I thank whatever gods may be that I did so!
For, hardly had I so much as begun my perfunctory circuit of the rotunda, before I paused in front of a large, jewel-bright painting as if thunderstruck. The involuntary gasp of amazement this masterpiece wrung from my lips must have been clearly audible to all who stood within the great room. Aware that I had drawn all eyes to me I laughed lightly, dissembling my awe behind a flimsy pretense of aesthetic pleasure.
It was the portrait of a young woman of such incomparable beauty as I had never heretofore imagined the human features could attain to, nor the brush of an artist express upon his canvas. Her face was an exquisite oval cameo, poised upon a proud and graceful and slender neck, her features delicately chiseled, her great eyes lustrous as black jewels. Her abundant masses of glistening hair, black as a raven’s wing, were confined by a gemmed tiara of bizarre design which encircled her brows, and from the starry crest of this coronet there soared a rare single curved plume, shimmering with the peacock hues of bronze and emerald and metallic azure.
Her complexion was clear and flawless, the warm tint of ruddy copper, glowing with the rich carmine of her dimpled cheeks, and her full, perfect lips shimmered like polished rubies. Her raiment consisted of a silken scarf of lucent gossamer through which the lines of her splendid figure could be ascertained. This crossed over one gleaming shoulder and then wrapped itself about her slender, rounded upper body, leaving bare, as is the custom with the women of Mars, her perfect breasts which were, however, partially but discreetly veiled by thin chains of precious metals and narrow necklaces of glittering gems. It was the expression in that radiant and exquisite face which rendered the portrait more than merely an admirable technical achievement. For the hand of the painter had somehow caught the living spirit of his unknown model—the radiant health, the roguish humor of her voluptuous yet playful smile, the fresh, exciting vigor and zest for life legible in her vivacious, laughing eyes—and rendered them immortal, preserved by the brush of genius for all the ages to come.
I stood before this miracle of art as one entranced, devouring with my eyes the laughing, vivid beauty of this young and delicious creature. Rapt as I was, and all but oblivious to my surroundings, I was aware that my fascinated attention to this one painting was drawing curious stares in my direction, and that puzzled whispers were arising from my audience.
A tactful young lieutenant in my retinue, Rad Komis by name, noticing that my peculiar behavior was attracting attention, cleared his throat behind me.
“An admirable work, is it not, my Prince?” he murmured.
“Oh, admirable, admirable,” I said in what I hoped was an offhand manner. “Whose work is this?”
Rad Komis consulted a leaflet in which the new exhibits were listed.
“An artist named Quindus Varro. I have heard of him; a genius, but somewhat eccentric. He lives in a half-ruined villa beyond the city, eschewing the companionship of his fellow men. The painting is entitled ‘Xana of Kanator’ ”
“Indeed?” I said, pretending polite indifference. “An excellent skill. Let us pass on to observe the other artworks.” But upon the tablets of my memory I engraved the name of the artist and that of his exquisite subject.
Early that evening after a light repast in my suite I repaired to the airship hangar atop the roof of the palace, cast off the mooring lines, and took to the skies in my private scout.
The villa in which the eccentric artist, Quindus Varro, made his abode lay directly north of Zorad, beyond those waterfront precincts of the city which had become abandoned with the lessening of the population over many ages.
Silent and swift as a hovering shadow, my flier skimmed above the spires of crumbling palaces and deserted piles of ruined masonry long given over to the stealthy scavengers of the fungus forest which mantled the hills to the north and east of Zorad. The night was clear and brilliant with stars, and as both of the twin moons of Mars were aloft at this hour, their doubled moonlight transformed the nocturnal landscape into a scene of weird and romantic grandeur. The Martians call the lesser of the twin moons, which Earthlings know as Deimos, by the name of Cluros; while it is much closer to the surface of Mars than is the satellite of my native world, it revolves so slowly that it requires thirty hours and a trifle more to make one complete circuit of the planet. The greater of the two moons, which we call Phobos, the Martians know as Thuria. It soars at a height of only some five thousand miles above the surface of the planet, and completes one circumnavigation of Mars every seven and one-half hours, presenting to the eye the semblance of an immense, luminous meteor hurtling across the heavens from horizon to horizon two or three times each night.
The villa of Quindus Varro was one of the numerous edifices of antiquity which survive virtually intact due to the remarkable preservative qualities of the Martian atmosphere. The facade of this imposing structure was a colonnade composed of marble pillars, of which two were fallen; the remainder served to support a grand architrave whereon were sculptured with deathless skill the noble and graceful and heroic forms of men and women. The upper works presented a rich surface of ornament, heavy with carven faces of allegorical figures, some adorned with noble metals or precious stones. Only the east wing of this palatial edifice was slumping into decay; the remainder of the structure displayed a remarkable degree of preservation.
I brought my flier down to the courtyard before the colonnade, where slabs of marble lay tumbled about and overgrown with quantities of indigo moss. Tethering the mooring line to the capital of a fallen column, which lay mouldering amidst the rank and untamed growth, I strode up a flight of broken stone steps to discover the towering doors of the portal widely ajar. Within I found a circular rotunda whose marble floor was littered with dead vegetation and matted with indescribable filth. The many-colored moonlight fell in glorious shafts through broken clerestory windows to illuminate walls of gleaming alabaster, hung with tattered, faded tapestries, and to gleam along the dirty rail of a graceful stair which coiled to the second level.
A cracked, peevish voice hailed me from the darkness above.
“What noisome intruder disturbs the solitude of Quindus Varro? There is little else but garbage here to steal, if you be a thief; this, and the poor rags that clothe my body, and a few oddments of the painter's craft. Can it be that my rivals fear the genius of Quindus Varro to such an absurd extent, that they have secured the services of an assassin to forever extinguish that spark of divine fire?”
Another than an inhabitant of the Red Planet might have first suspected an uninvited intruder to be a burglar, but this is not so. On Barsoom, for some strange reason, thievery is so exceptionally rare as to be virtually unknown, and I have not the slightest reason why. It is another of the many mysteries which I cannot explain to my reader (if any shall ever peruse these words). It is almost as if stealing had never been invented by the dwellers on the Red Planet; if so, I greatly fear thievery to be the only crime or vice unique to the peoples of Earth, for the Martian civilisation enjoys, if that is the word I want, every other criminal tendency known to my former planet.
Thus addressed, I stepped into the pool of moonlight so that the man could clearly see me from above, and announced my name in a firm voice, although neglecting to state my rank in society.
“Jad Tedron, Jad Tedron,” the old man mumbled. “I know no Jad Tedron. What do you wish of me, that you must intrude your unwanted presence upon my meditations?”