Page:Amazing Stories Volume 01 Number 04.djvu/19

Rh degraded by the more primitive and undeveloped bodily form, and one far less suited, by the modelling effect of ages of adaptation, to be the tools of his will. In this connection the matter of language alone need be mentioned, it having to be translated into entirely new sounds of articulation. Time only could alleviate these conditions, and the passing of the generation alone entirely remove them.

"The excuse the Martians made for themselves was that the conditions of Lunar life were becoming such as to threaten, by deteriorating their bodily welfare, to impair their mental powers, to lower, and ultimately extinguish, the splendid intellect of which they were so justly proud. If, they pleaded, one of the two races must perish, why should not the higher survive? Note that their argument, in speaking of races, disdains the mere physical part, and deals alone with that which dwells in it; for of course, in their transfer, so far as the physical form was concerned, it was the higher which perished.

ND now the sequel. Too late it came to their knowledge, in the light of the future ages, that their previous abode had not been so nearly uninhabitable as they had feared; that it had been calculated to last as their abode as a race, possible of habitation, until its greater companion sphere was fit for their reception; that the increasing difficulties of lunar existence were exactly calculated, not to destroy, but to stimulate and enhance their powers of both mind and body, until their physical transfer to Earth was possible; that their growing science would have been in good time sufficient to carry this out in a perfectly legitimate way, by launching their bodies across the comparatively trivial distance to their terrestrial goal, where they would have been competent to live and advance; for the bacterial forms of life on the Earth and its satellite are the same.

"At this moment, so great has been their scientific advance, that the problem of making the journey and arriving safely on Earth, not merely from the Moon, but from Mars, is within their ability to solve; but, as already mentioned, it would, from the latter, be fatal, as Martian organisms could not exist on Earth, or, we are thankful to say, on Venus either. From this natural and happy denouement they have, therefore, forever cut themselves off, to their eternal regret. They see the error of the evil deed of their ancestors, but do not see any way to avoid its consequence by any deed less evil. But they are as anxious to leave Mars as their ancestors were to gain it. One reason is that from the moment of their arrival on Mars, a result that they wholly failed to foresee, they have intellectually ceased to advance. Scientifically, only, have they advanced; a very different thing. The other reason is that Mars is now growing old.

EFORE the evil bought occurred to the Lunarians, they were, in all respects, an advancing and a noble people; natural heirs to a heritage the full extent of which is even now not apparent. Wherever their gaze might fall on the worlds around them, they could see that there was nothing equal to themselves. Their industry ever kept pace with their intellect; their stupendous energy was always equal to the heightening struggle with Nature. The mastery they gained over their globe and its conditions surpassed praise. As water, and even atmosphere, began to fail them, the enormous circular reservoirs they made for its conservation, and which must be so plainly visible from your Earth, stand to this day, in their roofless ruin, everlasting monuments to their abilities.

"It is now maddening to the Martian, still immeasurably our superior, to see us ever advancing, however slowly, however painfully, ever advancing on the road where he stands motionless, destined, as it seems, to be overtaken and passed in the race. From the days of his forefathers' iniquity his former nobility seems dead. His intellect, vast as it is beyond our power to measure, seems no longer harmonised to high ideals, but to evil, which is probably the reason why it is stagnant.

"And now we come to your danger, and, with your mind prepared by the history to which you have listened, it can be stated in a single sentence. As he treated the former Martians, so he"

ERE the shorthand manuscript ceased abruptly. It was evidently at this point that the occurrence happened, whatever it might have been, that caused Macrae not only to cease his notes, but to fall to the floor in the remarkable condition in which he still lay.

For some minutes Captain Evered sat gazing straight in front of him. Then he rang for his orderly and instructed him to ask Dr. Anderson to come to his cabin at once.

As he entered, Anderson looked quickly at his superior. "Sit down," was all Captain Evered said.

After fully a minute's pause, he continued: "Mad as a March hare, what?"

"I question it," remarked Anderson dryly, not yet recovered from the unceremonious interruption of his long-deferred sleep.

"But the fellow didn't know what he was writing about," persisted Captain Evered.

"Well, somebody did!" said Anderson quietly. "I don't think you can read this over carefully, and seriously believe that it bears any resemblance to the incoherences of madness, or could be composed by any one who did not know what he was doing."

"Great Scot! You are not telling me that you believe this story?"

"That is hardly the question, sir. I think we may leave the truth or otherwise of the narrative on one side for the moment. The question is: where did it come from?"

"Well, it came from Macrae, of course. We can't go beyond that."

"I never saw Macrae to speak to," said Anderson; "you have. You have described him to me, his character, and his education, or rather, lack of it. I accept your account of him as correct. But that story," pointing to the papers in Evered's hand, "touches on points of astronomy, evolution, physiology and other sciences, and always after the manner of one well acquainted with them, or at least, in a way certainly impossible to one so entirely ignorant of them as you know Macrae to have been."