A Honeymoon in Space by George Griffith Page A

English. But she is also the result of the belief and the faith of an Englishman in an American ideal…. So when she leaves this earth, as she will do in an hour or so, to enter the confines of other worlds than this—and, it may be, to make the acquaintance of peoples other than those who inhabit the earth—she will have done infinitely more than she has already done, incredible as that seems. She will not only have convinced this world that the greatest triumph of human genius is of Anglo-Saxon origin, but she will carry to other worlds than this the truth which this world will have learnt before the nineteenth century ends.
    â€œEngland in the person of Lord Redgrave, and America in the person of his Countess, leave this world to-night to tell the other worlds of our system, if haply they may find some intelligible means of communication, what this world, good and bad, is like. And it is within the bounds of possibility that in doing so they may inaugurate a wider fellowship of created beings than the limits of this world permit; a fellowship, a friendship, and, as the Astronef entitles us to believe, even a physical communication of world with world which, in the dawn of the twentieth century, may transcend in sober fact the wildest dreams of all the philanthropists and the philosophers who have sought to educate humanity from Socrates to Herbert Spencer.”

CHAPTER VI
    AFTER THE ASTRONEF ’S FORWARD searchlight had flashed its farewells to the thronging, cheering crowds of Washington, her propellers began to whirl, and she swung round northward on her way to say goodbye to the Empire City.
    A little before midnight her two lights flashed down over New York and Brooklyn, and were almost instantly answered by hundreds of electric beams streaming up from different parts of the Twin Cities, and from several men-of-war lying in the bay and the river.
    â€œGoodbye for the present! Have you any messages for Mars?” flickered out from above the Astronef ’s conning-tower.
    What Uncle Sam’s message was, if he had one, was never deciphered, for fifty beams began dotting and dashing at once, and the result was that nothing but a blur of many mingled rays reached the conning-tower from which Lord Redgrave and his bride were taking their last look at human habitations.
    â€œYou might have known that they would all answer at once,” said Zaidie. “I suppose the newspapers, of course, want interviews with the leading Martians, and the others want to know what there is to be done in the way of trade. Anyhow, it would be a feather in Uncle Sam’s cap if he made the first Reciprocity Treaty with another world.”
    â€œAnd then proceeded to corner the commerce of the Solar System,” laughed Redgrave. “Well, we’ll see what can be done. Although I think, as an Englishman, I ought to look after the Open Door.”
    â€œSo that the Germans could get in before you, eh? That’s just like you dear, good-natured English. But look,” she went on, pointing downwards, “they’re signalling again, all at once this time.”
    Half a dozen beams shone out together from the principal newspaper offices of New York. Then simultaneously they began the dotting and dashing again. Redgrave took them down in pencil, and when the signalling had stopped he read off:
    â€œNo war. Dual Alliance climbs down. Don’t like idea of Astronef . Cables just received. Goodbye, and good luck! Come back soon, and safe!”
    â€œWhat? We have stopped the war!” exclaimed Zaidie, clasping his arm. “Well, thank God for that. How could we begin our voyage better? You remember what we were saying the other day, Lenox. If that’s only true, my father somewhere knows now what a blessing he has given his brother men! We’ve stopped a war which might have deluged the world in blood. We’ve saved perhaps hundreds of thousands of lives, and kept sorrow from thousands