A couple of minutes later the _Astronef_ sprang upwards from the midst of the delightful valley in which she was resting. No lights were shown. In five minutes she had passed through the cloud-veil, and the next morning when their new friends came to visit them and found that they had vanished back into Space, there was sorrow for the first time among the sons and daughters of the Love-Star. CHAPTER XIV "Five hundred million miles from the Earth, and forty-seven million miles from Jupiter," said Redgrave as he came into breakfast on the morning of the twenty-eighth day after leaving Venus. During this brief period the _Astronef_ had recrossed the orbits of the Earth and Mars and had passed through that marvellous region of the Solar System, the Belt of the Asteroides. Nearly a hundred million miles of their journey had lain through this zone in which hundreds and possibly thousands of tiny planets revolve in vast orbits round the Sun. Then had come a world less void of over three hundred million miles, through which they voyaged alone, surrounded by the ever-constant splendours of the heavens, and visited only now and then by one of those Spectres of Space, which we call comets. Astern the disc of the Sun steadily diminished and ahead the grey-blue shape of Jupiter, the Giant of the Solar System, had grown larger and larger until now they could see it as it had never been seen before--a gigantic three-quarter moon filling up the whole heavens in front of them almost from zenith to nadir. Three of its satellites, Europa, Ganymede, and Calisto, were distinctly visible even to the naked eye, and Europa and Ganymede, happened to be in such a position in regard to the _Astronef_ that her crew could see not only the bright sides turned towards the Sun, but also the black shadow-spots which they cast on the cloud-veiled face of the huge planet. Calisto was above the horizon hanging like a tiny flicker of yellowish-red light above the rounded edge of Jupiter, and Io was invisible behind the planet. "Five hundred million miles!" said Zaidie, with a little shiver; "that seems an awful long way from home--I mean America--doesn't it? I often wonder what they are thinking about us on the dear old Earth. I don't suppose any one ever expects to see us again. However, it's no good getting homesick in the middle of a journey when you're outward bound. And now what is the programme as regards His Majesty King Jove? We shall visit the satellites of course?" "Certainly," replied Redgrave; "in fact, I shouldn't be surprised if our visit was confined to them." "What! do you mean to say we shan't land on Jupiter after coming nearly six hundred million miles to see him? That would be disappointing. But why not? don't you think he's ready to be visited yet?"