It was a single, small object, perfectly white, dropping out of the amethyst.  Tiny at first, amost instantly it assumed a proportion nearly colossal—­a great bird, white as the breast of the snowdrift, swooping with the grace of the eagle and the speed of the wind.  It was so very large that it seemed, to Chick, that if all the other birds he had ever known were gathered together into one they would still be as the swallow.  Down, down it came in a tremendous spiral, until it gracefully alighted in a splash of molten colour on the bosom of the silver sea.  For a moment it was lost in a shower of water jewels—­and then lay still, a swan upon the ocean.

“What is it, Geos?”

“The Kospian Limited, my lord.  One of our great airships—­a fast one, we consider it.”

“It must accommodate a good many people, Rhamda.”

“About nine thousand.”

“You say it comes from Kospia.  How far away is that?”

“About six thousand miles.  It is an eight-hour run, with one stop.  Just now the service is every fifteen minutes.  They are coming, of course, for the Day of the Prophet.”

Watson continued to watch the great airship, noting the swarm of smaller craft that came out from the Mahovisal to greet it, until the Jan Lucar suddenly altered the course.  They stopped climbing, and struck out on a horizontal level.  It left the Mahovisal behind them, a shimmering spot of fire beside the gleaming sea.  They were travelling eastwards.  The landscape below was level and unvaried, of a greenish hue, and much like that of Chick’s own earth in the early spring-time—­a vast expanse, level and sometimes dotted with opalescent towns and cities.  Ribbons of silver cut through the plain at intervals, crookedly lazy and winding, indicating a drainage from north to south or vice versa.  Looking back to the west, he could see the great, golden sun, poised as he had seen it that morning, a huge amber plate on the rim of the world.  It was sunset.

Then Chick looked straight ahead.  Far in the distance a great wall loomed skyward to a terrific height.  So vast was it and so remote, at first it had escaped the eye altogether.  An incredibly high range of mountains, glowing with a faint rose blush under the touch of the setting sun.  Against the sky were many peaks, each of them tipped with curious and sparkling diamond-like corruscations.  As Chick continued to gaze the rose began to purple.

The Jan Lucar put the craft to another upward climb.  So high were they now that the Thomahlia below was totally lost from view; it was but a maze of lurking shadows.  The sun was only a gash of amber—­it was twilight down on the ground.  And Watson watched the black line of the Thomahlian shadow climb the purple heights before him until only the highest crests and the jewelled crags flashed in the sun’s last rays.  Then, one by one, they flickered out; and all was darkness.

Still they ascended.  Watson became uneasy, sitting there in the night.