“Egad! This beautiful girl is braver than the whole Martian army!” I exclaimed in amazement, as she calmly approached where I was standing by the gate and extended her fair, plump hand. If she was asking alms, I had nothing to give her; but here, at least, was one pacific, composed, and reasonable person. Perhaps it was the queen, or a diplomatic envoy of the ruler!
“Now is the time to demonstrate our friendliness,” I exclaimed, and reaching forth my hand I grasped hers in a warm clasp of welcome.
She looked up at me blankly. Her beautiful face carried no expression of satisfaction or surprise. Her transparent complexion was neither paled by fear nor flushed by pleasure. Her great dreamy eyes, of a deep liquid blue, wandered unfixedly in their languid gaze. Still holding her soft hand, which was far warmer than my own, I opened her fingers with my other hand and pointed at her pink extended palm as if to inquire what she wished. I watched her closely, but she made no sign, said nothing, looked nothing.
“Since I do not know you, I can think of no more fitting name to call you by than Miss Blank,” I said, more to express my thought in articulate sounds than anything else, for I had no idea she would understand me. From her expression I could not judge whether she had even heard me, to say nothing of comprehending. She was looking beyond me, through the gate, as if searching others from whom she might ask alms. Seeing none, she wheeled slowly about to return. Unwillingly I released her hand, and stood unspeakably puzzled by the whole matter. She was commanding in appearance, being taller than I by a few inches, not slim, but well proportioned. She had the stately serenity of a dreaming queen, but the blank, unresponsive soul of one who dwelt within herself; and though she saw, she did not realize the existence or meaning of anything outside.
“Doctor, will all your learning solve this riddle for me!” I exclaimed. “Can all the Martian women be like this? She is beautiful of body and strangely warm and winning to the touch, but as cold of heart as the drifting snow that suffocates a poor lost lamb. She has had a strange influence over me; a puzzling, baffling attraction. A suggestion of something delicate and subtlely charming, which, when one seeks to seize and to define, retires icily behind the drawn curtain of her soul.”
“I hope you won’t play the lost lamb to her snowdrift!” he sneered, in a way that I resented. “One would think she had hypnotized you on the spot! And she must be in a trance herself, for she had not sense enough to fear us.”
“Those who have the most sense fear us the least!” I retorted.
“But fear is our sharp weapon now,” he answered; “and some of the stragglers, looking back, saw you stand there holding her hand in a manner far from warlike. They will report this to the rulers unless we forestall them. Come, fasten the gates tightly upon the inside to keep the soldiers out, and I will sail over the wall to pick you up.”
“Doctor, we make our peace at once, and fight no more with the brothers of this girl,” I said with decision.
The massive gates were of hewn stone, turning in sockets at their outer corners above and below. They swung as easily as if hung upon hinges, and when closed a slab of stone came down to bar them. I made them fast, and then called out to the doctor,—
“Don’t come for me. I have found a jumping-staff, and I think I can leap to the top of the wall.”
It was a sheer fifteen feet of solid masonry, but my chief delight since landing on Martian soil was the inordinate springiness of my leg muscles against the feeble gravity. I ran and sprang lustily with the aid of the cross-bow, and I remember the doctor’s surprised look when he saw me clear the entire wall without touching the top and land safely with a very mild jolt on his side.
A short oblique ascent of the projectile brought us over the city, and revealed to us the condition of desperate panic into which the wild reports of the soldiers and the bird-rider had thrown the frantic populace. The soldiers still within the walls could not restrain the people, or did not try. If there was any government, it lacked a head or could not command attention. The stubborn instinct of self-preservation was king. Distracted throngs surged out at one gate, to separate and waver and hesitate, and finally to fight for a speedy entrance at another. On one side soldiers were apparently ordering people down from the wall, while on another the excited populace was hauling sentinel soldiers from the same elevation, lest our attention should be attracted. Within, strong men were weeping and wailing; without, nervous men were haranguing the vacillating multitude; but more were stolidly pushing with the rabble or being hustled by it.
Only one sign of order and forethought was apparent. Evidently for better safety and for an easier defence, the women and children had been taken to a central park or pleasure ground, and left there with a small guard of soldiers. The men to whom they belonged had apparently all gone elsewhere.
“Doctor, we must put an end to this fear and frenzy at the earliest possible moment. If we are not destroying those people, we are exciting them to destroy each other, which is equally blameworthy. We must go down at once, but we had best avoid the frantic men. The women seem far more reposeful. Let us drop quietly into that open field in the park, and I will make friendly signs to the women, pat the children on the head, and give them all to understand that we mean no harm.”
He evidently saw that we had quite overdone the scare, and was as much impressed by the terrible picture below as I was. We turned down without delay, and landed quietly behind a clump of trees. I took a tin of sweet biscuits under my arm, and the doctor following me, with a generous handful of his trinkets and tinsel toys, we left the projectile, and rounding the grove of dwarfed trees we approached the romping children first. I patted their flaxen curls, lightly pinched their cheeks, and handed each of them a sweet biscuit. Then, while the doctor distributed strange toys amongst them, I put on my most courtly ways and addressed myself to the women. Their first impulses of fear had been somewhat allayed by our attentions to the children, and I bowed profusely and made bold to kiss the hands of a few of the youngest of them. Each of these looked to see if I had left anything visible or harmful on her hand, from which I judged the custom was wholly strange to them. The others looked on askance and whispered excitedly among themselves.
One of the soldiers who had seen us approach, but offered no resistance, had now started to run, as fast as his jumping-staff would carry him, toward the palace. I knew at once that this meant some new development, and I hoped it meant a report of our friendly actions and a truce all around. But the doctor reminded me that we must be prepared for surprises and treachery. Therefore we re-entered the projectile, and out of the sight of all the Martians I re-loaded the rifles, and then we waited a long time.
Our patience was finally rewarded, for we saw the soldier returning, slowly leading a woman. In her left arm, which the soldier held, she carried something white which wriggled occasionally. All this we considered so favourable a development that we went out again, bowing to the women about us, petting the children, and looking as peaceable and amiable as the politest of Earth’s people. But it may have passed for imbecility, or worse, on Mars.