Extraterrestrial beings -- Fiction; Science fiction, English; Space flight to Mars -- Fiction
"'We would visit Echri's Temple on the hill Verosi. Place us thither
with speed,' and, beckoning to me, she entered the brilliantly-lighted
car, and I followed her and sat down by her side. Then the car was
turned round perhaps a quarter of a circle, and began to move forward
into one of the pipes, and in an instant we were gliding onwards
with ever-increasing speed. My arm stole round Volinè's waist as we
travelled on, and, kissing her, I said:
"'You see, dear one, I am still as anxious to go through this ordeal of
fire as I was when I left you last night.'
"'I knew thou wouldst not fail, dear Harry; but already my heart
falters within me. Even now there is time for thee to repent thy words.'
"'And lose you? Never, darling! I see happiness before me, happiness
with you; and though the path that leads thereto is rough and terrible,
the reward will all the sweeter be.'
"We had no time for much further converse, as in a few minutes of time
we slowed, and at last came to a stop in another building, similar in
all respects to the one we had left.
"Instantly four venerable, white-haired Priests approached, and with
some invocation which I did not understand, assisted us to alight, and,
in a tone of great respect, asked us to follow them. We walked up a
sloping path in silence, and then found ourselves in a beautiful grove
of trees, from which, perhaps a quarter of a mile distant, towered the
three mighty domes of burnished metal we had seen from the air, when
approaching Edos in the _Sirius_.
"Escorted by our priestly guides, we wended our way between the trees,
until we reached the lofty arched entrance to the Temple. Passing under
this we came into a kind of courtyard, after crossing which we went
through another and a smaller way, and here Holy Echri stood waiting
to receive us. He was dressed much more imposingly, in a crimson robe,
with a long rod of what looked like fine gold in his left hand, and a
scroll of parchments, bound and suspended by a curiously-wrought chain
of the same metal, in his right.
"'Welcome to our Holy House, O daughter of the King, and man of Ramos!
Welcome to the Temple of God. Thy faith is strong within thee, my son.
Have no fear, and follow me without dismay, for heaven shall lend thee
strength equal to thy weakness.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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