passed into a dim-lighted cavern. I saw a lateral
black tunnel-mouth yawning nearby, with a shining rail at its top and
bottom, one above the other. And between the rails was a metal vehicle.
A long, narrow car; yet with its turtle-back and its propelling gas-tube
at the rear, with a rudder on each side of the tube, I realized that it
was designed also for sub-sea travel. A small affair. Ten feet at its
greatest width, and fifty or sixty feet long.

There was nothing startling in this evidence of underground and sub-sea
transportation. But that it should be here in primitive Venia surprised
me. Then I realized that Tarrano had been here perhaps many months.
Quietly, secretly he had constructed this underground road. For his
escape, I could not doubt it. Indeed, I did not doubt but that the man
had anticipated practically every event which had occurred.

We found in the car, or boat if you will, a variety of attendants and
personal belongings. Tara was there; I saw her sitting alone on one of
the distant rings of seats. And Argo was among us--and others whom I had
learned to know by sight and name. It was the party and equipment which
Tarrano had probably originally brought with him from Venus. We, the
last arrivals in the car, took our places. The doors slid closed. The
car vibrated slightly; purred with its forward motors. We were started.

It was not a long trip. How far we went I have no means of knowing. But
after a time, by the changed motion and sounds, I realized that we were
traversing water. Then above us after another interval, they opened a
hatchway. The pure fresh air of night streamed in upon us. Every light
in the boat had been extinguished. At Tarrano's command I followed him
up the small spider incline and through the hatchway. We stood on a
little circular space of the turtle-deck, well aft--an observation space
enclosed by a low metal rail. A few feet below us dark glossy water was
slipping past.

At a lazy hasteless pace, we were passing along what I saw to be a broad
river. The Riola Amazonia[16] I afterward learned it to be. Heavy banks
of luxurious foliage, dark and silent. Inundated in places. And after a
few moments we slackened, turned sharply into one of the inundated coves
and nosed slowly amid a tangle of the jungle bank.

[Footnote 16: Evidently the upper Amazon.]

And then I saw, hidden here in the recesses of this pathless forest, a
small inter-planetary flyer, painted a hazy grey-bl