The ship was elevated about two hundred feet in the air, in order that the powerful current projected should not damage the surrounding country and the inhabitants, for with such a force, so long continued, no power in nature could have prevented its blasting effect on everything, and particularly in all those parts coming between the approaching planet and the ship, where would lie an inconceivably strong current of electricity, for they were, in reality, using their vessel as a magnet, bridging the space by the mighty current. Such a force could not do otherwise than disturb the elements, for the power required to draw the world from such a distance would have fused the very earth beneath, had the vessel been nearer the ground. And although the objectors still disapproved of the whole scheme, the manner in which the three owners manipulated the vessel so as to ensure the absolute safety of the people below, compelled their enthusiastic admiration. Awful and spectacular as the results became as the world drew nearer, and the same forces were more spread locally, they knew that beyond a few weeks’ inconvenience and semi-starvation, the natives would be no worse, and not a blade of grass would be singed. And as they received somewhat of the reflected forces, the vessel became the centre of wonderful displays of electric fireworks, which were watched by the people below with amazement, for they could not see the world because of the clouds, and the people in the ship could not telepath with them except when in close proximity. All around the ship and high into the clouds, forming a magnificent, gigantic corona, there shone a living, trembling flame, changing colour incessantly; the electric fluid, like a sea, washed and lashed around the ship, and leaped in waves and spray, dashing against the vessel; the spray flying upwards like phantoms, the white wreaths of light floating away into nothingness, forming and re-forming, till lost in the distant sky. Every now and then some wave, more violent than the rest, would break itself upward in a column of lightning, twisting and twining like a fiery snake standing erect and writhing in agony. Higher and higher these terrible columns would rise, becoming thicker and more lurid, bending and straightening as though alive, while here and there two would meet and float away upward, united by loops and tongues and festoons of lively flame.