"Right you are, old man," he said. "Mabu, my native boy and Numba, his native boy, fished you out of the briny. Scared the simple fellows a bit at first. They're not used to finding chaps such as yourself inside giant clams. I had some talking to do to convince them you weren't a large pearl or some such thing." "I believe it is oysters rather than clams that are best known for their pearls," I said, good naturedly, for I took to this handsome, though mysterious, American almost at once. "Who can tell a native anything?" was his honest reply. "I suppose I am to be laid up here for a time," I said. "A few days," said Hawthorne, drawing a bamboo chair near to my side. "If you don't object I'd like to tell you a few of my adventures. For, if I do say so myself, my life has been both curious and strange." "By all means," I encouraged, being anxious to learn more of this enigmatic man who apparently lived contentedly here among savages and giant clams. "I can tell by your look," he began, "that you are a man of science and that you may at first be a bit skeptical. Let me begin by saying that for the past five years I have been in close radio contact with a man living inside the planet Venus." "Inside?" I asked. "Come, Hawthorne. Science is well aware that people live on the outside of that damp junglous planet. But inside?" "Put aside all your scientific learning for a moment," my new friend replied. "If you do you may learn something. At least you will have whiled away your convalescence." So he began the odd and compelling narrative that you will read in the next chapter. Chapter 3: Down And Out On Mars I am the reincarnation, began Hawthorne, of an Egyptian priest, whose name if I were to mention it you would recognize as being as familiar to you as your own. Having lived several lives I reached this one with more than the usual sense of ennui. I tried many things: shopkeeping, the cavalry, gold prospecting, writing for the magazines. None of these helped, nor could love. For in ancient Egypt I had loved a handsome and sporting priestess named Isis. After her all other women were anticlimactic. As Fate would have it, she whom I sincerely and respectfully loved, never seemed to get reincarnated during the same era as myself. You know how women are about keeping appointments. One evening toward the end of 1970 I was strolling through Central Park long after the hour when most men thought it safe. To a man such as myself, a man who fought the Red Indians without a qualm, the worst terrors of Central Park after dark held no dread. Still I was taken aback when seven youths fell upon me with baseball bats. You have perhaps found, as I did that night, that even a superb physical being is no match for seven men with little respect for the correct way of life, and large clubs. Though I maimed and injured a good number of them I was nevertheless knocked unconscious.