nows around the southern pole was at its strongest, and one could
hardly have believed that any obstruction put in its path would have
been able to arrest it and turn it into these two all-swallowing
deluges, sweeping east and west. But, as we now perceived, the level of
the land over a large part of its surface was hundreds of feet below the
ocean, so that the latter, when once the barriers were broken, rushed
into depressions that yawned to receive it.

The point where we had dealt our blow was far removed from the great
capitol of Mars, around the Lake of the Sun, and we knew that we should
have to wait for the floods to reach that point before the desired
effect could be produced. By the nearest way, the water had at least
5,000 miles to travel. We estimated that its speed where we hung above
it was as much as a hundred miles an hour. Even if that speed were
maintained, more than two days and nights would be required for the
floods to reach the Lake of the Sun.

But as the water rushed on it would break the banks of all the canals
intersecting the country, and these, being also elevated above the
surface, would add the impetus of their escaping waters to hasten the
advance of the flood. We calculated, therefore, that about two days
would suffice to place the planet at our mercy.

Half way from the Syrtis Major to the Lake of the Sun another great
connecting link between the Southern and Northern ocean basins, called
on our maps of Mars the Indus, existed, and through this channel we knew
that another great current must be setting from the south toward the
north. The flood that we had started would reach and break the banks of
the Indus within one day.

The flood traveling in the other direction, toward the east, would have
considerably further to go before reaching the neighborhood of the Lake
of the Sun. It, too, would involve hundreds of great canals as it
advanced and would come plunging upon the Lake of the Sun and its
surrounding forts and cities, probably about half a day later than the
arrival of the deluge that traveled toward the west.

Now that we had let the awful destroyer loose we almost shrank from the
thought of the consequences which we had produced. How many millions
would perish as the result of our deed we could not even guess. Many of
the victims, so far as we knew, might be entirely innocent of enmity
toward us, or of the evil which had been done to our native planet. But
this was a case in