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RONDAH; OR, THIRTY-THREE YEARS IN A STAR.
RONDAH; OR, THIRTY-THREE YEARS IN A STAR.
“ Rondah; or, Thirty-three Years in a Star ,” by Florence Carpenter Dieudonné, is an exceedingly bright, clever and fascinating novel. It is cast in a peculiar mould, and holds the reader as much by its weird singularity as by its ingenious plot and striking incidents. The theme is mainly the strange adventures and experiences of four people, three men and one woman, who, in the midst of a storm, are cast from the Earth to a small star, which is as yet in a volcanic state and but partially coole
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CHAPTER I. “MONARCH OF FATE.”
CHAPTER I. “MONARCH OF FATE.”
“Monarch of Fate is man, above all destiny. Man yet shall chain the stars; shall drive the harnessed worlds,” said Regan Farmington. It was winter midnight in the Adirondack Mountains. Regan had brought us to the desolate hut of a hermit; we had not realized that the circumstance might be the result of design; it seemed like an accident. We had been lost in the snow storm; the horses had failed us; even Father Renaudin, who for twenty years had not missed his smallest appointment for any hindran
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CHAPTER II. WHERE?
CHAPTER II. WHERE?
This was death! There really was a river for souls to cross! I felt its cold! I heard its roar! Its chill waves lapped on an invisible shore! This was the darkness of the grave! Earth had not such! Where was the phantom boatman? He should be—— Where was Isabella? Where were they all? The dead could remember all they loved on Earth! “But then,” I thought, “could the dead soul think in such an earthly fashion? Could dead hands reach out in damp, hot darkness and touch rough, jagged rocks? It seeme
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CHAPTER III. A MONSTER.
CHAPTER III. A MONSTER.
When next I realized events, the life of the Stone Age had begun. We dwelt in a cave; a fire of drift wood was burning; a bird was frying. My head was pillowed on coarse grass, and one of Isabella’s purple wraps covered me. It was night, and rain was falling. They had hoped for my return to health for many days. They told me that they had learned much concerning the little star. It was about three hundred miles in circumference. The lofty peaks were disproportioned to the size, according to all
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CHAPTER IV. A LIVING ISLAND.
CHAPTER IV. A LIVING ISLAND.
Shortly the vines and flowers veiled our walls and hid us in temples of green, crimson and white-hued blossoms. A paradise was about us. We turned water from the mountain springs and made silvery lakes and rippling streams through the shaded fragrance. We almost forgot that Gregg Dempster had predicted a twenty years winter! There were trees with silver fringes, others with crimson leaves, and masses of shrubs whose leaves were the purple velvet of the pansy. The landscape became like a beautifu
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CHAPTER V. BLOSSOMS.
CHAPTER V. BLOSSOMS.
When daylight came our friends were still in existence and gathered about our houses. I had feared that they would vanish as a dream of night. They led us to a vale, hidden between perpendicular walls of rock. Miles and miles the cleft extended, and the surface of the lowland was filled with a strange-looking growth. Tall pods, smooth and satiny, in color pale green, stood like soldiers in an army. The pods were as much as ten feet in height and shaped like the husks of an ear of corn. Walking a
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CHAPTER VI. WINTER.
CHAPTER VI. WINTER.
We had it all to repeat after we had endured the catastrophe. We thought that the star, having reached the end of its elongated orbit, turned with exceeding suddenness upon its course, so changing the temperature of north and south as to produce the excessive storm. I will not tell you of our discouraged hearts, but will go on to that winter which was approaching from this time. True that we were disheartened, but that we should desist from our labor was impossible. We must prepare for a frigid
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CHAPTER VII. THE TORCH.
CHAPTER VII. THE TORCH.
I did not know what had happened. I did not see the walls fall down. It was very dark, and some one held my arm. Then I saw the flare of a torch. I could hear no voice in the commotion, but it was upon Roy Lee’s face that the light of the torch fell. I saw his steel blue eyes in quick search for the cave look swiftly around. Above our heads the tunnel walls were roofed with trees laid crosswise. These were coated with ice; long icicles depended like white swords, gleaming above our heads. When t
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CHAPTER VIII. RED LIGHT.
CHAPTER VIII. RED LIGHT.
Walls of rock crashed beside Regan; he fell into a chasm where before his eyes flowed volcanoes’ fire. The air was sulphurous. The sea swept upon him through the cleft rocks. Even he was appalled! Alone! Both dead!—Isabella and the man who would not marry her, who would not love her, his beautiful sister Isabella! For Regan did not know that they were saved. He had no time to see what had happened. “But still I live,” he cried, “and we shall reach the planet sun of Jupiter after a time! I will t
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CHAPTER IX. A TRIUMPH.
CHAPTER IX. A TRIUMPH.
Snows and seas began to melt, as at the heat of a giant torch; loosened snow fell in avalanches; wind and waves piled masses of ice in walls. The frozen soil under all these powers was crushed and cracked. The sky, where clouds had been frozen out, again filled with moisture. Gold-red burned the snow; the black peaks of lava for their darkness melted deep pits around them. The equatorial region swept clear of bonds; lava isles cooled upon snow fell where the sea washed out their foundations and
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CHAPTER X. UNDER THE LIGHT OF TWO SUNS.
CHAPTER X. UNDER THE LIGHT OF TWO SUNS.
“Traitor and murderer, Roy Lee!” said Regan. Then Roy saw that close beside him stood Isabella. She clasped his cold hand. “It was for Isabella,” whispered Roy, “and I shall kill you again!” Another island fell into the sea. The ice of the north waved and crashed. None of them heard it. Father Renaudin came to draw Isabella from Roy’s side. “I will not leave him!” said she, clinging fast to the arm of a murderer. For woman’s love does not change for spheres or stars, neither for murders! “Can it
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CHAPTER XI. AN OLD FRIEND.
CHAPTER XI. AN OLD FRIEND.
More like a gorgeous dream became the life of each day. The sea of gems was rippling in its blue. The glorious islands were purple and pink in mist and bloom. The air was laden with perfume from gold, silver and purple trees. Earth came to be a great moon. In the light of the night walked Regan, pondering ever the same subject. He noticed a shade upon the silver sheet of the fountain. He looked up. Huge black and beautiful wings flapped above his head about a great bronze body. Then a bronze and
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CHAPTER XII. THE HEADLESS MEN.
CHAPTER XII. THE HEADLESS MEN.
It was now more than twenty years since Regan had cast the bodies of the headless bird men into a deep chasm. He looked up to see the sunrise after his angel friend had left him, and behold! those unfortunate victims of experiment were coming like ghastly shadows, falteringly, down the hill over which was the glory of dawn. With their heads in their arms, they stumbled along. Regan, for an instant, would have fled, but he stopped himself. Should a monarch run away from his own experiment? He def
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CHAPTER XIII. CAN WE GO BACK?
CHAPTER XIII. CAN WE GO BACK?
Roy and Isabella were watching the Earth rise, when Regan, having assured himself of his powerful friend’s assistance, came to tell them of their leaving the star. He pitied their homesickness. It was he who had robbed them of a life’s happiness. There had been no particular gift to them from the star. They could see the continents now upon the world. “Would you like to go back, Roy?” Roy did not answer. The whisper which never left him held him from replying; he only looked sharply at Regan and
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CHAPTER XIV. “HE HAS DONE THIS!”
CHAPTER XIV. “HE HAS DONE THIS!”
Where was Rondah? All these years she had remained in one place. Her grandmother died and Rondah fell heir to the home and the hidden stores of wealth which only she knew about. She had been so fortunate as to be left to enjoy these treasures in her own way. She cared for but few things in life. Her hope was in a star, lost to view somewhere on high. Flowers and sun were her treasures. Silver and gold were piled in her cabinets. Brocades and velvets and laces and jewels were hers, her possession
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CHAPTER XV. GOLD AND GLITTER.
CHAPTER XV. GOLD AND GLITTER.
The meteorite was stopped in the clouds of the sky. The angel-man, bronze, strong and glorious once more, flew down with Rondah and Regan, and they stood upon the raised steps of the great Cathedral, where all the assembled multitudes could see them. For months previous to the departure Father Renaudin had been calculating and preparing for this return, for the ceremonial of the marriage and coronation of Rondah. Sheets of yellow gold, spun fine and hanging heavy, glistened on the columns and we
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CHAPTER XVI. THE EARTH HOME.
CHAPTER XVI. THE EARTH HOME.
In the centre of a wide expanse of tableland, walled at a distance by mountain chains, stood the great stone palace which Regan had built for their home. It was founded on a rise of solid rock, which had been surrounded by three wide terraces, rising each twenty feet above the other. In width these terraces were one hundred feet. At the foot of the terrace, on the south side, was a great lake, artificially formed, from whence the earth used in the terraces had been removed. Upon the lower terrac
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CHAPTER XVII. “NOT RONDAH, WHO HAS NO STRENGTH!”
CHAPTER XVII. “NOT RONDAH, WHO HAS NO STRENGTH!”
The great storm when the star turned, the accompanying disaster, the horror of convulsion, the sunless years—these were troubles which Regan wished he could avert. With Rondah he often wondered whether they might not spend the winter in the Sun Island. In dreamy luxury the months and years passed on. Rondah was happy and took no note of time; it was for cycles, no need to measure it by hours, no death ahead. Regan was busy with great schemes. With the ideas of his mammoth earth built upon the li
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CHAPTER XVIII. THE SUN ISLAND.
CHAPTER XVIII. THE SUN ISLAND.
“If there be safety for Rondah anywhere, it is on that island! I must find means to reach it!” This was Regan’s final decision, the only salvation which he could imagine. Before the bird people slept he ordered the construction of a small, strong stone house, with two great cellars stored with fuel, food and oil. This was built as near the island as possible. The glow of brightness made continual day around it, but warmth hardly penetrated the impassable wall in the air. It was months before thi
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CHAPTER XIX. “HE IS NOT HERE!”
CHAPTER XIX. “HE IS NOT HERE!”
As she stepped from the car, Rondah heard a chill, queer laugh. She glanced at the stranger. Was it he? He stood beside the car and was looking at her with a singular expression, half triumph, half intense apprehension. As Rondah, looking at him, began to realize that he had brought her to the island and left Regan outside, the man touched the car. Its sails expanded. It flew away; striking the wall in the air, it fell a mass of cloth and fragments. “It has returned—the wall,” said the man, comp
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CHAPTER XX. “GOOD-BYE!”
CHAPTER XX. “GOOD-BYE!”
Regan returned to the palace as the darkness was deepening. The lamps in the great hall were unlit. Probably the bird women were asleep, but he knew it was not that. Into the silent rooms he hastened. Not there! No fire! No light! He ran to Father Renaudin’s apartments. There lay Father Renaudin asleep! “Awake! awake!” With a groan of agony Regan called to him. With a curse of rage he shook him, shrieking at the senseless form: “Awake! awake! you sleeping traitor, and tell me where is the wife w
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CHAPTER XXI. FORGETTING REGAN.
CHAPTER XXI. FORGETTING REGAN.
The years passed changelessly in the Sun Island, an emotionless period of waiting, only serving to make her forget the past, forget everything which she ought to remember, Rondah thought. She knew that in the continual perusal and study of the great books she was forgetting all else, knew that her very soul was changing character from them. When once in those books she had read words, it was impossible to forget them. The thoughts which were explained to her there were limitless, unpuzzled, perf
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CHAPTER XXII. THE GREEN MOON.
CHAPTER XXII. THE GREEN MOON.
Once more in the palace, Rondah and Regan were happy. Father Renaudin sat beside the fire in the silver room, engrossed in his studies. The star—a satellite of Jupiter—in one soft, steady reign of a new sun, began to change. From the elf men’s forest of pods a new and superior race, though still of a small-winged, dwarfish kind, bloomed out. From the transplanted pods in the new fields there blossomed wingless creatures, whose advent Regan hailed with delight, but the cause of this phenomenon—th
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CHAPTER XXIII. “FAREWELL!”
CHAPTER XXIII. “FAREWELL!”
One sunset they were all upon the lake-cooled roof, where was the glass island with its golden temple; the sun was bathing the star in liquid ruby; the emerald moon, at a point seeming nearer than ever before, came glinting its green into their skies. There were other moons, too, but only a single green one. The loud clamoring of the bird men was even more emphatic than usual. It resolved itself into words. These words were: “Farewell! farewell!” “What does this mean?” exclaimed Regan, starting
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CHAPTER XXIV. THE MYSTERY OF THE SUN ISLAND.
CHAPTER XXIV. THE MYSTERY OF THE SUN ISLAND.
Of so great importance was the learning in the books that Regan and Rondah decided to explore the Sun Island and try to regain them. Father Renaudin ventured to accompany them, although until he had entirely crossed the lava bridge he was not certain that the prohibition concerning his return had been removed. True, he had once stepped upon that sacred soil, but that was in what always seemed to him like a flash of lightning-like desperation and most dangerous presumption. He found no voice nor
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