They made me join them! One rosey-faced damsel at the hither end of the chain drew up to me, and, without a word, slipped her soft, baby fingers into my hand; on the other side another came with melting eyes, breath like a bed of violets, and banked-up fun puckering her dainty mouth. What could I do but give her a hand as well? The flute began to gurgle anew, like a drinking spout in spring-time, and away we went, faster and faster each minute, the boys and girls swinging themselves in time to the tune, and capering presently till their tender feet were twinkling over the ground in gay confusion. Faster and faster till, as the infection of the dance spread even to the outside groups, I capered too. My word! if they could have seen me that night from the deck of the old Carolina, how they would have laughed--sword swinging, coat-tails flying--faster and faster, round and round we went, till limbs could stand no more; the gasping piper blew himself quite out, and the dance ended as abruptly as it commenced, the dancers melting away to join others or casting themselves panting on the turf.
Certainly these Martian girls were blessed with an in-gratiating simplicity. My new friend of the violet-scented breath hung back a little, then after looking at me de-murely for a minute or two, like a child that chooses a new playmate, came softly up, and, standing on tiptoe, kissed me on the cheek. It was not unpleasant, so I turned the other, whereon, guessing my meaning, without the smallest hesitation, she reached up again, and pressed her pretty mouth to my bronzed skin a second time. Then, with a little sigh of satisfaction, she ran an arm through mine, saying, "Comrade, from what country have you come?
I never saw one quite like you before."
"From what country had I come?" Again the frown dropped down upon my forehead. Was I dreaming--was I mad? Where indeed had I come from? I stared back over my shoulder, and there, as if in answer to my thought--there, where the black tracery of flowering shrubs waved in the soft night wind, over a gap in the crumbling ivory ramparts, the sky was brightening. As I looked into the centre of that glow, a planet, magnified by the wonderful air, came swinging up, pale but splendid, and mapped by soft colours--green, violet, and red. I knew it on the min-ute, Heaven only knows how, but I knew it, and a des-perate thrill of loneliness swept over me, a spasm of com-prehension of the horrible void dividing us. Never did yearn-ing babe stretch arms more wistfully to an unattainable mother than I at that moment to my mother earth. All her meanness and prosaicness was forgotten, all her im-perfections and shortcomings; it was home, the one tangible thing in the glittering emptiness of the spheres. All my soul went into my eyes, and then I sneezed violently, and turning round, found that sweet damsel whose silky head nestled so friendly on my shoulder was tickling my nose with a feather she had picked up.
Womanlike, she had forgotten all about her first question, and now asked another, "Will you come to supper with me, stranger? 'Tis nearly ready, I think.""To be able to say no to such an invitation, lady, is the first thing a young man should learn," I answered lightly;but then, seeing there was nothing save the most innocent friendliness in those hazel eyes, I went on, "but that stern rule may admit of variance. Only, as it chances, I have just supped at the public expense. If, instead, you would be a sailor's sweetheart for an hour, and take me to this show of yours--your princess's benefit, or whatever it is--I shall be obliged; my previous guide is hull down over the horizon, and I am clean out of my reckoning in this crowd."By way of reply, the little lady, light as an elf, took me by the fingertips, and, gleefully skipping forward, piloted me through the mazes of her city until we came out into the great square fronting on the palace, which rose beyond it like a white chalk cliff in the dull light. Not a taper showed anywhere round its circumference, but a mysterious kind of radiance like sea phosphorescence beamed from the palace porch. All was in such deathlike silence that the nails in my "ammunition" boots made an unpleasant clanking as they struck on the marble pavement; yet, by the uncertain starlight, I saw, to my surprise, the whole square was thronged with Martians, all facing towards the porch, as still, graven images, and as voiceless, for once, as though they had indeed been marble. It was strange to see them sitting there in the twilight, waiting for Iknew not what, and my friend's voice at my elbow almost startled me as she said, in a whisper, "The princess knows you are in the crowd, and desires you to go up upon the steps near where she will be.""Who brought her message?" I asked, gazing vaguely round, for none had spoken to us for an hour or more.
"No one," said my companion, gently pushing me up an open way towards the palace steps left clear by the sitting Martians. "It came direct from her to me this minute.""But how?" I persisted.
