ly before.
Her cheeks were glowing and her eyes were gleaming with a brightness
that was almost feverish, and he was himself sensible of a strange
feeling of exultation, both mental and physical, as his lungs filled
with the Martian air.

"Oxygen," he said, shortly, "and too much of it! Or I shouldn't wonder
if it was something like nitrous-oxide--you know, laughing gas."

"Don't!" she laughed; "it may be very nice to breathe, but it reminds
one of other things which aren't a bit nice. Still, if it is anything of
that sort it might account for these people having lived so fast. I know
I feel just now as if I was living at the rate of thirty-six hours a
day, and so, I suppose, the fewer hours we stop here the better."

"Exactly!" said Redgrave, with another glance of apprehension at her.
"Now, there's his Royal Highness, or whatever he is, coming. How are we
going to talk to him? Are you all ready, Andrew?"

"Yes, my Lord, all ready," replied the old Yorkshireman, dropping his
huge, hairy hand on the breech of the Maxim.

"Very well, then, shoot the moment you see them doing anything
suspicious, and don't let any one except his Royal Highness come nearer
than a hundred yards."

As he said this Redgrave went to the door, from which the gangway steps
had been lowered, and, in reply to a singularly expressive gesture from
the huge Martian, who seemed to stand nearly nine feet high, he beckoned
to him to come up on to the deck.

As he mounted the steps the crowd closed round the _Astronef_ and the
Martian air-ship; but, as though in obedience to orders which had
already been given, they kept at a respectful distance of a little over
a hundred yards away from the strange vessel which had wrought such
havoc with their fleet. When the Martian reached the deck, Redgrave held
out his hand and the giant recoiled, as a man on earth might have done
if, instead of the open palm, he had seen a clenched hand gripping a
knife.

"Take care, Lenox," exclaimed Zaidie, taking a couple of steps towards
him, with her right hand on the butt of one of her revolvers. The
movement brought her close to the open door, and in full view of the
crowd outside.

If a seraph had come on earth and presented itself thus before a throng
of human beings, there might have happened some such miracle as was
wrought when the swarm of Martians beheld the strange beauty of this
radiant daughter of the earth.

As it seemed to the space-voyagers, when t