"It wouldn't surprise me in the least," said Gazen, "if they were to put
us into their zoological gardens as a rare species of monkey."

"What a ridiculous idea!" exclaimed Miss Carmichael. "Now _I_ feel sure
they will pay us divine honours. Won't it be nice?"

"You will make a perfect divinity," rejoined the professor with
consummate gallantry. "For my part I shall feel more at home in a
menagerie."

Thus far we had not observed any signs of intelligent beings on the
cloudy globe, and it was still doubtful whether we should not discover
it to be a lifeless world.

Our track did not lie exactly on the orbit of the planet, but
sufficiently beneath it to let her attraction pull the car up towards
her Southern Pole as it passed above us; and by this course of action we
trusted to enjoy a wider field of atmosphere to manoeuvre in, and
probably a safer descent into a cooler climate than we should have
experienced in attempting to land on the equator.

By an illusion familiar in the case of railway trains, it seemed to us
that the car was stationary, and the planet rushing towards us. On it
came like a great shield of silver and ebony, eclipsing the stars and
growing vaster every moment. Under the driving force of the engines and
the gravity of the planet, our car was falling obliquely towards the
orbit, like a small boat trying to cross the bows of an ironclad, and a
collision seemed inevitable. Being on the sunward side we could see more
and more of the illuminated crescent as it drew near, and were filled