I came to in a clean white bed with a large handsome man looking down
at me. He was a striking fellow. To give you some idea I will simply
say that this man, whose name I soon learned was Lowell Hawthorne, was
even better developed and more manfully handsome than myself.
"You've had a bit of a close shave, old man," he said, gripping my
shoulder in a perfectly manly way.
"American, aren't you?"
"Right you are, old man," he said. "Mabu, my native boy and Numba, his
native boy, fished you out of the briny. Scared the simple fellows a
bit at first. They're not used to finding chaps such as yourself inside
giant clams. I had some talking to do to convince them you weren't a
large pearl or some such thing."
"I believe it is oysters rather than clams that are best known for
their pearls," I said, good naturedly, for I took to this handsome,
though mysterious, American almost at once.
"Who can tell a native anything?" was his honest reply.
"I suppose I am to be laid up here for a time," I said.
"A few days," said Hawthorne, drawing a bamboo chair near to my side.
"If you don't object I'd like to tell you a few of my adventures. For,
if I do say so myself, my life has been both curious and strange."
"By all means," I encouraged, being anxious to learn more of this
enigmatic man who apparently lived contentedly here among savages and
giant clams.
"I can tell by your look," he began, "that you are a man of science and
that you may at first be a bit skeptical. Let me begin by saying that
for the past five years I have been in close radio contact with a man
living inside the planet Venus."
"Inside?" I asked. "Come, Hawthorne. Science is well aware that people
live on the outside of that damp junglous planet. But inside?"
"Put aside all your scientific learning for a moment," my new friend
replied. "If you do you may learn something. At least you will have
whiled away your convalescence."
So he began the odd and compelling narrative that you will read in the
next chapter.