ble than that other expression, that queer fixity of gaze
like one in a trance, or like a person in an ecstasy. "Like a chap who's
seen Heaven and Hell together," Harrison expressed it to himself. He was
yet to discover how right he was.

He assumed a gruffness as the weary pair sat down. "You're a fine
looking couple!" he growled. "I should've known better than to let you
wander off alone." He paused. "Is your arm all right, Leroy? Need any
treatment?"

Jarvis answered. "It's all right--just gashed. No danger of infection
here, I guess; Leroy says there aren't any microbes on Mars."

"Well," exploded the Captain, "Let's hear it, then! Your radio reports
sounded screwy. 'Escaped from Paradise!' Huh!"

"I didn't want to give details on the radio," said Jarvis soberly.
"You'd have thought we'd gone loony."

"I think so, anyway."

"_Moi aussi!_" muttered Leroy. "I too!"

"Shall I begin at the beginning?" queried the chemist. "Our early
reports were pretty nearly complete." He stared at Putz, who had come in
silently, his face and hands blackened with carbon, and seated himself
beside Harrison.

"At the beginning," the Captain decided.

"Well," began Jarvis, "we got started all right, and flew due south
along the meridian of the _Ares_, same course I'd followed last week. I
was getting used to this narrow horizon, so I didn't feel so much like
being cooped under a big bowl, but one does keep overestimating
distances. Something four miles away looks eight when you're used to
terrestrial curvature, and that makes you guess its size just four times
too large. A little hill looks like a mountain until you're almost over
it."

"I know that," grunted Harrison.

"Yes, but Leroy didn't, and I spent our first couple of hours trying to
explain it to him. By the time he understood (if he does yet) we were
past Cimmerium and over that Xanthus desert, and then we crossed the
canal with the mud city and the barrel-shaped citizens and the place
where Tweel had shot the dream-beast. And nothing would do for Pierre
here but that we put down so he could practice his biology on the
remains. So we did.

"The thing was still there. No sign of decay; couldn't be, of course,
without bacterial forms of life, and Leroy says that Mars is as sterile
as an operating table."

"_Comme le coeur d'une fileuse_," corrected the little biologist, who
was beginning to regain a trace of his usual energy. "Like an old maid's
heart!"

"Howeve