The Secret Power

"And you are one of 'those who see'?--" said Rivardi, incredulously.

"I do not say I am,--that would be too much self-assertion"--she answered--"But I hope I am! I long to see the world endowed more richly with health and happiness. See how gloriously the sun has risen! In what splendour of light and air we are sailing! If we can do as much as this we ought to be able to do more!"

"We shall do more in time"--he said--"The advance of one step leads to another."

"In time!" echoed Morgana--"What time the human race has already taken to find out the simplest forces of nature! It is the horrible bulk of blank stupidity that hinders knowledge--the heavy obstinate bulk that declines to budge an inch out of its own fixity. Nowadays we triumph in our so-called 'discoveries' of wireless telegraphy and telephony, light-rays and other marvels--but these powers have always been with us from the beginning of things,--it is we, we only, who have refused to accept them as facts of the universe. Let us talk no more about it!--Stupidity is the only thing that moves me to despair!"

She rose from the little table, and called Gaspard to breakfast, while Rivardi went back to the business of steering. The day was now fully declared, and the great air-ship soared easily in a realm of ethereal blue--blue above, blue below--its vast wings moving up and down with perfect rhythm as if it were a living, sentient creature, revelling in the joys of flight. For the rest of the day Morgana was very silent, contenting herself to sit in her charming little rose-lined nest of a room, and read,--now and then looking out on the radiating space around her, and watching for the first slight downward movement of the "White Eagle" towards land. She had plenty to occupy her thoughts--and strange to say she did not consider as anything unexpected or remarkable, her brief communication with the "Brazen City." On the contrary it seemed quite a natural happening. Of course it had always been there, she said to herself,--only people were too dull and unenterprising to discover it,--besides, if they had ever found it (certain travellers having declared they had seen it in the distance) they would not have been allowed to approach it. This fact was the one point that chiefly dwelt in her mind--a secret of science which she puzzled her brain to fathom. What could be the unseen force that guarded the city?--girding it round with an unbreakable band from all exterior attack? A million bombs could not penetrate it,--so had said the Voice travelling to her ears on the mysterious Sound Ray. She thought of Shakespeare's lines on England-"This precious stone set in the silver sea Which serves it in the office of a wall, Or as a moat defensive to a house Against the envy of less happy lands."