ur work, was it?"

"I certainly helped in doing it," he replied smilingly. "We have the
means of electrifying a very large area of space anywhere, either upon
our planet or at any required height above it, in such a manner as to
neutralise the power of any vessel that could possibly come here, and
thus stop its progress entirely when we so desired. We let you go on a
short distance and then stopped you, again and again; and when we
stopped you, we took care to arrange the forces so that you could not in
any event fall to the planet even if the whole of your machinery failed
to act. You were, as you know, compelled to descend exactly where we
wished you to; and, in fact, exactly where we had previously decided you
should land!"

"Well," exclaimed M'Allister excitedly, "if this doesn't beat all I ever
experienced! To think now that all our movements and impulses have been
engineered and controlled from Mars; not only just recently, but for
months and years past. Mon, it's marvellous!"

"Marvellous to you, no doubt," said Merna, "but only a commonplace
happening here. It is very satisfactory to us that our endeavours to
influence you to come to this planet have proved successful in the main
essentials. The influence does not, however, appear to have been quite
effective as regards your steering to the landing-place we had decided
upon. We had hoped there would have been no necessity for interfering
with your movements by means of the electrical waves."

"Well, Merna," I answered, "you certainly succeeded in imbuing me with a
desire to land at Sirapion, but my two companions were more attracted by
the 'Gordian Knot'; and it was only because I subordinated my own
inclinations to theirs that you were compelled to use force to make us
proceed in the right direction. However, it has resulted in our having
one of the most exciting and mystifying experiences of our lives; and,
now all has ended happily, I do not think any one of us regrets that the
incident occurred."

"Certainly I do not," John remarked.

"Neither do I," said M'Allister; "although I must confess I never felt
so entirely beaten in my life."

"Well, now you understand that it had to be done," said Merna. "As I
remarked, there was no danger to us in your coming here; for, if we had
desired it, we could have utterly destroyed your vessel before it
reached the planet, just as easily as we stopped your progress; or we
could have destroyed it with equal ease an