Princess of Mars / Принцесса Марса. Уровень 2

They were perfectly round and snowy white, and nearly uniform in size[13 - uniform in size – одинаковые в размере] being about two and one-half feet in diameter.

Five or six of them already opened. The grotesque caricatures, which sat blinking in the sunlight, made me doubt my sanity. They seemed mostly head, with little scrawny bodies, long necks and six legs. Later I learned those were two legs and two arms, with an intermediary pair of limbs, which they could use at will as either arms or legs.

Their eyes were set at the extreme sides of their heads a trifle above the center and protruded in such a manner that they could be directed either forward or back. They could look in any direction, or in two directions at once, without the necessity of turning the head.

The ears, which were slightly above the eyes and closer together, were small, cup-shaped antennae, protruding not more than an inch on these young specimens. Their noses were longitudinal slits in the center of their faces, midway between their mouths and ears.

There was no hair on their bodies, which were of a very light yellowish-green color. In the adults, as I learned later, this color deepens to an olive green and is darker in the male than in the female. Further, the heads of the adults are not so out of proportion to their bodies as in the case of the young.

The iris of the eyes is blood red while the pupil is dark.

The eyeball itself is very white and so are teeth. The lower tusks curve upward to sharp points which end about where the eyes of earthly human beings are located. Against the dark background of their olive skins their tusks stand out in a most striking manner, making these weapons present an especially formidable appearance.

Most of these details I noted later because I had little time to speculate on the wonders of my new discovery. As I stood watching the hideous little monsters break from their shells, I failed to note full-grown Martians from behind me.

The rattling of the ammunition of the foremost warrior warned me and I turned. And there upon me, not ten feet from my breast[14 - not ten feet from my breast – меньше чем в десяти футах от моей груди], was the point of that huge spear.

The man himself, for such I may call him, was fully fifteen feet in height.