We turned to the planet, whose enormous disc, muffled in cloud, was shining lividly in the weird sky.  At one part of the limb a range of lofty mountain peaks rose above the clouds and chequered them with shadow.

Fixing our eyes upon this landmark we watched it with bated breath.  Was it coming nearer, or was it receding from us?  That was the momentous question.

My feelings might be compared to those of a prisoner at the bar watching the face of the juryman who is about to deliver the verdict.

After a time—­I know not how long—­but it seemed an age—­the professor exclaimed,

“I believe we are still rising.”

It was my own impression, for the peak I was regarding had grown as I thought smaller, but I did not feel sure, and preferred to trust the more experienced eyes of the astronomer.

“I shall try the telescope,” he went on; “we are a long way from the planet.”

“How far do you think?”

“Many thousand miles at least.”

“So much the better.  We shall get more time.”

“Humph! prolonging the agony, that’s all.  I begin to wish it was all over.”

Gazen directed his instrument on the planet, and we resumed our observations.

“We are no longer rising,” said Gazen after a time.  “I suppose we are near the turning-point.”

As a prisoner scans the countenance of the judge who is about to pronounce the sentence of life or death, I scanned the cloudy surface underneath us, to see if I could discover any signs of an ocean that would break our fall, but the vapours were too thick and compact.

Every instant I expected to hear the fatal intelligence that our descent had begun.

“Strange!” muttered Gazen by-and-by, as if speaking to himself.

“What is strange?”

“We are neither rising nor falling now.  We don’t seem to move.”

“Impossible!”

“Nevertheless, it’s a fact,” he exclaimed at the end of some minutes.  “The focus of the telescope is constant.  We are evidently standing still.”

His words sounded like a reprieve to a condemned man on the morning of his execution, and in the revulsion of my feeling I shouted,

“Hurrah!”

“What can it mean?” cried Gazen.

“Simply this,” said I joyfully.  “We have reached the ‘dead-point,’ where the attraction of Mercury on the car is balanced by the attraction of the sun.  It can’t be anything else.”

“Wait a minute,” said Gazen, making a rapid calculation.  “Yes, yes, probably you are right.  I did not think we had come so far; but I had forgotten that gravitation on Mercury is only half as strong as it is on the Earth or Venus.  Let us go and tell Miss Carmichael.”

We hurried downstairs to the engine room and found her kneeling beside her father, who was no better.

She did not seem much enlivened by the good news.

“What will that do for us?” she enquired doubtfully.