The Panchronicon Part 11

"Right here, Cousin Phoebe."

Droop bustled over to the state-rooms, opening both the doors at once.

"Here's a room apiece fer ye. Take yer choice."

"Oh, but where'll you sleep?" said Phoebe. "P'raps Rebecca and I'd better have one room together."

"Not a bit of it," said Droop. "I'll sleep on one o' them settles under the windows. They're real comfortable."

"Well--just as you say."

The sisters entered their rooms and deposited their bundles, but Phoebe returned at once and called to Droop, who had started down the stairs.

"Mr. Droop, you've got to start right straight off. Mrs. Allen knows 't you've carried off the trunk and she's comin' after us with Si Pray an'

a gun."

Just then they heard the loud barking of a dog. He was apparently running rapidly down the lane.

"Sakes alive!" cried Phoebe, in alarm. "Slam to that door, Copernicus Droop! Si has let his dog loose an' he's on your tracks!"

The baying was repeated--now much nearer. Droop clattered frantically down the stairs, and shut the door with a bang. At the next moment a heavy body leaped against it, and a man's voice was heard close at hand.

"Sic um, Touser, sic um! Where is he, boy?"

Up the stairs went Copernicus two steps at a time. He dashed into the anteroom, pale and breathless.

"Lie down on the floor!" he shouted. "Lie down or ye'll get throwed down. I'm agoin' to start her!"

By this time he had opened the engine-room door.

The two women promptly lay flat on their backs on the carpet.

Droop braced himself firmly and had just grasped the starting lever when a cry from Rebecca arrested him.

"Copernicus Droop--hold on!" she cried.

He turned to her, his face full of anxious fear. Rebecca lay on her back with her hands at her sides, but her head was raised stiffly from the floor.

"Copernicus Droop," she said, solemnly, "hev ye brought any rum aboard with ye? 'Cause if ye have I won't----"

She never concluded, for at this moment her head was jerked back sharply against the floor by a tremendous upward leap of the machine.

There was a hissing roar as of a thousand rockets, and even as Rebecca was wondering, half stunned, why she saw so many jumping lights, Si Pray gazed open-mouthed at the ascension of a mysterious dark body apparently aimed at the sky.

The Panchronicon had started.

CHAPTER IV

A CHANGE OF PLAN

It was long after their bed-time and the two sisters were utterly exhausted; but as the mysterious structure within which they lay glided northward between heaven and earth with the speed of a meteor, Rebecca and Phoebe long courted sleep in vain.

The excitement of their past adventures, the unreal wonder of their present situation, the bewildering possibilities and impossibilities of their future plans--all these conspired to banish sleep until long past midnight. It was not until, speeding due north with the unswerving obedience of a magnet, their vessel was sailing far above the waters of the upper Saguenay, that they at length sank to rest.

They were awakened next morning by a knocking upon Rebecca's door.

"It's pretty nigh eight-thirty," Droop cried. "I've got the kettle on the range, but I don't know what to do nex'."

"What! Why! Who! Where! Sakes! what's this?"

Rebecca sat up in bed, unable to place herself.

"It's pretty nigh half-past eight," Copernicus repeated. "Long after breakfast-time. I'm hungry!"

By this time Phoebe was wide awake.

"All right!" she cried. "We'll come in a minute."

Then Rebecca knew where she was--or rather realized that she did not know. But fortunately a duty was awaiting her in the kitchen and this steadied a mind which seemed to her to need some support in the midst of these unwonted happenings.

Phoebe was the first to leave her bedroom. She had dressed with frantic speed. In her haste to get to the windows and see the world from the sky, she had secured her hair very imperfectly, and Droop was favored with a charming display of bright locks, picturesquely disarranged.

"Good-mornin', Cousin Phoebe," he said, with his suavest manner.

"Good-morning, Mr. Droop," Phoebe replied. "Where are we? Is everything all right?"

She made straight for one of the windows the iron shutters of which were now open.

"I wish't you'd call me Cousin Copernicus," Droop remarked.

"Oh--oh! What a beautiful world!"

Phoebe leaned her face close to the gla.s.s and gazed spell-bound at the wonderful landscape spread before her.

The whole atmosphere seemed filled with a clear, cold sunlight whose brilliance irradiated the giant sphere of earth so far away.

Directly below and to the right of their course, as far as she could see, there was one vast expanse of dark blue sea, gilded dazzlingly over one portion where the sun's beams were reflected. Far ahead to the north and as far behind them the sea was bordered with the fantastic curves of a faint blue coast dotted and lined with the shadows of many a hill and mountain. It was a map on which she was gazing. Nature's own map--the only perfect chart in the world.

So new--so intensely, almost painfully, beautiful was this scene that Phoebe stood transfixed--fascinated. She did not even think of speaking.

The scene was not so new to Droop--and besides he was a prey to an insistent appet.i.te. His mental energies, therefore, sought expression in speech.

Approaching Phoebe's side, he said: