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.
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