all the observatories until she
vanished through the brilliant cloud-band, eighty-five thousand miles
long and some five thousand miles broad, which stretched from east to
west of the planet. At the same moment the voyagers lost sight of
Ganymede and his sister satellites.

The temperature of the interior of the _Astronef_ began to rise as soon
as the upper cloud-belt was passed. Under this, spread out a vast field
of brown-red cloud, rent here and there into holes and gaps like those
storm-cavities in the atmosphere of the Sun, which are commonly known as
sun-spots. This lower stratum of cloud appeared to be the scene of
terrific storms, compared with which the fiercest earthly tempests were
mere zephyrs.

After falling some five hundred miles further they found themselves
surrounded by what seemed an ocean of fire, but still the internal
temperature had only risen from seventy to ninety-five. The engines were
well under control. Only about a fourth of the total R. Force was being
developed, and the _Astronef_ was dropping swiftly, but steadily.

Redgrave, who was in the conning-tower controlling the engines, beckoned
to Zaidie and said:

"Shall we go on?"

"Yes," she said. "Now we've got as far as this I want to see what
Jupiter is like, and where you are not afraid to go, I'll go."

"If I'm afraid at all it's only because you are with me, Zaidie," he
replied, "but I've only got a fourth of the power turned on yet, so
there's plenty of margin."

The _Astronef_, therefore, continued to sink through what seemed to be a
fathomless ocean of whirling, blazing clouds, and the internal
temperature went on rising slowly but steadily. Their guests, without
showing the slightest sign of any emotion, walked about the upper deck
now, singly and now together, apparently absorbed by the strange scene
about them.

At length, after they had been dropping for some five hours by
_Astronef_ time, one of them, uttering a sharp exclamation, pointed to
an enormous rift about fifty miles away. A dull, red glare was streaming
up out of it. The next moment the brown cloud-floor beneath them seemed
to split up into enormous wreaths of vapour, which whirled up on all
sides of them, and a few minutes later they caught their first glimpse
of the true surface of Jupiter.

It lay, as nearly as they could judge, some two thousand miles beneath
them, a distance which the telescopes reduced to less than twenty; and
they saw for a few momen