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+Project Gutenberg's The Goddess of Atvatabar, by William R. Bradshaw
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Goddess of Atvatabar
+       Being the history of the discovery of the interior world
+       and conquest of Atvatabar
+
+Author: William R. Bradshaw
+
+Release Date: June 15, 2010 [EBook #32825]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GODDESS OF ATVATABAR ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Juliet Sutherland, and the
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+             [Illustration: _Map of the Interior World._]
+
+
+                                 THE
+                         GODDESS OF ATVATABAR
+
+                              BEING THE
+                       HISTORY OF THE DISCOVERY
+                                OF THE
+                            INTERIOR WORLD
+                                 AND
+                        CONQUEST OF ATVATABAR
+
+
+                                  BY
+
+                         WILLIAM R. BRADSHAW
+
+
+
+                        PROFUSELY ILLUSTRATED
+
+
+
+
+                               NEW YORK
+                            J. F. DOUTHITT
+                           286 FIFTH AVENUE
+                                 1892
+
+
+
+                         COPYRIGHT, 1891, BY
+                         WILLIAM R. BRADSHAW
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+CHAPTER                        PAGE
+
+      I.--A Polar Catastrophe,                                13
+
+     II.--The Cause of the Expedition,                        19
+
+    III.--Beginning the Voyage,                               22
+
+     IV.--Our Adventures in the Polar Sea,                    26
+
+      V.--We Enter the Polar Gulf,                            31
+
+     VI.--Day Becomes Night and Night Day,                    34
+
+    VII.--We Discover the Interior World,                     40
+
+   VIII.--Extraordinary Loss of Weight,                       45
+
+     IX.--Afloat on the Interior Ocean,                       50
+
+      X.--A Visit from the Inhabitants of Plutusia,           52
+
+     XI.--We Learn Atvatabarese,                              57
+
+    XII.--We Arrive at Kioram,                                61
+
+   XIII.--Marching in Triumph,                                65
+
+    XIV.--The Journey to Calnogor,                            72
+
+     XV.--Our Reception by the King,                          78
+
+    XVI.--The King Unfolds the Grandeur of Atvatabar,         83
+
+   XVII.--Gnaphisthasia,                                      86
+
+  XVIII.--The Journey to the Bormidophia,                     94
+
+    XIX.--The Throne of the Gods, Calnogor,                   99
+
+     XX.--The Worship of Lyone, Supreme Goddess,             103
+
+    XXI.--An Audience with the Supreme Goddess,              109
+
+   XXII.--The Goddess Learns the Story of the Outer World,   114
+
+  XXIII.--The Garden of Tanje,                               117
+
+   XXIV.--The Journey to Egyplosis,                          128
+
+    XXV.--Escaping from the Cyclone,                         133
+
+   XXVI.--The Banquet on the Aerial Ship,                    139
+
+  XXVII.--We Reach Egyplosis,                                144
+
+ XXVIII.--The Grand Temple of Harikar,                       149
+
+   XXIX.--The Installation of a Twin-Soul,                   153
+
+    XXX.--The Installation of a Twin-Soul (_Continued_)      159
+
+   XXXI.--The Mystery of Egyplosis,                          163
+
+  XXXII.--The Sin of a Twin-Soul,                            168
+
+ XXXIII.--The Doctor's Opinion of Egyplosis,                 172
+
+  XXXIV.--Lyone's Confession,                                176
+
+   XXXV.--Our Visit to the Infernal Palace,                  183
+
+  XXXVI.--Arjeels,                                           194
+
+ XXXVII.--A Revelation,                                      202
+
+XXXVIII.--Lyone's Manifesto to King and People,              206
+
+  XXXIX.--The Crisis in Atvatabar,                           212
+
+     XL.--My Departure from the Palace of Tanje,             216
+
+    XLI.--We Are Attacked by the Enemy,                      220
+
+   XLII.--The Battle Continued,                              225
+
+  XLIII.--Victory,                                           229
+
+   XLIV.--The News of Atvatabar in the Outer World,          235
+
+    XLV.--The Voyages of the _Mercury_ and the _Aurora
+            Borealis_,                                       244
+
+   XLVI.--The Arrest of Lyone,                               249
+
+  XLVII.--The Council of War in Kioram,                      253
+
+ XLVIII.--The Report of Astronomer Starbottle,               258
+
+   XLIX.--Preparation for War,                               264
+
+      L.--I Visit Lyone in Calnogor,                         267
+
+     LI.--The Death of Lyone,                                271
+
+    LII.--The Battle of Calnogor,                            279
+
+   LIII.--Victory,                                           283
+
+    LIV.--Reincarnation,                                     288
+
+     LV.--Lexington and Lyone Hailed King and Queen
+            of Atvatabar,                                    292
+
+    LVI.--Our Reception in Calnogor,                         298
+
+   LVII.--The Combined Ceremony of Marriage and Coronation,  304
+
+  LVIII.--The Death of Bhoolmakar,                           310
+
+    LIX.--The History Concluded,                             315
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
+
+
+                                               ARTIST,          PAGE
+
+MAP OF THE INTERIOR WORLD,                                _Frontispiece_.
+
+I SIGNALLED THE ENGINEER FULL SPEED AHEAD,
+AND IN A SHORT TIME WE CROSSED THE ICE-FOOT
+AND ENTERED THE CHASM,                     _C. Durand Chapman_,    17
+
+A SEMI-CIRCLE OF RIFLES WAS DISCHARGED AT
+THE UNHAPPY BRUTES. TWO OF THEM FELL
+DEAD IN THEIR TRACKS,                               "              29
+
+THE TERROR INSPIRED BY THE PROFESSOR'S
+WORDS WAS PLAINLY VISIBLE ON EVERY
+FACE,                                               "              35
+
+AT THIS MOMENT A WILD CRY AROSE FROM THE
+SAILORS. WITH ONE VOICE THEY SHOUTED,
+"THE SUN! THE SUN!"                                 "              41
+
+ONE OF THE FLYING MEN CAUGHT FLATHOOTLY
+BY THE HAIR OF THE HEAD, AND LIFTED
+HIM OUT OF THE WATER,                      _R. W. Rattray_,        55
+
+ONE OF THE MOUNTED POLICE GOT HOLD OF
+THE SWITCH ON THE BACK OF THE BOCKHOCKID,
+AND BROUGHT IT TO A STANDSTILL,            _Carl Gutherz_,         69
+
+THE SACRED LOCOMOTIVE STORMED THE MOUNTAIN
+HEIGHTS WITH ITS AUDACIOUS TREAD,          _C. Durand Chapman_,    75
+
+THE KING EMBRACED ME, AND I KISSED THE
+HAND OF HER MAJESTY,                                "              81
+
+A PROCESSION OF PRIESTS AND PRIESTESSES
+PASSED DOWN THE LIVING AISLES, BEARING
+TROPHIES OF ART,                           _Harold Haven Brown_,   87
+
+ON THE THRONE SAT THE SUPREME GODDESS
+LYONE, THE REPRESENTATIVE OF HARIKAR,
+THE HOLY SOUL,                             _C. Durand Chapman_,    97
+
+THE THRONE OF THE GODS WAS INDEED THE
+GOLDEN HEART OF ATVATABAR, THE TRIUNE
+SYMBOL OF BODY, MIND, AND SPIRIT,                   "             101
+
+HER HOLINESS OFFERED BOTH HIS MAJESTY
+THE KING AND MYSELF HER HAND TO KISS,               "             111
+
+ZOOPHYTES OF ATVATABAR,                    _Paul de Longpré_
+
+  THE LILASURE,                                                   117
+
+  THE LABURNUL,                                                   118
+
+  THE GREEN GAZZLE OF GLOCKETT GOZZLE,                            119
+
+  JEERLOONS,                                                      120
+
+  A JEERLOON,                                                     120
+
+  THE LILLIPOUTUM,                                                121
+
+  THE JUGDUL,                                                     122
+
+  THE YARPHAPPY,                                                  123
+
+  THE JALLOAST,                                                   124
+
+  THE GASTERNOWL,                                                 125
+
+  THE CROCOSUS,                                                   126
+
+  THE JARDIL, OR LOVE-POUCH,                                      127
+
+  THE BLOCUS,                                                     128
+
+  THE FUNNY-FENNY, OR CLOWNGRASS,                                 129
+
+  THE GLEROSERAL,                                                 130
+
+  THE EAGLON,                                                     131
+
+THE GODDESS STOOD HOLDING ON TO THE OUTER
+RAIL OF THE DECK, THE INCARNATION OF
+COURAGE,                                   _C. Durand Chapman_,   135
+
+THEN THE SHIP ROSE AGAIN TOWARD THE MAMMOTH
+ROCKS, ADORNED WITH THE TAPESTRIES
+OF FALLING WAVE,                                    "             141
+
+LYONE WAS BORNE ON A LITTER FROM THE
+AERIAL SHIP TO THE PALACE,                          "             147
+
+THE PRIEST AND PRIESTESS STOOD BESIDE THE
+ALTAR, EACH READING AN ALTERNATE STANZA
+FROM THE RITUAL OF THE GODDESS,            _R. W. Rattray_,       155
+
+HER KISS WAS A BLINDING WHIRLWIND OF
+FLAME AND TEARS,                           _C. Durand Chapman_,   181
+
+THE LABYRINTH WAS A SUBTERRANEAN GARDEN,
+WHOSE TREES AND FLOWERS WERE CHISELLED
+OUT OF THE LIVING ROCK,                    _Paul de Longpré_,     187
+
+AS I GAZED, LO! A SHOWER OF BLAZING JEWELS
+ISSUED FROM THE MOUTH OF THE HEHORRENT,    _Leonard M. Davis_,    191
+
+"BY VIRTUE OF THE SPIRIT POWER IN THIS
+CABLE," SAID THE SORCERER, "I WILL THAT
+THE MAGICAL ISLAND OF ARJEELS SHALL
+RISE ABOVE THE WAVES,"                     _C. Durand Chapman_,   197
+
+THE SHIP IN COMPANY WITH A VAST VOLUME OF
+WATER SPRANG INTO THE AIR TO A GREAT
+HEIGHT,                                             "             223
+
+WE SLOWLY DRAGGED OURSELVES ACROSS THE
+RANGE OF ICY PEAKS,                                 "             241
+
+I MOUNTED THE TRUNK AND PROPOSED THE
+HEALTH OF HER MAJESTY LYONE, QUEEN
+OF ATVATABAR,                              _R. W. Rattray_,       261
+
+LYONE REACHED FOR A FLOWER, AND IN DOING
+SO TOUCHED THE VASE, AND IMMEDIATELY
+FELL DEAD UPON THE FLOOR,                  _C. Durand Chapman_,   273
+
+AT THIS JUNCTURE A SHELL OF TERRORITE
+EXPLODED AMONG THE FOE WITH THRILLING
+EFFECT, DESTROYING AT LEAST TWO HUNDRED
+BOCKHOCKIDS,                               _Walter M. Dunk_,      285
+
+HEAVENS AND EARTH! HE WAS HOLDING
+LYONE IN HIS ARMS, ALIVE FROM THE LIVING
+BATTERY! LYONE, THE PEERLESS SOUL
+OF SOULS, ALIVE ONCE MORE AND TRIUMPHANT
+OVER DEATH,                                _C. Durand Chapman_,   293
+
+WE SAT THUS CROWNED AMID THE TREMENDOUS
+EXCITEMENT. THE PEOPLE SHOUTED, "LIFE,
+HEALTH AND PROSPERITY TO OUR SOVEREIGN
+LORD AND LADY, LEXINGTON AND LYONE,
+KING AND QUEEN OF ATVATABAR,"              _Allan B. Doggett_,    307
+
+OI MADE BHOOLY AN' KOSHNILI KNEEL DOWN,
+AN' A SOJER TIED THEIR HANDS BEHIND
+THEIR BACKS. THEN OI ORDHERED A WAYLEAL
+TO BEHEAD THIM WID THEIR OWN
+SWORDS,                                    _Allan B. Doggett_,    313
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION.
+
+
+It is proper that some explanation be made as to the position occupied
+by the following story in the realm of fiction, and that a brief
+estimate should be made of its literary value.
+
+Literature may be roughly classified under two heads--the creative and
+the critical. The former is characteristic of the imaginative
+temperament, while the latter is analytical in its nature, and does
+not rise above the level of the actual. Rightly pursued, these two
+ways of searching out truth should supplement each other. The poet
+finds in God the source of matter; the man of science traces matter up
+to God. Science is poetry inverted: the latter sees in the former
+confirmation of its airiest flight; it is synthetic and creative,
+whereas science dissects and analyzes. Obviously, the most spiritual
+conceptions should always maintain a basis in the world of fact, and
+the greatest works of literary art, while taking their stand upon the
+solid earth, have not feared to lift their heads to heaven. The
+highest art is the union of both methods, but in recent times realism
+in an extreme form, led by Zola and Tolstoi, and followed with willing
+though infirm footsteps by certain American writers, has attained a
+marked prominence in literature, while romantic writers have suffered
+a corresponding obscuration. It must be admitted that the influence of
+the realists is not entirely detrimental; on the contrary, they have
+imported into literature a nicety of observation, a heedfulness of
+workmanship, a mastery of technique, which have been greatly to its
+advantage. Nevertheless, the novel of hard facts has failed to prove
+its claim to infallibility. Facts in themselves are impotent to
+account for life. Every material fact is but the representative on the
+plane of sense of a corresponding truth on the spiritual plane. Spirit
+is the substance; fact the shadow only, and its whole claim to
+existence lies in its relation to spirit. Bulwer declares in one of
+his early productions that the Ideal is the only true Real.
+
+In the nature of things a reaction from the depression of the
+realistic school must take place. Indeed, it has already set in, even
+at the moment of the realists' apogee. A dozen years ago the author of
+"John Inglesant," in a work of the finest art and most delicate
+spirituality, showed that the spell of the ideal had not lost its
+efficacy, and the books that he has written since then have confirmed
+and emphasized the impression produced by it. Meanwhile, Robert Louis
+Stevenson and Rider Haggard have cultivated with striking success the
+romantic vein of fiction, and the former, at least, has acquired a
+mastery of technical detail which the realists themselves may envy. It
+is a little more than a year, too, since Rudyard Kipling startled the
+reading public with a series of tales of wonderful force and
+vividness; and whatever criticism may be applied to his work, it
+incontestably shows the dominance of a spiritual and romantic motive.
+The realists, on the other hand, have added no notable recruits to
+their standard, and the leaders of the movement are losing rather than
+gaining in popularity. The spirit of the new age seems to be with the
+other party, and we may expect to see them enjoy a constantly widening
+vogue and influence.
+
+The first practical problem which confronts the intending historian of
+an ideal, social, or political community is to determine the locality
+in which it shall be placed. It may have no geographical limitations,
+like Plato's "Republic," or Sir Philip Sidney's "Arcadia." Swift, in
+his "Gulliver's Travels," appropriated the islands of the then unknown
+seas, and the late Mr. Percy Greg boldly steered into space and
+located a brilliant romance on the planet Mars. Mr. Haggard has placed
+the scene of his romance "She" in the unexplored interior of Africa.
+After all, if imagination be our fellow-traveller, we might well
+discover El Dorados within easy reach of our own townships.
+
+Other writers, like Ignatius Donnelly and Edward Bellamy, have solved
+the problem by anticipating the future. Anything will do, so that it
+be well done. The real question is as to the writer's ability to
+interest his readers with supposed experiences that may develop mind
+and heart almost as well as if real.
+
+"The Goddess of Atvatabar," like the works already mentioned, is a
+production of imagination and sentiment, the scene of action being
+laid in the interior of the earth. It is true that the notion has
+heretofore existed that the earth might be a hollow sphere. The early
+geologists had a theory that the earth was a hollow globe, the shell
+being no thicker in proportion to its size than that of an egg. This
+idea was revived by Captain Symmes, with the addition of polar
+openings. Jules Verne takes his readers, in one of his romances, to
+the interior of a volcano, and Bulwer, in his "Coming Race," has
+constructed a world of underground caverns. Mr. Bradshaw, however, has
+swept aside each and all of these preliminary explorations, and has
+kindled the fires of an interior sun, revealing an interior world of
+striking magnificence. In view of the fact that we live on an exterior
+world, lit by an exterior sun, he has supposed the possibility of
+similar interior conditions, and the crudity of all former conceptions
+of a hollow earth will be made vividly apparent to the reader of the
+present volume. "The Goddess of Atvatabar" paints a picture of a new
+world, and the author must be credited with an original conception. He
+has written out of his own heart and brain, without reference to or
+dependence upon the imaginings of others, and it is within the truth
+to say that in boldness of design, in wealth and ingenuity of detail,
+and in lofty purpose, he has not fallen below the highest standard
+that has been erected by previous writers.
+
+Mr. Bradshaw, in his capacity of idealist, has not only created a new
+world, but has decorated it with the skill and conscientiousness of
+the realist, and has achieved a work of art which may rightfully be
+termed great. Jules Verne, in composing a similar story, would stop
+short with a description of mere physical adventure, but in the
+present work Mr. Bradshaw goes beyond the physical, and has created in
+conjunction therewith an interior world of the soul, illuminated with
+the still more dazzling sun of ideal love in all its passion and
+beauty. The story is refreshingly independent both in conception and
+method, and the insinuation, "_Beati qui ante nos nostra dixerunt_,"
+cannot be quoted against him. He has imagined and worked out the whole
+thing for himself, and he merits the full credit that belongs to a
+discoverer.
+
+"The Goddess of Atvatabar" is full of marvellous adventures on land
+and sea and in the aerial regions as well. It is not my purpose at
+present to enumerate the surprising array of novel conceptions that
+will charm the reader. The author, by the condition of his
+undertaking, has given _carte blanche_ to his imagination. He has
+created a complete society, with a complete environment suited to it.
+The broadest generalization, no less than the minutest particulars,
+have received careful attention, and the story is based upon a
+profound understanding of the essential qualities of human nature, and
+is calculated to attain deserved celebrity. Among the subjects dear to
+the idealist's heart, perhaps none finds greater favor than that which
+involves the conception of a new social and political order, and our
+author has elaborated this subject on fresh lines of thought, making
+his material world enclose a realm of spiritual tenderness, even as
+the body is the continent and sensible manifestation of the soul.
+
+The forces, arts, and aspirations of the human soul are wrought into a
+symmetrical fabric, exhibiting its ideal tendencies. The evident
+purpose of the writer is to stimulate the mind, by presenting to its
+contemplation things that are marvellous, noble, and magnificent. He
+has not hesitated to portray his own emotions as expressed by the
+characters in the book, and is evidently in hearty sympathy with
+everything that will produce elevation of the intellectual and
+emotional ideals.
+
+The style in which the story is told is worthy of remark. In the
+beginning, when events are occurring within the realm of things
+already known or conceived of, he speaks in the matter-of-fact, honest
+tone of the modern explorer; so far as the language goes we might be
+reading the reports of an arctic voyage as recounted in the daily
+newspaper; there is the same unpretentiousness and directness of
+phrase, the same attention to apparently commonplace detail, and the
+same candid portrayal of wonder, hope, and fear. But when the
+stupendous descent into the interior world has been made, and we have
+been carried through the intermediary occurrences into the presence of
+the beautiful goddess herself, the style rises to the level of the
+lofty theme and becomes harmoniously imaginative and poetic. The
+change takes place so naturally and insensibly that no jarring
+contrast is perceived; and a subdued sense of humor, making itself
+felt at the proper moment, redeems the most daring flights of the work
+from the reproach of extravagance.
+
+Mr. Bradshaw is especially to be commended for having the courage of
+his imagination. He wastes no undue time on explanations, but
+proceeds promptly and fearlessly to set forth the point at issue.
+When, for example, it becomes necessary to introduce the new language
+spoken by the inhabitants of the interior world, we are brought in
+half a dozen paragraphs to an understanding of its characteristic
+features, and proceed to the use of it without more ado. A more timid
+writer would have misspent labor and ingenuity in dwelling upon a
+matter which Mr. Bradshaw rightly perceived to be of no essential
+importance; and we should have been wearied and delayed in arriving at
+the really interesting scenes.
+
+The philosophy of the book is worthy of more serious notice. The
+religion of the new race is based upon the worship of the human soul,
+whose powers have been developed to a height unthought of by our
+section of mankind, although on lines the commencement of which are
+already within our view. The magical achievements of theosophy and
+occultism, as well as the ultimate achievements of orthodox science,
+are revealed in their most amazing manifestations, and with a sobriety
+and minuteness of treatment that fully satisfies what may be called
+the transcendental reader. The whole philosophic and religious
+situation is made to appear admirably plausible: but we are gradually
+brought to perceive that there is a futility and a rottenness inherent
+in it all, and that for the Goddess of Atvatabar, lofty, wise, and
+immaculate though she be, there is, nevertheless, a loftier and
+sublimer experience in store. The finest art of the book is shown
+here: a deep is revealed underneath the deep, and the final outcome is
+in accord with the simplest as well as the profoundest religious
+perception.
+
+But it would be useless to attempt longer to withhold the reader from
+the marvellous journey that awaits him. A word of congratulation,
+however, is due in regard to the illustrations. They reach a level of
+excellence rare even at this day; the artists have evidently been in
+thorough sympathy with the author, and have given to the eye what the
+latter has presented to the understanding. A more lovable divinity
+than that which confronts us on the golden throne it has seldom been
+our fortune to behold; and the designs of animal-plants are as
+remarkable as anything in modern illustrative art: they are entirely
+unique, and possess a value quite apart from their artistic grace.
+
+The chief complaint I find to urge against the book is that it stops
+long before my curiosity regarding the contents of the interior world
+is satisfied. There are several continents and islands yet to be heard
+from. But I am reassured by the termination of the story that there is
+nothing to prevent the hero from continuing his explorations; and I
+shall welcome the volume which contains the further points of his
+extraordinary and commendable enterprise.
+
+                                                    JULIAN HAWTHORNE.
+
+
+
+
+THE GODDESS OF ATVATABAR.
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+A POLAR CATASTROPHE.
+
+
+I had been asleep when a terrific noise awoke me. I rose up on my
+couch in the cabin and gazed wildly around, dazed with the feeling
+that something extraordinary had happened. By degrees becoming
+conscious of my surroundings, I saw Captain Wallace, Dr. Merryferry,
+Astronomer Starbottle, and Master-at-Arms Flathootly beside me.
+
+"Commander White," said the captain, "did you hear that roar?"
+
+"What roar?" I replied. "Where are we?"
+
+"Why, you must have been asleep," said he, "and yet the roar was
+enough to raise the dead. It seemed as if both earth and heaven were
+split open."
+
+"What is that hissing sound I hear?" I inquired.
+
+"That, sir," said the doctor, "is the sound of millions of flying
+sea-fowl frightened by the awful noise. The midnight sun is darkened
+with the flight of so many birds. Surely, sir, you must have heard
+that dreadful shriek. It froze the blood in our veins with horror."
+
+I began to understand that the _Polar King_ was safe, and that we were
+all still alive and well. But what could my officers mean by the
+terrible noise they talked about?
+
+I jumped out of bed saying, "Gentlemen, I must investigate this whole
+business. You say the _Polar King_ is safe?"
+
+"Shure, sorr," said Flathootly, the master-at-arms, "the ship lies
+still anchored to the ice-fut where we put her this afthernoon. She's
+all right."
+
+I at once went on deck. Sure enough the ship was as safe as if in
+harbor. Birds flew about in myriads, at times obscuring the sun, and
+now and then we heard growling reverberations from distant icebergs,
+answering back the fearful roar that had roused them from their polar
+sleep.
+
+The sea, that is to say the enormous ice-pack in which we lay, heaved
+and fell like an earthquake. It was evident that a catastrophe of no
+common character had happened.
+
+What was the cause that startled the polar midnight with such unwonted
+commotion?
+
+Sailors are very superstitious; with them every unknown sound is a cry
+of disaster. It was necessary to discover what had happened, lest the
+courage of my men should give way and involve the whole expedition in
+ruin.
+
+The captain, although alarmed, was as brave as a lion, and as for
+Flathootly, he would follow me through fire and water like the brave
+Irishman that he was. The scientific staff were gentlemen of
+education, and could be relied upon to show an example of bravery that
+would keep the crew in good spirits.
+
+"Do you remember the creek in the ice-foot we passed this morning,"
+said the captain, "the place where we shot the polar bear?"
+
+"Quite well," I said.
+
+"Well, the roar that frightened us came from that locality. You
+remember all day we heard strange squealing sounds issuing from the
+ice, as though it was being rent or split open by some subterranean
+force."
+
+The entire events of the day came to my mind in all their clearness. I
+did remember the strange sounds the captain referred to. I thought
+then that perhaps they had been caused by Professor Rackiron's shell
+of terrorite which he had fired at the southern face of the vast range
+of ice mountains that formed an impenetrable barrier to the pole. The
+men were in need of a change of diet, and we thought the surest way of
+getting the sea-fowl was to explode a shell among them. The face of
+the ice cliffs was the home of innumerable birds peculiar to the
+Arctic zone. There myriads of gulls, kittiwakes, murres, guillemots,
+and such like creatures, made the ice alive with feathered forms.
+
+The terrorite gun was fired with ordinary powder, and although we
+could approach no nearer the cliffs than five miles, on account of the
+solid ice-foot, yet our chief gun was good for that distance.
+
+The shell was fired and exploded high up on the face of the crags. The
+effect was startling. The explosion brought down tons of the frosty
+marble. The débris fell like blocks of iron that rang with a piercing
+cry on the ice-bound breast of the ocean. Millions of sea-fowl of
+every conceivable variety darkened the air. Their rushing wings
+sounded like the hissing of a tornado. Thousands were killed by the
+shock. A detachment of sailors under First Officer Renwick brought in
+heavy loads of dead fowl for a change of diet. The food, however,
+proved indigestible, and made the men ill.
+
+We resolved, as soon as the sun had mounted the heavens from his
+midnight declension, to retrace our course somewhat and discover the
+cause of the terrible outcry of the night. We had been sailing for
+weeks along the southern ice-foot that belonged to the interminable
+ice hills which formed an effectual barrier to the pole. Day after day
+the _Polar King_ had forced its way through a gigantic floe of
+piled-up ice blocks, floating cakes of ice, and along ridges of frozen
+enormity, cracked, broken, and piled together in endless confusion. We
+were in quest of a northward passage out of the terrible ice prison
+that surrounded us, but failed to discover the slightest opening. It
+had become a question of abandoning our enterprise of discovering the
+North Pole and returning home again or abandoning the ship, and,
+taking our dogs and sledges, brave the nameless terrors of the icy
+hills. Of course in such case the ship would be our base of supplies
+and of action in whatever expedition might be set on foot for polar
+discovery.
+
+About six o'clock in the morning of the 20th of July we began to work
+the ship around, to partially retrace our voyage. All hands were on
+the lookout for any sign of such a catastrophe as might have caused
+the midnight commotion. After travelling about ten miles we reached
+the creek where the bear had been killed the day before. The man on
+the lookout on the top-mast sung out:
+
+"Creek bigger than yesterday!"
+
+Before we had time to examine the creek with our glasses he sung out:
+
+"Mountains split in two!"
+
+Sure enough, a dark blue gash ran up the hills to their very summit,
+and as soon as the ship came abreast of the creek we saw that the
+range of frozen precipices had been riven apart, and a streak of dark
+blue water lay between, on which the ship might possibly reach the
+polar sea beyond.
+
+Dare we venture into that inviting gulf?
+
+The officers crowded around me. "Well, gentlemen," said I, "what do
+you say, shall we try the passage?"
+
+"We only measure fifty feet on the beam, while the fissure is at least
+one hundred feet wide; so we have plenty of room to work the ship,"
+said the captain.
+
+"But, captain," said I, "if we find the width only fifty feet a few
+miles from here, what then?"
+
+"Then we must come back," said he, "that's all."
+
+"Suppose we cannot come back--suppose the walls of ice should begin to
+close up again?" I said.
+
+"I don't believe they will," said Professor Goldrock, who was our
+naturalist and was well informed in geology.
+
+"Why not?" I inquired.
+
+"Well," said he, "to our certain knowledge this range of ice hills
+extends five hundred miles east and west of us. The sea is here over
+one hundred and fifty fathoms deep. This barrier is simply a
+congregation of icebergs, frozen into a continuous solid mass. It is
+quite certain that the mass is anchored to the bottom, so that it is
+not free to come asunder and then simply close up again. My theory is
+this: Right underneath us there is a range of submarine rocks or hills
+running north and south. Last night an earthquake lifted this
+submarine range, say, fifty feet above its former level. The enormous
+upward pressure split open the range of ice resting thereon, and,
+unless the mountains beneath us subside to their former level, these
+rent walls of ice will never come together again. The passage will
+become filled up with fresh ice in a few hours, so that in any case
+there is no danger of the precipices crushing the ship."
+
+"Your opinion looks feasible," I replied.
+
+"Look," said he; "you will see that the top of the crevasse is wider
+than it is at the level of the water, one proof at least that my
+theory is correct."
+
+The professor was right; there was a perceptible increase in the width
+of the opening at the top.
+
+[Illustration: I SIGNALLED THE ENGINEER FULL SPEED AHEAD, AND IN A
+SHORT TIME WE CROSSED THE ICE-FOOT AND ENTERED THE CHASM.]
+
+To make ourselves still more sure we took soundings for a mile east
+and west of the chasm, and found the professor's theory of a submarine
+range of hills correct. The water was shallowest right under the gap,
+and was very much deeper only a short distance on either side. I
+said to the officers and sailors: "My men, are you willing to enter
+this gap with a view of getting beyond the barrier for the sake of
+science and fortune and the glory of the United States?"
+
+They gave a shout of assent that robbed the gulf of its terrors. I
+signalled the engineer full speed ahead, and in a short time we
+crossed the ice-foot and entered the chasm.
+
+It could be nothing else but an upheaval of nature that caused the
+rent, as the distance was uniform between the walls however irregular
+the windings made. And such walls! For a distance of twenty miles we
+sailed between smooth glistening precipices of palæocrystic ice rising
+two hundred feet above the water. The opening remained perceptibly
+wider at the top than below.
+
+After a distance of twenty miles the height gradually decreased until
+within a distance of another fifty miles the ice sank to the level of
+the water.
+
+The sailors gave a shout of triumph which was echoed from the ramparts
+of ice. To our astonishment we found we had reached a mighty field of
+loose pack ice, while on the distant horizon were glimpses of blue
+sea!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+THE CAUSE OF THE EXPEDITION.
+
+
+The _Polar King_, in lat. 84', long. 151' 14", had entered an ocean
+covered with enormous ice-floes. What surprised us most was the fact
+that we could make any headway whatever, and that the ice wasn't
+frozen into one solid mass as every one expected. On the contrary,
+leads of open water reached in all directions, and up those leading
+nearest due north we joyfully sailed.
+
+May the 10th was a memorable day in our voyage. On that day we
+celebrated the double event of having reached the furthest north and
+of having discovered an open polar sea.
+
+Seated in the luxurious cabin of the ship, I mused on the origin of
+this extraordinary expedition. It was certain, if my father were alive
+he would fully approve of the use I was making of the wealth he had
+left me. He was a man utterly without romance, a hard-headed man of
+facts, which quality doubtless was the cause of his amassing so many
+millions of dollars.
+
+My father could appreciate the importance of theories, of enthusiastic
+ideals, but he preferred others to act upon them. As for himself he
+would say, "I see no money in it for me." He believed that many
+enthusiastic theories were the germs of great fortunes, but he always
+said with a knowing smile, "You know it is never safe to be a pioneer
+in anything. The pioneer usually gets killed in creating an
+inheritance for his successors." It was a selfish policy which arose
+from his financial experiences, that in proportion as a man was
+selfish he was successful.
+
+I was always of a totally different temperament to my father. I was
+romantic, idealistic. I loved the marvellous, the magnificent, the
+miraculous and the mysterious, qualities that I inherited from my
+mother. I used to dream of exploring tropic islands, of visiting the
+lands of Europe and the Orient, and of haunting temples and tombs,
+palaces and pagodas. I wished to discover all that was weird and
+wonderful on the earth, so that my experiences would be a description
+of earth's girdle of gold, bringing within reach of the enslaved
+multitudes of all nations ideas and experiences of surpassing novelty
+and grandeur that would refresh their parched souls. I longed to
+whisper in the ear of the laborer at the wheel that the world was not
+wholly a blasted place, but that here and there oases made green its
+barrenness. If he could not actually in person mingle with its joys,
+his soul, that neither despot nor monopolist could chain, might spread
+its wings and feast on such delights as my journeyings might furnish.
+
+How seldom do we realize our fondest desires! Just at the time of my
+father's death the entire world was shocked with the news of the
+failure of another Arctic expedition, sent out by the United States,
+to discover, if possible, the North Pole. The expedition leaving their
+ship frozen up in Smith's Sound essayed to reach the pole by means of
+a monster balloon and a favoring wind. The experiment might possibly
+have succeeded had it not happened that the car of the balloon struck
+the crest of an iceberg and dashed its occupants into a fearful
+crevasse in the ice, where they miserably perished. This calamity
+brought to recollection the ill-fated Sir John Franklin and _Jeanette_
+expeditions; but, strange to say, in my mind at least, such disasters
+produced no deterrent effect against the setting forth of still
+another enterprise in Arctic research.
+
+From the time the expedition I refer to sailed from New York until the
+news of its dreadful fate reached the country, I had been reading
+almost every narrative of polar discovery. The consequence was I had
+awakened in my mind an enthusiasm to penetrate the sublime secret of
+the pole. I longed to stand, as it were, on the roof of the world and
+see beneath me the great globe revolve on its axis. There, where there
+is neither north, nor south, nor east, nor west, I could survey the
+frozen realms of death. I would dare to stand on the very pole itself
+with my few hardy companions, monarch of an empire of ice, on a spot
+that never feels the life-sustaining revolutions of the earth. I knew
+that on the equator, where all is light, life, and movement,
+continents and seas flash through space at the rate of one thousand
+miles an hour, but on the pole the wheeling of the earth is as dead as
+the desolation that surrounds it.
+
+I had conversed with Arctic navigators both in England and the United
+States. Some believed the pole would never be discovered. Others,
+again, declared their belief in an open polar sea. It was generally
+conceded that the Smith's Sound route was impracticable, and that the
+only possible way to approach the pole was by the Behring Strait
+route, that is, by following the 170th degree of west longitude north
+of Alaska.
+
+I thought it a strange fact that modern sailors, armed with all the
+resources of science and with the experience of numerous Arctic
+voyages to guide them, could get only three degrees nearer the pole
+than Henry Hudson did nearly three hundred years ago. That redoubtable
+seaman possessed neither the ships nor men of later voyagers nor the
+many appliances of his successors to mitigate the intense cold, yet
+his record in view of the facts of the case remains triumphant.
+
+It was at this time that my father died. He left me the bulk of his
+property under the following clause in his will:
+
+"I hereby bequeath to my dear son, Lexington White, the real estate,
+stocks, bonds, shares, title-deeds, mortgages, and other securities
+that I die possessed of, amounting at present market prices to over
+five million dollars. I desire that my said son use this property for
+some beneficent purpose, of use to his fellow-men, excepting what
+money may be necessary for his personal wants as a gentleman."
+
+I could scarcely believe my father was so wealthy as to be able to
+leave me so large a fortune, but his natural secretiveness kept him
+from mentioning the amount of his gains, even to his own family. No
+sooner did I realize the extent of my wealth than I resolved to devote
+it to fitting out a private expedition with no less an object than to
+discover the North Pole myself. Of course I knew the undertaking was
+extremely hazardous and doubtful of success. It could hardly be
+possible that any private individual, however wealthy and daring,
+could hope to succeed where all the resources of mighty nations had
+failed.
+
+Still, these same difficulties had a tremendous power of attracting
+fresh exploits on that fatal field. Who could say that even I alone
+might not stumble upon success? In a word, I had made up my mind to
+set forth in a vessel strong and swift and manned by sailors
+experienced in Arctic voyages, under my direct command. The expedition
+would be kept a profound secret; I would leave New York ostensibly for
+Australia, then, doubling Cape Horn, would make direct for Behring
+Sea. If I failed, none would be the wiser; if I succeeded, what fame
+would be mine!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+BEGINNING THE VOYAGE.
+
+
+I determined to build a vessel of such strength and equipment as could
+not fail, with ordinary good fortune, to carry us through the greatest
+dangers in Arctic navigation. Short of being absolutely frozen in the
+ice, I hoped to reach the pole itself, if there should be sufficient
+water to float us. The vessel, which I named the _Polar King_,
+although small in size was very strong and compact. Her length was 150
+feet and her width amidships 50 feet. Her frames and planking were
+made of well-seasoned oak. The outer planking was sheathed in steel
+plates from four to six inches in thickness. This would protect us
+from the edges of the ancient ice that might otherwise cut into the
+planking and so destroy the vessel.
+
+The ship was armed as follows: A colossal terrorite gun that stood in
+the centre of the deck, whose 250-pound shell of explosive terrorite
+was fired by a charge of gunpowder without exploding the terrorite
+while leaving the gun. This was to destroy icebergs and heavy
+pack-ice. A battery of twelve 100-pounder terrorite guns, with shells
+also fired with powder. All shells would explode by percussion in
+striking the object aimed at. A battery of six guns of the Gatling
+type, to repel boarding parties in case we reached a hostile country.
+There was also an armory of magazine rifles, revolvers, cutlasses,
+etc., as well as 50 tons of gunpowder, terrorite, and revolver-rifle
+cartridges.
+
+The ship was driven by steam, the triple-expansion engine being
+500-horse power and the rate of speed twenty-five miles an hour. By an
+important improvement on the steam engine, invented by myself, one ton
+of coal did the work of 50 tons without such improvement. The bunkers
+held 250 tons of coal, which was thus equal to 12,500 tons in any
+other vessel. There was also an auxiliary engine for working the
+pumps, electric dynamo, cargo, anchors, etc. One of the most useful
+fittings was the apparatus that both heated the ship and condensed the
+sea water for consumption on board ship, and for feeding the boilers.
+
+The ship's company was as follows:
+
+OFFICERS.
+
+Lexington White, Commander of the Expedition.
+Captain, William Wallace.
+First Officer Renwick, Navigating Lieutenant.
+Second Officer Austin, Captain of the terrorite gun.
+Third Officer Haddock, Captain of the main deck battery.
+
+SCIENTIFIC STAFF.
+
+Professor Rackiron, Electrician and Inventor.
+Professor Starbottle, Astronomer.
+Professor Goldrock, Naturalist.
+Doctor Merryferry, Ship's Physician.
+
+PETTY OFFICERS.
+
+Master-at-Arms Flathootly.
+First Engineer Douglass.
+Second Engineer Anthoney.
+Pilot Rowe.
+Carpenter Martin.
+Painter Hereward.
+Boatswain Dunbar.
+
+Ninety-five able-bodied seamen, including mechanics, gunners,
+cooks, tailors, stokers, etc.
+
+Total of ship's company, 110 souls.
+
+Believing in the absolute certainty of discovering the pole and our
+consequent fame, I had included in the ship's stores a special
+triumphal outfit for both officers and sailors. This consisted of a
+Viking helmet of polished brass surmounted by the figure of a
+silver-plated polar bear, to be worn by both officers and sailors. For
+the officers a uniform of navy-blue cloth was provided, consisting of
+frock coat embroidered with a profusion of gold striping on shoulders
+and sleeves, and gold-striped pantaloons. For each sailor there was
+provided a uniform consisting of outer navy-blue cloth jacket, with
+inner blue serge jacket, having the figure of a globe embroidered in
+gold on the breast of the latter, surmounted by the figure of a polar
+bear in silver. Each officer and sailor was armed with a cutlass
+having the figure of a polar bear in silver-plated brass surmounting
+the hilt. This was the gala dress, but for every-day use the entire
+company was supplied with the usual Arctic outfit to withstand the
+terrible climate of high latitudes.
+
+Foreseeing the necessity of pure air and freedom from damp
+surroundings, I had the men's berths built on the spar deck, contrary
+to the usual custom. The spar deck was entirely covered by a hurricane
+deck, thus giving complete protection from cold and the stormy weather
+we would be sure to encounter on the voyage.
+
+Our only cargo consisted of provisions, ship's stores, ammunition,
+coal, and a large stock of chemical batteries and a dynamo for
+furnishing electricity to light the ship. We also shipped largely of
+materials to manufacture shells for the terrorite guns.
+
+The list of stores included an ample supply of tea, coffee, canned
+milk, butter, pickles, canned meats, flour, beans, peas, pork,
+molasses, corn, onions, potatoes, cheese, prunes, pemmican, rice,
+canned fowl, fish, pears, peaches, sugar, carrots, etc.
+
+The refrigerator contained a large quantity of fresh beef, mutton,
+veal, etc. We brought no luxuries except a few barrels of rum for
+special occasion or accidents. Exposure and hard work will make the
+plainest food seem a banquet.
+
+Thus fully equipped, the _Polar King_ quietly left the Atlantic Basin
+in Brooklyn, N. Y., ostensibly on a voyage to Australia. The
+newspapers contained brief notices to the effect that Lexington White,
+a gentleman of fortune, had left New York for a voyage to Australia
+and the Southern Ocean, via Cape Horn, and would be gone for two
+years.
+
+We left on New Year's Day, and had our first experience of a polar
+pack in New York Bay, which was thickly covered with crowded ice.
+Gaining the open water, we soon left the ice behind, and, after a
+month's steady steaming, entered the Straits of Magellan, having
+touched at Monte Video for supplies and water.
+
+Leaving the Straits we entered the Pacific Ocean, steering north.
+Touching at Valparaiso, we sailed on without a break until we arrived
+at Sitka, Alaska, on the 1st of March.
+
+Receiving our final stores at Sitka, the vessel at once put to sea
+again, and in a week reached Behring Strait and entered the Arctic
+Ocean. I ordered the entire company to put on their Arctic clothing,
+consisting of double suits of underclothing, three pairs of socks,
+ordinary wool suits, over which were heavy furs, fur helmets,
+moccasins and Labrador boots.
+
+All through the Straits we had encountered ice, and after we had
+sailed two days in the Arctic Sea, a hurricane from the northwest
+smote us, driving us eastward over the 165th parallel, north of
+Alaska. We were surrounded with whirlwinds of snow frozen as hard as
+hail. We experienced the benefit of having our decks covered with a
+steel shell. There was plenty of room for the men to exercise on deck
+shielded from the pitiless storm that drove the snow like a storm of
+gravel before it. Exposure to such a blizzard meant frost-bite,
+perhaps death. The outside temperature was 40 below zero, the inside
+temperature 40 above zero, cold enough to make the men digest an
+Arctic diet.
+
+We kept the prow of the ship to the storm, and every wave that washed
+over us made thicker our cuirass of ice. It was gratifying to note the
+contrast between our comfortable quarters and the howling desolation
+around us.
+
+While waiting for the storm to subside we had leisure to speculate on
+the chances of success in discovering the pole.
+
+Captain Wallace had caused to be put up in each of our four cabins the
+following tables of Arctic progress made since Hudson's voyage in
+1607:
+
+RECORD OF HIGHEST LATITUDES REACHED.
+
+Hudson         80' 23" in 1607
+Phipps         80' 48" in 1773
+Scoresby       81' 12" in 1806
+Payer          82' 07" in 1872
+Meyer          82' 09" in 1871
+Parry          82' 45" in 1827
+Aldrich        83' 07" in 1876
+Markham        83' 20" in 1876
+Lockwood       83' 24" in 1883
+
+"Does it not seem strange," said I, "that nearly three hundred years
+of naval progress and inventive skill can produce no better record in
+polar discovery than this? With all our skill and experience we have
+only distanced the heroic Hudson three degrees; that is one degree for
+every hundred years. At this rate of progress the pole may be
+discovered in the year 2600."
+
+"It is a record of naval imbecility," said the captain; "there is no
+reason why our expedition cannot at least touch the 85th degree. That
+would be doing the work of two hundred years in as many days."
+
+"Why not do the work of the next 700 years while we are at it?" said
+Professor Rackiron. "Let us take the ship as far as we can go and then
+bundle our dogs and a few of the best men into the balloon and finish
+a job that the biggest governments on earth are unable to do."
+
+"That's precisely what we've come here for," said I, "but we must have
+prudence as well as boldness, so as not to throw away our lives
+unnecessarily. In any case we will beat the record ere we return."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+OUR ADVENTURES IN THE POLAR SEA.
+
+
+The storm lasted four days. On its subsidence we discovered ourselves
+completely surrounded with ice. We were beset by a veritable polar
+pack, brought down by the violence of the gale. The ice was covered
+deeply with snow, which made a dazzling scene when lit by the
+brilliant sun. We seemed transported to a new world. Far as the eye
+could see huge masses of ice interposed with floe bergs of vast
+dimensions. The captain allowed the sailors to exercise themselves on
+the solidly frozen snow. It was impossible to get any fresh meat, as
+the pack, being of a temporary nature, had not yet become the home of
+bear, walrus, or seal.
+
+We saw a water sky in the north, showing that there was open water in
+that direction, but meantime we could do nothing but drift in the
+embrace of the ice in an easterly direction. In about a week the pack
+began to open and water lanes to appear. A more or less open channel
+appearing in a northeasterly direction, we got the ship warped around,
+and, getting up steam, drew slowly out of the pack.
+
+Birds began to appear and flocks of ducks and geese flew across our
+track, taking a westerly course. We were now in the latitude of
+Wrangel Island, but in west longitude 165. We had the good fortune to
+see a large bear floating on an isolated floe toward which we steered.
+I drew blood at the first shot, but Flathootly's rifle killed him. The
+sailors had fresh meat that day for dinner.
+
+The day following we brought down some geese and elder ducks that
+sailed too near the ship. We followed the main leads in preference to
+forcing a passage due north, and when in lat. 78' long. 150' the watch
+cried out "Land ahead!" On the eastern horizon rose several peaks of
+mountains, and on approaching nearer we discovered a large island
+extending some thirty miles north and south. The ice-foot surrounding
+the land was several miles in width, and bringing the ship alongside,
+three-fourths of the sailors, accompanied by the entire dogs and
+sledges, started for the land on a hunting expedition.
+
+It was a fortunate thing that we discovered the island, for, with our
+slow progress and monotonous confinement, the men were getting tired
+of their captivity and anxious for active exertion.
+
+The sailors did not return until long after midnight, encouraged to
+stay out by the fact that it was the first night the sun remained
+entirely above the horizon.
+
+It was the 10th of April, or rather the morning of the 11th, when the
+sailors returned with three of the five sledges laden with the spoils
+of the chase. They had bagged a musk ox, a bear, an Arctic wolf, and
+six hares--a good day's work. Grog was served all around in honor of
+the midnight sun and the capture of fresh meat. We dressed the ox and
+bear, giving the offal as well as the wolf to the dogs, and revelled
+for the next few days in the luxury of fresh meat.
+
+The island not being marked on our charts, we took credit to ourselves
+as its discoverers, and took possession of the same in the name of the
+United States.
+
+The captain proposed to the sailors to call it Lexington Island in
+honor of their commander, and the men replied to his proposition with
+such a rousing cheer that I felt obliged to accept the distinction.
+
+Flathootly reported that there was a drove of musk oxen on the island,
+and before finally leaving it we organized a grand hunting expedition
+for the benefit of all concerned.
+
+Leaving but five men, including the first officer and engineer, on
+board to take care of the ship, I took charge of the hunt. After a
+rough-and-tumble scramble over the chaotic ice-foot, we reached the
+mainland in good shape, save that a dog broke its leg in the ice and
+had to be shot. Its companions very feelingly gave it a decent burial
+in their stomachs.
+
+Mounting an ice-covered hillock, we saw, two miles to the southeast in
+a valley where grass and moss were visible, half a dozen musk oxen,
+doubtless the entire herd. We adopted the plan of surrounding the
+herd, drawing as near the animals as possible without alarming them.
+Sniffing danger in the southeasterly wind, the herd broke away to the
+northwest. The sailors jumped up and yelled, making the animals swerve
+to the north. A semi-circle of rifles was discharged at the unhappy
+brutes. Two fell dead in their tracks and the remaining four, badly
+wounded, wheeled and made off in the opposite direction. The other
+wing of the sailors now had their innings as we fell flat and heard
+bullets fly over us. Three more animals fell, mortally wounded. A bull
+calf, the only remnant of the herd on its legs, looked in wonder at
+the sailor who despatched it with his revolver. The dogs held high
+carnival for an hour or more on the slaughtered oxen. We packed the
+sledges with a carcass on each, and in due time regained the ship,
+pleased with our day's work.
+
+[Illustration: A SEMICIRCLE OF RIFLES WAS DISCHARGED AT THE UNHAPPY
+BRUTES, AND TWO FELL DEAD IN THEIR TRACKS.]
+
+Leaving Lexington Island we steered almost due north through a vast
+open pack. On the 1st of May we arrived in lat. 78' 30" west long.
+155' 50", our course having been determined by the lead of the lanes
+in the enormous drifts of ice. Here another storm overtook us,
+travelling due east. We were once more beset, and drifted
+helplessly for three days before the storm subsided. We found
+ourselves in long. 150' again, in danger of being nipped. The wind,
+suddenly drifting to the east, reopened the pack for us to our intense
+relief.
+
+Taking advantage of some fine leads and favorable winds, we passed
+through leagues of ice, piled-up floes and floebergs, forming scenes
+of Arctic desolation beyond imagination to conceive. At last we
+arrived at a place beyond which it was impossible to proceed. We had
+struck against the gigantic barrier of what appeared to be an immense
+continent of ice, for a range of ice-clad hills lay only a few miles
+north of the _Polar King_. At last the sceptre of the Ice King waved
+over us with the command, "Thus far and no further."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+WE ENTER THE POLAR GULF.
+
+
+How the _Polar King_ penetrated what appeared an insurmountable
+obstacle, and the joyful proof that the hills did not belong to a
+polar continent, but were a continuous congregation of icebergs,
+frozen in one solid mass, are already known to the reader.
+
+The gallant ship continued to make rapid progress toward the open
+water lying ahead of us. Mid-day found us in 84' 10" north latitude
+and 150' west longitude. The sun remained in the sky as usual to add
+his splendor to our day of deliverance and exultation.
+
+We felt what it was to be wholly cut off from the outer world. The
+chances were that the passage in the ice would be frozen up solid
+again soon after we had passed through it. Even with our dogs and
+sledges the chances were against our retreat southward.
+
+The throbbing of the engine was the only sound that broke the
+stillness of the silent sea. The laugh of the sailors sounded hollow
+and strange, and seemed a reminder that with all our freedom we were
+prisoners of the ice, sailing where no ship had ever sailed nor human
+eye gazed on such a sea of terror and beauty.
+
+Happily we were not the only beings that peopled the solitudes of the
+pole. Flocks of gulls, geese, ptarmigan, and other Arctic fowls
+wheeled round us. They seemed almost human in their movements, and
+were the links that bound us to the beating hearts far enough off then
+to be regretted by us.
+
+Every man on board the vessel was absorbed in thought concerning our
+strange position. The beyond? That was the momentous question that lay
+like a load on every soul.
+
+While thinking of these things, Professor Starbottle inquired, if with
+such open water as we sailed in, how soon I expected to reach the
+pole.
+
+"Well," said I, "we ought to be at the 85th parallel by this time.
+Five more degrees, or 300 miles, will reach it. The _Polar King_ will
+cover that distance easily in twenty hours. It is now 6 P.M.; at 2
+P.M. to-morrow, the 12th of May, we will reach the pole."
+
+Professor Starbottle shook his head deprecatingly. "I am afraid,
+commander," said he, "we will never reach the pole."
+
+His look, his voice, his manner, filled me with the idea that
+something dreadful was going to happen. My lips grew dry with a sudden
+excitement, as I hastily inquired why he felt so sure we would never
+reach the object of our search.
+
+"What time is it, commander?" said he.
+
+I pulled forth my chronometer; it was just six o'clock.
+
+"Well, then," said he, "look at the sun. The sun has swung round to
+the west, but hasn't fallen any."
+
+I looked at the sun, which, sure enough, stood as high as at mid-day.
+I was paralyzed with a nameless dread. I stood rooted to the deck in
+anticipation of some dreadful horror.
+
+"Good heavens!" I gasped, "what--what do you mean?"
+
+"I mean," said he, "the sun is not going to fall again on this course.
+It's we who are going to fall."
+
+"The sun will fall to its usual position at midnight," I stammered;
+"wait--wait till midnight."
+
+"The sun won't fall at midnight," said the professor. "I am afraid to
+tell you why," he added.
+
+"In God's name," I shouted, "tell me the meaning of this!"
+
+I will never forget the feeling that crazed me as the professor said:
+"I fear, commander, we are falling into the interior of the earth!"
+
+"You are mad, sir!" I shouted. "It cannot be--we are sailing to the
+North Pole."
+
+"Wait till midnight, commander," said he, shaking my hand.
+
+I took his hand and echoed his words--"Wait till midnight." After a
+pause I inquired if he had mentioned his extraordinary fears to any
+one else.
+
+"Not a soul," he replied.
+
+"Then," said I, "say nothing to anybody until midnight."
+
+"Ay, ay, sir," said he, and disappeared.
+
+The sailors evidently expected that something was going to happen on
+account of the sun standing still in the heavens. They were gathered
+in groups on deck discussing the situation with bated breath. I
+noticed them looking at me with wild eyes, like sheep cornered for
+execution. The officers avoided calling my attention to the unusual
+sight, possibly divining I was already fully excited by it.
+
+Never was midnight looked for so eagerly by any mortal on earth as I
+awaited the dreadful hour that would either confirm or dispel my
+fears.
+
+Midnight came and the sun had not fallen in the sky! There he stood as
+high as at noonday, at least five degrees higher than his position
+twenty-four hours before.
+
+Professor Starbottle, approaching me, said: "Commander, my
+prognostication was correct; you see the sun's elevation is unchanged
+since mid-day. Now one of two things has happened--either the axis of
+the earth has approached five degrees nearer the plane of its orbit
+since mid-day or we are sailing down into a subterranean gulf! That
+the former is impossible, mid-day to-day will disprove. If my theory
+of a subterranean sea is correct, the sun will fall below the horizon
+at mid-day, and our only light will be the earth-light of the opposite
+mouth of the gulf into which we are rapidly sinking."
+
+"Professor," said I, "tell the officers and the scientific staff to
+meet me at once in the cabin. This is a tremendous crisis!"
+
+Ere I could leave the deck the captain, officers, doctor, naturalist,
+Professor Rackiron, and many of the crew surrounded me, all in a state
+of the greatest consternation.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+DAY BECOMES NIGHT AND NIGHT DAY.
+
+
+"Commander," said Captain Wallace, "I beg to report that the pole star
+has suddenly fallen five degrees south from its position overhead, and
+the sun has risen to his mid-day position in the sky! I fear we are
+sailing into a vast polar depression something greater than the
+description given in our geographies, that the earth is flattened at
+the poles."
+
+"Do you really think, captain," I inquired, "that we are sailing into
+a hollow place around the pole?"
+
+"Why, I am sure of it," said he. "Nothing else can explain the sudden
+movement of the heavenly bodies. Remember, we have only passed the
+85th parallel but a few miles and ought to have the pole star right
+overhead."
+
+"Professor Starbottle has a theory," I said, "that may account for the
+strange phenomena we witness. Let these gentlemen hear your theory,
+professor."
+
+The professor stated very deliberately what he had already
+communicated to me, viz.: that we were really descending to the
+interior of the earth, that the bows of the ship were gradually
+pointing to its centre, and that if the voyage were continued we would
+find ourselves swallowed up in a vast polar gulf leading to God knows
+what infernal regions.
+
+The terror inspired by the professor's words was plainly visible on
+every face.
+
+"Let us turn back!" shouted some of the sailors.
+
+"My opinion," said the captain, "is that we have entered a polar
+depression; it is impossible to think that the earth is a hollow shell
+into which we may sail so easily as this."
+
+"If I might venture a remark," said Pilot Rowe, "I think Professor
+Starbottle is right. If the earth is a hollow shell having a
+subterranean ocean, we can sail thereon bottom upward and masts
+downward, just as easily as we sail on the surface of the ocean here."
+
+"I believe an interior ocean an impossibility," said the captain.
+
+"You're right, sorr," said the master-at-arms, "for what would keep
+the ship sticking to the wather upside down?"
+
+[Illustration: THE TERROR INSPIRED BY THE PROFESSOR'S WORDS WAS
+PLAINLY VISIBLE ON EVERY FACE.]
+
+"I don't say that the earth is absolutely a hollow sphere," said the
+professor, "but I do say this, we are now sailing into a polar abyss,
+and if the sun disappears at noon to-day it will be because we have
+sailed far enough into the gulf to put the ocean over which we have
+sailed between us and that luminary. If the sun disappears at noon,
+depend upon it we will never reach the pole, which will forever remain
+only the ideal axis of the earth."
+
+"Do you mean to say," I inquired, "that what men have called the pole
+is only the mouth of an enormous cavern, perhaps the vestibule of a
+subterranean world?"
+
+"That is precisely the theory I advance to account for this strange
+ending of our voyage," said the professor.
+
+The murmurs of excitement among the men again broke out into wild
+cries of "Turn back the ship!"
+
+I encouraged the men to calm themselves. "As long as the ship is in no
+immediate danger," said I, "we can wait till noonday and see if the
+professor's opinion is supported by the behavior of the sun. If so, we
+will then hold a council of all hands and decide on what course to
+follow. Depart to your respective posts of duty until mid-day, when we
+will decide on such action as will be for the good of all."
+
+The men, terribly frightened, dispersed, leaving Captain Wallace,
+First Officer Renwick, Professors Starbottle, Goldrock, and Rackiron,
+the doctor and myself together.
+
+Dreadful as was the thought of quietly sinking into a polar gulf from
+which possibly there might be no escape, yet the bare possibility of
+returning to tell the world of our tremendous discovery created a
+desire to explore still further the abyss into which we had entered. I
+confess that my first feeling of terror was rapidly giving way to a
+passion for discovery. What fearful secrets might not be held in the
+darkness toward which we undoubtedly travelled! Would it be our
+fortune to pierce the darkness and silence of a polar cavern? When I
+thought of the natural terror of the sailors, I dared not think of our
+sailing further than mid-day, in case we had really entered an abyss.
+
+"Commander," said Professor Starbottle, "this is the most important
+day, or rather night, of the voyage. I propose we stay on deck and
+enjoy the sunlight as long as we can."
+
+One glance at the sun sufficed to tell us the truth; he was rapidly
+falling from the sky. At midnight he was 20 degrees and at 1 A.M.
+only 18 degrees above the waste of waters.
+
+This proved we were as rapidly taking leave of the glorious orb, on an
+expedition fraught with the greatest peril and unknown possibilities
+of science, conquest, and commerce.
+
+By a tacit consent we turned our attention to the scene around us. The
+water was very free from ice, only here and there icebergs floated.
+The diminished radiation of light produced a weird effect, growing
+more spectral as the sun sank in the heavens.
+
+Professor Goldrock pointed out a flock of geese actually flying ahead
+of us into the gulf, if gulf indeed it were. We considered this a good
+omen and took heart accordingly.
+
+The captain pointed out a strange apparition in the north, but which
+was really south of the pole, and discoverable with the glass. It
+appeared to be the limb of some rising planet between us and the sun
+that seemed faintly illuminated by moonlight. Professor Starbottle
+said it was the opposite edge of the polar gulf that was about to
+envelop us. It was illuminated by the earth-light reflected from the
+same ocean on which the _Polar King_ floated.
+
+The sun, as he swung round to the south, fell rapidly to the horizon,
+and at eight o'clock disappeared below the water. Was there ever a day
+in human experience as portentous as that? When did the sun set at 8
+A.M.in the Arctic summer, leaving the earth in darkness? We knew
+then that Professor Starbottle's theory of a polar gulf was a truth
+beyond question. It was a fearful fact!
+
+But the grandest spectacle we had yet seen now lay before us. The
+opposite rapidly rising limb of the polar gulf, 500 miles away, was
+brilliantly illuminated by the sun's rays far overhead, and its
+splendid earth-light, twenty times brighter than moonlight, falling
+upon us, compensated for the sudden obliteration of the daylight.
+
+It was mid-day, and our only light was the earth-light of the gulf.
+There stood over us the still rising circular rim of the ocean,
+sparkling like an enormous jewel. It was a bewildering experience. In
+the light of that distant ocean I assembled the men on deck and thus
+addressed them:
+
+"My men, when we started on the present expedition you stipulated for
+a voyage of discovery to the North Pole (if possible) and return to
+New York again. The first part of the voyage is happily accomplished.
+We alone of all the explorers who have essayed polar discovery have
+been rewarded with a sight of the pole. The mystery of the earth's
+axis is no longer a secret. Here before your eyes is the axis on which
+the earth performs its daily revolution. The North Pole is an immense
+gulf 500 miles in diameter and of unknown depth. Within this gulf lies
+our ship, at least a hundred miles below the level of the outer ocean!
+
+"The question we are now called upon to decide is this: Are we to
+remain satisfied with our present achievement, turn back the ship, and
+go home without attempting to discover whither leads this enormous
+gulf? As far as the officers of the ship and the scientific staff are
+concerned, as far as I myself am concerned, I am satisfied if we were
+once back in New York again, our first thought would be to return
+hither, and, taking up the thread of our journey, endeavor to explore
+the farthest recesses of the gulf."
+
+I was here interrupted by loud applause from the entire officers and
+many of the men.
+
+"This being so, why should we waste a journey to New York and back
+again for nothing? Why not, with our good ship well armed and
+provisioned, that has in safety carried us so far, why not, I say,
+proceed further, taking advantage of the only opportunity the ages of
+time have ever offered to man to explore earth's profoundest secrets?
+
+"Who knows what oceans, what continents, what nations, it may be of
+men like ourselves, may not exist in a subterranean world? Who knows
+what gold, what silver, what precious stones are there piled perhaps
+mountains high? Are we to tamely throw aside the possibility of such
+glory on account of base fears, and, returning home, allow others to
+snatch from our grasp the golden prize?
+
+"My men, I cannot think you will do this. Our future lies entirely in
+your hands. We cannot proceed further on our voyage without your
+assistance. I will not compel a single man to go further against his
+will. I call for volunteers for the interior world! I am willing to
+lead you on; who will follow me?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+WE DISCOVER THE INTERIOR WORLD.
+
+
+The officers and sailors responded to my speech with ringing cheers.
+Every man of them volunteered to stay by the ship and continue our
+voyage down the gulf. Whatever malcontents there may have been among
+the sailors, those, influenced by the prevailing enthusiasm, were
+afraid to exhibit any cowardice, and all were unanimous for further
+exploration.
+
+I signalled our resolution by a discharge of three guns, which created
+the most thrilling reverberations in the mysterious abyss.
+
+Starting the engine again, the prow of the _Polar King_ was pointed
+directly toward the darkness before us, toward the centre of the
+earth. We were determined to explore the hollow ocean to its further
+confines, if our provisions held out until such a work would be
+accomplished.
+
+We hoped at midnight to obtain our last look at the sun, as we would
+then be brought into the position of the opposite side of the watery
+crater down which we sailed. At eleven o'clock the sun rose above the
+limb of the gulf, which was now veiled in darkness. We were gladdened
+with two hours of sunlight, the sun promptly setting at 1 A.M. of the
+new day.
+
+We continued our voyage in the semi-darkness, the prow of the vessel
+still pointed to the centre of the earth, while the polar star shone
+in the outer heavens on the horizon directly over the rail of the
+vessel's stern.
+
+It did not appear to us that we were dropping straight down into the
+interior of the earth; on the contrary, we always seemed to float on a
+horizontal sea, and the earth seemed to turn up toward us and the
+polar cavern to gradually engulf us. The sight we beheld that day was
+inexpressibly magnificent. Five hundred miles above us rose the crest
+of the circular polar sea. Its upper hemisphere glowed with the light
+of the unseen sun. We were surrounded by fifteen hundred miles of
+perpendicular ocean, crowned with a diadem of icebergs!
+
+[Illustration: AT THIS MOMENT A WILD CRY AROSE FROM THE SAILORS. WITH
+ONE VOICE THEY SHOUTED, "THE SUN! THE SUN!"]
+
+Glorious as was the sight, the sailors were terribly apprehensive of
+nameless disasters in such monstrous surroundings. It was impossible
+for them to understand how the ocean roof could remain suspended
+above us like the vault of heaven. The idea of being able to sail down
+a tubular ocean, the antechamber of some infernal world, was
+incomprehensible. We were traversing sea-built corridors, whose
+oscillating floors and roof remained providentially apart to permit us
+to explore the mystery beyond.
+
+Mid-day on the 13th of May brought no sight of the sun, but only a
+deepening twilight, the dim reflection of the bright sky we had left
+behind. The further we sailed into the gulf the less its diameter
+grew. When we had penetrated the vast aperture some two hundred and
+fifty miles, we found the aërial diameter was reduced to about fifty
+miles, thus forming a conical abyss. We were clearly sailing down a
+gigantic vortex or gulf of water, and we began to feel a diminishing
+gravity the further we approached the central abyss.
+
+The cavernous sea was subject to enormous undulations, or tidal waves,
+either the result of storms in the interior of the earth or mighty
+adjustments of gravity between the interior and exterior oceans. As we
+were lifted up upon the crest of an immense tidal wave several of the
+sailors, as well as the lookout, declared they had seen a flash of
+light, in the direction of the centre of the earth!
+
+We were all terribly excited at the news, and as the ship was lifted
+on the crest of the next wave, we saw clearly an orb of flame that
+lighted up the circling undulations of water with the flush of dawn!
+We were now between two spectral lights--the faint twilight of the
+outer sun and the intermittent dawn of some strange source of light in
+the interior of the earth.
+
+The sailors crowded to the top of both masts and stood upon
+cross-trees and rigging, wildly anxious to discover the meaning of the
+strange light and whatever the view from the next crest of waters
+would reveal.
+
+"What do you think is the source of this strange illumination," I
+inquired of the captain, "unless it is the radiance of fires in the
+centre of the earth?"
+
+"It comes from some definite element of fire," said the professor,
+"the nature of which we will soon discover. It certainly does not
+belong to the sun, nor can I attribute it to an aurora dependent on
+solar agency."
+
+"Possibly," said Professor Rackiron, "we are on the threshold of if
+not the infernal regions at least a supplementary edition of the
+same. We may be yet presented at court--the court of Mephistopheles."
+
+"You speak idle words, professor," said I. "On the eve of confronting
+unknown and perhaps terrible consequences you walk blindfold into the
+desperate chances of our journey with a jest on your lips."
+
+"Pardon me, commander," said he, "I do not jest. Have not the ablest
+theologians concurred in the statement that hell lies in the centre of
+the earth, and that the lake of fire and brimstone there sends up its
+smoke of torment? For aught we know this lurid light is the reflection
+of the infernal fires."
+
+At this moment a wild cry arose from the sailors. With one voice they
+shouted:
+
+"The sun! The sun! The sun!"
+
+The _Polar King_ had gained at last the highest horizon or vortex of
+water, and there, before us, a splendid orb of light hung in the
+centre of the earth, the source of the rosy flame that welcomed us
+through the sublime portal of the pole!
+
+As soon as the astonishment consequent on discovering a sun in the
+interior of the earth had somewhat subsided, we further discovered
+that the earth was indeed a hollow sphere. It was now as far to the
+interior as to the exterior surface, thus showing the shell of the
+earth to be at the pole at least 500 miles in thickness. We were half
+way to the interior sphere.
+
+Professor Starbottle, who had been investigating the new world with
+his glass, cried out: "Commander, we are to be particularly
+congratulated; the whole interior planet is covered with continents
+and oceans just like the outer sphere!"
+
+"We have discovered an El Dorado," said the captain, with enthusiasm;
+"if we discover nothing else I will die happy."
+
+"The heaviest elements fall to the centre of all spheres," said
+Professor Goldrock. "I am certain we shall discover mountains of gold
+ere we return."
+
+"I think we ought to salute our glorious discovery," said Professor
+Rackiron. "You see the infernal world isn't nearly so bad a place as
+we thought it was."
+
+I ordered a salute of one hundred terrorite guns to be given in honor
+of our discovery, and the firing at once began. The echoed roaring of
+the guns was indescribably grand. The trumpet-shaped caverns of water,
+both before and behind us, multiplied the heavy reverberations until
+the air of the gulf was rent with their thunder. The last explosion
+was followed by long-drawn echoes of triumph that marked our
+introduction to the interior world.
+
+Strange to say that on the very threshold of success there are men who
+suddenly take fright at the new conditions that confront them. It
+appeared that Boatswain Dunbar and eleven sailors who had unwillingly
+sailed thus far refused to proceed further with the ship, being
+terrified at the discovery we had made. I could have obliged them to
+have remained with us, but their reason being possibly affected, I saw
+that their presence as malcontents might in time cause a mutiny, or at
+all events an ever-present, source of trouble. They were wildly
+anxious to leave the ship and return home; consequently I gave them
+liberty to depart. The largest boat was lowered, together with a mast
+and sails. I gave the command to Dunbar, and furnished the boat with
+ample stores and plenty of clothing. I also gave them one-half of the
+dogs and two sledges for crossing the ice. When the men were finally
+seated Dunbar cast off the rope and steered for the outer sea. We gave
+them a parting salute by firing a gun, and in a short time they were
+lost in the darkness of the gulf.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+EXTRAORDINARY LOSS OF WEIGHT.
+
+
+The first thought that occurred to us after the excitement of
+discovery had somewhat subsided was that the interior of the earth was
+in all probability a habitable planet, possessing as it did a
+life-giving luminary of its own, and our one object was to get into
+the planet as quickly as possible. A continual breeze from the
+interior ocean of air passed out of the gulf. Its temperature was much
+higher than that of the sea on which we sailed, and it was only now
+that we began to think of laying off our Arctic furs.
+
+A closer observation of the interior sun revealed the knowledge that
+it was a very luminous orb, producing a climate similar to that of the
+tropics or nearly so. As we entered the interior sphere the sun rose
+higher and higher above us, until at last he stood vertically above
+our heads at a height of about 3,500 miles. We saw at once what novel
+conditions of life might exist under an earth-surrounded sun, casting
+everywhere perpendicular shadow, and neither rising nor setting, but
+standing high in heaven, the lord of eternal day. We seemed to sail
+the bottom of a huge bowl or spherical gulf, surrounded by oceans,
+continents, islands, and seas.
+
+A peculiar circumstance, first noticed immediately after arriving at
+the centre of the gulf, was that each of us possessed a sense of
+physical buoyancy, hitherto unfelt.
+
+Flathootly told me he felt like jumping over the mast in his
+newly-found vigor of action, and the sailors began a series of antics
+quite foreign to their late stolid behavior. I felt myself possessed
+of a very elastic step and a similar desire to jump overboard and leap
+miles out to sea. I felt that I could easily jump a distance of
+several miles.
+
+Professor Starbottle explained this phenomenal activity by stating
+that on the outer surface of the earth a man who weighs one hundred
+and fifty pounds, would weigh practically nothing on the interior
+surface of an earth shell of any equal thickness throughout. But the
+fact that we did weigh something, and that the ship and ocean itself
+remained on the under surface of the world, proved that the shell of
+the earth, naturally made thicker at the equator by reason of
+centrifugal gravity than at the poles, has sufficient equatorial
+attraction to keep open the polar gulf. Besides this centrifugal
+gravity confers a certain degree of weight on all objects in the
+interior sphere.
+
+"I'll get a pair of scales," said Flathootly, "an' see how light I am
+in weight."
+
+"Don't mind scales," said the professor, "for the weights themselves
+have lost weight."
+
+"Well, I'm one hundred and seventy-five pounds to a feather," said
+Flathootly, "an' I'll soon see if the weights are right or not."
+
+"The weights are right enough," said the professor, "and yet they are
+wrong."
+
+"An' how can a thing be roight and wrang at the same time, I'd loike
+to know? We'll thry the weights anyway," said the Irishman.
+
+So saying, Flathootly got a little weighing machine on deck, and,
+standing thereon, a sailor piled on the weights on the opposite side.
+
+He shouted out: "There now, do you see that? I'm wan hundred and
+siventy-siven pounds, jist what I always was."
+
+"My dear sir," said the professor, "you don't seem to understand this
+matter; the weights have lost weight equally with yourself, hence they
+still appear to you as weighing one hundred and seventy-seven pounds."
+
+"Excuse me, sorr," said Flathootly. "If the weights have lost weight,
+the chap that stole it was cute enough to put it back again before I
+weighed meself. Don't you see wid yer two eyes I'm still as heavy as
+iver I was?"
+
+"You will require ocular demonstration that what I say is correct.
+Here, sir, let me weigh you with this instrument," said the professor.
+
+The instrument referred to was a huge spring-balance with which it was
+proposed to weigh Flathootly. One end of it was fastened to the mast,
+and to the hook hanging from the other end the master-at-arms secured
+himself. The hand on the dial plate moved a certain distance and
+stopped at seventeen pounds. The expression on the Irishman's face was
+something awful to behold.
+
+"Does this machine tell the thruth?" he inquired in a tearful voice.
+
+We assured him it was absolutely correct. He only weighed seventeen
+pounds.
+
+"Oh, howly Mother of Mercy!" yelled Flathootly. "Consumption has me by
+the back of the neck. I've lost a hundred and sixty pounds in three
+days. Oh, sir, for the love of heaven, take me back to me mother. I'm
+kilt entoirely."
+
+It was some time before Flathootly could understand that his lightness
+of weight was due to the lesser-sized world he was continually
+arriving upon, together with centrifugal gravity, and that we all
+suffered from his affliction of being each "less than half a man" as
+he termed it. The weighing of the weights wherewith he had weighed
+himself proved conclusively that the depreciation in gravity applied
+equally to everything around us.
+
+The extreme lightness of our bodies, and the fact that our muscles had
+been used to move about ten times our then weight, was the cause of
+our wonderful buoyancy.
+
+The sailors began leaping from the ship to a large rock that rose out
+of the water about half a mile off. Their agility was marvellous, and
+Flathootly covered himself with glory in leaping over the ship
+hundreds of feet in the air and alighting on the same spot on deck
+again.
+
+Their officers and scientific staff remained on deck as became their
+dignity, although tempted to try their agility like the sailors.
+
+Flathootly surprised us by leaping on a yardarm and exclaiming:
+"Gintlemen, I tell ye what it is, I'm no weight at all."
+
+"How do you make that out?" said the professor.
+
+"Well, Oi've been thinking," said he, "that, as you say, we're in the
+middle of the two wurrlds. Now it stands to sense that the wan wurrld,
+I mane the sun up there, is pullin' us up an' the t'other wurrld is
+pullin' us down, an' as both wurrlds is pulling aqually, why av corse
+we don't amount to no weight at all. How could I turn fifteen
+summersaults at wance if I was any weight? That shows yer weighing
+machine is all wrang again."
+
+"How can you stand on the deck if you are no weight?" inquired the
+professor.
+
+"Why, I'm only pressing me feet on the boards," said the Irishman;
+"look here!" So saying, he leaped from the yard and revolved in the
+air at least twenty times before alighting on the deck.
+
+"Now," said the professor, "I'll explain why you only weigh seventeen
+pounds as indicated by the spring-balance. We have sailed, down the
+gulf 500 miles, haven't we?"
+
+"Yis, sorr."
+
+"And here we are sailing upside down on the inside roof of the
+world----"
+
+"Sailin' upside down? Indeed, sorr, an' ye can't make me believe that,
+for shure I'm shtandin' on me feet like yourself, head uppermost."
+
+"Well, whether you believe it or not, we are sailing upside down, just
+as ships going to Australia sail upside down as compared with ships
+sailing the North Atlantic. But the point of gravity is this: Here we
+are surrounded on all sides by the shell of the earth, which attracts
+equally in all directions. Hence all objects in the interior world
+have no weight as regards whatever thickness of the earth's shell
+surrounds them. You see, weight is caused by an object having the
+world on one side of it. Thus both the world and the object attract
+each other according to the density and distance apart. What we call a
+pound weight is a mass of matter attracted by the earth on its surface
+with a force equal to the weight of sixteen ounces. A pound weight on
+the surface of the earth weighs sixteen ounces, and all the mighty
+volume of our planet, with all its mountains, continents and seas,
+weighs only sixteen ounces on the surface of a pound weight. The earth
+may still weigh many millions of tons as regards the sun, but as
+regards a pound weight it only weighs sixteen ounces."
+
+"That is an illustration of Flathootly's mental calibre," said Captain
+Wallace. "He only believes what his brain can accommodate in the way
+of knowledge."
+
+"God bless the captain," said Flathootly, "I'm shure his brain is as
+big as mine any day in the week."
+
+"Now," continued the astronomer, "it seems to me that the substances
+of the earth, rocks, metals, and water, have, under the influence of
+centrifugal gravity, massed themselves very thickly at the equator or
+point of greatest motion, and stretch toward the poles in a
+gradually-lessening mass until the polar gulfs are reached. Thus the
+earth's shell resembles a musk-melon with the inside cleaned out."
+
+"It makes me mouth wather to think of it," said Flathootly.
+
+"Now, listen," said the astronomer; "we are also under the influence
+of the earth's centrifugal motion, and wherever we are on the interior
+surface we swing round our circle of latitude in twenty-four hours,
+and thus men, ship, and ocean are held up against the interior vault
+like a boy being able to hold water in a vertical position at the
+bottom of the pail he swings round him at the end of a cord."
+
+"Don't you think, professor," I inquired, "we will become heavier as
+we approach the region of greatest motion under the equator?"
+
+"I don't think so," he replied, "for the ocean around the poles has
+naturally gravitated to the internal as well as to the external
+equator, to restore the equilibrium of gravity. The reason why a man
+does not weigh less on the external equator than at the poles,
+although flying around at the rate of a thousand miles an hour, is
+that the deeper ocean, that is, the extra twenty-six miles that the
+earth is thicker on the equator, counterbalances by its attraction
+the loss of weight due to the rapid centrifugal motion, and so
+preserves in all objects on the earth a uniform weight."
+
+"The whole thing," said Flathootly, "is as clear as mud. I'm glad to
+know, sorr, I haven't lost me entire constitution at all evints, an'
+if I can only carry home what weight I've got lift I'll make a fortune
+in a dime museum."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+AFLOAT ON THE INTERIOR OCEAN.
+
+
+As the _Polar King_ sped southward over the interior sea the wonders
+of the strange world we had discovered began to dawn upon us. The
+colossal vault rose more and more above us and the sun threw his mild
+and vertical rays directly upon ship and sea, producing a most
+delightful climate. The ocean had a temperature of 75 degrees Fahr.
+and the air 85 degrees. We were absolutely sailing upside down to an
+inhabitant of the outer sphere, yet we seemed to ourselves to be
+sailing naturally erect on the sea with the sun above us.
+
+Our first experience in the internal sphere was that of a sudden
+storm. The sun grew dark and appeared like a disc of sombre gold. The
+ocean was lashed by a furious hurricane into incredible mountains of
+water. Every crest of the waves seemed a mass of yellow flame. The
+internal heavens were rent open with gulfs of sulphur-colored fire,
+while the thunder reverberated with terrible concussions. The ship
+would spin upon the water as though every wave were a whirlpool. A
+golden-yellow phosphorescence covered the ocean. The water boiled in
+maddening eddies of lemon-colored seas, while from the hurricane decks
+streamed cataracts of saffron fire. The lightning, like streaks of
+molten gold, hurled its burning darts into the sea. Everything bore
+the glow of amber-colored fire. The sailors congratulated themselves
+on the shelter provided by the deck overhead. The motion of the ship
+exceeded all former experiences, for it leaped and plunged in a
+terrific manner. It was a question whether we would survive the storm
+or not, so violent was the shaking up both ship and men received.
+Fortunately, the loss of weight in everything, which was the cause of
+the rapid motion, permitted no more damage than would be caused by a
+lesser storm on heavier objects.
+
+The professor stated that he believed the tempest was occasioned by a
+polar tidal wave of air rushing into the interior sphere, to supply
+the exhaustion caused by outgoing warm currents, owing perhaps to a
+periodical overheating of the air by the internal sun. When a certain
+volume of the air was expelled, so that it could no longer resist
+external pressure, then the external air rushed down the polar gulf,
+creating by meeting warm outward-flowing currents cyclones such as we
+were then experiencing.
+
+By degrees the storm abated, the sea grew calm, the heavens above us
+became clearer, and the sun assumed the rose-color he first presented
+to our gaze, standing right in the zenith.
+
+The only damage done to the crew was a few broken limbs and some
+severe bruises. The ship had lost several spars, and one of her boats
+was blown out of its lashings on deck and was lost.
+
+It was a week since we had left the outer world, and what a change had
+occurred in that short space of time! The excitement had been so
+intense that not a man of us had slept during that period, and as for
+meals, we had forgotten about them altogether.
+
+A general order was given the cooks to prepare a banquet to duly
+inaugurate our discovery of the new world. Both officers and men,
+including myself, sat down at the same table, where we satisfied the
+cravings of a week's hunger.
+
+I expressed my heartfelt pleasure in the safety of the crew and ship
+so far in making so tremendous a discovery. I relied on the courage
+and loyalty of the crew for still further explorations in the strange
+and mysterious planet we had discovered. I declared that those who
+shared the dangers of the expedition would also share in whatever
+reward fortune might bestow upon us.
+
+It is needless to say such sentiments were enthusiastically applauded.
+
+I praised my able coadjutor, Captain Wallace, without whose skilful
+seamanship not a soul of us could ever have reached that secret world.
+"It was he," said I, "who has guided us without a chart through five
+hundred miles of polar cavern to the realms of Pluto, to Plutusia, the
+interior world. On him again we must depend for a safe exit when our
+explorations are ended."
+
+Flathootly attempted to make a speech, but, like the rest of the
+company, fell asleep, and in less than half an hour afterward not a
+soul remained awake, excepting Professor Starbottle and myself.
+
+We both struggled against sleep long enough to take a survey of the
+internal sphere. The _Polar King_ floated on the wide bosom of the sea
+underneath the perpendicular sun that lit all Plutusia with its beams.
+With our telescopes we discovered oceans, continents, mountain ranges,
+lakes, cities, railroads, ships, and buildings of all kinds spread
+like an immense map on the concave vault of the earth overhead. It was
+a sight that alone amply repaid us for the discovery of so sublime a
+sphere.
+
+We thought what a cry of joy would electrify both planets when through
+our instrumentality they first knew of each other's existence. We
+alone possessed the tremendous secret! Then, what possibilities of
+commerce! What keen and glorious revelations of art! What unfolding of
+the secrets of nature each world would find in the other! What
+inventions rival nations would discover in either world, and here for
+the outer world what possible mountains of gold, what quarries of
+jewels! What means of empire and joy and love! But such thoughts were
+too vast for wearied souls. We were stunned by such conceptions, and,
+yielding to nature, sank into a dreamless sleep.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+A VISIT FROM THE INHABITANTS OF PLUTUSIA.
+
+
+How long we slept it is impossible to say. We must have remained in
+slumber at least three days after the great excitement of our voyage
+so far. The direct cause of my awaking was a loud noise on deck, and
+on coming up to learn the cause, I saw Flathootly shaking his fist at
+two strange flying men who hovered over the ship.
+
+"Bad luck to ye," shouted Flathootly, "if iver I get a grip of ye
+again you won't sail away so swately after jabbin' me in the neck like
+that."
+
+"Flathootly!" I cried, "what's the meaning of this? Were those men on
+board ship? Had you hold of them?"
+
+"Begorra, sorr," he replied, holding his hand over a slight wound in
+his neck, "I was slaping as swately as a child when I felt something
+tickling me nose. I got up to see what was the matther wid me, and
+sure enough found thim two rascals prowlin' about the deck. Whin they
+saw me making a move they jumped back and roosted on the rail. I
+wanted to catch howlt of wan of thim as a curiosity and I goes up to
+the short fellow, an' says I, quite honey like: 'Good-marnin', sorr!
+Could you give me a match to loight me pipe?' an' before the fellow
+had time to know where he was I had howlt of him, wings an' all. Why,
+he was as weak as wather, and I was knocking his head on the deck to
+kape him quiet, whin the other fellow let fly and stuck his spear in
+me neck, and whin I was trying to catch the second fellow the first
+fellow got away. Be jabers, the next time I get the grip on either of
+thim his mutton's cooked."
+
+"I fear, Flathootly," said I, "you will never catch either of them
+again. Don't you see they have got wings and can fly wherever they
+like beyond reach?"
+
+The two men that flew around the ship were strange beings. Their
+complexions were bright yellow and their hair black. They were not
+above five and a half feet in height, but possessed athletic frames.
+Their wings were long polished blades of metal of a gleaming white,
+like gigantic oars, which were moved by some powerful force (possibly
+electricity) quite independent of the body. Their aërial blades
+flashed and whirled in the sunlight with blinding rapidity. Their
+attire consisted of what appeared to be leather tights covering the
+legs, of a pale yellow tint with crimson metallic embroidery. The
+dynamo and wings were fastened to a crimson jacket of unique shape
+that supported the body in flight. Their heads were protected by white
+metal helmets, and they wore tightly-fitting metal boots, reaching
+half way up to the knee, the metal being arranged in overlapping
+scales. Each flying man was armed with a spear and shields. The _tout
+ensemble_ was a picture of agility and grace.
+
+The sailors, now thoroughly awake, gave expression to loud
+exclamations of surprise at the sight of the two strange flying men
+wheeling around the ship overhead. Professor Starbottle thought that
+the strangers must belong to some wealthy and civilized country, for
+men in a savage state would be incapable of inventing such powers of
+flight and presenting so ornate an appearance.
+
+"They are soldiers," said Professor Rackiron; "see the spears and
+shields they wear."
+
+"They're bloody pirates!" said Flathootly. "It was the long fellow
+that stabbed me."
+
+"You're all right," said the doctor to Flathootly. "Thank your stars
+the spear wasn't poisoned, or you would be a dead man."
+
+"Be the powers, I'll have that fellow yet," said the master-at-arms.
+"I'm going to take a jump, and, be me sowl, wan of thim fellows 'll
+get left."
+
+The strangers were now flying quite close to the ship, and Flathootly
+unexpectedly gave a tremendous spring into the air. He would have
+caught one of the aërial men for certain, but they, having wings,
+foiled him by simply moving out of the line of the Irishman's flight.
+
+Flathootly dropped into the sea about a quarter of a mile away, and
+would probably have been drowned had it not been for the generosity of
+the strangers themselves. One of the flying men, hastening to the
+rescue, caught him by the hair of the head and lifted him out of the
+water. Flathootly caught the stranger by one of his legs and held on
+like grim death. The flying man brought his burden right over the ship
+and attempted to drop Flathootly on deck, who shouted, "I hev him,
+boys! I hev him! Catch howlt of us, some of you!" Immediately a dozen
+sailors leaped up, and, grasping the winged man and his burden,
+brought both successfully down to the deck.
+
+Seeing himself overpowered, the stranger submitted to his captivity
+with as good a grace as possible. We removed his shield and spear,
+and, merely tying a rope to his leg to secure our prize, gave him the
+freedom of the ship.
+
+He sulked for a long time, and maintained an animated conversation
+with his free companion in a language whose meaning none of us
+understood. He finally condescended to eat some of the food we set
+before him, and his companion came near enough to take a glass of
+wine from his captive brother and drink it with evident relish.
+
+[Illustration: ONE OF THE FLYING MEN CAUGHT FLATHOOTLY BY THE HAIR OF
+THE HEAD, AND LIFTED HIM OUT OF THE WATER.]
+
+Flathootly was so far friendly disposed to his assailant as to offer
+him a glass of ship's rum. The stranger to our surprise did not refuse
+it, but, putting the glass to his lips, quaffed its contents at a
+single draught. When he became more accustomed to his surroundings we
+ventured to examine his curious equipment.
+
+Upon examination we found that the wings of our captive were simply
+large aërial oars, about four and a half feet in length and three feet
+wide at the widest part, tapering down to a few inches wide at the
+dynamo that moved them. Such small extent of surface evidently
+required an enormous force to propel a man in rapid flight. We found
+the dynamo to consist of a central wheel made to revolve by the
+attraction of a vast occult force evolved from the contact of two
+metals, one being of a vermilion color and the other of a bright green
+tint, that constituted the cell of the apparatus. No acid was
+required, nor did the contact of the metal produce any wasting of
+their substance. A colossal current of mysterious magnetism made the
+wheel revolve, the current being guided in its work by an automatic
+insulation of one hemisphere of the wheel.
+
+I put one hand on the dynamo and made a gesture of inquiry with the
+other, whereupon our strange friend said, "Nojmesedi!" Was this the
+name of the new force we had discovered, or the name of the flying
+apparatus as a whole? Before we could settle the point our friend
+became communicative, and, smiting his breast, said:
+
+"Plothoy, wayleal ar Atvatabar!"
+
+With the right hand he pointed to a continent rising above us, its
+mighty features being clearly visible to the naked eye.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+WE LEARN ATVATABARESE.
+
+
+This exclamation was a very puzzling phrase to us.
+
+Professor Starbottle said: "It appears to me, gentlemen, before we can
+make any use of our prisoner we must first learn his language."
+
+Again the stranger smote his breast, exclaiming: "Plothoy, wayleal ar
+Atvatabar."
+
+"Well, of all the lingoes I iver heard," said Flathootly, "this is the
+worst case yet. It bates Irish, which is the toughest langwidge to
+larn undher the sun. What langwidge do you call that, sorr?"
+
+Professor Goldrock, besides being a naturalist, was an adept in
+language. He stated that our captive appeared to be either a soldier
+or courier or coast-guard of his country, which was evidently
+indicated by the last word, Atvatabar. "Let us take for granted," said
+he, "that 'Plothoy' is his name and 'Atvatabar' his country. We have
+left the two words 'wayleal ar.' Now the pronunciation and grouping of
+the letters leads me to think that the words resemble the English
+language more nearly than any other tongue. The word 'wayleal' has the
+same number of letters as 'soldier' and 'courier,' and I note that the
+fourth and last letters are identical in both 'courier' and 'wayleal.'
+On the supposition that both words are identical we might compare them
+thus:
+
+c is w
+o " a
+u " y
+r " l
+i " e
+e " i or a
+r " l
+
+The word 'wayleil' or 'wayleal' means to us leal or strong--by the
+way, a very good name for a soldier."
+
+At this moment our mysterious friend yelled out:
+
+"Plothoy, wayleal ar Atvatabar, em Bilbimtesirol!"
+
+"Kape quiet, me boy," said Flathootly, "and we'll soon find out all
+about you."
+
+"Rather let him talk away," said the professor, "and we'll find out
+who he is much quicker. You see he has given us two new words this
+time, the words 'em Bilbimtesirol.' Now an idea strikes me--let us
+transpose the biggest word thus:
+
+b is p
+i " e
+l " r
+b " p
+i " e
+m " n
+t " d
+e " i
+s " c
+i " u
+r " l
+o " a
+l " r
+
+Here we have the word 'perpendicular.' What does 'Bilbimtesirol' as
+'perpendicular' mean? It may mean that the interior planet is lit by a
+perpendicular sun, and that we are in a land of perpendicular light and
+shadow. See how the shadow, of every man surrounds his boots! Now,
+granting 'wayleal' means 'courier' and 'Bilbimtesirol' 'perpendicular,' we
+have a clue to the language of Atvatabar. It seems to me to be a
+miraculous transposition of the English language thus:
+
+a is o
+b " p
+c " s or k
+d " t
+e " i or a
+f " f or v
+g " j
+h " oh
+i " e
+j " g
+k " c
+l " r
+m " n
+n " m
+o " a
+p " b
+q " v
+r " l
+s " c or s
+t " d
+u " ij
+v " qu
+w " y c or s
+x " z
+y " u or i
+z " x
+
+According to this transposition our friend means, 'Plothoy courier of
+Atvatabar, in Bilbimtesirol.' Let us see if we can so understand him."
+So saying, the professor approached and said:
+
+"Ec wayl moni Plothoy?" (Is your name Plothoy?)
+
+"Wic cel, ni moni ec Plothoy" (Yes, sir, my name is Plothoy), promptly
+replied the stranger.
+
+"Good!" said the professor; "that's glorious! We understand each other
+now."
+
+I congratulated the professor on his brilliant discovery. It was
+magnificent! We could now converse with our prisoner on any subject we
+desired.
+
+We had the key in our hands that would unlock the wonders of Plutusia,
+or rather Bilbimtesirol, the interior world.
+
+Flathootly turned a dozen summersaults in the air to express his
+delight. The sailors spun upon the deck, and threw each other into the
+air like jugglers playing with balls, in pure excitement.
+
+"Ec Atvatabar dofi moni ar wail saimtle?" (Is Atvatabar the name of
+your country?) inquired the professor of Plothoy.
+
+"E on o wayleal ar Fec Nogicdi, Cemj Aldemegry Bhoolmakar ar
+Atvatabar" (I am a wayleal of his majesty King Aldemegry Bhoolmakar of
+Atvatabar), said Plothoy.
+
+Atvatabar, then, was a kingdom. We should go there certainly and see
+King Bhoolmakar and his people. But where was this mysterious country?
+
+"Yohili ec Atvatabar?" we asked of Plothoy.
+
+"Dohili!" he replied, pointing to a continent in the southwest. The
+southwest in the interior world, it should be stated, corresponds to
+the southeast on the outer earth. Atvatabar, then, lay underneath the
+Atlantic Ocean.
+
+"Yohod ec dohi moni ar dohi miolicd gliod sedi?" (What is the name of
+the nearest great city?) we asked.
+
+"Kioram," replied Plothoy. "Dohili ed ec fequi ohymtlit neric tyi
+caydoh docd." (There it is, five hundred miles due southeast.)
+
+We looked in the direction indicated with our glasses and plainly saw
+the white marble buildings of a large city not three degrees above the
+plane of our position. Further off, in the haze of distance, a mighty
+continent unrolled its landscapes, until it was merged in the
+brightness of the sunlight above us.
+
+All this time Plothoy's companion circumnavigated the ship on his
+swift wings. We inquired his name.
+
+"Lecholt," said Plothoy, "omt ohi orca ec o wayleal." (And he also is
+a wayleal.)
+
+"What is the name of the sun above us?" we inquired.
+
+"Swang," said Plothoy.
+
+Good! we would sail direct to Kioram, the principal port of Atvatabar.
+
+I assured Plothoy that as long as he was detained by us he would
+receive the greatest consideration at our hands. We would do him no
+injury, but, on the contrary, amply reward him for his services. He
+could understand that, being strangers in an unknown world, it was
+absolutely necessary for us to have a pilot, or guide, not merely to
+advise how to direct the ship, but to inform us regarding the laws,
+manners, and customs of the people we proposed visiting, that we might
+accommodate ourselves to such novel experiences as we were certain to
+undergo. We told him we had come to Bilbimtesirol as pioneers of the
+outer planet, as heralds of the intercourse that would undoubtedly
+take place between two worlds separated for ages until now. We assured
+Plothoy how indebted we were to him for the information he had already
+given, and his great importance to us in a voyage that would affect
+the interests of thousands of millions of men ought to reconcile him
+to his brief captivity. We could not afford to lose him, and therefore
+asked him to remain with us for the remainder of the voyage, and on
+reaching Kioram we would give him his liberty.
+
+These words, with the treatment he was receiving, completely
+reconciled Plothoy, who called Lecholt to come down on deck beside
+him. His companion obeyed, and presently the two strangers sat on the
+rail of the vessel engaged in earnest conversation.
+
+Presently Plothoy said that his companion Lecholt would go forward in
+advance of the ship to inform the king of our coming, that due
+preparations be made for our reception. This was an admirable
+suggestion, and accordingly we despatched Lecholt with a message of
+profound respect for King Aldemegry Bhoolmakar, saying that the
+commander of the _Polar King_ with his officers and retinue would do
+themselves the honor of visiting his majesty and people as soon as the
+_Polar King_ would reach Atvatabar.
+
+Poising himself for a moment on his wings, Lecholt saluted us with his
+sword and immediately swept away in the direction of Atvatabar.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+WE ARRIVE AT KIORAM.
+
+
+Between the time of departure of Lecholt and our arrival at Kioram we
+kept Plothoy as busy as possible answering our questions.
+
+We found that all the soldiers of the king were known as wayleals, and
+that all were equipped with magnetic wings. The wings were worked by a
+little dynamo supplied by magnicity. A single cell, six cubic inches
+in size, produced a current both enormously powerful and constant. I
+could recollect no cell in the outer world of the same size so
+powerful, hence here was an inventive discovery of the first
+importance. The cell was composed of two metals, terrelium, a
+vermilion metal found only in Atvatabar, and aquelium, a bright green
+metal elaborated from the waters of the internal ocean, which metals
+simply placed in contact, without the addition of an acid or alkaline
+salt, generated a powerful current. Both cell and dynamo were strapped
+to the back by a strong leathern jacket, which also supported the
+soldier in flight. The weight of a man being only fifteen pounds on
+the surface of the interior earth, and no weight at all fifty miles
+above it, prevented any fatigue being experienced from flight. It was
+the easiest of all methods of locomotion, and eminently suited to the
+inhabitants of such a world as Bilbimtesirol.
+
+Plothoy informed us that the government of Atvatabar was an elective
+monarchy. The king and nobles were elected for life and no title was
+hereditary. There was a legislative assembly founded on the popular
+will called the Borodemy. The king's palace and Borodemy were situated
+in Calnogor, the capital city of the realm, which lay five hundred
+miles inland and communicated with Kioram by a sacred railroad, as
+well as by aërial ship.
+
+The largest building in Calnogor was the Bormidophia, or pantheon,
+where the worship of the gods was held. The only living object of
+worship was the Lady Lyone, the Supreme Goddess of Atvatabar. There
+were different kinds of golden gods worshipped, or symbols that
+represented the inventive forces, art, and spiritual power.
+
+The king was head of the army and navy and the people were divided
+into several classes of nobles and common people. The Atvatabarese
+were very wealthy, gold being as common as iron in the outer world.
+They were a peaceful people, and Atvatabar being itself an immense
+island continent, lying far from any other land, there had been no
+wars with any external nation, nor even civil war, for over a hundred
+years.
+
+There were plenty of newspapers, and the most wonderful inventions had
+been in use for ages. Railroads, pneumatic tubes, telegraphs,
+telephones, phonographs, electric lights, rain makers, seaboots,
+marine railroads, flying machines, megaphones, velocipedes without
+wheels, aërophers, etc., were quite common, not to speak of such
+inventions as sowing, reaping, sewing, bootblacking and knitting
+machines. Of course printing, weaving, and such like machines had been
+in use since the dawn of history. Strange to say they had no steam
+engines, and terrorite and gunpowder were unknown. Their great source
+of power was magnicity, generated by the two powerful metals terrelium
+and aquelium, and compressed air their explosive force.
+
+As we approached this wonderful country we noticed a number of
+splendid ships coming to meet us. Plated with gold and fully rigged,
+they presented a beautiful appearance. They were each propelled by
+magnicity. Plothoy said they were the fleet of Atvatabar coming to
+welcome us. The royal navy was in command of Admiral Jolar, who had
+never yet seen active service, but was a worthy representative of the
+king.
+
+Our rapid steaming in the direction of the fleet, which as rapidly
+approached us, soon brought the _Polar King_ within range of their
+guns. Plothoy was set free, as we then knew all about Atvatabar
+necessary to know prior to seeing the admiral, who could give us more
+definite information.
+
+A roar of guns saluted us from at least one hundred vessels. There was
+no smoke, the guns being discharged by compressed air. Each vessel
+bore the flag of Atvatabar, a pink-colored disc surrounded by a circle
+of green on a violet field. The disc represented the sun above us, the
+green circle Atvatabar, and the violet field the surrounding sea. From
+the peak of the _Polar King_ the American flag floated, the first flag
+of the outer sphere that was ever unrolled in the air of the interior
+world.
+
+The ships approached us in double column and presented an appearance
+of the utmost grandeur. It was evident we were the discoverers of a
+powerful and opulent country, and not a barbarous land. Here were
+civilization and courtesy, and, not to be outdone in these qualities,
+I ordered a salute from our terrorite guns. The explosive shells
+discharged by gunpowder into the sea sent up columns of water and foam
+all around us to an astonishing height, and it took a considerable
+time for the sea to subside, the gravity of the water being only
+one-tenth that of the external ocean.
+
+The Atvatabarese must have been greatly astonished at the explosions,
+as Plothoy informed us that no such weapon as ours formed part of the
+armament of the Atvatabar navy.
+
+The fleet ceased firing, and presently a gayly-decorated magnic launch
+shot off from the flagship, bearing two officers in brilliant
+uniforms. Plothoy, as the boat approached us, said the officers were
+Admiral Jolar of the fleet and Koshnili, Grand Minister of the
+government. The boat came alongside the _Polar King_, and, lowering a
+gangway, the illustrious visitors came on board.
+
+Admiral Jolar was arrayed in an olive-green coat, decorated with
+overlapping scales of gold embroidery, and olive-green trousers with
+an outer stripe similarly decorated. The uniform of Koshnili, the
+Grand Minister, was of electric-blue cloth covered with serpentine
+bands of gold embroidery, radiating downward. A small but brilliant
+retinue accompanied each official. As the distinguished visitors
+stepped on deck, the entire fleet saluted us with a second roar of
+guns. Plothoy announced their names and dignities. Being able to greet
+their excellencies in their own language greatly astonished them.
+
+I learned from the admiral that the Grand Minister Koshnili was sent
+by his majesty, King Aldemegry Bhoolmakar, as a special envoy to bid
+us welcome in the name of the king and people of Atvatabar. The story
+told by Lecholt had been proclaimed by royal authority throughout the
+country, and the day of our arrival in Calnogor, the metropolis, was
+to be observed as a national holiday.
+
+A brilliant programme of entertainment had been devised, calculated to
+do us infinite honor. I conferred on Admiral Jolar the title of
+Honorary Commander of the _Polar King_, and on Koshnili that of
+Honorary Captain.
+
+The admiral said that both he and Koshnili would remain on our ship
+until we arrived in the city of Kioram.
+
+The admiral, by signalling from the _Polar King_, put his navy into a
+series of brilliant evolutions. A curious feature was the fact that
+each sailor possessed wings, was in fact a wayleal, like Plothoy. The
+sailors, wing-jackets or fletyemings, as they were called, of one
+vessel, would rise like a swarm of bees and settle on another vessel.
+The evolutions made in this way were both majestic and surprising.
+
+The entire fletyemings of each squadron on either side of us were
+drawn up in battle array in the space between the ships and fought
+each other in mock battle with spears, while the ships discharged
+their guns at each other.
+
+We reached the harbor of Kioram, in which the royal navy anchored in
+double column. The _Polar King_ sailed slowly down the imperial avenue
+of ships amid the thunder of guns and the cheers of fletyemings.
+
+The sun shone gloriously as we stepped from the deck of the ship upon
+the white marble city wharf. Everything was new, strange, and
+splendid. We were received by Governor Ladalmir, of Kioram, the
+commandant of the fort, and his staff, Captains Pra and Nototherboc.
+Beyond the notables a vast crowd of Atvatabarese cheered us
+vociferously, while the guns of the fort, on a commanding height,
+roared their welcome.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+MARCHING IN TRIUMPH.
+
+
+There was a blaze of excitement in the streets of Kioram when our
+procession appeared on the grand boulevard leading from the harbor to
+the fortress, some four miles in length. We presented a strange
+appearance not only to the people of the city, but to ourselves as
+well.
+
+Prior to our appearance before the people we were obliged to adjust
+ourselves to the motion of an immense walking machine, the product of
+the inventive skill of Atvatabar.
+
+Governor Ladalmir explained that the cavalry of Atvatabar were mounted
+on such locomotive machines, built on the plan of immense ostriches,
+called bockhockids. They were forty feet in height from toe to head,
+the saddle being thirty feet from the ground. The iron muscles of legs
+and body, moved by a powerful magnic motor inside the body of the
+monster, acted on bones of hollow steel. Each machine was operated by
+the dynamo in the body, which was adjusted to act or remain inert, as
+required, when riding the structure. A switch in front of the saddle
+set the bockhockid in motion or brought it to rest again. It was
+simply a gigantic velocipede without wheels. "We'll ride the bastes,"
+said Flathootly, with suppressed excitement.
+
+"Do you think you can accommodate yourselves to ride such a machine?"
+said the governor. "You will find it, after a little practice, an
+imposing method of travel."
+
+We were assembled in a spacious court that surrounded the private dock
+of the king. Into this dock the _Polar King_ had been brought for
+greater safety and also to facilitate popular inspection. I determined
+that both officers and sailors should equally take part in the honors
+of our reception, and I informed the governor that we would like to
+see first how the machines were worked.
+
+At a signal from the governor, Captains Pra and Nototherboc
+disappeared and presently returned to the court-yard mounted on two
+gigantic bockhockids, on which they curvetted and swept around in
+gallant style.
+
+We were both astonished and delighted at the performance. It was
+marvellous to see such agility and obedience to the wish of the rider
+on such ungainly monsters. The sailors were only too anxious to mount
+such helter-skelters as the machine ostriches of Atvatabar. The stride
+made by each bird was over forty feet, and nothing on earth could
+overtake such coursers in full flight.
+
+The governor, proud of his two-legged horses, as he called them, grew
+eloquent in their behalf.
+
+"Consider an army of men," said he, "mounted on such machines. How
+swift! How formidable! What a terrible combat when two such armies
+meet, armed with their magnic spears! What display of prodigious
+agility! What breathless swerving to and fro! What fearful fleetness
+of pursuer and pursued! Aided as we are by the almost total absence of
+gravity, our inventors have produced a means of locomotion for
+individual men second only to the flying motor. We possess, also,
+flying bockhockids who are our cavalry in aërial warfare."
+
+The enraptured sailors were only too anxious to mount the enormous
+birds and sally forth to electrify the city. Ninety-eight bockhockids
+were required to mount the entire company. This number was brought
+into the court-yard by a detachment of soldiers who nimbly unseated
+themselves and slid down the smooth legs of the birds to the ground.
+
+"I say, yer honor," said Flathootly to the governor, "have you any
+insurance companies in this counthry?"
+
+"Why, certainly," replied the governor.
+
+"Then I want to inshure my loife if I have to mount a baste loike
+that."
+
+"Oh, I'll see that you are amply compensated for any injuries you may
+sustain by falling off the machine," said the governor.
+
+"Sorr, is yer word as good as yer bond?" inquired Flathootly.
+
+"Certainly," replied the governor.
+
+"Well thin, sorr, gimme yer bond," said Flathootly.
+
+The governor duly put his signature to a statement that Flathootly
+should be compensated for any injuries received in consequence of his
+riding the bockhockid. Flathootly carefully deposited the document in
+a little satchel he carried in his breast, and thereupon, sailor
+fashion, climbed up the leg of the machine and seated himself on the
+gold-embroidered saddle-cloth.
+
+In like manner the sailors got seated on their machines, the entire
+company forming an imposing phalanx. I found it quite easy to balance
+myself on the two-legged monsters in consequence of the large base
+given each leg by the outspreading toes.
+
+While the sailors were getting seated a military band, composed of
+fifty musicians, each mounted on a bockhockid, played the March of
+Atvatabar in soul-stirring strains.
+
+The word of command being given, the great doors of the court-yard
+were flung open and forth issued the musicians with banners flying.
+Then followed the seamen of the _Polar King_, led by the governor,
+Koshnili and myself.
+
+The excited populace cheered a hearty welcome. A brigade of five
+thousand bockhockids fell into line as an escort of honor. The
+ever-shining sun lent a brilliant effect to the pageant. Our
+complexions were lighter than those of the Atvatabarese, who were
+universally of a golden-yellow tint, and it was surprising to see how
+fair the people appeared, considering that they lived in a land where
+the sun never sets. None had a complexion darker than a rich
+chocolate-brown color. This was accounted for by the fact that the
+light of Swang was not half as intense as that of the outer sun in the
+tropics. The diminutive size of the luminary counterbalanced its
+proximity to the surrounding planet. The light that fell upon
+Atvatabar was warm, genial, glowing, and rosy, imparting to life a
+delightful sensation. As the procession advanced we saw splendid
+emporiums of trade chiselled of white marble, crowded roof and window
+with dense masses of people. On either side of the fine boulevard
+leading to the palace the people were jammed into an immovable mass
+and were wild with enthusiasm. The roadway was lined with trees that
+seemed like magnolias, oranges, and oleanders.
+
+"Now this is something loike a recipshon," said Flathootly. "I'm well
+plazed wid it."
+
+"I am delighted to know that your honor thinks so highly of our
+efforts to please you," said the governor.
+
+Flathootly turned round and shouted to the sailors, "Remimber, me
+bhoys, we will hev a grand feast at the ind of the performance." As he
+spoke, he unfortunately touched the switch starting the bockhockid
+into a gallop, and in a moment the machine dashed furiously forward,
+running into the musicians, knocking down some of the other
+bockhockids, scattering others in all directions, and then flying
+ahead amid the roars of the people. Flathootly was thrown off his
+seat, but in falling to the ground managed to get hold of the
+bockhockid's leg at the knee-joint, to which he clung with the energy
+of despair. A squad of police, who also rode bockhockids, dashed after
+the flying Flathootly, and one of them got hold of the switch on the
+back of the machine and so brought it to a standstill.
+
+Flathootly was terrified, but uninjured. His first concern was to see
+if his "insurance" was safe. He found the document still in his
+breast, and this being so, was induced to remount his steed. "I hope
+your honor has met with no accident?" said the governor, riding up.
+
+"As long as I've yer honor's handwritin' I'm all right," said
+Flathootly. "If I break me leg what odds, so long as I'm insured?"
+
+The scattered musicians were assembled in order again and the
+procession continued its way toward the palace. There were on all
+sides evidences of wealth, culture, and refinement. Every building was
+constructed of chiselled marble.
+
+The fortress and palace of Kioram stood in a large square, occupying
+the most commanding position in the city. From the fort could be seen
+the white shores and surrounding sea of Atvatabar. The harbor was
+surrounded with white stone piers lined with the commerce of the
+kingdom. The charm of the scene was largely lost on Flathootly and the
+sailors, who cared more for the material benefit of their reception
+than for its ideal beauty.
+
+[Illustration: ONE OF THE MOUNTED POLICE GOT HOLD OF THE SWITCH ON THE
+BACK OF THE BOCKHOCKID, AND BROUGHT IT TO A STANDSTILL.]
+
+The procession arrived at a pillared archway leading underneath the
+solid walls of the fortress. These walls were fully one hundred feet
+in height and fifty feet in thickness. The top of the walls consisted
+of a level circular roadway, whereon a guard of bockhockids constantly
+swept around with amazing swiftness.
+
+It was a sight grotesque in the extreme. The flying wayleals looked
+like a race between enormous ostriches with a wild confusion of legs
+on the lofty ramparts.
+
+"Flying divils let loose," was the subdued remark of Flathootly.
+
+There was a gay time in the banqueting hall of the palace. We were
+royally feasted, and for wine we drank squang, the choicest wine of
+Atvatabar.
+
+The governor informed us that our appearance in the interior world had
+been heralded all over the country, and strange speculations had been
+made as to what world or country we belonged to. "We know, of course,"
+said he, "that you do not belong to any race of men in our sphere, and
+this makes public curiosity all the greater concerning you. What
+country do you come from?" said he, addressing Flathootly.
+
+"Oi'm from the United States, the foinest counthry on the outside of
+the world; but I was born in Tipperary," said Flathootly.
+
+"Ah," said the governor, "I should be delighted to visit your
+country."
+
+"You might be gettin' frightened, sorr, at the dark ivery noight,"
+said Flathootly.
+
+"What is the night?" said the governor.
+
+"Och, and have ye lived to be a gray-haired man and don't know that
+it's dark at noight whin the sun jumps round to the other soide of the
+wurrld?"
+
+"But it's never dark here," said the governor.
+
+"Thrue for you, but it ought to be. How can a Christian slape wid the
+sun shinin' all the toime?" rejoined the Irishman.
+
+"Oh, you can sleep here in the sunshine," said the governor, "as well
+as inside the house."
+
+"Does it iver rain here?" said Flathootly.
+
+"But little," replied the governor; "not more than six inches of rain
+falls in a year."
+
+"Bedad, you ought to be in Oireland to see it rain. There you'd git
+soaked to your heart's content. An' tell me how do you grow your
+cabbages without rain?" he continued.
+
+"Well," said the governor, "rain is produced by firing into the air
+balls of solid gas so intensely cold that in turning to the gaseous
+form they condense in rain the invisible vapor in the air."
+
+"Bedad, that's what they do in our country," said Flathootly, "only
+they explode shells of dynamite in the air. Can you tell me," he
+added, "have you got tides in the say here?"
+
+"We have never been able to discover what force it is that lifts the
+sea so regularly," said the governor. "We call it the breathing of the
+ocean."
+
+"Shure any schoolboy knows it's the moon that does it," replied
+Flathootly.
+
+"The moon?" queried the governor.
+
+"Why, of coorse it's the moon on the other side of the wurrld that
+lifts up the wather both inside and out. Ye're wake in geography not
+to know that," said Flathootly.
+
+The governor looked at me for verification of this astonishing story.
+"Where is that wonderful moon," he inquired, "that I hear of? Where is
+the surface of the earth that slopes away out of sight?" Just then the
+bell sounded its message that called the people to rest, and the
+banqueting came to an end. We were forthwith shown to the private
+apartments allotted to us in the palace.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+THE JOURNEY TO CALNOGOR.
+
+
+There was in Kioram a temple dedicated to the god Rakamadeva, or
+Sacred Locomotive, which was one of the many gods worshipped by the
+Atvatabarese. It belonged to the gods embraced in the category of
+"gods of invention," and its motive power was magnicity, the same
+force that propelled the flying men. It was a powerful structure built
+of solid gold, platinum, terrelium, aquelium, and plutulium, and
+alloys of the most precious and heaviest of metals, and was both car
+and locomotive, and was hung over a single elevated rail that
+supported it, the weight resting on six wheels in front and six
+behind, all concealed by the body of the car.
+
+The battery consisted of one hundred cells of terrelium and aquelium
+that developed a gigantic force. The six driving wheels at either end
+of the car were of immense size, and the tires were hollowed out with
+a semi-circular groove that fitted upon the high rounded rail. On this
+rail rested the entire weight of the car, which oscillated as it
+rushed. The end of each projecting head was inlaid with an enormous
+ruby, and the framework of the god was enriched in numerous places
+with precious stones. The sacred locomotive had as attendants
+twenty-four priests, clad in flowing vestures of orange and aloe-green
+silk (the royal colors), arranged in alternate stripes of great width,
+typical of a green earth and golden sky.
+
+Royal and privileged travellers were alone permitted to harness the
+god, and by command of the king we were to enter Calnogor by means of
+the sacred courier.
+
+The route to the temple led through a different part of the city than
+that traversed by us when going to the governor's palace. We had
+leisure to observe more particularly the architecture and the
+appearance of the streets through which we passed. The roadway
+everywhere was one solid block of white marble, and emporiums and
+dwellings were built of the same material.
+
+"You seem to have sculptured the city out of a mountain of white
+marble," I said to the governor, who rode his bockhockid alongside
+mine.
+
+"That is, indeed, the fact," replied the governor. "The entire city
+has been laboriously hewn from an immense mountain."
+
+"Then in building your houses, you laid the foundation with the roof,
+and built them downward until you arrived at the level of the street,"
+I said.
+
+"That is precisely so," said he. "Our streets are simply ornamental
+chasms cut in the solid rock. Both roadway and building are composed
+of the same stone. One stone has built the entire city."
+
+I was surprised at the idea of the stupendous labor involved in
+carving a city containing half a million of inhabitants, but,
+considering that a man could easily lift a block of stone weighing
+half a ton in the outer sphere, I saw that even so prodigious a task
+as chiselling Kioram might well be accomplished. It was a new
+sensation to bound on a bockhockid over the smoothly carved pavement,
+where once stood the mighty heart of a mountain of stone. All the
+buildings along the route were wonderfully sculptured. There seemed no
+end to the floriated mouldings, pillars and other decorations in
+relief, wrought in a strange order of art that was most captivating.
+
+As for ourselves, we must have presented an interesting procession.
+Our Viking helmets of polished brass gleamed in the sunlight like
+gold. The emblazoned bear thereon was a symbol to the Atvatabarese of
+a species of divinity that protected us as beings of another world.
+
+We arrived at the temple of the sacred locomotive, and were received
+by the winged priests in charge. Dismounting amid the sound of music,
+a procession was formed, the priests leading the way along a wide
+hallway that terminated in the temple of the god.
+
+The god Rakamadeva was a glorious sight. On a causeway of marble
+flanked with steps on either side stood that object of magnic life and
+beauty in a blaze of metals and jewels worthy the praise of the
+priests, in itself a royal palace.
+
+This automobile car in shape seemed a compound of the back of a turtle
+and a Siamese temple, and was of extraordinary magnificence. Both
+front and rear tapered down to the solid platinum framework of the
+wheels, that extended beyond the car at both ends, the projections
+simulating the heads of monsters that held each between their jaws one
+hundred cells of triple metal, which developed a tremendous force.
+
+The priests chanted the following ode to the sacred locomotive:
+
+"Glorious annihilator of time and space, lord of distance, imperial
+courier.
+
+"Hail, swift and sublime man-created god, hail colossal and bright
+wheel!
+
+"Thy wheels adamant, thy frame platinum, thy cells terrelium,
+aquelium!
+
+"Thou art lightning shivering on the metals, thy breathless flights
+affright Atvatabar!
+
+"The affluence of life animates thy form, that flashes through valleys
+and on mountains high!
+
+"The forests roar as thou goest past, the gorge echoes thy thunder!
+
+[Illustration: THE SACRED LOCOMOTIVE STORMED THE MOUNTAIN HEIGHTS WITH
+ITS AUDACIOUS TREAD.]
+
+"Thy savage wheels ravage space. Convulsed with life, thy tireless
+form devours the heights of heaven!
+
+"Labor and glory and terror leap as thy thundering feet go by; thy
+axles burn with the steady sweep, till on wings of fire they fly!"
+
+The four-and-twenty priests formed a guard of honor as we
+reverentially entered the car. On our side of the god were seated
+Governor Ladalmir, Admiral Jolar and staff, myself and officers of the
+_Polar King_, including the scientific staff. The other side contained
+the sailors under command of Flathootly, master-at-arms, escorted by
+Captains Pra and Nototherboc.
+
+The priests were distributed around the outside of the car, holding on
+to golden hand-rails. A priest seated on a throne in front moved a
+switch, and, with a roar of music, the god leaped upon the metals. The
+wonderful lightness of the car allowed us to attain a tremendous
+speed. The mightiest curves were taken at a single breath. The silken
+robes of the priests flashed in the wind.
+
+The car vibrated with a thousand tremors. In the wide windows of thick
+glass were framed rapid phantasmagoria of landscapes, as the flying
+panorama unrolled itself. There were visions of interminable prairies,
+over which we swept, a blinding flash, leaving a low, spreading cloud
+of dust on the rails to mark our flight.
+
+We plunged into tunnels of darkness, where the warm air roared with
+the echoes of the delirious wheels. The cry of the caverns saluted us
+like the shouts of unknown monsters dwelling in the heart of the
+mountains.
+
+The sacred locomotive was an element of life, as it shot from the
+tunnels and bounded up curving mountain heights through pastures of
+delightful flowers. With wheels prevailed upon by the tension of the
+invincible fluid, the monster swerved not before the proudest
+precipice. It stormed the heights with its audacious tread, flinging
+itself on the mountain pass, a marvel of power and intrepidity, and
+known as the devourer of distance.
+
+In five hours we had traversed five hundred miles, the distance from
+Kioram to Calnogor.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+OUR RECEPTION BY THE KING.
+
+
+The sacred locomotive swept through a noble archway into a palace
+garden, a part of the king's palace in Calnogor. The railway terminal
+was a wide marble platform, or causeway, surrounded by a sea of
+tropical flowers. The priests had already alighted, and stood in
+double file to receive us. Through a sculptured archway a herald
+approached us, blowing a trumpet and announcing the coming of his
+royal majesty, King Aldemegry Bhoolmakar of Atvatabar.
+
+We alighted, and I had the sailors drawn up in an imposing column on
+the platform, every man grasping his sword. Even the remotest walls of
+the garden were lined with wayleals, and military music added to the
+splendor of the scene.
+
+Presently a stately figure approached us. It was his majesty
+accompanied by her majesty, Queen Toplissy. Koshnili whispered that it
+was a special honor that the king and queen should greet us even
+before we entered the palace. The king was tall and erect in bearing
+and his complexion was the color of old gold. His hair, as well as his
+closely-trimmed beard and mustache, were of a serpent-green tint. He
+wore a dome-shaped crown of gold, surmounted by a blazing ruby. His
+dress was a cloth of gold, light as gossamer, that swathed his form
+after the manner of our Eastern potentates. His boots of
+gold-lacquered leather were covered with emeralds and curiously turned
+up at the toes. Queen Toplissy was a handsome lady, rather heavy in
+physique, of an orange-yellow complexion, with bright copper-bronze
+hair, and her unclad arms wore a profusion of bracelets and armlets of
+various metals. Her crown was also of gold surmounted by a blazing
+sapphire. Her robes were of white silk embroidered with broad bands of
+orange and arranged in innumerable folds. Her boots were incrusted
+with sapphires. All this I saw at a momentary glance as Koshnili led
+me forward to his majesty. I was announced as "His Excellency,
+Lexington White, commander of the _Polar King_, the discoverer of the
+Polar Gulf, and the first inhabitant of the outer world who had ever
+reached Bilbimtesirol and Atvatabar."
+
+The king embraced me and I kissed the hand of her majesty. The
+officers and sailors received their due share of royal attention. We
+were the objects of unbounded curiosity on the part of the royal
+retinue.
+
+Amid a salute of guns and music we passed through the archway that
+formed the boundary between the palace gardens and the court of the
+holy locomotive, and saw the palace of King Aldemegry Bhoolmakar
+before us.
+
+It was a high, conical building, twenty stories in height. Each story
+was surrounded by a row of windows decorated with pillars. Colossal
+lions of gold stood on the entrance towers, their claws formed of
+straps of gold running down the walls and riveted to the lower tiers
+of stone, giving the impression that they held together the whole
+structure beneath. The style of architecture was an absolutely new
+order. It was neither Hindoo, Egyptian, Greek, nor Gothic, but there
+was a flavor of all four styles in the weirdly-carved circular walls
+and roofs. The palace was surrounded by a spacious court, enclosed by
+cloistered walls. Flowers bloomed in immense square-shaped vases of
+stone supported on diminutive square pillars. A tank of crystal water,
+on each side of which broad wide steps led down into the cool wave,
+lay in the centre of the court. The tank was fed by a wide rivulet of
+rippling water that ran along a chiselled bed in the marble floor of
+the court.
+
+The entire scene was a picture of glorious and blessed repose. The
+sculptor had covered the base and frieze of the walls with a profusion
+of ornament in high relief. Imagination and art had produced scenes
+that created a profound impression. A dramatic calmness held lion and
+elephant, serpent and eagle, wayleal and bockhockid, youth and maiden,
+in glorious embrace.
+
+The banquet given by the king in our honor in the topmost story of the
+palace was both delicious and satisfying. All the fertility of
+Atvatabar ministered to our delight. Strange meats and fruits were
+music to the body, as art and music were meats and wine to the soul.
+
+I sat beside his majesty at the feast, while Koshnili sat at my right
+hand. Admiral Jolar sat beside the queen, and on her majesty's right
+sat Captain Wallace. The professors and other officers, as well as a
+number of noblemen and state officers, also sat at the royal table.
+At another table sat the sailors, accompanied by the officers of the
+king's household.
+
+We had again an opportunity of tasting the squang of Atvatabar, which
+was of a finer brand than that served at the table of Governor
+Ladalmir. It added a new joy to life to taste such royal wine.
+
+His majesty, seated on his throne at the feast, raised a glass of
+squang and said: "I drink in welcome to our illustrious guest, His
+Excellency, Lexington White, commander of the _Polar King_ and
+discoverer of Atvatabar."
+
+The company rising, shouted, "Welcome to His Excellency, Lexington
+White, commander of the _Polar King_," and drank of their glasses in
+my honor.
+
+In acknowledgment of this great compliment I rose and proposed the
+healths of the king and queen. I said: "I drink to the healths of
+their royal majesties, King Aldemegry Bhoolmakar and Queen Toplissy of
+Atvatabar, to whom be lifelong peace and prosperity."
+
+The company honored this sentiment by acclamation and drinking goblets
+of wine. This constituted the preliminaries of our interview.
+
+"Now," said his majesty, "we are extremely anxious to learn all about
+the manners and customs of the people of the outer world. Tell us of
+these people, their laws, religions, and modes of government."
+
+In obedience to the king's request I spoke of America and its nations
+founded on the idea of self-sovereignty, and of Europe with its
+sovereigns and subjects. I spoke of Egypt and India as types of a
+colossal past, of the United States and Great Britain as types of a
+colossal present, and of Africa the continent of the colossal future.
+I informed the king that the genius of Asia, of the Eastern world, ran
+to poetry and art without science, while that of the Western world
+developed science and invention without poetry and art.
+
+"Ah!" cried the king, who was intensely interested. "Atvatabar has
+both science and art, invention and poetry. Our wise rulers have been
+ever mindful of the equal charms of science and sentiment in educating
+our people."
+
+I assured his majesty that we were no less anxious to learn all about
+the institutions of Atvatabar than he was regarding the external
+sphere.
+
+[Illustration: THE KING EMBRACED ME, AND I KISSED THE HAND OF HER
+MAJESTY.]
+
+"Atvatabar," said the king, "is a monarchy formed on the will of the
+people. While the throne is inalienably secured to the king for life,
+the government is vested in a legislative chamber, called Borodemy.
+This legislative assembly is also our house of nobles, consisting of
+one thousand members divided into three classes. To be once elected to
+the Borodemy entitles the representative to receive the title of
+Boiroon for life only; at the expiration of five years, the term of
+each assembly, a member, if again elected, receives the title of
+Jangoon; if again elected the highest title is Goiloor. No one can be
+elected more than three times, and Goiloor is a title which but few
+attain, owing to the limited number of legislators who are three times
+elected to the Borodemy. The president of the assembly is always a
+Goiloor, as only a member of the highest caste is nominated for the
+presidency. He is also chief minister of state. His council, which is
+the government, includes the chief officer of each branch of
+government, as well as a royal representative. Thus Atvatabar is an
+absolute democracy, ornamented and ruled by those men whom a generous
+nation loves to honor for distinguished merit employed in the public
+service."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+THE KING UNFOLDS THE GRANDEUR OF ATVATABAR.
+
+
+"Your majesty," I said, "informs us that Atvatabar possesses science
+and art, invention and poetry. These matters interest us quite as much
+as your civil and military constitution. We will feel grateful if your
+majesty will inform us more particularly regarding the condition of
+those great forces for the development of the soul."
+
+"You are right," said the king; "the government and the protection of
+society, although matters of the utmost importance, are always much
+inferior to the glory they defend. Mere police duties can never rank
+with the sovereignty of mind over matter."
+
+"In other words," said I, "the barricade is ever inferior to the
+palace, and the treasure house to the heaps of gold within it. But,
+your majesty, in what way does mind triumph over matter in your
+realm?"
+
+"Well," said the king, "we worship the human soul under a thousand
+forms, arranged in three great circles of deities. The first circle
+contains the gods of invention, that is, the practical forms by which
+ideas rule the physical world, and also the composite forms of the
+inventors themselves. The second circle contains the gods of art, and
+the third circle the spiritual gods of sorcery, magic and love. What
+gods do you people of the outer world worship?"
+
+"In my own country," I replied, "a great many people worship one God,
+the Creator of the universe. Many of these only nominally worship God,
+but in reality worship gold, while a still greater number worship gold
+without pretence of worshipping anything else."
+
+"Then," said the king, "gold is your god. Our god is the aggregated
+universal human soul worshipped under its various manifestations, both
+real and ideal. This universal human soul forms the one supreme god
+Harikar, whom we worship in the person of a living woman, the Supreme
+Goddess Lyone. The great generic symbol of our faith is the golden
+throne of the gods in the Bormidophia, whereon sits Lyone, the supreme
+goddess, the representative of Harikar."
+
+"Harikar is then your supreme deity?" I remarked.
+
+"Greatest, for he embraces all other gods," said the king. "But the
+greatest individual god is the Supreme Goddess, the symbol of the Holy
+Soul."
+
+I felt a strange desire to learn everything about so singular a
+divinity as Lyone. It was a weird, awful, yet terribly entrancing
+thought, that amid a thousand gods of dead and silent gold one only
+should be alive, and that one a beautiful woman. Was it possible that
+a live goddess could exist, and be both young and handsome? I was
+anxious to ask a thousand questions concerning this mysterious being,
+but it seemed a sacrilege to ask them. Was it possible for her to
+continue worthy of worship, a human being, intoxicated, as she must
+be, by the ceaseless adoration of millions? In other words, can a
+woman be a veritable goddess and live? These ideas rushed through my
+soul like quicksilver. My brain reeled with this discovery of the
+secret of Atvatabar! What to me were its never-setting sun, its want
+of gravity, its flying wayleals and bockhockids, its sculptured
+cities, its sacred locomotive, its miracles of mechanism and art,
+compared to a real live goddess with warm blood and a beating heart!
+No wonder the discovery thrilled me! I felt like embracing his majesty
+for the information, so simply given, that filled me with delight!
+
+My companions were also greatly excited at the story of the king, and
+it was with difficulty I could appear interested in the further
+information he so graciously imparted to us. What were mines of gold
+to this? But I strove outwardly to appear calm. I felt I must listen
+further to the story of Atvatabar.
+
+"Our other deities," continued the king, "are the ideal inventors and
+their inventions. These give man empire over nature. All those who
+have given man power of flight, who multiply his power to run, those
+who multiply the power of the eye to see, the hand to labor or to
+smite, the voice or pen to transmit ideas to great distances and to
+great multitudes, stand in the pantheon in ideal grandeur. There are
+the lords of labor, the deities of space and time. They are those gods
+that breathe the breath of life into unborn ideas, and lo! from brain
+and hand spring the creatures of their will."
+
+The officers and sailors were listening to the discourse of the king
+with rapt attention. We were anxious to learn as much as possible
+about this strange religion of Atvatabar.
+
+"We also worship art and ideal artists," continued the king, "the
+soul-developers, who work for noble and humane ideas expressed in
+their most beautiful garb; the builders of earthly palaces for the
+soul in literature, music, manners, painting, dancing, sculpture,
+decoration, tapestry and architecture which are represented by ideal
+statues composed from groups of living artists. These in their ideal
+or collective perfection are the gods who counteract the evils of an
+arid and mechanical civilization by arousing feeling, imagination,
+truth, beauty, tenderness, patriotism and faith in the souls of their
+fellows.
+
+"The spiritual forces are typified by a goddess, the incarnation of
+spirit power, of romantic, ideal, hopeless love. Her ministers are the
+priests of sorcery, necromancy, magic, theosophy, mesmerism,
+spiritualism and other kindred spiritual powers. These perform
+miracles, create matter, and impart life to dead bodies. The souls of
+her priests and priestesses have the power to leave the body at will,
+and to achieve a present Nirvana of one hundred years."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+GNAPHISTHASIA.
+
+
+The day following our arrival in Calnogor his majesty the king had
+projected for us a journey to the palace of art at Gnaphisthasia,
+which stood on the slope of a mountain in a rich valley lying one
+hundred miles southwest of Calnogor. The palace itself was surrounded
+by high walls of massive porcelain, beautifully adorned with sculpture
+mouldings, and midway on each side massive gateways, each formed of
+rounded cones, rising to a great height and covered with sculptured
+forms, between which the porcelain wall was pierced with fretted
+arabesque, running high above the arched opening beneath. Once within
+the gorgeous gateway, the porcelain walls of Gnaphisthasia stood
+before the enraptured eyes more than a mile in length and half a mile
+in depth, a many-colored dream of imposing magnificence covered with
+the work of sculptors. The principal part of the wall was of a
+greenish-white vitrification, finely diversified by horizontal
+friezes, with arabesques in red and green, purple and yellow,
+lavender, sea-green, blue and silver and pale rose and deep gray, all
+separated by wide bands of greenish-white stone.
+
+In the centre of the buildings stood a semi-circle of massive conical
+towers, gleaming like enormous jewels and connected by sculptured
+walls. The four corners of the palace were also groups of towers, all
+the various groups being connected with the rectangular walls that
+were decorated with arcades and balconies.
+
+Here in this splendid abode were poets and painters, musicians,
+sculptors and architects, dancers, weavers of fabrics, ceramists,
+jewellers, engravers, enamellers, artists in lacquer, carvers,
+designers and workers in glass and metal, pearl and ivory and the
+precious stones.
+
+[Illustration: A PROCESSION OF PRIESTS AND PRIESTESSES PASSED DOWN THE
+LIVING AISLES, BEARING TROPHIES OF ART.]
+
+In an immense chamber of the palace a _fête_ was being held. On either
+side a double range of massive porcelain pillars supported the roof,
+which covered this grand sanctuary of art like an immense vitrified
+jewel. The floor of the court was formed of polished wood of a deep
+rose color that emitted a rich, heavy perfume. Wood of a brilliant
+green, with interlacing arabesques of red, formed the border of the
+floor. At the further end of the court stood three thrones, being
+composed, respectively, of terrelium, aquelium, and plutulium, the
+three most precious metals. On the threefold throne sat Yermoul, lord
+of art, his majesty the king, and myself. In ample recesses amid the
+pillars stood the devotees of art, while the centre of the court was
+filled with the musicians. A procession of priests and priestesses
+passed down the living aisles, clad in the most gorgeous fabrics of
+silk spun by gigantic spiders, and they bore singly trophies of art,
+or moved in groups, supporting golden litters carrying piled-up
+treasures of dazzling splendor.
+
+First came a band of priestesses bearing fan-like ensigns of carved
+wood and fretwork, and panels filled with silks, rare brocades and
+embroideries. Then came priests bearing heavy vases and urns of gold,
+terrelium, aquelium, plutulium, silver, and alloys of precious bronze.
+Then followed others bearing litters piled with vases and figures
+carved from solid pearl, or fashioned in precious metals. Cups,
+plates, vases in endless shapes, designs and colors went past, piled
+high on golden litters, looking like gardens of tropic flowers. Rare
+laces made of threads spun from the precious metals of Atvatabar,
+mosaics, ivories, art forgings, costly enamels, decorative
+bas-reliefs, implements of war, agriculture and commerce, magnic
+spears and daggers, with shaft and handle encrusted with grotesque
+carvings in metallic alloys. These alloys took the forms of figures,
+animals and emblems, having the strangest colorings, like the hilts
+and scabbards of Japanese swords carved in shakudo and shibuichi.
+There were exhibited vases of cinnabar, vases wondrously carved from
+tea-rose, coral-red, pearl-gray, ashes-of-roses, mustard-yellow,
+apple-green, pistache and crushed-strawberry colored metals. There
+were also splendid crowns, flowers, animals, birds, and fishes, carved
+from precious kragon, an imperial stone harder than the diamond and of
+a pale rose-pink color. Every object was as perfect as though modelled
+in wax.
+
+Through all this decorative movement there was something more than
+decoration understood as mere ornamentation--there was the keenest
+evidence of soul movement on the part of the artist. The music
+gloriously celebrated the passions of love, ambition and triumph that
+had filled the souls of the artists when engaged in their incomparable
+labors, and pealed forth that serene life of the spirit as symbolized
+in the perfect works of art exhibited, wherein were sealed in eternal
+magnificence fragments of the souls that had created them.
+
+Between the pauses of the music an organ-megaphone shouted forth in
+musically-stentorian tones the words that had been impressed on its
+cylinders in praise of art. The five thousand priests and priestesses
+of art had simultaneously shouted their art ritual down five thousand
+tubes, which were all focussed into a single tube of large calibre.
+The multitudinous sound of their voices had been indelibly impressed
+on this phonograph-megaphone that now yielded up the sentiments
+impressed upon it, its tones being that of a vast multitude,
+re-enforced by the vibrating music of an organ, which was a part of
+the megaphone. These were the passages repeated by the instrument with
+a startling splendor of sound:
+
+     THE MESSAGE OF THE MEGAPHONE.
+
+                    I.
+
+     To define art is to define life.
+
+                   II.
+
+     Art is a language that describes the souls of things.
+
+                  III.
+
+     Art in nature is the expression of life; in art it is life
+     itself.
+
+                   IV.
+
+     Art is too subtle a quality to be defined by the formula of
+     the critic. It is greater than all of the definitions that
+     have tried to grasp it.
+
+                    V.
+
+     Art is the glowing focus from which radiate thought,
+     imagination and feeling, gifted with the power of utterance.
+
+                   VI.
+
+     True art is generous, passionate, earnest, vivid,
+     enthusiastic. So also is the true artist.
+
+                  VII.
+
+     To satisfy the far-reaching longing of the spirit, art makes
+     things more glorious than they are. It is the perfect
+     expression of a perfect environment.
+
+                 VIII.
+
+     To mould his symbols with the same life that fills his
+     conception of the idea is the supreme effort of the artist.
+
+                   IX.
+
+     As nature from the coarse soil produces flowers, so also the
+     artist from every-day life produces the subtle sweets of
+     art.
+
+                    X.
+
+     Art that is simply utility is not sufficiently decorative to
+     delight every nerve of feeling in the soul. To feed these,
+     many flavors of form and color are necessary, and hence the
+     necessity of art.
+
+                   XI.
+
+     Where do emotion and imagination begin in art? Where do
+     spirit and flesh unite in a living creature?
+
+                  XII.
+
+     The artist is a creator. He breathes into dull matter the
+     breath of art, and it thenceforth contains a living soul.
+
+                 XIII.
+
+     Poetry and art make life splendid without science, which is
+     the cold investigation of that which was once thrilled with
+     the passion of life. Invention makes life splendid without
+     poetry and art. By whom will the glorious union of art and
+     science be consummated?
+
+                  XIV.
+
+     What is the world we live in? It is for the most part a
+     collection of souls hidebound with treachery and
+     selfishness; of souls covered with a slag from which have
+     departed the fires of love and passion and delight. Such
+     incinerated _aliases_ of their former selves are your
+     judges, oh, artists!
+
+                   XV.
+
+     Art is a green oasis in an arid and mechanical civilization.
+     It creates an earthly home for the soul, for those wounded
+     by the riot of trade, the weariness of labor, the fierce
+     struggle for gold, and the deadly environment of rushing
+     travel, blasted pavements and the withering disappointments
+     of life.
+
+                  XVI.
+
+     Where is that artist that can sway imagination, create
+     emotion, lift the banner of a high ideal, give the soul a
+     keener appreciation of beauty, add to the mind, strength and
+     grace, cause the brain to develop new nerves of feeling and
+     newer cells of thought, that we may salute him as genius?
+
+                 XVII.
+
+     Art is the emotion within made splendid by imagination that
+     clothes everything with perfection. Like color it dwells
+     only in the soul, but the cause of the sensation is without.
+     In all art, the artist seeks to reproduce the cause of his
+     ecstasy, that he may communicate to others a similar
+     delight. He is like a god, he always gives but never
+     receives, for fame, not money, is his recompense.
+
+                XVIII.
+
+     Given a soul that can feel sublimely, that can respond to
+     beauty and feel thrilled with the joy of existence, that can
+     feel the burden of anguish, that can appreciate the humors
+     and absurdities of life, and given the power to adequately
+     represent the knowledge, truth, understanding and conviction
+     of these impressions in fitting symbols, vitalized by
+     imagination and emotion, then have we both poet and artist.
+
+                  XIX.
+
+     The soul in such inspired moments takes the form of
+     sculptured arabesques, or flowers, or resembles the refluent
+     sea, full of incredible shapes and symbols. It accompanies
+     the march of thought, the profusive swell of emotion, is
+     capable of pain and ecstasy, and seeks to be fed with those
+     delightful symbols of its life which we call art, the most
+     priceless of earthly possessions.
+
+                   XX.
+
+     Four things are necessary for art, viz.: idea, sentiment,
+     imagination and manipulative skill. After these comes
+     prestige, or the applause of the world, to crown the work.
+
+                  XXI.
+
+     The art decorator is a type of all art workmen. See him
+     about to manipulate a plastic ornament on the wall. The
+     plaster resembles his idea; its plastic qualities his
+     sentiment, or emotion; the style of ornament into which it
+     is to be moulded resembles his imagination, and the power of
+     the artist to successfully and triumphantly embody in the
+     finished ornament the living, breathing idea that fills him
+     is his manipulative skill. Any work of art, if perfect in
+     itself, still remains unfinished until the world comes along
+     and applauds.
+
+                 XXII.
+
+     The age wants the artist. It wants imagination, originality,
+     inspiration, ideality. It requires fertile, dreaming souls,
+     to create ideal breadth.
+
+     It requires an earthly Nirvana wherein one may escape a
+     selfish, barbarous, pitiless world. There is a great dearth
+     of the coinage of the soul. We want artists to explain the
+     souls of things, not their mechanical construction, but the
+     unseen secret of their purposes, their unspeakable
+     existence. We want heart-expanding triumphs to counteract
+     the withering influences of life. If a soul is entranced
+     with man or nature, we also want to feel his fascination, to
+     be penetrated with his rapture.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The megaphone ceased its musical vociferation, which formed a
+spiritual exercise for the souls assembled before us. I felt entranced
+and lifted up to a plane of splendid life hitherto unknown in my
+experience. I began to understand that art, after all, is the one
+thing in our terrestrial life worth striving for, in fact our only
+possession. For is it not the transmission of the soul to outer
+matter, whose savagery may be thus charmed and subdued to become a
+satisfactory spiritual environment?
+
+Following the procession of artists came beautiful, wondrously-arrayed
+dancers, whose evolutions made the brain dizzy with delight. Fair
+priests and priestesses of art formed upon the floor of the palace
+decorative arabesques of scrolls and interlacements of living bodies,
+the color of their garments mingling in perfectly harmonious hues,
+beautiful beyond comparison. Their ceaseless evolutions were made to
+the measure of perfect music. Panels and bands of living decorations
+were framed and transformed like the magical changes of the
+kaleidoscope. At last Yermoul, the Lord of Art, waved his wand, and
+the dancers stood transfixed, a garden of ecstatic color like a
+Persian carpet, wonderfully designed and vividly emblazoned. It was a
+scene of royal magnificence. These priests and priestesses were the
+art workers of Gnaphisthasia, who had so finely exhibited their
+treasures.
+
+Following the rhythmic movements of the art workers came poets,
+painters, sculptors, whose works lifted the soul to higher planes of
+being. These in their trophies of art recited or exhibited gave the
+soul imagination and sentiment, lifting it almost to the enraptured
+height of worship, adoration and love.
+
+At the close of the ceremonies we were entertained by Yermoul, Lord of
+Art, at a banquet, at which music and song and the dancing of
+voluptuous priestesses made hearts thrill with delight. Bidding
+farewell at last to the Lord of Art and his priests and priestesses,
+his majesty, myself and our company returned by the sacred locomotive
+to Calnogor.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+THE JOURNEY TO THE BORMIDOPHIA.
+
+
+The palace bell announced the beginning of a new day in Calnogor. I
+had not slept during the hours of rest, excited as I was by our visit
+to Gnaphisthasia and the strange customs of Atvatabar.
+
+Koshnili arrived soon after the bell had sounded to inform me that the
+king had commanded his royal army to be assembled in the great square
+beyond the palace walls to escort us to the Bormidophia, where a
+solemn act of worship would be performed before the throne of the
+gods. This was a most delightful message, as nothing on earth could
+please me better than to witness the glories of the Bormidophia.
+
+The army under the command of Prince Coltonobory, the brother of the
+king, commander-in-chief, consisted of 250,000 wayleals, or flying
+soldiers, and 50,000 bockhockids, or flying cavalry. There was also a
+detachment of 10,000 fletyemings, or sailors of the royal navy. These
+were drawn up in review in a vast square before the royal palace.
+
+Superb bockhockids conveyed us the four miles to the Bormidophia in
+the centre of the city.
+
+The king and queen, both of whom wore crowns blazing with jewels, sat
+with Koshnili and myself in the first palanquin of bockhockids. The
+high officers of the government and nobles of the Borodemy, together
+with the officers and sailors of the _Polar King_, were distributed
+among the other stately litters.
+
+The route to the pantheon was lined with palaces. An immense
+population thronged either side of the roadway. A review of the army
+took place _en route_. The wayleals first rose into an enormous
+flying column, which subsided into whirling domes and afterward broke
+up into a dozen living globes, that appeared to roll one after another
+on the ground. These were dissolved into a solid army marching on foot
+for a time. Then as if by magic the entire mass of men rose into
+spiral columns which dissolved into vast rings inextricably involved
+with each other. It was a sight unique and bewildering.
+
+Behind the wayleals, fifty thousand bockhockids kept up their steady
+march. The people shouted with enthusiasm.
+
+A mimic battle took place in the air above us. Ten thousand wayleals
+fought on either side, brilliant in many-colored uniforms. Finally, a
+rainbow arch of flying men spanned the entrance to the great square of
+the Bormidophia, or pantheon. Amid the thunder of guns and music, the
+entire company alighted at the doors of the pantheon, which consisted
+of an immense circular pile of buildings over a mile in circumference.
+The interior revealed a scene of surpassing magnificence. Endless
+tiers of seats were arranged in terraces that, rising above each
+other, traversed the wide sweep of the amphitheatre. The entire
+pantheon with its adjacent palaces and colonnades was sculptured out
+of a hill of green marble. The exterior walls, rising 200 feet, were
+crowned with a lofty dome of enamelled glass, through which the light
+of the sun streamed in myriad colors on the sea of worshippers
+beneath. The walls of the pantheon, both exteriorly and interiorly,
+were sculptured with immense reliefs, the trophies of invention and
+art, as well as the magical symbols of spiritual forces.
+
+The lowest circle of the amphitheatre reached down one hundred feet
+below the level of the outer pavement, and the royal seat was on a
+level with the ground and fifty feet below the top of the far-famed
+golden throne of the gods, that stood in the centre of the immense
+building.
+
+Our entrance was the signal for welcoming music and a suppressed
+murmur of excitement from the myriads of worshippers that sat both
+above and below us. The amphitheatre contained not less than 50,000
+people. The moment their majesties were seated, a roar of artillery
+shook the earth. The forthcoming grand act of worship was evidently
+instituted in our honor, for we were the observed of all eyes in that
+vast concourse of people.
+
+A dozen choirs, possessed of all kinds of beautiful instruments,
+caressed the ear with their melodious songs. There was no dim
+religious light; everything was open-eyed beneath that splendid dome.
+Suddenly a cloud of flying priests and priestesses seated themselves
+on a pyramid formed of terraces of solid silver fifty feet in height
+that supported the miraculous throne. They at once began to sing with
+such force and pathos as to dissolve the multitude into a hush of
+breathless silence.
+
+Then an immense bell of bronze filled the pantheon with a sonorous
+moan. Twelve thrilling tones made souls tremble and heads bow down.
+With the last vibration there rose from the crown of the throne of the
+gods a living woman, nude to the waist, having a broad belt of gold
+studded with gems clasping her figure, from which fell to her feet a
+garment of aquelium lace wrought with magical symbols.
+
+She was a girl of peerless development; her arms were long and softly
+moulded, her breasts firm and splendid. The color of her complexion
+and flesh was of soft mat gold, like that of golden fruit, and a
+perceptible flush warmed her cheeks. Her profile was perfect, being
+both proud and tender in outline. Her hair was a heavy glossy mass, of
+a pale sapphire-blue color, that fell in a waving cloud around her
+shoulders. Her whole figure bore an infinitely gracious expression,
+the result of possessing a tender and sympathetic soul.
+
+On her head was a tiara of terrelium, the vermilion metal, studded
+with gems, on her neck she wore a necklace of emerald-green sapphires,
+while on either wrist were broad gold bracelets, having a magnificent
+blue sapphire on each.
+
+She was Lyone, the Supreme Goddess of Atvatabar, the representative of
+Harikar, the Holy Soul; Queen of Magicians; Mother of Sorcerers, and
+Princess of Arjeels.
+
+Standing erect for a moment, as if to assure the vast congregation of
+her presence, she then slowly sat down on a broad divan of aloe-green
+silk velvet, holding in her right hand the terrelium sceptre of
+spiritual sovereignty, whose head bore two hearts formed of flaming
+rubies.
+
+I was entranced with the appearance of the divine girl, the object of
+the adoration of Atvatabar. Every feature of her face was carved with
+a full and ripe roundness, exhibiting repose and power. Her eyes,
+large and blue and lustrous, were sorcery itself. There was in them an
+unutterable tenderness, a divine hospitality, the result of vast pride
+and still vaster sympathy.
+
+[Illustration: ON THE THRONE SAT THE SUPREME GODDESS, LYONE, THE
+REPRESENTATIVE OF HARIKAR, THE HOLY SOUL.]
+
+All at once she gazed at me! I felt filled with a fever of delicious
+delight, of intoxicating adoration. I could then understand the
+devotion of Atvatabar, of hearts slain by eyes that were conquering
+swords.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+THE THRONE OF THE GODS, CALNOGOR.
+
+
+The throne of the gods was the most famous institution in Atvatabar.
+It was the cynosure of every eye, the object of all adoration, the
+tabernacle of all that was splendid in art, science and spiritual
+perfection. The great institutions of Egyplosis, the college of ten
+thousand soul-worshippers, the palace of Gnaphisthasia, with its five
+thousand poets, artists, musicians, dancers, architects, and weavers
+of glorious cloths, and the establishments for training the youth of
+the country in mechanical skill, were but the outlying powers that
+lent glory to the throne itself. It was the standard of virtue, of
+soul, of genius, skill and art. It was the triune symbol of body, mind
+and spirit. It was the undying voice of Atvatabar proclaiming the
+grandeur of soul development; that pleasure, rightly guarded, may be
+virtue. The religion of Harikar in a word was this, that the Nirvana,
+or blessedness promised the followers of the supernatural creeds of
+the outer world, after death was to be enjoyed in the body in earthly
+life without the trouble of dying to gain it. This was a comfortable
+state of things, if only possible of accomplishment, and such a creed
+of necessity included the doctrine that the physical death of the body
+was the end of all individuality, the soul thereafter losing all
+personality in the great ocean of existence.
+
+The throne of the gods was a cone of solid gold one hundred feet in
+height, divided into three parts for the various castes of gods, or
+symbols of science, art and spirituality. The structure was a circular
+solid cone of gold, shaped somewhat in the form of a heart. It was
+indeed the golden heart of Atvatabar, proclaiming that sentiment and
+science should go hand in hand; that in all affairs of life the heart
+should be an important factor. The lower section, or scientific
+pantheon, possessed bas-reliefs of models or symbols of the more
+important inventions. This section was forty feet in height and
+seventy-two feet in diameter.
+
+The images of the gods themselves surmounting the lowest part of the
+throne were in reality composite man-gods, that is to say, each figure
+was a statue, life size, of the resultant of the statues of all the
+important developers of each invention and was thus obtained:
+
+As soon as any prominent inventor or developer of an invention died,
+the government secured a plaster cast of his body, if such had not
+been made prior to death, and this was preserved for years in a
+special museum. When twenty or more casts of various developers of any
+one invention had been accumulated these were placed on a horizontal
+wheel, which revolved in front of a photographic camera, and thus the
+composite outline of the future god was obtained. As many outlines
+were procured as there were eighths of inches in the circumference of
+the largest cast, and from the collective pictures the ideal cast was
+made by the sculptor. The cast once perfected, and afterward draped,
+was reproduced in solid gold and placed with appropriate ceremonies on
+a pedestal on the throne itself. In like manner the gods of the arts,
+poetry, painting, etc., were created, as also the priests of Harikar,
+the Holy Soul.
+
+The reliefs, or symbols of mechanical art, were originally cast on the
+throne itself. These included the electric engine and locomotive,
+electric healer, telephone, telegraph, the electric ship, elevator,
+printing press, cotton gin, weaving loom, typesetting machine,
+well-boring apparatus, telescope, flying machines (individual and
+collective), bockhockid, sewing machine, photographic camera, reaping
+machine, paper-making and wall-paper printing machine, phonograph,
+etc., etc.
+
+This department of the throne being the largest, was significant of
+the material supremacy of the mechanical arts in the nation. Science
+itself was a god named Triporus, fashioned like a winged snake, so
+called because it was said he could worm his way through the pores of
+matter so as to discover the secrets therein. This god seemed a
+compound of our ancient Sphinx, or science, and Dædalus, or mechanical
+skill, but with an entirely new meaning added to both.
+
+[Illustration: THE THRONE OF THE GODS WAS INDEED THE GOLDEN HEART OF
+ATVATABAR, THE TRIUNE SYMBOL OF BODY, MIND AND SPIRIT.]
+
+The second or intermediate section of the throne was devoted to the
+gods of art and their attributes. It was sixty feet in its largest
+diameter, and twenty-four feet in height. It possessed also two
+sections, the upper containing the statues of Aidblis, or Poetry;
+Dimborne, or Painting; Brecdil, or Sculpture; Swengé, or Music;
+Tilono, or Drama; Timpango, or Dancing; Olshodesdil, or Architecture,
+etc., etc. In the lower section there were tableaux cast in high
+relief illustrating the qualities of the soul developed by art, viz.:
+Omodrilon, or Imagination; Diandarn, or Emotion; Samadoan, or
+Conscience; Voedli, or Faith; Lentilmid, or Tenderness; Delidoa, or
+Truth, etc.
+
+The final section or tapering apex of the throne was thirty feet in
+greatest width and thirty-six feet in height. It contained a throne
+and three divisions. The lowest division contained the gods Hielano,
+or Magic; Bishano, or Sorcery; Nidialano, or Astrology; Padomano, or
+Soothsaying, etc.
+
+The intermediate division contained the gods Niano, or Witchcraft;
+Redohano, or Wizardry; Oxemano, or Diablerie; Biccano, or the Oracle;
+Amano, or Seership; Kielano, or Augury; Tocderano, or Prophecy;
+Jiracano, or Geomancy; Jocdilano, or Necromancy, etc.
+
+The third division contained the gods Orphitano, or Conjuration;
+Orielano, or Divination; Pridano, or Clairvoyance; Cideshano, or
+Electro-biology; Omdohlopano, or Theosophy; Bischanamano, or
+Spiritualism, etc.
+
+The climax of all was the throne of the goddess. It was a seat of
+aloe-green velvet that, revolving slowly in the centre of the
+supporting throne, presented the goddess to every section of the vast
+audience. Thus seated, the goddess radiated an Orient splendor,
+herself a blaze of beauty and the focus of every eye. The music of an
+introductory opera warbled its soft strains with breathless execution.
+It seemed the carolling of a thousand nightingales, mingling with the
+musical crying of silver trumpets and the clear electric chiming of
+golden bells.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+THE WORSHIP OF LYONE, SUPREME GODDESS.
+
+
+The worship of the goddess began with the appearance on a revolving
+stage between the nearest worshippers and the base of the throne
+itself of a veritable forest of trees about one hundred feet in width.
+There were trees like magnolias, oaks, elms and others splendid in
+foliage, and amid these there was an undergrowth of beds of the most
+brilliant flowers.
+
+It was the work of the magicians and sorcerers!
+
+There were thickets of camellias and rhododendrons, amid which bloomed
+flowers like scarlet geraniums, primroses, violets and poppies. What
+appeared to be apple, peach, cherry and hawthorn trees, all in full
+bloom, tossed their white and pink foam of flowers.
+
+They were real trees and flowers, made to exist for a time by the
+sorcery of the masters of spirit power. They had never before known
+the outer air. The priests of Harikar had made them, and would
+dissipate them as living bodies are dissipated by death.
+
+A sacred opera was chanted by the priests of invention, art, and
+spirituality, on their terraces of silver above the trees and flowers.
+As the music continued, groups of singers would at times sweep forth
+on wings and float in wheeling circles around the throne. Their
+delightful choruses swelling upward were like draughts of rich wine,
+keen and intoxicating. The priests and spiritual powers marching
+beneath filled the vast building with broad recitatives, full of
+vividly descriptive passages and finely contrasted measures, until the
+soul seemed melted in a sea of bliss.
+
+The throne was bathed and caressed by a blue vapor of incense, while
+from the great dome above, filled with figures formed of enamelled
+glass, there streamed lights of all mysterious colors, that
+illuminated its gleaming sides and lit up the amphitheatre with
+ineffable effects.
+
+A warm, rosy beam, falling perpendicularly, enveloped the goddess like
+a robe of transparent tissue. She sat, a living statue, the joy of
+every heart, the embodiment of a hopeless love that kept the
+worshipper in a fever of delicious unrest. Wherever the eye wandered,
+it always came back to the goddess; whatever the soul thought, its
+last thought was of her.
+
+Amid a tempest of music and the thundering song of two hundred
+thousand voices repeating a litany of love, the throne itself began to
+revolve upon the silver cone that supported it. A fresh rapture took
+possession of the multitude.
+
+In the soul of the goddess what must have been the joy of being
+surrounded by such an ocean of adoring love?
+
+As I mused on the scene, I thought of the Coliseum at Rome raised to
+the glory of barbaric force, of empire founded on the blood of its
+victims, and, being such, has necessarily passed away, becoming a heap
+of ruins.
+
+Here, thought I, is a temple founded on a nobler idea, the glory of
+the human soul, its ingenuity, art, and spiritual forces.
+
+Many in the outer world would say it was an idolatrous attempt on the
+part of the creature to usurp the throne of its Creator. Yet it was
+strangely like the religion of such people themselves. There, as here,
+I thought, is the same worship of gold, the same dependence on the
+material products of man's invention, the same worship of art, the
+same idolatry of each other's souls between the sexes. There is this
+difference, however: in the outer world men pretend that they worship
+something else other than such objects; here they have the honesty to
+say what they do actually worship.
+
+Apart from the idea of attempting to realize a friendship that can
+only exist in a realm that knows neither interest, fortune, time,
+ambition, temper, nor sensual love, their idolatry had one splendid
+truth to unfold, viz., the necessity of a soul for an arid and
+mechanical civilization. "Every intellect shall enfold a soul" was
+their motto, and there was this sanity in their creed that sentiment
+was the breath of its life. Science abhors sentiment; it is the cold
+investigation of that which once thrilled with the passion of life.
+
+While the singing continued, a band of neophytes of occult force
+performed marvellous feats of magic, led by the Grand Sorcerer,
+Charka, chief of the magicians of Harikar. The people sat enraptured
+as miracle after miracle was performed. At the waving of fans by the
+adepts, plants issued from the hands of every god of gold, clothing
+the throne in one endless wreath of brilliant crimson blossoms and
+green foliage. The fans again waved and that crimson mass of flowers
+turned to a pale green, while again the green foliage changed to a
+vermilion color. The throne appeared like one enormous Bougainvillea
+glabra, whose leaves are flowers.
+
+Again the fans were waved and the flowers changed to bloom all
+snowy-white, while the foliage became blue.
+
+The adepts disappeared at a given signal and thereupon entered another
+band of beautiful girl adepts, who seated themselves, each body in a
+crouched mass with flowing drapery, around the base of the throne.
+These priestesses were in a state of catalepsy. The ego, or soul, in
+each case had been separated from the body, which floated in a state
+of apparent death. They had so developed their will by thinking
+enormous thoughts, yearning for spiritual power, that they could
+suspend the functions of the body and give all their existence to the
+soul. Thus hypnotized, it was stated their souls were floating freely
+in the dome above, in blessed converse, and that their reincarnation
+would afterward take place.
+
+The organ rolled a blessed monotone, with variations exquisitely
+sweet. The light in the dome faded perceptibly by the magical
+shadowing of its windows until the rapt audience sat in complete
+darkness. A circle of electric lights burned around the goddess on the
+top of the throne, illuminating her figure. The lights faintly lit up
+the dome, and presently appeared as nude spectres the fifty souls of
+the priestesses who crouched beneath.
+
+The organ, re-enforced with the wailing of a hundred violins, produced
+a storm of the most delirious music, while the souls flashed with a
+strange phosphorescence like a circle of fire. They wheeled with their
+arms extended horizontally, each aura lying at an angle of forty-five
+degrees with the horizon. Then, with hands clasping each other's feet,
+they became a vertical circle like the wheel of fortune, and thus went
+round and round. Again, they revolved in a circle faces downward, with
+arms and hands stretched in an attitude of worship, forming for the
+goddess a wreath of souls. Presently each soul sought its own body
+floating beneath. The bodies expanding themselves absorbed each its
+own soul. With the returning light of the outer sun the forest beneath
+the throne had disappeared and the circular stage was occupied by a
+band of sorcerers--each having balls of jelly of various colors
+floating before him. At the command of the grand sorcerer the balls
+would transform themselves into strange animals resembling cats, dogs,
+monkeys, serpents, geese, wolves, and eagles. This was a tableau
+representing man's supremacy over inferior life.
+
+A company of twin souls of the greatest beauty and splendor of raiment
+took possession of the circular platform beneath the throne and
+thereupon danced in rhythmic circles wonderfully entrancing and
+involved, chanting, in harmony with the movement of their bodies, the
+following hymn to Lyone:
+
+                 TO LYONE.
+
+                    I.
+
+    Oh goddess, oh deity glorious,
+        With golden wan face, and the bloom
+    Of spirit and figure victorious!
+        Oh jewel that lighteneth gloom,
+    Men call thee the soul of a lover,
+        Invested with purest of clay,
+    A chrysalis, eager to hover
+        And fly from thy prison away!
+
+                    II.
+
+    A nautilus, blown on the tide-lave;
+        So naked a pearl and so pure,
+    Or coral, that sucks from the sea wave
+        Those marbles that ever endure!
+    Thus float on the ocean of being,
+        Or fathom its deep-flowing sea,
+    That feeling, believing, and seeing
+        Thy glory, will worshipped be!
+
+                    III.
+
+    With sense of the body made captive,
+        While that of the soul is complete.
+    For love of pure being, receptive,
+        So blessèd, extravagant, sweet.
+    Oh victim, thy joys are Meresa's,
+        Who died on the bosom Divine.
+    Her madness of rapture appeases
+        The hunger of soul that is thine!
+
+                    IV.
+
+    Inflammable impulse of beauty,
+        The breath of whose ardor is grief;
+    The God, in fulfilment of duty,
+        Hath stamped thee in highest relief!
+    From pots of auriferous metal,
+        Made pure by the torment of flame,
+    He pressed thee in fearful begettal,
+        A coinage too perfect for shame.
+
+                    V.
+
+    He made thee, most splendid, a flower,
+        A heavy sweet rose, to unfold
+    Some petals immortal, and shower
+        Their fragrance on earth frozen cold.
+    Oh golden-hued rose, in such fashion,
+        By the love of the world thou art sought
+    Thus flushed with the triumph of passion
+        Or pale with the splendor of thought!
+
+                    VI.
+
+    Oh soul, that inhales from the blossom
+        Delight in the rapture of breath,
+    A goddess aflame with her passion,
+        Ere beauty is wedded to death!
+    Oh virginal soul of the fountain,
+        Alive with the water of Youth,
+    All these, on the golden high mountain,
+        Thou dwellest, the image of Truth!
+
+What followed was an intoxicating medley of dancing, song and magic.
+Circles of the fairest girls, arrayed in the most ravishing costumes,
+made the brain whirl with their gyrations. The oblation to the dancing
+gods wound up the performance, and the chorus of a thousand voices
+blended with the triumph of drums and explosions from musical
+artillery.
+
+The incomparable girl goddess then rose to her feet and waved the
+blessing of Harikar over the multitude. The girdle of gold that clung
+to her figure blazed with a thousand jewels. Her tiara sparkled with
+enormous diamonds that were blue as sapphires, amber as topazes, green
+as emeralds and red as rubies. Accompanied by the wailing of music,
+the chant of megaphones, and the song of the enraptured people, she
+sank into the heart of the throne, glorious as she rose, herself its
+most precious jewel.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+AN AUDIENCE WITH THE SUPREME GODDESS.
+
+
+The palace of Tanje, situated about fifty miles from Calnogor, was the
+metropolitan palace of the supreme goddess. It was sculptured out of a
+hill of white marble, as were also its walls, enclosing a garden a
+square mile in extent.
+
+In conformity with the programme prepared by his majesty, King
+Aldemegry Bhoolmakar, we were to be received by her holiness Lyone in
+her palace at Tanje. The thought of meeting the adorable figure that
+crowned the throne of the gods filled me with keenest delight.
+
+I seemed about to visit, not a human being like myself, but a
+veritable deity. What honor, what pleasure, it would be to speak to
+her face to face, heart to heart. Disguise it as I might, a feeling
+for the goddess was being awakened in my soul. Was it the adoration of
+the worshipper, or was it the dawn of a sacrilegious passion?
+
+It seemed a monstrous idea for any one to love in the ordinary meaning
+of the term a being so high and holy. I could only worship her afar
+off, like any adoring citizen of Atvatabar.
+
+His majesty the king, together with Chief Minister Koshnili,
+Commander-in-Chief Coltonobory, Admiral Jolar and other dignitaries of
+the kingdom, did us the honor to escort us to Tanje.
+
+The method of travel between Calnogor and Tanje was by means of the
+pneumatic tube, also a deity of invention. This consisted of a smooth
+tube six feet in diameter that curved over the country in a sinuous
+line, being supported on pillars at a height of twenty feet above the
+ground. A decorative car of gold ornamented in enamelled colors rode
+the crest of the tube, being connected with the piston inside. The car
+was steadied between rails on either side and swept over the earth
+with inconceivable rapidity. The distance from Calnogor to Tanje was
+traversed in thirty minutes.
+
+A feeling of awe overcame the sailors as we approached the abode of
+the living symbol of the Holy Soul.
+
+The palace was a noble pile of masonry as it glittered in the
+perpendicular sunlight. It stood two stories in height and was
+surmounted by a flattened central dome of colored glass, the ribs of
+the dome being of solid gold. The lower story was surrounded by a
+colonnade of pillars carved in the most grotesque shapes imaginable.
+The grand entrance on the north side was constructed of alternating
+pillars of platinum and gold, all three feet in thickness. From the
+towers brilliant banners, emblazoned with the figure of the throne of
+the gods, floated on the wind.
+
+The apartments of the grand chamberlain were on the north side of the
+palace, where the pneumatic car was provided with a depot for the use
+of travellers.
+
+Cleperelyum, the grand chamberlain, clad in white robes like an Arab
+chief, received us in the name of the goddess with marked deference
+and courtesy.
+
+A guard of honor consisting of a thousand wayleals was drawn up around
+the palace. The audience chamber was a rectangular court in the centre
+of the building, whose ceiling was the roof of the palace itself,
+surmounted by the dome peculiar to the palaces of Atvatabar.
+
+The hall leading to the presence chamber was lined with the priests
+and priestesses from Egyplosis in attendance on the goddess.
+
+Led by the grand chamberlain, we arrived at the golden doors of the
+audience chamber, which were opened by the servitors of the palace.
+With trembling exultation I saw at the further end of the spacious
+apartment a royal seat of violet velvet whereon sat Lyone, the supreme
+goddess of Atvatabar.
+
+As my eyes rested upon the goddess she appeared still more divine than
+before. It seemed an unhallowed act that rough sailors should venture
+into such spiritual precincts. We were awe-struck with the presence
+before us. As the grand chamberlain called out our names, we bowed low
+to that majestic spirit that seemed much more a deity than human
+flesh.
+
+[Illustration: HER HOLINESS OFFERED BOTH HIS MAJESTY THE KING AND
+MYSELF HER HAND TO KISS.]
+
+Her holiness greeted us with marked favor and offered both his majesty
+the king and myself her hand to kiss. The high officials and my
+officers and sailors were obliged to remain standing during the
+audience, according to the etiquette of the holy palace. His majesty
+the king and myself were allowed to seat ourselves on an elevated dais
+before the goddess. When thus seated, I had leisure to observe that
+she was arrayed in a single garment of quivering pale green silk, that
+caressed every curve of her matchless figure and spread in myriad
+folds about her limbs and feet. On her head she wore a model of the
+jarcal, or bird of yearning, fashioned in precious terrelium. She wore
+also a jewelled belt of gold. The breast was embroidered with a golden
+emblem of the throne of the gods, the sacred ensign of Atvatabar. On
+her neck were circles of rich rose pearls whose light gleamed soft on
+the green lustre of her attire. On her head was the tiara of the
+goddess, the triple crown of Harikar.
+
+Her holiness had an air of girlish frankness combined with royal
+dignity. She was so youthful that she could not have been more than
+twenty years old. She possessed a charming presence and a clear and
+musical voice. Her eyes were large and blue, and her finely-formed
+lips, like blood-red anemones, contrasted finely with the pale golden
+hue of her complexion.
+
+Her features combined the witchery of a houri with the strength of
+intellect. They were sculptured and illuminated by a grandly-developed
+soul.
+
+The odor of a high and steadfast virtue surrounded her. It was not the
+virtue of the ascetic, but rather that strength of soul that could
+triumph over temptation, that loved fair lights, fine raiment, sweet
+colors, and all the gladness and beauty of life.
+
+In her soft right hand she bore a rod of divination, the spiritual
+sceptre of Atvatabar. On either side of her stood a twin soul in fond
+embrace as a guard of love.
+
+The audience chamber was in itself a dream of grandeur and beauty.
+From the rose-tinted glass of the dome overhead a light soft and warm
+bathed all beneath with a peculiar sweetness. The lower part of the
+walls resembled the cloisters of a mosque. Behind pillars of solid
+silver a corridor ran all around the chamber. Here an artistic group
+of singers, clad in classic robes in soft colors, perambulated,
+singing as they went a refrain of penetrating sweetness. The audience
+listened with the deepest respect to the singing and to our
+conversation with the goddess. In the assembly were all the notables
+of the kingdom, poets, artists, musicians, inventors, sculptors, etc.,
+as well as royal and sacerdotal officers.
+
+The singing of the choir, that moved like an apparition of spirits in
+the dim cloisters, seemed to embody our thoughts and feelings. For
+myself the divine song was a draught of joy. It was a breath of
+verdure, of flowers and fruits, of a warm and serene atmosphere made
+perfect by the presence of a peerless incarnation of man's universal
+soul.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+THE GODDESS LEARNS THE STORY OF THE OUTER WORLD.
+
+
+Her holiness was pleased to say how honored she was by receiving us.
+Our advent in Atvatabar had created a profound impression upon the
+people, and she was no less curious to see us and learn from our own
+lips the story of the outer world. She was greatly interested in
+comparing the stalwart figures of our sailors with the less vigorous
+frames of the Atvatabarese. It could not be expected that men who
+handled objects and carried themselves in a land where gravity was
+reduced to a minimum could be so vigorous as men who belonged to a
+land of enormous gravity, whose resistance to human activity developed
+great strength of bone and muscle.
+
+I informed her holiness regarding the geography, climate and peoples
+of the outer sphere. I gave her an account of the chief nations of the
+world from Japan to the United States. I spoke of Africa, Australia,
+and the Pacific islands. I spoke of Adam and Eve, of the Deluge, of
+Assyria and Egypt. Then I described the glory of Greece and the
+grandeur of Rome. I spoke of Caesar and Hannibal, Cleopatra and
+Antony. I spoke of Columbus, Galileo, Michael Angelo, Faraday, Dante,
+and Shakespeare. I described how art reigned in one kingdom or country
+and invention in another, and that the soul or spiritual nature was as
+yet a rare development.
+
+"You tell me," said the goddess, "that Greece could chisel a statue,
+but could not invent a magnic engine, and that your own country, rich
+in machinery, is barren in art. This tells me the outer world is yet
+in a state of chaos and has not yet reached the development of
+Atvatabar. We have passed through all those stages. At first we were
+barbarous, then, as time produced order, art began to flourish. The
+artist, in his desire to glorify the few, lost sight of the misery of
+the many. Then came the reign of invention, of science, giving power
+to the meanest citizen. As democracy triumphed art was despised, and
+a ribald press jeered at the sacred names of poet and priest. By
+degrees, as the pride and power of the wealthy few were curbed and the
+condition of the masses raised to a more uniform and juster level,
+universal prosperity, growing rapidly richer, produced a fusion of art
+and progress. The physical man made powerful by science and the soul
+developed by art naturally produced the result of spiritual freedom.
+The enfranchised soul became free to explore the mysteries of nature
+and obtain a mastery over the occult forces residing therein."
+
+"In the outer sphere," I informed the goddess, "there has also existed
+in all ages an ardent longing for spiritual power over matter. But
+this power, which in many periods of history was really obtained, had
+been purchased by putting in practice the severest austerities of the
+body. Force of soul was the price of subjugation of passion and the
+various appetites of the body. The fakirs, yogis, jugglers, and adepts
+of India; the magicians, sorcerers and astrologers of Mesopotamia and
+Egypt; the alchemists, cabalists, and wizards of the middle ages, and
+the theosophists, spiritualists, clairvoyants, and mesmerists of the
+present time, were members of the same fraternity who have obtained
+their psychological powers from a study and practice of mystic
+philosophy or magic."
+
+"You say that the outer-world magicians derived their powers of soul
+from abnegation of the body," said the goddess. "Now the soul priests
+of Atvatabar can do quite as wonderful things, I dare say, as your
+magicians, and they have never practised austerities, but, on the
+contrary, have developed the body as well as the soul. In the worship
+of the gods of science and invention, art and spirituality, both body,
+mind, and soul are exercised to their utmost capability. In all stages
+there is exultance, exercise, development. But I am deeply interested
+in your remarks. Tell me just what the principles of the worshippers
+of your Harikar are!"
+
+"Spiritual culture in the outer world," I explained, "is obtained by a
+variety of religious beliefs, but the belief that most nearly
+resembles that of Atvatabar is that of the soul-worshippers, who deny
+the existence of any power beyond the human soul, teaching that it is
+only by our own inward light that we can rise to higher planes and
+reach at last to Nirvana, or passive blessedness. This inward light
+can only be truly followed by self-obliteration, fastings, penances,
+and repression of desires and appetites of all kinds, carried on
+through an endless series of reincarnations. The final blessedness is
+a beatific absorption into the ocean of existence which pervades the
+universe."
+
+"That is a different creed to that of Harikar in Atvatabar," said the
+goddess, "which is worship of body, mind, and soul. We believe with
+your Greeks in perfection of body and also with your Hindoos in
+perfection of soul. We re-enforce the powers of body and mind by
+science and invention, and the soul powers by art and spiritual love.
+We believe in magic and sorcery. Our religion is a state of ecstatic
+joy, chiefly found in the cultured friendship of counterpart souls,
+who form complete circles with each other. Enduring youth is the
+consummate flower of civilization. With us it lasts one hundred years,
+beginning with our twentieth birthday. There is no long and crucial
+stage of bodily abstinence from the good things of life; there is only
+abstinence from evil, from vice, selfishness, and unholy desire. Our
+religion is the trinity of body, mind, and spirit, in their utmost
+development. Such is the faith of Atvatabar."
+
+"And such a faith," I replied, "with such a deity as your holiness,
+must profoundly sway the hearts of your people."
+
+The goddess was a woman of intuition. Almost before I was aware of it
+myself she evidently discovered a sentiment underlying my words. She
+paused a moment, and before I could question her further regarding the
+peculiar creed of Atvatabar, said: "We will discuss these things more
+fully hereafter."
+
+At a signal from the goddess the trumpets rang a blast announcing the
+audience at an end. With the summons music uttered a divine throbbing
+throughout the chamber, while the singers marched and sang gloriously
+in the cloisters.
+
+As I sat, my soul swimming in a sea of ecstasy born of the blessed
+environment, I felt possessed of splendors and powers hitherto unknown
+and unfelt. A thrill of joy made hearts tremble beneath the crystal
+dome. It was a new lesson in art's mysterious peace.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+THE GARDEN OF TANJE.
+
+
+A series of banquets and other entertainments followed each other
+during our stay at the palace of Tanje. The goddess had held frequent
+interviews with the professors and myself regarding the external
+sphere, and had examined our maps and charts with the greatest
+curiosity.
+
+His majesty did not take nearly so much interest in our revelations as
+the goddess, being inert and prosaic in character.
+
+[Illustration: The Lilasure.]
+
+On the morning of the fourth day of our stay at the palace of Tanje I
+received a visit from the grand chamberlain Cleperelyum, with a
+command from the goddess to meet her in her boudoir. Cleperelyum led
+me to the sacred apartment, which, when I entered, was vacant. The
+walls were models of decorative architecture, the panels being filled
+with silk tapestry of a pale yellow-green hue, the mouldings being
+ivory-white. The panelled frieze was filled with figures in violet and
+gold, and sea-green upholstery covered couch and divan, while the
+draperies were silks of cream and blue. It was a luxurious retreat.
+The carpet was a silk rug, soft as a bed of rose leaves, with a broad
+border in tones of green, violet and white.
+
+Presently the goddess entered with a winning smile on her features.
+She was arrayed in a dress of soft violet silk, that, apparently, had
+no other garment beneath, so perfect was the revelation of her figure.
+Beneath the figure it fell to the ground in a thousand folds, like a
+wave of smooth water bursting into foaming rapids. Round her neck was
+a garland of lustrous yellow pearls. On her head she wore a tiara of
+much smaller dimensions than that worn on public occasions. Her pose
+was upright as an arrow.
+
+[Illustration: The Laburnul.]
+
+I rose and bowed profoundly, and the goddess also bowing, requested me
+to be seated.
+
+"I have sent for you," said she, "to learn more about your country and
+to talk with you about ours. I am consumed with curiosity regarding
+the external world." "Your holiness," I replied, "permit me to say
+that your graceful condescension exceeds, if possible, your splendor.
+I am truly bewildered at the vastness of my good fortune in
+discovering a country ruled by so glorious a goddess."
+
+"And I also," said the goddess, "have learned that Bilbimtesirol is
+not the universe, but a very small portion thereof indeed. I am
+intensely interested in your accounts of the outer world. I am
+overpowered with the thought that the exterior surface of the planet
+is peopled with beings like ourselves, and that civilization,
+government, religion, art, manufacture, and social life are so greatly
+developed beneath a still more glorious sun than ours."
+
+"Did it never occur to your astronomers," I inquired, "that human
+activity might also pervade the outer sphere?"
+
+[Illustration: The Green Gazzle of Glockett Gozzle.]
+
+"Our astronomers," said the goddess, "have long since decided that the
+conditions of climate on the exterior planet were too severe to allow
+human life to exist. They are aware that a great luminary gave the
+outer earth light by day, for our most daring aerial voyagers have
+frequently caught a glimpse of its light seen through the polar gulf.
+They argued that the equatorial regions were too hot, and the polar
+regions too cold, to support life, consequently the outer earth was a
+barren waste as desolate and uninhabited as your own satellite."
+
+"Would your holiness like to visit the exterior earth?" I boldly
+inquired.
+
+"If duty did not prevent me," she replied, "I would love to visit
+those far-off strange lands and peoples and see your sun and moon and
+all the stars!"
+
+From the goddess I first learned the precise location of Atvatabar.
+Lying exactly underneath the Atlantic Ocean it stretched east and west
+some two thousand miles, surrounded by the interior sea. There were
+other continents in Bilbimtesirol which we had already dimly seen
+spread upon the concave walls of the world around us.
+
+"You must come to see both Egyplosis and Arjeels," said her holiness,
+"but before you leave Tanje you must see my garden."
+
+"It must be a little paradise!" I exclaimed.
+
+"Let us go and see it now," she said, and, so saying, arose with a
+gracious gesture and led me out of the apartment.
+
+I accompanied her holiness down the terrace leading to the lovely
+retreat. Curving walks led between banks of flowers of all hues.
+There were avenues of tall shrubs not unlike rhododendrons, with the
+same magnificent bloom. Other plants, such as the firesweet, displayed
+a blinding wealth of yellow flowers.
+
+[Illustration: Jeerloons.]
+
+The goddess led the way to the conservatory in the garden wherein were
+treasured strange and beautiful flowers and zoophytes illustrative of
+the gradual evolution of animals from plants, a scientific faith that
+held sway in Atvatabar. The goddess showed me a beautiful plant with
+large fan-shaped leaves from whose edges hung a fringe of heavy roses;
+long trailing garlands of clustering star-shaped flowers sprang from
+the same roots. The plant was a perfect bower of bliss, and while
+called the laburnul, might with greater propriety be styled the rose
+of paradise.
+
+[Illustration: A Jeerloon.]
+
+Another fern-like plant was in reality a bird flower, called the
+lilasure. It had the head and breast of a bird, from whose back grew
+roots and four small feathers resembling those of the peacock. Its
+tail resembled two large fronds of a fern, which served the animal for
+wings, for by their aid it flew through the air.
+
+There was also a flock of strange green-feathered creatures,
+resembling buzzards, called green gazzles, on whose heads grew
+sun-flowers. On either side, beneath their wings, were the plant roots
+by means of which they still sucked nourishment from the soil, as
+their bills were not yet perfectly developed. They belonged to a
+locality on the south coast of Atvatabar known as Glockett Gozzle.
+
+The lillipoutum was another wonderful creature, half-plant half-bird.
+It represented the animal almost entirely evolved from the plant
+stage. A wreath of rootlets adorned the neck, but the most conspicuous
+features were the stork-like legs that terminated in roots with
+radiations like encrinital stems. The bird fed itself like a plant by
+simply thrusting its root-legs into the soft ooze of lake bottoms and
+slimy banks of rivers. Its tail was also a root possessing great
+absorptive powers. In shape the bird resembled a flamingo, and its
+feathers were of an old-rose color, mottled with lichen-green. A
+beard-like radiation of roots decorated its head, and its bill was
+extremely delicate.
+
+[Illustration: The Lillipoutum.]
+
+Such wonders as these intensified the glamor of the interior world. I
+was fast becoming bewildered with the intoxication of an environment
+of strange, abnormal creatures--unlike anything I had ever seen
+before.
+
+The goddess regarded her pets with the greatest interest, and was
+pleased at being the first to acquaint me with such living wonders of
+Atvatabar.
+
+"Your holiness," I said, "these creatures are so wonderful that unless
+I had actually seen them it would be impossible for me to believe in
+their existence." As I spoke, two strange bat-like forms flew toward
+us; they were flying orchids, known as jeerloons, with heart-shaped
+faces and arms terminating in wire-like claws. Their wing projections
+were bristling with suckers like the rays of a starfish. Altogether
+they were weird, uncanny creatures. The goddess caught one of them in
+her hands, and laughed at my excitement. "They will haunt you in your
+dreams," she exclaimed, "poor, pretty things!"
+
+"But now," she added, "let me show you a plant that is fast becoming
+a brood of animals, both root and flower. It is the jugdul. Still
+rooted in the soil, strange faces are swelling in the mould, while the
+flower is a leaf surmounted by a weird, small head, the nasal organ of
+which is a ponderous proboscis. We do not know as yet what kind of
+animal life will evolve from the plant, but the botanists and
+physiologists of Atvatabar are agreed that at least two new species of
+animals will be developed when the evolution of the zoophyte is
+complete."
+
+[Illustration: The Jugdul.]
+
+I assured her holiness that I considered myself the most favored of
+men to be permitted to visit the sanctuary wherein the occult
+transmigration of life was being manifested. It was a rare experience!
+
+Just then the goddess directed my attention to a flying root
+resembling a humming-bird. It was the far-famed jalloast, the
+semi-evolved humming-bird of Atvatabar. Other similar beings,
+half-root, half-bird, were seen perched in a bower of tree-ferns,
+whose waxy green fronds fell like an emerald cascade about the
+jalloasts.
+
+From porcelain boxes suspended along the roof of the conservatory a
+perfect forest of strange plants depended, a species of zoophyte known
+as the yarp-happy, which seemed to be a combination of ape and
+flower. Its peculiarly weird, ape-like face was covered with a hood,
+and from the open mouth of each animal the tongue protruded. From the
+neck of the animal three long leaves radiated, the two lower leaves in
+each case terminating in claw-like extremities, which gave a weird
+expression to the zoophyte.
+
+[Illustration: The Yarphappy.]
+
+Right underneath these strange beings, there grew an immense quantity
+of spotted pouch-shaped plants, each having the head of a cat growing
+above the pouch. This peculiar zoophyte was known as the gasternowl.
+From either side of the junction of the cat-like head with the pouch
+radiated two speckled leaves. The tips of the ears terminated in
+frond-like plumes, and a peculiar plume like a crest surmounted the
+head.
+
+A strange root known as the crocosus was developed into a perfect
+animal that crawled with four legs upon the floor. The animal was not
+unlike the lizard, or a diminutive crocodile, with an immensely long
+neck, which it held erect. The neck terminated in a bulbous head, with
+an open, bill-shaped mouth, not unlike the mouth of a pelican, while
+right below the jaws there grew a root-like appendage, that coiled
+around the neck. The animal possessed a root-like tail, and was a most
+interesting creature.
+
+[Illustration: The Jalloast.]
+
+To enumerate all the wonders of the conservatory of plant
+transmigration at Tanje would be impossible. I saw the jardil (or
+love-pouch), an orchid resembling a pouch, with the face of a child
+growing therein, from which radiated rootlets and jabots of spiral
+fronds. I also saw the redoubtable blocus, an animal resembling a
+jerboa, or kangaroo, whose only trace of plant existence was a few
+rootlets growing out of its back. The funny-fenny, or clowngrass, was
+a weed with veritable goblins growing on the stems. The goblins had
+long noses and wore high hats and lace collars, but were otherwise but
+plants with absorbent roots. They were so grotesque that I began to
+think that nature was laughing at me quite as much as I laughed at
+nature.
+
+When leaving the conservatory I heard a chorus of tender voices like a
+band of spirits singing, whereupon the goddess directed my attention
+to a cluster of fairy girls that, like flowers, were growing upon the
+stem of a plant. It was a peculiarity of these fairy creatures to
+sing every time their goddess passed by, her spiritual atmosphere
+quickening them into conscious life and song. I was fairly dazzled
+with such a tribute of love to my gracious companion, and were the
+fairy flowers not sacred things I would have borne them away to
+exhibit such a trophy to the outer world.
+
+[Illustration: The Gasternowl.]
+
+This wonderful plant seemed more like the production of spirit power
+indulging in a weird fantasy of imagination, rather than an evolution
+of nature. It was a new experience to me to hear the little creatures
+sing in a tender chorus of adoration to the goddess and dance
+gleefully upon their stems. My guide fondled the strange creatures
+with her own fair fingers, and they seemed to me the greatest wonder I
+had yet beheld in Atvatabar.
+
+"These," said the goddess, "are gleroserals, and I would gladly give
+you a spray were it not that removal from their tender habitat would
+kill them. But here is a flower, half-bird, half-plant, that I will
+send you in a proper cage if you care for it." The zoophyte referred
+to was another bird plant that flew around the conservatory possessing
+the head and body of an eagle, the wings of a butterfly and the tail
+of a plant. The plant-like appendage was composed of long beautiful
+sprays of graceful foliage, not unlike pine branches, that were curved
+into sinuous forms as the animal flew. It was known as the eaglon, and
+was without legs. I thanked the goddess for her precious gift,
+whereupon we left the conservatory.
+
+[Illustration: The Crocosus.]
+
+Wandering through thickets of roses whose burning blossoms swooned
+upon their stems, we came upon a thick carpet of verdure that
+surrounded a hidden lake of clear, cool water. The rocky basin of the
+lake had been sculptured by human hands. Its margin was in outline a
+bold pear-shaped curve, that also curved upon itself, formed by an
+immense chiselling of the fundamental rock. In a little harbor of cut
+rock lay a pleasure boat, a curiously-wrought shell of silver that was
+propelled by magnicity. The goddess entered the boat, bidding me
+follow her. We sat together on an ample couch in the stern of the boat
+underneath a silver canopy. Touching a button, the boat moved swiftly
+over the water. It was a scene of rapture! Gazing into the depths of
+the water I saw the bottom of the lake sculptured in immense masses of
+flowers of stone, like the roof of a Gothic cathedral, but a hundred
+times more luxuriant. Around and above us rose heights of blessedness
+filled with all the thousand ecstasies of leaf and flower. An islet
+bore a little pagoda that stood in the eternal noon a pillared jewel
+of stone, silent and beautiful. It was half concealed with festoons of
+creeping plants whose flowers were great globes of crimson, yellow and
+blue.
+
+There was around me--paradise, and beside me--ecstasy!
+
+"You are pleased with my garden?" said the goddess.
+
+"This must be the garden of Hesperides that our poets write of," I
+replied. "Here at last I have found the ideal life."
+
+The goddess reclined on the couch in an attitude of luxurious grace.
+Her every gesture was at once heroic and beautiful.
+
+[Illustration: The Jardil, or Love-Pouch.]
+
+"Tell me what your poets say of nature, life and love," said she; "do
+they ever sing the delights of hopeless love?"
+
+As the goddess uttered this last question I felt within me a strange
+delight. There sat beside me, floating on that mysterious wave, the
+idol of a great nation, the deity of its universal faith, a divinity
+of power, glory and beauty, laying aside spiritual empire to become
+the companion of a simple explorer of the internal world, her
+discoverer and her friend, by a most happy chance of fortune.
+
+As these thoughts swiftly ran through my brain, and before I had time
+to reply, music, soft, weird, intensely intoxicating, was blown from
+among the tempestuous bloom of the paradises. The melody seemed the
+holiest thrill of hearts communing in the rapture of love! To explain
+the sweetness of the moment is impossible--the goddess was so alluring
+and serene. She kept her own emotions in the background as the result
+of a proud devotion to duty, and yet I felt swathed with a soul that
+seemed to have found an opportunity worthy the expression of its life.
+
+A situation so daring, yet so tender, required an equally daring and
+reverent soul to meet it. I felt all its surpassing loveliness.
+
+"Our poets," I replied, "have written of love in all its phases,
+describing the most spiritual passions as well as the most lustful. In
+poetry love may be any phase of love, but the reality is a compound of
+lust and spirituality, being rooted both in body and soul."
+
+"Do your people," said the goddess, "never differentiate lust and love
+and obtain in real life only a spiritual romantic love such as we do
+in Atvatabar?"
+
+"We believe, your holiness," I replied, "that such a love as you refer
+to is only to be found in a spiritual state and is the secret of
+disembodied blessedness."
+
+"You must see Egyplosis," said she, "ere you depart from us, and there
+learn the possibility of ideal love in actual life."
+
+"To discover such a joy," I replied, "will repay my journey to
+Atvatabar a thousandfold."
+
+We alighted from the boat on a rocky margin of the lake that led into
+a labyrinth of flowers. Here we wandered at will, discovering at every
+step new delights. Lyone was not only a goddess, but also the fond
+incarnation of a comrade soul.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+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 cañons, 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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+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 cañon 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 cañon. 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 cañon 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 cañon 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."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+THE BANQUET ON THE AERIAL SHIP.
+
+
+The saloon, which was also the _salle à manger_, was situated in the
+centre of the ship. Thus the entire travellers could assemble together
+without disturbing the centre of gravity of the structure.
+
+The saloon was composed of woven cane, and ornamented with a dado of
+sage-green silk, on which were embroidered storks, pheasants and
+eagles flying through space. An elongated table, also of wicker work,
+contained a sumptuous repast.
+
+The goddess congratulated the guests on their safety, which proved
+that the skill that produced the _Aeropher_ had successfully grappled
+with the difficult problem of aerial navigation.
+
+The inventor of the _Aeropher_ said it was the apex of mechanical
+skill. Invention had raised humanity from the depths of slavery,
+ignorance, and weakness to a height of empire undreamed of in earlier
+ages. Such material greatness expands the soul with godlike
+attributes. The ideal, inventive soul, the typical soul, was a god.
+
+The poet said that the _Aeropher_ was the symbol of that kind of
+poetry in which energy and art were in equipoise. It glorified
+mechanical skill. It had been prophesied that as civilization advanced
+poetry would decline. There was a period in the history of Atvatabar
+in which matters of taste, imagination and intellectual emotion had
+been utterly neglected by a universal preference for scientific and
+mechanical pursuits. The country was overrun with reasoners, debaters,
+metaphysicians, scientists and mechanical artists, but there were no
+poets. Such mechanical civilization was unfavorable to their
+development. The founding of such institutions as the art palace of
+Gnaphisthasia and the spiritual palace of Egyplosis had grafted on
+their modern life the soul life of more ancient times, until
+soul-worship had become the universal religion.
+
+The goddess said that the aerial ship was the symbol of an ideal and
+passionate temperament resolved on discovering new spheres of
+spiritual beauty, so as to spiritualize the race. Such a soul ought to
+be free to surround itself with that atmosphere from which it absorbs
+life. It must choose its own weapons and armor, so as to be adequately
+equipped for the battle. In its eagerness to climb on discovering
+wings it must be accompanied by its own retinue of spirits, by
+enthusiastic and lasting friendships so consoling to its nature. Such
+was the idea of Egyplosis.
+
+Captain Lavornal at this point stated that when the company regained
+the deck he would put the rotating wheel, placed at the stern of the
+ship, in motion, so as to produce the combination of a revolving as
+well as an onward flight.
+
+"These wheels," said he, "will spin us around, and by means of our
+double rudder we produce both vertical and lateral undulations, which,
+combined with the rotary movement of the deck, will produce a
+delirious sensation. All the abandon of great and strong birds are
+ours. We can imitate the sonorous sweep of the seemorgh, who plunges
+with supreme majesty in the abyss of air."
+
+"These elaborations of flight," said Lyone, "are not pursued merely
+for physical pleasure, but in a mysterious way they are the moulders
+of the soul itself. That essence, re-enforced with such subtle and
+powerful enthusiasm, develops sensibility and assumes a grandeur and
+ecstasy unknown to those who merely travel on the earth. Each gesture
+of flight is a stride nearer omnipotence, an attribute more godlike by
+reason of its supremacy over those obstacles that crush and
+overwhelm."
+
+I shared the same seat with Lyone at the prow of the vessel.
+
+The scenery had in our absence developed into more marked grandeur.
+Under the spell of an eternal morning, of such light as poets only
+dream of, there rose on either side of us consummate rocks and
+cataracts that signalled heaven. The swinging pillars of incredible
+streams leaped thousands of feet into the gulf beneath. They charmed
+us like glittering serpents. The gorge, the rocks, the cataracts, the
+heavens of the earth above us were a prodigal feast to which nature
+had bidden us.
+
+[Illustration: THEN THE SHIP ROSE AGAIN TOWARD THE MAMMOTH ROCKS,
+ADORNED WITH THE TAPESTRIES OF FALLING WAVE.]
+
+As we explored the depths of the gulf the _Aeropher_ assumed an
+undulating motion. For several miles the vessel kept descending,
+until we swept through an overwhelming jungle of wild flowers. There
+were acres of roses riotous in bloom, there was the trailing of wild
+peas sweet as honey, the blue of larkspurs, the fragrance of musk
+flowers, and the swaying cups of scarlet poppies.
+
+Then the ship rose again toward the mammoth rocks that shimmered in
+the sunlight adorned with the tapestries of falling wave. Still upward
+we rose into the spell-bound sky, feeding on the savage sweets of
+nature, the rhythm of the golden cliffs, the echoes of the waterfalls.
+We were the associates of mighty pines that on the Theban peaks spread
+incomparable solaces for mind and heart. Then, as we descended from
+our extreme altitude, we began also to revolve with a splendid sweep
+of motion, until the landscape swam around us like a dream.
+
+It was a delirious phantasy of airy clouds, fluttering leaves, songs
+of birds, milky avalanches, balsamic forests, and the awe-inspiring
+silences of revolving walls!
+
+The intoxication of such wheeling flight filled us with a strange joy.
+Our journey became wistful, eager, breathless. We became poets, and
+the soul of a poet is a chameleon that takes its glow and color from
+the surrounding infection. The motion that bore us in daring circles
+produced a euthanasia of mind and an exaltation of soul. The jugglery
+of flight under such conditions produced a Nirvana of soul and a
+Dharana of body. An exquisitely sweet whirlwind of emotion swept
+through I know not how many souls on the _Aeropher_, but certainly
+through the souls of Lyone and myself.
+
+We both flew round and round like birds in intoxicating converse.
+During the progress of the flight, intellect, will and memory
+slumbered. I was deprived of the use of all external faculties, while
+those of the soul were correspondingly increased. Imagination and
+emotion were excited with rapturous energy. Lyone's eyes sparkled with
+a celestial joy. She was again the goddess in her ecstasy!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+WE REACH EGYPLOSIS.
+
+
+When I recovered my every-day senses the revolving motion of the
+_Aeropher_ had ceased and our flight was confined to an undulating
+movement. I was holding the hand of the goddess, who had been in a
+hyperæsthetic condition herself during the gyrations of the ship, and
+when feeling her senses leaving her she had involuntarily grasped my
+hand. Our souls had been the recipients of the same rapturous joy.
+
+When we were once more ourselves, Lyone was anxious to know something
+of the character of the women of the outer world. I talked to her
+about such women as resembled herself in spiritual fervor.
+
+I described the Egyptian legend of Isis, the goddess of love, of life,
+of nature. I told her of St. Theresa, that blessed visionary, whose
+soul frequently experienced those voluptuous sensations, such as might
+be experienced when expiring in raptures on the bosom of God. I spoke
+also of pearly Eve, to whom, ere she had eaten of the fatal fruit,
+every moment was a delight, every blossom a wilderness of sweets. I
+spoke of Cleopatra, the haughty daughter of the Nile, the fervor of
+whose passion thickened into lust and death.
+
+My story was interrupted by the arrival of the captain, who said:
+"Your holiness, we will reach Egyplosis in an hour."
+
+"So soon," murmured the goddess.
+
+"Is it the pleasure of your holiness that we alight at the private
+sanctuary or at the grand gate?" inquired the captain.
+
+"At the grand gate, of course," said the goddess; "we must give our
+friends a royal welcome."
+
+The captain bowed in obedience and disappeared.
+
+The charms of our journey grew more and more interesting. In addition
+to the delights of discovery, I felt the rising ambition of a great
+joy in connection with Lyone. It was a daring thought, that I might
+possibly partake of a glorious _camaraderie_ with the goddess, but
+when I thought that no stranger could possibly share a heart that
+belonged only to her own people, only to Atvatabar, I felt that Lyone
+was very far off indeed.
+
+In a land where spiritual love was the prerogative of the priestly
+caste, strictly limited to the members of that caste, any priestly
+condescension or favor given to those outside the pale of the
+priesthood could have no meaning and was forbidden under penalty of
+death. Of course human nature is liable to err always, and it came to
+pass that the records of the legal tribunals of Atvatabar proved that
+many departures in soul fellowship took place between the most loyal
+inmates of Egyplosis and the outer inhabitants. The punishment for
+such offence to the most sacred law of Atvatabar, although terrible,
+was powerless to prevent such _mésalliances_ of souls.
+
+I knew that a spark of what might prove a mighty conflagration was
+already kindled in the bosom of the goddess. It thrilled me to know
+it, but only as the laws and customs of this strange country became
+known to me did I realize the tremendous risk in Lyone allowing her
+heart to betray any kinship, however remote, with mine. The greater
+the dignity, the greater the offence. The crime was sacrilege, and the
+punishment was death by the magnic fluid.
+
+The goddess already belonged to her faith. She was love's
+_religieuse_. It was a cruel thing to seek her love when I knew it
+would perhaps bring her to an untimely end and stamp her name with
+everlasting disgrace. On the other hand, if the goddess, knowing much
+better than I the result of loving one not only outside of the sacred
+caste, but an "outer barbarian" as well, was brave enough to incur
+even the risk of death on behalf of her love, would I be so cowardly
+as not to follow her supreme soul even to martyrdom itself? And it
+might be that we might even raise a following large enough to defeat
+our enemies, and end in a greater triumph than either of us ever yet
+experienced.
+
+Such were the thoughts that filled me when the aerial ship suddenly
+shot out of the chasm in which we had so long travelled and emerged
+upon the wide circular basin of the mountains about one hundred miles
+in diameter. In the centre of the high valley lay an immense lake, in
+whose centre stood a large island, everywhere visible from the shores,
+whereon stood the sacred palace of Egyplosis, the many-templed college
+of souls. We saw its pale green, gleaming walls rising from a tropical
+forest of dark green trees. Its gold and crystal domes reflected the
+sunlight dazzlingly, making the palace plainly visible all over that
+wide valley.
+
+Egyplosis was a little city composed of an immense quadrangle, the
+supernal palace together with the subterranean infernal palace. The
+supernal palace was of enormous dimensions, being a square mile in
+extent, and was composed of over a hundred temples and palaces rising
+high in the air, the chief seat of soul worship in Atvatabar, and the
+home of twice ten thousand priests and priestesses.
+
+The infernal palace consisted of one hundred subterranean temples and
+labyrinths, all sculptured, like the supernal palace, out of the
+living rock, and situated directly underneath it.
+
+Our course lay in a direct line across the noble valley. It was the
+most diversified part of the country we had yet crossed, being broken
+up into hills and valleys, glens and precipices, fields and forests,
+lakes, islands and gardens, all composing a region of bewildering
+beauty.
+
+The emotions awakened by my near approach to this strange place were
+keen and exciting. Now for the first time in history its mystery was
+about to be disclosed to alien eyes from the outer world.
+
+Soon after entering the park we saw, some fifty miles to the north,
+the ship containing the sailors rapidly approaching Egyplosis. It had
+also escaped destruction by the cyclone, having doubtless followed us
+down the cañon we sought refuge in.
+
+It was a new sensation to float bird-like over the enchanted fields in
+this most mysterious of worlds, toward a spot that has no prototype on
+earth.
+
+A multitude of domes and crenelated walls grew into immense
+proportions beneath the boundless light. Egyplosis possessed in its
+palaces the enchanted calm of Hindoo and Greek architecture, together
+with the thrilling ecstasy of Gothic shrines. Blended with these
+precious qualities there was a poetic generalization of the mighty
+activities of modern civilization. It was the home of spiritual and
+physical empire.
+
+I wondered greatly what Eleusinian mysteries its courts contained. I
+was indeed another Hercules visiting the realms of Pluto and the
+garden of Proserpine in quest of the immortal fruits of knowledge.
+Would I be successful in my quest, and bear back to the outer world
+some magical secret its nations would be glad to know?
+
+Finally, we saw the clear and marvellous palace close at hand.
+
+[Illustration: LYONE WAS BORNE ON A LITTER FROM THE AERIAL SHIP TO THE
+PALACE.]
+
+A hundred banners floated from its walls, and music from an army of
+neophytes on its towers saluted us.
+
+The _Aeropher_ swept over the lake, and, reaching the island, alighted
+on a marble causeway leading to the grand entrance of the palace. A
+thousand wayleals stood ranged on either side as a guard of honor. We
+had left the forest that largely covers the island, and on either hand
+stretched gardens of rainbow-colored flowers, and here and there
+fountains sparkled in the sunny air.
+
+Lyone seemed the impersonation of divine loveliness as she was borne
+in a litter from the aerial ship to the palace. On her head sparkled
+the bird of yearning, typical of hopeless love.
+
+The high priest Hushnoly and the priestess Zooly-Soase of the supernal
+palace and the grand sorcerer Charka and the grand sorceress Thoubool
+of the infernal palace, surrounded by the chief priests and
+priestesses, magicians, sorcerers, wizards, theosophists,
+spiritualists, etc., gave us a royal welcome, and were jubilant at the
+return of the supreme goddess to Egyplosis.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+THE GRAND TEMPLE OF HARIKAR.
+
+
+Twelve of the most handsome priests and priestesses constituted the
+guard of twin-souls in waiting to the goddess, and these escorted her
+into the grand court of the temple palace. Over a gigantic archway
+were sculptured the words "Dya Pateis omt Ami Cair," which meant "Two
+Bodies and One Soul." This was the motto of Egyplosis, the expression
+of ideal friendship and indicative of a system of life the reverse of
+that of the outer world of Atvatabar, which had for its motto, "One
+Body and Two Souls."
+
+The architecture of the supernal palace was of amazing proportions and
+solid grandeur. Its aggregation of temples was sculptured out of one
+mighty block of pale green marble. The vast quadrangle seemed a
+tempest of imagination and art, whose temples, terraces and towers
+were the expression of the infinite souls that formed them. The color
+of the stone was beautifully relieved by broad bands of the vermilion
+metal terrelium, that plated the walls with several parallel friezes,
+which lent an amazing splendor to the scene, and made us feel as
+though we were entering some palace of eternity, where magnificence
+has no end.
+
+We had no time to examine the marvels spread before our delighted
+eyes, for, on the conclusion of our reception by the great officers of
+the palace, we were conducted to chambers set apart for our use, to
+rest and refresh ourselves to witness the exercises attending the
+installation of a twin-soul on the following day.
+
+The chief temple at Egyplosis was interiorly of semi-circular shape,
+like a Greek theatre, five hundred feet in width. It was covered like
+the pantheon with a sculptured roof and dome of many-colored glass.
+The roof was one hundred and thirty feet above the lowest tier of
+seats beneath or one hundred feet above the level of the highest seats
+beneath. The walls were laboriously sculptured dado and field and
+frieze, with bas-reliefs of the same character as the golden throne of
+the gods that stood at the centre of the semi-circle.
+
+The dado was thirty-two feet in height, on which were carved the
+emblems of every possible machine, implement or invention that
+conferred supremacy over nature in idealized grandeur. Battles of
+flying wayleals and races of bockhockids were carved in grand
+confusion. It was a splendid reunion of science and art.
+
+Higher up the field space, which was fifty feet in height, was broken
+by a gallery or cloister behind a tier of splendid pillars, themselves
+carved with the emblems of art. The hidden wall, as well as those
+portions above and below the cloister between dado and frieze, were
+covered with endless representations of the creations of art. Heroic
+eurythmic figures representing poetry, music, painting, architecture,
+etc., formed a mighty symposium.
+
+Highest of all, the enormous frieze, fully sixteen feet in width, was
+one mighty band of solid terrelium. This had been cast in plates
+having sculptured symbols in high relief of the sublime emblems of
+Harikar, and portrayed scenes from the idealities and mysteries of
+Egyplosis.
+
+There were represented the fine and perfect figures of magicians in
+the midst of their incantations, of sorcerers raising souls to life
+again; there were visions of the sorcery of love in all its moods, and
+of the rapt practices of twin-souls generating a creative force in
+batteries of spirit power.
+
+Above all rose the dome whose lights were fadeless. The pavement of
+the temple had been chiselled in the form of a longitudinal hollow
+basin, containing a series of wide terraces of polished stone, whereon
+were placed divans of the richest upholstery. In each divan sat a
+winged twin-soul, priest and priestess, the devotees of hopeless love.
+On the throne itself sat Lyone, the supreme goddess, in the semi-nude
+splendor of the pantheon, arranged with tiara and jewelled belt and
+flowing skirt of sea-green aquelium lace. She made a picture divinely
+entrancing and noble. Supporting the throne was an immense pedestal of
+polished marble, fully one hundred feet in diameter and twenty feet in
+height, which stood upon a wide and elevated pavement of solid silver,
+whereon the priests and priestesses officiated in the services to the
+goddess. On crimson couches sat their majesties the king and queen of
+Atvatabar, together with the great officers of the realm. Next to the
+royal group myself and the officers and seamen of the _Polar King_
+occupied seats of honor. Behind, around and above us, filling the
+immense temple, rose the concave mass of twin-souls numbering ten
+thousand individuals, each seated with counterpart soul.
+
+As I gazed on those happy terraces of life, youth, love and beauty, I
+felt exhilarated with the sensations the scene gave rise to.
+
+The garments of both priests and priestesses were fashioned in a style
+somewhat resembling the decorative dresses seen on Greek and Japanese
+vases, yet wholly original in design. In many cases the priestesses
+were swathed in transparent tissues that revealed figures like pale
+olive gold within.
+
+The grand sorcerer Charka and the grand sorceress Thoubool occupied a
+conspicuous divan upholstered with cloth of gold. The sorceress was a
+grand beauty, neither blond nor brunette, but her complexion would,
+chameleon-like, change from a rosy white to a clear golden hue. Her
+hair was bright copper, gleaming like strands of metal. Her eyes
+changed color incessantly, being successively blue and black.
+
+Her robe was a pale green silk, bound at the waist with a heavy
+cincture of gold. She wore a necklace of many-colored gems.
+
+The grand sorcerer wore a robe of moss-green velvet embroidered with
+appliqued white silk lace, resembling lotus bloom. Both wore diadems
+of emeralds. Other twin-souls were arrayed in equally splendid attire,
+and seated on couches whose upholstery accentuated or harmonized with
+their fair occupants. Whatever the color selected, I observed that
+each twin-soul priest and priestess wore robes of a consanguineous
+hue, however the individual stuffs might vary in texture or quality. I
+also observed that in no case were the laws of taste in color
+violated, and unerring instinct had guided every priest and priestess
+in achieving the most piquant harmonies of color. With garments in
+simultaneous contrast each twin-soul sat on a couch upholstered in
+fabrics in pure contrast of color.
+
+How I wished some great painter of the outer world could transfer to
+canvas that conflagration of beauty.
+
+Several twin-souls, with garments that seemed beaten gold, reclined on
+black velvet couches beside us. On an immense divan of white velvet
+near by sat a group of priests and priestesses arrayed in stuffs that
+were the strangest tones of purple, brown, violet, green, and red. A
+twin-soul in golden maize sat on a dark purple couch. A twin-soul in
+écru sat on a salmon-colored couch, while a twin-soul in myosotis blue
+reposed on a couch of the color of Australian gold. Celibates and
+vestals in russet robes luxuriated on couches of magnolia green.
+
+It was evident their artists possessed a happy skill in creating such
+harmonies of costume. Sculptor, upholsterer and _couturière_ formed
+the trinity of genius that wrought marvels of form and color.
+
+Harikar, the Holy Soul, was the deity, who was symbolized by the
+goddess, and ministered to by such a retinue of souls. No doubt
+Harikar was mightily pleased at such a tribute of wealth, love and
+beauty. As far as an individual could appreciate such splendor, I must
+testify it was an eminently thrilling oblation.
+
+The votaries themselves were no solitary ascetics who practised heroic
+mortifications to obtain dominion over life or nature. Instead of the
+pale devotee who in other creed cultivates the desire to get away from
+all things earthly, and whose every effort is to extinguish pleasure
+in life, every theopath of Harikar cultivated a Greek perfection of
+body, as well as a Gothic intensity of soul. By what powerful
+incantation were the priests of Egyplosis able to overcome the law of
+the outer world, that all joy must be paid for in pain, and that the
+joy was nearly always too dear at the price given?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX.
+
+THE INSTALLATION OF A TWIN-SOUL.
+
+
+The sacred musicians of the temple surrounded the throne in solid
+circles each arrayed in lordly attire.
+
+They flourished instruments of gold, that rang out music of such depth
+and clearness of tone as to melt every soul in that vast audience into
+one thrilling whole. The sounding song was the incarnation of all
+things majestic and glorious. In its breathless measures were born the
+spirits of conquest, pride, inspiration, love and sympathy. The
+thrilling climax was wrought of passages eloquent of love, tenderness,
+reverence, joy, adoration and poetry.
+
+Again, with the music becoming more refined, a choir of singers in the
+high cloister in the walls sang as they walked a refrain of purifying
+sweetness. It was a wail of fidelity and love, and both song and music
+moved in perfect accord.
+
+Thereafter music alone was heard, when the high priest Hushnoly, and
+the high priestess Zooly-Soase stood before us on the silver pavement
+beneath the throne.
+
+The blue-black hair of the high priestess fell around her olive face
+and shoulders like a cloud of darkness. She wore a robe of coral-red
+silken gossamer, that with its foldings shivered like quicksilver,
+revealing a figure of olive marble beneath. Her shoulders, arms and
+breasts, soft and heavy in mould, were dimly seen beneath their coral
+veil. Her profile was perfect. Her eyes were jewels of swart fire. Her
+eyebrows made perfect arches above them, enhancing the beauty of her
+face. Her mouth was fine and tender, and her lips red with kisses. The
+high priest, whose noble features were olive-green in hue, wore a
+splendid opaque silk burnous of camellia-red, of heavier texture than
+that of the priestess. He wore boots of scarlet lacquered leather.
+Both wore diadems of kragon, the precious stone.
+
+A stone altar curiously carved, on which stood a green bronze turtle
+of large size, occupied one side of the front of the pavement. The
+turtle held its head stretched upward, and through its open mouth a
+thin stream of blue smoke ascended. On the wide flat back of the
+turtle lay an open volume, the sacred book of Egyplosis.
+
+The priest and priestess stood beside the altar, each reading an
+alternate stanza from the ritual of the goddess. While reading, the
+priests with loud voice followed the intoning of the high priest, and
+the priestesses that of the high priestess, as follows:
+
+               THE RITUAL OF HOPELESS LOVE.
+
+                         PRIESTS.
+
+     Harikar is the supreme soul, and the goddess Lyone his
+     supreme incarnation. Equally free from asceticism and
+     indulgence, she treads the golden path.
+
+                         PRIESTESSES.
+
+     Let us joyfully obey our adorable goddess, who commands us
+     in all manner of spiritual joys; let us follow her glorious
+     example, preserving purity of heart and life.
+
+                         PRIESTS.
+
+     Let us adore a cupid agonized, worshipping the goddess of
+     hopeless, tender, romantic love. Let us, with our
+     counterparts, the most lovely of maidens, become twin-souls
+     for evermore.
+
+                         PRIESTESSES.
+
+     Let us love the shapely and active youths, the young men of
+     soul and intellect, likewise those of courage and daring,
+     whose hearts and minds are in complete unity.
+
+                         PRIESTS.
+
+     Let us add splendor of body to greatness of soul. May we
+     excel in the chase, the dance and the race. Let us drink
+     ambrosial wine, and eat the juiciest of meats, and clothe
+     ourselves with the finest and strongest of tissues.
+
+[Illustration: THE PRIEST AND PRIESTESS STOOD BESIDE THE ALTAR, EACH
+READING AN ALTERNATE STANZA FROM THE RITUAL OF THE GODDESS.]
+
+                         PRIESTESSES.
+
+     Let us have a beautiful companionship with our counterpart
+     souls. Let us rejoice in the sun, in the free winds of the
+     sky, in the glory of flowers, in the pride of horses and
+     elephants richly caparisoned. Let us treasure jewels. Let us
+     possess emeralds, turquoises, diamonds and rubies. Let us
+     array ourselves with marvellous stuffs, dyed with the
+     richest colorings.
+
+                         PRIESTS.
+
+     Let us here in search of the ideal find an ever-increasing
+     Nirvana of blessedness. Goddess of souls, lead us to imagine
+     higher and holier exaltations; keener and more blessed
+     raptures!
+
+                         PRIESTESSES.
+
+     Sweet mother of souls! teach us to cultivate consoling
+     friendships with sympathetic hearts. Give us longings for
+     the utmost depths of love and tenderness; let us possess
+     fervid and impassioned souls.
+
+                         PRIESTS.
+
+     Let us create a paradise wherein life is one long
+     intoxication of love, beauty and soul-culture, found in the
+     fascinating converse of soul with soul and intellect with
+     intellect.
+
+                         PRIESTESSES.
+
+     May rapturous energies spring from hopeless loves! May the
+     yearning for inaccessible pleasures fill us with blessed
+     extravagance and holy madness.
+
+                         PRIESTS.
+
+     May we, firmly poised on virtue, become possessed of noble,
+     delicate, enormous souls. May the meeting of spirit with
+     spirit be too ecstatic for words to express. May vows be
+     written in each other's hearts. May the jewelled ring bind
+     soul and soul, and in the commingled life may the holy
+     compact be known, that a perfect circle of souls has been
+     consummated.
+
+                         PRIESTESSES.
+
+     Secure by our compact and our vows from tasting of the
+     forbidden fruit, may we always possess the happy
+     intemperance of never-satiated souls.
+
+                         PRIESTS.
+
+     May the sorcery of love procure for us the shuddering
+     sensibility of sorrow, without its agony, as we possess the
+     perfect delight of day without the cold and lugubrious
+     shadows of the night.
+
+                         PRIESTESSES.
+
+     Contact with life begets love, and love begets sensation,
+     and sensation desire, but reason and culture control desire
+     and so preserve the endless sweetness of our joy.
+
+                         PRIESTS.
+
+     The real mortal, the ideal divine. The real awakens desire,
+     the ideal feeds it. The real is the maimed, the halt and the
+     blind; it is the sepulchre of faith; the poor, the tawdry,
+     the miserable, it is the measure of our imperfect attainment
+     of the ideal.
+
+     The ideal is the supreme made possible by love and charity.
+     It is wide as imagination, perfect as love, calm as death.
+     It is the unchangeable and the immortal.
+
+     The real with its disappointments is soul shattering, but
+     the ideal is perennial life.
+
+     The more inaccessible the pleasure, the keener the delight
+     in its pursuit.
+
+     In love, accessibility is death.
+
+                         PRIESTESSES.
+
+     By losing the real we obtain the ideal. What others strive
+     for we possess. Praise to Harikar for the most glorious of
+     men, for precious viands, odoriferous wines, rare and costly
+     jewels, marvellous stuffs, and the hundred temples and
+     gardens of Egyplosis! Praise to Harikar for our counterpart
+     souls!
+
+                         PRIESTS.
+
+     Praise to Harikar for the loveliest of women, noble,
+     cultured and tender, with whom Nirvana is ecstasy.
+
+                         PRIESTESSES.
+
+     Nirvana is the consummate gift of Harikar, the one
+     everlasting sweetness!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+During the intonation of the ritual, the twin-souls put into practice
+the manifestations of those endearments prayed for, and which they
+certainly seemed to possess.
+
+Throughout the entire congregation, priest and priestess, enfolded in
+each other's arms, swayed caressingly together and rapturously kissed
+each other. The fondest sighs were heard amid the recitations, and the
+faces of lover and beloved were flushed the color of rosy flame. A
+tempest of restrained passion shook the entire congregation.
+
+What wonder, that, ruled by such a faith, each twin-soul splendidly
+apparelled, in such an edifice, should grow rich and strange, bold and
+delicate, and exhibit the intemperance of emotion excited by
+sensations so multiplied and extreme? I then saw a new meaning in the
+grandeur and efflorescence of the sculptures of the temple. I saw in
+the profuse decorations, in the arabesques so fantastically entangled
+and unrolled, a manifestation of the delicate sensibility that created
+them.
+
+Not only were real or natural objects idealized in art, but also
+conventional art, or the record of what nature suggests, as well as
+how she appears, to the soul of the artist. And what must have been
+the infinite wealth of suggestion to such souls as these to account
+for such mouldings and traceries on wall and roof, and such wealth of
+color in attire, reflected and duplicated in the jewelled windows of
+the dome. Here were souls fitted by nature and art to fuse and create
+the suggestions of nature into shapes of eternal beauty. These
+flamboyant shapes and mystical colors presuppose the strange
+illuminations that had pierced tender and extravagant hearts.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX.
+
+THE INSTALLATION OF A TWIN-SOUL (CONTINUED).
+
+
+While priest and priestess were folded with mutual emotion two of the
+loveliest souls took the place of the high priest and priestess on the
+silver pavement. The girl was young and tender, golden white in
+complexion with crimson lips. Her figure was swathed in a vermilion
+robe, on the breast of which was embroidered in outline a sea-green
+sun whose swaying rays reached the furthest parts of her garment. Her
+pale blue hair was crowned with a chaplet of daffodils. The youth wore
+a robe of scarlet silk embroidered with a golden sun similar in design
+to that of the priestess. His pose was singularly noble. These two
+souls were about to become priest and priestess, and, after having
+taken the vows of hopeless love in presence of the goddess, high
+priest and priestess and congregation of twin-souls, they sang the
+following anthem, accompanied by a wailing storm of music from several
+hundred violins, entitled:
+
+                  THE TWIN-SOUL.
+
+                     PRIEST.
+
+    Love is a heated furnace that devours
+    The thickest ice; love is a sweet moist wind
+    That cools the fevered desert with its balm.
+    There is no rain nor heat, yea, even snow
+    Is warm and rosy to ideal souls
+    That shudder in life's sweetest ecstasies.
+    If love, that makes ideal life, that dwells
+    In fragrant silences, makes green the grass,
+    And far more tender the diviner flowers,
+    It surely makes both bold and delicate
+    The warm superiority of flesh
+    Of that strange, sacred soul that dwells with mine.
+
+    The clear, yet golden whiteness of the form
+    That shines through pale green diaphane,
+    Showing its pliant beauty, is the dress
+    Of that rapt soul that is all tenderness.
+    Her brow is crowned with wistful daffodils,
+    Making her fair face fairer, and her eyes
+    Are clouded sapphires; yea, her perfect lips
+    (Whereon my soul will dwell for evermore)
+    Clear blood-red rubies! The sweet hand holds
+    Red poppies and blue lotus, and the soft
+    And sulphur blossomed wind flower. If such dress
+    Enshrine a soul as perfect, if the curves
+    That make her form voluptuous describe
+    The splendor of her soul (and this I know),
+    Love has no purer temple, nor more sweet!
+
+The priest had sung alone so far, and now both priest and priestess
+joined their voices in a marvellous song. Wilder, sweeter and more
+intense, the violins stormed and wailed pathetic whirlwinds of
+ecstasy. At times their insufferable moans caught the excited hearts
+of the audience, and twin-souls in their passion would rise on their
+wings and, revolving, sweep around the amphitheatre locked in each
+other's arms.
+
+                PRIEST AND PRIESTESS.
+
+    Sharper than pain, we love, and the caress,
+    Keener than torment, overmaddens us!
+    There is no fasting when our feverish lips
+    Meet in the shock that strikes the spirit dumb
+    With swooning raptures! The dilated soul,
+    Intemperate with the enormous moan
+    Of passion, would outleap the strenuous will.
+    The flesh, transfigured with the crisis, reels,
+    Stretches the chain of duty and would leap
+    To grasp the tempting and forbidden fruit,
+    Were not that virtue is our comrade now.
+
+    We lift our eager faces to the sun
+    And feast on life and in each other's souls
+    Luxuriate, confounded with delight.
+    For us no mouldy cloister waits its prey,
+    Nor cave of darkness, where existence mourns
+    And dies beneath its scourgings. We have made
+    Our grim novitiate with reality.
+    Have known its agony, for we were born
+    So eminent for rapture, that the pain
+    All men inherit desolated us
+    And spread a living terror in our souls;
+    So that through clouds of everlasting woe
+    Scarce came the gleam of gladness or of love,
+    And earth was pitiless, and brutal souls
+    Who cannot feel there ruled. Oh, the wide world,
+    Degraded by ignoble brutishness,
+    Could yield no tendernesses infinite
+    For we who feed on rapture. Thus it was
+    Our souls on meeting, in the thrilling kiss
+    Were fused in indissoluble embrace;
+    We who were famished, in ideal love
+    Found sustenance and passed from death to life!
+
+The song was perfect. The strange, fresh accents of the singers, so
+full of love and passion, melted every heart in the temple with their
+ecstasy. One might hear such measures without thought of lapse of time
+or of worldly concerns. Ah! if one could hear such melody
+forevermore!
+
+With a burst of dramatic joy the singing of the last stanza revealed
+whole worlds of rapture.
+
+    Reincarnated in an earthly heaven,
+    Now have we reached Nirvana, now
+    Above us open the wide gulfs of joy,
+    And luminous and glorious round us blow
+    Millions of flowers; while afar there shines
+    The mighty splendor of the exhaustless sea!
+    We dwell in breathless joys, thrilled through and through
+    With majesty and sweetness; we have grown
+    Athletes of joy in our Agapemone:
+    Eager and breathless, we have found at last
+    The fount of youth, the magical Arjeels;
+    Fruits of organic gold amid the leaves
+    Sparkle, and around our island home
+    Are spread the veritable golden sands
+    Whereon our happy feet tread evermore!
+
+The singers disappeared, and in their places a hundred
+wondrously-arrayed figures moved in the dance of pure being on the
+silver pavement. Lithe as leopards, with unclad limbs and feet, priest
+and priestess danced all the ecstasies of Egyplosis. The dancers were
+so young, so fresh, so tender, so beautiful, and so innocent, that it
+was a supreme joy to behold them. Rapture grew universal and lovers
+cried with hysterical shudderings. The rainbow-colored throng, moving
+to the music of the golden instruments, flashed upon the pavement like
+joy taking possession of the world!
+
+I felt intensely sad for Lyone, who sat like a statue of golden
+marble, gazing on the abyss of joy beneath. Had the goddess no lover
+to press her to his heart amid the universal rapture? Alas! the
+immense dignity of her position and the unalterable laws of Atvatabar
+alike prevented any single soul from feeding the intense hunger that
+consumed her.
+
+Accompanying the dancers, the unseen choir in the cloisters began to
+sing a new opera of love, and the strains of an "Ave, Lyone, bona
+dea," stole upon the senses like the bewildering sighs of angels,
+making one ache with delight. A story of romantic love once more
+sculptured the faces of priest and priestess with angelic beauty, as
+it rose on wings of song and swept in delightful moans upon the carven
+stone.
+
+It was a memorable scene, one never to be forgotten! The hieroglyphic
+walls, carved in high relief with the instruments of empire, the dome
+with its ten thousand fadeless lights, the terraces of twin-souls
+radiant with delight, the marvellous dancers, the superb music that
+seemed to shake the heart of the solid stone that enclosed us, and
+high over all the supreme goddess in whose honor all this adoration
+was made, seated in bliss on the throne of the gods--such was the
+situation at that moment.
+
+It was a monstrous and a splendid joy!
+
+Suddenly a roar of invincible music issued from gigantic tubes that
+pierced the body of the throne itself with fresh and warlike
+explosions of melody. I was filled with a maddening delight, until
+consciousness could hardly bear the strain any longer. I cried aloud,
+amid a Chimborazo of song, a hundred-cratered Popocatapetl of sweet
+strains. The audience, enraptured with the climax, became an inferno
+of passion, laughter tears and felicity!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI.
+
+THE MYSTERY OF EGYPLOSIS.
+
+
+The palace of the goddess at Egyplosis was a component part of the
+vast quadrangle known as the supernal palace. The view therefrom
+embraced the wide inner garden of the entire palace of temples,
+discovering jungles of shrubs and flowers of all imaginable hues,
+interspersed with lakes sleeping in their marble basins like enormous
+jewels. Fountains of solid silver gushed forth a brilliant foam of
+waters amid the embowering foliage, and there glad priests, in the
+society of priestesses sweeter than the flowers themselves, dreamed
+life away in enthusiastic peace. Surrounding all was the high and
+glorious palace, forming a background, on the design of which
+imagination and art had been entirely exhausted.
+
+The scene the day following the Ritual of the installation of a
+twin-soul in the temple of Egyplosis was a boudoir in the palace of
+the goddess. It was a large apartment, whose walls were hung with
+panels of rose-colored velvet, embroidered with gray-green silk
+foliage. In one large tapestry, the hands of loving priestesses had
+embroidered a scene in the garden of Egyplosis. On a dais, upon a
+couch of soft red silk upholstery sat Lyone, swathed in draperies of
+shrimp pink and pale peacock green, embroidered with ivory-white silk.
+A large terra-cotta silk rug, whose only ornament was an elaborate
+border, covered the floor. The goddess wore a belt of aquelium
+serpents having tulips in their mouths. Heavy terrelium bracelets
+adorned her wrists, and she wore a diminutive tiara on her head.
+
+I sat on a luxurious seat, the sole guest of the goddess. I was
+rapidly learning from the divinity the mystery of Egyplosis. I was
+especially anxious to find out how the jewel of one hundred years of
+youth could be grafted into the ordinary existence. An idea so
+splendid seemed to be the germ of earthly immortality. We were
+discussing the subject of hopeless love, and I asked her if she
+considered life and love were the same element.
+
+"Life and love are synonymous," she replied. "By love I mean the
+spiritual, ideal, romantic passion that is hopeless."
+
+"Yes," I replied, "but does not the idea of inaccessibility create a
+worthless desire, that is, a desire for something that is forbidden or
+unattainable? The majority of men, I think, will prefer an every-day
+love with all its risks and imperfections to the shadowy ghost of a
+hopeless love. The hopeful love does no violence to nature such as is
+contemplated by the hopeless sentiment."
+
+"You hardly understand me," said she; "the pleasure we aspire to is
+superior to any physical delight, and is an end in itself. It is
+romantic love, that blooms like a single flower in the crevices of a
+volcano. It is the quintessence of existence, the rarest wine of life,
+the expressed sweetness of difficulty and repression and
+long-suffering, the choicest holiday of the soul. We are willing to
+pay the price of hopelessness to taste such nectar. In the every-day
+world such joy only rarely exists. Interest, indulgence, ambition,
+fortune, time, temper and marriage destroy it. Youth, captivated by a
+beautiful face or a winning smile, thinks it has discovered its true
+counterpart, and so takes possession of the prize. It finds afterward
+it was mistaken, and all its life thenceforth becomes miserable."
+
+"But," I replied, "if the world at large had discovered that your
+theory of love was the true one, it would long since have acted on
+its discovery and put no destroying restraint or obligation on so
+precious a possession. But the world found that a thousand accidents
+would infallibly open the eyes of both parties to the fact that they
+possessed but few qualities in common, or in counterpart, and with
+such knowledge of good and evil they would infallibly separate. Hence
+the foundation of society would be torn asunder and the rising
+generation of helpless children become orphaned of home, the very
+bulwark of life. Society must have assurances that people do not get
+married simply as an experiment, but are willing to honorably
+undertake the mutual sacrifices their act carries with it."
+
+"I have already admitted," said she, "that the joy of spiritual love
+hardly ever exists in its virgin force in the every-day world. I admit
+that the necessary regulations of society, although they tend to
+destroy it, must be enforced. The Atvatabar nation rests on the
+marriage idea. At one time in our history the people strove for ideal
+love and overthrew the ordinary marriage yoke without the restraint of
+reason. Law and order disappeared and social chaos reigned. The land
+was filled with the wailings of orphans whose parents had deserted
+them, and men and women formed new associates every day. Unbridled
+license devastated the country. Our lawgivers re-established the law
+of marriage as being the only law suitable to mankind. Man in the
+aggregate had not developed to a state in which the consummation of
+marriage could be dispensed with. Yet there were many among those who
+had advocated ideal love worthy of their theory. Although married to
+each other, they had remained celibates. For these Egyplosis was
+founded, for the study and practice of what is really a higher
+development of human nature and in itself an unquestionable good. It
+is the most powerful element in the production of creative energy of
+soul and personal beauty. As you will have observed, all our devotees
+are singularly beautiful in form and feature and possess spirit power
+to a high degree."
+
+As the goddess spoke a few threads of her bright blue hair had strayed
+across her face. Her beautiful eyes flashed with a royalty of truth,
+tenderness, magnetism, and feeling. She was the living illustration of
+her claims for Egyplosis.
+
+"What you say," I replied, "illustrates that ordinary marriage, with
+all its limitations and, infelicities, is absolutely necessary for the
+well-being of society. Marriage is simply the application of reason
+and morality to blind, passionate nature. The home circle is the
+origin of nationality, progress, and wealth. Ideal love, wrested from
+the dragon of difficulty, is, I think, but rarely tasted in so real,
+so practical an institution. This is the experience of the nations of
+the outer world, and how much better for man that it is so? A roadway
+in proportion to its rhythm of undulation becomes useless, hindering
+travel rather than accelerating it. So also with love. When settled in
+the calm security of marriage the mind is freed from the romantic
+extravagance, the torture, the delight of hopeless sentiment. Thus men
+are free to devote themselves to the more serious purposes of life and
+achieve wealth and fame for themselves and their families. I am,
+nevertheless, curious to see how your institution is conducted, for
+hopeless love seems to me one of the most disquieting things in life.
+Its victims, happy and unhappy, resisting passion with regret or
+yielding with remorse, are ever on the rack of torture. They resemble
+the devotees of certain idols, who pierce themselves with cruel hooks
+and swing aloft in honor of their god. It may be pleasure, but not one
+in a thousand will ever achieve that degree of soul exaltation and
+physical abnegation to think it so."
+
+"And yet not one in a thousand, not one in a hundred thousand lives in
+Egyplosis," said the goddess.
+
+"The men who achieve anything," I continued, "good and great in the world,
+the men who build empires, discover ideas, who both rule and populate
+nations, are all rewarded by a hopeful love. It is only a hopeless love
+that sets up its mirage of false and never-to-be-obtained joys. Hence, I
+ask you the question, What of Egyplosis?"
+
+The goddess smiled at my controversial attitude, "It is the old
+question," she replied, "of conventionalism _versus_ art, of economic
+institutions _versus_ nature and life. Just as we endeavor to rescue
+spontaneous invention and originality from the disease of the
+tasteless and laborious productions of a mechanical civilization, so
+we labor to create an earthly home for the soul in a world where
+superficial necessities will stifle it out of existence. There was a
+time in the history of Atvatabar when people talked of art and love,
+both of which did not exist. The octopus of commercial, mechanical and
+economical life had strangled the soul and all its attributes. Men
+fought for treaties of commerce, treaties of marriage, deeds of
+property, and all the while acted in defiance of their obligations.
+They cheated each other, lied to each other, deserted each other
+incessantly. Love had taken wings and fled. Art had lost its language
+and its cunning. Life was no longer illuminated with splendid ideals.
+It was no longer arrayed in the fair and fascinating garments that
+only the soul can weave. History was no longer glorified by paintings
+and sculptured reliefs. Religion was no longer symbolized in the
+solemn magnificence of architecture, or sculptured shrines of gods.
+Articles of daily use were made solely to make a profit, and the
+widespread use of machinery was destroying the art, the soul, the pure
+life of the people. A paternal government, seeing the tyranny of
+commercialism and the possible extinction of the soul itself, has
+wisely, in the spirit of patriarchal hospitality, established the art
+institution of Gnaphisthasia and the religious institution of
+Egyplosis, for soul development in harmony with the high destiny of
+mankind. Harikar, or developed soul, is the natural sequence of the
+development of the soul and intellect, achieving the supreme virtue of
+spiritual perfection, or dominion of the passions of the body and the
+forces of nature. Love was the one great end of our religion, for life
+is love."
+
+"I value your creed," I continued, "to the fullest extent. I value the
+idea that every intellect shall enfold a soul. You practise the
+doctrine that hopeless love is that phase of the passion that contains
+the most delirious possibilities of joy, yet, allow me to ask, have
+you never discovered that there may be disappointments for even such
+guarded emotions as yours? Are your neophytes perfectly happy? We
+find, in the outer world at least, that no state or condition in life
+is perfectly pleasurable. Their joys die of their own _ennui_ if for
+no other cause. We find happiness like a flower; it has its period of
+bloom and decay. The more intoxicating the beauty the shorter its
+life. Happiness long continued grows common, fades and dies. Then
+again the human soul is always in a fever of unrest. It always thinks
+what is beyond its reach is liberty. As one of our poets has expressed
+it:
+
+                    "'Oh, give me liberty!
+    For even were a paradise itself my prison,
+    Still would I long to leap the crystal walls!'"
+
+As I spoke I saw that the goddess was an eager listener to my words.
+Was it possible that she might have an idea that even Egyplosis might
+indeed be a prison? But, then, her position, her vows, recalled to her
+the fact that she was love's _religieuse_, an indissoluble part of the
+temple of love itself.
+
+The goddess replied, that sometimes impatient spirits had entered the
+palace, but any incorrigible cases of insubordination were either
+imprisoned in the fortress beneath the palace or were expelled into
+the outer world. The neophytes entered the temple college while under
+twenty years of age. Each soul, thereafter mingling freely with five
+thousand of the opposite sex, chooses in a month its counterpart for
+life, thus forming a complete circle. The choice must be approved by a
+council of "Soul Inquisitors" who, before the lifelong union is made,
+see that both possess all the elements that will produce a high, holy
+and pure blending of thought, feeling, emotion, joys spiritual and
+intellectual, whose every breath will be an ecstasy, and at the same
+time possess reverence for each other and the power of resistance to
+passion and are able to walk in the pure path.
+
+"Do you not think," I replied, "that the temptation being ever
+present, the struggle in the soul must in time exhaust and enfeeble
+the moral powers, producing disastrous consequences?"
+
+Before the goddess could reply, a terrible commotion was heard in the
+palace garden. The shrieks of a woman mingled with the loud voices of
+men were heard in furious clamor, and one of the royal guards entered
+the palace chamber in breathless haste.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII.
+
+THE SIN OF A TWIN-SOUL.
+
+
+"Your holiness," said the captain of the sacred guard, as he entered
+the apartment, "the twin-soul Ardsolus and Merga has sinned against
+the laws and religion of Egyplosis. I crave permission to bring the
+guilty pair before the goddess with the evidence of their guilt."
+
+The goddess, answering quickly, ordered the priest and priestess to be
+produced.
+
+The captain thereupon commanded his wayleals to bring the prisoners
+into the audience chamber.
+
+Shrinking between her guards, the priestess Merga appeared bearing in
+her arms a lovely babe, a rosy duplicate of herself. Following her
+came the priest Ardsolus, also a prisoner.
+
+The priestess was the picture of petite girlish beauty. Her delicate
+rose complexion was flushed with a feeling of shame, and her handsome
+hazel eyes, dilated with vexation and sorrow, were filled with tears.
+
+Her lover was tall, straight and athletic, with a proud, fine-cut
+face. The down of manhood was just showing itself on his upper lip.
+
+"I feel sorry for you both," said the goddess; "did you weary of the
+joys of Egyplosis?"
+
+Ardsolus threw back over his shoulder a falling fold of his white
+bournous and, drawing himself proudly up, replied: "Yes, your
+holiness, our life here is imprisonment. We have grown weary of its
+restraint and are eager to return to the outer world with all its
+cares and freedom."
+
+The chamberlain at this moment announced the arrival of the high
+priest Hushnoly, the secular, as well as the sacred governor of
+Egyplosis, and the high priestess Zooly-Soase, who both entered the
+presence chamber. Hushnoly, saluting the goddess, announced that he
+had come in search of the erring twin-soul. The high priest was
+astonished beyond expression at finding sin and shame in so glorious a
+retreat.
+
+Addressing the weeping girl, he said: "Do you know, my child, how
+unfortunate you have been? You have committed the unpardonable sin in
+the temple of hopeless love. Did you not think of your lifelong vows
+of celibacy and of the deep and tender joy of romantic love?"
+
+Merga only replied by clasping her babe still closer to her breast and
+bathing it with her tears.
+
+"What excuse do you offer for your crime against yourself, your
+religion and your fellow-priests?" demanded the high, priest of
+Ardsolus.
+
+"Your highness," said the youth, "we have, after due experience of our
+vows, arrived at the conclusion that such vows are a violation of
+nature. Everything here bids us love, but the artificial system under
+which we have lived arbitrarily draws a line and says, thus far and no
+further. Your system may suit disembodied spirits, if such exist, but
+not beings of flesh and blood. It is an outrage on nature. We desire
+to leave Egyplosis and return to the common ways of men. We may be
+there unfortunate, but we will be free. This rarified atmosphere
+stifles us."
+
+The high priest was horrified. Never before had a twin-soul been so
+sinful, so contumacious. It revealed a state of things too terrible to
+contemplate! If such conduct became contagious, it meant the ruin of
+Egyplosis.
+
+I could detect, however, in the sight of the goddess a certain
+sympathy for the prisoners which, perhaps, it would just then be very
+impolitic for her to reveal. It was clear that beneath all this ideal
+joy lay a slumbering volcano of passion that only awaited a favorable
+moment for a fierce outbreak. The laws of this strange faith seemed
+not to have contemplated that to avoid temptation is the only security
+of moral strength, and that to seek temptation is to paralyze the
+moral fibres of the soul. The high priest grew pale with excitement.
+
+"Are you aware of the enormity of your offence?" said he to the
+defiant youth. "For a moment of sinful delight you destroy your
+interregnum of a hundred years of blessedness, and you, each of you,
+have delivered a blow at earthly immortality. The success of our
+religious system is proven by the fact that we have already lengthened
+the life of our hierophants one hundred years, or twice the duration
+of life in the outer world of Bilbimtesirol. This is the last of many
+outbreaks of _malfeasance_ to vows made in deliberation, and a fresh
+exhibition of treason in the sacred college of souls."
+
+"I tell you this," said the youth in reply, "you are slumbering on the
+edge of a volcano. There are thousands of twin-souls ready to cast off
+this yoke. They only await a leader to break out in open revolt!"
+
+"Then, sir, we will take care that you are not their leader; we shall
+suppress you, as we have all similar cases, in the cells of the
+fortress. Neither Egyplosis nor Atvatabar will hear of your crime. His
+majesty the king will, I have no doubt, acquiesce in the wisdom of
+such sentence."
+
+"The punishment is no greater than the crime," said the high
+priestess. "I despair of Egyplosis if such crimes become frequent.
+What will our goddess think, what will Atvatabar think of our holy
+temple when its own priests, the sacred devotees of Harikar, the
+ministers of the supreme goddess and teachers of the people in their
+holy religion, are found traitors? Will the government support
+rebellious and sinful souls in every luxury for the senses, with every
+possible means for developing and achieving spiritual mastery over the
+physical world, on the sole condition of hopeless love? It will not.
+Hence, I say, this disobedience must be quenched in the spark, or it
+will break out in ruin to our whole religious institution."
+
+"Your punishment," said the high priest, "unless you will repent of
+your misdeed, give up possession of your offspring, and live ever
+afterward as holy priests of hopeless love, will be separate and
+solitary confinement for life in the fortress. You will both be simply
+obliterated from the world."
+
+As the high priest uttered these words the mother-priestess gave a cry
+of terror, and, grasping her infant convulsively, gazed with an
+appealing glance at the goddess.
+
+"We refuse to live as hypocrites," said the youth; "we are no longer
+twin-souls--we are man and wife and demand to be set free."
+
+"Will you, each of you," said the goddess, "renounce that obedience
+that makes you factors of deities? Will you dethrone ideal love? Will
+you throw away palaces and gardens and flowers? Will you forswear the
+delight of the companionship of twin-souls?"
+
+"We wish to be set free, your holiness," said the youth with firm, set
+lips.
+
+"Do you no longer value the secrets of magic and sorcery? Do you
+renounce initiation into the secrets of nature to possess creative
+force to taste the elixir of life, the secret of the transformation of
+metals, and, above all, the blessedness of Nirvana? Knowing that love
+dies in possession do you desire to step forth from paradise into a
+hard, cold, realistic world, where every experience is a spear driven
+into the flesh?"
+
+"We dare our fate!" replied the youth. "We ask you, goddess, to set us
+free."
+
+"I will bring you both before the spiritual council," said Hushnoly,
+"and, as you are aware, the sentence of the council as provided by the
+constitution of Egyplosis will be that you, each of you, be imprisoned
+in separate cells for life, and the child removed and cared for in a
+distant part of the kingdom. You will henceforth be obliterated from
+life."
+
+The lovers convulsively embraced each other, the beautiful Merga
+weeping bitterly.
+
+"We will accept the punishment," said Ardsolus, "because we will give
+courage to the many twin-souls already imprisoned and also to those
+who as ardently desire freedom as ourselves. They will never forget
+that we are fighting their battle against a monstrous wrong."
+
+"Guards, remove the prisoners," said the high priest.
+
+"Can nothing that I may say mitigate their punishment?" said the
+goddess.
+
+"Your holiness is aware," said Hushnoly, "that the laws of Egyplosis
+admit of no other interpretation than that prescribed for such a case
+as this. The foundation of the religion of Atvatabar must be preserved
+at any cost."
+
+"I urge for mercy," said the goddess, who honored the prisoners with
+her tears.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII.
+
+THE DOCTOR'S OPINION OF EGYPLOSIS.
+
+
+My experiences in Egyplosis were teaching me that even the most
+perfect human organizations contain the elements of decay and death.
+The human soul at variance with its own physical condition was hardly
+the best ideal of a god. Here was happiness piled upon happiness, yet
+the recipients thereof were not happy. Disappointments and suffering
+are natural to man because life is supported on difficulty, and a
+long-continued happiness is the sure forerunner of disaster. The
+reaction of misery lies somewhere concealed from the eye of happiness,
+and if it does not at once show itself, it will later on. Even in
+well-guarded happiness, if one single pleasure be omitted, we
+experience more regret at its absence than pleasure over the bounties
+we enjoy. Hence, a large proportion of twin-souls were not wholly in
+love with their life in the temple of souls, however enamored they
+were of each other. Almost absolute freedom of action, freedom from
+care, physical and mental exercises, soul development, the practice of
+magic, the most alluring investigation of mental and spiritual themes,
+the study and practice of art in all its forms, and the investigation
+of inventive mechanism; a palace to live in, with vast galleries of
+paintings and sculptures, salons for music, and schools of science,
+libraries filled with the rarest works of history, literature and
+poetry, and, most precious of all, the daily dalliance with
+counterpart souls, could not make these people happy. The one thing
+denied, which any reasonable man would say was simply the price paid
+for all this glory, was considered the greatest of all misfortunes.
+The imagination has a strange habit of passing lightly over happiness
+possessed and settling down upon a little thing beyond reach and
+exaggerating it to the utmost.
+
+The imprisonment of Ardsolus and Merga created a profound sensation
+among the ten thousand inmates of the palace. Sentiment was divided so
+much that two political parties were formed--those who believed the
+erring lovers had met a just fate, and those who thought the system at
+fault in providing no means of immediate escape, when to reside in the
+palace became imprisonment and a living death to certain souls. The
+latter party was composed of the more youthful section of the
+priesthood, who sympathized with the unfortunate lovers. These latter
+would have got up a demonstration in their favor did not the stern
+rules of Egyplosis suppress any such outbursts of popular feeling.
+
+On the day following the imprisonment of the erring twin-soul, the
+question was being discussed in the apartments occupied by the
+officers of the _Polar King_ and myself. We had been lodged in a noble
+building not far from the palace of the goddess, while the sailors
+were quartered in the fortress of Egyplosis, in company with the
+wayleals of the palace itself.
+
+"Your opinion of Egyplosis has possibly undergone a change since the
+day of our reception," said the doctor.
+
+"Well," said I, "I suppose the longer we stay here the more exact will
+be our knowledge of this peculiar institution."
+
+I had considered Egyplosis as a successful institution for developing
+the human soul. Certainly Harikar with his beloved attributes required
+a fit home for his complete development.
+
+I had praised their oasis of love, of refinement, of rest, and of
+beauty, and even ventured to assert that such a paradise was the
+outcome of the love and purity of twin-souls. I forgot in my
+enthusiasm the possibility of the soul being satiated with pleasure,
+that life is a warfare ever seeking but never gaining repose, and that
+we are led more by our passions and illusions than our judgment. I
+forgot that while man resists pain he always yields to pleasure. I
+forgot that he was created for difficulty, which is the oxygen that
+feeds the flame of endeavor, and that difficulty alone can develop
+efforts which pleasure so easily destroys.
+
+"I am of the opinion," said the doctor, "that this institution is
+founded on a perversion of human nature. This so-called hopeless love
+is, as we have just had proof, one of the most disturbing elements in
+life. Its victims resemble Tantalus, who, though steeped to the lips
+in water, can never drink. They are the unhappy devotees of an idol,
+and, like the Hindoos, stick into their sides the hooks of a cruel
+passion and swing aloft in torture to the applause of an admiring
+crowd."
+
+"You evidently do not reverence hopeless love?" I remarked.
+
+"I consider Egyplosis," he continued, "but a nervous asylum on a large
+scale. This nervous temperament, with its hysterical raptures and
+tears, its painful sensibility, its exalted spiritualism and
+irresistible sympathy, departs so far from the steady temperate sphere
+of action that can alone sustain alike the pleasures and
+disappointments of life as to become the object of pity. These are the
+marks of a mental disease. Ultra-romantic ideas and whimsical and
+unaccountable tastes are attributes of this temperament. It is a kind
+of insanity, not the insanity proceeding from hopeless mental
+aberration, but founded on a systematic train of ideas born in a
+heated enthusiasm. It may lead, however, to hopeless insanity."
+
+"Doctor," said the astronomer, "you are taking a very cold-blooded
+view of the subject. You seem not to have discovered that the life
+here is ideal. From what you say one would think that love is a
+species of insanity."
+
+"That is precisely my idea," replied the doctor. "Haven't you observed
+how foolishly people act when in love? All ordinary human prudence and
+judgment are thrown aside. Love pares the claws and pulls the teeth of
+man as a rational animal. Love is supreme folly."
+
+"I think," said the astronomer, "the climate of this country has
+something to do with the present institution. You see that the sun
+here never sets, and, were it not for his diminutive size, would
+infallibly turn the entire interior world into a desert, such as the
+moon is at present, where the outer sun's heat falls for fourteen days
+on the one spot without intermission, completely blasting her
+territories. The mild yet incessant heat of Swang creates a fervor of
+blood and a romance of temperament unknown in lands possessing night,
+hence the practices of Egyplosis are a natural result of climatic
+conditions. The appetite for ideal love has been created by the
+climate, and the religion of the country very naturally responds to
+the craving of such appetite. Who knows what excesses might not obtain
+if no such restraint were imposed on the most gallant youth of the
+country."
+
+"I think," said the naturalist, "that the proper thing to do would be
+to have their people imitate the conduct of Jacob of old and Rachel.
+Jacob worshipped ideal love in the person of Rachel for seven years
+and then married, her. If our commander would only propose such a
+scheme to the supreme goddess it might possibly be favorably
+considered."
+
+"Do you really suppose," said I, "that I possess any influence with
+the goddess, or that any recommendation of mine would be able to
+change the constitution of Atvatabar?"
+
+"Well, sir," said he, "if you will allow me to make the remark, I
+think the supreme goddess takes quite as much interest in you as you
+do in her, and would treat your opinions with great respect."
+
+"You think more than I have ever dared to think," I replied, "and your
+thought savors of sacrilege. The goddess belongs to her faith, her
+country. To prefer an individual soul is to dethrone herself as
+goddess and meet a painful death."
+
+"In any case, whatever happens, you can rely on the fidelity of your
+followers," said the naturalist.
+
+The subject was fast becoming embarrassing and I merely said:
+"Gentlemen, I am assured of your fidelity; so please let us dismiss
+the subject."
+
+The hour for rest having been sounded, I sought my couch, but not to
+sleep. The remarks made by my companions, emphasized by my growing
+fondness for the goddess, set me to thinking what the end would be of
+our discovery of Atvatabar. I wondered if Lyone was not, as sung by
+her devotees,
+
+    "A chrysalis eager to hover
+     And fly from her prison away."
+
+Could it be that the goddess might possibly, if an occasion worthy of
+such a step presented itself, fly from Egyplosis, renounce her throne,
+her crown, her sublime office of supreme goddess of Harikar, and with
+me retire to some far-off country, braving in the meantime the almost
+certain prospect of death. For her sake I felt I could meet any
+situation, however terrible, but for my sake would she throw aside her
+unparalleled dignities? Even if in trying to escape we outflew in my
+own vessel their ships of war, we could never escape the ubiquitous
+wayleals, the magnic-winged troops that could fight equally well on
+land or sea.
+
+Bah! I said, such a dream is idiotic. When I thought of the splendor
+of the position that she would be obliged to renounce for the sake of
+her love for the passing stranger, and of the awful penalties that
+awaited transgression in one so exalted, I considered that no craving
+of passion should dare to resist such difficulties.
+
+Here duty was resistance. Nowhere is man exonerated from the penalty
+of having to pay a price for his possessions, and even possession
+itself is not happiness. Better, I said to myself, to depart in peace
+than encourage the goddess in a desperate enterprise, if indeed she
+had any such desires as my vanity attributed to her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV.
+
+LYONE'S CONFESSION.
+
+
+The following day I again met the goddess in the same magnificent
+apartment in her palace. She was in a contemplative mood. A white robe
+of the finest silk enveloped her, showing to full advantage her superb
+figure. Her silky, shadowed eyes shone with a mild translucent light.
+The ripe beauty of her face was somewhat pale, for some tearful memory
+possessed her. Over her shoulders fell the torrent of her hair, while
+on her brow gleamed a diminutive diadem whose central part was
+fashioned like the throne of the gods. She wore a heavy necklace of
+shrimp-pink pearls.
+
+As we reposed on wide, luxurious couches a maiden of rare beauty
+brought us dishes of curiously-prepared meats and wine of the finest
+vintage in flagons of gold. From distant cloisters came wafted the
+echoes of singing priestesses breathing their intoxicating Amens.
+
+Lyone had been reciting her past soul experiences, now and then
+pausing as the story would grow more sacred. To me the revelations of
+the goddess were of breathless interest. I dare not urge her too
+forcibly, fearing to break the spell of her confessional mood.
+
+She was pleased to say that my advent in Egyplosis had revived the
+past as no other event of late times had done. She was willing to
+recall the sweet experiences of her early life, prior to her elevation
+to the throne of the goddess.
+
+I knew she was in that mood when confession to a kindred soul is most
+consoling to the heart. I urged her to continue the story.
+
+"Well," she continued, "my parents, who were people of importance in
+Calnogor, had destined me for marriage and the outer world, but before
+I even knew of Egyplosis I had a day dream. I saw with my waking eyes
+this temple-palace as one might see it in a picture, splendid as the
+reality. I saw myself with a youth of noble aspect standing in a court
+of the garden, and his arm was around me. He was tall and shapely as a
+palm tree and was all tenderness and devotion. The picture vanished,
+yet its influence remained. It utterly transformed me from the
+undreaming girl that I was to a soul active and ardent, already
+experienced in what life really was. I learned that the mystery of
+life was love, and longed for spiritual companionship with an inmate
+of Egyplosis."
+
+"Was the dream fulfilled as you expected it would be?" I inquired.
+
+"Exactly as I anticipated," said Lyone. "I entered Egyplosis in spite
+of the earnest desire of my people to remain in the outer world and
+lead a life of barren conventionality."
+
+"Had you not learned," I inquired, "that it was impossible to overleap
+the purposes of nature without paying a penalty therefor, that ideal
+passion will in time give way to the commonplace, just as water
+follows the law of gravity?"
+
+"I knew nothing but that ideal love might be eternal. It is the
+passion that makes a goddess human and the mortal divine. Within a
+month after entering the temple walls I discovered the very reality of
+the image I had seen years before. He was my twin-soul, my lover, my
+god. At our first meeting we simultaneously burst into tears. It was
+an ecstasy in which the body did not participate to any marked extent,
+but belonged purely to the region of the soul. We accepted the vows
+made at the installation of a twin-soul and became a completed
+circle."
+
+"Being the goddess," I said, "your lover must have died?"
+
+"He died some years ago," she said, "and on his death, by reason of my
+widowhood, my gifts, my spirituality, my love and my beauty, I was
+elevated to the throne of the gods when vacant, and was worshipped as
+supreme goddess of the faith. It is utterly against our laws for a
+goddess to choose another counterpart; she is supposed to belong only
+to Harikar, the ideal soul whom also she symbolizes; hence I am
+obliged to dwell largely alone."
+
+"You doubtless regret the loss of your earthly counterpart?" I urged.
+
+"Regret it! Ah, that was life!" she said, "for my soul then knew what
+spiritual freedom means. I experienced ecstatic agonies, bliss was
+pain and pain paradise. I flew as a bird full of anguish, bearing
+treasures of love and tears. I desired self-sacrifice, I wanted to
+smile on every one, to help every one. I loved life; I had no fear of
+death. My capacity for rapture seemed to expand continually. Every
+scene I gazed upon trembled in a new blaze of delight. Thoughts, like
+lightning, rent open new worlds of passion and tenderness, wherein I
+moved as a goddess peerless and supreme. But when the tomb closed upon
+my heart of hearts I begged them to lay me by his side and seal the
+door upon us forever. The glory of life had departed, and day after
+day I swooned upon the sarcophagus that held my treasure, my life."
+
+Lyone was unusually excited, and to divert her attention from the past
+I spoke of the present, of her proud position as supreme goddess of
+Atvatabar.
+
+"How does it affect you," I exclaimed, "to be the recipient of such
+adoration as you receive as goddess?"
+
+"At first it was soul maddening," she replied; "I thought I should
+never be able to sustain such adoration. My soul, blinded and
+bewildered by the incense of song and prayer, seemed unable to bear
+the intoxication. Even yet, as I sit upon the throne of the gods,
+fantastic, astonishing emotions thrill me into swooning away. Oh, it
+is incomparably glorious to hear around you those earthquake surges of
+prayer, to see souls quivering with adoring love. I feel at times as
+though I were the cone of a volcano radiating fire and flame into a
+burning sky!
+
+"Then, again, I smile, and feel as I smile that I have power over life
+and death--oh, you do not know what love is--you do not know its
+tremendous power until you feel its splendid flame breathed from ten
+thousand souls clasping your shrieking soul in a blood-crimson
+embrace! If thoughts be things it makes me a creator. If thoughts can
+chisel matter, then I am gracious in face and figure. Men say my flesh
+is smooth as marble, soft as velvet, and bright as gold, even as the
+forms of our priests and priestesses are sculptured and colored by the
+thoughts of love.
+
+"Only a goddess knows such thoughts as hers that burn in the soul like
+fluid gold. Imagination fills me at times with vast and phantasmal
+splendors. Adoration glorifies me like light raining on the palms and
+palaces. I see shapes of burning sweetness, and the air around me is
+laden with the caresses of heavy, strange perfumes. Unclothed
+raptures, exquisitely soft and tender, surround me, like heaven
+opening its wings of flame upon the world. Happy voices, ringing in
+the sensuous arcades of music, fall on my ears, the blown spray of
+immortal friendships.
+
+"Yet, is it not strange that all these delights, violent and glorious
+as they are, do not wholly satisfy the soul? I continually long for
+something sweeter yet. It seems the greater the joy the more enormous
+the capacity, and no joy completely fills the ever-expanding soul."
+
+"You think," said I, "that even the rapture of a goddess is not wholly
+adequate to create a feeling of repletion of satisfaction in a soul
+such as yours?"
+
+"It is contrary to our laws to think so, yet at times I know I could
+forego even the throne of the gods itself for the pure and intimate
+love of a counterpart soul."
+
+"You are not so desirous of the human soul in its collective form as
+you are of individual soul wholly yours?" I ventured, shaken with a
+quivering thrill.
+
+"The soul ever seeks that which is beyond and individual," said Lyone;
+"having once loved the individual soul, I know what such holy rapture
+means."
+
+"What are the difficulties to be surmounted in your quest of a
+counterpart soul?" I inquired, with a secret delight.
+
+"The sacrilege of a goddess becoming attached to the individual to the
+exclusion of all other individuals. The goddess-elect must have been
+a novitiate and priestess of Egyplosis and the survivor of her
+counterpart soul. Her experiences as a noble and pure priestess,
+together with special beauty and popularity, are the conditions for
+the peerless office of supreme goddess and incarnation of Harikar. By
+her vows she can never again become the exclusive possession of any
+one soul. She belongs to Harikar, the universal soul."
+
+"And what is the punishment for renunciation of your office and
+attachment to another soul?"
+
+"A shameful death by magnicity for the twin-soul. No goddess can
+resign her office. No goddess can seek a lover and live."
+
+"Not even an ideal affinity?" I asked.
+
+"Why, even ideal affinities who forget themselves are punished with
+lifelong imprisonment, and their names blotted out of the priesthood
+as though they were dead," said Lyone.
+
+"Are there many such transgressors of their vows in Egyplosis?" I
+inquired.
+
+"There are, I believe, some five hundred twin-souls at present immured
+in the dungeons," said Lyone.
+
+"Poor souls!" I murmured, "their apostasy was but their reformation."
+
+"I often think of them," said Lyone, "but I know I can never liberate
+them except by my own successful apostasy. And yet when all else is
+peaceful and happy, or at least appears so, why should I become the
+leader of an insurrection that would precipitate a hundred times more
+misery on the nation, to say nothing of the possibility of defeat?"
+
+I saw that a crisis had come to Lyone, a tremendous debate agitated
+her soul. I forebore treading further on the sacred ground. She, with
+true delicacy, was striving to hide the intensity of her proud unrest.
+I felt that in time she would have the courage to take the irrevocable
+step that led to freedom or death.
+
+As I sat devouring every word spoken by Lyone I felt a strange power
+surrounding me, an emanation of the soul of my beloved friend. I
+resisted for a long time a sacrilegious desire to fling myself at her
+feet and clasp her in my arms. I thought of her supreme dignity, her
+love for her faith and her people, and I knew one cold glance from her
+eyes would pierce me through and through like a sword. The more I
+thought of my position at that moment the more amazed I became at
+the audacity that led me to ever think of claiming the soul of the
+goddess as mine, much less my encouragement of an enterprise so
+desperate as we had already assuredly embarked upon.
+
+[Illustration: HER KISS WAS A BLINDING WHIRLWIND OF FLAME AND TEARS!
+IT WAS THE PROCLAMATION OF WAR UPON ATVATABAR. THENCEFORTH WE BECAME A
+NEW AND FORMIDABLE TWIN-SOUL.]
+
+As I gazed in adoration at the splendid soul before me the scene
+through the open windows seemed to grow more ideal. There was a new
+glory in the gardens around me, a finer flashing of fountains in the
+sunlight, and a bolder chiselling of palaces and temples. Beyond and
+above there wheeled the roof of the world, with its still more
+prodigious forests and mountains and a wider expanse of gleaming seas.
+
+I sprang forward with a cry of joy, falling at the feet of the
+goddess. I encircled her figure with my arms and held up my face to
+hers. Her kiss was a blinding whirlwind of flame and tears! Its
+silence was irresistible entreaty. It dissolved all other interests
+like fire melting stubborn steel. It was the proclamation of war upon
+Atvatabar! It was the destruction of a unique civilization with all
+its appurtenances of hopeless love. It was love defying death.
+Thenceforward we became a new and formidable twin-soul!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV.
+
+OUR VISIT TO THE INFERNAL PALACE.
+
+
+The infernal palace was a congregation of subterranean rock-hewn
+temples under the spiritual control of the grand sorcerer Charka and
+the grand sorceress Zooly-Soase.
+
+The grand sorcerer's dominion was directly underneath the supernal
+palace of Egyplosis. An ornate pagoda of stone covered the entrance to
+the underground palace. The descent was by means of a wide gradient of
+polished marble, and there was also an elevator car, beautifully
+decorated with electro-plated sheets of gold and lit by electricity,
+which was the most rapid means of descent to the pavement beneath, a
+distance of two hundred and fifty feet. The procession of twin-souls
+and attendants, who carried Lyone and myself in a splendid litter of
+gold, entered the palace by means of the inclined marble highway whose
+sculptured walls were radiant with electric light. The many temples of
+the underground palace were devoted to the most occult worship of
+Harikar. There was an immense central edifice whose roof, supported by
+lofty columns, and sculptured in fantastic beauty, rose two hundred
+feet above the pavement. Here electric suns lit up what was merely the
+vestibule of a hundred temples all hewn from the same pale green
+marble, the aquelium floors glimmering like a fathomless sea.
+
+As we entered this splendid abode of sorcery, we were received by the
+august officials of the sanctuary. The grand sorcerer Charka was a man
+of imperial presence, gracious and subtle. His flesh was of the hue of
+silver bronze and he possessed noble features. His hair was blue and
+his blue beard was trimmed into a rounded semi-circle on his chin,
+while his mustache spread nobly on either side of his lips. He wore a
+robe of emerald blue silk, embroidered with silver flowers. The grand
+sorceress, Thoubool who accompanied him, possessed the complexion of a
+pearl, was arrayed in a robe of celestial blue silk, and, like the
+grand sorcerer, wore a diadem of rubies.
+
+Our reception was extremely gracious, the grand sorcerer saying he
+felt highly honored with our visit.
+
+As we passed down the palace pavement, an immense bell opened its
+mouth of gaunt and glorious bronze. Soft explosions of music swept in
+thrilling moans through temple and cloister, the echoing walls
+resounding with ritournels of enthusiastic peace. As if inspired with
+passion, I could hear the bell swing and roll on its delirious pivot
+uttering its deep-sounding fantasy.
+
+I saw, illuminating the sculptured archway of each temple on either
+side of us, the name thereof in letters of incandescent light. I saw
+the names Amano, Biccano, Demano, Hirlano, Kilano, Pridano, Redolano,
+Ecthyano, Oxemano, Jiracano, Oirelano, Orphitano, Cedeshano, Padomano,
+Jocdilano, Nidialano, Bischomano, Omdolopano and many others,
+indicating the various departments of soul development to which each
+temple was dedicated.
+
+The sorcerer waved his wand and suddenly a band of priestesses
+appeared on the pavement moving in strange and fantastic measures.
+Their attire consisted of low-cut circles of bright and beautiful
+stuffs with short skirts, having in front of each a sheaf of heavy
+folds that expanded and fell as the dancer moved. All wore jewels and
+rings of precious metals on wrists and ankles. Their faces, perfect in
+feature, were pale rose in color but marvellously delicate. Ranging
+themselves on either side of the immense aisle, they formed a
+delightful guard of honor for the grand sorcerer and his retinue.
+
+They were not only souls, but the materializations of souls, that
+danced and sang as when on earth. They were souls of former
+priestesses reincarnated by the sorcerer and who vanished when we
+reached the entrance to the temple of the labyrinth. It certainly was
+a delicate and superexcited imagination that wrought the splendid
+archway through which we passed into the grotto garden beyond. Neither
+Greek nor Moor, Hindoo nor Goth ever conceived such arabesques as were
+sculptured on the walls of the entrance to the holy of holies.
+
+In the garden, hewn from the solid stone, were interminable thickets
+and hedges enclosing labyrinthine walks. There were open spaces in
+which stood veritable trees with strangest leaf and flower, branch and
+stem delicately chiselled from the solid rock. There were also acres
+of grass and flowers, wonderful creations of art. There were rose
+bushes, heavy with their eternal bloom, the flowers stained crimson as
+in life and the leaves their varying gradations of green.
+
+Fruit trees, with pale pink flowers and leaves light and dark green,
+stood amid the green grass that never waved in the breeze. An
+immovable streamlet ran down its bed of carved irregularities between
+flowery banks and underneath a bridge formed of a single arch.
+
+I looked up expecting to see the sky, but my gaze met the solid
+heavens of stone, and I knew again I was in a cavern. The feeling was
+somewhat suffocating. The garden was lit by an electric sun in the
+centre of the roof two hundred feet overhead. The pathway, wide enough
+for six people abreast, led by labyrinthine dells to the pagoda of the
+sorcerer, which stood in the centre of the garden. The mazes of the
+pathway were so numerous that none save the initiated, when once in
+the labyrinth, could find their way out again.
+
+It was a weird experience to find myself walking between the master
+twin-souls of that subterranean paradise, exploring its many
+mysteries.
+
+We arrived in due time at the entrance to a mighty temple at the
+further side of the labyrinth, whose bronze door suddenly opened to
+receive us, and the sorcerer bade me enter.
+
+Passing through a pillared porch we entered a wide and lofty space
+lit by tall windows and a roof of many-colored domes of glass that
+threw wonderful lights on the polished aquelium floors of the
+building. The light that shone through window and dome was produced by
+myriads of electric incandescent lamps that glowed in recesses of the
+rock behind each window. This was the inmost shrine of the sorcerer.
+
+As I walked toward the centre of the mysterious temple the sorcerer
+inquired if creative magic was cultivated on the outer sphere.
+
+I informed the sorcerer that necromancy, divination, magic,
+clairvoyance, esotericism, and theosophy were things known and
+practised in many countries. "But," I added, "the idea there is that
+of self-abnegation and miracles are only to be performed by ascetics
+who practise the most rigid austerities. Men who desire to possess
+occult power live in complete solitude, subjecting themselves to cruel
+mortifications. They abstain from all fellowship with their kind, they
+try to live even without food. They absolutely mourn existence,
+avoiding all contact with everything earthly. They hope by renouncing
+all the actions of life to enter more and more into the spiritual
+existence. They believe they can build up an enormous soul out of the
+ruins of the body."
+
+"Do you find that such a method produces a high development of
+creative power, love, justice, conscience, truth, temperance, order,
+and benevolence?" said the grand sorcerer.
+
+"I cannot say," I replied, "that the devotees to whom I refer are
+conspicuous for those qualities, certainly not for a highly active
+state of such qualities. Their abnegation develops fanaticism, which
+is intemperance itself, and fills them with hate toward those outside
+their creed. The starvation of every appetite of pleasure withers up
+the appreciation for every form of human delight."
+
+"Then what virtues are derived from ascetic practices?" inquired the
+sorcerer.
+
+"Certain virtues of a negative order," I replied. "The adepts claim to
+have power to create and transport matter; a claim which reliable
+history does not, except in a few cases, recognize, and in a very
+limited sense they have power to separate the soul from the body.
+While the body remains in a comatose state, the soul traverses space,
+holds consultation with similar souls, and returns to its mansion in
+the body again."
+
+[Illustration: THE LABYRINTH WAS A SUBTERRANEAN GARDEN, WHOSE TREES
+AND FLOWERS WERE CHISELED OUT OF THE LIVING ROCK.]
+
+"Your magicians," said the sorcerer, "weaken or kill the body without
+imparting corresponding power to the soul. Now we of Atvatabar believe
+that the body should be developed equally with the soul. We believe
+that contact with the noblest and best of earthly things develops
+power and beauty. We feed both body and soul on the perfection of
+things, that both may thereby absorb perfection.
+
+"In the brilliant activities of the supernal palace, and in the golden
+calm of the infernal palace, priest and priestess, as twin souls,
+naturally intermingle in the enjoyment of a long Nirvana of ecstasy.
+We have not only the occult power to perform miracles like the
+ascetics of the outer sphere, but the soul possesses an enormous
+development of every noble quality without which our golden century is
+impossible. We are able by means of our baths of life to obtain a
+hundred years of glorious youth, during which period age and decay of
+the body is suspended. Our devotees when they arrive at the age of
+twenty years, when youth is fully developed, begin their Nirvana of
+blessedness and love. They do not grow older during these years. The
+eye is as bright, the pulse as bounding, the heart as lively, the
+complexion as pure and lovely, the feelings as fresh, at the end of
+the interregnum as at its commencement. Then when the golden century
+is exhausted, the body begins to be twenty-one years old."
+
+"Do you mean that a man who has lived one hundred and thirty years is
+but thirty years old?" I inquired.
+
+"Precisely," said the sorcerer; "why should we call a period age in
+which there is no change?"
+
+"Do all souls live until their century of youth is accomplished?"
+
+"Not all souls. Many die of accident or in consequence of sin. With
+some, Nirvana consists of but a single day's felicity, with others a
+month, or a year, up to a hundred years. It is the ideal for which we
+strive, and there is no reason why the body should not live one
+thousand years as well as one hundred, when vitality becomes more
+developed."
+
+I was astonished at the remarks of the sorcerer, and yet I remembered
+the case of Adam, Noah, and Methusaleh. I told him that men on the
+outer sphere had lived almost one thousand years.
+
+"You may be sure they never practised the austerities of the ascetic
+life you have just mentioned. They must have enjoyed life always
+turning their faces to the sun."
+
+"I think one hundred years a great step toward immortality," I
+remarked.
+
+"At twenty years the body is developed, but even a hundred thousand
+years will not develop the soul. Think of the development involved in
+having power over disease and death, power to create substantialities
+of matter!"
+
+"Do you create matter?" I inquired breathlessly.
+
+"I will show you what we can do," replied the sorcerer; "if you will
+follow me."
+
+The sorcerer led the way to seats upon a platform of silver, on which
+stood in terrific grandeur the figure of a hehorrent, or dragon of
+gold, whose eyes were blazing rubies. He stood before the dragon, at
+least twenty feet above the pavement of the palace.
+
+Presently the sorcerer shouted with a loud voice, "My host! my host!"
+and at once several thousand twin souls thronged into the immense
+temple, dancing with naked feet on the polished aquelium pavement.
+Beneath the monster miles of wire were wound in a coil, and to the
+wire were attached twenty thousand fine wires of terrelium, each wire
+terminating in a terrelium wand. These wires were held one each by
+priest and priestess, who began to move in a strange dance on the
+pavement and sing an anthem to Harikar. As they moved more and more
+rapidly the clamor of bells arose, and explosions of sound, like
+bullets rained upon drums, shook the building. In the semi-darkness
+the body of the hehorrent seemed to quiver, and, as I gazed, lo! a
+shower of blazing jewels issued from its mouth. There were emeralds,
+diamonds, sapphires, and rubies flung upon the pavement, scintillating
+with fire the colors of the stones themselves!
+
+The sorcerer, waving his terrelium wand, shouted, "Hold! It is
+enough!" and the séance was at an end. He received the jewels that had
+been collected by his hierophants, and descending, offered me a
+splendid ruby as large as a hen's egg. I looked at him with awe, as I
+felt its size and weight. He simply said, "These jewels have been
+created by spirit power."
+
+"Do you," I gasped, with a feeling of mingled exultance and fear, "do
+you create matter?"
+
+[Illustration: AS I GAZED, LO! A SHOWER OF BLAZING JEWELS ISSUED FROM
+THE MOUTH OF THE HEHORRENT.]
+
+"The abnegation of hopeless love is the source of the spirit power
+by which we create matter such as this," replied the sorcerer. "The
+twin-soul is the cell that generates the creative force."
+
+"And can you create other matter than jewels?" I eagerly inquired.
+
+The sorcerer gazed at Lyone for a moment, who had been strangely
+silent in the presence of her most powerful spiritual coadjutor, and
+then replied: "Yes, we can create all things if necessary. We can, for
+example, create islands in the sea, with mountains, forests, lakes,
+valleys, winding walks and thickets of flowers, palaces and pagodas."
+
+I was breathless with excitement at such a reply. "Oh, that I could
+see such an island," I rejoined, "and tread, if but for a single hour,
+its ecstatic shores!"
+
+"You can both see it and walk upon it, if the goddess so wills it,"
+replied the sorcerer. "What is the command of your holiness?" he
+inquired.
+
+"I would like the commander to see Arjeels, if your priests and
+priestesses are willing to perform the necessarily arduous ritual
+involved in its creation," replied Lyone.
+
+"My hierophants," replied the sorcerer, "are only too happy to serve
+their goddess at all times, and I will at once command them to prepare
+to execute the ritual for creating the magical island of Arjeels."
+
+"Your devotion," said Lyone, "fills me with the purest joy."
+
+As we conversed, the large ruby I held in my hand had grown
+considerably less in size, as though the elements of which it was
+composed had to a degree evaporated as unseen gases, so that in a
+short time the jewel might wholly disappear. The sorcerer,
+anticipating an inquiry as to its disappearance, stated that all
+objects created by spirit power could only be maintained in their full
+material splendor so long as they were sustained by the power that
+gave them birth. The creations were not additions to already existing
+elements; they were simply focalizations of matter from the elements
+of the surrounding world, held together by the force that withdrew
+them from their normal habitat as long as the spirit power remains
+supplied. The jewels would in a few hours cease to exist, because they
+were not enfolded with the power that produced them.
+
+"As to your magical island," said I, addressing Lyone, one of whose
+titles was Princess of Arjeels, "where is your principality situated?"
+
+"It is located anywhere in the wide sea," said Lyone.
+
+"Do you mean to say," said I, "that Arjeels is not a real, veritable
+island of the ocean, but only a ghostly island, a mirage that retreats
+as we approach it, a phantasy of the imagination?"
+
+"Arjeels is a real island, with real rocks and waterfalls, lakes and
+forests, birds and flowers. There is a real palace, and all the
+appurtenances of an ideal life. All this is a materialization of the
+ideal desires."
+
+I was astonished at her reply. "Once called into being," I inquired,
+"how long can the island exist?"
+
+"So long as the twin-souls support it by never-ceasing ecstasy, so
+long as they perform their magical dances on the aquelium floor of the
+temple of the dragon, holding in their hands the terrelium wands. Once
+the island becomes materialized it requires thousands of twin-souls to
+sustain and preserve its reality, and it only vanishes when the
+twin-souls are utterly weary of their ecstasy."
+
+"And when the twin-souls grow weary of their joys, what becomes of the
+island and its glories?" I inquired.
+
+"We can preserve the island for a long time," said the sorcerer, "by
+having fresh dancers take the place of those that are exhausted, but
+after the lapse of a month, or longer, when all are utterly vanquished
+with fatigue, the spirit power becomes exhausted and the island
+disappears upon the sea."
+
+I rose and enthusiastically grasped the sorcerer by the hand. "Ah,
+dear sorcerer," said I, "will you show me this magical island?"
+
+"The command of the Princess of Arjeels," he replied, "will be
+obeyed."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI.
+
+ARJEELS.
+
+
+I was full of impatience to witness the creation of the magical
+island, where with Lyone I might find ideal delight. It was necessary,
+however, for the grand sorcerer to make ample arrangements, not only
+for the generation of sufficient spirit force to create the island,
+but also a force sufficient for its continuance for an indefinite
+length of time. It was absolutely necessary that there should be a
+reserve force of ten thousand twin-souls to take the places of the
+original legion of souls, when they would become weary of their
+ecstatic labors. Only once before had Arjeels been created, and it was
+thought a most wonderful thing that the sorcerer could preserve its
+existence for a single day. Now it was contemplated to sustain the
+island for months, and this required a continuous as well as a lavish
+expenditure of spirit power.
+
+The sorcerer had enlisted his full quota of twin-souls, and prepared
+them for their heroic duty. The terrelium wand held by each soul was
+connected with the wires of a helic having immense coils of terrelium,
+that held by a rampant hehorrent of gold, formed an immense spiritual
+battery in the centre of another subterranean temple. Wires led from
+the battery underground across Atvatabar to the city of Mylosis, on
+the seacoast most remote from Kioram, a thousand miles from Egyplosis.
+The sorcerer announced a few days after the visit to the infernal
+palace that he was ready to accompany us to Mylosis, whither the
+queen's golden yacht had been sent to meet us.
+
+The aerial yacht of the goddess flew swiftly over Atvatabar, bearing
+the precious Lyone, the grand sorcerer Charka, and myself to the far
+seacoast, the first stage in our journey.
+
+The brightly flashing seas, the rose-colored sun, and the transcendent
+concave of the earth encompassing us, with the near tropical splendor
+of the country, made a scene of long remembered joy. But these
+objects, so glorious in themselves, were made still more splendid by
+the love that reigned in the souls that contemplated them.
+
+In due time we reached Mylosis, where we found the royal yacht and a
+reverent crowd of people awaiting us.
+
+The sorcerer lost no time in connecting the subterranean wires with a
+cable of terrelium on board the yacht, and, this being done, we
+immediately set out to sea, followed by a crowd of pleasure ships,
+conveying a host of people anxious to witness the miracle about to be
+performed.
+
+We anchored the yacht at a distance of fifty miles from the coast. The
+grand sorcerer, surrounded by his acolytes, held in his hand a thick
+rod of terrelium, the extreme end of the cable, whose further
+extremity was connected with the battery in the Temple of
+Reincarnation at Egyplosis. An exchange of messages along the wire
+informed us that the ten thousand twin-souls had already begun their
+dance of Pure Being upon the pavement of the greater temple.
+Immediately a stream of flame leaped from the end of the rod, like
+water spouting from a tube under enormous pressure.
+
+"Now," said the sorcerer, "by virtue of the spirit power in this
+cable, what I will to exist, will exist. I will that the magical
+island of Arjeels shall rise above the waves."
+
+"I wish the island," said Lyone, "to have an elevation of five
+thousand feet in the centre, and at an elevation of four thousand feet
+fill a crater of the mountain with a lake of cool water surrounded by
+aerial gardens, and on the shore place a palace of rose-colored
+marble, luxuriously furnished, with servants to wait upon us. All else
+may be according to your own fancy."
+
+"As your majesty wishes," replied the sorcerer, and as he spoke, a
+high mountain rose instantly from the sea a mile away, creating
+enormous waves, that threatened the safety of the yacht and the
+congregated vessels. A feeling of awe silenced the host of spectators.
+
+Instantly, as quickly as the sorcerer moved his wand, the mountains
+became clothed with forests, and high up on the shoulder of the
+central peak appeared a palace of rose-colored marble, whose
+supernatural architecture seemed a celestial dream. The island was
+thirty miles in length and about fifteen in width. From immense
+cliffs, foaming waterfalls flung themselves downward to the sea.
+Dazzled with their blinding beauty, we saw ravines engorged with
+flowers. In green and glorious blessedness the island lay before us,
+complete, like an enormous emerald in a setting of blue sea. We were
+so awe-struck with the labors of the sorcerer, that it seemed a
+sacrilege to set foot on the miraculous shores of Arjeels.
+
+At a sign from the sorcerer, the captain of the yacht fired one
+hundred guns, and the vessel moved toward the romantic island. We came
+close up to a white marble wharf, and Lyone and myself alighted upon
+the sacred retreat. Everything seemed so natural, that we could
+scarcely believe the solid rock to be sustained by self-sacrificing
+love.
+
+[Illustration: "BY VIRTUE OF THE SPIRIT POWER IN THIS CABLE," SAID THE
+SORCERER, "I WILL THAT THE MAGICAL ISLAND OF ARJEELS SHALL RISE ABOVE
+THE WAVES."]
+
+The adorable sorcerer remained on board the vessel, as it was
+impossible for him to leave his post of duty for a moment, while the
+dazed yet happy inhabitants of Mylosis departed homeward in their
+vessels.
+
+It was arranged that when the spirit power that sustained the island
+would become exhausted, owing to the utter weariness of the
+twin-souls, the firing of a gun on board the yacht would be a signal
+that Arjeels would disappear from upon the sea.
+
+The moment both Lyone and myself stepped upon the magical soil we felt
+an instantaneous increase of health and vigor. We did not at first use
+our magnic wings for flight, but walked along paths that wound around
+the beach of golden sand, shaded by towering palms.
+
+After remaining for a time on the margin of the sea we rose on our
+wings, and, like birds, encircled the island, rising ever higher until
+we alighted before the palace created for Lyone, a gem of the rosiest
+marble, covered with a dome of gold that flashed around it the light
+of the sun. The architecture was broad and heavy with splendid
+carvings, and surrounded by a pillared portico. The palace stood on
+the shore of a beautiful sheet of cool water; elsewhere its shores
+were thickly clothed with tropic foliage and aerial gardens of the
+greatest beauty.
+
+We had reached at last the holy of holies of ideal attainment, a
+retreat of bewildering beauty. The weird and splendid proportions of
+the palace, with its domes and towers ornamented with sculptured
+arabesques, rising from the soft waters of the lake, a veritable
+Fountain of Youth, all surrounded by the green and gleaming forest and
+gardens without end, filled our souls with a new rapture. Everything
+was so perfect and peaceful, so rich with life and beauty, so fresh
+and sparkling, so unspeakably happy, that I said, "This is the end of
+all toil and ambition, this is the perfect flower of life. Here is the
+lake of immortality, and here the fabled gardens of the Hesperides."
+
+Rayoulb, the chamberlain of the palace, and his acolytes, who received
+us, were also the product of spirit power, the reincarnation of former
+inmates of Egyplosis. They awaited us before the palace, announcing a
+feast had already been prepared for us.
+
+The interior of the palace revealed new wonders. Wide and lofty
+chambers were hung, some with woven and painted tapestries, and some
+plated with sheets of gold, illuminated by electricity with
+many-colored designs in precious metal. Others were decorated with
+tender and brilliant frescoes, in which the transparent plaster seemed
+to hold in its depths the tones of gold, of ultramarine and vermilion,
+in fabulous scenes. Woven and painted tapestries clothed the walls of
+still other chambers, representing in entrancing colors the most
+occult mysteries of Egyplosis. The banqueting chamber had a dome of
+enamelled glass, that softened the light with many a caressing color.
+Porcelain vases, gorgeous in depth and richness of color, containing
+plants of the richest bloom, added to the apartment their decorative
+grace. There were also an art gallery, a library, and a museum of
+jewels.
+
+On one side of the palace a square cloistered arcade surrounded a
+marble court. In the centre of the court lay a square pool of crystal
+water, whose basin had been chiselled out of the solid rock. The pool
+was fed by a wide water-fall falling down a precipice on the pavement.
+Here also were several pagodas containing chimes of bells and large
+oblong vases of stone filled with blooming flowers.
+
+Amid such splendor I began to realize that love has the power of
+spiritualizing all things, of interfusing them with its own rapture.
+Under its flame all colors brighten, all movement becomes divine, all
+labor seems holy. The sea attains a deeper blue, the shores a brighter
+green, the beloved one becomes more beautiful, more delicate and
+supernatural. Love, indeed, is an ultramarine and ultramontane joy!
+
+"This delight," said Lyone as she lay in her boudoir, plunged in
+delicious blessedness, "fills my soul with universal peace. Hitherto
+pained with the chagrin of life, I welcome this unwonted repose. Oh, I
+am supremely happy!"
+
+"This expedition," I replied, "is not to observe the transit of Venus,
+but the possession of Venus, to weigh each other's souls and read the
+poetry written in every fold of the heart. It would be the perfection
+of life if such reality of the ideal could surround us forever, but in
+a world where the worm doth conquer, where the storm wastes the flower
+and herb, such felicity is purchased only by the sacrifice of
+ourselves or of others. But while it lasts let us prize its ineffable
+joy. Hitherto," I continued, "philosophy has said that if we do not
+want to be undeceived we should never visit the haunts of
+imagination, for the fruits thereof are ashes, but we will create a
+new philosophy, that will assert that the haunts of imagination are
+ideally real, that the veritable Fountain of Youth has been
+discovered, that Eldorado may be won."
+
+The following day found us floating on the lake before, the palace in
+a beautiful magnic boat. Musicians occupied a pagoda overlooking the
+lake, and made the air sweet with their music. The lake seemed to fill
+the crater of an extinct volcano, and miles away on its further shore
+rose the lofty precipices of a mountain crest. It was most delightful
+to float on its profound wave, at an elevation of four thousand feet,
+and yet see the sea beneath us, and we surrounded with all the glory
+of the interior world.
+
+Birds, gorgeous as humming-birds, resplendent in burnished hues of
+purple, garnet, and green, would flash amid the flowers, or chase each
+other over the water. As for ourselves, we no longer feared our own
+holiest emotions. Our deepest feelings were then in the foreground.
+The mysterious carmine on the palpitating lips of Lyone was the symbol
+of a warm, delicate, superexcited soul.
+
+Lyone grew day by day more and more beautiful. She resembled the color
+of a deep and mysterious gold. I crowned her brow with flowers and
+wreathed her azure hair with wistful daffodils.
+
+Another day we rode on soul-created horses to discover the odoriferous
+retreats of the island. The pathways wound through flowery ravines,
+that looked out upon the sea. The sweet cool air that filled the
+splendid gloom of the palm woods seemed the essence of gladness. What
+glorious vistas opened amid the luminous green of the forest! The
+murmur of music filled the infinite ways of the island as our
+cavalcade wound round its peerless hills or plunged into its abysses
+of flowers. The spell of an ideal land was upon us, and we experienced
+sensations hitherto unfelt in life.
+
+"This," said Lyone, "is the ideal climate. Everything has become
+transfigured; even the light of the sun is softer and more blessed."
+
+"And the goddess of Atvatabar," I replied, "has become more delicate,
+more supernatural, and more holy."
+
+The island was one vast garden of tropical fruits and flowers, without
+the malaria of decay. Everywhere nature, carefully assisted by art,
+assumed the rarest beauty. Everything that savored of ruin and decay
+was non-existent. There were no wild or poisonous animals. No deadly
+serpent was coiled upon the branches, nor did poisonous insects crawl
+on leaf or flower. Forests of trees of a strange tropical vegetation
+abounded. There were the fruha, resembling dates; the caspariba,
+resembling bananas; the dulra, resembling limes; the jackle,
+resembling lemons; the congol, resembling oranges; the velicac,
+resembling bread-fruits; the persar, resembling custard apples; the
+phyorbal, resembling cocoanuts; the gersin, resembling mangosteens;
+the huflar, resembling coffee; the solru, resembling plums; and
+presuveet, or tamarinds lining the route. Fruits such as the troupac,
+or citron; dewan, or guava; orogor, or mango; and ryeshmush, or
+plantain gleamed amid the embowering foliage, and gardens of squangs
+and the pineapples, aloes, nutmeg, cloves and spices of Atvatabar,
+were on every hand.
+
+One day, when floating on the lake, we heard with surprise and
+infinite sadness the discharge of a gun, the signal that the island
+was at an end. Spreading our wings, we awaited the catastrophe.
+
+Suddenly a roar of thunder startled us, and Arjeels, with its majestic
+cliffs, its green forests and rivers of flowers, fell in one
+dissolving crash, and faded from sight. The lake and boat fell from
+beneath us so rapidly, that we would have fallen headlong into the sea
+had not our wings saved us. There flowed where the island had stood a
+circular wave rushing to a focus. There was an upward spouting pillar
+of foam, and all again was placid sea!
+
+We flew downward to where the yacht awaited us, and alighting on
+board, soon reached Mylosis.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII.
+
+A REVELATION.
+
+
+Alas for the brevity of earthly joys! The noble priests and
+priestesses had made a heroic effort to sustain Arjeels, but a month's
+incessant labors had quite exhausted their powers, and the glorious
+island vanished, with all its ideal sweetness. As if to intensify our
+sadness, when we reached Egyplosis again, we found the high priest
+Hushnoly, impatiently awaiting our return to secretly report the
+proceedings of a late council of the king and government, held in the
+council chamber of Egyplosis.
+
+I knew by the appearance of Hushnoly that something unusual had
+happened. He hesitated to unfold his secret until requested to do so
+by the goddess.
+
+"It is a serious business," said Hushnoly, "and I have been
+commissioned by his majesty to know the full meaning of the step both
+your holiness and his excellency are about to take, and see if there
+is no possibility of averting the terrible calamity, that overhangs
+Egyplosis."
+
+"Tell me," said Lyone to the high priest, "what the council has been
+discussing, and what it has determined upon."
+
+"Your holiness," said he, "I should inform you that Koshnili, as chief
+minister of Atvatabar, has received a report from his winged spies,
+charged with the duty of watching the movements of his excellency and
+retinue ever since their arrival in Atvatabar. His duty made it
+necessary to discover the real object of the illustrious strangers in
+visiting our country, and consequently their actions have been
+carefully watched and reported."
+
+"And of course," said I, "my constant association with the supreme
+goddess, has led Koshnili to suspect me of designs inimical to the
+welfare of the kingdom?"
+
+"Listen to the report made by Koshnili," replied Hushnoly, who
+unrolled a document he held in his hand, and read as follows:
+
+     "_To His Majesty_, KING ALDEMEGRY BHOOLMAKAR, _of Atvatabar,
+     greeting_: Your faithful minister begs to report that his
+     private wayleals have followed his excellency, the alien
+     commander, Lexington White, and followers from their arrival
+     in Kioram until their reception at Egyplosis. The
+     illustrious strangers, after landing on our soil, travelled
+     by sacred locomotive from Kioram to Calnogor, and were there
+     the guests of your majesty, after which they attended a
+     feast of worship to the supreme goddess in the Bormidophia.
+     The illustrious strangers were then received by her holiness
+     in her palace of Tanje. While lingering here my wayleals,
+     from the ramparts of the palace, saw his excellency the
+     alien commander, in company with her holiness, enter the
+     silver pleasure boat. Their long-continued interview in the
+     palace garden testified that a mutual affinity had drawn the
+     illustrious personages together. From later observation my
+     faithful wayleals are convinced that in the palace garden of
+     Tanje was begun the awful possibility of a twin soul of our
+     deity, and the alien commander, and the consequent apostasy
+     of the supreme goddess, and her renunciation of Harikar.
+
+     "My faithful wayleals further report that while travelling
+     on the aerial ship from Calnogor to Egyplosis, they obtained
+     further evidence of the consummation of a deific and alien
+     twin soul. The principals sat apart from all others, on a
+     seat at the prow of the vessel, and the report of their
+     conversation will justify your majesty in believing that a
+     sacrilegious twin soul already exists in defiance of civil
+     and religious law, her holiness and the alien commander
+     being the illustrious components.
+
+     "Awaiting the further commands of your majesty, I remain,
+     with profound veneration,
+
+                   "Your majesty's faithful servant,
+
+                                              "KOSHNILI."
+
+I gasped for breath at hearing so brutal a dissection of our hearts. I
+was thunderstruck. I could only ask Hushnoly what he had to say on the
+situation.
+
+"That you love each other, I need not ask," said he; "that may be
+taken for granted. But I might ask, do you each of you fully recognize
+the position you stand in? Do you know that your conduct menaces the
+throne of the gods itself? I can understand the violence of love for a
+human soul in the breast of the goddess, but what of her renunciation
+of Harikar?"
+
+"If not already convinced," I said, "I think her holiness will soon
+see that all this monstrous system of hopeless love is tottering on
+its throne. It is an artificial society, that must in time, of its own
+accord, crumble to pieces."
+
+"His majesty," said the high priest, "has departed with his retinue to
+Calnogor, and has called a council of the government to consider the
+situation. He held that the rank of the individuals who have offended
+against the sacred code of Atvatabar, and the monstrous impiety of the
+offence itself, constitutes a subject worthy of the most serious
+consideration of the government. His majesty was extremely angry on
+hearing the report of Koshnili. He characterized your excellency's
+conduct as unworthy of the hospitality you had received, and as
+involving the ruin of both the supreme goddess and yourself."
+
+"What did Koshnili say when presenting the report?" I inquired.
+
+"Koshnili said that the affections of their beloved goddess had been
+withdrawn from their only legitimate object, Harikar himself, and had
+been appropriated not even by a holy priest of the temple, not even by
+an ordinary citizen, but worse than all, by an infidel, a heathen, an
+adventurer and a stranger, emanating from some _terra incognita_ that
+might, owing to the fatal discovery of Atvatabar, one day send its
+hordes to ravage the country with fire and sword. The council," he
+continued, "knew the penalty for such treachery and abuse of
+hospitality on the part of a desperate and fanatical stranger, as well
+as such apostasy on the part of the goddess. He demanded the immediate
+arrest of the guilty parties. The king had sufficient evidence to
+convict and execute both individuals by reason of their high treason
+against both the government and faith of Atvatabar."
+
+"Did the king approve of Koshnili's demand?" I inquired.
+
+"His majesty," said Hushnoly, "said that a matter of such importance
+required the greatest circumspection. Her holiness was known to be the
+most pious and popular supreme goddess that had ever sat on the throne
+of the gods, and although it was evident she had insulted Harikar,
+still if the quiet expulsion of the strangers from Atvatabar soil
+would prevent further disgrace of their faith and country, he would
+prefer to issue a decree of expulsion, rather than a decree for the
+arrest of both commander and goddess. To reduce the possible calamity
+now overhanging the nation to the least possible proportions, it would
+be necessary to act at once, rather than to await the development of
+more complete evidence of affection between the guilty parties."
+
+Admiral Jolar deprecated the violent measures advocated by Koshnili,
+and supported the idea of the king, to quietly expel the strangers. He
+said that if the decree of expulsion were intrusted to him, he would
+see that it was carried into effect without delay. The council could
+rely on the royal fleet doing its duty.
+
+Koshnili was angry at his idea of immediate arrest not being acted
+upon. "Suppose these strangers," he said, "refuse to leave, and being
+warned by your royal mandate so fortify themselves by stirring up an
+insurrection in favor of her holiness, that might possibly defeat the
+royal arms, and, in the end, we ourselves be sacrificed by our present
+timid vacillation. The crisis is a serious one and demands a desperate
+remedy."
+
+"The Governor Ladalmir," said Hushnoly, "rebutted the arguments of
+Koshnili. He pointed out that the laws of hospitality demanded that
+the strangers should receive consideration at the hands of the king,
+even if guilty. They might receive fair warning to depart, after
+which, if the commander prove contumacious, more stringent measures
+could be taken. Should the commander, in defiance of the royal
+mandate, endeavor to consolidate his affection for her holiness, doing
+further sacrilege to our faith, ecclesiastical law has the remedy of
+death for those who would dare dethrone our faith, and lead our
+beloved goddess to take the irrevocable step of abandonment of her
+supreme office. After considerable discussion, it was decided to act
+on the suggestion of his majesty the king, that without bringing the
+matter before the Borodemy, a decree of expulsion be handed Admiral
+Jolar, for execution on the parties to be expelled from the kingdom.
+The decree is already in the hands of Admiral Jolar for delivery to
+your excellency."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII.
+
+LYONE'S MANIFESTO TO KING AND PEOPLE.
+
+
+"Might I ask your holiness," said the high priest, "if you will really
+take so determined a step as that indicated by the action of the royal
+council? The thought of such a thing strikes me dumb with fear."
+
+"Hushnoly," said Lyone, "I have ever found you faithful to my
+interests, and I will now confide in you my purposes. You are a man of
+wisdom, calm and conservative, and can rest happy in the possession of
+your counterpart soul. Your character has become moulded by your long
+novitiate until you have become a part of the institution itself. To
+think of any other state of things is to you an impossibility. On
+thousands of souls here, your inflexible laws have only developed a
+rebellious energy that will some day utterly destroy the fabric of
+Egyplosis. The true union of souls is not artificial restraint and the
+present calmness is only the pause that preludes the explosion."
+
+"But do you, supreme goddess, indeed desire to leave us forever? Will
+you profane your holy office? Will you despoil the temple of ideal
+love?" said Hushnoly, with emotion.
+
+"You think it monstrous," said Lyone, "that I should desire to uproot
+principles so fixed and permanent. You can judge, then, how fierce
+must be the passion that causes me to antagonize duty consecrated by
+the ties and memories of my holy office."
+
+"To break away from a responsibility so supreme," I said, "argues
+alone an extraordinary force. Your very system creates just such a
+love as this. Here souls are required to meet in rapture, and yet to
+stand balanced, as it were, on the thin edge of naked swords, and fall
+neither this way nor that. The development of a purely romantic love
+effeminates the race. The example of Egyplosis if carried out
+universally would obliterate the nation in one generation. The nation
+is wiser than its creed. Let us therefore choose the wiser path."
+
+"It was the dream of your noble parents," said Hushnoly to Lyone, "to
+see you supreme goddess of Egyplosis. When you obtained this peerless
+honor they died. Your mother, dying, implored you to remember your
+vows, and to be ever true to your high office. 'Love only duty,' was
+her last sigh. If you love aught else, there is but a cruel death for
+you, and your memory will be an everlasting disgrace. Will you, the
+ideal of hopeless love, be the first to prove faithless?"
+
+"What you say is true," I said, replying for Lyone, "but what is duty?
+Lyone not only owes a duty to her office, but also to herself. Her
+duty to herself is to rise up and break down this monstrous
+environment that chains down her soul, and her duty to these ten
+thousand souls is to tell them that an institution that constantly
+antagonizes nature is immoral. Here refined souls," I continued, "seek
+the cloister, not for peace, but for ecstatic anguish. They love and
+weep, and thus agitated they grow at once weak and violent, and can
+never accommodate themselves to the serious purposes of life. Thus
+sacrificed on the altar of a false god, weary of a life of barren
+blessedness, you will discover, if you but seriously inquire into it,
+that this palace is purely a prison for thousands of noble souls."
+
+As I spoke, Hushnoly clasped his head with his hands and groaned.
+"With the downfall of Egyplosis," he murmured, "farewell delights,
+farewell tendernesses, farewell mystical, chivalrous love!"
+
+"Do not be so dejected," said Lyone; "your imagination gives you but a
+capricious view of the future, which will be even nobler than the
+past."
+
+The high priest could hear no more, and left us seized with affright
+as to the future, and mourning the anticipated downfall of Egyplosis.
+
+Lyone, far from exhibiting fear, grew enthusiastic over our projected
+_coup d'état_, that would certainly, if successful, create an organic
+change in the constitution of the kingdom.
+
+We discussed the situation at length, and determined to leave
+Egyplosis for Calnogor forthwith.
+
+I could in some measure appreciate the struggle undergone by Lyone
+necessary to sever her forever from so ineffable a retreat. But
+passion was stronger than environment, and it was duly announced that
+the supreme goddess and the commander of the _Polar King_ and their
+immediate followers would leave for Calnogor forthwith.
+
+Our departure from Egyplosis was attended with impressive ceremonies,
+our journey to Calnogor being made in the aerial ship of the goddess.
+
+On our arrival at Tanje we discovered that the king and government had
+held their council unknown to the people. We did not think it
+expedient either, just then, to make public the determination of the
+goddess. I ordered my officers and sailors to Kioram forthwith to take
+command of the _Polar King_. My instructions to Captain Wallace were
+to have the ship fully supplied with stores, and remove her from the
+basin where she lay into the outer harbor of Kioram, and there await
+further orders. After a considerable period of inactivity the ship's
+company were nothing loath to get on board again with the prospect of
+another voyage. I confided to the officers the possibility of our
+being engaged in hostile operations, and ordered the ship to be put
+in fighting trim without delay. The officers and men were tendered the
+dignity of riding to Kioram in the sacred locomotive, and their
+departure was made amid the enthusiasm of the populace.
+
+As for myself, I remained at the palace of Tanje, the residence of the
+goddess, to assist Lyone in preparing her manifesto to the people.
+
+It was a painful crisis for her, who was the symbol of ideal love, to
+be the first to renounce its delights for the sake of an every-day
+union with a beloved soul.
+
+For days her decision trembled in the balance. Her avowal of being led
+captive by human love would be a national catastrophe. She trembled
+for her ten thousand devotees in Egyplosis. It seemed a cruel and
+heartless trampling under foot of throbbing hearts that were thrilling
+with faith in their goddess. When I saw Lyone prepared to abandon
+Egyplosis for my sake, when I knew she would forever resign that
+splendid throne swept by whirlwinds of adoration, for the sake of
+being clasped to my heart, when I saw her risk even life itself for
+the simple love of one adoring heart, I then knew what love really
+was. It was, as Dante says,
+
+    "Joy past compare, gladness unutterable,
+     Exhaustless riches and unmeasured bliss."
+
+At last the decision was made. Lyone had decided that the ideal love
+of Egyplosis was only suited to disembodied spirits, and not for those
+breathing elements of matter that are unable to exist in the spiritual
+state.
+
+The following was the text of her manifesto to the king, Borodemy and
+people:
+
+        "_The Avowal of_ LYONE, _Supreme Goddess of Atvatabar, Holy
+          Ruler of the palaces, Supernal and Infernal, of Egyplosis,
+          Queen of Magicians, Mother of Sorcerers, Princess of
+          Arjeels, etc., etc., to His Most Excellent Majesty_ KING
+          ALDEMEGRY BHOOLMAKAR _and the People of Atvatabar_.
+
+     "The supreme goddess presents her respectful salutations,
+     and desires to inform his majesty the king and the people
+     that her ardent soul, sensitive to the tender feelings of
+     human affection, desires to live no longer without a
+     counterpart soul. The love of ten thousand souls does not
+     satisfy the craving for the love of but one soul. She has
+     been told to love Harikar the unseen. She reaches out her
+     lips, but they do not meet with love's delirious kisses. Her
+     heart, withering within her because of soul loneliness, has
+     taught her to seek liberty, to love the soul of her choice.
+
+     "She resigns her seat on the throne of the gods, as goddess,
+     having discovered her counterpart soul.
+
+     "She hopes that reform and not destruction will guide the
+     king and his ministers in dealing with Egyplosis at this
+     crisis.
+
+     "Given at her palace of Tanje in this, the eleventh year of
+     her deification as supreme goddess.
+
+                                                     LYONE."
+
+This memorial fell upon the people like a shell of terrorite. No one
+had ever suspected the crisis was so real. The king had lulled himself
+with the belief that, as my sailors had already departed to embark on
+the _Polar King_, I would possibly quietly follow them, and leave the
+country without his having the trouble of even asking me to go. The
+message of the goddess, however, opened his eyes to the true state of
+things, and I forthwith received the following decree from his
+majesty, at the hands of Jolar, admiral of the royal fleet:
+
+         "ALDEMEGRY BHOOLMAKAR, _King of Atvatabar, to His Excellency
+          Lexington White, Commander of the ship Polar King, etc.,
+          etc., greeting_:
+
+     "It having come to our knowledge that you, the said
+     Lexington White, have conceived an affection for the sacred
+     person of our illustrious supreme goddess, Lyone, spouse of
+     Harikar, holy ruler of Egyplosis, mother of sorcerers, etc.,
+     in defiance of our holy faith and laws of this our realm,
+     and furthermore it having come to our knowledge that the
+     said supreme goddess has so far forgotten her holy duty as
+     to reciprocate your affection, be it known to you that the
+     penalty prescribed by the laws of this our realm for your
+     heinous offence (which is sacrilegious treason) is death by
+     magnicity, for both guilty persons.
+
+     "To inform you of the law and the penalty for your crime,
+     and to give you an opportunity of renouncing your affection
+     for our supreme goddess, and for your immediate departure
+     from the soil of Atvatabar, we send you this our decree,
+     commanding you as follows: That you forthwith renounce your
+     treasonable affection, love and interest in the personality
+     of said supreme goddess. That you embark, together with your
+     officers and seamen, on board your ship, the _Polar King_,
+     within one week from date hereof, and forever leave our
+     realm of Atvatabar and the surrounding seas thereof. You
+     must not again return to this our realm in any manner
+     whatsoever, or send messengers, or correspond or conspire
+     with any inhabitant thereof, particularly with our said
+     supreme goddess, under penalty of death, both for yourself
+     and for your entire crew.
+
+     "Given at our palace in Calnogor, in this fifty-sixth year
+     of our reign.
+
+                                      "ALDEMEGRY BHOOLMAKAR,
+
+                                          "_King of Atvatabar_."
+
+I received the document from the hands of the admiral with deep
+respect, and requested him to assure his majesty King Aldemegry
+Bhoolmakar of my profound regard and deep gratitude for the hospitable
+reception we had received from his majesty and his people during our
+stay in the glorious kingdom of Atvatabar.
+
+I stated that we were at present in the act of leaving their country
+on a voyage of further discovery, but could not say that we would not
+again return to Atvatabar. We should be most happy to obey the command
+of the king, but should we receive a message to return from the
+supreme goddess ere we left the interior world, we might possibly
+return, notwithstanding the royal command, and brave the wrath of his
+majesty.
+
+"In that case," said the admiral, "it would be my duty to prevent you
+from landing on Atvatabar soil; and should you succeed in eluding the
+vigilance of the fleet, your apprehension and that of your people by
+his majesty's wayleals would mean the execution of your entire party.
+We are a proud nation, and our army and navy are invincible."
+
+I thanked the admiral for his well-meant warning, whereupon he
+withdrew from the palace.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIX.
+
+THE CRISIS IN ATVATABAR.
+
+
+The manifesto of Lyone had precipitated an historic crisis in
+Atvatabar. The king awaited my leaving the country with the utmost
+impatience. He made every effort to prevent the news from reaching the
+public, hoping that when I took my departure the goddess would be
+amenable to the laws of the realm, and the faith be thus preserved.
+
+The more that Lyone and myself discussed the situation, the more
+apparent it appeared that we could not now draw back from the position
+we had taken. It was absolutely necessary to provide a following in
+case the government attempted arrest, or the execution of either or
+both of us. Trusty messengers were despatched to the high priest,
+Hushnoly, the grand sorcerer, Charka, the lord of art, Yermoul, and
+the other friends of Lyone, informing them of the step she had taken,
+and asking their support in case any violence were offered her.
+
+I advised Lyone to have her agents collect and transmit to Kioram all
+munitions of war. Some of the royal wayleals were armed with spears,
+and others with swords and shields. All battles were fought in the
+air, by reason of the wayleals being able to fly, as their movement on
+wings was more rapid than movement on foot.
+
+As already stated, the ordinary spear of the king's wayleals was very
+effective, by reason of its discharging a magnetic current into the
+body, causing instant death. With a view of arming the army of the
+goddess with a more potent weapon than magnic spears, I quietly had
+agents purchase for immediate transmission to Kioram vast quantities
+of iron, and the material for making gunpowder, which happily existed
+in great abundance in Atvatabar. My idea was to start a manufactory
+for firearms, which were unknown to the interior world, and arm every
+man with a magazine rifle--a portable mitrailleuse, in fact.
+
+While engaged in discussing the plan of defence with Lyone the crisis
+was precipitated by the press of the country finding out the _coup
+d'état_ of the goddess. With a view of placing the government in the
+most favorable light before the people, the chief organ of the king,
+_The Calnogor Jossidi_, published a fierce editorial condemning the
+action of the goddess, and reviling what it was pleased to call "the
+contumacious invader and despoiler of Atvatabar." The article ran
+thus:
+
+                 "IMPIOUS SACRILEGE!
+                "ASTOUNDING APOSTASY!
+   "THE SUPREME GODDESS REFUSES FURTHER WORSHIP, AND HAS
+       DEGRADED HERSELF BY SEEKING MARRIAGE WITH AN
+                     ALIEN LOVER!
+       "WHAT IS FAITH, IF DECEIT BE OUR DEITY?
+
+     "The sweet, the noble, the pure, the exalted worship of holy
+     love, and of its hitherto most perfect symbol, the Goddess
+     Lyone, is threatened with extinction, if it be not entirely
+     destroyed. That sweet and perishable affection that fills
+     the breasts of lovers, which has been for ages conserved,
+     expanded, and wrought into an enduring fabric of religion in
+     the sacred temple of Egyplosis, is about to utterly perish
+     by a mad act of apostasy on the part of the deity herself.
+     Whither now will tender and faithful hearts turn to find a
+     refuge for all that makes the life glorious? Our ideal soul
+     has sunk into degradation! She has flung herself from her
+     proud and happy throne, wounding our faith with impious
+     sacrilege!
+
+     "Never before in the history of the world has the treachery
+     of a goddess been manifest; we have had occasion hitherto
+     only to mourn the apostasy of the worshipper. Now what
+     avails our worship, if the object of our adoration fails us
+     in the hour of need? Who is to console the bereavement of
+     millions, when their consoler has hopelessly abandoned them?
+     We say to both his majesty the king and government, follow
+     the iconoclasts with the sword of justice; no punishment is
+     too severe for such perfidious workers of iniquity! Death on
+     the magnic scaffold is the penalty for the infatuation of
+     the goddess and her atheistic lover! Wanting both men and
+     money, the standard of revolt will be brought down by the
+     first blow, and his majesty's troops can be relied upon to
+     bring the rebels to swift justice. Let them be covered with
+     eternal infamy who will support this fearful apostasy!"
+
+It became necessary for Lyone to publish the following manifesto to
+the nation, stating briefly the reasons that led to her renunciation
+of Harikar, to become the apostle of a new creed of one body and one
+soul:
+
+     "LYONE, _who has been until now Supreme Goddess of the faith
+     of Harikar, to her faithful people, greeting_:
+
+     "I, who have been exalted to the high seat of honor on the
+     throne of the gods, as the incarnation of the supreme soul,
+     having received divine honors at your hands, desire at this
+     crisis to make known to you the nature of the reform I seek
+     to establish in the faith and worship of Atvatabar.
+
+     "I do not seek to annihilate your faith, with all its tender
+     and memorable qualities. I simply seek to reform such
+     religion, making it more natural, more holy. All things that
+     exist do change; if they do not rise to greater glory, they
+     must sink to profounder shame. I, who have been your goddess
+     during a long and blessed Nirvana, know how much you love
+     me. I know that round my throne a tempest of passion has
+     swept for years, filling me with its ecstasy. But I hasten
+     to tell you that the delights of Egyplosis have been
+     purchased at a fearful price. The sacrifices of its priests
+     and priestesses have proved to me that even the retreat of
+     ideal love can be as inexorably cruel as the outer world. So
+     harassing have been these sacrifices that some could not
+     bear their burden, and at this moment five hundred twin
+     souls are confined in the dungeons of Egyplosis because they
+     transgressed the vows of their novitiate. Of what avail are
+     tender, chivalrous delights, if nature, if reason, be
+     outraged in producing them?
+
+     "Those who have remained steadfast to their vows, have grown
+     sickly and morbid, feeding too long on fantastic ecstasies.
+     Despondent and unreal in mind, delicate and nervous in body,
+     they only appear rich and radiant in some brief ceremonial,
+     while their every-day life is shuddering, tearful, and
+     unstable, and utterly unfit to cope with the struggle of
+     ordinary existence.
+
+     "Therefore it is that one moment of pleasure is purchased by
+     whole days of pain, and the oscillation between such
+     extremes racks and ruins the dearest souls.
+
+     "The motto of the new faith for Egyplosis, 'One Body and One
+     Soul,' founded on the ordinary marriage rite, will restore
+     to priest and priestess the steady and temperate possession
+     of their souls which gives society that virile force
+     necessary to its very existence.
+
+     "By the memory of our mutual love, I claim the support of my
+     faithful priests and priestesses, worshippers and people, in
+     the coming struggle.
+
+                                                         "LYONE."
+
+The manifesto of the goddess, published in all the papers of the
+kingdom, created a profound sensation. It was the first discovery to
+millions that their religion had been weighed and found wanting.
+Although many were aware of its excesses, they saw that, despite every
+regulation, the hornet was in possession of Hesperides, prepared to
+sting the hand that reached for the golden fruit.
+
+They learned that passion led to agonized exaltation, and that the
+moral fibres of the soul became paralyzed by fierce temptation and
+inordinate spiritual delights. They saw that restraint of rapture and
+a more natural basis for the fellowship of the sexes were reforms
+imperatively needed, if the religion of Atvatabar were to remain an
+elevating and purifying force. Their creed must be reformed, both in
+faith and practice, and who so capable of introducing such a reform as
+Lyone herself?
+
+The power of the deep-rooted conservatism of those who had nothing to
+gain by the change, the fear of the merchants that civil war meant
+their financial ruin, of a king jealous of his authority, and of the
+supremacy of existing laws, were the forces that would oppose the
+power of the goddess to carry out her reforms.
+
+I began to accuse myself of being entirely responsible for all this
+disturbance in a peaceful country. Had I never discovered Atvatabar,
+Lyone might never have desired to disturb the existing order of
+things, but would have remained an agonized and crowned goddess,
+wedded only to Harikar, in a temple of eternal celibacy.
+
+I knew, however, that all this was changed. I knew it by her sighs at
+our first meeting in the garden of Tanje, which, to remember, again
+and again made me thrill and shudder with joy.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XL.
+
+MY DEPARTURE FROM THE PALACE OF TANJE.
+
+
+The week of grace allowed me to leave Atvatabar had already expired
+ere it had seriously occurred to me to actually leave the palace. The
+commotion in the nation consequent on the publication of the manifesto
+of king and goddess was so great, and the necessity of advising Lyone
+in the crisis so urgent, that I did not take leave of her until the
+time for my departure was exhausted. One thing that made me somewhat
+careless of arousing the royal danger was that the _Polar King_ with
+her terrorite guns could command Kioram in spite of the royal fleet,
+although it numbered one hundred vessels. Fortunately the royal fleet
+had not yet learned the use of gunpowder, their guns being discharged
+with compressed air.
+
+A despatch from Captain Wallace stated that the ship was lying in the
+outer harbor, well equipped either for a long voyage or probable
+hostilities.
+
+With the view of allaying the excitement of the people, the king
+published a statement that the alien commander and his retinue had
+been ordered to leave forthwith. As for Lyone, the crisis had in no
+wise terrified her; she felt assured, however, that "the beginning of
+the end had come."
+
+"Are you not afraid of lifelong imprisonment or death in case your
+cause has no supporters?" I asked.
+
+"They can do me no harm," she replied, "for the entire priesthood of
+Egyplosis, the Art Palace of Gnaphisthasia, and thousands of
+sympathizers among the people themselves, will rally to my flag when
+the hour of danger comes."
+
+"You can depend on my operations at sea," said I, "in your behalf.
+Although I have but a single vessel, I will fight the entire fleet of
+Atvatabar. One shell of terrorite has more power than a thousand of
+their guns. I will destroy Kioram, if need be, to bring the king to
+submission."
+
+Before leaving Lyone, I drew up a plan of campaign for the coming
+struggle. Hushnoly, the high priest, although conservative as regards
+the affairs of the priesthood, was really a trusty friend of the
+goddess, and would assist the grand sorcerer in commanding a wing of
+the sacred army.
+
+The liberated priests and priestesses would fight like lions for the
+cause for which they had been imprisoned. The palace of Gnaphisthasia
+would also furnish its battalions, led by Yermoul, lord of art. Then,
+among the fifty millions of people there were perhaps twenty millions
+in favor of reform, who would contribute a large army in support of
+Lyone.
+
+"It is by no means certain that a civil war will take place, even to
+secure the proposed reform," said Lyone. "The people may leave it to
+the Borodemy and the law to settle the matter."
+
+"And what would be the result in such a case?" I inquired.
+
+"Well, if I persisted in my demands, and no insurrection took place,"
+said Lyone, "the king might put me to death as the simplest way of
+ending the matter, and appoint another goddess in Egyplosis."
+
+"They will never hurt a hair of your head while I live: I swear it!"
+said I, with considerable emphasis.
+
+Lyone smiled at my enthusiasm, and refused to permit me to linger
+longer with her. We understood each other perfectly. I saw that when
+Lyone had once made up her mind on a certain course, there could be no
+retreat. She cared not any longer for a dead throne, for even the
+worship of the multitude could not feed her famished heart. She must
+have a beloved soul, consecrated to herself alone, between whom would
+vibrate the music of great thoughts and tender emotions.
+
+Lyone had declared war upon hopeless love. This was a necessary
+consequence of her altered position. Egyplosis, founded on a brilliant
+theory, had in practice become a prison, and she must open the doors
+to let its prisoners free.
+
+Just as I was leaving the palace I received a message from Hushnoly
+stating that the king had secretly ordered my arrest, and to be
+circumspect if I wished to reach Kioram free.
+
+Attended by a guard of bockhockids faithful to Lyone I set out for
+Kioram, taking a circuitous road to avoid Calnogor. I had been
+informed by Hushnoly that mobs of excited and bloodthirsty wayleals
+were flying about the metropolis, shouting "Death to the foreigners!"
+Mounted on a magnificent, majestic steed of great power, I led my
+little band at a furious pace. The bockhockids with each stride of the
+leg covered a distance of sixty feet, and could travel easily seventy
+miles an hour without appearing to run very quickly.
+
+About an hour's travelling brought us abreast of Calnogor, and soon
+afterward I heard shots fired and the noise of a conflict. Making an
+aerial _détour_, I discovered a combat between a dozen wayleals on the
+one side and a crowd of wayleals on the other. I noticed that as fast
+as the individuals of the larger body were fired at by a weapon in the
+hands of the smaller company they at once became lifeless, either
+falling to the ground or hanging limp in the air supported by their
+still vibrating wings. Being intensely curious to see the wayleals
+using revolvers, I ventured with my men nearer the _mêlée_, and coming
+near the flying warriors, I discovered to my surprise and horror that
+the smaller band of flying men was a company of my own sailors, led by
+Flathootly, fighting back to back a swarming mass of wayleals.
+
+The brave fellows fought like lions. No sooner did a wayleal approach
+a sailor with his deadly spear than he was shot. My men, fighting such
+fearful odds, for the enemy numbered several hundreds, could not long
+maintain so unequal a combat, notwithstanding the superiority of their
+weapons. It was only a question of time when their ammunition would be
+exhausted, and their spears would then be their only weapon, and I had
+evidently arrived in time to relieve them. Flathootly was shouting to
+the enemy, "Shtand back, or Oi'll shoot yez!" when I approached. The
+sailors cheered to see me flying to their relief, and at that moment
+the enemy, recognizing in me the very man they wanted, swarmed around
+to prevent my escape. My bockhockids drew their spears, and the
+sailors used their revolvers freely, and forming a flying ring,
+effectually protected me from the onslaught of the king's wayleals. I
+rallied my entire company, who received the rush of the wayleals with
+a discharge of revolvers and magnic spears, by means of which we
+killed several. Again and again the enemy fell upon us with renewed
+fury, shouting their war-cry of "Bhoolmakar!" They evidently meant to
+harass us until re-enforced by a detachment of the royal troops strong
+enough to capture us.
+
+A wayleal, in an unguarded moment, struck me on the shoulder,
+fortunately with only one point of his spear, drawing blood.
+Flathootly, who saw the blow, emptied his revolver in his breast, and
+he fell to earth a dead man. I was surprised that the enemy had not
+already annihilated my men, for, notwithstanding their fear of the
+sailors' revolvers, three of the sailors had been killed. It was
+terrible news to think of my brave fellows being slaughtered, but I
+was determined to have revenge. I singled out Gossody, the leader of
+the wayleals, and rushing forward on my bockhockid, aimed at his head
+with my revolver, and instantly killed him. The death of their leader
+paralyzed the wayleals for a time. Before they could recover from
+their surprise, we killed a number of them. The enemy, once more
+rallying, made a fresh attack. They hoped to either kill or capture us
+by sheer force of superior numbers. We killed dozens of them, but at a
+fearful cost. Six of the bockhockids and three more of our own sailors
+bit the dust. It was quite evident that it would be only a question of
+time before we would be completely annihilated. I saw that it was
+necessary for us to reach Kioram without further fighting. We could
+not afford to risk the life of another man, even to gain a complete
+victory. I therefore ordered a flying retreat. The bockhockids were
+arranged in a circle, in the midst of which flew our sailors. We
+struck out for Kioram with the speed of the wind, pursued by an
+ever-increasing horde of wayleals thirsting for our blood. Such was
+our speed of motion that the thrusts of the enemy were ineffectual. It
+was a magnificent sight to see the giant machines, like flying cranes,
+devouring distance with their wings, each ridden by a winged warrior.
+Wearied and exhausted with our fight, and still longer period of
+flight, it was a welcome sight to see beneath us the city of Kioram,
+and the _Polar King_ riding at anchor in the outer harbor, beyond
+which lay the royal navy of Atvatabar.
+
+When within sight of the city the enemy unexpectedly gave up the
+chase, and did not follow us further. We soon gained the ship, and in
+a short time our bockhockids decorated the masts and rigging. The
+story of my imprisonment and the massacre of the six sailors of the
+force sent to escort me to Kioram was soon told, and a more determined
+crew never trod the deck of ship of war. We would teach Bhoolmakar a
+lesson he would never forget!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLI.
+
+WE ARE ATTACKED BY THE ENEMY.
+
+
+Captain Wallace and the entire ship's company were overjoyed at my
+escape from the clutches of the enemy. The loss of six of our brave
+sailors was a terrible calamity in any case, but still more so in view
+of the impending attack by the enemy's navy.
+
+We had a good stock of gunpowder on board, and the ship's mechanics
+under Professor Rackiron began the construction of a series of machine
+guns, each weapon having one hundred rifled barrels arranged in
+circles around the central tube. Twenty-five of these guns were
+constructed. To each tube was fitted a magazine, with automatic
+attachment, so that one man could handle each weapon, that would throw
+five hundred balls with each charge of the magazine.
+
+The fletyemings of the royal navy possessed the advantage of numbers
+and ships, so that it was necessary for us to have the advantage in
+point of arms. Our monster terrorite gun and the terrorite battery
+gave us also an immense advantage over the gunpowder batteries of the
+enemy. Thus equipped, we were more than a match for any ten ships of
+the enemy. But when we saw one hundred vessels, the smallest of which
+was as large as our own, and many twice our size, bearing down upon us
+in battle array, we felt our chances of escape, not to mention
+victory, were hardly worth calculating.
+
+It was a splendid scene for a naval battle. The harbor of Kioram was a
+bay fully fifty miles in diameter, and here lay the royal fleet, whose
+hulls of gleaming gold shone on the blue water, while beyond rose the
+brilliant whiteness of the sculptured city.
+
+Captain Wallace had the ship ready for action. Every soul knew it was
+a life-and-death struggle. The sailors knew that success meant wealth
+beyond the dreams of avarice. For myself, the prize was something more
+worthy of our desperate courage--it was the priceless Lyone, possessed
+of a divine personality. Her life, like my own, hung in the balance.
+Should I win the battle, we would win each other. Should I fail to
+conquer, there was but one kind of defeat, and that was death.
+
+Every man stood at his post in silence. Flathootly had command of a
+company of sailors. Professor Rackiron superintended our chief arm of
+defence, the terrorite guns--weapons, like our revolvers, fortunately
+unknown in Atvatabar. We had a large quantity of explosive terrorite
+on board, in the shape of shells for our guns. The shells contained
+each the equivalent of 100 pounds of terrorite--that is to say, they
+would each weigh 100 pounds on the outer earth, while the shells of
+the giant gun weighed 250 pounds each. The iron hurricane-deck, that
+did us such service in the polar climate, was put up overhead, as a
+protection from the onslaught of a boarding crew.
+
+The ships of the enemy advanced proudly in a double line of battle. On
+the peak of each floated the ensign of Atvatabar, a red sun surrounded
+by a wide circle of green, on a blue field.
+
+On the _Polar King_ floated the flag of the goddess, a figure of the
+throne of the gods in gold, on a purple ground.
+
+When but a mile off, we could see the guns on every ship pointed and
+ready for the attack. The enemy suddenly broke into the form of a
+semi-circle. It was the design of Admiral Jolar to surround us and
+capture or destroy the _Polar King_ by sheer force of numbers. We
+allowed the formation to proceed, until the entire navy of Atvatabar
+surrounded us in an enormous circle.
+
+Having executed this manoeuvre, a boat put away from the admiral's
+ship and approached us. In a short time it reached our vessel, and the
+captain of the admiral's ship, with several officers, came on board.
+
+The captain demanded my unconditional surrender, "in the name of his
+majesty King Aldemegry Bhoolmakar of Atvatabar." I had been declared
+"an enemy of the country, a violator of its most sacred laws, a
+heretic in active destruction of its holy faith, and a fugitive from
+justice." The captain, as the emissary of the admiral, demanded the
+immediate surrender of myself and entire company.
+
+I asked my men if they were prepared to surrender themselves to the
+enemy. Their fearful shout of "Never!" disturbed the silence of the
+sea, and must have been heard by the distant enemy.
+
+"You hear the reply of my men," I said to the captain. "Tell your
+admiral that the commander of the _Polar King_ declines to
+surrender."
+
+"Then," said the captain, "we will open fire upon you at once. We mean
+to have you dead or alive."
+
+"Give the admiral my compliments," said I, "and tell him to open the
+fight as soon as he likes."
+
+The captain and his staff rapidly disappeared, and we knew that the
+fight was certain. The officers had no sooner reached the admiral's
+ship than a report was heard; and a ball of metal crashed upon the
+hurricane-deck overhead, tearing a large hole in it, and then plunged
+into the sea. This was the signal of war. Before we could reply, the
+_Polar King_ was the target of a general bombardment from all points
+of the compass. The balls that struck us were of different kinds of
+metal--lead, zinc, iron, and even gold. Although the range of their
+guns was accurate, yet, owing to the loss of gravity, the shots had
+but little effect on the plating of the vessel. Some of the sailors
+were severely wounded by being struck in the limbs with the large
+missiles hurled upon us, and I saw that if the enemy couldn't sink the
+_Polar King_ they could at least kill us, which was even worse.
+
+I gave orders to Professor Rackiron to train the giant gun on the
+admiral's vessel. The discharge was accompanied by a slight flash,
+without smoke, and we saw the deadly messenger make its aerial flight
+straight toward the admiral's vessel. It entered the water right in
+front of the ship, and in another instant an extraordinary scene was
+witnessed. The ship, in company with a vast volume of water, sprang
+into the air to a great height, with an immense hole blown in the
+bottom of the hull. Falling again, she sank with all of the crew who
+did not manage to fly clear of her rigging. After the vessel
+disappeared, the last of the waterspout fell upon the boiling sea.
+
+It was a great surprise to the enemy to see their best ship destroyed
+at a single blow. The effect of our shot completely paralyzed the foe
+for the moment, for every vessel ceased firing at us. At first it was
+thought that the admiral had gone down with his vessel, and until a
+new admiral was in command the battle would be suspended.
+
+During the confusion we ran the _Polar King_ through the breach made
+in the circle of the enemy, keeping his ships on one side of us. I
+determined to try the tactics of rapid movement, with the steady
+discharge of the terrorite gun, hoping to destroy a ship at every
+blow.
+
+[Illustration: THE SHIP IN COMPANY WITH A VAST VOLUME OF WATER SPRANG
+INTO THE AIR TO A GREAT HEIGHT.]
+
+It soon appeared that Admiral Jolar was still alive, he having escaped
+from his ship in mid air, with his staff and a number of fletyemings,
+by means of their electric wings. He had alighted on the ship of the
+rear admiral, where he hoisted the pennant of the admiral.
+
+The enemy was now thoroughly alive to the necessity of destroying or
+capturing us. I saw it was a mistake in allowing ourselves to be
+surrounded in a bay only fifty miles wide. To fight so many ships
+required ample sea-room, to avoid the possibility of being captured.
+
+The admiral sent ten ships to guard the mouth of the bay. It was a
+satisfaction to know that the torpedo was also unknown in Atvatabar,
+else our career would have been cut short. The _Polar King_, running
+twenty-five miles an hour, was followed by the enemy's fleet, which,
+although slower in movement, had the advantage in numbers and could
+possibly drive us upon the shore. After sailing as far east as we
+cared to go, the _Polar King_ lay to, awaiting a renewal of the
+battle.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLII.
+
+THE BATTLE CONTINUED.
+
+
+The royal fleet formed a wide semi-circle a mile off, and reopened its
+guns upon us. An unlucky shot struck one of our seamen and cut off his
+head. A perfect storm of shot rained upon us, so destroying our
+hurricane-deck that it was no longer of any protection to us. The
+enemy, encouraged by their success, closed in upon us. What we feared
+most of all was an attack by the wing-jackets, against whom neither
+our heavy guns nor superior speed would much avail.
+
+Professor Rackiron aimed the giant gun right in the centre of the
+enemy's line of battle. The shell struck the middle ship and exploded.
+All three vessels were scattered half a mile apart, and made complete
+wrecks. The _Polar King_ darted forward to pass through the breach
+made in the enemy's line. We found this a matter of difficulty, for
+the enemy, seeing our move, closed the gap in front of us. The ships
+ahead would have barred the way, but to prevent their doing so, we
+threw a shell of terrorite over the bow of the ship into the water.
+The sea rose on either side fully half a mile into the air, in solid
+pillars of water. In the confusion, we burst through the ranks of the
+enemy and were once more in open water.
+
+The admiral must have been exasperated at our escape. He followed us
+as before, in close rank, firing as he came. We now saw that he was
+about to change his mode of attack, for, hovering in the air, a
+rapidly-growing swarm of fletyemings were preparing to give us a
+hand-to-hand combat. Each vessel furnished a certain contingent to the
+attacking force, until the aerial battalion numbered about five
+thousand men. Our position seemed hopeless. What could less than
+eighty men do against a host of ten thousand? At close quarters our
+terrorite guns would be useless.
+
+With loud yells the fletyemings swept down upon us. Fearing our guns,
+they kept open rank and spread around the ship. Aiming at the densest
+part of the enemy, we destroyed about five hundred of them, but,
+quickly rallying again, they were upon us.
+
+We were ready for them. Our battery of twelve terrorite guns,
+including the magazine guns and musketry, rang out a terrible
+discharge. Under the withering fire and fearful explosions our foes
+fell back, and the sea around was strewn with dead and wounded bodies.
+Luckily for us, the only weapons possessed by the enemy were their
+magnic spears. The wing-jackets, rallying again, swarmed upon the
+rigging and covered the ship like a cloud of vultures. Ere we could
+again discharge our guns, several of our men were beaten down by sheer
+force of numbers. They made splendid use of their deadly spears. The
+ship's crew, re-attacked between the discharges of the guns, were many
+of them stunned and killed--the enemy after each discharge renewing
+the attack, being constantly re-enforced from the fleet. It was
+possible that we would be conquered by the fearful odds against us.
+
+Our ability to keep up a fire from our guns grew more and more
+difficult, owing to the incessant attacks of the enemy and the vast
+accumulation of their dead bodies on deck. The spears of our foes were
+more formidable weapons than we had supposed, for their touch was
+death. It was evident, notwithstanding the carnage, that our men would
+be obliged to surrender, owing to sheer exhaustion. As soon as a
+wing-jacket dropped from the ranks of the enemy another took his
+place; our guns covered the sea with their dead bodies. The admiral
+was determined to conquer us at any cost, for he rightly surmised our
+victory would be a terrible blow to Atvatabar.
+
+To remove ourselves as far from the fleet as possible, I directed the
+ship at full speed ahead for the outer water. The ten ships that lay
+across the entrance to the harbor would have to be destroyed,
+notwithstanding the ceaseless attack of the fletyemings, who followed
+our every movement. We acted solely on the defensive, and managed,
+while repelling the most furious onslaughts, to throw overboard the
+dead bodies of the enemy.
+
+In the midst of constant fighting we managed to get the terrorite guns
+into position again, and when within a mile of the blockade fired the
+entire battery into it. Our shells sank every vessel they struck and
+broke several others from their moorings. Several more shots destroyed
+the remaining vessels, but only leaving their crews like a swarm of
+hornets free to attack us, This, however, was a minor matter compared
+with possessing the freedom of the outer sea. We rushed over the spot
+where the ships had been anchored, and soon left the pursuing fleet
+far behind.
+
+The wing-jackets, re-enforced by the crews of the blockading fleet,
+renewed their attack. Having learned the terrible power of our
+magazine guns, they contented themselves with making attacks on
+unguarded points. But fifty sailors were thus engaged, while the
+remainder of the ship's crew, including the officers, worked the guns
+with a will, The revolvers of the enemy disabled us considerably, but
+by firing our magazine guns in every direction we kept the ranks of
+the flying enemy pretty well thinned out.
+
+Our tactics were to keep the foe divided, if possible, and destroy the
+attacking force in detail. So long as the sailors could stand by their
+guns we were safe. We could outstrip the fleet in speed, thus reducing
+the chances of our immediate antagonists being re-enforced, for those
+who at first attacked us melted rapidly before the withering fire of
+our batteries.
+
+Finding themselves unable to secure the ship, even with such enormous
+sacrifice of life, the fletyemings suddenly retreated to the fleet,
+leaving us free to rest ourselves and look after the wounded.
+
+The terrible strain of the fight had utterly exhausted the sailors,
+who had fought for fifty consecutive hours, without rest or
+refreshment. We tumbled overboard the dead bodies of the enemy who had
+fallen upon the deck, and buried eight of our own sailors who had been
+also killed. Several men were wounded about the head and neck with
+spear-thrusts that had failed to kill, but none seriously. Captain
+Wallace got an ugly wound in his neck, but it was not sufficient to
+keep him from duty. Flathootly, in slaying a fletyeming, received a
+wound in the hand that required the attention of the doctor. Professor
+Rackiron and Astronomer Starbottle passed through the fight unscathed,
+while Professor Goldrock suffered from a broken leg. Our helmets,
+provided originally for triumphal purposes, had proved of the greatest
+possible value, and saved many a life on board the _Polar King_.
+
+All this time we lay in full view of both the enemy's fleet and the
+entire kingdom. It seemed to us a strange thing that the admiral did
+not continue the fight with his reserve of fletyemings, who could
+easily outstrip the ship in their flight. He still possessed thousands
+of wing-jackets who had never been engaged in actual conflict, who
+might have relieved their exhausted comrades and in time have forced
+us to surrender.
+
+Was the supine conduct of the admiral caused by a panic at our power
+of havoc or, did he think my retreat to sea really an effort to escape
+the country?
+
+If his truce was caused by a belief that he was unable to cope with us
+he might have called the wayleals of the king to his assistance, but
+possibly the pride of the service prevented an alliance with the army
+for naval conquest, more particularly where the naval forces
+outnumbered the enemy two hundred to one.
+
+The scene of battle lay in full view of the entire nation, just as the
+kingdom lay in full view of ourselves. The nearer inhabitants could
+see the movements of the ships and the sailors, and the progress of
+the battle, so far, was known to every one. If the impression was
+favorable to the _Polar King_, doubtless there would be a
+demonstration in favor of the goddess; if not, it would be because the
+capture of our ship was considered certain.
+
+We lay to, at a distance of ten miles from the enemy's fleet, awaiting
+the renewal of hostilities.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIII.
+
+VICTORY.
+
+
+The enemy, finding we were not disposed to leave Atvatabar, began to
+move down upon us once more in battle array. The royal fleet consisted
+of seventy ships, the former thirty having been either sunk or
+disabled by us. As for ourselves, the hurricane-deck, masts and
+rigging had been hammered to pieces, but the hull was sound, the
+sailors enthusiastic, and the terrorite guns unharmed and our spears
+invincible.
+
+As the enemy approached us their ships began to move wider apart, with
+a view no doubt of circumnavigating us, and then close in upon the
+_Polar King_ as before. Another squeeze of this kind might prove
+fatal, consequently our plan was to keep the enemy at a safe distance
+and on one side of us, and destroy his ships one by one with our guns
+while out of range of his fire, if possible.
+
+The admiral did us the favor of keeping around his ship half a dozen
+vessels by way of protection, and in this manner drew near. We were
+determined to bring the engagement to a close as soon as possible by
+striking the enemy a terrible blow. As soon as their vessels drew
+within range we struck the central group with a shell from the giant
+gun. The explosion worked a tremendous havoc among the congregated
+vessels, but without waiting to learn its full effect I ordered twenty
+shells to be fired into the central mass in quick succession.
+
+The result was appalling. The great want of gravity caused a vast
+irregular mountain of ships and water to be piled high in the air. We
+could hear the shrieks of drowning and dismembered fletyemings.
+Volumes of water shot to tremendous heights, became detached from the
+main mass, and floated in the air for a time in liquid globes.
+
+It was some time before the whirl of wrecked ships and angry water,
+filled with perhaps thousands of wing-jackets, subsided to the level
+of the ocean again. The ships sank beneath the water, on which floated
+hundreds of dead bodies. Those fletyemings who had escaped accident or
+death, headed by Admiral Jolar, who was still alive, formed themselves
+into a compact mass as they hovered over the scene of the disaster for
+a final hand-to-hand attack. Re-enforced by thousands of fletyemings
+from the then unharmed vessels, they approached with yells of
+"Bhoolmakar!" Finding their ships useless, they were determined to
+fling themselves in heroic sacrifice upon us in such numbers as to
+crush us.
+
+This was precisely their most dangerous form of attack, but we could
+only await their coming. As the living mass of men approached we
+saluted them with another discharge of shells, which exploded in the
+very heart of the unfortunate host. The carnage was dreadful, and
+hundreds of dead bodies fell into the sea. Admiral Jolar was killed,
+and without their leader the fletyemings became demoralized. Ere they
+could rally again, we were about to fire another round of shells, when
+Rear Admiral Gerolio, with a few fletyemings, left the main mass under
+a flag of truce and approached us.
+
+We were nothing loath to receive their message. Alighting on deck, the
+rear admiral informed me that owing to the loss of their admiral they
+were disposed to cease fighting provided I would leave the country
+forthwith.
+
+"Then," said I, "you wish to report that you defeated us by driving us
+from the country?"
+
+"I shall report that it was a mutual cessation of hostilities," said
+he.
+
+"It has cost us too much to give up the fight now," I said. "One of us
+must surrender."
+
+"Do you surrender, then, to His Majesty Aldemegry Bhoolmakar, King of
+Atvatabar?" eagerly inquired the rear admiral.
+
+"Do you surrender to Her Majesty Lyone, Queen of Atvatabar?" I
+replied.
+
+"We make no such surrender," said he, very much surprised to know that
+Lyone had been proclaimed queen. "If we cannot conquer you by force of
+arms we have ships enough to starve you into submission."
+
+"We care nothing for your ships," I replied, "we will destroy them one
+by one."
+
+"You may sink our ships," said the rear admiral, "but you will never
+conquer our fletyemings. We will begin a hand-to-hand conflict that
+will not cease until you and your entire crew are killed or are our
+prisoners."
+
+"The truce is at an end," I replied. "Return to your ships
+immediately."
+
+The rear-admiral and his staff rose on their wings, and in a short
+time regained the cloud of naval warriors that hung in the air half a
+mile away.
+
+During the truce the ships of the enemy had drawn nearer and at once
+opened fire upon us.
+
+A well-aimed shot struck us under the water-line, penetrating our
+armor, and going clean through the side of the vessel. The central
+compartment rapidly filled with water. It was a fatal blow, for
+although the fore and aft compartments would keep the ship from
+sinking, yet it soon put out our boiler fires and left us a helpless
+hulk upon the water. The main deck, containing our terrorite guns, was
+on a level with the water, and a quantity of terrorite and gunpowder
+rendered useless. We were in a terrible position, for our small stock
+of available ammunition would be soon exhausted. The enemy soon
+discovered the effect of their blow, and closed around us like
+vultures hastening to their prey. We suffered a terrible bombardment,
+that killed more of our men, and finally the fletyemings closed around
+us in swarms to annihilate us.
+
+Resolved to sell our lives dearly, we received them with a discharge
+of our magazine guns. They quickly rallied and renewed their attack,
+but as long as our ammunition lasted were afraid to come to close
+quarters. At last we drew our revolvers and the hand-to-hand conflict
+began. Some of the sailors used their cutlasses with good effect. We
+had proof that the magnetic spears in close quarters were terrible
+weapons. As I saw my men falling around me I felt that the game was
+up. I thought of Lyone, and the thought would not let me surrender. I
+was already wounded in the shoulder and body, and stunned, while the
+enemy was swarming in greater numbers than ever. Must we surrender?
+
+Suddenly, at that moment, a shell came screaming through the air and
+exploded above the ship, right among the wayleals, killing twenty or
+more.
+
+Merciful heavens! Can the enemy, after all, fire shells at us? But why
+use them when the fight is practically over, and why fire them among
+his own wayleals? Another and another shell exploded among the
+wayleals around us, and finally a regular tornado of them exploded all
+around the _Polar King_, putting the enemy completely to flight.
+
+As soon as the air was cleared around us, I saw to my intense
+astonishment two friendly vessels, one of which bore the flag of the
+United States and the other the flag of England, firing shells at the
+enemy. I then knew the cause of our deliverance, and shouted for joy.
+My men--all that were alive--rose and cheered our comrades from the
+outer world! The excitement was overpowering! We could only, amid
+tears of joy, salute them and signal them to keep up the fight. We
+were saved!
+
+A well-aimed shot from the Englishman sank still another vessel. This
+fresh disaster received from the strangers seemed to completely
+unnerve the enemy, for, strange to say, every ship afloat struck its
+colors in surrender! It was well that the rear-admiral did so, for it
+would have been only a question of time until his whole fleet would
+have been destroyed.
+
+The fletyemings retreated to their ships, and in a short time the
+gold-plated ship of Rear-Admiral Gerolio, under the flag of truce,
+came alongside our vessel. The rear-admiral and his staff came on
+board, and delivered up his sword in token of surrender.
+
+"You surrender to me as admiral of Her Majesty Lyone, Queen of
+Atvatabar?" I said.
+
+"I do," said the rear-admiral, "and am willing to devote my services
+to the cause of her majesty."
+
+"Will your fletyemings as well as yourself swear allegiance to Queen
+Lyone and her cause?"
+
+"We swear it!" yelled the fletyemings of the rear-admiral's ship, and,
+at a signal from their leader, the flag of the new queen took the
+place of the flag of his deposed majesty, King Aldemegry Bhoolmakar.
+
+In a moment the entire fleet exhibited the flag of her holiness as the
+symbol of their new allegiance. This was a gratifying victory, as it
+procured for our cause more than sixty fully manned vessels of war and
+twenty-five thousand fletyemings.
+
+Lyone was mistress of the seas!
+
+"How came you to surrender at this juncture?" I inquired of the
+rear-admiral.
+
+"Well, sir," he replied, "we have already lost more men and ships than
+if we had been engaged with an enemy similarly armed and having as
+many vessels as ourselves, and when the strange vessels came to your
+assistance we saw it was useless to prolong the fight. We saw that
+with your terrible weapons you were invincible. You can destroy us and
+we cannot destroy you, therefore I concluded, as rear-admiral of the
+fleet and successor to Admiral Jolar, who was killed in battle, that
+it was throwing life away to continue the fight. I saw, furthermore,
+that with you as the champion of the goddess her cause would succeed,
+and I wanted to be the first to render homage to her majesty."
+
+"You have acted well," I replied, "and to reward your action, I now,
+in the name of her majesty, appoint and proclaim you rear-admiral of
+the fleet of Lyone, Queen of Atvatabar."
+
+This announcement was received with frantic cheers by the sailors of
+both vessels.
+
+Now that I was master of the sea, I intended to immediately extend my
+operations to the cause of the queen on land, and assuming the dignity
+of admiral, appointed Captain Wallace of the _Polar King_ also
+rear-admiral of the fleet.
+
+This announcement was received with the firing of guns and tremendous
+cheers.
+
+"Rear-Admiral Wallace, Rear-Admiral Gerolio, and myself," I said to
+the sailors, "will determine the question of who will become the
+remaining high naval officers, and now that the battle is over, let us
+see that our wounded are properly cared for and all ships afloat put
+in proper repair."
+
+It was a glorious victory!
+
+All this time the two cruisers who so fortunately arrived in time to
+turn the tide of battle in our favor were rapidly approaching us,
+firing guns in honor of our victory. I acknowledged their arrival, as
+well as their valuable services, by having the royal fleet drawn up in
+double file, between which lay the _Polar King_, and ordering every
+vessel to give the strangers a salute of one hundred guns.
+
+My anxiety to learn more of our allies was so great that I despatched
+two of my most active wing-jackets to the strange vessels to procure
+accurate information concerning them and their object in visiting the
+interior world. The wayleals returned with the information that the
+vessels were the United States ship of discovery _Mercury_, commanded
+by Captain Adams, and the English ship of discovery _Aurora Borealis_,
+commanded by Sir John Forbes. Both were fitted out by their respective
+governments to explore the interior world consequent on the report of
+Boatswain Dunbar and Seaman Henderson, the only survivors of the
+twelve men who left the _Polar King_ when in the Polar Gulf. The
+respective commanders, officers and men of the incoming vessels were
+delighted to know that the _Polar King_ was not only safe, but had
+discovered Atvatabar, and that its commander was at present king of
+the realm. This was the substance of the despatches sent me by Captain
+Adams and Commander Forbes, and addressed, "To Lexington White, Esq.,
+Commander of the _Polar King_." Captain Adams stated that Boatswain
+Dunbar was on board his vessel as pilot, accompanied by Seaman
+Henderson.
+
+Owing to the waterlogged condition of the _Polar King_, we could only
+wait the arrival of the vessels. When near at hand, a simultaneous
+salute of guns reverberated upon the sea, which must have been heard
+in all Atvatabar. Amid the smoke and noise of the roaring guns, steam
+launches had put off from the _Mercury_ and _Aurora Borealis_, and in
+a very short time the commanders of both vessels stood upon the deck
+of the _Polar King_, accompanied by their respective officers. I
+embraced Captain Adams and Commander Forbes, and introduced the
+strangers to Rear-Admiral Wallace, Rear-Admiral Gerolio and staff, who
+were no less delighted and surprised than myself to receive visitors
+from the outer world. When the commanders reached the deck of the
+_Polar King_ the cheers of the American and British sailors, mingled
+with the shouts of our fletyemings, made a soul-stirring scene.
+
+In fact, I was already beginning to think the outer world a more or
+less mythical place, and thought the doctrine of reincarnation had an
+illustration or proof in myself. After all, the outer world really
+existed, and, strange as it seemed to the Atvatabarese, there was
+really an outer sun and live beings like themselves, only physically
+more vigorous.
+
+It was necessary to set out at once for Kioram, as the _Polar King_
+was in a sinking condition.
+
+Every man had been either killed or wounded. We made a total loss of
+sixty men, including the ten who left the ship in the Polar Gulf, thus
+making the entire company of the _Polar King_ but fifty souls.
+
+As for the ship, her plating was burst apart in many places and full
+of started bolts, caused by missiles of the enemy. The central
+compartment was filled with water, and the masts, sails, smoke-stack
+and hurricane-deck were practically destroyed.
+
+Many of the guns were not struck once in the entire fight, and were
+ready for active service any moment. The terrorite battery was
+partially submerged, but still in good condition.
+
+Captain Adams and Sir John Forbes both craved the honor of towing the
+_Polar King_ into port, to which I willingly assented.
+
+As admiral, I at once assumed command of the fleet, which I ordered to
+make sail for Kioram without delay. The fleet fell behind in good
+order, and followed the _Polar King_, bearing the victorious flag of
+the queen.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIV.
+
+THE NEWS OF ATVATABAR IN THE OUTER WORLD.
+
+
+The kingdom of Atvatabar lay before us like a continent drawn upon a
+map, or, rather, upon the interior surface of a sphere or globe,
+everywhere visible to the naked eye. Its green forests, its impressive
+mountains, its rushing rivers, its white and many-colored cities, its
+wide-stretching shores, fringed with the foam of an azure sea, lay
+before the astonished eyes of our visitors.
+
+When within a few miles of the city, Governor Ladalmir, accompanied by
+Captains Pra and Nototherboc, advanced to meet us in a large magnetic
+yacht, bearing the flag of Lyone. The governor hastened to inform us
+that, in view of our victory, the city of Kioram had declared its
+allegiance to the cause of Lyone, and invited myself and officers of
+the fleet, as well as our distinguished allies from the outer world,
+to a banquet in the fortress of Kioram. This news gave me great
+satisfaction, as the city would be a splendid base of military
+operations. The officers and seamen of the _Mercury_ and _Aurora
+Borealis_ created quite as great a sensation in the streets of Kioram
+as did the victorious sailors of the _Polar King_.
+
+Landing on _terra firma_, Governor Ladalmir took the opportunity of
+showing our guests the beauty of his bockhockids, who formed a guard
+of honor to the fortress, where we were all royally received.
+
+The two captains, together with their officers and sailors, were
+astonished at the multitude of strange objects shown them. Captain
+Adams would not remain satisfied until he was accoutred with a dynamo
+and a pair of magnic wings, with which all the sailors and soldiers of
+Atvatabar were supplied as part of their uniform. He was shown how
+the battery of metals gave motion to the dynamo, which in turn acted
+on the steel levers connected with the ribs of the wings. Although the
+worthy captain was of considerable weight, yet his astonishment at
+being able to skim through the air like a swallow was great. No sooner
+did he touch the button than all his preconceived notions of
+locomotion were destroyed, and he gasped with fear at his own
+prodigious motion. The two facts of unfailing movement of wings and
+exceptional buoyancy of body soon made him a fearless rider of the
+wind. He alighted on the earth with the greatest enthusiasm over the
+success of his experiment.
+
+The magnic spear was another surprise for our guests. Sir John Forbes
+was astonished at my being able to fight the fletyemings so long,
+armed as they were by so potent a weapon of death. He would certainly
+recommend its use in the British army and navy on his return to
+England. Our allies were surprised at everything they saw,
+particularly at the rapid movements of the fletyemings or wing-jackets
+of the royal navy. They thought it an extraordinary thing the sailors
+should fly by magnic wings.
+
+After the banquet Captain Adams, who was a fine type of an American
+seaman, bold, alert and courageous, gave us an account of how both the
+United States and England came to send ships into the interior world.
+It appeared that the story of Boatswain Dunbar first published in the
+New York papers, that the _Polar King_ had sailed down the Polar Gulf
+_en route_ to an interior world, had created a tremendous sensation on
+the outer sphere, and all civilized nations immediately fitted out
+vessels of discovery to follow up the _Polar King_ and make
+discoveries for the benefit of their respective governments. So far as
+any one knew, only two vessels had succeeded in entering the interior
+sphere.
+
+The recital of Captain Adams was frequently interrupted by Sir John
+Forbes, the British captain, a courageous officer, who possessed all
+the stately dignity of his race. He stated that since the discovery of
+America by Columbus no other event had awakened such unbounded
+enthusiasm as the discovery of a polar gulf and an interior world.
+
+"I am most of all interested at present," said I, "in the story of how
+Dunbar reached civilization again after parting with us. I forgive
+you, Dunbar," I continued, addressing him, "for your mutinous conduct,
+and now let us hear the story of your adventures in the Polar Sea."
+
+"Admiral," said Dunbar, "had we known the terrible hardships we would
+have to endure in making our way home, chiefly on foot and at the same
+time burdened with the boat, we would never have left the ship. But
+you must thank me for the presence of the two ships that are here
+to-day and for the fame you already enjoy in the outer world."
+
+"It's something tremendous," said Captain Adams.
+
+"How did your geographers receive the news of the interior world?" I
+inquired of Sir John Forbes.
+
+"I need not say that the English geographers, in common with the
+entire nation, were greatly excited at the news. The Royal
+Geographical Society have already made you an honorary member, and it
+was actually proposed at one of the meetings that the government
+should proclaim a special holiday as a day of rejoicing for so great a
+discovery. This would certainly have been done but for the fact that
+the story rested entirely on the testimony of two sailors, and that
+any public rejoicing should be postponed until the story of the
+sailors would be verified by a special expedition sent from England.
+Of course, many people think that Dunbar's story is a fable or a
+hallucination that he himself believes in. On the other hand, hundreds
+of professional and amateur astronomers and geographers are proving by
+mathematics that the earth must be a hollow sphere, and the story of
+the open poles an entirely physical possibility."
+
+"The people of the United States," said Captain Adams, "are almost
+unanimous in the belief that the interior world is a veritable
+reality, and it only requires a return of my ship to convince every
+one that Dunbar's story falls very short of the glorious reality."
+
+"There is no man more famous to-day than Lexington White, Admiral of
+Atvatabar!" said Sir John Forbes.
+
+"I thank you, gentlemen, for your kind words," said I; "and now for
+Dunbar's story."
+
+"I think, admiral," said Captain Adams, "that if I were to read you
+the article containing Dunbar's story written by a special
+commissioner of the New York _Western Hemisphere_, who was the first
+to interview Dunbar at Sitka, on learning of his arrival there, it
+would be perhaps the best narration of his perilous adventures." As
+the captain spoke he drew a copy of the _Western Hemisphere_ from his
+pocket.
+
+"By all means," I replied, "let us hear what the press said about
+Dunbar and his adventures."
+
+Thereupon Captain Adams read the New York _Western Hemisphere's_
+account of Dunbar's adventures, as follows:
+
+                   "AN ASTOUNDING DISCOVERY!
+
+        "THE NORTH POLE FOUND TO BE AN ENORMOUS CAVERN,
+                LEADING TO A SUBTERRANEAN WORLD!
+
+      "THE EARTH PROVES TO BE A HOLLOW SHELL ONE THOUSAND
+           MILES IN THICKNESS, LIT BY AN INTERIOR SUN!
+
+     "OCEANS AND CONTINENTS, ISLANDS AND CITIES SPREAD UPON
+             THE ROOF OF THE INTERIOR SPHERE!
+
+      "BOATSWAIN DUNBAR AND SEAMAN HENDERSON, OF THE 'POLAR
+       KING,' HAVING DESERTED THE SHIP AS SHE WAS ENTERING
+           PLUTUSIA, HAVE ARRIVED AT SITKA, ALASKA,
+            IN A DESPERATE CONDITION, AND HAVE
+              BEEN INTERVIEWED BY A 'WESTERN
+                 HEMISPHERE' COMMISSIONER.
+
+        "THEY SAY LEXINGTON WHITE, COMMANDER OF THE 'POLAR
+           KING,' IS AT PRESENT SAILING UNDERNEATH CANADA
+                     ON AN INTERIOR SEA!
+
+        "TREMENDOUS POSSIBILITIES FOR SCIENCE AND COMMERCE!
+
+           "THE FABLED REALMS OF PLUTO NO LONGER A MYTH!
+
+            "GOLD! GOLD! BEYOND THE DREAMS OF MADNESS!
+
+"The story of the discovery of Plutusia and the Polar Gulf, as told by
+the two shipwrecked survivors of the mutineers of the _Polar King_ now
+at Sitka, Alaska, to the _Western Hemisphere_, will form an epoch in
+the history of the world. The renown of Columbus and Magellan is
+overshadowed by the glory of Lexington White, a citizen of the United
+States, who fitted out a ship for polar discovery, and, taking the
+command himself, has unravelled the mystery of the North Pole,
+discovered the Polar Gulf and the interior world.
+
+"Having penetrated the Polar Gulf about three hundred miles, and
+having discovered the interior sun, a fear seized on a number of the
+sailors, among whom were Boatswain Dunbar and his companion,
+Henderson, who are the only survivors of twelve men who left the
+_Polar King_ in an open boat to return home again, and to whose safe
+arrival in Sitka the world is indebted for news of the important
+discoveries that had been made.
+
+"Dunbar and Henderson arrived in Sitka in a very forlorn condition,
+almost starved to death and utterly exhausted with their terrible
+journey homeward. They seem to forget largely the incidents of the
+journey outward in the _Polar King_, but have a very clear
+recollection of their own individual experiences in returning to
+civilization again. Dunbar, with his eleven associates and the
+Esquimaux dogs, were no sooner cut adrift from the _Polar King_ than
+they began to realize their terrible position. Borne on the breast of
+the immense tidal wave that vibrated up and down the polar cavern,
+they were tossed helplessly to and fro, now flung almost out of its
+mouth and again sucked back into its midnight recesses. They floated
+for days in the gigantic tunnel of water that threatened to collapse
+any moment and overwhelm them. They would fain have returned to the
+ship, but the breeze blowing out of the cavern wafted them far from
+their comrades, and they therefore bent all their energies to the task
+of getting home again. The light of the polar summer that lit the
+mouth of the gulf was their guide that led them back to the old
+familiar world.
+
+"Happily for the adventurers, the direction of the wind continued
+favorable to their voyage. They made about a hundred miles a day, and
+in five days reached the edge of the outer ocean. Here again the
+grandeur of the scene appalled them. Let the reader imagine a little
+boat carrying twelve souls out of that monstrous cavern five hundred
+miles in diameter. Think of fifteen hundred miles of ocean forming the
+mouth of the world that shone in the Arctic sunlight like molten
+silver surrounding an abyss of darkness.
+
+"Dunbar and his companions had no sooner emerged from the gulf and
+seen once more the light of the sun--our own sun--than they wept for
+joy. But again, when they thought of the terrible barrier of ice they
+had to cross again they began to wish they had remained with the
+_Polar King_. Thus man fluctuates between this or that impulse, as he
+is moved.
+
+"'I say, captain,' said Walker, one of the men, 'don't you think it
+about as safe to go back and find the ship as to run the chance of
+being frozen to death on the ice?'
+
+"'Well,' said Dunbar, 'when we left the ship everybody knew it was for
+good. Our shipmates have chosen their course, as we chose ours, and
+it's too late to go back now. As likely as not she may have struck a
+rock and has gone to the bottom by this time.'
+
+"As the boat cleared the cavern the sea fell down before them, until
+at noonday the sun itself was visible, a joyful proof that they had at
+last gained the normal surface of the earth again.
+
+"When three days out of the gulf, the weather grew suddenly colder,
+and the sky became obscured with clouds, completely hiding the sun
+from sight. A furious snow-storm overtook the voyagers, who, benumbed
+with cold, wished they were only back again under the hurricane-deck
+of the _Polar King_. Fortunately, the wind blew steadily toward the
+Arctic Circle, bringing them nearer home, but such was the anxiety and
+suffering caused by insufficient protection from the inclement climate
+that they cared not whither they drifted, so long as they could keep
+alive.
+
+"By the help of a little oil-stove they boiled their coffee under a
+sail, which, spread horizontally above them, in some measure kept the
+snow from burying them alive.
+
+"The storm spent its fury in twenty-four hours, and when the air grew
+clear again they were saluted with the sight of that enormous ridge of
+ice through which the _Polar King_ found a passage a month before. The
+ice was heaped up with the purest snow in places twenty feet in depth.
+Thousands of icy peaks and pinnacles, as far as the eye could reach,
+pierced the sky. Under other conditions the sight would have been
+sublime, but to men frozen and famished with insufficient food it was
+a scene of terror.
+
+"The icy range was flanked by an ice-foot varying from thirty to sixty
+miles in width, and from four to fifty feet above the sea-level.
+
+"Here was the problem that confronted Dunbar--he had to travel over at
+least thirty miles of icy splinters over an ice-foot whose surface was
+broken into every possible contortion of crystallization. There were
+mounds, hummocks, caverns, crevasses, ridges and gulfs of the hardest
+and oldest ice. Then when this barrier was crossed there was the icy
+backbone of the whole system, five hundred to a thousand feet in
+height, to be crossed, as there was no lane or opening to be
+discovered through so formidable a range of ice mountains. Even if he
+succeeded in crossing the same, there would certainly be an
+ice-foot of perhaps greater dimensions than the one before him to
+cross, and that might prove to be only a valley of ice leading to
+other and still more inaccessible cliffs to be surmounted.
+
+[Illustration: WE SLOWLY DRAGGED OURSELVES ACROSS THE RANGE OF ICY
+PEAKS.]
+
+"'This is no place to die in,' said Dunbar, 'and so, boys, we've got
+to hustle if we ever expect to get home.'
+
+"'Ay, ay, sir,' said his companions, but when they reached the ice
+they found that having remained in a cramped position for a month in
+the boat had incapacitated them for walking.
+
+"It was also found that Walker's feet and those of four other sailors
+had been frostbitten, and that they were totally unable to be of any
+service to themselves or the others.
+
+"The outlook was mournful in the extreme. The only thing that cheered
+them was the constant sunlight, and even that consolation would depart
+in another month, and if in the mean time they did not get away from
+the ice, hunger and the awful desolation of a polar winter would
+terminate their existence.
+
+"There was no chance of starting on their journey until they got
+accustomed to the use of their limbs, and so they built a hut of
+blocks of ice, which were solidly frozen together by a few buckets
+full of sea water thrown over them.
+
+"The dogs were glad to get on the ice again, and scampered about
+totally oblivious of the fact that the supply of pork was getting very
+low, and unless they got some fresh meat very soon they would be
+obliged to feed on each other.
+
+"They remained a fortnight in their Arctic abode exercising themselves
+by cutting a passage in the ice. During this time four of the sailors
+died. Finally the remainder, packing everything into the boat, yoked
+the dogs thereto, and started in anything but hopeful spirits on their
+arduous journey.
+
+"It was found that Walker had to be carried along, but he did not long
+continue a burden to his associates, for on the fourth day of the
+march he died, and was buried in the snow. It was a toilsome journey.
+Almost every foot of the way required to be hewn out of ice as hard as
+adamant.
+
+"The dogs suffered greatly from insufficient food and tireless
+exertion. Several died from complete exhaustion, and were greedily
+devoured by their fellows.
+
+"After desperate exertions, Dunbar and his company, now reduced to
+seven souls, gained the crest of the ice range and had the
+satisfaction of seeing open water not twenty miles away. It took some
+time to discover the best route for a descent, but at last they
+reached the level of the ice-foot beyond, and struck for open sea. A
+fortunate capture of several seals re-enforced their almost exhausted
+supply of provisions.
+
+"Dunbar cared nothing about latitude or longitude or scientific
+information in such a desperate fight for life. It was a joyful moment
+when he and his companions launched their boat safe into the sea again
+after the incredible toil of dragging it forty miles across the
+splintered ice peaks and the terrible ice-foot north and south of the
+paleocrystic mountains.
+
+"Dunbar hoisted his sail, abandoning the few dogs who yet remained
+alive, and with his unhappy companions steered for Behring Strait,
+first making for the coast of Alaska that faces the desolation of the
+Arctic seas.
+
+"It would be impossible to describe the horrors of that lonely voyage.
+The terrible struggle with five hundred miles of ice-floes, with
+snow-storms that piled the snow high upon the voyagers, and the
+ferocious cold, proved too much for five of the seven sailors, and one
+by one the poor fellows died, and were thrown overboard.
+
+"Only two men--Dunbar and a sailor named Henderson--emerged from the
+Arctic Sea, arriving in six months from the time they left the ship,
+in Sitka, Alaska."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLV.
+
+THE VOYAGES OF THE "MERCURY" AND THE "AURORA BOREALIS."
+
+
+"It was a most fortunate thing that any of the men could live until
+they reached civilization," I said, when Captain Adams had finished
+his reading of Dunbar's story in the paper.
+
+"It was solely due to that fact that we are here at present, admiral,"
+replied Captain Adams. "No sooner was the story published than the
+greatest possible excitement arose both in America and Europe. The
+United States and Britain felt chagrined that a private citizen had
+been able to achieve what the greatest nations on earth, with
+unlimited men and money, were unable to accomplish. To satisfy popular
+clamor the United States, Great Britain, Russia, France, Germany,
+Italy and Spain each fitted out separate expeditions to follow in the
+wake of the _Polar King_. These were manned with former Arctic
+navigators, and were in each case commissioned and fitted out
+regardless of cost to explore the interior world and lay the
+foundation of future conquest and commerce. The Secretary of the
+United States Navy, at Washington, sent for Dunbar and Henderson, and
+forthwith employed both as pilots for the _Mercury_ expedition under
+my command."
+
+"How did the English people receive the news?" I inquired of Sir John
+Forbes.
+
+"It is useless to say, admiral," he replied, "that the story of the
+_Polar King_ was the sole topic of conversation for weeks throughout
+the United Kingdom. The Royal Geographical Society, the Royal
+Astronomical Society, and the Travellers' Club, all sent special
+deputations to the government, asking for the fitting out of a ship to
+undertake British research, which might possibly accompany the United
+States vessel having the pilots Dunbar and Henderson on board, and
+thus partake of the advantage these guides would naturally give the
+United States vessel.
+
+"The British Government," continued Sir John, with a smile in his eye,
+"saw at once that British interests in the interior world must be
+protected at all hazards, and gave the Lords of the Admiralty full
+power to act.
+
+"My fame as an Arctic navigator and as the discoverer of the bones of
+the great Irish Arctic hero, Montgomery, and those of his men, in a
+cabin on Prince Albert's Island, caused the Lords of the Admiralty to
+place at my command the frigate _Aurora Borealis_, manned by
+experienced Arctic sailors.
+
+"Negotiations were opened with the United States Government, whereby
+the _Aurora Borealis_, by proceeding up the northwest passage along
+the route followed by the Montgomery expedition, might meet the
+_Mercury_, who would enter the Arctic Sea by way of Behring Strait. It
+was arranged, as Captain Adams is aware, that each vessel should
+proceed direct to latitude 75 N., longitude 140 W., and there await
+the other vessel."
+
+"You are right," said Captain Adams, "for my instructions were of the
+same nature. The _Mercury_ was fitted out in Brooklyn Navy Yard, and
+as soon as her complement of two hundred and fifty officers,
+explorers, scientists, press correspondents and seamen was enrolled,
+and her stores fully shipped, I was instructed to proceed by way of
+the Nicaragua Canal to San Francisco for further orders and stores.
+Leaving San Francisco I next touched Victoria, B.C., and finally at
+Sitka, Alaska, for final orders. The entire winter had been consumed
+in getting ready, and by May 1 I cleared for Behring Strait, steering
+straight for the rendezvous in the Arctic Sea where we had arranged to
+meet by June 1. I was first on the spot, and had the good fortune of
+only having to wait a week before we sighted the _Aurora Borealis_."
+
+"And then," said Sir John, "began the real work of the voyage. All had
+been plain sailing so far, but it was clearly impossible for any
+vessel to reach the Polar Gulf unless a lead was discovered in the ice
+barrier similar to that so fortunately discovered by the _Polar King_.
+It was here that the services of Dunbar as pilot came into
+requisition. Captain Adams had got him to mark on the chart as near as
+possible the location of the chasm in the ice mountain discovered by
+the _Polar King_. That once rediscovered, we could succeed in
+following the _Polar King_; but should we fail in our quest, all
+further progress would be impossible. I often said to Captain Adams
+that I considered Lexington White as one of the most fortunate of men.
+It was nothing short of the miraculous that you should discover a
+newly-rent passage through the barrier of ice that for ages has
+guarded the sublime secret of the pole. Only once in all the eternity
+of the past did the gate of that thrilling Arctic zone open itself to
+humanity, and by a miracle of fortune you were on the spot at the
+right moment, ready to enter that open door. That fact alone emblazons
+you with glory. But to my story. How were we to discover the same or a
+similar lead to the north? On the mere chance of discovering such a
+passage both vessels had encountered the dangers and terrors of the
+Arctic desolations. Dunbar located the chasm in latitude 78.6 N.,
+longitude 125 W., and thither we sailed.
+
+"As for the expeditions sent out by the other governments of Europe,
+jealous of American prowess, we have not seen or heard of any of them.
+Their vessels followed the direction of the Gulf Stream, and the
+instructions given their commanders were to first make Spitzbergen,
+and thence proceed due north, and if possible find there a passage to
+the pole. For ourselves, I will let Captain Adams tell how we got
+through the ice barrier."
+
+"That," said Captain Adams, "is a simple enough story, but the actual
+experiences were not so simple as the recital of them. We found that
+Dunbar's estimate of the location of the passage was within fifty
+miles of the exact spot. We found the passage after some days'
+searching, about fifty miles beyond Dunbar's location on the chart.
+The veritable passage was there, but, as was expected, instead of open
+water there was a mass of solid ice of unknown thickness, but
+fortunately having a smooth surface.
+
+"There was but one thing to do to overcome such an obstacle, and that
+was to haul the ships on runners on top of the ice, right through the
+gap formed by nature in the icy barrier. Our labors in making such a
+passage were simply superhuman. Both crews were employed for more than
+a week in sloping the ice-foot up which the vessels were to be
+dragged. Then an enormous cradle had to be constructed of massive
+beams of wood securely bolted together, large and strong enough to
+carry either vessel. There was fortunately lumber enough for this
+purpose, as among the stores of both ships timbers for building Arctic
+huts had been included. The cradle was first secured to the hull of
+the _Mercury_, and the crews of both vessels took hold of the ropes
+made fast to her decks. She was drawn close to the ice, but utterly
+refused to leave the water. We tried fixing anchors in the ice ahead,
+to which were attached a system of blocks and ropes. These
+supplemented the strength of the men by the hoisting engine, but even
+this was of no avail. We next rigged up a large drum, vertically over
+the shaft of the propeller, and connected it therewith by means of
+right-angled cog-wheels. To this was fastened an immense cable, to the
+other end of which were attached the ropes rove through blocks held
+firmly a quarter-of a mile ahead by thirty anchors imbedded in the
+ice. We started the engines, and, sure enough, the bows of the vessel
+began to rise out of the water. The _Mercury_ would have been lifted
+high and dry on the ice were it not that at that moment several of the
+smaller cables in the blocks snapped asunder, and thus our third
+effort failed. At this juncture, Sir John Forbes proposed to plant a
+few more anchors in the ice, and through the additional blocks work a
+cable leading from the bows of the _Mercury_ to the stern of the
+_Aurora Borealis_. This being done, he would steam ahead off the ice
+and add the power of his ship to that of the _Mercury's_ engine, and
+thus relieve the strain on the _Mercury's_ cables. It was a capital
+idea, and we immediately put it into execution. The result was a
+perfect success. The combined energies of the English ship and her
+crew, together with those of our own vessel and men, drew the
+_Mercury_ up the slide of ice, and placed her erect and dry upon the
+level surface of the lead. It was now comparatively easy work to draw
+the ship along the ice. Her own engines were equal to the task; but it
+was impossible for the _Mercury_ to go ahead, as, without her
+assistance, the _Aurora Borealis_ would be unable to leave the water.
+Then, again, there was only the material for but one cradle for both
+ships. The difficulty was solved by cutting away one-fourth of the
+cradle from beneath both bow and stern of the _Mercury_, and, joining
+these parts, we furnished the _Aurora Borealis_ with a sledge as large
+as that of our own ship, and strong enough to keep her in an upright
+position while being dragged over the ice. After infinite trouble, and
+in obedience to the aggregated energies of the engines of both ships
+and the hauling of the combined crews, the English ship was drawn up
+upon the ice beside the American vessel. This double feat of skill and
+determination was duly saluted by a roar of guns and the cheers of the
+sailors.
+
+"The ice proved so smooth and hard that the crews of each ship,
+assisted by the engines, were able to work their respective vessels in
+good order through the entire chasm, a distance of seventy miles.
+Arriving at the open floe beyond the northern ice-foot, we bevelled
+off the ice as before, and the ships were finally launched upon the
+polar sea."
+
+I congratulated Sir John Forbes and Captain Adams on their successful
+manoeuvre, which resulted in getting their ships across the ice. It
+was a feat of engineering skill rarely possible of accomplishment, and
+in their case nature had seconded their efforts by providing a smooth
+and solid floor to operate upon, otherwise all human endeavor would
+have been fruitless.
+
+"And now, gentlemen," I said, "what do you say surprised you most in
+your voyage hither from the ice barrier?"
+
+"I think, admiral," said Captain Adams, "that the grandest sight on
+earth is the full view of the Polar Gulf, with its suspended abyss of
+waters surrounding the ship. The colossal flux and reflux of waters
+produces a feeling of terrible sublimity. It is an awful scene."
+
+"But that scene," said Sir John Forbes, "belongs to the outer world.
+This aspect of the interior world of Plutusia is ten thousand times
+more magnificent. What grander glory ever fell on human eyes than this
+Colosseum of oceans, continents, kingdoms, islands and seas spread
+upon the vast interior vault surrounding us, and all lit up by the
+internal sun! The human imagination never conceived anything equal to
+this. Here nature surpasses the wildest dreams of fancy. We are
+astounded with the splendor of such a world!"
+
+"You are right, Sir John," said Captain Adams; "this interior sphere
+surpasses anything hitherto discovered in heaven or earth. And then to
+think of its enormous riches! The royal fleet of Atvatabar, plated
+with solid gold, proves the extraordinary profusion of the precious
+metal."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVI.
+
+THE ARREST OF LYONE.
+
+
+While the entertainment was at its height, we were surprised by one of
+the guards informing us that a messenger had arrived at the fortress
+from Egyplosis, bearing for me a despatch of the utmost importance
+from the high priest Hushnoly.
+
+We were all excitement at the news, and on opening the despatch, I
+read as follows:
+
+     "_To His Excellency_ LEXINGTON WHITE, _Lord Admiral of
+     Atvatabar, Greeting_:
+
+     "Your glorious victory over the royal fleet has awakened
+     popular excitement in favor of deposing His Majesty King
+     Aldemegry Bhoolmakar, and establishing our late beloved
+     goddess Lyone on the throne, as queen of Atvatabar.
+     Egyplosis has openly espoused the cause of Lyone, and the
+     sacred college of priests and priestesses have taken up arms
+     in favor of the goddess. His majesty, being resolved to
+     stamp out rebellion at any cost, has caused the arrest of
+     Lyone at her palace, Tanje, and has confined her in the
+     fortress Calnogor as hostage for the good behavior of the
+     people. He has threatened to put Lyone to death in case her
+     followers attempt any hostile demonstrations against the
+     king's authority. We of Egyplosis are committed to the
+     cause of Her Majesty Lyone, Queen of Atvatabar!
+
+                                                    HUSHNOLY."
+
+This was most alarming news! While we had been feasting in inglorious
+ease our queen had been arrested and imprisoned! The time for action
+had come.
+
+Ere we could deliberate on the best course to pursue, a second message
+from Hushnoly arrived, stating that the king, hearing of the outbreak
+in Egyplosis, had ordered Coltonobory, the commander-in-chief, to
+proceed with his wayleals to Egyplosis, to capture Hushnoly and
+disband his followers. This being an open declaration of war, had
+precipitated a civil struggle, and the armies both of the king and
+queen were being recruited with great excitement on both sides. As for
+Kioram, that city had declared for our cause, and the governor was
+overjoyed to know that the victory of the _Polar King_ had resulted in
+the entire fleet espousing the cause of Lyone.
+
+I questioned Governor Ladalmir on the strength and equipment of both
+the king's forces and those willing to support Lyone, and the
+probabilities of our cause being successful.
+
+He informed me that the king already commanded an army of half a
+million men, composed two-thirds of wayleals and one-third
+bockhockids, or flying cavalry, armed with swords, shields and spears
+of deadly power. The adherents of Lyone numbered already one hundred
+thousand men, who had also proclaimed her queen of Atvatabar,
+including five thousand amazons from Egyplosis, who would fight for
+their late goddess to the death, all similarly armed.
+
+"The future is doubtful," said the governor; "but with your aid we may
+well hope for success. I congratulate you on your splendid victory,
+which is already known throughout the kingdom, and will increase our
+forces to two hundred and fifty thousand men. It will cheer the heart
+of our late goddess to know that she also already possesses a powerful
+fleet."
+
+"Do you consider the queen in any immediate danger at the hands of the
+king or government?" I inquired.
+
+"Well," said the governor, "at the present stage of affairs it is
+difficult to think that either king or Borodemy would dare to execute
+her majesty, even although it might be according to law. Yet, if
+alarmed at the partial destruction and defection of the fleet and the
+growing power of the queen's followers, the bloodthirsty king and
+frightened government might possibly execute her, especially if they
+saw no hope for themselves in the coming struggle."
+
+"Then," said I, "whether we fight or not, our queen is in very serious
+danger of death?"
+
+"That is what I most fear," said the governor. "As soon as I heard of
+the imprisonment of her majesty I called a review of my garrison of
+wayleals and bockhockids, and asked them if they would espouse the
+cause of the queen, and to a man they swore allegiance thereto. I
+conceive the only way to secure respect for the queen is to make her
+followers as formidable as possible."
+
+"Action," I added, "is imperative. We must strike the king's army a
+fearful blow, to impress his majesty with respect for our power. The
+queen must either be released by the king or we will release her
+ourselves. There must be an immediate mobilization of the queen's
+army, and preceding that, a council of war in the fortress of Kioram
+to appoint a commander-in-chief and generals of division. Governor
+Ladalmir," I continued, "I thank you in the name of Lyone for your
+allegiance. It is very gratifying to the fleet to know that it is
+spared the necessity of bombarding your beautiful city."
+
+"We have pledged ourselves to support our queen, to whom be freedom
+and victory!" said the governor.
+
+"Ay, ay!" said the captains, Pra and Nototherboc.
+
+"The fleet, of course, will assist in defending the city," I said;
+"and in addition to this duty will furnish a brigade of thirty
+thousand wing-jackets for active service in the interior. Now, in view
+of this, how many men can you spare from the garrison?"
+
+The governor replied that he could spare ten thousand wayleals, under
+the command of Pra, and five thousand bockhockids, under command of
+Nototherboc.
+
+I ordered Astronomer Starbottle, with Flathootly as escort, to depart
+at once for Egyplosis, and summon to Kioram High Priest Hushnoly and
+the high priestess, Grand Sorcerer Charka and the grand sorceress,
+together with such a retinue of trusty officers as would be worthy of
+being made commanders in the coming struggle. After summoning
+Egyplosis, they were both to go to Gnaphisthasia and summon Yermoul,
+lord of art, and his trusty captains, also to Kioram, and return
+hither without delay. "Choose each of you," I said, "a pair of the
+strongest wings, and arm yourselves with revolvers. You must at all
+hazards evade the enemy and carry out your mission with the greatest
+possible speed."
+
+Astronomer Starbottle and Flathootly were enthusiastic at being
+allowed to undertake so adventurous a journey. They immediately began
+to prepare for, an early departure.
+
+"Might I inquire," said the governor, "what you mean by revolvers?"
+
+We showed him the weapons by which we had resisted the onslaught of
+myriads of wing-jackets, to the fatal force of which thousands had
+succumbed. He was astonished at the invention, and said if the army of
+the queen were equipped with so formidable a weapon, King Aldemegry
+Bhoolmakar would very easily be driven from his throne, and Lyone
+would be truly Queen of Atvatabar.
+
+It was decided that the fortress of Kioram should be immediately
+turned into an arsenal for the manufacture of spears and revolvers,
+for the use of the wayleals and bockhockids of Lyone's army. The mines
+where the metal terrelium was worked and the factories where aquelium
+was elaborated from the water of the ocean were to be seized, and vast
+quantities of these metals sent to Kioram for the use of the entire
+army, to furnish a current for the deadly spears, to be made under the
+superintendence of Professor Rackiron.
+
+Astronomer Starbottle and the redoubtable Flathootly were equipped
+with splendid sets of wings worked by cells of double power. Their
+magnetic spears were far-reaching and carried a current of tremendous
+intensity, contact with which was immediate death.
+
+"Be jabers," said Flathootly, "the fellow that touches us will foind
+us hornets of the first magnitude. We'll give him a touch of the
+cholera morbus."
+
+"I entrust the despatches in your hand, astronomer," said I, "and with
+Flathootly as escort and body-guard, I hope you will both execute your
+mission and return safe to Kioram."
+
+"Caution and despatch will be our watchwords," said the astronomer,
+"and you are already assured of our fidelity."
+
+"In addition to your duty as couriers to Egyplosis and Gnaphisthasia I
+desire you," I said, "to explore the upper atmosphere, with a view of
+discovering at what height centrifugal gravity ceases to operate on
+bodies, and, if possible, where gravity toward Swang begins to exert
+its force. I wish to choose an aerial battle-field, where there is no
+gravity, so that our wayleals may have absolute freedom of action."
+
+"We have discovered a perceptible movement toward the sun at a height
+of fifty miles," said the governor; "at that height our wayleals cease
+to revolve with the earth, and therefore have no weight--but your
+astronomer can easily verify this fact by his own experience."
+
+"Do you think our couriers will receive opposition from the king's
+wayleals?" I inquired.
+
+"I would suggest their being disguised as the king's wayleals as a
+means of safety. If they travel as wayleals of her majesty they are
+liable to be captured."
+
+The astronomer and Flathootly made the necessary disguise in their
+attire as a measure of safety, each donning a leathern cuirass, highly
+decorated with white-metal helmet and boots, and packing a sufficient
+quantity of food in a portable trunk to supply them during the
+journey. They bade us good-by, soaring from the deck into the gulfs of
+air above Atvatabar, and directed their flight to Egyplosis.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVII.
+
+THE COUNCIL OF WAR IN KIORAM.
+
+
+The sensation produced by the defeat of the royal fleet, the
+destruction of forty of the ships, and the defection of the remaining
+sixty vessels to the cause of Queen Lyone, shook the nation from its
+centre to circumference. It appeared incredible that one ship could
+destroy so many well-armed vessels. Our terrorite guns were considered
+demon powers, and such was the consternation produced by their
+terrible energy that, were it possible for us to use such weapons in
+aerial battle, their appearance would alone cause the royal army to
+surrender.
+
+Coltonobory was confident he could soon suppress the insurrection by
+virtue of his superior force.
+
+As for his majesty, he was beside himself with rage at the loss of his
+fleet. Had Admiral Jolar been alive he would have answered for his
+defeat with his life. The following royal proclamation testified to
+the implacable wrath of the king:
+
+     "_His Majesty_ KING ALDEMEGRY BHOOLMAKAR _of Atvatabar to
+     his faithful people_:
+
+     "Know ye, my people of Atvatabar, that the desperate
+     barbarian who commands the alien ship, the _Polar King_, has
+     not only alienated the affections of the Goddess Lyone,
+     thereby insulting our holy religion and our laws, but has
+     destroyed forty of our ships of war, and induced the
+     remainder of our fleet to follow his fortunes, thereby
+     giving him power to destroy our commerce, blockade our
+     harbors, and burn our cities. His success has encouraged
+     many who have hitherto been our faithful subjects to flock
+     to his standard, and the terrors of treason and insurrection
+     devastate our beloved country.
+
+     "What will be thought of Lyone, who was lately our beloved
+     and adored goddess, who has treasonably allowed herself to
+     be proclaimed Queen of Atvatabar, and who is the prime cause
+     of all this deluge of crime, treason and apostasy by
+     encouraging a heretical affection for a desperate criminal,
+     and who dares to abuse her holy office by seeking matrimony
+     with a murderer? It would be impossible for this cowardly
+     and desperate assassin to visit our country with such
+     destruction were it not that she who was our goddess
+     sympathizes with his inhuman and infernal work. She has only
+     to speak the word that she has no sympathy with such a
+     monster, and his power will be paralyzed in a moment, and
+     peace restored to our unhappy country. Will it be believed
+     that she absolutely refuses to disown such a viper, and even
+     boasts of his work, and that he will shortly set her free?
+
+     "Our prisoner, she has disregarded our clemency in holding
+     back the sword of justice that hangs over her head. Her life
+     is already forfeited by her own actions. The monster of
+     insurrection and apostasy must be struck in its most vital
+     part. Orders have been given for a full conclave of the
+     Borodemy, to put our fallen goddess on trial forthwith, and
+     if found guilty to be immediately executed.
+
+     "The commander-in-chief of the army, Coltonobory, has orders
+     to attack, pursue and put to death without mercy all rebels
+     in arms, and arrest all sympathizers with the rebel cause.
+
+     "Given in our palace at Calnogor in the twenty-sixth year of
+     our reign.
+
+                      "ALDEMEGRY BHOOLMAKAR, _King of Atvatabar_."
+
+This proclamation revealed the desperate crisis matters had reached.
+The bloodthirsty king had Lyone in his power, and unless a miracle
+happened nothing could save her. The fact that the flag of the queen
+floated above Kioram must have added enormously to the wrath of the
+king, and the supreme question with us then was how to save our queen
+from a cruel fate.
+
+While discussing this important subject with Governor Ladalmir and my
+own retinue, we were agreeably surprised to learn of the arrival of
+the high priest and priestess and the grand sorcerer and sorceress
+from Egyplosis. Astronomer Starbottle and Flathootly had so far
+evidently succeeded in their mission.
+
+Hushnoly reported that all Egyplosis was up in arms for the cause of
+the queen. The priestesses had formed an amazonian legion of five
+thousand wayleals. These would be commanded by the high priestess
+Zooly-Soase and the grand sorceress Thoubool in equal divisions. The
+sacred phalanx of priests of the spiritual palace would be under the
+command of the grand sorcerer, while Hushnoly would hold himself in
+readiness for a special command.
+
+While praising the devotion of the twin-souls, a message by telegraph
+was received from Gnaphisthasia, stating that the lord of art,
+Yermoul, was on his way to Kioram. He would travel on the wing by a
+circuitous route, to avoid contact with any of the king's wayleals.
+Yermoul would be accompanied by the chief priests of poetry, painting,
+sculpture, music, decoration, architecture, and dancing.
+
+No messenger had been sent to Grasnagallipas, high priest of the
+palace of inventions in Calnogor, as tidings had been received from
+that quarter that the priests of invention, owing to their close
+connection with the seat of government, had become bockhockids of the
+king. The defection of Grasnagallipas was a severe blow to our cause,
+as he was the greatest inventor in the kingdom, and master of ten
+thousand magnetic bockhockids, that machine being his own invention.
+
+Governor Ladalmir said the crisis upon which we were to deliberate
+demanded immediate action, and the first step to be taken was to
+appoint a commander-in-chief for the army of the queen. The victory
+achieved by the commander of the _Polar King_ in fighting the royal
+navy single-handed, and his personal sympathy with her majesty,
+pointed out his excellency, Lexington White, already lord admiral of
+the fleet, as the man of all others fit to assume the supreme command
+of all operations directed against the royal army to secure the
+liberation of Lyone and the reformation of the religion of Atvatabar.
+"I therefore," said he, "nominate his excellency, Lexington White,
+commander-in-chief of the army of the queen."
+
+The governor's proposition was received with the wildest enthusiasm,
+and I gracefully accepted the high honor conferred upon me.
+
+Hushnoly was appointed my assistant, under the title of supreme
+general of the army, and the list of generals included the grand
+sorcerer Charka, the grand sorceress Thoubool, the high priestess
+Zooly-Soase, the lord of art Yermoul, Governor Ladalmir, Generals Pra
+and Nototherboc. The chief priests of poetry, painting, music,
+architecture and decoration, and Professors Rackiron, Goldrock and
+Starbottle, Dr. Merryferry and Flathootly were also created generals
+of the army, being at the same time relieved from service in the
+fleet.
+
+Rear-Admiral Wallace was promoted to full command of the fleet during
+my absence therefrom, with the title of admiral.
+
+As president of the council, I spoke as follows:
+
+"Supreme General Hushnoly and generals of the army of Her Majesty
+Lyone, Queen of Atvatabar, you are aware of the nature of the crisis
+that calls us together and the cause to which we devote our lives and
+fortunes. Our beloved queen, for whom we fight, is in the hands and at
+the mercy of a cruel tyrant. We may hear of her death at any moment.
+Such an event would crush our hopes and blast our cause beyond hope of
+recovery. We must be both bold and prudent. We must concentrate our
+forces to withstand the onset of the enemy. A proclamation must be
+issued making Kioram, which is under the protection of the fleet, the
+headquarters of the army and the rallying-ground for volunteers. Our
+arsenal in the fortress will begin at once to make revolvers, under
+the superintendence of General Rackiron, for the use of our wayleals.
+Armed with these, one hundred thousand wayleals will be equal to half
+a million men without such weapons.
+
+"We must strike a mighty blow as soon as possible for the sake of
+Lyone, our queen. Once break the power of the king, and he will be
+glad to sue for peace by liberating our adored idol, the pride of
+Atvatabar."
+
+These sentiments were applauded with impetuous excitement.
+
+Hushnoly caused telegraphic despatches as to the proceedings of the
+council to be sent to Egyplosis, Gnaphisthasia, and to sympathizers in
+Calnogor, calling on volunteers for the army of the queen to report
+themselves at Kioram without delay.
+
+Admiral Wallace was instructed to send vessels to various points on
+the coast of Atvatabar, to receive volunteers and supplies and
+transmit them to Kioram with all possible speed.
+
+The mines of precious metals of the queen, situated on the northern
+coast of the kingdom, and the materials for making guns, gunpowder and
+terrorite, were to be accumulated at Kioram without delay.
+
+Professor Rackiron agreed, if furnished with men and materials, to
+turn out sufficient hand mitrailleuses to arm one hundred thousand
+wayleals in less than a month. He also proposed to furnish our
+wayleals with magnic spears, and to arm the legs of the bockhockids
+with magnic toes, so that a company of the strange animals could rout
+a legion of wayleals. We discovered that the materials for the
+manufacture of terrorite existed in abundance in Atvatabar, and as the
+secret of this substance was still ours, we were in a position to work
+fearful havoc on the enemy.
+
+Before the council broke up the most encouraging news was received
+from our agents throughout the kingdom that the enrollment of
+volunteers for our cause was proceeding with great rapidity, and a
+hundred thousand men would arrive in Kioram within a week from the
+date of our proclamation. Hushnoly was appointed general of
+volunteers, in addition to his rank as supreme general of the army.
+General Yermoul and his colleagues would command the contingent from
+Gnaphisthasia, consisting of fourteen thousand wayleals.
+
+While thus discussing the details of our army organization, Astronomer
+Starbottle and his body-guard, Flathootly, arrived at the fortress,
+having safely escaped all perils in making a very hazardous journey.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVIII.
+
+THE REPORT OF ASTRONOMER STARBOTTLE.
+
+
+I congratulated our couriers upon their safe return from a successful
+expedition. The astronomer made the following report of his journey:
+
+"Following our instructions to bear despatches to Egyplosis and
+Gnaphisthasia, and at the same time make such astronomical and
+meteorological observations as might be valuable to military
+operations in Atvatabar, we rose to a considerable height in the air
+after leaving the _Polar King_. We were still under the influence of
+the earth's revolution, moving with Atvatabar two hundred and fifty
+miles an hour from east to west. We found the atmosphere of equal
+density, no matter how high we ascended, showing it to be a
+continuation of the denser strata of the outer air pressing into the
+earth by way of the open poles. It fills the hollow shell of the earth
+as an elastic ball, pressing equally on every part of the interior
+surface. Notwithstanding its mobility, it partakes of the revolution
+of the earth, hence the particularly serene climate of Bilbimtesirol
+and the absence of trade-winds in the region of greatest motion, which
+corresponds to the torrid zone of the outer sphere. The only winds are
+local disturbances, sometimes excessively violent, caused by the
+irregularities of the earth's surface and the consequent unequal
+distribution of heat and cold. Besides the general serenity of the air
+there are other reasons why the interior planet is really the only
+true world where human flight is a complete success.
+
+"We found that at a height of fifty miles the gravity caused by
+centrifugal motion is exactly counterbalanced by the attraction of the
+central sun overhead. At a height of sixty miles, if the wings remain
+motionless, we perceptibly ascend with a slowly increasing motion
+toward the sun, while the centrifugal gravity slowly lessens, owing to
+the lesser circle of space traversed, the attraction of Swang as
+gradually increases, and nothing but the strength of our wings
+prevented our falling into the fires of the sun.
+
+"Our chief discovery was the fact that there exists a belt of air at a
+distance of between fifty and sixty miles above the earth, extremely
+cold, in which there is no weight, and all objects therein float,
+indifferent to the presence of the sun above or earth beneath. We saw
+a distant globe hanging in this region of very small size, and through
+the glass we could see mountains, rivers and seas thereon, but no
+traces of cities or human life.
+
+"During our stay in this imponderable region Flathootly expressed his
+satisfaction by grotesque evolutions. He would fly, moving his legs as
+if he were skating on ice, and again plunging as though he were diving
+into the sea. Then he would fly upward feet foremost, as though he
+were falling toward the sun.
+
+"'Shure it's foine fun,' he said, 'to shtand upside down, flyin' an'
+laughin' at the same toime.'
+
+"'Take care,' I said, 'and don't fall upward.'
+
+"'How can I fall upward when the ground's below me?' he inquired.
+
+"'The earth below you has no attraction at this height,' I said; 'but
+the sun is exerting its influence upon us. If we go any higher up
+we'll be drawn into the fires of the sun and roasted alive.'
+
+"'Be jabers, if that's so, I'll get down an' walk, an' you can fly
+around as much as you loike,' said Flathootly.
+
+"'If you descend you'll be arrested and executed as a spy. Remember,
+we're in an enemy's country,' said I.
+
+"'I'll tell you what I'll do then,' said he; 'now that I've got me
+siven-leagued boots on, I'll jist go down an' jump from wan mountain
+top to another.'
+
+"Time would not permit us to stay longer in our high altitude,
+consequently we stretched ourselves on the abyss of air and swept
+downward to Egyplosis.
+
+"'Our flight was exultant and swift. We soared over mighty ranges of
+mountains and swept into wide valleys with the ecstasy of birds. What
+a splendid fact to communicate to the outer world--that man, denied
+for untold ages the power of flight, may now inhabit a world of
+incomparable beauty, where it is easier to fly than to walk and a
+thousand times more enjoyable! The powers of the body and the raptures
+of the soul are not in themselves limited. It is simply a question of
+environment. No sooner do we inhabit a new environment than both body
+and soul expand themselves and fill the greater amplitude as easily as
+that more restricted one. Give the world, weary with ennui, a fresh
+joy, and see how eager its enjoyment thereof, how voraciously it
+feasts on the newly-found delight.
+
+"We descended to the level of the mountain peaks, and, sure enough,
+Flathootly, taking his stand on a lofty crag, would flap his wings and
+sail to the next mountain like an albatross. When alighting on one of
+the peaks he frightened an immense bird from its nest on a cliff. It
+was the seemorgh, a bird of prey, as large as six eagles, with wings
+measuring twenty feet from tip to tip. It ferociously flew at
+Flathootly as he tried to escape it, and caught him with its claws,
+fastening its strong beak in the back of his neck.
+
+"It was a perilous position for my companion.
+
+"I flew to his rescue. He was badly frightened, and kept shouting,
+'Kill the baste!' The bird being on Flathootly's back, rendered him
+powerless to cope with it. Suddenly the bird let go its grip of his
+neck and took hold of his head in its claws, with the idea of carrying
+him off to its eyrie. Coming behind the monster unseen, I managed by a
+well-directed blow to transfix him with my magnic spear. The seemorgh,
+with wide-distended wings and head falling limp on its breast, slowly
+revolving, descended to the earth, the first enemy to fall on land at
+the hands of the invader.
+
+"Flathootly now avoided the mountains. He had a narrow escape, but,
+excepting an ugly wound in his neck, was otherwise unscathed.
+
+"We continued our flight to Egyplosis, dimly visible in the vault
+before us. We continued to traverse the inner curve of the planet,
+Atvatabar surrounding us on all sides except that part of the sphere
+above us which was concealed by the brilliancy of Swang.
+
+"Owing to the uniform heat and density of the lower strata of air,
+every mountain top was covered with foliage. We saw many mansions of
+the Atvatabarese sculptured out of the solid rock and surrounded with
+noble forests of tropical vegetation. We flapped our wings thirty
+miles above Atvatabar, which lay, with its mountains, forests, lakes,
+cities, temples and dwellings, beneath us like a map.
+
+"We had flown for six or eight hours when a feeling of hunger
+admonished us to partake of food. The tin trunk, which was our
+commissariat department, had been towed behind us by means of a rope
+during the entire journey.
+
+[Illustration: I MOUNTED THE TRUNK AND PROPOSED THE HEALTH OF HER
+MAJESTY, LYONE, QUEEN OF ATVATABAR.]
+
+"'Flathootly,' said I, 'let us call a halt for refreshments.'
+
+"'With all my heart,' said he; 'but how are we to howld the trunk up?'
+
+"'Let us rise to the height of fifty miles again,' I replied, 'and
+then it will stand on the air alone, like ourselves.'
+
+"'You're a wise man, sorr,' said he. 'It's an illigant idea that we'll
+adopt immediately.'
+
+"Accordingly, we were soon once more in the region of no weight, where
+we stood in the air as on land, Flathootly on one side of the trunk
+and I on the other, to dine on its contents.
+
+"Flathootly, opening the lid, brought forth some cold venison, which
+he coolly laid on the air beside us, saying, 'Shtand there now till
+you're wanted.' The venison quietly floated up against the side of the
+trunk, that being the only force of gravity acting upon it. In like
+manner he tossed around us a cold roast fowl, several varieties of
+cooked vegetables, and some rich puddings. He also produced several
+bottles of squang, the tokay of Atvatabar. These he flung downward,
+but every bottle, after falling half a mile or so, slowly ascended,
+and the entire bottles came back to us in a close cluster, as though
+unwilling to leave us.
+
+"It was a novel feast. We closed the lid of the trunk and spread a
+napkin thereon, and at once began our repast. Flathootly rapidly
+secured the floating dishes, and the food was demolished as easily as
+though we stood on _terra firma_. I pulled a pudding off my back, and
+Flathootly took from his neck the knives and forks that had clustered
+there.
+
+"The wine proved excellent. I mounted the trunk and proposed the
+health of Her Majesty Lyone, Queen of Atvatabar, and the empyrean rang
+with the enthusiasm invoked by the toast.
+
+"Flathootly proposed the health of our noble master, His Excellency
+Lexington White, the conqueror of the fleet. The air once more echoed
+its response to our hurrahs.
+
+"We might have rested, and even slept, on the impalpable air, but duty
+forbade us any such luxury. We repacked our trunk and proceeded
+straight to Egyplosis, then but two hundred miles away. We arrived
+safe, and, handing the high priest, Hushnoly, your despatch, hastened
+on to the palace of art at Gnaphisthasia. We again succeeded in
+eluding the vigilance of the king's wayleals, thanks to our speed and
+disguise, and delivering your despatch to the grand priest of art
+Yermoul, in Gnaphisthasia, returned forthwith to Kioram."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIX.
+
+PREPARATION FOR WAR.
+
+
+In less than a week, as measured by the time bells of Kioram, the
+ships began to arrive with troops from various parts of the coast of
+Atvatabar, bringing volunteers for either branch of the service of her
+majesty. In ten days one hundred thousand volunteers had arrived, and
+these were quartered in the city, pending their equipment as wayleals
+and bockhockids. As might be expected, a great many were deserters
+from the royal army, and these were of great assistance in organizing
+the troops, being already skilled in the tactics of aerial warfare.
+
+General Rackiron had turned the entire fortress into an arsenal of
+war. Fires blazed everywhere for forging guns and magnic spears, and a
+thousand hammers were shaping the limbs of bockhockids. The department
+for making ammunition was busiest of all, furnishing the elements on
+whose efficiency depended success or defeat.
+
+A vast quantity of hand mitrailleuses, or gigantic revolvers, were
+made, and being of but little weight, these blew showers of bullets
+from magazines attached to the tubes. Each wayleal carried a thousand
+cartridges.
+
+The cell in the case of the wayleals had to furnish a double current,
+viz., the current that moved the wings and the death-dealing current
+of the spear. For each bockhockid two powerful cells were necessary,
+one for the rider and the other to work the bockhockid he rode or flew
+upon. The strongest cell was contained in the body of the mechanical
+bird, which moved both its wings and legs, and also furnished its
+claws with a deadly current, so that when a detachment of bockhockids
+dashed into a mass of wayleals, legs foremost, the greatest possible
+havoc could be made with the least possible risk to the mounted
+riders.
+
+The object of having each cell separate in the case of the bockhockids
+was apparent. In case a mounted wayleal got unhorsed he was able to
+join the wayleals, or infantry, having the same equipment as they.
+
+Our superiority in arms when compared with the royal army, which
+possessed only magnic spears and shields, was apparent.
+
+Of course, the enemy also made the legs and claws of the bockhockids
+magnic spears in themselves.
+
+It seemed remarkable that a people so inventive, and who possessed the
+best of all means for manufacturing firearms, should not have thought
+of a better device than their naval air guns. It was but a further
+illustration of the fact that the keenest minds are constantly
+color-blind to the simplest combinations visible to lookers-on while
+they are pursuing their elaborate researches.
+
+But the royal army, if inferior in arms, possessed the superiority of
+numbers. It outnumbered us three to one.
+
+Our total forces consisted of 175,000 wayleals and 42,000 bockhockids,
+making a total of 217,000 troops, which included 5,000 amazons.
+
+We at first expected a much larger army, believing the priests of
+invention, under Grasnagallipas, would certainly espouse the cause of
+the queen, but it was a terrible blow to our enthusiasm when we
+learned that the priests of invention, making a total of 50,000
+wayleals, had joined the royal army and would fight against their late
+goddess.
+
+Calnogor being the headquarters of the royal army, it would have been
+particularly dangerous for the priests of invention to have espoused
+our cause, surrounded as they were by the enormously more powerful
+enemy. To our loss, they had chosen to continue part of the army of
+the king, which at the lowest computation numbered half a million men.
+
+The king seemed strangely reluctant to begin the attack, although he
+knew the extent of our forces in Kioram. It was evident the protection
+given the city by the fleet allowed us to complete the arming and
+drilling of our forces without molestation.
+
+Supreme General Hushnoly reported that, thanks to the indefatigable
+energy of General Rackiron and his colleagues, Generals Starbottle,
+Goldrock and Flathootly, assisted by Generals Charka, Yermoul, Pra and
+Nototherboc, he had been able to fully equip the wayleals with
+mitrailleuses, wings, electric spears and uniforms. The bockhockids,
+in addition, were mounted on mechanical birds that could either fly,
+trot or walk with tremendous speed.
+
+I instructed Hushnoly to make his appointment of officers without
+delay, as we might take the field any moment.
+
+General Rackiron informed us that he was hard at work on a portable
+terrorite gun for aerial warfare. He hoped to have a battery of these
+guns ready in time to decide the war in our favor. I thanked the
+general for his extraordinary exertions, and informed him I felt sure
+of his success. With terrorite guns we would be invincible.
+
+Our spies, who had been despatched in all directions, informed us that
+the royal army was in a state of activity not inferior to our own. A
+daily review was being held in the air above Calnogor, and it was
+discovered that Coltonobory was about to make a descent on our ships,
+particularly to seize the _Polar King_, and by thus silencing her
+guns, have Kioram and the army of the queen at his mercy. The plan was
+approved of by the king, and might be put in operation at any moment.
+
+This was most important news, and we decided to take the initiative at
+once.
+
+"We will attack the enemy even if he is a million strong," I said.
+
+"Everything calls for an immediate advance," said Hushnoly.
+
+We also learned from trusty couriers that Lyone had been brought
+before the Borodemy, and the legislative assembly in full conclave,
+after hearing the evidence, had found her guilty of treason, impiety
+and sacrilege to her faith, of treason to the king, and had, by
+encouraging insurrection, caused her adherents to take up arms against
+both king and law, thereby endangering the lives and property of the
+inhabitants of the kingdom. There was no one to recommend Lyone to
+mercy, and she was condemned to death. The king had already signed her
+death-warrant.
+
+She might be executed any moment!
+
+It was a dreadful crisis to contemplate. Our first duty was to save
+the life of our queen at any sacrifice. I at once called a council of
+war to consider this all-important question. We had only assembled
+when a royal courier arrived at the fortress with an important
+despatch addressed, "To His Excellency Lexington White,
+Commander-in-Chief of the Insurrectionary Army at Kioram."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER L.
+
+I VISIT LYONE IN CALNOGOR.
+
+
+I hastily opened the despatch, which read as follows:
+
+     "His Majesty King Aldemegry Bhoolmakar of Atvatabar wishes
+     to inform His Excellency Lexington White, commander-in-chief
+     of the insurrectionary army mobilized in Kioram, that Her
+     Holiness Lyone, late Goddess of Atvatabar, has been tried
+     before a full conclave of the Borodemy on the charge of
+     sacrilege, apostasy, and insurrection. Her holiness has been
+     found guilty and is now under sentence of death. His
+     majesty, of merciful intent, wishes it to be known that he
+     will pardon her holiness on this condition, viz.: That the
+     insurrectionary army lays down its arms forthwith, and the
+     wayleals separate and depart to their respective abodes;
+     that his excellency, the commander-in-chief, and his
+     generals surrender themselves to his majesty as prisoners of
+     war, to be tried and punished as military law dictates. This
+     surrender to include that of the admiral of the fleet and
+     the ships under his command.
+
+     "On no other condition whatever will mercy be extended to
+     her holiness, and should this offer be temporized with or
+     rejected nothing can save the late goddess from the sword of
+     justice.
+
+     "Dictated at the palace in Calnogor, in the twenty-fifth
+     year of his majesty's reign.
+
+                                          "ALDEMEGRY BHOOLMAKAR."
+
+The king's communication was received with a sensation of contempt and
+dismay. The thought of surrender was in itself preposterous, but when
+we thought that our rebellion would drive a sword into the heart of
+Lyone, the awful idea struck us dumb with horror!
+
+The king possessed our proudest and most precious soul as hostage, and
+he was cowardly enough to sacrifice her as his most deadly blow to the
+insurrection.
+
+The crisis was appalling.
+
+"Shall we," I cried, "continue the fight, now that we know it is our
+queen we fight against, that it is our arms that will murder her?"
+
+"We certainly do not murder her," said Hushnoly; "and yet this
+unexpected crisis paralyzes me."
+
+"The king will not dare to murder the queen," said the grand sorcerer;
+"and if he does----"
+
+The sorcerer suddenly checked himself; the mere contemplation of such
+an event was overpowering, yet he seemed, of all others, the most
+composed. His eyes shone with a strange fire that I had not hitherto
+noticed.
+
+"I am satisfied," said Governor Ladalmir, "that unless we lay down our
+arms and submit ourselves to his mercy, which means death to every one
+here, the fate of the queen is sealed."
+
+"I think," said the high priestess Zooly-Soase, "that his excellency,
+the commander-in-chief, should, if possible, obtain an order from the
+king permitting him to visit her majesty, and advise her of the entire
+facts of the situation, and then act as she commands. If she asks us
+to lay down our arms and surrender ourselves as the price of her
+liberty, there is none, I think, who would be so faithless as to
+refuse."
+
+"And I," said the grand sorceress, "approve of your proposal. I am
+willing to surrender myself to save the life of the late goddess."
+
+"We are all willing to sacrifice ourselves if need be!" shouted the
+entire council with generous and chivalrous enthusiasm.
+
+"I will go," said I, "and see Lyone, as you propose, and upon her
+decision will depend our future action."
+
+A courier was immediately despatched under a flag of truce to the
+palace at Calnogor, with the message that before his majesty's
+communication could be replied to, the commander-in-chief of the army
+of the late goddess desired to have an interview with her majesty, to
+decide upon a final answer thereto, and to request a royal passport
+not only admitting him to the presence of Lyone in the fortress at
+Calnogor, but also permitting his safe return to Kioram.
+
+"I fear," said Hushnoly, "the queen herself may be so confident in the
+success of her cause that she will overlook any danger to herself. It
+would be a signal success to save her without our own surrender, but
+that is impossible until we defeat the royal army."
+
+"What say you, grand sorcerer?" said I. "Do you think my mission will
+be successful as regards the life of Lyone?"
+
+"I have already foreseen this crisis," said he; "but I believe the end
+will be triumphant."
+
+His majesty, in reply to my despatch, sent me a royal passport that
+admitted me to the fortress to converse with Lyone, and which would
+protect me until my return to Kioram.
+
+"Tell her majesty," said the grand sorcerer, "not to fear the king;
+that we will save her, even should she nobly disdain to accept our
+surrender for her life."
+
+"How do you propose to save her life in case she forfeits it?" I
+eagerly inquired.
+
+"I cannot tell you," he replied, "for occult knowledge can only be
+apprehended by the initiated. Every great reform requires its martyr,
+and it may be that the queen will be our martyr, no matter what we
+do."
+
+An audible groan escaped from the lips of all. Was it possible that
+even should we surrender we could not save the life of our adorable
+leader, and that to surrender would involve all in a common ruin? Was
+there ever in human history so great a crisis? I began to doubt the
+sorcerer's knowledge of the future. At the same time I felt that he
+alone could guide us in that hour of peril.
+
+"Sorcerer," I cried, "for the love of Lyone, for the glory of our
+cause, tell me what to do! What shall I say to the queen? How shall I
+advise her to act for her own safety as well as ours?"
+
+"Do not advise at all," said he. "Let the queen act for herself, and
+that will be the best solution of the difficulty."
+
+"But should she insist on sacrificing herself, where would be our
+triumph?"
+
+"The triumph will be assured," said he, "although to win our cause
+will require the greatest sacrifice to be made."
+
+I began to think that Lyone and the sorcerer understood each other,
+and that her life would in any case be saved from the violence of
+death; and, taking this hopeful view of the situation, I departed for
+Calnogor, escorted by Flathootly and the astronomer.
+
+As we swept toward the metropolis of Atvatabar I wondered if I would
+be permitted to make the journey in safety. Was the passport of the
+king but a _ruse de guerre_ to entrap me?
+
+I noticed here and there, as we neared the city, detachments of the
+royal wayleals, some suspended in the air, and others being drilled
+in globular masses in anticipation of the coming struggle.
+
+When within ten miles of Calnogor a party of scouts intercepted us,
+who demanded to see our passports. The leader examined the royal
+decree with great minuteness, and only allowed us to proceed with
+apparent reluctance. I had reason to fear treachery, as I had but
+lately fought my way out of the country.
+
+At length arriving above the royal fortress, we rapidly descended to
+the court-yard and inquired for the governor.
+
+With what feelings of excitement I awaited my interview with Lyone! In
+what state would I find her, and how would she solve the riddle, a
+destiny that seemed impossible of solution?
+
+The governor, accompanied by his armed staff, approached me, declaring
+how glad he was to be able to permit an interview with Lyone. His
+manner was altogether too suspiciously cheerful, and his body-guard
+surrounded us closely.
+
+I hastened to assure the governor that my visit was made under the
+protection of the king, and showed him the royal decree. "I have
+come," I said, "to have an interview with her majesty upon the crisis,
+and that being accomplished, the royal mandate will secure me a free
+departure to Kioram."
+
+"You can certainly see the ex-goddess," said the governor, "but you
+have no right to address her as her majesty, for such a title is high
+treason to their majesties, the king and queen of Atvatabar. As to
+your being free to leave the fortress again, I must confer with his
+majesty in that matter, as you are my prisoner until the king commands
+your release."
+
+Was this a plot to capture me?
+
+I was too anxious to see Lyone to think of my own safety just then,
+and requested the governor to lead me at once to her apartments.
+
+"Follow me," said the governor, leading the way into the fortress. We
+passed along corridor after corridor until we arrived at a heavy gate
+of bronze, which the governor himself unlocked. We thereupon entered a
+spacious antechamber, severely furnished with large oaken benches on
+the marble floor.
+
+I requested Flathootly and the astronomer to remain in the antechamber
+while I passed through another door unlocked for me by the governor.
+
+I found myself alone in a spacious and finely decorated apartment, the
+gilded cage of Lyone. There were luxurious couches, and receptacles
+for books, and painted tapestries on the walls, and in the centre of
+the floor stood an aquarium, the home of strange animals and plants,
+from which rose a vase of gold that held a bouquet of the rarest
+flowers. The floor was covered with a semi-metallic carpet resembling
+linoleum. I sat down to await the coming of Lyone.
+
+Presently the embroidered tapestry concealing the entrance to another
+chamber was moved aside, and the pale and breathless figure of Lyone
+stood before me. She came toward me, robed in a loose white silk gown.
+Her arms were outstretched, and her face wore an air of indescribable
+nobility and tenderness. I rushed forward and caught the glorious
+figure in my arms. It was fitting that our holiest emotions should at
+first find expression in a mutual deluge of kisses and tears.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LI.
+
+THE DEATH OF LYONE.
+
+
+When the ecstasy of our meeting had somewhat subsided I informed Lyone
+of the dreadful crisis in our affairs. I pointed out that to save her
+life the king required her army to disband itself, and her leaders to
+deliver themselves up as rebels and insurrectionists, to receive
+punishment for their so-called offences.
+
+"Now," said I, "notwithstanding the fact that we can defeat the royal
+army in pitched battle, yet to save your precious life we are willing
+to surrender ourselves to his majesty."
+
+"And what do you think would life be worth to me," said Lyone, her
+eyes flashing fire, "with my dearest friends slain, my cause ruined,
+and my soul covered with the shame of remorse, defeat and the disgrace
+of having purchased my miserable life by the death of the noblest of
+souls? I will go to the scaffold alone. You will conquer, and will
+avenge my death."
+
+"Sweet goddess!" I cried, "you will not thus sacrifice yourself. What
+will victory be worth if you, for whom we fight, are not our proudest
+trophy? What avails the triumph of our cause if there remains no queen
+to possess the triumph? Your life is our life, your death our
+destruction. With you to fight for, any company of leaders will be
+successful. Let us surrender ourselves to make you free."
+
+"It can never be," replied Lyone, "that you must suffer, one hundred
+souls for but one. I am that one, and the cause can more easily suffer
+the loss of one soul than the loss of all. That the soul may again
+possess freedom is worthy many a martyr. I only regret I have but one
+life to give for this blessed cause. I counsel you to depart and carry
+on the war you have so bravely begun, and in your hour of triumph
+remember Lyone."
+
+"There is no cause if there is no Lyone," I pleaded. "Do not be your
+own enemy; accept the condition of freedom so freely offered you, and
+perhaps even we may still find some means of escape."
+
+"The king, I know," said Lyone, "would much prefer your death to mine.
+He is exasperated at the loss of the fleet, and that, too, at the
+hands of strangers. Nothing would give him greater joy, and nothing
+such fame in the eyes of the nation, than to put yourself and your
+sailors to death. My capture and your present visit are but the
+fulfilment of his plot to destroy you. He thinks you will never allow
+me to be sacrificed, and so hopes for your annihilation. But in this
+he will be disappointed. In this terrible trial I have eaten my heart
+out. Without you, and without our faithful comrades, life would be
+less than worthless. This crisis can only be solved by heroic
+measures. I have decided for you all. Go!--go and avenge my death!"
+
+I saw that Lyone had firmly steeled her soul for the sacrifice,
+tremendous at it was, and in the presence of such heroism it seemed
+sacrilege to again offer our less worthy lives for a life such as
+hers.
+
+But a resolve so unsupportable agonized me. I clasped the divine girl
+in my arms in a transport of love and horror, and implored her again
+and again to accept life while it was offered her.
+
+We stood beside the aquarium in the centre of the apartment, close to
+the vase of gold filled with flowers. Lyone, in a dazed state, reached
+for a flower, and in doing so touched the vase, and in a moment fell
+dead upon the floor!
+
+[Illustration: LYONE REACHED FOR A FLOWER AND IN DOING SO TOUCHED THE
+VASE AND IMMEDIATELY FELL DEAD UPON THE FLOOR!]
+
+I cannot dwell upon the horror of the scene. I rushed to the door
+of the apartment, and stood in the outer chamber, where waited my
+companions.
+
+The governor of the fortress came forward to explain that I was his
+prisoner until he had heard from the king whether or not I should be
+permitted to leave the prison. I raised my spear, and with one blow
+transfixed the dog at my feet. He never spoke again!
+
+The taking off of the governor was accomplished with so little
+disturbance that we passed through the body-guard, which was assembled
+in the outer corridor, without interference.
+
+The situation was war!
+
+Was it really true that our hope was dead, that our jewel, the glory
+of our cause, was lying cold and lifeless in her prison?
+
+I was stunned with the first shock of the scene. I could only cry out,
+as though she were still alive, for her radiant soul to come and share
+our mutual bliss.
+
+But when it clearly dawned upon me that the being for whose freedom I
+had resolutely labored had become the victim of her murderers, that I
+could never again enfold her beauty with my love, however ardent or
+tender, I was petrified with horror.
+
+My immediate comrades, to whom I communicated the tidings, grew white
+with the appalling news.
+
+The one cry was, "Could Lyone, the idol of her army, the goddess of
+her people, be indeed dead? Was the voice that could conjure such love
+and devotion hushed forever?"
+
+Leaving a guard to watch over the body of the goddess, I set out for
+Kioram.
+
+Barely escaping arrest at the hands of several wayleals, we arrived
+safely at the fortress. It was our wings and spears, and not the
+passport of the king, that saved us.
+
+The council in Kioram, on hearing of the death of the queen, grew
+excited. The one desire in the hearts of all had been to save Lyone's
+life--but, alas!
+
+I despatched a messenger to the king, charging him with the murder of
+the queen, and stating that I should exact retribution at his hands
+for the foul deed. I warned him not to do any injury to the person of
+her majesty, but deliver her dead body to the guard we would send, who
+would convey it to Egyplosis.
+
+"This is a wound that infuriates me," said the grand sorcerer.
+
+"It is the work of the jealous Koshnili and the murderous Bhoolmakar,"
+said I; "and dearly will they answer for it! I must return at once to
+Calnogor, and take charge of the body for honorable sepulture."
+
+"I think it better for your excellency to remain at the head of the
+army," said the grand sorcerer, "and allow me to undertake the removal
+of the body of the queen to Egyplosis. By keeping her death a secret
+from the army you will be able to defeat Coltonobory, and bring the
+king and Koshnili to justice. I shall delay the obsequies of the queen
+until victory is assured."
+
+I agreed to this proposition, being anxious to bring the king to
+justice, and thereupon relieved General Charka of his command of the
+21,000 bockhockids, giving him a guard of 100 wayleals, and requested
+him to proceed at once to the fortress of Calnogor, and, demanding the
+body of Lyone, bear it to Egyplosis for honorable sepulture.
+
+The grand sorcerer, who had anticipated the refusal of Lyone to accept
+liberty at the price demanded, but did not apprehend her sudden death,
+had, during my absence, assisted at completing the organization of the
+army. I gave his command of the right wing of the army to Sir John
+Forbes, Captain Adams accepting a subordinate command.
+
+Supreme General Hushnoly had fully armed the various battalions with
+mitrailleuses and electric spears, and had furnished all with electric
+wings.
+
+I instructed Hushnoly to mobilize the army at once and order an
+immediate advance on Calnogor. All Kioram was alive with warlike
+preparations. The various generals and captains, accompanied by their
+aides-de-camp, flew over the city, calling their troops to arms. Both
+wayleals and bockhockids, soaring into the air, formed themselves into
+immense living globes, and in the hollow centre of each flew the
+commanding general and his subordinate officers. In less than an hour
+the entire army lay marshalled in the air, and Supreme General
+Hushnoly called me to review our forces.
+
+It was a magnificent sight. High over Kioram stretched a line of
+enormous spheres composed of wayleals and bockhockids arranged in the
+following order:
+
+           THE ARMY OF HER MAJESTY QUEEN LYONE.
+
+      HIS EXCELLENCY LEXINGTON WHITE, _Commander-in-Chief_.
+
+     GENERAL SIR JOHN FORBES, commanding the right wing of 21,000
+     bockhockids, as follows:
+
+The Legion of Art, commanded by General Yermoul.
+Phalanx of Poetry--Vice-Gen. Ahornus       2,000
+Phalanx of Music        "    Arnondar      2,000
+Phalanx of Painting     "    Rhemegron     2,000
+Phalanx of Dancing      "    Osornon       2,000
+Phalanx of Architecture "    Vanablis      2,000
+Phalanx of Drama        "    Clamavappy    2,000
+Phalanx of Sculpture    "    Hitturkey     2,000
+Phalanx of Decoration   "    Drapasius     2,000
+The Kioram Legion--General   Nototherboc   5,000
+
+     SUPREME GENERAL HUSHNOLY, commanding the centre of the army,
+     comprising 175,000 wayleals.
+
+The Phalanx of Egyplosis--General Gerolio         5,000
+First Amazonian Phalanx--General Zooly-Soase      2,500
+Second Amazonian Phalanx--General Thoubool        2,500
+The Kioram Phalanx--General Pra                  10,000
+First Fletyeming Brigade--General Starbottle     10,000
+Second   "          "       "     Flathootly     10,000
+Third    "          "       "     Goldrock       10,000
+First Volunteer Army--General     Jolgos         25,000
+Second   "          "       "     Akerbole       25,000
+Third    "          "       "     Tarabesq       25,000
+First Volunteer Legion--General   Swilkar        10,000
+Second   "          "       "     Garreoc        10,000
+Third    "          "       "     Karramby       10,000
+Fourth   "          "       "     Botarnic       10,000
+Fifth    "          "       "     Heralion        5,000
+Sixth    "          "       "     Nosofrassy      5,000
+
+GENERAL LADALMIR, commanding the left wing of 21,000 bockhockids, as
+follows:
+
+First Vol. Leg. Bockhockids--Vice-Gen. Adams        5,000
+Second    "           "           "    Doroccy      2,000
+Third     "           "           "    Madneaf      2,000
+Fourth    "           "           "    Darjiltis    2,000
+Fifth     "           "           "    Roumix       2,000
+Sixth     "           "           "    Hieralto     2,000
+Seventh   "           "           "    Dnublis      2,000
+Eighth    "           "           "    Napasacco    2,000
+Ninth     "           "           "    Dumargo      2,000
+
+The army in all consisted of 182,000 men and 5,000 amazons. The
+amazons were dressed similar to the priests of Egyplosis--that is, in
+pale brown soft-leather tights, high boots emblazoned with scales of
+white metal, heavy spider-silk tunics, ornamented with beautiful
+embroidery and held close to the figure by a belt. The knapsack held
+the magnic cell, dynamo and wings, and also furnished the current for
+their spears.
+
+As each wayleal required ample space for the movement of his or her
+wings, it will be seen that each living globe was of immense size, and
+the entire army became of enormous proportions as it lay stretched
+upon the air. I assumed supreme command as commander-in-chief, with
+Flathootly as special aide-de-camp, and gave orders for each globe to
+double up its wayleals, so that in each case there would be two
+globes, the outer or fighting force and the interior or reserve force.
+In the centre of each living shell was placed the commissariat
+department and the medical, musical and commanding staffs.
+
+The death of Lyone had been kept a secret. The bands of each army
+began to play the "March of Lyone," and at the word of command the
+vast-flying mass of armed men moved grandly forward to Calnogor.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LII.
+
+THE BATTLE OF CALNOGOR.
+
+
+Long ere we reached Calnogor we discovered the royal army already
+marshalled to meet us. It lay above the city in globes of wayleals and
+bockhockids still more prodigious than ours. It was composed of three
+armies, ranged one above the other, and each army being equal in
+numbers to our own. Thus, forming a solid parallelogram of amazing
+magnificence, the royal army awaited our onset. Its bockhockids,
+formed in ten globes of ten thousand in each, and led by
+Grasnagallipas, the lord of invention, were the flower of the army,
+and occupied a central position, where possibly they would do the
+greatest damage to us. High overhead in a chair of state, supported by
+twenty wayleals, sat Coltonobory, commander-in-chief of those immense
+legions that were ready to do battle for the defeat of the cause of
+their late goddess and the honor of their king.
+
+The sight of two such armies of winged gladiators sweeping toward each
+other in revolving globes was one of breathless interest. The
+approaching fight was a question of life or death to both combatants.
+Defeat to Aldemegry Bhoolmakar meant possibly the loss of crown and
+kingdom, and our defeat meant the annihilation of the party of reform
+and the cause of Lyone. We were eager to begin the fight without
+delay.
+
+To obtain greater freedom of action, I led the army up into the region
+where there was no gravity. The movement was followed by a similar
+movement on the part of the royal armies, who rose like a swarm of
+locusts to meet us. The noise of so many wings in motion was like that
+of a roaring storm, and formed an inspiring accompaniment to the music
+that rang upon the sunlit air.
+
+Here, fifty miles above the white city beneath, both armies closed
+upon each other. There was a fearful yell of "Bhoolmakar!" answered by
+as loud a shout of "Lyone!"
+
+Our army was literally buried in the centre of the enemy. The
+impetuous priests of Egyplosis and the no less eager priestesses
+performed prodigies of valor.
+
+Our mitrailleuses were a complete surprise to the enemy. Thousands of
+their wayleals were killed ere they could deliver a blow with their
+spears.
+
+There was considerable slaughter on both sides, but the enemy depended
+largely on their magnic spears and shields, while we handled our guns
+with terrible effect.
+
+The volunteer army under Hushnoly suffered greatly by the
+demoralization caused by the enemy's bockhockids under Grasnagallipas.
+The terrible legs of those machines destroyed the military formation
+of our wayleals, producing a continuous panic, and permitting the
+enemy's wayleals to work a ghastly slaughter in their broken ranks. In
+revenge our bockhockids with their more deadly weapons literally tore
+their globes to pieces. Notwithstanding our superior arms, the greater
+numbers of the enemy made them a match for us.
+
+The rushing of wings, the explosions of the machine guns, the clashing
+of spears and the yells of the combatants made a scene of infernal
+horror. As the focus of battle swayed hither and thither, it left
+behind a trail of blood, dead and wounded bodies, broken wings, spears
+and revolvers. The _débris_ of the battle simply floated out on the
+air, veritable clouds of disaster. Irregular masses of dead and
+wounded wayleals and broken bockhockids floated in heaps amid pools of
+blood.
+
+The enemy could only succeed by stabbing, whereas our wayleals were
+scorpions whose guns were fatal. With the points of their spears they
+made great havoc in our battalions. But as long as our ammunition
+lasted their formations were immediately shrivelled up.
+
+Coltonobory began to mass his army in the form of an immense
+outspreading hemisphere of the form of an open umbrella. His intention
+was to enclose us on all sides, and so if possible devour us. I at
+once ordered the army to take the form of a cone, each legion being a
+segment thereof, whose apex was formed of bockhockids, and whose base
+was wide circles of wayleals. With a blast of the trumpet I drove the
+entire army like an enormous javelin right through the heart of the
+foe, tearing a yawning chasm, half a mile in diameter, in his ranks!
+
+We lost fully two thousand men in this movement, and the foe over ten
+thousand in killed and wounded.
+
+The enemy, paralyzed by the onset, became consolidated into three or
+four immense globes. In front of these they placed their bockhockids,
+whose monstrous limbs alone could keep our spears at a safe distance.
+It was the intention of Coltonobory to ram us with the cohorts led by
+Grasnagallipas and his bockhockids.
+
+Hastily re-forming our broken ranks as before, I ordered a flank
+movement, rapid and decisive. Our bockhockids plunged into a
+tremendous mass of wayleals. Into the chasm thus made in the ranks of
+the enemy General Zooly-Soase threw her amazons, protected on either
+side by the legion of priests of Egyplosis under Gerolio. The
+priestesses, whose spears were particularly long and powerful, did
+terrible execution. The enemy was for a time panic-stricken as the
+glorious girls made their successful onset. Their dramatic beauty and
+the flash of their spears made a scene of imposing grandeur.
+Coltonobory, recovering from his surprise, ordered his bockhockids to
+the centre of the fight. To prevent the sacrifice of the priestesses
+by overwhelming odds I sent the bockhockids of art to their
+assistance. These swept to the rescue like a flight of eagles, and the
+empyrean echoed to the roar of the combat.
+
+The fighting now became general. The sunlit heavens seemed filled with
+the ferocity of war. The discharge of guns, the yells of wayleals, the
+trumpet signals of the commanders, the crash of swords and spears, the
+ceaseless motion of wings, and the long trail of dead and wounded
+combatants that followed the fight like the _débris_ of a comet, was a
+sight but rarely beheld by human eyes.
+
+Each army seemed so equally balanced--the king's army had the
+advantage in numbers and our own the advantage in weapons--that
+neither party could yet claim a victory. Further fighting seemed
+useless until some new tactics were employed; therefore I gave orders
+for a cessation of the battle, and caused flags of truce to be
+hoisted.
+
+Both armies indeed required food and repose, and the wounded required
+immediate attention. The enemy was no less anxious for a truce than
+ourselves, consequently all fighting ceased and both armies withdrew.
+Several miles apart sentinels were placed on guard on outposts in the
+atmosphere, and our wayleals threw themselves upon the air in various
+attitudes of repose.
+
+In company with Generals Hushnoly, Ladalmir, Gerolio, Zooly-Soase,
+Thoubool, Charka, Yermoul, Starbottle and Goldrock, I visited the
+scene of the battle.
+
+How ghastly the realities of war! There floated irregular piles of
+dead and wounded bodies, from which poured many a trickling stream of
+ruddy life, which formed immense cloud-pools of blood surrounding each
+ghastly pile. The heaped-up masses of the dead would vibrate, as some
+poor suffocating wretch struggled in his last agonies. Dr. Merryferry
+and his assistants hastily took possession of the wounded, and
+ministered to their necessities. Water was supplied them from the
+leathern bags of water that formed part of the commissariat supplies.
+
+I ordered a detachment of wayleals to separate the living from the
+dead, and bear the wounded to Kioram for immediate attention.
+
+The saddest sight of all was a cluster of fifty beautiful priestesses,
+embracing one another in the long caress of death. They had been slain
+with the magnic spears, so happily there were no gaping wounds from
+which the life-blood flowed. Ardsolus and Merga lay dead where the
+fight was hottest, both slain at once.
+
+The dead and wounded twin-souls were sent to Egyplosis as quickly as
+possible, and the process of clearing the air of the havoc of war was
+carried out both by the enemy and ourselves with the greatest
+despatch.
+
+The losses of the enemy were four times greater than ours, owing to
+the tremendous execution done by our gigantic pistols. The royal
+troops presented in ghastly groups every possible posture of the human
+body that could be created by rage, pain, fear or madness.
+
+How I wished some eloquent historian could have floated through that
+abyss of horror on distended wings, and, pen in hand, describe its
+dramatic desolation and terror. Clouds of vultures and the seemorgh
+were devouring the dead bodies, and, as they fought for choice
+morsels, flapped their wings in pools of gore. Many of the combatants,
+including some of my own sailors, were drowned in globes of blood.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LIII.
+
+VICTORY.
+
+
+The wayleals rested and slept outstretched upon the air close to the
+scene of battle. Not having any weight as regarded external objects,
+they mutually attracted each other, and to obtain freedom and rest
+without being crushed together into suffocating masses of men, they
+were formed into companies of one hundred each, with their feet
+pressing against solid cylinders of spears. Mutual gravity was
+sufficient to hold them together, and each wayleal spread himself upon
+the air, as upon a bed of down, enjoying luxurious repose.
+
+I had slept I know not how long, in company with the leaders of our
+army, when I was awakened by Flathootly, who informed me that a trusty
+messenger from Grasnagallipas, lord of invention and general of the
+king's bockhockids, desired to see me as bearer of an important
+despatch from his master.
+
+The messenger, saluting, handed me the following document:
+
+     "_To His Excellency_ LEXINGTON WHITE, _Commander-in-Chief of
+     the Army of Queen Lyone, from Grasnagallipas, General of the
+     Royal Bockhockids, Greeting:_
+
+     "General Grasnagallipas begs to report that he and his
+     bockhockids have ever been in sympathy with the late
+     goddess, but were prevented from espousing her cause by the
+     overwhelming presence of the royal army in Calnogor. To show
+     his detestation of the horrible act of criminal cowardice on
+     the part of his majesty, he offers his sword and command of
+     bockhockids to the cause of the late adorable goddess and
+     queen of Atvatabar, and on the acceptance of such assistance
+     by your excellency will at once leave the ranks of the royal
+     army and enter that of her late majesty, to fight for the
+     sacred cause and assist in punishing a perfidious king.
+
+                                                 GRASNAGALLIPAS."
+
+The loss attending the withdrawal of the priests and priestesses to
+form a guard of honor to the illustrious dead was more than
+compensated for by the re-enforcements under Grasnagallipas, to whom I
+sent a message of gracious acceptance of his services.
+
+The army being fully aroused for conflict, had the satisfaction of
+welcoming re-enforcements from two opposite directions, viz., the
+fifty thousand bockhockids under Grasnagallipas and the terrorite
+battery under command of General Rackiron.
+
+As was expected, the departure of the bravest general in the royal
+army was the signal for a renewal of hostilities, and Coltonobory, mad
+at the serious defection of his troops, at once assumed the offensive.
+He had received a large recruitment of wayleals, and felt as
+formidable as ever. His army swept down upon us with warlike music
+rolling like thunder, and cries of "Bhoolmakar!" The king himself,
+having dealt us his most terrible blow, was a witness to the onset of
+his hosts. He sat aloft in a golden palanquin, borne on the shoulders
+of his followers, with a body-guard on either side.
+
+The advance guard of the enemy consisted of several regiments, armed
+with our own hand mitrailleuses, taken from prisoners. These did a
+terrible execution among our wayleals.
+
+Grasnagallipas, anxious to undo the injury he inflicted on us during
+the first battle, and emulous of the prowess of our own forty thousand
+bockhockids, plunged headlong amid the foe, creating a panic wherever
+his gigantic birds descended. He fought like a demon, neither asking
+nor giving quarter.
+
+General Rackiron, having got his terrorite battery in position, was
+eager to check the advance of the enemy by saluting him with a few
+aerial torpedoes. There was some delay incidental to the first actual
+operations of a hastily-constructed battery, but the daring ingenuity
+of the professor overcame every obstacle. Each gun, supported by fifty
+men, possessed a solid foundation from which to direct its operations.
+
+The enemy, though harassed by our bockhockids, had worked into the
+centre of our army by sheer weight of numbers. Our wayleals, having
+exhausted their ammunition, had to fall back on their electric spears,
+and at times were obliged to retire in confusion. At this juncture a
+shell of terrorite exploded among the foe with thrilling effect,
+destroying at least two hundred bockhockids.
+
+Coltonobory, who evidently attributed the disaster to an explosion of
+gunpowder in his own ranks, closed up the broken columns and renewed
+the attack.
+
+[Illustration: AT THIS JUNCTURE, A SHELL OF TERRORITE EXPLODED AMONG
+THE FOE WITH THRILLING EFFECT, DESTROYING AT LEAST TWO HUNDRED
+BOCKHOCKIDS.]
+
+Three explosions in rapid succession, right in the centre of the
+enemy, caused the greatest consternation, and produced a frightful
+gap, where but a moment before the air was thick with an armed host.
+
+Generals Yermoul, Gerolio, Ladalmir and Grasnagallipas plunged with
+their bockhockids into the living cavern produced by the torpedoes,
+and with their spears mowed down thousands of the panic-stricken
+wayleals.
+
+Another terrorite shell, thrown in the direction of the king,
+destroyed a few hundred of his protectors and induced his majesty to
+seek safety in immediate flight.
+
+Not wishing to lose so important an enemy, I ordered General
+Flathootly and the second legion of fletyemings to start in hot
+pursuit of the royal party and bring me back the king, dead or alive.
+Flathootly, delighted with his mission, started off at once in pursuit
+of Bhoolmakar.
+
+The terrorite battery proved our most effective weapon in castigating
+the enemy. I could not thank Professor Rackiron sufficiently for his
+great genius and mechanical skill in so rapidly perfecting his
+weapons, which were modelled on the plan of the guns belonging to the
+_Polar King_. Every discharge proved a blast of destruction to the
+foe.
+
+The deadly missiles wrought a fearful slaughter, steadily decimating
+the ranks of the royal army, which had no similar weapons with which
+to retaliate upon us.
+
+The frightened hosts, constantly changing their focus, left behind
+them vast heaps of the dead and wounded and globes of floating blood.
+
+On one occasion the first brigade of fletyemings, led by General
+Starbottle, in eagerly pursuing the enemy dashed through a pool of
+blood three feet in thickness, and every wayleal emerged dripping with
+gore.
+
+Coltonobory, finding further resistance useless, at once surrendered
+himself and his army to our mercy.
+
+My brave wayleals, flushed with victory, saluted me with cries of
+"Long live Lexington White, King of Atvatabar!"
+
+But what was success now without the one priceless soul to share my
+triumph?
+
+Did ever glory so grand and defeat so terrible so mingle themselves in
+human experience?
+
+My wayleals, now for the first time hearing of the death of their
+queen, would have torn Coltonobory to pieces had I not protected him.
+
+I knew he was personally innocent, and my wayleals were already in
+pursuit of the king.
+
+We entered Calnogor in triumph. I heard on all sides a wail of
+lamentation for Lyone, mingled with applause for the conqueror.
+
+It was a scene in which conquest and misery, rapture and failure, life
+and death, were indissolubly united.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LIV.
+
+REINCARNATION.
+
+
+The grand sorcerer Charka and his guard had with reverend flight borne
+the body of their goddess Lyone to the palace of souls, mourning the
+death of their adored, who had been so precious, so beautiful, so
+holy.
+
+The high priestess and the grand sorceress, together with the priests
+and priestesses of Egyplosis, on hearing of the death of Lyone,
+departed at once for Egyplosis, to mourn the death of their goddess.
+
+Lyone was dead!
+
+Ah me! what was triumph then, without my soul of souls to share its
+delights? The blessed cup of joy, quivering to the brim, was about to
+touch my yearning lips when it was dashed aside by a treacherous hand.
+Well might the crownless Bhoolmakar laugh in whatever damnable retreat
+he had retired to! His revenge was complete.
+
+Oh, the pity of it! The young, the adorable, the divine soul who was
+just about to remount her throne to receive a purer adoration from her
+people; she who was to be queen of Atvatabar, slain treacherously,
+within sight of the Bormidophia, wherein she had so long been
+worshipped.
+
+It was impossible for me to remain longer on the field of battle. I
+wanted to fling myself on that once happy form and kiss her death-cold
+lips!
+
+I left Coltonobory and his surrendered army in the hands of the
+supreme general Hushnoly, and started at once for Egyplosis. As my
+wings devoured the leagues of air I thought, was this the climax for
+which I fought? I flew along with none to share my torture. My heart
+was rent wide open, and in my agony I rolled upon the air as I flew,
+for brain and soul seemed an ocean of fire.
+
+I arrived at Egyplosis full of anguish. With quivering lips and
+burning tears I staggered into the portal that led to the subterranean
+palace where I knew my loved one was laid. I silently entered the
+magnificent abode of the sorcerer, horror-stricken with despair.
+
+Suddenly, beyond the labyrinth I heard a golden sound, the sound of
+that blessed bell that once before rolled its waves of delight over my
+spirit. I stood leaning against a pillar, dissolved in its bewitching
+moans, luxuriating in the Agapamone of music breathed from the
+delirious bronze. I heard wafted from the mysterious temple the
+refrain of thousands of voices chanting a ritual of love and peace.
+The multitudinous sound seemed so soft and so thrilling, so powerful
+and so holy, that I was eager to know if such burden of love was the
+sorrowing passion of the twin-souls in honor of their dead goddess.
+
+I saw through the open doors of the temple a moving throng of
+twin-souls, swaying in masses hither and thither, with naked feet on
+the aquelium floor. On every forehead burned an electric star, giving
+a spectral flush to the scene. That was the singing multitude I had
+heard, the hierophants of the holy soul.
+
+As my eyes grew accustomed to the objects before me, I saw the
+interior of the temple, on whose sculptured walls and roof roses woven
+of smouldering electric fires revealed their burning bloom. Wires of
+platinum, terrelium, and aquelium had been woven into a filagree of
+roses, with leaves and stems made red hot by the electric current.
+High above the sculptured dado rose strange windows of illuminated
+glass, in colors sad and brilliant, made visible by thousands of
+electric lights hidden in the sculptured recesses behind each window.
+The subject of each jewelled pane was a tableau of reincarnation, in
+which the figures of sorcerers and magicians, robed in splendid
+attire, gave life to beings that had died.
+
+The frieze was one continual blaze of color, formed also of enamelled
+glass emblazoned with life-sized processional figures and illuminated
+with incandescent lights.
+
+In a distant part of the temple, on a terrelium pedestal, I again saw
+a monster of gold, with a terrible head and outstretched wings.
+
+As I surveyed this stupendous figure, I discovered that it held in
+its fore paws an immense helix of terrelium wire, ten feet in length
+and nine feet in diameter. One end of the wire was joined to ten
+thousand wires, whose extremities, terminating in terrelium wands,
+were held by the twin-souls. Each priest held a wand in his right
+hand, and each priestess a wand in her left, and their disengaged arms
+were wound around one another's waists.
+
+The other end of the voluminous wire forming the helix terminated in
+the rivet of an enormous spring that held a circular rheotome close to
+the circular mouth of the helix.
+
+On a pedestal level with the upheld battery, reached by a spiral
+stairway, stood the grand sorcerer Charka, robed in tissues of white
+silk and golden embroidery. An assistant priest turned a wheel that
+moved a screw point toward the spring of the rheotome. The moment the
+screw point touched the spring, the circular plate over the heart of
+the helix began to vibrate audibly. Another turn of the screw, and a
+vital thrill filled the temple with its sonorous music.
+
+I then knew that all that mysterious structure with its terrelium
+wires was an immense spiritual battery, charged with the life and love
+of ten thousand souls. The vital fluid, generated in the yearnings of
+ideal love, flooded the helix with its vitality and induced a
+magnetism of life that made the rheotome vibrate with emotion, until
+the whole temple shook with the thrilling sound.
+
+The priests and priestesses sang their ritournels of passion and love,
+and the grand sorcerer waved his wand over the monster's head. It was
+then the thought of Lyone filled my soul with a terrible yearning.
+
+Where was her hapless body? Was this feast of passion that I beheld
+her obsequies, or could it be some occult incantation to raise her
+from the dead?
+
+The thought fired my brain with madness! Oh, that it might be possible
+for her to live again, if only for one hour, that she might hear of
+victory! All at once I seemed to know that Lyone was laid in the heart
+of the helix held by the hehorrent. I knew, oh, I knew that the
+spectacle I beheld was the ceremony of reincarnation. I knew that the
+goddess was being swathed with currents of life from her votaries. How
+I blessed those living batteries, so faithful in their glorious work!
+How I blessed the adorable sorcerer who conducted this precious
+ministry of life, who focussed the love of thrilling souls upon the
+person of their goddess!
+
+I stood transfixed to the floor, watching with straining eyes those
+flamens of life perform their ritual of reincarnation. The air of the
+temple grew warm as blood, and infinitely holy. Soft and piercing
+music rose from unseen chambers of the temple, which, mingling with
+the blessed storm of life that beat upon the mouth of the helix,
+seemed to whirl away my senses.
+
+The first circle of souls around the dragon comprised the votaries of
+Bishano, or Sorcery; Hielano, or Magic; Nidialano, or Astrology;
+Padamano, or Soothsaying.
+
+The second circle embraced the adepts of Niano, or Witchcraft;
+Redohano, or Wizardry; Biccano, or the Oracle; Kielano, or Augury;
+Tocderano, or Prophecy; Jiracano, or Geomancy; Jocdilano, or
+Necromancy.
+
+The third circle embraced the hierophants of Orphitano, or
+Conjuration; Orielano, or Divination; Pridano, or Clairvoyance;
+Ecthyano, or Mesmerism; Cideshano, or Electro-Biology; Omdolophano, or
+Theosophy; Bishanamano, or Spiritualism.
+
+How shall I describe the spell of that hour? Glimmering figures, clad
+in robes of finest gossamer of the rarest colors, powderings and
+embroiderings, sang the songs of pained and enraptured sensibility.
+
+They loved, they wept, they supplicated Harikar!
+
+I saw twin-souls embrace in infinite tenderness, and again with
+ecstatic enthusiasm. It was a sea of supernatural emotion. It was an
+abyss of affection, filled with a whirlwind of bold, delicate,
+enormous love.
+
+A _religieuse_ of Tocderano shouted, "She will live again!"
+
+A priest of Biccano sang, "She will be born again of mystical,
+chivalrous love!"
+
+As the enraptured host sang of life and love, I felt a million
+exaggerations of the delicacies of emotion. I felt as though fanned
+with warm winds blowing over wildernesses of flowers. I heard the
+multiplied splendor of bells, roaring like the soft vociferations of
+far-off tropic seas. I heard music ineffably tender and sublime,
+wailing its intoxicating melodies. I saw strange illuminations
+dissolve in never-ceasing explosions of color on the glorified
+windows. I saw upon the floor endless arabesques of twin-souls,
+fantastically entangled and unrolled.
+
+Suddenly the temple shook with an explosion of sound that seemed the
+concentrated madness of drums and organs and bells; the roaring of the
+rheotome grew deafeningly louder, mingling with a strange shivering
+sound, such as is produced by the suddenly transfixed wheels of a
+flying locomotive, tearing the metals into a hissing blaze. From the
+mouth of the hehorrent streamed a blaze of fire. I looked where the
+sorcerer stood----
+
+Heavens and earth! He was holding Lyone in his arms, alive from the
+living battery! Lyone, the peerless soul of souls, alive once more and
+triumphant over death!
+
+The temple whirled around me rapid as fire, and I fell to the ground
+insensible with joy!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LV.
+
+LEXINGTON AND LYONE HAILED KING AND QUEEN OF ATVATABAR.
+
+
+The extraordinary scenes attending the reincarnation of Lyone had left
+me, when I returned to my senses, exhausted with emotion. It was
+gloriously true that she who was the Supreme Goddess, she who had
+suffered death in the fortress of Calnogor, had been restored to life
+by the powerful necromancy of the sorcerer and his college of
+twin-souls.
+
+I rushed forward in presence of the entire congregation and embraced
+in turn the radiant Lyone and the beloved Charka.
+
+I took her living figure in my arms. She was in a limp, tranquil
+condition, yet happily alive. The happy priests and priestesses
+shouted with enthusiasm: "Long live Lexington and Lyone, King and
+Queen of Atvatabar!"
+
+It was a blissful moment to us both. The future, that had lain under
+the terrors of death, now smiled again. I gazed upon my beloved's face
+with unspeakable tenderness. I saw that she smiled at me sweetly.
+
+Her apostasy was victorious, but who could have supposed that
+martyrdom and reincarnation were the path to glory? She had exchanged
+the crown of the goddess for that of a queen.
+
+[Illustration: HEAVENS AND EARTH! HE WAS HOLDING LYONE IN HIS ARMS,
+ALIVE FROM THE LIVING BATTERY! LYONE, THE PEERLESS SOUL OF SOULS,
+ALIVE ONCE MORE AND TRIUMPHANT OVER DEATH.]
+
+Handing my precious burden back to Charka again, I addressed the
+congregation as follows:
+
+"Priests and priestesses of Egyplosis, wayleals and amazons of the
+sacred and victorious army, I thank you from the depths of my heart
+for your loyal salutation, but I particularly thank the grand sorcerer
+Charka, and you his hierophants, for your glorious restoration of her
+majesty to life, king and crown, thus defeating the cowardly crime of
+the ex-king. By reason of our victory, their majesties King Bhoolmakar
+and Queen Toplissy of Atvatabar are deposed from the throne, and his
+ex-majesty, by reason of his great crime, is condemned to death.
+
+"The causes that led to this revolution are already known to you. The
+time was ripe for a reform in Egyplosis. Regulation and not
+suppression will be our aim, and they who have helped us to this great
+conquest will not go unrewarded.
+
+"After her tremendous experiences, the queen will require a season of
+absolute rest to restore her to perfect health. I will intrust the
+task of establishing a reform of Egyplosis in competent hands,
+assisted by a council of your own representatives. The present crisis
+is too overwhelmingly happy to permit me to say more to you. On
+another occasion I will thank you more effectively."
+
+This speech was received with enthusiastic applause.
+
+On a litter, supported by six twin-souls, Lyone was tenderly borne out
+of the temple. We departed amid joyful peans of music, our pathway
+being strewn with flowers. We reached the supernal palace, and saw
+from every roof floating the flag of Lyone, in token of our victory.
+
+In her palace, on a couch of pale green velvet, lay the reincarnated
+form of Lyone, filled with a sense of luxurious rest. The experiences
+of the past few days demanded a period of profound repose. Her face
+wore a blessed and triumphant smile. She had paid with suffering for
+that Nirvana of joy. With reincarnation, or rather resurrection, had
+come a holier transfiguration of form and face. She was still too weak
+physically to discuss at length the great changes that had come to her
+or to the history of Atvatabar.
+
+She was the symbol of the more sensitive souls of humanity, who,
+capable of intense suffering and delirious rapture, must needs
+purchase all their joys with heart-rending experiences. The culture
+that comes from agony is our most priceless possession, and brings the
+soul to every feast, as well as the body. The body, daily slain by
+suffering, is resurrected with a purer flesh, and receives a
+reincarnated soul fitted for ideal delights. It has attained a
+measure of Nirvana. It anticipates immortality by reason of suffering
+and love. Lyone had more than all achieved an ideal existence. Before
+she would be able to return again to the realities of the world, it
+was necessary that time should be given her for physical and spiritual
+invigoration.
+
+"I feel neither pain nor fatigue," said Lyone; "my senses seemed
+drowned in a delicious rest. You tell me that I have been dead and
+brought to life again, and although I have no sense of having passed
+through the agony, I must believe you. I remember touching a golden
+vase of flowers in my prison, and then all became a blank until I
+stood with the grand sorcerer in the temple of reincarnation."
+
+"That vase you touched," said I, "was connected with a powerful magnic
+battery, which was placed in your apartment by the king's order, to
+kill you. Grasnagallipas, leader of the king's bockhockids, on
+learning of his royal master's treachery, immediately transferred his
+allegiance and important command to our army, and was mainly
+instrumental in securing the victory."
+
+"So our cause has triumphed," said Lyone; "and what has become of the
+king?"
+
+"The king," I replied, "is king no more. I am King of Atvatabar and
+you are my beloved queen."
+
+Lyone turned aside her face and wept tears of joy.
+
+"Our marriage," I added, "will inaugurate the reign of a religion of
+wedded love, and you will sit with me as queen on the throne of
+Atvatabar."
+
+"That will be glorious," said Lyone, "but I fear our marriage will
+also end ideal love and sorcery, and the Nirvana of a hundred years,
+the fairest products of Egyplosis."
+
+"Do you see now," I said, "that ideal joys in the world can only be
+built on more extensive miseries? It would be a glorious thing to
+build houses of jewels, but so long as real jewels are so rare, we
+must be content with rocks. Still, there are jewels, and in Atvatabar
+I learn they are much more abundant than on the outer planet;
+therefore it might be proper for twin-souls to walk on love's
+enchanted ground for a brief though definite period."
+
+Lyone had undergone transfiguration. Beautiful as a spirit, her figure
+seemed plastic porcelain. Death had made more luminous the splendid
+sculpture of her face. As she spoke, it seemed to me that we had
+closed the door on the infelicitous experiences of actual life, and
+were opening the gates of a more glorious day.
+
+I informed Lyone of the arrival of the two vessels from the outer
+world, and of the great services of Captain Adams and Sir John Forbes
+in turning the tide of battle by sea in our favor. She was delighted
+at the prospect of meeting fresh visitors from the outer world, and in
+due time Captain Adams and Sir John Forbes and their entire ships'
+companies stood before her who was delighted with the fuller
+acquaintance thus made with the people of the outer world. Both the
+captains and their officers realized her ideal of exotic manhood,
+which combined stalwart proportions with intellectual benignity of
+face.
+
+Sir John Forbes was very complimentary in his praise of the grace and
+beauty of Lyone and her associates among the priestesses of Egyplosis.
+He considered Lyone to possess spiritual beauty to an extraordinary
+degree. The wonderful pale-gold of her complexion was in marked
+contrast to the old-gold complexion of the women of Atvatabar. He also
+praised the splendid beauty of Zooly-Soase and Thoubool, who were
+indeed magnificent women.
+
+My success encouraged the strangers to consider that conquest in other
+realms of Plutusia would be an easy accomplishment, especially if
+armed with such weapons as those possessed by the sailors of the
+_Polar King_. But even admitting superiority of weapons, they thought
+it a marvellous thing that one small vessel with but eighty men could
+conquer fifty millions of people.
+
+In my own mind I thought it possible that the _Polar King_ might
+conquer still greater kingdoms, and that in time I might be Plutarch
+of Plutusia. But in such business one realm at a time is enough. I
+suggested to our visitors that there were at least twenty realms, each
+as large as Atvatabar, in this interior planet, that would give them
+opportunity for adventure.
+
+"We also wish," said I, "both the United States and England to know
+that our ports are open for commerce, and foreign trade is welcome to
+seek our shores. We have gold enough to enrich all comers from the
+outer world."
+
+The eyes of our visitors and their officers glistened at this
+intelligence. And well they might, for Atvatabar was worth a thousand
+realms like Golconda or Peru. We had wealth for literature and
+science, art and commerce, which rightly used would make Atvatabar the
+wonder of the ages, a realm of palaces and temples, the fountain of
+wisdom, the mother of art, and its commerce would make both the earths
+rich beyond the dreams of fortune. I was determined that the royal
+magnificence of the thrones of all time on either surface of the earth
+should be outrivalled by the supreme glory of that of Atvatabar. I
+knew there was an inspiration to human endeavor that magnificence
+alone can give, and would use my wealth to advance the happiness of
+humanity.
+
+Lyone being at last fully restored to health, we determined to delay
+no longer the important ceremonies of our royal marriage and
+coronation, not only to complete our happiness, but to really
+establish the government on a personal basis so agreeable to the
+wishes and customs of the people.
+
+Lyone's aerial yacht was made ready for the journey to Calnogor. It
+was large enough to carry the captains, officers, and men of the
+_Mercury_ and _Aurora Borealis_, the captain, officers, and men of the
+_Polar King_, as well as Lyone and myself and the great officers of
+state and retinue. All being safely on board, I gave the signal for
+flight, and in a moment we were launched on the air with tremendous
+speed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LVI.
+
+OUR RECEPTION IN CALNOGOR.
+
+
+The royal city of Calnogor never contained such splendor, such
+importance of historic event, nor such a multitude of people, as on
+the occasion of the triple event of our marriage, our coronation, and
+the reception of the distinguished strangers from beyond the Polar
+Gulf. How shall the glory of that day be described? What occult power
+must animate the pen that must be at once the stylus of a poet, the
+brush of a painter, and the wand of a magician, to do justice to the
+splendid theme?
+
+The entire army, composed of half a million wayleals, had come from
+Calnogor to Kioram to escort the aerial ship containing myself, Lyone,
+and the distinguished strangers, together with our retinue and the
+sailors from America and Great Britain. On either side of the ship the
+army was massed in two equal hosts, waving a million of wings. Either
+army was led by a phalanx of flying bockhockids, led by Yermoul and
+Grasnagallipas. A body-guard of wayleals bore fifty gigantic golden
+sceptres, being the ensigns of sovereignty over the fifty provinces of
+the kingdom.
+
+All the way to Calnogor, five hundred miles distant, the army
+performed the most incredible evolutions to the measured thunders of
+music. Its legions massed themselves in ever-whirling globes,
+undulating all along the line of flight like monstrous serpents.
+
+Again, mighty cones of wayleals would stream from our yacht on both
+sides, upward and backward, like a blaze of comet splendor.
+
+Then, suddenly, globes of wayleals would surround us, globe within
+globe flying alternately in different directions; and we seemed to
+move on the centre of another earth.
+
+To describe the endless flight and counter-flight, the concentration
+and radiation of the wayleals in grand review, would be impossible.
+Captain Adams and Sir John Forbes were astounded at the extraordinary
+evolutions possible to winged men in a world where there is
+practically no gravity. The army moved in Dædalian march; it was at
+times sinuous with labyrinthic movement to the sound of drums and the
+roar of bugles. The wayleals formed arches and crowns, conchoidal
+convolutions, zones and wheels, hemispheres and globes, cones and
+pyramids. The yacht was clothed with sublime torsions, peristaltic
+splendors, and immense radiations of living bodies. It was the
+grandest movement of men ever seen on earth.
+
+We were again completely surrounded by a single globe of wayleals, in
+the centre of which moved the yacht with fearful speed. The globe
+moved as fast as we, and the living shell obliterated both earth and
+sun from, sight. Then, with a roar of artillery, the globe exploded,
+and lo! before us the infinite golden dome of the Bormidophia, the
+marble city of Calnogor, and dense multitudes of excited people!
+
+The city was decorated with the conquering flag of Lyone and with
+flowers; and the inscriptions on the triumphal arches were: "Long live
+Lexington and Lyone, King and Queen of Atvatabar!"
+
+The entire army, augmented by the allegiance of the defeated king's
+troops, headed by the supreme general Hushnoly, received us at the
+entrance to the city.
+
+Pending the reconstruction of the government, law and order were being
+administered by Hushnoly, assisted by a military council consisting of
+all the victorious leaders.
+
+The festivities incidental to our entry into Calnogor and the public
+rejoicings over the reincarnation of Lyone lasted several days. I took
+occasion at a reception at the royal palace to confer suitable honors
+and rewards on my victorious generals. I created the supreme general
+Hushnoly a noble of the first rank under the title of Goiloor, or Duke
+of Calnogor, and confirmed his authority as commander-in-chief of the
+army, and Zooly-Soase was also created Goiloose of Calnogor. General
+Gerolio was created Boiroon of Swerga, an inland city, and appointed
+vice-commander to Hushnoly. General Rackiron was made Goiloor of
+Swondab, and his appointment as general of the royal artillery was
+confirmed. General Ladalmir was made Goiloor of Kioram and commandant
+of the fortress. General Yermoul, who retired from the army, was made
+Goiloor of Gnaphisthasia. The grand sorcerer Charka was made Goiloor,
+and the grand sorceress Goiloose of Egyplosis, while Grasnagallipas
+was created Boiroon of Invention and General of the Royal Bockhockids.
+
+General Starbottle was made Goiloor of Savasse, a province of the
+kingdom, and Prime Minister of the government. General Goldrock, who
+was now fully recovered from his wounded leg, was made Royal Treasurer
+and Goiloor of Blindis, a distant city. Dr. Merryferry was made
+Minister of Foreign Affairs; General Nototherboc, Minister of Naval
+Affairs; General Pra, Chief of Police; and General Flathootly,
+Minister of War.
+
+I assumed the title of "His Majesty Lexington, King of Atvatabar," and
+Lyone that of "Her Majesty Lyone, Queen of Atvatabar," of equal
+authority and dignity to myself.
+
+I issued a decree confirming all titles and dignities for the life of
+the recipient only. As a man cannot transfer his character or
+abilities to his children, more especially the virtues that made him
+famous, so neither could he transfer his titles or dignities to
+posterity; and a man who had no other claims to greatness than the
+plumes he had borrowed from his father, should be despised for
+strutting in artificial glory.
+
+The Borodemy was maintained, and no restriction of popular or
+constitutional liberty already enjoyed by the people was permitted.
+All titles given to men who were simply fortunate enough to receive a
+majority of votes, making them representatives of the people in the
+Borodemy, were abolished, and men only were honored by virtue of great
+services accomplished. All members of the Borodemy were paid liberal
+salaries, on the principle that a prince had no more right to an
+appropriation from the public purse than a legislator. All public
+measures adopted by the Borodemy were subject to the veto of the Royal
+Council, composed of the king, queen, and actual members of the
+government.
+
+I need not say that the victory of Lyone over death and the fact of
+our army having conquered in battle gave us unlimited power. I was the
+supreme lord of Atvatabar; but, nevertheless, in the hour of triumph I
+determined to use my power for the good of the people. The sensation
+caused by the return of Lyone to life had stirred all Atvatabar with
+feelings of the profoundest awe and loyalty. Vast crowds of people
+came as pilgrims to see their queen and offer congratulations.
+
+Had the old creed, with its worship of Lyone and Harikar, not fallen
+with the success of our arms, Lyone would undoubtedly have been
+worshipped anew as goddess more devotedly than ever; but the
+revolution being founded on antagonism of the old faith to social
+welfare and the laws of nature, a new creed must necessarily take its
+place.
+
+The new creed of one body and one soul was based on order, truth,
+justice, benevolence and temperance. This I styled the Remeliora, or
+better thing to that which had gone before. The new creed gave the
+soul mastery of its feelings, and love was measured by a regular
+throb. Souls becoming stronger and more masculine were the better able
+to bear the pulsations of joy and despair. They could sustain their
+emotions with a cordial enthusiasm, and passion, no longer a frantic
+flame, became a soft and abiding fire.
+
+I appointed the grand sorcerer Pontiff of Remeliorism, giving him
+authority to formulate a code of ethics that all could adhere to. With
+such a code as a solid foundation, I hoped in time to establish a
+purer faith than that possessing only the human soul for its deity.
+
+Not many days after our coming to Calnogor, and while still engaged in
+settling the government of the kingdom, we received a visit from
+Hushnoly and Zooly-Soase. It was with feelings of pain that we heard
+the object of the supreme general's visit.
+
+With a voice softened with emotion Hushnoly told his story. In
+carrying out the reforms at Egyplosis made necessary by the success of
+the army of the late goddess, a great difficulty presented itself. It
+was found that, notwithstanding the fact that all of the priests and
+priestesses had fought for Lyone and the new faith, as against the old
+order of things, nearly one-half of the twin-souls were still at heart
+as great devotees of Harikar and hopeless love as ever, while the
+remaining half had renounced the practices of Egyplosis in common with
+their queen. It was found impossible to change the faith of the entire
+priesthood in a moment, so to speak, and many still believed that the
+old faith possessed fruits of self-sacrifice, culture, spirit-power,
+and the ideal life, such as the new state of things would utterly
+destroy. Hushnoly and the high priestess were in sympathy with the
+adherents of the ancient faith, and they too believed in sacrificing
+marital rights for the sake of the ideal existence.
+
+The revelation of such a spiritual revolt in Egyplosis, headed, too,
+by the man and woman who had sacrificed so much for the cause of Lyone
+and myself, revealed human nature in a new light, while it astounded
+us. I had foolishly supposed the supremacy of the sword could carry
+dominion into spiritual things, and that Egyplosis was wholly
+converted to the new faith, to Remeliorism.
+
+The situation was extremely painful.
+
+"Supreme general and high priestess," I said, "both her majesty Lyone
+and myself are greatly indebted to your courage and support in the
+late struggle; a support heroically given us in spite of your own
+secret faith. Is there no way by which you might be reconciled, both
+of you, to the new order of things?"
+
+"We fear not, your majesty," said Hushnoly.
+
+"Will riches, will honors not tempt you?"
+
+"Your majesty, we cannot be tempted," replied he.
+
+"You are doubtless aware," I continued, "that it would be impossible
+for the government to recognize, much less give support to, a system
+of faith for the destruction of which the war was carried on. Much as
+we love you, much as we love the priests and priestesses, we cannot
+give allegiance to the old faith, We cannot, we dare not countenance
+your creed. It will be therefore impossible for yourselves or your
+people to remain at Egyplosis, which will be the chief shrine of the
+new faith hereafter."
+
+"We have already anticipated all this," said Hushnoly, "and do not
+propose even to remain in Atvatabar."
+
+"And where do you go to?" said Lyone, in astonishment.
+
+"Well, your majesty," replied he, "we have determined to take
+possession of the sphere Hilar, one of the untenanted spheres above
+us, and there create an ideal world. Thus we will relieve your majesty
+of all embarrassment and remove any obstacle in the way of religious
+or political reform."
+
+I was bewildered by the reply of Hushnoly, as I had never before heard
+of any one desiring to dwell on the wandering sphere Hilar, and begged
+an explanation.
+
+"Hilar, as your majesty is probably aware," said Hushnoly, "is a
+sphere twenty-five miles in diameter that floats in space at a
+distance of fifty miles from the surface of Atvatabar. It revolves on
+its own axis at the rate of a mile an hour, making a complete
+revolution in seventy-five hours. It also revolves around Swang once
+during a hundred aerial revolutions, or in one hundred of its days. It
+has tropic, temperate, and frigid zones, with perpetual ice capping
+its poles. It contains one ocean of irregular outline and has one
+continent. The areas of land and water are about equal. There are two
+mountain ranges, turning from a given centre of upheaval and
+determining the configuration of the land. There are one hundred
+islands in the sea and a dozen rivers on the land. In fact, it seems
+to be a facsimile in climate, geologic, and physiographical conditions
+to the outer world you have come from; and on such a sphere we propose
+to build a new throne for Harikar, and seat thereon another goddess
+like the virtuous and glorious Lyone."
+
+"Ah," said Lyone, "I know who that other goddess will be--she will be
+the fair Zooly-Soase."
+
+The high priestess blushed in her robe of crimson silk, making her
+golden beauty superb and precious. As for Hushnoly, it was evident the
+destiny of his counterpart soul was already fully anticipated. Her
+ascension to the throne of a goddess would virtually make him ruler of
+Hilar.
+
+"We desire, your majesty," said he, "to resign our titles and offices
+of high priest and priestess of Egyplosis and supreme general and
+general of the amazons of the royal army of Atvatabar. Our only
+request is that we be allowed to depart to Hilar, together with such
+of the priests and priestesses of Harikar as are willing to follow us
+thither. Also, that all new converts to Harikar desirous of emigrating
+to our spiritual kingdom will be secured freedom of departure from
+Atvatabar for all time hereafter."
+
+I willingly granted Hushnoly and Zooly-Soase their request, and added:
+"You both shall be promptly and liberally rewarded for the great
+services rendered your king and queen in time of war, as well as
+recompensed for past services to the country in Egyplosis and for loss
+of estate in Atvatabar."
+
+I promised to issue a royal decree embodying all of the aforesaid
+liberties and bounties in favor of Hushnoly and his fair consort and
+their followers. The late high priest and high priestess, with
+grateful, cordial adieus, departed from the audience-chamber.
+
+I thereupon appointed General Rackiron the commander-in-chief of the
+army in place of Hushnoly, with General Gerolio the vice-commander.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LVII.
+
+THE COMBINED CEREMONY OF MARRIAGE AND CORONATION.
+
+
+The day of our marriage and coronation as king and queen of Atvatabar
+at length arrived. The scene in the Bormidophia was of surpassing
+magnificence. For the first time in history Lyone sat before the
+throne of the gods not as goddess, but as queen; and I, her compeer,
+as king sat beside her. Lyone was attired in a loosely-fitting robe of
+old-ivory silk, over which was an outer network of lace formed of
+thread of gold, the design being a golden sun on the breast, which,
+with its long streaming rays, was held together by a golden cobweb
+that covered the entire figure of the queen. She also wore her belt of
+jewels. Beside her stood a page bearing her crown as Queen of
+Atvatabar. For myself I had caused to be made a knightly suit of
+golden armor that shone mightily as I wore it on that eventful
+occasion.
+
+The priestesses of Egyplosis, taught by a priest of decorative art
+from Gnaphisthasia, had been for some time engaged in creating a
+tapestry of lace, wrought with a thread of heavy bullion gold, as a
+bridal gift to their queen. The design took the form of a winged
+twin-soul in loving converse, in the centre, surrounded by
+Atvatabarese arabesque--all held together by a most poetic fancy of
+floral scrolls and formed of gold thread lace work. This enormous
+piece of work was twelve feet in width, seventy-five feet in length,
+and four inches in thickness. The gold used in its marvellous
+intricacies weighed five tons. Such was the glorious piece of tapestry
+that was hung over the side of the throne, and which, reaching
+downward three-fourths of its height, concealed a considerable part of
+the august structure.
+
+Around us swept the amphitheatre, filled with the leaders of the army
+and navy, the great officers of government, and the people of
+Atvatabar. Surrounding the base of the throne, sat those priests and
+priestesses of Egyplosis who had embraced the new faith of "one body
+and one soul."
+
+The pontiff Charka performed the marriage ceremony when the roar of
+guns had subsided. He performed his august duties sustained by the
+splendors of music and the adoration of the people.
+
+"Wilt thou have this woman, Lyone, Queen of Atvatabar, to be thy wife
+until death, according to the customs of our people and not according
+to the customs of Egyplosis?"
+
+"I will."
+
+"Wilt thou have this man, Lexington, King of Atvatabar, to be thy
+husband until death, according to the new faith of 'one body and one
+soul?'"
+
+"I will."
+
+The deed was done. Around the throne swept a cyclone of twin-souls
+resolved on matrimony. In their bewildering flight they became radiant
+with strange transformations of feeling and gesture, and their songs
+symbolized the intensity of the great crisis that had arrived in the
+history of the nation.
+
+All around the amphitheatre rose the enormous multitude, as one soul,
+shouting their joy. The guns of the fortress volleyed their thunders,
+and the first act of the great drama ended amid the shouting of armed
+hosts, the singing of twin-souls, and the hosannas of the multitude.
+
+The second scene was perhaps still more impressive. The grand
+chamberlain of the palace Cleperelyum had put into his phonograph
+beside us a coil containing the charter of coronation. Fitting a
+megaphone to the phonograph, there issued the following proclamation
+from the instrument, like a blast of music:
+
+     _Charter of Coronation of Their Majesties_ LEXINGTON _and_
+     LYONE, _King and Queen of Atvatabar_.
+
+     The crown and throne of the realm of Atvatabar, heretofore
+     possessed in the persons of their ex-majesties King
+     Aldemegry Bhoolmakar and Queen Toplissy, being now declared
+     vacant by reason of the desertion, flight, deposition, and
+     defeat of said ex-majesties, and said crown and throne of
+     Atvatabar being now possessed, both by conquest and by will
+     of the people, in the persons of their majesties Lexington
+     and Lyone, King and Queen of Atvatabar, now, therefore, we,
+     the priests, nobles, statesmen, and commanders of army and
+     navy, as representatives of the people, do hereby confirm
+     said possession of the crown and throne of this realm, by
+     placing upon the head of Lexington and upon the head of
+     Lyone their respective crowns as King and Queen of
+     Atvatabar, and do hereby render both king and queen equal
+     loyalty, fealty, and homage, as the true and rightful
+     sovereigns of Atvatabar.
+
+(Signed)
+
+STARBOTTLE, _Goiloor of Calnogor, First Minister of the Government_.
+
+CHARKA, _Pontiff of Remeliorism, Goiloor of Egyplosis_.
+
+THOUBOOL, _Goiloose of Egyplosis_.
+
+RACKIRON, _Goiloor of Swondab, Commander-in-Chief of the Army_.
+
+WALLACE, _Admiral of the Fleet_.
+
+YERMOUL, _Lord of Art, Goiloor of Gnaphisthasia_.
+
+GRASNAGALLIPAS, _Commander-in-Chief of Bockhockids_.
+
+LADALMIR, _Goiloor of Kioram_.
+
+PRA, _Minister of Police_.
+
+NOTOTHERBOC, _Minister of Naval Affairs_.
+
+GOLDROCK, _Royal Treasurer_.
+
+DR. MERRYFERRY, _Minister of Foreign Affairs_.
+
+FLATHOOTLY, _Minister of War_.
+
+GEROLIO, _Vice-Commander of the Army_.
+
+COLTONOBORY, _Vice-Commander of Bockhockids_.
+
+[Illustration: WE SAT THUS CROWNED AMID THE TREMENDOUS EXCITEMENT. THE
+PEOPLE SHOUTED "LIFE, HEALTH, AND PROSPERITY, TO OUR SOVEREIGN LORD
+AND LADY, LEXINGTON AND LYONE, KING AND QUEEN OF ATVATABAR."]
+
+During the declamation of the megaphone the pontiff Charka raised the
+crown to my head, while his consort Thoubool raised the crown of the
+queen to Lyone's head. We sat thus crowned amid the tremendous
+excitement. The guns of the fortress shook the Bormidophia with their
+explosions. The people shouted: "Life, health, and prosperity to our
+sovereign lord and lady, Lexington and Lyone, King and Queen of
+Atvatabar!" Men heard no sweeter music than the coronation march
+executed by a thousand instruments. I realized as I sat with Lyone
+beneath the throne of the gods a portion of that immeasurable feeling
+of being universally exalted, universally loved, universally adored.
+It is true, the fervor of idolatry for Lyone had largely subsided, but
+in its stead came a more perfect loyalty of soul and body on the part
+of priest and priestess. Souls that had balanced themselves, as it
+were, on the edge of a sword, once more stood on the solid earth.
+
+The magnificence of royalty, which kings born to the purple but rarely
+feel, was ours. Our sudden good fortune unveiled to us the splendors
+of power, and riches, and honor. The people themselves, enchanted with
+the product of their own abnegation, made their obeisance to us as to
+gods.
+
+Lyone grew perceptibly paler with the intensity of her excitement; her
+breast rose and fell more rapidly, as the soarings of song told her
+that her supreme realization of life and fortune as goddess had not
+wholly died with her apostasy, but that a new life no less glorious
+had begun.
+
+As for myself, seated on the focus of human endeavor, it thrilled me
+to think what power of realization I possessed for things I had
+considered impossible and unattainable. I determined that art should
+sound the abysses of the inexpressible and bring from thence radiant
+symbols of all things, clothed with imagination and emotion. Invention
+would still further extend man's empire over matter. Soul-culture and
+spirit-power would be cultivated in a reformed Egyplosis. Lyone,
+mystical and divine, would ever rule queen of hearts with the sorcery
+of her beauty.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LVIII.
+
+THE DEATH OF BHOOLMAKAR.
+
+
+General Flathootly, with his command of 10,000 fletyemings, who was
+ordered to pursue and capture the ex-king Bhoolmakar, returned to
+Calnogor after a month's absence to report the death of King
+Bhoolmakar and Koshnili, together with several hundred of their
+followers, and the capture of several thousand wayleals as prisoners.
+
+At a special interview with the general I requested him to report the
+story of his defeat of the king's troops and the death of the king.
+
+"Well, yer majesty," said Flathootly, "Oi must first of all
+congratulate you on ascendin' the throne of the inimy. It was the
+shmartest bit of work Oi've seen iver since Oi lift the other
+wurruld."
+
+"The troops behaved nobly," I said, "but I am all anxiety to hear how
+you captured the king."
+
+"Well, thin, yer majesty, Oi kim up to him at a place called Gapthis,
+about 1,500 miles from here, away beyant on the wild say-shore."
+
+"Had he a large force with him?" I asked.
+
+"Bedad an' he had. He had a body-guard of about 5,000 wayleals, but
+shure, we made short work of the flyin' sojers."
+
+"Well, tell me exactly what happened," I said.
+
+"Troth, an' Oi will, yer majesty; shure our flyin' sailors are darlin'
+fellows! We skirmished up to the inimy until we got him between us an'
+the say an' thin we fell to. The bloody rascals tried to spear us, an'
+did kill about a dozen or two of the bhoys, but we touched thim up
+lively wid our pitchforks, an' begorra they didn't loike that at all,
+at all.
+
+"A wee red-faced captain called out that they were goin' to fight for
+their king to the last. 'How long are ye goin' to last yerself,
+sonny?' says Oi, an' afore the words were out of me mouth somebody
+laid the wee fellow out as nate as a funeral. Well, we fell upon thim
+front an' rear, as the sayin' is, an' be jabers, Oi killed a man wid
+the first blow.
+
+"'Walk right into thim!' Oi shouted, an' there we wor, fightin' an'
+slashin' an' killin' wan another as if it wor a mere matther of
+business. If the king's sojers flew up, why, we flew up too, an'
+chased thim down ag'in. It was loike a pandemonium of fightin' cocks.
+
+"There was a big fellow who made a slash at me wid his sword, but Oi
+lifted him on me fork, an' he very nicely showed me the whites of his
+eyes. The best part of the performance was ould Bhooly, who had
+himself in the middle of his body-guard, an', waving a toy sword,
+asked his kind friends to kill us.
+
+"Well, to make a long shtory short, the inimy being very badly beaten,
+threw up their arms, an' we captured the entire lot, excipt about five
+hundred wayleals who flew away as fast as their heels cud carry thim."
+
+"How did the king conduct himself when captured?" I inquired.
+
+"He came up to me, an' bowin' very nicely, offered me his sword. He
+said he was glad to surrender to a brave gineral an' hoped Oi would
+give him the honors of war.
+
+"'Be jabers, Oi will that,' said Oi; 'but that'll be afther we thry ye
+by coort-martial. But where's Mrs. Bhooly?' says Oi.
+
+"'Does your excellency mean her late majesty?' said Bhooly; 'if so, Oi
+regret to say the unhappy fate which has overtaken both myself and my
+counthry prostrated her so much that she died.'
+
+"'Well, thin,' said Oi, 'where's that other conspirator, Koshnili?'
+
+"'Oi am here, your excellency,' said he, steppin' forward an' handin'
+me his sword, 'an' Oi also surrender.'
+
+"'You do well,' said Oi, 'to give up yer sword, for it saves me the
+throuble of takin' it from you.
+
+"'An' now, me rascals,' Oi said, 'we're goin' to save the throuble of
+lookin' afther you by thryin' you by coort-martial. Let the coort be
+formed,' said Oi, 'an' bring forth the prisoners.' The king's sojers
+were disarmed, an' their wings taken off, an' were assimbled in a
+circle undher guard. Bhooly an' Koshnili, undher a special guard,
+stood in the middle of the ring.
+
+"'Now, bhoys,' said Oi, 'fair play an' no favor. Who has got a charge
+agin' the prisoners?' Wid that, wan of me min stepped forward an' said
+that Bhooly an' Koshnili had organized resistance to a change of
+government an' religion, thereby blockin' the wheels of reform, an'
+furthermore had conspired to murdher, an', be jabers, did murdher, her
+holiness the goddess, of blessed memory, who, although alive ag'in,
+was undoubtedly kilt.
+
+"When Bhooly an' Koshnili heard that the goddess was alive ag'in their
+knees knocked together wid fear.
+
+"'This is a terrible charge agin' ye both,' said Oi. 'Oi don't know
+which offince is the greatest--killin' a dacent goddess or blockin'
+the wheels of reform; annyhow, the wan crime is as bad as the other.
+Who supports this charge?' Oi added in thunderin' tones.
+
+"Well, ivery sojer on the spot volunteered to give evidence as to the
+blockin' of the wheels of reform, but nobody saw the murdher
+committed.
+
+"'Now,' said Oi, addressin' the prisoners, 'did yez murdher the
+goddess or did yez not? By yer sowls, tell the truth. Guilty or not
+guilty?'
+
+"'Guilty,' said both prisoners.
+
+"'Thin, by yer own mouths be ye condimned,' said Oi. 'The sintince of
+this coort is that ye both be beheaded on the mortal spot.'"
+
+"I think, Flathootly," said I, "that you rather exceeded your duty in
+so hastily condemning the prisoners. You should have brought them to
+Calnogor for proper trial and execution."
+
+"Shure, Oi knew that, but, to tell yer majesty the truth, it wudn't
+have added to yer credit to have ordhered the execution of Bhooly, an'
+so Oi took the responsibility of the whole thing on meself. Oi made
+Bhooly an' Koshnili kneel down, an' a sojer tied their hands behind
+their backs. Then Oi ordhered a wayleal to behead thim wid their own
+swords. Afther some hot work the heads av both murdherers rolled on
+the ground."
+
+"Why didn't you shoot them or kill them at once with your spears?"
+
+"Oi considered it too aisy a death for thim. Oi didn't want thim to
+die widout knowin' they were gittin' hurt."
+
+I forgave Flathootly his too hasty execution of the ex-king, as he had
+undoubtedly saved me a very disagreeable duty, and the hasty taking
+off of his ex-majesty prevented any demonstration in his favor.
+
+[Illustration: I MADE BHOOLY AN' KOSHNILI KNEEL DOWN AN' A SOJER TIED
+THEIR HANDS BEHIND THEIR BACKS. THEN I ORDHERED A WAYLEAL TO BEHEAD
+THEM WID THEIR OWN SWORDS.]
+
+To assure the people of my anxiety for a popular government, I issued
+a proclamation ordering a general election, to create a new
+Borodemy in place of the assembly whose members had disappeared, or
+were made prisoners of war, or were dead. In thus providing for a
+constitutional government, I granted the nation not only all its
+ancient privileges, but added new and more important measures of
+political liberty.
+
+As the revenues of Atvatabar amounted to $8,000,000,000 per annum,
+there was no danger of myself or comrades of the _Polar King_ falling
+short of handsome revenues.
+
+The re-establishment of the government, the reorganization of the
+army, navy, and police, together with the care of the palaces of
+Calnogor and Tanje and the new ritual for the Bormidophia and
+Egyplosis, occupied my attention for a longer period than I at first
+contemplated. While these things were being accomplished I gave a
+grand public reception and royal banquet to Captain Adams and Sir John
+Forbes and the officers and seamen of the ships _Mercury_ and _Aurora
+Borealis_, in acknowledgment of their great services to our cause. At
+the same time I did not forget to give our friends a more solid proof
+of my gratitude in the shape of a large bounty in gold.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LIX.
+
+THE HISTORY CONCLUDED.
+
+
+I think it is right that I should conclude the history of the conquest
+of Atvatabar with my being crowned king of the realm.
+
+I at once assumed my functions as ruler of Atvatabar. I was supreme
+commander of the army and grand admiral of the fleet. In council with
+the ministers of the government appointed by the Borodemy, I caused
+the adoption of many beneficent laws, calculated to make my people
+prosperous and happy.
+
+Hushnoly soon departed, with his retinue of twin-souls, to found a new
+Egyplosis on the sphere of Hilar, with Zooly-Soase as goddess. It was
+with great grief that I parted with these beloved friends. Hushnoly
+and his flock were not to be persuaded that nature herself was hostile
+to their esoteric practices; so, to avoid antagonism, it was best that
+we should part. I promised Hushnoly that, together with Lyone, I would
+visit his globe some time in the future and see how his colony
+progressed. He was an enthusiast who required a great many defeats
+from fortune before he could see the fatal defects of his social and
+religious system.
+
+The grand sorcerer, as the pontiff of Remeliorism, or the ethics of
+nature, achieved a triumph in restoring Egyplosis to the reign of
+order, truth, justice, benevolence, and temperance. In time I hoped to
+see the Christian faith rule the souls of those who had so recently
+worshipped themselves under the guise of Harikar, the universal human
+soul. I was anxious to see men and women possessing that serene poise
+of passion that alone can sustain virile action. Lyone herself was the
+first to be convinced that the human soul, with its limitations, its
+narrowness, its impatience, its selfishness, its arrogance, its
+cruelty, was a very inferior deity. It was true that rare ideal joys
+might be purchased for a brief time under the old _régime_, but they
+were only purchased at an immense price, out of all proportion to the
+value received, and their possession produced a sickly sublimity
+totally unfitting the soul for the practical duties of life.
+
+Captain Adams and Sir John Forbes, excited at my good fortune,
+declared themselves anxious, with my consent, to explore the further
+hemisphere of the interior planet, in the interests of science,
+discovery, commerce, and possibly conquest. They were anxious to
+discover the continents that lie above and beyond Atvatabar,
+surrounded by unknown Plutusian seas, and bear to their respective
+countries some signal trophies of their daring and prowess in the
+internal world.
+
+It was arranged that on their return to Kioram, the _Polar King_, with
+myself and Lyone on board, should sail with the _Mercury_ and _Aurora
+Borealis_ for the United States. The sailing of the three vessels up
+New York Bay would be a historic event, and great would be the
+curiosity of the American people to see the Goddess of Atvatabar and
+our retinue of wayleals as proof of the existence of Bilbimtesirol,
+the interior world.
+
+And now, my dear reader, we must part for the present. By a change of
+plans on the part of Captain Adams, the _Mercury_, the vessel that
+will bear the manuscript of my adventures in the interior world, is
+already waiting to start on her voyage. I regret that many strange
+things have been left unsaid. Many extraordinary experiences have been
+omitted, because I am desirous that this brief history of the
+happiness that befell me and my devoted sailors in Atvatabar should
+be published without delay, to allay the natural curiosity excited in
+the outer world by the story of our discovery of Plutusia.
+
+You may possibly feel a desire to know the future fortunes of Queen
+Lyone and myself in a part of the world hitherto undreamed of, and
+when I again address you I hope to describe our future experiences on
+the throne of Atvatabar. We purpose to apply a liberal portion of the
+vast wealth of our kingdom to the pursuit of invention, art, and
+spirituality, preserving and enlarging the existing palaces of
+invention and art and the palaces of Egyplosis as institutions for the
+development of the soul and its attributes of spirit power. It will be
+our purpose to extend to the utmost limits the empire of mind over
+matter in developing invention. In art, we will, by means of its
+manifold radiant symbols, reproduce every idea of the soul shaped by
+sentiment and imagination, and in sounding the abysses of the heart
+express what is considered the inexpressible.
+
+In spirituality, the science and art of soul and its manifestations in
+the body, and after the temporary or complete severance therefrom,
+will be investigated on a much wider basis than ever before, and
+spirit power, apart from the worship of soul as deity, will be
+developed and elaborated into an enduring force, possessing creative
+energy. What boundless empire of life will not such ideas realize, and
+how entrancing the story of such discoveries in the interior world of
+the soul!
+
+I may also, dear reader, request you to accompany me to other
+undiscovered realms of Plutusia, where, according to report, exist
+fairy-lands, peopled with strange, fantastic races of men and women,
+as well as fabulous animals, with characteristics surpassing the
+wildest dreams of fancy.
+
+As shown on the map of the interior world, which forms the
+frontispiece of this volume, many more continents remain yet unknown
+to me, to explore which will be my ambition. If the rumors I have
+heard of semi-spiritual men and semi-human monsters that dwell in
+tropical environments, where mountains rise so high that there is no
+weight on their summits, and where torrents of water roll upward,
+sweeping away villages in their path; of rocks of gold suspended in
+the air; of tribes dwelling on floating islands of jewels in the
+empyrean, and of a thousand still stranger places and peoples, where
+every phantasy of the imagination can be produced in reality by spirit
+power, then, indeed, the story of my adventures will develop the soul
+of the age with a profound delight.
+
+I therefore bid adieu to you, dear reader, in the hope of meeting you
+again, to feast you with these wonders. I hope to have you accompany
+me on the _Polar King_, which, after a season of repair and refitment,
+will most assuredly be launched for a still more adventurous voyage on
+the waters of the interior sea. How many books have been written on
+the discovery of the western hemisphere by Columbus, while, as yet,
+but one has been written about the interior sphere, a region not less
+important than the outer earth, whose geographical features are now
+for the first time revealed to human eyes! What a wonder it would be
+if one could travel to the moon or the planet Mars and return to the
+earth to tell of all that he had seen or heard on those distant
+spheres! Here indeed is no less a miracle that for ages two vast
+planets have existed each unknown to the other, although only a
+thousand miles apart, with the means of communication possessing but
+few difficulties to be overcome. The mutual discovery of two such
+worlds has opened up a future for the human race that may well strike
+one dumb with its splendor. It has conferred on the meanest individual
+a glory, a birthright of the spirit, as vast as the proportions of the
+twin-planet. I will not further anticipate the future, and for the
+present will ask you to accept from Lyone and myself a courteous
+farewell.
+
+THE END.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: "THE LOVE LETTER."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Goddess of Atvatabar, by William R. Bradshaw
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+
+<pre>
+
+Project Gutenberg's The Goddess of Atvatabar, by William R. Bradshaw
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Goddess of Atvatabar
+       Being the history of the discovery of the interior world
+              and conquest of Atvatabar
+
+Author: William R. Bradshaw
+
+Release Date: June 15, 2010 [EBook #32825]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GODDESS OF ATVATABAR ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Juliet Sutherland, and the
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
+<img src="images/cover.jpg" width="400" height="639" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"><a name="frontispiece" id="frontispiece"></a>
+<img class="img1" src="images/image_001.jpg" width="500" height="514" alt="Map of the Interior World." title="" />
+<span class="caption">Map of the Interior World.</span>
+</div>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h4>THE</h4>
+
+<h1><span class="smcap">Goddess of Atvatabar</span></h1>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h5>BEING THE</h5>
+<h3>HISTORY OF THE DISCOVERY</h3>
+<h5>OF THE</h5>
+<h3>INTERIOR WORLD</h3>
+<h5>AND</h5>
+<h2>CONQUEST OF ATVATABAR</h2>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>BY</h3>
+<h2>WILLIAM R. BRADSHAW</h2>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>PROFUSELY ILLUSTRATED</h3>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h4>NEW YORK</h4>
+<h3>J. F. DOUTHITT</h3>
+<h5>286 <span class="smcap">Fifth Avenue</span></h5>
+<h3>1892</h3>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h5><span class="smcap">Copyright, 1891, by</span></h5>
+<h5>WILLIAM R. BRADSHAW</h5>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2>CONTENTS.</h2>
+
+<table summary="Contents">
+<tr><td class="tocch f1">CHAPTER</td>
+  <td></td>
+  <td></td><td class="tocpg f1">PAGE</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch">I.</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td>&mdash;<a href="#CHAPTER_I">A Polar Catastrophe,</a></td>
+  <td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_13">13</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch">II.</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td>&mdash;<a href="#CHAPTER_II">The Cause of the Expedition,</a></td>
+  <td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_19">19</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch">III.</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td>&mdash;<a href="#CHAPTER_III">Beginning the Voyage,</a></td>
+  <td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_22">22</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch">IV.</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td>&mdash;<a href="#CHAPTER_IV">Our Adventures in the Polar Sea,</a></td>
+  <td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_26">26</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch">V.</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td>&mdash;<a href="#CHAPTER_V">We Enter the Polar Gulf,</a></td>
+  <td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_31">31</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch">VI.</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td>&mdash;<a href="#CHAPTER_VI">Day Becomes Night and Night Day,</a></td>
+  <td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_34">34</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch">VII.</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td>&mdash;<a href="#CHAPTER_VII">We Discover the Interior World,</a></td>
+  <td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_40">40</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch">VIII.</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td>&mdash;<a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">Extraordinary Loss of Weight,</a></td>
+  <td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_45">45</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch">IX.</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td>&mdash;<a href="#CHAPTER_IX">Afloat on the Interior Ocean,</a></td>
+  <td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_50">50</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch">X.</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td>&mdash;<a href="#CHAPTER_X">A Visit from the Inhabitants of Plutusia,</a></td>
+  <td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_52">52</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch">XI.</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td>&mdash;<a href="#CHAPTER_XI">We Learn Atvatabarese,</a></td>
+  <td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_57">57</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch">XII.</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td>&mdash;<a href="#CHAPTER_XII">We Arrive at Kioram,</a></td>
+  <td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_61">61</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch">XIII.</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td>&mdash;<a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">Marching in Triumph,</a></td>
+  <td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_65">65</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch">XIV.</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td>&mdash;<a href="#CHAPTER_XIV">The Journey to Calnogor,</a></td>
+  <td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_72">72</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch">XV.</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td>&mdash;<a href="#CHAPTER_XV">Our Reception by the King,</a></td>
+  <td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_78">78</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch">XVI.</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td>&mdash;<a href="#CHAPTER_XVI">The King Unfolds the Grandeur of Atvatabar,</a></td>
+  <td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_83">83</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch">XVII.</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td>&mdash;<a href="#CHAPTER_XVII">Gnaphisthasia,</a></td>
+  <td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_86">86</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch">XVIII.</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td>&mdash;<a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII">The Journey to the Bormidophia,</a></td>
+  <td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_94">94</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch">XIX.</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td>&mdash;<a href="#CHAPTER_XIX">The Throne of the Gods, Calnogor,</a></td>
+  <td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_99">99</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch">XX.</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td>&mdash;<a href="#CHAPTER_XX">The Worship of Lyone, Supreme Goddess,</a></td>
+  <td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_103">103</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch">XXI.</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td>&mdash;<a href="#CHAPTER_XXI">An Audience with the Supreme Goddess,</a></td>
+  <td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_109">109</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch">XXII.</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td>&mdash;<a href="#CHAPTER_XXII">The Goddess Learns the Story of the Outer World,</a></td>
+  <td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_114">114</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch">XXIII.</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td>&mdash;<a href="#CHAPTER_XXIII">The Garden of Tanje,</a></td>
+  <td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_117">117</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch">XXIV.</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td>&mdash;<a href="#CHAPTER_XXIV">The Journey to Egyplosis,</a></td>
+  <td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_128">128</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch">XXV.</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td>&mdash;<a href="#CHAPTER_XXV">Escaping from the Cyclone,</a></td>
+  <td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_133">133</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch">XXVI.</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td>&mdash;<a href="#CHAPTER_XXVI">The Banquet on the Aerial Ship,</a></td>
+  <td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_139">139</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch">XXVII.</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td>&mdash;<a href="#CHAPTER_XXVII">We Reach Egyplosis,</a></td>
+  <td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_144">144</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch">XXVIII.</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td>&mdash;<a href="#CHAPTER_XXVIII">The Grand Temple of Harikar,</a></td>
+  <td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_149">149</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch">XXIX.</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td>&mdash;<a href="#CHAPTER_XXIX">The Installation of a Twin-Soul,</a></td>
+  <td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_153">153</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch">XXX.</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td>&mdash;<a href="#CHAPTER_XXX">The Installation of a Twin-Soul (<i>Continued</i>)</a></td>
+  <td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_159">159</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch">XXXI.</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td>&mdash;<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXI">The Mystery of Egyplosis,</a></td>
+  <td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_163">163</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch">XXXII.</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td>&mdash;<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXII">The Sin of a Twin-Soul,</a></td>
+  <td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_168">168</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch">XXXIII.</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td>&mdash;<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIII">The Doctor's Opinion of Egyplosis,</a></td>
+  <td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_172">172</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch">XXXIV.</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td>&mdash;<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIV">Lyone's Confession,</a></td>
+  <td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_176">176</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch">XXXV.</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td>&mdash;<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXV">Our Visit to the Infernal Palace,</a></td>
+  <td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_183">183</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch">XXXVI.</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td>&mdash;<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXVI">Arjeels,</a></td>
+  <td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_194">194</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch">XXXVII.</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td>&mdash;<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXVII">A Revelation,</a></td>
+  <td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_202">202</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch">XXXVIII.</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td>&mdash;<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXVIII">Lyone's Manifesto to King and People,</a></td>
+  <td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_206">206</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch">XXXIX.</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td>&mdash;<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIX">The Crisis in Atvatabar,</a></td>
+  <td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_212">212</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch">XL.</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td>&mdash;<a href="#CHAPTER_XL">My Departure from the Palace of Tanje,</a></td>
+  <td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_216">216</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch">XLI.</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td>&mdash;<a href="#CHAPTER_XLI">We Are Attacked by the Enemy,</a></td>
+  <td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_220">220</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch">XLII.</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td>&mdash;<a href="#CHAPTER_XLII">The Battle Continued,</a></td>
+  <td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_225">225</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch">XLIII.</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td>&mdash;<a href="#CHAPTER_XLIII">Victory,</a></td>
+  <td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_229">229</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch">XLIV.</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td>&mdash;<a href="#CHAPTER_XLIV">The News of Atvatabar in the Outer World,</a></td>
+  <td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_235">235</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch">XLV.</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td>&mdash;<a href="#CHAPTER_XLV">The Voyages of the <i>Mercury</i> and the <i>Aurora Borealis</i>,</a></td>
+  <td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_244">244</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch">XLVI.</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td>&mdash;<a href="#CHAPTER_XLVI">The Arrest of Lyone,</a></td>
+  <td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_249">249</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch">XLVII.</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td>&mdash;<a href="#CHAPTER_XLVII">The Council of War in Kioram,</a></td>
+  <td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_253">253</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch">XLVIII.</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td>&mdash;<a href="#CHAPTER_XLVIII">The Report of Astronomer Starbottle,</a></td>
+  <td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_258">258</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch">XLIX.</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td>&mdash;<a href="#CHAPTER_XLIX">Preparation for War,</a></td>
+  <td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_264">264</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch">L.</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td>&mdash;<a href="#CHAPTER_L">I Visit Lyone in Calnogor,</a></td>
+  <td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_267">267</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch">LI.</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td>&mdash;<a href="#CHAPTER_LI">The Death of Lyone,</a></td>
+  <td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_271">271</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch">LII.</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td>&mdash;<a href="#CHAPTER_LII">The Battle of Calnogor,</a></td>
+  <td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_279">279</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch">LIII.</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td>&mdash;<a href="#CHAPTER_LIII">Victory,</a></td>
+  <td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_283">283</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch">LIV.</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td>&mdash;<a href="#CHAPTER_LIV">Reincarnation,</a></td>
+  <td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_288">288</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch">LV.</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td>&mdash;<a href="#CHAPTER_LV">Lexington and Lyone Hailed King and Queen of Atvatabar,</a></td>
+  <td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_292">292</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch">LVI.</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td>&mdash;<a href="#CHAPTER_LVI">Our Reception in Calnogor,</a></td>
+  <td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_298">298</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch">LVII.</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td>&mdash;<a href="#CHAPTER_LVII">The Combined Ceremony of Marriage and Coronation,</a></td>
+  <td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_304">304</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch">LVIII.</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td>&mdash;<a href="#CHAPTER_LVIII">The Death of Bhoolmakar,</a></td>
+  <td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_310">310</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch">LIX.</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td>&mdash;<a href="#CHAPTER_LIX">The History Concluded,</a></td>
+  <td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_315">315</a></td></tr>
+</table>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2>LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.</h2>
+
+<table class="tb1" summary="Illustrations">
+<tr><td></td><td class="smcap td2">artist,</td><td class="smcap tocpg">page</td></tr>
+<tr><td><span class="smcap">Map of the interior world</span>,</td><td></td><td class="tocpg"><i><a href="#frontispiece">Frontispiece</a></i>.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td><span class="smcap">I signalled the engineer full speed ahead, and in a short time<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;we crossed the ice-foot and entered the chasm</span>,</td><td><i>C. Durand Chapman</i>,</td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_17">17</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td><span class="smcap">A semi-circle of rifles was discharged at the unhappy brutes.<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Two of them, fell dead in their tracks</span>,</td><td class="td2">"</td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_29">29</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td><span class="smcap">The terror inspired by the professor's words was plainly<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;visible on every face</span>,</td><td class="td2">"</td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_35">35</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td><span class="smcap">At this moment a wild cry arose from the sailors. With one voice<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;they shouted, "The sun! The sun!"</span></td><td class="td2">"</td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_41">41</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td><span class="smcap">One of the flying men caught Flathootly by the hair of the head,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;and lifted him out of the water</span>,</td><td><i>R. W. Rattray</i>,</td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_55">55</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td><span class="smcap">One of the mounted police got hold of the switch on the back<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;of the bockhockid, and brought it to a standstill</span>,</td><td><i>Carl Gutherz</i>,</td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_69">69</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td><span class="smcap">The sacred locomotive stormed the mountain heights with its<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;audacious tread</span>,</td><td><i>C. Durand Chapman</i>,</td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_75">75</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td><span class="smcap">The king embraced me, and I kissed the hand of her majesty</span>,</td><td class="td2">"</td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_81">81</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td><span class="smcap">A procession of priests and priestesses passed down the living aisles, <br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;bearing trophies of art</span>,</td><td><i>Harold Haven Brown</i>,</td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_87">87</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td><span class="smcap">On the throne sat the Supreme Goddess Lyone, the representative of <br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Harikar, the Holy Soul</span>,</td><td><i>C. Durand Chapman</i>,</td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_97">97</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td><span class="smcap">The throne of the gods was indeed the golden heart of Atvatabar,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;the triune symbol of body, mind, and spirit</span>,</td><td class="td2">"</td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_101">101</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td><span class="smcap">Her holiness offered both his majesty the king and myself her hand<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;to kiss</span>,</td><td class="td2">"</td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_111">111</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td><span class="smcap">Zoophytes of Atvatabar</span>,</td><td><i>Paul de Longpré</i></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">The Lilasure</span>,</td>
+<td></td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_117">117</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">The Laburnul</span>,</td>
+<td></td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_118">118</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">The Green Gazzle of Glockett Gozzle</span>,</td>
+<td></td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_119">119</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">Jeerloons</span>,</td>
+<td></td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_120">120</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">A Jeerloon</span>,</td>
+<td></td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_120">120</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">The Lillipoutum</span>,</td>
+<td></td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_121">121</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">The Jugdul</span>,</td>
+<td></td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_122">122</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">The Yarphappy</span>,</td>
+<td></td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_123">123</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">The Jalloast</span>,</td>
+<td></td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_124">124</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">The Gasternowl</span>,</td>
+<td></td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_125">125</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">The Crocosus</span>,</td>
+<td></td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_126">126</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">The Jardil, or Love-pouch</span>,</td>
+<td></td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_127">127</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">The Blocus</span>,</td>
+<td></td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_128">128</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">The Funny-fenny, or Clowngrass</span>,</td>
+<td></td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_129">129</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">The Gleroseral</span>,</td>
+<td></td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_130">130</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">The Eaglon</span>,</td>
+<td></td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_131">131</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td><span class="smcap">The goddess stood holding on to the outer rail of the deck,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;the incarnation of courage</span>,</td><td><i>C. Durand Chapman</i>,</td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_135">135</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td><span class="smcap">Then the ship rose again toward the mammoth rocks, adorned
+<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;with the tapestries of falling wave</span>,</td><td class="td2">"</td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_141">141</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td><span class="smcap">Lyone was borne on a litter from the aerial ship to the palace</span>,</td><td class="td2">"</td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_147">147</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td><span class="smcap">The priest and priestess stood beside the altar, each reading an<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;alternate stanza from the ritual of the goddess</span>,</td><td><i>R. W. Rattray</i>,</td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_155">155</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td><span class="smcap">Her kiss was a blinding whirlwind of flame and tears</span>,</td><td><i>C. Durand Chapman</i>,</td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_181">181</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td><span class="smcap">The labyrinth was a subterranean garden, whose trees and <br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;flowers were chiselled out of the living rock</span>,</td><td><i>Paul de Longpré</i>,</td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_187">187</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td><span class="smcap">As i gazed, lo! a shower of blazing jewels issued from the mouth<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;of the hehorrent</span>,</td><td><i>Leonard M. Davis</i>,</td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_191">191</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>"<span class="smcap">By virtue of the spirit power in this cable," said the sorcerer,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"I will that the magical Island of Arjeels shall rise above <br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;the waves</span>,"</td><td><i>C. Durand Chapman</i>,</td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_197">197</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td><span class="smcap">The ship in company with a vast volume of water sprang into the<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;air to a great height</span>,</td><td class="td2">"</td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_223">223</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td><span class="smcap">We slowly dragged ourselves across the range of icy peaks</span>,</td><td class="td2">"</td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_241">241</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td><span class="smcap">I mounted the trunk and proposed the health of Her Majesty Lyone,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Queen of Atvatabar</span>,</td><td><i>R. W. Rattray</i>,</td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_261">261</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td><span class="smcap">Lyone reached for a flower, and in doing so touched the vase, and <br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;immediately fell dead upon the floor</span>,</td><td><i>C. Durand Chapman</i>,</td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_273">273</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td><span class="smcap">At this juncture a shell of terrorite exploded among the foe with <br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;thrilling effect, destroying at least two hundred bockhockids</span>,</td><td><i>Walter M. Dunk</i>,</td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_285">285</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td><span class="smcap">Heavens and earth! He was holding Lyone in his arms, alive from<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;the living battery! Lyone, the peerless soul of souls, alive once <br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;more and triumphant over death</span>,</td><td><i>C. Durand Chapman</i>,</td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_293">293</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td><span class="smcap">We sat thus crowned amid the tremendous excitement. The people<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;shouted, "Life, health and prosperity to our sovereign lord and<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;lady, Lexington and Lyone, King and Queen of Atvatabar</span>,"</td><td><i>Allan B. Doggett</i>,</td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_307">307</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td><span class="smcap">Oi made Bhooly an' Koshnili kneel down, an' a sojer tied their<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;hands behind their backs. Then Oi ordhered a wayleal to behead<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;thim wid their own swords</span>,</td><td><i>Allan B. Doggett</i>,</td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_313">313</a></td></tr>
+</table>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span></p>
+<h2>INTRODUCTION.</h2>
+
+
+<p>It is proper that some explanation be made as to the position occupied
+by the following story in the realm of fiction, and that a brief
+estimate should be made of its literary value.</p>
+
+<p>Literature may be roughly classified under two heads&mdash;the creative and
+the critical. The former is characteristic of the imaginative
+temperament, while the latter is analytical in its nature, and does
+not rise above the level of the actual. Rightly pursued, these two
+ways of searching out truth should supplement each other. The poet
+finds in God the source of matter; the man of science traces matter up
+to God. Science is poetry inverted: the latter sees in the former
+confirmation of its airiest flight; it is synthetic and creative,
+whereas science dissects and analyzes. Obviously, the most spiritual
+conceptions should always maintain a basis in the world of fact, and
+the greatest works of literary art, while taking their stand upon the
+solid earth, have not feared to lift their heads to heaven. The
+highest art is the union of both methods, but in recent times realism
+in an extreme form, led by Zola and Tolstoi, and followed with willing
+though infirm footsteps by certain American writers, has attained a
+marked prominence in literature, while romantic writers have suffered
+a corresponding obscuration. It must be admitted that the influence of
+the realists is not entirely detrimental; on the contrary, they have
+imported into literature a nicety of observation, a heedfulness of
+workmanship, a mastery of technique, which have been greatly to its
+advantage. Nevertheless, the novel of hard facts has failed to prove
+its claim to infallibility. Facts in themselves are impotent to
+account for life. Every material fact is but the representative on the
+plane of sense of a corresponding truth on the spiritual plane. Spirit
+is the substance; fact the shadow only, and its whole claim to
+existence lies in its relation to spirit. Bulwer declares in one of
+his early productions that the Ideal is the only true Real.</p>
+
+<p>In the nature of things a reaction from the depression of the
+realistic school must take place. Indeed, it has already set in, even
+at the moment of the realists' apogee. A dozen years ago the author of
+"John Inglesant," in a work of the finest art and most delicate
+spirituality, showed that the spell of the ideal had not lost its
+efficacy, and the books that he has written since then have confirmed
+and emphasized the impression produced by it. Meanwhile, Robert Louis
+Stevenson and Rider Haggard have cultivated with striking success the
+romantic vein of fiction, and the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span> former, at least, has acquired a
+mastery of technical detail which the realists themselves may envy. It
+is a little more than a year, too, since Rudyard Kipling startled the
+reading public with a series of tales of wonderful force and
+vividness; and whatever criticism may be applied to his work, it
+incontestably shows the dominance of a spiritual and romantic motive.
+The realists, on the other hand, have added no notable recruits to
+their standard, and the leaders of the movement are losing rather than
+gaining in popularity. The spirit of the new age seems to be with the
+other party, and we may expect to see them enjoy a constantly widening
+vogue and influence.</p>
+
+<p>The first practical problem which confronts the intending historian of
+an ideal, social, or political community is to determine the locality
+in which it shall be placed. It may have no geographical limitations,
+like Plato's "Republic," or Sir Philip Sidney's "Arcadia." Swift, in
+his "Gulliver's Travels," appropriated the islands of the then unknown
+seas, and the late Mr. Percy Greg boldly steered into space and
+located a brilliant romance on the planet Mars. Mr. Haggard has placed
+the scene of his romance "She" in the unexplored interior of Africa.
+After all, if imagination be our fellow-traveller, we might well
+discover El Dorados within easy reach of our own townships.</p>
+
+<p>Other writers, like Ignatius Donnelly and Edward Bellamy, have solved
+the problem by anticipating the future. Anything will do, so that it
+be well done. The real question is as to the writer's ability to
+interest his readers with supposed experiences that may develop mind
+and heart almost as well as if real.</p>
+
+<p>"The Goddess of Atvatabar," like the works already mentioned, is a
+production of imagination and sentiment, the scene of action being
+laid in the interior of the earth. It is true that the notion has
+heretofore existed that the earth might be a hollow sphere. The early
+geologists had a theory that the earth was a hollow globe, the shell
+being no thicker in proportion to its size than that of an egg. This
+idea was revived by Captain Symmes, with the addition of polar
+openings. Jules Verne takes his readers, in one of his romances, to
+the interior of a volcano, and Bulwer, in his "Coming Race," has
+constructed a world of underground caverns. Mr. Bradshaw, however, has
+swept aside each and all of these preliminary explorations, and has
+kindled the fires of an interior sun, revealing an interior world of
+striking magnificence. In view of the fact that we live on an exterior
+world, lit by an exterior sun, he has supposed the possibility of
+similar interior conditions, and the crudity of all former conceptions
+of a hollow earth will be made vividly apparent to the reader of the
+present volume. "The Goddess of Atvatabar" paints a picture of a new
+world, and the author must be credited with an original conception. He
+has written out of his own heart and brain, without reference to or
+dependence upon the imaginings of others, and it is within the truth
+to say that in boldness of design, in wealth and ingenuity of detail,
+and in lofty purpose, he has not fallen below the highest standard
+that has been erected by previous writers.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Bradshaw, in his capacity of idealist, has not only created a new
+world, but has decorated it with the skill and conscientiousness of
+the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span> realist, and has achieved a work of art which may rightfully be
+termed great. Jules Verne, in composing a similar story, would stop
+short with a description of mere physical adventure, but in the
+present work Mr. Bradshaw goes beyond the physical, and has created in
+conjunction therewith an interior world of the soul, illuminated with
+the still more dazzling sun of ideal love in all its passion and
+beauty. The story is refreshingly independent both in conception and
+method, and the insinuation, "<i>Beati qui ante nos nostra dixerunt</i>,"
+cannot be quoted against him. He has imagined and worked out the whole
+thing for himself, and he merits the full credit that belongs to a
+discoverer.</p>
+
+<p>"The Goddess of Atvatabar" is full of marvellous adventures on land
+and sea and in the aerial regions as well. It is not my purpose at
+present to enumerate the surprising array of novel conceptions that
+will charm the reader. The author, by the condition of his
+undertaking, has given <i>carte blanche</i> to his imagination. He has
+created a complete society, with a complete environment suited to it.
+The broadest generalization, no less than the minutest particulars,
+have received careful attention, and the story is based upon a
+profound understanding of the essential qualities of human nature, and
+is calculated to attain deserved celebrity. Among the subjects dear to
+the idealist's heart, perhaps none finds greater favor than that which
+involves the conception of a new social and political order, and our
+author has elaborated this subject on fresh lines of thought, making
+his material world enclose a realm of spiritual tenderness, even as
+the body is the continent and sensible manifestation of the soul.</p>
+
+<p>The forces, arts, and aspirations of the human soul are wrought into a
+symmetrical fabric, exhibiting its ideal tendencies. The evident
+purpose of the writer is to stimulate the mind, by presenting to its
+contemplation things that are marvellous, noble, and magnificent. He
+has not hesitated to portray his own emotions as expressed by the
+characters in the book, and is evidently in hearty sympathy with
+everything that will produce elevation of the intellectual and
+emotional ideals.</p>
+
+<p>The style in which the story is told is worthy of remark. In the
+beginning, when events are occurring within the realm of things
+already known or conceived of, he speaks in the matter-of-fact, honest
+tone of the modern explorer; so far as the language goes we might be
+reading the reports of an arctic voyage as recounted in the daily
+newspaper; there is the same unpretentiousness and directness of
+phrase, the same attention to apparently commonplace detail, and the
+same candid portrayal of wonder, hope, and fear. But when the
+stupendous descent into the interior world has been made, and we have
+been carried through the intermediary occurrences into the presence of
+the beautiful goddess herself, the style rises to the level of the
+lofty theme and becomes harmoniously imaginative and poetic. The
+change takes place so naturally and insensibly that no jarring
+contrast is perceived; and a subdued sense of humor, making itself
+felt at the proper moment, redeems the most daring flights of the work
+from the reproach of extravagance.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Bradshaw is especially to be commended for having the courage of
+his imagination. He wastes no undue time on explanations, but
+proceeds<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span> promptly and fearlessly to set forth the point at issue.
+When, for example, it becomes necessary to introduce the new language
+spoken by the inhabitants of the interior world, we are brought in
+half a dozen paragraphs to an understanding of its characteristic
+features, and proceed to the use of it without more ado. A more timid
+writer would have misspent labor and ingenuity in dwelling upon a
+matter which Mr. Bradshaw rightly perceived to be of no essential
+importance; and we should have been wearied and delayed in arriving at
+the really interesting scenes.</p>
+
+<p>The philosophy of the book is worthy of more serious notice. The
+religion of the new race is based upon the worship of the human soul,
+whose powers have been developed to a height unthought of by our
+section of mankind, although on lines the commencement of which are
+already within our view. The magical achievements of theosophy and
+occultism, as well as the ultimate achievements of orthodox science,
+are revealed in their most amazing manifestations, and with a sobriety
+and minuteness of treatment that fully satisfies what may be called
+the transcendental reader. The whole philosophic and religious
+situation is made to appear admirably plausible: but we are gradually
+brought to perceive that there is a futility and a rottenness inherent
+in it all, and that for the Goddess of Atvatabar, lofty, wise, and
+immaculate though she be, there is, nevertheless, a loftier and
+sublimer experience in store. The finest art of the book is shown
+here: a deep is revealed underneath the deep, and the final outcome is
+in accord with the simplest as well as the profoundest religious
+perception.</p>
+
+<p>But it would be useless to attempt longer to withhold the reader from
+the marvellous journey that awaits him. A word of congratulation,
+however, is due in regard to the illustrations. They reach a level of
+excellence rare even at this day; the artists have evidently been in
+thorough sympathy with the author, and have given to the eye what the
+latter has presented to the understanding. A more lovable divinity
+than that which confronts us on the golden throne it has seldom been
+our fortune to behold; and the designs of animal-plants are as
+remarkable as anything in modern illustrative art: they are entirely
+unique, and possess a value quite apart from their artistic grace.</p>
+
+<p>The chief complaint I find to urge against the book is that it stops
+long before my curiosity regarding the contents of the interior world
+is satisfied. There are several continents and islands yet to be heard
+from. But I am reassured by the termination of the story that there is
+nothing to prevent the hero from continuing his explorations; and I
+shall welcome the volume which contains the further points of his
+extraordinary and commendable enterprise.</p>
+
+<p class="p1"><span class="smcap">Julian Hawthorne.</span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span></p>
+<h2>THE GODDESS OF ATVATABAR.</h2>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I.</h2>
+
+<h2>A POLAR CATASTROPHE.</h2>
+
+
+<p>I had been asleep when a terrific noise awoke me. I rose up on my
+couch in the cabin and gazed wildly around, dazed with the feeling
+that something extraordinary had happened. By degrees becoming
+conscious of my surroundings, I saw Captain Wallace, Dr. Merryferry,
+Astronomer Starbottle, and Master-at-Arms Flathootly beside me.</p>
+
+<p>"Commander White," said the captain, "did you hear that roar?"</p>
+
+<p>"What roar?" I replied. "Where are we?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, you must have been asleep," said he, "and yet the roar was
+enough to raise the dead. It seemed as if both earth and heaven were
+split open."</p>
+
+<p>"What is that hissing sound I hear?" I inquired.</p>
+
+<p>"That, sir," said the doctor, "is the sound of millions of flying
+sea-fowl frightened by the awful noise. The midnight sun is darkened
+with the flight of so many birds. Surely, sir, you must have heard
+that dreadful shriek. It froze the blood in our veins with horror."</p>
+
+<p>I began to understand that the <i>Polar King</i> was safe, and that we were
+all still alive and well. But what could my officers mean by the
+terrible noise they talked about?</p>
+
+<p>I jumped out of bed saying, "Gentlemen, I must investigate this whole
+business. You say the <i>Polar King</i> is safe?"</p>
+
+<p>"Shure, sorr," said Flathootly, the master-at-arms, "the ship lies
+still anchored to the ice-fut where we put her this afthernoon. She's
+all right."</p>
+
+<p>I at once went on deck. Sure enough the ship was as safe as if in
+harbor. Birds flew about in myriads, at times obscuring<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span> the sun, and
+now and then we heard growling reverberations from distant icebergs,
+answering back the fearful roar that had roused them from their polar
+sleep.</p>
+
+<p>The sea, that is to say the enormous ice-pack in which we lay, heaved
+and fell like an earthquake. It was evident that a catastrophe of no
+common character had happened.</p>
+
+<p>What was the cause that startled the polar midnight with such unwonted
+commotion?</p>
+
+<p>Sailors are very superstitious; with them every unknown sound is a cry
+of disaster. It was necessary to discover what had happened, lest the
+courage of my men should give way and involve the whole expedition in
+ruin.</p>
+
+<p>The captain, although alarmed, was as brave as a lion, and as for
+Flathootly, he would follow me through fire and water like the brave
+Irishman that he was. The scientific staff were gentlemen of
+education, and could be relied upon to show an example of bravery that
+would keep the crew in good spirits.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you remember the creek in the ice-foot we passed this morning,"
+said the captain, "the place where we shot the polar bear?"</p>
+
+<p>"Quite well," I said.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, the roar that frightened us came from that locality. You
+remember all day we heard strange squealing sounds issuing from the
+ice, as though it was being rent or split open by some subterranean
+force."</p>
+
+<p>The entire events of the day came to my mind in all their clearness. I
+did remember the strange sounds the captain referred to. I thought
+then that perhaps they had been caused by Professor Rackiron's shell
+of terrorite which he had fired at the southern face of the vast range
+of ice mountains that formed an impenetrable barrier to the pole. The
+men were in need of a change of diet, and we thought the surest way of
+getting the sea-fowl was to explode a shell among them. The face of
+the ice cliffs was the home of innumerable birds peculiar to the
+Arctic zone. There myriads of gulls, kittiwakes, murres, guillemots,
+and such like creatures, made the ice alive with feathered forms.</p>
+
+<p>The terrorite gun was fired with ordinary powder, and although we
+could approach no nearer the cliffs than five miles, on account of the
+solid ice-foot, yet our chief gun was good for that distance.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The shell was fired and exploded high up on the face of the crags. The
+effect was startling. The explosion brought down tons of the frosty
+marble. The d&eacute;bris fell like blocks of iron that rang with a piercing
+cry on the ice-bound breast of the ocean. Millions of sea-fowl of
+every conceivable variety darkened the air. Their rushing wings
+sounded like the hissing of a tornado. Thousands were killed by the
+shock. A detachment of sailors under First Officer Renwick brought in
+heavy loads of dead fowl for a change of diet. The food, however,
+proved indigestible, and made the men ill.</p>
+
+<p>We resolved, as soon as the sun had mounted the heavens from his
+midnight declension, to retrace our course somewhat and discover the
+cause of the terrible outcry of the night. We had been sailing for
+weeks along the southern ice-foot that belonged to the interminable
+ice hills which formed an effectual barrier to the pole. Day after day
+the <i>Polar King</i> had forced its way through a gigantic floe of
+piled-up ice blocks, floating cakes of ice, and along ridges of frozen
+enormity, cracked, broken, and piled together in endless confusion. We
+were in quest of a northward passage out of the terrible ice prison
+that surrounded us, but failed to discover the slightest opening. It
+had become a question of abandoning our enterprise of discovering the
+North Pole and returning home again or abandoning the ship, and,
+taking our dogs and sledges, brave the nameless terrors of the icy
+hills. Of course in such case the ship would be our base of supplies
+and of action in whatever expedition might be set on foot for polar
+discovery.</p>
+
+<p>About six o'clock in the morning of the 20th of July we began to work
+the ship around, to partially retrace our voyage. All hands were on
+the lookout for any sign of such a catastrophe as might have caused
+the midnight commotion. After travelling about ten miles we reached
+the creek where the bear had been killed the day before. The man on
+the lookout on the top-mast sung out:</p>
+
+<p>"Creek bigger than yesterday!"</p>
+
+<p>Before we had time to examine the creek with our glasses he sung out:</p>
+
+<p>"Mountains split in two!"</p>
+
+<p>Sure enough, a dark blue gash ran up the hills to their very summit,
+and as soon as the ship came abreast of the creek we saw that the
+range of frozen precipices had been riven apart,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span> and a streak of dark
+blue water lay between, on which the ship might possibly reach the
+polar sea beyond.</p>
+
+<p>Dare we venture into that inviting gulf?</p>
+
+<p>The officers crowded around me. "Well, gentlemen," said I, "what do
+you say, shall we try the passage?"</p>
+
+<p>"We only measure fifty feet on the beam, while the fissure is at least
+one hundred feet wide; so we have plenty of room to work the ship,"
+said the captain.</p>
+
+<p>"But, captain," said I, "if we find the width only fifty feet a few
+miles from here, what then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Then we must come back," said he, "that's all."</p>
+
+<p>"Suppose we cannot come back&mdash;suppose the walls of ice should begin to
+close up again?" I said.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't believe they will," said Professor Goldrock, who was our
+naturalist and was well informed in geology.</p>
+
+<p>"Why not?" I inquired.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said he, "to our certain knowledge this range of ice hills
+extends five hundred miles east and west of us. The sea is here over
+one hundred and fifty fathoms deep. This barrier is simply a
+congregation of icebergs, frozen into a continuous solid mass. It is
+quite certain that the mass is anchored to the bottom, so that it is
+not free to come asunder and then simply close up again. My theory is
+this: Right underneath us there is a range of submarine rocks or hills
+running north and south. Last night an earthquake lifted this
+submarine range, say, fifty feet above its former level. The enormous
+upward pressure split open the range of ice resting thereon, and,
+unless the mountains beneath us subside to their former level, these
+rent walls of ice will never come together again. The passage will
+become filled up with fresh ice in a few hours, so that in any case
+there is no danger of the precipices crushing the ship."</p>
+
+<p>"Your opinion looks feasible," I replied.</p>
+
+<p>"Look," said he; "you will see that the top of the crevasse is wider
+than it is at the level of the water, one proof at least that my
+theory is correct."</p>
+
+<p>The professor was right; there was a perceptible increase in the width
+of the opening at the top.</p>
+
+<p>To make ourselves still more sure we took soundings for a mile east
+and west of the chasm, and found the professor's theory of a submarine
+range of hills correct. The water was shallowest right under the gap,
+and was very much deeperonly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span> a short distance on either side. I
+said to the officers and sailors: "My men, are you willing to enter
+this gap with a view of getting beyond the barrier for the sake of
+science and fortune and the glory of the United States?"</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
+<img src="images/image_016.jpg" width="400" height="586" alt="I SIGNALLED THE ENGINEER FULL SPEED AHEAD, AND IN A
+SHORT TIME WE CROSSED THE ICE-FOOT AND ENTERED THE CHASM." title="" />
+<span class="caption">I SIGNALLED THE ENGINEER FULL SPEED AHEAD, AND IN A
+SHORT TIME WE CROSSED THE ICE-FOOT AND ENTERED THE CHASM.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>They gave a shout of assent that robbed the gulf of its terrors. I
+signalled the engineer full speed ahead, and in a short time we
+crossed the ice-foot and entered the chasm.</p>
+
+<p>It could be nothing else but an upheaval of nature that caused the
+rent, as the distance was uniform between the walls however irregular
+the windings made. And such walls! For a distance of twenty miles we
+sailed between smooth glistening precipices of pal&aelig;ocrystic ice rising
+two hundred feet above the water. The opening remained perceptibly
+wider at the top than below.</p>
+
+<p>After a distance of twenty miles the height gradually decreased until
+within a distance of another fifty miles the ice sank to the level of
+the water.</p>
+
+<p>The sailors gave a shout of triumph which was echoed from the ramparts
+of ice. To our astonishment we found we had reached a mighty field of
+loose pack ice, while on the distant horizon were glimpses of blue
+sea!</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II.</h2>
+
+<h2>THE CAUSE OF THE EXPEDITION.</h2>
+
+
+<p>The <i>Polar King</i>, in lat. 84', long. 151' 14", had entered an ocean
+covered with enormous ice-floes. What surprised us most was the fact
+that we could make any headway whatever, and that the ice wasn't
+frozen into one solid mass as every one expected. On the contrary,
+leads of open water reached in all directions, and up those leading
+nearest due north we joyfully sailed.</p>
+
+<p>May the 10th was a memorable day in our voyage. On that day we
+celebrated the double event of having reached the furthest north and
+of having discovered an open polar sea.</p>
+
+<p>Seated in the luxurious cabin of the ship, I mused on the origin of
+this extraordinary expedition. It was certain, if my father were alive
+he would fully approve of the use I was making of the wealth he had
+left me. He was a man utterly without<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span> romance, a hard-headed man of
+facts, which quality doubtless was the cause of his amassing so many
+millions of dollars.</p>
+
+<p>My father could appreciate the importance of theories, of enthusiastic
+ideals, but he preferred others to act upon them. As for himself he
+would say, "I see no money in it for me." He believed that many
+enthusiastic theories were the germs of great fortunes, but he always
+said with a knowing smile, "You know it is never safe to be a pioneer
+in anything. The pioneer usually gets killed in creating an
+inheritance for his successors." It was a selfish policy which arose
+from his financial experiences, that in proportion as a man was
+selfish he was successful.</p>
+
+<p>I was always of a totally different temperament to my father. I was
+romantic, idealistic. I loved the marvellous, the magnificent, the
+miraculous and the mysterious, qualities that I inherited from my
+mother. I used to dream of exploring tropic islands, of visiting the
+lands of Europe and the Orient, and of haunting temples and tombs,
+palaces and pagodas. I wished to discover all that was weird and
+wonderful on the earth, so that my experiences would be a description
+of earth's girdle of gold, bringing within reach of the enslaved
+multitudes of all nations ideas and experiences of surpassing novelty
+and grandeur that would refresh their parched souls. I longed to
+whisper in the ear of the laborer at the wheel that the world was not
+wholly a blasted place, but that here and there oases made green its
+barrenness. If he could not actually in person mingle with its joys,
+his soul, that neither despot nor monopolist could chain, might spread
+its wings and feast on such delights as my journeyings might furnish.</p>
+
+<p>How seldom do we realize our fondest desires! Just at the time of my
+father's death the entire world was shocked with the news of the
+failure of another Arctic expedition, sent out by the United States,
+to discover, if possible, the North Pole. The expedition leaving their
+ship frozen up in Smith's Sound essayed to reach the pole by means of
+a monster balloon and a favoring wind. The experiment might possibly
+have succeeded had it not happened that the car of the balloon struck
+the crest of an iceberg and dashed its occupants into a fearful
+crevasse in the ice, where they miserably perished. This calamity
+brought to recollection the ill-fated Sir John Franklin and <i>Jeanette</i>
+expeditions; but, strange to say, in my mind at least, such disasters<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span>
+produced no deterrent effect against the setting forth of still
+another enterprise in Arctic research.</p>
+
+<p>From the time the expedition I refer to sailed from New York until the
+news of its dreadful fate reached the country, I had been reading
+almost every narrative of polar discovery. The consequence was I had
+awakened in my mind an enthusiasm to penetrate the sublime secret of
+the pole. I longed to stand, as it were, on the roof of the world and
+see beneath me the great globe revolve on its axis. There, where there
+is neither north, nor south, nor east, nor west, I could survey the
+frozen realms of death. I would dare to stand on the very pole itself
+with my few hardy companions, monarch of an empire of ice, on a spot
+that never feels the life-sustaining revolutions of the earth. I knew
+that on the equator, where all is light, life, and movement,
+continents and seas flash through space at the rate of one thousand
+miles an hour, but on the pole the wheeling of the earth is as dead as
+the desolation that surrounds it.</p>
+
+<p>I had conversed with Arctic navigators both in England and the United
+States. Some believed the pole would never be discovered. Others,
+again, declared their belief in an open polar sea. It was generally
+conceded that the Smith's Sound route was impracticable, and that the
+only possible way to approach the pole was by the Behring Strait
+route, that is, by following the 170th degree of west longitude north
+of Alaska.</p>
+
+<p>I thought it a strange fact that modern sailors, armed with all the
+resources of science and with the experience of numerous Arctic
+voyages to guide them, could get only three degrees nearer the pole
+than Henry Hudson did nearly three hundred years ago. That redoubtable
+seaman possessed neither the ships nor men of later voyagers nor the
+many appliances of his successors to mitigate the intense cold, yet
+his record in view of the facts of the case remains triumphant.</p>
+
+<p>It was at this time that my father died. He left me the bulk of his
+property under the following clause in his will:</p>
+
+<p>"I hereby bequeath to my dear son, Lexington White, the real estate,
+stocks, bonds, shares, title-deeds, mortgages, and other securities
+that I die possessed of, amounting at present market prices to over
+five million dollars. I desire that my said son use this property for
+some beneficent purpose, of use<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span> to his fellow-men, excepting what
+money may be necessary for his personal wants as a gentleman."</p>
+
+<p>I could scarcely believe my father was so wealthy as to be able to
+leave me so large a fortune, but his natural secretiveness kept him
+from mentioning the amount of his gains, even to his own family. No
+sooner did I realize the extent of my wealth than I resolved to devote
+it to fitting out a private expedition with no less an object than to
+discover the North Pole myself. Of course I knew the undertaking was
+extremely hazardous and doubtful of success. It could hardly be
+possible that any private individual, however wealthy and daring,
+could hope to succeed where all the resources of mighty nations had
+failed.</p>
+
+<p>Still, these same difficulties had a tremendous power of attracting
+fresh exploits on that fatal field. Who could say that even I alone
+might not stumble upon success? In a word, I had made up my mind to
+set forth in a vessel strong and swift and manned by sailors
+experienced in Arctic voyages, under my direct command. The expedition
+would be kept a profound secret; I would leave New York ostensibly for
+Australia, then, doubling Cape Horn, would make direct for Behring
+Sea. If I failed, none would be the wiser; if I succeeded, what fame
+would be mine!</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III.</h2>
+
+<h2>BEGINNING THE VOYAGE.</h2>
+
+
+<p>I determined to build a vessel of such strength and equipment as could
+not fail, with ordinary good fortune, to carry us through the greatest
+dangers in Arctic navigation. Short of being absolutely frozen in the
+ice, I hoped to reach the pole itself, if there should be sufficient
+water to float us. The vessel, which I named the <i>Polar King</i>,
+although small in size was very strong and compact. Her length was 150
+feet and her width amidships 50 feet. Her frames and planking were
+made of well-seasoned oak. The outer planking was sheathed in steel
+plates from four to six inches in thickness. This would protect us
+from the edges of the ancient ice that might otherwise cut into the
+planking and so destroy the vessel.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The ship was armed as follows: A colossal terrorite gun that stood in
+the centre of the deck, whose 250-pound shell of explosive terrorite
+was fired by a charge of gunpowder without exploding the terrorite
+while leaving the gun. This was to destroy icebergs and heavy
+pack-ice. A battery of twelve 100-pounder terrorite guns, with shells
+also fired with powder. All shells would explode by percussion in
+striking the object aimed at. A battery of six guns of the Gatling
+type, to repel boarding parties in case we reached a hostile country.
+There was also an armory of magazine rifles, revolvers, cutlasses,
+etc., as well as 50 tons of gunpowder, terrorite, and revolver-rifle
+cartridges.</p>
+
+<p>The ship was driven by steam, the triple-expansion engine being
+500-horse power and the rate of speed twenty-five miles an hour. By an
+important improvement on the steam engine, invented by myself, one ton
+of coal did the work of 50 tons without such improvement. The bunkers
+held 250 tons of coal, which was thus equal to 12,500 tons in any
+other vessel. There was also an auxiliary engine for working the
+pumps, electric dynamo, cargo, anchors, etc. One of the most useful
+fittings was the apparatus that both heated the ship and condensed the
+sea water for consumption on board ship, and for feeding the boilers.</p>
+
+<p>The ship's company was as follows:</p>
+
+<p class="p2">
+OFFICERS.</p>
+<p>
+Lexington White, Commander of the Expedition.<br />
+Captain, William Wallace.<br />
+First Officer Renwick, Navigating Lieutenant.<br />
+Second Officer Austin, Captain of the terrorite gun.<br />
+Third Officer Haddock, Captain of the main deck battery.</p>
+<p class="p2">
+SCIENTIFIC STAFF.</p>
+<p>
+Professor Rackiron, Electrician and Inventor.<br />
+Professor Starbottle, Astronomer.<br />
+Professor Goldrock, Naturalist.<br />
+Doctor Merryferry, Ship's Physician.
+</p>
+<p class="p2">
+PETTY OFFICERS.</p>
+<p>
+Master-at-Arms Flathootly.<br />
+First Engineer Douglass.<br />
+Second Engineer Anthoney.<br />
+Pilot Rowe.<br />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span>Carpenter Martin.<br />
+Painter Hereward.<br />
+Boatswain Dunbar.</p>
+<p>
+Ninety-five able-bodied seamen, including mechanics, gunners, cooks, tailors, stokers, etc.
+</p>
+<p>
+Total of ship's company, 110 souls.<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>Believing in the absolute certainty of discovering the pole and our
+consequent fame, I had included in the ship's stores a special
+triumphal outfit for both officers and sailors. This consisted of a
+Viking helmet of polished brass surmounted by the figure of a
+silver-plated polar bear, to be worn by both officers and sailors. For
+the officers a uniform of navy-blue cloth was provided, consisting of
+frock coat embroidered with a profusion of gold striping on shoulders
+and sleeves, and gold-striped pantaloons. For each sailor there was
+provided a uniform consisting of outer navy-blue cloth jacket, with
+inner blue serge jacket, having the figure of a globe embroidered in
+gold on the breast of the latter, surmounted by the figure of a polar
+bear in silver. Each officer and sailor was armed with a cutlass
+having the figure of a polar bear in silver-plated brass surmounting
+the hilt. This was the gala dress, but for every-day use the entire
+company was supplied with the usual Arctic outfit to withstand the
+terrible climate of high latitudes.</p>
+
+<p>Foreseeing the necessity of pure air and freedom from damp
+surroundings, I had the men's berths built on the spar deck, contrary
+to the usual custom. The spar deck was entirely covered by a hurricane
+deck, thus giving complete protection from cold and the stormy weather
+we would be sure to encounter on the voyage.</p>
+
+<p>Our only cargo consisted of provisions, ship's stores, ammunition,
+coal, and a large stock of chemical batteries and a dynamo for
+furnishing electricity to light the ship. We also shipped largely of
+materials to manufacture shells for the terrorite guns.</p>
+
+<p>The list of stores included an ample supply of tea, coffee, canned
+milk, butter, pickles, canned meats, flour, beans, peas, pork,
+molasses, corn, onions, potatoes, cheese, prunes, pemmican, rice,
+canned fowl, fish, pears, peaches, sugar, carrots, etc.</p>
+
+<p>The refrigerator contained a large quantity of fresh beef, mutton,
+veal, etc. We brought no luxuries except a few barrels<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span> of rum for
+special occasion or accidents. Exposure and hard work will make the
+plainest food seem a banquet.</p>
+
+<p>Thus fully equipped, the <i>Polar King</i> quietly left the Atlantic Basin
+in Brooklyn, N. Y., ostensibly on a voyage to Australia. The
+newspapers contained brief notices to the effect that Lexington White,
+a gentleman of fortune, had left New York for a voyage to Australia
+and the Southern Ocean, via Cape Horn, and would be gone for two
+years.</p>
+
+<p>We left on New Year's Day, and had our first experience of a polar
+pack in New York Bay, which was thickly covered with crowded ice.
+Gaining the open water, we soon left the ice behind, and, after a
+month's steady steaming, entered the Straits of Magellan, having
+touched at Monte Video for supplies and water.</p>
+
+<p>Leaving the Straits we entered the Pacific Ocean, steering north.
+Touching at Valparaiso, we sailed on without a break until we arrived
+at Sitka, Alaska, on the 1st of March.</p>
+
+<p>Receiving our final stores at Sitka, the vessel at once put to sea
+again, and in a week reached Behring Strait and entered the Arctic
+Ocean. I ordered the entire company to put on their Arctic clothing,
+consisting of double suits of underclothing, three pairs of socks,
+ordinary wool suits, over which were heavy furs, fur helmets,
+moccasins and Labrador boots.</p>
+
+<p>All through the Straits we had encountered ice, and after we had
+sailed two days in the Arctic Sea, a hurricane from the northwest
+smote us, driving us eastward over the 165th parallel, north of
+Alaska. We were surrounded with whirlwinds of snow frozen as hard as
+hail. We experienced the benefit of having our decks covered with a
+steel shell. There was plenty of room for the men to exercise on deck
+shielded from the pitiless storm that drove the snow like a storm of
+gravel before it. Exposure to such a blizzard meant frost-bite,
+perhaps death. The outside temperature was 40 below zero, the inside
+temperature 40 above zero, cold enough to make the men digest an
+Arctic diet.</p>
+
+<p>We kept the prow of the ship to the storm, and every wave that washed
+over us made thicker our cuirass of ice. It was gratifying to note the
+contrast between our comfortable quarters and the howling desolation
+around us.</p>
+
+<p>While waiting for the storm to subside we had leisure to speculate on
+the chances of success in discovering the pole.</p>
+
+<p>Captain Wallace had caused to be put up in each of our four cabins the
+following tables of Arctic progress made since Hudson's voyage in
+1607:</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span></p>
+
+<table class="tb2" summary="Record of Highest Latitudes Reached">
+<tr><td colspan="2">RECORD OF HIGHEST LATITUDES REACHED.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td>Hudson</td><td>80' 23"&nbsp; in 1607</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Phipps</td><td>80' 48"&nbsp; in 1773</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Scoresby</td><td>81' 12"&nbsp; in 1806</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Payer</td><td>82' 07"&nbsp; in 1872</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Meyer</td><td>82' 09"&nbsp; in 1871</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Parry</td><td>82' 45"&nbsp; in 1827</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Aldrich</td><td>83' 07"&nbsp; in 1876</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Markham</td><td>83' 20"&nbsp; in 1876</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Lockwood</td><td>83' 24"&nbsp; in 1883</td></tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>"Does it not seem strange," said I, "that nearly three hundred years
+of naval progress and inventive skill can produce no better record in
+polar discovery than this? With all our skill and experience we have
+only distanced the heroic Hudson three degrees; that is one degree for
+every hundred years. At this rate of progress the pole may be
+discovered in the year 2600."</p>
+
+<p>"It is a record of naval imbecility," said the captain; "there is no
+reason why our expedition cannot at least touch the 85th degree. That
+would be doing the work of two hundred years in as many days."</p>
+
+<p>"Why not do the work of the next 700 years while we are at it?" said
+Professor Rackiron. "Let us take the ship as far as we can go and then
+bundle our dogs and a few of the best men into the balloon and finish
+a job that the biggest governments on earth are unable to do."</p>
+
+<p>"That's precisely what we've come here for," said I, "but we must have
+prudence as well as boldness, so as not to throw away our lives
+unnecessarily. In any case we will beat the record ere we return."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV.</h2>
+
+<h2>OUR ADVENTURES IN THE POLAR SEA.</h2>
+
+
+<p>The storm lasted four days. On its subsidence we discovered ourselves
+completely surrounded with ice. We were beset by a veritable polar
+pack, brought down by the violence of the gale. The ice was covered
+deeply with snow, which made a dazzling scene when lit by the
+brilliant sun. We seemed transported to a new world. Far as the eye
+could see huge masses of ice interposed with floe bergs of vast
+dimensions. The captain<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span> allowed the sailors to exercise themselves on
+the solidly frozen snow. It was impossible to get any fresh meat, as
+the pack, being of a temporary nature, had not yet become the home of
+bear, walrus, or seal.</p>
+
+<p>We saw a water sky in the north, showing that there was open water in
+that direction, but meantime we could do nothing but drift in the
+embrace of the ice in an easterly direction. In about a week the pack
+began to open and water lanes to appear. A more or less open channel
+appearing in a northeasterly direction, we got the ship warped around,
+and, getting up steam, drew slowly out of the pack.</p>
+
+<p>Birds began to appear and flocks of ducks and geese flew across our
+track, taking a westerly course. We were now in the latitude of
+Wrangel Island, but in west longitude 165. We had the good fortune to
+see a large bear floating on an isolated floe toward which we steered.
+I drew blood at the first shot, but Flathootly's rifle killed him. The
+sailors had fresh meat that day for dinner.</p>
+
+<p>The day following we brought down some geese and elder ducks that
+sailed too near the ship. We followed the main leads in preference to
+forcing a passage due north, and when in lat. 78' long. 150' the watch
+cried out "Land ahead!" On the eastern horizon rose several peaks of
+mountains, and on approaching nearer we discovered a large island
+extending some thirty miles north and south. The ice-foot surrounding
+the land was several miles in width, and bringing the ship alongside,
+three-fourths of the sailors, accompanied by the entire dogs and
+sledges, started for the land on a hunting expedition.</p>
+
+<p>It was a fortunate thing that we discovered the island, for, with our
+slow progress and monotonous confinement, the men were getting tired
+of their captivity and anxious for active exertion.</p>
+
+<p>The sailors did not return until long after midnight, encouraged to
+stay out by the fact that it was the first night the sun remained
+entirely above the horizon.</p>
+
+<p>It was the 10th of April, or rather the morning of the 11th, when the
+sailors returned with three of the five sledges laden with the spoils
+of the chase. They had bagged a musk ox, a bear, an Arctic wolf, and
+six hares&mdash;a good day's work. Grog was served all around in honor of
+the midnight sun and the capture of fresh meat. We dressed the ox and
+bear, giving the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span> offal as well as the wolf to the dogs, and revelled
+for the next few days in the luxury of fresh meat.</p>
+
+<p>The island not being marked on our charts, we took credit to ourselves
+as its discoverers, and took possession of the same in the name of the
+United States.</p>
+
+<p>The captain proposed to the sailors to call it Lexington Island in
+honor of their commander, and the men replied to his proposition with
+such a rousing cheer that I felt obliged to accept the distinction.</p>
+
+<p>Flathootly reported that there was a drove of musk oxen on the island,
+and before finally leaving it we organized a grand hunting expedition
+for the benefit of all concerned.</p>
+
+<p>Leaving but five men, including the first officer and engineer, on
+board to take care of the ship, I took charge of the hunt. After a
+rough-and-tumble scramble over the chaotic ice-foot, we reached the
+mainland in good shape, save that a dog broke its leg in the ice and
+had to be shot. Its companions very feelingly gave it a decent burial
+in their stomachs.</p>
+
+<p>Mounting an ice-covered hillock, we saw, two miles to the southeast in
+a valley where grass and moss were visible, half a dozen musk oxen,
+doubtless the entire herd. We adopted the plan of surrounding the
+herd, drawing as near the animals as possible without alarming them.
+Sniffing danger in the southeasterly wind, the herd broke away to the
+northwest. The sailors jumped up and yelled, making the animals swerve
+to the north. A semi-circle of rifles was discharged at the unhappy
+brutes. Two fell dead in their tracks and the remaining four, badly
+wounded, wheeled and made off in the opposite direction. The other
+wing of the sailors now had their innings as we fell flat and heard
+bullets fly over us. Three more animals fell, mortally wounded. A bull
+calf, the only remnant of the herd on its legs, looked in wonder at
+the sailor who despatched it with his revolver. The dogs held high
+carnival for an hour or more on the slaughtered oxen. We packed the
+sledges with a carcass on each, and in due time regained the ship,
+pleased with our day's work.</p>
+
+<p>Leaving Lexington Island we steered almost due north through a vast
+open pack. On the 1st of May we arrived in lat. 78' 30" west long.
+155' 50", our course having been determined by the lead of the lanes
+in the enormous drifts of ice. Here another storm overtook us,
+travelling due east. We were oncemore<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span> beset, and drifted
+helplessly for three days before the storm subsided. We found
+ourselves in long. 150' again, in danger of being nipped. The wind,
+suddenly drifting to the east, reopened the pack for us to our intense
+relief.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<img src="images/image_028.jpg" width="600" height="389" alt="A SEMICIRCLE OF RIFLES WAS DISCHARGED AT THE UNHAPPY
+BRUTES, AND TWO FELL DEAD IN THEIR TRACKS." title="" />
+<span class="caption">A SEMICIRCLE OF RIFLES WAS DISCHARGED AT THE UNHAPPY
+BRUTES, AND TWO FELL DEAD IN THEIR TRACKS.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Taking advantage of some fine leads and favorable winds, we passed
+through leagues of ice, piled-up floes and floebergs, forming scenes
+of Arctic desolation beyond imagination to conceive. At last we
+arrived at a place beyond which it was impossible to proceed. We had
+struck against the gigantic barrier of what appeared to be an immense
+continent of ice, for a range of ice-clad hills lay only a few miles
+north of the <i>Polar King</i>. At last the sceptre of the Ice King waved
+over us with the command, "Thus far and no further."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V.</h2>
+
+<h2>WE ENTER THE POLAR GULF.</h2>
+
+
+<p>How the <i>Polar King</i> penetrated what appeared an insurmountable
+obstacle, and the joyful proof that the hills did not belong to a
+polar continent, but were a continuous congregation of icebergs,
+frozen in one solid mass, are already known to the reader.</p>
+
+<p>The gallant ship continued to make rapid progress toward the open
+water lying ahead of us. Mid-day found us in 84' 10" north latitude
+and 150' west longitude. The sun remained in the sky as usual to add
+his splendor to our day of deliverance and exultation.</p>
+
+<p>We felt what it was to be wholly cut off from the outer world. The
+chances were that the passage in the ice would be frozen up solid
+again soon after we had passed through it. Even with our dogs and
+sledges the chances were against our retreat southward.</p>
+
+<p>The throbbing of the engine was the only sound that broke the
+stillness of the silent sea. The laugh of the sailors sounded hollow
+and strange, and seemed a reminder that with all our freedom we were
+prisoners of the ice, sailing where no ship had ever sailed nor human
+eye gazed on such a sea of terror and beauty.</p>
+
+<p>Happily we were not the only beings that peopled the solitudes<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span> of the
+pole. Flocks of gulls, geese, ptarmigan, and other Arctic fowls
+wheeled round us. They seemed almost human in their movements, and
+were the links that bound us to the beating hearts far enough off then
+to be regretted by us.</p>
+
+<p>Every man on board the vessel was absorbed in thought concerning our
+strange position. The beyond? That was the momentous question that lay
+like a load on every soul.</p>
+
+<p>While thinking of these things, Professor Starbottle inquired, if with
+such open water as we sailed in, how soon I expected to reach the
+pole.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said I, "we ought to be at the 85th parallel by this time.
+Five more degrees, or 300 miles, will reach it. The <i>Polar King</i> will
+cover that distance easily in twenty hours. It is now 6 <span class="smcap">p.m.</span>; at 2
+<span class="smcap">p.m.</span> to-morrow, the 12th of May, we will reach the pole."</p>
+
+<p>Professor Starbottle shook his head deprecatingly. "I am afraid,
+commander," said he, "we will never reach the pole."</p>
+
+<p>His look, his voice, his manner, filled me with the idea that
+something dreadful was going to happen. My lips grew dry with a sudden
+excitement, as I hastily inquired why he felt so sure we would never
+reach the object of our search.</p>
+
+<p>"What time is it, commander?" said he.</p>
+
+<p>I pulled forth my chronometer; it was just six o'clock.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then," said he, "look at the sun. The sun has swung round to
+the west, but hasn't fallen any."</p>
+
+<p>I looked at the sun, which, sure enough, stood as high as at mid-day.
+I was paralyzed with a nameless dread. I stood rooted to the deck in
+anticipation of some dreadful horror.</p>
+
+<p>"Good heavens!" I gasped, "what&mdash;what do you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"I mean," said he, "the sun is not going to fall again on this course.
+It's we who are going to fall."</p>
+
+<p>"The sun will fall to its usual position at midnight," I stammered;
+"wait&mdash;wait till midnight."</p>
+
+<p>"The sun won't fall at midnight," said the professor. "I am afraid to
+tell you why," he added.</p>
+
+<p>"In God's name," I shouted, "tell me the meaning of this!"</p>
+
+<p>I will never forget the feeling that crazed me as the professor said:
+"I fear, commander, we are falling into the interior of the earth!"</p>
+
+<p>"You are mad, sir!" I shouted. "It cannot be&mdash;we are sailing to the
+North Pole."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Wait till midnight, commander," said he, shaking my hand.</p>
+
+<p>I took his hand and echoed his words&mdash;"Wait till midnight." After a
+pause I inquired if he had mentioned his extraordinary fears to any
+one else.</p>
+
+<p>"Not a soul," he replied.</p>
+
+<p>"Then," said I, "say nothing to anybody until midnight."</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, ay, sir," said he, and disappeared.</p>
+
+<p>The sailors evidently expected that something was going to happen on
+account of the sun standing still in the heavens. They were gathered
+in groups on deck discussing the situation with bated breath. I
+noticed them looking at me with wild eyes, like sheep cornered for
+execution. The officers avoided calling my attention to the unusual
+sight, possibly divining I was already fully excited by it.</p>
+
+<p>Never was midnight looked for so eagerly by any mortal on earth as I
+awaited the dreadful hour that would either confirm or dispel my
+fears.</p>
+
+<p>Midnight came and the sun had not fallen in the sky! There he stood as
+high as at noonday, at least five degrees higher than his position
+twenty-four hours before.</p>
+
+<p>Professor Starbottle, approaching me, said: "Commander, my
+prognostication was correct; you see the sun's elevation is unchanged
+since mid-day. Now one of two things has happened&mdash;either the axis of
+the earth has approached five degrees nearer the plane of its orbit
+since mid-day or we are sailing down into a subterranean gulf! That
+the former is impossible, mid-day to-day will disprove. If my theory
+of a subterranean sea is correct, the sun will fall below the horizon
+at mid-day, and our only light will be the earth-light of the opposite
+mouth of the gulf into which we are rapidly sinking."</p>
+
+<p>"Professor," said I, "tell the officers and the scientific staff to
+meet me at once in the cabin. This is a tremendous crisis!"</p>
+
+<p>Ere I could leave the deck the captain, officers, doctor, naturalist,
+Professor Rackiron, and many of the crew surrounded me, all in a state
+of the greatest consternation.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI.</h2>
+
+<h2>DAY BECOMES NIGHT AND NIGHT DAY.</h2>
+
+
+<p>"Commander," said Captain Wallace, "I beg to report that the pole star
+has suddenly fallen five degrees south from its position overhead, and
+the sun has risen to his mid-day position in the sky! I fear we are
+sailing into a vast polar depression something greater than the
+description given in our geographies, that the earth is flattened at
+the poles."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you really think, captain," I inquired, "that we are sailing into
+a hollow place around the pole?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, I am sure of it," said he. "Nothing else can explain the sudden
+movement of the heavenly bodies. Remember, we have only passed the
+85th parallel but a few miles and ought to have the pole star right
+overhead."</p>
+
+<p>"Professor Starbottle has a theory," I said, "that may account for the
+strange phenomena we witness. Let these gentlemen hear your theory,
+professor."</p>
+
+<p>The professor stated very deliberately what he had already
+communicated to me, viz.: that we were really descending to the
+interior of the earth, that the bows of the ship were gradually
+pointing to its centre, and that if the voyage were continued we would
+find ourselves swallowed up in a vast polar gulf leading to God knows
+what infernal regions.</p>
+
+<p>The terror inspired by the professor's words was plainly visible on
+every face.</p>
+
+<p>"Let us turn back!" shouted some of the sailors.</p>
+
+<p>"My opinion," said the captain, "is that we have entered a polar
+depression; it is impossible to think that the earth is a hollow shell
+into which we may sail so easily as this."</p>
+
+<p>"If I might venture a remark," said Pilot Rowe, "I think Professor
+Starbottle is right. If the earth is a hollow shell having a
+subterranean ocean, we can sail thereon bottom upward and masts
+downward, just as easily as we sail on the surface of the ocean here."</p>
+
+<p>"I believe an interior ocean an impossibility," said the captain.</p>
+
+<p>"You're right, sorr," said the master-at-arms, "for what would keep
+the ship sticking to the wather upside down?"</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
+<img src="images/image_034.jpg" width="400" height="585" alt="THE TERROR INSPIRED BY THE PROFESSOR&#39;S WORDS WAS
+PLAINLY VISIBLE ON EVERY FACE." title="" />
+<span class="caption">THE TERROR INSPIRED BY THE PROFESSOR&#39;S WORDS WAS
+PLAINLY VISIBLE ON EVERY FACE.</span>
+</div><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I don't say that the earth is absolutely a hollow sphere," said the
+professor, "but I do say this, we are now sailing into a polar abyss,
+and if the sun disappears at noon to-day it will be because we have
+sailed far enough into the gulf to put the ocean over which we have
+sailed between us and that luminary. If the sun disappears at noon,
+depend upon it we will never reach the pole, which will forever remain
+only the ideal axis of the earth."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you mean to say," I inquired, "that what men have called the pole
+is only the mouth of an enormous cavern, perhaps the vestibule of a
+subterranean world?"</p>
+
+<p>"That is precisely the theory I advance to account for this strange
+ending of our voyage," said the professor.</p>
+
+<p>The murmurs of excitement among the men again broke out into wild
+cries of "Turn back the ship!"</p>
+
+<p>I encouraged the men to calm themselves. "As long as the ship is in no
+immediate danger," said I, "we can wait till noonday and see if the
+professor's opinion is supported by the behavior of the sun. If so, we
+will then hold a council of all hands and decide on what course to
+follow. Depart to your respective posts of duty until mid-day, when we
+will decide on such action as will be for the good of all."</p>
+
+<p>The men, terribly frightened, dispersed, leaving Captain Wallace,
+First Officer Renwick, Professors Starbottle, Goldrock, and Rackiron,
+the doctor and myself together.</p>
+
+<p>Dreadful as was the thought of quietly sinking into a polar gulf from
+which possibly there might be no escape, yet the bare possibility of
+returning to tell the world of our tremendous discovery created a
+desire to explore still further the abyss into which we had entered. I
+confess that my first feeling of terror was rapidly giving way to a
+passion for discovery. What fearful secrets might not be held in the
+darkness toward which we undoubtedly travelled! Would it be our
+fortune to pierce the darkness and silence of a polar cavern? When I
+thought of the natural terror of the sailors, I dared not think of our
+sailing further than mid-day, in case we had really entered an abyss.</p>
+
+<p>"Commander," said Professor Starbottle, "this is the most important
+day, or rather night, of the voyage. I propose we stay on deck and
+enjoy the sunlight as long as we can."</p>
+
+<p>One glance at the sun sufficed to tell us the truth; he was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span> rapidly
+falling from the sky. At midnight he was 20 degrees and at 1 <span class="smcap">a.m.</span>
+only 18 degrees above the waste of waters.</p>
+
+<p>This proved we were as rapidly taking leave of the glorious orb, on an
+expedition fraught with the greatest peril and unknown possibilities
+of science, conquest, and commerce.</p>
+
+<p>By a tacit consent we turned our attention to the scene around us. The
+water was very free from ice, only here and there icebergs floated.
+The diminished radiation of light produced a weird effect, growing
+more spectral as the sun sank in the heavens.</p>
+
+<p>Professor Goldrock pointed out a flock of geese actually flying ahead
+of us into the gulf, if gulf indeed it were. We considered this a good
+omen and took heart accordingly.</p>
+
+<p>The captain pointed out a strange apparition in the north, but which
+was really south of the pole, and discoverable with the glass. It
+appeared to be the limb of some rising planet between us and the sun
+that seemed faintly illuminated by moonlight. Professor Starbottle
+said it was the opposite edge of the polar gulf that was about to
+envelop us. It was illuminated by the earth-light reflected from the
+same ocean on which the <i>Polar King</i> floated.</p>
+
+<p>The sun, as he swung round to the south, fell rapidly to the horizon,
+and at eight o'clock disappeared below the water. Was there ever a day
+in human experience as portentous as that? When did the sun set at 8
+<span class="smcap">a.m.</span> in the Arctic summer, leaving the earth in darkness? We knew
+then that Professor Starbottle's theory of a polar gulf was a truth
+beyond question. It was a fearful fact!</p>
+
+<p>But the grandest spectacle we had yet seen now lay before us. The
+opposite rapidly rising limb of the polar gulf, 500 miles away, was
+brilliantly illuminated by the sun's rays far overhead, and its
+splendid earth-light, twenty times brighter than moonlight, falling
+upon us, compensated for the sudden obliteration of the daylight.</p>
+
+<p>It was mid-day, and our only light was the earth-light of the gulf.
+There stood over us the still rising circular rim of the ocean,
+sparkling like an enormous jewel. It was a bewildering experience. In
+the light of that distant ocean I assembled the men on deck and thus
+addressed them:</p>
+
+<p>"My men, when we started on the present expedition you stipulated for
+a voyage of discovery to the North Pole (if possible<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span>) and return to
+New York again. The first part of the voyage is happily accomplished.
+We alone of all the explorers who have essayed polar discovery have
+been rewarded with a sight of the pole. The mystery of the earth's
+axis is no longer a secret. Here before your eyes is the axis on which
+the earth performs its daily revolution. The North Pole is an immense
+gulf 500 miles in diameter and of unknown depth. Within this gulf lies
+our ship, at least a hundred miles below the level of the outer ocean!</p>
+
+<p>"The question we are now called upon to decide is this: Are we to
+remain satisfied with our present achievement, turn back the ship, and
+go home without attempting to discover whither leads this enormous
+gulf? As far as the officers of the ship and the scientific staff are
+concerned, as far as I myself am concerned, I am satisfied if we were
+once back in New York again, our first thought would be to return
+hither, and, taking up the thread of our journey, endeavor to explore
+the farthest recesses of the gulf."</p>
+
+<p>I was here interrupted by loud applause from the entire officers and
+many of the men.</p>
+
+<p>"This being so, why should we waste a journey to New York and back
+again for nothing? Why not, with our good ship well armed and
+provisioned, that has in safety carried us so far, why not, I say,
+proceed further, taking advantage of the only opportunity the ages of
+time have ever offered to man to explore earth's profoundest secrets?</p>
+
+<p>"Who knows what oceans, what continents, what nations, it may be of
+men like ourselves, may not exist in a subterranean world? Who knows
+what gold, what silver, what precious stones are there piled perhaps
+mountains high? Are we to tamely throw aside the possibility of such
+glory on account of base fears, and, returning home, allow others to
+snatch from our grasp the golden prize?</p>
+
+<p>"My men, I cannot think you will do this. Our future lies entirely in
+your hands. We cannot proceed further on our voyage without your
+assistance. I will not compel a single man to go further against his
+will. I call for volunteers for the interior world! I am willing to
+lead you on; who will follow me?"</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII.</h2>
+
+<h2>WE DISCOVER THE INTERIOR WORLD.</h2>
+
+
+<p>The officers and sailors responded to my speech with ringing cheers.
+Every man of them volunteered to stay by the ship and continue our
+voyage down the gulf. Whatever malcontents there may have been among
+the sailors, those, influenced by the prevailing enthusiasm, were
+afraid to exhibit any cowardice, and all were unanimous for further
+exploration.</p>
+
+<p>I signalled our resolution by a discharge of three guns, which created
+the most thrilling reverberations in the mysterious abyss.</p>
+
+<p>Starting the engine again, the prow of the <i>Polar King</i> was pointed
+directly toward the darkness before us, toward the centre of the
+earth. We were determined to explore the hollow ocean to its further
+confines, if our provisions held out until such a work would be
+accomplished.</p>
+
+<p>We hoped at midnight to obtain our last look at the sun, as we would
+then be brought into the position of the opposite side of the watery
+crater down which we sailed. At eleven o'clock the sun rose above the
+limb of the gulf, which was now veiled in darkness. We were gladdened
+with two hours of sunlight, the sun promptly setting at 1 <span class="smcap">a.m.</span> of the
+new day.</p>
+
+<p>We continued our voyage in the semi-darkness, the prow of the vessel
+still pointed to the centre of the earth, while the polar star shone
+in the outer heavens on the horizon directly over the rail of the
+vessel's stern.</p>
+
+<p>It did not appear to us that we were dropping straight down into the
+interior of the earth; on the contrary, we always seemed to float on a
+horizontal sea, and the earth seemed to turn up toward us and the
+polar cavern to gradually engulf us. The sight we beheld that day was
+inexpressibly magnificent. Five hundred miles above us rose the crest
+of the circular polar sea. Its upper hemisphere glowed with the light
+of the unseen sun. We were surrounded by fifteen hundred miles of
+perpendicular ocean, crowned with a diadem of icebergs!</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
+<img src="images/image_040.jpg" width="400" height="575" alt="AT THIS MOMENT A WILD CRY AROSE FROM THE SAILORS. WITH
+ONE VOICE THEY SHOUTED, &quot;THE SUN! THE SUN!&quot;" title="" />
+<span class="caption">AT THIS MOMENT A WILD CRY AROSE FROM THE SAILORS. WITH
+ONE VOICE THEY SHOUTED, &quot;THE SUN! THE SUN!&quot;</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>Glorious as was the sight, the sailors were terribly apprehensive of
+nameless disasters in such monstrous surroundings. It was impossible
+for them to understand how the ocean roof could remain <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span> suspended
+above us like the vault of heaven. The idea of being able to sail down
+a tubular ocean, the antechamber of some infernal world, was
+incomprehensible. We were traversing sea-built corridors, whose
+oscillating floors and roof remained providentially apart to permit us
+to explore the mystery beyond.</p>
+
+<p>Mid-day on the 13th of May brought no sight of the sun, but only a
+deepening twilight, the dim reflection of the bright sky we had left
+behind. The further we sailed into the gulf the less its diameter
+grew. When we had penetrated the vast aperture some two hundred and
+fifty miles, we found the a&euml;rial diameter was reduced to about fifty
+miles, thus forming a conical abyss. We were clearly sailing down a
+gigantic vortex or gulf of water, and we began to feel a diminishing
+gravity the further we approached the central abyss.</p>
+
+<p>The cavernous sea was subject to enormous undulations, or tidal waves,
+either the result of storms in the interior of the earth or mighty
+adjustments of gravity between the interior and exterior oceans. As we
+were lifted up upon the crest of an immense tidal wave several of the
+sailors, as well as the lookout, declared they had seen a flash of
+light, in the direction of the centre of the earth!</p>
+
+<p>We were all terribly excited at the news, and as the ship was lifted
+on the crest of the next wave, we saw clearly an orb of flame that
+lighted up the circling undulations of water with the flush of dawn!
+We were now between two spectral lights&mdash;the faint twilight of the
+outer sun and the intermittent dawn of some strange source of light in
+the interior of the earth.</p>
+
+<p>The sailors crowded to the top of both masts and stood upon
+cross-trees and rigging, wildly anxious to discover the meaning of the
+strange light and whatever the view from the next crest of waters
+would reveal.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you think is the source of this strange illumination," I
+inquired of the captain, "unless it is the radiance of fires in the
+centre of the earth?"</p>
+
+<p>"It comes from some definite element of fire," said the professor,
+"the nature of which we will soon discover. It certainly does not
+belong to the sun, nor can I attribute it to an aurora dependent on
+solar agency."</p>
+
+<p>"Possibly," said Professor Rackiron, "we are on the threshold of if
+not the infernal regions at least a supplementary edition<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span> of the
+same. We may be yet presented at court&mdash;the court of Mephistopheles."</p>
+
+<p>"You speak idle words, professor," said I. "On the eve of confronting
+unknown and perhaps terrible consequences you walk blindfold into the
+desperate chances of our journey with a jest on your lips."</p>
+
+<p>"Pardon me, commander," said he, "I do not jest. Have not the ablest
+theologians concurred in the statement that hell lies in the centre of
+the earth, and that the lake of fire and brimstone there sends up its
+smoke of torment? For aught we know this lurid light is the reflection
+of the infernal fires."</p>
+
+<p>At this moment a wild cry arose from the sailors. With one voice they
+shouted:</p>
+
+<p>"The sun! The sun! The sun!"</p>
+
+<p>The <i>Polar King</i> had gained at last the highest horizon or vortex of
+water, and there, before us, a splendid orb of light hung in the
+centre of the earth, the source of the rosy flame that welcomed us
+through the sublime portal of the pole!</p>
+
+<p>As soon as the astonishment consequent on discovering a sun in the
+interior of the earth had somewhat subsided, we further discovered
+that the earth was indeed a hollow sphere. It was now as far to the
+interior as to the exterior surface, thus showing the shell of the
+earth to be at the pole at least 500 miles in thickness. We were half
+way to the interior sphere.</p>
+
+<p>Professor Starbottle, who had been investigating the new world with
+his glass, cried out: "Commander, we are to be particularly
+congratulated; the whole interior planet is covered with continents
+and oceans just like the outer sphere!"</p>
+
+<p>"We have discovered an El Dorado," said the captain, with enthusiasm;
+"if we discover nothing else I will die happy."</p>
+
+<p>"The heaviest elements fall to the centre of all spheres," said
+Professor Goldrock. "I am certain we shall discover mountains of gold
+ere we return."</p>
+
+<p>"I think we ought to salute our glorious discovery," said Professor
+Rackiron. "You see the infernal world isn't nearly so bad a place as
+we thought it was."</p>
+
+<p>I ordered a salute of one hundred terrorite guns to be given in honor
+of our discovery, and the firing at once began. The echoed roaring of
+the guns was indescribably grand. The trumpet-shaped caverns of water,
+both before and behind us,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span> multiplied the heavy reverberations until
+the air of the gulf was rent with their thunder. The last explosion
+was followed by long-drawn echoes of triumph that marked our
+introduction to the interior world.</p>
+
+<p>Strange to say that on the very threshold of success there are men who
+suddenly take fright at the new conditions that confront them. It
+appeared that Boatswain Dunbar and eleven sailors who had unwillingly
+sailed thus far refused to proceed further with the ship, being
+terrified at the discovery we had made. I could have obliged them to
+have remained with us, but their reason being possibly affected, I saw
+that their presence as malcontents might in time cause a mutiny, or at
+all events an ever-present, source of trouble. They were wildly
+anxious to leave the ship and return home; consequently I gave them
+liberty to depart. The largest boat was lowered, together with a mast
+and sails. I gave the command to Dunbar, and furnished the boat with
+ample stores and plenty of clothing. I also gave them one-half of the
+dogs and two sledges for crossing the ice. When the men were finally
+seated Dunbar cast off the rope and steered for the outer sea. We gave
+them a parting salute by firing a gun, and in a short time they were
+lost in the darkness of the gulf.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII.</h2>
+
+<h2>EXTRAORDINARY LOSS OF WEIGHT.</h2>
+
+
+<p>The first thought that occurred to us after the excitement of
+discovery had somewhat subsided was that the interior of the earth was
+in all probability a habitable planet, possessing as it did a
+life-giving luminary of its own, and our one object was to get into
+the planet as quickly as possible. A continual breeze from the
+interior ocean of air passed out of the gulf. Its temperature was much
+higher than that of the sea on which we sailed, and it was only now
+that we began to think of laying off our Arctic furs.</p>
+
+<p>A closer observation of the interior sun revealed the knowledge that
+it was a very luminous orb, producing a climate similar to that of the
+tropics or nearly so. As we entered the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span> interior sphere the sun rose
+higher and higher above us, until at last he stood vertically above
+our heads at a height of about 3,500 miles. We saw at once what novel
+conditions of life might exist under an earth-surrounded sun, casting
+everywhere perpendicular shadow, and neither rising nor setting, but
+standing high in heaven, the lord of eternal day. We seemed to sail
+the bottom of a huge bowl or spherical gulf, surrounded by oceans,
+continents, islands, and seas.</p>
+
+<p>A peculiar circumstance, first noticed immediately after arriving at
+the centre of the gulf, was that each of us possessed a sense of
+physical buoyancy, hitherto unfelt.</p>
+
+<p>Flathootly told me he felt like jumping over the mast in his
+newly-found vigor of action, and the sailors began a series of antics
+quite foreign to their late stolid behavior. I felt myself possessed
+of a very elastic step and a similar desire to jump overboard and leap
+miles out to sea. I felt that I could easily jump a distance of
+several miles.</p>
+
+<p>Professor Starbottle explained this phenomenal activity by stating
+that on the outer surface of the earth a man who weighs one hundred
+and fifty pounds, would weigh practically nothing on the interior
+surface of an earth shell of any equal thickness throughout. But the
+fact that we did weigh something, and that the ship and ocean itself
+remained on the under surface of the world, proved that the shell of
+the earth, naturally made thicker at the equator by reason of
+centrifugal gravity than at the poles, has sufficient equatorial
+attraction to keep open the polar gulf. Besides this centrifugal
+gravity confers a certain degree of weight on all objects in the
+interior sphere.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll get a pair of scales," said Flathootly, "an' see how light I am
+in weight."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't mind scales," said the professor, "for the weights themselves
+have lost weight."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I'm one hundred and seventy-five pounds to a feather," said
+Flathootly, "an' I'll soon see if the weights are right or not."</p>
+
+<p>"The weights are right enough," said the professor, "and yet they are
+wrong."</p>
+
+<p>"An' how can a thing be roight and wrang at the same time, I'd loike
+to know? We'll thry the weights anyway," said the Irishman.</p>
+
+<p>So saying, Flathootly got a little weighing machine on deck,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span> and,
+standing thereon, a sailor piled on the weights on the opposite side.</p>
+
+<p>He shouted out: "There now, do you see that? I'm wan hundred and
+siventy-siven pounds, jist what I always was."</p>
+
+<p>"My dear sir," said the professor, "you don't seem to understand this
+matter; the weights have lost weight equally with yourself, hence they
+still appear to you as weighing one hundred and seventy-seven pounds."</p>
+
+<p>"Excuse me, sorr," said Flathootly. "If the weights have lost weight,
+the chap that stole it was cute enough to put it back again before I
+weighed meself. Don't you see wid yer two eyes I'm still as heavy as
+iver I was?"</p>
+
+<p>"You will require ocular demonstration that what I say is correct.
+Here, sir, let me weigh you with this instrument," said the professor.</p>
+
+<p>The instrument referred to was a huge spring-balance with which it was
+proposed to weigh Flathootly. One end of it was fastened to the mast,
+and to the hook hanging from the other end the master-at-arms secured
+himself. The hand on the dial plate moved a certain distance and
+stopped at seventeen pounds. The expression on the Irishman's face was
+something awful to behold.</p>
+
+<p>"Does this machine tell the thruth?" he inquired in a tearful voice.</p>
+
+<p>We assured him it was absolutely correct. He only weighed seventeen
+pounds.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, howly Mother of Mercy!" yelled Flathootly. "Consumption has me by
+the back of the neck. I've lost a hundred and sixty pounds in three
+days. Oh, sir, for the love of heaven, take me back to me mother. I'm
+kilt entoirely."</p>
+
+<p>It was some time before Flathootly could understand that his lightness
+of weight was due to the lesser-sized world he was continually
+arriving upon, together with centrifugal gravity, and that we all
+suffered from his affliction of being each "less than half a man" as
+he termed it. The weighing of the weights wherewith he had weighed
+himself proved conclusively that the depreciation in gravity applied
+equally to everything around us.</p>
+
+<p>The extreme lightness of our bodies, and the fact that our muscles had
+been used to move about ten times our then weight, was the cause of
+our wonderful buoyancy.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The sailors began leaping from the ship to a large rock that rose out
+of the water about half a mile off. Their agility was marvellous, and
+Flathootly covered himself with glory in leaping over the ship
+hundreds of feet in the air and alighting on the same spot on deck
+again.</p>
+
+<p>Their officers and scientific staff remained on deck as became their
+dignity, although tempted to try their agility like the sailors.</p>
+
+<p>Flathootly surprised us by leaping on a yardarm and exclaiming:
+"Gintlemen, I tell ye what it is, I'm no weight at all."</p>
+
+<p>"How do you make that out?" said the professor.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Oi've been thinking," said he, "that, as you say, we're in the
+middle of the two wurrlds. Now it stands to sense that the wan wurrld,
+I mane the sun up there, is pullin' us up an' the t'other wurrld is
+pullin' us down, an' as both wurrlds is pulling aqually, why av corse
+we don't amount to no weight at all. How could I turn fifteen
+summersaults at wance if I was any weight? That shows yer weighing
+machine is all wrang again."</p>
+
+<p>"How can you stand on the deck if you are no weight?" inquired the
+professor.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, I'm only pressing me feet on the boards," said the Irishman;
+"look here!" So saying, he leaped from the yard and revolved in the
+air at least twenty times before alighting on the deck.</p>
+
+<p>"Now," said the professor, "I'll explain why you only weigh seventeen
+pounds as indicated by the spring-balance. We have sailed, down the
+gulf 500 miles, haven't we?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yis, sorr."</p>
+
+<p>"And here we are sailing upside down on the inside roof of the
+world&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Sailin' upside down? Indeed, sorr, an' ye can't make me believe that,
+for shure I'm shtandin' on me feet like yourself, head uppermost."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, whether you believe it or not, we are sailing upside down, just
+as ships going to Australia sail upside down as compared with ships
+sailing the North Atlantic. But the point of gravity is this: Here we
+are surrounded on all sides by the shell of the earth, which attracts
+equally in all directions. Hence all objects in the interior world
+have no weight as regards whatever thickness of the earth's shell
+surrounds them. You<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span> see, weight is caused by an object having the
+world on one side of it. Thus both the world and the object attract
+each other according to the density and distance apart. What we call a
+pound weight is a mass of matter attracted by the earth on its surface
+with a force equal to the weight of sixteen ounces. A pound weight on
+the surface of the earth weighs sixteen ounces, and all the mighty
+volume of our planet, with all its mountains, continents and seas,
+weighs only sixteen ounces on the surface of a pound weight. The earth
+may still weigh many millions of tons as regards the sun, but as
+regards a pound weight it only weighs sixteen ounces."</p>
+
+<p>"That is an illustration of Flathootly's mental calibre," said Captain
+Wallace. "He only believes what his brain can accommodate in the way
+of knowledge."</p>
+
+<p>"God bless the captain," said Flathootly, "I'm shure his brain is as
+big as mine any day in the week."</p>
+
+<p>"Now," continued the astronomer, "it seems to me that the substances
+of the earth, rocks, metals, and water, have, under the influence of
+centrifugal gravity, massed themselves very thickly at the equator or
+point of greatest motion, and stretch toward the poles in a
+gradually-lessening mass until the polar gulfs are reached. Thus the
+earth's shell resembles a musk-melon with the inside cleaned out."</p>
+
+<p>"It makes me mouth wather to think of it," said Flathootly.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, listen," said the astronomer; "we are also under the influence
+of the earth's centrifugal motion, and wherever we are on the interior
+surface we swing round our circle of latitude in twenty-four hours,
+and thus men, ship, and ocean are held up against the interior vault
+like a boy being able to hold water in a vertical position at the
+bottom of the pail he swings round him at the end of a cord."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you think, professor," I inquired, "we will become heavier as
+we approach the region of greatest motion under the equator?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think so," he replied, "for the ocean around the poles has
+naturally gravitated to the internal as well as to the external
+equator, to restore the equilibrium of gravity. The reason why a man
+does not weigh less on the external equator than at the poles,
+although flying around at the rate of a thousand miles an hour, is
+that the deeper ocean, that is, the extra twenty-six miles that the
+earth is thicker on the equator, counter balances<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span> by its attraction
+the loss of weight due to the rapid centrifugal motion, and so
+preserves in all objects on the earth a uniform weight."</p>
+
+<p>"The whole thing," said Flathootly, "is as clear as mud. I'm glad to
+know, sorr, I haven't lost me entire constitution at all evints, an'
+if I can only carry home what weight I've got lift I'll make a fortune
+in a dime museum."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX.</h2>
+
+<h2>AFLOAT ON THE INTERIOR OCEAN.</h2>
+
+
+<p>As the <i>Polar King</i> sped southward over the interior sea the wonders
+of the strange world we had discovered began to dawn upon us. The
+colossal vault rose more and more above us and the sun threw his mild
+and vertical rays directly upon ship and sea, producing a most
+delightful climate. The ocean had a temperature of 75 degrees Fahr.
+and the air 85 degrees. We were absolutely sailing upside down to an
+inhabitant of the outer sphere, yet we seemed to ourselves to be
+sailing naturally erect on the sea with the sun above us.</p>
+
+<p>Our first experience in the internal sphere was that of a sudden
+storm. The sun grew dark and appeared like a disc of sombre gold. The
+ocean was lashed by a furious hurricane into incredible mountains of
+water. Every crest of the waves seemed a mass of yellow flame. The
+internal heavens were rent open with gulfs of sulphur-colored fire,
+while the thunder reverberated with terrible concussions. The ship
+would spin upon the water as though every wave were a whirlpool. A
+golden-yellow phosphorescence covered the ocean. The water boiled in
+maddening eddies of lemon-colored seas, while from the hurricane decks
+streamed cataracts of saffron fire. The lightning, like streaks of
+molten gold, hurled its burning darts into the sea. Everything bore
+the glow of amber-colored fire. The sailors congratulated themselves
+on the shelter provided by the deck overhead. The motion of the ship
+exceeded all former experiences, for it leaped and plunged in a
+terrific manner. It was a question whether we would survive the storm
+or not, so violent was the shaking up both ship and men received.
+Fortunately, the loss of weight in everything, which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span> was the cause of
+the rapid motion, permitted no more damage than would be caused by a
+lesser storm on heavier objects.</p>
+
+<p>The professor stated that he believed the tempest was occasioned by a
+polar tidal wave of air rushing into the interior sphere, to supply
+the exhaustion caused by outgoing warm currents, owing perhaps to a
+periodical overheating of the air by the internal sun. When a certain
+volume of the air was expelled, so that it could no longer resist
+external pressure, then the external air rushed down the polar gulf,
+creating by meeting warm outward-flowing currents cyclones such as we
+were then experiencing.</p>
+
+<p>By degrees the storm abated, the sea grew calm, the heavens above us
+became clearer, and the sun assumed the rose-color he first presented
+to our gaze, standing right in the zenith.</p>
+
+<p>The only damage done to the crew was a few broken limbs and some
+severe bruises. The ship had lost several spars, and one of her boats
+was blown out of its lashings on deck and was lost.</p>
+
+<p>It was a week since we had left the outer world, and what a change had
+occurred in that short space of time! The excitement had been so
+intense that not a man of us had slept during that period, and as for
+meals, we had forgotten about them altogether.</p>
+
+<p>A general order was given the cooks to prepare a banquet to duly
+inaugurate our discovery of the new world. Both officers and men,
+including myself, sat down at the same table, where we satisfied the
+cravings of a week's hunger.</p>
+
+<p>I expressed my heartfelt pleasure in the safety of the crew and ship
+so far in making so tremendous a discovery. I relied on the courage
+and loyalty of the crew for still further explorations in the strange
+and mysterious planet we had discovered. I declared that those who
+shared the dangers of the expedition would also share in whatever
+reward fortune might bestow upon us.</p>
+
+<p>It is needless to say such sentiments were enthusiastically applauded.</p>
+
+<p>I praised my able coadjutor, Captain Wallace, without whose skilful
+seamanship not a soul of us could ever have reached that secret world.
+"It was he," said I, "who has guided us without a chart through five
+hundred miles of polar cavern to the realms of Pluto, to Plutusia, the
+interior world. On<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span> him again we must depend for a safe exit when our
+explorations are ended."</p>
+
+<p>Flathootly attempted to make a speech, but, like the rest of the
+company, fell asleep, and in less than half an hour afterward not a
+soul remained awake, excepting Professor Starbottle and myself.</p>
+
+<p>We both struggled against sleep long enough to take a survey of the
+internal sphere. The <i>Polar King</i> floated on the wide bosom of the sea
+underneath the perpendicular sun that lit all Plutusia with its beams.
+With our telescopes we discovered oceans, continents, mountain ranges,
+lakes, cities, railroads, ships, and buildings of all kinds spread
+like an immense map on the concave vault of the earth overhead. It was
+a sight that alone amply repaid us for the discovery of so sublime a
+sphere.</p>
+
+<p>We thought what a cry of joy would electrify both planets when through
+our instrumentality they first knew of each other's existence. We
+alone possessed the tremendous secret! Then, what possibilities of
+commerce! What keen and glorious revelations of art! What unfolding of
+the secrets of nature each world would find in the other! What
+inventions rival nations would discover in either world, and here for
+the outer world what possible mountains of gold, what quarries of
+jewels! What means of empire and joy and love! But such thoughts were
+too vast for wearied souls. We were stunned by such conceptions, and,
+yielding to nature, sank into a dreamless sleep.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X.</h2>
+
+<h2>A VISIT FROM THE INHABITANTS OF PLUTUSIA.</h2>
+
+
+<p>How long we slept it is impossible to say. We must have remained in
+slumber at least three days after the great excitement of our voyage
+so far. The direct cause of my awaking was a loud noise on deck, and
+on coming up to learn the cause, I saw Flathootly shaking his fist at
+two strange flying men who hovered over the ship.</p>
+
+<p>"Bad luck to ye," shouted Flathootly, "if iver I get a grip of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span> ye
+again you won't sail away so swately after jabbin' me in the neck like
+that."</p>
+
+<p>"Flathootly!" I cried, "what's the meaning of this? Were those men on
+board ship? Had you hold of them?"</p>
+
+<p>"Begorra, sorr," he replied, holding his hand over a slight wound in
+his neck, "I was slaping as swately as a child when I felt something
+tickling me nose. I got up to see what was the matther wid me, and
+sure enough found thim two rascals prowlin' about the deck. Whin they
+saw me making a move they jumped back and roosted on the rail. I
+wanted to catch howlt of wan of thim as a curiosity and I goes up to
+the short fellow, an' says I, quite honey like: 'Good-marnin', sorr!
+Could you give me a match to loight me pipe?' an' before the fellow
+had time to know where he was I had howlt of him, wings an' all. Why,
+he was as weak as wather, and I was knocking his head on the deck to
+kape him quiet, whin the other fellow let fly and stuck his spear in
+me neck, and whin I was trying to catch the second fellow the first
+fellow got away. Be jabers, the next time I get the grip on either of
+thim his mutton's cooked."</p>
+
+<p>"I fear, Flathootly," said I, "you will never catch either of them
+again. Don't you see they have got wings and can fly wherever they
+like beyond reach?"</p>
+
+<p>The two men that flew around the ship were strange beings. Their
+complexions were bright yellow and their hair black. They were not
+above five and a half feet in height, but possessed athletic frames.
+Their wings were long polished blades of metal of a gleaming white,
+like gigantic oars, which were moved by some powerful force (possibly
+electricity) quite independent of the body. Their a&euml;rial blades
+flashed and whirled in the sunlight with blinding rapidity. Their
+attire consisted of what appeared to be leather tights covering the
+legs, of a pale yellow tint with crimson metallic embroidery. The
+dynamo and wings were fastened to a crimson jacket of unique shape
+that supported the body in flight. Their heads were protected by white
+metal helmets, and they wore tightly-fitting metal boots, reaching
+half way up to the knee, the metal being arranged in overlapping
+scales. Each flying man was armed with a spear and shields. The <i>tout
+ensemble</i> was a picture of agility and grace.</p>
+
+<p>The sailors, now thoroughly awake, gave expression to loud<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span>
+exclamations of surprise at the sight of the two strange flying men
+wheeling around the ship overhead. Professor Starbottle thought that
+the strangers must belong to some wealthy and civilized country, for
+men in a savage state would be incapable of inventing such powers of
+flight and presenting so ornate an appearance.</p>
+
+<p>"They are soldiers," said Professor Rackiron; "see the spears and
+shields they wear."</p>
+
+<p>"They're bloody pirates!" said Flathootly. "It was the long fellow
+that stabbed me."</p>
+
+<p>"You're all right," said the doctor to Flathootly. "Thank your stars
+the spear wasn't poisoned, or you would be a dead man."</p>
+
+<p>"Be the powers, I'll have that fellow yet," said the master-at-arms.
+"I'm going to take a jump, and, be me sowl, wan of thim fellows 'll
+get left."</p>
+
+<p>The strangers were now flying quite close to the ship, and Flathootly
+unexpectedly gave a tremendous spring into the air. He would have
+caught one of the a&euml;rial men for certain, but they, having wings,
+foiled him by simply moving out of the line of the Irishman's flight.</p>
+
+<p>Flathootly dropped into the sea about a quarter of a mile away, and
+would probably have been drowned had it not been for the generosity of
+the strangers themselves. One of the flying men, hastening to the
+rescue, caught him by the hair of the head and lifted him out of the
+water. Flathootly caught the stranger by one of his legs and held on
+like grim death. The flying man brought his burden right over the ship
+and attempted to drop Flathootly on deck, who shouted, "I hev him,
+boys! I hev him! Catch howlt of us, some of you!" Immediately a dozen
+sailors leaped up, and, grasping the winged man and his burden,
+brought both successfully down to the deck.</p>
+
+<p>Seeing himself overpowered, the stranger submitted to his captivity
+with as good a grace as possible. We removed his shield and spear,
+and, merely tying a rope to his leg to secure our prize, gave him the
+freedom of the ship.</p>
+
+<p>He sulked for a long time, and maintained an animated conversation
+with his free companion in a language whose meaning none of us
+understood. He finally condescended to eat some of the food we set
+before him, and his companion came near<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span> enough to take a glass of
+wine from his captive brother and drink it with evident relish.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
+<img src="images/image_054.jpg" width="400" height="587" alt="ONE OF THE FLYING MEN CAUGHT FLATHOOTLY BY THE HAIR OF
+THE HEAD, AND LIFTED HIM OUT OF THE WATER." title="" />
+<span class="caption">ONE OF THE FLYING MEN CAUGHT FLATHOOTLY BY THE HAIR OF
+THE HEAD, AND LIFTED HIM OUT OF THE WATER.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Flathootly was so far friendly disposed to his assailant as to offer
+him a glass of ship's rum. The stranger to our surprise did not refuse
+it, but, putting the glass to his lips, quaffed its contents at a
+single draught. When he became more accustomed to his surroundings we
+ventured to examine his curious equipment.</p>
+
+<p>Upon examination we found that the wings of our captive were simply
+large a&euml;rial oars, about four and a half feet in length and three feet
+wide at the widest part, tapering down to a few inches wide at the
+dynamo that moved them. Such small extent of surface evidently
+required an enormous force to propel a man in rapid flight. We found
+the dynamo to consist of a central wheel made to revolve by the
+attraction of a vast occult force evolved from the contact of two
+metals, one being of a vermilion color and the other of a bright green
+tint, that constituted the cell of the apparatus. No acid was
+required, nor did the contact of the metal produce any wasting of
+their substance. A colossal current of mysterious magnetism made the
+wheel revolve, the current being guided in its work by an automatic
+insulation of one hemisphere of the wheel.</p>
+
+<p>I put one hand on the dynamo and made a gesture of inquiry with the
+other, whereupon our strange friend said, "Nojmesedi!" Was this the
+name of the new force we had discovered, or the name of the flying
+apparatus as a whole? Before we could settle the point our friend
+became communicative, and, smiting his breast, said:</p>
+
+<p>"Plothoy, wayleal ar Atvatabar!"</p>
+
+<p>With the right hand he pointed to a continent rising above us, its
+mighty features being clearly visible to the naked eye.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI.</h2>
+
+<h2>WE LEARN ATVATABARESE.</h2>
+
+
+<p>This exclamation was a very puzzling phrase to us.</p>
+
+<p>Professor Starbottle said: "It appears to me, gentlemen, before we can
+make any use of our prisoner we must first learn his language."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Again the stranger smote his breast, exclaiming: "Plothoy, wayleal ar
+Atvatabar."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, of all the lingoes I iver heard," said Flathootly, "this is the
+worst case yet. It bates Irish, which is the toughest langwidge to
+larn undher the sun. What langwidge do you call that, sorr?"</p>
+
+<p>Professor Goldrock, besides being a naturalist, was an adept in
+language. He stated that our captive appeared to be either a soldier
+or courier or coast-guard of his country, which was evidently
+indicated by the last word, Atvatabar. "Let us take for granted," said
+he, "that 'Plothoy' is his name and 'Atvatabar' his country. We have
+left the two words 'wayleal ar.' Now the pronunciation and grouping of
+the letters leads me to think that the words resemble the English
+language more nearly than any other tongue. The word 'wayleal' has the
+same number of letters as 'soldier' and 'courier,' and I note that the
+fourth and last letters are identical in both 'courier' and 'wayleal.'
+On the supposition that both words are identical we might compare them
+thus:</p>
+
+<table class="tb3">
+  <tr>
+    <td>c</td>
+    <td>is</td>
+    <td>w</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>o</td>
+    <td>&quot;</td>
+    <td>a</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>u</td>
+    <td>&quot;</td>
+    <td>y</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>r</td>
+    <td>&quot;</td>
+    <td>l</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>i</td>
+    <td>&quot;</td>
+    <td>e</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>e</td>
+    <td>&quot;</td>
+    <td>i or a </td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>r</td>
+    <td>&quot;</td>
+    <td>1</td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>The word 'wayleil' or 'wayleal' means to us leal or strong&mdash;by the
+way, a very good name for a soldier."</p>
+
+<p>At this moment our mysterious friend yelled out:</p>
+
+<p>"Plothoy, wayleal ar Atvatabar, em Bilbimtesirol!"</p>
+
+<p>"Kape quiet, me boy," said Flathootly, "and we'll soon find out all
+about you."</p>
+
+<p>"Rather let him talk away," said the professor, "and we'll find out
+who he is much quicker. You see he has given us two new words this
+time, the words 'em Bilbimtesirol.' Now an idea strikes me&mdash;let us
+transpose the biggest word thus:</p>
+<table class="tb2">
+  <tr>
+    <td>b</td>
+    <td>is</td>
+    <td>p</td>
+    <td>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td>e</td>
+    <td>is</td>
+    <td>i</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>i</td>
+    <td>&quot;</td>
+    <td>e</td>
+    <td>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td>s</td>
+    <td>&quot;</td>
+    <td>c</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>l</td>
+    <td>&quot;</td>
+    <td>r</td>
+    <td>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td>i</td>
+    <td>&quot;</td>
+    <td>u</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>b</td>
+    <td>&quot;</td>
+    <td>p</td>
+    <td>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td>r</td>
+    <td>&quot;</td>
+    <td>l</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>i</td>
+    <td>&quot;</td>
+    <td>e</td>
+    <td>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td>o</td>
+    <td>&quot;</td>
+    <td>a</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>m</td>
+    <td>&quot;</td>
+    <td>n</td>
+    <td>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td>l</td>
+    <td>&quot;</td>
+    <td>r</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>t</td>
+    <td>&quot;</td>
+    <td>d</td>
+    <td>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Here we have the word 'perpendicular.' What does 'Bilbimtesirol' as
+'perpendicular' mean? It may mean that the interior planet is lit by a
+perpendicular sun, and that we are in a land of perpendicular light
+and shadow. See how the shadow, of every man surrounds his boots! Now,
+granting 'wayleal' means 'courier' and 'Bilbimtesirol'
+'perpendicular,' we have a clue to the language of Atvatabar. It seems
+to me to be a miraculous transposition of the English language thus:</p>
+<table class="tb2">
+  <tr>
+    <td>a</td>
+    <td>is</td>
+    <td>o</td>
+    <td>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td>n</td>
+    <td>is</td>
+    <td>m</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>b</td>
+    <td>&quot;</td>
+    <td>p</td>
+    <td>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td>o</td>
+    <td>&quot;</td>
+    <td>a</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>c</td>
+    <td>&quot;</td>
+    <td>s or k </td>
+    <td>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td>p</td>
+    <td>&quot;</td>
+    <td>b</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>d</td>
+    <td>&quot;</td>
+    <td>t</td>
+    <td>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td>q</td>
+    <td>&quot;</td>
+    <td>v</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>e</td>
+    <td>&quot;</td>
+    <td>i or a </td>
+    <td>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td>r</td>
+    <td>&quot;</td>
+    <td>l</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>f</td>
+    <td>&quot;</td>
+    <td>f or v </td>
+    <td>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td>s</td>
+    <td>&quot;</td>
+    <td>c or s </td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>g</td>
+    <td>&quot;</td>
+    <td>j</td>
+    <td>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td>t</td>
+    <td>&quot;</td>
+    <td>d</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>h</td>
+    <td>&quot;</td>
+    <td>oh</td>
+    <td>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td>u</td>
+    <td>&quot;</td>
+    <td>ij</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>i</td>
+    <td>&quot;</td>
+    <td>e</td>
+    <td>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td>v</td>
+    <td>&quot;</td>
+    <td>qu</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>j</td>
+    <td>&quot;</td>
+    <td>g</td>
+    <td>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td>w</td>
+    <td>&quot;</td>
+    <td>y c or s </td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>k</td>
+    <td>&quot;</td>
+    <td>c</td>
+    <td>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td>x</td>
+    <td>&quot;</td>
+    <td>z</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>l</td>
+    <td>&quot;</td>
+    <td>r</td>
+    <td>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td>y</td>
+    <td>&quot;</td>
+    <td>u or i </td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>m</td>
+    <td>&quot;</td>
+    <td>n</td>
+    <td>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td>z</td>
+    <td>&quot;</td>
+    <td>x</td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>According to this transposition our friend means, 'Plothoy courier of
+Atvatabar, in Bilbimtesirol.' Let us see if we can so understand him."
+So saying, the professor approached and said:</p>
+
+<p>"Ec wayl moni Plothoy?" (Is your name Plothoy?)</p>
+
+<p>"Wic cel, ni moni ec Plothoy" (Yes, sir, my name is Plothoy), promptly
+replied the stranger.</p>
+
+<p>"Good!" said the professor; "that's glorious! We understand each other
+now."</p>
+
+<p>I congratulated the professor on his brilliant discovery. It was
+magnificent! We could now converse with our prisoner on any subject we
+desired.</p>
+
+<p>We had the key in our hands that would unlock the wonders of Plutusia,
+or rather Bilbimtesirol, the interior world.</p>
+
+<p>Flathootly turned a dozen summersaults in the air to express his
+delight. The sailors spun upon the deck, and threw each other into the
+air like jugglers playing with balls, in pure excitement.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Ec Atvatabar dofi moni ar wail saimtle?" (Is Atvatabar the name of
+your country?) inquired the professor of Plothoy.</p>
+
+<p>"E on o wayleal ar Fec Nogicdi, Cemj Aldemegry Bhoolmakar ar
+Atvatabar" (I am a wayleal of his majesty King Aldemegry Bhoolmakar of
+Atvatabar), said Plothoy.</p>
+
+<p>Atvatabar, then, was a kingdom. We should go there certainly and see
+King Bhoolmakar and his people. But where was this mysterious country?</p>
+
+<p>"Yohili ec Atvatabar?" we asked of Plothoy.</p>
+
+<p>"Dohili!" he replied, pointing to a continent in the southwest. The
+southwest in the interior world, it should be stated, corresponds to
+the southeast on the outer earth. Atvatabar, then, lay underneath the
+Atlantic Ocean.</p>
+
+<p>"Yohod ec dohi moni ar dohi miolicd gliod sedi?" (What is the name of
+the nearest great city?) we asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Kioram," replied Plothoy. "Dohili ed ec fequi ohymtlit neric tyi
+caydoh docd." (There it is, five hundred miles due southeast.)</p>
+
+<p>We looked in the direction indicated with our glasses and plainly saw
+the white marble buildings of a large city not three degrees above the
+plane of our position. Further off, in the haze of distance, a mighty
+continent unrolled its landscapes, until it was merged in the
+brightness of the sunlight above us.</p>
+
+<p>All this time Plothoy's companion circumnavigated the ship on his
+swift wings. We inquired his name.</p>
+
+<p>"Lecholt," said Plothoy, "omt ohi orca ec o wayleal." (And he also is
+a wayleal.)</p>
+
+<p>"What is the name of the sun above us?" we inquired.</p>
+
+<p>"Swang," said Plothoy.</p>
+
+<p>Good! we would sail direct to Kioram, the principal port of Atvatabar.</p>
+
+<p>I assured Plothoy that as long as he was detained by us he would
+receive the greatest consideration at our hands. We would do him no
+injury, but, on the contrary, amply reward him for his services. He
+could understand that, being strangers in an unknown world, it was
+absolutely necessary for us to have a pilot, or guide, not merely to
+advise how to direct the ship, but to inform us regarding the laws,
+manners, and customs of the people we proposed visiting, that we might
+accommodate<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span> ourselves to such novel experiences as we were certain to
+undergo. We told him we had come to Bilbimtesirol as pioneers of the
+outer planet, as heralds of the intercourse that would undoubtedly
+take place between two worlds separated for ages until now. We assured
+Plothoy how indebted we were to him for the information he had already
+given, and his great importance to us in a voyage that would affect
+the interests of thousands of millions of men ought to reconcile him
+to his brief captivity. We could not afford to lose him, and therefore
+asked him to remain with us for the remainder of the voyage, and on
+reaching Kioram we would give him his liberty.</p>
+
+<p>These words, with the treatment he was receiving, completely
+reconciled Plothoy, who called Lecholt to come down on deck beside
+him. His companion obeyed, and presently the two strangers sat on the
+rail of the vessel engaged in earnest conversation.</p>
+
+<p>Presently Plothoy said that his companion Lecholt would go forward in
+advance of the ship to inform the king of our coming, that due
+preparations be made for our reception. This was an admirable
+suggestion, and accordingly we despatched Lecholt with a message of
+profound respect for King Aldemegry Bhoolmakar, saying that the
+commander of the <i>Polar King</i> with his officers and retinue would do
+themselves the honor of visiting his majesty and people as soon as the
+<i>Polar King</i> would reach Atvatabar.</p>
+
+<p>Poising himself for a moment on his wings, Lecholt saluted us with his
+sword and immediately swept away in the direction of Atvatabar.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII.</h2>
+
+<h2>WE ARRIVE AT KIORAM.</h2>
+
+
+<p>Between the time of departure of Lecholt and our arrival at Kioram we
+kept Plothoy as busy as possible answering our questions.</p>
+
+<p>We found that all the soldiers of the king were known as wayleals, and
+that all were equipped with magnetic wings. The wings were worked by a
+little dynamo supplied by magnicity. A single cell, six cubic inches
+in size, produced a current both<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span> enormously powerful and constant. I
+could recollect no cell in the outer world of the same size so
+powerful, hence here was an inventive discovery of the first
+importance. The cell was composed of two metals, terrelium, a
+vermilion metal found only in Atvatabar, and aquelium, a bright green
+metal elaborated from the waters of the internal ocean, which metals
+simply placed in contact, without the addition of an acid or alkaline
+salt, generated a powerful current. Both cell and dynamo were strapped
+to the back by a strong leathern jacket, which also supported the
+soldier in flight. The weight of a man being only fifteen pounds on
+the surface of the interior earth, and no weight at all fifty miles
+above it, prevented any fatigue being experienced from flight. It was
+the easiest of all methods of locomotion, and eminently suited to the
+inhabitants of such a world as Bilbimtesirol.</p>
+
+<p>Plothoy informed us that the government of Atvatabar was an elective
+monarchy. The king and nobles were elected for life and no title was
+hereditary. There was a legislative assembly founded on the popular
+will called the Borodemy. The king's palace and Borodemy were situated
+in Calnogor, the capital city of the realm, which lay five hundred
+miles inland and communicated with Kioram by a sacred railroad, as
+well as by a&euml;rial ship.</p>
+
+<p>The largest building in Calnogor was the Bormidophia, or pantheon,
+where the worship of the gods was held. The only living object of
+worship was the Lady Lyone, the Supreme Goddess of Atvatabar. There
+were different kinds of golden gods worshipped, or symbols that
+represented the inventive forces, art, and spiritual power.</p>
+
+<p>The king was head of the army and navy and the people were divided
+into several classes of nobles and common people. The Atvatabarese
+were very wealthy, gold being as common as iron in the outer world.
+They were a peaceful people, and Atvatabar being itself an immense
+island continent, lying far from any other land, there had been no
+wars with any external nation, nor even civil war, for over a hundred
+years.</p>
+
+<p>There were plenty of newspapers, and the most wonderful inventions had
+been in use for ages. Railroads, pneumatic tubes, telegraphs,
+telephones, phonographs, electric lights, rain makers, seaboots,
+marine railroads, flying machines, megaphones, velocipedes without
+wheels, a&euml;rophers, etc., were quite common,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span> not to speak of such
+inventions as sowing, reaping, sewing, bootblacking and knitting
+machines. Of course printing, weaving, and such like machines had been
+in use since the dawn of history. Strange to say they had no steam
+engines, and terrorite and gunpowder were unknown. Their great source
+of power was magnicity, generated by the two powerful metals terrelium
+and aquelium, and compressed air their explosive force.</p>
+
+<p>As we approached this wonderful country we noticed a number of
+splendid ships coming to meet us. Plated with gold and fully rigged,
+they presented a beautiful appearance. They were each propelled by
+magnicity. Plothoy said they were the fleet of Atvatabar coming to
+welcome us. The royal navy was in command of Admiral Jolar, who had
+never yet seen active service, but was a worthy representative of the
+king.</p>
+
+<p>Our rapid steaming in the direction of the fleet, which as rapidly
+approached us, soon brought the <i>Polar King</i> within range of their
+guns. Plothoy was set free, as we then knew all about Atvatabar
+necessary to know prior to seeing the admiral, who could give us more
+definite information.</p>
+
+<p>A roar of guns saluted us from at least one hundred vessels. There was
+no smoke, the guns being discharged by compressed air. Each vessel
+bore the flag of Atvatabar, a pink-colored disc surrounded by a circle
+of green on a violet field. The disc represented the sun above us, the
+green circle Atvatabar, and the violet field the surrounding sea. From
+the peak of the <i>Polar King</i> the American flag floated, the first flag
+of the outer sphere that was ever unrolled in the air of the interior
+world.</p>
+
+<p>The ships approached us in double column and presented an appearance
+of the utmost grandeur. It was evident we were the discoverers of a
+powerful and opulent country, and not a barbarous land. Here were
+civilization and courtesy, and, not to be outdone in these qualities,
+I ordered a salute from our terrorite guns. The explosive shells
+discharged by gunpowder into the sea sent up columns of water and foam
+all around us to an astonishing height, and it took a considerable
+time for the sea to subside, the gravity of the water being only
+one-tenth that of the external ocean.</p>
+
+<p>The Atvatabarese must have been greatly astonished at the explosions,
+as Plothoy informed us that no such weapon as ours formed part of the
+armament of the Atvatabar navy.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The fleet ceased firing, and presently a gayly-decorated magnic launch
+shot off from the flagship, bearing two officers in brilliant
+uniforms. Plothoy, as the boat approached us, said the officers were
+Admiral Jolar of the fleet and Koshnili, Grand Minister of the
+government. The boat came alongside the <i>Polar King</i>, and, lowering a
+gangway, the illustrious visitors came on board.</p>
+
+<p>Admiral Jolar was arrayed in an olive-green coat, decorated with
+overlapping scales of gold embroidery, and olive-green trousers with
+an outer stripe similarly decorated. The uniform of Koshnili, the
+Grand Minister, was of electric-blue cloth covered with serpentine
+bands of gold embroidery, radiating downward. A small but brilliant
+retinue accompanied each official. As the distinguished visitors
+stepped on deck, the entire fleet saluted us with a second roar of
+guns. Plothoy announced their names and dignities. Being able to greet
+their excellencies in their own language greatly astonished them.</p>
+
+<p>I learned from the admiral that the Grand Minister Koshnili was sent
+by his majesty, King Aldemegry Bhoolmakar, as a special envoy to bid
+us welcome in the name of the king and people of Atvatabar. The story
+told by Lecholt had been proclaimed by royal authority throughout the
+country, and the day of our arrival in Calnogor, the metropolis, was
+to be observed as a national holiday.</p>
+
+<p>A brilliant programme of entertainment had been devised, calculated to
+do us infinite honor. I conferred on Admiral Jolar the title of
+Honorary Commander of the <i>Polar King</i>, and on Koshnili that of
+Honorary Captain.</p>
+
+<p>The admiral said that both he and Koshnili would remain on our ship
+until we arrived in the city of Kioram.</p>
+
+<p>The admiral, by signalling from the <i>Polar King</i>, put his navy into a
+series of brilliant evolutions. A curious feature was the fact that
+each sailor possessed wings, was in fact a wayleal, like Plothoy. The
+sailors, wing-jackets or fletyemings, as they were called, of one
+vessel, would rise like a swarm of bees and settle on another vessel.
+The evolutions made in this way were both majestic and surprising.</p>
+
+<p>The entire fletyemings of each squadron on either side of us were
+drawn up in battle array in the space between the ships and fought
+each other in mock battle with spears, while the ships discharged
+their guns at each other.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>We reached the harbor of Kioram, in which the royal navy anchored in
+double column. The <i>Polar King</i> sailed slowly down the imperial avenue
+of ships amid the thunder of guns and the cheers of fletyemings.</p>
+
+<p>The sun shone gloriously as we stepped from the deck of the ship upon
+the white marble city wharf. Everything was new, strange, and
+splendid. We were received by Governor Ladalmir, of Kioram, the
+commandant of the fort, and his staff, Captains Pra and Nototherboc.
+Beyond the notables a vast crowd of Atvatabarese cheered us
+vociferously, while the guns of the fort, on a commanding height,
+roared their welcome.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII.</h2>
+
+<h2>MARCHING IN TRIUMPH.</h2>
+
+
+<p>There was a blaze of excitement in the streets of Kioram when our
+procession appeared on the grand boulevard leading from the harbor to
+the fortress, some four miles in length. We presented a strange
+appearance not only to the people of the city, but to ourselves as
+well.</p>
+
+<p>Prior to our appearance before the people we were obliged to adjust
+ourselves to the motion of an immense walking machine, the product of
+the inventive skill of Atvatabar.</p>
+
+<p>Governor Ladalmir explained that the cavalry of Atvatabar were mounted
+on such locomotive machines, built on the plan of immense ostriches,
+called bockhockids. They were forty feet in height from toe to head,
+the saddle being thirty feet from the ground. The iron muscles of legs
+and body, moved by a powerful magnic motor inside the body of the
+monster, acted on bones of hollow steel. Each machine was operated by
+the dynamo in the body, which was adjusted to act or remain inert, as
+required, when riding the structure. A switch in front of the saddle
+set the bockhockid in motion or brought it to rest again. It was
+simply a gigantic velocipede without wheels. "We'll ride the bastes,"
+said Flathootly, with suppressed excitement.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think you can accommodate yourselves to ride such a machine?"
+said the governor. "You will find it, after a little practice, an
+imposing method of travel."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>We were assembled in a spacious court that surrounded the private dock
+of the king. Into this dock the <i>Polar King</i> had been brought for
+greater safety and also to facilitate popular inspection. I determined
+that both officers and sailors should equally take part in the honors
+of our reception, and I informed the governor that we would like to
+see first how the machines were worked.</p>
+
+<p>At a signal from the governor, Captains Pra and Nototherboc
+disappeared and presently returned to the court-yard mounted on two
+gigantic bockhockids, on which they curvetted and swept around in
+gallant style.</p>
+
+<p>We were both astonished and delighted at the performance. It was
+marvellous to see such agility and obedience to the wish of the rider
+on such ungainly monsters. The sailors were only too anxious to mount
+such helter-skelters as the machine ostriches of Atvatabar. The stride
+made by each bird was over forty feet, and nothing on earth could
+overtake such coursers in full flight.</p>
+
+<p>The governor, proud of his two-legged horses, as he called them, grew
+eloquent in their behalf.</p>
+
+<p>"Consider an army of men," said he, "mounted on such machines. How
+swift! How formidable! What a terrible combat when two such armies
+meet, armed with their magnic spears! What display of prodigious
+agility! What breathless swerving to and fro! What fearful fleetness
+of pursuer and pursued! Aided as we are by the almost total absence of
+gravity, our inventors have produced a means of locomotion for
+individual men second only to the flying motor. We possess, also,
+flying bockhockids who are our cavalry in a&euml;rial warfare."</p>
+
+<p>The enraptured sailors were only too anxious to mount the enormous
+birds and sally forth to electrify the city. Ninety-eight bockhockids
+were required to mount the entire company. This number was brought
+into the court-yard by a detachment of soldiers who nimbly unseated
+themselves and slid down the smooth legs of the birds to the ground.</p>
+
+<p>"I say, yer honor," said Flathootly to the governor, "have you any
+insurance companies in this counthry?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, certainly," replied the governor.</p>
+
+<p>"Then I want to inshure my loife if I have to mount a baste loike
+that."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I'll see that you are amply compensated for any injuries<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span> you may
+sustain by falling off the machine," said the governor.</p>
+
+<p>"Sorr, is yer word as good as yer bond?" inquired Flathootly.</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly," replied the governor.</p>
+
+<p>"Well thin, sorr, gimme yer bond," said Flathootly.</p>
+
+<p>The governor duly put his signature to a statement that Flathootly
+should be compensated for any injuries received in consequence of his
+riding the bockhockid. Flathootly carefully deposited the document in
+a little satchel he carried in his breast, and thereupon, sailor
+fashion, climbed up the leg of the machine and seated himself on the
+gold-embroidered saddle-cloth.</p>
+
+<p>In like manner the sailors got seated on their machines, the entire
+company forming an imposing phalanx. I found it quite easy to balance
+myself on the two-legged monsters in consequence of the large base
+given each leg by the outspreading toes.</p>
+
+<p>While the sailors were getting seated a military band, composed of
+fifty musicians, each mounted on a bockhockid, played the March of
+Atvatabar in soul-stirring strains.</p>
+
+<p>The word of command being given, the great doors of the court-yard
+were flung open and forth issued the musicians with banners flying.
+Then followed the seamen of the <i>Polar King</i>, led by the governor,
+Koshnili and myself.</p>
+
+<p>The excited populace cheered a hearty welcome. A brigade of five
+thousand bockhockids fell into line as an escort of honor. The
+ever-shining sun lent a brilliant effect to the pageant. Our
+complexions were lighter than those of the Atvatabarese, who were
+universally of a golden-yellow tint, and it was surprising to see how
+fair the people appeared, considering that they lived in a land where
+the sun never sets. None had a complexion darker than a rich
+chocolate-brown color. This was accounted for by the fact that the
+light of Swang was not half as intense as that of the outer sun in the
+tropics. The diminutive size of the luminary counterbalanced its
+proximity to the surrounding planet. The light that fell upon
+Atvatabar was warm, genial, glowing, and rosy, imparting to life a
+delightful sensation. As the procession advanced we saw splendid
+emporiums of trade chiselled of white marble, crowded roof and window
+with dense masses of people. On either side of the fine boulevard
+leading to the palace the people were jammed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span> into an immovable mass
+and were wild with enthusiasm. The roadway was lined with trees that
+seemed like magnolias, oranges, and oleanders.</p>
+
+<p>"Now this is something loike a recipshon," said Flathootly. "I'm well
+plazed wid it."</p>
+
+<p>"I am delighted to know that your honor thinks so highly of our
+efforts to please you," said the governor.</p>
+
+<p>Flathootly turned round and shouted to the sailors, "Remimber, me
+bhoys, we will hev a grand feast at the ind of the performance." As he
+spoke, he unfortunately touched the switch starting the bockhockid
+into a gallop, and in a moment the machine dashed furiously forward,
+running into the musicians, knocking down some of the other
+bockhockids, scattering others in all directions, and then flying
+ahead amid the roars of the people. Flathootly was thrown off his
+seat, but in falling to the ground managed to get hold of the
+bockhockid's leg at the knee-joint, to which he clung with the energy
+of despair. A squad of police, who also rode bockhockids, dashed after
+the flying Flathootly, and one of them got hold of the switch on the
+back of the machine and so brought it to a standstill.</p>
+
+<p>Flathootly was terrified, but uninjured. His first concern was to see
+if his "insurance" was safe. He found the document still in his
+breast, and this being so, was induced to remount his steed. "I hope
+your honor has met with no accident?" said the governor, riding up.</p>
+
+<p>"As long as I've yer honor's handwritin' I'm all right," said
+Flathootly. "If I break me leg what odds, so long as I'm insured?"</p>
+
+<p>The scattered musicians were assembled in order again and the
+procession continued its way toward the palace. There were on all
+sides evidences of wealth, culture, and refinement. Every building was
+constructed of chiselled marble.</p>
+
+<p>The fortress and palace of Kioram stood in a large square, occupying
+the most commanding position in the city. From the fort could be seen
+the white shores and surrounding sea of Atvatabar. The harbor was
+surrounded with white stone piers lined with the commerce of the
+kingdom. The charm of the scene was largely lost on Flathootly and the
+sailors, who cared more for the material benefit of their reception
+than for its ideal beauty.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<img src="images/image_068.jpg" width="600" height="382" alt="ONE OF THE MOUNTED POLICE GOT HOLD OF THE SWITCH ON THE
+BACK OF THE BOCKHOCKID, AND BROUGHT IT TO A STANDSTILL." title="" />
+<span class="caption">ONE OF THE MOUNTED POLICE GOT HOLD OF THE SWITCH ON THE
+BACK OF THE BOCKHOCKID, AND BROUGHT IT TO A STANDSTILL.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>The procession arrived at a pillared archway leading underneath<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span> the
+solid walls of the fortress. These walls were fully one hundred feet
+in height and fifty feet in thickness. The top of the walls consisted
+of a level circular roadway, whereon a guard of bockhockids constantly
+swept around with amazing swiftness.</p>
+
+<p>It was a sight grotesque in the extreme. The flying wayleals looked
+like a race between enormous ostriches with a wild confusion of legs
+on the lofty ramparts.</p>
+
+<p>"Flying divils let loose," was the subdued remark of Flathootly.</p>
+
+<p>There was a gay time in the banqueting hall of the palace. We were
+royally feasted, and for wine we drank squang, the choicest wine of
+Atvatabar.</p>
+
+<p>The governor informed us that our appearance in the interior world had
+been heralded all over the country, and strange speculations had been
+made as to what world or country we belonged to. "We know, of course,"
+said he, "that you do not belong to any race of men in our sphere, and
+this makes public curiosity all the greater concerning you. What
+country do you come from?" said he, addressing Flathootly.</p>
+
+<p>"Oi'm from the United States, the foinest counthry on the outside of
+the world; but I was born in Tipperary," said Flathootly.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah," said the governor, "I should be delighted to visit your
+country."</p>
+
+<p>"You might be gettin' frightened, sorr, at the dark ivery noight,"
+said Flathootly.</p>
+
+<p>"What is the night?" said the governor.</p>
+
+<p>"Och, and have ye lived to be a gray-haired man and don't know that
+it's dark at noight whin the sun jumps round to the other soide of the
+wurrld?"</p>
+
+<p>"But it's never dark here," said the governor.</p>
+
+<p>"Thrue for you, but it ought to be. How can a Christian slape wid the
+sun shinin' all the toime?" rejoined the Irishman.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, you can sleep here in the sunshine," said the governor, "as well
+as inside the house."</p>
+
+<p>"Does it iver rain here?" said Flathootly.</p>
+
+<p>"But little," replied the governor; "not more than six inches of rain
+falls in a year."</p>
+
+<p>"Bedad, you ought to be in Oireland to see it rain. There<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span> you'd git
+soaked to your heart's content. An' tell me how do you grow your
+cabbages without rain?" he continued.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said the governor, "rain is produced by firing into the air
+balls of solid gas so intensely cold that in turning to the gaseous
+form they condense in rain the invisible vapor in the air."</p>
+
+<p>"Bedad, that's what they do in our country," said Flathootly, "only
+they explode shells of dynamite in the air. Can you tell me," he
+added, "have you got tides in the say here?"</p>
+
+<p>"We have never been able to discover what force it is that lifts the
+sea so regularly," said the governor. "We call it the breathing of the
+ocean."</p>
+
+<p>"Shure any schoolboy knows it's the moon that does it," replied
+Flathootly.</p>
+
+<p>"The moon?" queried the governor.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, of coorse it's the moon on the other side of the wurrld that
+lifts up the wather both inside and out. Ye're wake in geography not
+to know that," said Flathootly.</p>
+
+<p>The governor looked at me for verification of this astonishing story.
+"Where is that wonderful moon," he inquired, "that I hear of? Where is
+the surface of the earth that slopes away out of sight?" Just then the
+bell sounded its message that called the people to rest, and the
+banqueting came to an end. We were forthwith shown to the private
+apartments allotted to us in the palace.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV.</h2>
+
+<h2>THE JOURNEY TO CALNOGOR.</h2>
+
+
+<p>There was in Kioram a temple dedicated to the god Rakamadeva, or
+Sacred Locomotive, which was one of the many gods worshipped by the
+Atvatabarese. It belonged to the gods embraced in the category of
+"gods of invention," and its motive power was magnicity, the same
+force that propelled the flying men. It was a powerful structure built
+of solid gold, platinum, terrelium, aquelium, and plutulium, and
+alloys of the most precious and heaviest of metals, and was both car
+and locomotive, and was hung over a single elevated rail that
+supported it,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span> the weight resting on six wheels in front and six
+behind, all concealed by the body of the car.</p>
+
+<p>The battery consisted of one hundred cells of terrelium and aquelium
+that developed a gigantic force. The six driving wheels at either end
+of the car were of immense size, and the tires were hollowed out with
+a semi-circular groove that fitted upon the high rounded rail. On this
+rail rested the entire weight of the car, which oscillated as it
+rushed. The end of each projecting head was inlaid with an enormous
+ruby, and the framework of the god was enriched in numerous places
+with precious stones. The sacred locomotive had as attendants
+twenty-four priests, clad in flowing vestures of orange and aloe-green
+silk (the royal colors), arranged in alternate stripes of great width,
+typical of a green earth and golden sky.</p>
+
+<p>Royal and privileged travellers were alone permitted to harness the
+god, and by command of the king we were to enter Calnogor by means of
+the sacred courier.</p>
+
+<p>The route to the temple led through a different part of the city than
+that traversed by us when going to the governor's palace. We had
+leisure to observe more particularly the architecture and the
+appearance of the streets through which we passed. The roadway
+everywhere was one solid block of white marble, and emporiums and
+dwellings were built of the same material.</p>
+
+<p>"You seem to have sculptured the city out of a mountain of white
+marble," I said to the governor, who rode his bockhockid alongside
+mine.</p>
+
+<p>"That is, indeed, the fact," replied the governor. "The entire city
+has been laboriously hewn from an immense mountain."</p>
+
+<p>"Then in building your houses, you laid the foundation with the roof,
+and built them downward until you arrived at the level of the street,"
+I said.</p>
+
+<p>"That is precisely so," said he. "Our streets are simply ornamental
+chasms cut in the solid rock. Both roadway and building are composed
+of the same stone. One stone has built the entire city."</p>
+
+<p>I was surprised at the idea of the stupendous labor involved in
+carving a city containing half a million of inhabitants, but,
+considering that a man could easily lift a block of stone weighing
+half a ton in the outer sphere, I saw that even so prodigious a task
+as chiselling Kioram might well be accomplished. It<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span> was a new
+sensation to bound on a bockhockid over the smoothly carved pavement,
+where once stood the mighty heart of a mountain of stone. All the
+buildings along the route were wonderfully sculptured. There seemed no
+end to the floriated mouldings, pillars and other decorations in
+relief, wrought in a strange order of art that was most captivating.</p>
+
+<p>As for ourselves, we must have presented an interesting procession.
+Our Viking helmets of polished brass gleamed in the sunlight like
+gold. The emblazoned bear thereon was a symbol to the Atvatabarese of
+a species of divinity that protected us as beings of another world.</p>
+
+<p>We arrived at the temple of the sacred locomotive, and were received
+by the winged priests in charge. Dismounting amid the sound of music,
+a procession was formed, the priests leading the way along a wide
+hallway that terminated in the temple of the god.</p>
+
+<p>The god Rakamadeva was a glorious sight. On a causeway of marble
+flanked with steps on either side stood that object of magnic life and
+beauty in a blaze of metals and jewels worthy the praise of the
+priests, in itself a royal palace.</p>
+
+<p>This automobile car in shape seemed a compound of the back of a turtle
+and a Siamese temple, and was of extraordinary magnificence. Both
+front and rear tapered down to the solid platinum framework of the
+wheels, that extended beyond the car at both ends, the projections
+simulating the heads of monsters that held each between their jaws one
+hundred cells of triple metal, which developed a tremendous force.</p>
+
+<p>The priests chanted the following ode to the sacred locomotive:</p>
+
+<p>"Glorious annihilator of time and space, lord of distance, imperial
+courier.</p>
+
+<p>"Hail, swift and sublime man-created god, hail colossal and bright
+wheel!</p>
+
+<p>"Thy wheels adamant, thy frame platinum, thy cells terrelium,
+aquelium!</p>
+
+<p>"Thou art lightning shivering on the metals, thy breathless flights
+affright Atvatabar!</p>
+
+<p>"The affluence of life animates thy form, that flashes through valleys
+and on mountains high!</p>
+
+<p>"The forests roar as thou goest past, the gorge echoes thy thunder!</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
+<img src="images/image_074.jpg" width="400" height="582" alt="THE SACRED LOCOMOTIVE STORMED THE MOUNTAIN HEIGHTS WITH
+ITS AUDACIOUS TREAD." title="" />
+<span class="caption">THE SACRED LOCOMOTIVE STORMED THE MOUNTAIN HEIGHTS WITH
+ITS AUDACIOUS TREAD.</span>
+</div><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Thy savage wheels ravage space. Convulsed with life, thy tireless
+form devours the heights of heaven!</p>
+
+<p>"Labor and glory and terror leap as thy thundering feet go by; thy
+axles burn with the steady sweep, till on wings of fire they fly!"</p>
+
+<p>The four-and-twenty priests formed a guard of honor as we
+reverentially entered the car. On our side of the god were seated
+Governor Ladalmir, Admiral Jolar and staff, myself and officers of the
+<i>Polar King</i>, including the scientific staff. The other side contained
+the sailors under command of Flathootly, master-at-arms, escorted by
+Captains Pra and Nototherboc.</p>
+
+<p>The priests were distributed around the outside of the car, holding on
+to golden hand-rails. A priest seated on a throne in front moved a
+switch, and, with a roar of music, the god leaped upon the metals. The
+wonderful lightness of the car allowed us to attain a tremendous
+speed. The mightiest curves were taken at a single breath. The silken
+robes of the priests flashed in the wind.</p>
+
+<p>The car vibrated with a thousand tremors. In the wide windows of thick
+glass were framed rapid phantasmagoria of landscapes, as the flying
+panorama unrolled itself. There were visions of interminable prairies,
+over which we swept, a blinding flash, leaving a low, spreading cloud
+of dust on the rails to mark our flight.</p>
+
+<p>We plunged into tunnels of darkness, where the warm air roared with
+the echoes of the delirious wheels. The cry of the caverns saluted us
+like the shouts of unknown monsters dwelling in the heart of the
+mountains.</p>
+
+<p>The sacred locomotive was an element of life, as it shot from the
+tunnels and bounded up curving mountain heights through pastures of
+delightful flowers. With wheels prevailed upon by the tension of the
+invincible fluid, the monster swerved not before the proudest
+precipice. It stormed the heights with its audacious tread, flinging
+itself on the mountain pass, a marvel of power and intrepidity, and
+known as the devourer of distance.</p>
+
+<p>In five hours we had traversed five hundred miles, the distance from
+Kioram to Calnogor.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a>CHAPTER XV.</h2>
+
+<h2>OUR RECEPTION BY THE KING.</h2>
+
+
+<p>The sacred locomotive swept through a noble archway into a palace
+garden, a part of the king's palace in Calnogor. The railway terminal
+was a wide marble platform, or causeway, surrounded by a sea of
+tropical flowers. The priests had already alighted, and stood in
+double file to receive us. Through a sculptured archway a herald
+approached us, blowing a trumpet and announcing the coming of his
+royal majesty, King Aldemegry Bhoolmakar of Atvatabar.</p>
+
+<p>We alighted, and I had the sailors drawn up in an imposing column on
+the platform, every man grasping his sword. Even the remotest walls of
+the garden were lined with wayleals, and military music added to the
+splendor of the scene.</p>
+
+<p>Presently a stately figure approached us. It was his majesty
+accompanied by her majesty, Queen Toplissy. Koshnili whispered that it
+was a special honor that the king and queen should greet us even
+before we entered the palace. The king was tall and erect in bearing
+and his complexion was the color of old gold. His hair, as well as his
+closely-trimmed beard and mustache, were of a serpent-green tint. He
+wore a dome-shaped crown of gold, surmounted by a blazing ruby. His
+dress was a cloth of gold, light as gossamer, that swathed his form
+after the manner of our Eastern potentates. His boots of
+gold-lacquered leather were covered with emeralds and curiously turned
+up at the toes. Queen Toplissy was a handsome lady, rather heavy in
+physique, of an orange-yellow complexion, with bright copper-bronze
+hair, and her unclad arms wore a profusion of bracelets and armlets of
+various metals. Her crown was also of gold surmounted by a blazing
+sapphire. Her robes were of white silk embroidered with broad bands of
+orange and arranged in innumerable folds. Her boots were incrusted
+with sapphires. All this I saw at a momentary glance as Koshnili led
+me forward to his majesty. I was announced as "His Excellency,
+Lexington White, commander of the <i>Polar King</i>, the discoverer of the
+Polar Gulf, and the first inhabitant of the outer world who had ever
+reached Bilbimtesirol and Atvatabar."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The king embraced me and I kissed the hand of her majesty. The
+officers and sailors received their due share of royal attention. We
+were the objects of unbounded curiosity on the part of the royal
+retinue.</p>
+
+<p>Amid a salute of guns and music we passed through the archway that
+formed the boundary between the palace gardens and the court of the
+holy locomotive, and saw the palace of King Aldemegry Bhoolmakar
+before us.</p>
+
+<p>It was a high, conical building, twenty stories in height. Each story
+was surrounded by a row of windows decorated with pillars. Colossal
+lions of gold stood on the entrance towers, their claws formed of
+straps of gold running down the walls and riveted to the lower tiers
+of stone, giving the impression that they held together the whole
+structure beneath. The style of architecture was an absolutely new
+order. It was neither Hindoo, Egyptian, Greek, nor Gothic, but there
+was a flavor of all four styles in the weirdly-carved circular walls
+and roofs. The palace was surrounded by a spacious court, enclosed by
+cloistered walls. Flowers bloomed in immense square-shaped vases of
+stone supported on diminutive square pillars. A tank of crystal water,
+on each side of which broad wide steps led down into the cool wave,
+lay in the centre of the court. The tank was fed by a wide rivulet of
+rippling water that ran along a chiselled bed in the marble floor of
+the court.</p>
+
+<p>The entire scene was a picture of glorious and blessed repose. The
+sculptor had covered the base and frieze of the walls with a profusion
+of ornament in high relief. Imagination and art had produced scenes
+that created a profound impression. A dramatic calmness held lion and
+elephant, serpent and eagle, wayleal and bockhockid, youth and maiden,
+in glorious embrace.</p>
+
+<p>The banquet given by the king in our honor in the topmost story of the
+palace was both delicious and satisfying. All the fertility of
+Atvatabar ministered to our delight. Strange meats and fruits were
+music to the body, as art and music were meats and wine to the soul.</p>
+
+<p>I sat beside his majesty at the feast, while Koshnili sat at my right
+hand. Admiral Jolar sat beside the queen, and on her majesty's right
+sat Captain Wallace. The professors and other officers, as well as a
+number of noblemen and state officers,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span> also sat at the royal table.
+At another table sat the sailors, accompanied by the officers of the
+king's household.</p>
+
+<p>We had again an opportunity of tasting the squang of Atvatabar, which
+was of a finer brand than that served at the table of Governor
+Ladalmir. It added a new joy to life to taste such royal wine.</p>
+
+<p>His majesty, seated on his throne at the feast, raised a glass of
+squang and said: "I drink in welcome to our illustrious guest, His
+Excellency, Lexington White, commander of the <i>Polar King</i> and
+discoverer of Atvatabar."</p>
+
+<p>The company rising, shouted, "Welcome to His Excellency, Lexington
+White, commander of the <i>Polar King</i>," and drank of their glasses in
+my honor.</p>
+
+<p>In acknowledgment of this great compliment I rose and proposed the
+healths of the king and queen. I said: "I drink to the healths of
+their royal majesties, King Aldemegry Bhoolmakar and Queen Toplissy of
+Atvatabar, to whom be lifelong peace and prosperity."</p>
+
+<p>The company honored this sentiment by acclamation and drinking goblets
+of wine. This constituted the preliminaries of our interview.</p>
+
+<p>"Now," said his majesty, "we are extremely anxious to learn all about
+the manners and customs of the people of the outer world. Tell us of
+these people, their laws, religions, and modes of government."</p>
+
+<p>In obedience to the king's request I spoke of America and its nations
+founded on the idea of self-sovereignty, and of Europe with its
+sovereigns and subjects. I spoke of Egypt and India as types of a
+colossal past, of the United States and Great Britain as types of a
+colossal present, and of Africa the continent of the colossal future.
+I informed the king that the genius of Asia, of the Eastern world, ran
+to poetry and art without science, while that of the Western world
+developed science and invention without poetry and art.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!" cried the king, who was intensely interested. "Atvatabar has
+both science and art, invention and poetry. Our wise rulers have been
+ever mindful of the equal charms of science and sentiment in educating
+our people."</p>
+
+<p>I assured his majesty that we were no less anxious to learn all about
+the institutions of Atvatabar than he was regarding the external
+sphere.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 700px;">
+<img src="images/image_080.jpg" width="700" height="458" alt="THE KING EMBRACED ME, AND I KISSED THE HAND OF HER
+MAJESTY." title="" />
+<span class="caption">THE KING EMBRACED ME, AND I KISSED THE HAND OF HER
+MAJESTY.</span>
+</div><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Atvatabar," said the king, "is a monarchy formed on the will of the
+people. While the throne is inalienably secured to the king for life,
+the government is vested in a legislative chamber, called Borodemy.
+This legislative assembly is also our house of nobles, consisting of
+one thousand members divided into three classes. To be once elected to
+the Borodemy entitles the representative to receive the title of
+Boiroon for life only; at the expiration of five years, the term of
+each assembly, a member, if again elected, receives the title of
+Jangoon; if again elected the highest title is Goiloor. No one can be
+elected more than three times, and Goiloor is a title which but few
+attain, owing to the limited number of legislators who are three times
+elected to the Borodemy. The president of the assembly is always a
+Goiloor, as only a member of the highest caste is nominated for the
+presidency. He is also chief minister of state. His council, which is
+the government, includes the chief officer of each branch of
+government, as well as a royal representative. Thus Atvatabar is an
+absolute democracy, ornamented and ruled by those men whom a generous
+nation loves to honor for distinguished merit employed in the public
+service."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI"></a>CHAPTER XVI.</h2>
+
+<h2>THE KING UNFOLDS THE GRANDEUR OF ATVATABAR.</h2>
+
+
+<p>"Your majesty," I said, "informs us that Atvatabar possesses science
+and art, invention and poetry. These matters interest us quite as much
+as your civil and military constitution. We will feel grateful if your
+majesty will inform us more particularly regarding the condition of
+those great forces for the development of the soul."</p>
+
+<p>"You are right," said the king; "the government and the protection of
+society, although matters of the utmost importance, are always much
+inferior to the glory they defend. Mere police duties can never rank
+with the sovereignty of mind over matter."</p>
+
+<p>"In other words," said I, "the barricade is ever inferior to the
+palace, and the treasure house to the heaps of gold within<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span> it. But,
+your majesty, in what way does mind triumph over matter in your
+realm?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said the king, "we worship the human soul under a thousand
+forms, arranged in three great circles of deities. The first circle
+contains the gods of invention, that is, the practical forms by which
+ideas rule the physical world, and also the composite forms of the
+inventors themselves. The second circle contains the gods of art, and
+the third circle the spiritual gods of sorcery, magic and love. What
+gods do you people of the outer world worship?"</p>
+
+<p>"In my own country," I replied, "a great many people worship one God,
+the Creator of the universe. Many of these only nominally worship God,
+but in reality worship gold, while a still greater number worship gold
+without pretence of worshipping anything else."</p>
+
+<p>"Then," said the king, "gold is your god. Our god is the aggregated
+universal human soul worshipped under its various manifestations, both
+real and ideal. This universal human soul forms the one supreme god
+Harikar, whom we worship in the person of a living woman, the Supreme
+Goddess Lyone. The great generic symbol of our faith is the golden
+throne of the gods in the Bormidophia, whereon sits Lyone, the supreme
+goddess, the representative of Harikar."</p>
+
+<p>"Harikar is then your supreme deity?" I remarked.</p>
+
+<p>"Greatest, for he embraces all other gods," said the king. "But the
+greatest individual god is the Supreme Goddess, the symbol of the Holy
+Soul."</p>
+
+<p>I felt a strange desire to learn everything about so singular a
+divinity as Lyone. It was a weird, awful, yet terribly entrancing
+thought, that amid a thousand gods of dead and silent gold one only
+should be alive, and that one a beautiful woman. Was it possible that
+a live goddess could exist, and be both young and handsome? I was
+anxious to ask a thousand questions concerning this mysterious being,
+but it seemed a sacrilege to ask them. Was it possible for her to
+continue worthy of worship, a human being, intoxicated, as she must
+be, by the ceaseless adoration of millions? In other words, can a
+woman be a veritable goddess and live? These ideas rushed through my
+soul like quicksilver. My brain reeled with this discovery of the
+secret of Atvatabar! What to me were its never-setting sun, its want
+of gravity, its flying wayleals and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span> bockhockids, its sculptured
+cities, its sacred locomotive, its miracles of mechanism and art,
+compared to a real live goddess with warm blood and a beating heart!
+No wonder the discovery thrilled me! I felt like embracing his majesty
+for the information, so simply given, that filled me with delight!</p>
+
+<p>My companions were also greatly excited at the story of the king, and
+it was with difficulty I could appear interested in the further
+information he so graciously imparted to us. What were mines of gold
+to this? But I strove outwardly to appear calm. I felt I must listen
+further to the story of Atvatabar.</p>
+
+<p>"Our other deities," continued the king, "are the ideal inventors and
+their inventions. These give man empire over nature. All those who
+have given man power of flight, who multiply his power to run, those
+who multiply the power of the eye to see, the hand to labor or to
+smite, the voice or pen to transmit ideas to great distances and to
+great multitudes, stand in the pantheon in ideal grandeur. There are
+the lords of labor, the deities of space and time. They are those gods
+that breathe the breath of life into unborn ideas, and lo! from brain
+and hand spring the creatures of their will."</p>
+
+<p>The officers and sailors were listening to the discourse of the king
+with rapt attention. We were anxious to learn as much as possible
+about this strange religion of Atvatabar.</p>
+
+<p>"We also worship art and ideal artists," continued the king, "the
+soul-developers, who work for noble and humane ideas expressed in
+their most beautiful garb; the builders of earthly palaces for the
+soul in literature, music, manners, painting, dancing, sculpture,
+decoration, tapestry and architecture which are represented by ideal
+statues composed from groups of living artists. These in their ideal
+or collective perfection are the gods who counteract the evils of an
+arid and mechanical civilization by arousing feeling, imagination,
+truth, beauty, tenderness, patriotism and faith in the souls of their
+fellows.</p>
+
+<p>"The spiritual forces are typified by a goddess, the incarnation of
+spirit power, of romantic, ideal, hopeless love. Her ministers are the
+priests of sorcery, necromancy, magic, theosophy, mesmerism,
+spiritualism and other kindred spiritual powers. These perform
+miracles, create matter, and impart life to dead bodies. The souls of
+her priests and priestesses have the power to leave the body at will,
+and to achieve a present Nirvana of one hundred years."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVII" id="CHAPTER_XVII"></a>CHAPTER XVII.</h2>
+
+<h2>GNAPHISTHASIA.</h2>
+
+
+<p>The day following our arrival in Calnogor his majesty the king had
+projected for us a journey to the palace of art at Gnaphisthasia,
+which stood on the slope of a mountain in a rich valley lying one
+hundred miles southwest of Calnogor. The palace itself was surrounded
+by high walls of massive porcelain, beautifully adorned with sculpture
+mouldings, and midway on each side massive gateways, each formed of
+rounded cones, rising to a great height and covered with sculptured
+forms, between which the porcelain wall was pierced with fretted
+arabesque, running high above the arched opening beneath. Once within
+the gorgeous gateway, the porcelain walls of Gnaphisthasia stood
+before the enraptured eyes more than a mile in length and half a mile
+in depth, a many-colored dream of imposing magnificence covered with
+the work of sculptors. The principal part of the wall was of a
+greenish-white vitrification, finely diversified by horizontal
+friezes, with arabesques in red and green, purple and yellow,
+lavender, sea-green, blue and silver and pale rose and deep gray, all
+separated by wide bands of greenish-white stone.</p>
+
+<p>In the centre of the buildings stood a semi-circle of massive conical
+towers, gleaming like enormous jewels and connected by sculptured
+walls. The four corners of the palace were also groups of towers, all
+the various groups being connected with the rectangular walls that
+were decorated with arcades and balconies.</p>
+
+<p>Here in this splendid abode were poets and painters, musicians,
+sculptors and architects, dancers, weavers of fabrics, ceramists,
+jewellers, engravers, enamellers, artists in lacquer, carvers,
+designers and workers in glass and metal, pearl and ivory and the
+precious stones.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 450px;">
+<img src="images/image_086.jpg" width="450" height="654" alt="A PROCESSION OF PRIESTS AND PRIESTESSES PASSED DOWN THE
+LIVING AISLES, BEARING TROPHIES OF ART." title="" />
+<span class="caption">A PROCESSION OF PRIESTS AND PRIESTESSES PASSED DOWN THE
+LIVING AISLES, BEARING TROPHIES OF ART.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>In an immense chamber of the palace a <i>f&ecirc;te</i> was being held. On either
+side a double range of massive porcelain pillars supported the roof,
+which covered this grand sanctuary of art like an immense vitrified
+jewel. The floor of the court was formed of polished wood of a deep
+rose color that emitted a rich, heavy perfume. Wood of a brilliant
+green, with interlacing arabesques<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span> of red, formed the border of the
+floor. At the further end of the court stood three thrones, being
+composed, respectively, of terrelium, aquelium, and plutulium, the
+three most precious metals. On the threefold throne sat Yermoul, lord
+of art, his majesty the king, and myself. In ample recesses amid the
+pillars stood the devotees of art, while the centre of the court was
+filled with the musicians. A procession of priests and priestesses
+passed down the living aisles, clad in the most gorgeous fabrics of
+silk spun by gigantic spiders, and they bore singly trophies of art,
+or moved in groups, supporting golden litters carrying piled-up
+treasures of dazzling splendor.</p>
+
+<p>First came a band of priestesses bearing fan-like ensigns of carved
+wood and fretwork, and panels filled with silks, rare brocades and
+embroideries. Then came priests bearing heavy vases and urns of gold,
+terrelium, aquelium, plutulium, silver, and alloys of precious bronze.
+Then followed others bearing litters piled with vases and figures
+carved from solid pearl, or fashioned in precious metals. Cups,
+plates, vases in endless shapes, designs and colors went past, piled
+high on golden litters, looking like gardens of tropic flowers. Rare
+laces made of threads spun from the precious metals of Atvatabar,
+mosaics, ivories, art forgings, costly enamels, decorative
+bas-reliefs, implements of war, agriculture and commerce, magnic
+spears and daggers, with shaft and handle encrusted with grotesque
+carvings in metallic alloys. These alloys took the forms of figures,
+animals and emblems, having the strangest colorings, like the hilts
+and scabbards of Japanese swords carved in shakudo and shibuichi.
+There were exhibited vases of cinnabar, vases wondrously carved from
+tea-rose, coral-red, pearl-gray, ashes-of-roses, mustard-yellow,
+apple-green, pistache and crushed-strawberry colored metals. There
+were also splendid crowns, flowers, animals, birds, and fishes, carved
+from precious kragon, an imperial stone harder than the diamond and of
+a pale rose-pink color. Every object was as perfect as though modelled
+in wax.</p>
+
+<p>Through all this decorative movement there was something more than
+decoration understood as mere ornamentation&mdash;there was the keenest
+evidence of soul movement on the part of the artist. The music
+gloriously celebrated the passions of love, ambition and triumph that
+had filled the souls of the artists when engaged in their incomparable
+labors, and pealed forth that serene life of the spirit as symbolized
+in the perfect works<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span> of art exhibited, wherein were sealed in eternal
+magnificence fragments of the souls that had created them.</p>
+
+<p>Between the pauses of the music an organ-megaphone shouted forth in
+musically-stentorian tones the words that had been impressed on its
+cylinders in praise of art. The five thousand priests and priestesses
+of art had simultaneously shouted their art ritual down five thousand
+tubes, which were all focussed into a single tube of large calibre.
+The multitudinous sound of their voices had been indelibly impressed
+on this phonograph-megaphone that now yielded up the sentiments
+impressed upon it, its tones being that of a vast multitude,
+re-enforced by the vibrating music of an organ, which was a part of
+the megaphone. These were the passages repeated by the instrument with
+a startling splendor of sound:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>THE MESSAGE OF THE MEGAPHONE.</p>
+
+<p class="p2">I.</p>
+
+<p>To define art is to define life.</p>
+
+<p class="p2">II.</p>
+
+<p>Art is a language that describes the souls of things.</p>
+
+<p class="p2">III.</p>
+
+<p>Art in nature is the expression of life; in art it is life
+itself.</p>
+
+<p class="p2">IV.</p>
+
+<p>Art is too subtle a quality to be defined by the formula of
+the critic. It is greater than all of the definitions that
+have tried to grasp it.</p>
+
+<p class="p2">V.</p>
+
+<p>Art is the glowing focus from which radiate thought,
+imagination and feeling, gifted with the power of utterance.</p>
+
+<p class="p2">VI.</p>
+
+<p>True art is generous, passionate, earnest, vivid,
+enthusiastic. So also is the true artist.</p>
+
+<p class="p2">VII.</p>
+
+<p>To satisfy the far-reaching longing of the spirit, art makes
+things more glorious than they are. It is the perfect
+expression of a perfect environment.</p>
+
+<p class="p2">VIII.</p>
+
+<p>To mould his symbols with the same life that fills his
+conception of the idea is the supreme effort of the artist.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span></p>
+<p class="p2">IX.</p>
+
+<p>As nature from the coarse soil produces flowers, so also the
+artist from every-day life produces the subtle sweets of
+art.</p>
+
+<p class="p2">X.</p>
+
+<p>Art that is simply utility is not sufficiently decorative to
+delight every nerve of feeling in the soul. To feed these,
+many flavors of form and color are necessary, and hence the
+necessity of art.</p>
+
+<p class="p2">XI.</p>
+
+<p>Where do emotion and imagination begin in art? Where do
+spirit and flesh unite in a living creature?</p>
+
+<p class="p2">XII.</p>
+
+<p>The artist is a creator. He breathes into dull matter the
+breath of art, and it thenceforth contains a living soul.</p>
+
+<p class="p2">XIII.</p>
+
+<p>Poetry and art make life splendid without science, which is
+the cold investigation of that which was once thrilled with
+the passion of life. Invention makes life splendid without
+poetry and art. By whom will the glorious union of art and
+science be consummated?</p>
+
+<p class="p2">XIV.</p>
+
+<p>What is the world we live in? It is for the most part a
+collection of souls hidebound with treachery and
+selfishness; of souls covered with a slag from which have
+departed the fires of love and passion and delight. Such
+incinerated <i>aliases</i> of their former selves are your
+judges, oh, artists!</p>
+
+<p class="p2">XV.</p>
+
+<p>Art is a green oasis in an arid and mechanical civilization.
+It creates an earthly home for the soul, for those wounded
+by the riot of trade, the weariness of labor, the fierce
+struggle for gold, and the deadly environment of rushing
+travel, blasted pavements and the withering disappointments
+of life.</p>
+
+<p class="p2">XVI.</p>
+
+<p>Where is that artist that can sway imagination, create
+emotion, lift the banner of a high ideal, give the soul a
+keener appreciation of beauty, add to the mind, strength and
+grace, cause the brain to develop new nerves of feeling and
+newer cells of thought, that we may salute him as genius? <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="p2">XVII.</p>
+
+<p>Art is the emotion within made splendid by imagination that
+clothes everything with perfection. Like color it dwells
+only in the soul, but the cause of the sensation is without.
+In all art, the artist seeks to reproduce the cause of his
+ecstasy, that he may communicate to others a similar
+delight. He is like a god, he always gives but never
+receives, for fame, not money, is his recompense.</p>
+
+<p class="p2">XVIII.</p>
+
+<p>Given a soul that can feel sublimely, that can respond to
+beauty and feel thrilled with the joy of existence, that can
+feel the burden of anguish, that can appreciate the humors
+and absurdities of life, and given the power to adequately
+represent the knowledge, truth, understanding and conviction
+of these impressions in fitting symbols, vitalized by
+imagination and emotion, then have we both poet and artist.</p>
+
+<p class="p2">XIX.</p>
+
+<p>The soul in such inspired moments takes the form of
+sculptured arabesques, or flowers, or resembles the refluent
+sea, full of incredible shapes and symbols. It accompanies
+the march of thought, the profusive swell of emotion, is
+capable of pain and ecstasy, and seeks to be fed with those
+delightful symbols of its life which we call art, the most
+priceless of earthly possessions.</p>
+
+<p class="p2">XX.</p>
+
+<p>Four things are necessary for art, viz.: idea, sentiment,
+imagination and manipulative skill. After these comes
+prestige, or the applause of the world, to crown the work.</p>
+
+<p class="p2">XXI.</p>
+
+<p>The art decorator is a type of all art workmen. See him
+about to manipulate a plastic ornament on the wall. The
+plaster resembles his idea; its plastic qualities his
+sentiment, or emotion; the style of ornament into which it
+is to be moulded resembles his imagination, and the power of
+the artist to successfully and triumphantly embody in the
+finished ornament the living, breathing idea that fills him
+is his manipulative skill. Any work of art, if perfect in
+itself, still remains unfinished until the world comes along
+and applauds. <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="p2">XXII.</p>
+
+<p>The age wants the artist. It wants imagination, originality,
+inspiration, ideality. It requires fertile, dreaming souls,
+to create ideal breadth.</p>
+
+<p>It requires an earthly Nirvana wherein one may escape a
+selfish, barbarous, pitiless world. There is a great dearth
+of the coinage of the soul. We want artists to explain the
+souls of things, not their mechanical construction, but the
+unseen secret of their purposes, their unspeakable
+existence. We want heart-expanding triumphs to counteract
+the withering influences of life. If a soul is entranced
+with man or nature, we also want to feel his fascination, to
+be penetrated with his rapture. </p></div>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>The megaphone ceased its musical vociferation, which formed a
+spiritual exercise for the souls assembled before us. I felt entranced
+and lifted up to a plane of splendid life hitherto unknown in my
+experience. I began to understand that art, after all, is the one
+thing in our terrestrial life worth striving for, in fact our only
+possession. For is it not the transmission of the soul to outer
+matter, whose savagery may be thus charmed and subdued to become a
+satisfactory spiritual environment?</p>
+
+<p>Following the procession of artists came beautiful, wondrously-arrayed
+dancers, whose evolutions made the brain dizzy with delight. Fair
+priests and priestesses of art formed upon the floor of the palace
+decorative arabesques of scrolls and interlacements of living bodies,
+the color of their garments mingling in perfectly harmonious hues,
+beautiful beyond comparison. Their ceaseless evolutions were made to
+the measure of perfect music. Panels and bands of living decorations
+were framed and transformed like the magical changes of the
+kaleidoscope. At last Yermoul, the Lord of Art, waved his wand, and
+the dancers stood transfixed, a garden of ecstatic color like a
+Persian carpet, wonderfully designed and vividly emblazoned. It was a
+scene of royal magnificence. These priests and priestesses were the
+art workers of Gnaphisthasia, who had so finely exhibited their
+treasures.</p>
+
+<p>Following the rhythmic movements of the art workers came poets,
+painters, sculptors, whose works lifted the soul to higher planes of
+being. These in their trophies of art recited or exhibited<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span> gave the
+soul imagination and sentiment, lifting it almost to the enraptured
+height of worship, adoration and love.</p>
+
+<p>At the close of the ceremonies we were entertained by Yermoul, Lord of
+Art, at a banquet, at which music and song and the dancing of
+voluptuous priestesses made hearts thrill with delight. Bidding
+farewell at last to the Lord of Art and his priests and priestesses,
+his majesty, myself and our company returned by the sacred locomotive
+to Calnogor.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVIII" id="CHAPTER_XVIII"></a>CHAPTER XVIII.</h2>
+
+<h2>THE JOURNEY TO THE BORMIDOPHIA.</h2>
+
+
+<p>The palace bell announced the beginning of a new day in Calnogor. I
+had not slept during the hours of rest, excited as I was by our visit
+to Gnaphisthasia and the strange customs of Atvatabar.</p>
+
+<p>Koshnili arrived soon after the bell had sounded to inform me that the
+king had commanded his royal army to be assembled in the great square
+beyond the palace walls to escort us to the Bormidophia, where a
+solemn act of worship would be performed before the throne of the
+gods. This was a most delightful message, as nothing on earth could
+please me better than to witness the glories of the Bormidophia.</p>
+
+<p>The army under the command of Prince Coltonobory, the brother of the
+king, commander-in-chief, consisted of 250,000 wayleals, or flying
+soldiers, and 50,000 bockhockids, or flying cavalry. There was also a
+detachment of 10,000 fletyemings, or sailors of the royal navy. These
+were drawn up in review in a vast square before the royal palace.</p>
+
+<p>Superb bockhockids conveyed us the four miles to the Bormidophia in
+the centre of the city.</p>
+
+<p>The king and queen, both of whom wore crowns blazing with jewels, sat
+with Koshnili and myself in the first palanquin of bockhockids. The
+high officers of the government and nobles of the Borodemy, together
+with the officers and sailors of the <i>Polar King</i>, were distributed
+among the other stately litters.</p>
+
+<p>The route to the pantheon was lined with palaces. An immense
+population thronged either side of the roadway. A review of the army
+took place <i>en route</i>. The wayleals first rose<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span> into an enormous
+flying column, which subsided into whirling domes and afterward broke
+up into a dozen living globes, that appeared to roll one after another
+on the ground. These were dissolved into a solid army marching on foot
+for a time. Then as if by magic the entire mass of men rose into
+spiral columns which dissolved into vast rings inextricably involved
+with each other. It was a sight unique and bewildering.</p>
+
+<p>Behind the wayleals, fifty thousand bockhockids kept up their steady
+march. The people shouted with enthusiasm.</p>
+
+<p>A mimic battle took place in the air above us. Ten thousand wayleals
+fought on either side, brilliant in many-colored uniforms. Finally, a
+rainbow arch of flying men spanned the entrance to the great square of
+the Bormidophia, or pantheon. Amid the thunder of guns and music, the
+entire company alighted at the doors of the pantheon, which consisted
+of an immense circular pile of buildings over a mile in circumference.
+The interior revealed a scene of surpassing magnificence. Endless
+tiers of seats were arranged in terraces that, rising above each
+other, traversed the wide sweep of the amphitheatre. The entire
+pantheon with its adjacent palaces and colonnades was sculptured out
+of a hill of green marble. The exterior walls, rising 200 feet, were
+crowned with a lofty dome of enamelled glass, through which the light
+of the sun streamed in myriad colors on the sea of worshippers
+beneath. The walls of the pantheon, both exteriorly and interiorly,
+were sculptured with immense reliefs, the trophies of invention and
+art, as well as the magical symbols of spiritual forces.</p>
+
+<p>The lowest circle of the amphitheatre reached down one hundred feet
+below the level of the outer pavement, and the royal seat was on a
+level with the ground and fifty feet below the top of the far-famed
+golden throne of the gods, that stood in the centre of the immense
+building.</p>
+
+<p>Our entrance was the signal for welcoming music and a suppressed
+murmur of excitement from the myriads of worshippers that sat both
+above and below us. The amphitheatre contained not less than 50,000
+people. The moment their majesties were seated, a roar of artillery
+shook the earth. The forthcoming grand act of worship was evidently
+instituted in our honor, for we were the observed of all eyes in that
+vast concourse of people.</p>
+
+<p>A dozen choirs, possessed of all kinds of beautiful instruments,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span>
+caressed the ear with their melodious songs. There was no dim
+religious light; everything was open-eyed beneath that splendid dome.
+Suddenly a cloud of flying priests and priestesses seated themselves
+on a pyramid formed of terraces of solid silver fifty feet in height
+that supported the miraculous throne. They at once began to sing with
+such force and pathos as to dissolve the multitude into a hush of
+breathless silence.</p>
+
+<p>Then an immense bell of bronze filled the pantheon with a sonorous
+moan. Twelve thrilling tones made souls tremble and heads bow down.
+With the last vibration there rose from the crown of the throne of the
+gods a living woman, nude to the waist, having a broad belt of gold
+studded with gems clasping her figure, from which fell to her feet a
+garment of aquelium lace wrought with magical symbols.</p>
+
+<p>She was a girl of peerless development; her arms were long and softly
+moulded, her breasts firm and splendid. The color of her complexion
+and flesh was of soft mat gold, like that of golden fruit, and a
+perceptible flush warmed her cheeks. Her profile was perfect, being
+both proud and tender in outline. Her hair was a heavy glossy mass, of
+a pale sapphire-blue color, that fell in a waving cloud around her
+shoulders. Her whole figure bore an infinitely gracious expression,
+the result of possessing a tender and sympathetic soul.</p>
+
+<p>On her head was a tiara of terrelium, the vermilion metal, studded
+with gems, on her neck she wore a necklace of emerald-green sapphires,
+while on either wrist were broad gold bracelets, having a magnificent
+blue sapphire on each.</p>
+
+<p>She was Lyone, the Supreme Goddess of Atvatabar, the representative of
+Harikar, the Holy Soul; Queen of Magicians; Mother of Sorcerers, and
+Princess of Arjeels.</p>
+
+<p>Standing erect for a moment, as if to assure the vast congregation of
+her presence, she then slowly sat down on a broad divan of aloe-green
+silk velvet, holding in her right hand the terrelium sceptre of
+spiritual sovereignty, whose head bore two hearts formed of flaming
+rubies.</p>
+
+<p>I was entranced with the appearance of the divine girl, the object of
+the adoration of Atvatabar. Every feature of her face was carved with
+a full and ripe roundness, exhibiting repose and power. Her eyes,
+large and blue and lustrous, were sorcery itself. There was in them an
+unutterable tenderness, a divine hospitality, the result of vast pride
+and still vaster sympathy.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 425px;">
+<img src="images/image_096.jpg" width="425" height="643" alt="ON THE THRONE SAT THE SUPREME GODDESS, LYONE, THE
+REPRESENTATIVE OF HARIKAR, THE HOLY SOUL." title="" />
+<span class="caption">ON THE THRONE SAT THE SUPREME GODDESS, LYONE, THE
+REPRESENTATIVE OF HARIKAR, THE HOLY SOUL.</span>
+</div><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>All at once she gazed at me! I felt filled with a fever of delicious
+delight, of intoxicating adoration. I could then understand the
+devotion of Atvatabar, of hearts slain by eyes that were conquering
+swords.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIX" id="CHAPTER_XIX"></a>CHAPTER XIX.</h2>
+
+<h2>THE THRONE OF THE GODS, CALNOGOR.</h2>
+
+
+<p>The throne of the gods was the most famous institution in Atvatabar.
+It was the cynosure of every eye, the object of all adoration, the
+tabernacle of all that was splendid in art, science and spiritual
+perfection. The great institutions of Egyplosis, the college of ten
+thousand soul-worshippers, the palace of Gnaphisthasia, with its five
+thousand poets, artists, musicians, dancers, architects, and weavers
+of glorious cloths, and the establishments for training the youth of
+the country in mechanical skill, were but the outlying powers that
+lent glory to the throne itself. It was the standard of virtue, of
+soul, of genius, skill and art. It was the triune symbol of body, mind
+and spirit. It was the undying voice of Atvatabar proclaiming the
+grandeur of soul development; that pleasure, rightly guarded, may be
+virtue. The religion of Harikar in a word was this, that the Nirvana,
+or blessedness promised the followers of the supernatural creeds of
+the outer world, after death was to be enjoyed in the body in earthly
+life without the trouble of dying to gain it. This was a comfortable
+state of things, if only possible of accomplishment, and such a creed
+of necessity included the doctrine that the physical death of the body
+was the end of all individuality, the soul thereafter losing all
+personality in the great ocean of existence.</p>
+
+<p>The throne of the gods was a cone of solid gold one hundred feet in
+height, divided into three parts for the various castes of gods, or
+symbols of science, art and spirituality. The structure was a circular
+solid cone of gold, shaped somewhat in the form of a heart. It was
+indeed the golden heart of Atvatabar, proclaiming that sentiment and
+science should go hand in hand; that in all affairs of life the heart
+should be an important factor. The lower section, or scientific
+pantheon, possessed bas-reliefs of models or symbols of the more
+important inventions.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span> This section was forty feet in height and
+seventy-two feet in diameter.</p>
+
+<p>The images of the gods themselves surmounting the lowest part of the
+throne were in reality composite man-gods, that is to say, each figure
+was a statue, life size, of the resultant of the statues of all the
+important developers of each invention and was thus obtained:</p>
+
+<p>As soon as any prominent inventor or developer of an invention died,
+the government secured a plaster cast of his body, if such had not
+been made prior to death, and this was preserved for years in a
+special museum. When twenty or more casts of various developers of any
+one invention had been accumulated these were placed on a horizontal
+wheel, which revolved in front of a photographic camera, and thus the
+composite outline of the future god was obtained. As many outlines
+were procured as there were eighths of inches in the circumference of
+the largest cast, and from the collective pictures the ideal cast was
+made by the sculptor. The cast once perfected, and afterward draped,
+was reproduced in solid gold and placed with appropriate ceremonies on
+a pedestal on the throne itself. In like manner the gods of the arts,
+poetry, painting, etc., were created, as also the priests of Harikar,
+the Holy Soul.</p>
+
+<p>The reliefs, or symbols of mechanical art, were originally cast on the
+throne itself. These included the electric engine and locomotive,
+electric healer, telephone, telegraph, the electric ship, elevator,
+printing press, cotton gin, weaving loom, typesetting machine,
+well-boring apparatus, telescope, flying machines (individual and
+collective), bockhockid, sewing machine, photographic camera, reaping
+machine, paper-making and wall-paper printing machine, phonograph,
+etc., etc.</p>
+
+<p>This department of the throne being the largest, was significant of
+the material supremacy of the mechanical arts in the nation. Science
+itself was a god named Triporus, fashioned like a winged snake, so
+called because it was said he could worm his way through the pores of
+matter so as to discover the secrets therein. This god seemed a
+compound of our ancient Sphinx, or science, and D&aelig;dalus, or mechanical
+skill, but with an entirely new meaning added to both.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 425px;">
+<img src="images/image_100.jpg" width="425" height="650" alt="THE THRONE OF THE GODS WAS INDEED THE GOLDEN HEART OF
+ATVATABAR, THE TRIUNE SYMBOL OF BODY, MIND AND SPIRIT." title="" />
+<span class="caption">THE THRONE OF THE GODS WAS INDEED THE GOLDEN HEART OF
+ATVATABAR, THE TRIUNE SYMBOL OF BODY, MIND AND SPIRIT.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>The second or intermediate section of the throne was devoted to the
+gods of art and their attributes. It was sixty feet in its largest
+diameter, and twenty-four feet in height. It possessed also<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span> two
+sections, the upper containing the statues of Aidblis, or Poetry;
+Dimborne, or Painting; Brecdil, or Sculpture; Sweng&eacute;, or Music;
+Tilono, or Drama; Timpango, or Dancing; Olshodesdil, or Architecture,
+etc., etc. In the lower section there were tableaux cast in high
+relief illustrating the qualities of the soul developed by art, viz.:
+Omodrilon, or Imagination; Diandarn, or Emotion; Samadoan, or
+Conscience; Voedli, or Faith; Lentilmid, or Tenderness; Delidoa, or
+Truth, etc.</p>
+
+<p>The final section or tapering apex of the throne was thirty feet in
+greatest width and thirty-six feet in height. It contained a throne
+and three divisions. The lowest division contained the gods Hielano,
+or Magic; Bishano, or Sorcery; Nidialano, or Astrology; Padomano, or
+Soothsaying, etc.</p>
+
+<p>The intermediate division contained the gods Niano, or Witchcraft;
+Redohano, or Wizardry; Oxemano, or Diablerie; Biccano, or the Oracle;
+Amano, or Seership; Kielano, or Augury; Tocderano, or Prophecy;
+Jiracano, or Geomancy; Jocdilano, or Necromancy, etc.</p>
+
+<p>The third division contained the gods Orphitano, or Conjuration;
+Orielano, or Divination; Pridano, or Clairvoyance; Cideshano, or
+Electro-biology; Omdohlopano, or Theosophy; Bischanamano, or
+Spiritualism, etc.</p>
+
+<p>The climax of all was the throne of the goddess. It was a seat of
+aloe-green velvet that, revolving slowly in the centre of the
+supporting throne, presented the goddess to every section of the vast
+audience. Thus seated, the goddess radiated an Orient splendor,
+herself a blaze of beauty and the focus of every eye. The music of an
+introductory opera warbled its soft strains with breathless execution.
+It seemed the carolling of a thousand nightingales, mingling with the
+musical crying of silver trumpets and the clear electric chiming of
+golden bells.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XX" id="CHAPTER_XX"></a>CHAPTER XX.</h2>
+
+<h2>THE WORSHIP OF LYONE, SUPREME GODDESS.</h2>
+
+
+<p>The worship of the goddess began with the appearance on a revolving
+stage between the nearest worshippers and the base of the throne
+itself of a veritable forest of trees about one hundred feet in width.
+There were trees like magnolias, oaks,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span> elms and others splendid in
+foliage, and amid these there was an undergrowth of beds of the most
+brilliant flowers.</p>
+
+<p>It was the work of the magicians and sorcerers!</p>
+
+<p>There were thickets of camellias and rhododendrons, amid which bloomed
+flowers like scarlet geraniums, primroses, violets and poppies. What
+appeared to be apple, peach, cherry and hawthorn trees, all in full
+bloom, tossed their white and pink foam of flowers.</p>
+
+<p>They were real trees and flowers, made to exist for a time by the
+sorcery of the masters of spirit power. They had never before known
+the outer air. The priests of Harikar had made them, and would
+dissipate them as living bodies are dissipated by death.</p>
+
+<p>A sacred opera was chanted by the priests of invention, art, and
+spirituality, on their terraces of silver above the trees and flowers.
+As the music continued, groups of singers would at times sweep forth
+on wings and float in wheeling circles around the throne. Their
+delightful choruses swelling upward were like draughts of rich wine,
+keen and intoxicating. The priests and spiritual powers marching
+beneath filled the vast building with broad recitatives, full of
+vividly descriptive passages and finely contrasted measures, until the
+soul seemed melted in a sea of bliss.</p>
+
+<p>The throne was bathed and caressed by a blue vapor of incense, while
+from the great dome above, filled with figures formed of enamelled
+glass, there streamed lights of all mysterious colors, that
+illuminated its gleaming sides and lit up the amphitheatre with
+ineffable effects.</p>
+
+<p>A warm, rosy beam, falling perpendicularly, enveloped the goddess like
+a robe of transparent tissue. She sat, a living statue, the joy of
+every heart, the embodiment of a hopeless love that kept the
+worshipper in a fever of delicious unrest. Wherever the eye wandered,
+it always came back to the goddess; whatever the soul thought, its
+last thought was of her.</p>
+
+<p>Amid a tempest of music and the thundering song of two hundred
+thousand voices repeating a litany of love, the throne itself began to
+revolve upon the silver cone that supported it. A fresh rapture took
+possession of the multitude.</p>
+
+<p>In the soul of the goddess what must have been the joy of being
+surrounded by such an ocean of adoring love?</p>
+
+<p>As I mused on the scene, I thought of the Coliseum at Rome<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span> raised to
+the glory of barbaric force, of empire founded on the blood of its
+victims, and, being such, has necessarily passed away, becoming a heap
+of ruins.</p>
+
+<p>Here, thought I, is a temple founded on a nobler idea, the glory of
+the human soul, its ingenuity, art, and spiritual forces.</p>
+
+<p>Many in the outer world would say it was an idolatrous attempt on the
+part of the creature to usurp the throne of its Creator. Yet it was
+strangely like the religion of such people themselves. There, as here,
+I thought, is the same worship of gold, the same dependence on the
+material products of man's invention, the same worship of art, the
+same idolatry of each other's souls between the sexes. There is this
+difference, however: in the outer world men pretend that they worship
+something else other than such objects; here they have the honesty to
+say what they do actually worship.</p>
+
+<p>Apart from the idea of attempting to realize a friendship that can
+only exist in a realm that knows neither interest, fortune, time,
+ambition, temper, nor sensual love, their idolatry had one splendid
+truth to unfold, viz., the necessity of a soul for an arid and
+mechanical civilization. "Every intellect shall enfold a soul" was
+their motto, and there was this sanity in their creed that sentiment
+was the breath of its life. Science abhors sentiment; it is the cold
+investigation of that which once thrilled with the passion of life.</p>
+
+<p>While the singing continued, a band of neophytes of occult force
+performed marvellous feats of magic, led by the Grand Sorcerer,
+Charka, chief of the magicians of Harikar. The people sat enraptured
+as miracle after miracle was performed. At the waving of fans by the
+adepts, plants issued from the hands of every god of gold, clothing
+the throne in one endless wreath of brilliant crimson blossoms and
+green foliage. The fans again waved and that crimson mass of flowers
+turned to a pale green, while again the green foliage changed to a
+vermilion color. The throne appeared like one enormous Bougainvillea
+glabra, whose leaves are flowers.</p>
+
+<p>Again the fans were waved and the flowers changed to bloom all
+snowy-white, while the foliage became blue.</p>
+
+<p>The adepts disappeared at a given signal and thereupon entered another
+band of beautiful girl adepts, who seated themselves, each body in a
+crouched mass with flowing drapery,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span> around the base of the throne.
+These priestesses were in a state of catalepsy. The ego, or soul, in
+each case had been separated from the body, which floated in a state
+of apparent death. They had so developed their will by thinking
+enormous thoughts, yearning for spiritual power, that they could
+suspend the functions of the body and give all their existence to the
+soul. Thus hypnotized, it was stated their souls were floating freely
+in the dome above, in blessed converse, and that their reincarnation
+would afterward take place.</p>
+
+<p>The organ rolled a blessed monotone, with variations exquisitely
+sweet. The light in the dome faded perceptibly by the magical
+shadowing of its windows until the rapt audience sat in complete
+darkness. A circle of electric lights burned around the goddess on the
+top of the throne, illuminating her figure. The lights faintly lit up
+the dome, and presently appeared as nude spectres the fifty souls of
+the priestesses who crouched beneath.</p>
+
+<p>The organ, re-enforced with the wailing of a hundred violins, produced
+a storm of the most delirious music, while the souls flashed with a
+strange phosphorescence like a circle of fire. They wheeled with their
+arms extended horizontally, each aura lying at an angle of forty-five
+degrees with the horizon. Then, with hands clasping each other's feet,
+they became a vertical circle like the wheel of fortune, and thus went
+round and round. Again, they revolved in a circle faces downward, with
+arms and hands stretched in an attitude of worship, forming for the
+goddess a wreath of souls. Presently each soul sought its own body
+floating beneath. The bodies expanding themselves absorbed each its
+own soul. With the returning light of the outer sun the forest beneath
+the throne had disappeared and the circular stage was occupied by a
+band of sorcerers&mdash;each having balls of jelly of various colors
+floating before him. At the command of the grand sorcerer the balls
+would transform themselves into strange animals resembling cats, dogs,
+monkeys, serpents, geese, wolves, and eagles. This was a tableau
+representing man's supremacy over inferior life.</p>
+
+<p>A company of twin souls of the greatest beauty and splendor of raiment
+took possession of the circular platform beneath the throne and
+thereupon danced in rhythmic circles wonderfully entrancing and
+involved, chanting, in harmony with the movement of their bodies, the
+following hymn to Lyone:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="p3">TO LYONE.</p>
+
+<p class="p3">I.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Oh goddess, oh deity glorious,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">With golden wan face, and the bloom<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of spirit and figure victorious!<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Oh jewel that lighteneth gloom,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Men call thee the soul of a lover,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Invested with purest of clay,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A chrysalis, eager to hover<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And fly from thy prison away!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="p3">II.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">A nautilus, blown on the tide-lave;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">So naked a pearl and so pure,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or coral, that sucks from the sea wave<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Those marbles that ever endure!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thus float on the ocean of being,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Or fathom its deep-flowing sea,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That feeling, believing, and seeing<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Thy glory, will worshipped be!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="p3">III.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">With sense of the body made captive,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">While that of the soul is complete.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For love of pure being, receptive,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">So bless&egrave;d, extravagant, sweet.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Oh victim, thy joys are Meresa's,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Who died on the bosom Divine.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Her madness of rapture appeases<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The hunger of soul that is thine!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="p3">IV.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Inflammable impulse of beauty,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The breath of whose ardor is grief;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The God, in fulfilment of duty,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Hath stamped thee in highest relief!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From pots of auriferous metal,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Made pure by the torment of flame,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He pressed thee in fearful begettal,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">A coinage too perfect for shame.<br /></span>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span></div></div>
+
+<p class="p3">V.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">He made thee, most splendid, a flower,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">A heavy sweet rose, to unfold<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Some petals immortal, and shower<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Their fragrance on earth frozen cold.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Oh golden-hued rose, in such fashion,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">By the love of the world thou art sought<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thus flushed with the triumph of passion<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Or pale with the splendor of thought!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="p3">VI.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Oh soul, that inhales from the blossom<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Delight in the rapture of breath,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A goddess aflame with her passion,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Ere beauty is wedded to death!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Oh virginal soul of the fountain,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Alive with the water of Youth,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">All these, on the golden high mountain,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Thou dwellest, the image of Truth!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>What followed was an intoxicating medley of dancing, song and magic.
+Circles of the fairest girls, arrayed in the most ravishing costumes,
+made the brain whirl with their gyrations. The oblation to the dancing
+gods wound up the performance, and the chorus of a thousand voices
+blended with the triumph of drums and explosions from musical
+artillery.</p>
+
+<p>The incomparable girl goddess then rose to her feet and waved the
+blessing of Harikar over the multitude. The girdle of gold that clung
+to her figure blazed with a thousand jewels. Her tiara sparkled with
+enormous diamonds that were blue as sapphires, amber as topazes, green
+as emeralds and red as rubies. Accompanied by the wailing of music,
+the chant of megaphones, and the song of the enraptured people, she
+sank into the heart of the throne, glorious as she rose, herself its
+most precious jewel.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXI" id="CHAPTER_XXI"></a>CHAPTER XXI.</h2>
+
+<h2>AN AUDIENCE WITH THE SUPREME GODDESS.</h2>
+
+
+<p>The palace of Tanje, situated about fifty miles from Calnogor, was the
+metropolitan palace of the supreme goddess. It was sculptured out of a
+hill of white marble, as were also its walls, enclosing a garden a
+square mile in extent.</p>
+
+<p>In conformity with the programme prepared by his majesty, King
+Aldemegry Bhoolmakar, we were to be received by her holiness Lyone in
+her palace at Tanje. The thought of meeting the adorable figure that
+crowned the throne of the gods filled me with keenest delight.</p>
+
+<p>I seemed about to visit, not a human being like myself, but a
+veritable deity. What honor, what pleasure, it would be to speak to
+her face to face, heart to heart. Disguise it as I might, a feeling
+for the goddess was being awakened in my soul. Was it the adoration of
+the worshipper, or was it the dawn of a sacrilegious passion?</p>
+
+<p>It seemed a monstrous idea for any one to love in the ordinary meaning
+of the term a being so high and holy. I could only worship her afar
+off, like any adoring citizen of Atvatabar.</p>
+
+<p>His majesty the king, together with Chief Minister Koshnili,
+Commander-in-Chief Coltonobory, Admiral Jolar and other dignitaries of
+the kingdom, did us the honor to escort us to Tanje.</p>
+
+<p>The method of travel between Calnogor and Tanje was by means of the
+pneumatic tube, also a deity of invention. This consisted of a smooth
+tube six feet in diameter that curved over the country in a sinuous
+line, being supported on pillars at a height of twenty feet above the
+ground. A decorative car of gold ornamented in enamelled colors rode
+the crest of the tube, being connected with the piston inside. The car
+was steadied between rails on either side and swept over the earth
+with inconceivable rapidity. The distance from Calnogor to Tanje was
+traversed in thirty minutes.</p>
+
+<p>A feeling of awe overcame the sailors as we approached the abode of
+the living symbol of the Holy Soul.</p>
+
+<p>The palace was a noble pile of masonry as it glittered in the
+perpendicular sunlight. It stood two stories in height and was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span>
+surmounted by a flattened central dome of colored glass, the ribs of
+the dome being of solid gold. The lower story was surrounded by a
+colonnade of pillars carved in the most grotesque shapes imaginable.
+The grand entrance on the north side was constructed of alternating
+pillars of platinum and gold, all three feet in thickness. From the
+towers brilliant banners, emblazoned with the figure of the throne of
+the gods, floated on the wind.</p>
+
+<p>The apartments of the grand chamberlain were on the north side of the
+palace, where the pneumatic car was provided with a depot for the use
+of travellers.</p>
+
+<p>Cleperelyum, the grand chamberlain, clad in white robes like an Arab
+chief, received us in the name of the goddess with marked deference
+and courtesy.</p>
+
+<p>A guard of honor consisting of a thousand wayleals was drawn up around
+the palace. The audience chamber was a rectangular court in the centre
+of the building, whose ceiling was the roof of the palace itself,
+surmounted by the dome peculiar to the palaces of Atvatabar.</p>
+
+<p>The hall leading to the presence chamber was lined with the priests
+and priestesses from Egyplosis in attendance on the goddess.</p>
+
+<p>Led by the grand chamberlain, we arrived at the golden doors of the
+audience chamber, which were opened by the servitors of the palace.
+With trembling exultation I saw at the further end of the spacious
+apartment a royal seat of violet velvet whereon sat Lyone, the supreme
+goddess of Atvatabar.</p>
+
+<p>As my eyes rested upon the goddess she appeared still more divine than
+before. It seemed an unhallowed act that rough sailors should venture
+into such spiritual precincts. We were awe-struck with the presence
+before us. As the grand chamberlain called out our names, we bowed low
+to that majestic spirit that seemed much more a deity than human
+flesh.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 450px;">
+<img src="images/image_110.jpg" width="450" height="653" alt="HER HOLINESS OFFERED BOTH HIS MAJESTY THE KING AND
+MYSELF HER HAND TO KISS." title="" />
+<span class="caption">HER HOLINESS OFFERED BOTH HIS MAJESTY THE KING AND
+MYSELF HER HAND TO KISS.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>Her holiness greeted us with marked favor and offered both his majesty
+the king and myself her hand to kiss. The high officials and my
+officers and sailors were obliged to remain standing during the
+audience, according to the etiquette of the holy palace. His majesty
+the king and myself were allowed to seat ourselves on an elevated dais
+before the goddess. When thus seated, I had leisure to observe that
+she was arrayed in a single garment of quivering pale green silk, that
+caressed every <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span> curve of her matchless figure and spread in myriad
+folds about her limbs and feet. On her head she wore a model of the
+jarcal, or bird of yearning, fashioned in precious terrelium. She wore
+also a jewelled belt of gold. The breast was embroidered with a golden
+emblem of the throne of the gods, the sacred ensign of Atvatabar. On
+her neck were circles of rich rose pearls whose light gleamed soft on
+the green lustre of her attire. On her head was the tiara of the
+goddess, the triple crown of Harikar.</p>
+
+<p>Her holiness had an air of girlish frankness combined with royal
+dignity. She was so youthful that she could not have been more than
+twenty years old. She possessed a charming presence and a clear and
+musical voice. Her eyes were large and blue, and her finely-formed
+lips, like blood-red anemones, contrasted finely with the pale golden
+hue of her complexion.</p>
+
+<p>Her features combined the witchery of a houri with the strength of
+intellect. They were sculptured and illuminated by a grandly-developed
+soul.</p>
+
+<p>The odor of a high and steadfast virtue surrounded her. It was not the
+virtue of the ascetic, but rather that strength of soul that could
+triumph over temptation, that loved fair lights, fine raiment, sweet
+colors, and all the gladness and beauty of life.</p>
+
+<p>In her soft right hand she bore a rod of divination, the spiritual
+sceptre of Atvatabar. On either side of her stood a twin soul in fond
+embrace as a guard of love.</p>
+
+<p>The audience chamber was in itself a dream of grandeur and beauty.
+From the rose-tinted glass of the dome overhead a light soft and warm
+bathed all beneath with a peculiar sweetness. The lower part of the
+walls resembled the cloisters of a mosque. Behind pillars of solid
+silver a corridor ran all around the chamber. Here an artistic group
+of singers, clad in classic robes in soft colors, perambulated,
+singing as they went a refrain of penetrating sweetness. The audience
+listened with the deepest respect to the singing and to our
+conversation with the goddess. In the assembly were all the notables
+of the kingdom, poets, artists, musicians, inventors, sculptors, etc.,
+as well as royal and sacerdotal officers.</p>
+
+<p>The singing of the choir, that moved like an apparition of spirits in
+the dim cloisters, seemed to embody our thoughts and feelings. For
+myself the divine song was a draught of joy. It<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span> was a breath of
+verdure, of flowers and fruits, of a warm and serene atmosphere made
+perfect by the presence of a peerless incarnation of man's universal
+soul.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXII" id="CHAPTER_XXII"></a>CHAPTER XXII.</h2>
+
+<h2>THE GODDESS LEARNS THE STORY OF THE OUTER WORLD.</h2>
+
+
+<p>Her holiness was pleased to say how honored she was by receiving us.
+Our advent in Atvatabar had created a profound impression upon the
+people, and she was no less curious to see us and learn from our own
+lips the story of the outer world. She was greatly interested in
+comparing the stalwart figures of our sailors with the less vigorous
+frames of the Atvatabarese. It could not be expected that men who
+handled objects and carried themselves in a land where gravity was
+reduced to a minimum could be so vigorous as men who belonged to a
+land of enormous gravity, whose resistance to human activity developed
+great strength of bone and muscle.</p>
+
+<p>I informed her holiness regarding the geography, climate and peoples
+of the outer sphere. I gave her an account of the chief nations of the
+world from Japan to the United States. I spoke of Africa, Australia,
+and the Pacific islands. I spoke of Adam and Eve, of the Deluge, of
+Assyria and Egypt. Then I described the glory of Greece and the
+grandeur of Rome. I spoke of Caesar and Hannibal, Cleopatra and
+Antony. I spoke of Columbus, Galileo, Michael Angelo, Faraday, Dante,
+and Shakespeare. I described how art reigned in one kingdom or country
+and invention in another, and that the soul or spiritual nature was as
+yet a rare development.</p>
+
+<p>"You tell me," said the goddess, "that Greece could chisel a statue,
+but could not invent a magnic engine, and that your own country, rich
+in machinery, is barren in art. This tells me the outer world is yet
+in a state of chaos and has not yet reached the development of
+Atvatabar. We have passed through all those stages. At first we were
+barbarous, then, as time produced order, art began to flourish. The
+artist, in his desire to glorify the few, lost sight of the misery of
+the many. Then came the reign of invention, of science, giving power
+to the meanest citizen. As democracy triumphed art was despised,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span> and
+a ribald press jeered at the sacred names of poet and priest. By
+degrees, as the pride and power of the wealthy few were curbed and the
+condition of the masses raised to a more uniform and juster level,
+universal prosperity, growing rapidly richer, produced a fusion of art
+and progress. The physical man made powerful by science and the soul
+developed by art naturally produced the result of spiritual freedom.
+The enfranchised soul became free to explore the mysteries of nature
+and obtain a mastery over the occult forces residing therein."</p>
+
+<p>"In the outer sphere," I informed the goddess, "there has also existed
+in all ages an ardent longing for spiritual power over matter. But
+this power, which in many periods of history was really obtained, had
+been purchased by putting in practice the severest austerities of the
+body. Force of soul was the price of subjugation of passion and the
+various appetites of the body. The fakirs, yogis, jugglers, and adepts
+of India; the magicians, sorcerers and astrologers of Mesopotamia and
+Egypt; the alchemists, cabalists, and wizards of the middle ages, and
+the theosophists, spiritualists, clairvoyants, and mesmerists of the
+present time, were members of the same fraternity who have obtained
+their psychological powers from a study and practice of mystic
+philosophy or magic."</p>
+
+<p>"You say that the outer-world magicians derived their powers of soul
+from abnegation of the body," said the goddess. "Now the soul priests
+of Atvatabar can do quite as wonderful things, I dare say, as your
+magicians, and they have never practised austerities, but, on the
+contrary, have developed the body as well as the soul. In the worship
+of the gods of science and invention, art and spirituality, both body,
+mind, and soul are exercised to their utmost capability. In all stages
+there is exultance, exercise, development. But I am deeply interested
+in your remarks. Tell me just what the principles of the worshippers
+of your Harikar are!"</p>
+
+<p>"Spiritual culture in the outer world," I explained, "is obtained by a
+variety of religious beliefs, but the belief that most nearly
+resembles that of Atvatabar is that of the soul-worshippers, who deny
+the existence of any power beyond the human soul, teaching that it is
+only by our own inward light that we can rise to higher planes and
+reach at last to Nirvana, or passive blessedness. This inward light
+can only be truly followed by self-obliteration, fastings, penances,
+and repression<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span> of desires and appetites of all kinds, carried on
+through an endless series of reincarnations. The final blessedness is
+a beatific absorption into the ocean of existence which pervades the
+universe."</p>
+
+<p>"That is a different creed to that of Harikar in Atvatabar," said the
+goddess, "which is worship of body, mind, and soul. We believe with
+your Greeks in perfection of body and also with your Hindoos in
+perfection of soul. We re-enforce the powers of body and mind by
+science and invention, and the soul powers by art and spiritual love.
+We believe in magic and sorcery. Our religion is a state of ecstatic
+joy, chiefly found in the cultured friendship of counterpart souls,
+who form complete circles with each other. Enduring youth is the
+consummate flower of civilization. With us it lasts one hundred years,
+beginning with our twentieth birthday. There is no long and crucial
+stage of bodily abstinence from the good things of life; there is only
+abstinence from evil, from vice, selfishness, and unholy desire. Our
+religion is the trinity of body, mind, and spirit, in their utmost
+development. Such is the faith of Atvatabar."</p>
+
+<p>"And such a faith," I replied, "with such a deity as your holiness,
+must profoundly sway the hearts of your people."</p>
+
+<p>The goddess was a woman of intuition. Almost before I was aware of it
+myself she evidently discovered a sentiment underlying my words. She
+paused a moment, and before I could question her further regarding the
+peculiar creed of Atvatabar, said: "We will discuss these things more
+fully hereafter."</p>
+
+<p>At a signal from the goddess the trumpets rang a blast announcing the
+audience at an end. With the summons music uttered a divine throbbing
+throughout the chamber, while the singers marched and sang gloriously
+in the cloisters.</p>
+
+<p>As I sat, my soul swimming in a sea of ecstasy born of the blessed
+environment, I felt possessed of splendors and powers hitherto unknown
+and unfelt. A thrill of joy made hearts tremble beneath the crystal
+dome. It was a new lesson in art's mysterious peace.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXIII.</h2>
+
+<h2>THE GARDEN OF TANJE.</h2>
+
+
+<p>A series of banquets and other entertainments followed each other
+during our stay at the palace of Tanje. The goddess had held frequent
+interviews with the professors and myself regarding the external
+sphere, and had examined our maps and charts with the greatest
+curiosity.</p>
+
+<p>His majesty did not take nearly so much interest in our revelations as
+the goddess, being inert and prosaic in character.</p>
+
+<div>
+<img class="figright" src="images/image_116_01.jpg" width="600" height="174" alt="The Lilasure." title="" />
+<img class="figright" src="images/image_116_02.jpg" width="233" height="144" alt="The Lilasure." title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p>On the morning of the fourth day of our stay at the palace of Tanje I
+received a visit from the grand chamberlain Cleperelyum, with a
+command from the goddess to meet her in her boudoir. Cleperelyum led
+me to the sacred apartment, which, when I entered, was vacant. The
+walls were models of decorative architecture, the panels being filled
+with silk tapestry of a pale yellow-green hue, the mouldings being
+ivory-white. The panelled frieze was filled with figures in violet and
+gold, and sea-green upholstery covered couch and divan, while the
+draperies were silks of cream and blue. It was a luxurious retreat.
+The carpet was a silk rug, soft as a bed of rose leaves, with a broad
+border in tones of green, violet and white.</p>
+
+<p>Presently the goddess entered with a winning smile on her features.
+She was arrayed in a dress of soft violet silk, that, apparently, had
+no other garment beneath, so perfect was the revelation of her figure.
+Beneath the figure it fell to the ground in a thousand folds, like a
+wave of smooth water bursting into foaming rapids. Round her neck was
+a garland of lustrous yellow pearls. On her head she wore a tiara of
+much smaller<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span> dimensions than that worn on public occasions. Her pose
+was upright as an arrow.</p>
+
+<div>
+<img class="figleft" src="images/image_117_01.jpg" width="600" height="337" alt="The Laburnul." title="" />
+<img class="figleft" src="images/image_117_02.jpg" width="219" height="526" alt="The Laburnul." title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p>I rose and bowed profoundly, and the goddess also bowing, requested me
+to be seated.</p>
+
+<p>"I have sent for you," said she, "to learn more about your country and
+to talk with you about ours. I am consumed with curiosity regarding
+the external world." "Your holiness," I replied, "permit me to say
+that your graceful condescension exceeds, if possible, your splendor.
+I am truly bewildered at the vastness of my good fortune in
+discovering a country ruled by so glorious a goddess."</p>
+
+<p>"And I also," said the goddess, "have learned that Bilbimtesirol is
+not the universe, but a very small portion thereof indeed. I am
+intensely interested in your accounts of the outer world. I am
+overpowered with the thought that the exterior surface of the planet
+is peopled with beings like ourselves, and that civilization,
+government, religion, art, manufacture, and social life are so greatly
+developed beneath a still more glorious sun than ours."</p>
+
+<p>"Did it never occur to your astronomers," I inquired, "that human
+activity might also pervade the outer sphere?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Our astronomers," said the goddess, "have long since decided that the
+conditions of climate on the exterior planet were too severe to allow
+human life to exist. They are aware that a great luminary gave the
+outer earth light by day, for our most daring aerial voyagers have
+frequently caught a glimpse of its light seen through the polar gulf.
+They argued that the equatorial regions were too hot, and the polar
+regions too cold, to support life, consequently the outer earth was a
+barren waste as desolate and uninhabited as your own satellite."</p>
+
+<p>"Would your holiness like to visit the exterior earth?" I boldly
+inquired.</p>
+
+<p>"If duty did not prevent me," she replied, "I would love to visit
+those far-off strange lands and peoples and see your sun and moon and
+all the stars!"</p>
+
+<p>From the goddess I first learned the precise location of Atvatabar.
+Lying exactly underneath the Atlantic Ocean it stretched east and west
+some two thousand miles, surrounded by the interior sea. There were
+other continents in Bilbimtesirol which we had already dimly seen
+spread upon the concave walls of the world around us.</p>
+
+<p>"You must come to see both Egyplosis and Arjeels," said her holiness,
+"but before you leave Tanje you must see my garden."</p>
+
+<p>"It must be a little paradise!" I exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p>"Let us go and see it now," she said, and, so saying, arose with a
+gracious gesture and led me out of the apartment.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<img src="images/image_118.jpg" width="600" height="367" alt="The Green Gazzle of Glockett Gozzle." title="" />
+<span class="caption">The Green Gazzle of Glockett Gozzle.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>I accompanied her holiness down the terrace leading to the lovely
+retreat. Curving walks led between banks of flowers<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span> of all hues.
+There were avenues of tall shrubs not unlike rhododendrons, with the
+same magnificent bloom. Other plants, such as the firesweet, displayed
+a blinding wealth of yellow flowers.</p>
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 300px;">
+<img src="images/image_119a.jpg" width="300" height="385" alt="Jeerloons." title="" />
+<span class="caption">Jeerloons.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>The goddess led the way to the conservatory in the garden wherein were
+treasured strange and beautiful flowers and zoophytes illustrative of
+the gradual evolution of animals from plants, a scientific faith that
+held sway in Atvatabar. The goddess showed me a beautiful plant with
+large fan-shaped leaves from whose edges hung a fringe of heavy roses;
+long trailing garlands of clustering star-shaped flowers sprang from
+the same roots. The plant was a perfect bower of bliss, and while
+called the laburnul, might with greater propriety be styled the rose
+of paradise.</p>
+
+<div class="figright" style="width: 250px;">
+<img src="images/image_119b.jpg" width="250" height="336" alt="A Jeerloon." title="" />
+<span class="caption">A Jeerloon.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>Another fern-like plant was in reality a bird flower, called the
+lilasure. It had the head and breast of a bird, from whose back grew
+roots and four small feathers resembling those of the peacock. Its
+tail resembled two large fronds of a fern, which served the animal for
+wings, for by their aid it flew through the air.</p>
+
+<p>There was also a flock of strange green-feathered creatures,
+resembling buzzards, called green gazzles, on whose heads grew
+sun-flowers. On either side, beneath their wings, were the plant roots
+by means of which they still sucked nourishment from the soil, as
+their bills were not yet perfectly developed. They belonged to a
+locality on the south coast of Atvatabar known as Glockett Gozzle.</p>
+
+<p>The lillipoutum was another wonderful<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span> creature, half-plant half-bird.
+It represented the animal almost entirely evolved from the plant
+stage. A wreath of rootlets adorned the neck, but the most conspicuous
+features were the stork-like legs that terminated in roots with
+radiations like encrinital stems. The bird fed itself like a plant by
+simply thrusting its root-legs into the soft ooze of lake bottoms and
+slimy banks of rivers. Its tail was also a root possessing great
+absorptive powers. In shape the bird resembled a flamingo, and its
+feathers were of an old-rose color, mottled with lichen-green. A
+beard-like radiation of roots decorated its head, and its bill was
+extremely delicate.</p>
+
+<div class="figright" style="width: 200px;">
+<img src="images/image_120.jpg" width="200" height="628" alt="The Lillipoutum." title="" />
+<span class="caption">The Lillipoutum.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>Such wonders as these intensified the glamor of the interior world. I
+was fast becoming bewildered with the intoxication of an environment
+of strange, abnormal creatures&mdash;unlike anything I had ever seen
+before.</p>
+
+<p>The goddess regarded her pets with the greatest interest, and was
+pleased at being the first to acquaint me with such living wonders of
+Atvatabar.</p>
+
+<p>"Your holiness," I said, "these creatures are so wonderful that unless
+I had actually seen them it would be impossible for me to believe in
+their existence." As I spoke, two strange bat-like forms flew toward
+us; they were flying orchids, known as jeerloons, with heart-shaped
+faces and arms terminating in wire-like claws. Their wing projections
+were bristling with suckers like the rays of a starfish. Altogether
+they were weird, uncanny creatures. The goddess caught one of them in
+her hands, and laughed at my excitement. "They will haunt you in your
+dreams," she exclaimed, "poor, pretty things!"</p>
+
+<p>"But now," she added, "let me show you a plant that is fast<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span> becoming
+a brood of animals, both root and flower. It is the jugdul. Still
+rooted in the soil, strange faces are swelling in the mould, while the
+flower is a leaf surmounted by a weird, small head, the nasal organ of
+which is a ponderous proboscis. We do not know as yet what kind of
+animal life will evolve from the plant, but the botanists and
+physiologists of Atvatabar are agreed that at least two new species of
+animals will be developed when the evolution of the zoophyte is
+complete."</p>
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 300px;">
+<img src="images/image_121.jpg" width="300" height="646" alt="The Jugdul." title="" />
+<span class="caption">The Jugdul.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>I assured her holiness that I considered myself the most favored of
+men to be permitted to visit the sanctuary wherein the occult
+transmigration of life was being manifested. It was a rare experience!</p>
+
+<p>Just then the goddess directed my attention to a flying root
+resembling a humming-bird. It was the far-famed jalloast, the
+semi-evolved humming-bird of Atvatabar. Other similar beings,
+half-root, half-bird, were seen perched in a bower of tree-ferns,
+whose waxy green fronds fell like an emerald cascade about the
+jalloasts.</p>
+
+<p>From porcelain boxes suspended along the roof of the conservatory a
+perfect forest of strange plants depended, a species of zoophyte known
+as the yarp-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span>happy, which seemed to be a combination of ape and
+flower. Its peculiarly weird, ape-like face was covered with a hood,
+and from the open mouth of each animal the tongue protruded. From the
+neck of the animal three long leaves radiated, the two lower leaves in
+each case terminating in claw-like extremities, which gave a weird
+expression to the zoophyte.</p>
+
+<div class="figright" style="width: 200px;">
+<img src="images/image_122.jpg" width="200" height="570" alt="The Yarphappy." title="" />
+<span class="caption">The Yarphappy.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>Right underneath these strange beings, there grew an immense quantity
+of spotted pouch-shaped plants, each having the head of a cat growing
+above the pouch. This peculiar zoophyte was known as the gasternowl.
+From either side of the junction of the cat-like head with the pouch
+radiated two speckled leaves. The tips of the ears terminated in
+frond-like plumes, and a peculiar plume like a crest surmounted the
+head.</p>
+
+<p>A strange root known as the crocosus was developed into a perfect
+animal that crawled with four legs upon the floor. The animal was not
+unlike the lizard, or a diminutive crocodile, with an immensely long
+neck, which it held erect. The neck terminated in a bulbous head, with
+an open, bill-shaped mouth, not unlike the mouth of a pelican, while
+right below the jaws there grew a root-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span>like appendage, that coiled
+around the neck. The animal possessed a root-like tail, and was a most
+interesting creature.</p>
+
+<p>To enumerate all the wonders of the conservatory of plant
+transmigration at Tanje would be impossible. I saw the jardil (or
+love-pouch), an orchid resembling a pouch, with the face of a child
+growing therein, from which radiated rootlets and jabots of spiral
+fronds. I also saw the redoubtable blocus, an animal resembling a
+jerboa, or kangaroo, whose only trace of plant existence was a few
+rootlets growing out of its back. The funny-fenny, or clowngrass, was
+a weed with veritable goblins growing on the stems. The goblins had
+long noses and wore high hats and lace collars, but were otherwise but
+plants with absorbent roots. They were so grotesque that I began to
+think that nature was laughing at me quite as much as I laughed at
+nature.</p>
+
+<div>
+<img class="figleft" src="images/image_123_01.jpg" width="500" height="278" alt="The Jalloast." title="" />
+<img class="figleft" src="images/image_123_02.jpg" width="231" height="263" alt="The Jalloast." title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p>When leaving the conservatory I heard a chorus of tender voices like a
+band of spirits singing, whereupon the goddess directed my attention
+to a cluster of fairy girls that, like flowers, were growing upon the
+stem of a plant. It was a peculiarity<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span> of these fairy creatures to
+sing every time their goddess passed by, her spiritual atmosphere
+quickening them into conscious life and song. I was fairly dazzled
+with such a tribute of love to my gracious companion, and were the
+fairy flowers not sacred things I would have borne them away to
+exhibit such a trophy to the outer world.</p>
+
+<div class="figright" style="width: 300px;">
+<img src="images/image_124.jpg" width="300" height="489" alt="The Gasternowl." title="" />
+<span class="caption">The Gasternowl.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>This wonderful plant seemed more like the production of spirit power
+indulging in a weird fantasy of imagination, rather than an evolution
+of nature. It was a new experience to me to hear the little creatures
+sing in a tender chorus of adoration to the goddess and dance
+gleefully upon their stems. My guide fondled the strange creatures
+with her own fair fingers, and they seemed to me the greatest wonder I
+had yet beheld in Atvatabar.</p>
+
+<p>"These," said the goddess, "are gleroserals, and I would gladly give
+you a spray were it not that removal from their tender habitat would
+kill them. But here is a flower, half-bird, half-plant, that I will
+send you in a proper cage if you care for it." The zoophyte referred
+to was another bird plant that flew around the conservatory possessing
+the head and body of an eagle, the wings of a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span> butterfly and the tail
+of a plant. The plant-like appendage was composed of long beautiful
+sprays of graceful foliage, not unlike pine branches, that were curved
+into sinuous forms as the animal flew. It was known as the eaglon, and
+was without legs. I thanked the goddess for her precious gift,
+whereupon we left the conservatory.</p>
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 300px;">
+<img src="images/image_125.jpg" width="300" height="409" alt="The Crocosus." title="" />
+<span class="caption">The Crocosus.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>Wandering through thickets of roses whose burning blossoms swooned
+upon their stems, we came upon a thick carpet of verdure that
+surrounded a hidden lake of clear, cool water. The rocky basin of the
+lake had been sculptured by human hands. Its margin was in outline a
+bold pear-shaped curve, that also curved upon itself, formed by an
+immense chiselling of the fundamental rock. In a little harbor of cut
+rock lay a pleasure boat, a curiously-wrought shell of silver that was
+propelled by magnicity. The goddess entered the boat, bidding me
+follow her. We sat together on an ample couch in the stern of the boat
+underneath a silver canopy. Touching a button, the boat moved swiftly
+over the water. It was a scene of rapture! Gazing into the depths of
+the water I saw the bottom of the lake sculptured in immense masses of
+flowers of stone, like the roof of a Gothic cathedral, but a hundred
+times more luxuriant. Around and above us rose heights of blessedness
+filled with all the thousand ecstasies of leaf and flower. An islet
+bore a little pagoda that stood in the eternal noon a pillared jewel
+of stone, silent and beautiful. It was half concealed with festoons of
+creeping plants whose flowers were great globes of crimson, yellow and
+blue.</p>
+
+<p>There was around me&mdash;paradise, and beside me&mdash;ecstasy!</p>
+
+<p>"You are pleased with my garden?" said the goddess.</p>
+
+<p>"This must be the garden of Hesperides that our poets write of," I
+replied. "Here at last I have found the ideal life."</p>
+
+<p>The goddess reclined on the couch in an attitude of luxurious grace.
+Her every gesture was at once heroic and beautiful.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span></p>
+
+<div>
+<img class="figright" src="images/image_126_01.jpg" width="600" height="122" alt="The Jardil, or Love-Pouch." title="" />
+<img class="figright" src="images/image_126_02.jpg" width="156" height="649" alt="The Jardil, or Love-Pouch." title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p>"Tell me what your poets say of nature, life and love," said she; "do
+they ever sing the delights of hopeless love?"</p>
+
+<p>As the goddess uttered this last question I felt within me a strange
+delight. There sat beside me, floating on that mysterious wave, the
+idol of a great nation, the deity of its universal faith, a divinity
+of power, glory and beauty, laying aside spiritual empire to become
+the companion of a simple explorer of the internal world, her
+discoverer and her friend, by a most happy chance of fortune.</p>
+
+<p>As these thoughts swiftly ran through my brain, and before I had time
+to reply, music, soft, weird, intensely intoxicating, was blown from
+among the tempestuous bloom of the paradises. The melody seemed the
+holiest thrill of hearts communing in the rapture of love! To explain
+the sweetness of the moment is impossible&mdash;the goddess was so alluring
+and serene. She kept her own emotions in the background as the result
+of a proud devotion to duty, and yet I felt swathed with a soul that
+seemed to have found an opportunity worthy the expression of its life.</p>
+
+<p>A situation so daring, yet so tender, required an equally daring and
+reverent soul to meet it. I felt all its surpassing loveliness.</p>
+
+<p>"Our poets," I replied, "have written of love in all its phases,
+describing the most spiritual passions as well as the most lustful. In
+poetry love may be any phase of love, but the reality is a compound of
+lust and spirituality, being rooted both in body and soul."</p>
+
+<p>"Do your people," said the goddess, "never differentiate lust and love
+and obtain in real life only a spiritual romantic love such as we do
+in Atvatabar?"</p>
+
+<p>"We believe, your holiness," I replied, "that such a love as you refer
+to is only to be found in a spiritual state and is the secret of
+disembodied blessedness."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"You must see Egyplosis," said she, "ere you depart from us, and there
+learn the possibility of ideal love in actual life."</p>
+
+<p>"To discover such a joy," I replied, "will repay my journey to
+Atvatabar a thousandfold."</p>
+
+<p>We alighted from the boat on a rocky margin of the lake that led into
+a labyrinth of flowers. Here we wandered at will, discovering at every
+step new delights. Lyone was not only a goddess, but also the fond
+incarnation of a comrade soul.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXIV"></a>CHAPTER XXIV.</h2>
+
+<h2>THE JOURNEY TO EGYPLOSIS.</h2>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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?</p>
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 300px;">
+<img src="images/image_127.jpg" width="300" height="360" alt="The Blocus." title="" />
+<span class="caption">The Blocus.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>Our discussions terminated in an invitation by the goddess to
+accompany her in her aerial yacht, the <i>Aeropher</i>, 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span> and officers of the <i>Polar
+King</i>, 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.</p>
+
+<div>
+<img class="figright" src="images/image_128_01.jpg" width="500" height="141" alt="The Funny-Fenny, or Clowngrass." title="" />
+<img class="figright" src="images/image_128_02.jpg" width="225" height="450" alt="The Funny-Fenny, or Clowngrass." title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p>A host of lesser dignitaries, including the sailors of the <i>Polar
+King</i> under command of Flathootly, would follow us in another yacht,
+called the <i>Fletyeming</i>. Each yacht had its own priest-captain,
+officers and crew of aerial navigators.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>On such a machine as this we purposed travelling a distance of one
+thousand miles.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Westward of the mountains, an elevated prairie or tableland extended
+for five hundred miles further, broken here and there into crevasses
+and ca&ntilde;ons, 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.</p>
+
+<p>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 <i>Aeropher</i>, the goddess
+making a special visitation to the palace of hopeless love.</p>
+
+<p>No journey could have begun with better<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 600px;">
+<img src="images/image_129.jpg" width="600" height="508" alt="The Gleroseral." title="" />
+<span class="caption">The Gleroseral.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>Captain Lavornal, the inventor of the <i>Aeropher</i>, was resolved to
+outdo all former records in aerial navigation, and accordingly drove
+the <i>Aeropher</i> at a speed of eighty miles an hour.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>"What relation to the soul can the ship possibly possess?" I inquired.</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;oh! it is to me delightful."</p>
+
+<div class="figright" style="width: 300px;">
+<img src="images/image_130.jpg" width="300" height="494" alt="The Eaglon." title="" />
+<span class="caption">The Eaglon.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span> There was a strange absence of
+shadow caused by a perpendicular sun that realized the climate of
+Dante,</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"A land whereon no shadow falls." </p></div>
+
+<p>Yet as the <i>Aeropher</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Captain Lavornal exclaimed: "Your holiness, I apprehend these clouds
+are the couriers of a hurricane!"</p>
+
+<p>"Do you mean that we shall be overtaken by the storm?" asked Lyone.</p>
+
+<p>"Most certainly," said the captain, "and I tremble lest anything
+should happen to your holiness."</p>
+
+<p>"Do not fear for me," said Lyone; "even a storm is not
+insurmountable."</p>
+
+<p>"Shall I descend, your holiness, or keep to our course?" inquired the
+captain with some trepidation.</p>
+
+<p>"Keep to your course," replied Lyone.</p>
+
+<p>Just then a hollow booming was heard, and then a fierce explosion in
+which the darkened sky became enveloped in a sheet of flame.</p>
+
+<p>In a moment the cyclone struck the ship!</p>
+
+<p>Some of the terrified voyagers shrieked and others remained silent,
+but all held tightly on to the nearest thing they could get hold of.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span> 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 <i>Aeropher</i> 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.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXV" id="CHAPTER_XXV"></a>CHAPTER XXV.</h2>
+
+<h2>ESCAPING FROM THE CYCLONE.</h2>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>Aeropher</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span> ca&ntilde;on of the river Savagil, a
+merciless abyss ten thousand feet in depth.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 ca&ntilde;on. We had passed through the danger before knowing what
+had happened.</p>
+
+<p>Lyone was stunned, but safe, the captain had a dislocated wrist, and
+others had broken limbs, but none was fatally hurt.</p>
+
+<p>It was a terrible experience.</p>
+
+<p>As the ca&ntilde;on 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.</p>
+
+<p>The damage done to the <i>Aeropher</i> was quickly repaired. The ceaseless
+humming of the fans revolving on axles of hollow steel lulled our
+senses once more into dreamy repose.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"You are right," said I; "the world into which we are born is our true
+habitat."</p>
+
+<p>The walls of the ca&ntilde;on 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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 450px;">
+<img src="images/image_134.jpg" width="450" height="658" alt="THE GODDESS STOOD HOLDING THE OUTER RAIL OF THE DECK,
+THE INCARNATION OF COURAGE." title="" />
+<span class="caption">THE GODDESS STOOD HOLDING THE OUTER RAIL OF THE DECK,
+THE INCARNATION OF COURAGE.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The <i>Aeropher</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"That is but the mechanical law of cause and effect," I ventured;
+"where does self-sacrifice come in?"</p>
+
+<p>"I do not quite understand," she replied; "self-sacrifice is the first
+law of the soul."</p>
+
+<p>"What I mean," I said, "is this&mdash;having discovered your counterpart,
+do you adore despite the circumstances of fortune?"</p>
+
+<p>"Most certainly," she replied; "there is the divinest self-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span>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."</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"And do you mean that, after living one hundred years, beginning with
+your twentieth birthday, you are still only commencing your
+twenty-first year?"</p>
+
+<p>"That is exactly what I mean," said Lyone. "I myself have lived ten
+years of Nirvana, and am yet only twenty years old."</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;this achievement of an earthly Nirvana.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you believe in the independent life of the soul after death?" I
+inquired.</p>
+
+<p>"I believe that, as our bodies when they die become reabsorbed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span> 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."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVI" id="CHAPTER_XXVI"></a>CHAPTER XXVI.</h2>
+
+<h2>THE BANQUET ON THE AERIAL SHIP.</h2>
+
+
+<p>The saloon, which was also the <i>salle &agrave; manger</i>, was situated in the
+centre of the ship. Thus the entire travellers could assemble together
+without disturbing the centre of gravity of the structure.</p>
+
+<p>The saloon was composed of woven cane, and ornamented with a dado of
+sage-green silk, on which were embroidered storks, pheasants and
+eagles flying through space. An elongated table, also of wicker work,
+contained a sumptuous repast.</p>
+
+<p>The goddess congratulated the guests on their safety, which proved
+that the skill that produced the <i>Aeropher</i> had successfully grappled
+with the difficult problem of aerial navigation.</p>
+
+<p>The inventor of the <i>Aeropher</i> said it was the apex of mechanical
+skill. Invention had raised humanity from the depths of slavery,
+ignorance, and weakness to a height of empire undreamed of in earlier
+ages. Such material greatness expands the soul with godlike
+attributes. The ideal, inventive soul, the typical soul, was a god.</p>
+
+<p>The poet said that the <i>Aeropher</i> was the symbol of that kind of
+poetry in which energy and art were in equipoise. It glorified
+mechanical skill. It had been prophesied that as civilization advanced
+poetry would decline. There was a period in the history of Atvatabar
+in which matters of taste, imagination and intellectual emotion had
+been utterly neglected by a universal preference for scientific and
+mechanical pursuits. The country was overrun with reasoners, debaters,
+metaphysicians, scientists and mechanical artists, but there were no
+poets. Such mechanical civilization was unfavorable to their
+development. The founding of such institutions as the art palace of
+Gnaphisthasia and the spiritual palace of Egyplosis had grafted on
+their modern life the soul life of more ancient times, until
+soul-worship had become the universal religion.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The goddess said that the aerial ship was the symbol of an ideal and
+passionate temperament resolved on discovering new spheres of
+spiritual beauty, so as to spiritualize the race. Such a soul ought to
+be free to surround itself with that atmosphere from which it absorbs
+life. It must choose its own weapons and armor, so as to be adequately
+equipped for the battle. In its eagerness to climb on discovering
+wings it must be accompanied by its own retinue of spirits, by
+enthusiastic and lasting friendships so consoling to its nature. Such
+was the idea of Egyplosis.</p>
+
+<p>Captain Lavornal at this point stated that when the company regained
+the deck he would put the rotating wheel, placed at the stern of the
+ship, in motion, so as to produce the combination of a revolving as
+well as an onward flight.</p>
+
+<p>"These wheels," said he, "will spin us around, and by means of our
+double rudder we produce both vertical and lateral undulations, which,
+combined with the rotary movement of the deck, will produce a
+delirious sensation. All the abandon of great and strong birds are
+ours. We can imitate the sonorous sweep of the seemorgh, who plunges
+with supreme majesty in the abyss of air."</p>
+
+<p>"These elaborations of flight," said Lyone, "are not pursued merely
+for physical pleasure, but in a mysterious way they are the moulders
+of the soul itself. That essence, re-enforced with such subtle and
+powerful enthusiasm, develops sensibility and assumes a grandeur and
+ecstasy unknown to those who merely travel on the earth. Each gesture
+of flight is a stride nearer omnipotence, an attribute more godlike by
+reason of its supremacy over those obstacles that crush and
+overwhelm."</p>
+
+<p>I shared the same seat with Lyone at the prow of the vessel.</p>
+
+<p>The scenery had in our absence developed into more marked grandeur.
+Under the spell of an eternal morning, of such light as poets only
+dream of, there rose on either side of us consummate rocks and
+cataracts that signalled heaven. The swinging pillars of incredible
+streams leaped thousands of feet into the gulf beneath. They charmed
+us like glittering serpents. The gorge, the rocks, the cataracts, the
+heavens of the earth above us were a prodigal feast to which nature
+had bidden us.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 450px;">
+<img src="images/image_140.jpg" width="450" height="655" alt="THEN THE SHIP ROSE AGAIN TOWARD THE MAMMOTH ROCKS,
+ADORNED WITH THE TAPESTRIES OF FALLING WAVE." title="" />
+<span class="caption">THEN THE SHIP ROSE AGAIN TOWARD THE MAMMOTH ROCKS,
+ADORNED WITH THE TAPESTRIES OF FALLING WAVE.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>As we explored the depths of the gulf the <i>Aeropher</i> assumed an
+undulating motion. For several miles the vessel kept descending,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span>
+until we swept through an overwhelming jungle of wild flowers. There
+were acres of roses riotous in bloom, there was the trailing of wild
+peas sweet as honey, the blue of larkspurs, the fragrance of musk
+flowers, and the swaying cups of scarlet poppies.</p>
+
+<p>Then the ship rose again toward the mammoth rocks that shimmered in
+the sunlight adorned with the tapestries of falling wave. Still upward
+we rose into the spell-bound sky, feeding on the savage sweets of
+nature, the rhythm of the golden cliffs, the echoes of the waterfalls.
+We were the associates of mighty pines that on the Theban peaks spread
+incomparable solaces for mind and heart. Then, as we descended from
+our extreme altitude, we began also to revolve with a splendid sweep
+of motion, until the landscape swam around us like a dream.</p>
+
+<p>It was a delirious phantasy of airy clouds, fluttering leaves, songs
+of birds, milky avalanches, balsamic forests, and the awe-inspiring
+silences of revolving walls!</p>
+
+<p>The intoxication of such wheeling flight filled us with a strange joy.
+Our journey became wistful, eager, breathless. We became poets, and
+the soul of a poet is a chameleon that takes its glow and color from
+the surrounding infection. The motion that bore us in daring circles
+produced a euthanasia of mind and an exaltation of soul. The jugglery
+of flight under such conditions produced a Nirvana of soul and a
+Dharana of body. An exquisitely sweet whirlwind of emotion swept
+through I know not how many souls on the <i>Aeropher</i>, but certainly
+through the souls of Lyone and myself.</p>
+
+<p>We both flew round and round like birds in intoxicating converse.
+During the progress of the flight, intellect, will and memory
+slumbered. I was deprived of the use of all external faculties, while
+those of the soul were correspondingly increased. Imagination and
+emotion were excited with rapturous energy. Lyone's eyes sparkled with
+a celestial joy. She was again the goddess in her ecstasy!</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVII" id="CHAPTER_XXVII"></a>CHAPTER XXVII.</h2>
+
+<h2>WE REACH EGYPLOSIS.</h2>
+
+
+<p>When I recovered my every-day senses the revolving motion of the
+<i>Aeropher</i> had ceased and our flight was confined to an undulating
+movement. I was holding the hand of the goddess, who had been in a
+hyper&aelig;sthetic condition herself during the gyrations of the ship, and
+when feeling her senses leaving her she had involuntarily grasped my
+hand. Our souls had been the recipients of the same rapturous joy.</p>
+
+<p>When we were once more ourselves, Lyone was anxious to know something
+of the character of the women of the outer world. I talked to her
+about such women as resembled herself in spiritual fervor.</p>
+
+<p>I described the Egyptian legend of Isis, the goddess of love, of life,
+of nature. I told her of St. Theresa, that blessed visionary, whose
+soul frequently experienced those voluptuous sensations, such as might
+be experienced when expiring in raptures on the bosom of God. I spoke
+also of pearly Eve, to whom, ere she had eaten of the fatal fruit,
+every moment was a delight, every blossom a wilderness of sweets. I
+spoke of Cleopatra, the haughty daughter of the Nile, the fervor of
+whose passion thickened into lust and death.</p>
+
+<p>My story was interrupted by the arrival of the captain, who said:
+"Your holiness, we will reach Egyplosis in an hour."</p>
+
+<p>"So soon," murmured the goddess.</p>
+
+<p>"Is it the pleasure of your holiness that we alight at the private
+sanctuary or at the grand gate?" inquired the captain.</p>
+
+<p>"At the grand gate, of course," said the goddess; "we must give our
+friends a royal welcome."</p>
+
+<p>The captain bowed in obedience and disappeared.</p>
+
+<p>The charms of our journey grew more and more interesting. In addition
+to the delights of discovery, I felt the rising ambition of a great
+joy in connection with Lyone. It was a daring thought, that I might
+possibly partake of a glorious <i>camaraderie</i> with the goddess, but
+when I thought that no stranger could possibly share a heart that
+belonged only to her own people, only to Atvatabar, I felt that Lyone
+was very far off indeed.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>In a land where spiritual love was the prerogative of the priestly
+caste, strictly limited to the members of that caste, any priestly
+condescension or favor given to those outside the pale of the
+priesthood could have no meaning and was forbidden under penalty of
+death. Of course human nature is liable to err always, and it came to
+pass that the records of the legal tribunals of Atvatabar proved that
+many departures in soul fellowship took place between the most loyal
+inmates of Egyplosis and the outer inhabitants. The punishment for
+such offence to the most sacred law of Atvatabar, although terrible,
+was powerless to prevent such <i>m&eacute;salliances</i> of souls.</p>
+
+<p>I knew that a spark of what might prove a mighty conflagration was
+already kindled in the bosom of the goddess. It thrilled me to know
+it, but only as the laws and customs of this strange country became
+known to me did I realize the tremendous risk in Lyone allowing her
+heart to betray any kinship, however remote, with mine. The greater
+the dignity, the greater the offence. The crime was sacrilege, and the
+punishment was death by the magnic fluid.</p>
+
+<p>The goddess already belonged to her faith. She was love's
+<i>religieuse</i>. It was a cruel thing to seek her love when I knew it
+would perhaps bring her to an untimely end and stamp her name with
+everlasting disgrace. On the other hand, if the goddess, knowing much
+better than I the result of loving one not only outside of the sacred
+caste, but an "outer barbarian" as well, was brave enough to incur
+even the risk of death on behalf of her love, would I be so cowardly
+as not to follow her supreme soul even to martyrdom itself? And it
+might be that we might even raise a following large enough to defeat
+our enemies, and end in a greater triumph than either of us ever yet
+experienced.</p>
+
+<p>Such were the thoughts that filled me when the aerial ship suddenly
+shot out of the chasm in which we had so long travelled and emerged
+upon the wide circular basin of the mountains about one hundred miles
+in diameter. In the centre of the high valley lay an immense lake, in
+whose centre stood a large island, everywhere visible from the shores,
+whereon stood the sacred palace of Egyplosis, the many-templed college
+of souls. We saw its pale green, gleaming walls rising from a tropical
+forest of dark green trees. Its gold and crystal domes reflected the
+sunlight dazzlingly, making the palace plainly visible all over that
+wide valley.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Egyplosis was a little city composed of an immense quadrangle, the
+supernal palace together with the subterranean infernal palace. The
+supernal palace was of enormous dimensions, being a square mile in
+extent, and was composed of over a hundred temples and palaces rising
+high in the air, the chief seat of soul worship in Atvatabar, and the
+home of twice ten thousand priests and priestesses.</p>
+
+<p>The infernal palace consisted of one hundred subterranean temples and
+labyrinths, all sculptured, like the supernal palace, out of the
+living rock, and situated directly underneath it.</p>
+
+<p>Our course lay in a direct line across the noble valley. It was the
+most diversified part of the country we had yet crossed, being broken
+up into hills and valleys, glens and precipices, fields and forests,
+lakes, islands and gardens, all composing a region of bewildering
+beauty.</p>
+
+<p>The emotions awakened by my near approach to this strange place were
+keen and exciting. Now for the first time in history its mystery was
+about to be disclosed to alien eyes from the outer world.</p>
+
+<p>Soon after entering the park we saw, some fifty miles to the north,
+the ship containing the sailors rapidly approaching Egyplosis. It had
+also escaped destruction by the cyclone, having doubtless followed us
+down the ca&ntilde;on we sought refuge in.</p>
+
+<p>It was a new sensation to float bird-like over the enchanted fields in
+this most mysterious of worlds, toward a spot that has no prototype on
+earth.</p>
+
+<p>A multitude of domes and crenelated walls grew into immense
+proportions beneath the boundless light. Egyplosis possessed in its
+palaces the enchanted calm of Hindoo and Greek architecture, together
+with the thrilling ecstasy of Gothic shrines. Blended with these
+precious qualities there was a poetic generalization of the mighty
+activities of modern civilization. It was the home of spiritual and
+physical empire.</p>
+
+<p>I wondered greatly what Eleusinian mysteries its courts contained. I
+was indeed another Hercules visiting the realms of Pluto and the
+garden of Proserpine in quest of the immortal fruits of knowledge.
+Would I be successful in my quest, and bear back to the outer world
+some magical secret its nations would be glad to know?</p>
+
+<p>Finally, we saw the clear and marvellous palace close at hand.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<img src="images/image_146.jpg" width="600" height="390" alt="LYONE WAS BORNE ON A LITTER FROM THE AERIAL SHIP TO THE
+PALACE." title="" />
+<span class="caption">LYONE WAS BORNE ON A LITTER FROM THE AERIAL SHIP TO THE
+PALACE.</span>
+</div>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>A hundred banners floated from its walls, and music from an army of
+neophytes on its towers saluted us.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>Aeropher</i> swept over the lake, and, reaching the island, alighted
+on a marble causeway leading to the grand entrance of the palace. A
+thousand wayleals stood ranged on either side as a guard of honor. We
+had left the forest that largely covers the island, and on either hand
+stretched gardens of rainbow-colored flowers, and here and there
+fountains sparkled in the sunny air.</p>
+
+<p>Lyone seemed the impersonation of divine loveliness as she was borne
+in a litter from the aerial ship to the palace. On her head sparkled
+the bird of yearning, typical of hopeless love.</p>
+
+<p>The high priest Hushnoly and the priestess Zooly-Soase of the supernal
+palace and the grand sorcerer Charka and the grand sorceress Thoubool
+of the infernal palace, surrounded by the chief priests and
+priestesses, magicians, sorcerers, wizards, theosophists,
+spiritualists, etc., gave us a royal welcome, and were jubilant at the
+return of the supreme goddess to Egyplosis.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVIII" id="CHAPTER_XXVIII"></a>CHAPTER XXVIII.</h2>
+
+<h2>THE GRAND TEMPLE OF HARIKAR.</h2>
+
+
+<p>Twelve of the most handsome priests and priestesses constituted the
+guard of twin-souls in waiting to the goddess, and these escorted her
+into the grand court of the temple palace. Over a gigantic archway
+were sculptured the words "Dya Pateis omt Ami Cair," which meant "Two
+Bodies and One Soul." This was the motto of Egyplosis, the expression
+of ideal friendship and indicative of a system of life the reverse of
+that of the outer world of Atvatabar, which had for its motto, "One
+Body and Two Souls."</p>
+
+<p>The architecture of the supernal palace was of amazing proportions and
+solid grandeur. Its aggregation of temples was sculptured out of one
+mighty block of pale green marble. The vast quadrangle seemed a
+tempest of imagination and art, whose temples, terraces and towers
+were the expression of the infinite souls that formed them. The color
+of the stone was beautifully<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span> relieved by broad bands of the vermilion
+metal terrelium, that plated the walls with several parallel friezes,
+which lent an amazing splendor to the scene, and made us feel as
+though we were entering some palace of eternity, where magnificence
+has no end.</p>
+
+<p>We had no time to examine the marvels spread before our delighted
+eyes, for, on the conclusion of our reception by the great officers of
+the palace, we were conducted to chambers set apart for our use, to
+rest and refresh ourselves to witness the exercises attending the
+installation of a twin-soul on the following day.</p>
+
+<p>The chief temple at Egyplosis was interiorly of semi-circular shape,
+like a Greek theatre, five hundred feet in width. It was covered like
+the pantheon with a sculptured roof and dome of many-colored glass.
+The roof was one hundred and thirty feet above the lowest tier of
+seats beneath or one hundred feet above the level of the highest seats
+beneath. The walls were laboriously sculptured dado and field and
+frieze, with bas-reliefs of the same character as the golden throne of
+the gods that stood at the centre of the semi-circle.</p>
+
+<p>The dado was thirty-two feet in height, on which were carved the
+emblems of every possible machine, implement or invention that
+conferred supremacy over nature in idealized grandeur. Battles of
+flying wayleals and races of bockhockids were carved in grand
+confusion. It was a splendid reunion of science and art.</p>
+
+<p>Higher up the field space, which was fifty feet in height, was broken
+by a gallery or cloister behind a tier of splendid pillars, themselves
+carved with the emblems of art. The hidden wall, as well as those
+portions above and below the cloister between dado and frieze, were
+covered with endless representations of the creations of art. Heroic
+eurythmic figures representing poetry, music, painting, architecture,
+etc., formed a mighty symposium.</p>
+
+<p>Highest of all, the enormous frieze, fully sixteen feet in width, was
+one mighty band of solid terrelium. This had been cast in plates
+having sculptured symbols in high relief of the sublime emblems of
+Harikar, and portrayed scenes from the idealities and mysteries of
+Egyplosis.</p>
+
+<p>There were represented the fine and perfect figures of magicians in
+the midst of their incantations, of sorcerers raising<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span> souls to life
+again; there were visions of the sorcery of love in all its moods, and
+of the rapt practices of twin-souls generating a creative force in
+batteries of spirit power.</p>
+
+<p>Above all rose the dome whose lights were fadeless. The pavement of
+the temple had been chiselled in the form of a longitudinal hollow
+basin, containing a series of wide terraces of polished stone, whereon
+were placed divans of the richest upholstery. In each divan sat a
+winged twin-soul, priest and priestess, the devotees of hopeless love.
+On the throne itself sat Lyone, the supreme goddess, in the semi-nude
+splendor of the pantheon, arranged with tiara and jewelled belt and
+flowing skirt of sea-green aquelium lace. She made a picture divinely
+entrancing and noble. Supporting the throne was an immense pedestal of
+polished marble, fully one hundred feet in diameter and twenty feet in
+height, which stood upon a wide and elevated pavement of solid silver,
+whereon the priests and priestesses officiated in the services to the
+goddess. On crimson couches sat their majesties the king and queen of
+Atvatabar, together with the great officers of the realm. Next to the
+royal group myself and the officers and seamen of the <i>Polar King</i>
+occupied seats of honor. Behind, around and above us, filling the
+immense temple, rose the concave mass of twin-souls numbering ten
+thousand individuals, each seated with counterpart soul.</p>
+
+<p>As I gazed on those happy terraces of life, youth, love and beauty, I
+felt exhilarated with the sensations the scene gave rise to.</p>
+
+<p>The garments of both priests and priestesses were fashioned in a style
+somewhat resembling the decorative dresses seen on Greek and Japanese
+vases, yet wholly original in design. In many cases the priestesses
+were swathed in transparent tissues that revealed figures like pale
+olive gold within.</p>
+
+<p>The grand sorcerer Charka and the grand sorceress Thoubool occupied a
+conspicuous divan upholstered with cloth of gold. The sorceress was a
+grand beauty, neither blond nor brunette, but her complexion would,
+chameleon-like, change from a rosy white to a clear golden hue. Her
+hair was bright copper, gleaming like strands of metal. Her eyes
+changed color incessantly, being successively blue and black.</p>
+
+<p>Her robe was a pale green silk, bound at the waist with a heavy
+cincture of gold. She wore a necklace of many-colored gems.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The grand sorcerer wore a robe of moss-green velvet embroidered with
+appliqued white silk lace, resembling lotus bloom. Both wore diadems
+of emeralds. Other twin-souls were arrayed in equally splendid attire,
+and seated on couches whose upholstery accentuated or harmonized with
+their fair occupants. Whatever the color selected, I observed that
+each twin-soul priest and priestess wore robes of a consanguineous
+hue, however the individual stuffs might vary in texture or quality. I
+also observed that in no case were the laws of taste in color
+violated, and unerring instinct had guided every priest and priestess
+in achieving the most piquant harmonies of color. With garments in
+simultaneous contrast each twin-soul sat on a couch upholstered in
+fabrics in pure contrast of color.</p>
+
+<p>How I wished some great painter of the outer world could transfer to
+canvas that conflagration of beauty.</p>
+
+<p>Several twin-souls, with garments that seemed beaten gold, reclined on
+black velvet couches beside us. On an immense divan of white velvet
+near by sat a group of priests and priestesses arrayed in stuffs that
+were the strangest tones of purple, brown, violet, green, and red. A
+twin-soul in golden maize sat on a dark purple couch. A twin-soul in
+&eacute;cru sat on a salmon-colored couch, while a twin-soul in myosotis blue
+reposed on a couch of the color of Australian gold. Celibates and
+vestals in russet robes luxuriated on couches of magnolia green.</p>
+
+<p>It was evident their artists possessed a happy skill in creating such
+harmonies of costume. Sculptor, upholsterer and <i>couturi&egrave;re</i> formed
+the trinity of genius that wrought marvels of form and color.</p>
+
+<p>Harikar, the Holy Soul, was the deity, who was symbolized by the
+goddess, and ministered to by such a retinue of souls. No doubt
+Harikar was mightily pleased at such a tribute of wealth, love and
+beauty. As far as an individual could appreciate such splendor, I must
+testify it was an eminently thrilling oblation.</p>
+
+<p>The votaries themselves were no solitary ascetics who practised heroic
+mortifications to obtain dominion over life or nature. Instead of the
+pale devotee who in other creed cultivates the desire to get away from
+all things earthly, and whose every effort is to extinguish pleasure
+in life, every theopath of Harikar cultivated a Greek perfection of
+body, as well as a Gothic intensity of soul. By what powerful
+incantation were the priests<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span> of Egyplosis able to overcome the law of
+the outer world, that all joy must be paid for in pain, and that the
+joy was nearly always too dear at the price given?</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIX" id="CHAPTER_XXIX"></a>CHAPTER XXIX.</h2>
+
+<h2>THE INSTALLATION OF A TWIN-SOUL.</h2>
+
+
+<p>The sacred musicians of the temple surrounded the throne in solid
+circles each arrayed in lordly attire.</p>
+
+<p>They flourished instruments of gold, that rang out music of such depth
+and clearness of tone as to melt every soul in that vast audience into
+one thrilling whole. The sounding song was the incarnation of all
+things majestic and glorious. In its breathless measures were born the
+spirits of conquest, pride, inspiration, love and sympathy. The
+thrilling climax was wrought of passages eloquent of love, tenderness,
+reverence, joy, adoration and poetry.</p>
+
+<p>Again, with the music becoming more refined, a choir of singers in the
+high cloister in the walls sang as they walked a refrain of purifying
+sweetness. It was a wail of fidelity and love, and both song and music
+moved in perfect accord.</p>
+
+<p>Thereafter music alone was heard, when the high priest Hushnoly, and
+the high priestess Zooly-Soase stood before us on the silver pavement
+beneath the throne.</p>
+
+<p>The blue-black hair of the high priestess fell around her olive face
+and shoulders like a cloud of darkness. She wore a robe of coral-red
+silken gossamer, that with its foldings shivered like quicksilver,
+revealing a figure of olive marble beneath. Her shoulders, arms and
+breasts, soft and heavy in mould, were dimly seen beneath their coral
+veil. Her profile was perfect. Her eyes were jewels of swart fire. Her
+eyebrows made perfect arches above them, enhancing the beauty of her
+face. Her mouth was fine and tender, and her lips red with kisses. The
+high priest, whose noble features were olive-green in hue, wore a
+splendid opaque silk burnous of camellia-red, of heavier texture than
+that of the priestess. He wore boots of scarlet lacquered leather.
+Both wore diadems of kragon, the precious stone.</p>
+
+<p>A stone altar curiously carved, on which stood a green bronze<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span> turtle
+of large size, occupied one side of the front of the pavement. The
+turtle held its head stretched upward, and through its open mouth a
+thin stream of blue smoke ascended. On the wide flat back of the
+turtle lay an open volume, the sacred book of Egyplosis.</p>
+
+<p>The priest and priestess stood beside the altar, each reading an
+alternate stanza from the ritual of the goddess. While reading, the
+priests with loud voice followed the intoning of the high priest, and
+the priestesses that of the high priestess, as follows:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p class="center">THE RITUAL OF HOPELESS LOVE.</p>
+
+<p class="center">PRIESTS.</p>
+
+<p>Harikar is the supreme soul, and the goddess Lyone his
+supreme incarnation. Equally free from asceticism and
+indulgence, she treads the golden path.</p>
+
+<p class="center">PRIESTESSES.</p>
+
+<p>Let us joyfully obey our adorable goddess, who commands us
+in all manner of spiritual joys; let us follow her glorious
+example, preserving purity of heart and life.</p>
+
+<p class="center">PRIESTS.</p>
+
+<p>Let us adore a cupid agonized, worshipping the goddess of
+hopeless, tender, romantic love. Let us, with our
+counterparts, the most lovely of maidens, become twin-souls
+for evermore.</p>
+
+<p class="center">PRIESTESSES.</p>
+
+<p>Let us love the shapely and active youths, the young men of
+soul and intellect, likewise those of courage and daring,
+whose hearts and minds are in complete unity.</p>
+
+<p class="center">PRIESTS.</p>
+
+<p>Let us add splendor of body to greatness of soul. May we
+excel in the chase, the dance and the race. Let us drink
+ambrosial wine, and eat the juiciest of meats, and clothe
+ourselves with the finest and strongest of tissues. </p></div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span></p>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 450px;">
+<img src="images/image_154.jpg" width="450" height="659" alt="THE PRIEST AND PRIESTESS STOOD BESIDE THE ALTAR, EACH
+READING AN ALTERNATE STANZA FROM THE RITUAL OF THE GODDESS." title="" />
+<span class="caption">THE PRIEST AND PRIESTESS STOOD BESIDE THE ALTAR, EACH
+READING AN ALTERNATE STANZA FROM THE RITUAL OF THE GODDESS.</span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p class="center">PRIESTESSES.</p>
+
+<p>Let us have a beautiful companionship with our counterpart
+souls. Let us rejoice in the sun, in the free winds of the
+sky, in the glory of flowers, in the pride of horses and
+elephants richly caparisoned. Let us treasure jewels. Let us
+possess emeralds,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span> turquoises, diamonds and rubies. Let us
+array ourselves with marvellous stuffs, dyed with the
+richest colorings.</p>
+
+<p class="center">PRIESTS.</p>
+
+<p>Let us here in search of the ideal find an ever-increasing
+Nirvana of blessedness. Goddess of souls, lead us to imagine
+higher and holier exaltations; keener and more blessed
+raptures!</p>
+
+<p class="center">PRIESTESSES.</p>
+
+<p>Sweet mother of souls! teach us to cultivate consoling
+friendships with sympathetic hearts. Give us longings for
+the utmost depths of love and tenderness; let us possess
+fervid and impassioned souls.</p>
+
+<p class="center">PRIESTS.</p>
+
+<p>Let us create a paradise wherein life is one long
+intoxication of love, beauty and soul-culture, found in the
+fascinating converse of soul with soul and intellect with
+intellect.</p>
+
+<p class="center">PRIESTESSES.</p>
+
+<p>May rapturous energies spring from hopeless loves! May the
+yearning for inaccessible pleasures fill us with blessed
+extravagance and holy madness.</p>
+
+<p class="center">PRIESTS.</p>
+
+<p>May we, firmly poised on virtue, become possessed of noble,
+delicate, enormous souls. May the meeting of spirit with
+spirit be too ecstatic for words to express. May vows be
+written in each other's hearts. May the jewelled ring bind
+soul and soul, and in the commingled life may the holy
+compact be known, that a perfect circle of souls has been
+consummated.</p>
+
+<p class="center">PRIESTESSES.</p>
+
+<p>Secure by our compact and our vows from tasting of the
+forbidden fruit, may we always possess the happy
+intemperance of never-satiated souls.</p>
+
+<p class="center">PRIESTS.</p>
+
+<p>May the sorcery of love procure for us the shuddering
+sensibility of sorrow, without its agony, as we possess the
+perfect delight of day without the cold and lugubrious
+shadows of the night. <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="center">PRIESTESSES.</p>
+
+<p>Contact with life begets love, and love begets sensation,
+and sensation desire, but reason and culture control desire
+and so preserve the endless sweetness of our joy.</p>
+
+<p class="center">PRIESTS.</p>
+
+<p>The real mortal, the ideal divine. The real awakens desire,
+the ideal feeds it. The real is the maimed, the halt and the
+blind; it is the sepulchre of faith; the poor, the tawdry,
+the miserable, it is the measure of our imperfect attainment
+of the ideal.</p>
+
+<p>The ideal is the supreme made possible by love and charity.
+It is wide as imagination, perfect as love, calm as death.
+It is the unchangeable and the immortal.</p>
+
+<p>The real with its disappointments is soul shattering, but
+the ideal is perennial life.</p>
+
+<p>The more inaccessible the pleasure, the keener the delight
+in its pursuit.</p>
+
+<p>In love, accessibility is death.</p>
+
+<p class="center">PRIESTESSES.</p>
+
+<p>By losing the real we obtain the ideal. What others strive
+for we possess. Praise to Harikar for the most glorious of
+men, for precious viands, odoriferous wines, rare and costly
+jewels, marvellous stuffs, and the hundred temples and
+gardens of Egyplosis! Praise to Harikar for our counterpart
+souls!</p>
+
+<p class="center">PRIESTS.</p>
+
+<p>Praise to Harikar for the loveliest of women, noble,
+cultured and tender, with whom Nirvana is ecstasy.</p>
+
+<p class="center">PRIESTESSES.</p>
+
+<p>Nirvana is the consummate gift of Harikar, the one
+everlasting sweetness! </p></div>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>During the intonation of the ritual, the twin-souls put into practice
+the manifestations of those endearments prayed for, and which they
+certainly seemed to possess.</p>
+
+<p>Throughout the entire congregation, priest and priestess, enfolded in
+each other's arms, swayed caressingly together and rapturously kissed
+each other. The fondest sighs were heard amid the recitations, and the
+faces of lover and beloved were<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span> flushed the color of rosy flame. A
+tempest of restrained passion shook the entire congregation.</p>
+
+<p>What wonder, that, ruled by such a faith, each twin-soul splendidly
+apparelled, in such an edifice, should grow rich and strange, bold and
+delicate, and exhibit the intemperance of emotion excited by
+sensations so multiplied and extreme? I then saw a new meaning in the
+grandeur and efflorescence of the sculptures of the temple. I saw in
+the profuse decorations, in the arabesques so fantastically entangled
+and unrolled, a manifestation of the delicate sensibility that created
+them.</p>
+
+<p>Not only were real or natural objects idealized in art, but also
+conventional art, or the record of what nature suggests, as well as
+how she appears, to the soul of the artist. And what must have been
+the infinite wealth of suggestion to such souls as these to account
+for such mouldings and traceries on wall and roof, and such wealth of
+color in attire, reflected and duplicated in the jewelled windows of
+the dome. Here were souls fitted by nature and art to fuse and create
+the suggestions of nature into shapes of eternal beauty. These
+flamboyant shapes and mystical colors presuppose the strange
+illuminations that had pierced tender and extravagant hearts.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXX" id="CHAPTER_XXX"></a>CHAPTER XXX.</h2>
+
+<h2>THE INSTALLATION OF A TWIN-SOUL (CONTINUED).</h2>
+
+
+<p>While priest and priestess were folded with mutual emotion two of the
+loveliest souls took the place of the high priest and priestess on the
+silver pavement. The girl was young and tender, golden white in
+complexion with crimson lips. Her figure was swathed in a vermilion
+robe, on the breast of which was embroidered in outline a sea-green
+sun whose swaying rays reached the furthest parts of her garment. Her
+pale blue hair was crowned with a chaplet of daffodils. The youth wore
+a robe of scarlet silk embroidered with a golden sun similar in design
+to that of the priestess. His pose was singularly noble. These two
+souls were about to become priest and priestess, and, after having
+taken the vows of hopeless love in presence of the goddess, high
+priest and priestess and congregation of twin-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span>souls, they sang the
+following anthem, accompanied by a wailing storm of music from several
+hundred violins, entitled:</p>
+
+<p class="p3">THE TWIN-SOUL.</p>
+
+<p class="p3">PRIEST.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Love is a heated furnace that devours<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The thickest ice; love is a sweet moist wind<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That cools the fevered desert with its balm.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">There is no rain nor heat, yea, even snow<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Is warm and rosy to ideal souls<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That shudder in life's sweetest ecstasies.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">If love, that makes ideal life, that dwells<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In fragrant silences, makes green the grass,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And far more tender the diviner flowers,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It surely makes both bold and delicate<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The warm superiority of flesh<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of that strange, sacred soul that dwells with mine.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The clear, yet golden whiteness of the form<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That shines through pale green diaphane,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Showing its pliant beauty, is the dress<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of that rapt soul that is all tenderness.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Her brow is crowned with wistful daffodils,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Making her fair face fairer, and her eyes<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Are clouded sapphires; yea, her perfect lips<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">(Whereon my soul will dwell for evermore)<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Clear blood-red rubies! The sweet hand holds<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Red poppies and blue lotus, and the soft<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And sulphur blossomed wind flower. If such dress<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Enshrine a soul as perfect, if the curves<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That make her form voluptuous describe<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The splendor of her soul (and this I know),<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Love has no purer temple, nor more sweet!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The priest had sung alone so far, and now both priest and priestess
+joined their voices in a marvellous song. Wilder, sweeter and more
+intense, the violins stormed and wailed pathetic whirlwinds of
+ecstasy. At times their insufferable moans caught the excited hearts
+of the audience, and twin-souls in their passion would rise on their
+wings and, revolving, sweep around the amphitheatre locked in each
+other's arms.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[161]</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="p3">PRIEST AND PRIESTESS.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Sharper than pain, we love, and the caress,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Keener than torment, overmaddens us!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">There is no fasting when our feverish lips<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Meet in the shock that strikes the spirit dumb<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With swooning raptures! The dilated soul,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Intemperate with the enormous moan<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of passion, would outleap the strenuous will.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The flesh, transfigured with the crisis, reels,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Stretches the chain of duty and would leap<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To grasp the tempting and forbidden fruit,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Were not that virtue is our comrade now.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">We lift our eager faces to the sun<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And feast on life and in each other's souls<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Luxuriate, confounded with delight.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For us no mouldy cloister waits its prey,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Nor cave of darkness, where existence mourns<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And dies beneath its scourgings. We have made<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Our grim novitiate with reality.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Have known its agony, for we were born<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So eminent for rapture, that the pain<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">All men inherit desolated us<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And spread a living terror in our souls;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So that through clouds of everlasting woe<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Scarce came the gleam of gladness or of love,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And earth was pitiless, and brutal souls<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Who cannot feel there ruled. Oh, the wide world,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Degraded by ignoble brutishness,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Could yield no tendernesses infinite<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For we who feed on rapture. Thus it was<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Our souls on meeting, in the thrilling kiss<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Were fused in indissoluble embrace;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">We who were famished, in ideal love<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Found sustenance and passed from death to life!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The song was perfect. The strange, fresh accents of the singers, so
+full of love and passion, melted every heart in the temple with their
+ecstasy. One might hear such measures without thought of lapse of time
+or of worldly concerns. Ah! if one could hear such melody
+forevermore!<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[162]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>With a burst of dramatic joy the singing of the last stanza revealed
+whole worlds of rapture.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Reincarnated in an earthly heaven,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Now have we reached Nirvana, now<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Above us open the wide gulfs of joy,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And luminous and glorious round us blow<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Millions of flowers; while afar there shines<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The mighty splendor of the exhaustless sea!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">We dwell in breathless joys, thrilled through and through<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With majesty and sweetness; we have grown<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Athletes of joy in our Agapemone:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Eager and breathless, we have found at last<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The fount of youth, the magical Arjeels;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Fruits of organic gold amid the leaves<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sparkle, and around our island home<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Are spread the veritable golden sands<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Whereon our happy feet tread evermore!<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The singers disappeared, and in their places a hundred
+wondrously-arrayed figures moved in the dance of pure being on the
+silver pavement. Lithe as leopards, with unclad limbs and feet, priest
+and priestess danced all the ecstasies of Egyplosis. The dancers were
+so young, so fresh, so tender, so beautiful, and so innocent, that it
+was a supreme joy to behold them. Rapture grew universal and lovers
+cried with hysterical shudderings. The rainbow-colored throng, moving
+to the music of the golden instruments, flashed upon the pavement like
+joy taking possession of the world!</p>
+
+<p>I felt intensely sad for Lyone, who sat like a statue of golden
+marble, gazing on the abyss of joy beneath. Had the goddess no lover
+to press her to his heart amid the universal rapture? Alas! the
+immense dignity of her position and the unalterable laws of Atvatabar
+alike prevented any single soul from feeding the intense hunger that
+consumed her.</p>
+
+<p>Accompanying the dancers, the unseen choir in the cloisters began to
+sing a new opera of love, and the strains of an "Ave, Lyone, bona
+dea," stole upon the senses like the bewildering sighs of angels,
+making one ache with delight. A story of romantic love once more
+sculptured the faces of priest and priestess with angelic beauty, as
+it rose on wings of song and swept in delightful moans upon the carven
+stone.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[163]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>It was a memorable scene, one never to be forgotten! The hieroglyphic
+walls, carved in high relief with the instruments of empire, the dome
+with its ten thousand fadeless lights, the terraces of twin-souls
+radiant with delight, the marvellous dancers, the superb music that
+seemed to shake the heart of the solid stone that enclosed us, and
+high over all the supreme goddess in whose honor all this adoration
+was made, seated in bliss on the throne of the gods&mdash;such was the
+situation at that moment.</p>
+
+<p>It was a monstrous and a splendid joy!</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly a roar of invincible music issued from gigantic tubes that
+pierced the body of the throne itself with fresh and warlike
+explosions of melody. I was filled with a maddening delight, until
+consciousness could hardly bear the strain any longer. I cried aloud,
+amid a Chimborazo of song, a hundred-cratered Popocatapetl of sweet
+strains. The audience, enraptured with the climax, became an inferno
+of passion, laughter tears and felicity!</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXI" id="CHAPTER_XXXI"></a>CHAPTER XXXI.</h2>
+
+<h2>THE MYSTERY OF EGYPLOSIS.</h2>
+
+
+<p>The palace of the goddess at Egyplosis was a component part of the
+vast quadrangle known as the supernal palace. The view therefrom
+embraced the wide inner garden of the entire palace of temples,
+discovering jungles of shrubs and flowers of all imaginable hues,
+interspersed with lakes sleeping in their marble basins like enormous
+jewels. Fountains of solid silver gushed forth a brilliant foam of
+waters amid the embowering foliage, and there glad priests, in the
+society of priestesses sweeter than the flowers themselves, dreamed
+life away in enthusiastic peace. Surrounding all was the high and
+glorious palace, forming a background, on the design of which
+imagination and art had been entirely exhausted.</p>
+
+<p>The scene the day following the Ritual of the installation of a
+twin-soul in the temple of Egyplosis was a boudoir in the palace of
+the goddess. It was a large apartment, whose walls were hung with
+panels of rose-colored velvet, embroidered with gray-green silk
+foliage. In one large tapestry, the hands of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[164]</a></span> loving priestesses had
+embroidered a scene in the garden of Egyplosis. On a dais, upon a
+couch of soft red silk upholstery sat Lyone, swathed in draperies of
+shrimp pink and pale peacock green, embroidered with ivory-white silk.
+A large terra-cotta silk rug, whose only ornament was an elaborate
+border, covered the floor. The goddess wore a belt of aquelium
+serpents having tulips in their mouths. Heavy terrelium bracelets
+adorned her wrists, and she wore a diminutive tiara on her head.</p>
+
+<p>I sat on a luxurious seat, the sole guest of the goddess. I was
+rapidly learning from the divinity the mystery of Egyplosis. I was
+especially anxious to find out how the jewel of one hundred years of
+youth could be grafted into the ordinary existence. An idea so
+splendid seemed to be the germ of earthly immortality. We were
+discussing the subject of hopeless love, and I asked her if she
+considered life and love were the same element.</p>
+
+<p>"Life and love are synonymous," she replied. "By love I mean the
+spiritual, ideal, romantic passion that is hopeless."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," I replied, "but does not the idea of inaccessibility create a
+worthless desire, that is, a desire for something that is forbidden or
+unattainable? The majority of men, I think, will prefer an every-day
+love with all its risks and imperfections to the shadowy ghost of a
+hopeless love. The hopeful love does no violence to nature such as is
+contemplated by the hopeless sentiment."</p>
+
+<p>"You hardly understand me," said she; "the pleasure we aspire to is
+superior to any physical delight, and is an end in itself. It is
+romantic love, that blooms like a single flower in the crevices of a
+volcano. It is the quintessence of existence, the rarest wine of life,
+the expressed sweetness of difficulty and repression and
+long-suffering, the choicest holiday of the soul. We are willing to
+pay the price of hopelessness to taste such nectar. In the every-day
+world such joy only rarely exists. Interest, indulgence, ambition,
+fortune, time, temper and marriage destroy it. Youth, captivated by a
+beautiful face or a winning smile, thinks it has discovered its true
+counterpart, and so takes possession of the prize. It finds afterward
+it was mistaken, and all its life thenceforth becomes miserable."</p>
+
+<p>"But," I replied, "if the world at large had discovered that your
+theory of love was the true one, it would long since have<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[165]</a></span> acted on
+its discovery and put no destroying restraint or obligation on so
+precious a possession. But the world found that a thousand accidents
+would infallibly open the eyes of both parties to the fact that they
+possessed but few qualities in common, or in counterpart, and with
+such knowledge of good and evil they would infallibly separate. Hence
+the foundation of society would be torn asunder and the rising
+generation of helpless children become orphaned of home, the very
+bulwark of life. Society must have assurances that people do not get
+married simply as an experiment, but are willing to honorably
+undertake the mutual sacrifices their act carries with it."</p>
+
+<p>"I have already admitted," said she, "that the joy of spiritual love
+hardly ever exists in its virgin force in the every-day world. I admit
+that the necessary regulations of society, although they tend to
+destroy it, must be enforced. The Atvatabar nation rests on the
+marriage idea. At one time in our history the people strove for ideal
+love and overthrew the ordinary marriage yoke without the restraint of
+reason. Law and order disappeared and social chaos reigned. The land
+was filled with the wailings of orphans whose parents had deserted
+them, and men and women formed new associates every day. Unbridled
+license devastated the country. Our lawgivers re-established the law
+of marriage as being the only law suitable to mankind. Man in the
+aggregate had not developed to a state in which the consummation of
+marriage could be dispensed with. Yet there were many among those who
+had advocated ideal love worthy of their theory. Although married to
+each other, they had remained celibates. For these Egyplosis was
+founded, for the study and practice of what is really a higher
+development of human nature and in itself an unquestionable good. It
+is the most powerful element in the production of creative energy of
+soul and personal beauty. As you will have observed, all our devotees
+are singularly beautiful in form and feature and possess spirit power
+to a high degree."</p>
+
+<p>As the goddess spoke a few threads of her bright blue hair had strayed
+across her face. Her beautiful eyes flashed with a royalty of truth,
+tenderness, magnetism, and feeling. She was the living illustration of
+her claims for Egyplosis.</p>
+
+<p>"What you say," I replied, "illustrates that ordinary marriage, with
+all its limitations and, infelicities, is absolutely necessary for the
+well-being of society. Marriage is simply the application<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[166]</a></span> of reason
+and morality to blind, passionate nature. The home circle is the
+origin of nationality, progress, and wealth. Ideal love, wrested from
+the dragon of difficulty, is, I think, but rarely tasted in so real,
+so practical an institution. This is the experience of the nations of
+the outer world, and how much better for man that it is so? A roadway
+in proportion to its rhythm of undulation becomes useless, hindering
+travel rather than accelerating it. So also with love. When settled in
+the calm security of marriage the mind is freed from the romantic
+extravagance, the torture, the delight of hopeless sentiment. Thus men
+are free to devote themselves to the more serious purposes of life and
+achieve wealth and fame for themselves and their families. I am,
+nevertheless, curious to see how your institution is conducted, for
+hopeless love seems to me one of the most disquieting things in life.
+Its victims, happy and unhappy, resisting passion with regret or
+yielding with remorse, are ever on the rack of torture. They resemble
+the devotees of certain idols, who pierce themselves with cruel hooks
+and swing aloft in honor of their god. It may be pleasure, but not one
+in a thousand will ever achieve that degree of soul exaltation and
+physical abnegation to think it so."</p>
+
+<p>"And yet not one in a thousand, not one in a hundred thousand lives in
+Egyplosis," said the goddess.</p>
+
+<p>"The men who achieve anything," I continued, "good and great in the
+world, the men who build empires, discover ideas, who both rule and
+populate nations, are all rewarded by a hopeful love. It is only a
+hopeless love that sets up its mirage of false and
+never-to-be-obtained joys. Hence, I ask you the question, What of
+Egyplosis?"</p>
+
+<p>The goddess smiled at my controversial attitude, "It is the old
+question," she replied, "of conventionalism <i>versus</i> art, of economic
+institutions <i>versus</i> nature and life. Just as we endeavor to rescue
+spontaneous invention and originality from the disease of the
+tasteless and laborious productions of a mechanical civilization, so
+we labor to create an earthly home for the soul in a world where
+superficial necessities will stifle it out of existence. There was a
+time in the history of Atvatabar when people talked of art and love,
+both of which did not exist. The octopus of commercial, mechanical and
+economical life had strangled the soul and all its attributes. Men
+fought for treaties of commerce, treaties of marriage, deeds of
+property, and all the while<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[167]</a></span> acted in defiance of their obligations.
+They cheated each other, lied to each other, deserted each other
+incessantly. Love had taken wings and fled. Art had lost its language
+and its cunning. Life was no longer illuminated with splendid ideals.
+It was no longer arrayed in the fair and fascinating garments that
+only the soul can weave. History was no longer glorified by paintings
+and sculptured reliefs. Religion was no longer symbolized in the
+solemn magnificence of architecture, or sculptured shrines of gods.
+Articles of daily use were made solely to make a profit, and the
+widespread use of machinery was destroying the art, the soul, the pure
+life of the people. A paternal government, seeing the tyranny of
+commercialism and the possible extinction of the soul itself, has
+wisely, in the spirit of patriarchal hospitality, established the art
+institution of Gnaphisthasia and the religious institution of
+Egyplosis, for soul development in harmony with the high destiny of
+mankind. Harikar, or developed soul, is the natural sequence of the
+development of the soul and intellect, achieving the supreme virtue of
+spiritual perfection, or dominion of the passions of the body and the
+forces of nature. Love was the one great end of our religion, for life
+is love."</p>
+
+<p>"I value your creed," I continued, "to the fullest extent. I value the
+idea that every intellect shall enfold a soul. You practise the
+doctrine that hopeless love is that phase of the passion that contains
+the most delirious possibilities of joy, yet, allow me to ask, have
+you never discovered that there may be disappointments for even such
+guarded emotions as yours? Are your neophytes perfectly happy? We
+find, in the outer world at least, that no state or condition in life
+is perfectly pleasurable. Their joys die of their own <i>ennui</i> if for
+no other cause. We find happiness like a flower; it has its period of
+bloom and decay. The more intoxicating the beauty the shorter its
+life. Happiness long continued grows common, fades and dies. Then
+again the human soul is always in a fever of unrest. It always thinks
+what is beyond its reach is liberty. As one of our poets has expressed
+it:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i8">"'Oh, give me liberty!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For even were a paradise itself my prison,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Still would I long to leap the crystal walls!'"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>As I spoke I saw that the goddess was an eager listener to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[168]</a></span> my words.
+Was it possible that she might have an idea that even Egyplosis might
+indeed be a prison? But, then, her position, her vows, recalled to her
+the fact that she was love's <i>religieuse</i>, an indissoluble part of the
+temple of love itself.</p>
+
+<p>The goddess replied, that sometimes impatient spirits had entered the
+palace, but any incorrigible cases of insubordination were either
+imprisoned in the fortress beneath the palace or were expelled into
+the outer world. The neophytes entered the temple college while under
+twenty years of age. Each soul, thereafter mingling freely with five
+thousand of the opposite sex, chooses in a month its counterpart for
+life, thus forming a complete circle. The choice must be approved by a
+council of "Soul Inquisitors" who, before the lifelong union is made,
+see that both possess all the elements that will produce a high, holy
+and pure blending of thought, feeling, emotion, joys spiritual and
+intellectual, whose every breath will be an ecstasy, and at the same
+time possess reverence for each other and the power of resistance to
+passion and are able to walk in the pure path.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you not think," I replied, "that the temptation being ever
+present, the struggle in the soul must in time exhaust and enfeeble
+the moral powers, producing disastrous consequences?"</p>
+
+<p>Before the goddess could reply, a terrible commotion was heard in the
+palace garden. The shrieks of a woman mingled with the loud voices of
+men were heard in furious clamor, and one of the royal guards entered
+the palace chamber in breathless haste.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXII" id="CHAPTER_XXXII"></a>CHAPTER XXXII.</h2>
+
+<h2>THE SIN OF A TWIN-SOUL.</h2>
+
+
+<p>"Your holiness," said the captain of the sacred guard, as he entered
+the apartment, "the twin-soul Ardsolus and Merga has sinned against
+the laws and religion of Egyplosis. I crave permission to bring the
+guilty pair before the goddess with the evidence of their guilt."</p>
+
+<p>The goddess, answering quickly, ordered the priest and priestess to be
+produced.</p>
+
+<p>The captain thereupon commanded his wayleals to bring the prisoners
+into the audience chamber.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[169]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Shrinking between her guards, the priestess Merga appeared bearing in
+her arms a lovely babe, a rosy duplicate of herself. Following her
+came the priest Ardsolus, also a prisoner.</p>
+
+<p>The priestess was the picture of petite girlish beauty. Her delicate
+rose complexion was flushed with a feeling of shame, and her handsome
+hazel eyes, dilated with vexation and sorrow, were filled with tears.</p>
+
+<p>Her lover was tall, straight and athletic, with a proud, fine-cut
+face. The down of manhood was just showing itself on his upper lip.</p>
+
+<p>"I feel sorry for you both," said the goddess; "did you weary of the
+joys of Egyplosis?"</p>
+
+<p>Ardsolus threw back over his shoulder a falling fold of his white
+bournous and, drawing himself proudly up, replied: "Yes, your
+holiness, our life here is imprisonment. We have grown weary of its
+restraint and are eager to return to the outer world with all its
+cares and freedom."</p>
+
+<p>The chamberlain at this moment announced the arrival of the high
+priest Hushnoly, the secular, as well as the sacred governor of
+Egyplosis, and the high priestess Zooly-Soase, who both entered the
+presence chamber. Hushnoly, saluting the goddess, announced that he
+had come in search of the erring twin-soul. The high priest was
+astonished beyond expression at finding sin and shame in so glorious a
+retreat.</p>
+
+<p>Addressing the weeping girl, he said: "Do you know, my child, how
+unfortunate you have been? You have committed the unpardonable sin in
+the temple of hopeless love. Did you not think of your lifelong vows
+of celibacy and of the deep and tender joy of romantic love?"</p>
+
+<p>Merga only replied by clasping her babe still closer to her breast and
+bathing it with her tears.</p>
+
+<p>"What excuse do you offer for your crime against yourself, your
+religion and your fellow-priests?" demanded the high, priest of
+Ardsolus.</p>
+
+<p>"Your highness," said the youth, "we have, after due experience of our
+vows, arrived at the conclusion that such vows are a violation of
+nature. Everything here bids us love, but the artificial system under
+which we have lived arbitrarily draws a line and says, thus far and no
+further. Your system may suit disembodied spirits, if such exist, but
+not beings of flesh and blood. It is an outrage on nature. We desire
+to leave Egyplosis<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[170]</a></span> and return to the common ways of men. We may be
+there unfortunate, but we will be free. This rarified atmosphere
+stifles us."</p>
+
+<p>The high priest was horrified. Never before had a twin-soul been so
+sinful, so contumacious. It revealed a state of things too terrible to
+contemplate! If such conduct became contagious, it meant the ruin of
+Egyplosis.</p>
+
+<p>I could detect, however, in the sight of the goddess a certain
+sympathy for the prisoners which, perhaps, it would just then be very
+impolitic for her to reveal. It was clear that beneath all this ideal
+joy lay a slumbering volcano of passion that only awaited a favorable
+moment for a fierce outbreak. The laws of this strange faith seemed
+not to have contemplated that to avoid temptation is the only security
+of moral strength, and that to seek temptation is to paralyze the
+moral fibres of the soul. The high priest grew pale with excitement.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you aware of the enormity of your offence?" said he to the
+defiant youth. "For a moment of sinful delight you destroy your
+interregnum of a hundred years of blessedness, and you, each of you,
+have delivered a blow at earthly immortality. The success of our
+religious system is proven by the fact that we have already lengthened
+the life of our hierophants one hundred years, or twice the duration
+of life in the outer world of Bilbimtesirol. This is the last of many
+outbreaks of <i>malfeasance</i> to vows made in deliberation, and a fresh
+exhibition of treason in the sacred college of souls."</p>
+
+<p>"I tell you this," said the youth in reply, "you are slumbering on the
+edge of a volcano. There are thousands of twin-souls ready to cast off
+this yoke. They only await a leader to break out in open revolt!"</p>
+
+<p>"Then, sir, we will take care that you are not their leader; we shall
+suppress you, as we have all similar cases, in the cells of the
+fortress. Neither Egyplosis nor Atvatabar will hear of your crime. His
+majesty the king will, I have no doubt, acquiesce in the wisdom of
+such sentence."</p>
+
+<p>"The punishment is no greater than the crime," said the high
+priestess. "I despair of Egyplosis if such crimes become frequent.
+What will our goddess think, what will Atvatabar think of our holy
+temple when its own priests, the sacred devotees of Harikar, the
+ministers of the supreme goddess and teachers of the people in their
+holy religion, are found traitors? Will the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[171]</a></span> government support
+rebellious and sinful souls in every luxury for the senses, with every
+possible means for developing and achieving spiritual mastery over the
+physical world, on the sole condition of hopeless love? It will not.
+Hence, I say, this disobedience must be quenched in the spark, or it
+will break out in ruin to our whole religious institution."</p>
+
+<p>"Your punishment," said the high priest, "unless you will repent of
+your misdeed, give up possession of your offspring, and live ever
+afterward as holy priests of hopeless love, will be separate and
+solitary confinement for life in the fortress. You will both be simply
+obliterated from the world."</p>
+
+<p>As the high priest uttered these words the mother-priestess gave a cry
+of terror, and, grasping her infant convulsively, gazed with an
+appealing glance at the goddess.</p>
+
+<p>"We refuse to live as hypocrites," said the youth; "we are no longer
+twin-souls&mdash;we are man and wife and demand to be set free."</p>
+
+<p>"Will you, each of you," said the goddess, "renounce that obedience
+that makes you factors of deities? Will you dethrone ideal love? Will
+you throw away palaces and gardens and flowers? Will you forswear the
+delight of the companionship of twin-souls?"</p>
+
+<p>"We wish to be set free, your holiness," said the youth with firm, set
+lips.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you no longer value the secrets of magic and sorcery? Do you
+renounce initiation into the secrets of nature to possess creative
+force to taste the elixir of life, the secret of the transformation of
+metals, and, above all, the blessedness of Nirvana? Knowing that love
+dies in possession do you desire to step forth from paradise into a
+hard, cold, realistic world, where every experience is a spear driven
+into the flesh?"</p>
+
+<p>"We dare our fate!" replied the youth. "We ask you, goddess, to set us
+free."</p>
+
+<p>"I will bring you both before the spiritual council," said Hushnoly,
+"and, as you are aware, the sentence of the council as provided by the
+constitution of Egyplosis will be that you, each of you, be imprisoned
+in separate cells for life, and the child removed and cared for in a
+distant part of the kingdom. You will henceforth be obliterated from
+life."</p>
+
+<p>The lovers convulsively embraced each other, the beautiful Merga
+weeping bitterly.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[172]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"We will accept the punishment," said Ardsolus, "because we will give
+courage to the many twin-souls already imprisoned and also to those
+who as ardently desire freedom as ourselves. They will never forget
+that we are fighting their battle against a monstrous wrong."</p>
+
+<p>"Guards, remove the prisoners," said the high priest.</p>
+
+<p>"Can nothing that I may say mitigate their punishment?" said the
+goddess.</p>
+
+<p>"Your holiness is aware," said Hushnoly, "that the laws of Egyplosis
+admit of no other interpretation than that prescribed for such a case
+as this. The foundation of the religion of Atvatabar must be preserved
+at any cost."</p>
+
+<p>"I urge for mercy," said the goddess, who honored the prisoners with
+her tears.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXXIII.</h2>
+
+<h2>THE DOCTOR'S OPINION OF EGYPLOSIS.</h2>
+
+
+<p>My experiences in Egyplosis were teaching me that even the most
+perfect human organizations contain the elements of decay and death.
+The human soul at variance with its own physical condition was hardly
+the best ideal of a god. Here was happiness piled upon happiness, yet
+the recipients thereof were not happy. Disappointments and suffering
+are natural to man because life is supported on difficulty, and a
+long-continued happiness is the sure forerunner of disaster. The
+reaction of misery lies somewhere concealed from the eye of happiness,
+and if it does not at once show itself, it will later on. Even in
+well-guarded happiness, if one single pleasure be omitted, we
+experience more regret at its absence than pleasure over the bounties
+we enjoy. Hence, a large proportion of twin-souls were not wholly in
+love with their life in the temple of souls, however enamored they
+were of each other. Almost absolute freedom of action, freedom from
+care, physical and mental exercises, soul development, the practice of
+magic, the most alluring investigation of mental and spiritual themes,
+the study and practice of art in all its forms, and the investigation
+of inventive mechanism; a palace to live in, with vast galleries of
+paintings and sculptures, salons for music, and schools of science,
+libraries<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[173]</a></span> filled with the rarest works of history, literature and
+poetry, and, most precious of all, the daily dalliance with
+counterpart souls, could not make these people happy. The one thing
+denied, which any reasonable man would say was simply the price paid
+for all this glory, was considered the greatest of all misfortunes.
+The imagination has a strange habit of passing lightly over happiness
+possessed and settling down upon a little thing beyond reach and
+exaggerating it to the utmost.</p>
+
+<p>The imprisonment of Ardsolus and Merga created a profound sensation
+among the ten thousand inmates of the palace. Sentiment was divided so
+much that two political parties were formed&mdash;those who believed the
+erring lovers had met a just fate, and those who thought the system at
+fault in providing no means of immediate escape, when to reside in the
+palace became imprisonment and a living death to certain souls. The
+latter party was composed of the more youthful section of the
+priesthood, who sympathized with the unfortunate lovers. These latter
+would have got up a demonstration in their favor did not the stern
+rules of Egyplosis suppress any such outbursts of popular feeling.</p>
+
+<p>On the day following the imprisonment of the erring twin-soul, the
+question was being discussed in the apartments occupied by the
+officers of the <i>Polar King</i> and myself. We had been lodged in a noble
+building not far from the palace of the goddess, while the sailors
+were quartered in the fortress of Egyplosis, in company with the
+wayleals of the palace itself.</p>
+
+<p>"Your opinion of Egyplosis has possibly undergone a change since the
+day of our reception," said the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said I, "I suppose the longer we stay here the more exact will
+be our knowledge of this peculiar institution."</p>
+
+<p>I had considered Egyplosis as a successful institution for developing
+the human soul. Certainly Harikar with his beloved attributes required
+a fit home for his complete development.</p>
+
+<p>I had praised their oasis of love, of refinement, of rest, and of
+beauty, and even ventured to assert that such a paradise was the
+outcome of the love and purity of twin-souls. I forgot in my
+enthusiasm the possibility of the soul being satiated with pleasure,
+that life is a warfare ever seeking but never gaining repose, and that
+we are led more by our passions and illusions than our judgment. I
+forgot that while man resists pain he always yields to pleasure. I
+forgot that he was created for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[174]</a></span> difficulty, which is the oxygen that
+feeds the flame of endeavor, and that difficulty alone can develop
+efforts which pleasure so easily destroys.</p>
+
+<p>"I am of the opinion," said the doctor, "that this institution is
+founded on a perversion of human nature. This so-called hopeless love
+is, as we have just had proof, one of the most disturbing elements in
+life. Its victims resemble Tantalus, who, though steeped to the lips
+in water, can never drink. They are the unhappy devotees of an idol,
+and, like the Hindoos, stick into their sides the hooks of a cruel
+passion and swing aloft in torture to the applause of an admiring
+crowd."</p>
+
+<p>"You evidently do not reverence hopeless love?" I remarked.</p>
+
+<p>"I consider Egyplosis," he continued, "but a nervous asylum on a large
+scale. This nervous temperament, with its hysterical raptures and
+tears, its painful sensibility, its exalted spiritualism and
+irresistible sympathy, departs so far from the steady temperate sphere
+of action that can alone sustain alike the pleasures and
+disappointments of life as to become the object of pity. These are the
+marks of a mental disease. Ultra-romantic ideas and whimsical and
+unaccountable tastes are attributes of this temperament. It is a kind
+of insanity, not the insanity proceeding from hopeless mental
+aberration, but founded on a systematic train of ideas born in a
+heated enthusiasm. It may lead, however, to hopeless insanity."</p>
+
+<p>"Doctor," said the astronomer, "you are taking a very cold-blooded
+view of the subject. You seem not to have discovered that the life
+here is ideal. From what you say one would think that love is a
+species of insanity."</p>
+
+<p>"That is precisely my idea," replied the doctor. "Haven't you observed
+how foolishly people act when in love? All ordinary human prudence and
+judgment are thrown aside. Love pares the claws and pulls the teeth of
+man as a rational animal. Love is supreme folly."</p>
+
+<p>"I think," said the astronomer, "the climate of this country has
+something to do with the present institution. You see that the sun
+here never sets, and, were it not for his diminutive size, would
+infallibly turn the entire interior world into a desert, such as the
+moon is at present, where the outer sun's heat falls for fourteen days
+on the one spot without intermission, completely blasting her
+territories. The mild yet incessant heat of Swang creates a fervor of
+blood and a romance of temperament<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[175]</a></span> unknown in lands possessing night,
+hence the practices of Egyplosis are a natural result of climatic
+conditions. The appetite for ideal love has been created by the
+climate, and the religion of the country very naturally responds to
+the craving of such appetite. Who knows what excesses might not obtain
+if no such restraint were imposed on the most gallant youth of the
+country."</p>
+
+<p>"I think," said the naturalist, "that the proper thing to do would be
+to have their people imitate the conduct of Jacob of old and Rachel.
+Jacob worshipped ideal love in the person of Rachel for seven years
+and then married, her. If our commander would only propose such a
+scheme to the supreme goddess it might possibly be favorably
+considered."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you really suppose," said I, "that I possess any influence with
+the goddess, or that any recommendation of mine would be able to
+change the constitution of Atvatabar?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, sir," said he, "if you will allow me to make the remark, I
+think the supreme goddess takes quite as much interest in you as you
+do in her, and would treat your opinions with great respect."</p>
+
+<p>"You think more than I have ever dared to think," I replied, "and your
+thought savors of sacrilege. The goddess belongs to her faith, her
+country. To prefer an individual soul is to dethrone herself as
+goddess and meet a painful death."</p>
+
+<p>"In any case, whatever happens, you can rely on the fidelity of your
+followers," said the naturalist.</p>
+
+<p>The subject was fast becoming embarrassing and I merely said:
+"Gentlemen, I am assured of your fidelity; so please let us dismiss
+the subject."</p>
+
+<p>The hour for rest having been sounded, I sought my couch, but not to
+sleep. The remarks made by my companions, emphasized by my growing
+fondness for the goddess, set me to thinking what the end would be of
+our discovery of Atvatabar. I wondered if Lyone was not, as sung by
+her devotees,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"A chrysalis eager to hover<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And fly from her prison away."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Could it be that the goddess might possibly, if an occasion worthy of
+such a step presented itself, fly from Egyplosis, renounce her throne,
+her crown, her sublime office of supreme goddess of Harikar, and with
+me retire to some far-off country,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[176]</a></span> braving in the meantime the almost
+certain prospect of death. For her sake I felt I could meet any
+situation, however terrible, but for my sake would she throw aside her
+unparalleled dignities? Even if in trying to escape we outflew in my
+own vessel their ships of war, we could never escape the ubiquitous
+wayleals, the magnic-winged troops that could fight equally well on
+land or sea.</p>
+
+<p>Bah! I said, such a dream is idiotic. When I thought of the splendor
+of the position that she would be obliged to renounce for the sake of
+her love for the passing stranger, and of the awful penalties that
+awaited transgression in one so exalted, I considered that no craving
+of passion should dare to resist such difficulties.</p>
+
+<p>Here duty was resistance. Nowhere is man exonerated from the penalty
+of having to pay a price for his possessions, and even possession
+itself is not happiness. Better, I said to myself, to depart in peace
+than encourage the goddess in a desperate enterprise, if indeed she
+had any such desires as my vanity attributed to her.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXXIV"></a>CHAPTER XXXIV.</h2>
+
+<h2>LYONE'S CONFESSION.</h2>
+
+
+<p>The following day I again met the goddess in the same magnificent
+apartment in her palace. She was in a contemplative mood. A white robe
+of the finest silk enveloped her, showing to full advantage her superb
+figure. Her silky, shadowed eyes shone with a mild translucent light.
+The ripe beauty of her face was somewhat pale, for some tearful memory
+possessed her. Over her shoulders fell the torrent of her hair, while
+on her brow gleamed a diminutive diadem whose central part was
+fashioned like the throne of the gods. She wore a heavy necklace of
+shrimp-pink pearls.</p>
+
+<p>As we reposed on wide, luxurious couches a maiden of rare beauty
+brought us dishes of curiously-prepared meats and wine of the finest
+vintage in flagons of gold. From distant cloisters came wafted the
+echoes of singing priestesses breathing their intoxicating Amens.</p>
+
+<p>Lyone had been reciting her past soul experiences, now and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[177]</a></span> then
+pausing as the story would grow more sacred. To me the revelations of
+the goddess were of breathless interest. I dare not urge her too
+forcibly, fearing to break the spell of her confessional mood.</p>
+
+<p>She was pleased to say that my advent in Egyplosis had revived the
+past as no other event of late times had done. She was willing to
+recall the sweet experiences of her early life, prior to her elevation
+to the throne of the goddess.</p>
+
+<p>I knew she was in that mood when confession to a kindred soul is most
+consoling to the heart. I urged her to continue the story.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," she continued, "my parents, who were people of importance in
+Calnogor, had destined me for marriage and the outer world, but before
+I even knew of Egyplosis I had a day dream. I saw with my waking eyes
+this temple-palace as one might see it in a picture, splendid as the
+reality. I saw myself with a youth of noble aspect standing in a court
+of the garden, and his arm was around me. He was tall and shapely as a
+palm tree and was all tenderness and devotion. The picture vanished,
+yet its influence remained. It utterly transformed me from the
+undreaming girl that I was to a soul active and ardent, already
+experienced in what life really was. I learned that the mystery of
+life was love, and longed for spiritual companionship with an inmate
+of Egyplosis."</p>
+
+<p>"Was the dream fulfilled as you expected it would be?" I inquired.</p>
+
+<p>"Exactly as I anticipated," said Lyone. "I entered Egyplosis in spite
+of the earnest desire of my people to remain in the outer world and
+lead a life of barren conventionality."</p>
+
+<p>"Had you not learned," I inquired, "that it was impossible to overleap
+the purposes of nature without paying a penalty therefor, that ideal
+passion will in time give way to the commonplace, just as water
+follows the law of gravity?"</p>
+
+<p>"I knew nothing but that ideal love might be eternal. It is the
+passion that makes a goddess human and the mortal divine. Within a
+month after entering the temple walls I discovered the very reality of
+the image I had seen years before. He was my twin-soul, my lover, my
+god. At our first meeting we simultaneously burst into tears. It was
+an ecstasy in which the body did not participate to any marked extent,
+but belonged purely to the region of the soul. We accepted the vows
+made<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[178]</a></span> at the installation of a twin-soul and became a completed
+circle."</p>
+
+<p>"Being the goddess," I said, "your lover must have died?"</p>
+
+<p>"He died some years ago," she said, "and on his death, by reason of my
+widowhood, my gifts, my spirituality, my love and my beauty, I was
+elevated to the throne of the gods when vacant, and was worshipped as
+supreme goddess of the faith. It is utterly against our laws for a
+goddess to choose another counterpart; she is supposed to belong only
+to Harikar, the ideal soul whom also she symbolizes; hence I am
+obliged to dwell largely alone."</p>
+
+<p>"You doubtless regret the loss of your earthly counterpart?" I urged.</p>
+
+<p>"Regret it! Ah, that was life!" she said, "for my soul then knew what
+spiritual freedom means. I experienced ecstatic agonies, bliss was
+pain and pain paradise. I flew as a bird full of anguish, bearing
+treasures of love and tears. I desired self-sacrifice, I wanted to
+smile on every one, to help every one. I loved life; I had no fear of
+death. My capacity for rapture seemed to expand continually. Every
+scene I gazed upon trembled in a new blaze of delight. Thoughts, like
+lightning, rent open new worlds of passion and tenderness, wherein I
+moved as a goddess peerless and supreme. But when the tomb closed upon
+my heart of hearts I begged them to lay me by his side and seal the
+door upon us forever. The glory of life had departed, and day after
+day I swooned upon the sarcophagus that held my treasure, my life."</p>
+
+<p>Lyone was unusually excited, and to divert her attention from the past
+I spoke of the present, of her proud position as supreme goddess of
+Atvatabar.</p>
+
+<p>"How does it affect you," I exclaimed, "to be the recipient of such
+adoration as you receive as goddess?"</p>
+
+<p>"At first it was soul maddening," she replied; "I thought I should
+never be able to sustain such adoration. My soul, blinded and
+bewildered by the incense of song and prayer, seemed unable to bear
+the intoxication. Even yet, as I sit upon the throne of the gods,
+fantastic, astonishing emotions thrill me into swooning away. Oh, it
+is incomparably glorious to hear around you those earthquake surges of
+prayer, to see souls quivering with adoring love. I feel at times as
+though I were the cone of a volcano radiating fire and flame into a
+burning sky!<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[179]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Then, again, I smile, and feel as I smile that I have power over life
+and death&mdash;oh, you do not know what love is&mdash;you do not know its
+tremendous power until you feel its splendid flame breathed from ten
+thousand souls clasping your shrieking soul in a blood-crimson
+embrace! If thoughts be things it makes me a creator. If thoughts can
+chisel matter, then I am gracious in face and figure. Men say my flesh
+is smooth as marble, soft as velvet, and bright as gold, even as the
+forms of our priests and priestesses are sculptured and colored by the
+thoughts of love.</p>
+
+<p>"Only a goddess knows such thoughts as hers that burn in the soul like
+fluid gold. Imagination fills me at times with vast and phantasmal
+splendors. Adoration glorifies me like light raining on the palms and
+palaces. I see shapes of burning sweetness, and the air around me is
+laden with the caresses of heavy, strange perfumes. Unclothed
+raptures, exquisitely soft and tender, surround me, like heaven
+opening its wings of flame upon the world. Happy voices, ringing in
+the sensuous arcades of music, fall on my ears, the blown spray of
+immortal friendships.</p>
+
+<p>"Yet, is it not strange that all these delights, violent and glorious
+as they are, do not wholly satisfy the soul? I continually long for
+something sweeter yet. It seems the greater the joy the more enormous
+the capacity, and no joy completely fills the ever-expanding soul."</p>
+
+<p>"You think," said I, "that even the rapture of a goddess is not wholly
+adequate to create a feeling of repletion of satisfaction in a soul
+such as yours?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is contrary to our laws to think so, yet at times I know I could
+forego even the throne of the gods itself for the pure and intimate
+love of a counterpart soul."</p>
+
+<p>"You are not so desirous of the human soul in its collective form as
+you are of individual soul wholly yours?" I ventured, shaken with a
+quivering thrill.</p>
+
+<p>"The soul ever seeks that which is beyond and individual," said Lyone;
+"having once loved the individual soul, I know what such holy rapture
+means."</p>
+
+<p>"What are the difficulties to be surmounted in your quest of a
+counterpart soul?" I inquired, with a secret delight.</p>
+
+<p>"The sacrilege of a goddess becoming attached to the individual to the
+exclusion of all other individuals. The goddess-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[180]</a></span>elect must have been
+a novitiate and priestess of Egyplosis and the survivor of her
+counterpart soul. Her experiences as a noble and pure priestess,
+together with special beauty and popularity, are the conditions for
+the peerless office of supreme goddess and incarnation of Harikar. By
+her vows she can never again become the exclusive possession of any
+one soul. She belongs to Harikar, the universal soul."</p>
+
+<p>"And what is the punishment for renunciation of your office and
+attachment to another soul?"</p>
+
+<p>"A shameful death by magnicity for the twin-soul. No goddess can
+resign her office. No goddess can seek a lover and live."</p>
+
+<p>"Not even an ideal affinity?" I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, even ideal affinities who forget themselves are punished with
+lifelong imprisonment, and their names blotted out of the priesthood
+as though they were dead," said Lyone.</p>
+
+<p>"Are there many such transgressors of their vows in Egyplosis?" I
+inquired.</p>
+
+<p>"There are, I believe, some five hundred twin-souls at present immured
+in the dungeons," said Lyone.</p>
+
+<p>"Poor souls!" I murmured, "their apostasy was but their reformation."</p>
+
+<p>"I often think of them," said Lyone, "but I know I can never liberate
+them except by my own successful apostasy. And yet when all else is
+peaceful and happy, or at least appears so, why should I become the
+leader of an insurrection that would precipitate a hundred times more
+misery on the nation, to say nothing of the possibility of defeat?"</p>
+
+<p>I saw that a crisis had come to Lyone, a tremendous debate agitated
+her soul. I forebore treading further on the sacred ground. She, with
+true delicacy, was striving to hide the intensity of her proud unrest.
+I felt that in time she would have the courage to take the irrevocable
+step that led to freedom or death.</p>
+
+<p>As I sat devouring every word spoken by Lyone I felt a strange power
+surrounding me, an emanation of the soul of my beloved friend. I
+resisted for a long time a sacrilegious desire to fling myself at her
+feet and clasp her in my arms. I thought of her supreme dignity, her
+love for her faith and her people, and I knew one cold glance from her
+eyes would pierce me through and through like a sword. The more I
+thought of my position<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[181]</a></span> at that moment the more amazed I became at
+the audacity that led me to ever think of claiming the soul of the
+goddess as mine, much less my encouragement of an enterprise so
+desperate as we had already assuredly embarked upon.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<img src="images/image_180.jpg" width="600" height="386" alt="HER KISS WAS A BLINDING WHIRLWIND OF FLAME AND TEARS!
+IT WAS THE PROCLAMATION OF WAR UPON ATVATABAR. THENCEFORTH WE BECAME A
+NEW AND FORMIDABLE TWIN-SOUL." title="" />
+<span class="caption">HER KISS WAS A BLINDING WHIRLWIND OF FLAME AND TEARS!
+IT WAS THE PROCLAMATION OF WAR UPON ATVATABAR. THENCEFORTH WE BECAME A
+NEW AND FORMIDABLE TWIN-SOUL.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[183]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>As I gazed in adoration at the splendid soul before me the scene
+through the open windows seemed to grow more ideal. There was a new
+glory in the gardens around me, a finer flashing of fountains in the
+sunlight, and a bolder chiselling of palaces and temples. Beyond and
+above there wheeled the roof of the world, with its still more
+prodigious forests and mountains and a wider expanse of gleaming seas.</p>
+
+<p>I sprang forward with a cry of joy, falling at the feet of the
+goddess. I encircled her figure with my arms and held up my face to
+hers. Her kiss was a blinding whirlwind of flame and tears! Its
+silence was irresistible entreaty. It dissolved all other interests
+like fire melting stubborn steel. It was the proclamation of war upon
+Atvatabar! It was the destruction of a unique civilization with all
+its appurtenances of hopeless love. It was love defying death.
+Thenceforward we became a new and formidable twin-soul!</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXV" id="CHAPTER_XXXV"></a>CHAPTER XXXV.</h2>
+
+<h2>OUR VISIT TO THE INFERNAL PALACE.</h2>
+
+
+<p>The infernal palace was a congregation of subterranean rock-hewn
+temples under the spiritual control of the grand sorcerer Charka and
+the grand sorceress Zooly-Soase.</p>
+
+<p>The grand sorcerer's dominion was directly underneath the supernal
+palace of Egyplosis. An ornate pagoda of stone covered the entrance to
+the underground palace. The descent was by means of a wide gradient of
+polished marble, and there was also an elevator car, beautifully
+decorated with electro-plated sheets of gold and lit by electricity,
+which was the most rapid means of descent to the pavement beneath, a
+distance of two hundred and fifty feet. The procession of twin-souls
+and attendants, who carried Lyone and myself in a splendid litter of
+gold, entered the palace by means of the inclined marble highway whose
+sculptured walls were radiant with electric light. The many temples of
+the underground palace were devoted to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[184]</a></span> the most occult worship of
+Harikar. There was an immense central edifice whose roof, supported by
+lofty columns, and sculptured in fantastic beauty, rose two hundred
+feet above the pavement. Here electric suns lit up what was merely the
+vestibule of a hundred temples all hewn from the same pale green
+marble, the aquelium floors glimmering like a fathomless sea.</p>
+
+<p>As we entered this splendid abode of sorcery, we were received by the
+august officials of the sanctuary. The grand sorcerer Charka was a man
+of imperial presence, gracious and subtle. His flesh was of the hue of
+silver bronze and he possessed noble features. His hair was blue and
+his blue beard was trimmed into a rounded semi-circle on his chin,
+while his mustache spread nobly on either side of his lips. He wore a
+robe of emerald blue silk, embroidered with silver flowers. The grand
+sorceress, Thoubool who accompanied him, possessed the complexion of a
+pearl, was arrayed in a robe of celestial blue silk, and, like the
+grand sorcerer, wore a diadem of rubies.</p>
+
+<p>Our reception was extremely gracious, the grand sorcerer saying he
+felt highly honored with our visit.</p>
+
+<p>As we passed down the palace pavement, an immense bell opened its
+mouth of gaunt and glorious bronze. Soft explosions of music swept in
+thrilling moans through temple and cloister, the echoing walls
+resounding with ritournels of enthusiastic peace. As if inspired with
+passion, I could hear the bell swing and roll on its delirious pivot
+uttering its deep-sounding fantasy.</p>
+
+<p>I saw, illuminating the sculptured archway of each temple on either
+side of us, the name thereof in letters of incandescent light. I saw
+the names Amano, Biccano, Demano, Hirlano, Kilano, Pridano, Redolano,
+Ecthyano, Oxemano, Jiracano, Oirelano, Orphitano, Cedeshano, Padomano,
+Jocdilano, Nidialano, Bischomano, Omdolopano and many others,
+indicating the various departments of soul development to which each
+temple was dedicated.</p>
+
+<p>The sorcerer waved his wand and suddenly a band of priestesses
+appeared on the pavement moving in strange and fantastic measures.
+Their attire consisted of low-cut circles of bright and beautiful
+stuffs with short skirts, having in front of each a sheaf of heavy
+folds that expanded and fell as the dancer moved. All wore jewels and
+rings of precious metals on wrists and ankles. Their faces, perfect in
+feature, were pale rose in color<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[185]</a></span> but marvellously delicate. Ranging
+themselves on either side of the immense aisle, they formed a
+delightful guard of honor for the grand sorcerer and his retinue.</p>
+
+<p>They were not only souls, but the materializations of souls, that
+danced and sang as when on earth. They were souls of former
+priestesses reincarnated by the sorcerer and who vanished when we
+reached the entrance to the temple of the labyrinth. It certainly was
+a delicate and superexcited imagination that wrought the splendid
+archway through which we passed into the grotto garden beyond. Neither
+Greek nor Moor, Hindoo nor Goth ever conceived such arabesques as were
+sculptured on the walls of the entrance to the holy of holies.</p>
+
+<p>In the garden, hewn from the solid stone, were interminable thickets
+and hedges enclosing labyrinthine walks. There were open spaces in
+which stood veritable trees with strangest leaf and flower, branch and
+stem delicately chiselled from the solid rock. There were also acres
+of grass and flowers, wonderful creations of art. There were rose
+bushes, heavy with their eternal bloom, the flowers stained crimson as
+in life and the leaves their varying gradations of green.</p>
+
+<p>Fruit trees, with pale pink flowers and leaves light and dark green,
+stood amid the green grass that never waved in the breeze. An
+immovable streamlet ran down its bed of carved irregularities between
+flowery banks and underneath a bridge formed of a single arch.</p>
+
+<p>I looked up expecting to see the sky, but my gaze met the solid
+heavens of stone, and I knew again I was in a cavern. The feeling was
+somewhat suffocating. The garden was lit by an electric sun in the
+centre of the roof two hundred feet overhead. The pathway, wide enough
+for six people abreast, led by labyrinthine dells to the pagoda of the
+sorcerer, which stood in the centre of the garden. The mazes of the
+pathway were so numerous that none save the initiated, when once in
+the labyrinth, could find their way out again.</p>
+
+<p>It was a weird experience to find myself walking between the master
+twin-souls of that subterranean paradise, exploring its many
+mysteries.</p>
+
+<p>We arrived in due time at the entrance to a mighty temple at the
+further side of the labyrinth, whose bronze door suddenly opened to
+receive us, and the sorcerer bade me enter.</p>
+
+<p>Passing through a pillared porch we entered a wide and lofty<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[186]</a></span> space
+lit by tall windows and a roof of many-colored domes of glass that
+threw wonderful lights on the polished aquelium floors of the
+building. The light that shone through window and dome was produced by
+myriads of electric incandescent lamps that glowed in recesses of the
+rock behind each window. This was the inmost shrine of the sorcerer.</p>
+
+<p>As I walked toward the centre of the mysterious temple the sorcerer
+inquired if creative magic was cultivated on the outer sphere.</p>
+
+<p>I informed the sorcerer that necromancy, divination, magic,
+clairvoyance, esotericism, and theosophy were things known and
+practised in many countries. "But," I added, "the idea there is that
+of self-abnegation and miracles are only to be performed by ascetics
+who practise the most rigid austerities. Men who desire to possess
+occult power live in complete solitude, subjecting themselves to cruel
+mortifications. They abstain from all fellowship with their kind, they
+try to live even without food. They absolutely mourn existence,
+avoiding all contact with everything earthly. They hope by renouncing
+all the actions of life to enter more and more into the spiritual
+existence. They believe they can build up an enormous soul out of the
+ruins of the body."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you find that such a method produces a high development of
+creative power, love, justice, conscience, truth, temperance, order,
+and benevolence?" said the grand sorcerer.</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot say," I replied, "that the devotees to whom I refer are
+conspicuous for those qualities, certainly not for a highly active
+state of such qualities. Their abnegation develops fanaticism, which
+is intemperance itself, and fills them with hate toward those outside
+their creed. The starvation of every appetite of pleasure withers up
+the appreciation for every form of human delight."</p>
+
+<p>"Then what virtues are derived from ascetic practices?" inquired the
+sorcerer.</p>
+
+<p>"Certain virtues of a negative order," I replied. "The adepts claim to
+have power to create and transport matter; a claim which reliable
+history does not, except in a few cases, recognize, and in a very
+limited sense they have power to separate the soul from the body.
+While the body remains in a comatose state, the soul traverses space,
+holds consultation with similar souls, and returns to its mansion in
+the body again."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[187]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 450px;">
+<img src="images/image_186.jpg" width="450" height="635" alt="THE LABYRINTH WAS A SUBTERRANEAN GARDEN, WHOSE TREES
+AND FLOWERS WERE CHISELED OUT OF THE LIVING ROCK." title="" />
+<span class="caption">THE LABYRINTH WAS A SUBTERRANEAN GARDEN, WHOSE TREES
+AND FLOWERS WERE CHISELED OUT OF THE LIVING ROCK.</span>
+</div>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[189]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Your magicians," said the sorcerer, "weaken or kill the body without
+imparting corresponding power to the soul. Now we of Atvatabar believe
+that the body should be developed equally with the soul. We believe
+that contact with the noblest and best of earthly things develops
+power and beauty. We feed both body and soul on the perfection of
+things, that both may thereby absorb perfection.</p>
+
+<p>"In the brilliant activities of the supernal palace, and in the golden
+calm of the infernal palace, priest and priestess, as twin souls,
+naturally intermingle in the enjoyment of a long Nirvana of ecstasy.
+We have not only the occult power to perform miracles like the
+ascetics of the outer sphere, but the soul possesses an enormous
+development of every noble quality without which our golden century is
+impossible. We are able by means of our baths of life to obtain a
+hundred years of glorious youth, during which period age and decay of
+the body is suspended. Our devotees when they arrive at the age of
+twenty years, when youth is fully developed, begin their Nirvana of
+blessedness and love. They do not grow older during these years. The
+eye is as bright, the pulse as bounding, the heart as lively, the
+complexion as pure and lovely, the feelings as fresh, at the end of
+the interregnum as at its commencement. Then when the golden century
+is exhausted, the body begins to be twenty-one years old."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you mean that a man who has lived one hundred and thirty years is
+but thirty years old?" I inquired.</p>
+
+<p>"Precisely," said the sorcerer; "why should we call a period age in
+which there is no change?"</p>
+
+<p>"Do all souls live until their century of youth is accomplished?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not all souls. Many die of accident or in consequence of sin. With
+some, Nirvana consists of but a single day's felicity, with others a
+month, or a year, up to a hundred years. It is the ideal for which we
+strive, and there is no reason why the body should not live one
+thousand years as well as one hundred, when vitality becomes more
+developed."</p>
+
+<p>I was astonished at the remarks of the sorcerer, and yet I remembered
+the case of Adam, Noah, and Methusaleh. I told him that men on the
+outer sphere had lived almost one thousand years.</p>
+
+<p>"You may be sure they never practised the austerities of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[190]</a></span> ascetic
+life you have just mentioned. They must have enjoyed life always
+turning their faces to the sun."</p>
+
+<p>"I think one hundred years a great step toward immortality," I
+remarked.</p>
+
+<p>"At twenty years the body is developed, but even a hundred thousand
+years will not develop the soul. Think of the development involved in
+having power over disease and death, power to create substantialities
+of matter!"</p>
+
+<p>"Do you create matter?" I inquired breathlessly.</p>
+
+<p>"I will show you what we can do," replied the sorcerer; "if you will
+follow me."</p>
+
+<p>The sorcerer led the way to seats upon a platform of silver, on which
+stood in terrific grandeur the figure of a hehorrent, or dragon of
+gold, whose eyes were blazing rubies. He stood before the dragon, at
+least twenty feet above the pavement of the palace.</p>
+
+<p>Presently the sorcerer shouted with a loud voice, "My host! my host!"
+and at once several thousand twin souls thronged into the immense
+temple, dancing with naked feet on the polished aquelium pavement.
+Beneath the monster miles of wire were wound in a coil, and to the
+wire were attached twenty thousand fine wires of terrelium, each wire
+terminating in a terrelium wand. These wires were held one each by
+priest and priestess, who began to move in a strange dance on the
+pavement and sing an anthem to Harikar. As they moved more and more
+rapidly the clamor of bells arose, and explosions of sound, like
+bullets rained upon drums, shook the building. In the semi-darkness
+the body of the hehorrent seemed to quiver, and, as I gazed, lo! a
+shower of blazing jewels issued from its mouth. There were emeralds,
+diamonds, sapphires, and rubies flung upon the pavement, scintillating
+with fire the colors of the stones themselves!</p>
+
+<p>The sorcerer, waving his terrelium wand, shouted, "Hold! It is
+enough!" and the s&eacute;ance was at an end. He received the jewels that had
+been collected by his hierophants, and descending, offered me a
+splendid ruby as large as a hen's egg. I looked at him with awe, as I
+felt its size and weight. He simply said, "These jewels have been
+created by spirit power."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you," I gasped, with a feeling of mingled exultance and fear, "do
+you create matter?"</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[191]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 700px;">
+<img src="images/image_190.jpg" width="700" height="440" alt="AS I GAZED, LO! A SHOWER OF BLAZING JEWELS ISSUED FROM
+THE MOUTH OF THE HEHORRENT." title="" />
+<span class="caption">AS I GAZED, LO! A SHOWER OF BLAZING JEWELS ISSUED FROM
+THE MOUTH OF THE HEHORRENT.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[193]</a></span></p>
+<p>"The abnegation of hopeless love is the source of the spirit power by which we create matter such as this," replied the sorcerer. "The
+twin-soul is the cell that generates the creative force."</p>
+
+<p>"And can you create other matter than jewels?" I eagerly inquired.</p>
+
+<p>The sorcerer gazed at Lyone for a moment, who had been strangely
+silent in the presence of her most powerful spiritual coadjutor, and
+then replied: "Yes, we can create all things if necessary. We can, for
+example, create islands in the sea, with mountains, forests, lakes,
+valleys, winding walks and thickets of flowers, palaces and pagodas."</p>
+
+<p>I was breathless with excitement at such a reply. "Oh, that I could
+see such an island," I rejoined, "and tread, if but for a single hour,
+its ecstatic shores!"</p>
+
+<p>"You can both see it and walk upon it, if the goddess so wills it,"
+replied the sorcerer. "What is the command of your holiness?" he
+inquired.</p>
+
+<p>"I would like the commander to see Arjeels, if your priests and
+priestesses are willing to perform the necessarily arduous ritual
+involved in its creation," replied Lyone.</p>
+
+<p>"My hierophants," replied the sorcerer, "are only too happy to serve
+their goddess at all times, and I will at once command them to prepare
+to execute the ritual for creating the magical island of Arjeels."</p>
+
+<p>"Your devotion," said Lyone, "fills me with the purest joy."</p>
+
+<p>As we conversed, the large ruby I held in my hand had grown
+considerably less in size, as though the elements of which it was
+composed had to a degree evaporated as unseen gases, so that in a
+short time the jewel might wholly disappear. The sorcerer,
+anticipating an inquiry as to its disappearance, stated that all
+objects created by spirit power could only be maintained in their full
+material splendor so long as they were sustained by the power that
+gave them birth. The creations were not additions to already existing
+elements; they were simply focalizations of matter from the elements
+of the surrounding world, held together by the force that withdrew
+them from their normal habitat as long as the spirit power remains
+supplied. The jewels would in a few hours cease to exist, because they
+were not enfolded with the power that produced them.</p>
+
+<p>"As to your magical island," said I, addressing Lyone, one<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[194]</a></span> of whose
+titles was Princess of Arjeels, "where is your principality situated?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is located anywhere in the wide sea," said Lyone.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you mean to say," said I, "that Arjeels is not a real, veritable
+island of the ocean, but only a ghostly island, a mirage that retreats
+as we approach it, a phantasy of the imagination?"</p>
+
+<p>"Arjeels is a real island, with real rocks and waterfalls, lakes and
+forests, birds and flowers. There is a real palace, and all the
+appurtenances of an ideal life. All this is a materialization of the
+ideal desires."</p>
+
+<p>I was astonished at her reply. "Once called into being," I inquired,
+"how long can the island exist?"</p>
+
+<p>"So long as the twin-souls support it by never-ceasing ecstasy, so
+long as they perform their magical dances on the aquelium floor of the
+temple of the dragon, holding in their hands the terrelium wands. Once
+the island becomes materialized it requires thousands of twin-souls to
+sustain and preserve its reality, and it only vanishes when the
+twin-souls are utterly weary of their ecstasy."</p>
+
+<p>"And when the twin-souls grow weary of their joys, what becomes of the
+island and its glories?" I inquired.</p>
+
+<p>"We can preserve the island for a long time," said the sorcerer, "by
+having fresh dancers take the place of those that are exhausted, but
+after the lapse of a month, or longer, when all are utterly vanquished
+with fatigue, the spirit power becomes exhausted and the island
+disappears upon the sea."</p>
+
+<p>I rose and enthusiastically grasped the sorcerer by the hand. "Ah,
+dear sorcerer," said I, "will you show me this magical island?"</p>
+
+<p>"The command of the Princess of Arjeels," he replied, "will be
+obeyed."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXVI" id="CHAPTER_XXXVI"></a>CHAPTER XXXVI.</h2>
+
+<h2>ARJEELS.</h2>
+
+
+<p>I was full of impatience to witness the creation of the magical
+island, where with Lyone I might find ideal delight. It was necessary,
+however, for the grand sorcerer to make ample arrangements, not only
+for the generation of sufficient spirit<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[195]</a></span> force to create the island,
+but also a force sufficient for its continuance for an indefinite
+length of time. It was absolutely necessary that there should be a
+reserve force of ten thousand twin-souls to take the places of the
+original legion of souls, when they would become weary of their
+ecstatic labors. Only once before had Arjeels been created, and it was
+thought a most wonderful thing that the sorcerer could preserve its
+existence for a single day. Now it was contemplated to sustain the
+island for months, and this required a continuous as well as a lavish
+expenditure of spirit power.</p>
+
+<p>The sorcerer had enlisted his full quota of twin-souls, and prepared
+them for their heroic duty. The terrelium wand held by each soul was
+connected with the wires of a helic having immense coils of terrelium,
+that held by a rampant hehorrent of gold, formed an immense spiritual
+battery in the centre of another subterranean temple. Wires led from
+the battery underground across Atvatabar to the city of Mylosis, on
+the seacoast most remote from Kioram, a thousand miles from Egyplosis.
+The sorcerer announced a few days after the visit to the infernal
+palace that he was ready to accompany us to Mylosis, whither the
+queen's golden yacht had been sent to meet us.</p>
+
+<p>The aerial yacht of the goddess flew swiftly over Atvatabar, bearing
+the precious Lyone, the grand sorcerer Charka, and myself to the far
+seacoast, the first stage in our journey.</p>
+
+<p>The brightly flashing seas, the rose-colored sun, and the transcendent
+concave of the earth encompassing us, with the near tropical splendor
+of the country, made a scene of long remembered joy. But these
+objects, so glorious in themselves, were made still more splendid by
+the love that reigned in the souls that contemplated them.</p>
+
+<p>In due time we reached Mylosis, where we found the royal yacht and a
+reverent crowd of people awaiting us.</p>
+
+<p>The sorcerer lost no time in connecting the subterranean wires with a
+cable of terrelium on board the yacht, and, this being done, we
+immediately set out to sea, followed by a crowd of pleasure ships,
+conveying a host of people anxious to witness the miracle about to be
+performed.</p>
+
+<p>We anchored the yacht at a distance of fifty miles from the coast. The
+grand sorcerer, surrounded by his acolytes, held in his hand a thick
+rod of terrelium, the extreme end of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[196]</a></span> cable, whose further
+extremity was connected with the battery in the Temple of
+Reincarnation at Egyplosis. An exchange of messages along the wire
+informed us that the ten thousand twin-souls had already begun their
+dance of Pure Being upon the pavement of the greater temple.
+Immediately a stream of flame leaped from the end of the rod, like
+water spouting from a tube under enormous pressure.</p>
+
+<p>"Now," said the sorcerer, "by virtue of the spirit power in this
+cable, what I will to exist, will exist. I will that the magical
+island of Arjeels shall rise above the waves."</p>
+
+<p>"I wish the island," said Lyone, "to have an elevation of five
+thousand feet in the centre, and at an elevation of four thousand feet
+fill a crater of the mountain with a lake of cool water surrounded by
+aerial gardens, and on the shore place a palace of rose-colored
+marble, luxuriously furnished, with servants to wait upon us. All else
+may be according to your own fancy."</p>
+
+<p>"As your majesty wishes," replied the sorcerer, and as he spoke, a
+high mountain rose instantly from the sea a mile away, creating
+enormous waves, that threatened the safety of the yacht and the
+congregated vessels. A feeling of awe silenced the host of spectators.</p>
+
+<p>Instantly, as quickly as the sorcerer moved his wand, the mountains
+became clothed with forests, and high up on the shoulder of the
+central peak appeared a palace of rose-colored marble, whose
+supernatural architecture seemed a celestial dream. The island was
+thirty miles in length and about fifteen in width. From immense
+cliffs, foaming waterfalls flung themselves downward to the sea.
+Dazzled with their blinding beauty, we saw ravines engorged with
+flowers. In green and glorious blessedness the island lay before us,
+complete, like an enormous emerald in a setting of blue sea. We were
+so awe-struck with the labors of the sorcerer, that it seemed a
+sacrilege to set foot on the miraculous shores of Arjeels.</p>
+
+<p>At a sign from the sorcerer, the captain of the yacht fired one
+hundred guns, and the vessel moved toward the romantic island. We came
+close up to a white marble wharf, and Lyone and myself alighted upon
+the sacred retreat. Everything seemed so natural, that we could
+scarcely believe the solid rock to be sustained by self-sacrificing
+love.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[197]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 450px;">
+<img src="images/image_196.jpg" width="450" height="645" alt="&quot;BY VIRTUE OF THE SPIRIT POWER IN THIS CABLE,&quot; SAID THE
+SORCERER, &quot;I WILL THAT THE MAGICAL ISLAND OF ARJEELS SHALL RISE ABOVE
+THE WAVES.&quot;" title="" />
+<span class="caption">&quot;BY VIRTUE OF THE SPIRIT POWER IN THIS CABLE,&quot; SAID THE
+SORCERER, &quot;I WILL THAT THE MAGICAL ISLAND OF ARJEELS SHALL RISE ABOVE
+THE WAVES.&quot;</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>The adorable sorcerer remained on board the vessel, as it was <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[199]</a></span>
+impossible for him to leave his post of duty for a moment, while the
+dazed yet happy inhabitants of Mylosis departed homeward in their
+vessels.</p>
+
+<p>It was arranged that when the spirit power that sustained the island
+would become exhausted, owing to the utter weariness of the
+twin-souls, the firing of a gun on board the yacht would be a signal
+that Arjeels would disappear from upon the sea.</p>
+
+<p>The moment both Lyone and myself stepped upon the magical soil we felt
+an instantaneous increase of health and vigor. We did not at first use
+our magnic wings for flight, but walked along paths that wound around
+the beach of golden sand, shaded by towering palms.</p>
+
+<p>After remaining for a time on the margin of the sea we rose on our
+wings, and, like birds, encircled the island, rising ever higher until
+we alighted before the palace created for Lyone, a gem of the rosiest
+marble, covered with a dome of gold that flashed around it the light
+of the sun. The architecture was broad and heavy with splendid
+carvings, and surrounded by a pillared portico. The palace stood on
+the shore of a beautiful sheet of cool water; elsewhere its shores
+were thickly clothed with tropic foliage and aerial gardens of the
+greatest beauty.</p>
+
+<p>We had reached at last the holy of holies of ideal attainment, a
+retreat of bewildering beauty. The weird and splendid proportions of
+the palace, with its domes and towers ornamented with sculptured
+arabesques, rising from the soft waters of the lake, a veritable
+Fountain of Youth, all surrounded by the green and gleaming forest and
+gardens without end, filled our souls with a new rapture. Everything
+was so perfect and peaceful, so rich with life and beauty, so fresh
+and sparkling, so unspeakably happy, that I said, "This is the end of
+all toil and ambition, this is the perfect flower of life. Here is the
+lake of immortality, and here the fabled gardens of the Hesperides."</p>
+
+<p>Rayoulb, the chamberlain of the palace, and his acolytes, who received
+us, were also the product of spirit power, the reincarnation of former
+inmates of Egyplosis. They awaited us before the palace, announcing a
+feast had already been prepared for us.</p>
+
+<p>The interior of the palace revealed new wonders. Wide and lofty
+chambers were hung, some with woven and painted<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[200]</a></span> tapestries, and some
+plated with sheets of gold, illuminated by electricity with
+many-colored designs in precious metal. Others were decorated with
+tender and brilliant frescoes, in which the transparent plaster seemed
+to hold in its depths the tones of gold, of ultramarine and vermilion,
+in fabulous scenes. Woven and painted tapestries clothed the walls of
+still other chambers, representing in entrancing colors the most
+occult mysteries of Egyplosis. The banqueting chamber had a dome of
+enamelled glass, that softened the light with many a caressing color.
+Porcelain vases, gorgeous in depth and richness of color, containing
+plants of the richest bloom, added to the apartment their decorative
+grace. There were also an art gallery, a library, and a museum of
+jewels.</p>
+
+<p>On one side of the palace a square cloistered arcade surrounded a
+marble court. In the centre of the court lay a square pool of crystal
+water, whose basin had been chiselled out of the solid rock. The pool
+was fed by a wide water-fall falling down a precipice on the pavement.
+Here also were several pagodas containing chimes of bells and large
+oblong vases of stone filled with blooming flowers.</p>
+
+<p>Amid such splendor I began to realize that love has the power of
+spiritualizing all things, of interfusing them with its own rapture.
+Under its flame all colors brighten, all movement becomes divine, all
+labor seems holy. The sea attains a deeper blue, the shores a brighter
+green, the beloved one becomes more beautiful, more delicate and
+supernatural. Love, indeed, is an ultramarine and ultramontane joy!</p>
+
+<p>"This delight," said Lyone as she lay in her boudoir, plunged in
+delicious blessedness, "fills my soul with universal peace. Hitherto
+pained with the chagrin of life, I welcome this unwonted repose. Oh, I
+am supremely happy!"</p>
+
+<p>"This expedition," I replied, "is not to observe the transit of Venus,
+but the possession of Venus, to weigh each other's souls and read the
+poetry written in every fold of the heart. It would be the perfection
+of life if such reality of the ideal could surround us forever, but in
+a world where the worm doth conquer, where the storm wastes the flower
+and herb, such felicity is purchased only by the sacrifice of
+ourselves or of others. But while it lasts let us prize its ineffable
+joy. Hitherto," I continued, "philosophy has said that if we do not
+want to be undeceived we should never visit the haunts of
+imagination,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[201]</a></span> for the fruits thereof are ashes, but we will create a
+new philosophy, that will assert that the haunts of imagination are
+ideally real, that the veritable Fountain of Youth has been
+discovered, that Eldorado may be won."</p>
+
+<p>The following day found us floating on the lake before, the palace in
+a beautiful magnic boat. Musicians occupied a pagoda overlooking the
+lake, and made the air sweet with their music. The lake seemed to fill
+the crater of an extinct volcano, and miles away on its further shore
+rose the lofty precipices of a mountain crest. It was most delightful
+to float on its profound wave, at an elevation of four thousand feet,
+and yet see the sea beneath us, and we surrounded with all the glory
+of the interior world.</p>
+
+<p>Birds, gorgeous as humming-birds, resplendent in burnished hues of
+purple, garnet, and green, would flash amid the flowers, or chase each
+other over the water. As for ourselves, we no longer feared our own
+holiest emotions. Our deepest feelings were then in the foreground.
+The mysterious carmine on the palpitating lips of Lyone was the symbol
+of a warm, delicate, superexcited soul.</p>
+
+<p>Lyone grew day by day more and more beautiful. She resembled the color
+of a deep and mysterious gold. I crowned her brow with flowers and
+wreathed her azure hair with wistful daffodils.</p>
+
+<p>Another day we rode on soul-created horses to discover the odoriferous
+retreats of the island. The pathways wound through flowery ravines,
+that looked out upon the sea. The sweet cool air that filled the
+splendid gloom of the palm woods seemed the essence of gladness. What
+glorious vistas opened amid the luminous green of the forest! The
+murmur of music filled the infinite ways of the island as our
+cavalcade wound round its peerless hills or plunged into its abysses
+of flowers. The spell of an ideal land was upon us, and we experienced
+sensations hitherto unfelt in life.</p>
+
+<p>"This," said Lyone, "is the ideal climate. Everything has become
+transfigured; even the light of the sun is softer and more blessed."</p>
+
+<p>"And the goddess of Atvatabar," I replied, "has become more delicate,
+more supernatural, and more holy."</p>
+
+<p>The island was one vast garden of tropical fruits and flowers, without
+the malaria of decay. Everywhere nature, carefully<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[202]</a></span> assisted by art,
+assumed the rarest beauty. Everything that savored of ruin and decay
+was non-existent. There were no wild or poisonous animals. No deadly
+serpent was coiled upon the branches, nor did poisonous insects crawl
+on leaf or flower. Forests of trees of a strange tropical vegetation
+abounded. There were the fruha, resembling dates; the caspariba,
+resembling bananas; the dulra, resembling limes; the jackle,
+resembling lemons; the congol, resembling oranges; the velicac,
+resembling bread-fruits; the persar, resembling custard apples; the
+phyorbal, resembling cocoanuts; the gersin, resembling mangosteens;
+the huflar, resembling coffee; the solru, resembling plums; and
+presuveet, or tamarinds lining the route. Fruits such as the troupac,
+or citron; dewan, or guava; orogor, or mango; and ryeshmush, or
+plantain gleamed amid the embowering foliage, and gardens of squangs
+and the pineapples, aloes, nutmeg, cloves and spices of Atvatabar,
+were on every hand.</p>
+
+<p>One day, when floating on the lake, we heard with surprise and
+infinite sadness the discharge of a gun, the signal that the island
+was at an end. Spreading our wings, we awaited the catastrophe.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly a roar of thunder startled us, and Arjeels, with its majestic
+cliffs, its green forests and rivers of flowers, fell in one
+dissolving crash, and faded from sight. The lake and boat fell from
+beneath us so rapidly, that we would have fallen headlong into the sea
+had not our wings saved us. There flowed where the island had stood a
+circular wave rushing to a focus. There was an upward spouting pillar
+of foam, and all again was placid sea!</p>
+
+<p>We flew downward to where the yacht awaited us, and alighting on
+board, soon reached Mylosis.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXVII" id="CHAPTER_XXXVII"></a>CHAPTER XXXVII.</h2>
+
+<h2>A REVELATION.</h2>
+
+
+<p>Alas for the brevity of earthly joys! The noble priests and
+priestesses had made a heroic effort to sustain Arjeels, but a month's
+incessant labors had quite exhausted their powers, and the glorious
+island vanished, with all its ideal sweetness. As if<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[203]</a></span> to intensify our
+sadness, when we reached Egyplosis again, we found the high priest
+Hushnoly, impatiently awaiting our return to secretly report the
+proceedings of a late council of the king and government, held in the
+council chamber of Egyplosis.</p>
+
+<p>I knew by the appearance of Hushnoly that something unusual had
+happened. He hesitated to unfold his secret until requested to do so
+by the goddess.</p>
+
+<p>"It is a serious business," said Hushnoly, "and I have been
+commissioned by his majesty to know the full meaning of the step both
+your holiness and his excellency are about to take, and see if there
+is no possibility of averting the terrible calamity, that overhangs
+Egyplosis."</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me," said Lyone to the high priest, "what the council has been
+discussing, and what it has determined upon."</p>
+
+<p>"Your holiness," said he, "I should inform you that Koshnili, as chief
+minister of Atvatabar, has received a report from his winged spies,
+charged with the duty of watching the movements of his excellency and
+retinue ever since their arrival in Atvatabar. His duty made it
+necessary to discover the real object of the illustrious strangers in
+visiting our country, and consequently their actions have been
+carefully watched and reported."</p>
+
+<p>"And of course," said I, "my constant association with the supreme
+goddess, has led Koshnili to suspect me of designs inimical to the
+welfare of the kingdom?"</p>
+
+<p>"Listen to the report made by Koshnili," replied Hushnoly, who
+unrolled a document he held in his hand, and read as follows:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"<i>To His Majesty</i>, <span class="smcap">King Aldemegry Bhoolmakar</span>, <i>of Atvatabar,
+greeting</i>: Your faithful minister begs to report that his
+private wayleals have followed his excellency, the alien
+commander, Lexington White, and followers from their arrival
+in Kioram until their reception at Egyplosis. The
+illustrious strangers, after landing on our soil, travelled
+by sacred locomotive from Kioram to Calnogor, and were there
+the guests of your majesty, after which they attended a
+feast of worship to the supreme goddess in the Bormidophia.
+The illustrious strangers were then received by her holiness
+in her palace of Tanje. While lingering here my wayleals,
+from the ramparts of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[204]</a></span> palace, saw his excellency the
+alien commander, in company with her holiness, enter the
+silver pleasure boat. Their long-continued interview in the
+palace garden testified that a mutual affinity had drawn the
+illustrious personages together. From later observation my
+faithful wayleals are convinced that in the palace garden of
+Tanje was begun the awful possibility of a twin soul of our
+deity, and the alien commander, and the consequent apostasy
+of the supreme goddess, and her renunciation of Harikar.</p>
+
+<p>"My faithful wayleals further report that while travelling
+on the aerial ship from Calnogor to Egyplosis, they obtained
+further evidence of the consummation of a deific and alien
+twin soul. The principals sat apart from all others, on a
+seat at the prow of the vessel, and the report of their
+conversation will justify your majesty in believing that a
+sacrilegious twin soul already exists in defiance of civil
+and religious law, her holiness and the alien commander
+being the illustrious components.</p>
+
+<p>"Awaiting the further commands of your majesty, I remain,
+with profound veneration, </p></div>
+
+<p class="p4">"Your majesty's faithful servant,</p>
+
+<p class="p5">"<span class="smcap">Koshnili</span>."</p>
+
+<p>I gasped for breath at hearing so brutal a dissection of our hearts. I
+was thunderstruck. I could only ask Hushnoly what he had to say on the
+situation.</p>
+
+<p>"That you love each other, I need not ask," said he; "that may be
+taken for granted. But I might ask, do you each of you fully recognize
+the position you stand in? Do you know that your conduct menaces the
+throne of the gods itself? I can understand the violence of love for a
+human soul in the breast of the goddess, but what of her renunciation
+of Harikar?"</p>
+
+<p>"If not already convinced," I said, "I think her holiness will soon
+see that all this monstrous system of hopeless love is tottering on
+its throne. It is an artificial society, that must in time, of its own
+accord, crumble to pieces."</p>
+
+<p>"His majesty," said the high priest, "has departed with his retinue to
+Calnogor, and has called a council of the government to consider the
+situation. He held that the rank of the individuals who have offended
+against the sacred code of Atvatabar, and the monstrous impiety of the
+offence itself, constitutes<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[205]</a></span> a subject worthy of the most serious
+consideration of the government. His majesty was extremely angry on
+hearing the report of Koshnili. He characterized your excellency's
+conduct as unworthy of the hospitality you had received, and as
+involving the ruin of both the supreme goddess and yourself."</p>
+
+<p>"What did Koshnili say when presenting the report?" I inquired.</p>
+
+<p>"Koshnili said that the affections of their beloved goddess had been
+withdrawn from their only legitimate object, Harikar himself, and had
+been appropriated not even by a holy priest of the temple, not even by
+an ordinary citizen, but worse than all, by an infidel, a heathen, an
+adventurer and a stranger, emanating from some <i>terra incognita</i> that
+might, owing to the fatal discovery of Atvatabar, one day send its
+hordes to ravage the country with fire and sword. The council," he
+continued, "knew the penalty for such treachery and abuse of
+hospitality on the part of a desperate and fanatical stranger, as well
+as such apostasy on the part of the goddess. He demanded the immediate
+arrest of the guilty parties. The king had sufficient evidence to
+convict and execute both individuals by reason of their high treason
+against both the government and faith of Atvatabar."</p>
+
+<p>"Did the king approve of Koshnili's demand?" I inquired.</p>
+
+<p>"His majesty," said Hushnoly, "said that a matter of such importance
+required the greatest circumspection. Her holiness was known to be the
+most pious and popular supreme goddess that had ever sat on the throne
+of the gods, and although it was evident she had insulted Harikar,
+still if the quiet expulsion of the strangers from Atvatabar soil
+would prevent further disgrace of their faith and country, he would
+prefer to issue a decree of expulsion, rather than a decree for the
+arrest of both commander and goddess. To reduce the possible calamity
+now overhanging the nation to the least possible proportions, it would
+be necessary to act at once, rather than to await the development of
+more complete evidence of affection between the guilty parties."</p>
+
+<p>Admiral Jolar deprecated the violent measures advocated by Koshnili,
+and supported the idea of the king, to quietly expel the strangers. He
+said that if the decree of expulsion were intrusted to him, he would
+see that it was carried into effect<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[206]</a></span> without delay. The council could
+rely on the royal fleet doing its duty.</p>
+
+<p>Koshnili was angry at his idea of immediate arrest not being acted
+upon. "Suppose these strangers," he said, "refuse to leave, and being
+warned by your royal mandate so fortify themselves by stirring up an
+insurrection in favor of her holiness, that might possibly defeat the
+royal arms, and, in the end, we ourselves be sacrificed by our present
+timid vacillation. The crisis is a serious one and demands a desperate
+remedy."</p>
+
+<p>"The Governor Ladalmir," said Hushnoly, "rebutted the arguments of
+Koshnili. He pointed out that the laws of hospitality demanded that
+the strangers should receive consideration at the hands of the king,
+even if guilty. They might receive fair warning to depart, after
+which, if the commander prove contumacious, more stringent measures
+could be taken. Should the commander, in defiance of the royal
+mandate, endeavor to consolidate his affection for her holiness, doing
+further sacrilege to our faith, ecclesiastical law has the remedy of
+death for those who would dare dethrone our faith, and lead our
+beloved goddess to take the irrevocable step of abandonment of her
+supreme office. After considerable discussion, it was decided to act
+on the suggestion of his majesty the king, that without bringing the
+matter before the Borodemy, a decree of expulsion be handed Admiral
+Jolar, for execution on the parties to be expelled from the kingdom.
+The decree is already in the hands of Admiral Jolar for delivery to
+your excellency."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXVIII" id="CHAPTER_XXXVIII"></a>CHAPTER XXXVIII.</h2>
+
+<h2>LYONE'S MANIFESTO TO KING AND PEOPLE.</h2>
+
+
+<p>"Might I ask your holiness," said the high priest, "if you will really
+take so determined a step as that indicated by the action of the royal
+council? The thought of such a thing strikes me dumb with fear."</p>
+
+<p>"Hushnoly," said Lyone, "I have ever found you faithful to my
+interests, and I will now confide in you my purposes. You are a man of
+wisdom, calm and conservative, and can rest happy in the possession of
+your counterpart soul. Your character has become moulded by your long
+novitiate until you<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[207]</a></span> have become a part of the institution itself. To
+think of any other state of things is to you an impossibility. On
+thousands of souls here, your inflexible laws have only developed a
+rebellious energy that will some day utterly destroy the fabric of
+Egyplosis. The true union of souls is not artificial restraint and the
+present calmness is only the pause that preludes the explosion."</p>
+
+<p>"But do you, supreme goddess, indeed desire to leave us forever? Will
+you profane your holy office? Will you despoil the temple of ideal
+love?" said Hushnoly, with emotion.</p>
+
+<p>"You think it monstrous," said Lyone, "that I should desire to uproot
+principles so fixed and permanent. You can judge, then, how fierce
+must be the passion that causes me to antagonize duty consecrated by
+the ties and memories of my holy office."</p>
+
+<p>"To break away from a responsibility so supreme," I said, "argues
+alone an extraordinary force. Your very system creates just such a
+love as this. Here souls are required to meet in rapture, and yet to
+stand balanced, as it were, on the thin edge of naked swords, and fall
+neither this way nor that. The development of a purely romantic love
+effeminates the race. The example of Egyplosis if carried out
+universally would obliterate the nation in one generation. The nation
+is wiser than its creed. Let us therefore choose the wiser path."</p>
+
+<p>"It was the dream of your noble parents," said Hushnoly to Lyone, "to
+see you supreme goddess of Egyplosis. When you obtained this peerless
+honor they died. Your mother, dying, implored you to remember your
+vows, and to be ever true to your high office. 'Love only duty,' was
+her last sigh. If you love aught else, there is but a cruel death for
+you, and your memory will be an everlasting disgrace. Will you, the
+ideal of hopeless love, be the first to prove faithless?"</p>
+
+<p>"What you say is true," I said, replying for Lyone, "but what is duty?
+Lyone not only owes a duty to her office, but also to herself. Her
+duty to herself is to rise up and break down this monstrous
+environment that chains down her soul, and her duty to these ten
+thousand souls is to tell them that an institution that constantly
+antagonizes nature is immoral. Here refined souls," I continued, "seek
+the cloister, not for peace, but for ecstatic anguish. They love and
+weep, and thus agitated they grow at once weak and violent, and can
+never<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[208]</a></span> accommodate themselves to the serious purposes of life. Thus
+sacrificed on the altar of a false god, weary of a life of barren
+blessedness, you will discover, if you but seriously inquire into it,
+that this palace is purely a prison for thousands of noble souls."</p>
+
+<p>As I spoke, Hushnoly clasped his head with his hands and groaned.
+"With the downfall of Egyplosis," he murmured, "farewell delights,
+farewell tendernesses, farewell mystical, chivalrous love!"</p>
+
+<p>"Do not be so dejected," said Lyone; "your imagination gives you but a
+capricious view of the future, which will be even nobler than the
+past."</p>
+
+<p>The high priest could hear no more, and left us seized with affright
+as to the future, and mourning the anticipated downfall of Egyplosis.</p>
+
+<p>Lyone, far from exhibiting fear, grew enthusiastic over our projected
+<i>coup d'&eacute;tat</i>, that would certainly, if successful, create an organic
+change in the constitution of the kingdom.</p>
+
+<p>We discussed the situation at length, and determined to leave
+Egyplosis for Calnogor forthwith.</p>
+
+<p>I could in some measure appreciate the struggle undergone by Lyone
+necessary to sever her forever from so ineffable a retreat. But
+passion was stronger than environment, and it was duly announced that
+the supreme goddess and the commander of the <i>Polar King</i> and their
+immediate followers would leave for Calnogor forthwith.</p>
+
+<p>Our departure from Egyplosis was attended with impressive ceremonies,
+our journey to Calnogor being made in the aerial ship of the goddess.</p>
+
+<p>On our arrival at Tanje we discovered that the king and government had
+held their council unknown to the people. We did not think it
+expedient either, just then, to make public the determination of the
+goddess. I ordered my officers and sailors to Kioram forthwith to take
+command of the <i>Polar King</i>. My instructions to Captain Wallace were
+to have the ship fully supplied with stores, and remove her from the
+basin where she lay into the outer harbor of Kioram, and there await
+further orders. After a considerable period of inactivity the ship's
+company were nothing loath to get on board again with the prospect of
+another voyage. I confided to the officers the possibility of our
+being engaged in hostile operations, and ordered<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[209]</a></span> the ship to be put
+in fighting trim without delay. The officers and men were tendered the
+dignity of riding to Kioram in the sacred locomotive, and their
+departure was made amid the enthusiasm of the populace.</p>
+
+<p>As for myself, I remained at the palace of Tanje, the residence of the
+goddess, to assist Lyone in preparing her manifesto to the people.</p>
+
+<p>It was a painful crisis for her, who was the symbol of ideal love, to
+be the first to renounce its delights for the sake of an every-day
+union with a beloved soul.</p>
+
+<p>For days her decision trembled in the balance. Her avowal of being led
+captive by human love would be a national catastrophe. She trembled
+for her ten thousand devotees in Egyplosis. It seemed a cruel and
+heartless trampling under foot of throbbing hearts that were thrilling
+with faith in their goddess. When I saw Lyone prepared to abandon
+Egyplosis for my sake, when I knew she would forever resign that
+splendid throne swept by whirlwinds of adoration, for the sake of
+being clasped to my heart, when I saw her risk even life itself for
+the simple love of one adoring heart, I then knew what love really
+was. It was, as Dante says,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Joy past compare, gladness unutterable,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Exhaustless riches and unmeasured bliss."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>At last the decision was made. Lyone had decided that the ideal love
+of Egyplosis was only suited to disembodied spirits, and not for those
+breathing elements of matter that are unable to exist in the spiritual
+state.</p>
+
+<p>The following was the text of her manifesto to the king, Borodemy and
+people:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="p6">"<i>The Avowal of</i> <span class="smcap">Lyone</span>, <i>Supreme Goddess of Atvatabar, Holy
+Ruler of the palaces, Supernal and Infernal, of Egyplosis,
+Queen of Magicians, Mother of Sorcerers, Princess of
+Arjeels, etc., etc., to His Most Excellent Majesty</i> <span class="smcap">King
+Aldemegry Bhoolmakar</span> <i>and the People of Atvatabar</i>.</p>
+
+<p>"The supreme goddess presents her respectful salutations,
+and desires to inform his majesty the king and the people
+that her ardent soul, sensitive to the tender feelings of
+human affection, desires to live no longer without a
+counterpart soul. The love of ten thousand souls does not
+satisfy the craving for the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[210]</a></span> love of but one soul. She has
+been told to love Harikar the unseen. She reaches out her
+lips, but they do not meet with love's delirious kisses. Her
+heart, withering within her because of soul loneliness, has
+taught her to seek liberty, to love the soul of her choice.</p>
+
+<p>"She resigns her seat on the throne of the gods, as goddess,
+having discovered her counterpart soul.</p>
+
+<p>"She hopes that reform and not destruction will guide the
+king and his ministers in dealing with Egyplosis at this
+crisis.</p>
+
+<p>"Given at her palace of Tanje in this, the eleventh year of
+her deification as supreme goddess. </p></div>
+
+<p class="p1"><span class="smcap">Lyone.</span>"</p>
+
+<p>This memorial fell upon the people like a shell of terrorite. No one
+had ever suspected the crisis was so real. The king had lulled himself
+with the belief that, as my sailors had already departed to embark on
+the <i>Polar King</i>, I would possibly quietly follow them, and leave the
+country without his having the trouble of even asking me to go. The
+message of the goddess, however, opened his eyes to the true state of
+things, and I forthwith received the following decree from his
+majesty, at the hands of Jolar, admiral of the royal fleet:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="p6">"<span class="smcap">Aldemegry Bhoolmakar</span>, <i>King of Atvatabar, to His Excellency
+Lexington White, Commander of the ship Polar King, etc.,
+etc., greeting</i>:</p>
+
+<p>"It having come to our knowledge that you, the said
+Lexington White, have conceived an affection for the sacred
+person of our illustrious supreme goddess, Lyone, spouse of
+Harikar, holy ruler of Egyplosis, mother of sorcerers, etc.,
+in defiance of our holy faith and laws of this our realm,
+and furthermore it having come to our knowledge that the
+said supreme goddess has so far forgotten her holy duty as
+to reciprocate your affection, be it known to you that the
+penalty prescribed by the laws of this our realm for your
+heinous offence (which is sacrilegious treason) is death by
+magnicity, for both guilty persons.</p>
+
+<p>"To inform you of the law and the penalty for your crime,
+and to give you an opportunity of renouncing your affection
+for our supreme goddess, and for your immediate departure
+from the soil of Atvatabar, we send you this our decree,
+commanding you as follows: That you forthwith renounce your<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[211]</a></span>
+treasonable affection, love and interest in the personality
+of said supreme goddess. That you embark, together with your
+officers and seamen, on board your ship, the <i>Polar King</i>,
+within one week from date hereof, and forever leave our
+realm of Atvatabar and the surrounding seas thereof. You
+must not again return to this our realm in any manner
+whatsoever, or send messengers, or correspond or conspire
+with any inhabitant thereof, particularly with our said
+supreme goddess, under penalty of death, both for yourself
+and for your entire crew.</p>
+
+<p>"Given at our palace in Calnogor, in this fifty-sixth year
+of our reign. </p></div>
+
+<p class="p4">"<span class="smcap">Aldemegry Bhoolmakar</span>,</p>
+
+<p class="p5">"<i>King of Atvatabar</i>."</p>
+
+<p>I received the document from the hands of the admiral with deep
+respect, and requested him to assure his majesty King Aldemegry
+Bhoolmakar of my profound regard and deep gratitude for the hospitable
+reception we had received from his majesty and his people during our
+stay in the glorious kingdom of Atvatabar.</p>
+
+<p>I stated that we were at present in the act of leaving their country
+on a voyage of further discovery, but could not say that we would not
+again return to Atvatabar. We should be most happy to obey the command
+of the king, but should we receive a message to return from the
+supreme goddess ere we left the interior world, we might possibly
+return, notwithstanding the royal command, and brave the wrath of his
+majesty.</p>
+
+<p>"In that case," said the admiral, "it would be my duty to prevent you
+from landing on Atvatabar soil; and should you succeed in eluding the
+vigilance of the fleet, your apprehension and that of your people by
+his majesty's wayleals would mean the execution of your entire party.
+We are a proud nation, and our army and navy are invincible."</p>
+
+<p>I thanked the admiral for his well-meant warning, whereupon he
+withdrew from the palace.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[212]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXIX" id="CHAPTER_XXXIX"></a>CHAPTER XXXIX.</h2>
+
+<h2>THE CRISIS IN ATVATABAR.</h2>
+
+
+<p>The manifesto of Lyone had precipitated an historic crisis in
+Atvatabar. The king awaited my leaving the country with the utmost
+impatience. He made every effort to prevent the news from reaching the
+public, hoping that when I took my departure the goddess would be
+amenable to the laws of the realm, and the faith be thus preserved.</p>
+
+<p>The more that Lyone and myself discussed the situation, the more
+apparent it appeared that we could not now draw back from the position
+we had taken. It was absolutely necessary to provide a following in
+case the government attempted arrest, or the execution of either or
+both of us. Trusty messengers were despatched to the high priest,
+Hushnoly, the grand sorcerer, Charka, the lord of art, Yermoul, and
+the other friends of Lyone, informing them of the step she had taken,
+and asking their support in case any violence were offered her.</p>
+
+<p>I advised Lyone to have her agents collect and transmit to Kioram all
+munitions of war. Some of the royal wayleals were armed with spears,
+and others with swords and shields. All battles were fought in the
+air, by reason of the wayleals being able to fly, as their movement on
+wings was more rapid than movement on foot.</p>
+
+<p>As already stated, the ordinary spear of the king's wayleals was very
+effective, by reason of its discharging a magnetic current into the
+body, causing instant death. With a view of arming the army of the
+goddess with a more potent weapon than magnic spears, I quietly had
+agents purchase for immediate transmission to Kioram vast quantities
+of iron, and the material for making gunpowder, which happily existed
+in great abundance in Atvatabar. My idea was to start a manufactory
+for firearms, which were unknown to the interior world, and arm every
+man with a magazine rifle&mdash;a portable mitrailleuse, in fact.</p>
+
+<p>While engaged in discussing the plan of defence with Lyone the crisis
+was precipitated by the press of the country finding out the <i>coup
+d'&eacute;tat</i> of the goddess. With a view of placing the government in the
+most favorable light before the people,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[213]</a></span> the chief organ of the king,
+<i>The Calnogor Jossidi</i>, published a fierce editorial condemning the
+action of the goddess, and reviling what it was pleased to call "the
+contumacious invader and despoiler of Atvatabar." The article ran
+thus:</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+"<span class="smcap">Impious Sacrilege!</span><br />
+"<span class="smcap">Astounding Apostasy!</span><br />
+<span class="smcap">The Supreme Goddess Refuses Further Worship, and Has<br />
+Degraded Herself by Seeking Marriage With an<br />
+Alien Lover!</span><br />
+"<span class="smcap">What is Faith, if Deceit be Our Deity?</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"The sweet, the noble, the pure, the exalted worship of holy
+love, and of its hitherto most perfect symbol, the Goddess
+Lyone, is threatened with extinction, if it be not entirely
+destroyed. That sweet and perishable affection that fills
+the breasts of lovers, which has been for ages conserved,
+expanded, and wrought into an enduring fabric of religion in
+the sacred temple of Egyplosis, is about to utterly perish
+by a mad act of apostasy on the part of the deity herself.
+Whither now will tender and faithful hearts turn to find a
+refuge for all that makes the life glorious? Our ideal soul
+has sunk into degradation! She has flung herself from her
+proud and happy throne, wounding our faith with impious
+sacrilege!</p>
+
+<p>"Never before in the history of the world has the treachery
+of a goddess been manifest; we have had occasion hitherto
+only to mourn the apostasy of the worshipper. Now what
+avails our worship, if the object of our adoration fails us
+in the hour of need? Who is to console the bereavement of
+millions, when their consoler has hopelessly abandoned them?
+We say to both his majesty the king and government, follow
+the iconoclasts with the sword of justice; no punishment is
+too severe for such perfidious workers of iniquity! Death on
+the magnic scaffold is the penalty for the infatuation of
+the goddess and her atheistic lover! Wanting both men and
+money, the standard of revolt will be brought down by the
+first blow, and his majesty's troops can be relied upon to
+bring the rebels to swift justice. Let them be covered with
+eternal infamy who will support this fearful apostasy!" </p></div>
+
+<p>It became necessary for Lyone to publish the following manifesto<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[214]</a></span> to
+the nation, stating briefly the reasons that led to her renunciation
+of Harikar, to become the apostle of a new creed of one body and one
+soul:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p class="p6">"<span class="smcap">Lyone</span>, <i>who has been until now Supreme Goddess of the faith
+of Harikar, to her faithful people, greeting</i>:</p>
+
+<p>"I, who have been exalted to the high seat of honor on the
+throne of the gods, as the incarnation of the supreme soul,
+having received divine honors at your hands, desire at this
+crisis to make known to you the nature of the reform I seek
+to establish in the faith and worship of Atvatabar.</p>
+
+<p>"I do not seek to annihilate your faith, with all its tender
+and memorable qualities. I simply seek to reform such
+religion, making it more natural, more holy. All things that
+exist do change; if they do not rise to greater glory, they
+must sink to profounder shame. I, who have been your goddess
+during a long and blessed Nirvana, know how much you love
+me. I know that round my throne a tempest of passion has
+swept for years, filling me with its ecstasy. But I hasten
+to tell you that the delights of Egyplosis have been
+purchased at a fearful price. The sacrifices of its priests
+and priestesses have proved to me that even the retreat of
+ideal love can be as inexorably cruel as the outer world. So
+harassing have been these sacrifices that some could not
+bear their burden, and at this moment five hundred twin
+souls are confined in the dungeons of Egyplosis because they
+transgressed the vows of their novitiate. Of what avail are
+tender, chivalrous delights, if nature, if reason, be
+outraged in producing them?</p>
+
+<p>"Those who have remained steadfast to their vows, have grown
+sickly and morbid, feeding too long on fantastic ecstasies.
+Despondent and unreal in mind, delicate and nervous in body,
+they only appear rich and radiant in some brief ceremonial,
+while their every-day life is shuddering, tearful, and
+unstable, and utterly unfit to cope with the struggle of
+ordinary existence.</p>
+
+<p>"Therefore it is that one moment of pleasure is purchased by
+whole days of pain, and the oscillation between such
+extremes racks and ruins the dearest souls.</p>
+
+<p>"The motto of the new faith for Egyplosis, 'One Body and One
+Soul,' founded on the ordinary marriage rite, will restore
+to priest and priestess the steady and temperate possession
+of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[215]</a></span> their souls which gives society that virile force
+necessary to its very existence.</p>
+
+<p>"By the memory of our mutual love, I claim the support of my
+faithful priests and priestesses, worshippers and people, in
+the coming struggle. </p></div>
+
+<p class="p1">"<span class="smcap">Lyone.</span>"</p>
+
+<p>The manifesto of the goddess, published in all the papers of the
+kingdom, created a profound sensation. It was the first discovery to
+millions that their religion had been weighed and found wanting.
+Although many were aware of its excesses, they saw that, despite every
+regulation, the hornet was in possession of Hesperides, prepared to
+sting the hand that reached for the golden fruit.</p>
+
+<p>They learned that passion led to agonized exaltation, and that the
+moral fibres of the soul became paralyzed by fierce temptation and
+inordinate spiritual delights. They saw that restraint of rapture and
+a more natural basis for the fellowship of the sexes were reforms
+imperatively needed, if the religion of Atvatabar were to remain an
+elevating and purifying force. Their creed must be reformed, both in
+faith and practice, and who so capable of introducing such a reform as
+Lyone herself?</p>
+
+<p>The power of the deep-rooted conservatism of those who had nothing to
+gain by the change, the fear of the merchants that civil war meant
+their financial ruin, of a king jealous of his authority, and of the
+supremacy of existing laws, were the forces that would oppose the
+power of the goddess to carry out her reforms.</p>
+
+<p>I began to accuse myself of being entirely responsible for all this
+disturbance in a peaceful country. Had I never discovered Atvatabar,
+Lyone might never have desired to disturb the existing order of
+things, but would have remained an agonized and crowned goddess,
+wedded only to Harikar, in a temple of eternal celibacy.</p>
+
+<p>I knew, however, that all this was changed. I knew it by her sighs at
+our first meeting in the garden of Tanje, which, to remember, again
+and again made me thrill and shudder with joy.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[216]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XL" id="CHAPTER_XL"></a>CHAPTER XL.</h2>
+
+<h2>MY DEPARTURE FROM THE PALACE OF TANJE.</h2>
+
+
+<p>The week of grace allowed me to leave Atvatabar had already expired
+ere it had seriously occurred to me to actually leave the palace. The
+commotion in the nation consequent on the publication of the manifesto
+of king and goddess was so great, and the necessity of advising Lyone
+in the crisis so urgent, that I did not take leave of her until the
+time for my departure was exhausted. One thing that made me somewhat
+careless of arousing the royal danger was that the <i>Polar King</i> with
+her terrorite guns could command Kioram in spite of the royal fleet,
+although it numbered one hundred vessels. Fortunately the royal fleet
+had not yet learned the use of gunpowder, their guns being discharged
+with compressed air.</p>
+
+<p>A despatch from Captain Wallace stated that the ship was lying in the
+outer harbor, well equipped either for a long voyage or probable
+hostilities.</p>
+
+<p>With the view of allaying the excitement of the people, the king
+published a statement that the alien commander and his retinue had
+been ordered to leave forthwith. As for Lyone, the crisis had in no
+wise terrified her; she felt assured, however, that "the beginning of
+the end had come."</p>
+
+<p>"Are you not afraid of lifelong imprisonment or death in case your
+cause has no supporters?" I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"They can do me no harm," she replied, "for the entire priesthood of
+Egyplosis, the Art Palace of Gnaphisthasia, and thousands of
+sympathizers among the people themselves, will rally to my flag when
+the hour of danger comes."</p>
+
+<p>"You can depend on my operations at sea," said I, "in your behalf.
+Although I have but a single vessel, I will fight the entire fleet of
+Atvatabar. One shell of terrorite has more power than a thousand of
+their guns. I will destroy Kioram, if need be, to bring the king to
+submission."</p>
+
+<p>Before leaving Lyone, I drew up a plan of campaign for the coming
+struggle. Hushnoly, the high priest, although conservative as regards
+the affairs of the priesthood, was really a trusty friend of the
+goddess, and would assist the grand sorcerer in commanding a wing of
+the sacred army.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[217]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The liberated priests and priestesses would fight like lions for the
+cause for which they had been imprisoned. The palace of Gnaphisthasia
+would also furnish its battalions, led by Yermoul, lord of art. Then,
+among the fifty millions of people there were perhaps twenty millions
+in favor of reform, who would contribute a large army in support of
+Lyone.</p>
+
+<p>"It is by no means certain that a civil war will take place, even to
+secure the proposed reform," said Lyone. "The people may leave it to
+the Borodemy and the law to settle the matter."</p>
+
+<p>"And what would be the result in such a case?" I inquired.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, if I persisted in my demands, and no insurrection took place,"
+said Lyone, "the king might put me to death as the simplest way of
+ending the matter, and appoint another goddess in Egyplosis."</p>
+
+<p>"They will never hurt a hair of your head while I live: I swear it!"
+said I, with considerable emphasis.</p>
+
+<p>Lyone smiled at my enthusiasm, and refused to permit me to linger
+longer with her. We understood each other perfectly. I saw that when
+Lyone had once made up her mind on a certain course, there could be no
+retreat. She cared not any longer for a dead throne, for even the
+worship of the multitude could not feed her famished heart. She must
+have a beloved soul, consecrated to herself alone, between whom would
+vibrate the music of great thoughts and tender emotions.</p>
+
+<p>Lyone had declared war upon hopeless love. This was a necessary
+consequence of her altered position. Egyplosis, founded on a brilliant
+theory, had in practice become a prison, and she must open the doors
+to let its prisoners free.</p>
+
+<p>Just as I was leaving the palace I received a message from Hushnoly
+stating that the king had secretly ordered my arrest, and to be
+circumspect if I wished to reach Kioram free.</p>
+
+<p>Attended by a guard of bockhockids faithful to Lyone I set out for
+Kioram, taking a circuitous road to avoid Calnogor. I had been
+informed by Hushnoly that mobs of excited and bloodthirsty wayleals
+were flying about the metropolis, shouting "Death to the foreigners!"
+Mounted on a magnificent, majestic steed of great power, I led my
+little band at a furious pace. The bockhockids with each stride of the
+leg covered a distance of sixty feet, and could travel easily seventy
+miles an hour without appearing to run very quickly.</p>
+
+<p>About an hour's travelling brought us abreast of Calnogor, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[218]</a></span> soon
+afterward I heard shots fired and the noise of a conflict. Making an
+aerial <i>d&eacute;tour</i>, I discovered a combat between a dozen wayleals on the
+one side and a crowd of wayleals on the other. I noticed that as fast
+as the individuals of the larger body were fired at by a weapon in the
+hands of the smaller company they at once became lifeless, either
+falling to the ground or hanging limp in the air supported by their
+still vibrating wings. Being intensely curious to see the wayleals
+using revolvers, I ventured with my men nearer the <i>m&ecirc;l&eacute;e</i>, and coming
+near the flying warriors, I discovered to my surprise and horror that
+the smaller band of flying men was a company of my own sailors, led by
+Flathootly, fighting back to back a swarming mass of wayleals.</p>
+
+<p>The brave fellows fought like lions. No sooner did a wayleal approach
+a sailor with his deadly spear than he was shot. My men, fighting such
+fearful odds, for the enemy numbered several hundreds, could not long
+maintain so unequal a combat, notwithstanding the superiority of their
+weapons. It was only a question of time when their ammunition would be
+exhausted, and their spears would then be their only weapon, and I had
+evidently arrived in time to relieve them. Flathootly was shouting to
+the enemy, "Shtand back, or Oi'll shoot yez!" when I approached. The
+sailors cheered to see me flying to their relief, and at that moment
+the enemy, recognizing in me the very man they wanted, swarmed around
+to prevent my escape. My bockhockids drew their spears, and the
+sailors used their revolvers freely, and forming a flying ring,
+effectually protected me from the onslaught of the king's wayleals. I
+rallied my entire company, who received the rush of the wayleals with
+a discharge of revolvers and magnic spears, by means of which we
+killed several. Again and again the enemy fell upon us with renewed
+fury, shouting their war-cry of "Bhoolmakar!" They evidently meant to
+harass us until re-enforced by a detachment of the royal troops strong
+enough to capture us.</p>
+
+<p>A wayleal, in an unguarded moment, struck me on the shoulder,
+fortunately with only one point of his spear, drawing blood.
+Flathootly, who saw the blow, emptied his revolver in his breast, and
+he fell to earth a dead man. I was surprised that the enemy had not
+already annihilated my men, for, notwithstanding their fear of the
+sailors' revolvers, three of the sailors had been killed. It was
+terrible news to think of my brave fellows being slaughtered, but I
+was determined to have revenge.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[219]</a></span> I singled out Gossody, the leader of
+the wayleals, and rushing forward on my bockhockid, aimed at his head
+with my revolver, and instantly killed him. The death of their leader
+paralyzed the wayleals for a time. Before they could recover from
+their surprise, we killed a number of them. The enemy, once more
+rallying, made a fresh attack. They hoped to either kill or capture us
+by sheer force of superior numbers. We killed dozens of them, but at a
+fearful cost. Six of the bockhockids and three more of our own sailors
+bit the dust. It was quite evident that it would be only a question of
+time before we would be completely annihilated. I saw that it was
+necessary for us to reach Kioram without further fighting. We could
+not afford to risk the life of another man, even to gain a complete
+victory. I therefore ordered a flying retreat. The bockhockids were
+arranged in a circle, in the midst of which flew our sailors. We
+struck out for Kioram with the speed of the wind, pursued by an
+ever-increasing horde of wayleals thirsting for our blood. Such was
+our speed of motion that the thrusts of the enemy were ineffectual. It
+was a magnificent sight to see the giant machines, like flying cranes,
+devouring distance with their wings, each ridden by a winged warrior.
+Wearied and exhausted with our fight, and still longer period of
+flight, it was a welcome sight to see beneath us the city of Kioram,
+and the <i>Polar King</i> riding at anchor in the outer harbor, beyond
+which lay the royal navy of Atvatabar.</p>
+
+<p>When within sight of the city the enemy unexpectedly gave up the
+chase, and did not follow us further. We soon gained the ship, and in
+a short time our bockhockids decorated the masts and rigging. The
+story of my imprisonment and the massacre of the six sailors of the
+force sent to escort me to Kioram was soon told, and a more determined
+crew never trod the deck of ship of war. We would teach Bhoolmakar a
+lesson he would never forget!</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[220]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLI" id="CHAPTER_XLI"></a>CHAPTER XLI.</h2>
+
+<h2>WE ARE ATTACKED BY THE ENEMY.</h2>
+
+
+<p>Captain Wallace and the entire ship's company were overjoyed at my
+escape from the clutches of the enemy. The loss of six of our brave
+sailors was a terrible calamity in any case, but still more so in view
+of the impending attack by the enemy's navy.</p>
+
+<p>We had a good stock of gunpowder on board, and the ship's mechanics
+under Professor Rackiron began the construction of a series of machine
+guns, each weapon having one hundred rifled barrels arranged in
+circles around the central tube. Twenty-five of these guns were
+constructed. To each tube was fitted a magazine, with automatic
+attachment, so that one man could handle each weapon, that would throw
+five hundred balls with each charge of the magazine.</p>
+
+<p>The fletyemings of the royal navy possessed the advantage of numbers
+and ships, so that it was necessary for us to have the advantage in
+point of arms. Our monster terrorite gun and the terrorite battery
+gave us also an immense advantage over the gunpowder batteries of the
+enemy. Thus equipped, we were more than a match for any ten ships of
+the enemy. But when we saw one hundred vessels, the smallest of which
+was as large as our own, and many twice our size, bearing down upon us
+in battle array, we felt our chances of escape, not to mention
+victory, were hardly worth calculating.</p>
+
+<p>It was a splendid scene for a naval battle. The harbor of Kioram was a
+bay fully fifty miles in diameter, and here lay the royal fleet, whose
+hulls of gleaming gold shone on the blue water, while beyond rose the
+brilliant whiteness of the sculptured city.</p>
+
+<p>Captain Wallace had the ship ready for action. Every soul knew it was
+a life-and-death struggle. The sailors knew that success meant wealth
+beyond the dreams of avarice. For myself, the prize was something more
+worthy of our desperate courage&mdash;it was the priceless Lyone, possessed
+of a divine personality. Her life, like my own, hung in the balance.
+Should I win the battle, we would win each other. Should I fail to
+conquer, there was but one kind of defeat, and that was death.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[221]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Every man stood at his post in silence. Flathootly had command of a
+company of sailors. Professor Rackiron superintended our chief arm of
+defence, the terrorite guns&mdash;weapons, like our revolvers, fortunately
+unknown in Atvatabar. We had a large quantity of explosive terrorite
+on board, in the shape of shells for our guns. The shells contained
+each the equivalent of 100 pounds of terrorite&mdash;that is to say, they
+would each weigh 100 pounds on the outer earth, while the shells of
+the giant gun weighed 250 pounds each. The iron hurricane-deck, that
+did us such service in the polar climate, was put up overhead, as a
+protection from the onslaught of a boarding crew.</p>
+
+<p>The ships of the enemy advanced proudly in a double line of battle. On
+the peak of each floated the ensign of Atvatabar, a red sun surrounded
+by a wide circle of green, on a blue field.</p>
+
+<p>On the <i>Polar King</i> floated the flag of the goddess, a figure of the
+throne of the gods in gold, on a purple ground.</p>
+
+<p>When but a mile off, we could see the guns on every ship pointed and
+ready for the attack. The enemy suddenly broke into the form of a
+semi-circle. It was the design of Admiral Jolar to surround us and
+capture or destroy the <i>Polar King</i> by sheer force of numbers. We
+allowed the formation to proceed, until the entire navy of Atvatabar
+surrounded us in an enormous circle.</p>
+
+<p>Having executed this man&oelig;uvre, a boat put away from the admiral's
+ship and approached us. In a short time it reached our vessel, and the
+captain of the admiral's ship, with several officers, came on board.</p>
+
+<p>The captain demanded my unconditional surrender, "in the name of his
+majesty King Aldemegry Bhoolmakar of Atvatabar." I had been declared
+"an enemy of the country, a violator of its most sacred laws, a
+heretic in active destruction of its holy faith, and a fugitive from
+justice." The captain, as the emissary of the admiral, demanded the
+immediate surrender of myself and entire company.</p>
+
+<p>I asked my men if they were prepared to surrender themselves to the
+enemy. Their fearful shout of "Never!" disturbed the silence of the
+sea, and must have been heard by the distant enemy.</p>
+
+<p>"You hear the reply of my men," I said to the captain. "Tell your
+admiral that the commander of the <i>Polar King</i> declines to
+surrender."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[222]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Then," said the captain, "we will open fire upon you at once. We mean
+to have you dead or alive."</p>
+
+<p>"Give the admiral my compliments," said I, "and tell him to open the
+fight as soon as he likes."</p>
+
+<p>The captain and his staff rapidly disappeared, and we knew that the
+fight was certain. The officers had no sooner reached the admiral's
+ship than a report was heard; and a ball of metal crashed upon the
+hurricane-deck overhead, tearing a large hole in it, and then plunged
+into the sea. This was the signal of war. Before we could reply, the
+<i>Polar King</i> was the target of a general bombardment from all points
+of the compass. The balls that struck us were of different kinds of
+metal&mdash;lead, zinc, iron, and even gold. Although the range of their
+guns was accurate, yet, owing to the loss of gravity, the shots had
+but little effect on the plating of the vessel. Some of the sailors
+were severely wounded by being struck in the limbs with the large
+missiles hurled upon us, and I saw that if the enemy couldn't sink the
+<i>Polar King</i> they could at least kill us, which was even worse.</p>
+
+<p>I gave orders to Professor Rackiron to train the giant gun on the
+admiral's vessel. The discharge was accompanied by a slight flash,
+without smoke, and we saw the deadly messenger make its aerial flight
+straight toward the admiral's vessel. It entered the water right in
+front of the ship, and in another instant an extraordinary scene was
+witnessed. The ship, in company with a vast volume of water, sprang
+into the air to a great height, with an immense hole blown in the
+bottom of the hull. Falling again, she sank with all of the crew who
+did not manage to fly clear of her rigging. After the vessel
+disappeared, the last of the waterspout fell upon the boiling sea.</p>
+
+<p>It was a great surprise to the enemy to see their best ship destroyed
+at a single blow. The effect of our shot completely paralyzed the foe
+for the moment, for every vessel ceased firing at us. At first it was
+thought that the admiral had gone down with his vessel, and until a
+new admiral was in command the battle would be suspended.</p>
+
+<p>During the confusion we ran the <i>Polar King</i> through the breach made
+in the circle of the enemy, keeping his ships on one side of us. I
+determined to try the tactics of rapid movement, with the steady
+discharge of the terrorite gun, hoping to destroy a ship at every
+blow.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[223]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 450px;">
+<img src="images/image_222.jpg" width="450" height="654" alt="THE SHIP IN COMPANY WITH A VAST VOLUME OF WATER SPRANG
+INTO THE AIR TO A GREAT HEIGHT." title="" />
+<span class="caption">THE SHIP IN COMPANY WITH A VAST VOLUME OF WATER SPRANG
+INTO THE AIR TO A GREAT HEIGHT.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[225]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>It soon appeared that Admiral Jolar was still alive, he having escaped
+from his ship in mid air, with his staff and a number of fletyemings,
+by means of their electric wings. He had alighted on the ship of the
+rear admiral, where he hoisted the pennant of the admiral.</p>
+
+<p>The enemy was now thoroughly alive to the necessity of destroying or
+capturing us. I saw it was a mistake in allowing ourselves to be
+surrounded in a bay only fifty miles wide. To fight so many ships
+required ample sea-room, to avoid the possibility of being captured.</p>
+
+<p>The admiral sent ten ships to guard the mouth of the bay. It was a
+satisfaction to know that the torpedo was also unknown in Atvatabar,
+else our career would have been cut short. The <i>Polar King</i>, running
+twenty-five miles an hour, was followed by the enemy's fleet, which,
+although slower in movement, had the advantage in numbers and could
+possibly drive us upon the shore. After sailing as far east as we
+cared to go, the <i>Polar King</i> lay to, awaiting a renewal of the
+battle.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLII" id="CHAPTER_XLII"></a>CHAPTER XLII.</h2>
+
+<h2>THE BATTLE CONTINUED.</h2>
+
+
+<p>The royal fleet formed a wide semi-circle a mile off, and reopened its
+guns upon us. An unlucky shot struck one of our seamen and cut off his
+head. A perfect storm of shot rained upon us, so destroying our
+hurricane-deck that it was no longer of any protection to us. The
+enemy, encouraged by their success, closed in upon us. What we feared
+most of all was an attack by the wing-jackets, against whom neither
+our heavy guns nor superior speed would much avail.</p>
+
+<p>Professor Rackiron aimed the giant gun right in the centre of the
+enemy's line of battle. The shell struck the middle ship and exploded.
+All three vessels were scattered half a mile apart, and made complete
+wrecks. The <i>Polar King</i> darted forward to pass through the breach
+made in the enemy's line. We found this a matter of difficulty, for
+the enemy, seeing our move, closed the gap in front of us. The ships
+ahead would have barred the way, but to prevent their doing so, we
+threw a shell of terrorite over the bow of the ship into the water.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[226]</a></span>
+The sea rose on either side fully half a mile into the air, in solid
+pillars of water. In the confusion, we burst through the ranks of the
+enemy and were once more in open water.</p>
+
+<p>The admiral must have been exasperated at our escape. He followed us
+as before, in close rank, firing as he came. We now saw that he was
+about to change his mode of attack, for, hovering in the air, a
+rapidly-growing swarm of fletyemings were preparing to give us a
+hand-to-hand combat. Each vessel furnished a certain contingent to the
+attacking force, until the aerial battalion numbered about five
+thousand men. Our position seemed hopeless. What could less than
+eighty men do against a host of ten thousand? At close quarters our
+terrorite guns would be useless.</p>
+
+<p>With loud yells the fletyemings swept down upon us. Fearing our guns,
+they kept open rank and spread around the ship. Aiming at the densest
+part of the enemy, we destroyed about five hundred of them, but,
+quickly rallying again, they were upon us.</p>
+
+<p>We were ready for them. Our battery of twelve terrorite guns,
+including the magazine guns and musketry, rang out a terrible
+discharge. Under the withering fire and fearful explosions our foes
+fell back, and the sea around was strewn with dead and wounded bodies.
+Luckily for us, the only weapons possessed by the enemy were their
+magnic spears. The wing-jackets, rallying again, swarmed upon the
+rigging and covered the ship like a cloud of vultures. Ere we could
+again discharge our guns, several of our men were beaten down by sheer
+force of numbers. They made splendid use of their deadly spears. The
+ship's crew, re-attacked between the discharges of the guns, were many
+of them stunned and killed&mdash;the enemy after each discharge renewing
+the attack, being constantly re-enforced from the fleet. It was
+possible that we would be conquered by the fearful odds against us.</p>
+
+<p>Our ability to keep up a fire from our guns grew more and more
+difficult, owing to the incessant attacks of the enemy and the vast
+accumulation of their dead bodies on deck. The spears of our foes were
+more formidable weapons than we had supposed, for their touch was
+death. It was evident, notwithstanding the carnage, that our men would
+be obliged to surrender, owing to sheer exhaustion. As soon as a
+wing-jacket dropped from the ranks of the enemy another took his
+place;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[227]</a></span> our guns covered the sea with their dead bodies. The admiral
+was determined to conquer us at any cost, for he rightly surmised our
+victory would be a terrible blow to Atvatabar.</p>
+
+<p>To remove ourselves as far from the fleet as possible, I directed the
+ship at full speed ahead for the outer water. The ten ships that lay
+across the entrance to the harbor would have to be destroyed,
+notwithstanding the ceaseless attack of the fletyemings, who followed
+our every movement. We acted solely on the defensive, and managed,
+while repelling the most furious onslaughts, to throw overboard the
+dead bodies of the enemy.</p>
+
+<p>In the midst of constant fighting we managed to get the terrorite guns
+into position again, and when within a mile of the blockade fired the
+entire battery into it. Our shells sank every vessel they struck and
+broke several others from their moorings. Several more shots destroyed
+the remaining vessels, but only leaving their crews like a swarm of
+hornets free to attack us, This, however, was a minor matter compared
+with possessing the freedom of the outer sea. We rushed over the spot
+where the ships had been anchored, and soon left the pursuing fleet
+far behind.</p>
+
+<p>The wing-jackets, re-enforced by the crews of the blockading fleet,
+renewed their attack. Having learned the terrible power of our
+magazine guns, they contented themselves with making attacks on
+unguarded points. But fifty sailors were thus engaged, while the
+remainder of the ship's crew, including the officers, worked the guns
+with a will, The revolvers of the enemy disabled us considerably, but
+by firing our magazine guns in every direction we kept the ranks of
+the flying enemy pretty well thinned out.</p>
+
+<p>Our tactics were to keep the foe divided, if possible, and destroy the
+attacking force in detail. So long as the sailors could stand by their
+guns we were safe. We could outstrip the fleet in speed, thus reducing
+the chances of our immediate antagonists being re-enforced, for those
+who at first attacked us melted rapidly before the withering fire of
+our batteries.</p>
+
+<p>Finding themselves unable to secure the ship, even with such enormous
+sacrifice of life, the fletyemings suddenly retreated to the fleet,
+leaving us free to rest ourselves and look after the wounded.</p>
+
+<p>The terrible strain of the fight had utterly exhausted the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[228]</a></span> sailors,
+who had fought for fifty consecutive hours, without rest or
+refreshment. We tumbled overboard the dead bodies of the enemy who had
+fallen upon the deck, and buried eight of our own sailors who had been
+also killed. Several men were wounded about the head and neck with
+spear-thrusts that had failed to kill, but none seriously. Captain
+Wallace got an ugly wound in his neck, but it was not sufficient to
+keep him from duty. Flathootly, in slaying a fletyeming, received a
+wound in the hand that required the attention of the doctor. Professor
+Rackiron and Astronomer Starbottle passed through the fight unscathed,
+while Professor Goldrock suffered from a broken leg. Our helmets,
+provided originally for triumphal purposes, had proved of the greatest
+possible value, and saved many a life on board the <i>Polar King</i>.</p>
+
+<p>All this time we lay in full view of both the enemy's fleet and the
+entire kingdom. It seemed to us a strange thing that the admiral did
+not continue the fight with his reserve of fletyemings, who could
+easily outstrip the ship in their flight. He still possessed thousands
+of wing-jackets who had never been engaged in actual conflict, who
+might have relieved their exhausted comrades and in time have forced
+us to surrender.</p>
+
+<p>Was the supine conduct of the admiral caused by a panic at our power
+of havoc or, did he think my retreat to sea really an effort to escape
+the country?</p>
+
+<p>If his truce was caused by a belief that he was unable to cope with us
+he might have called the wayleals of the king to his assistance, but
+possibly the pride of the service prevented an alliance with the army
+for naval conquest, more particularly where the naval forces
+outnumbered the enemy two hundred to one.</p>
+
+<p>The scene of battle lay in full view of the entire nation, just as the
+kingdom lay in full view of ourselves. The nearer inhabitants could
+see the movements of the ships and the sailors, and the progress of
+the battle, so far, was known to every one. If the impression was
+favorable to the <i>Polar King</i>, doubtless there would be a
+demonstration in favor of the goddess; if not, it would be because the
+capture of our ship was considered certain.</p>
+
+<p>We lay to, at a distance of ten miles from the enemy's fleet, awaiting
+the renewal of hostilities.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[229]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLIII" id="CHAPTER_XLIII"></a>CHAPTER XLIII.</h2>
+
+<h2>VICTORY.</h2>
+
+
+<p>The enemy, finding we were not disposed to leave Atvatabar, began to
+move down upon us once more in battle array. The royal fleet consisted
+of seventy ships, the former thirty having been either sunk or
+disabled by us. As for ourselves, the hurricane-deck, masts and
+rigging had been hammered to pieces, but the hull was sound, the
+sailors enthusiastic, and the terrorite guns unharmed and our spears
+invincible.</p>
+
+<p>As the enemy approached us their ships began to move wider apart, with
+a view no doubt of circumnavigating us, and then close in upon the
+<i>Polar King</i> as before. Another squeeze of this kind might prove
+fatal, consequently our plan was to keep the enemy at a safe distance
+and on one side of us, and destroy his ships one by one with our guns
+while out of range of his fire, if possible.</p>
+
+<p>The admiral did us the favor of keeping around his ship half a dozen
+vessels by way of protection, and in this manner drew near. We were
+determined to bring the engagement to a close as soon as possible by
+striking the enemy a terrible blow. As soon as their vessels drew
+within range we struck the central group with a shell from the giant
+gun. The explosion worked a tremendous havoc among the congregated
+vessels, but without waiting to learn its full effect I ordered twenty
+shells to be fired into the central mass in quick succession.</p>
+
+<p>The result was appalling. The great want of gravity caused a vast
+irregular mountain of ships and water to be piled high in the air. We
+could hear the shrieks of drowning and dismembered fletyemings.
+Volumes of water shot to tremendous heights, became detached from the
+main mass, and floated in the air for a time in liquid globes.</p>
+
+<p>It was some time before the whirl of wrecked ships and angry water,
+filled with perhaps thousands of wing-jackets, subsided to the level
+of the ocean again. The ships sank beneath the water, on which floated
+hundreds of dead bodies. Those fletyemings who had escaped accident or
+death, headed by Admiral Jolar, who was still alive, formed themselves
+into a compact mass as they hovered over the scene of the disaster for
+a final<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[230]</a></span> hand-to-hand attack. Re-enforced by thousands of fletyemings
+from the then unharmed vessels, they approached with yells of
+"Bhoolmakar!" Finding their ships useless, they were determined to
+fling themselves in heroic sacrifice upon us in such numbers as to
+crush us.</p>
+
+<p>This was precisely their most dangerous form of attack, but we could
+only await their coming. As the living mass of men approached we
+saluted them with another discharge of shells, which exploded in the
+very heart of the unfortunate host. The carnage was dreadful, and
+hundreds of dead bodies fell into the sea. Admiral Jolar was killed,
+and without their leader the fletyemings became demoralized. Ere they
+could rally again, we were about to fire another round of shells, when
+Rear Admiral Gerolio, with a few fletyemings, left the main mass under
+a flag of truce and approached us.</p>
+
+<p>We were nothing loath to receive their message. Alighting on deck, the
+rear admiral informed me that owing to the loss of their admiral they
+were disposed to cease fighting provided I would leave the country
+forthwith.</p>
+
+<p>"Then," said I, "you wish to report that you defeated us by driving us
+from the country?"</p>
+
+<p>"I shall report that it was a mutual cessation of hostilities," said
+he.</p>
+
+<p>"It has cost us too much to give up the fight now," I said. "One of us
+must surrender."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you surrender, then, to His Majesty Aldemegry Bhoolmakar, King of
+Atvatabar?" eagerly inquired the rear admiral.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you surrender to Her Majesty Lyone, Queen of Atvatabar?" I
+replied.</p>
+
+<p>"We make no such surrender," said he, very much surprised to know that
+Lyone had been proclaimed queen. "If we cannot conquer you by force of
+arms we have ships enough to starve you into submission."</p>
+
+<p>"We care nothing for your ships," I replied, "we will destroy them one
+by one."</p>
+
+<p>"You may sink our ships," said the rear admiral, "but you will never
+conquer our fletyemings. We will begin a hand-to-hand conflict that
+will not cease until you and your entire crew are killed or are our
+prisoners."</p>
+
+<p>"The truce is at an end," I replied. "Return to your ships
+immediately."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[231]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The rear-admiral and his staff rose on their wings, and in a short
+time regained the cloud of naval warriors that hung in the air half a
+mile away.</p>
+
+<p>During the truce the ships of the enemy had drawn nearer and at once
+opened fire upon us.</p>
+
+<p>A well-aimed shot struck us under the water-line, penetrating our
+armor, and going clean through the side of the vessel. The central
+compartment rapidly filled with water. It was a fatal blow, for
+although the fore and aft compartments would keep the ship from
+sinking, yet it soon put out our boiler fires and left us a helpless
+hulk upon the water. The main deck, containing our terrorite guns, was
+on a level with the water, and a quantity of terrorite and gunpowder
+rendered useless. We were in a terrible position, for our small stock
+of available ammunition would be soon exhausted. The enemy soon
+discovered the effect of their blow, and closed around us like
+vultures hastening to their prey. We suffered a terrible bombardment,
+that killed more of our men, and finally the fletyemings closed around
+us in swarms to annihilate us.</p>
+
+<p>Resolved to sell our lives dearly, we received them with a discharge
+of our magazine guns. They quickly rallied and renewed their attack,
+but as long as our ammunition lasted were afraid to come to close
+quarters. At last we drew our revolvers and the hand-to-hand conflict
+began. Some of the sailors used their cutlasses with good effect. We
+had proof that the magnetic spears in close quarters were terrible
+weapons. As I saw my men falling around me I felt that the game was
+up. I thought of Lyone, and the thought would not let me surrender. I
+was already wounded in the shoulder and body, and stunned, while the
+enemy was swarming in greater numbers than ever. Must we surrender?</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly, at that moment, a shell came screaming through the air and
+exploded above the ship, right among the wayleals, killing twenty or
+more.</p>
+
+<p>Merciful heavens! Can the enemy, after all, fire shells at us? But why
+use them when the fight is practically over, and why fire them among
+his own wayleals? Another and another shell exploded among the
+wayleals around us, and finally a regular tornado of them exploded all
+around the <i>Polar King</i>, putting the enemy completely to flight.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as the air was cleared around us, I saw to my intense<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[232]</a></span>
+astonishment two friendly vessels, one of which bore the flag of the
+United States and the other the flag of England, firing shells at the
+enemy. I then knew the cause of our deliverance, and shouted for joy.
+My men&mdash;all that were alive&mdash;rose and cheered our comrades from the
+outer world! The excitement was overpowering! We could only, amid
+tears of joy, salute them and signal them to keep up the fight. We
+were saved!</p>
+
+<p>A well-aimed shot from the Englishman sank still another vessel. This
+fresh disaster received from the strangers seemed to completely
+unnerve the enemy, for, strange to say, every ship afloat struck its
+colors in surrender! It was well that the rear-admiral did so, for it
+would have been only a question of time until his whole fleet would
+have been destroyed.</p>
+
+<p>The fletyemings retreated to their ships, and in a short time the
+gold-plated ship of Rear-Admiral Gerolio, under the flag of truce,
+came alongside our vessel. The rear-admiral and his staff came on
+board, and delivered up his sword in token of surrender.</p>
+
+<p>"You surrender to me as admiral of Her Majesty Lyone, Queen of
+Atvatabar?" I said.</p>
+
+<p>"I do," said the rear-admiral, "and am willing to devote my services
+to the cause of her majesty."</p>
+
+<p>"Will your fletyemings as well as yourself swear allegiance to Queen
+Lyone and her cause?"</p>
+
+<p>"We swear it!" yelled the fletyemings of the rear-admiral's ship, and,
+at a signal from their leader, the flag of the new queen took the
+place of the flag of his deposed majesty, King Aldemegry Bhoolmakar.</p>
+
+<p>In a moment the entire fleet exhibited the flag of her holiness as the
+symbol of their new allegiance. This was a gratifying victory, as it
+procured for our cause more than sixty fully manned vessels of war and
+twenty-five thousand fletyemings.</p>
+
+<p>Lyone was mistress of the seas!</p>
+
+<p>"How came you to surrender at this juncture?" I inquired of the
+rear-admiral.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, sir," he replied, "we have already lost more men and ships than
+if we had been engaged with an enemy similarly armed and having as
+many vessels as ourselves, and when the strange vessels came to your
+assistance we saw it was useless to prolong the fight. We saw that
+with your terrible weapons you were invincible. You can destroy us and
+we cannot destroy<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[233]</a></span> you, therefore I concluded, as rear-admiral of the
+fleet and successor to Admiral Jolar, who was killed in battle, that
+it was throwing life away to continue the fight. I saw, furthermore,
+that with you as the champion of the goddess her cause would succeed,
+and I wanted to be the first to render homage to her majesty."</p>
+
+<p>"You have acted well," I replied, "and to reward your action, I now,
+in the name of her majesty, appoint and proclaim you rear-admiral of
+the fleet of Lyone, Queen of Atvatabar."</p>
+
+<p>This announcement was received with frantic cheers by the sailors of
+both vessels.</p>
+
+<p>Now that I was master of the sea, I intended to immediately extend my
+operations to the cause of the queen on land, and assuming the dignity
+of admiral, appointed Captain Wallace of the <i>Polar King</i> also
+rear-admiral of the fleet.</p>
+
+<p>This announcement was received with the firing of guns and tremendous
+cheers.</p>
+
+<p>"Rear-Admiral Wallace, Rear-Admiral Gerolio, and myself," I said to
+the sailors, "will determine the question of who will become the
+remaining high naval officers, and now that the battle is over, let us
+see that our wounded are properly cared for and all ships afloat put
+in proper repair."</p>
+
+<p>It was a glorious victory!</p>
+
+<p>All this time the two cruisers who so fortunately arrived in time to
+turn the tide of battle in our favor were rapidly approaching us,
+firing guns in honor of our victory. I acknowledged their arrival, as
+well as their valuable services, by having the royal fleet drawn up in
+double file, between which lay the <i>Polar King</i>, and ordering every
+vessel to give the strangers a salute of one hundred guns.</p>
+
+<p>My anxiety to learn more of our allies was so great that I despatched
+two of my most active wing-jackets to the strange vessels to procure
+accurate information concerning them and their object in visiting the
+interior world. The wayleals returned with the information that the
+vessels were the United States ship of discovery <i>Mercury</i>, commanded
+by Captain Adams, and the English ship of discovery <i>Aurora Borealis</i>,
+commanded by Sir John Forbes. Both were fitted out by their respective
+governments to explore the interior world consequent on the report of
+Boatswain Dunbar and Seaman Henderson, the only survivors of the
+twelve men who left the <i>Polar King</i> when in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[234]</a></span> the Polar Gulf. The
+respective commanders, officers and men of the incoming vessels were
+delighted to know that the <i>Polar King</i> was not only safe, but had
+discovered Atvatabar, and that its commander was at present king of
+the realm. This was the substance of the despatches sent me by Captain
+Adams and Commander Forbes, and addressed, "To Lexington White, Esq.,
+Commander of the <i>Polar King</i>." Captain Adams stated that Boatswain
+Dunbar was on board his vessel as pilot, accompanied by Seaman
+Henderson.</p>
+
+<p>Owing to the waterlogged condition of the <i>Polar King</i>, we could only
+wait the arrival of the vessels. When near at hand, a simultaneous
+salute of guns reverberated upon the sea, which must have been heard
+in all Atvatabar. Amid the smoke and noise of the roaring guns, steam
+launches had put off from the <i>Mercury</i> and <i>Aurora Borealis</i>, and in
+a very short time the commanders of both vessels stood upon the deck
+of the <i>Polar King</i>, accompanied by their respective officers. I
+embraced Captain Adams and Commander Forbes, and introduced the
+strangers to Rear-Admiral Wallace, Rear-Admiral Gerolio and staff, who
+were no less delighted and surprised than myself to receive visitors
+from the outer world. When the commanders reached the deck of the
+<i>Polar King</i> the cheers of the American and British sailors, mingled
+with the shouts of our fletyemings, made a soul-stirring scene.</p>
+
+<p>In fact, I was already beginning to think the outer world a more or
+less mythical place, and thought the doctrine of reincarnation had an
+illustration or proof in myself. After all, the outer world really
+existed, and, strange as it seemed to the Atvatabarese, there was
+really an outer sun and live beings like themselves, only physically
+more vigorous.</p>
+
+<p>It was necessary to set out at once for Kioram, as the <i>Polar King</i>
+was in a sinking condition.</p>
+
+<p>Every man had been either killed or wounded. We made a total loss of
+sixty men, including the ten who left the ship in the Polar Gulf, thus
+making the entire company of the <i>Polar King</i> but fifty souls.</p>
+
+<p>As for the ship, her plating was burst apart in many places and full
+of started bolts, caused by missiles of the enemy. The central
+compartment was filled with water, and the masts, sails, smoke-stack
+and hurricane-deck were practically destroyed.</p>
+
+<p>Many of the guns were not struck once in the entire fight, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[235]</a></span> were
+ready for active service any moment. The terrorite battery was
+partially submerged, but still in good condition.</p>
+
+<p>Captain Adams and Sir John Forbes both craved the honor of towing the
+<i>Polar King</i> into port, to which I willingly assented.</p>
+
+<p>As admiral, I at once assumed command of the fleet, which I ordered to
+make sail for Kioram without delay. The fleet fell behind in good
+order, and followed the <i>Polar King</i>, bearing the victorious flag of
+the queen.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLIV" id="CHAPTER_XLIV"></a>CHAPTER XLIV.</h2>
+
+<h2>THE NEWS OF ATVATABAR IN THE OUTER WORLD.</h2>
+
+
+<p>The kingdom of Atvatabar lay before us like a continent drawn upon a
+map, or, rather, upon the interior surface of a sphere or globe,
+everywhere visible to the naked eye. Its green forests, its impressive
+mountains, its rushing rivers, its white and many-colored cities, its
+wide-stretching shores, fringed with the foam of an azure sea, lay
+before the astonished eyes of our visitors.</p>
+
+<p>When within a few miles of the city, Governor Ladalmir, accompanied by
+Captains Pra and Nototherboc, advanced to meet us in a large magnetic
+yacht, bearing the flag of Lyone. The governor hastened to inform us
+that, in view of our victory, the city of Kioram had declared its
+allegiance to the cause of Lyone, and invited myself and officers of
+the fleet, as well as our distinguished allies from the outer world,
+to a banquet in the fortress of Kioram. This news gave me great
+satisfaction, as the city would be a splendid base of military
+operations. The officers and seamen of the <i>Mercury</i> and <i>Aurora
+Borealis</i> created quite as great a sensation in the streets of Kioram
+as did the victorious sailors of the <i>Polar King</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Landing on <i>terra firma</i>, Governor Ladalmir took the opportunity of
+showing our guests the beauty of his bockhockids, who formed a guard
+of honor to the fortress, where we were all royally received.</p>
+
+<p>The two captains, together with their officers and sailors, were
+astonished at the multitude of strange objects shown them. Captain
+Adams would not remain satisfied until he was accoutred with a dynamo
+and a pair of magnic wings, with which all the sailors and soldiers of
+Atvatabar were supplied as part<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[236]</a></span> of their uniform. He was shown how
+the battery of metals gave motion to the dynamo, which in turn acted
+on the steel levers connected with the ribs of the wings. Although the
+worthy captain was of considerable weight, yet his astonishment at
+being able to skim through the air like a swallow was great. No sooner
+did he touch the button than all his preconceived notions of
+locomotion were destroyed, and he gasped with fear at his own
+prodigious motion. The two facts of unfailing movement of wings and
+exceptional buoyancy of body soon made him a fearless rider of the
+wind. He alighted on the earth with the greatest enthusiasm over the
+success of his experiment.</p>
+
+<p>The magnic spear was another surprise for our guests. Sir John Forbes
+was astonished at my being able to fight the fletyemings so long,
+armed as they were by so potent a weapon of death. He would certainly
+recommend its use in the British army and navy on his return to
+England. Our allies were surprised at everything they saw,
+particularly at the rapid movements of the fletyemings or wing-jackets
+of the royal navy. They thought it an extraordinary thing the sailors
+should fly by magnic wings.</p>
+
+<p>After the banquet Captain Adams, who was a fine type of an American
+seaman, bold, alert and courageous, gave us an account of how both the
+United States and England came to send ships into the interior world.
+It appeared that the story of Boatswain Dunbar first published in the
+New York papers, that the <i>Polar King</i> had sailed down the Polar Gulf
+<i>en route</i> to an interior world, had created a tremendous sensation on
+the outer sphere, and all civilized nations immediately fitted out
+vessels of discovery to follow up the <i>Polar King</i> and make
+discoveries for the benefit of their respective governments. So far as
+any one knew, only two vessels had succeeded in entering the interior
+sphere.</p>
+
+<p>The recital of Captain Adams was frequently interrupted by Sir John
+Forbes, the British captain, a courageous officer, who possessed all
+the stately dignity of his race. He stated that since the discovery of
+America by Columbus no other event had awakened such unbounded
+enthusiasm as the discovery of a polar gulf and an interior world.</p>
+
+<p>"I am most of all interested at present," said I, "in the story of how
+Dunbar reached civilization again after parting with us.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[237]</a></span> I forgive
+you, Dunbar," I continued, addressing him, "for your mutinous conduct,
+and now let us hear the story of your adventures in the Polar Sea."</p>
+
+<p>"Admiral," said Dunbar, "had we known the terrible hardships we would
+have to endure in making our way home, chiefly on foot and at the same
+time burdened with the boat, we would never have left the ship. But
+you must thank me for the presence of the two ships that are here
+to-day and for the fame you already enjoy in the outer world."</p>
+
+<p>"It's something tremendous," said Captain Adams.</p>
+
+<p>"How did your geographers receive the news of the interior world?" I
+inquired of Sir John Forbes.</p>
+
+<p>"I need not say that the English geographers, in common with the
+entire nation, were greatly excited at the news. The Royal
+Geographical Society have already made you an honorary member, and it
+was actually proposed at one of the meetings that the government
+should proclaim a special holiday as a day of rejoicing for so great a
+discovery. This would certainly have been done but for the fact that
+the story rested entirely on the testimony of two sailors, and that
+any public rejoicing should be postponed until the story of the
+sailors would be verified by a special expedition sent from England.
+Of course, many people think that Dunbar's story is a fable or a
+hallucination that he himself believes in. On the other hand, hundreds
+of professional and amateur astronomers and geographers are proving by
+mathematics that the earth must be a hollow sphere, and the story of
+the open poles an entirely physical possibility."</p>
+
+<p>"The people of the United States," said Captain Adams, "are almost
+unanimous in the belief that the interior world is a veritable
+reality, and it only requires a return of my ship to convince every
+one that Dunbar's story falls very short of the glorious reality."</p>
+
+<p>"There is no man more famous to-day than Lexington White, Admiral of
+Atvatabar!" said Sir John Forbes.</p>
+
+<p>"I thank you, gentlemen, for your kind words," said I; "and now for
+Dunbar's story."</p>
+
+<p>"I think, admiral," said Captain Adams, "that if I were to read you
+the article containing Dunbar's story written by a special
+commissioner of the New York <i>Western Hemisphere</i>, who was the first
+to interview Dunbar at Sitka, on learning of his arrival there, it
+would be perhaps the best narration of his perilous<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[238]</a></span> adventures." As
+the captain spoke he drew a copy of the <i>Western Hemisphere</i> from his
+pocket.</p>
+
+<p>"By all means," I replied, "let us hear what the press said about
+Dunbar and his adventures."</p>
+
+<p>Thereupon Captain Adams read the New York <i>Western Hemisphere's</i>
+account of Dunbar's adventures, as follows:</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+"AN ASTOUNDING DISCOVERY!<br />
+<br />
+"<span class="smcap">The North Pole Found to Be an Enormous Cavern,<br />
+Leading to a Subterranean World!</span><br />
+<br />
+"<span class="smcap">The Earth Proves to Be a Hollow Shell One Thousand<br />
+Miles in Thickness, Lit by an Interior Sun!</span><br />
+<br />
+"<span class="smcap">Oceans and Continents, Islands and Cities Spread Upon<br />
+the Roof of the Interior Sphere!</span><br />
+<br />
+"<span class="smcap">Boatswain Dunbar and Seaman Henderson, of the 'Polar<br />
+King,' Having Deserted the Ship as She was Entering<br />
+Plutusia, Have Arrived at Sitka, Alaska,<br />
+in a Desperate Condition, and Have<br />
+Been Interviewed by a 'Western<br />
+Hemisphere' Commissioner.</span><br />
+<br />
+"<span class="smcap">They Say Lexington White, Commander of the 'Polar<br />
+King,' is at Present Sailing Underneath Canada<br />
+on an Interior Sea!</span><br />
+<br />
+"<span class="smcap">Tremendous Possibilities for Science and Commerce!</span><br />
+<br />
+"<span class="smcap">The Fabled Realms of Pluto no Longer a Myth!</span><br />
+<br />
+"<span class="smcap">Gold! Gold! Beyond the Dreams of Madness!</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>"The story of the discovery of Plutusia and the Polar Gulf, as told by
+the two shipwrecked survivors of the mutineers of the <i>Polar King</i> now
+at Sitka, Alaska, to the <i>Western Hemisphere</i>, will form an epoch in
+the history of the world. The renown of Columbus and Magellan is
+overshadowed by the glory of Lexington White, a citizen of the United
+States, who fitted out a ship for polar discovery, and, taking the
+command himself, has unravelled the mystery of the North Pole,
+discovered the Polar Gulf and the interior world.</p>
+
+<p>"Having penetrated the Polar Gulf about three hundred miles, and
+having discovered the interior sun, a fear seized on a number of the
+sailors, among whom were Boatswain Dunbar and his companion,
+Henderson, who are the only survivors of twelve men who left the
+<i>Polar King</i> in an open boat to return home<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[239]</a></span> again, and to whose safe
+arrival in Sitka the world is indebted for news of the important
+discoveries that had been made.</p>
+
+<p>"Dunbar and Henderson arrived in Sitka in a very forlorn condition,
+almost starved to death and utterly exhausted with their terrible
+journey homeward. They seem to forget largely the incidents of the
+journey outward in the <i>Polar King</i>, but have a very clear
+recollection of their own individual experiences in returning to
+civilization again. Dunbar, with his eleven associates and the
+Esquimaux dogs, were no sooner cut adrift from the <i>Polar King</i> than
+they began to realize their terrible position. Borne on the breast of
+the immense tidal wave that vibrated up and down the polar cavern,
+they were tossed helplessly to and fro, now flung almost out of its
+mouth and again sucked back into its midnight recesses. They floated
+for days in the gigantic tunnel of water that threatened to collapse
+any moment and overwhelm them. They would fain have returned to the
+ship, but the breeze blowing out of the cavern wafted them far from
+their comrades, and they therefore bent all their energies to the task
+of getting home again. The light of the polar summer that lit the
+mouth of the gulf was their guide that led them back to the old
+familiar world.</p>
+
+<p>"Happily for the adventurers, the direction of the wind continued
+favorable to their voyage. They made about a hundred miles a day, and
+in five days reached the edge of the outer ocean. Here again the
+grandeur of the scene appalled them. Let the reader imagine a little
+boat carrying twelve souls out of that monstrous cavern five hundred
+miles in diameter. Think of fifteen hundred miles of ocean forming the
+mouth of the world that shone in the Arctic sunlight like molten
+silver surrounding an abyss of darkness.</p>
+
+<p>"Dunbar and his companions had no sooner emerged from the gulf and
+seen once more the light of the sun&mdash;our own sun&mdash;than they wept for
+joy. But again, when they thought of the terrible barrier of ice they
+had to cross again they began to wish they had remained with the
+<i>Polar King</i>. Thus man fluctuates between this or that impulse, as he
+is moved.</p>
+
+<p>"'I say, captain,' said Walker, one of the men, 'don't you think it
+about as safe to go back and find the ship as to run the chance of
+being frozen to death on the ice?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Well,' said Dunbar, 'when we left the ship everybody knew it was for
+good. Our shipmates have chosen their course,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[240]</a></span> as we chose ours, and
+it's too late to go back now. As likely as not she may have struck a
+rock and has gone to the bottom by this time.'</p>
+
+<p>"As the boat cleared the cavern the sea fell down before them, until
+at noonday the sun itself was visible, a joyful proof that they had at
+last gained the normal surface of the earth again.</p>
+
+<p>"When three days out of the gulf, the weather grew suddenly colder,
+and the sky became obscured with clouds, completely hiding the sun
+from sight. A furious snow-storm overtook the voyagers, who, benumbed
+with cold, wished they were only back again under the hurricane-deck
+of the <i>Polar King</i>. Fortunately, the wind blew steadily toward the
+Arctic Circle, bringing them nearer home, but such was the anxiety and
+suffering caused by insufficient protection from the inclement climate
+that they cared not whither they drifted, so long as they could keep
+alive.</p>
+
+<p>"By the help of a little oil-stove they boiled their coffee under a
+sail, which, spread horizontally above them, in some measure kept the
+snow from burying them alive.</p>
+
+<p>"The storm spent its fury in twenty-four hours, and when the air grew
+clear again they were saluted with the sight of that enormous ridge of
+ice through which the <i>Polar King</i> found a passage a month before. The
+ice was heaped up with the purest snow in places twenty feet in depth.
+Thousands of icy peaks and pinnacles, as far as the eye could reach,
+pierced the sky. Under other conditions the sight would have been
+sublime, but to men frozen and famished with insufficient food it was
+a scene of terror.</p>
+
+<p>"The icy range was flanked by an ice-foot varying from thirty to sixty
+miles in width, and from four to fifty feet above the sea-level.</p>
+
+<p>"Here was the problem that confronted Dunbar&mdash;he had to travel over at
+least thirty miles of icy splinters over an ice-foot whose surface was
+broken into every possible contortion of crystallization. There were
+mounds, hummocks, caverns, crevasses, ridges and gulfs of the hardest
+and oldest ice. Then when this barrier was crossed there was the icy
+backbone of the whole system, five hundred to a thousand feet in
+height, to be crossed, as there was no lane or opening to be
+discovered through so formidable a range of ice mountains. Even if he
+succeeded in crossing the same, there would certainly be an
+ice-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[241]</a></span>foot of perhaps greater dimensions than the one before him to
+cross, and that might prove to be only a valley of ice leading to
+other and still more inaccessible cliffs to be surmounted.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 450px;">
+<img src="images/image_240.jpg" width="450" height="638" alt="WE SLOWLY DRAGGED OURSELVES ACROSS THE RANGE OF ICY
+PEAKS." title="" />
+<span class="caption">WE SLOWLY DRAGGED OURSELVES ACROSS THE RANGE OF ICY
+PEAKS.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[243]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"'This is no place to die in,' said Dunbar, 'and so, boys, we've got
+to hustle if we ever expect to get home.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Ay, ay, sir,' said his companions, but when they reached the ice
+they found that having remained in a cramped position for a month in
+the boat had incapacitated them for walking.</p>
+
+<p>"It was also found that Walker's feet and those of four other sailors
+had been frostbitten, and that they were totally unable to be of any
+service to themselves or the others.</p>
+
+<p>"The outlook was mournful in the extreme. The only thing that cheered
+them was the constant sunlight, and even that consolation would depart
+in another month, and if in the mean time they did not get away from
+the ice, hunger and the awful desolation of a polar winter would
+terminate their existence.</p>
+
+<p>"There was no chance of starting on their journey until they got
+accustomed to the use of their limbs, and so they built a hut of
+blocks of ice, which were solidly frozen together by a few buckets
+full of sea water thrown over them.</p>
+
+<p>"The dogs were glad to get on the ice again, and scampered about
+totally oblivious of the fact that the supply of pork was getting very
+low, and unless they got some fresh meat very soon they would be
+obliged to feed on each other.</p>
+
+<p>"They remained a fortnight in their Arctic abode exercising themselves
+by cutting a passage in the ice. During this time four of the sailors
+died. Finally the remainder, packing everything into the boat, yoked
+the dogs thereto, and started in anything but hopeful spirits on their
+arduous journey.</p>
+
+<p>"It was found that Walker had to be carried along, but he did not long
+continue a burden to his associates, for on the fourth day of the
+march he died, and was buried in the snow. It was a toilsome journey.
+Almost every foot of the way required to be hewn out of ice as hard as
+adamant.</p>
+
+<p>"The dogs suffered greatly from insufficient food and tireless
+exertion. Several died from complete exhaustion, and were greedily
+devoured by their fellows.</p>
+
+<p>"After desperate exertions, Dunbar and his company, now reduced to
+seven souls, gained the crest of the ice range and had the
+satisfaction of seeing open water not twenty miles away. It took some
+time to discover the best route for a descent,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[244]</a></span> but at last they
+reached the level of the ice-foot beyond, and struck for open sea. A
+fortunate capture of several seals re-enforced their almost exhausted
+supply of provisions.</p>
+
+<p>"Dunbar cared nothing about latitude or longitude or scientific
+information in such a desperate fight for life. It was a joyful moment
+when he and his companions launched their boat safe into the sea again
+after the incredible toil of dragging it forty miles across the
+splintered ice peaks and the terrible ice-foot north and south of the
+paleocrystic mountains.</p>
+
+<p>"Dunbar hoisted his sail, abandoning the few dogs who yet remained
+alive, and with his unhappy companions steered for Behring Strait,
+first making for the coast of Alaska that faces the desolation of the
+Arctic seas.</p>
+
+<p>"It would be impossible to describe the horrors of that lonely voyage.
+The terrible struggle with five hundred miles of ice-floes, with
+snow-storms that piled the snow high upon the voyagers, and the
+ferocious cold, proved too much for five of the seven sailors, and one
+by one the poor fellows died, and were thrown overboard.</p>
+
+<p>"Only two men&mdash;Dunbar and a sailor named Henderson&mdash;emerged from the
+Arctic Sea, arriving in six months from the time they left the ship,
+in Sitka, Alaska."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLV" id="CHAPTER_XLV"></a>CHAPTER XLV.</h2>
+
+<h2>THE VOYAGES OF THE "MERCURY" AND THE "AURORA BOREALIS."</h2>
+
+
+<p>"It was a most fortunate thing that any of the men could live until
+they reached civilization," I said, when Captain Adams had finished
+his reading of Dunbar's story in the paper.</p>
+
+<p>"It was solely due to that fact that we are here at present, admiral,"
+replied Captain Adams. "No sooner was the story published than the
+greatest possible excitement arose both in America and Europe. The
+United States and Britain felt chagrined that a private citizen had
+been able to achieve what the greatest nations on earth, with
+unlimited men and money, were unable to accomplish. To satisfy popular
+clamor the United States, Great Britain, Russia, France, Germany,
+Italy and Spain each fitted out separate expeditions to follow in the
+wake of the <i>Polar King</i>. These were manned with former Arctic
+navigators,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[245]</a></span> and were in each case commissioned and fitted out
+regardless of cost to explore the interior world and lay the
+foundation of future conquest and commerce. The Secretary of the
+United States Navy, at Washington, sent for Dunbar and Henderson, and
+forthwith employed both as pilots for the <i>Mercury</i> expedition under
+my command."</p>
+
+<p>"How did the English people receive the news?" I inquired of Sir John
+Forbes.</p>
+
+<p>"It is useless to say, admiral," he replied, "that the story of the
+<i>Polar King</i> was the sole topic of conversation for weeks throughout
+the United Kingdom. The Royal Geographical Society, the Royal
+Astronomical Society, and the Travellers' Club, all sent special
+deputations to the government, asking for the fitting out of a ship to
+undertake British research, which might possibly accompany the United
+States vessel having the pilots Dunbar and Henderson on board, and
+thus partake of the advantage these guides would naturally give the
+United States vessel.</p>
+
+<p>"The British Government," continued Sir John, with a smile in his eye,
+"saw at once that British interests in the interior world must be
+protected at all hazards, and gave the Lords of the Admiralty full
+power to act.</p>
+
+<p>"My fame as an Arctic navigator and as the discoverer of the bones of
+the great Irish Arctic hero, Montgomery, and those of his men, in a
+cabin on Prince Albert's Island, caused the Lords of the Admiralty to
+place at my command the frigate <i>Aurora Borealis</i>, manned by
+experienced Arctic sailors.</p>
+
+<p>"Negotiations were opened with the United States Government, whereby
+the <i>Aurora Borealis</i>, by proceeding up the northwest passage along
+the route followed by the Montgomery expedition, might meet the
+<i>Mercury</i>, who would enter the Arctic Sea by way of Behring Strait. It
+was arranged, as Captain Adams is aware, that each vessel should
+proceed direct to latitude 75 N., longitude 140 W., and there await
+the other vessel."</p>
+
+<p>"You are right," said Captain Adams, "for my instructions were of the
+same nature. The <i>Mercury</i> was fitted out in Brooklyn Navy Yard, and
+as soon as her complement of two hundred and fifty officers,
+explorers, scientists, press correspondents and seamen was enrolled,
+and her stores fully shipped, I was instructed to proceed by way of
+the Nicaragua Canal to San Francisco for further orders and stores.
+Leaving San Francisco I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[246]</a></span> next touched Victoria, B.C., and finally at
+Sitka, Alaska, for final orders. The entire winter had been consumed
+in getting ready, and by May 1 I cleared for Behring Strait, steering
+straight for the rendezvous in the Arctic Sea where we had arranged to
+meet by June 1. I was first on the spot, and had the good fortune of
+only having to wait a week before we sighted the <i>Aurora Borealis</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"And then," said Sir John, "began the real work of the voyage. All had
+been plain sailing so far, but it was clearly impossible for any
+vessel to reach the Polar Gulf unless a lead was discovered in the ice
+barrier similar to that so fortunately discovered by the <i>Polar King</i>.
+It was here that the services of Dunbar as pilot came into
+requisition. Captain Adams had got him to mark on the chart as near as
+possible the location of the chasm in the ice mountain discovered by
+the <i>Polar King</i>. That once rediscovered, we could succeed in
+following the <i>Polar King</i>; but should we fail in our quest, all
+further progress would be impossible. I often said to Captain Adams
+that I considered Lexington White as one of the most fortunate of men.
+It was nothing short of the miraculous that you should discover a
+newly-rent passage through the barrier of ice that for ages has
+guarded the sublime secret of the pole. Only once in all the eternity
+of the past did the gate of that thrilling Arctic zone open itself to
+humanity, and by a miracle of fortune you were on the spot at the
+right moment, ready to enter that open door. That fact alone emblazons
+you with glory. But to my story. How were we to discover the same or a
+similar lead to the north? On the mere chance of discovering such a
+passage both vessels had encountered the dangers and terrors of the
+Arctic desolations. Dunbar located the chasm in latitude 78.6 N.,
+longitude 125 W., and thither we sailed.</p>
+
+<p>"As for the expeditions sent out by the other governments of Europe,
+jealous of American prowess, we have not seen or heard of any of them.
+Their vessels followed the direction of the Gulf Stream, and the
+instructions given their commanders were to first make Spitzbergen,
+and thence proceed due north, and if possible find there a passage to
+the pole. For ourselves, I will let Captain Adams tell how we got
+through the ice barrier."</p>
+
+<p>"That," said Captain Adams, "is a simple enough story, but the actual
+experiences were not so simple as the recital of them.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[247]</a></span> We found that
+Dunbar's estimate of the location of the passage was within fifty
+miles of the exact spot. We found the passage after some days'
+searching, about fifty miles beyond Dunbar's location on the chart.
+The veritable passage was there, but, as was expected, instead of open
+water there was a mass of solid ice of unknown thickness, but
+fortunately having a smooth surface.</p>
+
+<p>"There was but one thing to do to overcome such an obstacle, and that
+was to haul the ships on runners on top of the ice, right through the
+gap formed by nature in the icy barrier. Our labors in making such a
+passage were simply superhuman. Both crews were employed for more than
+a week in sloping the ice-foot up which the vessels were to be
+dragged. Then an enormous cradle had to be constructed of massive
+beams of wood securely bolted together, large and strong enough to
+carry either vessel. There was fortunately lumber enough for this
+purpose, as among the stores of both ships timbers for building Arctic
+huts had been included. The cradle was first secured to the hull of
+the <i>Mercury</i>, and the crews of both vessels took hold of the ropes
+made fast to her decks. She was drawn close to the ice, but utterly
+refused to leave the water. We tried fixing anchors in the ice ahead,
+to which were attached a system of blocks and ropes. These
+supplemented the strength of the men by the hoisting engine, but even
+this was of no avail. We next rigged up a large drum, vertically over
+the shaft of the propeller, and connected it therewith by means of
+right-angled cog-wheels. To this was fastened an immense cable, to the
+other end of which were attached the ropes rove through blocks held
+firmly a quarter-of a mile ahead by thirty anchors imbedded in the
+ice. We started the engines, and, sure enough, the bows of the vessel
+began to rise out of the water. The <i>Mercury</i> would have been lifted
+high and dry on the ice were it not that at that moment several of the
+smaller cables in the blocks snapped asunder, and thus our third
+effort failed. At this juncture, Sir John Forbes proposed to plant a
+few more anchors in the ice, and through the additional blocks work a
+cable leading from the bows of the <i>Mercury</i> to the stern of the
+<i>Aurora Borealis</i>. This being done, he would steam ahead off the ice
+and add the power of his ship to that of the <i>Mercury's</i> engine, and
+thus relieve the strain on the <i>Mercury's</i> cables. It was a capital
+idea, and we immediately put it into execution. The result was a
+perfect success. The combined energies of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[248]</a></span> the English ship and her
+crew, together with those of our own vessel and men, drew the
+<i>Mercury</i> up the slide of ice, and placed her erect and dry upon the
+level surface of the lead. It was now comparatively easy work to draw
+the ship along the ice. Her own engines were equal to the task; but it
+was impossible for the <i>Mercury</i> to go ahead, as, without her
+assistance, the <i>Aurora Borealis</i> would be unable to leave the water.
+Then, again, there was only the material for but one cradle for both
+ships. The difficulty was solved by cutting away one-fourth of the
+cradle from beneath both bow and stern of the <i>Mercury</i>, and, joining
+these parts, we furnished the <i>Aurora Borealis</i> with a sledge as large
+as that of our own ship, and strong enough to keep her in an upright
+position while being dragged over the ice. After infinite trouble, and
+in obedience to the aggregated energies of the engines of both ships
+and the hauling of the combined crews, the English ship was drawn up
+upon the ice beside the American vessel. This double feat of skill and
+determination was duly saluted by a roar of guns and the cheers of the
+sailors.</p>
+
+<p>"The ice proved so smooth and hard that the crews of each ship,
+assisted by the engines, were able to work their respective vessels in
+good order through the entire chasm, a distance of seventy miles.
+Arriving at the open floe beyond the northern ice-foot, we bevelled
+off the ice as before, and the ships were finally launched upon the
+polar sea."</p>
+
+<p>I congratulated Sir John Forbes and Captain Adams on their successful
+man&oelig;uvre, which resulted in getting their ships across the ice. It
+was a feat of engineering skill rarely possible of accomplishment, and
+in their case nature had seconded their efforts by providing a smooth
+and solid floor to operate upon, otherwise all human endeavor would
+have been fruitless.</p>
+
+<p>"And now, gentlemen," I said, "what do you say surprised you most in
+your voyage hither from the ice barrier?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think, admiral," said Captain Adams, "that the grandest sight on
+earth is the full view of the Polar Gulf, with its suspended abyss of
+waters surrounding the ship. The colossal flux and reflux of waters
+produces a feeling of terrible sublimity. It is an awful scene."</p>
+
+<p>"But that scene," said Sir John Forbes, "belongs to the outer world.
+This aspect of the interior world of Plutusia is ten<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[249]</a></span> thousand times
+more magnificent. What grander glory ever fell on human eyes than this
+Colosseum of oceans, continents, kingdoms, islands and seas spread
+upon the vast interior vault surrounding us, and all lit up by the
+internal sun! The human imagination never conceived anything equal to
+this. Here nature surpasses the wildest dreams of fancy. We are
+astounded with the splendor of such a world!"</p>
+
+<p>"You are right, Sir John," said Captain Adams; "this interior sphere
+surpasses anything hitherto discovered in heaven or earth. And then to
+think of its enormous riches! The royal fleet of Atvatabar, plated
+with solid gold, proves the extraordinary profusion of the precious
+metal."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLVI" id="CHAPTER_XLVI"></a>CHAPTER XLVI.</h2>
+
+<h2>THE ARREST OF LYONE.</h2>
+
+
+<p>While the entertainment was at its height, we were surprised by one of
+the guards informing us that a messenger had arrived at the fortress
+from Egyplosis, bearing for me a despatch of the utmost importance
+from the high priest Hushnoly.</p>
+
+<p>We were all excitement at the news, and on opening the despatch, I
+read as follows:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"<i>To His Excellency</i> <span class="smcap">Lexington White</span>, <i>Lord Admiral of
+Atvatabar, Greeting</i>:</p>
+
+<p>"Your glorious victory over the royal fleet has awakened
+popular excitement in favor of deposing His Majesty King
+Aldemegry Bhoolmakar, and establishing our late beloved
+goddess Lyone on the throne, as queen of Atvatabar.
+Egyplosis has openly espoused the cause of Lyone, and the
+sacred college of priests and priestesses have taken up arms
+in favor of the goddess. His majesty, being resolved to
+stamp out rebellion at any cost, has caused the arrest of
+Lyone at her palace, Tanje, and has confined her in the
+fortress Calnogor as hostage for the good behavior of the
+people. He has threatened to put Lyone to death in case her
+followers attempt any hostile demonstrations against the
+king's authority. We of Egyplosis are committed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[250]</a></span> to the
+cause of Her Majesty Lyone, Queen of Atvatabar! </p></div>
+
+<p class="p1"><span class="smcap">Hushnoly.</span>"</p>
+
+<p>This was most alarming news! While we had been feasting in inglorious
+ease our queen had been arrested and imprisoned! The time for action
+had come.</p>
+
+<p>Ere we could deliberate on the best course to pursue, a second message
+from Hushnoly arrived, stating that the king, hearing of the outbreak
+in Egyplosis, had ordered Coltonobory, the commander-in-chief, to
+proceed with his wayleals to Egyplosis, to capture Hushnoly and
+disband his followers. This being an open declaration of war, had
+precipitated a civil struggle, and the armies both of the king and
+queen were being recruited with great excitement on both sides. As for
+Kioram, that city had declared for our cause, and the governor was
+overjoyed to know that the victory of the <i>Polar King</i> had resulted in
+the entire fleet espousing the cause of Lyone.</p>
+
+<p>I questioned Governor Ladalmir on the strength and equipment of both
+the king's forces and those willing to support Lyone, and the
+probabilities of our cause being successful.</p>
+
+<p>He informed me that the king already commanded an army of half a
+million men, composed two-thirds of wayleals and one-third
+bockhockids, or flying cavalry, armed with swords, shields and spears
+of deadly power. The adherents of Lyone numbered already one hundred
+thousand men, who had also proclaimed her queen of Atvatabar,
+including five thousand amazons from Egyplosis, who would fight for
+their late goddess to the death, all similarly armed.</p>
+
+<p>"The future is doubtful," said the governor; "but with your aid we may
+well hope for success. I congratulate you on your splendid victory,
+which is already known throughout the kingdom, and will increase our
+forces to two hundred and fifty thousand men. It will cheer the heart
+of our late goddess to know that she also already possesses a powerful
+fleet."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you consider the queen in any immediate danger at the hands of the
+king or government?" I inquired.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said the governor, "at the present stage of affairs it is
+difficult to think that either king or Borodemy would dare to execute
+her majesty, even although it might be according to law. Yet, if
+alarmed at the partial destruction and defection of the fleet and the
+growing power of the queen's followers, the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[251]</a></span> bloodthirsty king and
+frightened government might possibly execute her, especially if they
+saw no hope for themselves in the coming struggle."</p>
+
+<p>"Then," said I, "whether we fight or not, our queen is in very serious
+danger of death?"</p>
+
+<p>"That is what I most fear," said the governor. "As soon as I heard of
+the imprisonment of her majesty I called a review of my garrison of
+wayleals and bockhockids, and asked them if they would espouse the
+cause of the queen, and to a man they swore allegiance thereto. I
+conceive the only way to secure respect for the queen is to make her
+followers as formidable as possible."</p>
+
+<p>"Action," I added, "is imperative. We must strike the king's army a
+fearful blow, to impress his majesty with respect for our power. The
+queen must either be released by the king or we will release her
+ourselves. There must be an immediate mobilization of the queen's
+army, and preceding that, a council of war in the fortress of Kioram
+to appoint a commander-in-chief and generals of division. Governor
+Ladalmir," I continued, "I thank you in the name of Lyone for your
+allegiance. It is very gratifying to the fleet to know that it is
+spared the necessity of bombarding your beautiful city."</p>
+
+<p>"We have pledged ourselves to support our queen, to whom be freedom
+and victory!" said the governor.</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, ay!" said the captains, Pra and Nototherboc.</p>
+
+<p>"The fleet, of course, will assist in defending the city," I said;
+"and in addition to this duty will furnish a brigade of thirty
+thousand wing-jackets for active service in the interior. Now, in view
+of this, how many men can you spare from the garrison?"</p>
+
+<p>The governor replied that he could spare ten thousand wayleals, under
+the command of Pra, and five thousand bockhockids, under command of
+Nototherboc.</p>
+
+<p>I ordered Astronomer Starbottle, with Flathootly as escort, to depart
+at once for Egyplosis, and summon to Kioram High Priest Hushnoly and
+the high priestess, Grand Sorcerer Charka and the grand sorceress,
+together with such a retinue of trusty officers as would be worthy of
+being made commanders in the coming struggle. After summoning
+Egyplosis, they were both to go to Gnaphisthasia and summon Yermoul,
+lord of art, and his trusty captains, also to Kioram, and return
+hither without<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[252]</a></span> delay. "Choose each of you," I said, "a pair of the
+strongest wings, and arm yourselves with revolvers. You must at all
+hazards evade the enemy and carry out your mission with the greatest
+possible speed."</p>
+
+<p>Astronomer Starbottle and Flathootly were enthusiastic at being
+allowed to undertake so adventurous a journey. They immediately began
+to prepare for, an early departure.</p>
+
+<p>"Might I inquire," said the governor, "what you mean by revolvers?"</p>
+
+<p>We showed him the weapons by which we had resisted the onslaught of
+myriads of wing-jackets, to the fatal force of which thousands had
+succumbed. He was astonished at the invention, and said if the army of
+the queen were equipped with so formidable a weapon, King Aldemegry
+Bhoolmakar would very easily be driven from his throne, and Lyone
+would be truly Queen of Atvatabar.</p>
+
+<p>It was decided that the fortress of Kioram should be immediately
+turned into an arsenal for the manufacture of spears and revolvers,
+for the use of the wayleals and bockhockids of Lyone's army. The mines
+where the metal terrelium was worked and the factories where aquelium
+was elaborated from the water of the ocean were to be seized, and vast
+quantities of these metals sent to Kioram for the use of the entire
+army, to furnish a current for the deadly spears, to be made under the
+superintendence of Professor Rackiron.</p>
+
+<p>Astronomer Starbottle and the redoubtable Flathootly were equipped
+with splendid sets of wings worked by cells of double power. Their
+magnetic spears were far-reaching and carried a current of tremendous
+intensity, contact with which was immediate death.</p>
+
+<p>"Be jabers," said Flathootly, "the fellow that touches us will foind
+us hornets of the first magnitude. We'll give him a touch of the
+cholera morbus."</p>
+
+<p>"I entrust the despatches in your hand, astronomer," said I, "and with
+Flathootly as escort and body-guard, I hope you will both execute your
+mission and return safe to Kioram."</p>
+
+<p>"Caution and despatch will be our watchwords," said the astronomer,
+"and you are already assured of our fidelity."</p>
+
+<p>"In addition to your duty as couriers to Egyplosis and Gnaphisthasia I
+desire you," I said, "to explore the upper atmosphere, with a view of
+discovering at what height centrifugal<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[253]</a></span> gravity ceases to operate on
+bodies, and, if possible, where gravity toward Swang begins to exert
+its force. I wish to choose an aerial battle-field, where there is no
+gravity, so that our wayleals may have absolute freedom of action."</p>
+
+<p>"We have discovered a perceptible movement toward the sun at a height
+of fifty miles," said the governor; "at that height our wayleals cease
+to revolve with the earth, and therefore have no weight&mdash;but your
+astronomer can easily verify this fact by his own experience."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think our couriers will receive opposition from the king's
+wayleals?" I inquired.</p>
+
+<p>"I would suggest their being disguised as the king's wayleals as a
+means of safety. If they travel as wayleals of her majesty they are
+liable to be captured."</p>
+
+<p>The astronomer and Flathootly made the necessary disguise in their
+attire as a measure of safety, each donning a leathern cuirass, highly
+decorated with white-metal helmet and boots, and packing a sufficient
+quantity of food in a portable trunk to supply them during the
+journey. They bade us good-by, soaring from the deck into the gulfs of
+air above Atvatabar, and directed their flight to Egyplosis.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLVII" id="CHAPTER_XLVII"></a>CHAPTER XLVII.</h2>
+
+<h2>THE COUNCIL OF WAR IN KIORAM.</h2>
+
+
+<p>The sensation produced by the defeat of the royal fleet, the
+destruction of forty of the ships, and the defection of the remaining
+sixty vessels to the cause of Queen Lyone, shook the nation from its
+centre to circumference. It appeared incredible that one ship could
+destroy so many well-armed vessels. Our terrorite guns were considered
+demon powers, and such was the consternation produced by their
+terrible energy that, were it possible for us to use such weapons in
+aerial battle, their appearance would alone cause the royal army to
+surrender.</p>
+
+<p>Coltonobory was confident he could soon suppress the insurrection by
+virtue of his superior force.</p>
+
+<p>As for his majesty, he was beside himself with rage at the loss of his
+fleet. Had Admiral Jolar been alive he would have answered for his
+defeat with his life. The following royal proclamation testified to
+the implacable wrath of the king:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[254]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"<i>His Majesty</i> <span class="smcap">King Aldemegry Bhoolmakar</span> <i>of Atvatabar to
+his faithful people</i>:</p>
+
+<p>"Know ye, my people of Atvatabar, that the desperate
+barbarian who commands the alien ship, the <i>Polar King</i>, has
+not only alienated the affections of the Goddess Lyone,
+thereby insulting our holy religion and our laws, but has
+destroyed forty of our ships of war, and induced the
+remainder of our fleet to follow his fortunes, thereby
+giving him power to destroy our commerce, blockade our
+harbors, and burn our cities. His success has encouraged
+many who have hitherto been our faithful subjects to flock
+to his standard, and the terrors of treason and insurrection
+devastate our beloved country.</p>
+
+<p>"What will be thought of Lyone, who was lately our beloved
+and adored goddess, who has treasonably allowed herself to
+be proclaimed Queen of Atvatabar, and who is the prime cause
+of all this deluge of crime, treason and apostasy by
+encouraging a heretical affection for a desperate criminal,
+and who dares to abuse her holy office by seeking matrimony
+with a murderer? It would be impossible for this cowardly
+and desperate assassin to visit our country with such
+destruction were it not that she who was our goddess
+sympathizes with his inhuman and infernal work. She has only
+to speak the word that she has no sympathy with such a
+monster, and his power will be paralyzed in a moment, and
+peace restored to our unhappy country. Will it be believed
+that she absolutely refuses to disown such a viper, and even
+boasts of his work, and that he will shortly set her free?</p>
+
+<p>"Our prisoner, she has disregarded our clemency in holding
+back the sword of justice that hangs over her head. Her life
+is already forfeited by her own actions. The monster of
+insurrection and apostasy must be struck in its most vital
+part. Orders have been given for a full conclave of the
+Borodemy, to put our fallen goddess on trial forthwith, and
+if found guilty to be immediately executed.</p>
+
+<p>"The commander-in-chief of the army, Coltonobory, has orders
+to attack, pursue and put to death without mercy all rebels
+in arms, and arrest all sympathizers with the rebel cause.</p>
+
+<p>"Given in our palace at Calnogor in the twenty-sixth year of
+our reign. </p></div>
+
+<p class="p4">"<span class="smcap">Aldemegry Bhoolmakar</span>, <i>King of Atvatabar</i>." </p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[255]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>This proclamation revealed the desperate crisis matters had reached.
+The bloodthirsty king had Lyone in his power, and unless a miracle
+happened nothing could save her. The fact that the flag of the queen
+floated above Kioram must have added enormously to the wrath of the
+king, and the supreme question with us then was how to save our queen
+from a cruel fate.</p>
+
+<p>While discussing this important subject with Governor Ladalmir and my
+own retinue, we were agreeably surprised to learn of the arrival of
+the high priest and priestess and the grand sorcerer and sorceress
+from Egyplosis. Astronomer Starbottle and Flathootly had so far
+evidently succeeded in their mission.</p>
+
+<p>Hushnoly reported that all Egyplosis was up in arms for the cause of
+the queen. The priestesses had formed an amazonian legion of five
+thousand wayleals. These would be commanded by the high priestess
+Zooly-Soase and the grand sorceress Thoubool in equal divisions. The
+sacred phalanx of priests of the spiritual palace would be under the
+command of the grand sorcerer, while Hushnoly would hold himself in
+readiness for a special command.</p>
+
+<p>While praising the devotion of the twin-souls, a message by telegraph
+was received from Gnaphisthasia, stating that the lord of art,
+Yermoul, was on his way to Kioram. He would travel on the wing by a
+circuitous route, to avoid contact with any of the king's wayleals.
+Yermoul would be accompanied by the chief priests of poetry, painting,
+sculpture, music, decoration, architecture, and dancing.</p>
+
+<p>No messenger had been sent to Grasnagallipas, high priest of the
+palace of inventions in Calnogor, as tidings had been received from
+that quarter that the priests of invention, owing to their close
+connection with the seat of government, had become bockhockids of the
+king. The defection of Grasnagallipas was a severe blow to our cause,
+as he was the greatest inventor in the kingdom, and master of ten
+thousand magnetic bockhockids, that machine being his own invention.</p>
+
+<p>Governor Ladalmir said the crisis upon which we were to deliberate
+demanded immediate action, and the first step to be taken was to
+appoint a commander-in-chief for the army of the queen. The victory
+achieved by the commander of the <i>Polar King</i> in fighting the royal
+navy single-handed, and his personal<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[256]</a></span> sympathy with her majesty,
+pointed out his excellency, Lexington White, already lord admiral of
+the fleet, as the man of all others fit to assume the supreme command
+of all operations directed against the royal army to secure the
+liberation of Lyone and the reformation of the religion of Atvatabar.
+"I therefore," said he, "nominate his excellency, Lexington White,
+commander-in-chief of the army of the queen."</p>
+
+<p>The governor's proposition was received with the wildest enthusiasm,
+and I gracefully accepted the high honor conferred upon me.</p>
+
+<p>Hushnoly was appointed my assistant, under the title of supreme
+general of the army, and the list of generals included the grand
+sorcerer Charka, the grand sorceress Thoubool, the high priestess
+Zooly-Soase, the lord of art Yermoul, Governor Ladalmir, Generals Pra
+and Nototherboc. The chief priests of poetry, painting, music,
+architecture and decoration, and Professors Rackiron, Goldrock and
+Starbottle, Dr. Merryferry and Flathootly were also created generals
+of the army, being at the same time relieved from service in the
+fleet.</p>
+
+<p>Rear-Admiral Wallace was promoted to full command of the fleet during
+my absence therefrom, with the title of admiral.</p>
+
+<p>As president of the council, I spoke as follows:</p>
+
+<p>"Supreme General Hushnoly and generals of the army of Her Majesty
+Lyone, Queen of Atvatabar, you are aware of the nature of the crisis
+that calls us together and the cause to which we devote our lives and
+fortunes. Our beloved queen, for whom we fight, is in the hands and at
+the mercy of a cruel tyrant. We may hear of her death at any moment.
+Such an event would crush our hopes and blast our cause beyond hope of
+recovery. We must be both bold and prudent. We must concentrate our
+forces to withstand the onset of the enemy. A proclamation must be
+issued making Kioram, which is under the protection of the fleet, the
+headquarters of the army and the rallying-ground for volunteers. Our
+arsenal in the fortress will begin at once to make revolvers, under
+the superintendence of General Rackiron, for the use of our wayleals.
+Armed with these, one hundred thousand wayleals will be equal to half
+a million men without such weapons.</p>
+
+<p>"We must strike a mighty blow as soon as possible for the sake of
+Lyone, our queen. Once break the power of the king,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[257]</a></span> and he will be
+glad to sue for peace by liberating our adored idol, the pride of
+Atvatabar."</p>
+
+<p>These sentiments were applauded with impetuous excitement.</p>
+
+<p>Hushnoly caused telegraphic despatches as to the proceedings of the
+council to be sent to Egyplosis, Gnaphisthasia, and to sympathizers in
+Calnogor, calling on volunteers for the army of the queen to report
+themselves at Kioram without delay.</p>
+
+<p>Admiral Wallace was instructed to send vessels to various points on
+the coast of Atvatabar, to receive volunteers and supplies and
+transmit them to Kioram with all possible speed.</p>
+
+<p>The mines of precious metals of the queen, situated on the northern
+coast of the kingdom, and the materials for making guns, gunpowder and
+terrorite, were to be accumulated at Kioram without delay.</p>
+
+<p>Professor Rackiron agreed, if furnished with men and materials, to
+turn out sufficient hand mitrailleuses to arm one hundred thousand
+wayleals in less than a month. He also proposed to furnish our
+wayleals with magnic spears, and to arm the legs of the bockhockids
+with magnic toes, so that a company of the strange animals could rout
+a legion of wayleals. We discovered that the materials for the
+manufacture of terrorite existed in abundance in Atvatabar, and as the
+secret of this substance was still ours, we were in a position to work
+fearful havoc on the enemy.</p>
+
+<p>Before the council broke up the most encouraging news was received
+from our agents throughout the kingdom that the enrollment of
+volunteers for our cause was proceeding with great rapidity, and a
+hundred thousand men would arrive in Kioram within a week from the
+date of our proclamation. Hushnoly was appointed general of
+volunteers, in addition to his rank as supreme general of the army.
+General Yermoul and his colleagues would command the contingent from
+Gnaphisthasia, consisting of fourteen thousand wayleals.</p>
+
+<p>While thus discussing the details of our army organization, Astronomer
+Starbottle and his body-guard, Flathootly, arrived at the fortress,
+having safely escaped all perils in making a very hazardous journey.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[258]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLVIII" id="CHAPTER_XLVIII"></a>CHAPTER XLVIII.</h2>
+
+<h2>THE REPORT OF ASTRONOMER STARBOTTLE.</h2>
+
+
+<p>I congratulated our couriers upon their safe return from a successful
+expedition. The astronomer made the following report of his journey:</p>
+
+<p>"Following our instructions to bear despatches to Egyplosis and
+Gnaphisthasia, and at the same time make such astronomical and
+meteorological observations as might be valuable to military
+operations in Atvatabar, we rose to a considerable height in the air
+after leaving the <i>Polar King</i>. We were still under the influence of
+the earth's revolution, moving with Atvatabar two hundred and fifty
+miles an hour from east to west. We found the atmosphere of equal
+density, no matter how high we ascended, showing it to be a
+continuation of the denser strata of the outer air pressing into the
+earth by way of the open poles. It fills the hollow shell of the earth
+as an elastic ball, pressing equally on every part of the interior
+surface. Notwithstanding its mobility, it partakes of the revolution
+of the earth, hence the particularly serene climate of Bilbimtesirol
+and the absence of trade-winds in the region of greatest motion, which
+corresponds to the torrid zone of the outer sphere. The only winds are
+local disturbances, sometimes excessively violent, caused by the
+irregularities of the earth's surface and the consequent unequal
+distribution of heat and cold. Besides the general serenity of the air
+there are other reasons why the interior planet is really the only
+true world where human flight is a complete success.</p>
+
+<p>"We found that at a height of fifty miles the gravity caused by
+centrifugal motion is exactly counterbalanced by the attraction of the
+central sun overhead. At a height of sixty miles, if the wings remain
+motionless, we perceptibly ascend with a slowly increasing motion
+toward the sun, while the centrifugal gravity slowly lessens, owing to
+the lesser circle of space traversed, the attraction of Swang as
+gradually increases, and nothing but the strength of our wings
+prevented our falling into the fires of the sun.</p>
+
+<p>"Our chief discovery was the fact that there exists a belt of air at a
+distance of between fifty and sixty miles above the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[259]</a></span> earth, extremely
+cold, in which there is no weight, and all objects therein float,
+indifferent to the presence of the sun above or earth beneath. We saw
+a distant globe hanging in this region of very small size, and through
+the glass we could see mountains, rivers and seas thereon, but no
+traces of cities or human life.</p>
+
+<p>"During our stay in this imponderable region Flathootly expressed his
+satisfaction by grotesque evolutions. He would fly, moving his legs as
+if he were skating on ice, and again plunging as though he were diving
+into the sea. Then he would fly upward feet foremost, as though he
+were falling toward the sun.</p>
+
+<p>"'Shure it's foine fun,' he said, 'to shtand upside down, flyin' an'
+laughin' at the same toime.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Take care,' I said, 'and don't fall upward.'</p>
+
+<p>"'How can I fall upward when the ground's below me?' he inquired.</p>
+
+<p>"'The earth below you has no attraction at this height,' I said; 'but
+the sun is exerting its influence upon us. If we go any higher up
+we'll be drawn into the fires of the sun and roasted alive.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Be jabers, if that's so, I'll get down an' walk, an' you can fly
+around as much as you loike,' said Flathootly.</p>
+
+<p>"'If you descend you'll be arrested and executed as a spy. Remember,
+we're in an enemy's country,' said I.</p>
+
+<p>"'I'll tell you what I'll do then,' said he; 'now that I've got me
+siven-leagued boots on, I'll jist go down an' jump from wan mountain
+top to another.'</p>
+
+<p>"Time would not permit us to stay longer in our high altitude,
+consequently we stretched ourselves on the abyss of air and swept
+downward to Egyplosis.</p>
+
+<p>"'Our flight was exultant and swift. We soared over mighty ranges of
+mountains and swept into wide valleys with the ecstasy of birds. What
+a splendid fact to communicate to the outer world&mdash;that man, denied
+for untold ages the power of flight, may now inhabit a world of
+incomparable beauty, where it is easier to fly than to walk and a
+thousand times more enjoyable! The powers of the body and the raptures
+of the soul are not in themselves limited. It is simply a question of
+environment. No sooner do we inhabit a new environment than both body
+and soul expand themselves and fill the greater amplitude as easily as
+that more restricted one. Give the world,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[260]</a></span> weary with ennui, a fresh
+joy, and see how eager its enjoyment thereof, how voraciously it
+feasts on the newly-found delight.</p>
+
+<p>"We descended to the level of the mountain peaks, and, sure enough,
+Flathootly, taking his stand on a lofty crag, would flap his wings and
+sail to the next mountain like an albatross. When alighting on one of
+the peaks he frightened an immense bird from its nest on a cliff. It
+was the seemorgh, a bird of prey, as large as six eagles, with wings
+measuring twenty feet from tip to tip. It ferociously flew at
+Flathootly as he tried to escape it, and caught him with its claws,
+fastening its strong beak in the back of his neck.</p>
+
+<p>"It was a perilous position for my companion.</p>
+
+<p>"I flew to his rescue. He was badly frightened, and kept shouting,
+'Kill the baste!' The bird being on Flathootly's back, rendered him
+powerless to cope with it. Suddenly the bird let go its grip of his
+neck and took hold of his head in its claws, with the idea of carrying
+him off to its eyrie. Coming behind the monster unseen, I managed by a
+well-directed blow to transfix him with my magnic spear. The seemorgh,
+with wide-distended wings and head falling limp on its breast, slowly
+revolving, descended to the earth, the first enemy to fall on land at
+the hands of the invader.</p>
+
+<p>"Flathootly now avoided the mountains. He had a narrow escape, but,
+excepting an ugly wound in his neck, was otherwise unscathed.</p>
+
+<p>"We continued our flight to Egyplosis, dimly visible in the vault
+before us. We continued to traverse the inner curve of the planet,
+Atvatabar surrounding us on all sides except that part of the sphere
+above us which was concealed by the brilliancy of Swang.</p>
+
+<p>"Owing to the uniform heat and density of the lower strata of air,
+every mountain top was covered with foliage. We saw many mansions of
+the Atvatabarese sculptured out of the solid rock and surrounded with
+noble forests of tropical vegetation. We flapped our wings thirty
+miles above Atvatabar, which lay, with its mountains, forests, lakes,
+cities, temples and dwellings, beneath us like a map.</p>
+
+<p>"We had flown for six or eight hours when a feeling of hunger
+admonished us to partake of food. The tin trunk, which was our
+commissariat department, had been towed behind us by means of a rope
+during the entire journey.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[261]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 450px;">
+<img src="images/image_260.jpg" width="450" height="651" alt="I MOUNTED THE TRUNK AND PROPOSED THE HEALTH OF HER
+MAJESTY, LYONE, QUEEN OF ATVATABAR." title="" />
+<span class="caption">I MOUNTED THE TRUNK AND PROPOSED THE HEALTH OF HER
+MAJESTY, LYONE, QUEEN OF ATVATABAR.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[263]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"'Flathootly,' said I, 'let us call a halt for refreshments.'</p>
+
+<p>"'With all my heart,' said he; 'but how are we to howld the trunk up?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Let us rise to the height of fifty miles again,' I replied, 'and
+then it will stand on the air alone, like ourselves.'</p>
+
+<p>"'You're a wise man, sorr,' said he. 'It's an illigant idea that we'll
+adopt immediately.'</p>
+
+<p>"Accordingly, we were soon once more in the region of no weight, where
+we stood in the air as on land, Flathootly on one side of the trunk
+and I on the other, to dine on its contents.</p>
+
+<p>"Flathootly, opening the lid, brought forth some cold venison, which
+he coolly laid on the air beside us, saying, 'Shtand there now till
+you're wanted.' The venison quietly floated up against the side of the
+trunk, that being the only force of gravity acting upon it. In like
+manner he tossed around us a cold roast fowl, several varieties of
+cooked vegetables, and some rich puddings. He also produced several
+bottles of squang, the tokay of Atvatabar. These he flung downward,
+but every bottle, after falling half a mile or so, slowly ascended,
+and the entire bottles came back to us in a close cluster, as though
+unwilling to leave us.</p>
+
+<p>"It was a novel feast. We closed the lid of the trunk and spread a
+napkin thereon, and at once began our repast. Flathootly rapidly
+secured the floating dishes, and the food was demolished as easily as
+though we stood on <i>terra firma</i>. I pulled a pudding off my back, and
+Flathootly took from his neck the knives and forks that had clustered
+there.</p>
+
+<p>"The wine proved excellent. I mounted the trunk and proposed the
+health of Her Majesty Lyone, Queen of Atvatabar, and the empyrean rang
+with the enthusiasm invoked by the toast.</p>
+
+<p>"Flathootly proposed the health of our noble master, His Excellency
+Lexington White, the conqueror of the fleet. The air once more echoed
+its response to our hurrahs.</p>
+
+<p>"We might have rested, and even slept, on the impalpable air, but duty
+forbade us any such luxury. We repacked our trunk and proceeded
+straight to Egyplosis, then but two hundred miles away. We arrived
+safe, and, handing the high priest, Hushnoly, your despatch, hastened
+on to the palace of art at Gnaphisthasia. We again succeeded in
+eluding the vigilance of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[264]</a></span> king's wayleals, thanks to our speed and
+disguise, and delivering your despatch to the grand priest of art
+Yermoul, in Gnaphisthasia, returned forthwith to Kioram."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLIX" id="CHAPTER_XLIX"></a>CHAPTER XLIX.</h2>
+
+<h2>PREPARATION FOR WAR.</h2>
+
+
+<p>In less than a week, as measured by the time bells of Kioram, the
+ships began to arrive with troops from various parts of the coast of
+Atvatabar, bringing volunteers for either branch of the service of her
+majesty. In ten days one hundred thousand volunteers had arrived, and
+these were quartered in the city, pending their equipment as wayleals
+and bockhockids. As might be expected, a great many were deserters
+from the royal army, and these were of great assistance in organizing
+the troops, being already skilled in the tactics of aerial warfare.</p>
+
+<p>General Rackiron had turned the entire fortress into an arsenal of
+war. Fires blazed everywhere for forging guns and magnic spears, and a
+thousand hammers were shaping the limbs of bockhockids. The department
+for making ammunition was busiest of all, furnishing the elements on
+whose efficiency depended success or defeat.</p>
+
+<p>A vast quantity of hand mitrailleuses, or gigantic revolvers, were
+made, and being of but little weight, these blew showers of bullets
+from magazines attached to the tubes. Each wayleal carried a thousand
+cartridges.</p>
+
+<p>The cell in the case of the wayleals had to furnish a double current,
+viz., the current that moved the wings and the death-dealing current
+of the spear. For each bockhockid two powerful cells were necessary,
+one for the rider and the other to work the bockhockid he rode or flew
+upon. The strongest cell was contained in the body of the mechanical
+bird, which moved both its wings and legs, and also furnished its
+claws with a deadly current, so that when a detachment of bockhockids
+dashed into a mass of wayleals, legs foremost, the greatest possible
+havoc could be made with the least possible risk to the mounted
+riders.</p>
+
+<p>The object of having each cell separate in the case of the bockhockids
+was apparent. In case a mounted wayleal got unhorsed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[265]</a></span> he was able to
+join the wayleals, or infantry, having the same equipment as they.</p>
+
+<p>Our superiority in arms when compared with the royal army, which
+possessed only magnic spears and shields, was apparent.</p>
+
+<p>Of course, the enemy also made the legs and claws of the bockhockids
+magnic spears in themselves.</p>
+
+<p>It seemed remarkable that a people so inventive, and who possessed the
+best of all means for manufacturing firearms, should not have thought
+of a better device than their naval air guns. It was but a further
+illustration of the fact that the keenest minds are constantly
+color-blind to the simplest combinations visible to lookers-on while
+they are pursuing their elaborate researches.</p>
+
+<p>But the royal army, if inferior in arms, possessed the superiority of
+numbers. It outnumbered us three to one.</p>
+
+<p>Our total forces consisted of 175,000 wayleals and 42,000 bockhockids,
+making a total of 217,000 troops, which included 5,000 amazons.</p>
+
+<p>We at first expected a much larger army, believing the priests of
+invention, under Grasnagallipas, would certainly espouse the cause of
+the queen, but it was a terrible blow to our enthusiasm when we
+learned that the priests of invention, making a total of 50,000
+wayleals, had joined the royal army and would fight against their late
+goddess.</p>
+
+<p>Calnogor being the headquarters of the royal army, it would have been
+particularly dangerous for the priests of invention to have espoused
+our cause, surrounded as they were by the enormously more powerful
+enemy. To our loss, they had chosen to continue part of the army of
+the king, which at the lowest computation numbered half a million men.</p>
+
+<p>The king seemed strangely reluctant to begin the attack, although he
+knew the extent of our forces in Kioram. It was evident the protection
+given the city by the fleet allowed us to complete the arming and
+drilling of our forces without molestation.</p>
+
+<p>Supreme General Hushnoly reported that, thanks to the indefatigable
+energy of General Rackiron and his colleagues, Generals Starbottle,
+Goldrock and Flathootly, assisted by Generals Charka, Yermoul, Pra and
+Nototherboc, he had been able to fully equip the wayleals with
+mitrailleuses, wings, electric spears and uniforms. The bockhockids,
+in addition, were<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[266]</a></span> mounted on mechanical birds that could either fly,
+trot or walk with tremendous speed.</p>
+
+<p>I instructed Hushnoly to make his appointment of officers without
+delay, as we might take the field any moment.</p>
+
+<p>General Rackiron informed us that he was hard at work on a portable
+terrorite gun for aerial warfare. He hoped to have a battery of these
+guns ready in time to decide the war in our favor. I thanked the
+general for his extraordinary exertions, and informed him I felt sure
+of his success. With terrorite guns we would be invincible.</p>
+
+<p>Our spies, who had been despatched in all directions, informed us that
+the royal army was in a state of activity not inferior to our own. A
+daily review was being held in the air above Calnogor, and it was
+discovered that Coltonobory was about to make a descent on our ships,
+particularly to seize the <i>Polar King</i>, and by thus silencing her
+guns, have Kioram and the army of the queen at his mercy. The plan was
+approved of by the king, and might be put in operation at any moment.</p>
+
+<p>This was most important news, and we decided to take the initiative at
+once.</p>
+
+<p>"We will attack the enemy even if he is a million strong," I said.</p>
+
+<p>"Everything calls for an immediate advance," said Hushnoly.</p>
+
+<p>We also learned from trusty couriers that Lyone had been brought
+before the Borodemy, and the legislative assembly in full conclave,
+after hearing the evidence, had found her guilty of treason, impiety
+and sacrilege to her faith, of treason to the king, and had, by
+encouraging insurrection, caused her adherents to take up arms against
+both king and law, thereby endangering the lives and property of the
+inhabitants of the kingdom. There was no one to recommend Lyone to
+mercy, and she was condemned to death. The king had already signed her
+death-warrant.</p>
+
+<p>She might be executed any moment!</p>
+
+<p>It was a dreadful crisis to contemplate. Our first duty was to save
+the life of our queen at any sacrifice. I at once called a council of
+war to consider this all-important question. We had only assembled
+when a royal courier arrived at the fortress with an important
+despatch addressed, "To His Excellency Lexington White,
+Commander-in-Chief of the Insurrectionary Army at Kioram."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[267]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_L" id="CHAPTER_L"></a>CHAPTER L.</h2>
+
+<h2>I VISIT LYONE IN CALNOGOR.</h2>
+
+
+<p>I hastily opened the despatch, which read as follows:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"His Majesty King Aldemegry Bhoolmakar of Atvatabar wishes
+to inform His Excellency Lexington White, commander-in-chief
+of the insurrectionary army mobilized in Kioram, that Her
+Holiness Lyone, late Goddess of Atvatabar, has been tried
+before a full conclave of the Borodemy on the charge of
+sacrilege, apostasy, and insurrection. Her holiness has been
+found guilty and is now under sentence of death. His
+majesty, of merciful intent, wishes it to be known that he
+will pardon her holiness on this condition, viz.: That the
+insurrectionary army lays down its arms forthwith, and the
+wayleals separate and depart to their respective abodes;
+that his excellency, the commander-in-chief, and his
+generals surrender themselves to his majesty as prisoners of
+war, to be tried and punished as military law dictates. This
+surrender to include that of the admiral of the fleet and
+the ships under his command.</p>
+
+<p>"On no other condition whatever will mercy be extended to
+her holiness, and should this offer be temporized with or
+rejected nothing can save the late goddess from the sword of
+justice.</p>
+
+<p>"Dictated at the palace in Calnogor, in the twenty-fifth
+year of his majesty's reign. </p></div>
+
+<p class="p4">"<span class="smcap">Aldemegry Bhoolmakar.</span>"</p>
+
+<p>The king's communication was received with a sensation of contempt and
+dismay. The thought of surrender was in itself preposterous, but when
+we thought that our rebellion would drive a sword into the heart of
+Lyone, the awful idea struck us dumb with horror!</p>
+
+<p>The king possessed our proudest and most precious soul as hostage, and
+he was cowardly enough to sacrifice her as his most deadly blow to the
+insurrection.</p>
+
+<p>The crisis was appalling.</p>
+
+<p>"Shall we," I cried, "continue the fight, now that we know it is our
+queen we fight against, that it is our arms that will murder her?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[268]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"We certainly do not murder her," said Hushnoly; "and yet this
+unexpected crisis paralyzes me."</p>
+
+<p>"The king will not dare to murder the queen," said the grand sorcerer;
+"and if he does&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>The sorcerer suddenly checked himself; the mere contemplation of such
+an event was overpowering, yet he seemed, of all others, the most
+composed. His eyes shone with a strange fire that I had not hitherto
+noticed.</p>
+
+<p>"I am satisfied," said Governor Ladalmir, "that unless we lay down our
+arms and submit ourselves to his mercy, which means death to every one
+here, the fate of the queen is sealed."</p>
+
+<p>"I think," said the high priestess Zooly-Soase, "that his excellency,
+the commander-in-chief, should, if possible, obtain an order from the
+king permitting him to visit her majesty, and advise her of the entire
+facts of the situation, and then act as she commands. If she asks us
+to lay down our arms and surrender ourselves as the price of her
+liberty, there is none, I think, who would be so faithless as to
+refuse."</p>
+
+<p>"And I," said the grand sorceress, "approve of your proposal. I am
+willing to surrender myself to save the life of the late goddess."</p>
+
+<p>"We are all willing to sacrifice ourselves if need be!" shouted the
+entire council with generous and chivalrous enthusiasm.</p>
+
+<p>"I will go," said I, "and see Lyone, as you propose, and upon her
+decision will depend our future action."</p>
+
+<p>A courier was immediately despatched under a flag of truce to the
+palace at Calnogor, with the message that before his majesty's
+communication could be replied to, the commander-in-chief of the army
+of the late goddess desired to have an interview with her majesty, to
+decide upon a final answer thereto, and to request a royal passport
+not only admitting him to the presence of Lyone in the fortress at
+Calnogor, but also permitting his safe return to Kioram.</p>
+
+<p>"I fear," said Hushnoly, "the queen herself may be so confident in the
+success of her cause that she will overlook any danger to herself. It
+would be a signal success to save her without our own surrender, but
+that is impossible until we defeat the royal army."</p>
+
+<p>"What say you, grand sorcerer?" said I. "Do you think my mission will
+be successful as regards the life of Lyone?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[269]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I have already foreseen this crisis," said he; "but I believe the end
+will be triumphant."</p>
+
+<p>His majesty, in reply to my despatch, sent me a royal passport that
+admitted me to the fortress to converse with Lyone, and which would
+protect me until my return to Kioram.</p>
+
+<p>"Tell her majesty," said the grand sorcerer, "not to fear the king;
+that we will save her, even should she nobly disdain to accept our
+surrender for her life."</p>
+
+<p>"How do you propose to save her life in case she forfeits it?" I
+eagerly inquired.</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot tell you," he replied, "for occult knowledge can only be
+apprehended by the initiated. Every great reform requires its martyr,
+and it may be that the queen will be our martyr, no matter what we
+do."</p>
+
+<p>An audible groan escaped from the lips of all. Was it possible that
+even should we surrender we could not save the life of our adorable
+leader, and that to surrender would involve all in a common ruin? Was
+there ever in human history so great a crisis? I began to doubt the
+sorcerer's knowledge of the future. At the same time I felt that he
+alone could guide us in that hour of peril.</p>
+
+<p>"Sorcerer," I cried, "for the love of Lyone, for the glory of our
+cause, tell me what to do! What shall I say to the queen? How shall I
+advise her to act for her own safety as well as ours?"</p>
+
+<p>"Do not advise at all," said he. "Let the queen act for herself, and
+that will be the best solution of the difficulty."</p>
+
+<p>"But should she insist on sacrificing herself, where would be our
+triumph?"</p>
+
+<p>"The triumph will be assured," said he, "although to win our cause
+will require the greatest sacrifice to be made."</p>
+
+<p>I began to think that Lyone and the sorcerer understood each other,
+and that her life would in any case be saved from the violence of
+death; and, taking this hopeful view of the situation, I departed for
+Calnogor, escorted by Flathootly and the astronomer.</p>
+
+<p>As we swept toward the metropolis of Atvatabar I wondered if I would
+be permitted to make the journey in safety. Was the passport of the
+king but a <i>ruse de guerre</i> to entrap me?</p>
+
+<p>I noticed here and there, as we neared the city, detachments of the
+royal wayleals, some suspended in the air, and others<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[270]</a></span> being drilled
+in globular masses in anticipation of the coming struggle.</p>
+
+<p>When within ten miles of Calnogor a party of scouts intercepted us,
+who demanded to see our passports. The leader examined the royal
+decree with great minuteness, and only allowed us to proceed with
+apparent reluctance. I had reason to fear treachery, as I had but
+lately fought my way out of the country.</p>
+
+<p>At length arriving above the royal fortress, we rapidly descended to
+the court-yard and inquired for the governor.</p>
+
+<p>With what feelings of excitement I awaited my interview with Lyone! In
+what state would I find her, and how would she solve the riddle, a
+destiny that seemed impossible of solution?</p>
+
+<p>The governor, accompanied by his armed staff, approached me, declaring
+how glad he was to be able to permit an interview with Lyone. His
+manner was altogether too suspiciously cheerful, and his body-guard
+surrounded us closely.</p>
+
+<p>I hastened to assure the governor that my visit was made under the
+protection of the king, and showed him the royal decree. "I have
+come," I said, "to have an interview with her majesty upon the crisis,
+and that being accomplished, the royal mandate will secure me a free
+departure to Kioram."</p>
+
+<p>"You can certainly see the ex-goddess," said the governor, "but you
+have no right to address her as her majesty, for such a title is high
+treason to their majesties, the king and queen of Atvatabar. As to
+your being free to leave the fortress again, I must confer with his
+majesty in that matter, as you are my prisoner until the king commands
+your release."</p>
+
+<p>Was this a plot to capture me?</p>
+
+<p>I was too anxious to see Lyone to think of my own safety just then,
+and requested the governor to lead me at once to her apartments.</p>
+
+<p>"Follow me," said the governor, leading the way into the fortress. We
+passed along corridor after corridor until we arrived at a heavy gate
+of bronze, which the governor himself unlocked. We thereupon entered a
+spacious antechamber, severely furnished with large oaken benches on
+the marble floor.</p>
+
+<p>I requested Flathootly and the astronomer to remain in the antechamber
+while I passed through another door unlocked for me by the governor.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[271]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I found myself alone in a spacious and finely decorated apartment, the
+gilded cage of Lyone. There were luxurious couches, and receptacles
+for books, and painted tapestries on the walls, and in the centre of
+the floor stood an aquarium, the home of strange animals and plants,
+from which rose a vase of gold that held a bouquet of the rarest
+flowers. The floor was covered with a semi-metallic carpet resembling
+linoleum. I sat down to await the coming of Lyone.</p>
+
+<p>Presently the embroidered tapestry concealing the entrance to another
+chamber was moved aside, and the pale and breathless figure of Lyone
+stood before me. She came toward me, robed in a loose white silk gown.
+Her arms were outstretched, and her face wore an air of indescribable
+nobility and tenderness. I rushed forward and caught the glorious
+figure in my arms. It was fitting that our holiest emotions should at
+first find expression in a mutual deluge of kisses and tears.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_LI" id="CHAPTER_LI"></a>CHAPTER LI.</h2>
+
+<h2>THE DEATH OF LYONE.</h2>
+
+
+<p>When the ecstasy of our meeting had somewhat subsided I informed Lyone
+of the dreadful crisis in our affairs. I pointed out that to save her
+life the king required her army to disband itself, and her leaders to
+deliver themselves up as rebels and insurrectionists, to receive
+punishment for their so-called offences.</p>
+
+<p>"Now," said I, "notwithstanding the fact that we can defeat the royal
+army in pitched battle, yet to save your precious life we are willing
+to surrender ourselves to his majesty."</p>
+
+<p>"And what do you think would life be worth to me," said Lyone, her
+eyes flashing fire, "with my dearest friends slain, my cause ruined,
+and my soul covered with the shame of remorse, defeat and the disgrace
+of having purchased my miserable life by the death of the noblest of
+souls? I will go to the scaffold alone. You will conquer, and will
+avenge my death."</p>
+
+<p>"Sweet goddess!" I cried, "you will not thus sacrifice yourself. What
+will victory be worth if you, for whom we fight, are not our proudest
+trophy? What avails the triumph of our cause if there remains no queen
+to possess the triumph? Your<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[272]</a></span> life is our life, your death our
+destruction. With you to fight for, any company of leaders will be
+successful. Let us surrender ourselves to make you free."</p>
+
+<p>"It can never be," replied Lyone, "that you must suffer, one hundred
+souls for but one. I am that one, and the cause can more easily suffer
+the loss of one soul than the loss of all. That the soul may again
+possess freedom is worthy many a martyr. I only regret I have but one
+life to give for this blessed cause. I counsel you to depart and carry
+on the war you have so bravely begun, and in your hour of triumph
+remember Lyone."</p>
+
+<p>"There is no cause if there is no Lyone," I pleaded. "Do not be your
+own enemy; accept the condition of freedom so freely offered you, and
+perhaps even we may still find some means of escape."</p>
+
+<p>"The king, I know," said Lyone, "would much prefer your death to mine.
+He is exasperated at the loss of the fleet, and that, too, at the
+hands of strangers. Nothing would give him greater joy, and nothing
+such fame in the eyes of the nation, than to put yourself and your
+sailors to death. My capture and your present visit are but the
+fulfilment of his plot to destroy you. He thinks you will never allow
+me to be sacrificed, and so hopes for your annihilation. But in this
+he will be disappointed. In this terrible trial I have eaten my heart
+out. Without you, and without our faithful comrades, life would be
+less than worthless. This crisis can only be solved by heroic
+measures. I have decided for you all. Go!&mdash;go and avenge my death!"</p>
+
+<p>I saw that Lyone had firmly steeled her soul for the sacrifice,
+tremendous at it was, and in the presence of such heroism it seemed
+sacrilege to again offer our less worthy lives for a life such as
+hers.</p>
+
+<p>But a resolve so unsupportable agonized me. I clasped the divine girl
+in my arms in a transport of love and horror, and implored her again
+and again to accept life while it was offered her.</p>
+
+<p>We stood beside the aquarium in the centre of the apartment, close to
+the vase of gold filled with flowers. Lyone, in a dazed state, reached
+for a flower, and in doing so touched the vase, and in a moment fell
+dead upon the floor!</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[273]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 450px;">
+<img src="images/image_272.jpg" width="450" height="644" alt="LYONE REACHED FOR A FLOWER AND IN DOING SO TOUCHED THE
+VASE AND IMMEDIATELY FELL DEAD UPON THE FLOOR!" title="" />
+<span class="caption">LYONE REACHED FOR A FLOWER AND IN DOING SO TOUCHED THE
+VASE AND IMMEDIATELY FELL DEAD UPON THE FLOOR!</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>I cannot dwell upon the horror of the scene. I rushed to the door <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[275]</a></span>
+of the apartment, and stood in the outer chamber, where waited my
+companions.</p>
+
+<p>The governor of the fortress came forward to explain that I was his
+prisoner until he had heard from the king whether or not I should be
+permitted to leave the prison. I raised my spear, and with one blow
+transfixed the dog at my feet. He never spoke again!</p>
+
+<p>The taking off of the governor was accomplished with so little
+disturbance that we passed through the body-guard, which was assembled
+in the outer corridor, without interference.</p>
+
+<p>The situation was war!</p>
+
+<p>Was it really true that our hope was dead, that our jewel, the glory
+of our cause, was lying cold and lifeless in her prison?</p>
+
+<p>I was stunned with the first shock of the scene. I could only cry out,
+as though she were still alive, for her radiant soul to come and share
+our mutual bliss.</p>
+
+<p>But when it clearly dawned upon me that the being for whose freedom I
+had resolutely labored had become the victim of her murderers, that I
+could never again enfold her beauty with my love, however ardent or
+tender, I was petrified with horror.</p>
+
+<p>My immediate comrades, to whom I communicated the tidings, grew white
+with the appalling news.</p>
+
+<p>The one cry was, "Could Lyone, the idol of her army, the goddess of
+her people, be indeed dead? Was the voice that could conjure such love
+and devotion hushed forever?"</p>
+
+<p>Leaving a guard to watch over the body of the goddess, I set out for
+Kioram.</p>
+
+<p>Barely escaping arrest at the hands of several wayleals, we arrived
+safely at the fortress. It was our wings and spears, and not the
+passport of the king, that saved us.</p>
+
+<p>The council in Kioram, on hearing of the death of the queen, grew
+excited. The one desire in the hearts of all had been to save Lyone's
+life&mdash;but, alas!</p>
+
+<p>I despatched a messenger to the king, charging him with the murder of
+the queen, and stating that I should exact retribution at his hands
+for the foul deed. I warned him not to do any injury to the person of
+her majesty, but deliver her dead body to the guard we would send, who
+would convey it to Egyplosis.</p>
+
+<p>"This is a wound that infuriates me," said the grand sorcerer.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[276]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"It is the work of the jealous Koshnili and the murderous Bhoolmakar,"
+said I; "and dearly will they answer for it! I must return at once to
+Calnogor, and take charge of the body for honorable sepulture."</p>
+
+<p>"I think it better for your excellency to remain at the head of the
+army," said the grand sorcerer, "and allow me to undertake the removal
+of the body of the queen to Egyplosis. By keeping her death a secret
+from the army you will be able to defeat Coltonobory, and bring the
+king and Koshnili to justice. I shall delay the obsequies of the queen
+until victory is assured."</p>
+
+<p>I agreed to this proposition, being anxious to bring the king to
+justice, and thereupon relieved General Charka of his command of the
+21,000 bockhockids, giving him a guard of 100 wayleals, and requested
+him to proceed at once to the fortress of Calnogor, and, demanding the
+body of Lyone, bear it to Egyplosis for honorable sepulture.</p>
+
+<p>The grand sorcerer, who had anticipated the refusal of Lyone to accept
+liberty at the price demanded, but did not apprehend her sudden death,
+had, during my absence, assisted at completing the organization of the
+army. I gave his command of the right wing of the army to Sir John
+Forbes, Captain Adams accepting a subordinate command.</p>
+
+<p>Supreme General Hushnoly had fully armed the various battalions with
+mitrailleuses and electric spears, and had furnished all with electric
+wings.</p>
+
+<p>I instructed Hushnoly to mobilize the army at once and order an
+immediate advance on Calnogor. All Kioram was alive with warlike
+preparations. The various generals and captains, accompanied by their
+aides-de-camp, flew over the city, calling their troops to arms. Both
+wayleals and bockhockids, soaring into the air, formed themselves into
+immense living globes, and in the hollow centre of each flew the
+commanding general and his subordinate officers. In less than an hour
+the entire army lay marshalled in the air, and Supreme General
+Hushnoly called me to review our forces.</p>
+
+<p>It was a magnificent sight. High over Kioram stretched a line of
+enormous spheres composed of wayleals and bockhockids arranged in the
+following order:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[277]</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="center">THE ARMY OF HER MAJESTY QUEEN LYONE.</p>
+
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">His Excellency Lexington White</span>, <i>Commander-in-Chief</i>.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p><span class="smcap">General Sir John Forbes</span>, commanding the right wing of 21,000
+bockhockids, as follows: </p></div>
+
+<table class="tb4">
+  <tr>
+    <td colspan="4">The Legion of Art, commanded by General Yermoul.</td>
+
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>Phalanx of Poetry</td>
+    <td>Vice-Gen.</td>
+    <td>Ahornus</td>
+    <td>2,000</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>Phalanx of Music</td>
+    <td class="td2">&quot;</td>
+    <td>Arnondar</td>
+    <td>2,000</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>Phalanx of Painting</td>
+    <td class="td2">&quot;</td>
+    <td>Rhemegron</td>
+    <td>2,000</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>Phalanx of Dancing</td>
+    <td class="td2">&quot;</td>
+    <td>Osornon</td>
+    <td>2,000</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>Phalanx of Architecture</td>
+    <td class="td2">&quot;</td>
+    <td>Vanablis</td>
+    <td>2,000</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>Phalanx of Drama </td>
+    <td class="td2">&quot;</td>
+    <td>Clamavappy</td>
+    <td>2,000</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>Phalanx of Sculpture</td>
+    <td class="td2">&quot;</td>
+    <td>Hitturkey</td>
+    <td>2,000</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>Phalanx of Decoration</td>
+    <td class="td2">&quot;</td>
+    <td>Drapasius</td>
+    <td>2,000</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>The Kioram Legion</td>
+    <td>General </td>
+    <td>Nototherboc</td>
+    <td>5,000</td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p><span class="smcap">Supreme General Hushnoly</span>, commanding the centre of the army,
+comprising 175,000 wayleals. </p></div>
+
+<table class="tb4">
+  <tr>
+    <td colspan="3">The Phalanx of Egyplosis</td>
+    <td>General</td>
+    <td>Gerolio</td>
+    <td>5,000</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td colspan="3">First Amazonian Phalanx</td>
+    <td>General</td>
+    <td>Zooly-Soase</td>
+    <td>2,500</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td colspan="3">Second Amazonian Phalanx</td>
+    <td>General</td>
+    <td>Thoubool</td>
+    <td>2,500</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td colspan="3">The Kioram Phalanx</td>
+    <td>General</td>
+    <td>Pra </td>
+    <td>10,000</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>First  </td>
+    <td>Fletyeming</td>
+    <td>Brigade</td>
+    <td>General</td>
+    <td>Starbottle </td>
+    <td>10,000</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>Second </td>
+    <td class="td2">&quot;</td>
+    <td class="td2">&quot;</td>
+    <td class="td2">&quot;</td>
+    <td>Flathootly</td>
+    <td>10,000</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>Third  </td>
+    <td class="td2">&quot;</td>
+    <td class="td2">&quot;</td>
+    <td class="td2">&quot;</td>
+    <td>Goldrock</td>
+    <td>10,000</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>First </td>
+    <td>Volunteer </td>
+    <td>Army</td>
+    <td>General</td>
+    <td>Jolgos</td>
+    <td>25,000</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>Second  </td>
+    <td class="td2">&quot;</td>
+    <td class="td2">&quot;</td>
+    <td class="td2">&quot;</td>
+    <td>Akerbole </td>
+    <td>25,000</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>Third  </td>
+    <td class="td2">&quot;</td>
+    <td class="td2">&quot;</td>
+    <td class="td2">&quot;</td>
+    <td>Tarabesq</td>
+    <td>25,000</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>First  </td>
+    <td>Volunteer</td>
+    <td>Legion</td>
+    <td>General </td>
+    <td>Swilkar</td>
+    <td>10,000</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>Second </td>
+    <td class="td2">&quot;</td>
+    <td class="td2">&quot;</td>
+    <td class="td2">&quot;</td>
+    <td>Garreoc</td>
+    <td>10,000</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>Third </td>
+    <td class="td2">&quot;</td>
+    <td class="td2">&quot;</td>
+    <td class="td2">&quot;</td>
+    <td>Karramby</td>
+    <td>10,000</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>Fourth </td>
+    <td class="td2">&quot;</td>
+    <td class="td2">&quot;</td>
+    <td class="td2">&quot;</td>
+    <td>Botarnic</td>
+    <td>10,000</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>Fifth</td>
+    <td class="td2">&quot;</td>
+    <td class="td2">&quot;</td>
+    <td class="td2">&quot;</td>
+    <td>Heralion</td>
+    <td>5,000</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>Sixth</td>
+    <td class="td2">&quot;</td>
+    <td class="td2">&quot;</td>
+    <td class="td2">&quot;</td>
+    <td>Nosofrassy</td>
+    <td>5,000</td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[278]</a></span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">General Ladalmir</span>, commanding the left wing of 21,000 bockhockids, as
+follows:</p>
+
+<table class="tb4">
+  <tr>
+    <td>First</td>
+    <td>Vol. Leg.</td>
+    <td>Bockhockids</td>
+    <td>Vice-Gen.</td>
+    <td>Adams</td>
+    <td>5,000</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>Second</td>
+    <td class="td2">&quot;</td>
+    <td class="td2">&quot;</td>
+    <td class="td2">&quot;</td>
+    <td>Doroccy</td>
+    <td>2,000</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>Third</td>
+    <td class="td2">&quot;</td>
+    <td class="td2">&quot;</td>
+    <td class="td2">&quot;</td>
+    <td>Madneaf</td>
+    <td>2,000</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>Fourth</td>
+    <td class="td2">&quot;</td>
+    <td class="td2">&quot;</td>
+    <td class="td2">&quot;</td>
+    <td>Darjiltis</td>
+    <td>2,000</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>Fifth</td>
+    <td class="td2">&quot;</td>
+    <td class="td2">&quot;</td>
+    <td class="td2">&quot;</td>
+    <td> Roumix</td>
+    <td>2,000</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>Sixth</td>
+    <td class="td2">&quot;</td>
+    <td class="td2">&quot;</td>
+    <td class="td2">&quot;</td>
+    <td>Hieralto</td>
+    <td>2,000</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>Seventh</td>
+    <td class="td2">&quot;</td>
+    <td class="td2">&quot;</td>
+    <td class="td2">&quot;</td>
+    <td>Dnublis</td>
+    <td>2,000</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>Eighth</td>
+    <td class="td2">&quot;</td>
+    <td class="td2">&quot;</td>
+    <td class="td2">&quot;</td>
+    <td>Napasacco</td>
+    <td>2,000</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>Ninth</td>
+    <td class="td2">&quot;</td>
+    <td class="td2">&quot;</td>
+    <td class="td2">&quot;</td>
+    <td>Dumargo</td>
+    <td>2,000</td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>The army in all consisted of 182,000 men and 5,000 amazons. The
+amazons were dressed similar to the priests of Egyplosis&mdash;that is, in
+pale brown soft-leather tights, high boots emblazoned with scales of
+white metal, heavy spider-silk tunics, ornamented with beautiful
+embroidery and held close to the figure by a belt. The knapsack held
+the magnic cell, dynamo and wings, and also furnished the current for
+their spears.</p>
+
+<p>As each wayleal required ample space for the movement of his or her
+wings, it will be seen that each living globe was of immense size, and
+the entire army became of enormous proportions as it lay stretched
+upon the air. I assumed supreme command as commander-in-chief, with
+Flathootly as special aide-de-camp, and gave orders for each globe to
+double up its wayleals, so that in each case there would be two
+globes, the outer or fighting force and the interior or reserve force.
+In the centre of each living shell was placed the commissariat
+department and the medical, musical and commanding staffs.</p>
+
+<p>The death of Lyone had been kept a secret. The bands of each army
+began to play the "March of Lyone," and at the word of command the
+vast-flying mass of armed men moved grandly forward to Calnogor.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[279]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_LII" id="CHAPTER_LII"></a>CHAPTER LII.</h2>
+
+<h2>THE BATTLE OF CALNOGOR.</h2>
+
+
+<p>Long ere we reached Calnogor we discovered the royal army already
+marshalled to meet us. It lay above the city in globes of wayleals and
+bockhockids still more prodigious than ours. It was composed of three
+armies, ranged one above the other, and each army being equal in
+numbers to our own. Thus, forming a solid parallelogram of amazing
+magnificence, the royal army awaited our onset. Its bockhockids,
+formed in ten globes of ten thousand in each, and led by
+Grasnagallipas, the lord of invention, were the flower of the army,
+and occupied a central position, where possibly they would do the
+greatest damage to us. High overhead in a chair of state, supported by
+twenty wayleals, sat Coltonobory, commander-in-chief of those immense
+legions that were ready to do battle for the defeat of the cause of
+their late goddess and the honor of their king.</p>
+
+<p>The sight of two such armies of winged gladiators sweeping toward each
+other in revolving globes was one of breathless interest. The
+approaching fight was a question of life or death to both combatants.
+Defeat to Aldemegry Bhoolmakar meant possibly the loss of crown and
+kingdom, and our defeat meant the annihilation of the party of reform
+and the cause of Lyone. We were eager to begin the fight without
+delay.</p>
+
+<p>To obtain greater freedom of action, I led the army up into the region
+where there was no gravity. The movement was followed by a similar
+movement on the part of the royal armies, who rose like a swarm of
+locusts to meet us. The noise of so many wings in motion was like that
+of a roaring storm, and formed an inspiring accompaniment to the music
+that rang upon the sunlit air.</p>
+
+<p>Here, fifty miles above the white city beneath, both armies closed
+upon each other. There was a fearful yell of "Bhoolmakar!" answered by
+as loud a shout of "Lyone!"</p>
+
+<p>Our army was literally buried in the centre of the enemy. The
+impetuous priests of Egyplosis and the no less eager priestesses
+performed prodigies of valor.</p>
+
+<p>Our mitrailleuses were a complete surprise to the enemy.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[280]</a></span> Thousands of
+their wayleals were killed ere they could deliver a blow with their
+spears.</p>
+
+<p>There was considerable slaughter on both sides, but the enemy depended
+largely on their magnic spears and shields, while we handled our guns
+with terrible effect.</p>
+
+<p>The volunteer army under Hushnoly suffered greatly by the
+demoralization caused by the enemy's bockhockids under Grasnagallipas.
+The terrible legs of those machines destroyed the military formation
+of our wayleals, producing a continuous panic, and permitting the
+enemy's wayleals to work a ghastly slaughter in their broken ranks. In
+revenge our bockhockids with their more deadly weapons literally tore
+their globes to pieces. Notwithstanding our superior arms, the greater
+numbers of the enemy made them a match for us.</p>
+
+<p>The rushing of wings, the explosions of the machine guns, the clashing
+of spears and the yells of the combatants made a scene of infernal
+horror. As the focus of battle swayed hither and thither, it left
+behind a trail of blood, dead and wounded bodies, broken wings, spears
+and revolvers. The <i>d&eacute;bris</i> of the battle simply floated out on the
+air, veritable clouds of disaster. Irregular masses of dead and
+wounded wayleals and broken bockhockids floated in heaps amid pools of
+blood.</p>
+
+<p>The enemy could only succeed by stabbing, whereas our wayleals were
+scorpions whose guns were fatal. With the points of their spears they
+made great havoc in our battalions. But as long as our ammunition
+lasted their formations were immediately shrivelled up.</p>
+
+<p>Coltonobory began to mass his army in the form of an immense
+outspreading hemisphere of the form of an open umbrella. His intention
+was to enclose us on all sides, and so if possible devour us. I at
+once ordered the army to take the form of a cone, each legion being a
+segment thereof, whose apex was formed of bockhockids, and whose base
+was wide circles of wayleals. With a blast of the trumpet I drove the
+entire army like an enormous javelin right through the heart of the
+foe, tearing a yawning chasm, half a mile in diameter, in his ranks!</p>
+
+<p>We lost fully two thousand men in this movement, and the foe over ten
+thousand in killed and wounded.</p>
+
+<p>The enemy, paralyzed by the onset, became consolidated into three or
+four immense globes. In front of these they placed their bockhockids,
+whose monstrous limbs alone could keep our<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[281]</a></span> spears at a safe distance.
+It was the intention of Coltonobory to ram us with the cohorts led by
+Grasnagallipas and his bockhockids.</p>
+
+<p>Hastily re-forming our broken ranks as before, I ordered a flank
+movement, rapid and decisive. Our bockhockids plunged into a
+tremendous mass of wayleals. Into the chasm thus made in the ranks of
+the enemy General Zooly-Soase threw her amazons, protected on either
+side by the legion of priests of Egyplosis under Gerolio. The
+priestesses, whose spears were particularly long and powerful, did
+terrible execution. The enemy was for a time panic-stricken as the
+glorious girls made their successful onset. Their dramatic beauty and
+the flash of their spears made a scene of imposing grandeur.
+Coltonobory, recovering from his surprise, ordered his bockhockids to
+the centre of the fight. To prevent the sacrifice of the priestesses
+by overwhelming odds I sent the bockhockids of art to their
+assistance. These swept to the rescue like a flight of eagles, and the
+empyrean echoed to the roar of the combat.</p>
+
+<p>The fighting now became general. The sunlit heavens seemed filled with
+the ferocity of war. The discharge of guns, the yells of wayleals, the
+trumpet signals of the commanders, the crash of swords and spears, the
+ceaseless motion of wings, and the long trail of dead and wounded
+combatants that followed the fight like the <i>d&eacute;bris</i> of a comet, was a
+sight but rarely beheld by human eyes.</p>
+
+<p>Each army seemed so equally balanced&mdash;the king's army had the
+advantage in numbers and our own the advantage in weapons&mdash;that
+neither party could yet claim a victory. Further fighting seemed
+useless until some new tactics were employed; therefore I gave orders
+for a cessation of the battle, and caused flags of truce to be
+hoisted.</p>
+
+<p>Both armies indeed required food and repose, and the wounded required
+immediate attention. The enemy was no less anxious for a truce than
+ourselves, consequently all fighting ceased and both armies withdrew.
+Several miles apart sentinels were placed on guard on outposts in the
+atmosphere, and our wayleals threw themselves upon the air in various
+attitudes of repose.</p>
+
+<p>In company with Generals Hushnoly, Ladalmir, Gerolio, Zooly-Soase,
+Thoubool, Charka, Yermoul, Starbottle and Goldrock, I visited the
+scene of the battle.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[282]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>How ghastly the realities of war! There floated irregular piles of
+dead and wounded bodies, from which poured many a trickling stream of
+ruddy life, which formed immense cloud-pools of blood surrounding each
+ghastly pile. The heaped-up masses of the dead would vibrate, as some
+poor suffocating wretch struggled in his last agonies. Dr. Merryferry
+and his assistants hastily took possession of the wounded, and
+ministered to their necessities. Water was supplied them from the
+leathern bags of water that formed part of the commissariat supplies.</p>
+
+<p>I ordered a detachment of wayleals to separate the living from the
+dead, and bear the wounded to Kioram for immediate attention.</p>
+
+<p>The saddest sight of all was a cluster of fifty beautiful priestesses,
+embracing one another in the long caress of death. They had been slain
+with the magnic spears, so happily there were no gaping wounds from
+which the life-blood flowed. Ardsolus and Merga lay dead where the
+fight was hottest, both slain at once.</p>
+
+<p>The dead and wounded twin-souls were sent to Egyplosis as quickly as
+possible, and the process of clearing the air of the havoc of war was
+carried out both by the enemy and ourselves with the greatest
+despatch.</p>
+
+<p>The losses of the enemy were four times greater than ours, owing to
+the tremendous execution done by our gigantic pistols. The royal
+troops presented in ghastly groups every possible posture of the human
+body that could be created by rage, pain, fear or madness.</p>
+
+<p>How I wished some eloquent historian could have floated through that
+abyss of horror on distended wings, and, pen in hand, describe its
+dramatic desolation and terror. Clouds of vultures and the seemorgh
+were devouring the dead bodies, and, as they fought for choice
+morsels, flapped their wings in pools of gore. Many of the combatants,
+including some of my own sailors, were drowned in globes of blood.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[283]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_LIII" id="CHAPTER_LIII"></a>CHAPTER LIII.</h2>
+
+<h2>VICTORY.</h2>
+
+
+<p>The wayleals rested and slept outstretched upon the air close to the
+scene of battle. Not having any weight as regarded external objects,
+they mutually attracted each other, and to obtain freedom and rest
+without being crushed together into suffocating masses of men, they
+were formed into companies of one hundred each, with their feet
+pressing against solid cylinders of spears. Mutual gravity was
+sufficient to hold them together, and each wayleal spread himself upon
+the air, as upon a bed of down, enjoying luxurious repose.</p>
+
+<p>I had slept I know not how long, in company with the leaders of our
+army, when I was awakened by Flathootly, who informed me that a trusty
+messenger from Grasnagallipas, lord of invention and general of the
+king's bockhockids, desired to see me as bearer of an important
+despatch from his master.</p>
+
+<p>The messenger, saluting, handed me the following document:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"<i>To His Excellency</i> <span class="smcap">Lexington White</span>, <i>Commander-in-Chief of
+the Army of Queen Lyone, from Grasnagallipas, General of the
+Royal Bockhockids, Greeting:</i></p>
+
+<p>"General Grasnagallipas begs to report that he and his
+bockhockids have ever been in sympathy with the late
+goddess, but were prevented from espousing her cause by the
+overwhelming presence of the royal army in Calnogor. To show
+his detestation of the horrible act of criminal cowardice on
+the part of his majesty, he offers his sword and command of
+bockhockids to the cause of the late adorable goddess and
+queen of Atvatabar, and on the acceptance of such assistance
+by your excellency will at once leave the ranks of the royal
+army and enter that of her late majesty, to fight for the
+sacred cause and assist in punishing a perfidious king. </p></div>
+
+<p class="p5"><span class="smcap">Grasnagallipas.</span>"</p>
+
+<p>The loss attending the withdrawal of the priests and priestesses to
+form a guard of honor to the illustrious dead was more than
+compensated for by the re-enforcements under Grasnagallipas, to whom I
+sent a message of gracious acceptance of his services.</p>
+
+<p>The army being fully aroused for conflict, had the satisfaction<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[284]</a></span> of
+welcoming re-enforcements from two opposite directions, viz., the
+fifty thousand bockhockids under Grasnagallipas and the terrorite
+battery under command of General Rackiron.</p>
+
+<p>As was expected, the departure of the bravest general in the royal
+army was the signal for a renewal of hostilities, and Coltonobory, mad
+at the serious defection of his troops, at once assumed the offensive.
+He had received a large recruitment of wayleals, and felt as
+formidable as ever. His army swept down upon us with warlike music
+rolling like thunder, and cries of "Bhoolmakar!" The king himself,
+having dealt us his most terrible blow, was a witness to the onset of
+his hosts. He sat aloft in a golden palanquin, borne on the shoulders
+of his followers, with a body-guard on either side.</p>
+
+<p>The advance guard of the enemy consisted of several regiments, armed
+with our own hand mitrailleuses, taken from prisoners. These did a
+terrible execution among our wayleals.</p>
+
+<p>Grasnagallipas, anxious to undo the injury he inflicted on us during
+the first battle, and emulous of the prowess of our own forty thousand
+bockhockids, plunged headlong amid the foe, creating a panic wherever
+his gigantic birds descended. He fought like a demon, neither asking
+nor giving quarter.</p>
+
+<p>General Rackiron, having got his terrorite battery in position, was
+eager to check the advance of the enemy by saluting him with a few
+aerial torpedoes. There was some delay incidental to the first actual
+operations of a hastily-constructed battery, but the daring ingenuity
+of the professor overcame every obstacle. Each gun, supported by fifty
+men, possessed a solid foundation from which to direct its operations.</p>
+
+<p>The enemy, though harassed by our bockhockids, had worked into the
+centre of our army by sheer weight of numbers. Our wayleals, having
+exhausted their ammunition, had to fall back on their electric spears,
+and at times were obliged to retire in confusion. At this juncture a
+shell of terrorite exploded among the foe with thrilling effect,
+destroying at least two hundred bockhockids.</p>
+
+<p>Coltonobory, who evidently attributed the disaster to an explosion of
+gunpowder in his own ranks, closed up the broken columns and renewed
+the attack.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[285]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 700px;">
+<img src="images/image_284.jpg" width="700" height="444" alt="AT THIS JUNCTURE, A SHELL OF TERRORITE EXPLODED AMONG
+THE FOE WITH THRILLING EFFECT, DESTROYING AT LEAST TWO HUNDRED
+BOCKHOCKIDS." title="" />
+<span class="caption">AT THIS JUNCTURE, A SHELL OF TERRORITE EXPLODED AMONG
+THE FOE WITH THRILLING EFFECT, DESTROYING AT LEAST TWO HUNDRED
+BOCKHOCKIDS.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>Three explosions in rapid succession, right in the centre of the
+enemy, caused the greatest consternation, and produced a frightful <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[287]</a></span>
+gap, where but a moment before the air was thick with an armed host.</p>
+
+<p>Generals Yermoul, Gerolio, Ladalmir and Grasnagallipas plunged with
+their bockhockids into the living cavern produced by the torpedoes,
+and with their spears mowed down thousands of the panic-stricken
+wayleals.</p>
+
+<p>Another terrorite shell, thrown in the direction of the king,
+destroyed a few hundred of his protectors and induced his majesty to
+seek safety in immediate flight.</p>
+
+<p>Not wishing to lose so important an enemy, I ordered General
+Flathootly and the second legion of fletyemings to start in hot
+pursuit of the royal party and bring me back the king, dead or alive.
+Flathootly, delighted with his mission, started off at once in pursuit
+of Bhoolmakar.</p>
+
+<p>The terrorite battery proved our most effective weapon in castigating
+the enemy. I could not thank Professor Rackiron sufficiently for his
+great genius and mechanical skill in so rapidly perfecting his
+weapons, which were modelled on the plan of the guns belonging to the
+<i>Polar King</i>. Every discharge proved a blast of destruction to the
+foe.</p>
+
+<p>The deadly missiles wrought a fearful slaughter, steadily decimating
+the ranks of the royal army, which had no similar weapons with which
+to retaliate upon us.</p>
+
+<p>The frightened hosts, constantly changing their focus, left behind
+them vast heaps of the dead and wounded and globes of floating blood.</p>
+
+<p>On one occasion the first brigade of fletyemings, led by General
+Starbottle, in eagerly pursuing the enemy dashed through a pool of
+blood three feet in thickness, and every wayleal emerged dripping with
+gore.</p>
+
+<p>Coltonobory, finding further resistance useless, at once surrendered
+himself and his army to our mercy.</p>
+
+<p>My brave wayleals, flushed with victory, saluted me with cries of
+"Long live Lexington White, King of Atvatabar!"</p>
+
+<p>But what was success now without the one priceless soul to share my
+triumph?</p>
+
+<p>Did ever glory so grand and defeat so terrible so mingle themselves in
+human experience?</p>
+
+<p>My wayleals, now for the first time hearing of the death of their
+queen, would have torn Coltonobory to pieces had I not protected him.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[288]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I knew he was personally innocent, and my wayleals were already in
+pursuit of the king.</p>
+
+<p>We entered Calnogor in triumph. I heard on all sides a wail of
+lamentation for Lyone, mingled with applause for the conqueror.</p>
+
+<p>It was a scene in which conquest and misery, rapture and failure, life
+and death, were indissolubly united.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_LIV" id="CHAPTER_LIV"></a>CHAPTER LIV.</h2>
+
+<h2>REINCARNATION.</h2>
+
+
+<p>The grand sorcerer Charka and his guard had with reverend flight borne
+the body of their goddess Lyone to the palace of souls, mourning the
+death of their adored, who had been so precious, so beautiful, so
+holy.</p>
+
+<p>The high priestess and the grand sorceress, together with the priests
+and priestesses of Egyplosis, on hearing of the death of Lyone,
+departed at once for Egyplosis, to mourn the death of their goddess.</p>
+
+<p>Lyone was dead!</p>
+
+<p>Ah me! what was triumph then, without my soul of souls to share its
+delights? The blessed cup of joy, quivering to the brim, was about to
+touch my yearning lips when it was dashed aside by a treacherous hand.
+Well might the crownless Bhoolmakar laugh in whatever damnable retreat
+he had retired to! His revenge was complete.</p>
+
+<p>Oh, the pity of it! The young, the adorable, the divine soul who was
+just about to remount her throne to receive a purer adoration from her
+people; she who was to be queen of Atvatabar, slain treacherously,
+within sight of the Bormidophia, wherein she had so long been
+worshipped.</p>
+
+<p>It was impossible for me to remain longer on the field of battle. I
+wanted to fling myself on that once happy form and kiss her death-cold
+lips!</p>
+
+<p>I left Coltonobory and his surrendered army in the hands of the
+supreme general Hushnoly, and started at once for Egyplosis. As my
+wings devoured the leagues of air I thought, was this the climax for
+which I fought? I flew along with none to share my torture. My heart
+was rent wide open, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[289]</a></span> in my agony I rolled upon the air as I flew,
+for brain and soul seemed an ocean of fire.</p>
+
+<p>I arrived at Egyplosis full of anguish. With quivering lips and
+burning tears I staggered into the portal that led to the subterranean
+palace where I knew my loved one was laid. I silently entered the
+magnificent abode of the sorcerer, horror-stricken with despair.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly, beyond the labyrinth I heard a golden sound, the sound of
+that blessed bell that once before rolled its waves of delight over my
+spirit. I stood leaning against a pillar, dissolved in its bewitching
+moans, luxuriating in the Agapamone of music breathed from the
+delirious bronze. I heard wafted from the mysterious temple the
+refrain of thousands of voices chanting a ritual of love and peace.
+The multitudinous sound seemed so soft and so thrilling, so powerful
+and so holy, that I was eager to know if such burden of love was the
+sorrowing passion of the twin-souls in honor of their dead goddess.</p>
+
+<p>I saw through the open doors of the temple a moving throng of
+twin-souls, swaying in masses hither and thither, with naked feet on
+the aquelium floor. On every forehead burned an electric star, giving
+a spectral flush to the scene. That was the singing multitude I had
+heard, the hierophants of the holy soul.</p>
+
+<p>As my eyes grew accustomed to the objects before me, I saw the
+interior of the temple, on whose sculptured walls and roof roses woven
+of smouldering electric fires revealed their burning bloom. Wires of
+platinum, terrelium, and aquelium had been woven into a filagree of
+roses, with leaves and stems made red hot by the electric current.
+High above the sculptured dado rose strange windows of illuminated
+glass, in colors sad and brilliant, made visible by thousands of
+electric lights hidden in the sculptured recesses behind each window.
+The subject of each jewelled pane was a tableau of reincarnation, in
+which the figures of sorcerers and magicians, robed in splendid
+attire, gave life to beings that had died.</p>
+
+<p>The frieze was one continual blaze of color, formed also of enamelled
+glass emblazoned with life-sized processional figures and illuminated
+with incandescent lights.</p>
+
+<p>In a distant part of the temple, on a terrelium pedestal, I again saw
+a monster of gold, with a terrible head and outstretched wings.</p>
+
+<p>As I surveyed this stupendous figure, I discovered that it<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[290]</a></span> held in
+its fore paws an immense helix of terrelium wire, ten feet in length
+and nine feet in diameter. One end of the wire was joined to ten
+thousand wires, whose extremities, terminating in terrelium wands,
+were held by the twin-souls. Each priest held a wand in his right
+hand, and each priestess a wand in her left, and their disengaged arms
+were wound around one another's waists.</p>
+
+<p>The other end of the voluminous wire forming the helix terminated in
+the rivet of an enormous spring that held a circular rheotome close to
+the circular mouth of the helix.</p>
+
+<p>On a pedestal level with the upheld battery, reached by a spiral
+stairway, stood the grand sorcerer Charka, robed in tissues of white
+silk and golden embroidery. An assistant priest turned a wheel that
+moved a screw point toward the spring of the rheotome. The moment the
+screw point touched the spring, the circular plate over the heart of
+the helix began to vibrate audibly. Another turn of the screw, and a
+vital thrill filled the temple with its sonorous music.</p>
+
+<p>I then knew that all that mysterious structure with its terrelium
+wires was an immense spiritual battery, charged with the life and love
+of ten thousand souls. The vital fluid, generated in the yearnings of
+ideal love, flooded the helix with its vitality and induced a
+magnetism of life that made the rheotome vibrate with emotion, until
+the whole temple shook with the thrilling sound.</p>
+
+<p>The priests and priestesses sang their ritournels of passion and love,
+and the grand sorcerer waved his wand over the monster's head. It was
+then the thought of Lyone filled my soul with a terrible yearning.</p>
+
+<p>Where was her hapless body? Was this feast of passion that I beheld
+her obsequies, or could it be some occult incantation to raise her
+from the dead?</p>
+
+<p>The thought fired my brain with madness! Oh, that it might be possible
+for her to live again, if only for one hour, that she might hear of
+victory! All at once I seemed to know that Lyone was laid in the heart
+of the helix held by the hehorrent. I knew, oh, I knew that the
+spectacle I beheld was the ceremony of reincarnation. I knew that the
+goddess was being swathed with currents of life from her votaries. How
+I blessed those living batteries, so faithful in their glorious work!
+How I blessed the adorable sorcerer who conducted this precious<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[291]</a></span>
+ministry of life, who focussed the love of thrilling souls upon the
+person of their goddess!</p>
+
+<p>I stood transfixed to the floor, watching with straining eyes those
+flamens of life perform their ritual of reincarnation. The air of the
+temple grew warm as blood, and infinitely holy. Soft and piercing
+music rose from unseen chambers of the temple, which, mingling with
+the blessed storm of life that beat upon the mouth of the helix,
+seemed to whirl away my senses.</p>
+
+<p>The first circle of souls around the dragon comprised the votaries of
+Bishano, or Sorcery; Hielano, or Magic; Nidialano, or Astrology;
+Padamano, or Soothsaying.</p>
+
+<p>The second circle embraced the adepts of Niano, or Witchcraft;
+Redohano, or Wizardry; Biccano, or the Oracle; Kielano, or Augury;
+Tocderano, or Prophecy; Jiracano, or Geomancy; Jocdilano, or
+Necromancy.</p>
+
+<p>The third circle embraced the hierophants of Orphitano, or
+Conjuration; Orielano, or Divination; Pridano, or Clairvoyance;
+Ecthyano, or Mesmerism; Cideshano, or Electro-Biology; Omdolophano, or
+Theosophy; Bishanamano, or Spiritualism.</p>
+
+<p>How shall I describe the spell of that hour? Glimmering figures, clad
+in robes of finest gossamer of the rarest colors, powderings and
+embroiderings, sang the songs of pained and enraptured sensibility.</p>
+
+<p>They loved, they wept, they supplicated Harikar!</p>
+
+<p>I saw twin-souls embrace in infinite tenderness, and again with
+ecstatic enthusiasm. It was a sea of supernatural emotion. It was an
+abyss of affection, filled with a whirlwind of bold, delicate,
+enormous love.</p>
+
+<p>A <i>religieuse</i> of Tocderano shouted, "She will live again!"</p>
+
+<p>A priest of Biccano sang, "She will be born again of mystical,
+chivalrous love!"</p>
+
+<p>As the enraptured host sang of life and love, I felt a million
+exaggerations of the delicacies of emotion. I felt as though fanned
+with warm winds blowing over wildernesses of flowers. I heard the
+multiplied splendor of bells, roaring like the soft vociferations of
+far-off tropic seas. I heard music ineffably tender and sublime,
+wailing its intoxicating melodies. I saw strange illuminations
+dissolve in never-ceasing explosions of color on the glorified
+windows. I saw upon the floor endless arabesques of twin-souls,
+fantastically entangled and unrolled.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly the temple shook with an explosion of sound that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[292]</a></span> seemed the
+concentrated madness of drums and organs and bells; the roaring of the
+rheotome grew deafeningly louder, mingling with a strange shivering
+sound, such as is produced by the suddenly transfixed wheels of a
+flying locomotive, tearing the metals into a hissing blaze. From the
+mouth of the hehorrent streamed a blaze of fire. I looked where the
+sorcerer stood&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>Heavens and earth! He was holding Lyone in his arms, alive from the
+living battery! Lyone, the peerless soul of souls, alive once more and
+triumphant over death!</p>
+
+<p>The temple whirled around me rapid as fire, and I fell to the ground
+insensible with joy!</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_LV" id="CHAPTER_LV"></a>CHAPTER LV.</h2>
+
+<h2>LEXINGTON AND LYONE HAILED KING AND QUEEN OF ATVATABAR.</h2>
+
+
+<p>The extraordinary scenes attending the reincarnation of Lyone had left
+me, when I returned to my senses, exhausted with emotion. It was
+gloriously true that she who was the Supreme Goddess, she who had
+suffered death in the fortress of Calnogor, had been restored to life
+by the powerful necromancy of the sorcerer and his college of
+twin-souls.</p>
+
+<p>I rushed forward in presence of the entire congregation and embraced
+in turn the radiant Lyone and the beloved Charka.</p>
+
+<p>I took her living figure in my arms. She was in a limp, tranquil
+condition, yet happily alive. The happy priests and priestesses
+shouted with enthusiasm: "Long live Lexington and Lyone, King and
+Queen of Atvatabar!"</p>
+
+<p>It was a blissful moment to us both. The future, that had lain under
+the terrors of death, now smiled again. I gazed upon my beloved's face
+with unspeakable tenderness. I saw that she smiled at me sweetly.</p>
+
+<p>Her apostasy was victorious, but who could have supposed that
+martyrdom and reincarnation were the path to glory? She had exchanged
+the crown of the goddess for that of a queen.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[293]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 700px;">
+<img src="images/image_292.jpg" width="700" height="442" alt="HEAVENS AND EARTH! HE WAS HOLDING LYONE IN HIS ARMS,
+ALIVE FROM THE LIVING BATTERY! LYONE, THE PEERLESS SOUL OF SOULS,
+ALIVE ONCE MORE AND TRIUMPHANT OVER DEATH." title="" />
+<span class="caption">HEAVENS AND EARTH! HE WAS HOLDING LYONE IN HIS ARMS,
+ALIVE FROM THE LIVING BATTERY! LYONE, THE PEERLESS SOUL OF SOULS,
+ALIVE ONCE MORE AND TRIUMPHANT OVER DEATH.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>Handing my precious burden back to Charka again, I addressed the
+congregation as follows:</p>
+
+<p>"Priests and priestesses of Egyplosis, wayleals and amazons of <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[295]</a></span> the
+sacred and victorious army, I thank you from the depths of my heart
+for your loyal salutation, but I particularly thank the grand sorcerer
+Charka, and you his hierophants, for your glorious restoration of her
+majesty to life, king and crown, thus defeating the cowardly crime of
+the ex-king. By reason of our victory, their majesties King Bhoolmakar
+and Queen Toplissy of Atvatabar are deposed from the throne, and his
+ex-majesty, by reason of his great crime, is condemned to death.</p>
+
+<p>"The causes that led to this revolution are already known to you. The
+time was ripe for a reform in Egyplosis. Regulation and not
+suppression will be our aim, and they who have helped us to this great
+conquest will not go unrewarded.</p>
+
+<p>"After her tremendous experiences, the queen will require a season of
+absolute rest to restore her to perfect health. I will intrust the
+task of establishing a reform of Egyplosis in competent hands,
+assisted by a council of your own representatives. The present crisis
+is too overwhelmingly happy to permit me to say more to you. On
+another occasion I will thank you more effectively."</p>
+
+<p>This speech was received with enthusiastic applause.</p>
+
+<p>On a litter, supported by six twin-souls, Lyone was tenderly borne out
+of the temple. We departed amid joyful peans of music, our pathway
+being strewn with flowers. We reached the supernal palace, and saw
+from every roof floating the flag of Lyone, in token of our victory.</p>
+
+<p>In her palace, on a couch of pale green velvet, lay the reincarnated
+form of Lyone, filled with a sense of luxurious rest. The experiences
+of the past few days demanded a period of profound repose. Her face
+wore a blessed and triumphant smile. She had paid with suffering for
+that Nirvana of joy. With reincarnation, or rather resurrection, had
+come a holier transfiguration of form and face. She was still too weak
+physically to discuss at length the great changes that had come to her
+or to the history of Atvatabar.</p>
+
+<p>She was the symbol of the more sensitive souls of humanity, who,
+capable of intense suffering and delirious rapture, must needs
+purchase all their joys with heart-rending experiences. The culture
+that comes from agony is our most priceless possession, and brings the
+soul to every feast, as well as the body. The body, daily slain by
+suffering, is resurrected with a purer flesh, and receives a
+reincarnated soul fitted for ideal delights.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[296]</a></span> It has attained a
+measure of Nirvana. It anticipates immortality by reason of suffering
+and love. Lyone had more than all achieved an ideal existence. Before
+she would be able to return again to the realities of the world, it
+was necessary that time should be given her for physical and spiritual
+invigoration.</p>
+
+<p>"I feel neither pain nor fatigue," said Lyone; "my senses seemed
+drowned in a delicious rest. You tell me that I have been dead and
+brought to life again, and although I have no sense of having passed
+through the agony, I must believe you. I remember touching a golden
+vase of flowers in my prison, and then all became a blank until I
+stood with the grand sorcerer in the temple of reincarnation."</p>
+
+<p>"That vase you touched," said I, "was connected with a powerful magnic
+battery, which was placed in your apartment by the king's order, to
+kill you. Grasnagallipas, leader of the king's bockhockids, on
+learning of his royal master's treachery, immediately transferred his
+allegiance and important command to our army, and was mainly
+instrumental in securing the victory."</p>
+
+<p>"So our cause has triumphed," said Lyone; "and what has become of the
+king?"</p>
+
+<p>"The king," I replied, "is king no more. I am King of Atvatabar and
+you are my beloved queen."</p>
+
+<p>Lyone turned aside her face and wept tears of joy.</p>
+
+<p>"Our marriage," I added, "will inaugurate the reign of a religion of
+wedded love, and you will sit with me as queen on the throne of
+Atvatabar."</p>
+
+<p>"That will be glorious," said Lyone, "but I fear our marriage will
+also end ideal love and sorcery, and the Nirvana of a hundred years,
+the fairest products of Egyplosis."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you see now," I said, "that ideal joys in the world can only be
+built on more extensive miseries? It would be a glorious thing to
+build houses of jewels, but so long as real jewels are so rare, we
+must be content with rocks. Still, there are jewels, and in Atvatabar
+I learn they are much more abundant than on the outer planet;
+therefore it might be proper for twin-souls to walk on love's
+enchanted ground for a brief though definite period."</p>
+
+<p>Lyone had undergone transfiguration. Beautiful as a spirit, her figure
+seemed plastic porcelain. Death had made more luminous the splendid
+sculpture of her face. As she spoke, it<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[297]</a></span> seemed to me that we had
+closed the door on the infelicitous experiences of actual life, and
+were opening the gates of a more glorious day.</p>
+
+<p>I informed Lyone of the arrival of the two vessels from the outer
+world, and of the great services of Captain Adams and Sir John Forbes
+in turning the tide of battle by sea in our favor. She was delighted
+at the prospect of meeting fresh visitors from the outer world, and in
+due time Captain Adams and Sir John Forbes and their entire ships'
+companies stood before her who was delighted with the fuller
+acquaintance thus made with the people of the outer world. Both the
+captains and their officers realized her ideal of exotic manhood,
+which combined stalwart proportions with intellectual benignity of
+face.</p>
+
+<p>Sir John Forbes was very complimentary in his praise of the grace and
+beauty of Lyone and her associates among the priestesses of Egyplosis.
+He considered Lyone to possess spiritual beauty to an extraordinary
+degree. The wonderful pale-gold of her complexion was in marked
+contrast to the old-gold complexion of the women of Atvatabar. He also
+praised the splendid beauty of Zooly-Soase and Thoubool, who were
+indeed magnificent women.</p>
+
+<p>My success encouraged the strangers to consider that conquest in other
+realms of Plutusia would be an easy accomplishment, especially if
+armed with such weapons as those possessed by the sailors of the
+<i>Polar King</i>. But even admitting superiority of weapons, they thought
+it a marvellous thing that one small vessel with but eighty men could
+conquer fifty millions of people.</p>
+
+<p>In my own mind I thought it possible that the <i>Polar King</i> might
+conquer still greater kingdoms, and that in time I might be Plutarch
+of Plutusia. But in such business one realm at a time is enough. I
+suggested to our visitors that there were at least twenty realms, each
+as large as Atvatabar, in this interior planet, that would give them
+opportunity for adventure.</p>
+
+<p>"We also wish," said I, "both the United States and England to know
+that our ports are open for commerce, and foreign trade is welcome to
+seek our shores. We have gold enough to enrich all comers from the
+outer world."</p>
+
+<p>The eyes of our visitors and their officers glistened at this
+intelligence. And well they might, for Atvatabar was worth a thousand
+realms like Golconda or Peru. We had wealth for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[298]</a></span> literature and
+science, art and commerce, which rightly used would make Atvatabar the
+wonder of the ages, a realm of palaces and temples, the fountain of
+wisdom, the mother of art, and its commerce would make both the earths
+rich beyond the dreams of fortune. I was determined that the royal
+magnificence of the thrones of all time on either surface of the earth
+should be outrivalled by the supreme glory of that of Atvatabar. I
+knew there was an inspiration to human endeavor that magnificence
+alone can give, and would use my wealth to advance the happiness of
+humanity.</p>
+
+<p>Lyone being at last fully restored to health, we determined to delay
+no longer the important ceremonies of our royal marriage and
+coronation, not only to complete our happiness, but to really
+establish the government on a personal basis so agreeable to the
+wishes and customs of the people.</p>
+
+<p>Lyone's aerial yacht was made ready for the journey to Calnogor. It
+was large enough to carry the captains, officers, and men of the
+<i>Mercury</i> and <i>Aurora Borealis</i>, the captain, officers, and men of the
+<i>Polar King</i>, as well as Lyone and myself and the great officers of
+state and retinue. All being safely on board, I gave the signal for
+flight, and in a moment we were launched on the air with tremendous
+speed.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_LVI" id="CHAPTER_LVI"></a>CHAPTER LVI.</h2>
+
+<h2>OUR RECEPTION IN CALNOGOR.</h2>
+
+
+<p>The royal city of Calnogor never contained such splendor, such
+importance of historic event, nor such a multitude of people, as on
+the occasion of the triple event of our marriage, our coronation, and
+the reception of the distinguished strangers from beyond the Polar
+Gulf. How shall the glory of that day be described? What occult power
+must animate the pen that must be at once the stylus of a poet, the
+brush of a painter, and the wand of a magician, to do justice to the
+splendid theme?</p>
+
+<p>The entire army, composed of half a million wayleals, had come from
+Calnogor to Kioram to escort the aerial ship containing myself, Lyone,
+and the distinguished strangers, together with our retinue and the
+sailors from America and Great Britain. On either side of the ship the
+army was massed in two<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[299]</a></span> equal hosts, waving a million of wings. Either
+army was led by a phalanx of flying bockhockids, led by Yermoul and
+Grasnagallipas. A body-guard of wayleals bore fifty gigantic golden
+sceptres, being the ensigns of sovereignty over the fifty provinces of
+the kingdom.</p>
+
+<p>All the way to Calnogor, five hundred miles distant, the army
+performed the most incredible evolutions to the measured thunders of
+music. Its legions massed themselves in ever-whirling globes,
+undulating all along the line of flight like monstrous serpents.</p>
+
+<p>Again, mighty cones of wayleals would stream from our yacht on both
+sides, upward and backward, like a blaze of comet splendor.</p>
+
+<p>Then, suddenly, globes of wayleals would surround us, globe within
+globe flying alternately in different directions; and we seemed to
+move on the centre of another earth.</p>
+
+<p>To describe the endless flight and counter-flight, the concentration
+and radiation of the wayleals in grand review, would be impossible.
+Captain Adams and Sir John Forbes were astounded at the extraordinary
+evolutions possible to winged men in a world where there is
+practically no gravity. The army moved in D&aelig;dalian march; it was at
+times sinuous with labyrinthic movement to the sound of drums and the
+roar of bugles. The wayleals formed arches and crowns, conchoidal
+convolutions, zones and wheels, hemispheres and globes, cones and
+pyramids. The yacht was clothed with sublime torsions, peristaltic
+splendors, and immense radiations of living bodies. It was the
+grandest movement of men ever seen on earth.</p>
+
+<p>We were again completely surrounded by a single globe of wayleals, in
+the centre of which moved the yacht with fearful speed. The globe
+moved as fast as we, and the living shell obliterated both earth and
+sun from, sight. Then, with a roar of artillery, the globe exploded,
+and lo! before us the infinite golden dome of the Bormidophia, the
+marble city of Calnogor, and dense multitudes of excited people!</p>
+
+<p>The city was decorated with the conquering flag of Lyone and with
+flowers; and the inscriptions on the triumphal arches were: "Long live
+Lexington and Lyone, King and Queen of Atvatabar!"</p>
+
+<p>The entire army, augmented by the allegiance of the defeated<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[300]</a></span> king's
+troops, headed by the supreme general Hushnoly, received us at the
+entrance to the city.</p>
+
+<p>Pending the reconstruction of the government, law and order were being
+administered by Hushnoly, assisted by a military council consisting of
+all the victorious leaders.</p>
+
+<p>The festivities incidental to our entry into Calnogor and the public
+rejoicings over the reincarnation of Lyone lasted several days. I took
+occasion at a reception at the royal palace to confer suitable honors
+and rewards on my victorious generals. I created the supreme general
+Hushnoly a noble of the first rank under the title of Goiloor, or Duke
+of Calnogor, and confirmed his authority as commander-in-chief of the
+army, and Zooly-Soase was also created Goiloose of Calnogor. General
+Gerolio was created Boiroon of Swerga, an inland city, and appointed
+vice-commander to Hushnoly. General Rackiron was made Goiloor of
+Swondab, and his appointment as general of the royal artillery was
+confirmed. General Ladalmir was made Goiloor of Kioram and commandant
+of the fortress. General Yermoul, who retired from the army, was made
+Goiloor of Gnaphisthasia. The grand sorcerer Charka was made Goiloor,
+and the grand sorceress Goiloose of Egyplosis, while Grasnagallipas
+was created Boiroon of Invention and General of the Royal Bockhockids.</p>
+
+<p>General Starbottle was made Goiloor of Savasse, a province of the
+kingdom, and Prime Minister of the government. General Goldrock, who
+was now fully recovered from his wounded leg, was made Royal Treasurer
+and Goiloor of Blindis, a distant city. Dr. Merryferry was made
+Minister of Foreign Affairs; General Nototherboc, Minister of Naval
+Affairs; General Pra, Chief of Police; and General Flathootly,
+Minister of War.</p>
+
+<p>I assumed the title of "His Majesty Lexington, King of Atvatabar," and
+Lyone that of "Her Majesty Lyone, Queen of Atvatabar," of equal
+authority and dignity to myself.</p>
+
+<p>I issued a decree confirming all titles and dignities for the life of
+the recipient only. As a man cannot transfer his character or
+abilities to his children, more especially the virtues that made him
+famous, so neither could he transfer his titles or dignities to
+posterity; and a man who had no other claims to greatness than the
+plumes he had borrowed from his father, should be despised for
+strutting in artificial glory.</p>
+
+<p>The Borodemy was maintained, and no restriction of popular<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[301]</a></span> or
+constitutional liberty already enjoyed by the people was permitted.
+All titles given to men who were simply fortunate enough to receive a
+majority of votes, making them representatives of the people in the
+Borodemy, were abolished, and men only were honored by virtue of great
+services accomplished. All members of the Borodemy were paid liberal
+salaries, on the principle that a prince had no more right to an
+appropriation from the public purse than a legislator. All public
+measures adopted by the Borodemy were subject to the veto of the Royal
+Council, composed of the king, queen, and actual members of the
+government.</p>
+
+<p>I need not say that the victory of Lyone over death and the fact of
+our army having conquered in battle gave us unlimited power. I was the
+supreme lord of Atvatabar; but, nevertheless, in the hour of triumph I
+determined to use my power for the good of the people. The sensation
+caused by the return of Lyone to life had stirred all Atvatabar with
+feelings of the profoundest awe and loyalty. Vast crowds of people
+came as pilgrims to see their queen and offer congratulations.</p>
+
+<p>Had the old creed, with its worship of Lyone and Harikar, not fallen
+with the success of our arms, Lyone would undoubtedly have been
+worshipped anew as goddess more devotedly than ever; but the
+revolution being founded on antagonism of the old faith to social
+welfare and the laws of nature, a new creed must necessarily take its
+place.</p>
+
+<p>The new creed of one body and one soul was based on order, truth,
+justice, benevolence and temperance. This I styled the Remeliora, or
+better thing to that which had gone before. The new creed gave the
+soul mastery of its feelings, and love was measured by a regular
+throb. Souls becoming stronger and more masculine were the better able
+to bear the pulsations of joy and despair. They could sustain their
+emotions with a cordial enthusiasm, and passion, no longer a frantic
+flame, became a soft and abiding fire.</p>
+
+<p>I appointed the grand sorcerer Pontiff of Remeliorism, giving him
+authority to formulate a code of ethics that all could adhere to. With
+such a code as a solid foundation, I hoped in time to establish a
+purer faith than that possessing only the human soul for its deity.</p>
+
+<p>Not many days after our coming to Calnogor, and while still engaged in
+settling the government of the kingdom, we received<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[302]</a></span> a visit from
+Hushnoly and Zooly-Soase. It was with feelings of pain that we heard
+the object of the supreme general's visit.</p>
+
+<p>With a voice softened with emotion Hushnoly told his story. In
+carrying out the reforms at Egyplosis made necessary by the success of
+the army of the late goddess, a great difficulty presented itself. It
+was found that, notwithstanding the fact that all of the priests and
+priestesses had fought for Lyone and the new faith, as against the old
+order of things, nearly one-half of the twin-souls were still at heart
+as great devotees of Harikar and hopeless love as ever, while the
+remaining half had renounced the practices of Egyplosis in common with
+their queen. It was found impossible to change the faith of the entire
+priesthood in a moment, so to speak, and many still believed that the
+old faith possessed fruits of self-sacrifice, culture, spirit-power,
+and the ideal life, such as the new state of things would utterly
+destroy. Hushnoly and the high priestess were in sympathy with the
+adherents of the ancient faith, and they too believed in sacrificing
+marital rights for the sake of the ideal existence.</p>
+
+<p>The revelation of such a spiritual revolt in Egyplosis, headed, too,
+by the man and woman who had sacrificed so much for the cause of Lyone
+and myself, revealed human nature in a new light, while it astounded
+us. I had foolishly supposed the supremacy of the sword could carry
+dominion into spiritual things, and that Egyplosis was wholly
+converted to the new faith, to Remeliorism.</p>
+
+<p>The situation was extremely painful.</p>
+
+<p>"Supreme general and high priestess," I said, "both her majesty Lyone
+and myself are greatly indebted to your courage and support in the
+late struggle; a support heroically given us in spite of your own
+secret faith. Is there no way by which you might be reconciled, both
+of you, to the new order of things?"</p>
+
+<p>"We fear not, your majesty," said Hushnoly.</p>
+
+<p>"Will riches, will honors not tempt you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Your majesty, we cannot be tempted," replied he.</p>
+
+<p>"You are doubtless aware," I continued, "that it would be impossible
+for the government to recognize, much less give support to, a system
+of faith for the destruction of which the war was carried on. Much as
+we love you, much as we love the priests and priestesses, we cannot
+give allegiance to the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[303]</a></span> old faith, We cannot, we dare not countenance
+your creed. It will be therefore impossible for yourselves or your
+people to remain at Egyplosis, which will be the chief shrine of the
+new faith hereafter."</p>
+
+<p>"We have already anticipated all this," said Hushnoly, "and do not
+propose even to remain in Atvatabar."</p>
+
+<p>"And where do you go to?" said Lyone, in astonishment.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, your majesty," replied he, "we have determined to take
+possession of the sphere Hilar, one of the untenanted spheres above
+us, and there create an ideal world. Thus we will relieve your majesty
+of all embarrassment and remove any obstacle in the way of religious
+or political reform."</p>
+
+<p>I was bewildered by the reply of Hushnoly, as I had never before heard
+of any one desiring to dwell on the wandering sphere Hilar, and begged
+an explanation.</p>
+
+<p>"Hilar, as your majesty is probably aware," said Hushnoly, "is a
+sphere twenty-five miles in diameter that floats in space at a
+distance of fifty miles from the surface of Atvatabar. It revolves on
+its own axis at the rate of a mile an hour, making a complete
+revolution in seventy-five hours. It also revolves around Swang once
+during a hundred aerial revolutions, or in one hundred of its days. It
+has tropic, temperate, and frigid zones, with perpetual ice capping
+its poles. It contains one ocean of irregular outline and has one
+continent. The areas of land and water are about equal. There are two
+mountain ranges, turning from a given centre of upheaval and
+determining the configuration of the land. There are one hundred
+islands in the sea and a dozen rivers on the land. In fact, it seems
+to be a facsimile in climate, geologic, and physiographical conditions
+to the outer world you have come from; and on such a sphere we propose
+to build a new throne for Harikar, and seat thereon another goddess
+like the virtuous and glorious Lyone."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah," said Lyone, "I know who that other goddess will be&mdash;she will be
+the fair Zooly-Soase."</p>
+
+<p>The high priestess blushed in her robe of crimson silk, making her
+golden beauty superb and precious. As for Hushnoly, it was evident the
+destiny of his counterpart soul was already fully anticipated. Her
+ascension to the throne of a goddess would virtually make him ruler of
+Hilar.</p>
+
+<p>"We desire, your majesty," said he, "to resign our titles and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[304]</a></span> offices
+of high priest and priestess of Egyplosis and supreme general and
+general of the amazons of the royal army of Atvatabar. Our only
+request is that we be allowed to depart to Hilar, together with such
+of the priests and priestesses of Harikar as are willing to follow us
+thither. Also, that all new converts to Harikar desirous of emigrating
+to our spiritual kingdom will be secured freedom of departure from
+Atvatabar for all time hereafter."</p>
+
+<p>I willingly granted Hushnoly and Zooly-Soase their request, and added:
+"You both shall be promptly and liberally rewarded for the great
+services rendered your king and queen in time of war, as well as
+recompensed for past services to the country in Egyplosis and for loss
+of estate in Atvatabar."</p>
+
+<p>I promised to issue a royal decree embodying all of the aforesaid
+liberties and bounties in favor of Hushnoly and his fair consort and
+their followers. The late high priest and high priestess, with
+grateful, cordial adieus, departed from the audience-chamber.</p>
+
+<p>I thereupon appointed General Rackiron the commander-in-chief of the
+army in place of Hushnoly, with General Gerolio the vice-commander.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_LVII" id="CHAPTER_LVII"></a>CHAPTER LVII.</h2>
+
+<h2>THE COMBINED CEREMONY OF MARRIAGE AND CORONATION.</h2>
+
+
+<p>The day of our marriage and coronation as king and queen of Atvatabar
+at length arrived. The scene in the Bormidophia was of surpassing
+magnificence. For the first time in history Lyone sat before the
+throne of the gods not as goddess, but as queen; and I, her compeer,
+as king sat beside her. Lyone was attired in a loosely-fitting robe of
+old-ivory silk, over which was an outer network of lace formed of
+thread of gold, the design being a golden sun on the breast, which,
+with its long streaming rays, was held together by a golden cobweb
+that covered the entire figure of the queen. She also wore her belt of
+jewels. Beside her stood a page bearing her crown as Queen of
+Atvatabar. For myself I had caused to be made a knightly suit of
+golden armor that shone mightily as I wore it on that eventful
+occasion.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[305]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The priestesses of Egyplosis, taught by a priest of decorative art
+from Gnaphisthasia, had been for some time engaged in creating a
+tapestry of lace, wrought with a thread of heavy bullion gold, as a
+bridal gift to their queen. The design took the form of a winged
+twin-soul in loving converse, in the centre, surrounded by
+Atvatabarese arabesque&mdash;all held together by a most poetic fancy of
+floral scrolls and formed of gold thread lace work. This enormous
+piece of work was twelve feet in width, seventy-five feet in length,
+and four inches in thickness. The gold used in its marvellous
+intricacies weighed five tons. Such was the glorious piece of tapestry
+that was hung over the side of the throne, and which, reaching
+downward three-fourths of its height, concealed a considerable part of
+the august structure.</p>
+
+<p>Around us swept the amphitheatre, filled with the leaders of the army
+and navy, the great officers of government, and the people of
+Atvatabar. Surrounding the base of the throne, sat those priests and
+priestesses of Egyplosis who had embraced the new faith of "one body
+and one soul."</p>
+
+<p>The pontiff Charka performed the marriage ceremony when the roar of
+guns had subsided. He performed his august duties sustained by the
+splendors of music and the adoration of the people.</p>
+
+<p>"Wilt thou have this woman, Lyone, Queen of Atvatabar, to be thy wife
+until death, according to the customs of our people and not according
+to the customs of Egyplosis?"</p>
+
+<p>"I will."</p>
+
+<p>"Wilt thou have this man, Lexington, King of Atvatabar, to be thy
+husband until death, according to the new faith of 'one body and one
+soul?'"</p>
+
+<p>"I will."</p>
+
+<p>The deed was done. Around the throne swept a cyclone of twin-souls
+resolved on matrimony. In their bewildering flight they became radiant
+with strange transformations of feeling and gesture, and their songs
+symbolized the intensity of the great crisis that had arrived in the
+history of the nation.</p>
+
+<p>All around the amphitheatre rose the enormous multitude, as one soul,
+shouting their joy. The guns of the fortress volleyed their thunders,
+and the first act of the great drama ended amid the shouting of armed
+hosts, the singing of twin-souls, and the hosannas of the multitude.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[306]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The second scene was perhaps still more impressive. The grand
+chamberlain of the palace Cleperelyum had put into his phonograph
+beside us a coil containing the charter of coronation. Fitting a
+megaphone to the phonograph, there issued the following proclamation
+from the instrument, like a blast of music:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p><i>Charter of Coronation of Their Majesties</i> <span class="smcap">Lexington</span> <i>and</i>
+<span class="smcap">Lyone</span>, <i>King and Queen of Atvatabar</i>.</p>
+
+<p>The crown and throne of the realm of Atvatabar, heretofore
+possessed in the persons of their ex-majesties King
+Aldemegry Bhoolmakar and Queen Toplissy, being now declared
+vacant by reason of the desertion, flight, deposition, and
+defeat of said ex-majesties, and said crown and throne of
+Atvatabar being now possessed, both by conquest and by will
+of the people, in the persons of their majesties Lexington
+and Lyone, King and Queen of Atvatabar, now, therefore, we,
+the priests, nobles, statesmen, and commanders of army and
+navy, as representatives of the people, do hereby confirm
+said possession of the crown and throne of this realm, by
+placing upon the head of Lexington and upon the head of
+Lyone their respective crowns as King and Queen of
+Atvatabar, and do hereby render both king and queen equal
+loyalty, fealty, and homage, as the true and rightful
+sovereigns of Atvatabar. </p></div>
+
+<p class="blockquot">
+(Signed)</p>
+<p class="blockquot">
+<span class="smcap">Starbottle</span>, <i>Goiloor of Calnogor, First Minister of the Government</i>.<br />
+<br />
+<span class="smcap">Charka</span>, <i>Pontiff of Remeliorism, Goiloor of Egyplosis</i>.<br />
+<br />
+<span class="smcap">Thoubool</span>, <i>Goiloose of Egyplosis</i>.<br />
+<br />
+<span class="smcap">Rackiron</span>, <i>Goiloor of Swondab, Commander-in-Chief of the Army</i>.<br />
+<br />
+<span class="smcap">Wallace</span>, <i>Admiral of the Fleet</i>.<br />
+<br />
+<span class="smcap">Yermoul</span>, <i>Lord of Art, Goiloor of Gnaphisthasia</i>.<br />
+<br />
+<span class="smcap">Grasnagallipas</span>, <i>Commander-in-Chief of Bockhockids</i>.<br />
+<br />
+<span class="smcap">Ladalmir</span>, <i>Goiloor of Kioram</i>.<br />
+<br />
+<span class="smcap">Pra</span>, <i>Minister of Police</i>.<br />
+<br />
+<span class="smcap">Nototherboc</span>, <i>Minister of Naval Affairs</i>.<br />
+<br />
+<span class="smcap">Goldrock</span>, <i>Royal Treasurer</i>.<br />
+<br />
+<span class="smcap">Dr. Merryferry</span>, <i>Minister of Foreign Affairs</i>.<br />
+<br />
+<span class="smcap">Flathootly</span>, <i>Minister of War</i>.<br />
+<br />
+<span class="smcap">Gerolio</span>, <i>Vice-Commander of the Army</i>.<br />
+<br />
+<span class="smcap">Coltonobory</span>, <i>Vice-Commander of Bockhockids</i>.<br />
+</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[307]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 450px;">
+<img src="images/image_306.jpg" width="450" height="648" alt="WE SAT THUS CROWNED AMID THE TREMENDOUS EXCITEMENT. THE
+PEOPLE SHOUTED &quot;LIFE, HEALTH, AND PROSPERITY, TO OUR SOVEREIGN LORD
+AND LADY, LEXINGTON AND LYONE, KING AND QUEEN OF ATVATABAR.&quot;" title="" />
+<span class="caption">WE SAT THUS CROWNED AMID THE TREMENDOUS EXCITEMENT. THE
+PEOPLE SHOUTED &quot;LIFE, HEALTH, AND PROSPERITY, TO OUR SOVEREIGN LORD
+AND LADY, LEXINGTON AND LYONE, KING AND QUEEN OF ATVATABAR.&quot;</span>
+</div><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[309]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>During the declamation of the megaphone the pontiff Charka raised the
+crown to my head, while his consort Thoubool raised the crown of the
+queen to Lyone's head. We sat thus crowned amid the tremendous
+excitement. The guns of the fortress shook the Bormidophia with their
+explosions. The people shouted: "Life, health, and prosperity to our
+sovereign lord and lady, Lexington and Lyone, King and Queen of
+Atvatabar!" Men heard no sweeter music than the coronation march
+executed by a thousand instruments. I realized as I sat with Lyone
+beneath the throne of the gods a portion of that immeasurable feeling
+of being universally exalted, universally loved, universally adored.
+It is true, the fervor of idolatry for Lyone had largely subsided, but
+in its stead came a more perfect loyalty of soul and body on the part
+of priest and priestess. Souls that had balanced themselves, as it
+were, on the edge of a sword, once more stood on the solid earth.</p>
+
+<p>The magnificence of royalty, which kings born to the purple but rarely
+feel, was ours. Our sudden good fortune unveiled to us the splendors
+of power, and riches, and honor. The people themselves, enchanted with
+the product of their own abnegation, made their obeisance to us as to
+gods.</p>
+
+<p>Lyone grew perceptibly paler with the intensity of her excitement; her
+breast rose and fell more rapidly, as the soarings of song told her
+that her supreme realization of life and fortune as goddess had not
+wholly died with her apostasy, but that a new life no less glorious
+had begun.</p>
+
+<p>As for myself, seated on the focus of human endeavor, it thrilled me
+to think what power of realization I possessed for things I had
+considered impossible and unattainable. I determined that art should
+sound the abysses of the inexpressible and bring from thence radiant
+symbols of all things, clothed with imagination and emotion. Invention
+would still further extend man's empire over matter. Soul-culture and
+spirit-power would be cultivated in a reformed Egyplosis. Lyone,
+mystical and divine, would ever rule queen of hearts with the sorcery
+of her beauty.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[310]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_LVIII" id="CHAPTER_LVIII"></a>CHAPTER LVIII.</h2>
+
+<h2>THE DEATH OF BHOOLMAKAR.</h2>
+
+
+<p>General Flathootly, with his command of 10,000 fletyemings, who was
+ordered to pursue and capture the ex-king Bhoolmakar, returned to
+Calnogor after a month's absence to report the death of King
+Bhoolmakar and Koshnili, together with several hundred of their
+followers, and the capture of several thousand wayleals as prisoners.</p>
+
+<p>At a special interview with the general I requested him to report the
+story of his defeat of the king's troops and the death of the king.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, yer majesty," said Flathootly, "Oi must first of all
+congratulate you on ascendin' the throne of the inimy. It was the
+shmartest bit of work Oi've seen iver since Oi lift the other
+wurruld."</p>
+
+<p>"The troops behaved nobly," I said, "but I am all anxiety to hear how
+you captured the king."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, thin, yer majesty, Oi kim up to him at a place called Gapthis,
+about 1,500 miles from here, away beyant on the wild say-shore."</p>
+
+<p>"Had he a large force with him?" I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Bedad an' he had. He had a body-guard of about 5,000 wayleals, but
+shure, we made short work of the flyin' sojers."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, tell me exactly what happened," I said.</p>
+
+<p>"Troth, an' Oi will, yer majesty; shure our flyin' sailors are darlin'
+fellows! We skirmished up to the inimy until we got him between us an'
+the say an' thin we fell to. The bloody rascals tried to spear us, an'
+did kill about a dozen or two of the bhoys, but we touched thim up
+lively wid our pitchforks, an' begorra they didn't loike that at all,
+at all.</p>
+
+<p>"A wee red-faced captain called out that they were goin' to fight for
+their king to the last. 'How long are ye goin' to last yerself,
+sonny?' says Oi, an' afore the words were out of me mouth somebody
+laid the wee fellow out as nate as a funeral. Well, we fell upon thim
+front an' rear, as the sayin' is, an' be jabers, Oi killed a man wid
+the first blow.</p>
+
+<p>"'Walk right into thim!' Oi shouted, an' there we wor,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[311]</a></span> fightin' an'
+slashin' an' killin' wan another as if it wor a mere matther of
+business. If the king's sojers flew up, why, we flew up too, an'
+chased thim down ag'in. It was loike a pandemonium of fightin' cocks.</p>
+
+<p>"There was a big fellow who made a slash at me wid his sword, but Oi
+lifted him on me fork, an' he very nicely showed me the whites of his
+eyes. The best part of the performance was ould Bhooly, who had
+himself in the middle of his body-guard, an', waving a toy sword,
+asked his kind friends to kill us.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, to make a long shtory short, the inimy being very badly beaten,
+threw up their arms, an' we captured the entire lot, excipt about five
+hundred wayleals who flew away as fast as their heels cud carry thim."</p>
+
+<p>"How did the king conduct himself when captured?" I inquired.</p>
+
+<p>"He came up to me, an' bowin' very nicely, offered me his sword. He
+said he was glad to surrender to a brave gineral an' hoped Oi would
+give him the honors of war.</p>
+
+<p>"'Be jabers, Oi will that,' said Oi; 'but that'll be afther we thry ye
+by coort-martial. But where's Mrs. Bhooly?' says Oi.</p>
+
+<p>"'Does your excellency mean her late majesty?' said Bhooly; 'if so, Oi
+regret to say the unhappy fate which has overtaken both myself and my
+counthry prostrated her so much that she died.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Well, thin,' said Oi, 'where's that other conspirator, Koshnili?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Oi am here, your excellency,' said he, steppin' forward an' handin'
+me his sword, 'an' Oi also surrender.'</p>
+
+<p>"'You do well,' said Oi, 'to give up yer sword, for it saves me the
+throuble of takin' it from you.</p>
+
+<p>"'An' now, me rascals,' Oi said, 'we're goin' to save the throuble of
+lookin' afther you by thryin' you by coort-martial. Let the coort be
+formed,' said Oi, 'an' bring forth the prisoners.' The king's sojers
+were disarmed, an' their wings taken off, an' were assimbled in a
+circle undher guard. Bhooly an' Koshnili, undher a special guard,
+stood in the middle of the ring.</p>
+
+<p>"'Now, bhoys,' said Oi, 'fair play an' no favor. Who has got a charge
+agin' the prisoners?' Wid that, wan of me min stepped forward an' said
+that Bhooly an' Koshnili had organized resistance to a change of
+government an' religion, thereby blockin'<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[312]</a></span> the wheels of reform, an'
+furthermore had conspired to murdher, an', be jabers, did murdher, her
+holiness the goddess, of blessed memory, who, although alive ag'in,
+was undoubtedly kilt.</p>
+
+<p>"When Bhooly an' Koshnili heard that the goddess was alive ag'in their
+knees knocked together wid fear.</p>
+
+<p>"'This is a terrible charge agin' ye both,' said Oi. 'Oi don't know
+which offince is the greatest&mdash;killin' a dacent goddess or blockin'
+the wheels of reform; annyhow, the wan crime is as bad as the other.
+Who supports this charge?' Oi added in thunderin' tones.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, ivery sojer on the spot volunteered to give evidence as to the
+blockin' of the wheels of reform, but nobody saw the murdher
+committed.</p>
+
+<p>"'Now,' said Oi, addressin' the prisoners, 'did yez murdher the
+goddess or did yez not? By yer sowls, tell the truth. Guilty or not
+guilty?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Guilty,' said both prisoners.</p>
+
+<p>"'Thin, by yer own mouths be ye condimned,' said Oi. 'The sintince of
+this coort is that ye both be beheaded on the mortal spot.'"</p>
+
+<p>"I think, Flathootly," said I, "that you rather exceeded your duty in
+so hastily condemning the prisoners. You should have brought them to
+Calnogor for proper trial and execution."</p>
+
+<p>"Shure, Oi knew that, but, to tell yer majesty the truth, it wudn't
+have added to yer credit to have ordhered the execution of Bhooly, an'
+so Oi took the responsibility of the whole thing on meself. Oi made
+Bhooly an' Koshnili kneel down, an' a sojer tied their hands behind
+their backs. Then Oi ordhered a wayleal to behead thim wid their own
+swords. Afther some hot work the heads av both murdherers rolled on
+the ground."</p>
+
+<p>"Why didn't you shoot them or kill them at once with your spears?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oi considered it too aisy a death for thim. Oi didn't want thim to
+die widout knowin' they were gittin' hurt."</p>
+
+<p>I forgave Flathootly his too hasty execution of the ex-king, as he had
+undoubtedly saved me a very disagreeable duty, and the hasty taking
+off of his ex-majesty prevented any demonstration in his favor.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[313]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 700px;">
+<img src="images/image_312.jpg" width="700" height="437" alt="I MADE BHOOLY AN&#39; KOSHNILI KNEEL DOWN AN&#39; A SOJER TIED
+THEIR HANDS BEHIND THEIR BACKS. THEN I ORDHERED A WAYLEAL TO BEHEAD
+THEM WID THEIR OWN SWORDS." title="" />
+<span class="caption">I MADE BHOOLY AN&#39; KOSHNILI KNEEL DOWN AN&#39; A SOJER TIED
+THEIR HANDS BEHIND THEIR BACKS. THEN I ORDHERED A WAYLEAL TO BEHEAD
+THEM WID THEIR OWN SWORDS.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>To assure the people of my anxiety for a popular government, I issued
+a proclamation ordering a general election, to create a <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[315]</a></span> new
+Borodemy in place of the assembly whose members had disappeared, or
+were made prisoners of war, or were dead. In thus providing for a
+constitutional government, I granted the nation not only all its
+ancient privileges, but added new and more important measures of
+political liberty.</p>
+
+<p>As the revenues of Atvatabar amounted to $8,000,000,000 per annum,
+there was no danger of myself or comrades of the <i>Polar King</i> falling
+short of handsome revenues.</p>
+
+<p>The re-establishment of the government, the reorganization of the
+army, navy, and police, together with the care of the palaces of
+Calnogor and Tanje and the new ritual for the Bormidophia and
+Egyplosis, occupied my attention for a longer period than I at first
+contemplated. While these things were being accomplished I gave a
+grand public reception and royal banquet to Captain Adams and Sir John
+Forbes and the officers and seamen of the ships <i>Mercury</i> and <i>Aurora
+Borealis</i>, in acknowledgment of their great services to our cause. At
+the same time I did not forget to give our friends a more solid proof
+of my gratitude in the shape of a large bounty in gold.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_LIX" id="CHAPTER_LIX"></a>CHAPTER LIX.</h2>
+
+<h2>THE HISTORY CONCLUDED.</h2>
+
+
+<p>I think it is right that I should conclude the history of the conquest
+of Atvatabar with my being crowned king of the realm.</p>
+
+<p>I at once assumed my functions as ruler of Atvatabar. I was supreme
+commander of the army and grand admiral of the fleet. In council with
+the ministers of the government appointed by the Borodemy, I caused
+the adoption of many beneficent laws, calculated to make my people
+prosperous and happy.</p>
+
+<p>Hushnoly soon departed, with his retinue of twin-souls, to found a new
+Egyplosis on the sphere of Hilar, with Zooly-Soase as goddess. It was
+with great grief that I parted with these beloved friends. Hushnoly
+and his flock were not to be persuaded that nature herself was hostile
+to their esoteric practices; so, to avoid antagonism, it was best that
+we should part. I promised Hushnoly that, together with Lyone, I would
+visit his globe some time in the future and see how his colony
+progressed. He was an enthusiast who required a great many defeats
+from<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[316]</a></span> fortune before he could see the fatal defects of his social and
+religious system.</p>
+
+<p>The grand sorcerer, as the pontiff of Remeliorism, or the ethics of
+nature, achieved a triumph in restoring Egyplosis to the reign of
+order, truth, justice, benevolence, and temperance. In time I hoped to
+see the Christian faith rule the souls of those who had so recently
+worshipped themselves under the guise of Harikar, the universal human
+soul. I was anxious to see men and women possessing that serene poise
+of passion that alone can sustain virile action. Lyone herself was the
+first to be convinced that the human soul, with its limitations, its
+narrowness, its impatience, its selfishness, its arrogance, its
+cruelty, was a very inferior deity. It was true that rare ideal joys
+might be purchased for a brief time under the old <i>r&eacute;gime</i>, but they
+were only purchased at an immense price, out of all proportion to the
+value received, and their possession produced a sickly sublimity
+totally unfitting the soul for the practical duties of life.</p>
+
+<p>Captain Adams and Sir John Forbes, excited at my good fortune,
+declared themselves anxious, with my consent, to explore the further
+hemisphere of the interior planet, in the interests of science,
+discovery, commerce, and possibly conquest. They were anxious to
+discover the continents that lie above and beyond Atvatabar,
+surrounded by unknown Plutusian seas, and bear to their respective
+countries some signal trophies of their daring and prowess in the
+internal world.</p>
+
+<p>It was arranged that on their return to Kioram, the <i>Polar King</i>, with
+myself and Lyone on board, should sail with the <i>Mercury</i> and <i>Aurora
+Borealis</i> for the United States. The sailing of the three vessels up
+New York Bay would be a historic event, and great would be the
+curiosity of the American people to see the Goddess of Atvatabar and
+our retinue of wayleals as proof of the existence of Bilbimtesirol,
+the interior world.</p>
+
+<p>And now, my dear reader, we must part for the present. By a change of
+plans on the part of Captain Adams, the <i>Mercury</i>, the vessel that
+will bear the manuscript of my adventures in the interior world, is
+already waiting to start on her voyage. I regret that many strange
+things have been left unsaid. Many extraordinary experiences have been
+omitted, because I am desirous that this brief history of the
+happiness that befell me<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[317]</a></span> and my devoted sailors in Atvatabar should
+be published without delay, to allay the natural curiosity excited in
+the outer world by the story of our discovery of Plutusia.</p>
+
+<p>You may possibly feel a desire to know the future fortunes of Queen
+Lyone and myself in a part of the world hitherto undreamed of, and
+when I again address you I hope to describe our future experiences on
+the throne of Atvatabar. We purpose to apply a liberal portion of the
+vast wealth of our kingdom to the pursuit of invention, art, and
+spirituality, preserving and enlarging the existing palaces of
+invention and art and the palaces of Egyplosis as institutions for the
+development of the soul and its attributes of spirit power. It will be
+our purpose to extend to the utmost limits the empire of mind over
+matter in developing invention. In art, we will, by means of its
+manifold radiant symbols, reproduce every idea of the soul shaped by
+sentiment and imagination, and in sounding the abysses of the heart
+express what is considered the inexpressible.</p>
+
+<p>In spirituality, the science and art of soul and its manifestations in
+the body, and after the temporary or complete severance therefrom,
+will be investigated on a much wider basis than ever before, and
+spirit power, apart from the worship of soul as deity, will be
+developed and elaborated into an enduring force, possessing creative
+energy. What boundless empire of life will not such ideas realize, and
+how entrancing the story of such discoveries in the interior world of
+the soul!</p>
+
+<p>I may also, dear reader, request you to accompany me to other
+undiscovered realms of Plutusia, where, according to report, exist
+fairy-lands, peopled with strange, fantastic races of men and women,
+as well as fabulous animals, with characteristics surpassing the
+wildest dreams of fancy.</p>
+
+<p>As shown on the map of the interior world, which forms the
+frontispiece of this volume, many more continents remain yet unknown
+to me, to explore which will be my ambition. If the rumors I have
+heard of semi-spiritual men and semi-human monsters that dwell in
+tropical environments, where mountains rise so high that there is no
+weight on their summits, and where torrents of water roll upward,
+sweeping away villages in their path; of rocks of gold suspended in
+the air; of tribes dwelling on floating islands of jewels in the
+empyrean, and of a thousand still stranger places and peoples, where
+every phantasy of the imagination can be produced in reality by spirit
+power, then,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[318]</a></span> indeed, the story of my adventures will develop the soul
+of the age with a profound delight.</p>
+
+<p>I therefore bid adieu to you, dear reader, in the hope of meeting you
+again, to feast you with these wonders. I hope to have you accompany
+me on the <i>Polar King</i>, which, after a season of repair and refitment,
+will most assuredly be launched for a still more adventurous voyage on
+the waters of the interior sea. How many books have been written on
+the discovery of the western hemisphere by Columbus, while, as yet,
+but one has been written about the interior sphere, a region not less
+important than the outer earth, whose geographical features are now
+for the first time revealed to human eyes! What a wonder it would be
+if one could travel to the moon or the planet Mars and return to the
+earth to tell of all that he had seen or heard on those distant
+spheres! Here indeed is no less a miracle that for ages two vast
+planets have existed each unknown to the other, although only a
+thousand miles apart, with the means of communication possessing but
+few difficulties to be overcome. The mutual discovery of two such
+worlds has opened up a future for the human race that may well strike
+one dumb with its splendor. It has conferred on the meanest individual
+a glory, a birthright of the spirit, as vast as the proportions of the
+twin-planet. I will not further anticipate the future, and for the
+present will ask you to accept from Lyone and myself a courteous
+farewell.</p>
+
+<h3>THE END. </h3>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 450px;">
+<img src="images/image_319.jpg" width="450" height="590" alt="&quot;THE LOVE LETTER.&quot;" title="" />
+<span class="caption">&quot;THE LOVE LETTER.&quot;</span>
+</div>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Goddess of Atvatabar, by William R. Bradshaw
+
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+</body>
+</html>
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+Project Gutenberg's The Goddess of Atvatabar, by William R. Bradshaw
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Goddess of Atvatabar
+       Being the history of the discovery of the interior world
+       and conquest of Atvatabar
+
+Author: William R. Bradshaw
+
+Release Date: June 15, 2010 [EBook #32825]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GODDESS OF ATVATABAR ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Juliet Sutherland, and the
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+             [Illustration: _Map of the Interior World._]
+
+
+                                 THE
+                         GODDESS OF ATVATABAR
+
+                              BEING THE
+                       HISTORY OF THE DISCOVERY
+                                OF THE
+                            INTERIOR WORLD
+                                 AND
+                        CONQUEST OF ATVATABAR
+
+
+                                  BY
+
+                         WILLIAM R. BRADSHAW
+
+
+
+                        PROFUSELY ILLUSTRATED
+
+
+
+
+                               NEW YORK
+                            J. F. DOUTHITT
+                           286 FIFTH AVENUE
+                                 1892
+
+
+
+                         COPYRIGHT, 1891, BY
+                         WILLIAM R. BRADSHAW
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+CHAPTER                        PAGE
+
+      I.--A Polar Catastrophe,                                13
+
+     II.--The Cause of the Expedition,                        19
+
+    III.--Beginning the Voyage,                               22
+
+     IV.--Our Adventures in the Polar Sea,                    26
+
+      V.--We Enter the Polar Gulf,                            31
+
+     VI.--Day Becomes Night and Night Day,                    34
+
+    VII.--We Discover the Interior World,                     40
+
+   VIII.--Extraordinary Loss of Weight,                       45
+
+     IX.--Afloat on the Interior Ocean,                       50
+
+      X.--A Visit from the Inhabitants of Plutusia,           52
+
+     XI.--We Learn Atvatabarese,                              57
+
+    XII.--We Arrive at Kioram,                                61
+
+   XIII.--Marching in Triumph,                                65
+
+    XIV.--The Journey to Calnogor,                            72
+
+     XV.--Our Reception by the King,                          78
+
+    XVI.--The King Unfolds the Grandeur of Atvatabar,         83
+
+   XVII.--Gnaphisthasia,                                      86
+
+  XVIII.--The Journey to the Bormidophia,                     94
+
+    XIX.--The Throne of the Gods, Calnogor,                   99
+
+     XX.--The Worship of Lyone, Supreme Goddess,             103
+
+    XXI.--An Audience with the Supreme Goddess,              109
+
+   XXII.--The Goddess Learns the Story of the Outer World,   114
+
+  XXIII.--The Garden of Tanje,                               117
+
+   XXIV.--The Journey to Egyplosis,                          128
+
+    XXV.--Escaping from the Cyclone,                         133
+
+   XXVI.--The Banquet on the Aerial Ship,                    139
+
+  XXVII.--We Reach Egyplosis,                                144
+
+ XXVIII.--The Grand Temple of Harikar,                       149
+
+   XXIX.--The Installation of a Twin-Soul,                   153
+
+    XXX.--The Installation of a Twin-Soul (_Continued_)      159
+
+   XXXI.--The Mystery of Egyplosis,                          163
+
+  XXXII.--The Sin of a Twin-Soul,                            168
+
+ XXXIII.--The Doctor's Opinion of Egyplosis,                 172
+
+  XXXIV.--Lyone's Confession,                                176
+
+   XXXV.--Our Visit to the Infernal Palace,                  183
+
+  XXXVI.--Arjeels,                                           194
+
+ XXXVII.--A Revelation,                                      202
+
+XXXVIII.--Lyone's Manifesto to King and People,              206
+
+  XXXIX.--The Crisis in Atvatabar,                           212
+
+     XL.--My Departure from the Palace of Tanje,             216
+
+    XLI.--We Are Attacked by the Enemy,                      220
+
+   XLII.--The Battle Continued,                              225
+
+  XLIII.--Victory,                                           229
+
+   XLIV.--The News of Atvatabar in the Outer World,          235
+
+    XLV.--The Voyages of the _Mercury_ and the _Aurora
+            Borealis_,                                       244
+
+   XLVI.--The Arrest of Lyone,                               249
+
+  XLVII.--The Council of War in Kioram,                      253
+
+ XLVIII.--The Report of Astronomer Starbottle,               258
+
+   XLIX.--Preparation for War,                               264
+
+      L.--I Visit Lyone in Calnogor,                         267
+
+     LI.--The Death of Lyone,                                271
+
+    LII.--The Battle of Calnogor,                            279
+
+   LIII.--Victory,                                           283
+
+    LIV.--Reincarnation,                                     288
+
+     LV.--Lexington and Lyone Hailed King and Queen
+            of Atvatabar,                                    292
+
+    LVI.--Our Reception in Calnogor,                         298
+
+   LVII.--The Combined Ceremony of Marriage and Coronation,  304
+
+  LVIII.--The Death of Bhoolmakar,                           310
+
+    LIX.--The History Concluded,                             315
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
+
+
+                                               ARTIST,          PAGE
+
+MAP OF THE INTERIOR WORLD,                                _Frontispiece_.
+
+I SIGNALLED THE ENGINEER FULL SPEED AHEAD,
+AND IN A SHORT TIME WE CROSSED THE ICE-FOOT
+AND ENTERED THE CHASM,                     _C. Durand Chapman_,    17
+
+A SEMI-CIRCLE OF RIFLES WAS DISCHARGED AT
+THE UNHAPPY BRUTES. TWO OF THEM FELL
+DEAD IN THEIR TRACKS,                               "              29
+
+THE TERROR INSPIRED BY THE PROFESSOR'S
+WORDS WAS PLAINLY VISIBLE ON EVERY
+FACE,                                               "              35
+
+AT THIS MOMENT A WILD CRY AROSE FROM THE
+SAILORS. WITH ONE VOICE THEY SHOUTED,
+"THE SUN! THE SUN!"                                 "              41
+
+ONE OF THE FLYING MEN CAUGHT FLATHOOTLY
+BY THE HAIR OF THE HEAD, AND LIFTED
+HIM OUT OF THE WATER,                      _R. W. Rattray_,        55
+
+ONE OF THE MOUNTED POLICE GOT HOLD OF
+THE SWITCH ON THE BACK OF THE BOCKHOCKID,
+AND BROUGHT IT TO A STANDSTILL,            _Carl Gutherz_,         69
+
+THE SACRED LOCOMOTIVE STORMED THE MOUNTAIN
+HEIGHTS WITH ITS AUDACIOUS TREAD,          _C. Durand Chapman_,    75
+
+THE KING EMBRACED ME, AND I KISSED THE
+HAND OF HER MAJESTY,                                "              81
+
+A PROCESSION OF PRIESTS AND PRIESTESSES
+PASSED DOWN THE LIVING AISLES, BEARING
+TROPHIES OF ART,                           _Harold Haven Brown_,   87
+
+ON THE THRONE SAT THE SUPREME GODDESS
+LYONE, THE REPRESENTATIVE OF HARIKAR,
+THE HOLY SOUL,                             _C. Durand Chapman_,    97
+
+THE THRONE OF THE GODS WAS INDEED THE
+GOLDEN HEART OF ATVATABAR, THE TRIUNE
+SYMBOL OF BODY, MIND, AND SPIRIT,                   "             101
+
+HER HOLINESS OFFERED BOTH HIS MAJESTY
+THE KING AND MYSELF HER HAND TO KISS,               "             111
+
+ZOOPHYTES OF ATVATABAR,                    _Paul de Longpre_
+
+  THE LILASURE,                                                   117
+
+  THE LABURNUL,                                                   118
+
+  THE GREEN GAZZLE OF GLOCKETT GOZZLE,                            119
+
+  JEERLOONS,                                                      120
+
+  A JEERLOON,                                                     120
+
+  THE LILLIPOUTUM,                                                121
+
+  THE JUGDUL,                                                     122
+
+  THE YARPHAPPY,                                                  123
+
+  THE JALLOAST,                                                   124
+
+  THE GASTERNOWL,                                                 125
+
+  THE CROCOSUS,                                                   126
+
+  THE JARDIL, OR LOVE-POUCH,                                      127
+
+  THE BLOCUS,                                                     128
+
+  THE FUNNY-FENNY, OR CLOWNGRASS,                                 129
+
+  THE GLEROSERAL,                                                 130
+
+  THE EAGLON,                                                     131
+
+THE GODDESS STOOD HOLDING ON TO THE OUTER
+RAIL OF THE DECK, THE INCARNATION OF
+COURAGE,                                   _C. Durand Chapman_,   135
+
+THEN THE SHIP ROSE AGAIN TOWARD THE MAMMOTH
+ROCKS, ADORNED WITH THE TAPESTRIES
+OF FALLING WAVE,                                    "             141
+
+LYONE WAS BORNE ON A LITTER FROM THE
+AERIAL SHIP TO THE PALACE,                          "             147
+
+THE PRIEST AND PRIESTESS STOOD BESIDE THE
+ALTAR, EACH READING AN ALTERNATE STANZA
+FROM THE RITUAL OF THE GODDESS,            _R. W. Rattray_,       155
+
+HER KISS WAS A BLINDING WHIRLWIND OF
+FLAME AND TEARS,                           _C. Durand Chapman_,   181
+
+THE LABYRINTH WAS A SUBTERRANEAN GARDEN,
+WHOSE TREES AND FLOWERS WERE CHISELLED
+OUT OF THE LIVING ROCK,                    _Paul de Longpre_,     187
+
+AS I GAZED, LO! A SHOWER OF BLAZING JEWELS
+ISSUED FROM THE MOUTH OF THE HEHORRENT,    _Leonard M. Davis_,    191
+
+"BY VIRTUE OF THE SPIRIT POWER IN THIS
+CABLE," SAID THE SORCERER, "I WILL THAT
+THE MAGICAL ISLAND OF ARJEELS SHALL
+RISE ABOVE THE WAVES,"                     _C. Durand Chapman_,   197
+
+THE SHIP IN COMPANY WITH A VAST VOLUME OF
+WATER SPRANG INTO THE AIR TO A GREAT
+HEIGHT,                                             "             223
+
+WE SLOWLY DRAGGED OURSELVES ACROSS THE
+RANGE OF ICY PEAKS,                                 "             241
+
+I MOUNTED THE TRUNK AND PROPOSED THE
+HEALTH OF HER MAJESTY LYONE, QUEEN
+OF ATVATABAR,                              _R. W. Rattray_,       261
+
+LYONE REACHED FOR A FLOWER, AND IN DOING
+SO TOUCHED THE VASE, AND IMMEDIATELY
+FELL DEAD UPON THE FLOOR,                  _C. Durand Chapman_,   273
+
+AT THIS JUNCTURE A SHELL OF TERRORITE
+EXPLODED AMONG THE FOE WITH THRILLING
+EFFECT, DESTROYING AT LEAST TWO HUNDRED
+BOCKHOCKIDS,                               _Walter M. Dunk_,      285
+
+HEAVENS AND EARTH! HE WAS HOLDING
+LYONE IN HIS ARMS, ALIVE FROM THE LIVING
+BATTERY! LYONE, THE PEERLESS SOUL
+OF SOULS, ALIVE ONCE MORE AND TRIUMPHANT
+OVER DEATH,                                _C. Durand Chapman_,   293
+
+WE SAT THUS CROWNED AMID THE TREMENDOUS
+EXCITEMENT. THE PEOPLE SHOUTED, "LIFE,
+HEALTH AND PROSPERITY TO OUR SOVEREIGN
+LORD AND LADY, LEXINGTON AND LYONE,
+KING AND QUEEN OF ATVATABAR,"              _Allan B. Doggett_,    307
+
+OI MADE BHOOLY AN' KOSHNILI KNEEL DOWN,
+AN' A SOJER TIED THEIR HANDS BEHIND
+THEIR BACKS. THEN OI ORDHERED A WAYLEAL
+TO BEHEAD THIM WID THEIR OWN
+SWORDS,                                    _Allan B. Doggett_,    313
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION.
+
+
+It is proper that some explanation be made as to the position occupied
+by the following story in the realm of fiction, and that a brief
+estimate should be made of its literary value.
+
+Literature may be roughly classified under two heads--the creative and
+the critical. The former is characteristic of the imaginative
+temperament, while the latter is analytical in its nature, and does
+not rise above the level of the actual. Rightly pursued, these two
+ways of searching out truth should supplement each other. The poet
+finds in God the source of matter; the man of science traces matter up
+to God. Science is poetry inverted: the latter sees in the former
+confirmation of its airiest flight; it is synthetic and creative,
+whereas science dissects and analyzes. Obviously, the most spiritual
+conceptions should always maintain a basis in the world of fact, and
+the greatest works of literary art, while taking their stand upon the
+solid earth, have not feared to lift their heads to heaven. The
+highest art is the union of both methods, but in recent times realism
+in an extreme form, led by Zola and Tolstoi, and followed with willing
+though infirm footsteps by certain American writers, has attained a
+marked prominence in literature, while romantic writers have suffered
+a corresponding obscuration. It must be admitted that the influence of
+the realists is not entirely detrimental; on the contrary, they have
+imported into literature a nicety of observation, a heedfulness of
+workmanship, a mastery of technique, which have been greatly to its
+advantage. Nevertheless, the novel of hard facts has failed to prove
+its claim to infallibility. Facts in themselves are impotent to
+account for life. Every material fact is but the representative on the
+plane of sense of a corresponding truth on the spiritual plane. Spirit
+is the substance; fact the shadow only, and its whole claim to
+existence lies in its relation to spirit. Bulwer declares in one of
+his early productions that the Ideal is the only true Real.
+
+In the nature of things a reaction from the depression of the
+realistic school must take place. Indeed, it has already set in, even
+at the moment of the realists' apogee. A dozen years ago the author of
+"John Inglesant," in a work of the finest art and most delicate
+spirituality, showed that the spell of the ideal had not lost its
+efficacy, and the books that he has written since then have confirmed
+and emphasized the impression produced by it. Meanwhile, Robert Louis
+Stevenson and Rider Haggard have cultivated with striking success the
+romantic vein of fiction, and the former, at least, has acquired a
+mastery of technical detail which the realists themselves may envy. It
+is a little more than a year, too, since Rudyard Kipling startled the
+reading public with a series of tales of wonderful force and
+vividness; and whatever criticism may be applied to his work, it
+incontestably shows the dominance of a spiritual and romantic motive.
+The realists, on the other hand, have added no notable recruits to
+their standard, and the leaders of the movement are losing rather than
+gaining in popularity. The spirit of the new age seems to be with the
+other party, and we may expect to see them enjoy a constantly widening
+vogue and influence.
+
+The first practical problem which confronts the intending historian of
+an ideal, social, or political community is to determine the locality
+in which it shall be placed. It may have no geographical limitations,
+like Plato's "Republic," or Sir Philip Sidney's "Arcadia." Swift, in
+his "Gulliver's Travels," appropriated the islands of the then unknown
+seas, and the late Mr. Percy Greg boldly steered into space and
+located a brilliant romance on the planet Mars. Mr. Haggard has placed
+the scene of his romance "She" in the unexplored interior of Africa.
+After all, if imagination be our fellow-traveller, we might well
+discover El Dorados within easy reach of our own townships.
+
+Other writers, like Ignatius Donnelly and Edward Bellamy, have solved
+the problem by anticipating the future. Anything will do, so that it
+be well done. The real question is as to the writer's ability to
+interest his readers with supposed experiences that may develop mind
+and heart almost as well as if real.
+
+"The Goddess of Atvatabar," like the works already mentioned, is a
+production of imagination and sentiment, the scene of action being
+laid in the interior of the earth. It is true that the notion has
+heretofore existed that the earth might be a hollow sphere. The early
+geologists had a theory that the earth was a hollow globe, the shell
+being no thicker in proportion to its size than that of an egg. This
+idea was revived by Captain Symmes, with the addition of polar
+openings. Jules Verne takes his readers, in one of his romances, to
+the interior of a volcano, and Bulwer, in his "Coming Race," has
+constructed a world of underground caverns. Mr. Bradshaw, however, has
+swept aside each and all of these preliminary explorations, and has
+kindled the fires of an interior sun, revealing an interior world of
+striking magnificence. In view of the fact that we live on an exterior
+world, lit by an exterior sun, he has supposed the possibility of
+similar interior conditions, and the crudity of all former conceptions
+of a hollow earth will be made vividly apparent to the reader of the
+present volume. "The Goddess of Atvatabar" paints a picture of a new
+world, and the author must be credited with an original conception. He
+has written out of his own heart and brain, without reference to or
+dependence upon the imaginings of others, and it is within the truth
+to say that in boldness of design, in wealth and ingenuity of detail,
+and in lofty purpose, he has not fallen below the highest standard
+that has been erected by previous writers.
+
+Mr. Bradshaw, in his capacity of idealist, has not only created a new
+world, but has decorated it with the skill and conscientiousness of
+the realist, and has achieved a work of art which may rightfully be
+termed great. Jules Verne, in composing a similar story, would stop
+short with a description of mere physical adventure, but in the
+present work Mr. Bradshaw goes beyond the physical, and has created in
+conjunction therewith an interior world of the soul, illuminated with
+the still more dazzling sun of ideal love in all its passion and
+beauty. The story is refreshingly independent both in conception and
+method, and the insinuation, "_Beati qui ante nos nostra dixerunt_,"
+cannot be quoted against him. He has imagined and worked out the whole
+thing for himself, and he merits the full credit that belongs to a
+discoverer.
+
+"The Goddess of Atvatabar" is full of marvellous adventures on land
+and sea and in the aerial regions as well. It is not my purpose at
+present to enumerate the surprising array of novel conceptions that
+will charm the reader. The author, by the condition of his
+undertaking, has given _carte blanche_ to his imagination. He has
+created a complete society, with a complete environment suited to it.
+The broadest generalization, no less than the minutest particulars,
+have received careful attention, and the story is based upon a
+profound understanding of the essential qualities of human nature, and
+is calculated to attain deserved celebrity. Among the subjects dear to
+the idealist's heart, perhaps none finds greater favor than that which
+involves the conception of a new social and political order, and our
+author has elaborated this subject on fresh lines of thought, making
+his material world enclose a realm of spiritual tenderness, even as
+the body is the continent and sensible manifestation of the soul.
+
+The forces, arts, and aspirations of the human soul are wrought into a
+symmetrical fabric, exhibiting its ideal tendencies. The evident
+purpose of the writer is to stimulate the mind, by presenting to its
+contemplation things that are marvellous, noble, and magnificent. He
+has not hesitated to portray his own emotions as expressed by the
+characters in the book, and is evidently in hearty sympathy with
+everything that will produce elevation of the intellectual and
+emotional ideals.
+
+The style in which the story is told is worthy of remark. In the
+beginning, when events are occurring within the realm of things
+already known or conceived of, he speaks in the matter-of-fact, honest
+tone of the modern explorer; so far as the language goes we might be
+reading the reports of an arctic voyage as recounted in the daily
+newspaper; there is the same unpretentiousness and directness of
+phrase, the same attention to apparently commonplace detail, and the
+same candid portrayal of wonder, hope, and fear. But when the
+stupendous descent into the interior world has been made, and we have
+been carried through the intermediary occurrences into the presence of
+the beautiful goddess herself, the style rises to the level of the
+lofty theme and becomes harmoniously imaginative and poetic. The
+change takes place so naturally and insensibly that no jarring
+contrast is perceived; and a subdued sense of humor, making itself
+felt at the proper moment, redeems the most daring flights of the work
+from the reproach of extravagance.
+
+Mr. Bradshaw is especially to be commended for having the courage of
+his imagination. He wastes no undue time on explanations, but
+proceeds promptly and fearlessly to set forth the point at issue.
+When, for example, it becomes necessary to introduce the new language
+spoken by the inhabitants of the interior world, we are brought in
+half a dozen paragraphs to an understanding of its characteristic
+features, and proceed to the use of it without more ado. A more timid
+writer would have misspent labor and ingenuity in dwelling upon a
+matter which Mr. Bradshaw rightly perceived to be of no essential
+importance; and we should have been wearied and delayed in arriving at
+the really interesting scenes.
+
+The philosophy of the book is worthy of more serious notice. The
+religion of the new race is based upon the worship of the human soul,
+whose powers have been developed to a height unthought of by our
+section of mankind, although on lines the commencement of which are
+already within our view. The magical achievements of theosophy and
+occultism, as well as the ultimate achievements of orthodox science,
+are revealed in their most amazing manifestations, and with a sobriety
+and minuteness of treatment that fully satisfies what may be called
+the transcendental reader. The whole philosophic and religious
+situation is made to appear admirably plausible: but we are gradually
+brought to perceive that there is a futility and a rottenness inherent
+in it all, and that for the Goddess of Atvatabar, lofty, wise, and
+immaculate though she be, there is, nevertheless, a loftier and
+sublimer experience in store. The finest art of the book is shown
+here: a deep is revealed underneath the deep, and the final outcome is
+in accord with the simplest as well as the profoundest religious
+perception.
+
+But it would be useless to attempt longer to withhold the reader from
+the marvellous journey that awaits him. A word of congratulation,
+however, is due in regard to the illustrations. They reach a level of
+excellence rare even at this day; the artists have evidently been in
+thorough sympathy with the author, and have given to the eye what the
+latter has presented to the understanding. A more lovable divinity
+than that which confronts us on the golden throne it has seldom been
+our fortune to behold; and the designs of animal-plants are as
+remarkable as anything in modern illustrative art: they are entirely
+unique, and possess a value quite apart from their artistic grace.
+
+The chief complaint I find to urge against the book is that it stops
+long before my curiosity regarding the contents of the interior world
+is satisfied. There are several continents and islands yet to be heard
+from. But I am reassured by the termination of the story that there is
+nothing to prevent the hero from continuing his explorations; and I
+shall welcome the volume which contains the further points of his
+extraordinary and commendable enterprise.
+
+                                                    JULIAN HAWTHORNE.
+
+
+
+
+THE GODDESS OF ATVATABAR.
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+A POLAR CATASTROPHE.
+
+
+I had been asleep when a terrific noise awoke me. I rose up on my
+couch in the cabin and gazed wildly around, dazed with the feeling
+that something extraordinary had happened. By degrees becoming
+conscious of my surroundings, I saw Captain Wallace, Dr. Merryferry,
+Astronomer Starbottle, and Master-at-Arms Flathootly beside me.
+
+"Commander White," said the captain, "did you hear that roar?"
+
+"What roar?" I replied. "Where are we?"
+
+"Why, you must have been asleep," said he, "and yet the roar was
+enough to raise the dead. It seemed as if both earth and heaven were
+split open."
+
+"What is that hissing sound I hear?" I inquired.
+
+"That, sir," said the doctor, "is the sound of millions of flying
+sea-fowl frightened by the awful noise. The midnight sun is darkened
+with the flight of so many birds. Surely, sir, you must have heard
+that dreadful shriek. It froze the blood in our veins with horror."
+
+I began to understand that the _Polar King_ was safe, and that we were
+all still alive and well. But what could my officers mean by the
+terrible noise they talked about?
+
+I jumped out of bed saying, "Gentlemen, I must investigate this whole
+business. You say the _Polar King_ is safe?"
+
+"Shure, sorr," said Flathootly, the master-at-arms, "the ship lies
+still anchored to the ice-fut where we put her this afthernoon. She's
+all right."
+
+I at once went on deck. Sure enough the ship was as safe as if in
+harbor. Birds flew about in myriads, at times obscuring the sun, and
+now and then we heard growling reverberations from distant icebergs,
+answering back the fearful roar that had roused them from their polar
+sleep.
+
+The sea, that is to say the enormous ice-pack in which we lay, heaved
+and fell like an earthquake. It was evident that a catastrophe of no
+common character had happened.
+
+What was the cause that startled the polar midnight with such unwonted
+commotion?
+
+Sailors are very superstitious; with them every unknown sound is a cry
+of disaster. It was necessary to discover what had happened, lest the
+courage of my men should give way and involve the whole expedition in
+ruin.
+
+The captain, although alarmed, was as brave as a lion, and as for
+Flathootly, he would follow me through fire and water like the brave
+Irishman that he was. The scientific staff were gentlemen of
+education, and could be relied upon to show an example of bravery that
+would keep the crew in good spirits.
+
+"Do you remember the creek in the ice-foot we passed this morning,"
+said the captain, "the place where we shot the polar bear?"
+
+"Quite well," I said.
+
+"Well, the roar that frightened us came from that locality. You
+remember all day we heard strange squealing sounds issuing from the
+ice, as though it was being rent or split open by some subterranean
+force."
+
+The entire events of the day came to my mind in all their clearness. I
+did remember the strange sounds the captain referred to. I thought
+then that perhaps they had been caused by Professor Rackiron's shell
+of terrorite which he had fired at the southern face of the vast range
+of ice mountains that formed an impenetrable barrier to the pole. The
+men were in need of a change of diet, and we thought the surest way of
+getting the sea-fowl was to explode a shell among them. The face of
+the ice cliffs was the home of innumerable birds peculiar to the
+Arctic zone. There myriads of gulls, kittiwakes, murres, guillemots,
+and such like creatures, made the ice alive with feathered forms.
+
+The terrorite gun was fired with ordinary powder, and although we
+could approach no nearer the cliffs than five miles, on account of the
+solid ice-foot, yet our chief gun was good for that distance.
+
+The shell was fired and exploded high up on the face of the crags. The
+effect was startling. The explosion brought down tons of the frosty
+marble. The debris fell like blocks of iron that rang with a piercing
+cry on the ice-bound breast of the ocean. Millions of sea-fowl of
+every conceivable variety darkened the air. Their rushing wings
+sounded like the hissing of a tornado. Thousands were killed by the
+shock. A detachment of sailors under First Officer Renwick brought in
+heavy loads of dead fowl for a change of diet. The food, however,
+proved indigestible, and made the men ill.
+
+We resolved, as soon as the sun had mounted the heavens from his
+midnight declension, to retrace our course somewhat and discover the
+cause of the terrible outcry of the night. We had been sailing for
+weeks along the southern ice-foot that belonged to the interminable
+ice hills which formed an effectual barrier to the pole. Day after day
+the _Polar King_ had forced its way through a gigantic floe of
+piled-up ice blocks, floating cakes of ice, and along ridges of frozen
+enormity, cracked, broken, and piled together in endless confusion. We
+were in quest of a northward passage out of the terrible ice prison
+that surrounded us, but failed to discover the slightest opening. It
+had become a question of abandoning our enterprise of discovering the
+North Pole and returning home again or abandoning the ship, and,
+taking our dogs and sledges, brave the nameless terrors of the icy
+hills. Of course in such case the ship would be our base of supplies
+and of action in whatever expedition might be set on foot for polar
+discovery.
+
+About six o'clock in the morning of the 20th of July we began to work
+the ship around, to partially retrace our voyage. All hands were on
+the lookout for any sign of such a catastrophe as might have caused
+the midnight commotion. After travelling about ten miles we reached
+the creek where the bear had been killed the day before. The man on
+the lookout on the top-mast sung out:
+
+"Creek bigger than yesterday!"
+
+Before we had time to examine the creek with our glasses he sung out:
+
+"Mountains split in two!"
+
+Sure enough, a dark blue gash ran up the hills to their very summit,
+and as soon as the ship came abreast of the creek we saw that the
+range of frozen precipices had been riven apart, and a streak of dark
+blue water lay between, on which the ship might possibly reach the
+polar sea beyond.
+
+Dare we venture into that inviting gulf?
+
+The officers crowded around me. "Well, gentlemen," said I, "what do
+you say, shall we try the passage?"
+
+"We only measure fifty feet on the beam, while the fissure is at least
+one hundred feet wide; so we have plenty of room to work the ship,"
+said the captain.
+
+"But, captain," said I, "if we find the width only fifty feet a few
+miles from here, what then?"
+
+"Then we must come back," said he, "that's all."
+
+"Suppose we cannot come back--suppose the walls of ice should begin to
+close up again?" I said.
+
+"I don't believe they will," said Professor Goldrock, who was our
+naturalist and was well informed in geology.
+
+"Why not?" I inquired.
+
+"Well," said he, "to our certain knowledge this range of ice hills
+extends five hundred miles east and west of us. The sea is here over
+one hundred and fifty fathoms deep. This barrier is simply a
+congregation of icebergs, frozen into a continuous solid mass. It is
+quite certain that the mass is anchored to the bottom, so that it is
+not free to come asunder and then simply close up again. My theory is
+this: Right underneath us there is a range of submarine rocks or hills
+running north and south. Last night an earthquake lifted this
+submarine range, say, fifty feet above its former level. The enormous
+upward pressure split open the range of ice resting thereon, and,
+unless the mountains beneath us subside to their former level, these
+rent walls of ice will never come together again. The passage will
+become filled up with fresh ice in a few hours, so that in any case
+there is no danger of the precipices crushing the ship."
+
+"Your opinion looks feasible," I replied.
+
+"Look," said he; "you will see that the top of the crevasse is wider
+than it is at the level of the water, one proof at least that my
+theory is correct."
+
+The professor was right; there was a perceptible increase in the width
+of the opening at the top.
+
+[Illustration: I SIGNALLED THE ENGINEER FULL SPEED AHEAD, AND IN A
+SHORT TIME WE CROSSED THE ICE-FOOT AND ENTERED THE CHASM.]
+
+To make ourselves still more sure we took soundings for a mile east
+and west of the chasm, and found the professor's theory of a submarine
+range of hills correct. The water was shallowest right under the gap,
+and was very much deeper only a short distance on either side. I
+said to the officers and sailors: "My men, are you willing to enter
+this gap with a view of getting beyond the barrier for the sake of
+science and fortune and the glory of the United States?"
+
+They gave a shout of assent that robbed the gulf of its terrors. I
+signalled the engineer full speed ahead, and in a short time we
+crossed the ice-foot and entered the chasm.
+
+It could be nothing else but an upheaval of nature that caused the
+rent, as the distance was uniform between the walls however irregular
+the windings made. And such walls! For a distance of twenty miles we
+sailed between smooth glistening precipices of palaeocrystic ice rising
+two hundred feet above the water. The opening remained perceptibly
+wider at the top than below.
+
+After a distance of twenty miles the height gradually decreased until
+within a distance of another fifty miles the ice sank to the level of
+the water.
+
+The sailors gave a shout of triumph which was echoed from the ramparts
+of ice. To our astonishment we found we had reached a mighty field of
+loose pack ice, while on the distant horizon were glimpses of blue
+sea!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+THE CAUSE OF THE EXPEDITION.
+
+
+The _Polar King_, in lat. 84', long. 151' 14", had entered an ocean
+covered with enormous ice-floes. What surprised us most was the fact
+that we could make any headway whatever, and that the ice wasn't
+frozen into one solid mass as every one expected. On the contrary,
+leads of open water reached in all directions, and up those leading
+nearest due north we joyfully sailed.
+
+May the 10th was a memorable day in our voyage. On that day we
+celebrated the double event of having reached the furthest north and
+of having discovered an open polar sea.
+
+Seated in the luxurious cabin of the ship, I mused on the origin of
+this extraordinary expedition. It was certain, if my father were alive
+he would fully approve of the use I was making of the wealth he had
+left me. He was a man utterly without romance, a hard-headed man of
+facts, which quality doubtless was the cause of his amassing so many
+millions of dollars.
+
+My father could appreciate the importance of theories, of enthusiastic
+ideals, but he preferred others to act upon them. As for himself he
+would say, "I see no money in it for me." He believed that many
+enthusiastic theories were the germs of great fortunes, but he always
+said with a knowing smile, "You know it is never safe to be a pioneer
+in anything. The pioneer usually gets killed in creating an
+inheritance for his successors." It was a selfish policy which arose
+from his financial experiences, that in proportion as a man was
+selfish he was successful.
+
+I was always of a totally different temperament to my father. I was
+romantic, idealistic. I loved the marvellous, the magnificent, the
+miraculous and the mysterious, qualities that I inherited from my
+mother. I used to dream of exploring tropic islands, of visiting the
+lands of Europe and the Orient, and of haunting temples and tombs,
+palaces and pagodas. I wished to discover all that was weird and
+wonderful on the earth, so that my experiences would be a description
+of earth's girdle of gold, bringing within reach of the enslaved
+multitudes of all nations ideas and experiences of surpassing novelty
+and grandeur that would refresh their parched souls. I longed to
+whisper in the ear of the laborer at the wheel that the world was not
+wholly a blasted place, but that here and there oases made green its
+barrenness. If he could not actually in person mingle with its joys,
+his soul, that neither despot nor monopolist could chain, might spread
+its wings and feast on such delights as my journeyings might furnish.
+
+How seldom do we realize our fondest desires! Just at the time of my
+father's death the entire world was shocked with the news of the
+failure of another Arctic expedition, sent out by the United States,
+to discover, if possible, the North Pole. The expedition leaving their
+ship frozen up in Smith's Sound essayed to reach the pole by means of
+a monster balloon and a favoring wind. The experiment might possibly
+have succeeded had it not happened that the car of the balloon struck
+the crest of an iceberg and dashed its occupants into a fearful
+crevasse in the ice, where they miserably perished. This calamity
+brought to recollection the ill-fated Sir John Franklin and _Jeanette_
+expeditions; but, strange to say, in my mind at least, such disasters
+produced no deterrent effect against the setting forth of still
+another enterprise in Arctic research.
+
+From the time the expedition I refer to sailed from New York until the
+news of its dreadful fate reached the country, I had been reading
+almost every narrative of polar discovery. The consequence was I had
+awakened in my mind an enthusiasm to penetrate the sublime secret of
+the pole. I longed to stand, as it were, on the roof of the world and
+see beneath me the great globe revolve on its axis. There, where there
+is neither north, nor south, nor east, nor west, I could survey the
+frozen realms of death. I would dare to stand on the very pole itself
+with my few hardy companions, monarch of an empire of ice, on a spot
+that never feels the life-sustaining revolutions of the earth. I knew
+that on the equator, where all is light, life, and movement,
+continents and seas flash through space at the rate of one thousand
+miles an hour, but on the pole the wheeling of the earth is as dead as
+the desolation that surrounds it.
+
+I had conversed with Arctic navigators both in England and the United
+States. Some believed the pole would never be discovered. Others,
+again, declared their belief in an open polar sea. It was generally
+conceded that the Smith's Sound route was impracticable, and that the
+only possible way to approach the pole was by the Behring Strait
+route, that is, by following the 170th degree of west longitude north
+of Alaska.
+
+I thought it a strange fact that modern sailors, armed with all the
+resources of science and with the experience of numerous Arctic
+voyages to guide them, could get only three degrees nearer the pole
+than Henry Hudson did nearly three hundred years ago. That redoubtable
+seaman possessed neither the ships nor men of later voyagers nor the
+many appliances of his successors to mitigate the intense cold, yet
+his record in view of the facts of the case remains triumphant.
+
+It was at this time that my father died. He left me the bulk of his
+property under the following clause in his will:
+
+"I hereby bequeath to my dear son, Lexington White, the real estate,
+stocks, bonds, shares, title-deeds, mortgages, and other securities
+that I die possessed of, amounting at present market prices to over
+five million dollars. I desire that my said son use this property for
+some beneficent purpose, of use to his fellow-men, excepting what
+money may be necessary for his personal wants as a gentleman."
+
+I could scarcely believe my father was so wealthy as to be able to
+leave me so large a fortune, but his natural secretiveness kept him
+from mentioning the amount of his gains, even to his own family. No
+sooner did I realize the extent of my wealth than I resolved to devote
+it to fitting out a private expedition with no less an object than to
+discover the North Pole myself. Of course I knew the undertaking was
+extremely hazardous and doubtful of success. It could hardly be
+possible that any private individual, however wealthy and daring,
+could hope to succeed where all the resources of mighty nations had
+failed.
+
+Still, these same difficulties had a tremendous power of attracting
+fresh exploits on that fatal field. Who could say that even I alone
+might not stumble upon success? In a word, I had made up my mind to
+set forth in a vessel strong and swift and manned by sailors
+experienced in Arctic voyages, under my direct command. The expedition
+would be kept a profound secret; I would leave New York ostensibly for
+Australia, then, doubling Cape Horn, would make direct for Behring
+Sea. If I failed, none would be the wiser; if I succeeded, what fame
+would be mine!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+BEGINNING THE VOYAGE.
+
+
+I determined to build a vessel of such strength and equipment as could
+not fail, with ordinary good fortune, to carry us through the greatest
+dangers in Arctic navigation. Short of being absolutely frozen in the
+ice, I hoped to reach the pole itself, if there should be sufficient
+water to float us. The vessel, which I named the _Polar King_,
+although small in size was very strong and compact. Her length was 150
+feet and her width amidships 50 feet. Her frames and planking were
+made of well-seasoned oak. The outer planking was sheathed in steel
+plates from four to six inches in thickness. This would protect us
+from the edges of the ancient ice that might otherwise cut into the
+planking and so destroy the vessel.
+
+The ship was armed as follows: A colossal terrorite gun that stood in
+the centre of the deck, whose 250-pound shell of explosive terrorite
+was fired by a charge of gunpowder without exploding the terrorite
+while leaving the gun. This was to destroy icebergs and heavy
+pack-ice. A battery of twelve 100-pounder terrorite guns, with shells
+also fired with powder. All shells would explode by percussion in
+striking the object aimed at. A battery of six guns of the Gatling
+type, to repel boarding parties in case we reached a hostile country.
+There was also an armory of magazine rifles, revolvers, cutlasses,
+etc., as well as 50 tons of gunpowder, terrorite, and revolver-rifle
+cartridges.
+
+The ship was driven by steam, the triple-expansion engine being
+500-horse power and the rate of speed twenty-five miles an hour. By an
+important improvement on the steam engine, invented by myself, one ton
+of coal did the work of 50 tons without such improvement. The bunkers
+held 250 tons of coal, which was thus equal to 12,500 tons in any
+other vessel. There was also an auxiliary engine for working the
+pumps, electric dynamo, cargo, anchors, etc. One of the most useful
+fittings was the apparatus that both heated the ship and condensed the
+sea water for consumption on board ship, and for feeding the boilers.
+
+The ship's company was as follows:
+
+OFFICERS.
+
+Lexington White, Commander of the Expedition.
+Captain, William Wallace.
+First Officer Renwick, Navigating Lieutenant.
+Second Officer Austin, Captain of the terrorite gun.
+Third Officer Haddock, Captain of the main deck battery.
+
+SCIENTIFIC STAFF.
+
+Professor Rackiron, Electrician and Inventor.
+Professor Starbottle, Astronomer.
+Professor Goldrock, Naturalist.
+Doctor Merryferry, Ship's Physician.
+
+PETTY OFFICERS.
+
+Master-at-Arms Flathootly.
+First Engineer Douglass.
+Second Engineer Anthoney.
+Pilot Rowe.
+Carpenter Martin.
+Painter Hereward.
+Boatswain Dunbar.
+
+Ninety-five able-bodied seamen, including mechanics, gunners,
+cooks, tailors, stokers, etc.
+
+Total of ship's company, 110 souls.
+
+Believing in the absolute certainty of discovering the pole and our
+consequent fame, I had included in the ship's stores a special
+triumphal outfit for both officers and sailors. This consisted of a
+Viking helmet of polished brass surmounted by the figure of a
+silver-plated polar bear, to be worn by both officers and sailors. For
+the officers a uniform of navy-blue cloth was provided, consisting of
+frock coat embroidered with a profusion of gold striping on shoulders
+and sleeves, and gold-striped pantaloons. For each sailor there was
+provided a uniform consisting of outer navy-blue cloth jacket, with
+inner blue serge jacket, having the figure of a globe embroidered in
+gold on the breast of the latter, surmounted by the figure of a polar
+bear in silver. Each officer and sailor was armed with a cutlass
+having the figure of a polar bear in silver-plated brass surmounting
+the hilt. This was the gala dress, but for every-day use the entire
+company was supplied with the usual Arctic outfit to withstand the
+terrible climate of high latitudes.
+
+Foreseeing the necessity of pure air and freedom from damp
+surroundings, I had the men's berths built on the spar deck, contrary
+to the usual custom. The spar deck was entirely covered by a hurricane
+deck, thus giving complete protection from cold and the stormy weather
+we would be sure to encounter on the voyage.
+
+Our only cargo consisted of provisions, ship's stores, ammunition,
+coal, and a large stock of chemical batteries and a dynamo for
+furnishing electricity to light the ship. We also shipped largely of
+materials to manufacture shells for the terrorite guns.
+
+The list of stores included an ample supply of tea, coffee, canned
+milk, butter, pickles, canned meats, flour, beans, peas, pork,
+molasses, corn, onions, potatoes, cheese, prunes, pemmican, rice,
+canned fowl, fish, pears, peaches, sugar, carrots, etc.
+
+The refrigerator contained a large quantity of fresh beef, mutton,
+veal, etc. We brought no luxuries except a few barrels of rum for
+special occasion or accidents. Exposure and hard work will make the
+plainest food seem a banquet.
+
+Thus fully equipped, the _Polar King_ quietly left the Atlantic Basin
+in Brooklyn, N. Y., ostensibly on a voyage to Australia. The
+newspapers contained brief notices to the effect that Lexington White,
+a gentleman of fortune, had left New York for a voyage to Australia
+and the Southern Ocean, via Cape Horn, and would be gone for two
+years.
+
+We left on New Year's Day, and had our first experience of a polar
+pack in New York Bay, which was thickly covered with crowded ice.
+Gaining the open water, we soon left the ice behind, and, after a
+month's steady steaming, entered the Straits of Magellan, having
+touched at Monte Video for supplies and water.
+
+Leaving the Straits we entered the Pacific Ocean, steering north.
+Touching at Valparaiso, we sailed on without a break until we arrived
+at Sitka, Alaska, on the 1st of March.
+
+Receiving our final stores at Sitka, the vessel at once put to sea
+again, and in a week reached Behring Strait and entered the Arctic
+Ocean. I ordered the entire company to put on their Arctic clothing,
+consisting of double suits of underclothing, three pairs of socks,
+ordinary wool suits, over which were heavy furs, fur helmets,
+moccasins and Labrador boots.
+
+All through the Straits we had encountered ice, and after we had
+sailed two days in the Arctic Sea, a hurricane from the northwest
+smote us, driving us eastward over the 165th parallel, north of
+Alaska. We were surrounded with whirlwinds of snow frozen as hard as
+hail. We experienced the benefit of having our decks covered with a
+steel shell. There was plenty of room for the men to exercise on deck
+shielded from the pitiless storm that drove the snow like a storm of
+gravel before it. Exposure to such a blizzard meant frost-bite,
+perhaps death. The outside temperature was 40 below zero, the inside
+temperature 40 above zero, cold enough to make the men digest an
+Arctic diet.
+
+We kept the prow of the ship to the storm, and every wave that washed
+over us made thicker our cuirass of ice. It was gratifying to note the
+contrast between our comfortable quarters and the howling desolation
+around us.
+
+While waiting for the storm to subside we had leisure to speculate on
+the chances of success in discovering the pole.
+
+Captain Wallace had caused to be put up in each of our four cabins the
+following tables of Arctic progress made since Hudson's voyage in
+1607:
+
+RECORD OF HIGHEST LATITUDES REACHED.
+
+Hudson         80' 23" in 1607
+Phipps         80' 48" in 1773
+Scoresby       81' 12" in 1806
+Payer          82' 07" in 1872
+Meyer          82' 09" in 1871
+Parry          82' 45" in 1827
+Aldrich        83' 07" in 1876
+Markham        83' 20" in 1876
+Lockwood       83' 24" in 1883
+
+"Does it not seem strange," said I, "that nearly three hundred years
+of naval progress and inventive skill can produce no better record in
+polar discovery than this? With all our skill and experience we have
+only distanced the heroic Hudson three degrees; that is one degree for
+every hundred years. At this rate of progress the pole may be
+discovered in the year 2600."
+
+"It is a record of naval imbecility," said the captain; "there is no
+reason why our expedition cannot at least touch the 85th degree. That
+would be doing the work of two hundred years in as many days."
+
+"Why not do the work of the next 700 years while we are at it?" said
+Professor Rackiron. "Let us take the ship as far as we can go and then
+bundle our dogs and a few of the best men into the balloon and finish
+a job that the biggest governments on earth are unable to do."
+
+"That's precisely what we've come here for," said I, "but we must have
+prudence as well as boldness, so as not to throw away our lives
+unnecessarily. In any case we will beat the record ere we return."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+OUR ADVENTURES IN THE POLAR SEA.
+
+
+The storm lasted four days. On its subsidence we discovered ourselves
+completely surrounded with ice. We were beset by a veritable polar
+pack, brought down by the violence of the gale. The ice was covered
+deeply with snow, which made a dazzling scene when lit by the
+brilliant sun. We seemed transported to a new world. Far as the eye
+could see huge masses of ice interposed with floe bergs of vast
+dimensions. The captain allowed the sailors to exercise themselves on
+the solidly frozen snow. It was impossible to get any fresh meat, as
+the pack, being of a temporary nature, had not yet become the home of
+bear, walrus, or seal.
+
+We saw a water sky in the north, showing that there was open water in
+that direction, but meantime we could do nothing but drift in the
+embrace of the ice in an easterly direction. In about a week the pack
+began to open and water lanes to appear. A more or less open channel
+appearing in a northeasterly direction, we got the ship warped around,
+and, getting up steam, drew slowly out of the pack.
+
+Birds began to appear and flocks of ducks and geese flew across our
+track, taking a westerly course. We were now in the latitude of
+Wrangel Island, but in west longitude 165. We had the good fortune to
+see a large bear floating on an isolated floe toward which we steered.
+I drew blood at the first shot, but Flathootly's rifle killed him. The
+sailors had fresh meat that day for dinner.
+
+The day following we brought down some geese and elder ducks that
+sailed too near the ship. We followed the main leads in preference to
+forcing a passage due north, and when in lat. 78' long. 150' the watch
+cried out "Land ahead!" On the eastern horizon rose several peaks of
+mountains, and on approaching nearer we discovered a large island
+extending some thirty miles north and south. The ice-foot surrounding
+the land was several miles in width, and bringing the ship alongside,
+three-fourths of the sailors, accompanied by the entire dogs and
+sledges, started for the land on a hunting expedition.
+
+It was a fortunate thing that we discovered the island, for, with our
+slow progress and monotonous confinement, the men were getting tired
+of their captivity and anxious for active exertion.
+
+The sailors did not return until long after midnight, encouraged to
+stay out by the fact that it was the first night the sun remained
+entirely above the horizon.
+
+It was the 10th of April, or rather the morning of the 11th, when the
+sailors returned with three of the five sledges laden with the spoils
+of the chase. They had bagged a musk ox, a bear, an Arctic wolf, and
+six hares--a good day's work. Grog was served all around in honor of
+the midnight sun and the capture of fresh meat. We dressed the ox and
+bear, giving the offal as well as the wolf to the dogs, and revelled
+for the next few days in the luxury of fresh meat.
+
+The island not being marked on our charts, we took credit to ourselves
+as its discoverers, and took possession of the same in the name of the
+United States.
+
+The captain proposed to the sailors to call it Lexington Island in
+honor of their commander, and the men replied to his proposition with
+such a rousing cheer that I felt obliged to accept the distinction.
+
+Flathootly reported that there was a drove of musk oxen on the island,
+and before finally leaving it we organized a grand hunting expedition
+for the benefit of all concerned.
+
+Leaving but five men, including the first officer and engineer, on
+board to take care of the ship, I took charge of the hunt. After a
+rough-and-tumble scramble over the chaotic ice-foot, we reached the
+mainland in good shape, save that a dog broke its leg in the ice and
+had to be shot. Its companions very feelingly gave it a decent burial
+in their stomachs.
+
+Mounting an ice-covered hillock, we saw, two miles to the southeast in
+a valley where grass and moss were visible, half a dozen musk oxen,
+doubtless the entire herd. We adopted the plan of surrounding the
+herd, drawing as near the animals as possible without alarming them.
+Sniffing danger in the southeasterly wind, the herd broke away to the
+northwest. The sailors jumped up and yelled, making the animals swerve
+to the north. A semi-circle of rifles was discharged at the unhappy
+brutes. Two fell dead in their tracks and the remaining four, badly
+wounded, wheeled and made off in the opposite direction. The other
+wing of the sailors now had their innings as we fell flat and heard
+bullets fly over us. Three more animals fell, mortally wounded. A bull
+calf, the only remnant of the herd on its legs, looked in wonder at
+the sailor who despatched it with his revolver. The dogs held high
+carnival for an hour or more on the slaughtered oxen. We packed the
+sledges with a carcass on each, and in due time regained the ship,
+pleased with our day's work.
+
+[Illustration: A SEMICIRCLE OF RIFLES WAS DISCHARGED AT THE UNHAPPY
+BRUTES, AND TWO FELL DEAD IN THEIR TRACKS.]
+
+Leaving Lexington Island we steered almost due north through a vast
+open pack. On the 1st of May we arrived in lat. 78' 30" west long.
+155' 50", our course having been determined by the lead of the lanes
+in the enormous drifts of ice. Here another storm overtook us,
+travelling due east. We were once more beset, and drifted
+helplessly for three days before the storm subsided. We found
+ourselves in long. 150' again, in danger of being nipped. The wind,
+suddenly drifting to the east, reopened the pack for us to our intense
+relief.
+
+Taking advantage of some fine leads and favorable winds, we passed
+through leagues of ice, piled-up floes and floebergs, forming scenes
+of Arctic desolation beyond imagination to conceive. At last we
+arrived at a place beyond which it was impossible to proceed. We had
+struck against the gigantic barrier of what appeared to be an immense
+continent of ice, for a range of ice-clad hills lay only a few miles
+north of the _Polar King_. At last the sceptre of the Ice King waved
+over us with the command, "Thus far and no further."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+WE ENTER THE POLAR GULF.
+
+
+How the _Polar King_ penetrated what appeared an insurmountable
+obstacle, and the joyful proof that the hills did not belong to a
+polar continent, but were a continuous congregation of icebergs,
+frozen in one solid mass, are already known to the reader.
+
+The gallant ship continued to make rapid progress toward the open
+water lying ahead of us. Mid-day found us in 84' 10" north latitude
+and 150' west longitude. The sun remained in the sky as usual to add
+his splendor to our day of deliverance and exultation.
+
+We felt what it was to be wholly cut off from the outer world. The
+chances were that the passage in the ice would be frozen up solid
+again soon after we had passed through it. Even with our dogs and
+sledges the chances were against our retreat southward.
+
+The throbbing of the engine was the only sound that broke the
+stillness of the silent sea. The laugh of the sailors sounded hollow
+and strange, and seemed a reminder that with all our freedom we were
+prisoners of the ice, sailing where no ship had ever sailed nor human
+eye gazed on such a sea of terror and beauty.
+
+Happily we were not the only beings that peopled the solitudes of the
+pole. Flocks of gulls, geese, ptarmigan, and other Arctic fowls
+wheeled round us. They seemed almost human in their movements, and
+were the links that bound us to the beating hearts far enough off then
+to be regretted by us.
+
+Every man on board the vessel was absorbed in thought concerning our
+strange position. The beyond? That was the momentous question that lay
+like a load on every soul.
+
+While thinking of these things, Professor Starbottle inquired, if with
+such open water as we sailed in, how soon I expected to reach the
+pole.
+
+"Well," said I, "we ought to be at the 85th parallel by this time.
+Five more degrees, or 300 miles, will reach it. The _Polar King_ will
+cover that distance easily in twenty hours. It is now 6 P.M.; at 2
+P.M. to-morrow, the 12th of May, we will reach the pole."
+
+Professor Starbottle shook his head deprecatingly. "I am afraid,
+commander," said he, "we will never reach the pole."
+
+His look, his voice, his manner, filled me with the idea that
+something dreadful was going to happen. My lips grew dry with a sudden
+excitement, as I hastily inquired why he felt so sure we would never
+reach the object of our search.
+
+"What time is it, commander?" said he.
+
+I pulled forth my chronometer; it was just six o'clock.
+
+"Well, then," said he, "look at the sun. The sun has swung round to
+the west, but hasn't fallen any."
+
+I looked at the sun, which, sure enough, stood as high as at mid-day.
+I was paralyzed with a nameless dread. I stood rooted to the deck in
+anticipation of some dreadful horror.
+
+"Good heavens!" I gasped, "what--what do you mean?"
+
+"I mean," said he, "the sun is not going to fall again on this course.
+It's we who are going to fall."
+
+"The sun will fall to its usual position at midnight," I stammered;
+"wait--wait till midnight."
+
+"The sun won't fall at midnight," said the professor. "I am afraid to
+tell you why," he added.
+
+"In God's name," I shouted, "tell me the meaning of this!"
+
+I will never forget the feeling that crazed me as the professor said:
+"I fear, commander, we are falling into the interior of the earth!"
+
+"You are mad, sir!" I shouted. "It cannot be--we are sailing to the
+North Pole."
+
+"Wait till midnight, commander," said he, shaking my hand.
+
+I took his hand and echoed his words--"Wait till midnight." After a
+pause I inquired if he had mentioned his extraordinary fears to any
+one else.
+
+"Not a soul," he replied.
+
+"Then," said I, "say nothing to anybody until midnight."
+
+"Ay, ay, sir," said he, and disappeared.
+
+The sailors evidently expected that something was going to happen on
+account of the sun standing still in the heavens. They were gathered
+in groups on deck discussing the situation with bated breath. I
+noticed them looking at me with wild eyes, like sheep cornered for
+execution. The officers avoided calling my attention to the unusual
+sight, possibly divining I was already fully excited by it.
+
+Never was midnight looked for so eagerly by any mortal on earth as I
+awaited the dreadful hour that would either confirm or dispel my
+fears.
+
+Midnight came and the sun had not fallen in the sky! There he stood as
+high as at noonday, at least five degrees higher than his position
+twenty-four hours before.
+
+Professor Starbottle, approaching me, said: "Commander, my
+prognostication was correct; you see the sun's elevation is unchanged
+since mid-day. Now one of two things has happened--either the axis of
+the earth has approached five degrees nearer the plane of its orbit
+since mid-day or we are sailing down into a subterranean gulf! That
+the former is impossible, mid-day to-day will disprove. If my theory
+of a subterranean sea is correct, the sun will fall below the horizon
+at mid-day, and our only light will be the earth-light of the opposite
+mouth of the gulf into which we are rapidly sinking."
+
+"Professor," said I, "tell the officers and the scientific staff to
+meet me at once in the cabin. This is a tremendous crisis!"
+
+Ere I could leave the deck the captain, officers, doctor, naturalist,
+Professor Rackiron, and many of the crew surrounded me, all in a state
+of the greatest consternation.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+DAY BECOMES NIGHT AND NIGHT DAY.
+
+
+"Commander," said Captain Wallace, "I beg to report that the pole star
+has suddenly fallen five degrees south from its position overhead, and
+the sun has risen to his mid-day position in the sky! I fear we are
+sailing into a vast polar depression something greater than the
+description given in our geographies, that the earth is flattened at
+the poles."
+
+"Do you really think, captain," I inquired, "that we are sailing into
+a hollow place around the pole?"
+
+"Why, I am sure of it," said he. "Nothing else can explain the sudden
+movement of the heavenly bodies. Remember, we have only passed the
+85th parallel but a few miles and ought to have the pole star right
+overhead."
+
+"Professor Starbottle has a theory," I said, "that may account for the
+strange phenomena we witness. Let these gentlemen hear your theory,
+professor."
+
+The professor stated very deliberately what he had already
+communicated to me, viz.: that we were really descending to the
+interior of the earth, that the bows of the ship were gradually
+pointing to its centre, and that if the voyage were continued we would
+find ourselves swallowed up in a vast polar gulf leading to God knows
+what infernal regions.
+
+The terror inspired by the professor's words was plainly visible on
+every face.
+
+"Let us turn back!" shouted some of the sailors.
+
+"My opinion," said the captain, "is that we have entered a polar
+depression; it is impossible to think that the earth is a hollow shell
+into which we may sail so easily as this."
+
+"If I might venture a remark," said Pilot Rowe, "I think Professor
+Starbottle is right. If the earth is a hollow shell having a
+subterranean ocean, we can sail thereon bottom upward and masts
+downward, just as easily as we sail on the surface of the ocean here."
+
+"I believe an interior ocean an impossibility," said the captain.
+
+"You're right, sorr," said the master-at-arms, "for what would keep
+the ship sticking to the wather upside down?"
+
+[Illustration: THE TERROR INSPIRED BY THE PROFESSOR'S WORDS WAS
+PLAINLY VISIBLE ON EVERY FACE.]
+
+"I don't say that the earth is absolutely a hollow sphere," said the
+professor, "but I do say this, we are now sailing into a polar abyss,
+and if the sun disappears at noon to-day it will be because we have
+sailed far enough into the gulf to put the ocean over which we have
+sailed between us and that luminary. If the sun disappears at noon,
+depend upon it we will never reach the pole, which will forever remain
+only the ideal axis of the earth."
+
+"Do you mean to say," I inquired, "that what men have called the pole
+is only the mouth of an enormous cavern, perhaps the vestibule of a
+subterranean world?"
+
+"That is precisely the theory I advance to account for this strange
+ending of our voyage," said the professor.
+
+The murmurs of excitement among the men again broke out into wild
+cries of "Turn back the ship!"
+
+I encouraged the men to calm themselves. "As long as the ship is in no
+immediate danger," said I, "we can wait till noonday and see if the
+professor's opinion is supported by the behavior of the sun. If so, we
+will then hold a council of all hands and decide on what course to
+follow. Depart to your respective posts of duty until mid-day, when we
+will decide on such action as will be for the good of all."
+
+The men, terribly frightened, dispersed, leaving Captain Wallace,
+First Officer Renwick, Professors Starbottle, Goldrock, and Rackiron,
+the doctor and myself together.
+
+Dreadful as was the thought of quietly sinking into a polar gulf from
+which possibly there might be no escape, yet the bare possibility of
+returning to tell the world of our tremendous discovery created a
+desire to explore still further the abyss into which we had entered. I
+confess that my first feeling of terror was rapidly giving way to a
+passion for discovery. What fearful secrets might not be held in the
+darkness toward which we undoubtedly travelled! Would it be our
+fortune to pierce the darkness and silence of a polar cavern? When I
+thought of the natural terror of the sailors, I dared not think of our
+sailing further than mid-day, in case we had really entered an abyss.
+
+"Commander," said Professor Starbottle, "this is the most important
+day, or rather night, of the voyage. I propose we stay on deck and
+enjoy the sunlight as long as we can."
+
+One glance at the sun sufficed to tell us the truth; he was rapidly
+falling from the sky. At midnight he was 20 degrees and at 1 A.M.
+only 18 degrees above the waste of waters.
+
+This proved we were as rapidly taking leave of the glorious orb, on an
+expedition fraught with the greatest peril and unknown possibilities
+of science, conquest, and commerce.
+
+By a tacit consent we turned our attention to the scene around us. The
+water was very free from ice, only here and there icebergs floated.
+The diminished radiation of light produced a weird effect, growing
+more spectral as the sun sank in the heavens.
+
+Professor Goldrock pointed out a flock of geese actually flying ahead
+of us into the gulf, if gulf indeed it were. We considered this a good
+omen and took heart accordingly.
+
+The captain pointed out a strange apparition in the north, but which
+was really south of the pole, and discoverable with the glass. It
+appeared to be the limb of some rising planet between us and the sun
+that seemed faintly illuminated by moonlight. Professor Starbottle
+said it was the opposite edge of the polar gulf that was about to
+envelop us. It was illuminated by the earth-light reflected from the
+same ocean on which the _Polar King_ floated.
+
+The sun, as he swung round to the south, fell rapidly to the horizon,
+and at eight o'clock disappeared below the water. Was there ever a day
+in human experience as portentous as that? When did the sun set at 8
+A.M.in the Arctic summer, leaving the earth in darkness? We knew
+then that Professor Starbottle's theory of a polar gulf was a truth
+beyond question. It was a fearful fact!
+
+But the grandest spectacle we had yet seen now lay before us. The
+opposite rapidly rising limb of the polar gulf, 500 miles away, was
+brilliantly illuminated by the sun's rays far overhead, and its
+splendid earth-light, twenty times brighter than moonlight, falling
+upon us, compensated for the sudden obliteration of the daylight.
+
+It was mid-day, and our only light was the earth-light of the gulf.
+There stood over us the still rising circular rim of the ocean,
+sparkling like an enormous jewel. It was a bewildering experience. In
+the light of that distant ocean I assembled the men on deck and thus
+addressed them:
+
+"My men, when we started on the present expedition you stipulated for
+a voyage of discovery to the North Pole (if possible) and return to
+New York again. The first part of the voyage is happily accomplished.
+We alone of all the explorers who have essayed polar discovery have
+been rewarded with a sight of the pole. The mystery of the earth's
+axis is no longer a secret. Here before your eyes is the axis on which
+the earth performs its daily revolution. The North Pole is an immense
+gulf 500 miles in diameter and of unknown depth. Within this gulf lies
+our ship, at least a hundred miles below the level of the outer ocean!
+
+"The question we are now called upon to decide is this: Are we to
+remain satisfied with our present achievement, turn back the ship, and
+go home without attempting to discover whither leads this enormous
+gulf? As far as the officers of the ship and the scientific staff are
+concerned, as far as I myself am concerned, I am satisfied if we were
+once back in New York again, our first thought would be to return
+hither, and, taking up the thread of our journey, endeavor to explore
+the farthest recesses of the gulf."
+
+I was here interrupted by loud applause from the entire officers and
+many of the men.
+
+"This being so, why should we waste a journey to New York and back
+again for nothing? Why not, with our good ship well armed and
+provisioned, that has in safety carried us so far, why not, I say,
+proceed further, taking advantage of the only opportunity the ages of
+time have ever offered to man to explore earth's profoundest secrets?
+
+"Who knows what oceans, what continents, what nations, it may be of
+men like ourselves, may not exist in a subterranean world? Who knows
+what gold, what silver, what precious stones are there piled perhaps
+mountains high? Are we to tamely throw aside the possibility of such
+glory on account of base fears, and, returning home, allow others to
+snatch from our grasp the golden prize?
+
+"My men, I cannot think you will do this. Our future lies entirely in
+your hands. We cannot proceed further on our voyage without your
+assistance. I will not compel a single man to go further against his
+will. I call for volunteers for the interior world! I am willing to
+lead you on; who will follow me?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+WE DISCOVER THE INTERIOR WORLD.
+
+
+The officers and sailors responded to my speech with ringing cheers.
+Every man of them volunteered to stay by the ship and continue our
+voyage down the gulf. Whatever malcontents there may have been among
+the sailors, those, influenced by the prevailing enthusiasm, were
+afraid to exhibit any cowardice, and all were unanimous for further
+exploration.
+
+I signalled our resolution by a discharge of three guns, which created
+the most thrilling reverberations in the mysterious abyss.
+
+Starting the engine again, the prow of the _Polar King_ was pointed
+directly toward the darkness before us, toward the centre of the
+earth. We were determined to explore the hollow ocean to its further
+confines, if our provisions held out until such a work would be
+accomplished.
+
+We hoped at midnight to obtain our last look at the sun, as we would
+then be brought into the position of the opposite side of the watery
+crater down which we sailed. At eleven o'clock the sun rose above the
+limb of the gulf, which was now veiled in darkness. We were gladdened
+with two hours of sunlight, the sun promptly setting at 1 A.M. of the
+new day.
+
+We continued our voyage in the semi-darkness, the prow of the vessel
+still pointed to the centre of the earth, while the polar star shone
+in the outer heavens on the horizon directly over the rail of the
+vessel's stern.
+
+It did not appear to us that we were dropping straight down into the
+interior of the earth; on the contrary, we always seemed to float on a
+horizontal sea, and the earth seemed to turn up toward us and the
+polar cavern to gradually engulf us. The sight we beheld that day was
+inexpressibly magnificent. Five hundred miles above us rose the crest
+of the circular polar sea. Its upper hemisphere glowed with the light
+of the unseen sun. We were surrounded by fifteen hundred miles of
+perpendicular ocean, crowned with a diadem of icebergs!
+
+[Illustration: AT THIS MOMENT A WILD CRY AROSE FROM THE SAILORS. WITH
+ONE VOICE THEY SHOUTED, "THE SUN! THE SUN!"]
+
+Glorious as was the sight, the sailors were terribly apprehensive of
+nameless disasters in such monstrous surroundings. It was impossible
+for them to understand how the ocean roof could remain suspended
+above us like the vault of heaven. The idea of being able to sail down
+a tubular ocean, the antechamber of some infernal world, was
+incomprehensible. We were traversing sea-built corridors, whose
+oscillating floors and roof remained providentially apart to permit us
+to explore the mystery beyond.
+
+Mid-day on the 13th of May brought no sight of the sun, but only a
+deepening twilight, the dim reflection of the bright sky we had left
+behind. The further we sailed into the gulf the less its diameter
+grew. When we had penetrated the vast aperture some two hundred and
+fifty miles, we found the aerial diameter was reduced to about fifty
+miles, thus forming a conical abyss. We were clearly sailing down a
+gigantic vortex or gulf of water, and we began to feel a diminishing
+gravity the further we approached the central abyss.
+
+The cavernous sea was subject to enormous undulations, or tidal waves,
+either the result of storms in the interior of the earth or mighty
+adjustments of gravity between the interior and exterior oceans. As we
+were lifted up upon the crest of an immense tidal wave several of the
+sailors, as well as the lookout, declared they had seen a flash of
+light, in the direction of the centre of the earth!
+
+We were all terribly excited at the news, and as the ship was lifted
+on the crest of the next wave, we saw clearly an orb of flame that
+lighted up the circling undulations of water with the flush of dawn!
+We were now between two spectral lights--the faint twilight of the
+outer sun and the intermittent dawn of some strange source of light in
+the interior of the earth.
+
+The sailors crowded to the top of both masts and stood upon
+cross-trees and rigging, wildly anxious to discover the meaning of the
+strange light and whatever the view from the next crest of waters
+would reveal.
+
+"What do you think is the source of this strange illumination," I
+inquired of the captain, "unless it is the radiance of fires in the
+centre of the earth?"
+
+"It comes from some definite element of fire," said the professor,
+"the nature of which we will soon discover. It certainly does not
+belong to the sun, nor can I attribute it to an aurora dependent on
+solar agency."
+
+"Possibly," said Professor Rackiron, "we are on the threshold of if
+not the infernal regions at least a supplementary edition of the
+same. We may be yet presented at court--the court of Mephistopheles."
+
+"You speak idle words, professor," said I. "On the eve of confronting
+unknown and perhaps terrible consequences you walk blindfold into the
+desperate chances of our journey with a jest on your lips."
+
+"Pardon me, commander," said he, "I do not jest. Have not the ablest
+theologians concurred in the statement that hell lies in the centre of
+the earth, and that the lake of fire and brimstone there sends up its
+smoke of torment? For aught we know this lurid light is the reflection
+of the infernal fires."
+
+At this moment a wild cry arose from the sailors. With one voice they
+shouted:
+
+"The sun! The sun! The sun!"
+
+The _Polar King_ had gained at last the highest horizon or vortex of
+water, and there, before us, a splendid orb of light hung in the
+centre of the earth, the source of the rosy flame that welcomed us
+through the sublime portal of the pole!
+
+As soon as the astonishment consequent on discovering a sun in the
+interior of the earth had somewhat subsided, we further discovered
+that the earth was indeed a hollow sphere. It was now as far to the
+interior as to the exterior surface, thus showing the shell of the
+earth to be at the pole at least 500 miles in thickness. We were half
+way to the interior sphere.
+
+Professor Starbottle, who had been investigating the new world with
+his glass, cried out: "Commander, we are to be particularly
+congratulated; the whole interior planet is covered with continents
+and oceans just like the outer sphere!"
+
+"We have discovered an El Dorado," said the captain, with enthusiasm;
+"if we discover nothing else I will die happy."
+
+"The heaviest elements fall to the centre of all spheres," said
+Professor Goldrock. "I am certain we shall discover mountains of gold
+ere we return."
+
+"I think we ought to salute our glorious discovery," said Professor
+Rackiron. "You see the infernal world isn't nearly so bad a place as
+we thought it was."
+
+I ordered a salute of one hundred terrorite guns to be given in honor
+of our discovery, and the firing at once began. The echoed roaring of
+the guns was indescribably grand. The trumpet-shaped caverns of water,
+both before and behind us, multiplied the heavy reverberations until
+the air of the gulf was rent with their thunder. The last explosion
+was followed by long-drawn echoes of triumph that marked our
+introduction to the interior world.
+
+Strange to say that on the very threshold of success there are men who
+suddenly take fright at the new conditions that confront them. It
+appeared that Boatswain Dunbar and eleven sailors who had unwillingly
+sailed thus far refused to proceed further with the ship, being
+terrified at the discovery we had made. I could have obliged them to
+have remained with us, but their reason being possibly affected, I saw
+that their presence as malcontents might in time cause a mutiny, or at
+all events an ever-present, source of trouble. They were wildly
+anxious to leave the ship and return home; consequently I gave them
+liberty to depart. The largest boat was lowered, together with a mast
+and sails. I gave the command to Dunbar, and furnished the boat with
+ample stores and plenty of clothing. I also gave them one-half of the
+dogs and two sledges for crossing the ice. When the men were finally
+seated Dunbar cast off the rope and steered for the outer sea. We gave
+them a parting salute by firing a gun, and in a short time they were
+lost in the darkness of the gulf.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+EXTRAORDINARY LOSS OF WEIGHT.
+
+
+The first thought that occurred to us after the excitement of
+discovery had somewhat subsided was that the interior of the earth was
+in all probability a habitable planet, possessing as it did a
+life-giving luminary of its own, and our one object was to get into
+the planet as quickly as possible. A continual breeze from the
+interior ocean of air passed out of the gulf. Its temperature was much
+higher than that of the sea on which we sailed, and it was only now
+that we began to think of laying off our Arctic furs.
+
+A closer observation of the interior sun revealed the knowledge that
+it was a very luminous orb, producing a climate similar to that of the
+tropics or nearly so. As we entered the interior sphere the sun rose
+higher and higher above us, until at last he stood vertically above
+our heads at a height of about 3,500 miles. We saw at once what novel
+conditions of life might exist under an earth-surrounded sun, casting
+everywhere perpendicular shadow, and neither rising nor setting, but
+standing high in heaven, the lord of eternal day. We seemed to sail
+the bottom of a huge bowl or spherical gulf, surrounded by oceans,
+continents, islands, and seas.
+
+A peculiar circumstance, first noticed immediately after arriving at
+the centre of the gulf, was that each of us possessed a sense of
+physical buoyancy, hitherto unfelt.
+
+Flathootly told me he felt like jumping over the mast in his
+newly-found vigor of action, and the sailors began a series of antics
+quite foreign to their late stolid behavior. I felt myself possessed
+of a very elastic step and a similar desire to jump overboard and leap
+miles out to sea. I felt that I could easily jump a distance of
+several miles.
+
+Professor Starbottle explained this phenomenal activity by stating
+that on the outer surface of the earth a man who weighs one hundred
+and fifty pounds, would weigh practically nothing on the interior
+surface of an earth shell of any equal thickness throughout. But the
+fact that we did weigh something, and that the ship and ocean itself
+remained on the under surface of the world, proved that the shell of
+the earth, naturally made thicker at the equator by reason of
+centrifugal gravity than at the poles, has sufficient equatorial
+attraction to keep open the polar gulf. Besides this centrifugal
+gravity confers a certain degree of weight on all objects in the
+interior sphere.
+
+"I'll get a pair of scales," said Flathootly, "an' see how light I am
+in weight."
+
+"Don't mind scales," said the professor, "for the weights themselves
+have lost weight."
+
+"Well, I'm one hundred and seventy-five pounds to a feather," said
+Flathootly, "an' I'll soon see if the weights are right or not."
+
+"The weights are right enough," said the professor, "and yet they are
+wrong."
+
+"An' how can a thing be roight and wrang at the same time, I'd loike
+to know? We'll thry the weights anyway," said the Irishman.
+
+So saying, Flathootly got a little weighing machine on deck, and,
+standing thereon, a sailor piled on the weights on the opposite side.
+
+He shouted out: "There now, do you see that? I'm wan hundred and
+siventy-siven pounds, jist what I always was."
+
+"My dear sir," said the professor, "you don't seem to understand this
+matter; the weights have lost weight equally with yourself, hence they
+still appear to you as weighing one hundred and seventy-seven pounds."
+
+"Excuse me, sorr," said Flathootly. "If the weights have lost weight,
+the chap that stole it was cute enough to put it back again before I
+weighed meself. Don't you see wid yer two eyes I'm still as heavy as
+iver I was?"
+
+"You will require ocular demonstration that what I say is correct.
+Here, sir, let me weigh you with this instrument," said the professor.
+
+The instrument referred to was a huge spring-balance with which it was
+proposed to weigh Flathootly. One end of it was fastened to the mast,
+and to the hook hanging from the other end the master-at-arms secured
+himself. The hand on the dial plate moved a certain distance and
+stopped at seventeen pounds. The expression on the Irishman's face was
+something awful to behold.
+
+"Does this machine tell the thruth?" he inquired in a tearful voice.
+
+We assured him it was absolutely correct. He only weighed seventeen
+pounds.
+
+"Oh, howly Mother of Mercy!" yelled Flathootly. "Consumption has me by
+the back of the neck. I've lost a hundred and sixty pounds in three
+days. Oh, sir, for the love of heaven, take me back to me mother. I'm
+kilt entoirely."
+
+It was some time before Flathootly could understand that his lightness
+of weight was due to the lesser-sized world he was continually
+arriving upon, together with centrifugal gravity, and that we all
+suffered from his affliction of being each "less than half a man" as
+he termed it. The weighing of the weights wherewith he had weighed
+himself proved conclusively that the depreciation in gravity applied
+equally to everything around us.
+
+The extreme lightness of our bodies, and the fact that our muscles had
+been used to move about ten times our then weight, was the cause of
+our wonderful buoyancy.
+
+The sailors began leaping from the ship to a large rock that rose out
+of the water about half a mile off. Their agility was marvellous, and
+Flathootly covered himself with glory in leaping over the ship
+hundreds of feet in the air and alighting on the same spot on deck
+again.
+
+Their officers and scientific staff remained on deck as became their
+dignity, although tempted to try their agility like the sailors.
+
+Flathootly surprised us by leaping on a yardarm and exclaiming:
+"Gintlemen, I tell ye what it is, I'm no weight at all."
+
+"How do you make that out?" said the professor.
+
+"Well, Oi've been thinking," said he, "that, as you say, we're in the
+middle of the two wurrlds. Now it stands to sense that the wan wurrld,
+I mane the sun up there, is pullin' us up an' the t'other wurrld is
+pullin' us down, an' as both wurrlds is pulling aqually, why av corse
+we don't amount to no weight at all. How could I turn fifteen
+summersaults at wance if I was any weight? That shows yer weighing
+machine is all wrang again."
+
+"How can you stand on the deck if you are no weight?" inquired the
+professor.
+
+"Why, I'm only pressing me feet on the boards," said the Irishman;
+"look here!" So saying, he leaped from the yard and revolved in the
+air at least twenty times before alighting on the deck.
+
+"Now," said the professor, "I'll explain why you only weigh seventeen
+pounds as indicated by the spring-balance. We have sailed, down the
+gulf 500 miles, haven't we?"
+
+"Yis, sorr."
+
+"And here we are sailing upside down on the inside roof of the
+world----"
+
+"Sailin' upside down? Indeed, sorr, an' ye can't make me believe that,
+for shure I'm shtandin' on me feet like yourself, head uppermost."
+
+"Well, whether you believe it or not, we are sailing upside down, just
+as ships going to Australia sail upside down as compared with ships
+sailing the North Atlantic. But the point of gravity is this: Here we
+are surrounded on all sides by the shell of the earth, which attracts
+equally in all directions. Hence all objects in the interior world
+have no weight as regards whatever thickness of the earth's shell
+surrounds them. You see, weight is caused by an object having the
+world on one side of it. Thus both the world and the object attract
+each other according to the density and distance apart. What we call a
+pound weight is a mass of matter attracted by the earth on its surface
+with a force equal to the weight of sixteen ounces. A pound weight on
+the surface of the earth weighs sixteen ounces, and all the mighty
+volume of our planet, with all its mountains, continents and seas,
+weighs only sixteen ounces on the surface of a pound weight. The earth
+may still weigh many millions of tons as regards the sun, but as
+regards a pound weight it only weighs sixteen ounces."
+
+"That is an illustration of Flathootly's mental calibre," said Captain
+Wallace. "He only believes what his brain can accommodate in the way
+of knowledge."
+
+"God bless the captain," said Flathootly, "I'm shure his brain is as
+big as mine any day in the week."
+
+"Now," continued the astronomer, "it seems to me that the substances
+of the earth, rocks, metals, and water, have, under the influence of
+centrifugal gravity, massed themselves very thickly at the equator or
+point of greatest motion, and stretch toward the poles in a
+gradually-lessening mass until the polar gulfs are reached. Thus the
+earth's shell resembles a musk-melon with the inside cleaned out."
+
+"It makes me mouth wather to think of it," said Flathootly.
+
+"Now, listen," said the astronomer; "we are also under the influence
+of the earth's centrifugal motion, and wherever we are on the interior
+surface we swing round our circle of latitude in twenty-four hours,
+and thus men, ship, and ocean are held up against the interior vault
+like a boy being able to hold water in a vertical position at the
+bottom of the pail he swings round him at the end of a cord."
+
+"Don't you think, professor," I inquired, "we will become heavier as
+we approach the region of greatest motion under the equator?"
+
+"I don't think so," he replied, "for the ocean around the poles has
+naturally gravitated to the internal as well as to the external
+equator, to restore the equilibrium of gravity. The reason why a man
+does not weigh less on the external equator than at the poles,
+although flying around at the rate of a thousand miles an hour, is
+that the deeper ocean, that is, the extra twenty-six miles that the
+earth is thicker on the equator, counterbalances by its attraction
+the loss of weight due to the rapid centrifugal motion, and so
+preserves in all objects on the earth a uniform weight."
+
+"The whole thing," said Flathootly, "is as clear as mud. I'm glad to
+know, sorr, I haven't lost me entire constitution at all evints, an'
+if I can only carry home what weight I've got lift I'll make a fortune
+in a dime museum."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+AFLOAT ON THE INTERIOR OCEAN.
+
+
+As the _Polar King_ sped southward over the interior sea the wonders
+of the strange world we had discovered began to dawn upon us. The
+colossal vault rose more and more above us and the sun threw his mild
+and vertical rays directly upon ship and sea, producing a most
+delightful climate. The ocean had a temperature of 75 degrees Fahr.
+and the air 85 degrees. We were absolutely sailing upside down to an
+inhabitant of the outer sphere, yet we seemed to ourselves to be
+sailing naturally erect on the sea with the sun above us.
+
+Our first experience in the internal sphere was that of a sudden
+storm. The sun grew dark and appeared like a disc of sombre gold. The
+ocean was lashed by a furious hurricane into incredible mountains of
+water. Every crest of the waves seemed a mass of yellow flame. The
+internal heavens were rent open with gulfs of sulphur-colored fire,
+while the thunder reverberated with terrible concussions. The ship
+would spin upon the water as though every wave were a whirlpool. A
+golden-yellow phosphorescence covered the ocean. The water boiled in
+maddening eddies of lemon-colored seas, while from the hurricane decks
+streamed cataracts of saffron fire. The lightning, like streaks of
+molten gold, hurled its burning darts into the sea. Everything bore
+the glow of amber-colored fire. The sailors congratulated themselves
+on the shelter provided by the deck overhead. The motion of the ship
+exceeded all former experiences, for it leaped and plunged in a
+terrific manner. It was a question whether we would survive the storm
+or not, so violent was the shaking up both ship and men received.
+Fortunately, the loss of weight in everything, which was the cause of
+the rapid motion, permitted no more damage than would be caused by a
+lesser storm on heavier objects.
+
+The professor stated that he believed the tempest was occasioned by a
+polar tidal wave of air rushing into the interior sphere, to supply
+the exhaustion caused by outgoing warm currents, owing perhaps to a
+periodical overheating of the air by the internal sun. When a certain
+volume of the air was expelled, so that it could no longer resist
+external pressure, then the external air rushed down the polar gulf,
+creating by meeting warm outward-flowing currents cyclones such as we
+were then experiencing.
+
+By degrees the storm abated, the sea grew calm, the heavens above us
+became clearer, and the sun assumed the rose-color he first presented
+to our gaze, standing right in the zenith.
+
+The only damage done to the crew was a few broken limbs and some
+severe bruises. The ship had lost several spars, and one of her boats
+was blown out of its lashings on deck and was lost.
+
+It was a week since we had left the outer world, and what a change had
+occurred in that short space of time! The excitement had been so
+intense that not a man of us had slept during that period, and as for
+meals, we had forgotten about them altogether.
+
+A general order was given the cooks to prepare a banquet to duly
+inaugurate our discovery of the new world. Both officers and men,
+including myself, sat down at the same table, where we satisfied the
+cravings of a week's hunger.
+
+I expressed my heartfelt pleasure in the safety of the crew and ship
+so far in making so tremendous a discovery. I relied on the courage
+and loyalty of the crew for still further explorations in the strange
+and mysterious planet we had discovered. I declared that those who
+shared the dangers of the expedition would also share in whatever
+reward fortune might bestow upon us.
+
+It is needless to say such sentiments were enthusiastically applauded.
+
+I praised my able coadjutor, Captain Wallace, without whose skilful
+seamanship not a soul of us could ever have reached that secret world.
+"It was he," said I, "who has guided us without a chart through five
+hundred miles of polar cavern to the realms of Pluto, to Plutusia, the
+interior world. On him again we must depend for a safe exit when our
+explorations are ended."
+
+Flathootly attempted to make a speech, but, like the rest of the
+company, fell asleep, and in less than half an hour afterward not a
+soul remained awake, excepting Professor Starbottle and myself.
+
+We both struggled against sleep long enough to take a survey of the
+internal sphere. The _Polar King_ floated on the wide bosom of the sea
+underneath the perpendicular sun that lit all Plutusia with its beams.
+With our telescopes we discovered oceans, continents, mountain ranges,
+lakes, cities, railroads, ships, and buildings of all kinds spread
+like an immense map on the concave vault of the earth overhead. It was
+a sight that alone amply repaid us for the discovery of so sublime a
+sphere.
+
+We thought what a cry of joy would electrify both planets when through
+our instrumentality they first knew of each other's existence. We
+alone possessed the tremendous secret! Then, what possibilities of
+commerce! What keen and glorious revelations of art! What unfolding of
+the secrets of nature each world would find in the other! What
+inventions rival nations would discover in either world, and here for
+the outer world what possible mountains of gold, what quarries of
+jewels! What means of empire and joy and love! But such thoughts were
+too vast for wearied souls. We were stunned by such conceptions, and,
+yielding to nature, sank into a dreamless sleep.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+A VISIT FROM THE INHABITANTS OF PLUTUSIA.
+
+
+How long we slept it is impossible to say. We must have remained in
+slumber at least three days after the great excitement of our voyage
+so far. The direct cause of my awaking was a loud noise on deck, and
+on coming up to learn the cause, I saw Flathootly shaking his fist at
+two strange flying men who hovered over the ship.
+
+"Bad luck to ye," shouted Flathootly, "if iver I get a grip of ye
+again you won't sail away so swately after jabbin' me in the neck like
+that."
+
+"Flathootly!" I cried, "what's the meaning of this? Were those men on
+board ship? Had you hold of them?"
+
+"Begorra, sorr," he replied, holding his hand over a slight wound in
+his neck, "I was slaping as swately as a child when I felt something
+tickling me nose. I got up to see what was the matther wid me, and
+sure enough found thim two rascals prowlin' about the deck. Whin they
+saw me making a move they jumped back and roosted on the rail. I
+wanted to catch howlt of wan of thim as a curiosity and I goes up to
+the short fellow, an' says I, quite honey like: 'Good-marnin', sorr!
+Could you give me a match to loight me pipe?' an' before the fellow
+had time to know where he was I had howlt of him, wings an' all. Why,
+he was as weak as wather, and I was knocking his head on the deck to
+kape him quiet, whin the other fellow let fly and stuck his spear in
+me neck, and whin I was trying to catch the second fellow the first
+fellow got away. Be jabers, the next time I get the grip on either of
+thim his mutton's cooked."
+
+"I fear, Flathootly," said I, "you will never catch either of them
+again. Don't you see they have got wings and can fly wherever they
+like beyond reach?"
+
+The two men that flew around the ship were strange beings. Their
+complexions were bright yellow and their hair black. They were not
+above five and a half feet in height, but possessed athletic frames.
+Their wings were long polished blades of metal of a gleaming white,
+like gigantic oars, which were moved by some powerful force (possibly
+electricity) quite independent of the body. Their aerial blades
+flashed and whirled in the sunlight with blinding rapidity. Their
+attire consisted of what appeared to be leather tights covering the
+legs, of a pale yellow tint with crimson metallic embroidery. The
+dynamo and wings were fastened to a crimson jacket of unique shape
+that supported the body in flight. Their heads were protected by white
+metal helmets, and they wore tightly-fitting metal boots, reaching
+half way up to the knee, the metal being arranged in overlapping
+scales. Each flying man was armed with a spear and shields. The _tout
+ensemble_ was a picture of agility and grace.
+
+The sailors, now thoroughly awake, gave expression to loud
+exclamations of surprise at the sight of the two strange flying men
+wheeling around the ship overhead. Professor Starbottle thought that
+the strangers must belong to some wealthy and civilized country, for
+men in a savage state would be incapable of inventing such powers of
+flight and presenting so ornate an appearance.
+
+"They are soldiers," said Professor Rackiron; "see the spears and
+shields they wear."
+
+"They're bloody pirates!" said Flathootly. "It was the long fellow
+that stabbed me."
+
+"You're all right," said the doctor to Flathootly. "Thank your stars
+the spear wasn't poisoned, or you would be a dead man."
+
+"Be the powers, I'll have that fellow yet," said the master-at-arms.
+"I'm going to take a jump, and, be me sowl, wan of thim fellows 'll
+get left."
+
+The strangers were now flying quite close to the ship, and Flathootly
+unexpectedly gave a tremendous spring into the air. He would have
+caught one of the aerial men for certain, but they, having wings,
+foiled him by simply moving out of the line of the Irishman's flight.
+
+Flathootly dropped into the sea about a quarter of a mile away, and
+would probably have been drowned had it not been for the generosity of
+the strangers themselves. One of the flying men, hastening to the
+rescue, caught him by the hair of the head and lifted him out of the
+water. Flathootly caught the stranger by one of his legs and held on
+like grim death. The flying man brought his burden right over the ship
+and attempted to drop Flathootly on deck, who shouted, "I hev him,
+boys! I hev him! Catch howlt of us, some of you!" Immediately a dozen
+sailors leaped up, and, grasping the winged man and his burden,
+brought both successfully down to the deck.
+
+Seeing himself overpowered, the stranger submitted to his captivity
+with as good a grace as possible. We removed his shield and spear,
+and, merely tying a rope to his leg to secure our prize, gave him the
+freedom of the ship.
+
+He sulked for a long time, and maintained an animated conversation
+with his free companion in a language whose meaning none of us
+understood. He finally condescended to eat some of the food we set
+before him, and his companion came near enough to take a glass of
+wine from his captive brother and drink it with evident relish.
+
+[Illustration: ONE OF THE FLYING MEN CAUGHT FLATHOOTLY BY THE HAIR OF
+THE HEAD, AND LIFTED HIM OUT OF THE WATER.]
+
+Flathootly was so far friendly disposed to his assailant as to offer
+him a glass of ship's rum. The stranger to our surprise did not refuse
+it, but, putting the glass to his lips, quaffed its contents at a
+single draught. When he became more accustomed to his surroundings we
+ventured to examine his curious equipment.
+
+Upon examination we found that the wings of our captive were simply
+large aerial oars, about four and a half feet in length and three feet
+wide at the widest part, tapering down to a few inches wide at the
+dynamo that moved them. Such small extent of surface evidently
+required an enormous force to propel a man in rapid flight. We found
+the dynamo to consist of a central wheel made to revolve by the
+attraction of a vast occult force evolved from the contact of two
+metals, one being of a vermilion color and the other of a bright green
+tint, that constituted the cell of the apparatus. No acid was
+required, nor did the contact of the metal produce any wasting of
+their substance. A colossal current of mysterious magnetism made the
+wheel revolve, the current being guided in its work by an automatic
+insulation of one hemisphere of the wheel.
+
+I put one hand on the dynamo and made a gesture of inquiry with the
+other, whereupon our strange friend said, "Nojmesedi!" Was this the
+name of the new force we had discovered, or the name of the flying
+apparatus as a whole? Before we could settle the point our friend
+became communicative, and, smiting his breast, said:
+
+"Plothoy, wayleal ar Atvatabar!"
+
+With the right hand he pointed to a continent rising above us, its
+mighty features being clearly visible to the naked eye.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+WE LEARN ATVATABARESE.
+
+
+This exclamation was a very puzzling phrase to us.
+
+Professor Starbottle said: "It appears to me, gentlemen, before we can
+make any use of our prisoner we must first learn his language."
+
+Again the stranger smote his breast, exclaiming: "Plothoy, wayleal ar
+Atvatabar."
+
+"Well, of all the lingoes I iver heard," said Flathootly, "this is the
+worst case yet. It bates Irish, which is the toughest langwidge to
+larn undher the sun. What langwidge do you call that, sorr?"
+
+Professor Goldrock, besides being a naturalist, was an adept in
+language. He stated that our captive appeared to be either a soldier
+or courier or coast-guard of his country, which was evidently
+indicated by the last word, Atvatabar. "Let us take for granted," said
+he, "that 'Plothoy' is his name and 'Atvatabar' his country. We have
+left the two words 'wayleal ar.' Now the pronunciation and grouping of
+the letters leads me to think that the words resemble the English
+language more nearly than any other tongue. The word 'wayleal' has the
+same number of letters as 'soldier' and 'courier,' and I note that the
+fourth and last letters are identical in both 'courier' and 'wayleal.'
+On the supposition that both words are identical we might compare them
+thus:
+
+c is w
+o " a
+u " y
+r " l
+i " e
+e " i or a
+r " l
+
+The word 'wayleil' or 'wayleal' means to us leal or strong--by the
+way, a very good name for a soldier."
+
+At this moment our mysterious friend yelled out:
+
+"Plothoy, wayleal ar Atvatabar, em Bilbimtesirol!"
+
+"Kape quiet, me boy," said Flathootly, "and we'll soon find out all
+about you."
+
+"Rather let him talk away," said the professor, "and we'll find out
+who he is much quicker. You see he has given us two new words this
+time, the words 'em Bilbimtesirol.' Now an idea strikes me--let us
+transpose the biggest word thus:
+
+b is p
+i " e
+l " r
+b " p
+i " e
+m " n
+t " d
+e " i
+s " c
+i " u
+r " l
+o " a
+l " r
+
+Here we have the word 'perpendicular.' What does 'Bilbimtesirol' as
+'perpendicular' mean? It may mean that the interior planet is lit by a
+perpendicular sun, and that we are in a land of perpendicular light and
+shadow. See how the shadow, of every man surrounds his boots! Now,
+granting 'wayleal' means 'courier' and 'Bilbimtesirol' 'perpendicular,' we
+have a clue to the language of Atvatabar. It seems to me to be a
+miraculous transposition of the English language thus:
+
+a is o
+b " p
+c " s or k
+d " t
+e " i or a
+f " f or v
+g " j
+h " oh
+i " e
+j " g
+k " c
+l " r
+m " n
+n " m
+o " a
+p " b
+q " v
+r " l
+s " c or s
+t " d
+u " ij
+v " qu
+w " y c or s
+x " z
+y " u or i
+z " x
+
+According to this transposition our friend means, 'Plothoy courier of
+Atvatabar, in Bilbimtesirol.' Let us see if we can so understand him."
+So saying, the professor approached and said:
+
+"Ec wayl moni Plothoy?" (Is your name Plothoy?)
+
+"Wic cel, ni moni ec Plothoy" (Yes, sir, my name is Plothoy), promptly
+replied the stranger.
+
+"Good!" said the professor; "that's glorious! We understand each other
+now."
+
+I congratulated the professor on his brilliant discovery. It was
+magnificent! We could now converse with our prisoner on any subject we
+desired.
+
+We had the key in our hands that would unlock the wonders of Plutusia,
+or rather Bilbimtesirol, the interior world.
+
+Flathootly turned a dozen summersaults in the air to express his
+delight. The sailors spun upon the deck, and threw each other into the
+air like jugglers playing with balls, in pure excitement.
+
+"Ec Atvatabar dofi moni ar wail saimtle?" (Is Atvatabar the name of
+your country?) inquired the professor of Plothoy.
+
+"E on o wayleal ar Fec Nogicdi, Cemj Aldemegry Bhoolmakar ar
+Atvatabar" (I am a wayleal of his majesty King Aldemegry Bhoolmakar of
+Atvatabar), said Plothoy.
+
+Atvatabar, then, was a kingdom. We should go there certainly and see
+King Bhoolmakar and his people. But where was this mysterious country?
+
+"Yohili ec Atvatabar?" we asked of Plothoy.
+
+"Dohili!" he replied, pointing to a continent in the southwest. The
+southwest in the interior world, it should be stated, corresponds to
+the southeast on the outer earth. Atvatabar, then, lay underneath the
+Atlantic Ocean.
+
+"Yohod ec dohi moni ar dohi miolicd gliod sedi?" (What is the name of
+the nearest great city?) we asked.
+
+"Kioram," replied Plothoy. "Dohili ed ec fequi ohymtlit neric tyi
+caydoh docd." (There it is, five hundred miles due southeast.)
+
+We looked in the direction indicated with our glasses and plainly saw
+the white marble buildings of a large city not three degrees above the
+plane of our position. Further off, in the haze of distance, a mighty
+continent unrolled its landscapes, until it was merged in the
+brightness of the sunlight above us.
+
+All this time Plothoy's companion circumnavigated the ship on his
+swift wings. We inquired his name.
+
+"Lecholt," said Plothoy, "omt ohi orca ec o wayleal." (And he also is
+a wayleal.)
+
+"What is the name of the sun above us?" we inquired.
+
+"Swang," said Plothoy.
+
+Good! we would sail direct to Kioram, the principal port of Atvatabar.
+
+I assured Plothoy that as long as he was detained by us he would
+receive the greatest consideration at our hands. We would do him no
+injury, but, on the contrary, amply reward him for his services. He
+could understand that, being strangers in an unknown world, it was
+absolutely necessary for us to have a pilot, or guide, not merely to
+advise how to direct the ship, but to inform us regarding the laws,
+manners, and customs of the people we proposed visiting, that we might
+accommodate ourselves to such novel experiences as we were certain to
+undergo. We told him we had come to Bilbimtesirol as pioneers of the
+outer planet, as heralds of the intercourse that would undoubtedly
+take place between two worlds separated for ages until now. We assured
+Plothoy how indebted we were to him for the information he had already
+given, and his great importance to us in a voyage that would affect
+the interests of thousands of millions of men ought to reconcile him
+to his brief captivity. We could not afford to lose him, and therefore
+asked him to remain with us for the remainder of the voyage, and on
+reaching Kioram we would give him his liberty.
+
+These words, with the treatment he was receiving, completely
+reconciled Plothoy, who called Lecholt to come down on deck beside
+him. His companion obeyed, and presently the two strangers sat on the
+rail of the vessel engaged in earnest conversation.
+
+Presently Plothoy said that his companion Lecholt would go forward in
+advance of the ship to inform the king of our coming, that due
+preparations be made for our reception. This was an admirable
+suggestion, and accordingly we despatched Lecholt with a message of
+profound respect for King Aldemegry Bhoolmakar, saying that the
+commander of the _Polar King_ with his officers and retinue would do
+themselves the honor of visiting his majesty and people as soon as the
+_Polar King_ would reach Atvatabar.
+
+Poising himself for a moment on his wings, Lecholt saluted us with his
+sword and immediately swept away in the direction of Atvatabar.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+WE ARRIVE AT KIORAM.
+
+
+Between the time of departure of Lecholt and our arrival at Kioram we
+kept Plothoy as busy as possible answering our questions.
+
+We found that all the soldiers of the king were known as wayleals, and
+that all were equipped with magnetic wings. The wings were worked by a
+little dynamo supplied by magnicity. A single cell, six cubic inches
+in size, produced a current both enormously powerful and constant. I
+could recollect no cell in the outer world of the same size so
+powerful, hence here was an inventive discovery of the first
+importance. The cell was composed of two metals, terrelium, a
+vermilion metal found only in Atvatabar, and aquelium, a bright green
+metal elaborated from the waters of the internal ocean, which metals
+simply placed in contact, without the addition of an acid or alkaline
+salt, generated a powerful current. Both cell and dynamo were strapped
+to the back by a strong leathern jacket, which also supported the
+soldier in flight. The weight of a man being only fifteen pounds on
+the surface of the interior earth, and no weight at all fifty miles
+above it, prevented any fatigue being experienced from flight. It was
+the easiest of all methods of locomotion, and eminently suited to the
+inhabitants of such a world as Bilbimtesirol.
+
+Plothoy informed us that the government of Atvatabar was an elective
+monarchy. The king and nobles were elected for life and no title was
+hereditary. There was a legislative assembly founded on the popular
+will called the Borodemy. The king's palace and Borodemy were situated
+in Calnogor, the capital city of the realm, which lay five hundred
+miles inland and communicated with Kioram by a sacred railroad, as
+well as by aerial ship.
+
+The largest building in Calnogor was the Bormidophia, or pantheon,
+where the worship of the gods was held. The only living object of
+worship was the Lady Lyone, the Supreme Goddess of Atvatabar. There
+were different kinds of golden gods worshipped, or symbols that
+represented the inventive forces, art, and spiritual power.
+
+The king was head of the army and navy and the people were divided
+into several classes of nobles and common people. The Atvatabarese
+were very wealthy, gold being as common as iron in the outer world.
+They were a peaceful people, and Atvatabar being itself an immense
+island continent, lying far from any other land, there had been no
+wars with any external nation, nor even civil war, for over a hundred
+years.
+
+There were plenty of newspapers, and the most wonderful inventions had
+been in use for ages. Railroads, pneumatic tubes, telegraphs,
+telephones, phonographs, electric lights, rain makers, seaboots,
+marine railroads, flying machines, megaphones, velocipedes without
+wheels, aerophers, etc., were quite common, not to speak of such
+inventions as sowing, reaping, sewing, bootblacking and knitting
+machines. Of course printing, weaving, and such like machines had been
+in use since the dawn of history. Strange to say they had no steam
+engines, and terrorite and gunpowder were unknown. Their great source
+of power was magnicity, generated by the two powerful metals terrelium
+and aquelium, and compressed air their explosive force.
+
+As we approached this wonderful country we noticed a number of
+splendid ships coming to meet us. Plated with gold and fully rigged,
+they presented a beautiful appearance. They were each propelled by
+magnicity. Plothoy said they were the fleet of Atvatabar coming to
+welcome us. The royal navy was in command of Admiral Jolar, who had
+never yet seen active service, but was a worthy representative of the
+king.
+
+Our rapid steaming in the direction of the fleet, which as rapidly
+approached us, soon brought the _Polar King_ within range of their
+guns. Plothoy was set free, as we then knew all about Atvatabar
+necessary to know prior to seeing the admiral, who could give us more
+definite information.
+
+A roar of guns saluted us from at least one hundred vessels. There was
+no smoke, the guns being discharged by compressed air. Each vessel
+bore the flag of Atvatabar, a pink-colored disc surrounded by a circle
+of green on a violet field. The disc represented the sun above us, the
+green circle Atvatabar, and the violet field the surrounding sea. From
+the peak of the _Polar King_ the American flag floated, the first flag
+of the outer sphere that was ever unrolled in the air of the interior
+world.
+
+The ships approached us in double column and presented an appearance
+of the utmost grandeur. It was evident we were the discoverers of a
+powerful and opulent country, and not a barbarous land. Here were
+civilization and courtesy, and, not to be outdone in these qualities,
+I ordered a salute from our terrorite guns. The explosive shells
+discharged by gunpowder into the sea sent up columns of water and foam
+all around us to an astonishing height, and it took a considerable
+time for the sea to subside, the gravity of the water being only
+one-tenth that of the external ocean.
+
+The Atvatabarese must have been greatly astonished at the explosions,
+as Plothoy informed us that no such weapon as ours formed part of the
+armament of the Atvatabar navy.
+
+The fleet ceased firing, and presently a gayly-decorated magnic launch
+shot off from the flagship, bearing two officers in brilliant
+uniforms. Plothoy, as the boat approached us, said the officers were
+Admiral Jolar of the fleet and Koshnili, Grand Minister of the
+government. The boat came alongside the _Polar King_, and, lowering a
+gangway, the illustrious visitors came on board.
+
+Admiral Jolar was arrayed in an olive-green coat, decorated with
+overlapping scales of gold embroidery, and olive-green trousers with
+an outer stripe similarly decorated. The uniform of Koshnili, the
+Grand Minister, was of electric-blue cloth covered with serpentine
+bands of gold embroidery, radiating downward. A small but brilliant
+retinue accompanied each official. As the distinguished visitors
+stepped on deck, the entire fleet saluted us with a second roar of
+guns. Plothoy announced their names and dignities. Being able to greet
+their excellencies in their own language greatly astonished them.
+
+I learned from the admiral that the Grand Minister Koshnili was sent
+by his majesty, King Aldemegry Bhoolmakar, as a special envoy to bid
+us welcome in the name of the king and people of Atvatabar. The story
+told by Lecholt had been proclaimed by royal authority throughout the
+country, and the day of our arrival in Calnogor, the metropolis, was
+to be observed as a national holiday.
+
+A brilliant programme of entertainment had been devised, calculated to
+do us infinite honor. I conferred on Admiral Jolar the title of
+Honorary Commander of the _Polar King_, and on Koshnili that of
+Honorary Captain.
+
+The admiral said that both he and Koshnili would remain on our ship
+until we arrived in the city of Kioram.
+
+The admiral, by signalling from the _Polar King_, put his navy into a
+series of brilliant evolutions. A curious feature was the fact that
+each sailor possessed wings, was in fact a wayleal, like Plothoy. The
+sailors, wing-jackets or fletyemings, as they were called, of one
+vessel, would rise like a swarm of bees and settle on another vessel.
+The evolutions made in this way were both majestic and surprising.
+
+The entire fletyemings of each squadron on either side of us were
+drawn up in battle array in the space between the ships and fought
+each other in mock battle with spears, while the ships discharged
+their guns at each other.
+
+We reached the harbor of Kioram, in which the royal navy anchored in
+double column. The _Polar King_ sailed slowly down the imperial avenue
+of ships amid the thunder of guns and the cheers of fletyemings.
+
+The sun shone gloriously as we stepped from the deck of the ship upon
+the white marble city wharf. Everything was new, strange, and
+splendid. We were received by Governor Ladalmir, of Kioram, the
+commandant of the fort, and his staff, Captains Pra and Nototherboc.
+Beyond the notables a vast crowd of Atvatabarese cheered us
+vociferously, while the guns of the fort, on a commanding height,
+roared their welcome.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+MARCHING IN TRIUMPH.
+
+
+There was a blaze of excitement in the streets of Kioram when our
+procession appeared on the grand boulevard leading from the harbor to
+the fortress, some four miles in length. We presented a strange
+appearance not only to the people of the city, but to ourselves as
+well.
+
+Prior to our appearance before the people we were obliged to adjust
+ourselves to the motion of an immense walking machine, the product of
+the inventive skill of Atvatabar.
+
+Governor Ladalmir explained that the cavalry of Atvatabar were mounted
+on such locomotive machines, built on the plan of immense ostriches,
+called bockhockids. They were forty feet in height from toe to head,
+the saddle being thirty feet from the ground. The iron muscles of legs
+and body, moved by a powerful magnic motor inside the body of the
+monster, acted on bones of hollow steel. Each machine was operated by
+the dynamo in the body, which was adjusted to act or remain inert, as
+required, when riding the structure. A switch in front of the saddle
+set the bockhockid in motion or brought it to rest again. It was
+simply a gigantic velocipede without wheels. "We'll ride the bastes,"
+said Flathootly, with suppressed excitement.
+
+"Do you think you can accommodate yourselves to ride such a machine?"
+said the governor. "You will find it, after a little practice, an
+imposing method of travel."
+
+We were assembled in a spacious court that surrounded the private dock
+of the king. Into this dock the _Polar King_ had been brought for
+greater safety and also to facilitate popular inspection. I determined
+that both officers and sailors should equally take part in the honors
+of our reception, and I informed the governor that we would like to
+see first how the machines were worked.
+
+At a signal from the governor, Captains Pra and Nototherboc
+disappeared and presently returned to the court-yard mounted on two
+gigantic bockhockids, on which they curvetted and swept around in
+gallant style.
+
+We were both astonished and delighted at the performance. It was
+marvellous to see such agility and obedience to the wish of the rider
+on such ungainly monsters. The sailors were only too anxious to mount
+such helter-skelters as the machine ostriches of Atvatabar. The stride
+made by each bird was over forty feet, and nothing on earth could
+overtake such coursers in full flight.
+
+The governor, proud of his two-legged horses, as he called them, grew
+eloquent in their behalf.
+
+"Consider an army of men," said he, "mounted on such machines. How
+swift! How formidable! What a terrible combat when two such armies
+meet, armed with their magnic spears! What display of prodigious
+agility! What breathless swerving to and fro! What fearful fleetness
+of pursuer and pursued! Aided as we are by the almost total absence of
+gravity, our inventors have produced a means of locomotion for
+individual men second only to the flying motor. We possess, also,
+flying bockhockids who are our cavalry in aerial warfare."
+
+The enraptured sailors were only too anxious to mount the enormous
+birds and sally forth to electrify the city. Ninety-eight bockhockids
+were required to mount the entire company. This number was brought
+into the court-yard by a detachment of soldiers who nimbly unseated
+themselves and slid down the smooth legs of the birds to the ground.
+
+"I say, yer honor," said Flathootly to the governor, "have you any
+insurance companies in this counthry?"
+
+"Why, certainly," replied the governor.
+
+"Then I want to inshure my loife if I have to mount a baste loike
+that."
+
+"Oh, I'll see that you are amply compensated for any injuries you may
+sustain by falling off the machine," said the governor.
+
+"Sorr, is yer word as good as yer bond?" inquired Flathootly.
+
+"Certainly," replied the governor.
+
+"Well thin, sorr, gimme yer bond," said Flathootly.
+
+The governor duly put his signature to a statement that Flathootly
+should be compensated for any injuries received in consequence of his
+riding the bockhockid. Flathootly carefully deposited the document in
+a little satchel he carried in his breast, and thereupon, sailor
+fashion, climbed up the leg of the machine and seated himself on the
+gold-embroidered saddle-cloth.
+
+In like manner the sailors got seated on their machines, the entire
+company forming an imposing phalanx. I found it quite easy to balance
+myself on the two-legged monsters in consequence of the large base
+given each leg by the outspreading toes.
+
+While the sailors were getting seated a military band, composed of
+fifty musicians, each mounted on a bockhockid, played the March of
+Atvatabar in soul-stirring strains.
+
+The word of command being given, the great doors of the court-yard
+were flung open and forth issued the musicians with banners flying.
+Then followed the seamen of the _Polar King_, led by the governor,
+Koshnili and myself.
+
+The excited populace cheered a hearty welcome. A brigade of five
+thousand bockhockids fell into line as an escort of honor. The
+ever-shining sun lent a brilliant effect to the pageant. Our
+complexions were lighter than those of the Atvatabarese, who were
+universally of a golden-yellow tint, and it was surprising to see how
+fair the people appeared, considering that they lived in a land where
+the sun never sets. None had a complexion darker than a rich
+chocolate-brown color. This was accounted for by the fact that the
+light of Swang was not half as intense as that of the outer sun in the
+tropics. The diminutive size of the luminary counterbalanced its
+proximity to the surrounding planet. The light that fell upon
+Atvatabar was warm, genial, glowing, and rosy, imparting to life a
+delightful sensation. As the procession advanced we saw splendid
+emporiums of trade chiselled of white marble, crowded roof and window
+with dense masses of people. On either side of the fine boulevard
+leading to the palace the people were jammed into an immovable mass
+and were wild with enthusiasm. The roadway was lined with trees that
+seemed like magnolias, oranges, and oleanders.
+
+"Now this is something loike a recipshon," said Flathootly. "I'm well
+plazed wid it."
+
+"I am delighted to know that your honor thinks so highly of our
+efforts to please you," said the governor.
+
+Flathootly turned round and shouted to the sailors, "Remimber, me
+bhoys, we will hev a grand feast at the ind of the performance." As he
+spoke, he unfortunately touched the switch starting the bockhockid
+into a gallop, and in a moment the machine dashed furiously forward,
+running into the musicians, knocking down some of the other
+bockhockids, scattering others in all directions, and then flying
+ahead amid the roars of the people. Flathootly was thrown off his
+seat, but in falling to the ground managed to get hold of the
+bockhockid's leg at the knee-joint, to which he clung with the energy
+of despair. A squad of police, who also rode bockhockids, dashed after
+the flying Flathootly, and one of them got hold of the switch on the
+back of the machine and so brought it to a standstill.
+
+Flathootly was terrified, but uninjured. His first concern was to see
+if his "insurance" was safe. He found the document still in his
+breast, and this being so, was induced to remount his steed. "I hope
+your honor has met with no accident?" said the governor, riding up.
+
+"As long as I've yer honor's handwritin' I'm all right," said
+Flathootly. "If I break me leg what odds, so long as I'm insured?"
+
+The scattered musicians were assembled in order again and the
+procession continued its way toward the palace. There were on all
+sides evidences of wealth, culture, and refinement. Every building was
+constructed of chiselled marble.
+
+The fortress and palace of Kioram stood in a large square, occupying
+the most commanding position in the city. From the fort could be seen
+the white shores and surrounding sea of Atvatabar. The harbor was
+surrounded with white stone piers lined with the commerce of the
+kingdom. The charm of the scene was largely lost on Flathootly and the
+sailors, who cared more for the material benefit of their reception
+than for its ideal beauty.
+
+[Illustration: ONE OF THE MOUNTED POLICE GOT HOLD OF THE SWITCH ON THE
+BACK OF THE BOCKHOCKID, AND BROUGHT IT TO A STANDSTILL.]
+
+The procession arrived at a pillared archway leading underneath the
+solid walls of the fortress. These walls were fully one hundred feet
+in height and fifty feet in thickness. The top of the walls consisted
+of a level circular roadway, whereon a guard of bockhockids constantly
+swept around with amazing swiftness.
+
+It was a sight grotesque in the extreme. The flying wayleals looked
+like a race between enormous ostriches with a wild confusion of legs
+on the lofty ramparts.
+
+"Flying divils let loose," was the subdued remark of Flathootly.
+
+There was a gay time in the banqueting hall of the palace. We were
+royally feasted, and for wine we drank squang, the choicest wine of
+Atvatabar.
+
+The governor informed us that our appearance in the interior world had
+been heralded all over the country, and strange speculations had been
+made as to what world or country we belonged to. "We know, of course,"
+said he, "that you do not belong to any race of men in our sphere, and
+this makes public curiosity all the greater concerning you. What
+country do you come from?" said he, addressing Flathootly.
+
+"Oi'm from the United States, the foinest counthry on the outside of
+the world; but I was born in Tipperary," said Flathootly.
+
+"Ah," said the governor, "I should be delighted to visit your
+country."
+
+"You might be gettin' frightened, sorr, at the dark ivery noight,"
+said Flathootly.
+
+"What is the night?" said the governor.
+
+"Och, and have ye lived to be a gray-haired man and don't know that
+it's dark at noight whin the sun jumps round to the other soide of the
+wurrld?"
+
+"But it's never dark here," said the governor.
+
+"Thrue for you, but it ought to be. How can a Christian slape wid the
+sun shinin' all the toime?" rejoined the Irishman.
+
+"Oh, you can sleep here in the sunshine," said the governor, "as well
+as inside the house."
+
+"Does it iver rain here?" said Flathootly.
+
+"But little," replied the governor; "not more than six inches of rain
+falls in a year."
+
+"Bedad, you ought to be in Oireland to see it rain. There you'd git
+soaked to your heart's content. An' tell me how do you grow your
+cabbages without rain?" he continued.
+
+"Well," said the governor, "rain is produced by firing into the air
+balls of solid gas so intensely cold that in turning to the gaseous
+form they condense in rain the invisible vapor in the air."
+
+"Bedad, that's what they do in our country," said Flathootly, "only
+they explode shells of dynamite in the air. Can you tell me," he
+added, "have you got tides in the say here?"
+
+"We have never been able to discover what force it is that lifts the
+sea so regularly," said the governor. "We call it the breathing of the
+ocean."
+
+"Shure any schoolboy knows it's the moon that does it," replied
+Flathootly.
+
+"The moon?" queried the governor.
+
+"Why, of coorse it's the moon on the other side of the wurrld that
+lifts up the wather both inside and out. Ye're wake in geography not
+to know that," said Flathootly.
+
+The governor looked at me for verification of this astonishing story.
+"Where is that wonderful moon," he inquired, "that I hear of? Where is
+the surface of the earth that slopes away out of sight?" Just then the
+bell sounded its message that called the people to rest, and the
+banqueting came to an end. We were forthwith shown to the private
+apartments allotted to us in the palace.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+THE JOURNEY TO CALNOGOR.
+
+
+There was in Kioram a temple dedicated to the god Rakamadeva, or
+Sacred Locomotive, which was one of the many gods worshipped by the
+Atvatabarese. It belonged to the gods embraced in the category of
+"gods of invention," and its motive power was magnicity, the same
+force that propelled the flying men. It was a powerful structure built
+of solid gold, platinum, terrelium, aquelium, and plutulium, and
+alloys of the most precious and heaviest of metals, and was both car
+and locomotive, and was hung over a single elevated rail that
+supported it, the weight resting on six wheels in front and six
+behind, all concealed by the body of the car.
+
+The battery consisted of one hundred cells of terrelium and aquelium
+that developed a gigantic force. The six driving wheels at either end
+of the car were of immense size, and the tires were hollowed out with
+a semi-circular groove that fitted upon the high rounded rail. On this
+rail rested the entire weight of the car, which oscillated as it
+rushed. The end of each projecting head was inlaid with an enormous
+ruby, and the framework of the god was enriched in numerous places
+with precious stones. The sacred locomotive had as attendants
+twenty-four priests, clad in flowing vestures of orange and aloe-green
+silk (the royal colors), arranged in alternate stripes of great width,
+typical of a green earth and golden sky.
+
+Royal and privileged travellers were alone permitted to harness the
+god, and by command of the king we were to enter Calnogor by means of
+the sacred courier.
+
+The route to the temple led through a different part of the city than
+that traversed by us when going to the governor's palace. We had
+leisure to observe more particularly the architecture and the
+appearance of the streets through which we passed. The roadway
+everywhere was one solid block of white marble, and emporiums and
+dwellings were built of the same material.
+
+"You seem to have sculptured the city out of a mountain of white
+marble," I said to the governor, who rode his bockhockid alongside
+mine.
+
+"That is, indeed, the fact," replied the governor. "The entire city
+has been laboriously hewn from an immense mountain."
+
+"Then in building your houses, you laid the foundation with the roof,
+and built them downward until you arrived at the level of the street,"
+I said.
+
+"That is precisely so," said he. "Our streets are simply ornamental
+chasms cut in the solid rock. Both roadway and building are composed
+of the same stone. One stone has built the entire city."
+
+I was surprised at the idea of the stupendous labor involved in
+carving a city containing half a million of inhabitants, but,
+considering that a man could easily lift a block of stone weighing
+half a ton in the outer sphere, I saw that even so prodigious a task
+as chiselling Kioram might well be accomplished. It was a new
+sensation to bound on a bockhockid over the smoothly carved pavement,
+where once stood the mighty heart of a mountain of stone. All the
+buildings along the route were wonderfully sculptured. There seemed no
+end to the floriated mouldings, pillars and other decorations in
+relief, wrought in a strange order of art that was most captivating.
+
+As for ourselves, we must have presented an interesting procession.
+Our Viking helmets of polished brass gleamed in the sunlight like
+gold. The emblazoned bear thereon was a symbol to the Atvatabarese of
+a species of divinity that protected us as beings of another world.
+
+We arrived at the temple of the sacred locomotive, and were received
+by the winged priests in charge. Dismounting amid the sound of music,
+a procession was formed, the priests leading the way along a wide
+hallway that terminated in the temple of the god.
+
+The god Rakamadeva was a glorious sight. On a causeway of marble
+flanked with steps on either side stood that object of magnic life and
+beauty in a blaze of metals and jewels worthy the praise of the
+priests, in itself a royal palace.
+
+This automobile car in shape seemed a compound of the back of a turtle
+and a Siamese temple, and was of extraordinary magnificence. Both
+front and rear tapered down to the solid platinum framework of the
+wheels, that extended beyond the car at both ends, the projections
+simulating the heads of monsters that held each between their jaws one
+hundred cells of triple metal, which developed a tremendous force.
+
+The priests chanted the following ode to the sacred locomotive:
+
+"Glorious annihilator of time and space, lord of distance, imperial
+courier.
+
+"Hail, swift and sublime man-created god, hail colossal and bright
+wheel!
+
+"Thy wheels adamant, thy frame platinum, thy cells terrelium,
+aquelium!
+
+"Thou art lightning shivering on the metals, thy breathless flights
+affright Atvatabar!
+
+"The affluence of life animates thy form, that flashes through valleys
+and on mountains high!
+
+"The forests roar as thou goest past, the gorge echoes thy thunder!
+
+[Illustration: THE SACRED LOCOMOTIVE STORMED THE MOUNTAIN HEIGHTS WITH
+ITS AUDACIOUS TREAD.]
+
+"Thy savage wheels ravage space. Convulsed with life, thy tireless
+form devours the heights of heaven!
+
+"Labor and glory and terror leap as thy thundering feet go by; thy
+axles burn with the steady sweep, till on wings of fire they fly!"
+
+The four-and-twenty priests formed a guard of honor as we
+reverentially entered the car. On our side of the god were seated
+Governor Ladalmir, Admiral Jolar and staff, myself and officers of the
+_Polar King_, including the scientific staff. The other side contained
+the sailors under command of Flathootly, master-at-arms, escorted by
+Captains Pra and Nototherboc.
+
+The priests were distributed around the outside of the car, holding on
+to golden hand-rails. A priest seated on a throne in front moved a
+switch, and, with a roar of music, the god leaped upon the metals. The
+wonderful lightness of the car allowed us to attain a tremendous
+speed. The mightiest curves were taken at a single breath. The silken
+robes of the priests flashed in the wind.
+
+The car vibrated with a thousand tremors. In the wide windows of thick
+glass were framed rapid phantasmagoria of landscapes, as the flying
+panorama unrolled itself. There were visions of interminable prairies,
+over which we swept, a blinding flash, leaving a low, spreading cloud
+of dust on the rails to mark our flight.
+
+We plunged into tunnels of darkness, where the warm air roared with
+the echoes of the delirious wheels. The cry of the caverns saluted us
+like the shouts of unknown monsters dwelling in the heart of the
+mountains.
+
+The sacred locomotive was an element of life, as it shot from the
+tunnels and bounded up curving mountain heights through pastures of
+delightful flowers. With wheels prevailed upon by the tension of the
+invincible fluid, the monster swerved not before the proudest
+precipice. It stormed the heights with its audacious tread, flinging
+itself on the mountain pass, a marvel of power and intrepidity, and
+known as the devourer of distance.
+
+In five hours we had traversed five hundred miles, the distance from
+Kioram to Calnogor.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+OUR RECEPTION BY THE KING.
+
+
+The sacred locomotive swept through a noble archway into a palace
+garden, a part of the king's palace in Calnogor. The railway terminal
+was a wide marble platform, or causeway, surrounded by a sea of
+tropical flowers. The priests had already alighted, and stood in
+double file to receive us. Through a sculptured archway a herald
+approached us, blowing a trumpet and announcing the coming of his
+royal majesty, King Aldemegry Bhoolmakar of Atvatabar.
+
+We alighted, and I had the sailors drawn up in an imposing column on
+the platform, every man grasping his sword. Even the remotest walls of
+the garden were lined with wayleals, and military music added to the
+splendor of the scene.
+
+Presently a stately figure approached us. It was his majesty
+accompanied by her majesty, Queen Toplissy. Koshnili whispered that it
+was a special honor that the king and queen should greet us even
+before we entered the palace. The king was tall and erect in bearing
+and his complexion was the color of old gold. His hair, as well as his
+closely-trimmed beard and mustache, were of a serpent-green tint. He
+wore a dome-shaped crown of gold, surmounted by a blazing ruby. His
+dress was a cloth of gold, light as gossamer, that swathed his form
+after the manner of our Eastern potentates. His boots of
+gold-lacquered leather were covered with emeralds and curiously turned
+up at the toes. Queen Toplissy was a handsome lady, rather heavy in
+physique, of an orange-yellow complexion, with bright copper-bronze
+hair, and her unclad arms wore a profusion of bracelets and armlets of
+various metals. Her crown was also of gold surmounted by a blazing
+sapphire. Her robes were of white silk embroidered with broad bands of
+orange and arranged in innumerable folds. Her boots were incrusted
+with sapphires. All this I saw at a momentary glance as Koshnili led
+me forward to his majesty. I was announced as "His Excellency,
+Lexington White, commander of the _Polar King_, the discoverer of the
+Polar Gulf, and the first inhabitant of the outer world who had ever
+reached Bilbimtesirol and Atvatabar."
+
+The king embraced me and I kissed the hand of her majesty. The
+officers and sailors received their due share of royal attention. We
+were the objects of unbounded curiosity on the part of the royal
+retinue.
+
+Amid a salute of guns and music we passed through the archway that
+formed the boundary between the palace gardens and the court of the
+holy locomotive, and saw the palace of King Aldemegry Bhoolmakar
+before us.
+
+It was a high, conical building, twenty stories in height. Each story
+was surrounded by a row of windows decorated with pillars. Colossal
+lions of gold stood on the entrance towers, their claws formed of
+straps of gold running down the walls and riveted to the lower tiers
+of stone, giving the impression that they held together the whole
+structure beneath. The style of architecture was an absolutely new
+order. It was neither Hindoo, Egyptian, Greek, nor Gothic, but there
+was a flavor of all four styles in the weirdly-carved circular walls
+and roofs. The palace was surrounded by a spacious court, enclosed by
+cloistered walls. Flowers bloomed in immense square-shaped vases of
+stone supported on diminutive square pillars. A tank of crystal water,
+on each side of which broad wide steps led down into the cool wave,
+lay in the centre of the court. The tank was fed by a wide rivulet of
+rippling water that ran along a chiselled bed in the marble floor of
+the court.
+
+The entire scene was a picture of glorious and blessed repose. The
+sculptor had covered the base and frieze of the walls with a profusion
+of ornament in high relief. Imagination and art had produced scenes
+that created a profound impression. A dramatic calmness held lion and
+elephant, serpent and eagle, wayleal and bockhockid, youth and maiden,
+in glorious embrace.
+
+The banquet given by the king in our honor in the topmost story of the
+palace was both delicious and satisfying. All the fertility of
+Atvatabar ministered to our delight. Strange meats and fruits were
+music to the body, as art and music were meats and wine to the soul.
+
+I sat beside his majesty at the feast, while Koshnili sat at my right
+hand. Admiral Jolar sat beside the queen, and on her majesty's right
+sat Captain Wallace. The professors and other officers, as well as a
+number of noblemen and state officers, also sat at the royal table.
+At another table sat the sailors, accompanied by the officers of the
+king's household.
+
+We had again an opportunity of tasting the squang of Atvatabar, which
+was of a finer brand than that served at the table of Governor
+Ladalmir. It added a new joy to life to taste such royal wine.
+
+His majesty, seated on his throne at the feast, raised a glass of
+squang and said: "I drink in welcome to our illustrious guest, His
+Excellency, Lexington White, commander of the _Polar King_ and
+discoverer of Atvatabar."
+
+The company rising, shouted, "Welcome to His Excellency, Lexington
+White, commander of the _Polar King_," and drank of their glasses in
+my honor.
+
+In acknowledgment of this great compliment I rose and proposed the
+healths of the king and queen. I said: "I drink to the healths of
+their royal majesties, King Aldemegry Bhoolmakar and Queen Toplissy of
+Atvatabar, to whom be lifelong peace and prosperity."
+
+The company honored this sentiment by acclamation and drinking goblets
+of wine. This constituted the preliminaries of our interview.
+
+"Now," said his majesty, "we are extremely anxious to learn all about
+the manners and customs of the people of the outer world. Tell us of
+these people, their laws, religions, and modes of government."
+
+In obedience to the king's request I spoke of America and its nations
+founded on the idea of self-sovereignty, and of Europe with its
+sovereigns and subjects. I spoke of Egypt and India as types of a
+colossal past, of the United States and Great Britain as types of a
+colossal present, and of Africa the continent of the colossal future.
+I informed the king that the genius of Asia, of the Eastern world, ran
+to poetry and art without science, while that of the Western world
+developed science and invention without poetry and art.
+
+"Ah!" cried the king, who was intensely interested. "Atvatabar has
+both science and art, invention and poetry. Our wise rulers have been
+ever mindful of the equal charms of science and sentiment in educating
+our people."
+
+I assured his majesty that we were no less anxious to learn all about
+the institutions of Atvatabar than he was regarding the external
+sphere.
+
+[Illustration: THE KING EMBRACED ME, AND I KISSED THE HAND OF HER
+MAJESTY.]
+
+"Atvatabar," said the king, "is a monarchy formed on the will of the
+people. While the throne is inalienably secured to the king for life,
+the government is vested in a legislative chamber, called Borodemy.
+This legislative assembly is also our house of nobles, consisting of
+one thousand members divided into three classes. To be once elected to
+the Borodemy entitles the representative to receive the title of
+Boiroon for life only; at the expiration of five years, the term of
+each assembly, a member, if again elected, receives the title of
+Jangoon; if again elected the highest title is Goiloor. No one can be
+elected more than three times, and Goiloor is a title which but few
+attain, owing to the limited number of legislators who are three times
+elected to the Borodemy. The president of the assembly is always a
+Goiloor, as only a member of the highest caste is nominated for the
+presidency. He is also chief minister of state. His council, which is
+the government, includes the chief officer of each branch of
+government, as well as a royal representative. Thus Atvatabar is an
+absolute democracy, ornamented and ruled by those men whom a generous
+nation loves to honor for distinguished merit employed in the public
+service."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+THE KING UNFOLDS THE GRANDEUR OF ATVATABAR.
+
+
+"Your majesty," I said, "informs us that Atvatabar possesses science
+and art, invention and poetry. These matters interest us quite as much
+as your civil and military constitution. We will feel grateful if your
+majesty will inform us more particularly regarding the condition of
+those great forces for the development of the soul."
+
+"You are right," said the king; "the government and the protection of
+society, although matters of the utmost importance, are always much
+inferior to the glory they defend. Mere police duties can never rank
+with the sovereignty of mind over matter."
+
+"In other words," said I, "the barricade is ever inferior to the
+palace, and the treasure house to the heaps of gold within it. But,
+your majesty, in what way does mind triumph over matter in your
+realm?"
+
+"Well," said the king, "we worship the human soul under a thousand
+forms, arranged in three great circles of deities. The first circle
+contains the gods of invention, that is, the practical forms by which
+ideas rule the physical world, and also the composite forms of the
+inventors themselves. The second circle contains the gods of art, and
+the third circle the spiritual gods of sorcery, magic and love. What
+gods do you people of the outer world worship?"
+
+"In my own country," I replied, "a great many people worship one God,
+the Creator of the universe. Many of these only nominally worship God,
+but in reality worship gold, while a still greater number worship gold
+without pretence of worshipping anything else."
+
+"Then," said the king, "gold is your god. Our god is the aggregated
+universal human soul worshipped under its various manifestations, both
+real and ideal. This universal human soul forms the one supreme god
+Harikar, whom we worship in the person of a living woman, the Supreme
+Goddess Lyone. The great generic symbol of our faith is the golden
+throne of the gods in the Bormidophia, whereon sits Lyone, the supreme
+goddess, the representative of Harikar."
+
+"Harikar is then your supreme deity?" I remarked.
+
+"Greatest, for he embraces all other gods," said the king. "But the
+greatest individual god is the Supreme Goddess, the symbol of the Holy
+Soul."
+
+I felt a strange desire to learn everything about so singular a
+divinity as Lyone. It was a weird, awful, yet terribly entrancing
+thought, that amid a thousand gods of dead and silent gold one only
+should be alive, and that one a beautiful woman. Was it possible that
+a live goddess could exist, and be both young and handsome? I was
+anxious to ask a thousand questions concerning this mysterious being,
+but it seemed a sacrilege to ask them. Was it possible for her to
+continue worthy of worship, a human being, intoxicated, as she must
+be, by the ceaseless adoration of millions? In other words, can a
+woman be a veritable goddess and live? These ideas rushed through my
+soul like quicksilver. My brain reeled with this discovery of the
+secret of Atvatabar! What to me were its never-setting sun, its want
+of gravity, its flying wayleals and bockhockids, its sculptured
+cities, its sacred locomotive, its miracles of mechanism and art,
+compared to a real live goddess with warm blood and a beating heart!
+No wonder the discovery thrilled me! I felt like embracing his majesty
+for the information, so simply given, that filled me with delight!
+
+My companions were also greatly excited at the story of the king, and
+it was with difficulty I could appear interested in the further
+information he so graciously imparted to us. What were mines of gold
+to this? But I strove outwardly to appear calm. I felt I must listen
+further to the story of Atvatabar.
+
+"Our other deities," continued the king, "are the ideal inventors and
+their inventions. These give man empire over nature. All those who
+have given man power of flight, who multiply his power to run, those
+who multiply the power of the eye to see, the hand to labor or to
+smite, the voice or pen to transmit ideas to great distances and to
+great multitudes, stand in the pantheon in ideal grandeur. There are
+the lords of labor, the deities of space and time. They are those gods
+that breathe the breath of life into unborn ideas, and lo! from brain
+and hand spring the creatures of their will."
+
+The officers and sailors were listening to the discourse of the king
+with rapt attention. We were anxious to learn as much as possible
+about this strange religion of Atvatabar.
+
+"We also worship art and ideal artists," continued the king, "the
+soul-developers, who work for noble and humane ideas expressed in
+their most beautiful garb; the builders of earthly palaces for the
+soul in literature, music, manners, painting, dancing, sculpture,
+decoration, tapestry and architecture which are represented by ideal
+statues composed from groups of living artists. These in their ideal
+or collective perfection are the gods who counteract the evils of an
+arid and mechanical civilization by arousing feeling, imagination,
+truth, beauty, tenderness, patriotism and faith in the souls of their
+fellows.
+
+"The spiritual forces are typified by a goddess, the incarnation of
+spirit power, of romantic, ideal, hopeless love. Her ministers are the
+priests of sorcery, necromancy, magic, theosophy, mesmerism,
+spiritualism and other kindred spiritual powers. These perform
+miracles, create matter, and impart life to dead bodies. The souls of
+her priests and priestesses have the power to leave the body at will,
+and to achieve a present Nirvana of one hundred years."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+GNAPHISTHASIA.
+
+
+The day following our arrival in Calnogor his majesty the king had
+projected for us a journey to the palace of art at Gnaphisthasia,
+which stood on the slope of a mountain in a rich valley lying one
+hundred miles southwest of Calnogor. The palace itself was surrounded
+by high walls of massive porcelain, beautifully adorned with sculpture
+mouldings, and midway on each side massive gateways, each formed of
+rounded cones, rising to a great height and covered with sculptured
+forms, between which the porcelain wall was pierced with fretted
+arabesque, running high above the arched opening beneath. Once within
+the gorgeous gateway, the porcelain walls of Gnaphisthasia stood
+before the enraptured eyes more than a mile in length and half a mile
+in depth, a many-colored dream of imposing magnificence covered with
+the work of sculptors. The principal part of the wall was of a
+greenish-white vitrification, finely diversified by horizontal
+friezes, with arabesques in red and green, purple and yellow,
+lavender, sea-green, blue and silver and pale rose and deep gray, all
+separated by wide bands of greenish-white stone.
+
+In the centre of the buildings stood a semi-circle of massive conical
+towers, gleaming like enormous jewels and connected by sculptured
+walls. The four corners of the palace were also groups of towers, all
+the various groups being connected with the rectangular walls that
+were decorated with arcades and balconies.
+
+Here in this splendid abode were poets and painters, musicians,
+sculptors and architects, dancers, weavers of fabrics, ceramists,
+jewellers, engravers, enamellers, artists in lacquer, carvers,
+designers and workers in glass and metal, pearl and ivory and the
+precious stones.
+
+[Illustration: A PROCESSION OF PRIESTS AND PRIESTESSES PASSED DOWN THE
+LIVING AISLES, BEARING TROPHIES OF ART.]
+
+In an immense chamber of the palace a _fete_ was being held. On either
+side a double range of massive porcelain pillars supported the roof,
+which covered this grand sanctuary of art like an immense vitrified
+jewel. The floor of the court was formed of polished wood of a deep
+rose color that emitted a rich, heavy perfume. Wood of a brilliant
+green, with interlacing arabesques of red, formed the border of the
+floor. At the further end of the court stood three thrones, being
+composed, respectively, of terrelium, aquelium, and plutulium, the
+three most precious metals. On the threefold throne sat Yermoul, lord
+of art, his majesty the king, and myself. In ample recesses amid the
+pillars stood the devotees of art, while the centre of the court was
+filled with the musicians. A procession of priests and priestesses
+passed down the living aisles, clad in the most gorgeous fabrics of
+silk spun by gigantic spiders, and they bore singly trophies of art,
+or moved in groups, supporting golden litters carrying piled-up
+treasures of dazzling splendor.
+
+First came a band of priestesses bearing fan-like ensigns of carved
+wood and fretwork, and panels filled with silks, rare brocades and
+embroideries. Then came priests bearing heavy vases and urns of gold,
+terrelium, aquelium, plutulium, silver, and alloys of precious bronze.
+Then followed others bearing litters piled with vases and figures
+carved from solid pearl, or fashioned in precious metals. Cups,
+plates, vases in endless shapes, designs and colors went past, piled
+high on golden litters, looking like gardens of tropic flowers. Rare
+laces made of threads spun from the precious metals of Atvatabar,
+mosaics, ivories, art forgings, costly enamels, decorative
+bas-reliefs, implements of war, agriculture and commerce, magnic
+spears and daggers, with shaft and handle encrusted with grotesque
+carvings in metallic alloys. These alloys took the forms of figures,
+animals and emblems, having the strangest colorings, like the hilts
+and scabbards of Japanese swords carved in shakudo and shibuichi.
+There were exhibited vases of cinnabar, vases wondrously carved from
+tea-rose, coral-red, pearl-gray, ashes-of-roses, mustard-yellow,
+apple-green, pistache and crushed-strawberry colored metals. There
+were also splendid crowns, flowers, animals, birds, and fishes, carved
+from precious kragon, an imperial stone harder than the diamond and of
+a pale rose-pink color. Every object was as perfect as though modelled
+in wax.
+
+Through all this decorative movement there was something more than
+decoration understood as mere ornamentation--there was the keenest
+evidence of soul movement on the part of the artist. The music
+gloriously celebrated the passions of love, ambition and triumph that
+had filled the souls of the artists when engaged in their incomparable
+labors, and pealed forth that serene life of the spirit as symbolized
+in the perfect works of art exhibited, wherein were sealed in eternal
+magnificence fragments of the souls that had created them.
+
+Between the pauses of the music an organ-megaphone shouted forth in
+musically-stentorian tones the words that had been impressed on its
+cylinders in praise of art. The five thousand priests and priestesses
+of art had simultaneously shouted their art ritual down five thousand
+tubes, which were all focussed into a single tube of large calibre.
+The multitudinous sound of their voices had been indelibly impressed
+on this phonograph-megaphone that now yielded up the sentiments
+impressed upon it, its tones being that of a vast multitude,
+re-enforced by the vibrating music of an organ, which was a part of
+the megaphone. These were the passages repeated by the instrument with
+a startling splendor of sound:
+
+     THE MESSAGE OF THE MEGAPHONE.
+
+                    I.
+
+     To define art is to define life.
+
+                   II.
+
+     Art is a language that describes the souls of things.
+
+                  III.
+
+     Art in nature is the expression of life; in art it is life
+     itself.
+
+                   IV.
+
+     Art is too subtle a quality to be defined by the formula of
+     the critic. It is greater than all of the definitions that
+     have tried to grasp it.
+
+                    V.
+
+     Art is the glowing focus from which radiate thought,
+     imagination and feeling, gifted with the power of utterance.
+
+                   VI.
+
+     True art is generous, passionate, earnest, vivid,
+     enthusiastic. So also is the true artist.
+
+                  VII.
+
+     To satisfy the far-reaching longing of the spirit, art makes
+     things more glorious than they are. It is the perfect
+     expression of a perfect environment.
+
+                 VIII.
+
+     To mould his symbols with the same life that fills his
+     conception of the idea is the supreme effort of the artist.
+
+                   IX.
+
+     As nature from the coarse soil produces flowers, so also the
+     artist from every-day life produces the subtle sweets of
+     art.
+
+                    X.
+
+     Art that is simply utility is not sufficiently decorative to
+     delight every nerve of feeling in the soul. To feed these,
+     many flavors of form and color are necessary, and hence the
+     necessity of art.
+
+                   XI.
+
+     Where do emotion and imagination begin in art? Where do
+     spirit and flesh unite in a living creature?
+
+                  XII.
+
+     The artist is a creator. He breathes into dull matter the
+     breath of art, and it thenceforth contains a living soul.
+
+                 XIII.
+
+     Poetry and art make life splendid without science, which is
+     the cold investigation of that which was once thrilled with
+     the passion of life. Invention makes life splendid without
+     poetry and art. By whom will the glorious union of art and
+     science be consummated?
+
+                  XIV.
+
+     What is the world we live in? It is for the most part a
+     collection of souls hidebound with treachery and
+     selfishness; of souls covered with a slag from which have
+     departed the fires of love and passion and delight. Such
+     incinerated _aliases_ of their former selves are your
+     judges, oh, artists!
+
+                   XV.
+
+     Art is a green oasis in an arid and mechanical civilization.
+     It creates an earthly home for the soul, for those wounded
+     by the riot of trade, the weariness of labor, the fierce
+     struggle for gold, and the deadly environment of rushing
+     travel, blasted pavements and the withering disappointments
+     of life.
+
+                  XVI.
+
+     Where is that artist that can sway imagination, create
+     emotion, lift the banner of a high ideal, give the soul a
+     keener appreciation of beauty, add to the mind, strength and
+     grace, cause the brain to develop new nerves of feeling and
+     newer cells of thought, that we may salute him as genius?
+
+                 XVII.
+
+     Art is the emotion within made splendid by imagination that
+     clothes everything with perfection. Like color it dwells
+     only in the soul, but the cause of the sensation is without.
+     In all art, the artist seeks to reproduce the cause of his
+     ecstasy, that he may communicate to others a similar
+     delight. He is like a god, he always gives but never
+     receives, for fame, not money, is his recompense.
+
+                XVIII.
+
+     Given a soul that can feel sublimely, that can respond to
+     beauty and feel thrilled with the joy of existence, that can
+     feel the burden of anguish, that can appreciate the humors
+     and absurdities of life, and given the power to adequately
+     represent the knowledge, truth, understanding and conviction
+     of these impressions in fitting symbols, vitalized by
+     imagination and emotion, then have we both poet and artist.
+
+                  XIX.
+
+     The soul in such inspired moments takes the form of
+     sculptured arabesques, or flowers, or resembles the refluent
+     sea, full of incredible shapes and symbols. It accompanies
+     the march of thought, the profusive swell of emotion, is
+     capable of pain and ecstasy, and seeks to be fed with those
+     delightful symbols of its life which we call art, the most
+     priceless of earthly possessions.
+
+                   XX.
+
+     Four things are necessary for art, viz.: idea, sentiment,
+     imagination and manipulative skill. After these comes
+     prestige, or the applause of the world, to crown the work.
+
+                  XXI.
+
+     The art decorator is a type of all art workmen. See him
+     about to manipulate a plastic ornament on the wall. The
+     plaster resembles his idea; its plastic qualities his
+     sentiment, or emotion; the style of ornament into which it
+     is to be moulded resembles his imagination, and the power of
+     the artist to successfully and triumphantly embody in the
+     finished ornament the living, breathing idea that fills him
+     is his manipulative skill. Any work of art, if perfect in
+     itself, still remains unfinished until the world comes along
+     and applauds.
+
+                 XXII.
+
+     The age wants the artist. It wants imagination, originality,
+     inspiration, ideality. It requires fertile, dreaming souls,
+     to create ideal breadth.
+
+     It requires an earthly Nirvana wherein one may escape a
+     selfish, barbarous, pitiless world. There is a great dearth
+     of the coinage of the soul. We want artists to explain the
+     souls of things, not their mechanical construction, but the
+     unseen secret of their purposes, their unspeakable
+     existence. We want heart-expanding triumphs to counteract
+     the withering influences of life. If a soul is entranced
+     with man or nature, we also want to feel his fascination, to
+     be penetrated with his rapture.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The megaphone ceased its musical vociferation, which formed a
+spiritual exercise for the souls assembled before us. I felt entranced
+and lifted up to a plane of splendid life hitherto unknown in my
+experience. I began to understand that art, after all, is the one
+thing in our terrestrial life worth striving for, in fact our only
+possession. For is it not the transmission of the soul to outer
+matter, whose savagery may be thus charmed and subdued to become a
+satisfactory spiritual environment?
+
+Following the procession of artists came beautiful, wondrously-arrayed
+dancers, whose evolutions made the brain dizzy with delight. Fair
+priests and priestesses of art formed upon the floor of the palace
+decorative arabesques of scrolls and interlacements of living bodies,
+the color of their garments mingling in perfectly harmonious hues,
+beautiful beyond comparison. Their ceaseless evolutions were made to
+the measure of perfect music. Panels and bands of living decorations
+were framed and transformed like the magical changes of the
+kaleidoscope. At last Yermoul, the Lord of Art, waved his wand, and
+the dancers stood transfixed, a garden of ecstatic color like a
+Persian carpet, wonderfully designed and vividly emblazoned. It was a
+scene of royal magnificence. These priests and priestesses were the
+art workers of Gnaphisthasia, who had so finely exhibited their
+treasures.
+
+Following the rhythmic movements of the art workers came poets,
+painters, sculptors, whose works lifted the soul to higher planes of
+being. These in their trophies of art recited or exhibited gave the
+soul imagination and sentiment, lifting it almost to the enraptured
+height of worship, adoration and love.
+
+At the close of the ceremonies we were entertained by Yermoul, Lord of
+Art, at a banquet, at which music and song and the dancing of
+voluptuous priestesses made hearts thrill with delight. Bidding
+farewell at last to the Lord of Art and his priests and priestesses,
+his majesty, myself and our company returned by the sacred locomotive
+to Calnogor.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+THE JOURNEY TO THE BORMIDOPHIA.
+
+
+The palace bell announced the beginning of a new day in Calnogor. I
+had not slept during the hours of rest, excited as I was by our visit
+to Gnaphisthasia and the strange customs of Atvatabar.
+
+Koshnili arrived soon after the bell had sounded to inform me that the
+king had commanded his royal army to be assembled in the great square
+beyond the palace walls to escort us to the Bormidophia, where a
+solemn act of worship would be performed before the throne of the
+gods. This was a most delightful message, as nothing on earth could
+please me better than to witness the glories of the Bormidophia.
+
+The army under the command of Prince Coltonobory, the brother of the
+king, commander-in-chief, consisted of 250,000 wayleals, or flying
+soldiers, and 50,000 bockhockids, or flying cavalry. There was also a
+detachment of 10,000 fletyemings, or sailors of the royal navy. These
+were drawn up in review in a vast square before the royal palace.
+
+Superb bockhockids conveyed us the four miles to the Bormidophia in
+the centre of the city.
+
+The king and queen, both of whom wore crowns blazing with jewels, sat
+with Koshnili and myself in the first palanquin of bockhockids. The
+high officers of the government and nobles of the Borodemy, together
+with the officers and sailors of the _Polar King_, were distributed
+among the other stately litters.
+
+The route to the pantheon was lined with palaces. An immense
+population thronged either side of the roadway. A review of the army
+took place _en route_. The wayleals first rose into an enormous
+flying column, which subsided into whirling domes and afterward broke
+up into a dozen living globes, that appeared to roll one after another
+on the ground. These were dissolved into a solid army marching on foot
+for a time. Then as if by magic the entire mass of men rose into
+spiral columns which dissolved into vast rings inextricably involved
+with each other. It was a sight unique and bewildering.
+
+Behind the wayleals, fifty thousand bockhockids kept up their steady
+march. The people shouted with enthusiasm.
+
+A mimic battle took place in the air above us. Ten thousand wayleals
+fought on either side, brilliant in many-colored uniforms. Finally, a
+rainbow arch of flying men spanned the entrance to the great square of
+the Bormidophia, or pantheon. Amid the thunder of guns and music, the
+entire company alighted at the doors of the pantheon, which consisted
+of an immense circular pile of buildings over a mile in circumference.
+The interior revealed a scene of surpassing magnificence. Endless
+tiers of seats were arranged in terraces that, rising above each
+other, traversed the wide sweep of the amphitheatre. The entire
+pantheon with its adjacent palaces and colonnades was sculptured out
+of a hill of green marble. The exterior walls, rising 200 feet, were
+crowned with a lofty dome of enamelled glass, through which the light
+of the sun streamed in myriad colors on the sea of worshippers
+beneath. The walls of the pantheon, both exteriorly and interiorly,
+were sculptured with immense reliefs, the trophies of invention and
+art, as well as the magical symbols of spiritual forces.
+
+The lowest circle of the amphitheatre reached down one hundred feet
+below the level of the outer pavement, and the royal seat was on a
+level with the ground and fifty feet below the top of the far-famed
+golden throne of the gods, that stood in the centre of the immense
+building.
+
+Our entrance was the signal for welcoming music and a suppressed
+murmur of excitement from the myriads of worshippers that sat both
+above and below us. The amphitheatre contained not less than 50,000
+people. The moment their majesties were seated, a roar of artillery
+shook the earth. The forthcoming grand act of worship was evidently
+instituted in our honor, for we were the observed of all eyes in that
+vast concourse of people.
+
+A dozen choirs, possessed of all kinds of beautiful instruments,
+caressed the ear with their melodious songs. There was no dim
+religious light; everything was open-eyed beneath that splendid dome.
+Suddenly a cloud of flying priests and priestesses seated themselves
+on a pyramid formed of terraces of solid silver fifty feet in height
+that supported the miraculous throne. They at once began to sing with
+such force and pathos as to dissolve the multitude into a hush of
+breathless silence.
+
+Then an immense bell of bronze filled the pantheon with a sonorous
+moan. Twelve thrilling tones made souls tremble and heads bow down.
+With the last vibration there rose from the crown of the throne of the
+gods a living woman, nude to the waist, having a broad belt of gold
+studded with gems clasping her figure, from which fell to her feet a
+garment of aquelium lace wrought with magical symbols.
+
+She was a girl of peerless development; her arms were long and softly
+moulded, her breasts firm and splendid. The color of her complexion
+and flesh was of soft mat gold, like that of golden fruit, and a
+perceptible flush warmed her cheeks. Her profile was perfect, being
+both proud and tender in outline. Her hair was a heavy glossy mass, of
+a pale sapphire-blue color, that fell in a waving cloud around her
+shoulders. Her whole figure bore an infinitely gracious expression,
+the result of possessing a tender and sympathetic soul.
+
+On her head was a tiara of terrelium, the vermilion metal, studded
+with gems, on her neck she wore a necklace of emerald-green sapphires,
+while on either wrist were broad gold bracelets, having a magnificent
+blue sapphire on each.
+
+She was Lyone, the Supreme Goddess of Atvatabar, the representative of
+Harikar, the Holy Soul; Queen of Magicians; Mother of Sorcerers, and
+Princess of Arjeels.
+
+Standing erect for a moment, as if to assure the vast congregation of
+her presence, she then slowly sat down on a broad divan of aloe-green
+silk velvet, holding in her right hand the terrelium sceptre of
+spiritual sovereignty, whose head bore two hearts formed of flaming
+rubies.
+
+I was entranced with the appearance of the divine girl, the object of
+the adoration of Atvatabar. Every feature of her face was carved with
+a full and ripe roundness, exhibiting repose and power. Her eyes,
+large and blue and lustrous, were sorcery itself. There was in them an
+unutterable tenderness, a divine hospitality, the result of vast pride
+and still vaster sympathy.
+
+[Illustration: ON THE THRONE SAT THE SUPREME GODDESS, LYONE, THE
+REPRESENTATIVE OF HARIKAR, THE HOLY SOUL.]
+
+All at once she gazed at me! I felt filled with a fever of delicious
+delight, of intoxicating adoration. I could then understand the
+devotion of Atvatabar, of hearts slain by eyes that were conquering
+swords.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+THE THRONE OF THE GODS, CALNOGOR.
+
+
+The throne of the gods was the most famous institution in Atvatabar.
+It was the cynosure of every eye, the object of all adoration, the
+tabernacle of all that was splendid in art, science and spiritual
+perfection. The great institutions of Egyplosis, the college of ten
+thousand soul-worshippers, the palace of Gnaphisthasia, with its five
+thousand poets, artists, musicians, dancers, architects, and weavers
+of glorious cloths, and the establishments for training the youth of
+the country in mechanical skill, were but the outlying powers that
+lent glory to the throne itself. It was the standard of virtue, of
+soul, of genius, skill and art. It was the triune symbol of body, mind
+and spirit. It was the undying voice of Atvatabar proclaiming the
+grandeur of soul development; that pleasure, rightly guarded, may be
+virtue. The religion of Harikar in a word was this, that the Nirvana,
+or blessedness promised the followers of the supernatural creeds of
+the outer world, after death was to be enjoyed in the body in earthly
+life without the trouble of dying to gain it. This was a comfortable
+state of things, if only possible of accomplishment, and such a creed
+of necessity included the doctrine that the physical death of the body
+was the end of all individuality, the soul thereafter losing all
+personality in the great ocean of existence.
+
+The throne of the gods was a cone of solid gold one hundred feet in
+height, divided into three parts for the various castes of gods, or
+symbols of science, art and spirituality. The structure was a circular
+solid cone of gold, shaped somewhat in the form of a heart. It was
+indeed the golden heart of Atvatabar, proclaiming that sentiment and
+science should go hand in hand; that in all affairs of life the heart
+should be an important factor. The lower section, or scientific
+pantheon, possessed bas-reliefs of models or symbols of the more
+important inventions. This section was forty feet in height and
+seventy-two feet in diameter.
+
+The images of the gods themselves surmounting the lowest part of the
+throne were in reality composite man-gods, that is to say, each figure
+was a statue, life size, of the resultant of the statues of all the
+important developers of each invention and was thus obtained:
+
+As soon as any prominent inventor or developer of an invention died,
+the government secured a plaster cast of his body, if such had not
+been made prior to death, and this was preserved for years in a
+special museum. When twenty or more casts of various developers of any
+one invention had been accumulated these were placed on a horizontal
+wheel, which revolved in front of a photographic camera, and thus the
+composite outline of the future god was obtained. As many outlines
+were procured as there were eighths of inches in the circumference of
+the largest cast, and from the collective pictures the ideal cast was
+made by the sculptor. The cast once perfected, and afterward draped,
+was reproduced in solid gold and placed with appropriate ceremonies on
+a pedestal on the throne itself. In like manner the gods of the arts,
+poetry, painting, etc., were created, as also the priests of Harikar,
+the Holy Soul.
+
+The reliefs, or symbols of mechanical art, were originally cast on the
+throne itself. These included the electric engine and locomotive,
+electric healer, telephone, telegraph, the electric ship, elevator,
+printing press, cotton gin, weaving loom, typesetting machine,
+well-boring apparatus, telescope, flying machines (individual and
+collective), bockhockid, sewing machine, photographic camera, reaping
+machine, paper-making and wall-paper printing machine, phonograph,
+etc., etc.
+
+This department of the throne being the largest, was significant of
+the material supremacy of the mechanical arts in the nation. Science
+itself was a god named Triporus, fashioned like a winged snake, so
+called because it was said he could worm his way through the pores of
+matter so as to discover the secrets therein. This god seemed a
+compound of our ancient Sphinx, or science, and Daedalus, or mechanical
+skill, but with an entirely new meaning added to both.
+
+[Illustration: THE THRONE OF THE GODS WAS INDEED THE GOLDEN HEART OF
+ATVATABAR, THE TRIUNE SYMBOL OF BODY, MIND AND SPIRIT.]
+
+The second or intermediate section of the throne was devoted to the
+gods of art and their attributes. It was sixty feet in its largest
+diameter, and twenty-four feet in height. It possessed also two
+sections, the upper containing the statues of Aidblis, or Poetry;
+Dimborne, or Painting; Brecdil, or Sculpture; Swenge, or Music;
+Tilono, or Drama; Timpango, or Dancing; Olshodesdil, or Architecture,
+etc., etc. In the lower section there were tableaux cast in high
+relief illustrating the qualities of the soul developed by art, viz.:
+Omodrilon, or Imagination; Diandarn, or Emotion; Samadoan, or
+Conscience; Voedli, or Faith; Lentilmid, or Tenderness; Delidoa, or
+Truth, etc.
+
+The final section or tapering apex of the throne was thirty feet in
+greatest width and thirty-six feet in height. It contained a throne
+and three divisions. The lowest division contained the gods Hielano,
+or Magic; Bishano, or Sorcery; Nidialano, or Astrology; Padomano, or
+Soothsaying, etc.
+
+The intermediate division contained the gods Niano, or Witchcraft;
+Redohano, or Wizardry; Oxemano, or Diablerie; Biccano, or the Oracle;
+Amano, or Seership; Kielano, or Augury; Tocderano, or Prophecy;
+Jiracano, or Geomancy; Jocdilano, or Necromancy, etc.
+
+The third division contained the gods Orphitano, or Conjuration;
+Orielano, or Divination; Pridano, or Clairvoyance; Cideshano, or
+Electro-biology; Omdohlopano, or Theosophy; Bischanamano, or
+Spiritualism, etc.
+
+The climax of all was the throne of the goddess. It was a seat of
+aloe-green velvet that, revolving slowly in the centre of the
+supporting throne, presented the goddess to every section of the vast
+audience. Thus seated, the goddess radiated an Orient splendor,
+herself a blaze of beauty and the focus of every eye. The music of an
+introductory opera warbled its soft strains with breathless execution.
+It seemed the carolling of a thousand nightingales, mingling with the
+musical crying of silver trumpets and the clear electric chiming of
+golden bells.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+THE WORSHIP OF LYONE, SUPREME GODDESS.
+
+
+The worship of the goddess began with the appearance on a revolving
+stage between the nearest worshippers and the base of the throne
+itself of a veritable forest of trees about one hundred feet in width.
+There were trees like magnolias, oaks, elms and others splendid in
+foliage, and amid these there was an undergrowth of beds of the most
+brilliant flowers.
+
+It was the work of the magicians and sorcerers!
+
+There were thickets of camellias and rhododendrons, amid which bloomed
+flowers like scarlet geraniums, primroses, violets and poppies. What
+appeared to be apple, peach, cherry and hawthorn trees, all in full
+bloom, tossed their white and pink foam of flowers.
+
+They were real trees and flowers, made to exist for a time by the
+sorcery of the masters of spirit power. They had never before known
+the outer air. The priests of Harikar had made them, and would
+dissipate them as living bodies are dissipated by death.
+
+A sacred opera was chanted by the priests of invention, art, and
+spirituality, on their terraces of silver above the trees and flowers.
+As the music continued, groups of singers would at times sweep forth
+on wings and float in wheeling circles around the throne. Their
+delightful choruses swelling upward were like draughts of rich wine,
+keen and intoxicating. The priests and spiritual powers marching
+beneath filled the vast building with broad recitatives, full of
+vividly descriptive passages and finely contrasted measures, until the
+soul seemed melted in a sea of bliss.
+
+The throne was bathed and caressed by a blue vapor of incense, while
+from the great dome above, filled with figures formed of enamelled
+glass, there streamed lights of all mysterious colors, that
+illuminated its gleaming sides and lit up the amphitheatre with
+ineffable effects.
+
+A warm, rosy beam, falling perpendicularly, enveloped the goddess like
+a robe of transparent tissue. She sat, a living statue, the joy of
+every heart, the embodiment of a hopeless love that kept the
+worshipper in a fever of delicious unrest. Wherever the eye wandered,
+it always came back to the goddess; whatever the soul thought, its
+last thought was of her.
+
+Amid a tempest of music and the thundering song of two hundred
+thousand voices repeating a litany of love, the throne itself began to
+revolve upon the silver cone that supported it. A fresh rapture took
+possession of the multitude.
+
+In the soul of the goddess what must have been the joy of being
+surrounded by such an ocean of adoring love?
+
+As I mused on the scene, I thought of the Coliseum at Rome raised to
+the glory of barbaric force, of empire founded on the blood of its
+victims, and, being such, has necessarily passed away, becoming a heap
+of ruins.
+
+Here, thought I, is a temple founded on a nobler idea, the glory of
+the human soul, its ingenuity, art, and spiritual forces.
+
+Many in the outer world would say it was an idolatrous attempt on the
+part of the creature to usurp the throne of its Creator. Yet it was
+strangely like the religion of such people themselves. There, as here,
+I thought, is the same worship of gold, the same dependence on the
+material products of man's invention, the same worship of art, the
+same idolatry of each other's souls between the sexes. There is this
+difference, however: in the outer world men pretend that they worship
+something else other than such objects; here they have the honesty to
+say what they do actually worship.
+
+Apart from the idea of attempting to realize a friendship that can
+only exist in a realm that knows neither interest, fortune, time,
+ambition, temper, nor sensual love, their idolatry had one splendid
+truth to unfold, viz., the necessity of a soul for an arid and
+mechanical civilization. "Every intellect shall enfold a soul" was
+their motto, and there was this sanity in their creed that sentiment
+was the breath of its life. Science abhors sentiment; it is the cold
+investigation of that which once thrilled with the passion of life.
+
+While the singing continued, a band of neophytes of occult force
+performed marvellous feats of magic, led by the Grand Sorcerer,
+Charka, chief of the magicians of Harikar. The people sat enraptured
+as miracle after miracle was performed. At the waving of fans by the
+adepts, plants issued from the hands of every god of gold, clothing
+the throne in one endless wreath of brilliant crimson blossoms and
+green foliage. The fans again waved and that crimson mass of flowers
+turned to a pale green, while again the green foliage changed to a
+vermilion color. The throne appeared like one enormous Bougainvillea
+glabra, whose leaves are flowers.
+
+Again the fans were waved and the flowers changed to bloom all
+snowy-white, while the foliage became blue.
+
+The adepts disappeared at a given signal and thereupon entered another
+band of beautiful girl adepts, who seated themselves, each body in a
+crouched mass with flowing drapery, around the base of the throne.
+These priestesses were in a state of catalepsy. The ego, or soul, in
+each case had been separated from the body, which floated in a state
+of apparent death. They had so developed their will by thinking
+enormous thoughts, yearning for spiritual power, that they could
+suspend the functions of the body and give all their existence to the
+soul. Thus hypnotized, it was stated their souls were floating freely
+in the dome above, in blessed converse, and that their reincarnation
+would afterward take place.
+
+The organ rolled a blessed monotone, with variations exquisitely
+sweet. The light in the dome faded perceptibly by the magical
+shadowing of its windows until the rapt audience sat in complete
+darkness. A circle of electric lights burned around the goddess on the
+top of the throne, illuminating her figure. The lights faintly lit up
+the dome, and presently appeared as nude spectres the fifty souls of
+the priestesses who crouched beneath.
+
+The organ, re-enforced with the wailing of a hundred violins, produced
+a storm of the most delirious music, while the souls flashed with a
+strange phosphorescence like a circle of fire. They wheeled with their
+arms extended horizontally, each aura lying at an angle of forty-five
+degrees with the horizon. Then, with hands clasping each other's feet,
+they became a vertical circle like the wheel of fortune, and thus went
+round and round. Again, they revolved in a circle faces downward, with
+arms and hands stretched in an attitude of worship, forming for the
+goddess a wreath of souls. Presently each soul sought its own body
+floating beneath. The bodies expanding themselves absorbed each its
+own soul. With the returning light of the outer sun the forest beneath
+the throne had disappeared and the circular stage was occupied by a
+band of sorcerers--each having balls of jelly of various colors
+floating before him. At the command of the grand sorcerer the balls
+would transform themselves into strange animals resembling cats, dogs,
+monkeys, serpents, geese, wolves, and eagles. This was a tableau
+representing man's supremacy over inferior life.
+
+A company of twin souls of the greatest beauty and splendor of raiment
+took possession of the circular platform beneath the throne and
+thereupon danced in rhythmic circles wonderfully entrancing and
+involved, chanting, in harmony with the movement of their bodies, the
+following hymn to Lyone:
+
+                 TO LYONE.
+
+                    I.
+
+    Oh goddess, oh deity glorious,
+        With golden wan face, and the bloom
+    Of spirit and figure victorious!
+        Oh jewel that lighteneth gloom,
+    Men call thee the soul of a lover,
+        Invested with purest of clay,
+    A chrysalis, eager to hover
+        And fly from thy prison away!
+
+                    II.
+
+    A nautilus, blown on the tide-lave;
+        So naked a pearl and so pure,
+    Or coral, that sucks from the sea wave
+        Those marbles that ever endure!
+    Thus float on the ocean of being,
+        Or fathom its deep-flowing sea,
+    That feeling, believing, and seeing
+        Thy glory, will worshipped be!
+
+                    III.
+
+    With sense of the body made captive,
+        While that of the soul is complete.
+    For love of pure being, receptive,
+        So blessed, extravagant, sweet.
+    Oh victim, thy joys are Meresa's,
+        Who died on the bosom Divine.
+    Her madness of rapture appeases
+        The hunger of soul that is thine!
+
+                    IV.
+
+    Inflammable impulse of beauty,
+        The breath of whose ardor is grief;
+    The God, in fulfilment of duty,
+        Hath stamped thee in highest relief!
+    From pots of auriferous metal,
+        Made pure by the torment of flame,
+    He pressed thee in fearful begettal,
+        A coinage too perfect for shame.
+
+                    V.
+
+    He made thee, most splendid, a flower,
+        A heavy sweet rose, to unfold
+    Some petals immortal, and shower
+        Their fragrance on earth frozen cold.
+    Oh golden-hued rose, in such fashion,
+        By the love of the world thou art sought
+    Thus flushed with the triumph of passion
+        Or pale with the splendor of thought!
+
+                    VI.
+
+    Oh soul, that inhales from the blossom
+        Delight in the rapture of breath,
+    A goddess aflame with her passion,
+        Ere beauty is wedded to death!
+    Oh virginal soul of the fountain,
+        Alive with the water of Youth,
+    All these, on the golden high mountain,
+        Thou dwellest, the image of Truth!
+
+What followed was an intoxicating medley of dancing, song and magic.
+Circles of the fairest girls, arrayed in the most ravishing costumes,
+made the brain whirl with their gyrations. The oblation to the dancing
+gods wound up the performance, and the chorus of a thousand voices
+blended with the triumph of drums and explosions from musical
+artillery.
+
+The incomparable girl goddess then rose to her feet and waved the
+blessing of Harikar over the multitude. The girdle of gold that clung
+to her figure blazed with a thousand jewels. Her tiara sparkled with
+enormous diamonds that were blue as sapphires, amber as topazes, green
+as emeralds and red as rubies. Accompanied by the wailing of music,
+the chant of megaphones, and the song of the enraptured people, she
+sank into the heart of the throne, glorious as she rose, herself its
+most precious jewel.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+AN AUDIENCE WITH THE SUPREME GODDESS.
+
+
+The palace of Tanje, situated about fifty miles from Calnogor, was the
+metropolitan palace of the supreme goddess. It was sculptured out of a
+hill of white marble, as were also its walls, enclosing a garden a
+square mile in extent.
+
+In conformity with the programme prepared by his majesty, King
+Aldemegry Bhoolmakar, we were to be received by her holiness Lyone in
+her palace at Tanje. The thought of meeting the adorable figure that
+crowned the throne of the gods filled me with keenest delight.
+
+I seemed about to visit, not a human being like myself, but a
+veritable deity. What honor, what pleasure, it would be to speak to
+her face to face, heart to heart. Disguise it as I might, a feeling
+for the goddess was being awakened in my soul. Was it the adoration of
+the worshipper, or was it the dawn of a sacrilegious passion?
+
+It seemed a monstrous idea for any one to love in the ordinary meaning
+of the term a being so high and holy. I could only worship her afar
+off, like any adoring citizen of Atvatabar.
+
+His majesty the king, together with Chief Minister Koshnili,
+Commander-in-Chief Coltonobory, Admiral Jolar and other dignitaries of
+the kingdom, did us the honor to escort us to Tanje.
+
+The method of travel between Calnogor and Tanje was by means of the
+pneumatic tube, also a deity of invention. This consisted of a smooth
+tube six feet in diameter that curved over the country in a sinuous
+line, being supported on pillars at a height of twenty feet above the
+ground. A decorative car of gold ornamented in enamelled colors rode
+the crest of the tube, being connected with the piston inside. The car
+was steadied between rails on either side and swept over the earth
+with inconceivable rapidity. The distance from Calnogor to Tanje was
+traversed in thirty minutes.
+
+A feeling of awe overcame the sailors as we approached the abode of
+the living symbol of the Holy Soul.
+
+The palace was a noble pile of masonry as it glittered in the
+perpendicular sunlight. It stood two stories in height and was
+surmounted by a flattened central dome of colored glass, the ribs of
+the dome being of solid gold. The lower story was surrounded by a
+colonnade of pillars carved in the most grotesque shapes imaginable.
+The grand entrance on the north side was constructed of alternating
+pillars of platinum and gold, all three feet in thickness. From the
+towers brilliant banners, emblazoned with the figure of the throne of
+the gods, floated on the wind.
+
+The apartments of the grand chamberlain were on the north side of the
+palace, where the pneumatic car was provided with a depot for the use
+of travellers.
+
+Cleperelyum, the grand chamberlain, clad in white robes like an Arab
+chief, received us in the name of the goddess with marked deference
+and courtesy.
+
+A guard of honor consisting of a thousand wayleals was drawn up around
+the palace. The audience chamber was a rectangular court in the centre
+of the building, whose ceiling was the roof of the palace itself,
+surmounted by the dome peculiar to the palaces of Atvatabar.
+
+The hall leading to the presence chamber was lined with the priests
+and priestesses from Egyplosis in attendance on the goddess.
+
+Led by the grand chamberlain, we arrived at the golden doors of the
+audience chamber, which were opened by the servitors of the palace.
+With trembling exultation I saw at the further end of the spacious
+apartment a royal seat of violet velvet whereon sat Lyone, the supreme
+goddess of Atvatabar.
+
+As my eyes rested upon the goddess she appeared still more divine than
+before. It seemed an unhallowed act that rough sailors should venture
+into such spiritual precincts. We were awe-struck with the presence
+before us. As the grand chamberlain called out our names, we bowed low
+to that majestic spirit that seemed much more a deity than human
+flesh.
+
+[Illustration: HER HOLINESS OFFERED BOTH HIS MAJESTY THE KING AND
+MYSELF HER HAND TO KISS.]
+
+Her holiness greeted us with marked favor and offered both his majesty
+the king and myself her hand to kiss. The high officials and my
+officers and sailors were obliged to remain standing during the
+audience, according to the etiquette of the holy palace. His majesty
+the king and myself were allowed to seat ourselves on an elevated dais
+before the goddess. When thus seated, I had leisure to observe that
+she was arrayed in a single garment of quivering pale green silk, that
+caressed every curve of her matchless figure and spread in myriad
+folds about her limbs and feet. On her head she wore a model of the
+jarcal, or bird of yearning, fashioned in precious terrelium. She wore
+also a jewelled belt of gold. The breast was embroidered with a golden
+emblem of the throne of the gods, the sacred ensign of Atvatabar. On
+her neck were circles of rich rose pearls whose light gleamed soft on
+the green lustre of her attire. On her head was the tiara of the
+goddess, the triple crown of Harikar.
+
+Her holiness had an air of girlish frankness combined with royal
+dignity. She was so youthful that she could not have been more than
+twenty years old. She possessed a charming presence and a clear and
+musical voice. Her eyes were large and blue, and her finely-formed
+lips, like blood-red anemones, contrasted finely with the pale golden
+hue of her complexion.
+
+Her features combined the witchery of a houri with the strength of
+intellect. They were sculptured and illuminated by a grandly-developed
+soul.
+
+The odor of a high and steadfast virtue surrounded her. It was not the
+virtue of the ascetic, but rather that strength of soul that could
+triumph over temptation, that loved fair lights, fine raiment, sweet
+colors, and all the gladness and beauty of life.
+
+In her soft right hand she bore a rod of divination, the spiritual
+sceptre of Atvatabar. On either side of her stood a twin soul in fond
+embrace as a guard of love.
+
+The audience chamber was in itself a dream of grandeur and beauty.
+From the rose-tinted glass of the dome overhead a light soft and warm
+bathed all beneath with a peculiar sweetness. The lower part of the
+walls resembled the cloisters of a mosque. Behind pillars of solid
+silver a corridor ran all around the chamber. Here an artistic group
+of singers, clad in classic robes in soft colors, perambulated,
+singing as they went a refrain of penetrating sweetness. The audience
+listened with the deepest respect to the singing and to our
+conversation with the goddess. In the assembly were all the notables
+of the kingdom, poets, artists, musicians, inventors, sculptors, etc.,
+as well as royal and sacerdotal officers.
+
+The singing of the choir, that moved like an apparition of spirits in
+the dim cloisters, seemed to embody our thoughts and feelings. For
+myself the divine song was a draught of joy. It was a breath of
+verdure, of flowers and fruits, of a warm and serene atmosphere made
+perfect by the presence of a peerless incarnation of man's universal
+soul.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+THE GODDESS LEARNS THE STORY OF THE OUTER WORLD.
+
+
+Her holiness was pleased to say how honored she was by receiving us.
+Our advent in Atvatabar had created a profound impression upon the
+people, and she was no less curious to see us and learn from our own
+lips the story of the outer world. She was greatly interested in
+comparing the stalwart figures of our sailors with the less vigorous
+frames of the Atvatabarese. It could not be expected that men who
+handled objects and carried themselves in a land where gravity was
+reduced to a minimum could be so vigorous as men who belonged to a
+land of enormous gravity, whose resistance to human activity developed
+great strength of bone and muscle.
+
+I informed her holiness regarding the geography, climate and peoples
+of the outer sphere. I gave her an account of the chief nations of the
+world from Japan to the United States. I spoke of Africa, Australia,
+and the Pacific islands. I spoke of Adam and Eve, of the Deluge, of
+Assyria and Egypt. Then I described the glory of Greece and the
+grandeur of Rome. I spoke of Caesar and Hannibal, Cleopatra and
+Antony. I spoke of Columbus, Galileo, Michael Angelo, Faraday, Dante,
+and Shakespeare. I described how art reigned in one kingdom or country
+and invention in another, and that the soul or spiritual nature was as
+yet a rare development.
+
+"You tell me," said the goddess, "that Greece could chisel a statue,
+but could not invent a magnic engine, and that your own country, rich
+in machinery, is barren in art. This tells me the outer world is yet
+in a state of chaos and has not yet reached the development of
+Atvatabar. We have passed through all those stages. At first we were
+barbarous, then, as time produced order, art began to flourish. The
+artist, in his desire to glorify the few, lost sight of the misery of
+the many. Then came the reign of invention, of science, giving power
+to the meanest citizen. As democracy triumphed art was despised, and
+a ribald press jeered at the sacred names of poet and priest. By
+degrees, as the pride and power of the wealthy few were curbed and the
+condition of the masses raised to a more uniform and juster level,
+universal prosperity, growing rapidly richer, produced a fusion of art
+and progress. The physical man made powerful by science and the soul
+developed by art naturally produced the result of spiritual freedom.
+The enfranchised soul became free to explore the mysteries of nature
+and obtain a mastery over the occult forces residing therein."
+
+"In the outer sphere," I informed the goddess, "there has also existed
+in all ages an ardent longing for spiritual power over matter. But
+this power, which in many periods of history was really obtained, had
+been purchased by putting in practice the severest austerities of the
+body. Force of soul was the price of subjugation of passion and the
+various appetites of the body. The fakirs, yogis, jugglers, and adepts
+of India; the magicians, sorcerers and astrologers of Mesopotamia and
+Egypt; the alchemists, cabalists, and wizards of the middle ages, and
+the theosophists, spiritualists, clairvoyants, and mesmerists of the
+present time, were members of the same fraternity who have obtained
+their psychological powers from a study and practice of mystic
+philosophy or magic."
+
+"You say that the outer-world magicians derived their powers of soul
+from abnegation of the body," said the goddess. "Now the soul priests
+of Atvatabar can do quite as wonderful things, I dare say, as your
+magicians, and they have never practised austerities, but, on the
+contrary, have developed the body as well as the soul. In the worship
+of the gods of science and invention, art and spirituality, both body,
+mind, and soul are exercised to their utmost capability. In all stages
+there is exultance, exercise, development. But I am deeply interested
+in your remarks. Tell me just what the principles of the worshippers
+of your Harikar are!"
+
+"Spiritual culture in the outer world," I explained, "is obtained by a
+variety of religious beliefs, but the belief that most nearly
+resembles that of Atvatabar is that of the soul-worshippers, who deny
+the existence of any power beyond the human soul, teaching that it is
+only by our own inward light that we can rise to higher planes and
+reach at last to Nirvana, or passive blessedness. This inward light
+can only be truly followed by self-obliteration, fastings, penances,
+and repression of desires and appetites of all kinds, carried on
+through an endless series of reincarnations. The final blessedness is
+a beatific absorption into the ocean of existence which pervades the
+universe."
+
+"That is a different creed to that of Harikar in Atvatabar," said the
+goddess, "which is worship of body, mind, and soul. We believe with
+your Greeks in perfection of body and also with your Hindoos in
+perfection of soul. We re-enforce the powers of body and mind by
+science and invention, and the soul powers by art and spiritual love.
+We believe in magic and sorcery. Our religion is a state of ecstatic
+joy, chiefly found in the cultured friendship of counterpart souls,
+who form complete circles with each other. Enduring youth is the
+consummate flower of civilization. With us it lasts one hundred years,
+beginning with our twentieth birthday. There is no long and crucial
+stage of bodily abstinence from the good things of life; there is only
+abstinence from evil, from vice, selfishness, and unholy desire. Our
+religion is the trinity of body, mind, and spirit, in their utmost
+development. Such is the faith of Atvatabar."
+
+"And such a faith," I replied, "with such a deity as your holiness,
+must profoundly sway the hearts of your people."
+
+The goddess was a woman of intuition. Almost before I was aware of it
+myself she evidently discovered a sentiment underlying my words. She
+paused a moment, and before I could question her further regarding the
+peculiar creed of Atvatabar, said: "We will discuss these things more
+fully hereafter."
+
+At a signal from the goddess the trumpets rang a blast announcing the
+audience at an end. With the summons music uttered a divine throbbing
+throughout the chamber, while the singers marched and sang gloriously
+in the cloisters.
+
+As I sat, my soul swimming in a sea of ecstasy born of the blessed
+environment, I felt possessed of splendors and powers hitherto unknown
+and unfelt. A thrill of joy made hearts tremble beneath the crystal
+dome. It was a new lesson in art's mysterious peace.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+THE GARDEN OF TANJE.
+
+
+A series of banquets and other entertainments followed each other
+during our stay at the palace of Tanje. The goddess had held frequent
+interviews with the professors and myself regarding the external
+sphere, and had examined our maps and charts with the greatest
+curiosity.
+
+His majesty did not take nearly so much interest in our revelations as
+the goddess, being inert and prosaic in character.
+
+[Illustration: The Lilasure.]
+
+On the morning of the fourth day of our stay at the palace of Tanje I
+received a visit from the grand chamberlain Cleperelyum, with a
+command from the goddess to meet her in her boudoir. Cleperelyum led
+me to the sacred apartment, which, when I entered, was vacant. The
+walls were models of decorative architecture, the panels being filled
+with silk tapestry of a pale yellow-green hue, the mouldings being
+ivory-white. The panelled frieze was filled with figures in violet and
+gold, and sea-green upholstery covered couch and divan, while the
+draperies were silks of cream and blue. It was a luxurious retreat.
+The carpet was a silk rug, soft as a bed of rose leaves, with a broad
+border in tones of green, violet and white.
+
+Presently the goddess entered with a winning smile on her features.
+She was arrayed in a dress of soft violet silk, that, apparently, had
+no other garment beneath, so perfect was the revelation of her figure.
+Beneath the figure it fell to the ground in a thousand folds, like a
+wave of smooth water bursting into foaming rapids. Round her neck was
+a garland of lustrous yellow pearls. On her head she wore a tiara of
+much smaller dimensions than that worn on public occasions. Her pose
+was upright as an arrow.
+
+[Illustration: The Laburnul.]
+
+I rose and bowed profoundly, and the goddess also bowing, requested me
+to be seated.
+
+"I have sent for you," said she, "to learn more about your country and
+to talk with you about ours. I am consumed with curiosity regarding
+the external world." "Your holiness," I replied, "permit me to say
+that your graceful condescension exceeds, if possible, your splendor.
+I am truly bewildered at the vastness of my good fortune in
+discovering a country ruled by so glorious a goddess."
+
+"And I also," said the goddess, "have learned that Bilbimtesirol is
+not the universe, but a very small portion thereof indeed. I am
+intensely interested in your accounts of the outer world. I am
+overpowered with the thought that the exterior surface of the planet
+is peopled with beings like ourselves, and that civilization,
+government, religion, art, manufacture, and social life are so greatly
+developed beneath a still more glorious sun than ours."
+
+"Did it never occur to your astronomers," I inquired, "that human
+activity might also pervade the outer sphere?"
+
+[Illustration: The Green Gazzle of Glockett Gozzle.]
+
+"Our astronomers," said the goddess, "have long since decided that the
+conditions of climate on the exterior planet were too severe to allow
+human life to exist. They are aware that a great luminary gave the
+outer earth light by day, for our most daring aerial voyagers have
+frequently caught a glimpse of its light seen through the polar gulf.
+They argued that the equatorial regions were too hot, and the polar
+regions too cold, to support life, consequently the outer earth was a
+barren waste as desolate and uninhabited as your own satellite."
+
+"Would your holiness like to visit the exterior earth?" I boldly
+inquired.
+
+"If duty did not prevent me," she replied, "I would love to visit
+those far-off strange lands and peoples and see your sun and moon and
+all the stars!"
+
+From the goddess I first learned the precise location of Atvatabar.
+Lying exactly underneath the Atlantic Ocean it stretched east and west
+some two thousand miles, surrounded by the interior sea. There were
+other continents in Bilbimtesirol which we had already dimly seen
+spread upon the concave walls of the world around us.
+
+"You must come to see both Egyplosis and Arjeels," said her holiness,
+"but before you leave Tanje you must see my garden."
+
+"It must be a little paradise!" I exclaimed.
+
+"Let us go and see it now," she said, and, so saying, arose with a
+gracious gesture and led me out of the apartment.
+
+I accompanied her holiness down the terrace leading to the lovely
+retreat. Curving walks led between banks of flowers of all hues.
+There were avenues of tall shrubs not unlike rhododendrons, with the
+same magnificent bloom. Other plants, such as the firesweet, displayed
+a blinding wealth of yellow flowers.
+
+[Illustration: Jeerloons.]
+
+The goddess led the way to the conservatory in the garden wherein were
+treasured strange and beautiful flowers and zoophytes illustrative of
+the gradual evolution of animals from plants, a scientific faith that
+held sway in Atvatabar. The goddess showed me a beautiful plant with
+large fan-shaped leaves from whose edges hung a fringe of heavy roses;
+long trailing garlands of clustering star-shaped flowers sprang from
+the same roots. The plant was a perfect bower of bliss, and while
+called the laburnul, might with greater propriety be styled the rose
+of paradise.
+
+[Illustration: A Jeerloon.]
+
+Another fern-like plant was in reality a bird flower, called the
+lilasure. It had the head and breast of a bird, from whose back grew
+roots and four small feathers resembling those of the peacock. Its
+tail resembled two large fronds of a fern, which served the animal for
+wings, for by their aid it flew through the air.
+
+There was also a flock of strange green-feathered creatures,
+resembling buzzards, called green gazzles, on whose heads grew
+sun-flowers. On either side, beneath their wings, were the plant roots
+by means of which they still sucked nourishment from the soil, as
+their bills were not yet perfectly developed. They belonged to a
+locality on the south coast of Atvatabar known as Glockett Gozzle.
+
+The lillipoutum was another wonderful creature, half-plant half-bird.
+It represented the animal almost entirely evolved from the plant
+stage. A wreath of rootlets adorned the neck, but the most conspicuous
+features were the stork-like legs that terminated in roots with
+radiations like encrinital stems. The bird fed itself like a plant by
+simply thrusting its root-legs into the soft ooze of lake bottoms and
+slimy banks of rivers. Its tail was also a root possessing great
+absorptive powers. In shape the bird resembled a flamingo, and its
+feathers were of an old-rose color, mottled with lichen-green. A
+beard-like radiation of roots decorated its head, and its bill was
+extremely delicate.
+
+[Illustration: The Lillipoutum.]
+
+Such wonders as these intensified the glamor of the interior world. I
+was fast becoming bewildered with the intoxication of an environment
+of strange, abnormal creatures--unlike anything I had ever seen
+before.
+
+The goddess regarded her pets with the greatest interest, and was
+pleased at being the first to acquaint me with such living wonders of
+Atvatabar.
+
+"Your holiness," I said, "these creatures are so wonderful that unless
+I had actually seen them it would be impossible for me to believe in
+their existence." As I spoke, two strange bat-like forms flew toward
+us; they were flying orchids, known as jeerloons, with heart-shaped
+faces and arms terminating in wire-like claws. Their wing projections
+were bristling with suckers like the rays of a starfish. Altogether
+they were weird, uncanny creatures. The goddess caught one of them in
+her hands, and laughed at my excitement. "They will haunt you in your
+dreams," she exclaimed, "poor, pretty things!"
+
+"But now," she added, "let me show you a plant that is fast becoming
+a brood of animals, both root and flower. It is the jugdul. Still
+rooted in the soil, strange faces are swelling in the mould, while the
+flower is a leaf surmounted by a weird, small head, the nasal organ of
+which is a ponderous proboscis. We do not know as yet what kind of
+animal life will evolve from the plant, but the botanists and
+physiologists of Atvatabar are agreed that at least two new species of
+animals will be developed when the evolution of the zoophyte is
+complete."
+
+[Illustration: The Jugdul.]
+
+I assured her holiness that I considered myself the most favored of
+men to be permitted to visit the sanctuary wherein the occult
+transmigration of life was being manifested. It was a rare experience!
+
+Just then the goddess directed my attention to a flying root
+resembling a humming-bird. It was the far-famed jalloast, the
+semi-evolved humming-bird of Atvatabar. Other similar beings,
+half-root, half-bird, were seen perched in a bower of tree-ferns,
+whose waxy green fronds fell like an emerald cascade about the
+jalloasts.
+
+From porcelain boxes suspended along the roof of the conservatory a
+perfect forest of strange plants depended, a species of zoophyte known
+as the yarp-happy, which seemed to be a combination of ape and
+flower. Its peculiarly weird, ape-like face was covered with a hood,
+and from the open mouth of each animal the tongue protruded. From the
+neck of the animal three long leaves radiated, the two lower leaves in
+each case terminating in claw-like extremities, which gave a weird
+expression to the zoophyte.
+
+[Illustration: The Yarphappy.]
+
+Right underneath these strange beings, there grew an immense quantity
+of spotted pouch-shaped plants, each having the head of a cat growing
+above the pouch. This peculiar zoophyte was known as the gasternowl.
+From either side of the junction of the cat-like head with the pouch
+radiated two speckled leaves. The tips of the ears terminated in
+frond-like plumes, and a peculiar plume like a crest surmounted the
+head.
+
+A strange root known as the crocosus was developed into a perfect
+animal that crawled with four legs upon the floor. The animal was not
+unlike the lizard, or a diminutive crocodile, with an immensely long
+neck, which it held erect. The neck terminated in a bulbous head, with
+an open, bill-shaped mouth, not unlike the mouth of a pelican, while
+right below the jaws there grew a root-like appendage, that coiled
+around the neck. The animal possessed a root-like tail, and was a most
+interesting creature.
+
+[Illustration: The Jalloast.]
+
+To enumerate all the wonders of the conservatory of plant
+transmigration at Tanje would be impossible. I saw the jardil (or
+love-pouch), an orchid resembling a pouch, with the face of a child
+growing therein, from which radiated rootlets and jabots of spiral
+fronds. I also saw the redoubtable blocus, an animal resembling a
+jerboa, or kangaroo, whose only trace of plant existence was a few
+rootlets growing out of its back. The funny-fenny, or clowngrass, was
+a weed with veritable goblins growing on the stems. The goblins had
+long noses and wore high hats and lace collars, but were otherwise but
+plants with absorbent roots. They were so grotesque that I began to
+think that nature was laughing at me quite as much as I laughed at
+nature.
+
+When leaving the conservatory I heard a chorus of tender voices like a
+band of spirits singing, whereupon the goddess directed my attention
+to a cluster of fairy girls that, like flowers, were growing upon the
+stem of a plant. It was a peculiarity of these fairy creatures to
+sing every time their goddess passed by, her spiritual atmosphere
+quickening them into conscious life and song. I was fairly dazzled
+with such a tribute of love to my gracious companion, and were the
+fairy flowers not sacred things I would have borne them away to
+exhibit such a trophy to the outer world.
+
+[Illustration: The Gasternowl.]
+
+This wonderful plant seemed more like the production of spirit power
+indulging in a weird fantasy of imagination, rather than an evolution
+of nature. It was a new experience to me to hear the little creatures
+sing in a tender chorus of adoration to the goddess and dance
+gleefully upon their stems. My guide fondled the strange creatures
+with her own fair fingers, and they seemed to me the greatest wonder I
+had yet beheld in Atvatabar.
+
+"These," said the goddess, "are gleroserals, and I would gladly give
+you a spray were it not that removal from their tender habitat would
+kill them. But here is a flower, half-bird, half-plant, that I will
+send you in a proper cage if you care for it." The zoophyte referred
+to was another bird plant that flew around the conservatory possessing
+the head and body of an eagle, the wings of a butterfly and the tail
+of a plant. The plant-like appendage was composed of long beautiful
+sprays of graceful foliage, not unlike pine branches, that were curved
+into sinuous forms as the animal flew. It was known as the eaglon, and
+was without legs. I thanked the goddess for her precious gift,
+whereupon we left the conservatory.
+
+[Illustration: The Crocosus.]
+
+Wandering through thickets of roses whose burning blossoms swooned
+upon their stems, we came upon a thick carpet of verdure that
+surrounded a hidden lake of clear, cool water. The rocky basin of the
+lake had been sculptured by human hands. Its margin was in outline a
+bold pear-shaped curve, that also curved upon itself, formed by an
+immense chiselling of the fundamental rock. In a little harbor of cut
+rock lay a pleasure boat, a curiously-wrought shell of silver that was
+propelled by magnicity. The goddess entered the boat, bidding me
+follow her. We sat together on an ample couch in the stern of the boat
+underneath a silver canopy. Touching a button, the boat moved swiftly
+over the water. It was a scene of rapture! Gazing into the depths of
+the water I saw the bottom of the lake sculptured in immense masses of
+flowers of stone, like the roof of a Gothic cathedral, but a hundred
+times more luxuriant. Around and above us rose heights of blessedness
+filled with all the thousand ecstasies of leaf and flower. An islet
+bore a little pagoda that stood in the eternal noon a pillared jewel
+of stone, silent and beautiful. It was half concealed with festoons of
+creeping plants whose flowers were great globes of crimson, yellow and
+blue.
+
+There was around me--paradise, and beside me--ecstasy!
+
+"You are pleased with my garden?" said the goddess.
+
+"This must be the garden of Hesperides that our poets write of," I
+replied. "Here at last I have found the ideal life."
+
+The goddess reclined on the couch in an attitude of luxurious grace.
+Her every gesture was at once heroic and beautiful.
+
+[Illustration: The Jardil, or Love-Pouch.]
+
+"Tell me what your poets say of nature, life and love," said she; "do
+they ever sing the delights of hopeless love?"
+
+As the goddess uttered this last question I felt within me a strange
+delight. There sat beside me, floating on that mysterious wave, the
+idol of a great nation, the deity of its universal faith, a divinity
+of power, glory and beauty, laying aside spiritual empire to become
+the companion of a simple explorer of the internal world, her
+discoverer and her friend, by a most happy chance of fortune.
+
+As these thoughts swiftly ran through my brain, and before I had time
+to reply, music, soft, weird, intensely intoxicating, was blown from
+among the tempestuous bloom of the paradises. The melody seemed the
+holiest thrill of hearts communing in the rapture of love! To explain
+the sweetness of the moment is impossible--the goddess was so alluring
+and serene. She kept her own emotions in the background as the result
+of a proud devotion to duty, and yet I felt swathed with a soul that
+seemed to have found an opportunity worthy the expression of its life.
+
+A situation so daring, yet so tender, required an equally daring and
+reverent soul to meet it. I felt all its surpassing loveliness.
+
+"Our poets," I replied, "have written of love in all its phases,
+describing the most spiritual passions as well as the most lustful. In
+poetry love may be any phase of love, but the reality is a compound of
+lust and spirituality, being rooted both in body and soul."
+
+"Do your people," said the goddess, "never differentiate lust and love
+and obtain in real life only a spiritual romantic love such as we do
+in Atvatabar?"
+
+"We believe, your holiness," I replied, "that such a love as you refer
+to is only to be found in a spiritual state and is the secret of
+disembodied blessedness."
+
+"You must see Egyplosis," said she, "ere you depart from us, and there
+learn the possibility of ideal love in actual life."
+
+"To discover such a joy," I replied, "will repay my journey to
+Atvatabar a thousandfold."
+
+We alighted from the boat on a rocky margin of the lake that led into
+a labyrinth of flowers. Here we wandered at will, discovering at every
+step new delights. Lyone was not only a goddess, but also the fond
+incarnation of a comrade soul.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+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."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+THE BANQUET ON THE AERIAL SHIP.
+
+
+The saloon, which was also the _salle a manger_, was situated in the
+centre of the ship. Thus the entire travellers could assemble together
+without disturbing the centre of gravity of the structure.
+
+The saloon was composed of woven cane, and ornamented with a dado of
+sage-green silk, on which were embroidered storks, pheasants and
+eagles flying through space. An elongated table, also of wicker work,
+contained a sumptuous repast.
+
+The goddess congratulated the guests on their safety, which proved
+that the skill that produced the _Aeropher_ had successfully grappled
+with the difficult problem of aerial navigation.
+
+The inventor of the _Aeropher_ said it was the apex of mechanical
+skill. Invention had raised humanity from the depths of slavery,
+ignorance, and weakness to a height of empire undreamed of in earlier
+ages. Such material greatness expands the soul with godlike
+attributes. The ideal, inventive soul, the typical soul, was a god.
+
+The poet said that the _Aeropher_ was the symbol of that kind of
+poetry in which energy and art were in equipoise. It glorified
+mechanical skill. It had been prophesied that as civilization advanced
+poetry would decline. There was a period in the history of Atvatabar
+in which matters of taste, imagination and intellectual emotion had
+been utterly neglected by a universal preference for scientific and
+mechanical pursuits. The country was overrun with reasoners, debaters,
+metaphysicians, scientists and mechanical artists, but there were no
+poets. Such mechanical civilization was unfavorable to their
+development. The founding of such institutions as the art palace of
+Gnaphisthasia and the spiritual palace of Egyplosis had grafted on
+their modern life the soul life of more ancient times, until
+soul-worship had become the universal religion.
+
+The goddess said that the aerial ship was the symbol of an ideal and
+passionate temperament resolved on discovering new spheres of
+spiritual beauty, so as to spiritualize the race. Such a soul ought to
+be free to surround itself with that atmosphere from which it absorbs
+life. It must choose its own weapons and armor, so as to be adequately
+equipped for the battle. In its eagerness to climb on discovering
+wings it must be accompanied by its own retinue of spirits, by
+enthusiastic and lasting friendships so consoling to its nature. Such
+was the idea of Egyplosis.
+
+Captain Lavornal at this point stated that when the company regained
+the deck he would put the rotating wheel, placed at the stern of the
+ship, in motion, so as to produce the combination of a revolving as
+well as an onward flight.
+
+"These wheels," said he, "will spin us around, and by means of our
+double rudder we produce both vertical and lateral undulations, which,
+combined with the rotary movement of the deck, will produce a
+delirious sensation. All the abandon of great and strong birds are
+ours. We can imitate the sonorous sweep of the seemorgh, who plunges
+with supreme majesty in the abyss of air."
+
+"These elaborations of flight," said Lyone, "are not pursued merely
+for physical pleasure, but in a mysterious way they are the moulders
+of the soul itself. That essence, re-enforced with such subtle and
+powerful enthusiasm, develops sensibility and assumes a grandeur and
+ecstasy unknown to those who merely travel on the earth. Each gesture
+of flight is a stride nearer omnipotence, an attribute more godlike by
+reason of its supremacy over those obstacles that crush and
+overwhelm."
+
+I shared the same seat with Lyone at the prow of the vessel.
+
+The scenery had in our absence developed into more marked grandeur.
+Under the spell of an eternal morning, of such light as poets only
+dream of, there rose on either side of us consummate rocks and
+cataracts that signalled heaven. The swinging pillars of incredible
+streams leaped thousands of feet into the gulf beneath. They charmed
+us like glittering serpents. The gorge, the rocks, the cataracts, the
+heavens of the earth above us were a prodigal feast to which nature
+had bidden us.
+
+[Illustration: THEN THE SHIP ROSE AGAIN TOWARD THE MAMMOTH ROCKS,
+ADORNED WITH THE TAPESTRIES OF FALLING WAVE.]
+
+As we explored the depths of the gulf the _Aeropher_ assumed an
+undulating motion. For several miles the vessel kept descending,
+until we swept through an overwhelming jungle of wild flowers. There
+were acres of roses riotous in bloom, there was the trailing of wild
+peas sweet as honey, the blue of larkspurs, the fragrance of musk
+flowers, and the swaying cups of scarlet poppies.
+
+Then the ship rose again toward the mammoth rocks that shimmered in
+the sunlight adorned with the tapestries of falling wave. Still upward
+we rose into the spell-bound sky, feeding on the savage sweets of
+nature, the rhythm of the golden cliffs, the echoes of the waterfalls.
+We were the associates of mighty pines that on the Theban peaks spread
+incomparable solaces for mind and heart. Then, as we descended from
+our extreme altitude, we began also to revolve with a splendid sweep
+of motion, until the landscape swam around us like a dream.
+
+It was a delirious phantasy of airy clouds, fluttering leaves, songs
+of birds, milky avalanches, balsamic forests, and the awe-inspiring
+silences of revolving walls!
+
+The intoxication of such wheeling flight filled us with a strange joy.
+Our journey became wistful, eager, breathless. We became poets, and
+the soul of a poet is a chameleon that takes its glow and color from
+the surrounding infection. The motion that bore us in daring circles
+produced a euthanasia of mind and an exaltation of soul. The jugglery
+of flight under such conditions produced a Nirvana of soul and a
+Dharana of body. An exquisitely sweet whirlwind of emotion swept
+through I know not how many souls on the _Aeropher_, but certainly
+through the souls of Lyone and myself.
+
+We both flew round and round like birds in intoxicating converse.
+During the progress of the flight, intellect, will and memory
+slumbered. I was deprived of the use of all external faculties, while
+those of the soul were correspondingly increased. Imagination and
+emotion were excited with rapturous energy. Lyone's eyes sparkled with
+a celestial joy. She was again the goddess in her ecstasy!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+WE REACH EGYPLOSIS.
+
+
+When I recovered my every-day senses the revolving motion of the
+_Aeropher_ had ceased and our flight was confined to an undulating
+movement. I was holding the hand of the goddess, who had been in a
+hyperaesthetic condition herself during the gyrations of the ship, and
+when feeling her senses leaving her she had involuntarily grasped my
+hand. Our souls had been the recipients of the same rapturous joy.
+
+When we were once more ourselves, Lyone was anxious to know something
+of the character of the women of the outer world. I talked to her
+about such women as resembled herself in spiritual fervor.
+
+I described the Egyptian legend of Isis, the goddess of love, of life,
+of nature. I told her of St. Theresa, that blessed visionary, whose
+soul frequently experienced those voluptuous sensations, such as might
+be experienced when expiring in raptures on the bosom of God. I spoke
+also of pearly Eve, to whom, ere she had eaten of the fatal fruit,
+every moment was a delight, every blossom a wilderness of sweets. I
+spoke of Cleopatra, the haughty daughter of the Nile, the fervor of
+whose passion thickened into lust and death.
+
+My story was interrupted by the arrival of the captain, who said:
+"Your holiness, we will reach Egyplosis in an hour."
+
+"So soon," murmured the goddess.
+
+"Is it the pleasure of your holiness that we alight at the private
+sanctuary or at the grand gate?" inquired the captain.
+
+"At the grand gate, of course," said the goddess; "we must give our
+friends a royal welcome."
+
+The captain bowed in obedience and disappeared.
+
+The charms of our journey grew more and more interesting. In addition
+to the delights of discovery, I felt the rising ambition of a great
+joy in connection with Lyone. It was a daring thought, that I might
+possibly partake of a glorious _camaraderie_ with the goddess, but
+when I thought that no stranger could possibly share a heart that
+belonged only to her own people, only to Atvatabar, I felt that Lyone
+was very far off indeed.
+
+In a land where spiritual love was the prerogative of the priestly
+caste, strictly limited to the members of that caste, any priestly
+condescension or favor given to those outside the pale of the
+priesthood could have no meaning and was forbidden under penalty of
+death. Of course human nature is liable to err always, and it came to
+pass that the records of the legal tribunals of Atvatabar proved that
+many departures in soul fellowship took place between the most loyal
+inmates of Egyplosis and the outer inhabitants. The punishment for
+such offence to the most sacred law of Atvatabar, although terrible,
+was powerless to prevent such _mesalliances_ of souls.
+
+I knew that a spark of what might prove a mighty conflagration was
+already kindled in the bosom of the goddess. It thrilled me to know
+it, but only as the laws and customs of this strange country became
+known to me did I realize the tremendous risk in Lyone allowing her
+heart to betray any kinship, however remote, with mine. The greater
+the dignity, the greater the offence. The crime was sacrilege, and the
+punishment was death by the magnic fluid.
+
+The goddess already belonged to her faith. She was love's
+_religieuse_. It was a cruel thing to seek her love when I knew it
+would perhaps bring her to an untimely end and stamp her name with
+everlasting disgrace. On the other hand, if the goddess, knowing much
+better than I the result of loving one not only outside of the sacred
+caste, but an "outer barbarian" as well, was brave enough to incur
+even the risk of death on behalf of her love, would I be so cowardly
+as not to follow her supreme soul even to martyrdom itself? And it
+might be that we might even raise a following large enough to defeat
+our enemies, and end in a greater triumph than either of us ever yet
+experienced.
+
+Such were the thoughts that filled me when the aerial ship suddenly
+shot out of the chasm in which we had so long travelled and emerged
+upon the wide circular basin of the mountains about one hundred miles
+in diameter. In the centre of the high valley lay an immense lake, in
+whose centre stood a large island, everywhere visible from the shores,
+whereon stood the sacred palace of Egyplosis, the many-templed college
+of souls. We saw its pale green, gleaming walls rising from a tropical
+forest of dark green trees. Its gold and crystal domes reflected the
+sunlight dazzlingly, making the palace plainly visible all over that
+wide valley.
+
+Egyplosis was a little city composed of an immense quadrangle, the
+supernal palace together with the subterranean infernal palace. The
+supernal palace was of enormous dimensions, being a square mile in
+extent, and was composed of over a hundred temples and palaces rising
+high in the air, the chief seat of soul worship in Atvatabar, and the
+home of twice ten thousand priests and priestesses.
+
+The infernal palace consisted of one hundred subterranean temples and
+labyrinths, all sculptured, like the supernal palace, out of the
+living rock, and situated directly underneath it.
+
+Our course lay in a direct line across the noble valley. It was the
+most diversified part of the country we had yet crossed, being broken
+up into hills and valleys, glens and precipices, fields and forests,
+lakes, islands and gardens, all composing a region of bewildering
+beauty.
+
+The emotions awakened by my near approach to this strange place were
+keen and exciting. Now for the first time in history its mystery was
+about to be disclosed to alien eyes from the outer world.
+
+Soon after entering the park we saw, some fifty miles to the north,
+the ship containing the sailors rapidly approaching Egyplosis. It had
+also escaped destruction by the cyclone, having doubtless followed us
+down the canyon we sought refuge in.
+
+It was a new sensation to float bird-like over the enchanted fields in
+this most mysterious of worlds, toward a spot that has no prototype on
+earth.
+
+A multitude of domes and crenelated walls grew into immense
+proportions beneath the boundless light. Egyplosis possessed in its
+palaces the enchanted calm of Hindoo and Greek architecture, together
+with the thrilling ecstasy of Gothic shrines. Blended with these
+precious qualities there was a poetic generalization of the mighty
+activities of modern civilization. It was the home of spiritual and
+physical empire.
+
+I wondered greatly what Eleusinian mysteries its courts contained. I
+was indeed another Hercules visiting the realms of Pluto and the
+garden of Proserpine in quest of the immortal fruits of knowledge.
+Would I be successful in my quest, and bear back to the outer world
+some magical secret its nations would be glad to know?
+
+Finally, we saw the clear and marvellous palace close at hand.
+
+[Illustration: LYONE WAS BORNE ON A LITTER FROM THE AERIAL SHIP TO THE
+PALACE.]
+
+A hundred banners floated from its walls, and music from an army of
+neophytes on its towers saluted us.
+
+The _Aeropher_ swept over the lake, and, reaching the island, alighted
+on a marble causeway leading to the grand entrance of the palace. A
+thousand wayleals stood ranged on either side as a guard of honor. We
+had left the forest that largely covers the island, and on either hand
+stretched gardens of rainbow-colored flowers, and here and there
+fountains sparkled in the sunny air.
+
+Lyone seemed the impersonation of divine loveliness as she was borne
+in a litter from the aerial ship to the palace. On her head sparkled
+the bird of yearning, typical of hopeless love.
+
+The high priest Hushnoly and the priestess Zooly-Soase of the supernal
+palace and the grand sorcerer Charka and the grand sorceress Thoubool
+of the infernal palace, surrounded by the chief priests and
+priestesses, magicians, sorcerers, wizards, theosophists,
+spiritualists, etc., gave us a royal welcome, and were jubilant at the
+return of the supreme goddess to Egyplosis.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+THE GRAND TEMPLE OF HARIKAR.
+
+
+Twelve of the most handsome priests and priestesses constituted the
+guard of twin-souls in waiting to the goddess, and these escorted her
+into the grand court of the temple palace. Over a gigantic archway
+were sculptured the words "Dya Pateis omt Ami Cair," which meant "Two
+Bodies and One Soul." This was the motto of Egyplosis, the expression
+of ideal friendship and indicative of a system of life the reverse of
+that of the outer world of Atvatabar, which had for its motto, "One
+Body and Two Souls."
+
+The architecture of the supernal palace was of amazing proportions and
+solid grandeur. Its aggregation of temples was sculptured out of one
+mighty block of pale green marble. The vast quadrangle seemed a
+tempest of imagination and art, whose temples, terraces and towers
+were the expression of the infinite souls that formed them. The color
+of the stone was beautifully relieved by broad bands of the vermilion
+metal terrelium, that plated the walls with several parallel friezes,
+which lent an amazing splendor to the scene, and made us feel as
+though we were entering some palace of eternity, where magnificence
+has no end.
+
+We had no time to examine the marvels spread before our delighted
+eyes, for, on the conclusion of our reception by the great officers of
+the palace, we were conducted to chambers set apart for our use, to
+rest and refresh ourselves to witness the exercises attending the
+installation of a twin-soul on the following day.
+
+The chief temple at Egyplosis was interiorly of semi-circular shape,
+like a Greek theatre, five hundred feet in width. It was covered like
+the pantheon with a sculptured roof and dome of many-colored glass.
+The roof was one hundred and thirty feet above the lowest tier of
+seats beneath or one hundred feet above the level of the highest seats
+beneath. The walls were laboriously sculptured dado and field and
+frieze, with bas-reliefs of the same character as the golden throne of
+the gods that stood at the centre of the semi-circle.
+
+The dado was thirty-two feet in height, on which were carved the
+emblems of every possible machine, implement or invention that
+conferred supremacy over nature in idealized grandeur. Battles of
+flying wayleals and races of bockhockids were carved in grand
+confusion. It was a splendid reunion of science and art.
+
+Higher up the field space, which was fifty feet in height, was broken
+by a gallery or cloister behind a tier of splendid pillars, themselves
+carved with the emblems of art. The hidden wall, as well as those
+portions above and below the cloister between dado and frieze, were
+covered with endless representations of the creations of art. Heroic
+eurythmic figures representing poetry, music, painting, architecture,
+etc., formed a mighty symposium.
+
+Highest of all, the enormous frieze, fully sixteen feet in width, was
+one mighty band of solid terrelium. This had been cast in plates
+having sculptured symbols in high relief of the sublime emblems of
+Harikar, and portrayed scenes from the idealities and mysteries of
+Egyplosis.
+
+There were represented the fine and perfect figures of magicians in
+the midst of their incantations, of sorcerers raising souls to life
+again; there were visions of the sorcery of love in all its moods, and
+of the rapt practices of twin-souls generating a creative force in
+batteries of spirit power.
+
+Above all rose the dome whose lights were fadeless. The pavement of
+the temple had been chiselled in the form of a longitudinal hollow
+basin, containing a series of wide terraces of polished stone, whereon
+were placed divans of the richest upholstery. In each divan sat a
+winged twin-soul, priest and priestess, the devotees of hopeless love.
+On the throne itself sat Lyone, the supreme goddess, in the semi-nude
+splendor of the pantheon, arranged with tiara and jewelled belt and
+flowing skirt of sea-green aquelium lace. She made a picture divinely
+entrancing and noble. Supporting the throne was an immense pedestal of
+polished marble, fully one hundred feet in diameter and twenty feet in
+height, which stood upon a wide and elevated pavement of solid silver,
+whereon the priests and priestesses officiated in the services to the
+goddess. On crimson couches sat their majesties the king and queen of
+Atvatabar, together with the great officers of the realm. Next to the
+royal group myself and the officers and seamen of the _Polar King_
+occupied seats of honor. Behind, around and above us, filling the
+immense temple, rose the concave mass of twin-souls numbering ten
+thousand individuals, each seated with counterpart soul.
+
+As I gazed on those happy terraces of life, youth, love and beauty, I
+felt exhilarated with the sensations the scene gave rise to.
+
+The garments of both priests and priestesses were fashioned in a style
+somewhat resembling the decorative dresses seen on Greek and Japanese
+vases, yet wholly original in design. In many cases the priestesses
+were swathed in transparent tissues that revealed figures like pale
+olive gold within.
+
+The grand sorcerer Charka and the grand sorceress Thoubool occupied a
+conspicuous divan upholstered with cloth of gold. The sorceress was a
+grand beauty, neither blond nor brunette, but her complexion would,
+chameleon-like, change from a rosy white to a clear golden hue. Her
+hair was bright copper, gleaming like strands of metal. Her eyes
+changed color incessantly, being successively blue and black.
+
+Her robe was a pale green silk, bound at the waist with a heavy
+cincture of gold. She wore a necklace of many-colored gems.
+
+The grand sorcerer wore a robe of moss-green velvet embroidered with
+appliqued white silk lace, resembling lotus bloom. Both wore diadems
+of emeralds. Other twin-souls were arrayed in equally splendid attire,
+and seated on couches whose upholstery accentuated or harmonized with
+their fair occupants. Whatever the color selected, I observed that
+each twin-soul priest and priestess wore robes of a consanguineous
+hue, however the individual stuffs might vary in texture or quality. I
+also observed that in no case were the laws of taste in color
+violated, and unerring instinct had guided every priest and priestess
+in achieving the most piquant harmonies of color. With garments in
+simultaneous contrast each twin-soul sat on a couch upholstered in
+fabrics in pure contrast of color.
+
+How I wished some great painter of the outer world could transfer to
+canvas that conflagration of beauty.
+
+Several twin-souls, with garments that seemed beaten gold, reclined on
+black velvet couches beside us. On an immense divan of white velvet
+near by sat a group of priests and priestesses arrayed in stuffs that
+were the strangest tones of purple, brown, violet, green, and red. A
+twin-soul in golden maize sat on a dark purple couch. A twin-soul in
+ecru sat on a salmon-colored couch, while a twin-soul in myosotis blue
+reposed on a couch of the color of Australian gold. Celibates and
+vestals in russet robes luxuriated on couches of magnolia green.
+
+It was evident their artists possessed a happy skill in creating such
+harmonies of costume. Sculptor, upholsterer and _couturiere_ formed
+the trinity of genius that wrought marvels of form and color.
+
+Harikar, the Holy Soul, was the deity, who was symbolized by the
+goddess, and ministered to by such a retinue of souls. No doubt
+Harikar was mightily pleased at such a tribute of wealth, love and
+beauty. As far as an individual could appreciate such splendor, I must
+testify it was an eminently thrilling oblation.
+
+The votaries themselves were no solitary ascetics who practised heroic
+mortifications to obtain dominion over life or nature. Instead of the
+pale devotee who in other creed cultivates the desire to get away from
+all things earthly, and whose every effort is to extinguish pleasure
+in life, every theopath of Harikar cultivated a Greek perfection of
+body, as well as a Gothic intensity of soul. By what powerful
+incantation were the priests of Egyplosis able to overcome the law of
+the outer world, that all joy must be paid for in pain, and that the
+joy was nearly always too dear at the price given?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX.
+
+THE INSTALLATION OF A TWIN-SOUL.
+
+
+The sacred musicians of the temple surrounded the throne in solid
+circles each arrayed in lordly attire.
+
+They flourished instruments of gold, that rang out music of such depth
+and clearness of tone as to melt every soul in that vast audience into
+one thrilling whole. The sounding song was the incarnation of all
+things majestic and glorious. In its breathless measures were born the
+spirits of conquest, pride, inspiration, love and sympathy. The
+thrilling climax was wrought of passages eloquent of love, tenderness,
+reverence, joy, adoration and poetry.
+
+Again, with the music becoming more refined, a choir of singers in the
+high cloister in the walls sang as they walked a refrain of purifying
+sweetness. It was a wail of fidelity and love, and both song and music
+moved in perfect accord.
+
+Thereafter music alone was heard, when the high priest Hushnoly, and
+the high priestess Zooly-Soase stood before us on the silver pavement
+beneath the throne.
+
+The blue-black hair of the high priestess fell around her olive face
+and shoulders like a cloud of darkness. She wore a robe of coral-red
+silken gossamer, that with its foldings shivered like quicksilver,
+revealing a figure of olive marble beneath. Her shoulders, arms and
+breasts, soft and heavy in mould, were dimly seen beneath their coral
+veil. Her profile was perfect. Her eyes were jewels of swart fire. Her
+eyebrows made perfect arches above them, enhancing the beauty of her
+face. Her mouth was fine and tender, and her lips red with kisses. The
+high priest, whose noble features were olive-green in hue, wore a
+splendid opaque silk burnous of camellia-red, of heavier texture than
+that of the priestess. He wore boots of scarlet lacquered leather.
+Both wore diadems of kragon, the precious stone.
+
+A stone altar curiously carved, on which stood a green bronze turtle
+of large size, occupied one side of the front of the pavement. The
+turtle held its head stretched upward, and through its open mouth a
+thin stream of blue smoke ascended. On the wide flat back of the
+turtle lay an open volume, the sacred book of Egyplosis.
+
+The priest and priestess stood beside the altar, each reading an
+alternate stanza from the ritual of the goddess. While reading, the
+priests with loud voice followed the intoning of the high priest, and
+the priestesses that of the high priestess, as follows:
+
+               THE RITUAL OF HOPELESS LOVE.
+
+                         PRIESTS.
+
+     Harikar is the supreme soul, and the goddess Lyone his
+     supreme incarnation. Equally free from asceticism and
+     indulgence, she treads the golden path.
+
+                         PRIESTESSES.
+
+     Let us joyfully obey our adorable goddess, who commands us
+     in all manner of spiritual joys; let us follow her glorious
+     example, preserving purity of heart and life.
+
+                         PRIESTS.
+
+     Let us adore a cupid agonized, worshipping the goddess of
+     hopeless, tender, romantic love. Let us, with our
+     counterparts, the most lovely of maidens, become twin-souls
+     for evermore.
+
+                         PRIESTESSES.
+
+     Let us love the shapely and active youths, the young men of
+     soul and intellect, likewise those of courage and daring,
+     whose hearts and minds are in complete unity.
+
+                         PRIESTS.
+
+     Let us add splendor of body to greatness of soul. May we
+     excel in the chase, the dance and the race. Let us drink
+     ambrosial wine, and eat the juiciest of meats, and clothe
+     ourselves with the finest and strongest of tissues.
+
+[Illustration: THE PRIEST AND PRIESTESS STOOD BESIDE THE ALTAR, EACH
+READING AN ALTERNATE STANZA FROM THE RITUAL OF THE GODDESS.]
+
+                         PRIESTESSES.
+
+     Let us have a beautiful companionship with our counterpart
+     souls. Let us rejoice in the sun, in the free winds of the
+     sky, in the glory of flowers, in the pride of horses and
+     elephants richly caparisoned. Let us treasure jewels. Let us
+     possess emeralds, turquoises, diamonds and rubies. Let us
+     array ourselves with marvellous stuffs, dyed with the
+     richest colorings.
+
+                         PRIESTS.
+
+     Let us here in search of the ideal find an ever-increasing
+     Nirvana of blessedness. Goddess of souls, lead us to imagine
+     higher and holier exaltations; keener and more blessed
+     raptures!
+
+                         PRIESTESSES.
+
+     Sweet mother of souls! teach us to cultivate consoling
+     friendships with sympathetic hearts. Give us longings for
+     the utmost depths of love and tenderness; let us possess
+     fervid and impassioned souls.
+
+                         PRIESTS.
+
+     Let us create a paradise wherein life is one long
+     intoxication of love, beauty and soul-culture, found in the
+     fascinating converse of soul with soul and intellect with
+     intellect.
+
+                         PRIESTESSES.
+
+     May rapturous energies spring from hopeless loves! May the
+     yearning for inaccessible pleasures fill us with blessed
+     extravagance and holy madness.
+
+                         PRIESTS.
+
+     May we, firmly poised on virtue, become possessed of noble,
+     delicate, enormous souls. May the meeting of spirit with
+     spirit be too ecstatic for words to express. May vows be
+     written in each other's hearts. May the jewelled ring bind
+     soul and soul, and in the commingled life may the holy
+     compact be known, that a perfect circle of souls has been
+     consummated.
+
+                         PRIESTESSES.
+
+     Secure by our compact and our vows from tasting of the
+     forbidden fruit, may we always possess the happy
+     intemperance of never-satiated souls.
+
+                         PRIESTS.
+
+     May the sorcery of love procure for us the shuddering
+     sensibility of sorrow, without its agony, as we possess the
+     perfect delight of day without the cold and lugubrious
+     shadows of the night.
+
+                         PRIESTESSES.
+
+     Contact with life begets love, and love begets sensation,
+     and sensation desire, but reason and culture control desire
+     and so preserve the endless sweetness of our joy.
+
+                         PRIESTS.
+
+     The real mortal, the ideal divine. The real awakens desire,
+     the ideal feeds it. The real is the maimed, the halt and the
+     blind; it is the sepulchre of faith; the poor, the tawdry,
+     the miserable, it is the measure of our imperfect attainment
+     of the ideal.
+
+     The ideal is the supreme made possible by love and charity.
+     It is wide as imagination, perfect as love, calm as death.
+     It is the unchangeable and the immortal.
+
+     The real with its disappointments is soul shattering, but
+     the ideal is perennial life.
+
+     The more inaccessible the pleasure, the keener the delight
+     in its pursuit.
+
+     In love, accessibility is death.
+
+                         PRIESTESSES.
+
+     By losing the real we obtain the ideal. What others strive
+     for we possess. Praise to Harikar for the most glorious of
+     men, for precious viands, odoriferous wines, rare and costly
+     jewels, marvellous stuffs, and the hundred temples and
+     gardens of Egyplosis! Praise to Harikar for our counterpart
+     souls!
+
+                         PRIESTS.
+
+     Praise to Harikar for the loveliest of women, noble,
+     cultured and tender, with whom Nirvana is ecstasy.
+
+                         PRIESTESSES.
+
+     Nirvana is the consummate gift of Harikar, the one
+     everlasting sweetness!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+During the intonation of the ritual, the twin-souls put into practice
+the manifestations of those endearments prayed for, and which they
+certainly seemed to possess.
+
+Throughout the entire congregation, priest and priestess, enfolded in
+each other's arms, swayed caressingly together and rapturously kissed
+each other. The fondest sighs were heard amid the recitations, and the
+faces of lover and beloved were flushed the color of rosy flame. A
+tempest of restrained passion shook the entire congregation.
+
+What wonder, that, ruled by such a faith, each twin-soul splendidly
+apparelled, in such an edifice, should grow rich and strange, bold and
+delicate, and exhibit the intemperance of emotion excited by
+sensations so multiplied and extreme? I then saw a new meaning in the
+grandeur and efflorescence of the sculptures of the temple. I saw in
+the profuse decorations, in the arabesques so fantastically entangled
+and unrolled, a manifestation of the delicate sensibility that created
+them.
+
+Not only were real or natural objects idealized in art, but also
+conventional art, or the record of what nature suggests, as well as
+how she appears, to the soul of the artist. And what must have been
+the infinite wealth of suggestion to such souls as these to account
+for such mouldings and traceries on wall and roof, and such wealth of
+color in attire, reflected and duplicated in the jewelled windows of
+the dome. Here were souls fitted by nature and art to fuse and create
+the suggestions of nature into shapes of eternal beauty. These
+flamboyant shapes and mystical colors presuppose the strange
+illuminations that had pierced tender and extravagant hearts.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX.
+
+THE INSTALLATION OF A TWIN-SOUL (CONTINUED).
+
+
+While priest and priestess were folded with mutual emotion two of the
+loveliest souls took the place of the high priest and priestess on the
+silver pavement. The girl was young and tender, golden white in
+complexion with crimson lips. Her figure was swathed in a vermilion
+robe, on the breast of which was embroidered in outline a sea-green
+sun whose swaying rays reached the furthest parts of her garment. Her
+pale blue hair was crowned with a chaplet of daffodils. The youth wore
+a robe of scarlet silk embroidered with a golden sun similar in design
+to that of the priestess. His pose was singularly noble. These two
+souls were about to become priest and priestess, and, after having
+taken the vows of hopeless love in presence of the goddess, high
+priest and priestess and congregation of twin-souls, they sang the
+following anthem, accompanied by a wailing storm of music from several
+hundred violins, entitled:
+
+                  THE TWIN-SOUL.
+
+                     PRIEST.
+
+    Love is a heated furnace that devours
+    The thickest ice; love is a sweet moist wind
+    That cools the fevered desert with its balm.
+    There is no rain nor heat, yea, even snow
+    Is warm and rosy to ideal souls
+    That shudder in life's sweetest ecstasies.
+    If love, that makes ideal life, that dwells
+    In fragrant silences, makes green the grass,
+    And far more tender the diviner flowers,
+    It surely makes both bold and delicate
+    The warm superiority of flesh
+    Of that strange, sacred soul that dwells with mine.
+
+    The clear, yet golden whiteness of the form
+    That shines through pale green diaphane,
+    Showing its pliant beauty, is the dress
+    Of that rapt soul that is all tenderness.
+    Her brow is crowned with wistful daffodils,
+    Making her fair face fairer, and her eyes
+    Are clouded sapphires; yea, her perfect lips
+    (Whereon my soul will dwell for evermore)
+    Clear blood-red rubies! The sweet hand holds
+    Red poppies and blue lotus, and the soft
+    And sulphur blossomed wind flower. If such dress
+    Enshrine a soul as perfect, if the curves
+    That make her form voluptuous describe
+    The splendor of her soul (and this I know),
+    Love has no purer temple, nor more sweet!
+
+The priest had sung alone so far, and now both priest and priestess
+joined their voices in a marvellous song. Wilder, sweeter and more
+intense, the violins stormed and wailed pathetic whirlwinds of
+ecstasy. At times their insufferable moans caught the excited hearts
+of the audience, and twin-souls in their passion would rise on their
+wings and, revolving, sweep around the amphitheatre locked in each
+other's arms.
+
+                PRIEST AND PRIESTESS.
+
+    Sharper than pain, we love, and the caress,
+    Keener than torment, overmaddens us!
+    There is no fasting when our feverish lips
+    Meet in the shock that strikes the spirit dumb
+    With swooning raptures! The dilated soul,
+    Intemperate with the enormous moan
+    Of passion, would outleap the strenuous will.
+    The flesh, transfigured with the crisis, reels,
+    Stretches the chain of duty and would leap
+    To grasp the tempting and forbidden fruit,
+    Were not that virtue is our comrade now.
+
+    We lift our eager faces to the sun
+    And feast on life and in each other's souls
+    Luxuriate, confounded with delight.
+    For us no mouldy cloister waits its prey,
+    Nor cave of darkness, where existence mourns
+    And dies beneath its scourgings. We have made
+    Our grim novitiate with reality.
+    Have known its agony, for we were born
+    So eminent for rapture, that the pain
+    All men inherit desolated us
+    And spread a living terror in our souls;
+    So that through clouds of everlasting woe
+    Scarce came the gleam of gladness or of love,
+    And earth was pitiless, and brutal souls
+    Who cannot feel there ruled. Oh, the wide world,
+    Degraded by ignoble brutishness,
+    Could yield no tendernesses infinite
+    For we who feed on rapture. Thus it was
+    Our souls on meeting, in the thrilling kiss
+    Were fused in indissoluble embrace;
+    We who were famished, in ideal love
+    Found sustenance and passed from death to life!
+
+The song was perfect. The strange, fresh accents of the singers, so
+full of love and passion, melted every heart in the temple with their
+ecstasy. One might hear such measures without thought of lapse of time
+or of worldly concerns. Ah! if one could hear such melody
+forevermore!
+
+With a burst of dramatic joy the singing of the last stanza revealed
+whole worlds of rapture.
+
+    Reincarnated in an earthly heaven,
+    Now have we reached Nirvana, now
+    Above us open the wide gulfs of joy,
+    And luminous and glorious round us blow
+    Millions of flowers; while afar there shines
+    The mighty splendor of the exhaustless sea!
+    We dwell in breathless joys, thrilled through and through
+    With majesty and sweetness; we have grown
+    Athletes of joy in our Agapemone:
+    Eager and breathless, we have found at last
+    The fount of youth, the magical Arjeels;
+    Fruits of organic gold amid the leaves
+    Sparkle, and around our island home
+    Are spread the veritable golden sands
+    Whereon our happy feet tread evermore!
+
+The singers disappeared, and in their places a hundred
+wondrously-arrayed figures moved in the dance of pure being on the
+silver pavement. Lithe as leopards, with unclad limbs and feet, priest
+and priestess danced all the ecstasies of Egyplosis. The dancers were
+so young, so fresh, so tender, so beautiful, and so innocent, that it
+was a supreme joy to behold them. Rapture grew universal and lovers
+cried with hysterical shudderings. The rainbow-colored throng, moving
+to the music of the golden instruments, flashed upon the pavement like
+joy taking possession of the world!
+
+I felt intensely sad for Lyone, who sat like a statue of golden
+marble, gazing on the abyss of joy beneath. Had the goddess no lover
+to press her to his heart amid the universal rapture? Alas! the
+immense dignity of her position and the unalterable laws of Atvatabar
+alike prevented any single soul from feeding the intense hunger that
+consumed her.
+
+Accompanying the dancers, the unseen choir in the cloisters began to
+sing a new opera of love, and the strains of an "Ave, Lyone, bona
+dea," stole upon the senses like the bewildering sighs of angels,
+making one ache with delight. A story of romantic love once more
+sculptured the faces of priest and priestess with angelic beauty, as
+it rose on wings of song and swept in delightful moans upon the carven
+stone.
+
+It was a memorable scene, one never to be forgotten! The hieroglyphic
+walls, carved in high relief with the instruments of empire, the dome
+with its ten thousand fadeless lights, the terraces of twin-souls
+radiant with delight, the marvellous dancers, the superb music that
+seemed to shake the heart of the solid stone that enclosed us, and
+high over all the supreme goddess in whose honor all this adoration
+was made, seated in bliss on the throne of the gods--such was the
+situation at that moment.
+
+It was a monstrous and a splendid joy!
+
+Suddenly a roar of invincible music issued from gigantic tubes that
+pierced the body of the throne itself with fresh and warlike
+explosions of melody. I was filled with a maddening delight, until
+consciousness could hardly bear the strain any longer. I cried aloud,
+amid a Chimborazo of song, a hundred-cratered Popocatapetl of sweet
+strains. The audience, enraptured with the climax, became an inferno
+of passion, laughter tears and felicity!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI.
+
+THE MYSTERY OF EGYPLOSIS.
+
+
+The palace of the goddess at Egyplosis was a component part of the
+vast quadrangle known as the supernal palace. The view therefrom
+embraced the wide inner garden of the entire palace of temples,
+discovering jungles of shrubs and flowers of all imaginable hues,
+interspersed with lakes sleeping in their marble basins like enormous
+jewels. Fountains of solid silver gushed forth a brilliant foam of
+waters amid the embowering foliage, and there glad priests, in the
+society of priestesses sweeter than the flowers themselves, dreamed
+life away in enthusiastic peace. Surrounding all was the high and
+glorious palace, forming a background, on the design of which
+imagination and art had been entirely exhausted.
+
+The scene the day following the Ritual of the installation of a
+twin-soul in the temple of Egyplosis was a boudoir in the palace of
+the goddess. It was a large apartment, whose walls were hung with
+panels of rose-colored velvet, embroidered with gray-green silk
+foliage. In one large tapestry, the hands of loving priestesses had
+embroidered a scene in the garden of Egyplosis. On a dais, upon a
+couch of soft red silk upholstery sat Lyone, swathed in draperies of
+shrimp pink and pale peacock green, embroidered with ivory-white silk.
+A large terra-cotta silk rug, whose only ornament was an elaborate
+border, covered the floor. The goddess wore a belt of aquelium
+serpents having tulips in their mouths. Heavy terrelium bracelets
+adorned her wrists, and she wore a diminutive tiara on her head.
+
+I sat on a luxurious seat, the sole guest of the goddess. I was
+rapidly learning from the divinity the mystery of Egyplosis. I was
+especially anxious to find out how the jewel of one hundred years of
+youth could be grafted into the ordinary existence. An idea so
+splendid seemed to be the germ of earthly immortality. We were
+discussing the subject of hopeless love, and I asked her if she
+considered life and love were the same element.
+
+"Life and love are synonymous," she replied. "By love I mean the
+spiritual, ideal, romantic passion that is hopeless."
+
+"Yes," I replied, "but does not the idea of inaccessibility create a
+worthless desire, that is, a desire for something that is forbidden or
+unattainable? The majority of men, I think, will prefer an every-day
+love with all its risks and imperfections to the shadowy ghost of a
+hopeless love. The hopeful love does no violence to nature such as is
+contemplated by the hopeless sentiment."
+
+"You hardly understand me," said she; "the pleasure we aspire to is
+superior to any physical delight, and is an end in itself. It is
+romantic love, that blooms like a single flower in the crevices of a
+volcano. It is the quintessence of existence, the rarest wine of life,
+the expressed sweetness of difficulty and repression and
+long-suffering, the choicest holiday of the soul. We are willing to
+pay the price of hopelessness to taste such nectar. In the every-day
+world such joy only rarely exists. Interest, indulgence, ambition,
+fortune, time, temper and marriage destroy it. Youth, captivated by a
+beautiful face or a winning smile, thinks it has discovered its true
+counterpart, and so takes possession of the prize. It finds afterward
+it was mistaken, and all its life thenceforth becomes miserable."
+
+"But," I replied, "if the world at large had discovered that your
+theory of love was the true one, it would long since have acted on
+its discovery and put no destroying restraint or obligation on so
+precious a possession. But the world found that a thousand accidents
+would infallibly open the eyes of both parties to the fact that they
+possessed but few qualities in common, or in counterpart, and with
+such knowledge of good and evil they would infallibly separate. Hence
+the foundation of society would be torn asunder and the rising
+generation of helpless children become orphaned of home, the very
+bulwark of life. Society must have assurances that people do not get
+married simply as an experiment, but are willing to honorably
+undertake the mutual sacrifices their act carries with it."
+
+"I have already admitted," said she, "that the joy of spiritual love
+hardly ever exists in its virgin force in the every-day world. I admit
+that the necessary regulations of society, although they tend to
+destroy it, must be enforced. The Atvatabar nation rests on the
+marriage idea. At one time in our history the people strove for ideal
+love and overthrew the ordinary marriage yoke without the restraint of
+reason. Law and order disappeared and social chaos reigned. The land
+was filled with the wailings of orphans whose parents had deserted
+them, and men and women formed new associates every day. Unbridled
+license devastated the country. Our lawgivers re-established the law
+of marriage as being the only law suitable to mankind. Man in the
+aggregate had not developed to a state in which the consummation of
+marriage could be dispensed with. Yet there were many among those who
+had advocated ideal love worthy of their theory. Although married to
+each other, they had remained celibates. For these Egyplosis was
+founded, for the study and practice of what is really a higher
+development of human nature and in itself an unquestionable good. It
+is the most powerful element in the production of creative energy of
+soul and personal beauty. As you will have observed, all our devotees
+are singularly beautiful in form and feature and possess spirit power
+to a high degree."
+
+As the goddess spoke a few threads of her bright blue hair had strayed
+across her face. Her beautiful eyes flashed with a royalty of truth,
+tenderness, magnetism, and feeling. She was the living illustration of
+her claims for Egyplosis.
+
+"What you say," I replied, "illustrates that ordinary marriage, with
+all its limitations and, infelicities, is absolutely necessary for the
+well-being of society. Marriage is simply the application of reason
+and morality to blind, passionate nature. The home circle is the
+origin of nationality, progress, and wealth. Ideal love, wrested from
+the dragon of difficulty, is, I think, but rarely tasted in so real,
+so practical an institution. This is the experience of the nations of
+the outer world, and how much better for man that it is so? A roadway
+in proportion to its rhythm of undulation becomes useless, hindering
+travel rather than accelerating it. So also with love. When settled in
+the calm security of marriage the mind is freed from the romantic
+extravagance, the torture, the delight of hopeless sentiment. Thus men
+are free to devote themselves to the more serious purposes of life and
+achieve wealth and fame for themselves and their families. I am,
+nevertheless, curious to see how your institution is conducted, for
+hopeless love seems to me one of the most disquieting things in life.
+Its victims, happy and unhappy, resisting passion with regret or
+yielding with remorse, are ever on the rack of torture. They resemble
+the devotees of certain idols, who pierce themselves with cruel hooks
+and swing aloft in honor of their god. It may be pleasure, but not one
+in a thousand will ever achieve that degree of soul exaltation and
+physical abnegation to think it so."
+
+"And yet not one in a thousand, not one in a hundred thousand lives in
+Egyplosis," said the goddess.
+
+"The men who achieve anything," I continued, "good and great in the world,
+the men who build empires, discover ideas, who both rule and populate
+nations, are all rewarded by a hopeful love. It is only a hopeless love
+that sets up its mirage of false and never-to-be-obtained joys. Hence, I
+ask you the question, What of Egyplosis?"
+
+The goddess smiled at my controversial attitude, "It is the old
+question," she replied, "of conventionalism _versus_ art, of economic
+institutions _versus_ nature and life. Just as we endeavor to rescue
+spontaneous invention and originality from the disease of the
+tasteless and laborious productions of a mechanical civilization, so
+we labor to create an earthly home for the soul in a world where
+superficial necessities will stifle it out of existence. There was a
+time in the history of Atvatabar when people talked of art and love,
+both of which did not exist. The octopus of commercial, mechanical and
+economical life had strangled the soul and all its attributes. Men
+fought for treaties of commerce, treaties of marriage, deeds of
+property, and all the while acted in defiance of their obligations.
+They cheated each other, lied to each other, deserted each other
+incessantly. Love had taken wings and fled. Art had lost its language
+and its cunning. Life was no longer illuminated with splendid ideals.
+It was no longer arrayed in the fair and fascinating garments that
+only the soul can weave. History was no longer glorified by paintings
+and sculptured reliefs. Religion was no longer symbolized in the
+solemn magnificence of architecture, or sculptured shrines of gods.
+Articles of daily use were made solely to make a profit, and the
+widespread use of machinery was destroying the art, the soul, the pure
+life of the people. A paternal government, seeing the tyranny of
+commercialism and the possible extinction of the soul itself, has
+wisely, in the spirit of patriarchal hospitality, established the art
+institution of Gnaphisthasia and the religious institution of
+Egyplosis, for soul development in harmony with the high destiny of
+mankind. Harikar, or developed soul, is the natural sequence of the
+development of the soul and intellect, achieving the supreme virtue of
+spiritual perfection, or dominion of the passions of the body and the
+forces of nature. Love was the one great end of our religion, for life
+is love."
+
+"I value your creed," I continued, "to the fullest extent. I value the
+idea that every intellect shall enfold a soul. You practise the
+doctrine that hopeless love is that phase of the passion that contains
+the most delirious possibilities of joy, yet, allow me to ask, have
+you never discovered that there may be disappointments for even such
+guarded emotions as yours? Are your neophytes perfectly happy? We
+find, in the outer world at least, that no state or condition in life
+is perfectly pleasurable. Their joys die of their own _ennui_ if for
+no other cause. We find happiness like a flower; it has its period of
+bloom and decay. The more intoxicating the beauty the shorter its
+life. Happiness long continued grows common, fades and dies. Then
+again the human soul is always in a fever of unrest. It always thinks
+what is beyond its reach is liberty. As one of our poets has expressed
+it:
+
+                    "'Oh, give me liberty!
+    For even were a paradise itself my prison,
+    Still would I long to leap the crystal walls!'"
+
+As I spoke I saw that the goddess was an eager listener to my words.
+Was it possible that she might have an idea that even Egyplosis might
+indeed be a prison? But, then, her position, her vows, recalled to her
+the fact that she was love's _religieuse_, an indissoluble part of the
+temple of love itself.
+
+The goddess replied, that sometimes impatient spirits had entered the
+palace, but any incorrigible cases of insubordination were either
+imprisoned in the fortress beneath the palace or were expelled into
+the outer world. The neophytes entered the temple college while under
+twenty years of age. Each soul, thereafter mingling freely with five
+thousand of the opposite sex, chooses in a month its counterpart for
+life, thus forming a complete circle. The choice must be approved by a
+council of "Soul Inquisitors" who, before the lifelong union is made,
+see that both possess all the elements that will produce a high, holy
+and pure blending of thought, feeling, emotion, joys spiritual and
+intellectual, whose every breath will be an ecstasy, and at the same
+time possess reverence for each other and the power of resistance to
+passion and are able to walk in the pure path.
+
+"Do you not think," I replied, "that the temptation being ever
+present, the struggle in the soul must in time exhaust and enfeeble
+the moral powers, producing disastrous consequences?"
+
+Before the goddess could reply, a terrible commotion was heard in the
+palace garden. The shrieks of a woman mingled with the loud voices of
+men were heard in furious clamor, and one of the royal guards entered
+the palace chamber in breathless haste.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII.
+
+THE SIN OF A TWIN-SOUL.
+
+
+"Your holiness," said the captain of the sacred guard, as he entered
+the apartment, "the twin-soul Ardsolus and Merga has sinned against
+the laws and religion of Egyplosis. I crave permission to bring the
+guilty pair before the goddess with the evidence of their guilt."
+
+The goddess, answering quickly, ordered the priest and priestess to be
+produced.
+
+The captain thereupon commanded his wayleals to bring the prisoners
+into the audience chamber.
+
+Shrinking between her guards, the priestess Merga appeared bearing in
+her arms a lovely babe, a rosy duplicate of herself. Following her
+came the priest Ardsolus, also a prisoner.
+
+The priestess was the picture of petite girlish beauty. Her delicate
+rose complexion was flushed with a feeling of shame, and her handsome
+hazel eyes, dilated with vexation and sorrow, were filled with tears.
+
+Her lover was tall, straight and athletic, with a proud, fine-cut
+face. The down of manhood was just showing itself on his upper lip.
+
+"I feel sorry for you both," said the goddess; "did you weary of the
+joys of Egyplosis?"
+
+Ardsolus threw back over his shoulder a falling fold of his white
+bournous and, drawing himself proudly up, replied: "Yes, your
+holiness, our life here is imprisonment. We have grown weary of its
+restraint and are eager to return to the outer world with all its
+cares and freedom."
+
+The chamberlain at this moment announced the arrival of the high
+priest Hushnoly, the secular, as well as the sacred governor of
+Egyplosis, and the high priestess Zooly-Soase, who both entered the
+presence chamber. Hushnoly, saluting the goddess, announced that he
+had come in search of the erring twin-soul. The high priest was
+astonished beyond expression at finding sin and shame in so glorious a
+retreat.
+
+Addressing the weeping girl, he said: "Do you know, my child, how
+unfortunate you have been? You have committed the unpardonable sin in
+the temple of hopeless love. Did you not think of your lifelong vows
+of celibacy and of the deep and tender joy of romantic love?"
+
+Merga only replied by clasping her babe still closer to her breast and
+bathing it with her tears.
+
+"What excuse do you offer for your crime against yourself, your
+religion and your fellow-priests?" demanded the high, priest of
+Ardsolus.
+
+"Your highness," said the youth, "we have, after due experience of our
+vows, arrived at the conclusion that such vows are a violation of
+nature. Everything here bids us love, but the artificial system under
+which we have lived arbitrarily draws a line and says, thus far and no
+further. Your system may suit disembodied spirits, if such exist, but
+not beings of flesh and blood. It is an outrage on nature. We desire
+to leave Egyplosis and return to the common ways of men. We may be
+there unfortunate, but we will be free. This rarified atmosphere
+stifles us."
+
+The high priest was horrified. Never before had a twin-soul been so
+sinful, so contumacious. It revealed a state of things too terrible to
+contemplate! If such conduct became contagious, it meant the ruin of
+Egyplosis.
+
+I could detect, however, in the sight of the goddess a certain
+sympathy for the prisoners which, perhaps, it would just then be very
+impolitic for her to reveal. It was clear that beneath all this ideal
+joy lay a slumbering volcano of passion that only awaited a favorable
+moment for a fierce outbreak. The laws of this strange faith seemed
+not to have contemplated that to avoid temptation is the only security
+of moral strength, and that to seek temptation is to paralyze the
+moral fibres of the soul. The high priest grew pale with excitement.
+
+"Are you aware of the enormity of your offence?" said he to the
+defiant youth. "For a moment of sinful delight you destroy your
+interregnum of a hundred years of blessedness, and you, each of you,
+have delivered a blow at earthly immortality. The success of our
+religious system is proven by the fact that we have already lengthened
+the life of our hierophants one hundred years, or twice the duration
+of life in the outer world of Bilbimtesirol. This is the last of many
+outbreaks of _malfeasance_ to vows made in deliberation, and a fresh
+exhibition of treason in the sacred college of souls."
+
+"I tell you this," said the youth in reply, "you are slumbering on the
+edge of a volcano. There are thousands of twin-souls ready to cast off
+this yoke. They only await a leader to break out in open revolt!"
+
+"Then, sir, we will take care that you are not their leader; we shall
+suppress you, as we have all similar cases, in the cells of the
+fortress. Neither Egyplosis nor Atvatabar will hear of your crime. His
+majesty the king will, I have no doubt, acquiesce in the wisdom of
+such sentence."
+
+"The punishment is no greater than the crime," said the high
+priestess. "I despair of Egyplosis if such crimes become frequent.
+What will our goddess think, what will Atvatabar think of our holy
+temple when its own priests, the sacred devotees of Harikar, the
+ministers of the supreme goddess and teachers of the people in their
+holy religion, are found traitors? Will the government support
+rebellious and sinful souls in every luxury for the senses, with every
+possible means for developing and achieving spiritual mastery over the
+physical world, on the sole condition of hopeless love? It will not.
+Hence, I say, this disobedience must be quenched in the spark, or it
+will break out in ruin to our whole religious institution."
+
+"Your punishment," said the high priest, "unless you will repent of
+your misdeed, give up possession of your offspring, and live ever
+afterward as holy priests of hopeless love, will be separate and
+solitary confinement for life in the fortress. You will both be simply
+obliterated from the world."
+
+As the high priest uttered these words the mother-priestess gave a cry
+of terror, and, grasping her infant convulsively, gazed with an
+appealing glance at the goddess.
+
+"We refuse to live as hypocrites," said the youth; "we are no longer
+twin-souls--we are man and wife and demand to be set free."
+
+"Will you, each of you," said the goddess, "renounce that obedience
+that makes you factors of deities? Will you dethrone ideal love? Will
+you throw away palaces and gardens and flowers? Will you forswear the
+delight of the companionship of twin-souls?"
+
+"We wish to be set free, your holiness," said the youth with firm, set
+lips.
+
+"Do you no longer value the secrets of magic and sorcery? Do you
+renounce initiation into the secrets of nature to possess creative
+force to taste the elixir of life, the secret of the transformation of
+metals, and, above all, the blessedness of Nirvana? Knowing that love
+dies in possession do you desire to step forth from paradise into a
+hard, cold, realistic world, where every experience is a spear driven
+into the flesh?"
+
+"We dare our fate!" replied the youth. "We ask you, goddess, to set us
+free."
+
+"I will bring you both before the spiritual council," said Hushnoly,
+"and, as you are aware, the sentence of the council as provided by the
+constitution of Egyplosis will be that you, each of you, be imprisoned
+in separate cells for life, and the child removed and cared for in a
+distant part of the kingdom. You will henceforth be obliterated from
+life."
+
+The lovers convulsively embraced each other, the beautiful Merga
+weeping bitterly.
+
+"We will accept the punishment," said Ardsolus, "because we will give
+courage to the many twin-souls already imprisoned and also to those
+who as ardently desire freedom as ourselves. They will never forget
+that we are fighting their battle against a monstrous wrong."
+
+"Guards, remove the prisoners," said the high priest.
+
+"Can nothing that I may say mitigate their punishment?" said the
+goddess.
+
+"Your holiness is aware," said Hushnoly, "that the laws of Egyplosis
+admit of no other interpretation than that prescribed for such a case
+as this. The foundation of the religion of Atvatabar must be preserved
+at any cost."
+
+"I urge for mercy," said the goddess, who honored the prisoners with
+her tears.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII.
+
+THE DOCTOR'S OPINION OF EGYPLOSIS.
+
+
+My experiences in Egyplosis were teaching me that even the most
+perfect human organizations contain the elements of decay and death.
+The human soul at variance with its own physical condition was hardly
+the best ideal of a god. Here was happiness piled upon happiness, yet
+the recipients thereof were not happy. Disappointments and suffering
+are natural to man because life is supported on difficulty, and a
+long-continued happiness is the sure forerunner of disaster. The
+reaction of misery lies somewhere concealed from the eye of happiness,
+and if it does not at once show itself, it will later on. Even in
+well-guarded happiness, if one single pleasure be omitted, we
+experience more regret at its absence than pleasure over the bounties
+we enjoy. Hence, a large proportion of twin-souls were not wholly in
+love with their life in the temple of souls, however enamored they
+were of each other. Almost absolute freedom of action, freedom from
+care, physical and mental exercises, soul development, the practice of
+magic, the most alluring investigation of mental and spiritual themes,
+the study and practice of art in all its forms, and the investigation
+of inventive mechanism; a palace to live in, with vast galleries of
+paintings and sculptures, salons for music, and schools of science,
+libraries filled with the rarest works of history, literature and
+poetry, and, most precious of all, the daily dalliance with
+counterpart souls, could not make these people happy. The one thing
+denied, which any reasonable man would say was simply the price paid
+for all this glory, was considered the greatest of all misfortunes.
+The imagination has a strange habit of passing lightly over happiness
+possessed and settling down upon a little thing beyond reach and
+exaggerating it to the utmost.
+
+The imprisonment of Ardsolus and Merga created a profound sensation
+among the ten thousand inmates of the palace. Sentiment was divided so
+much that two political parties were formed--those who believed the
+erring lovers had met a just fate, and those who thought the system at
+fault in providing no means of immediate escape, when to reside in the
+palace became imprisonment and a living death to certain souls. The
+latter party was composed of the more youthful section of the
+priesthood, who sympathized with the unfortunate lovers. These latter
+would have got up a demonstration in their favor did not the stern
+rules of Egyplosis suppress any such outbursts of popular feeling.
+
+On the day following the imprisonment of the erring twin-soul, the
+question was being discussed in the apartments occupied by the
+officers of the _Polar King_ and myself. We had been lodged in a noble
+building not far from the palace of the goddess, while the sailors
+were quartered in the fortress of Egyplosis, in company with the
+wayleals of the palace itself.
+
+"Your opinion of Egyplosis has possibly undergone a change since the
+day of our reception," said the doctor.
+
+"Well," said I, "I suppose the longer we stay here the more exact will
+be our knowledge of this peculiar institution."
+
+I had considered Egyplosis as a successful institution for developing
+the human soul. Certainly Harikar with his beloved attributes required
+a fit home for his complete development.
+
+I had praised their oasis of love, of refinement, of rest, and of
+beauty, and even ventured to assert that such a paradise was the
+outcome of the love and purity of twin-souls. I forgot in my
+enthusiasm the possibility of the soul being satiated with pleasure,
+that life is a warfare ever seeking but never gaining repose, and that
+we are led more by our passions and illusions than our judgment. I
+forgot that while man resists pain he always yields to pleasure. I
+forgot that he was created for difficulty, which is the oxygen that
+feeds the flame of endeavor, and that difficulty alone can develop
+efforts which pleasure so easily destroys.
+
+"I am of the opinion," said the doctor, "that this institution is
+founded on a perversion of human nature. This so-called hopeless love
+is, as we have just had proof, one of the most disturbing elements in
+life. Its victims resemble Tantalus, who, though steeped to the lips
+in water, can never drink. They are the unhappy devotees of an idol,
+and, like the Hindoos, stick into their sides the hooks of a cruel
+passion and swing aloft in torture to the applause of an admiring
+crowd."
+
+"You evidently do not reverence hopeless love?" I remarked.
+
+"I consider Egyplosis," he continued, "but a nervous asylum on a large
+scale. This nervous temperament, with its hysterical raptures and
+tears, its painful sensibility, its exalted spiritualism and
+irresistible sympathy, departs so far from the steady temperate sphere
+of action that can alone sustain alike the pleasures and
+disappointments of life as to become the object of pity. These are the
+marks of a mental disease. Ultra-romantic ideas and whimsical and
+unaccountable tastes are attributes of this temperament. It is a kind
+of insanity, not the insanity proceeding from hopeless mental
+aberration, but founded on a systematic train of ideas born in a
+heated enthusiasm. It may lead, however, to hopeless insanity."
+
+"Doctor," said the astronomer, "you are taking a very cold-blooded
+view of the subject. You seem not to have discovered that the life
+here is ideal. From what you say one would think that love is a
+species of insanity."
+
+"That is precisely my idea," replied the doctor. "Haven't you observed
+how foolishly people act when in love? All ordinary human prudence and
+judgment are thrown aside. Love pares the claws and pulls the teeth of
+man as a rational animal. Love is supreme folly."
+
+"I think," said the astronomer, "the climate of this country has
+something to do with the present institution. You see that the sun
+here never sets, and, were it not for his diminutive size, would
+infallibly turn the entire interior world into a desert, such as the
+moon is at present, where the outer sun's heat falls for fourteen days
+on the one spot without intermission, completely blasting her
+territories. The mild yet incessant heat of Swang creates a fervor of
+blood and a romance of temperament unknown in lands possessing night,
+hence the practices of Egyplosis are a natural result of climatic
+conditions. The appetite for ideal love has been created by the
+climate, and the religion of the country very naturally responds to
+the craving of such appetite. Who knows what excesses might not obtain
+if no such restraint were imposed on the most gallant youth of the
+country."
+
+"I think," said the naturalist, "that the proper thing to do would be
+to have their people imitate the conduct of Jacob of old and Rachel.
+Jacob worshipped ideal love in the person of Rachel for seven years
+and then married, her. If our commander would only propose such a
+scheme to the supreme goddess it might possibly be favorably
+considered."
+
+"Do you really suppose," said I, "that I possess any influence with
+the goddess, or that any recommendation of mine would be able to
+change the constitution of Atvatabar?"
+
+"Well, sir," said he, "if you will allow me to make the remark, I
+think the supreme goddess takes quite as much interest in you as you
+do in her, and would treat your opinions with great respect."
+
+"You think more than I have ever dared to think," I replied, "and your
+thought savors of sacrilege. The goddess belongs to her faith, her
+country. To prefer an individual soul is to dethrone herself as
+goddess and meet a painful death."
+
+"In any case, whatever happens, you can rely on the fidelity of your
+followers," said the naturalist.
+
+The subject was fast becoming embarrassing and I merely said:
+"Gentlemen, I am assured of your fidelity; so please let us dismiss
+the subject."
+
+The hour for rest having been sounded, I sought my couch, but not to
+sleep. The remarks made by my companions, emphasized by my growing
+fondness for the goddess, set me to thinking what the end would be of
+our discovery of Atvatabar. I wondered if Lyone was not, as sung by
+her devotees,
+
+    "A chrysalis eager to hover
+     And fly from her prison away."
+
+Could it be that the goddess might possibly, if an occasion worthy of
+such a step presented itself, fly from Egyplosis, renounce her throne,
+her crown, her sublime office of supreme goddess of Harikar, and with
+me retire to some far-off country, braving in the meantime the almost
+certain prospect of death. For her sake I felt I could meet any
+situation, however terrible, but for my sake would she throw aside her
+unparalleled dignities? Even if in trying to escape we outflew in my
+own vessel their ships of war, we could never escape the ubiquitous
+wayleals, the magnic-winged troops that could fight equally well on
+land or sea.
+
+Bah! I said, such a dream is idiotic. When I thought of the splendor
+of the position that she would be obliged to renounce for the sake of
+her love for the passing stranger, and of the awful penalties that
+awaited transgression in one so exalted, I considered that no craving
+of passion should dare to resist such difficulties.
+
+Here duty was resistance. Nowhere is man exonerated from the penalty
+of having to pay a price for his possessions, and even possession
+itself is not happiness. Better, I said to myself, to depart in peace
+than encourage the goddess in a desperate enterprise, if indeed she
+had any such desires as my vanity attributed to her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV.
+
+LYONE'S CONFESSION.
+
+
+The following day I again met the goddess in the same magnificent
+apartment in her palace. She was in a contemplative mood. A white robe
+of the finest silk enveloped her, showing to full advantage her superb
+figure. Her silky, shadowed eyes shone with a mild translucent light.
+The ripe beauty of her face was somewhat pale, for some tearful memory
+possessed her. Over her shoulders fell the torrent of her hair, while
+on her brow gleamed a diminutive diadem whose central part was
+fashioned like the throne of the gods. She wore a heavy necklace of
+shrimp-pink pearls.
+
+As we reposed on wide, luxurious couches a maiden of rare beauty
+brought us dishes of curiously-prepared meats and wine of the finest
+vintage in flagons of gold. From distant cloisters came wafted the
+echoes of singing priestesses breathing their intoxicating Amens.
+
+Lyone had been reciting her past soul experiences, now and then
+pausing as the story would grow more sacred. To me the revelations of
+the goddess were of breathless interest. I dare not urge her too
+forcibly, fearing to break the spell of her confessional mood.
+
+She was pleased to say that my advent in Egyplosis had revived the
+past as no other event of late times had done. She was willing to
+recall the sweet experiences of her early life, prior to her elevation
+to the throne of the goddess.
+
+I knew she was in that mood when confession to a kindred soul is most
+consoling to the heart. I urged her to continue the story.
+
+"Well," she continued, "my parents, who were people of importance in
+Calnogor, had destined me for marriage and the outer world, but before
+I even knew of Egyplosis I had a day dream. I saw with my waking eyes
+this temple-palace as one might see it in a picture, splendid as the
+reality. I saw myself with a youth of noble aspect standing in a court
+of the garden, and his arm was around me. He was tall and shapely as a
+palm tree and was all tenderness and devotion. The picture vanished,
+yet its influence remained. It utterly transformed me from the
+undreaming girl that I was to a soul active and ardent, already
+experienced in what life really was. I learned that the mystery of
+life was love, and longed for spiritual companionship with an inmate
+of Egyplosis."
+
+"Was the dream fulfilled as you expected it would be?" I inquired.
+
+"Exactly as I anticipated," said Lyone. "I entered Egyplosis in spite
+of the earnest desire of my people to remain in the outer world and
+lead a life of barren conventionality."
+
+"Had you not learned," I inquired, "that it was impossible to overleap
+the purposes of nature without paying a penalty therefor, that ideal
+passion will in time give way to the commonplace, just as water
+follows the law of gravity?"
+
+"I knew nothing but that ideal love might be eternal. It is the
+passion that makes a goddess human and the mortal divine. Within a
+month after entering the temple walls I discovered the very reality of
+the image I had seen years before. He was my twin-soul, my lover, my
+god. At our first meeting we simultaneously burst into tears. It was
+an ecstasy in which the body did not participate to any marked extent,
+but belonged purely to the region of the soul. We accepted the vows
+made at the installation of a twin-soul and became a completed
+circle."
+
+"Being the goddess," I said, "your lover must have died?"
+
+"He died some years ago," she said, "and on his death, by reason of my
+widowhood, my gifts, my spirituality, my love and my beauty, I was
+elevated to the throne of the gods when vacant, and was worshipped as
+supreme goddess of the faith. It is utterly against our laws for a
+goddess to choose another counterpart; she is supposed to belong only
+to Harikar, the ideal soul whom also she symbolizes; hence I am
+obliged to dwell largely alone."
+
+"You doubtless regret the loss of your earthly counterpart?" I urged.
+
+"Regret it! Ah, that was life!" she said, "for my soul then knew what
+spiritual freedom means. I experienced ecstatic agonies, bliss was
+pain and pain paradise. I flew as a bird full of anguish, bearing
+treasures of love and tears. I desired self-sacrifice, I wanted to
+smile on every one, to help every one. I loved life; I had no fear of
+death. My capacity for rapture seemed to expand continually. Every
+scene I gazed upon trembled in a new blaze of delight. Thoughts, like
+lightning, rent open new worlds of passion and tenderness, wherein I
+moved as a goddess peerless and supreme. But when the tomb closed upon
+my heart of hearts I begged them to lay me by his side and seal the
+door upon us forever. The glory of life had departed, and day after
+day I swooned upon the sarcophagus that held my treasure, my life."
+
+Lyone was unusually excited, and to divert her attention from the past
+I spoke of the present, of her proud position as supreme goddess of
+Atvatabar.
+
+"How does it affect you," I exclaimed, "to be the recipient of such
+adoration as you receive as goddess?"
+
+"At first it was soul maddening," she replied; "I thought I should
+never be able to sustain such adoration. My soul, blinded and
+bewildered by the incense of song and prayer, seemed unable to bear
+the intoxication. Even yet, as I sit upon the throne of the gods,
+fantastic, astonishing emotions thrill me into swooning away. Oh, it
+is incomparably glorious to hear around you those earthquake surges of
+prayer, to see souls quivering with adoring love. I feel at times as
+though I were the cone of a volcano radiating fire and flame into a
+burning sky!
+
+"Then, again, I smile, and feel as I smile that I have power over life
+and death--oh, you do not know what love is--you do not know its
+tremendous power until you feel its splendid flame breathed from ten
+thousand souls clasping your shrieking soul in a blood-crimson
+embrace! If thoughts be things it makes me a creator. If thoughts can
+chisel matter, then I am gracious in face and figure. Men say my flesh
+is smooth as marble, soft as velvet, and bright as gold, even as the
+forms of our priests and priestesses are sculptured and colored by the
+thoughts of love.
+
+"Only a goddess knows such thoughts as hers that burn in the soul like
+fluid gold. Imagination fills me at times with vast and phantasmal
+splendors. Adoration glorifies me like light raining on the palms and
+palaces. I see shapes of burning sweetness, and the air around me is
+laden with the caresses of heavy, strange perfumes. Unclothed
+raptures, exquisitely soft and tender, surround me, like heaven
+opening its wings of flame upon the world. Happy voices, ringing in
+the sensuous arcades of music, fall on my ears, the blown spray of
+immortal friendships.
+
+"Yet, is it not strange that all these delights, violent and glorious
+as they are, do not wholly satisfy the soul? I continually long for
+something sweeter yet. It seems the greater the joy the more enormous
+the capacity, and no joy completely fills the ever-expanding soul."
+
+"You think," said I, "that even the rapture of a goddess is not wholly
+adequate to create a feeling of repletion of satisfaction in a soul
+such as yours?"
+
+"It is contrary to our laws to think so, yet at times I know I could
+forego even the throne of the gods itself for the pure and intimate
+love of a counterpart soul."
+
+"You are not so desirous of the human soul in its collective form as
+you are of individual soul wholly yours?" I ventured, shaken with a
+quivering thrill.
+
+"The soul ever seeks that which is beyond and individual," said Lyone;
+"having once loved the individual soul, I know what such holy rapture
+means."
+
+"What are the difficulties to be surmounted in your quest of a
+counterpart soul?" I inquired, with a secret delight.
+
+"The sacrilege of a goddess becoming attached to the individual to the
+exclusion of all other individuals. The goddess-elect must have been
+a novitiate and priestess of Egyplosis and the survivor of her
+counterpart soul. Her experiences as a noble and pure priestess,
+together with special beauty and popularity, are the conditions for
+the peerless office of supreme goddess and incarnation of Harikar. By
+her vows she can never again become the exclusive possession of any
+one soul. She belongs to Harikar, the universal soul."
+
+"And what is the punishment for renunciation of your office and
+attachment to another soul?"
+
+"A shameful death by magnicity for the twin-soul. No goddess can
+resign her office. No goddess can seek a lover and live."
+
+"Not even an ideal affinity?" I asked.
+
+"Why, even ideal affinities who forget themselves are punished with
+lifelong imprisonment, and their names blotted out of the priesthood
+as though they were dead," said Lyone.
+
+"Are there many such transgressors of their vows in Egyplosis?" I
+inquired.
+
+"There are, I believe, some five hundred twin-souls at present immured
+in the dungeons," said Lyone.
+
+"Poor souls!" I murmured, "their apostasy was but their reformation."
+
+"I often think of them," said Lyone, "but I know I can never liberate
+them except by my own successful apostasy. And yet when all else is
+peaceful and happy, or at least appears so, why should I become the
+leader of an insurrection that would precipitate a hundred times more
+misery on the nation, to say nothing of the possibility of defeat?"
+
+I saw that a crisis had come to Lyone, a tremendous debate agitated
+her soul. I forebore treading further on the sacred ground. She, with
+true delicacy, was striving to hide the intensity of her proud unrest.
+I felt that in time she would have the courage to take the irrevocable
+step that led to freedom or death.
+
+As I sat devouring every word spoken by Lyone I felt a strange power
+surrounding me, an emanation of the soul of my beloved friend. I
+resisted for a long time a sacrilegious desire to fling myself at her
+feet and clasp her in my arms. I thought of her supreme dignity, her
+love for her faith and her people, and I knew one cold glance from her
+eyes would pierce me through and through like a sword. The more I
+thought of my position at that moment the more amazed I became at
+the audacity that led me to ever think of claiming the soul of the
+goddess as mine, much less my encouragement of an enterprise so
+desperate as we had already assuredly embarked upon.
+
+[Illustration: HER KISS WAS A BLINDING WHIRLWIND OF FLAME AND TEARS!
+IT WAS THE PROCLAMATION OF WAR UPON ATVATABAR. THENCEFORTH WE BECAME A
+NEW AND FORMIDABLE TWIN-SOUL.]
+
+As I gazed in adoration at the splendid soul before me the scene
+through the open windows seemed to grow more ideal. There was a new
+glory in the gardens around me, a finer flashing of fountains in the
+sunlight, and a bolder chiselling of palaces and temples. Beyond and
+above there wheeled the roof of the world, with its still more
+prodigious forests and mountains and a wider expanse of gleaming seas.
+
+I sprang forward with a cry of joy, falling at the feet of the
+goddess. I encircled her figure with my arms and held up my face to
+hers. Her kiss was a blinding whirlwind of flame and tears! Its
+silence was irresistible entreaty. It dissolved all other interests
+like fire melting stubborn steel. It was the proclamation of war upon
+Atvatabar! It was the destruction of a unique civilization with all
+its appurtenances of hopeless love. It was love defying death.
+Thenceforward we became a new and formidable twin-soul!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV.
+
+OUR VISIT TO THE INFERNAL PALACE.
+
+
+The infernal palace was a congregation of subterranean rock-hewn
+temples under the spiritual control of the grand sorcerer Charka and
+the grand sorceress Zooly-Soase.
+
+The grand sorcerer's dominion was directly underneath the supernal
+palace of Egyplosis. An ornate pagoda of stone covered the entrance to
+the underground palace. The descent was by means of a wide gradient of
+polished marble, and there was also an elevator car, beautifully
+decorated with electro-plated sheets of gold and lit by electricity,
+which was the most rapid means of descent to the pavement beneath, a
+distance of two hundred and fifty feet. The procession of twin-souls
+and attendants, who carried Lyone and myself in a splendid litter of
+gold, entered the palace by means of the inclined marble highway whose
+sculptured walls were radiant with electric light. The many temples of
+the underground palace were devoted to the most occult worship of
+Harikar. There was an immense central edifice whose roof, supported by
+lofty columns, and sculptured in fantastic beauty, rose two hundred
+feet above the pavement. Here electric suns lit up what was merely the
+vestibule of a hundred temples all hewn from the same pale green
+marble, the aquelium floors glimmering like a fathomless sea.
+
+As we entered this splendid abode of sorcery, we were received by the
+august officials of the sanctuary. The grand sorcerer Charka was a man
+of imperial presence, gracious and subtle. His flesh was of the hue of
+silver bronze and he possessed noble features. His hair was blue and
+his blue beard was trimmed into a rounded semi-circle on his chin,
+while his mustache spread nobly on either side of his lips. He wore a
+robe of emerald blue silk, embroidered with silver flowers. The grand
+sorceress, Thoubool who accompanied him, possessed the complexion of a
+pearl, was arrayed in a robe of celestial blue silk, and, like the
+grand sorcerer, wore a diadem of rubies.
+
+Our reception was extremely gracious, the grand sorcerer saying he
+felt highly honored with our visit.
+
+As we passed down the palace pavement, an immense bell opened its
+mouth of gaunt and glorious bronze. Soft explosions of music swept in
+thrilling moans through temple and cloister, the echoing walls
+resounding with ritournels of enthusiastic peace. As if inspired with
+passion, I could hear the bell swing and roll on its delirious pivot
+uttering its deep-sounding fantasy.
+
+I saw, illuminating the sculptured archway of each temple on either
+side of us, the name thereof in letters of incandescent light. I saw
+the names Amano, Biccano, Demano, Hirlano, Kilano, Pridano, Redolano,
+Ecthyano, Oxemano, Jiracano, Oirelano, Orphitano, Cedeshano, Padomano,
+Jocdilano, Nidialano, Bischomano, Omdolopano and many others,
+indicating the various departments of soul development to which each
+temple was dedicated.
+
+The sorcerer waved his wand and suddenly a band of priestesses
+appeared on the pavement moving in strange and fantastic measures.
+Their attire consisted of low-cut circles of bright and beautiful
+stuffs with short skirts, having in front of each a sheaf of heavy
+folds that expanded and fell as the dancer moved. All wore jewels and
+rings of precious metals on wrists and ankles. Their faces, perfect in
+feature, were pale rose in color but marvellously delicate. Ranging
+themselves on either side of the immense aisle, they formed a
+delightful guard of honor for the grand sorcerer and his retinue.
+
+They were not only souls, but the materializations of souls, that
+danced and sang as when on earth. They were souls of former
+priestesses reincarnated by the sorcerer and who vanished when we
+reached the entrance to the temple of the labyrinth. It certainly was
+a delicate and superexcited imagination that wrought the splendid
+archway through which we passed into the grotto garden beyond. Neither
+Greek nor Moor, Hindoo nor Goth ever conceived such arabesques as were
+sculptured on the walls of the entrance to the holy of holies.
+
+In the garden, hewn from the solid stone, were interminable thickets
+and hedges enclosing labyrinthine walks. There were open spaces in
+which stood veritable trees with strangest leaf and flower, branch and
+stem delicately chiselled from the solid rock. There were also acres
+of grass and flowers, wonderful creations of art. There were rose
+bushes, heavy with their eternal bloom, the flowers stained crimson as
+in life and the leaves their varying gradations of green.
+
+Fruit trees, with pale pink flowers and leaves light and dark green,
+stood amid the green grass that never waved in the breeze. An
+immovable streamlet ran down its bed of carved irregularities between
+flowery banks and underneath a bridge formed of a single arch.
+
+I looked up expecting to see the sky, but my gaze met the solid
+heavens of stone, and I knew again I was in a cavern. The feeling was
+somewhat suffocating. The garden was lit by an electric sun in the
+centre of the roof two hundred feet overhead. The pathway, wide enough
+for six people abreast, led by labyrinthine dells to the pagoda of the
+sorcerer, which stood in the centre of the garden. The mazes of the
+pathway were so numerous that none save the initiated, when once in
+the labyrinth, could find their way out again.
+
+It was a weird experience to find myself walking between the master
+twin-souls of that subterranean paradise, exploring its many
+mysteries.
+
+We arrived in due time at the entrance to a mighty temple at the
+further side of the labyrinth, whose bronze door suddenly opened to
+receive us, and the sorcerer bade me enter.
+
+Passing through a pillared porch we entered a wide and lofty space
+lit by tall windows and a roof of many-colored domes of glass that
+threw wonderful lights on the polished aquelium floors of the
+building. The light that shone through window and dome was produced by
+myriads of electric incandescent lamps that glowed in recesses of the
+rock behind each window. This was the inmost shrine of the sorcerer.
+
+As I walked toward the centre of the mysterious temple the sorcerer
+inquired if creative magic was cultivated on the outer sphere.
+
+I informed the sorcerer that necromancy, divination, magic,
+clairvoyance, esotericism, and theosophy were things known and
+practised in many countries. "But," I added, "the idea there is that
+of self-abnegation and miracles are only to be performed by ascetics
+who practise the most rigid austerities. Men who desire to possess
+occult power live in complete solitude, subjecting themselves to cruel
+mortifications. They abstain from all fellowship with their kind, they
+try to live even without food. They absolutely mourn existence,
+avoiding all contact with everything earthly. They hope by renouncing
+all the actions of life to enter more and more into the spiritual
+existence. They believe they can build up an enormous soul out of the
+ruins of the body."
+
+"Do you find that such a method produces a high development of
+creative power, love, justice, conscience, truth, temperance, order,
+and benevolence?" said the grand sorcerer.
+
+"I cannot say," I replied, "that the devotees to whom I refer are
+conspicuous for those qualities, certainly not for a highly active
+state of such qualities. Their abnegation develops fanaticism, which
+is intemperance itself, and fills them with hate toward those outside
+their creed. The starvation of every appetite of pleasure withers up
+the appreciation for every form of human delight."
+
+"Then what virtues are derived from ascetic practices?" inquired the
+sorcerer.
+
+"Certain virtues of a negative order," I replied. "The adepts claim to
+have power to create and transport matter; a claim which reliable
+history does not, except in a few cases, recognize, and in a very
+limited sense they have power to separate the soul from the body.
+While the body remains in a comatose state, the soul traverses space,
+holds consultation with similar souls, and returns to its mansion in
+the body again."
+
+[Illustration: THE LABYRINTH WAS A SUBTERRANEAN GARDEN, WHOSE TREES
+AND FLOWERS WERE CHISELED OUT OF THE LIVING ROCK.]
+
+"Your magicians," said the sorcerer, "weaken or kill the body without
+imparting corresponding power to the soul. Now we of Atvatabar believe
+that the body should be developed equally with the soul. We believe
+that contact with the noblest and best of earthly things develops
+power and beauty. We feed both body and soul on the perfection of
+things, that both may thereby absorb perfection.
+
+"In the brilliant activities of the supernal palace, and in the golden
+calm of the infernal palace, priest and priestess, as twin souls,
+naturally intermingle in the enjoyment of a long Nirvana of ecstasy.
+We have not only the occult power to perform miracles like the
+ascetics of the outer sphere, but the soul possesses an enormous
+development of every noble quality without which our golden century is
+impossible. We are able by means of our baths of life to obtain a
+hundred years of glorious youth, during which period age and decay of
+the body is suspended. Our devotees when they arrive at the age of
+twenty years, when youth is fully developed, begin their Nirvana of
+blessedness and love. They do not grow older during these years. The
+eye is as bright, the pulse as bounding, the heart as lively, the
+complexion as pure and lovely, the feelings as fresh, at the end of
+the interregnum as at its commencement. Then when the golden century
+is exhausted, the body begins to be twenty-one years old."
+
+"Do you mean that a man who has lived one hundred and thirty years is
+but thirty years old?" I inquired.
+
+"Precisely," said the sorcerer; "why should we call a period age in
+which there is no change?"
+
+"Do all souls live until their century of youth is accomplished?"
+
+"Not all souls. Many die of accident or in consequence of sin. With
+some, Nirvana consists of but a single day's felicity, with others a
+month, or a year, up to a hundred years. It is the ideal for which we
+strive, and there is no reason why the body should not live one
+thousand years as well as one hundred, when vitality becomes more
+developed."
+
+I was astonished at the remarks of the sorcerer, and yet I remembered
+the case of Adam, Noah, and Methusaleh. I told him that men on the
+outer sphere had lived almost one thousand years.
+
+"You may be sure they never practised the austerities of the ascetic
+life you have just mentioned. They must have enjoyed life always
+turning their faces to the sun."
+
+"I think one hundred years a great step toward immortality," I
+remarked.
+
+"At twenty years the body is developed, but even a hundred thousand
+years will not develop the soul. Think of the development involved in
+having power over disease and death, power to create substantialities
+of matter!"
+
+"Do you create matter?" I inquired breathlessly.
+
+"I will show you what we can do," replied the sorcerer; "if you will
+follow me."
+
+The sorcerer led the way to seats upon a platform of silver, on which
+stood in terrific grandeur the figure of a hehorrent, or dragon of
+gold, whose eyes were blazing rubies. He stood before the dragon, at
+least twenty feet above the pavement of the palace.
+
+Presently the sorcerer shouted with a loud voice, "My host! my host!"
+and at once several thousand twin souls thronged into the immense
+temple, dancing with naked feet on the polished aquelium pavement.
+Beneath the monster miles of wire were wound in a coil, and to the
+wire were attached twenty thousand fine wires of terrelium, each wire
+terminating in a terrelium wand. These wires were held one each by
+priest and priestess, who began to move in a strange dance on the
+pavement and sing an anthem to Harikar. As they moved more and more
+rapidly the clamor of bells arose, and explosions of sound, like
+bullets rained upon drums, shook the building. In the semi-darkness
+the body of the hehorrent seemed to quiver, and, as I gazed, lo! a
+shower of blazing jewels issued from its mouth. There were emeralds,
+diamonds, sapphires, and rubies flung upon the pavement, scintillating
+with fire the colors of the stones themselves!
+
+The sorcerer, waving his terrelium wand, shouted, "Hold! It is
+enough!" and the seance was at an end. He received the jewels that had
+been collected by his hierophants, and descending, offered me a
+splendid ruby as large as a hen's egg. I looked at him with awe, as I
+felt its size and weight. He simply said, "These jewels have been
+created by spirit power."
+
+"Do you," I gasped, with a feeling of mingled exultance and fear, "do
+you create matter?"
+
+[Illustration: AS I GAZED, LO! A SHOWER OF BLAZING JEWELS ISSUED FROM
+THE MOUTH OF THE HEHORRENT.]
+
+"The abnegation of hopeless love is the source of the spirit power
+by which we create matter such as this," replied the sorcerer. "The
+twin-soul is the cell that generates the creative force."
+
+"And can you create other matter than jewels?" I eagerly inquired.
+
+The sorcerer gazed at Lyone for a moment, who had been strangely
+silent in the presence of her most powerful spiritual coadjutor, and
+then replied: "Yes, we can create all things if necessary. We can, for
+example, create islands in the sea, with mountains, forests, lakes,
+valleys, winding walks and thickets of flowers, palaces and pagodas."
+
+I was breathless with excitement at such a reply. "Oh, that I could
+see such an island," I rejoined, "and tread, if but for a single hour,
+its ecstatic shores!"
+
+"You can both see it and walk upon it, if the goddess so wills it,"
+replied the sorcerer. "What is the command of your holiness?" he
+inquired.
+
+"I would like the commander to see Arjeels, if your priests and
+priestesses are willing to perform the necessarily arduous ritual
+involved in its creation," replied Lyone.
+
+"My hierophants," replied the sorcerer, "are only too happy to serve
+their goddess at all times, and I will at once command them to prepare
+to execute the ritual for creating the magical island of Arjeels."
+
+"Your devotion," said Lyone, "fills me with the purest joy."
+
+As we conversed, the large ruby I held in my hand had grown
+considerably less in size, as though the elements of which it was
+composed had to a degree evaporated as unseen gases, so that in a
+short time the jewel might wholly disappear. The sorcerer,
+anticipating an inquiry as to its disappearance, stated that all
+objects created by spirit power could only be maintained in their full
+material splendor so long as they were sustained by the power that
+gave them birth. The creations were not additions to already existing
+elements; they were simply focalizations of matter from the elements
+of the surrounding world, held together by the force that withdrew
+them from their normal habitat as long as the spirit power remains
+supplied. The jewels would in a few hours cease to exist, because they
+were not enfolded with the power that produced them.
+
+"As to your magical island," said I, addressing Lyone, one of whose
+titles was Princess of Arjeels, "where is your principality situated?"
+
+"It is located anywhere in the wide sea," said Lyone.
+
+"Do you mean to say," said I, "that Arjeels is not a real, veritable
+island of the ocean, but only a ghostly island, a mirage that retreats
+as we approach it, a phantasy of the imagination?"
+
+"Arjeels is a real island, with real rocks and waterfalls, lakes and
+forests, birds and flowers. There is a real palace, and all the
+appurtenances of an ideal life. All this is a materialization of the
+ideal desires."
+
+I was astonished at her reply. "Once called into being," I inquired,
+"how long can the island exist?"
+
+"So long as the twin-souls support it by never-ceasing ecstasy, so
+long as they perform their magical dances on the aquelium floor of the
+temple of the dragon, holding in their hands the terrelium wands. Once
+the island becomes materialized it requires thousands of twin-souls to
+sustain and preserve its reality, and it only vanishes when the
+twin-souls are utterly weary of their ecstasy."
+
+"And when the twin-souls grow weary of their joys, what becomes of the
+island and its glories?" I inquired.
+
+"We can preserve the island for a long time," said the sorcerer, "by
+having fresh dancers take the place of those that are exhausted, but
+after the lapse of a month, or longer, when all are utterly vanquished
+with fatigue, the spirit power becomes exhausted and the island
+disappears upon the sea."
+
+I rose and enthusiastically grasped the sorcerer by the hand. "Ah,
+dear sorcerer," said I, "will you show me this magical island?"
+
+"The command of the Princess of Arjeels," he replied, "will be
+obeyed."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI.
+
+ARJEELS.
+
+
+I was full of impatience to witness the creation of the magical
+island, where with Lyone I might find ideal delight. It was necessary,
+however, for the grand sorcerer to make ample arrangements, not only
+for the generation of sufficient spirit force to create the island,
+but also a force sufficient for its continuance for an indefinite
+length of time. It was absolutely necessary that there should be a
+reserve force of ten thousand twin-souls to take the places of the
+original legion of souls, when they would become weary of their
+ecstatic labors. Only once before had Arjeels been created, and it was
+thought a most wonderful thing that the sorcerer could preserve its
+existence for a single day. Now it was contemplated to sustain the
+island for months, and this required a continuous as well as a lavish
+expenditure of spirit power.
+
+The sorcerer had enlisted his full quota of twin-souls, and prepared
+them for their heroic duty. The terrelium wand held by each soul was
+connected with the wires of a helic having immense coils of terrelium,
+that held by a rampant hehorrent of gold, formed an immense spiritual
+battery in the centre of another subterranean temple. Wires led from
+the battery underground across Atvatabar to the city of Mylosis, on
+the seacoast most remote from Kioram, a thousand miles from Egyplosis.
+The sorcerer announced a few days after the visit to the infernal
+palace that he was ready to accompany us to Mylosis, whither the
+queen's golden yacht had been sent to meet us.
+
+The aerial yacht of the goddess flew swiftly over Atvatabar, bearing
+the precious Lyone, the grand sorcerer Charka, and myself to the far
+seacoast, the first stage in our journey.
+
+The brightly flashing seas, the rose-colored sun, and the transcendent
+concave of the earth encompassing us, with the near tropical splendor
+of the country, made a scene of long remembered joy. But these
+objects, so glorious in themselves, were made still more splendid by
+the love that reigned in the souls that contemplated them.
+
+In due time we reached Mylosis, where we found the royal yacht and a
+reverent crowd of people awaiting us.
+
+The sorcerer lost no time in connecting the subterranean wires with a
+cable of terrelium on board the yacht, and, this being done, we
+immediately set out to sea, followed by a crowd of pleasure ships,
+conveying a host of people anxious to witness the miracle about to be
+performed.
+
+We anchored the yacht at a distance of fifty miles from the coast. The
+grand sorcerer, surrounded by his acolytes, held in his hand a thick
+rod of terrelium, the extreme end of the cable, whose further
+extremity was connected with the battery in the Temple of
+Reincarnation at Egyplosis. An exchange of messages along the wire
+informed us that the ten thousand twin-souls had already begun their
+dance of Pure Being upon the pavement of the greater temple.
+Immediately a stream of flame leaped from the end of the rod, like
+water spouting from a tube under enormous pressure.
+
+"Now," said the sorcerer, "by virtue of the spirit power in this
+cable, what I will to exist, will exist. I will that the magical
+island of Arjeels shall rise above the waves."
+
+"I wish the island," said Lyone, "to have an elevation of five
+thousand feet in the centre, and at an elevation of four thousand feet
+fill a crater of the mountain with a lake of cool water surrounded by
+aerial gardens, and on the shore place a palace of rose-colored
+marble, luxuriously furnished, with servants to wait upon us. All else
+may be according to your own fancy."
+
+"As your majesty wishes," replied the sorcerer, and as he spoke, a
+high mountain rose instantly from the sea a mile away, creating
+enormous waves, that threatened the safety of the yacht and the
+congregated vessels. A feeling of awe silenced the host of spectators.
+
+Instantly, as quickly as the sorcerer moved his wand, the mountains
+became clothed with forests, and high up on the shoulder of the
+central peak appeared a palace of rose-colored marble, whose
+supernatural architecture seemed a celestial dream. The island was
+thirty miles in length and about fifteen in width. From immense
+cliffs, foaming waterfalls flung themselves downward to the sea.
+Dazzled with their blinding beauty, we saw ravines engorged with
+flowers. In green and glorious blessedness the island lay before us,
+complete, like an enormous emerald in a setting of blue sea. We were
+so awe-struck with the labors of the sorcerer, that it seemed a
+sacrilege to set foot on the miraculous shores of Arjeels.
+
+At a sign from the sorcerer, the captain of the yacht fired one
+hundred guns, and the vessel moved toward the romantic island. We came
+close up to a white marble wharf, and Lyone and myself alighted upon
+the sacred retreat. Everything seemed so natural, that we could
+scarcely believe the solid rock to be sustained by self-sacrificing
+love.
+
+[Illustration: "BY VIRTUE OF THE SPIRIT POWER IN THIS CABLE," SAID THE
+SORCERER, "I WILL THAT THE MAGICAL ISLAND OF ARJEELS SHALL RISE ABOVE
+THE WAVES."]
+
+The adorable sorcerer remained on board the vessel, as it was
+impossible for him to leave his post of duty for a moment, while the
+dazed yet happy inhabitants of Mylosis departed homeward in their
+vessels.
+
+It was arranged that when the spirit power that sustained the island
+would become exhausted, owing to the utter weariness of the
+twin-souls, the firing of a gun on board the yacht would be a signal
+that Arjeels would disappear from upon the sea.
+
+The moment both Lyone and myself stepped upon the magical soil we felt
+an instantaneous increase of health and vigor. We did not at first use
+our magnic wings for flight, but walked along paths that wound around
+the beach of golden sand, shaded by towering palms.
+
+After remaining for a time on the margin of the sea we rose on our
+wings, and, like birds, encircled the island, rising ever higher until
+we alighted before the palace created for Lyone, a gem of the rosiest
+marble, covered with a dome of gold that flashed around it the light
+of the sun. The architecture was broad and heavy with splendid
+carvings, and surrounded by a pillared portico. The palace stood on
+the shore of a beautiful sheet of cool water; elsewhere its shores
+were thickly clothed with tropic foliage and aerial gardens of the
+greatest beauty.
+
+We had reached at last the holy of holies of ideal attainment, a
+retreat of bewildering beauty. The weird and splendid proportions of
+the palace, with its domes and towers ornamented with sculptured
+arabesques, rising from the soft waters of the lake, a veritable
+Fountain of Youth, all surrounded by the green and gleaming forest and
+gardens without end, filled our souls with a new rapture. Everything
+was so perfect and peaceful, so rich with life and beauty, so fresh
+and sparkling, so unspeakably happy, that I said, "This is the end of
+all toil and ambition, this is the perfect flower of life. Here is the
+lake of immortality, and here the fabled gardens of the Hesperides."
+
+Rayoulb, the chamberlain of the palace, and his acolytes, who received
+us, were also the product of spirit power, the reincarnation of former
+inmates of Egyplosis. They awaited us before the palace, announcing a
+feast had already been prepared for us.
+
+The interior of the palace revealed new wonders. Wide and lofty
+chambers were hung, some with woven and painted tapestries, and some
+plated with sheets of gold, illuminated by electricity with
+many-colored designs in precious metal. Others were decorated with
+tender and brilliant frescoes, in which the transparent plaster seemed
+to hold in its depths the tones of gold, of ultramarine and vermilion,
+in fabulous scenes. Woven and painted tapestries clothed the walls of
+still other chambers, representing in entrancing colors the most
+occult mysteries of Egyplosis. The banqueting chamber had a dome of
+enamelled glass, that softened the light with many a caressing color.
+Porcelain vases, gorgeous in depth and richness of color, containing
+plants of the richest bloom, added to the apartment their decorative
+grace. There were also an art gallery, a library, and a museum of
+jewels.
+
+On one side of the palace a square cloistered arcade surrounded a
+marble court. In the centre of the court lay a square pool of crystal
+water, whose basin had been chiselled out of the solid rock. The pool
+was fed by a wide water-fall falling down a precipice on the pavement.
+Here also were several pagodas containing chimes of bells and large
+oblong vases of stone filled with blooming flowers.
+
+Amid such splendor I began to realize that love has the power of
+spiritualizing all things, of interfusing them with its own rapture.
+Under its flame all colors brighten, all movement becomes divine, all
+labor seems holy. The sea attains a deeper blue, the shores a brighter
+green, the beloved one becomes more beautiful, more delicate and
+supernatural. Love, indeed, is an ultramarine and ultramontane joy!
+
+"This delight," said Lyone as she lay in her boudoir, plunged in
+delicious blessedness, "fills my soul with universal peace. Hitherto
+pained with the chagrin of life, I welcome this unwonted repose. Oh, I
+am supremely happy!"
+
+"This expedition," I replied, "is not to observe the transit of Venus,
+but the possession of Venus, to weigh each other's souls and read the
+poetry written in every fold of the heart. It would be the perfection
+of life if such reality of the ideal could surround us forever, but in
+a world where the worm doth conquer, where the storm wastes the flower
+and herb, such felicity is purchased only by the sacrifice of
+ourselves or of others. But while it lasts let us prize its ineffable
+joy. Hitherto," I continued, "philosophy has said that if we do not
+want to be undeceived we should never visit the haunts of
+imagination, for the fruits thereof are ashes, but we will create a
+new philosophy, that will assert that the haunts of imagination are
+ideally real, that the veritable Fountain of Youth has been
+discovered, that Eldorado may be won."
+
+The following day found us floating on the lake before, the palace in
+a beautiful magnic boat. Musicians occupied a pagoda overlooking the
+lake, and made the air sweet with their music. The lake seemed to fill
+the crater of an extinct volcano, and miles away on its further shore
+rose the lofty precipices of a mountain crest. It was most delightful
+to float on its profound wave, at an elevation of four thousand feet,
+and yet see the sea beneath us, and we surrounded with all the glory
+of the interior world.
+
+Birds, gorgeous as humming-birds, resplendent in burnished hues of
+purple, garnet, and green, would flash amid the flowers, or chase each
+other over the water. As for ourselves, we no longer feared our own
+holiest emotions. Our deepest feelings were then in the foreground.
+The mysterious carmine on the palpitating lips of Lyone was the symbol
+of a warm, delicate, superexcited soul.
+
+Lyone grew day by day more and more beautiful. She resembled the color
+of a deep and mysterious gold. I crowned her brow with flowers and
+wreathed her azure hair with wistful daffodils.
+
+Another day we rode on soul-created horses to discover the odoriferous
+retreats of the island. The pathways wound through flowery ravines,
+that looked out upon the sea. The sweet cool air that filled the
+splendid gloom of the palm woods seemed the essence of gladness. What
+glorious vistas opened amid the luminous green of the forest! The
+murmur of music filled the infinite ways of the island as our
+cavalcade wound round its peerless hills or plunged into its abysses
+of flowers. The spell of an ideal land was upon us, and we experienced
+sensations hitherto unfelt in life.
+
+"This," said Lyone, "is the ideal climate. Everything has become
+transfigured; even the light of the sun is softer and more blessed."
+
+"And the goddess of Atvatabar," I replied, "has become more delicate,
+more supernatural, and more holy."
+
+The island was one vast garden of tropical fruits and flowers, without
+the malaria of decay. Everywhere nature, carefully assisted by art,
+assumed the rarest beauty. Everything that savored of ruin and decay
+was non-existent. There were no wild or poisonous animals. No deadly
+serpent was coiled upon the branches, nor did poisonous insects crawl
+on leaf or flower. Forests of trees of a strange tropical vegetation
+abounded. There were the fruha, resembling dates; the caspariba,
+resembling bananas; the dulra, resembling limes; the jackle,
+resembling lemons; the congol, resembling oranges; the velicac,
+resembling bread-fruits; the persar, resembling custard apples; the
+phyorbal, resembling cocoanuts; the gersin, resembling mangosteens;
+the huflar, resembling coffee; the solru, resembling plums; and
+presuveet, or tamarinds lining the route. Fruits such as the troupac,
+or citron; dewan, or guava; orogor, or mango; and ryeshmush, or
+plantain gleamed amid the embowering foliage, and gardens of squangs
+and the pineapples, aloes, nutmeg, cloves and spices of Atvatabar,
+were on every hand.
+
+One day, when floating on the lake, we heard with surprise and
+infinite sadness the discharge of a gun, the signal that the island
+was at an end. Spreading our wings, we awaited the catastrophe.
+
+Suddenly a roar of thunder startled us, and Arjeels, with its majestic
+cliffs, its green forests and rivers of flowers, fell in one
+dissolving crash, and faded from sight. The lake and boat fell from
+beneath us so rapidly, that we would have fallen headlong into the sea
+had not our wings saved us. There flowed where the island had stood a
+circular wave rushing to a focus. There was an upward spouting pillar
+of foam, and all again was placid sea!
+
+We flew downward to where the yacht awaited us, and alighting on
+board, soon reached Mylosis.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII.
+
+A REVELATION.
+
+
+Alas for the brevity of earthly joys! The noble priests and
+priestesses had made a heroic effort to sustain Arjeels, but a month's
+incessant labors had quite exhausted their powers, and the glorious
+island vanished, with all its ideal sweetness. As if to intensify our
+sadness, when we reached Egyplosis again, we found the high priest
+Hushnoly, impatiently awaiting our return to secretly report the
+proceedings of a late council of the king and government, held in the
+council chamber of Egyplosis.
+
+I knew by the appearance of Hushnoly that something unusual had
+happened. He hesitated to unfold his secret until requested to do so
+by the goddess.
+
+"It is a serious business," said Hushnoly, "and I have been
+commissioned by his majesty to know the full meaning of the step both
+your holiness and his excellency are about to take, and see if there
+is no possibility of averting the terrible calamity, that overhangs
+Egyplosis."
+
+"Tell me," said Lyone to the high priest, "what the council has been
+discussing, and what it has determined upon."
+
+"Your holiness," said he, "I should inform you that Koshnili, as chief
+minister of Atvatabar, has received a report from his winged spies,
+charged with the duty of watching the movements of his excellency and
+retinue ever since their arrival in Atvatabar. His duty made it
+necessary to discover the real object of the illustrious strangers in
+visiting our country, and consequently their actions have been
+carefully watched and reported."
+
+"And of course," said I, "my constant association with the supreme
+goddess, has led Koshnili to suspect me of designs inimical to the
+welfare of the kingdom?"
+
+"Listen to the report made by Koshnili," replied Hushnoly, who
+unrolled a document he held in his hand, and read as follows:
+
+     "_To His Majesty_, KING ALDEMEGRY BHOOLMAKAR, _of Atvatabar,
+     greeting_: Your faithful minister begs to report that his
+     private wayleals have followed his excellency, the alien
+     commander, Lexington White, and followers from their arrival
+     in Kioram until their reception at Egyplosis. The
+     illustrious strangers, after landing on our soil, travelled
+     by sacred locomotive from Kioram to Calnogor, and were there
+     the guests of your majesty, after which they attended a
+     feast of worship to the supreme goddess in the Bormidophia.
+     The illustrious strangers were then received by her holiness
+     in her palace of Tanje. While lingering here my wayleals,
+     from the ramparts of the palace, saw his excellency the
+     alien commander, in company with her holiness, enter the
+     silver pleasure boat. Their long-continued interview in the
+     palace garden testified that a mutual affinity had drawn the
+     illustrious personages together. From later observation my
+     faithful wayleals are convinced that in the palace garden of
+     Tanje was begun the awful possibility of a twin soul of our
+     deity, and the alien commander, and the consequent apostasy
+     of the supreme goddess, and her renunciation of Harikar.
+
+     "My faithful wayleals further report that while travelling
+     on the aerial ship from Calnogor to Egyplosis, they obtained
+     further evidence of the consummation of a deific and alien
+     twin soul. The principals sat apart from all others, on a
+     seat at the prow of the vessel, and the report of their
+     conversation will justify your majesty in believing that a
+     sacrilegious twin soul already exists in defiance of civil
+     and religious law, her holiness and the alien commander
+     being the illustrious components.
+
+     "Awaiting the further commands of your majesty, I remain,
+     with profound veneration,
+
+                   "Your majesty's faithful servant,
+
+                                              "KOSHNILI."
+
+I gasped for breath at hearing so brutal a dissection of our hearts. I
+was thunderstruck. I could only ask Hushnoly what he had to say on the
+situation.
+
+"That you love each other, I need not ask," said he; "that may be
+taken for granted. But I might ask, do you each of you fully recognize
+the position you stand in? Do you know that your conduct menaces the
+throne of the gods itself? I can understand the violence of love for a
+human soul in the breast of the goddess, but what of her renunciation
+of Harikar?"
+
+"If not already convinced," I said, "I think her holiness will soon
+see that all this monstrous system of hopeless love is tottering on
+its throne. It is an artificial society, that must in time, of its own
+accord, crumble to pieces."
+
+"His majesty," said the high priest, "has departed with his retinue to
+Calnogor, and has called a council of the government to consider the
+situation. He held that the rank of the individuals who have offended
+against the sacred code of Atvatabar, and the monstrous impiety of the
+offence itself, constitutes a subject worthy of the most serious
+consideration of the government. His majesty was extremely angry on
+hearing the report of Koshnili. He characterized your excellency's
+conduct as unworthy of the hospitality you had received, and as
+involving the ruin of both the supreme goddess and yourself."
+
+"What did Koshnili say when presenting the report?" I inquired.
+
+"Koshnili said that the affections of their beloved goddess had been
+withdrawn from their only legitimate object, Harikar himself, and had
+been appropriated not even by a holy priest of the temple, not even by
+an ordinary citizen, but worse than all, by an infidel, a heathen, an
+adventurer and a stranger, emanating from some _terra incognita_ that
+might, owing to the fatal discovery of Atvatabar, one day send its
+hordes to ravage the country with fire and sword. The council," he
+continued, "knew the penalty for such treachery and abuse of
+hospitality on the part of a desperate and fanatical stranger, as well
+as such apostasy on the part of the goddess. He demanded the immediate
+arrest of the guilty parties. The king had sufficient evidence to
+convict and execute both individuals by reason of their high treason
+against both the government and faith of Atvatabar."
+
+"Did the king approve of Koshnili's demand?" I inquired.
+
+"His majesty," said Hushnoly, "said that a matter of such importance
+required the greatest circumspection. Her holiness was known to be the
+most pious and popular supreme goddess that had ever sat on the throne
+of the gods, and although it was evident she had insulted Harikar,
+still if the quiet expulsion of the strangers from Atvatabar soil
+would prevent further disgrace of their faith and country, he would
+prefer to issue a decree of expulsion, rather than a decree for the
+arrest of both commander and goddess. To reduce the possible calamity
+now overhanging the nation to the least possible proportions, it would
+be necessary to act at once, rather than to await the development of
+more complete evidence of affection between the guilty parties."
+
+Admiral Jolar deprecated the violent measures advocated by Koshnili,
+and supported the idea of the king, to quietly expel the strangers. He
+said that if the decree of expulsion were intrusted to him, he would
+see that it was carried into effect without delay. The council could
+rely on the royal fleet doing its duty.
+
+Koshnili was angry at his idea of immediate arrest not being acted
+upon. "Suppose these strangers," he said, "refuse to leave, and being
+warned by your royal mandate so fortify themselves by stirring up an
+insurrection in favor of her holiness, that might possibly defeat the
+royal arms, and, in the end, we ourselves be sacrificed by our present
+timid vacillation. The crisis is a serious one and demands a desperate
+remedy."
+
+"The Governor Ladalmir," said Hushnoly, "rebutted the arguments of
+Koshnili. He pointed out that the laws of hospitality demanded that
+the strangers should receive consideration at the hands of the king,
+even if guilty. They might receive fair warning to depart, after
+which, if the commander prove contumacious, more stringent measures
+could be taken. Should the commander, in defiance of the royal
+mandate, endeavor to consolidate his affection for her holiness, doing
+further sacrilege to our faith, ecclesiastical law has the remedy of
+death for those who would dare dethrone our faith, and lead our
+beloved goddess to take the irrevocable step of abandonment of her
+supreme office. After considerable discussion, it was decided to act
+on the suggestion of his majesty the king, that without bringing the
+matter before the Borodemy, a decree of expulsion be handed Admiral
+Jolar, for execution on the parties to be expelled from the kingdom.
+The decree is already in the hands of Admiral Jolar for delivery to
+your excellency."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII.
+
+LYONE'S MANIFESTO TO KING AND PEOPLE.
+
+
+"Might I ask your holiness," said the high priest, "if you will really
+take so determined a step as that indicated by the action of the royal
+council? The thought of such a thing strikes me dumb with fear."
+
+"Hushnoly," said Lyone, "I have ever found you faithful to my
+interests, and I will now confide in you my purposes. You are a man of
+wisdom, calm and conservative, and can rest happy in the possession of
+your counterpart soul. Your character has become moulded by your long
+novitiate until you have become a part of the institution itself. To
+think of any other state of things is to you an impossibility. On
+thousands of souls here, your inflexible laws have only developed a
+rebellious energy that will some day utterly destroy the fabric of
+Egyplosis. The true union of souls is not artificial restraint and the
+present calmness is only the pause that preludes the explosion."
+
+"But do you, supreme goddess, indeed desire to leave us forever? Will
+you profane your holy office? Will you despoil the temple of ideal
+love?" said Hushnoly, with emotion.
+
+"You think it monstrous," said Lyone, "that I should desire to uproot
+principles so fixed and permanent. You can judge, then, how fierce
+must be the passion that causes me to antagonize duty consecrated by
+the ties and memories of my holy office."
+
+"To break away from a responsibility so supreme," I said, "argues
+alone an extraordinary force. Your very system creates just such a
+love as this. Here souls are required to meet in rapture, and yet to
+stand balanced, as it were, on the thin edge of naked swords, and fall
+neither this way nor that. The development of a purely romantic love
+effeminates the race. The example of Egyplosis if carried out
+universally would obliterate the nation in one generation. The nation
+is wiser than its creed. Let us therefore choose the wiser path."
+
+"It was the dream of your noble parents," said Hushnoly to Lyone, "to
+see you supreme goddess of Egyplosis. When you obtained this peerless
+honor they died. Your mother, dying, implored you to remember your
+vows, and to be ever true to your high office. 'Love only duty,' was
+her last sigh. If you love aught else, there is but a cruel death for
+you, and your memory will be an everlasting disgrace. Will you, the
+ideal of hopeless love, be the first to prove faithless?"
+
+"What you say is true," I said, replying for Lyone, "but what is duty?
+Lyone not only owes a duty to her office, but also to herself. Her
+duty to herself is to rise up and break down this monstrous
+environment that chains down her soul, and her duty to these ten
+thousand souls is to tell them that an institution that constantly
+antagonizes nature is immoral. Here refined souls," I continued, "seek
+the cloister, not for peace, but for ecstatic anguish. They love and
+weep, and thus agitated they grow at once weak and violent, and can
+never accommodate themselves to the serious purposes of life. Thus
+sacrificed on the altar of a false god, weary of a life of barren
+blessedness, you will discover, if you but seriously inquire into it,
+that this palace is purely a prison for thousands of noble souls."
+
+As I spoke, Hushnoly clasped his head with his hands and groaned.
+"With the downfall of Egyplosis," he murmured, "farewell delights,
+farewell tendernesses, farewell mystical, chivalrous love!"
+
+"Do not be so dejected," said Lyone; "your imagination gives you but a
+capricious view of the future, which will be even nobler than the
+past."
+
+The high priest could hear no more, and left us seized with affright
+as to the future, and mourning the anticipated downfall of Egyplosis.
+
+Lyone, far from exhibiting fear, grew enthusiastic over our projected
+_coup d'etat_, that would certainly, if successful, create an organic
+change in the constitution of the kingdom.
+
+We discussed the situation at length, and determined to leave
+Egyplosis for Calnogor forthwith.
+
+I could in some measure appreciate the struggle undergone by Lyone
+necessary to sever her forever from so ineffable a retreat. But
+passion was stronger than environment, and it was duly announced that
+the supreme goddess and the commander of the _Polar King_ and their
+immediate followers would leave for Calnogor forthwith.
+
+Our departure from Egyplosis was attended with impressive ceremonies,
+our journey to Calnogor being made in the aerial ship of the goddess.
+
+On our arrival at Tanje we discovered that the king and government had
+held their council unknown to the people. We did not think it
+expedient either, just then, to make public the determination of the
+goddess. I ordered my officers and sailors to Kioram forthwith to take
+command of the _Polar King_. My instructions to Captain Wallace were
+to have the ship fully supplied with stores, and remove her from the
+basin where she lay into the outer harbor of Kioram, and there await
+further orders. After a considerable period of inactivity the ship's
+company were nothing loath to get on board again with the prospect of
+another voyage. I confided to the officers the possibility of our
+being engaged in hostile operations, and ordered the ship to be put
+in fighting trim without delay. The officers and men were tendered the
+dignity of riding to Kioram in the sacred locomotive, and their
+departure was made amid the enthusiasm of the populace.
+
+As for myself, I remained at the palace of Tanje, the residence of the
+goddess, to assist Lyone in preparing her manifesto to the people.
+
+It was a painful crisis for her, who was the symbol of ideal love, to
+be the first to renounce its delights for the sake of an every-day
+union with a beloved soul.
+
+For days her decision trembled in the balance. Her avowal of being led
+captive by human love would be a national catastrophe. She trembled
+for her ten thousand devotees in Egyplosis. It seemed a cruel and
+heartless trampling under foot of throbbing hearts that were thrilling
+with faith in their goddess. When I saw Lyone prepared to abandon
+Egyplosis for my sake, when I knew she would forever resign that
+splendid throne swept by whirlwinds of adoration, for the sake of
+being clasped to my heart, when I saw her risk even life itself for
+the simple love of one adoring heart, I then knew what love really
+was. It was, as Dante says,
+
+    "Joy past compare, gladness unutterable,
+     Exhaustless riches and unmeasured bliss."
+
+At last the decision was made. Lyone had decided that the ideal love
+of Egyplosis was only suited to disembodied spirits, and not for those
+breathing elements of matter that are unable to exist in the spiritual
+state.
+
+The following was the text of her manifesto to the king, Borodemy and
+people:
+
+        "_The Avowal of_ LYONE, _Supreme Goddess of Atvatabar, Holy
+          Ruler of the palaces, Supernal and Infernal, of Egyplosis,
+          Queen of Magicians, Mother of Sorcerers, Princess of
+          Arjeels, etc., etc., to His Most Excellent Majesty_ KING
+          ALDEMEGRY BHOOLMAKAR _and the People of Atvatabar_.
+
+     "The supreme goddess presents her respectful salutations,
+     and desires to inform his majesty the king and the people
+     that her ardent soul, sensitive to the tender feelings of
+     human affection, desires to live no longer without a
+     counterpart soul. The love of ten thousand souls does not
+     satisfy the craving for the love of but one soul. She has
+     been told to love Harikar the unseen. She reaches out her
+     lips, but they do not meet with love's delirious kisses. Her
+     heart, withering within her because of soul loneliness, has
+     taught her to seek liberty, to love the soul of her choice.
+
+     "She resigns her seat on the throne of the gods, as goddess,
+     having discovered her counterpart soul.
+
+     "She hopes that reform and not destruction will guide the
+     king and his ministers in dealing with Egyplosis at this
+     crisis.
+
+     "Given at her palace of Tanje in this, the eleventh year of
+     her deification as supreme goddess.
+
+                                                     LYONE."
+
+This memorial fell upon the people like a shell of terrorite. No one
+had ever suspected the crisis was so real. The king had lulled himself
+with the belief that, as my sailors had already departed to embark on
+the _Polar King_, I would possibly quietly follow them, and leave the
+country without his having the trouble of even asking me to go. The
+message of the goddess, however, opened his eyes to the true state of
+things, and I forthwith received the following decree from his
+majesty, at the hands of Jolar, admiral of the royal fleet:
+
+         "ALDEMEGRY BHOOLMAKAR, _King of Atvatabar, to His Excellency
+          Lexington White, Commander of the ship Polar King, etc.,
+          etc., greeting_:
+
+     "It having come to our knowledge that you, the said
+     Lexington White, have conceived an affection for the sacred
+     person of our illustrious supreme goddess, Lyone, spouse of
+     Harikar, holy ruler of Egyplosis, mother of sorcerers, etc.,
+     in defiance of our holy faith and laws of this our realm,
+     and furthermore it having come to our knowledge that the
+     said supreme goddess has so far forgotten her holy duty as
+     to reciprocate your affection, be it known to you that the
+     penalty prescribed by the laws of this our realm for your
+     heinous offence (which is sacrilegious treason) is death by
+     magnicity, for both guilty persons.
+
+     "To inform you of the law and the penalty for your crime,
+     and to give you an opportunity of renouncing your affection
+     for our supreme goddess, and for your immediate departure
+     from the soil of Atvatabar, we send you this our decree,
+     commanding you as follows: That you forthwith renounce your
+     treasonable affection, love and interest in the personality
+     of said supreme goddess. That you embark, together with your
+     officers and seamen, on board your ship, the _Polar King_,
+     within one week from date hereof, and forever leave our
+     realm of Atvatabar and the surrounding seas thereof. You
+     must not again return to this our realm in any manner
+     whatsoever, or send messengers, or correspond or conspire
+     with any inhabitant thereof, particularly with our said
+     supreme goddess, under penalty of death, both for yourself
+     and for your entire crew.
+
+     "Given at our palace in Calnogor, in this fifty-sixth year
+     of our reign.
+
+                                      "ALDEMEGRY BHOOLMAKAR,
+
+                                          "_King of Atvatabar_."
+
+I received the document from the hands of the admiral with deep
+respect, and requested him to assure his majesty King Aldemegry
+Bhoolmakar of my profound regard and deep gratitude for the hospitable
+reception we had received from his majesty and his people during our
+stay in the glorious kingdom of Atvatabar.
+
+I stated that we were at present in the act of leaving their country
+on a voyage of further discovery, but could not say that we would not
+again return to Atvatabar. We should be most happy to obey the command
+of the king, but should we receive a message to return from the
+supreme goddess ere we left the interior world, we might possibly
+return, notwithstanding the royal command, and brave the wrath of his
+majesty.
+
+"In that case," said the admiral, "it would be my duty to prevent you
+from landing on Atvatabar soil; and should you succeed in eluding the
+vigilance of the fleet, your apprehension and that of your people by
+his majesty's wayleals would mean the execution of your entire party.
+We are a proud nation, and our army and navy are invincible."
+
+I thanked the admiral for his well-meant warning, whereupon he
+withdrew from the palace.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIX.
+
+THE CRISIS IN ATVATABAR.
+
+
+The manifesto of Lyone had precipitated an historic crisis in
+Atvatabar. The king awaited my leaving the country with the utmost
+impatience. He made every effort to prevent the news from reaching the
+public, hoping that when I took my departure the goddess would be
+amenable to the laws of the realm, and the faith be thus preserved.
+
+The more that Lyone and myself discussed the situation, the more
+apparent it appeared that we could not now draw back from the position
+we had taken. It was absolutely necessary to provide a following in
+case the government attempted arrest, or the execution of either or
+both of us. Trusty messengers were despatched to the high priest,
+Hushnoly, the grand sorcerer, Charka, the lord of art, Yermoul, and
+the other friends of Lyone, informing them of the step she had taken,
+and asking their support in case any violence were offered her.
+
+I advised Lyone to have her agents collect and transmit to Kioram all
+munitions of war. Some of the royal wayleals were armed with spears,
+and others with swords and shields. All battles were fought in the
+air, by reason of the wayleals being able to fly, as their movement on
+wings was more rapid than movement on foot.
+
+As already stated, the ordinary spear of the king's wayleals was very
+effective, by reason of its discharging a magnetic current into the
+body, causing instant death. With a view of arming the army of the
+goddess with a more potent weapon than magnic spears, I quietly had
+agents purchase for immediate transmission to Kioram vast quantities
+of iron, and the material for making gunpowder, which happily existed
+in great abundance in Atvatabar. My idea was to start a manufactory
+for firearms, which were unknown to the interior world, and arm every
+man with a magazine rifle--a portable mitrailleuse, in fact.
+
+While engaged in discussing the plan of defence with Lyone the crisis
+was precipitated by the press of the country finding out the _coup
+d'etat_ of the goddess. With a view of placing the government in the
+most favorable light before the people, the chief organ of the king,
+_The Calnogor Jossidi_, published a fierce editorial condemning the
+action of the goddess, and reviling what it was pleased to call "the
+contumacious invader and despoiler of Atvatabar." The article ran
+thus:
+
+                 "IMPIOUS SACRILEGE!
+                "ASTOUNDING APOSTASY!
+   "THE SUPREME GODDESS REFUSES FURTHER WORSHIP, AND HAS
+       DEGRADED HERSELF BY SEEKING MARRIAGE WITH AN
+                     ALIEN LOVER!
+       "WHAT IS FAITH, IF DECEIT BE OUR DEITY?
+
+     "The sweet, the noble, the pure, the exalted worship of holy
+     love, and of its hitherto most perfect symbol, the Goddess
+     Lyone, is threatened with extinction, if it be not entirely
+     destroyed. That sweet and perishable affection that fills
+     the breasts of lovers, which has been for ages conserved,
+     expanded, and wrought into an enduring fabric of religion in
+     the sacred temple of Egyplosis, is about to utterly perish
+     by a mad act of apostasy on the part of the deity herself.
+     Whither now will tender and faithful hearts turn to find a
+     refuge for all that makes the life glorious? Our ideal soul
+     has sunk into degradation! She has flung herself from her
+     proud and happy throne, wounding our faith with impious
+     sacrilege!
+
+     "Never before in the history of the world has the treachery
+     of a goddess been manifest; we have had occasion hitherto
+     only to mourn the apostasy of the worshipper. Now what
+     avails our worship, if the object of our adoration fails us
+     in the hour of need? Who is to console the bereavement of
+     millions, when their consoler has hopelessly abandoned them?
+     We say to both his majesty the king and government, follow
+     the iconoclasts with the sword of justice; no punishment is
+     too severe for such perfidious workers of iniquity! Death on
+     the magnic scaffold is the penalty for the infatuation of
+     the goddess and her atheistic lover! Wanting both men and
+     money, the standard of revolt will be brought down by the
+     first blow, and his majesty's troops can be relied upon to
+     bring the rebels to swift justice. Let them be covered with
+     eternal infamy who will support this fearful apostasy!"
+
+It became necessary for Lyone to publish the following manifesto to
+the nation, stating briefly the reasons that led to her renunciation
+of Harikar, to become the apostle of a new creed of one body and one
+soul:
+
+     "LYONE, _who has been until now Supreme Goddess of the faith
+     of Harikar, to her faithful people, greeting_:
+
+     "I, who have been exalted to the high seat of honor on the
+     throne of the gods, as the incarnation of the supreme soul,
+     having received divine honors at your hands, desire at this
+     crisis to make known to you the nature of the reform I seek
+     to establish in the faith and worship of Atvatabar.
+
+     "I do not seek to annihilate your faith, with all its tender
+     and memorable qualities. I simply seek to reform such
+     religion, making it more natural, more holy. All things that
+     exist do change; if they do not rise to greater glory, they
+     must sink to profounder shame. I, who have been your goddess
+     during a long and blessed Nirvana, know how much you love
+     me. I know that round my throne a tempest of passion has
+     swept for years, filling me with its ecstasy. But I hasten
+     to tell you that the delights of Egyplosis have been
+     purchased at a fearful price. The sacrifices of its priests
+     and priestesses have proved to me that even the retreat of
+     ideal love can be as inexorably cruel as the outer world. So
+     harassing have been these sacrifices that some could not
+     bear their burden, and at this moment five hundred twin
+     souls are confined in the dungeons of Egyplosis because they
+     transgressed the vows of their novitiate. Of what avail are
+     tender, chivalrous delights, if nature, if reason, be
+     outraged in producing them?
+
+     "Those who have remained steadfast to their vows, have grown
+     sickly and morbid, feeding too long on fantastic ecstasies.
+     Despondent and unreal in mind, delicate and nervous in body,
+     they only appear rich and radiant in some brief ceremonial,
+     while their every-day life is shuddering, tearful, and
+     unstable, and utterly unfit to cope with the struggle of
+     ordinary existence.
+
+     "Therefore it is that one moment of pleasure is purchased by
+     whole days of pain, and the oscillation between such
+     extremes racks and ruins the dearest souls.
+
+     "The motto of the new faith for Egyplosis, 'One Body and One
+     Soul,' founded on the ordinary marriage rite, will restore
+     to priest and priestess the steady and temperate possession
+     of their souls which gives society that virile force
+     necessary to its very existence.
+
+     "By the memory of our mutual love, I claim the support of my
+     faithful priests and priestesses, worshippers and people, in
+     the coming struggle.
+
+                                                         "LYONE."
+
+The manifesto of the goddess, published in all the papers of the
+kingdom, created a profound sensation. It was the first discovery to
+millions that their religion had been weighed and found wanting.
+Although many were aware of its excesses, they saw that, despite every
+regulation, the hornet was in possession of Hesperides, prepared to
+sting the hand that reached for the golden fruit.
+
+They learned that passion led to agonized exaltation, and that the
+moral fibres of the soul became paralyzed by fierce temptation and
+inordinate spiritual delights. They saw that restraint of rapture and
+a more natural basis for the fellowship of the sexes were reforms
+imperatively needed, if the religion of Atvatabar were to remain an
+elevating and purifying force. Their creed must be reformed, both in
+faith and practice, and who so capable of introducing such a reform as
+Lyone herself?
+
+The power of the deep-rooted conservatism of those who had nothing to
+gain by the change, the fear of the merchants that civil war meant
+their financial ruin, of a king jealous of his authority, and of the
+supremacy of existing laws, were the forces that would oppose the
+power of the goddess to carry out her reforms.
+
+I began to accuse myself of being entirely responsible for all this
+disturbance in a peaceful country. Had I never discovered Atvatabar,
+Lyone might never have desired to disturb the existing order of
+things, but would have remained an agonized and crowned goddess,
+wedded only to Harikar, in a temple of eternal celibacy.
+
+I knew, however, that all this was changed. I knew it by her sighs at
+our first meeting in the garden of Tanje, which, to remember, again
+and again made me thrill and shudder with joy.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XL.
+
+MY DEPARTURE FROM THE PALACE OF TANJE.
+
+
+The week of grace allowed me to leave Atvatabar had already expired
+ere it had seriously occurred to me to actually leave the palace. The
+commotion in the nation consequent on the publication of the manifesto
+of king and goddess was so great, and the necessity of advising Lyone
+in the crisis so urgent, that I did not take leave of her until the
+time for my departure was exhausted. One thing that made me somewhat
+careless of arousing the royal danger was that the _Polar King_ with
+her terrorite guns could command Kioram in spite of the royal fleet,
+although it numbered one hundred vessels. Fortunately the royal fleet
+had not yet learned the use of gunpowder, their guns being discharged
+with compressed air.
+
+A despatch from Captain Wallace stated that the ship was lying in the
+outer harbor, well equipped either for a long voyage or probable
+hostilities.
+
+With the view of allaying the excitement of the people, the king
+published a statement that the alien commander and his retinue had
+been ordered to leave forthwith. As for Lyone, the crisis had in no
+wise terrified her; she felt assured, however, that "the beginning of
+the end had come."
+
+"Are you not afraid of lifelong imprisonment or death in case your
+cause has no supporters?" I asked.
+
+"They can do me no harm," she replied, "for the entire priesthood of
+Egyplosis, the Art Palace of Gnaphisthasia, and thousands of
+sympathizers among the people themselves, will rally to my flag when
+the hour of danger comes."
+
+"You can depend on my operations at sea," said I, "in your behalf.
+Although I have but a single vessel, I will fight the entire fleet of
+Atvatabar. One shell of terrorite has more power than a thousand of
+their guns. I will destroy Kioram, if need be, to bring the king to
+submission."
+
+Before leaving Lyone, I drew up a plan of campaign for the coming
+struggle. Hushnoly, the high priest, although conservative as regards
+the affairs of the priesthood, was really a trusty friend of the
+goddess, and would assist the grand sorcerer in commanding a wing of
+the sacred army.
+
+The liberated priests and priestesses would fight like lions for the
+cause for which they had been imprisoned. The palace of Gnaphisthasia
+would also furnish its battalions, led by Yermoul, lord of art. Then,
+among the fifty millions of people there were perhaps twenty millions
+in favor of reform, who would contribute a large army in support of
+Lyone.
+
+"It is by no means certain that a civil war will take place, even to
+secure the proposed reform," said Lyone. "The people may leave it to
+the Borodemy and the law to settle the matter."
+
+"And what would be the result in such a case?" I inquired.
+
+"Well, if I persisted in my demands, and no insurrection took place,"
+said Lyone, "the king might put me to death as the simplest way of
+ending the matter, and appoint another goddess in Egyplosis."
+
+"They will never hurt a hair of your head while I live: I swear it!"
+said I, with considerable emphasis.
+
+Lyone smiled at my enthusiasm, and refused to permit me to linger
+longer with her. We understood each other perfectly. I saw that when
+Lyone had once made up her mind on a certain course, there could be no
+retreat. She cared not any longer for a dead throne, for even the
+worship of the multitude could not feed her famished heart. She must
+have a beloved soul, consecrated to herself alone, between whom would
+vibrate the music of great thoughts and tender emotions.
+
+Lyone had declared war upon hopeless love. This was a necessary
+consequence of her altered position. Egyplosis, founded on a brilliant
+theory, had in practice become a prison, and she must open the doors
+to let its prisoners free.
+
+Just as I was leaving the palace I received a message from Hushnoly
+stating that the king had secretly ordered my arrest, and to be
+circumspect if I wished to reach Kioram free.
+
+Attended by a guard of bockhockids faithful to Lyone I set out for
+Kioram, taking a circuitous road to avoid Calnogor. I had been
+informed by Hushnoly that mobs of excited and bloodthirsty wayleals
+were flying about the metropolis, shouting "Death to the foreigners!"
+Mounted on a magnificent, majestic steed of great power, I led my
+little band at a furious pace. The bockhockids with each stride of the
+leg covered a distance of sixty feet, and could travel easily seventy
+miles an hour without appearing to run very quickly.
+
+About an hour's travelling brought us abreast of Calnogor, and soon
+afterward I heard shots fired and the noise of a conflict. Making an
+aerial _detour_, I discovered a combat between a dozen wayleals on the
+one side and a crowd of wayleals on the other. I noticed that as fast
+as the individuals of the larger body were fired at by a weapon in the
+hands of the smaller company they at once became lifeless, either
+falling to the ground or hanging limp in the air supported by their
+still vibrating wings. Being intensely curious to see the wayleals
+using revolvers, I ventured with my men nearer the _melee_, and coming
+near the flying warriors, I discovered to my surprise and horror that
+the smaller band of flying men was a company of my own sailors, led by
+Flathootly, fighting back to back a swarming mass of wayleals.
+
+The brave fellows fought like lions. No sooner did a wayleal approach
+a sailor with his deadly spear than he was shot. My men, fighting such
+fearful odds, for the enemy numbered several hundreds, could not long
+maintain so unequal a combat, notwithstanding the superiority of their
+weapons. It was only a question of time when their ammunition would be
+exhausted, and their spears would then be their only weapon, and I had
+evidently arrived in time to relieve them. Flathootly was shouting to
+the enemy, "Shtand back, or Oi'll shoot yez!" when I approached. The
+sailors cheered to see me flying to their relief, and at that moment
+the enemy, recognizing in me the very man they wanted, swarmed around
+to prevent my escape. My bockhockids drew their spears, and the
+sailors used their revolvers freely, and forming a flying ring,
+effectually protected me from the onslaught of the king's wayleals. I
+rallied my entire company, who received the rush of the wayleals with
+a discharge of revolvers and magnic spears, by means of which we
+killed several. Again and again the enemy fell upon us with renewed
+fury, shouting their war-cry of "Bhoolmakar!" They evidently meant to
+harass us until re-enforced by a detachment of the royal troops strong
+enough to capture us.
+
+A wayleal, in an unguarded moment, struck me on the shoulder,
+fortunately with only one point of his spear, drawing blood.
+Flathootly, who saw the blow, emptied his revolver in his breast, and
+he fell to earth a dead man. I was surprised that the enemy had not
+already annihilated my men, for, notwithstanding their fear of the
+sailors' revolvers, three of the sailors had been killed. It was
+terrible news to think of my brave fellows being slaughtered, but I
+was determined to have revenge. I singled out Gossody, the leader of
+the wayleals, and rushing forward on my bockhockid, aimed at his head
+with my revolver, and instantly killed him. The death of their leader
+paralyzed the wayleals for a time. Before they could recover from
+their surprise, we killed a number of them. The enemy, once more
+rallying, made a fresh attack. They hoped to either kill or capture us
+by sheer force of superior numbers. We killed dozens of them, but at a
+fearful cost. Six of the bockhockids and three more of our own sailors
+bit the dust. It was quite evident that it would be only a question of
+time before we would be completely annihilated. I saw that it was
+necessary for us to reach Kioram without further fighting. We could
+not afford to risk the life of another man, even to gain a complete
+victory. I therefore ordered a flying retreat. The bockhockids were
+arranged in a circle, in the midst of which flew our sailors. We
+struck out for Kioram with the speed of the wind, pursued by an
+ever-increasing horde of wayleals thirsting for our blood. Such was
+our speed of motion that the thrusts of the enemy were ineffectual. It
+was a magnificent sight to see the giant machines, like flying cranes,
+devouring distance with their wings, each ridden by a winged warrior.
+Wearied and exhausted with our fight, and still longer period of
+flight, it was a welcome sight to see beneath us the city of Kioram,
+and the _Polar King_ riding at anchor in the outer harbor, beyond
+which lay the royal navy of Atvatabar.
+
+When within sight of the city the enemy unexpectedly gave up the
+chase, and did not follow us further. We soon gained the ship, and in
+a short time our bockhockids decorated the masts and rigging. The
+story of my imprisonment and the massacre of the six sailors of the
+force sent to escort me to Kioram was soon told, and a more determined
+crew never trod the deck of ship of war. We would teach Bhoolmakar a
+lesson he would never forget!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLI.
+
+WE ARE ATTACKED BY THE ENEMY.
+
+
+Captain Wallace and the entire ship's company were overjoyed at my
+escape from the clutches of the enemy. The loss of six of our brave
+sailors was a terrible calamity in any case, but still more so in view
+of the impending attack by the enemy's navy.
+
+We had a good stock of gunpowder on board, and the ship's mechanics
+under Professor Rackiron began the construction of a series of machine
+guns, each weapon having one hundred rifled barrels arranged in
+circles around the central tube. Twenty-five of these guns were
+constructed. To each tube was fitted a magazine, with automatic
+attachment, so that one man could handle each weapon, that would throw
+five hundred balls with each charge of the magazine.
+
+The fletyemings of the royal navy possessed the advantage of numbers
+and ships, so that it was necessary for us to have the advantage in
+point of arms. Our monster terrorite gun and the terrorite battery
+gave us also an immense advantage over the gunpowder batteries of the
+enemy. Thus equipped, we were more than a match for any ten ships of
+the enemy. But when we saw one hundred vessels, the smallest of which
+was as large as our own, and many twice our size, bearing down upon us
+in battle array, we felt our chances of escape, not to mention
+victory, were hardly worth calculating.
+
+It was a splendid scene for a naval battle. The harbor of Kioram was a
+bay fully fifty miles in diameter, and here lay the royal fleet, whose
+hulls of gleaming gold shone on the blue water, while beyond rose the
+brilliant whiteness of the sculptured city.
+
+Captain Wallace had the ship ready for action. Every soul knew it was
+a life-and-death struggle. The sailors knew that success meant wealth
+beyond the dreams of avarice. For myself, the prize was something more
+worthy of our desperate courage--it was the priceless Lyone, possessed
+of a divine personality. Her life, like my own, hung in the balance.
+Should I win the battle, we would win each other. Should I fail to
+conquer, there was but one kind of defeat, and that was death.
+
+Every man stood at his post in silence. Flathootly had command of a
+company of sailors. Professor Rackiron superintended our chief arm of
+defence, the terrorite guns--weapons, like our revolvers, fortunately
+unknown in Atvatabar. We had a large quantity of explosive terrorite
+on board, in the shape of shells for our guns. The shells contained
+each the equivalent of 100 pounds of terrorite--that is to say, they
+would each weigh 100 pounds on the outer earth, while the shells of
+the giant gun weighed 250 pounds each. The iron hurricane-deck, that
+did us such service in the polar climate, was put up overhead, as a
+protection from the onslaught of a boarding crew.
+
+The ships of the enemy advanced proudly in a double line of battle. On
+the peak of each floated the ensign of Atvatabar, a red sun surrounded
+by a wide circle of green, on a blue field.
+
+On the _Polar King_ floated the flag of the goddess, a figure of the
+throne of the gods in gold, on a purple ground.
+
+When but a mile off, we could see the guns on every ship pointed and
+ready for the attack. The enemy suddenly broke into the form of a
+semi-circle. It was the design of Admiral Jolar to surround us and
+capture or destroy the _Polar King_ by sheer force of numbers. We
+allowed the formation to proceed, until the entire navy of Atvatabar
+surrounded us in an enormous circle.
+
+Having executed this manoeuvre, a boat put away from the admiral's
+ship and approached us. In a short time it reached our vessel, and the
+captain of the admiral's ship, with several officers, came on board.
+
+The captain demanded my unconditional surrender, "in the name of his
+majesty King Aldemegry Bhoolmakar of Atvatabar." I had been declared
+"an enemy of the country, a violator of its most sacred laws, a
+heretic in active destruction of its holy faith, and a fugitive from
+justice." The captain, as the emissary of the admiral, demanded the
+immediate surrender of myself and entire company.
+
+I asked my men if they were prepared to surrender themselves to the
+enemy. Their fearful shout of "Never!" disturbed the silence of the
+sea, and must have been heard by the distant enemy.
+
+"You hear the reply of my men," I said to the captain. "Tell your
+admiral that the commander of the _Polar King_ declines to
+surrender."
+
+"Then," said the captain, "we will open fire upon you at once. We mean
+to have you dead or alive."
+
+"Give the admiral my compliments," said I, "and tell him to open the
+fight as soon as he likes."
+
+The captain and his staff rapidly disappeared, and we knew that the
+fight was certain. The officers had no sooner reached the admiral's
+ship than a report was heard; and a ball of metal crashed upon the
+hurricane-deck overhead, tearing a large hole in it, and then plunged
+into the sea. This was the signal of war. Before we could reply, the
+_Polar King_ was the target of a general bombardment from all points
+of the compass. The balls that struck us were of different kinds of
+metal--lead, zinc, iron, and even gold. Although the range of their
+guns was accurate, yet, owing to the loss of gravity, the shots had
+but little effect on the plating of the vessel. Some of the sailors
+were severely wounded by being struck in the limbs with the large
+missiles hurled upon us, and I saw that if the enemy couldn't sink the
+_Polar King_ they could at least kill us, which was even worse.
+
+I gave orders to Professor Rackiron to train the giant gun on the
+admiral's vessel. The discharge was accompanied by a slight flash,
+without smoke, and we saw the deadly messenger make its aerial flight
+straight toward the admiral's vessel. It entered the water right in
+front of the ship, and in another instant an extraordinary scene was
+witnessed. The ship, in company with a vast volume of water, sprang
+into the air to a great height, with an immense hole blown in the
+bottom of the hull. Falling again, she sank with all of the crew who
+did not manage to fly clear of her rigging. After the vessel
+disappeared, the last of the waterspout fell upon the boiling sea.
+
+It was a great surprise to the enemy to see their best ship destroyed
+at a single blow. The effect of our shot completely paralyzed the foe
+for the moment, for every vessel ceased firing at us. At first it was
+thought that the admiral had gone down with his vessel, and until a
+new admiral was in command the battle would be suspended.
+
+During the confusion we ran the _Polar King_ through the breach made
+in the circle of the enemy, keeping his ships on one side of us. I
+determined to try the tactics of rapid movement, with the steady
+discharge of the terrorite gun, hoping to destroy a ship at every
+blow.
+
+[Illustration: THE SHIP IN COMPANY WITH A VAST VOLUME OF WATER SPRANG
+INTO THE AIR TO A GREAT HEIGHT.]
+
+It soon appeared that Admiral Jolar was still alive, he having escaped
+from his ship in mid air, with his staff and a number of fletyemings,
+by means of their electric wings. He had alighted on the ship of the
+rear admiral, where he hoisted the pennant of the admiral.
+
+The enemy was now thoroughly alive to the necessity of destroying or
+capturing us. I saw it was a mistake in allowing ourselves to be
+surrounded in a bay only fifty miles wide. To fight so many ships
+required ample sea-room, to avoid the possibility of being captured.
+
+The admiral sent ten ships to guard the mouth of the bay. It was a
+satisfaction to know that the torpedo was also unknown in Atvatabar,
+else our career would have been cut short. The _Polar King_, running
+twenty-five miles an hour, was followed by the enemy's fleet, which,
+although slower in movement, had the advantage in numbers and could
+possibly drive us upon the shore. After sailing as far east as we
+cared to go, the _Polar King_ lay to, awaiting a renewal of the
+battle.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLII.
+
+THE BATTLE CONTINUED.
+
+
+The royal fleet formed a wide semi-circle a mile off, and reopened its
+guns upon us. An unlucky shot struck one of our seamen and cut off his
+head. A perfect storm of shot rained upon us, so destroying our
+hurricane-deck that it was no longer of any protection to us. The
+enemy, encouraged by their success, closed in upon us. What we feared
+most of all was an attack by the wing-jackets, against whom neither
+our heavy guns nor superior speed would much avail.
+
+Professor Rackiron aimed the giant gun right in the centre of the
+enemy's line of battle. The shell struck the middle ship and exploded.
+All three vessels were scattered half a mile apart, and made complete
+wrecks. The _Polar King_ darted forward to pass through the breach
+made in the enemy's line. We found this a matter of difficulty, for
+the enemy, seeing our move, closed the gap in front of us. The ships
+ahead would have barred the way, but to prevent their doing so, we
+threw a shell of terrorite over the bow of the ship into the water.
+The sea rose on either side fully half a mile into the air, in solid
+pillars of water. In the confusion, we burst through the ranks of the
+enemy and were once more in open water.
+
+The admiral must have been exasperated at our escape. He followed us
+as before, in close rank, firing as he came. We now saw that he was
+about to change his mode of attack, for, hovering in the air, a
+rapidly-growing swarm of fletyemings were preparing to give us a
+hand-to-hand combat. Each vessel furnished a certain contingent to the
+attacking force, until the aerial battalion numbered about five
+thousand men. Our position seemed hopeless. What could less than
+eighty men do against a host of ten thousand? At close quarters our
+terrorite guns would be useless.
+
+With loud yells the fletyemings swept down upon us. Fearing our guns,
+they kept open rank and spread around the ship. Aiming at the densest
+part of the enemy, we destroyed about five hundred of them, but,
+quickly rallying again, they were upon us.
+
+We were ready for them. Our battery of twelve terrorite guns,
+including the magazine guns and musketry, rang out a terrible
+discharge. Under the withering fire and fearful explosions our foes
+fell back, and the sea around was strewn with dead and wounded bodies.
+Luckily for us, the only weapons possessed by the enemy were their
+magnic spears. The wing-jackets, rallying again, swarmed upon the
+rigging and covered the ship like a cloud of vultures. Ere we could
+again discharge our guns, several of our men were beaten down by sheer
+force of numbers. They made splendid use of their deadly spears. The
+ship's crew, re-attacked between the discharges of the guns, were many
+of them stunned and killed--the enemy after each discharge renewing
+the attack, being constantly re-enforced from the fleet. It was
+possible that we would be conquered by the fearful odds against us.
+
+Our ability to keep up a fire from our guns grew more and more
+difficult, owing to the incessant attacks of the enemy and the vast
+accumulation of their dead bodies on deck. The spears of our foes were
+more formidable weapons than we had supposed, for their touch was
+death. It was evident, notwithstanding the carnage, that our men would
+be obliged to surrender, owing to sheer exhaustion. As soon as a
+wing-jacket dropped from the ranks of the enemy another took his
+place; our guns covered the sea with their dead bodies. The admiral
+was determined to conquer us at any cost, for he rightly surmised our
+victory would be a terrible blow to Atvatabar.
+
+To remove ourselves as far from the fleet as possible, I directed the
+ship at full speed ahead for the outer water. The ten ships that lay
+across the entrance to the harbor would have to be destroyed,
+notwithstanding the ceaseless attack of the fletyemings, who followed
+our every movement. We acted solely on the defensive, and managed,
+while repelling the most furious onslaughts, to throw overboard the
+dead bodies of the enemy.
+
+In the midst of constant fighting we managed to get the terrorite guns
+into position again, and when within a mile of the blockade fired the
+entire battery into it. Our shells sank every vessel they struck and
+broke several others from their moorings. Several more shots destroyed
+the remaining vessels, but only leaving their crews like a swarm of
+hornets free to attack us, This, however, was a minor matter compared
+with possessing the freedom of the outer sea. We rushed over the spot
+where the ships had been anchored, and soon left the pursuing fleet
+far behind.
+
+The wing-jackets, re-enforced by the crews of the blockading fleet,
+renewed their attack. Having learned the terrible power of our
+magazine guns, they contented themselves with making attacks on
+unguarded points. But fifty sailors were thus engaged, while the
+remainder of the ship's crew, including the officers, worked the guns
+with a will, The revolvers of the enemy disabled us considerably, but
+by firing our magazine guns in every direction we kept the ranks of
+the flying enemy pretty well thinned out.
+
+Our tactics were to keep the foe divided, if possible, and destroy the
+attacking force in detail. So long as the sailors could stand by their
+guns we were safe. We could outstrip the fleet in speed, thus reducing
+the chances of our immediate antagonists being re-enforced, for those
+who at first attacked us melted rapidly before the withering fire of
+our batteries.
+
+Finding themselves unable to secure the ship, even with such enormous
+sacrifice of life, the fletyemings suddenly retreated to the fleet,
+leaving us free to rest ourselves and look after the wounded.
+
+The terrible strain of the fight had utterly exhausted the sailors,
+who had fought for fifty consecutive hours, without rest or
+refreshment. We tumbled overboard the dead bodies of the enemy who had
+fallen upon the deck, and buried eight of our own sailors who had been
+also killed. Several men were wounded about the head and neck with
+spear-thrusts that had failed to kill, but none seriously. Captain
+Wallace got an ugly wound in his neck, but it was not sufficient to
+keep him from duty. Flathootly, in slaying a fletyeming, received a
+wound in the hand that required the attention of the doctor. Professor
+Rackiron and Astronomer Starbottle passed through the fight unscathed,
+while Professor Goldrock suffered from a broken leg. Our helmets,
+provided originally for triumphal purposes, had proved of the greatest
+possible value, and saved many a life on board the _Polar King_.
+
+All this time we lay in full view of both the enemy's fleet and the
+entire kingdom. It seemed to us a strange thing that the admiral did
+not continue the fight with his reserve of fletyemings, who could
+easily outstrip the ship in their flight. He still possessed thousands
+of wing-jackets who had never been engaged in actual conflict, who
+might have relieved their exhausted comrades and in time have forced
+us to surrender.
+
+Was the supine conduct of the admiral caused by a panic at our power
+of havoc or, did he think my retreat to sea really an effort to escape
+the country?
+
+If his truce was caused by a belief that he was unable to cope with us
+he might have called the wayleals of the king to his assistance, but
+possibly the pride of the service prevented an alliance with the army
+for naval conquest, more particularly where the naval forces
+outnumbered the enemy two hundred to one.
+
+The scene of battle lay in full view of the entire nation, just as the
+kingdom lay in full view of ourselves. The nearer inhabitants could
+see the movements of the ships and the sailors, and the progress of
+the battle, so far, was known to every one. If the impression was
+favorable to the _Polar King_, doubtless there would be a
+demonstration in favor of the goddess; if not, it would be because the
+capture of our ship was considered certain.
+
+We lay to, at a distance of ten miles from the enemy's fleet, awaiting
+the renewal of hostilities.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIII.
+
+VICTORY.
+
+
+The enemy, finding we were not disposed to leave Atvatabar, began to
+move down upon us once more in battle array. The royal fleet consisted
+of seventy ships, the former thirty having been either sunk or
+disabled by us. As for ourselves, the hurricane-deck, masts and
+rigging had been hammered to pieces, but the hull was sound, the
+sailors enthusiastic, and the terrorite guns unharmed and our spears
+invincible.
+
+As the enemy approached us their ships began to move wider apart, with
+a view no doubt of circumnavigating us, and then close in upon the
+_Polar King_ as before. Another squeeze of this kind might prove
+fatal, consequently our plan was to keep the enemy at a safe distance
+and on one side of us, and destroy his ships one by one with our guns
+while out of range of his fire, if possible.
+
+The admiral did us the favor of keeping around his ship half a dozen
+vessels by way of protection, and in this manner drew near. We were
+determined to bring the engagement to a close as soon as possible by
+striking the enemy a terrible blow. As soon as their vessels drew
+within range we struck the central group with a shell from the giant
+gun. The explosion worked a tremendous havoc among the congregated
+vessels, but without waiting to learn its full effect I ordered twenty
+shells to be fired into the central mass in quick succession.
+
+The result was appalling. The great want of gravity caused a vast
+irregular mountain of ships and water to be piled high in the air. We
+could hear the shrieks of drowning and dismembered fletyemings.
+Volumes of water shot to tremendous heights, became detached from the
+main mass, and floated in the air for a time in liquid globes.
+
+It was some time before the whirl of wrecked ships and angry water,
+filled with perhaps thousands of wing-jackets, subsided to the level
+of the ocean again. The ships sank beneath the water, on which floated
+hundreds of dead bodies. Those fletyemings who had escaped accident or
+death, headed by Admiral Jolar, who was still alive, formed themselves
+into a compact mass as they hovered over the scene of the disaster for
+a final hand-to-hand attack. Re-enforced by thousands of fletyemings
+from the then unharmed vessels, they approached with yells of
+"Bhoolmakar!" Finding their ships useless, they were determined to
+fling themselves in heroic sacrifice upon us in such numbers as to
+crush us.
+
+This was precisely their most dangerous form of attack, but we could
+only await their coming. As the living mass of men approached we
+saluted them with another discharge of shells, which exploded in the
+very heart of the unfortunate host. The carnage was dreadful, and
+hundreds of dead bodies fell into the sea. Admiral Jolar was killed,
+and without their leader the fletyemings became demoralized. Ere they
+could rally again, we were about to fire another round of shells, when
+Rear Admiral Gerolio, with a few fletyemings, left the main mass under
+a flag of truce and approached us.
+
+We were nothing loath to receive their message. Alighting on deck, the
+rear admiral informed me that owing to the loss of their admiral they
+were disposed to cease fighting provided I would leave the country
+forthwith.
+
+"Then," said I, "you wish to report that you defeated us by driving us
+from the country?"
+
+"I shall report that it was a mutual cessation of hostilities," said
+he.
+
+"It has cost us too much to give up the fight now," I said. "One of us
+must surrender."
+
+"Do you surrender, then, to His Majesty Aldemegry Bhoolmakar, King of
+Atvatabar?" eagerly inquired the rear admiral.
+
+"Do you surrender to Her Majesty Lyone, Queen of Atvatabar?" I
+replied.
+
+"We make no such surrender," said he, very much surprised to know that
+Lyone had been proclaimed queen. "If we cannot conquer you by force of
+arms we have ships enough to starve you into submission."
+
+"We care nothing for your ships," I replied, "we will destroy them one
+by one."
+
+"You may sink our ships," said the rear admiral, "but you will never
+conquer our fletyemings. We will begin a hand-to-hand conflict that
+will not cease until you and your entire crew are killed or are our
+prisoners."
+
+"The truce is at an end," I replied. "Return to your ships
+immediately."
+
+The rear-admiral and his staff rose on their wings, and in a short
+time regained the cloud of naval warriors that hung in the air half a
+mile away.
+
+During the truce the ships of the enemy had drawn nearer and at once
+opened fire upon us.
+
+A well-aimed shot struck us under the water-line, penetrating our
+armor, and going clean through the side of the vessel. The central
+compartment rapidly filled with water. It was a fatal blow, for
+although the fore and aft compartments would keep the ship from
+sinking, yet it soon put out our boiler fires and left us a helpless
+hulk upon the water. The main deck, containing our terrorite guns, was
+on a level with the water, and a quantity of terrorite and gunpowder
+rendered useless. We were in a terrible position, for our small stock
+of available ammunition would be soon exhausted. The enemy soon
+discovered the effect of their blow, and closed around us like
+vultures hastening to their prey. We suffered a terrible bombardment,
+that killed more of our men, and finally the fletyemings closed around
+us in swarms to annihilate us.
+
+Resolved to sell our lives dearly, we received them with a discharge
+of our magazine guns. They quickly rallied and renewed their attack,
+but as long as our ammunition lasted were afraid to come to close
+quarters. At last we drew our revolvers and the hand-to-hand conflict
+began. Some of the sailors used their cutlasses with good effect. We
+had proof that the magnetic spears in close quarters were terrible
+weapons. As I saw my men falling around me I felt that the game was
+up. I thought of Lyone, and the thought would not let me surrender. I
+was already wounded in the shoulder and body, and stunned, while the
+enemy was swarming in greater numbers than ever. Must we surrender?
+
+Suddenly, at that moment, a shell came screaming through the air and
+exploded above the ship, right among the wayleals, killing twenty or
+more.
+
+Merciful heavens! Can the enemy, after all, fire shells at us? But why
+use them when the fight is practically over, and why fire them among
+his own wayleals? Another and another shell exploded among the
+wayleals around us, and finally a regular tornado of them exploded all
+around the _Polar King_, putting the enemy completely to flight.
+
+As soon as the air was cleared around us, I saw to my intense
+astonishment two friendly vessels, one of which bore the flag of the
+United States and the other the flag of England, firing shells at the
+enemy. I then knew the cause of our deliverance, and shouted for joy.
+My men--all that were alive--rose and cheered our comrades from the
+outer world! The excitement was overpowering! We could only, amid
+tears of joy, salute them and signal them to keep up the fight. We
+were saved!
+
+A well-aimed shot from the Englishman sank still another vessel. This
+fresh disaster received from the strangers seemed to completely
+unnerve the enemy, for, strange to say, every ship afloat struck its
+colors in surrender! It was well that the rear-admiral did so, for it
+would have been only a question of time until his whole fleet would
+have been destroyed.
+
+The fletyemings retreated to their ships, and in a short time the
+gold-plated ship of Rear-Admiral Gerolio, under the flag of truce,
+came alongside our vessel. The rear-admiral and his staff came on
+board, and delivered up his sword in token of surrender.
+
+"You surrender to me as admiral of Her Majesty Lyone, Queen of
+Atvatabar?" I said.
+
+"I do," said the rear-admiral, "and am willing to devote my services
+to the cause of her majesty."
+
+"Will your fletyemings as well as yourself swear allegiance to Queen
+Lyone and her cause?"
+
+"We swear it!" yelled the fletyemings of the rear-admiral's ship, and,
+at a signal from their leader, the flag of the new queen took the
+place of the flag of his deposed majesty, King Aldemegry Bhoolmakar.
+
+In a moment the entire fleet exhibited the flag of her holiness as the
+symbol of their new allegiance. This was a gratifying victory, as it
+procured for our cause more than sixty fully manned vessels of war and
+twenty-five thousand fletyemings.
+
+Lyone was mistress of the seas!
+
+"How came you to surrender at this juncture?" I inquired of the
+rear-admiral.
+
+"Well, sir," he replied, "we have already lost more men and ships than
+if we had been engaged with an enemy similarly armed and having as
+many vessels as ourselves, and when the strange vessels came to your
+assistance we saw it was useless to prolong the fight. We saw that
+with your terrible weapons you were invincible. You can destroy us and
+we cannot destroy you, therefore I concluded, as rear-admiral of the
+fleet and successor to Admiral Jolar, who was killed in battle, that
+it was throwing life away to continue the fight. I saw, furthermore,
+that with you as the champion of the goddess her cause would succeed,
+and I wanted to be the first to render homage to her majesty."
+
+"You have acted well," I replied, "and to reward your action, I now,
+in the name of her majesty, appoint and proclaim you rear-admiral of
+the fleet of Lyone, Queen of Atvatabar."
+
+This announcement was received with frantic cheers by the sailors of
+both vessels.
+
+Now that I was master of the sea, I intended to immediately extend my
+operations to the cause of the queen on land, and assuming the dignity
+of admiral, appointed Captain Wallace of the _Polar King_ also
+rear-admiral of the fleet.
+
+This announcement was received with the firing of guns and tremendous
+cheers.
+
+"Rear-Admiral Wallace, Rear-Admiral Gerolio, and myself," I said to
+the sailors, "will determine the question of who will become the
+remaining high naval officers, and now that the battle is over, let us
+see that our wounded are properly cared for and all ships afloat put
+in proper repair."
+
+It was a glorious victory!
+
+All this time the two cruisers who so fortunately arrived in time to
+turn the tide of battle in our favor were rapidly approaching us,
+firing guns in honor of our victory. I acknowledged their arrival, as
+well as their valuable services, by having the royal fleet drawn up in
+double file, between which lay the _Polar King_, and ordering every
+vessel to give the strangers a salute of one hundred guns.
+
+My anxiety to learn more of our allies was so great that I despatched
+two of my most active wing-jackets to the strange vessels to procure
+accurate information concerning them and their object in visiting the
+interior world. The wayleals returned with the information that the
+vessels were the United States ship of discovery _Mercury_, commanded
+by Captain Adams, and the English ship of discovery _Aurora Borealis_,
+commanded by Sir John Forbes. Both were fitted out by their respective
+governments to explore the interior world consequent on the report of
+Boatswain Dunbar and Seaman Henderson, the only survivors of the
+twelve men who left the _Polar King_ when in the Polar Gulf. The
+respective commanders, officers and men of the incoming vessels were
+delighted to know that the _Polar King_ was not only safe, but had
+discovered Atvatabar, and that its commander was at present king of
+the realm. This was the substance of the despatches sent me by Captain
+Adams and Commander Forbes, and addressed, "To Lexington White, Esq.,
+Commander of the _Polar King_." Captain Adams stated that Boatswain
+Dunbar was on board his vessel as pilot, accompanied by Seaman
+Henderson.
+
+Owing to the waterlogged condition of the _Polar King_, we could only
+wait the arrival of the vessels. When near at hand, a simultaneous
+salute of guns reverberated upon the sea, which must have been heard
+in all Atvatabar. Amid the smoke and noise of the roaring guns, steam
+launches had put off from the _Mercury_ and _Aurora Borealis_, and in
+a very short time the commanders of both vessels stood upon the deck
+of the _Polar King_, accompanied by their respective officers. I
+embraced Captain Adams and Commander Forbes, and introduced the
+strangers to Rear-Admiral Wallace, Rear-Admiral Gerolio and staff, who
+were no less delighted and surprised than myself to receive visitors
+from the outer world. When the commanders reached the deck of the
+_Polar King_ the cheers of the American and British sailors, mingled
+with the shouts of our fletyemings, made a soul-stirring scene.
+
+In fact, I was already beginning to think the outer world a more or
+less mythical place, and thought the doctrine of reincarnation had an
+illustration or proof in myself. After all, the outer world really
+existed, and, strange as it seemed to the Atvatabarese, there was
+really an outer sun and live beings like themselves, only physically
+more vigorous.
+
+It was necessary to set out at once for Kioram, as the _Polar King_
+was in a sinking condition.
+
+Every man had been either killed or wounded. We made a total loss of
+sixty men, including the ten who left the ship in the Polar Gulf, thus
+making the entire company of the _Polar King_ but fifty souls.
+
+As for the ship, her plating was burst apart in many places and full
+of started bolts, caused by missiles of the enemy. The central
+compartment was filled with water, and the masts, sails, smoke-stack
+and hurricane-deck were practically destroyed.
+
+Many of the guns were not struck once in the entire fight, and were
+ready for active service any moment. The terrorite battery was
+partially submerged, but still in good condition.
+
+Captain Adams and Sir John Forbes both craved the honor of towing the
+_Polar King_ into port, to which I willingly assented.
+
+As admiral, I at once assumed command of the fleet, which I ordered to
+make sail for Kioram without delay. The fleet fell behind in good
+order, and followed the _Polar King_, bearing the victorious flag of
+the queen.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIV.
+
+THE NEWS OF ATVATABAR IN THE OUTER WORLD.
+
+
+The kingdom of Atvatabar lay before us like a continent drawn upon a
+map, or, rather, upon the interior surface of a sphere or globe,
+everywhere visible to the naked eye. Its green forests, its impressive
+mountains, its rushing rivers, its white and many-colored cities, its
+wide-stretching shores, fringed with the foam of an azure sea, lay
+before the astonished eyes of our visitors.
+
+When within a few miles of the city, Governor Ladalmir, accompanied by
+Captains Pra and Nototherboc, advanced to meet us in a large magnetic
+yacht, bearing the flag of Lyone. The governor hastened to inform us
+that, in view of our victory, the city of Kioram had declared its
+allegiance to the cause of Lyone, and invited myself and officers of
+the fleet, as well as our distinguished allies from the outer world,
+to a banquet in the fortress of Kioram. This news gave me great
+satisfaction, as the city would be a splendid base of military
+operations. The officers and seamen of the _Mercury_ and _Aurora
+Borealis_ created quite as great a sensation in the streets of Kioram
+as did the victorious sailors of the _Polar King_.
+
+Landing on _terra firma_, Governor Ladalmir took the opportunity of
+showing our guests the beauty of his bockhockids, who formed a guard
+of honor to the fortress, where we were all royally received.
+
+The two captains, together with their officers and sailors, were
+astonished at the multitude of strange objects shown them. Captain
+Adams would not remain satisfied until he was accoutred with a dynamo
+and a pair of magnic wings, with which all the sailors and soldiers of
+Atvatabar were supplied as part of their uniform. He was shown how
+the battery of metals gave motion to the dynamo, which in turn acted
+on the steel levers connected with the ribs of the wings. Although the
+worthy captain was of considerable weight, yet his astonishment at
+being able to skim through the air like a swallow was great. No sooner
+did he touch the button than all his preconceived notions of
+locomotion were destroyed, and he gasped with fear at his own
+prodigious motion. The two facts of unfailing movement of wings and
+exceptional buoyancy of body soon made him a fearless rider of the
+wind. He alighted on the earth with the greatest enthusiasm over the
+success of his experiment.
+
+The magnic spear was another surprise for our guests. Sir John Forbes
+was astonished at my being able to fight the fletyemings so long,
+armed as they were by so potent a weapon of death. He would certainly
+recommend its use in the British army and navy on his return to
+England. Our allies were surprised at everything they saw,
+particularly at the rapid movements of the fletyemings or wing-jackets
+of the royal navy. They thought it an extraordinary thing the sailors
+should fly by magnic wings.
+
+After the banquet Captain Adams, who was a fine type of an American
+seaman, bold, alert and courageous, gave us an account of how both the
+United States and England came to send ships into the interior world.
+It appeared that the story of Boatswain Dunbar first published in the
+New York papers, that the _Polar King_ had sailed down the Polar Gulf
+_en route_ to an interior world, had created a tremendous sensation on
+the outer sphere, and all civilized nations immediately fitted out
+vessels of discovery to follow up the _Polar King_ and make
+discoveries for the benefit of their respective governments. So far as
+any one knew, only two vessels had succeeded in entering the interior
+sphere.
+
+The recital of Captain Adams was frequently interrupted by Sir John
+Forbes, the British captain, a courageous officer, who possessed all
+the stately dignity of his race. He stated that since the discovery of
+America by Columbus no other event had awakened such unbounded
+enthusiasm as the discovery of a polar gulf and an interior world.
+
+"I am most of all interested at present," said I, "in the story of how
+Dunbar reached civilization again after parting with us. I forgive
+you, Dunbar," I continued, addressing him, "for your mutinous conduct,
+and now let us hear the story of your adventures in the Polar Sea."
+
+"Admiral," said Dunbar, "had we known the terrible hardships we would
+have to endure in making our way home, chiefly on foot and at the same
+time burdened with the boat, we would never have left the ship. But
+you must thank me for the presence of the two ships that are here
+to-day and for the fame you already enjoy in the outer world."
+
+"It's something tremendous," said Captain Adams.
+
+"How did your geographers receive the news of the interior world?" I
+inquired of Sir John Forbes.
+
+"I need not say that the English geographers, in common with the
+entire nation, were greatly excited at the news. The Royal
+Geographical Society have already made you an honorary member, and it
+was actually proposed at one of the meetings that the government
+should proclaim a special holiday as a day of rejoicing for so great a
+discovery. This would certainly have been done but for the fact that
+the story rested entirely on the testimony of two sailors, and that
+any public rejoicing should be postponed until the story of the
+sailors would be verified by a special expedition sent from England.
+Of course, many people think that Dunbar's story is a fable or a
+hallucination that he himself believes in. On the other hand, hundreds
+of professional and amateur astronomers and geographers are proving by
+mathematics that the earth must be a hollow sphere, and the story of
+the open poles an entirely physical possibility."
+
+"The people of the United States," said Captain Adams, "are almost
+unanimous in the belief that the interior world is a veritable
+reality, and it only requires a return of my ship to convince every
+one that Dunbar's story falls very short of the glorious reality."
+
+"There is no man more famous to-day than Lexington White, Admiral of
+Atvatabar!" said Sir John Forbes.
+
+"I thank you, gentlemen, for your kind words," said I; "and now for
+Dunbar's story."
+
+"I think, admiral," said Captain Adams, "that if I were to read you
+the article containing Dunbar's story written by a special
+commissioner of the New York _Western Hemisphere_, who was the first
+to interview Dunbar at Sitka, on learning of his arrival there, it
+would be perhaps the best narration of his perilous adventures." As
+the captain spoke he drew a copy of the _Western Hemisphere_ from his
+pocket.
+
+"By all means," I replied, "let us hear what the press said about
+Dunbar and his adventures."
+
+Thereupon Captain Adams read the New York _Western Hemisphere's_
+account of Dunbar's adventures, as follows:
+
+                   "AN ASTOUNDING DISCOVERY!
+
+        "THE NORTH POLE FOUND TO BE AN ENORMOUS CAVERN,
+                LEADING TO A SUBTERRANEAN WORLD!
+
+      "THE EARTH PROVES TO BE A HOLLOW SHELL ONE THOUSAND
+           MILES IN THICKNESS, LIT BY AN INTERIOR SUN!
+
+     "OCEANS AND CONTINENTS, ISLANDS AND CITIES SPREAD UPON
+             THE ROOF OF THE INTERIOR SPHERE!
+
+      "BOATSWAIN DUNBAR AND SEAMAN HENDERSON, OF THE 'POLAR
+       KING,' HAVING DESERTED THE SHIP AS SHE WAS ENTERING
+           PLUTUSIA, HAVE ARRIVED AT SITKA, ALASKA,
+            IN A DESPERATE CONDITION, AND HAVE
+              BEEN INTERVIEWED BY A 'WESTERN
+                 HEMISPHERE' COMMISSIONER.
+
+        "THEY SAY LEXINGTON WHITE, COMMANDER OF THE 'POLAR
+           KING,' IS AT PRESENT SAILING UNDERNEATH CANADA
+                     ON AN INTERIOR SEA!
+
+        "TREMENDOUS POSSIBILITIES FOR SCIENCE AND COMMERCE!
+
+           "THE FABLED REALMS OF PLUTO NO LONGER A MYTH!
+
+            "GOLD! GOLD! BEYOND THE DREAMS OF MADNESS!
+
+"The story of the discovery of Plutusia and the Polar Gulf, as told by
+the two shipwrecked survivors of the mutineers of the _Polar King_ now
+at Sitka, Alaska, to the _Western Hemisphere_, will form an epoch in
+the history of the world. The renown of Columbus and Magellan is
+overshadowed by the glory of Lexington White, a citizen of the United
+States, who fitted out a ship for polar discovery, and, taking the
+command himself, has unravelled the mystery of the North Pole,
+discovered the Polar Gulf and the interior world.
+
+"Having penetrated the Polar Gulf about three hundred miles, and
+having discovered the interior sun, a fear seized on a number of the
+sailors, among whom were Boatswain Dunbar and his companion,
+Henderson, who are the only survivors of twelve men who left the
+_Polar King_ in an open boat to return home again, and to whose safe
+arrival in Sitka the world is indebted for news of the important
+discoveries that had been made.
+
+"Dunbar and Henderson arrived in Sitka in a very forlorn condition,
+almost starved to death and utterly exhausted with their terrible
+journey homeward. They seem to forget largely the incidents of the
+journey outward in the _Polar King_, but have a very clear
+recollection of their own individual experiences in returning to
+civilization again. Dunbar, with his eleven associates and the
+Esquimaux dogs, were no sooner cut adrift from the _Polar King_ than
+they began to realize their terrible position. Borne on the breast of
+the immense tidal wave that vibrated up and down the polar cavern,
+they were tossed helplessly to and fro, now flung almost out of its
+mouth and again sucked back into its midnight recesses. They floated
+for days in the gigantic tunnel of water that threatened to collapse
+any moment and overwhelm them. They would fain have returned to the
+ship, but the breeze blowing out of the cavern wafted them far from
+their comrades, and they therefore bent all their energies to the task
+of getting home again. The light of the polar summer that lit the
+mouth of the gulf was their guide that led them back to the old
+familiar world.
+
+"Happily for the adventurers, the direction of the wind continued
+favorable to their voyage. They made about a hundred miles a day, and
+in five days reached the edge of the outer ocean. Here again the
+grandeur of the scene appalled them. Let the reader imagine a little
+boat carrying twelve souls out of that monstrous cavern five hundred
+miles in diameter. Think of fifteen hundred miles of ocean forming the
+mouth of the world that shone in the Arctic sunlight like molten
+silver surrounding an abyss of darkness.
+
+"Dunbar and his companions had no sooner emerged from the gulf and
+seen once more the light of the sun--our own sun--than they wept for
+joy. But again, when they thought of the terrible barrier of ice they
+had to cross again they began to wish they had remained with the
+_Polar King_. Thus man fluctuates between this or that impulse, as he
+is moved.
+
+"'I say, captain,' said Walker, one of the men, 'don't you think it
+about as safe to go back and find the ship as to run the chance of
+being frozen to death on the ice?'
+
+"'Well,' said Dunbar, 'when we left the ship everybody knew it was for
+good. Our shipmates have chosen their course, as we chose ours, and
+it's too late to go back now. As likely as not she may have struck a
+rock and has gone to the bottom by this time.'
+
+"As the boat cleared the cavern the sea fell down before them, until
+at noonday the sun itself was visible, a joyful proof that they had at
+last gained the normal surface of the earth again.
+
+"When three days out of the gulf, the weather grew suddenly colder,
+and the sky became obscured with clouds, completely hiding the sun
+from sight. A furious snow-storm overtook the voyagers, who, benumbed
+with cold, wished they were only back again under the hurricane-deck
+of the _Polar King_. Fortunately, the wind blew steadily toward the
+Arctic Circle, bringing them nearer home, but such was the anxiety and
+suffering caused by insufficient protection from the inclement climate
+that they cared not whither they drifted, so long as they could keep
+alive.
+
+"By the help of a little oil-stove they boiled their coffee under a
+sail, which, spread horizontally above them, in some measure kept the
+snow from burying them alive.
+
+"The storm spent its fury in twenty-four hours, and when the air grew
+clear again they were saluted with the sight of that enormous ridge of
+ice through which the _Polar King_ found a passage a month before. The
+ice was heaped up with the purest snow in places twenty feet in depth.
+Thousands of icy peaks and pinnacles, as far as the eye could reach,
+pierced the sky. Under other conditions the sight would have been
+sublime, but to men frozen and famished with insufficient food it was
+a scene of terror.
+
+"The icy range was flanked by an ice-foot varying from thirty to sixty
+miles in width, and from four to fifty feet above the sea-level.
+
+"Here was the problem that confronted Dunbar--he had to travel over at
+least thirty miles of icy splinters over an ice-foot whose surface was
+broken into every possible contortion of crystallization. There were
+mounds, hummocks, caverns, crevasses, ridges and gulfs of the hardest
+and oldest ice. Then when this barrier was crossed there was the icy
+backbone of the whole system, five hundred to a thousand feet in
+height, to be crossed, as there was no lane or opening to be
+discovered through so formidable a range of ice mountains. Even if he
+succeeded in crossing the same, there would certainly be an
+ice-foot of perhaps greater dimensions than the one before him to
+cross, and that might prove to be only a valley of ice leading to
+other and still more inaccessible cliffs to be surmounted.
+
+[Illustration: WE SLOWLY DRAGGED OURSELVES ACROSS THE RANGE OF ICY
+PEAKS.]
+
+"'This is no place to die in,' said Dunbar, 'and so, boys, we've got
+to hustle if we ever expect to get home.'
+
+"'Ay, ay, sir,' said his companions, but when they reached the ice
+they found that having remained in a cramped position for a month in
+the boat had incapacitated them for walking.
+
+"It was also found that Walker's feet and those of four other sailors
+had been frostbitten, and that they were totally unable to be of any
+service to themselves or the others.
+
+"The outlook was mournful in the extreme. The only thing that cheered
+them was the constant sunlight, and even that consolation would depart
+in another month, and if in the mean time they did not get away from
+the ice, hunger and the awful desolation of a polar winter would
+terminate their existence.
+
+"There was no chance of starting on their journey until they got
+accustomed to the use of their limbs, and so they built a hut of
+blocks of ice, which were solidly frozen together by a few buckets
+full of sea water thrown over them.
+
+"The dogs were glad to get on the ice again, and scampered about
+totally oblivious of the fact that the supply of pork was getting very
+low, and unless they got some fresh meat very soon they would be
+obliged to feed on each other.
+
+"They remained a fortnight in their Arctic abode exercising themselves
+by cutting a passage in the ice. During this time four of the sailors
+died. Finally the remainder, packing everything into the boat, yoked
+the dogs thereto, and started in anything but hopeful spirits on their
+arduous journey.
+
+"It was found that Walker had to be carried along, but he did not long
+continue a burden to his associates, for on the fourth day of the
+march he died, and was buried in the snow. It was a toilsome journey.
+Almost every foot of the way required to be hewn out of ice as hard as
+adamant.
+
+"The dogs suffered greatly from insufficient food and tireless
+exertion. Several died from complete exhaustion, and were greedily
+devoured by their fellows.
+
+"After desperate exertions, Dunbar and his company, now reduced to
+seven souls, gained the crest of the ice range and had the
+satisfaction of seeing open water not twenty miles away. It took some
+time to discover the best route for a descent, but at last they
+reached the level of the ice-foot beyond, and struck for open sea. A
+fortunate capture of several seals re-enforced their almost exhausted
+supply of provisions.
+
+"Dunbar cared nothing about latitude or longitude or scientific
+information in such a desperate fight for life. It was a joyful moment
+when he and his companions launched their boat safe into the sea again
+after the incredible toil of dragging it forty miles across the
+splintered ice peaks and the terrible ice-foot north and south of the
+paleocrystic mountains.
+
+"Dunbar hoisted his sail, abandoning the few dogs who yet remained
+alive, and with his unhappy companions steered for Behring Strait,
+first making for the coast of Alaska that faces the desolation of the
+Arctic seas.
+
+"It would be impossible to describe the horrors of that lonely voyage.
+The terrible struggle with five hundred miles of ice-floes, with
+snow-storms that piled the snow high upon the voyagers, and the
+ferocious cold, proved too much for five of the seven sailors, and one
+by one the poor fellows died, and were thrown overboard.
+
+"Only two men--Dunbar and a sailor named Henderson--emerged from the
+Arctic Sea, arriving in six months from the time they left the ship,
+in Sitka, Alaska."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLV.
+
+THE VOYAGES OF THE "MERCURY" AND THE "AURORA BOREALIS."
+
+
+"It was a most fortunate thing that any of the men could live until
+they reached civilization," I said, when Captain Adams had finished
+his reading of Dunbar's story in the paper.
+
+"It was solely due to that fact that we are here at present, admiral,"
+replied Captain Adams. "No sooner was the story published than the
+greatest possible excitement arose both in America and Europe. The
+United States and Britain felt chagrined that a private citizen had
+been able to achieve what the greatest nations on earth, with
+unlimited men and money, were unable to accomplish. To satisfy popular
+clamor the United States, Great Britain, Russia, France, Germany,
+Italy and Spain each fitted out separate expeditions to follow in the
+wake of the _Polar King_. These were manned with former Arctic
+navigators, and were in each case commissioned and fitted out
+regardless of cost to explore the interior world and lay the
+foundation of future conquest and commerce. The Secretary of the
+United States Navy, at Washington, sent for Dunbar and Henderson, and
+forthwith employed both as pilots for the _Mercury_ expedition under
+my command."
+
+"How did the English people receive the news?" I inquired of Sir John
+Forbes.
+
+"It is useless to say, admiral," he replied, "that the story of the
+_Polar King_ was the sole topic of conversation for weeks throughout
+the United Kingdom. The Royal Geographical Society, the Royal
+Astronomical Society, and the Travellers' Club, all sent special
+deputations to the government, asking for the fitting out of a ship to
+undertake British research, which might possibly accompany the United
+States vessel having the pilots Dunbar and Henderson on board, and
+thus partake of the advantage these guides would naturally give the
+United States vessel.
+
+"The British Government," continued Sir John, with a smile in his eye,
+"saw at once that British interests in the interior world must be
+protected at all hazards, and gave the Lords of the Admiralty full
+power to act.
+
+"My fame as an Arctic navigator and as the discoverer of the bones of
+the great Irish Arctic hero, Montgomery, and those of his men, in a
+cabin on Prince Albert's Island, caused the Lords of the Admiralty to
+place at my command the frigate _Aurora Borealis_, manned by
+experienced Arctic sailors.
+
+"Negotiations were opened with the United States Government, whereby
+the _Aurora Borealis_, by proceeding up the northwest passage along
+the route followed by the Montgomery expedition, might meet the
+_Mercury_, who would enter the Arctic Sea by way of Behring Strait. It
+was arranged, as Captain Adams is aware, that each vessel should
+proceed direct to latitude 75 N., longitude 140 W., and there await
+the other vessel."
+
+"You are right," said Captain Adams, "for my instructions were of the
+same nature. The _Mercury_ was fitted out in Brooklyn Navy Yard, and
+as soon as her complement of two hundred and fifty officers,
+explorers, scientists, press correspondents and seamen was enrolled,
+and her stores fully shipped, I was instructed to proceed by way of
+the Nicaragua Canal to San Francisco for further orders and stores.
+Leaving San Francisco I next touched Victoria, B.C., and finally at
+Sitka, Alaska, for final orders. The entire winter had been consumed
+in getting ready, and by May 1 I cleared for Behring Strait, steering
+straight for the rendezvous in the Arctic Sea where we had arranged to
+meet by June 1. I was first on the spot, and had the good fortune of
+only having to wait a week before we sighted the _Aurora Borealis_."
+
+"And then," said Sir John, "began the real work of the voyage. All had
+been plain sailing so far, but it was clearly impossible for any
+vessel to reach the Polar Gulf unless a lead was discovered in the ice
+barrier similar to that so fortunately discovered by the _Polar King_.
+It was here that the services of Dunbar as pilot came into
+requisition. Captain Adams had got him to mark on the chart as near as
+possible the location of the chasm in the ice mountain discovered by
+the _Polar King_. That once rediscovered, we could succeed in
+following the _Polar King_; but should we fail in our quest, all
+further progress would be impossible. I often said to Captain Adams
+that I considered Lexington White as one of the most fortunate of men.
+It was nothing short of the miraculous that you should discover a
+newly-rent passage through the barrier of ice that for ages has
+guarded the sublime secret of the pole. Only once in all the eternity
+of the past did the gate of that thrilling Arctic zone open itself to
+humanity, and by a miracle of fortune you were on the spot at the
+right moment, ready to enter that open door. That fact alone emblazons
+you with glory. But to my story. How were we to discover the same or a
+similar lead to the north? On the mere chance of discovering such a
+passage both vessels had encountered the dangers and terrors of the
+Arctic desolations. Dunbar located the chasm in latitude 78.6 N.,
+longitude 125 W., and thither we sailed.
+
+"As for the expeditions sent out by the other governments of Europe,
+jealous of American prowess, we have not seen or heard of any of them.
+Their vessels followed the direction of the Gulf Stream, and the
+instructions given their commanders were to first make Spitzbergen,
+and thence proceed due north, and if possible find there a passage to
+the pole. For ourselves, I will let Captain Adams tell how we got
+through the ice barrier."
+
+"That," said Captain Adams, "is a simple enough story, but the actual
+experiences were not so simple as the recital of them. We found that
+Dunbar's estimate of the location of the passage was within fifty
+miles of the exact spot. We found the passage after some days'
+searching, about fifty miles beyond Dunbar's location on the chart.
+The veritable passage was there, but, as was expected, instead of open
+water there was a mass of solid ice of unknown thickness, but
+fortunately having a smooth surface.
+
+"There was but one thing to do to overcome such an obstacle, and that
+was to haul the ships on runners on top of the ice, right through the
+gap formed by nature in the icy barrier. Our labors in making such a
+passage were simply superhuman. Both crews were employed for more than
+a week in sloping the ice-foot up which the vessels were to be
+dragged. Then an enormous cradle had to be constructed of massive
+beams of wood securely bolted together, large and strong enough to
+carry either vessel. There was fortunately lumber enough for this
+purpose, as among the stores of both ships timbers for building Arctic
+huts had been included. The cradle was first secured to the hull of
+the _Mercury_, and the crews of both vessels took hold of the ropes
+made fast to her decks. She was drawn close to the ice, but utterly
+refused to leave the water. We tried fixing anchors in the ice ahead,
+to which were attached a system of blocks and ropes. These
+supplemented the strength of the men by the hoisting engine, but even
+this was of no avail. We next rigged up a large drum, vertically over
+the shaft of the propeller, and connected it therewith by means of
+right-angled cog-wheels. To this was fastened an immense cable, to the
+other end of which were attached the ropes rove through blocks held
+firmly a quarter-of a mile ahead by thirty anchors imbedded in the
+ice. We started the engines, and, sure enough, the bows of the vessel
+began to rise out of the water. The _Mercury_ would have been lifted
+high and dry on the ice were it not that at that moment several of the
+smaller cables in the blocks snapped asunder, and thus our third
+effort failed. At this juncture, Sir John Forbes proposed to plant a
+few more anchors in the ice, and through the additional blocks work a
+cable leading from the bows of the _Mercury_ to the stern of the
+_Aurora Borealis_. This being done, he would steam ahead off the ice
+and add the power of his ship to that of the _Mercury's_ engine, and
+thus relieve the strain on the _Mercury's_ cables. It was a capital
+idea, and we immediately put it into execution. The result was a
+perfect success. The combined energies of the English ship and her
+crew, together with those of our own vessel and men, drew the
+_Mercury_ up the slide of ice, and placed her erect and dry upon the
+level surface of the lead. It was now comparatively easy work to draw
+the ship along the ice. Her own engines were equal to the task; but it
+was impossible for the _Mercury_ to go ahead, as, without her
+assistance, the _Aurora Borealis_ would be unable to leave the water.
+Then, again, there was only the material for but one cradle for both
+ships. The difficulty was solved by cutting away one-fourth of the
+cradle from beneath both bow and stern of the _Mercury_, and, joining
+these parts, we furnished the _Aurora Borealis_ with a sledge as large
+as that of our own ship, and strong enough to keep her in an upright
+position while being dragged over the ice. After infinite trouble, and
+in obedience to the aggregated energies of the engines of both ships
+and the hauling of the combined crews, the English ship was drawn up
+upon the ice beside the American vessel. This double feat of skill and
+determination was duly saluted by a roar of guns and the cheers of the
+sailors.
+
+"The ice proved so smooth and hard that the crews of each ship,
+assisted by the engines, were able to work their respective vessels in
+good order through the entire chasm, a distance of seventy miles.
+Arriving at the open floe beyond the northern ice-foot, we bevelled
+off the ice as before, and the ships were finally launched upon the
+polar sea."
+
+I congratulated Sir John Forbes and Captain Adams on their successful
+manoeuvre, which resulted in getting their ships across the ice. It
+was a feat of engineering skill rarely possible of accomplishment, and
+in their case nature had seconded their efforts by providing a smooth
+and solid floor to operate upon, otherwise all human endeavor would
+have been fruitless.
+
+"And now, gentlemen," I said, "what do you say surprised you most in
+your voyage hither from the ice barrier?"
+
+"I think, admiral," said Captain Adams, "that the grandest sight on
+earth is the full view of the Polar Gulf, with its suspended abyss of
+waters surrounding the ship. The colossal flux and reflux of waters
+produces a feeling of terrible sublimity. It is an awful scene."
+
+"But that scene," said Sir John Forbes, "belongs to the outer world.
+This aspect of the interior world of Plutusia is ten thousand times
+more magnificent. What grander glory ever fell on human eyes than this
+Colosseum of oceans, continents, kingdoms, islands and seas spread
+upon the vast interior vault surrounding us, and all lit up by the
+internal sun! The human imagination never conceived anything equal to
+this. Here nature surpasses the wildest dreams of fancy. We are
+astounded with the splendor of such a world!"
+
+"You are right, Sir John," said Captain Adams; "this interior sphere
+surpasses anything hitherto discovered in heaven or earth. And then to
+think of its enormous riches! The royal fleet of Atvatabar, plated
+with solid gold, proves the extraordinary profusion of the precious
+metal."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVI.
+
+THE ARREST OF LYONE.
+
+
+While the entertainment was at its height, we were surprised by one of
+the guards informing us that a messenger had arrived at the fortress
+from Egyplosis, bearing for me a despatch of the utmost importance
+from the high priest Hushnoly.
+
+We were all excitement at the news, and on opening the despatch, I
+read as follows:
+
+     "_To His Excellency_ LEXINGTON WHITE, _Lord Admiral of
+     Atvatabar, Greeting_:
+
+     "Your glorious victory over the royal fleet has awakened
+     popular excitement in favor of deposing His Majesty King
+     Aldemegry Bhoolmakar, and establishing our late beloved
+     goddess Lyone on the throne, as queen of Atvatabar.
+     Egyplosis has openly espoused the cause of Lyone, and the
+     sacred college of priests and priestesses have taken up arms
+     in favor of the goddess. His majesty, being resolved to
+     stamp out rebellion at any cost, has caused the arrest of
+     Lyone at her palace, Tanje, and has confined her in the
+     fortress Calnogor as hostage for the good behavior of the
+     people. He has threatened to put Lyone to death in case her
+     followers attempt any hostile demonstrations against the
+     king's authority. We of Egyplosis are committed to the
+     cause of Her Majesty Lyone, Queen of Atvatabar!
+
+                                                    HUSHNOLY."
+
+This was most alarming news! While we had been feasting in inglorious
+ease our queen had been arrested and imprisoned! The time for action
+had come.
+
+Ere we could deliberate on the best course to pursue, a second message
+from Hushnoly arrived, stating that the king, hearing of the outbreak
+in Egyplosis, had ordered Coltonobory, the commander-in-chief, to
+proceed with his wayleals to Egyplosis, to capture Hushnoly and
+disband his followers. This being an open declaration of war, had
+precipitated a civil struggle, and the armies both of the king and
+queen were being recruited with great excitement on both sides. As for
+Kioram, that city had declared for our cause, and the governor was
+overjoyed to know that the victory of the _Polar King_ had resulted in
+the entire fleet espousing the cause of Lyone.
+
+I questioned Governor Ladalmir on the strength and equipment of both
+the king's forces and those willing to support Lyone, and the
+probabilities of our cause being successful.
+
+He informed me that the king already commanded an army of half a
+million men, composed two-thirds of wayleals and one-third
+bockhockids, or flying cavalry, armed with swords, shields and spears
+of deadly power. The adherents of Lyone numbered already one hundred
+thousand men, who had also proclaimed her queen of Atvatabar,
+including five thousand amazons from Egyplosis, who would fight for
+their late goddess to the death, all similarly armed.
+
+"The future is doubtful," said the governor; "but with your aid we may
+well hope for success. I congratulate you on your splendid victory,
+which is already known throughout the kingdom, and will increase our
+forces to two hundred and fifty thousand men. It will cheer the heart
+of our late goddess to know that she also already possesses a powerful
+fleet."
+
+"Do you consider the queen in any immediate danger at the hands of the
+king or government?" I inquired.
+
+"Well," said the governor, "at the present stage of affairs it is
+difficult to think that either king or Borodemy would dare to execute
+her majesty, even although it might be according to law. Yet, if
+alarmed at the partial destruction and defection of the fleet and the
+growing power of the queen's followers, the bloodthirsty king and
+frightened government might possibly execute her, especially if they
+saw no hope for themselves in the coming struggle."
+
+"Then," said I, "whether we fight or not, our queen is in very serious
+danger of death?"
+
+"That is what I most fear," said the governor. "As soon as I heard of
+the imprisonment of her majesty I called a review of my garrison of
+wayleals and bockhockids, and asked them if they would espouse the
+cause of the queen, and to a man they swore allegiance thereto. I
+conceive the only way to secure respect for the queen is to make her
+followers as formidable as possible."
+
+"Action," I added, "is imperative. We must strike the king's army a
+fearful blow, to impress his majesty with respect for our power. The
+queen must either be released by the king or we will release her
+ourselves. There must be an immediate mobilization of the queen's
+army, and preceding that, a council of war in the fortress of Kioram
+to appoint a commander-in-chief and generals of division. Governor
+Ladalmir," I continued, "I thank you in the name of Lyone for your
+allegiance. It is very gratifying to the fleet to know that it is
+spared the necessity of bombarding your beautiful city."
+
+"We have pledged ourselves to support our queen, to whom be freedom
+and victory!" said the governor.
+
+"Ay, ay!" said the captains, Pra and Nototherboc.
+
+"The fleet, of course, will assist in defending the city," I said;
+"and in addition to this duty will furnish a brigade of thirty
+thousand wing-jackets for active service in the interior. Now, in view
+of this, how many men can you spare from the garrison?"
+
+The governor replied that he could spare ten thousand wayleals, under
+the command of Pra, and five thousand bockhockids, under command of
+Nototherboc.
+
+I ordered Astronomer Starbottle, with Flathootly as escort, to depart
+at once for Egyplosis, and summon to Kioram High Priest Hushnoly and
+the high priestess, Grand Sorcerer Charka and the grand sorceress,
+together with such a retinue of trusty officers as would be worthy of
+being made commanders in the coming struggle. After summoning
+Egyplosis, they were both to go to Gnaphisthasia and summon Yermoul,
+lord of art, and his trusty captains, also to Kioram, and return
+hither without delay. "Choose each of you," I said, "a pair of the
+strongest wings, and arm yourselves with revolvers. You must at all
+hazards evade the enemy and carry out your mission with the greatest
+possible speed."
+
+Astronomer Starbottle and Flathootly were enthusiastic at being
+allowed to undertake so adventurous a journey. They immediately began
+to prepare for, an early departure.
+
+"Might I inquire," said the governor, "what you mean by revolvers?"
+
+We showed him the weapons by which we had resisted the onslaught of
+myriads of wing-jackets, to the fatal force of which thousands had
+succumbed. He was astonished at the invention, and said if the army of
+the queen were equipped with so formidable a weapon, King Aldemegry
+Bhoolmakar would very easily be driven from his throne, and Lyone
+would be truly Queen of Atvatabar.
+
+It was decided that the fortress of Kioram should be immediately
+turned into an arsenal for the manufacture of spears and revolvers,
+for the use of the wayleals and bockhockids of Lyone's army. The mines
+where the metal terrelium was worked and the factories where aquelium
+was elaborated from the water of the ocean were to be seized, and vast
+quantities of these metals sent to Kioram for the use of the entire
+army, to furnish a current for the deadly spears, to be made under the
+superintendence of Professor Rackiron.
+
+Astronomer Starbottle and the redoubtable Flathootly were equipped
+with splendid sets of wings worked by cells of double power. Their
+magnetic spears were far-reaching and carried a current of tremendous
+intensity, contact with which was immediate death.
+
+"Be jabers," said Flathootly, "the fellow that touches us will foind
+us hornets of the first magnitude. We'll give him a touch of the
+cholera morbus."
+
+"I entrust the despatches in your hand, astronomer," said I, "and with
+Flathootly as escort and body-guard, I hope you will both execute your
+mission and return safe to Kioram."
+
+"Caution and despatch will be our watchwords," said the astronomer,
+"and you are already assured of our fidelity."
+
+"In addition to your duty as couriers to Egyplosis and Gnaphisthasia I
+desire you," I said, "to explore the upper atmosphere, with a view of
+discovering at what height centrifugal gravity ceases to operate on
+bodies, and, if possible, where gravity toward Swang begins to exert
+its force. I wish to choose an aerial battle-field, where there is no
+gravity, so that our wayleals may have absolute freedom of action."
+
+"We have discovered a perceptible movement toward the sun at a height
+of fifty miles," said the governor; "at that height our wayleals cease
+to revolve with the earth, and therefore have no weight--but your
+astronomer can easily verify this fact by his own experience."
+
+"Do you think our couriers will receive opposition from the king's
+wayleals?" I inquired.
+
+"I would suggest their being disguised as the king's wayleals as a
+means of safety. If they travel as wayleals of her majesty they are
+liable to be captured."
+
+The astronomer and Flathootly made the necessary disguise in their
+attire as a measure of safety, each donning a leathern cuirass, highly
+decorated with white-metal helmet and boots, and packing a sufficient
+quantity of food in a portable trunk to supply them during the
+journey. They bade us good-by, soaring from the deck into the gulfs of
+air above Atvatabar, and directed their flight to Egyplosis.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVII.
+
+THE COUNCIL OF WAR IN KIORAM.
+
+
+The sensation produced by the defeat of the royal fleet, the
+destruction of forty of the ships, and the defection of the remaining
+sixty vessels to the cause of Queen Lyone, shook the nation from its
+centre to circumference. It appeared incredible that one ship could
+destroy so many well-armed vessels. Our terrorite guns were considered
+demon powers, and such was the consternation produced by their
+terrible energy that, were it possible for us to use such weapons in
+aerial battle, their appearance would alone cause the royal army to
+surrender.
+
+Coltonobory was confident he could soon suppress the insurrection by
+virtue of his superior force.
+
+As for his majesty, he was beside himself with rage at the loss of his
+fleet. Had Admiral Jolar been alive he would have answered for his
+defeat with his life. The following royal proclamation testified to
+the implacable wrath of the king:
+
+     "_His Majesty_ KING ALDEMEGRY BHOOLMAKAR _of Atvatabar to
+     his faithful people_:
+
+     "Know ye, my people of Atvatabar, that the desperate
+     barbarian who commands the alien ship, the _Polar King_, has
+     not only alienated the affections of the Goddess Lyone,
+     thereby insulting our holy religion and our laws, but has
+     destroyed forty of our ships of war, and induced the
+     remainder of our fleet to follow his fortunes, thereby
+     giving him power to destroy our commerce, blockade our
+     harbors, and burn our cities. His success has encouraged
+     many who have hitherto been our faithful subjects to flock
+     to his standard, and the terrors of treason and insurrection
+     devastate our beloved country.
+
+     "What will be thought of Lyone, who was lately our beloved
+     and adored goddess, who has treasonably allowed herself to
+     be proclaimed Queen of Atvatabar, and who is the prime cause
+     of all this deluge of crime, treason and apostasy by
+     encouraging a heretical affection for a desperate criminal,
+     and who dares to abuse her holy office by seeking matrimony
+     with a murderer? It would be impossible for this cowardly
+     and desperate assassin to visit our country with such
+     destruction were it not that she who was our goddess
+     sympathizes with his inhuman and infernal work. She has only
+     to speak the word that she has no sympathy with such a
+     monster, and his power will be paralyzed in a moment, and
+     peace restored to our unhappy country. Will it be believed
+     that she absolutely refuses to disown such a viper, and even
+     boasts of his work, and that he will shortly set her free?
+
+     "Our prisoner, she has disregarded our clemency in holding
+     back the sword of justice that hangs over her head. Her life
+     is already forfeited by her own actions. The monster of
+     insurrection and apostasy must be struck in its most vital
+     part. Orders have been given for a full conclave of the
+     Borodemy, to put our fallen goddess on trial forthwith, and
+     if found guilty to be immediately executed.
+
+     "The commander-in-chief of the army, Coltonobory, has orders
+     to attack, pursue and put to death without mercy all rebels
+     in arms, and arrest all sympathizers with the rebel cause.
+
+     "Given in our palace at Calnogor in the twenty-sixth year of
+     our reign.
+
+                      "ALDEMEGRY BHOOLMAKAR, _King of Atvatabar_."
+
+This proclamation revealed the desperate crisis matters had reached.
+The bloodthirsty king had Lyone in his power, and unless a miracle
+happened nothing could save her. The fact that the flag of the queen
+floated above Kioram must have added enormously to the wrath of the
+king, and the supreme question with us then was how to save our queen
+from a cruel fate.
+
+While discussing this important subject with Governor Ladalmir and my
+own retinue, we were agreeably surprised to learn of the arrival of
+the high priest and priestess and the grand sorcerer and sorceress
+from Egyplosis. Astronomer Starbottle and Flathootly had so far
+evidently succeeded in their mission.
+
+Hushnoly reported that all Egyplosis was up in arms for the cause of
+the queen. The priestesses had formed an amazonian legion of five
+thousand wayleals. These would be commanded by the high priestess
+Zooly-Soase and the grand sorceress Thoubool in equal divisions. The
+sacred phalanx of priests of the spiritual palace would be under the
+command of the grand sorcerer, while Hushnoly would hold himself in
+readiness for a special command.
+
+While praising the devotion of the twin-souls, a message by telegraph
+was received from Gnaphisthasia, stating that the lord of art,
+Yermoul, was on his way to Kioram. He would travel on the wing by a
+circuitous route, to avoid contact with any of the king's wayleals.
+Yermoul would be accompanied by the chief priests of poetry, painting,
+sculpture, music, decoration, architecture, and dancing.
+
+No messenger had been sent to Grasnagallipas, high priest of the
+palace of inventions in Calnogor, as tidings had been received from
+that quarter that the priests of invention, owing to their close
+connection with the seat of government, had become bockhockids of the
+king. The defection of Grasnagallipas was a severe blow to our cause,
+as he was the greatest inventor in the kingdom, and master of ten
+thousand magnetic bockhockids, that machine being his own invention.
+
+Governor Ladalmir said the crisis upon which we were to deliberate
+demanded immediate action, and the first step to be taken was to
+appoint a commander-in-chief for the army of the queen. The victory
+achieved by the commander of the _Polar King_ in fighting the royal
+navy single-handed, and his personal sympathy with her majesty,
+pointed out his excellency, Lexington White, already lord admiral of
+the fleet, as the man of all others fit to assume the supreme command
+of all operations directed against the royal army to secure the
+liberation of Lyone and the reformation of the religion of Atvatabar.
+"I therefore," said he, "nominate his excellency, Lexington White,
+commander-in-chief of the army of the queen."
+
+The governor's proposition was received with the wildest enthusiasm,
+and I gracefully accepted the high honor conferred upon me.
+
+Hushnoly was appointed my assistant, under the title of supreme
+general of the army, and the list of generals included the grand
+sorcerer Charka, the grand sorceress Thoubool, the high priestess
+Zooly-Soase, the lord of art Yermoul, Governor Ladalmir, Generals Pra
+and Nototherboc. The chief priests of poetry, painting, music,
+architecture and decoration, and Professors Rackiron, Goldrock and
+Starbottle, Dr. Merryferry and Flathootly were also created generals
+of the army, being at the same time relieved from service in the
+fleet.
+
+Rear-Admiral Wallace was promoted to full command of the fleet during
+my absence therefrom, with the title of admiral.
+
+As president of the council, I spoke as follows:
+
+"Supreme General Hushnoly and generals of the army of Her Majesty
+Lyone, Queen of Atvatabar, you are aware of the nature of the crisis
+that calls us together and the cause to which we devote our lives and
+fortunes. Our beloved queen, for whom we fight, is in the hands and at
+the mercy of a cruel tyrant. We may hear of her death at any moment.
+Such an event would crush our hopes and blast our cause beyond hope of
+recovery. We must be both bold and prudent. We must concentrate our
+forces to withstand the onset of the enemy. A proclamation must be
+issued making Kioram, which is under the protection of the fleet, the
+headquarters of the army and the rallying-ground for volunteers. Our
+arsenal in the fortress will begin at once to make revolvers, under
+the superintendence of General Rackiron, for the use of our wayleals.
+Armed with these, one hundred thousand wayleals will be equal to half
+a million men without such weapons.
+
+"We must strike a mighty blow as soon as possible for the sake of
+Lyone, our queen. Once break the power of the king, and he will be
+glad to sue for peace by liberating our adored idol, the pride of
+Atvatabar."
+
+These sentiments were applauded with impetuous excitement.
+
+Hushnoly caused telegraphic despatches as to the proceedings of the
+council to be sent to Egyplosis, Gnaphisthasia, and to sympathizers in
+Calnogor, calling on volunteers for the army of the queen to report
+themselves at Kioram without delay.
+
+Admiral Wallace was instructed to send vessels to various points on
+the coast of Atvatabar, to receive volunteers and supplies and
+transmit them to Kioram with all possible speed.
+
+The mines of precious metals of the queen, situated on the northern
+coast of the kingdom, and the materials for making guns, gunpowder and
+terrorite, were to be accumulated at Kioram without delay.
+
+Professor Rackiron agreed, if furnished with men and materials, to
+turn out sufficient hand mitrailleuses to arm one hundred thousand
+wayleals in less than a month. He also proposed to furnish our
+wayleals with magnic spears, and to arm the legs of the bockhockids
+with magnic toes, so that a company of the strange animals could rout
+a legion of wayleals. We discovered that the materials for the
+manufacture of terrorite existed in abundance in Atvatabar, and as the
+secret of this substance was still ours, we were in a position to work
+fearful havoc on the enemy.
+
+Before the council broke up the most encouraging news was received
+from our agents throughout the kingdom that the enrollment of
+volunteers for our cause was proceeding with great rapidity, and a
+hundred thousand men would arrive in Kioram within a week from the
+date of our proclamation. Hushnoly was appointed general of
+volunteers, in addition to his rank as supreme general of the army.
+General Yermoul and his colleagues would command the contingent from
+Gnaphisthasia, consisting of fourteen thousand wayleals.
+
+While thus discussing the details of our army organization, Astronomer
+Starbottle and his body-guard, Flathootly, arrived at the fortress,
+having safely escaped all perils in making a very hazardous journey.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVIII.
+
+THE REPORT OF ASTRONOMER STARBOTTLE.
+
+
+I congratulated our couriers upon their safe return from a successful
+expedition. The astronomer made the following report of his journey:
+
+"Following our instructions to bear despatches to Egyplosis and
+Gnaphisthasia, and at the same time make such astronomical and
+meteorological observations as might be valuable to military
+operations in Atvatabar, we rose to a considerable height in the air
+after leaving the _Polar King_. We were still under the influence of
+the earth's revolution, moving with Atvatabar two hundred and fifty
+miles an hour from east to west. We found the atmosphere of equal
+density, no matter how high we ascended, showing it to be a
+continuation of the denser strata of the outer air pressing into the
+earth by way of the open poles. It fills the hollow shell of the earth
+as an elastic ball, pressing equally on every part of the interior
+surface. Notwithstanding its mobility, it partakes of the revolution
+of the earth, hence the particularly serene climate of Bilbimtesirol
+and the absence of trade-winds in the region of greatest motion, which
+corresponds to the torrid zone of the outer sphere. The only winds are
+local disturbances, sometimes excessively violent, caused by the
+irregularities of the earth's surface and the consequent unequal
+distribution of heat and cold. Besides the general serenity of the air
+there are other reasons why the interior planet is really the only
+true world where human flight is a complete success.
+
+"We found that at a height of fifty miles the gravity caused by
+centrifugal motion is exactly counterbalanced by the attraction of the
+central sun overhead. At a height of sixty miles, if the wings remain
+motionless, we perceptibly ascend with a slowly increasing motion
+toward the sun, while the centrifugal gravity slowly lessens, owing to
+the lesser circle of space traversed, the attraction of Swang as
+gradually increases, and nothing but the strength of our wings
+prevented our falling into the fires of the sun.
+
+"Our chief discovery was the fact that there exists a belt of air at a
+distance of between fifty and sixty miles above the earth, extremely
+cold, in which there is no weight, and all objects therein float,
+indifferent to the presence of the sun above or earth beneath. We saw
+a distant globe hanging in this region of very small size, and through
+the glass we could see mountains, rivers and seas thereon, but no
+traces of cities or human life.
+
+"During our stay in this imponderable region Flathootly expressed his
+satisfaction by grotesque evolutions. He would fly, moving his legs as
+if he were skating on ice, and again plunging as though he were diving
+into the sea. Then he would fly upward feet foremost, as though he
+were falling toward the sun.
+
+"'Shure it's foine fun,' he said, 'to shtand upside down, flyin' an'
+laughin' at the same toime.'
+
+"'Take care,' I said, 'and don't fall upward.'
+
+"'How can I fall upward when the ground's below me?' he inquired.
+
+"'The earth below you has no attraction at this height,' I said; 'but
+the sun is exerting its influence upon us. If we go any higher up
+we'll be drawn into the fires of the sun and roasted alive.'
+
+"'Be jabers, if that's so, I'll get down an' walk, an' you can fly
+around as much as you loike,' said Flathootly.
+
+"'If you descend you'll be arrested and executed as a spy. Remember,
+we're in an enemy's country,' said I.
+
+"'I'll tell you what I'll do then,' said he; 'now that I've got me
+siven-leagued boots on, I'll jist go down an' jump from wan mountain
+top to another.'
+
+"Time would not permit us to stay longer in our high altitude,
+consequently we stretched ourselves on the abyss of air and swept
+downward to Egyplosis.
+
+"'Our flight was exultant and swift. We soared over mighty ranges of
+mountains and swept into wide valleys with the ecstasy of birds. What
+a splendid fact to communicate to the outer world--that man, denied
+for untold ages the power of flight, may now inhabit a world of
+incomparable beauty, where it is easier to fly than to walk and a
+thousand times more enjoyable! The powers of the body and the raptures
+of the soul are not in themselves limited. It is simply a question of
+environment. No sooner do we inhabit a new environment than both body
+and soul expand themselves and fill the greater amplitude as easily as
+that more restricted one. Give the world, weary with ennui, a fresh
+joy, and see how eager its enjoyment thereof, how voraciously it
+feasts on the newly-found delight.
+
+"We descended to the level of the mountain peaks, and, sure enough,
+Flathootly, taking his stand on a lofty crag, would flap his wings and
+sail to the next mountain like an albatross. When alighting on one of
+the peaks he frightened an immense bird from its nest on a cliff. It
+was the seemorgh, a bird of prey, as large as six eagles, with wings
+measuring twenty feet from tip to tip. It ferociously flew at
+Flathootly as he tried to escape it, and caught him with its claws,
+fastening its strong beak in the back of his neck.
+
+"It was a perilous position for my companion.
+
+"I flew to his rescue. He was badly frightened, and kept shouting,
+'Kill the baste!' The bird being on Flathootly's back, rendered him
+powerless to cope with it. Suddenly the bird let go its grip of his
+neck and took hold of his head in its claws, with the idea of carrying
+him off to its eyrie. Coming behind the monster unseen, I managed by a
+well-directed blow to transfix him with my magnic spear. The seemorgh,
+with wide-distended wings and head falling limp on its breast, slowly
+revolving, descended to the earth, the first enemy to fall on land at
+the hands of the invader.
+
+"Flathootly now avoided the mountains. He had a narrow escape, but,
+excepting an ugly wound in his neck, was otherwise unscathed.
+
+"We continued our flight to Egyplosis, dimly visible in the vault
+before us. We continued to traverse the inner curve of the planet,
+Atvatabar surrounding us on all sides except that part of the sphere
+above us which was concealed by the brilliancy of Swang.
+
+"Owing to the uniform heat and density of the lower strata of air,
+every mountain top was covered with foliage. We saw many mansions of
+the Atvatabarese sculptured out of the solid rock and surrounded with
+noble forests of tropical vegetation. We flapped our wings thirty
+miles above Atvatabar, which lay, with its mountains, forests, lakes,
+cities, temples and dwellings, beneath us like a map.
+
+"We had flown for six or eight hours when a feeling of hunger
+admonished us to partake of food. The tin trunk, which was our
+commissariat department, had been towed behind us by means of a rope
+during the entire journey.
+
+[Illustration: I MOUNTED THE TRUNK AND PROPOSED THE HEALTH OF HER
+MAJESTY, LYONE, QUEEN OF ATVATABAR.]
+
+"'Flathootly,' said I, 'let us call a halt for refreshments.'
+
+"'With all my heart,' said he; 'but how are we to howld the trunk up?'
+
+"'Let us rise to the height of fifty miles again,' I replied, 'and
+then it will stand on the air alone, like ourselves.'
+
+"'You're a wise man, sorr,' said he. 'It's an illigant idea that we'll
+adopt immediately.'
+
+"Accordingly, we were soon once more in the region of no weight, where
+we stood in the air as on land, Flathootly on one side of the trunk
+and I on the other, to dine on its contents.
+
+"Flathootly, opening the lid, brought forth some cold venison, which
+he coolly laid on the air beside us, saying, 'Shtand there now till
+you're wanted.' The venison quietly floated up against the side of the
+trunk, that being the only force of gravity acting upon it. In like
+manner he tossed around us a cold roast fowl, several varieties of
+cooked vegetables, and some rich puddings. He also produced several
+bottles of squang, the tokay of Atvatabar. These he flung downward,
+but every bottle, after falling half a mile or so, slowly ascended,
+and the entire bottles came back to us in a close cluster, as though
+unwilling to leave us.
+
+"It was a novel feast. We closed the lid of the trunk and spread a
+napkin thereon, and at once began our repast. Flathootly rapidly
+secured the floating dishes, and the food was demolished as easily as
+though we stood on _terra firma_. I pulled a pudding off my back, and
+Flathootly took from his neck the knives and forks that had clustered
+there.
+
+"The wine proved excellent. I mounted the trunk and proposed the
+health of Her Majesty Lyone, Queen of Atvatabar, and the empyrean rang
+with the enthusiasm invoked by the toast.
+
+"Flathootly proposed the health of our noble master, His Excellency
+Lexington White, the conqueror of the fleet. The air once more echoed
+its response to our hurrahs.
+
+"We might have rested, and even slept, on the impalpable air, but duty
+forbade us any such luxury. We repacked our trunk and proceeded
+straight to Egyplosis, then but two hundred miles away. We arrived
+safe, and, handing the high priest, Hushnoly, your despatch, hastened
+on to the palace of art at Gnaphisthasia. We again succeeded in
+eluding the vigilance of the king's wayleals, thanks to our speed and
+disguise, and delivering your despatch to the grand priest of art
+Yermoul, in Gnaphisthasia, returned forthwith to Kioram."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIX.
+
+PREPARATION FOR WAR.
+
+
+In less than a week, as measured by the time bells of Kioram, the
+ships began to arrive with troops from various parts of the coast of
+Atvatabar, bringing volunteers for either branch of the service of her
+majesty. In ten days one hundred thousand volunteers had arrived, and
+these were quartered in the city, pending their equipment as wayleals
+and bockhockids. As might be expected, a great many were deserters
+from the royal army, and these were of great assistance in organizing
+the troops, being already skilled in the tactics of aerial warfare.
+
+General Rackiron had turned the entire fortress into an arsenal of
+war. Fires blazed everywhere for forging guns and magnic spears, and a
+thousand hammers were shaping the limbs of bockhockids. The department
+for making ammunition was busiest of all, furnishing the elements on
+whose efficiency depended success or defeat.
+
+A vast quantity of hand mitrailleuses, or gigantic revolvers, were
+made, and being of but little weight, these blew showers of bullets
+from magazines attached to the tubes. Each wayleal carried a thousand
+cartridges.
+
+The cell in the case of the wayleals had to furnish a double current,
+viz., the current that moved the wings and the death-dealing current
+of the spear. For each bockhockid two powerful cells were necessary,
+one for the rider and the other to work the bockhockid he rode or flew
+upon. The strongest cell was contained in the body of the mechanical
+bird, which moved both its wings and legs, and also furnished its
+claws with a deadly current, so that when a detachment of bockhockids
+dashed into a mass of wayleals, legs foremost, the greatest possible
+havoc could be made with the least possible risk to the mounted
+riders.
+
+The object of having each cell separate in the case of the bockhockids
+was apparent. In case a mounted wayleal got unhorsed he was able to
+join the wayleals, or infantry, having the same equipment as they.
+
+Our superiority in arms when compared with the royal army, which
+possessed only magnic spears and shields, was apparent.
+
+Of course, the enemy also made the legs and claws of the bockhockids
+magnic spears in themselves.
+
+It seemed remarkable that a people so inventive, and who possessed the
+best of all means for manufacturing firearms, should not have thought
+of a better device than their naval air guns. It was but a further
+illustration of the fact that the keenest minds are constantly
+color-blind to the simplest combinations visible to lookers-on while
+they are pursuing their elaborate researches.
+
+But the royal army, if inferior in arms, possessed the superiority of
+numbers. It outnumbered us three to one.
+
+Our total forces consisted of 175,000 wayleals and 42,000 bockhockids,
+making a total of 217,000 troops, which included 5,000 amazons.
+
+We at first expected a much larger army, believing the priests of
+invention, under Grasnagallipas, would certainly espouse the cause of
+the queen, but it was a terrible blow to our enthusiasm when we
+learned that the priests of invention, making a total of 50,000
+wayleals, had joined the royal army and would fight against their late
+goddess.
+
+Calnogor being the headquarters of the royal army, it would have been
+particularly dangerous for the priests of invention to have espoused
+our cause, surrounded as they were by the enormously more powerful
+enemy. To our loss, they had chosen to continue part of the army of
+the king, which at the lowest computation numbered half a million men.
+
+The king seemed strangely reluctant to begin the attack, although he
+knew the extent of our forces in Kioram. It was evident the protection
+given the city by the fleet allowed us to complete the arming and
+drilling of our forces without molestation.
+
+Supreme General Hushnoly reported that, thanks to the indefatigable
+energy of General Rackiron and his colleagues, Generals Starbottle,
+Goldrock and Flathootly, assisted by Generals Charka, Yermoul, Pra and
+Nototherboc, he had been able to fully equip the wayleals with
+mitrailleuses, wings, electric spears and uniforms. The bockhockids,
+in addition, were mounted on mechanical birds that could either fly,
+trot or walk with tremendous speed.
+
+I instructed Hushnoly to make his appointment of officers without
+delay, as we might take the field any moment.
+
+General Rackiron informed us that he was hard at work on a portable
+terrorite gun for aerial warfare. He hoped to have a battery of these
+guns ready in time to decide the war in our favor. I thanked the
+general for his extraordinary exertions, and informed him I felt sure
+of his success. With terrorite guns we would be invincible.
+
+Our spies, who had been despatched in all directions, informed us that
+the royal army was in a state of activity not inferior to our own. A
+daily review was being held in the air above Calnogor, and it was
+discovered that Coltonobory was about to make a descent on our ships,
+particularly to seize the _Polar King_, and by thus silencing her
+guns, have Kioram and the army of the queen at his mercy. The plan was
+approved of by the king, and might be put in operation at any moment.
+
+This was most important news, and we decided to take the initiative at
+once.
+
+"We will attack the enemy even if he is a million strong," I said.
+
+"Everything calls for an immediate advance," said Hushnoly.
+
+We also learned from trusty couriers that Lyone had been brought
+before the Borodemy, and the legislative assembly in full conclave,
+after hearing the evidence, had found her guilty of treason, impiety
+and sacrilege to her faith, of treason to the king, and had, by
+encouraging insurrection, caused her adherents to take up arms against
+both king and law, thereby endangering the lives and property of the
+inhabitants of the kingdom. There was no one to recommend Lyone to
+mercy, and she was condemned to death. The king had already signed her
+death-warrant.
+
+She might be executed any moment!
+
+It was a dreadful crisis to contemplate. Our first duty was to save
+the life of our queen at any sacrifice. I at once called a council of
+war to consider this all-important question. We had only assembled
+when a royal courier arrived at the fortress with an important
+despatch addressed, "To His Excellency Lexington White,
+Commander-in-Chief of the Insurrectionary Army at Kioram."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER L.
+
+I VISIT LYONE IN CALNOGOR.
+
+
+I hastily opened the despatch, which read as follows:
+
+     "His Majesty King Aldemegry Bhoolmakar of Atvatabar wishes
+     to inform His Excellency Lexington White, commander-in-chief
+     of the insurrectionary army mobilized in Kioram, that Her
+     Holiness Lyone, late Goddess of Atvatabar, has been tried
+     before a full conclave of the Borodemy on the charge of
+     sacrilege, apostasy, and insurrection. Her holiness has been
+     found guilty and is now under sentence of death. His
+     majesty, of merciful intent, wishes it to be known that he
+     will pardon her holiness on this condition, viz.: That the
+     insurrectionary army lays down its arms forthwith, and the
+     wayleals separate and depart to their respective abodes;
+     that his excellency, the commander-in-chief, and his
+     generals surrender themselves to his majesty as prisoners of
+     war, to be tried and punished as military law dictates. This
+     surrender to include that of the admiral of the fleet and
+     the ships under his command.
+
+     "On no other condition whatever will mercy be extended to
+     her holiness, and should this offer be temporized with or
+     rejected nothing can save the late goddess from the sword of
+     justice.
+
+     "Dictated at the palace in Calnogor, in the twenty-fifth
+     year of his majesty's reign.
+
+                                          "ALDEMEGRY BHOOLMAKAR."
+
+The king's communication was received with a sensation of contempt and
+dismay. The thought of surrender was in itself preposterous, but when
+we thought that our rebellion would drive a sword into the heart of
+Lyone, the awful idea struck us dumb with horror!
+
+The king possessed our proudest and most precious soul as hostage, and
+he was cowardly enough to sacrifice her as his most deadly blow to the
+insurrection.
+
+The crisis was appalling.
+
+"Shall we," I cried, "continue the fight, now that we know it is our
+queen we fight against, that it is our arms that will murder her?"
+
+"We certainly do not murder her," said Hushnoly; "and yet this
+unexpected crisis paralyzes me."
+
+"The king will not dare to murder the queen," said the grand sorcerer;
+"and if he does----"
+
+The sorcerer suddenly checked himself; the mere contemplation of such
+an event was overpowering, yet he seemed, of all others, the most
+composed. His eyes shone with a strange fire that I had not hitherto
+noticed.
+
+"I am satisfied," said Governor Ladalmir, "that unless we lay down our
+arms and submit ourselves to his mercy, which means death to every one
+here, the fate of the queen is sealed."
+
+"I think," said the high priestess Zooly-Soase, "that his excellency,
+the commander-in-chief, should, if possible, obtain an order from the
+king permitting him to visit her majesty, and advise her of the entire
+facts of the situation, and then act as she commands. If she asks us
+to lay down our arms and surrender ourselves as the price of her
+liberty, there is none, I think, who would be so faithless as to
+refuse."
+
+"And I," said the grand sorceress, "approve of your proposal. I am
+willing to surrender myself to save the life of the late goddess."
+
+"We are all willing to sacrifice ourselves if need be!" shouted the
+entire council with generous and chivalrous enthusiasm.
+
+"I will go," said I, "and see Lyone, as you propose, and upon her
+decision will depend our future action."
+
+A courier was immediately despatched under a flag of truce to the
+palace at Calnogor, with the message that before his majesty's
+communication could be replied to, the commander-in-chief of the army
+of the late goddess desired to have an interview with her majesty, to
+decide upon a final answer thereto, and to request a royal passport
+not only admitting him to the presence of Lyone in the fortress at
+Calnogor, but also permitting his safe return to Kioram.
+
+"I fear," said Hushnoly, "the queen herself may be so confident in the
+success of her cause that she will overlook any danger to herself. It
+would be a signal success to save her without our own surrender, but
+that is impossible until we defeat the royal army."
+
+"What say you, grand sorcerer?" said I. "Do you think my mission will
+be successful as regards the life of Lyone?"
+
+"I have already foreseen this crisis," said he; "but I believe the end
+will be triumphant."
+
+His majesty, in reply to my despatch, sent me a royal passport that
+admitted me to the fortress to converse with Lyone, and which would
+protect me until my return to Kioram.
+
+"Tell her majesty," said the grand sorcerer, "not to fear the king;
+that we will save her, even should she nobly disdain to accept our
+surrender for her life."
+
+"How do you propose to save her life in case she forfeits it?" I
+eagerly inquired.
+
+"I cannot tell you," he replied, "for occult knowledge can only be
+apprehended by the initiated. Every great reform requires its martyr,
+and it may be that the queen will be our martyr, no matter what we
+do."
+
+An audible groan escaped from the lips of all. Was it possible that
+even should we surrender we could not save the life of our adorable
+leader, and that to surrender would involve all in a common ruin? Was
+there ever in human history so great a crisis? I began to doubt the
+sorcerer's knowledge of the future. At the same time I felt that he
+alone could guide us in that hour of peril.
+
+"Sorcerer," I cried, "for the love of Lyone, for the glory of our
+cause, tell me what to do! What shall I say to the queen? How shall I
+advise her to act for her own safety as well as ours?"
+
+"Do not advise at all," said he. "Let the queen act for herself, and
+that will be the best solution of the difficulty."
+
+"But should she insist on sacrificing herself, where would be our
+triumph?"
+
+"The triumph will be assured," said he, "although to win our cause
+will require the greatest sacrifice to be made."
+
+I began to think that Lyone and the sorcerer understood each other,
+and that her life would in any case be saved from the violence of
+death; and, taking this hopeful view of the situation, I departed for
+Calnogor, escorted by Flathootly and the astronomer.
+
+As we swept toward the metropolis of Atvatabar I wondered if I would
+be permitted to make the journey in safety. Was the passport of the
+king but a _ruse de guerre_ to entrap me?
+
+I noticed here and there, as we neared the city, detachments of the
+royal wayleals, some suspended in the air, and others being drilled
+in globular masses in anticipation of the coming struggle.
+
+When within ten miles of Calnogor a party of scouts intercepted us,
+who demanded to see our passports. The leader examined the royal
+decree with great minuteness, and only allowed us to proceed with
+apparent reluctance. I had reason to fear treachery, as I had but
+lately fought my way out of the country.
+
+At length arriving above the royal fortress, we rapidly descended to
+the court-yard and inquired for the governor.
+
+With what feelings of excitement I awaited my interview with Lyone! In
+what state would I find her, and how would she solve the riddle, a
+destiny that seemed impossible of solution?
+
+The governor, accompanied by his armed staff, approached me, declaring
+how glad he was to be able to permit an interview with Lyone. His
+manner was altogether too suspiciously cheerful, and his body-guard
+surrounded us closely.
+
+I hastened to assure the governor that my visit was made under the
+protection of the king, and showed him the royal decree. "I have
+come," I said, "to have an interview with her majesty upon the crisis,
+and that being accomplished, the royal mandate will secure me a free
+departure to Kioram."
+
+"You can certainly see the ex-goddess," said the governor, "but you
+have no right to address her as her majesty, for such a title is high
+treason to their majesties, the king and queen of Atvatabar. As to
+your being free to leave the fortress again, I must confer with his
+majesty in that matter, as you are my prisoner until the king commands
+your release."
+
+Was this a plot to capture me?
+
+I was too anxious to see Lyone to think of my own safety just then,
+and requested the governor to lead me at once to her apartments.
+
+"Follow me," said the governor, leading the way into the fortress. We
+passed along corridor after corridor until we arrived at a heavy gate
+of bronze, which the governor himself unlocked. We thereupon entered a
+spacious antechamber, severely furnished with large oaken benches on
+the marble floor.
+
+I requested Flathootly and the astronomer to remain in the antechamber
+while I passed through another door unlocked for me by the governor.
+
+I found myself alone in a spacious and finely decorated apartment, the
+gilded cage of Lyone. There were luxurious couches, and receptacles
+for books, and painted tapestries on the walls, and in the centre of
+the floor stood an aquarium, the home of strange animals and plants,
+from which rose a vase of gold that held a bouquet of the rarest
+flowers. The floor was covered with a semi-metallic carpet resembling
+linoleum. I sat down to await the coming of Lyone.
+
+Presently the embroidered tapestry concealing the entrance to another
+chamber was moved aside, and the pale and breathless figure of Lyone
+stood before me. She came toward me, robed in a loose white silk gown.
+Her arms were outstretched, and her face wore an air of indescribable
+nobility and tenderness. I rushed forward and caught the glorious
+figure in my arms. It was fitting that our holiest emotions should at
+first find expression in a mutual deluge of kisses and tears.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LI.
+
+THE DEATH OF LYONE.
+
+
+When the ecstasy of our meeting had somewhat subsided I informed Lyone
+of the dreadful crisis in our affairs. I pointed out that to save her
+life the king required her army to disband itself, and her leaders to
+deliver themselves up as rebels and insurrectionists, to receive
+punishment for their so-called offences.
+
+"Now," said I, "notwithstanding the fact that we can defeat the royal
+army in pitched battle, yet to save your precious life we are willing
+to surrender ourselves to his majesty."
+
+"And what do you think would life be worth to me," said Lyone, her
+eyes flashing fire, "with my dearest friends slain, my cause ruined,
+and my soul covered with the shame of remorse, defeat and the disgrace
+of having purchased my miserable life by the death of the noblest of
+souls? I will go to the scaffold alone. You will conquer, and will
+avenge my death."
+
+"Sweet goddess!" I cried, "you will not thus sacrifice yourself. What
+will victory be worth if you, for whom we fight, are not our proudest
+trophy? What avails the triumph of our cause if there remains no queen
+to possess the triumph? Your life is our life, your death our
+destruction. With you to fight for, any company of leaders will be
+successful. Let us surrender ourselves to make you free."
+
+"It can never be," replied Lyone, "that you must suffer, one hundred
+souls for but one. I am that one, and the cause can more easily suffer
+the loss of one soul than the loss of all. That the soul may again
+possess freedom is worthy many a martyr. I only regret I have but one
+life to give for this blessed cause. I counsel you to depart and carry
+on the war you have so bravely begun, and in your hour of triumph
+remember Lyone."
+
+"There is no cause if there is no Lyone," I pleaded. "Do not be your
+own enemy; accept the condition of freedom so freely offered you, and
+perhaps even we may still find some means of escape."
+
+"The king, I know," said Lyone, "would much prefer your death to mine.
+He is exasperated at the loss of the fleet, and that, too, at the
+hands of strangers. Nothing would give him greater joy, and nothing
+such fame in the eyes of the nation, than to put yourself and your
+sailors to death. My capture and your present visit are but the
+fulfilment of his plot to destroy you. He thinks you will never allow
+me to be sacrificed, and so hopes for your annihilation. But in this
+he will be disappointed. In this terrible trial I have eaten my heart
+out. Without you, and without our faithful comrades, life would be
+less than worthless. This crisis can only be solved by heroic
+measures. I have decided for you all. Go!--go and avenge my death!"
+
+I saw that Lyone had firmly steeled her soul for the sacrifice,
+tremendous at it was, and in the presence of such heroism it seemed
+sacrilege to again offer our less worthy lives for a life such as
+hers.
+
+But a resolve so unsupportable agonized me. I clasped the divine girl
+in my arms in a transport of love and horror, and implored her again
+and again to accept life while it was offered her.
+
+We stood beside the aquarium in the centre of the apartment, close to
+the vase of gold filled with flowers. Lyone, in a dazed state, reached
+for a flower, and in doing so touched the vase, and in a moment fell
+dead upon the floor!
+
+[Illustration: LYONE REACHED FOR A FLOWER AND IN DOING SO TOUCHED THE
+VASE AND IMMEDIATELY FELL DEAD UPON THE FLOOR!]
+
+I cannot dwell upon the horror of the scene. I rushed to the door
+of the apartment, and stood in the outer chamber, where waited my
+companions.
+
+The governor of the fortress came forward to explain that I was his
+prisoner until he had heard from the king whether or not I should be
+permitted to leave the prison. I raised my spear, and with one blow
+transfixed the dog at my feet. He never spoke again!
+
+The taking off of the governor was accomplished with so little
+disturbance that we passed through the body-guard, which was assembled
+in the outer corridor, without interference.
+
+The situation was war!
+
+Was it really true that our hope was dead, that our jewel, the glory
+of our cause, was lying cold and lifeless in her prison?
+
+I was stunned with the first shock of the scene. I could only cry out,
+as though she were still alive, for her radiant soul to come and share
+our mutual bliss.
+
+But when it clearly dawned upon me that the being for whose freedom I
+had resolutely labored had become the victim of her murderers, that I
+could never again enfold her beauty with my love, however ardent or
+tender, I was petrified with horror.
+
+My immediate comrades, to whom I communicated the tidings, grew white
+with the appalling news.
+
+The one cry was, "Could Lyone, the idol of her army, the goddess of
+her people, be indeed dead? Was the voice that could conjure such love
+and devotion hushed forever?"
+
+Leaving a guard to watch over the body of the goddess, I set out for
+Kioram.
+
+Barely escaping arrest at the hands of several wayleals, we arrived
+safely at the fortress. It was our wings and spears, and not the
+passport of the king, that saved us.
+
+The council in Kioram, on hearing of the death of the queen, grew
+excited. The one desire in the hearts of all had been to save Lyone's
+life--but, alas!
+
+I despatched a messenger to the king, charging him with the murder of
+the queen, and stating that I should exact retribution at his hands
+for the foul deed. I warned him not to do any injury to the person of
+her majesty, but deliver her dead body to the guard we would send, who
+would convey it to Egyplosis.
+
+"This is a wound that infuriates me," said the grand sorcerer.
+
+"It is the work of the jealous Koshnili and the murderous Bhoolmakar,"
+said I; "and dearly will they answer for it! I must return at once to
+Calnogor, and take charge of the body for honorable sepulture."
+
+"I think it better for your excellency to remain at the head of the
+army," said the grand sorcerer, "and allow me to undertake the removal
+of the body of the queen to Egyplosis. By keeping her death a secret
+from the army you will be able to defeat Coltonobory, and bring the
+king and Koshnili to justice. I shall delay the obsequies of the queen
+until victory is assured."
+
+I agreed to this proposition, being anxious to bring the king to
+justice, and thereupon relieved General Charka of his command of the
+21,000 bockhockids, giving him a guard of 100 wayleals, and requested
+him to proceed at once to the fortress of Calnogor, and, demanding the
+body of Lyone, bear it to Egyplosis for honorable sepulture.
+
+The grand sorcerer, who had anticipated the refusal of Lyone to accept
+liberty at the price demanded, but did not apprehend her sudden death,
+had, during my absence, assisted at completing the organization of the
+army. I gave his command of the right wing of the army to Sir John
+Forbes, Captain Adams accepting a subordinate command.
+
+Supreme General Hushnoly had fully armed the various battalions with
+mitrailleuses and electric spears, and had furnished all with electric
+wings.
+
+I instructed Hushnoly to mobilize the army at once and order an
+immediate advance on Calnogor. All Kioram was alive with warlike
+preparations. The various generals and captains, accompanied by their
+aides-de-camp, flew over the city, calling their troops to arms. Both
+wayleals and bockhockids, soaring into the air, formed themselves into
+immense living globes, and in the hollow centre of each flew the
+commanding general and his subordinate officers. In less than an hour
+the entire army lay marshalled in the air, and Supreme General
+Hushnoly called me to review our forces.
+
+It was a magnificent sight. High over Kioram stretched a line of
+enormous spheres composed of wayleals and bockhockids arranged in the
+following order:
+
+           THE ARMY OF HER MAJESTY QUEEN LYONE.
+
+      HIS EXCELLENCY LEXINGTON WHITE, _Commander-in-Chief_.
+
+     GENERAL SIR JOHN FORBES, commanding the right wing of 21,000
+     bockhockids, as follows:
+
+The Legion of Art, commanded by General Yermoul.
+Phalanx of Poetry--Vice-Gen. Ahornus       2,000
+Phalanx of Music        "    Arnondar      2,000
+Phalanx of Painting     "    Rhemegron     2,000
+Phalanx of Dancing      "    Osornon       2,000
+Phalanx of Architecture "    Vanablis      2,000
+Phalanx of Drama        "    Clamavappy    2,000
+Phalanx of Sculpture    "    Hitturkey     2,000
+Phalanx of Decoration   "    Drapasius     2,000
+The Kioram Legion--General   Nototherboc   5,000
+
+     SUPREME GENERAL HUSHNOLY, commanding the centre of the army,
+     comprising 175,000 wayleals.
+
+The Phalanx of Egyplosis--General Gerolio         5,000
+First Amazonian Phalanx--General Zooly-Soase      2,500
+Second Amazonian Phalanx--General Thoubool        2,500
+The Kioram Phalanx--General Pra                  10,000
+First Fletyeming Brigade--General Starbottle     10,000
+Second   "          "       "     Flathootly     10,000
+Third    "          "       "     Goldrock       10,000
+First Volunteer Army--General     Jolgos         25,000
+Second   "          "       "     Akerbole       25,000
+Third    "          "       "     Tarabesq       25,000
+First Volunteer Legion--General   Swilkar        10,000
+Second   "          "       "     Garreoc        10,000
+Third    "          "       "     Karramby       10,000
+Fourth   "          "       "     Botarnic       10,000
+Fifth    "          "       "     Heralion        5,000
+Sixth    "          "       "     Nosofrassy      5,000
+
+GENERAL LADALMIR, commanding the left wing of 21,000 bockhockids, as
+follows:
+
+First Vol. Leg. Bockhockids--Vice-Gen. Adams        5,000
+Second    "           "           "    Doroccy      2,000
+Third     "           "           "    Madneaf      2,000
+Fourth    "           "           "    Darjiltis    2,000
+Fifth     "           "           "    Roumix       2,000
+Sixth     "           "           "    Hieralto     2,000
+Seventh   "           "           "    Dnublis      2,000
+Eighth    "           "           "    Napasacco    2,000
+Ninth     "           "           "    Dumargo      2,000
+
+The army in all consisted of 182,000 men and 5,000 amazons. The
+amazons were dressed similar to the priests of Egyplosis--that is, in
+pale brown soft-leather tights, high boots emblazoned with scales of
+white metal, heavy spider-silk tunics, ornamented with beautiful
+embroidery and held close to the figure by a belt. The knapsack held
+the magnic cell, dynamo and wings, and also furnished the current for
+their spears.
+
+As each wayleal required ample space for the movement of his or her
+wings, it will be seen that each living globe was of immense size, and
+the entire army became of enormous proportions as it lay stretched
+upon the air. I assumed supreme command as commander-in-chief, with
+Flathootly as special aide-de-camp, and gave orders for each globe to
+double up its wayleals, so that in each case there would be two
+globes, the outer or fighting force and the interior or reserve force.
+In the centre of each living shell was placed the commissariat
+department and the medical, musical and commanding staffs.
+
+The death of Lyone had been kept a secret. The bands of each army
+began to play the "March of Lyone," and at the word of command the
+vast-flying mass of armed men moved grandly forward to Calnogor.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LII.
+
+THE BATTLE OF CALNOGOR.
+
+
+Long ere we reached Calnogor we discovered the royal army already
+marshalled to meet us. It lay above the city in globes of wayleals and
+bockhockids still more prodigious than ours. It was composed of three
+armies, ranged one above the other, and each army being equal in
+numbers to our own. Thus, forming a solid parallelogram of amazing
+magnificence, the royal army awaited our onset. Its bockhockids,
+formed in ten globes of ten thousand in each, and led by
+Grasnagallipas, the lord of invention, were the flower of the army,
+and occupied a central position, where possibly they would do the
+greatest damage to us. High overhead in a chair of state, supported by
+twenty wayleals, sat Coltonobory, commander-in-chief of those immense
+legions that were ready to do battle for the defeat of the cause of
+their late goddess and the honor of their king.
+
+The sight of two such armies of winged gladiators sweeping toward each
+other in revolving globes was one of breathless interest. The
+approaching fight was a question of life or death to both combatants.
+Defeat to Aldemegry Bhoolmakar meant possibly the loss of crown and
+kingdom, and our defeat meant the annihilation of the party of reform
+and the cause of Lyone. We were eager to begin the fight without
+delay.
+
+To obtain greater freedom of action, I led the army up into the region
+where there was no gravity. The movement was followed by a similar
+movement on the part of the royal armies, who rose like a swarm of
+locusts to meet us. The noise of so many wings in motion was like that
+of a roaring storm, and formed an inspiring accompaniment to the music
+that rang upon the sunlit air.
+
+Here, fifty miles above the white city beneath, both armies closed
+upon each other. There was a fearful yell of "Bhoolmakar!" answered by
+as loud a shout of "Lyone!"
+
+Our army was literally buried in the centre of the enemy. The
+impetuous priests of Egyplosis and the no less eager priestesses
+performed prodigies of valor.
+
+Our mitrailleuses were a complete surprise to the enemy. Thousands of
+their wayleals were killed ere they could deliver a blow with their
+spears.
+
+There was considerable slaughter on both sides, but the enemy depended
+largely on their magnic spears and shields, while we handled our guns
+with terrible effect.
+
+The volunteer army under Hushnoly suffered greatly by the
+demoralization caused by the enemy's bockhockids under Grasnagallipas.
+The terrible legs of those machines destroyed the military formation
+of our wayleals, producing a continuous panic, and permitting the
+enemy's wayleals to work a ghastly slaughter in their broken ranks. In
+revenge our bockhockids with their more deadly weapons literally tore
+their globes to pieces. Notwithstanding our superior arms, the greater
+numbers of the enemy made them a match for us.
+
+The rushing of wings, the explosions of the machine guns, the clashing
+of spears and the yells of the combatants made a scene of infernal
+horror. As the focus of battle swayed hither and thither, it left
+behind a trail of blood, dead and wounded bodies, broken wings, spears
+and revolvers. The _debris_ of the battle simply floated out on the
+air, veritable clouds of disaster. Irregular masses of dead and
+wounded wayleals and broken bockhockids floated in heaps amid pools of
+blood.
+
+The enemy could only succeed by stabbing, whereas our wayleals were
+scorpions whose guns were fatal. With the points of their spears they
+made great havoc in our battalions. But as long as our ammunition
+lasted their formations were immediately shrivelled up.
+
+Coltonobory began to mass his army in the form of an immense
+outspreading hemisphere of the form of an open umbrella. His intention
+was to enclose us on all sides, and so if possible devour us. I at
+once ordered the army to take the form of a cone, each legion being a
+segment thereof, whose apex was formed of bockhockids, and whose base
+was wide circles of wayleals. With a blast of the trumpet I drove the
+entire army like an enormous javelin right through the heart of the
+foe, tearing a yawning chasm, half a mile in diameter, in his ranks!
+
+We lost fully two thousand men in this movement, and the foe over ten
+thousand in killed and wounded.
+
+The enemy, paralyzed by the onset, became consolidated into three or
+four immense globes. In front of these they placed their bockhockids,
+whose monstrous limbs alone could keep our spears at a safe distance.
+It was the intention of Coltonobory to ram us with the cohorts led by
+Grasnagallipas and his bockhockids.
+
+Hastily re-forming our broken ranks as before, I ordered a flank
+movement, rapid and decisive. Our bockhockids plunged into a
+tremendous mass of wayleals. Into the chasm thus made in the ranks of
+the enemy General Zooly-Soase threw her amazons, protected on either
+side by the legion of priests of Egyplosis under Gerolio. The
+priestesses, whose spears were particularly long and powerful, did
+terrible execution. The enemy was for a time panic-stricken as the
+glorious girls made their successful onset. Their dramatic beauty and
+the flash of their spears made a scene of imposing grandeur.
+Coltonobory, recovering from his surprise, ordered his bockhockids to
+the centre of the fight. To prevent the sacrifice of the priestesses
+by overwhelming odds I sent the bockhockids of art to their
+assistance. These swept to the rescue like a flight of eagles, and the
+empyrean echoed to the roar of the combat.
+
+The fighting now became general. The sunlit heavens seemed filled with
+the ferocity of war. The discharge of guns, the yells of wayleals, the
+trumpet signals of the commanders, the crash of swords and spears, the
+ceaseless motion of wings, and the long trail of dead and wounded
+combatants that followed the fight like the _debris_ of a comet, was a
+sight but rarely beheld by human eyes.
+
+Each army seemed so equally balanced--the king's army had the
+advantage in numbers and our own the advantage in weapons--that
+neither party could yet claim a victory. Further fighting seemed
+useless until some new tactics were employed; therefore I gave orders
+for a cessation of the battle, and caused flags of truce to be
+hoisted.
+
+Both armies indeed required food and repose, and the wounded required
+immediate attention. The enemy was no less anxious for a truce than
+ourselves, consequently all fighting ceased and both armies withdrew.
+Several miles apart sentinels were placed on guard on outposts in the
+atmosphere, and our wayleals threw themselves upon the air in various
+attitudes of repose.
+
+In company with Generals Hushnoly, Ladalmir, Gerolio, Zooly-Soase,
+Thoubool, Charka, Yermoul, Starbottle and Goldrock, I visited the
+scene of the battle.
+
+How ghastly the realities of war! There floated irregular piles of
+dead and wounded bodies, from which poured many a trickling stream of
+ruddy life, which formed immense cloud-pools of blood surrounding each
+ghastly pile. The heaped-up masses of the dead would vibrate, as some
+poor suffocating wretch struggled in his last agonies. Dr. Merryferry
+and his assistants hastily took possession of the wounded, and
+ministered to their necessities. Water was supplied them from the
+leathern bags of water that formed part of the commissariat supplies.
+
+I ordered a detachment of wayleals to separate the living from the
+dead, and bear the wounded to Kioram for immediate attention.
+
+The saddest sight of all was a cluster of fifty beautiful priestesses,
+embracing one another in the long caress of death. They had been slain
+with the magnic spears, so happily there were no gaping wounds from
+which the life-blood flowed. Ardsolus and Merga lay dead where the
+fight was hottest, both slain at once.
+
+The dead and wounded twin-souls were sent to Egyplosis as quickly as
+possible, and the process of clearing the air of the havoc of war was
+carried out both by the enemy and ourselves with the greatest
+despatch.
+
+The losses of the enemy were four times greater than ours, owing to
+the tremendous execution done by our gigantic pistols. The royal
+troops presented in ghastly groups every possible posture of the human
+body that could be created by rage, pain, fear or madness.
+
+How I wished some eloquent historian could have floated through that
+abyss of horror on distended wings, and, pen in hand, describe its
+dramatic desolation and terror. Clouds of vultures and the seemorgh
+were devouring the dead bodies, and, as they fought for choice
+morsels, flapped their wings in pools of gore. Many of the combatants,
+including some of my own sailors, were drowned in globes of blood.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LIII.
+
+VICTORY.
+
+
+The wayleals rested and slept outstretched upon the air close to the
+scene of battle. Not having any weight as regarded external objects,
+they mutually attracted each other, and to obtain freedom and rest
+without being crushed together into suffocating masses of men, they
+were formed into companies of one hundred each, with their feet
+pressing against solid cylinders of spears. Mutual gravity was
+sufficient to hold them together, and each wayleal spread himself upon
+the air, as upon a bed of down, enjoying luxurious repose.
+
+I had slept I know not how long, in company with the leaders of our
+army, when I was awakened by Flathootly, who informed me that a trusty
+messenger from Grasnagallipas, lord of invention and general of the
+king's bockhockids, desired to see me as bearer of an important
+despatch from his master.
+
+The messenger, saluting, handed me the following document:
+
+     "_To His Excellency_ LEXINGTON WHITE, _Commander-in-Chief of
+     the Army of Queen Lyone, from Grasnagallipas, General of the
+     Royal Bockhockids, Greeting:_
+
+     "General Grasnagallipas begs to report that he and his
+     bockhockids have ever been in sympathy with the late
+     goddess, but were prevented from espousing her cause by the
+     overwhelming presence of the royal army in Calnogor. To show
+     his detestation of the horrible act of criminal cowardice on
+     the part of his majesty, he offers his sword and command of
+     bockhockids to the cause of the late adorable goddess and
+     queen of Atvatabar, and on the acceptance of such assistance
+     by your excellency will at once leave the ranks of the royal
+     army and enter that of her late majesty, to fight for the
+     sacred cause and assist in punishing a perfidious king.
+
+                                                 GRASNAGALLIPAS."
+
+The loss attending the withdrawal of the priests and priestesses to
+form a guard of honor to the illustrious dead was more than
+compensated for by the re-enforcements under Grasnagallipas, to whom I
+sent a message of gracious acceptance of his services.
+
+The army being fully aroused for conflict, had the satisfaction of
+welcoming re-enforcements from two opposite directions, viz., the
+fifty thousand bockhockids under Grasnagallipas and the terrorite
+battery under command of General Rackiron.
+
+As was expected, the departure of the bravest general in the royal
+army was the signal for a renewal of hostilities, and Coltonobory, mad
+at the serious defection of his troops, at once assumed the offensive.
+He had received a large recruitment of wayleals, and felt as
+formidable as ever. His army swept down upon us with warlike music
+rolling like thunder, and cries of "Bhoolmakar!" The king himself,
+having dealt us his most terrible blow, was a witness to the onset of
+his hosts. He sat aloft in a golden palanquin, borne on the shoulders
+of his followers, with a body-guard on either side.
+
+The advance guard of the enemy consisted of several regiments, armed
+with our own hand mitrailleuses, taken from prisoners. These did a
+terrible execution among our wayleals.
+
+Grasnagallipas, anxious to undo the injury he inflicted on us during
+the first battle, and emulous of the prowess of our own forty thousand
+bockhockids, plunged headlong amid the foe, creating a panic wherever
+his gigantic birds descended. He fought like a demon, neither asking
+nor giving quarter.
+
+General Rackiron, having got his terrorite battery in position, was
+eager to check the advance of the enemy by saluting him with a few
+aerial torpedoes. There was some delay incidental to the first actual
+operations of a hastily-constructed battery, but the daring ingenuity
+of the professor overcame every obstacle. Each gun, supported by fifty
+men, possessed a solid foundation from which to direct its operations.
+
+The enemy, though harassed by our bockhockids, had worked into the
+centre of our army by sheer weight of numbers. Our wayleals, having
+exhausted their ammunition, had to fall back on their electric spears,
+and at times were obliged to retire in confusion. At this juncture a
+shell of terrorite exploded among the foe with thrilling effect,
+destroying at least two hundred bockhockids.
+
+Coltonobory, who evidently attributed the disaster to an explosion of
+gunpowder in his own ranks, closed up the broken columns and renewed
+the attack.
+
+[Illustration: AT THIS JUNCTURE, A SHELL OF TERRORITE EXPLODED AMONG
+THE FOE WITH THRILLING EFFECT, DESTROYING AT LEAST TWO HUNDRED
+BOCKHOCKIDS.]
+
+Three explosions in rapid succession, right in the centre of the
+enemy, caused the greatest consternation, and produced a frightful
+gap, where but a moment before the air was thick with an armed host.
+
+Generals Yermoul, Gerolio, Ladalmir and Grasnagallipas plunged with
+their bockhockids into the living cavern produced by the torpedoes,
+and with their spears mowed down thousands of the panic-stricken
+wayleals.
+
+Another terrorite shell, thrown in the direction of the king,
+destroyed a few hundred of his protectors and induced his majesty to
+seek safety in immediate flight.
+
+Not wishing to lose so important an enemy, I ordered General
+Flathootly and the second legion of fletyemings to start in hot
+pursuit of the royal party and bring me back the king, dead or alive.
+Flathootly, delighted with his mission, started off at once in pursuit
+of Bhoolmakar.
+
+The terrorite battery proved our most effective weapon in castigating
+the enemy. I could not thank Professor Rackiron sufficiently for his
+great genius and mechanical skill in so rapidly perfecting his
+weapons, which were modelled on the plan of the guns belonging to the
+_Polar King_. Every discharge proved a blast of destruction to the
+foe.
+
+The deadly missiles wrought a fearful slaughter, steadily decimating
+the ranks of the royal army, which had no similar weapons with which
+to retaliate upon us.
+
+The frightened hosts, constantly changing their focus, left behind
+them vast heaps of the dead and wounded and globes of floating blood.
+
+On one occasion the first brigade of fletyemings, led by General
+Starbottle, in eagerly pursuing the enemy dashed through a pool of
+blood three feet in thickness, and every wayleal emerged dripping with
+gore.
+
+Coltonobory, finding further resistance useless, at once surrendered
+himself and his army to our mercy.
+
+My brave wayleals, flushed with victory, saluted me with cries of
+"Long live Lexington White, King of Atvatabar!"
+
+But what was success now without the one priceless soul to share my
+triumph?
+
+Did ever glory so grand and defeat so terrible so mingle themselves in
+human experience?
+
+My wayleals, now for the first time hearing of the death of their
+queen, would have torn Coltonobory to pieces had I not protected him.
+
+I knew he was personally innocent, and my wayleals were already in
+pursuit of the king.
+
+We entered Calnogor in triumph. I heard on all sides a wail of
+lamentation for Lyone, mingled with applause for the conqueror.
+
+It was a scene in which conquest and misery, rapture and failure, life
+and death, were indissolubly united.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LIV.
+
+REINCARNATION.
+
+
+The grand sorcerer Charka and his guard had with reverend flight borne
+the body of their goddess Lyone to the palace of souls, mourning the
+death of their adored, who had been so precious, so beautiful, so
+holy.
+
+The high priestess and the grand sorceress, together with the priests
+and priestesses of Egyplosis, on hearing of the death of Lyone,
+departed at once for Egyplosis, to mourn the death of their goddess.
+
+Lyone was dead!
+
+Ah me! what was triumph then, without my soul of souls to share its
+delights? The blessed cup of joy, quivering to the brim, was about to
+touch my yearning lips when it was dashed aside by a treacherous hand.
+Well might the crownless Bhoolmakar laugh in whatever damnable retreat
+he had retired to! His revenge was complete.
+
+Oh, the pity of it! The young, the adorable, the divine soul who was
+just about to remount her throne to receive a purer adoration from her
+people; she who was to be queen of Atvatabar, slain treacherously,
+within sight of the Bormidophia, wherein she had so long been
+worshipped.
+
+It was impossible for me to remain longer on the field of battle. I
+wanted to fling myself on that once happy form and kiss her death-cold
+lips!
+
+I left Coltonobory and his surrendered army in the hands of the
+supreme general Hushnoly, and started at once for Egyplosis. As my
+wings devoured the leagues of air I thought, was this the climax for
+which I fought? I flew along with none to share my torture. My heart
+was rent wide open, and in my agony I rolled upon the air as I flew,
+for brain and soul seemed an ocean of fire.
+
+I arrived at Egyplosis full of anguish. With quivering lips and
+burning tears I staggered into the portal that led to the subterranean
+palace where I knew my loved one was laid. I silently entered the
+magnificent abode of the sorcerer, horror-stricken with despair.
+
+Suddenly, beyond the labyrinth I heard a golden sound, the sound of
+that blessed bell that once before rolled its waves of delight over my
+spirit. I stood leaning against a pillar, dissolved in its bewitching
+moans, luxuriating in the Agapamone of music breathed from the
+delirious bronze. I heard wafted from the mysterious temple the
+refrain of thousands of voices chanting a ritual of love and peace.
+The multitudinous sound seemed so soft and so thrilling, so powerful
+and so holy, that I was eager to know if such burden of love was the
+sorrowing passion of the twin-souls in honor of their dead goddess.
+
+I saw through the open doors of the temple a moving throng of
+twin-souls, swaying in masses hither and thither, with naked feet on
+the aquelium floor. On every forehead burned an electric star, giving
+a spectral flush to the scene. That was the singing multitude I had
+heard, the hierophants of the holy soul.
+
+As my eyes grew accustomed to the objects before me, I saw the
+interior of the temple, on whose sculptured walls and roof roses woven
+of smouldering electric fires revealed their burning bloom. Wires of
+platinum, terrelium, and aquelium had been woven into a filagree of
+roses, with leaves and stems made red hot by the electric current.
+High above the sculptured dado rose strange windows of illuminated
+glass, in colors sad and brilliant, made visible by thousands of
+electric lights hidden in the sculptured recesses behind each window.
+The subject of each jewelled pane was a tableau of reincarnation, in
+which the figures of sorcerers and magicians, robed in splendid
+attire, gave life to beings that had died.
+
+The frieze was one continual blaze of color, formed also of enamelled
+glass emblazoned with life-sized processional figures and illuminated
+with incandescent lights.
+
+In a distant part of the temple, on a terrelium pedestal, I again saw
+a monster of gold, with a terrible head and outstretched wings.
+
+As I surveyed this stupendous figure, I discovered that it held in
+its fore paws an immense helix of terrelium wire, ten feet in length
+and nine feet in diameter. One end of the wire was joined to ten
+thousand wires, whose extremities, terminating in terrelium wands,
+were held by the twin-souls. Each priest held a wand in his right
+hand, and each priestess a wand in her left, and their disengaged arms
+were wound around one another's waists.
+
+The other end of the voluminous wire forming the helix terminated in
+the rivet of an enormous spring that held a circular rheotome close to
+the circular mouth of the helix.
+
+On a pedestal level with the upheld battery, reached by a spiral
+stairway, stood the grand sorcerer Charka, robed in tissues of white
+silk and golden embroidery. An assistant priest turned a wheel that
+moved a screw point toward the spring of the rheotome. The moment the
+screw point touched the spring, the circular plate over the heart of
+the helix began to vibrate audibly. Another turn of the screw, and a
+vital thrill filled the temple with its sonorous music.
+
+I then knew that all that mysterious structure with its terrelium
+wires was an immense spiritual battery, charged with the life and love
+of ten thousand souls. The vital fluid, generated in the yearnings of
+ideal love, flooded the helix with its vitality and induced a
+magnetism of life that made the rheotome vibrate with emotion, until
+the whole temple shook with the thrilling sound.
+
+The priests and priestesses sang their ritournels of passion and love,
+and the grand sorcerer waved his wand over the monster's head. It was
+then the thought of Lyone filled my soul with a terrible yearning.
+
+Where was her hapless body? Was this feast of passion that I beheld
+her obsequies, or could it be some occult incantation to raise her
+from the dead?
+
+The thought fired my brain with madness! Oh, that it might be possible
+for her to live again, if only for one hour, that she might hear of
+victory! All at once I seemed to know that Lyone was laid in the heart
+of the helix held by the hehorrent. I knew, oh, I knew that the
+spectacle I beheld was the ceremony of reincarnation. I knew that the
+goddess was being swathed with currents of life from her votaries. How
+I blessed those living batteries, so faithful in their glorious work!
+How I blessed the adorable sorcerer who conducted this precious
+ministry of life, who focussed the love of thrilling souls upon the
+person of their goddess!
+
+I stood transfixed to the floor, watching with straining eyes those
+flamens of life perform their ritual of reincarnation. The air of the
+temple grew warm as blood, and infinitely holy. Soft and piercing
+music rose from unseen chambers of the temple, which, mingling with
+the blessed storm of life that beat upon the mouth of the helix,
+seemed to whirl away my senses.
+
+The first circle of souls around the dragon comprised the votaries of
+Bishano, or Sorcery; Hielano, or Magic; Nidialano, or Astrology;
+Padamano, or Soothsaying.
+
+The second circle embraced the adepts of Niano, or Witchcraft;
+Redohano, or Wizardry; Biccano, or the Oracle; Kielano, or Augury;
+Tocderano, or Prophecy; Jiracano, or Geomancy; Jocdilano, or
+Necromancy.
+
+The third circle embraced the hierophants of Orphitano, or
+Conjuration; Orielano, or Divination; Pridano, or Clairvoyance;
+Ecthyano, or Mesmerism; Cideshano, or Electro-Biology; Omdolophano, or
+Theosophy; Bishanamano, or Spiritualism.
+
+How shall I describe the spell of that hour? Glimmering figures, clad
+in robes of finest gossamer of the rarest colors, powderings and
+embroiderings, sang the songs of pained and enraptured sensibility.
+
+They loved, they wept, they supplicated Harikar!
+
+I saw twin-souls embrace in infinite tenderness, and again with
+ecstatic enthusiasm. It was a sea of supernatural emotion. It was an
+abyss of affection, filled with a whirlwind of bold, delicate,
+enormous love.
+
+A _religieuse_ of Tocderano shouted, "She will live again!"
+
+A priest of Biccano sang, "She will be born again of mystical,
+chivalrous love!"
+
+As the enraptured host sang of life and love, I felt a million
+exaggerations of the delicacies of emotion. I felt as though fanned
+with warm winds blowing over wildernesses of flowers. I heard the
+multiplied splendor of bells, roaring like the soft vociferations of
+far-off tropic seas. I heard music ineffably tender and sublime,
+wailing its intoxicating melodies. I saw strange illuminations
+dissolve in never-ceasing explosions of color on the glorified
+windows. I saw upon the floor endless arabesques of twin-souls,
+fantastically entangled and unrolled.
+
+Suddenly the temple shook with an explosion of sound that seemed the
+concentrated madness of drums and organs and bells; the roaring of the
+rheotome grew deafeningly louder, mingling with a strange shivering
+sound, such as is produced by the suddenly transfixed wheels of a
+flying locomotive, tearing the metals into a hissing blaze. From the
+mouth of the hehorrent streamed a blaze of fire. I looked where the
+sorcerer stood----
+
+Heavens and earth! He was holding Lyone in his arms, alive from the
+living battery! Lyone, the peerless soul of souls, alive once more and
+triumphant over death!
+
+The temple whirled around me rapid as fire, and I fell to the ground
+insensible with joy!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LV.
+
+LEXINGTON AND LYONE HAILED KING AND QUEEN OF ATVATABAR.
+
+
+The extraordinary scenes attending the reincarnation of Lyone had left
+me, when I returned to my senses, exhausted with emotion. It was
+gloriously true that she who was the Supreme Goddess, she who had
+suffered death in the fortress of Calnogor, had been restored to life
+by the powerful necromancy of the sorcerer and his college of
+twin-souls.
+
+I rushed forward in presence of the entire congregation and embraced
+in turn the radiant Lyone and the beloved Charka.
+
+I took her living figure in my arms. She was in a limp, tranquil
+condition, yet happily alive. The happy priests and priestesses
+shouted with enthusiasm: "Long live Lexington and Lyone, King and
+Queen of Atvatabar!"
+
+It was a blissful moment to us both. The future, that had lain under
+the terrors of death, now smiled again. I gazed upon my beloved's face
+with unspeakable tenderness. I saw that she smiled at me sweetly.
+
+Her apostasy was victorious, but who could have supposed that
+martyrdom and reincarnation were the path to glory? She had exchanged
+the crown of the goddess for that of a queen.
+
+[Illustration: HEAVENS AND EARTH! HE WAS HOLDING LYONE IN HIS ARMS,
+ALIVE FROM THE LIVING BATTERY! LYONE, THE PEERLESS SOUL OF SOULS,
+ALIVE ONCE MORE AND TRIUMPHANT OVER DEATH.]
+
+Handing my precious burden back to Charka again, I addressed the
+congregation as follows:
+
+"Priests and priestesses of Egyplosis, wayleals and amazons of the
+sacred and victorious army, I thank you from the depths of my heart
+for your loyal salutation, but I particularly thank the grand sorcerer
+Charka, and you his hierophants, for your glorious restoration of her
+majesty to life, king and crown, thus defeating the cowardly crime of
+the ex-king. By reason of our victory, their majesties King Bhoolmakar
+and Queen Toplissy of Atvatabar are deposed from the throne, and his
+ex-majesty, by reason of his great crime, is condemned to death.
+
+"The causes that led to this revolution are already known to you. The
+time was ripe for a reform in Egyplosis. Regulation and not
+suppression will be our aim, and they who have helped us to this great
+conquest will not go unrewarded.
+
+"After her tremendous experiences, the queen will require a season of
+absolute rest to restore her to perfect health. I will intrust the
+task of establishing a reform of Egyplosis in competent hands,
+assisted by a council of your own representatives. The present crisis
+is too overwhelmingly happy to permit me to say more to you. On
+another occasion I will thank you more effectively."
+
+This speech was received with enthusiastic applause.
+
+On a litter, supported by six twin-souls, Lyone was tenderly borne out
+of the temple. We departed amid joyful peans of music, our pathway
+being strewn with flowers. We reached the supernal palace, and saw
+from every roof floating the flag of Lyone, in token of our victory.
+
+In her palace, on a couch of pale green velvet, lay the reincarnated
+form of Lyone, filled with a sense of luxurious rest. The experiences
+of the past few days demanded a period of profound repose. Her face
+wore a blessed and triumphant smile. She had paid with suffering for
+that Nirvana of joy. With reincarnation, or rather resurrection, had
+come a holier transfiguration of form and face. She was still too weak
+physically to discuss at length the great changes that had come to her
+or to the history of Atvatabar.
+
+She was the symbol of the more sensitive souls of humanity, who,
+capable of intense suffering and delirious rapture, must needs
+purchase all their joys with heart-rending experiences. The culture
+that comes from agony is our most priceless possession, and brings the
+soul to every feast, as well as the body. The body, daily slain by
+suffering, is resurrected with a purer flesh, and receives a
+reincarnated soul fitted for ideal delights. It has attained a
+measure of Nirvana. It anticipates immortality by reason of suffering
+and love. Lyone had more than all achieved an ideal existence. Before
+she would be able to return again to the realities of the world, it
+was necessary that time should be given her for physical and spiritual
+invigoration.
+
+"I feel neither pain nor fatigue," said Lyone; "my senses seemed
+drowned in a delicious rest. You tell me that I have been dead and
+brought to life again, and although I have no sense of having passed
+through the agony, I must believe you. I remember touching a golden
+vase of flowers in my prison, and then all became a blank until I
+stood with the grand sorcerer in the temple of reincarnation."
+
+"That vase you touched," said I, "was connected with a powerful magnic
+battery, which was placed in your apartment by the king's order, to
+kill you. Grasnagallipas, leader of the king's bockhockids, on
+learning of his royal master's treachery, immediately transferred his
+allegiance and important command to our army, and was mainly
+instrumental in securing the victory."
+
+"So our cause has triumphed," said Lyone; "and what has become of the
+king?"
+
+"The king," I replied, "is king no more. I am King of Atvatabar and
+you are my beloved queen."
+
+Lyone turned aside her face and wept tears of joy.
+
+"Our marriage," I added, "will inaugurate the reign of a religion of
+wedded love, and you will sit with me as queen on the throne of
+Atvatabar."
+
+"That will be glorious," said Lyone, "but I fear our marriage will
+also end ideal love and sorcery, and the Nirvana of a hundred years,
+the fairest products of Egyplosis."
+
+"Do you see now," I said, "that ideal joys in the world can only be
+built on more extensive miseries? It would be a glorious thing to
+build houses of jewels, but so long as real jewels are so rare, we
+must be content with rocks. Still, there are jewels, and in Atvatabar
+I learn they are much more abundant than on the outer planet;
+therefore it might be proper for twin-souls to walk on love's
+enchanted ground for a brief though definite period."
+
+Lyone had undergone transfiguration. Beautiful as a spirit, her figure
+seemed plastic porcelain. Death had made more luminous the splendid
+sculpture of her face. As she spoke, it seemed to me that we had
+closed the door on the infelicitous experiences of actual life, and
+were opening the gates of a more glorious day.
+
+I informed Lyone of the arrival of the two vessels from the outer
+world, and of the great services of Captain Adams and Sir John Forbes
+in turning the tide of battle by sea in our favor. She was delighted
+at the prospect of meeting fresh visitors from the outer world, and in
+due time Captain Adams and Sir John Forbes and their entire ships'
+companies stood before her who was delighted with the fuller
+acquaintance thus made with the people of the outer world. Both the
+captains and their officers realized her ideal of exotic manhood,
+which combined stalwart proportions with intellectual benignity of
+face.
+
+Sir John Forbes was very complimentary in his praise of the grace and
+beauty of Lyone and her associates among the priestesses of Egyplosis.
+He considered Lyone to possess spiritual beauty to an extraordinary
+degree. The wonderful pale-gold of her complexion was in marked
+contrast to the old-gold complexion of the women of Atvatabar. He also
+praised the splendid beauty of Zooly-Soase and Thoubool, who were
+indeed magnificent women.
+
+My success encouraged the strangers to consider that conquest in other
+realms of Plutusia would be an easy accomplishment, especially if
+armed with such weapons as those possessed by the sailors of the
+_Polar King_. But even admitting superiority of weapons, they thought
+it a marvellous thing that one small vessel with but eighty men could
+conquer fifty millions of people.
+
+In my own mind I thought it possible that the _Polar King_ might
+conquer still greater kingdoms, and that in time I might be Plutarch
+of Plutusia. But in such business one realm at a time is enough. I
+suggested to our visitors that there were at least twenty realms, each
+as large as Atvatabar, in this interior planet, that would give them
+opportunity for adventure.
+
+"We also wish," said I, "both the United States and England to know
+that our ports are open for commerce, and foreign trade is welcome to
+seek our shores. We have gold enough to enrich all comers from the
+outer world."
+
+The eyes of our visitors and their officers glistened at this
+intelligence. And well they might, for Atvatabar was worth a thousand
+realms like Golconda or Peru. We had wealth for literature and
+science, art and commerce, which rightly used would make Atvatabar the
+wonder of the ages, a realm of palaces and temples, the fountain of
+wisdom, the mother of art, and its commerce would make both the earths
+rich beyond the dreams of fortune. I was determined that the royal
+magnificence of the thrones of all time on either surface of the earth
+should be outrivalled by the supreme glory of that of Atvatabar. I
+knew there was an inspiration to human endeavor that magnificence
+alone can give, and would use my wealth to advance the happiness of
+humanity.
+
+Lyone being at last fully restored to health, we determined to delay
+no longer the important ceremonies of our royal marriage and
+coronation, not only to complete our happiness, but to really
+establish the government on a personal basis so agreeable to the
+wishes and customs of the people.
+
+Lyone's aerial yacht was made ready for the journey to Calnogor. It
+was large enough to carry the captains, officers, and men of the
+_Mercury_ and _Aurora Borealis_, the captain, officers, and men of the
+_Polar King_, as well as Lyone and myself and the great officers of
+state and retinue. All being safely on board, I gave the signal for
+flight, and in a moment we were launched on the air with tremendous
+speed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LVI.
+
+OUR RECEPTION IN CALNOGOR.
+
+
+The royal city of Calnogor never contained such splendor, such
+importance of historic event, nor such a multitude of people, as on
+the occasion of the triple event of our marriage, our coronation, and
+the reception of the distinguished strangers from beyond the Polar
+Gulf. How shall the glory of that day be described? What occult power
+must animate the pen that must be at once the stylus of a poet, the
+brush of a painter, and the wand of a magician, to do justice to the
+splendid theme?
+
+The entire army, composed of half a million wayleals, had come from
+Calnogor to Kioram to escort the aerial ship containing myself, Lyone,
+and the distinguished strangers, together with our retinue and the
+sailors from America and Great Britain. On either side of the ship the
+army was massed in two equal hosts, waving a million of wings. Either
+army was led by a phalanx of flying bockhockids, led by Yermoul and
+Grasnagallipas. A body-guard of wayleals bore fifty gigantic golden
+sceptres, being the ensigns of sovereignty over the fifty provinces of
+the kingdom.
+
+All the way to Calnogor, five hundred miles distant, the army
+performed the most incredible evolutions to the measured thunders of
+music. Its legions massed themselves in ever-whirling globes,
+undulating all along the line of flight like monstrous serpents.
+
+Again, mighty cones of wayleals would stream from our yacht on both
+sides, upward and backward, like a blaze of comet splendor.
+
+Then, suddenly, globes of wayleals would surround us, globe within
+globe flying alternately in different directions; and we seemed to
+move on the centre of another earth.
+
+To describe the endless flight and counter-flight, the concentration
+and radiation of the wayleals in grand review, would be impossible.
+Captain Adams and Sir John Forbes were astounded at the extraordinary
+evolutions possible to winged men in a world where there is
+practically no gravity. The army moved in Daedalian march; it was at
+times sinuous with labyrinthic movement to the sound of drums and the
+roar of bugles. The wayleals formed arches and crowns, conchoidal
+convolutions, zones and wheels, hemispheres and globes, cones and
+pyramids. The yacht was clothed with sublime torsions, peristaltic
+splendors, and immense radiations of living bodies. It was the
+grandest movement of men ever seen on earth.
+
+We were again completely surrounded by a single globe of wayleals, in
+the centre of which moved the yacht with fearful speed. The globe
+moved as fast as we, and the living shell obliterated both earth and
+sun from, sight. Then, with a roar of artillery, the globe exploded,
+and lo! before us the infinite golden dome of the Bormidophia, the
+marble city of Calnogor, and dense multitudes of excited people!
+
+The city was decorated with the conquering flag of Lyone and with
+flowers; and the inscriptions on the triumphal arches were: "Long live
+Lexington and Lyone, King and Queen of Atvatabar!"
+
+The entire army, augmented by the allegiance of the defeated king's
+troops, headed by the supreme general Hushnoly, received us at the
+entrance to the city.
+
+Pending the reconstruction of the government, law and order were being
+administered by Hushnoly, assisted by a military council consisting of
+all the victorious leaders.
+
+The festivities incidental to our entry into Calnogor and the public
+rejoicings over the reincarnation of Lyone lasted several days. I took
+occasion at a reception at the royal palace to confer suitable honors
+and rewards on my victorious generals. I created the supreme general
+Hushnoly a noble of the first rank under the title of Goiloor, or Duke
+of Calnogor, and confirmed his authority as commander-in-chief of the
+army, and Zooly-Soase was also created Goiloose of Calnogor. General
+Gerolio was created Boiroon of Swerga, an inland city, and appointed
+vice-commander to Hushnoly. General Rackiron was made Goiloor of
+Swondab, and his appointment as general of the royal artillery was
+confirmed. General Ladalmir was made Goiloor of Kioram and commandant
+of the fortress. General Yermoul, who retired from the army, was made
+Goiloor of Gnaphisthasia. The grand sorcerer Charka was made Goiloor,
+and the grand sorceress Goiloose of Egyplosis, while Grasnagallipas
+was created Boiroon of Invention and General of the Royal Bockhockids.
+
+General Starbottle was made Goiloor of Savasse, a province of the
+kingdom, and Prime Minister of the government. General Goldrock, who
+was now fully recovered from his wounded leg, was made Royal Treasurer
+and Goiloor of Blindis, a distant city. Dr. Merryferry was made
+Minister of Foreign Affairs; General Nototherboc, Minister of Naval
+Affairs; General Pra, Chief of Police; and General Flathootly,
+Minister of War.
+
+I assumed the title of "His Majesty Lexington, King of Atvatabar," and
+Lyone that of "Her Majesty Lyone, Queen of Atvatabar," of equal
+authority and dignity to myself.
+
+I issued a decree confirming all titles and dignities for the life of
+the recipient only. As a man cannot transfer his character or
+abilities to his children, more especially the virtues that made him
+famous, so neither could he transfer his titles or dignities to
+posterity; and a man who had no other claims to greatness than the
+plumes he had borrowed from his father, should be despised for
+strutting in artificial glory.
+
+The Borodemy was maintained, and no restriction of popular or
+constitutional liberty already enjoyed by the people was permitted.
+All titles given to men who were simply fortunate enough to receive a
+majority of votes, making them representatives of the people in the
+Borodemy, were abolished, and men only were honored by virtue of great
+services accomplished. All members of the Borodemy were paid liberal
+salaries, on the principle that a prince had no more right to an
+appropriation from the public purse than a legislator. All public
+measures adopted by the Borodemy were subject to the veto of the Royal
+Council, composed of the king, queen, and actual members of the
+government.
+
+I need not say that the victory of Lyone over death and the fact of
+our army having conquered in battle gave us unlimited power. I was the
+supreme lord of Atvatabar; but, nevertheless, in the hour of triumph I
+determined to use my power for the good of the people. The sensation
+caused by the return of Lyone to life had stirred all Atvatabar with
+feelings of the profoundest awe and loyalty. Vast crowds of people
+came as pilgrims to see their queen and offer congratulations.
+
+Had the old creed, with its worship of Lyone and Harikar, not fallen
+with the success of our arms, Lyone would undoubtedly have been
+worshipped anew as goddess more devotedly than ever; but the
+revolution being founded on antagonism of the old faith to social
+welfare and the laws of nature, a new creed must necessarily take its
+place.
+
+The new creed of one body and one soul was based on order, truth,
+justice, benevolence and temperance. This I styled the Remeliora, or
+better thing to that which had gone before. The new creed gave the
+soul mastery of its feelings, and love was measured by a regular
+throb. Souls becoming stronger and more masculine were the better able
+to bear the pulsations of joy and despair. They could sustain their
+emotions with a cordial enthusiasm, and passion, no longer a frantic
+flame, became a soft and abiding fire.
+
+I appointed the grand sorcerer Pontiff of Remeliorism, giving him
+authority to formulate a code of ethics that all could adhere to. With
+such a code as a solid foundation, I hoped in time to establish a
+purer faith than that possessing only the human soul for its deity.
+
+Not many days after our coming to Calnogor, and while still engaged in
+settling the government of the kingdom, we received a visit from
+Hushnoly and Zooly-Soase. It was with feelings of pain that we heard
+the object of the supreme general's visit.
+
+With a voice softened with emotion Hushnoly told his story. In
+carrying out the reforms at Egyplosis made necessary by the success of
+the army of the late goddess, a great difficulty presented itself. It
+was found that, notwithstanding the fact that all of the priests and
+priestesses had fought for Lyone and the new faith, as against the old
+order of things, nearly one-half of the twin-souls were still at heart
+as great devotees of Harikar and hopeless love as ever, while the
+remaining half had renounced the practices of Egyplosis in common with
+their queen. It was found impossible to change the faith of the entire
+priesthood in a moment, so to speak, and many still believed that the
+old faith possessed fruits of self-sacrifice, culture, spirit-power,
+and the ideal life, such as the new state of things would utterly
+destroy. Hushnoly and the high priestess were in sympathy with the
+adherents of the ancient faith, and they too believed in sacrificing
+marital rights for the sake of the ideal existence.
+
+The revelation of such a spiritual revolt in Egyplosis, headed, too,
+by the man and woman who had sacrificed so much for the cause of Lyone
+and myself, revealed human nature in a new light, while it astounded
+us. I had foolishly supposed the supremacy of the sword could carry
+dominion into spiritual things, and that Egyplosis was wholly
+converted to the new faith, to Remeliorism.
+
+The situation was extremely painful.
+
+"Supreme general and high priestess," I said, "both her majesty Lyone
+and myself are greatly indebted to your courage and support in the
+late struggle; a support heroically given us in spite of your own
+secret faith. Is there no way by which you might be reconciled, both
+of you, to the new order of things?"
+
+"We fear not, your majesty," said Hushnoly.
+
+"Will riches, will honors not tempt you?"
+
+"Your majesty, we cannot be tempted," replied he.
+
+"You are doubtless aware," I continued, "that it would be impossible
+for the government to recognize, much less give support to, a system
+of faith for the destruction of which the war was carried on. Much as
+we love you, much as we love the priests and priestesses, we cannot
+give allegiance to the old faith, We cannot, we dare not countenance
+your creed. It will be therefore impossible for yourselves or your
+people to remain at Egyplosis, which will be the chief shrine of the
+new faith hereafter."
+
+"We have already anticipated all this," said Hushnoly, "and do not
+propose even to remain in Atvatabar."
+
+"And where do you go to?" said Lyone, in astonishment.
+
+"Well, your majesty," replied he, "we have determined to take
+possession of the sphere Hilar, one of the untenanted spheres above
+us, and there create an ideal world. Thus we will relieve your majesty
+of all embarrassment and remove any obstacle in the way of religious
+or political reform."
+
+I was bewildered by the reply of Hushnoly, as I had never before heard
+of any one desiring to dwell on the wandering sphere Hilar, and begged
+an explanation.
+
+"Hilar, as your majesty is probably aware," said Hushnoly, "is a
+sphere twenty-five miles in diameter that floats in space at a
+distance of fifty miles from the surface of Atvatabar. It revolves on
+its own axis at the rate of a mile an hour, making a complete
+revolution in seventy-five hours. It also revolves around Swang once
+during a hundred aerial revolutions, or in one hundred of its days. It
+has tropic, temperate, and frigid zones, with perpetual ice capping
+its poles. It contains one ocean of irregular outline and has one
+continent. The areas of land and water are about equal. There are two
+mountain ranges, turning from a given centre of upheaval and
+determining the configuration of the land. There are one hundred
+islands in the sea and a dozen rivers on the land. In fact, it seems
+to be a facsimile in climate, geologic, and physiographical conditions
+to the outer world you have come from; and on such a sphere we propose
+to build a new throne for Harikar, and seat thereon another goddess
+like the virtuous and glorious Lyone."
+
+"Ah," said Lyone, "I know who that other goddess will be--she will be
+the fair Zooly-Soase."
+
+The high priestess blushed in her robe of crimson silk, making her
+golden beauty superb and precious. As for Hushnoly, it was evident the
+destiny of his counterpart soul was already fully anticipated. Her
+ascension to the throne of a goddess would virtually make him ruler of
+Hilar.
+
+"We desire, your majesty," said he, "to resign our titles and offices
+of high priest and priestess of Egyplosis and supreme general and
+general of the amazons of the royal army of Atvatabar. Our only
+request is that we be allowed to depart to Hilar, together with such
+of the priests and priestesses of Harikar as are willing to follow us
+thither. Also, that all new converts to Harikar desirous of emigrating
+to our spiritual kingdom will be secured freedom of departure from
+Atvatabar for all time hereafter."
+
+I willingly granted Hushnoly and Zooly-Soase their request, and added:
+"You both shall be promptly and liberally rewarded for the great
+services rendered your king and queen in time of war, as well as
+recompensed for past services to the country in Egyplosis and for loss
+of estate in Atvatabar."
+
+I promised to issue a royal decree embodying all of the aforesaid
+liberties and bounties in favor of Hushnoly and his fair consort and
+their followers. The late high priest and high priestess, with
+grateful, cordial adieus, departed from the audience-chamber.
+
+I thereupon appointed General Rackiron the commander-in-chief of the
+army in place of Hushnoly, with General Gerolio the vice-commander.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LVII.
+
+THE COMBINED CEREMONY OF MARRIAGE AND CORONATION.
+
+
+The day of our marriage and coronation as king and queen of Atvatabar
+at length arrived. The scene in the Bormidophia was of surpassing
+magnificence. For the first time in history Lyone sat before the
+throne of the gods not as goddess, but as queen; and I, her compeer,
+as king sat beside her. Lyone was attired in a loosely-fitting robe of
+old-ivory silk, over which was an outer network of lace formed of
+thread of gold, the design being a golden sun on the breast, which,
+with its long streaming rays, was held together by a golden cobweb
+that covered the entire figure of the queen. She also wore her belt of
+jewels. Beside her stood a page bearing her crown as Queen of
+Atvatabar. For myself I had caused to be made a knightly suit of
+golden armor that shone mightily as I wore it on that eventful
+occasion.
+
+The priestesses of Egyplosis, taught by a priest of decorative art
+from Gnaphisthasia, had been for some time engaged in creating a
+tapestry of lace, wrought with a thread of heavy bullion gold, as a
+bridal gift to their queen. The design took the form of a winged
+twin-soul in loving converse, in the centre, surrounded by
+Atvatabarese arabesque--all held together by a most poetic fancy of
+floral scrolls and formed of gold thread lace work. This enormous
+piece of work was twelve feet in width, seventy-five feet in length,
+and four inches in thickness. The gold used in its marvellous
+intricacies weighed five tons. Such was the glorious piece of tapestry
+that was hung over the side of the throne, and which, reaching
+downward three-fourths of its height, concealed a considerable part of
+the august structure.
+
+Around us swept the amphitheatre, filled with the leaders of the army
+and navy, the great officers of government, and the people of
+Atvatabar. Surrounding the base of the throne, sat those priests and
+priestesses of Egyplosis who had embraced the new faith of "one body
+and one soul."
+
+The pontiff Charka performed the marriage ceremony when the roar of
+guns had subsided. He performed his august duties sustained by the
+splendors of music and the adoration of the people.
+
+"Wilt thou have this woman, Lyone, Queen of Atvatabar, to be thy wife
+until death, according to the customs of our people and not according
+to the customs of Egyplosis?"
+
+"I will."
+
+"Wilt thou have this man, Lexington, King of Atvatabar, to be thy
+husband until death, according to the new faith of 'one body and one
+soul?'"
+
+"I will."
+
+The deed was done. Around the throne swept a cyclone of twin-souls
+resolved on matrimony. In their bewildering flight they became radiant
+with strange transformations of feeling and gesture, and their songs
+symbolized the intensity of the great crisis that had arrived in the
+history of the nation.
+
+All around the amphitheatre rose the enormous multitude, as one soul,
+shouting their joy. The guns of the fortress volleyed their thunders,
+and the first act of the great drama ended amid the shouting of armed
+hosts, the singing of twin-souls, and the hosannas of the multitude.
+
+The second scene was perhaps still more impressive. The grand
+chamberlain of the palace Cleperelyum had put into his phonograph
+beside us a coil containing the charter of coronation. Fitting a
+megaphone to the phonograph, there issued the following proclamation
+from the instrument, like a blast of music:
+
+     _Charter of Coronation of Their Majesties_ LEXINGTON _and_
+     LYONE, _King and Queen of Atvatabar_.
+
+     The crown and throne of the realm of Atvatabar, heretofore
+     possessed in the persons of their ex-majesties King
+     Aldemegry Bhoolmakar and Queen Toplissy, being now declared
+     vacant by reason of the desertion, flight, deposition, and
+     defeat of said ex-majesties, and said crown and throne of
+     Atvatabar being now possessed, both by conquest and by will
+     of the people, in the persons of their majesties Lexington
+     and Lyone, King and Queen of Atvatabar, now, therefore, we,
+     the priests, nobles, statesmen, and commanders of army and
+     navy, as representatives of the people, do hereby confirm
+     said possession of the crown and throne of this realm, by
+     placing upon the head of Lexington and upon the head of
+     Lyone their respective crowns as King and Queen of
+     Atvatabar, and do hereby render both king and queen equal
+     loyalty, fealty, and homage, as the true and rightful
+     sovereigns of Atvatabar.
+
+(Signed)
+
+STARBOTTLE, _Goiloor of Calnogor, First Minister of the Government_.
+
+CHARKA, _Pontiff of Remeliorism, Goiloor of Egyplosis_.
+
+THOUBOOL, _Goiloose of Egyplosis_.
+
+RACKIRON, _Goiloor of Swondab, Commander-in-Chief of the Army_.
+
+WALLACE, _Admiral of the Fleet_.
+
+YERMOUL, _Lord of Art, Goiloor of Gnaphisthasia_.
+
+GRASNAGALLIPAS, _Commander-in-Chief of Bockhockids_.
+
+LADALMIR, _Goiloor of Kioram_.
+
+PRA, _Minister of Police_.
+
+NOTOTHERBOC, _Minister of Naval Affairs_.
+
+GOLDROCK, _Royal Treasurer_.
+
+DR. MERRYFERRY, _Minister of Foreign Affairs_.
+
+FLATHOOTLY, _Minister of War_.
+
+GEROLIO, _Vice-Commander of the Army_.
+
+COLTONOBORY, _Vice-Commander of Bockhockids_.
+
+[Illustration: WE SAT THUS CROWNED AMID THE TREMENDOUS EXCITEMENT. THE
+PEOPLE SHOUTED "LIFE, HEALTH, AND PROSPERITY, TO OUR SOVEREIGN LORD
+AND LADY, LEXINGTON AND LYONE, KING AND QUEEN OF ATVATABAR."]
+
+During the declamation of the megaphone the pontiff Charka raised the
+crown to my head, while his consort Thoubool raised the crown of the
+queen to Lyone's head. We sat thus crowned amid the tremendous
+excitement. The guns of the fortress shook the Bormidophia with their
+explosions. The people shouted: "Life, health, and prosperity to our
+sovereign lord and lady, Lexington and Lyone, King and Queen of
+Atvatabar!" Men heard no sweeter music than the coronation march
+executed by a thousand instruments. I realized as I sat with Lyone
+beneath the throne of the gods a portion of that immeasurable feeling
+of being universally exalted, universally loved, universally adored.
+It is true, the fervor of idolatry for Lyone had largely subsided, but
+in its stead came a more perfect loyalty of soul and body on the part
+of priest and priestess. Souls that had balanced themselves, as it
+were, on the edge of a sword, once more stood on the solid earth.
+
+The magnificence of royalty, which kings born to the purple but rarely
+feel, was ours. Our sudden good fortune unveiled to us the splendors
+of power, and riches, and honor. The people themselves, enchanted with
+the product of their own abnegation, made their obeisance to us as to
+gods.
+
+Lyone grew perceptibly paler with the intensity of her excitement; her
+breast rose and fell more rapidly, as the soarings of song told her
+that her supreme realization of life and fortune as goddess had not
+wholly died with her apostasy, but that a new life no less glorious
+had begun.
+
+As for myself, seated on the focus of human endeavor, it thrilled me
+to think what power of realization I possessed for things I had
+considered impossible and unattainable. I determined that art should
+sound the abysses of the inexpressible and bring from thence radiant
+symbols of all things, clothed with imagination and emotion. Invention
+would still further extend man's empire over matter. Soul-culture and
+spirit-power would be cultivated in a reformed Egyplosis. Lyone,
+mystical and divine, would ever rule queen of hearts with the sorcery
+of her beauty.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LVIII.
+
+THE DEATH OF BHOOLMAKAR.
+
+
+General Flathootly, with his command of 10,000 fletyemings, who was
+ordered to pursue and capture the ex-king Bhoolmakar, returned to
+Calnogor after a month's absence to report the death of King
+Bhoolmakar and Koshnili, together with several hundred of their
+followers, and the capture of several thousand wayleals as prisoners.
+
+At a special interview with the general I requested him to report the
+story of his defeat of the king's troops and the death of the king.
+
+"Well, yer majesty," said Flathootly, "Oi must first of all
+congratulate you on ascendin' the throne of the inimy. It was the
+shmartest bit of work Oi've seen iver since Oi lift the other
+wurruld."
+
+"The troops behaved nobly," I said, "but I am all anxiety to hear how
+you captured the king."
+
+"Well, thin, yer majesty, Oi kim up to him at a place called Gapthis,
+about 1,500 miles from here, away beyant on the wild say-shore."
+
+"Had he a large force with him?" I asked.
+
+"Bedad an' he had. He had a body-guard of about 5,000 wayleals, but
+shure, we made short work of the flyin' sojers."
+
+"Well, tell me exactly what happened," I said.
+
+"Troth, an' Oi will, yer majesty; shure our flyin' sailors are darlin'
+fellows! We skirmished up to the inimy until we got him between us an'
+the say an' thin we fell to. The bloody rascals tried to spear us, an'
+did kill about a dozen or two of the bhoys, but we touched thim up
+lively wid our pitchforks, an' begorra they didn't loike that at all,
+at all.
+
+"A wee red-faced captain called out that they were goin' to fight for
+their king to the last. 'How long are ye goin' to last yerself,
+sonny?' says Oi, an' afore the words were out of me mouth somebody
+laid the wee fellow out as nate as a funeral. Well, we fell upon thim
+front an' rear, as the sayin' is, an' be jabers, Oi killed a man wid
+the first blow.
+
+"'Walk right into thim!' Oi shouted, an' there we wor, fightin' an'
+slashin' an' killin' wan another as if it wor a mere matther of
+business. If the king's sojers flew up, why, we flew up too, an'
+chased thim down ag'in. It was loike a pandemonium of fightin' cocks.
+
+"There was a big fellow who made a slash at me wid his sword, but Oi
+lifted him on me fork, an' he very nicely showed me the whites of his
+eyes. The best part of the performance was ould Bhooly, who had
+himself in the middle of his body-guard, an', waving a toy sword,
+asked his kind friends to kill us.
+
+"Well, to make a long shtory short, the inimy being very badly beaten,
+threw up their arms, an' we captured the entire lot, excipt about five
+hundred wayleals who flew away as fast as their heels cud carry thim."
+
+"How did the king conduct himself when captured?" I inquired.
+
+"He came up to me, an' bowin' very nicely, offered me his sword. He
+said he was glad to surrender to a brave gineral an' hoped Oi would
+give him the honors of war.
+
+"'Be jabers, Oi will that,' said Oi; 'but that'll be afther we thry ye
+by coort-martial. But where's Mrs. Bhooly?' says Oi.
+
+"'Does your excellency mean her late majesty?' said Bhooly; 'if so, Oi
+regret to say the unhappy fate which has overtaken both myself and my
+counthry prostrated her so much that she died.'
+
+"'Well, thin,' said Oi, 'where's that other conspirator, Koshnili?'
+
+"'Oi am here, your excellency,' said he, steppin' forward an' handin'
+me his sword, 'an' Oi also surrender.'
+
+"'You do well,' said Oi, 'to give up yer sword, for it saves me the
+throuble of takin' it from you.
+
+"'An' now, me rascals,' Oi said, 'we're goin' to save the throuble of
+lookin' afther you by thryin' you by coort-martial. Let the coort be
+formed,' said Oi, 'an' bring forth the prisoners.' The king's sojers
+were disarmed, an' their wings taken off, an' were assimbled in a
+circle undher guard. Bhooly an' Koshnili, undher a special guard,
+stood in the middle of the ring.
+
+"'Now, bhoys,' said Oi, 'fair play an' no favor. Who has got a charge
+agin' the prisoners?' Wid that, wan of me min stepped forward an' said
+that Bhooly an' Koshnili had organized resistance to a change of
+government an' religion, thereby blockin' the wheels of reform, an'
+furthermore had conspired to murdher, an', be jabers, did murdher, her
+holiness the goddess, of blessed memory, who, although alive ag'in,
+was undoubtedly kilt.
+
+"When Bhooly an' Koshnili heard that the goddess was alive ag'in their
+knees knocked together wid fear.
+
+"'This is a terrible charge agin' ye both,' said Oi. 'Oi don't know
+which offince is the greatest--killin' a dacent goddess or blockin'
+the wheels of reform; annyhow, the wan crime is as bad as the other.
+Who supports this charge?' Oi added in thunderin' tones.
+
+"Well, ivery sojer on the spot volunteered to give evidence as to the
+blockin' of the wheels of reform, but nobody saw the murdher
+committed.
+
+"'Now,' said Oi, addressin' the prisoners, 'did yez murdher the
+goddess or did yez not? By yer sowls, tell the truth. Guilty or not
+guilty?'
+
+"'Guilty,' said both prisoners.
+
+"'Thin, by yer own mouths be ye condimned,' said Oi. 'The sintince of
+this coort is that ye both be beheaded on the mortal spot.'"
+
+"I think, Flathootly," said I, "that you rather exceeded your duty in
+so hastily condemning the prisoners. You should have brought them to
+Calnogor for proper trial and execution."
+
+"Shure, Oi knew that, but, to tell yer majesty the truth, it wudn't
+have added to yer credit to have ordhered the execution of Bhooly, an'
+so Oi took the responsibility of the whole thing on meself. Oi made
+Bhooly an' Koshnili kneel down, an' a sojer tied their hands behind
+their backs. Then Oi ordhered a wayleal to behead thim wid their own
+swords. Afther some hot work the heads av both murdherers rolled on
+the ground."
+
+"Why didn't you shoot them or kill them at once with your spears?"
+
+"Oi considered it too aisy a death for thim. Oi didn't want thim to
+die widout knowin' they were gittin' hurt."
+
+I forgave Flathootly his too hasty execution of the ex-king, as he had
+undoubtedly saved me a very disagreeable duty, and the hasty taking
+off of his ex-majesty prevented any demonstration in his favor.
+
+[Illustration: I MADE BHOOLY AN' KOSHNILI KNEEL DOWN AN' A SOJER TIED
+THEIR HANDS BEHIND THEIR BACKS. THEN I ORDHERED A WAYLEAL TO BEHEAD
+THEM WID THEIR OWN SWORDS.]
+
+To assure the people of my anxiety for a popular government, I issued
+a proclamation ordering a general election, to create a new
+Borodemy in place of the assembly whose members had disappeared, or
+were made prisoners of war, or were dead. In thus providing for a
+constitutional government, I granted the nation not only all its
+ancient privileges, but added new and more important measures of
+political liberty.
+
+As the revenues of Atvatabar amounted to $8,000,000,000 per annum,
+there was no danger of myself or comrades of the _Polar King_ falling
+short of handsome revenues.
+
+The re-establishment of the government, the reorganization of the
+army, navy, and police, together with the care of the palaces of
+Calnogor and Tanje and the new ritual for the Bormidophia and
+Egyplosis, occupied my attention for a longer period than I at first
+contemplated. While these things were being accomplished I gave a
+grand public reception and royal banquet to Captain Adams and Sir John
+Forbes and the officers and seamen of the ships _Mercury_ and _Aurora
+Borealis_, in acknowledgment of their great services to our cause. At
+the same time I did not forget to give our friends a more solid proof
+of my gratitude in the shape of a large bounty in gold.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LIX.
+
+THE HISTORY CONCLUDED.
+
+
+I think it is right that I should conclude the history of the conquest
+of Atvatabar with my being crowned king of the realm.
+
+I at once assumed my functions as ruler of Atvatabar. I was supreme
+commander of the army and grand admiral of the fleet. In council with
+the ministers of the government appointed by the Borodemy, I caused
+the adoption of many beneficent laws, calculated to make my people
+prosperous and happy.
+
+Hushnoly soon departed, with his retinue of twin-souls, to found a new
+Egyplosis on the sphere of Hilar, with Zooly-Soase as goddess. It was
+with great grief that I parted with these beloved friends. Hushnoly
+and his flock were not to be persuaded that nature herself was hostile
+to their esoteric practices; so, to avoid antagonism, it was best that
+we should part. I promised Hushnoly that, together with Lyone, I would
+visit his globe some time in the future and see how his colony
+progressed. He was an enthusiast who required a great many defeats
+from fortune before he could see the fatal defects of his social and
+religious system.
+
+The grand sorcerer, as the pontiff of Remeliorism, or the ethics of
+nature, achieved a triumph in restoring Egyplosis to the reign of
+order, truth, justice, benevolence, and temperance. In time I hoped to
+see the Christian faith rule the souls of those who had so recently
+worshipped themselves under the guise of Harikar, the universal human
+soul. I was anxious to see men and women possessing that serene poise
+of passion that alone can sustain virile action. Lyone herself was the
+first to be convinced that the human soul, with its limitations, its
+narrowness, its impatience, its selfishness, its arrogance, its
+cruelty, was a very inferior deity. It was true that rare ideal joys
+might be purchased for a brief time under the old _regime_, but they
+were only purchased at an immense price, out of all proportion to the
+value received, and their possession produced a sickly sublimity
+totally unfitting the soul for the practical duties of life.
+
+Captain Adams and Sir John Forbes, excited at my good fortune,
+declared themselves anxious, with my consent, to explore the further
+hemisphere of the interior planet, in the interests of science,
+discovery, commerce, and possibly conquest. They were anxious to
+discover the continents that lie above and beyond Atvatabar,
+surrounded by unknown Plutusian seas, and bear to their respective
+countries some signal trophies of their daring and prowess in the
+internal world.
+
+It was arranged that on their return to Kioram, the _Polar King_, with
+myself and Lyone on board, should sail with the _Mercury_ and _Aurora
+Borealis_ for the United States. The sailing of the three vessels up
+New York Bay would be a historic event, and great would be the
+curiosity of the American people to see the Goddess of Atvatabar and
+our retinue of wayleals as proof of the existence of Bilbimtesirol,
+the interior world.
+
+And now, my dear reader, we must part for the present. By a change of
+plans on the part of Captain Adams, the _Mercury_, the vessel that
+will bear the manuscript of my adventures in the interior world, is
+already waiting to start on her voyage. I regret that many strange
+things have been left unsaid. Many extraordinary experiences have been
+omitted, because I am desirous that this brief history of the
+happiness that befell me and my devoted sailors in Atvatabar should
+be published without delay, to allay the natural curiosity excited in
+the outer world by the story of our discovery of Plutusia.
+
+You may possibly feel a desire to know the future fortunes of Queen
+Lyone and myself in a part of the world hitherto undreamed of, and
+when I again address you I hope to describe our future experiences on
+the throne of Atvatabar. We purpose to apply a liberal portion of the
+vast wealth of our kingdom to the pursuit of invention, art, and
+spirituality, preserving and enlarging the existing palaces of
+invention and art and the palaces of Egyplosis as institutions for the
+development of the soul and its attributes of spirit power. It will be
+our purpose to extend to the utmost limits the empire of mind over
+matter in developing invention. In art, we will, by means of its
+manifold radiant symbols, reproduce every idea of the soul shaped by
+sentiment and imagination, and in sounding the abysses of the heart
+express what is considered the inexpressible.
+
+In spirituality, the science and art of soul and its manifestations in
+the body, and after the temporary or complete severance therefrom,
+will be investigated on a much wider basis than ever before, and
+spirit power, apart from the worship of soul as deity, will be
+developed and elaborated into an enduring force, possessing creative
+energy. What boundless empire of life will not such ideas realize, and
+how entrancing the story of such discoveries in the interior world of
+the soul!
+
+I may also, dear reader, request you to accompany me to other
+undiscovered realms of Plutusia, where, according to report, exist
+fairy-lands, peopled with strange, fantastic races of men and women,
+as well as fabulous animals, with characteristics surpassing the
+wildest dreams of fancy.
+
+As shown on the map of the interior world, which forms the
+frontispiece of this volume, many more continents remain yet unknown
+to me, to explore which will be my ambition. If the rumors I have
+heard of semi-spiritual men and semi-human monsters that dwell in
+tropical environments, where mountains rise so high that there is no
+weight on their summits, and where torrents of water roll upward,
+sweeping away villages in their path; of rocks of gold suspended in
+the air; of tribes dwelling on floating islands of jewels in the
+empyrean, and of a thousand still stranger places and peoples, where
+every phantasy of the imagination can be produced in reality by spirit
+power, then, indeed, the story of my adventures will develop the soul
+of the age with a profound delight.
+
+I therefore bid adieu to you, dear reader, in the hope of meeting you
+again, to feast you with these wonders. I hope to have you accompany
+me on the _Polar King_, which, after a season of repair and refitment,
+will most assuredly be launched for a still more adventurous voyage on
+the waters of the interior sea. How many books have been written on
+the discovery of the western hemisphere by Columbus, while, as yet,
+but one has been written about the interior sphere, a region not less
+important than the outer earth, whose geographical features are now
+for the first time revealed to human eyes! What a wonder it would be
+if one could travel to the moon or the planet Mars and return to the
+earth to tell of all that he had seen or heard on those distant
+spheres! Here indeed is no less a miracle that for ages two vast
+planets have existed each unknown to the other, although only a
+thousand miles apart, with the means of communication possessing but
+few difficulties to be overcome. The mutual discovery of two such
+worlds has opened up a future for the human race that may well strike
+one dumb with its splendor. It has conferred on the meanest individual
+a glory, a birthright of the spirit, as vast as the proportions of the
+twin-planet. I will not further anticipate the future, and for the
+present will ask you to accept from Lyone and myself a courteous
+farewell.
+
+THE END.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: "THE LOVE LETTER."]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Goddess of Atvatabar, by William R. Bradshaw
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