He had scarcely finished speaking when we shot down in a long curve, like the swing of a pendulum, apparently making directly for the group of Martians. They were not seized by any quick panic; they were too phlegmatic for that. But just as the projectile threatened to smash into them, they seemed to realize the danger, and to grasp the idea that it was being operated and directed by some power and mind inside. Then they turned, scrambling clumsily over each other, and fled with the awkward precipitation of a rhinoceros in a hurry. Our pendulum motion swung us up a little before we would have struck them, but they had scattered and were scurrying to hiding-places behind the walls of the masonry telescopes. We continued our flight to the edge of the plateau, whence we could get a better view of the city and hold a more commanding position.
"None of these who have seen our aerial evolutions are likely to trouble us again," remarked the doctor. "But they will quickly spread the news to the city, and we must be where we can watch everything that goes on there, and hurriedly prepare for the worst they can do to us. We will seek the principal approach to the plateau and defend it."
His ideas had suddenly become altogether warlike. I liked the excitement of it so far, and hastened to agree with him. We came to land in a sheltered part of the main road leading to the plateau, and prepared to emerge and set up our telescope where it would sweep the city.
"Shall we try this air on the dog before you go out?" inquired the doctor in all seriousness.
"Try it on the rabbit if you wish, but not on Two-spot."
He put Bunny into the discharging cylinder and pushed him out. The meek little animal seemed quite delighted at being released. He hopped about playfully, skipping much higher and farther at each hop than I had ever seen him do before.
This reassured me, and I put on the helmet again, and opened the port-hole. As the rarer Martian air swept in, my suit swelled and puffed to its fullest capacity, by the expansion of the denser air within it. I was so blown up that I could scarcely squeeze myself out of the port-hole. It was like a red misty day outside, though there were no clouds. The sky was a perfectly cloudless dull red, and the coppery sun was shining almost overhead. His orb looked less than two-thirds the size it did from the Earth, and one could look at its duller light fixedly without hurting the eyes. Phobos was also faintly visible, steering his backward course across the ruddy sky. The thermometer showed a temperature just above freezing, but I was perfectly warm within the diver's suit and its envelope of air. The red haze and utter lack of breeze added a deceptive appearance of sultry heat.
I was gazing back toward the Gnomons, when suddenly a group of the Martians we had first seen came around a turn of the road and over a knoll into full view of us. They were plainly surprised beyond all measure by my strange appearance. My puffed and corpulent figure, my bulging face of glass, my two long rubber tentacles extending back into my shell, must have made them think I was a very curious animal! Also they were probably surprised at seeing any living thing come out of the mass, which they must have thought had fallen from their moon, for she was always shying things at them. And I now had my first chance to study their appearance closely.
"Doctor," I said softly, to see if he could hear me through the connecting tubes. As I had hoped, they proved to be very good speaking-trumpets, and I heard his answer noisily.
"Speak lower; I hear you easily," I said. "There is a party of them coming down this road to descend to the city. They have stopped upon seeing me. They are nothing but men like ourselves. I see no wings, horns, tails, or other appendages that we have not. They are just fat, puffy, sluggish men, very white and pale in colour, and covered with a peculiar clothing that looks like feathers. I seem to be a far greater freak to them than they are to me."