as usually follows the drinking of a glass
of champagne. He took another breath, and another, then he opened the
inner door and went back to the lower deck, saying to himself: "Well,
the air's all right if it is a bit champagney; rich in oxygen, I
suppose, with perhaps a trace of nitrous-oxide in it. Still, it's
certainly breathable, and that's the principal thing."

"It's all right, dear," he said as he reached the upper deck where
Zaidie was walking about round the sides of the glass dome gazing with
all her eyes at the strange scene of mingled cloud and sea and land
which spread for an immense distance on all sides of them. "I have
breathed the air of Mars, and even at this height it is distinctly
wholesome, though of course it's rather thin, and I had it mixed with
some of our own atmosphere. Still I think it will agree all right with
us lower down."

"Well, then," said Zaidie, "suppose we get below those clouds and see
what there really is to be seen."

"As there's a fairly big problem to be solved shortly I'll see to the
descent myself," he replied, going towards the stairway.

In a couple of minutes she saw the cloud-belt below them rising rapidly.
When Redgrave returned the _Astronef_ was plunging into a sea of rosy
mist.

"The clouds of Mars!" she exclaimed. "Fancy a world with pink clouds! I
wonder what there is on the other side."

The next moment they saw. Just below them at a distance of about five
earth-miles lay an irregularly triangular island, a detached portion of
the Continent of Huygens almost equally divided by the Martian Equator,
and lying with another almost similarly shaped island between the
fortieth and the fiftieth meridians of west longitude. The two islands
were divided by a broad, straight stretch of water about the width of
the English Channel between Folkestone and Boulogne. Instead of the
bright blue-green of terrestrial seas, this connecting link between the
great Northern and Southern Martian oceans had an orange tinge.

The land immediately beneath them was of a gently undulating character,
something like the Downs of South-Eastern England. No mountains were
visible in any direction. The lower portions, particularly along the
borders of the canals and the sea, were thickly dotted with towns and
cities, apparently of enormous extent. To the north of the Island
Continent there was a peninsula, which was covered with a vast
collection of buildings, which, with the broad streets