, bruised and stunned from continual concussion and buffeting, exhausted from lack of sleep, looked at each other. * * * * * "guess that's it," said art. "you'll have to keep the men along the trail with their electron rays, to keep those devils from closing in at the edges." they had found that a line of men armed with these short-range weapons, could kill enough of the creatures to keep them from spreading. the electron ray generated enough sheer heat to melt metal, which was necessary to destroy the organisms. "the city should be cleared by noon," art went on. "i'd advise you to destroy the whole works immediately. i'll leave you one of the disintegrators. but be careful. make sure all the wounded are out." "are you leaving already?" asked horne, surprised. "how come?" "just heard from dr. theller," art answered wearily. "it seems i'm wanted in detroit. same thing is happening there." "no!" gasped horne. "in detroit! what do you suppose is the connection?" "i don't know," art replied. "i only wish i had time to work this out, to get some of these things in the lab and analyze them--it would help so much to know what we're fighting." art decided he would stop at the laboratory on the way back, and see if dr. theller had been able to find out anything of the nature of the specimen he had left behind. as he entered, he saw that the place was strangely deserted. dr. theller and elene he found in the former's office, however. "i counted on your stopping in," said the institute head as art came in. "things are in pretty serious shape all over. you did a great job in los angeles. now i'm going to ask you to repeat that performance--" "detroit?" art interrupted. "no--i've already sent several good men there. you don't realize how this thing has spread. in the last hour, singapore, cairo and athens have all called us. london, in fact, the whole of southeastern england, is stricken. the british foundation has some fine men, however; they think they'll be able to handle it." "dr. theller, must he leave at once?" asked elene, with an anxious look at art's weary face. "i'll be all right, elene," art assured her. "a hot shower, hot drink, and a transfusion of supervitalized plasma, and i'll never know i missed a night's sleep. i've been eating a food tablet every now and then, so i'm not at all hungry." "all right, art, you get fixed up--then you're off for cairo. i'll have the commissary issue you some more disintegrators. i wouldn't ask you to do this, but every minute counts. i'm thinking of taking off for athens and leaving elene in charge, myself." "oh, i almost forgot to ask you, dr. theller, have you examined the specimen here yet?" a chagrined look came over the scientist's face. "well, i hate to admit this, art, but the thing escaped in the confusion. don't see how it could have gotten very far away. i'll have some of the men look around the grounds for it." art shook his head slowly as he went out. such incompetency seemed unlike the aged savant, but he guessed that inactivity had taken its toll of the old man. iii the week following was a long, hideous nightmare, during which art flew from city to city, fighting the ghastly scourge which was cropping up more and more rapidly, all over the globe. vladivostok, berlin, cuba--he could hardly remember them all. he was glad he could not sleep, because he knew his dreams would be tortured by visions of men and women being cut to ribbons by millions of rending jaws. it was dreadfully apparent to art what was happening. the creatures appeared in a particular area almost simultaneously. every bit of life was wiped out, except for perhaps a few small shrubs and grasses. huge trees, buildings, even mountains, all came crashing down. all sources of food supply were wiped out. the creatures could be cleared from the ground by disintegration, but more soon came to take their place. art flew back to the laboratory in washington from manchuria, scene of his latest struggle, shortcutting across the polar cap. he noted with sick dismay that even the ice fields were beginning to bristle with black stubble. arriving in washington, art landed at the institute. he searched hurriedly for dr. theller, but was unable to find him elene, however, appeared. "art! i'm so glad to see you safe! tell me--is it really as terrible as it looks over the televisor?" "ever so much worse," art answered grimly. "we've got to do something, and quick. i know the martians could help us. has dr. theller appealed to them?" "didn't you know?" she asked, wide eyed. "we haven't had any contact with mars all week. two ships were scheduled to arrive from there, and haven't been heard from." art whistled softly. "guess i've been missing quite a bit of news lately!" "that's not all," elene continued. "you know denny was out on venus with a crew. he sent in some kind of wire to dr. theller about discovering some ancient ruins, traces of a lost civilization, and saying that he was heading back. that was over a week ago--he was due in day before yesterday. i've tried repeatedly to contact him on the way, with no success. dr. theller certainly behaves strangely--i don't know--he--" art wasn't listening. he was thinking of denny--the bronzed, hard-bitten space pilot, who had always represented to him all the glamour of the far flung outposts. and been just a darn good friend, too. the perils of venus were many and varied--but on the other hand, he had the utmost confidence in denny's ability to take care of his space ship and crew through almost any situation. "art, i'm beginning to have a dreadful feeling that somehow this is all tied in together," said elene hesitantly. "i've been wanting to talk it over with you for ever so long. this plague of subterranean monsters--communications with mars cut off--denny out there somewhere, cut off, too--" * * * * * "perhaps there's not so much cause for concern over denny," art put in soothingly. "after all, any sort of trivial accident might have occurred which would delay him this long." "yes, art, but i feel that even though the creatures don't seem to have much intelligence, there is some kind of horrible plan behind the whole thing, and that the stopping of traffic with the other planets is part of that plan." "that is quite a theory, elene, my dear," came a patronizing voice from behind, "but it's quite possible that i and my colleagues may be able to work out a solution without the aid of my secretary." dr. theller had entered the room unnoticed. elene flushed, and was on the verge of making an equally caustic retort, but bit back the words. "as far as denny is concerned," the doctor went on, "he has been going out there for a good many years now; unless i miss my guess, the space madness is creeping in on his brain. that story of finding remains of a lost civilization--that's really pretty steep, you know. it's well known that the evolution of fauna on venus has not, and will not, progress to the point of producing reasoning, speaking beings for millions of years." "i can't believe that of denny!" flashed art. "space madness attacks those who can't stand the solitude, exposure and utter loneliness of that awful void. you know that denny always laughed at those things. he was iron. and i don't believe he's getting old, either. the last time i saw him, he was in his prime." a hot argument was averted only by the flashing of signals at one side of the room, which announced a televisor communication. elene was nearest and flipped the switch. the face of a middle-aged man, tense with suppressed excitement, appeared on the screen. he scanned their faces closely. it was haight, of the british foundation. "theller--douglas--all of you!" he blurted. "listen! i've just found--oh, but what fools we were not to see! those organisms--they're--but i can't possibly tell you over the air. i'll be there as fast as a strato-ship can take me. i'm bursting to tell someone. there's not a soul here in the lab; it's very late. expect me in three hours, at the most." the screen went black. * * * * * art and elene were on the roof of the laboratory, enjoying the soft summer evening, and talking over this new turn of events. the city was quiet around them. new hope seemed to blaze within them with the brilliance of the countless stars overhead. perhaps haight's discovery meant the turning of the tide in this losing struggle in which they had been participating. art felt that he could relax for the first time since that heartbreaking week had begun. as his fatigue fell away, he felt a great longing come over him. how near he had come to losing this lovely woman by his side. all those years of dull routine in the lab, near her every day, yet doing nothing about it! but art had changed to a man of action, through sheer necessity, and he wore his new personality with heady exuberance. he took the girl in his arms. "darling, life is very good," he murmured. "i don't want us to die. i don't want to be pushed off this lovable old earth of ours by an alien form of life. and it's chiefly because of you. but we're not going to let that happen, are we? we're going to fight until every last hideous, ugly one of them is gone." "yes, sweet," she sighed contentedly, "and art, please--when it's all over--let's not just sink back into the old way of life again. i think our love will be able to stand even that test from now on--but let's not put it to that test. can't we get out of interplanetary, travel, open up new worlds, just anything like that?" "i have a hunch that from now on we're going to require plenty of danger in our everyday life," he laughed. "after we're married--" a shrill whine interrupted them, and they broke apart. far out in the midnight sky, hours had slipped away like so many minutes, and haight was arriving. he had been hurling his ship along at a reckless speed and was braking only at the last minute. now they could see the dark shape arching down toward the laboratory. suddenly it seemed to stop, to poise in midair. then it dissolved into a blinding white flash. the deafening roar of the explosion came seconds later. art and elene looked at each other in mute horror and despair, amid a great silence broken only by tiny, distant sounds as the fragments of haight and his ship rained down gently on the city of washington. "we'll keep fighting," art finally said in a dull voice. iv beneath art's flier swept the tumbled mountains of ozark park. once there had been people who lived there and actually eked a living from cultivating those steep and stony hillsides. long ago that had been given up as impractical and unnecessary, however, and the whole region had been turned into one vast national forest. it was covered from one end to another with mighty timber, stocked in profusion with all kinds of wild game. that is, it had been covered the last time art saw it. now, the great trees lay tumbled about like so many match sticks, their great roots gnawed away by blind, mindless creatures. there was not a green thing in sight. a pall of smoke hung low overhead--great fires were raging everywhere in the dry stuff. man had no time to protect the trees, when his own cities were being destroyed. art had just left mexico city, and was headed for chicago. there he intended to introduce an experiment with which he had had some degree of success elsewhere. he had constructed an ark of thick plastocrete, into which the passengers could be hermetically sealed. oxygen and food were synthetically manufactured, enabling them to live without danger from the unknown poison in the water. but in his heart, he knew that this was a poor device, that there must be some simpler, more direct solution. after the death of haight, he had wanted to take one of the institute's ships, and blast off for mars. he was sure that the savants of that age-old planet could help. but dr. theller had been strongly against this, in fact refused to permit it. as he sped over the ruined forest, a grim look came over art's face. he had not seen elene since the night of haight's death, four days ago. since then he had been in the thick of the fight, as before. elene had been suspicious that the death of the british scientist had been no accident, and had promised to investigate and keep in touch with him. her lovely face had appeared several times in his televisor screen, during the first two days, although she had nothing to report except that she loved him. but two more days had passed without a word. art could raise nobody at the laboratory. he frowned, and thought that he had better have a look there, before he went on to chicago. something caught his eye, below and ahead. there was a patch of untouched forest, a little canyon that had not as yet been invaded by the monsters that were ruining the surrounding country. there the huge trees still waved, calm and unmolested. but there was something else, something sharp and bright that had captured his attention. yes, there it was again--a tiny fleck of sky blue. the same sky blue with which his ship, like all the fliers of the interplanetary institute, were painted! * * * * * he swung around, and came down in a tight spiral. as he levelled off, he saw a tiny figure, standing at the side of the wrecked ship. it waved frantically, and no doubt shouted. art settled gently in a thicket of vining maple, and clambered stiffly out of his ship, as the marooned pilot came running toward him. great glorious galaxies! it was elene! "oh, art, i don't know how you found me, but i'm so glad it's you, darling," she sobbed in his arms. "elene, i wasn't looking for you--didn't even know you were lost!" he exclaimed. "it's a miracle that i stumbled on you like this." "but didn't dr. theller--no--of course he wouldn't--" "how did you ever happen to crash _here_?" "dr. theller sent me with paul hedrik, that new boy, you remember, the nice blond one--to check casualty lists in san francisco. we were crossing the park, at about thirty thousand, when we ran out of rocket fuel. well, that wasn't so serious, we could easily make a long glide, and if we could find a place safe from these--worms--we could make a helicopter landing. but paul saw this little canyon dead ahead. it was the only safe looking place for miles. that meant we had to come in at a steep angle. he licked in the braking jets, hoping there would be a little fuel left in the lines. there was. one of the jets was plugged or something--it exploded back into the cockpit. paul was killed instantly. i was stunned. the ship was out of control, but i finally came to and managed to make a crash landing somehow." "where's paul's body?" art asked. "still in there." she pointed to the wrecked flier. "my televisor was smashed. i couldn't stand the thought of sleeping in there. i made a little camp over there by the creek. it was awfully cold, even though i built a fire. but i wasn't frightened--i had my friends--" "your friends!" exclaimed art. "who--" "don't you see them?" she asked, pointing. and he did see what the gloom of the forest had at first hidden from his unaccustomed eyes. the leafy corridors were swarming with creatures. deer, oppossum, raccoon, bear, even a puma or two, all were gathered there in dumb resignation. they knew with unerring instinct that they were trapped, that there was no escape from this tiny island. they made no attempt to molest each other, or the humans who such a short time ago had been their deadly enemies. they drank occasionally from the little creek, but they did not eat. "you see, i couldn't be lonely," she continued. "it could even have been fun, if i hadn't known that those millions of horrible little jaws were out there in the dark, gnawing, gnawing. you can even hear them. you can hear the big trees crashing down, all day, all night." "easy, honey--it's all over now. we're going to get out of here. we'll get paul's body, and--" "but art, don't you see what this means? if paul hadn't forgotten to fill the fuel tank, it we had had a full tank, we'd have been blown to atoms when that jet exploded--it was only an accident that i escaped. but that plugged jet was no _accident_--that was deliberate. don't you think it is strange that dr. theller shouldn't let you know when i have been lost for two days? and that he was the only one besides us who knew about haight's discovery, and his coming to washington, and that the same accident happened to haight? and what happened to denny? i tell you, there are all sorts of things about dr. theller that are beginning to add up. from the very first he's occupied only a passive role in this battle, done nothing whatever to help. he let that specimen get away the first day, and has never had another in there for analysis." "what!" exclaimed art. "no--elene--it can't be. you don't know what you're saying!" v "on the contrary, the young lady is quite right," came a deep bass voice from behind him. art whirled in sudden panic, reaching for his electron gun. but what he saw froze him to immobility. a tall, gaunt figure, its ebony skin decked with a harness of white plastic, in which were set countless glossy black stones. the head narrow and acquiline to the extreme, with huge, haunting black eyes. a martian! and one of the greater ring of scientists who governed the red planet, judging by the trappings. "you do not recognize me," chuckled the deep voice. "why, i remember you well. you came to mars with dr. theller, let me see, june last year, and november the year before, i believe it would be, according to your calendar. they say we all look alike to earthmen--but surely you know klalmar-lan. i was on the committee both times." "of course i do," beamed art, holding out his hand. "you had me a bit rattled there for a minute. but you can't imagine how glad we are to see you. elene, meet klalmar-lan. this is miss moor, my fiancee." "klalmar-lan," said elene, "as art has already told you, we are immensely relieved to see you. we hope that you can help us rid our planet of this scourge. unless you do, the human race and every form of animal life on earth is doomed." "i have the means of accomplishing that," he answered gravely. "for how else do you suppose this tiny refuge has remained here, other than through my doing?" they stood in amazement as he went on. "furthermore, i am rather ashamed of you, art, for letting so many things which should have been obvious to a man of your calibre, slip by you. but i guess theller did a pretty good job of covering up." "how do you happen to be here in such an out of the way spot?" asked art. "i had to have a hideout on earth from which i could steal out and make a few observations," the martian explained. "and it's a good thing i did, from what i hear. i arrived here from venus yesterday morning, about five--" "only a few hours before we crashed!" exclaimed elene. "yes--the forest in this vicinity was just beginning to be attacked. i landed on the side hill above here, and blanketed this canyon with a choker ray. i didn't want to make it too noticeable--" "wait," art interrupted, "how about this choker ray--that's the whole thing--that's what we want to know!" "i'll get to that," rebuked klalmar-lan. "anyway, i saw this ship crash--but knowing it was one of theller's, i had to be careful about offering assistance. i have been watching miss moor and wondering if i should have to protect her from all this vicious looking fauna which you have here in such profusion. but i didn't dare trust her until i heard her talk to you. my object was to contact some trustworthy person here on earth. now that i've found you, i think we'd better take off for venus immediately. my ship is right up the hill above us. incidentally, i have a surprise there--an old friend of yours." * * * * * mystified, the couple followed him through thick underbrush to the space ship. they entered behind him and froze in astonishment. there, lying on a bunk, white and still and swathed in bandages, was denny! "don't be alarmed," klalmar-lan reassured them. "i've got him under a neural anesthetic. he's suffered a bad radium burn, but i think he'll be all right. should recover consciousness in a couple of hours." klalmar-lan was at the controls, and they were rising rapidly. the little spot of green was visible through the rear port, falling away behind them. "i first met denny on venus, where i had been sent to watch for the coming of ghlak-ileth, or hell-worms, as we call them; for they are no new experience to us martians. some three thousand earth years ago, they turned our once beautiful planet into a red desert, almost exterminating our race. three thousand years before that, our astronomers had watched as uninhabited mercury gave up its treasure. according to all our calculations, venus should have been next. when i talked to denny in his jungle camp, he informed me that he had discovered remains of an ancient civilization on venus. "i knew then that something was terribly wrong with our theory--for we had always considered venus a very young planet, whose evolution of life had not even produced a mammalian form, and would not for millions of years. now it seemed more plausible that at a remote age venus was inhabited by intelligent beings, perhaps more highly developed than we on earth or mars, and that some great catastrophe wiped them out, leaving survivors, the ancestors of the present day fauna. "the answer," he went on, "was plain--the ghlak-ileth had already been to venus! in all probability, earth would suffer the effect of the next raid! denny had started for earth with his crew. i hurried to my ship and followed him. about two hours out, my mass detector indicated the presence of matter about ten thousand miles ahead, but moving _toward_ me. in a little while i saw it, approaching headon. a huge blob of a ship, gleaming like quicksilver, shaped like a great flat-bellied slug. the ghosts of outer space had come again!" "hold it!" cried art. "this is getting beyond me. who are these--" "we call them ghosts, or voornizar, because they bear little resemblance to anything mortal, although they are terribly real. they are the masters, the creators of these hell-worms, whom they planted countless eons ago on the planets of our solar system. the impelling energy of these ghlak-ileth, as with their masters, and in fact all the machinery they use, is the disintegration of radium, of which they are partially composed. they devour it for food. "we believe that the voornizar originate in some planetary system far beyond the awful void which surrounds our solar family. long ago, they found their radium supply disappearing, and were forced to wander in search of new deposits. they developed the ghlak-ileth in their laboratories to do the work of removing the radium. they were probably planted as tiny eggs or spores, each with an infinitesimal bit of radium to furnish life energy. when the creatures hatched, their instinct was to dig downward. as they went, they fed on radium and other elements. "thus, ever growing and multiplying, they remained, finally absorbing every bit of radium in the planet. after a fixed period, they became imbued with the impulse to return to the surface. there they were collected by the voornizar, who returned at exactly the proper time, to extract the radium for their own use. the period of three thousand years is, we believe, the time necessary for a round trip from here to the habitat of the voornizar. however, it may be only the period between meals--for time means nothing to them--nor do heat, cold or lack of atmosphere affect them." "how can we possibly combat such a menace?" asked elene hopelessly. * * * * * "this time we martians are ready," klalmar-lan told them. "before, we were forced to resort to pitiful devices such as lead lined boats, which shut out the deadly emanations of the _radon_ gas which seeped to the surface from the ghlak-ileth on the sea bottoms. but now we have developed a weapon--the choker ray, harmless to organisms like ourselves, but able instantly to halt any sort of disintegration, particularly radio-activity. it will stop the voornizar instantly. "as soon as i recognized this voornizar ship, i let her have the choker beam. she immediately lost headway, began to drift. i came alongside and boarded her, being careful to put on a space suit, for the voornizar require no atmosphere, and would not be likely to have the ship's interior conditioned. i found what i expected. there was not a living creature, or moving piece of machinery aboard. i had heard the fearsome ghosts described many times, but these were the first i had seen. their silvery, amorphous bodies are said to glow with a blinding white effulgence, but in death, these had turned to a dull leaden hue. there were hundreds of them in the great ship, which seemed to me mostly occupied by machinery with which to attract and grapple the radium worms, and holds in which to store them. "on an upper deck, i found a row of small staterooms, which i thought wise to investigate. and well that i did, for my former presumption that nothing lived on the ship was not quite correct. that was one who _barely_ lived--" "barely is the word, my friend," came a weak voice from the bunk, "i don't know what you did to those devils, but you sure stopped them in their tracks." denny had recovered consciousness. the trio hurried to his side. "so they couldn't quite kill you?" art grinned down at the space pilot. "weren't trying!" replied denny briefly. "they seemed interested in the discoveries i'd made on venus. had the nicest ways of getting information; simple, too. all they had to do was touch my skin and i got a radium burn." "you must have passed out just after i used the ray on them," klalmar-lan commented. "but how did they get you in the first place?" "just slipped up behind us, showing a friendly signal, and slapped some kind of paralysis ray on us--went through the permirium hull and everything. they came aboard--but only took me off. the rest of the crew they left lying there, paralyzed. then they just swung away a few miles and disintegrated the whole works. that was pretty tough to take--some of those boys had been to hell and back with me." "they paid for that massacre," growled klalmar-lan. "but that was only one of their countless thousands, perhaps millions of ships. i believe that they have a huge base on venus, from which they are preparing to swoop down on earth when the ghlak-ileth are ready. we will have to locate that base. then we will radio the martian fleet. we have half a million ships, armed with choker rays and disintegrators. long have we prepared to seize the treasure of venus, and at the same time revenge ourselves on our ancient enemy. speaking for the greater ring," and he drew himself up proudly, "i can promise you that we will fight as fiercely to save your race from extinction, though there be no gain, if it will in some measure alleviate the great wrong we have done you in leaving you unwarned and unprepared." * * * * * "thank you, klalmar-lan," answered denny simply. "however, i've got to warn you--there's something rotten on our side of it. those _things_ spoke english--and had a pretty fair knowledge of earth science and earth affairs." "yes, we know where the rotten spot is located," replied klalmar-lan. "he's been building up a machinery against us for some time, unknown to some of you who worked nearest him. got away with several of our secrets, too--the force field, for one--" "the force field!" ejaculated art. "that's how he got haight! remember that night, elene?" "of course," she cried. "haight had found the secret of the ghlak-ileth and their high radium content." "yes," agreed klalmar-lan, "and that secret dr. theller knew he must suppress at all costs. the force field he no doubt projected as a beam through some hidden port in the laboratory roof. playing it about like an invisible searchlight, he met the incoming flier with a barrier as effective as a stone wall." "the voornizar must have contacted him long ago, and made some kind of deal--probably offered him all the radium he could use," mused art. "i would guess that he planned to establish a new laboratory on venus--that's why he was so interested in that city you found, denny--interested enough to discredit your story on earth, and order you held by the voornizar!" "and to go a step farther," interjected klalmar-lan, "i will wager that we find the voornizar's base not so far from that city." "what ghastly treachery!" gasped elene. "to betray his own mother earth to annihilation. already millions have died--" art, watching her, saw her freeze in silence. he tried to glance at the others, but his eyeballs would not move in their sockets. he tried to move; his whole body was gripped in a rigid paralysis! there was utter silence and stillness in the hurtling ship. art's thoughts were racing. what fools they had been, flocking around denny's bunk when he came to. they had totally neglected to watch the control panel, where the mass detector would have warned them of an approaching ship. now they had been surprised and seized with the same deadly paralysis that had trapped denny before. the air lock swung inward. none of the four were surprised to see dr. theller step through the port, keeping a careful distance between himself and the two grotesque monstrosities who followed him. theller was without space suit or arms. art stared with horrified fascination at the two voornizar. the dazzling, white hot radiance that ceaselessly flowed from them made it difficult to identify their form. they seemed to have none; yet they could take any shape. fundamentally, they were a tube about a foot in diameter and some seven feet high. they had a slit-like mouth near the top, and a huge crystalline eye which surmounted their exact top. they seemed to favor a bilateral form, although the number of pairs of arms appeared indeterminate. but as art watched, above each slit mouth appeared a huge beak nose and above this, deep, staring sightless hollows. a horrible caricature of a human face! demoniac laughter came from the lipless mouth of one! * * * * * "so you pitiful martians had a weapon that would stop the voornizar!" it boomed. "you fool, did you not know that we are immortal? only when we lack radium can one of us die--and then, he only suspends animation until sustenance can be brought. i know not the principle of the thing you fashioned, although its effect is to halt radio-activity. think ye that would kill us?" the thing's laughter roared. "we merely lay inert--waiting only for the next contact with a living voornizar or any bit of active radium, to set our life process in motion once more. think ye that you can fight a million mighty ships with such a harmless weapon? "had you known that the transport you captured carried me, dwalbuth, mighty shan of the voornizar, you might not have so carelessly left us drifting in space, to be found and revived by dr. theller." "before we release you from the paralysis," spoke up theller, "i want to tell you that resistance is futile. these people can project, from that single eye, a ray of any frequency, ranging from ultraviolet to infra-red, and would have no trouble in burning you to a crisp in a fraction of a second. also, as pilot denny has reason to know, their slightest touch will cause a severe burn." he searched denny, still lying on the bunk, found nothing. he removed art and elene's electron pistols. from klalmar-lan's belt he took the choker ray gun, gave it a contemptuous glance, and flung it squarely in klalmar-lan's face, just as dwalbuth flicked a bluish light from a tiny torch over the four, releasing them from the paralysis. klalmar-lan caught the gun, staring down at it with dumb despair and sick disappointment written all over his handsome ebony face. "we'll put them in my ship," said theller, motioning them toward the lock. denny rose and hobbled painfully along with them. "the earth people i can use for helpers, if i can educate them to the practicability of such a course; the martian i will destroy, after i have wrung from him a few of the secrets i need for my conquest of his planet." vi "i assure you that these are the most comfortable accommodations to be found anywhere on venus," commented denny sardonically as he gazed around the dank cell in which the four found themselves imprisoned. "speaking from experience, i mean that." "this is your city, then, of which you spoke?" queried the martian. "yes. i spent very little time in exploring it, however, as i was due to report back and was in a hurry. i do know that it's mostly underground, and of almost inconceivable antiquity, however. of the nature of its former inhabitants, their language, or the name of the city, i could learn nothing." "my guess that the voornizar's base was in, or somewhere near this city was correct," asserted klalmar-lan, dropping his voice. he glanced at the guard looming outside the heavily barred metal door, and beckoned them to a far, gloomy corner of the dungeon. the earth people were startled to hear a chuckle of fiendish glee. it came from the martian! he was swinging his ray pistol by the trigger guard, shaking in nearly inaudible mirth. "by the two moons! what ego!" he hissed, lapsing into his native tongue, which the others understood to some extent. "they have such contempt for my poor martian brainchild, they do not even take it from me!" "well, it's practically useless, as near as i can see, against any number of the creatures," shrugged elene. "i suppose we could knock out the guard, but the lock on the door is still impossible. the next voornizar who comes along would revive him, and we'd only be in for more restrictions." "ah, but you do not understand. watch." a lizard-like reptile had run down the slimy wall, paused at the bottom. klalmar-lan aimed the gun at it, pressed the trigger. nothing happened. "that was the choker ray. now, observe--i move this little catch here, press the button again." there was a little frying sound. a puff of vapor rose above the lizard, and it shrank instantly to a blackened lump. the earthians stared in amazement. art finally found voice. "how did you do it?" "simple--a disintegrator. result, the disintegration is only begun, when it is cut off. no explosion. only a few elements in the victim begin to go, but the molecular structure is broken down nevertheless. i can set it for any degree i want. "dwalbuth called me a fool, but it is he who is stupid in his conceit. immortal! bah! there is nothing that cannot be disintegrated." "then i move; we get out of here, right now!" whispered art vehemently. "people are dying on earth, every minute." "right," agreed denny. "let's go." he limped to the door. "say, guard--" standing behind him, the gun hidden, klalmar-lan poured the rays over the voornizar, through denny, door and all. the creature slumped heavily to the floor, its fiery luminescence fading to a dull leaden gray. klalmar-lan stepped forward, turned up his disintegrator, and impassively played the beam over the thing on the floor, until nothing remained but a heap of blackened slag. then he went to work on the lock. in a moment they were free. art kicked the ashes of the guard into a dark, obscure corner of the cell. * * * * * "we've got to find our way to the upper level, get to a televisor someway," panted klalmar-lan, as they hurried up the inclined passageway. "don't know if i can remember all the twists and turns we followed when they brought us down or not," denny puzzled. "how about you, art?" art shook his head doubtfully. "you intend to bring the martian fleet here--that is, if you can contact them?" elene inquired of klalmar-lan. "no--not here--to earth! while they are neutralizing the ghlak-ileth there, we must in some way hold off the menace here." "you're right," art agreed. "the fleet can't fight off a million voornizar ships and kill the ghlak-ileth, too. and it's imperative that they get to earth with no delay." through pitch black corridors, twisting, climbing, dropping again, the party groped their way. art had a tiny torch, which he risked flashing on occasionally, but this helped little. all hope of retracing their steps was soon abandoned. the lower levels of the ancient city had been a veritable labyrinth. realizing that they were hopelessly lost, they stopped to take stock of the situation. leaning against a dank, moss grown wall, art felt something slimy brush his leg. he flashed on his light, and his sanity reeled. he saw a great, rat-like figure, the size of man on his knees! the eye in its humanoid face were closed against the light--its teeth were bared in the snarl of a cornered rat. then it scuttled away clumsily. great god! it was a man shambling on his knees, naked and unclean! art heard a little moan of horror--elene had turned away, her face in her hands. "did you see it, klalmar-lan?" he muttered hoarsely to the martian. "yes, my friend," was the sad reply. "i believe we have witnessed all that is left of the glory that was venus. a skulking creature of the sewers--creeping on its knees." he shuddered. "they nearly did that to us once--and they will do it to earth, if we do not find a way out of here soon." there was a metallic rattle, far down the corridor, and a livid, glowing stab of light appeared. it was a voornizar, running--the empty cell had been found. "it's all right," hissed art, "he can't possibly see us. here we have the advantage." klalmar-lan grimly drew his ray gun, but art halted him. "wait--i've got a plan. you stick here. keep out of sight. the rest of us will give ourselves up. we'll try to get him to take us to dwalbuth or theller. then you follow. see?" klalmar-lan nodded silently, stepped back into the shadows. grasping elene and denny by the hand, art ran toward the voornizar, shouting. "get us out of this horrible place before we go mad!" he croaked. elene managed a sob or two. the voornizar grinned evilly at their panic, then peered behind them. "where is the martian?" he snarled. "we got separated in the dark some time ago--never could locate him again," art answered. "we'll find him; he can't go far," rasped the creature. "meanwhile, i will take you to dwalbuth, who will see that you suffer adequately for this attempt at escape. in the absence of the earthman, who wants to preserve you as his assistants, our mighty shan will dispose of you as he sees fit." the guard carried a powerful torch, and had no trouble in finding the way out of the pits. they entered a level which had evidently been the quarters of the well-to-do class of ancients. there were many furnishings and decorations, most of which were badly faded and deteriorated. hosts of voornizar were hurrying about on various errands. dwalbuth had evidently established headquarters here, from which he superintended the preparation of the huge radium fleet. how klalmar-lan would ever follow them through this swarming hive was beyond art. * * * * * the guard led them to a huge room where dwalbuth was snarling orders to a group of his lieutenants. on sighting the earthmen, he dismissed his henchmen. "perhaps," he began, "i have not made it clear to you just how insignificant you, and your form of life, is in our scheme of things. we have wiped out many races stronger than you, on a score of planets, in my time. we are strong, immortal; you are weak, you suffer pain easily. do not try my patience with any more escape attempts. and you had better tell me what you have done with that guard." there was only silence. he screamed, "_what did you do with that guard?_" a great three-toed claw, or hand, shot out, stopped an inch from elene's terror-stricken face. "i have heard that your men consider you beautiful to look upon," sneered dwalbuth, "i will change that face to a seared mask if you do not tell me, immediately." then art leaped. he threw himself on the arm with its grasping claw, bore it down. white hot, burning agony shot through his hands and arms. then, miraculously, it stopped. dwalbuth was sagging to the floor. but there came a vicious crackling as the guard whirled to train his heat ray on them. then he, too, collapsed. klalmar-lan stood in the door, grinning as he switched on his disintegrator. "fasten this door the best you can," he commanded, "while i finish off these two. hate to take the time, but we can't risk their recovering." this done, he stepped to the televisor, dialled his commander-in-chief in the greater ring's martian stronghold. in a few terse words, he explained the situation and sent the fleet hurtling toward earth. by this time, a great pounding had begun at the door. but the earthians had not been idle--they had been searching frantically for an exit. and elene had found one, a tiny passageway behind a once secret, but now half-rotted-away panel. they scrambled into it, crawled for a short way. then the tunnel debouched into a larger corridor in which they could stand up and run. luckily, it was crooked, and winding; for they heard the angry snap and hiss of searching heat rays not far behind. "watch this," said klalmar-lan, turning his disintegrator up higher. a voornizar appeared around a corner, and exploded with a muffled roar. "don't get the mixture too rich!" laughed art as the fragments showered around them. "say, klalmar-lan, how in blazes did you get through that mob to follow us?" "easy," grinned the black man. "when you came out on that level, i was lurking close behind. there was nothing for me to do but fall right in with you. if you had looked around, you'd have seen me right at your elbow. of course, when you came to the door of dwalbuth's staff room, i dropped out, and just stood outside the door, acting the part of a bored prisoner, until the fun started." art chuckled at the martian's audacity. the sounds of pursuit were getting fainter behind them. the voornizar were learning new respect for their once despised captives. the tunnel now narrowed down to a width which made it passable by one person only, and ran perfectly straight. the party formed in single file, klalmar-lan bringing up the rear. denny led, with art's flash, as art was nursing scorched hands and arms. "they'll be getting after us with that paralysis ray directly," art worried. "what do you say to blocking the tunnel? we can surely depend on its emerging somewhere." "the war gods help us if _they_ know where it comes out! but i think you've got an idea there," agreed klalmar-lan, turning his ray on the roof of the tunnel a good distance behind them. it crumbled, slowly at first, then gave way with a roar, the fragments of rock and masonry completely choking the aperture. klalmar-lan did not stop until he had filled the passage for a good hundred feet. "we can get back through there, if we have to, by using this gun, but the voornizar will have to dig or bore their way. their disintegrators are like yours of earth--uncontrolled. they are useful out in space for destroying an enemy space ship at a distance, but one blast under ground here would set off enough thermal energy to blow this whole city off the green face of venus." * * * * * denny was crouching on the floor. "look at this!" he exclaimed. his tiny flash revealed fresh marks in the damp sand which covered the floor at that point. they were blurred, and had no resemblance to human footprints. "at least one voornizar passed this way," commented klalmar-lan, "but my guess is that dwalbuth made these tracks, and was the only one who knew the secret of this passage." "it's a sure thing it's leading us to some place of importance--dwalbuth didn't take this walk for the fresh air," denny contributed. the tunnel's length seemed interminable, although art estimated they had not covered over four or five earth miles. they found a tiny spring of pure water trickling down the moss-shrouded stone wall, and drank gratefully. their lunch consisted of a few food tablets which art had been carrying. at last a dim glow of light appeared ahead. advancing warily, they found the passage ran squarely into a plate metal barrier, which leaned away from them at a slight angle. about head height, there was a small ragged hole burned into it, through which came the light they had seen. denny applied his eyes to this. "smokin' mercury!" he exclaimed, sotto voice. "get a load of this, art!" art looked. the sight was awesome. far below, and stretching into the dim distance, was a vast cavern. as far as the eye could see, its floor was covered with huge silvery shapes--the mighty cruisers of the voornizar. their close-packed ranks seemed to stretch for miles into the darkness. the only light was the luminescence of the ships themselves. the great domed roof was shrouded with gloom. the vantage point from which art looked seemed to be located high in the curved side, and the metal barricade against which the tunnel ended was actually the shell of the gargantuan cavity. klalmar-lan then had a quick glance, then turned to them, elated. "this is it! we've stumbled on the main pool. there must be nearly a million ships down there." elene was looking now--she was unable to see any egress through which the ships could be trundled to the surface. doubtless there was a ramp or elevator of some sort, probably on the far side beyond their range of vision. many voornizar were moving among the great hulks, servicing them, effecting minor repairs. "we are now probably well outside the city proper," continued klalmar-lan. "apparently this was once a great assembly hall, where huge mass meetings or possibly some kind of sporting events, were held. some ancient king, wishing to spy upon the doings of his subjects unobserved, caused this passageway to be dug and the peekhole to be cut. dwalbuth, in turn, utilized it for somewhat the same purpose." "looks like the work of a twentieth-century acetylene torch," laughed denny. "that might afford an excellent clue as to the comparative development of their civilization," agreed klalmar-lan gravely. "but enough theorizing. we must utterly destroy all these ships. wait here." they watched as he moved back through the tunnel a short distance. he trained his pistol on the wall. rapidly a hole began to appear. "it can't be far to the surface," he told them. "i'm going to burn a tunnel upward at a steep angle. keep a good watch in both directions." just then art, his eye glued to the opening, saw that something was amiss below. the voornizar were running about excitedly. faintly he heard their discordant shouting, and the crackle of heat rays. then he saw, skimming and swerving above the rows of giant ships, a familiar sight! klalmar-lan's own spaceship, in which they had originally embarked from earth! wildly, it plunged toward art, then swung erratically away and headed in a steep climb for the top of the dome. several small patrol fliers appeared, racing in pursuit. searchlights lanced through the blackness, illuminating the heretofore invisible ceiling, which was apparently just what the pilot of klalmar-lan's ship hoped for. a passing searchlight beam revealed for an instant a round, jagged hole in the center of the room; the little rocket ship shot through it like an escaping minnow. the hole had evidently been newly made by the voornizar for the passage of their smaller and more maneuverable craft, a half dozen of which now flashed through in pursuit. art turned and related what he had seen. * * * * * "that was theller, or i'm not a broken down space eater," growled denny, "here, let me spell you on that excavation work a while, klalmar-lan." klalmar-lan had a tough job--it was getting more difficult as the hole progressed. hot gobbets of molten lava came splashing down from time to time, preventing him from entering the hole and following up his work. acrid, choking fumes began to fill the tunnel, but klalmar-lan refused to let denny or art take over, on account of their burned hands. it was two hours before daylight began to show, fifty feet above. "now, while those rocks are cooling sufficiently for us to crawl out, i'll show you what my plan is," said klalmar-lan. "has anyone a chrono?" elene slipped one from her wrist, handed it to him. quickly, he slipped it out of its case, began removing various parts. he attached it to the trigger ring of his pistol, made a delicate adjustment. then he set the gun to full disintegrator. he rigged it so that the muzzle pointed through the peep-hole, aimed at the ships below. "we've got six hours to get out of here and put plenty of miles between us and this place," he informed them. hurriedly they scrambled up the chimney he had made. the rock had cooled rapidly, as it was pouring rain above, and water ran down in little rivulets. the four of them were drenched by the time they reached the surface. the rain was beating down in such a torrent that they could hardly get their breath. it was warm, like a tepid shower. it was difficult to see more than a few feet, but it was evident that they were in thick jungle. "let's head west," shouted denny. "there's a bay that runs in here, toward the city. we came in that way before, from the sea. shouldn't be far from here. if we can get on the open beach, it'll be lots better going than this damned jungle." with this they had to agree, and no time was lost in plunging into the jungle in the direction he had indicated. the four were now weaponless, and would have fallen easy prey to any one of a dozen varieties of carnivorous monsters who habitually roamed the forest. but the creatures evidently did not consider the rain conducive to good hunting, and so they were unmolested. two hours of exhausting struggle brought them out on the beach, which had not been over a mile away. "now we can make time," said denny. "this narrow strip of beach will take us almost straight away from the space port for about twenty miles." "we'll do our best to cover it in the four hours we have left," art chuckled. they set out at a rapid clip, keeping a wary eye on both jungle and sea, from either of which might spring sudden death at any moment. the rain stopped, but lead-colored clouds still swirled overhead, for venus was eternally overcast. plenty of drinking water was to be found in the hollows of huge leaves--but the need for food was becoming keen with all of them. still, they did not dare tarry long enough to find sustenance. "there are a few species of fish in these waters which i know to be edible," explained denny. "when it's safe to stop, we can catch a few." * * * * * "you may stop right now!" commanded a harsh voice from behind them. they whirled--there, in the fringe of the jungle, his gray hair awry, his eyes glittering with desperation, stood doctor theller, covering them with the wide mouth of an electronic pistol. "you--the martian--i need your services. come along--there's no time to lose. the rest of you come, too." there was nothing to do but trudge ahead of him through the jungle in the direction he indicated. there, as they had expected, lay klalmar-lan's ship. "you are having a little trouble with my ship?" inquired the martian insolently, winking at his comrades. "yes, damn you--and you're going to fix it!" snarled the scientist. "it was necessary for me to fly through a narrow opening--i grazed the edge slightly. two of the starboard main propulsion jets were sheared away. i had no trouble losing my pursuers in the mist, but when i cut in the main jets to leave the atmosphere, i merely looped about in crazy trajectories. the right adjustment of the firing pattern would compensate for this, but i could not find it. on one of my own ships, yes, but this confounded martian oddity is beyond my understanding. i had to drop down here, and attempt to trace out the connections from the firing panel. this i have been unable to do. you will do it for me!" "apparently you no longer occupy your former position of esteem with the voornizar," mocked art. "get in the ship!" snapped theller, glancing sharply at them. "you, klalmar-lan, pilot the ship. set the course for mars." "mars!" "yes. we will land in a remote area, where we will pose as refugees from earth. that is, all of us except klalmar-lan, of whom i will dispose before reaching there. i am not beaten yet. i have friends there, and with the secrets i have learned of the martian weapons and defenses, i will be able to build anew." art stepped forward, ignoring the threatening gun muzzle. "doctor theller, it strikes me that you are in no position to dictate terms to us. you are in as great a danger as we, how great a danger, you do not even dream. only klalmar-lan can pilot this crippled ship. this he can, and will, refuse to do. now here are our terms. we will take you to mars alive, where we will turn you over to the authorities." art was loath to reveal as yet that they could set their course for earth and arrive there in perfect safety. "you do not dare kill any of us." "don't i?" sneered the scientist. "watch me. if klalmar-lan does not get into that pilot seat before i count ten, i will blast elene to a cinder. then i will kill you, art. then denny. when only klalmar-lan is left, i will destroy him by inches, burning away a hand or foot at a time." the electronic pistol swung toward elene and he began counting. white-faced, art motioned despairingly to klalmar-lan. the martian's black eyes were obsidian as he silently strapped himself in the seat. the rest followed, doctor theller last, his pistol covering them. suddenly there was a sickening lurch, a numbing crash, and blackening oblivion. vii through a dull, throbbing ache, art began to wonder where he was. his body seemed first to be spinning in a vast void, and yet again seemed to be pinned against a hard cold surface. he felt repeated small shocks, as of missiles striking him. from a distance a voice was calling insistently. rubbing sticky blood from his eyes, he saw a greater flat expanse stretching away above him. then his eyes focused. it was the deck of the flier! and there at its far end sat klalmar-lan in the pilot seat! he was looking over his shoulder, calling, "art! art! get that ray pistol! quickly!" art looked about him sluggishly. he saw the gun lying only a few feet from his face. but beyond it, there was a crawling figure--a mad ravening thing whose clawlike hand was even now extended to grasp the weapon! art tried to move--he could not budge. something was pinning him down--the body of denny. he heaved desperately, but the man seemed to weigh tons. the truth of the situation came to art. the ship was still within the gravity of venus, and accelerating at a rate far beyond that of normal flight. the inexorable force of the acceleration was pressing the four passengers against the rear panel of the ship. klalmar-lan could not leave his pilot's seat, for he would never be able to return! and even then, theller's hand was closing on the grip of the pistol. the rocket ship spun on its longitudinal axis like a giant gyroscope. art felt himself thrown from wall to wall, battered and bruised, but miraculously retaining consciousness. he was free now, of the encumbrance. the whirling stopped, and he drew himself painfully to a sitting position. he looked wildly around for the gun. it was nowhere to be seen; but theller, pulling a long, bodkin-like dagger from his boot, was close upon him. the dagger was raised for the plunge into art's unprotected heart, but there came a low hum from the front of the ship. theller collapsed, his muscles constricted into taut bands of agony by the shock ray. and art's pain-wracked body once more found the peace of oblivion. sounds of laughter and conversation finally woke him again. relaxed and refreshed, he knew that he had slept long. he sat up in the bunk. he was swathed in bandages, and medications had eased the pain of his bruises and burns. elene and denny, also heavily bandaged, were watching him smilingly. klalmar-lan came toward him from the pilot's seat. "you're a fine pilot!" roared art, in mock fury. "that was about the worst take-off i have ever seen!" klalmar-lan ruefully had to admit that it was pretty bad. "i had to do it, though, art," he said. "it was our only chance. i watched out of the corner of my eye. as soon as you were in, i threw on the main jets, full power, thinking to leave theller behind, but i didn't time it quite right. he had managed to get in first. of course, you were all thrown heavily against the rear panel, which, being padded, prevented serious injury. naturally, we all blacked out for a time from the acceleration. we had passed through the cloud layer before i myself regained consciousness. just in time to see the most beautiful sight! the rear mirrograph showed the whole thing. the clouds, which extend a full six miles above venus' surface, parted like a puff of smoke, and a huge flower of white flame, miles in diameter, sprang up at us. "the concussion boosted our speed at a terrific rate. but i discovered that at least three voornizar fighters had been scattered far enough to avoid destruction, and were now speeding in savage pursuit. when i saw theller coming to, and crawling after that gun, i didn't know what to do for a moment. i couldn't leave the cockpit and expect to return without neutralizing our tremendous acceleration, which meant leveling off, in which case our pursuers would be on us instantly. "i shouted at you, threw pieces of my harness, anything to rouse you. you finally woke, but theller practically had the pistol by that time. i spun the ship over a couple of times, which was cruel punishment for all of you, but necessary. well, i thought all was over when i saw theller about to knife you. but spinning the ship had dislodged something from under the seat which theller had evidently fastened there previously--a shock ray pistol. i paralyzed him with that. in a few hours we were out of venus' gravity, and i was able to leave the controls and revive the four of you." he strode to a bunk where theller lay, securely bound. * * * * * "and now, i think you'd better tell me what happened to those two martian ships which disappeared enroute to earth. at the time, knowing of the secrets you had stolen from us, but nothing of your connection with voornizar, we were forced to regard it as an act of war on the part of earth, and cut off communications until we could investigate it in our own way. now it is obvious that you gave their schedule to the voornizar and had them intercepted." "they disintegrated every trace of both of them!" shrieked the murderer. "and i'm glad, glad, do you hear? i'd like to destroy everything martian! if my plan had gone right, some day i would have brought you black devils to your knees. knowing that i cannot do that, i only want death." "that wish you shall have--for on mars a death sentence awaits you," klalmar-lan answered grimly. "on mars?" asked art swiftly. "but klalmar-lan, elene and i must get to earth. even though the danger is over, we are badly needed for the work of rebuilding and reorganizing. and--besides--we, well, hang it all, we want to find someone to marry us." "don't worry, my friends," klalmar-lan assured them. "you shall go to earth. in about two hours we will meet a martian patrol which left mars for venus at the same time the fleet left for earth. i will transfer to their ship with my prisoner, leaving you mine. i hope you will not object to my taking an earthian to mars for trial--but my only motive is to save the trouble of a trial when you will want to be devoting your efforts to more important work." "he's right," agreed denny, "and here's another thing. don't worry about getting back to earth to get married. have you forgotten that i'm a full commander, with the right to marry any couple aboard a ship in space?" art and elene hadn't forgotten. * * * * * [transcriber's note: original text had section iv headings. section headings renumbered to correct.] mists of mars by george a. whittington "kill all martians," the orders read. "they are savages, and have no rights." but special investigator barry williams and princess deisanocta had other plans--plans that would bring destruction to the despoilers by releasing an age-old justice from the crypts. [transcriber's note: this etext was produced from planet stories summer . extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the u.s. copyright on this publication was renewed.] barry williams watched the last sunshine lance across the red sands of the martian desert. the sun dropped abruptly behind the flat horizon. with the black curtain of night, the usual sharp chill came to the thin martian atmosphere. the cold bit into williams through the warm ore-seeker's outfit he'd adopted for this venture. he laughed suddenly, realizing why he noticed the cold. his body was tense, rigid. unconsciously he was crouching, waiting, eyes narrowed, one heavily-gloved hand on his ray gun. with the laugh, barry relaxed, although his sharp blue eyes never ceased their wary sweep over the rolling sands. his hand dropped from the weapon. it would be useless anyway against the deadly white mist, for which he waited. that it would come, barry never doubted. it was known and dreaded by earthmen in every terrestrial center on the red planet. in the past few weeks, earthmen had disappeared, vanishing for the last time into the martian night. whispers said the white mist, the pale nemesis, sucked the life from them. only once had earthmen seen the mist and lived to tell of it. a spaceship, beating toward one of the centers on a night flight from a desert camp, had passed over a pale patch on the red sand. its occupants, in their haste did not stop to investigate. only later, telling of the strange sight, did they realize it had been mist--on a planet too arid for water vapor. only then did they remember seeing an earthman making his way on foot toward the same center, within the patch. barry williams' searching glance covered the terrain once more. deimos, the smaller moon, was already high. the larger, swifter phobos was rapidly overhauling its companion. under their light, the scene was clear. but it was so every night on mars, yet earthmen who ventured into the desert at night died! barry waited. he waited as had the occupants of that center for the man to come in and tell the story of that strange light patch against the red sand. in the morning a searching party brought in his body. the story would never be told by him. nor by any other earthman, it seemed. later, a spaceship again sighted the mist, and radioed that it was landing to investigate. again, earthmen, now frightened and grim, waited through the martian night. once more, a daylight searching party found only the dead. "ain't fer human understandin'," one superstitious miner whispered in awed tones. "twenty year i bin on this cursed planet--nor ever heerd the like o' this." "it's clear enough for me," answered a pink-cheeked youngster up to mars to make a fortune in rich ore dust. "i stay off the desert at night. only the miserable martians can live out there then." "justice from the crypt," a third muttered, quoting the threat of an old martian, dying from wounds he'd received fighting earthmen. "it's like from the grave--this mist, the way it creeps from the sand white and ghosty!" that was the spirit barry williams, special investigator for the terrestrial bureau of martian affairs, found when he arrived. behind the fear were rumors, dead bodies, nothing more. at first, he'd blamed superstition and the natural hazards of work in the desert. but now he was here in the desert at night, waiting. * * * * * it wasn't for this he'd been sent to mars, barry told himself half-angrily. his mission here was important. but this threat to all terrestrials on mars was ominous. there were no government agencies to deal with the threat here. mars was just a frontier where untold riches lay for the taking beneath some of the red sand. the sullen, cowed martians, working at the bigger mines, or following their nomadic courses across the desert no longer attempted an organized government. despite their great majority in numbers, the martians played no part in running the planet. how they must be rejoicing now, barry thought, as death stalked their conquerors, death striking from the desert in the night. suddenly, williams felt an icy tingle course through his blood. his hand dropped again to his ray gun, tore it from the holster. he stood erect, fighting an urge to crouch low against the danger. along the crest of the sand-swell before him, something was rising. bright moonlight shimmered as the rays broke against a pale barrier. to the right, the left, behind him, it was the same. the white mist was rising, surrounding him. escape was cut off. even to reach his nearby spaceship was impossible without cutting through. barry tried to relax. there was nothing to do but wait. he remembered the words of the old martian desert wanderer to whom he'd spoken. this man had once been a chieftain, before the conquest of mars by earth. his keen black eyes had bored into barry. "if you wish the answer," he'd advised, "go into the desert at night. _you_ are different--_you_ may return. i can tell you no more." thicker grew the mist. a silver blanket, wrapping closer and closer about barry williams. the moons and the barren landscape were blotted out. all perspective vanished. high above, a tiny patch of stars was visible--perhaps for the last time to williams. he gripped the ray gun tighter. the strange white blanket touched his skin now--seemed to press against him with a great weight. he raised the gun grimly, then a picture flashed into his mind. one of the bodies that had come out of the desert had been shown him. the dead fingers still gripped a ray gun. they had crushed against the trigger for a long time--until the badly overheated weapon had at last burned out, charring the unfeeling hand that had held it. but the power that had brought oblivion had stood up against the ray. with a grim smile, barry replaced his weapon. the blanket was tight around him now. he could see nothing. his limbs grew numb under overpowering lethargy. his lungs labored, sucking in the mist. consciousness wavered. he reeled, stiffly. his muscles hardened, his braced feet sinking deep into the sand. before his glazing eyes, a strange picture formed in the mist. a beautiful martian maiden, tall, slim, majestic--veiled in silver mesh. on her lovely features was a look of stern judgment. * * * * * was it fancy, or did the chanting of voices ring in his ears, muffled weirdly by the shroud about him? "day--ees--a--nocta----day--ees--a--nocta." [illustration: _williams waited, seeing her come through the mists._] the picture, the sounds faded. at last his knees sagged. he pitched face downward into the red sand. for what seemed a long time, barry williams floated in darkness. then, to a tiny corner of his mind, consciousness returned. he fought to retain it. the mist, he realized dimly, did not harm the body--it paralyzed. while he could think, the battle was not lost. he called upon the deep reserves of his mind. suddenly he was aware of sand digging painfully into the skin of his face--the first physical sensation he'd know since he slumped forward into oblivion. hands tugged at his body, and the sting of the sand was gone from his nostrils. he had been rolled over onto his back. wild hope surged through barry. he struggled against the leaden weight on his eyelids--without success. his muscles did not respond. he tried to move an arm--a leg--a finger. it was no use. slowly, he realized what had happened. some power ruled his mind--had overcome it while he was unconscious. for some reason, he had been _allowed_ to regain a very limited consciousness--just so much and no more! perhaps he would learn the answer to this mystery. why had the white mist not destroyed him? a murmur of voices beat against his ears. he'd been given back his hearing! the voices were low, soft. they spoke in a language foreign to him--martian he guessed. words faded away. there was a moment's silence, then the chant he had heard before. above barry, a voice spoke to him in inter-planetary esperanto: "son of earth, you are not as the other earthmen who come here to rob this unhappy planet, and slay its children." the voice was that of a woman, clear, musical, unutterably sweet--pathetically sad. it paused; spoke again. a new note crept into the words, ringing, thrilling: "go your way--leave in peace, but travel far from this planet. the mist of mars will destroy all those who remain to despoil and murder here." williams felt consciousness slipping from him once more. he struggled to speak. he must speak! these people must be told of his mission here! but his lips would not move. struggle was useless. feeling was gone from his body. the last sound he heard was the voice of a man, deep and full: "heed the warning of the mother of mist. this once you have been spared." ii barry opened his eyes as the red sun climbed over the rim of the rolling desert. his head was clear, his mind refreshed and alert. these symptoms strengthened his convictions that he'd been hypnotized. the power of a highly trained mind was being used in this campaign against earthmen. perhaps the mist was produced both to hide the operator and to frighten the victim--making the latter easier prey to the force that invaded the brain, and had literally torn out the life essence of the other victims. shrugging off further speculation for the moment, barry climbed painfully to his feet. his muscles were stiff and cramped from lying hours on the ground. he flexed his arms and legs, worked his fingers, getting out the soreness. then he started for his spaceship. as the rockets throbbed behind him, barry tried all the controls. the little ship whipped through every intricate maneuver he'd ever known. it slowed his progress, this senseless stunting, but it showed him the ship was in prime condition, answering his every touch on the controls. why was he doing this? it was as if he were going on a trip. yet he had no such intention. the mist had spared him, and was gone. the mist! the thought brought the answer to his strange preparations--hypnosis again--post-hypnotic suggestion! having spared him and ordered him to flee the planet, the being behind the mist had meant him to remember the advice. barry's lips set in a straight line, and hard little muscles stood out on his cheek, along his strong jaw. he hadn't the slightest intention of fleeing mars. he'd been sent here for a purpose by the terrestrial government, and he had come to realize the whole deadly threat of this martian scourge against earthmen was tied up with the reason for his being here. barry william was staying on mars till he'd finished his job. below him, the circular, thick-walled, high-domed center flashed over the horizon and loomed larger in the lower view-plate before barry on the control board. soon he was close enough to see the narrow apertures, where, in the early days of terrestrial occupation, mighty ray cannon had blasted against bands of martians who still had crude weapons to use against the victors. barry put his ship down neatly in a semi-circular row of other craft. there were, he noticed, more ships parked outside than was usual for a post not close to the bigger mine. one of them was a large, ornate cruiser type, on which was painted in neat gold letters: "_grey enterprises, inc._" it was the personal, space-going ship of craig grey, billionaire ore-king, himself. the latter was probably inside the center. that would account for the unusual number of ships, for grey never travelled anywhere without a large following. as barry stepped through the door-lock onto the field, a small knot of men, dressed for travel, stopped outside the building door. they stared open-mouthed at the government identification letters on barry's craft, then at him. obviously, they'd turned and bolted inside--bolted with a speed and singleness of purpose that seemed like panic! puzzled, barry pushed aside the heavier, outer door. from inside, an excited murmuring of voices came through the second door. * * * * * silence fell over the big room within, as he entered. every man there, most of them free-lance ore-seekers, was in the crowd pressing around one man who stood against the bar. that man was easily recognizable, for his picture had been printed from mercury to pluto. he was craig grey. a subordinate stood on each side of him, keeping the others at a respectable distance. grey looked at barry with bleak, cold eyes. the ore-king was a dapper little man, who apparently fought his advanced years with the aid of science. his hair was coal black, as was the tapering, precise mustache--though both should have been gray long ago. he lifted a well-manicured hand, and sucked on a cigarette through a long holder. despite his culture and small stature, barry williams sensed that this man could be a deadly enemy. the glowing cigarette in its long holder swept out in a graceful arc toward the men barry had seen outside. "this is the searching party that was about to set out for you, williams," said grey in a flat, thin voice. "a spaceship reported seeing you last night on the desert--with the white mist closing in." "very decent of you fellows to worry," williams said amiably. "i came in under my own power." his words fell into a silence that was tenser than before. they had just been discussing him, williams was positive. grey, who had never seen him, had known his name! barry said nothing. he waited calmly for the answer to this odd reception. somehow, he sensed hostility in the earthmen here. beneath the poised, still friendly gaze of his blue eyes, the others grew restless. feet shuffled. murmurs came from the rear of the group. "these martian savages are behind this mist." "they're out to kill all us earthmen," came another voice. and a third questioned: "how could a man get out of that mist alive?" "unless he's a friend of those killers," finished another. the color of barry's eyes deepened into the blue-grey of carbon steel. "i owe explanations only to earth government!" he snapped. "is that clear?" murmurs rose again--angry now, and the faces of the men grew dark and menacing. but grey waved his long cigarette holder for silence. he was the unquestioned leader on mars. his company owned most of the largest mines. he spoke coolly: "what you say may be true, williams, but we feel we've a right to some answer. after all, my company has billions invested here. and these men," his gesture took in the miners and ore-seekers, "have their lives invested. all of _us_ are threatened by this mist." "fair enough," said barry williams. "i'll be glad to tell you, since you're _asking_." he told them briefly of his encounter with the mist. when he'd finished, the taut silence in which they'd listened was snapped by angry mutterings. this time the anger seemed directed against the accusations of the martian maiden, rather than against barry. "those savages calling _us_ murderers!" * * * * * craig grey's voice was scornful. "ridiculous of course. these creatures are human only in superficial resemblance." he drew deeply through his long holder, and blew a great cloud of smoke toward barry. "of course, _you_ know that earth laws have declared them savages, and provided that none save humans of earth descent can hold property on mars, or citizenship in the earth state. how could we murder or rob them--since they're not human and own nothing?" "true--and interesting," conceded williams. "i know too the laws were passed on suggestion of exploring parties sent here by three big inter-planetary combines, of which your own was the largest. that was fifty years ago. you were at the head of your company then--excuse me for giving your age away." williams was speaking slowly, thinking his way. some of the puzzle of mars was unfolding as he spoke, against this background of resentful earthmen. "those laws gave you and your friends control of great wealth in the ore mines. you broke the resistance of the martians, and used some as cheap labor in the mines. the others had to find ore dust and sell it to you for a song, to buy food and other things from you at your price. and they had to avoid being shot by ore-seekers who wanted the dust." again the other men growled toward barry. "martian lover!" "justice from the crypt, eh? we'll send you back there!" "'tain't murder or robbery to kill savages!" "go running back to earth with that phoney story." "no!" he answered them. "i'm not leaving mars until i finish my job. the bureau of martian affairs sent me here to see if some educational program could be started among the martian savages. i think it could. these people could pass for earth citizens in the streets of washington itself. as soon as i get to the bottom of the mist, and stop it, i'll be ready to go back with my recommendation." the men began to surge toward barry. apprehension, as well as anger showed in their faces. what he suggested would mean the end of their chances to exploit the planet and its people so freely--and of mars as a frontier. "i don't think you'll get away with this, williams," craig grey said softly. "you've admitted being on the side of the martians who are trying to kill us!" "i'll put the first man who raises a hand under arrest," said the other just as softly. "that's a bluff i'll call," snarled a big man. he was one of the subordinates who'd stood beside the ore-king. now he hulked forward, hand dropping slowly toward the belt where two ray guns dangled. "you won't be arresting anyone! every earthman on mars will be after you--just like i am!" "i'll have to take your weapons," barry began. to exert his authority as a representative of earth government now might save the situation--if he could make it stick. but an ugly look, spreading across the big man's face, pulling at his thick lips and blazing from his eyes was the answer. it was the look of a murderer, and there was no mistaking his intention as he brought up a ray gun. "you can have them--this way," he sneered. the other men in the center scattered for cover, their faces relieved that the threat barry represented was to be so quickly removed. but earth investigators were well trained. barry williams' ray crossed the other. the big man fell, life burned out of him. barry swung the weapon in his hand significantly about the men. "if this is the way you want it, there's an example of what will happen to anyone else who tries to stop me. and don't forget, i represent the authority of earth government!" he backed toward the door, watching them warily. "it won't be wise for the rest of you to try to follow me!" outside, he made for his ship at a dead run. ray beams were splashing into the red sand at his feet, when he entered the port. safe behind the apertures of the center, the men were trying to cut him down. * * * * * barry blasted his ship into the air, and watched the center grow small behind and below him. his lips were set in a straight, tight line, while his mind went over his position. grey would fan the hostility of all the earthmen on mars against him. barry was sure from what he'd seen of the martians that they were far from the savages they'd been called by explorers financed by grey and his associates. they were an intelligent peaceful race, uneducated and unadvanced, but intelligent. earth government had been misled into oppressing them, and grey had profited enormously. the ore-king would stop at nothing to keep barry williams from destroying the set-up. already he'd connected barry with the white mist, a martian attempt to win freedom and revenge--an attempt that barry must stop! the white mist meant the killing of earthmen, and the rebellion would convince earth government that the martians were savages. barry williams wanted to save human lives--even the lives of those who were murdering and robbing on mars under the flimsy pretext of these laws. and he wanted to see justice done on mars. these things were not very probable, though, barry knew. grey's clever move had trapped him on mars. he hadn't enough fuel in his ship to reach earth, nor was his radio strong enough to contact the planet. with the earthmen trying to kill him, he'd be unable to get supplies. and the martians had warned him to leave the planet--a second time the white mist might not spare him! still, his only chance was to reach the martians who were behind the white mist. if he could convince them of his intentions--he had to convince them! then they might help him reach earth; and hold off their ominous attacks against earthmen until he could put the situation before the government of earth. if he could manage that, barry was sure he could save human lives and do justice on mars! he had to find the martians! barry brought his ship down low over the red sand and started his search. he knew that hostile earthmen, armed to the teeth and intent on killing him, were searching also. their search was successful, while he still looked vainly for martians. not even a nomadic wandering native was moving over the sands. and the blazing midday of the red planet brought the end of barry williams' opportunity. "these natives know something is up," he was musing. above him, the sun was a ball of flame, its rays blistering, blinding through the thin atmosphere. it was out of this blind spot that a voice snapped across barry's thoughts like a whiplash: "the game's up, williams." he knew then that his thoughts had left him open to attack. "you heard me, williams." the latter knew that cold, precise voice. it was craig grey. barry could not see the ship, but he knew the ore-king's cruiser would be hovering high above, safely out of sight in the sun's rays. and from that focal point of his enemies, the ether began to crackle with orders. other craft began to converge rapidly on the spot, very close to where the investigator had the white mist. they ringed barry as the mist had, closed in. their blazing ship rays, in the nose of each craft, formed spokes to a wheel of which barry williams' ship was to be the hub. he charged into that ring, broke it! he scattered them before him, some of them dropping downward with blazing hulls. but, as often as he drove them before him, grey's cold, hard face appeared in the visa-radio. his commands reformed the others, brought them back to the attack. finally, as barry fought off another encirclement, the space cruiser of craig grey dropped unseen from above. four red rays reached toward the investigator's ship, closed about it like the fingers of a hand. barry had no chance to turn and make the prolonged ray contact it would have taken to damage the big, heavily-armored ship. his control board indicators flashed a bitter message in his eyes--his ship was lost! in the visa-plate before him; was grey's exulting face, the long cigarette holder clamped between the thin, smiling lips. above, like good dogs closing for the kill, the ships were following barry down behind the pack-leading cruiser. iii williams got his wrecked craft on an even keel somehow, and spun her with his side jets to keep her even. his trip down was an incredibly swift repetition of these movements, designed to land the ship on the red sands with a cushioning belly-smack. they were following him down to make sure he did not escape the crash alive--to ray the smashed ship into an incandescent heap of metal! at the last moment, barry stretched out a leg, and kicked hard at the emergency door-lock lever release. whipped open by the air-wash, the door was waiting as he leaped from the seat. with a last look at the viewscreen--showing the red terrain flashing into his face--he spun out into the air a second before the crash. darkness swept over him as he landed! it was not the darkness of unconsciousness. he'd landed on his back, pulled by steel muscles into an arc that rocked the impact from his hurtling body. but, somehow, a covering was over his eyes, and two men lay beside him, one on either side. they spoke softly to each other over his head in a language barry recognized but could not understand; martian! he'd found the martians all right, the hard way! but grey and his men would ray them all out of existence in a matter of seconds. overhead the rockets of the ore-king's ships thundered closer. they'd seen his body hurtle from the wreck, and were searching! he wished the martians hadn't blindfolded him. an intolerable glare from many ray beams beat through the covering over his eyes. this was it! the heat of those beams brought sweat through every pore of his body, but that was all. the drumming of rocket jets receded. they were leaving! why hadn't they seen him? they'd rayed his ship into a heap of molten metal that warmed him where he lay, yards away. but he and his captors were unhurt. apparently, grey and his men had decided they'd been wrong about seeing the investigator jump. they'd decided he was still in the wreckage. but why hadn't they seen grey and the martians? the question was quickly answered. as the thrumming of rockets died in the distance, the two martians pulled barry to his feet. he blinked as sunlight struck his eyes, and looked about. the three of them were standing in the open, but a large square of rough cloth at their feet explained why the ships above hadn't spotted them. it was colored to blend into the red sand so perfectly it was almost invisible to barry. his respect for martians leaped! a peaceful race they had been, before they were attacked and conquered. but now they were showing how fast they could learn. they'd mastered one of the most effective stratagems of warfare, camouflage. the clothing of his martian captors was the same color as the cloth that had covered them, even to masks over the face. one of them tugged at barry's arm and spoke softly in martian. they wanted him to go with them. he went gladly. if they took him to their headquarters, he'd have the chance he wanted--to ask their help, and offer them his! his heart was beating wildly. grey and his followers would learn that earth government had an answer for fraud and injustice! his respect for the martians increased again, when he was taken through a cleverly concealed passage into a sand-swell. inside was a rough room, ingeniously hewn and held from collapsing inward. here were three more martians, garbed as his captors were. one sat before a visa-radio. this group of martians was well organized! they'd salvaged equipment from wrecked and abandoned ships. * * * * * one of barry's companions went to the radio and spoke rapidly in martian, apparently reporting. the view screen was blank, but barry heard the martian use the word, "deisanocta," and something clicked in his mind! the chanting he'd heard last night in the mist, "day-ess-a-nocta!" was it the name of the lovely martian girl, she who seemed to be the leader of these men? one of them had spoken of her respectfully as the mother of mist. it was she he wanted to speak to, barry williams realized. and it was her voice that struck his ears a moment later, answering the report of the man! her words were soft, gentle yet commanding. there was a timbre to her throaty voice that moved barry, brought him a picture of her large, somber grey eyes against the clear white of her face. "deisanocta," he cried, starting suddenly forward. "i must speak to you!" his captors seized him roughly. their faces were horrified. barry realized he had probably violated some form of martian royal etiquette--for this girl was undoubtedly a martian princess. there had been royalty on mars when the earthmen came, although the line had been believed destroyed during the conquest. again the soft voice came into the room through the radio, still speaking in martian. a few words, and the instrument clicked dead. "wait!" cried barry. but it was useless. the girl had ignored him, and cut the connection. two of the martians held barry williams firmly, although no longer roughly. another had gone to a little cabinet. he came toward barry, a hypodermic needle in his hand. struggle was useless. barry extended his arm with a smile, and saw admiration in the other's eyes. there was a sharp, momentary pain in his arm as the needle was expertly inserted. then a sensation of well-being, flooded the earthman. a warmth flowed through his veins, and pounded a flush into his face. there was nothing else. the martian went back to the cabinet, came again toward barry. this time he extended his hand, in the palm of which lay two white tablets. the look on the martian's face was clear. barry williams must take them, of his free will or forcibly. again barry accepted graciously, and saw the martians smile in approval. he gulped down the tablets. it was only brief seconds later that he sagged toward the ground. there was no sensation save a weariness, a heaviness of his limbs and eyes. darkness rolled over him, soft and deep and comfortable blackness. * * * * * barry williams' will tugged at his eyelids, as his consciousness returned. they responded sluggishly, reluctantly. his muscles, too, resisted, with a numbness that revealed he'd slept a long time. beneath him, the red sand of the martian desert was his couch. when, finally, his blue eyes focused, he saw nothing; nothing save a white blanket that folded about him on every side--the mist! struggling to his feet, he moved stiffly a few steps, to the right, the left, forward, back. there was nothing anywhere except that blanket of mist. no stars, no bright moons! the sand at his feet was almost obscured by the silvery curtain. barry's mind was clearing, and he stopped short with a sudden realization. yesterday--or had it been yesterday, there was no telling if it was night or day--the mist had oppressed his senses, brought him to his knees paralyzed and helpless! yet, now, it had no effect. he breathed deeply, remembering how his lungs had labored and his mind reeled the last time. but the mist was refreshing as the purest air, and his mind remained clear. the hypodermic they'd given him! it must be an antidote to the drug that was in the mist--for barry was now sure the mist was a depressive drug, meant to paralyze and terrify. the dead earthmen had not died from the mist itself, but from some power that struck under cover of that terror! but the martians had immunized him! barry shrugged. perhaps he'd convinced them he was a friend, and they'd stamped him with this immunity that all their fellows might know him from the other earthmen who were enemies-- the thought brought a sudden chill to barry williams' spine! he'd been walking, first slowly, then, as his legs lost their stiffness, more and more rapidly. yet, still the mist was all about him. never in its ghostlike appearances before had the mist covered more than a small patch of the desert! these thoughts began to add together in his mind. immunizing him--a fiend, putting him to sleep so that he would be unable to argue or resist until he could be safely disposed of, the extent of the mist. all this could mean-- "this is it," barry groaned aloud. "this is the revolt! "the first appearances of the mist were to terrorize, and to test! this is the real thing; the mist over the whole surface of mars, organized martians striking under its cover!" his words came back to him from the hateful white blanket, muffled and run together into unintelligible echoes. "you failed--failed!" the echoes seemed to mutter. "earthmen will die--earth troops will come against the 'savages.' no justice for mars!" barry shook his head angrily against his imaginings. suddenly, he stumbled and pitched forward over something at his feet. his heart sank at sight of the gruesome thing in the sand. a dead earthman--but not unmarked as had been the earlier victims of the white mist. this man had been killed by violence, killed as he lay unconscious, overcome by the mist drug! "this is it," barry groaned again. another form of death was striking under the silver blanket. this man had been a murderer and exploiter, but to earth government he was a citizen killed by savages! barry williams stumbled on dazedly. there was nothing he could do! he stumbled over another body and passed on. a third form appeared in the sand at his feet. he started to turn aside, then stopped. * * * * * quickly he bent over the figure, his hand going to the pulse. there was a heartbeat, and the chest moved slightly with breathing! this body was alive, there were no wounds. peering into the face, barry realized it was a martian! a martian overcome by the mist. after puzzling a moment, barry laughed. of course! all the natives couldn't have been in on the plans--not even most of them. therefore, they'd be drugged and put to sleep like the earthmen. martians overcome by the means that was to free them! barry's mind was racing. free them! that was it! they'd be needed for the fighting. the other martians, the organized ones under deisanocta, would come to give immunizing injections to such of their fellows as this one barry found on the sand! with the realization, barry williams threw himself down on the ground. he couldn't be far from the place they'd captured him. that meant, the vicinity of the martian princess' headquarters. perhaps she herself would come, searching for her followers. she did. she came silently, short minutes later, moving like a wraith in her silver mesh costume, that somehow made her seem part of the mist. mother of mist. barry remembered the title. the silver accents of her voice came clearly to his ears. she spoke in martian. two of her men appeared beside her. one went toward the fallen martian, something in his hand that barry knew would be a hypodermic syringe. the other saw barry, started toward him. "hold everything!" barry leaped up. "i am no enemy." the other paused, he knew there could be only one earthman who walked through the mist unharmed. barry's eyes went to deisanocta. "princess, i must speak to you!" she came closer, until her face was clear before him. her grey eyes glowed softly. "i know of your mission here, barry williams," she said in her throaty voice. "your mind was open to me when first we met in the mist." it had been she who hypnotized him! barry nodded slowly, he'd suspected as much. "then you must know i want to help your people. this fighting must stop. i promise you that, if i can reach earth--if you will help me get a ship and fuel--i can win justice and freedom for your people!" the girl's eyes flashed. "a free mars will make its own peace with earth," she cried. here was the spirit not of savages--but of a free race earth could respect! her voice softened. "but thank you, barry williams. you have been spared because your purpose here was friendly, and because i--i--trust you. "now." her eyes glowed from deep within, "you will sleep, barry williams, sleep the walking sleep under my will." * * * * * barry met her gaze, feeling the impact of her mind. for long moments, his eyes were locked with hers. a puzzled doubt appeared at last on her features. "sleep, barry williams," she murmured uncertainly. "sorry," he grinned. "there's no more power in the mist over my will--and you can't hypnotize me against my will. hypnotism is a new art with your people, princess. you forgot to condition me to your commands." deisanocta smiled. "an old earthman implanted the science in my mind when i was but a child, being hidden from the oppressors. much that is there, i do not know how to use." "won't you let me help you," asked barry williams. "if you ignore my advice, that's up to you." she considered his words. her eyes on his still glowed, but with a different light. "very well," she said at last. "you may stay with me. after victory, you can be my emissary to earth." barry walked beside her, the martians of her party following respectfully behind. "why don't you take these men prisoners," barry asked, "instead of killing them?" deisanocta answered sadly: "my people have been killed and beaten too long. i could not restrain them. "besides, these men could be dangerous. if some of my mist-producing units failed, those who sleep in that area would awaken after a few breaths of air. we would have enemies behind us." she smiled a little wistfully. "these earthmen do not sleep as deeply as you did from those pills." "you must capture craig grey alive," he said with sudden realization. "while he sleeps under the influence of the mist, you can hypnotize him. then we can learn the details of his fraud, how he deceived earth about your people! with names and facts, we can convict him--prove his guilt!" "it shall be so," she promised. "even now my followers are awakening those of our people who sleep. when all are gathered, we will move into the mine headquarters and the forts. we go slowly, for some of our enemies will be in spaceships, safe from the mist drug. but we will take enough weapons as we go to overcome them!" "i hope," barry muttered. deisanocta seemed not to hear him. her grey eyes were alight, her cheeks flushed with excitement. "the hour is very near," she said. "mars shall be free! "come, i must speak with my men." she led the way toward a nearby sand-swell, moving with that marvelous sense of direction that seemed a characteristic of martians. for generations, they had made their way unerringly over the trackless desert. now, even in the mist blanket that made objects invisible short feet away, the princess did not falter. straight to a cleverly concealed door she walked, through, and into the same type of room barry williams had seen before. at her entrance, a martian lowered his ready heat ray and stood respectfully for her commands. iv deisanocta walked to the visa-radio, clicked it on. this time she switched in the view screen also. her white hands spun dials, and she began to speak in martian, calmly, insistently. the view screen took on depth and color. she adjusted condensing levers and it divided into a dozen smaller squares. slowly each square filled, until the faces of a dozen martian men looked out at her--silent, waiting faces, behind each of which the white mist formed a backdrop. deisanocta's red lips twitched, and her lovely eyes leaped into sudden flame. for a moment, she was silent. barry could feel tension building up in the room, and see it in the faces of those who looked out of the screen. then the princess spoke a single short sentence in her own tongue. barry williams did not need an interpretation. the meaning of the command was clear in its ringing syllables; "strike for mars!" twenty-four eyes blazed from the screen--the eyes of twelve field commanders flashing hatred of their oppressors and fierce exultation that the hour of revenge was here! from each throat rose the same word, spoken in awe, reverence, resolution. "deisanocta!" thus they saluted their leader, the mother of mist, queen-to-be of mars! then the screen was blank. "in short minutes mars will belong again to its people, barry williams," said the girl softly. "we wait here for the report of my commanders." she sank to a sitting position on the red sand, arranging the silver mesh of her dress about her slim body. barry did likewise, as did the martian. minutes dragged by. the radio screen glowed softly, but remained blank. barry felt the muscles gather in his arms and shoulders. this idle waiting was hard to bear. if he could only be in there fighting-- deisanocta was finding it difficult to wait, too. the eager glow of anticipation had died away in her beautiful eyes. they were reflective, reminiscent. "all my life i've been trained for this moment," she said, at last. "deep in the crypt, burial ground of our race, the elders hid and taught me." "in the crypt!" exclaimed barry. "then the dying martian knew of you when he threatened 'justice from the crypt'!" "hardly," she smiled. "that was twenty years before i was born--ten years after the first earthmen came to mars. "he couldn't even have known that my parents were hidden there. they were still young, the last of martian royalty, hidden away by a few faithful servants." "what did he mean then?" she shook her head, the black tresses gleaming faintly under the mist. "we never knew." "tell me about this crypt," barry asked. "and tell me more about your people." "the crypt is our ancient burial place. it is underground, dry, and our dead are safe there from animals that would find bodies the shifting sand would not protect. "always, we laid our dead to rest there, until craig grey placed guards at the doors and forbade the practice." "he was afraid some weapon was hidden there," reasoned barry williams. "it's the only thing the dying martian's threat could mean." "what weapon could be there?" deisanocta asked mournfully. "our people were always peaceful. they lived beside the wells, growing the food they ate. it took earthmen to teach them to hate and kill--to know that ore dust was worth blood!" "does your written history give no clue of a time when the crypt was anything but a burial place?" "our people knew nothing of writing. that, too, we learned from earthmen, my elders learned it in secret and taught me." "and they developed the white mist there in the crypt, and brought the old earthman who taught you hypnotism?" barry asked. he pictured her frightened childhood among the dead, in the darkness so close to craig's guards who would have killed her on sight. * * * * * the girl read his expression. "it was not so terrible," she said wistfully. "there was peace, we were not tortured for ore dust, or made to slave in mines. it is light there, even deep down; for the walls are radioactive. "but my parents died of hearts broken by the suffering of their people. it was later that the white mist was developed, and i learned that my mission was to use it!" a faint noise broke into their conversation--a clicking that was suddenly almost thunderous in their ears as every other sound died! it was the radio receptor signal. in the screen, the twelve squares were filling again. the time for reports had come--and there had been no special report of victory. silence held, while the twelve faces grew into sharp focus. barry noted that at least three of the men had not been among the twelve who last faced their princess. the faces of the rest were dirty, tired, depressed. a couple were bandaged. before a word was spoken, barry williams knew that the news would be bad, and premonition turned his stomach into a leaden ball. in the screen, the twelve tired faces were silent, waiting. they were wooden, unmoving, until deisanocta spoke, calmly, questioningly. one after another, came the reports. each was brief, and although barry could not understand the martian words, he knew that he had been right. the news was bad. deisanocta's face paled as she listened. deep in her eyes raged a conflict of emotions, dismay, sorrow, anger. when the last report was heard, she spoke again. there was no hesitation in the throaty accents. words followed each other in a torrent that slowly swept away the numbness from the twelve faces before her! when she had finished, her commanders were again eager, their eyes flashing, exulting. "deisanocta! deisanocta!" came their chant, a promise of victory. again they faded from the screen to carry out her orders. when the girl turned from the screen, some of the confidence had slipped from her. her dark head was bowed, and her slim figure had lost some of its proud erectness. "grey's men were waiting for the attack," she told barry. "they wore space suits! "we waited too long--until he discovered how to protect his men from the mist. many of my followers have died in battle. we have not won a single objective!" "i am sincerely sorry," he said slowly. "sorry that some of your people have died; sorry that you have failed." her head snapped up, color flooding the pale cheeks. "we have not lost! the mist that covers mars will remain. my men have surrounded the enemy. they will harass his every move. "let grey wait for another attack--wait until his oxygen tanks are empty, and his space suits useless! then the mist will triumph!" * * * * * barry williams shook his head sadly. "can the mist reach up to the end of atmosphere," he asked, "where their ships can go to compress clear air? and, if so, can the mist reach across space to earth, from where grey's freighters can bring compressed air?" "i wonder if i read your mind rightly," deisanocta said scornfully. "i wonder if you are the friend of mars i thought you." he crossed to her in two quick steps. his hands gripped her elbows, drawing her up to face the intensity of his eyes. "yes, i am a friend of mars! that's why i'm here--that's why grey and his men hunt me as they do you!" she shook herself free. the flush of anger in her cheeks had deepened into a flaming crimson. her eyes avoided him. "then do not try to discourage me, barry williams. the mist will remain." he was silent, the plan he'd been about to suggest unspoken. if he was distrusted, this was no time to propose it. overhead, they heard the thrumming of rockets. barry smiled mirthlessly. "grey has his scouts out." "they will see nothing in the mist," deisanocta said confidently. but she turned to the radio and contacted her field captains. "it is the same everywhere," she told him. "the enemy's ships circle helplessly overhead." "i don't like it," barry said. "if i know craig grey, he's up to something. those ships aren't up there without a reason." deisanocta ignored this, her eyes speaking plainly her disappointment in the earthman she'd believed a friend. instead of answering him, she turned to the martian who had waited so patiently and silently for her orders. "we will eat," she said haughtily to barry, after a few swift words to the other. "perhaps earth food will revive your courage." "thank you." barry ignored the slur, and sat down beside her where the martian was spreading a cloth on the ground. the thrumming of rockets died away as they began, and the princess glanced significantly at barry williams. he turned to the food in silence, a frown of concentration on his forehead. they had dried horse meat from earth, the staple dish of the natives, a poor grade of canned corn that was like a thin mush, and hard, wafer-thin pieces of bread. "my courageous followers won these provisions in battle," deisanocta said softly. barry was finding even the unappetizing menu inviting. he ate rapidly, being careful not to work too deeply into what he knew was a slender store of food. the girl watched him as she nibbled at her food. the scorn in her face slowly faded into sad reproach. it wasn't until the princess poured a glass of liquid and set it before barry, that the far-away look was swept from his eyes by sudden understanding. the liquid was martian wrin, a delicious, invigorating drink from native roots, much coveted and seldom obtained by terrestrials. even through the white mist that shrouded them, it sparkled from ruby depths. the color galvanized barry williams. * * * * * "red!" he exclaimed. "_infra-red!_ grey's ships were sweeping the desert with infra-red rays, and taking photographs with film sensitive only to those rays. when those prints are developed, he'll have the location of every mist-producing unit that's on mars, and of your followers!" "i don't understand," stammered the bewildered deisanocta. "i know nothing of these things." "just believe me," he pleaded. "order your men and the mist units to move at once!" deisanocta moved to the radio and obeyed. barry williams' heart leaped. she believed in him, her recent doubt forgotten before the vigor of his arguments. "and us?" she asked. "we're all right, being underground. the infra-red rays won't betray us in the photographs. listen!" they heard the sound of rocket jets overhead, and it was magnified, built into thunder in their ears. the radio was still tuned to the field command radios, and they brought the sound of grey's rocket ships from every corner of the planet. before their eyes, the white mist swirled, and on the view screen were twelve small squares of silver. suddenly, almost simultaneously, lurid streaks cut across those squares--flaming heat rays, softened into orange by the seething vapor! deisanocta gasped. "you were right, barry williams! had my forces not moved, they would have been destroyed. "but it is grey who has failed this time!" barry faced her slowly. his blue eyes rested on her lovely face, and the words he spoke caught in his throat. "grey will wait a short while for the mist to dissipate," he said. "when it does not, he'll go back to the pictures. about every spot where a unit or force was shown, he'll draw a circle. the radius of that circle will be the distance a man can travel on foot from the time the photograph was taken, until the time the ships return a second time. "then, one by one, he'll ray the entire area of those circles--concentrating as many ships as necessary for the job." deisanocta came very close to him. the pleading in the depths of her eyes shook barry williams. without realizing it, he put out his hands and again grasped her elbows. this time she did not draw away. she moved closer, until her lips almost brushed his as she spoke. he could feel her slim figure tremble, not with fear, but with struggling to repress the tears that were welling into her grey orbs, the sobs that were fighting her breath! "then this is defeat?" she whispered. "my loyal followers wiped out--the mist, our weapon, swept from the planet?" "the only alternative," he said with sudden fierce tenderness, "is to order the units turned off and buried in the sand. tell your men to split into small bands and hide in the desert. their camouflage will protect them from grey's scouts. "that way, grey will think he's won, and your forces will be intact for the future." deisanocta's small hand found his and held it as she issued the necessary orders. * * * * * when the screen was again blank, barry williams spun the dials. "what are you doing?" she asked. "tuning in earth on the regular broadcast channels." "earth! at this time, barry williams, you would listen to earth broadcasts!" he turned to her reproachfully. "don't you trust me yet? i must know how my government is reacting to the situation here; for, if you follow my advice, you and i will be putting the case of the martians before that government. i still think we have a chance of convincing them. but we'll need to find a spaceship, and take it." "you are right, barry williams," deisanocta admitted sadly. "you were right in the beginning, and my efforts have only brought failure. "my heart trusted you--believed in you; and because it was my heart, i mistrusted. i followed my reason instead--and no woman should do that." "i'm following my heart--have from the beginning," barry murmured. "and it tells me we haven't lost yet." his hands left her elbows, went about her waist. behind them, the martian turned away. "_revolt of martian savages_," broke in a voice from the radio. they froze, listening to the words that followed; "_craig grey, president of grey enterprises, incorporated, is present in person at the scene of trouble, directing the heroic resistance of terrestrial pioneers. he has been authorised by world government to capture barry williams, investigator of the dastardly campaign, dead or alive._ "_williams disappeared into the desert, and the abortive attack by the savages followed immediately. 'justice in the crypt', is said to be the wild battle shout of the martians. federal troops have embarked for mars. it is--_" barry snapped off the radio. "grey has pulled off another one!" deisanocta clung to his hand mutely, her white face revealing the despair the news had brought. barry's mouth was a straight, hard line. his eyes flamed, and muscles bunched in his shoulders. after a moment's silence, he turned the radio back on. "more orders for you, deisanocta. get in touch with your men. we want about half a dozen of the best, and tell them to bring along the oldest martian they can find!" "but what--why?" "if it's 'justice from the crypt' they want, we'll give it to them. we're going to find out what's there, and use it! "have your men meet us near one entrance to the place. tell them to bring a portable visa-radio, so we can call the rest if we need them. this is the only chance we've got left!" v over the red sands of mars, the silver mist of vengeance was slowly thinning. the two moons sent their light probing down, breaking through here and there to find and bathe the sand. where those rays found the little party that crept cautiously toward the crypt, it did not betray them under the red camouflage blankets. they moved silently ahead, invisible, determined. "we are there," deisanocta whispered at last to barry williams, beside her under the cloak. "we must rise and go on foot the rest of the way." "o.k." he said. he scoured the sky, his sharp blue eyes trying to pierce the mist. "if any ships come over, they won't spot us. the mist is thick here. "the trick will be to get by the guard at the entrance. we don't want to have to overcome him and risk an alarm." deisanocta was speaking to the martians. they rose with barry and the princess, and the little party stayed close together to avoid being separated in the white shroud about them. a suggestion from barry, and they formed into single file and moved forward. a sharp-eyed martian was in the lead. "we are fortunate," the princess said. "the guard is away from his post." "hurry," ordered barry. "inside! if we meet him after we're in, that's too bad for him." silently as the whiteness about them, the party filed into the crypt. it was colder here, for the tunnel sloped sharply downward, and the air was heavier. they had gone only a few steps before the last wisps of the mist disappeared. the heavier air had held it out of the crypt. about them, the walls shone with a faint radiance. "now!" barry turned to the girl. the party had been under his command from the beginning. even the martians had at last recognized that this earthman was a leader. "hypnotize the old martian. with a willing subject, you can produce a deep hypnosis. command him to think of the crypt, remember every thing he ever heard about it, or saw in it, from the time he was an infant!" deisanocta's eyes bored into the rapt, obedient face of the old martian. she murmured softly, sleepily in their tongue. the other's face slowly smoothed, his eyes going blank. her words became sharp, commanding, insistent. under their leashing, the old one's brow furrowed. he was remembering, digging deep into forgotten recesses of his mind. at last deisanocta spoke to barry. "i see the crypt seventy years ago. this one was here as an infant in his father's arms. "it was different. there are fewer bodies. their clothes are strange. none bear the wounds of battle." "remember what we're looking for," snapped barry. "i am deep down in the crypt," came the girl's voice, weaker. "deeper than even i have ever been. i do not know the part. there is something here, something big--i cannot make it out. it is very faint in this one's mind." "tell him to lead us to it," said barry. "that will save your strength." seconds later they were following the old martian through a labyrinth of tunnels. he moved rapidly, unhesitantly, his face wooden and intent. deisanocta was beside barry, her hand in his. "can it be?" she questioned. "is the answer as simple as this?" "i hope so," he told her. "it is something you wouldn't have thought of, because you did not remember all you were taught about hypnotism. and no one else could have done it against the old one's will." "look!" deisanocta cried suddenly. "he has lost his way." "impossible," barry said. but the old martian was leading them toward a blank wall. still he did not hesitate. with steps rapid, certain, he marched directly into the wall. his head struck, and he fell, rolling to their feet. * * * * * barry bent over him quickly, then rose one hand digging at the wall. "it's soft dirt," he explained. "didn't hurt him. he's only stunned." he stepped back to deisanocta. "that's why grey did not find whatever is here. it's somewhere behind that wall--cut off by an earth slide!" "but--what is there?" "we'll soon find out." barry's hand dug at the wall, scooping away the soft dirt. "tell the boys to start digging. but post a couple up the tunnel in both directions, so we won't be surprised." four martians and barry williams dug at the wall with cupped hands. it was hot, dirty work in the heavy air of the crypt. sweat beaded their faces. arms ached after the first few minutes. barry did not slacken his pace, and the others stayed with him. at last, the earthman gave a cry of triumph. "it isn't thick! see, the dirt is crumbling away from us now--falling on the other side." the vigor of their attack redoubled. hearing the cries, the martians posted down the tunnel came running to help. deisanocta stepped closer, her face radiant. barry threw her a glance, and his heart noted the way her black hair threw back highlights of the walls' radiance. his hand shot out again at the wall, viciously, and the last grains of dirt fell inward. light showed through. beside him, the others worked frantically. in seconds, the opening was large enough for one of them to pass through. "deisanocta," barry williams gasped. "go in. i'll be right behind you." the rest crowded behind, and all but the unconscious old martian were soon on the other side. they stared open-mouthed, incredulously at the sight that met them. it was a great room into which they'd made their way, the walls luminous, and stretching off almost out of view. there were no dead here. except for one object, the vast chamber was empty. that object itself was big, black, rearing upward above them halfway to the distant roof. "a spaceship!" cried deisanocta. "the great-grandfather of all space ships," added barry. "look at the size of it, the diameter of those rocket tubes! used a poor fuel, inefficiently. but they made it. crashed through the roof of this place. look at the dark patch overhead, where sand filled in a gap." "'justice from the crypt'," murmured the girl. "i think i--" "so do i," rapped barry. "come on, you and i are going inside. tell the others to guard this opening!" hand-in-hand, the two of them passed through a yawning port. beneath their feet, the ramp was solid. metal did not corrode, in this dry atmosphere. the old ship had not deteriorated in its years here. barry williams and the girl passed down a long passage, unlit except for the faint radioactive radiance that made its way in through smaller portholes. they came to a door, which would not yield to barry's efforts. "locked," he said. "we can't stop for that." his heat ray came out. the beam played against the lock until the metal glowed and ran. barry kicked at the bottom of the door where the metal was cooler. it swung inward. "it's the control room," barry said as their eyes slowly adjusted themselves to the even dimmer light of the room. barry's hand groped against the wall beside the door. there was a click, and a yellow radiance sprang from the ceiling. "even the batteries are still good," he muttered. "what is this?" deisanocta cried with a shudder. * * * * * the room was a maze of instruments, levers, panels about the sides. but it wasn't this that had shocked the princess, it was the bodies. two sprawled on the floor, one on its back still held a weapon in one hand. that weapon pointed to the third body. slumped in a chair before an instrument panel, the third body had grown rigid, a look of amazement on the undecomposed face. in the right hand, the weapon that had undoubtedly killed the other two, was still poised. "you can almost see the smoke curling from the muzzle of that ancient automatic," said barry grimly. "they fought it out--must have been after the one in the chair landed the ship--and everybody lost!" "it's--it's horrible," the girl murmured. "why--" a sudden commotion, reaching their ears faintly from outside, cut off her question. there were shouts--cries of pain and rage. running feet pounded up the ship's ramp, came down the passage toward them. barry brought up the heat ray in his hand--lowered it as a martian staggered into the room. he was burned across the face and body. his pale lips moved. faint words came forth. others were choked off as he slumped to the floor. his body sprawled beside the other two already there. "he says a god comes," deisanocta explained wildly. "one they cannot harm. the rest of my followers in the room outside have fallen." other footsteps sounded at the door. barry's heat ray came up again. this time its beam sprang across the room, bathed the figure that came through the door with blazing heat. "no good, williams," came a sneering voice, metallic through a space suit communicator. "don't you know impervium when you see it?" "yes, i know it," said barry. his eyes had noted the thin, fragile-looking garment over the space suit that craig grey wore. impervium, fabulous, incredibly expensive, proof against any heat ray. "there's about a dozen suits in the system, and you have to have one!" craig grey's little black eyes snapped with triumph. "a man who fights savages needs one, williams," he mocked. his glance flickered to deisanocta, lingered a a long minute. "i see now why you went over to the martians." barry took a step toward him, fingers itching. "you--" grey brought up his heat ray. "careful, williams. you have little enough time to live as it is." barry stopped, bafflement stamped on his face. a rash move would leave deisanocta at the mercy of this man. craig grey laughed. "i figured you could solve the mystery about this place, that's why i told my guards to let you past. i knew you'd come here instead of trying to run to earth--after i told them of your activities on mars." "grey, you can't get away with this," gritted barry. he took another step--not toward grey, but in the direction of deisanocta. "stand still!" snapped the ore-king. the weapon in his hand was very steady. "i want to look around." * * * * * his glittering eyes roamed about the control room. "so this is the secret weapon of the crypt! i knew it'd be something my boys would be better off not seeing--no chance of a leak this way." "earth troops will find it," barry threatened. "an atomic bomb will take care of that," the ore-king countered smoothly. "you won't be around to tell them about it, and neither will the girl. i'll keep the secret myself." keeping his weapon trained on the two, grey prowled about the room. "here's the ship's log," he thumbed through rapidly, not relaxing his vigilance for an instant. "hmm. left earth in --during the last continental war. two scientists, a rich backer--" his hand swept to the body in the chair. "that would be him--rich backers are often seeking power. "ship-full of refugees from all lands--average people. going to establish a utopian world on mars." he snapped the book shut. "ancestors of your savages, grey," said barry quietly. "yes," replied the ore-king. "brains killed each other off in a locked control room--probably the keys to the ship's stores are locked in here with them. that left the others on their own--no sciences, no arts! they just farmed. "what a clincher you almost had, williams!" his heat ray came up, levelled. barry shuffled another half-step. craig grey laughed harshly, his little black eyes sweeping over them. "i'm a crack shot, williams. you can't rush me. but, just to be sure, you'll go first." the flaming beam of his heat ray cut across the room--and barry leaped at the same instant. pain lanced through his left shoulder. but he was not leaping toward craig grey--barry was plunging toward the floor. there was a body there, and he smashed into it--a body with an ancient weapon still clutched in a right, long-dead hand. craig grey backed away a step, the ray beam sweeping a fiery arch toward the other. a sharp report thundered in the room bouncing in a dozen echoes and re-echoes from the metal walls. smoke curled from the muzzle of the old automatic in barry's fingers, and bitter acrid smell was in his nostrils. long years in the dry atmosphere of the crypt had brought no corrosion, no deterioration to the weapon! again grey backed away, a curse ripping through his thin lips, suddenly clenched with pain. his right arm dangled uselessly, the ray gun dropping from nerveless fingers. barry williams came to his feet, the searing pain in his right shoulder forgotten momentarily in his triumph. "impervium was made to stop heat rays, grey. but an old automatic waited here hundreds of years to bring justice to mars!" he turned to deisanocta. her face was radiant, but the grey depths of her lovely eyes clouded as they fixed on his seared shoulder. "barry--" "never mind me," he ordered brusquely. "get to that radio we brought. tell your _men_ to let loose the mist again and attack at once!" craig grey's pain-twisted face went paler. "the mist! you can't--i destroyed--" "that's what you were supposed to think, grey," barry snapped. "but you'll see that silver lining shining through the cloud you brought to mars. then we'll put the mist drug and deisanocta's hypnotism to work on your rotten mind. we'll get enough details on your fraud to convince any government! "now come on, get outside! your men'll fall like sheep without leadership. i'll have the princess speed things up by offering amnesty to those that surrender without resistance." craig grey went slowly through the passage, down the ramp of the old spaceship. * * * * * twelve miles above the surface of the red planet mars, hovered the fleet of earth transports. the federal troops who'd made the trip from earth were never to land. for mars was a free planet, and earth government had commanded its forces to respect the sovereignty of deisanocta, queen of mars. from below, a steady stream of smaller ships was flowing up to the transports, and back downward for another load. "can't figure it out," said a puzzled soldier. "we came to fight martians--maybe take some martian prisoners; and we're going home loaded with earthmen who are prisoners." "there aren't any martians," explained his irate sergeant, "they're really earthmen. and these prisoners have been treating them like martians--or--or--" "never mind!" ordered his superior. "anyway the ether between here and earth's been burning. faces--pictures of documents, a confession, and all sorts of stuff have been radiographed to the old home planet. and we've got our orders." the sergeant was on firmer ground now. "here comes the guy i wouldn't want to be--craig grey! after the stuff he's admitted, three times his money wouldn't keep him from the gas chambers!" as the last of the earth ships blasted homeward, deisanocta, queen of mars, turned to barry williams, acting terrestrial ambassador. affairs of government weighed heavily on her, and barry's training had been of invaluable help. she fixed her tired eyes on him, and they glowed softly as she spoke. "and what will you do, barry williams, after the permanent ambassador has been appointed and sent here?" his blue eyes met her gaze. "read my mind, deisanocta. this time my will is not opposed to it. the answer is there." she came closer. "i will not use science to find that answer, barry. it is in your eyes and on your lips, but you must speak. "there are some things a woman, even a queen, wants to learn only from the lips of the man she loves." coming of the gods by chester whitehorn never had mars seen such men as these, for they came from black space, carrying weird weapons--to fight for a race of which they had never heard. [transcriber's note: this etext was produced from planet stories summer . extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the u.s. copyright on this publication was renewed.] ro moved cautiously. he knew the jungles of mars well, knew the dangers, the swift death that could come to an unwary traveler. many times he had seen fellow martians die by the razor fangs of gin, the swamp snake. their clear red skin had become blotched and purple, their eyeballs popped, their faces swollen by the poison that raced through their veins. and ro had seen the bones of luckless men vomited from the mouths of the droo, the cannibal plants. and others there had been, some friends of his, who had become game for beasts of prey, or been swallowed by hungry, sucking pools of quicksand. no, the jungles of mars were not to be taken casually, no matter how light in heart one was at the prospect of seeing home once more. ro was returning from the north. he had seen the great villages of thatched huts, the strange people who lived in these huts instead of in caves, and wore coverings on their feet and shining rings in their ears. and having quenched his curiosity about these people and their villages, he was satisfied to travel home again. he was a man of the world now, weary of exploring and ready to settle down. he was anxious to see his family again, his father and mother and all his brothers and sisters; to sit round a fire with them at the entrance to their cave and tell of the wondrous places he'd visited. and, most of all, he wanted to see na, graceful, dark eyed na, whose fair face had disturbed his slumber so often, appearing in his dreams to call him home. he breathed a sigh of relief as he reached the jungle's edge. before him lay a broad expanse of plain. and far in the distance rose the great cliffs and the hills that were his home. his handsome face broadened into a smile and he quickened his pace to a trot. there was no need for caution now. the dangers on the plain were few. the sun beat down on his bare head and back. his red skin glistened. his thick black hair shone healthily. mile after mile fell behind him. his long, well muscled legs carried him swiftly toward the distant hills. his movements were graceful, easy, as the loping of shee, the great cat. then, suddenly, he faltered in his stride. he stopped running and, shielding his eyes from the sun's glare, stared ahead. there was a figure running toward him. and behind that first figure, a second gave chase. for a long moment ro studied the approaching creatures. then he gasped in surprise. the pursued was a young woman, a woman he knew. na! the pursuer was a squat, ugly rat man, one of the vicious oan who lived in the cliffs. ro exclaimed his surprise, then his rage. his handsome face was grim as he searched the ground with his eyes. when he found what he sought--a round rock that would fit his palm--he stooped, and snatching up the missile, he ran forward. at great speed, he closed the gap between him and the approaching figures. he could see the rat man plainly now--his fanged, frothy mouth; furry face and twitching tail. the oan, however, was too intent on his prey to notice ro at first, and when he did, it was too late. for the young martian had let fly with the round stone he carried. the oan squealed in terror and tried to swerve from his course. the fear of one who sees approaching death was in his movements and his cry. he had seen many oan die because of the strength and accuracy in the red men's arms. despite his frantic contortions, the stone caught him in the side. his ribs and backbone cracked under the blow. he was dead before he struck the ground. with hardly a glance at his fallen foe, ro ran on to meet the girl. she fell into his arms and pressed her cheek to his bare shoulder. her dark eyes were wet with gladness. warm tears ran down ro's arm. * * * * * finally na lifted her beautiful head. she looked timidly at ro, her face a mask of respect. the young martian tried to be stern in meeting her gaze, as was the custom among the men of his tribe when dealing with women; but he smiled instead. "you're home," breathed na. "i have traveled far to the north," answered ro simply, "and seen many things. and now i have returned for you." "they must have been great things you saw," na coaxed. "yes, great and many. but that tale can wait. tell me first how you came to be playing tag with the oan." na lowered her eyes. "i was caught in the forest below the cliffs. the oan spied me and i ran. the chase was long and tiring. i was almost ready to drop when you appeared." "you were alone in the woods!" ro exclaimed. "since when do the women of our tribe travel from the cliffs alone?" "since a long time," she answered sadly. then she cried. and between sobs she spoke: "many weeks ago a great noise came out of the sky. we ran to the mouths of our caves and looked out, and saw a great sphere of shining metal landing in the valley below. many colored fire spat from one end of it. "the men of our tribe snatched up stones, and holding one in their hands and one beneath their armpits, they climbed down to battle or greet our visitors. they had surrounded the sphere and were waiting, when suddenly an entrance appeared in the metal and two men stepped out. "they were strange men indeed; white as the foam on water, and clothed in strange garb from the neck down, even to coverings on their feet. they made signs of peace--with one hand only, for they carried weapons of a sort in the other. and the men of our tribe made the same one-handed sign of peace, for they would not risk dropping their stones. then the white men spoke; but their tongue was strange, and our men signaled that they could not understand. the white men smiled, and a great miracle took place. suddenly to our minds came pictures and words. the white men spoke with their thoughts. "they came from a place called earth, they said. and they came in peace. our men found they could think very hard and answer back with their own thoughts. and there was much talk and happiness, for friendly visitors were always welcome. "there were two more white ones who came from the sphere. one was a woman with golden hair, and the other, a man of age, with hair like silver frost. "there was a great feast then, and our men showed their skill at throwing. then the white men displayed the power of their strange weapons by pointing them at a tree and causing flame to leap forth to burn the wood in two. we were indeed glad they came in peace. "that night we asked them to sleep with us in the caves, but they made camp in the valley instead. the darkness passed swiftly and silently, and with the dawn we left our caves to rejoin our new friends. but everywhere a red man showed himself, he cried out and died by the flame from the white men's weapons. "i looked into the valley and saw hundreds of oan. they had captured our friends in the night and were using their weapons to attack us. there was a one-sided battle that lasted three days. finally, under cover of night, we were forced to leave the caves. one by one we went, and those of us who lived still travel alone." ro groaned aloud as na finished her tale. his homecoming was a meeting with tragedy, instead of a joyful occasion. "what of my father?" he asked hopefully. "he was a great warrior. surely he didn't fall to the oan?" "he had no chance to fight," na answered. "two of your brothers died with him on that first morning." * * * * * ro squared his shoulders and set his jaw. he wiped a hint of tears from his eyes. "they shall pay," he murmured, and started off toward the cliffs again. na trailed behind him. her face was grave with concern. "they are very many," she said. "then there will be more to kill," answered ro without turning. "they have the weapons of the white ones." "and the white ones, as well. they probably keep them alive to repair the weapons if they become useless. but when i have slain a few oan, i will set the white ones free. they will help me to make more weapons. together we will fight the rat men." na smiled. ro was angry, but anger did not make him blind. he would make a good mate. the sun was setting when the two martians reached the cliffs. below them was the valley in which lay the metal sphere. ro could see it dimly outlined in the shadows, as na had said. a distance away, in another clearing, he could see many oan, flitting ghost-like from place to place. there were no fires, for the oan were more beast than man and feared flame; but ro could make out four prone figures. they appeared to be white blots in the dimness. one had long, golden hair, like spun sunbeams; another's head was covered with a thatch like a cap of snow on a mountain peak. "you say they came from a place called earth?" ro asked na in wonder. "they traveled through space in their 'ship,'" na answered. "they called themselves an expedition." ro was silent then. in a short time it would be dark enough to go down into the valley. when he had rescued the white ones, he would learn more about them. he turned away from the valley to study na. she was very beautiful. her dark eyes seemed to sparkle and her hair shone in the twilight. he understood why she had crept into his dreams. the darkness settled quickly. soon ro could barely make out the girl's features. it was time for him to leave. he took a pouch from his waist and shook out a gold arm band. this he clasped on na's wrist. "all men will know now that you are the mate of ro," he whispered. and he kissed her, as was the custom of his tribe when a man took a wife. without another word he disappeared over the edge of the cliff. they had already made plans for their next meeting. there was no need for a prolonged farewell. they would be together soon--on the far side of the cliff--if all went well. in his left hand and under his armpit ro carried stones. they were of a good weight and would make short work of any oan who was foolish enough to cross his path. his right arm he kept free for climbing. his fingers found crevices to hold to in the almost smooth wall. his toes seemed to have eyes to pierce the darkness in finding footholds. * * * * * the climb was long and dangerous. ro's skin glistened with sweat. he had lived in the cliffs all his life, and had made many perilous climbs, but never one on so dark a night. it seemed an eternity before he rested at the bottom. feeling his way cautiously, he moved toward the camp. he could sense the presence of many oan close by. the hair at the base of his neck prickled. he prayed he wouldn't be seen. an alarm now would spoil his plan. ahead of him, he saw a clearing. that would be his destination. on the far side he would find the white ones. he took the stone from his armpit and moved on. suddenly he halted. a dim figure approached. it was one of the oan, a guard. he was coming straight at ro. the young martian shrank back. "the rat men have eyes to cut the night." it was a memory of his mother's voice. she had spoken those words when he was a child, to keep him from straying too far. the oan was only a few feet away now, but his eyes were not cutting the night. ro could see his large ears, hear his twitching tail. in a moment the beast would stumble over him. like a phantom, ro arose from his crouch. the rat man was startled, frozen with fear. ro drove his right arm around. the stone in his hand cracked the oan's skull like an eggshell. ro caught the body as it fell, lowered it noiselessly to the ground. breathing more easily, ro moved on. he reached the edge of the small clearing without making a sound. strewn on the ground were shapeless heaps. they would be the slumbering rat men. ro suppressed an urge to spring amongst them and slay them as they slept. he lay flat on his stomach and inched his way ahead. it was slow work, but safer. when a sound reached his ears he drew himself together and feigned sleep. in the dusk he appeared no different than the others. his chest was scratched in a thousand places when he reached the far side, but he felt no pain. his heart was singing within him. his job was almost simple now. the difficult part was done. straining his eyes, he caught sight of a golden mass some feet away. crouching low, he darted toward it. in a moment his outstretched hands contacted a soft body. it seemed to shrink from his touch. a tiny gasp reached his ears. "be still," he thought. he remembered na's words: '_we spoke with our thoughts._' "be still. i've come to free you." and then, because it seemed so futile, he whispered the words aloud. then his mind seemed to grow light, as though someone was sharing the weight of his brain. an urgent message to hurry--hurry reached him. it was as though he was _feeling_ words, words spoken in the light, sweet voice of a girl. pictures that were not actually pictures entered his mind. waves of thought that took no definite form held a plain meaning. his groping hands found the girl's arm and moved down to the strips of hide that bound her wrists. he fumbled impatiently with the heavy knots. "don't move when you are free," he warned the girl as he worked. "i must release the others first. when all is ready i will give a signal with my thoughts and you will follow me." once again his mind grew light. the girl's thoughts assured him she would follow his instructions. * * * * * time passed quickly. to ro, it seemed that his fingers were all thumbs. his breathing was heavy as he struggled with the knots. but finally the golden-haired girl was free. ro was more confident as he moved to untie the others. he worked more easily as each came free and he started on the next. when they were ready, ro signaled the four white people to follow him. they rose quietly and trailed him into the woods. the girl whispered something to one of the men. ro turned and glared at her through the shadows. the progress they made was slow, but gradually the distance between them and oan camp grew. ro increased his pace when silence was no longer necessary. the four white people stumbled ahead more quickly. "we journey out of the valley and around the face of the cliffs," ro told them. "after a short while, we will meet na." "who is na?" asked the girl. "she is the one i have chosen for my mate," ro answered. the white girl was silent. they traveled quite a distance without communicating. each was busy with his own thoughts. finally the man with the silver hair asked, "why did you risk your life to rescue us?" "with your help i will avenge the death of my father and brothers and the men of my tribe." he stopped walking and stared around him for a landmark. they had traveled far along the foot of the cliff. according to the plan na should have met them minutes ago. then he gave a glad cry. squinting ahead he saw an approaching figure. it was--his cry took on a note of alarm. the figure was bent low under the weight of a burden. it was a rat man, and slung across his shoulders was a girl. ro's body tensed and quivered. a low growl issued from deep in his throat. he charged forward. the oan saw him coming and straightened, allowing the girl to fall. he set his twisted legs and bared his fangs. the fur on his back stood out straight as he prepared to meet the young martian's attack. ro struck his foe head on. they went down in a frenzied bundle of fury. the rat man's tail lashed out to twist around ro's neck. with frantic strength, ro tore it away before it could tighten. ignoring the oan's slashing teeth, the young martian pounded heavy fists into his soft stomach. suddenly shifting his attack, ro wrapped his legs around the rat man's waist. his hands caught a furry throat and tightened. over and over they rolled. the oan clawed urgently at the martian's choking fingers. his chest made strange noises as it pleaded for the air that would give it life. but ro's hands were bands of steel, tightening, ever tightening their deadly grip. then, as suddenly as it had started, it was over. the rat man quivered and lay still. ro dismounted the limp body. his face wore a wildly triumphant expression. it changed as he remembered the girl. he ran to her side. na was just opening her eyes. she stared around her fearfully, then smiled as she recognized ro. the young martian breathed a sigh of relief. na turned her head and saw the body of the rat man. she shuddered. "i was coming down the side of the mountain," she said. "i saw him standing at the foot. the shadows were deceiving. i thought it was you. it wasn't until too late that i discovered my mistake." ro gathered the girl in his arms. he spoke softly to her to help her forget. * * * * * when she had recovered from her shock, the small group traveled on. ro led them about a mile further along the base of the cliff, then up, to a cleverly concealed cave. "we will stay here," he told the others, "until we are ready to attack the oan." "but there are only six of us," one of the white men protested. "there are hundreds of the beasts. we wouldn't have a chance." ro smiled. "we will speak of that when it is dawn again," he said with his thoughts. "now we must rest." he sat in a corner of the cave and leaned back against the wall. his eyes were half shut and he pretended to doze. actually he was studying the white ones. the man with the silver hair seemed very old and weak, but very wise. the other men had hair as black as any martian's, but their skin was pure white. they were handsome, ro thought, in a barbaric sort of way. one was lean and determined, the other, equally determined, but stouter and less impressive. ro then centered his attention on the girl. her golden hair gleamed proudly, even in the dusk. she was very beautiful, almost as lovely as na. "tell me," he asked suddenly, "where is this strange place you come from? and how is it that you can speak and cause others to speak with their minds?" it was the old man who answered. "we come from a place called earth, many millions of miles away through space. my daughter, charlotte, my two assistants, carlson--" the lean man nodded--"grimm--" the stouter man acknowledged the introduction--"and myself are an expedition. we came here to mars to study." ro introduced himself and na. "what manner of a place is this earth?" he asked, after the formalities. "our part of earth, america, is a great country. our cities are built of steel and stone, and we travel about in space boats. now tell me, what is it like here on mars? surely the whole planet isn't wilderness. what year is it?" "you have seen what it is like here," ro answered. "as for 'year,' i don't understand." "a year is a measure of time," the old man explained. "when we left earth it was the year twenty-two hundred." "we have nothing like that here," said ro, still puzzled. "but tell me, about this speaking with the mind. perhaps i shall understand that." "it's simple telepathy. we have mastered the science on earth. it takes study from childhood, but once you have mastered the art, it is quite simple to transmit or receive thoughts from anyone. a mere matter of concentration. we--who speak different tongues--understand each other because of action we have in mind as we speak. we want the other to walk, we think of the other walking. a picture is transmitted and understood. it is a message in a universal language." ro sighed. "i am afraid we are very backward here on mars," he said wearily. "i would like to learn more, but we must sleep now. tomorrow will be a very busy day." ro slipped his arm about na's shoulder and drew her closer. with their heads together they slept. * * * * * ro awakened with the dawn. he was startled to find that na had left his side. he rose quickly and strode to the mouth of the cave. na met him at the entrance. she was returning from a clump of trees a short distance away. her arms were loaded with manno, the fruit of mars, and clusters of wild berries and grapes. "you see," she said, "i will make you a good mate. our table will be well provided for." "you will make no mate at all," ro said sternly, "and there will be no table if you wander off. your next meeting with the oan may not be so fortunate." he glared at her for a moment, then smiled and helped her with her burden. the others in the cave awakened. ro noticed that charlotte had slept beside carlson, but moved away shyly now that it was daylight. he noticed, too, that grimm was seeing the same thing and seemed annoyed. ro smiled. these young white men were no different than martians where a girl was concerned. when they had finished breakfast, they sat around the floor of the cave and spoke. it was carlson who asked, "how do you expect the six of us to attack the rat men?" "the oan are cowards," ro answered. "they are brave only because they have your weapons. but now that you are free, you can make more of these sticks that shoot fire." grimm laughed. "it takes intricate machinery to construct a ray gun," he said. "here in this wilderness we have sticks and stones to work with." ro sprang to his feet to tower above the man. his handsome face was twisted in anger. "you're lying," he shouted aloud, forgetting that the white man couldn't understand his words. "you're lying because you are afraid. you refuse to help me avenge my people because you are more of a coward than the oan." grimm climbed to his feet and backed away. ro advanced on him, his fists clenched. the old man also rose. he placed a restraining hand on ro's arm. "he's lying," said ro with his thoughts. "tell him i'm speaking the truth, professor," said grimm aloud. the professor repeated grimm's words with his thoughts. "it would be impossible to make new guns here," he said. "but there is another way. i have thought about it all night." ro turned quickly. "what is it?" he demanded. "the space sphere. there are weapons on our ship that are greater than ray guns. with those we could defeat the rat men." the professor shrugged, turned away. "but how could we get into the ship? it is too well guarded." ro fell silent. he walked to the mouth of the cave and stared out. when he turned back to the others, his attention was centered on na. "perhaps the attraction you seem to hold for the oan can be put to good use," he said aloud. "the sphere is a distance away from the oan camp. all of the rat men cannot be guarding it. perhaps, by revealing yourself, you can lure the guards away from their post." he repeated his plan to the others. "but they'll kill her," gasped charlotte. "she will be a woman alone," said ro. "the oan prefer to capture women when they can." "then she'll be captured," the professor said. "it's much too risky." ro laughed. "do you think i will let her go alone? i will be close by. na can lead the rat men through a narrow part of the valley. i will be above on the cliffs, waiting to pelt them with stones. carlson or grimm can be with me to roll an avalanche of rocks on their heads. "in the meantime, you can take over the unguarded sphere. the rest will be easy." the professor smacked his fist into his palm. "it might work at that. grimm can go with you. carlson and charlotte will go with me." "why me?" grimm demanded. "why not carlson? or are you saving him for your daughter?" * * * * * carlson grabbed grimm by the shoulder and spun him around. he drove a hard fist into the stout man's face. grimm stumbled backward. he fell at the cave's entrance. his hand, sprawled behind him to stop his fall, closed over a rock. he flung it at carlson from a sitting position. it caught carlson in the shoulder. gritting his teeth, carlson charged at grimm. but ro moved more swiftly. he caught the white man and forced him back. "this is no time for fighting," he said. "when the oan are defeated you can kill each other. but not until then." grimm brushed himself off as he got to his feet "okay," he sneered. "i'll go with the red man. but when we meet again, it will be a different story." carlson turned to ro. "i'll go with you," he said. "grimm can go with charlotte and the professor." when they had detailed their plan, the party left the cave. ro led them into the thickest part of the forest and toward the oan camp. they moved swiftly. before long they were at the narrow entrance to the valley. it was about a hundred yards long and twenty feet wide. the walls of the cliff rose almost straight up on both sides. "we leave you here," said ro to the professor. "na will lead you to the sphere. she will remain hidden until you have circled away from her. then she will reveal herself." ro looked at na for a long moment before they parted. he grew very proud of what he saw. there was no fear in her eyes. her small chin was firm. he turned to carlson. the young earthman was looking at charlotte in much the same way. "come on," ro said. "if we spend the rest of the morning here, the oan will try some strategy of their own." carlson seemed to come out of a trance. he swung around to trail ro up the sloping part of the mountain. they climbed in silence. once ro stopped to look down into the valley. but na and the others were gone. he felt a pang of regret as he turned to move upward. when they had reached the top, he and carlson set to work piling rocks and boulders at the edge of the cliff. they chose the point directly over the narrowest part of the valley. if all went well, the oan would be trapped. they would die under a hailstorm of rock. "you would have liked a more tender goodbye with charlotte," ro said to carlson as they worked. "was it fear of grimm that prevented it?" carlson straightened. he weighed ro's words before answering. finally he said, "i didn't want to make trouble. it was a bad time, and senseless, besides. charlotte and i are planning to be married when we return to america. it's not as though grimm was still in the running. i'm sure he'll see reason when we tell him. it's foolish to be enemies." "why don't you take her for your wife here on mars? that would end the trouble completely." carlson seemed surprised. "it wouldn't be legal. who would perform the ceremony?" ro seemed puzzled, then he laughed. "last night i thought that we on mars are backward. now i'm not so sure. when we find our mates here, we take her. there is no one to speak of 'legal' or 'ceremony.' after all, it's a personal matter. who can tell us whether it is 'legal' or not? what better ceremony than a kiss and a promise?" he bent back to his work chuckling. "i could argue the point," carlson laughed. "i could tell you about a place called hollywood. marriage and divorce is bad enough there. under your system, it would really be a mess. but i won't say anything. here on mars your kiss and a promise is probably as binding as any ceremony." ro didn't speak. he didn't concentrate and transmit his thoughts, but kept them to himself. the pictures he'd received from carlson were confusing. the business at hand was more grim and important than untangling the puzzle. * * * * * they finished their work and seated themselves close to the edge of the cliff. carlson was impatient. the inactivity rasped on his nerves. ro stared anxiously at the spot where na would make her appearance. the waiting was hard for him, too. pictures of the girl stumbling and being caught in her chase with the rat men flashed through his mind. he flinched at what would happen then. it would cost, not only his own life, but the lives of those who had gone to the sphere. suddenly his fears were wiped away. na appeared at the point he watched. she burst from the woods, running swiftly. a few seconds later, five rat men came into sight. one of them carried a ray gun. the running figures looked tiny from the height of the cliff. they would make very poor targets. but a glance at the narrow point below reassured ro. even if the stones went wild, they would still land in that small area. there was no chance of their missing. na had entered the narrow strip. she seemed to be tiring. the rat men gained. ro bit his lower lip and clutched the stones in his hands more tightly. carlson crouched behind the larger rocks and boulders, ready to roll them over the ledge. the rat men entered the pass. na had already passed below and was almost to the end, when she stumbled. her head struck the hard ground as she pitched forward and she lay still. ro's heart leaped in his breast. "now!" he shouted, and let fly with one of his stones. the missile left his hand with terrific speed. all the frantic strength in his arm was behind it. it flew straight to its mark. the oan carrying the ray gun dropped like a log. carlson shoved the heaviest boulders off the ledge. he worked furiously, moving from one to the next. they fell like a thunderclap on the rat men below. but ro had given the signal too late. three of the oan were crushed under the barrage. but one moved too swiftly. he passed under the falling stones unharmed and raced toward the fallen na. ro drew back his arm. his pounding heart made it difficult to aim. the stone left his hand in a powerful sweep, but went wild. the rat man was less than thirty feet from na. when he reached her it would be too late. ro snatched up another stone. he forced himself to be calm as he took deliberate aim. he made the throw smoothly. the stone sped from his hand. it streaked down on the racing oan and found its mark in the small of his back. the rat man threw up his arms and collapsed a few feet from his goal. carlson pounded ro's back jubilantly. the young martian smiled at the earthman's enthusiasm. then, quieting the elation he felt, he grew serious. "perhaps our friends have not fared so well," he said with his thoughts. "if we find that they have succeeded, we will have real cause to celebrate." carlson sobered. "if only they have succeeded," he said aloud. "if charlotte--" ro couldn't understand the words, but carlson's feelings were clear. he could understand that the earthman would be anxious about charlotte. he placed his hand on carlson's shoulder in a comradely gesture. "i have a feeling that all is well," he said, wondering how true his thought would prove. * * * * * the two men left the ledge and retraced their steps back to the valley. when they reached the foot of the cliff, na was standing there waiting for them. ro took her in his arms. "my stumbling princess," he sighed. "i don't know how you would exist without me." "i would fare very well," she answered, feigning haughtiness. "i only get myself in trouble to let you enjoy being a hero." a thought transmitted by carlson interrupted their talk. "we must hurry. they may need us." he had retrieved the ray gun the rat man had carried and was fingering the trigger impatiently. "they have only two of these now," he said, "but they will do plenty of damage." they set off in the direction of the sphere. ro carried a stone in either hand, ready for instant use. carlson urged them constantly to hurry. but ro needed no urging. he led them at a fast pace through the forest. in a short while they could see the gleaming sides of the sphere. ro signaled a halt. he moved on alone, cautiously. his eyes strained ahead for a sign of the enemy, but all was still. even at the edge of the clearing, he met silence. then the door to the sphere swung wide. grimm stepped out, smiling widely. he waved a greeting. ro called to na and carlson and stepped into the clearing. grimm advanced a few steps, still smiling. then his expression changed to one of fearful surprise. his eyes were fixed on a spot to ro's right. ro followed his glance. he saw three rat men standing some thirty feet away. they were half hidden by foliage, but ro could see that one carried a ray gun. he was sighting along the barrel, aiming at grimm. ro drew back the stone in his hand. he knew in that instant, his throw would be too late. grimm threw up his arms instinctively to ward off the burning death he expected. but the rat man never fired. a lance of flame seared past ro from behind him. the rat man holding the gun screamed in pain as the charge burned into his chest. he fell forward. ro released the rock in his hand, but it went wild. the remaining rat men fled. ro turned to find carlson holding a smoking gun. "lucky i happened to pick this up back there," the earthman said. "very lucky," said ro. "for grimm's sake." "into the sphere," grimm called. "those other two will be bringing the whole tribe back." carlson retrieved the dead rat man's ray gun. ro ushered na across the clearing to the door of the sphere. na hesitated a bit, then entered reluctantly. ro followed, then grimm and finally carlson. "i guess i owe my life to you," grimm said, as carlson closed the door. "and i owe you an apology for the way i acted this morning. i didn't understand how it was between you and charlotte. she explained. it was quite a shock, but i guess i'll live. apology accepted?" he extended his hand. carlson took it sheepishly. "tell me," ro interrupted, "did you meet any rat men when you took the sphere?" grimm shook his head. "those three just now are the first we've seen since we left you. when we got here the place was deserted. we--" a cry from another section of the sphere made them turn. it was the professor's voice. "here they come," he shouted. "hundreds of them." * * * * * carlson and grimm dashed through a doorway in the direction of the cry. ro followed, entering a spacious room. he was taken back by the intricate machinery he saw. there were countless numbers of dials and levers, gauges and indicators. carlson and grimm took their places at tiny portholes. ro found an unoccupied post and peered out. he saw a mass of grey bodies charging toward the sphere. there were more rat men than he'd ever seen at one time before. they seemed to be climbing over one another as they raced from the forest. a sudden whirring of machinery within the sphere caused ro to turn from the porthole. the three earthmen were working levers and twisting dials frantically. additional portholes appeared in the sides of the sphere. long tubes rose on folding legs from the floor and slid through the openings. "take aim," the professor shouted in a commanding voice. the whirring within the sphere grew louder. the floor seemed to quiver underfoot as giant motors generated energy. "fire!" the entire sphere shuddered. earthquaking explosions sounded outside as charges of force left the tubes to expel their power on the grey mass in the clearing. charge after charge was poured into the attacking rat men. ro leaped back to the porthole. he saw giant craters opening in the ground. hoarse screams of pain and terror reached his ears. scores of oan were literally torn apart. others disappeared completely. those of the attackers who lived retreated in disorder. ro noticed that one of the retreating oan carried a ray gun. "cease fire," shouted the professor. carlson and grimm turned from their guns laughing. "they won't be back," chuckled grimm. "they'll keep running for a week." ro moved silently to the post carlson had occupied. he picked up the ray gun the earthman had laid aside. "what do you want with that?" asked the professor. "the battle is over. there won't be any use for ray guns now. we've beaten them." "how does it work?" ro asked grimly. his face was hard with determination. the professor was puzzled, but explained the workings of the gun. he finished his explanation with, "but why?" ro walked to the door. "the oan still have a gun," he said. "when you are gone, they will return to use it on my people. that must not happen." he said no more, but left the room. na and the others heard the door of the sphere open and slam shut. carlson was the first to recover his wits. "come on," he said. "he may need help." the three earthmen armed themselves and left the ship. they saw ro disappear into the wood and took after him. ro moved swiftly and silently. he slipped through the underbrush like an elusive phantom. some distance from the sphere he saw a grey shadow running ahead of him. he drew a bead on the creature and fired. a feeling of power surged through him as the rat man screamed and died. he ran on. minutes passed before he saw the second oan. the furry beast died a flaming death without uttering a sound. ahead of him, ro saw a clearing. instinctively he swerved from his course to circle it. he had gone halfway around, when his eyes caught sight of a twisted, grey body perched on a limb overlooking the clearing. it was the rat man he sought--the one with the ray gun, crouching there, waiting for ro to step unsuspectingly into the clearing. * * * * * ro chuckled as he caught the oan in his sights. he pulled the trigger. fire seared from the muzzle of the gun. the rat man screamed wildly. he crashed down from the tree, leaving a trail of broken limbs in his wake. his body struck the ground with a dull thud, thrashed hopelessly for a few seconds, then lay still. ro laughed aloud and stepped into the clearing. he was still laughing when the three earthmen came upon the scene. "you should have seen the fool," ro said. "perched up there, waiting for me. what kind of a woodsman did he think i was?" he stooped and lifted the oan's gun. his face grew grave as he did so. when he came erect, he was covering the white men. "hold your weapons above your heads," he ordered. the earthmen obeyed, puzzled frowns creasing their faces. "now back to the sphere," ro instructed. marching in single file they returned to the metal ship. ro signaled them to halt then and called to na. she came into the clearing and stood at his side. "all right, into the sphere. all of you." "but why?" the professor protested. "what have we done? we're your friends." "do as i say," ro shouted nervously. then translated his words into the thoughts. the professor obeyed, then grimm. carlson was the last to enter. ro walked to the door behind him. "take these guns with you," he said, as the young earthman entered the ship. "we will not need them here. my people will return to their homes now and all will be as it was." "i understand," said carlson. "there is no place for us here. we have brought nothing but trouble." he extended his hand. "i'm sorry." ro accepted the earthman's gesture of friendship. he held the white hand in his firmly. "you are a good friend," he said quietly. "perhaps some day my people will grow up. perhaps you will come again and we will meet you on equal terms. but now, our primitiveness, your science--there can be nothing but trouble. make the others understand that. i will always remember you as friends. i wouldn't want our parting to be in anger." "they will understand, ro." the earthman closed the ship's door slowly. ro walked away from the sphere. he stood at the edge of the clearing, his arm about na's shoulder, and watched the many colored fire spit from the rear of the ship. he and na waved as the great mass of metal from another world left the ground. they waved until their white-skinned visitors had disappeared. "perhaps they will come again, when our people have grown up," ro whispered sadly. there was a hint of tears in his eyes.