tufted with skin and hair--all was sickening to me. Yet
so hungry was I that when I turned towards the odious remnants of the
vanquished--a shapeless mass of abomination--my thoughts flew at once
to breakfasting! I went down and inspected the victim cautiously--a
huge rat-like beast as far as might be judged from the bare uprising
ribs--all that was left of him looking like the framework of a schooner
yacht. His heart lay amongst the offal, and my knife came out to cut a
meal from it, but I could not do it. Three times I essayed the task,
hunger and disgust contending for mastery; three times turned back in
loathing. At last I could stand the sight no more, and, slamming the
knife up again, turned on my heels, and fairly ran for fresh air and
the shore, where the sea was beginning to glimmer in the light a few
score yards through the forest stems. There, once more out on the
open, on a pebbly beach, I stripped, spreading my things out to dry on
the stones, and laying myself down with the lapping of the waves in my
ears, and the first yellow sunshine thawing my limbs, tried to piece
together the hurrying events of the last few days.

What were my gay Martians doing? Lazy dogs to let me, a stranger, be
the only one to draw sword in defence of their own princess! Where was
poor Heru, that sweet maiden wife? The thought of her in the hands of
the ape-men was odious. And yet was I not mad to try to rescue, or
even to follow her alone? If by any chance I could get off this
beast-haunted place and catch up with the ravishers, what had I to look
for from them except speedy extinction, and that likely enough by the
most painful process they were acquainted with?

The other alternative of going back empty handed was terribly
ignominious. I had lectured the amiable young manhood of Seth so
soundly on the subject of gallantry, and set them such a good example
on two occasions, that it would be bathos to saunter back, hands in
pockets, and confess I knew nothing of the lady's fate and had been
daunted by the first night alone in the forest. Besides, how dull it
would be in that beautiful, tumble-down old city without Heru, with no
expectation day by day of seeing her sylph-like form and hearing the
merry tinkle of her fairy laughter as she scoffed at the unknown
learning collected by her ancestors in a thousand laborious years. No!
I would go on for certain. I was young, in love, and angry, and before
those qualificat