On the surface of the earth a score of men could not have done the work, but on board the _Astronef_, suspended in Space, her crew of three found the work easy.

Zaidie herself picked up a Maxim and carried it about as though it were a toy sewing-machine.
"Now I think we can go down," said Redgrave, when everything had been put in position as far as possible.

"I wonder whether we shall find the atmosphere of Mars suitable for terrestrial lungs.

It will be rather awkward if it isn't." A very slight exertion of repulsive force was sufficient to detach the _Astronef_ from the body of Phobos.

She dropped rapidly towards the surface of the planet, and within three hours they saw the sunlight, for the first time since they had left the earth, shining through an unmistakable atmosphere, an atmosphere of a pale, rosy hue, instead of the azure of the earthly skies.