“Yes, it was time. Humanity has so little faith. It has so little revelation. But from this time on I may reveal much. Come!”
They walked along the shore of the emerald sea, the people of Earth about them, but like an angelhood. Wisdom of deathless years was in their eyes.
“From what a race are we degenerate!” said Father Renaudin.
“To what a height may we not rise!” answered Regan.
Rondah had not been so long from Earth as to feel so keenly the wonder as she mingled with a crowd of mankind.
Before them rose a white-walled city; into its streets they walked. The old song was in the air, the song of the Sun Island.
Beyond were fields of sapphire blue, each leaf with the slightest touch of gold upon it.
“These are our fields; these are our seas; here is our city; humanity is our people,” said their guide. “See here!”
They looked to see where the roots of silver had crowded the lava above the branching stems. Seeing them entirely bewildered at the ideas so swiftly presented to them, the man of the old world said:
“Can you not understand? Do you know how a coral builds an island? Can you not believe that a world may be a plant, and a plant may have animal life? They almost, if not quite, approach to it even in your Earth. The star belongs to your sun, but our world was the property of another sun and had a different order to follow. The great ball could think and move, and when we too deeply wrought its brilliant breast, it groaned with an awful voice. We were not astonished at that, as were you, in horror, when the island cried aloud. Look here!”