Page:Doughty--Mirrikh or A woman from Mars.djvu/173

 Of course I was hypnotized—of course it was but the action of old Padma’s will! Still I saw them—saw them with a distinctness fairly appaling. It was Maurice De Veber and the mysterious Mr. Mirrikh—they were floating  through space, side by side.

Nor were their forms dim and shadowy as I had seen them last; on the contrary, they were clothed as black lamas, precisely as they had been clothed when they stood at  the altar’s foot, and they were to my vision as real and substantial as myself. It was the same Maurice—the same Mirrikh, not altered one whit.

They did not appear to see me, or to be moving of their own volition, but just carried forward like specks of floss  before the summer breeze; yet their movements were not  erratic, but, on the contrary, seemed to be directed toward  one particular point, and that a huge globe of reddish hue,  except at the poles, where I could detect vast fields of snow  and ice.

Now a singular change took place, for once my gaze was fastened upon those two moving figures no effort of my  own will was sufficient to detach it. Whether I would, or whether I would not, still was I forced to follow on through  realms of boundless space.

Vast æons of time seemed to have been accomplished. It was as though centuries had passed since we came to Psam-dagong, and still we traveled on.

But not in vain!

Oh no! We were approaching our destination. Mars was growing nearer now.

Long ago it had ceased to look the shining object it had at first; and I knew that huge as the planets had seemed in  my previous vision, their proportions were as nothing compared with the reality, for now Mars appeared larger than  all rolled into one.

Clouds began to form where previously I had not perceived them, and my vision was in a measure obscured, but only for a moment; before I knew it, I had penetrated the  clouds, and the roundness of the earth beneath me was lost. Now it was as I fancy an aeronaut must feel when gazing down from a height a few thousand feet.

“Maurice!” I shouted. “Oh, Maurice, it is glorious!”

He did not seem to hear me, for he never turned his head, though I could perceive by the expression on his face