ZARLAH, THE MARTIAN.





CHAPTER I.

THE STRANGE SHADOW.


So thrilling were my experiences during that period, so overcrowded with
feverish action and strong emotions was each wonderful moment, and so
entirely changed are the conditions of life as I now find it, that it is
with considerable difficulty that I recall in detail all that happened
prior to my remarkable discovery which opened communication between
Earth and Mars. One says "discovery" advisedly, but let it not be
imagined that communication with the planet Mars was established as a
result of any careful and systematic research, or that I possessed a
subtle genius for astronomical science that was destined to introduce
into society what must eventually revolutionize it. Nothing could be
further from the facts. Into the daily grind of my absolutely uneventful
career, burst the almost terrifying revelations with a suddenness that
stunned me, while I was engaged in experiments of an entirely extraneous
nature. Albeit one wonders that the Martian rays, which have swept our
planet with their searching gaze for so many centuries, were not
discovered long ago. But this is anticipating my story.

I had reached the age of thirty, when, in the Spring of 19--, I sailed
out of New York harbor on board _La Provence_, en route for Paris. It