With the new morning came fresh energy and a spasm of conscienceas I thought of poor Heru and the shabby sort of rescuer I was to lie aboutwith these pretty triflers while she remained in peril.
So I had a bath and a swim, a breakfast, and, to my shame be itacknowledged, a sort of farewell merry-go- round dance on the yellowsands with a dozen young persons all light-hearted as the morning,beautiful as the flowers that bound their hair, and in the extremity ofstatuesque attire.
Then at last I got them to give me a sea-going canoe, a stock of cakesand fresh water; and with many parting in- junctions how to find theWoodman trail, since I would not listen to reason and lie all the rest of mylife 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 paddleinto the diamond-crested wavelets. "Six hours, adventurous stranger,with the sun behind you! Then into the broad river behind the yellowsand-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 whichmany go but none come back. Goodbye!" And waving them adieu, Isternly turned my eyes from delights behind and faced the fascination ofperils in front.
In four hours (for the Martians had forgotten in their calculations thatmy 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 haddrifted much too far to northward, and con- sequently the coast had closedup the estuary mouth I should have entered. Not a sign of an openingshowed any-where, and having nothing whatever for guidance I turnednorthward, eagerly scanning an endless line of low cliffs, as the daylessened, 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 novegetation 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 lineof ridges and peaks still covered in winter snow.
The outlook was anything but cheering. Not a trace of habitation hadbeen seen for a long time, not a single living being in whoseneighbourhood I could land and ask the way; nothing living anywhere buta monstrous kind of sea- slug, as big as a dog, battening on the watersidegarbage, and gaunt birds like vultures who croaked on the mud-flats, andhalf-spread wings of funereal blackness as they gam- bolled here and there.
Where was poor Heru? Where pink- shouldered An? Where those wildmen who had taken the princess from us? Lastly, but not least, wherewas I?
All the first stars of the Martian sky were strange to me, and my boatwhirling round and round on the current con- fused what little geography Imight otherwise have retained. It was a cheerless look out, and again andagain I cursed my folly for coming on such a fool's errand as I sat, chin inhand, staring at a landscape that grew more and more de- pressing everymile. To go on looked like destruction, to go back was almost impossiblewithout a guide; and while I was still wondering which of the two mightbe the lesser evil, the stream I was on turned a corner, and in a moment wewere upon water which ran with swift, oily smoothness straight for thesnow-ranges now beginning to loom un- pleasantly 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 itwas 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 wrap- pings as though they were buttissue. I munched a bit of honey-cake, took a cautious sip of wine, andthough I will not own I was frightened, yet no one will deny that the circumstances were discouraging.
Standing up in the frail canoe and looking around, at the second glancean object caught my eye coming with the stream, and rapidly overtakingme on a strong sluice of water. It was a raft of some sort, and somethingextra- 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 sunlighttouching it up with reds and golds, nearer and nearer in the deadly hush ofthat forsaken region, and then at last so near it showed quite plainly on thepurple water, a raft with some one sitting under a canopy.
With a thrill of delight I waved my cap aloft and shouted-"Ship-ahoy! Hullo, messmate, where are we bound to?"But never an answer came from that swiftly-passing stranger, so againI hailed-"Put up your helm, Mr. Skipper; I have lost my bearings, and thechronometer has run down," but without a pause or sound that strangecraft went slipping by.
That silence was more than I could stand. It was against all seacourtesies, and the last chance of learning where I was passing away. So,angrily the paddle was snatched from the canoe bottom, and roaring outagain-"Stop, I say, you d----- lubber, stop, or by all the gods I will makeyou!" I plunged the paddle into the water and shot my little craftslantingly across the stream to inter-cept the newcomer. A single strokesent me into mid-stream, a second brought me within touch of that strangecraft. It was a flat raft, undoubtedly, though so disguised by flowers andsilk trailers that its shape was difficult to make out. In the centre was achair of ceremony bedecked with greenery and great pale buds, hardly yetwithered--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 Iswept up alongside and laid a sunburnt hand upon its edge, was a girl, andanother look told me she was dead!
Such a sweet, pallid, Martian maid, her fair head lolling back againstthe rear of the chair and gently moving to and fro with the rise and fall ofher craft. Her face in the pale light of the evening like carved ivory, andnot less passion- less and still; her arms bare, and her poor fingers stillclosed in her lap upon the beautiful buds they had put into them. I fairlygasped with amazement at the dreadful sweetness of that solitary lady, andcould hardly believe she was really a corpse! But, alas! there was nodoubt 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, andthen how fair and ghostly she stood out against the purpling sky; how herlight drapery lifted to the icy wind, and how dreadfully strange all thosesoft- scented flowers and trappings seemed as we sped along side by sideinto 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 FLYINGSWIFTLY DOWN THAT RIVER OF THE DEAD THEY HAD TOLDME OF THAT HAS NO OUTLET AND NO RETURNING!
With frantic haste I snatched up a paddle again and tried to paddleagainst the great black current sweeping us for- ward. I worked until theperspiration stood in beads on my forehead, and all the time I worked theriver, like some black snake, hissed and twined, and that pretty lady rodecheerily along at my side. Overhead stars of unearthly bril- liancy werecoming out in the frosty sky, while on either hand the banks were high andthe shadows under them black as ink. In those shadows now and then Inoticed with a horrible indifference other rafts were travelling, andpresently, as the stream narrowed, they came out and joined us, deadMartians, budding boys and girls; older voyagers with their agequickening upon them in the Martian manner, just as some fruit onlyripens after it falls; yellow-girt slaves staring into the night in front, quite amerry crew all clustered about I and that gentle lady, and more far aheadand more behind, all bobbing and jostling forward as we hurried to thedreadful graveyard in the Martian re- gions of eternal winter none had everseen and no one came to! I cried aloud in my desolation and fear and hidmy face in my hands, while the icy cliffs mocked my cry and the deadmaid, 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, un- varnished tale,and I will not let the weird horror of that ride get into my pen. Wecareened forward, I and those lost Martians, until pretty near on midnight,by which time the great light-giving planets were up, and never a chancedid Fate give me all that time of parting company with them. Aboutmidnight 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 longoutliers which follow the course of the broad waterways almost into fertileregions, and the cold, though intense, was somewhat modified by thecomplete stillness of the air.
It was just then that I began to be aware of a low, rum- bling soundahead, increasing steadily until there could not be any doubt the journeywas nearly over and we were approaching those great falls An had told meof, over which the dead tumble to perpetual oblivion. There was no opportunity for action, and, luckily, little time for thought. I rememberclapping my hand to my heart as I muttered an im- perfect prayer, andlaughing a little as I felt in my pocket, between it and that organ, anenvelope containing some corn-plaster and a packet of unpaid tailors' bills.
Then I pulled out that locket with poor forgotten Polly's photo- graph, andwhile I was still kissing it fervently, and the dead girl on my right wasjealously nudging my canoe with the corner of her raft,............