Very soon after it became light hundreds of aerial boats and yachts of every variety of design and ornamentation that the taste and skill of the most highly-cultivated race of people the world had ever seen could devise, came floating in towards the vast city of Aeria from the marble palaces and villas which were scattered throughout the length and breadth of the central African Paradise.
Along the broad, smooth white roads, too, which led from the southern portions of the valley, round the lake to the northern shore on which the city stood, groups of people, with here and there husbands and wives and pairs of yet unwedded lovers, were gliding in long, swift, easy curves on noiseless wheel-skates over the polished marble of the pavements.
Bright with the gayest and yet most perfectly-harmonised colours, blazing with jewels and precious metals, from their gold or crystal-winged coronets to the burnished silver framework of their skates, splendid in stature, and glowing with perfect health—if some man of the present day could have beheld these dwellers in Aeria on their way to hold high festival in their capital, he would have thought that he had strayed into some other and higher sphere, inhabited by some glorified race of beings who had left the toils and cares and pollutions of earth far behind them on some lower plane of existence.
Doubtless, indeed, from some such sphere the reincarnated spirits of those who, a hundred and thirty-three years before, had passed through the tremendous ordeal of the Terror, and in their hour of well-won triumph had made such a splendid future possible for their descendants, looked down with approving eyes, not undarkened by a shade of sorrow for woes to come, upon this glorious scene of the fruition of the harvest that they had sown, this realisation of the long-sought ideal of human brotherhood, where there was no evil because men had learnt at last that good was better than evil.
Vast as was the stately city, which was at once the capital and the only town of Aeria, it was soon comfortably filled by the brilliant throngs of visitors that came pouring into it by road and through the air. The broad white streets, lined with their double groves of palms and tree-ferns, soon blazed with colour, and became vocal with greetings and laughter, and all the houses which lined them were thrown open to all visitors who chose to come and claim hospitality for the day of rejoicing.
On the terrace in front of her father’s villa, on the slopes that rose to the west of the city, Alma stood with Isma watching the brilliant scene below and around them, and speculating on the coming events of the day which for them had a supreme interest, such as no other inhabitant of the valley could feel.
“It will be a right royal home-coming for our two heroes, won’t it, Alma?” said Isma, slipping her little hand through her friend’s arm; “almost worthy of the great deeds that they have done to regain what will be given back to them to-day—and yet, alas! there is to be a spot on the sun of happiness for all that. Alma, are you still quite sure that poor Alan will have to come back and not find that which above all other things he comes to seek?”
A faint flush rose to Alma’s cheeks as she replied, in a low, steady tone—
“Yes, Isma, alas! as you say, I am still sure of that, supposing always that he really does come to seek what you mean. I know that no man ever lived more worthy the love of woman than he is. Yet, God help me, I cannot give mine.
“I know, too, that he will come back to-day crowned with more honour than any Aerian, save Alexis, ever won before him since the days of our ancestors—and yet whenever I permit myself even to dream of him as a lover, a dark, beautiful, cruel face looks with black, burning eyes into mine, and two sweet, scornfully-smiling lips say in a whisper that sounds almost like a serpent’s hiss—‘You may take him now, for I have done with him. Take him and ask him to tell you how well he and I loved when my spell was strong upon him and he forgot both you and all his kindred for sake of me.’