FOREWORD
To the Reader of this Work:
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.
He told us that he had been prospecting and mining
in Arizona part
of the time since the war; and that he had been very
successful
was evidenced by the unlimited amount of money with
which he was
supplied. As to the details of his life during
these years he
was very reticent, in fact he would not talk of them
at all.
He remained with us for about a year and then went
to New York,
where he purchased a little place on the Hudson, where
I visited
him once a year on the occasions of my trips to the
New York
market—my father and I owning and operating
a string of general
stores throughout Virginia at that time. Captain
Carter had a
small but beautiful cottage, situated on a bluff overlooking
the
river, and during one of my last visits, in the winter
of 1885, I
observed he was much occupied in writing, I presume
now, upon this
manuscript.
He told me at this time that if anything should happen
to him he
wished me to take charge of his estate, and he gave
me a key to a
compartment in the safe which stood in his study,
telling me I
would find his will there and some personal instructions
which he
had me pledge myself to carry out with absolute fidelity.
After I had retired for the night I have seen him
from my window
standing in the moonlight on the brink of the bluff
overlooking the
Hudson with his arms stretched out to the heavens
as though in
appeal. I thought at the time that he was praying,
although I never
understood that he was in the strict sense of the
term a religious
man.
Several months after I had returned home from my last
visit, the
first of March, 1886, I think, I received a telegram
from him asking
me to come to him at once. I had always been
his favorite among the
younger generation of Carters and so I hastened to
comply with his
demand.
I arrived at the little station, about a mile from
his grounds, on
the morning of March 4, 1886, and when I asked the
livery man to
drive me out to Captain Carter’s he replied
that if I was a friend
of the Captain’s he had some very bad news for
me; the Captain had
been found dead shortly after daylight that very morning
by the
watchman attached to an adjoining property.
For some reason this news did not surprise me, but
I hurried out to
his place as quickly as possible, so that I could
take charge of the
body and of his affairs.
I found the watchman who had discovered him, together
with the local
police chief and several townspeople, assembled in
his little study.
The watchman related the few details connected with
the finding of
the body, which he said had been still warm when he
came upon it.
It lay, he said, stretched full length in the snow
with the arms
outstretched above the head toward the edge of the
bluff, and when
he showed me the spot it flashed upon me that it was
the identical
one where I had seen him on those other nights, with
his arms
raised in supplication to the skies.
There were no marks of violence on the body, and with
the aid of a
local physician the coroner’s jury quickly reached
a decision of
death from heart failure. Left alone in the
study, I opened the
safe and withdrew the contents of the drawer in which
he had told
me I would find my instructions. They were in
part peculiar
indeed, but I have followed them to each last detail
as faithfully
as I was able.
He directed that I remove his body to Virginia without
embalming,
and that he be laid in an open coffin within a tomb
which he
previously had had constructed and which, as I later
learned, was
well ventilated. The instructions impressed
upon me that I must
personally see that this was carried out just as he
directed,
even in secrecy if necessary.
His property was left in such a way that I was to
receive the
entire income for twenty-five years, when the principal
was to
become mine. His further instructions related
to this manuscript
which I was to retain sealed and unread, just as I
found it, for
eleven years; nor was I to divulge its contents until
twenty-one
years after his death.
A strange feature about the tomb, where his body still
lies, is
that the massive door is equipped with a single, huge
gold-plated
spring lock which can be opened only from the inside.
Yours very sincerely,
Edgar Rice Burroughs.
