n outburst of reddish light, which we think indicates that
something has been shot from the planet. Spectroscopic observations of
this moving light indicated that it was coming earthward, while visible,
at the rate of not less than one hundred miles a second."

Hardly had the excitement caused by the reading of this dispatch
subsided, when others of a similar import came from the Lick
Observatory, in California; from the branch of the Harvard Observatory
at Arequipa, in Peru, and from the Royal Observatory, at Potsdam.

When the telegram from this last named place was read the Emperor
William turned to his Chancellor and said:

"I want to go home. If I am to die I prefer to leave my bones among
those of my imperial ancestors and not in this vulgar country, where no
king has ever ruled. I don't like this atmosphere. It makes me limp."

And now, whipped on by the lash of alternate hope and fear, the earth
sprang to its work of preparation.

CHAPTER FOUR

_TO CONQUER ANOTHER WORLD_

It is not necessary for me to describe the manner in which Mr. Edison
performed his tremendous task. He was as good as his word, and within
six months from the first stroke of the hammer, a hundred electrical
ships, each provided with a full battery of disintegrators, were
floating in the air above the harbor and the partially rebuilt city of
New York.

It was a wonderful scene. The polished sides of the huge floating cars
sparkled in the sunlight, and, as they slowly rose and fell, and swung
this way and that, upon the tides of the air, as if held by invisible
cables, the brilliant pennons streaming from their peaks waved up and
down like the wings of an assemblage of gigantic humming birds.

Not knowing whether the atmosphere of Mars would prove suitable to be
breathed by inhabitants of the earth, Mr. Edison had made provision, by
means of an abundance of glass-protected openings, to permit the inmates
of the electrical ships to survey their surroundings without quitting
the interior. It was possible by properly selecting the rate of
undulation, to pass the vibratory impulse from the disintegrators
through the glass windows of a car without damage to the glass itself.
The windows were so arranged that the disintegrators could sweep around
the car on all sides, and could also be directed above or below, as
necessity might dictate.

To overcome the destructive forces employed by the Martians no
satisfactory plan had yet been