Page:My Airships.djvu/72

 limbo, where one seems to float without weight, without a surrounding world—a soul freed from the weight of matter. Yet now and again there are the lights of earth to cheer one. We see a point of light far on ahead. Slowly it expands. Then where there was one blaze there are countless bright spots. They run in lines, with here and there a brighter cluster. We know that it is a city. Then, again, it is out into the lone land, with only a faint glow here and there. When the moon rises we see, perhaps, a faint curling line of grey. It is a river, with the moonlight falling on its waters.

There is a flash upward and a faint roar. It is a railway train, the locomotive's fires, maybe, illuminating for a moment its smoke as it rises. Then for safety we throw out more ballast, and rise through the black solitudes of the clouds into a soul-lifting burst of splendid starlight. There, alone with the constellations, we await the dawn. And when the dawn comes, red and gold and purple in its glory, one is almost loth to seek the earth again, although the novelty of landing in who knows what part of Europe affords still another unique pleasure.