Their discipline is gone."

But this was only the beginning of our victory. The floods below were
achieving a still greater triumph, and now that we had conquered the
airships we dropped within a few hundred feet of the surface of the water
and then turned our faces westward in order to follow the advance of the
deluge and see whether, as we had hoped, it would overwhelm our enemies
in the very centre of their power.

The Flood Advances.

In a little while we had overtaken the front wave, which was still
devouring everything. We saw it bursting the banks of the canals, sweeping
away forests of gigantic trees, and swallowing cities and villages,
leaving nothing but a broad expanse of swirling and eddying waters,
which, in consequence of the prevailing red hue of the vegetation and
the soil, looked, as shuddering we gazed down upon it, like an ocean
of blood flecked with foam and steaming with the escaping life of the
planet from whose veins it gushed.

As we skirted the southern borders of the continent the same
dreadful scenes which we had beheld on the coast of Aeria presented
themselves. Crowds of refugees thronged the high border of the land
and struggled with one another for a foothold against the continually
rising flood.

Watching the Destruction.

We saw, too, flitting in every direction, but rapidly fleeing before our
approach, many airships, evidently crowded with Martians, but not armed
either for offence or defence. These, of course, we did not disturb, for
merciless as our proceedings seemed even to ourselves, we had no intention
of making war upon the innocent, or upon those who had no means to resist.
What we had done it had seemed to us necessary to do, but henceforth we
were resolved to take no more lives if it could be avoided.

Thus, during the remainder of that day, all of the following night and
all of the next day, we continued upon the heels of the advancing flood.

Chapter XVI.

The second night we could perceive ahead of us the electric lights
covering the land of Thaumasia, in the midst of which lay the Lake of
the Sun. The flood would be upon it by daybreak, and, assuming that the
demoralization produced by the news of the coming of the waters, which
we were aware had hours before been flashed to the capital of Mars, would
prevent the Martians from effectively manning their forts, we thought it
safe to hasten on with the flagship, and one or two others, in advance of
the