"Listen!" cried the professor, his voice resounding so thunderously as almost to deafen us—some trick of the atmosphere. We stood silently, our ears alert, and heard a confused babel of sound proceeding apparently out of the very core of the volcano. "Sub-Mercurial fires may be at work down there," whispered the professor, nodding toward the crater. Even the whisper sounded unpleasantly loud to us. "What a world!" came from Augustus Popham in bellowing tones. "With fire within and without, what chance is there for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?" Some of Meigs’ peevishness had got into the coal man, and he rent the air with it. We remained mule after this outburst, I with my gaze hopefully on the professor and the professor blinking at the sun. In a little time I allowed my own eyes to falter zenithward, and the glory of the sun in Mercury’s mid-heaven has ever since been one of the treasured memories of my life. Its disk was six times its diameter as viewed from Earth, and the grandeur of its flaming surface is beyond the powers of my feeble pen to make known. I was oppressed and held captive by a feeling of awe and wonder. There was a red tinge to the atmosphere, caused by a reflection from the red of the planet’s brick-like crust; through this warm color pulsed the golden streamers—yellow and scarlet overhead, fading to faintest orange on the horizon. "Think you, Mr. Popham," murmured the professor, his voice awakening us as from a trance, "that all yon splendor, which has been in these skies for ages upon ages, was created for the enjoyment of no living thing? If so, you are wrong. There are now, as there have always been, beings with an intelligence capable of appreciating all this magnificent profusion of light and color. But enough. We have looked down into the crater and up into the heavens; suppose we turn our eyes another way and see what there is to offer." He faced about as he spoke, and gazed down the bare rocky slope of the volcano and off across an equally bare and forbidding plain. "No trees, no water, no life of any kind," muttered Meigs querulously. "There is a bright spot over there," said Quinn, shading his eyes and pointing. Our eyes followed his finger and encountered a glittering object on a slight elevation. As we gazed, the object, whatever it was, slowly vanished. "We might investigate that," suggested Popham excitedly. "Perhaps it was a Mercurial wearing a sort of armor to protect him from the heat. It may be that there are people here, and that they live underground." He would have started forthwith, but the professor stretched out a hand and detained him. "Just a moment," said Quinn. "Before we get too far from the car, let me make sure that all of you are sufficiently immune from the heat. Do you feel that you are fully protected in that respect, gentlemen?"