had reached the foot of the steps my attention was concentrated on a single figure and face—­the form and countenance of the Prince, who rose from his throne as I approached.  Those who remember that Louis XIV., a prince reputed to have possessed the most majestic and awe-inspiring presence of his age, was actually beneath the ordinary height of Frenchmen, may be able to believe me when I say that the Autocrat of Mars, though scarcely five feet tall, was in outward appearance and bearing the most truly royal and imposing prince I have ever seen.  His stature, rising nearly two inches over the tallest of those around him, perhaps added to the effect of a mien remarkable for dignity, composure, and self-confidence.  The predominant and most immediately observable expression of his face was one of serene calm and command.  A closer inspection and a longer experience explained why, notwithstanding, my first conception of his character (and it was a true one) ascribed to him quite as much of fire and spirit as of impassive grandeur.  His voice, though its tone was gentle and almost strikingly quiet, had in it something of the ring peculiar to those which have sent the word of command along a line of battle.  I felt as I heard it more impressed with the personal greatness, and even with the rank and power, of the Prince before me, than when I knelt to kiss the hand of the Most Christian King, or stood barefooted before the greatest modern successor of the conqueror of Stamboul.

“I am glad to receive you,” he said.  “It will be among the most memorable incidents of my reign that I welcome to my Court the first visitor from another world, or,” he added, after a sudden pause, and with an inflection of unmistakable irony in his tone, “the first who has descended to our world from a height to which no balloon could reach and at which no balloonist could live.”

“I am honoured, Prince,” I replied, “in the notice of a greater potentate than the greatest of my own world.”

These compliments exchanged, the Prince at once proceeded to more practical matters, aptly, however, connecting his next sentence with the formal phrases preceding it.

“Nevertheless, you have not shown excessive respect for my power in the person of one of my greatest officers.  If you treated the princes of Earth as unceremoniously as the Regent of Elcavoo, I can understand that you found it convenient to place yourself beyond their reach.”

I thought that this speech afforded me an opportunity of repairing my offence with the least possible loss of dignity.

“The proudest of Earthly princes,” I replied, “would, I think, have pardoned the roughness which forgot the duty of a subject in the first obligations of humanity.  No Sovereign whom I have served, but would have forgiven me more readily for rough words spoken at such a moment, than for any delay or slackness in saving the life of a woman in danger under his own eyes.  Permit me to take this opportunity of apologizing to the Regent in your presence, and assuring him that I was influenced by no disrespect to him, but only by overpowering terror for another.”