THE SHIP THAT SAILED TO MARS
PART TWO

The Journey
The Monsters
The Gift
The Sorrowful Planet
The Seven Sisters
The Meteor
The Eden Serpent
The Air Sprite
The Star of the Classic Myths
Calypso
The Arno
Phoecus
Orpheus
The Pirates Planet

THE SHIP THAT SAILED TO MARS
THE JOURNEY

When the Ship was clear of the heavy earth air, The Old Man and his Fairies were astounded at its unthinkable speed, for the Ship did not so much fly as flash on its course, till all their world became a glorious sphere, spinning in light around a fearful Sun.

Not that to them the Earth was of overmuch interest, for their attention was fixed on the wide flung girdle of the Milky Way, spreading its path directly in their course.

Yet they did not turn aside from what they could now see was but a curtain of star dust, but passed on, and came through that glittering mist with sails and ropes outlined with living jewels that dripped in unimaginable splendour, and streamed away in swirls of sparkling light.

Then the gap they made widened enormously, and was visible from Earth, where False Prophets raved of portents and Astronomers babbled lies. And still the flowers bloomed, and the birds sang undisturbed; for theirs is the greater wisdom, the wisdom that is born in them and is deeper than man-found knowledge, which, being learnt awrong, may lead the knowing into ignorance and the learned into unbelief.

PART TWO

THE MONSTERS

For milestones they had stars thousands of miles apart, and sometimes, when passing over a lonely desolate planet, they would see its primeval slime stir and heave, as some unnameable monster turned its remembering and weary eyes, following the radiant flight of the Ship. Or others would stretch their towering lengths and bellow uncouth blasphemies across the void.

Once the fiery breath of that One whose Name is shuddered at on Earth, and whispered to-and-fro on dark and windy nights, nearly engulfed the Ship, and shrivelled it in the cascading flames that ascended from its myriad eyes and mouths. His horrible spouse, that evil that had troubled men through all the fabled days, wallowed at his side, and adding her voice to his, shrieked in maniac rage at her hatred of mankind.

THE GIFT

There were so many Wonders to be seen, and so many Dangers to be watchful of, that the flight of time - if such it could be considered - was not worrisome, although time here was really non-existent, for Day was an endlong flying in the eye of the Sun, and Night a mere resting in a shadow.

Then again, the Fairies were making certain vain additions to their holiday apparel, against the hour of their arrival on Mars.

Much to his disgust, the Old Crone who was a member of the crew, had fashioned for the Old Man an orange-coloured dressing gown, all jewel studded, with Turkish pointed slippers to match.

There was also the cow, which for safety had been housed on board, to be milked at intervals, and all the many other attentions that the Ship required.

THE SORROWFUL PLANET

On one memorable occasion the Watch, from sheer boredom, had fallen asleep, and suddenly all awoke to the fact that they were sailing beneath a gigantic canopy of horrid clouds. Purple, ominous clouds they were, fat and sluggishly wet, and beneath them stretched a land of vilest ooze, pitted in incredible ways, and crawling with living horrors. Then, slowly, a nearby cloud swelled, and dropped a single tremendous raindrop, that fell on the land with a heavy sullen sound, burying for itself a pit and hurtling mud and crawling creatures into the fetid air.

With fear and loathing shaking their bodies, the Crew flew to obey the Old Man's frantic orders, and, piling on sail, turned the Ship and fled from beneath that dubious curtain, out into the clean splendour of a welcome Sun.

THE SEVEN SISTERS

When a breeze, blowing from the Garden of the Gods, whose marble terraces front the illimitable sea of void in which the Sun and Planets swim, brought to them a breath of music, they veered slightly, and came to that group of radiant stars whose name is know on Earth as the Seven Sisters. And it is rare that those presumptuous ones who name the stars find so suitable a name as this - for here, on their little separate worlds, sit seven fairies, whose voices are the most beautiful in all the Universe but who once wrangled under the Windows of the Gods and argued and pleaded for one to say whose singing was the sweetest, until the Great Ones in anger, banished them to where they might sing in contest, undisturbing for All Eternities.

No sooner had the Ship hovered near, than they cried out for judgment, and the Old Man was greatly troubled, for never had he been a Judge of Music. But the problem was solved by one of the Crew, who dropped over to them some of the modern Songs of the World, which he had been bearing as sport to Mars. Then the Seven forgot their quarrel in scorn of what was to them so horrid a curiosity; and now for them it will be a reproach to the Earth for ever, how some have perverted ancient and venerable songs, and twisted the Melodies of the Gods so insanely.

THE METEOR

Once as they sailed in the shadow of some monstrous planet, and it was dark and to be reckoned as night, they saw in the tail of that tremendous blackness a shuddering glow following hard upon them. Larger it grew, and hotter; and its course was a sort of lunatic swirl, so that no matter how carefully he steered, the Old Man saw that it was not certain how the danger was to be avoided.

Therefore the Fairies philosophically gave themselves into the hands of their various Little Deities, and, having shifted the responsibility for any ensuing misfortune, comforted the Old Man, whose anxiety was great.

Then the Thing leaped out of the void at them with a baleful glare and a demoniacal roaring shriek; and, as it hovered imminent above them, it swirled in one of its erratic turns, and passed by on the other side.

And the Fairies then knew it to be a Meteor - a giant spark from the Anvil of some Industrious God who was forging, maybe, an iron circlet for the ankle of his Beloved.

THE EDEN SERPENT

After rushing for miles innumerable on their journey towards Mars, the Old Man decided that for rest they should descend on some promising and convenient planet. Whilst conjecturing on the choice of a landing, they saw in passing two jewels of a size and splendour unknown to men. They they agreed that this was where they would land, for at the same time they could add these jewels to the abundant treaures they were bearing to Mars. 

But, as they were dropping slowly towards the Star, they perceived with surprise, that the jewels were rushing upwards to meet them, and in an instant, with distended jaws open to engulf them, the tremendous head of Eden's Serpent towered above, and the evil flashing jewels were its eyes.

It had been their end, had not the mighty breath from the gaping jaws blown them aside and onwards to safety, as is whirled an Autumn leaf in a sudden gale.

THE AIR SPRITE

When they had come through these recorded and many other narrowly-avoided dangers, the Fairies had lost much of their cheerfulness and all of their assurance; and the Old Man would turn his eyes aside when asked for confirmation that all was going well, for they were in a Space flashing full of little worlds, and none could they recognise as one on which they might alight for a rest.

Then, on a sudden, they realized, as mortals do in a similar plight, that as something was amiss and and beyond their remedying, they had better intercede with those higher Powers-That-Be. And they gathered in the bow of the Ship, and cried out in fairly well-simulated anguish that their repentance for arrogance and presumption was a tremendous and earnest thing.

Thereat the Gods laughed, for it was a humourous sight and they that ruled in Fairyland sent an Air Sprite to their aid this being a great concession, for there are only three such in all the Fairy Realms, as they know the planets by name and the stars as familiar habitations.

With this joyfully-received guide, the journey was changed to one of pleasure undisturbed, for he would tell as they passed the various dwellers on all the worlds.

THE STAR of the CLASSIC MYTHS

And they came to the Star of the Classic Myths, that Gem amongst the Spheres, with its temples set near jewelled seas in gardens of living green; and there the lesser Gods have dwelling. Then, as it was not to be thought that such a wonder would pass unheeded, the sails were furled and the ship sank slowly and landed light as a bird, on a grassy upland on Calypso's Isle. Their welcome came from that peerless One, Calypso herself, who greeted them graciously, as erstwhile she greeted Odysseus, who sometimes, for other times sake, would run his ship into her hospitable harbour.

Ogygia, as indeed all that fair world was softly radiant with the far-away sweetness of those well remembered romances, whose fragrance, undiminished reaches down to our own day.

Across the magical seas they could dimly see the mighty halls of the Mythical Heroes, fronting the fairy foam, or topping the hills that shouldered through the woods.

The Star of the Classic Myths
THE ARGO

The light flashing from their sails and gilded prow showed to them the far-famed Argo returning again the triumphant Jason and the Golden Fleece; and Medea was there, but wonderfully changed, and not the horrific witch that fable knows.

The Star of the Classic Myths
PHOECUS

When they were jouneying slowly onwards in the Ship, after having bid a reluctant farewell to Calypso and all her golden enchantments, they saw amongst the eternal wood with its flower bordered streams, Phoecus, his forgetfullness forgiven, forever reunited to his well-beloved Dryad.

The Star of the Classic Myths
ORPHEUS

And Icarus kept them company, and pointed out to them happy Orpeus and his Eurydice, and showed them where the water-nymphs were joyous in their revels, and where dwelt many others whose names were potent in the fashioning of the Legends, and whose lives were great and glorious in the Golden Age of Myth.

THE PIRATES PLANET

Now their journey was nearing its happy end, for the Air Sprite pointed out to them, through an opportune gap in the encircling stars, the tiny Orb that was the Wonder World of Mars; and he named them the planets as they journeyed. There the sinister cruel World of Chinese Legend, and beyond that the beautiful Star of Dreams-Come-True, till for curiousity they landed on the Pirates Planet, which is very famed amongst all the outer worlds.

There they saw the handy spirits of all the Buccaneers and Pirates who sailed the fabled mains. Their ships were there also, and on the curving beach fronting the sunny seas they buried again their gleaming treasures. And the sea was filled with the glory of their ships, and the land with the splendour of their jewels; and they fought their ancient and dishonourable battles over again. But harmless were these joys, for nothing here was real, and all was dim and mystic, and not more clear than the romantic memory that our Earth holds of all these desperate men.