It was dark when I opened my eyes again. Strange, stiffgarments were upon my body; garments that cracked andpowdered away from me as I rose to a sitting posture.

I felt myself over from head to foot and from head tofoot I was clothed, though when I fell unconscious at thelittle doorway I had been naked. Before me was a smallpatch of moonlit sky which showed through a ragged aperture.

As my hands passed over my body they came in contactwith pockets and in one of these a small parcel of matcheswrapped in oiled paper. One of these matches I struck, andits dim flame lighted up what appeared to be a huge cave,toward the back of which I discovered a strange, still figurehuddled over a tiny bench. As I approached it I saw that itwas the dead and mummified remains of a little old womanwith long black hair, and the thing it leaned over was a smallcharcoal burner upon which rested a round copper vesselcontaining a small quantity of greenish powder.

Behind her, depending from the roof upon rawhide thongs,and stretching entirely across the cave, was a row of humanskeletons. From the thong which held them stretched anotherto the dead hand of the little old woman; as I touchedthe cord the skeletons swung to the motion with a noise asof the rustling of dry leaves.

It was a most grotesque and horrid tableau and I hastenedout into the fresh air; glad to escape from so gruesome a place.

The sight that met my eyes as I stepped out upon a smallledge which ran before the entrance of the cave filled mewith consternation.

A new heaven and a new landscape met my gaze. The silveredmountains in the distance, the almost stationary moonhanging in the sky, the cacti-studded valley below mewere not of Mars. I could scarcely believe my eyes, but thetruth slowly forced itself upon me--I was looking upon Arizonafrom the same ledge from which ten years before I had gazedwith 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 awfulsecret, forty-eight million miles away.

Did the Martian reach the pump room? Did the vitalizingair reach the people of that distant planet in time to savethem? Was my Dejah Thoris alive, or did her beautiful bodylie cold in death beside the tiny golden incubator in thesunken garden of the inner courtyard of the palace of TardosMors, the jeddak of Helium?

For ten years I have waited and prayed for an answer tomy questions. For ten years I have waited and prayed to betaken back to the world of my lost love. I would rather liedead beside her there than live on Earth all those millions ofterrible miles from her.

The old mine, which I found untouched, has made mefabulously wealthy; but what care I for wealth!

As I sit here tonight in my little study overlooking theHudson, just twenty years have elapsed since I first openedmy eyes upon Mars.

I can see her shining in the sky through the little windowby my desk, and tonight she seems calling to me again asshe has not called before since that long dead night, and Ithink I can see, across that awful abyss of space, a beautifulblack-haired woman standing in the garden of a palace,and at her side is a little boy who puts his arm around heras she points into the sky toward the planet Earth, while attheir feet is a huge and hideous creature with a heart of gold.

I believe that they are waiting there for me, and somethingtells me that I shall soon know.