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A flash of lightning accompanied the priest's last words and the crash of the thunder came almost simultaneously. The obscurity was momentarily increasing, and the gigantic, nimbus cloud-band now reached far beyond the zenith, its slate-blue edges contrasting vividly with the green-and-saffron tints of the narrow strip of clear sky that still remained visible.
She was followed by the telescopes of all the observatories until she vanished through the brilliant cloud-band, eighty-five thousand miles long and some five thousand miles broad, which stretched from east to west of the planet. At the same moment the voyagers lost sight of Ganymede and his sister satellites.
The level cloud-band into which he plunged drew itself upward to the zenith, and, like the eyelid of a gigantic eye, shut down as though God in his heaven were going to sleep, and the world was to be left alone. It was the dark of the moon, and even if there had been full moon its light would have been as completely shut out by the cloud canopy as was the mild diffusion of the blue-grey twilight.
"All that you picture so entrancingly is forbidden the true believer," he said; and began to repeat: "'O weaver! weave the flowers of Feraghan Into the fabric that thy birth began; Iris, narcissus, tulips cloud-band tied, These thou shalt picture for the eye of Man; Henna, Herati, and the Jhelums tide In Sarraband and Saruk be thy guide, And the red dye of Ispahan beside The checkered Chinese fret of ancient gold; So heed the ban, old as the law is old, Nor weave into thy warp the laughing face, Nor limb, nor body, nor one line of grace, Nor hint, nor tint, nor any veiled device Of Woman who is barred from Paradise!"
To mention symbols for a moment, apropos of our archaeological readings together, Boots has an antique Asia Minor rug in which I discovered not only the Swastika, but also a fire-altar, a Rhodian lily border, and a Mongolian motif which appears to resemble the cloud-band. It was quite an Anatshair jumble in fact, very characteristic.
They passed through the second, or dark, cloud-band at the rate of about three thousand miles an hour, aided by the repulsion against the Rings and the attraction of the planets, and soon after lunch, the materials of which now consented to remain on the table, they passed through the clouds and found themselves in a new world of wonders.
The sky was clear but for this encircling cloud-band, and my fancy saw it as a ring girding the earth with celestial glory, a fitting path for spirit feet when they tread the upward heights. I watched it pale, with upturned face, its changing tints in themselves a miracle, and thought of the wonders which lay beyond it, which we are taught to seek.
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