“But, as if the heavenly marvel might still further startle and amaze and charm me, from the City rose the swelling chords of choruses; billows of sound, softened by distance, beat in melodious surges on the high encompassing lands.

“I stood mute and transfixed.  It seemed a beatific vision.  If the very air had been filled with ascending choruses of angels, if the dark zenith had opened and revealed the throne of the Almighty, it would have seemed but a congruous and expected climax.

“Long I gazed, and slowly, very slowly became conscious of the great numbers of people about me, and that they were being augmented by new arrivals.  The porcelain barge I had come in from the City of Light, was moored now to the side of the lock.  I had disembarked, carrying almost mechanically in my hand, the chest in which the communications from the Patenta to the Council were locked.

“It was perhaps only a short interval before the pilot woke me from my trance, saying in Martian:  ’This is the Observation Hill of Scandor.  These are Scandor’s Observatories.  I hear there is seen by the observers some approaching danger in the heavens.  These citizens of Scandor are crowding from the City to hear the latest reports.  There is a messenger from the Council here waiting on the observers.  I will bring him to you, and you and the messenger can at once be conveyed to the Council.’

“I looked at him speechless, yet unable to again realize I lived and breathed in another world.  It seemed as if a sudden motion, a cry, a whisper even, would break the chrysalis of sleep about me, and plunge me into void and nothingness.

“The pilot left me, and I saw him thread his way amongst the lines of people, moving toward the dark walls of the observatory that covered the hill.  At long intervals rockets rose from the opposite rim of the great circular ridge around the City, scarring the deep, inky vault about us with lines of fire.  They ascended to an enormous distance.  Almost instantly these were apparently answered by similar rockets in other colors from the hill I stood on.

“There was a sudden movement about me.  The pilot had returned.  With him came the messenger.  I flung my absorption from me.  I was a Martian.  The light of recognition came back again to my eyes—­my tongue was loosened, my senses accommodated themselves to the stupendous circumstances about me.  I spoke first.

“‘Mindo,’ (the name of the pilot), ’I am ready to accompany my guide to the City.  Will you go with us?’

“‘No!  Heboribimo,’ (your excellency), ’I must stay at the locks.  I shall descend to the City in the boat to-morrow.  This man will bring you to the canal.  I advise haste.  There is great excitement and dread in Scandor.  Mars is in the path of a comet.’

“I turned to my guide, a beautiful youth, not dressed as the citizens of the City of Light, but clothed in a tight fitting doublet of a creamy blue, with short trunks of yellow, and on his feet were sandals.  He saluted me, and together we descended the broad boulevard between the widely separated lustres that became more crowded as they massed like a progressive deepening of color into the eddying splendors of the City itself.