“Saxe. says Asia is on the other side. He intends to make the return
trip through Asia, declares he wouldn’t pass this way again for
millions. And say, Sally,” he whispered confidentially, “we might as
well come out in the open and state what we came up here for. None of us
have been fooled as to the other’s intentions and secretly worked in
search of the object, to wit: _The other side of the earth_. Saxe. raves
of the Pole, but did not work years upon the _Propellier_ merely to
travel to the highest northern altitude with it. Saunders pretends to be
daft about his star, yet every astronomer in the world is aware of the
existence of that star. It is not the star he wishes to discover, but
that portion of the world it sparkles upon. And the great reservoir of
fresh water is certainly not bubbling in the polar zone. But you, Sally,
you have deceived no one. Boy, you mutter continually in your sleep and
the passionate murmurs could never be roused by a star, a country, or a
man. An exquisite vision, an alluring phantom has fired you—a woman, by
Jove!” He nudged me. “The woman on the other side of the globe. We know
all about it. That’s why you joined the expedition and fooled poor old
Middleton, at the last.”
I gasped. Chuckling and winking, he left me. And my secret had been
known all along, commented upon, and undoubtedly they joshed me among
themselves. I felt odd for the second, then laughed the silliness away.
Sheldon attempted to astonish Saxe. and Saunders as he had me, but they
were ready for him and foreclosed. Then we all came “out in the open,”
and had an eager consultation about the undiscovered country we expected
to find. Each had theories which of course were different and superior
to the other’s, but upon one point we all agreed—there was another side
to this globe, figuratively speaking, a new world.
Columbus believed the “land where the sun set” to be a continuation of
Asia, a new continent did not occur to him. We are more bigoted than
people of those days. Superficial knowledge and science declares the
earth orange shaped, divided into two hemispheres, with a handful of
islands to cap the dejeuner. This vast globe never was and never will be
fully explored. There are continents upon continents, teeming with
civilization, I believe, vastly superior to our own with one
exception—their world, like ours, does not extend any farther than their
knowledge, otherwise they would have discovered us.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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