The next important step was to cut loose Llysanorh's machine. He instructed Lylette to get her things from the Martian's flyer. She started to crawl through the connecting tube, and that was the last time Ralph saw her alive. A loud hissing noise, like escaping steam caused him to rush to the connecting tube, but he was too late. The automatic safety valve had sprung, and the circular door of the connecting tube had been hermetically closed. The two machines had drifted apart, and as Ralph peered anxiously through one of the windows, he was horrified at the sight of Lylette, hanging by her feet from the circular connecting-tube door of Llysanorh's machine. The door had closed automatically when the two machines had become disconnected. The air had of course rushed out immediately from Llysanorh's flyer. She had died in a few seconds and her body had become distended to a great many times its normal size. Ralph, nauseated by the terrible spectacle, turned away from it. There was nothing he could do. Few people realize that it is nothing but the atmospheric pressure that keeps our bodies from falling apart; thus, it is well known that when flying at high altitudes on the Earth, where the atmosphere becomes thin, blood will begin to flow from the mouth, nose and ears. When he glanced backwards a few minutes later and saw Llysanorh's machine he gave an exclamation of astonishment. The machine was not to be seen, but in its place was a wondrous comet, its tail streaming thousands of miles behind it! Llysanorh's flyer, which was somewhat larger in size than that of Ralph's, had "captured" the artificial comet! There remained not a part of it attached to Ralph's flyer. Ralph reasoned that the air that had been contained formerly in Llysanorh's machine had, upon rushing out of the flyer after Lylette's fatal accident, mixed with the gases of the "comet" and thereby assisted the latter in detaching itself from Ralph's flyer. It remained within range of his vision for many weeks, before it was finally lost in the depths of infinite space, where it would, in all probability, rush through the boundless universe for aeon upon aeon, ere it would eventually collide with some other body, and would be reduced to cosmic dust. * * * * * The long days during Ralph's flight back to Earth left their indelible imprint upon his mind. Never, in all the years to follow, could he look back upon them without a shudder, remembering the heart-break of the terrible hours in which he sat beside the bed on which lay his beloved.