Princess of Mars / Принцесса Марса. Уровень 2

He sat his mount as we sit a horse, grasping the animal's barrel with his lower limbs, while the hands of his two right arms held his immense spear low at the side of his mount. His mount was ten feet at the shoulder; had four legs on either side; aВ broad flat tail, larger at the tip than at the root, and which it held straight out behind while running; aВ gaping mouth which split its head from its snout to its long, massive neck.

Like its master, it was bold, but of a dark slate color and exceeding smooth and glossy.

Its belly was white, and its legs shaded from the slate of its shoulders and hips to a vivid yellow at the feet. The feet themselves were heavily padded and nailless.

I needed to get out of the point of the charging spear. I gave a very earthly and at the same time superhuman leap to reach the top of the Martian incubator. Successfully I landed a hundred feet from my pursuers and on the opposite side of the enclosure. My enemies were clearly surprised by my leap. Some of them seemed to be satisfied that I did not molest their young.

They were conversing together in low tones, gesticulating and pointing toward me. Now they looked upon me with less ferocity.

While the Martians are immense, their bones are very large and they are muscled only in proportion to the gravitation which they must overcome. The result is that they are much less agile and less powerful, in proportion to their weight, than an Earthman. In fact, if one of them were transported to Earth, he could not lift his own weight from the ground.

My feat then was as marvelous upon Mars as it was upon Earth. I was a wonderful discovery to them.

Each of them was armed with several other weapons in addition to the huge spear which I described. They had rifles of a white metal stocked with wood. The wood was much prized on Mars as it was hard to grow. The metal of the barrel is an alloy composed principally of aluminum and steel which they learned to temper to a great hardness.

After conversing for a short time, the Martians turned and rode away.

One of them stayed alone by the enclosure. He definitely was the leader of the band. He threw down his spear and small arms and came around the end of the incubator toward me. He was entirely unarmed and naked except for the ornaments strapped upon his head, limbs and breast.

When he was within about fifty feet of me, he unclasped an enormous metal armlet and put it in the open palm of his hand.