When he removed his cape they expected to find that he was bald like the
Martians, but they were mistaken. His well-shaped head was covered with
long, thick hair of a colour something between bronze and grey. A broad
band of metal looking like light gold passed round the upper part of his
forehead, and from under this the hair fell in gentle waves to below his
shoulders.
For a few moments Zaidie and Redgrave stared about them in frank and
silent wonder. They were standing in a broad street running in a
straight line to what seemed to be several miles along the edge of a
city of crystal. It was lined with double rows of trees with beds of
brilliantly coloured flowers between them. From this street others went
off at right angles and at regular intervals. The roof of the city
appeared to be composed of an infinity of domes of enormous extent,
supported by tall clusters of slender pillars standing at the street
corners. The general level of the roof seemed about three hundred feet
above the ground, and the summits of the domes some fifty feet higher.
The houses, which were all square, were, as a rule, about forty feet
high. The roofs were covered with gardens and shrubberies, from which
creepers, bearing brillantly coloured leaves and flowers, hung down
about the windows in carefully arranged festoons.
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