第67章 BOOK III.(7)

Saturn's rotation on its axis occupying only ten hours and fourteen minutes,being but a few minutes longer than Jupiter's,they knew it would soon be night.Finding a place on a range of hills sheltered by rocks and a clump of trees of the evergreen species,they arranged themselves as comfortably as possible,ate some of the sandwiches they had brought,lighted their pipes,and watched the dying day.Here were no fire-flies to light the darkening minutes,nor singing flowers to lull them to sleep with their song but six of the eight moons,each at a different phase,and with varied brightness,bathed the landscape in their pale,cold rays;while far above them,like a huge rainbow,stretched the great rings in effulgent sheets,reaching thousands of miles into space,and flooded everything with their silvery light.

"How poor a place compared with this,"they thought to themselves,"is our world!"and Ayrault wished that his soul was already free;while the dead leaves rustling in the gentle breeze,and the nightwinds,sighing among the trees,seemed to echo his thought.Far above their heads,and in the vastness of space,the well-known stars and constellations,notwithstanding the enormous distance they had now come,looked absolutely unchanged,and seemed to them emblematic of tranquillity and eternal repose.The days were changed by their shortness,and by the apparent loss of power in the sun;and the nights,as if in compensation,were magnificently illuminated by the numerous moons and splendid rings,though neither rings nor satellites shone with as strong a light as the terrestrial moon.But in nothing outside of the solar system was there any change;and could AEneas's Palinurus,or one of Philip of Macedon's shepherds,be brought to life here,he would see exactly the same stars in the same positions;and,did he not know of his own death or of the lapse of time,he might suppose,so far as the heavens were affected,that he had but fallen asleep,or had just closed his eyes.

"I have always regretted,"said Cortlandt,"that I was not born a thousand years later.""Were it not,"added Ayrault,"that our earth is the vestibule to space,and for the opportunities it opens,I should rather never have lived,for life in itself is unsatisfying.""You fellows are too indefinite and abstract for me,"said Bearwarden."I like something tangible and concrete.The utilitarianism of the twentieth century,by which I live,paradoxical though it may seem,would be out of place in space,unless we can colonize the other planets,and improve their arrangements and axes."Mixed with Ayrault's philosophical and metaphysical thoughts were the memories of his sweetheart at Vassar,and he longed,more than his companions,for the spirit's return,that he might ask him if perchance he could tell him aught of her,and whether her thoughts were then of him.

Finally,worn out by the fatigue and excitement of the day,they set the protection-wires,more from force of habit than because they feared molestation and,rolling themselves in their blankets--for the night was cold--were soon fast asleep;Ayrault's last thought having been of his fiancee,Cortlandt's of the question he wished to ask the spirit,and Bearwarden's of the progress of his Company in the work of straightening the terrestrial axis.Thus they slept seven hundred and ninety million miles beyond their earth's orbit,and more than eight hundred million from the place where the earth was then.While they lay unconscious,the clouds above them froze,and before morning there was a fall of snow that covered the ground and them as they lay upon it.Soon three white mounds were all that marked their presence,and the cranes and eagles,rising from their roosts in response to the coming day,looked unconcernedly at all that was human that they had ever seen.Finally,wakened by the resounding cries of these birds,Bearwarden and Cortlandt arose,and meeting Ayrault,who had already risen,mistook the snowy form before them for the spirit,and thinking the dead bishop had revisited them,they were preparing to welcome him,and to propound the questions they had formulated,when Ayrault's familiar voice showed them their mistake.

"Seeing your white figures,"said he,"rise apparently in response to those loud calls,reminded me of what the spirit told us of the last day,and of the awakening and resurrection of the dead."The scene was indeed weird.The east,already streaked with the rays of the rising far-away sun,and the pale moons nearing the horizon in the west,seemed connected by the huge bow of light.

The snow on the dark evergreens produced a contrast of colour,while the other trees raised their almost bare and whitened branches against the sky,as though in supplication to the mysterious rings,which cast their light upon them and on the ground.As they gazed,however,the rings became grey,the moons disappeared,and another day began.Feeling sure the snow must have cleared the air of any deleterious substances it contained the day before,they descended into the neighbouring valley,which,having a southerly exposure,was warm in comparison with the hills.As they walked they disturbed a number of small rodents,which quickly ran away and disappeared in their holes.