Gods of Mars Edgar Rice Burroughs. Edgar Burroughs of Mars

Edgar Burroughs

Gods of mars

To the reader

Twelve years have passed since I put the body of my uncle, Captain John Carter of Virginia, in a magnificent mausoleum in the old cemetery in Richmond.

Often I thought about the strange instructions that he left me in the will. Two points particularly surprised me: according to his will, the body was laid in an open coffin, and the complex mechanism of bolts on the crypt door could only be opened from the inside.

Twelve years have passed since the day when I read the manuscript of this amazing man - a man who did not remember his childhood, and whose age could not be determined even approximately. He looked very young, but he knew my grandfather’s great-grandfather as a child. He spent ten years on the planet Mars, fought for and against the green and red people of Barsum, conquered the beautiful Daya Toris, Princess of Helium, and for almost ten years was her husband and member of the Tardos Morse family, Jeddak Helium.

Twelve years have passed since his lifeless body was found in front of a cottage on the rocky shore of the Hudson River. I often asked myself over the years whether John Carter really died, or whether he wanders again along the dried-up seabed of a dying planet. I asked myself what he found on Barsum, if he returned there, did the doors of a huge atmospheric factory open on time that very long ago, when he was ruthlessly thrown back to Earth, and whether countless millions of creatures who were dying from a lack of air were saved? I asked myself if he had found his black-haired princess and his son, who, as he dreamed, were awaiting his return to the palace garden of Tardos Morse? Or was he convinced that his help was late that day, and that he was met by the dead world? Or did he really die and never return either to his native Earth, or to his beloved Mars?

I was plunged into these futile thoughts on one of the stuffy August evenings when old Ben, our gatekeeper, sent me a telegram. I opened and read it.

“Come tomorrow Richmond Roleigh Hotel.

John Carter".

The next morning, with the first train, I went to Richmond and two hours later entered the room occupied by John Carter.

He rose to greet me, and a familiar, clear smile lit up his face. In appearance he did not grow old at all and seemed all the same slender and strong thirty-year-old man. His gray eyes shone, his face expressed the same iron will and determination as thirty-five years ago.

“Well, dear nephew,” he greeted me, “do not you think that you have a spirit or a hallucination?”

“I know one thing,” I replied, “that I feel great.” But tell me, were you again on Mars? And Deya Toris? Did you find her healthy, and did she wait for you?

“Yes, I was again at Barsum and ... But this is a long story, too long to have time to tell it in the short time that I have before I have to go back.” I penetrated a very important secret, and I can, if I wish, cross the limitless spaces between the planets. But my heart is always on Barsum. I still love my Martian beauty, and I’m unlikely to ever leave a dying planet.

My affection for you prompted me to come here for a short time, to see you again before you forever leave for that other world that I will never know and which I cannot penetrate into the secret, although I died three times today I will die again.

Even the wise elders on Barsum, the priests of the ancient cult, who live in a mysterious fortress on the top of Mount Ots, which for countless centuries have been attributed the possession of the secret life and death, even they turned out to be just as ignorant as we are. I proved it, although I almost lost my life. But you will read everything in the notes that I have made over the past three months spent on Earth.

He stroked his tightly packed briefcase, which was lying next to him on the table.

“I know that interests you, and you believe me.” I know that the world will also be interested in this, although it will not believe it for many more years, no, for many centuries, because it will not be able to understand. The people of the Earth have not yet advanced in their knowledge enough to understand the things that are written in my notes.

You can publish from these notes what you want, which, in your opinion, will not harm people. Don't be sad if they make fun of you.

That same night he went with me to the cemetery. At the door of the crypt, he stopped and heartily shook my hand.

Edgar Burroughs

Gods of mars

To the reader

Twelve years have passed since I put the body of my uncle, Captain John Carter of Virginia, in a magnificent mausoleum in the old cemetery in Richmond.

Often I thought about the strange instructions that he left me in the will. Two points particularly surprised me: according to his will, the body was laid in an open coffin, and the complex mechanism of bolts on the crypt door could only be opened from the inside.

Twelve years have passed since the day when I read the manuscript of this amazing man - a man who did not remember his childhood, and whose age could not be determined even approximately. He looked very young, but he knew my grandfather’s great-grandfather as a child. He spent ten years on the planet Mars, fought for and against the green and red people of Barsum, conquered the beautiful Daya Toris, Princess of Helium, and for almost ten years was her husband and member of the Tardos Morse family, Jeddak Helium.

Twelve years have passed since his lifeless body was found in front of a cottage on the rocky shore of the Hudson River. I often asked myself over the years whether John Carter really died, or whether he wanders again along the dried-up seabed of a dying planet. I asked myself what he found on Barsum, if he returned there, did the doors of a huge atmospheric factory open on time that very long ago, when he was ruthlessly thrown back to Earth, and whether countless millions of creatures who were dying from a lack of air were saved? I asked myself if he had found his black-haired princess and his son, who, as he dreamed, were awaiting his return to the palace garden of Tardos Morse? Or was he convinced that his help was late that day, and that he was met by the dead world? Or did he really die and never return either to his native Earth, or to his beloved Mars?

I was plunged into these futile thoughts on one of the stuffy August evenings when old Ben, our gatekeeper, sent me a telegram. I opened and read it.

“Come tomorrow Richmond Roleigh Hotel.

John Carter".

The next morning, with the first train, I went to Richmond and two hours later entered the room occupied by John Carter.

He rose to greet me, and a familiar, clear smile lit up his face. In appearance he did not grow old at all and seemed all the same slender and strong thirty-year-old man. His gray eyes shone, his face expressed the same iron will and determination as thirty-five years ago.

“Well, dear nephew,” he greeted me, “do not you think that you have a spirit or a hallucination?”

“I know one thing,” I replied, “that I feel great.” But tell me, were you again on Mars? And Deya Toris? Did you find her healthy, and did she wait for you?

“Yes, I was again at Barsum and ... But this is a long story, too long to have time to tell it in the short time that I have before I have to go back.” I penetrated a very important secret, and I can, if I wish, cross the limitless spaces between the planets. But my heart is always on Barsum. I still love my Martian beauty, and I’m unlikely to ever leave a dying planet.

My affection for you prompted me to come here for a short time, to see you again before you forever leave for that other world that I will never know and which I cannot penetrate into the secret, although I died three times today I will die again.

Even the wise elders on Barsum, the priests of the ancient cult, who live in a mysterious fortress on the top of Mount Ots, which for countless centuries have been attributed the possession of the secret life and death, even they turned out to be just as ignorant as we are. I proved it, although I almost lost my life. But you will read everything in the notes that I have made over the past three months spent on Earth.

He stroked his tightly packed briefcase, which was lying next to him on the table.

“I know that interests you, and you believe me.” I know that the world will also be interested in this, although it will not believe it for many more years, no, for many centuries, because it will not be able to understand. The people of the Earth have not yet advanced in their knowledge enough to understand the things that are written in my notes.

You can publish from these notes what you want, which, in your opinion, will not harm people. Don't be sad if they make fun of you.

That same night he went with me to the cemetery. At the door of the crypt, he stopped and heartily shook my hand.

“Goodbye my dear,” he said. “I probably will never see you, because I hardly want to leave my wife, and they often live on Barsum for more than a thousand years.”

Since then, I have never seen John Carter, my uncle.

Before me lies his story of the return to Mars, which I selected from the vast mass of notes handed over to me at the Richmond Hotel.

I published a lot, did not dare to print much, but you will find here the story of his repeated searches for Dei Toris - the daughter of a thousand Jeddaks - and his adventures, even more amazing than those described in his first manuscript, published by me many years ago.

Edgar Burroughs.

1. Plant people

Standing in front of my cottage on the rocky shore of the gray and silent Hudson flowing beneath me, on that cold bright night of early March 1886, I was suddenly overcome by a strange and familiar sensation. It seemed to me that the red star Mars was pulling me to itself, that I was connected with it by some invisible but strong threads.

Since that distant March night in 1886, when I stood at the Arizona cave in which my motionless body lay, I have never experienced the attractive power of the planet.

I stood, stretching my arms to the big red star, praying for the appearance of that extraordinary force that twice carried me through immeasurable spaces. I prayed as I prayed thousands of times during these long ten years, when I waited and hoped.

Suddenly I felt lightheaded, my head was spinning, my legs were trembling, and I fell to my full height on the very edge of a high sheer cliff.

Immediately my brain cleared, and the sensations of a mysterious cave in Arizona vividly recalled in my memory; again, as on that long night, the muscles refused to obey my will, and here again, on the shore of the peaceful Hudson, I heard mysterious moans and a strange rustle that frightened me in a cave; I made an inhuman effort to shake off the insensibility that had bound me. Again, as then, a sharp crack was heard, as if a spring had fallen off, and again I stood naked and free next to a lifeless body in which John Carter's hot blood had been beating so recently.

As soon as I looked at him, I turned my eyes to Mars, extended my hands to its ominous rays and anxiously waited for the miracle to repeat. And immediately, seized by some kind of whirlwind, I was carried away into unlimited space. Again, like twenty years ago, I felt an unimaginable cold and utter darkness and woke up in another world. I saw myself lying under the hot rays of the sun, barely breaking through the branches of a dense forest.

The landscape that appeared before my eyes was completely different from the Martian one, and my heart ached from the sudden fear that gripped me that a cruel fate had thrown me onto some alien planet.

Why not? Did I know the way among the monotonous desert of interplanetary space? Could I not be attributed to some distant star of another solar system?

I lay on a mown lawn covered with red grass-like vegetation. Around me towered unusual beautiful trees with huge luxurious flowers. Shining and silent birds swayed on the branches. I call them birds, because they had wings, but not a single human eye saw such creatures.

The vegetation reminded me of the one that covers the meadows of red Martians on large waterways, but the trees and birds were not like the ones I had ever seen on Mars, and through the distant trees I could see the most non-Martian view - I saw the sea, blue waters which shone in the sun.

However, getting up, I again felt the same funny feeling as with my first attempt to walk on Mars. The lesser force of attraction and the rarefied atmosphere showed so little resistance to my earthly muscles that when I tried to get up, I was thrown up a few feet, and then fell face down on the shiny soft grass of this strange world.

This unsuccessful attempt calmed me somewhat. I could, nevertheless, be in some unknown part of Mars. This was very possible, because during my ten-year stay at Barsum I explored a relatively small part of its vast surface.

I stood up, chuckling at my forgetfulness, and soon managed to adapt my muscles again to changed conditions.

Current page: 1 (total of the book has 14 pages) [available passage for reading: 8 pages]

Edgar Burroughs
Gods of mars

To the reader

Twelve years have passed since I put the body of my uncle, Captain John Carter of Virginia, in a magnificent mausoleum in the old cemetery in Richmond.

Often I thought about the strange instructions that he left me in the will. Two points particularly surprised me: according to his will, the body was laid in an open coffin, and the complex mechanism of bolts on the crypt door could only be opened from the inside.

Twelve years have passed since the day when I read the manuscript of this amazing man - a man who did not remember his childhood, and whose age could not be determined even approximately. He looked very young, but he knew my grandfather’s great-grandfather as a child. He spent ten years on the planet Mars, fought for and against the green and red people of Barsum, conquered the beautiful Daya Toris, Princess of Helium, and for almost ten years was her husband and member of the Tardos Morse family, Jeddak Helium.

Twelve years have passed since his lifeless body was found in front of a cottage on the rocky shore of the Hudson River. I often asked myself over the years whether John Carter really died, or whether he wanders again along the dried-up seabed of a dying planet. I asked myself what he found on Barsum, if he returned there, did the doors of a huge atmospheric factory open on time that very long ago, when he was ruthlessly thrown back to Earth, and whether countless millions of creatures who were dying from a lack of air were saved? I asked myself if he had found his black-haired princess and his son, who, as he dreamed, were awaiting his return to the palace garden of Tardos Morse? Or was he convinced that his help was late that day, and that he was met by the dead world? Or did he really die and never return either to his native Earth, or to his beloved Mars?

I was plunged into these futile thoughts on one of the stuffy August evenings when old Ben, our gatekeeper, sent me a telegram. I opened and read it.

“Come tomorrow Richmond Roleigh Hotel.

John Carter".

The next morning, with the first train, I went to Richmond and two hours later entered the room occupied by John Carter.

He rose to greet me, and a familiar, clear smile lit up his face. In appearance he did not grow old at all and seemed all the same slender and strong thirty-year-old man. His gray eyes shone, his face expressed the same iron will and determination as thirty-five years ago.

“Well, dear nephew,” he greeted me, “do not you think that you have a spirit or a hallucination?”

“I know one thing,” I replied, “that I feel great.” But tell me, were you again on Mars? And Deya Toris? Did you find her healthy, and did she wait for you?

“Yes, I was again at Barsum and ... But this is a long story, too long to have time to tell it in the short time that I have before I have to go back.” I penetrated a very important secret, and I can, if I wish, cross the limitless spaces between the planets. But my heart is always on Barsum. I still love my Martian beauty, and I’m unlikely to ever leave a dying planet.

My affection for you prompted me to come here for a short time, to see you again before you forever leave for that other world that I will never know and which I cannot penetrate into the secret, although I died three times today I will die again.

Even the wise elders on Barsum, the priests of the ancient cult, who live in a mysterious fortress on the top of Mount Ots, which for countless centuries have been attributed the possession of the secret life and death, even they turned out to be just as ignorant as we are. I proved it, although I almost lost my life. But you will read everything in the notes that I have made over the past three months spent on Earth.

He stroked his tightly packed briefcase, which was lying next to him on the table.

“I know that interests you, and you believe me.” I know that the world will also be interested in this, although it will not believe it for many more years, no, for many centuries, because it will not be able to understand. The people of the Earth have not yet advanced in their knowledge enough to understand the things that are written in my notes.

You can publish from these notes what you want, which, in your opinion, will not harm people. Don't be sad if they make fun of you.

That same night he went with me to the cemetery. At the door of the crypt, he stopped and heartily shook my hand.

“Goodbye my dear,” he said. “I probably will never see you, because I hardly want to leave my wife, and they often live on Barsum for more than a thousand years.”

Since then, I have never seen John Carter, my uncle.

Before me lies his story of the return to Mars, which I selected from the vast mass of notes handed over to me at the Richmond Hotel.

I published a lot, did not dare to print much, but you will find here the story of his repeated searches for Dei Toris - the daughter of a thousand Jeddaks - and his adventures, even more amazing than those described in his first manuscript, published by me many years ago.

Edgar Burroughs.

1. Plant people

Standing in front of my cottage on the rocky shore of the gray and silent Hudson flowing beneath me, on that cold bright night of early March 1886, I was suddenly overcome by a strange and familiar sensation. It seemed to me that the red star Mars was pulling me to itself, that I was connected with it by some invisible but strong threads.

Since that distant March night in 1886, when I stood at the Arizona cave in which my motionless body lay, I have never experienced the attractive power of the planet.

I stood, stretching my arms to the big red star, praying for the appearance of that extraordinary force that twice carried me through immeasurable spaces. I prayed as I prayed thousands of times during these long ten years, when I waited and hoped.

Suddenly I felt lightheaded, my head was spinning, my legs were trembling, and I fell to my full height on the very edge of a high sheer cliff.

Immediately my brain cleared, and the sensations of a mysterious cave in Arizona vividly recalled in my memory; again, as on that long night, the muscles refused to obey my will, and here again, on the shore of the peaceful Hudson, I heard mysterious moans and a strange rustle that frightened me in a cave; I made an inhuman effort to shake off the insensibility that had bound me. Again, as then, a sharp crack was heard, as if a spring had fallen off, and again I stood naked and free next to a lifeless body in which John Carter's hot blood had been beating so recently.

As soon as I looked at him, I turned my eyes to Mars, extended my hands to its ominous rays and anxiously waited for the miracle to repeat. And immediately, seized by some kind of whirlwind, I was carried away into unlimited space. Again, like twenty years ago, I felt an unimaginable cold and utter darkness and woke up in another world. I saw myself lying under the hot rays of the sun, barely breaking through the branches of a dense forest.

The landscape that appeared before my eyes was completely different from the Martian one, and my heart ached from the sudden fear that gripped me that a cruel fate had thrown me onto some alien planet.

Why not? Did I know the way among the monotonous desert of interplanetary space? Could I not be attributed to some distant star of another solar system?

I lay on a mown lawn covered with red grass-like vegetation. Around me towered unusual beautiful trees with huge luxurious flowers. Shining and silent birds swayed on the branches. I call them birds, because they had wings, but not a single human eye saw such creatures.

The vegetation reminded me of the one that covers the meadows of red Martians on large waterways, but the trees and birds were not like the ones I had ever seen on Mars, and through the distant trees I could see the most non-Martian view - I saw the sea, blue waters which shone in the sun.

However, getting up, I again felt the same funny feeling as with my first attempt to walk on Mars. The lesser force of attraction and the rarefied atmosphere showed so little resistance to my earthly muscles that when I tried to get up, I was thrown up a few feet, and then fell face down on the shiny soft grass of this strange world.

This unsuccessful attempt calmed me somewhat. I could, nevertheless, be in some unknown part of Mars. This was very possible, because during my ten-year stay at Barsum I explored a relatively small part of its vast surface.

I stood up, chuckling at my forgetfulness, and soon managed to adapt my muscles again to changed conditions.

Slowly walking along the gentle slope to the sea, I could not help but notice that the grove that surrounded me gave the impression of a park. The grass was cut short, and the lawn looked like a plain carpet, like lawns in England; the trees, apparently, also had a thorough care. They were all trimmed and had the same height.

All these signs of careful and systematic cultivation convinced me that I was lucky this second coming to Mars, and that I fell into the possession of cultured people who would find protection and the treatment that I had the right to count on as a member of the Tardos Morse family .

The further I moved to the sea, the more I admired the trees. Their huge trunks, sometimes reaching one hundred feet in diameter, testified to their unusual height. I could only guess about it, because my eye did not penetrate through thick foliage higher than eighty-one hundred feet.

Trunks, branches and twigs seemed polished like the best newest pianos. Some trunks were black as ebony, others shone in the gloom of the forest like the thinnest porcelain, some were blue, yellow, bright red and crimson.

Just like the trunks, the foliage was varied and bright, and the flowers hanging in thick clusters were so beautiful that it was impossible to describe them in the earth language; for this it would be necessary to resort to the language of the gods.

Approaching the edge of the forest, I saw a large meadow between the forest and the sea. I was about to leave the shade of the trees, as my eyes fell on something that immediately scattered all my idyllic and poetic thoughts about the beauty of this extraordinary landscape.

To my left, as far as the eye enveloped, the sea spread; ahead, vague outlines pointed to a distant shore. To the right, a mighty river, calm and majestic, flowed between the red shores and poured into the sea.

At a short distance up the river, large steep cliffs rose, from the base of which the river seemed to flow.

But not these magnificent pictures of nature distracted my attention from the beauties of the forest. It was a view of a dozen figures slowly moving through the meadow near the riverbank.

These were strange, funny figures, the likes of which I had never seen on Mars; however, from a distance they had some semblance of people. They seemed to be ten to twelve feet tall when they were held straight, their torso and lower limbs were as proportionate as people on Earth.

However, their hands were very short and, as far as I could see, they were arranged like the trunk of an elephant; they wriggled like snakes, as if deprived of bones. If they had bones, then it’s probably like a spinal column.

I watched them from behind the trunk of a huge tree and saw how one of these creatures slowly moved in my direction. It, like everyone else, was busy poking hands on the surface of the lawn, for what purpose - I could not determine.

When it came closer, I was able to examine it well and, although later I had to get to know this breed more closely, I would be completely satisfied with this only cursory inspection. The fastest airplane in the Helium fleet could not have carried me away with sufficient speed from this creature.

His hairless body was a strange green-blue color, with the exception of a wide white strip that surrounded the only protruding eye - an eye in which everything: the pupil, iris, squirrel, was equally dead white.

A sore round hole in the center of a perfectly smooth face served as the nose: this hole most resembled a fresh bullet wound. The face was straight down to the chin, and I did not see signs of a mouth anywhere.

The head, with the exception of the face, was covered in a thick mass of matted black hair eight to ten inches long. Each hair was from a large earthworm, and when the creature moved the muscles of its head, these terrible hair wriggled and crawled across its face, as if each of them had an independent life.

The trunk and legs were symmetrical, like a human; the feet in shape also resembled human, but of monstrous sizes. From toes to heels, they were three feet long, very flat and wide.

When this strange creature came very close to me, I guessed what the strange movements of his hands meant. This was a special method of feeding: the creature, using its razor-like claws, mowed the delicate grass and sucked it into its hand-throat with two mouths, located on the palm of each hand.

To what I have described, I must add that the animal was endowed with a huge tail six feet long. The tail was completely round at the base, but tapering towards the end and forming a kind of flat blade, descending at a right angle.

But the most amazing feature of this monster was two small, precise reproductions of it, which hung on each side of it, suspended from the armpits of an adult animal through a small stalk. I did not know if they were cubs, or just part of a complex organism of an animal.

While I was looking at this extraordinary monster, the rest of the herd approached me. Now I saw that not all animals were equipped with small dangling creatures. In addition, I noticed that the size and degree of development of these cubs was different - from small, as if unopened kidneys, to completely developed creatures ten to twelve inches long.

There were many teenagers in the herd, a little more than those who were still attached to their parents, and, finally, huge adults.

No matter how scary they looked, I did not know whether I was afraid of them or not. It seemed to me that they did not have a weapon of attack. I had already left my shelter to see how impressed they would be with the appearance of a man, but fortunately a piercing scream that rang out in the rocks to my right kept me.

I was naked and unarmed, and if I had fulfilled my intention and appeared to fierce monsters, I would have expected a quick and terrible end. But at the time of the cry, the whole herd turned to the side where the sound came from; at the same instant, each serpentine hair on the heads of the monsters stood perpendicular, as if listening to the scream. In fact, this turned out to be: strange hairs on the heads of plant people of Barsum - thousands of ears of these ugly creatures, the last representatives of the race that emerged from the original tree of life.

Immediately all eyes turned to the huge animal, which, obviously, was the leader. A strange purring sound came from his mouth in his palm, and at that moment he quickly headed toward the rocks. The whole herd followed.

Their speed was truly amazing: they moved in huge leaps of twenty to thirty feet, in the manner of a kangaroo.

They quickly moved away from me, but it occurred to me to follow them, and therefore, throwing away all caution, I jumped into the clearing and hurried after them, making even more amazing jumps than they did. The muscles of a strong earthly man can directly perform miracles with less attraction and weak air pressure of Mars.

They rode to the place where the rocks were, and where the source of the river seemed to be. As I approached, I saw that the meadow was strewn with huge boulders, which, obviously, were fragments of high rocks, destroyed by time.

I had to get very close before I realized what caused the herd to be alarmed. Scrambling onto a large block, I saw a herd of plant people surrounded by a small group, which consisted of six green people from Barsum.

Now I no longer doubted that I was on Mars, because I saw before me the members of wild tribes who inhabit the dried up bottom of the seas and the dead cities of a dying planet.

I saw huge men rising to their full stately height, I saw shiny fangs that protruded from the lower jaws and reached almost to the middle of their forehead, protruding eyes located on the sides, which can look forward and backward without turning their heads; I saw strange horn-shaped ears located on the crown of the head and an extra pair of hands between the shoulders and hips.

Even without their shiny green skin and metal jewelry indicating which tribe they belong to, without hesitation I would recognize green Martians in them. Where elsewhere in the universe could others like them be found?

There were two men and three women in the group. Their jewelry indicated that they were members of different tribes. This circumstance amazed me incredibly: the numerous tribes of the green people of Barsum are always in a fierce war among themselves, and I have never seen the green Martians of different tribes except in mortal combat, except for the only case when the great Tars Tarkas managed to collect one hundred and fifty thousand green warriors and speak with them against the doomed city of Zodanga to free Dei Toris, the daughter of a thousand Jeddaks, from the claws of Zen Kozis.

But now they stood back to back with eyes wide open in surprise and looked at the clearly hostile actions of the common enemy.

Men and women were armed with long swords and daggers, but no firearms were visible, otherwise the reprisal against the terrible plant people of Barsum would be short.

The leader of plant people was the first to attack a small group, and the method of attack was very effective. In the military science of the green warriors there was no way to defend themselves from such an attack, and it soon became clear to me that the green Martians were not familiar with either this particular manner of attack or with the monsters that attacked them.

The plant man jumped twelve feet from the group, and then rose with one jump, as if wishing to fly over their heads. He raised his mighty tail high and, scattering above his heads, dealt such a strong blow to the skull of a green warrior that it crushed it like an egg shell.

The rest of the herd began to circulate with terrifying speed around their victims. Their extraordinary leaps and piercing purrs were designed to terrorize unfortunate prey. They succeeded completely, and when two of them jumped simultaneously from two sides, they met no resistance; two more green Martians died under the blows of terrible tails.

Now there was only one warrior and two women. It seemed like a matter of a few seconds, so that these, too, lay dead in a red meadow.

But the warrior was already taught the experience of the last minutes, and therefore, when two more plant people took the jump, he raised his mighty sword and cut through the body of one of the monsters from the chin to the groin.

Another monster, however, dealt such a blow that it laid down both women who fell down dead on the ground.

Seeing that his last comrades had fallen, and noticing that the enemy was going to pounce on him with the whole herd, the green warrior bravely rushed towards them. He frantically waved his sword in a special way, as people of his tribe often do in their fierce and almost constant battles.

Striking right and left, he made his way among the advancing plant people, and then at a frantic speed rushed to the forest, under whose protection he obviously hoped to hide.

He turned to that part of the forest, which adjoined the rocks, and fled, pursued by the whole herd, farther and farther from the block on which I lay.

Watching the valiant fight of a green warrior against huge monsters, my heart was filled with admiration for him and, in my habit of acting on the first impulse, and not on mature reasoning, I immediately jumped off the block and quickly headed to the place where the bodies of the killed Martians lay. I already made myself an action plan.

With a few huge leaps, I reached the battlefield and in a minute I was already racing for the terrible monsters that quickly overtook the escaping warrior. There was a mighty sword in my hand, the blood of the old warriors was boiling in my heart, the red fog covered my eyes, and I felt a smile play on my lips, which always appeared in anticipation of the joy of battle.

The green warrior did not even have time to run half the distance to the forest, as he was overtaken by enemies. He became his back to the block, while the herd, pausing, hissed and screeched around him.

With their single eye, located in the middle of the head, with their worm-shaped hair, they all turned to the victim at once, and therefore did not notice my silent approach. Thus, I could attack them from behind and lay four of them before they knew about my presence.

My swift attack forced them to retreat for a minute, but the green warrior managed to take advantage of this instant. He jumped to me and began to deliver terrible blows to the right and left. He described large loops like a figure eight with a sword, and only stopped when there was not a single living enemy around him. The tip of his huge sword passed through meat, bones and metal, as if through air.

While we were busy with this massacre, a piercing ominous cry rang out above us, which I had already heard and which caused the herd to attack the green warriors. This scream sounded again and again, but we were so absorbed in the fight against the fierce and powerful monsters that we did not even have the opportunity to see who was responsible for these terrible sounds.

Enormous tails whipped around us in furious anger, razor-like claws cut our body, and a green, sticky liquid, similar to that coming out of a crushed caterpillar, covered us from head to toe. This sticky mass flows in the veins of plant people instead of blood.

Suddenly I felt the weight of one of the monsters on my back; its sharp claws pierced my body, and I felt a terrible sensation of touching wet lips sucking blood from my wounds.

A fierce monster attacked me from the front, and the other two waved their tails on both sides.

The green warrior was also surrounded by enemies, and I felt that the unequal struggle could not last long. But at this time the warrior noticed my hopeless situation and, quickly breaking away from the enemies surrounding him, with the blow of his sword freed me from the enemy behind me, I managed to deal with the rest without difficulty.

Now we stood with him almost back to back, leaning against a large block. Thus, the monsters were deprived of the opportunity to jump over us and inflict their mortal blows. The position was so successful that our forces were equal, and we easily coped with the remnants of our enemies. Suddenly our attention was attracted by a piercing scream above our heads.

This time I looked up, and high above us on a small ledge of rock, I saw the figure of a man emitting a signal. With one hand he waved towards the mouth of the river, as if giving a sign to someone, and the other pointed at us.

One look in the direction where he was looking was enough to understand the meaning of his gestures and to fill me with a formidable foreboding of imminent trouble. Hundreds of wildly jumping monsters flocked from all sides to the meadow, with which we had just dealt, and with them some new animals ran straight, then fell on all fours.

- Death awaits us! I said to my friend. - Look!

He took a quick look in the direction I was pointing, and answered:

“At least we can die fighting as the great warriors should, John Carter!”

We just finished off our last adversary, and I turned around, stunned at the sound of my name. Before my eyes was the greatest of the green people Barsum, a skilled statesman and a powerful military leader, my good friend Tars Tarkas, a Tarkov Jeddak!

To the reader
  Twelve years have passed since I put the body of my uncle, Captain John Carter of Virginia, in a magnificent mausoleum in the old cemetery in Richmond.
  Often I thought about the strange instructions that he left me in the will. Two points particularly surprised me: according to his will, the body was laid in an open coffin, and the complex mechanism of bolts on the crypt door could only be opened from the inside.
  Twelve years have passed since the day when I read the manuscript of this amazing man - a man who did not remember his childhood, and whose age could not be determined even approximately. He looked very young, but he knew my grandfather’s great-grandfather as a child. He spent ten years on the planet Mars, fought for and against the green and red people of Barsum, conquered the beautiful Daya Toris, Princess of Helium, and for almost ten years was her husband and member of the Tardos Morse family, Jeddak Helium.
Twelve years have passed since his lifeless body was found in front of a cottage on the rocky shore of the Hudson River. I often asked myself over the years whether John Carter really died, or whether he wanders again along the dried-up seabed of a dying planet. I asked myself what he found on Barsum, if he returned there, did the doors of a huge atmospheric factory open on time that very long ago, when he was ruthlessly thrown back to Earth, and whether countless millions of creatures who were dying from a lack of air were saved? I asked myself if he had found his black-haired princess and his son, who, as he dreamed, were awaiting his return to the palace garden of Tardos Morse? Or was he convinced that his help was late that day, and that he was met by the dead world? Or did he really die and never return either to his native Earth, or to his beloved Mars?
  I was plunged into these futile thoughts on one of the stuffy August evenings when old Ben, our gatekeeper, sent me a telegram. I opened and read it.
  “Come tomorrow Richmond Roleigh Hotel.
  John Carter. ”The next morning, with the first train, I went to Richmond and two hours later entered the room occupied by John Carter.
  He rose to greet me, and a familiar, clear smile lit up his face. In appearance he did not grow old at all and seemed all the same slender and strong thirty-year-old man. His gray eyes shone, his face expressed the same iron will and determination as thirty-five years ago.
  “Well, dear nephew,” he greeted me, “do not you think that you have a spirit or a hallucination?”
  “I know one thing,” I replied, “that I feel great.” But tell me, were you again on Mars? And Deya Toris? Did you find her healthy, and did she wait for you?
  “Yes, I was again at Barsum and ... But this is a long story, too long to have time to tell it in the short time that I have before I have to go back.” I penetrated a very important secret, and I can, if I wish, cross the limitless spaces between the planets. But my heart is always on Barsum. I still love my Martian beauty, and I’m unlikely to ever leave a dying planet.
  My affection for you prompted me to come here for a short time, to see you again before you forever leave for that other world that I will never know and which I cannot penetrate into the secret, although I died three times today I will die again.
Even the wise elders on Barsum, the priests of the ancient cult, who live in a mysterious fortress on the top of Mount Ots, which for countless centuries have been attributed the possession of the secret life and death, even they turned out to be just as ignorant as we are. I proved it, although I almost lost my life. But you will read everything in the notes that I have made over the past three months spent on Earth.
  He stroked his tightly packed briefcase, which was lying next to him on the table.
  “I know that interests you, and you believe me.” I know that the world will also be interested in this, although it will not believe it for many more years, no, for many centuries, because it will not be able to understand. The people of the Earth have not yet advanced in their knowledge enough to understand the things that are written in my notes.
  You can publish from these notes what you want, which, in your opinion, will not harm people. Don't be sad if they make fun of you.
  That same night he went with me to the cemetery. At the door of the crypt, he stopped and heartily shook my hand.
  “Goodbye my dear,” he said. “I probably will never see you, because I hardly want to leave my wife, and they often live on Barsum for more than a thousand years.”
  Since then, I have never seen John Carter, my uncle.
  Before me lies his story of the return to Mars, which I selected from the vast mass of notes handed over to me at the Richmond Hotel.
  I published a lot, did not dare to print much, but you will find here the story of his repeated searches for Dei Toris - the daughter of a thousand Jeddaks - and his adventures, even more amazing than those described in his first manuscript, published by me many years ago.
  Edgar Burroughs.

Gods of Mars Edgar Burroughs

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Title: Gods of Mars

About the book "Gods of Mars" Edgar Burroughs

We know many Mars - Mars Herbert Wells and Ray Bradbury Alexei Tolstoy and Arthur Clark, Philip K. Dick and Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein and Stanley Weinbaum ... the list goes on and on.

And now in front of you is Mars Edgar R. Burroughs.

Mars of dizzying adventures and monstrous monsters. Mars of great heroes and beautiful queens of ancient lands. The world of cruel gods of insidious priests and wise magicians. Mars, completely unlike all the others ...

Mars, without which, perhaps, the Mars of the rest would simply not exist.

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Quotes from the Gods of Mars book by Edgar Burroughs

But I always believed that no matter how difficult it is, you can always find a way to overcome the obstacle. If you can’t get around it, you need to go right through it. I knew now that many ships rise faster than ours due to their greater lifting power, but, nevertheless, I firmly decided to reach the outside world rather than them, or, in case of failure, die.

I would like to tell you a few more words, Xodar, and believe me, not to offend you again.

I quickly lowered the ship. It was time to do it: the girl had already lost her senses, and the black man was also unconscious; I myself kept, probably only due to willpower. The one on whom all responsibility rests is always able to withstand more.