lay a typical Martian landscape.
Rolling ochre sea bottom of long dead seas, low surrounding hills, with
here and there the grim and silent cities of the dead past; great piles
of mighty architecture tenanted only by age-old memories of a once
powerful race, and by the great white apes of Barsoom.

It was becoming more and more difficult to maintain our little vessel
in a horizontal position. Lower and lower sagged the bow until it
became necessary to stop the engine to prevent our flight terminating
in a swift dive to the ground.

As the sun rose and the light of a new day swept away the darkness of
night our craft gave a final spasmodic plunge, turned half upon her
side, and then with deck tilting at a sickening angle swung in a slow
circle, her bow dropping further below her stern each moment.

To hand-rail and stanchion we clung, and finally as we saw the end
approaching, snapped the buckles of our harness to the rings at her
sides. In another moment the deck reared at an angle of ninety degrees
and we hung in our leather with feet dangling a thousand yards above
the ground.

I was swinging quite close to the controlling devices, so I reached out
to the lever that directed the rays of repulsion. The boat responded
to the touch, and very gently we began to sink toward the ground.

It was fully half an hour before we touched. Directly north of us rose
a rather lofty range of hills, toward which we decided to make our way,
since they afforded greater opportunity for concealment from the
pursuers we were confident might stumble in this direction.

An hour later found us in the time-rounded gullies of the hills, amid
the beautiful flowering plants that abound in the arid waste places of
Barsoom. There we found numbers of huge milk-giving shrubs--that
strange plant which serves in great part as food and drink for the wild
hordes of green men. It was indeed a boon to us, for we all were
nearly famished.

Beneath a cluster of these which afforded perfect concealment from
wandering air scouts, we lay down to sleep--for me the first time in
many hours. This was the beginning of my fifth day upon Barsoom since
I had found myself suddenly translated from my cottage on the Hudson to
Dor, the valley beautiful, the valley hideous. In all this time I had
slept but twice, though once the clock around within the storehouse of
the therns.

It was mid-afternoon when I was awakened by some one seizing my hand
and cove