Princess of Mars / Принцесса Марса. Уровень 2

Several times I thought I heard faint sounds behind me as of somebody moving cautiously, but eventually even these ceased. I could only vaguely conjecture the cause of my paralysis. My only hope was that it might pass off as suddenly as it fell upon me.

Late in the afternoon, my horse started slowly down the trail in search of food and water. I was alone with my mysterious unknown companion and the dead body of my friend.

From then until possibly midnight all was silence, the silence of the dead[10 - the silence of the dead – гробовая тишина].

Suddenly, I heard the awful moan of the morning. The sound of a moving thing came again from the black shadow. The shock to my already overstrained nervous system[11 - overstrained nervous system – перенапряженные нервы] was terrible. With a superhuman effort I strove to break my awful bonds. It was an effort of the mind, of the will, of the nerves. And then, something gave and I stood with my back against the wall of the cave.

The moonlight flooded the cave and I saw my own body lying on the floor. My eyes were staring toward the open ledge and the hands were resting limply upon the ground. I lay clothed, and yet here I stood naked as at the minute of my birth.

The transition was so sudden and so unexpected that I forgot anything else than my strange metamorphosis. My first thought was, is this death? But I could not believe this because I could feel my heart pounding against my ribs. My breath was coming in quick, short gasps, cold sweat stood out from every pore of my body.

Definitely, I was anything other than a ghost.

Suddenly, the weird moan from the depths of the cave repeated. I was naked and unarmed and I had no desire to face the unseen thing which menaced me. I could no longer resist the temptation to escape this horrible place. I leaped quickly through the opening into the starlight of a clear Arizona night.

The crisp, fresh mountain air outside the cave made me feel new life and new courage coursing through me.

The fact, that I lay helpless for many hours within the cave and nothing molested me, convinced me those noises might resulted from purely natural and harmless causes.

I filled my lungs with the pure, invigorating night air of the mountains. As I did so, I saw the beautiful vista of rocky gorge, and level, cacti-studded flat, transformed by the moonlight into a miracle of soft splendor and wondrous enchantment stretching far below me.