Amazing Stories/Volume 01/Number 05/A Columbus of Space

by Garrett P. Serviss

A Columbus of Space

By Garrett P. Serviss

Author of “The Moon Metal”, “The Second Deluge”, etc.

We watched the meteors out of the windows while Edmund kept guard at the peep-hole. We must have come almost within striking distance of a thousand in the course of an hour, but Edmund decided not to diminish his speed. . .

CHAPTER I

A Marvelous Invention

dmund Stonewall was the most ingenious man that ever lived.

In my private opinion he was the greatest human being that has ever appeared on this earth. I say this, despite the fact that against my will, and without my knowledge at the start, he took me and two of our friends in common on the wildest, craziest, most impossible and incredible adventure that ever imagination conceived.

I ought to hate Edmund Stonewall for what he did to me and to my friends; but, in fact, I reverence his memory.

Let me tell you the story, and then you will see the reason that underlies my feeling toward him.

In the first place, he made the most wonderful invention that ever the world heard of. In fact, until now the world never has heard all about it, and I shudder yet when I think of it.

It was, of course, based on electricity, for everybody knows now that electricity is at the bottom of everything. It came out of that discovery which made so much excitement at the beginning of the twentieth century—“radioactivity.”

What is radioactivity?

Heaven only knows. But it came near being the death of me; it has robbed me of my dearest friends; and I don’t know but that, if Stonewall had kept on, it might have put a finish to this old earth of ours!

Stonewall was always bothering himself about “power” and “energy” and what not. He knew machinery and engines as a boy knows craps and marbles. But he was dissatisfied with everything.

“Men are fools,” he said. “They might be like gods. They ought to run the globe, and steer it where they like.”

You remember the old “Keeley motor?” Well, Edmund believed in it, but said Keeley had got hold of the wrong end, and would never make it go that way.

All the while he was experimenting himself. He had money from a rich uncle, I guess, and he built himself a laboratory, and once in a while he would invite Jack Ashton, Henry Darton, Will Church, and me to come and watch some of his experiments. It was all Greek to us, but it never failed to make us stare. We saw some wonderful things there, that people knew nothing about. Edmund took up Tesla, too, with his communication with Mars idea, but after a while he dropped that, and then came “radioactivity.”

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This story is a classic by the well-known scientist and writer, Professor Serviss. It is one of the first real scientific space-flying stories ever written, and remains one of the best. The story was originally published in 1909, and caused a small sensation at that time. About that time radium and atomic energy theories came into public vogue, and this gave a great impetus to the imagination. Even today, seventeen years after the story was first published, it remains a scientific masterpiece, it being unnecessary to make any corrections whatsoever to bring it up to date. With true prophetic vision, Professor Serviss has penned a masterpiece that will remain so for generations to come. There is not a paragraph which is not packed full of interest. This story will keep you in constant suspense.

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Radium and Thorium and Atomic Energy

When the discovery of radium in uranium ore, and other things came out, the rest of us would never have known anything about it but for Edmund. We used to skip that part in the papers, and I can’t say that his explanation made it much clearer; but, anyhow, he made the thing very inspiring to our imagination.

“Listen to this, boys,” he said to us. “Here’s Professor Thomson declaring that a single grain of hydrogen contains in its padlocked atoms enough energy to lift a million tons three hundred yards high. But Professor Thomson doesn’t know how to get at the energy, and neither does Professor Rutherford, nor Lord Kelvin. But somebody has got to get at it, and I guess it will have to be me.”

“But what would you do with it if you got it, Edmund?” asked Jack in his good-natured, drawling manner.

Edmund’s eyes shone strangely, but he replied only:

“I would do what Archimedes dreamed of.”

None of us knew anything about the dreams of Archimedes, and we dropped the subject.

But Edmund Stonewall did not drop it. He simply went to work at it. He used to be at our club every evening, but after he got this new idea we would not see him for weeks on end. And when we did see him he was as mum as an oyster. But what a look he had in those deep eyes! Somehow, with all his eccentricity, we never connected the idea of craziness with Stonewall. He was different from other human beings, that was all.

One evening, after a long absence, Edmund suddenly turned up at the club, and mighty glad we were to see him. We couldn’t understand his talk half the time, but it charmed us just the same. We never laughed at his extraordinary ideas. There was a depth in him that awed us. This time he showed an animation that we had never noticed before.

“Well, boys,” he said, shaking hands all round, “I’ve got it.”

“Got what?” drawled Jack.

“The interatomic energy under control. I’ve arrived where a certain Professor Duncan dreamed of being when he wrote that, ‘when man knows that every breath of air he draws has contained within itself power enough to drive the workshops of the world, he will find out some day, somehow, some way of tapping that energy.’ I’ve tapped it.”

“Indeed!” said Jack. “Well, as I asked you once before, what are you going to do with it?”

I have just been telling you that we never thought of making fun of any of Stonewall’s ideas, but there was something so extravagant in his words and manner that we all fell into Jack’s half-bantering mood, and united in demanding:

“Yes, Edmund, tell us what you are going to do with it?”

Unintentionally we nettled him and, without knowing it, we probably laid the foundation for the astounding thing that happened to us. He did not reply for a moment, while his eyes flashed and his face darkened. Then he said slowly:

“If you will come over to the laboratory I’ll show you what I am going to do with it.”

A Talk at the Club

Nothing could have suited us better. Ever since Edmund had shut himself away we had been curious to know what he was up to. We all got our hats and walked over to the laboratory. He led us directly into the back yard, which we were surprised to find walled and roofed, so as to form a huge shanty. Edmund opened the door and ushered us inside.

I tell you, we were startled by what we saw. In the center of the place was the queerest-looking thing you can imagine. It was not anything that I can well describe. I will call it a car, for that is what it most resembled. It was about eighteen feet long and ten feet high and broad, round like a boiler, with bulging ends. It seemed to be made of polished steel.

Edmund opened a door in the end.

“Step in,” he said, and unhesitatingly we obeyed him, all except Church, who was always a skeptical fellow, and who, for some reason, remained outside.

Edmund turned on an electric light, and we found ourselves in an oblong chamber, beautifully fitted up with fancy wood and with leather-cushioned seats all round the sides. The walls shone with polished knobs and handles.

“Sit down,” said Edmund, “and I’ll tell you what I’ve got here.”

Then, missing Church, he called out to him to come in, but there was no answer. We concluded that Church, thinking the thing would be too deep to be interesting, had gone back to the club. Edmund presently resumed:

“As I told you a little while ago, I’ve solved the mystery of the atoms. I’ve power illimitable at my command. If I chose to build the right sort of apparatus, I could drive this old planet of ours against the moon and wreck it! But I’m not going to damage anybody or anything. I’m simply going to try a little experiment. Excuse me a moment.”

Thereat he stepped outside, and we looked at one another, wondering, but still having too much confidence in Edmund to really set him down in our minds as unbalanced. We rather thought that he was going to show us some wonderful thing, as he used to do in the laboratory; something we couldn’t understand, but that would be interesting to look at. We were not prepared for what followed.

We heard Edmund outside in the shanty, making a noise that sounded like the opening of a barn door. Then he reappeared, entered the car, and closed its door.

We watched him with growing curiosity. There was an odd smile on his face as he reached at and touched a polished knob.

Instantly we felt that the car was rising. It rocked a little, like a boat in wavy water. We were startled, but not frightened.

A Visit to Edmund Stonewall’s Laboratory

Well, Edmund, what kind of a balloon is this?” Jack asked in his careless way.

“It’s considerable more than a balloon,” was the short reply.

We saw him touch another knob, and felt that the car had come to rest though it still rocked gently. Then Edmund unlocked a shutter at one side, and disclosed a many-paned window of thick glass. We all sprang to our feet and looked out. Below us were roofs and the tops of trees.

“We’re about two hundred feet up,” said Edmund. “What do you think of it?”

“Wonderful! Wonderful!” we all exclaimed.

“But,” persisted Jack, “what are you going to do with it?”

Again Edmund’s eyes flashed, and he said:

“You’ll see!”

The scene out of the window was beautiful. The city lights were nearly all below our level, and away off over the New Jersey horizon I noticed the planet Venus, near to setting, and as brilliant as a diamond. I am something of a star-gazer, and I called Edmund’s attention to the planet, as he happened to be standing beside me.

“Fine, isn’t she?” he said. “Finest world in the solar system. And Schiaparelli says she’s got two sides to her, one side always daylight and the other always night.”

I was surprised at his exhibition of astronomic lore, for I had never known that he had given any attention to the subject. But a moment later all this was forgotten, for Edmund suddenly pushed us back from the window and closed the shutter.

“Going down again so soon?” asked Jack, a little banteringly as before.

Edmund smiled. “Going,” he said simply, and put his hand on one of the knobs, pressing it gently. We felt ourselves moving very slowly.

“That’s right, Edmund,” Jack put in again. “Let us down easy; I don’t like bumps.”

Annihilating Gravity

We all expected at every instant to feel the car touch the cradle from which it had started. But we were mistaken. What really did happen can better be described in the words of Will Church, who, you will remember, had been left outside in the shanty. I got the account from him long afterward. He had written it out and put it in a safe as a sort of historic document.

Here is Church’s narrative, omitting the introduction, which read like a lawyer’s brief: {{dent|2em|0| “When we went over from the club to Stonewall’s laboratory, I dropped behind the others because the four of them took up the full width of the sidewalk. Stonewall was talking to them, and my attention was attracted by something uncommon in his manner. I can’t describe it very well, but there was an indefinable carriage of the head which suggested to me the thought that everything was not exactly as it should be.

“I don’t mean that I thought him crazy, or anything of that kind, but I was convinced that he had some scheme in his mind to fool us. I bitterly repented, when things turned out as they did, that I had not whispered a word in the ears of the others. But that would have been difficult, and, besides, I didn’t think that the matter was anything serious. Nevertheless, I determined to stay out of it, so that the laugh should not be on me, at any rate. Accordingly, when the others entered the car I kept away, and when Stonewall called me I did not answer.

“As he closed the door of the car, for the first time the impression came to me that it might be something serious, but it was then too late to interfere. I was greatly astonished when, without the slightest apparent reason, the car began to rise in the air. I hadn’t taken it for anything in the nature of a balloon, and this wasn’t the kind of practical joke I was looking for, though if I had not been so stupid I might have guessed it when I saw Stonewall open the roof of the shanty.

“It was with much trepidation that I saw the thing, which really looked diabolical with its polished sides glinting in the electric light, rise silently through the roof, and float mysteriously upward. I felt relieved when it stopped at a height of a couple of hundred feet, and I said to myself that they would soon drop down again, and perhaps, after all, they would turn the laugh against me for being afraid.}}

A Narrative of One of the Participators

But in a little while the car began to move again, slowly rising, and shining like some mail-clad monster in the light of the arc-lamps below. An indefinable terror commenced to creep over me, and I shivered as I watched the thing.

“It moved very deliberately, and in five minutes had not risen more than five hundred feet. Suddenly it made a dart, and seemed to shoot skyward. Then it circled, like a strange bird taking its bearings, and rushed off westward, until I lost sight of it behind some tall buildings. I ran out into the street, but could not catch sight of it again.

“They were gone! I almost sank upon the pavement in my helpless excitement. A policeman was passing:

“‘Officer! Officer!’ I said. ‘Have you seen it?’

“‘Seen what?’ asked the bluecoat, twirling his club.

“‘The car—the balloon,’ I stammered.

“‘I ain’t seen no balloon. I guess yer drunk. Ye’d better git along home.’

“There was no use trying to explain matters to him, so I entered the shanty again, and sat down on the supports on which the car had rested. I remained a long time staring up through the opening in the roof, and hoping against hope to see them come back. It must have been midnight before I finally went home, sorely puzzled in mind, bitterly blaming myself for having kept my suspicions unuttered. I got to sleep, but I had horrible dreams.

“The next day I was up early, looking through all the papers in the hope of finding something about the mysterious car. But there was not a word. I watched for several days with the same result.

“I cannot describe my feelings. My friends seemed to have been snatched away by some mystic agency, and the horror of the thing almost drove me crazy. Then members of their families—luckily none of them were married—began to come to me with inquiries. What could I say? Still believing that they would come back, I invented a story that they had gone off on a hunting expedition.

“But when a week had passed, and then two weeks, without any news, I was in despair. I had to give them up. Remembering how near we were to the coast, I concluded that they had drifted over the ocean and gone down. It was hard for me, after the lie I had told, to let the truth out at last.

“The authorities took the matter up and ransacked Stonewall’s laboratory, and the shanty, without finding anything to throw light on the mystery. After a while the sensation died out, the papers ceased to talk about it, and I was left to my loneliness and my regrets.

“A year has now passed with no news. I write this on the anniversary of their departure. My friends I know are dead—somewhere. What an experience it has been! When your friends die and you see them buried it is hard enough, but when they disappear in a flash, and leave no token behind, it is almost beyond endurance.”

CHAPTER II

A Trip of Terror

I take up the story from the point where I dropped it.

As minute after minute elapsed, and we continued to move, we changed our minds and concluded that the inventor was going to give us a longer ride than we had anticipated. We weren’t alarmed, for the car traveled so easily that it gave 'one a feeling of confidence. But we were a little indignant to think that Edmund should treat us like a lot of boys, without minds or wills of our own.

“See here,” said Jack at length. “I’d be obliged if you’d tell us just what you’re about. I’ve no objection to making a little trip in your car, which is certainly mighty comfortable, but I’d at least like to be asked whether I want to go or not.”

Edmund made no reply, but busied himself with his knobs. First he pressed one and then another. Suddenly we were all jerked off our feet as if we had been in a trolley with a green motorman at the handle.

We felt ourselves spinning through space at a fearful rate. Still Edmund said not a word; but while we staggered to our feet, and steadied ourselves with hands and knees on the leather-cushioned benches, like so many drunken men, he clung to his knobs and pushed and twisted. The car slowed down then, and the motion became more regular.

The Beginning of a Lecture

“Excuse me,” said Edmund, quite in his natural manner. “The thing is a little new yet, and I’ve got to learn the stops by experience. But there’s no occasion for alarm.”

“Maybe there isn’t,” replied Jack. “But will you be kind enough to answer my question, and tell us what you’re about and where we’re going? I’d rather like to know.”

Henry and I felt our indignation rising, and Henry broke out:

“See here! I’ve had enough of this! If you can’t tell us what it all means, just go down and let me out. I decidedly object to being carried off in this manner against my will and knowledge.”

By this time Edmund seemed to have got things in the shape he wanted, and he turned to face us. He always had a magnetism that was inexplicable, and we felt it then as never before. His features were perfectly calm, but there was a light in his eyes that seemed electric.

“It was my first intention,” he said, “to make this expedition alone, in case I couldn’t persuade you to go along. But you provoked me a while ago, and I made up my mind that I’d take you anyway. I’m not going to do you any harm, and you’ll thank me for it before we’re through.”

“But where do you propose to take us?” asked Jack, who had rather more self-command than the rest of us.

“I’ll show you,” replied Edmund. And that, for the time being, was all that we could get out of him.

There was manifestly no use in making a fuss. We knew nothing about the management of the car, and couldn’t even understand what the power was that moved it. Edmund’s talk about interatomic energy was to us like calculus to schoolboys. We were in his hands, and depended absolutely upon him. He could do what he liked with us. If we had overpowered him, what should we have done next?

I saw that the only possible thing was to humor him. Besides, knowing him as we did, I couldn’t feel that he meant to bring us to any harm. As I have told you, we never thought him crazy, and we didn’t think so then. He evidently knew exactly what he was about, and we had to trust to him whether we wished to or not.

As I turned the thing over in my mind I became calmer. I thought that we could get something out of Edmund by quietly showing some interest and questioning him about the machine.

“What are all these knobs, Edmund?” I asked.

“They control the driving power,” he replied in perfect good humor, but like a schoolmaster addressing pupils who, he knows, cannot entirely follow him. “I push or turn one way, and we go; I I push or turn another way, and we stop or go back. So I concentrate the atomic power just as I choose. It makes us go, or it holds us motionless, or it carries us back to earth, according to the way I apply it.

“The earth is what I kick against, and what I hold fast by. Any other body in space would serve the same purpose. As to the machinery, you’d need an education in such things to understand it. You’d have to study the whole subject from the bottom up, and go over the experiments that I have made. I confess that there are some things the fundamental reason for which I don’t know the real reason for myself. But I know that I have this power in control; and if I had Professor Thomson and Professor Rutherford here, I’d make them open their eyes!

“I sure wish I had been able to kidnap them.”

“So you admit that you’ve kidnaped us,” said Jack; but he said it, I was glad to see, with a smile.

“If you want to put it that way—yes,” Edmund responded, also smiling.

“Well, boys,” said Jack, turning to Henry and me, “we may as well make the best of it, so far as I can see. Edmund has got us in his aerial craft, and we’ll have to complete the voyage, whatever it may be. Perhaps you’ll treat us to a trip to Paris, Edmund. I’d like that immensely.”

“Better than that,” said Edmund. “Paris is small potatoes compared with what you are going to see.”

And so, indeed, it turned out!

A Comfortable Beginning of the Trip

Finally we all got our pipes and tobacco, and began to make ourselves at home. We dropped the subject that had been uppermost in our minds and talked of other things. Jack, always full of reminiscences, entertained us with stories. So hours glided by, till most of us began to feel sleepy.

“I’ll have to keep the first watch,” said Edmund; “and all the others, too, this night.”

“So, then, we’re not going to land to-night?” asked Henry.

“No, not to-night,” Edmund replied. “You may as well turn in. You see, I’ve prepared good bunks.”

He lifted the tops of some of the benches along the walls, and, turning them outward, showed us beds already made up.

“I believe I’ve not forgotten anything that can make us comfortable,” he added. “Arms, instruments, clothing, furs, and lots of good things to eat.”

We looked at one another in surprise, but nobody spoke, though the same thought probably occurred to each—that this promised to be a pretty long trip, judging from the preparations.

Arms! Edmund had said. What in the world should we need of arms? Was he going to take us off to the Rocky Mountains for a bear hunt? And clothing and furs!

But we were really sleepy. Perhaps the motion had something to do with that, although now it had become almost imperceptible. At any rate, it was not long before all three of us had taken Edmund at his word, and, leaving him to manipulate his knobs as he saw fit, we turned in. He considerately drew a shade over the electric light, and then noiselessly opened the shutter covering the window. When I saw him doing that, I was strongly tempted to rise and look out, but I didn’t do it. Instead, I fell asleep.

The Earth Spread Out Like a Map

When I woke, windows were open on both sides of the car, and sunlight was streaming in through one of them. Henry was still asleep, Jack was yawning in his bunk, just preparing to rise, and Edmund stood at one of the windows, staring out. I quickly made my toilet, and then went to Edmund’s side.

“Good morning,” he said, taking my hand. “Look out here and tell me what you think of the prospect."

I put my face close to the glass, and my heart jumped into my mouth!

"Where are we?" I cried out.

Jack, hearing my agitated exclamation, jumped up and ran to my side.

It was truly enough to take away one's breath!

We seemed to be at an infinite height, and the sky was as black as ink and ablaze with stars, although the sunlight was streaming into the window behind us! I could see nothing of the earth. Evidently we were too high for that. It must lie away down under our feet, I thought, so that even the horizon had sunk out of sight. I had that queer, uncontrollable qualm that comes to every one who stands on the verge of an abyss.

Straight before us, so I presently became aware, was a most singular appearance in the sky. I thought at first glance that it was a round cloud, curiously mottled. But it was strangely changeless for a cloud, and it had, moreover, a certain solidity of aspect that could not consist with vapor.

"Good Heaven!": cried Jack, catching sight of it. “What’s that?”

"That's the earth!"

It was Edmund who had spoken, and now he looked at us with a quizzical smile.

Breakfast on Board, Far Up Above the Eastern Hemisphere

A thrill shot through me. My mind went into a whirl. I saw that it was the truth he had told; for, as sure as I sit here, at the moment that Edmund spoke, the great cloud rounded out before my eyes, the deception vanished, and I recognized the outlines of Asia and the Pacific Ocean, as clearly as ever I saw them on a school-globe!

In another minute I had become too weak to stand, and I sank, trembling, upon a seat. Jack, whose eyes had not accommodated themselves to the gigantic perspective as rapidly as mine, remained at the window, declaring:

"Fiddlesticks! What are you trying to give us? The earth is down below, I reckon."

But in a little while he, too, saw the thing as it really was, and then his excitement equaled mine. In the meantime Henry, awakened by the noise, had run to the window, and had gone through the same experience. Our astonishment and dismay were too great to recover from, but after some minutes we gained a little self-control.

"In Heaven's name, Edmund," Jack at last exclaimed, "what have you been doing?"

"Nothing very extraordinary," Edmund replied coolly. "At least, nothing that ought to seem extraordinary. If men had not been fools for so many ages they might have done this long ago. They've been wasting their time with steam and coal and a hundred other petty sources of power, when all the while they had the limitless energy of the atoms under their thumbs and didn’t know it. It's the interatomic energy that has brought us out here and that is going to carry us a good deal farther before we are through."

We simply listened in silence; for what could we say? There was not the shadow of a doubt about it; we were out in the middle of space, and there was the earth hanging on nothing, like a summer cloud. Heaven knows how far away! It might have been a million miles, for all we could tell.

A Speed of 20 Miles a Second

"We've made a pretty good run during the night," said Edmund, finding that we were speechless. "You must be hungry by this time, for you've slept late. Let's have breakfast."

So saying, he opened a locker, took out a folding table, covered it with a white cloth, turned on a little electric range, and in a few minutes had ready as appetizing a breakfast of eggs and as good a cup of coffee as I ever tasted. It is one of the compensations of human nature that it is able to adjust itself to the most unheard-of conditions provided that the inner man does not find itself neglected. The smell of breakfast would almost reconcile a man to purgatory; anyhow, it reconciled us, for the moment, to our situation, and we ate and drank and fell into as cheerful good comradeship as a fishing-party after a big morning’s catch.

When the breakfast things had been cleared away, we began to smoke and chat, frequently interrupting the talk, however, to take a turn at the window, staring at the spectacle of the world we were leaving behind us. Edmund got out some binoculars, and with them we could recognize many geographical features.

We could see Japan and the Philippines, spots near the shore of the Pacific; we recognized the crinkling line of the snowy Himalaya Mountains; and a great white smudge over the ocean showed where a storm was raging, and where good ships were, no doubt, battling with the waves beneath.

I noticed that Edmund was continually going from one window to the other, as if watching for something; and there was, at times, a look almost of apprehension in his eyes. He had a peep-hole in the forward end of the car, covered with thick glass, and he frequently visited it. Even while we were at breakfast, I had observed that he was not easy, but kept jumping up and running to look out. At last I asked him:

"What are you looking for, Edmund?"

"Meteors," he replied shortly.

"Meteors out here?"

"Of course. You're something of an astronomer. Don't you know that they hang round all the planets? They didn’t let me sleep last night. They kept me on tenter-hooks all the time. I was half inclined to get one of you up to help me. We passed some pretty ugly looking fellows during the night. You know, this is an unknown sea that we are navigating, and I don't want to run on a rock and wreck the ship."

"But we seem to be pretty far from the earth now," I said; "and there ought not to be much danger."

"It's not so dangerous as it was, but there.may be some round yet. I'll feel easier when I’ve put a few more million miles behind us."

Millions of miles!

When we had imagined that the earth looked as though it might be a million miles away, it was merely a passing thought which didn't impress us with its real immensity; but now, when we heard Edmund say that we actually had traveled such a distance, the idea struck us with overwhelming force.

Meteors on All Sides

"In Heaven's name, Edmund," Jack called out, "at what rate are we traveling, then?"

"Just at present," Edmund replied, glancing at an indicator on the wall, "we're making twenty miles a second."

Twenty miles a second!

"Why," I exclaimed, "that's faster than the earth goes in its orbit!"

"Yes, just a trifle faster," Edmund replied, smiling. "But I'll probably have to work her up to a little better speed, in order to get where I want to go before our goal begins to run away from us."

"Ah! that's it," put in Jack. "That's what I wanted to know. What is our goal, Edmund? Where are we going?"

Before Edmund could reply we all sprang to our feet affrighted.

A loud grating noise had broken upon our ears. At the same instant the car gave a lurch, and a blaze like a flash of the most vicious lightning streamed through one of the windows.

"Blank the things!" shouted Edmund, springing to the window, and then darting at one of the knobs, and beginning to twist it with all his force.

In a second we were sprawling on the floor, except Edmund, who kept his hold. Our course had been changed with amazing quickness, and our startled eyes beheld huge misshapen objects darting past the window.

"Here comes another!" cried Edmund, seizing the knob again.

I had managed to get my face at the window, and I certainly thought that we were lost. Only a few rods away, rushing straight at us, was a vast black mass, shaped something like a dumb-bell, with ends as big as houses, tumbling over and over itself, and threatening us, as it came, with annihilation. If it hit us, as it seemed sure to do, I knew that we should never return to the earth, Template:SIc it might be in the form of pulverized cinders.

CHAPTER III

The Planetary Limited

But Edmund had seen the meteor and, quicker than thought, with a turn of the knob, he swerved the car, and threw us all off our feet again! But we would have been thankful to him even if he had broken our heads, for he had saved us from instant destruction.

The danger was not yet gone, however. Scarcely had the huge dumb-bell (which Edmund assured us afterward must have been composed of solid iron, from its effect on his magnetic needles) passed before there came from outside a blaze of lightning so fierce and penetrating that it closed our eyes as if the lids had been slapped shut!

"A collision!" exclaimed Edmund. "The thing has struck another big meteor, and they are exchanging red-hot compliments."

He threw himself flat on the floor, and stared out of the forward peep-hole. Then, immediately, he jumped to his feet, and gave us another tumble. He had changed the course once more.

"They're all about us," he said. "We're like a boat in a raging spring freshet, with rocks, tree-trunks, and tossing cakes of ice threatening it on every hand. But we'll get out of it. The car obeys its helm as if charmed. Why, I got away from that last fellow by setting up an atomic reaction against it, as a boatman pushes his pole against an ice-floe."

A Trip to Venus

In the midst of our terror we could not but admire our leader.

His resources seemed boundless, and our confidence grew with every escape. We watched the meteors out of the windows while Edmund kept guard at the peep-hole. We must have come almost within striking distance of a thousand in the course of an hour, but Edmund decided not to diminish his speed, for he said that he found he could control the car quicker when it was under full headway.

So on we rushed, dodging the things like a crow in a flock of pestering jays, and after a while we began to enjoy the excitement. It was better sport than shooting rapids in an open skiff, and we got so confident at last in the powers of our car and its commander that we were rather sorry when the last meteor was passed, and we found ourselves once more in clear open space.

After that the time passed quietly. We ate our meals and slept as regularly as if we had been at home.

There was no night for us, because the sun shone in at one window or the other all the time; yet, as I have said, the sky was jet black, and the stars glittered everywhere round us. When we wanted to sleep we put up the shutters, keeping watch only through the peep-hole, which, as it did not face the sun, admitted little light. We kept count of the days by the aid of a calendar clock. There seemed to be nothing that Edmund had forgotten.

Once the idea suddenly came to me that it was a wonderful thing that we had not all been smothered with bad air, breathing the atmosphere of the car over and over again as we were doing, and I asked Edmund about it. He laughed.

"That's the easiest problem of all," he said. "Look here."

And he threw open a little grating in the side of the car.

"In there," he explained, "there's an apparatus which absorbs the carbonic acid and renews the air. It is good to work for at least a month, which will be more time than we need for this expedition."

"There you are again," broke in Jack. "I was asking you about that when we ran into those pesky meteors. What is this expedition? Where are we going?"

Taking Rifles to Venus

"Well, since you have become pretty good shipmates," replied Edmund, "I don't see any objection to telling you. We are going to Venus!"

"Going to Venus?" we all cried in a breath.

"To be sure. Why not? We've got the proper sort of a conveyance, haven't we?"

There was no denying that. As we knew that we had left the earth far behind, and had already traveled some millions of miles, it didn't, after all, seem to be a very crazy idea that we might actually go to Venus.

"But how far is it?" asked Jack.

"When we quit the earth," Edmund replied, "Venus was rapidly approaching inferior conjunction. You know what that is, Albert," addressing me. "It's when Venus comes between the sun and the earth. The distance between the two is not always the same at such a conjunction, but I figured out that on this occasion, allowing for the circuit that we should have to make, there would be just twenty-seven million miles to travel. At the average speed of twenty miles a second, we could do that distance in fifteen days, fourteen and one-half hours.

"But, of course, I had to lose some time going slow through the earth's atmosphere, for otherwise the car would have caught fire by friction, like a meteor, and I shall have to slow up again when we enter Venus's atmosphere, so that I don’t count on landing on Venus in less than sixteen days from the time of our departure.

"We've already been out five days, so eleven remain before I hope to introduce you to the inhabitants of another world."

The inhabitants of another world! This idea took us all aback.

"Do you believe there are any such inhabitants?" asked Henry.

"I know there are," said Edmund. "Otherwise I wouldn't have taken the trouble to come."

"Of course," said Jack, stretching out his legs and pulling at his pipe. "Who'd go twenty-seven million miles if he didn't expect to see somebody?"

"Then that's what you put the arms aboard for?" I remarked.

"Yes, but I hope we shall not have to use them."

"Strikes me this is a sort of a pirate ship," said Jack. "But what kind of arms have you got?"

For answer Edmund threw open a locker, and showed us an array of automatic guns, pistols, and some cutlases.

Getting Close to Venus

"Decidedly piratical!" cried Jack. "But, see here, Edmund. With all this interatomic energy that you've got under control, why in the world didn't you construct something new—something that would just knock the Venustians silly, and blow their old planet up, if it became necessary? It seems to me that automatic arms, though pretty good at home, are rather small pumpkins for invading a foreign world with."

"I didn't prepare anything else," said Edmund. "In the first place, because I hadn't time; and, in the second place, because I didn't really anticipate any fighting. I hope that we can get along without that."

"You mean to try moral suasion, I suppose," drawled Jack. "Well, anyhow, I hope they'll be glad to see us, and since it's Venus we're going to visit, I expect that the ladies will be perfect houris for beauty. I'm glad you made it Venus instead of Mars, Edmund, for from all I've heard about Mars, with its fourteen-foot giants, I don't think I should care to go there."

We all laughed at Jack's fancies, but there was something thrilling in the idea, too; for here we were (unless we were dreaming) actually on the way to Venus! I tried every way I could think of to test whether it was a dream or no, but do what I would I came always to the conclusion that I had never been more wideawake in my life. Both Jack and I were sufficiently romantic to find a great charm in the thought of visiting another world, but Henry was different. He always looked at the money in a thing.

"Edmund," he said, "I think you have made a fool of yourself. What good will it do you, or us, to go to Venus? Here you have got an invention that will revolutionize mechanics. You might, if you had exploited it as you ought, have made the greatest millionaire look like the smallest kind of an atom. But instead of developing the thing in a businesslike way, you rush off into space on harebrained adventure."

"That depends upon the point of view and the mental make-up," Edmund replied calmly. "To me Venus is infinitely more interesting than all the wealth that you could pile up between the north pole and the equator. Am I not the Columbus of space—and you my lieutenants?" he added smiling. "Besides, just wait until we return to the earth. I don't promise to give my attention to money-getting then, but I may revolutionize a good deal more than mechanics."

"Yes, if we ever do return," said Jack, a little lugubriously.

Poor Jack! None of us knew, then, what was in store.

The time ran on, and we watched the day hand on the calendar clock. Soon it had marked a week; then ten days; then a fortnight. We were getting pretty close, but up to this time we had not yet seen Venus. Edmund had seen it, he said, but to do so he had been obliged to alter the course, because the planet was almost in the eye of the sun, and the light of the latter, streaming into the peep-hole, blinded him.

A Mysterious Display of Flames

In consequence of the change of course, he told us, we were now approaching Venus from the east—flanking her, in fact—and she appeared in the form of an enormous shining crescent. I shall never forget my first view of her.

We had got within half a million miles, and Edmund was very nervous about meteors again. He said they were probably thicker round Venus than around the earth, because the former is nearer to the sun, and everything crowds up as you approach the center of the solar system. Consequently he would only allow us each a brief peep at the planet, because he wanted to be all the time at the lookout. The peep that I got was sufficient.

That vast gleaming sickle, hanging in the black sky, was the most tremendous thing I ever looked upon!

Soon afterward Edmund changed the course again. We had not come upon the expected meteors in any great numbers, and Edmund said he felt safe now in running into the planet’s shadow, and making a landing on her night hemisphere.

You see, Venus, as Schiaparelli had found out, doesn’t turn on her axis once every twenty-four hours like the earth, but keeps always the same face to the sun. The consequence is that she has perpetual day on that side, and perpetual night on the other. I asked why we didn’t land on the daylight side, but Edmund said his plan was safer. We could easily go from one hemisphere to the other, he declared.

But it didn’t turn out to be as easy as he thought.

“I hardly expect to find any inhabitants on thé dark hemisphere,” he said. “It must be fearfully cold there—too cold for life to exist, perhaps. But one can never tell. Anyhow, I am going to find out. We’ll just stop for a look at things, and then the car will carry us round to the other side. We can thus approach the inhabitants, who, I am sure, exist on that side, from behind, as it were, and that will give us a chance to reconnoiter them a little, and plan our arrival safely.”

“If Venus is rightly named,” said Jack, “I’m for getting where the inhabitants are as soon as possible.”

When we swung round into the shadow of the planet we got her between the sun and us. Then she completely hid the sun, and appeared like an immense black circle, blacker than the sky itself. But all round this black circle appeared a most beautiful ring of light.

“That’s her atmosphere,” said Edmund, lighted up by the sun from behind. But, for the life of me, I can’t tell what those great flames mean.”

Descending Into the Cavern of Venus

He referred to a vast circle of many-colored flames that blazed and flickered with all the hues of the rainbow at the inner edge of the ring of light. It was the most awful, and at the same time beautiful, sight that I ever gazed at.

“That’s something altogether outside my calculations,” Edmund averred. “I can’t account for it at all.”

“Perhaps they are already celebrating our arrival with fireworks,” said Jack, always ready to take the humorous view of everything.

“That’s not fire,” Edmund responded. “What it is I cannot say. But we’ll find out. I haven’t come all this distance to be scared off.”

Our approach was so rapid that the immense black circle grew, hour after hour, with portentous swiftness. Soon it was so large that we could no longer see its boundaries through the peep-hole.

“We’re within a thousand miles,” said Edmund finally. “We must be close to the upper limits of the atmosphere. The atmosphere of Venus is denser and more extensive than that of the earth, and if we rush into it we shall be burnt up by the effects of friction. I’ll have to slow down.”

He slowed down a little more rapidly than was comfortable. It was jerk after jerk, as he dropped off the power, but at last we got down to the speed of an ordinary express-train. Being out of the sunshine now, we had to use the electric-lamp to illuminate the car.

At length we got so close that the surface of the planet became dimly visible. We were settling very slowly by this time, and as we drew gradually nearer we began to notice singular shafts of light, that seemed to issue from the ground beneath us, as if it had been covered with so many iron foundries.

“By Jove!” cried Edmund; “I believe there are inhabitants on this side after all. I certainly don’t believe that those lights come from volcanoes. I’m going to make for the nearest one, and will soon know what they are.”

Accordingly, he steered the car for one of the gleaming shafts. It grew brighter as we approached, and threw a faint illumination upon the ground around it. Everything seemed to be very flat and level, as if we were dropping down upon a prairie. But no features could be clearly made out in the gloom.

Edmund boldly approached within a hundred feet of the light and, with the slightest perceptible bump, we touched the soil of Venus.

“It’s probably frightfully cold outside,” said Edmund; “and we’ll put on these things by way of precaution.”

He dragged out of one of his innumerable receptacles a lot of thick fur garments and gloves, as if we were going among the Eskimos, and made us put them on, while he dressed himself in similar fashion. Then he handed to each of us a pair of big automatic pistols, telling us to put them in our side-pockets. These preparations having been made, he cautiously opened the door, after having, as he said, electrically anchored the car to the ground.

The air that rushed into the car as the door was opened almost hardened us into icicles. It was colder than ten thousand icebergs!

“It won’t hurt you,” Edmund exclaimed. “It can’t be down to absolute zero, on account of the atmosphere. I’ve kept it so warm inside the car that you’ve become pot-boiled. You’ll soon be used to this. Come on!”

And he led the way out.

After glancing round us for a moment we cautiously approached the shaft of light.

It issued from an irregular round hole.

As we drew near the edge we saw that there were rough steps at one side of the pit, leading downward.

In another instant we were frozen stiff. Not with cold, but with amazement. My heart for a moment stopped beating.

Standing on the steps, watching us, with eyes as big and luminous as moons, was a creature shaped like a man, but more savage-looking than a gorilla!

CHAPTER IV The Caverns of Venus—An Inhabitant

For two or three minutes the creature continued to stare at us, motionless, and we to stare at him. It was so dramatic that it makes my nerves tingle now when I think of it.

His eyes alone were enough to scare a man out of his senses. As I have said, they looked like full moons, they were so big, so round, and so luminously yellow. It was the phosphorescent yellow, shot with green, that you sometimes see in the eyes of a cat or a wild beast. Its great hairy head was black, but its short stocky body was as white as that of a polar bear. Its arms were long, like an ape's, and it had a look of immense strength and activity.

Edmund was the first to recover from the surprise, and then he did a thing that seems absurd when I recall it.

"Well, hallo you!" he called out, in a voice that made us jump as if it had been a thunder-clap. In that heavy atmosphere the sounds struck the eardrums like trip-hammers.

The effect on the creature was electric. A film shot across his big eyes, he made a sudden movement, uttered a queer squeak that seemed ridiculous coming from an animal of such size, and, in an instant more, he had disappeared, stumbling and tumbling down the steps.

"Hurrah!" shouted Edmund. "We've conquered a hemisphere!"

In fact, the evident terror of the creature immediately heartened us all. Our fear vanished, and, following Edmund, we rushed for the hole, and began a hurried chase down the steps.

We noticed that the air was decidedly warmer round the mouth of the pit, and as we descended the temperature rose. After a while we pulled off our Arctic togs, and left them on a shelf of rock, but we didn't leave the automatic pistols. Then we proceeded downward. It was an awful hole for depth. The steps, rudely cut, wound round and round the sides like those in a cathedral tower, except that the shape of the pit was not regular. It looked like a natural formation. Perhaps, I thought, the throat of an extinct volcano; though, there being no mountain, that didn't seem probable either. But the steps were certainly of artificial origin.

The Awful Tenants of the Cave

When we had descended several hundred feet we emerged suddenly into a broad cavern. The temperature had been rising all the time, and here it was as warm as in an ordinary room. The cavern was, I should say, about twenty yards broad and eight or ten feet in height, with a flat roof. Over in a corner I saw a hole down which the steps continued. There was not a living thing visible, but there was light coming from what looked like a heap of coal, burning with great brilliance, in the center of the floor.

A strange but not unpleasant odor filled the place, and as we paused to consult we all spoke of the curious exhilaration which we had experienced, almost from the moment of setting foot on the planet. Edmund said it was due to the dense atmosphere, which undoubtedly was heavy with oxygen. It certainly had a good deal to do with our rising courage, and our insensibility to fatigue. Notwithstanding the precipitancy of our long descent, we did not draw an extra breath. As we looked about us, seeing no one, Edmund declared that it was necessary to go on.

"We can't give it up," he said. "We've got to find the inhabitants, and now that we have seen one of them, we know pretty well what to expect. Come along."

He led the way down the steps in the corner. They wound round just like the others, and again we descended a long distance, perhaps as much as three hundred feet. Then we reached a second cavern, larger and loftier than the first. And there we found them! There never was such a sight! It made our blood run cold again, notwithstanding our initial triumph, which had been so cheaply won.

Ranged along the farther side of the cavern, visible by the light of another heap of bright coal, were twenty or thirty of those creatures, standing shoulder to shoulder, with their great eyes glaring like bull's-eye lanterns. But the most frightful of all were their motions.

The Venustians Terrified by One Pistol Shot

You have read how a huge cobra, rearing on his coils, sways his terrible head from side to side before striking. Well, all those black heads before us, with their lantern eyes, were swaying in unison, only the motion was circular. Three times by the right, and then three times by the left, those heads circled, in rhythmic cadence, while the luminous eyes made phosphorescent rings in the air, intersecting one another in consequence of the rapid movement.

It was such a spectacle as no man ever beheld in the wildest dream. It was baleful! It was the charm of the serpent paralyzing its terrified prey. We felt it in an instant, and our brains began to whirl. I found myself staggering in spite of all my efforts to stand firm, and a kind of paralysis ran through my limbs. Presently, all moving together and uttering a hissing, whistling sound, they began slowly to approach us, keeping in line, each shaggy leg lifted high at the same moment, like so many soldiers on parade, while the heads continued to swing, and the glowing eyes to cut linked circles in the air. But for Edmund we should have been lost. He spoke to us over his shoulder, in a whisper:

"Boys, take your pistols and kill as many as you can, but don't shoot unless they make a rush. I'll knock over the leader, in the center, and I think that'll be enough."

So saying, he raised his pistol; but, as for the rest of us, we could no more have stirred our arms than if we had been marble statues.

As the creatures approached another step, Edmund blazed away! The report was like an earthquake! It shocked us into our senses, and almost out of them again. The weight of the atmosphere, and the confinement of the cavern, magnified and concentrated the sound until it was awful. The fellow in the center, that Edmund had aimed at, was hurled to the ground as if shot from a catapult. The others fell as flat as he, and all lay groveling, the big eyes filming and swaying wildly, but no longer in unison.

The charm was broken, and, as we saw our enemies prostrate, our courage and nerve returned.

"I thought so," said Edmund coolly. "It's the sound that they can't stand. I'm sorry I killed that fellow, for the report alone would have been sufficient. This atmosphere acts like a microphone. You have heard the voices of these creatures, which are hardly louder than whispers. Their ears are evidently not made for sounds of any magnitude. I shouldn't wonder if I had burst every ear-drum in the lot."

"After all," he continued, after a moment's thought, "it is perhaps as well that I took one life. Probably it would have had to come eventually, and now we have them thoroughly cowed. If they had ever reached us, they would have torn us asunder in a moment with those muscular arms."

The Food of the Natives and Their Cooking

As he spoke, Edmund boldly approached the groveling row, and pushed with his foot the huge, white, furry body of the one he had shot. The bullet had gone through his head. At Edmund's approach the creatures sank even lower on the rocky floor, and those nearest to him turned up their moon eyes, with an expression of submissive terror and supplication that was grotesque, though unmistakable. He motioned us to approach, and, imitating him, we began to pat and soothe the shrinking bodies until, understanding that we would not harm them, they gradually acquired some confidence in us. In short, after a while a relation like that of masters with the most submissive slaves was established.

In the meantime the crowd in the cavern increased; others of the creatures, attracted perhaps by the noise, coming in continually through side passages. Those who had been present at our arrival explained the situation to the newcomers, as we could see, and it was evident that our prestige was thoroughly established.

As we became better acquainted with these creatures we found that they were not as savage as they looked. Their heads, and the larger part of their faces, were covered with black hair, but on their bodies was a white silky fur. Why the difference of color existed I could never imagine. The reason for the great size of their eyes appeared evident. It was the prevailing darkness of the side of the planet on which they dwelt. With those eyes they could see in the gloom like cats. They were surprisingly intelligent, too, in their way. Their construction of the hundreds of steps leading down into the caverns, and their employment of a kind of coal for heat and light, showed that. But this was not all.

We found that, in some of the caverns, which were connected with one another by winding passages, they cultivated their food, which consisted entirely of vegetables of various sorts, all unlike any that I had ever met with on the earth, Water dripped from the roofs of these caverns, but there was no light except that derived from the burning coal, yet the vegetation, though almost colorless, seemed to thrive astonishingly.

A Necessary Killing

They had many ways of cooking their food, and although there yet remained a good supply of stores in the car, Edmund thought it advisable for us to accustom ourselves to the diet of the inhabitants. We found it decidedly agreeable, and without ill effects of any kind.

The only brute animals, of any size, that we could discover in the caverns were some dog-like creatures, about as large as terriers, but very furry.

The burial-ground of the community we discovered when they came to dispose of the fellow that Edmund had shot. It was a large, lone cavern, situated at a long distance from the one which we had first entered. We thought we saw indications of some kind of religious ceremony when they put their slain comrade in the ground; and then, for the first time, we recognized the women. We were astonished by the evidence of a monogamous relation among the sexes, which was furnished by the fact that one of these women manifested by her sorrow a special grief, which we thought could only be accounted for upon the supposition that she was the wife of the dead person.

She held two or three little ones by the hands, and we were fairly moved to tears by the spectacle, Edmund being particularly affected.

"I almost wish I had never come here," he said bitterly; "since the first thing I have done is to kill an inoffensive intelligent creature."

"Not so inoffensive, either," put in Jack. "If you hadn't killed him, where should we be now?"

"But it wasn't necessary,” Edmund insisted. "The noise alone would have sufficed."

"Don't borrow trouble," said Jack sympathetically. "You did the best you knew, and Heaven knows what we should have done without you."

But I noticed that Edmund was afterwards very gentle with the poor creatures, who seemed to bear us no ill-will, feeling, probably, that we were superior beings, who could do as we liked.

I have spoken of them as a community, and I may say here that we afterward discovered that all this part of Venus was sprinkled over with similar communities, somewhat resembling separate tribes. Each tribe occupied a group of caverns by itself, and there seemed to be but little intercourse among them. They seldom went out of the caverns, except to perform a very remarkable ceremony, which led us into a danger that put streaks of silver on my head, where no gray hair was due for many years yet. But of that later.

The most surprising discovery that we made in the cavern was a big smithy! It was really nothing else. Edmund had foretold us that we should find something of that kind. He based his prophecy on the fact that there were rude tools and utensils of metal in the caverns. He examined the metal, and pronounced it iron.

"All the planets are largely composed of iron," he said. "These people here, primitive as they seem in many ways, have found out how to smelt and make various articles of it. They must have a blacksmith shop, and I'm going to find it."

It wasn't long—perhaps two days' time after our arrival—when we came upon the place. It was in one of the side caverns, and we actually found several of the savage smiths at work, with furs fastened over their ears to ward off the sound. They were turning out long, sharp-pointed tools, the purpose of which Edmund divined in a moment.

"They're to dig coal with," he said.

And he was right. The strata of rock were filled with seams of a very hard coal, and these people dug it out to keep their fires going. It was the best coal that I have ever seen, infinitely better even than anthracite.

"But where did they get their fire to begin with?" asked Jack.

"Perhaps' by friction, like our savages on the earth," Edmund replied.

"Perhaps they got it down below," I added.

"What do you mean by that?" asked Jack.

"I know what he means," interposed Edmund, "better than he does himself, perhaps. Venus, there is reason to believe, is not as old a planet as the earth. Consequently its crust is not as thick. It may be that the internal fires do not lie so deep. I shouldn't be surprised if that accounts, in part, for the comfortable temperature down here, when the surface above us is so terribly cold, owing to the absence of the sun."

Our discovery of the smithy seemed to have set Edmund to thinking. After musing a while, he said:

"This is a most fortunate thing for us. We'll have occasion to employ the skill of these fellows, and to teach them something new, for our own benefit."

"How's that?" I asked.

The Strange Sledge Trip Proposed

"It's this way: I want to take some of these fellows along when we start for the daylight ride of the planet. I can find my way well enough with the aid of the stars, but these creatures may be useful to us in other ways. But we can't take them in the car, which is full enough already. Luckily, the power of the car is practically unlimited, and it could draw a whole train, if necessary. Now, I'm going to carry them along in sleds, dragged after the car, and I'll make the sleds of iron, since there’s no wood to be had. It's another lucky thing that this part of Venus is almost a dead level, a sort of rolling prairie, as you have observed, covered with a kind of icy shingle, which is just suited for runners. Trees can't grow here; and if there were ever any rivers, they became frozen solid ages ago."

"But why not make the fellows walk?" asked Jack. "They've got good legs."

"Walk!" said Edmund. "Why, man, we've got at least five thousand miles to go before we reach the edge of the sunlit hemisphere, and I don't propose to spend several months on the way. With the sleds drawn after the car, we can make the journey at the rate of a hundred miles an hour."

"All right," said Jack. "The sooner you start the better, as far as I'm concerned. I want to find the good-looking people of Venus. These don't suit my taste."

Henry, after his manner, said nothing; but as I saw him looking about, I got the impression that he was calculating the millions that might be made out of these iron-mines on Venus. Edmund never reached a decision without starting immediately to put it into practise. He now began his preparations for the journey to the other side. But they were quickly interrupted in a most dramatic fashion.

While we were occupied in the smithy, as I call it, showing the native smiths how to fashion the runners and upper parts of the proposed sleds, we were interrupted by some one coming in and calling our assistants away from us. They all ran out, and we after them. On arriving in the principal cavern, we found a singular scene.

The Earth Seen from Venus

Two natives, whom we did not recognize as having made their appearance before, were evidently in charge of some kind of ceremony. They wore tall, conical caps of polished metal, covered with curious hieroglyphics, and had staves of iron in their hands. They marshaled all the others, numbering several hundreds, into a long column, and then began a slow, solemn march up the steps. The two leaders produced a squeaking music by blowing into the ends of their staves. Women were mingled with men, and even the children were not excluded. We followed at the tail of the procession, our curiosity at the highest pitch.

At the rate we went it must have taken nearly an hour to mount the steps. As we emerged into the open air, the cold struck to our marrow. The natives, covered with fur, didn't seem to mind it, but we ran back to the shelf where he had left our Arctic outfits, and put them on. Then we ascended again and emerged into the night, finding the crowd assembled not far from the entrance to the cavern. The frosty sky was ablaze with stars, and directly overhead shone a huge brilliant planet of amazing beauty, and close beside it a smaller one.

"The earth," said Edmund, pointing upward, "and the moon."

It was indeed our planet and her satellite. I can't describe the feeling that came over me at the sight. But in a moment Edmund interrupted my meditation.

A Ceremonious Procession of the Venustians

"Look at that!" he said.

The natives had formed themselves in a great circle under the starlight, with the two leaders standing in the center. All the others dropped on their knees, and the leaders raised their long arms toward the sky and gazed up at the zenith, at the same time uttering a kind of chant in their queer, subdued voices.

"By Jove, they're worshiping the earth!" exclaimed Edmund.

Indeed, she looked worth worshiping! Never have I seen so amazingly splendid an object. She was twenty times as brilliant as the brightest planet that any terrestrial astronomer ever beheld. And the moon, glowing beside her like a great attendant star, redoubled the beauty of the sight.

"It's just the time of the conjunction," said Edmund. "This is their religion. Those fellows are their priests. The earth is their goddess. I understand it all now. I wouldn't have missed this for a world."

Suddenly the two priests began to pirouette. As they whirled more and more rapidly, their huge glowing eyes made phosphorescent circles in the gloom, like those that had alarmed and fascinated us when we first met the creatures in the cavern. They gyrated round the ring of worshipers with astonishing speed, and all those creatures fell under the fascination and drooped to the ground, with eyes fixed in evident helplessness upon the two performers.

An Impending Sacrifice of One of the Travelers from the Earth

Now, for the first time, I caught sight of a square object, that seemed to be a stone, rising a couple of feet above the ground, in the center of the circle.

At this instant the spinning priests, having drawn close to the ring of fascinated worshipers, made a dive, and each caught a native in his arms and ran with him toward the square object that I have described.

“It's a sacrificial stone!" cried Edmund. "They're going to kill them as an offering to the earth and the moon."

The truth flashed into my mind, and froze me with horror. But just as the second priest reached the altar, where the other had already pinned his victim with a stroke of the sharp point of his staff, his captive, suddenly recovering his senses and terrified by the awful fate that confronted him, uttered a cry, wrenched himself loose, and, running like the wind, leaped over the circle and disappeared in the darkness. The fugitive passed close to us, and Jack shouted, as he darted by:

"Good boy!"

The enraged priest was after him like lightning. As he came near us his awful eyes seemed to emit actual flames. But the runner had already vanished.

Without an instant's hesitation, the priest shot out his long arm and caught me by the throat. In another second I felt myself carried, in a bound, as if a tiger had seized me, over the drooping heads of the worshipers, and toward the horrible altar.

CHAPTER V

Off for the Sunlands

Dreadful as the moment was, I didn't lose my senses. On the contrary, my mind was fearfully clear and active. There was not a horror that I missed!

The strength and agility of my captor were astounding. I could no more have struggled with him than with a lion.

Only one thing flashed upon me to do. I yelled with all the strength of my lungs. But they had become accustomed to our voices now, and the maddened creature was so intent upon his fell purpose that a cannon-shot would not have diverted him from it.

He got me to the altar, where the preceding victim already lay with his heart torn out, and, pressing me against it with all his bestial force, raised his pointed staff to transfix me. With my dying eyes I saw the earth gleaming down upon me, and (will you believe it?) my heart gave a glad bound at the sight!

She was my mother planet, and the thought that she might help me in my extremity raced across my brain. But the dreadful spear had already begun to descend. I could see the sweeping muscles under the lithe fur, and I pressed my eyes tight shut.

Bang!

Something grazed my shoulder, and I felt the warm blood gush out. Then I knew no more.

A Recovery from a Swoon

In the midst of a dream of boyhood scenes, a murmur of familiar voices awoke me. I opened my eyes, and couldn't make out where I was.

"I must still be dreaming," I said to myself, and closed my eyes once more.

Then I heard Edmund saying:

"He's coming out all right."

I opened my eyes again, but still the scene puzzled me. I saw Edmund's face, however; and behind him Jack and Henry, standing with anxious looks. But this was not my room! It seemed to be a cave, with faint firelight on the walls.

"Where am I?" I asked.

"Back in the cavern, and coming along all right," Edmund answered, smiling.

Back in the cavern! What could that mean? Then, suddenly, the whole thing flashed back into my mind.

"So he didn't sacrifice me?" I said, shivering at the thought.

"Not on your life!" Jack's hearty voice broke in. "Edmund was too quick for that."

"But only by the fraction of a second," said Edmund, still smiling.

"What happened then?" I asked, my recollections coming back stronger every moment.

"A good long shot happened," said Jack. "The best I ever saw."

I looked at Edmund. He saw that I wanted the story, and could bear it; and, his countenance becoming serious, he began:

"When that fellow snatched you and leaped into the circle, I had my fur coat wrapped so closely around me, not anticipating any danger, that for quite ten seconds I was unable to get out my pistol.

"I tore the garment open just in time, for already he was pressing you against the accursed stone with his spear poised. I'm used to quick shooting, and I didn't waste any time finding my aim.

"Even as it was, the iron point had touched you when the bullet crashed through his head. The shock swerved the weapon a little, and you got only a scratch on the shoulder, which might have been more serious but for the thickness of your Arctic coat.

The Dead Priests and a Life Saved

"The fellow fell dead beside you, and under the circumstances I felt compelled to shoot the other one also; for they were both insane with the delirium of their bloody rites, and I knew that our lives would never be safe as long as they remained fit for mischief.

"I'm sorry to have had to start killing right and left like this, but I reckon that's the lot of all invaders, wherever they go. It's our second lesson, and I think it will prove final.

"When their priests were dead, the rest had no fight in them. In fact, they never intended to harm us; but nobody knows what those two chaps might have led them into. My conscience is easy about them, anyhow."

"How long have I been here?" I asked.

"Two days by the calendar clock," said Jack.

"Yes," Edmund assented; "two days. I never saw a man so knocked out by a little shock, for your wound wasn't much. I fixed that up in five minutes. You must have been scared to the very bottom of your soul—not that I blame you, however. But look at yourself."

He held a pocket-mirror before me, and then I saw that my hair was streaked with gray.

"But we haven't been idle in the mean time,” Edmund went on. "I've got two sleds nearly completed, and tomorrow—earth time—I mean to set out."

My wound was very slight, and the effects of the shock had all passed off during my long spell of insensibility. In an hour or two I was aroused, busy with the others.

I found that Edmund had already picked out the natives that he meant to take with us. They were a dozen huge fellows, who, he had discovered, possessed more than average intelligence. Among them was one of the smiths, the best of the lot, and for convenience Edmund had given him a name, something resembling that by which his comrades called him—Juba.

Starting the Sled Trip

Among his other apparently infinite stores of useful things in the car Edmund had a roll of small, strong steel cable, and this now came admirably into play. The two sleds were pitched one behind another with a piece of the cable, and a line about a hundred feet long connected them with the car. The latter could thus rise to a considerable height without lifting the sleds from the ground.

The sleds were provisioned from the stores of the natives, and we took some of their food in the car also, not merely to eke out our own, but because we had come to like it.

The fellows selected to join our expedition made no objection. On the contrary, they seemed proud to accompany us, and were evidently envied by their comrades.

The scene at starting was a strange one. About five hundred natives, the entire population of the group of caverns belonging to their tribe, which were distributed over about a square mile, assembled at the entrance to our cavern to see us off. As we started, the natives on the sleds, being unused to the motion, clung together like so many awkward white bears taking a ride in a circus.

Their friends stood about the ill-omened sacrificial-stone, waving their long arms, while their huge eyes goggled in the starlight.

Jack in a burst of enthusiasm, fired four or five shots from his pistol. As the reports crashed through the heavy air, you should have seen the crowd vanish down the hole! The sight made me wince when I thought that they must have gone down like a cataract, all heaped together.

But they were tough, and I trust that no heads Were broken. The effect on our twelve fellows on the sleds came near being disastrous. I thought that they would leap off and run, and no doubt they would have done so but for the fact that Edmund put on so much speed that a new terror instantly took the place of the old one.

Instinct taught them not to jump, when the ground was spinning away under them at the rate of sixty miles an hour. Edmund brought Jack sharply to book for his thoughtlessness.

"Give me your pistol," he said, in his old masterful way, which nobody that I ever saw could stand against.

Jack was almost twice his size, but he handed over the pistol like a rebuked schoolboy.

"When you learn how to use it, I'll give it back to you," said Edmund, and that closed the incident.

The plan of the sleds worked like magic.

A Hundred Mile an Hour Sleigh Ride

After their first fear had vanished, the natives began immensely to enjoy the new sensation. Edmund worked up the speed, as he had promised, to a hundred miles an hour, and even for us in the car it was a glorious spin.

But there was one danger that had to be guarded against—the mouths of the cavern.

As I have told you, the natives were divided into tribes, each tribe being in possession of a group, of caverns. These caverns were undoubtedly of natural origin, but why they were not more uniformly distributed over the surface I cannot say.

Anyhow, the fact was that perhaps forty or fifty pits would be found, scattered over a mile or two of ground, and many of them connected by underground passages; and then there would be a long distance without any caverns. All seemed to be inhabited; and to that fact we owed, in a great measure, the safety of the sleds.

The shafts of light issuing from the caverns were so many beacons in the endless night, telling us where the underground settlements lay; and so we avoided running the sleds into the holes, although we had one or two narrow escapes as it was.

Twice Edmund insisted on stopping at a group of caverns to make the acquaintance of their inhabitants. On both occasions we descended into the caves, and found the creatures at home. Whether they would have received us so civilly if we had not taken Juba along I can't say.

Juba, the Venustian Intercessor

Invariably he acted as intercessor and interpreter, and I guess our reputation suffered no belittlement from his accounts of our prowess. It was evident, Edmund said, that there were differences of dialect in the language of the various tribes, which puzzled Juba somewhat; but he also said that he was now convinced that there existed among these people an unexplained power of communicating thought which had no connection with the utterance of sounds.

It wasn't a sign-language like that of deaf mutes, either. The mystery was not solved until we got round on the daylight side of Venus, but it turned out to be one of the most incredible of all our discoveries in that strange world. You'll hear about it when I come to it.

We continued to guide our course by the stars—and they were certainly magnificent, with the earth for a very queen of gems set in the midst of them—until we had traveled some four thousand miles, all the time, of course, approaching the edge of the sunward hemisphere.

And now a new phenomenon struck us. For some time, along the horizon ahead, had stretched a faint streak, like the first light of dawn.

"Look," said Edmund, "there lie the sunlands of Venus. Although the sun never rises on this part of the planet, it will rise for us because we are approaching it."

There was nothing to surprise us in all this; but as we drew nearer, and the arc of dawn rose higher in the sky and glowed more softly beautiful, there appeared at its base those same many colored flames which had astonished us on our approach to the planet, after we had got into its shadow and begun to see its atmosphere as a great ring of light around it, the sun being behind. The reappearance of these flames startled us.

"They've got something to do with the sunrise!" Edmund declared; "but I can't make out what it is."

"Don't run us into a conflagration," said Jack. "We've had enough to do to stand the cold here, and to put up with the company of these furry beasts, but I object to being rushed next into a land of salamanders. They probably are fire-eaters on the other side. If you can show us some temperate or not too torrid land, where the people are as beautiful and attractive as they ought to be on a world called Venus, I'm with you with all my heart."

"That's not fire," replied Edmund.

"Why not inquire of Juba?" I asked.

"A very good idea. I'll try," and Edmund stopped the car. Juba, as he had already been taught to do whenever we stopped, immediately jumped off his sled and came running to us. Edmund took his match-box from his pocket, struck a match, and, while attracting Juba's attention, pointed alternately to match flame and the fiery objects on the horizon.

Juba understood at once, and vigorously shook his head, while his big, luminous eyes almost seemed to speak, if we could have understood their meaning. Phosphorescent waves appeared to chase one another in their depths, and Edmund asserted that it certainly was a language, expressed without sounds.

If it was a language, I positively think that Edmund had begun to understand it, for after a few minutes, during which he and Juba gesticulated and motioned and stared in each other's faces, Edmund turned to us and said:

"I ought to have foreseen this, and I am ashamed of myself because I didn't. Those seeming flames on the horizon are due to—what do you think? Mountains of crystal!"

"Mountains of crystal!" we all exclaimed.

The Mountains of Crystal the Cause of the "Flames"

"Yes, just that. It's all plain enough when you think about it. Venus, being a world half day and half night, is necessarily as hot on one side as it is cold on the other. All the clouds and most of the moisture are on the day side of the planet, where the sunbeams act.

"The hot air, charged with moisture, rises over the middle of the sunward hemisphere and flows off above, on all sides, toward the night hemisphere, while from the latter cold air flows in underneath to take its place. Along the junction between the two hemispheres the clouds and moisture are condensed by the increasing cold, and fall in ceaseless storms of snow.

"This snow, descending uninterruptedly for ages, has piled up in vast mountainous masses. The moisture cannot pass very far into the night hemisphere without being condensed, and so it is all arrested within a great ring, or band, completely encircling the planet and marking the division between perpetual day and perpetual night.

"What look like gigantic flames to us are the sunbeams striking those mountains of solidified snow and ice from behind and breaking into prismatic fire."

The thing seemed simple enough after Edmund had explained it, but the effects were splendid and awful beyond description.

"I foresee now considerable trouble for us," Edmund continued. "There's been a warning of that,too, if I had but heeded it. I've noticed for some time that a wind, gradually getting stronger, has been following us, sometimes dying away and then coming up again. It is likely that this wind gets to be a terrible tempest in the neighborhood of those ice mountains.

"It is the back suction, caused—as I have already told you—by the rising of the heated air in the sunny side of the planet. It may play the deuce with us when we get into the midst of it."

"But did you learn all this from Juba?" I asked.

"Oh, no! Of course not. I only managed to make out from him that his people knew of the existence of these icy barriers. But the explanation flashed upon me as soon as I got hold of the main fact. Now, we've got to be a little cautious in our approach."

Danger of An Irresistible Wind

We slowed down accordingly, and as soon as we did so we began to notice the wind that Edmund had spoken of. It came in great gusts from behind, gradually increasing in frequency and in fury. Soon it was strong enough to drive the sleds without any pulling from the car, and sometimes they were forced close under us, and even ahead of us, the natives hanging on in wild alarm.

Edmund managed to govern the motion of the car for a while, holding it back against the storm; but, as he confessed to us, this was a thing he had made no provision for, and eventually we became almost as helpless as a ship in a typhoon.

“I could easily cut loose from these fellows and run right out of this,” said Edmund, “but I’m not going to do it. I’ve taken them into my service, and I’m bound to look out for them. If there was room for them in the car it would be all right.

“By Jove! I’ve got it,” he added, a moment later. “I’ll fetch up the sleds, attach them under the car like the basket of a balloon, and carry them all! There’s plenty of power. It’s only room that’s wanting.”

It was no sooner said than done with Edmund. By this time we were getting into the ice. Great hummocks of it surrounded us, although there was nothing yet resembling the mountains that Edmund had spoken of, and we dropped the car down in the lee of an icy hill, where the force of the wind was broken. The sky overhead was still free from clouds, but ahead we could see them whirling and tumbling in mighty masses of vapor.

Lashing the two sleds together, we attached them about ten feet below the car with wire ropes. Then the natives were assembled, and Edmund made them fasten themselves securely. When everything was ready, we four entered the car and the power was turned on.

“We’ll rise straight up,” said Edmund, “until we are out of the wind, and then we’ll sail over the mountains and come down as nice as you please on the other side.”

It was a beautiful program, and we had complete confidence in our leader; but it didn’t work as we expected. Even his genius had met its match this time.

The Wind at Last Strikes Them

No sooner had we risen out of the protection of the ice hummock than the wind caught us. It was a blast of such power and ferocity as we had not yet encountered. In an instant the car was spinning like a top; and there away we rushed before the tempest, the sleds being banged against the car, like tassels whipping in a storm. It was a wonder of wonders that the creatures on them were not flung off, or killed, by the frequent impacts.

But, fortunately, Edmund had seen that they were securely fastened, and, as you know already, they could stand knocks like so many bears. In the course of twenty minutes we must have traveled twice as many miles, perfectly helpless to arrest our mad rush or to divert our course, pitched hither and thither, and sprawling on the floor half the time. The noise was awful, and nobody even tried to speak.

The shutters were open, and suddenly I saw through one of the windows a sight that I thought was surely my last.

The car seemed to be sweeping through a dense cloud of boiling vapors, when they split asunder before my eyes; and there, almost right against us, was a glittering precipice of pure ice, gleaming wickedly with blue flashes, and we were rushing at it as if we had been shot from a cannon!

There was a terrific shock, which I thought for a moment must have crushed the car like an eggshell, and then down we fell—down and down!

CHAPTER VI

Lost in the Crystal Mountains

If we had seen the danger earlier, and had not been so tumbled topsy-turvy by the pitching of the car in the wind, I suppose that Edmund would have prevented the collision, just as he had steered us away from some of the meteors, by set¬ ting up an “atomic reaction,” serving for a push. But there was no chance for that. The blow against the precipice was not, however, as severe as it had seemed to me, and the car was not smashed.

But the fall was terrible.

There was only one thing which saved us from destruction. At the base of the great cliff of solid ice, against which the wind had hurled the car, an immense deposit of snow had collected, and into this we fell. We were all tumbled in a heap, the car and the sleds being inextricably entangled with the wire ropes.

Fortunately, however, the stout windows were not broken; and after we had struggled to our feet, as the car lay on its side, Edmund managed to open the door. He made us put on our furs, but even with them we found the cold almost intolerable.

But the natives paid no attention to it. Not one of them was seriously hurt; and they were still attached to the sled, so firmly had they been bound under Edmund’s direction before we started from the hummock. We unloosed them, and then began to examine the situation.

Above us towered the icy precipice, disappearing in whirling clouds high overhead, and the wind drove square against it with the roar of Niagara. The air was filled with snow and ice-dust, and at times we could not see objects ten feet away. Our poor furry companions huddled together as soon as we got them upon their feet, and were of no use to themselves or to us.

Danger of Destruction Among the Ice Mountains

Well, we’ve got to get out of this mighty quick,” said Edmund. “Come, hustle now, and we’ll repair the ship.”

We got to work, Juba alone aiding us, and soon had the sleds out of the tangle and again properly attached to the car. Then we entered the latter, and Edmund fumbled a while with his machinery.

In the course of ten or fifteen minutes, he said that it was damaged, but would still work, and that we’d start as soon as we could replace the natives on the sleds. We got them together with a good deal of trouble, for they were frightened out of their wits; and would have run away, had they known where to go. But they had sense enough to understand that their safety depended entirely upon us. When they were once more safely attached, we entered the car and prepared to ascend.

“You notice,” said Edmund, “that this wind is variable, and there’s our chance.”

We hadn’t noticed it, but he had, and that was sufficient.

“When the blasts weaken,” he continued, “the air springs back from the face of the precipice, and then whirls round to the left. I've no doubt that there’s a passage there, through which the wind finds its way back behind this icy mountain, and if we can get there we shall probably find some sort of shelter.

“Then, I hope, it’ll be comparatively an easy thing to make our way into a calmer region of the atmosphere. I’m going to take advantage of the first lull.”

It worked out just as he had predicted. As the wind surged back, after a particularly vicious rush against the mighty blue cliff, we cut loose and sailed up into it, and away we went. We rushed past the glittering wall so swiftly that it made our heads swim. In two or three minutes we rounded a corner, and then found ourselves in a kind of atmospheric eddy, where the car simply spun round and round, with the two united sleds hanging below it.

“Now for it!” said Edmund, and touched a knob.

One Crisis Is Passed Without Accident

Instantly we rose rapidly. We must have shot up a couple of thousand feet, when the wind caught us again, coming apparently over the top of the icy barrier that we had flanked. It swept us off with terrific speed. Suddenly the air cleared all about.

The spectacle that opened around and below was—well, I wish I could describe it! But a hundred languages rolled into one couldn’t do it.

We were in the midst of the crystal mountains! They towered around us on every side and stretched away in ranges of shining pinnacles. And such shapes! Such colors! Such flashing and blazing of gigantic rainbows and prisms!

There were mountains that looked to my amazed eyesight as lofty and massive as Mont Blanc, composed all of crystalline ice, refracting and reflecting the sunbeams with iridescent splendor! For now we could begin to see the orb of the sun itself, poised on the edge of the jagged, gem-glittering horizon. The jeweled summit split its beams into a million bright halos.

There was one mighty peak, still ahead of us, but toward which we were rushed sidewise with terrific speed, that will haunt my dreams forever. It towered high above our level, and was simply one awful coruscating Alp of light, darting out on every side blinding rays of a thousand splendid hues, as if a whole worldful of emeralds, rubies, sapphires, and diamonds had been heaped together in one stupendous pile and set on fire by the sun!

We were speechless, even Edmund. But presently he spoke, very calmly; but what he said instantly changed our amazement to terror.

“Boys,” he said, “there’s something serious the matter with the apparatus I can’t make the car rise higher. I can no longer cause it to react against an obstacle. We are at the mercy of the wind. If it carries us against that glittering devil, no power under heaven can help us!”

If my hair had not whitened before, it certainly would have whitened now.

When we were swept against the first icy precipice, the danger had come upon us suddenly, unexpectedly, out of a concealing cloud. But now we had to bear the fearful strain of expectation, to see ourselves hurried to destruction with our eyes wide open to the terrible truth.

I thought that even Edmund’s iron face paled a little. On we rushed, still borne sidewise, so that the spectacle was straight before us in all its awfulness, as, with fascinated eyes, we stared through the window. We were almost upon the mountain-peak, when Edmund shouted with a glad voice:

“We’re safe! Look!” he continued. “See how those particles of ice, swept from the face by the tempest, leap hitherward, and then whirl round the peak. We may touch it; but the air, having a free vent on each side, will carry us one way or the other before a serious shock occurs.”

Castaways in a Valley of Ice

He had hardly finished speaking when the crisis arrived. We did just touch the front of a cliff; but it was narrow and sloping, and the wind, howling past it, carried us in an instant round the obstruction.

“Scared ourselves for nothing,” said Edmund. “We were really as safe as a boat in a rapid. The velocity of the current sheered us off.”

But there was a worse danger, which he hadn't yet had time to think about. We began to think of it, however, when, after the scintillant peak was left behind, we saw Edmund again working away at his machinery, while at the same time the car commenced to sink.

“What’s the matter now?” I asked. “We seem to be going down.”

“So we are,” Edmund replied, “and I’m afraid we’ll not go up again right away. The power is failing all the while. It will be pretty hard on us to have it stop in this frightful place, but it looks as though that were our fate.”

Lost and helpless in these mountains of ice! The thought was too terrible to be entertained. For the first time since this adventure began, I heard connected words from Henry’s lips. Their emphasis was terrible.

“Edmund Stonewall,” he said hoarsely, “if you are the cause of my death with your infernal invention, may you be condemned to—”

But he never finished the sentence. His face turned as white as a sheet, and he sank upon the floor.

“Poor fellow!” said Edmund. "He’s fainted.”

In a few minutes Jack and I had Henry in his senses again, but as weak as a child, and lying on one of the cushioned benches. In the mean time the car had descended upon the snow in a deep valley, where we were protected from the wind.

In the profound depression where we now found ourselves a kind of twilight prevailed. We got out of the car, unloosed our companions from the sleds, and then began to look around.

All about us towered the crystal mountains, their bases—where they were not buried in snow and broken ice—reflecting deep hues of purple and ultramarine; while their upper parts, where the sunlight touched them, sparkled with amazing brilliance. Henry was now able to join us, but not a word was said concerning his outbreak.

Was there ever such a situation as ours?

Twenty-six Millions of Miles from Home

Cast away, in a place wild and wonderful beyond imagination, millions of miles from all human aid or sympathy; millions of miles, even, from the very world that had witnessed our birth!

I could, in bitterness of spirit, have laughed at the mere suggestion that there was any hope for us. And yet, at that very moment, not only was there hope, but there was even the certainty of deliverance. It lay in the brain of the wonderful man who had brought us thither.

I have told you that it was twilight in the valley where we were, But when, as frequently occurred, tempests of snow burst over the mountains above us and filled the air, the twilight was turned to deepest night; and then we had to illumine the electric lamps in the car.

The natives, being used to darkness, needed no artificial illumination. In fact, we found that as soon as the sunlight reached us their great eyes were almost blinded; and they suffered cruelly from an infliction so utterly beyond all their experience.

Edmund never lost his self-command. He tried to cheer us up.

"I'm going to make some hot coffee," he said, "and then I'll sit down and think it out. But first I must see to our fellows there, for we may have to stay here a while; and even with their furry skins, they'll suffer from this kind of weather."

Saving the Natives on the Sleds

Under his directions, we took a lot of extra furs from the car and, stretching them upon the upright stakes attached to the corners of the sleds, we made a kind of tent, under which the natives huddled for protection.

There being no wind to speak of here, this was not so difficult as it might seem. The fellows were very glad of the shelter that we had given them, for some of them were already beginning to shivver. No sooner were they housed than they fell to eating.

We then entered the car and turned on the electric range, and ten minutes later we were enjoying our coffee. When we had finished we got out our pipes and smoked, as if there had been no crystal mountains tottering over us and no howling tempest tearing through the cloud-filled sky a thousand feet or so above our heads.

We talked of our adventure, and of home—home twenty-six million miles away! In fact, it might have been nearer thirty millions by this time, for Edmund had told us that Venus, having passed conjunction, was beginning to recede from the earth.

But Edmund did not join in our conversation now. He sat apart, thinking; and we respected his isolation, knowing that our only chance of escape lay in him. At last, without saying a word, he went outside and remained a long time. Then he came back smiling.

"I've found the solution,” he said. "We'll get out all right, but we shall have to wait a while."

"What is it?" we asked in concert. "What have you found?"

The Libration of Venus to Rescue the Visitants

Afl="}}lbert," he said, turning to me, "you ought to know what libration means. Well, it's libration that is going to save us. As Venus travels around the sun, she turns just once on her axis in making one circuit. The consequence, as you already know, is that she has one side where the sun never rises, while the other side always faces the sun.

"But since her orbit is not a perfect circle, she travels a little faster at certain times, and a little slower at others, while her slow rotation on her axis never varies. The result is that along the border between the day and night hemispheres there is a narrow strip where the sun rises and sets once in each of her years, which are about two hundred and twenty-five of our days in length.

"On this strip the sun shines continuously for about sixteen weeks, gradually rising during eight of those weeks, and gradually sinking for eight weeks more. Then, during the following sixteen weeks, the sun is entirely absent from the strip.

"Now, we are just in that strip, and we may thank our stars for it. By good luck, after we were swept past that blazing peak of ice which nearly shipwrecked us, the wind carried us on so far before the power gave out that we descended on the sunward side of the crest of the icy range.

"The sun is at present just beginning to rise on this part of the planet, and it will continue to rise for several weeks. The result will be that a great melting of ice and snow will take place all around us here; and a river will be formed in this valley, flowing off toward the sunward hemisphere, exactly where we want to go.

"I'm going to take advantage of the torrent and float down with it. It's our only chance, for we couldn't possibly clamber over all this hummocky ice and drag the car with us."

"Why not leave the car behind, then?" asked Henry.

Edmund looked at him and smiled.

"Do you want to stay on Venus all your life?" he asked. "I can repair the mechanism, if I can find certain substances, which I am sure exist on this planet as well as on the earth.

"But there is no use of looking for them in this icy waste. No, we can never abandon the car, we must take it with us, and the only way to take it is with the aid of the river of ice and snow-water which will soon be created by the rising sun."

"But how will you manage to float?" I asked.

"The car, being air-tight, will float like a buoy."

"And how about the natives?"

"Ah! I'll have to think about that. But we'll save them, too, if possible."

Of course Edmund was right; he always was. But I'll cut short the story of our stay in that awful valley.

Every twenty-four hours, by the calendar clock, we saw that the sun had risen higher; and as it rose, the sky cleared, and its beams, falling uninterruptedly, became hotter and hotter. Soon we had no longer any use for furs, or for the electric heat in the car.

At the same time the melting began. It was a new danger for us, yet we watched it joyously, since it offered our only chance of escape.

We were just in the bottom of the valley, near its head. It wound away before us, turning out of sight beyond a vast hill of ice. Streams began to trickle down the heights behind us, and, uniting, they formed a rivulet at our feet, flowing over smooth ice with great velocity.

A Deluge from the Melting Ice

Edmund's plan for saving the natives was now put into operation.

"I'll take Juba into the car," he said. "There's just room for him. For the others, we'll fasten the sleds one on each side of the car, which is buoyant enough to float them, and they'll have to take their chances outside."

We made all these arrangements, while the rivulet gradually swelled into a torrent. Before it had become too broad and deep we managed to place the car, with the sleds like outrider, across the center of its course. Then we took our places and waited.

Higher and higher rose the water, while from the slopes behind and around us avalanches of ice descended, and great cataracts began to leap and pour. It was a mercy that we were so situated that the avalanches did not reach us, although we received some pretty hard knocks from ice floes borne away in the current.

At last the stream became deep enough to float us.

Shall I ever forget that moment?

There came a sudden wave of water, forced on by a great slide of ice; we were lifted upon its crest, and away we went! The car was more buoyant than I had believed possible. The sleds, fastened on each side, served to give it a certain stability, and it did not sink as deep as the bottom of the windows. The latter, though formed of glass of great thickness, might have been broken by the tossing ice if they had not been divided into many small panes, separated by bars of steel, which projected a few inches on the outside.

"I made that arrangement for meteoric fragments," said Edmund, "but I never thought of ice when I did it."

The Dangers Lessen as the Ice Melts

The increasing force of the current soon sent us spinning down the valley. We swept around the nearest ice peak on the left, and as we passed under its projecting buttresses a fearful roar above informed us that an avalanche was let loose.

We could not withdraw our eyes from the window on that side of the car, and presently immense masses of ice came crashing into the water, throwing it over us in floods and half drowning the poor wretches on the sleds. Still, they clung on, fastened together, and we could do nothing to help them.

The uproar continued, and the ice came down faster and faster with a deluge of water. The car pitched and rolled, until we could hardly keep our feet, hanging on to every support within reach.

Poor Juba was a picture of abject terror. He hung, moaning, to a bench, his huge eyes aglow with fright. Suddenly the car seemed to be lifted from the water. Then it fell back again and was submerged, so that we were buried in night. We rose again to the surface, and Edmund, glancing from the window, shouted:

"They're gone! Heaven have pity on them!"

In spite of their fastenings, the water and the ice had swept every living soul from the sled on the left! We rushed to the other window.

It was the same story there—the sled on that side was empty too! I saw a furry body tossed in the torrent along side, and then it disappeared in the raging water. At the same time, Edmund exclaimed:

"Heaven forgive me for bringing these poor creatures here, to lose them!"

CHAPTER VII

The Children of the Sun

But the situation was too exciting to permit us to think long of the poor creatures whose deaths we had undoubtedly caused. There seemed less than an even chance of our getting through ourselves.

As we went tossing and whirling on, the water rose still higher, and the blocks of ice assailed us on all sides. First, the sled on the left was torn loose; then the other disappeared. The car was left to make its own way.

But the loss of the sleds was a good thing, now that their occupants were gone. It eased off the weight and the car rose much higher in the water; and gave room more readily when pressed by ice blocks.

It rolled more than before, to be sure; but still it was well ballasted, and did not turn turtle. It took one fearful plunge, however, over a perpendicular fall of, I should say, twenty or thirty feet in height. But the water was very deep; and we came up again after the plunge like a cork, and whirled off down the rapids.

The Belt of Storms

At last the stream became so broad that the danger from the floating ice was to an extent relieved, and we began to look about us more coolly. As in all cases of long-continued peril, we were becoming hardened by so many escapes and growing more and more confident.

We had got out of the ice mountains by this time, and the elevations about us were of no great height. But we could see the glittering peaks towering far behind, and it was a most appalling sight to watch many of the nearer hills suddenly sink, collapse, and disappear, just as—if you have ever watched the operations of the cook in the kitchen when a boy—you have seen pinnacles of soft sugar melt down in water.

Edmund said that all of the icy hills and mounds through which we were passing, no doubt, owed their existence to pressure from behind, where the sun never rose, and where the ice was piled into actual mountains. These foot-hills were, in fact, enormous glaciers, thrust out toward the sunward hemisphere.

After a long time the river that bore us broadened out into a veritable lake. The surface around became comparatively level, and was all covered with the water. The sun rose higher and higher as we approached it, and the heat increased.

Vast fields of ice floated in the great lake, whose water was not muddy, as it would have been if it had passed over soil, but of crystal purity and wonderfully blue in the deep places. And now we began to notice the wind again.

It came fitfully, first from one direction, and then from another. At times it rose to the fury of a tempest and lifted the water into huge waves. But the car rode them beautifully.

"Therein lies our greatest danger," said Edmund. "The current still sets in the same direction, and I foresee that we shall be carried into a region where the contending winds will play perfect havoc."

The Airships of Venus

"It is the region where the hot air from the sunward side begins to descend, and the cold air from the other side meets it. It is a belt of storms, and it may form a barrier more tremendous than the crystal mountains themselves. We shall have all we can do to escape being cast away when we approach a shore—for shore of some kind there must be."

It came out nearly as he had anticipated, except that the current gradually died away, and we found ourselves driven about by the wind. This continually increased in force, and at last the sky became choked with dense clouds, which swept down upon the face of the waters, and were whirled into black tornadoes by the circling blasts.

Frequently the car was deluged by waterspouts; and at such times, when in the center of the gyrating spouts, it would actually be lifted clear into the air. An ordinary vessel would have been unable to live five minutes in that hell of waters and of winds. But the car went through it like a giant bubble.

I do not know how long all this lasted. It might have been forty-eight hours. The thing became worse and worse. Sometimes rain mingled with hail descended in vast sheets. Half of the time one window or the other was submerged, and when we were able to look out we could see nothing but the awful clouds whipping the surface of the water.

But at length, and with amazing quickness, there came a change. The clouds broke away, brilliant sunlight streamed into the car, and, as we rocked first to one side and then to the other, we caught glimpses of a marvelous dome high overhead.

It was not a blue vault, such as we see on the earth. It was of an indescribably soft grayish color, and under it floated here and there delicate curtains of cloud, like the mackerel skies that precede a storm. They were tinted like sheets of mother-of-pearl; but, although the light was bright, no sunshine appeared.

The lake had now expanded into an apparently boundless sea, whose surface had quieted down, for the winds no longer blew with their former violence. Presently Jack, who was standing alone at one of the windows, called to us.

We went to his side of the car, and he pointed to something that glittered high up in the air.

"What's that?" he asked.

"What are those, rather?" I demanded, for I had caught sight of a dozen of the glittering objects ranged in an almost straight row, at an elevation perhaps of two thousand feet, and several miles away from us.

A New Race of Venustians

Nobody answered for a long time, while we continued to gaze in astonishment. Even Juba noticed the things with his moon eyes, which did not suffer here quite as much as they had done in the sunshine. At last Edmund said:

"Those are air-ships."

"Air-ships!"

"Yes, nothing less. An exploring expedition, I shouldn't wonder. I anticipated something of that kind. You know already how dense the atmosphere of Venus is. It follows that balloons and air-ships can float much more easily here than over the earth. I was prepared to find, the inhabitants of Venus skilled in aerial navigation, and I'm not disappointed."

"Then you think that there are people in those things up there?"

"Of course; and I reckon that they've seen us, and are going to investigate us."

It was a startling thought, and I confess that I had to screw up my courage. To be sure, we had come here expecting to find inhabitants; but I, at least, hadn't looked to meet them so soon, and certainly I was not expecting first to find them in the sky.

I felt like the hunter who goes after a grizzly, and suddenly perceives his enemy staring down from a rock just over his head.

Edmund was evidently correct in surmising that they had seen us. Some kind of signal flashed among the air-ships, and they altered their course. Still keeping in line, they began to advance in our direction, at the same time gradually descending.

As they drew nearer we could make out some of their details.

The Effect of Loud Sound in the Dense Atmosphere of the Planet

They were long and narrow, and bore considerable resemblance to airplanes which I had seen at home. But they were much more complete. They were evidently driven by screws, and they seemed to be steered with great ease and certainty. Their approach was rapid.

When we first saw them they were probably three miles away, but in the course of some minutes they had drawn so near that we could see their decks crowded with what certainly looked like human beings. I felt a great relief in noticing that they bore no resemblance to the creatures we had encountered on the night side of the planet.

But then came the disturbing thought—shall we be any safer because they are more like men? With increase of intelligence comes increase of the power, and often of the disposition, to do evil. However we had to face our fate, whatever it might be. It wasn't likely that they would begin by making an end of us. Their curiosity would first have to be satisfied.

They showed no apprehension. Why should they? All that they saw as yet was an odd-looking affair floating on the water. They might take it for some strange marine animal, but they could never imagine that it contained intelligent beings whose eyes were watching them.

At length they came to rest within a hundred yards of the car. Then one of the air-ships settled gracefully down upon the water, where it rose and fell with the swell as gently as a swan.

With some appearance of caution it began to approach us. What should we do?

Edmund answered the question in a practical manner without consulting the rest of us. He threw open a window, and stepped out upon a steel ledge running just beneath it. You should have seen the astonishment of our inquisitors when they caught sight of him.

Instantly they stopped the slow movement of their craft and gathered at its bow, staring at Edmund and making all sorts of strange gestures. Edmund repeated the same maneuvers that he had employed at the entrance of the cavern where we first landed.

"Hallo, you!" he called out.

A Beautiful Woman in Command

His voice sounded like a tremendous crack, and a momentary panic seized them. They were evidently as unused to loud voices as were the creatures on the other side of the planet. But they were not so easily cowed. Feeling themselves at a safe distance from the strange monster, they held their ground.

We were not prepared for their next move. If they had given no evidence of the abject fright that had overcome the creatures of the cavern when their ears were thus assailed, they had at least shown that they were greatly startled and disturbed; and we ascribed their comparative coolness to the fact that they were in a ship which they knew could take flight into the air at a moment's notice.

But we misjudged them; or, rather, one of them. To our surprise, after the momentary effect of Edmund's shout had passed, they began again to approach us.

Reading Our Souls

Then, we saw that this maneuver was due to the commands of a person standing near the bow, and our amazement may be imagined when we recognized—beyond all possibility of doubt—that this person was a woman!

They were now within fifteen yards of us, and every detail of the faces and figures was visible. There were, perhaps, thirty persons on the airship, which continued floating easily on the water; and of these, half a dozen were certainly women.

They stood in a group in front of the men, and one of them, as I have said, by her commands directed the movements of the vessel. Jack, whose irrepressible optimism had not been permanently affected by our recent terrible experiences, exclaimed, as we all crowded at the window behind Edmund:

"Amazons, upon my word! The women are in command here. I should rather have expected to see Mars leading the Venuses."

"Not Amazons in appearance," I replied. "Did you ever see any creatures more beautiful than those?"

And, indeed, as the way of the approaching craft was stopped, and it drifted very slowly nearer, our eyes were fairly dazzled by the spectacle which those women presented!

Their forms and faces were distinctly human in type, but with a suggestion of something almost superhuman. I particularly noticed their leader.

She was bewildering. She seemed a Madonna just descending from the sky. And yet she was rather an Aphrodite than a Madonna.

Her complexion was light, with a flame upon the cheeks; her hair a chestnut blond. Her eyes, of a pure sapphire-blue, seemed to radiate a light of their own. I had never seen, had never dreamed, of such eyes. They were more than eyes; they were truly what the poets had imagined—"windows of the soul."

Such expression as they had! I verily believe that they spoke. I could feel a strange influence proceeding from them.

Her dress and that of her companions was something that I cannot describe, farther than to say that it suggested the attire of a Greek statue. It was not the dress that terrestrial women would wear at the present time, except perhaps in some remote Pacific island; but it revealed and enhanced the beauty of the wearer in a manner that would have driven an artist wild with admiration.

In the presence of this vision we had no eyes for the men in the background; and yet, as a glance showed, they were no less remarkable for physical attractions.

They were of about the average human stature, and very perfectly formed, with attire as classically simple as that of their beautiful companions. We were all so lost in amazement and admiration that even Edmund seemed to have been struck dumb and motionless, not knowing what to do.

The craft drifted within four or five yards of the car, and then the woman who commanded it slowly lifted her right hand, revealing a glittering bracelet of gems upon her white wrist; and with a smile of indescribable winningness made a motion which said, as plainly as words could have done:

"Strangers, you are welcome."

{{c|CHAPTER VIII

An Adventure in the Air

I must hurry on to what followed that first meeting on the sea. The events were so wonderful, they so transcended all human experience, that to relate them in detail would require volumes; and among them there are things impossible to describe, because so entirely without terrestrial analogy.

It was now that we first became completely aware of the existence of that incredible power of communicating thought without the intervention of spoken language to which I have before referred.

It might, perhaps, be described as a kind of telepathy. I have already told you that at the first glance into the eyes of the Aphrodite who commanded the air-craft, I felt that in some strange manner those eyes could speak. And so they could.

They all had a language of the eyes—or, at least, a language that seemed to radiate from them. I thought of the speculations of a German enthusiast that I had read, concerning "odic force."

And yet they spoke with their lips, also, in low, soft tones, exceedingly agreeable to the ear. But this language of sounds was only a subsidiary method of communication. The other was the tongue of nature, and we felt that our minds could comprehend it, although at first only in a dim, uncertain way. We did not know exactly how to reply, but they understood us.

A Language and No Language

They seemed to read our souls. We had only to think what we would say, and with amazing readiness they interpreted many of our thoughts. It was mind-reading carried to perfection.

So no long time had elapsed before an astonishing degree of mutual comprehension was established. Juba comprehended even quicker than we did, which was but natural, and yet these blond, clean-skinned people were as much astonished at his appearance as at ours.

It was evident that the inhabitants of the two sides of this strange world had never before encountered one another. Still, they seemed to understand instinctively that Juba, for all his extraordinary features and his baboon-like form, was more closely allied to them than to us.

Edmund, who so greatly excelled the rest of us in intellectual force, made rapid progress in the unparalleled intercourse which now began. To our surprise, it was not long before he told us the name of the beautiful commanded, or one of them, for he said she seemed to have several names—one or more of which, he thought, might be titles.

"They call her Ala," he said; "at least, that is as near as I can pronounce it, and we may as well accept that for her name."

As soon as it became evident that we had nothing to fear from these people—at least, for the present—Jack's enthusiasm knew no bounds.

"Jove! Edmund," he said, "but I thank you for bringing me here. This is Venus, without a doubt."

Later, I shall tell you more about that wonderful language, which was at the same time no language and all language—for it developed into things infinitely more incredible than any that I have yet related. But enough for the present.

You can now comprehend how it was that, landing in another world, we were able so soon to establish an understanding, and even an intimacy, with its inhabitants. Believe me, on the earth nobody has yet begun to dream what mind means.

Edmund soon made Ala understand that we wished to journey into the lands lying beyond the shores of the sea. He told us afterward that his conjecture had been right, and that the air-ships were really on an exploring expedition along the borders of the world of light, because the inhabitants on that side of Venus had a great curiosity to know what lay beyond the storms and clouds in the mysterious empire of night.

Evidently, it was the violent tempests which prevailed near the crystal mountains that prevented the passage of their aerial craft. The mountains themselves they had never seen. But they felt that they had made a discovery of the first magnitude in finding us, for they took us to be inhabitants of the other side of the planet, although they were puzzled by the manifest difference between Juba and the rest.

A Magnificent Reception

I may say here that, although the light was more diffused and softer under the cloudlike dome than in the sunshine that prevails on the earth, Juba's huge eyes suffered so much that we contrived for him a mask to protect them. Later on he became better able to bear the light.

Feeling that their expedition had been crowned with unlooked-for success, our new friends were ready to gratify Edmund's desire by hurrying back to their home. Only one difficulty was encountered at the start. Edmund refused absolutely to abandon the car.

It was, of course, indispensable to us, and he was sure that he could repair the apparatus, once in possession of the materials that he required. Finally it was arranged that the car should be attached to one of the airships and towed after it as we had towed the sleds.

But Ala insisted that we should become her guests on her "yacht," as Jack called it, and we gladly consented.

We saw no danger, and apprehended none immediately. Nevertheless, we kept our automatic pistols in our pockets, and each also armed himself with an automatic repeating-rifle. Our hosts showed no special curiosity about these things, the nature of which they did not understand.

The airships were extremely ingenious. Edmund examined the one we were on from stem to stern, and I have no doubt that when he was through he understood it quite as well as its builders did. It was lucky that he did.

"If they had my secret," he said to us, "they would be incomparable. They are a great people."

"All the more pity that you brought nothing better than automatic arms," said Jack.

"I don't believe that they have anything as good in that line," Edmund replied. "From what I can make out, they are not much given to fighting."

We made rapid progress, and after twenty-four hours came in sight of land.

The coast was not high, but far beyond it we could see ranges of mountains; and apparently rising from the foot-hills of these mountains there were visible curious objects, the nature of which we could not make out from so great a distance.

They resembled immense floating cobwebs as much as anything that I can liken them to. Edmund tried to find out from Ala what it was that

we saw, but beyond the fact that the objects were aerial he could learn nothing definite.

A Language of Colors of the Spectrum

As we approached the coast we saw other airships heading toward us from various directions. We guessed at once that some kind of a greeting was in preparation for the returning explorers, but we could never have imagined the magnificence which the reception would assume. It was not long before our eyes were opened.

When we were, perhaps, ten miles off the coast, a vast flock of airships seemed to rise like birds from the land. In a little while they became innumerable, and it is impossible to depict the beauty of the spectacle which they presented.

The aerial vessels of our little fleet were all of one type, and, while they were excellent travelers, they were quite unpretending in their build and ornamentation. But those that were approaching showed a hundred different shapes and sizes. Chinese kites could not for an instant be compared with some of them in grotesqueness.

Many soared in vast circles at a great height, sweeping around and over us like eagles. Others flanked us on either side, and timed their progress with ours. Still others, probably a hundred in number, advanced to meet us in a great semicircle, where each kept its place with the precision of marching soldiers.

Suddenly, at a signal apparently, the air was filled with fluttering colors. To this day I have never been able to understand how that effect was produced. The colors were not on or in the airships only, but in the atmosphere all about. They were exquisite beyond all description.

It was as if the air had suddenly turned to crystal, with a thousand rainbows playing through it, their arches constantly shifting and interchanging. Presently from the craft that carried us answering shafts of color were shot out. Then I began to notice that there was a remarkable rhythm in the swift changes.

I do not know how to describe the impression better than by saying that it was as if a piano or organ should send forth from its keys harmonic vibrations consisting not of concordant sounds, but of even more delicately related waves of color. The permutations and combinations of the chromatic scale was marvelous. The shades of color seemed infinite in their variety, and the effect was magical. It thrilled us with awe and wonder.

A Threatened Collision Averted by Killing a Venustian Air Pilot

"That is a language," cried Edmund. "They are conversing in this way. They have the whole gamut of the spectrum of light at their command, and every varying shade speaks to them as musical notes do to us; only the meaning conveyed to their minds is as definite as that of spoken words."

"But that cannot be possible!" I objected.

"It is perfectly possible,” he replied. "It simply shows how far they exceed us in the delicacy of their nervous organization."

Soon we were all convinced that Edmund was right, and that we were looking upon a display of aerial telegraphy more wonderful than that of Marconi.

After a while the fluttering colors ceased to play. The communication was evidently ended for the time being. Most of the airships now turned and circled toward the land, escorting us.

But half a dozen continued to approach, and in a few minutes one of them, which had got very near, and which was moving at great speed, suddenly turned directly upon us. I expected to see it come to rest, but it kept bearing down with undiminished velocity.

"By Heavens," said Jack, "that fellow is going to run us down!"

There was no doubt of it. On came the ponderous vessel, its prow aimed straight for us, and a long projecting beam threatening to rake our little vessel like the tongue of a runaway fire-engine. There was a momentary excitement among our people.

Surrounded by a Fleet of Airplanes

Ala gave an order, and a quick attempt was made to alter our course, But it was too late. Ala had advanced near the bow, and the projecting beam seemed about to strike her.

We turned pale with excitement, and my heart quailed.

A tall, handsome fellow stood near the prow of the approaching craft, and seemed to be making terrible efforts to manage some machinery.

"Blank the fool!" said Edmund. "Will he never get out of the way?"

An instant more and a cracking report broke upon the air. Edmund had fired his automatic rifle.

The effect was amazing. The prow of the approaching airship swerved instantly to one side, the threatening beam grazed the shrinking form of Ala, and she narrowly escaped being thrown overboard. But the danger was over in a flash, and the craft that had seemed certain to run us down shot harmlessly past our quarter.

For a few minutes none of us could speak. We could hardly think, so imminent had been the peril and so instantaneous the deliverance from it. At last I found voice.

"Edmund," I said, "how in Heaven's name did you do it?"

He was as pale as the rest of us, but his self-command was perfect. To my astonishment, there was a tone of deep regret in his voice as he replied:

"Have I come here only to kill? Look, I have slain another innocent creature!

It was true, for the fellow I have spoken of had dropped at the shot at the very instant when his craft swerved from its course.

"I had to do it," Edmund continued, mastering his emotion. "He would not get out of the way."

"What do you mean by that?"

"Cannot you understand—" He began with a little impatience, and then added: "But, of course, you know nothing about it. I knew, from my examination of the machinery of this craft, that the only way to prevent a collision was to burst a large safety-valve which was directly behind that fellow.

"That would cause the airship to lose way and swerve from its course. He ought to have managed it himself, but he was too stupid or too excited. There was nothing for me to do but to send a shot through him into the machinery. Heaven knows I had to do it, or she would have been killed, and all of us would probably have gone to the bottom."

So intense had been the excitement and fear among our companions on account of the impending collision, that the report of Edmund's shot did not produce the effect that it would otherwise have had.

But as it echoed up from the sea and reverberated in the sky, the other airships hurried in great alarm toward us, and soon we were the center of a fluttering crowd, which filled the atmosphere like a multitude of butterflies scared up from a roadside puddle.

Then the prismatic language broke forth again, and the air for a while was like a crazy-quilt whipping in the wind.

When everything had quieted again there came a great surprise for us. It was in some respects the most disheartening episode that had yet occurred.

Edmund, as you will have understood from what I have just related, had unquestionably saved Ala, and probably all the rest, from instant destruction. In doing so he had killed a man—for these people can only be spoken of as men and women, generally superior in physical beauty to those of the earth. But we thought that it should have been evident to everybody that his act was imposed by the necessity of the situation.

One of the Terrestial Visitants is Made Prisoner

Yet, instead of thanking him, they made him a prisoner on the spot!

The thing was done so quickly, and so unexpectedly, that there was no chance to interfere. And before we knew it, Jack, Henry, and I were sprawling on the floor of the airship, each borne down by half a dozen stout fellows, any one of whom would have been a match for us in single combat.

Jack tried to draw his pistol, the rifle having fallen in the sudden onslaught, but it was knocked from his hand. Before Henry and I could attempt to resist, Edmund called out to us:

"Don't try to shoot! That's not the way to get out of this. Depend on me."

"A pretty pickle you've got us into with your wonderful people who are 'not given to fighting'!" growled Jack.

"Keep cool," Edmund replied; he was perfectly cool himself, although almost choked by those who held him.

"I tell you that we'll get out of this all right. But conceal your pistols."

The rifles they took, but I thanked Heaven that they didn't know what to do with them. I observed Edmund smile, in his quiet way, when he added a moment later, addressing Jack:

"What's the good of changing your tune so quick? A little while ago you were thanking me for bringing you here. You'll have occasion to thank me again."

"I doubt it," grumbled Jack.

Henry, after his manner, said nothing, but his thoughts were on his face, and I whispered to him:

"For pity's sake, remember how these people read us. Don't look as if you were scared out of your wits! Brace up and trust to Edmund. He's brought us out of tighter fixes than this."

(To be continued in the September issue)

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