The sight that met my eyes as I stepped out upon a small ledge which
ran before the entrance of the cave filled me with consternation.
A new heaven and a new landscape met my gaze. The silvered
mountains in the distance, the almost stationary moon hanging in
the sky, the cacti-studded valley below me were not of Mars. I
could scarcely believe my eyes, but the truth slowly forced itself
upon me--I was looking upon Arizona from the same ledge from which
ten years before I had gazed with longing upon Mars.
Burying my head in my arms I turned, broken, and sorrowful, down the
trail from the cave.
Above me shone the red eye of Mars holding her awful secret,
forty-eight million miles away.
Did the Martian reach the pump room? Did the vitalizing air reach
the people of that distant planet in time to save them? Was my
Dejah Thoris alive, or did her beautiful body lie cold in death
beside the tiny golden incubator in the sunken garden of the inner
courtyard of the palace of Tardos Mors, the jeddak of Helium?
For ten years I have waited and prayed for an answer to my
questions. For ten years I have waited and prayed to be taken
back to the world of my lost love.
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