In an instant I was beside her. With passionate ardor I pressed her hand to my lips. Her face flushed delicately, pallor, dejection had vanished; her eyes gleamed and burned, she was the personification of joy.
“In a few days we will be in Centur—think what that means to me, Virgillius,” she murmured.
“You are positive then?”
“As though I were already there,” she replied. “He waits me. Centur ends all disappointments. I will talk with you later, this is a day of worship. I am the Priestess of the Sun.”
Rising to her full height majestically she walked down the deck with upstretched arms waving toward the Sun. High, clear, rang out her clarion voice in the call to worship, and people flocked from all parts of the ship, circled around her, and kneeled.
With swaying form she chanted in low, weird tones. The glorious eyes did not blink before the dazzling rays that enveloped her. She twisted, undulated, as though to have the streaming fiery light bathe every portion of her body; then suddenly, as in ecstasy, out came the cry of devotion, high, clear, sweet. At that moment the Sun’s rays slanted, and in the golden shadow the glorious Priestess stood silent, rapt; then her arms fell to her sides and devotions ended.
All rose and went about their various duties. Alpha turned to me with a smile as placid as a child’s.
“Always the Priestess of the Sun,” she murmured. “I love, Sol, how I love! this new worship absorbs my whole life, but—always the Priestess of the Sun, Virgillius.”
I led her to the other side of the ship, away from the others.
“Virgillius,” she murmured, “do not think me childish because I sought seclusion while sailing over the Belt. I did not think of the Vespas, but could conceal my unhappiness no longer. Solitude has no prying, curious eyes; I was alone, gloomy, morose, despairingly worshipping a fancy, and believe as you wish, Virgillius, I know not if I dreamed or was awake, but for the instant the veil of obscurity lifted and I saw the future. Scenes like great paintings were revealed, then slowly slid from view; only two was I permitted to gaze upon with memory. I saw the palace at Centur sparkling in the vivid light of noon. Wandering disconsolately through the halls was a form swathed in twilight. I tried to peer through the flickering dusk and listened to my name repeatedly called, frequently imploringly, always with passion. Like a magnet I was drawn within the mystic gloam; I tried to touch, to speak with the shadow, then like a flash the scene shifted and I floated over the Ocsta Mountains. Standing upon the cliffs, gazing with grave anxiety into the waters of the Otega, was your friend, the great Sheldon. Suddenly he raised his face, white, wild with terror and shouting, he leaped with great bounds from cliff to cliff. His cries brought the men from the caves and I saw my father among them, calm, magnificent, giving directions, commanding order. I heard an awful rumbling noise, the mountains swayed as trees in the wind, the sky became suffused, lurid, the air suffocating. There was a terrific explosion, a huge funnel of fire rose, meeting the heavens, and monstrous columns of yellow, red, black smoke swallowed all nature. I shrieked in horror and obscurity clouded the frightful scene. Once more the future was a blank, dark, illusive. Virgillius, I did not sleep or dream; Centauri, Sheldon and all with them are in peril. I shall save them. Speed has been doubled, the ship travels swifter than the wind, and we will reach the mountains toward evening of the day after to-morrow. It is the fastest time ever made over the Great Ocean, and the Ocstas is the first land sighted, then—Centur. Come, Virgillius, this will never do, we must join the others. Artoisti will teach you the game he is eternally playing with Dreaisti.”