to her face for a moment, and then how fair and ghostly she stood out
against the purpling sky; how her light drapery lifted to the icy wind,
and how dreadfully strange all those soft-scented flowers and trappings
seemed as we sped along side by side into the country of night and snow.

Then all of a sudden the true meaning of her being there burst upon me,
and with a start and a cry I looked around. WE WERE FLYING SWIFTLY
DOWN THAT RIVER OF THE DEAD THEY HAD TOLD ME OF THAT HAS NO OUTLET AND
NO RETURNING!

With frantic haste I snatched up a paddle again and tried to paddle
against the great black current sweeping us forward. I worked until the
perspiration stood in beads on my forehead, and all the time I worked
the river, like some black snake, hissed and twined, and that pretty lady
rode cheerily along at my side. Overhead stars of unearthly brilliancy
were coming out in the frosty sky, while on either hand the banks were
high and the shadows under them black as ink. In those shadows now and
then I noticed with a horrible indifference other rafts were travelling,
and presently, as the stream narrowed, they came out and joined us,
dead Martians, budding boys and girls; older voyagers with their age
quickening upon them in the Martian manner, just as some fruit only
ripens after it falls; yellow-girt slaves staring into the night in front,
quite a merry crew all clustered about I and that gentle lady, and more
far ahead and more behind, all bobbing and jostling forward as we hurried
to the dreadful graveyard in the Martian regions of eternal winter none
had ever seen and no one came to! I cried aloud in my desolation and
fear and hid my face in my hands, while the icy cliffs mocked my cry and
the dead maid, tripping alongside, rolled her head over, and stared at
me with stony, unseeing eyes.