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Edison's Conquest of Mars

by Garrett Putman Serviss · English · Gutenberg #21670 · 415,761 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Edison's Conquest of Mars

Author: Garrett Putman Serviss


        
Release date: June 3, 2007 [eBook #21670]

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EDISON'S CONQUEST OF MARS ***




Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net









                        EDISON'S CONQUEST OF MARS

                          BY GARRETT P. SERVISS.

            WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY A. LANGLEY SEARLES, Ph. D.




CARCOSA HOUSE
1947
LOS ANGELES

The special contents of this volume are copyright 1947 by CARCOSA HOUSE.
FIRST EDITION

[Transcriber's note: This is a Rule 6 Clearance. PG has not been able to
find a U.S. Copyright Renewal]


DEDICATED
to
GARRETT PUTMAN SERVISS

A COSMOPOLITE IN TIME
1851-1929




TABLE OF CONTENTS


    _Introduction_

    CHAPTER ONE
    _"Let Us Go To Mars"_

    CHAPTER TWO
    _The Disintegrator_

    CHAPTER THREE
    _The Congress of Nations_

    CHAPTER FOUR
    _To Conquer Another World_

    CHAPTER FIVE
    _The Footprint on the Moon_

    CHAPTER SIX
    _The Monsters on the Asteroid_

    CHAPTER SEVEN
    _A Planet of Gold_

    CHAPTER EIGHT
    _"The Martians are Coming!"_

    CHAPTER NINE
    _Journey's End_

    CHAPTER TEN
    _The Great Smoke Barrier_

    CHAPTER ELEVEN
    _The Earth Girl_

    CHAPTER TWELVE
    _Retreat to Deimos_

    CHAPTER THIRTEEN
    _There Were Giants in the Earth_

    CHAPTER FOURTEEN
    _The Flood Gates of Mars_

    CHAPTER FIFTEEN
    _Vengeance is Ours_

    CHAPTER SIXTEEN
    _The Woman From Ceres_

    CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
    _The Fearful Oaths of Colonel Smith_

    CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
    _The Great Ovation_

    _Bibliography_




ILLUSTRATIONS


_"Like men, and yet not like men...."_

_"... rising out of the shadow of the globe...."_

_"A consultation in Wizard Edison's laboratory...."_

_"Through this the meteor had passed...."_

_"... the ruins of ... an ancient watch tower."_

_"... another of our ships ... was destroyed."_

_"Two of the Martians were stretched dead upon the ground."_

_"He might have been a match for twenty of us."_

_"... he proceeded to teach us ... words of his language."_

_"... approaching from the eastward a large airship...."_

_"... a human being here on Mars!"_

_"The gigantic statue of their leader is THE GREAT SPHINX!"_

_"It was a panic of giants."_


These illustrations are a selection of the best from the original
newspaper installments and were redrawn for this volume by Bernard
Manley, Jr., of Chicago, Illinois.




INTRODUCTION


If you picked up a magazine and read in it a story mentioning a
passenger-carrying rocket driven by atomic power furnished by a
substance prepared from uranium, you probably would not be greatly
surprised. After all, such an invention is today but a step or two ahead
of cold fact. But you might be surprised to learn that if this story was
_A Columbus of Space_, the one I happen to have in mind, your
grand-parents may well have read it before you were born--for _A
Columbus of Space_ was published in _All-Story_ magazine in 1909, thirty
years before the potentialities of U235 were realized, and nearly forty
before the atomic bomb became a problem for people to think about.

Did the author of this story simply make a lucky shot in the dark?
Perhaps; but let me tell those who are inclined to think so that he was
a Carnegie lecturer, a member of half-a-dozen learned societies, one of
the first to write a book on Einstein's theory of relativity, and an
internationally known figure in his specialty, astronomy. His name is
Garrett Putman Serviss.

He was born on March 24, 1851, at Sharon Springs, New York, of native
New England stock. His interest in astronomy began as a boy, and was
greatly stimulated when he began to examine the beauties of the heavens
through a small telescope, the gift of his older brother. This
encouraged his enrolling in the course of science at Cornell University
in 1868 (its opening year) from which he was graduated in 1872. There
followed two years at the Columbia College Law School, which he left as
an LL. B.; and in June, 1874 he was admitted to the bar. He did not
practice law, however, but turned instead to newspaper reporting.

Whence came this interest in law and journalism? We can only guess,
tracing its onset to the man's college days. As a Cornell sophomore, he
was the class poet; as a senior, its historian; and on commencement day
delivered an oration on "The Perpetuity of the Heroic Element." But
whatever the origin of the interest, unquestioned ability supported it.
From the position of reporter and correspondent with the New York
_Tribune_ he rose to the post of copy editor on the staff of the _Sun_.
Finally he became night editor, a position which he held for a full
decade.

During this period we can see the old interest in science gradually
assert itself. At first it took the form of anonymous articles, mainly
on matters astronomical. These usually appeared on the editorial page
and, partly because they were then a novelty, partly because of a quirk
of fate--editor-in-chief Charles Dana frequently had them set up in bold
type, believing their logic was a fine counter-irritant for heated
political campaigns of the day--the attention of subscribers was focused
on them more sharply than usual. In fact, readers over the entire
country were soon conjecturing about the identity of "the _Sun's_
astronomer." Very few knew that it was Garrett Serviss, who successfully
cloaked his identity for years.

Success in written popularizing of science led him to attempt its
duplication on the lecture platform. There his triumphs were such as to
lead him to resign as night editor of the _Sun_ in 1892 and make
astronomy his life work. Until 1894 he was occupied with "The Urania
Lectures." These were sponsored by Andrew Carnegie, and dealt with
geology, astronomy, archeology and similar scientific topics. With them
Serviss successfully toured the country, and it was only because of the
great difficulty in transporting the elaborate staging equipment they
required that they were eventually discontinued. He continued to give
popular lectures, however, and one of his few biographers has credited
his greatness on the rostrum to "a pleasant voice, a charming
personality, and a genuine enthusiasm for his subject."

One cannot doubt this enthusiasm; it shines forth unmistakably from all
his writings. Probably, too, it played the major part in enabling him to
reach a wider reading public than any other astronomer before or after
him. For he never abandoned the pen. Up until his death, which occurred
on May 25, 1929, he wrote continually, syndicated newspaper columns,
magazine articles, books on astronomy, fiction.

His first book, _Astronomy with an Opera Glass_, appeared in 1888. He
was responsible for several other scientific titles (the reader is
referred to the bibliography at the end of this volume for a detailed
listing); they include _Einstein's Theory of Relativity_, which is a
companion work to the motion picture of the same name. He was also
editor-in-chief of Collier's sixteen-volume _Popular Science Library_.
It might be added that much of the editing and captioning of the
Einstein film was his work, and that he collaborated with Leon Barritt
in the invention of the Barritt-Serviss Star and Planet Finder, a device
still in use.

In comparison with his other writings his output of fiction is small:
five novels and a single short story. It is, however, characterized by
the same logic and interest, this time tossed aloft to soar on the wings
of romantic imagination. Two of these works deal in some detail with the
world of the future as he thought it might be--prophetic fiction, if you
will; another two give us a picture of life on neighboring planets; and
the final couple, although they maintain a terrestrial locale, show as
wide a scope of creative invention.

In only one of these does astronomy fail to play at least a supporting
role. That is _The Sky Pirate_ (1909), which is an adventure story laid
in the year 1936. Its plot revolves around an abduction for ransom in a
period which is visualized as rampant with piracy because of the general
adoption of air transportation. As usual, fact has outmoded prophecy,
for long before 1936 airplane speeds exceeded the 140 miles per hour
Serviss predicted. We still need, though, his invention which enables
badly damaged aircraft to drift slowly down to a safe landing.

_The Moon Metal_ (1900) deals with the problem of a strange, lunar metal
used as a monetary standard to replace gold when, in 1949, huge new
deposits of that metal rendered it common as iron. This is of short
story length, and amply demonstrates the author's mastery of that
medium.

From the prophetic as well as the entertainment standpoint, one of
Garrett Serviss' most interesting novels is _A Columbus of Space_. Here
he visualizes atomic energy liberated and harnessed to drive a rocket to
the planet Venus. His conception is uncannily close to truth; he names
uranium as the raw material from which is extracted the vital substance,
a "crystallized powder" which releases its energy on proper treatment.
No less intriguing is the description of the intelligent civilizations
on Venus which explorers from this world find.

Two later novels came from his pen: _The Moon Maiden_ (1915) and _The
Second Deluge_ (1911). The former is a scientific mystery, and probably
the least distinguished of his works. The latter, conversely, is
probably his best. It tells of a watery nebula which collides with the
earth, flooding it with a second deluge; and of how the human race is
saved through the wisdom of one man who foresaw the coming disaster in
time to build a second ark. A new civilization which has mastered the
secret of atomic energy springs up on the planet as the waters recede.
The canvas is a broad one, and the author does it full justice.

Serviss' outstanding stories have been published abroad and re-printed
in this country several times, a deserved tribute to their quality and
popularity. His very first work of fiction, however, has been shrouded
in obscurity for nearly half a century. Indeed, among collectors and
aficionados of the fantastic there was for a time debate as to its
actual existence. This is hardly surprising, for until its reprinting in
this book _Edison's Conquest of Mars_ lay buried in the Congressional
Library's file of the ephemeral New York _Evening Journal_, where it ran
serially in early 1898.

This is a remarkable work. First of all, as many readers will quickly
discern, it is in a sense a sequel to H. G. Wells' well known _War of
the Worlds_. The latter novel was serialized by _Cosmopolitan_ magazine
in 1897; it caught the public's fickle fancy, and was widely commented
upon. All evidence indicates that Serviss also read it: he was a regular
contributor to _Cosmopolitan_. Yet I am inclined to doubt that mere
reading of _The War of the Worlds_ in itself prompted him to produce a
work in the same vein. Wells' effort was not concluded until the
December, 1897 number of the magazine, and _Edison's Conquest of Mars_
began on the following January 12th--a scant six weeks later. For
Serviss it was the initial excursion into the realm of fiction, and it
is hard to conceive his so hastily adopting a new metier on personal
impulse alone. These circumstances, in conjunction with the context of
the novel itself, clearly stamp the entire business as clever
capitalization on already existent publicity. Again, I doubt if he
thought of it at first in that light; his name was well enough known so
that he could live by his knowledge, not his wits. But to a newspaper
editor the prospect of combining the authority of a nationally known and
reputable astronomer with a work designed to satisfy a reading public's
waiting appetite for the unusual--in short, presenting legitimatized
sensationalism at the psychological moment--this must have had
irresistible appeal. That _Edison's Conquest of Mars_ was written on
editorial commission, perhaps as fast as it appeared, seems, then, the
most probable interpretation.

Historically, the work is one of the earliest to employ the
interplanetary theme. It is the first to portray a battle fought by
space craft in the airless void; and possibly the first also to propose
the use of sealed suits that enable men to traverse a vacuum. Of the
more minor twists of plot initially found here that have since become
parts of the "pulp" science-fiction writers' standard stock-in-trade,
there are literally too many to mention.

The novel opens with a description of the ruins of eastern America.
Although the Martians who survived terrestrial bacteria have left the
planet, astronomical observations show a recurrence on the red planet of
the same lights that were a prelude to the first onslaught. The
conclusion is inevitable: a second invasion is on the way. Serviss
pictures the gathering together of the most famous scientists of the
day--Edison, Roentgen, Lord Kelvin and others. The Martian machines and
weapons left behind are dismantled; their principles of operation are
discovered and duplicated; and a defense against their forces is
perfected. Armed with this knowledge and with the "disintegrator," a
device invented by Edison which is capable of reducing to atoms any
substance at which it is aimed, the nations of the world pool their
resources and launch an invasion of Mars across interplanetary space.

More by way of explanation than justification, it should be stated that
science today is diminishing the number of critics who are wont to label
plots of this nature "too fantastic." For them to say that the colossal
has become more important than the rational is, I feel, misleading. For
this is a branch of literature that is in many respects the most
rational of all: it is a symptom of progress. These same critics also
complain that a fantastic plot is frequently developed at the expense of
characterization. To this, one may answer that at times what happens can
be more important than the people to whom it happens. In essence, both
charges derive from laying undue stress upon psychology as the only
legitimate fibre from which a fictional cloth may be woven. Undoubtedly
psychology is necessary--but it can be a warp alone if a strong woof is
supplied. Let me cite two imaginary examples. If a single scientist had
released atomic energy and was in doubt as to whether he should destroy
his secret or reveal it, the psychological processes that determine his
decision become more relevant to consideration than the decision itself.
But if that same scientist managed by the aid of atomic energy to
transport himself to Mars, I would unquestionably be more interested in
what he found on that planet than in why an Oedipus complex drove him
there in the first place.

In the fiction of Garrett Serviss the sweeping magnitude of events
described gives them the leading role. Yet within the limits he has set
for himself he has used human psychology to good advantage. His stories
do not lack empathy, and they are rich in pictorial detail. Inevitably
they reflect the mores of the time, but do not emphasize them unduly. As
a consequence they remain readable and entertaining even to this day.

They show, too, that he was familiar with the works of the few authors
in the genre who preceeded him. _A Columbus of Space_ was dedicated "to
the readers of Jules Verne's romances,"

     Not because the author flatters himself that he can walk in the
     Footsteps of that Immortal Dreamer, but because, like Jules Verne,
     he believes that the World of Imagination is as legitimate a Domain
     of the Human Mind as the World of Fact.

Garrett Serviss modestly underestimated his abilities. With the
perspective we possess today it can be seen that he is easily the equal
of Verne, standing with him and H. G. Wells as one of the foremost
science-fiction writers of his day.


A. Langley Searles
_New York, N. Y._
_May 1947_




EDISON'S CONQUEST OF MARS




CHAPTER ONE

_"LET US GO TO MARS"_


It is impossible that the stupendous events which followed the
disastrous invasion of the earth by the Martians should go without
record, and circumstances having placed the facts at my disposal, I deem
it a duty, both to posterity and to those who were witnesses of and
participants in the avenging counterstroke that the earth dealt back at
its ruthless enemy in the heavens, to write down the story in a
connected form.

The Martians had nearly all perished, not through our puny efforts, but
in consequence of disease, and the few survivors fled in one of their
projectile cars, inflicting their crudest blow in the act of departure.

They possessed a mysterious explosive, of unimaginable puissance, with
whose aid they set their car in motion for Mars from a point in Bergen
County, N. J., just back of the Palisades.

The force of the explosion may be imagined when it is recollected that
they had to give the car a velocity of more than seven miles per second
in order to overcome the attraction of the earth and the resistance of
the atmosphere.

The shock destroyed all of New York that had not already fallen a prey,
and all the buildings yet standing in the surrounding towns and cities
fell in one far-circling ruin.

The Palisades tumbled in vast sheets, starting a tidal wave in the
Hudson that drowned the opposite shore.

The victims of this ferocious explosion were numbered by tens of
thousands, and the shock, transmitted through the rocky frame of the
globe, was recorded by seismographic pendulums in England and on the
Continent of Europe.

The terrible results achieved by the invaders had produced everywhere a
mingled feeling of consternation and hopelessness. The devastation was
widespread. The death-dealing engines which the Martians had brought
with them had proved irresistible and the inhabitants of the earth
possessed nothing capable of contending against them. There had been no
protection for the great cities; no protection even for the open
country. Everything had gone down before the savage onslaught of those
merciless invaders from space. Savage ruins covered the sites of many
formerly flourishing towns and villages, and the broken walls of great
cities stared at the heavens like the exhumed skeletons of Pompeii. The
awful agencies had extirpated pastures and meadows and dried up the very
springs of fertility in the earth where they had touched it. In some
parts of the devastated lands pestilence broke out; elsewhere there was
famine. Despondency black as night brooded over some of the fairest
portions of the globe.

Yet all had not been destroyed, because all had not been reached by the
withering hand of the destroyer. The Martians had not had time to
complete their work before they themselves fell a prey to the diseases
that carried them off at the very culmination of their triumph.

From those lands which had, fortunately, escaped invasion, relief was
sent to the sufferers. The outburst of pity and of charity exceeded
anything that the world had known. Differences of race and religion were
swallowed up in the universal sympathy which was felt for those who had
suffered so terribly from an evil that was as unexpected as it was
unimaginable in its enormity.

But the worst was not yet. More dreadful than the actual suffering and
the scenes of death and devastation which overspread the afflicted lands
was the profound mental and moral depression that followed. This was
shared even by those who had not seen the Martians and had not witnessed
the destructive effects of the frightful engines of war that they had
imported for the conquest of the earth. All mankind was sunk deep in
this universal despair, and it became tenfold blacker when the
astronomers announced from their observatories that strange lights were
visible, moving and flashing upon the red surface of the Planet of War.
These mysterious appearances could only be interpreted in the light of
past experience to mean that the Martians were preparing for another
invasion of the earth, and who could doubt that with the invincible
powers of destruction at their command they would this time make their
work complete and final?

This startling announcement was the more pitiable in its effects because
it served to unnerve and discourage those few of stouter hearts and more
hopeful temperaments who had already begun the labor of restoration and
reconstruction amid the embers of their desolated homes. In New York
this feeling of hope and confidence, this determination to rise against
disaster and to wipe out the evidences of its dreadful presence as
quickly as possible, had especially manifested itself. Already a company
had been formed and a large amount of capital subscribed for the
reconstruction of the destroyed bridges over the East River. Already
architects were busily at work planning new twenty-story hotels and
apartment houses; new churches and new cathedrals on a grander scale
than before.

Amid this stir of renewed life came the fatal news that Mars was
undoubtedly preparing to deal us a death blow. The sudden revulsion of
feeling flitted like the shadow of an eclipse over the earth. The scenes
that followed were indescribable. Men lost their reason. The
faint-hearted ended the suspense with self-destruction, the
stout-hearted remained steadfast, but without hope and knowing not what
to do.

But there was a gleam of hope of which the general public as yet knew
nothing. It was due to a few dauntless men of science, conspicuous among
whom were Lord Kelvin, the great English savant; Herr Roentgen, the
discover of the famous X-ray, and especially Thomas A. Edison, the
American genius of science. These men and a few others had examined with
the utmost care the engines of war, the flying machines, the generators
of mysterious destructive forces that the Martians had produced, with
the object of discovering, if possible, the sources of their power.

Suddenly from Mr. Edison's laboratory at Orange flashed the startling
intelligence that he had not only discovered the manner in which the
invaders had been able to produce the mighty energies which they
employed with such terrible effect, but that, going further, he had
found a way to overcome them.

The glad news was quickly circulated throughout the civilized world.
Luckily the Atlantic cables had not been destroyed by the Martians, so
that communication between the Eastern and Western continents was
uninterrupted. It was a proud day for America. Even while the Martians
had been upon the earth, carrying everything before them, demonstrating
to the confusion of the most optimistic that there was no possibility of
standing against them, a feeling--a confidence had manifested itself in
France, to a minor extent in England, and particularly in Russia, that
the Americans might discover means to meet and master the invaders.

Now, it seemed, this hope and expectation was to be realized. Too late,
it is true, in a certain sense, but not too late to meet the new
invasion which the astronomers had announced was impending. The effect
was as wonderful and indescribable as that of the despondency which but
a little while before had overspread the world. One could almost hear
the universal sigh of relief which went up from humanity. To relief
succeeded confidence--so quickly does the human spirit recover like an
elastic spring, when pressure is released.

"Let them come," was the almost joyous cry. "We shall be ready for them
now. The Americans have solved the problem. Edison has placed the means
of victory within our power."

Looking back upon that time now, I recall, with a thrill, the pride that
stirred me at the thought that, after all, the inhabitants of the earth
were a match for those terrible men from Mars, despite all the advantage
which they had gained from their millions of years of prior civilization
and science.

As good fortunes, like bad, never come singly, the news of Mr. Edison's
discovery was quickly followed by additional glad tidings from that
laboratory of marvels in the lap of the Orange mountains. During their
career of conquest the Martians had astonished the inhabitants of the
earth no less with their flying machines--which navigated our atmosphere
as easily as they had that of their native planet--than with their more
destructive inventions. These flying machines in themselves had given
them an enormous advantage in the contest. High above the desolation
that they had caused to reign on the surface of the earth, and, out of
the range of our guns, they had hung safe in the upper air. From the
clouds they had dropped death upon the earth.

Now, rumor declared that Mr. Edison had invented and perfected a flying
machine much more complete and manageable than those of the Martians had
been. Wonderful stories quickly found their way into the newspapers
concerning what Mr. Edison had already accomplished with the aid of his
model electrical balloon. His laboratory was carefully guarded against
the invasion of the curious, because he rightly felt that a premature
announcement, which should promise more than could actually be
fulfilled, would, at this critical juncture, plunge mankind back again
into the gulf of despair, out of which it had just begun to emerge.

Nevertheless, inklings of the truth leaked out. The flying machine had
been seen by many persons hovering by night high above the Orange hills
and disappearing in the faint starlight as if it had gone away into the
depths of space, out of which it would re-emerge before the morning
light had streaked the east, and be seen settling down again within the
walls that surrounded the laboratory of the great inventor. At length
the rumor, gradually deepening into a conviction, spread that Edison
himself, accompanied by a few scientific friends, had made an
experimental trip to the moon. At a time when the spirit of mankind was
less profoundly stirred, such a story would have been received with
complete incredulity, but now, rising on the wings of the new hope that
was buoying up the earth, this extraordinary rumor became a day star of
truth to the nations.

And it was true. I had myself been one of the occupants of the car of
the flying Ship of Space on that night when it silently left the earth,
and rising out of the great shadow of the globe, sped on to the moon. We
had landed upon the scarred and desolate face of the earth's satellite,
and but that there are greater and more interesting events, the telling
of which must not be delayed, I should undertake to describe the
particulars of this first visit of men to another world.

[Illustration: _I had myself been one of the occupants of the car
of the flying Ship of Space on that night, when it silently left the
earth, and, rising out of the great shadow of the globe, sped on to the
moon._]

But, as I have already intimated, this was only an experimental trip. By
visiting this little nearby island in the ocean of space, Mr. Edison
simply wished to demonstrate the practicability of his invention, and to
convince, first of all, himself and his scientific friends that it was
possible for men--mortal men--to quit and to revisit the earth at their
will. That aim this experimental trip triumphantly attained.

It would carry me into technical details that would hardly interest the
reader to describe the mechanism of Mr. Edison's flying machine. Let it
suffice to say that it depended upon the principal of electrical
attraction and repulsion. By means of a most ingenious and complicated
construction he had mastered the problem of how to produce, in a limited
space, electricity of any desired potential and of any polarity, and
that without danger to the experimenter or to the material experimented
upon. It is gravitation, as everybody knows, that makes man a prisoner
on the earth. If he could overcome, or neutralize, gravitation he could
float away, a free creature of interstellar space. Mr. Edison in his
invention had pitted electricity against gravitation. Nature, in fact,
had done the same thing long before. Every astronomer knew it, but none
had been able to imitate or to reproduce this miracle of nature. When a
comet approaches the sun, the orbit in which it travels indicates that
it is moving under the impulse of the sun's gravitation. It is in
reality falling in a great parabolic or elliptical curve through space.
But, while a comet approaches the sun it begins to display--stretching
out for millions, and sometimes hundreds of millions of miles on the
side away from the sun--an immense luminous train called its tail. This
train extends back into that part of space from which the comet is
moving. Thus the sun at one and the same time is drawing the comet
toward itself and driving off from the comet in an opposite direction
minute particles or atoms which, instead of obeying the gravitational
force, are plainly compelled to disobey it. That this energy, which the
sun exercises against its own gravitation, is electrical in its nature,
hardly anybody will doubt. The head of the comet being comparatively
heavy and massive, falls on toward the sun, despite the electrical
repulsion. But the atoms which form the tail, being almost without
weight, yield to the electrical rather than to the gravitational
influence, and so fly away from the sun.

Now, what Mr. Edison had done was, in effect, to create an electrified
particle which might be compared to one of the atoms composing the tail
of a comet, although in reality it was a kind of car, of metal, weighing
some hundreds of pounds and capable of bearing some thousands of pounds
with it in its flight. By producing, with the aid of the electrical
generator contained in this car, an enormous charge of electricity, Mr.
Edison was able to counterbalance, and a trifle more than
counterbalance, the attraction of the earth, and thus cause the car to
fly off from the earth as an electrified pithball flies from the prime
conductor.

As we sat in the brilliantly lighted chamber that formed the interior of
the car, and where stores of compressed air had been provided together
with chemical apparatus, by means of which fresh supplies of oxygen and
nitrogen might be obtained for our consumption during the flight through
space, Mr. Edison touched a polished button, thus causing the generation
of the required electrical charge on the exterior of the car, and
immediately we began to rise.

The moment and direction of our flight had been so timed and
prearranged, that the original impulse would carry us straight toward
the moon.

When we fell within the sphere of attraction of that orb it only became
necessary to so manipulate the electrical charge upon our car as nearly,
but not quite, to counterbalance the effect of the moon's attraction in
order that we might gradually approach it and with an easy motion,
settle, without shock, upon its surface.

We did not remain to examine the wonders of the moon, although we could
not fail to observe many curious things therein. Having demonstrated the
fact that we could not only leave the earth, but could journey through
space and safely land upon the surface of another planet, Mr. Edison's
immediate purpose was fulfilled, and we hastened back to the earth,
employing in leaving the moon and landing again upon our own planet the
same means of control over the electrical attraction and repulsion
between the respective planets and our car which I have already
described.

When actual experiment had thus demonstrated the practicability of the
invention, Mr. Edison no longer withheld the news of what he had been
doing from the world. The telegraph lines and the ocean cables labored
with the messages that in endless succession, and burdened with an
infinity of detail, were sent all over the earth. Everywhere the utmost
enthusiasm was aroused.

"Let the Martians come," was the cry. "If necessary, we can quit the
earth as the Athenians fled from Athens before the advancing host of
Xerxes, and like them, take refuge upon our ships--these new ships of
space, with which American inventiveness has furnished us."

And then, like a flash, some genius struck out an idea that fired the
world.

"Why should we wait? Why should we run the risk of having our cities
destroyed and our lands desolated a second time? Let us go to Mars. We
have the means. Let us beard the lion in his den. Let us ourselves turn
conquerors and take possession of that detestable planet, and if
necessary, destroy it in order to relieve the earth of this perpetual
threat which now hangs over us like the sword of Damocles."




CHAPTER TWO

_THE DISINTEGRATOR_


This enthusiasm would have had but little justification had Mr. Edison
done nothing more than invent a machine which could navigate the
atmosphere and the regions of interplanetary space.

He had, however, and this fact was generally known, although the details
had not yet leaked out--invented also machines of war intended to meet
the utmost that the Martians could do for either offence or defence in
the struggle which was now about to ensue.

Acting upon the hint which had been conveyed from various investigations
in the domain of physics, and concentrating upon the problem all those
unmatched powers of intellect which distinguished him, the great
inventor had succeeded in producing a little implement which one could
carry in his hand, but which was more powerful than any battleship that
ever floated. The details of its mechanism could not be easily
explained, without the use of tedious technicalities and the employment
of terms, diagrams and mathematical statements, all of which would lie
outside the scope of this narrative. But the principle of the thing was
simple enough. It was upon the great scientific doctrine, which we have
since seen so completely and brilliantly developed, of the law of
harmonic vibrations, extending from atoms and molecules at one end of
the series up to the worlds and suns at the other end, that Mr. Edison
based his invention.

Every kind of substance has its own vibratory rhythm. That of iron
differs from that of pine wood. The atoms of gold do not vibrate in the
same time or through the same range as those of lead, and so on for all
known substances, and all the chemical elements. So, on a larger scale,
every massive body has its period of vibration. A great suspension
bridge vibrates, under the impulse of forces that are applied to it, in
long periods. No company of soldiers ever crosses such a bridge without
breaking step. If they tramped together, and were followed by other
companies keeping the same time with their feet, after a while the
vibrations of the bridge would become so great and destructive that it
would fall in pieces. So any structure, if its vibration rate is known,
could easily be destroyed by a force applied to it in such a way that it
should simply increase the swing of those vibrations up to the point of
destruction.

Now Mr. Edison had been able to ascertain the vibratory swing of many
well known substances, and to produce, by means of the instrument which
he had contrived, pulsations in the ether which were completely under
his control, and which could be made long or short, quick or slow, at
his will. He could run through the whole gamut from the slow vibrations
of sound in air up to the four hundred and twenty-five millions of
millions of vibrations per second of the ultra red rays.

Having obtained an instrument of such power, it only remained to
concentrate its energy upon a given object in order that the atoms
composing that object should be set into violent undulation, sufficient
to burst it asunder and to scatter its molecules broadcast. This the
inventor effected by the simplest means in the world--simply a parabolic
reflector by which the destructive waves could be sent like a beam of
light, but invisible, in any direction and focused upon any desired
point.

I had the good fortune to be present when this powerful engine of
destruction was submitted to its first test. We had gone upon the roof
of Mr. Edison's laboratory and the inventor held the little instrument,
with its attached mirror, in his hand. We looked about for some object
on which to try its powers. On a bare limb of a tree not far away, for
it was late in fall, sat a disconsolate crow.

"Good," said Mr. Edison, "that will do." He touched a button at the side
of the instrument and a soft, whirring noise was heard.

"Feathers," said Mr. Edison, "have a vibration period of three hundred
and eighty-six million per second."

He adjusted the index as he spoke. Then, through a sighting tube, he
aimed at the bird.

"Now watch," he said.

Another soft whirr in the instrument, a momentary flash of light close
around it, and, behold, the crow had turned from black to white!

"Its feathers are gone," said the inventor; "they have been dissipated
into their constituent atoms. Now, we will finish the crow."

Instantly there was another adjustment of the index, another outshooting
of vibratory force, a rapid up and down motion of the index to include a
certain range of vibrations, and the crow itself was gone--vanished in
empty space! There was the bare twig on which a moment before it had
stood. Behind, in the sky, was the white cloud against which its black
form had been sharply outlined, but there was no more crow.

"That looks bad for the Martians, doesn't it?" said the Wizard. "I have
ascertained the vibration rate of all the materials of which their war
engines, whose remains we have collected together, are composed. They
can be shattered into nothingness in the fraction of a second. Even if
the vibration period were not known, it could quickly be hit upon by
simply running through the gamut."

"Hurrah!" cried one of the onlookers. "We have met the Martians and they
are ours."

Such in brief was the first of the contrivances which Mr. Edison
invented for the approaching war with Mars.

And these facts had become widely known. Additional experiments had
completed the demonstration of the inventor's ability, with the aid of
his wonderful instrument, to destroy any given object, or any part of an
object, provided that that part differed in its atomic constitution, and
consequently in its vibratory period, from the other parts.

A most impressive public exhibit of the powers of the little
disintegrator was given amid the ruins of New York. On lower Broadway a
part of the walls of one of the gigantic buildings, which had been
destroyed by the Martians, impended in such a manner that it threatened
at any moment to fall upon the heads of the passersby. The Fire
Department did not dare touch it. To blow it up seemed a dangerous
expedient, because already new buildings had been erected in its
neighborhood, and their safety would be imperilled by the flying
fragments. The fact happened to come to my knowledge.

"Here is an opportunity," I said to Mr. Edison, "to try the powers of
your machine on a large scale."

"Capital," he instantly replied. "I shall go at once."

For the work now in hand it was necessary to employ a battery of
disintegrators, since the field of destruction covered by each was
comparatively limited. All of the impending portions of the wall must be
destroyed at once and together, for otherwise the danger would rather be
accentuated rather than annihilated. The disintegrators were placed upon
the roof of a neighboring building, so adjusted that their fields of
destruction overlapped one another upon the wall. Their indexes were all
set to correspond with the vibration period of the peculiar kind of
brick of which the wall consisted. Then the energy was turned on, and a
shout of wonder arose from the multitudes which had assembled at a safe
distance to witness the experiment.

The wall did not fall; it did not break asunder; no fragments shot this
way and that and high in the air; there was no explosion; no shock or
noise disturbed the still atmosphere--only a soft whirr, that seemed to
pervade everything and to tingle in the nerves of the spectators;
and--what had been was not! The wall was gone! But high above and all
around the place where it had hung over the street with its threat of
death there appeared, swiftly billowing outward in every direction, a
faint bluish cloud. It was the scattered atoms of the destroyed wall.

And now the cry "On to Mars!" was heard on all sides. But for such an
enterprise funds were needed--millions upon millions. Yet some of the
fairest and richest portions of the earth had been impoverished by the
frightful ravages of those enemies who had dropped down upon them from
the skies. Still, the money must be had. The salvation of the planet, as
everyone was now convinced, depended upon the successful negotiation of
a gigantic war fund, in comparison with which all the expenditures in
all of the wars that had been waged by the nations for 2,000 years would
be insignificant. The electrical ships and the vibration engines must be
constructed by scores and thousands. Only Mr. Edison's immense resources
and unrivaled equipment had enabled him to make the models whose powers
had been so satisfactorily shown. But to multiply these upon a war scale
was not only beyond the resources of any individual--hardly a nation on
the globe in the period of its greatest prosperity could have undertaken
such a work. All the nations, then, must now conjoin. They must unite
their resources, and if necessary, exhaust all their hoards, in order to
raise the needed sum.

Negotiations were at once begun. The United States naturally took the
lead, and their leadership was never for a moment questioned abroad.

Washington was selected as the place of meeting for a great congress of
nations. Washington, luckily, had been one of the places which had not
been touched by the Martians. But if Washington had been a city composed
of hotels alone, and every hotel so great as to be a little city in
itself, it would have been utterly insufficient for the accommodation of
the innumerable throngs which now flocked to the banks of the Potomac.
But when was American enterprise unequal to a crisis? The necessary
hotels, lodging-houses and restaurants were constructed with astounding
rapidity. One could see the city growing and expanding day by day and
week after week. It flowed over Georgetown Heights; it leaped the
Potomac; it spread east and west, south and north; square mile after
square mile of territory was buried under the advancing buildings, until
the gigantic city, which had thus grown up like a mushroom in a night,
was fully capable of accommodating all its expected guests.

At first it had been intended that the heads of the various governments
should in person attend this universal congress, but as the enterprise
went on, as the enthusiasm spread, as the necessity for haste became
more apparent through the warning notes which were constantly sounded
from the observatories where the astronomers were nightly beholding new
evidences of threatening preparations in Mars, the kings and queens of
the old world felt that they could not remain at home; that their proper
place was at the new focus and center of the whole world--the city of
Washington. Without concerted action, without interchange of suggestion,
this impulse seemed to seize all the old world monarchs at once.
Suddenly cablegrams flashed to the government at Washington, announcing
that Queen Victoria, the Emperor William, the Czar Nicholas, Alphonso of
Spain, with his mother, Maria Christina; the old emperor Francis Joseph
and the empress Elizabeth, of Austria; King Oscar and Queen Sophia, of
Sweden and Norway; King Humbert and Queen Margherita, of Italy; King
George and Queen Olga, of Greece; Abdul Hamid, of Turkey; Tsait'ien,
Emperor of China; Mutsuhito, the Japanese Mikado, with his beautiful
Princess Haruko; the President of France, the President of Switzerland,
the First Syndic of the little republic of Andorra, perched on the crest
of the Pyrenees, and the heads of all the Central and South American
republics, were coming to Washington to take part in the deliberations,
which, it was felt, were to settle the fate of earth and Mars.

One day, after this announcement had been received, and the additional
news had come that nearly all the visiting monarchs had set out,
attended by brilliant suites and convoyed by fleets of warships, for
their destination, some coming across the Atlantic to the port of New
York, others across the Pacific to San Francisco, Mr. Edison said to me:

"This will be a fine spectacle. Would you like to watch it?"

"Certainly," I replied.

The Ship of Space was immediately at our disposal. I think I have not
yet mentioned the fact that the inventor's control over the electrical
generator carried in the car was so perfect that by varying the
potential or changing the polarity he could cause it slowly or swiftly,
as might be desired, to approach or recede from any object. The only
practical difficulty was presented when the polarity of the electrical
charge upon an object in the neighborhood of the car was unknown to
those in the car, and happened to be opposite to that of the charge to
which the car, at that particular moment was bearing. In such a case, of
course, the car would fly toward the object, whatever it might be, like
a pithball or a feather, attracted to the knob of an electrical machine.
In this way, considerable danger was occasionally encountered, and a few
accidents could not be avoided. Fortunately, however, such cases were
rare. It was only now and then that, owing to some local cause,
electrical polarities unknown to or unexpected by the navigators,
endangered the safety of the car. As I shall have occasion to relate
however, in the course of the narrative, this danger became more acute
and assumed at times a most formidable phase, when we had ventured
outside the sphere of the earth and were moving through the unexplored
regions beyond.

On this occasion, having embarked, we rose rapidly to a height of some
thousands of feet and directed our course over the Atlantic. When
half-way to Ireland, we beheld, in the distance, steaming westward, the
smoke of several fleets. As we drew nearer a marvelous spectacle
unfolded itself to our eyes. From the northeast, their great guns
flashing in the sunlight and their huge funnels belching black volumes
that rested like thunder clouds upon the sea, came the mighty warships
of England, with her meteor flag streaming red in the breeze, while the
royal insignia, indicating the presence of the ruler of the British
Empire, was conspicuously displayed upon the flagship of the squadron.

Following a course more directly westward there appeared, under another
black cloud of smoke, the hulls and guns and burgeons of another great
fleet, carrying the tri-color of France, and bearing in its midst the
head of the magnificent republic of western Europe.

Further south, beating up against the northerly winds came a third fleet
with the gold and red of Spain fluttering from its masthead. This, too,
was carrying its King westward, where now, indeed, the star of empire
had taken its way.

Rising a little higher, so as to extend our horizon, we saw coming down
the English channel, behind the British fleet, the black ships of
Russia. Side by side, or following one another's lead, these war fleets
were on a peaceful voyage that belied their threatening appearance.
There had been no thought of danger to or from the forts and ports of
rival nations which they had passed. There was no enmity, and no fear
between them when the throats of their ponderous guns yawned at one
another across the waves. They were now, in spirit, all one fleet,
having one object, bearing against one enemy, ready to defend but one
country, and that country was the entire earth.

It was some time before we caught sight of the emperor William's fleet.
It seems that the Kaiser, although at first consenting to the
arrangement by which Washington had been selected as the assembling
place for the nations, afterwards objected to it.

"I ought to do this thing myself," he had said. "My glorious ancestors
would never have consented to allow these upstart Republicans to lead in
a warlike enterprise of this kind. What would my grandfather have said
to it? I suspect that it is some scheme aimed at the divine right of
kings."

But the good sense of the German people would not suffer their ruler to
place them in a position so false and so untenable. And swept along by
their enthusiasm the Kaiser had at last consented to embark upon his
flagship at Kiel, and now he was following the other fleets on their
great mission to the Western Continent.

Why did they bring their warships when their intentions were peaceable,
do you ask? Well, it was partly the effect of ancient habit, and partly
due to the fact that such multitudes of officials and members of ruling
families wished to embark for Washington that the ordinary means of
ocean communications would have been utterly inadequate to convey them.

After we had feasted our eyes on this strange sight, Mr. Edison suddenly
exclaimed: "Now let us see the fellows from the rising sun."

The car was immediately directed toward the west. We rapidly approached
the American coast, and as we sailed over the Allegheny Mountains and
the broad plains of the Ohio and the Mississippi, we saw crawling
beneath us from west, south and north, an endless succession of railway
trains bearing their multitudes on toward Washington. With marvelous
speed we rushed westward, rising high to skim over the snow-topped peaks
of the Rocky Mountains and then the glittering rim of the Pacific was
before us. Half-way between the American Coast and Hawaii we met the
fleets coming from China and Japan. Side by side they were plowing the
main, having forgotten, or laid aside, all the animosities of their
former wars.

I well remember how my heart was stirred at this impressive exhibition
of the boundless influence which my country had come to exercise over
all the people of the world, and I turned to look at the man to whose
genius this uprising of the earth was due. But Mr. Edison, after his
wont, appeared totally unconscious of the fact that he was personally
responsible for what was going on. His mind, seemingly, was entirely
absorbed in considering problems, the solution of which might be
essential to our success in the terrific struggle which was soon to
begin.

"Well, have you seen enough?" he asked. "Then let us go back to
Washington."

As we speeded back across the continent we beheld beneath us again the
burdened express trains rushing toward the Atlantic, and hundreds of
thousands of upturned eyes watched our swift progress, and volleys of
cheers reached our ears, for everyone knew that this was Edison's
electrical warship, on which the hope of the nation, and the hopes of
all the nations, depended. These scenes were repeated again and again
until the car hovered over the still expanding capitol on the Potomac,
where the unceasing ring of hammers rose to the clouds.

[Illustration: _A consultation in Wizard Edison's laboratory
between him and Professor Serviss on the best means of repaying the
damage wrought upon this planet by the Martians._]




CHAPTER THREE

_THE CONGRESS OF NATIONS_


The day appointed for the assembling of the nations in Washington opened
bright and beautiful. Arrangements had been made for the reception of
the distinguished guests at the Capitol. No time was to be wasted, and
having assembled in the Senate Chamber, the business that had called
them together was to be immediately begun. The scene in Pennsylvania
Avenue, when the procession of dignitaries and royalties passed up
toward the Capitol was one never to be forgotten. Bands were playing,
magnificent equipages flashed in the morning sunlight, the flags of
every nation on the earth fluttered in the breeze. Queen Victoria, with
the Prince of Wales escorting her, and riding in an open carriage, was
greeted with roars of cheers; the emperor William, following in another
carriage with empress Victoria at his side, condescended to bow and
smile in response to the greetings of a free people. Each of the other
monarchs was received in a similar manner. The Czar of Russia proved to
be an especial favorite with the multitude on account of the ancient
friendship of his house for America. But the greatest applause of all
came when the President of France, followed by the President of
Switzerland and the First Syndic of the little republic of Andorra, made
their appearance. Equally warm were the greetings extended to the
representatives of Mexico and the South American States.

The crowd apparently hardly knew at first how to receive the Sultan of
Turkey, but the universal good feeling was in his favor, and finally
rounds of hand clapping and cheers greeted his progress along the
splendid avenue.

A happy idea had apparently occurred to the Emperor of China and the
Mikado of Japan, for, attended by their intermingled suites, they rode
together in a single carriage. This object lesson in the unity of
international feeling immensely pleased the spectators.

The scene in the Senate Chamber stirred everyone profoundly. That it was
brilliant and magnificent goes without saying, but there was a
seriousness, an intense feeling of expectancy, pervading both those who
looked on and those who were to do the work for which these magnates of
the earth had assembled, which produced an ineradicable impression. The
President of the United States, of course, presided. Representatives of
the greater powers occupied the front seats, and some of them were
honored with special chairs near the President.

No time was wasted in preliminaries. The President made a brief speech.

"We have come together," he said, "to consider a question that equally
interests the whole earth. I need not remind you that unexpectedly and
without provocation on our part the people--the monsters, I should
rather say--of Mars, recently came down upon the earth, attacked us in
our homes and spread desolation around them. Having the advantage of
ages of evolution, which for us are yet in the future, they brought with
them engines of death and destruction against which we found it
impossible to contend. It is within the memory of every one within reach
of my voice that it was through the entirely unexpected succor which
Providence sent us that we were suddenly and effectually freed from the
invaders. By our own efforts we could have done nothing.

"But, as you all know, the first feeling of relief which followed the
death of our foes was quickly succeeded by the fearful news which came
to us from the observatories, that the Martians were undoubtedly
preparing for a second invasion of our planet. Against this we should
have had no recourse and no hope but for the genius of one of my
countrymen, who, as you are all aware, has perfected means which may
enable us not only to withstand the attack of those awful enemies, but
to meet them, and, let us hope, to conquer them on their own ground.

"Mr. Edison is here to explain to you what those means are. But we have
also another object. Whether we send a fleet of interplanetary ships to
invade Mars or whether we simply confine our attention to works of
defense, in either case it will be necessary to raise a very large sum
of money. None of us has yet recovered from the effects of the recent
invasion. The earth is poor today compared to its position a few years
ago; yet we can not allow our poverty to stand in the way. The money,
the means, must be had. It will be part of our business here to raise a
gigantic war fund by the aid of which we can construct the equipment and
machinery that we shall require. This, I think, is all I need to say.
Let us proceed to business."

"Where is Mr. Edison?" cried a voice.

"Will Mr. Edison please step forward?" said the President.

There was a stir in the assembly, and the iron-grey head of the great
inventor was seen moving through the crowd. In his hand he carried one
of his marvelous disintegrators. He was requested to explain and
illustrate its operation. Mr. Edison smiled.

"I can explain its details," he said, "to Lord Kelvin, for instance, but
if Their Majesties will excuse me, I doubt whether I can make it plain
to the Crown Heads."

The Emperor William smiled superciliously. Apparently he thought that
another assault had been committed upon the divine right of kings. But
the Czar Nicholas appeared to be amused, and the Emperor of China, who
had been studying English, laughed in his sleeve, as if he suspected
that a joke had been perpetrated.

"I think," said one of the deputies, "that a simple exhibition of the
powers of the instrument, without a technical explanation of its method
of working, will suffice for our purpose."

This suggestion was immediately approved. In response to it, Mr. Edison,
by a few simple experiments, showed how he could quickly and certainly
shatter into its constituent atoms any object upon which the vibratory
force of the disintegrator should be directed. In this manner he caused
an inkstand to disappear under the very nose of the Emperor William
without a spot of ink being scattered upon his sacred person, but
evidently the odor of the disunited atoms was not agreeable to the
nostrils of the Kaiser.

Mr. Edison also explained in general terms the principle on which the
instrument worked. He was greeted with round after round of applause,
and the spirit of the assembly rose high.

Next the workings of the electrical ship were explained, and it was
announced that after the meeting had adjourned an exhibition of the
flying powers of the ship would be given in the open air.

These experiments, together with the accompanying explanations, added to
what had already been disseminated through the public press, were quite
sufficient to convince all the representatives who had assembled in
Washington that the problem of how to conquer the Martians had been
solved. The means were plainly at hand. It only remained to apply them.
For this purpose, as the President had pointed out, it would be
necessary to raise a very large sum of money.

"How much will be needed?" asked one of the English representatives.

"At least ten thousand millions of dollars," replied the President.

"It would be safer," said a Senator from the Pacific Coast, "to make it
twenty five thousand millions."

"I suggest," said the King of Italy, "that the nations be called in
alphabetical order, and that the representatives of each name a sum
which he is ready and able to contribute."

"We want the cash or its equivalent," shouted the Pacific Coast Senator.

"I shall not follow the alphabet strictly," said the President, "but
shall begin with the larger nations first. Perhaps, under the
circumstances, it is proper that the United States should lead the way.
Mr. Secretary," he continued, turning to the Secretary of the Treasury,
"how much can we stand?"

"At least a thousand millions," replied the Secretary of the Treasury.

A roar of applause that shook the room burst from the assembly. Even
some of the monarchs threw up their hats. The Emperor Tsait'ien smiled
from ear to ear. One of the Roko Tuis, or native chiefs, from Fiji,
sprang up and brandished a war club.

The President then proceeded to call the other nations, beginning with
Austria-Hungary and ending with Zanzibar, whose Sultan, Hamoud bin
Mahomed, had come to the congress in the escort of Queen Victoria. Each
contributed liberally.

Germany, coming in alphabetical order just before Great Britain, had
named, through its chancellor, the sum of $500,000,000, but when the
First Lord of the British Treasury, not wishing to be behind the United
States, named double that sum as the contribution of the British Empire,
the Emperor William looked displeased. He spoke a word in the ear of the
Chancellor who immediately raised his hand.

"We will give a thousand million dollars," said the Chancellor.

Queen Victoria seemed surprised, though not displeased. The First Lord
of the Treasury met her eye, and then, rising in his place, said:

"Make it fifteen hundred million for Great Britain."

Emperor William consulted again with his Chancellor, but evidently
concluded not to increase his bid.

But, at any rate, the fund had benefited to the amount of a thousand
millions by this little outburst of imperial rivalry.

The greatest surprise of all, however, came when the King of Siam was
called upon for his contribution. He had not been given a foremost place
in the Congress, but when the name of his country was pronounced he rose
by his chair, dressed in a gorgeous specimen of the peculiar attire of
his country, then slowly pushed his way to the front, stepped up to the
President's desk and deposited upon it a small box.

"This is our contribution," he said in broken English.

The cover was lifted, and there darted, shimmering in the half-gloom of
the Chamber, a burst of iridescence from the box.

"My friends of the Western world," continued the King of Siam, "will be
interested in seeing this gem. Only once before has the eye of a
European been blessed with the sight of it. Your books will tell you
that in the seventeenth century a traveller, Tavernier, saw in India an
unmatched diamond which afterward disappeared like a meteor, and was
thought to have been lost from the earth. You all know the name of that
diamond and its history. It is the Great Mogul, and it lies before you.
How it came into my possession I shall not explain. At any rate, it is
honestly mine, and I freely contribute it here to aid in protecting my
native planet against those enemies who appear determined to destroy
it."

When the excitement which the appearance of this long lost treasure,
that had been the subject of so many romances and of such long and
fruitless search, had subsided, the President continued calling the
list, until he had completed it.

Upon taking the sum of the contributions (the Great Mogul was reckoned
at three millions) it was found to be still one thousand millions short
of the required amount.

The secretary of the Treasury was instantly on his feet.

"Mr. President," he said, "I think we can stand that addition. Let it be
added to the contribution of the United States of America."

When the cheers that greeted the conclusion of the business were over,
the President announced that the next affair of the Congress was to
select a director who should have entire charge of the preparations for
the war. It was the universal sentiment that no man could be so well
suited for this post as Mr. Edison himself. He was accordingly selected
by the unanimous and enthusiastic choice of the great assembly.

"How long a time do you require to put everything in readiness?" asked
the President.

"Give me _carte blanche_," replied Mr. Edison, "and I believe I can have
a hundred electric ships and three thousand disintegrators ready within
six months."

A tremendous cheer greeted this announcement.

"Your powers are unlimited," said the President, "draw on the fund for
as much money as you need," whereupon the Treasurer of the United States
was made the disbursing officer of the fund, and the meeting adjourned.

Not less than 5,000,000 people had assembled at Washington from all
parts of the world. Every one of this immense multitude had been able to
listen to the speeches and the cheers in the Senate Chamber, although
not personally present there. Wires had been run all over the city, and
hundreds of improved telephonic receivers provided, so that everyone
could hear. Even those who were unable to visit Washington, people
living in Baltimore, New York, Boston, and as far away as New Orleans,
St. Louis and Chicago, had also listened to the proceedings with the aid
of these receivers. Upon the whole, probably not less than 50,000,000
people had heard the deliberations of the great congress of the nations.

The telegraph and the cable had sent the news across the oceans to all
the capitols of the earth. The exultation was so great that the people
seemed mad with joy.

The promised exhibition of the electrical ship took place the next day.
Enormous multitudes witnessed the experiment, and there was a struggle
for places in the car. Even Queen Victoria, accompanied by the Prince of
Wales, ventured to take a ride in it, and they enjoyed it so much that
Mr. Edison prolonged the journey as far as Boston and the Bunker Hill
monument.

Most of the other monarchs also took a high ride, but when the turn of
the Emperor of China came he repeated a fable which he said had come
down from the time of Confucius:

"Once upon a time there was a Chinaman living in the valley of the
Hoang-Ho River, who was accustomed frequently to lie on his back, gazing
at, and envying, the birds that he saw flying away in the sky. One day
he saw a black speck which rapidly grew larger and larger, until as it
got near he perceived that it was an enormous bird, which overshadowed
the earth with its wings. It was the elephant of birds, the roc. 'Come
with me,' said the roc, 'and I will show you the wonders of the kingdom
of the birds.' The man caught hold of its claw and nestled among its
feathers, and they rapidly rose high in the air, and sailed away to the
Kuen-Lun Mountains. Here, as they passed near the top of the peaks,
another roc made its appearance. The wings of the two great birds
brushed together, and immediately they fell to fighting. In the midst of
the melee the man lost his hold and tumbled into the top of a tree,
where his pigtail caught on a branch, and he remained suspended. There
the unfortunate man hung helpless, until a rat, which had its home in
the rocks at the foot of the tree, took compassion upon him, and,
climbing up, gnawed off the branch. As the man slowly and painfully
wended his weary way homeward, he said: 'This teaches me that creatures
to whom nature has given neither feathers nor wings should leave the
kingdom of the birds to those who are fitted to inhabit it.'"

Having told this story, Tsait'ien turned his back on the electrical
ship.

After the exhibition was finished, and amid the fresh outburst of
enthusiasm that followed, it was suggested that a proper way to wind up
the Congress and give suitable expression to the festive mood which now
possessed mankind would be to have a grand ball. This suggestion met
with immediate and universal approval.

But for so gigantic an affair it was, of course, necessary to make
special preparations. A convenient place was selected on the Virginia
side of the Potomac; a space of ten acres was carefully levelled and
covered with a polished floor, rows of columns one hundred feet apart
were run across it in every direction, and these were decorated with
electric lights, displaying every color of the spectrum.

Above this immense space, rising in the center to a height of more than
a thousand feet, was anchored a vast number of balloons, all aglow with
lights, and forming a tremendous dome, in which brilliant lamps were
arranged in such a manner as to exhibit, in an endless succession of
combinations, all the national colors, ensigns and insignia of the
various countries represented at the Congress. Blazing eagles, lions,
unicorns, dragons and other imaginary creatures that the different
nations had chosen for their symbols appeared to hover high above the
dancers, shedding a brilliant light upon the scene.

Circles of magnificent thrones were placed upon the floor in convenient
locations for seeing. A thousand bands of music played, and tens of
thousands of couples, gayly dressed and flashing with gems, whirled
together upon the polished floor.

The Queen of England led the dance, on the arm of the President of the
United States.

The Prince of Wales led forth the fair daughter of the President,
universally admired as the most beautiful woman on the great ballroom
floor.

The Emperor William, in his military dress, danced with the beauteous
Princess Masaco, the daughter of the Mikado, who wore for the occasion
the ancient costume of the women of her country, sparkling with jewels,
and glowing with quaint combinations of color like a gorgeous butterfly.

The Chinese Emperor, with his pigtail flying high as he spun, danced
with the Empress of Russia.

The King of Siam essayed a waltz with the Queen Ranavalona of
Madagascar, while the Sultan of Turkey basked in the smiles of a Chicago
heiress to a hundred millions.

The Czar chose for his partner a dark-eyed beauty from Peru, but King
Malietoa, of Samoa, was suspicious of civilized charmers and, avoiding
all of their allurements, expressed his joy and gave vent to his
enthusiasm in a _pas seul_. In this he was quickly joined by a band of
Sioux Indian chiefs, whose whoops and yells so startled the leader of a
German band on their part of the floor that he dropped his baton, and
followed by the musicians, took to his heels.

This incident amused the good-natured Emperor of China more than
anything else that had occurred.

"Make muchee noisee," he said, indicating the fleeing musicians with his
thumb. "Allee samee muchee flaid noisee," and then his round face
dimpled into another laugh.

The scene from the outside was even more imposing than that which
greeted the eye within the brilliantly lighted enclosure. Far away in
the night, rising high among the stars, the vast dome of illuminated
balloons seemed, like some supernatural creation, too grand and glorious
to have been constructed by the inhabitants of the earth.

All around it, and from some of the balloons themselves, rose jets and
fountains of fire, ceasingly playing, and blotting out the
constellations of the heavens by their splendor.

The dance was followed by a grand banquet, at which the Prince of Wales
proposed a toast to Mr. Edison:

"It gives me much pleasure," he said, "to offer, in the name of the
nations of the Old World, this tribute of our admiration for, and our
confidence in, the genius of the New World. Perhaps on such an occasion
as this, when all racial differences and prejudices ought to be, and
are, buried and forgotten, I should not recall anything that might
revive them; yet I cannot refrain from expressing my happiness in
knowing that the champion who is to achieve the salvation of the earth
has come forth from the bosom of the Anglo-Saxon race."

Several of the great potentates looked grave upon hearing the Prince of
Wales' words, and the Czar and the Kaiser exchanged glances; but there
was no interruption to the cheers that followed. Mr. Edison, whose
modesty and dislike to display and to speechmaking were well known,
simply said:

"I think we have got the machine that can whip them. But we ought not to
be wasting any time. Probably they are not dancing on Mars, but are
getting ready to make us dance."

These words instantly turned the current of feeling in the vast
assembly. There was no longer any disposition to expend time in vain
boastings and rejoicings. Everywhere the cry now became, "Let us make
haste! Let us get ready at once! Who knows but the Martians have already
embarked, and are now on their way to destroy us?"

Under the impulse of this new feeling, which, it must be admitted, was
very largely inspired by terror, the vast ballroom was quickly deserted.
The lights were suddenly put out in the great dome of balloons, for
someone had whispered:

"Suppose they should see that from Mars? Would they not guess what we
were about, and redouble their preparations to finish us?"

Upon the suggestion of the President of the United States, an executive
committee, representing all the principal nations, was appointed, and
without delay a meeting of this committee was assembled at the White
House. Mr. Edison was summoned before it, and asked to sketch briefly
the plan upon which he proposed to work.

I need not enter into the details of what was done at this meeting. Let
it suffice to say that when it broke up, in the small hours of the
morning, it had been unanimously resolved that as many thousands of men
as Mr. Edison might require should be immediately placed at his
disposal; that as far as possible all the great manufacturing
establishments of the country should be instantly transformed into
factories where electrical ships and disintegrators could be built, and
upon the suggestion of Professor Sylvanus P. Thompson, the celebrated
English electrical expert, seconded by Lord Kelvin, it was resolved that
all the leading men of science in the world should place their services
at the disposal of Mr. Edison in any capacity in which, in his
judgement, they might be useful to him.

The members of this committee were disposed to congratulate one another
on the good work which they had so promptly accomplished, when at the
moment of their adjournment, a telegraphic dispatch was handed to the
President from Professor George E. Hale, the director of the great
Yerkes Observatory, in Wisconsin. The telegram read:

"Professor Barnard, watching Mars tonight with the forty-inch telescope,
saw a sudden outburst of reddish light, which we think indicates that
something has been shot from the planet. Spectroscopic observations of
this moving light indicated that it was coming earthward, while visible,
at the rate of not less than one hundred miles a second."

Hardly had the excitement caused by the reading of this dispatch
subsided, when others of a similar import came from the Lick
Observatory, in California; from the branch of the Harvard Observatory
at Arequipa, in Peru, and from the Royal Observatory, at Potsdam.

When the telegram from this last named place was read the Emperor
William turned to his Chancellor and said:

"I want to go home. If I am to die I prefer to leave my bones among
those of my imperial ancestors and not in this vulgar country, where no
king has ever ruled. I don't like this atmosphere. It makes me limp."

And now, whipped on by the lash of alternate hope and fear, the earth
sprang to its work of preparation.




CHAPTER FOUR

_TO CONQUER ANOTHER WORLD_


It is not necessary for me to describe the manner in which Mr. Edison
performed his tremendous task. He was as good as his word, and within
six months from the first stroke of the hammer, a hundred electrical
ships, each provided with a full battery of disintegrators, were
floating in the air above the harbor and the partially rebuilt city of
New York.

It was a wonderful scene. The polished sides of the huge floating cars
sparkled in the sunlight, and, as they slowly rose and fell, and swung
this way and that, upon the tides of the air, as if held by invisible
cables, the brilliant pennons streaming from their peaks waved up and
down like the wings of an assemblage of gigantic humming birds.

Not knowing whether the atmosphere of Mars would prove suitable to be
breathed by inhabitants of the earth, Mr. Edison had made provision, by
means of an abundance of glass-protected openings, to permit the inmates
of the electrical ships to survey their surroundings without quitting
the interior. It was possible by properly selecting the rate of
undulation, to pass the vibratory impulse from the disintegrators
through the glass windows of a car without damage to the glass itself.
The windows were so arranged that the disintegrators could sweep around
the car on all sides, and could also be directed above or below, as
necessity might dictate.

To overcome the destructive forces employed by the Martians no
satisfactory plan had yet been devised, because there was no means to
experiment with them. The production of those forces was still the
secret of our enemies. But Mr. Edison had no doubt that if we could not
resist their efforts we might at least be able to avoid them by the
rapidity of our motions. As he pointed out, the war machines which the
Martians had employed in their invasion of the earth, were really very
awkward and unmanageable affairs. Mr. Edison's electrical ships, on the
other hand, were marvels of speed and of manageability. They could dart
about, turn, reverse their course, rise, fall, with the quickness and
ease of a fish in the water. Mr. Edison calculated that even if
mysterious bolts should fall upon our ships we could diminish their
power to cause injury by our rapid evolutions.

We might be deceived in our expectations, and might have overestimated
our powers, but at any rate we must take our chances and try.

A multitude, exceeding even that which had assembled during the great
congress in Washington, now thronged New York and its neighborhood to
witness the mustering and the departure of the ships bound for Mars.
Nothing further had been heard of the mysterious phenomenon reported
from the observatories six months before, and which at the time was
believed to indicate the departure of another expedition from Mars for
the invasion of the earth. If the Martians had set out to attack us they
had evidently gone astray; or, perhaps, it was some other world that
they were aiming at this time.

The expedition had, of course, profoundly stirred the interest of the
scientific world, and representatives of every branch of science, from
all the civilized nations, urged their claims to places in the ships.
Mr. Edison was compelled, from lack of room, to refuse transportation to
more than one in a thousand of those who now, on the plea that they
might be able to bring back something of advantage to science, wished to
embark for Mars.

On the model of the celebrated corps of literary and scientific men
which Napoleon carried with him in his invasion of Egypt, Mr. Edison
selected a company of the foremost astronomers, archaeologists,
anthropologists, botanists, bacteriologists, chemists, physicists,
mathematicians, mechanics, meteorologists and experts in mining,
metallurgy and every other branch of practical science, as well as
artists and photographers. It was but reasonable to believe that in
another world, and a world so much older than the earth as Mars was,
these men would be able to gather materials in comparison with which the
discoveries made among the ruins of ancient empires in Egypt and
Babylonia would be insignificant indeed.

It was a wonderful undertaking and a strange spectacle. There was a
feeling of uncertainty which awed the vast multitude whose eyes were
upturned to the ships. The expedition was not large, considering the
gigantic character of the undertaking. Each of the electrical ships
carried about twenty men, together with an abundant supply of compressed
provisions, compressed air, scientific apparatus and so on. In all,
there were about 2,000 men, who were going to conquer, if they could,
another world!

But though few in numbers, they represented the flower of the earth, the
culmination of the genius of the planet. The greatest leaders in
science, both theoretical and practical, were there. It was the
evolution of the earth against the evolution of Mars. It was a planet in
the hey-day of its strength matched against an aged and decrepit world
which, nevertheless, in consequence of its long ages of existence, had
acquired an experience which made it a most dangerous foe. On both sides
there was desperation. The earth was desperate because it foresaw
destruction unless it could first destroy its enemy. Mars was desperate
because nature was gradually depriving it of the means of supporting
life, and its teeming population was compelled to swarm like the inmates
of an overcrowded hive of bees, and find new homes elsewhere. In this
respect the situation on Mars, as we were well aware, resembled what had
already been known upon the earth, where the older nations overflowing
with population had sought new lands in which to settle, and for that
purpose had driven out the native inhabitants, whenever those natives
had proven unable to resist the invasion.

No man could foresee the issue of what we were about to undertake, but
the tremendous powers which the disintegrators had exhibited and the
marvelous efficiency of the electrical ships bred almost universal
confidence that we should be successful.

The car in which Mr. Edison travelled was, of course, the flagship of
the squadron, and I had the good fortune to be included among its
inmates. Here, besides several leading men of science from our own
country, were Lord Kelvin, Lord Rayleigh, Professor Roentgen, Dr.
Moissan--the man who first made artificial diamonds--and several others
whose fame had encircled the world. Each of these men cherished hopes of
wonderful discoveries, along his line of investigation, to be made in
Mars.

An elaborate system of signals had, of course, to be devised for the
control of the squadron. These signals consisted of brilliant electric
lights displayed at night and so controlled that by their means long
sentences and directions could be easily and quickly transmitted.

The day signals consisted partly of brightly colored pennons and flags,
which were to serve only when, shadowed by clouds or other obstructions,
the full sunlight could not fall upon the ship. This could naturally
only occur near the surface of the earth or of another planet.

Once out of the shadow of the earth we should have no more clouds and no
more night until we arrived at Mars. In open space the sun would be
continually shining. It would be perpetual day for us, except as, by
artificial means, we furnished ourselves with darkness for the purpose
of promoting sleep. In this region of perpetual day, then, the signals
were also to be transmitted by flashes of light from mirrors reflecting
the rays of the sun.

Yet this perpetual day would be also, in one sense, a perpetual night.
There would be no more blue sky for us, because without an atmosphere
the sunlight could not be diffused. Objects would be illuminated only on
the side toward the sun. Anything that screened off the direct rays of
sunlight would produce absolute darkness behind it. There would be no
graduation of shadow. The sky would be as black as ink on all sides.

While it was the intention to remain as much as possible within the
cars, yet since it was probable that necessity would arise for
occasionally quitting the interior of the electrical ships, Mr. Edison
had provided for this emergency by inventing an air-tight dress
constructed somewhat after the manner of a diver's suit, but of much
lighter material. Each ship was provided with several of these suits, by
wearing which one could venture outside the ship even when it was beyond
the atmosphere of the earth.

Provision had been made to meet the terrific cold which we knew would be
encountered the moment we had passed beyond the atmosphere--that awful
absolute zero which men had measured by anticipation, but never yet
experienced--by a simple system of producing within the air-tight suits
a temperature sufficiently elevated to counteract the effects of the
frigidity without. By means of long, flexible tubes, air could be
continually supplied to the wearers of the suits, and by an ingenious
contrivance a store of compressed air sufficient to last for several
hours was provided for each suit, so that in case of necessity the
wearer could throw off the tubes connecting him with the air tanks in
the car. Another object which had been kept in view in the preparation
of these suits was the possible exploration of an airless planet, such
as the moon.

The necessity of some contrivance by means of which we should be enabled
to converse with one another while outside the cars in open space, or
when in an airless world, like the moon, where there would be no medium
by which the waves of sound could be conveyed as they are in the
atmosphere of the earth, had been foreseen by our great inventor, and he
had not found it difficult to contrive suitable devices for meeting the
emergency.

Inside the headpiece of each of the electrical suits was the mouthpiece
of a telephone. This was connected to a wire which, when not in use,
could be conveniently coiled upon the arm of the wearer. Near the ears,
similarly connected with wires, were telephonic receivers.

When two persons wearing the air-tight dresses wished to converse with
one another it was only necessary for them to connect themselves by the
wires, and conversation could then be easily carried on.

Careful calculations of the precise distance of Mars from the earth at
the time when the expedition was to start had been made by a large
number of experts in mathematical astronomy. But it was not Mr. Edison's
intention to go direct to Mars. With the exception of the first
electrical ship, which he had completed, none had yet been tried in a
long voyage. It was desirable that the qualities of each of the ships
should first be carefully tested, and for this reason the leader of the
expedition determined that the moon should be the first port of space at
which the squadron would call.

It chanced that the moon was so situated at this time as to be nearly in
a line between the earth and Mars, which latter was in opposition to the
sun, and consequently as favorably situated as possible for the purposes
of the voyage. What would be, then, for 99 out of the 100 ships of the
squadron, a trial trip would at the same time be a step of a quarter of
a million of miles gained in the direction of our journey, and so no
time would be wasted.

The departure from the earth was arranged to occur precisely at
midnight. The moon near the full was hanging high over head, and a
marvelous spectacle was presented to the eyes of those below as the
great squadron of floating ships, with their insignia lights ablaze,
cast loose and began slowly to move away on their adventurous and
unprecedented expedition into the great unknown. A tremendous cheer,
billowing up from the throats of millions of excited men and women,
seemed to rend the curtain of the night, and made the airships tremble
with the atmospheric vibrations that were set in motion.

Instantly magnificent fireworks were displayed in honor of our
departure. Rockets by hundreds of thousands shot heaven-ward, and then
burst in constellations of firey drops. The sudden illumination thus
produced, overspreading hundreds of square miles of the surface of the
earth with a light almost like that of day, must certainly have been
visible to the inhabitants of Mars, if they were watching us at the
time. They might, or might not, correctly interpret its significance;
but, at any rate, we did not care. We were off, and were confident that
we could meet our enemy on his own ground before he could attack us
again.

And now, as we slowly rose higher, a marvelous scene was disclosed. At
first the earth beneath us, buried as it was in night, resembled the
hollow of a vast cup of ebony blackness, in the center of which, like
the molten lava run together at the bottom of a volcanic crater, shone
the light of the illuminations around New York. But when we got beyond
the atmosphere, and the earth still continued to recede below us, its
aspect changed. The cup-shaped appearance was gone, and it began to
round out beneath our eyes in the form of a vast globe--an enormous ball
mysteriously suspended under us, glimmering over most of its surface,
with the faint illumination of the moon, and showing toward its eastern
edge the oncoming light of the rising sun.

When we were still further away, having slightly varied our course so
that the sun was once more entirely hidden behind the center of the
earth, we saw its atmosphere completely illuminated, all around it, with
prismatic lights, like a gigantic rainbow in the form of a ring.

Another shift in our course rapidly carried us out of the shadow of the
earth and into that all pervading sunshine. Then the great planet
beneath us hung unspeakable in its beauty. The outlines of several of
the continents were clearly discernible on its surface, streaked and
spotted with delicate shades of varying color, and the sunlight flashed
and glowed in long lanes across the convex surface of the oceans.
Parallel with the Equator and along the regions of the ever blowing
trade winds, were vast belts of clouds, gorgeous with crimson and purple
as the sunlight fell upon them. Immense expanses of snow and ice lay
like a glittering garment upon both land and sea around the North Pole.

As we gazed upon this magnificent spectacle, our hearts bounded within
us. This was our earth--this was the planet we were going to defend--our
home in the trackless wilderness of space. And it seemed to us indeed a
home for which we might gladly expend our last breath. A new
determination to conquer or die sprang up in our hearts, and I saw Lord
Kelvin, after gazing at the beauteous scene which the earth presented
through his eyeglass, turn about and peer in the direction in which we
knew that Mars lay, with a sudden frown that caused the glass to lose
its grip and fall dangling from its string upon his breast. Even Mr.
Edison seemed moved.

"I am glad I thought of the disintegrator," he said. "I shouldn't like
to see that world down there laid waste again."

"And it won't be," said Professor Sylvanus P. Thompson, gripping the
handle of an electric machine, "not if we can help it."




CHAPTER FIVE

_THE FOOTPRINT ON THE MOON_


To prevent accidents, it had been arranged that the ships should keep a
considerable distance apart. Some of them gradually drifted away, until,
on account of the neutral tint of their sides, they were swallowed up in
the abyss of space. Still it was possible to know where every member of
the squadron was through the constant interchange of signals. These, as
I have explained, were effected by means of mirrors flashing back the
light of the sun.

But, although it was now unceasing day for us, yet, there being no
atmosphere to diffuse the sun's light, the stars were visible to us just
as at night upon the earth, and they shone with extraordinary splendor
against the intense black background of the firmament. The lights of
some of the more distant ships of our squadron were not brighter than
the stars in whose neighborhood they seemed to be. In some cases it was
only possible to distinguish between the light of a ship and that of a
star by the fact that the former was continually flashing while the star
was steady in its radiance.

The most uncanny effect was produced by the absence of atmosphere around
us. Inside the car, where there was air, the sunlight, streaming through
one or more of the windows, was diffused and produced ordinary daylight.

But when we ventured outside we could only see things by halves. The
side of the car that the sun's rays touched was visible, the other side
was invisible, the light from the stars not making it bright enough to
affect the eye in contrast with the sun-illumined half.

As I held up my arm before my eyes, half of it seemed to be shaved off
lengthwise; a companion on the deck of the ship looked like half a man.
So the other electrical ships near us appeared as half ships, only the
illumined sides being visible.

We had now gotten so far away that the earth had taken on the appearance
of a heavenly body like the moon. Its colors had become all blended into
a golden-reddish hue, which overspread nearly its entire surface, except
at the poles, where there were broad patches of white. It was marvelous
to look at this huge orb behind us, while far beyond it shone the
blazing sun like an enormous star in the blackest of nights. In the
opposite direction appeared the silver orb of the moon, and scattered
all around were millions of brilliant stars, amid which, like fireflies,
flashed and sparkled the signal lights of the squadron.

A danger that might easily have been anticipated, that perhaps had been
anticipated, but against which it had been difficult, if not impossible,
to provide, presently manifested itself.

Looking out of a window toward the right, I suddenly noticed the lights
of a distant ship darting about in a curious curve. Instantly afterward,
another member of the squadron, nearer by, behaved in the same
inexplicable manner. Then two or three of the floating cars seemed to be
violently drawn from their courses and hurried rapidly in the direction
of the flagship. Immediately I perceived a small object, luridly
flaming, which seemed to move with immense speed in our direction.

The truth instantly flashed upon my mind, and I shouted to the other
occupants of the car:

"A meteor!"

And such indeed it was. We had met this mysterious wanderer in space at
a moment when we were moving in a direction at right angles to the path
it was pursuing around the sun. Small as it was, and its diameter
probably did not exceed a single foot, it was yet an independent little
world, and as such a member of the solar system. Its distance from the
sun being so near that of the earth, I knew that its velocity, assuming
it to be travelling in a nearly circular orbit, must be about eighteen
miles in a second. With this velocity, then, it plunged like a
projectile shot by some mysterious enemy in space directly through our
squadron. It had come and was gone before one could utter a sentence of
three words. Its appearance, and the effect it had produced upon the
ships in whose neighborhood it passed, indicated that it bore an intense
and tremendous charge of electricity. How it had become thus charged I
cannot pretend to say. I simply record the fact. And this charge, it was
evident, was opposite in polarity to that which the ships of the
squadron bore. It therefore exerted an attractive influence upon them
and thus drew them after it.

I had just time to think how lucky it was that the meteor did not strike
any of us, when, glancing at a ship just ahead, I perceived that an
accident had occurred. The ship swayed violently from its course,
dazzling flashes played around it, and two or three of the men forming
its crew appeared for an instant on its exterior, wildly gesticulating,
but almost instantly falling prone.

It was evident at a glance that the car had been struck by the meteor.
How serious the damage might be we could not instantly determine. The
course of our ship was immediately altered, the electric polarity was
changed and we rapidly approached the disabled car.

The men who had fallen lay upon its surface. One of the heavy circular
glasses covering a window had been smashed to atoms. Through this the
meteor had passed, killing two or three men who stood in its course.
Then it had crashed through the opposite side of the car, and, passing
on, had disappeared into space. The store of air contained in the car
had immediately rushed out through the openings, and when two or three
of us, having donned our air-tight suits as quickly as possible, entered
the wrecked car we found all its inmates stretched upon the floor in a
condition of asphyxiation. They, as well as those who lay upon the
exterior, were immediately removed to the flagship, restoratives were
applied, and, fortunately, our aid had come so promptly that the lives
of all of them were saved. But life had fled from the mangled bodies of
those who had stood directly in the path of the fearful projectile.

[Illustration: _"Through this the meteor had passed, killing two or
three men who stood in its course."_]

This strange accident had been witnessed by several of the members of
the fleet, and they quickly drew together, in order to inquire for the
particulars. As the flagship was now overcrowded by the addition of so
many men to its crew, Mr. Edison had them distributed among the other
cars. Fortunately it happened that the disintegrators contained in the
wrecked car were not injured. Mr. Edison thought that it would be
possible to repair the car itself, and for that purpose he had it
attached to the flagship in order that it might be carried on as far as
the moon. The bodies of the dead were transported with it, as it was
determined, instead of committing them to the fearful deep of space,
where they would have wandered forever, or else have fallen like meteors
upon the earth, to give them interment in the lunar soil.

As we now rapidly approached the moon the change which the appearance of
its surface underwent was no less wonderful than that which the surface
of the earth had presented in the reverse order while we were receding
from it. From a pale silver orb, shining with comparative faintness
among the stars, it slowly assumed the appearance of a vast mountainous
desert. As we drew nearer its colors became more pronounced; the great
flat regions appeared darker; the mountain peaks shone more brilliantly.
The huge chasms seemed bottomless and blacker than midnight. Gradually
separate mountains appeared. What seemed like expanses of snow and
immense glaciers streaming down their sides sparkled with great
brilliancy in the perpendicular rays of the sun. Our motion had now
assumed the aspect of falling. We seemed to be dropping from an
immeasurable height, and with an inconceivable velocity, straight down
upon those giant peaks.

Here and there curious lights glowed upon the mysterious surface of the
moon. Where the edge of the moon cut the sky behind it, it was broken
and jagged with mountain masses. Vast crater rings overspread its
surface, and in some of these I imagined I could perceive a lurid
illumination coming out of their deepest cavities, and the curling of
mephitic vapors around their terrible jaws.

We were approaching that part of the moon which is known to the
astronomers as the Bay of Rainbows. Here a huge semi-circular region, as
smooth almost as the surface of a prairie, lay beneath our eyes,
stretching southward into a vast ocean-like expanse, while on the north
it was enclosed by an enormous range of mountain cliffs, rising
perpendicularly to a height of many thousands of feet, and rent and
gashed in every direction by forces which seemed at some remote period
to have labored at tearing this little world in pieces.

It was a fearful spectacle; a dead and mangled world, too dreadful to
look upon. The idea of the death of the moon was, of course, not a new
one to many of us. We had long been aware that the earth's satellite was
a body which had passed beyond the stage of life, if indeed it had ever
been a life supporting globe; but none of us were prepared for the
terrible spectacle which now smote our eyes.

At each end of the semi-circular ridge that encloses the Bay of Rainbows
there is a lofty promontory. That at the northwestern extremity had long
been known to the astronomers under the name of Cape Laplace. The other
promontory, at the southeastern termination, is called Cape Heraclides.
It was toward the latter that we were approaching, and by interchange of
signals all the members of the squadron had been informed that Cape
Heraclides was to be our rendezvous upon the moon.

I may say that I had been somewhat familiar with the scenery of this
part of the lunar world, for I had often studied it from the earth with
a telescope, and I had thought that if there was any part of the moon
where one might, with fair expectation of success, look for inhabitants,
or if not inhabitants, at least for relics of life no longer existant
there, this would surely be the place. It was, therefore, with no small
degree of curiosity, notwithstanding the unexpectedly frightful and
repulsive appearance that the surface of the moon presented, that I now
saw myself rapidly approaching the region concerning whose secrets my
imagination had so often busied itself. When Mr. Edison and I had paid
our previous trip to the moon on our first experimental trip of the
electrical ship we had landed at a point on its surface remote from
this, and, as I have before explained, we then made no effort to
investigate its secrets. But now it was to be different, and we were at
length to see something of the wonders of the moon.

I had often on the earth drawn a smile from my friends by showing them
Cape Heraclides with a telescope, and calling their attention to the
fact that the outline of the peak terminating the cape was such as to
present a remarkable resemblance to a human face, unmistakably a
feminine countenance, seen in profile, and possessing no small degree of
beauty. To my astonishment, this curious human semblance still remained
when we had approached so close to the moon that the mountains forming
the cape filled nearly the whole field of view of the window from which
I was watching it. The resemblance, indeed, was most startling.

"Can this indeed be Diana herself?" I said half-aloud, but instantly
afterward I was laughing at my fancy, for Mr. Edison had overhead me and
exclaimed, "Where is she?"

"Who?"

"Diana."

"Why, there," I said, pointing to the moon. But lo! the appearance was
gone even while I spoke. A swift change had taken place in the line of
sight by which we were viewing it, and the likeness had disappeared in
consequence.

A few moments later my astonishment was revived, but the cause this time
was a very different one. We had been dropping rapidly toward the
mountains, and the electrician in charge of the car was swiftly and
constantly changing his potential, and, like a pilot who feels his way
into an unknown harbor, endeavoring to approach the moon in such a
manner that no hidden peril should surprise us. As we thus approached I
suddenly perceived, crowning the very apex of the lofty peak near the
termination of the cape, the ruins of what appeared to be an ancient
watch tower. It was evidently composed of Cyclopean blocks larger than
any that I had ever seen even among the ruins of Greece, Egypt and Asia
Minor.

[Illustration: _"As we thus approached I suddenly perceived, crowning
the very apex of the lofty peak near the termination of the cape, the
ruins of what appeared to be the ancient watch-tower."_]

Here, then, was visible proof that the moon had been inhabited, although
probably it was not inhabited now. I cannot describe the exultant
feeling which took possession of me at this discovery. It settled so
much that learned men had been disputing about for centuries.

"What will they say," I exclaimed, "when I show them a photograph of
that?"

Below the peak, stretching far to right and left, lay a barren beach
which had evidently once been washed by sea waves, because it was marked
by long curved ridges such as the advancing and retiring tide leaves
upon the shore of the ocean.

This beach sloped rapidly outward and downward toward a profound abyss,
which had once, evidently, been the bed of a sea, but which now appeared
to us simply as the empty, yawning shell of an ocean that had long
vanished.

It was with no small difficulty, and only after the expenditure of
considerable time, that all the floating ships of the squadron were
gradually brought to rest on this lone mountain top of the moon. In
accordance with my request, Mr. Edison had the flagship moored in the
interior of the great ruined watch tower that I have described. The
other ships rested upon the slope of the mountain around us.

Although time pressed, for we knew that the safety of the earth depended
upon our promptness in attacking Mars, yet it was determined to remain
here at least two or three days in order that the wrecked car might be
repaired. It was found also that the passage of the highly electrified
meteor had disarranged the electrical machinery in some of the other
cars, so that there were many repairs to be made besides those needed to
restore the wreck.

Moreover, we must bury our unfortunate companions who had been killed by
the meteor. This, in fact, was the first work that we performed. Strange
was the sight, and stranger our feelings, as here on the surface of a
world distant from the earth, and on soil which had never before been
pressed by the foot of man, we performed that last ceremony of respect
which mortals pay to mortality. In the ancient beach at the foot of the
peak we made a deep opening, and there covered forever the faces of our
friends, leaving them to sleep among the ruins of empires, and among the
graves of races which had vanished probably ages before Adam and Eve
appeared in Paradise.

While the repairs were being made several scientific expeditions were
sent out in various directions across the moon. One went westward to
investigate the great ring of Plato, and the lunar Alps. Another crossed
the ancient Sea of Showers toward the inner Appenines.

One started to explore the immense Crater of Copernicus, which, yawning
fifty miles across, presents a wonderful appearance even from the
distance of the earth. The ship in which I, myself, had the good fortune
to embark, was bound for the mysterious inner mountain Aristarchus.

Before these expeditions started, a careful exploration had been made in
the neighborhood of Cape Heraclides. But, except that the broken walls
of the watch tower on the peak, composed of blocks of enormous size, had
evidently been the work of creatures endowed with human intelligence, no
remains were found indicating the former presence of inhabitants upon
this part of the moon.

But along the shore of the old sea, just where the so-called Bay of
Rainbows separates itself from the abyss of the Sea of Showers, there
were found some stratified rocks in which the fascinated eyes of the
explorer beheld the clear imprint of a gigantic human foot, measuring
five feet in length from toe to heel.

The most minute search failed to reveal another trace of the presence of
the ancient giant, who had left the impress of his foot in the wet sands
of the beach here so many millions of years ago that even the
imagination of the geologists shrank from the task of attempting to fix
the precise period.

Around this gigantic footprint gathered most of the scientific members
of the expedition, wearing their oddly shaped air-tight suits, connected
with telephonic wires, and the spectacle, but for the impressiveness of
the discovery, would have been laughable in the extreme. Bending over
the mark in the rock, nodding their heads together, pointing with their
awkwardly accoutered arms, they looked like an assemblage of
antidiluvian monsters collected around their prey. Their disappointment
over the fact that no other marks of anything resembling human
habitation could be discovered was very great.

Still this footprint in itself was quite sufficient, as they all
declared, to settle the question of the former habitation of the moon,
and it would serve for the production of many a learned volume after
their return to earth, even if no further discoveries should be made in
other parts of the lunar world.

It was the hope of making such other discoveries that led to the
dispatch of the other various expeditions which I have already named. I
was chosen to accompany the car that was going to Aristarchus, because,
as every one who had viewed the moon from the earth was aware, there was
something very mysterious about that mountain. I knew that it was a
crater nearly thirty miles in diameter and very deep, although its floor
was plainly visible.

What rendered it remarkable was the fact that the floor and the walls of
the crater, particularly on the inner side, glowed with a marvelous
brightness which rendered them almost blinding when viewed with a
powerful telescope.

So bright were they, indeed, that the eye was unable to see many of the
details which the telescope would have made visible but for the flood of
light which poured from the mountains. Sir William Hershel had been so
completely misled by this appearance that he supposed he was watching a
lunar volcano in eruption.

It had always been a difficult question what caused the extraordinary
luminosity of Aristarchus. No end of hypothesis had been invented to
account for it. Now I was to assist in settling these questions forever.

From Cape Heraclides to Aristarchus the distance in air line was
something over 300 miles. Our course lay across the northeastern part of
the Sea of Showers, with enormous cliffs, mountain masses and peaks
shining on the right, while in the other direction the view was bounded
by the distant range of the lunar Appenines, some of whose towering
peaks, when viewed from our immense elevation, appeared as sharp as the
Swiss Matterhorn.

When we had arrived within about a hundred miles of our destination we
found ourselves, floating directly over the so-called Harbinger
Mountains. The serrated peaks of Aristarchus then appeared ahead of us,
fairly blazing in the sunshine.

It seemed as if a gigantic string of diamonds, every one as great as a
mountain peak, had been cast down upon the barren surface of the moon
and left to waste their brilliance upon the desert air of this abandoned
world.

As we rapidly approached the dazzling splendor of the mountain became
almost unbearable to our eyes, and we were compelled to resort to the
devise, practised by all climbers of lofty mountains, where the glare of
sunlight on snow surfaces is liable to cause temporary blindness, of
protecting our eyes with neutral-tinted glasses.

Professor Moissan, the great French chemist and maker of artificial
diamonds, fairly danced with delight.

"Voila! Voila! Voila!" was all that he could say.

When we were comparatively near, the mountain no longer seemed to glow
with a uniform radiance, evenly distributed over its entire surface, but
now innumerable points of light, all as bright as so many little suns,
blazed away at us. It was evident that we had before us a mountain
composed of, or at least covered with, crystals.

Without stopping to alight on the outer slopes of the great ring-shaped
range of peaks which composed Aristarchus, we sailed over their rim and
looked down into the interior. Here the splendor of the crystals was
greater than on the outer slopes, and the broad floor of the crater,
thousands of feet beneath us, shone and sparkled with overwhelming
radiance, as if it were an immense bin of diamonds, while a peak in the
center flamed like a stupendous tiara incrusted with selected gems.

Eager to see what these crystals were, the car was now allowed rapidly
to drop into the interior of the crater. With great caution we brought
it to rest upon the blazing ground, for the sharp edges of the crystals
would certainly have torn the metallic sides of the car if it had come
into violent contact with them.

Donning our air-tight suits and stepping carefully out upon this
wonderful footing we attempted to detach some of the crystals. Many of
them were firmly fastened, but a few--some of astonishing size--were
readily loosened.

A moment's inspection showed that we had stumbled upon the most
marvelous work of the forces of crystalization that human eyes had ever
rested upon. Some time in the past history of the moon there had been an
enormous outflow of molten material from the crater. This had overspread
the walls and partially filled up the interior, and later its surface
had flowered into gems, as thick as blossoms in a bed of pansies.

The whole mass flashed prismatic rays of indescribable beauty and
intensity. We gazed at first speechless with amazement.

"It cannot be, surely it cannot be," said Professor Moissan at length.

"But it is," said another member of the party.

"Are these diamonds?" asked a third.

"I cannot yet tell," replied the Professor. "They have the brilliancy of
diamonds, but they may be something else."

"Moon jewels," suggested a third.

"And worth untold millions, whatever they are," remarked another. These
magnificent crystals, some of which appeared to be almost flawless,
varied in size from the dimensions of a hazelnut to geometrical solids
several inches in diameter. We carefully selected as many as it was
convenient to carry and placed them in the car for future examination.
We had solved another long standing lunar problem and had, perhaps,
opened up an inexhaustible future mine of wealth which might eventually
go far toward reimbursing the earth for the damage which it had suffered
from the invasion of the Martians.

On returning to Cape Heraclides we found that the other expeditions had
arrived at the rendezvous ahead of us. Their members had wonderful
stories to tell of what they had seen, but nothing caused quite so much
astonishment as that which we had to tell and to show.

The party which had gone to visit Plato and the lunar Alps brought back,
however, information which, in a scientific sense, was no less
interesting than what we had been able to gather.

They had found within this curious ring of Plato, which is a circle of
mountains sixty miles in diameter, enclosing a level plain remarkably
smooth over most of its surface, unmistakable evidences of former
habitation. A gigantic city had evidently at one time existed near the
center of this great plain. The outlines of its walls and the foundation
marks of some of its immense buildings were plainly made out, and
elaborate plans of this vanished capitol of the moon were prepared by
several members of the party.

One of them was fortunate enough to discover an even more precious relic
of the ancient lunarians. It was a piece of petrified skullbone,
representing but a small portion of the head to which it had belonged,
but yet sufficient to enable the anthropologists, who immediately fell
to examining it, to draw ideal representations of the head as it must
have been in life--the head of a giant of enormous size, which, if it
had possessed a highly organized brain, of proportionate magnitude, must
have given to its possessor intellectual powers immensely greater than
any of the descendants of Adam have ever been endowed with.

Indeed, one of the professors was certain that some little concretions
found on the interior of the piece of skull were petrified portions of
the brain matter itself, and he set to work with the microscope to
examine its organic quality.

In the meantime, the repairs to the electrical ships had been completed,
and, although these discoveries on the moon had created a most profound
sensation among the members of the expedition, and aroused an almost
irresistable desire to continue the explorations thus happily begun, yet
everybody knew that these things were aside from the main purpose in
view, and that we should be false to our duty in wasting a moment more
upon the moon than was absolutely necessary to put the ships in proper
condition to proceed on their warlike voyage.

Everything being prepared then, we left the moon with great regret, just
forty-eight hours after we had landed upon its surface, carrying with us
a determination to revisit it and to learn more of its wonderful secrets
in case we should survive the dangers which we were now going to face.




CHAPTER SIX

_THE MONSTERS ON THE ASTEROID_


A day or two after leaving the moon, we had another adventure with a
wandering inhabitant of space which brought us into far greater peril
than had our encounter with the meteor.

The airships had been partitioned off so that a portion of the interior
could be darkened in order to serve as a sleeping chamber, wherein,
according to the regulations prescribed by the commander of the squadron
each member of the expedition in his turn passed eight out of every
twenty-four hours--sleeping if he could, if not, meditating in a more or
less dazed way, upon the wonderful things that he was seeing and
doing--things far more incredible than the creations of a dream.

One morning, if I may call by the name morning the time of my periodical
emergence from the darkened chamber, glancing from one of the windows, I
was startled to see in the black sky a brilliant comet.

No periodical comet, as I knew, was at this time approaching the
neighborhood of the sun, and no stranger of that kind had been detected
from the observatories making its way sunward before we left the earth.
Here, however, was unmistakably a comet rushing toward the sun, flinging
out a great gleaming tail behind it and so close to us that I wondered
to see it remaining almost motionless in the sky. This phenomenon was
soon explained to me, and the explanation was of a most disquieting
character.

The stranger had already been perceived, not only from the flagship, but
from the other members of the squadron, and, as I now learned, efforts
had been made to get out of the neighborhood, but for some reason the
electrical apparatus did not work perfectly--some mysterious disturbing
force acting upon it--and so it had been found impossible to avoid an
encounter with the comet, not an actual coming into contact with it, but
a falling into the sphere of its influence.

In fact, I was informed that for several hours the squadron had been
dragging along in the wake of a comet, very much as boats are sometimes
towed off by a wounded whale. Every effort had been made to so adjust
the electric charge upon the ships that they would be repelled from the
cometic mass, but, owing apparently to electric changes affecting the
clashing mass of meteoric bodies which constituted the head of the
comet, we found it impossible to escape from its influence.

At one instant the ships would be repelled; immediately afterward they
would be attracted again, and thus they were dragged hither and thither,
but never able to break from the invisible leash which the comet had
cast upon them. The latter was moving with enormous velocity toward the
sun, and, consequently, we were being carried back again, away from the
object of our expedition, with a fair prospect of being dissipated in
blazing vapors when the comet had dragged us, unwilling prisoners, into
the immediate neighborhood of the solar furnace.

Even the most cool-headed lost his self control in this terrible
emergency. Every kind of devise that experience or the imagination could
suggest was tried, but nothing would do. Still on we rushed with the
electrified atoms composing the tail of the comet swinging to and fro
over the members of the squadron, as they shifted their position, like
the plume of smoke from a gigantic steamer, drifting over the sea birds
that follow in its course.

Was this to end it all, then? Was this the fate that Providence had in
store for us? Were the hopes of the earth thus to perish? Was the
expedition to be wrecked and its fate to remain for ever unknown to the
planet from which it had set forth? And was our beloved globe, which had
seemed so fair to us when we last looked upon it nearby, and in whose
defense we had resolved to spend our last breath, to be left helpless
and at the mercy of its implacable foe in the sky?

At length we gave ourselves up for lost. There seemed to be no possible
way to free ourselves from the baleful grip of this terrible and
unlooked for enemy.

As the comet approached the sun its electrical energy rapidly increased,
and watching it with telescopes, for we could not withdraw our
fascinated eyes from it, we could clearly behold the fearful things that
went on in its nucleus.

This consisted of an immense number of separate meteors of no very great
size individually, but which were in constant motion among one another,
darting to and fro, clashing and smashing together, while fountains of
blazing metallic particles and hot mineral vapours poured out in every
direction.

As I watched it, unable to withdraw my eyes, I saw imaginary forms
revealing themselves amid the flaming meteors. They seemed like
creatures in agony, tossing their arms, bewailing in their attitudes the
awful fate that had overtaken them, and fairly chilling my blood with
the pantomime of torture which they exhibited. I thought of an old
superstition which I had often heard about the earth, and exclaimed:

"Yes, surely, this is a flying hell!"

As the electric activity of the comet increased, its continued changes
of potential and polarity became more frequent, and the electrical ships
darted about with even greater confusion than before. Occasionally one
of them, seized with a sudden impulse, would spring forward toward the
nucleus of the comet with a sudden access of velocity that would fling
every one of its crew from his feet, and all would lie sprawling on the
floor of the car while it rushed, as it seemed, to inevitable and
instant destruction.

Then, either through the frantic efforts of the electrician struggling
with the controller or through another change in the polarity of the
comet, the ship would be saved on the very brink of ruin and stagger
away out of immediate danger.

Thus the captured squadron was swept, swaying and darting hither and
thither, but never able to get sufficiently far from the comet to break
the bond of its fatal attraction.

So great was our excitement and so complete our absorption in the
fearful peril that we had not noticed the precise direction in which the
comet was carrying us. It was enough to know that the goal of the
journey was the furnace of the sun. But presently someone in the
flagship recalled us to a more accurate sense of our situation in space
by exclaiming:

"Why, there is the earth!"

And there, indeed, it was, its great globe rolling under our eyes, with
the contrasted colors of the continents and clouds and the watery gleam
of the oceans spread beneath us.

"We're going to strike it!" exclaimed somebody. "The comet is going to
dash us into the earth."

Such a collision at first seemed inevitable, but presently it was
noticed that the direction of the comet's motion was such that while it
might graze the earth it would not actually strike it.

And so, like a swarm of giant insects circling about an electric light
from whose magic influence they could not escape, our ships went on, to
be whipped against the earth in passing and then to continue their swift
journey to destruction.

"Thank God, this saves us," suddenly cried Mr. Edison.

"What-what?"

"Why, the earth, of course. Do you not see that as the comet sweeps
close to the great planet the superior attraction of the latter will
snatch us from its grasp, and that thus we shall be able to escape."

And it was indeed as Mr. Edison had predicted. In a blaze of falling
meteors the comet swept the outer limits of the earth's atmosphere and
passed on, while the swaying ships, having been instructed by signals
what to do, desperately applied their electrical machinery to reverse
the attraction and threw themselves into the arms of their mother earth.

In another instant we were all free, settling down through the quiet
atmosphere with the Atlantic Ocean sparkling in the morning sun far
below.

We looked at one another in amazement. So this was the end of our
voyage! This was the completion of our warlike enterprise. We had
started out to conquer a world, and we had come back ignominiously
dragged in the train of a comet.

The earth which we were going to defend and protect had herself turned
protector, and reaching out her strong arm had snatched her foolish
children from the destruction which they had invited.

It would be impossible to describe the chagrin of every member of the
expedition.

The electric ships rapidly assembled and hovered high in the air, while
their commanders consulted about what should be done. A universal
feeling of shame almost drove them to a decision not to land upon the
surface of the planet, and if possible not to let its inhabitants know
what had occurred.

But it was too late for that. Looking carefully beneath us, we saw that
fate had brought us back to our very starting point, and signals
displayed in the neighborhood of New York indicated that we had already
been recognized. There was nothing for us then but to drop down and
explain the situation.

I shall not delay my narrative by undertaking to describe the
astonishment and the disappointment of the inhabitants of the earth
when, within a fortnight from our departure, they saw us back again,
with no laurels of victory crowning our brows.

At first they had hoped that we were returning in triumph, and we were
overwhelmed with questions the moment we had dropped within speaking
distance.

"Have you whipped them?"

"How many are lost?"

"Is there any more danger?"

"Faix, have ye got one of thim men from Mars?"

But their rejoicing and their facetiousness were turned into wailing
when the truth was imparted.

We made a short story of it, for we had not the heart to go into
details. We told of our unfortunate comrades whom we had buried upon the
moon, and there was one gleam of satisfaction when we exhibited the
wonderful crystals we had collected in the crater of Aristarchus.

Mr. Edison determined to stop only long enough to test the electrical
machinery of the cars, which had been more or less seriously deranged
during our wild chase after the comet, and then to start straight back
for Mars--this time on a through trip.

The astronomers, who had been watching Mars, since our departure, with
their telescopes, reported that mysterious lights continued to be
visible, but that nothing indicating the starting of another expedition
for the earth had been seen.

Within twenty-four hours we were ready for our second start.

The moon was now no longer in a position to help us on our way. It had
moved out of line between Mars and the earth.

High above us, in the center of the heavens, glowed the red planet which
was the goal of our journey.

The needed computations of velocity and direction of flight having been
repeated, and the ships being all in readiness, we started direct for
Mars.

An enormous charge of electricity was imparted to each member of the
squadron, in order that as soon as we had reached the upper limits of
the atmosphere, where the ships could move swiftly, without danger of
being consumed by the heat developed by the friction of their passage
through the air, a very great initial velocity could be imparted.

Once started off by this tremendous electrical kick, and with no
atmosphere to resist our motion, we should be able to retain the same
velocity, baring incidental encounters, until we arrived near the
surface of Mars.

When we were free of the atmosphere, and the ships were moving away from
the earth, with the highest velocity which we were able to impart to
them, observations on the stars were made in order to determine the rate
of our speed.

This was found to be ten miles in a second, or 864,000 miles in a day, a
very much greater speed than that with which we had travelled on
starting to touch at the moon. Supposing this velocity to remain
uniform, and, with no known resistance, it might reasonably be expected
to do so, we should arrive at Mars in a little less than forty-two days,
the distance of the planet from the earth being at this time, about
thirty-six million miles.

Nothing occurred for many days to interrupt our journey. We became
accustomed to our strange surroundings, and many entertainments were
provided to while away the time. The astronomers in the expedition found
plenty of occupation in studying the aspects of the stars and the other
heavenly bodies from their new point of view.

At the expiration of about thirty-five days we had drawn so near to Mars
that with our telescopes, which, though small, were of immense power, we
could discern upon its surface features and details which no one had
been able to glimpse from the earth.

As the surface of this world, that we were approaching as a tiger hunter
draws near the jungle, gradually unfolded itself to our inspection,
there was hardly one of us willing to devote to sleep or idleness the
prescribed eight hours that had been fixed as the time during which each
member of the expedition must remain in the darkened chamber. We were
too eager to watch for every new revelation upon Mars.

But something was in store that we had not expected. We were to meet the
Martians before arriving at the world in which they dwelt.

Among the stars which shone in that quarter of the heavens where Mars
appeared as the master orb, there was one, lying directly in our path,
which, to our astonishment, as we continued on, altered from the aspect
of a star, underwent a gradual magnification, and soon presented itself
in the form of a little planet.

"It is an asteroid," said somebody.

"Yes, evidently; but how does it come inside the orbit of Mars?"

"Oh, there are several asteroids," said one of the astronomers, "which
travel inside the orbit of Mars, along a part of their course, and, for
aught we can tell, there may be many which have not yet been caught
sight of from the earth, that are nearer to the sun than Mars is."

"This must be one of them."

"Manifestly so."

As we drew nearer the mysterious little planet revealed itself to us as
a perfectly formed globe not more than five miles in diameter.

"What is that upon it?" asked Lord Kelvin, squinting intently at the
little world through his glass. "As I live, it moves."

"Yes, yes!" exclaimed several others, "there are inhabitants upon it,
but what giants!"

"What monsters!"

"Don't you see?" exclaimed an excited savant. "They are the Martians!"

The startling truth burst upon the minds of all. Here upon this little
planetoid were several of the gigantic inhabitants of the world that we
were going to attack. There was more than one man in the flagship who
recognized them well, and who shuddered at the recognition,
instinctively recalling the recent terrible experience of the earth.

Was this an outpost of the warlike Mars?

Around these monstrous enemies we saw several of their engines of war.
Some of these appeared to have been wrecked, but at least one, as far as
we could see, was still in a proper condition for use.

How had these creatures got there?

"Why, that is easy enough to account for," I said, as a sudden
recollection flashed into my mind. "Don't you remember the report of the
astronomers more than six months ago, at the end of the conference in
Washington, that something would seem to indicate the departure of a new
expedition from Mars had been noticed by them? We have heard nothing of
that expedition since. We know that it did not reach the earth. It must
have fallen foul of this asteroid, run upon this rock in the ocean of
space and been wrecked here."

"We've got 'em, then," shouted our electric steersman, who had been a
workman in Mr. Edison's laboratory and had unlimited confidence in his
chief.

The electrical ships were immediately instructed by signal to slow down,
an operation that was easily affected through the electrical repulsion
of the asteroid.

The nearer we got the more terrifying was the appearance of the gigantic
creatures who were riding upon the little world before us like castaway
sailors upon a block of ice. Like men, and yet not like men, combining
the human and the beast in their appearance, it required a steady nerve
to look at them. If we had not known their malignity and their power to
work evil, it would have been different, but in our eyes their moral
character shone through their physical aspect and thus rendered them
more terrible than they would otherwise have been.

When we first saw them their appearance was most forlorn, and their
attitudes indicated only despair and desperation, but as they caught
sight of us their malign power of intellect instantly penetrated the
mystery, and they recognized us for what we were.

Their despair immediately gave place to reawakened malevolence. On the
instant they were astir, with such heart-chilling movements as those
that characterize a venomous serpent preparing to strike.

Not imagining that they would be in a position to make serious
resistance, we had been somewhat incautious in approaching.

Suddenly there was a quicker movement than usual among the Martians, a
swift adjustment of that one of their engines of war which, as already
noticed, seemed to be practically uninjured, then there darted from it
and alighted upon one of the foremost ships, a dazzling lightning stroke
a mile in length, at whose touch the metallic sides of the car curled
and withered and, licked for a moment by what seemed lambent flames,
collapsed into a mere cinder.

For an instant not a word was spoken, so sudden and unexpected was the
blow.

We knew that every soul in the stricken car had perished.

"Back! Back!" was the signal instantly flashed from the flagship, and
reversing their polarities the members of the squadron sprang away from
the little planet as rapidly as the electrical impulse could drive them.

But before we were out of reach a second flaming tongue of death shot
from the fearful engine, and another of our ships, with all its crew,
was destroyed.

[Illustration: _"Back! Back!" was the signal instantaneously flashed
from the flag ship, and the members of the squadron sprang away from the
little planet. But before we were out of reach a second tongue of death
shot from the fearful engine, and another of our ships, with all its
crew, was destroyed._]

It was an inauspicious beginning for us. Two of our electrical ships,
with their entire crews, had been wiped out of existence, and this
appalling blow had been dealt by a few stranded and disabled enemies
floating on an asteroid.

What hope would there be for us when we came to encounter the millions
of Mars itself on their own ground and prepared for war?

However, it would not do to despond. We had been incautious, and we
should take good care not to commit the same fault again.

The first thing to do was to avenge the death of our comrades. The
question whether we were able to meet these Martians and overcome them
might as well be settled right here and now. They had proved what they
could do, even when disabled and at a disadvantage. Now it was our turn.




CHAPTER SEVEN

_A PLANET OF GOLD_


The squadron had been rapidly withdrawn to a very considerable distance
from the asteroid. The range of the mysterious artillery employed by the
Martians was unknown to us. We did not even know the limit of the
effective range of our own disintegrators. If it should prove that the
Martians were able to deal their strokes at a distance greater than any
we could reach, then they would of course have an insuperable advantage.

On the other hand, if it should turn out that our range was greater than
theirs, the advantage would be on our side. Or--which was perhaps most
probable--there might be practically no difference in the effective
range of the engines.

Anyhow, we were going to find out how the case stood, and that without
delay.

Everything being in readiness, the disintegrators all in working order,
and the men who were able to handle them, most of whom were experienced
marksmen, chosen from among the officers of the regular army of the
United States, and accustomed to the straight shooting and the sure hits
of the West, standing at their posts, the squadron again advanced.

In order to distract the attention of the Martians, the electrical ships
had been distributed over a wide space. Some dropped straight down
toward the asteroid; others approached it by flank attack, from this
side and that. The flagship moved straight in toward the point where the
first disaster occurred. Its intrepid commander felt that his post
should be that of the greatest danger, and where the severest blows
would be given and received.

The approach of the ships was made with great caution. Watching the
Martians with our telescopes we could clearly see that they were
disconcerted by the scattered order of our attack. Even if all of their
engines of war had been in proper condition for use it would have been
impossible for them to meet the simultaneous assault of so many enemies
dropping down upon them from the sky.

But they were made of fighting mettle, as we knew from old experience.
It was no question of surrender. They did not know how to surrender, and
we did not know how to demand their surrender. Besides, the destruction
of the two electrical ships with the forty men, many of whom bore names
widely known upon the earth, had excited a kind of fury among the
members of the squadron which called for vengeance.

Suddenly a repetition of the quick movement by the Martians, which had
been the forerunner of the former coup, was observed; again a blinding
flash burst from their war engines and instantaneously a shiver ran
through the frame of the flagship; the air within quivered with strange
pulsations and seemed suddenly to have assumed the temperature of a
blast furnace.

We all gasped for breath. Our throats and lungs seemed scorched in the
act of breathing. Some fell unconscious upon the floor. The marksmen,
carrying the disintegrators ready for use, staggered, and one of them
dropped his instrument.

But we had not been destroyed like our comrades before us. In a moment
the wave of heat passed; those who had fallen recovered from their
momentary stupor and staggered to their feet.

The electrical steersman stood hesitating at his post.

"Move on," said Mr. Edison sternly, his features set with determination
and his eyes afire.

"We are still beyond their effective range. Let us get closer in order
to make sure work when we strike."

The ship moved on. One could hear the heartbeats of its inmates. The
other members of the squadron, thinking for the moment that disaster had
overtaken the flagship, had paused and seemed to be meditating flight.

"Signal them to move on," said Mr. Edison.

The signal was given, and the circle of electrical ships closed in upon
the asteroid.

In the meantime Mr. Edison had been donning his air-tight suit. Before
we could clearly comprehend his intention he had passed through the
double trapped door which gave access to the exterior of the car without
permitting the loss of air, and was standing upon what served as the
deck of the ship.

In his hand he carried a disintegrator. With a quick motion he sighted
it.

As quickly as possible I sprang to his side. I was just in time to note
the familiar blue gleam about the instrument, which indicated that its
terrific energies were at work. The whirring sound was absent, because
here, in open space, where there was no atmosphere, there could be no
sound.

My eyes were fixed upon the Martian's engine, which had just dealt us a
staggering, but not fatal, blow, and particularly I noticed a polished
knob projecting from it which seemed to have been the focus from which
its destructive bolt emanated.

A moment later the knob disappeared. The irresistible vibrations darted
from the electrical disintegrator and had fallen upon it and
instantaneously shattered it into atoms.

"That fixes them," said Mr. Edison, turning to me with a smile.

And indeed it did fix them. We had most effectually spiked their gun. It
would deal no more death blows.

The doings of the flagship had been closely watched throughout the
squadron. The effect of its blow had been evident to all, and a moment
later we saw, on some of the nearer ships, men dressed in their air
suits, appearing upon the deck, swinging their arms and sending forth
soundless cheers into empty space.

The stroke that we had dealt was taken by several of the electrical
ships as a signal for a common assault, and we saw two of the Martians
fall beside the ruins of their engine, their heads having been blown
from their bodies.

"Signal them to stop firing," commanded Mr. Edison. "We have got them
down, and we are not going to murder them without necessity."

"Besides," he added, "I want to capture some of them alive."

The signal was given as he had ordered. The flagship then alone dropped
slowly toward the place on the asteroid where the prostrate Martians
were.

As we got near them a terrible scene unfolded itself to our eyes. There
had evidentially been not more than a half dozen of the monsters in the
beginning. Two of these were stretched headless upon the ground. Three
others had suffered horrible injuries where the invisible vibratory
beams from the disintegrators had grazed them, and they could not long
survive. One only remained apparently uninjured.

[Illustration: _As we got near them a terrible scene unfolded itself.
Two of the Martians were stretched headless upon the ground. Three
others had suffered horrible injuries, and only one remained apparently
unhurt._]

It is impossible for me to describe the appearance of this creature in
terms that would be readily understood. Was he like a man? Yes and no.
He possessed many human characteristics, but they were exaggerated and
monstrous in scale and in detail. His head was of enormous size, and his
huge projecting eyes gleamed with a strange fire of intelligence. His
face was like a caricature, but not one to make the beholder laugh.
Drawing himself up, he towered to a height of at least fifteen feet.

But let the reader not suppose from this inadequate description that the
Martians stirred in the beholder precisely the sensation that would be
caused by the sight of a gorilla, or other repulsive inhabitant of our
terrestrial jungles, suddenly confronting him in its native wilds.

With all his horrible characteristics, and all his suggestions of beast
and monster, nevertheless the Martian produced the impression of being a
person and not a mere animal.

I have already referred to the enormous size of his head, and to the
fact that his countenance bore considerable resemblance to that of a
man. There was something in his face that sent a shiver through the soul
of the beholder. One could feel in looking upon it that here was
intellect, intelligence developed to the highest degree, but in the
direction of evil instead of good.

The sensations of one who had stood face to face with Satan, when he was
driven from the battlements of heaven by the swords of his fellow
archangels, and had beheld him transformed from Lucifer, the Son of the
Morning, into the Prince of Night and Hell, might not have been unlike
those which we now experienced as we gazed upon this dreadful personage,
who seemed to combine the intellectual powers of a man, raised to their
highest pitch, with some of the physical features of a beast, and all
the moral depravity of a fiend.

The appearance of the Martian was indeed so threatening and repellent
that we paused at the height of fifty feet above the ground, hesitating
to approach nearer. A grin of rage and hate overspread his face. If he
had been a man I should say he shook his fist at us. What he did was to
express in even more telling pantomime his hatred and defiance, and his
determination to grind us to shreds if he could once get us within his
clutches.

Mr. Edison and I still stood upon the deck of the ship, where several
others had gathered around us. The atmosphere of the little asteroid was
so rare that it practically amounted to nothing, and we could not
possibly have survived if we had not continued to wear our air tight
suits. How the Martians contrived to live here was a mystery to us. It
was another of their secrets which we were yet to learn.

Mr. Edison retained his disintegrator in his hand.

"Kill him," said someone. "He is too horrible to live."

"If we do not kill him we shall never be able to land upon the
asteroid," said another.

"No," said Mr. Edison. "I shall not kill him. We have got another use
for him. Tom," he continued, turning to one of his assistants, whom he
had brought from his laboratory, "bring me the anaesthetic."

This was something entirely new to nearly all the members of the
expedition. Mr. Edison, however, had confided to me before we left the
earth the fact that he had invented a little instrument by means of
which a bubble, strongly charged with a powerful anaesthetic agent,
could be driven to a considerable distance into the face of an enemy,
where exploding without other damage, it would instantly put him to
sleep.

When Tom had placed the instrument in his hands Mr. Edison ordered the
electrical ship to forge slightly ahead and drop a little lower toward
the Martian, who, with watchful eyes and threatening gestures, noted our
approach in the attitude of a wild beast on the spring. Suddenly Mr.
Edison discharged from the instrument in his hand a little gaseous
globe, which glittered like a ball of tangled rainbows in the sunshine,
and darted with astonishing velocity straight into the upturned face of
the Martian. It burst as it touched and the monster fell back senseless
upon the ground.

"You have killed him!" exclaimed all.

"No," said Mr. Edison. "He is not dead, only asleep. Now we shall drop
down and bind him tight before he can awake."

When we came to bind our prisoner with strong ropes we were more than
ever impressed with his gigantic stature and strength. Evidentially in
single combat with equal weapons he would have been a match for twenty
of us.

[Illustration: _"When we came to bind our prisoner with strong ropes
we were more than ever impressed with his gigantic stature and strength.
He might have been a match for twenty of us."_]

All that I had read of giants had failed to produce upon my mind the
impression of enormous size and tremendous physical energy which the
sleeping body of this immense Martian produced. He had fallen on his
back, and was in a most profound slumber. All his features were relaxed,
and yet even in that condition there was a devilishness about him that
made the beholders instinctively shudder.

So powerful was the effect of the anaesthetic which Mr. Edison had
discharged into his face that he remained perfectly unconscious while we
turned him half over in order the more securely to bind his muscular
limbs.

In the meantime the other electrical ships approached, and several of
them made a landing upon the asteroid. Everybody was eager to see this
wonderful little world, which, as I have already remarked, was only five
miles in diameter.

Several of us from the flagship started out hastily to explore the
miniature planet. And now our attention was recalled to an intensely
interesting phenomenon which had engaged our thoughts not only when we
were upon the moon, but during our flight through space. This was the
almost entire absence of weight.

On the moon, where the force of gravitation is one-sixths as great as
upon the earth, we had found ourselves astonishingly light. Five-sixths
of our own weight, and of the weight of the air-tight suits in which we
were encased, had magically dropped from us. It was therefore
comparatively easy for us, encumbered, as we were, to make our way about
on the moon.

But when we were far from both the earth and the moon, the loss of
weight was more astonishing still--not astonishing because we had not
known that it would be so, but nevertheless a surprising phenomenon in
contrast with our lifelong experience on the earth.

In open space we were practically without weight. Only the mass of the
electrical car in which we were enclosed attracted us, and inside that
we could place ourselves in any position without falling. We could float
in the air. There was no up and no down, no top and no bottom for us.
Stepping outside the car, it would have been easy for us to spring away
from it and leave it forever.

One of the most startling experiences that I have ever had was one day
when we were navigating space about half way between the earth and Mars.
I had stepped outside the car with Lord Kelvin, both of us, of course,
wearing our air-tight suits. We were perfectly well aware what would be
the consequence of detaching ourselves from the car as we moved along.
We should still retain the forward motion of the car, and of course
accompany it in its flight. There would be no falling one way or the
other. The car would have a tendency to draw us back again by its
attraction, but this tendency would be very slight, and practically
inappreciable at a distance.

"I am going to step off," I suddenly said to Lord Kelvin. "Of course I
shall keep right along with the car, and step aboard again when I am
ready."

"Quite right on general principles, young man," replied the great
savant, "but beware in what manner you step off. Remember, if you give
your body an impulse sufficient to carry it away from the car to any
considerable distance, you will be unable to get back again, unless we
can catch you with a boathook or a fishline. Out there in empty space
you will have nothing to kick against, and you will be unable to propel
yourself in the direction of the car, and its attraction is so feeble
that we should probably arrive at Mars before it had drawn you back
again."

All this was, of course, perfectly self-evident, yet I believe that but
for the warning words of Lord Kelvin I should have been rash enough to
step out into empty space, with sufficient force to have separated
myself hopelessly from the electrical ship.

As it was, I took good care to retain a hold upon a projecting portion
of the car. Occasionally cautiously releasing my grip, I experienced for
a few minutes the delicious, indescribable pleasure of being a little
planet swinging through space, with nothing to hold me up and nothing to
interfere with my motion.

Mr. Edison, happening to come upon the deck of the ship at this time,
and seeing what we were about at once said:

"I must provide against this danger. If I do not, there is a chance that
we shall arrive at Mars with the ships half empty and the crews floating
helplessly around us."

Mr. Edison's way of guarding against the danger was by contriving a
little apparatus, modeled after that which was the governing force of
the electrical ships themselves, and which, being enclosed in the
air-tight suits, enabled their wearers to manipulate the electrical
charge upon them in such a way that they could make excursions from the
cars into open space like steam launches from a ship, going and
returning at their will.

These little machines being rapidly manufactured, for Mr. Edison had a
miniature laboratory aboard, were distributed about the squadron, and
henceforth we had the pleasure of paying and receiving visits among the
various members of the fleet.

But to return from this digression to our experience of the asteroid.
The latter being a body of some mass was, of course, able to impart to
us a measurable degree of weight. Being five miles in diameter, on the
assumption that its mean density was the same as that of the earth, the
weight of bodies on its surface should have borne the same ratio to
their weight upon the earth that the radius of the asteroid bore to the
radius of the earth; in other words, as 1 to 1,600.

Having made this mental calculation, I knew that my weight, being 150
pounds on the earth, should on this asteroid be an ounce and a half.

Curious to see whether fact would bear out theory, I had myself weighed
with a spring balance. Mr. Edison, Lord Kelvin and the other
distinguished scientists stood by watching the operation with great
interest.

To our complete surprise, my weight instead of coming out an ounce and a
half, as it should have done, on the supposition that the mean density
of the asteroid resembled that of the earth--a very liberal supposition
on the side of the asteroid, by the way--actually came out five ounces
and a quarter!

"What in the world makes me so heavy?" I asked.

"Yes, indeed, what an elephant you have become," said Mr. Edison.

Lord Kelvin screwed his eyeglass in his eye, and carefully inspected the
balance.

"It's quite right," he said. "You do indeed weigh five ounces and a
quarter. Too much; altogether too much," he added. "You shouldn't do it,
you know."

"Perhaps the fault is in the asteroid," suggested Professor Sylvanus P.
Thompson.

"Quite so," exclaimed Lord Kelvin, a look of sudden comprehension
overspreading his features. "No doubt it is the internal constitution of
the asteroid which is the cause of the anomaly. We must look into that.
Let me see? This gentleman's weight is three and one-half times as great
as it ought to be. What element is there whose density exceeds the mean
density of the earth in about that proportion?"

"Gold," exclaimed one of the party.

For a moment we were startled beyond expression. The truth had flashed
upon us.

This must be a golden planet this little asteroid. If it were not
composed internally of gold it could never have made me weight three
times more than I ought to weight.

"But where is the gold?" cried one.

"Covered up, of course," said Lord Kelvin. "Buried in Stardust. This
asteroid could not have continued to travel for millions of years
through legions of space strewn with meteoric particles without becoming
covered with the inevitable dust and grime of such a journey. We must
dig now, and then doubtless we shall find the metal."

This hint was instantly acted upon. Something that would serve as a
spade was seized by one of the men, and in a few minutes a hole had been
dug in the comparatively light soil of the asteroid.

I shall never forget the sight, nor the exclamations of wonder that
broke forth from all of us standing around, when the yellow gleam of the
precious metal appeared under the "star dust." Collected in huge masses
it reflected the light of the sun from its hiding place.

Evidently the planet was not a solid ball of gold, formed like a bullet
run in a mold, but was composed of nuggets of various sizes, which had
come together here under the influence of their mutual gravitation, and
formed a little metallic planet.

Judging by the test of weight which we had already tried, and which had
led to the discovery of the gold, the composition of the asteroid must
be the same to its very center.

In an assemblage of famous scientific men such as this the discovery of
course, immediately led to questions as to the origin of this incredible
phenomenon.

How did these masses of gold come together? How did it chance that, with
the exception of the thin crust of the asteroid nearly all its substance
was composed of the precious metal?

One asserted that it was quite impossible that there should be so much
gold at so great a distance from the sun.

"It is the general law," he said, "that the planets increase in density
towards the sun. There is every reason to think that the inner planets
possess the greater amount of dense elements, while the outer ones are
comparatively light."

But another referred to the old theory that there was once in this part
of the solar system a planet which had been burst in pieces by some
mysterious explosion, the fragments forming what we know as the
asteroids. In his opinion, this planet might have contained, a large
quantity of gold, and in the course of ages the gold, having, in
consequence of its superior atomic weight, not being so widely scattered
by the explosion as some of the other elements of the planet, had
collected itself together in this body.

But I observed that Lord Kelvin and the other more distinguished men of
science said nothing during this discussion. The truly learned man is
the truly wise man. They were not going to set up the theories without
sufficient facts to substain them. The one fact that the gold was here
was all they had at present. Until they could learn more they were not
prepared to theorize as to how the gold got there.

And in truth, it must be confessed, the greater number of us really
cared less for the explanation of the wonderful fact than we did for the
fact itself.

Gold is a thing which may make its appearance anywhere and at any time
without offering any excuses or explanations.

"Phew! Won't we be rich?" exclaimed a voice.

"How are we going to dig it and get it back to earth?" asked another.

"Carry it in your pockets," said one.

"No need of staking claims here," remarked another. "There is enough for
everybody."

Mr. Edison suddenly turned the current of talk.

"What do you suppose those Martians were doing here?"

"Why, they were wrecked here."

"Not a bit of it," said Mr. Edison. "According to your own showing they
could not have been wrecked here. This planet hasn't gravitation enough
to wreck them by a fall, and besides I have been looking at their
machines and I know there has been a fight."

"A fight?" exclaimed several, pricking up their ears.

"Yes," said Mr. Edison. "Those machines bear the marks of the lightning
of the Martians. They have been disabled, but they are made of some
metal or some alloy of metals unknown to me, and consequently they have
withstood the destructive force applied to them, as our electric ships
were unable to withstand it. It is perfectly plain to me that they have
been disabled in a battle. The Martians must have been fighting among
themselves."

"About the gold!" exclaimed one.

"Of course. What else was there to fight about?"

At this instant one of our men came running from a considerable
distance, waving his arms excitedly, but unable to give voice to his
story, in the inappreciable atmosphere of the asteroid, until he had
come up and made telephonic connection with us.

"There are a lot of dead Martians over there," he said. "They've been
cleaning one another out."

"That's it," said Mr. Edison. "I knew it when I saw the condition of
those machines."

"Then this is not a wrecked expedition, directed against the earth?"

"Not at all."

"This must be the great gold mine of Mars," said the president of an
Australian mining company, opening both his eyes and his mouth as he
spoke.

"Yes, evidently that's it. Here's where they come to get their wealth."

"And this," I said, "must be their harvest time. You notice that this
asteroid, being several million miles nearer to the sun than Mars is,
must have an appreciably shorter period of revolution. When it is in
conjunction with Mars, or nearly so, as it is at present, the distance
between the two is not very great, whereas when it is in the opposite
part of its orbit they are separated by an enormous gap in space and the
sun is between them.

"Manifestly in the latter case it would be perilous if not entirely
impossible for the Martians to visit the golden asteroid, but when it is
near Mars, as it is at present, and as it must be periodically for
several years at a time, then is their opportunity.

"With their projectile cars sent forth with the aid of the mysterious
explosives which they possess, it is easy for them under such
circumstances, to make visits to the asteroid.

"Having obtained all the gold they need or all that they can carry, a
comparatively slight impulse given to their car, the direction of which
is carefully calculated, will carry them back again to Mars."

"If that's so," exclaimed a voice, "we had better look out for
ourselves! We have got into a very hornet's nest! If this is the place
where the Martians come to dig gold, and if this is the height of their
season, as you say, they are not likely to leave us here long
undisturbed."

"These fellows must have been pirates that they had the fight with,"
said another.

"But what's become of the regulars, then?"

"Gone back to Mars for help, probably, and they'll be here again pretty
quick, I am afraid!"

Considerable alarm was caused by this view of the case, and orders were
sent to several of the electrical ships to cruise out to a safe distance
in the direction of Mars and keep a sharp outlook for the approach of
enemies.

Meanwhile our prisoner awoke. He turned his eyes upon those standing
about him, without any appearance of fear, but rather with a look of
contempt, like that which Gulliver must have felt for the Lilliputians
who had bound him under similar circumstances.

There were both hatred and defiance in his glance. He attempted to free
himself, and the ropes strained with the tremendous pressure that he put
upon them, but he could not break loose.

Satisfied that the Martian was safely bound, we left him where he lay,
and, while awaiting news from the ships which had been sent to
reconnoitre, continued the exploration of the little planet.

At a point nearly opposite to that where we had landed we came upon the
mine which the Martians had been working. They had removed the thin
coating of soil, laying bare the rich stores of gold beneath, and large
quantities of the latter had been removed. Some of it was so solidly
packed that the strokes of the instruments by means of which they had
detached it were visible like the streaks left by a knife cutting
cheese.

The more we saw of this golden planet the greater became our
astonishment. What the Martians had removed was a mere nothing in
comparison with the entire bulk of the asteroid. Had the celestial mine
been easier to reach, perhaps they would have removed more, or,
possibly, their political economists perfectly understood the necessity
of properly controlling the amount of precious metal in circulation.
Very likely, we thought, the mining operations were under government
control in Mars and it might be that the majority of the people there
knew nothing of this store of wealth floating in the firmament. That
would account for the battle with the supposed pirates, who, no doubt
had organized a secret expedition to the asteroid and had been caught
red-handed at the mine.

There were many detached masses of gold scattered about, and some of the
men, on picking them up, exclaimed with astonishment at their lack of
weight, forgetting for the moment that the same law which caused their
own bodies to weigh so little must necessarily affect everything else in
a like degree.

A mass of gold that on the earth no man would have been able to lift
could here be tossed about like a hollow rubber ball.

While we were examining the mine, one of the men left to guard the
Martian came running to inform us that the latter evidently wished to
make some communication. Mr. Edison and the others hurried to the side
of the prisoner. He still lay on his back, from which position he was
not able to move, notwithstanding all his efforts. But by the motion of
his eyes, aided by the pantomime with his fingers, he made us understand
that there was something in a metallic box fastened at his side which he
wished to reach.

With some difficulty we succeeded in opening the box and in it there
appeared a number of bright red pellets, as large as an ordinary egg.

When the Martians saw these in our hands he gave us to understand by the
motion of his lips that he wished to swallow one of them. A pellet was
accordingly placed in his mouth, and he instantly and with great
eagerness swallowed it.

While trying to communicate his wishes to us, the prisoner had seemed to
be in no little distress. He exhibited spasmodic movements which led
some of the bystanders to think that he was on the point of dying, but
within a few seconds after he had swallowed the pellet he appeared to be
completely restored. All evidence of distress vanished, and a look of
content came over his ugly face.

"It must be a powerful medicine," said one of the bystanders. "I wonder
what it is?"

"I will explain to you my notion," said Professor Moissan, the great
French chemist. "I think it was a pill of the air, which he has taken."

"What do you mean by that?"

"My meaning is," said Professor Moissan, "that the Martian must have,
for that he may live, the nitrogen and the oxygen. These can he not
obtain here, where there is not the atmosphere. Therefore must he get
them in some other manner. This has he managed to do by combining in
these pills the oxygen and the nitrogen in the proportions which make
atmospheric air. Doubtless upon Mars there are the very great chemists.
They have discovered how this may be done. When the Martian has
swallowed his little pill, the oxygen and the nitrogen are rendered to
his blood as if he had breathed them, and so he can live with that air
which has been distributed to him with the aid of his stomach in place
of his lungs."

If Monsieur Moissan's explanation was not correct, at any rate it seemed
the only one which would fit the facts before us. Certainly the Martian
could not breathe where there was practically no air, yet just as
certainly after he had swallowed his pill he seemed as comfortable as
any of us.

Suddenly, while we were gathered around the prisoner, and interested in
this fresh evidence of the wonderful ingenuity of the Martians, and of
their control over the processes of nature, one of the electrical ships
that had been sent off in the direction of Mars was seen rapidly
returning and displaying signals.

It reported that the Martians were coming!




CHAPTER EIGHT

_"THE MARTIANS ARE COMING!"_


The alarm was spread instantly among those upon the planet and through
the remainder of the fleet.

One of the men from the returning electrical ship dropped down upon the
asteroid and gave a more detailed account of what they had seen.

His ship had been the one which had gone to the greatest distance, in
the direction of Mars. While cruising there, with all eyes intent, they
had suddenly perceived a glittering object moving from the direction of
the ruddy planet, and manifestly approaching them. A little inspection
with the telescope had shown them that it was one of the projectile cars
used by the Martians.

Our ship had ventured so far from the asteroid that for a moment it
seemed doubtful whether it would be able to return in time to give
warning, because the electrical influence of the asteroid was
comparatively slight at such a distance, and, after they had reversed
their polarity, and applied their intensifier, so as to make that
influence effective, their motion was at first exceedingly slow.

Fortunately after a time they got under way with sufficient velocity to
bring them back to us before the approaching Martians could overtake
them.

The latter were not moving with great velocity, having evidently
projected themselves from Mars with only just sufficient force to throw
them within the feeble sphere of gravitation of the asteroid, so that
they should very gently land upon its surface.

Indeed, looking out behind the electrical ship which had brought us the
warning, we immediately saw the projectile of the Martians approaching.
It sparkled like a star in the black sky as the sunlight fell upon it.

The ships of the squadron whose crews had not landed upon the planet
were signaled to prepare for action, while those who were upon the
asteroid made ready for battle there. A number of disintegrators were
trained upon the approaching Martians, but Mr. Edison gave strict orders
that no attempt should be made to discharge the vibratory force at
random.

"They do not know that we are here," he said, "and I am convinced that
they are unable to control their motions as we can do with our
electrical ships. They depend simply upon the force of gravitation.
Having passed the limit of the attraction of Mars, they have now fallen
within the attraction of the asteroid, and they must slowly sink to its
surface.

"Having, as I am convinced, no means of producing or controlling
electrical attraction and repulsion, they cannot stop themselves, but
must come down upon the asteroid. Having got here, they could never get
away again, except as we know the survivors got away from earth, by
propelling their projectile against gravitation with the aid of an
explosive.

"Therefore, to a certain extent they will be at our mercy. Let us allow
them quietly to land upon the planet, and then I think, if it becomes
necessary, we can master them."

Notwithstanding Mr. Edison's reassuring words and manner, the company
upon the asteroid experienced a dreadful suspense while the projectile
which seemed very formidable as it drew near, sank with a slow and
graceful motion toward the surface of the ground. Evidently it was about
to land very near the spot where we stood awaiting it.

Its inmates had apparently just caught sight of us. They evinced signs
of astonishment, and seemed at a loss exactly what to do. We could see
projecting from the fore part of their car at least two of the polished
knobs, whose fearful use and power we well comprehended.

Several of our men cried out to Mr. Edison in an extremity of terror:

"Why do you not destroy them? Be quick, or we shall all perish."

"No," said Mr. Edison, "there is no danger. You can see that they are
not prepared. They will not attempt to attack us until they have made
their landing."

And Mr. Edison was right. With gradually accelerated velocity, and yet
very, very slowly in comparison with the speed they would have exhibited
in falling upon such a planet as the earth, the Martians and their car
came down to the ground.

We stood at a distance of perhaps three hundred feet from the point
where they touched the asteroid. Instantly a dozen of the giants sprang
from the car and gazed about for a moment with a look of intense
surprise. At first it was doubtful whether they meant to attack us at
all.

We stood on our guard, several carrying disintegrators in our hands,
while a score more of these terrible engines were turned upon the
Martians from the electrical ships which hovered near.

Suddenly he who seemed to be the leader of the Martians began to speak
to them in pantomime, using his fingers after the manner in which they
are used for conversation by deaf and dumb people.

Of course, we did not know what he was saying, but his meaning became
perfectly evident a minute later. Clearly they did not comprehend the
powers of the insignificant looking strangers with whom they had to
deal. Instead of turning their destructive engines on us, they advanced
on a run, with the evident purpose of making us prisoners or crushing us
by main force.

The soft whirr of the disintegrator in the hands of Mr. Edison standing
near me came to my ears through the telephonic wire. He quickly swept
the concentrating mirror a little up and down, and instantly the
foremost Martian vanished! Part of some metallic dress that he wore fell
upon the ground where he had stood, its vibratory rate not having been
included in the range imparted to the disintegrator.

His followers paused for a moment, amazed, stared about as if looking
for their leader, and then hurried back to their projectile and
disappeared within it.

"Now we've got business on our hands," said Mr. Edison. "Look out for
yourselves."

As he spoke, I saw the death-dealing knob of the war engine contained in
the car of the Martians moving around toward us. In another instant it
would have launched its destroying bolt.

Before that could occur, however, it had been dissipated into space by a
vibratory stream from a disintegrator.

But we were not to get the victory quite so easily. There was another of
the war engines in the car, and before we could concentrate our fire
upon it, its awful flash shot forth, and a dozen of our comrades
perished before our eyes.

"Quick! Quick!" shouted Mr. Edison to one of his electrical experts
standing near. "There is something the matter with this disintegrator,
and I cannot make it work. Aim at the knob, and don't miss it."

But the aim was not well taken, and the vibratory force fell upon a
portion of the car at a considerable distance from the knob, making a
great breach, but leaving the engine uninjured.

A section of the side of the car had been destroyed, and the vibratory
energy had spread no further. To have attempted to sweep the car from
end to end would have been futile, because the period of action of the
disintegrators during each discharge did not exceed one second, and
distributing the energy over so great a space would have seriously
weakened its power to shatter apart the atoms of the resisting
substance. The disintegrators were like firearms, in that after each
discharge they must be readjusted before they could be used again.

Through the breach we saw the Martians inside making desperate efforts
to train their engine upon us, for after their first disastrous stroke
we had rapidly shifted our position. Swiftly the polished knob, which
gleamed like an evil eye, moved round to sweep over us. Instinctively,
though incautiously, we had collected in a group.

A single discharge would sweep us all into eternity.

"Will no one fire upon them?" exclaimed Mr. Edison, struggling with the
disintegrator in his hands which still refused to work.

At this fearful moment I glanced around upon our company, and was
astonished at the spectacle. In the presence of the danger many of them
had lost all self-command. A half dozen had dropped their disintegrators
upon the ground. Others stood as if frozen fast in their tracks. The
expert electrician, whose poor aim had had such disastrous results, held
in his hand an instrument which was in perfect condition, yet with mouth
agape, he stood trembling like a captured bird.

It was a disgraceful exhibition. Mr. Edison, however, had not lost his
head. Again and again he sighted at the dreadful knob with his
disintegrator, but the vibratory force refused to respond.

The means of safety were in our hands, and yet through a combination of
ill luck and paralyzing terror, we seemed unable to use them.

In a second more it would be all over with us.

The suspense in reality lasted only during the twinkling of an eye,
though it seemed ages long.

Unable to endure it, I sharply struck the shoulder of the paralyzed
electrician. To have attempted to seize the disintegrator from his hands
would have been a fatal waste of time. Luckily the blow either roused
him from his stupor or caused an instinctive movement of his hand that
set the little engine in operation.

I am sure he took no aim, but providentially the vibratory force fell
upon the desired point, and the knob disappeared.

We were saved!

Instantly half a dozen rushed toward the car of the Martians. We
bitterly repented their haste; they did not live to repent.

Unknown to us the Martians carried hand engines, capable of launching
bolts of death of the same character as those which emanated from the
knobs of their larger machines. With these they fired, so to speak,
through the breach in their car, and four of our men who were rushing
upon them fell in heaps of cinders. The effect of the terrible fire was
like that which the most powerful strokes of lightning occasionally
produce on earth.

The destruction of the threatening knob had instantaneously relieved the
pressure upon the terror-stricken nerves of our company, and they had
all regained their composure and self-command. But this new and
unexpected disaster, following so close upon the fear which had recently
overpowered them, produced a second panic, the effect of which was not
to stiffen them in their tracks as before, but to send them scurrying in
every direction in search of hiding places.

And now a most curious effect of the smallness of the planet we were on
began to play a conspicuous part in our adventures. Standing on a globe
only five miles in diameter was like being on the summit of a mountain
whose sides sloped rapidly off in every direction, disappearing in the
black sky on all sides, as if it were some stupendous peak rising out of
an unfathomable abyss.

In consequence of the quick rounding off of the sides of this globe, the
line of the horizon was close at hand, and by running a distance of less
that 250 yards the fugitives disappeared down the sides of the asteroid,
and behind the horizon, even from the elevation of about fifteen feet
from which the Martians were able to watch them. From our sight they
disappeared much sooner.

The slight attraction of the planet and their consequent almost entire
lack of weight enabled the men to run with immense speed. The result, as
I have subsequently learned, was that after they had disappeared from
our view they quitted the planet entirely, the force being sufficient to
partially free them from its gravitation, so that they sailed out into
space, whirling helplessly end over end, until the elliptical orbits in
which they travelled eventually brought them back again to the planet on
the side nearly opposite to that from which they had departed.

But several of us, with Mr. Edison, stood fast, watching for an
opportunity to get the Martians within range of the disintegrators.
Luckily we were enabled, by shifting our position a little to the left,
to get out of the line of sight of our enemies concealed in the car.

"If we cannot catch sight of them," said Mr. Edison, "we shall have to
riddle the car on the chance of hitting them."

"It will be like firing into a bush to kill a hidden bear," said one of
the party.

But help came from a quarter which was unexpected to us, although it
should not have been so. Several of the electric ships had been hovering
above us during the fight, their commanders being apparently uncertain
how to act--fearful, perhaps, of injuring us in the attempt to smite our
enemy.

But now the situation apparently lightened for them. They saw that we
were at an immense disadvantage, and several of them immediately turned
their batteries upon the car of the Martians.

They riddled it far more quickly and effectively than we could have
done. Every stroke of the vibratory emanation made a gap in the side of
the car, and we could perceive from the commotion within that our
enemies were being rapidly massacred in their fortification.

So overwhelming was the force and the advantage of the ships that in a
little while it was all over. Mr. Edison signaled them to stop firing
because it was plain that all resistance had ceased and probably not one
of the Martians remained alive.

We now approached the car, which had been transpierced in every
direction, and whose remaining portions were glowing with heat in
consequence of the spreading of the atomic vibrations. Immediately we
discovered that all our anticipations were correct and that all of our
enemies had perished.

The effect of the disintegrators upon them had been awful--too
repulsive, indeed, to be described in detail. Some of the bodies had
evidently entirely vanished; only certain metal articles which they had
worn remaining, as in the case of the first Martian killed, to indicate
that such beings had ever existed. The nature of the metal composing
these articles was unknown to us. Evidently its vibratory rhythm did not
correspond with any included in the ordinary range of the
disintegrators.

Some of the giants had been only partially destroyed, the vibratory
current having grazed them, in such a manner that the shattering
undulations had not acted upon the entire body.

One thing that lends a peculiar horror to a terrestrial battlefield was
absent; there was no bloodshed. The vibratory energy, not only
completely destroyed whatever it fell upon but it seared the veins and
arteries of the dismembered bodies so that there was no sanguinary
exhibition connected with its murderous work.

All this time the shackled Martian had lain on his back where we had
left him bound. What his feeling must have been may be imagined. At
times, I caught a glimpse of his eyes, wildly rolling and exhibiting,
when he saw that the victory was in our hands, the first indications of
fear and terror shaking his soul that had yet appeared.

"That fellow is afraid at last," I said to Mr. Edison.

"Well, I should think he ought to be afraid," was the reply.

"So he ought, but if I am not mistaken this fear of his may be the
beginning of a new discovery for us."

"How so?" asked Mr. Edison.

"In this way. When once he fears our power, and perceives that there
would be no hope of contending against us, even if he were at liberty,
he will respect us. This change in his mental attitude may tend to make
him communicative. I do not see why we should despair of learning his
language from him, and having done that, he will serve as our guide and
interpreter, and will be of incalculable advantage to us when we have
arrived at Mars."

"Capital! Capital!" said Mr. Edison. "We must concentrate the linguistic
genius of our company upon that problem at once."

In the meantime some of the skulkers whose flight I have referred to
began to return, crestfallen, but rejoicing in the disappearance of the
danger. Several of them, I am ashamed to say, had been army officers.
Yet possibly some excuse could be made for the terror by which they had
been overcome. No man has a right to hold his fellow beings to account
for the line of conduct they may pursue under circumstances which are
not only entirely unexampled in their experience, but almost beyond the
power of the imagination to picture.

Paralyzing terror had evidently seized them with the sudden
comprehension of the unprecedented singularity of their situation.
Millions of miles away from the earth, confronted on an asteroid by
these diabolical monsters from a maleficent planet, who were on the
point of destroying them with a strange torment of death--perhaps it was
really more than human nature, deprived of the support of human
surroundings, could be expected to bear.

Those who, as already described, had run with so great a speed that they
were projected, all unwilling, into space, rising in elliptical orbits
from the surface of the planet, describing great curves in what might be
denominated its sky, and then coming back again to the little globe on
another side, were so filled with the wonders of their remarkable
adventure that they had almost forgotten the terror which had inspired
it.

There was nothing surprising in what had occurred to them the moment one
considered the laws of gravitation on the asteroid, but their stories
aroused an intense interest among all who listened to them.

Lord Kelvin was particularly interested, and while Mr. Edison was
hastening preparations to quit the asteroid and resume our voyage to
Mars, Lord Kelvin and a number of other scientific men instituted a
series of remarkable experiments.

It was one of the most laughable things imaginable to see Lord Kelvin,
dressed in his air-tight suit, making tremendous jumps in empty space.
It reminded me forcibly of what Lord Kelvin, then plain William
Thompson, and Professor Blackburn had done when spending a summer
vacation at the seaside, while they were undergraduates of Cambridge
University. They had spent all their time, to the surprise of onlookers,
in spinning rounded stones on the beach, their object being to obtain a
practical solution of the mathematical problem of "precession."

Immediately Lord Kelvin was imitated by a dozen others. With what seemed
very slight effort they projected themselves straight upwards, rising to
a height of four hundred feet or more, and then slowly settling back
again to the surface of the asteroid. The time of rise and fall combined
was between three and four minutes.

On this little planet the acceleration of gravity or the velocity
acquired by a falling body in one second was only four-fifths of an
inch. A body required an entire minute to fall a distance of only 120
feet. Consequently, it was more like gradually settling than falling.
The figures of these men of science, rising and sinking in this manner,
appeared like so many gigantic marionettes bobbing up and down in a
pneumatic bottle.

"Let us try that," said Mr. Edison, very much interested in the
experiments.

Both of us jumped together. At first, with great swiftness, but
gradually losing speed, we rose to an immense height straight from the
ground. When we had reached the utmost limit of our flight we seemed to
come to rest for a moment, and then began slowly, but with accelerated
velocity, to sink back again to the planet. It was not only a peculiar
but a delicious sensation, and but for strict orders which were issued
that the electrical ships should be immediately prepared for departure,
our entire company might have remained for an indefinite period enjoying
this new kind of athletic exercise in a world where gravitation had
become so humble that it could be trifled with.

While the final preparations for departure were being made, Lord Kelvin
instituted other experiments that were no less unique in their results.
The experience of those who had taken unpremeditated flights in
elliptical orbits when they had run from the vicinity of the Martians
suggested the throwing of solid objects in various directions from the
surface of the planet in order to determine the distance they would go
and the curves they would describe in returning.

For these experiments there was nothing more convenient or abundant than
chunks of gold from the Martians' mine. These, accordingly, were hurled
in different directions and with every degree of velocity. A little
calculation had shown that an initial velocity of thirty feet per second
imparted to one of these chunks, moving at right angles to the radius of
the asteroid, would, if the resistance of an almost inappreciable
atmosphere were neglected, suffice to turn the piece of gold into a
little satellite that would describe an orbit around the asteroid, and
continue to do so forever, or at least until the slight atmospheric
resistance should eventually bring it down to the surface.

But a less velocity than thirty feet per second would cause the golden
missile to fly only part way around, while a greater velocity would give
it an elliptical instead of a circular orbit, and in this ellipse it
would continue to revolve around the asteroid in the character of a
satellite.

If the direction of the original impulse were at more than a right angle
to the radius of the asteroid, then the flying body would pass out to a
greater or less distance in space in an elliptical orbit, eventually
coming back again and falling upon the asteroid, but not at the same
spot from which it had departed.

So many took part in these singular experiments, which assumed rather
the appearance of outdoor sports than of scientific demonstrations, that
in a short time we had provided the asteroid with a very large number of
little moons, or satellites, of gold, which revolved around it in orbits
of various degrees of ellipticity, taking, on the average, about
three-quarters of an hour to complete a circuit. Since, on completing a
revolution, they must necessarily pass through the point from which they
started, they kept us constantly on the _qui vive_ to avoid being
knocked over by them as they swept around in their orbits.

Finally the signal was given for all to embark, and with great regret
the savants quitted their scientific games, and prepared to return to
the electric ships.

Just on the moment of departure, the fact was announced by one, who had
been making a little calculation on a bit of paper, that the velocity
with which a body must be thrown in order to escape forever the
attraction of the asteroid, and to pass on to an infinite distance in
any direction, was only about forty-two feet in a second.

Manifestly it would be quite easy to impart such a speed as that to the
chunks of gold that we held in our hands.

"Hurrah!" exclaimed one. "Let's send some of this back to the earth."

"Where is the earth?" asked another.

Being appealed to, several astronomers turned their eyes in the
direction of the sun, where the black firmament was ablaze with stars,
and in a moment recognized the earth-star shining there, with the moon
attending close at hand.

"There," said one, "is the earth. Can you throw straight enough to hit
it?"

"We'll try," was the reply, and immediately several threw huge golden
nuggets in the direction of our far-away world, endeavoring to impart to
them at least the required velocity of forty-two feet in a second, which
would insure their passing beyond the attraction of the asteroid, and if
there should be no disturbance on the way, and the aim were accurate,
their eventual arrival upon the earth.

"Here's for you, Old Earth," said one of the throwers, "good luck, and
more gold to you!"

If these precious missiles ever reached the earth we knew that they
would plunge into the atmosphere like meteors and that probably the heat
developed by their passage would melt and dissipate them in golden
vapors before they could touch the ground.

Yet there was a chance that some of them--if the aim were true--might
survive the fiery passage through the atmosphere and fall upon the
surface of our planet where, perhaps, they would afterward be picked up
by a prospector and lead him to believe that he had struck a new
bonanza.

But until we returned to the earth it would be impossible for us to tell
what had become of the golden gifts which we had launched into space for
our mother planet.




CHAPTER NINE

_JOURNEY'S END_


"All aboard!" was the signal, and the squadron having assembled under
the lead of the flagship, we started again for Mars.

This time, as it proved, there was to be no further interruption, and
when next we paused it was in the presence of the world inhabited by our
enemies, and facing their frowning batteries.

We did not find it so easy to start from the asteroid as it had been to
start from the earth; that is to say, we could not so readily generate a
very high velocity.

In consequence of the comparatively small size of the asteroid, its
electric influence was very much less than that of the earth, and
notwithstanding the appliances which we possessed for intensifying the
electrical effect, it was not possible to produce a sufficient repulsion
to start us off for Mars with anything like the impulse which we had
received from the earth on our original departure.

The utmost velocity that we could generate did not exceed three miles in
a second, and to get this required our utmost efforts. In fact, it had
not seemed possible that we should attain even so great a speed as that.
It was far more than we could have expected, and even Mr. Edison was
surprised, as well as greatly gratified, when he found that we were
moving with the velocity that I have named.

We were still about 6,000,000 miles from Mars, so that, traveling three
miles in a second, we should require at least twenty-three days to reach
the immediate neighborhood of the planet.

Meanwhile we had plenty of occupation to make the time pass quickly. Our
prisoner was transported along with us, and we now began our attempts to
ascertain what his language was, and, if possible, to master it
ourselves.

Before quitting the asteroid we had found that it was necessary for him
to swallow one of his "air pills," as Professor Moissan had called them,
at least three times in the course of every twenty-four hours. One of us
supplied him regularly and I thought that I could detect evidences of a
certain degree of gratitude in his expression. This was encouraging,
because it gave additional promise of the possibility of our being able
to communicate with him in some more effective way than by mere signs.
But once inside the car, where we had a supply of air kept at the
ordinary pressure experienced on the earth, he could breathe like the
rest of us.

The best linguists in the expedition, as Mr. Edison had suggested, were
now assembled in the flagship, where the prisoner was, and they set to
work to devise some means of ascertaining the manner in which he was
accustomed to express his thoughts. We had not heard him speak, because
until we carried him into our car there was no atmosphere capable of
conveying any sounds he might attempt to utter.

It seemed a fair assumption that the language of the Martians would be
scientific in its structure. We had so much evidence of the practical
bent of their minds, and of the immense progress which they had made in
the direction of the scientific conquest of nature, that it was not to
be supposed their medium of communication with one another would be
lacking in clearness, or would possess any of the puzzling and
unnecessary ambiguities that characterized the languages spoken on the
earth.

"We shall not find them making he's and she's of stones, sticks and
other inanimate objects," said one of the American linguists. "They must
certainly have gotten rid of all that nonsense long ago."

"Ah," said a French Professor from the Sorbonne, one of the makers of
the never-to-be-finished dictionary. "It will be like the language of my
country. Transparent, similar to the diamond, and sparkling as is the
fountain."

"I think," said a German enthusiast, "that it will be a universal
language, the Volapuk of Mars, spoken by all the inhabitants of that
planet."

"But all these speculations," broke in Mr. Edison, "do not help you
much. Why not begin in a practical manner by finding out what the
Martian calls himself, for instance."

This seemed a good suggestion, and accordingly several of the bystanders
began an expressive pantomime, intended to indicate to the giant, who
was following all their motions with his eyes, that they wished to know
by what name he called himself. Pointing their fingers to their own
breast they repeated, one after the other, the word "man."

If our prisoner had been a stupid savage, of course any such attempt as
this to make him understand would have been idle. But it must be
remembered that we were dealing with a personage who had presumably
inherited from hundreds of generations the results of a civilization,
and an intellectual advance, measured by the constant progress of
millions of years.

Accordingly we were not very much astonished, when, after a few
repetitions of the experiment, the Martian--one of whose arms had been
partially released from its bonds in order to give him a little freedom
of motion--imitated the action of his interrogators by pressing his
finger over his heart.

Then, opening his mouth, he gave utterance to a sound which shook the
air of the car like the hoarse roar of a lion. He seemed himself
surprised by the noise he made, for he had not been used to speak in so
dense an atmosphere.

Our ears were deafened and confused, and we recoiled in astonishment,
not to say, half in terror.

With an ugly grin distorting his face as if he enjoyed our discomfiture,
the Martian repeated the motion and the sound.

"R-r-r-r-r-r-h!"

It was not articulate to our ears and not to be represented by any
combination of letters.

"Faith," exclaimed a Dublin University professor, "if that's what they
call themselves, how shall we ever translate their names when we come to
write the history of the conquest?"

"Whist, mon," replied a professor from the University of Aberdeen, "let
us whip the gillravaging villains first, and then we can describe them
by any intitulation that may suit our deesposition."

The beginning of our linguistic conquest was certainly not promising, at
least if measured by our acquirement of words, but from another point of
view it was very gratifying, inasmuch as it was plain that the Martian
understood what we were trying to do, and was, for the present, at
least, disposed to aid us.

These efforts to learn the language of Mars were renewed and repeated
every few hours, all the experience, learning and genius of the squadron
being concentrated upon the work, and the result was that in the course
of a few days we had actually succeeded in learning a dozen or more of
the Martian's words and were able to make him understand us when we
pronounced them, as well as to understand him when our ears had become
accustomed to the growling of his voice.

Finally, one day the prisoner, who seemed to be in an unusually cheerful
frame of mind, indicated that he carried in his breast some object which
he wished us to see.

With our assistance he pulled out a book!

Actually, it was a book, not very unlike the books which we have upon
the earth, but printed, of course, in characters that were entirely
strange and unknown to us. Yet these characters evidently gave
expression to a highly intellectual language. All those who were
standing by at the moment uttered a shout of wonder and of delight, and
the cry of "a book! a book!" ran around the circle, and the good news
was even promptly communicated to some of the neighboring electric ships
of the squadron. Several other learned men were summoned in haste from
them to examine our new treasure.

[Illustration: _Actually, it was a book that the prisoner produced, and
then he proceeded to teach us, as well as he could, several words of his
language._]

The Martian, whose good nature had manifestly been growing day after
day, watched our inspection of his book with evidences of great
interest, not unmingled with amusement. Finally he beckoned the holder
of the book to his side, and placing his broad finger upon one of the
huge letters--if letters they were, for they more nearly resembled the
characters employed by the Chinese printer--he uttered a sound which we,
of course, took to be a word, but which was different from any we had
yet heard. Then he pointed to one after another of us standing around.

"Ah," explained everybody, the truth being apparent, "that is the word
by which the Martians designate us. They have a name, then, for the
inhabitants of the earth."

"Or, perhaps, it is rather the name for the earth itself," said one.

But this could not, of course, be at once determined. Anyhow, the word,
whatever its precise meaning might be, had now been added to our
vocabulary, although as yet our organs of speech proved unable to
reproduce it in a recognizable form.

This promising and unexpected discovery of the Martian's book lent added
enthusiasm to those who were engaged in the work of trying to master the
language of our prisoner, and the progress that they made in the course
of the next few days was truly astonishing. If the prisoner had been
unwilling to aid them, of course, it would have been impossible to
proceed, but, fortunately for us, he seemed more and more to enter into
the spirit of the undertaking, and actually to enjoy it himself. So
bright and quick was his understanding that he was even able to indicate
to us methods of mastering his language that would otherwise, probably,
never have occurred to our minds.

In fact, in a very short time he had turned teacher and all these
learned men, pressing around him with eager attention, had become his
pupils.

I cannot undertake to say precisely how much of the Martian language had
been acquired by the chief linguists of the expedition before the time
when we arrived so near to Mars that it became necessary for most of us
to abandon our studies in order to make ready for the more serious
business which now confronted us.

But, at any rate, the acquisition was so considerable as to allow of the
interchange of ordinary ideas with our prisoner, and there was no longer
any doubt that he would be able to give us much information when we
landed on his native planet.

At the end of twenty-three days as measured by terrestrial time, since
our departure from the asteroid, we arrived in the sky of Mars.

For a long time the ruddy planet had been growing larger and more
formidable, gradually turning from a huge star into a great red moon,
and then expanding more and more until it began to shut out from sight
the constellations behind it. The curious markings on its surface, which
from the earth can only be dimly glimpsed with a powerful telescope,
began to reveal themselves clearly to our naked eyes.

I have related how even before we had reached the asteroid, Mars began
to present a most imposing appearance as we saw it with our telescopes.
Now, however, that it was close at hand, the naked eye view of the
planet was more wonderful than anything we had been able to see with
telescopes when at a greater distance.

We were approaching the southern hemisphere of Mars in about

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