CHAPTER XI.

TO SAVE THE WORLD.

Two days later Alan and Miela were quietly married in Bay Head. She still
wore the long cloak, and no one could have suspected she was other than a
beautiful stranger in the little community. When we got back home Alan
immediately made her take off the cloak. He wanted us to admire her
wings--to note their long, soft red feathers as she extended them, the
symbol and the tangible evidence of her freedom from male dominance.

She was as sweet about it all as she could be, blushing, as though to
expose the wings, now that she was married, were immodest. And by the way
she regarded Alan, by the gentleness and love in her eyes, I could see she
would never be above the guidance, the dominance, of one man, at least.

The day before their marriage Alan had taken me up the bayou to see the
little silver car in which Miela had come. I was intensely curious to
learn the workings of this strange vehicle. As soon as we were inside I
demanded that Alan explain it all to me in detail.

He smiled.

"That's the remarkable part of it, Bob," he answered. "Miela herself
didn't thoroughly understand either the basic principle or the mechanism
itself when she started down here."

"Good Lord! And she ventured--"

"Tao was already on the point of leaving when she conceived the idea. He
had already made one trip almost to the edge of the earth's atmosphere,
you know, and now was ready to start again."

"That first trip was last November," I said. "Tell me about that. What
were those first light-meteors for?"

"As far as I can gather from what Miela says," Alan answered, "Tao wanted
to make perfectly sure the light-ray would act in our atmosphere. He
came--there were several vehicles they had ready even then--without other
apparatus than those meteors, as we called them. Those he dropped to earth
with the light-ray stored in them. They did discharge it properly--they
seemed effective. The thing was merely a test. Tao was satisfied, and went
back to arrange for this second preliminary venture in which he is engaged
now."

"I understand," I said. "Go on about Miela."

"Well, she and her mother went before the Scientific Society, she calls
it--the men who own and control these vehicles in the Light Country. They
called it suicide. No one could be found to come with her. Lua, her
mother, wanted to, but Miela would not let her take the risk, saying she
was needed more there in her own world.

"As