“O, listen to the words he speaks unto thee; for they are not the words of his feeble tongue; they are not the pictures of his impotent thoughts.
“O, listen to the words that come to thee from the ages; that come to thee alone; that tell thee a secret no other man may know.
“O, listen to the words that came into the ear of thy servant, We Ali, through his eye as he gazed into this magic glass thy hand has produced.
“O, listen and learn: In the mountains of Siberia is a place; deep in the ground lies a treasure; a treasure rich beyond imagination; powerful beyond words; there lies a treasure and it is thine.
“O, listen: When thou approachest the place thou shalt know it by its fearful power; for it shall draw metals unto it with great vehemence.”
We Ali stopped. I meditated. He was repeating to me a message the owner of this brain had received, and he thought it a message to me.
By the aid of the Arabs I got my ship of state on the nest. Soon there came a great simoon from the north and I sailed away.
As I proceeded I found great difficulty in breathing, on account of the coldness of the air and the speed at which I was traveling. But I had prepared for this, having with me a coil of pipe, beneath which I lighted a spirit lamp; thereupon by breathing through this pipe I got along very well, as the air was warmed sufficiently by the lamp to make my respiration comfortable.
The needle of my compass was drawn downward; but, before I could stop my vehicle, I had reached the North Pole, against which I struck with such force as to shatter it, and bring myself precipitately to the ground, by which fall I should have been killed had it not been for thousands of polar bears that were huddled around the pole asleep and upon whom I fell. My aeroplane, however, was not damaged, because of its coat of steel.
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_The truthful statement of the mechanism of the North Pole; the monster gimlet; the flight to Saturn; the race with detachable brains; the Egg-hearts; people who live without eating; and the finding of the dazzling treasure are here given in categorical fullness._
THE point of my compass was now toward the south.