fixedly as though
stricken by some sudden terror--then he dashed off at a violent run,
till he came to a breathless halt, crying out--"Gran' Dio! It has gone!"

Gone! The shed was empty! No air-ship was there, poised trembling on
its own balance all prepared for flight,--the wonderful "White Eagle"
had unfurled its wings and fled! Whither? Like a madman he rushed up
and down, shouting and calling in vain--it was after midnight and there
was no one about to hear him. He started to run to the Palazzo d'Oro to
give the alarm--but was held back--held by an indescribable force which
he was powerless to resist. He struggled with all his might,--uselessly.

"Morganna!" he cried in a desperate voice--"Morganna!"

Running down to the edge of the sea he gazed across it and up to the
wonderful sky through which the moon rolled lazily like a silver ball.
Was there nothing to be seen there save that moon and the moon-dimmed
stars? With eager straining eyes he searched every quarter of the
visible space--stay! Was that a white dove soaring eastwards?--or a
cloud sinking to its rest?

"Morgana!" he cried again, stretching out his arms in despair--"She has
gone! And alone!"

Even as he spoke the dove-like shape was lost to sight beyond the
shining of the evening star.

L'Envoi

Several months ago the ruin of a great air-ship was found on the
outskirts of the Great Desert so battered and broken as to make its
mechanism unrecognisable. No one could trace its origin,--no one could
discover the method of its design. There was no remnant of any engine,
and its wings were cut to ribbons. The travellers who came upon its
fragments half buried in the sand left it where they found it, deciding
that a terrible catastrophe had overtaken the unfortunate aviators who
had piloted it thus far. They spoke of it when they returned to Europe,
but came upon no one who could offer a clue to its possible origin.
These same travellers were those who a short time since filled a
certain section of the sensational press with tales of a "Brazen City"
seen from the desert in the distance, with towers and cupolas that
shone like brass or like "the city of pure gold," revealed to St. John
the Divine, where "in the midst of the street of it" is the Tree of
Life. Such tales were and are received with scorn by the world's
majority, for whom food and money constitute the chief interest of
existence,--nevertheless tradition sometimes proves to be true, and