Now, however, you see me for the first time precisely as my Martian fellows see me--you see the very short-sword that has tasted the blood of many a savage foeman; the harness with the devices of Helium and the
insignia of my rank; the pistol that was presented to me by Tars Tarkas, Jeddak of Thark.
On the day of his public installation he took off his
insignia of office before the astonished notables, and, laying them one by one on the table, made them a profound reverence, and quietly withdrew.
"'Four membranous wings covered with little colored scales of metallic appearance; mouth forming a rolled proboscis, produced by an elongation of the jaws, upon the sides of which are found the rudiments of mandibles and downy palpi; the inferior wings retained to the superior by a stiff hair; antennae in the form of an elongated club, prismatic; abdomen pointed, The Death's -- headed Sphinx has occasioned much terror among the vulgar, at times, by the melancholy kind of cry which it utters, and the
insignia of death which it wears upon its corslet.'"
CLOTHES therefore, must be truly a badge of greatness; the
insignia of the superiority of MAN over all other animals, for surely there could be no other reason for wearing the hideous things.
Under the Masonic aprons and
insignia he saw the uniforms and decorations at which they aimed in ordinary life.
Handed down through countless ages it had come to her as a heritage and an
insignia of her religious office and regal authority from some long-dead progenitor of lost and forgotten Atlantis.
"Charles Stuart," said the colonel of the English regiment, approaching the king, who had just put on the
insignia of royalty, "do you yield yourself a prisoner?"
Only two are known to exist, and these were worn as the
insignia of their rank and position by the two old men in whose charge was placed the operation of the great engines which pump the artificial atmosphere to all parts of Mars from the huge atmosphere plant, the secret to whose mighty portals placed in my possession the ability to save from immediate extinction the life of a whole world.
Part way around I found a tiny radium flash torch, and as I examined it in mild curiosity as to its presence there in this almost inaccessible and unknown spot, I came suddenly upon the
insignia of the house of Thurid jewel-inset in its metal case.
Abdul Aziz, absolute lord of the Ottoman empire--clad in dark green European clothes, almost without ornament or
insignia of rank; a red Turkish fez on his head; a short, stout, dark man, black-bearded, black- eyed, stupid, unprepossessing--a man whose whole appearance somehow suggested that if he only had a cleaver in his hand and a white apron on, one would not be at all surprised to hear him say: "A mutton roast today, or will you have a nice porterhouse steak?"
Thus defiled by fours, with the divers
insignia of their grades, in that strange faculty, most of them lame, some cripples, others one-armed, shop clerks, pilgrim,
This done, the warrior assisted his master to replace the handsome jewelled metal of his harness with the plainer ornaments of an ordinary fighting man of Helium, and with the
insignia of the same house that appeared upon the bow of the flier.