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
