Earth 1869, All Fools Day--I called from the tiller, at Cyrus,"Didn't you sleep well last night?" I puffed my pipe and gaged the wind. Madam Honorine walked up the curve of the stern and looked off to port at the clipper ship, Scottish Maid, headed south toward London. I raised a hand and waved. Mdme Honorine Verne did likewise. Jules stretched out on the bench seat facing the tiller and said,"Perhaps the lad is hypnotised par sa beautiful! Thunderstruck by beauty?" Cyrus snapped to and shook his head and pulled his hat over his eyes and turned and waved at the clipper as it sailed south of us. He groused,"I was thunderstruck by an abysmal lack of sleep. I guess I don't have my sea-legs yet. I usually sleep like the dead...but last night..." I said in a grave tone,"I, too was visited by nocturnal phantasms. Some kind of weird dream of metal halls, and tall buildings." "And a smooth wheel-less train the moved without wheels?" Verne finished with a question. I had spoke in generalities, but he finished with a specific that both chilled me to the spine and sent a thrill through my limbs. Cyrus turned to us, alarm on his visage. "Yes! Quite so! What does that mean? It's rather odd that TWO of us would have the same dream, but THREE? That is unheard of!" Mdme Honorine said cooly,"If two men do something odd, it's a quirk. If three or more, it may be a conspiracy! Methinks we may be in some some dark conspiracy due to that cursed item, Professeur Cloud!" I laughed. "Poppycock and nonsense! I am a man of science, of reason, not given to the vapours or wild flights of imagination! If we had dreamed of ancient cultists or darksome idols howling for our blood or organs--I might...just might concede the possibility of curses! My god, woman! We're civilized people, not some dirty savages, dancing around some campfire!" Jules said,"En effet, mon amour! The dreams shone like a light from the moon! Not like a curse. Like a...prophesy!" I had gotten more defensive than I had liked. Apparently we had ALL seen SOMETHING in our dreams. Similar but different, like the parable of the blind men unable to identify the elephant because they all had different parts. What in the name of god did we have hold of? And was it more dangerous than a pachyderm? Jules exclaimed,"Just another mystery of the mysterious sea! I believe my next novel might take place on the sea! I hope to get inspiration from you two! So...'Heave Ho you lubbers!' Or maybe--off the plank you go! Cyrus! Are you expecting Irish pirates,maybe? Elle-ce possible? Ce serait incroyable!" Cyrus shrugged amiably. "Maybe we'll get attacked by Sharks...or maybe the kraken! That's a giant octopus, isn't it?" Jules exclaimed,"Do NOT jest of such things! I WILL have nightmares of giant pieuvres tonight! I dislike those eight slimy arms reaching for me! Mon Dieu!" Cyrus laughed. "I feel the same about spiders,and Greek myth things. The readings of the Iliad and Odyssey. Oh, you know,Phineas...like Cyclops?" His eyes blazed with knowledge about something out of that dream. Something I could barely remember. Something about a one eyed woman, barely clothed in some kind of molten blue metal. I said slowly as if coming out of a dream myself."I was affected by such images when I was a child. They don't seem as frightening today, in the light of the morning sun." I turned the conversation onto safer subjects by saying,"The Suez canal is due to open this November if the schedule holds. With the completion of the Trans-India railway, early next year, A clever man might be able to make it around the world within three months or so...at least by my general estimations." Jules opened his mouth with a bright light in his eyes. "That might make a grand adventure book!" Cyrus laughed,"Just don't shoot him out of your MOON cannon!" We all laughed at that. --To be continued!--