Then the truth burst upon me, and I exclaimed:

"It's the atmosphere!"

I had not spoken very loudly, but the words seemed to reverberate in my
mouth, as if to testify to the correctness of my explanation.

"Yes," said Edmund, taking pains to moderate his voice, "you've hit it,
it's the atmosphere. I had calculated on an effect of the kind, but the
reality exceeds all that I had anticipated. Spectroscopic analysis as
well as telescopic appearances demonstrated long ago that the atmosphere
of Venus was extraordinarily extensive and dense, from which fact I
inferred that we should encounter some wonderful acoustic phenomena here,
and this was in my mind when, on stepping out of the car, I addressed you
in a whisper. The reaction even of the whisper on my organs of speech
told me that I was right, and showed me what to expect if the full power
of the voice were used. When we caught sight of the creature at the top
of the pit I had no desire to shoot him, and I saw that he was too
powerful to be captured alive. In a second I had decided what to do. It
ran through my mind that, in a world where the density, and probably
something also in the peculiar constitution of the air, had the effect of
vastly magnifying sound, the phonetic and acoustic organs of the
inhabitants would be modified, and that the sounds uttered by them would
be much fainter than those that we are accustomed to hear from living
creatures on the earth. That being so, I argued that a very great and
heavy sound coming from a strange animal would produce in the creature
before us a paralyzing terror. You have seen that it did so. I expect
that this will give us an immense advantage to begin with. We have
already inspired so great a fear that I believe that we can now safely