There was a distinct and persistent chiming of bells.

Bells loud and soft,--bells mellow and deep, clear and silvery--clanging in bass and treble shocks of rising and falling rhythm and tune! "Do you hear ?" Rivardi and Gaspard simultaneously rose to their feet, amazed.
Undoubtedly they heard! It was impossible NOT to hear such a clamour of concordant sound! Startled beyond all expression, Morgana sprang to the window of her cabin, and looking out uttered a cry of mingled terror and rapture...

for there below her, in the previously inky blackness of the Great Desert, lay a great City, stretching out for miles, and glittering from end to end with a peculiarly deep golden light which seemed to bathe it in the lustre of a setting sun.

Towers, cupolas, bridges, streets, squares, parks and gardens could be plainly seen from the air-ship, which had suddenly stopped, and now hung immovably in mid-air; though for some moments Morgana was too excited to notice this.

Again she called to her companions-- "Look! Look!" she exclaimed--"We have found it! The Brazen City!" But she called in vain.