The eight friends could speak many different languages amongst them, and these were all tried in turn, the people also speaking several, as the visitors could tell by the change of accent and the different vocalisation, but all without being understood. Two men, who seemed to be governors or officers, next took the visitors in hand and conveyed them to an enclosure, over which was placed an awning. Here again the same difficulty arose with regard to speech, and matters at once came to an _impasse_ when Aubrey Bolford thought of telepathy. All difficulties were now ended, for the people were more expert in the science than those of Earth, and both parties were surprised that the idea had not occurred to them before, though as its use was not necessary or usual in personal conversation, the temporary omission to try it was not really to be wondered at. Edgar Holt, as a middle-aged man, had carried out the practice and promise of his youth, for he made a point of ignoring and belittling anything and everything in which he could not take the chief part. This had been his undoing on the ship, and now he took everything in his own hands and acted as the spokesman and appointed leader of the expedition. It never occurred to him that any of his companions-in-disgrace might object to his rule, nor would it have made much difference if they had done so; he would have ruled, just the same, or left them to go their way while he went his. His friends, however, were well content to leave the leadership to him, for though, like most men of his class, he was unscrupulous to a degree, he was gifted with ready wit and infinite resource which had hitherto stood him in good stead, for he had always been able to shift his difficulties to some one else and himself appear not only guiltless but very much injured; and in this last, and first, case of detection, had it not been for those bothering secret instruments giving them away, and the whole thing being dealt with before he had had time to think, he felt quite confident that whatever might have happened to the others _he_ would still have been in the ship, respected and honoured, not only as a scientist, but as a gentleman. None of his companions, therefore, resented the aspect their leader put on the affair in not stating the raw and garish truth, but presenting that cultured compromise which some call the ‘truth, put delicately,’ and others a ‘white lie,’ as their fancy dictates; the result, however, is the same. So in his most captivating way, as he could not tell a lie for anything, Holt told the officials the ‘truth,’ according to his lights—and no one living could disprove it, or call him an untruthful man,—“We, with many others, were going on a voyage of exploration to the sun in a splendidly equipped ship, but as we had to come near this world, we expressed a strong desire to visit it and make friends with the inhabitants, so we eight were put down here to explore whilst our