We glanced at each other meaningly. It was the color speech
again. But, oh, what must be the burden of their communications now!
Suddenly, Edmund, whose eyes were fixed with intensity upon the scene,
remarked, half shuddering:
"It is the great Paean."
Seized with curiosity, I pressed the magic box to my ear, and faintly
there echoed in my brain a few disconnected strains of that solemn music.
But now, more than ever, it was insufferable to me, and I dropped the box
with a crash.
As Edmund recovered his strength he once more took charge of the car, and
in a little while he had risen to a great height in order to take
advantage of the easier going in the lighter atmosphere above. Thus we
ran on for several hours until we began to catch sight of the sea, which
was soon beneath us, while far ahead we saw the tumbling clouds marking
the location of the belt of tempests behind which we knew lay the range
of the crystal mountains. At length we issued from beneath the cloud
dome, and then we saw the sun again, and the storms whipping the waters,
whose waves occasionally flashed up at us through rifts in the streaming
clouds beneath.
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