"02 - Gods of Mars" - читать интересную книгу автора (Burroughs Edgar Rice)

Burroughs-Gods of Mars

THE GODS OF MARS Edgar Rice Burroughs

FOREWORD

TWELVE years had passed since I had laid the body of my great-uncle, Captain John
Carter, of Virginia, away from the sight of men in that strange mausoleum in the
old cemetery at Richmond. Often had I pondered on the odd instructions he had
left me governing the construction of his mighty tomb, and especially those
parts which directed that he be laid in an OPEN casket and that the ponderous
mechanism which controlled the bolts of the vault's huge door be accessible ONLY
FROM THE INSIDE. Twelve years had passed since I had read the remarkable
manuscript of this remarkable man; this man who remembered no childhood and who
could not even offer a vague guess as to his age; who was always young and yet
who had dandled my grandfather's great-grandfather upon his knee; this man who
had spent ten years upon the planet Mars; who had fought for the green men of
Barsoom and fought against them; who had fought for and against the red men and
who had won the ever beautiful Dejah Thoris, Princess of Helium, for his wife,
and for nearly ten years had been a prince of the house of Tardos Mors, Jeddak
of Helium. Twelve years had passed since his body had been found upon the bluff
before his cottage overlooking the Hudson, and oft- times during these long
years I had wondered if John Carter were really dead, or if he again roamed the
dead sea bottoms of that dying planet; if he had returned to Barsoom to find
that he had opened the frowning portals of the mighty atmosphere plant in time
to save the countless millions who were dying of asphyxiation on that far-gone
day that had seen him hurtled ruthlessly through forty-eight million miles of
space back to Earth once more. I had wondered if he had found his black-haired
Princess and the slender son he had dreamed was with her in the royal gardens of
Tardos Mors, awaiting his return. Or, had he found that he had been too late,
and thus gone back to a living 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 August evening 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 Richmond and within two hours was being ushered into the room occupied
by John Carter. As I entered he rose to greet me, his old-time cordial smile of
welcome lighting his handsome face. Apparently he had not aged a minute, but was
still the straight, clean-limbed fighting-man of thirty. His keen grey eyes were
undimmed, and the only lines upon his face were the lines of iron character and
determination 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
you were seeing a ghost, or suffering from the effects of too many of 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. You have been back
to Mars? Tell me. And Dejah Thoris? You found her well and awaiting you?' 'Yes,
I have been to Barsoom again, and--but it's a long story, too long to tell in
the limited time I have before I must return. I have learned the secret, nephew,
and I may traverse the trackless void at my will, coming and going between the
countless planets as I list; but my heart is always in Barsoom, and while it is