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 Solution Manual for Prealgebra 2nd Edition Miller
O’Neill Hyde 007338447X
9780073384474
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Contents

Chapter 1 Whole Numbers

1.1 Study Tips 1
1.2 Introduction to Whole Numbers 1
1.3 Addition and Subtraction of Whole Numbers and Perimeter 4
1.4 Rounding and Estimating 11
1.5 Multiplication of Whole Numbers and Area 13
1.6 Division of Whole Numbers 19
Problem Recognition Exercises: Operations on Whole Numbers 27
1.7 Exponents, Algebraic Expressions, and the Order of Operations 29
1.8 Mixed Applications and Computing Mean 33
Chapter 1 Review Exercises 38
Chapter 1 Test 44

Chapter 2 Integers and Algebraic Expressions

2.1 Integers, Absolute Value, and Opposite 47
2.2 Addition of Integers 50
2.3 Subtraction of Integers 53
2.4 Multiplication and Division of Integers 56
Problem Recognition Exercises: Operations on Integers 60
2.5 Order of Operations and Algebraic Expressions 61
Chapter 2 Review Exercises 67
Chapter 2 Test 70
Chapters 1 – 2 Cumulative Review Exercises 72

Chapter 3 Solving Equations

3.1 Simplifying Expressions and Combining Like Terms 74
3.2 Addition and Subtraction Properties of Equality 79
3.3 Multiplication and Division Properties of Equality 83
3.4 Solving Equations with Multiple Steps 88
Problem Recognition Exercises: Comparing Expressions and Equations 94
3.5 Applications and Problem Solving 96
Chapter 3 Review Exercises 102
Chapter 3 Test 107
Chapters 1 – 3 Cumulative Review Exercises 109

Chapter 4 Fractions and Mixed Numbers

4.1 Introduction to Fractions and Mixed Numbers 111
4.2 Simplifying Fractions 116
4.3 Multiplication and Division of Fractions 121
4.4 Least Common Multiple and Equivalent Fractions 127
4.5 Addition and Subtraction of Fractions 133
4.6 Estimation and Operations on Mixed Numbers 137
Problem Recognition Exercises: Operations on Fractions and Mixed Numbers 146
4.7 Order of Operations and Complex Fractions 147
4.8 Solving Equations Containing Fractions 153
Problem Recognition Exercises: Comparing Expressions and Equations 161
Chapter 4 Review Exercises 163
Chapter 4 Test 171
Chapters 1 – 4 Cumulative Review Exercises 175

Chapter 5 Decimals
5.1 Decimal Notation and Rounding 177
5.2 Addition and Subtraction of Decimals 179
5.3 Multiplication of Decimals and Applications with Circles 185
5.4 Division of Decimals 190
Problem Recognition Exercises: Operations on Decimals 197
5.5 Fractions, Decimals, and the Order of Operations 200
5.6 Solving Equations Containing Decimals 213
5.7 Mean, Median, and Mode 218
Chapter 5 Review Exercises 223
Chapter 5 Test 231
Chapters 1 – 5 Cumulative Review Exercises 234

iii
2
Chapter 6 Ratio and Proportions
6.1 Ratios 238
6.2 Rates and Unit Cost 241
6.3 Proportions 244
Problem Recognition Exercises: Operations on Fractions
versus Solving Proportions 252
6.4 Applications of Proportions and Similar Figures 254
Chapter 6 Review Exercises 261
Chapter 6 Test 265
Chapters 1 – 6 Cumulative Review Exercises 268

Chapter 7 Percents
7.1 Percents, Fractions, and Decimals 270
7.2 Percent Proportions and Applications 276
7.3 Percent Equations and Applications 285
Problem Recognition Exercises: Percents 291
7.4 Applications of Sales Tax, Commission, Discount, Markup,
and Percent Increase and Decrease 293
7.5 Simple and Compound Interest 298
Chapter 7 Review Exercises 301
Chapter 7 Test 305
Chapters 1 – 7 Cumulative Review Exercises 307

Chapter 8 Measurement and Geometry

8.1 U.S. Customary Units of Measurement 310
8.2 Metric Units of Measurement 315
8.3 Converting Between U.S. Customary and Metric Units 318
Problem Recognition Exercises: U.S. Customary and Metric Conversions 322
8.4 Medical Applications Involving Measurement 323
8.5 Lines and Angles 324
8.6 Triangles and the Pythagorean Theorem 327
8.7 Perimeter, Circumference, and Area 332
Problem Recognition Exercises: Area, Perimeter, and Circumference 335

iii
3
8.8 Volume and Surface Area 337
Chapter 8 Review Exercises 341
Chapter 8 Test 346
Chapters 1 – 8 Cumulative Review Exercises 348

Chapter 9 Graphs and Statistics

9.1 Rectangular Coordinate System 351
9.2 Graphing Two-Variable Equations 354
9.3 Tables, Bar Graphs, Pictographs, and Line Graphs 360
9.4 Frequency Distributions and Histograms 362
9.5 Circle Graphs 365
9.6 Introduction to Probability 368
Chapter 9 Review Exercises 371
Chapter 9 Test 375
Chapters 1 – 9 Cumulative Review Exercises 377

Chapter 10 Exponents and Polynomials

10.1 Addition and Subtraction of Polynomials 381
10.2 Multiplication Properties of Exponents 386
10.3 Multiplication of Polynomials 388
Problem Recognition Exercises: Operations on Polynomials and Exponential
Expressions 392
10.4 Introduction to Factoring 393
10.5 Negative Exponents and the Quotient Rule for Exponents 396
10.6 Scientific Notation 398
Chapter 10 Review Exercises 401
Chapter 10 Test 405
Chapters 1 – 10 Cumulative Review Exercises 407

44
 Chapter 1 Whole Numbers
Review Your Skills

Section 1.1 Study Tips

Group Activity: Becoming a Successful Student
1. Answers will vary. 9. Answers will vary.

2. Answers will vary. 10. Answers will vary.

3. Answers will vary. 11. (1) e. answers to odd exercises

4. Answers will vary. (2) g. Avoiding Mistakes

(3) b. Connect Math
5. Answers will vary.
(4) f. Chapter Summary
6. Answers will vary. (5) d. Problem Recognition Exercises
7. Answers will vary. (6) a. Tips

8. Answers will vary. (7) c. Skill Practice exercises

Section 1.2 Introduction to Whole Numbers

Section 1.2 Practice Exercises

1. (a) periods 7: hundreds
(b) hundreds 6: thousands
(c) thousands 3: ten-thousands

2. 36,791
1: ones
9: tens

55
Chapter 1 Whole Numbers Section 1.2 Introduction to Whole Numbers

3. 8, 213,457 24. 31,000 ft ten-thousands

7: ones
5: tens 25. 5 tens + 8 ones; 5×10+8×1
4: hundreds
26. 7 tens + 1 one; 7×10+1×1
3: thousands
1: ten-thousands 27. 5 hundreds + 3 tens + 9 ones
2: hundred-thousands 5×100+3×10+9×1
8: millions
28. 3 hundreds + 8 tens + 2 ones
4. 103,596 3×100+8×10+2×1
6: ones
9: tens 29. 5 thousands + 2 hundreds + 3 ones
5: hundreds 5×1,000+2×100+3×1
3: thousands
0: ten-thousands 30. 7 thousands + 8 tens + 9 ones
1: hundred-thousands 7×1,000+8×10+9×1

5. 321 tens 31. 1 ten-thousand + 2 hundreds + 4 tens +

1 one
6. 689 tens 1×10,000+2×100+4×10+1×1

7. 214 ones 32. 2 ten-thousands + 8 hundreds + 7 tens +

3 ones
8. 738 ones 2×10,000+8×100+7×10+3×1
9. 8710 hundreds 33. 524
10. 2293 hundreds 34. 318
11. 1430 thousands 35. 150
12. 3101 thousands 36. 620
13. 452,723 hundred-thousands 37. 1,906
14. 655,878 hundred thousands 38. 4,201
15. 1,023,676,207 billions 39. 85,007
16. 3,111,901,211 billions 40. 26,002
17. 22,422 ten-thousands 41. ones, thousands, millions, billions
18. 58,106 ten-thousands 42. ones, tens, hundreds, thousands
19. 51,033,201 millions 43. Two hundred forty-one
20. 93,971,224 millions 44. Three hundred twenty-seven
21. 10,677,881 ten-millions 45. Six hundred three
22. 31,820 mi2 thousands 23. 7,653,468,440 billions

22
 Chapter 1 Whole Numbers Section 1.2 Introduction to Whole Numbers

46. One hundred eight

47. Thirty-one thousand, five

hundred thirty

33
Chapter 1 Whole Numbers Section 1.2 Introduction to Whole Numbers

48. Fifty-two thousand, one hundred sixty 70. 6 < 11

6 is less than 11, or 11 is greater than 6.
49. One hundred thousand, two hundred
thirty-four 71. 3 < 7
3 is less than 7, or 7 is greater than 3.
50. Four hundred thousand, one hundred
ninety-nine 72. 14 > 12
14 is greater than 12, or 12 is less than 14.
51. Nine thousand, five hundred thirty-five
73. 6 < 11
52. One thousand, three hundred seventy-
seven 74. 14 > 13

53. Twenty thousand, three hundred twenty 75. 21 > 18

54. One thousand, eight hundred 76. 5 < 7

55. Five hundred ninety thousand, seven 77. 3 < 7

hundred twelve
78. 14 < 24
56. Sixty million
79. 95 > 89
57. 6005
80. 28 < 30
58. 4004
81. 0 < 3
59. 672,000
82. 8 > 0
60. 248,000
83. 90 < 91
61. 1,484,250
84. 48 > 47
62. 2,647,520
85. False; 12 is made up of the digits 1 and 2.

63. 86. False; 26 is made up of the digits 2 and 6.

87. 99
64.
88. 999
65. Counting on a number line, 10 is 4 units to
the right of 6. 89. There is no greatest whole number.

66. Counting on a number line, 3 is 8 units to 90. 0 is the least whole number.
the left of 11.
91. 10,000,000 7
67. Counting on a number line, 4 is 3 units to zeros
the left of 7. 92. 100,000,000,000 11 zeros

68. Counting on a number line, 5 is 5 units to 93. 964

the right of 0.
94. 840
69. 8 > 2
8 is greater than 2, or 2 is less than 8.

44
Chapter 1 Whole Numbers Section 1.2 Introduction to Whole Numbers

Section 1.3 Addition and Subtraction of Whole Numbers and

Perimeter

Section 1.3 Practice Exercises

1. (a) addends (i) perimeter
(b) sum 2. 5 thousands + 2 tens + 4 ones
(c) variable 3. 3 hundreds + 5 tens + 1 one
(d) commutative 4. 2004
(e) a; a 5. 4012
(f) a + (b + c)
6. 6206
(g) minuend; subtrahend; difference
(h) polygon

7. Fill in the table. Use the number line if necessary.

+ 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
0 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
1 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
2 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
3 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
4 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13
5 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14
6 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15
7 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16
8 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17
9 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18

8. 11 + 10 = 21 11. 42 4 tens 2 ones

Addends: 11, 10 33 3tens 3 ones

Sum: 21 75 7 tens 5 ones

9. 1 + 13 + 4 = 18 12. 212tens1 one

Addends: 1, 13, 4 53 5 tens 3 ones

Sum: 18 74 7 tens 4 ones

10. 5 + 8 + 2 = 15 13. 121ten 2 ones

Addends: 5, 8, 2 151ten 5 ones

55
Chapter 1 Whole Numbers Section 1.2 Introduction to Whole Numbers

Sum: 15 32 3 tens 2 ones

59 5 tens 9 ones

66
Chapter 1 Whole Numbers
Section 1.3 Addition and Subtraction of Whole Numbers and Perimeter

14. 101ten 0 ones 11

8 0 tens 8 ones 25. 152

30 3tens 0 ones 549

48 4 tens 8 ones 701

15. 890 11
107 26. 462
997 388
850
16. 444
354 11
798 27. 79
112
17. 4 12
13 203
102
11
119 62
28.
907
18. 11 34
221
1003
 5
237 11
29. 4980
1 10223
19. 76 15, 203
45
121 11
30. 23112
1
20. 25 892
59 24, 004
84
11 1Z
1 10 223
31. 25 782
21. 87
24 4980
111 40,985

1 11 1 1
22. 38 92 377
32.
77 5 622
115 34 659
132,658
23. 658
231 33. 101 + 44 = 44 + 101
889
34. 8 + 13 = 13 + 8
1

77
Chapter 1 Whole Numbers
Section 1.3 Addition and Subtraction of Whole Numbers and Perimeter

24. 642 35. x y y x

295
937 36. t q q t

88
Chapter 1 Whole Numbers
Section 1.3 Addition and Subtraction of Whole Numbers and Perimeter

37. (23 + 9) + 10 = 23 + (9 + 10) 54. 4865 Check: 4152

713 713
38. 7 + (12 + 8) = (7 + 12) + 8
4152 4865
39. r + (s + t) = (r + s) + t 
55. 14,356 Check: 1 103
40. (c + d) + e = c + (d + e) 13, 253 13 253
1,103 14,356
41. The commutative property changes the 

order of the addends, and the associative
property changes the grouping.
56. 34,550 Check: 3 100
31,450 31 450
42. The sum of any number and 0 is that 3100 3
4,550
number. 
(a) 423 + 0 = 423 6 16 1

57. 76 Check: 17
(b) 0 + 25 = 25
59 59
(c) 67 + 0 = 67 17 76
(d) 0 + x = x 
5 14 1
43. 12  8 = 4 58. 64 Check: 16
minuend: 12 48 48
subtrahend: 8 16 64
difference: 4 

44. 9 10

6 0 10 11
6
59. 71 0 Check: 521
3 18 9 189
minuend: 9 5 21
subtrahend: 6 7
10

difference: 3
4 10 1
60. 85 0 Check: 547
45. 27  9 = 18 because 18 + 9 = 27. 30 3 303
46. 20  8 = 12 because 12 + 8 = 20. 547 850

47. 102  75 = 27 because 27 + 75 = 102. 99
5 10 1012 111

48. 211  45 = 166 because 166 + 45 = 211. 61. 6 00 2 Check: 4764

12 38 1238
49. 8  3 = 5 Check: 5 + 3 = 8 47 64 6 002

50. 7  2 = 5 Check: 5 + 2 = 7
9 9
210 1010
51. 4  1 = 3 Check: 3 + 1 = 4 111
62. 30 0 0 Check: 644
52. 9  1 = 8 Check: 8 + 1 = 9 2 35 6 2356
6 44 3000

53. 1347 221 1126 Check: 1126

99
Chapter 1 Whole Numbers
Section 1.3 Addition and Subtraction of Whole Numbers and Perimeter

221 
0 10
13 47 10 Ch
 63.
,425 ec
9 k:
022 1
1, 40
403 3

9
0
2
2


1
0

,
4
2
5


10
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0
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 than this, she carries a torpedo battery which has an effective
range of two miles, and can strike and destroy anything within
that distance without giving the slightest warning of her
presence.
There are fifty vessels of this type in the Russian fleet, but the
Narwhal is at least thirty miles an hour faster than any of them.
An attack will probably be made by the Russians on our station
at Kerguelen Island within a week by submarine vessels and a
small squadron of air-ships, and there we shall begin our
operations against the enemy. If you have any reply to make to
this letter we will wait for it at sea off Kerguelen, and then begin
the campaign we have planned. We shall never rest until we
have either destroyed the Russian fleet in detail or have died in
the attempt to do so.
If we ever return it will be to restore to you the supremacy of
the sea, and then, and not till then, we will ask you to pardon
our fault and will willingly submit to such further conditions as
you may see fit to impose upon us before you give us back—if
ever you do—the rights which we have lost.
With all love and duty to yourself, and loving remembrances to
the dear ones in Aeria, your son
Alan.

At the foot of the letter was a postscript signed by Alexis, indorsing

all that Alan had said, save with regard to his sole responsibility for
the calamity that had ensued from the admission of Olga and Serge
on board the Ithuriel.
The two fathers discussed the strange, and, to them, most affecting
communication for nearly an hour in private, and then another
meeting of the Council was called to consider it and pronounce
authoritatively upon it. The President read the letter aloud in a voice
which betrayed no trace of the deep emotion that moved his inmost
being, and then left the Council chamber with Maurice Masarov, so
that their presence might not embarrass their colleagues.
The simple, manly straightforwardness of Alan’s letter appealed far
more eloquently to the Council than excuses or prayers for
forgiveness would have done. It was plain, too, that after the first
indiscretion of taking the strangers on board the air-ship, no moral
responsibility or blame could be laid on Alan and Alexis for what they
had done under the influence of a drug which had paralysed their
moral sense.
The Council, therefore, not only accepted the conditions of the letter,
but without a dissentient voice, agreed to confer the first and second
commands of the Aerian submarine fleets and stations for the time
being upon Alan and Alexis, with permission to call in the aid of the
nearest aerial squadron when necessary. This decision was
despatched forthwith by an air-ship to Kerguelen, and within an hour
all Aeria was talking of nothing else than the strange fate of the two
youths who for five years had been mourned as dead.
Later on that evening, when the twin snow-clad peaks which
towered high above the city of Aeria had lost the pink afterglow of
the departed sunlight, and were beginning to gleam with a whiter
radiance in the level beams of the newly-risen moon, a girl was
standing on the spacious terrace of a marble villa which stood on the
summit of a rounded eminence a couple of miles from the western
verge of the city.
She had just crossed the threshold of womanhood. The next sun
that would rise would be that of her twentieth birthday. Yet for two
years she had worn the silver circle and crystal wings, for in Aeria a
girl became of legal age at eighteen, though she took no share in
the civil life of the community until she was married, an event which,
as a rule, took place not long after she was invested with the symbol
of citizenship.
It was an exceedingly rare event for an Aerian girl to reach the eve
of her twentieth year unmarried, for the sexes in the Central-African
paradise were very evenly balanced, and, as was natural in a very
high state of civilisation, where families seldom exceeded three or
four children, celibacy in either sex was looked upon as a public
misfortune and a private reproach.
But Alma Tremayne, the girl who was standing on the terrace of her
father’s house on this most eventful evening, had become an
exception to the rule through circumstances so sad and strange that
her loneliness was an honour rather than a reproach. There were
many of the wearers of the golden wings who had sought long and
ardently to win her from the allegiance which forbade her to look
with favouring eyes upon any of them.
She was beautiful in a land where all women were fair, a land where,
under the most favourable conditions that could be conceived, a race
of almost more than human strength and beauty had been evolved,
and she came of a family scarcely second in honour even to that of
the President, for she was the direct descendant in the fifth
generation of Alan Tremayne, first President of the Anglo-Saxon
Federation, through his son Cyril born two years after the daughter
who had married the first-born son of Natasha and Richard Arnold.
More than five years before she and Alan had plighted their boy-and-
girl troth on the eve of his departure on the fateful voyage from
which he had never returned, and of which no tidings had reached
Aeria until a few hours before. To the simple vow which her girlish
lips had then spoken she had remained steadfast even when, as the
years went by and still no tidings came of her lost lover, she, in
common with her own kindred, had begun to mourn him as dead.
It is true that she was in love rather with a memory than with a
man, yet with some natures such a love as this is stronger than any
other, more ideal and more lasting, and exempt from the danger of
growing cold in fruition. So strong was the hold that this ideal love
had taken upon her being that the idea of even accepting the love
and homage of any other man appeared as sacrilegious to her as the
embrace of an earthly lover would have seemed to a nun of the
Middle Ages.
And so, with a single companion in her solitary state, she stood
aside and watched with patient, unregretful eyes the wedded
happiness of her more fortunate friends. This companion was Isma
Arnold, Alan’s sister, who had a double reason for doing as Alma had
done.
Not only had she resolved never to marry while her brother’s fate
remained uncertain, but she, too, had also made her choice among
the youths of Aeria, and in such matters an Aerian girl seldom chose
twice. So she waited for Alexis as Alma did for Alan, hoping even
against her convictions, and keeping his memory undefiled in the
sacred shrine of her maiden soul.
No artist could have dreamed of a fairer picture than Alma standing
there on the terrace overlooking the stately city and the dark shining
lake at her feet. She was clad in soft, clinging garments of whitest
linen and finest silk of shimmering, pearly grey, edged with a dainty
embroidery of gold and silver thread.
Her dress, confined at the waist with a girdle of interlinked azurine
and gold, clothed without concealing the beauties of her perfect
form, and her hair, crowned by her crystal-winged coronet, flowed
unrestrained, after the custom of the maidens of Aeria, over her
shoulders in long and lustrous waves of dusky brown. There was a
shadow in the great deep grey eyes which looked up as though in
mute appeal to the starlight, the shadow of a sorrow which can
never come to a woman more than once.
All these years she had loved in cheerful patience and perfect faith
the man for whose memory she had lived in maiden widowhood—
and now, who could measure the depth of the darkness, darker than
the shadow of death itself, that had fallen across her life, severing
the past from the present with a chasm that seemed impassable,
and leaving the future but a barren, loveless waste to be trodden by
her in weariness and loneliness until the end!
All these years she had loved an ideal man, one of her own splendid
race, the very chosen of the earth, as pure in his unblemished
manhood as she was in the stainless maidenhood that she had held
so sacred for his sake even while she thought him dead—and, lo! the
years had passed, and he had come back to life, but how? Hers was
not the false innocence of ignorance. She knew the evil and the
good, and because she knew both shrank from contamination with
the horror born of knowledge.
She had seen both Olga’s letter and Alan’s, and those two terrible
sentences, “They have served my turn, and I have done with them,”
and “She is as beautiful as an angel and as merciless as a fiend,”
kept ringing their fatal changes through her brain in pitiless
succession, forcing all the revolting possibilities of their meaning into
her tortured soul till her reason seemed to reel under their
insupportable stress.
Mocking voices spoke to her out of the night, and told her of the
unholy love that such a woman would, in the plenitude of her
unnatural power, have for such a man; how she would subdue him,
and make him not only her lover but her slave; how she would
humble his splendid manhood, and play with him until her evil fancy
was sated, and then cast him aside—as she had done—like a toy of
which she had tired.
Better a thousand times that he had died as his murdered comrades
had died—in the northern snowdrift into which this Syren of the
Skies had cast them, to sleep the sleep that knew neither dreams
nor waking! Better for him and her that he had gone before her into
the shadows, and had remained her ideal love until, hand in hand,
they could begin their lives anew upon a higher plane of existence.
As these thoughts passed and repassed through her mind with
pitiless persistence, her lovely face grew rigid and white under the
starlight, and, but for the nervous twining and untwining of her
fingers as her hands clasped and unclasped behind her, her
motionless form might have been carved out of stone. For the first
time since peace had been proclaimed on earth, a hundred and
thirty-two years ago, the flames of war had burst forth again, and
for the first time in the story of her race the snake had entered the
now no longer enchanted Eden of Aeria.
It was hers to suffer the first real agony of soul that any woman of
her people had passed through since Natasha, in the palm-grove
down yonder by the lake, had told Richard Arnold of her love on the
night that he had received the Master’s command to take her to
another man to be his wife.
There were no tears in the fixed, wide-open eyes that stared almost
sightlessly up to the skies, in which the stars were now paling in the
growing light of the moon. The torment of her torturing thoughts
was too great for that.
She was growing blind and dizzy under the merciless stress of them,
when—it might have been just in time to save her from the madness
that seemed the only outcome of her misery—the sweet, silvery
tones of a girl’s voice floated through the still, scented air uttering
her name—
“Alma!”
The sound mercifully recalled her wandering senses in an instant. It
was the voice of her friend, of the sister of her now doubly-lost lover,
and it reproved the selfishness of her great sorrow by reminding her
that she was not suffering alone. As the sound of her name reached
her ear the rigidity of her form relaxed, the light came back to her
eyes, and turning her head she looked in the direction whence it
came.
There was a soft whirring of wings in the still air of the tropic night,
and out of the half-darkness floated a shape that looked like a
realisation of one of the Old-World fairy-tales. It was a vessel some
twenty-five feet long by five wide, built of white, polished metal, and
shaped something like an old Norse galley, with its high, arching
prow fashioned like the breast and neck of a swan.
From the sides projected a pair of wide, rapidly-undulating wings,
and in the open space between these stood on the floor of the boat
the figure of a girl whose loose, golden hair floated out behind her
with the rapid motion of her fairy craft.
There was no need for words of greeting between the two girl
friends. Alma knew the kindly errand on which Isma had come, and
as she stepped out she went towards her with hands outstretched in
silent welcome.
As their hands met, and the two girls stood face to face, motionless
for a moment, they made an exquisite contrast of opposite types of
womanly beauty—Alma tall and stately, with a proudly-carried head,
clear, pale skin, grey eyes, and perfectly regular features, and Isma,
a year younger and a good inch shorter, slender of form yet strong
and lithe of limb, with golden, silky hair and sunny-blue eyes, fresh,
rosy skin, and mobile features which scarcely ever seemed to wear
the same expression for a couple of minutes together—as sweet a
daughter of delight as ever man could look upon with eyes of love
and longing.
But she was grave enough now, for her friend’s sorrow was hers too,
and its shadow lay with equal darkness upon her. The ready tears
welled up under her dark lashes as she looked upon Alma’s white,
drawn face and dry, burning eyes, and her low, sweet voice was
broken by a sob as, passing her arm round her waist, she drew her
towards the boat and said—
“Come, dear, this sorrow belongs to me as well as you and we must
help each other to bear it. I have brought my new boat so that we
can take a flight round the valley and talk about it quietly. If two
heads are better than one, so are two hearts.”
Alma’s only reply to the invitation was a sad, sweet smile, and a
gentle caress, but the welcome, loving sympathy had come when it
was most sorely needed, and so she got into the aerial boat with
Isma, and a few moments later the beautiful craft was bearing them
at an easy speed southward down the valley.
 CHAPTER XI.
THE SNAKE IN EDEN.

N O more perfect place could have been imagined for an

exchange of confidences and sympathy between two girls
situated as Alma and Isma were than the oval, daintily-
cushioned interior of the Cygna, as Isma had called her
swan-prowed craft.
Skirting the mountains, at a distance of about five hundred yards
from them, and at a height of about as many feet from the summits
of the undulating foothills below, the Cygna sped quietly along at a
speed of some twenty-five miles an hour. The temperature of the
tropic night was so soft and warm, and the air was so dry that it was
not even necessary for them to make use of the light wraps that lay
in the stern of the boat.
Isma reclined in the after part of the broad, low seat which ran
round the inside, with one hand resting lightly upon a little silver
lever which could be used for working the rudder-fan, in addition to
the tiller-ropes, which she held in her hands while standing up. Alma
sat almost upright amidships, with one hand clasped on the rail of
polished satin-wood which ran round the well of the boat, her head
turned away from Isma and her eyes fixed upon two dim points of
light far away to the southward, which marked the position of the
two moonlit, snowy peaks which guarded the southern confines of
the valley.
For several minutes they proceeded thus in silence, which neither
seemed inclined to break. At length Isma looked up at a planet that
was shining redly over the northern mountains, and, possessed by a
sudden inspiration, said—
“Look, Alma, there is Mars returning to our skies!”
“Yes,” said Alma, turning round and gazing from beneath her
slightly-frowning brows at the ruddy planet; “it is a fitting time for
him to come back now that, after all these years of peace and
happiness, human wickedness and ambition have brought the curse
of war back again on earth.”
“Yes,” said Isma. “If there were anything in what the old astrologers
used to say we could look upon his rising as an omen. And yet we
have very little reason surely for taking as an emblem of war a world
in which wars have been unheard of for thousands of years.”
“I wonder when that time will come on earth?” said Alma bitterly. “If
ever it does! We terrestrials seem to be too hopelessly wicked and
foolish for such wisdom as that.
“Mankind will never have a fairer opportunity of working out its
redemption than it had after the Terror, and yet here, after four
generations of peaceful happiness and prosperity, the wickedness of
one woman is able to set the world ablaze again. Our forefathers
were wise, but they would have been wiser still if they had stamped
that vile brood out utterly. Their evil blood has been the one drop of
venom that has poisoned the whole world’s cup of happiness!”
As Alma spoke these last words her grey eyes grew dark with
sudden passion under her straight-drawn brows. Her breast heaved
with a sudden wave of emotion, and the sentences came quickly and
fiercely from the lips which Isma had never heard speak in anger
before.
“Yes,” she replied, rather sadly than angrily, “perhaps it would have
been better for the world if they had done so, or, at anyrate, if they
had shut them up for life, as they did the criminals and the insane in
the middle of the last century. But we must remember, even in our
own sorrow and anger, that this Olga Romanoff is in her way not
altogether unlike our own Angel was in hers.”
“Surely you’re speaking sacrilege now!” interrupted Alma. “How can
the evil be like the good under any circumstances?”
“No, I am not,” said Isma, with a smile. “Remember how Natasha
was trained up by the Master in undying hate of Russian tyranny,
and how she inherited the legacy of revenge from her mother and
him. No doubt this Olga has done the same, and she has been
taught to look upon us as the Terrorists looked upon the Tsar and his
family.
“We are the descendants of those who flung her ancestor from his
throne, extinguished his dynasty, and sent him to die in Siberia. I
would kill her with my own hand if I could, and believe that I was
ridding the world of a curse, but surely we two daughters of Aeria
are wise enough to be just even to such an enemy as she is.”
“But she has done worse than kill us,” Alma almost hissed between
her clenched teeth. “If she had a thousand lives and we took them
one by one they would not expiate her crime against us, or equal
the hopeless misery that she has brought upon us.
“What is mere death, the swift transition from one stage of existence
to another, compared with the hopeless death-in-life to which her
wanton wickedness has condemned you and me, or to the calamities
which she has brought upon the world?”
“It is nothing, I grant you,” said Isma. “But still I do not agree with
you about that hopeless death-in-life, as you call it. Our present
sorrow is great and heavy enough, God knows, but for me at least it
is not hopeless, nor will it be for you when the first stress of the
storm is over.”
“What do you mean?” cried Alma, almost as fiercely as before, and
leaning forward and looking through the dusk into her face as
though she hardly credited her ears. “Do you mean to say that either
you or I could ever”—
“Yes,” said Isma, interrupting her, and speaking now with eager
animation. “Yes, I mean just what you were going to say. And some
day, I believe, you will think as I do.”
Alma shook her head in mournful incredulity, and Isma noticing the
gesture went on—
“Yes, you will! The reason that you do not agree with me now is that
yours is a deeper and stronger nature than mine. You are like the
sea, and I am like the lake. Your grief and anger struck you dumb at
first.
“You were in a stupor when I found you on the terrace, and now the
depths of your nature are broken up and the storm is raging, and
until it is over you will see nothing but your own sorrow and anger.
“But with me the storm broke out at once, and I ran to my room and
threw myself upon my bed and sobbed and wailed until my mother
thought I was going mad. You have not wept yet, and it will be well
for you when you do. Your nature is prouder than mine, and it will
take longer to melt, but it must melt some time, for we are both
women, after all, and then you will see hope through your tears, as I
did.”
Alma shook her head again, and said in a low, sad, steady voice—
“I can never see hope until I can see Alan as he was when he left
me, and you know that is impossible.”
“You will never see him again as he was,” replied Isma gently. “But
that is no reason why you should not see him better than he was.”
“Better?” exclaimed Alma, with an involuntary note of scorn in her
voice, which brought a quick flush to Isma’s cheek, and a flash into
her eyes for her brother’s sake. “Better! How can that be?”
“Just as the man who has fallen and risen again of his own native
strength, is better and stronger than the man who has never been
tempted,” replied Isma almost hotly.
“Remember the lessons we have learnt from the people of Mars
since we learnt to communicate with them. You know how they have
gone through civilisation after civilisation until they have refined
everything out of human nature that makes it human except their
animal existence and their intellectual faculties.
“They have no passions and they make no mistakes. What we call
love they call sexual suitability, the mechanical arrangement into
which they have refined our ruling passion. Do you remember how
almost impossible Vassilis, after he had perfected the code of
signals, found it to make even their brightest and most advanced
intellects understand the meaning of jealousy?”
The skilfully-aimed shot struck home instantly. A bright wave of
colour swept from Alma’s throat up to her brow. Her eyes shone like
two pale fires in the dusk, and her hand grasped the rail on which it
was resting till the bones and sinews stood out distinct in it. She
seemed to gasp for breath a moment before she found her voice,
but when she spoke her tone seemed to ring and vibrate like a bell
in the sudden strength of her unloosed passion.
“Yes,” she said. “Yes, you innocent-looking little Isma! You are wiser
than I am after all. I did not know the meaning of that word till
Olga’s letter fell from the sky, but I know it now. My God, how I hate
that woman!”
“She is not a woman,” replied Isma, speaking in the unconscious
pride of her pure descent. “She is a baseborn animal, for she has
used her beauty for the vilest ends, yet I am glad to hear you say
that you hate her for Alan’s sake, as I do, and—and for Alexis’s.
While you can hate you can love, and some day you will love Alan—
the real Alan, not your ideal lover—all the better because you have
hated Olga for his sake.”
“What?” almost wailed Alma, in the intensity of her anger and
misery. “After he has held her in his arms—after his lips have kissed
hers—after”—
“Yes, even after that. When your first bitterness has passed, as mine
has, you will be more just, and remember the influence under which
he did so—if he did. Do you hold yourself responsible for what you
think or do in your dreams, or do you not believe what Alan said in
his letter about the drug? You know too much about chemistry not
to know that such horrible poisons have existed for centuries.”
“Yes, yes, I know that, and I know that he has no share in the moral
guilt; but how can I ever forget he has been what those cruel words
of Olga’s told us she had made of him?” replied Alma, her face
growing cold and hard again as she spoke.
“Alma,” said Isma, with gentle dignity, yet with a note of keen
reproach in her voice, “surely you are forgetting that you are
speaking of my brother as well as of your lover. No, I am not angry,
for I am too sad myself not to understand your sorrow. But I want
you to remember that I who have lost both a lover and a brother am
asking you to be patient and to hope with me.
“We have never seen Alan and Alexis as they are. We only
remember them as two handsome boys who had never seen or
known evil. When we meet them again, as I firmly believe we shall,
they will be men who have passed through the fire; for if they do
not pass through it and come out stronger and better than they
were, rest assured we shall never meet on earth again.
“Alan would no more come to you now than you would go to him.
When he believes himself worthy of you he will come for you as
Alexis will come for me, and then”—
She stopped short in her eloquent pleading, for Alma, at last melted
and overcome by her sweet unselfishness and loving logic, had felt
the springs of her own woman’s nature unloosed, and with a low,
wailing cry had sunk down upon the cushions towards her, and was
sobbing out her sorrow on her lap. Isma said nothing more, for her
end was achieved. She laid her left hand caressingly on Alma’s hair,
and with her right she pulled the steering-lever back and swung the
Cygna round until her prow pointed towards home again.
When they reached the villa they found the President’s private yacht
resting on the terrace, for Alan’s father and mother had come over
after the Council meeting to discuss with Alma’s parents the more
intimate family aspect of the strange events which had cleared up in
such terrible fashion the mystery which had so long shrouded the
fate of the sons of the two chief families in Aeria.
So revolting was the idea of their mental servitude to such an enemy
of the human race as they could not but believe Olga Romanoff to
be, and so frightful were the consequences that must infallibly befall
humanity in consequence of it, that their parents would rather have
known them dead than living under such degrading circumstances.
To the Aerians, far advanced as they were beyond the standards of
the present day, both in religion and philosophy, the conception of
death was one which included no terrors and no more regret than
was natural and common to all humanity at parting with a kinsman
or a friend.
As they were destined to prove, when face to face with a crisis
unparalleled in the history of humanity, they regarded death merely
as a natural and necessary transition from one state of existence to
another, which would be higher or lower according to the
preponderance of good or evil done in this life.
If, therefore, the parents and kinsmen of those who were now exiles
and wanderers upon the ocean wastes could have chosen, they
would infinitely rather have known that Alan and Alexis had shared
the fate of their companions in the Norwegian snowdrift than they
would have learnt that for six years they had been the slaves and
playthings of a woman who, as they guessed from Alan’s letter,
combined the ambition of a Semiramis with the vices of a Messalina,
and who had used the skill and knowledge which they had acquired
and inherited as Princes of the Air with the avowed purpose of
subverting the dominion of Aeria, undoing all that their ancestors
had done, and bringing back the evil era of strife, bloodshed, and
political slavery.
So, too, with Alma. As she had told Isma, she would a thousand
times rather have seen her lover dead than degraded to such base
uses. Although she, like everyone else in Aeria, admitted that the
strange circumstances absolved both Alan and Alexis from all moral
blame and responsibility, she, in common with her own father and
mother, and perhaps, also, with others not less intimately concerned,
found it impossible to forget or ignore the taint of such an
association, and to look upon it as a stain that might never be
washed away.
Indeed, the only member of the family council who openly
proclaimed her belief that the two exiles would, if ever they
returned, come back to Aeria better and stronger men than those
who had known no evil was Isma, who repeated, with all the
winning eloquence at her command, all the arguments that she had
used to Alma during their cruise together. Whether Alma and the
others would ever come round to her view could of course only be
proved by time, but it is nevertheless certain that when the family
council at last separated the hearts of its members were less sore
than they would have been had Alan and Alexis not possessed such
an advocate as the girl who had so good a double reason for
pleading their causes.
 CHAPTER XII.
THE BATTLE OF KERGUELEN.

T HE Council of Aeria possessed, as has already been said,

four-and-twenty stations, scattered over the oceans of the
world, which it used as depôts for the submarine fleets, by
means of which, acting in co-operation with its aerial
squadrons, it had made any attempt at naval warfare hopeless until
the disasters described at the beginning of this book proved that an
enemy, in this respect at least, more powerful than itself, had
successfully challenged its empire of the sea.
Of these stations the most important in the Southern hemisphere
was that on Kerguelen Island, or Desolation Land, situated at the
intersection of the 49th parallel of south latitude with the 69th
meridian of east longitude. This lonely fragment of land in the midst
of the ocean, barren of surface, and swept by the almost constant
storms of long winters, had been chosen, first, because of its
situation on the southern limits of the Indian Ocean, equidistant
between Africa and Australia, and, secondarily, because of its
numerous and sheltered deep-water harbours, so admirably adapted
for vessels which were perfectly independent of storm.
Added to this, the island contained large supplies of coal, from which
the motive-power of both the submarine vessels and the air-ships
was now derived by direct conversion of its solar energy into
electrical force through the secret processes known only to the
President and two members of the Council.
So far the Russians had not ventured to make any attack upon this
stronghold, so strongly was it defended, not only by its submarine
squadrons and systems of mines, guarding the entrances to all the
harbours, but also by the large force of air-ships which had been
stationed there since the new naval warfare had broken out.
The warning which Alan had conveyed in his letter to his father was
based on the knowledge that a general attack was soon to be made
upon it both by air and sea, with the object of crippling the power of
the Aerians in the Southern Ocean. No time had been lost in acting
upon this warning. The aerial squadron was increased to forty, with
the Ariel as flagship, and twenty new submarine vessels, the largest
and best possessed by the Aerians, had been despatched from Port
Natal to reinforce the fleet of thirty-five already at Kerguelen Island.
With these must of course be counted the Narwhal, under the
command of Alan and Alexis.
The strength of the attacking force could only be guessed at, as
even Alan did not know it, but it was not expected that, however
strong a force the Russians might bring up by sea, they would be
able, after the disaster of Antarctica, to muster more than a dozen
air-ships.
The Aerian headquarters was at Christmas Harbour, on the northern
shore of the island. This is an admirably-sheltered inlet running
westward into the land between Cape François and Arch Point, and
its upper and narrower half forms an oval basin nearly a mile long by
a quarter of a mile broad, walled in by high perpendicular basaltic
cliffs, and containing a depth of water varying from two to sixteen
fathoms, as compared with twenty-five to thirty fathoms in its outer
half.
North of the harbour, Table Mount rises to a height of thirteen
hundred feet, and to the south is a huge mass of basalt over eleven
hundred feet high. On both of these elevations were mounted
batteries of guns capable of throwing projectiles of great size and
enormous explosive energy to a distance of several miles. There
were altogether twelve of these batteries placed on various heights
about the island, and the guns composing them were mounted on
swivels, which enabled them to be trained so as to throw the
projectile either into the sea or high up into the air.
Soon after daybreak on the fourth day after Alan’s letter had been
received the outlook on Cape François, a bold mass of basalt to the
north of the outer bay, telephoned “Narwhal in sight” to the
settlement at the head of the harbour. Immediately on this message
being received the commander of the station, named Max Ernstein,
a man of about thirty-four, and the most daring and skilful
submarine navigator and engineer in the service of the Council, went
on board his own vessel, the Cachalot, and set out to welcome the
long-lost son of the President and convey to him the commission
which had been sent out by air-ship from Aeria.
The Cachalot, which may as well be described here as elsewhere as
a type of the submarine warship of the time, was a double-pointed
cylinder, built of plates of nickelised aluminium steel, not riveted, but
electrically fused at the joints, so that they formed a continuous
mass equally impervious all over, and presenting no seams or
overlaps.
The cylinder was a hundred and fifty feet from point to point, with a
midship’s diameter of forty feet. The forward end was armed with a
sheathing of azurine, the metal peculiar to the mines of Aeria, which
would cut and pierce steel as a diamond cuts glass. This sheathing
formed a ram, which was by no means the least formidable portion
of the warship’s armament.
The upper part of the cylinder was flattened so as to form an oval
deck forty feet long by fifteen wide. A centre section of this deck,
three feet wide, could be opened by means of a lateral slide which
allowed of the elevation of a gun twenty-five feet long, which could
be used either for discharging torpedoes by water or for throwing
projectiles through the air.
It could be aimed and fired from below the deck without the
artillerists even seeing the objects aimed at, save in an arrangement
of mirrors, so adjusted that when the object appeared in the centre
of the lowest of them, the gun could be fired with the certainty of
the projectile reaching its mark. Four underwater torpedo tubes, two
ahead and two astern, completed the armament of the submarine
warship.
When under water the deck could be hermetically closed, and sliding
plates could be drawn over the opening of the torpedo tubes, so that
from stem to stern of the cylinder there were no excrescences to
impede the progress of the vessel through the water with the sole
exception of a dome of thick forged glass just forward of the deck,
under which stood the helmsman, who gave place to the
commander of the vessel when she went into action. Her powerful
four-bladed screw, driven by engines almost precisely similar to
those of the air-ships, gave her a maximum speed of a hundred
miles an hour.
The Cachalot ran at twenty-five miles an hour down the harbour, and
as soon as he got abreast of Cape François Captain Ernstein, who
was standing on deck, saw a small red flag apparently rising from
the waves about a mile to seaward. A similar flag was soon flying
from a movable flagstaff on the Cachalot, and a few minutes later
she was lying alongside the Narwhal.
This vessel was a very leviathan of the deep, and as she lay three
parts submerged in the water Captain Ernstein calculated that she
could hardly be less than two hundred feet in length and forty-five in
diameter amidships. She appeared to be built on very much the
same plan as the Cachalot and of the same materials, saving only, of
course, the ram of azurine, which was replaced by one of nickel
steel.
As the Cachalot got alongside, a slide was drawn back in the deck of
the Narwhal and the head and shoulders of a man dressed in close-
fitting seal-fur appeared. It was Alan, little changed in physical
appearance since the fatal day that he invited Olga Romanoff on
board the Ithuriel, save that he had grown a moustache and beard,
which he wore trimmed somewhat in the Elizabethan style, and that
the frank, open expression of the boy had given place to a grave,
almost sad, sternness, which marked the man who had lived and
suffered.
Max Ernstein recognised him at once and saluted as though greeting
a superior officer, for, although all the Aerians were friends and
comrades, the etiquette of rank and discipline was scrupulously
observed amongst them when on active service.
“What do you salute me for?” said Alan gravely, as he reached the
deck and came to the side on which the Cachalot lay. “Do you not
see that I am no longer wearing the golden wings? Are you the
officer in command of the station?”
“Yes, Admiral Arnold,” returned the other, in the same formal tone
and at the same time presenting the letter from the Council. “I
suppose you have forgotten me. I am Max Ernstein, in command of
the naval fleet at Kerguelen. That letter will explain why I saluted
and why I have come to hand over my command to you.”
Before he replied Alan ran his eye rapidly over the letter. As he did
so the pale bronze of his face flushed crimson for a moment, and he
turned his head away from Ernstein, brushed his hand quickly across
his eyes, and then read the letter again more deliberately. Then he
turned and said in a voice that he vainly strove to keep steady—
“This is more than I have deserved or could expect, but obedience is
the first duty, so I accept the command. Come on board, Ernstein; of
course I recognised you, but until I knew how I stood with the
Council I looked upon myself as an outlaw, and therefore no friend
or comrade for you.”
The captain of the Cachalot had a gangway-plank brought up and
passed from one vessel to the other, and in another moment he was
standing beside Alan on the deck of the Narwhal, and their hands
were joined in a firm clasp.
“That’s the first honest hand that I have grasped for six years,
except Alexis’,” said Alan, as he returned the clasp with a grip that
showed his physical forces had been by no means impaired by his
long mental servitude. “Come down into the cabin, we shall find him
there.”
He led the way below, and as soon as Alexis had been told the
unexpected good news, which seemed to affect him even more
deeply than it had Alan, the three sat down at the table in the
saloon of the Narwhal, a plain but comfortably furnished room,
about twenty-five feet long by fifteen broad and ten high, to discuss
a plan of operations in view of the expected attack on the station.
Alan at once assumed the authority with which he had been invested
by the Council, and made minute inquiries into the nature and
extent of the defending force at his disposal.
“I think that ought to be quite sufficient, not only to defeat, but
pretty well destroy any force that the Russians can bring against us,”
said Alan, as soon as Ernstein had finished his description. “We have
much more to fear from the air-ships than from the submarine
boats, because the Narwhal would give a very good account of
them, even by herself. Have any more vessels of the type of the
Ithuriel been built since the old Ithuriel was lost?”
“Yes,” replied Ernstein; “but only ten, I am sorry to say. One of them
is here, as I told you just now, but we have forty of the others, and I
don’t suppose the Russians can bring more than a dozen against us.”
“What do you mean?” said Alan. “They have fifty, every one of them
as fast and as powerful as the old Ithuriel. I ought to know,” he
continued grimly, “for they were every one of them built under my
own eyes.”
“I beg your pardon,” said Ernstein. “I ought to have told you before
now that we have already won our first victory, and that though we
lost eight vessels we destroyed twenty of the Russians’.” And then he
went on to give Alan and Alexis a rapid description of the pursuit of
the Revenge, and the havoc wrought at the end of it by the Ithuriel
and the Ariel.
“That is glorious news!” said Alan. “But they have thirty ships at their
disposal still, and I expect they will bring at least twenty of these
against us, and they are all swifter than ours saving only the Ariel.
Of course my command ends with the shore, but I think it will be as
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