Page:Biagi - The Centaurians.djvu/201

 hurried and earnest, traveling with settled purpose in one direction. Women, vividly beautiful with health; men, muscular, powerful in their strength; children, fresh with a cherubic loveliness; a fascinating crowd. Suddenly loud shouts of warning rang clear on the sultry air, I heard the clattering of horses' hoofs upon the hard pavement: the crowd parted with shrill cheers and a chariot drawn by plunging white horses flew by. A woman stood erect, holding with one hand the reins guiding the flying steeds, the other was pointed to the heavens. A woman tall, straight, a goddess with dark tresses floating in the breeze.

"Alpha Centauri!" I gasped.

"Aye, Alpha Centauri," the man next to me answered.

"Priestess of the Sun!" cried a second.

"The bride of Knowledge, whose wedding gift was divinity," murmured a third. And it is all very pretty, I thought, and what a poetical, sentimental race these people are.

Steadily pressing onward, with constant reinforcements trooping from every avenue, the crush became alarming, but finally we entered a wide park and in relief the people spread like a great, black wave over the green lawn thinning to an obelisk peak toward a shining temple, with glistening steeples topped with huge golden globes. The bronze portals stood wide and, carried along by the rush of devout Centaurians, I entered a place dark with the chill of a sepulchre. My eyes accustomed to the brilliant sunlight at first could distinguish