After finishing The Moon Maid, Ed abandoned the Ediphone and returned to writing directly on the typewriter. He thought that this made for more action and a better knit story. In later years, however, he returned to the use of a dictating machine, the Dictaphone.

The need for a respite from the jungle and fantasy stories prompted him to seek for ideas elsewhere, but in the new writing he resorted to an overused theme — intrigue centering about the monarchy in a miniature kingdom. "Beware," written from August 9 to 31, 1922, features the plotting of revolutionaries to seize power in Assuria. However, Burroughs does devise a new approach, shifting from the Assurian revolution, the death of the king and queen, and the flight of the infant crown prince to a resumption of events twenty-two years later in New York City. In the prologue, where the royal tragedy occurs, the newly born Prince Alexander is saved by Lieutenant Donovan, an officer of the foreign corps. Mrs. Donovan, who herself had given birth to a son two days before, pretends that twins had been born; taking the young prince, she and her husband flee. On board the ocean liner one of the infants dies.

With the passage of twenty-two years, Macklin Donovan, established as a son of the former Assurian officer, becomes the main character. The older Donovan is a police lieutenant, while Macklin, working in the United States Secret Service, is investigating the involvement of wealthy Mason Thorn with a group of Assurians. The interest in Macklin displayed by the snobbish Mrs. Glassock and her daughter Genevieve is motivated by his supposed family prestige and wealth. Macklin is really in love with the exotic Nariva, a mysterious guest.

The story now takes an unexpected direction. Messages to Macklin, printed notes containing the single word "Beware," emanate from a locked closet. The incidents that follow create an impression of a typical detective story. The mystery involves various secret panels that lead to the adjoining house where the conspirators are operating. At the ending Burroughs prefers to leave the most puzzling question unanswered. Is Macklin Donovan really the Crown Prince Alexander? Only Mrs. Donovan, gravely ill and not expected to live, can supply the answer. But she is in a coma, and whether she ever gains consciousness and makes a statement is not revealed.

In sending the 24,000-word story to Davis, Burroughs suggested that the editor read the prologue last to see what the effect would be. In this case the early events in Assuria would emerge at the end as a type of additional denouement. Davis' evaluation of "Beware," sent on September 12, 1922, was one of blunt disapproval: . . I think Beware is the nearest approach to mediocrity that ever came from your pen, and Lord, Edgar, how did you come to fall back among the Russians, the Grand Dukes, Prince Alexander, Crown Princes, then drag them and their descendants along with Saranov down to the present day. That whole bunch smell to high heaven in fiction... .

One rejection had never been convincing to Burroughs, and the usual list of submissions followed. Refusals came from Blue Book (1922) and Detective Tales & Weird Tales (1923). An offer of $230 for the story by Weird Tales in 1929 was turned down. Sales efforts continued, and a rejection by Detective Book was received in 1938. Finally, in 1939, "Beware" was purchased by Raymond Palmer, editor of Fantastic Adventures, for $245. With some of the characters and plot elements changed by Palmer, and the time setting projected to the year 2190, "Beware" was now transformed from a hodgepodge royal intrigue-detective mystery novelette to a science-fiction story and published in the July 1939 issue of the magazine, where it somehow acquired the incongruous title of "The Scientists Revolt."  ~ Porges