第 30 页

piled up the fire, and talked on for an hour.

"I do not see how it is," said Bearwarden, "that these moons,

considering their distance from the sun, and the consequently

small amount of light they receive, are so bright."

"A body's brightness in reflecting light," replied Cortlandt,

"depends as much on the colour and composition of its own surface

as on the amount it receives. It is conceivable that these

moons, if placed at the earth's distance from the sun, would be

far brighter than our moon, and that our familiar satellite, if

removed to Saturn, would seem very dim. We know how much more

brilliant a mountain in the sunlight is when clad in snow than

when its sides are bare. These moons evidently reflect a large

proportion of the light they receive."

When they came out shortly after midnight the girl's-face moon

had already set, leaving a dark and dreary void in the part of

the sky it had so ideally filled. The inexpressibly sad

satellite (on account of its shorter distance and more rapid rate

of revolution) was still above the horizon, and, being slightly

tilted, had a more melancholy, heart-broken look than before.

While they gazed sadly at the emptiness left by Dione, Cortlandt

saw Ayrault's expression change, and, not clearly perceiving its

cause, said, wishing to cheer him: "Never mind, Dick; to-morrow

night we shall see it again."

"Ah, prosaic reasoner," retorted Bearwarden, who saw that this,

like so many other things, had reminded Ayrault of Sylvia, "that

is but small consolation for having lost it now, though I suppose

our lot is not so hard as if we were never to see it again. In

that moon's face I find the realization of my fancied ideal

woman; while that sad one yonder seems as though some celestial

lover, in search of his fate, had become enamoured of her, and

tried in vain to win her, and the grief in his mind had impressed

itself on the then molten face of a satellite to be the monument

throughout eternity of love and a broken heart. If the spirits

and souls of the departed have any command of matter, why may not

their intensest thoughts engrave themselves on a moon that, when

dead and frozen, may reflect and shine as they did, while

immersed in the depths of space? At first Dione bored me; now I

should greatly like to see her again."

"History repeats itself," replied Cortlandt, "and the same phases

of life recur. It is we that are in a changed receptive mood.

The change that seems to be in them is in reality in us. Remain

as you are now, and Dione will give you the same pleasure

tomorrow that she gave to-day."

To Ayrault this meant more than the mere setting to rise again of

a heavenly body. The perfume of a flower, the sighing of the

wind, suggesting some harmony or song, a full or crescent moon,

recalled thoughts and associations of Sylvia. Everything seemed

to bring out memory, and he realized the utter inability of

absence to cure the heart of love. "If Sylvia should pass from

my life as that moon has left my vision," his thoughts continued,

"existence would be but sadness and memory would be its cause,

for the most beautiful sounds entail sorrow; the most beautiful

sights, intense pain. "Ah," he went on with a trace of

bitterness, while his friends fell asleep in the cave, "I might

better have remained in love with science; for whose studies

Nature, which is but a form of God, in the right spirit, is not

dependent for his joy or despair on the whims of a girl. She, of

course, sees many others, and, being only twenty, may forget me.

Must I content myself with philosophical rules and mathematical

formulae, when she, whose changefulness I may find greater than

the winds that sigh over me, now loves me no longer? O love,

which makes us miserable when we feel it, and more miserable

still when it is gone!"

He strung a number of copper wires at different degrees of

tension between two trees, and listened to the wind as it ranged

up and down on this improvised AEolian harp. It gradually ran

into a regular refrain, which became more and more like words.

Ayrault was puzzled, and then amazed. There could be no doubt

about it. "You should be happy," it kept repeating--"you should

be happy," in soft musical tones.

"I know I should," replied Ayrault, finally recognizing the voice

of Violet Slade in the song of the wind, "and I cannot understand

why I am not. Tell me, is this paradise, Violet, or is it not

rather purgatory?"

The notes ranged up and down again, and he perceived that she was

causing the wind to blow as she desired--in other words, she was

making it play upon his harp.

"That depends on the individual," she replied. "It is rather

sheol, the place of departed spirits. Those whose consciences

made them happy on earth are in paradise here; while those good

enough to reach heaven at last, but in whom some dross remains,

are further refined in spirit, and to them it is purgatory.

Those who are in love can be happy in but one way while their

love lasts. What IS happiness, anyway?"

"It is the state in which desires are satisfied, my fair Violet,"

answered Ayrault.

"Say, rather, the state in which desire coincides with duty,"

replied the song. "Self-sacrifice for others gives the truest

joy; being with the object of one's love, the next. You never

believed that I loved you. I dissembled well; but you will see

for yourself some day, as clearly as I see your love for another

now."

"Yes," replied Ayrault, sadly, "I am in love. I have no reason

to believe there is cause for my unrest, and, considering every

thing, I should be happy as man can be; yet, mirabile dictu, I am

in--hades, in the very depths!"

"Your beloved is beyond my vision; your heart is all I can see.

Yet I am convinced she will not forget you. I am sure she loves

you still."

"I have always believed in homoeopathy to the extent of the

similia similibus curantur, Violet, and it is certain that where

nothing else will cure a man of love for one woman, his love for

another will. You can see how I love Sylvia, but you have never

seemed so sweet to me as to-day."

"It is a sacrilege, my friend, to speak so to me now. You are

done with me forever. I am but a disembodied spirit, and escaped

hades by the grace of the Omnipotent, rather than by virtue of

any good I did on earth. So far as any elasticity is left in my

opportunities, I am dead as yon moon. You have still the gift

that but one can give. Within your animal body you hold an

immortal soul. It is pliable as wax; you can mould it by your

will. As you shape that soul, so will your future be. It is the

ark that can traverse the flood. Raise it, and it will raise

you. It is all there is in yourself. Preserve that gift, and

when you die you will, I hope, start on a plane many thousands of

years in advance of me. There should be no more comparison

between us than between a person with all his senses and one that

is deaf and blind. Though you are a layman, you should, with

your faith and frame of mind, soon be but little behind our

spiritual bishop."

"I supposed after death a man had rest. Is he, then, a bishop

still?"

"The progress, as he told you, is largely on the old lines. As

he stirred men's hearts on earth, he will stir their souls in

heaven; and this is no irksome or unwelcome work."

"You say he WILL do this in heaven. Is he, then, not there yet?"

"He was not far from heaven on earth, yet technically none of us

can be in heaven till after the general resurrection. Then, as

we knew on earth, we shall receive bodies, though, as yet,

concerning their exact nature we know but little more than then.

We are all in sheol--the just in purgatory and paradise, the

unjust in hell."

"Since you are still in purgatory, are you unhappy?"

"No, our state is very happy. All physical pain is past, and can

never be felt again. We know that our evil desires are overcome,

and that their imprints are being gradually erased. I

occasionally shed an intangible tear, yet for most of those who

strove to obey their consciences, purgatory, when essential,

though occasionally giving us a bitter twinge, is a joy-producing

state. Not all the glories imaginable or unimaginable could make

us happy, were our consciences ill at ease. I have advanced

slowly, yet some things are given us at once. After I realized I

had irrevocably lost your love, though for a time I had hoped to

regain it, I became very restless; earth seemed a prison, and I

looked forward to death as my deliverer. I bore you no malice;

you had never especially tried to win me; the infatuation--that

of a girl of eighteen--had been all on my side. I lived five sad

and lonely years, although, as you know, I had much attention.

People thought me cold and heartless. How could I have a heart,

having failed to win yours, and mine being broken? Having lost

the only man I loved, I knew no one else could replace him, and I

was not the kind to marry for pique. People thought me handsome,

but I felt myself aged when you ceased to call. Perhaps when you

and she who holds all your love come to sheol, she may spare you

to me a little, for as a spirit my every thought is known; or

perhaps after the resurrection, when I, too, can leave this

planet, we shall all soar through space together, and we can

study the stars as of old."

"Your voice is a symphony, sweetest Violet, and I love to hear

your words. Ah, would you could once more return to earth, or

that I were an ethereal spirit, that we might commune face to

face! I would follow you from one end of Shadowland to the

other. Of what use is life to me, with distractions that draw my

thoughts to earth as gravitation drew my body? I wish I were a

shade."

"You are talking for effect, Dick--which is useless here, for I

see how utterly you are in love."

"I AM in love, Violet; and though, as I said, I have no reason to

doubt Sylvia's steadfastness and constancy, I am very unhappy. I

have always heard that time is a balsam that cures all ills, yet

I become more wretched every day."

"Do all you can to preserve that love, and it will bring you joy

all your life. Your happiness is my happiness. What distresses

you, distresses me."

The tones here grew fainter and seemed about to cease.

"Before you leave me," cried Ayrault, "tell me how and when I may

see or hear you again."

"While you remain on this planet, I shall be near; but beyond

Saturn I cannot go."

"Yet tell me, Violet, how I may see you? My love unattained, you

perceive, makes me wretched, while you always gave me calm and

peace. If I may not kiss the hand I almost asked might be mine,

let me have but a glance from your sweet eyes, which will comfort

me so much now."

"If you break the ice in the pool behind you, you shall see me

till the frame melts."

After this the silence was broken only by the sighing of the wind

in the trees. The pool had suddenly become covered with ice

several inches thick. Taking an axe, Ayrault hewed out a

parallelogram about three feet by four and set it on end against

the bank. The cold grey of morning was already colouring the

east, and in the growing light Ayrault beheld a vision of Violet

within the ice. The face was at about three fourths, and had a

contemplative air. The hair was arranged as he had formerly seen

it, and the thoughtful look was strongest in the beautiful grey

eyes, which were more serious than of yore. Ayrault stood

riveted to the spot and gazed. "I could have been happy with

her," he mused, and to think she is no more!"

As drops fell from the ice, tears rose to his eyes.

. . . . . . .

"What a pretty girl!" said Bearwarden to Cortlandt, as they came

upon it later in the day. "The face seems etched or imprinted by

some peculiar form of freezing far within the ice."

The next morning they again set out, and so tramped, hunted, and

investigated with varying success for ten Saturnian days. They

found that in the animal and plant forms of life Nature had

often, by some seeming accident, struck out in a course very

different from any on the earth. Many of the animals were bipeds

and tripeds, the latter arranged in tandem, the last leg being

evidently an enormously developed tail, by which the creature

propelled itself as with a spring. The quadrupeds had also

sometimes wings, and their bones were hollow, like those of

birds. Whether this great motive and lifting power was the

result of the planet's size and the power of gravitation, or

whether some creatures had in addition the power of developing a

degree of apergetic repulsion to offset it, as they suspected in

the case of the boa-constrictor that fell upon Cortlandt on

Jupiter, they could not absolutely ascertain. Life was far less

prolific on Saturn than on Jupiter, doubtless as a result of its

greater distance from the sun, and of its extremes of climate,

almost all organic life being driven to the latitudes near the

equator. There were, as on Jupiter, many variations from the

forms of life to which they were accustomed, and adaptations to

the conditions in which they found themselves; but, with the

exception of the strange manifestations of spirit life, they

found the workings of the fundamental laws the same. Often when

they woke at night the air was luminous, and they were convinced

that if they remained there long enough it would be easy to

devise some telegraphic code of light-flashes by which they could

communicate with the spirit world, and so get ideas from the host