s look like
revolving helices," replied Redgrave, after a long look through his
telescope. "He's screwing himself up into the air. That shows that they
must either have stronger and lighter machinery than we have, or, as the
astronomers have thought, this atmosphere is denser than ours, and
therefore easier to fly in. Then, of course, things are only half their
earthly weight here.

"Well, whether it's peace or war, I suppose we may as well let them come
and reconnoitre. Then we shall see what kind of creatures they are. Ah,
there are a lot more of them, some coming from Brooklyn, too, as you
call it. Come up into the conning-tower, and I'll relieve Murgatroyd, so
that he can go and look after his engines. We shall have to give these
gentlemen a lesson in flying. Meanwhile, in case of accidents, we may as
well make ourselves as invulnerable as possible."

A few minutes later they were in the conning-tower again, watching the
approach of the Martian fleet through the thick windows of toughened
glass which enabled them to look in every direction except straight
down. The steel coverings had been drawn down over the glass dome of the
deck-chamber, and Murgatroyd had gone down to the engine-room. Fifty
feet ahead of them stretched out the long, shining spur, of which ten
feet were solid steel, a ram which no floating structure built by human
hands could have resisted.

Redgrave was standing with his hand on the steering-wheel, looking more
serious than he had done so far during the voyage. Zaidie stood beside
him with a powerful binocular telescope watching, with cheeks a little
paler than usual, the movements of the Martian air-ships. She counted
twenty-five vessels rising round them in a wide circle.

"I don't like the idea of a whole fleet coming up," said Redgrave, as he
watched them rising, and the ring narrowing round the still motionless
_Astronef_. "If they only wanted to know who and what we are, or to
leave their cards on us, as it were, and bid us welcome to the world,
one ship could have done that just as well as a fleet. This lot coming
up looks as if they wanted to get round and capture us."

"It does look like it," said Zaidie, with her glasses fixed on the
nearest of the vessels; "and now I can see they've guns too, something
like ours, and perhaps, as you said just now, they may have explosives
that we don't know anything about. Oh, Lenox, suppose they were able to
smash us up with a single shot."

"