Evidently the Martians believed they had finished us. At no time since the beginning of our adventure had it appeared to me quite so hopeless, reckless and mad as it seemed at present. We had suffered fearful losses, and yet what had we accomplished? We had won two fights on the asteroid, it is true, but then we had overwhelming numbers on our side. Now we were facing millions on their own ground, and our very first assault had resulted in a disastrous repulse, with the loss of at least thirty electric ships and 600 men! Evidently we could not endure this sort of thing. We must find some other means of assailing Mars or else give up the attempt. But the latter was not to be thought. It was no mere question of self-pride, however, and no consideration of the tremendous interests at stake, which would compel us to continue our apparently vain attempt. Our provisions could last only a few days longer. The supply would not carry us one-quarter of the way back to earth, and we must therefore remain here and literally conquer or die. In this extremity a consultation of the principal officers was called upon the deck of the flagship. Here the suggestion was made that we should attempt to effect by strategy what we had failed to do by force. An old army officer who had served in many wars against the cunning Indians of the West, Colonel Alonzo Jefferson Smith, was the author of this suggestion. "Let us circumvent them," he said. "We can do it in this way. The chances are that all of the available fighting force of the planet Mars is now concentrated on this side and in the neighborhood of The Lake of the Sun. "Possibly, by some kind of X-ray business, they can only see us dimly through the clouds, and if we get a little further away they will not be able to see us at all. "Now, I suggest that a certain number of the electrical ships be withdrawn from the squadron to a great distance, while the remainder stay here; or, better still, approach to a point just beyond the reach of those streaks of lightning, and begin a bombardment of the clouds without paying any attention to whether the strokes reach through the clouds and do any damage or not. "This will induce the Martians to believe that we are determined to press our attack at this point. "In the meantime, while these ships are raising a hulabaloo on this side of the planet, and drawing their fire, as much as possible, without running into any actual danger, let the others which have been selected for the purpose, sail rapidly around to the other side of Mars and take them in the rear."