Nearly all the vessels we saw were war craft. There were a few
lighters and barges, but none of the great merchantmen such as ply
the upper air between the cities of the outer world.
"Here is the harbour of the navy of the First Born," said a voice
behind us, and turning we saw Xodar watching us with an amused
smile on his lips.
"This sea," he continued, "is larger than Korus. It receives the
waters of the lesser sea above it. To keep it from filling above
a certain level we have four great pumping stations that force the
oversupply back into the reservoirs far north from which the red
men draw the water which irrigates their farm lands."
A new light burst on me with this explanation. The red men had
always considered it a miracle that caused great columns of water
to spurt from the solid rock of their reservoir sides to increase
the supply of the precious liquid which is so scarce in the outer
world of Mars.
Never had their learned men been able to fathom the secret of the
source of this enormous volume of water. As ages passed they had
simply come to accept it as a matter of course and ceased to question
its origin.
We passed several islands on which were strangely shaped circular
buildings, apparently roofless, and pierced midway between the ground
and their tops with small, heavily barred windows. They bore the
earmarks of prisons, which were further accentuated by the armed
guards who squatted on low benches without, or patrolled the short
beach lines.
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