A sense of great awe swept over her, oppressive and humiliating. She looked once more through her cabin window at the city spread out below, and saw that some of the lights were being extinguished in the taller buildings and on the bridges which connected streets and avenues in a network of architectural beauty.
The Voice spoke again--
"We are releasing you from the barrier. You are free to depart."
She sighed.
"I have no wish to go!" she said.
"You must!" The Voice became commanding. "If you stay now, you and your companions are doomed to perish. There is no alternative. Be satisfied that we know you--we watch you--we shall expect you sooner or later.
Meanwhile--guide your ship!--the way is open."
Quickly she sprang to the steering-gear--she felt the "White Eagle"
moving, and lifting its vast wings for flight.
"Farewell!" she cried, with a sense of tears in her throat--"Farewell!"
"Not farewell!" came the reply, spoken softly and with tenderness--"We shall meet again soon! I will speak to you in Sicily!"
"In Sicily!" she exclaimed, joyfully--"You will speak to me there?"
"There and everywhere!" answered the Voice--"The Sound Ray knows no distance. I shall speak--and you shall hear--whenever you will!"
The last syllables died away like faintly sung music--and in a few more seconds the great air-ship was sailing steadily in a level line and at a swift pace onward,--the last shining glimpse of the mysterious City vanished, and the "White Eagle" soared over a sable blackness of empty desert, through a dark s.p.a.ce besprinkled with stars. Filled with a new sense of power and gladness, Morgana held the vessel in the guidance of her slight but strong hands, and it had flown many miles before the Marchese Rivardi sprang up suddenly from where he had lain lost in unconsciousness and stared around him amazed and confused.
"A thousand pardons, Madama!" he stammered--"I shall never forgive myself! I have been asleep!"
CHAPTER XIX
At almost the same moment Gaspard stumbled to his feet.
"Asleep--asleep!" he exclaimed--"_Mon Dieu!_--the shame of it!--the shame! What pigs are men! To sleep after food and wine, and to leave a woman alone like this!... the shame!"
Morgana, quietly steering the "White Eagle," smiled.
"Poor Gaspard!" she said--"You could not help it! You were so tired!
And you, Marchese! You were both quite worn out! I was glad to see you sleeping--there is no shame in it! As I have often told you, I can manage the ship alone."
But Rivardi was white with anger and self-reproach.
"Gross pigs we are!" he said, hotly--"Gaspard is right! And yet--" here he pa.s.sed a hand across his brow and tried to collect his thoughts--"yes!--surely something unusual must have happened! We heard bells ringing--"
Morgana watched him closely, her hand on her air-vessel"s helm.
"Yes--we all thought we heard bells"--she said--"But that was a noise in our own brains--the clamour of our own blood brought on by pressure--we were flying at too great a height and the tension was too strong--"
Gaspard threw out his hands with a half defiant gesture.
"No, Madama! It could not be so! I swear we never left our own level!
What happened I cannot tell--but I felt that I was struck by a sudden blow--and I fell without force to recover--"
"Sleep struck you that sudden blow, you poor Gaspard!" said Morgana, "And you have not slept so long--barely an hour--just long enough for me to hover a while above this black desert and then turn homeward,--I want no more of the Sahara!"
Rivardi, smarting under a sense of loss and incompetency, went up to her.
"Give me the helm!" he said, almost sharply--"You have done enough!"
She resigned her place to him, smiling at his irritation.
"You are sure you are quite rested?" she asked.
"Rested!" he echoed the word disdainfully--"I should never have rested at all had I been half the man I profess to be! Why do you turn back? I thought you were bent on exploring the Great Desert!--that you meant to try and find the traditional Brazen City?"
She shrugged her shoulders.
"I do not like the prospect"--she said--"There is nothing but sand--interminable billows of sand! I can well believe it was all ocean once,--when the earth gave a sudden tilt, and all the water was thrown off from one surface to another. If we could dig deep enough below the sand I think we should find remains of wrecked ships, with the skeletons of antediluvian men and animals, remains of one of the many wasted civilisations--"
"You do not answer me--" interrupted Rivardi with impatience--"What of your search for the Brazen City?"
She raised her lovely, mysterious eyes and looked full at him.
"Do you believe it exists?" she asked.
He gave a gesture of annoyance.
"Whether I believe or not is of no importance,"--he answered--"YOU have some idea about it, and you have every means of proving the truth of your idea--yet, after making the journey from Sicily for the purpose, you suddenly turn back!"
Still she kept her eyes upon him.
"You must not mind the caprices of a woman!" she said, with a smile--"And do please remember the "Brazen City" is not MY idea! The legend of this undiscovered place in the desert was related by your friend Don Aloysius--and he was careful to say it was "only" a legend.
Why should you think I accept it as a truth?"
"Surely it was the motive of your flight here?" he demanded, imperatively.
Her brows drew together in a slight frown.
"My dear Marchese, I allow no one to question my motives"--she said with sudden coldness--"That I have decided to go no farther in search of the Brazen City is my own affair."
"But--not even to wait for the full daylight!" he expostulated--"You could not see it by night even if it existed!"
"Not unless it was lit like other cities!" she said, smiling--"I suppose if such a city existed, its inhabitants would need some sort of illuminant--they would not grope about in the dark. In that case it would be seen from our ship as well by night as by day."
Gaspard, busy with some mechanical detail, looked up.