Zarlah the MartianGrisewood, R. Norman (Robert Norman)
Science
Zarlah the Martian
Grisewood, R. Norman (Robert Norman)
Mars (Planet) -- Fiction; Science fiction
Having secured my aerenoid, I stood on the balcony, entranced at the
beauty of the scene before me, which lay bathed in a wonderful
starlight--far more brilliant than the light of the full moon upon
Earth--shed by a myriad of blazing gems in a sky that knew no clouds. A
perfect stillness reigned, save for the rippling laughter of a little
stream, that wended its way through an avenue of trees to a lake of
glistening silver, a short distance beyond.
"What happiness would be mine in such a paradise, with Zarlah for my
own!" I thought, and a great anguish filled my heart, as I realized the
impossibility of it--and now for the first time I also realized the
impossibility of life without Zarlah. A sudden dread of meeting the one
I loved came upon me--a dread of seeing the light of love in her eyes,
even for an instant, knowing that it was not for me. I felt I could not
bear to behold the look of tenderness in her beautiful face change to
one of hatred, upon learning how she had been deceived; and in my agony
of spirit, I cried in a voice of deep emotion:
"Ah, Zarlah! I have won you, yet you are not mine! You have loved me,
yet I am not loved!"
"I am yours, and I love you, Harold," softly protested a voice at my
side.
With a start I turned and beheld Zarlah, and for a moment I stood as if
gazing at an apparition.
Realizing my bewilderment, she laid her hand gently upon my arm, and in
a low voice, full of compassion, said: "It is Harold Lonsdale whom I
love!"
In a delirium of ecstasy I caught the small white hand and pressed it to
my lips. Passing my arm about her I drew her tenderly toward me, gazing
down into her beautiful eyes where lay a world of tenderness and love.
My heart was too full for words--it was all too wonderful to understand;
enough that I knew Zarlah to be wholly mine, and in those few silent
moments of absolute happiness and contentment, the little stream's merry
laughter seemed to swell into the great joyous chorus of all creation,
behind which is the great love principle.
Together we left the balcony and walked beneath the giant trees toward
the lake, Zarlah relating to me how, through an instrument she
possessed, which transmitted and received thought-waves, she had not
only learned of Almos' communication with Earth, but had descried a
mental picture of the inhabitant of that distant world with whom he had
spoken.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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