Merna's affection for me seemed unbounded, and his love was shown in every action. Yet, like all the other Martians, he was never obtrusively demonstrative, everything being done in a quiet and natural manner. When on the earth his disposition had been very pleasing, but now his Martian nature seemed to have endowed him with a capacity for loving far transcending that of his human nature. He was the same towards John, and we often spoke about it in Merna's absence, whilst M'Allister had become as much attached to him as we were. Just before sunset Merna rejoined us, and we passed out of the city into the open country to a spot not far from the place where we had landed from the _Areonal_. Here we found a large concourse of people assembled, and their numbers were being added to by fresh arrivals every minute. On looking upwards we saw air-ships speeding towards us from every quarter. Some brought passengers and landed them, but it was evident that most of the air-ships were about to take part in the display, as they remained up in the air instead of coming down to the ground. We met many Martians whom we knew, and were introduced to others, so the time passed quickly in interesting conversation. As soon as darkness fell Merna informed us that the display was about to commence, adding that he had purposely refrained from giving us any inkling of its nature, as he thought the unexpected would afford us greater pleasure. We were gazing upwards at the vast assemblage of air-ships, which were lit up by the ordinary lamps used when travelling at night, when suddenly the whole sky became brilliant with the glow of countless thousands of coloured lights, and the air-ships began to move into their allotted positions. Every ship--and there was a very large number of them--was covered all over with electric lamps. Some of the ships had all red lights, others all blue, others yellow, and so on through the whole range of tints known to us, besides many tints which we had never seen before. The evolutions began with the formation of simple geometrical designs, starting with a complete circle of immense diameter. Then, inside this circle of many-coloured lights other ships took up their position, and, before we were prepared for anything, a triangle of lights had been formed. It was clear that even in their amusements the Martians were scientific; for here outlined in glowing colours was the familiar geometrical figure of an equilateral triangle inscribed within a circle, perfectly worked out on a most gigantic scale, and very pretty it was. Quickly, another triangle was formed across the first one, the result being a six-pointed star; and so on with several other more elaborate geometrical figures. The rapidity and certainty with which these air-ships took up the requisite positions and showed their coloured lights in the appropriate places was marvellous to see.