Gulliver of Mars

Arnold, Edwin Lester

Published: 1898
Categorie(s): Fiction, Action & Adventure, Science Fiction
Source: http://www.gutenberg.org

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Copyright: This work is available for countries where copyright is
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Chapter 1
Dare I say it? Dare I say that I, a plain, prosaic lieutenant in the republic-
an 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 re-
lieves 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 dis-
malness 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 lead-
ing 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

3
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-rid-
ing 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 happen-
ing 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 appar-
ently 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-col-
oured 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

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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 appar-
ently 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 omit-
ted to take the dead man's carpet from the roof of the cab when they car-
ried 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 re-
luctantly carried it indoors with me.

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 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 ap-
peared 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

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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 extraordin-
ary 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 en-
terprise 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 un-
dulation went all round the fringe as though a sudden wind were shak-
ing 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

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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.

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Chapter 2
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 sus-
pended 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 com-
pletely. 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 sensa-
tion 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 convey-
ance 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 descen-
ded, 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 thick-
est 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,

9
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 sur-
face 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 glim-
mering 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

10
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 understand-
ing all I saw was novel, but more allured to the colour and life of the pic-
ture 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 ro-
mancer. Yet that picturesque lie of yesterday is amongst the accom-
plished facts of today! Therefore I am encouraged to ask your indul-
gence, 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 per-
vaded my brain. The sensation at first was like the application of ether to

11
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 dis-
tinctly 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 in-
structor 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 col-
lege. Never mind, the thing is done. Shall I pay you anything?"
"I do not understand."

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 "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 lan-
guage just received. Perhaps it was because my head still spun too gid-
dily 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 disap-
peared, 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 per-
petual 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

13
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 rue-
fully rubbing his tender skin, he turned on me mild, handsome eyes, an-
swering 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,

14
and seeing this I began to question him, for I was uneasy in my inner-
most 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 mo-
ment. 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, in-
fernal 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 cloth-
ing on me, all my terrestrial hungers in my veins!

15
 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.

16
Chapter 3
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 yon-
der, 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 wa-
terways were covered with skiffs being pushed and rowed in every dir-
ection; 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

17
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 mo-
mentary sparkle of wonder as their minds reeled down those many-tin-
ted 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 in-
credible 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 under-
laid 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

18
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 tas-
selled 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 other-
wise, 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 curi-
ous 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

19
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

20
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 some-
times 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 en-
treaty; 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 list-
lessness, 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,"

21
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 mar-
ried?—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

22
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 acknow-
ledge this is the perfection of ease."
"But supposing," I said, "chance dealt unkindly to you from your nup-
tial 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 so-
cial arrangements we floated idly townwards and presently came out in-
to the main waterway perhaps a mile wide and flowing rapidly, as
streams will on the threshold of the spring, with brash or waste of dis-
tant 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

23
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 mel-
ancholy 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 yon-
der 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 tem-
per, the same carelessness of order, as like a flowery island in the dan-
cing 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 sit-
ting 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

24
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 marvel-
lously thoughtful. I do not know whether those who had killed them-
selves 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 anti-
pode. 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 at-
tempt 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 gar-
landed 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 embar-
rassing. It was not like the procedure followed in Courts nearer to Wash-
ington 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-

25
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, di-
verting it a little, and thereby perhaps saving the ship herself, but not
enough. As it flashed by a branch caught upon the trailing tapestry, hurl-
ing 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 wal-
lowing 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

26
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 chok-
ing—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 wa-
ter 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.

27
Chapter 4
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 cham-
ber 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,

28
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

29
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 ig-
norance 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 under-
stood 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 sub-
ject 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?"

30
 "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, in-
dulgence 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."

31
 "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 fin-
gers 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

32
invitation should have started a week earlier; tell him from me, you
nimble-footed messenger, that I will post-date his kindness and come to-
morrow; 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 pre-
pared 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 in-
deed, 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 to-
morrow were still to come.
"What strikes me as strangest of all, good comrade," I observed pleas-
antly 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 inherit-
ors of what other hands have done."

33
 "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 holi-
day. 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."

34
 "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 after-
wards. 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 every-
where—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 ab-
surd! 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 be-
neath a packet of unpaid Boston tailors' bills and a note from my land-
lady 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 desert-
er, 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 extra-
vagances of the furthermost vase. So my stripling told me, running her

35
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 un-
load 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 Iying there, but there
was none, only the pips of an orange poor Polly had sucked and laugh-
ingly 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 dul-
ness 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,

36
stupidness and joy, life itself, seemed slipping away into a splendid
golden vacuity, a hazy episode of unconscious Elysium, indefinite, and
unfathomable.

37
Chapter 5
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 de-
veloped 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 under-
stand. 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 si-
lent amongst silent spectators who every now and then burst out laugh-
ing 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 fel-
low, 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.

38
 "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 ini-
tiate 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 unsuc-
cessfully, 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."

39
 "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 suc-
ceeded?" 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 os-
tentatiously, 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.

40
 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 look-
ing 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?"

41
 "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 fin-
gers 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 twink-
ling over the ground in gay confusion. Faster and faster till, as the infec-
tion 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 fly-
ing—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 simpli-
city. 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,

42
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 empti-
ness 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 finger-
tips, 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 ra-
diance 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

43
the uncertain starlight, I saw, to my surprise, the whole square was
thronged with Martians, all facing towards the porch, as still, graven im-
ages, 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 de-
sires 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 to-
wards 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 col-
oured 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 tri-
pod. Back again, I glanced towards the square where the great con-
course—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 mov-
ing; 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

44
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 ex-
traordinary graceful measure, a cadenced step without music or sound
that riveted my eyes to the dancer. Presently I saw those mystic, twink-
ling feet of hers—as the dance became swifter—were performing a meas-
ured 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 fig-
ure 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 climb-
ing," 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 nev-
er 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

45
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 dis-
tant 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 per-
fect 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 flaw-
less 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

46
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 assort-
ment of emotions tingling in my veins.

47
Chapter 6
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, think-
ing, 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 ambi-
tion and hope to desert me, and idleness itself become laborious, while

48
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, mean-
ing I knew not what. Above those pillars ran a gallery with many win-
dows 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 Govern-
ment, 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 Prin-
cess 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 sover-
eign with whom your people have a little difference, and shares unbid-
den in the free distribution of brides to-night. This promises to be inter-
esting; 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

49
minutes with your President, Prince Hath. He concentrates the fluid in-
telligence 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 re-
formers. 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 semb-
lance 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 confu-
sion 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."

50
 "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 fin-
gertips 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 be-
ginning. 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 char-
acters 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 ink-
ling 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?

51
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 wo-
men look over shoulders, oh, let me be your book!" she whispered, slip-
ping 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 swim-
ming blue lakes where shyness and passion were contending—books
easy enough, in truth, to be read, I saw that she loved me, with the un-
conventional 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 know-
ledge 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; to-
night, 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 configura-
tion 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 im-
measurable that yesterday I inhabited. "Read here," I cried, clapping my
finger upon the page midway down, where there were some signs look-
ing 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.

52
 "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 per-
spicuity. "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 desola-
tion 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 know-
ledge 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 plan-
ets 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

53
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 re-
fusing 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.

54
Chapter 7
It was only at moments like these I had any time to reflect on my circum-
stances or that giddy chance which had shot me into space in this fash-
ion, 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 dam-
sel, just as the gloomy rhetoric was bursting from my lips, thrust a
flower under my nose whose scent brought on a violent attack of sneez-
ing, her companions joining hands and dancing round me while they im-
itated my agony. Then, when I burst away from them and rushed down
a narrow arcade of crumbling mansions, another stopped me in mid-ca-
reer, 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

55
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 vary-
ing 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 disinter-
ested 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.

56
Down the centre low tables with room for four hundred people were
ranged, but they looked quaint enough since but two hundred were sit-
ting 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 colon-
nades 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 anoth-
er 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 opportun-
ity is deadly—"

57
 "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 fin-
gertips 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 ef-
fect 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 them-
selves 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

58
silvery as he turned it in his hand to read the name engraved in un-
known 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," wonder-
ing 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

59
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 of-
fended deeply tonight, for he hoped to have me, and would have

60
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 con-
fusion, 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 drink-
ing 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 stand-
ing 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 stateli-
ness 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,

61
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 met-
al 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 col-
oured 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 incom-
plete 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 com-
ing 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

62
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 shrink-
ing 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 slip-
ping 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 embra-
cing 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 unmerci-
fully 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 en-
voy only stayed when his sacred person came to harbour amongst the
westral odds and ends, the soiled linen, and dirty platters of our wed-
ding 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 togeth-
er. 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

63
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.

64
Chapter 8
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 day-
break 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

65
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 va-
pours; 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 con-
volvulus flowers all turning their pallid faces to the rosy daylight, mak-
ing 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 as-
prawl a belated reveller, his empty oblivion-phial before him, his curly
head upon his arms, dreaming perhaps of last night's feast and a neg-
lected 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 dis-
dainful 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 si-
lent and deserted; I ran on to the wharves beyond and they were empty

66
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 mer-
chandise 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 mo-
ment—and drag her roughly back, but that was about the last I re-
membered. As I turned to hit him standing on the slippery thwart, an-
other 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, clutch-
ing 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!

67
 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 freshen-
ing 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 ag-
onies 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

68
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 carry-
ing 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 fur-
row 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, bel-
lowing 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 moun-
tainous, 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.

69
Chapter 9
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 shal-
lows, 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 en-
tering 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 desper-
ately lonely than he who wrapped himself up in the miserable insuffi-
ciency of his wet rags, and without fire or supper crept amongst the ex-
posed 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 impen-
etrable, 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

70
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 flit-
ting, 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 an-
other step or two, and as I bent towards the approaching thing, staring
into the darkness, my strained senses were conscious of another ap-
proach, as like as could be, coming from behind me. On they came, mak-
ing 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 warn-
ing, 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

71
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 un-
der 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

72
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 my-
self 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 rub-
bing 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 gi-
ant 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 breakfast-
ing! 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 con-
tending 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 begin-
ning 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, spread-
ing 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 pro-
cess they were acquainted with?

73
 The other alternative of going back empty handed was terribly igno-
minious. 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 oc-
casions, 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 diffi-
culties 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 liz-
ard with transparent wings of the palest green—like those of a grasshop-
per—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, in-
deed, 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 res-
taurant. 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 uni-
verse—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

74
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 put-
ting 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 twink-
ling—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

75
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 pay-
ment 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.

76
 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.

77
Chapter 10
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 forgot-
ten 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 shad-
ows with such a heavy scent that head and heart reeled with fatal pleas-
ure 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 to-
gether 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

78
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 pos-
sible to start again, rested idly a time on my elbow and watched the sun-
shine 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 inter-
ruption 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

79
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 strad-
dling 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

80
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 hun-
dreds 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 propri-
ety, 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 be-
ing 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

81
delight in, we got to talking about those yellow canoes which were bob-
bing 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 uncultiv-
ated 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 direc-
tions, 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 scru-
tinise 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 ap-
proaching on the opposite side of the bay was covered by the character-
istic verdure of these plants with a touch here and there of splendid yel-
low blossoms, but all of gigantic proportions.
"Ay," said a Martian damsel lying on the bottom, and taking and kiss-
ing 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 dis-
tant 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

82
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 re-
productiveness. 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.

83
 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 Forgetful-
ness, under the gauzy spell of which the real and unreal melted into the
vistas of rosy oblivion, and I slept.

84
Chapter 11
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 ac-
knowledged, 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

85
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 neighbour-
hood I could land and ask the way; nothing living anywhere but a mon-
strous 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 im-
possible 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 cir-
cumstances 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 sun-
light 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.

86
 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 chro-
nometer 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 cour-
tesies, and the last chance of learning where I was passing away. So, an-
grily 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 slant-
ingly 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!

87
 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 travel-
ling, 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 ca-
reened 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 mid-
night 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 out-
liers 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 en-
velope 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

88
a narrow gully as black as hell, shot round a sharp corner at a tremend-
ous 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 sur-
face, 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 co-
tillions 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 voy-
agers—the wall-flowers of that ghostly assembly-room—and I went jost-
ling 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 wa-
ter 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

89
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 star-
light 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 to-
gether 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 ca-
noe 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 be-
fore, on to a second and third. I jumped from the footstool of one Mar-
tian to the knee of another, steadying myself by a free use of their nod-
ding 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 togeth-
er 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!

90
 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 in-
to 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 acknow-
ledge 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 over-
head. 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 snow-
fields 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 am-
phitheatre of fossilised humanity which stared down on me.
The matter was simple enough when you came to look at it with philo-
sophy. 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

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had been storing them like that for long ages some upheaval happened,
and this cleft and lake opened through the heart of the preserve. Prob-
ably 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 eventu-
ally 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.

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Chapter 12
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 appear-
ance 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 fol-
ded, 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 dream-
ing 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 irres-
istible 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

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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 re-
cess, exactly in his shape in every detail, whence he had stood gazing in-
to 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 shad-
ows leapt and capered about us. Then once more I sat down on the op-
posite 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

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down from the gulch there. Looking round, the sides of the icy amphi-
theatre—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 hope-
less 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 be-
low, 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 nether-
most 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 hob-
bling 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,

95
utterly unlike the airy garments of my Hither folk, who now stood be-
fore 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 busi-
ness, 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 trans-
fixed 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 dir-
ection. 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 marvel-
lous, 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

96
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 sul-
lenly, "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 ac-
company 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?"

97
 "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. Con-
sequently 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 per-
fectly 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

98
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 up-
wards, 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 snow-
slope; 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 treas-
ure 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.

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Chapter 13
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 an-
other 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 spe-
cies 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 accus-
tomed to lately, here they rested on infertile stretches of marshland inter-
sected 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 ever-
green 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 ve-
getation each mile we marched to the southward.
As for the inhabitants, they seemed, like my guide, rough, uncouth fel-
lows, but honest enough when you came to know them. An introduc-
tion, however, was highly desirable. I chanced upon the first native as he
was gathering reindeer-moss. My companion was some little way be-
hind 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 ad-
vance to the rear were more advisable, my guide called out to his
countryman—

100
 "Ho! you base prowler in the morasses; you eater of unclean vegeta-
tion, 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 there-
after. 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 altern-
ately, 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 su-
pernatural 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 his-
tory; 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 val-
ley—to all of which they listened with the simplicity of children. After-
wards I turned on them, and openly marvelled that so small a geograph-
ical 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

101
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 ad-
ded, 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 fin-
gers; 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 round-
about 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 wa-
ter 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 reck-
less 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 dan-
gerous 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

102
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 obscur-
ity 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 hunt-
ing 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 intellec-
tually, but it came to an abrupt conclusion. The Thither folk apparently

103
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 bar-
barians 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 er-
rand, 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 capit-
al. 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

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talkative as a solitary liver often is when his tongue gets started. He par-
ticularly 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 stupid-
est 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 sun-
down, 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 forgot-
ten. 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

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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 re-
sembled 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, in-
deed! 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 to-
wards 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 cause-
way 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 trem-
bling 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

106
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 answer-
ing 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 speci-
mens 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 be-
lieve 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

107
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.

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Chapter 14
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 mar-
vel 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 im-
plements, 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 un-
lock, 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 fore-
said 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:

109
 "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 fel-
low, 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 wonder-
ful wood stories as pungent of the life of these fairy forests as the aro-
matic 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 ar-
abesques 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

110
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 perpetu-
al 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 lan-
terned 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 hope-
lessness of my venture, welled up in my heart after that good comrade-
ship, and when the hut was out of sight I went forward down the green

111
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 for-
ward 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, butter-
flies like giant fowl, and the simplest objects of the forest like the imagin-
ations 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 vil-
lage, 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 en-
gaged in hammering stones into weapons upon a flint anvil.
He was an ugly-looking individual at best, yet I was hard up for com-
pany, so I put my coat down, and, seating myself on a log opposite, pro-
ceeded 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

112
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 ques-
tions? 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!

113
 "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 Decem-
ber, 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 bale-
ful 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 ne-
cessary 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

114
wood-cutter friend had eaten, from an overhanging bush, and in so do-
ing 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 sur-
roundings, determined to make a push for "civilization" before the rap-
idly 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 ex-
clamation 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 abomin-
able discovery, and the position dawned in all its uncomfortable intens-
ity. 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 lighthearted-
ness as could be managed, humming a song to myself, and carefully put-
ting 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.

115
 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 om-
nibus 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 mel-
ancholy 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 look-
ing for; where there were weeping children there must be habitations,
and shelter, and—splendid thought!—supper. Poor little babes! their cry-
ing 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 filter-
ing 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 vis-
ion; 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!

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Chapter 15
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 every-
where 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.

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 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 pil-
lars 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 them-
selves, 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 archi-
tecture reduced to the confusion of a debris-heap, only the hollow cham-
bers being here and there preserved by massive columns meeting over-
head. 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

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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 be-
came accustomed to the light. The whole floor was mottled with
them—scores and hundreds of bones and those poor little relics of hu-
manity 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 sor-
rows 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 atmo-
sphere 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 set-
ting 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, pre-
vented 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 dis-
tant—the very one I had mislaid the day before. Here was reality and a

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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 infin-
ite 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 compan-
ionship 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 separa-
tion 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 im-
mutable, 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

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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 fel-
low, 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 spir-
its—you, who come for mischief and pay harbourage with mis-
chance—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, in-
deed, 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 ad-
vance. 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

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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 ap-
pearance. 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 es-
tablishment 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 sun-
shine 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' row-
ing 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

122
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 be-
fore 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 de-
struction, 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 alternat-
ive 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 res-
cue 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-condi-
tioned for a spirit."
I got up and walked about the room a space, then, feeling very friend-
less, 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,

123
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 start-
ing 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, mean-
ing 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.

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Chapter 16
The Martian told me of a merchant boat with ten rowers which was go-
ing 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 im-
prisoned beauty, but it was practical, which is often better if not so pleas-
ant. 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 intel-
lectual 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 ap-
preciated 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 water-
ways which our biggest telescopes magnify but to the thickness of an in-
dication? 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 for-
tune are beyond its conception. I knew I was where I was, but I knew I

125
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 direc-
tion 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 un-
der 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 shad-
ow suddenly ended a quarter of a mile down in a patch of brilliant col-
our. 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,

126
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 har-
bour 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 endur-
ance 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.

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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 hero-
ics, wondering what to do next.
However, a cheerful disposition is sometimes better than a banking ac-
count, 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 alto-
gether, 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 vil-
lage 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 un-
comfortably 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

128
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 com-
ing 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 consola-
tion of dying early as we tribute-women always die. Poor comrade in ex-
ile, 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 country-
men 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?

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 "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 slug-
gish 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 to-
gether 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 suc-
cessful, 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 warran-
ted—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 gentle-
men and ladies with grievances. I had heard of lobbying before, and the
presentation of petitions, though I had never indulged myself in the pas-
time; but the crowd of petitioners here, with petitions as wild and pictur-
esque 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 allow-
ing him any time for pronouncing verdicts on them.

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 Here I made myself comfortable, and awaited the return of the sover-
eign 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 inspira-
tion, "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 verifica-
tion. 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

131
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 an-
other tack with the least possible delay, we should all be reduced to
cinders in a very brief space of time.

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Chapter 17
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 im-
possible 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 ap-
parently 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 im-
pressed me, though I could not make out his features; a wild, impres-
sionist 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 pleas-
antest 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

133
were dropping from the trees, and the luxuriant growths of the day be-
fore 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 ce-
remony 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 pres-
ence 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 out-
side 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 to-
gether 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 anxi-
ety, her eyes bright as stars, the embodiment of helpless, flowery beauty,
my heart turned over at sight of her.

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 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, un-
der 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 blos-
soming 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 dis-
creditable 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 at-
tractive 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 pre-
pared 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 com-
pletely 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

135
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 civil-
ity 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 pat-
ronage. 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 ambas-
sadors 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 er-
rand 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 remark-
ing, with as much bravado as could be managed,

136
 "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, joy-
ing 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

137
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 an-
cestor, and then suddenly realising my errand was done and she appar-
ently 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 con-
scious 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

138
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 in-
deed, and I myself unknowingly under some strange and watchful influ-
ence. 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 incid-
ents 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 for-
tune 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."

139
 "But—"
"No, no," said the king, waving his hand. "Be content with your ad-
vantage. 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.

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Chapter 18
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 be-
low 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 of-
ten 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 shad-
ows, 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 sum-
mer could draw from it, the air was sulphurous and heavy, while over-
head 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 slink-
ing 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

141
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 use-
less showers, which fell like hot tears upon us—sleek panthers with
lolling tongues; russet-red wood dogs; bears and sloths from the dark ar-
cades 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 intol-
erable 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.

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 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 mis-
tress. 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 sul-
lenly 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 elo-
quent 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-col-
oured, 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

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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 be-
hind 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 re-
membered 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 des-
cending swiftly and silently as filled my veins even to listen to. Eagerly I
shuffled away to the porch steps, down them into the swimming court-
yard, and ankle-deep in the glorious flood, set to work lapping furiously
at the first puddle, drinking with gasps of pleasure, gasping and drink-
ing again, feeling my body filling out like the thirsty steaming earth be-
low 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 num-
berless tongues unceasing, insatiable. Then came the lightning again,
lighting up everything as though it were daytime. The twin black apes

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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 drip-
ping 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 splin-
ters 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 of-
ten watched with sympathetic pleasure, the gods thus at play; but to-
night 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, squan-
dering 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 un-
der 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

145
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 mo-
ment, 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 dread-
ful, 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 in-
deed she was clad in little more than her loveliness and the gauziest fila-
ments 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 shad-
ows 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

146
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 enchant-
ment to the regions of the unknown. The idea would have gradually
grown into a tradition, receiving embellishments in succeeding genera-
tions, 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 mo-
ment 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 wo-
man brought here a few days ago as tribute to Ar-hap."

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 "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 automatic-
ally seaward, and away we went down stream at a pace once more
filling me with hope.

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Chapter 19
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 timor-
ously inhaling the breath of freedom, when all on a sudden voices invis-
ible 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.

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 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 as-
tonishment 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 im-
perial 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

150
seen so much female loveliness in so small a bulk in all his life, and, be-
ing 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 roy-
alty 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 per-
ceiving 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

151
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 viol-
ently 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 pump-
kinful 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?"

152
 "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 some-
how 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 crum-
bling marble walls of Seth.

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Chapter 20
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 appreci-
ation 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 proces-
sions were organised, garlands woven by the mile, a general order is-
sued 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 panto-
mime, 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.

154
 In this mood I mingled with a happy crowd, all purposeless and cheer-
ful 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 go-
ing 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 post-
poned 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 evap-
orated, and shrugging my shoulders I said to myself, "What does it mat-
ter? 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 consul-
ted 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

155
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 cov-
ering 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 as-
tonishment, staring with open-mouthed horror at the splendid figure of
the barbarian king as he stood aglitter in the ruddy light, scowling defi-
ance 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 war-
cry, 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 ven-
geance 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 back-
wards. 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

156
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 af-
fected, 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

157
opportunity to penetrate the recesses of his mind, and therefrom retell
you things better worth listening to than all the incident of my adven-
tures. 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 contem-
plation 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 out-
side 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 to-
wards 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 re-
sponsible manhood in his eyes. But it faded quickly; he bowed slowly as

158
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 delib-
erately 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 obli-
vion than that,—and here come my cup-bearers."
Even while he spoke the palace gates had given way; there was a hor-
rible 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 un-
locked, 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 turn-
ing 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 di-
vided 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

159
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 ho-
rizon. 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 gar-
ret, 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. Doubt-
less 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-increas-ing 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

160
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 beseigers 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 care-
less 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 uni-
verse was made!
And in another second it occurred to me that if it had brought me hith-
er 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,

161
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 nev-
er, 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, comfort-
able womanhood into my arms, and the moment after burst into a pas-
sion 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.

162
 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 dur-
ing 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 fath-
er will ascertain the true state of her feelings after this unpleasant experi-
ence, 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 es-
cort 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."

163
 "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, in-
dulgent reader, is the artless narrative that resulted—an incident so in-
credible in this prosaic latter-day world that I dare not ask you to be-
lieve, and must humbly content myself with hoping that if I fail to con-
vince yet I may at least claim the consolation of having amused you.

164
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