The resistance was secure and certain. Pain--it
seemed a kind of bliss, as the guarantee of my flesh and blood
existence--came to me and in my paroxysms the torn skin of my body bled.
I looked at the red stains with exultation. I felt the aches of physical
concussion, with a real rapture.
"This life was real, was dual--body and mind--as on Earth, and the woman
hastening before me along the marge of the rippling stream--I listened
in a kind of feverish anticipation of its silence, for the low cadence
of water passing over pebbles--was Martha! It must be true! What agency
of superhuman cruelty could thus deceive me? No! my eyes were faithful,
and the air, thrilling with the distant song, brought nearer to my ears
the answering call of my wife!
"She was far distant. I ran from tree to tree in the wooded back ground
and traced her to a little hamlet where a group of Martians awaited her.
They turned up a narrow lane singing, and I lost them.
"I returned to Alca, pensively standing on the hill we had first
descended, and said nothing of the strange revelation. I contrived to
learn from him the name of the little village, and the nature of its
inhabitants. He called it Nitansi, and said it had been one of the old
spots where migrating souls from other worlds once entered Mars.
"'A few,' he added, 'come there now, though rarely, and the people
cultivate flowers in great farms, and formerly sent them to Scandor. I
think I saw them moving now along the fields at the riverside.
Pages:
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192