quite exhilarating when mixed with the air
supplied by their own oxygen apparatus.

The attraction of the satellite being only a little more than that of
the Moon--or, say, about a fifth of that of the Earth--they were able to
get along with a series of hops, skips, and jumps which might have
looked rather ridiculous to terrestrial eyes, but which they found a
very pleasant mode of locomotion. They were also able to climb the
steepest mountainsides with no more trouble than they would have had in
walking along a terrestrial plain.

On the heights they found no sign either of animal or vegetable
life--only rocks and gravel and sand of a brownish red, apparently
uniform in composition. They took a few lumps of rock and a canvas bag
full of sand back with them from the mountain-side. In the valley
sloping towards the ice-sea they found what had once been watercourses
opening out into rivers towards the sea; and in the lowest parts there
was a kind of lichen-growth clinging to the rocks under the snow. On the
surface of the snow they saw traces of what might have been the tracks
of animals, but, as there was no breath of wind in the attenuated
atmosphere, it was quite possible that these might have been frozen into
permanent shape hundreds or thousands of years before. It was also
possible that if they had explored long enough they might have found
some low forms of animal life, but as they had landed almost on the
equator of the satellite, under the full rays of the Sun, and seen
nothing, this was hardly likely.

"I don't think it is worth while stopping here any longer," said Zaidie,
who was getting a little bit _blase_ with her interplanetary
experiences. "We've got lots to see further on, so if you don't mind I
think I'll just take two or three photographs, then we can get back to
the ship and have dinner and go on and see what Ganymede is like. He's
bigger than Mercury, and nearly as big as Mars, so we ought to find
something interesting there. This is only a sort of combination of the
Moon and the polar regions and I don't think very much of it. Suppose we
go back."

"Just as your Ladyship pleases," laughed Redgrave over the wire which
connected their helmets, as, with joined hands, they turned back and
danced along the snow-covered ocean shore towards the _Astronef_.

Zaidie took a couple of photographs of the mountain range and the
ice-sea and another one of the general landscape of Calisto as they rose
from