The professor, having promised to give the savages a specimen of their visitors’ power, now waved his right hand very slowly and impressively skyward, as a signal to the watchful Mildmay, loudly exclaiming as he did so:
“Lualamba will now accompany the four Spirits of the Winds to yonder cloud,” pointing, as he spoke, to a single small white fleecy cloud which was floating at the moment across the sun’s disc.
Dexterously manipulating the various valves, Mildmay caused the Flying Fish to rise with a gentle and almost imperceptible motion from the earth. So gentle was the movement that Lualamba was utterly unconscious of it, and it was not until some seconds had elapsed that he fully realised what was happening. The savages below, however, no sooner heard von Schalckenberg’s exclamation than, to their inexpressible horror, they beheld the huge structure, round which they were standing, lift itself off the earth without the slightest visible effort and begin to rise into the air. Many of them were so overpowered by astonishment that they could only stand, open-mouthed and as motionless as statues, staring at the extraordinary sight; others, however, remembering the stringent orders of the king, and feeling that the prize which they had believed to be so secure was not only escaping them but also carrying off one of their number, rushed forward, and, whilst some fruitlessly attempted to grasp and hold the smooth and polished hull, others seized and clung tenaciously to the rope-ladder. The weight of some seven or eight natives clinging to the dangling ladder had, of course, no visible effect upon the movement of the great ship; and, finding themselves being helplessly dragged skyward, they let go their hold with a yell of dismay when they were some four or five yards from the earth, upon which they dropped back heavily.
The ship once fairly off the ground, Mildmay increased the rarefaction of the air in the air-chambers to an almost perfect vacuum, and the immense structure soared skyward with great rapidity. Lualamba, hearing the shouts of his people from below, stepped to the gangway to ascertain the cause; and it was then that, to his inexpressible dismay, he saw the earth apparently falling from under him, and the upturned faces of his followers rapidly dwindling until they became unrecognisable. In the first extremity of his terror he would have flung himself headlong from the deck had he not been prevented; failing in this he prostrated himself, and for some time lay motionless, with his face hidden in his hands. At length, however, somewhat reassured by the encouraging adjurations of the professor and the apparent absence of movement in the ship, he ventured first of all to uncover his eyes and then to rise slowly to his feet. He glanced wildly about him, but could see nothing, save a thick white mist which completely enveloped the ship (for she had just plunged into the centre of the cloud), with the sun dimly visible through it; and a fresh paroxysm of terror seized him, for the horrible thought at once suggested itself that he had looked his last upon mother Earth. The professor, however, speedily reassured him upon this point, and, leading him to the guard-rail which ran round the deck, bade him look downward. Terrified into the most servile obedience, the wretched chief did as he was bidden, and in a few minutes, the mist growing thinner and thinner, he once more caught sight of the earth at an immense distance below, the gigantic ruins above which they were hovering dwarfed to a mere sprinkling of boulders over the plain; the trees, the clumps of bush, and the meandering streams stretching away to the horizon in almost illimitable perspective, and to the eastward the sea, with just one solitary sail upon it, barely visible above its gleaming rim.
Ignorant savage though he was, Lualamba was quite intelligent enough to appreciate the novel beauty of the scene upon which his eyes now rested; and, forgetting for the moment all his terrors, he leaned upon the rail, lost in wonder and admiration. And when, after a minute or two, he became conscious that the ship was again nearing the earth, his delight knew no bounds, for he felt that, as the hero of so unique an experience as he was now passing through, he must henceforth be a person of much greater consequence among his countrymen than he had ever been before.
Meanwhile the travellers had availed themselves of their recent ascent to sharply scrutinise the face of the country immediately adjacent to the ruins, and had at length discovered, on the summit of a distant hill, an extensive village or settlement, strongly defended by a circular stockade, which they shrewdly suspected to be the headquarters of king M’Bongwele. The single street, which ran through the centre of the village from end to end, was crowded with people all gazing skyward at the unwonted apparition of the aerial ship; and, with the aid of their telescopes, the travellers could see in the central square a small group of persons (who they conjectured to be the king and his suite) similarly engaged, surrounded and protected from the rabble by a phalanx of armed men.
The ship swept rapidly onward until she hovered immediately over the last-named party (just to impress upon the king a wholesome conviction of the utter uselessness of his stockade as a protection against such a foe as the Flying Fish), and then, making a majestic sweep, came gently to earth immediately opposite the principal gate in the stockade.
“Now, go,” said the professor, addressing Lualamba, “and inform king M’Bongwele that we await him on the spot among the ruins where you found us this morning.”
The bewildered chief, scarcely able to realise the fact that he had actually been brought safely back to terra firma, lost no time in availing himself of the permission given him to depart, and, scrambling down the ship’s side and the rope-ladder, he reached the ground and bounded off like a startled deer toward the gate, which was hastily thrown open to admit him, and as hastily closed and barred again the moment he had passed through. The Flying Fish then rose once more into the air and leisurely made her way back to the ruins, passing, en route, the force which had been sent out to capture her, and which was now making the best of its way back to the village to report the result of the expedition.
Meanwhile Lualamba made his way rapidly up through the village to the king’s palace (which was, after all, merely the largest hut in the inclosure), having gained which he besought an immediate audience with M’Bongwele on a matter of the utmost importance. The king, who had already been made acquainted with the circumstance of the chief’s involuntary journey into the upper regions, was, of course, all curiosity to learn the fullest details of the adventure, and the desired audience was accordingly at once granted. Conscious of the fact that, for the first time in his life, he had failed to execute the mission intrusted to him, and extremely doubtful as to the reception which would be accorded to the message of which he was the unwilling bearer, Lualamba deemed it best on this occasion to tell a plain unvarnished tale, and, commencing his narrative at the point where he and his warriors had first come within sight of the huge object of which they were in quest, he described in full detail all his subsequent adventures, with the thoughts, feelings, and impressions resulting therefrom, and wound up falteringly with the message.