Prelude John Carter Comes To Earth

: The Chessmen Of Mars

Shea had just beaten me at chess, as usual, and, also as usual, I

had gleaned what questionable satisfaction I might by twitting

him with this indication of failing mentality by calling his

attention to the nth time to that theory, propounded by certain

scientists, which is based upon the assertion that phenomenal

chess players are always found to be from the ranks of children

under twelve, adults over seventy-two or t
e mentally

defective--a theory that is lightly ignored upon those rare

occasions that I win. Shea had gone to bed and I should have

followed suit, for we are always in the saddle here before

sunrise; but instead I sat there before the chess table in the

library, idly blowing smoke at the dishonored head of my defeated

king.



While thus profitably employed I heard the east door of the

living-room open and someone enter. I thought it was Shea

returning to speak with me on some matter of tomorrow's work; but

when I raised my eyes to the doorway that connects the two rooms

I saw framed there the figure of a bronzed giant, his otherwise

naked body trapped with a jewel-encrusted harness from which

there hung at one side an ornate short-sword and at the other a

pistol of strange pattern. The black hair, the steel-gray eyes,

brave and smiling, the noble features--I recognized them at once,

and leaping to my feet I advanced with outstretched hand.



"John Carter!" I cried. "You?"



"None other, my son," he replied, taking my hand in one of his

and placing the other upon my shoulder.



"And what are you doing here?" I asked. "It has been long years

since you revisited Earth, and never before in the trappings of

Mars. Lord! but it is good to see you--and not a day older in

appearance than when you trotted me on your knee in my babyhood.

How do you explain it, John Carter, Warlord of Mars, or do you

try to explain it?"



"Why attempt to explain the inexplicable?" he replied. "As I have

told you before, I am a very old man. I do not know how old I am.

I recall no childhood; but recollect only having been always as

you see me now and as you saw me first when you were five years

old. You, yourself, have aged, though not as much as most men in

a corresponding number of years, which may be accounted for by

the fact that the same blood runs in our veins; but I have not

aged at all. I have discussed the question with a noted Martian

scientist, a friend of mine; but his theories are still only

theories. However, I am content with the fact--I never age, and I

love life and the vigor of youth.



"And now as to your natural question as to what brings me to

Earth again and in this, to earthly eyes, strange habiliment. We

may thank Kar Komak, the bowman of Lothar. It was he who gave me

the idea upon which I have been experimenting until at last I

have achieved success. As you know I have long possessed the

power to cross the void in spirit, but never before have I been

able to impart to inanimate things a similar power. Now, however,

you see me for the first time precisely as my Martian fellows see

me--you see the very short-sword that has tasted the blood of

many a savage foeman; the harness with the devices of Helium and

the insignia of my rank; the pistol that was presented to me by

Tars Tarkas, Jeddak of Thark.



"Aside from seeing you, which is my principal reason for being

here, and satisfying myself that I can transport inanimate things

from Mars to Earth, and therefore animate things if I so desire,

I have no purpose. Earth is not for me. My every interest is upon

Barsoom--my wife, my children, my work; all are there. I will

spend a quiet evening with you and then back to the world I love

even better than I love life."



As he spoke he dropped into the chair upon the opposite side of

the chess table.



"You spoke of children," I said. "Have you more than Carthoris?"



"A daughter," he replied, "only a little younger than Carthoris,

and, barring one, the fairest thing that ever breathed the thin

air of dying Mars. Only Dejah Thoris, her mother, could be more

beautiful than Tara of Helium."



For a moment he fingered the chessmen idly. "We have a game on

Mars similar to chess," he said, "very similar. And there is a

race there that plays it grimly with men and naked swords. We

call the game jetan. It is played on a board like yours, except

that there are a hundred squares and we use twenty pieces on

each side. I never see it played without thinking of Tara of

Helium and what befell her among the chessmen of Barsoom.

Would you like to hear her story?"



I said that I would and so he told it to me, and now I shall try

to re-tell it for you as nearly in the words of The Warlord of

Mars as I can recall them, but in the third person. If there be

inconsistencies and errors, let the blame fall not upon John

Carter, but rather upon my faulty memory, where it belongs. It is

a strange tale and utterly Barsoomian.



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