In ten
minutes the limits of the Jovian atmosphere were passed. Stars and suns
and planets blazed out of the black vault of Space, and the great disc
of the World that Is to Be once more covered the floor of Space beneath
them--an ocean of cloud, covering continents of lava and seas of flame,
the scene of the natal throes of a world which some day will be.
They passed Io and Europa, which changed from new to full moons as they
sped by towards the Sun, and then the golden yellow crescent of Ganymede
also began to fill out to the half and full disc, and by the tenth hour
of Earth-time, after they had risen from its surface, the _Astronef_ was
once more lying beside the gate of the Crystal City.
At midnight on the second night after their return, the ringed shape of
Saturn, attended by his eight satellites, hung in the zenith
magnificently inviting. The _Astronef's_ engines had been replenished
after the exhaustion of their struggle with the might of Jupiter. They
said farewell to their friends of the dying world. The doors of the
air-chamber closed. The signal tinkled in the engine-room, and a few
moments later a blurr of white lights on the brown background of the
surrounding desert was all they could see of the Crystal City under
whose domes they had seen and learnt so much.
CHAPTER XVII
The relative position of the two giants of the Solar System at the
moment when the _Astronef_ left the surface of Ganymede, was such that
she had to make a journey of rather more than 340,000,000 miles before
she passed within the confines of the Saturnine System.
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