E-text prepared by the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net/) Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 19476-h.htm or 19476-h.zip: (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/9/4/7/19476/19476-h/19476-h.htm) or (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/9/4/7/19476/19476-h.zip) A HONEYMOON IN SPACE by GEORGE GRIFFITH Author of "Valdar the Oft-Born," "The Virgin of the Sun," "The Rose of Judah," &c., &c. Illustrated by Stanley Wood and Harold Piffard London C. Arthur Pearson Ltd. Henrietta Street 1901 Arno Press A New York Times Company New York--1975 Reprint Edition 1974 by Arno Press Inc. Reprinted from a copy in The Library of the University of California, Riverside A Honeymoon in Space [Illustration: "_The Earth, the Earth--thank God, the Earth!_"] Contents PROLOGUE--The First Cruise of the _Astronef_ Chapter I. Chapter II. Chapter III. Chapter IV. Chapter V. Chapter VI. Chapter VII. Chapter VIII. Chapter IX. Chapter X. Chapter XI. Chapter XII. Chapter XIII. Chapter XIV. Chapter XV. Chapter XVI. Chapter XVII. Chapter XVIII. Chapter XIX. Chapter XX. Epilogue List of Illustrations "THE EARTH, THE EARTH--THANK GOD, THE EARTH!" A HIDEOUS SHAPE ROSE OUT OF THE WATER BEHIND THEM IT TOOK THE STRANGE-WINGED CRAFT AMIDSHIPS SNOW PEAKS AND CLOUD SEAS CAME FORWARD TO MEET THEM WITH BOTH HANDS OUTSTRETCHED WHOLE MOUNTAIN RANGES OF GLOWING LAVA WERE HURLED UP MILES HIGH WITHOUT ANY APPARENT EFFORT HE RAISED HER ABOUT FIVE FEET FROM THE FLOOR THE HUGE PALELY LUMINOUS EYES LOOKED IN UPON THEM PROLOGUE THE FIRST CRUISE OF THE _ASTRONEF_ About eight o'clock on the morning of the 5th of November, 1900, those of the passengers and crew of the American liner _St. Louis_ who happened, whether from causes of duty or of their own pleasure, to be on deck, had a very strange--in fact a quite unprecedented experience. The big ship was ploughing her way through the long, smooth rollers at her average twenty-one knots towards the rising sun, when the officer in charge of the navigating bridge happened to turn his glasses straight ahead. He took them down from his eyes, rubbed the two object-glasses with the cuff of his coat, and looked again. The sun was shining through a haze which so far dimmed the solar disc that it was possible to look straight at it without inconvenience to the eyes. The officer took another long squint, put his glasses down, rubbed his eyes and took another, and murmured, "Well I'm damned!" Just then the Fourth Officer came up on to the bridge to relieve his senior while he went down for a cup of coffee and a biscuit. The Second took him away to the other end of the bridge, out of hearing of the helmsman and the quartermaster standing by, and said almost in a whisper: