Grotesque and confused dreams followed one after the other through his uneasy slumber in seemingly endless fantasy, causing him to mutter incoherently. These finally gave way to a curious vision of a conjured Martian landscape.
Huge cacti and other polypetalous growths formed a dense, forbidding background. As he looked about him it seemed that they had formed a menacing circle round him, which appeared to grow smaller and smaller. Hideous dark growths pushed their thorny leaves up through the loose sand round the edge of the circle, writhing into distorted shapes.
Desperately but fruitlessly his eyes sought some escape from the shrinking circle. The dark wall presented an impregnable barrier. How he had come there he did not know.
Suddenly he was startled by a rustling of the stiff foliage. The agitation of its tops heralded the approach of some being. He momentarily expected to see some dreadful thing leap out from the forbidding jungle—just what, he knew not!
Then, to his intense relief and astonishment, a girl of rare, exotic beauty emerged. Her eyes were like the cool depths of a shaded brook, her really golden-hued hair a delight, the perfection of her soft-clad figure goddesslike. Yet she repelled rather than attracted.
Then, indeed, it seemed as if the doors of paradise had opened. Gone was the aloofness of the moment before. She was smiling—at him.
But even as he took a first eager step toward her and she toward him, a mist seemed to come between them. The amazing loveliness of her faded into the drab desert background. He was alone!
Strange to observe, the threatening jungle was no more. Before his bewildered gaze a trackless desert swept from horizon to horizon. Then this, too, faded.
9
How long he had slept he did not know, but he was awakened suddenly by a blow in the face!