_RETREAT TO DEIMOS_
Still the Bewildering Strains of the music came to our ears, and yet we
stood there unperceived, though in the full glare of the chandelier.
The girl's face was presented in profile. It was exquisite in beauty,
pale, delicate with a certain pleading sadness which stirred us to the
heart.
An element of romance and a touch of personal interest such as we had
not looked for suddenly entered into our adventure.
Colonel Smith's mind still ran back to the perils of the plains.
"She is a prisoner," he said, "and by the Seven Devils of Dona Ana we'll
not leave her here. But where are the hellhounds themselves?"
Our attention had been so absorbed by the sight of the girl that we had
scarcely thought of looking to see if there was any one else in the
room.
Glancing beyond her, I now perceived sitting in richly decorated chairs
three or four gigantic Martians. They were listening to the music as if
charmed.
The whole story told itself. This girl, if not their slave, was at any
rate under their control, and she was furnishing entertainment for them
by her musical skill. The fact that they could find pleasure in music so
beautiful was, perhaps, an indication that they were not really as
savage as they seemed.
Yet our hearts went out to the girl, and were turned against them with
an uncontrollable hatred.
They were of the same remorseless race with those who had so lately lain
waste our fair earth and who would have completed its destruction had
not Providence interferred in our behalf.
Singularly enough, although we stood full in the light, they had not yet
seen us.
Suddenly the girl, moved by what impulse I know not, turned her face in
our direction. Her eyes fell upon us. She paused abruptly in her
playing, and her instrument dropped to the floor. Then she uttered a
cry, and with extended arms ran toward us.
But when she was near she stopped abruptly, the glad look fading from
her face, and started back with terror-stricken eyes, as if, after all,
she had found us not what she expected.
Then for an instant she looked more intently at us, her countenance
cleared once more, and, overcome by some strange emotion, her eyes
filled with tears, and, drawing a little nearer, she stretched forth her
hands to us appealingly.
Meanwhile the Martians had started to their feet. They looked down upon
us in astonishment. We were like pygmies to them; like little gnomes
which had sprung out of the ground at their feet.
One of the giants seized some kind of a weapon and started forward with
a threatening gesture.
The girl sprang to my side and grasped my arm with a cry of fear.
This seemed to throw the Martian into a sudden frenzy, and he raised his
arms to strike.
But the disintegrator was in my hand.
My rage was equal to his.
I felt the concentrated vengeance of the earth quivering through me as I
pressed the button of the disintegrator and, sweeping it rapidly up and
down, saw the gigantic form that confronted me melt into nothingness.
There were three other giants in the room, and they had been on the
point of following up the attack of their comrade. But when he
disappeared from before their eyes, they paused, staring in amazement at
the place where, but a moment before, he had stood, but where now only
the metal weapon he had wielded lay on the floor.
At first they started back, and seemed on the point of fleeing; then,
with a second glance, perceiving again how small and insignificant we
were, all three together advanced upon us.
The girl sank trembling on her knees.
In the meantime I had readjusted my disintegrator for another discharge,
and Colonel Smith stood by me with the light of battle upon his face.
"Sweep the discharge across the three," I exclaimed. "Otherwise there
will be one left and before we can fire again he will crush us."
The whirr of the two instruments sounded simultaneously, and with a
quick horizontal motion we swept the lines of force around in such a
manner that all three of the Martians were caught by the vibratory
streams and actually cut in two.
Long gaps were opened in the wall of the room behind them, where the
destroying currents had passed, for with wrathful fierceness, we had ran
the vibrations through half a gamut on the index.
The victory was ours. There were no other enemies, that we could see, in
the house.
Yet at any moment others might make their appearance, and what more we
did must be done quickly.
The girl evidently was as much amazed as the Martians had been by the
effects which we had produced. Still she was not terrified, and
continued to cling to us and glance beseechingly into our faces,
expressing in her every look and gesture the fact that she knew we were
of her own race.
But clearly she could not speak our tongue, for the words she uttered
were unintelligible.
Colonel Smith, whose long experience in Indian warfare had made him
intensely practical, did not lose his military instincts, even in the
midst of events so strange.
"It occurs to me," he said, "that we have got a chance at the enemies'
supplies. Suppose we begin foraging right here. Let's see if this girl
can't show us the commissary department."
He immediately began to make signs to the girl to indicate that he was
hungry.
A look of comprehension flitted over her features, and, seizing our
hands, she led us into an adjoining apartment, and pointed to a number
of metallic boxes.
One of these she opened, taking out of it a kind of cake, which she
placed between her teeth, breaking off a very small portion and then
handing it to us, motioning that we should eat, but at the same time
showing us that we ought to take only a small quantity.
"Thank God! It's compressed food," said Colonel Smith. "I thought these
Martians with their wonderful civilization would be up to that. And it's
mighty lucky for us, because, without overburdening ourselves, if we can
find one or two more caches like this we shall be able to reprovision
the entire fleet. But we must get reinforcements before we can take
possession of the fodder."
Accordingly we hurried out into the night, passed into the roadway, and,
taking the girl with us, ran as rapidly as possible to the foot of the
tree where we had made our descent. Then we signalled to the electric
ship to drop down to the level of the ground.
This was quickly done, the girl was taken aboard, and a dozen men, under
our guidance, hastened back to the house, where we loaded ourselves with
the compressed provisions and conveyed them to the ship.
On this second trip to the mysterious house we had discovered another
apartment containing a very large number of the metallic boxes, filled
with compressed food.
"By Jove, it is a storehouse," said Colonel Smith. "We must get more
force and carry it all off. Gracious, but this is a lucky night. We can
reprovision the whole fleet from this room."
"I thought it singular," I said, "that with the exception of the girl
whom we have rescued no women were seen in the house. Evidently the
lights over yonder indicate the location of a considerable town, and it
is quite probable that this building, without windows, and so strongly
constructed, is the common storehouse, where the provisions for the town
are kept. The fellows we killed must have been the watchmen in charge of
the storehouse, and they were treating themselves to a little music from
the slave girl when we happened to come upon them."
With the utmost haste several of the other electrical ships, waiting
above the cloud curtain, were summoned to descend, and, with more than a
hundred men, we returned to the building, and this time almost entirely
exhausted its stores, each man carrying as much as he could stagger
under.
Fortunately our proceedings had been conducted without much noise, and
the storehouse being situated at a considerable distance from other
buildings, none of the Martians, except those who would never tell the
story, had known of our arrival or of our doings on the planet.
"Now, we'll return and surprise Edison with the news," said Colonel
Smith.
Our ship was the last to pass up through the clouds, and it was a
strange sight to watch the others as one after another they rose toward
the great dome, entered it, though from below it resembled a solid vault
of grayish-pink marble, and disappeared.
We quickly followed them, and having penetrated the enormous curtain,
were considerably surprised on emerging at the other side to find that
the sun was shining brilliantly upon us. It will be remembered that it
was night on this side of Mars when we went down, but our adventure had
occupied several hours, and now Mars had so turned upon its axis that
the portion of its surface over which we were had come around into the
sunlight.
We knew that the squadron which we had left besieging the Lake of the
Sun must also have been carried around in a similar manner, passing into
the night while the side of the planet where we were was emerging into
day.
Our shortest way back would be by traveling westward, because then we
should be moving in a direction opposite to that in which the planet
rotated, and the main squadron, sharing that rotation, would be
continually moving in our direction.
But to travel westward was to penetrate once more into the night side of
the planet.
The prows, if I may so call them, of our ships were accordingly turned
in the direction of the vast shadow which Mars was invisibly projecting
into space behind it, and on entering that shadow the sun disappeared
from our eyes, and once more the huge hidden globe beneath us became a
black chasm among the stars.
Now that we were in the neighborhood of a globe capable of imparting
considerable weight to all things under the influence of its attraction
that peculiar condition which I have before described as existing in the
midst of space, where there was neither up nor down for us, had ceased.
Here where we had weight "up" and "down" had resumed their old meanings.
"Down" was toward the center of Mars, and "up" was away from that
center.
Standing on the deck, and looking overhead as we swiftly ploughed our
smooth way at a great height through the now imperceptible atmosphere of
the planet, I saw the two moons of Mars meeting in the sky exactly above
us.
Before our arrival at Mars, there had been considerable discussion among
the learned men as to the advisability of touching at one of their
moons, and when the discovery was made that our provisions were nearly
exhausted, it had been suggested that the Martian satellites might
furnish us with an additional supply.
But it had appeared a sufficient reply to this suggestion that the moons
of Mars are both insignificant bodies, not much larger than the asteroid
we had fallen in with, and that there could not possibly be any form of
vegetation or other edible products upon them.
This view having prevailed, we had ceased to take an interest in the
satellites, further than to regard them as objects of great curiosity on
account of their motions.
The nearer of these moons, Phobos, is only 3,700 miles from the surface
of Mars, and we watched it traveling around the planet three times in
the course of every day. The more distant one, Deimos, 12,500 miles
away, required considerably more than one day to make its circuit.
It now happened that the two had come into conjunction, as I have said,
just over our heads, and, throwing myself down on my back on the deck of
the electrical ship, for a long time I watched the race between the two
satellites, until Phobos, rapidly gaining upon the other, had left its
rival far behind.
Suddenly Colonel Smith, who took very little interest in these
astronomical curiosities, touched me, and pointing ahead, said:
"There they are."
I looked, and sure enough there were the signal lights of the principal
squadron, and as we gazed we occasionally saw, darting up from the vast
cloud mass beneath, an electric bayonet, fiercely thrust into the sky,
which showed that the siege was still actively going on, and that the
Martians were jabbing away at their invisible enemies outside the
curtain.
In a short time the two fleets had joined, and Colonel Smith and I
immediately transferred ourselves to the flagship.
"Well, what have you done?" asked Mr. Edison, while others crowded
around with eager attention.
"If we have not captured their provision train," said Colonel Smith, "we
have done something just about as good. We have foraged on the country,
and have collected a supply that I reckon will last this fleet for at
least a month."
"What's that? What's that?"
"It's just what I say," and Colonel Smith brought out of his pocket one
of the square cakes of compressed food. "Set your teeth in that, and see
what you think of it, but don't take too much, for its powerful strong."
"I say," he continued, "we have got enough of that stuff to last us all
for a month, but we've done more than that; we have got a surprise for
you that will make you open your eyes. Just wait a minute."
Colonel Smith made a signal to the electrical ship which we had just
quitted to draw near. It came alongside, so that one could step from its
deck onto the flagship. Colonel Smith disappeared for a minute in the
interior of his ship, then re-emerged, leading the girl whom we had
found upon the planet.
"Take her inside, quick," he said, "for she is not used to this thin
air."
In fact, we were at so great an elevation that the rarity of the
atmosphere now compelled us all to wear our air-tight suits, and the
girl, not being thus attired, would have fallen unconscious on the deck
if we had not instantly removed her to the interior of the car.
There she quickly recovered from the effects of the deprivation of air
and looked about her, pale, astonished, but yet apparently without fear.
Every motion of this girl convinced me that she not only recognized us
as members of her own race, but that she felt that her only hope lay in
our aid. Therefore, strange as we were to her in many respects,
nevertheless she did not think that she was in danger while among us.
The circumstances under which we had found her were quickly explained.
Her beauty, her strange fate and the impenetrable mystery which
surrounded her excited universal admiration and wonder.
"How did she get on Mars?" was the question that everybody asked, and
that nobody could answer.
But while all were crowding around and overwhelming the poor girl with
their staring, suddenly she burst into tears, and then, with arms
outstretched in the same appealing manner which had so stirred our
sympathies when we first saw her in the house of the Martians, she broke
forth in a wild recitation, which was half a song and half a wail.
As she went on I noticed that a learned professor of languages from the
University of Heidelberg was listening to her with intense attention.
Several times he appeared to be on the point of breaking in with an
exclamation. I could plainly see that he was becoming more and more
excited as the words poured from the girl's lips. Occasionally he nodded
and muttered, smiling to himself.
Her song finished, the girl sank half-exhausted upon the floor. She was
lifted and placed in a reclining position at the side of the car.
Then the Heidelberg professor stepped to the center of the car, in the
sight of all, and in a most impressive manner said:
"Gentlemen, our sister.
"I have her tongue recognized! The language that she speaks, the roots
of the great Indo-European, or Aryan stock, contains.
"This girl, gentlemen, to the oldest family of the human race belongs.
Her language every tongue that now upon the earth is spoken antedates.
Convinced am I that it that great original speech is from which have all
the languages of the civilized world sprung.
"How she here came, so many millions of miles from the earth, a great
mystery is. But it shall be penetrated, and it is from her own lips that
we shall the truth learn, because not difficult to us shall it be the
language that she speaks to acquire since to our own it is akin."
This announcement of the Heidelberg professor stirred us all most
profoundly. It not only deepened our interest in the beautiful girl whom
we had rescued, but, in a dim way, it gave us reason to hope that we
should yet discover some means of mastering the Martians by dealing them
a blow from within.
It had been expected, the reader will remember, that the Martian whom we
had made prisoner on the asteroid, might be of use to us in a similar
way, and for that reason great efforts had been made to acquire his
language, and considerable progress had been effected in that direction.
But from the moment of our arrival at Mars itself, and especially after
the battles began, the prisoner had resumed his savage and
uncommunicative disposition, and had seemed continually to be expecting
that we would fall victims to the prowess of his fellow beings, and that
he would be released. How an outlaw, such as he evidently was, who had
been caught in the act of robbing the Martian gold mines, could expect
to escape punishment on returning to his native planet it was difficult
to see. Nevertheless, so strong are the ties of race we could plainly
perceive that all his sympathies were for his own people.
In fact, in consequence of his surly manner, and his attempts to escape,
he had been more strictly bound than before and to get him out of the
way had been removed from the flagship, which was already overcrowded,
and placed in one of the other electric ships, and this ship--as it
happened--was one of those which were lost in the great battle beneath
the clouds. So after all, the Martian had perished, by a vengeful stroke
launched from his native globe.
But Providence had placed in our hands a far better interpreter than he
could ever have been. This girl of our own race would need no urging, or
coercion, on our part in order to induce her to reveal any secrets of
the Martians that might be useful in our further proceedings.
But one thing was first necessary to be done.
We must learn to talk with her.
But for the discovery of the store of provisions it would have been
impossible for us to spare the time needed to acquire the language of
the girl, but now that we had been saved from the danger of starvation,
we could prolong the siege for several weeks, employing the intervening
time to the best advantage.
The terrible disaster which we had suffered in the great battle above
the Lake of the Sun, wherein we had lost nearly a third of our entire
force, had been quite sufficient to convince us that our only hope of
victory lay in dealing the Martians some paralyzing stroke that at one
blow would deprive them of the power of resistance. A victory that cost
us the loss of a single ship would be too dearly purchased now.
How to deal that blow, and first of all, how to discover the means of
dealing it, were at present the uppermost problems in our minds.
The only hope for us lay in the girl.
If, as there was every reason to believe, she was familiar with the ways
and secrets of the Martians, then she might be able to direct our
efforts in such a manner as to render them effective.
"We can spare two weeks for this," said Mr. Edison. "Can you fellows of
many tongues learn to talk with the girl in that time?"
"We'll try it," said several.
"It shall we do," cried the Heidelberg professor more confidently.
"Then there is no use of staying here," continued the commander. "If we
withdraw the Martians will think that we have either given up the
earth's moon, always keep the same face toward their master. By blanket
and let us see their face once more. That will give us a better
opportunity to strike effectively when we are again ready."
"Why not rendezvous at one of the moons?" said an astronomer. "Neither
of the two moons is of much consequence, as far as size goes, but still
it would serve as sort of an anchorage ground, and while there, if we
were careful to keep on the side away from Mars, we should escape
detection."
This suggestion was immediately accepted, and the squadron having been
signalled to assemble quickly bore off in the direction of the more
distant moon of Mars, Deimos. We knew that it was slightly smaller than
Phobos, but its greater distance gave promise that it would better serve
our purpose of temporary concealment. The moons of Mars, like the
earth's moon, always kept the same face toward their master. By hiding
behind Deimos we should escape the prying eyes of the Martians, even
when they employed telescopes, and thus be able to remain comparatively
close at hand, ready to pounce down upon them again, after we had
obtained, as we now had good hope of doing, information that would make
us masters of the situation.