then he said, with some embarrassment of manner:
"I promised you to start in forty-eight hours. I thought that it could he managed, else I shouldn't have promised; but things have taken another turn, Ala refuses to go; and you know," laying his hand on my arm, "that I can't leave her."
Edmund's Determination
"BUT what do you propose, then; to stay here all your life?"
"That's it!"
There was no trace of regret in his tone. It was plain that henceforth this, and not his mother earth, was to be Edmund's world.
Before I could say anything in reply, he went on:
"But, of course, I don't mean to keep you and Jack and Henry here. I am going to show you exactly how to manage the car; and I feel sure that you can navigate her home as well as I could myself."
The idea of parting from Edmund, of leaving him alone on this distant planet while we returned to the earth, had never crossed my mind. Now, coming so suddenly, it quite overwhelmed me.
I had long ago forgotten to feel the least resentment because he had practically kidnapped us and brought us way off here against our knowledge and against our will. It seemed to me like desertion to leave him, and I could not reconcile myself to the thought.
I felt a lump rising in my throat; and it would not surprise me if there were tears in my eyes.
"But, Edmund, I finally managed to say, "you can't stay, you know, and Ala can't stay. The lives of both of you will be sacrificed. Your enemies are too numerous and too powerful."
"No," he replied cheerfully. "We shall run no great danger. Ala believes that she can stem the tide; and I believe it, too, for there never was another such a woman! She proposes that we meet the machinations of the chief priest with a counter-stroke."
"What sort of counterstroke can you deal?"
"You know how popular Ala has always been, and you know also how charmed the whole population was with the news of our romance. It is the ingrained nature of these children of the sun. They passionately love the romantic and the beautiful.
"We believe that we can overcome the opposition of the superstitious element and rouse enthusiastic devotion to ourselves, by publicly proclaiming our betrothal, and celebrating our nuptials at the earliest possible moment; and we are going to do it."
I was struck dumb—the thing was so unexpected and, to my mind, so preposterous.
"Why, Edmund," I at last managed to say," "that's the very thing to bring your enemies down upon you.
"If you are determined to stay here on Venus, all right. For Heaven's sake don't take a step so openly defiant as that which you propose. Keep in the background, and get Ala to try her arts of persuasion until the storm blows over."
Nothing that I could urge moved him. He and Ala had made up their minds, and that was the end of it.
He wound up the discussion by asking me to go at once to the car, in order that he might instruct me in the management of the controllers. Ala, as well as Jack, Henry, and Juba, accompanied us.
The mere knowledge of Ingra's presence was sufficient to make Edmund wish to have Ala continually under his eye; and the others followed where they saw us going. The lesson was not long, for already I had a general idea of the management of the machinery; but it was rendered a little difficult by the tacit understanding between Edmund and me that Henry should not be told what was in the wind.
He would be glad enough to go home, but we were sure that he would oppose any one acting as engineer except Edmund. The affair was managed without exciting Henry's suspicions. Afterward, I got Jack aside and told him the whole story.
As I expected, he adopted Edmund's view at once.
"Just the thing to do," he declared. "But, I tell you what, I'm more than half disposed to stay here myself, if Edmund does."
"Do as you like, Jack," I replied; "but I'm going to get away just as soon as I am certain that Edmund and Ala cannot, after all, be persuaded to go, and that they are in no immediate danger."
You are not to suppose, from what I have said, that Ala was deserted by her people in the midst of the serious trouble in which she and we had involved ourselves, tier self-confidence, as exhibited in the plan which she had formed with Edmund, was alone a sufficient indication that she had plenty of friends left, and that her rank and character still protected her.
The Betrothal
AS soon, then, as she had informed these friends and faithful supporters of her design, they loyally aided her to put it into execution. At a less anxious moment I should have eagerly examined into all the details of the, singular ceremony by which the betrothal of the queen to a stranger of another race and from another world was to be proclaimed to her people. As it was, my mind was too full, and only the culminating scene was stamped on my memory.
The immense palace-tower and hundreds of other towers all over the city were decorated as we had never seen them before. The display of color was amazing, even after our experience.
Most beautiful of all, I thought, was the spectacle presented by the thousands of airplanes and airships in gala dress. They spiraled about, so countless and so brilliant, so swift and so graceful in their mazy circlings, that one seemed to be plunged into the midst of a vast swarm of the most gorgeous butterflies.
So dazzling and fascinating a spectacle was never conceived by the most ingenious inventor of carnivals and ballets.
But even while I stood admiring it I could not drive away the thought that this wonderful display was, in itself, simply a defiance to our enemies, the waving of the toreador's scarlet flag, and I shuddered at consequences which I could not foresee.
The hour for the final ceremony was now close at hand, and we were all to take a conspicuous part in it, standing with Ala and Edmund to receive the congratulations of the people, after a priest, whom
