The Chessmen of Mars

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.