I have come.” And then he added: “I have known you for a long time. I knew that you existed, I have often seen you; you are the constant thought of my heart, but I did not dare to come.” [Illustration: “YOU CALLED ME. I HAVE COME.” ] She bade him rise, saying: “My friend, I know that we are alone in the world, and that we are about to die. A will stronger than my own compelled me to call you. It seemed as if it were the supreme desire of my mother, supreme even in death. See, she sleeps thus since yesterday. How long the night is!” The young man, kneeling, had taken the hand of the dead, and they both stood there beside the funeral couch, as if in prayer. He leaned gently toward the young girl, and their heads touched. He let fall the hand of the dead. Eva shuddered. “No,” she said. Then, suddenly, he sprang to his feet in terror; the dead woman had revived. She had withdrawn the hand which he had taken in his own, and had opened her eyes. She made a movement, looking at them. [Illustration: “‘BEHOLD, WHERE WE SHALL BE TOMORROW!’” ] “I wake from a strange dream,” she said, without seeming surprised at the presence of Omegar. “Behold, my children, my dream;” and she pointed to the planet Jupiter, shining with dazzling splendor in the sky. And as they gazed upon the star, to their astonished vision, it appeared to approach them, to grow larger, to take the place of the frozen scene about them. Its immense seas were covered with ships. Aerial fleets cleaved the air. The shores of its seas and the mouths of its great rivers were the scenes of a prodigious activity. Brilliant cities appeared, peopled by moving multitudes. Neither the details of their habitations nor the forms of these new beings could be distinguished, but one divined that here was a humanity quite different from ours, living in the bosom of another nature, having other senses at its disposal; and one felt also that this vast world was incomparably superior to the earth. “Behold, where we shall be tomorrow!” said the dying woman. “We shall find there all the human race, perfected and transformed. Jupiter has received the inheritance of the earth. Our world has accomplished its mission, and life is over here below. Farewell!” She stretched out her arms to them; they bent over her pale face and pressed a long kiss upon her forehead. But they perceived that this forehead was cold as marble, in spite of this strange awakening. The dead woman had closed her eyes, to open them no more. [Illustration] CHAPTER VI.