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 cooled, Rondah, the heroine, being left behind. There they remain for over thirty-three years, during twenty of which, the winter season, they sleep, as is the habit of the inhabitants of the star, who are mostly bird people with wings. These bird people are vegetables and grow in enormous pods. The action never pauses and surprise is followed by surprise. Love and jealousy are mingled with mystery, forming a romance of decided interest and much power. The heroine is afterwards brought to the star and takes part

in a number of startling episodes, notably the exploration of the wonderful Sun Island. “Rondah” is one of the best of the fanciful novels now so popular.

“Rondah; or, Thirty-three Years in a Star,” is one of the brightest, most ingenious and most absorbing of the fanciful and mysterious class of novels recently made so popular by H. Rider Haggard. It is much better than “She” or “King Solomon’s Mines,” and will give greater satisfaction. The plot is strange and weird and the incidents surprising in the highest degree. The scene is laid chiefly in a little star with subterranean volcanic fires and boiling seas. To this small planet, not yet entirely fitted for human inhabitants, some of the characters are conveyed by extraordinary means from the Earth while a tempest is in progress. Their adventures during the luxuriant summer and the icy twenty years’ winter are vividly and strikingly depicted, love, hate, jealousy and enthusiasm entering largely into their very peculiar and interesting experience. The heroine, who for a time remains on Earth, has also a strange career. She eventually reaches the star and plays a prominent part in the disclosure

of the mysteries of the Sun Island, a wonderful region of marvels and magnificence. The romance is by Florence Carpenter Dieudonné, and is finely written. It will be widely read and greatly liked.

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 24the 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 hindrance, was bewildered and could not say which way to go to save us all from death.

Like a spirit of the storm itself, Regan had led us through drifted ravines and across cloudy plains until we reached safety.

The warm light of the fire fell upon a company which had never before been united under one roof.

There was Father Renaudin, the fanatical, puritanic priest of a small new sect, one which he had gathered in this wilderness. His silver hair, pale, stern face, tall, powerful form and crimson robe were vividly illuminated. Beside him sat the beautiful Isabella, with bronze hair, starry eyes, perfect face; her purple velvet robes were heavy with rich furs; her arms and hands 25were sparkling with jewels. A very queen of beauty was Isabella.

On the other side of the hearth was Rondah, a dull, frightened child. Her face was tear-stained and her lips were yet quivering from her recent fright. Her brown eyes were too large; her red hair was tumbling loose from its braids. Still, I must pity her—shabby, frail, in terror, but all alone among us.

Regan was there. I remember him yet as he looked then. I think I shall remember him so beyond the grave. His dark, patrician face was lighted with iniquitous triumph, which glowed beneath a mask of assumed quiet as fiery coals glow under ashes. His jet black hair clustered in rings about his brow; his wonderful, beautiful eyes scintillated scorn. It seemed to me that the life of his soul was demon-bred, but chained to certain customs of humanity, because weighted with the accident of a human body.

Regan’s name was the town’s disgrace; though so young he had no friends, accepted no truths, 26discarded all faiths. He talked of a Destiny, which, he claimed, blundered in ruling the universe—a creature blind and non-reasoning, of immensity itself a part; a monstrous something driven like the sun, but by some causeless motor, forever.

The storm raged on unabated. As I looked at Regan, some subtle influence seemed to stand beside me. Plain as a human friend’s, I heard its whisper:

“Duped, duped again, Roy Lee! Do you recall that this is the thirteenth of November?”

The thought chilled me—the thirteenth!

I hated Regan. He had just saved my life, but still I hated him!

Why did he listen, listen? One need not listen to hear the storm!

“Did the old hermit die here alone?” asked Isabella.

The silent form lay in another room.

“I was here. I came at the last, almost too late,” answered Regan.

27As in a dream I saw that death-bed—the monomaniac lying in darkness, watched by the angel Fear, menaced by the monarch Death, waiting, waiting for such a friend of all the earth!

“When he had forgotten all else but his dream and my name, he gave me this. It is the secret of his life. Perhaps you would like to know it.”

And Regan unrolled a large scroll. It was yellow with age, mapped and covered with long lines and singular hieroglyphics.

“What does it mean?” asked Rondah.

We spread the chart upon the table to view it better.

“It contains the discovery which is the result of the observation of three generations. A circle of meteoric worlds and fragments is whirling on an elongated orbit about our sun.

“Once in thirty-three and a third years it strikes the path of the Earth. Small planets mingled with masses of chaos are brought almost to the tops of our mountains.

“Years ago the hermit devised a spiral car, 28which, by means of subterranean cavities, walled with cement and filled with certain explosives of his own combination, should be shot into the coming meteor. All the machinery of the contrivance is hidden and connected with a secret clock. At the precise second when the worlds strike right the clock will explode the torpedoes and the car will be launched into space!

“Twice has Gregg Dempster seen the small star, or world, come close. But he mistook his measurements, as he did not calculate for the swerving of the ball from its true orbit as it passed the giant planets out in space.

“This time he would have been successful, but he shared the great hope, which had become the nerve of his life, with another man and from the lessened tension died.”

“Right,” said Father Renaudin. “If Gregg Dempster had kept his secret, he had seen his star once more. But only then to die of disappointment. For man to migrate from star to star is an impossibility!”

29Then Regan replied:

“Monarch of Fate is man, above all destiny. Man yet shall chain the stars; shall drive the harnessed worlds!”

“It is simply impossible!” repeated the priest.

From the darkness where lay the dead man came a voice:

“And I will give him the morning star!”

Then all was voiceless save the storm.

“The dead speak!” cried the pale Rondah, clasping her hands.

Isabella had been brave in all the danger. Now she rose and, with the girl as her companion, stood close to the door.

That mockery of mystery, a voice from the dead, was more terrible than anything which we were accustomed to account for by natural laws.

The rocks on which the hut stood seemed to shake and to reverberate.

“The people say the hermit spent his life in tunnelling the rocks and in watching the stars,” said Father Renaudin. “It seems as if the tunnels, 30if such there be, had made musical pipes of themselves to-night.”

Suddenly Regan crossed the room to where the two girls stood. Something was in his face which was terrible.

I hastily drew Isabella away from him. The other one, Rondah, looking at him, fell back from the door and cried:

“This is the day! Let us go, Regan, let us go!”

Before I could comprehend, I saw Father Renaudin move toward Regan, who, like a flash, opened the door and cast into the terrible, lurid night the girl Rondah, after which he bolted the door and steadied himself as if for a death-struggle with Father Renaudin.

Then I heard the jar of the steps of two powerful combatants, but everything was dark. There were no words until Regan cried:

“Too late! You must all go!”

A window crashed open above us. It gave us a view of a world, black with storm, ringed in by 31a halo of electric fire, dashing down at us—falling, falling!

The struggle ceased. We held our weak human hands above our heads to ward off the stroke of a world!

There was a smothering jar!

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 seemed that spirits followed human modes!”

Then I touched a cold, still, human face, some one who moved and hoarsely whispered: “Rondah!”

33“Regan, awake. We are not dead!”

I shrieked the words into a gloom so incomprehensible that I had believed it was the grave.

Regan answered in a riddle, but I thought he had not collected his senses:

“It is done! Triumph! Fate has been merciful!” He added instantly: “Don’t move! There are chasms and waters! Don’t you hear the sea surging?”

He did not think he was dead! He did not dream of a river! The meaning of his words startled me.

“Where is Isabella?” he asked.

“Pray God she may be dead!” I answered, as I realized what had probably happened.

“She is here, alive but senseless.”

The voice was Father Renaudin’s.

We found her. After a time she revived.

“Regan! Regan!” (Always his name first by everyone!) she called, in a subdued voice.

“Hush! The star is chained!” answered Regan.

34Then they were both silent, both as strange to each other as if those words had had no deep meaning. But could I ever forget?—some secret they kept, something so great that a change of spheres did not affect it!

And I loved her! I, Roy Lee!

“Father Renaudin, if the cloud masses of two worlds are propitious, you can see the Holy Land soon, but you will never tread its paths! Roy Lee, look in that great moon, our lost home—Earth!—and you can locate London, where your fortunes are still, let us hope, in the ascendant! Take a farewell look, friends, for you will soon be as far from all that revolving globe contains as Heaven is removed from Earth!”

“When day comes we shall see where we are!” I answered, but I had no hope.

“’Tis very strange! This heavy air is not on mountain top! Where is the snow? This is a vast body of water, which roars so loudly and falls so heavily! I can feel these rocks, some 35worn smooth, some perforated, by water!” said Father Renaudin.

Can you imagine how we waited for that dawn? We scarce admitted when we knew that the darkness was paling! What were we to see? A foreign world? We consoled ourselves with the thought that in all the ages such a thing was unchronicled, and we mentally decided that it was not for a contemptible villain like Regan Farmington to solve the mystery of a universe!

No; we concluded in our consideration that there would be found some natural explanation.

Father Renaudin thought some tornado might have fallen. Time might have elapsed, which allowed rains to melt the snow. Still, even then——

Came ever dawn so suddenly!

We looked on peaked and lofty lava rocks, upon a clay-colored sea sweeping to a near horizon. Tall steepled, non-verdured isles broke the surface of the sea. The air was heavy, as if we were in a covered pit. Clouds sunk so low that 36we could almost touch them, dark brown and green-blue clouds, inexpressibly gloomy.

In silence we looked away from each other’s faces; each waited for some one else to say the words:

“It is a star!”

With one bound the sun rose up. Across the shimmering clouds flamed a bewildering gorgeousness surpassing description. The colors of a thousand sunsets were moving in unparalleled radiance above our heads, covering the entire field of heaven. Far, far were we from being pleased to look upon this glory! Oh! dawn of doom! Never was such a daybreak upon our own green world!

The sun rose above the banks of clouds. It sent shafts through the breaks and silvered pinnacles of rock. It marked white circles on the troubled waters. Then the day became gloomy and a storm of rain fell.

Isabella first acknowledged our situation:

37“It is certainly a star! Gregg Dempster was right!”

“Poor child, I am sorry that you are here!”

It was Regan who said this, and his words were so softly spoken, so musical and gentle, that I wondered (and raged) when I heard them.

“My life’s years and toils are wasted, my creeds useless, my people lost, my mission vain! What shall I preach to stones and uncooled stars? What little good I shall do where there are only four souls in a world!”

The words were a wail of utter despair, a cry from a broken heart. It was Father Renaudin who uttered them.

“Regan, it was fiendish to doom others to share this fate with you! Why have you selected the most pious and the most beautiful for this misery? This man’s life was a holy ambition. A dull or ordinary man would have borne the change better. Isabella had all earth’s pleasures and triumphs before her; there were others who would have lost but little.

38“It takes a particularly selected company to insure a great success!” answered Regan. “I have selected my people with the most special care! I could not afford to pity! If I had allowed so maudlin a sentiment to enter my soul, it would have been for Isabella!”

He laughed triumphantly. It was a most exasperating sound for a dupe to hear—the knell of my hopes, for I had much to lose. My father’s house was an honorable one, our wealth was phenomenal in the age, our ships were on all seas, our name known in the world’s marts. I had all, on Earth. Here I was a useless, helpless dupe—I, Roy Lee!

“It is all too terrible to be true!” said I.

“You who claim such faith in an infinite Jehovah are easily depressed!” sneered Regan. “Possibly your Deity has forgotten you! I prefer to trust to blind, blundering Destiny, that soul of universes! She has neither lost nor forsaken this atom of the creation, this little star islanded in space!”

39Father Renaudin rose and went slowly away into the gloomy ravines. He moved as if half a century had been added to his years, leaning heavily upon his staff. His face was drawn and dreadful to look upon.

“Follow him!” said Isabella, hurriedly. “He will destroy himself!”

“Oh! no,” coolly replied Regan. “He is a fanatic. He believes that something almighty has great need of his human services. His narrow-fenced faith will hold him fast. His heart may break, but his soul will stand firm through every trial. These earthly superstitions are very comfortable possessions!”

“I am very, very sorry for him!” whispered Isabella, turning to me; but she listened to Regan as if he had authority. I wondered why! What possible regard could that wealthy, beautiful girl of high caste have for that vagabond Regan?

Then I remembered that caste was gone. We were transferred to the Age of Stone. We could select a cave, build a hearth of rocks, fry a fish 40and sleep. Wake, fry more fish; after years enough had passed we could die! Horrible!

I rose and walked about to wake myself. It might be all a dream. It must be all a dream!

In the sunlight above the clouds I saw Father Renaudin standing upon the summit of a peak. His white hair was blown on the wind; it looked like silver.

Isabella had not spoken one word of regret. There was no sorrow in her eyes, no apprehension in her manner. She was as composed as if the inevitable had occurred.

Father Renaudin and I blamed Regan, and we had expressed our blame in strong words. She said nothing. I went to her side and said to her:

“How can you be so quiet? Do you realize your fate, your loneliness?”

“It is worth loneliness to be the only woman in a world!” she replied.

The cold, hopeless acceptance of her tone shocked me immeasurably. Another thought! True, a world was in our possession!

41The sun had passed the noon mark when Father Renaudin came down the hills. A wonderful peace was on his face; a strange delight was in his eyes.

“Earth has not all she needs. We can learn faster here!” he replied to our wondering comments.

“He thinks he has seen another vision, I believe!” whispered Isabella.

“No; he thinks nothing! Father Renaudin is of the mould of that humanity which does see visions if ever they are seen!” said Regan.

Just then we saw the great world rise up—a fiery globe, where dimly emerald and palely blue were lands and seas. The continents turned before our eyes. The light of this giant moon made it still day for us, though our sun had set.

Oh! grand, great world! I cast myself upon the rocks in agony that it was lost, lost! Something was whispering in my ear:

“Duped, duped, duped again, Roy Lee!”

“My son,” and Father Renaudin laid his hand 42gently upon my shoulder, “do not let sorrow overcome you. It is nothing. Only a human life lost. A sort of death has come. It is a kind death—removal from temptation, from necessity to sin; a respite for glorious work; the chance for a higher place in eternity.”

“A world unfinished; seas simmering over primeval fires. A baby world, devoid of great opportunity. It is as Regan says. God, if God there be, has forgotten us!”

“Not so, not so! Being here, God’s work for us is here. Shall we not do it? Rise up! Shake off your grief, apply your wonderful ability, your great practical knowledge, to the improvement of the sphere!”

His voice was as a song of triumph, a chant of victory!

As I rose to my feet, Regan sprung lightly past me. He took his stand upon a huge square rock; from his cloak he drew a large silken banner wrought with a showy design in red and gold. He shook its folds to the wind.

43“I claim this world, with all its contents, by right of discovery! It is my just possession! Its sovereign am I! Its seas are my ways, its lands my domains, its people my subjects!”

Turning to Father Renaudin, Regan held toward him a shining band of silver, set with gems.

“Here, Father Renaudin, put this on my brow! You are the highest religious dignitary of the world in which I am!”

“Not so!” cried I. “No man’s subject am I! The people rule! Father Renaudin, you will not found a monarchy where no such absurd abomination has ever existed!”

“Have not the worlds themselves one sun supreme for ruler? Find in the universe one whirling, stupendous monarchy! Where is the denunciation in Holy Writ against a good king? God himself upholds thrones!”

“This man is a scoundrel, a fiendish monster! See how he toys with lives and souls.”

“Think, with his superhuman strength and intelligence, how brilliant shall he stand; as an 44archangel at that last day, when, his work done, he shall bring in his nations and their glory!”