The Goddess of Atvatabar by William Richard Bradshaw
CHAPTER XXIV.
THE JOURNEY TO EGYPLOSIS.
Never did time pass so rapidly or so happily as the days spent in thepalace of the goddess. Although I met Lyone at the daily banquets andat our scientific discussions with the astronomers, naturalists,chemists, geologists, physicians and philosophers of Atvatabar, yetneither by look nor gesture did she betray the slightest memory ofthat ravishing scene in her garden only a few days before.
Again and again I asked myself, Was it possible that that calm andcrowned goddess of the pantheon was a being that could feel thrilledwith ordinary human ecstasy? Would I, most daring of men, ever bepermitted to kiss that far-off mouth divine, and not be slain by onedreadful glance of contempt?
The Blocus.]
Our discussions terminated in an invitation by the goddess toaccompany her in her aerial yacht, the _Aeropher_, to Egyplosis,whither, according to the sacred calendar, she must proceed to takepart in the ceremony of the installation of a twin soul. Her holiness,their majesties the king and queen, myself and officers of the _PolarKing_, together with the chief minister Koshnili, the military, civiland naval officers, the poets, savants, artists, and musicians ofAtvatabar, would sail in the yacht of the goddess.
The Funny-Fenny, or Clowngrass.]
A host of lesser dignitaries, including the sailors of the _PolarKing_ 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 samematerial erected thereon, and high bamboo bulwarks to prevent thevoyagers falling off the deck.
The propelling apparatus consisted of two large wheels, havingnumerous aerial fans that alternately beat backward and cut throughthe air as they oscillated on their axes. The wheels were supplementedby aeroplanes, resembling huge outspreading wings, inclined at anangle, so that their forward rush upon the air supported the ship.They revolved with great rapidity, being driven by the accumulatedforce of a thousand magnic batteries, composed of dry metallic cells,especially designed for aerial navigation. Very little force wasrequired to keep the vessel buoyed up in the air, owing to thediminished gravity.
It was discovered that the rarer metals terrelium and aqueliumdeveloped in contact, without salts or acids, enormous currents ofmagnicity without polarization or the development of gases. Thesemetallic cells would run without attention or maintenance exertingmagnic action, and could be stopped or started at any time withoutcorrosion of metals or loss of energy, like the electric batteries onthe outer sphere, but infinitely more powerful.
The Gleroseral.]
Aerial navigation was one of the great institutions of Atvatabar, andthe goddess' yacht was only one of many thousand aerial ships thatcarried passengers, mails and light freight to and from every part ofthe country.
On such a machine as this we purposed travelling a distance of onethousand 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 thebreeding-place of fearful storms that occasionally vexed the otherwiseplacid climate of the country.
Westward of the mountains, an elevated prairie or tableland extendedfor five hundred miles further, broken here and there into crevassesand canyons, the beds of mighty rivers. Beyond the prairie an irregularagglomeration of mountains and valleys stretched five hundred milesfurther until the ocean was reached which formed the western boundaryof Atvatabar.
Egyplosis, or the sacred palace, stood on an island in a lake lying ina romantic valley of the central plateau, one thousand miles west ofCalnogor. This was the destination of the _Aeropher_, the goddessmaking a special visitation to the palace of hopeless love.
No journey could have begun with better auspices than ours. We soaredup the grand divide, underneath the brilliant sun, which threw themoving shadow of the ship on the earth beneath.
The Eaglon.]
Captain Lavornal, the inventor of the _Aeropher_, was resolved tooutdo all former records in aerial navigation, and accordingly drovethe _Aeropher_ at a speed of eighty miles an hour.
The captain explained to me that he was using the wheels simply tolift the ship over the mountains. Once over these the wheels that werebeing used to lift the ship would thus propel her, when her normalspeed of two hundred miles an hour would be reached.
Lyone was in a particularly happy mood. "I like aerial travelling somuch," said she, "because it is the nearest mechanical approach to thenature 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 nearerto that of the spiritual state than any other mode? We can at willsweep up into heaven or descend to earth. We are independent ofobstacles. Rivers and roads, mountains and seas have no terrors forus. 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 continentuntil we plunged into a grisly pass. On either side the huge shouldersof the mountains lifted up forests of pines and cedars, whose colossaltrunks seemed the gateways of a new world. The ship indeed possessedsome of the attributes of a soul. It could plunge us into sublimity ordeath, 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 theprairies with tremendous speed. The propellers seemed powerful enoughto control the ship in the fiercest storm. The inner world lay spreadout beneath us like a map in relief. There was a strange absence ofshadow caused by a perpendicular sun that realized the climate ofDante,
"A land whereon no shadow falls."
Yet as the _Aeropher_ swept onward her shadow could be seen driftingover cornfields, miles of rustling wheat and pastures where the cattlestarted and fled from the apparition in the sky.
We were admiring the beauty of the panorama beneath, when the skybecame suddenly overcast with clouds, obscuring the light of the sun.This was so unexpected an occurrence that Lyone and myself looked ateach other in alarm.
Captain Lavornal exclaimed: "Your holiness, I apprehend these cloudsare 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 anythingshould happen to your holiness."
"Do not fear for me," said Lyone; "even a storm is notinsurmountable."
"Shall I descend, your holiness, or keep to our course?" inquired thecaptain with some trepidation.
"Keep to your course," replied Lyone.
Just then a hollow booming was heard, and then a fierce explosion inwhich 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 therotating 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 outof its course, the toy of the wind. We lost sight of the other shipcontaining the sailors, and could certainly only care for ourselves.
The cyclone proved to be a storm five hundred miles in diameter. Thecurrents of air most remote from the centre did not sweep round in thesame uniform plane. The entire circumference of wind was composed oftwo enormous waves each seven hundred and fifty miles in length andfour miles in perpendicular height. It was as if the rings of Saturnhad suddenly assumed a vertical as well as a spinning motion, and bothmovements of the storm produced an appalling splendor of flighthitherto unknown to human sensation. Can the _Aeropher_ survive theroaring storm? was the thought of every heart. Bravery was of no availwith the