A Princess of Mars Read online

  CHAPTER III

  MY ADVENT ON MARS

  I opened my eyes upon a strange and weird landscape. I knew that I wason Mars; not once did I question either my sanity or my wakefulness. Iwas not asleep, no need for pinching here; my inner consciousness toldme as plainly that I was upon Mars as your conscious mind tells youthat you are upon Earth. You do not question the fact; neither did I.

  I found myself lying prone upon a bed of yellowish, mosslike vegetationwhich stretched around me in all directions for interminable miles. Iseemed to be lying in a deep, circular basin, along the outer verge ofwhich I could distinguish the irregularities of low hills.

  It was midday, the sun was shining full upon me and the heat of it wasrather intense upon my naked body, yet no greater than would have beentrue under similar conditions on an Arizona desert. Here and therewere slight outcroppings of quartz-bearing rock which glistened in thesunlight; and a little to my left, perhaps a hundred yards, appeared alow, walled enclosure about four feet in height. No water, and noother vegetation than the moss was in evidence, and as I was somewhatthirsty I determined to do a little exploring.

  Springing to my feet I received my first Martian surprise, for theeffort, which on Earth would have brought me standing upright, carriedme into the Martian air to the height of about three yards. I alightedsoftly upon the ground, however, without appreciable shock or jar. Nowcommenced a series of evolutions which even then seemed ludicrous inthe extreme. I found that I must learn to walk all over again, as themuscular exertion which carried me easily and safely upon Earth playedstrange antics with me upon Mars.

  Instead of progressing in a sane and dignified manner, my attempts towalk resulted in a variety of hops which took me clear of the ground acouple of feet at each step and landed me sprawling upon my face orback at the end of each second or third hop. My muscles, perfectlyattuned and accustomed to the force of gravity on Earth, played themischief with me in attempting for the first time to cope with thelesser gravitation and lower air pressure on Mars.

  I was determined, however, to explore the low structure which was theonly evidence of habitation in sight, and so I hit upon the unique planof reverting to first principles in locomotion, creeping. I did fairlywell at this and in a few moments had reached the low, encircling wallof the enclosure.

  There appeared to be no doors or windows upon the side nearest me, butas the wall was but about four feet high I cautiously gained my feetand peered over the top upon the strangest sight it had ever been givenme to see.

  The roof of the enclosure was of solid glass about four or five inchesin thickness, and beneath this were several hundred large eggs,perfectly round and snowy white. The eggs were nearly uniform in sizebeing about two and one-half feet in diameter.

  Five or six had already hatched and the grotesque caricatures which satblinking in the sunlight were enough to cause me to doubt my sanity.They seemed mostly head, with little scrawny bodies, long necks and sixlegs, or, as I afterward learned, two legs and two arms, with anintermediary pair of limbs which could be used at will either as armsor legs. Their eyes were set at the extreme sides of their heads atrifle above the center and protruded in such a manner that they couldbe directed either forward or back and also independently of eachother, thus permitting this queer animal to look in any direction, orin two directions at once, without the necessity of turning the head.

  The ears, which were slightly above the eyes and closer together, weresmall, cup-shaped antennae, protruding not more than an inch on theseyoung specimens. Their noses were but longitudinal slits in the centerof their faces, midway between their mouths and ears.

  There was no hair on their bodies, which were of a very lightyellowish-green color. In the adults, as I was to learn quite soon,this color deepens to an olive green and is darker in the male than inthe female. Further, the heads of the adults are not so out ofproportion to their bodies as in the case of the young.

  The iris of the eyes is blood red, as in Albinos, while the pupil isdark. The eyeball itself is very white, as are the teeth. Theselatter add a most ferocious appearance to an otherwise fearsome andterrible countenance, as the lower tusks curve upward to sharp pointswhich end about where the eyes of earthly human beings are located.The whiteness of the teeth is not that of ivory, but of the snowiestand most gleaming of china. Against the dark background of their oliveskins their tusks stand out in a most striking manner, making theseweapons present a singularly formidable appearance.

  Most of these details I noted later, for I was given but little time tospeculate on the wonders of my new discovery. I had seen that the eggswere in the process of hatching, and as I stood watching the hideouslittle monsters break from their shells I failed to note the approachof a score of full-grown Martians from behind me.

  Coming, as they did, over the soft and soundless moss, which coverspractically the entire surface of Mars with the exception of the frozenareas at the poles and the scattered cultivated districts, they mighthave captured me easily, but their intentions were far more sinister.It was the rattling of the accouterments of the foremost warrior whichwarned me.

  On such a little thing my life hung that I often marvel that I escapedso easily. Had not the rifle of the leader of the party swung from itsfastenings beside his saddle in such a way as to strike against thebutt of his great metal-shod spear I should have snuffed out withoutever knowing that death was near me. But the little sound caused me toturn, and there upon me, not ten feet from my breast, was the point ofthat huge spear, a spear forty feet long, tipped with gleaming metal,and held low at the side of a mounted replica of the little devils Ihad been watching.

  But how puny and harmless they now looked beside this huge and terrificincarnation of hate, of vengeance and of death. The man himself, forsuch I may call him, was fully fifteen feet in height and, on Earth,would have weighed some four hundred pounds. He sat his mount as wesit a horse, grasping the animal's barrel with his lower limbs, whilethe hands of his two right arms held his immense spear low at the sideof his mount; his two left arms were outstretched laterally to helppreserve his balance, the thing he rode having neither bridle or reinsof any description for guidance.

  And his mount! How can earthly words describe it! It towered ten feetat the shoulder; had four legs on either side; a broad flat tail,larger at the tip than at the root, and which it held straight outbehind while running; a gaping mouth which split its head from itssnout to its long, massive neck.

  Like its master, it was entirely devoid of hair, but was of a darkslate color and exceeding smooth and glossy. Its belly was white, andits legs shaded from the slate of its shoulders and hips to a vividyellow at the feet. The feet themselves were heavily padded andnailless, which fact had also contributed to the noiselessness of theirapproach, and, in common with a multiplicity of legs, is acharacteristic feature of the fauna of Mars. The highest type of manand one other animal, the only mammal existing on Mars, alone havewell-formed nails, and there are absolutely no hoofed animals inexistence there.

  Behind this first charging demon trailed nineteen others, similar inall respects, but, as I learned later, bearing individualcharacteristics peculiar to themselves; precisely as no two of us areidentical although we are all cast in a similar mold. This picture, orrather materialized nightmare, which I have described at length, madebut one terrible and swift impression on me as I turned to meet it.

  Unarmed and naked as I was, the first law of nature manifested itselfin the only possible solution of my immediate problem, and that was toget out of the vicinity of the point of the charging spear.Consequently I gave a very earthly and at the same time superhuman leapto reach the top of the Martian incubator, for such I had determined itmust be.

  My effort was crowned with a success which appalled me no less than itseemed to surprise the Martian warriors, for it carried me fully thirtyfeet into the air and landed me a hundred feet from my pursuers and onthe opposite side of the enclosure.

  I a
lighted upon the soft moss easily and without mishap, and turningsaw my enemies lined up along the further wall. Some were surveying mewith expressions which I afterward discovered marked extremeastonishment, and the others were evidently satisfying themselves thatI had not molested their young.

  They were conversing together in low tones, and gesticulating andpointing toward me. Their discovery that I had not harmed the littleMartians, and that I was unarmed, must have caused them to look upon mewith less ferocity; but, as I was to learn later, the thing whichweighed most in my favor was my exhibition of hurdling.

  While the Martians are immense, their bones are very large and they aremuscled only in proportion to the gravitation which they must overcome.The result is that they are infinitely less agile and less powerful, inproportion to their weight, than an Earth man, and I doubt that wereone of them suddenly to be transported to Earth he could lift his ownweight from the ground; in fact, I am convinced that he could not do so.

  My feat then was as marvelous upon Mars as it would have been uponEarth, and from desiring to annihilate me they suddenly looked upon meas a wonderful discovery to be captured and exhibited among theirfellows.

  The respite my unexpected agility had given me permitted me toformulate plans for the immediate future and to note more closely theappearance of the warriors, for I could not disassociate these peoplein my mind from those other warriors who, only the day before, had beenpursuing me.

  I noted that each was armed with several other weapons in addition tothe huge spear which I have described. The weapon which caused me todecide against an attempt at escape by flight was what was evidently arifle of some description, and which I felt, for some reason, they werepeculiarly efficient in handling.

  These rifles were of a white metal stocked with wood, which I learnedlater was a very light and intensely hard growth much prized on Mars,and entirely unknown to us denizens of Earth. The metal of the barrelis an alloy composed principally of aluminum and steel which they havelearned to temper to a hardness far exceeding that of the steel withwhich we are familiar. The weight of these rifles is comparativelylittle, and with the small caliber, explosive, radium projectiles whichthey use, and the great length of the barrel, they are deadly in theextreme and at ranges which would be unthinkable on Earth. Thetheoretic effective radius of this rifle is three hundred miles, butthe best they can do in actual service when equipped with theirwireless finders and sighters is but a trifle over two hundred miles.

  This is quite far enough to imbue me with great respect for the Martianfirearm, and some telepathic force must have warned me against anattempt to escape in broad daylight from under the muzzles of twenty ofthese death-dealing machines.

  The Martians, after conversing for a short time, turned and rode awayin the direction from which they had come, leaving one of their numberalone by the enclosure. When they had covered perhaps two hundredyards they halted, and turning their mounts toward us sat watching thewarrior by the enclosure.

  He was the one whose spear had so nearly transfixed me, and wasevidently the leader of the band, as I had noted that they seemed tohave moved to their present position at his direction. When his forcehad come to a halt he dismounted, threw down his spear and small arms,and came around the end of the incubator toward me, entirely unarmedand as naked as I, except for the ornaments strapped upon his head,limbs, and breast.

  When he was within about fifty feet of me he unclasped an enormousmetal armlet, and holding it toward me in the open palm of his hand,addressed me in a clear, resonant voice, but in a language, it isneedless to say, I could not understand. He then stopped as thoughwaiting for my reply, pricking up his antennae-like ears and cockinghis strange-looking eyes still further toward me.

  As the silence became painful I concluded to hazard a littleconversation on my own part, as I had guessed that he was makingovertures of peace. The throwing down of his weapons and thewithdrawing of his troop before his advance toward me would havesignified a peaceful mission anywhere on Earth, so why not, then, onMars!

  Placing my hand over my heart I bowed low to the Martian and explainedto him that while I did not understand his language, his actions spokefor the peace and friendship that at the present moment were most dearto my heart. Of course I might have been a babbling brook for all theintelligence my speech carried to him, but he understood the actionwith which I immediately followed my words.

  Stretching my hand toward him, I advanced and took the armlet from hisopen palm, clasping it about my arm above the elbow; smiled at him andstood waiting. His wide mouth spread into an answering smile, andlocking one of his intermediary arms in mine we turned and walked backtoward his mount. At the same time he motioned his followers toadvance. They started toward us on a wild run, but were checked by asignal from him. Evidently he feared that were I to be reallyfrightened again I might jump entirely out of the landscape.

  He exchanged a few words with his men, motioned to me that I would ridebehind one of them, and then mounted his own animal. The fellowdesignated reached down two or three hands and lifted me up behind himon the glossy back of his mount, where I hung on as best I could by thebelts and straps which held the Martian's weapons and ornaments.

  The entire cavalcade then turned and galloped away toward the range ofhills in the distance.