Earth men have not yet progressed to a point where they can comprehend
the things that I have written in those notes.
'Give them what you wish of it, what you think will not harm them,
but do not feel aggrieved if they laugh at you.'
That night I walked down to the cemetery with him. At the door of
his vault he turned and pressed my hand.
'Good-bye, nephew,' he said. 'I may never see you again, for I
doubt that I can ever bring myself to leave my wife and boy while
they live, and the span of life upon Barsoom is often more than a
thousand years.'
He entered the vault. The great door swung slowly to. The ponderous
bolts grated into place. The lock clicked. I have never seen
Captain John Carter, of Virginia, since.
But here is the story of his return to Mars on that other occasion,
as I have gleaned it from the great mass of notes which he left
for me upon the table of his room in the hotel at Richmond.
There is much which I have left out; much which I have not dared
to tell; but you will find the story of his second search for Dejah
Thoris, Princess of Helium, even more remarkable than was his first
manuscript which I gave to an unbelieving world a short time since
and through which we followed the fighting Virginian across dead
sea bottoms under the moons of Mars.
E. R. B.
CONTENTS
I. The Plant Men
II.
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