"I doubt not that if we live here long," remarked Graham, "we shall acquire a taste for the other viands. We can't expect to find everything suited to the tastes and customs of the men of Earth."
"That's true, Graham," said Temple, who was fast recovering his spirits, and beginning to take a more cheerful view of our situation. "It's astonishing what a difference a little food makes, in a hungry, even in a despondent man."
Our meal was quickly finished, Sandy taking good care that Rover had a plentiful portion of the feast. Then Graham produced his well-filled case, and each one of us enjoyed the precious luxury of a really good cigar--a "Bock" of the choicest quality.
"Make the most of them, my comrades," said Graham, striking a wax taper on the end of his silver match-case. "I have but a dozen, and heaven knows when we may get more. There's a score boxes left, at least, in the _Sirius_, but I suppose they are lost to us for ever."
In the middle of our smoke Kaosp appeared with his guards, and great was his and their amazement to see us smoking. This is evidently an art unknown to the people of Mars--tobacco, apparently, being a plant with which Earth alone is blessed. By some curious action of his, a door in our prison opened and revealed to us another chamber, fitted up with luxuriant couches, soft as eider-down, on which by signs the friendly soldier informed us we might stretch our weary limbs in sleep. We passed into this ante room, and with friendly salute Kaosp withdrew, and the door immediately closed behind him.
It is almost needless to say that we passed a fairly comfortable night, yet we deemed it wisest to keep watch by turns, in case of surprise. The Martial moons shone down through the windows of our prison with great brightness, two of them being visible together, and the planet Earth (now much lower on the horizon than when we were in the Hall of Justice) looked like Venus, as we often see her when fairly placed in the sky of our own world at home.
It is unnecessary here to chronicle all the monotony of our confinement. One day passed much as another, so far as eating, drinking, and sleeping were concerned.
We saw a great deal of the commander, Kaosp, and from him we began to learn the Martial tongue. The Doctor possessed a marvellous aptitude for acquiring any new tongue on Earth, and this served him in good stead on the planet Mars. After a week's intercourse with Kaosp he was able to converse in a broken sort of way, in three weeks he had mastered sufficient for all ordinary purposes. Temple found it more difficult; Sandy only picked up a few words and phrases from his master, but Graham proved himself an apt pupil, and was almost as good a conversationist as the Doctor, in even less time.