Sometimes the journeys succeeded one another quite rapidly, owing to the continually capricious behavior of the wind; often, also, the breeze blew interminably in the same direction and the apparatus waited hours for an opportunity to resume its flight. Small groups of outsiders arrived from time to time and, while Canterel was talking, several people had unobtrusively approached to watch for the aerostat’s next ascent.

∗ ∗ ∗

As the professor was finishing his impromptu dissertation, a sharp sound, already familiar to us, drew our attention to the three claws supporting the punner. The gray disc, obeying the pressure of its rod, which was set in motion by the supplementary mechanism of the chronometer at the bottom of the bar, had descended again and just pressed itself against the blue one, and the root which had recently served as the apparatus’s target, was now adhering beneath it, lifted a moment before by the sudden magnetization.

The lens swiveled as usual to produce the supplement of hydrogen — then turned a second time as the paving beetle flew away carrying the root.

A fairly gentle breeze drove the punner toward the feather displayed in the warrior’s hat; just at the right moment the valve went into action, and as the apparatus settled down it released its light and scanty prey by separating the discs. Thus it completed a subtly shaded area of pale pink forming the edge of the feather, whose central rib was made of scarlet roots. Since the claws had found three coral-red supports of equal height, none of their delicate internal appendices had emerged.

Almost at once the lens, whose partial revolutions were always in a clockwise direction, made another lift-producing motion, followed by a second quarter-turn.

The paving beetle continued in a straight line along the axis of its last trip and, with the valve’s help, fell upon a marvelous canine whiter than a pearl — which, as Canterel told us, came from the dazzling set of a ravishing American lady.

Just as the magnetic field came into operation with the closing of the discs, a rapidly moving cloud completely covered the sun’s face, leading to various disturbances in the atmospheric layers and causing new air currents to circulate.

The lens quickly returned to its active position.

Canterel had foreseen the passage of this veil of mist from the beginning, and had adjusted the gears of the relevant chronometer accordingly. So the concentrating lens held its operative position much longer than on the two previous occasions, when the sun’s heat had been unobscured by any haze, and a few seconds had sufficed to generate a plentiful supply of hydrogen.

When the punner had ceased becoming lighter, it silently took wing and, with the help of a sudden gust of wind, swooped down to the dove in the dream to complete one wing tip by lodging the white strip in position. This time, at the end of the flight, one of the claws’ interior needles descended considerably in obedience to its chronometer and touched the ground with its inoffensive tip. By this means equilibrium was preserved, since the other claws were higher up, resting upon two teeth of equal level.

The aerostat, which the valve had just deflated, was filled again, then lifted by the prolonged intervention of the valve, and as the needle extension returned automatically into its claw, the device continued in the same direction to seize a very even blue tooth resembling the one which, according to the chronicles of the second empire, was the sole disfigurement of the Countess Castiglione’s splendid masticatory apparatus and constituted this matchless beauty’s single, sensational imperfection.

At the moment the cloud, gliding rapidly on, ceased to obscure the sun, which regained its full force.

This reappearance marked the end of the contrary air currents that had manifested themselves during the temporary eclipse, and the breeze returned approximately to its former direction.

No prolonged effort of the lens was required to make the itinerant machine take off; it gracefully darted to the warrior’s breeches, where a sharp movement of the valve caused it to alight.

Here the claws found three very uneven landing places, consisting of the ground and two ultramarine teeth of different thicknesses; however, at the instigation of their respective chronometers, two needles had dipped unequally beforehand and now the longer one touched the ground, while the other rested upon the tooth of smaller volume.

This latest indigo installment fell exactly where it was required, and the balloon, quickly provided with a supplementary lift, pursued its rectilinear course toward a huge and hideous black molar, round which the punner gently set down its claws, all three alike deprived a moment before of visible needles.

Then, declaring that, according to his recollection, a very long wait would be necessary before the next automatic deambulation could be witnessed, Canterel, with measured steps, led us to another part of the vast establishment.

* The Knight

3

The professor had chosen as his objective a kind of gigantic diamond sticking out at the very end of the promenade, which had often attracted our attention already from afar by its prodigious brilliance.

This monstrous jewel, two meters high by three wide, curved into the form of an ellipse, gave out, under the full radiance of the sun, an almost unbearable luster, flashing in all directions. Cut in facets like a real precious stone, it was held firmly in place by a very slightly raised artificial rock in which its relatively tiny base was embedded. Various objects seemed to be moving inside it. Little by little, as we approached, we caught vague strains of music consisting of a strange sequence of melodic passages, arpeggios and ascending and descending scales, which created a marvelous effect.

In reality, as we realized when we were nearby, the diamond was simply an enormous container filled with water. There could be no doubt but that some unusual element had entered into the imprisoned liquid’s composition, for it was this rather than the walls of the glass that gave forth all the radiance, whose presence could be detected throughout its depth.

With one’s eyes placed against any one of the facets, the interior of the container could be scanned in a single circular glance.

In the center, a slender, graceful woman, in a flesh-colored cos­tume, was standing upright on the bottom, completely submerged. Swaying her head gently from side to side, she struck many attitudes full of aesthetic charm. Her lips wore a gay smile and she seemed to be breathing freely in the liquid element which enveloped her on every side. Her superb head of blond hair, hanging completely loose, had a tendency to swell above her, though without touching the surface. Each strand, surrounded by a kind of thin watery sheath, vibrated at her slightest movement as the layers of liquid rubbed against it — and the string thus formed gave forth a high or low note according to its length. This phenomenon explained the charming music we had heard on approaching the diamond. The skillful young woman produced it at will, expertly modulating its crescendos and diminuendos by varying the force and rapidity with which she oscillated her neck. The melodious rising and toppling of the scales, runs and arpeggios rippled over a compass of at least three octaves. Often, limiting herself to a slight and gentle rolling of her head, the performer remained confined within a very restricted register. Then, swaying her hips to impart an ample and continuous rotation to her bosom, she employed all the resources of her curious instrument, which then displayed its maximum range and volume.

This mysterious accompaniment ideally suited the young woman’s sculptural poses, so that she seemed like some disturbing water nymph. Because of the liquid medium in which the sounds were propagated, they had an extraordinarily plangent quality.

From time to time an astonishing creature swam gaily in front of her, exploring the enormous tank — evidently a terrestrial animal from its structure, which was that of a quadruped with claws — whose remarkable skin, pink and entirely hairless, was baffling to the observer — but a specific and categorical piece of information was furnished by its eyes, indisputably those of a cat.

On the right, submerged at a depth of five decimeters, was a flimsy object hanging from a thread. This could be nothing other than the internal remains of a human face, without any vestige of bone, flesh or skin. A slender, almost invisible frame, delicately supporting every tiny part, saw to it that the original shape of the whole thing was preserved, and the positions of cheeks, mouth and eyes could be plainly seen, merely by the configuration of a certain plexus. Each fiber possessed a watery envelope resembling a thicker version of the fine sheaths on the hair of the water nymph. The thread, dividing into three at its very bottom, supported the whole at three peripheral points on the frame, situated just below the brain.

Continuing our inspection to the right, we perceived the tiny shaft of an absolutely vertical column held motionless between two layers of water.

A long, very pointed, metal horn, with several holes pierced in it, lay on the bottom of the enormous tank.

Canterel drew us to the left and posted us in front of other facets, where we were able to view a series of small figures at close range; sometimes alone, sometimes in pairs or groups, they rose vertically through the water like Cartesian divers, then, without reaching the surface, fell back to the bottom to rest there briefly before making a fresh ascent.

The professor pointed to two united figures first of all and gave us the following account of them:

“The athlete Vyrlas hinders the flight of a powerful bird which, as a consequence of its special criminal training, is attempting to strangle Alexander the Great.”

A whole drama was evoked by the object in question. The unconscious hero of the tragic scene was sleeping softly on a luxurious oriental couch. A golden thread, fixed to the wall beside his pillow, was wound in a running knot about his neck, with its free end attached to the claw of a gigantic green bird. The latter, with wings outspread, seemed about to tighten the deadly noose by means of a hard tug that it was preparing to make in the required direction. A steadfast rescuer, muscled like an athlete, stood upright stretching out his two hands as though to seize the murderous bird, which the thread, evidently interchanging its function, was sustaining in mid-air by an inner stiffness hidden from our eyes.

The whole thing was ascending rapidly.