re
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."

The Deserter's Return.

In the meantime some of the skulkers whose flight I have referred to
began to return, chapfallen, 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 maleficient 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 have
been 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.

Jumping Into Empty Space.

It was one of the most laughable things i