nd admiration. "And the
light! Did you ever see anything like it? It's neither moonlight nor
sunlight. See, there are no shadows down there, it's just all lovely
silvery twilight. Lenox, if Venus is as nice as she looks from here I
don't think I shall want to go back. It reminds me of Tennyson's Lotus
Eaters, 'the Land where it is always afternoon.'

"I think you are right after all. We are thirty million miles nearer to
the Sun than we were on the Earth, and the light and heat have to filter
through those clouds. They are not at all like Earth clouds from this
side. It's the other way about. The silver lining is on this side. Look,
there isn't a black or a brown one, or even a grey one, within sight.
They are just like a thin mist, lighted by a million of electric lamps.
It's a delicious world, and if it isn't inhabited by angels it ought to
be."

CHAPTER XIII

While Zaidie was talking the _Astronef_ was sweeping swiftly down
towards the surface of Venus, through scenery of whose almost
inconceivable magnificence no human words could convey any adequate
idea. Underneath the cloud-veil the air was absolutely clear and
transparent, clearer, indeed, than terrestrial air at the highest
elevations reached by mountain-climbers, and, moreover, it seemed to be
endowed with a strange, luminous quality, which made objects, no matter
how distant, stand out with almost startling distinctness.

The rivers and lakes and seas which spread out beneath them, seemed
never to have been ruffled by blast of storm or breath of wind, and
their surfaces shone with a soft, silvery light, which seemed to come
from below rather than from above.

"If this isn't heaven it must be the half-way house," said Redgrave,
with what was, perhaps, under the circumstances, a pardonable
irreverence. "Still, after all, we don't know what the inhabitants may
be like, so I think we'd better close the doors, and drop on the top of
that mountain-spur running out between the two rivers into the bay. Do
you notice how curious the water looks after the Earth seas; bright
silver, instead of blue and green?"

"Oh, it's just lovely," said Zaidie. "Let's go down and have a walk.
There's nothing to be afraid of. You'll never make me believe that a
world like this can be inhabited by anything dangerous."

"Perhaps, but we mustn't forget what happened on Mars, _Madonna mia_.
Still, there's one thing, we haven't been tackled by any aerial fleets
yet."

"I