Limanora the island of progress
appeared to me as flies crawling over the sun-glitter of the houses
below or on the snows of Lilaroma. I shrank back breathless at the
sight, and imagined myself falling down this heart-sickening distance.
Then the almost irresistible desire to throw myself into this abyss
came over me, and I clutched at the framework of the car that I might
not yield to this feeling.
I had forgotten my companion for the time: one glance at her drove the
terror from my mind. I saw the beauty of the benignance that shone
upon her face, and my spirit nestled in her protecting smile that
had interpreted aright the horrors of my thoughts. I was not merely
thankful that I had not been alone with my terrible longing: I could
almost give my life up to this being who swept out my fear by the
loving-kindness of her glance. My guardians had been unwilling to trust
me alone in the faleena, even though the engine and the machinery were
simple enough to have been managed by a child. So they sent with me
Thyriel, who, I long afterwards found, had been selected by the sages
as my spiritual twin as soon as they had tested my past history, my
faculties, and my possibilities. None other in the whole community was
so fitted to stimulate my best qualities, to be preferred by me as
intimate friend and comrade or, if passionate emotions followed the
same direction as friendship, to mate with me as parent or proparent,
when full maturity had been reached. This I came to know only when
all had fallen out as they had anticipated and desired. We were both
allowed our full option and free will in our spiritual approaches and
agreements: we were not forced into each other’s company, only when
opportunity for mutual protection or confidence came were we paired for
the venture. Everything issued as they had planned just as if we had
had no free choice in the matter, and yet our impulses felt as free as
if we had been the only living organisms in the universe. We chose with
a passion that would not be denied; we were willing in our freedom of
attraction to surrender life and all to each other.
This flight was one of the first great adventures on which we were
together, and it is graven upon my very heart. Thyriel, O Thyriel,
I await thee with soul weary of waiting! What are the years now but
centuries without thee? I am alone but for God and thee. It is the only
consolation of my soul that thou risest ever towards God and livest in
God, and that I rise and live with thee.
It is exquisite pain (and delight too) for me to tell of that flight
into the ether; for then I first realised how incomplete was the sum of
my existence without this being. She was so gentle and yet so strong,
so full of eager sympathy and yet so vigorous of character. She knew
every weak point in my system, and bent herself to correct its weakness
or protect me from its effects without making me conscious of her
sacrifice. With power that I could not but acknowledge as the superior
of mine, she played the companion and equal. I could have worshipped
her almost as a divinity; but she modestly bent herself to my level,
and veiled her superiority in her childlike playfulness. I shrank
in fear from the implied familiarity, and could not bring myself to
recognise except intellectually the common humanity and the difference
of sex. For years I felt too much adoration to pass into love. It was
indeed long before I could admit myself capable of her friendship.
But gradually she led me to put more confidence in my powers, and to
recognise the superiority of some of them. My intellectual admiration
took a warmer glow that soon fused our intercourse into the most
devoted friendship. So braced were we by our mutual help in our common
pursuits that we seemed helpless, the one without the other. Yet the
sense of sex was not stirred for years after the bond between us had
grown inseverable.
It was this flight that first awakened me to the wealth of her nature
and her immeasurable power and desire of self-sacrifice. Like her
people, she had none of the statuesque beauty or moulded regularity of
feature that has swayed the thoughts and passions of European sex; but
the spirit that shone through made the face divine. I rested almost as
in a dream, as I felt the benignance of her soul; and before long I was
able to look calmly over with her at the increasing depths of light
through which we had come. Below us we saw valley and hill pearled with
the gleam of wide-scattered houses; we could see the flash of streams
and rivers as they broke through the darkness of forests or fell in
snowy cascades; and around the coast the sea spun for the black fringe
of rock a moving thread of surf. Around us rose the carolling of many
voices to the gates of heaven. Song after song, anthem after anthem,
burst forth from the various groups of our comrades. Buoyant were they
as thistledown, revelling in the pure serenity of the upper air. For
very joy I could have thrown myself among them and joined the harmony
of their flight; but her glance was upon me, and I returned to thoughts
of prudence.
She showed me why we had risen so high into upper air far above most of
the Limanorans who were flying with us. These faleenas could not adapt
themselves to the varying winds as the human figure and arms could when
managing wings. They had to rise into the regions of calms or of steady
winds, in order that they might float by power of sail down to their
destination. What seemed a mere awning acted in two ways; it served as
aëroplane to steady the whole structure in the air and as parachute
when it began to descend; and could be inflated with heated air, to
help the wings in raising the faleena upwards. She pointed out in the
far distance below us a gleaming line that marked the valley towards
which we were voyaging, and then looking at a height-gauge that hung
beside her steering-seat and at a wind-gauge that stretched over the
side of the car, she decided by a brief calculation that we had reached
the proper key-place of the arch we were making in our journey, and
that we should by changing our course wing our way with ease down to
the desired goal. She touched a notch in the side of the car and above
there sounded a flute-like note, that, varying in strength and pitch,
made no disharmony with the music of the wings. I looked up and there I
could see the awning gradually collapse; it had bulged downwards, I had
noticed, in a strange way; the tenseness of its curves disappeared, and
as we began to fall, it became concave, and broke the velocity of our
descent.
The wings still plied with bewildering swiftness of beat, and forced
us onwards as we shortened our distance from the earth. We still could
hear the music of our comrades, but so softened by the long space
between that I could have imagined it the spheral harmony of orbs
which circle round the throne of God. But I could see them, dim flakes
of light in the azure as they outdistanced us, the few laggards that
had skimmed above us for a short time still showing the outlines of
their forms, yet rapidly lessening into star-specks. I was gazing out
at them with the exhilaration of the outlook and of the ether in my
blood, when the wings suddenly began to labour with short, irregular
beat. I glanced at Thyriel. She kept her face unmoved, as she examined
the engine beside her and the various keys and wheels and hinges of
the machinery. I took courage, for she looked quite unconcerned, yet I
could see that she had not discovered the cause for the uneasy motion
of the wings. She told me that she would have to examine the outside,
but that I might keep my mind at peace, for there was no danger. She
adjusted her wings and dived from the side, then rose to our swiftly
descending faleena, and by the strength of her muscles seemed to stay
the descent, while she looked at all the gearing of the sails from
below. Then she climbed into the car, and began to work at a small pump
in the forepart. I ran to help her, and in a few minutes I felt the
faleena buoyant again and holding its own against gravitation; we had
refilled the balloon of the awning enough to keep her afloat. Thyriel
stopped the engines and let the sails lie lazily out on the same plane
as the car, then she fastened a cord to the bow and, having adjusted
her wings again, seized the cord and leapt over. I saw her purpose:
she was towing the maimed faleena through the air, still at a great
height from the earth. We were near enough, however, for me to see as I
looked over the danger we had escaped. We had been falling upon a group
of pinnacled and serrated rocks that would have gored our vehicle and
endangered my life. Moreover, we were still a long way from Fialume.
Thanks to the cessation of our music, the attention of the distant
aëronauts was drawn to our laboured flight. It was not half an
hour before we saw them hastening back to meet us like a swarm of
butterflies; and in a few minutes more they were beside us. I watched
their evolutions in the air with absorbed delight; and ere I knew what
they were about, they each held a cord from the bow of our faleena,
and Thyriel was on board with me directing our flight. How loud their
chorus sounded now that they were near! They timed the beat of their
wings and the straining of their cords to it, and we sped on our
downward way even more quickly than before. I did not know till long
after how great was the danger out of which I had escaped. Yet I was
conscious of my comrade’s courage and that to her I owed much. It
brought us closer together in spiritual friendship, and we seemed to
feel ourselves singled out of mankind for mutual confidence.
CHAPTER VI
FIALUME
I WAS revelling in the thought of our comradeship and in the
exhilaration of the motion through the air, when the chorus began to
soften. It sounded far off, like the echo of an echo, and out of the
distance rang notes of welcome. Our company burst out of their low
tones of pleading into loud triumph and joy. Then came the whispered
softness of their former song; answered softly as if from the hollows
of the earth. This swelled again into welcome, and the air rang with
notes of joy.
My eyes followed our route; and beneath us I saw a huge valley forested
to the ridge on either side and spanned with a glittering roof that
turned the light of the sun into myriads of many-coloured gems. Over
the cliffs or in through the olive-green or blossoming trees swept
streams with rainbowed cascades, covering the vast dome with spray
till it seemed an arch of ice that melted in the sun. We made for the
entrance of the gorge, out of which fumed and fretted through gates
of pinnacled rock a milky torrent. Borne on mighty pillars of limpid
metal rose a great archway; and this enclosed lesser semicircles
spanning the various roads that led into the wild tropical scenery
of the dale. I never saw such an impressive spectacle beneath human
roof. Cataract rose above cataract in the centre. On all sides fell
miniature cascades, or rose fountains that sent in wayward clouds their
breaking water-spears and flags. The flowers and shrubs and trees of
every climate under heaven seemed to be collected here, and to blend
in marvellous harmony of colour. Cool winds blew from hidden sources
wafting the fountain-spray or the odours of the flowers about us. The
beating rays of the sun were softened by the stream-cooled dome; and
out of some cave or hollow in the far distance came the murmur of
entrancing music.
We had descended and passed far within the wondrous structure before I
could recall my senses from their bewildered enjoyment of the scene.
Then I saw that our company had parted in various directions, vanishing