The Aberdeen weekly. [volume] (Aberdeen, Miss.) 1878-1933, 1921-04-22


Through two long weeks wan
dered, stumbling through the night:
guided only by the stars and hiding
during the days behind some protrud
ing rock or among the occasional
/ hills 1 traversed Several times I was
/ attacked by wild beasts; strange, I'm.
cOuth mOnStrosities that leaped upon
me in the dark, so that I had ever to
I grasp my longsword in my hand that
| might be ready for them Usually
my strange newly acquired telepathiC
/ power warned me in ample time but
/ once l was down with vicious fangs at
my jugular and a hairy face pressed
! close to mine before I knew that !
was even threatened.
What manner Of thing was upon me
did not know, but that it was large
and heavy and many-legged I could
feel. My hands were at its throat
before the fangs had a chance to bury
themselves in my neck. and slowly
forced the hairy face from me and
closed my fingers. viselike. upon its
windpiDe.
Without sound we lay there. the
beast exerting every effort to reach
me with those awful fangs. and
straining to maintain my grip and
choke the life from it as I kept it
from my throat Then a living mass
of destruction sprang from the sur
rounding darkness full upon the crea-
ture that held me pinioned to the
ground The two rolled growing upon
the moss. tearing and rending one an
other in a frightful manner, but it was
soon over and my preServer stood with
lowered head above the throat of the
dead thing which would have killed
me.
The nearer moon, hurting suddenly
above the horizon and lighting up the
Barsoomian scene, showed me that
my preserver was Woola, but from
whence he had come. or how found
me, I was at loss TO know. That I
was glad of his cOmpanionship il is
needless to say, but my pleasure at
seeing him was tempered by anxiety
as to the reason of his leaving Deiah
ThOris.
BY the light of the now brilliant
moons I saw that he was but a
shadow of his former self, and as he
turned from my caress and com
menced greedily to devour the dead
carcass at my feet I realized that the
poor fellow was more than half
starved. When Woola had finished
his meal I again took up my weary
and seemingly endless wandering In
quest of the elusive waterway
At daybreak of the fifteenth day 7
was overioyed to see the high trees
that denoted the object of my search.
About noon I dragged myself YEARLY
to the portals of huge building which
covered perhaps four square miles and
lowered two hundred feet in the air
1t showed no aperture in the mighty
walls other than the tiny door at
which I sank exhausted, nor was there
any sign of life about it,
I could find no bell or other method
of making my presence known to the
inmates of the place, unless small
round hole in the wall near the door
was for that purpose. It was of about
the bigness of a lead pencil and think
ing that it might be in the nature of
a speaking tube I put my mouth to it
and was about to call into il when a
voice issued from it asking me whom
1 might be, where from, and the ma
ture of my errand.
Il am a friend of the red men of |
BarsOom and I am starving. In the |
name of humanity open to US" I re- /
Piled.
Presently the door commenced to /
recede before me until it had sunk
INTO the wall fifty feet, then it stopped /
and slid easily to the left, exposing a
short, narrow corridor of concrete. at
he further end of which was another
ioor, similar in every respect to the