“Suits me,” Robert replied.
“That’s the stuff,” said Taggert. “Don’t let these dagos separate you from your return trip if you can help it.”
So with more gestures Professor Palmer explained their intentions to the Martians, who finally understood apparently and seemed satisfied.
By careful manipulation of the speed of the gyrostats and the disk shutters, Robert raised the Sphere slowly to a height of about fifty feet. The Martians looked on in wonder from their conveyance, which, getting under way, preceded them across the floor of the desert.
The broad, flat wheels of this conveyance, notched to give greater traction, carried it over the sand at a good clip. Steering seemed to be controlled by an automatic dial-and-lever device, operated easily by the driver with one hand. The usual staggering of the front wheels through loose soil seemed entirely eliminated.
Contrary to their original impression, the floor of the desert in this direction was a stony, windswept waste with much bare rock visible. The faces of these rocks were polished by grains of sand blown across them by the winds of centuries. Here and there was one with fractured and crumbling surface, probably cracked by the rapid, alternate heating and chilling of the blazing rays of the sun and the cold nights, and not yet healed.
As the Sphere drew near the fertile land, they observed that it was densely wooded with trees of varied height and foliage. From their close proximity to the ground it looked like a vast, boundless forest which might extend many miles beyond.
Professor Palmer had estimated the usual width of these irrigated strips at from one to several miles, though he had mentioned observing one of nearly twenty miles in width.
At the forest’s edge Robert brought the Sphere to rest
Here they were in a quandary as to what to do about the Sphere. It was obvious that they could not study the life of the planet without leaving the Sphere. Yet they were naturally reluctant to trust it unguarded into the hands of these strange inhabitants.