EDISON'S

CONQUESTofMARS

GarrettP.Serviss

ICopyrlgbt, 18DS. by Gnrrett P. Scrvlss.]

SYNOPSIS.The Inventive genius of Thomas A. Edi-

tion makes possible an attack of the earthupon Mars. This is done to prevent a sec-ond Invasion of tho Martians, who arctrying to relievo their overpopulateaplanet; the first having failed through thebreaking out of disease and not human et-fort. Edison Invents a practical electricalair ship, and an engine of destructioncalled tho "Disintegrator," which win

cause the constituent particles of uny ob-

ject at which It may be directed to sovibrato that tho object will bo Immediate-lyand completely dispersed. A large neot

of air ships armed with disintegrators andmanned by two thousand men, among

whom are many famous scientists, seta

out. When several million miles fromMars the expedition comes upon a partyof Martians upon a small heavenly body-one of the asteroids. The Martians areof giant stature, human In form, but ofsomewhat repulsive aspect. The astero...Is of solid gold, and to get the preciousmetal is doubtless the reason for tho Mar-tians' presence. Another party fromMars arrives in one of their aerial cars,and an encounter follows. In which, how-ever, the superior efficiency of the disinte-grator over the enemy's engines of waris ably proven, and the fleet leaves forMars. Hut victory has not been won un-til several shins have been destroyed, andmany men killed. The Meet arrives abovethe land nf Hellas, on Mars, and llnds ahost of air ships on tho watch. The Mar-tians cover their planet with a thick cloudof smoke, which the visitors pierce withtheir disintegrators. The Martians launchtheir thunderbolts, and do much damageto the Edison fleet, which Anally dropsbeneath the smoke curtain and engagesthe enemy, In their ships, ln dose com-bat. The destruction is awful, both onland ami In the air, and the ships fromthe earth withdraw but sixty In number.The next move Is a strategic plan pro-posed by Colonel Smith, an army officer.The majority of the ships arc concen-trated at a certain point where the at-tention of Martians Is held, while a fewarc sent to the other side of the planet toeffect a landing, and if possible obtainsome much needed provisions for thofleet. Colonel Smith's ship descends nearv largo building. The Colonel and thenarrator approaching, hoar strains ofbeautiful music issuing from It. Enter-ing, they are amazed to find a young girl?a human being?playing on a strange in-strument for the amusement of severalMartians, The latter are ipiloklv dis-patched with disintegrators, and the girlIs taken back to the main squadron, to-gether with large quantities of com-pressed food that are found In the build-ing. Although none can understand thegirl, it is perceived that her language isof human origin. The whole squadron re-pairs to tho farther moon of afars. Def-ines, In order to glvo the linguists of theparty time to acquire the- girl's speech

[ for Mr. Edison believes that she can givethem Information that will lead to a suc-cessful routing of the enemy,

XIXDeimci proved to be, as we bad ex-

pected, about six miles in diameter. Itsmeun density is not very great, so thatthe acceleration of gravity did not ex-ceed one two-thousandths of theearth's. Consequently the weight of aman turning the settles at 150 at homewas here only about one ounce.

The attraction of this little satellitewas so slight that we had to be verycareful nut to move too quickly in goingabout lest we should involuntarilyleave the ground and sail out intospace, as, it will be remembered, hadhappened to the fugitives during thefight on the asteroid.

Not only would such an adventurehave been an uncomfortable experi-ence, but it might have endangered thesuccess of our scheme. Our presentdistance from the surface of Mars didnot exceed 12,500 miles, and we hadreason to believe that the Martianspossessed telescopes powerful enoughto enable them not merely to see theelectrical ships at such a distance, butalso to catch sight of us individually.Although the cloud curtain still restedon the planet it was was probable thatthe Martians would send some of theirair ships up to its surface in order todetermine what our fate had been.

Accordingly strict orders were given,not only that the ships should bemoored on that side of the satellitewhich is perpetually turned away fromMars, but that, without orders, no oneshould venture around on the otherside of the little globe, or even on theedge of it, where he might be seen inprofile against the sky.

Still, of course, it was essential thatwe, on our part, should keep a. closewatch, and so a number of sentinelswere selected, wlics* duty It was toplace themselves at the edge of Deimos,where they could peep over the horizon,so to speak, and catch sight of theglobe of our enemies.

At the suggestion of Colonel Smith,who had bo frequently stalked Indiansthat devices of this kind readily oc-curred to his mind, the sentinels allwore garments corresponding in colorto that of the soil of the asteroid,which was of a dark, reddish brownhue. This would tend to conceal themfrom the prying eyes of the Martians.

Finally, after about *a week hadpassed, the Martians evidently madeup their minds that they had annihi-lated us, and that there was no longerdanger to be feared. Convincing evi-dence that they believed we should notbe heard from again was furnishedwhen the withdrawal of the great cur-tain of cloud began.

This phenomenon first manifested it-self by a gradual thinning of the va-porous shield until, at length, we be-gan to perceive the red surface of theplanet dimly shining through it. Thin-ner and rarer it became, and, after thelapse of about eighteen hours, it hadcompletely disappeared and the hugeglobe shone out again, reflecting thelight of the sun from its continentsand oceans with a brightness that. Incontrast with the all-enveloping, nightto which we had so long been subject-ed, seemed, unbearable to our eyes.

Meanwhile, the object which wehad in view in retreating to the satel-lite was not lost si;;ht of, and the serv-ices of the chief linguists of the expe-dition were again called Into use forthe purpose of acquiring a new lan-guage. The experiment was conductedin the flagship. The fact that this timeIt was not a monster belonging to anutterly alien race upon whom we wereto experiment, but a beautiful daughter

of our common Mother Eve, added zestand Interest as well as the most con-fident hopes of success to those whowere striving to understand the ac-cents of her tongue.

Still the dilllculty was very great,notwithstanding the conviction of the:professors that her language wouldturn out to be a form of the greatIndo-European speech, from which themany tongues of civilized men upon theearth had been derived.

The learned men, tv tell the truth,gave the poor girl no rest. For hoursat a time they would ply her with In-terrogations by voice and by gesture,until, at length, wearied beyond en-durance, Hhe would fall asleep beforetheir faces.

Then she would be left undisturbedfor a little while, but the moment hereyes opened again the merciless pro-fessors Hocked about her once more,and resumed tho tedious iteration oftheir experiments.

Our Heidelberg professor was thechief inquisitor, and ho revealed him-self to us In a new and entirely unex-pected light. No one could have antici-pated the depth and variety of his re-sources. He placed himself In front ofthe girl and gestured and gesticulated,bowed, nodded, shrugged his shoulders,screw ed his face into an infinite varietyof expressions, smiled, laughed, scowledand accompanied all these dumb showswith posturing, exclamations, queries,only half expressed in words, and ca-dences, which by some ingenious ma-nipulation of the tones of his voice, hemanaged to make expressive of his de-sires.

The girl looked on, partly astonished,partly amused, and partly compre-hending. Sometimes she smiled, andthen tlie beauty of her face becamemost captivating. Occasionally sheburst Into a cheery laugh when theprofessor was executing some of hisextraordinary gyrations before her.

It was a marvelous exhibition ofwhat the human intellect, when all itspowers are concentrated upon a singleobject, is capable of achieving. Itseemed to nio, as I looked at the per-formance, that If all the faces of menwho had been stricken asunder at thefoot of the Tower of Babel by themiracle Which made the tongues ofeach to speak a language unknown tothe others, could be brought togetheragain ut the foot of the same tower,with all the advantages which thou-sands of years of education bad in themeantime imparted to them, theywould be able, without any miracle, tomake themselves mutually understood.

And it was evident that an under-standing was actually growing betweenthe girl and the professor. Their mindswere plainly meeting and when bothhad become focused upon the samepoint, it was perfectly certain that theobject of the experiment would be at-tained.

Whenever the professor got from thegirl an intelligent reply to his panto-

mimic inquiries, or whenever he be-lieved that he got such a reply, it wasImmediately jotted down In the everopen note book which he carried in hishand.

And then he would tun to us stand-ing by, and with one hand to his heart,and the other sweeping grandlythrough the air, would make a pro-found bow anil say:

"The young lady and I great pro-gress make already. I have her wordscomprehended. We shall wondrousmysteries solve. Jawohl! Wunder-licb! Make yourselves, gentlemen, easy.Of the human race the ancestral stemhave I here discovered."

There was one thing which gavesome of us considerable misgiving, andthat was the question whether, afterall, the language the professor was ac-quiring was really the girl's owntongue or one that she had learnedfrom the Martians.

But the professor bade us rest easyon that point. He assured us, in thefirst place, that this girl could not bethe only human being living uponMarS, but that she must have friendsand relatives there. That being so, theyunquestionably had a language of theirown, which they spoke when they wereamong themselves. Here finding her-self among beings belonging to her ownrace, she would naturally speak herown tongue and not that which she hadacquired from the Martians.

"Moreover, gentlemen," he added, "Ihave in her speech many roots of thegreat Aryan tongue already recog-nized."

We were greatly relieved by this ex-planation, which seemed to all of usperfectly satisfactory.

Yet, really, there was no reason why

one language should be any better thanthe other for our present purpose. Infact, it might be more useful to us toknow the language of the Martiansthemselves. Still, we all felt that weshould prefer to know her languagerather than that of the monstersamong whom she had lived.

Colonel Smith expressed what was inall our minds when after listening tothe reasoning of the professor he blurt-ed out:

"Thank God, she don't speak any oftheir blamed lingo! By Jove, it wouldsoil her pretty Hps."

"But also that she speaks, too," saidthe man from Heidelberg, turning toColonel Smith with a grin. "We shallboth of them eventually learn."

XX.Three entire weeks were passed in

this mapper. After the first week thegirl herself materially assisted the lin-guists ia their efforts to acquire herspeech.

At length the task was so far ad-vanced that we could, in a certainsense', regard it as practically com-pleted. The Heidelberg professor de-clared that he had mastered the tongue

of the ancient Aryans. His delight wasunbounded. With prodlgous industryhe set to work, scarcely stopping to eator sleep, to form a grammar of the lan-guage.

"You shall see," he said, " it willthe speculations of my countrymenvindicate."

Immediately nlmost every man ln thesquadron set vigorously to work tolearn the language of this fair crea-ture for himself. Colonel Smith andSidney Phillips were neck and neck inthe linguistic race.

One of the first bits of informationwhich the professor had given out wasthe name of the girl.

It was Aina (pronounced Ah-ee-na).This news was Hashed throughout

the squadron, and the name of ourbeautiful captive was on the lips of all.

After that came her story, it wasa marvelous narrative. Translated intoour tongue it ran as follows:

"The traditions of my fathers, hand-ed down for generations so many thatno one can number them, declare thatthe planet of Mars was not the placeof out- origin.

"Ages and ages ago our forefathersdwelt on another and distant worldthat was nearer to the sun than thisone Is, and enjoyed brighter daylightthan we have here.

"They dwelt?as I have often heardthe story from my father, who hadlearned it by heart from his father, andhe from his?in a beautiful valley thatwas surrounded by enormous moun-tains towering into the clouds andwhite about their tops with snow thatnever melted. In the valley were lake's,around which clustered the dwellingsof our race."It was, the traditions say, a land

wonderful for its fertility, filled withall things that the heart could desire,splendid with flowers and rich withluscious fruits.

"It was a land of music, and thepeople who dwelt in it were veryhappy."

While the girl was telling this partof her story the Heidelberg professorbecame visibly more and more excited.Presently he could keep quiet no longerand suddenly exclaimed, turning to uswho were listening, as the words of thegirl were interpreted for us by one ofthe other linguists:

"Gentlemen, it is the Vale of Cash-mere! Has not my great countryman,Adelung, so declared? Has he not saidthat the Valley of Cashmere was thecradle of the human race already?"

"From the Valley of Cashmere tothe planet Mars?what a romance!"exclaimed one of the bystanders.

Colonel Smith appeared to be partic-ularly moved, and I heard him hum-ming under his breath, greatly to my

astonishment, for this rough soldierwas not much given to poetry ormusic:"Who has not heard of the Vale of

Cashmere,With its roses the brightest that

earth ever gave;Its temples, its grottoes, its fountains

as clear,As the love-lighted eyes that hang

over the wave."Mr. Sidney Phillips, standing by, and

also catching the murmur of ColonelSmith's words, showed in bis handsomecountenance some indications of dis-tress, as if he wished he had thoughtof those linos himself.

The girl resumed her narrative:"Suddenly there dropped down out of

the sky strange gigantic enemies,armed with mysterious weapons, andbegan to slay and burn and make deso-late. Our forefathers could not with-stand them. They seemed like demons,who had been sent from the abodes ofevil to destroy our race.

"Some of the wise men said that thisthing had come upon our people be-cause they had been very wicked, andthe gods in Heaven were angry. Somesaid they came from the moon, andsome from the far-away stars. But ofthese things my forefathers knewnothing for a certainty.

"The destroyers showed no mercy tothe inhabitants of the beautiful valley.

Not content with making it a desert,they swept over other parts of theearth.

"The traditions say that they carriedoff from the valley, which was our na-tive land, a large number of our people,taking them first into a strange coun-try, where there were oceans of sand,

but where a great river, flowing

through the midst of the sands, createda narrow land of fertility. Here, afterhaving slain and driven out the nativeinhabitants, they remained for manyyears, keeping our people, whom theyhad carried into captivity as slaves.

"And in this Land of Sand, it is said,they did many wonderful works.

"They had been astonished at thesight of the great mountains whichsurrounded our valley, for on Marsthere are no mountains, and after theycame Into the Land of Sand they builtthere with huge blocks of stone moun-tains in imitation of what they hadseen, and used them for purposes thatour people did not understand.

"Then, too, It is said that they leftthere at the foot of these mountainsthat they had made, a gigantic imageof the great chief who led them intheir conquest of our world."

At this jfolnt ln the story the Heidel-

berg professor again broke in, fairlytrembling with excitement.

"Gentlemqn, gentlemen," he cried, "isit that you do not understand? ThisLand of Sand and of a wonderful fer-tilizing river?what can it be? Gen-tlemen, it Is Egypt! These mountainsof rock that the Martians have erected,what are they? Gentlemen, they arethe great mystery of the land of theNile, the Pyramids. The gigantic stat-ue of their leader that they at the footof their artificial mountans have setup?gentlemen, what is that? It is theSphinx!"

The professor's agitation was sogreat that he could go no further. Andindeed there was not one of us who didnot fully Rhare his excitement. To thinkthat wo should have come to the planetMars to solve one of the standingmysteries of the earth, which had puz-zled mankind and dolled all their ef-forts at solution for so many centuries!Here, then, was the explanation of howthose gigantic blocks that constitutethe great Pyramid of Cheops had beenswung to their lofty elevation. It wasnot the work of puny men, as manyan engineer had declared that it couldnot be, but the work of those giants ofMars.

Aina resumed her story:"At length, our traditions say, a

groat pestilence broke out in the LandSand, and a partial vengeance wasgranted to us in the destruction ofthe larger number of fur enemies. Atlast the giants who remained, fleeingbefore this scourge of the gods, usedthe mysterious means at their com-mand, and, carrying our ancestorswith them, returned to their ownworld, in which we have ever sincelived."

"Then there are more of your peopleIn Mars?" said one of the professors.

"Alas, no," replied Aina, her eyesfillingwith tears, "I alone am left."

For a few minutes she was unable tospeak. Then she continued:

"What fury possessed them I do notknow, but not long ago an expeditiondeparted from the planet, the purposeof which, as it was noised about overMars, was the conquest of a distantworld After a time a few survivors ofthat expedition returned. Thethey told cttjised great excitementamong our masters. They had beensuccessful in their battles with the in-habitants of the world they had inva-ded, but as in the days of our forefath-ers, in the Land of Sand, a pestilencesmote them, and but few survivors es-caped.

"Not long after that, you, with yourmysterious ships, appeared in the skyof Mars. Our masters studied you withtheir telescopes, and those who had re-turned from tha unfortunate expedi-

tion declared that you were inhabi-tants of the world which they bad in-vaded, come, doubtless, to take ven-geance upon them.

"Some of my people who were per-mitted to look through the telescopesof the Martians, saw you also andrecognized you as members of theirown race. There were several thousandof us altogether, and we were kept by

the Martians to serve them as slaves,and particularly to delight their earswith music, for our people have alwaysbeen especially skilful in the playing ofmusical instruments, and in songs, andwhile the Martians have but little mu-sical skill themselves, they are exceed-ingly fond of these things.

"Although Mars had completed notless than five thousand circuits aboutthe sun since our ancestors werebrought as prisoners to its surface, yetthe memory of our distant home hadnever perished from the hearts of ourrace, and when we recognized you, aswe believed, our own brothers, come torescue us from long imprisonment,there was great rejoicing. The newsspread from mouth to mouth, whereverwe were ln the houses and families ofour masters We seemed to be power-less to aid you, or to communicatewith you in any manner. Yet ourhearts went out to you, as in yourships you hung above the planet, andpreparations were secretly made by allthe members of our race for your re-ception when, as we believed wouldoccur, you would effect a landing uponthe planet and destroy our enemies.

"But in some manner the fact thatwe had recognized you and were pre-paring to welcome you came to theears of the Martians."

At thi3 point the girl suddenly cov-ered her eyes wth her hands, shud-dering and fallingback in her seat.

"Oh, you do not know them as I do!"at length she exclaimed. "The mon-sters! Their vengeance was too terri-ble! Instantly the order went forththat we should all be butchered, andthat awful command was executed!"

"How, then, did you escape?" askedthe Heidelberg professor.

Aina seemed unable to speak for awhile. Finally mastering her emotion,she replied:

"One of the chief officers of the Mar-tians wished me to remain alive. He,wth his aides, carried me to one of themilitary depot of supplies, where I wasfound and rescued," and as she saidthis she turned toward Colonel Smithwith a smile that reflected on his ruddyface and made it glow like a Chineselantern.

"By-?!" muttered Colonel Smith,

"that was the fellow we blew Intonothing! Blast him, he got off tooeasy!"

The remainder of Alna's story maybe briefly told.

When Colonel Smith and I enteredthe mysterious building which, as itnow proved, was not a storehouse be-longing to a village, as we had sup-posed, but one of the military depotsof the Martians, the girl, on catchingsight of us, immediately recognized usas belonging to the strange squadronin the sky. As such she felt that wemust be her friends, and saw in us heronly possible hope of escape. For thatreason she had instantly thrown her-self under our protection. This ac-counted for the singular confidence shehad manifested In us from the begin-ning.

Aina bad said that Mars had com-pleted 5,000 circuits about the sun sinceher people were brought to it as cap-tives. One circuit of Mars occupies 887days. More than 9,000 years had there-fore elapsed since the first invasion ofthe earth by the Martians.

But from these speculations and re-trospects we were recalled by the com-mander of the expedition.

"This is all very interesting and veryromantic gentlemen," he said, "butnow let us get at the practical side ofit. We have learned Alna's language,

and have heard her story. Let us nextascertain whether she cannot place inour hands some key which will putMars at our mercy. Remember whatwe came here for, and remember thatthe earth expects every man of us todo his duty."

This Nelson-like summons againchanged the current of our thoughts,

and we instantly set to work to learnfrom Aina if Mars, like Achilles, hadnot some vulnerable point where a blowwould be mortal.

XXI.It was a curious scene when the

momentous interview which was to de-termine our late and that of Mars be-gan. Aina had been warned of whatwas coming. We in the Il.tgship hadall learned to speak her language withmore or less ease, but it was deemedbest that the Heidelberg professor, as-sisted by one of his colleagues, shouldact as interpreter.

The girl, flushed with the excitementot the novel situation, fully apprecia-ting the importance of what was aboutto occur, and looking more charming

than before, stood at. one side of theprincipal apartment. Directly facing

her were the interpreters, and the rest

of us, all with ears alert, and eyes fo-cused upon Aina, stood in a double rowbehind them.

As heretofore, I am setting down her

words translated into our own tongue,having taken only as much liberty asto connect the sentences into a strictersequence than they had when falling

from her lips in reply to the questionsthat were showered upon her.

"You will never be victorious," shesaid, "if you attack them openly asyou have been doing. They are toostrong and too numerous. They arewell prepared for such attacks, be-cause they have had to resist them be-fore. Their enemies from Ceres haveattacked them here."

"But there must be some point," saidMr. Edison, "where we can."

"Yes, yes," interrupted the girlquickly, "there is one blow you can dealthem which they could not with-stand."

"What is that?" eagerly Inquired thecommander.

"You can drown them out.""How? With the canals?""Yes, I will explain to you. I have

already told you, and, in fact, you musthave seen it for yourselves, that thereare almost no mountains on Mars. Avery learned man of my race used tosay that the reason was because Marsis so very old a world that the moun-tains it once had have been almostcompletely leveled, and the entire sur-face of the planet has become a greatplain. There are depressions, however,most of which are occupied by the seas.The greater part of the land lies belowthe level of the oceans, ln order at thesame time to irrigate the soil and makeit fruitful and to protect themselvesfrom overflows by the ocean's breakingin upon them, the Martians have con-structed the immense and innumerablecanals which you see running in all di-rections over the continents.

"There is one period of the year, andthat period has now arrived, whenthere is special danger of a great de-luge. Most of the oceans of Mars liein the southern hemisphere. When itis summer in that hemisphere, thegreat masses of ice and snow collectedaround the south pole melt rapidlyaway.

"Yes, that Is so," broke in one of ourastronomers, who was listening atten-tively. "Many a time I have seen thevast snow fields around the southernpole of Mars completely disappearas the summer sun rose high uponthem."

"With the melting, of these snows,"continued Aina, "a rapid rise in thelevel of the water ln the southernoceans occur3. On the side facing theseoceans the continents of Mars aresufficiently elevated to prevent anoverflow, but nearer the equator the

level of the land Kinks lower."With your telescopes you have no

doubt noticed that there is a greatbending sea connecting the oceans ofthe south with those of the north andrunning through the midst of the con-tinents."

"Quite so," said the astronomer whohad spoken before, "we call it theSyrtls Major."

"That long narrow sea," Aina wenton, "forms a great channel throughwhich the flood of waters caused bythe melting of the southern polarsnows flows swiftly toward the equa-tor and then on toward the north untilit reaches the sea basins which c xistthere. At that point it is rapidly turnedInto ice and snow, because, of course,while it is summer in the Southernhemisphere it is winter in the north-ern.

"The Syrtis Major (I am giving ourname to the channel of communcatlonin place of that by which the girl calledit) is like a great safety valve, which,by permitting the waters to flow north-ward, saves the continents from inun-dation.

"But when mid-summer arrives, thesnows around the pole having beencompletely melted away, the floodceases, and the water begins to recede.At this time, but for a device whichthe Martians have employed, thecanals connected with the oceanswould run dry, and the vegetation, leftwithout moisture under the summersun, would quickly perish,"

"To prevent this they have built aseries of enormous gates extendingcompletely across the Syrtis Major atits narrowest pednt (latitude 25 degrees,south). These gates are all controlledby machinery collected at a singlepoint on the shore of the strait. Assoon as the flood in the Syrtis Majorbegins to recede the gates are closed,and, the water being thus retained, theirrigating canals are kept full longenough to mature the harvests."

"The clue! The clue at last!" ex-claimed Mr. Edison. "That is the placewhere we shall nip them. If we canclose those gates now at the momentof high tide we shall Hood the country.Did you say," he continued, turning toAina, "that the movement of the gateswas all controlled from a single point?"

"Yes," said the girl. "There is agreat building (power house) full oftremendous machinery, which I onceentered when my father was takenthere by his master, and where I sawone Martian, by turning a little handle,cause the great line of pvates stretchinga hundred miles across the sea, toslowly shut in, edge to edge, until theflow of the water toward the north hadbeen stopped."

"How is this building protected?"

"So completely," replied Aina, "thatmy only fear is you may not be able toreach it. On account of the dangerfrom their enemies in Ceres, the Mar-tians have fortified it strongly on allsides, and have even surrounded it andcovered it overhead with a great elec-tric network, to touch which would beinstant death."

"Ah," said Mr. Edison, "they havegot an electric shield, have they? Well,I think we shall be able to managethat.

"Anyhow," he continued, "we havegot to get into that power house, andwe have got to close those gates, andwe must not lose much time In makingup our minds how it is to be done.Evidently this is our only chance. Wehave not force enough to contend inopen battle with the Martians, but ifwe can flood them out, and therebyrender the engines contained in theirfortifications useless, perhaps we shallbe able to deal with the airships, whichwill be all the means of defence thatwill then remain to them."

This idea commended itself to all theleaders of the expedition. It was de-termined to make a reconnaissance atonce.

But it would not do for us to ap-proach the planet too hastily and wecertainly could not think of landingupon it in broad daylight. Still, aslong as we were yet at a considerabledistance from Mars, we felt that weshould be safe from observation, be-cause so much time had elapsed whilewe were hidden behind Deimos thatthe Martians had undoubtedly conclud-ed that we were no longer in existence.

So we boldly quitted the little satel-lite with our entire squadron and oncemore rapidly approached the red planetof war. This time it was to be a deathgrapple and our chances of victory stillseemed good.

As soon as we arrived so near theplanet that there was danger of ourbeing actually seen, we took pains tokeep continually in the shadow ofMars, and the more surely to concealour presence all lights upon the shipswere extinguished. The precaution ofthe commander even went so far as tohave the smooth metallic sides of thecars blackened over so that they shouldnot reflect light and thus become visi-ble to the Martians as shiningspecks, moving suspiciously among thestars.

The precise locaton of the great pow-er house on the shores of the SyrtisMajor having been carefully ascer-tained, the squadron dropped clown onenight into the upuer limits of the Mar-tian atmosphere, directly over thegulf.

Then a consultation was called onthe flagship and a plan of compaignwas quickly devised.

It was deemed wise that the attempt

should be made with a single electricalship, but that the others should bekept hovering near, ready to respondon the instant to any signal for aidwhich might come from below. It wasthought that, notwithstanding thewonderful defences, which, accordingto Ainu's account, surrounded thebuilding, a small party would have abetter chance of success than a largeone.

Mr. Edison was certain that the elec-trical network which was described ascovering the power house would notprove a serious obstruction to us, be-cause by carefullywsweeping the spacewhere we intended to pass with thedisintegrators before quitting the ship,the netting could be sufficiently clearedaway to give us uninterrupted pas-sage.

At first the Intention was to havetwenty men, each armed with two dis-integrators, (that being the largestnumber that one person could carry toadvantage) descend from the electricalship and make the venture. But, afterfurther discussion, this number was re-duced; first to a dozen, and finally, toonly four. These four consisted of Mr.Edison, Colonel Smith, Mr. Sidney Phil-lips and myself.

Both by her own request and becausewe could not help feeling that herknowledge of the locality would be in-dispensable to us, Aina was also in-cluded in our party, but not, of course,as a lighting member of it.

It was about an hour after midnightwhen the ship in which we were tomake the venture parted from the re-

mainder of the squadron and droppedcautiously clown. The blaze of electriolights running away in various direc-tions indicated the lines of innumerablecanals, with habitations crowded alongtheir banks, which came to a focus ata point on the continent of Aina, west-ward from the Syrtis Major.

We stopped the electrical ship at anelevation of perhaps three hundred feetabove the vast roof of a structure,which Aina assured us was the build-ing we were in search of.

Here we remained for a few minutes,cautiously reconnoitering. On thatside of the power house which was op-posite to the shore of the Syrtis Majorthere was a thick grove of trees, lightedbeneath, as was apparent from the il-lumination, which here and therestreamed up through the cover ofleaves, but, nevertheless, dark andgloomy above the tree tops.

"The electric network extends overthe grove as well as over the bulding,"said Aina.

This was lucky for us, because wewished to descend among the trees,and, by destroying part of the networkover the tree tops, we could reach theshelter wo desired and at the sametime pass within the line of electric de-fences.

With increased caution, and almostholding our breath lest we should makesome noise that might reach the earsof the sentinels beneath, we caused thecar to settle gently down until wecaught sight of a metallic net stretchedin the air between us and thetrees.

After our first encounter with theMartians on the asteroid, where, as Ihave related, some metal which was in-cluded in their dress resisted the actionof the disintegrators. Mr. Edison hadreadjusted the range of vibrations cov-ered by the instruments, and since thenwe had found nothing that did notyield to them. Consequently, we hadno fear that the metal of the networkWould not be destroyed.

There was danger, however, of arous-ing attention by shattering holesthrough the tree tops. This could beavoided by first carefully ascertaininghow far away the network was, andthen with the adjustable mirrors at-tached to the disintegrators focusingthe vibratory discharge at that dis-tance.

So successful were we that we openeda considerable gap in the networkwithout doing any perceptible damageto the trees beneath.

The ship was cautiously loweredthrough the opening and brought torest among the upper branches of oneof the tallest trees. Colonel Smith,Mr. Phillips, Mr. Edison and my-self at once clambered out upon astrong limb.

For a moment I feared our arrivalhad been betrayed on account of thealtogether too noisy contest that arosebetween Colonel Smith and Mr. Phil-lips as to which of them should assistAina. To settle the dispute I tookcharge of her myself.

At length we were all safely in thetree.

Then followed the still more danger-ous undertaking of descending fromthis great height to the ground. For-tunately, the branches were very closetogether and they extended down with-in a short distance of the soil. So theactual difficulties of the descent werenot very great after all. The one thingthat we had particularly to bear Inmind was the absolute necessity ofmaking no noise.

At length the descent was succesfullyaccomplished, and we all five stoodtogether in the shadow at the foot ofthe great tree. The grove was so thickaround that while there was an abund-ance of electric lights among the trees,their illumination did not fall up <n uswhere we stood.

Peering cautiously through the vistasIn various directions we ascertainedour location with respect to the waitof the bulding. Like all the structuresthat we had seen on Mars, it was com-posed of polished red metal.

"Where is the entrance?" InquiredMr. Edison in a whisper.

"Come softly this way, and look outfor the sentinel," replied Aina.

Gripping our disintegrators firmly,and screwing up our courage, withnoiseless steps we followed the girlamong the shadows of the trees

TO BE CONTINUED.

The Best Man at a Wedding.During the old days of Sweden there

were" several best men, and the terrawas applied in its full literal sense.The duty of the best men in those timeswas to defend the groom and his pros-pective bride from a rival, who, accom-panied by several retainers, was sureto appear while the wedding processionwas on its way to church and make astubborn light for possession of the wo-man.

The Scandinavian warrior consideredit beneath his dignity to court a maid-en's favor by gallantry and submis-sion, and therefore generally preferredto wait until she was on her way to bemarried to another man, when the at-tempt was made to carry her off bymain strength. It was then that thebest men?if they were the best men-came into good play. Hence the customis still preserved in the "best" man ofto-day.

Smallest Book in the World,A book small enough to about cover

the thumb nail of a man would be acuriosity in any circumstances, butwhen it is the smallest volume in theworld it is easy to understand why itis very valuable. This mite of a bookis five-eighths of an inch long, seven-sixteenths of an inch wide and three-eighths of an inch thick. It has 205pages of closely printed matter. Theletters are so small that a pin pointwould obscure one of them, and a mag-nifying glass is necessary to enableone to read them.

The type of the title page Is aboutthe size of this that you are now read-ing. The book weighs about a quar-ter of an ounce and is valued at $750,which makes it worth more than itsweight in gold. It was printed inItaly, in the town of Padua, and on theSalmln press.

Brushes From China,A large proportion of the hog bristles

that are made into brushes of all sortsare obtained from China. BeforeChinese ports were opened to foreign-ers the residents of China made no useof the bristles, but now they have be-come one of the important exports.The hog bristles used in making finebrushes are usually not less than threeinches long, but the black Tien-Tslnbristles of north China are often morethan twice that length, and are famousthe world over. The animals fromwhich the black bristles are - takenclosely resemble the wild boar of Eu-rope,

"The Young Lady and I Great Progress* Make Already."

LOS ANGELES HERALDi SUNDAY MORNING, MARCH 27, 1898.