Charles Dixon

“ The reflection lit up the surrounding rocks, and gleamed upon the armour and the faces of the troops, making them look like fiends in human guise.
What words can describe our feelings as we stood chained and helpless on the brink of Melag, awaiting our hideous doom! The sun already was half-hidden below the mountain-tops behind us in the distant west, and the plain of desolation below was fast cloaking its horrors in the gloom of night. Earth shone as a pale star in the clear sky, and our eyes looked out with yearning love across the realms of space towards her, our home! ”

“ Without you I cannot, will not, live, for life would be but a living death of dark despair. Is there no hope for me? No hope, Volinè dearest? Am I but to review this promised land of happiness from afar off, only to turn my face away from its green pastures for ever? Ah, no, it is too horrible!'
"'My poor Harry, it is as hard for me as for thee; for I love thee as a woman only loves when she doth love, that is with all her soul. No hope can lighten our darkness or leaven our sorrow. ”

“ Tell me, Harry, more of that mystic world from whence you came. Are the women of that world more fair, more beautiful than we? Doth no maid of Ramos hold thy heart in bondage? Hath not that power you tell me the sons and daughters of earth call Love, yet had no resting-place in thy soul?' And as she spoke these last words, Volinè laid her head upon my breast and gazed up into my face with her radiant love-lit eyes, as though she would read the innermost depths of my soul. ”

“ We came to this city at once, and yielded ourselves to your authority without resistance, as Kaosp, a worthy captain of your troops, can bear testimony. We are anxious to be friends, to knit together the peoples of Earth and Gathma in tranquil unity. We hold out the hand of brotherhood, the olive branch of peace, from our world to yours. Grasp it in the same spirit in which it is extended towards you, and let each race, strangers now no more, reap the rich harvest of mutual benefits my comrades and myself have dared and done so much to sow! ”

“ I followed Kaosp, at his bidding, down the silent, deserted corridors, and at last felt the cool, refreshing night air beat against my face, as we passed under an arched gateway of the palace, into the open grounds. Here he left me, telling me to keep along a narrow pathway, until I came to an arbour where I was to wait until Volinè joined me. The night was gloriously fine; the Martial moons were beaming in a cloudless sky; the stars scintillated sharp as swords in the heavens; the far-away Earth shone with a dazzling fairness—the star of the evening. ”

“ Darker and darker grew the fathomless void which we were crossing, until we were surrounded by one vast blackness, such as no dweller on Earth could ever conceive. The Sirius was lighted with incandescent lamps, but these only served to make the awful darkness more profound. This terror-inspiring gloom seemed to enter our very souls; we could not only see it, we could absolutely feel it. The Sun seemed as though he had finally burnt himself out, and disappeared for ever from the spangled firmament, leaving all within the focus of his once-glorious rays in unutterable chaotic blackness. ”

“ Sandy and his dog were taken first, then Graham, then Temple, and last of all the Doctor. As Graham was going up the ladder, Perodii stepped forward. We had not noticed him before, but he had come to see the death of his rival, and to mock and triumph over him in his helpless agony.
"See, thou boasting fool, Volinè hath deserted thee in thy hour of need! She comes not to see thee enter eternal fire! Her shame is deeper than her love; and even her magic ring cannot help thee now! That silly, soul-saving Echri, and his wondrous magic are impotent before a few brass chains and stalwart troopers!" ”

“ The reeds were stupendous, with fluted and flattened stems, eighteen inches in width, rising straight as arrows from the stagnant water, their crowns lost to view in the night haze, and mingling together far above the roof of the Sirius.
The malarious vapours rising from the stagnant water and the rotting vegetation were deadly in their subtleness, and in spite of our ever-increasing excitement and curiosity, Doctor Hermann insisted for our health's sake that we should return to the Sirius. A night amidst such poisonous gases might have stricken each one of us down with a fatal fever. ”

“ No words of human tongue can adequately express the sensations we experienced as we watched the planet Earth, now nothing but a small, dark ball in appearance, travel across the fiery background of the sun. To know that that mere speck was a universe peopled with millions of living creatures—to know that that tiny black disc, so far out yonder, was in reality a vast and mighty world, floating in space, yet so small in comparison to other orbs around us, impressed upon our minds the grand sublimity of Nature's works. ”

“ The atmosphere is balmier than in the torrid zone of Earth, by reason of the greater remoteness of the sun; and the absence of all those insect-pests that make life there unendurable, especially during hours of darkness. Such nights inspire Love! Such an atmosphere makes the tender, sacred passion glow with an intensity unknown in higher and cooler latitudes. The air breathes it; the night-birds sing it; the fountains, in their rising and falling cadence, echo it from grove to grove; the moons and stars, scintillating in their ether sea of blue, excite it ”

“ The floor rose gradually from the centre, so that every person could see and hear all that took place. The King and his courtiers were one blaze of glittering jewels and gorgeous colour; their robes and vestments being rare and costly to a degree undreamed of on Earth, even by the wildest fancy of man. As in our own world, almost every type of countenance was to be observed among this vast assemblage; yet we could not help remarking that the men of Mars were handsomer as a race than the men of Earth, and that the women of Mars were more beautiful. ”

“ We are here to mete out fair and impartial justice to Beings who belong not to the world on which we live, but have come unbidden amongst us from a region so remote that it appears but a bright and wandering planet in our heavens; for have they not said that they are from the star Ramos, which they call Earth? Beyond our own moons Ramos is the nearest orb to us, but its distance is so vast that no man of science in Gathma hath yet been bold enough to say the space between our world and this can ever be traversed by men in mortal shape who shall survive the journey. ”

“ Graham continued to muse, as he lay listening to the Doctor and Temple talking, "that they are in a new world, beyond all earthly influence; and that the power of this holy Echri is mysterious and unnatural, only because it is new and strange to us. Were it rendered familiar to us by earthly custom and every-day experience, we should look upon it as a most natural thing. We must be prepared for all kinds of surprises here. If a great and holy man of this world possesses a power which is invested solely in God in our own, why should we marvel?" ”

“ Kios led us by a circuitous route down the wooded hillside; and we passed so near to Pamax, that the roar of its machinery sounded clearly in the night, and the glow from its thousands of furnaces shone against the sky like a mighty conflagration.
"The men of Pamax work late," remarked Temple, with a manufacturer's instinct, and thinking of his own noisy looms at home on Earth.
"The wheels of their machinery are never still," answered Kios. "The worker's lot is hard, but they are a cheerful community, if their greed of gain is great." ”

“ Temple," answered Graham, "your last stray shot has hit the mark. No woman on Earth, you know as well as I, is so incomparably beautiful as she. Volinè is a goddess; the soul of Beauty! Would any fellow, especially situated as I am, fancy free, in the pride of early manhood, escape from such seductive attractions unscathed? From the moment that my eyes first fell upon her, I became conscious that I had found my ideal of female beauty at last—found it, alas! under circumstances which admit of no hope, however remote, to become ultimately its proud possessor. ”

“ Harry, the sweets of wifehood with thee are a joy which I may never hope to reach. There is one barrier that must ever stand between us, which maketh impossible a union between a son of thy world and a daughter of mine. It hath been so ordained, and therefore we cannot alter it to meet our will. This barrier of which I speak is the span of life. Here, as thou knowest there are old men amongst us who have seen five hundred summers whiten into winter. Four hundred years are the men of Gathma's usual span, even as thou hast told me but seventy are the limit of the men of Earth and thine. ”

“ The snow upon their highest summits gleamed like burnished silver in the light, and as the morning broke, the clouds reflected a rosy radiance of rare beauty. The dawn on Mars was very similar to the dawn on Earth; and as we watched the sunlight leap from peak to peak, and the heavens change from one glorious hue to another, we could have fancied ourselves watching some of the many magnificent sunrises we had seen in the Alps, or on the lofty Himalayas. ”

“ Do you not know that you have brought brightness into my life, and have taken that place in my heart which only one woman can ever fill?'
"'But wilt thou always love me so?'
"'Always, darling; always—until the race of my life is run, and all power of loving is stayed by the hand of death. Here, in this arbour, I swear it. By my home world yonder, and all that I hold dear thereon—see you, glimmering as a star above the tree-crests in the southern sky—I pledge to love and to worship you, Volinè, so long as I have life to love, and breath to speak it. Volinè, you are all in all to me ”

“ I have tried to conceal my feeling from you all; but Love ever betrays itself. She has filled my thoughts by day, and my dreams by night. Yes, I love her! and it is at least consoling to be able to confess my secret to such an old and tried friend as you. It relieves my feelings in some measure to tell them to another who can show some sympathy."
"Why, Graham, you must be hard hit indeed! But your chance is not by any means a hopeless one. From what we can see, Volinè is certainly interested in us, and in you particularly so." ”

“ Temple, you can slightly understand my infatuation, my sincere love for this girl of Gathma. Is she not worthy of all the love that man can give? She is as good and as true as she is handsome. And yet, all now is over between us—all is over, and I shall see her no more!"
"But you must cheer up. Don't let the Doctor see your weakness, for it will only make unpleasantness amongst us. Things may come right yet. You know the old Earth-saying about all things coming to him who waits? Something tells me that even now we have not seen the last of Edos, or of the King of Gathma's daughter." ”

“ The night was gloriously fine; not a cloud to hide the spangled sky. Sandy and his dog were already inside the Sirius; and the light-hearted Scot could be heard singing snatches of North-country ballads as he hurried to and fro. Sandy was, evidently, little troubled at the thoughts of Earth. This confidence was inspired by the calm courage of his master.
Graham mounted next, and was soon busy with the machinery, oiling and wiping with greatest care the shining rods and wheels and cranks, which he loved almost as deeply as a father loves his children. ”

“ It must be more than human sorcery or trickery that can send a man through a stream of molten fire unscathed, unsinged, as I went yesterday, although I suffered in one brief awful moment all the pain of death in that dread majestic element. Whether I live to be seventy, or ten times seventy, time alone can prove; but I have every faith in Echri's power. I can understand your scepticism; but let the solemn assurances of one who has seen his potency, and felt his power, change your opinion. ”

“ Now that we are here, a serious responsibility rests upon each and all of us—the teeming millions of our fellow-men, left behind on earth, will expect us to make the very most of our glorious opportunities, and to carry back to them a full history of the wonders of this new world and new race. 'Advance' must be our watchword, until our work is done; even though our lives are lost in the effort. Recall the words you uttered, Graham, years ago, on that fateful evening, when you solemnly pledged yourself to this mission, nay, even devoted your life to its full accomplishment. ”

“ We thought with horror of the death before us, of the actual time when the Sirius, after falling five thousand feet like a winged and helpless bird, would strike with a dull gurgling sound the molten lake below; and then of what we should experience in that one brief, dreadful moment between life and death, when the ocean of living fire should surge over us in its pitiless embrace. ”

“ When Graham's turn to shake hands with him came, he started in surprise, and, drawing back, exclaimed:
"Volinè's talisman! How camest thou by that? Know'st thou the charm of that ring? Dost thou know that he whose finger carries it is safe from every harm that men of Gathma can work? It is a passport from Death itself; for it is the sacred ring of Echri, the most powerful of our priests, before whom the King himself must bow!" ”