re
sent to several of the electrical ships to cruise out to a safe distance
in the direction of Mars and keep a sharp outlook for the approach of
enemies.

Meanwhile our prisoner awoke. He turned his eyes upon those standing
about him, without any appearance of fear, but rather with a look of
contempt, like that which Gulliver must have felt for the Lilliputians
who had bound him under similar circumstances.

There were both hatred and defiance in his glance. He attempted to free
himself, and the ropes strained with the tremendous pressure that he put
upon them, but he could not break loose.

Satisfied that the Martian was safely bound, we left him where he lay,
and, while awaiting news from the ships which had been sent to
reconnoitre, continued the exploration of the little planet.

At a point nearly opposite to that where we had landed we came upon the
mine which the Martians had been working. They had removed the thin
coating of soil, laying bare the rich stores of gold beneath, and large
quantities of the latter had been removed. Some of it was so solidly
packed that the strokes of the instruments by means of which they had
detached it were visible like the streaks left by a knife cutting
cheese.

The more we saw of this golden planet the greater became our
astonishment. What the Martians had removed was a mere nothing in
comparison with the entire bulk of the asteroid. Had the celestial mine
been easier to reach, perhaps they would have removed more, or,
possibly, their political economists perfectly understood the necessity
of properly controlling the amount of precious metal in circulation.
Very likely, we thought, the mining operations were under government
control in Mars and it might be that the majority of the people there
knew nothing of this store of wealth floating in the firmament. That
would account for the battle with the supposed pirates, who, no doubt
had organized a secret expedition to the asteroid and had been caught
red-handed at the mine.

There were many detached masses of gold scattered about, and some of the
men, on picking them up, exclaimed with astonishment at their lack of
weight, forgetting for the moment that the same law which caused their
own bodies to weigh so little must necessarily affect everything else in
a like degree.

A mass of gold that on the earth no man would have been able to lift
could here be tossed about like a hollow rubber ball.

While we were examining th