luting gas.
The nitrogen is of no known use, except to weaken the oxygen."

"Let me out into it, if you say it is all right," I cried. "I am tired
of this bird-cage."

"Put on the diver's suit and helmet, and I will weaken the pressure of
the air gradually, to prevent bleeding at the nose and ears which a
sudden change might cause. When you are used to the low pressure, you
can throw off the helmet and try the Martian double-oxygenated air."

I hurriedly donned the queer, baggy suit and the enormous helmet with
the bulging glass eyes, and then connected the two long rubber tubes
which sprang from the top with the air pipes which led to the doctor's
compartment. He put in the bulkhead, and I went to the port-hole to
unseal it. As I glanced out the little window, I thought I saw a light
very near the mica. Was it our candle flame that something had lifted?
The thick glass of the helmet blinded me a little, and I approached the
window and peered out, coming face to face with a Martian, whose nose
was pressed against the mica! What a rounded, smooth, and expressionless
face! But what large, deep, luminous eyes!

I sprang back from the window in surprise, but not more quickly than he
did. Just then the projectile rolled over slightly with a crunching
noise, and I hear the thud of a heavy muffled blow on the doctor's end.
Suddenly he pulled away the bulkhead and whispered to me excitedly:--

"They are all about us outside--dozens of them! They are examining the
projectile and trying to break it open. If they strike the windows, it
will be too easy."

The projectile tottered a little again. There was a heaving noise, and
one end rose a little from the ground.

"They are trying to carry us off, Doctor," I cried. "You must turn in
the currents and fly away from them."

The projectile was just then lifted awkwardly, and wavered a little and
pitched, as if it were being carried by a throng struggling clumsily all
about it. The doctor sprang to his apparatus and turned in four
batteries at once. We shot up swiftly in a long curve, and from my
window I could see the circle of amazed Martians, standing dumbly with
their hands still held up in front of them, as they had been when the
projectile left them, while they gazed open-mouthed into the sky at us.

CHAPTER II

The Terror Birds

"They must have thought the projectile was another chunk fallen from
Phobos!" I exclaimed; "and now they can't make out why it shou