in the Everlasting Tropics!"

Then he hove up his other suspender and started for'ard, and inside
of three-quarters of an hour his craft was only a pale torch again
in the distance. Yes, it was a mistake, Peters--that remark of
mine. I don't reckon I'll ever get over being sorry about it. I'd
'a' beat the bully of the firmament if I'd kept my mouth shut.


But I've wandered a little off the track of my tale; I'll get back
on my course again. Now you see what kind of speed I was making.
So, as I said, when I had been tearing along this way about thirty
years I begun to get uneasy. Oh, it was pleasant enough, with a
good deal to find out, but then it was kind of lonesome, you know.
Besides, I wanted to get somewhere. I hadn't shipped with the idea
of cruising forever. First off, I liked the delay, because I
judged I was going to fetch up in pretty warm quarters when I got
through; but towards the last I begun to feel that I'd rather go
to--well, most any place, so as to finish up the uncertainty.

Well, one night--it was always night, except when I was rushing by
some star that was occupying the whole universe with its fire and
its glare--light enough then, of course, but I necessarily left it
behind in a minute or two and plunged into a solid week of darkness
again. The stars ain't so close together as they look to be.
Where was I? Oh yes; one night I was sailing along, when I
discovered a tremendous long row of blinking lights away on the
horizon ahead. As I approached, they begun to tower and swell and
look like mighty furnaces. Says I to myself--