In retaliation for the slave raids of the whites in the jungles, these ape-men move against them in vast armies, and with surprising agility, over the dead regions of the planet. When they leave their natural location, they live upon the fruits and berries which grow in the many oases scattered over the deserts, where thermal springs are found.
I could well imagine the frightful and devastating effect of these ape-men armies once they were victorious over the whites. The picture showed them attacking the fortifications, and being driven off with showers of bombs filled with deadly gases. When they succeed in plundering the temples, they carry off the cloistered white women as captives to their jungle lairs.
Besides the ape-men and the hazards of climate, the white population is also harassed continually by the foraging beasts, reptiles, birds and insects from the waste regions and the jungles, who destroy the plantations and devour the horses and cattle. To meet the perils of the marauders, the whites maintain a standing-army, scientifically-equipped. Quartered in the canyon fortifications, the army uses a system of wireless-signaling from the watch-towers, to warn the people when in danger of attack.
Getting a first view of these monsters of the Martian deserts and tropical zone, a chill ran down my spine. Many of them were what we term prehistoric monsters—the tapir, tree sloth, and dinosaur. I gasped in horror at the sight of the insects from the jungles—beetles having the bulk of baby elephants, and ants big and strong enough to carry a man on their backs. And what at first I believed to be an airplane, turned out to be an enormous, monstrous bat.
As the film moved swiftly onwards to its completion, the breathless interest of the assembled scientists and explorers was concentrated on the last episode, which proved to contain the most amazing revelation of all.
The rays from the motion picture projector now seemed to flash upon the silver screen like messages of hope. Hope for our white brethren, on a faraway star, beset on all sides by danger, and threatened with extinction. With increasing excitement, I watched, through a happy haze of light, the great transformation that was now taking place in that bright point of light that studs our darkling sky—the planet Mars.
XXI
There, fast unreeling before our eyes, were undeniable evidences of the changed conditions that our radio broadcasts had wrought on Mars. I had no misgivings now about our short wave programs reaching that planet. We saw the Martians listening in to our daily broadcasts, and becoming not only quite in sympathy with our American ideas but benefitting therefrom.
Intercepting musical and talking programs from New York, London, Paris, Rome, Bombay, Tokyo and Melbourne, and out of the strange babble of voices and senseless prattle, soon, presto! evolves a translation of the English language. Think of it!