A Princess of Mars

The sound which had frightened them was not repeated, but it had been

sufficient as it was to start me speculating on the possible horror

which lurked in the shadows at my back. Fear is a relative term and so

I can only measure my feelings at that time by what I had experienced

in previous positions of danger and by those that I have passed through

since; but I can say without shame that if the sensations I endured

during the next few minutes were fear, then may God help the coward,

for cowardice is of a surety its own punishment.

To be held paralyzed, with one's back toward some horrible and unknown

danger from the very sound of which the ferocious Apache warriors turn

in wild stampede, as a flock of sheep would madly flee from a pack of

wolves, seems to me the last word in fearsome predicaments for a man

who had ever been used to fighting for his life with all the energy of

a powerful physique.

Several times I thought I heard faint sounds behind me as of somebody

moving cautiously, but eventually even these ceased, and I was left to

the contemplation of my position without interruption. I could but

vaguely conjecture the cause of my paralysis, and my only hope lay in

that it might pass off as suddenly as it had fallen upon me.

Late in the afternoon my horse, which had been standing with dragging

rein before the cave, started slowly down the trail, evidently in

search of food and water, and I was left alone with my mysterious

unknown companion and the dead body of my friend, which lay just within

my range of vision upon the ledge where I had placed it in the early

morning.

From then until possibly midnight all was silence, the silence of the

dead; then, suddenly, the awful moan of the morning broke upon my

startled ears, and there came again from the black shadows the sound of

a moving thing, and a faint rustling as of dead leaves. The shock to

my already overstrained nervous system was terrible in the extreme, and

with a superhuman effort I strove to break my awful bonds. It was an

effort of the mind, of the will, of the nerves; not muscular, for I

could not move even so much as my little finger, but none the less

mighty for all that. And then something gave, there was a momentary

feeling of nausea, a sharp click as of the snapping of a steel wire,

and I stood with my back against the wall of the cave facing my unknown

foe.