age, as the long-drawn struggle for mere
existence had become keener and keener until the two last essentials,
air and water, had failed--and then the end had come.

The streets, like the square of the great Temple of Tycho, were strewn
with myriads and myriads of bones, and there were myriads more scattered
round what had once been the shores of the dwindling lake. Here, as
elsewhere, there was not a sign or a record of any kind--carving or
sculpture. If there were any such on the surface of the moon they had
not discovered them. The buildings which they had seen evidently
belonged to the decadent period during which the dwindling remnants of
the Selenites asked only to eat and drink and breathe.

Inside the great Pyramid of the City of Tycho they might, perhaps, have
found something--some stone or tablet which bore the mark of the
artist's hand; elsewhere, perhaps, they might have found cities reared
by older races, which might have rivalled the creations of Egypt and
Babylon, but they had neither time nor inclination to look for these.

All that they had seen of the Dead World had only sickened and saddened
them. The untravelled regions of Space peopled by living worlds more
akin to their own were before them. The red disc of Mars was glowing in
the zenith among the diamond-white clusters which gemmed the black sky
behind him.

More than a hundred millions of miles had to be traversed before they
would be able to set foot on his surface, and so, after one last look
round the Valley of Death about them, Redgrave turned on the full energy
of the repulsive force in a vertical direction, and the _Astronef_ leapt
upwards in a straight line for her new destination. The Unknown
Hemisphere spread out in a vast plain beneath them, the blazing sun rose
on their left, and the brilliant silver orb of the earth on their right,
and so, full of wonder and yet without regret, they bade farewell to the
World that Had Been.

CHAPTER IX

The earth and the moon had been left more than a hundred million miles
behind in the depths of Space, and the _Astronef_ had crossed this
immense gap in eleven days and a few hours; but this apparently
inconceivable speed was not altogether due to the powers of the
Space-Navigator, for her commander had taken advantage of the passage of
the planet along its orbit towards that of the earth. Hence, while the
_Astronef_ was approaching Mars with ever-increasing speed, Mars was
travelling t