I took the second roll of parchment from his hand, and opening it a little way, I saw that it was covered with very fine small writing. Then I said: "Does Zara know how long I have been absent?"
"Yes," replied Heliobas; "and she, like myself, was surprised and anxious. I think she went to bed long ago; but you may look into her room and see if she is awake, before you yourself retire to rest."
As he spoke of Zara his eyes grew melancholy and his brow clouded. An instinctive sense of fear came upon me.
"Is she not well?" I asked.
"She is perfectly well," he answered. "Why should you imagine her to be otherwise?"
"Pardon me," I said; "I fancied that you looked unhappy when I mentioned her."
Heliobas made no answer. He stepped to the window, and throwing back the curtain, called me to his side.
"Look out yonder." he said in low and earnest tones; "look at the dark blue veil strewn with stars, through which so lately your daring soul pierced its flight! See how the small Moon hangs like a lamp in Heaven, apparently outshining the myriad worlds around her, that are so much vaster and fairer! How deceptive is the human eye! --nearly as deceptive as the human reason. Tell me--why did you not visit the Moon, or the Sun, in your recent wanderings?"
This question caused me some surprise. It was certainly very strange that I had not thought of doing so. Yet, on pondering the matter in my mind, I remembered that during my aerial journey suns and moons had been no more to me than flowers strewn on a meadow. I now regretted that I had not sought to know something of those two fair luminaries which light and warm our earth.
Heliobas, after watching my face intently, resumed: "You cannot guess the reason of your omission? I will tell you. There is nothing to see in either Sun or Moon. They were both inhabited worlds once; but the dwellers in the Sun have ages ago lived their lives and passed to the Central Sphere. The Sun is nothing now but a burning world, burning rapidly, and surely, away: or rather, IT IS BEING ABSORBED BACK INTO THE ELECTRIC CIRCLE FROM WHICH IT ORIGINALLY SPRANG, TO BE THROWN OUT AGAIN IN SOME NEW AND GRANDER FORM. And so with all worlds, suns and systems, for ever and ever. Hundreds of thousands of those brief time-breathings called years may pass before this consummation of the Sun; but its destruction is going on now, or rather its absorption--and we on our cold small star warm ourselves, and are glad, in the light of an empty world on fire!"