e World of the Crystal
Cities, as Zaidie subsequently re-christened Ganymede.

The President of the Senate or Council spoke a few sentences in a deep
musical tone. Then their host, taking their hands, led them up to his
seat, and the President rose and took them by both hands in turn. Then,
with a grave smile of greeting, he bent his head and resumed his seat.
They joined hands in turn with each of the six senators present, bowed
their farewells in silence, and then went back with their host to the
car.

They ran down the avenue, made a curving sweep round to the left--for
all the paths in the great square were laid in curves, apparently to
form a contrast to the straight streets--and presently stopped before
the porch of one of the hundred palaces which surrounded it. This was
their host's house, and their home during the rest of their sojourn on
Ganymede.

CHAPTER XVI

The period of Ganymede's revolution round its gigantic primary is seven
days, three hours, and forty-three minutes, practically a terrestrial
week, and on their return to their native world both the daring
navigators of Space described this as the most interesting and
delightful week in their lives, excepting always the period which they
spent in the Eden of the Morning Star. Yet in one sense, it was even
more interesting.

There the inhabitants had never learnt to sin; here they had learnt the
lesson that sin is mere foolishness, and that no really sensible or
properly educated man or woman thinks crime worth committing.

The life of the Crystal Cities, of which they visited four in different
parts of the satellite, using the _Astronef_ as their vehicle, was one
of peaceful industry and calm, innocent enjoyment. It was quite plain
that their first impressions of this aged world were correct. Outside
the cities spread a universal desert on which life was impossible. There
was hardly any moisture in the thin atmosphere. The rivers had dwindled
into rivulets and the seas into vast, shallow marshes. The heat received
from the Sun was only about a twenty-fifth of that which falls on the
surface of the Earth, and this was drawn to the cities and collected and
preserved under their glass domes by a number of devices which displayed
superhuman intelligence.

The dwindling supplies of water were hoarded in vast subterranean
reservoirs, and, by means of a perfect system of redistillation, the
priceless fluid was used over and over again both for