the travellers had a most superb view. The air being clear,
the eastern border of North America and the Atlantic were outlined as
on a map, the blue of the ocean and brownish colour of the land, with
white snow-patches on the elevations, being very marked. The Hudson
and the Sound appeared as clearly defined blue ribbons, and between
and around the two they could see New York. They also saw the ocean
dotted for miles with points in which they recognized the marine
spiders and cruisers of the North Atlantic squadron, and the ships on
the home station, which they knew were watching them through their
glasses.

"I see," said Cortlandt, "that Deepwaters has been as good as his word,
and has his ships on the watch to rescue us in case we fail."

"Yes," replied Bearwarden, "he is the right sort. When he gave that
promise I knew his men would be there."

They soon perceived that they had reached the void of space, for,
though the sun blazed with a splendour they had never before seen, the
firmament was intensely black, and the stars shone as at midnight.
Here they began to change their course to a curve beginning with a
spiral, by charging the Callisto apergetically, and directing the
current towards the moon, to act as an aid to the lunar attraction,
while still allowing the earth to repel, and their motion gradually
became the resultant of the two forces, the change from a straight line
being so gradual, however, that for some minutes they scarcely
perceived it. The coronal streamers about the sun, such as are visible
on earth during a total eclipse, shone with a halo against the
ultra-Cimmerian background, bursting forth to a height of twenty or
thirty thousand miles above the surface in vast cyclonic storms,
producing so rapid a motion that a column of incandescent gas may move
ten thousand miles in less than ten minutes. Whether these great
streaks were in part electrical phenomena similar to the aurora
borealis, or entirely of intensely heated material thrown up by
explosions within the sun's mass, they could not tell even from their
point of vantage.

"I believe," said Cortlandt, pointing to the streamers, "that they are
masses of gas thrown beyond the sun's atmosphere, which expand
enormously when the pressure to which they are subjected in the sun is
removed--for only in space freed from resistance could they move at
such velocities, and that their brilliancy is increased by great
electrical disturbance.