subject of his startling exclamation. It was clear that he had rightly
guessed her sex, and she appeared worthy of his admiring designation.
Even at the distance of a hundred feet we could see that she was very
beautiful. Her complexion was light, with a flame upon the cheeks; her
hair a chestnut blond; and her large, round eyes were sapphire blue, and
seemed to radiate a light of their own. This last statement (about the
eyes) must not be taken for a conventional exaggeration, such as writers
of fiction employ in describing heroines who never existed. On the
contrary, it expresses a literal fact; and moreover, as the reader will
see further on, this peculiarity of the eyes was shared, in varying
degrees, by all these people of Venus, and was connected with the most
amazing of all our discoveries on that planet. I should say here that,
while the eyes of the inhabitants of the day side were larger than ours,
they did not, in respect of size, resemble the extraordinary organs of
vision possessed by the compatriots of Juba.

In a few minutes we became aware that the beautiful creature we had been
admiring was not the only representative of the female sex on the air
ship. Several others surrounded her, and the fact quickly became manifest
that they recognized her as a superior. Still more surprising was the
discovery, which we were not long in making, that she was actually the
commander of the craft. We could see that the orders which determined its
movements emanated from her.

"Amazons!" exclaimed Jack, taking pains this time to moderate his voice.
"And what a queen they've got!"

During all this time the car and the air ship were slowly drifting nearer
to one another, drawn by that strange attraction which seems to affect
inanimate things when in close neighborhood, and when they were not more