ass would tell a different tale just
as gravity varied. We will have to rely on the Moon and stars, and it
may be rather awkward." But I did not then appreciate how awkward it
would be when even the markings of day and night would be taken away
from us.

"We can count our pulse or go by our stomachs," said the doctor, who was
really disappointed at having forgotten anything. But he was destined to
get used to that. Presently he inquired,--

"What is the barometer now? Perhaps we are high enough for the present."

"There is scarcely two inches of mercury in the tube!" I cried out.

He hesitated for a moment as if calculating, and then said,--

"That makes us ten miles high. Work the rudder gradually very much
farther out for this thinner atmosphere, and we will try falling awhile,
with a long slant to northward."

And so saying, the doctor detached all the polarizing batteries, and I
could hear the monotonous howling of the wind die down; and the
whistling ceased altogether as the feeble resistance of the rarefied air
slowly but surely overcame our momentum. As we began to fall, the doctor
turned the rudder hard down, in order to give us a long sailing slant.
This modified the position of the projectile so that it lay almost flat
again, with a dip of the forward end downward.

"Lie down and have a nap while she is in this comfortable position," he
said to me. "When you waken, I shall have a surprise for you."

CHAPTER VII

The Terrors of Light

I was weary from the trials of the day on Earth, and fell asleep easily.
It was the red sunlight streaming in at the port-hole that awakened me.
I thought I had slept but a very short time, but the night was evidently
over. As soon as the doctor heard me moving, he cried out to me,--

"Here is the daylight I promised you. Did you ever see it at midnight
before?"

"How do you know it is midnight? It looks more like a red sunset to me,"
I said, for the sun was just in the horizon.

"The sun has just set, and is now rising. It did not go out of sight,
but gradually turned about and began to mount again. That is how I know
it is midnight."

"Sunset presses so closely upon sunrise that night is crowded out
altogether. Then this must be the land of the midnight sun that I have
read about?"

"Yes, we are very near the Earth again, and this is far inside the
arctic polar circle, where the sun never goes down during summer, but
sets for a long night in the winter