ok to
his side, and placing his broad finger upon one of the huge letters--if
letters they were, for they more nearly resembled the characters employed
by the Chinese printer--he uttered a sound which we, of course, took to
be a word, but which was different from any we had yet heard. Then he
pointed to one after another of us standing around.

"Ah," explained everybody, the truth being apparent, "that is the word
by which the Martians designate us. They have a name, then, for the
inhabitants of the earth."

"Or, perhaps, it is rather the name for the earth itself," said one.

But this could not, of course, be at once determined. Anyhow, the
word, whatever its precise meaning might be, had now been added to
our vocabulary, although as yet our organs of speech proved unable to
reproduce it in a recognizable form.

This promising and unexpected discovery of the Martian's book lent added
enthusiasm to those who were engaged in the work of trying to master
the language of our prisoner, and the progress that they made in the
course of the next few days was truly astonishing. If the prisoner had
been unwilling to aid them, of course, it would have been impossible
to proceed, but, fortunately for us, he seemed more and more to enter
into the spirit of the undertaking, and actually to enjoy it himself. So
bright and quick was his understanding that he was even able to indicate
to us methods of mastering his language that would otherwise, probably,
never have occurred to our minds.

The Prisoner Teaches.

In fact, in a very short time he had turned teacher and all these learned
men, pressing around him with eager attention, had become his pupils.

I cannot undertake to say precisely how much of the Martian language
had been acquired by the chief linguists of the expedition before the
time when we arrived so near to Mars that it became necessary for most
of us to abandon our studies in order to make ready for the more serious
business which now confronted us.

But, at any rate, the acquisition was so considerable as to allow of
the interchange of ordinary ideas with our prisoner, and there was no
longer any doubt that he would be able to give us much information when
we landed on his native planet.

At the end of twenty-three days as measured by terrestrial time, since
our departure from the asteroid, we arrived in the sky of Mars.

For a long time the ruddy planet had been growing larger and more
formidable, gradua