"I said it was a place for love!" he replied.

"You were right! And love inhabits it--love of the purest, most unselfish nature--"

"Love that is a cruel martyrdom!" he interposed.

"True!" and her eyes shone with a strange brilliancy--"But love--as the world knows it--is never anything else! There, do not frown, my friend!

You will never wear its crown of thorns! And you are glad I am going away?"

"Yes!--glad that you will have a change"--he said--"Your constant care and anxiety for these people whom we rescued from death must have tired you out unconsciously. You will enjoy a free flight through s.p.a.ce,--and the ship is in perfect condition; she will carry you like an angel in the air!"

She smiled and gave him her hand.

"Good Giulio!--you are quite a romancist!--you talk of angels without believing in them!"

"I believe in them when I look at YOU!" he said, with all an Italian's impulsive gallantry.

"Very pretty of you!" and she withdrew her hand from his too fervent clasp,--"I feel sorry for myself that I cannot rightly appreciate so charming a compliment!"

"It is not a compliment"--he declared, vehemently; "It is a truth!"

Her eyes dwelt on him with a wistful kindness.

"You are what some people call 'a good fellow,' Giulio!" she said--"And you deserve to be very happy. I hope you will be so! I want you to prosper so that you may restore your grand old villa to its former beauty,--I also want you to marry--and bring up a big family"--here she laughed a little--"A family of sons and daughters who will be grateful to you, and not waste every penny you give them--though that is the modern way of sons and daughters."

She paused, smiling at his moody expression. "And you say everything is ready?--the 'White Eagle' is prepared for flight?"

"She will leave the shed at a moment's touch"--he answered--"when YOU supply the motive power!"

She nodded comprehensively, and thought a moment. "Come to me the day after to-morrow"--she said--"You will then have your orders."

"Is it to be a long flight this time?" he asked.

"Not so long as to California!" she answered--"But long enough!"

With that she left him. And he betook himself to the air-shed where the superb "White Eagle" rested all a-quiver for departure, palpitating, or so it seemed to him, with a strange eagerness for movement which struck him as unusual and "uncanny" in a mere piece of mechanism.

The next day moved on tranquilly. Morgana wrote many letters--and varied this occupation by occasionally sitting in the loggia to talk with Manella and Lady Kingswood, both of whom now seemed the natural inhabitants of the Palazzo d'Oro. She spoke easily of her intended air-trip,--so that they accepted her intention as a matter of course, Manella only entreating--"Do not be long away!" her lovely, eloquent eyes emphasising her appeal. Now and again the terrible cries of "There shall be no more wars! There can be none! My Great Secret! I am Master of the World!" rang through the house despite the closed doors,--cries which they feigned not to hear, though Manella winced with pain, as at a dagger thrust, each time the sounds echoed on the air.

And the night came,--mildly glorious, with a full moon shining in an almost clear sky--clear save for little delicate wings of snowy cloud drifting in the east like wandering shapes of birds that haunted the domain of sunrise. Giulio Rivardi, leaning out of one of the richly sculptured window arches of his half-ruined villa, looked at the sky with pleasurable antic.i.p.ation of the morrow's intended voyage in the "White Eagle."

"The weather will be perfect!" he thought--"She will be pleased. And when she is pleased no woman can be more charming! She is not beautiful, like Manella--but she is something more than beautiful--she is bewitching! I wonder where she means to go!"

Suddenly a thought struck him,--a vivid impression coming from he knew not whence--an idea that he had forgotten a small item of detail in the air-ship which its owner might or might not notice, but which would certainly imply some slight forgetfulness on his part. He glanced at his watch,--it was close on midnight. Acting on a momentary impulse he decided not to wait till morning, but to go at once down to the shed and see that everything in and about the vessel was absolutely and finally in order. As he walked among the perfumed tangles of shrub and flower in his garden, and out towards the sea-sh.o.r.e he was impressed by the great silence everywhere around him. Everything looked like a moveless picture--a study in still life. Pa.s.sing through a little olive wood which lay between his own grounds and the sea, he paused as he came out of the shadow of the trees and looked towards the height crowned by the Palazzo d'Oro, where from the upper windows twinkled a few lights showing the position of the room where the "master of the world" lay stretched in brainless immobility, waited upon by medical nurses ever on the watch, and a wife of whom he knew nothing, guarding him with the fixed devotion of a faithful dog rather than of a human being. Going onwards in a kind of abstract reverie, he came to a halt again on reaching the sh.o.r.e, enchanted by the dreamy loveliness of the scene. In an open stretch of dazzling brilliancy the sea presented itself to his eyes like a delicate network of jewels finely strung on swaying threads of silver, and he gazed upon it as one might gaze on the "fairy lands forlorn" of Keats in his enchanting poesy. Never surely, he thought, had he seen a night so beautiful,--so perfect in its expression of peace. He walked leisurely,--the long shed which sheltered the air-ship was just before him, its black outline silhouetted against the sky--but as he approached it more nearly, something caused him to stop abruptly and stare 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 s.p.a.ce--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 bra.s.s 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 const.i.tute the chief interest of existence,--nevertheless tradition sometimes proves to be true, and dreams become realities. However this may be, Morgana lives,--and can make her voice heard when she will along the "Sound Ray"--that wonderful "wireless" which is soon to be declared to the world. For there is no distance that is not bridged by light,--and no separation of sounds that cannot be again brought into unison and harmony. "There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in our philosophy,"--and the "Golden City" is one of those things! "Masters of the world" are poor creatures at best,--but the secret Makers of the New Race are the G.o.ds of the Future!

The End