s clear as it is now. I reflected that as the car was ever
rising into a rarer atmosphere, my only hope of salvation lay in calling
for help, and that as the paralysis was gaining on my whole body, not a
moment was to be lost. I shouted with all my strength; but beyond a sort
of hiss, not a sound escaped my lips. The profound silence of the car
now struck me in a new light. Had Gazen and Miss Carmichael not
committed the same blunder, and suffered a like fate? Perhaps even
Carmichael himself had been equally careless, and the flying machine,
now masterless, was carrying us Heaven knows whither. Strange to say I
entertained these sinister apprehensions without the least emotion. I
had lost all feeling of pain or anxiety, and was perfectly tranquil and
indifferent to anything that might happen. It is possible that with the
paralysis of my powers to help myself, I was also relieved by nature
from the fears of death. I began to think of the sensation which our
mysterious disappearance would make in the newspapers, and of divers
other matters, such as my own boyhood and my friends, when all at once
my eyes grew dim--and I remembered nothing more.

CHAPTER VII.

ARRIVING IN VENUS.

"Try to speak--there's a good fellow--open your eyes."

I heard the words as in a dream. I recognised the voice of Gazen, but it
seemed to come from the far distance. Opening my eyes I found myself
prostrate on the floor of the smoking room, with the professor and Miss
Carmichael kneeling beside me. There was a look of great anxiety on
their faces.

"I'm all right," said I feebly. "I'm so glad you are safe."

It appears that a short time before, Gazen had closed the scuttles of
the observatory and returned with Miss Carmichael to the saloon, then,
after calling to me without receiving any answer, had opened the door of
the smoking-room and seen me lying in a dead faint. Luckily Miss
Carmichael had acquired some knowledge of medicine, partly from her
father, and without loss of time they applied themselves to bring me
round by the method of artificial respiration employed in cases of
drowning or lightning stroke.

It would be tedious to narrate all the particulars of our journey
through the dark abyss, particularly as nothing very important befell
us, and one day passed like another. Now and then a small meteoric stone
struck the car and glanced off its rounded sides.

"Old Charon," as Gazen and I had nicknamed Carmichael, after the