I was thinking that Thorwald did not show much sympathy with me, when, our boat having nearly reached the ship’s side, I looked up and saw the doctor himself standing on the deck, a pigmy among giants. I was soon by his side, and we embraced before our new-found friends without a blush. “Where’s Mona?” were the first words he said. “Mona!” I replied. “Who’s Mona?” “Who’s Mona?” he returned. “Well, you have recovered pretty rapidly.” I now discovered that, although I had found the body of my friend, the best part of him was missing. In the fall from the moon he had evidently lost his wits. I thought I would not let him know too suddenly what was the matter, and so I merely said: “Yes, I went into the water, but was not much hurt. When I came to my senses I found myself in our car still. Tell me how you escaped.” “Oh, I happened to fall near this ship, fortunately, and they picked me up, and then, at my request, they set out to search for you and Mona.” “Well,” said I, “you found me, and I am very thankful for it, but Mona I fear you will never see.” “What was the last you saw of her?” he asked. I had great difficulty in keeping myself from laughing in the doctor’s face at his odd fancy, but the thought came to me with some force that I must not let his mental condition become known to the men of Mars around us; and so, instead of replying to his question, I turned to Thorwald and asked him if he could tell us how the moon had landed us so easily on their planet. In answer he gave it as his opinion that as the moon came rushing toward them so swiftly it compressed the air in its path to such a degree that it acted as a cushion, preventing a collision and sending the moon bounding back over the path by which it had come. Probably at the moment when it was nearest the surface, we had fallen off into the ocean. The rebound, he supposed, was not sufficient to carry it beyond the attraction of the planet, and so it poised itself and began to make a revolution around Mars in its old-fashioned way. Thorwald told us we had taken the best possible time to visit them, for Mars had not been so near the earth before in a great while. Our new acquaintances were from nine to ten feet tall and proportionately large every other way, so that they appeared quite monstrous to us. But they were agile and even graceful in their movements, while in manner they were so gentle and pleasing that we recognized at once their high culture.