"Excuse me, Doctor, but how is one to know whether his communications be from a good or evil spirit? How, for instance, do you know whether your communication which warned you of the wire across the trail was from an angel or devil?"
"That question is not worthy of you, Professor Gray. In all the history of this poor, sin-cursed world, the Devil never did one kind act to a human being. He never wiped away a tear of sorrow, or mitigated a heartache or pain, nor ever will. Jesus settled that matter when the Jews accused Him of casting out devils through the prince of devils, Beelzebub. If Satan be divided against Satan, his kingdom cannot stand. When Satan warns one servant of God of danger, and saves him from death his kingdom will fall. But say, let's to bed. We must be out by daylight in the morning."
CHAPTER XXII.
Familiar Scenes and Faces.
Silver Cloud was wafted by a gentle breeze to the center of Lower Michigan. For two or three hours after sunrise there was nearly a dead calm. Then a brisk breeze from due east arose, and they started for Lake Michigan at a great speed.
"This will never do," said Dr. Jones. "We will go down and get fresh supplies and the morning papers. There lies a good-looking town a few miles west. We will anchor there. Stand by the anchor, boys."
In a few moments Silver Cloud, with her characteristic swiftness, descended upon the town, and soon was safely anchored to several large trees in the center of it. It proved to be the thrifty little town of L——r, of between three and four thousand inhabitants. Silver Cloud was drawn to within fifty or sixty feet of the earth, and the voyagers rapidly descended in the cage to the main street.
That all the men, women, and children crowded to the vicinity of the globe, and that our friends were the cynosure of thousands of wondering eyes will be readily believed. And the glistening sphere that gently oscillated in the breeze above the city excited the unbounded astonishment and praise of all. Newspaper reporters gathered eagerly about the party, and plied them with questions concerning their trip and adventures. All, of course, were acquainted with the facts concerning their sailing from Washington four months previously, and a few of them had witnessed that notable event. The travelers were informed that they had been mourned as lost for many weeks past, and Government was fitting out a party to seek them as soon as possible. The general opinion was, that the globe had collapsed or exploded, and that the foolhardy explorers had all perished in the forests of Upper Canada. This was the accepted theory, and nothing could exceed the severity with which the editors of the papers politically opposed to the administration censured it for the extravagance and all-round idiocy of the whole "Aluminum Bubble Scheme," as they termed it. Dr. Jones was voted a lunatic, and the balance of the party was commiserated in the "Ahs!" and "Dear me's!" and "Poor things!" of the whole nation.
And we can well imagine that the telegraph wires were kept busy that day all over the land. And the papers which in their previous issues had inveighed so cuttingly and mercilessly against the Government and Dr. Jones, and everybody in any way connected with the Aluminum Globe Bubble, now came out in flaming double headings, under telegraphic dispatches and in editorials, sounding the praises of Dr. Jones and company in unbounded terms of commendation. They had always predicted their speedy and triumphant return, so they had, etc.