Off, off into space sped our quartette with their guide, past heaven’s
many-colored star-lamps shining in their vault of blue to light the many
worlds that surround as well as our world beneath them. They neither
loitered nor stopped at any place on their way for you must remember
that they had to travel many million miles to reach Uranus, that planet
being way out in space at a distance of from one billion, six hundred
and ninety-nine million to one billion, eight hundred and sixty-five
million miles from the Sun. It takes this planet about eighty-four
years, traveling in its regular path, to make one complete circuit of
the Sun.
Without their magic robes it would have been impossible to reach this
distant island, but with them, and by constantly reiterating their wish
to be there, they at last came in sight of this glorious planet and were
dazzled by its clear white light which gleamed and flashed with the
brilliancy of the purest diamond.
“It is well that we are going to the Satellite Island instead of to the
planet itself,” said Ione. “I doubt if we could endure its dazzling
light for it hurts my eyes even at this distance.”
“Strange, eccentric people live there,” said Mercury. “People who on
Earth would be thought foolish or insane, for nothing is too strange for
them to tolerate, to investigate, or to experiment with, and they are
constantly proving that what Earth people sometimes look upon as
impossible or merely as the idea of a diseased brain often proves both
possible and practical, while the so-called lunatic, the inventor, is
here revered as a man of brains and a genius.”
The buzz of wheels and drills accompanied with the pounding of hammers
was heard on all sides, for everywhere men were working on
newly-invented, highly-perfected air-ships, steamers, war-vessels, air
brakes, railroad apparatus of all kinds, machinery for hoisting great
weights, etc.; while inside the buildings men were busy in laboratories,
bending over retorts in which boiling liquids could be seen. These men
were so quaintly dressed and so weird-looking that they reminded one of
the alchemists of old trying to turn the baser metals into gold. There
were wide-awake young men here also, studying the marvelous properties
of the newly-discovered radium, which at the present time is worth three
hundred thousand times its own weight in gold, and many elements and
metals that Earth people know nothing of.
As they went from shipyard to laboratory and from laboratory to
electrical workrooms, they closely scanned the faces of all about them,
hoping to see their wonderful old man. After leaving the men’s quarters,
they came to an immense building where none but women were at work, some
on tapestries, others on lace that rivaled the cobweb for delicacy of
texture. Embroideries they saw in which the flowers literally seemed to
grow, blossom, and wait to be plucked; pictures done in illuminated
paints whose tints rivaled those of sunset skies—in fact everything that
human hands could do was done here to perfection.
“Our old man cannot be here,” said the Princess. “Perhaps he has
returned to Earth with another elephant or air-ship.”
They were about to abandon their search for him when Mercury said:
“See that peculiar looking edifice built in the shape of a Greek cross.
Let us go and find out what it is. Perhaps it is the especial laboratory
of the very man for whom we are searching.”
On arriving at the door they were very much impressed with the beauty
and grandeur of the entrance to say nothing of the elaborate decorations
of the edifice itself. The doors were wide open and, entering, they saw
in the center of a highly-vaulted chamber, a large model air-ship that
looked as light as paper wrought in graceful curves with great beauty of
design, but which proved to be on closer inspection as strong as iron.
That it would work like magic without hitch or flaw, our young people
knew at once, since their wonderful old man was its inventor. And there
beside it he stood with a dreamy, far-away expression in his eyes as if
he already felt himself speeding through space in it. Harold recognized
him at once with his white hair and beard and his loose gown of dark
purple corded in at the waist. They all advanced a little nearer and
stood directly before him where his eyes would rest upon them
immediately he came out of his open-eyed dream.
Mercury told the young people to doff their magic robes, and they were
scarcely off their shoulders when the old man started, rubbed his eyes,
stared, again rubbed his eyes as if brushing away some illusion, looked
once more, and then said:
“Be ye flesh and blood I look upon or only fancies of my brain?”
“My dear sir,” Harold answered, “we are flesh and blood and if you will
but look more closely you will surely recognize me as the young man who
entered your elephant when I thought you dying.”
“To be sure! To be sure!” he exclaimed. “But how did you all reach this
island?” he asked in surprise.
When Harold had finished giving him a detailed account of all he had
done and where they had traveled since receiving the elephant, he said,
“Well done, my young hero. I see that my elephant could not have fallen
into better hands and from my heart I am glad that you have all enjoyed
it.”
“How much we have enjoyed and appreciated your gift we will never be
able to tell,” replied Harold, “but we all tender you sincere and
earnest thanks,” in which the rest of the party enthusiastically
acquiesced.
“And now since you have come all this way to thank me for my gift I will
give you another treat. I will take you all for a trip in my newly
perfected air-ship of which the one before you is but the model. The
ship itself is in a large enclosure on the other side of the building.”
“How perfectly enchanting that will be!” exclaimed the girls, while the
boys thanked him profusely for all the trouble he was taking.
“No trouble, I assure you,” he said, “only a pleasure. Follow me and I
will show that my air-ship is as far ahead of the elephant as a fast
ocean steamer is ahead of a flatboat.”
“My! what are those people doing who are jumping up in the air and
darting about as if shot from a gun?” asked the Princess.
“To be sure! To be sure! It must seem strange to you,” answered the old
man, “but that is our mode of locomotion. We propel ourselves through
the air instead of walking, as that is too slow to suit our tastes. We
do not fly but we use an electric apparatus about the size of a matchbox
which we fasten between our shoulders, and one half as large which we
wear under the soles of our feet. If we wish to travel in the air to
avoid crowds and hindrances we simply press hard upon the soles of our
feet and the little contrivances fastened there send us up almost as
rapidly as if blown by an explosive, then by the use of handles
connected with the boxes between our shoulders, we propel ourselves
forward, backward, sideways or in any direction desired. A great many of
our people devote all their time to studying new and improved methods of
travel for the use of the inhabitants of Earth, for year by year your
people seem to be more and more in a hurry and methods which seem
perfectly satisfactory one year are all too slow before twelve months
have passed by. Well! here we are,” he continued, throwing open enormous
doors which led into a large grassy enclosure devoid of trees of any
description, in which, pulling at her anchor with every passing breeze,
rested the air-ship, “Queen of the Heavens,” as she had been named.
I shall not attempt to describe this beautiful, graceful, convenient
marvel but will leave it to the reader’s imagination. I will say,
however, that the heaviest metal used in its construction was aluminum,
while it was lighted with radium whose dazzling glare was softened by
colored globes, and its propelling power was electricity but so
perfected that an Earth-born mortal of today would not recognize it as
such.
“Now, my dear young people, where shall I take you for a sail? Shall it
be to the Moon, to the Dog Star, or still further toward Neptune, or
would you like to slowly drop to within a mile of the Earth and then
sail around it?”
“Oh! the last!” they all exclaimed in chorus, “for it would be such fun
to see the people of Earth gazing at us through telescopes thinking we
were inhabitants from Mars coming to visit them.”
“Very well, just as you choose,” he said.
After they were comfortably seated, the anchor raised and the old man
had placed himself at the helm, the ship began slowly to ascend into the
blue ether until it was above and free from the high wall of the
enclosure, then with a turn of the steerage apparatus, the huge ship
glided up as easily as a bird and with slightly lowered bow commenced to
sink toward Earth. Past single stars, through groups of stars, still
lower down into starless ether, then across the air line boundary into
Earth’s atmosphere, through thick masses of clouds, they at last came
into clear atmosphere half a mile above the earth and could now see
numberless people straining their eyes to discover what this strange
aerial craft might be. It would take an endless time to relate all that
happened on this trip but I will disclose a few events in the next
chapter of the voyage of “The Queen of Heaven.”