Chapter 25: Escaping From the Cyclone

The ship, lifting her prow, would spring into the sky upon the bosom of the whirling waste of air. The sun was completely obscured by dense masses of flying clouds and we were deluged with torrents of water. The terror of the situation obliterated all thoughts of country or home or friends. All worldly consciousness had evaporated from the pale beings that in despair held on to the ship for life or death.

The ravages of the storm on the earth beneath could be heard with startling distinctness. We heard at times the roaring of forests and saw the shrieking, whirling branches in every earth-illuminating flash of lightning.

The goddess stood holding on to the outer rail of the deck, the incarnation of courage. She had risen to meet the danger at its worst.

The Aeropher having risen to an enormous height, being thrown completely out of the tempest as if shot from a catapult, turned to descend again. It flew downward like an arrow, filling every soul, save perhaps that of Lyone, with fear. All were resigned for death; there could be no escape from the destruction that threatened us.

All this time the centre of the storm had been travelling to the southeast, or about forty-five degrees out of our proper course. Suddenly the ship shot downward from the southeastern limb of the storm, which almost reached the earth at this point. Gazing below, we discovered a fearful chasm in the face of the earth toward which we were rapidly flying. It was the cañon of the river Savagil, a merciless abyss ten thousand feet in depth.

Frightful as was the scene, it might yet prove our salvation if the ship could escape colliding with the precipitous walls. Were there no abyss we would certainly be dashed to pieces on the earth itself.

Suddenly the ship heeled over fifty degrees, flinging its living freight violently against the houses on deck and the lower rail. But we were saved! One side of the deck grazed the precipice as it plunged into the cañon. We had passed through the danger before knowing what had happened.

Lyone was stunned, but safe, the captain had a dislocated wrist, and others had broken limbs, but none was fatally hurt.

It was a terrible experience.

As the cañon of the river led in a northeasterly direction we did not emerge from the shelter it gave us to seek fresh conflict with the cyclone, but kept flying between the formidable walls. We soon knew by the returning sunlight and the silver clouds that the hurricane had died away.

The damage done to the Aeropher was quickly repaired. The ceaseless humming of the fans revolving on axles of hollow steel lulled our senses once more into dreamy repose.

“Ah,” said Lyone, “this is life. I feel as though I were a bird or disembodied spirit. This aerial navigation is the realization of those aspirations of men that they might like birds possess the sky. Some have wished to enjoy submarine travel, to explore those frightful abysses of ocean where sea-monsters dwell; to behold the conflict of sharks in their native element, to see the swordfish bury his spear in the colossal whale. I prefer this upper sphere of sunlight and the dome of forests, mountains, and valleys of the dear old earth.”

“You are right,” said I; “the world into which we are born is our true habitat.”

The walls of the cañon grew wider apart until we floated in a valley two miles wide. The meadow land below us was carpeted with grass and covered with clumps of forest trees, down the middle of which ran the river, green and swift. The walls of the valley here rose twelve thousand feet in perpendicular height, prodigies of stone, stained in barbaric colors by the brushes of the ages. Here and there triumphant cataracts flashed from the heights and fell in torrents of foam to the valley below. Sometimes a tributary of the river dashed furiously from the battlements above us into the abyss, flinging clouds of spray on the tops of the trees beneath.

[Illustration: THE GODDESS STOOD HOLDING THE OUTER RAIL OF THE DECK, THE INCARNATION OF COURAGE.]

The Aeropher maintained a uniform height of five thousand feet, sufficiently high to give us the exultation of a bird, yet sufficiently deep to allow the sublimity of the scene to fully impress us.

The musicians, who had hitherto remained in abeyance, now broke the silence of our progress with a swelling refrain. The music rolled echoing from granite to jasper walls in strains of divine pathos. We seemed to sail through the fabled realms of enchantment. In that little moving heaven, ceremony was dissolved into a thrilling friendship; the harmonious surroundings created a closer union of souls.