Honeymoon in Space — Chapter XVIII

CHAPTER XVIII

A few moments later he sent a signal to Murgatroyd in the engine-room.

The propellers began to revolve slowly, beating the dense air and driving the _Astronef_ at a speed of about twenty miles an hour through the depths of this strangely peopled ocean.

They approached nearer and nearer to the surface, and as they did so the uncanny creatures about them grew more and more numerous.

They were certainly the most extraordinary living things that human eyes had ever looked upon.

Zaidie's comparison to the whale and the jelly-fish was by no means incorrect; only when they got near enough to them they found, to their astonishment, that they were double-headed--that is to say, they had a head with a mouth, nostrils, ear-holes, and eyes at each end of their bodies.

The larger of the creatures appeared to have a certain amount of respect for each other.

Now and then they witnessed a battle-royal between two of the monsters who were pursuing the same prey.

Their method of attack was as follows: The assailant would rise above his opponent or prey, and then, dropping on to its back, envelop it and begin tearing at its sides and under parts with huge beak-like jaws, somewhat resembling those of the largest kind of the earthly octopus, only infinitely more formidable.

The substance composing their bodies appeared to be not unlike that of a terrestrial jelly-fish, but much denser.

It seemed from their motions to have the tenacity of soft indiarubber save at the headed ends, where it was much harder.

The necks were protected for about fifty feet by huge scales of a dull, greenish hue.

When one of them had overpowered an enemy or a victim the two sank down into the vegetation, and the victor began to eat the vanquished.

Their means of locomotion consisted of huge fins, or rather half-fins, half-wings, of which they had three laterally arranged behind each head, and four much longer and narrower, above and below, which seemed to be used mainly for steering purposes.

They moved with equal ease in either direction, and they appeared to rise or fall by inflating or deflating the middle portions of their bodies, somewhat as fish do with their swimming bladders.

The light in the lower regions of this strange ocean was dimmer than earthly twilight, although the _Astronef_ was steadily making her way beneath the arch of the rings towards the sunlit hemisphere.

"I wonder what the effect of the searchlight would be on these fellows!"

said Redgrave.

"Those huge eyes of theirs are evidently only suited to dim light.

Let's try and dazzle some of them."

"I hope it won't be a case of the moths and the candle!"

said Zaidie.

"They don't seem to have taken much interest in us so far.

Perhaps they haven't been able to see properly, but suppose they were attracted by the light and began crowding round us and fastening on to us, as the horrible things do with each other.

What should we do then?

They might drag us down and perhaps keep us there; but there's one thing, they'd never eat us, because we could keep closed up and die respectably together."

"Not much fear of that, little woman," he said, "we're too strong for them.

Hardened steel and toughened glass ought to be more than a match for a lot of exaggerated jelly-fish like these," said Redgrave, as he switched on the head searchlight.

"We've come here to see strange things and we may as well see them.

Ah, would you, my friend.

No, this is not one of your sort, and it isn't meant to eat."

An enormous double-headed monster, apparently some four hundred feet long, came floating towards them as the searchlight flashed out, and others began instantly to crowd about them, just as Zaidie had feared.

"Lenox, for Heaven's sake be careful!"

cried Zaidie, shrinking up beside him as the huge, hideous head, with its saucer eyes and enormous beak-like jaws wide open, came towards them.

"And look!

there are more coming.

Can't we go up and get away from them?"

"Wait a minute, little woman," replied Redgrave, who was beginning to feel the passion of adventure thrilling along his nerves.

"If we fought the Martian air fleet and licked it I think we can manage these things.

Let's see how he likes the light."

As he spoke he flashed the full glare of the five thousand candle-power lamp full on to the creature's great cat-like eyes.

Instantly it bent itself up into an arc.

The two heads, each the exact image of the other, came together.

The four eyes glared half-dazzled into the conning-tower, and the four fearful jaws snapped viciously together.

"Lenox, Lenox, for goodness' sake let us go up!"

cried Zaidie, shrinking still closer to him.

"That thing's too horrible to look at."

"It is a beast, isn't it?"

he said; "but I think we can cut him in two without much trouble."

He signalled for full speed.

The _Astronef_ ought to have sprung forward and driven her ram through the huge, brick-red body of the hideous creature which was now only a couple of hundred yards from them; but instead of that a slow, jarring, grinding thrill seemed to run through her, and she stopped.

The next moment Murgatroyd put his head up through the companion-way which led from the upper deck to the conning-tower, and said, in a tone whose calm indicated, as usual, resignation to the worst that could happen: "My Lord, two of those beasts, fishes or live balloons, or whatever they are, have come across the propellers.

They're cut up a good bit, but I've had to stop the engines, and they're clinging all round the after part.

We're going down, too.

Shall I disconnect the propellers and turn on the repulsion?"

"Yes, certainly, Andrew!"

cried Zaidie, "and all of it, too.

Look, Lenox, that horrible thing is coming.

Suppose it broke the glass, and we couldn't breathe this atmosphere!"

As she spoke the enormous, double-headed body advanced until it completely enveloped the forward part of the _Astronef_.

The two hideous heads came close to the sides of the conning-tower; the huge, palely luminous eyes looked in upon them.

Zaidie, in her terror, even thought that she saw something like human curiosity in them.

[Illustration: _The huge palely luminous eyes looked in upon them.

_] Then, as Murgatroyd disappeared to obey the orders which Redgrave had sanctioned with a quick nod, the heads approached still closer, and she heard the ends of the pointed jaws, which she now saw were armed with shark-like teeth, striking against the thick glass walls of the conning-tower.

"Don't be frightened, dear!"

he said, putting his arm round her, just as he had done when they thought they were falling into the fiery seas of Jupiter.

"You'll see something happen to this gentleman soon.

Big and all as he is there won't be much left of him in a few minutes.

They are like those monsters they found in the lowest depths of our own seas.

They can only live under tremendous pressure.

That's why we didn't find any of them up above.

This chap'll burst like a bubble presently.

Meanwhile, there's no use in stopping here.

Suppose you go below and brew some coffee and bring it up on deck while I go and see how things are looking aft.

It doesn't do you any good, you know, to be looking at monsters of this sort.

You can see what's left of them later on.

You might bring the cognac decanter up too."

Zaidie was not at all sorry to obey him, for the horrible sight had almost sickened her.

They were still under the arch of the rings, and so, when the full strength of the R. Force was directed against the body of Saturn, the vessel sprang upwards like a projectile fired from a cannon.

Redgrave went back into the conning-tower to see what happened to their assailant.

It was already trying to detach itself and sink back into a more congenial element.

As the pressure of the atmosphere decreased its huge body swelled up into still huger proportions.

The scaly skin on the two heads and necks puffed up as though air was being pumped in under it.

The great eyes protruded out of their sockets; the jaws opened widely as though the creature were gasping for breath.

Meanwhile Murgatroyd was seeing something very similar at the after end, and wondering what was going to happen to his propellers, the blades of which were deeply imbedded in the jelly-like flesh of the monsters.

The _Astronef_ leaped higher and higher, and the hideous bodies which were clinging to her swelled out huger and huger.

Redgrave even fancied that he heard something like the cries of pain from both heads on either side of the conning-tower.

They passed through the inner cloud-veil, and then the _Astronef_ began to turn on her axis, and, just as the outer envelope came into view the enormously distended bulk of the monsters collapsed, and their fragments, seeming now like the tatters of a burst balloon than portions of a once living creature, dropped from the body of the _Astronef_, and floated away down into what had been their native element.

"Difference of environment means a lot, after all," said Redgrave to himself.

"I should have called that either a lie or a miracle if I hadn't seen it, and I'm jolly glad I sent Zaidie down below."

"Here's your coffee, Lenox," said her voice from the upper deck the next moment, "only it doesn't seem to want to stop in the cups, and the cups keep getting off the saucers.

I suppose we're turning upside down again."

Redgrave stepped somewhat gingerly on to the deck, for his body had so little weight under the double attraction of Saturn and the Rings that a very slight effort would have sent him flying up to the roof of the deck-chamber.

"That's exactly as you please," he said, "just hold that table steady a minute.

We shall have our centre of gravity back soon.

And now, as to the main question, suppose we take a trip across the sunlit hemisphere of Saturn to, what I suppose we should call on Earth, the South Pole.

We can get resistance from the Rings, and as we are here we may as well see what the rest of Saturn is like.

You see, if our theory is correct as to the Rings gathering up most of the atmosphere of Saturn about its equator, we shall get to higher latitudes where the air is thinner and more like our own, and therefore it's quite possible that we shall find different forms of life in it too--or if you've had enough of Saturn and would prefer a trip to Uranus----" "No, thanks," said Zaidie quickly.

"To tell you the truth, Lenox, I've had almost enough star-wandering for one honeymoon, and though we've seen nice things as well as horrible things--especially those ghastly, slimy creatures down there--I'm beginning to feel a bit homesick for good old Mother Earth.

You see, we're nearly a thousand million miles from home, and, even with you, it makes one feel a bit lonely.

I vote we explore the rest of this hemisphere up to the pole, and then, as they say at sea--I mean our sea--'bout ship, and try if we can find our own old world again.

After all, it _is_ more homelike than any of these, isn't it?"

"Just take our telescope and look at it," said Redgrave, pointing towards the Sun, with its little cluster of attendant planets.

"It looks something like one of Jupiter's little moons down there, doesn't it, only not quite as big?"

"Yes, it does, but that doesn't matter.

The fact is that it's there, and we know what it's like, and it's _home_, if it _is_ a thousand million miles away, and that's everything."

By this time they had passed through the outer band of clouds.

The vast, sunlit arch of the Rings towered up to the zenith, apparently spanning the whole visible heavens.

Below and in front of them lay the enormous semicircle of the hemisphere which was turned towards the Sun, shrouded by its many-coloured bands of clouds.

The R. Force was directed strongly against the lower ring, and the _Astronef_ descended rapidly in a slanting direction through the cloud-bands towards the southern temperate zone of the planet.

They passed through the second, or dark, cloud-band at the rate of about three thousand miles an hour, aided by the repulsion against the Rings and the attraction of the planets, and soon after lunch, the materials of which now consented to remain on the table, they passed through the clouds and found themselves in a new world of wonders.

On a far vaster scale, it was the Earth during that period of its development which is called the Reptilian Age.

The atmosphere was still dense and loaded with aqueous vapour, but the waters had already been divided from the land.

They passed over vast, marshy continents and islands, and warm seas, above which thin clouds of steam still hung, and as they swept southward with the propellers working at their utmost speed they caught glimpses of giant forms rising out of the steamy waters near the land, of others crawling slowly over it, dragging their huge bulk through a tremendous vegetation, which they crushed down as they passed, as a sheep on Earth might push its way through a field of standing corn.

Other and even stranger shapes, broad-winged and ungainly, fluttered with a slow, bat-like motion through the lower strata of the atmosphere.

Every now and then during the voyage across the temperate zone the propellers were slowed down to enable them to witness some Titanic conflict between the gigantic denizens of land and sea and air.

But Zaidie had had enough of horrors on the Saturnian equator, and so she was content to watch this phase of evolution working itself out (as it had done on the Earth thousands of ages ago) from a convenient distance.

Wherefore the _Astronef_ sped on without approaching the surface nearer than was necessary to get a clear general view.

"It'll be all very nice to see and remember and dream about afterwards," she said, "but I don't think I can stand any more monsters just now, at least not at close quarters, and I'm quite sure that if those things can live there we couldn't, any more than we could have lived on Earth a million years or so ago.

No, really I don't want to land, Lenox; let's go on."

They went on at a speed of about a hundred miles an hour, and, as they progressed southward, both the atmosphere and the landscape rapidly changed.

The air grew clearer and the clouds lighter.

Land and sea were more sharply divided, and both teeming with life.

The seas still swarmed with serpentine monsters of the saurian type, and the firmer lands were peopled by huge animals, mastodons, bears, giant tapirs, mylodons, deinotheriums, and a score of other species too strange for them to recognise by any Earthly likeness, which roamed in great herds through the vast twilit forests and over boundless plains covered with grey-blue vegetation.

Here, too, they found mountains for the first time on Saturn; mountains steep-sided, and many Earth-miles high.

As the _Astronef_ was skirting the side of one of these ranges Redgrave allowed it to approach more closely than he had so far done to the surface of Saturn.

"I shouldn't wonder if we found some of the higher forms of life up here," he said.

"If there is any kind of being that is going to develop some day into the human race of Saturn it would naturally get up here."

"I should hope so," said Zaidie, "and just as far as possible out of the reach of those unutterable horrors on the equator.

That would be one of the first signs they would show of superior intelligence.

Look!

I

believe there are some of them.

Do you see those holes in the mountain-side there?

And there they are, something like gorillas, only twice as big, and up the trees, too--and what trees!

They must be seven or eight hundred feet high."

"Tree-men and cave-dwellers, and ancestors of the future royal race of Saturn, I suppose!"

said Redgrave.

"They don't look very nice, do they?

Still, there's no doubt about their being far superior in intelligence to those other brutes we saw.

Evidently this atmosphere is too thin for the two-headed jelly-fishes and the saurians to breathe.

These creatures have found that out in a few hundreds of generations, and so they have come to live up here out of the way.

Vegetarians, I suppose, or perhaps they live on smaller monkeys and other animals, just as our ancestors did."

"Really, Lenox," said Zaidie, turning round and facing him, "I must say that you have a most unpleasant way of alluding to one's ancestors.

They couldn't help what they were."

"Well, dear," he said, going towards her, "marvellous as the miracle seems, I'm heretic enough to believe it possible that your ancestors even, millions of years ago, perhaps, may have been something like those; but then, of course, you know I'm a hopeless Darwinian."

"And, therefore, entirely horrid, as I've often said before, when you get on subjects like these.

Not, of course, that I'm ashamed of my poor relations; and then, after all, your Darwin was quite wrong when he talked about the descent of man--and woman.

We--especially the women--have _as_cended from that sort of thing, if there's any truth in the story at all; though, personally, I must say I prefer dear old Mother Eve."

"Who never had a sweeter daughter than----!"

he replied, drawing her towards him.

"Very prettily put, my Lord," she laughed, releasing herself with a gentle twirl; "and now I'll go and get dinner ready.

After all, it doesn't matter what world one's in, one gets hungry all the same."

The dinner, which was eaten somewhere in the middle of the fifteen-year-long day of Saturn, was a more than usually pleasant one, because they were now nearing the turning-point of their trip into the depths of Space, and thoughts of home and friends were already beginning to fly back across the thousand-million-mile gulf which lay between them and the Earth which they had left only a little more than two months ago.

While they were at dinner the _Astronef_ rose above the mountains and resumed her southward course.

Zaidie brought the coffee up on deck as usual after dinner, and, while Redgrave smoked his cigar and Zaidie her cigarette, they luxuriated in the magnificent spectacle of the sunlit side of the Rings towering up, rainbow built on rainbow, to the zenith of their visible heavens.

"What a pity there aren't any words to describe it!"

said Zaidie.

"I wonder if the descendants of the ancestors of the future human race on Saturn will invent anything like a suitable language.

I wonder how they'll talk about those Rings millions of years hence."

"By that time there may not be any Rings," Lenox replied, blowing one of blue smoke from his own lips.

"Look at that--made in a moment and gone in a moment--and yet on exactly the same principle, it gives one a dim idea of the difference between time and eternity.

After all it's only another example of Kelvin's theory of vortices.

Nebulae, and asteroids, and planet-rings, and smoke-rings are really all made on the same principle."

"My dear Lenox, if you're going to get as philosophical and as commonplace as that, I'm going to bed.

Now that I come to think of it, I've been up about fifteen Earth-hours, so it's about time I went and had a sleep.

It's your turn to make the coffee in the morning--our morning, I mean--and you'll wake me in time to see the South Pole of Saturn, won't you?

You're not coming yet, I suppose?"

"Not just yet, dear.

I want to see a bit more of this, and then I must go through the engines and see that they're all right and ready for that thousand million mile homeward voyage you're talking about.

You can have a good ten hours' sleep without missing much, I think, for there doesn't seem to be anything more interesting than our own Arctic life down there.

So good-night, little woman, and don't have too many nightmares."

"Good-night!"

she said; "if you hear me shout you'll know that you're to come and protect me from monsters.

Weren't those two-headed brutes just too horrid for words?

Good-night, dear!"

CHAPTER XIX

A little before six (Earth time) on the fourth morning after they had cleared the confines of the Saturnian System, Redgrave went as usual into the conning-tower to examine the instruments, and to see that everything was in order.

To his intense surprise he found, on looking at the gravitational compass, which was to the _Astronef_ what the ordinary compass is to a ship at sea, that the vessel was a long way out of her course.

Such a thing had never yet occurred.

Up to now the _Astronef_ had obeyed the laws of gravitation and repulsion with absolute exactness.

He made another examination of the instruments; but no, all were in perfect order.

"I wonder what the deuce is the matter," he said, after he had looked for a few moments with frowning eyes at the multitude of orbs ahead.

"By Jove, we're swinging more.

This is getting serious."

He went back to the compass.

The long, slender needle was slowly swinging farther and farther out of the middle line of the vessel.

"There can only be two explanations of that," he went on, thrusting his hands deep into his trousers pockets; "either the engines are not working properly, or some enormous and invisible body is pulling us towards it out of our course.

Let's have a look at the engines first."

When he reached the engine-room he said to Murgatroyd, who was indulging in his usual pastime of cleaning and polishing his beloved charges: "Have you noticed anything wrong during the last hour or so, Murgatroyd?"

"No, my Lord; at least not so far as concerns the engines.

They're all right.

Hark, now, they're not making more noise than a lady's sewing machine," replied the old Yorkshireman, with a note of resentment in his voice.

The suspicion that anything could be wrong with his shining darlings was almost a personal offence to him.

"But is anything the matter, my Lord, if I might ask?"

"We're a long way off our course, and for the life of me I can't understand it," replied Redgrave.

"There's nothing about here to pull us out of our line.

Of course the stars--good Lord, I never thought of that!

Look here, Murgatroyd, not a word about this to her ladyship, and stand by to raise the power by degrees, as I signal to you."

"Ay, my lord.

I hope it's nothing bad!"

Redgrave went back to the conning-tower without replying.

The only possible solution of the mystery of the deviation had suddenly dawned upon him, and a very serious solution it was.

He remembered there were such things as dead suns--the derelicts of the Ocean of Space--vast, invisible orbs, lightless and lifeless, too distant from any living sun to be illumined by its rays, and yet exercising the only force left to them--the force of attraction.

Might not one of these have wandered near enough to the confines of the Solar System to exert this force, a force of absolutely unknown magnitude, upon the _Astronef_?

He went to the desk beside the instrument-table and plunged into a maze of mathematics, of masses and weights, angles and distances.

Half an hour later he stood looking at the last symbol on the last sheet of paper with something like fear.

It was the fatal _x_ which remained to satisfy the last equation, the unknown quantity which represented the unseen force that was dragging them into the outer wilderness of insterstellar space, into far-off regions from which, with the remaining force at his disposal, no return would be possible.

He signalled to Murgatroyd to increase the development of the R. Force from a tenth to a fifth.

Then he went to the lower saloon, where Zaidie was busy with her usual morning tidy-up.

Now that the mystery was explained there was no reason to keep her in the dark.

Indeed, he had given her his word that he would conceal from her no danger, however great, that might threaten them when he had once assured himself of its existence.

She listened to him in silence and without a sign of fear beyond a little lifting of the eyelids and a little fading of the colour in her cheeks.

"And if we can't resist this force," she said, when he had finished, "it will drag us millions--perhaps millions of millions--of miles away from our own system into outer space, and we shall either fall on the surface of this dead sun and be reduced to a puff of lighted gas in an instant, or some other body will pull us away from it, and then another away from that, and so on, and we shall wander among the stars for ever and ever until the end of time!"

"If the first happens, darling, we shall die--together--without knowing it.

It's the second that I'm most afraid of.

The _Astronef_ may go on wandering among the stars for ever--but we have only water enough for three weeks more.

Now come into the conning-tower and we'll see how things are going."

As they bent their heads over the instrument-table Redgrave saw that the remorseless needle had moved two degrees more to the right.

The keel of the _Astronef_, under the impulse of the R. Force, was continually turning.

The pull of the invisible orb was dragging her slowly but irresistibly out of her line.

"There's nothing for it but this," said Redgrave, putting out his hand to the signal-board, and signalling to Murgatroyd to put the engines to their highest capacity.

"You see, dear, our greatest danger is this: we had to exert such a tremendous lot of power getting away from Jupiter and Saturn, that we haven't any too much to spare, and if we have to spend it in counteracting the pull of this dead sun, or whatever it is, we may not have enough of what I call the R. fluid left to get home with."

"I see," she said, staring with wide-open eyes at the needle.

"You mean that we may not have enough to keep us from falling into one of the planets or perhaps into the Sun itself.

Well, supposing the dangers are equal, this one is the nearest, and so I guess we've got to fight it first."

"Spoken like a good American!"

he said, putting his arm across her shoulders and looking at once with infinite pride and infinite regret at the calm, proud face which the glory of resignation had adorned with a new beauty.

She bowed her head and then looked away again so that he should not see that there were tears in her eyes.

He took his hand from her shoulder and stared in silence down at the needle.

It was stationary again.

"We've stopped!"

he said, after a pause of several moments.

"Now, if the body that's taken us out of our course is moving away from us we win, if it's coming towards us we lose.

At any rate, we've done all we can.

Come along, Zaidie, let's go and have a walk on deck."

They had scarcely reached the upper deck when something happened which dwarfed all the other experiences of their marvellous voyage into utter insignificance.

Above and around them the constellations blazed with a splendour inconceivable to an observer on Earth, but ahead of them gaped the vast, black void which sailors call "the Coal Hole," and in which the most powerful telescopes have only discovered a few faintly luminous bodies.

Suddenly, out of the midst of this infinity of darkness, there blazed a glare of almost intolerably brilliant radiance.

Instantly the forward end of the _Astronef_ was bathed in light and heat--the light and heat of a re-created sun, whose elements had been dark and cold for uncounted ages.

Hundreds of tiny points of light, unknown worlds which had been dark for myriads of years, twinkled out of the blackness.

Then the fierce glare grew dimmer.

A vast mantle of luminous mist spread out with inconceivable rapidity, and in the midst of this blazed the central nucleus--the sun which in far-off ages to come would be the giver of light and heat, of life and beauty to worlds unborn, to planets which were now only little eddies of atoms whirling in that ocean of nebulous flame.

For more than an hour the two wanderers from the far-off Earth stood motionless and silent, gazing on the indescribable splendours of the fearfully magnificent spectacle before them.

Every mundane thought seemed burnt out of their souls by the glory and the wonder of it.

It was almost as though they were standing in the very presence of God.

Indeed, were they not witnessing the supreme act of Omnipotence, a new creation?

Their peril, a peril such as had never threatened mortals before, was utterly forgotten.

They had even forgotten each other's presence.

For the time being they existed only to look and to wonder.

They were called at length out of their trance by the matter-of-fact voice of Murgatroyd saying-- "My Lord, she's back to her course.

Will I keep the power on full?"

"Eh!

What's that?"

exclaimed Redgrave, as they both turned quickly round.

"Oh, it's you, Murgatroyd.

The power?

Yes, keep it on full till I have taken the bearings."

"Ay, my Lord, very good," replied the engineer.

As he left the deck Redgrave put his arm round Zaidie and drew her gently towards him and said, "Zaidie, truly you are favoured among women!

You have seen the beginning of a new creation.

You will certainly be saved somehow after that."

"Yes, and you too, dear," she murmured, as though still half-dreaming.

"It is very glorious and wonderful; but what is it all--I mean, what is the explanation of it?"

"The merely scientific explanation, dear, is very simple.

I see it all now.

The force that was dragging us out of our course was the united pull of two dead stars approaching each other in the same orbit.

They may have been doing that for millions of years.

The shock of their meeting has transformed their motion into light and heat.

They have united to form a single sun and a nebula, which will some day condense into a system of planets like ours.

To-night the astronomers on Earth will discover a new star--a variable star as they'll call it--for it will grow dimmer as it moves away from our system.

It has often happened before."

Then they turned back to the conning-tower.

The needle had swung to its old position.

The new star, henceforth to be known in the annals of astronomy as Lilla-Zaidie, had already set for them to the right of the _Astronef_ and risen on the left, and, at a distance of more than nine hundred million miles from the Earth, the corner was turned, and the homeward voyage began.

CHAPTER XX

A week later they crossed the path of Jupiter, but the giant was invisible, far away on the other side of the Sun.

Redgrave laid his course so as to avail himself to the utmost of the "pull" of the planets without going near enough to them to be compelled to exert too much of the priceless R. Force, which the indicators showed to be running perilously low.

Between the orbits of Jupiter and Mars they made a most valuable economy by landing on Ceres, one of the largest of the asteroids, and travelling about fifty million miles on her towards the orbit of the Earth without any expenditure of force whatever.

They found that the tiny world possessed a breathable atmosphere and a fluid resembling water, but nearly as dense as mercury.

A couple of flasks of it form the greatest treasures of the British Museum and the National Museum at Washington.

The vegetable world was represented by coarse grass, lichens, and dwarf shrubs, and the animal by different species of worms, lizards, flies, and small burrowing animals of the rodent type.

As the orbit of Ceres, like that of the other asteroids, is considerably inclined to that of the Earth, the _Astronef_ rose from its surface when the plane of the Earth's revolution was reached, and the glittering swarm of miniature planets plunged away into space beneath them.

"Where to now?"

said Zaidie, as her husband came down on deck from the conning-tower.

"I am going to try to steer a middle course between the orbits of Mercury and Venus," he replied.

"They just happen to be so placed now that we ought to be able to get the advantage of the pull of both of them as we pass, and that will save us a lot of power.

The only thing I'm afraid of is the pull of the Sun, equal to goodness knows how many times the attraction of all the planets put together.

You see, little woman, it's like this," he went on, taking out a pencil and going down on one knee on the deck: "Here's the _Astronef_; there's Venus; there's Mercury; there's the Sun; and there, away on the other side of him, is Mother Earth.

If we can turn that corner safely and without expending too much power we ought to be all right."

"And if we can't, what will happen?"

"It will be a choice between morphine and cremation in the atmosphere of the Sun, dear, or rather gradually roasting as we fall towards it."

"Then, of course, it will be morphine," she said quite quietly, as she turned away from his diagram and looked at the now fast-increasing disc of the Sun.

A well-balanced mind speedily becomes accustomed even to the most terrible perils, and Zaidie had now looked this one so long and so steadily in the face that for her it had already become merely the choice between two forms of death with just a chance of escape hidden in the closed hand of Fate.

Thirty-six Earth-hours later the glorious golden disc of Venus lay broad and bright beneath them.

Above was the blazing orb of the Sun, nearly half as big again as it appears from the Earth, with Mercury, a round black spot, travelling slowly across it.

"My dear Bird-Folk!"

said Zaidie, looking down at the lovely world below them.

"If home wasn't home----" "We can be back among them in a few hours with absolute safety," interrupted her husband, catching at the suggestion.

"I've told you the truth about the bare possibility of getting back to the Earth.