"Marvellous to you, no doubt," said Merna, "but only a commonplace happening here. It is very satisfactory to us that our endeavours to influence you to come to this planet have proved successful in the main essentials. The influence does not, however, appear to have been quite effective as regards your steering to the landing-place we had decided upon. We had hoped there would have been no necessity for interfering with your movements by means of the electrical waves." "Well, Merna," I answered, "you certainly succeeded in imbuing me with a desire to land at Sirapion, but my two companions were more attracted by the 'Gordian Knot'; and it was only because I subordinated my own inclinations to theirs that you were compelled to use force to make us proceed in the right direction. However, it has resulted in our having one of the most exciting and mystifying experiences of our lives; and, now all has ended happily, I do not think any one of us regrets that the incident occurred." "Certainly I do not," John remarked. "Neither do I," said M'Allister; "although I must confess I never felt so entirely beaten in my life." "Well, now you understand that it had to be done," said Merna. "As I remarked, there was no danger to us in your coming here; for, if we had desired it, we could have utterly destroyed your vessel before it reached the planet, just as easily as we stopped your progress; or we could have destroyed it with equal ease and without any risk to ourselves after you had landed." "My word," said M'Allister, "I'm right glad we did not come here as enemies!" "Yes," replied Merna; "it was just as well you did not. We do not make war, but we have full means of protecting ourselves against attack if it should ever be necessary to do so. So you will understand that no invasion of Mars from outer space is possible." I then turned to Merna and said, "There is one question I should like to ask you before we part this evening: Can you tell me the meaning of the word 'Tetarta,' which Soranho, your chief, told me was the name by which your world is known to its inhabitants?" "Oh yes, sir," he answered; "'Tetarta' means 'the fourth world,' and thus indicates our position in the solar system. Sometimes, however, the name 'Tetartoecumene' is used; but this does not find general acceptance amongst us, as it means 'the fourth _inhabited_ world,' and therefore assumes rather too much. "We know the earth is inhabited, and have some reason to believe that Venus is also; but with regard to Mercury we have no knowledge at all upon this point. Mercury, as seen from Mars, is always too close to the sun for us to learn much about it by optical investigation; and we have never been certain that we have either received influences from there or been able to transmit influences to the planet."