"Are we not flying too high? Have you altered the course?"
"No, Madama," he replied at once—"We are on the same level."
She turned towards him. Her face was very pale.
"Well—be careful! To my mind we seem to be in a new atmosphere—there is a sensation of greater tension in the air—or—it is my fancy. We must not be too adventurous,—we must avoid the Great Nebula in Orion for example!"
"Madama, you jest! We are trillions upon trillions of miles distant from any great constellation—"
"Do I not know it? You are too literal, Marchese! Of course I jest—you could not suppose me to be in earnest! But I am sure we are passing through the waves of a new ether—not altogether suited to the average human being. The average human being is not made to inhabit the higher spaces of the upper air—hark!—What was that?"
She held up a warning hand, and listened. There was a distinct and persistent chiming of bells. Bells loud and soft,—bells mellow and deep, clear and silvery—clanging in bass and treble shocks of rising and falling rhythm and tune! "Do you hear?"
Rivardi and Gaspard simultaneously rose to their feet, amazed. Undoubtedly they heard! It was impossible NOT to hear such a clamour of concordant sound! Startled beyond all expression, Morgana sprang to the window of her cabin, and looking out uttered a cry of mingled terror and rapture... for there below her, in the previously inky blackness of the Great Desert, lay a great City, stretching out for miles, and glittering from end to end with a peculiarly deep golden light which seemed to bathe it in the lustre of a setting sun. Towers, cupolas, bridges, streets, squares, parks and gardens could be plainly seen from the air-ship, which had suddenly stopped, and now hung immovably in mid-air; though for some moments Morgana was too excited to notice this. Again she called to her companions—
"Look! Look!" she exclaimed—"We have found it! The Brazen City!"
But she called in vain. Turning for response, she saw, to her amazement and alarm, both men stretched on the floor, senseless! She ran to them and made every effort to rouse them,—they were breathing evenly and quietly as in profound and comfortable sleep—but it was beyond her skill to renew their consciousness. Then it flashed upon her that the "White Eagle" was no longer moving,—that it was, in fact, quite stationary,—and a quick rush of energy filled her as she realised that now she was as she had wished to be, alone with her air-ship to do with it as she would. All fear had left her,—her nerves were steady, and her daring spirit was fired with resolution. Whatever the mischance which had so swiftly overwhelmed Rivardi and Gaspard, she could not stop now to question, or determine it,—she was satisfied that they were not dead, or dying. She went to the steering-gear to take it in hand—but though the mysterious mechanism of the air-ship was silently and rapidly throbbing, the ship did not move. She grasped the propeller—it resisted her touch with hard and absolute inflexibility. All at once a low deep voice spoke close to her ear—