.

"Why, ruins of temples--columns--colossi--a new Sphinx-all sorts of
things!" she replied--"But at night, of course, we can see nothing--and
we must move onward slowly--I cannot rest swaying like this in
mid-air." She put aside the dinner things, and served them with hot
coffee from one of the convenient flasks that hold fluids hot or cold
for an interminable time, and when they had finished this, they went
back to their separate posts. The great ship began to move--and she was
relieved to feel it sailing steadily, though at almost a snail's pace
"on the bosom of the air." The oppressive nervousness which affected
her had not diminished; she could not account for it to herself,--and
to rally her forces she went to the window, so-called, of her luxurious
cabin. This was a wide aperture filled in with a transparent,
crystal-clear material, which looked like glass, but which was wholly
unbreakable, and through this she gazed, awe-smitten, at the
magnificence of the starry sky. The millions upon millions of worlds
which keep the mystery of their being veiled from humanity flashed upon
her eyes and moved her mind to a profound sadness.

"What is the use of it all!" she thought--"If one could only find the
purpose of this amazing creation! We learn a very little, only to see
how much more there is to know! We live our lives, all hoping,
searching, praying--and never an answer comes for all our prayers! From
the very beginning--not a word from the mysterious Poet who has written
the Poem! We are to breed and die--and there an end!--it seems strange
and cruel, because so purposeless! Or is it our fault? Do we fail to
discover the things we ought to know?"

So she mused, while her "White Eagle" ship sailed serenely on with a
leisurely, majestic motion through a seeming wilderness of stars.
Courageous as she was, with a veritable lion-heart beating in her
delicate little body, and firm as was her resolve to discover what no
woman had ever discovered before, to-night she was conscious of actual
fear. Something--she knew not what--crept with a compelling influence
through her blood,--she felt that some mysterious force she had never
reckoned with was insidiously surrounding her with an invisible ring.
She called to Rivardi--

"Are we not flying too high? Have you altered the course?"

"No, Madama," he replied at once--"We are on the same level."

She turned towards him. Her face was very pale.

"Well--be careful! To my mi