We kept New Year's Day as a great holiday--a red-letter day in our experience, each of us feeling that we ought to inaugurate such an eventful year in not only our own history, but that of mankind, in a manner suited to its vast importance. As the clocks on Earth were striking midnight on the 31st of December, 1876, and New Year's greetings were being exchanged in all parts of the world we had left, four human beings, millions of miles away in space, were doing likewise. Earth shone steadily, like a pale beautiful star, below us. During the first few moments of that glad New Year, we drank with mild and boisterous enthusiasm to the planet Mars, to the men on Earth, and to our own success. Owing to the increased rate of speed at which we had been travelling, our distance from the Earth had increased much more than we had suspected. The Doctor computed our distance from Earth to be now 28,000,000 miles! If all went well, we should arrive at Mars in about six months' time. We all of us had long felt weary of our close confinement. Owing to the strict rules of hygiene that the Doctor enforced, not one of the party had suffered from disease. Still, it was a great joy to know that we should soon be released from the _Sirius_, and the wonders of a new world were a rich reward in store. Mars, now, was a most beautiful object in the heavens. Long and often did we peer at it through our telescopes in wondering astonishment, as it shone in brilliant ruddy glory, still millions of miles away. The Doctor was enchanted with his discovery of the satellites of Mars. By the end of January, 1877, we had crossed those regions of rarefied ether, which were little more than an absolute vacuum; and the _Sirius_ was once again propelled by its motive forces alone. We now thought it advisable slightly to check our engines, and our speed was reduced to about twelve hundred miles per hour. Another interesting phenomenon was the change in our centre of gravity, which was now the planet of Mars. This last great discovery set all our doubts at rest. Between five and six millions of miles had still to be traversed, many perils had still to be undergone, many difficulties remained to be overcome--but Mars, bright, glorious, ruddy Mars, was conquered at last! CHAPTER V. THE GLORIES OF THE HEAVENS. For a month after the last events were chronicled the _Sirius_ pursued its way steadily towards Mars, without a single exceptional incident. On the second of February, however, when we were about four and a quarter millions of miles from our destination, we were dreadfully alarmed by a series of majestic natural phenomena.