miniature planets plunged away into space beneath them.

"Where to now?" said Zaidie, as her husband came down on deck from the
conning-tower.

"I am going to try to steer a middle course between the orbits of
Mercury and Venus," he replied. "They just happen to be so placed now
that we ought to be able to get the advantage of the pull of both of
them as we pass, and that will save us a lot of power. The only thing
I'm afraid of is the pull of the Sun, equal to goodness knows how many
times the attraction of all the planets put together. You see, little
woman, it's like this," he went on, taking out a pencil and going down
on one knee on the deck: "Here's the _Astronef_; there's Venus; there's
Mercury; there's the Sun; and there, away on the other side of him, is
Mother Earth. If we can turn that corner safely and without expending
too much power we ought to be all right."

"And if we can't, what will happen?"

"It will be a choice between morphine and cremation in the atmosphere of
the Sun, dear, or rather gradually roasting as we fall towards it."

"Then, of course, it will be morphine," she said quite quietly, as she
turned away from his diagram and looked at the now fast-increasing disc
of the Sun. A well-balanced mind speedily becomes accustomed even to the
most terrible perils, and Zaidie had now looked this one so long and so
steadily in the face that for her it had already become merely the
choice between two forms of death with just a chance of escape hidden in
the closed hand of Fate.

Thirty-six Earth-hours later the glorious golden disc of Venus lay broad
and bright beneath them. Above was the blazing orb of the Sun, nearly
half as big again as it appears from the Earth, with Mercury, a round
black spot, travelling slowly across it.

"My dear Bird-Folk!" said Zaidie, looking down at the lovely world below
them. "If home wasn't home----"

"We can be back among them in a few hours with absolute safety,"
interrupted her husband, catching at the suggestion. "I've told you the
truth about the bare possibility of getting back to the Earth. It's only
a chance at best, and even if we pass the Sun we may not have force
enough left to prevent the _Astronef_ from being smashed to dust or
burnt up in the atmosphere. After all we might do worse----"

"What would you do if you were alone, Lenox?" she said, interrupting him
in turn.

"I should take my chance and go on. After all home's home and worth a
struggle