A PRINCESS OF MARS
AT THE ARIZONA CAVE
It was dark when I opened my again. Strange, were upon my body; that and away from me as I rose to a posture.
I myself over from to and from to I was clothed, though when I at the little I had been naked. Before me was a small of sky which through a aperture.
As my hands passed over my they came in with pockets and in one of these a small parcel of matches in paper. One of these matches I struck, and its up what appeared to be a cave, toward the of which I a strange, still over a bench. As I approached it I saw that it was the and of a little old woman with long black hair, and the thing it over was a small upon which rested a copper a small quantity of powder.
Behind her, from the upon rawhide thongs, and across the cave, was a of skeletons. From the which them another to the hand of the little old woman; as I touched the the to the motion with a noise as of the of leaves.
It was a most and and I out into the fresh air; to from so a place.
The that met my as I out upon a small which ran the entrance of the me with consternation.
A new and a new met my gaze. The in the distance, the almost moon in the sky, the cacti-studded me were not of Mars. I my eyes, but the truth slowly itself upon me—I was looking upon Arizona from the same from which ten years I had with upon Mars.
Burying my in my arms I turned, broken, and sorrowful, the from the cave.
Above me the red of Mars her secret, forty-eight miles away.
Did the Martian the pump room? Did the air the people of that in time to save them? Was my Dejah Thoris alive, or did her cold in death the in the garden of the of the of Tardos Mors, the 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 to the world of my love. I would her there than live on Earth all those millions of terrible miles from her.
The old mine, which I untouched, has me wealthy; but what I for wealth!
As I here tonight in my little study the Hudson, just twenty years have since I opened my upon Mars.
I can see her in the sky through the little window by my desk, and tonight she calling to me again as she has not called since that long night, and I think I can see, across that of space, a black-haired woman in the garden of a palace, and at her is a little boy who puts his arm around her as she points into the sky toward the Earth, while at their is a and with a of gold.
I that they are waiting there for me, and something tells me that I shall soon know.
