"
"And don't they just look like the sort of people who live on it, and,
of course, other things?" added Zaidie, as she too lifted her glass, and
looked with laughing eyes across the brim at her two guests.
But meanwhile Murgatroyd had been applying the repulsive force a little
too strongly. The _Astronef_ shot up with a rapidity which soon left her
winged escort far below. She entered the cloud-veil and passed beyond
it. The instant that the unclouded sun-rays struck the glass-roofing of
the deck-chamber their two guests, who had been moving about examining
everything with a childlike curiosity, closed their eyes and clasped
their hands over them, uttering little cries, tuneful and musical, but
still with a note of strange discord in them.
"Lenox, we must go down again," exclaimed Zaidie. "Don't you see they
can't stand the light; it hurts them. Perhaps, poor dears, it's the
first time they've ever been hurt in their lives. I don't believe they
have any of our ideas of pain or sorrow or anything of that sort. Take
us back under the clouds--quick, or we may blind them."
Before she had ceased speaking, Redgrave had sent a signal down to
Murgatroyd, and the _Astronef_ began to drop back again towards the
surface of the cloud-sea. Zaidie had, meanwhile, gone to her lady guest
and dropped the black lace mantilla over her head, and, as she did so,
she caught herself saying:
"There, dear, we shall soon be back in your own light.
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