leness of the voice thrilled her with a sudden sympathy.

"That was kind!" she said, and smiled. Some one smiled in response--or
she thought so. Presently she spoke again--

"Then you hold me here a prisoner?"

"No. You can return the way you came, quite freely."

"May I not come down and see your city?" "No."

"Why?"

"Because you are not one of us." The Voice hesitated. "And because you
are not alone."

Morgana glanced at the prostrate and unconscious forms of Rivardi and
Gaspard with a touch of pity.

"My companions are half dead!" she said.

"But not wholly!" was the prompt reply.

"Is it that force you speak of--the force which guards your city--that
has struck them down?" she asked.

"Yes."

"Then why was I not also struck down?"

"Because you are what you are!" Then--after a silence--"You are
Morgana!"

At this every nerve in her body started quivering like harp strings
pulled by testing fingers. The unseen speaker knew her name!--and
uttered it with a soft delicacy that made it sound more than musical.
She leaned forward, extending a hand as though to touch the invisible.

"How do you know me?" she asked.

"As we all know you,"--came the answer--"Even as YOU have known the
inside of a sun-ray!"

She listened, amazed--utterly mystified. Whoever or whatever it was
that spoke knew not only her name, but the trend of her earliest
studies and theories. The "inside of a sun-ray"! This was what she had
only the other day explained to Father Aloysius as being her first
experience of real happiness! She tried to set her thoughts in
order--to realise her position. Here she was, a fragile human thing, in
a flying ship of her own design, held fast by atmospheric force above
an unknown city situate somewhere in the Great Desert,--and some one in
that city was conversing with her by a method of "wireless" as yet
undiscovered by admitted science,--yet communication was perfect and
words distinct. Following up the suggestion presented to her she said--

"You are speaking to me in English. Are you all English folk in your
city?"

A faint quiver as of laughter vibrated through the "Sound Ray."

"No, indeed! We have no nationality."

"No nationality?"

"None. We are one people. But we speak every language that ever has
been spoken in the past, or is spoken in the present. I speak English
to you because it is your manner of talk, though not your manner of
life."

"How do you know it is not my manner