adapting
itself to the new synthesis of arabesque and rhythm, evoked order and
symbolism from these novel chords of colour. There were solemn mountains
of opalescent fire which burst and faded into flaming colonnades, and in
an enchanting turquoise effervescence became starry spears and scimiters
and sparkling shields, and finally the whole mass would reunite and
evaporate into brilliant violet auroras or seven-tailed,
vermilion-coloured comets. There were gleaming rainbows of unknown
tints--strange scales of chromatic pigments; "a fiery snow without
wind;" and once a sun, twice the size of our own, fell into the ocean;
and Gerald could have sworn that he felt a wave of heated air as if from
a furnace; that he heard a seething sound, as if white-hot metal had
come in contact with icy water. Consumed by anxiety for Mila's safety,
he wished that these soundless girandoles, this apocalypse of
architectural fire and weaving flame, would end.

He had not long to wait. A shrewd hissing apprised him that something
unusual was about to occur. Like the flight of a great rocket a black
object quickly mounted to the zenith. It did not become visible for
several seconds; Gerald's nerves crisped with apprehension. The
apparition was an incandescent chariot; in it sat Karospina, and beside
him--oh! the agony of her lover--Mila Georgovics. As the fiery horses
swooped down, he could see her face in a radiant nimbus of meteors,
which encircled the equipage. Karospina proudly directed its course over
the azure route, and once he passed Gerald at a dangerously low curve
earthward, shouting:--

"The Spiral! The Spiral!"

It was his last utterance; possibly through some flaw in the mechanism,
the chariot zig-zagged and then drove straight upon the reservoir. To
the reverberation of smashed steel and blinding fulguration the big
sphere was split open and Mila with Karospina vanished in the nocturnal
gulf.

Gerald, stunned by the catastrophe, threw himself down, expecting a
mighty explosion; the ebon darkness was appalling after the
scintillating rain of fire. But the liberated gas in the guise of an
elongated cloud had rushed seaward, and there gathering density and
strength, assumed the shape of a terrific funnel, an inky spiral, its
gyrating sides streaked with intermittent flashes. Its volcanic roaring
and rapid return to land was a signal for vain flight--the miserable
lover knew it to be the flamboyant ether of the pyromaniac trans