ted cunningly in the roof of the vessel and mingling
with the roseate hues of the silken sheathing that covered its walls.
So fired with light she looked ethereal--a very spirit of air or of
flame; and Rivardi, just able to see her from his steering place, began
to think there was some truth an the strange words of Don
Aloysius--"Sometimes in this wonderful world of ours beings are born
who are neither man nor woman and who partake of a nature that is not
so much human as elemental--or, might not one almost say atmospheric?"

At the moment Morgana seemed truly "atmospheric"--a small creature so
fine and fair as to almost suggest an evanescent form about to melt
away in mist. Some sudden thrill of superstitious fear moved Gaspard to
make the sign of the cross and mutter an "Ave,"--Morgana heard him and
smiled kindly.

"I am not an evil spirit, my friend!" she said--"You need not exorcise
me! I am nothing but a student with a little more imagination than is
common, and in the moving force which carries our ship along I am only
using a substance which, as our scientists explain, 'has an exceptional
capacity for receiving the waves of energy emanating from the sun and
giving them off.' On the 'giving off' of those waves we move--it is all
natural and easy, and, like every power existent in the universe, is
meant for our comprehension and use. You cannot say you feel any sense
of danger?--we are sailing with greater steadiness than any ship at
sea--there is scarcely any consciousness of movement--and without
looking out and down, we should not realise we are so far from earth.
Indeed we are going too far now--we do not realize our speed."

"Too far!" said Gaspard, nervously--"Madama, if we go too far we may
also go too high--we may not be able to breathe!..."

She laughed.

"That is a very remote possibility!" she said--"The waves of energy
which bear us along are concerned in our own life-supply,--they make
our air to breathe--our heat to warm. All the same it is time we
returned--we are not provisioned."

She called to Rivardi, and he, with the slightest turn of the wheel,
altered the direction in which the air-ship moved, so that it travelled
back again on the route by which it had commenced its flight. Soon,
very soon, the dainty plot of earth, looking no more than a gay
flower-bed, where Morgana's palazzo was situated, appeared below--and
then, acting on instructions, Gaspard opened the compartments at either
end