CHAPTER VII.
Off, off into space sped our quartette with their guide, past heaven’s many-colored star-lamps shining in their vault of blue to light the many worlds that surround as well as our world beneath them. They neither loitered nor stopped at any place on their way for you must remember that they had to travel many million miles to reach Uranus, that planet being way out in space at a distance of from one billion, six hundred and ninety-nine million to one billion, eight hundred and sixty-five million miles from the Sun. It takes this planet about eighty-four years, traveling in its regular path, to make one complete circuit of the Sun.
Without their magic robes it would havebeen impossible to reach this distant island, but with them, and by constantly reiterating their wish to be there, they at last came in sight of this glorious planet and were dazzled by its clear white light which gleamed and flashed with the brilliancy of the purest diamond.
“It is well that we are going to the Satellite Island instead of to the planet itself,” said Ione. “I doubt if we could endure its dazzling light for it hurts my eyes even at this distance.”
“Strange, eccentric people live there,” said Mercury. “People who on Earth would be thought foolish or insane, for nothing is too strange for them to tolerate, to investigate, or to experiment with, and they are constantly proving that what Earth people sometimes look upon as impossible or merely as the idea of a diseased brain often proves both possible and practical, while the so-called lunatic, the inventor, is here revered as a man of brains and a genius.”
The buzz of wheels and drills accompaniedwith the pounding of hammers was heard on all sides, for everywhere men were working on newly-invented, highly-perfected air-ships, steamers, war-vessels, air brakes, railroad apparatus of all kinds, machinery for hoisting great weights, etc.; while inside the buildings men were busy in laboratories, bending over retorts in which boiling liquids could be seen. These men were so quaintly dressed and so weird-looking that they reminded one of the alchemists of old trying to turn the baser metals into gold. There were wide-awake young men here also, studying the marvelous properties of the newly-discovered radium, which at the present time is worth three hundred thousand times its own weight in gold, and many elements and metals that Earth people know nothing of.
As they went from shipyard to laboratory and from laboratory to electrical workrooms, they closely scanned the faces of all about them, hoping to see their wonderful old man. After leaving the men’s quarters,they came to an immense building where none but women were at work, some on tapestries, others on lace that rivaled the cobweb for delicacy of texture. Embroideries they saw in which the flowers literally seemed to grow, blossom, and wait to be plucked; pictures done in illuminated paints whose tints rivaled those of sunset skies—in fact everything that human hands could do was done here to perfection.
“Our old man cannot be here,” said the Princess. “Perhaps he has returned to Earth with another elephant or air-ship.”
They were about to abandon their search for him when Mercury said:
“See that peculiar looking edifice built in the shape of a Greek cross. Let us go and find out what it is. Perhaps it is the especial laboratory of the very man for whom we are searching.”
On arriving at the door they were very much impressed with the beauty and grandeur of the entrance to say nothing of the elaborate decorations of the edifice itself.The doors were wide open and, entering, they saw in the center of a highly-vaulted chamber, a large model air-ship that looked as light as paper wrought in graceful curves with great beauty of design, but which proved to be on closer inspection as strong as iron. That it would work like magic without hitch or flaw, our young people knew at once, since their wonderful old man was its inventor. And there beside it he stood with a dreamy, far-away expression in his eyes as if he already felt himself speeding through space in it. Harold recognized him at once with his white hair and beard and his loose gown of dark purple corded in at the waist. They all advanced a little nearer and stood directly before him where his eyes would rest upon them immediately he came out of his open-eyed dream.
Mercury told the young people to doff their magic robes, and they were scarcely off their shoulders when the old man started, rubbed his eyes, stared, again rubbed hiseyes as if brushing away some illusion, looked once more, and then said:
“Be ye flesh and blood I look upon or only fancies of my brain?”
“My dear sir,” Harold answered, “we are flesh and blood and if you will but look more closely you will surely recognize me as the young man who entered your elephant when I thought you dying.”
“To be sure! To be sure!” he exclaimed. “But how did you all reach this island?” he asked in surprise.
When Harold had finished giving him a detailed account of all he had done and where they had traveled since receiving the elephant, he said, “Well done, my young hero. I see that my elephant could not have fallen into better hands and from my heart I am glad that you have all enjoyed it.”
“How much we have enjoyed and appreciated your gift we will never be able to tell,” replied Harold, “but we all tender you sincere and earnest thanks,” in which the rest of the party enthusiastically acquiesced.
“And now since you have come all this way to thank me for my gift I will give you another treat. I will take you all for a trip in my newly perfected air-ship of which the one before you is but the model. The ship itself is in a large enclosure on the other side of the building.”
“How perfectly enchanting that will be!” exclaimed the girls, while the boys thanked him profusely for all the trouble he was taking.
“No trouble, I assure you,” he said, “only a pleasure. Follow me and I will show that my air-ship is as far ahead of the elephant as a fast ocean steamer is ahead of a flatboat.”
“My! what are those people doing who are jumping up in the air and darting about as if shot from a gun?” asked the Princess.
“To be sure! To be sure! It must seem strange to you,” answered the old man, “but that is our mode of locomotion. We propel ourselves through the air instead of walking, as that is too slow to suit our tastes. We donot fly but we use an electric apparatus about the size of a matchbox which we fasten between our shoulders, and one half as large which we wear under the soles of our feet. If we wish to travel in the air to avoid crowds and hindrances we simply press hard upon the soles of our feet and the little contrivances fastened there send us up almost as rapidly as if blown by an explosive, then by the use of handles connected with the boxes between our shoulders, we propel ourselves forward, backward, sideways or in any direction desired. A great many of our people devote all their time to studying new and improved methods of travel for the use of the inhabitants of Earth, for year by year your people seem to be more and more in a hurry and methods which seem perfectly satisfactory one year are all too slow before twelve months have passed by. Well! here we are,” he continued, throwing open enormous doors which led into a large grassy enclosure devoid of trees of any description, in which, pulling at her anchorwith every passing breeze, rested the air-ship, “Queen of the Heavens,” as she had been named.
I shall not attempt to describe this beautiful, graceful, convenient marvel but will leave it to the reader’s imagination. I will say, however, that the heaviest metal used in its construction was aluminum, while it was lighted with radium whose dazzling glare was softened by colored globes, and its propelling power was electricity but so perfected that an Earth-born mortal of today would not recognize it as such.
“Now, my dear young people, where shall I take you for a sail? Shall it be to the Moon, to the Dog Star, or still further toward Neptune, or would you like to slowly drop to within a mile of the Earth and then sail around it?”
“Oh! the last!” they all exclaimed in chorus, “for it would be such fun to see the people of Earth gazing at us through telescopes thinking we were inhabitants from Mars coming to visit them.”
“Very well, just as you choose,” he said.
After they were comfortably seated, the anchor raised and the old man had placed himself at the helm, the ship began slowly to ascend into the blue ether until it was above and free from the high wall of the enclosure, then with a turn of the steerage apparatus, the huge ship glided up as easily as a bird and with slightly lowered bow commenced to sink toward Earth. Past single stars, through groups of stars, still lower down into starless ether, then across the air line boundary into Earth’s atmosphere, through thick masses of clouds, they at last came into clear atmosphere half a mile above the earth and could now see numberless people straining their eyes to discover what this strange aerial craft might be. It would take an endless time to relate all that happened on this trip but I will disclose a few events in the next chapter of the voyage of “The Queen of Heaven.”