While these two were talking, my attention was drawn to a dark metallic substance at the farther end of the room.  It was about twenty feet in length, narrow in proportion, and all closed round, save, near the roof, there were small round holes through which might be seen a red light.  From the interior emanated a rich and sweet perfume; and while I was conjecturing what purpose this machine was to serve, all the time-pieces in the town struck the hour with their solemn musical chime; and as that sound ceased, music of a more joyous character, but still of a joy subdued and tranquil, rang throughout the chamber, and from the walls beyond, in a choral peal.  Symphonious with the melody, those in the room lifted their voices in chant.  The words of this hymn were simple.  They expressed no regret, no farewell, but rather a greeting to the new world whither the deceased had preceded the living.  Indeed, in their language, the funeral hymn is called the ‘Birth Song.’  Then the corpse, covered by a long cerement, was tenderly lifted up by six of the nearest kinfolk and borne towards the dark thing I have described.  I pressed forward to see what happened.  A sliding door or panel at one end was lifted up—­the body deposited within, on a shelf—­the door reclosed—­a spring a the side touched—­a sudden ‘whishing,’ sighing sound heard from within; and lo! at the other end of the machine the lid fell down, and a small handful of smouldering dust dropped into a ‘patera’ placed to receive it.  The son took up the ‘patera’ and said (in what I understood afterwards was the usual form of words), “Behold how great is the Maker!  To this little dust He gave form and life and soul.  It needs not this little dust for Him to renew form and life and soul to the beloved one we shall soon see again.”

Each present bowed his head and pressed his hand to his heart.  Then a young female child opened a small door within the wall, and I perceived, in the recess, shelves on which were placed many ‘paterae’ like that which the son held, save that they all had covers.  With such a cover a Gy now approached the son, and placed it over the cup, on which it closed with a spring.  On the lid were engraven the name of the deceased, and these words:—­“Lent to us” (here the date of birth).  “Recalled from us” (here the date of death).

The closed door shut with a musical sound, and all was over.

Chapter XXV.

“And this,” said I, with my mind full of what I had witnessed—­“this, I presume, is your usual form of burial?”

“Our invariable form,” answered Aph-Lin.  “What is it amongst your people?”

“We inter the body whole within the earth.”

“What!  To degrade the form you have loved and honoured, the wife on whose breast you have slept, to the loathsomeness of corruption?” “But if the soul lives again, can it matter whether the body waste within the earth or is reduced by that awful mechanism, worked, no doubt by the agency of vril, into a pinch of dust?”