With the unpleasant feeling that he was opening the forbidden book of some forgotten tragedy, he fell to his knees in the dust, and scooped about with his fingers. His right had closed upon a man's thigh bone. His left caught in a rotten leather belt, that pulled a human vertebra out of the dust. The belt had a tarnished silver buckle, and he looked at it with a gasp.
It bore an elaborate initial "E."
"E!" he muttered. "Envers! He got to Mars. And died here. Trying to get to the mountain, I guess. Lord! what a death! A man all alone, in the dust and the sun. A strange world. Strange monsters."
The loneliness of the red desert, the mystery of it, and its alien spirit, wrapped itself about him like a mantle of fear. He staggered to his feet, and set off at a stumbling run through the sand toward the cliff. But in a moment he paused.
"He might have left something!" he muttered.
He turned, and plodded back to where he had left the skull and the rotted belt, and dug again with his fingers. He found the rest of the skeleton, even bits of hair, clothing and human skin, preserved in the dry dust. He found an empty canteen, a rusty pocketknife, buttons, coins, and a ray pistol that was burned out.
Then his plowing fingers brought up a little black book from the dust.
It was Envers' diary.
Most of it was still legible. It is available in printed form today, and gives a detailed account of the tragic venture. The hopeful starting from earth. The dangers and discouragements of the voyage. A mutiny; half the crew killed. The thrill of landing on a new planet. The attack of the blue globes. How they took the ship, carried their prisoners to the pens, where they tried to use them to breed a new variety of domestic animals. Envers' escape, his desperate attempt to find the ship where they had landed in the desert.
Bill did not read it all then. He took time to read only that last tragic entry.