CHAPTER XXV.
ESCAPING FROM THE CYCLONE.
The ship, lifting her prow, would spring into the sky upon the bosomof the whirling waste of air. The sun was completely obscured by densemasses of flying clouds and we were deluged with torrents of water.The terror of the situation obliterated all thoughts of country orhome or friends. All worldly consciousness had evaporated from thepale beings that in despair held on to the ship for life or death.
The ravages of the storm on the earth beneath could be heard withstartling distinctness. We heard at times the roaring of forests andsaw the shrieking, whirling branches in every earth-illuminating flashof lightning.
The goddess stood holding on to the outer rail of the deck, theincarnation of courage. She had risen to meet the danger at its worst.
The _Aeropher_ having risen to an enormous height, being throwncompletely out of the tempest as if shot from a catapult, turned todescend again. It flew downward like an arrow, filling every soul,save perhaps that of Lyone, with fear. All were resigned for death;there could be no escape from the destruction that threatened us.
All this time the centre of the storm had been travelling to thesoutheast, or about forty-five degrees out of our proper course.Suddenly the ship shot downward from the southeastern limb of thestorm, which almost reached the earth at this point. Gazing below, wediscovered a fearful chasm in the face of the earth toward which wewere rapidly flying. It was the canyon of the river Savagil, amerciless abyss ten thousand feet in depth.
Frightful as was the scene, it might yet prove our salvation if theship could escape colliding with the precipitous walls. Were there noabyss we would certainly be dashed to pieces on the earth itself.
Suddenly the ship heeled over fifty degrees, flinging its livingfreight violently against the houses on deck and the lower rail. Butwe were saved! One side of the deck grazed the precipice as it plungedinto the canyon. We had passed through the danger before knowing whathad happened.
Lyone was stunned, but safe, the captain had a dislocated wrist, andothers had broken limbs, but none was fatally hurt.
It was a terrible experience.
As the canyon of the river led in a northeasterly direction we did notemerge from the shelter it gave us to seek fresh conflict with thecyclone, but kept flying between the formidable walls. We soon knew bythe returning sunlight and the silver clouds that the hurricane haddied away.
The damage done to the _Aeropher_ was quickly repaired. The ceaselesshumming of the fans revolving on axles of hollow steel lulled oursenses once more into dreamy repose.
"Ah," said Lyone, "this is life. I feel as though I were a bird ordisembodied spirit. This aerial navigation is the realization of thoseaspirations of men that they might like birds possess the sky. Somehave wished to enjoy submarine travel, to explore those frightfulabysses of ocean where sea-monsters dwell; to behold the conflict ofsharks in their native element, to see the swordfish bury his spear inthe colossal whale. I prefer this upper sphere of sunlight and thedome of forests, mountains, and valleys of the dear old earth."
"You are right," said I; "the world into which we are born is our truehabitat."
The walls of the canyon grew wider apart until we floated in a valleytwo miles wide. The meadow land below us was carpeted with grass andcovered with clumps of forest trees, down the middle of which ran theriver, green and swift. The walls of the valley here rose twelvethousand feet in perpendicular height, prodigies of stone, stained inbarbaric colors by the brushes of the ages. Here and there triumphantcataracts flashed from the heights and fell in torrents of foam to thevalley below. Sometimes a tributary of the river dashed furiouslyfrom the battlements above us into the abyss, flinging clouds of sprayon the tops of the trees beneath.
THE GODDESS STOOD HOLDING THE OUTER RAIL OF THE DECK,THE INCARNATION OF COURAGE.]
The _Aeropher_ maintained a uniform height of five thousand feet,sufficiently high to give us the exultation of a bird, yetsufficiently deep to allow the sublimity of the scene to fully impressus.
The musicians, who had hitherto remained in abeyance, now broke thesilence of our progress with a swelling refrain. The music rolledechoing from granite to jasper walls in strains of divine pathos. Weseemed to sail through the fabled realms of enchantment. In thatlittle moving heaven, ceremony was dissolved into a thrillingfriendship; the harmonious surroundings created a closer union ofsouls.
Above where I sat with Lyone there floated a flag of yellow silk ahundred feet in length. As it floated on the wind it assumed a varyingseries of poetic shapes, very beautiful to witness.
Sometimes there was a long sinuous fold, then a number of ripplingwaves, then a second fold only shorter than the first, then morerippling waves. It was a symbol of the soul and of the goddess, andrepresented the fascination and poetry that belongs to the adepts ofHarikar. Its folds changed momentarily. At times there would be onelarge central curve like a Moorish arch, flanked on either side by anumber of lesser arches. Again the flag streamed in throbbing waves,frequently blown by an intense breath of wind straight as a spear,crackling and shivering like a soul in pain. It responded not only tothe motion of the ship, but had an independent life of its own.
"You see," said Lyone, "that the spiritual part of our creed is butthe development of this independent life of the soul. The spiritualnature responds to the opportunity worthy of its recognition."
"That is but the mechanical law of cause and effect," I ventured;"where does self-sacrifice come in?"
"I do not quite understand," she replied; "self-sacrifice is the firstlaw of the soul."
"What I mean," I said, "is this--having discovered your counterpart,do you adore despite the circumstances of fortune?"
"Most certainly," she replied; "there is the divinest self-sacrificeon both sides as far as the fortunes of each will permit. Ideally, thesacrifice is unlimited, but practically is limited as to time,opportunity and other circumstances."
"Is the counterpart soul loved in spite of disparity of circumstances,or is an equality of circumstances, such as rank, wealth andnationality, etc., a factor in the case?" I inquired.
"Outward circumstances have nothing whatever to do with the matter,"said Lyone. "Friends, wealth, rank, everything is thrown aside infavor of the inward circumstance that the two souls are one."
"But," I urged, "you expose your spiritual creed to very violentshocks at times. The king of to-day may be a beggar to-morrow, and,besides, one or both of two souls may before they have known eachother have been freighted with lifelong responsibilities. How, then,do you prevent a catastrophe to some one?"
"I admit," she said, "that as far as the every-day world is concerned,there are serious difficulties to contend with. But we avoid these bycreating a little world of our own, exclusively for the cultivation ofthe spiritual soul. Just as some people apply themselves to physicalculture to become athletes and show how grand the physical man maybecome, so we set apart a number of people as soul-priests to developspirituality, or power over themselves and others and power overmatter. It was for this object that Egyplosis was founded, to form afitting environment for those who have achieved the ideal life. Thislife fully ripened, with its fresh and glorious enjoyment, can bemaintained for a hundred years without diminution or loss of ecstasy."
"And do you mean that, after living one hundred years, beginning withyour twentieth birthday, you are still only commencing yourtwenty-first year?"
"That is exactly what I mean," said Lyone. "I myself have lived tenyears of Nirvana, and am yet only twenty years old."
I could well believe that such glorious freshness and beauty as herswas quite as young as she had represented it; but it was a strangeidea--this achievement of an earthly Nirvana.
"Do you believe in the independent life of the soul after death?" Iinquired.
"I believe that, as our bodies when they die become reabsorbed intothe bosom of nature, to become in part or whole reincarnated in otherforms of life, so also our souls are reabsorbed
into the great oceanof existence, to also dwell, in time, wholly or in part in some otherform of life or love."