THE JOURNEY TO EGYPLOSIS.
Never did time pass so rapidly or so happily as the days spent in the
palace of the goddess. Although I met Lyone at the daily banquets and
at our scientific discussions with the astronomers, naturalists,
chemists, geologists, physicians and philosophers of Atvatabar, yet
neither by look nor gesture did she betray the slightest memory of
that ravishing scene in her garden only a few days before.
Again and again I asked myself, Was it possible that that calm and
crowned goddess of the pantheon was a being that could feel thrilled
with ordinary human ecstasy? Would I, most daring of men, ever be
permitted to kiss that far-off mouth divine, and not be slain by one
dreadful glance of contempt?
[Illustration: The Blocus.]
Our discussions terminated in an invitation by the goddess to
accompany her in her aerial yacht, the _Aeropher_, to Egyplosis,
whither, according to the sacred calendar, she must proceed to take
part in the ceremony of the installation of a twin soul. Her holiness,
their majesties the king and queen, myself and officers of the _Polar
King_, together with the chief minister Koshnili, the military, civil
and naval officers, the poets, savants, artists, and musicians of
Atvatabar, would sail in the yacht of the goddess.
[Illustration: The Funny-Fenny, or Clowngrass.]
A host of lesser dignitaries, including the sailors of the _Polar
King_ under command of Flathootly, would follow us in another yacht,
called the _Fletyeming_. Each yacht had its own priest-captain,
officers and crew of aerial navigators.
Each yacht consisted of a deck of fine woven cane, compact as steel,
woven with great skill, with cabins, staterooms, etc., of the same
material erected thereon, and high bamboo bulwarks to prevent the
voyagers falling off the deck.
The propelling apparatus consisted of two large wheels, having
numerous aerial fans that alternately beat backward and cut through
the air as they oscillated on their axes. The wheels were supplemented
by aeroplanes, resembling huge outspreading wings, inclined at an
angle, so that their forward rush upon the air supported the ship.
They revolved with great rapidity, being driven by the accumulated
force of a thousand magnic batteries, composed of dry metallic cells,
especially designed for aerial navigation. Very little force was
required to keep the vessel buoyed up in the air, owing to the
diminished gravity.
It was discovered that the rarer metals terrelium and aquelium
developed in contact, without salts or acids, enormous currents of
magnicity without polarization or the development of gases. These
metallic cells would run without attention or maintenance exerting
magnic action, and could be stopped or started at any time without
corrosion of metals or loss of energy, like the electric batteries on
the outer sphere, but infinitely more powerful.
[Illustration: The Gleroseral.]
Aerial navigation was one of the great institutions of Atvatabar, and
the goddess' yacht was only one of many thousand aerial ships that
carried passengers, mails and light freight to and from every part of
the country.
On such a machine as this we purposed travelling a distance of one
thousand miles.
Five hundred miles west of Calnogor lay a range of lofty mountains,
whose peaks pierced the upper strata of cold air. This region was the
breeding-place of fearful storms that occasionally vexed the otherwise
placid climate of the country.
Westward of the mountains, an elevated prairie or tableland extended
for five hundred miles further, broken here and there into crevasses
and canyons, the beds of mighty rivers. Beyond the prairie an irregular
agglomeration of mountains and valleys stretched five hundred miles
further until the ocean was reached which formed the western boundary
of Atvatabar.
Egyplosis, or the sacred palace, stood on an island in a lake lying in
a romantic valley of the central plateau, one thousand miles west of
Calnogor. This was the destination of the _Aeropher_, the goddess
making a special visitation to the palace of hopeless love.
No journey could have begun with better auspices than ours. We soared
up the grand divide, underneath the brilliant sun, which threw the
moving shadow of the ship on the earth beneath.
[Illustration: The Eaglon.]
Captain Lavornal, the inventor of the _Aeropher_, was resolved to
outdo all former records in aerial navigation, and accordingly drove
the _Aeropher_ at a speed of eighty miles an hour.
The captain explained to me that he was using the wheels simply to
lift the ship over the mountains. Once over these the wheels that were
being used to lift the ship would thus propel her, when her normal
speed of two hundred miles an hour would be reached.
Lyone was in a particularly happy mood. "I like aerial travelling so
much," said she, "because it is the nearest mechanical approach to the
nature of the soul."
"What relation to the soul can the ship possibly possess?" I inquired.
"Why, don't you see," said she, "that our travelling approaches nearer
to that of the spiritual state than any other mode? We can at will
sweep up into heaven or descend to earth. We are independent of
obstacles. Rivers and roads, mountains and seas have no terrors for
us. Then the infinite daring of it all--oh! it is to me delightful."
Higher and yet higher mounted the ship up the steeps of the continent
until we plunged into a grisly pass. On either side the huge shoulders
of the mountains lifted up forests of pines and cedars, whose colossal
trunks seemed the gateways of a new world. The ship indeed possessed
some of the attributes of a soul. It could plunge us into sublimity or
death, lift up to the very sun itself, or, like a disembodied soul,
skim the surface of the earth.
The mountains once crossed, we swept down their declivities toward the
prairies with tremendous speed. The propellers seemed powerful enough
to control the ship in the fiercest storm. The inner world lay spread
out beneath us like a map in relief. There was a strange absence of
shadow caused by a perpendicular sun that realized the climate of
Dante,
"A land whereon no shadow falls."
Yet as the _Aeropher_ swept onward her shadow could be seen drifting
over cornfields, miles of rustling wheat and pastures where the cattle
started and fled from the apparition in the sky.
We were admiring the beauty of the panorama beneath, when the sky
became suddenly overcast with clouds, obscuring the light of the sun.
This was so unexpected an occurrence that Lyone and myself looked at
each other in alarm.
Captain Lavornal exclaimed: "Your holiness, I apprehend these clouds
are the couriers of a hurricane!"
"Do you mean that we shall be overtaken by the storm?" asked Lyone.
"Most certainly," said the captain, "and I tremble lest anything
should happen to your holiness."
"Do not fear for me," said Lyone; "even a storm is not
insurmountable."
"Shall I descend, your holiness, or keep to our course?" inquired the
captain with some trepidation.
"Keep to your course," replied Lyone.
Just then a hollow booming was heard, and then a fierce explosion in
which the darkened sky became enveloped in a sheet of flame.
In a moment the cyclone struck the ship!
Some of the terrified voyagers shrieked and others remained silent,
but all held tightly on to the nearest thing they could get hold of.
The ship lay at an angle of forty-five degrees from the plane of the
rotating storm, having been caught by the wind with a fearful shock,
snapping several of the cables that bound cabins and decks together.
Strangely enough, the ship did not become a wreck, but was blown out
of its course, the toy of the wind. We lost sight of the other ship
containing the sailors, and could certainly only care for ourselves.
The cyclone proved to be a storm five hundred miles in diameter. The
currents of air most remote from the centre did not sweep round in the
same uniform plane. The entire circumference of wind was composed of
two enormous waves each seven hundred and fifty miles in length and
four miles in perpendicular height. It was as if the rings of Saturn
had suddenly assumed a vertical as well as a spinning motion, and both
movements of the storm produced an appalling splendor of flight
hitherto unknown to human sensation. Can the _Aeropher_ survive the
roaring storm? was the thought of every heart. Bravery was of no avail
with the destroying force that had so suddenly overwhelmed us.