nds, overgrown with rank grass and bushes, salt water encircling them, and inside sandy dunes and hummocks with shallow p

h, lying just below the surface, quivered like snakes as the evening breeze ruffled each surface, until t

y gloomy and hopeless. I struggled through tangles night made more and more impenetrable each minute, until presently I could go no fur

d himself up in the miserable insufficiency of his wet rags, and without fire or supper crept am

ttering, and stared hard into the impenetrable, they could be likened to nothing but the crying of all the souls of dead things since the beginning. Never was there such an infernal chorus as that which played up the Martian stars. Down there in front, where hummock grass was growing, some beast squeaked continuously, till I shouted at him, then he stopped a minute, and began

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 undergr

from the river, now two or three steps together, then a pause, then another step or two, and as I bent towards the approaching thing, staring into the darkness, my strained senses were conscious of another approach, as like as could be, coming from behind me. On they came, making the very ground quake with their weight, till I judged that both were about on the edge of the clearing, two vast rat-like shadows, but a

iators met in the midst of the arena. Over and over they went screaming and struggling, and slipping and plunging. I could hear them tearing at each other, and the sharp cries of pain, first one and then another gave as claw or tooth got home, and all the time, though the ground was quaking under their struggles and the air full of horrible uproar, not a thing was to be seen. I did not even know what manner of beasts they were who rocked and rolled and tore at each other's throats, but I heard their teeth snapping, and their fierce breath in the pauses of the struggle, and could but wait in a huddle amongst th

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 t

rrelling 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, t

htened. Those glimmers of light between bough and trunk turned to yellow and red, the day-shine presently s

with skin and hair-all was sickening to me. Yet so hungry was I that when I turned towards the odious remnants of the vanquished-a shapeless mass of abomination-my thoughts flew at once to breakfasting! I went down and inspected the victim cautiously-a huge rat-like beast as far as might be judged from the bare uprising ribs-all that was left of him looking like the framework of a schooner yacht. His heart lay amongst the offal, and my knife came out to cut a meal from it, but I could not do it. Three times I essayed the task, hunger and disgust contending for m

he 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-haunt

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

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 fu

of Paradise themselves opened at that moment I fear my first look down the celestial streets within would have been for a restaurant. They did not, and I wa

mered gloriously. But of an owner there was nothing to be seen. I peered here and there on the shore, but nothing moved, while out to sea the water was shining like molten metal with not a dot upon it!-what did it matter? I laughed as, pleased and hungry, I slipped down the bank and strode across the sands; it pleased Fate to play bandy with me, and if it sent me supperless to bed, why, here was restitution in the way of breakfast. I took up a morsel of the stuff in the kettle on a handy stick and found it good-indeed, I knew it at once as a very dainty mess made from th

like some strange new plant, the pleasant sunshine on my back, and never a thought for anything but the task in hand. Deeper and d

r its edge we stared at each other in mute surprise, then with all the dignity that might be I laid the vessel down between my feet and waited for the newcomer to speak. She was a girl by her yellow garb, a fisherwoman, it seemed, for in the prow of her craft was piled a net upon which the scales of fishes were twinkling-a Mar

t as much, no more and n

for none but spirits live here upon

ring along the shore and finding this pot boiling with no owner, I venture

lly 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

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 ea

supposed source, and as my entertainer would not hear of payment in material kind, all I could do was to show her some conjuring tricks, which greatly increased her belief in my supernatural origin, and to teach her some new

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

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