“Now watch me,” said Jupiter.  “You’ll get an idea of how the ball works.”

I obeyed, and was surprised to see him aim at a point at least a mile aside of the mark, but the results were perfect, for the gutty, acting precisely as mine did, zigzagged along until it reached the rim of the cup and then dropped gently in.

“One up,” said Jupiter, with a broad smile as he watched my ill-repressed wonderment.

As we were transported to the next tee by Phaeton and his machine, I looked at my ball, and the peculiarity of its make became clear at once.  It was called “The Vulcan,” and in action had precisely the same movement as that of a thunder-bolt—­thus: 

[Illustration]

“Great ball, eh?” said Jupiter.  “Adds a lot to the science of the game.  A straight putt is easy, but the zigzag is no child’s play.”

“I think I shall like it,” I said, “if I ever get used to it.”

The second hole reached, I was astonished to see a huge apparatus like a cannon on the tee, and in fact that is what it turned out to be.

“We call this the Cannon Hole,” said Jupiter.  “It lends variety to the game.  It’s a splendid test of your accuracy, and if you don’t make it in one you lose it.  If you will put on those glasses you will see the hole, which is in the middle of a target.  You’ve got to go through it at one stroke.”

“That isn’t golf, is it?” I asked.  “It’s marksmanship.”

“I call it so,” said Jupiter, calmly.  “And what I say goes.  Moreover, it requires much skill to offset the effect of the wind.”

“But there is none,” said I.

“There will be,” said Jupiter, putting his ball in the cannon’s breach and making ready to drive.  “You see those huge steel affairs on either side of the course, that look like the ventilators on an ocean steamer?”

“Yes,” said I, for as I looked I perceived that this part of the course was studded with them.

“Well, they supply the wind,” said Jupiter.  “I just ring a bell and AEolus sets his bellows going, and I tell you the winds you get are cyclonic, and, best of all, they blow in all directions.  From the first ventilator the wind is northeast by south; from the second it is southwest by north-northeast; from the third it is straight north, and so on.  Winds are blowing at the moment of play from all possible points of the compass.  Fore!”

A bell rang, and never in a wide experience in noises had I ever before heard such a fearful din as followed.  A hurricane sprang from one point, a gale from another, a cyclone from a third—­such an aeolian purgatory was never let loose in my sight before, but Jupiter, gauging each and all, fired his ball from the cannon, and it sped on, buffeted here and there, now up, now down, like a bit of fluff in the chance zephyrs of the spring-tide, but ultimately passing through the hole in the target, and landing gently in a basket immediately behind the bull’s-eye.  The winds immediately died down, and all was quiet again.