A Trip to Venus: A Novel, John Munro [best novel books to read txt] 📗

have done to a woman of the world. With Alumion I felt that all such artificial forms were idle, and that I could reveal my inmost soul without disguise, in all its naked sincerity.

"I have brought you some flowers," said I, offering her a nosegay which I had picked. "Will you accept them?"

"I thank you," she replied with a beaming smile as she came and took them from my hand. "They are very beautiful, and I shall keep them for your sake."

"For my sake!"

Inspired by love I continued in a voice trembling with emotion,

"Alumion—can you not guess what brings me here?"

A blush rose to her cheek as she bent over the flowers.

"It is because I love you," said I; "because I have loved you ever since I saw you on the day you cut the sacred lily; because I love you—worship you—with all my heart and soul."

She was silent.

"If I am wrong, forgive me," I went on in a pleading tone. "Blame the spell your beauty has cast over me, but do not banish me from your presence, which is life and light to me."

"Wrong!" she murmured, lifting her wondrous eyes to mine. "Can it be wrong to love, or to speak of love? Why should I send you away from me because you love me? Is not love the glory of the heart, as the sun is the glory of the world? Rejoice, then, in your love as I do in mine."

"As you do?"

"Yes, as I do. I should have spoken sooner, but my heart was full of happiness. For I also love you. I have loved you from the beginning."

With a cry of unspeakable joy I sprang from the boat, and would have flung myself at her feet to kiss her hand or the hem of her garment, but she drew back with a look of apprehension.

"Touch me not," she said gravely, "for by the custom of our land I am holy. Until to-morrow at sunset I am consecrated to The Giver."

"Pardon my ignorance," I responded rather crestfallen. "Your will shall be my law. I only wished to manifest my eternal gratitude and devotion to you."

"Kneel not to me," she rejoined, "but rather to The Giver, who has so strangely brought us together. How many ages we might have wandered from world to world without finding each other again!"

"You think we have met before then?" I enquired eagerly, for the same thought had been haunting my own mind. It seemed to me that I had known Alumion always.

"Assuredly," she replied, "for you and I are kindred souls who have been separated in another world, by death or evil; and now that we have met again, let us be faithful and loving to each other."

"Nothing shall separate us any more."

The words had scarcely passed my lips when the same terrible cry which I had heard once before sounded from the interior of the grotto.

Alumion called or rather sang out a response to the cry, which I did not understand, then said to me in her ordinary voice,

"It is Siloo. I must go now and give him food."

I was curious to know who or what was Siloo, but did not dare to ask. She raised her arms gracefully and smiled a sweet farewell.

"Are you going to leave me like that?" said I.

"What would you have?" she answered, turning towards the cave.

"In my country lovers bind themselves by mutual vows."

"What need of vows? Have we not confessed our loves?"

"Will you not tell me when I shall see you again? Will you not say when you will be mine—when you will marry me?"

A blush mounted to her cheek as she answered with a divine glance,

"Meet me at sunset to-morrow, and I will be yours."

As yet I had not mentioned my adventure with Alumion to any of my companions, but that night I said to Gazen, as we smoked our cigars together,

"Wish me joy, old fellow! I am going to be married."

He seemed quite dumbfounded, and I rather think he fancied that I must have come to an understanding with Miss Carmichael.

"Really!" said he with the air of a man plucking up heart after an unexpected blow. "May I ask who is the lady?"

"The Priestess of the Lily."

"The Priestess!" he exclaimed utterly astonished, but at the same time vastly relieved. "The Priestess! Come, now, you are joking."

"Never was more serious in my life."

Then I told him what had happened, how I had met her, and my engagement to marry her.

"If you will take my advice," said he dryly, "you'll do nothing of the kind."

"Why?"

"Have you considered the matter?" he replied significantly.

"Considered the matter! A love like mine does not 'consider the matter' as though it were a problem in Euclid. With such a woman as Alumion a lover does not stop to 'consider the matter,' unless he is a fool."

"A woman—yes; but remember that she is a woman of another planet. She might not make a suitable wife for you."

"I love her. I love her as I can never love a woman of our world. She is a thousand times more beautiful and good than any woman I have ever known. She is an ideal woman—a perfect woman—an angel in human form."

"That may be; but what will her family say?"

"My dear Gazen, don't you know they manage these things better here. Thank goodness, the 'family' does not interfere with love affairs in this happy land! We love each other, we have agreed to be married, and that is quite sufficient. No need to get the 'consent of the parents,' or make a 'settlement,' or give out the banns, or buy a government license as though a wife were contraband goods, or hire a string of four-wheelers, or tip the pew-opener. What has love to do with pew-openers? Why should the finest thing in life become the prey of such vulgar parasites? Why should our heavenliest moments be profaned and spoiled by needless worries—hateful to the name of love? Our wedding will be very simple. We shall not even want you as groomsman or Miss Carmichael as bridesmaid. I daresay we shall get along without cake and speeches, and as for the rice and old boots, upon my word, I don't think we shall miss them."

"And if it is a fair question, when will the—the simple ceremony take place?"

"To-morrow evening."

"To-morrow evening!" exclaimed the professor, taken by surprise. "I thought a priestess could not marry."

"To-morrow at sunset she will be a free woman. Her priesthood will come to an end."

"And—pardon me—but what are you going to do with her when you've got her? Will you bring her home to the car—there is very little room here, as you know. Do you propose to take her to the earth, where I'm afraid she will probably die like a tender plant or a bird of paradise in a cage? Do you think her father would consent to that?"

"We are not going away just yet. There will be time enough to arrange about that."

"Well, we can't stay here much longer. I must get back to my work—and you know we intended to pay a flying visit to Mercury, and if possible to get a closer look at the sun."

"All right. You can go as soon as you like. I shall remain behind. Carmichael will take you to the earth, and then come back here for me."

"You talk as if it were merely a question of a drive."

"I think we have proved that it is not more dangerous to go from one planet to another than it is to get about town."

"If an accident should occur. If Carmichael cannot return—"

"I shall be much happier here than I should be on the earth. Even if I had never met Alumion I think I should come back and stay on Venus."

"It is certainly a better world, as far as we have seen, but remember your own words, 'Man was made for the earth.' Don't you think this eternal summer—these Elysian Fields—would pall upon you in course of time? Constant bliss, like everlasting honey, might cloy your earthly palate, and make you sigh for our poor, old, wicked, miserable world, that in spite of all its faults and crimes, is yet so interesting, so variable, so dramatic—so dear."

"Never. With Alumion even Hades would be an Elysium."

"Think of your friends at home, and what you owe to them; how they will miss you."

"I cannot be of much service to them. They will soon forget me."

"Perhaps you are mistaken there," said Gazen, assuming a more serious air. "In any case I for one shall miss you. In fact, to speak plainly, I shall feel aggrieved—hurt. You and I are old friends, and when you asked me to join you in this expedition I was moved by friendship as well as interest. Certainly, I never dreamed that you would desert the ship. I thought it was understood that we should sink or swim together. If you leave us I shan't answer for the consequences. I appreciate the dilemma in which you are placed, but surely friendship has a prior if a weaker claim than love-passion. Surely you owe some allegiance to Carmichael and myself."

"What would you have me do?"

"Only to carry out the original plan of the voyage. Promise me that you will stick to the ship. Afterwards you can return to Venus and do as you please. Stanley, you know, made his greatest journey into Africa between his engagement and his marriage."

"Very well, I promise."

With an agitated mind I repaired to the tryst next evening and waited for Alumion. How should I break the news to her, and how would she receive it?

The cool airs of the water, and the glorious pageant of the sunset calmed my troubled spirit. All day the serene and beamy azure of the heavens had been plumed with snowy cloudlets of graceful and capricious form, which, as the sun sank to the horizon, were tinged with fleeting glows resembling the iris of a dove's neck, or the hues of a dying dolphin. The great luminary himself was lost in a golden glamour, and a single bright star shone palely through a rosy mist, which covered all the southern sky, like a diamond seen through a bridal veil of gauze.

That lone star was the earth.

Strange to say, I felt a kind of yearning towards it, a yearning as of home-sickness, and it seemed to reproach me for having thought of forsaking it. I wondered what my friends were doing now within that blaze; perhaps they were looking at Venus and speculating on what I was about. How delighted I should be to see them again, and show them my incomparable wife—but could I ever take her there?

Whilst I was musing, the low sweet voice of Alumion thrilled me to the marrow. I turned and saw her. She was dressed to-night in a filmy vesture of opalescent or pearly white, partly diaphanous, and having a deep fringe of gold. There was a pink blush on her cheek and a sparkle of girlish love in her celestial eyes. Never had she seemed more ravishingly beautiful.