ESCAPING FROM THE CYCLONE.
The ship, lifting her prow, would spring into the sky upon the bosom
of the whirling waste of air. The sun was completely obscured by dense
masses of flying clouds and we were deluged with torrents of water.
The terror of the situation obliterated all thoughts of country or
home or friends. All worldly consciousness had evaporated from the
pale beings that in despair held on to the ship for life or death.
The ravages of the storm on the earth beneath could be heard with
startling distinctness. We heard at times the roaring of forests and
saw the shrieking, whirling branches in every earth-illuminating flash
of lightning.
The goddess stood holding on to the outer rail of the deck, the
incarnation of courage. She had risen to meet the danger at its worst.
The _Aeropher_ having risen to an enormous height, being thrown
completely out of the tempest as if shot from a catapult, turned to
descend again. It flew downward like an arrow, filling every soul,
save perhaps that of Lyone, with fear. All were resigned for death;
there could be no escape from the destruction that threatened us.
All this time the centre of the storm had been travelling to the
southeast, or about forty-five degrees out of our proper course.
Suddenly the ship shot downward from the southeastern limb of the
storm, which almost reached the earth at this point. Gazing below, we
discovered a fearful chasm in the face of the earth toward which we
were rapidly flying. It was the canyon of the river Savagil, a
merciless abyss ten thousand feet in depth.
Frightful as was the scene, it might yet prove our salvation if the
ship could escape colliding with the precipitous walls. Were there no
abyss we would certainly be dashed to pieces on the earth itself.
Suddenly the ship heeled over fifty degrees, flinging its living
freight violently against the houses on deck and the lower rail. But
we were saved! One side of the deck grazed the precipice as it plunged
into the canyon. We had passed through the danger before knowing what
had happened.
Lyone was stunned, but safe, the captain had a dislocated wrist, and
others had broken limbs, but none was fatally hurt.
It was a terrible experience.
As the canyon of the river led in a northeasterly direction we did not
emerge from the shelter it gave us to seek fresh conflict with the
cyclone, but kept flying between the formidable walls. We soon knew by
the returning sunlight and the silver clouds that the hurricane had
died away.
The damage done to the _Aeropher_ was quickly repaired. The ceaseless
humming of the fans revolving on axles of hollow steel lulled our
senses once more into dreamy repose.
"Ah," said Lyone, "this is life. I feel as though I were a bird or
disembodied spirit. This aerial navigation is the realization of those
aspirations of men that they might like birds possess the sky. Some
have wished to enjoy submarine travel, to explore those frightful
abysses of ocean where sea-monsters dwell; to behold the conflict of
sharks in their native element, to see the swordfish bury his spear in
the colossal whale. I prefer this upper sphere of sunlight and the
dome of forests, mountains, and valleys of the dear old earth."
"You are right," said I; "the world into which we are born is our true
habitat."
The walls of the canyon grew wider apart until we floated in a valley
two miles wide. The meadow land below us was carpeted with grass and
covered with clumps of forest trees, down the middle of which ran the
river, green and swift. The walls of the valley here rose twelve
thousand feet in perpendicular height, prodigies of stone, stained in
barbaric colors by the brushes of the ages. Here and there triumphant
cataracts flashed from the heights and fell in torrents of foam to the
valley below. Sometimes a tributary of the river dashed furiously
from the battlements above us into the abyss, flinging clouds of spray
on the tops of the trees beneath.
[Illustration: THE GODDESS STOOD HOLDING THE OUTER RAIL OF THE DECK,
THE INCARNATION OF COURAGE.]
The _Aeropher_ maintained a uniform height of five thousand feet,
sufficiently high to give us the exultation of a bird, yet
sufficiently deep to allow the sublimity of the scene to fully impress
us.
The musicians, who had hitherto remained in abeyance, now broke the
silence of our progress with a swelling refrain. The music rolled
echoing from granite to jasper walls in strains of divine pathos. We
seemed to sail through the fabled realms of enchantment. In that
little moving heaven, ceremony was dissolved into a thrilling
friendship; the harmonious surroundings created a closer union of
souls.
Above where I sat with Lyone there floated a flag of yellow silk a
hundred feet in length. As it floated on the wind it assumed a varying
series of poetic shapes, very beautiful to witness.
Sometimes there was a long sinuous fold, then a number of rippling
waves, then a second fold only shorter than the first, then more
rippling waves. It was a symbol of the soul and of the goddess, and
represented the fascination and poetry that belongs to the adepts of
Harikar. Its folds changed momentarily. At times there would be one
large central curve like a Moorish arch, flanked on either side by a
number of lesser arches. Again the flag streamed in throbbing waves,
frequently blown by an intense breath of wind straight as a spear,
crackling and shivering like a soul in pain. It responded not only to
the motion of the ship, but had an independent life of its own.
"You see," said Lyone, "that the spiritual part of our creed is but
the development of this independent life of the soul. The spiritual
nature responds to the opportunity worthy of its recognition."
"That is but the mechanical law of cause and effect," I ventured;
"where does self-sacrifice come in?"
"I do not quite understand," she replied; "self-sacrifice is the first
law of the soul."
"What I mean," I said, "is this--having discovered your counterpart,
do you adore despite the circumstances of fortune?"
"Most certainly," she replied; "there is the divinest self-sacrifice
on both sides as far as the fortunes of each will permit. Ideally, the
sacrifice is unlimited, but practically is limited as to time,
opportunity and other circumstances."
"Is the counterpart soul loved in spite of disparity of circumstances,
or is an equality of circumstances, such as rank, wealth and
nationality, etc., a factor in the case?" I inquired.
"Outward circumstances have nothing whatever to do with the matter,"
said Lyone. "Friends, wealth, rank, everything is thrown aside in
favor of the inward circumstance that the two souls are one."
"But," I urged, "you expose your spiritual creed to very violent
shocks at times. The king of to-day may be a beggar to-morrow, and,
besides, one or both of two souls may before they have known each
other have been freighted with lifelong responsibilities. How, then,
do you prevent a catastrophe to some one?"
"I admit," she said, "that as far as the every-day world is concerned,
there are serious difficulties to contend with. But we avoid these by
creating a little world of our own, exclusively for the cultivation of
the spiritual soul. Just as some people apply themselves to physical
culture to become athletes and show how grand the physical man may
become, so we set apart a number of people as soul-priests to develop
spirituality, or power over themselves and others and power over
matter. It was for this object that Egyplosis was founded, to form a
fitting environment for those who have achieved the ideal life. This
life fully ripened, with its fresh and glorious enjoyment, can be
maintained for a hundred years without diminution or loss of ecstasy."
"And do you mean that, after living one hundred years, beginning with
your twentieth birthday, you are still only commencing your
twenty-first year?"
"That is exactly what I mean," said Lyone. "I myself have lived ten
years of Nirvana, and am yet only twenty years old."
I could well believe that such glorious freshness and beauty as hers
was quite as young as she had represented it; but it was a strange
idea--this achievement of an earthly Nirvana.
"Do you believe in the independent life of the soul after death?" I
inquired.
"I believe that, as our bodies when they die become reabsorbed into
the bosom of nature, to become in part or whole reincarnated in other
forms of life, so also our souls are reabsorbed into the great ocean
of existence, to also dwell, in time, wholly or in part in some other
form of life or love."