"Too far!" said Gaspard, nervously—"Madama, if we go too far we may also go too high—we may not be able to breathe!..."
She laughed.
"That is a very remote possibility!" she said—"The waves of energy which bear us along are concerned in our own life-supply,—they make our air to breathe—our heat to warm. All the same it is time we returned—we are not provisioned."
She called to Rivardi, and he, with the slightest turn of the wheel, altered the direction in which the air-ship moved, so that it travelled back again on the route by which it had commenced its flight. Soon, very soon, the dainty plot of earth, looking no more than a gay flower-bed, where Morgana's palazzo was situated, appeared below—and then, acting on instructions, Gaspard opened the compartments at either end of the vessel. The vibrating rays within dwindled by slow degrees—their light became less and less intense—their vibration less powerful,—till very gradually with a perfectly beautiful motion expressing absolute grace and lightness the vessel descended towards the aerodrome it had lately left, and all the men who were waiting for its return gave a simultaneous shout of astonishment and admiration, as it sank slowly towards them, folding its wings as it came with the quiet ease of a nesting-bird flying home. So admirably was the distance measured between itself and the great shed of its local habitation, that it glided into place as though it had eyes to see its exact whereabouts, and came to a standstill within a few seconds of its arrival. Morgana descended, and her two companions followed. The other men stood silent, visibly inquisitive yet afraid to express their curiosity. Morgana's eyes flashed over them all with a bright, half-laughing tolerance.
"I thank you, my friends!" she said—"You have done well the work I entrusted you to do under the guidance of the Marchese Rivardi, and you can now judge for yourselves the result It mystifies you I can see! You think it is a kind of 'black magic'? Not so!—unless all our modern science is 'black magic' as well, born of the influence of those evil spirits who, as we are told in tradition, descended in rebellion from heaven and lived with the daughters of men! From these strange lovers sprang a race of giants,—symbolical I think of the birth of the sciences, which mingle in their composition the active elements of good and evil. You have built this airship of mine on lines which have never before been attempted;—you have given it wings which are plumed like the wings of a bird, not with quills, but with channels many and minute, to carry the runlets of the 'emanation' from the substance held in the containers at either end of the vessel,—its easy flight therefore should not surprise you. Briefly—we have filled a piece of mechanism with the composition or essence of Life!—that is the only answer I can give to your enquiring looks!—let it be enough!"
"But, Madama"—ventured Gaspard—"that composition or essence of Life!—what is it?"
There was an instant's silence. Every man's head craned forward eagerly to hear the reply. Morgana smiled strangely.
"That," she said—"is MY secret!"