Page:Meda - a tale of the future.djvu/253

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A TALE OF THE FUTURE.
249

that," said she, "there is one offence that cannot be named by any woman that is subject to a dreadful punishment."

I asked her to let me know what this punishment was, and with a serious face she said:—

"Men or women that are guilty of this terrible crime are allowed to float away alone into endless space; what becomes of them there we know not. Some say they journey with the dead, and remain in life until the resurrection, but as to what really becomes of them we are ignorant, and must remain so until the appointed day."

I enquired how this terrible execution was carried out. "Oh," she said, "the offender is brought before the Court of Judges, and pleads his own cause. If he is found guilty the men of the district are called together, and on the day fixed for the despatch he is brought before the multitude, his leg weights are removed and replaced by a gravity destroyer, fixed in a belt around his waist, and at a given word he floats upwards, the earth moves away past him and