I'm sure they can't
possibly mean us any harm; they are far too pretty for that. What lovely
soft eyes they have, and what a thousand pities it is we shan't be able
to understand them."
They had left the conning-tower, and both his lordship and Murgatroyd
were throwing open the sliding-doors and, to Zaidie's considerable
displeasure, getting the deck Maxims ready for action in case they
should be required. As soon as the doors were open Zaidie's judgment of
the inhabitants of Venus was entirely justified.
Without the slightest sign of fear, but with very evident astonishment
in their round golden-yellow eyes, they came walking close up to the
sides of the _Astronef_. Some of them stroked her smooth, shining sides
with their little hands, which Zaidie now found had only three fingers
and a thumb. Many ages before they might have been birds' claws, but now
they were soft and pink and plump, utterly strange to manual work as it
is understood upon Earth.
"Just fancy getting Maxim guns ready to shoot those delightful things,"
said Zaidie, almost indignantly, as she went towards the doorway from
which the gangway ladder ran down to the soft, mossy turf. "Why, not one
of them has got a weapon of any sort; and just listen," she went on,
stopping in the opening of the doorway, "have you ever heard music like
that on Earth? I haven't.
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