"What are you looking for, Edmund?"

"Meteors."

"Meteors, out here!"

"Of course. You're something of an astronomer; don't you know that they
hang about all the planets? They didn't give me any rest last night. I
was on tender hooks all the time while you were sleeping. I was half
inclined to call one of you to help me. We passed some pretty ugly
fellows while you slept, I can tell you! You know that this is an
unexplored sea that we are navigating, and I don't want to run on the
rocks."

"But we seem to be a good way off from the earth now," I remarked, "and
there ought not to be much danger."

"It's not as dangerous as it was, but there may be some of them yet
around here. I'll feel safer when we have put a few more million miles
behind us."

_A few more million miles!_ We all stood aghast when we heard the words.
We had, indeed, imagined that the earth looked as if it might be a
million miles away, but, then, it was merely a passing impression, which
had given us no sense of reality; but now when we heard Edmund say that
we actually had traveled such a distance, the idea struck us with
overwhelming force.

"In the name of all that's good, Edmund," cried Jack, "at what rate are
we traveling, then?"