Limanora the island of progress
garments. This consisted of two layers of flexible irelium-woven cloth,
one of which was a conductor of electricity and the other a resister
of it. The outer or conducting layer was connected with some labramor
which carried a store of electricity and this combination produced
a warm, healthful glow all round the body. I had gloves and cap and
mask of the same construction and, when fully equipped, I could defy
the most bitter cold that the upper atmosphere of the earth ever
experienced.
With this armour on I looked forward with delight to our sojourn in
the region of snow and ice as I watched our approach to the rough
ocean-like surface of the new country. For Thyriel took the helm,
now that there was needed more delicate manipulation of the faleena,
and I stood in the bow and gazed at the rest of the fleet rising and
falling on the wind-waves. Now and again I interpreted a signal from
the faleena of the guiding elder, whilst my comrade was busy adapting
the course to the caprices of the wind. But as a rule her own magnetic
sense was alert enough to know what were the intentions of the other
airships.
Round the group of great fire-cones we coasted, keeping clear of
their smoke-brush and dust-vomit; for the wind was off the land and
bore their ejections miles out to sea and high into the air. Across
the icy plains, ridged and hummocked by pressure from the higher land
beyond, we flew, once rising high enough to get a glance over the
passes of the great mountain-barrier, whence the torrents of ice slowly
found their way to the coast. Beyond I could discern, even with my
undeveloped eye-power, level plains stretching to the horizon, plains
which indicated water underneath; and upon them the direction of the
furrows and hummocks revealed whither the mass of the sea beneath
flowed towards some narrow exit, overlapping and playing leapfrog in
its eagerness to escape the pressure from behind.
But the habits of this almost land-locked sea had no immediate interest
for us, and we soon turned and made before the wind for a valley that
lay sheltered between the mountain-chain and the group of torch-cones.
Within a brief time we had all our faleenas secured, and the
multitudinous rings of the leomorans they carried deposited in caves
ready for the coming operations. Then the elder who led the expedition
took his airship, and with it we saw him circle round the individual
volcanoes and reconnoitre the inroads of the sea. He had, we knew,
already seen the dangerous proximity of one new crater to the low coast
that divided the group of fire-hills from the galloping waves.
Manifestly expedition was demanded. For he returned with great
swiftness; and all was soon bustle and preparation in the camp,
although it had settled down for a rest. The word was passed round
that, if the wind changed and whipped the racing billows to their raid,
a high tide might find its way into the new crater and undo the local
work of Limanoran civilisation. The fleet was at once in the air with
the engines ready to be placed; and within two hours the winds and the
waves, the magnetism of the earth, and the electricity of the air had
been yoked to the great power-machines. Then the rings of the leomorans
were attached, and the stores of energy brought to bear on them; before
long we could see at a dozen different points high up the side of the
cone brushes of black smoke bending before the wind. Between the new
low crater and the old lofty one a score of new vents for the explosive
energy of the fires underneath had been worked into the crust of the
earth ere the wind had changed round into alliance with the waters. The
molten rock which had oozed from the dangerous cone at the edge of the
sea had sealed its mouth before the ocean leapt into it. In order to
make the seal more secure a sluggish river of lava was directed down
the slope from several leomorans, and sent over the lips of the exposed
crater. After every sign of the offending cone but a low hummock had
disappeared under the molten invasion, bastions were drawn all along
the coast beneath it in the manner familiar to Limanora.
When this fortification of the mountain was finished and the strain
upon our muscles and nerves, and especially upon our eyes, was
relieved, we had leisure to look about us. The sight that met our view,
as we looked down the slopes of the mountain, was deeply impressive.
The flow of the red-hot rock from the mouths of our lava-wells had
melted the glacial concretions for hundreds of yards beyond the margins
of the molten currents, and laid bare the ruins of a great city that
had evidently been buried in ice and snow since the lowering of the
temperature had made the climate unbearable by men of civilised
nurture and habits. The steam rising from the neighbourhood of ice
and fire had covered the disentombed secret from our vision whilst we
were working, and as the wind fell that had swept the veil aside for a
moment, the marvellous sight was again curtained over, and we began to
think that it had been but a waking dream.
Some days after, when the lava had sufficiently cooled to leave
portions of the defrosted slope open to the light of heaven, we
revisited the scene. Several broad streets and great squares had been
unburied; and the architecture revealed how artistic and how advanced
in mechanical contrivances the people that built them had been. A thick
covering of volcanic dust and ash had plastered them over, so that it
was difficult to move on foot amongst the ruins now that the moisture
of the melting ice had mingled with it. After clearing the débris from
the doors we entered some of the houses that had not lost their roofs,
and there was evidence of hasty flight; on the floors and couches were
strewn pellmell the contents of boxes and cupboards and wardrobes, half
of them still stiff with the ice that the adjacent streams of lava
had been unable to melt. The evacuation of this luxurious city had
evidently occurred during some great outburst of the volcano which had
threatened its existence. But the climate had grown rigorous before the
catastrophe; for in every house and every room there were elaborate
apparatus for heating, and most of the clothing lying about was of
fur or of thick, warm stuffs, and when we dug beneath the coating of
volcanic ash, we found in places accumulations of ice which must have
taken years to freeze. Layer after layer of dirt and rubbish had been
embedded by the preservative frost; and, had we cared to cut through
the stratified ice, we might have counted the years, or perhaps
centuries, through which this heap had accumulated.
For several visits we could find no human body, though we came across
one or two carcasses of emaciated animals that had evidently lived
amongst the ruins till the last vestige of fodder had disappeared under
the volcanic layer or the accumulating ice. But at last in a back lane,
probably inhabited by slaves, we penetrated into a low house whose
roof had crashed in under the weight of the falling dust, and there
we saw a scene that moved us to tears. The mummied body of a little
child prepared for burial lay upon a bier and over it was stretched
the corpse of the mother; she could not tear herself away from the
last relics of her dead baby, and in returning to rescue it, or to
weep over it, had been overwhelmed by the falling roof; the frost of
centuries had kept off the finger of decay, and this Niobe and her
child had remained like sculptured stone. We covered the bodies gently
with the volcanic mud there as they lay, and left the frost to work its
petrifaction again, for we had not the heart to disturb the scene. Here
amongst the proletariate of this luxurious people there was evidence
of that maternal transport which had showed the path of ethical
development and exaltation to the Limanorans, and was destined to raise
the energies of our world into higher and higher forms. This, we knew,
was but the terrestrial type of an altruistic law which was working
throughout the cosmos, and making every centre of energy that had more
than the average give of its more to those centres that had less.
All in our power was now done to relieve the pressure of the
subterranean fires that were threatening to burst the ancient fissure;
and all too that could be done to ward off the batteries of the ocean.
Then were we sent in different directions to inspect and report on the
state of the ice-cliffs that beetled over the waves. We hovered for
days about the rocks and their glaciers and the universal observation
was that the coast was rapidly subsiding; since the last visit of the
Limanoran messengers its line had sunk many yards; marks that had been
made far above the reach of the waters were now washed by the break of
the higher billows. Thyriel and I were sent to a loftier bluff which
extended for almost a mile between shelving beach and shelving beach
just underneath the site of the buried city.
After inspecting the higher parts of it for days and measuring the
height of the old marks above the farthest reach of the waves, a
windless day, on which the ocean lay as if frozen, gave us opportunity
of following the cliff at its lowest sea-margin. For half a mile or
more nothing exceptional met our eyes. Then suddenly we came upon a
great chasm in the rock where a soft intermediate stratum had mouldered
away into sand before the everlasting battery of the waves. Over it
a great dome of ice was stretched, which was ever being thickened by
the climbing spray of the billows as they broke into it. The entrance
into this cave was somewhat low and narrow, and a jagged rock in the
centre of it churned the angry waters into milky foam. We saw that this
feature would make the opening invisible under its veil of spray on all
but days of perfect calm.
We were afraid to enter lest the sea should rise and imprison us, so we
called some comrades to our aid, and they brought a light faleena that
was made to serve the double purpose of air-boat and water-boat. Then
Thyriel took flight from above, and with the impetus we bore ourselves
and the boat through one of the passages past the jagged tooth of rock.
As we settled upon our faleena and looked up, the sight that met our
eyes took our breath away. The sun was shining brilliantly, lighting
up the dome of ice with such power as to make its whole thickness
transparent. Through it in every direction thick as motes in a sunbeam
were strewn human bodies, wrapped and mummied as in death. Some lay
on their sides with the head pillowed on the arm; and as the face was
uncovered, we could see the features as clearly as if we stood in the
chamber where they lay. The frost had kept the flesh and the tints of
it uncorrupted. We could almost have sworn that they breathed as they
slept, yet in the case of most it must have been the sleep of thousands
of years.
This was the cemetery of that ancient people which had built the city
lately found. Doubtless this ice-crust in which their graves had been
cut had once stood securely miles away from the coast; and in it they
thought that their dead would be safe for all time. But, as the shore
sank, the glacial crust ceased to be a plain and slid downwards along
the increasing slope to the ocean; and, before many years could pass,
this hyaline resting-place of the dead would be launched into the sea
and be swept by the storms and tides into warmer airs and currents,
which would release the bodies from their beautiful petrifaction,
and give their elements to the ravening powers of the waters, or the
microscopic corruption of invisible life. In fact on our return voyage
we flew over several icebergs that were floating catacombs. On the
surface of one we discerned the pallor of a mummied face, just released