"I flew to his rescue. He was badly frightened, and kept shouting, 'Kill the baste!' The bird being on Flathootly's back, rendered him powerless to cope with it. Suddenly the bird let go its grip of his neck and took hold of his head in its claws, with the idea of carrying him off to its eyrie. Coming behind the monster unseen, I managed by a well-directed blow to transfix him with my magnic spear. The seemorgh, with wide-distended wings and head falling limp on its breast, slowly revolving, descended to the earth, the first enemy to fall on land at the hands of the invader. "Flathootly now avoided the mountains. He had a narrow escape, but, excepting an ugly wound in his neck, was otherwise unscathed. "We continued our flight to Egyplosis, dimly visible in the vault before us. We continued to traverse the inner curve of the planet, Atvatabar surrounding us on all sides except that part of the sphere above us which was concealed by the brilliancy of Swang. "Owing to the uniform heat and density of the lower strata of air, every mountain top was covered with foliage. We saw many mansions of the Atvatabarese sculptured out of the solid rock and surrounded with noble forests of tropical vegetation. We flapped our wings thirty miles above Atvatabar, which lay, with its mountains, forests, lakes, cities, temples and dwellings, beneath us like a map. "We had flown for six or eight hours when a feeling of hunger admonished us to partake of food. The tin trunk, which was our commissariat department, had been towed behind us by means of a rope during the entire journey. [Illustration: I MOUNTED THE TRUNK AND PROPOSED THE HEALTH OF HER MAJESTY, LYONE, QUEEN OF ATVATABAR.] "'Flathootly,' said I, 'let us call a halt for refreshments.' "'With all my heart,' said he; 'but how are we to howld the trunk up?' "'Let us rise to the height of fifty miles again,' I replied, 'and then it will stand on the air alone, like ourselves.' "'You're a wise man, sorr,' said he. 'It's an illigant idea that we'll adopt immediately.' "Accordingly, we were soon once more in the region of no weight, where we stood in the air as on land, Flathootly on one side of the trunk and I on the other, to dine on its contents. "Flathootly, opening the lid, brought forth some cold venison, which he coolly laid on the air beside us, saying, 'Shtand there now till you're wanted.' The venison quietly floated up against the side of the trunk, that being the only force of gravity acting upon it. In like manner he tossed around us a cold roast fowl, several varieties of cooked vegetables, and some rich puddings. He also produced several bottles of squang, the tokay of Atvatabar. These he flung downward, but every bottle, after falling half a mile or so, slowly ascended, and the entire bottles came back to us in a close cluster, as though unwilling to leave us.