“He paused.  I thought there was a shade of disappointment in my friend’s face, as Chapman drew me to one side, and I stepped quickly back to him, and said:  ’Will you not go with us, too?  You first cared for me and brought me food and raiment.’  His eyes were again bright with peace.  ’No, my new friend, I cannot go now.  I am waiting, waiting here at the City of Light, watching the spirits, if perchance my son from your earth is amongst them.  Surely he will come some day, and then my happiness will be all God can make it.’

“We hurried away to the Chamber of the Council.  Once more through the devious paths of the great groups of buildings which make up the Patenta, between the flowering trees and the tulip flowered vines we made our way, with feet so buoyant and so strong that we seemed almost to fly.

“The Chamber of the Council of the Patenta was a beautiful room.  It was one of the few great chambers in the City of Light, dressed in color and tapestries.  A deep carpet of scarlet Talta wool covered the floor, and there hung at irregular intervals from a silver cornice deep green curtains.  The furniture was very wonderful.  A dark wood, like teak, opulently fitted with silver, formed the great table that occupied the center of the room, as also the heavy chairs on which were placed cushions of a golden yellow silk.  There were no windows in the room.  The light entered from above through two simple round apertures covered with white glass.  Book cases stood about the room filled with large folios, which, as I observed from a few spread upon the table, were not printed books, but filled with writing in a round, clear hand, legible at some distance.

“But the most extraordinary feature of the room was a marvellous colossal figure at one end of the room, in a recess richly hung with green tapestries.  It was cast in silver upon which dull shades and frosted and polished surfaces were appropriately combined, as their position required, in the portrayal of a Being of incredible benignity of expression, attired in flowing robes with an outstretched hand, his face invested with a harmonious union of power and sweetness.  Beneath it upon the enormous black pedestal the letters in silver were conspicuous—­Tarunta—­the Deity.  This amazing creation arrested the attention of my friend Chapman, and myself, and we stood half spell-bound under the influence of its seraphic and potent beauty.

“The next moment we were conscious of the throng filling the room.  There were many of the great physicists and chemists and astronomers and observers whom I had seen at the breakfast in the Dining Hall the previous morning with a few others who were the first men I had seen in Mars wearing the expression of age.  They almost seemed venerable.  I remembered then what I had learned on my arrival at the Patenta—­that age and death also supervene in Mars.

“I was observed at once, and friendly hands were extended to me from all sides.  I was led to the head of the table.  There I was invited to enlarge my story as given in the Hall of Attention, and I was told to tell it in English.  A scribe near me conveyed to pads of paper my narrative.