'What is this flying-dress affair?' asked Jack. 'Do people fly here, then? Or is this the first time it has been done?'
'To the last question the reply would be both yes and no,' Monck answered. 'If you had noticed, as we came down, you would have seen many aeronauts flying about singly amongst the various airships and flying-machines.'
'I thought I saw something of the kind,' Jack returned. 'But we circled about so rapidly, and there were so many buzzing around, that I scarcely had a chance to make them out.'
'As you now know, the air here is very dense.'
'To me it seems very light and exhilarating,' Gerald put in. 'I expected, when you used to tell us it was so dense, to find, when we arrived here, that we should scarcely be able to breathe.'
'Ah, that is another matter which I will explain directly. As I have told you before, the air here is so dense that to make a flying-machine was never a matter of any great difficulty. For the same reason, with a properly constructed pair of wings, you can, after a little practice under expert tuition, very soon learn to soar into the air, and fly about after a fashion. It has, however, hither-to, it must be confessed, been a rather clumsy fashion. Now, this is the first time I have seen it really gracefully and easily done. I knew before we went away that Prince Alondra and his tutor—an old scientist named Amaldo, who was also the king's tutor when he was a boy—were at work upon some new device which was understood to be the prince's own idea originally. What it was I never knew exactly, for they kept it a sort of half-secret. Here, however, it seems, is the outcome of the idea; and a very successful outcome too, so far as I can judge.'
'What is the invention?' asked practical Jack. 'Does it consist, I mean, in the dress, in the material of which it is composed—wonderful stuff it certainly seems to be—or in a new shape for the wings, or what?'
'Ah, that is exactly what I do not yet know any more than you. Doubtless, the prince will enlighten us ere long—when he has enjoyed the general mystification a little longer.
'Well, now, to turn to the other point. You say the air here feels to you light and exhilarating rather than dense and heavy. It is not exactly the air which gives you this feeling; it is due rather to the difference in what we call gravity. On Mars, things weigh only half what they would weigh on our Earth. It follows that our muscles feel stronger in proportion. It requires less strength, less exertion, to lift your leg or your arm. Every action or movement, great or small, is easier—even breathing. Therefore, you have a sense of lightness, of ease, of unusual strength.'
A light broke upon Gerald. 'I see! That was why the prince seemed so light to me when I went to help him up just now!' he cried.