PROJECT ASHABI
African Stories. Limitless Worlds.
PROJECT ASHABI
African Stories. Limitless Worlds.
Edgar Rice Burroughs
Transported mysteriously to the dying planet Barsoom (Mars), John Carter finds himself amidst warring alien empires and rescues Dejah Thoris.
Project Ashabi is being built as the home of original African comics, webtoons, graphic novels, and fiction.
This third-party Novel / Book title is temporary preview content. Step by step, third-party titles will be phased out and replaced exclusively by Ashabi Originals created by African writers and artists.
FOREWORD CHAPTER I On the Arizona Hills CHAPTER II The Escape of the Dead CHAPTER III My Advent on Mars CHAPTER IV A Prisoner CHAPTER V I Elude My Watch Dog CHAPTER VI A Fight That Won Friends CHAPTER VII Child-Raising on Mars CHAPTER VIII A Fair Captive from the Sky CHAPTER IX I Learn the Language CHAPTER X Champion and Chief CHAPTER XI With Dejah Thoris CHAPTER XII A Prisoner with Power CHAPTER XIII Love-Making on Mars CHAPTER XIV A Duel to the Death CHAPTER XV Sola Tells Me Her Story CHAPTER XVI We Plan Escape CHAPTER XVII A Costly Recapture CHAPTER XVIII Chained in Warhoon CHAPTER XIX Battling in the Arena CHAPTER XX In the Atmosphere Factory CHAPTER XXI An Air Scout for Zodanga CHAPTER XXII I Find Dejah CHAPTER XXIII Lost in the Sky CHAPTER XXIV Tars Tarkas Finds a Friend CHAPTER XXV The Looting of Zodanga CHAPTER XXVI Through Carnage to Joy CHAPTER XXVII From Joy to Death CHAPTER XXVIII At the Arizona Cave
I sought out Dejah Thoris in the throng of departing chariots. She drew upon the marble floor the first map of the Barsoomian territory I had ever seen. The old man sat and talked with me for hours. With my back against a golden throne, I fought once again for Dejah Thoris.
In submitting Captain Carter’s strange manuscript to you in book form, I believe that a few words relative to this remarkable personality will be of interest.
My first recollection of Captain Carter is of the few months he spent at my father’s home in Virginia, just prior to the opening of the civil war. I was then a child of but five years, yet I well remember the tall, dark, smooth-faced, athletic man whom I called Uncle Jack.
He seemed always to be laughing; and he entered into the sports of the children with the same hearty good fellowship he displayed toward those pastimes in which the men and women of his own age indulged; or he would sit for an hour at a time entertaining my old grandmother with stories of his strange, wild life in all parts of the world. We all loved him, and our slaves fairly worshipped the ground he trod.
He was a splendid specimen of manhood, standing a good two inches over six feet, broad of shoulder and narrow of hip, with the carriage of the trained fighting man. His features were regular and clear cut, his hair black and closely cropped, while his eyes were of a steel gray, reflecting a strong and loyal character, filled with fire and initiative. His manners were perfect, and his courtliness was that of a typical southern gentleman of the highest type.
His horsemanship, especially after hounds, was a marvel and delight even in that country of magnificent horsemen. I have often heard my father caution him against his wild recklessness, but he would only laugh, and say that the tumble that killed him would be from the back of a horse yet unfoaled.
When the war broke out he left us, nor did I see him again for some fifteen or sixteen years. When he returned it was without warning, and I was much surprised to note that he had not aged apparently a moment, nor had he changed in any other outward way. He was, when others were with him, the same genial, happy fellow we had known of old, but when he thought himself alone I have seen him sit for hours gazing off into space, his face set in a look of wistful longing and hopeless misery; and at night he would sit thus looking up into the heavens, at what I did not know until I read his manuscript years afterward.
Arthur Conan Doyle
