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yards before he fell down, and I loaded the gun for the second time and shot him again. After that I began to cut his stomach with the cutlass, then we got out from his stomach with our loads, etc. That was how we were freed from the hungry-creature, but I could not describe him fully here, because it was about 4 o’clock a.m. and that time was very dark too. So we left him safely and thanked God for that.

THE WAR OF THE VAMPIRES
    Gustave Le Rouge
Translated by David Beus and Brian Evenson
    Gustave Henri Joseph Le Rouge (1867 - 1938) was a French writer who helped usher in the modern science fiction era by rejecting the Jules Verne model of juvenile adventures and using real people in his stories—forming a bridge between Vernian and Wellsian approaches. The War of the Vampires (1909), from which this excerpt came, is a Martian Odyssey in which French engineer Robert Darvel is dispatched to the planet by the psychic powers of Hindu Brahmins.
    To the right and the left, I caught sight of ground which was much lower and which was covered by a forest of immense expanse, with this peculiarity: that the trees were shiny as if they had been rubbed in graphite, or like certain petrified wood that is found in coal mines. But all my attention fell toward the accursed mountain, which, through a well-known optical illusion, seemed to me very close, even though I was still very far from it.
    The sea in this place was sown with reefs and sandbanks, crossed through with currents, among which I had a lot of trouble maintaining my craft; the cadavers of fish and birds floated belly up, as if the proximity of the accursed mountain could be mortal to all animate beings. A smell of carnage and of corruption rose from these desolate waves.
    No terrestrial landscape can give an idea of the sinister and grandiose appearance of this prospect.
    Near the middle of the day, I passed the coast of an islet covered with greenery and flowers and I came near to it with the intention of making a stop there for some time. I would wait there, taking a little rest, until the hour had come to witness the immolation of the Vampires.
    But when I was near those enchanted banks, I saw that they were planted with giant oleander and the breeze conveyed to me the bitter smell of prussic acid.
    I understood that it might have been deadly to set foot on this poisoned ground. The debris of insects, of small mammals and of fish that were strewn over the sand, confirmed my fears only too well. I used my oars to move away.
    You understand now my profound aversion for any perfume which comes near to that of bitter almonds.
    This discovery made a great impression on me. I saw that all was danger around me and from that moment forward I was persuaded that the Vampires had said the truth, and that I was the plaything of an unknown and formidable power.
    This time I was determined to turn around and return; but I calculated that there remained to me hardly more than two hours of daylight. It would have been the maddest recklessness to start my return voyage at night; I was so troubled that I didn’t know if I would have been able to recognize the South-North current which was to bring me back to the glass towers.
    I had wanted to see it, I would see it, be it in spite of myself. I resigned myself to this, trembling, and I glided cautiously to come near to the base of the mountain; I was now close enough to it to recognize that it was entirely formed of white quartz.
    This rounded cliff that rose perpendicularly in front of me was as abrupt as if it had been cut from a single block or cast in a mold.
    For a long time I went along the base obstructed by sandbars, which, I saw with horror, were covered with piles of Vampire palps and wings, and which exhaled a suffocating stench.
    I noticed then that it had been possible to catch sight of that hideous debris without the help of my mask.
    The capacity of being invisible, which the Vampires possessed, was thus linked to their