you." Those words gave me more pain than if a sword had been
thrust through my body. "By all the gods of eternity, I would not care
to live ten minutes if anything happened to that heavenly being,"
thought I, gazing at her with rapturous feelings of tenderness. "Call me
a lower animal, a hideous creature or a greedy pig, and treat me like
one if you will, but do not leave me. Stay and let me be your slave
forever." Those were my sincere thoughts. She understood them, but made
no response.

Settling back in a comfortable position with my eyes fastened upon
Arletta in loving adoration, the scene changed instantly and I found
myself once more upon the rocks in the middle of the sea. The sun was
just rising in the east and another day was begun. Then our meteoric
flight commenced, and quicker than it takes to relate I was high up
among the clouds and peering down at a familiar landscape. I recognized
the location at once as the district occupied by and surrounding Cape
Town, South Africa.

I had been there before. But how peculiar everything appeared now as I
looked down from above. I could plainly discern the harbor and great
tableland in the scene before me, although apparently shrunk in size,
but the city itself resembled a little toy village, while the largest
ships in the harbor reminded me of the tiny boats I used to construct
when a child and float about in the bath-tub. But where, oh where, was
the greatest of all exalted things--that for which the entire universe
and all that it contains therein was constructed--mighty man? He could
not be seen. In fact he was as completely invisible as the pestilential
germ on the back of a sick flea. "If I only had a microscope," thought
I, "perhaps I could see him." Then I began to descend, until finally I
discovered innumerable little creepers moving about in all directions.
They were men. At first sight they looked to be about the size of ants,
but as I got closer to the earth they increased in bulk until they
appeared to be at least three inches in height, and then their
importance became noticeable. As they moved about in great numbers and I
came into close proximity with them, I observed that the actions of some
was apparently sensible but that the doings of the most of them was
positively ridiculous. For instance, here was one set of creatures
diligently toiling to produce something and getting nothing, while here
was a set of idlers doing absolutely nothing but receiving