several of the other electrical ships, waiting
above the cloud curtain, were summoned to descend, and, with more than a
hundred men, we returned to the building, and this time almost entirely
exhausted its stores, each man carrying as much as he could stagger
under.

Fortunately our proceedings had been conducted without much noise, and
the storehouse being situated at a considerable distance from other
buildings, none of the Martians, except those who would never tell the
story, had known of our arrival or of our doings on the planet.

"Now, we'll return and surprise Edison with the news," said Colonel
Smith.

Our ship was the last to pass up through the clouds, and it was a
strange sight to watch the others as one after another they rose toward
the great dome, entered it, though from below it resembled a solid vault
of grayish-pink marble, and disappeared.

We quickly followed them, and having penetrated the enormous curtain,
were considerably surprised on emerging at the other side to find that
the sun was shining brilliantly upon us. It will be remembered that it
was night on this side of Mars when we went down, but our adventure had
occupied several hours, and now Mars had so turned upon its axis that
the portion of its surface over which we were had come around into the
sunlight.

We knew that the squadron which we had left besieging the Lake of the
Sun must also have been carried around in a similar manner, passing into
the night while the side of the planet where we were was emerging into
day.

Our shortest way back would be by traveling westward, because then we
should be moving in a direction opposite to that in which the planet
rotated, and the main squadron, sharing that rotation, would be
continually moving in our direction.

But to travel westward was to penetrate once more into the night side of
the planet.

The prows, if I may so call them, of our ships were accordingly turned
in the direction of the vast shadow which Mars was invisibly projecting
into space behind it, and on entering that shadow the sun disappeared
from our eyes, and once more the huge hidden globe beneath us became a
black chasm among the stars.

Now that we were in the neighborhood of a globe capable of imparting
considerable weight to all things under the influence of its attraction
that peculiar condition which I have before described as existing in the
midst of space, where there was neither up nor down for us, had ceas