"Siloo, Siloo!" cried Alumion hastily in a tone of command. "Down, Siloo!"
The serpent at once obeyed her voice and retired again to his dish.
"He thought I was going to harm you," I exclaimed, not without a sense of relief. "Or perhaps he was jealous of me."
"Remember this is holy ground," responded Alumion.
"Forgive me," I said, feeling her reproof. "My love--your beauty--must be my excuse."
"We must part now," she continued, with a blinding glance and a ravishing smile. "I have some last offices to perform here. We shall meet to-morrow at my father's house."
On my way home the blood coursed through my veins like an immortal ichor of the gods, full of sweet and inextinguishable fire. Inebriated with the cup of bliss which I had only tasted, I began to repent me of my promise to leave Womla.
"To-morrow Alumion will be mine," I reflected, "but for how long? A few days at the most. It is too bad!"
"Gazen," said I that night as soon as I had a convenient opportunity to speak with him, "I have married Alumion."
"Married her!" he exclaimed, completely taken aback.
"Yes, that is to say, I have gone through the formal ceremony of marriage. I have drunk of the cup."
"But you promised me you would do nothing of the kind."
"I said I would go back to the earth with you, and I will keep my word. But I must say that since I agreed to your wishes in the matter, I think you owe me some concession, and I want you to leave me in Womla while you go on to Mercury, and then come back here to pick me up. That will give me a longer honeymoon."
"Impossible, my dear fellow--quite impossible," replied the professor. "Venus will be too far out of our way home. We have no oxygen to waste, and can't go hunting you in your love affairs all round the solar system."
"Say no more about it. I have made up my mind."
It was broad day when I awoke, and oppressively warm in the little cabin. My first thoughts were of Alumion, the consecration of our loves, and my resolution to abide in Venus. In getting up I felt so light and buoyant that for a moment I fancied I must be giddy, but on reflection I ascribed the sensation to the intoxication of passion, and the exhilarating atmosphere of the planet. I looked out of a window towards the blessed island of my dreams, and to my blank amazement found that _it was gone!_ I could neither see anything of the lake, the square, nor the town, but only a bare and rugged platform of weathered rocks, and the cloudy sky above it.