For their honeymoon Rollo Lenox Smeaton Aubrey, Earl of Redgrave,and his bride, Lilla Zaidie, leave the earth on a visit to the moonand the principal planets, their sole companion being AndrewMurgatroyd, an old engineer who had superintended the building of theAstronef, in which the journey is made. By means of the "R.Force," orAnti-Gravitational Force, of the secret of which Lord Redgrave is thesole possessor, they are able to navigate with precision and safetythe limitless ocean of space. Their adventures on the moon and on Marshave been described in the first two stories of the series."How very different Venus looks now to what it does from the earth,"said Zaidie as she took her eye away from the telescope, through whichshe had been examining the enormous crescent, almost approaching towhat would be called upon earth a half-moon, which spanned the darkvault of space ahead of the Astronef."I wonder what she'll be like. All the authorities are agreed that onVenus, having her axis of revolution very much inclined to the planeof her orbit, the seasons are so severe that for half the year itstemperate zone and its tropics have a summer about twice as hot as ourtropics and the other half they have a winter twice as cold as ourcoldest. I'm afraid, after all, we shall find the Love-Star a world ofsalamanders and seals; things that can live in a furnace and bask onan iceberg; and when we get back home it will be our painful duty, asthe first explorers of the fields of space, to dispel another dearly-cherished popular delusion.""I'm not so very sure about that," said Lenox, glancing from therapidly growing crescent, which was still so far away, to the sweetsmiling face that was so near to his. "Don't you see something verydifferent there to what we saw either on the moon or Mars? Now just goback to your telescope and let us take an observation.""Well," said Zaidie, "as our trip is partly, at least, in the interestof science, I will." and then, when she had got her own telescope intofocus again--for the distance between the Astronef and the new worldthey were about to visit was rapidly lessening--she took a long lookthrough it, and said:"Yes, I think I see what you mean. The outer edge of the crescent isbright, but it gets greyer and dimmer towards the inside of the curve.Of course Venus has an atmosphere. So had Mars; but this must be verydense. There's a sort of halo all round it. Just fancy that splendidthing being the little black spot we saw going across the face of theSun a few days ago! It makes one feel rather small, doesn't it?""That is one of the things which a woman says when she doesn't want tobe answered; but, apart from that, your ladyship was saying?""What a very unpleasant person you can be when you like! I was goingto say that on the moon we saw nothing but black and white, light anddarkness. There was no atmosphere, except in those awful places Idon't want to think about. Then, as we got near Mars, we saw a pinkyatmosphere, but not very dense; but this, you see, is a sort of pearl-grey white shading from silver to black. But look--what are those tinybright spots? There are hundreds of them.""Do you remember, as we were leaving the earth, how bright themountain ranges looked; how plainly we could see the Rockies and theAndes?""Oh, yes, I see; they're mountains; thirty-seven miles high some ofthem, they say; and the rest of the silver-grey will be clouds, Isuppose. Fancy living under clouds like those.""Only another case of the adaptation of life to natural conditions, Iexpect. When we get there, I daresay we shall find that these cloudsare just what make it possible for the inhabitants of Venus to standthe extremes of heat and cold. Given elevations, three or four timesas high as the Himalayas, it would be quite possible for them tochoose their temperature by shifting their altitude."But I think it's about time to drop theory and see to the practice,"he continued, getting up from his chair and going to the signal boardin the conning-tower. "Whatever the planet Venus may be like, we don'twant to charge it at the rate of sixty miles a second. That's aboutthe speed now, considering how fast she's travelling towards us.""And considering that, whether it is a nice world or not, it's aboutas big as the earth, and so we should get rather the worst of thecharge," laughed Zaidie, as she went back to her telescope.