A Princess of Mars

He remained with us for about a year and then went to New York, where

he purchased a little place on the Hudson, where I visited him once a

year on the occasions of my trips to the New York market--my father and

I owning and operating a string of general stores throughout Virginia

at that time. Captain Carter had a small but beautiful cottage,

situated on a bluff overlooking the river, and during one of my last

visits, in the winter of 1885, I observed he was much occupied in

writing, I presume now, upon this manuscript.

He told me at this time that if anything should happen to him he wished

me to take charge of his estate, and he gave me a key to a compartment

in the safe which stood in his study, telling me I would find his will

there and some personal instructions which he had me pledge myself to

carry out with absolute fidelity.

After I had retired for the night I have seen him from my window

standing in the moonlight on the brink of the bluff overlooking the

Hudson with his arms stretched out to the heavens as though in appeal.

I thought at the time that he was praying, although I never understood

that he was in the strict sense of the term a religious man.

Several months after I had returned home from my last visit, the first

of March, 1886, I think, I received a telegram from him asking me to

come to him at once. I had always been his favorite among the younger

generation of Carters and so I hastened to comply with his demand.

I arrived at the little station, about a mile from his grounds, on the

morning of March 4, 1886, and when I asked the livery man to drive me

out to Captain Carter's he replied that if I was a friend of the

Captain's he had some very bad news for me; the Captain had been found

dead shortly after daylight that very morning by the watchman attached

to an adjoining property.

For some reason this news did not surprise me, but I hurried out to his

place as quickly as possible, so that I could take charge of the body

and of his affairs.

I found the watchman who had discovered him, together with the local

police chief and several townspeople, assembled in his little study.

The watchman related the few details connected with the finding of the

body, which he said had been still warm when he came upon it. It lay,

he said, stretched full length in the snow with the arms outstretched

above the head toward the edge of the bluff, and when he showed me the

spot it flashed upon me that it was the identical one where I had seen

him on those other nights, with his arms raised in supplication to the

skies.