rth.

Over the plains of the Sun a storm was sweeping in gusts of howling
flame as they felt the Professor's spell drawing them home. For the
magnitude of that storm there are no words in use among us; its
velocity, if expressed in figures, would have no meaning; its heat was
immeasurable. Suffice it to say that if such a tempest could have swept
over Earth for a second, both the poles would have boiled. The
travellers left it galloping over that plain, rippled from underneath
by the restless earthquake and whipped into flaming foam by the force
of the storm. The Sun already was receding from them, already growing
smaller. Soon the storm seemed but a cloud of light sweeping over the
empty plain, like a murderous mourner rushing swiftly away from the
grave of that mighty mountain.

And now the Professor's spell gripped them in earnest: rapidly the Sun
grew smaller. As swiftly as he had sent them upon that journey he was
now drawing them home. They overtook thunders that they had heard
already, and passed them, and came again to the silent spaces which the
thunders of the Sun are unable to cross, so that even Mercury is
undisturbed by them.

I have said that spirits neither fade nor weary. But a great sadness
was on them; they felt as men feel who come whole away from periods of
peril. They had seen cataclysms too vast for our imagination, and a
mournfulness and a satiety were upon them. They could have gazed at one
flower for days and needed no other experience, as a wounded man may be
happy staring at the flame of a candle.

Crossing the paths of Mercury and Venus, they saw that these planets
had not appreciably moved, and Rodriguez, who knew that planets wander
in the night, guessed thereby that they had not been absent from Earth
for many hours.

They rejoiced to see the Sun diminishing steadily. Only for a moment as
they started their journey had they seen that solar storm rushing over
the plains of the Sun; but now it appeared to hang halted in its mid
anger, as though blasting one region eternally.

Moving on with the pace of light, they saw Earth, soon after crossing
the path of Venus, beginning to grow larger than a star. Never had home
appeared more welcome to wanderers, who see their house far off,
returning home.

And as Earth grew larger, and they began to see forms that seemed like
seas and mountains, they looked for their own country, but could not
find it: for, travelling straight from the Sun, th