d 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 man