CHAPTER III.
RETURN.
"Let us go back," said Ezariel. "We have left a world of love and beauty to behold one of terror and wonder, where all seems unsympathetic to our nature. We have no place here. Happiness calls us home. We have seen enough."
Arauniel was at first inclined to make a still further plunge into space to the great world of Uranus; but I agreed with Ezariel that we had evidently passed beyond the regions where our nature was in place, and that it would be well to go no further. We had seen enough of the wondrous works of God to satiate our desire of knowledge. "Let us go back," I said. "We have seen enough. We have no place here."
So once more we mounted in our ether-car and plunged into space, and looked for many long days in wonderment still on that marvellous system of worlds and rings that we had left behind and never wished to re-visit. By degrees it sank into the sky and grew amalgamated into one planet; by degrees the great sun regained his glory.
We had long passed the orbit of Jupiter, when suddenly we perceived the force of gravitation drawing us toward a strange-shaped planet, or world rather, which suddenly appeared near us.
"It is one of the planetoids," said Arauniel. "They are not all spheres like the other planets. They are probably fragments of some great ancient world destroyed in primæval time, or else broken pieces of a huge ring that once circled our sun, like the rings we have just seen around Saturn."
We drew near to it. I cannot well describe it. More desolate than your moon, more terrible in its desolation. Vast mountains, waterless, treeless, huge masses of rock, coagulated blocks of star-forming matter—nothing living or moving. We rested on it some days and wandered on its strange cliffs, and then plunged off again into the orbit of the gorgeous planet Mars.
"Shall we not visit the earth?" said Arauniel. "You have seen it, but we have not. Perhaps we may find on it some things which you have not seen."
"If you so resolve," I said, "you must indeed beware that men do not find out who you are. I kept my secret well, and only to one man did I quite reveal it, just before I left it for our home. If you do not keep your secrets, and if men find out who you are, you may lead them into sin; some will be ready almost to worship you; some will mock and deride you; some will brand you as imposters; in the end they will quarrel over you, and then you will lead them into sin, and thereby yourselves will fall and offend God."
"Then let us land in some place where men are not, and yet where we can see some of their works afar—say on some mountains in a fertile and cultured region."
"I can only think of the Alps," I said, "as a place suited for us. From them you will see a part of France and Italy and much of Germany. Men will not trouble you and you will not trouble them, for you need not go near their cities nor their haunts. If they find you amidst the snows and glaciers, you can flee from them and hide yourselves in the great fastnesses that man has yet never trodden. If we go from Alp to Alp, we may see a great deal and have a fair idea of Earth. But I warn you, go not into the haunts of men. One might do it and be unknown, as I have been; we could not all do so."
"Good," said Arauniel, "let it be so. We will land upon the earth, but avoid men. We will see the works of man from the mountains and afar, and gather what we want of the natural wonders of the earth in spots untrodden by man. So be it, as you say—let us make for the 'white spot on the little continent,'"—for so we call the Alps, as ever snow-clad. We directed our ether-car towards the earth. Again I saw the familiar lines of the continents and oceans expanding before me—again I saw the lights of Earth's cities. We directed our course to the tall, white cliffs of the Jungfrau. At length we reached them, and once more I stood upon the rocks of Earth, amid the ice and snow and rock of Europe's greatest mountains. My first thought was to send to you this narrative of my journey. May it encourage you to lead the higher life on earth, that in another state of being you may be found worthy to know the stories of the heavens. If you wish to see me again, come to Jungfrau, to the place marked, on the 26th, at sunset.
At the bottom of the page I noticed a map of Jungfrau with a place marked by a cross. I looked at the page, I rubbed my eyes, "Is it true or a dream?"