In seeing you and hearing the familiar English speech I am
moved myself by currents of retrospection; my earth home comes back to
me. I will satisfy your curiosity, and, you in turn, must tell me what
has happened in the old home.'
"He paused; from the streets of the city rose a sacred song. It came
like a slowly increasing torrent of sound, soft and low, rising with
impetuous fervor until it seemed to engulf us in its melodic tide.
Individual tones were heard in it, but its solidity and mass were most
impressive. I shook and trembled beneath the impact of its vibrations;
in its surging glory of sound I became fully reincarnated. I awoke naked
and ashamed. The man saw my confusion. He hurried to a niche in the wall
and handed me the tunic of the Martians with its girdle of blue cord and
its cap and shoes of the blue metal exquisitely wrought and light. I put
them upon me and lifting the cakes and the mellow-soaked pears to my
lips, listened.
"'The Martians,' he continued, 'are both a natural and supernatural
race. The natural race are largely prehistoric, though many yet exist;
the supernatural race are made up of beings from other worlds and a
great majority come up from the earth. How reincarnation first began on
Mars is unknown, though the natural people, the Dendas, have traditions
about it, vague and contradictory. It must have been slow. The
supernatural people thus brought to Mars have created its civilization,
discovered the phosphori, and established Music, which is so much of
their life, and accelerated in the way you have learned the process of
materialization.
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