"'Chapman,' I said, 'let us go back. The hoists will take us out.' 'Folly,' was the answer. 'I shall be all right. Why, a Martian has no physical weakness or dread. Come, Dodd, you have not yet acquired the Martian defiance of accident, disease, or death. You are sneaking back under the cover of fear for me.' "His voice seemed peevish. I looked at him with wonder. He leaped past me, with a forced agility, and sprang on upward. I followed with lightness born of thought, with which the true Martians move. "On, on, we sped. The narrowing path carried us up until one of those gaps I had noticed came in view. Chapman stopped, and then hearing my approaching steps, ran forward and jumped. His calculation and strength were yet secure and adequate. He safely passed the first break in the pathway, and, as I crossed it with a wide leap, we both still sped on upon an even narrower shelf, which also was more steeply inclined about the jutting prominences of the rocky cliff. "The next gap was reached, and now the edge of the succeeding length of pathway was not only farther away, but higher up. Chapman, I could see imperfectly, because of a slim projection in my way, had reached the lower side, and, hesitatingly, drew backward. It was his preparation for the leap. He launched forward. I rushed precipitately upward, feeling the air about me vibrating, it seemed, with an impending disaster. Chapman had landed on the further side of the break, but the cruel, treacherous rock crumbled beneath his impact, and I saw his staggering form turning backward. Another instant and his descending body was below me, plunging to the floor of the abyss. I turned, and then, my son, I felt the marvel of the mind's creative power over matter. I wished myself at the bottom of the quarry where Chapman had fallen, and although the movement of the translation down the pathway seemed apparent, yet I was scarcely parted from him an instant before I was standing and leaning over him in a group of astonished workmen, at the very spot where he lay. He was conscious, but gravely injured. I knelt beside him, and as I raised his head upon my knee, he looked up, and his lips moved; at first he was inarticulate, but soon his words became audible and intelligent. "'Dodd,' he said, 'this ends me for Mars. Take the papers to the Council at Scandor. They are in the cabin in my desk. They are sealed. I know there is a celestial runaway that is going to strike this planet. I overheard that much at the Patenta. And its direct path, the point of impingement, will be at Scandor. The fires ascending from Scandor are signals that they, too, have divined the disaster. I think so at least! Hurry on! You may see the strangest phenomenon eyes have ever seen. But, Dodd, enough of that. I am turned down for this world. I was not in agreement, as the philosophers call it, and the true mental Martian immunity from accident was not in me. I am injured mortally.'