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 a