“Well, gentlemen,” continued the Alchemist, “where shall we go, or, rather, where are we going?”
A man in a friar’s habit, with the cowl closely drawn about his head, now crossed himself, and whispered:
“I have but one object. I should not have been here if I had not supposed we were going to find Prester John, to whom I have been appointed father confessor, and at whose court I am to live splendidly, like a cardinal at Rome. Gentlemen, if you will only agree that we shall go there, you shall all be permitted to hold my train when I proceed to be enthroned as Bishop of Central Africa.”
While he was speaking, another old man came from the bows of the ship, a figure which had been so immoveable in its place that I supposed it was the ancient figure-head of the craft, and said in a low, hollow voice, and a quaint accent:
“I have been looking for centuries, and I cannot see it. I supposed we were heading for it. I thought sometimes I saw the flash of distant spires, the sunny gleam of upland pastures, the soft undulation of purple hills. Ah! me. I am sure I heard the singing of birds, and the faint low of cattle. But I do not know: we come no nearer; and yet I felt its presence in the air. If the mist would only lift, we should see it lying so fair upon the sea, so graceful against the sky. I fear we may have passed it. Gentlemen,” said he, sadly, “I am afraid we may have lost the island of Atlantis for ever.”
There was a look of uncertainty in the throng upon the deck.
“But yet,” said a group of young men in every kind of costume, and of every country and time, “we have a chance at the Encantadas, the Enchanted Islands. We were reading of them only the other day, and the very style of the story had the music of waves. How happy we shall be to reach a land where there is no work, nor tempest, nor pain, and we shall be for ever happy.”
“I am content here,” said a laughing youth, with heavily matted curls. “What can be better than this? We feel every climate, the music and the perfume of every zone, are ours. In the starlight I woo the mermaids, as I lean over the side, and no enchanted island will show us fairer forms. I am satisfied. The ship sails on. We cannot see but we can dream. What work or pain have we here? I like the ship; I like the voyage; I like my company, and am content.”
As he spoke he put something into his mouth, and, drawing a white substance from his pocket, offered it to his neighbor, saying, “Try a bit of this lotus; you will find it very soothing to the nerves, and an infallible remedy for home-sickness.”
“Gentlemen,” said M. le Baron Munchausen, “I have no fear. The arrangements are well made; the voyage has been perfectly planned, and each passenger will discover what he took passage to find, in the Hole into which we are going, under the auspices of this worthy Captain.”