our position, first North then South, in order to give all the world the opportunity to see that its warriors had returned victorious from their far conquest. And in each country as it passed beneath our feet, we left some of the comrades who had shared our perils and our adventures.
At length the Atlantic had rolled away under us, and we saw the spires of the new New York.
The news of our coming had been flashed ahead from Europe, and our countrymen were prepared to welcome us. We had originally started, it will be remembered, at midnight, and now again as we approached the new capital of the world the curtain of night was just beginning to be drawn over it. But our signal lights were ablaze, and through these they were aware of our approach.
Again the air was filled with bursting rockets and shaken with the roar of cannon, and with volleying cheers, poured from millions of throats, as we came to rest directly above the city.
Three days after the landing of the fleet, and when the first enthusiasm of our reception had a little passed, I received a beautifully engraved card inviting me to be present in Trinity Church at the wedding of Aina and Sidney Phillips.
When I arrived at the church, which had been splendidly decorated, I found there Mr. Edison, Lord Kelvin, and all the other members of the crew of the flagship, and, considerably to my surprise, Colonel Smith, appropriately attired, and with a grace for the possession of which I had not given him credit, gave away the beautiful bride.
But Alonzo Jefferson Smith was a man and a soldier, every inch of him.
"I asked her for myself," he whispered to me after the ceremony, swallowing a great lump in his throat, "but she has had the desire of her heart. I am going back to the plains. I can get a command again, and I still know how to fight."
And thus was united, for all future time, the first stem of the Aryan race, which had been long lost, but not destroyed, with the latest offspring of that great family, and the link which had served to bring them together was the far-away planet of Mars.
A Columbus of Space
To the Readers of Jules Verne's Romances This Story is Dedicated
Not because the author flatters himself that he can walk in the Footsteps of that Immortal Dreamer, but because, like Jules Verne, he believes that the World of Imagination is as legitimate a Domain of the Human Mind as the World of Fact.
Chapter I. A Marvelous Invention
Chapter III. The Planetary Limited
Chapter IV. The Caverns of Venus
Chapter V. Off for the Sun Lands
Chapter VI. Lost in the Crystal Mountains
Chapter VII. The Children of the Sun
Chapter VIII. Language Without Speech
Chapter IX. An Amazing Metropolis
Chapter X. Imprisonment and a Wonderful Escape
Chapter XI. Before the Throne of Venus
Chapter XIII. We Fall into Trouble Again
Chapter XV. At the Mercy of Fearful Enemies
Chapter XVI. Dreadful Creatures of the Gloom
Chapter XVII. Earth Magic on Venus
Chapter XIX. The Secret of the Car
Chapter XX. The Corybantia of the Sun
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