grim
ferryman of the Styx, seldom forsook his engines, and Miss Carmichael
spent a good deal of her time along with him. Occasionally she chatted
with Gazen and myself in the saloon, or helped us to make scientific
observations; but although neither of us openly confessed it, I think we
both felt that she did not give us quite enough of her company. Her
manner seemed to betray no preference for one or the other.

Did she, by her feminine instinct, perceive that we were both solicitous
of her company, and was she afraid of exciting jealousy between us? In
any case we were all the more glad to see her when she did join us. No
doubt men in general, and professors in particular, are fond of
communicating knowledge, but a great deal depends on the pupil; and
certainly I was surprised to see how the hard and dry astronomer beamed
with delight as he initiated this young lady into the mysteries of the
apparatus, and what a deal of trouble he took to cram her lovely head
with mathematics.

We noted the temperature of space as we darted onwards, and discovered
that it contains a trace of gases lost from the atmospheres of the
heavenly bodies. We also found there a sprinkling of minute organisms,
which had probably strayed from some living world. Gazen suggested that
these might sow the seeds of organic life in brand-new planets, ready
for them, but perhaps that was only his scientific joke. The jokes of
science are frequently so well disguised, that many people take them for
earnest.

Gazen made numerous observations of the celestial bodies, more
especially the sun, which now appeared as a globe of lilac fire in the
centre of a silvery lustre, but I will leave him to publish his results
in his own fashion. We may claim to have seen the South Pole, but, of
course, at a distance too great for scientific purposes. Judging by its
appearance, I should say it was surrounded by a frozen land. The earth,
with its ruddy and green continents, delineated as on a map, or veiled
in belted clouds, was a magnificent object for the telescope as it
wheeled in the blue rays of the sun.

Hour after hour, with a kind of loving fascination, we watched it
growing "fine by degrees and beautifully less," until at last it waned
into a bright star.

Venus, on the other hand, waxed more and more brilliant until it
rivalled the moon, and Mercury appeared as a rosy star not far from it.

We soon got accustomed to the funereal aspect of the sky, and t