After a breakfast, which was an exact replica of the meal ofthe preceding day and an index of practically every mealwhich followed while I was with the green men of Mars, Solaescorted me to the plaza, where I found the entire communityengaged in watching or helping at the harnessing of hugemastodonian animals to great three-wheeled chariots. Therewere about two hundred and fifty of these vehicles, eachdrawn by a single animal, any one of which, from theirappearance, might easily have drawn the entire wagon trainwhen fully loaded.

The chariots themselves were large, commodious, andgorgeously decorated. In each was seated a female Martianloaded with ornaments of metal, with jewels and silks and furs,and upon the back of each of the beasts which drew the chariotswas perched a young Martian driver. Like the animals upon whichthe warriors were mounted, the heavier draft animals wore neitherbit nor bridle, but were guided entirely by telepathic means.

This power is wonderfully developed in all Martians, andaccounts largely for the simplicity of their language and therelatively few spoken words exchanged even in long conversations.It is the universal language of Mars, through the mediumof which the higher and lower animals of this world ofparadoxes are able to communicate to a greater or less extent,depending upon the intellectual sphere of the species and thedevelopment of the individual.

As the cavalcade took up the line of march in single file,Sola dragged me into an empty chariot and we proceededwith the procession toward the point by which I had enteredthe city the day before. At the head of the caravan rode sometwo hundred warriors, five abreast, and a like numberbrought up the rear, while twenty-five or thirty outridersflanked us on either side.

Every one but myself--men, women, and children--wereheavily armed, and at the tail of each chariot trotted aMartian hound, my own beast following closely behind ours; infact, the faithful creature never left me voluntarily during theentire ten years I spent on Mars. Our way led out across thelittle valley before the city, through the hills, and down intothe dead sea bottom which I had traversed on my journeyfrom the incubator to the plaza. The incubator, as it proved,was the terminal point of our journey this day, and, as theentire cavalcade broke into a mad gallop as soon as wereached the level expanse of sea bottom, we were soon withinsight of our goal.

On reaching it the chariots were parked with militaryprecision on the four sides of the enclosure, and half a scoreof warriors, headed by the enormous chieftain, and includingTars Tarkas and several other lesser chiefs, dismounted andadvanced toward it. I could see Tars Tarkas explaining somethingto the principal chieftain, whose name, by the way, was,as nearly as I can translate it into English, Lorquas Ptomel,Jed; jed being his title.

I was soon appraised of the subject of their conversation, as,calling to Sola, Tars Tarkas signed for her to send me to him.I had by this time mastered the intricacies of walking underMartian conditions, and quickly responding to his commandI advanced to the side of the incubator where the warriorsstood.

As I reached their side a glance showed me that all but avery few eggs had hatched, the incubator being fairly alivewith the hideous little devils. They ranged in height fromthree to four feet, and were moving restlessly about theenclosure as though searching for food.

As I came to a halt before him, Tars Tarkas pointed overthe incubator and said, "Sak." I saw that he wanted me torepeat my performance of yesterday for the edification ofLorquas Ptomel, and, as I must confess that my prowess gaveme no little satisfaction, I responded quickly, leaping entirelyover the parked chariots on the far side of the incubator. AsI returned, Lorquas Ptomel grunted something at me, andturning to his warriors gave a few words of command relativeto the incubator. They paid no further attention to me and Iwas thus permitted to remain close and watch their operations,which consisted in breaking an opening in the wall of theincubator large enough to permit of the exit of the young Martians.

On either side of this opening the women and the younger Martians,both male and female, formed two solid walls leading outthrough the chariots and quite away into the plain beyond.Between these walls the little Martians scampered,wild as deer; being permitted to run the full length of theaisle, where they were captured one at a time by the womenand older children; the last in the line capturing the first littleone to reach the end of the gauntlet, her opposite in the linecapturing the second, and so on until all the little fellows hadleft the enclosure and been appropriated by some youth orfemale. As the women caught the young they fell out of lineand returned to their respective chariots, while those who fellinto the hands of the young men were later turned over tosome of the women.

I saw that the ceremony, if it could be dignified by sucha name, was over, and seeking out Sola I found her in ourchariot with a hideous little creature held tightly in her arms.

The work of rearing young, green Martians consists solelyin teaching them to talk, and to use the weapons of warfarewith which they are loaded down from the very first year oftheir lives. Coming from eggs in which they have lain forfive years, the period of incubation, they step forth into theworld perfectly developed except in size. Entirely unknownto their mothers, who, in turn, would have difficulty inpointing out the fathers with any degree of accuracy, they arethe common children of the community, and their educationdevolves upon the females who chance to capture them asthey leave the incubator.

Their foster mothers may not even have had an egg in theincubator, as was the case with Sola, who had not commencedto lay, until less than a year before she became the mother ofanother woman's offspring. But this counts for little amongthe green Martians, as parental and filial love is as unknown tothem as it is common among us. I believe this horrible systemwhich has been carried on for ages is the direct cause of theloss of all the finer feelings and higher humanitarian instinctsamong these poor creatures. From birth they know no fatheror mother love, they know not the meaning of the word home;they are taught that they are only suffered to live until theycan demonstrate by their physique and ferocity that they arefit to live. Should they prove deformed or defective in any waythey are promptly shot; nor do they see a tear shed for asingle one of the many cruel hardships they pass through fromearliest infancy.

I do not mean that the adult Martians are unnecessarily orintentionally cruel to the young, but theirs is a hard andpitiless struggle for existence upon a dying planet, the naturalresources of which have dwindled to a point where the supportof each additional life means an added tax upon the communityinto which it is thrown.

By careful selection they rear only the hardiest specimensof each species, and with almost supernatural foresightthey regulate the birth rate to merely offset the loss by death.

Each adult Martian female brings forth about thirteen eggseach year, and those which meet the size, weight, and specificgravity tests are hidden in the recesses of some subterraneanvault where the temperature is too low for incubation. Everyyear these eggs are carefully examined by a council of twentychieftains, and all but about one hundred of the most perfectare destroyed out of each yearly supply. At the end of fiveyears about five hundred almost perfect eggs have been chosenfrom the thousands brought forth. These are then placed inthe almost air-tight incubators to be hatched by the sun's raysafter a period of another five years. The hatching which wehad witnessed today was a fairly representative event of itskind, all but about one per cent of the eggs hatching in twodays. If the remaining eggs ever hatched we knew nothing ofthe fate of the little Martians. They were not wanted, as theiroffspring might inherit and transmit the tendency to prolongedincubation, and thus upset the system which has maintainedfor ages and which permits the adult Martians to figure theproper time for return to the incubators, almost to an hour.

The incubators are built in remote fastnesses, where thereis little or no likelihood of their being discovered by othertribes. The result of such a catastrophe would mean no childrenin the community for another five years. I was later to witnessthe results of the discovery of an alien incubator.

The community of which the green Martians with whommy lot was cast formed a part was composed of some thirtythousand souls. They roamed an enormous tract of arid andsemi-arid land between forty and eighty degrees south latitude,and bounded on the east and west by two large fertile tracts.Their headquarters lay in the southwest corner of this district,near the crossing of two of the so-called Martian canals.

As the incubator had been placed far north of their ownterritory in a supposedly uninhabited and unfrequented area,we had before us a tremendous journey, concerning which I,of course, knew nothing.

After our return to the dead city I passed several days incomparative idleness. On the day following our return all thewarriors had ridden forth early in the morning and had notreturned until just before darkness fell. As I later learned,they had been to the subterranean vaults in which the eggswere kept and had transported them to the incubator, whichthey had then walled up for another five years, and which, inall probability, would not be visited again during that period.

The vaults which hid the eggs until they were ready for theincubator were located many miles south of the incubator,and would be visited yearly by the council of twenty chieftains.Why they did not arrange to build their vaults and incubatorsnearer home has always been a mystery to me, and, like manyother Martian mysteries, unsolved and unsolvable by earthlyreasoning and customs.

Sola's duties were now doubled, as she was compelled tocare for the young Martian as well as for me, but neither oneof us required much attention, and as we were both aboutequally advanced in Martian education, Sola took it uponherself to train us together.

Her prize consisted in a male about four feet tall, verystrong and physically perfect; also, he learned quickly, and wehad considerable amusement, at least I did, over the keenrivalry we displayed. The Martian language, as I have said,is extremely simple, and in a week I could make all mywants known and understand nearly everything that was saidto me. Likewise, under Sola's tutelage, I developed mytelepathic powers so that I shortly could sense practicallyeverything that went on around me.

What surprised Sola most in me was that while I couldcatch telepathic messages easily from others, and often whenthey were not intended for me, no one could read a jot frommy mind under any circumstances. At first this vexed me, butlater I was very glad of it, as it gave me an undoubtedadvantage over the Martians.