This visit to Norway was the prolongation of a happy dream. The fair
Northern girl cast an aureole of perpetual winsomeness about him which
would perhaps have made him still forget the attractions of science if
she herself had not had, as we have seen, an insatiable taste for study.
The experiments which the indefatigable seeker had undertaken on
atmospheric electricity interested her as much as they did him. She too
wanted to know about those mysterious flames in the aurora borealis
which palpitate at night in high atmospheres; and as his series of
investigations led him to desire a balloon ascension, in order to reach
and surprise the phenomenon at its source, she also experienced the same
wish. He tried to dissuade her from it, those aeronautic expeditions not
being free from danger. But the very idea of sharing a peril with him
would have been enough to make her deaf to her loved one's entreaties.
After long hesitation Spero decided to take her with him, and prepared
for an ascension from the University of Christiania on the first night
of the aurora borealis.
[Illustration]
V.
THE AURORA BOREALIS.
The disturbances of the magnetic needle had announced the aurora's
presence even before the sun went down, and the inflation of the balloon
with pure hydrogen gas was begun while the sky showed in the magnetic
North that coloring of golden green which is always the sure indication
of an aurora borealis. The preparations were ended in a couple of
hours. The atmosphere, entirely free from all clouds, was perfectly
limpid, the stars twinkled in the bosom of a sky profoundly dark and
without a moon; but towards the North a soft light shone in an arc above
a black segment, throwing into the upper atmosphere slight flushes of a
pale greenish rose color, symbolizing the palpitations of an unknown
life. Icléa's father, who was watching the inflation of the balloon, had
no suspicion that his daughter was going; but at the last moment she
stepped into the car as if to inspect it. Spero gave the signal, and the
balloon rose slowly, majestically, over the city of Christiania, which,
lighted by thousands of lamps, appeared under the eyes of the travellers
rising through the air, to diminish in size as it disappeared in the
darkness.
[Illustration]