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 qualifications difficulties
became light.

Meanwhile, the first essential was breakfast of some kind. I arose,
stretched, put on my half-dried clothes, and mounting a low hummock on
the forest edge looked around. The sun was riding up finely into the