All my limbs were stiff with cold, my veins emptied by hunger and wounds, and for a space I had not even strength to move. But a little rubbing softened my cramped muscles presently and limping painfully down to the place of combat, I surveyed the traces of that midnight fight. I will not dwell upon it. It was ugly and grim; the trampled grass, the giant footmarks, each enringing its pool of curdled blood; the broken bushes, the grooved mud-slides where the unknown brutes had slid in deadly embrace; the hollows, the splintered boughs, their ragged points tufted with skin and hair--all was sickening to me. Yet so hungry was I that when I turned towards the odious remnants of the vanquished--a shapeless mass of abomination--my thoughts flew at once to breakfasting! I went down and inspected the victim cautiously--a huge rat-like beast as far as might be judged from the bare uprising ribs--all that was left of him looking like the framework of a schooner yacht. His heart lay amongst the offal, and my knife came out to cut a meal from it, but I could not do it. Three times I essayed the task, hunger and disgust contending for mastery; three times turned back in loathing. At last I could stand the sight no more, and, slamming the knife up again, turned on my heels, and fairly ran for fresh air and the shore, where the sea was beginning to glimmer in the light a few score yards through the forest stems. There, once more out on the open, on a pebbly beach, I stripped, spreading my things out to dry on the stones, and laying myself down with the lapping of the waves in my ears, and the first yellow sunshine thawing my limbs, tried to piece together the hurrying events of the last few days. What were my gay Martians doing? Lazy dogs to let me, a stranger, be the only one to draw sword in defence of their own princess! Where was poor Heru, that sweet maiden wife? The thought of her in the hands of the ape-men was odious. And yet was I not mad to try to rescue, or even to follow her alone? If by any chance I could get off this beast-haunted place and catch up with the ravishers, what had I to look for from them except speedy extinction, and that likely enough by the most painful process they were acquainted with?