Often had I pondered on the odd instructions he had left megoverning the construction of his mighty tomb, and especiallythose parts which directed that he be laid in an OPEN casketand that the ponderous mechanism which controlled the boltsof the vault's huge door be accessible ONLY FROM THE INSIDE.

Twelve years had passed since I had read the remarkablemanuscript of this remarkable man; this man who rememberedno childhood and who could not even offer a vague guess asto his age; who was always young and yet who had dandled mygrandfather's great-grandfather upon his knee; this man whohad spent ten years upon the planet Mars; who had fought forthe green men of Barsoom and fought against them; who hadfought for and against the red men and who had won the everbeautiful Dejah Thoris, Princess of Helium, for his wife, andfor nearly ten years had been a prince of the house of TardosMors, Jeddak of Helium.

Twelve years had passed since his body had been found uponthe bluff before his cottage overlooking the Hudson, and oft-times during these long years I had wondered if John Carterwere really dead, or if he again roamed the dead sea bottomsof that dying planet; if he had returned to Barsoom to find thathe had opened the frowning portals of the mighty atmosphere plant intime to save the countless millions who were dying of asphyxiationon that far-gone day that had seen him hurtled ruthlessly throughforty-eight million miles of space back to Earth once more.I had wondered if he had found his black-haired Princess and theslender son he had dreamed was with her in the royal gardens ofTardos Mors, awaiting his return.

Or, had he found that he had been too late, and thus gone back to aliving death upon a dead world? Or was he really dead after all,never to return either to his mother Earth or his beloved Mars?

Thus was I lost in useless speculation one sultry Augustevening when old Ben, my body servant, handed me a telegram.Tearing it open I read:

'Meet me to-morrow hotel Raleigh Richmond.

'JOHN CARTER'

Early the next morning I took the first train for Richmondand within two hours was being ushered into the room occupiedby John Carter.

As I entered he rose to greet me, his old-time cordialsmile of welcome lighting his handsome face. Apparently hehad not aged a minute, but was still the straight, clean-limbedfighting-man of thirty. His keen grey eyes were undimmed, andthe only lines upon his face were the lines of iron character anddetermination that always had been there since first I remembered him,nearly thirty-five years before.

'Well, nephew,' he greeted me, 'do you feel as though youwere seeing a ghost, or suffering from the effects of too manyof Uncle Ben's juleps?'

'Juleps, I reckon,' I replied, 'for I certainly feel mighty good;but maybe it's just the sight of you again that affects me. Youhave been back to Mars? Tell me. And Dejah Thoris? Youfound her well and awaiting you?'

'Yes, I have been to Barsoom again, and--but it's a longstory, too long to tell in the limited time I have before I mustreturn. I have learned the secret, nephew, and I may traversethe trackless void at my will, coming and going between thecountless planets as I list; but my heart is always in Barsoom,and while it is there in the keeping of my Martian Princess, Idoubt that I shall ever again leave the dying world that is my life.

'I have come now because my affection for you prompted meto see you once more before you pass over for ever into thatother life that I shall never know, and which though I havedied thrice and shall die again to-night, as you know death, Iam as unable to fathom as are you.

'Even the wise and mysterious therns of Barsoom, thatancient cult which for countless ages has been credited withholding the secret of life and death in their impregnablefastnesses upon the hither slopes of the Mountains of Otz, are asignorant as we. I have proved it, though I near lost my life inthe doing of it; but you shall read it all in the notes I have beenmaking during the last three months that I have been back upon Earth.'

He patted a swelling portfolio that lay on the table at his elbow.

'I know that you are interested and that you believe, and Iknow that the world, too, is interested, though they will notbelieve for many years; yes, for many ages, since they cannotunderstand. Earth men have not yet progressed to a point wherethey can comprehend the things that I have written in those notes.

'Give them what you wish of it, what you think will notharm them, but do not feel aggrieved if they laugh at you.'

That night I walked down to the cemetery with him. At thedoor 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 andboy while they live, and the span of life upon Barsoom is oftenmore than a thousand years.'

He entered the vault. The great door swung slowly to. Theponderous bolts grated into place. The lock clicked. I havenever 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 leftfor me upon the table of his room in the hotel at Richmond.

There is much which I have left out; much which I have notdared to tell; but you will find the story of his second searchfor Dejah Thoris, Princess of Helium, even more remarkablethan was his first manuscript which I gave to an unbelievingworld a short time since and through which we followed thefighting Virginian across dead sea bottoms under the moons of Mars.

E. R. B.