r telescopes turned
on to the rapidly growing crescent of the Home-World, which, in its
eternal march through Space, had come into the line of direct attraction
just in time to turn the scale in which the lives of the Space-voyagers
were trembling. The higher it rose, the bigger and broader and brighter
it grew, and, at last, Zaidie--forgetting in her transport of joy all
the perils that were yet to come--sprang to her feet and clapped her
hands, and cried:

"There's America!"

Then she dropped back into her long deck-chair and began a good, hearty,
healthy cry.

EPILOGUE

There is little now to be told that all the world does not already know
as well as it knows the circumstances of Lord and Lady Redgrave's
departure from the Earth, at the beginning of that marvellous voyage,
that desperate plunge into the unknown immensities of Space which began
so happily, and yet with so many grave misgivings in the hearts of their
friends, and which, after passing many perils, the adventurous voyagers
finished even more happily than they had begun.

As I said at the beginning of this narrative the sole purpose of writing
it has been to place before the reading public an account of the
adventures experienced by Lord Redgrave and his beautiful Countess from
the time of their departure from the Earth to the hour of their return
to it. Therefore there is no need to re-tell a tale already told, and
one that has been read and re-read a thousand times. Every one who has
read his or her newspaper from Chamskatska to Cape Horn, and from Alaska
to South Australia, knows how the Commander of the _Astronef_ so nursed
the remains which were left to him of the R. Force after overcoming the
attraction of the Sun, that he was able to steer an oblique course
between the Moon and the Earth, and to counteract what Zaidie called the
all too-loving attraction of the Mother Planet, and, after sixty hours
of agonising suspense, at last re-entered their native atmosphere.

The expenditure of the last few units of the R. Force enabled them to
just clear the summits of the Bolivian Andes, to cross the foothills and
western slopes of Peru, and finally to let the _Astronef_ drop quietly
on to the bosom of the broad Pacific about twenty miles westward of the
Port of Mollendo.

All this time thousands of anxious eyes had been peering through
telescopes every night in quest of the wanderers who must now be
returning if ever they were to return,