"The pilot left me, and I saw him thread his way amongst the lines of people, moving toward the dark walls of the observatory that covered the hill. At long intervals rockets rose from the opposite rim of the great circular ridge around the City, scarring the deep, inky vault about us with lines of fire. They ascended to an enormous distance. Almost instantly these were apparently answered by similar rockets in other colors from the hill I stood on. "There was a sudden movement about me. The pilot had returned. With him came the messenger. I flung my absorption from me. I was a Martian. The light of recognition came back again to my eyes--my tongue was loosened, my senses accommodated themselves to the stupendous circumstances about me. I spoke first. "'Mindo,' (the name of the pilot), 'I am ready to accompany my guide to the City. Will you go with us?' "'No! Heboribimo,' (your excellency), 'I must stay at the locks. I shall descend to the City in the boat to-morrow. This man will bring you to the canal. I advise haste. There is great excitement and dread in Scandor. Mars is in the path of a comet.' "I turned to my guide, a beautiful youth, not dressed as the citizens of the City of Light, but clothed in a tight fitting doublet of a creamy blue, with short trunks of yellow, and on his feet were sandals. He saluted me, and together we descended the broad boulevard between the widely separated lustres that became more crowded as they massed like a progressive deepening of color into the eddying splendors of the City itself. "Again I realized how swift is motion in Mars. We wished to reach the City, and we glided to it by the rapid propulsion of desire. The broad way was filled with lines and groups of peoples clustering to the hilltop--and over the far-reaching slopes I could see the awaiting throngs. My guide pointed to the constellation of Perseus, and I could discern a nebulous mass of considerable diameter from which proceeded a wisp-like exhalation, just a phantasmal fan of phosphorescence, behind it. "The glory of the City fell around us now; we were in its broad streets beneath the towering pillars of light that framed them in a fence of splendor. On we pressed, but I glanced from side to side, noting the great glass houses and buildings, here colonnades of translucent opalescent beauty, made up of hollow tubes of glass holding an interior illumination, and clambered over by vines whose expanding leaves formed a tracery of silhouettes upon their sides.