"Well," said he to himself,
"however little else I may have taught them, I at any rate gave them the
diatonic scale."
He now set himself to exploit his fellow-traveller, for they soon got
past the procession.
"The greatest miracle," said he, "in connection with this whole matter,
has been--so at least it seems to me--not the ascent of the Sunchild with
his bride, but the readiness with which the people generally acknowledged
its miraculous character. I was one of those that witnessed the ascent,
but I saw no signs that the crowd appreciated its significance. They
were astounded, but they did not fall down and worship."
"Ah," said the other, "but you forget the long drought and the rain that
the Sunchild immediately prevailed on the air-god to send us. He had
announced himself as about to procure it for us; it was on this ground
that the King assented to the preparation of those material means that
were necessary before the horses of the sun could attach themselves to
the chariot into which the balloon was immediately transformed. Those
horses might not be defiled by contact with this gross earth. I too
witnessed the ascent; at the moment, I grant you, I saw neither chariot
nor horses, and almost all those present shared my own temporary
blindness; the whole action from the moment when the balloon left the
earth, moved so rapidly, that we were flustered, and hardly knew what it
was that we were really seeing.
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