Riallaro: The Archipelago of Exiles

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Title: Riallaro: The Archipelago of Exiles
Author: Sweven, Godfrey
Language: English
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EXILES ***

RIALLARO
THE ARCHIPELAGO OF
EXILES

GODFREY SWEVEN

G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS
NEW YORK AND LONDON
The Knickerbocker Press
1901

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The Knickerbocker Press, New York

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[Illustration]

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE
INTRODUCTION. THE MYSTERIOUS SHOT 1
I.— RESURRECTIONS 8
II.— RIALLARO 15
III.— LANDING 22
IV.— THE LANGUAGE 26
V.— ALEOFANIAN SOCIETY AND RELIGION 35
VI.— ALEOFANIAN DEVOTION TO TRUTH 39
VII.— SOCIAL CUSTOMS 52
VIII.— ABSTINENCE 58
IX.— THE ORGANISATION OF REPUTE 68
X.— THE CHURCH AND JOURNALISM 76
XI.— THE BUREAU OF FAME 99
XII.— FREEDOM AND REVOLUTION 107
XIII.— IMPRISONMENT AND ESCAPE 117
XIV.— THE VOYAGE TO TIRRALARIA 122
XV.— TIRRALARIA 139
XVI.— SNEEKAPE 146
XVII.— THE MIDNIGHT ASCENT AND FLIGHT 177
XVIII.— MEDDLA 190
XIX.— WOTNEKST 199
XX.— FOOLGAR 217
XXI.— AWDYOO 237
XXII.— JABBEROO 244
XXIII.— VULPIA 251
XXIV.— WITLINGEN AND ADJACENT ISLANDS 255
XXV.— KLORIOLE 267
XXVI.— SWOONARIE 286
XXVII.— FENERALIA 292
XXVIII.— THE VOYAGE AND THE WRECK 297
XXIX.— NOOKOO 303
XXX.— THE VOYAGE TO BROOLYI 308
XXXI.— MESKEETA 312
XXXII.— COXURIA 320
XXXIII.— HACIOCRAM 328
XXXIV.— SPECTRALIA 332
XXXV.— THE VOYAGE CONTINUED 350
XXXVI.— BROOLYI 359
XXXVII.— NOOLA 376
POSTSCRIPT 419

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RIALLARO

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[Illustration]

RIALLARO

-------

INTRODUCTION

THE MYSTERIOUS SHOT

“DEAD, for a ducat, dead,” roared Somm, as he shouldered his gun and
rushed to the beach. Nothing had come within reach of shot all afternoon
till, in the thickening twilight, a flash of broad wings in the distance
awakened our camp. “A wounded albatross,” shouted both my companions, as
they peered through the shuttling grey of the evening, and watched the
south wind, still wild with the force of storm, shepherd some baffled
creature of wings up towards our nestling-place. “Some still stranger
bird,” I thought, as we seized our guns and ran to the edge of the
cliff. The sudden descent of night checked further question; and as the
winged thing gleamed along the face of the precipice, three shots echoed
across the sound, and, in a lull of the fitful gusts, we heard a dull
plunge in the water far below.

It seemed but a few minutes till we met Somm in the rocky hollow that
was the harbour for our boat; he had rowed out and back, and was leaning
over some dark object that lay in the stern. Not a sign of feather or
anything that gleamed was there about it. It was the form of a human
being, apparently dead. We bore it up through the bush with the tender
care that diggers are wont to give to the corpse of a comrade. Our
burden was so light that we expected to look upon a thin, emaciated
body. But, as we laid it in the flicker of our hut fire, we were amazed
to see the rounded form and ruddy cheeks of the dead stranger.

We stripped him of his wrapping,—a strange muslin-like transparent
toga,—and searched for the gunshot wound. Except for one broad bruise,
there was no mark on the body. And then it began to dawn upon us that
this had nothing to do with the flashing wings, or our shots, that we
were guiltless of human blood. It was a case of drowning, but not yet
dead. And we set to work to draw the clogging water from his heart and
lungs. Slowly the breath began to come and the blood to circulate. The
bosom heaved and we felt ourselves in the presence of another and a
stranger human soul. What he was, whence he came, whirled through our
minds in silence. Faint and in need of rest he manifestly was. We poured
some stimulant down his throat and laid him on one of our rude beds of
manuka and fern. We saw him fall into a deep and healthy sleep. And dawn
was already threatening the east with flickering light when we went into
the open and drew a long, sweet breath.

We consulted together over the strange occurrence, and determined to
search the fiord for traces of the winged thing that flashed out at our
shots. Before we had gone far, we found a pair of huge fans that had
drifted into one of the frequent channels amongst the rocks. They were
not of feathers, but of some strong, transparent, and almost weightless
material that did not wilt in the sun or the wet. We lifted them, and
there hung by them dragging in the water filmy strings like the long
tentacles of a medusa. We cut them adrift, and bore the strange
wing-like floats up to our cliff. Each of them seemed to move on a pivot
with ease, and almost rose on the gentle breeze into which the storm had
now died. After full examination of them, we laid them far back in the
cavern, which we used as our storehouse and larder, and thought no more
about them.

We cooked and ate our morning meal, and then spread out over the bush
that overlooked the waters of the sound, forgetful of the stranger whom
we had left in one of our huts. We were in search of gold, and, having
found faint traces of it on the small, fan-like beaches that intervalled
the sheer precipices on our side, we had been prospecting several months
for the alluvial pocket or the reef from which the glittering specks had
wandered down. The following week we were rewarded with success; but, as
we have no desire to have our noble solitude disturbed by the noise of a
frenzied, gambling crowd,—we are but woodmen and sealers and
photographers to the outside world when it intrudes in the shape of
tourists,—I shall not mention at present the name of the New Zealand
fiord in which we live.

I was working up a watercourse, panning the sand and dirt that lay in
the crevices and occasional levels, at times startled by a weka that
impudently slid through the undergrowth and eyed me close at hand, or by
the harsh call of the kea, as it flew from some resting-place and
circled in the air. Rudely awakened from my absorption, I looked out on
the marvellous scene that lay at my feet; precipice towered over
precipice, often forest-clad from base to summit. Almost sheer below me
slept the waters of the sound, landlocked as if it were a lake. Only the
indignant cry of the kea, or the weka’s raucous whistle, or the echo of
a distant avalanche ever broke the silence of this solitary land. Never
did it cease to throw its shadow on my thoughts or stir their sense of
beauty or their sadness.

Absorbed in contemplation of its sublimity, I sat for a moment on a rock
that rose out of the bush. I almost leapt from it, startled; a voice,
unheralded, fell “like a falling star” through the soundless air. I had
heard no footstep, no snap of trodden twig or rustle of reluctant
branch. My senses were so thrilled with the sound that its purport shot
past them. There at the base of the rock stood the strangest figure that
ever met my eyes.

It was the sea-trove we had left sleeping in the hut—a small, well-knit
frame like that of a north-country Englishman; but folded though it was
in the slender gauzy garment we had unwound from it the night before, I
felt conscious of a radiance that seemed to rid it of its opaque
substantiality; it was as if lit from within; the face was luminous and
clear, like the star-limpid waters of the fiord at night. My eyes were
drawn to search the depths; yet the veil of flesh and blood still hid
all but the aurora-like flashings of thought and feeling that swept in
and out across the features. There was the play of some strong inward
tumult, the revival, I soon found, of long-dead memories. I sat dumb as
a stone, too much moved to break the silence, too much awed by the face
to know what to say. It seems that my face too, with its weather-beaten
vigour of northern life, had stirred the nature of the stranger to its
depths; a long-forgotten existence had surged up in him from the
darkness of the past, and he was recovering it feature by feature. I
have often watched the conflict of cloud and wind, of light and gloom,
across the torn azure of night’s infinity before the coming of a
tempest; but the sight did not approach in intense magnetism the dizzy
chase of shadow and gleam across this singular countenance.

At last the turmoil had passed its crisis. The memories had fallen into
array. And, in slow but passionate northern English strangely shot with
silvery rhythm, I was asked what country this was and whether I was not
an Englishman. My palsy of speech vanished. And the familiar words,
uttered though they were in new accents, led me back into the common
world of question and answer. I found it was the Britain of a generation
ago he knew, before the colonies of the Pacific had focussed her new
spirit of enterprise, or transmuted their golden dreams. He remembered
the mining fever of Australia, but it was news that it had smitten New
Zealand too.

As I spoke with him, he seemed to be dragging his language out of the
depths of sleep. His words and recognition of my meaning came half
reluctantly. And through them wove fitfully hints and after-gleams of
some intervening existence that had reached a higher plane than that of
his youth. The ethereal ring would come into his voice, the translucent
look into his face, and then vanish before the touch of those lower
terrene reminiscences. Yet even amidst them there would appear at times
the tremulous appeal of human pathos. As our words approached the
memories of his childhood, they sounded from his lips like the funeral
bells of a village folded in mist. The grosser humanity that seemed to
come back to him from a buried past grew shadowed and mournful with
piteous thoughts. There sighed out of his lost youth a winter wind that
sounded through the crevices of ruined cities and over uncounted graves.

It took weeks for us to reach more familiar intercourse; and this
alternation of a common and ethereal humanity in him continued to break
the magnetism that often seemed about to bind us. We came from the same
district of the North, although he evaded all questions as to the
locality; and I came to know by instinct the topics to avoid with him.
He would listen by the hour to stories and descriptions of the dales and
hills; but he never permitted a reference that would fix his native
place or time. One serious difficulty at first was his refusal of all
our ordinary food; he would not touch the flesh of animal in any form,
and we had to give up to him all our meal and flour and lentils. But, as
we saw him at times grow faint, we introduced some of our animal soups
into his food—for he refused all food that needed the use of teeth. A
singular change seemed to come over him from this time; he began to grow
more like our muscular, carnal humanity, and his moods of limpid
ethereality were rarer and briefer. Thereafter he seemed to lower
himself more to our plane of thought and life, though even then he rose
long flights above us. Why he stayed with rough miners like us so long,
when he might have shone in the most brilliant circles of Europe, was a
mystery; but it became clear at a later stage. He worked with me and had
a marvellous power of revealing the secrets of the rocks and the crust
of the earth; like the fabulous divining rod he knew what metal lay
below, and how far we should have to seek for it; and ten thousand times
over he repaid all that his living cost. We offered him his share of our
partnership; but our proposal was ever smiled aside as if it came from
children in some childish play. He seemed to look years beyond our point
of view.

How deep the debt we owe him when we think of all he taught us! Beside
it all else sinks into nothingness. And there is no way in which we can
vent our gratitude to him but by telling his story to other men as he
told it to us. We could have spent all our days as well as all our
nights in listening to him. But it was only now and then he fell into
the mood of reminiscence. And so great a value did we attach to his
every word that after each conversation or monologue we retired into our
storehouse cave and wrote it down. We did our best to give his own
language and form, but memory is treacherous, and we felt at each
attempt that we had marred the beauty or nobleness of his utterances by
phrases of our own or by the tinge of our personalities. He followed no
sequence of time or circumstance; for he spoke as his own spirit or our
themes moved him. But out of our rough jottings we have pieced together
the following narrative, most of it our representation at the moment of
his speech, some of it from the distant memory of incidental talks with
him in the bush, when we were far from paper or pen. It is as close an
approach to his very words as our love and reverence have been able to
achieve.

GODFREY SWEVEN,
THEODORE SOMM,
CHRISTIAN TROWM.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Illustration]

CHAPTER I

RESURRECTIONS

GOD, God! how Thy past clings to us like shadows, turn we as we may
forever to the sunrise! Out of the night and from beyond it come forms
that seem buried below the reach of grave-desecrating memory; they plead
with us and claim us as their kin, and all the nobleness we have
laboured after succumbs to the witchery of their piteous appeals.

It was indeed pathetic to see his face as he struggled with a
past that had been dead for a generation. He thrust it from him
and it would return. He reached out for dim features of it he
had loved, and they eluded him. At last came out of the wreckage
of dreams the solidarity of life and law.

How tyrannous the bond of nature is! What love my mother bore me, and
how the memory of it wells over the desert of my youth! Had she lived, I
never could have broken with my European life. It is maternal love that
binds age to age. A torrent of inborn feeling wakes in me for the old
graveyard where she lies overlooking the sea. I know she is not there,
and yet I could kiss the dear earth that covers her ashes. From her I
drew all that was best in me; to her, only a fisherman’s daughter, I
looked for every thought that controlled me in boyhood. My father, the
earl’s son, disowned for his lowly love and marriage, was only a phantom
to me, honoured but unreal; for he died soon after I was born. Nor could
I ever own the churlish stock that thrust him forth for loyalty to a
peasant. Often did the crabbed old grandsire try to woo me from the
sea-smelling hut to his great castle; as often was his pride wounded by
refusal. What had I to do with a race still savage in its adherence to
caste, and incapable of seeing the beauty of a character apart from
position? All my being belonged to the gentler, more civilised nature of
my mother; I was obstinately democratic in my sympathies, hating even
the shadow of primeval aristocracy that rests upon childhood and youth.

One thing he succeeded in doing. He drove my mother, by dint of threats,
expostulations, and reasonings, to send me for a few years to one of the
large English public schools. And this period was the purgatory of my
life, such despotisms and persecutions demonised over the unconforming
nucleus of my character. And, when summer came, her love, the uncouth
sympathy of the fishermen, the rhythmic sea, and the steadfast foreheads
of the cliffs cooled the fever of my wronged spirit. Only the
persistence of the old fire-eater with his instinctive valuation of the
still savage virtues of his caste could keep her from yielding to my
never-ending entreaties. Not till palsy shut the gates of his expression
did she take courage to resist his influence, and let me remain with her
and solitude as my teachers.

A few years more and his iron spirit left its long-dead tenement. His
title and mansion and great estates were thrust upon me. But I refused
to acknowledge the position except so far as to divide the revenue
amongst the poor. What did I or my mother need more than we had? Why
should we leave our lowly friends, and our comradeship with the sea?
What good purpose could it serve to spend these vast sums every year on
personal enjoyment that would be none to us? We stayed in our little
dwelling perched in a nook of the cliffs, and I followed my ancestral
calling over the ever-moving element that had nursed me. Courage and
lowliness and love of mankind sank deeper and deeper into my system.
Books and thought and the ever-changeful waves tutored my spirit and
widened the issues of life. I began to feel strangely dissatisfied with
all that was called civilisation, seeing how far it fell short of
justice and truth and liberty. I was harassed with my own destiny and
even more with that of mankind. How could I better my thoughts by
heaping the responsibilities of lucre upon them? The everlasting
antagonism between our longing for rest and our need of labour goaded me
as it did all others. And how was change of sphere or multiplication of
financial cares to effect a truce? No; it seemed to me, in my youthful
romancing, that the possibility of cure lay not in increasing the
desires and their means of satisfaction, but in reducing the needs. The
denominator in this poor fraction of the universe called human life was
more plastic than the numerator. What was the acquisition of wealth and
influence but the insertion of ciphers in our little decimal of
existence? What could the world do for the inborn sickness of the human
spirit?

If the rest was to be found, it was in primitive conditions of life,
perhaps in some obscure tribe that lived close to nature and had never
heard an echo of our western world. With the restless nomadic instincts
of boyhood and youth passionate within me, I longed to set forth on a
voyage of discovery into seas untraversed. The sea-ferment stirred my
Scandinavian blood. To rove untrammelled, to meet sudden storms and
dangers, to hold intercourse with pure human souls fresh from God’s hand
and unstained with the duplicities of luxurious grasping races—this was
the dream of my early years. But my mother would not stir from the loved
shore of her girlhood or the grave of the husband who had died too young
to shatter her romance. And she was a comrade from whom I could not
part. Year after year had bound us closer together, and, before manhood
had unloosed the reins of my will, her forty years and locality—a
stronger influence in her sex—had riveted down their fetters upon her
spirit.

But ah, God! there came a time——

The surge of memory was too great for him. He would not let the
tears come and he fled out into the woods. We saw no more of him
for days. Nor could he approach the subject but with wild
resurgence of sorrow that choked up speech. But by hint and
inference we were able to mosaic together the history of this
tempest that swept through his life. His mother had died not
long after he had attained his majority, and his grief palsied
his energies for almost a year. But driven to the net and the
sea again by sheer fatigue of brooding, youth reflooded his
veins with the old passions and ideals, and the flame in his
blood mastered grief. Then came the thought that the wealth he
had repelled so long might enable him to fulfil the dream of his
boyhood, and to reach some land untainted by the vices of
Europe. And the discovery that part of his heritage was a yacht
driven by the marvellous new power of steam, that laughed at
wind, and wave, and current, made him as one possessed.
Everything bent to his new idea. He gathered his old comrades
and playmates together, and he went with them to master the
whole craft of the steam-engine and the screw; they learned
every item of the marine engineer’s trade; and each he set to
gain skill in some special part. He travelled himself from
university to university, from laboratory to laboratory in order
to master the best that was known in the physical sciences. He
fitted out his yacht with the apparatus and material that would
be needed for repairing any part of her, furnished her with
everything that would enable him to pass years away from
civilisation and to gain influence over the wild races he might
encounter. Nor did he fail to collect for her a library of the
finest books, not only imaginative and scientific, but
pertaining to the arts. And, when all was ready and his
machinery and crew had been tested in brief voyages north and
west across the winter and summer Atlantic, he bade farewell to
his hut upon the shore and the loved graveyard on the hill and
set out to seek adventure and a land of primitive simplicity in
untravelled seas.

How our blood surged with delight as we swept away to the south under
full sail and head of steam! The ridged currents of the main, the
wind-curled summits of the great billows only made our hearts to tingle.
We were out free with God’s elements, our friends; no rumour of cruelty
or injustice or bitter grief to harass our spirits. Young, bold,
well-mated, bound by the ties of common tastes and common traditions,
nothing seemed to us too difficult to attempt.

Round the old cape of storms, down into the latitude of icebergs, we
easted till we hailed the coasts of Australia. In her towns and cities
we learned from traders and sailors all we could of the islands that lay
in the Pacific. Much of romance, much of dim rumour based on fact
vitiated their tales and yet drew us on with magnetic power. Past New
Zealand with her sombre fiords and the argent glory of her mountains we
swept, gleaning from her sealers and whalers still more of the mysteries
of the dim Pacific world we were about to see. Our blood coursed quicker
in our veins as we touched the first palm-fringed atolls of the coral
belt. And every new island we reached we seemed to get closer and closer
to the centre of the primitive world we desired to visit.

For through the narratives that we heard of the wonders of the great
Pacific archipelago there ran an undercurrent of reference to some
mystic region that had deeply impressed the imaginations of all
frequenters of this tropical sea, whether natives or foreigners. The
islanders would scarcely speak of it and a curtain of superstition hung
round it unlifted. Even Europeans spoke of it with bated breath.

But the more they evaded my questions, the more was I roused to get at
some definite knowledge. From island to island we sailed in quest of the
direction of this strange mirage of the sea. At times I concluded that
it was but a religious myth, a hades invented by the priests or by the
crude imagination of early worshippers to account for the misery of man
and to define the destiny of his wilder nature. Then would come some
hint that pointed to physical fact as its basis.

After weary, half-baffled investigation, I seemed to find a certain
nucleus of reality. There lay away to the south-east of Oceania, out of
the track of ships, an enormous region of the Pacific sealed by a ring
of fog that had never lifted in the memory of man. Ships had sailed into
it and never come out again; canoes that had ventured too near had been
sucked in by the eddies that circled round it, and never been seen
again. Above it there flashed strange lights that dimmed the stars and
the play of gleaming wings seemed at times to rise far above it and
vanish. To some islanders it was the refuge of the souls of their dead;
to others it was the home of the demons who issued half-seen,
half-unseen to torture them with plague and storm and disaster.

When I had discovered the direction in which it lay and defined its
position on my chart, we ran back to the coast of New Zealand for coal
and other supplies that would last me months, if not years. All ready, I
summoned my staunch comrades who formed the crew and told them the bent
of my enterprise, laying stress upon its dangers and uncertainty. Not
one flinched, perhaps because their lives lay all in the future; none
had left wife or sweetheart behind, none was old enough to have fixed
ambition or a desire of settled existence. The sea had bred in them
through their long ancestry a love of its mystery and its many-voiced
dreams. None but imaginative natures had attached themselves to me in
youth. And on board, during their long periods of rest, it was romance,
and poetry, and other books of imagination they read. Not one of them
had escaped the lotus-breathing air of these dreamy archipelagoes. Not
one of them but loathed the thought of western life with its mean
ambitions and falsities. Anything was better than the labyrinth of
disease and wrong and crime wherein they must lose their way in old
Europe. Even without such considerations, there was enough loyalty to
their old comrade and leader to make them follow him wherever he would
go. A cheer ended our conference, and we weighed anchor to a new chant
with the refrain “Heave ho! let’s seek the secret of Riallaro.”

[Illustration]

------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Illustration]

CHAPTER II

RIALLARO

SUCH was the name that one group of islands gave to this mystic region
of the sea; and it meant “the ring of mist.” A sense of awe fell on me
as I listened to the chorus. Whither was I dragging these young spirits
with me? What would be the end of our expedition? Would we ever come
forth alive from this misty sphere? It held within it, I felt, some of
the most momentous secrets of existence; but whether these would be
baneful or gracious no one could tell. It was only after I had felt
everything ready for my venture that I became tremulous as to the
result. The energy of my nature, that had been absorbed in definite
search for knowledge, and definite preparation, was now set free for
brooding; and I passed daily in thought from hope to despair, from
despair to hope. All the delight of outlook was now lost in the
uncertainty. The few shreds of fact, that I had been able to pick out of
hint and tradition and religious fear, seemed in the immediate presence
of the mystery to be ridiculous and inadequate for any definite step. I
became the prey of trepidation and self-upbraiding. Dreams of failure
and disaster haunted me day and night. I thought over the stories of
Ulysses, and Æneas, of Orpheus, and Dante as the prototypes of our
enterprise; they had returned from the lower world; might not we too
return from this nebulous hades? But alas! no consolation came from such
tales; they were but the shadows of dreams; whilst we were about to face
an impossible geographical problem in the midst of a sceptical
scientific generation. How could I close my eyes to the insane hardihood
of our venture?

Before I could recover from the truculent despotism of such thoughts,
this sphinx of mist stared me in the face, and no retreat was left for
us. Long and silent meditations and pacings of the deck had left me
exhausted, and one breathless and moonless night I sank into a profound
sleep that fettered me down long after sunrise. My officers could not
waken me, and it was only at last sheer necessity that drove them to
rouse me by main force. I stared about me dazed; but one word from
them—“Riallaro”—set every nerve a-quiver. I rushed on deck and saw close
on us a mist that blurred the whole eastern side of the sky. I stopped
the engines and then reversed them. But on came the mist; on flew the
ship into it. I looked over the bulwarks, and saw that we were borne
along by a current like a mill-race. My men stared blankly at me. The
engines had little effect in stemming the force of the water. And before
we could think what to do the fog had closed in upon us, and we could
not see above a ship’s length in any direction.

Away we rushed, whither we knew not, for the compass spun wildly back
and forward on its pivot. Every piece of iron on the ship seemed to be
turned into a magnet. And what was worse, my signals to the engine-room
were unheeded; and on looking down, we found the engineers lying stiff
upon its floor. I sent two down to take their place; and as soon as they
had stopped the engines, they too succumbed and fell into a trance. Even
the man at the wheel felt drowsy and incapable, only violent
self-control and movement resisting the somnolence that seemed to creep
over him. I remembered that the house in which he stood was iron, and
that around there was more iron than anywhere else on the ship, except
in the engine-room. I determined to husband my crew till I had
understood our position, and was ready for a supreme effort at escape.

Amazement passed into terror, as there swept out of the mist and slowly
passed us an old Spanish caravel, with rotting sails and yards, and
shrivelled mummies in antique Spanish costume lying on the poop and at
various points of the deck, in the attitude of sleep. We could have
almost leapt on board this ship of death, so close was it to us. The
horror paralysed us, and out of sight it vanished, taking giant
proportions to it in the mist. Not many yards behind it moved another
apparition of the past, a canoe with mummied natives fallen at the oar
as in a trance. And still another in the ghostly funeral train, a Malay
proa with motionless crew that seemed just fallen asleep, loomed
spectral in our rear. Was this awful procession never to cease? Were we
to fall into its line and sail on for ages? The last apparition was
right in our wake, and had it moved nearer to us would have struck us on
the stern; but it swept on after a brief interval aft. And then I had
time to think that it was the impulse of the reversed engines that had
thus brought us within sight of three different craft in this ghastly
pageant.

The native superstition that nests in every seafarer’s heart began to
leaven my crew and master even their courage and their loyalty to me. A
curse seemed to rest on all that were drawn into this mist-bearing
current. Whither it was to take us and what would be our fate weighed
heavily on my own mind. A drowsy feeling crept over me as I stood and
meditated; only when I moved about could I drive off the lethargy. If
once we went to sleep, there was clearly no awaking. Action was needed;
and yet how to act was a puzzle; in which direction to steer we knew
not.

Out of my reverie was I startled by a new and appalling danger. There
rose gigantic out of the mist upon our starboard bow a great ship as
still and silent as the reef into which it was wedged. My men rushed
with a wild cry to the bulwarks to fend off our yacht; but we grazed
past her unhurt; and on her decks we saw the forms of English sailors
stretched in sleep at least if not in death. The sight dispelled the
creeping torpor from our minds. I saw that swift action must be taken. I
sent a volunteer down into the engine-room; and, before the iron drowse
overcame him, he managed to fasten two ropes, that we let down from the
skylights, in such a way that we could start or stop the engines from
the deck. We must get steering way upon the ship in order to avoid these
reefs and their wrecks. We moved gently ahead and passed along the
ghostly procession; every generation for centuries past, every seafaring
race upon earth seemed to contribute one ship of death, or more, to this
long funeral train; ghastly lay their crew, sometimes shrivelled by long
ages of rest, often seeming to have just fallen asleep.

My newly stirred thought now grasped the meaning of this sepulchral
pageant. The movement of these hurrying graves must be in a circle round
some centre that lay on the starboard; round and round they had wheeled
for years, many of them for centuries. If I were to fulfil the purpose
of my voyage, our way lay to the right; for from the larboard side we
had been sucked into this whirlpool.

I took the wheel myself and steered the ship across the floating funeral
train. Once we grazed the bow of an East Indiaman; again we cut in two a
war canoe of the islanders; out of the mist they swept appallingly upon
us. Nor could we pause to see what became of the shattered craft. A half
an hour and we sailed in freer waters; for several minutes not one
circling apparition loomed through the mist; the set of the current grew
less impetuous; and the fog seemed to rarefy. Before long a luminous
warmth mingled with the nebulous atmosphere; we could see denser masses
move and break above us; and at last a corona of light shone hazily
through the gloom. Our hearts leapt within us; and yet we repressed the
cry of joy that rose spontaneously to our lips, for we might only be
passing across from one circle of eclipse to another. The glimmer of
light grew into intermittent gleams and then broke into the resplendence
of full day. The repressed cheer burst forth at the sight, and our
comrades stirred in their trance at the sound. They rubbed their eyes
and awoke. They marvelled at our jubilance, and thought that they had
fainted but the minute before. It had been an hour or so after daybreak
that we entered the circle of death and now the sun was westering
towards its set. The long hours of fast and terror and anxious thought
had exhausted those of us who had been awake. And after instructions to
those who had but risen from sleep to stop the ship and watch, we
succumbed to our fatigue.

We lay inert for almost twenty-four hours, and our comrades, after
stopping the engines, had again fallen into their trance. It was more
than mere exhaustion that held us so imprisoned in unconsciousness; it
was the magnetic power of the ring of mist through which we had passed.

I learned afterwards the causes of this strange phenomenon, though for
years it remained a mystery to me. Thousands of ages before a submerged
continent had left an irregular oval like a broken ring close to the
surface of the water; and this annular reef consisted chiefly of
magnetic iron molten from the adjacent rocks by the heat of the great
central volcano that formed the nucleus of the gigantic atoll; on this
adamantine ellipse the coral insects had raised their lace-like ridge.
Upon the north and south sides of it respectively two great currents
impinged, one from the tropics and one from the antarctic regions. The
warmer rush of waters was bent round the eastern side of the circular
wall of iron, the colder broke round the western side; and instead of
losing all their impetus, or neutralising each other, they ran parallel
most of their watery orbit before they mingled; and this continuous
proximity of hot and cold generated the circle of steam that sealed the
waters of this mighty unknown atoll. Into the swift circle of death
ships were sucked both from north and south, and the magnetic force of
the iron foundations of the reef caught their life in the trammels of
sleep and then of death. Never before had a power that could master
these subtle forces entered the sphere of their influence. Steam had
broken the seal of this annular exhalation. And good fortune had led me
to steer our new craft through the only opening left unpiled by the
little coral workers. A feeble branch of the elliptic current found its
way into the quieter waters within; and upon this we chanced in our
efforts to get clear of the ships of death that swept on in funeral
procession.

So gentle was this current that I had not noticed it before I fell
asleep; and when I awoke under the stroke of the noon’s rays I found
that we were drifting rapidly upon a precipitous coast.

With the swiftness of alarm I wakened my men and sent her spinning
astern at full speed. As we stood out from the land, I could see it was
a low island or promontory, for the water beyond gleamed across it. And
far in the distance were the dim outlines of two or three islands that
broke the horizon line; and like an iceberg rose, at a still greater
distance, the snow-capped peak of some great mountain that seemed
companion to the clouds of fleece in the sky. Behind us lay the wall of
mist through which we had broken; the eastern curve of the ellipse was
too far off to show the slightest fleck of mist above the rim of sky.

[Illustration]

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[Illustration]

CHAPTER III

LANDING

AT last, I was sure, we were about to know a people that had not blurred
the features of primeval virtue. And yet I laughed at the thought. What
was there in human nature to insure material advance without
contamination of the spirit? How were the ages to whip the old Adam out
of us but by new vices? Never had the world known exception. But here
were lands fenced off from contagion for uncounted ages. Perchance the
strange conditions had evolved a simpler civilisation; perchance the
strange quarantine in human history had checked the influx of all common
spiritual disease.

And there was a strange ethereal beauty misted over the parts that we
could see. A thin veil, as of gossamer, withdrew and yet revealed the
features of the scenery; and our imaginations were stirred to know the
reality we could but dimly see. It excited us like a dream but
half-remembered. Our natures tingled with curiosity and eagerness; and
every nerve was braced to find our way beneath the veil.

We made for a beautiful landlocked harbour that seemed to promise
shelter of the fairest; but it was only a mirage and faded into a long
shelving beach of sand. We tried to anchor, but we could find no bottom.
And as there was perfect calm we rowed towards the shore with a hawser,
hoping to find some rock or tree on which to tie it. The sandy slope was
but an illusion, too, and when we came to solid features we found there
was nothing but a sheer wall of rock, rising to hundreds of feet above
us, that laughed at our toil. Chance after chance, point of vantage
after point of vantage led us on, eager, expectant, only to sicken us
with illusion. It seemed to be the land of phantasms.

At length, weary with chilled eagerness, we saw the coast slope
downwards to the mouth of a river. Our labours were about to be crowned
with success. We found an anchorage and rowed towards the shore. But no
landing-place offered; every piece of seeming solid shore turned out a
quicksand when we touched it with our feet; only the watchful care of
our comrades in the boat saved us from disaster. And the breakers on the
bar of the river churned to white warned us off. We risked the entrance
at last, and were capsized. I swam for a jutting rock that near the bank
stemmed the outrunning current. Exhausted with the long effort I reached
out and caught the weedy tangle that clung to its sides; I dragged
myself up its jagged, wounding slope, and fell into a hollow that held
me as I lay in swoon.

Annihilation thawed into consciousness of the blue sky in my eyes and of
the flinty rock on which I was stretched. I rose, torn and bleeding, and
looked out for my comrades. I could see only the keel of the boat
floating out to sea; no yacht, no sign of life. In my hunger,
exhaustion, and abandonment I could think of nothing but to make for
land and the nearest habitations. I ate some of the shell-fish on the
rock, stanched my wounds, and then threw myself into the inflowing tide.
I easily breasted the current that divided my solitary crag from the
bank, yet it bore me in its swiftness many miles inland before I could
reach a landing-point; for broad spaces of glistening mud, in which I
sank and floundered, divided me from the green fields beyond. The tide
swept me towards a grassy point; I seized an overhanging branch of a
tree and sprang upon the firm ground.

A sight of marvellous beauty held me rigid for a moment. Marble palaces,
margined with gleaming gardens, flecked the length of the river as far
as my eye could reach, and rose, nested in trees, terrace above terrace,
up the slopes on either side. Boats with brilliant coloured awnings
plied from bank to bank, like swarms of tropical butterflies, or lay
moored to flights of snow-pure steps that flanked the water at
intervals. Great temples and public buildings broke the outline with
their sky-pricking spires. For an instant I doubted my eyes and thought
illusion was playing them false, such a dream of beauty lay before them.

I dared not approach such noble purity so begrimed as I then was. I
sought the outskirts of the city, for I knew that every town, however
beautiful and rich, draggles off in some direction into meanness and
filth and penury. I marvelled at the extent of the squalor here. When I
reached the highest point of view I saw every gully and level teeming
with the evidence of indigent myriads. A reeking human quagmire
stretched for miles over the flood-soaked borders of this noble city,
like a rich robe of lace that has dragged its train through liquid
filth. Groves of trees failed to conceal the squalor and destitution of
these low-lying suburbs.

Yet there I felt must be my resting-place till I had found a footing in
the land. I had enough precious stones in my possession to serve me as
money for months, if not for years. Most of them I buried in a secret
place, which I marked well; and I traced a map of its position from the
chief features of the city, and from north and west by aid of a small
compass I had. With two or three rubies I made for the centre of the
city’s pauperism, and by means of gestures managed to change them in a
mean pawnshop for the coin of the country.

[Illustration]

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[Illustration]

CHAPTER IV

THE LANGUAGE

IN order to avoid too much observation, I got housed in an obscure
hostelry that often accommodated foreigners. But none of the occupants
knew my language, nor did I any of theirs. Gesture and mimicry supplied
the defect for a time, and a few weeks sufficed to give me command of
the vocabulary and syntax needed for the common intercourse of life, so
easy seemed the tongue and so clear the articulation.

But the difficulty came at a later stage. I found I could not advance
far without a teacher, and a man of the purer blood was procured to act
as my tutor. I put on the dress of the marble city, and went daily to
him for my lesson. What a revelation I had of the subtlety of language!
It was like learning to skate; everything seemed to contribute to make
me stumble or fall; and the effort to recover was more dangerous than
collapse. Every word and phrase and idiom had countless variations of
meaning dependent on the intonation of the voice and the peculiar
gesture or facial expression adopted. There was a grammar and vocabulary
of tone as well as of actual speech. And, besides this, gesture and
grimace contributed their own shadings to every expression. The
twitching of an eyebrow would turn “God bless you” into “God damn you.”
A peculiar curl of the upper lip would change an inquiry into the state
of a man’s health into a doubt as to the morality of his ancestors. A
shrug of the left shoulder would make out of a fervid “I love you” as
fervid an “I hate you”; whilst a shrug of the right shoulder would
change it into “I despise you.” The eye had to be on the alert as well
as the ear in finding out what a man meant; and every limb had to be
watched as well as every feature of the face.

The dropping of the lid of the eye, left or right, could impart to a
sentence, or even to a whole conversation, meanings so radically
different that I became nervously conscious of every involuntary
twitching as I talked; it might imply sinister intention, or confidence
partial or complete; it might convey compliment or insult. It depended
on the amount of the eye left uncovered, on the rapidity or slowness of
the motion, and on the eye in which it took place. But, most bewildering
of all, every depression of the optic shade varied in meaning according
to the sex of the person addressed and the person addressing, and the
presence of both sexes, or only one. The raising of the eyebrow had,
similarly, a whole grammar and dictionary to itself.

But perhaps the most difficult and dangerous of all the sections of
their language was the use of the nose in conversation. For both piety
and lewdness had seized upon this obtrusive organ as their own. If a
phrase or word was snuffled up through the nasal channel, it might
express either gathering devotion or rising passion; only a member of
the inner social circle could tell to a nicety which it meant, for the
former was not often accompanied with the elevation of the eye to
heaven, nor the latter with obscene gesture.

I would have abandoned the task of mastering the various grammars and
dictionaries but for the enthusiasm of my tutor. He believed that
nothing ever existed so much worth learning—except what were called the
rotten tongues. These were two languages that had been spoken centuries
before by a race now despised, if not extinct; it was a hotly discussed
question who were its descendants, and, in order to avoid the awkward
necessity of seeming to follow the lead of a now debased people, the
usual course was to deny their existence or their connection with the
sacred or rotten tongues—Thribbaty and Slapyak. The great books of their
religion were studied in these; for, although it was quite a different
language in which they were supposed to have been originally
communicated to men, the missionaries who had established the faith in
this country had spoken in either Thribbaty or Slapyak, and the ritual
had been for ages written in these. A great political revolution had
changed all this generations before, and the holy writings were read and
the prayers and public functions performed in the vernacular. But it had
become the custom for orators, wits, and men of the world to adorn their
speech with words and phrases and quotations from the rotten or interred
tongues, though all their best wisdom and thought had been incorporated
in the native literature, and the stage of civilisation and especially
ethics that they represented had long been antiquated. They had come to
be the most valued shibboleth of the privileged classes, the barrier
which none but the most nimble and daring wits of the mob could
overleap. On them, therefore, was based all education; to their
acquisition were attached all the great prizes of state. On an apt
quotation from them some of the greatest reputations had been founded.
By a dissertation on some obscure point of their grammar the ablest
statesmen had leapt into office. They were spoken of as the highroads to
greatness and power.

Recently doubt had arisen as to their sacredness, their supremacy, and
their monopoly of wisdom and thought, culture and education. For many of
the youth of the poor and unprivileged had begun to show great aptitude
for them, whilst the gilded youth groaned under the burden of their
acquisition. But the intellect of the nation was on their side, and
still more the conservatism of official life, hating, as it does, to
learn some new routine. So it was shown how noble they were, how fit
they alone were to be true instruments of education, and how a real
knowledge of the vernacular could be acquired only through them. As I
read the numerous philippics against the advocates of the new learning,
I felt that it would be well-nigh profanity to neglect these marvellous
rotten tongues.

Once I knew how much depended on them, I entered on their acquisition
with great zeal, and found it an easier task than learning the grammars
and dictionaries of tone, and gesture, and facial expression. I had been
bilingual in my youth, speaking in the dialect of my mother and writing
literary English; and thus new languages came easily to me. My teacher
swelled with pride over my progress, though I think he had little to do
with it. But my success in this lessened his labours in teaching me the
shadings of his own tongue, for it minimised my despair.

And something, indeed, was needed to overcome my aversion to the
subtleties of their overspeech. Cautious as my pedagogue was in
introducing me to new sections of it, I was almost daily stumbling into
them. One day, thinking to put him into good humour, I had referred to
him as a great scholar; I was startled to find him grow red as if at an
insult; and he had to show me that the attitude I had been in (I had
been leaning my forehead on my forefinger) had turned the word into
“addlehead.” Another day I spoke of him as “well-bred,” with the same
result; and he had to explain to me that, blowing my nose as I had been
at the time, I had made the word mean “nincompoop.” And he had to
initiate me into the whole by-play of the handkerchief; it took me days
to master the infinite variety of meaning conveyed by its varied
manipulation. By ladies it was not so frequently used; the scent-bottle
took its place. And by its aid the gentler sex could woo, propose, and
win with as great ease as the other and with far less indiscretion in
word.

There was not an ornament or free appendage about fashionable dress but
was brought to bear in the expression of shades of thought and
emotion—the eyeglass, the key-ring, the chatelaine, the fan, the
shoe-tie, the garter; the slightest motion of each of these was pregnant
with meaning, and a mistake in their use might lead to serious
consequences; for almost every word contained in germ senses that were
often contradictory. The word for “good” also meant “feeble” or “silly,”
that for “vice” also meant “pleasure.” The same word stood for “heaven”
and “the purgatory of fools,” another for “well-born” and “idiot,”
another for “gentlemanly” and “inconsiderate,” another for
“well-mannered” and “apish,” and still another for “genius” and
“lunatic.” So love and lust, fashion and gas, insult and courage,
fornication and marriage, harlot and messenger of the deity, deception
and artistic power, impudence and prayer, bankruptcy and good luck,
illegitimacy and the legal profession, beautiful woman and hag, sage and
pedant, murder and nobility, candour and credulity, sword and stigma,
infallible utterance and absurd error, wise saying and despicable thing,
universal religion and bigotry, worship and play the hypocrite, to
please and to conjure, to knock down and to co-operate, wit and vanity,
to prepare food and to embezzle, courtier and pimp, sacred rite and
vexation—each of these pairs had but one expression for both.

I characterised the language that could be so double in its meaning as
insincere and barbarous. My school-master argued that the two meanings
were in each case naturally connected and that nothing so subtle or
refined had ever existed; he hesitated and added, “except Thribbaty and
Slapyak. It is the highest stage of social development to have a
language so ambiguous and difficult that it takes the greatest wits to
manage it. Look at the common people; they have but one meaning, the
more concrete and physical, for each word; and the result is boorish and
superficial.” I called his attention to the simple and direct
signification of the words in the admired rotten tongues. He assured me
that I was mistaken; great scholars had shown how there were depths
beyond depths of reflected and refracted meaning in every word of the
great Thribs and Slaps. “And was it natural that two peoples such as
these, ignoring, as they did, nay despising, truthfulness as a virtue,
should leave their language so unrefined, superficial, and
straightforward as they seemed to untrained eyes? To tell the truth in
clear and unambiguous language is the mark of barbarity. It is their
very example that has led us to hide truth like a precious treasure in
wrappings of subtlety. We shrink from exhibiting her to vulgar eyes. It
would be but sacrilege. And our greatest investigators have shown _a
priori_ that nations like the Thribs and Slaps could not have existed
without overspeech like ours to express the subtle shades of emotion and
thought.”

There still lingered in me grave doubts whether, if this were the
contribution of the rotten tongues, they had been of any great service
to the nation. It had already puzzled me to think that a people who
glorified truth (calling their land Aleofane, as they often explained to
me, “the gem of truth”) should take as their model two ancient nations
that held this virtue but lightly, that it should almost deify purity of
life and modesty, and yet bring up its youth on two literatures that
laughed at these. The moral ideals of this people had been the scorn of
the Thribs and Slaps.

But I had not command enough of the language to express these thoughts,
and I had to accept his apology for the rotten tongues. I was soon able
to adorn my conversation with fragments of them and roll Thribbaty and
Slapyak words and phrases off with unctuous gusto, as if they settled
every question. It was a great satisfaction to feel that without
intellectual effort one could knock down his opponent in argument by a
quotation, however little one understood it. And it gave one a blessed
sense of superiority to rattle off a long word or phrase that others
could not understand.

After I had gained skill in the use of the speech and the overspeech and
the rotten tongues I thought my task was done. But I found there was
almost as much to learn before I could enter into their highest social
life. Assisted by a posture-master, he initiated me into all the
niceties of fashionable conduct. I had to learn the methods of address
to every caste in society and to every rank in official life. The most
reverential terms were employed very freely: “Your noblest highness in
the universe,” “Your most serene godship,” “Your most beautiful ladyship
upon earth,” “Your most reverent of all sages.” I protested against the
indiscriminate use of such fulsome flattery. But it was explained to me
that all this was neutralised in the next section of deportment. I was
taught to reverse or cancel every compliment I was paying by a peculiar
use of the facial features as I bowed. I could even turn the flattery
into a curse when I had become skilled enough in the practice of oaths
and oath-making gestures. I wondered how it was possible to conceal from
the person addressed such reversal of compliments paid to him. And here
the posture-master stepped in. He told me I must be ignorant of the
barest elements of deportment, when I did not know how to bear the body
in addressing high social functionaries. He laughed at my innocence in
thinking that we should turn face to face and bow or shake hands. That
had been the custom in ancient and barbarous times, before the great
period of King Kallipyges and his queen. But for generations the proper
method had been to turn back to back and bow gracefully; and if the two
wished to show special fervour, they then ran butt at each other. This
monarch had had a most repulsive face, whilst both he and his queen
looked magnificent from behind. Hence the change. I did not dare to
laugh. But it was a hard task to conceal my amusement when he explained
that one of the most delicate attentions a superior could pay to an
inferior was to face round after the preliminary posterior bow and raise
the point of the right shoe to his nether garments. It took me several
weeks to acquire ease in all these details of deportment.

And it was well that I had learned them and reduced them to commonplace
by familiarity. For when my old pedagogue and cicerone led me into
society, the sight of the posterior bowings and scrapings was almost too
much for me.

[Illustration]

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[Illustration]

CHAPTER V

ALEOFANIAN SOCIETY AND RELIGION

LIKE their language, their social fabric was an intricate work of art,
and it took me months to understand even its elementary lessons and
principles. It had the qualities of all great products of nature or
human industry; its structure at the first glance was simple and clear;
but it would have taken the lifetime of Methuselah to study out its
meanings and principles. Those who belonged to the inner circles, of
course, knew the whole code of conduct; but they kept a judicious
silence on disputed points, and nearly all points were disputed. It was
perfectly simple, they said; in fact, they would not condescend to
explain the obvious. I was perpetually meeting difficulties, but they
smiled a superior smile and let me flounder. Even my old tutor threw
mystery round the topic and indulged in smiling silence over my
bewilderment. I have little doubt that what seemed paradox and
contradiction to me was to them clear and harmonious.

The first principle of their life was, I was assured on all sides,
devotion to truth. The name of their country, Aleofane, meant, they
insisted, the gem of truth. Every statement they made was prefaced with
an appeal to truth in the abstract, and ended, if it were of any length,
with an apostrophe to the deity as the god of truth. Their favourite
oaths had reference to the virtue of truthfulness. Their greatest heroes
never told a lie, as the tombstones and biographies showed in letters of
gold. Their commonest form of asseveration was, “May all the spirits of
dead truth-speakers testify,” or “In the name of all who have been great
and truthful.” And in every one of their courts of law and
witnessing-places there was a copy of their sacred books; and this had
grown greasy with the kisses of myriads of these Aleofanians, swearing
upon it to the truth of what they said. Nay, the expletive that entered
into every second phrase of conversation—“dyoos”—was the popular remains
of a prayer that perdition might catch their souls if they did not speak
the truth.

I had found an ideal people. This was my reflection as I discovered how
deep was their reverence for truth—so candid were they, and yet so
courteous. With my own crude knowledge of their language and
conventions, I was ever stumbling into some too candid statement that my
tutor advised me to withdraw. That was but a small check to my great joy
in finding a people so sincere, so removed from all falsity. Wherever I
went I found statues of Truth or of the heroes of truthfulness; there
were temples and shrines specially devoted to Her worship; and the
sacred books of the people were the embodiment of absolute truth
concerning the universe. Some, if not most, of the historical statements
in these and all of their representations of the laws and processes of
nature had been challenged by latter-day investigators as contrary to
fact. But the priests and theologians had amply shown how these writers
had, with their eyes blinded and uninspired, taken the crude superficial
sense and failed to penetrate beneath the veil under which the truth
sheltered itself from the profane gaze. Daily they prelected on the
hidden meaning of their inspired literature; but the people were so
convinced of the greatness of truth and the safeness of the hands to
which absolute truth had been intrusted, that few or none ever listened
to these prelections, for if any went to hear them, they fell promptly
asleep in order to show how unquestioning was their faith. It was one of
the most convincing testimonies, I was assured, to the inspiration of
their sacred books and the supremacy of Aleofanian worship—this
child-like trust of the people; nay, I have heard priests declare that,
as they read or spoke their defences of the absolute truth of their
religion, the nasal confession of implicit faith that rang through the
temple seemed to them like the trumpets of heaven proclaiming theirs the
only true creed on earth. Ah! the devotion of these men to truth!
Nothing could stand in its way. Their predecessors in former ages had
tortured with the greatest ingenuity, disembowelled, roasted alive the
deniers or questioners of the truth of their tenets, so much did they
love that truth. And these guardians of it would have done the same but
for the sweetness and nobleness of their courtesy and forbearance. They
went so far as to hold that even the precepts, if not the spirit, of
their absolute truth must be disregarded at times, when dealing with
those who would throw doubt upon it. What was there to compensate for
its loss in life, if once it were allowed to be questioned? “Truth first
and all the world after” was a favourite saying. And they considered
that they might violate all the temporal and local laws and forms of
truth in order to preserve intact and undoubted truth absolute, seeing
that they had it amongst them in written form. It was all for the good
of the race and the creed, _i.e._, the ultimate good of the whole
universe. Little wonder that the Aleofanians, whether dead or alive,
could sleep at peace within the temple walls! “The truth must be
believed in by all even at the cost of truth”; this was the motto of
these noble guardians of the faith.

[Illustration]

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[Illustration]

CHAPTER VI

ALEOFANIAN DEVOTION TO TRUTH

MY admiration grew as I gradually discovered how everything in this
wonderful country gave way before this great virtue. It was the first
lesson taught the child; it was the last injunction of the dying
Aleofanian to his friends as they stood round his death-bed. Every other
book that was published had this as a moral, that truth would prevail;
all their biography and history had this as their ultimate teaching; the
schoolbooks were compiled with this in view; the copy-books had as their
headlines the favourite proverbs on the theme, such as “Tell the truth
and shame the fiends,” “Nothing but truth will butter your bread,” “The
root of all evil is untruth,” “Truth is the good man’s friend, the
sinner’s foe,” “Truth is her own reward.” The popular songs and lyrics
had this virtue as their chief stock-in-trade, for embellishments and
even for topics. “True, true, love” was the parrot note of all the
songsters. Beauty was but the other side of truth, truth the only claim
to beauty. All sentiment played round the loyalty and candour of
friends. On the tombstones were the headlines from the copy-books and
the texts from the sacred writings that dealt with eulogy of the virtue.
The graveyard was a perfect school of the prophets. So, too, was every
hoarding and blank wall; for every seller of goods lavishly advertised
their “truth.”

I had grave embarrassments when I came to look at the practice of the
people in this light that beat upon their lives. But these were owing to
my ignorance of the language and the conventions. At every new paradox I
felt I was a mere novice.

I had changed my place of residence to a public hostelry in the marble
city as soon as my tutor thought I was sufficiently instructed not to
shock people by my alien speech or ways. I had found no difficulty in
negotiating and paying when I lived in the district of the poor. Now I
misunderstood every week some term of the agreement, and the mistake
always turned out to my disadvantage. It showed the selfishness of my
European human nature that I should always have interpreted the words to
my own benefit. And the correction was made with such courtesy, and so
many and so profuse apologies that I rejoiced at the mistake as an
opportunity of revealing the noble natures of the hosts. They never lost
their good temper and suavity, however often they had to correct these
financial blunders on my part. I began to feel that the ambiguity of
their language was a wise provision of nature for bringing out the
perfection of their manners in dealing with strangers and for allowing
them to compensate themselves financially for their forbearance. My
bills were generally double what I expected them to be; but I considered
myself amply repaid by the gracious manner in which I was set right. The
geometrical progression of my cost of living compelled me reluctantly to
change my hostelry from time to time, and bid farewell to numerous suave
and apologetic hosts.

I could have, if I had desired, spent all my sojourn after the first few
weeks in private houses, so profuse was the offer of hospitality. It was
a grievous thing to each host, as he proffered me the kindness, that
just at that moment his house was in disorder; in fact it was in process
of getting renewed and prepared for my reception, and he would not
dishonour me by asking me to come during such a period of confusion. At
last the invitations were so many that I dared not accept any one lest I
should have to accept all; and it would have taken the lifetime of a
Methuselah to fulfil the engagements. How deeply they grieved over this,
they kept reminding me. And their grief was ever driving them to my
hostelry and rooms that they might pour it out over my well-laden table.
I shall not soon forget the fervour with which they shared in my
victuals for my sake and performed the dorsal salutation. I never had
such a multitude of true friends in my life. Each would deal with me as
if we were the only two beings in the whole world worth a thought, and
as if nothing could untie the knot of friendship. What looks of
admiration they dealt me! At the close of every interview I felt how
great and good we both were, what a genius I was, what a noble fellow he
was. And so devoted did many of them become to me as a friend that they
overcame their sense of dignity so far as to borrow from me. I was
weighed down with the great burden of honour that was heaped upon me.

The greatest embarrassment from the wealth of their friendship was the
number of those that claimed it. Each social circle, each member of it,
came to daggers drawn with every other over me. And I began to feel
myself one of the most unfortunate of beings, to have introduced such
internecine strife amongst so peaceful and noble a people. I thought at
times that the whole of the upper classes were on the verge of civil war
over me, and that there would soon be universal bloodshed and
annihilation. But the gentleness of their natures and the ambiguity of
their tongue again stood them in good stead. They went so far as
charging one another with the sin that was unpardonable amongst them,
that of lying. But it turned out to be only a misunderstanding in each
case; the double meaning of their words was a special provision of
nature for keeping the peace. They fell on each other’s neck and wept.
Oh, how blessed was the equivocalness of the Aleofanian tongue! When
everything had been settled amicably, most of them, to prove their
friendship and devotion to me, took another loan from me. And I was
fully compensated by the grace with which they conferred the favour.

As great generosity did they show in dealing with the reputations of
their neighbours and fellow-citizens. It was cheering, indeed, to my
feeling of human kindness to hear them eulogise each other. Even the
marvellous riches of their vocabulary were found scant in the expression
of their mutual love and admiration. Their ancestors had laid out much
of their great talent for eulogy on the manufacture of language for it,
and especially of titles of address. They had, as it were, established
out of their linguistic wealth a great national bank of panegyric; and
any one of the people of the marble city might draw upon it at any
moment and to any extent, so nearly boundless were its resources. I have
now none of that false modesty which is encouraged in your civilisation
to shrink from the estimation or statement of one’s own merits, because
I have ceased to have any egotism or over-consciousness of myself; and
yet to this day I hesitate to quote some of the methods of address used
to me and the encomiums passed upon me. It was only their profanity that
prevented me from bursting into laughter at their exaggeration. I was
classed with the divinities; the attributes of godhead were applied to
me. “O celestial person,” “O propitiable refuge of the world,” were
amongst the least offensive. But I am bound to say that, when I went
into the higher ranks of society, especially into the court, I found
them most impartially peppered over the company. And it was in the same
lavish spirit that the fixed titles of the nobility and other ranks had
been measured out. They seemed to be proportionate to the acreage of the
lands from which the nucleus of each was drawn. There was a law that
superiors were to be allowed to reduce them to one thousandth part of
their usual size, and equals to one hundredth part, except on ceremonial
occasions. It was passed after a great social upheaval in which the
political faction called The Economisers of Time won the day. It would
never have succeeded but for a new king who by the death of many
intermediate claimants to the throne had been raised out of comparative
obscurity, and who delighted in outraging the proprieties. Moreover, he
was somewhat asthmatic, and royal interviews had often to be postponed
indefinitely because the royal lungs broke down in the middle of some
official’s name. Even after so many generations it was keen agony for
most of the nobility to hear the monarch address the Serene
Superintendent of the Royal Vaults as Nip, or the Grand Deputy
Supervisor of the Royal Laundry Women as Tubby, the mere preliminary
syllables of their acre-broad names. It was occasionally a relief to get
into the lower ranks of this noble society, for then the difficulty of
remembering and uttering the names of the people I met was complicated
only by a few hyphens.

But here, too, hosannas rang in every term of address and every opening
sentence. And thus having handsomely credited their neighbours and
friends with so much, they felt that the debit side of life’s account
was all the larger. It was a sharp agony, they each told me, to lay bare
the faults of those whom they so much loved and admired; but it was
their painful duty so to do. How could the state be cured of its evils
if this was not done? How could spiritual pride be subdued if the faults
of men were not laid bare? It was a world of sorrow and care, and they
had their full share of it in thus serving their friends and fellows. I
had therefore the character of every man and woman whom I came to know
faithfully analysed from a hundred different points of view. And though
at times my critical friends seemed to enjoy the anatomy of others, it
was, I was assured, only as the surgeon enjoys his own skill when he
works with his knife in cutting out malignant growths. They were indeed
most skilful anatomists of character. But it was all in the way of
discipline; they had to disparage those who were praised too much, and
sow scandal about those who had too good reputation lest that vile
contagion of pride should fall on the community. It was an agonising
duty to perform, but they had performed it without flinching; and they
had already poured balm upon the coming wounds by preliminary eulogies
drawn from the ancestral stock of curative panegyric.

Most of their social institutions and conduct had some disciplinary
purpose. I often saw men and women meet their friends with a frown or
pass them by with gloom on their faces. On asking, I found it was
generally to cure the spiritual pride or some other defect in these
friends that this sadness was assumed. I wondered, too, at the minute
division into social circles that professed to be rigidly exclusive, but
really overlapped, and at the haughty scorn with which a member of one a
step higher in the scale would treat some other citizen who seemed to me
infinitely his superior in both morals and manners, if not also in
intellect and capacity. I found that all this was based on the same
principle. The spirits of men and women had to be preserved from defect
that the state might remain secure. This was the true scheme of nature
that each man should be his brother’s keeper; and by these fences and
folds they kept their brothers apart so that they might be draughted up
or down. And in order to keep these fences ungapped they had to exercise
their hauteur and scorn. How many unhappy hours they gave themselves
thus for the good of their brethren and the state! What brotherly love,
what patriotism shone behind the frown upon their brow or the curl of
the lip or the effort to point their long noses heavenward! It was
especially evident in all large gatherings of the purest blood of the
marble city; for then the moral spread, the lesson had its fullest
effect.

The minute gradations of social life represented in the shades of this
mutual discipline puzzled me even more than their dictionaries of
overspeech. I could never reach solid ground in them. Once I thought I
had found the very innermost social circle, where none could curl the
lip at another. It included the family of the king and the monarch
himself. I was speaking with some intimacy to the highest noble of this
grade, and remarked to him in a confident tone that I supposed the king
and he were the noblest efflorescence of this world’s aristocracy. “Ay,
if only that blot had not smirched the royal pedigree a thousand years
ago,” slid out of the curling lips. What a giddy pinnacle he seemed to
stand on, this king-scorning aristocrat! He must have longed for other
worlds to scorn and patronise and discipline. Mere human insignificance
was too far beneath him to exercise his nasal elevation upon. I dared
not affront him by revealing my ignorance of his ancestry. But I at once
assumed that it was divine, when it could produce such sublimity of
social solitude and noble blood.

It was a height which must have intoxicated him to think of. For he had
only to turn to the literature of his nation to see it assumed that not
only had there never been a nobler people upon earth, but that according
to reasoning from first principles there could not be another to surpass
it. This fundamental axiom was never overtly stated except in
controversial pamphlets that had been issued against the contemptible
claims of nations in other islets of the archipelago. But in their
science and philosophy it was the tacit foundation of all reasonings and
conclusions. Every scientist in making observations of nature or basing
a law upon them had in his mind as an undisputed truth that this world
was the only world that was worth considering, and that Aleofanian
nature was nature absolute; what other peoples did or saw differently
was abnormal, a mere departure from the scheme of creation. Every
economist, much as he might disagree with others, ever agreed with them
in this: that the system of industry and wealth and classes that then
existed in Aleofane was the final economical system of human society; it
might be and must be modified in details, but its great central
principle was the only one that could keep mankind in proper gradation
and subordination. Philosophy investigated Aleofanian humanity and
systems and analysed the Aleofanian mind that it might show forth the
divine plan of the universe. As for art, what else was worth admiring
than what the Aleofanians admired? And by the Aleofanians was meant
those of them who were in society. The philosophers had only to get at
the abstract principle that lay behind Aleofanian music and
architecture, painting and sculpture, and they would have the final
secret of beauty, the ultimate principle of all art.

The only thing that shocked me almost past recovery was the application
of this axiom to the sphere of religion. Brought up as I had been, a
Christian amongst Christians, I felt that I had only to state to them
the great and undisputed doctrines and the practical precepts of
Christianity to make them turn from their idolatry of other gods, and
their crude ideas of worship. What was my surprise and anguish to find
even the most vulgar and least educated amongst them turn on me with a
patronising smile and deal with me as if I were a child or a mild
lunatic who had got adrift and had to be shepherded! They would not
condescend to argue with me, and as I reiterated or argued, they only
laughed louder at my simplicity. I had at last to cease speaking of my
own religion and suffer my agony in silence. It was true that they were
split up into innumerable sects, and many utterly denied the existence
of their gods; but the sectarians were winked at or perhaps loftily
scorned; for they at least accepted the fundamental tenets; whilst the
atheists were endured, inasmuch as it was the Aleofanian gods they
denied and thus made superior to the false gods of other races. Some two
thirds of the population never entered the doors of the great temples;
but there was much satisfaction in feeling that they entered the temples
of no other gods, and that all their incomes gave evidence of their
devotion to the Aleofanian worship by contributing one tenth each year
for its support through the state treasury. The other third of the
population were directly or indirectly interested in the temple
revenues; every family had one member at least drawing a large salary
from it by honouring it with his presence once or twice a year as
superintendent when its worship was proceeding.

The principle of the religion was self-denial; but as one of their
soundest philosophers had shown that all the world was practically
included in the self or ego, inasmuch as thought was the perpetual
creator of the world, and the chief element of the ego was thought, the
inconveniences of the principle were avoided without sacrificing any of
its glory or integrity. Their desires and appetites formed but an
infinitesimal fraction of a self that included the whole planet, and an
act of devotion once a year was more than enough to fulfil the duty of
self-denial. The other and larger portion of the self, consisting
chiefly of other people, they gladly mortified and denied and
sacrificed; such incense was ever rising from the altars of their gods.
The priests who performed the services and inculcated the precepts and
explained the tenets showed in their emaciated frames and starved
families how great the sacrifice of the deputy-self. Forgers,
embezzlers, debtors who could not pay their debts, and in short all
financial criminals were allowed to expiate their sins by devoting
themselves for life to the service of a temple for little or nothing,
generally the latter. Thus no people in the world did so much for the
central principle of religion, that of self-sacrifice.

Not that the gilded race delegated all the duty. They lavished their
wealth upon the art of the temples. The altars shone with precious
marbles and stones; brilliant mosaics covered the floors and the walls;
the domes were frescoed by the greatest painters and niched by the best
sculptors. Some of their temples were so noble and spacious and adorned
that the value of an empire seemed spent on them, and the poor human
voice of the priest as he prayed or prelected sounded like the buzzing
of a fly on a distant window-pane. And the robes that hung upon the
framework of the skeleton-officiator were stiff with jewelry and
brocade. It happened occasionally that one of the wealthy
superintendents of religion had a gift of oratory, and then you would
find his well-fed outlines filling the gorgeous vestments and his
luxurious voice filling his temple and drawing crowds. And there again
the self-sacrifice came in; every follower of his, especially of the
opposite sex, gave up time and money to his welfare; and great fortunes
were spent on this act of worship. The garments of the worshippers
displayed as gorgeous art as the temple itself that all might be in
unison in pleasing the gods.

But most of all were the gods supposed to be pleased by efforts to
persuade the outer world to their creed. The zealous were greatly
troubled at the obstinacy of the peoples of the other islets, who
refused to turn from their own shade of piety and belief; I was assured
that they were sunk in depravity and sin; for millions had been spent on
their conversion, and in the long years only a few had been gathered
into the fold. But these few were so well-kept and prosperous that they
became shining examples to their infidel brethren. Ah, the fervour, the
devotion, the self-sacrifice, the millions lavished upon these aliens!
One must have been valued as much by the gods as a thousand Aleofanians
brought up to the Aleofane worship. For tens of thousands huddled
together in the fold, heedless of their own spiritual welfare, ignoring
the existence of the temples, starving, unkempt, and ragged. Never were
the grimy mob permitted to soil the precincts of the holy places, or to
mar the beauty of the art displayed in them by the inhabitants of the
marble city. To see the squalor of the labouring horde, I was told,
would have cancelled the noblest acts of their artistic worship, would
have made the gods to faint.

I have spoken of their gods; but they would have held it profanity so to
speak. They had been polytheists in prehistoric times, and the
missionaries who had introduced monotheism had been astute enough to
take the best of their deities and find them in the qualities of the
one. The generations of subtle divines that came between had solved all
the difficulties of having many deities rolled into one, so that the
Aleofanian mind found it no sacrilege to deify a dead hero or erect a
shrine to one of their prehistoric deities, whilst they persecuted to
the death anyone who dared to deny the unity of godhead. Just as there
were myriads of stars and but one cosmos, so, they said, there were
innumerable manifestations of the deity and but one god. They were
ashamed of the polytheism of their ancestors, and as converts to the
true faith would have no slur upon it. Men might have no creed if they
pleased; but if they had a creed, it must be in one god and his
religion. Their theologians had discussed for centuries the manner in
which the various old gods and new saints coalesced into one; but none
of them had the folly to deny the unity. There had been and still
existed a score or more of theological schools, each of which agonised
over the stupidity and unreasonableness of the rest in their explanation
of the unification. The dominant school used to roast or rack their
heresies out of their opponents; they still roasted and racked, but only
socially and politically; the spirit was as true to zeal for the one
faith, only the method had changed. And their library shelves groaned
with volumes of anathemas reasoned or unreasoned.

They prided themselves on their perfect command of reason; they could
adapt it to any purpose, so skilled had they become in its use. And they
assumed as a first principle of conduct that they had reached the final
truth on all things in earth or heaven. Only reason could teach truth;
and they alone of all people in the world had mastery of reasoning. The
common beliefs of the nation were therefore absolute truth; and each
acted on the maxim that what he persuaded himself of was unconditioned
truth. Amongst a less subtle people this would have meant continual
quarrel; but with them the ambiguity of their language stepped in as
peacemaker. A disagreement never came to anything serious; it was always
found to be a misunderstanding of words.

They had no need to state this syllogism to themselves; it was at the
foundation of their conduct and beliefs. They scorned the art, the
literature, the philosophy of all other peoples as poor trivial
monstrosities, permissible, of course, in a world of variety like ours,
but ridiculous in the extreme. It was useless for a stranger like myself
to criticise them and their civilisation; I was only wasting my breath
and affording them occasion for laughing at my inordinate vanity.

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[Illustration]

CHAPTER VII

SOCIAL CUSTOMS

THE first time that I went to a high-rank social entertainment of
theirs, I broke into a hearty laugh at the spectacle as I entered; but I
came to regret my imprudence. There were the select of the marble city,
including the royal family, turning Catherine-wheels round the room in
pairs to the sound of quick music; even fat old dowagers with bombasted
breeches on kept up the frantic exercise, the perspiration pouring from
their brows. It was a large room lit with hundreds of lamps, and round
it again and again each pair had to roll, and as I looked at the stately
nobles and dames head downwards my thoughts turned back to the street
arabs of my native land and their cry, “Stand on my head for a penny,”
and I burst again into a laugh. My guide and introducer ignored the
first; but at the second he turned round on me with questioning
surprise. I was soon sobered, and turned away to smother my amusement.
Another friend came up to greet me, and he at once burst into loud
admiration of the scene. “Was it not noble? It was the finest flower of
all art to see the most beautiful and high-blooded of men and women
letting their souls forth in harmony, glowing with colour and life;
surely this was the sight of sights; it was the very poetry of motion;
what grace! what beauty and roundedness of calf! was it not joy to see
the fair twinkling feet in the air, and in a moment so the solid floor
again, pair with pair? It was indeed the music of the spheres, this
revolution of the extremities round the centre of gravity; it was a copy
of the motion of the great universe, sex with sex in unison pointing
alternate head and feet to the zenith. Where else in the world could
such a spectacle be seen?”

I acknowledged with as much gravity as I could command that I had never
seen anything like it. And I must concede that after a time the whirl of
bodies, as the music quickened, half intoxicated my judgment and made me
almost long to join in the general somersault; the rhythm of so many
feet and heads flying through the air fired my blood to fever heat, and
as I looked on, my sense of the absurdity of the scene entirely
disappeared; I became a partisan of the exercise and could see nothing
but grace and harmony in it. I felt almost ashamed of my burst of
laughter, though afterwards, when I retired to my hostelry and cooled
down, the sense of incongruity returned, and I laughed heartily at the
memory of haughty aristocrats standing on their heads, and the legs of
shrivelled dowagers revolving like spokes of a wheel.

I found on inquiry that a considerable portion of their youth was spent
in acquiring ease at this indoor exercise. Women especially gave the
best of their days and nights to “fallallaroo,” the name by which they
called this art of rhythmical gyration, for they found it was their best
means of ingratiating themselves with the promising young men; and most
of the resolves to marry were formed in the meetings for fallallaroo. It
was said by some physicians to produce certain common diseases, but the
gilded society held that it was productive of health; they knew so from
their own experience. Even the old men and women with grey hair and
shrunken shanks kept up the exhausting exercise, for to leave it off was
universally considered the sign of approaching age. It had been
introduced by a monarch who had suffered from vertigo and St. Vitus’s
dance, but tradition had hallowed it and poetry had surrounded it with
romance. And now it would have been like tearing up the roots of society
to abolish it.

Another custom that was considered almost sacred tried my nerves still
more. The men usually wore a bamboo behind their right ear, and whenever
they were at leisure, and as often when they were not, they would take
it out and fill one end with the dried leaves of a vile plant called
kooannoo, not unlike a coprosma, and in smell pure assafœtida, and
lighting it, stick the other end into one of their nostrils. Every
expiration of breath sent forth a cloud of smoke and every inspiration
drew some of it in; but they had grown so expert in the practice that
they could always prevent it getting into the mouth or the throat, even
when they were talking vigorously. The smell was something intolerable,
and reminded me of burning heaps of rubbish and manure. In their more
candid moods and when they were not themselves engaged in the practice,
they acknowledged the likeness, especially on going into the lower
quarters of the city; for there, in order to produce the fashionable
flavour and smell, the kooannoo-sellers were accustomed to steep broad
leaves in mire for a time, and drying them make them up as kooannoo;
nay, some of the poor, when they could not afford to buy the leaf,
openly stuck pieces of dried earth into their bamboos and lit them, and
many of them adhered to the practice when they were better off,
preferring the flavour and smell to those of the fashionable leaf.

I was surprised at the agonies the young men underwent in learning the
loathsome habit, such nausea and pallor and misery overspread their
whole frame; and it was only by the loss of all delicacy of smell and
taste that they at last mastered the loathing and qualms; no refined
senses could live within reach of the smoke. It was undoubtedly one of
the acts of heroic stoicism on the part of the nation; they assured me
that it was one of their disciplines for the subjugation of the body.
But it acted, as most of their disciplines did, in an altruistic way; it
had destroyed the fine sensations of the kooannooers themselves; but
their neighbours, who had not learned, and especially women, suffered
daily the agonies of disgust. And the agonies were undergone without a
murmur, nay, with a smile upon the face, for the practice was almost
universal amongst the highest class and in the royal family.

The origin was difficult to get at. But it seems that in some past age a
number of the younger sons of aristocratic families had gone out in
search of adventure; and during a period of great straits they had
learned from a tribe of savages to eat and burn kooannoo in order to
subdue the pangs of hunger. When they got food at last, they felt proud
of an accomplishment that they had learned with so much agony, and, as
they had ceased to suffer from it, they brought it home with them
amongst other practices copied from the wild men. Their wonderful
adventures made them the fashion; and all the youths set themselves to
copy this, the most striking of their habits, counting it as the truest
mark of manliness and courage. Having acquired it with so much suffering
and difficulty, they would not easily give it up when it had ceased to
disgust them. When kooannooing, they could sit silent with dignity
whilst others talked; and it gave them a certain semblance of
superiority to others, as they kept the red in their cheeks whilst
others around who did not use the bamboo grew pale and sick. They felt
masterful and heroic as they kooannooed, like the voyager who can resist
the approach of sea-sickness when his fellows succumb. So the habit
carried with it a certain overbearing rudeness and want of consideration
for others. Generation after generation of youth had come to count it as
the distinctive mark of manhood; and having learned the practice with
great suffering they could not forego the sense of triumph over those
who had not learned it; they were the braves of the nation; not to
bamboo was a sign of womanliness and delicacy of feeling; and men who
indulged such refinement and weakness ought to be disciplined along with
the women; they were intolerant with their fine sensations; the world
would not be worth living in if they had their way; it was time
something was done to bring them into order. And these kooannooers felt
most heroic and manly as they followed their loathsome practice. And
most of the women endured their stinking breath and clothes and the
agonies of nausea and headache in silence, or rather with the pretence
that the habit was most delightful. There was something in what they
said, that it soothed the men and put them into better humour; for when
a kooannooer had a bamboo in his nose he wore a self-complacent smile;
he felt manly and superior without the expenditure of any effort; his
vanity was flattered. Of course a number who did not bamboo showed that
the leaf acted as a poison and slowly sapped the health. But scientific
kooannooers replied that small doses of the poison killed nothing but
the germs of disease. They bambooed for the good of the public; they
were the national sanitarians and fumigators. It showed how patriotic
they were, when they persevered in the practice, though they knew that
it tended to destroy the germ of manners as well as of diseases. These
kooannooers were the most self-denying of philanthropists.

[Illustration]

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[Illustration]

CHAPTER VIII

ABSTINENCE

“WHY should they refrain from the gifts that God in His goodness had
bestowed on them?” Thus argued a party of gilded youth with me as they
polecatted the air of a gorgeous room with their bamboos. My senses had
so far resisted the paralysing fume and its nausea that they were able
to fumble about amongst arguments. And I tried to break their backs with
their own rod. “Why did the Aleofanians abstain so rigidly from God’s
good gift, the juice of the grape?” “You have got the stick by the wrong
end,” they laughed. And the bell-wether of them took up the tale. “God’s
gift is transformed into poison by fermentation—” “And so is kooannoo by
fire,” I broke in. “But pyranniddee” (so they called their intoxicating
spirit) “is seductive; kooannoo is repulsive; the one will master the
strongest man; the other has to be mastered.” I acknowledged the
correctness of his distinction, but urged that all pleasures and pains
in time suffer transmutation into their opposites; a habit, that in its
nascence is pleasing, becomes loathsome in its supremacy, and one that
is hard to learn gratifies the vanity, if not the senses, when mastered;
the stoic rampant revels in his stoicism and goes to all lengths with
it; the epicurean has soon skimmed the cream of his luxuries and has to
suppress all his other natural needs and desires like a stoic that he
may still the violence of his overgrown appetites or give them some
hard-won novelty; I envied the stoic his epicurean enjoyment of his
victory over life and passion; I pitied the epicurean wallowing in the
world, that sty of desire, all its best and most luscious things
trampled under foot. “But we have chosen a plant to bear whose fumes
must ever demand resolution—” I unhinged his sentence with, “Yes, in
those who cannot indulge in it.” “You speak truly,” he said, “and
therein lies the nobleness of the choice; it is the great philanthropic
plant; it is for the discipline and maturation of others that
kooannooers sacrifice their finer sensations.” This discussion would
have fallen into a scramble of wits; for it was hard by any means to get
the better of the subtlety of this people. So I held my peace. And as I
listened, I learned and admired. They were too wise and virtuous to tope
and guzzle and carouse. They would not steep their senses in sottish
oblivion. They would have no dealings with a poison that sapped the will
and made the human system all throat and liquid fire. Who would turn his
inwards into a chemist’s alembic, his skull into a vat?

I had heard eloquence like this in my own country and cowered before the
tornado; I knew there could be no safety but in flight.

They were indeed a most ascetic people in all but the use of words. I
tried in the first two or three hostelries to obtain a little wine; but
the attempt had such a paralysing effect on mine hosts that I had to
refrain. Anything that even smelt of fermentation was a horror. It is
true I had seen many wine-presses and distilleries in the lower part of
the town. But, it was explained, their products were meant for the shops
of chemists and for use in the preservation of fruit and museum
specimens. No freeman was allowed to touch the accursed thing; only
criminals and bondsmen were permitted within the walls of these
factories of the Stygian fluid, and then only under superintendence of
government agents, who commanded the position from smell-proof
view-points afar, lest even a whiff of the Tartarean brew should reach
their nostrils.

I now understood why these Aleofanians when analysing the character of
their neighbours always introduced, as the climax of the latter or
depreciatory part of their analysis, devotion to museums and to
fruit-preserving; and in the nearest approach I had seen two make to a
quarrel, the one hurled at the other the epithet “Olekloman,” or
museumist, and got in reply, “Poolp,” or fruit-preserver, whilst both
reddened as if stung. No house in the marble city was without a large
room devoted to natural history; every man was an enthusiastic collector
of biological specimens, and in this room there were long rows of
shelves of scarabæan bottles, each filled with some clear liquid in
which floated a bug or centipede or some small parasite. They were as
enthusiastic orchardists, and generally spent a third of the year in
bottling the fruits of their trees. Autumn was the time of their most
uproarious festivals and maddest junketings. This sober, staid, and
abstinent people broke loose like bacchanals. The fruit they indulged
in, they explained, fermented within them.

It was almost a painful spectacle for me after the admiration I had felt
for their self-abnegation. They had such a horror for all fermented
liquor that they called their devil and it by the same name, pyrannidee.
And one of the wise men philosophising over the annual outbreak of high
spirits said that, according to their own proverbial philosophy, the
best way to confine a devil was to swallow him and to keep him down; he
might pester the man who formed his prison-house, but he would be kept
from all other wickedness. Thus the autumn revel of merriment was
perhaps but another instance of the great virtue of the people, their
eagerness to save their neighbours from evil. They annually swallowed
the devil to prevent him, for a short time at least, from going about
like a roaring lion seeking whom he might devour.

At other times of the year I often found them, men as well as women,
sitting in their houses and shedding copious tears over the sadness of
this mortal state; so overwhelmed were they with the thought that their
words jostled one another in strange confusion; and if they rose to bid
me farewell, they fell upon my neck and wept, or collapsed in the
greatness of their grief upon the couch or floor. This tenderness of
heart was widespread amongst the upper classes; for days would they weep
thus over the woes of existence. And still more unmanning was their
sorrow for the death of friends; they would sit stupefied by the blow
for hours together, unable to speak articulately; and a whole week or
month of sickness and silent confinement to their bedroom would follow
the stroke. How sorely stricken this people were I could not have
realised but by my experience; the death of a dear friend occurred on an
average once a month in the life of some fashionable Aleofanians at
certain periods of the year, but especially during the severe season,
winter. And when they rose from bed and appeared in public, their
haggard, woebegone faces told the agony through which they had passed.
Surely fate was too hard upon this much-bereaved nation. As hard was it
upon their teeth; for the loss of a tooth under ether or stupefying gas
was equally frequent; one friend, whom I had to see often, suffered
grievously. I counted during my acquaintance with him forty-five losses
of a tooth under ether. But nature was strangely beneficent to the
Aleofanian jaw; she seemed to compensate for the losses almost
immediately: my friend had as many teeth when I left as when I saw him
first.

And with all these recurrent bereavements and the illnesses that
followed, you may imagine how important a functionary was the physician
in social life. He was the father-confessor of the household. He was
generally a soft-voiced, stooping-shouldered, silent-footed man. He
condescended and yet he flattered; he insinuated himself into a man’s
confidence, and still more into a woman’s, by veiled compliments; he
mastered by seeming to accept his patient’s opinions; he prescribed what
suited the appetites and desires; the subtlety of the race rose to its
highest in his profession, so skilfully had he to adapt himself to the
weaknesses of his clients; he knew all the secrets of the household and
built his omnipotence upon them; he had a feminine manner and a feminine
vein in his character, judgment and action through instinct, and a
passion for the minutenesses of life; and yet he piloted his way into
the mastery of the family through the women, who, in spite of his
womanliness, adored him; for he had learned by long tradition and
training how to make them abandon themselves body and soul to his
direction; their pains he knew how to soothe by anodynes; their troubles
and sorrows he made them forget by either spiritual or physical
consolation; he surrounded them with an atmosphere of belief in
themselves and him as the two select of the world; he quarantined them
from all other influences by flattery or pyrannidee; he dosed them with
well-sweetened gossip made powerful by being communicated in
confidential whispers and with oaths to secrecy; for he had command of
all the inner workings of the private life of a neighbourhood; and it
was one of the wonders of his power that most of the families which he
confessionalled were not on speaking terms with one another; he was
always sacrificing himself to bring about peace, and each of them
trusted him entirely; yet human nature is so prone to jealousy that they
refused his mediation and only listened to his soft-voiced details of
the inner life of their foes. What would the higher social life have
been in Aleofane without this silent-footed intermediary!

The chemist fulfilled the same important function for the poorer
classes. He sold the pyrannidee that the government factories made; but
he was restricted to using it for the cure of disease and the
assuagement of pain. And most of the grown-up population had a disease
to be cured and a pain to be assuaged every day, so sorely smitten were
they by fate, so long-suffering were they. It was one of the sights of
the city to see the kolako or the warehouses of the chemists at night;
crowds pressed into them by one door with agony depicted on their faces,
whilst out from the other sauntered patient after patient with a
wandering, nerveless smile upon his face, a jaunty, loose-gaited fashion
of throwing his limbs, and a whiff of pyrannidee in his breath; for if
it was not the medicine itself it was the medium of it, and he had left
his pain behind him in the store. Little wonder that the chemist was a
man of such power in Aleofane; he was generally of strong build and
swaggering gait and showed his masterfulness in every gesture; for he
had often severe muscular duties to perform; it seems that some of his
patients of the most abandoned and criminal classes, after being cured
of their pain or sickness, refused to leave his warehouse; seized by an
evil spirit, I was told, they would foam at the mouth, kick, and bite;
and it took great strength to tie them hand and foot and eject them.
Some of my friends in the marble city mourned over this possession by
wandering demons of the air; but they said it was only the degraded
whose bodies they entered.

The profession was one of the most lucrative in Aleofane, for one of its
essentials was great physical strength, and this was rarely to be found
in the gilded classes. I could pick out chemists in a crowd by their
brawny frame, bold gait, and short, well-knit stature. Their faces were
as a rule strong and corrugated with muscle and tense self-control; they
looked with an open and almost arrogant light in their eyes. Most of
them, I was told, were descendants of a few survivors from a wreck on
the coast, and there was occasionally a lurking fear that, with their
great influence over the lower part of the city, their strong will, and
their powerful squat frame, they might seize the reins of government;
but this was prevented by dividing their interests and sowing
dissensions and jealousies amongst them; the very largeness of the
incomes they made lowered their ambitions towards money-making; and this
made them fly asunder like globules of quicksilver.

But the contrast between them and the rest of the upper classes in
physical appearance was very striking. The Aleofanians proper stooped in
the shoulders of their long, thin bodies like bulrushes before the wind;
not for weight of the head they bore; for it was small though well
proportioned, and by various fashions and contrivances they managed to
convey a false impression of its size; of their eyes it was impossible
to make out the shape or colour; for they peeped through a thin slit
between the eyelids, doubtless afraid of the glare of the sun; their
nose ran like a sharp promontory down towards the middle of their upper
lip, as if to help in covering the enormous aperture of the mouth and
its thick, sensuous lips; these last I could see in the women, but the
men concealed them by all the hair they could grow on their long-drawn
faces; and their hair inclined as a rule to red. Their gait formed
perhaps the deepest contrast to that of the chemists; they walked like
ghosts, with a feline, scarcely perceptible footfall; and nothing could
take them unawares or startle them out of it; yet ever and again some of
them would pull themselves up and put on a bustling gait and bluff
demeanour that completely belied their personal appearance; it was like
a cat masquerading as a lion.

But they conducted themselves with great dignity in all the relations of
their life. They would have no part in the gross candour of the
chemists. Their whole demeanour and language were ordered with full
regard to decency and decorum. They shrank with horror from lewdness and
intrigue, and refused to acknowledge the existence of libertines amongst
them. I never heard so much solemn and devout feeling expressed as on
this topic; and at the corner of every street the attention of the
passer-by was arrested by placards quoting in huge letters from their
sacred books the noblest maxims on the sweetness of a chaste life. I
could find no one to confess that there was such a thing in the island
as a man who was libidinous, but every girl who broke this rule of
morality was thrust forth from house and home. Scores of such outcasts I
saw flaunting in brilliant robes along the streets. They had all the
appearance of living in great luxury. But I was assured they were
supported by secret funds sent by the inhabitants of a vicious island
close at hand. And I could believe it. For no one ever spoke to them,
and ladies as they passed drew their skirts in, whilst gentlemen after
brushing past them would rub their coatsleeves as if from contamination.
It was only the great chastity of the people that permitted these
creatures to remain in their island. Nothing could surpass the horror
and loathing which the Aleofanians exhibited towards them. It was
painful indeed to see the agony the notables had to endure in suffering
them to remain.

How devoted they were to charity! It was, I felt, their life, their all.
They refused to do half the mischief that there was opportunity of doing
to others. Every moment, every energy, was spent in restricting it to
this fraction. So much destructive force was latent in them, so much
destructive opportunity lay to hand, that they might have annihilated
the reputation and peace of mind of all their fellow-citizens. How proud
they were of their fraternal love in sowing only a few slanders and
dissensions per day, and these, too, only to discipline the haughty and
too fortunate, or to keep their own faculties from rusting! It was the
same with their benevolence; nothing could surpass the nobleness and
care with which they dispensed it. Half their revenues they gave away,
but not in reckless alms; they were too wise and self-controlling for
that; they knew too much of the economic laws of life, and respected
them too well to violate even the least of them. So they never forgot
discipline in giving to those who needed; they carefully exacted as much
work from them as would pay the principal, and, lest the kindness should
lapse from memory and leave no impression on the life and conduct, half
as much again. To what infinite trouble they put themselves to see that
these laws of nature should never be outraged by them! Great troops of
the lower classes were fed and clothed and cared for by each of them for
years, whilst they were trying to repay those noble eleemosynary gifts,
and satisfying the laws of economics.

Nor must it be held an inconsistency in them that they thought money the
root of all evil as against those very laws. They despised it and hated
it. And lest it should do to their neighbours the harm for which they
feared it and loathed it, they gathered as much of it into their hands
as they could. “They swallowed the devil” again, according to their own
proverbial phrase, as the best means of preventing the mischief he might
do to others. It was one of the most altruistic of their principles,
they considered, this accumulation of wealth in the hands of a few, lest
the many should suffer. They could hedge the monster round and narrow
his sphere of operations. And every provision had been made by the state
for centuries that he should not approach the masses with his foul
influence. It was the gilded classes of the marble city that could alone
withstand the evils he worked, and amongst them therefore was he
imprisoned. They were, so to speak, the turnkeys of this vampire of
commercial races; and in their duties they were all vigilant lest he
should escape and work irremediable havoc amongst the rest of the
nation.

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[Illustration]

CHAPTER IX

THE ORGANISATION OF REPUTE

THESE items of information concerning the virtues of the race I learned
not so much from the dwellers in the marble city themselves—they were
too modest for that—as from public prints and the placards on hoardings
and in public places. From the same sources I gathered innumerable
details about the life of the monarch and the nobles and the wealthiest
citizens, and these were always to their credit. Had I been as much in
the habit of frequenting their temples or consulting the physicians as
the gilded were, I would clearly have gathered still more, for I never
heard a sermon or prayer or piece of medical advice in Aleofane but it
contained or was accompanied by an elaborate eulogy of some one or more
of the marble citizens besides a general exaltation of all of them.

I was also struck with the singular unobtrusiveness and even modesty of
their public men; the more they were called for at public meetings, the
less frequently they appeared; the more they were eulogised and fêted,
the less eager did they seem to be spoken of. Their names were blazoned
abroad in newspapers and on hoardings, yet they shrank from showing
themselves. It was a game of hide-and-seek between them and the people.
Crowds shouted for them; they ran off. Banquets and processions were
held in their honour; they were the only men that withdrew from sight.

After a time I noticed that it was only a certain round of names that
was kept persistently before the public. Occasionally a new one appeared
and another vanished. But with them all, as long as they were in the
line, it was a sort of file-firing of reputation signals.

I was at last eager to know what it meant, for it differed from any
other social phenomenon I had ever observed. I soon discovered the
secret of it. There was a department of state called the Bureau of Fame.
At one time reputation had been allowed to look after itself, although
men valued it even more than money. Private enterprise traded in it and
juggled with it and made a monopoly of its growth, although it should
have moved as freely as the air or water. For a time it had been in the
hands of vendors of quack medicines and soaps; there were none so well
known throughout the nation as they; there were none whose names would
carry so much weight with the uneducated people. Simmity, the proprietor
of a popular purgative, Hones, who owned the most widely advertised
soap, and Bulunu, who sold the strongest kooannoo, might have divided
the monarchy amongst them, had they been able to come to an agreement,
and thought it worth while to rouse and lead the mob for such a mere
bauble; as it was they were both richer and more famous than the king;
and what did they require? Their descendants were now the most powerful
nobles in the land.

The next stage in the organisation of fame was to grant to a company the
monopoly of all advertising opportunities in the realm. It had long been
a scandal that men with little brains, less conscience, and still less
education had got their names fixed in the popular mind more firmly and
more widely than the ablest or wealthiest or noblest. It needed little
persuasion then on the part of the company to precipitate the grant. And
it set itself at once to organise all the methods it could invent for
increasing reputation. It hired the best poets and prose writers in the
kingdom; its artists were the most talented painters and draughtsmen;
whenever any boys or girls showed musical talent, it bound them to it by
pecuniary and other chains; every demagogue with power of lung and
command over words, every entertainer who could amuse the people, every
jester who could make them laugh, every contriver of ingenious methods
of attracting attention it had in its pay and ready at its beck. The
newspapers and journals with their writers took instructions from it;
for they knew there was no such good paymaster to be found. It had
emissaries and claqueurs through all grades of the nation, mingling with
their society, leading their thoughts, and touching their emotions.

A man could go into its office and get a quotation for any kind or
extent of fame. He could have as little as a sixpenny-worth, a tanna, it
was called; this consisted in a whisper set agoing in his favour within
his own private circle. If he wished his name spread in a grade or
locality that knew nothing of him, it would cost him a pownee, about ten
pounds in our money, per month; for there was ever a time-element in
these bargains. The price of keeping up a reputation increased till it
was firmly established; then it lessened till the man passed his vigour
of faculty; after the grand climacteric it increased again, but more
gradually than before; for the mystery of retirement and the tradition
of a reputation passing into the mouths of a second generation gave a
man’s story almost the vogue of a myth, and thus made it easier for the
company to keep up the name. On death and for a week after, its charges
were lower, as the funeral and obituary notices and the dark dresses and
long faces of the relatives kept the memory green for about that length
of time and relieved the servants of fame of much of their onerous duty.
Thereafter the price rose till at a hundred years after death it became
enormous, and at a thousand it became fabulous. Only one had ever had
fortune large enough to buy up his fame for that posthumous period; and
I still heard his name on all sides although he had been dead for twelve
hundred years. The company had made large profits out of this bargain;
for the uniqueness of the transaction had made the name a traditional
topic in hours of leisure and a commonplace in literature; the natural
channels of fame had become its unpaid auxiliaries.

Every kind of reputation had its own price per day or month or year,
though the price varied from time to time according to the rise or fall
of a particular virtue or line of life in public estimation. One item in
the old price-list that amazed me was the money value of a reputation
for truthfulness; it was by far the most costly, and next to it came the
reputation for generosity, and that for purity of life. Surely it should
have been easy to acquire the name of truthful or generous or pure in a
community that paid such devotion to these virtues, and cultivated them
so much. But, it was explained, there was of course greater competition
for fame in them; men were especially eager to gain it, for it gave them
full return even in money. It struck me that, where truth and charity
and chastity were so widespread, it should have been very easy to get
and keep the name for them; high charges meant special rarity in the
commodity or special difficulty in obtaining it; and either seemed to
argue widespread scepticism as to the possession of these virtues. But I
was silenced with the argument that, where all or most had a virtue, it
was difficult to win a reputation for special excellence in it.

The charges for fame in each of the virtues varied too with the
employment and social grade. A journalist had to pay one hundred times
more than a peasant or artisan for the reputation of truthfulness. The
poet and preacher and vendor of quack medicines had to pay only one half
as much as a newspaper-man for it; for, it was told me, they with their
clients were perfectly well aware that their profession was to deal in
fiction, and they tried in unprofessional life to get clear of the taint
of their trade, and took delight in blurting out the most candid truths.
The highest price for reputed sobriety was demanded of the temperance
reformer and the lecturer on the evils of drunkenness. The poor man and
the spendthrift were charged next to nothing for the name of generous;
the wealthy had to pay for the same, enormous sums in proportion to
their wealth and social position. The reputation for wit was one of
their cheapest commodities, being only a little higher than that for
being not a bad sort of a fellow and that for being good but dull. And
yet it was one of the dearest for ambitious young conversationalists and
writers and orators and men of the world. It was almost as dear as a
reputation for humour when professional jesters wished to buy it. The
price-list indeed was one of the most striking comments on the past
social history of the people.

What led to the overthrow of this strange company was a very natural
extension of their business. They opened a branch for the destruction of
fame, or, as they called it, for negative reputation. They found that
they had continual demands made for this natural complement to their
other function. At last they yielded to the pressure, and tried to use
their old staff in the new service; but it was found that it destroyed
their eulogistic talents; they rapidly developed into such accomplished
slanderers and backbiters and defamers that they found it difficult to
say a word in favour of anyone. In order to save the best of their old
employees, the company had to hire a new set for the new business. They
had intended to keep it an absolutely secret service. But, as the story
of the new employment leaked out, their offices were daily mobbed by
applicants for posts. They were of all sorts and sizes; but those who
brought the most glowing testimonials to their capacity as traducers
were tall and lank, long-nosed and large-mouthed, red-haired and
small-skulled—as fine a crowd of Judases, it was said, as could have
been picked out of living creatures. It was impossible to hire them all;
half the nation would have been in the pay of the company. But those
whom they rejected set themselves so vigorously to traducing the company
that a yell of execration rose against it.

Such an outcry might have been ignored, but that their other department,
which had been in full working order for several generations, had
excited the hostility of many of the most respectable families. For the
passion for posthumous fame had eaten into their fortunes. Men of wealth
had taken the money that they should have left to their relatives and
posterity, and willed it to the company in the purchase of as much
immortality as it would buy. Some of the noblest houses were
impoverished by this itch for keeping a name alive. And still more would
have been reduced to poverty, but that they had a large pecuniary
interest in the business, or had most of their members salaried in its
employ.

It had come to be a great scandal and had roused the attention of the
state; added to the outcry of the disappointed Judases, this supplied
the opportunity for the reformers. And, on looking into the matter, they
found that the company was growing too powerful for any government to
stand up against it. It was absorbing most of the wealth and all the
real influence over the Aleofanians. It had such vast and disciplined
forces as no nation could bring into the field. The longing for
reputation or fame had made one half the people its clients, and the
necessities of fortune and the love of slander had made the other half
into its servants. The king’s ministers had to move with great caution,
for they would have to meet all the talking, puffing, amusing,
slandering power of the race organised into a subtle impalpable phalanx;
the discipline was more imperturbable than that of the strongest army;
there was no breaking the ranks whilst the influence penetrated
everywhere like an atmosphere. In fact for generations they had not
dared to move against their own creation. And even now that there was a
strong set of the current of public opinion against it, its abolition
could be brought about only by a secret and sudden blow. They met in
dark conclave and took their measures without any item of the secret
oozing out. The company was caught unawares and surrendered. Its
business was appropriated and placed under the administration of a new
department. A royal proclamation, accepting all its servants as
employees of the new bureau, and all its obligations as state
obligations, prevented panic; and the transference was made without the
slightest public commotion.

The revolutionary measure left the directors of the company wealthy but
powerless. And it gave to the government a prestige no ministry had ever
had. The Bureau of Fame became a tower of strength that grew at last
impregnable; and the direction of it was the main object of a
statesman’s ambition. It gave him the subtlest of influences over the
desires of men. Before him even the greatest and proudest cringed; for
he could make or annihilate that upon which their existence hung. They
lived in the breath of others; to have all speak ill of them or, still
worse, speak nothing of them was more bitter than death. What were
wealth, huge estates, great fortune, unlimited power over luxuries,
compared with the ballooning of their name whilst they lived and the
surety that it would still be raised aloft when they were dead? Their
present heaven consisted in the favouring winds of fame; the salvation
of their souls lay in immortal reputation. One of their philosophers
indeed had with much applause defined the soul as the breath not of a
man’s own body, but of his neighbours and his public. To be no more
talked of was real death. The disanimation of the body was not the true
end of life; many died long before that; whilst some few outlived the
dissolution of the dust.

[Illustration]

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[Illustration]

CHAPTER X

THE CHURCH AND JOURNALISM

THE Bureau of Fame had come to be the real shrine of religion. For it
had the power of heaven and hell beyond as well as on this side of the
grave. And one of the most significant changes in the government of
Aleofane in recent times had been the amalgamation of the ministry of
public worship with the department of fame. The church had of course
from the earliest times been a state institution; and in spite of
new-fangled philosophers was likely to continue so. For how could so
subtle a force in human nature as religion be allowed to straggle
lawlessly throughout a nation? Above all things it needed the most
skilful piloting. A church apart from the state, an independent power,
meant the spirit against the body, a divorce unnatural, if not
monstrous. This was the philosophy of the position. And so convinced of
it were the rulers that they allowed less independence of action in the
ecclesiastical than in any other department. The head of the church was
a minister responsible to the government, and they thought it illogical
and feeble to let such an organisation legislate for itself. It was
according to nature, it was the true primitive law, that the state and
the church should be completely one. The idea of their separation was
the result of degeneracy from the golden age. And what anarchy would
ensue from an attempt to realise such a scheme or rather no scheme!

To speak of the separation of church and state in Aleofane was to speak
of human life without breath, of the noon sky without the sun. The
religion had grown to be the inner spirit of government. Never had there
existed so religious a state. It could accomplish nothing except through
its ecclesiastical organisation. It could affect the spirits of all the
nation in any direction it pleased. It is true the people jealously
guarded the traditional creed. But by gradual and impalpable change in
the teachings of the priests or in the ceremonies the national mind
could be bent in any way to suit the governors.

One of the first and most effective changes in the spiritual scheme of
the state had been the gradual degradation of all the great posts in the
church. The princely salaries attached to them were from tenure to
tenure reduced till at last the chief ecclesiastical officers had to
rely on charity for subsistence. The great spiritual influence that
obstinately clung to them drew occasionally men of rank and ability. But
all the common priesthoods fell so low in estimation that at last the
state had to fill them with the milder type of higher-class criminals.
No one would enter voluntarily into what was practically mental slavery
to the government of the time. So, if any marble citizen fell into
habitual and transparent falsehood, or failed before the eyes of all in
some dishonest scheme, or let his fortune imperceptibly leak away and
ceased to conceal the financial minus on which he luxuriously lived, he
was promptly given the choice of the church or journalism; though for
that matter the two had been for centuries amalgamated; they were but
two branches of ecclesiastical business.

For it would have been foolish on the part of so successful a government
to stop one intellectual leak in the nation and leave a wider one
unguarded. It had been always a matter of course that those who could
teach or influence the people with any talent should be the servants of
the state. It came about, therefore, that, as a literature developed,
the church was but journalism through speech and ceremony, journalism
was but the church in writing. They were but two phases of the same
function of the state. And the governors laughed as I told them of the
position of affairs in Europe, where the state was supposed to rule the
church, but had allowed the press complete independence. And they told
me as a close analogy the story of one of their citizens who had soon
drifted into idiocy; a bird of great beauty had flown into his house,
and he resolved to catch it; and to make sure of it he planted a ring of
servants all round the house and shut his doors and locked them, and
opened his windows wide. For some time afterwards, if any one of them
met me, he would with a twinkle of the eye ask me whether the
governments of “Yullup” had ever caught their bird.

There was, I inwardly confessed, a logical thoroughness about leashing
in the service of the state the twin spiritual powers of the church and
the press. But I was pained in my European vanity to find the most
cherished features of our modern civilisation so productive of mirth.
They showed me that the only two logical positions were complete
independence of both the great spiritual powers or complete control of
both; nothing could justify the release of one and the bondage of the
other.

As retaliation for their laughter at our civilisation and its hard-won
fruits I smiled at their employment of criminals as priests and
journalists, and asked them how they could expect to have religion well
taught or truth well disseminated by such characters. They were not to
be beaten—those subtle reasoners; I felt this in the smile of
superiority with which they met mine. They asked me how I could expect
priests who were by their positions and incomes independent of the
state, and bound only by their own caprices or by those of the locality
or circle to which they ministered, to teach the creed of the nation
aright? To secure their salaries or to win reputation, they would launch
into originalities, nay, into absurdities: they would pander to the
predominant passions of their flocks, whilst keeping up the appearance
of teaching the creed. The very contradictoriness of human nature would
drive them in different directions from one another. With the
journalists this would be still more the case, bound as they would be by
no definite creed or set of rules or kind of emotions. How could they be
expected to spread truth when there was no guide or master for them, no
book of truth to appeal to? Nothing could be so productive of mental
chaos as a class of men who without training or guidance or common
consent or a common set of beliefs or principles should be allowed to
pour their vagaries into the minds of the people. Would the nation ever
advance, or keep from degeneracy, if these were to be its daily
teachers, men who would pander to the commonest of popular passions and
tastes, heedless of right or truth or even policy?

And when the state had both religion and journalism in its hands, how
was it to secure the dissemination of what it considered absolute truth
except by complete abeyance of the wills and characters of the
disseminators? Centuries ago they had had a church whose priesthood was
filled by men of the purest life and highest principle and then no one
knew what the creed was; it was torn into shreds; and over its remains
the preachers and theologians trampled like wild colts; there were a
hundred schools and sects within the church, and each claimed for itself
divine authority and divine truth; the people could find no guidance in
faith or in morality; nor dare the state interfere with the extreme
preachings or practices of any division, or even of any individual
priest, for his followers, seeing the nobleness of his life and
believing therefore that he had reached ultimate truth, would gladly die
at the stake for him; and the high-salaried ecclesiastics having once
got into their posts lived a free life without regard for God or man or
government; they became fountains of immorality and discontent; by their
example on the one hand and their luxury on the other, the spiritual
head of the church was powerless; he dared not interfere with the
privileges of his subordinates or even their beliefs; everything was
indeed chaos, and that a chaos of religious enthusiasm.

It was the birth and growth of journalism that taught the state the true
cure for such a diseased condition. Some of the most abandoned but able
men in the nation had sunk so low that no one would trust them; in order
to get something to live on they were driven to take advantage of an
invention that had been recently made; the use of free types had
cheapened printing, and with this and some other means of cheaply
multiplying written productions, they determined to sell at a price
sheets that would amuse the people. They were successful; and the more
they invented lies and filled their sheets with fiction, the more
lucrative it became. All the most accomplished liars of the nation
crowded into it, and it was generally spoken of as the new profession of
lying for the amusement of the people. The fortunes that had begun to be
gained in it and the various attacks made upon men in authority called
the attention of the ministry to the nascent power. And they were only
just in time; a few more years and it would have been too strong for any
state to cope with. They manipulated it with caution; they bought up the
poorest and most unscrupulous of the journalists into what was
practically lifelong servitude to the state, and turned the whole force
of their talents in fabricating untruth against the few that had made
fortunes in the trade; it was not long before these latter were ruined
and had to sell their services to the government. But after a time it
was found that the ablest of the state journalists grew vain of their
powers and showed signs of striking out for themselves. Wages was not a
strong enough lien over the talents of men who had grown conscious of
their hold on the people. The trade was therefore proclaimed a state
monopoly, and all the conceited journalists were weeded out; and into
their places were put the most capable of the marble criminals who had
been condemned to state servitude for life. It was made one of the
rewards of good behaviour amongst convicts; for as journalists they were
allowed to live in some degree of luxury; they had full scope for their
craving for falsehood and dishonesty, and made of these a fine art. The
only condition they had to fulfil was obedience to orders; all their
productions were based on ideas supplied to them by the department and
had to undergo criticism or revision by its officers. The state had them
absolutely in its power; and yet the average of literary talent amongst
them was far higher than when journalism had been free and independent;
in fact a literature of some power, a pure state literature, had
resulted. It was universally acknowledged that genius is essentially
immoral on one or more rules of the moral code and sometimes on all; it
has ever a vein of eccentricity or even madness in it that makes it leap
over the pales of convention or principle or law; and hence in previous
ages it had always been a pariah. At its first escapade it was now
hurried into the fetters of the state, and was soon glad to accept the
comparative freedom of state journalism. Thus the government had
gathered into its service the greatest imaginations of the people, and
through them could mould the nation to what purpose it would.

The success of this conquest of a new-born power and domestication of
the wild spirits of the race pointed out the true secret for remedying
the evils of religion and the church. Eccentricity was rampant in them;
they were ever producing discontent and riot and rebellion; they were
the homes of all that threatened the existence of the state. And yet the
state dared not remove the offending priests, lest it should inflame the
disloyalty of the people who followed them. The most astute of their
statesmen saw the lesson of the conquest of journalism and applied it.
He gradually reduced the salaries of the clergy, basing the policy
chiefly on the ground that those who served God should be humble and
free from the temptations of luxury; another and minor reason was that
during a time of scarcity and depression economy was needed in the
departments of the state. His successors carried out his craft with as
much system and success, and, when the lower clergy had been reduced to
a pittance, crusaded through the journals against the princes of the
church and their luxury. By this time the marble citizens had ceased to
send their children into the ordinary priesthoods, which gave no more
the chance of a career, and all the clergy now belonged to the poorer
classes. The higher posts were in the gift of the government; and it
stripped them one by one of their great revenues and bestowed them thus
lowered upon the common priests who showed themselves obsequious and
obedient. And at last the very headship of the church was surrendered by
the aristocracy, when it had lost its enormous salary and influence. The
state at once created a department of public worship to absorb its
functions. But, without journalism in its hands, it would never have
been able to accomplish so complete a revolution; against it and its
power over the people the church dignitaries were pithless; whilst the
common clergy were too much torn by sectarian opinions to offer a united
front. The later steps of this clever statecraft were easy and rapid.

But religion was not yet turned to its final purpose. Even the poor
priests had their eccentricities, and broke away from state
leading-strings. The unity of church and government was merely nominal,
if this could occur. To make any function of the state real, perfect
discipline is needed. A national army would succumb to the first foe, if
regiments of it, or individual generals, were to follow their own
caprice. And a national church, if it is to be a true engine of the
state, has still more need of exceptionless discipline, inasmuch as it
has to master the spirits of men.

Generation after generation of Aleofanian statesmen turned their best
energies to this problem. Experiment after experiment was tried, but
none succeeded till the policy of government journalism was adopted.
Criminals with a turn for piety—and very few were without it—were
offered the choice of incarceration for life or careers as priests.
Already the people had been inoculated by the journals with the belief
that the stream of divine unction had poured down through the ages quite
irrespective of the channels along which it flowed; it would have been a
hard thing indeed if the evil characters and lives of so many priests in
the past had stopped their transmission of the favour of heaven to their
flocks; long ago would true religion have failed them had it depended on
the officiating ministers of the deity; it would have shown limitation
of God’s omnipotence if He had been supposed unable to send His
inspiration through any person or character. The journalists had indeed
found it easy to press home this doctrine, for the great church
dignitaries, being often men of evil life, had been forced to inculcate
it for many ages, and, being not seldom feeble in intellect, had reduced
their duties down to the mere performance of ceremonies and the reading
of prayers and portions of the sacred books. It was only amongst the
poorest sectaries that the clergy had to use their brains in the way of
reasoning out abstract doctrine into practical precept, or in rousing
their flocks to religious fervour. Their light it was easy to extinguish
or ignore. And all the marble city and its society readily accepted the
change from the dull, uninterested performances of the old dignitaries
to the smart elocution and brilliant histrionic attainments of the
criminals. The state chose these not only for their piety, a common and
superabundant commodity amongst them, but for their grace of speech and
action, and sent them for several years to a great dramatic college,
where every one of the arts of the stage was taught to perfection.

The long-talked-of reamalgamation of the theatre and the church was at
last silently accomplished. What was the use of paying to see a poor
performance in the theatre or concert-room, when they could enter any
church for nothing and see a far more brilliant ceremonial enacted, and
hear far more talented elocution? The minister of public worship
encouraged by rewards the clever rogues, whom he had selected for the
church, to invent new and more interesting modes of conducting the
services, and new and more fascinating ways of chaining the attention of
a crowd. The dramatic companies and public entertainers had to close
their doors and seek employment under the state, and especially in the
Bureau of Fame. The old revenues of the church were spent on magnificent
choirs and instrumental bands, on the training of the musical talent of
the nation for its services, as well as on the training of the criminals
for its priesthood. As a rule the best histrionic ability straggled off
into prison, for it delighted in outraging first convention and then
law; it had a great taste, so my guide informed me, for extravagance and
show, and soon developed a tendency to lying and hypocrisy. And such a
truthful and sincere people had elaborate laws, of course, for the
punishment and constraint of such vices. Thus the state got all the
actor-talent of the marble city into its power. But it had to hire the
musical talents, for they were too vain to have any vice but
quarrelling; they had to be caught by other nets, the nets of gain; it
secured from childhood all who had fine voices or great and original
talent for melodious composition, or the management of musical
instruments, and it trained them elaborately for the service of the
church; the only certain employer was the state, and thus it had a
monopoly of everything musical in the nation.

Elaborate and attractive though the church services in the hands of the
state had grown, they still repelled or sent to sleep a considerable
proportion of the worshippers; for the prelections and sermons had been
left unreformed; they were as old and tedious and uninteresting as they
had been centuries before in the hands of the incapable scions of the
marble citizens. A reforming statesman had recently turned his attention
to this defect; he had founded a great college of oratory, and selected
the best of the cultivated and able criminals to be trained there. It
was found an easier task than had been anticipated. For great gifts of
speech and great powers of moralising were found to run frequently with
immoral and criminal tendencies. And now it was remembered that, under
the freer _régime_ of an olden time, it had been men of the loosest life
who had gained greatest influence over the people and the popular
assemblies; popular orator and scoundrel had in the older language been
synonymous terms; whilst even orator had had a flavour of dishonesty and
untruthfulness, if not libertinism, about it. So the prison officials
saw that it was generally the most untrustworthy of their wards who were
most persuasive in speech, and had to be isolated lest they should
incite to riots and rebellions.

Thus it was found necessary to choose all the future preachers of the
church from the criminals classified as dangerous. But once their
passion for oratory was allowed a safety-valve, once they began their
training in the college, they became comparatively harmless; provided
nothing was left in their way to steal, and no one sufficiently off his
guard for them to deceive or corrupt. When I arrived in Aleofane, the
first batch of oratorical criminals was being draughted into the service
of the church. And I found great commotion amongst the older worshippers
against the innovation; they complained that they and their ancestors
had furnished their sections in the churches as dormitories; and now
they claimed damages from the state as this expenditure had been
rendered useless; just as the music had induced somnolence, they were
roused by the bellowing appeals of these loud-lunged miscreants to
conscience and the loftiest principles of morality; their ancestors had
not thus been disturbed, nor were they going to be; they removed to the
older-fashioned churches where the droning old sermonisers still buzzed;
there they would have peace on holy days to rest; they would be gone to
the final sleep before the ranting crowd had followed them. The younger
set of worshippers were delighted at the change; for they listened now
to lively declamation and vivid and picturesque oratory. Nothing could
surpass the electric effect of some of those preachers on their
audiences; you could hear strong men weep, and women that were usually
marvels of silence cry out in wild ecstasy; thousands would sway as one
soul to the passion of the speaker, or again a ripple of laughter would
freshen over the throng, to be followed by a shadow of pathos like a
summer cloud over corn-fields. I have seen men and women who had entered
the building with smiling faces fall prostrate on the marble floors in
an agony of repentance. It was one of their greatest luxuries in
religion to have those strong emotions. They came to the church
purposely to be moved out of their sluggish routine of feeling; and,
having suffered the wild ecstasy, they had all the enjoyment of
convalescence from the spiritual stroke of paralysis. The hysterical
passions that were often lit by the flame of church oratory were like
strong drink to them amid the level conventions of their daily life.

Nor did the state permit any preacher to pall upon his audience. As soon
as the enthusiasm began to slacken, he was removed to another locality
and church, and another brawny young orator fresh from the collegiate
hulks was launched on his career of appeal to the emotions. The only
danger was that in abandoning himself to the stream of his eloquence he
might depart too far from the written sermon that had been revised by
the state critics and utter something that might clash with state
formulæ. But there were always in his audience guardians who kept their
eye on him and by a threatening look pulled him up. And if he persisted,
his promising career was broken off, for a time at least. The fear of
this was generally sufficient to deter these oratorical and pious
criminals from indulging in unlawful flights. For it was a terrible
punishment for those who had the talent of persuasive talk to be shut up
and have their speech throttled for ever in silent and repulsive cells.
Indeed it was whispered that there had been attempts at suicide on the
part of some budding orators who had so far transgressed as to be
condemned to lifelong absence from the rostrum; whilst some who could
not get their oratorical passions slaked or even recognised have been
known to commit a serious crime and then stir up disturbance in prison
in order to get scope for their power of influencing the emotions of
others.

And it was marvellous to see the fervour of these convict-priests; they
were most eloquent and convincing on the evils of the vice to which they
were most addicted; they knew its subtlety and its fascinations; they
could describe with the most picturesque realism its insidious progress
and its resultant misery; they would enact the scenes of its various
stages and phases with a truth and histrionic power that made the
worshippers shudder. And then the appeals they made to repentance were
really addressed to their own ideal selves; and so fervid and sincere
were they, so full of pathos and melting prayer, that none could resist.
I have heard a vast crowd of Aleofanians of the most righteous lives cry
out in response, as if they had been the most abandoned of sinners.

What could not the state do with its people, when it had command of such
channels into their very hearts! Whatever new purpose it had it subtly
introduced into the sermons and church services, either didactically or
dramatically; songs and hymns and ceremonies were manufactured for it;
gorgeous spectacles were invented and drew crowds to the churches for
months. But never was the purpose allowed to show itself obtrusively; it
penetrated the spirit of these like a delicate perfume. And the people
could not help being fascinated by it, so subtly did it ally itself with
all the sweetest anodynes of care and pain and all the most tempting
delights of the senses. Sweet savours, delicious perfumes, melodious
sounds, the most artistic and beautiful sights soon made the new state
policy the very atmosphere of the inner shrine of memory. And the
priests and church orators touched the springs of emotion with hidden
but concrete presentments of it; they were handsomely rewarded for every
new and successful method they invented of getting it interwoven with
the most popular feelings and the most sacred passions and memories.

But there was an ecclesiastical engine of state that promised to be more
effective than any of these. For ages there had been in the church an
institution that had somewhat fallen into neglect except with morbid
women of the upper classes. They were accustomed to go at stated times
into a box like a horse-stall and whisper the secrets that burdened them
into an aperture like an ear; from this the sound passed by a tube into
the secret chamber of the priests of the church; and there came back to
the ear of the client spiritual advice that would console her in her
difficulties or help her out of them. Neither priest nor worshipper was
supposed to see or know the other; the act and communication were purely
impersonal.

This custom the state revived and expanded, after it had begun to see
what a powerful engine the church could be made. And it grafted it on to
one of its few failures. When it had discovered how useful it might make
criminals, one of its most ingenious and ambitious ministers determined
to annex it to the medical profession. He saw its subtle and secret
power in detail, and thought that, if he could weld this into a unity
and make it an engine of state, it would be almost omnipotent; for the
physician had complete command of his patients, and could make them
believe what he would. He had their spirits and imaginations at a time
when, at the lowest ebb of life’s tide, they were most the prey of
superstition. Whether hypochondriac or really sick, they were at his
mercy, and what he prescribed or even loosely remarked sank deeply into
them. Was not this the very vantage the state needed for riveting its
chains upon the spirits of its subjects? The invalid periods of a man’s
life, and still more those of a woman’s, and the invalid members of a
household, are the very fulcra of the levers of existence. Such points
of spiritual omnipotence should not be in the hands of private bunglers.
The only thing that kept the physicians from ruling the nation was their
mutual jealousy and perpetual disunion.

As a fact it was the state that supported the colleges of medicine and
guaranteed the ability of the licentiates sent out by them. What could
be easier than to go a step farther and make the physicians servants of
the state? Some of the most astute convicts who had tastes in that
direction were selected and trained in the full course of the medical
schools, and sent out to practise with instructions to use their
opportunities for the state. But there could be no check upon their
proceedings as there was over the convict-priests. They revelled in
doing evil, and a most obnoxious practice grew up amongst them. It was
soon noticed that they became most luxurious in their style of living,
and at last the death of several of their patients along with a new
codicil to their wills bequeathing to the convict-doctor large legacies
aroused suspicion and confirmed the long-unheeded outcry that the
professional physicians had raised against them. It was found on close
inquiry that they had milked their richest patients of most of their
fortune, and the more alert and obstinate of them they had drugged into
subservience to their will and then given them euthanasia. No custom
could live in the midst of the odium that this revelation stirred. And
the great statesman had to swallow his ingenious invention and policy.

But he was not content to remain passive under this recoil. He adapted
his contrivance to the ecclesiastical organisation of the state, and
turned his convict-physicians into confessors. They had been chosen to
some extent for their soft, low voices, their refined and feminine
manners, and their insinuating and confidential air. A little more
training in the arts of sophistry and in the subtle distinctions and
precepts of theology would fit them exactly to be spiritual advisers in
the church. To warn them from the use of their posts for purposes of
extortion, their brethren who had gone astray in medicine were severely
punished. And to hold check on their conduct and advice, the
confessional chambers of all the churches were connected by auditory
tubes with the central office of public worship, and every confession
and every consolation could be heard by the minister or his officials if
he liked.

The practice of consultation in the auricular stalls of the church grew
with amazing rapidity. The insinuating young voices, the subtle
consolation, the efficient advice so soothed the perturbed spirits of
the mentally sick that on the slightest commotion in the atmosphere of
their life they rushed again to the ecclesiastical ear. Even the men
began, at first in a shamefaced way, to await a vacancy in the stalls,
afterwards most boldly and as a habit of fashionable life they indulged
in the practice.

It reduced the revenues of the physicians by more than half; and they
could make no outcry against it, for it was more powerful than they. At
last one great financial minister of public worship organised the new
departure; he had all the auricular stalls of all the churches of the
nation connected directly with his central office; and in his presence
all the spiritual advisers sat and received confessions and gave
consolations. He had an army of clerks to insert in the secret
doomsday-book opposite the name of each citizen anything in his or her
confession that seemed of importance, whilst every morning he gave out
the general policy and tone of the advices to be communicated; on
exceptional cases he had always to be consulted at once.

He also offered a percentage on the legacies left by any worshipper to
the church; this was given to the criminal on whose advice it was left.
The department of public worship was coming to be the wealthiest in the
state; for he fitted up the auricular boxes of the church as the most
luxurious boudoirs, where a lady could lounge in the midst of the
sweetest perfumes and music and the most beautiful paintings and
statuary. He even allowed at a large rental auricular stalls to be let
by the month or year to single individuals or families. Hither could the
invalid or convalescent come in her moods of despair or depression and
pour her sorrows into the ear of the soft-voiced comforter who shed, by
his casuistries and gentle persuasiveness, balm upon her spiritual
wounds. At last he permitted auricular tubes to be laid to the private
chambers of confirmed invalids and of the dying, at a large premium. And
this added such enormous sums to the revenue in the shape of legacies
that he reduced the rate. Yet he left it as a policy of the office that
it should never be so far lowered as to bring the privilege within the
reach of those who had but moderate incomes.

Never had such a powerful engine come into the hands of the state; and
every precaution was taken that it should not be abused and that no
secret of this great confession bureau should leak out. But, whenever
any citizen grew restive or obstreperous, an appeal was made to the
pages of the doomsday-book, and some secret found there was applied to
him with the effect that he curled up into unobtrusive silence. The
convict-confessors were, of course, all locked up at night in a
well-sentried building, and by day every action of theirs was under
unseen surveillance.

They still continued their medical studies and duties, and were able to
prescribe through the auditory tubes to whatever patient could give a
clear account of his symptoms. If anyone had symptoms that did not
permit of a clear diagnosis of his disease, he was encouraged to come
into the consulting-room of the office of public worship, and there the
various convict-physicians questioned him and examined him unseen; the
diseased organ or part was placed under powerful microscopes into which
they looked; then the whole staff consulted on his case and gave him
advice accordingly. But these were rare instances; as a rule, the
patients were satisfied with the impersonal advice and acted upon it.
Half the diseases had their source in the mind and only needed spiritual
advice; and most were both mental and physical; none but felt great
benefit from unburdening their spirits and receiving sympathy and
consolation.

Half the confessor-physicians were on duty by night and half by day; and
the former section consisted of the ablest and the most subtle and
persuasive; for it was found that night patients and worshippers needed
more spiritual consolation than day clients. It was during the sleepless
hours of the dark that the soul sank into the abyss of morbid weakness
and often into the paralysis of terror. It was then that it seemed to
absorb the functions of the body and infect them with its own diseases.
It was then that most succumbed to the assaults of sickness, the life
ebbed farthest away and left the sensitive nerves naked to the
irritations of thought and passion. It was then that the great harvest
of bequests was reaped; seized by superstitious fears, by the terrors of
the darkness around and to come, the spirit was ready to abandon the
mere dross of life for a little support on the threshold of the grave,
for a little religion. And the office of public worship never hesitated
to promise all they asked for beyond the final darkness, provided they
paid well for the boon. It was then that the most hideous secrets of
life were whispered into the ear of the church, then that terror drove
the soul into the refuge of complete disburthenment. Even when death was
years off, the feebleness of the morbid or invalid or convalescent
spirit during hours when sleep would not approach laid it open to
assault; for the footfall of the awful destroyer seemed to be heard in
the dread silence. It was then that it sought the consolations of the
auditory tube and opened the flood-gates of repentance into the ear of
the confessor-physician. The morning brought regret for the rash
candour, but the secret was recorded; the office of public worship had
undying power over the fate of the unburthened soul.

By the time I arrived in the island, the physicians felt that their
profession was doomed, that the wily statesman had outwitted them; and
doubtless before many generations most of them would plead to be
admitted into the service of the state. When that occurred they would
have to resign themselves body and soul to it; it would receive none but
those who were completely in its power. Of course there was still much
scope for them in families that would not trust mere impersonal advice
or feared to resign their independence of spirit into the power of an
office of state. They were also much employed in seeing the treatment
recommended by the convict-physicians carried out; and in this they
often retaliated upon the state by contradicting the advice and sowing
doubt of its soundness in the minds of the patients. Doubtless the next
move of the department of public worship would be to blow through
pneumatic tubes into the auricular stalls of the churches, or into the
chambers of the sick the drugs and medical requisites that were
recommended.

By means of these three uses of the talents of convicts the state church
had become a reality and was far more powerful than the press.
Journalism poured suggestion into the public mind; but it was into the
healthy, wide-awake, often recoiling public mind; its reasonings,
eloquence, or imaginative schemes and suggestions were not always
accepted; they had often to lie ungerminated in the soil of the national
spirit for years, till they were forgotten and some new occasion laid
them bare and made them seem to spring up spontaneously. The personality
of the writers though not unfelt was unseen, and so far had the potence
of that which is mysterious; but they could not, like the ecclesiastical
convicts, use the shadowy distance of the world to come in the way of
threats and promises; they could not stir the soil of the present to
immediate harvest with the plough of the future. They had to depend on
the weapons and tools of the average man; they had to reason and
persuade, explain, or appeal to the emotions, as neighbour to neighbour,
except that they had the impersonality and anonymity of confessors and
could gag their opponents in any attempt at reply.

Their power would have seemed enormous, had it not been put into
comparison with the complete state organisation of the church and been
overshadowed by it. They were used as the dogs of war, gathering as they
did into the hands of a minister the loose fangs of irresponsible
gossip, leashed as they were to one purpose and one spirit or policy.
They knew that they had but one master to please, one master who had
their liberty and still more their luxury in his power; and him they
served with all their faculties and especially their faculties of
invention, personal venom, and vituperation. They had no principle, no
scruple except towards him and the government he embodied. If they
entertained the majority, they did not care who suffered. Their first
object was to strengthen the roots of the state, and especially of the
minister of the department; their next was to make the largest number
possible read their articles and paragraphs. If any one of their victims
turned upon them and denied the news about him as a slander, they were
at once made by the head of the department to apologise and explain that
by some mistake the paragraph had slipped out of the pure fiction column
into that of news, and that the name of the citizen had strayed out of
the column of eulogies in transferring type. Where this was impossible
as an explanation, the minister could easily appease the wrath of his
victim by showing him how an especially unscrupulous convict had been
introduced new into the office and had acted on his own responsibility
and ignorance of the rules of revision.

I wondered at so great and virtuous a people enduring such an
institution in their midst. They marvelled at my wonder, and thought of
it as based on the very laws of nature. How could any marble citizen
indulge in such work and retain his self-respect, and how could a state
be accountable for the vagaries of irresponsible writers, whose dignity
and self-respect were lost? The only means of producing a united and
vigorous literature was to make the writers bond to the state. The only
means of keeping it pure and free from attacks on the nation and the
national spirit was to put the journalists body and soul into the hands
of a department, and to make the department responsible for their
productions. This was a provision of nature as soon as such an
institution arose.

[Illustration]

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[Illustration]

CHAPTER XI

THE BUREAU OF FAME

I WAS evidently as far astray on this point as I had been on the
employment of convicts in the church. And when the full significance of
the functions of state had been laid before me, I had to acknowledge
that there was much in their prejudice in favour of the enslavement of
genius and talent—the most capricious of human things.

As soon as the organisation of fame became a function of government, it
was an essential that national genius and talent, the arbiters of fame,
should be robbed of their caprice and yoked to the will of a single
responsible man. What would be the use of spreading one rumour if the
press and the church, which could creep into the very heart of the
nation, were able to contradict it or render it fangless? What would all
other means avail for planting a reputation, if the reasoning,
imaginative, and rhetorical ability of the nation were not bound to
water and foster it?

It seemed to them as natural as breathing that the literary and
oratorical power of the nation should be fenced in to the service of the
nation. And no one ever thought of complaining that it was entrapped as
early in life as possible into lifelong slavery to the state. Where
would the reputations of all of them be if this were not done? They
would be as safe as the lives of their children with a jungle of wild
beasts let loose amongst them. Who could control these irresponsible
madmen we call geniuses if it were not the representative of the force
of the nation—the state?

Trained from youth by the strong hand, they might be of great service in
moulding the national future; but if left from the first to follow their
own caprice, nothing could result but the wildest confusion of
principles and beliefs, and the sacrifice of the reputation of every
average citizen to their unslakable thirst for fame. There was indeed no
alternative left for any self-respecting community but the enslavement
of all the capricious power of imagination born in its midst. They might
train it to do their behests and serve their destiny; if left uncaged,
they would have to do its behests and serve its destiny.

The amalgamation of the Bureau of Fame with the department of public
worship and public opinion was a policy of self-preservation. The church
made ready the soil, the press sowed the seed, and the bureau watered
and weeded and reaped. It would have been a national folly to allow any
disagreement or collision amongst these processes. Better almost to have
left the national genius to its old internecine conflict.

Now the Bureau of Fame was the pivot of the government; and it was the
greatest ambition of an Aleofanian to rise to its administration. Its
minister for the time being was arbiter of all for which the ablest men
lived; he could make or mar careers; he could raise whom he would to
immortality, or damn him to everlasting execration, or, what was worse,
oblivion; he was far more powerful than any pope and any monarch
combined could be; it was indeed the chance of heaven or hell he could
deal out.

There was, of course, a price-list for various kinds and periods of
reputation; and a citizen with a large fortune could buy what was for
human life immortality. But the chief business of the office was
political, to enforce the privileges and enhance the fame of the marble
citizens, and especially of those in power—a great noble, a child of the
monarch, or one whom the court and the minister delighted to honour.

If the new protégé of fame was a commoner, the first proceeding of the
bureau was to confer on him one of the noble titles which it had within
its prerogative; for it was the guardian and creator of all orders and
titles. Next it set one or more of its most imaginative criminals to
invent an ancestry for him and a life-history; a few well-known dates
and facts were supplied as the skeleton; but round the skeleton grew a
living form that no one would have recognised who knew the original, so
romantic, so striking, so sublime did it become. Into every historical
event a progenitor was thrust and a large share was assigned to him.
Marvellous incidents were interwoven with historical facts and the new
name introduced as the centre of them. Back to the heroes the family
story went until it was lost in the mists of the origin of all things.
There was not a link left broken or weak, not an opening left for
destructive criticism; for the most hypercritical of the journalistic
criminals were let loose upon the result of the heraldic fictionists’
work; they found every weak spot and tore the art to pieces. With this
analysis and criticism attached to it, it was returned to the original
authors for repairs. Again and again it went through the criticism
factory, and again and again, after submitting to every test that could
be thought of, it returned to the hands of the regenerators. Having
reached the final form that withstood the scepticism of the subtlest
critics, it was intermingled with the annals of the country and, being
printed in a form that could easily be read, it was distributed amongst
a section of the people who were unlearned yet not uninterested in the
national history. If they failed to find the seams of the patchwork and
accepted the newly intruded portions as genuine, the work was finally
passed as ready for the second process of the bureau.

A staff of poets—epic, lyric, and dramatic—were turned on to the new
episodes, and, being left to their individual tastes, picked out one
this and another that. They each worked their theme into brilliant
verse. The result in one case would be a long romance fit for recitation
during the nights of the dimmer half of the year; in another it would be
a rattling ballad or song that would, when sung through the streets or
villages, catch the ear of the people; in a third it would be a dramatic
scene or complete play that could be staged either by the church or by
the bands of strolling actors who perambulated the country districts in
the pay of the state.

Having thus got a brand-new literature manufactured for its protégé’s
life and ancestry, the office set its staff of musicians to work on the
legend and its poetry, and gorgeous pieces were composed for the
ecclesiastical and other orchestras and choirs upon its various themes;
and short catches and glees and songs were composed for the common
people and their ballad-singers. These were sent out through the length
and breadth of the island on the fingers and lips of itinerant players
and singers and in the mechanical automata that were manufactured by the
hundred to repeat any tune of a fixed number. The whole country was soon
jigging and singing to the popular chorus that enshrined the new name
and the new deed or that by a new genealogy linked the name with the
gods or the national history. And all the marble citizens and the people
of the city were trying to whistle or hum or reproduce on their private
tinkling instruments the more melodious passages or the orchestral or
choral celebration of the new fame.

Meantime the journals had been playing battledore with the topic and the
various sections of it; they introduced it in paragraphs, in articles,
in verses, in romances; there was mysterious gossip about the new name
and loud, brazen-voiced eulogy; there were subtle inquiries about its
fame and as subtle answers. And these were all adapted in method and
tone to the two great kinds of journals. For there were journals for the
common people and journals for the marble city. The one inculcated due
regard to the station into which a man was born and reverence for all
notabilities. The other fitted the idiosyncrasies of high-born society,
describing its splendours, its wit, its genius, its lofty origin, its
generosity. The one was didactic, the other descriptive and eulogistic.
The one was tedious and thoroughgoing; the other was imaginative and
sparkling. And by each the topic was treated in its own peculiar way.

The church did its duty too. It never failed to inculcate the fatalism
of class and birth, even when it was floating some new man into fame,
although he had but recently changed his class and had his ancestry
manufactured. “Each man to the station God has given him,” was the
watchword of its prayers and its prelections. How pathetically the
preachers dwelt on the fearful results of attempts to reverse the
commands of nature! They could point to their own cases as the ruin of
ill-weaved ambition. What could be a better proof of the evil of
contravening the divine arrangement of classes than their own career?
They had tried to rise above their fellows and the place God had given
them, and, to accomplish this, had been impelled to break the laws; the
consequences their hearers might see with their own eyes. And often the
tears would roll down the orator’s cheeks, and the audience would weep
with him, as he painted the horrors of transgressing the divine order of
society, and appealed to them to abstain from all such transgression and
to be content with the station God had assigned them.

Yet the next part of the service would be a recitation of the mythical
ancestry of some new man and of their great deeds, or a dramatic
representation of his heroic efforts for the state, or a hymn in his
honour with full choral or orchestral effects. Once the transgression of
the divine order of the universe was accomplished, it was accepted as a
portion of that order. However obscure the birth of the favourite,
however base his nature, it was at once transfigured by his successful
breach of the social laws of nature. And, when the Bureau of Fame
adopted him as protégé, he was within less than a generation washed pure
as snow, the noblest of the noble in personality, in ancestry, in
posterity; all his life and character and origin were consecrated in the
national consciousness; and it would have been treason, nay sacrilege,
to doubt the divine sanction or the truth of the story or to give a hint
of the poor facts that had been buried in oblivion. The name was
interwoven with the holiest feelings of reverence; the splendid fiction
in song and drama, in prayer and pulpit oration, stirred the deepest
enthusiasm of worship, and wound itself into the most sacred memories.
And the whole process had begun and gone on so impalpably, so subtly,
that it was accomplished before anyone could awaken himself to
criticism; and then it was past remedy. It was the great act of
regeneration. The character and manners and morality of the man and his
family might be as unclean and repulsive as before; his name—the true
living principle of a man according to this people—was raised to the
level of heroes and gods, was launched upon the career of immortality.

Alas! there were conditions and limits, as there are to everything
human. The negative business of the bureau, though kept in
subordination, still existed. If any man offended the minister or his
patrons or satellites, then was his name first dropped, “quick as a
falling star,” from the heaven of all public services and performances;
the literature and music and art that enshrined his deeds and the
performances of his ancestry vanished no one knew how. For a time vague
and derogatory rumours concerning him crept through the journals; they
hinted at something base, if not criminal, and yet the hints could not
be charged with any definite meaning. At last there was complete and
unbroken silence. The man was buried better than if he were dead without
tombstone or memorial.

I marvelled that a nation that so worshipped reputation could have
allowed the concentration of this power in the hands of any man. But I
was assured that it was used with great wisdom and caution. The negative
function was rarely set to work, and then in the most underground
manner; it was felt but never seen. The bureau employed no organised
band of slanderers as the company had attempted to do. In fact it
doubted the prudence or effectiveness of such a course. Continual and
open-mouthed detraction of any man would probably produce the opposite
effect; it would make the neutral suspect some plot against him and stir
their innate sympathy for the oppressed. Nay, many would court the
notoriety of organised criticism and derogation as a cheap method of
keeping their names in the mouths of the nation. What the bureau did in
the negative way was truly negative. Its policy was the inculcation of
complete silence; and oblivion was the result—a result so telling
amongst the Aleofanians that the marble citizens almost grovelled before
the court and the minister of fame, and even before their parasites.

With the common people the bureau and its power of heaven and hell had
no influence; to condemn to everlasting oblivion was no threat for them;
to raise them to immortality was no reward. It was the main engine of
discipline in the marble city. And never was there so effective a
discipline amongst an aristocracy. A frown from the minister was enough
to cow the boldest spirit. Never was a nobility so meek, so free from
turbulence and rebellious self-seeking; they were willing to take
whatever colour the court delighted in; they changed their opinions,
their manners, their principles, their morality, their life to the
subtlest changes in the court and the bureau; human chameleons, they
would change their hue even from hour to hour, as the court changed. No
group of beings in heaven or earth surpassed the discipline of these
Aleofanians.

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[Illustration]

CHAPTER XII

FREEDOM AND REVOLUTION

YET they gloried in their freedom and their love of freedom. No people
could be freer than they. Daily in their temples were there songs and
hymns chanted in honour of liberty. It was a truism of the journals that
liberty and liberty alone could be the true spiritual atmosphere of a
nation. They loved to worship superiors and reverence especially the
vicegerent of God upon earth—the head of the Bureau of Fame. They bowed
to him and did him every obeisance because he was the head of the church
and worthy of all manner of worshipful obedience. But he had no control
over their actions except the moral and religious control which they
willingly acknowledged.

As an instance of their complete freedom of action they pointed to the
way in which the government allowed them to do as they liked with the
peasants and artisans and the lower classes generally who were in their
service. In the discipline of these they were untrammelled. They
acknowledged that they were responsible to the state for the good
conduct of their servants; but on the other hand the state passed over
to them the power of life and death over these so that their authority
should be no mere nominal thing. Ah, freedom was indeed the noblest
feature of life; they might as well pass into the grave at once as give
it up or allow it to be interfered with.

I was afraid to suggest to them the information I had received from a
foreigner in the lower city about a large part of the country people.
All the former inhabitants of the island and most of the artisans were
in semi-slavery. They saw the hesitation in my face and guessed its
purport. And one of my eulogists of liberty launched into a prelection
on the necessity of a stage of servitude in the history of all
ascensions to civilisation. A people that had not long issued from the
animal stage could never become anything better than half-brutes but
through bondage to a more advanced race. It was indeed a noble mission
of theirs thus to spend ages on the task of assisting a tribe of
half-savages to subdue their foul passions. The peasantry would be
nothing but wild beasts without such restraint. The process had been
going on for centuries, and it showed the great patience and love of the
Aleofanians that they persisted in such a repulsive and fruitless task.
The artisans were those of them who had improved under the discipline,
and so they had been partially freed. But even they were still somewhat
savage in their natures; even they needed to be treated with great
long-suffering. The marble Aleofanians were as patient with these
degraded beings as a mother with her child, never sparing the rod when
it was needed, although it lacerated their finer feelings to use such a
means of discipline. He compared their conduct in this matter with their
treatment of monetary relations. They were equally generous and
self-denying and protective of the good of all the other people of the
nation in dealing with money; they held it the root of all evil, and to
prevent its working havoc widespread they concentrated it in the hands
of a few,—the marble citizens,—who could not so easily be harmed by it.

I called his attention to the numerous interferences with liberty of
action in the various laws that fenced them in from the indulgence of
certain passions. Ah, that was one of the noblest instances of their
worship of freedom; so devoted were they to it that they prohibited
everything that would lead to a breach of it; no man could be allowed to
circumscribe his own liberty; and all vice circumscribed liberty; hence
all vice had to be checked. It was only in the interest of liberty that
liberty was ever interfered with.

He slid into another eulogy of freedom and instanced the devotion of the
Aleofanians to it in their conversation. No one was checked in his
criticism of a neighbour or fellow-citizen; their city was indeed a
mutual fellowship society in which the freest censure of each other was
allowed for mutual benefit. The keen contest of wits moulded their
characters and intellects. No one dared be absent from any social or
conversational fête, lest he should suffer in reputation from becoming
the topic of the meeting. Never would they descend to vulgar
depreciation; they were masters of refined insinuation and veiled
malignity. They could whisper away a reputation with the grace of a
duellist; and at the climax of a mortal combat of wits their serenity
remained unruffled. Oh, the grace and beauty of their social life! They
were never done admiring it. But without this freedom of criticism it
would be nothing. Ah, life in Aleofane was indeed a noble thing, so
happy and free were all classes of the people, from monarch to peasant,
from the bureaucrat of fame to the poorest artisan!

“Even the criminals were happy” was the climax of his eloquence. I asked
him for an explanation. He proceeded to show me how it was failure that
constituted crime. To deceive successfully was the highest art of life;
for the essence of art was to conceal itself. And to be discovered was
to fail in this. Whoever suffered this indignity was convicted of the
special vice he had been concealing and sent to the hulks, that is, was
turned into a journalist or priest. In these professions they were
perfectly happy, for they were allowed in them to revel in their own
special vices. The journalists manufactured their news whenever they
found events fail them, and the priests manufactured their myths and
creed whenever the sacred books failed them. So their capacity of
fiction was exercised daily and hourly. And provided it was exercised in
accordance with the purpose of the bureau, no one interfered with their
enjoyment. The newspapers and the church were the home of fiction; and
when truth was told there, it passed unrecognised. In order to keep up
the interest of readers the journalists manufactured sensational news
one day and contradicted it the next; and in order to draw crowds one
priest would preach a most heterodox interpretation of the sacred books
in his sermon and another would reply to him in his and contradict him.
This neutralised the evil that might arise from journalism and its
personalities and from sermons and their heterodoxies. It would never
have done to put ordinary citizens or successful deceivers and
slanderers into such posts; they would be too astute in deceiving the
people; their fictions would not be so palpable and gross or so mutually
contradictory that the simplest reader or hearer would discover them. So
much had the Aleofanian palate become accustomed to such journalism and
pulpit oratory that if the writers ever described facts or indulged in
truths, they had to give them the flavour of fiction; and if ever the
priests indulged in orthodox doctrines they had to give them the tinge
of the heterodox. Ah, surely the whole people were happy, for all were
so free as to be able to indulge their special appetites and likings!

I was scarcely convinced by this subtle and eloquent eulogy of
Aleofanian life and liberty, and I determined to visit the common people
and see for myself. I had already examined the journals intended for
them and seen how different they were from the fashionable literature of
the marble city. They were generally presented to strangers and must
have greatly impressed them, for they were full of noble sentiments and
moralisations subtly interwoven with eulogies of the Aleofanian leaders
of state and fashion for their great virtues and goodness. It was most
edifying to read these sermonised news-sheets, saturated as they were
with the highest ethics and deepest piety, and especially the doctrine
that it was the duty of every man to adhere to the station in which God
had placed him. But I was struck after I came into the marble city with
the tone adopted towards them by the citizens of the higher class; they
spoke of them with a patronising smile and disinterested approval, as if
they were talking of children’s Sunday-school literature or fairy tales.
And about all the fiction in these popular journals there was the
atmosphere of a child’s fairyland; everything was happy and beautiful
and as it should be. After reading a series of them I could easily have
concluded that Aleofane was another paradise for the unambitious and
lowly, and that death must be looked upon by the common people as an
overwhelming catastrophe in that it put a stop to this full current of
joy and happiness.

My curiosity was greatly piqued. I wished to see this other Eden upon
earth. So with letters and passports and a guide, one of the
journalists, I set out. And for the first few days everything was
idyllic. But drunkenness, the special vice of my cicerone, got hold of
him, and he collapsed by the way. Thereafter I found the whole scene
change. It was now nothing but squalor and gloom and the lash of the
whip.

A stranger from a neighbouring island, whom I had met in my first
hostelry, explained to me the histrionic character of the first few
days’ experience and the reality of the last. He took me in hand, and
under his guidance I visited one of their provincial cities. Here I saw
men and women of the same race as the marble citizens crawling in filth
and starvation, prostrate in a magnificent temple before the
sleight-of-hand and the mesmerism of the priests. They were bound in the
chains of superstition and ignorance, and they were encouraged to do
little else than procreate and multiply; for to pauperise by religion
was the first rule of the Aleofanian government, and to enslave the soul
by pauperism and ignorance was its corollary.

Yet in a cave outside of the town we witnessed from our hiding-place
awful and mysterious rites of a revolutionary propaganda proceeding. We
saw thousands of the ignorant peasants and artisans getting initiated.
And when the ceremony was finished we almost burst into laughter over
the pathos as the agitators gathered round a fire and gorged. My guide
had evidently something to do with this rising revolution; and he was so
enraged to find that an agent from the communistic island of Tirralaria
had crept in amongst the revolutionists. The heavens confound his
impudence and cant! What he and his beggarly crew from the isle of
thieves wanted was to divide the plunder of another island. They had
communised Tirralaria into a cipher. Of the wealth that they had counted
by thousands, when they landed there, naught remained but the nothings.
The growth of the dummy citizen or cipher in the denominator had made
Tirralarian property a vanishing point. The game of this Garrulesi was
not to establish socialism in Aleofane, but to socialise its property
into Tirralaria.

After his burst of anger I tried to elicit more about this socialistic
community. Tirralaria was a large island, I got to know, into which had
been tumbled some centuries ago a few thousand socialists with
considerable wealth to their share. They had increased to tens of
thousands, and their wealth had gone down to little more than a shirt to
each back. After the besom of a tornado or a famine or a plague had
swept the island the population soon reached high-water mark again;
every square yard of the soil was littered with a stronger and lazier
humanity. The island stank of humanity miles to leeward. There was
scarcely room enough for graves, let alone beds. The lubberly and
oleaginous let themselves out as mattresses; and so the space was
economised, and another increase was possible. The unclean rogues, they
never washed, unless they chanced to get hustled off the edge of the
island into the sea. The description contrasted so strongly with the
rose-coloured picture that I had heard drawn by the socialist agent in
the cave that I determined to see for myself.

As we wandered through the forests of the island my guide told me of two
saviours that had landed on the coasts of Aleofane and become the
protectors of the poor. One refused to resort to the tricks of the
charlatan, and, deserted by his followers, perished at the hands of the
aristocracy, who then adopted his tenets and worked them into an
elaborate hypocrisy. The other, learning by his fate and bettering the
jugglery of the marble citizens, put heart and drill into the poor who
flocked to his standards, and led them to victory. He seized the throne,
but, flattered by the old aristocracy into belief in his own divinity
and into desertion of the cause of the poor, he vanished in pomp,
luxury, and corruption.

By dint of persistent inquiry I got him to explain his hints about the
island from which the ancestors of all of them had come. It was called
Faddalesa, or the isle of devils, because of the appalling phenomena
they encountered whenever they attempted to return to it. It had, he
acknowledged, been called Limanora, or the island of progress; but for
thousands of years that name had lapsed. And on the shores of now one
island and again another strangers had landed. But as they were wealthy,
and taciturn, no questions were asked, and their descendants had
vanished into the ranks of the aristocracy. It was many centuries since
any had come, though it was generally supposed in the archipelago that I
had come from the central island with my fireship. I saw the mistake
that they had made would serve my new resolve to make for this mother
isle; and I left it unchallenged in their minds.

In the great northern harbour of Aleofane I came across the same filth
and a similar rich temple; but I also found clearer evidence of
underground revolution approaching consummation. And for the sake of my
fireship and its powers of helping on the movement I was initiated into
the mysteries of one of their societies. The socialistic agent,
Garrulesi, insinuated himself into my acquaintanceship; and for the sake
of being able to return with him to his home I endured his eloquence on
the perfection of the altruistic life. Competition was the bane of the
human race; and its only products were poverty and disease and
unhappiness. It was responsible for property, and the only crime was
property. Was it not monstrous that one man should taboo what another
man needed! Obliterate property, and you wipe out crime too. How gentle
and amenable and humane was the true commonweal, where neither property
nor class existed! No law was needed, no law could persist. Every
natural instinct and passion of the human breast was allowed the fullest
scope. There was indeed no further stage to reach; need of progress, of
effort was passed. Man under such a rule had become all that he might
be, and he felt that whatever is is right. Evil and darkness had fled
before the light of primitive happiness, and existence had become the
throne of God.

As he dilated on the nobleness of Tirralarian civilisation I saw his eye
flicker and his colour change. A stranger had passed. He told me that we
were being watched. He wished me to take refuge in Tirralaria with my
fireship if anything occurred. But I had promised it to my guide and
fellow-traveller. He showed one flash of anger. But it vanished at once.
He led me to the shore and pointed out his falla or ship. In it he would
hang round the coasts for me, and he indicated an unfrequented point,
whither I could flee and find safety on board his ship. He offered to
take off to my crew any message that I desired to send; I might instruct
it to come to Tirralaria for me after it had been to the isle of dogs. I
wrote in English, and sent my orders to my comrades, knowing that the
language would be safe from his prying.

[Illustration]

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[Illustration]

CHAPTER XIII

IMPRISONMENT AND ESCAPE

HE went on board and I returned to my guide, whom I found greatly
disturbed. An official spy had come down from the marble city; and this
meant that a whole army of them in covered armour were in the
neighbourhood and on the alert. He had scarcely ears for an account of
my interview with Garrulesi till I reached the story of his blanching at
the sight of a stranger. His alarm grew, and he was concocting a scheme
for getting to my fireship, though he knew it would be almost impossible
to pass through the cordon of state guards that was, he was certain,
drawn round us. Just as dusk shuttled into dark he had matured his
scheme, and we were about to put it into effect when the door of our
room in the hostelry opened and a missive was delivered to each of us.
We were invited by the monarch to return to the marble city and sojourn
with him in his palace. Nothing could be clearer than that the bureaus
had received information of our movements and suspected that we were
engaged in stirring the artisans and peasants to revolution. And this
was a pleasant invitation to euthanasia. Our doom was fixed if we could
find no other way out of the noose.

Early in the morning a car of triumphal proportions drew up at our door
and we were bowed by the town officials with great ceremony into it. It
went off at funereal pace by a coast road to the marble city,
accompanied by an escort of royal guards. It was plain from the faces of
the wayfarers of the ruling class that there was something portentous in
our procession, for they looked back at us with glances full of pity. My
guide, who came to be more self-controlling in his manner and more
confidential and intimate in his tone, told me how often he had feared
such a result; but they had followed their own diabolical style of
letting him have complete freedom till he had become reckless, and now
they had pounced upon him. He asked me, if I escaped, to make for
Broolyi, his native country, and inform the authorities of his fate;
they would give me full protection and treat me with the greatest
hospitality, I might be sure. He told me his own name—Blastemo—and said
that the mention of it would turn all his relatives into my friends. But
lest the devils should, with their usual pharisaic inhumanity, make
their refined methods of torture take the place of euthanasia, he gave
me a small nutful of a most potent drug, a pinch of which, small enough
to be hidden under the nails, would launch me in a few seconds into the
tide of unconsciousness that leads to death. In the palace we would be
watched by a hundred eyes that we could never see. Unseen, unguessed-at
espionage was one of the secrets of the mysterious power that the
bureaus had over all. They seemed to know almost what was transacted in
the depths of the soul in the darkness of midnight. The only safeguard
in the Isle of Liars (thus he translated the name) was the universal
suspicion that tortured the marble citizens. None of them felt sure of
even his nearest relative or closest friend. And if any chance of escape
came to us, it would be through some official of the palace who was
getting uneasy about his own fate.

We were welcomed at our destination with great and effusive ceremonies
as if we were about to be enthroned. And for days we seemed to be the
centre of all its hospitalities; we were fêted and banqueted and amused
in the most elaborate style. And through the whole series of festivity
and pomp we were without any apparent caution kept strictly apart, so
that we were not able to pass even a word.

The monarch showed himself greatly interested in me and asked me
innumerable questions about my people and country, being especially
amused at my description of the use of steam in doing work, and of the
use of firearms. His little six-year-old boy was even more entranced by
my pictures of the steam-engine and of our warfare. He was the one
weakness of his father. He clung to my side, especially when in
disgrace, and that was very often. It was he who told me that my
fireship was off the mouth of the estuary where I had landed. I
stimulated his curiosity to the utmost, seeing a possible way of escape.
He kept begging the king to let him go to it. But clearly the bureaus
were against such a venture.

At last the child fell ill. The physicians declared the illness to be
one of the heart, and after a time warned his father of its dangerous
character if the boy were in any way thwarted. He whined every day his
old request that he might be taken on board my fireship. The king
pleaded with the heads of the bureaus to let him go; and they at last
grew alarmed too, for he was the only heir to the throne, and the
father’s life was by no means certified by the physicians as likely to
be long. They saw the risk of getting thrown out of power. And they
consented to the expedition, but under the most stringent conditions. I
was to remain on shore whilst Blastemo and the little prince should go
on board with his father and a royal escort.

We set out, and after much floundering in the mud and grappling with the
current they swept over the bar under the guidance of a fisherman who
knew every sand-bank and could prevent such a mishap as befell me when I
landed. I had sent a note with them, and I could see that the three were
received on board with every sign of friendliness. But the boats
containing the escort drew out to a distance from the steamer.

Everything seemed to go well for a time; the sea was calm, with a slight
breath and ripple off the shore. Suddenly I saw a whiff of smoke shoot
out from the bow of my yacht, and with a loud report reverberating from
the cliffs behind, a ball landed in the midst of a troop of guards that
was stationed to cut off my retreat towards the north, the only possible
way of escape; on the other side was the river with its acres of mud,
and behind was the road to the city, well guarded at all points. The
result was as sudden as the shot. I had just time to collect my senses
and look round; and away on the highway I could see the tails of the
guard in the wind. Another shot and another ploughed the earth or
flapped into the mud, and cleared the lowlands of every Aleofanian.

I soon realised the situation and quietly walked off to the north over a
long spit. I made no attempt to run as if I were escaping. But as I
moved higher and higher on the rising ground I could see the shot strike
the flat I had left. When I reached the highest part of the promontory I
found the reason for the demonstration. A falla lay in the offing,
sheltered from sight of the retreating troops by the high bluff in which
the spit terminated. Garrulesi’s instructions flashed into my mind; and
I remembered that this was the point he had indicated for my safety if
ever I needed to escape.

I got over the ridge, and as I looked back I could see the sand
occasionally pirouetting in the air and I could hear a reverberation
sound in the rear. I then ran as quickly as legs would carry me towards
the shore. In a sheltered nook of quiet water lay a native boat, with
the men sitting paddles in hand. They gave me the signal agreed upon,
and I readily jumped on board. The canoe shot out from the rocks. And it
was not too soon. For a troop, recovering from their panic, were making
down the sheltered side of the spit, unnoticed by the yacht. And we were
not out of reach when the first arrows sliced the water. The men
redoubled their efforts, and only half a dozen missiles struck the boat
before we were safe on board Garrulesi’s falla.

[Illustration]

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[Illustration]

CHAPTER XIV

THE VOYAGE TO TIRRALARIA

I ASKED him to sail round the bluff and communicate with my yacht. But
he would not hear of it. He said that this would endanger the safety of
all, for the Aleofanian king would see at once how elaborate had been
the conspiracy and how treacherous we had been, and he would take every
means to frustrate our departure, or, if we got safely off, to avenge
the insult. I had to accept his reasons, for I was in his power. But I
was sure that there were others; he was afraid that if I got on board my
own ship, Blastemo would persuade me to go off with him to Broolyi; on
the other hand, if he secured me for his island, my fireship would soon
be in Tirralaria too.

I found out afterwards from my sailors that the king had fallen into
great consternation at the firing of the guns, especially when the boats
with his guards made off towards the shore. One of the shot had
opportunely ploughed up the sea not far from their station and had
evidently filled them with panic. My men knew that Garrulesi was waiting
for me on the other side of the point, and they kept firing towards the
beach till they thought that I should be on board. Then, in order to
quiet the fears of the king, they put him and his boy into the yawl, and
pulled him on shore. In his excitement he had forgotten all about
Blastemo, and, before he had regained the upper reaches of the road and
joined his troops, the yacht had lifted anchor, picked up her boat, and
steamed out to sea. They saw my signal on board the falla, and knew that
I was safe. So they followed my instructions and made for Broolyi,
whilst the wind bore us in the opposite direction.

But the shadows thickened, and before night fell we had run into the
shelter of some high land and anchored. The men hung a dirty guttering
lamp in the main room of the high poop, and by its light I could see how
slovenly and foul was the whole cabin. It smelt of fish-oil and of
unnumbered meals past. The floor was littered with garbage, so that I
had to clear a path through it to prevent slipping. I could find no
convenient ledge to sit on that was not embossed with grease and oil. I
was glad to reach the night air again, for it at least helped to
deodorise the deck. I got them to hang me a hammock in the shrouds,
resolved to keep out of the cabin as long as I could.

I was awakened at early dawn by the movements of the seamen, and through
the grey light I saw that we were lying off the bleak, rocky shore of an
islet. We hoisted sail and were off before a whistling wind that sang
violence to come. They had considerable skill in handling the falla, and
we left a long scar behind us across the crests of the emulous waves.
Swift though the current and surge ran with us, we outstripped them,
rising like a sea-bird to the full impulse of the wind. I could tell at
a glance that the ancestors of these seamen had been accustomed to rough
waters through countless ages.

My host came on deck after we were fully under way and at once joined
me. He launched again into eulogies of the socialistic community. I was
at the mercy of his eloquence, and resigned myself to my fate. Yet
before the voyage closed and we ran into port I was rewarded for my
talent of listening. He got weary of tempting my admiration by his
praises, and soon slipped into what looked like fact. He gave me a
picturesque description of the island when its rude outline began to
sierra the horizon. There were miles and miles of lawns and orchards
that terraced the lowlands from the lapping water on the beach to the
roots of the mountains that I saw dim white against the sky rim.
Gleaming rivers streaked the meadows with their silver, or hid beneath
the blossoming or fruiting trees. Here and there they swelled into
sylvan lakes whose surface was spidered into moving gossamer by flocks
of tame sea-birds and by canvas bent on pleasure and ease. Towering
above the tallest trees stood vast temples that seemed in their shining
marbles to outstrip the snowy giants that were every hour revealing to
me more and more of their stupendous proportions.

I piloted him by judicious admiration and questions into a description
of their faith. It seemed to be a polytheism that was practically a
pantheism. Every spirit that existed in the universe apart from body was
equal to every other spirit. As soon as a man died his soul became a
god, as worthy of worship as any other god that had existed from the
beginning. Through the whole of space, and even permeating matter
invisibly, impalpably, gods lived and moved and had their being. They
needed no sustenance, no addition of energy, no extension of space to
live in. The universe was full of them, immortal generators of other
spirits, other gods. It was indeed an Olympus that was so united, so
free from all jealousy and enmity that it formed but one god, just as
the living cells of the human body, though each having its own
individuality, made but one human life. And there was still infinity to
fill. Worlds died every hour, having fulfilled their purpose of
producing all the divine life whereof they were capable. Every hour
worlds were born evolving energy and at last life, which rose by stages
up to the human that dying might be divine. The stellar system is but a
great god-factory. Not an atom that lives is wasted. Everything that
comes into existence rises up and into the nobly human; then the
physical sequence ceases and the divine begins. Death deifies all men;
evil falls away from them with their bodies; and, winged through the
vault, the souls flit, rid of passion and whatsoever clogs pure thought.
They have no desire to materialise again; they have no desires at all.
They can interpenetrate and unite and disunite without the sense of
disunion. They are one with existence that is not bound to what is
matter or has senses. They make the final all; and yet this all
increases every moment with transcendent growth. Its one imperfection is
that it cannot fill the whole of space; its one aspiration is to
colonise infinity. Life is too poor to satisfy it. It must grow for ever
and for ever through new systems and oceans of worlds that evolve
myriads of new gods ready to people the still unmastered regions beyond
its ken. Its energy is not diminished by the stupendous labour at the
unceasing birth of worlds. Every new effort means increased possibility
of energy. It is of the nature of pure spirit to develop its potence of
energy by energising. Once freed of cumbering matter, its life grows
fuller and freer the more it operates on the atoms of the ether to raise
them nearer and nearer to its own nature and being. Nor can it work
except through this laborious ascent; this is the only hierarchy of
life, the only altar-stairs in the universe, whereon being of lower
grade clambers up to godhead. Once the altar is reached there is nothing
but equality. There is only imperfection and perfection in existence. Of
imperfection there are as many gradations as there are kinds of being;
in perfection or godhead there is no differentiation; there degree,
class, distinction cease. For all gods are one in the all. In the stage
just precedent to godhead, in humanity, gradation has begun to vanish.
It is only the adulterate nature that still keeps distinction. The
higher the range of the men the less the difference between them; and at
last death obliterates it; they are perfect in freedom from the
long-obstructive matter, perfect in godhead, united to the all.

This outline of the socialistic religion came on me with the surprise of
one who should see wine flowing in the bed of a torrent instead of
water. I began to have a certain respect for this eternal talker whose
verbal bubbles had suddenly turned to pearls. He stopped just when I had
wished him to go on; and, to tap the same vein, I asked him how his
countrymen worshipped their god.

He came dangerously near to winding up his eloquence clockwork, for he
pointed to the sky and then to the snowy bulwark that loomed along the
horizon; and he straightened himself out and cleared his throat. I
feared the complacent glitter of his eye, and I rushed to the water-vat
and drank. The interruption seemed to switch off his energy from his
almost automatic word machine. He had grown meditative and rested his
head on his hands as he looked over the rail into the sea.

I approached him when I saw his new attitude, and he began in a soft,
reluctant voice: “We are all priests as we are all kings in our
community. To have a hierarchy or even an intermediary who should be
supposed to be in more direct sympathy and communication with the gods
than the rest is the worst of insults to the divine energy of the soul.
To make a special profession of that which is the aim of embodied life
is but to commercialise the divine and embrute the human. The priests
place their feet on the necks of the ignorant, and it is their interest
to reduce all to ignorance. Instead of the equality, which is the true
principle of life, we should have a double tyranny; we should grovel
before our gods, whose superstitions would weigh us to the ground; and
we should have their professional agents introducing the caprice and
imperfection of the human into their yoke. I know not which is the
worse: the purely spiritual slavery of timid, startled worship, or the
mingled slavery of priestcraft that makes the divine mysterious and
terrible in order that the worshippers may bow before it body and soul.

“It was a question with our ancestors when they were apportioning the
wealth they had brought with them to general purposes, whether they
should build temples to their new and universal god or take the dome of
immensity as his shrine. They had brought with them a love of art
devoted to divine service, and a traditionary love of temples as the
symbols of the divine dwelling-place. And yet temples would imply
attendants who would soon raise themselves into a spiritual tyranny.
Whilst there around them was the free ether wherein dwelt members of the
godhead; there above them was the marvellous roof of night frescoed with
worlds. Surely it was better that the chrysalids of gods should live in
the same temple as the gods. There was no sanctuary like that which the
divine had chosen and made for itself. To set apart any portion of it as
a holy of holies would sully the nobleness of its workmanship. Fane
there was none but the universe; and any poor chantry erected by man,
however stupendous it seemed to him with his span of life to build it
in, would be a mockery of the Infinite. How pigmean it would seem
beneath the vault of night, wherein distance was fenced by the
penetrative impotence of human eyes, how atomic when gauged by thought,
the true instrument of worship!

“At first schism threatened over this burning question. But at last yon
steaming censer of the mountains gave the solution. The first night
fell, and they saw a strange glow above the ranges as if it were a fire
amongst the clouds. Superficial thought would fain explain it as the
after-sheen of sunset. But the hours advanced and still the radiance
flushed and faded, flushed and faded, and often with fuliginous and
lurid glare. At times a pillar as of smoke and flame seemed to unite
earth and heaven. Every eye was fixed on the turbid glimmer as it
enhaloed the sombre beauty of the night. The still lingering
superstitions that lurked in the graveyards of many minds took it as a
sign from the world beyond death. In the dusky aisles of night, as they
discussed the theme in low and reverent voices, there spread the
magnetic power of resurgent superstition in a crowd touched with the
mystery of the universe; and before the dawn suffused the sky or flooded
the ancestral recesses of the mind, it was resolved to take this fiery
peak as the altar of their worship.

“But the elements had decided otherwise; the searing, blinding power of
its everlasting snows, the torrid ebullience of its great cup, and the
ruthless fury of the clouds that so often blotted out its heaven, drove
the worshippers to the lowlands; and there the frequent austerity of the
elements, aided by the old love of art, compelled the erection of the
temples you see beginning to fleck the dusky background of the rocks and
forests. But the more progressive section of the community, who favoured
no temple but the open heaven, had their fears as to the future allayed
by a written agreement signed by all that it should be a penal offence
to propose a priesthood or a service for them. Everyone may worship
where he pleases, within these tabernacles made with hands or without in
the pantheon of all men and all gods, in the star-vaulted minster of
infinity.”

It was indeed an impressive sight as we approached and the dim sierra
grew into a stupendous range that overshadowed us; in its midst rose
gigantic the gleaming peak of their fiery monarch dominating all. Above
him hung, as if to shade him from the rude fire of the sun, a great tree
of smoke whose leafage touched the heaven, and majestically swung in the
wind. At its roots the forests and marble fanes were dwarfed. No
eloquence of gesture or of word could make me turn my gaze from him to
them; but a lower bastion of mountains in front moved upwards and
blotted out his serenity. Then I saw the magnitude of the temples,
dwarfing as they did the loftiest trees of the forest.

I asked him where the houses were, and with some reluctance he pointed
off to the right, where nothing could be distinguished. Then my mind ran
on to the symbols of civilised life, and I inquired for the schools and
other educational institutions.

“There are none,” he said. “They are only symbols and nurses of
inequality. After we had abolished caste and class and social
distinctions, we soon came to see that the most offensive of all was
culture, and especially scholarship and learning. Who contemns his
neighbour so much as the pedagogue that knows a language or a series of
facts more than other men? Academic snobbery is the most pernicious,
most galling; for it can immediately put in its proofs of the
superiority it claims; it can rout all but its equal and rival. It is
the most exclusive, most presuming, most irritating. We started with
universities and academies and technical schools, under the impression
that, by making them free to all, we should give all equal privileges.
Before we were through a generation of our new history the fallacy
became transparent. We were rapidly manufacturing a class of
intellectual peacocks, or at least men and women who sneered at the
vulgar herd. By our constitution every citizen was entitled to a certain
minimum of food and clothing in the year. The scholar could always live
on less than this, and, by offering the surplus as payment, he could get
others to perform the mechanical duties of his life. He had what he
wanted in free libraries and laboratories and lectures. So he came to
have an inordinate share of happiness; and in many cases he had an
inordinate scorn for the bulk of the people, who took no advantage of
these privileges. A yearning for books and for exercise of the mind is
anything but natural to most men, and the nation was rapidly sorting
itself out into a small class who were happy and prided themselves on
having everything they wanted, and a majority who envied these their
content and grumbled at the enormous wealth they had accumulated in
their minds. It was true that these men wrote books and made discoveries
and inventions; but what good were their books and facts and machines to
any but themselves? Nobody else used them or wished to use them. They
might talk of the advances of science and the nobleness of art and the
glories of literature. But their talk was unreal to all but their own
narrow circle; for the rest of the people it was like descanting on
colours to the blind.

“The worst was to come; there afterwards grew up a class of sham
scholars and æsthetes and critics who learned the shibboleths of the
scientists and artists and writers, and used these shibboleths as
instruments of offence against what they called outsiders. There were
two primitive languages that had, in earlier ages before the migration
and before the growth of a native literature, taken deep root in
education. These were treated as the marks and symbols of culture; and
their rudiments were laboriously shuffled through and promptly forgotten
by a large section, who thereupon assumed great airs of superiority to
their neighbours. These counterfeit scholars and critics made the two
languages into a fence and stockade that would defy the assaults of the
mob; within it they fell down and worshipped as the gods of the earth
the few who did know them well and could speak them. Most of them had
learned by rote some passages from one or two of the favourite books in
them; and they were accustomed, when they were worsted in any
conversation or discussion, to roll off, relevantly or irrelevantly, one
or the other of these, and thus silence their opponents. Only the mock
scholars ever did this; the real scholars knew too much of these
languages and had too much to occupy their minds otherwise to resort to
such trivial weapons. The contemptuous manners of the charlatans of
culture became insufferable. You would have thought that there was
something divine in these tongues, so fiercely did these bastard
scholars bridle up at any disparagement of them or any comparison of
them with the vernacular.

“The growth of this charlatanism became a serious danger to our
socialistic community, and it was thought that by its removal the danger
would be over. Accordingly it was resolved, only the scholars and their
mimics dissenting, that the study and use of these primitive languages
should be interdicted. The books written in them were burnt,—to the
great joy of the boys and girls in the seminaries,—and it was made a
penal offence to write or speak any word of them. There was much
sophistry used to get round the law, as a good deal of Tirralarian
phraseology was derived from them. But this difficulty was surmounted by
a clearer and more detailed definition, and the cultured hung their
heads defeated.

“It was not for long. Before another generation had passed, the scholars
had invented other claims to pre-eminence, other shibboleths. Now it was
the laws of nature and the laws of beauty that supplied the platform for
scorn of neighbours. The scientists and artists and critics of art
became the small privileged class, who had more than their fair share of
happiness and content. They produced something that seemed to be of more
value than the musty books of the scholars written in languages that
none but themselves could read. And their humours and superiority were
borne with at first for the sake of their discoveries and useful
contrivances and beautiful works. It was they who built the temples and
decorated them with such splendour and filled them with such machines
and expedients for the use and comfort of the citizens. They were few,
and not very obtrusive in their contempt for the multitude, and their
superior airs were counterbalanced by their usefulness.

“This tolerance was a mistake. The idea of having exclusiveness without
detriment to the socialistic principle was only a dream. There sprang up
the fringe of insolent make-believe again. Herds of pretenders to art or
science or criticism flocked into the universities and technical
schools. They gabbled of genius and talent, of principles and laws, of
elements and atoms, of cells and tissues, and of ideals and the spirit
of beauty. The trick was more transparent than the other, for they had
to use the vernacular in their patter; and a good deal of it was
manifest nonsense to the simplest mind, whilst the astuter amongst the
uneducated stripped even their most high-sounding maxims and laws into
the nakedest of truisms. But the empiric scientists and artists and
æsthetes shifted their ground every year and manufactured other and more
mystic phraseology. It was difficult to follow them through their
thickets and labyrinths of gibberish by which they kept off those whom
they were pleased to call the rabble. They became almost as stupidly
contemptuous and insolent as the possession of the rudiments of the most
unintelligible languages could have made them.

“It came to be clear that the old danger to equality had only taken a
new form. The mass of the nation clamoured against the new pretensions
of culture. They would hear of nothing but the abolition of its
factories, as they called the universities and schools of art. What
would come of the principle of socialism if this aristocracy of genius
and talent, brummagem or real, was to be let alone with its capacity to
blow itself out with its limitless vanity about its own importance? No
sane man would answer for the consequences if the wild rage of the
uneducated was allowed to vent itself on this superficial pretence and
shallow scorn. Scholars, scientists, artists, critics, and the parasitic
crew that battened on their results and used them offensively against
the multitude would fall in one great welter of blood. The gentler
section of the community could not look on this risk to their ideal of
society without a shudder. They convened the whole nation, and by an
overwhelming majority it was resolved to abolish the institutions that
fostered science and art, learning and criticism; it became high treason
to establish a library or university, or a school of art or science, or
a seminary of literature or criticism. There were the same attempts as
before to elude the provisions of the law and get round it by quibble
and sophism; but this led only to greater stringency and detail in its
clauses. It was made penal to write a book, or make a scientific
discovery, or invent any contrivance, or produce any work of art; and
you may be quite sure that, with the bulk of the people acting policeman
and spy for the law, it was soon carried into force, and pictures and
statues and books and machines ceased to be made. The insolence and
contempt of the intellectual parasites had no soil to fatten on, and
ultimately vanished from the state.”

He stopped with a snap of the jaw that said plainly: “There now; are you
satisfied? If not, you are a most unreasonable being. Where will you
find a civilisation grander than ours on the face of the earth?”

I was by no means satisfied. He had left one of the main branches of my
question unanswered. He had explained the history of the higher
institutions and the fate of the sciences and art and literature; but I
had asked him about the schools. I still pressed the question.

“Ay, that was another danger to the social constitution. The energy of
talent and genius, and the sham intellectualism chased from one post of
vantage took refuge in another. A pedagogic class sprang up that would
have grown into a most contemptuous and insolent aristocracy. The loud
and haughty arrogance and overbearing dogmatism of the charlatan fringe
of the profession were beginning to impress the bulk of the nation with
disgust and alarm, when there arose a fierce rebellion among the
scholars. The hundreds of mean-spirited empirics that had crept into the
ranks of teachers for the sake of the emoluments in the shape of
prestige and opportunity for the scorn of neighbours had had to resort
to the most tyrannical and cruel methods in order to keep discipline. A
few genuine instructors there were, who were able to cope with the
knavishness of the worst of pupils by means of their strength of
character and power of sympathy and imagination; they always elicited
what was best in the embryo humanity that came into their hands to be
moulded; they could use the laughter and sympathy of the majority to
whip the offensive disposition and will out of the laggards and would-be
rebels; and the latter were cowed and disciplined without any sense of
unfair treatment. But the closing of the channels of science and art and
criticism to the aristocratic quackery, that flows, if unchecked, from
the corrupt fountains of human nature, flooded the profession with
supercilious pretenders. Their scholars easily measured their
intelligence and sincerity, and turned the school-rooms into
pandemonium. The high-flying charlatans conferred together and invented
new and cruel modes of punishment. They introduced a reign of terror
into the schools. The boys and girls formed secret societies which
combined into one great brotherhood all over the island. They drilled in
darkness and armed every member with a catapult and pea-shooter. They
wrote the agreement and signed it in their own blood, and managed to
keep the proposed rebellion shrouded in mystery for five whole days, for
it was strictly confined to those above the age of twelve. But the fear
that it would leak out precipitated the rising; and they drove the
schoolmasters and schoolmistresses out under a fierce fire of peas and
pebbles, till wounded and bleeding the charlatans took refuge up the
mountains amid the snow, or in the waves of the beach, ducking to avoid
the missiles. The rout was most ignominious, and the scholars were able
to dictate their own terms. It was agreed that they should be exempted
from school and family discipline and be admitted to the full
citizenship. For it was seen that the exclusion of children above the
age of twelve from the schools would so reduce the numbers of the
insolent parasites and shams in the profession as to remove the
forefront of the offence.

“But it was found that twelve was a mere artificial limit. Inspired by
the example of their predecessors, the ten-year-olds made a successful
revolution and had the minimum age of citizenship reduced to ten. Still
the pedants were felt to be a most offensively arrogant class; the
smaller their numbers grew, the more they plumed themselves on their
superiority. And every new rebellion against their authority was aided
and abetted by the multitude, who huzzaed as the catapults of the pigmy
forces swept the field and the volleys from their pea-shooters told with
deadly effect, and after the defeat of the pedagogues granted
citizenship to every child of a certain age. Victory followed victory
till at last it seemed a farce to have schools at all. They were turned
into playhouses for stormy or wet weather, and the limit of age was
removed from citizenship. Every child, as soon as his legs would carry
him and his tongue would wag, could come to the conventions of the
people and record his vote. It greatly encouraged marriage and the
increase of families, for a man or woman with a dozen or score of
children had become a power in the state. Thus the last vestige of
privilege disappeared, and with it the last chance of intellectual
charlatanism forming an aristocracy. Every man was like his neighbour,
and for that matter so was every child. Sex, age, genius, talent,
profession, trade had ceased to form the basis of caste. Equality within
the nation had at last been reached.”

There was unspeakable complacence on his face; and yet my look of
interrogation broke it up. I had heard much about the professions and
their history in Tirralaria. I had heard nothing of the medical
profession. I wondered how they guaranteed the healing art.

“Oh, as for that, it disappeared in the earliest jetsam of the
community. Of the charlatans and nose-elevators the privileged doctors
were the worst. They blundered and buried their blunders, and wildly
resented every question. They kept up a mysterious patter that was of
the very essence of aristocracy and privilege. The atmosphere of
superstition that they threw round their old-wives’ remedies imposed
upon men when they were sick; but as soon as they were well their fear
vanished, and they determined to be clear of the empiricism and mummery
of the profession. And at last, after a great plague had laughed at
their charms and talismans and skill, and swept half the nation down to
the worms, their quackery had become too apparent. One third of them had
taken boat and migrated to other islands of the archipelago. Another
third had died of their own plague-nostrums and salves. The remainder
had lost their self-confidence and dogmatism and were willing to
acknowledge that they knew little if any but the simplest diseases, and
to these they applied the herbs and salves that every old woman tried.
The nation took them in their mood of humility and destroyed the fences
round the profession. Everyone was left free to use his own remedies. In
a fit of generosity they handed over the secrets of their trade to the
public, and salves and medicaments and pills and powders were
manufactured wholesale by the state chemists and issued free with
instructions for their use. Whether it was the abolition of the caste or
not, the death-rate has, if anything, decreased, and plagues are no more
frequent than they were before. Everyone who treats another and kills
him is liable to punishment by the state. So, few undertake to
prescribe, and every citizen is responsible for his own treatment. In
times of privilege a doctor was licensed to kill with impunity; he and
his brethren could always throw dust in the eyes of any inquiry by
technical terms and abracadabra. We are rid of that chicanery, and in
health and death-rate we are no worse off than before. So much for
physic.”

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[Illustration]

CHAPTER XV

TIRRALARIA

I HAD other questions; but we had run into a basin that had once been a
harbour. Every bastion and rampart had been pounded and bruised by the
billows till the débris lay scattered along the beach. Every house and
building stood in dilapidation. Yet to look upwards over the terraced
slopes of the lower hills was still to think of paradise. Magnificent
temples, pure with marbles and broken in outline with minarets and
towers and niched statues, dwarfed the forest trees or the cliff over
which they stood. There was not a meaner building to be seen. It looked
as if only the gods dwelt here amid blossoming or fruited trees; and
streams flashed at intervals athwart the verdant slopes; and over a
precipice or down a ravine they smote the dark rock with the noise of
their silver sword; and at every impulse from the capricious fan of the
wind the emerald face of the cliff shone faintly through the silver veil
of water that twisted back into a single thread again. Up for hundreds
of feet the great stairs of the hills mounted, each step crowned with a
gleaming fane and enriched with meadow and orchard. And Time, the
supreme artist, had been there with his brush. I could see the moss and
ivy and other coloured creepers brocade the human architecture and
soften the gleam of the marble with their cool tracery. Beneath the warm
passion of the setting sun the picture was most entrancing. Nothing was
too new. There was a quaint tone from the centuries even about the
motley garments that clothed the throng of beggars in the roads and
lanes; for there were no streets and no comfortable looking citizens and
burghers to be seen, unless the loungers that crowded the arcades and
piazzas of the temples and leaned against the pillars up the hill were
of that class. I supposed that some convulsion of nature had wrecked the
edifices of the flat by the beach and the piers of the harbour, and that
there had been no time or purpose for rebuilding them, and as the sun
flared up from beneath the turban of clouds that hid his disk, the
softened colours stole into the rents and crevices of the ruins and
raised them into beauty. The dim suffusion of rose lent a picturesque
warmth even to the rags and patches of the lazzaroni that smeared with
unctuous indolence every available resting-place.

I was glad to get on shore; for the rancid food of the falla had not
been to my taste, and the foul odour and sluttishness of the cabin were
alone enough to close the pores of appetite. There was at least power to
move away from these on land.

Yet the change was not altogether for the better. Dry though the roads
and earth underfoot were from long absence of rain, the nose was still
assailed by something that seemed to strike out from all quarters. A
whiff of the sea wind would now and again beat it down only to make it
more obtrusive. The whole putrescence of the earth seemed to have found
here a lay-stall. Garrulesi looked quite unconscious of it. We hurried
along over prostrate bodies that as the shadows clotted into night often
tripped me up. They might have been logs, so irresponsive were they even
to the impact of my toes. I soon learned to jump over everything that
seemed to gather more darkness to it, and after a time we began to
ascend, and the streaks of moveless humanity lay along instead of
athwart our path. An occasional snore or groan or sigh told us of layers
of it beneath the trees to right and left. One consolation was our
gradual escape from the purgatory of stenches as we rose. What
surrounded us I could not see, but it seemed heaven to all the senses,
so keenly did they sympathise with that of smell in its new freedom.

We wound and zigzagged ever upwards till at last we reached the portico
and arcade of one of the great edifices I had seen from the sea. Time
and the seasons, I could perceive, even in the underlight of the stars,
had carved and wrought its walls with eccentric design. And no human
hand, as far as I could see, had interfered with their workmanship. They
had been analytic more than synthetic architects, for, when we went
inside, the stars peered down on us through chinks and rents with
impudent curiosity.

It was indeed a strange building. A great torch flared over what had
once been the altar, and moved and guttered in the baffling draughts. As
the eyes focussed themselves to the sandwiched light and gloom, I saw a
great tablet of marble with a raised map of some mountainous country
upon it in spent grease and resin; and the huge fagot of pine splinters
and pitch that was stuck into a rent in it was still at its work of
mapping in relief. I followed the flicker of the lambent flame upwards
and was amazed by the height of the roof or dome above the pillared nave
and aisles. Even yet beneath the grime and smoke of ages and the litter
of myriads of birds I could see carved woodwork of graceful or fantastic
shape and an occasional dim relic of some gigantic fresco. The windows
were choked with logs and branches of trees and débris of all kinds, and
yet they showed how marvellous they were in their grace and magnitude.
How the architects could have raised that stupendous mass of stone to
resist the centuries, how they could have hung that sea of stone foliage
and flower in mid-air, were bewildering questions. I could see the
graceful floral shapes even underneath the guano of ages.

It was the scurviest sight I had seen for many a day; but the worst was
to come. The crowd of rather noble-featured beggars that jostled each
other on all sides were evidently preparing for rest. Mats of tree bark
or dried leaves of a tough texture were being slung like hammocks from
every corner of vantage. Garrulesi handed me one from a niche in the
wall and some cordage, and led me to a space between two pillars that
was still unoccupied. Dozens came in afterwards and hung their mats
above me and below me and on both sides of me till I felt stifled by the
slung and snoring humanity that festooned me round. He also pitched into
my hammock some hard fruits and dried meats, which I munched till I fell
asleep with the fatigue of the unwonted exercise. When I awoke in the
morning this great ecclesiastical dormitory was unslinging itself.
Unfledged deities were sitting in their hammocks as far up into the
clustering darkness of the dome as my eye could reach, and yawning and
rubbing their grimy eyelids with their grimy hands. They did not seem to
notice the stercoraceous volley from the restless birds as the winged
multitude flashed and screamed athwart the shadows or rustled and tore
through the withered branches that filled the windows. Some of these
callow gods descended the pillars or the festoons of sleeping mats by
finger and toe as nimbly as monkeys. Others were gathered round a great
fire by the altar roasting grains or kernels of fruit, whilst in corners
lounged groups munching ugly viands that they held in their hands.

I was marvelling over this stupendous rookery, watching its antics as it
unrolled itself out of the coil of dreams and descended with its mats by
ledges out into the foliated and clustered pillars, when Garrulesi
appeared. I scarcely recognised him, so transformed was he by his change
of dress. Instead of the spruce garments of Aleofane that added such
neatness to his oratory, he had clothed himself in a motley collection
of rags of varied colour and texture. His beard hung in smeary locks,
his hair was a mop, and by some process that was almost artistic he had
begrimed his features and hands. He did not leave me time to question or
reflect on the transformation of the divine demagogue into the beggar,
for he threw into my mat a bundle of choice antiquities that might
perhaps have brought twopence in any rag market. He assisted me to
disentangle the foul and rent miscellany and to tack them together over
my nakedness. My other garments he took from me, and, bidding me follow,
hid them, I alone present, in a secret crevice of a vault under the
edifice; he rolled a huge stone in order to conceal the aperture.

He explained to me that I must adopt in paradise the primitive clothing
of paradise, and that to appear in other guise would offend the humility
and sense of symmetry of his people. The greatest sages had preferred
beggardom and a crust to wealth and luxury, and what could any nation do
better than to follow their example? And at this point it flashed upon
me that the crowds whom I had taken for beggars the night before were
representatives of the nation.

When we returned to the temple above, we found all the pillars and
niches and roofs free from their chaplets and festoons of sleeping
mats, and the whole frippery stowed away in holes and crevices of the
walls. The birds had the upper ranges all to themselves and were
evidently satisfied with the division of the space, for they had
ceased their screaming and uneasy flight. The marble floor was covered
with groups standing, or sitting, or lying, engaged in easy
conversation or in cooking or eating food. Most of the night’s
occupants had evidently gone outside. I now began to see that most of
those who cooked were beardless, and although the rags of the two
sexes were indistinguishable, I could separate them by the different
outlines of the forms and faces. There was little respect or honour
paid to the gentler sex; they were jostled and pushed about; they had
to look after themselves and their interests. The men had clearly all
cooked their morning meal before; the women had to be content with the
remains of the fire and the remains of the heap of food that had been
piled in one of the corners of the edifice. There was undoubtedly
equality of the sexes; gallantry and chivalry had been banished as an
insult to their common humanity.

After a time I could see that the women were struggling to seize a share
of the food, not for themselves, but for others who were sick or weak or
deformed. The stronger men would have had it all but for this, and the
helpless would have gone unbreakfasted. The women were most of them as
brawny and tanned by the weather as the other sex, and they had come by
long struggle and heredity to be able almost to hold their own. They
hustled the crowd that stood in their way and gave tit for tat with as
lusty a muscle as if they had navvied from infancy. But it was
interesting to see in them the survival of their old tenderness for the
sick and feeble. It was doubtless their maternal functions that had
saved this relic from the general wreck of femininity.

[Illustration]

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[Illustration]

CHAPTER XVI

SNEEKAPE

THERE was one exception to the rule of masculine indifference. I had
been watching the figure for some time amongst the women before I
discovered it to be that of a man. He had a small, well-proportioned
head, even smaller than that of most of the women; and it was poised on
his long neck like a bird’s; it had such rapidity and variety and ease
of motion as if it were on a universal joint; it wiggled and bobbed, it
danced and undulated to every emotion that came into his breast, while
the little bead eyes twinkled and leered and winked; no head other than
a sparrow’s ever pirouetted and jerked and quivered with such manifest
enjoyment and self-admiration. He thought himself a humourist too, for
some of the younger women smirked and giggled as he stretched his wide
mouth and curved the corners of his eyes and shook and wagged his little
head. His themes were evidently the men around, but his voice was too
low and his gusto over his own jests too great for any of them to reach
beyond his immediate circle; like all wits of the shallow type, he was
his own best audience, though I could see he needed a feminine smile
somewhere about. At first I had admired his gallantry and kindness, for
he was the only man who sided with the women in their struggle for food.
But afterwards I hesitated, for I began to see that it was only the
women of handsome, stalwart form and finely moulded face, the women who
needed no help, that he fidgeted and bustled about; if ever he helped
any who could not help themselves, I saw that they had graceful forms
and the hectic beauty of the delicate. Another feature of his chivalry
that lowered my first opinion of him was that, nimble and sedulous
though he was in his attentions, what he did was superfluous; even the
women who most smirked at his jokes and innuendoes could not conceal a
lurking contempt for his officiousness and feminine vigilance about
trifling minutiæ.

Tall and graceful though he was, with an air of brisk intelligence and
dapper education, I began to take an inexplicable dislike to him. He
seemed to have some magnetic sense of this, for, after appearing
unconscious of my glance for a long time, he sidled up to me and with a
purring, confidential tone in his voice and a wise wag of his little
head and self-appreciative twinkle of his little eyes, he apologised in
the Aleofanian tongue for addressing me; but he heard from my accents
that I was a stranger, and felt drawn to me, as he was an alien, too, in
a strange land. If he felt any recoil against my somewhat brusque
rejection of his sympathy, he did not betray it. He wheedled himself by
abject subservience and subtle self-abasement into what he thought my
confidence. He artfully fished about for topics on which he could agree
with me, and ostentatiously paraded a yearning to know my opinions on
them; he looked transports of admiration and enthusiasm for them when
uttered; and the whole piece of acting was done with such an appearance
of candour and amiability that I began to feel myself discourteous and
unjust in being so surly to him. His urbanity and sweetness of temper
were never for an instant ruffled. He wore his most fascinating smile as
if to the manner born. He was bent on being the good Samaritan to my
spiritual wounds; he would not probe a single sore; he would apply balm
to all my sorrows if only he could get at them, if only I would admit
him to my heart of hearts. The kindness, the brotherly love he displayed
for all men at last won me over from my thorny silence, although I still
inwardly wished the fellow would insult me in order that I might have
the pleasure of kicking him. With all his suavity and cooing benignancy
and hearty assumption of good-fellowship, he stirred up in me the savage
irascibility that lies still in the heart of even the most civilised;
and I did not thank him for it.

He had much of the wisdom of the serpent, too, or at least a certain
magnetic instinct that stood for it; for he did not follow up what he
manifestly thought his victory over my churlishness with any use of it;
he went off to his group of feminine worshippers. I could see from the
eyes of some of them that his witchery had taken effect.

Garrulesi had been outside, and his return withdrew my observation from
the stranger’s sinuous wiles. We went outside, and my thoughts were
caught up by the sight. We stood on a platform that overlooked the
tranquil ocean. Not a breath disturbed the morning air. The sun from
behind us had not attained his tropic strength; his level shafts still
flung colour over the land and sky, and shot the silken fabric of the
slope before us with fretted shadow. The great edifice out of which we
had come threw a dark and cool sierra out upon the sea; its lofty towers
and pinnacles and domes lengthening out in silhouette into gigantic
peaks. Above us rose the alabaster cone of Klimarol, the smoke-haloed
mountain, along the shoulder of which the great disk of the morning wove
his web of shimmering light. Our temple rose from the plateau of the
front range, the highest of all that broke the emerald wave of foliage
between the sky line and the sea.

He was silent before my delight in the scene. Then we moved out into the
forests of palms and fruited trees. I ventured on asking him about the
scene inside the temple. He told me that, when the religion had
crystallised into the socialism of gods and men, it was felt that the
mere difference of a material shell should not exclude the human-divine
from the privileges of the divine. Into these great edifices the artist
caste, so long as it had existed, had put all their genius and time and
all the wealth that they could extract from the people as a whole or
from individuals; in fact, half the wealth of the nation had disappeared
in them. And, as by universal agreement there was no service or ceremony
performed in them, it became obvious in time that they were a monstrous
waste, thus unutilised, when half the people or embryo gods slept during
the wet season in the open air and suffered from the inclemency of the
nights, whilst the other half had only roofless or dilapidated huts, or
caves or holes in the rocks to sleep in. It seemed a gratuitous insult
to the slumbering divinity within the people to exclude them from the
shelter of these great domes built for divinity. The birds of the air
with their excrementitious filth were allowed to nest there from year’s
end to year’s end; and the gods in human form, only because they were
still unfledged and wingless, were fenced off from the use of this
buried wealth. Nothing seemed more irrational to the Tirralarians of a
former age than such an elevation of the mere beasts and the disembodied
gods into a special caste that were to be sheltered and roofed from the
weather with the noblest architecture. They shrank in horror from such a
violation of their constitution, and thereafter they ranged men with
gods and winged beasts. Some of the temples have been set apart for the
women and children, who may, however, penetrate by day into any of the
others they please. This that we have left is specially occupied by
those who are the council of advisers of the people, though others may
in emergency set up their sleeping mats in it, and the strangers who are
not feared or suspected are housed here. It is called the
council-and-guest temple. But guests are excluded during important
deliberations.

He had mentioned a council of advisers, and I asked him if this were the
government that they had. He looked furtively round, and, seeing some
rag-poles lying near under the shade of some trees and others
approaching, though at some distance, he struck an oratorical attitude
and launched forth on the enormities of all governments. He was wound up
for hours, and I saw no chance of rescue; for lazzaroni citizens
littered every corner with their slouching, rag-patched fat. I could
gather from the loud voice and the rhetorical touches that he was
addressing every ear within reach, and giving unctuous vent to the
official creed. The gist of what he larded with eloquence was this:
government was an insult to full-grown humanity; where reason ruled,
every man was a law unto himself; all that was needed was a committee
selected from time to time for the distribution of the fruits of the
soil and the gifts of nature; there was no labour, and therefore no need
of organising labour; there were no lawyers, no police, no professions;
for every man attended to his own needs; whilst all worked as they
wished for all; nature dealt with the weak and sickly and gave them
brief life and swift euthanasia. It was indeed a perfect life, where all
were equal and serene in perfect content, and health, and strength.

I was almost glad when the red-haired bewitcher of women approached and
rescued me from the declamatory clockwork and his inexorable pendulum of
rhetoric. A look of disgust swept like a cloud over the broad
self-complacence of the orator’s face; whether it was at the untimely
interruption of his speech or at the personality of the intruder I could
not tell at the time; afterwards I saw that it was the latter.

The amorous stranger was profuse in apologetic flatteries, and did his
best to soothe the injured dignity of the people’s adviser. He resorted
to his confidential trick, and sidling up whispered in his ear what
seemed some important secret, at the same time throwing me from his
agile little eyes a smile that was intended to take me into still deeper
strata of his confidence. He succeeded in neither project, and was yet
well satisfied with his nimble diplomacy. There was always an air about
him as if he were dealing with toy humanity that might be broken by
rough usage; he had doubtless acquired it by long handling of the merely
amorous elements of life. He moved with such a familiar and confidential
superiority even amongst strangers, and such an interlarding of
egregious flattery and subtle assumption of special and intimate
friendship as implied lifelong engagement in intrigue and the lowest
estimate of the intelligence of the women he dealt with.

My gorge rose before he spoke a word to me, and the peddlingly
confidential manner had evidently the same effect on Garrulesi, for he
abruptly turned his back and walked off. Unabashed, the lath-like
diplomat laid his little head close to mine, under the assumption that
he had made another conquest. He poured into my ear faint praise of the
fast disappearing orator and subtly slid into a faint disparagement. As
I held my peace he passed rapidly into the elevation of himself and me
into a category by ourselves against all the world. He fixed his bead
eyes on me with a bewitching look as if he sought the inmost depths of
the spirit and would rest there. I lowered my glance with a certain
scorn and loathing that was scarcely full-formed. He clearly assumed the
change to mean humble submission to his advances; and he slyly entered
on a most abusive and captious analysis of Tirralarian civilisation,
wording it in velvet that, lest he should be mistaken in me, he could
cover his retreat or involve me in the consequences of his strictures.
He was an adept in white lies and ambiguous calumnies that seemed to do
honour to the victim.

As far as I could gather from his insinuations, the island was nothing
but an organisation of thieves, who, when they could not get any
foreigner to steal from, had to pass their time in enforced but
delightful idleness. There was nothing to steal amongst themselves. That
was the meaning of the rags they wore. He always landed in a dress that
was a harmony of worthless fragments. His first few visits had been a
painful experience; piece by piece his garments and possessions had
vanished no one knew whither till he was left naked on his sleeping mat,
and only the vanity of a Tirralarian buck, who wished to show him his
skill in pilfering, gave him shreds enough to make a loin-cloth. No one
of them cared to have anything above rags and a bare subsistence, for he
knew that if he had, it would disappear mysteriously. Their skill in
purloining seemed like a magician’s. It was the only talent that had
remained from their old civilisation; into this their inherited
cleverness had run; and any one of them would make a fortune either as a
juggler or as a thief in any other nation; but none of the other islands
of the archipelago would admit them, knowing well which of the two
professions would be the more lucrative and fascinating for a
Tirralarian. So their wonderful gift was hidden under a bushel.

Of course I knew the principle of the constitution—that there should be
no private property. Property, they held, is theft; and so to abolish
theft they abolished property, and law with it. Everything that anybody
got or made or produced was anybody’s, and they were magpies at
concealment. The first trick Garrulesi taught me was to stow away my
valuables; he saw Sneekape lead me off, and I might be quite sure that
for further safety he had bestowed it in another crevice that he alone
would know. Work had ceased generations ago, for no one could secure
what he produced unless he were as sharp in pilfering and concealing as
his neighbours; and he had not time to learn the secrets or the skill of
these arts when he was busy with other things. Every trade and craft
vanished into legerdemain and light-fingeredness. Their existence was
only hand-to-mouth; and winter or a hurricane or any blight on the
fruits of nature sent all who had not an extra store of fat on their
bodies into the grave. They had now grown too indolent to fish or make
raids on the wealth of their neighbours. An occasional atavistic
survival like Garrulesi, with a gift of talk and a restless energy, went
out secretly and tried a mission on other islands that the converts
might bring their goods with them and help to stave off the
ever-recurrent evil day. It was supposed to be the duty of the advisers
of the people like him to supply everyone with food and clothing and
roofage. But it was difficult to divide nothing. Not long after the
abolition of private property, all property vanished that could be
stolen or could retain its value only by labour. They could not tax,
they could not compel the labour that everyone was supposed voluntarily
to contribute to the community; and their position had become no
enviable one. In fact it was difficult to find advisers; a few revealed
in their green youth, before they knew the relationships of things, a
talent for glib talk, or for governing, or muddling, and were thrust
into the position; and they found it no easy task to relinquish it, hard
and slavish though they came to count it. When they grew older and wiser
they were eager to get out of it, but flattery or persecution kept them
at the helm till they dropped from old age or disease. They were the
real martyrs of Tirralaria, though many of them, like Garrulesi, enjoyed
their martyrdom for a time, as long, in fact, as the atavistic energy
burned brightly in their veins. A few were so goaded by the slavery of
the position that they feigned paralysis of the tongue in order to be
clear of it, and they remained dumb till death; and one or two had been
driven to the extraordinary activity of suicide.

What made the duty particularly difficult and offensive was that where
there was no law every man was his own policeman. Of course they
declared and proved that there was no crime amongst them. But it
depended on the meaning of crime; crime was a breach of the law; and
where there was no law there could be no breach of the law. Instead of
wiping out the old outrages against human nature, their socialism had
greatly increased them, and they called them peccadilloes. I would see
the ragged savages fight like wild beasts over any accidental find, or
even what one had failed to steal from another; and when they had come
to blows, one of the combatants had to die unless a crowd was near and
could separate them. Each knew that the other, if beaten, could not live
and leave the insult unavenged; indolence might postpone the day of
revenge for a time, but it was sure to come. For his own protection he
had to wipe out his opponent, and if he buried the body there would
never be any question. For there was no family life or family love. The
unions were only temporary. The fundamental principle of their society
was that they lived by love. But they more often died by it. The most
fertile source of fatal quarrels was the appropriation of members of the
opposite sex. The women had their combats, and counted their scalps as
well as the men, for the two sexes were supposed to be on an equality.

For many generations after they had socialised property, they kept up
households and family life and monogamy. But idleness produced
libertinism, and libertinism became concubinage, and then gave place to
polygamy and polyandry. A great rebellion of the younger and
unprivileged in matrimony, both male and female, against the older who
monopolised the best and fairest of the other sex swept away the last
traces of marriage. It had always been felt to be an inconsistency that
there should be allowed in their state the private possession of
affection or of children. Children were now common property after they
could run without their mothers. They had to look after themselves if
maternal care deserted them, and that generally occurred after the first
year. The female advisers were supposed to attend to them; but when they
had no common stock they had little to give; they had enough to do to
keep an eye on their own and to keep the life in.

As for the royal roads to education which Garrulesi would descant on by
the day, they amounted to imitative skill in picking up the tricks of a
conjurer and thief. The education that the royal roads led to was about
as much as would exist amongst a community of monkeys or magpies. They
had no arts, no learning, no literature; for these had, when they
existed amongst them, stirred envy and jealousy, and they were voted by
the majority to be disturbers of peace and of true socialistic
civilisation. How could anyone have what others could not share in
without breeding uneasiness and strife? So there was nothing then to
learn except the supreme art of the whole nation—skill in pilfering.
Their education in this proceeded every moment of their lives, unless
during a famine, when no strangers approached the island, and there was
food only for the strong who could seize it and keep it. Then force
alone was able to sustain life by clutching the coarse remains of the
summer’s produce. A famine was often prayed for by those who had the
best interests of the nation at heart, for it checked the overflow of
the people and strengthened the generations by leaving only vigorous
survivors to propagate the race. Every ten or a dozen years the numbers
became too great for what unaided nature within the limits of the island
could supply, in spite of the ravages of neglect amongst the children
and the effectual obliteration of so many by quarrels over
treasure-trove, thefts, and amours; and then, even without the aid of a
hurricane, or an epidemic or blight, the shortage of food made brief
work of the surplus population. Amongst the survivors the skeleton
frames soon swelled with fat; for after a famine year, nature, having
lain fallow for a season, lavished all her powers in superabundance of
fruits, like a mother after the punishment of her child, exhibiting her
treasures of love to it.

If there were anything worth ruling in the island, it would be the
easiest thing in the world with a few faithful troops and a few
cart-loads of luxuries to master it in a day or two, the whole people
were so lazy and such kleptomaniacs. All the conqueror would have to do
would be to pretend to conceal a cart-load of goods in one part of the
forest and another in another part. Within half an hour after the
concealment the whole population would be busy over them as flies over
pots of treacle; a few dozen men would trap them clogged with spoil, or
absorbed in hiding it or pilfering it when hidden. Their fingers were
always itching for goods to steal; it was the only channel for their
great talents. But what would be the use of them after being trapped
unless you could distribute them through some wealthy community like
Aleofane, and be sure that you could make them disgorge their plunder?
They had nothing to rule, nothing to steal, nothing to divide.

Yes, yes, they had once had lofty purposes and ideals. They were going
to recreate the world when they settled here. But there were perpetual
oscillations for many ages from despotism to revolution. The chiefs had
little thanks for their work. Their distribution of labour and its
products was a continual source of discontent that rose recurrently into
emeute. They had to apply the strong hand and suppress the journals and
journalists that encouraged the rebellion. Reign of terror followed
reign of terror, for the people were never satisfied; whatever
arrangements were made, some large section of them found them unjust,
whilst some other section cunningly learned to make more than their due
share out of them. Money had been abolished, but everything that was
substituted for it—labour ticket, token, bread, fruit—came to suffer the
abuses of money; professions that traded in the substitute sprang up,
and attempts to suppress them only made them secret and virulent. None
would take to the offensive trades that had to do with stenches and
corrupt matter. The burying of the dead, the shifting of refuse and
manure, the obliteration of filth, the uncleaner domestic services, were
left to themselves, and plagues became common till the advisers of the
people kidnapped men from outlying islands, put them in chains, and set
them to these foul employments.

And at this point he began to whisper mysteriously in my ear. “I shall
take you some night, when all in our temple are asleep, to see how they
respect liberty and equality. They have slaves who never leave the
crater of Klimarol except under the whip. You have seen its glow on the
sky of night. It comes from the burning of the dead and of the refuse of
the temples and huts of Tirralaria. During the night a detachment of
slaves descends the mountain under the lash of the whip; a section of
the council superintends the work by turns; they gather the débris of
the previous day’s Tirralarian civilisation, and by the morning they
have drawn it on sleds up the snow-cone; and during the next day and
night it is thrown into the boiling lake of lava. The stench is past
endurance for any who have not been brought up in it. Within the crater
are raised and made the produce and the articles that those below are
too idle or too refined in senses to have anything to do with. If it
were not for the great slave factory within Klimarol the country would
soon be without an inhabitant, for they have always been too proud to
keep themselves or their land clean, and now they are too indolent to do
it if it were needed; and plagues of the most virulent intensity would
sweep the island.

“Not long after they landed here and abolished differentiation of reward
for labour, except a slight one for special employments and professions
and for special skill, medicine was deserted. The night work and the
offensive or cruel tasks of surgery and the constant intercourse with
the weakly and sick and dying were not sufficiently rewarded to be
attractive. The chiefs attempted to coerce the clever young men and
women into the profession. But their cleverness always enabled them to
evade the order; they were perpetually feigning sickness or paralysis of
the arms and hands. At first they thought of teaching their Klimarol
slaves the secret of the art, but they shrank from putting the lives of
themselves and their fellow-citizens into such hands. So the cure and
care of the sick and dying have been left to chance, which means nobody.

“This page of their history has been torn out and a fiction substituted
for it. So, too, is the introduction of slavery hidden under the pall of
night, for it is an outrage on the foundation of their community, the
dignity of man’s nature. They count it treason for any stranger to
meddle with or inquire into these secrets of their prison-house.

“They are keenly sensitive to any mention of their gradual lapse from
the great ideals with which they began. All were to work voluntarily for
the whole community; there was abundance of everything to be produced
for the use of every citizen. It soon turned out that no one was to
work; for it is always more pleasant for average human nature to play or
idle than to work. The talking professions were flooded; orators and
logicians and lecturers and preachers and writers soon came to form more
than one half of the population. The other half began to feel themselves
slaves, and threw up their spades and mattocks and the tools of their
trades. Nothing was produced but what nature and the slaves of Klimarol
gave them. And as soon as any compulsion is applied the cry of tyranny
arises, and threatened rebellion puts an end to the reform. Where there
is no force, no stimulus, no motives, it is not difficult to see what
human nature will do. To work for the community is too shadowy to be
effective; it implies the almost perfect humanity to begin with, which
all human social systems set up as their aim and goal.

“At the beginning there were many who were willing to toil for the sake
of the ideal, especially the cultured and artistic. They could live on
imagination and its products. And it was they who erected these
marvellous temples that are now the abode of the bat and the owl and the
Tirralarian. The real difficulty came when the measure of remuneration
had to be fixed. How were the various trades and professions to have
their relative values estimated? That was the first rock on which the
new socialistic community split. At first a rough time-standard was
adopted, the number of hours of work per day, with some little
differentiation for the various trades and professions, according as
they were more or less offensive or more or less intellectual. But this
attempt at comparison of kinds of work was only arbitrary and could
never be based on any principle. It had to be readjusted every year. And
as there was a continual outcry against an aristocracy of mind and one
of stench, the intellectual and offensive employments being fixed at a
smaller number of hours per day, the whole system was at last abolished,
and all had to work the same number of hours. It soon became apparent
that this was as unjust a standard as the differentiation of kinds of
work. Some dawdled away their hours of labour, whilst others wore out
their energies and shortened their lives at their toil. For a time they
discussed a true and scientific standard of measurement. A few of the
thinkers saw that the only possible approach to it would be to gauge the
amount of tissue used up in the act of labour. Some scientists thought
that they might discover a method of doing this; but the shadow of the
old difficulty fell over them again. Tissues differed in delicacy and in
the value and refinement of the nutriment they each required. How could
they weigh brain tissue against muscular tissue? And it took geological
ages to make an infinitesimal advance in the organisation or amount of
the one, whilst the other would palpably change in a few days or weeks.
Here crept in another of the prime difficulties in measuring
remuneration or punishment—the contribution of ancestry either negative
or positive. The whole attempt was felt to be doctrinaire and
impossible. And it was only those who argued for it that gave any
prominence to the only true and fundamental standard of wages—payment
according to the real results, that is, the advance secured for the
race, or for humanity at large, by the act of labour.

“The final interpretation of their maxim, ‘To every man according to his
works,’ was ‘To every man according to his hours of work.’ A fixed
amount of food and clothing was to be doled out to each, and every
citizen was to work so many hours a day, whatever might be the nature of
the employment.

“When this was secured, the amount produced for the state and by the
community grew less and less, till it became utterly inadequate for
anything but the barest subsistence in rags. One by one the citizens
fell into the feeblest way of filling up the required tale of hours; and
at last nature had to produce unaided what was necessary for life. All
but the artists were idler during the supposed hours of work than during
the hours of leisure. And the cry against an aristocracy of art and
culture grew to be the daily occupation of the unoccupied national
tongue, and at last swelled into a revolution that destroyed art and
educated employments. The whole nation became an aristocracy of
lazzaroni.”

I had become deeply interested in the story in spite of myself. And,
without noticing the distance we had travelled through the groves and
orchards, I found before he stopped that we had rounded a great
promontory and come suddenly upon a large settlement; for crowds moved
or lay about the shores and under the fruit trees. I could see no
temples or houses. But before long we came upon a succession of holes in
the earth roofed with fallen trees and withered branches, or fragments
dragged from the ruins of a former temple that we found afterwards in
the forest. The race was again becoming troglodytic; and with my fine,
sparrow-headed guide, I could see no fate before it but a complete
though gradual return to aboriginal barbarism. The only things that
stemmed the downward current were two: the retention of slave labour in
Klimarol, and the periodical famines that cleared out the weaklings. But
the survivors were ever becoming feebler and idler, and it was growing
more and more difficult to fill up the gaps in the ranks of the slaves.

As we returned, the critic had by talking and explaining and slandering
so worked himself into full confidence that I was now deeply attached to
him. I knew that he had no more affection or loyalty to me or to any
other human being than a cat. But, as he purred and made himself
comfortable over the débris of his criticism of others, he gave out a
certain amount of magnetism that seemed to make the intercourse close
and fervid. It is the substitute in the amorous for friendship or love,
and can be turned on or off with almost mechanical precision. The only
safeguard against it amongst its victims is the vanity that accompanies
it and makes it a desultory wanderer in its desire for further
conquests.

He assumed that I was now a devoted admirer of him and his powers; and
perhaps he put down my silence to moroseness or scant acquaintance with
the language. At any rate he needed no key-word or question to start him
on a new track. He had in fact now come to the subject for which he had
been all along preparing the way; and it was amusing to see the ambushes
and underground works by which he attacked it. Long before his mines
reached the ramparts of the subject I saw his aim. He evidently knew
that I was the owner of the new marine monster that had appeared in the
waters of the archipelago, and he was anxious to secure my help for a
great seraglio raid that he had planned for the repopulation of his
island—which he let me indirectly know was called Figlefia, or the
island of love. It was their efforts in the cause of humanity that had
thinned their numbers, and a noble race would soon vanish unless some
means were devised for introducing new blood. It had a great mission in
the world: to leaven mankind with mutual affection and a lofty ideal of
human rapture. Only by such a stock, inoculated with the nobleness of
passion, could the world be turned from its evil ways. Preaching could
not do it; propagandism was barren of permanent effect; absorption by
conquest was a chimera. The only way to save the world was by stocking
it with new blood. This was taking advantage of the path of nature. She
worked by generation and crossing of breeds in order to get at the
hardier race that would withstand the new conditions of new times.
Figlefia was a great experimental nursery. Scions were introduced from
all the races and stocks of the world and grafted on the Figlefian race.
The finest women that could be found were brought to the island,
experiments were made, and the finest results were carefully preserved
and nurtured to plant out in other regions of the earth. They were
trained in the noblest doctrines of love and sent forth to propagate
them through the nations and to introduce amongst them a newer and
better breed that might make the race of man advance at an ever
accelerated rate. The Figlefians had struck on the only true method of
improving mankind and of covering the planet with the finest human stock
it could support; and perhaps in some future age, when they had
renovated all the nations of the earth, they would send out new breeds
to the other planets and systems. It was indeed the noblest scheme that
this orb had ever experienced.

Meantime their efforts for the good of the species had stinted their
numbers, and new grafts were needed for their experiments in
cross-breeding. The nursery of mankind needed replenishing. It was
useless introducing sires, for the Figlefians were the finest on the
globe. All that was needed was new dams that the great experimental
method for the conversion of the world might proceed. There was no
religion like that of the improvement of the human race; and no such
improvement could there be as by the Figlefian scheme of cross-breeding
and defertilising the failures. Did not my heart burn within me as I
listened to the mighty creed? Did not I feel that the world, if not the
universe, was getting reborn? Did I not desire to join in the great
experimental method of progress?

I felt that he was coming close to his chief object, for he blinked his
beady eyes and wagged his sage little head and looked unutterable things
at me; he tried his strongest hypnotism on me and would hedge me round
with him as the two select of the world; he shot his most magnetic
influence into his words; he was bent on finally and completely chaining
me to him by his fascinations. The upshot of it was that I would be
serving the whole human race if I should lend him my wind-compelling or
wind-defying ship to run half a dozen voyages through the islands in
order to recruit the great nursery of mankind. He had the women selected
and persuaded to leave with him if only he had the rapid means of
conveying them. He had his own ship lying off the coast of Tirralaria
awaiting his orders; but it was slow and wind-obeying, and it might be
years before he restocked Figlefia by her means.

I professed that I did not know where the _Daydream_ was; I had come in
Garrulesi’s falla, and whether she would follow or not I could not tell;
but if she did I might be able to accommodate him for a voyage or two. I
was not deeply impressed with his scheme, for the sufficient reason that
I should be sorry to propagate the great Figlefian species, if this were
a specimen of the stud. The world would soon be full of a race of feline
hypocrites if he and his like were to repopulate it. And, though I had
been cornered by the courtesies of the situation into promising my
yacht, I prayed that she might keep far out of his reach.

He managed to close the negotiations just as we got back to the temple
of the advisers of the people. The bulk of the food that had been run
down by the slaves into one corner of it was gone; but Garrulesi had
hidden a portion for me, and one of the inamoratas of the Figlefian
sparrow had done the same for him. So we fared not ill. Our share
consisted of fruits that were not unpalatable and of the flesh of some
wild animal that abounded on the slopes of Klimarol. I cooked and ate
and was satisfied.

I left my amorous instructor absorbed in his old occupation amongst the
women, and stepped out again into the sunshine. I found Garrulesi
waiting for me on the platform that overlooked the ocean. He gazed at me
sadly as if at a lost sinner. He thought me wholly given over to the
popinjay.

A few words put him into his most rhetorical humour. He understood my
estimate of the man by the very tone of my answers to his first remarks.
So he made no attack on the guest of his temple. With all his
loose-jointed character and morality, he would not take advantage of my
sympathy to slander one whom I plainly despised. He was too good-natured
to trouble himself much about the designs or the petty gallantries of
the creature. He merely scorned the unmanliness of this trifler with
women, and fought shy of even speaking of him, as he would of a
dunghill. In conversation with others of his countrymen who knew the
Aleofanian tongue I found out what good cause he and his whole nation
had to hate and persecute this Sneekape, as, they told me he was called.
He was nothing but a pander for his island. The Figlefians were
voluptuaries, and had been so for untold generations. They still
retained something of the boldness that enabled them to subdue the
aboriginal inhabitants of their island; and with this they enslaved them
and kidnapped others from other portions of the archipelago. The hard
fare, the brutal treatment, the stoical life of toil that these had to
bear kept up their numbers and gave, in what they produced, great luxury
to their masters. But the day was not far off when the slaves, hardened
and emboldened by their mode of existence, would throw off the yoke of
the sybarites and resume their long-lost freedom. A few of the
aristocratic Figlefians had, like Sneekape, retained some of the energy
and courage of their forefathers, the subjugators of the island, and
either managed the work of the slaves by means of the lash or sailed out
in search of new occupants of the harems. The rest were the vilest of
debauchees, spending most of their time in cheating their neighbours out
of the loyalty of their wives. And the whole race was ulcerous with
disease, puny, though tall in frame, and periodically on the verge of
madness. Its stamina was exhausted by concupiscence and debauchery. The
skull was of the smallest, and most of its capacity lay in the back of
it; it was like a cocoanut trying to force its way into a lemon. And the
hair that covered it, as a rule, was of a dirty yellow merging into red.

They were not unhandsome, these Figlefians, with all their corrupt blood
and the gleam of incipient madness in their eyes, for most of them had
come from some of the finest women who could be entrapped by their
emissaries throughout the archipelago. But they knew it so well that
they were intoxicated with vanity; they bore themselves like coquettes,
smirking and capering and continually expectant of adoration. They kept,
most of them, huge seraglios to which they were ever adding. Yet their
greatest rapture was to get into a neighbour’s, and especially a
friend’s enclosure and decoy his most faithful or most beautiful
concubine. Six days out of seven were occupied in maturing or revenging
some such intrigue. They had a code of honour based upon this feature of
their life, and they counted the honours of their pedigree by the number
of handsome women their ancestors and they had been able to cajole; and
all the women they fascinated were, in the annals of their families,
handsome. The other side of their roll of honour was the number of men
they had slain in these amorous adventures. To add a sharp savour to
this their chief employment and amusement, they upheld monogamy to be
the true and divine form of the relations of the sexes; and their
preachers almost daily prelected to them on the nobleness of purity of
life. Half the taste of their erotic enterprises would vanish if they
were allowed to follow them up without check or secrecy. Their whole
polite literature would fall to dust at a stroke if either polygamy or
libertinism were made legal, customary, and religious. A legislator who
passed such a law amongst them and accomplished such a reform would
obliterate all the traditional wit and humour, all the smart stories
they had to tell, all the gusto of their grotesque and often lewd art;
life would become so vapid that there would occur an epidemic of
suicide. To legalise these irregular unions that filled their seraglios
would be to annihilate the purpose of their civilisation.

In some islands Sneekape and his fellow-panders were publicly proclaimed
as enemies of the state, and, if at any time they were discovered there,
were liable to be hunted down like vermin. In Tirralaria their offence
was not felt so deeply. For the leisurely, pleasure-loving life
precipitated a larger proportion of female children than of males. The
freedom of intercourse between the sexes removed all special premiums on
the passion; there could be nothing illicit in love; there was no bond
and no law to dare or break. And thus they held there was nothing of
intoxication in amorous intercourse; there was no more stimulus to it
than there was to eating; it had become commonplace; and lasciviousness
was as rare as gluttony, if not as miserliness in a state that had no
money. As a rule, though there were no bonds, no state authorisations of
permanency in the unions, they were more constant than in a monogamous
community; and as there was in most years plenty of food to be got for
nothing and parents could at their option retain their children or hand
them over to the temple of female advisers, there was no check on the
growth of the population. They were not sorry then that some of the
women should elope with the Figlefian emissaries; in fact it relieved
the drain on the supply of food and left fewer to suffer from any famine
that might occur. There was indeed no compulsion on their women any more
than on their men to stay on the island. And those who did follow
Sneekape or any other of his libertines went with their eyes open; they
now knew the capricious fate of a Figlefian seraglio. It was only the
young fools amongst them that now allowed themselves to be decoyed. As a
rule, they were handsome women who were flabby from adulation, and most
of them had only the hectic beauty of weakness and ill-health; and these
soon died off amid the rigours of Figlefian prostitution. Few ever
returned from their escapade.

It was clear that they winked at Sneekape’s mission, and rendered it as
easy as possible, whilst he hoodwinked himself into the belief that it
was his personal attractions that removed its difficulty. The high value
that he placed on his face and figure, and especially on the hypnotism
of his eyes and tongue, laid him open to any trap that an astute schemer
would set for him; his vanity rendered him as foolish as a coot, whilst
it at the same time made him think that he was a heaven-born diplomat
and intriguer. For the morbid natures of the sickly and weak-willed he
had manifest attractions; he could practically mesmerise these
feebleminded beauties and make them follow him wherever he would, and he
prided himself on these conquests with bantam-like gestures and crow.
The strong-willed women were too wholesome in mind and too astute to be
influenced by his flatteries or his hypnotising glances. They
entertained a certain amused scorn of his vanity, his amorous advances,
and his adulation.

During the day Garrulesi and his friends showed me great attention and
descanted on the glories of their state. Whilst other communities had
elevated the means towards happiness into an end they were already at
the goal; they did not trouble themselves about the future, but enjoyed
the present; they did not fidget 364 days that they might rest on the
365th, with the chance of dying before it came; they loved the bird in
the hand better than ten thousand in the bush. The fools of the world,
the most of men, chased the elusive to-morrow or wailed the vanished
yesterday, till to-day had run its sands. Between two phantom worlds,
the one dead, the other to be born, they let the present run, a rosary
of tears or prayers. The moment was the only capital that men could be
sure of; what folly to hide it in a stocking for that which may never
be, to lose the reality in grasping at the shadow! The Tirralarians had
based their whole life and civilisation on the maxim that neither the
past nor the future is theirs to deal in. Time is but the flight of a
moment between two midnights; all else is a dream; out of a dream we
issue; into a dream we vanish; how vain to spend our only sleepless
present as a lethargic past or an uncreated future!

And, as I walked about with them, I felt that there was something
strikingly ephemeral in their existence. The only members of the
community that thought of anything but the immediate hour were the
advisers of the people; and even they were satisfied with but the
outlook of a season; they tried to secure nature a chance of repairing
the ravages a dislawed people might do her in gratifying their appetites
with her products; they saw that the trees and bushes were not so broken
down or pillaged of seed that they could not restore their vital powers;
they watched over the recuperative faculty of a climate that though
sub-tropical yet needed the husbanding of the trees and other growths.

It was indeed like talking with children from a cross between the
barbaric past and the coming millennium, as I encountered and conversed
with these ragged philosophers. In the opportunities of their
civilisation they were not one step in advance of the savage of ten
thousand years ago; in their mental and lingual outfit they were the
equals of the subtlest and most advanced of nations. All day their life
through, they sharpened their wits in argument, or discussion, or dream.
They had had nothing to do but talk for centuries; and their power of
rhetoric or argumentation was the accumulated legacy of a hundred
generations. They had no books or art, for they had deliberately
destroyed or abolished the professions that worked in them. But they had
almost overcome the results of such a defect by the keenness of their
memory and the potency of their imagination. Though they professed to
live in the moment, their minds swept through all time and space.
Without infinity of past and future, of stars above and beyond, the
present would have been an intolerable prison-house. The energy that was
no longer used in muscle and framework and the processes of digestion
concentrated in the brain. They counted it no blemish on the perfection
of idleness to dream for ever waking dreams or keep the tongue in
perpetual motion. They did not harass themselves with imaginary cares
and thus waste the tissue that went to the enjoyment of complete living.
If disease or famine came, why then they died and there was an end of
it. But what could it profit them to anticipate such evils? They could
not by thinking and acting and forerunning sorrow and harassment add a
moment to their years or postpone the arrival of the inevitable end.

They acknowledge that records might have aided them in enhancing the
happiness they had, but writing them was too much like the old chase of
the mirage, the search for happiness. Who could be expected to postpone
the enjoyment of a brilliant fancy or noble image for the purpose of
giving it written expression? If they had had from the nervous energy of
their old and futile civilisation some automatic means of having their
words or thoughts recorded, then would they now have books enough to let
a generation amuse and instruct those that followed. But, before many
generations had gone, books would become a burden to the race; the
necessity of having to read them and know them would sit like a
nightmare upon every man who wished to be up to his age. Libraries crush
the souls of men till they become all eyes and comment on the past;
their heads are twisted on their necks till they can see only behind.
The worst books contaminate the future like a foul stream. The best
books become gods that tyrannise over the ages to come and bind the
human spirit in irrefragable chains of minute devotion. They preserve
the past only to be a fetish and slave-driver of souls. Through them the
generations can lay dead fingers upon the hearts of men and frighten
courage out with their stony stare and grasp. The noblest of them when
deified by time grow an evil dream. Books, they found, had become the
high-priests of the human spirit, and ultimately claimed communion with
omniscience. Why should they, when they had abolished all privilege in
earth and heaven, as far as they were concerned, leave a privileged race
of human creations that would episcopate over every nascent thought or
imagination or element of faith? The past was too much with them even as
it was. Through heredity it fettered and lamed the footsteps of mankind.
What we have done, still more what our ancestors have done, lays
mortmain on what we do or have still to do. And books give the grip of a
vice to this dead hand of the past. The Tirralarians grew weary of
perpetuating outworn elements, and made a bonfire of their libraries.
Theirs was thoroughgoing socialism that would not permit inequality of
voice and influence even among the dead. Every man had his chance of
moulding the future through his children and friends. Heredity gave him
as strong a power of flight through the spaces of time and over the
barriers of death as socialism or nature could allow. In all nations and
races it needed far more strength to fight the dead past and throw off
its yoke than to climb up the steep of progress. Tradition aiding
heredity gave it almost omnipotence. Books, completing the yoke, gave
such organisation and order and permanence to the power that it had no
limit, and the young generations and young talents and thoughts were
hopeless in the struggle. Through them tradition became like the
snake-haired head of fable that turned all it stared at into stone;
orally it is liquid or at least malleable, if not plastic; but in record
it is the petrifaction of the past. Half of every life is a struggle
with this gorgon, this sphinx, even when it has only the diaphanous
texture of myth; but when it gathers to it the worship of past ages, it
has the mystic fascination of destiny in its eyes, and there is no
evading it in our threescore years and ten. We are born with the
tentacles of this octopus round us, and with our growth they grow; and
if they have in them the strength of past ages that literature gives,
there is no spirit, however herculean, but must succumb to them; for
every snaky arm that we unwind from our souls, a myriad retwine
themselves about us. It is an unequal combat, this of the human present
with its past; we arm the latter with weapons of such might, we are such
traitors to our own happiness and our own future. The history of
civilisation in any nation is but a record of the struggle of man to
disentangle the coils of his past from his soul; and what makes it so
tragic is that in his folly he is ever feeding the monster with his own
vitals, his devotion, worship, reverence. Oh, the cruel laceration of
his heart in times of revolution, when he rises to superhuman passion
and resolves that he will be rid of the snaky coils! But, as the great
mood begins to burn low, he finds that the hydra has only crept down on
him with renewed life. To enjoy the present we must not multiply the
terrors of the past by eternalising them, or brood over the dangers of
the future till they become nightmares.

The rest of my day in Tirralaria had the sharp savour of epigram in it;
so mean were the externals of life, so easy and opulent the thought and
phraseology. Low living and high thinking was the rule amongst those
whom I came to know. But I had the suspicion that these were but the
floating remains of a great intellectual past come down the stream of
heredity, for I saw gleam out of the eyes of most that I did not speak
to the spirit of a wolf or of a sloth. Envy, malice, hatred, the
passionate soul of Cain, had not vanished with the destruction of
property, class, profession, literature, art. Low living without any
thinking was the rule of the majority perforce; and it was these
embruted elements of the nation that usually survived a famine or
plague. I could see savagery loom at no distant date on the horizon of
this people, for it had no means of conserving its higher elements or
natures. High thinking cannot live in the sty of Epicurus; even in the
higher natures it must drown in the deluge of talk.

I slung my mat with these melancholy thoughts dominating my mind and
with the resolve to investigate the civilisation of the island more
minutely before I left it.

I could not have slept long when a movement of my hammock awoke me to
the hoarse chaos of a hundred nasal trumpets. I sat up in consternation,
and through the darkness I could discern the figure of my Figlefian
critic erect beside me. He waited a few seconds to let me master the
situation, and then whispered in my ear: “It is time to set out if we
wish to see Klimarol.” I remembered our tacit agreement, and rose after
donning my rags. On getting into the starlight my wits returned to me,
and I began to think how dangerous was the enterprise, especially with
such an untrustworthy guide. I pleaded that I had forgotten something,
and, picking up a bright shell that gleamed upon the earth, I returned
to my mat and wrote upon it, as well as the darkness would allow, a
brief message in English for my men, telling them to beware of Figlefia,
although they might find me there should I have left Tirralaria; they
should take a guide and follow me with caution. On its outer surface I
scratched a word or two in Aleofanian to Garrulesi.

[Illustration]

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[Illustration]

CHAPTER XVII

THE MIDNIGHT ASCENT AND FLIGHT

THE darkness at first set the whole sense of touch on the alert; it
seemed black and solid as a prison wall. But the eyes soon focussed the
sparse rays of starlight and massed objects into clots of night. The
shadow of dreams still hung about my senses, as if sleep had not wholly
fled. The trees and rocks we passed seemed rather to move past me. I was
weary and languid, and every object and motion took feverish
proportions. It was a world as strange and gruesome as if I had followed
Dante into hell.

On I stumbled after my guide. I scarcely knew how or whither we went,
nor cared I much. It was a life drugged with night that I was living.
Between thick walls of darkness faintly parted overhead by a dim line of
starshot grey we filed; ghosts we might have been but for the clang of
stones beneath our feet, or the screech of some night-bird startled from
his nest. There was little underlife in these islands to fear lurking in
the shadows or thickets; they had too recently purged themselves of
monstrous or snaky traces of the earlier features of the world in the
all-cleansing bosom of the ocean. Only winged existence or human with
its trans-elemental powers had found its way into these secluded
survivals of an ancient world baptised and rebaptised in the
obliterative sea.

Thoughts like these chased from sense to sense the dreamy fears of
shapes and noises that formed and vanished in the night. Monsters crept
back and forth out of the caverns of the blackness. Low yells and
shrieks and groans just eluded the power of hearing; echoes of them
faintly haunted the silences. Dim foreshadowings of horrors about to be
born struck my senses with obscene wing; ghostly adumbrations of forms I
had seen in dreams floated round me. Phantoms of the dead and of the
unborn filled the hollows of my brain. I had no safety but in madly
rushing on in the footsteps of my guide.

He doubtless heard the ringing echo of my advance, for he never turned
to look, athirst though I was for a human word or the glance of an eye.
He seemed to know every step of the labyrinthian path. Upwards did it
climb at last; I grew giddy as it snaked and twisted and spiralled
athwart the face of former landslips, along the edge of cliffs, beneath
it Avernian gloom yawning, up the rugged bed of hissing streams, across
the bouldered blackness of still pools, or the shifting gleam of a
hoarse torrent, ever up with forests here and there or great walls of
rock shouldering the starlight from them.

Sneekape never rested or stayed; ahead of me he darkened or vanished
like a spirit of the night. My imaginary fears gave me speed and
endurance and a lightning-swift instinct to shun real dangers. By day I
should have been drunk with the dizzy steeps or black-hearted chasms we
skirted.

Hours must have passed in this terror-goaded ascent, when suddenly we
stood on a broad platform that overhung the sea. Far below us as it
pulsed I could see the phosphoric shimmer of its discontent. In the
shadow of a clump of trees we sat down to rest on a fallen giant of the
woods. I was conscious of human life upon the level; the air was
restless with sounds and motion it but half absorbed; and, when the eyes
grew accustomed to the half-light of the stars hoarded between sea and
sky, they discerned dark masses shift, and vanish against the stellar
distance.

We had our backs to the cone of Klimarol, and by degrees I came to feel
that there was other light in the air than that of the sky or sea. I
looked up and saw the stars blotted out above the peak and in their
place a lurid gleam that threw the unearthly glimmer, which I had been
conscious of for some time, into the interjacent night. And up the slope
between the broad ledge we sat on and the cloud reflector, there rushed
like a funeral car a gloomy mass lit with the murky wind-sucked flame of
a torch. I saw it reach the lip of the broken cone and disappear. This
was the nocturnal incineration of Tirralarian débris and dead.

Sneekape gave a long, low, strident note thrice repeated, different only
in the interval between the sounds from a night-bird’s cry I had heard.
Again he gave it. And before long I could hear a step rustle in the
fallen leaves and dead herbage; a short grace note as of another bird,
and my companion darted forward under the shadow. A moment’s peering
into the darkness, and I saw a human figure, half-naked, but with head
enveloped in some helmet that looked like a diver’s. The two disappeared
together through the gloom-clustered foliage. And I had time to look
aloft at the gleaming slopes of the great cone, scarred with dark zones
and the track of the cinerative sleds. Fire and frost were the artists
that carved this wonder of sheen and gloom. And even as I gazed the
lustre of the overhanging pall flashed, and a light dust fell upon my
hands and face. Another dark encaustic lay along the slope of the argent
cone. The cloud that canopied the peak was rent with fulminant volley
and a thin veil suffused the landscape for a moment; again the stars
etched the darkness with their keen light, and the upper slopes of
Klimarol were coagulate gloom. Its pall rose after a time and revealed
the alabaster of the cone sloping to the stars unblemished. The
tesselation and veining of the snow had vanished into spotless marble.

My companion returned, and, to overcome my fear of the volcanic showers,
he told me that never was there so good an opportunity of seeing behind
the scenes. The overseers had taken refuge in some caves lower down the
slopes; the outburst had alarmed them, and the slaves had encouraged
their fears, though they knew from long experience of the mountain that
such an ejection relieved the tension of its heart, and none would
follow for at least twenty-four hours. Thus they got rid of their
repulsive work and the lash for a few brief breathing-spaces. He was in
league with them and could get them to throw off the yoke at any time.
They would lay down their lives for him; he alone gave them a
consolatory future.

I rose and followed him, and our feet were clogged with the fresh mud of
the mingled ash dust and rain. A few moments more and we were seated in
a sled full of fallen branches and leaves and shooting over the snow at
great speed, a pine torch flaring at our rear and bronzing the
unsmirched gleam on either side of our track. To look down into the
snow-lit gloom of the abyss we were deepening every moment appalled me.
I crept to the front of the car and found a great chain attached that
cut by the fire of its swiftness a black line through the pallor of the
slope. Half-way up there shot out of the gloom and into it again a sled
like our own laden to the lip and guided by half-naked cresset-headed
slaves; and behind it in the snow-gleam I could trace a dark line
parallel to that made by our chain.

Almost before I could withdraw my thoughts from the new subject, we had
surmounted the edge of the mountain cup and in a few minutes were landed
on the sulphurous platform that fringed it within. A foul stench was in
our nostrils that gave Avernian shapings to my inward fears. Down into
the pit of everlasting fire I seemed to look; a breath of wind fitfully
lifted the turban of steam and smoke that hid the central furnace, and I
could catch suggestive glimpses of a molten lake clogged with
ever-thickening ever-cracking congelation of liquid rock. Only for a
moment, and then all was grey steam again lit from within with fire that
seemed to threaten conflagration.

It was long before my eyes could find their way amid the mingled gloom
and flash and twilight. But at last I could discern inside the lips of
the fiery mouth the desolation of a great city. The cyclopean blocks of
lava that made its walls were heaved and split as if they had been the
missiles of giants. Yet amid their rupture and dissilience and beneath
the sulphurous spume that streaked and sicklied their sombre outlines
with lichened yellow, I could discern the features of the magnificent
past. Here and there the fragments of great domes still stood propped by
their own ruins or soldered by new streams of molten rock. Mighty walls
rose up above the now solid torrents of lava that had flowed along their
base. It was the strangest sight; vast sculptured figures standing to
their necks in new rock, like mammoths from their graves of
century-vanishing ice. Mythic animals or monsters from a long-buried
past, some with half-human faces, looked out untroubled from their bed
of stone upon the seething hell beneath them, whence had issued sea on
sea of terrene fire to curd in massy base around their feet. Tall
columns lay imbedded in sulphurous ash; others stood broken and
vitrified by the dash of some fiery billow. Statues rested half sunk in
a shallow inlet of once-molten stone. Great temples still showed the
tracery of their mullioned windows and the marvellous fretwork of their
walls and roof beneath the glassy yellow of their incrustation. It was
as if a city of noble giants had been crushed into fragments and then
preserved in amber. Even beside the tremendous forces of this mighty
vent of subterraneous passion the ruins showed immense.

Amid them skulked large-headed human figures that with their oily
nakedness gleamed bronze at times in the palpitant light of the central
furnace. But for these I could have wished to explore the cyclopean
fragments of a great civilisation of the past. But I feared the
iron-barred eyes that flashed so savagely from beneath the huge visors.
I knew that these headpieces were to protect the eyes and tender parts
of the slaves from the fall of ashes and other red-hot ejections from
the bowels of the mountain. Yet in the darkness and lurid gleamings they
showed like gnomes or monsters of the earth, and I could not rid my mind
of shrinking.

The emotion rose into terror when I heard sullen cries and shrieks rise
on every side from the petrified fragments of the past. Over the rim of
the mountain cup shot another of their funeral sleds filled with figures
that showed sombre against the heaven beyond; and in the hand of each
was a huge thong with knotted end. My companion started, and seizing me
by the elbow pulled me in under the shadow of a tower that still rose
gigantic out of the new rock. I could see by the occasional flash from
the upper cloud what consternation had taken him. For a time he could
scarcely command breath to speak—a striking thing in this superfine
master of language. I crouched with him for a few minutes in the
darkness, and at last he hoarsely whispered in my ear, “It is the
overseers, and we shall be caught!”

We skulked from pillar to wall, from wall to buried figure, ever in the
shadow, till we had reached a deep fissure in the hardened lava, out of
which streamed a sulphurous vapour. We were glad to lie there panting
for a time; and, as we looked out over the steaming abyss, we saw the
visored slaves flying with groans and yells to their work. Some thrust
bars into gleaming lava, and then taking great hammers smote the metal
into shape upon clanking anvils. Some melted the snow from the rim of
the crater and poured it into channels between beds of well-dug earth
that showed green buds just shooting above the surface; others gathered
fruit from plants that had matured in this immense forcing-house; whilst
others laid mould deeply over the warm rocks and mixed with it the
débris from below. Here it was that the lazzaroni of Tirralaria had
their luxuries produced; this was the huge workshop of the island;
without it the lapses of nature left to herself would long before this
have let the race fall into the inane. It was slave labour, and that
under the most cruel _régime_, that kept this anarchic society alive.
Here the rigours of the law had gathered into one great clot of blood,
leaving the masters in idleness and lawlessness.

We were not long left to conjecture how the thongs stimulated the
products of nature. Across the abyss I heard a wild shriek, and a
stalwart overseer stood in the glow of the red-hot lava with lash again
uplifted. But the slave had evaded it before it fell. We saw the wretch
speed to the lip of the fire-lake, the knout-holder following, though at
a distance. Something exceptional was about to occur, for all the rest,
slaves as well as overseers, raised their heads and let their
instruments fall to the ground. Their gaze followed the swift feet of
the refugee. Nearer and nearer he came to the crag that overlooked the
lake of fire. Still the pursuer shouted to him threats. A flash from the
hidden fires lit up the cracked and seamed edges of the chasm, whilst a
wind moved aside the curtain of steam and let the canopy above gleam
luridly. When the sulphurous cliffs and the upper clouds seemed to glow
with the light, the hurrying figure came to the edge of a yellow
precipice, and with the impetus of the rush hurled itself far over the
molten lake; we saw it turn head over heels and then vanish. It was the
work of a moment, and my guide clutched me and drew me on with a whisper
hoarsened by alarm: “Flee for your life.” I rushed after him as he made
for the lip of the crater towards the eye of the wind, for I heard a low
thunder beneath our feet, and a louder rumbling behind us. Wearied
though I had been by my night’s climb I felt my limbs light as
thistledown. The wind was rising against us, yet we seemed to leap from
fragment to fragment, from rock to rock heedless of its force. The
thunder grew behind us, and seemed to quicken the pace of my guide. We
reached the rim in safety and crouched in the snow underneath it. And
looking up we saw the whole heavens lit, and away in the direction of
the ruined city a fire outlined on sepulchral black. It was the passion
of the mountain finding new vent. We crept down over the snow, sometimes
sliding hundreds of feet in a moment over its smooth and glistering
surfaces, till we reached the vegetation. The morning had begun to
break, so my guide quickened his pace and hid in the densest of the
thicket.

Once safely covered, he seemed to get the command of his terror. He lay
for a time panting and unable to speak. But, when his throat had
recovered enough from its parched state to be the channel of sound, he
whispered: “We must get out of this; they know that we are on the
crater, and they will pursue us as soon as the eruption is over; they
will track us in the snow with ease. We must double back through the
forest and then downwards to the shore. We must defeat their scent.” He
fell again panting to the ground, his face pallid and drawn. It must
have been exceptional consternation that had so dread an effect. I let
him recover again, and then asked him what it all meant. In a low,
hoarse tone he whispered: “It was the slave’s vengeance. They know that
if they plunge a body of some mass into a certain boiling caldron of
liquid lava, the mountain will regurgitate it. This wretch knew in any
case that he would die in taking revenge for the lash, and he felt
perhaps that a plunge into the boiling fire would be the quickest and
the fullest vengeance. His pursuer would perish before he turned and
reached the rim of the crater. The rest who were nearer it would run the
risk of being overwhelmed, for the wind would carry the ash cloud
directly over their heads.”

But Sneekape did not care to waste time over talk. He knew from the
experience of former deputies from his island how prompt and complete
was the punishment for being caught in the workshop of Tirralaria. So we
set out again and doubled on our path; he kept his eye on the cloud over
the peak, and ever and again put aside the foliage to have a look at the
sea. He clearly knew every district of the island. Once or twice he
stopped and listened intently. He thought he heard the far-off cry of
the pursuers. He seemed satisfied, and took advantage of the pause to
search for wild fruit; we both ate eagerly from several trees and
bushes. But he was not at ease. The success of the pursuit depended on
whether they knew that his falla lay off shore for him. He had kept the
fact from them, but they might have seen her from the mountain. He had
also a canoe from her lying in the shelter of a cave on the least
frequented shore. If he could put his pursuers on a false trail and then
gain this means of escape, there would be no danger for us. All day we
lay in a thicket some hundreds of feet above the beach waiting the
protection of twilight and night. We sated our appetites with the
berries and nuts around us and put a small store away in one of our
loose and unnecessary rags. He kept his eye on the sea through a crevice
in the foliage, and once as the sun began to wester he started with
alarm; he saw the blistered track of some boat that had crept close to
the shore bronzing in the yellow light. Whether it was the enemy or his
own men it was difficult to say. He crept, still under cover, to the
point of a promontory that shot sheer down into the ocean; and looking
over he saw the rags of the Tirralarians flutter in the wind as they
bent to the oars. Almost at the same moment he noticed his own falla
tacking far on the horizon, evidently waiting some emergency.

He returned and told me the result of his reconnaissance. He conjectured
that the overseers had communicated with the capital and that a boat had
been immediately dispatched along shore to cut off our embarkation on
the falla. Our best chance lay in its keeping on its course to his usual
place of departure. It was likely that his falla would lie off that spot
and that the Tirralarian boat would remain all night between it and the
shore. We would then make for the canoe which lay farther to the west,
if the night favoured us.

Happily the gloom was profound, for the sky was moonless, and the
starlight was drenched with moisture and shone with lustreless and dull
edge. As soon as twilight had shuttled its pall for the dead sun we took
our little store of fruits and started down the hill with extreme
caution. If either of us snapped a twig or dry stick, we stood with
beating hearts, all ears. Then on again with slow pacing. It must have
been midnight when we reached the rocky shore. Sneekape felt his way
till he found a tree of singular growth, all bent and gnarled by the
beat of the waves and the salt spray. Then he doffed his rags and dived
from the edge of the rock. Within a few minutes he had found his canoe
in the cave, unmoored it, and paddled his way to an easy descent. I
carried down his rags and our stores, and embarked.

Cautiously we stole out from the shelter of the cliffs; he shot his
paddle into the water with such care that not a ripple could be heard,
and I aided with my hands over the side. About three or four hundred
yards from the shore we opened out a bay behind a far out-jutting
promontory; and as I looked back I saw a dark object close inshore break
the faint gleam of starlight on the water. Sneekape raised his eyes and
fell into his former panic. His paddle would have fallen into the sea
had I not caught it. The movement seemed to awaken the distant shadow,
and the sound of oars soon broke the still night air. Our pursuers were
on our track.

Sneekape immediately recovered his presence of mind. Our only chance of
escape lay in what he took to be the position of the falla. We were
quite two miles away from our would-be captors. We strained every nerve.
Yet they gained on us. The two miles were rapidly reducing to one. We
could hear the muffled beat of their oars.

My companion seemed, however, less excited than he had been. He even
seemed to relieve the tension of his paddle in its stroke. Was he losing
his senses? I dared not break in upon his work lest it should lapse
altogether. I felt a shiver run through me as if a cold wind had blown.
I looked behind, and the island had vanished in mist. And even as I
gazed, the dim veil enveloped the dark shadow on the water that was
straining after us. I could feel our canoe jerk into another direction,
almost at right angles to our previous path. The beat of the pursuing
oars was swallowed up in silence. In about half an hour my companion
laid his paddle down and threw himself down on the bottom of our canoe
and laughed a long, low laugh. The fog had outwitted the revenge of the
advisers of the people.

We were so wearied with the long strain that in spite of our rags and
the chill of the night we stretched ourselves and fell asleep. When
morning broke the thick veil was still over the sea, and where we were
we knew not. We relieved the pangs of hunger and waited. It seemed as if
we had got into some current, for either we were moving with
considerable swiftness through the mist, or the mist was driving over
us.

As the sun rose towards the zenith the dense veil grew more transparent,
and then rent in twain. We saw the blue sky above; and soon the whole
envelopment of the world had melted into the azure. Klimarol was a white
phantom on the horizon with a thin blossom of cloud above it. Nothing
else broke the outlook in that direction; but in the opposite, whither
we were rapidly drifting, a low coast lay like a thin nebulous stratum.

Sneekape, when he looked round at my gesture, gave a cry of surprise. He
had expected to be near his falla. But it was not to be seen; and he had
not yet made out what island it was that we were bearing down on. This
consolation we had, that we had enough fruit with us to serve the day’s
wants, and the new land seemed less than a day’s journey from where we
were.

[Illustration]

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[Illustration]

CHAPTER XVIII

MEDDLA

IT was not far in the afternoon when my companion, taking a look ahead,
gave a long, low whistle and laughed. He had recognised some feature of
the land we were now approaching. “You will have some fun here,” he
said. “We shall have to bridge our way over the lunatic asylum of the
archipelago. It is a series of islets on which we have classified and
quarantined our cranks for many ages. Anyone ridden by a fixed idea or
habit is shipped off to those of his own kin. So we keep our communities
clear of quixotism and crazy eccentricity. You will see each for
yourself, for we cannot get to Figlefia unless by passing over every one
of these islets in order to provision our canoe for each voyage across
the passages between them. We call the group Loonarie; but each has its
own special and grandiloquent name to distinguish it, for they have a
supreme contempt for one another.”

We paddled and drifted with considerable rapidity, and the features of
an island grew more and more distinct; for the current which bore us
evidently ran close inshore. The beach swarmed with people as we
approached; their fantastic dresses made a brilliant but grotesque
scene; everyone seemed to have tried to produce as loud and individual
an effect as possible by the colour and shape of his garments and the
slovenly way in which he had pitchforked them on. It was not the colours
of the rainbow, but a complete diapason of discordant colours. As we got
nearer they seemed to have chosen garments by lottery. Their lean, lank
forms showed like May-poles in the loose finery; and their sharp faces
and small red heads almost disappeared in the enormous beribboned
turbans they wore. They all looked preternaturally solemn and wise.
There was much buttonholing amongst them, and most confidential
communications were evidently passing from lip to ear.

I feared some sinister purpose with regard to ourselves. But Sneekape
laughed when I mentioned the idea. “They only wish to convert you to
their way of thinking, and each is getting ready for the assault. One
soul gained to their side, they say, is one soul saved. Propaganda is
their passion.”

We beached our canoe amid much dignified fussing that really delayed us
instead of helping us. I thought the efforts they made to do us a
service would have landed us all in the surf—a matter of little
consequence to us in our rags, but somewhat serious to them and their
ill-harmonised finery. We were like to be torn into fragments by the
candidates for our friendship when we had got our feet on the sand. They
were all eager to clothe us. Sneekape rescued me from a dozen who
clutched at my rags; and we followed the most dignified personage in the
crowd and got re-clothed. I had imagined that it was in pure charity
they had been eager to substitute something better for our rags. But it
turned out that we had to pay most handsomely for our new and gorgeous
garments, and that they were the uniform of a party. The benevolence lay
in taking the custom to a shop owned by one of the party, and perhaps in
saving our souls by giving us the badge of that party.

The majestic ribbon-pole who had captured us entered into conversation
with me in Aleofanian. He had seen me in Aleofane when he was there on a
mission to the heathen; and he had yearned to save my soul from the
baneful influence of men who had not the true faith—faith in altruism.
He asked me if I knew that I had landed in one of the noblest countries
in the universe, Meddla, the Isle of Philanthropy. Here was the true
centre of the universal fire of love. Here lived those who yearned to
save the souls of their neighbours, who cared not what became of
themselves, if only other men were saved. Had I thought over the
momentous question of the true harmony of colours? Of course a man of
experience such as I was had thought it out and decided that green and
blue were the divine mixture, were indicative of the noblest qualities
that God had conferred on human character. I looked down and saw that my
new garments were a motley of green and blue; and of course I knew that
black and yellow were the colours of the principle of evil. Ah, if only
men knew how much the difference meant to their souls and to the destiny
of the world, they would not trifle with the question! It was the
deadliest poison, the rankest sin to wear black and yellow. All moral
evils went with this mixture. And if I knew how serious a thing life
was, I would join them in their crusade against this diabolism in
colour, would put forth every effort to suppress it and prevent the
world being lost.

I would have burst into a roar of laughter, but that I caught a warning
glance in Sneekape’s eye. I kept serious and he helped to rescue me from
the enthusiast and devotee of green and blue, by whispering something in
his ear that spread a radiant smile over the meagre face.

He had not left us many minutes, when I was pounced upon by another
May-pole, who thrust his little head into my face and addressing me in
Aleofanian wished to know what I thought of Meddla. Was it not the
greatest community on the globe? Had it not reached the acme of
civilisation? Did not its fundamental principle of anxiety for the souls
of others make it the centre of the universe?

I told him that I was afraid that I had not had time or opportunity for
forming a judgment. I had just landed and had never seen the island
before. He must excuse me if I did not answer his questions.

But I had spoken with Wispra, one of their leaders; what did I think of
him? What were his faults? The speaker had the deepest love for his
fellow-men as all Meddlarians must have, but he must exercise that love
in sweeping all faults and vices out of their civilisation. Foreigners
were the most apt critics; they could see flaws, which home eyes passed
over from long custom.

Well, if he would insist, I thought that Wispra was a little dogmatic.
At the word, the little head shook with excitement and wagged with
stifled wisdom. Was that his fault? Of course it was. And it was the
fault of all Meddlarian human nature. Oh, he was delighted to have found
it out! And he would cure it straightway. The legislature was just
sitting. He would call a meeting and get a resolution passed in favour
of the complete abolition of dogmatism. He would send large posters and
tracts all over the island urging immediate action. His agents and
supporters would get up public meetings in every village and settlement;
and mile-long petitions would soon roll in to the assembly, asking it to
suppress this vice. A law would be passed, I should see, within a week
prohibiting the use of dogmatism in conversation, or in any form of
speech under the most rigorous penalties. He would be the saviour of his
country.

Away bustled the lank agitator, oscillating his wise head in excitement;
he must set the crusade afoot that very minute. Before I left the island
I found him and his disciples persecuting the dissentients from his
views and calling them by the most opprobrious epithets; they would have
no conditioning of their dogmas, and no questioning of their assertions;
they would listen to no argument, but howled down in their meetings
everyone who dared to advise caution and consideration before venturing
on a crusade against so widespread and delightful a method of speech.
Such mild protest was taken up and used as a missile for wounding the
protester and his sympathisers. It showed, the speakers from the
platform said, how necessary the reform was when a man would have the
hardihood to stand up in a respectable audience and declare in the same
breath that the habit was universal and yet that it should be approached
with caution. Before the week was out, I had to leave; but I saw that
the agitation was working its way through the island and splitting up
parties into new and surprising sections; households were rent asunder,
old friendships broken, old loyalties dissolved; I began to regret that
I had ever uttered the word to my buttonholer. And so did Sneekape; for
he knew that they would send out missionaries to the adjacent islands to
disturb and harass the souls of their inhabitants in order to achieve
their salvation.

Some of the greatest popular movements of their past had had, I
ascertained, marvellous results. One of them had been for the spread of
the custom of wiping the nose with a handkerchief; a section of the
community had been satisfied for centuries with their sleeve or their
fingers. After two or three ages of wild political agitation, a law was
passed making it penal to accomplish the act without an officially
marked piece of cloth; and there was a large charity organisation which
spent all its days and nights in making and distributing amongst the
poor patent attachments that would keep the government handkerchiefs
hung close to the nose; and it had a paid staff of teachers and
preachers who went around educating the people how to save their souls
by wiping their noses in the proper way.

Another great reform that had come about after long searchings of the
national spirit and untold sufferings on the part of its advocates and
martyrs was the abolition of the practice of thrusting the hands in the
pockets. The reformers saw that this introduced indolence and its
attendant maladies and vices, and this imperilled the salvation of
thousands of innocent victims to the habit, who began it in childhood
when they did not know what to do with their hands, or in cold seasons,
when they needed warmth; the practice was most insidious; it had
generally mastered a man before he knew that he had begun it; and no
preaching, no demonstration of its awful consequences could break him of
it. After heroic efforts, a law was passed prohibiting the habit under
the severest penalties. Yet it was by no means eradicated; men preferred
being imprisoned to giving it up. So there was a great society, chiefly
of women, who busied themselves in watching offences against the laws
and prosecuting the offenders. But they were too philanthropic to
confine themselves to such negative proceedings; they distributed gloves
gratis in winter and the members went about with needle and thread
sewing up the openings of trousers pockets. They were the busiest of all
the citizens yet; for gloves had a trick of getting lost and sewing a
trick of coming undone; and the kind-hearted women found themselves worn
to shadows in their unselfish endeavours to make the law a reality.

Another law had been passed after great commotion to compel the people
to wear table napkins when feeding; slovenliness and uncleanliness were
two of the most soul-destroying vices; and, if the meals were taken in
order and without soil, all other virtues would follow. Another huge
organisation busied itself in distributing tracts on the nobleness of
the practice that the law commanded and in supplying napkins to those
who could not afford them; recently they had, on the suggestion of one
whom they revered as a genius, combined their two functions and printed
their tracts on the napkins they gave gratis. The members all felt that
the eyes of mankind were upon them, as they went round the various
villages seeing that their napkins were tied on properly.

They had a multitude of prohibitory laws for the cure of every habit
that anyone had considered evil or worked up a movement for the
suppression of. One forbade the raising of the little finger in
drinking, another the wearing of hats so large as to occupy too much
space in the streets, another the use of expletives, another the
mutilation of a guttural sound that was apt to pass into a palatal,
another the habit of boys standing on their heads in public places,
another the use of worms in fishing, another the following of any
business on certain hours of certain days.

The statute-book was an enormous one, and was filled with such laws as
these. A considerable number clashed with others, and yet there were
societies founded to see the carrying out of each of the conflicting
statutes, and their agents and supporters often came into fierce
collision, reaping on each side a full harvest of bloody noses and
cracked crowns. But this only made the devotees more devoted. Most of
the prohibitions ended in rooting the habit more deeply, by sending it
underground. One instance was the law for the suppression of winking
except on the approach of sleep; prosecutions always failed because the
culprit generally contrived to fall asleep on the way to court or prison
and so destroyed the case against him. I never saw so much winking in
any community of the same size; I thought at first that they were all in
the incipient stage of eye disease or of paralysis; but an arrest by an
agent of the anti-winking society cleared up the mystery for me.

Of course I soon saw that the greater matters of the law had to be
neglected in order to join in these quixotic crusades. The population
had fallen into drunkenness, lying, thieving, slandering, fornication,
and even murder. Every man and woman had some one or more of these
vices; and all were accomplished hypocrites, I discovered before I left.
Yet they all spent as much time as they could save from business or
amusement in the pursuit of the salvation of their neighbours. Every
citizen of either sex was a member and spy of one or more of these
philanthropic societies, and was ever joining in some movement for
getting the legislature to make the prohibition more rigorous and
detailed; and none of them but thought that the gaze of creation was
upon them as they followed their crusade. They were the true saviours of
the world; they had the salt of love and altruism that would never lose
its savour; they had reached the secret of true happiness. In spite of
their philanthropy, they were eaten up with envy, jealousy, malice, and
all the minor evil feelings that sting men and make men sting each
other.

I was quite prepared to believe Sneekape when he said that the
archipelago translated the name of the island differently from the
inhabitants; it was the Isle of Busybodies. The gradual discovery of the
true nature of the people made me glad to escape. We went off without
notice one midnight in our canoe, which we had well provisioned some
days before.

[Illustration]

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[Illustration]

CHAPTER XIX

WOTNEKST

THERE was an island near that carried the belief in the potency of law
to a still more insane pitch. I had heard of people with new-born
legislative functions thinking that they could accomplish anything they
desired by merely passing a law. Revolutionary fervour even in the West
had worked wonders with the human power of self-delusion. But the story
of the isle of Wotnekst or Godlaw, as it might be translated, roused my
curiosity. I could not believe that there existed outside of lunatic
asylums a people so far gone in hallucination.

Much against the will of Sneekape we were driven by the current and the
wind right upon a lonely beach of the island. As it was evening, I
persuaded him to camp on the shore for the night. Before we were fully
awake in the morning we were surrounded by a crowd of the most tattered
and slovenly men and women I had ever seen, and this after I had been in
Tirralaria. There was a wild, fanatic light in their eyes that warned us
to humour their fondest freak. They stood between us and the margin of
the sea where our boat was beached, and we saw that they meant to
shepherd us inland, whether as prey or guests we could not tell.
Sneekape made the best of a bad bargain and, after taking a slender meal
of what we had left from supper, he marched away from the shore and I
followed. The tatterdemalions began to move too.

It was one of our pieces of good fortune that my companion, though he
had never made an expedition to the island, because of its lack of
attractive quarry, had amongst his many accomplishments acquired a
smattering of its language from some of the descendants of those who had
escaped from it. For they had not long before passed a law that their
language should be and was the universal language of the world; they had
long enough suffered from having to learn the languages of barbarians
and foreigners, in order to have intercourse with them; they would
suffer the indignity no longer; other men must learn Wotnekstian; and in
fact it was their true, natural, or mother tongue, and they had
forgotten it only through their negligence; it was time that they picked
it up again, and they would have no trouble in doing so, once the
auxiliary series of laws was passed for enabling foreigners to learn the
language in a day. They should like to know how any man could fail to
learn it once the legislature of Wotnekst had taken the matter in hand
and passed the necessary laws. They should like to know what Nature had
been doing all these centuries in letting the native tongue of the earth
fall into desuetude in so many nations. Nature knew well that Wotnekst
was the primitive source of all mankind and had remained the leading
country of the earth and the model for men to follow. It had been
foremost in legislation and had shown the way to the whole world; for
legislation was the supreme factor of life.

I heard the loud and threatening eloquence, and though I did not
understand the import of it I knew from its tone that I had better keep
silence. I sheltered under the knowledge of Sneekape, and watched him
negotiate and cringe and flatter. I afterwards discovered that it was
his knowledge of the language, meagre though it was, that saved us from
terrors they did not attempt to define. Sneekape knew their general
reputation in the archipelago as a feeble folk too loquacious to do any
harm. Yet he showed by his cowering and fawning look that he was not
quite sure what might occur; and the more he spanielled them the louder
and more arrogant they grew. It was then I knew by instinct that they
were cowards, attempting to hide their cowardice and drive courage and
boldness out of the hearts of possible assailants. Once Sneekape took in
the situation, he changed his attitude and adopted their loud voice and
swaggering gait. He was, as I had seen, a master of effrontery and
fanfaronade. But his change of rôle was too sudden to impress them; and
they had gathered confidence and impetus from the torrent of their own
blustering and rhodomontade and from their growing numbers as they
approached the town. They outbrassed the insolence and swagger of
Sneekape, and he cut but a poor figure for the rest of the march to our
destination.

We could not see the houses for a long time; and when we came amongst
them we still looked for the town ahead of us. The hovels were so squat
and mean and filthy that we could not imagine human beings living in
them; but we soon stopped before one that was conspicuous for having
been built as a penthouse to the ruin of what had once been a
considerable edifice. We were informed that this was the capital, the
very centre of the civilisation and power of the world, and that what we
saw around us was the greatest city on the face of the earth. The filthy
kennels were the town, and this pigsty was the residence of the
government.

We were led to the door, and one examined the contents of my pockets and
handed them over to an official within. Another took his place and
examined my hat and grubbed in my hair. A third stepped forward and
ransacked the inner places of my garments. And so on the investigation
proceeded over the whole of my person till every crevice and opening was
examined. Then marched up another group, and through Sneekape made
sundry inquiries as to our origin, past history, means of subsistence,
ultimate destination, race, religion, political tenets, attitude towards
the existing government, views on the exciting questions of the island
and the day, and endless details that were of no consequence to any but
ourselves and of little consequence to ourselves. A third set pursued an
investigation into our health; and a fourth into the health of the
island we had last visited. In fact our examination continued all
through the day; and my belief is that it would have gone on for weeks
till we had dropped from emaciation and fatigue, but that the leading
politician had been disturbed in his attempt at sleeping inside, and had
rushed out in a frenzy and dispersed the crowd.

Left to our own resources, Sneekape and I foraged about till we found a
few scraps to eat; for we were famishing; and from sheer fatigue we lay
down under the shelter of a tree, and without troubling to find an
elevation or even a stone for a pillow we were dead asleep at once. We
awoke in broad daylight to find ourselves again the centre of a tattered
and inquisitive crowd. I heard Sneekape mutter under his breath: “God
help us! another plague of inspectors!” Then I realised what we had gone
through and what we might have still to go through. Every person in that
mob which had shepherded us up from our boat was a government inspector
of immigration and importation, and had to show his zeal for
administration whenever a stranger landed. They had several thousand
acts relating to aliens who approached their shores, and every act had
necessitated the appointment of so many officials to see its provisions
carried out. There had been in former ages considerable commerce
centring in the island; but the minute regulations for its conduct had
frightened every merchant and sailor from its shores. There was nothing
left of its olden trade but the countless laws passed for its
administration and development and the mob of inspectors to see them
enforced. There were inspectors of tides, of harbours, of fore-shores,
of weather, of clouds, of shoals, of rocks, of captains, of crews, of
native sailors, of foreign sailors, of native passengers, of aliens, of
goods, of native and foreign clothing, of native and alien epidermis, of
native and alien vermin, of native and alien diseases; the list proceeds
through a whole encyclopedia of detail. Yet all the imports they were
able to inspect were the planks and nails and bolts of an occasional
shipwreck, and all the human beings were strangers driven by stress of
weather or current on to their inhospitable beaches. Our arrival was an
era in the existence of this host of inspectors.

But the legislators were as eager to have a foreign audience, and
rescued us from the tender mercies of the inspectorate. A special act
was passed relieving us from the jurisdiction of the thousand alien laws
that were to be found on the statute-book and of the ten thousand
inspectors who were to enforce them. We were fêted and banquetted and
made so much of that we could not get a moment to ourselves or
sufficient hours for sleep. The worst of it was that all their feasts
were of the Barmecide order. We were urged to help ourselves; but there
was never anything to help ourselves to. The speeches were most
grandiloquent, and often laudatory; but we should have been better
satisfied with a crust of bread. Nor dared we hint that we were
starving; for that would have reflected on their hospitality, and
perhaps led to unpleasant consequences. Now and again we tried to get
away from our eulogists amongst the fruit trees that Nature provided on
the island; but on our escapades we generally found every branch rifled;
and we were generally captured before we went far, they were so eager to
induce foreigners to settle on their island or traffic with them. If
only we would return and bring others with us, they would pass
innumerable laws for our benefit. They had not yet realised that it was
too much legislation that had isolated them; for it was now the only
thing they had to lavish. But Sneekape saw his opportunity and seized
it. He promised that he would flood their shores with merchants and
traders; and he effected his purpose. We were allowed to depart before
emaciation made us incapable of leaving; and we were accorded on the
beach the most fervent of farewells.

When we had drawn out of sight of the land, the wind favouring us,
Sneekape pulled from underneath the planking of the boat some of the
fruits we were familiar with on these islands. Without my stopping to
inquire how he had got them, we ravenously ate them. Feeling appeased, I
tried to find out what ingenuity of his had extracted food from an
island that seemed to be without it. He had managed to get into one of
their households and to flatter the women and they had provided him. I
suspected from his look and his reluctance that there was some baseness
or intrigue that even his mean spirit had become ashamed of, and I
pressed him no further.

He was quick to recover from such an unusual emotion; and after a few
hours’ sleep in the bottom of the boat, his vanity came uppermost. He
awoke in the best of humour with himself and his achievements and
discernment, and I had a full account of his past knowledge of the
island and his immediate observations on it.

It was the most fertile in the archipelago and the richest in the
precious metals and the common minerals; and it had at one time bidden
fair to be the most opulent. The people, though too fond of politics,
had been industrious and thrifty. There were several large cities in the
island full of splendid buildings public and private. The coast was
studded with excellent harbours constantly filled with ships loading for
other parts of the archipelago. They kept a strong fleet for the
protection of themselves and their commerce. Wotnekst was the envy of
the other islands.

What had brought most of its population together was the belief that if
only they could each get his pet political theory put into practice, the
world would be saved and the millennium would be here. Every leisure
moment they had they spent in discussion with each other on their
favourite topic. They had started as a republic with complete freedom of
meeting and speech; and so there was no bridle to their dominant
passion. Politics was talked of every hour of the day and dreamed of
every hour of the night; and their dreams were perhaps less mad than
their daylight projects. Every man tried to outvie his neighbour in the
eccentricity of his theories and suggestions; and they were gauged and
promoted not in proportion to their wisdom and practicability, but in
proportion to their departure from the beaten paths of tradition. Every
one was, of course, intended to order the world as it ought to be
ordered; it professed universal prosperity and happiness as the certain
goal. There would be no more poverty, no more evil, no more misery in
the universe, if only it were adopted; and the electors, feeling the
annoyances and woes pointed out to be real enough, and recognising the
objects aimed at as excellent and quite in harmony with their own
yearnings, eagerly adopted every such proposal. They did not stop to
inquire whether the means were adequate to the ends, or whether they
would not introduce evils greater than those to be remedied. The actual
existence of the woes and the magnanimous motive were enough to secure
their sympathy, and anyone who offered to criticise was howled down as
the enemy of mankind and of all progress.

And, as always happens, there arose a set of politicians who pandered to
this passion with a view to their own advantage and glory. If a scheme,
however utopian, seemed likely to be acceptable to the majority they
would trick it out with one or two special features of their own and
proclaim it as their own discovery; and all their energies would be bent
towards having it put in the form of a law on the statute-book.
Statesman after statesman rose on such stepping-stones to power and
fame; and at last it was recognised that the only way to success in
Wotnekst was a brand-new project for the cure of all human ills.

The first stage of those panaceas was based on the idea, natural to a
republic, that the suffrage was the noblest thing a man could wish for.
What floods of eloquence were turned on to the theme! What pictures of
the happy state that would ensue on each new expansion of the electorate
proposed! How cruel and inhuman those who opposed it! The toughest
struggle was the first for the removal of the most irrational of all the
political disabilities and anomalies that had grown up with the growth
of the community. If any human system remains untouched for a generation
or two without any automatic power of self-adaptation, it becomes a
caricature of justice and wisdom through the growth of the commonweal to
which it is intended to apply. The Wotnekstians suddenly awoke to find
the electorate, consecrated by long tradition, a nest of absurdities and
wrongs; but it took the eloquence and ridicule of two generations of
reformers to put it right and to get the franchise extended to all
holders of a certain amount of property. The abolition of the property
qualification was a struggle only second to this in its violence. Then
the flood came. Every new statesman had to rise to power on some new
suffrage scheme. From residence for a year it was brought down to
residence for a month in the community. How irrational it seemed to
place any time limit to the acquisition of political interest and
insight and wisdom! Every limit, indeed, could be proved to be arbitrary
and illogical; and the final step was easily taken to manhood suffrage.

Then they waited to see the effect; and there grew upon the people,
first surprise, and then indignation that all human ills had not
vanished from the island. There were poverty and crime and disease with
them still in all their virulence. Who could be at the bottom of this
failure? It could not be the patriots at home. It must be the foreigner
who frequented their shores and marts. Then the second stage of panacea
legislation began. This was occupied with taxing the foreign commerce of
the island. Tariff after tariff was passed for the purpose of drawing as
much blood as possible from the alien who came to their harbours,
without actually killing him. He was getting fat on the trade with their
island. Increase the revenues out of him, was ever the cry. For more and
more was needed for the army of guardians and inspectors of the trade
and for the statesmen who passed the tariffs and their followers; all
the needy and the indolent amongst the middle classes looked to the new
services for their sustenance. As commerce dwindled under the burden of
inspectors and tariffs and regulations, the demand for revenue
increased; till at last the harbours were empty, and the marts inhabited
only by the government officers. No politician, however, dared to
propose the reduction of this army of idle inspectors.

An ambitious young statesman who could not oust his opponents or get
himself into office bethought himself of a new scheme. He knew what it
was that had annihilated the commerce; but the electorate would not
listen to him if he told them the truth; they thought that it was
malignant envy that had driven foreign nations into withdrawing from the
ports of the island; how could it be Wotnekstian legislation, when it
had all been meant for the good of the human race? But let them go; they
could do very well without foreigners. The youth saw it was vain to
attempt to persuade them that their own laws and tariffs and inspectors
had made commerce impossible; and he turned his attention to a new
stepping-stone to power. In their anxiety to please and conciliate the
middle classes who had achieved all the recent reforms, statesmen had
forgotten the artisans and labourers; and everybody assumed that in
passing laws for the benefit of employers, they were conferring benefits
on the employees too; their interests were bound together. But this new
candidate for power saw that the lion’s share went to the middle classes
and that the interests of the two divisions of the community were by no
means completely identical.

He sent his lieutenants and agents out amongst the workingmen and wooed
their confidence by urging their grievances, which they suddenly awoke
to find they had. His emissaries made the artisans pick quarrels with
their masters, and he stepped in to settle them; but he settled them in
such a way that they should be chronic ulcers. He encouraged their
discontent and promised them a position in the commonwealth as good as
their masters. At intervals the strife he provoked blazed out into open
warfare; and he led the crusade. He was execrated by the middle classes;
but he did not care for that; for, as soon as he had inspired the mass
of the workingmen to act independently of their employers, he knew he
would carry the day.

And after ten years of uphill struggle he came out victorious. He had
rent the state in two; but he had the larger part behind him; and he
took every precaution to bind it to him with all the bonds of
self-interest and fear. There followed a long period of legislation in
favour of the artisan and labourer. He drew his revenues from a new
source, the penalisation of capital. Every man who employed others with
profit, or who had any surplus from his earnings, was forced step by
step to hand over his profits or his surplus to the state or in the form
of wages to the employees. Industry after industry grew waterlogged and
sank. All who were thrown out of employment had to be provided for by
the state; those vile employers, through hatred of labour, had in their
malignity withdrawn their capital from the industries, and many of them
had gone abroad with it to escape taxation and the just laws that had
been passed to guide them in the employment of their capital.

The new army of government inspectors and employees who had come into
being in order to see the labour laws carried out could not be
dismissed; and the government had to take over most of the industrial
enterprises that had been abandoned. The labourers learned with facility
the art of seeming to work when idling; and, as they were the masters
through the ballot-box, it was no one’s interest to see that they did
what they were paid to do. Things drifted from bad to worse; but the
statesman put the best face upon them. Borrowings from abroad at huge
rates and crooked accounts concealed the deficit for many years.

At last his rival, a younger and as unscrupulous a politician,
advertised the disaster that was about to befall the state, and, though
denounced as a liar and slanderer, persuaded half the electorate that he
was not far from the truth, especially as the administration was driven
to all kinds of dubious shifts to pay their employees; and a
considerable section of the labouring class looked to them for work and
support. But in the crusade against industrial capital and foreign trade
the landlords and mine-owners had been forgotten. Agricultural work and
mining had not been to the taste of the Wotnekstians, and they had
allowed these employments to drift into the hands of introduced
labourers, contracted, or, in other words, enslaved, for a number of
years. The owners kept as silent as they could and shut the mouths of
their foreign workmen by learning their language and allowing them no
opportunity of learning Wotnekstian. It was assumed that they were
contented and happy, as no one heard them complain, and all outsiders
who could understand them were carefully kept out of their way. They
cost little beyond their sustenance to their masters, who avoided any
show of the wealth they were laying by, and even kept up the appearance
of being poor.

The new candidate for power was an outcast from their ranks, and knew
the enormous profits that came to them from their lands and mines. He
spoke with authority when he declared that he could pay all the expenses
of administration without laying any more burden on the existing
taxpayers; he could in fact remove many of their taxes, enrich the state
coffers, and give a higher rate of wages to all the employees of the
government. His long-successful rival made a bold stroke for the
retention of power. He knew that his own special party, the artisans,
had the largest families, and had therefore the largest number of women
and young men in their ranks; and he brought in a bill extending the
suffrage to women and to youths of sixteen years and upwards. His
opponent was suspiciously eager to help him in passing it; but he could
not draw back; and it became law. The result was a still more
overwhelming defeat for him and his followers. His rival had honeycombed
the labour party with disloyalty by means of promised bribes.

Then began the new system of taxation, which was to draw all revenues
from lands and mines. From time to time the taxes had to be increased in
order to fill the gulf that was made by a new addition to the
inspectorate. The owners had to resort to a lower and lower stratum of
workers, who would work for nothing and whose food would cost less. The
proletariate raised a cry against the introduction of such savages; and
the artisans and labourers took it up, and insisted on native labour
being substituted for the aliens. Stringent laws were passed excluding
all aliens from the island; and real poverty began to take the place of
seeming poverty amongst the landlords and mine-owners. A few generations
of laws against foreigners and of taxation of natural products ruined
this milch-cow of the state; and the end was that all lands and all
mines had to be taken over from private owners.

Still there were new stepping-stones for youthful ambitions in politics
to rise. One who thought that too many years were passing without the
due recognition of his genius saw that his only chance lay in an utterly
neglected section of the electorate. The paupers and the unimprisoned
criminals, though long enfranchised, had been too unimportant to appeal
to. But state employment, state doles, and state impecuniosity had by
this time pauperised half the population, and the half-developed
criminals had begun to recognise in the statesmen and politicians
brothers-in-arms, whilst the constant torrent of legislation had induced
utter contempt of all laws and made most of the people lawbreakers.

Our young political leader saw his opportunity, and knew that if he
propounded a scheme that would appeal to both pauper and criminal he
would seduce Wotnekstian human nature and rise into power. He proposed
to give a competency to every man and woman above fifty who was poor
enough or idle enough to appeal to the state for sustenance or
employment. He did not reveal whence he would get his revenues to carry
out his scheme, but assured the electorate with great confidence that he
would find them. The semi-criminal was astute enough to see that it was
out of his quiver that the new scheme must find its weapons. The pauper
did not care whence the means came; and the two combined put the budding
statesman into office. The financial scheme was of course to take from
those who had saved and to give to those who had spent their all or had
never earned. Anticipating the effect of his measures, he passed a law
prohibiting emigration from the island; and he made the semi-criminal
inspectors to see its provisions enforced. In spite of increasing
deficits and increasing inability to borrow from the islands around even
at exorbitant rates, statesman after statesman climbed to power by
reducing the age at which a competency would be granted, and the age at
which a boy or girl could begin to claim electoral rights.

Notwithstanding the army of inspectors and the precautions taken, the
thrifty section of the people who did not care to abandon work dribbled
away one by one clandestinely to neighbouring islands, along with their
thrift. The wealthy had taken care to escape long before; and the state
bank, which had gradually absorbed all other banks, had begun to feel
the limit of its paper. Its chief reserve and plant had been for many
years a printing-press. One ambitious youth of meagre intellectual
capacity had leapt into power on the preaching of the doctrine that the
only essentials of great wealth in a country were a good supply of paper
and a good printing-press; the credit of the community did the rest. So
thoroughly did the people come to believe in this that the precious
metals and the movables of value were allowed to drift out of the island
along with the rich or thrifty escapees. They were chary of accepting
any piece of government paper in payment for anything they did or sold,
and still the people believed in the inexhaustibility of the wealth of
the state. Did not the whole of the industries and mines and lands of
the island belong to it? Issue of paper followed issue of paper to meet
the increasing deficit, each growing of less value and of less
acceptance than the last. More than half the population were government
inspectors, and the rest were government pensioners; and they had to be
paid. At last there was nothing to pay them with but the state bank
paper. Then there was indignant protest. Statesman after statesman in
whom the electorate trusted to pay them in goods or the cash of other
islands was hurled from power. Hundreds of laws were passed asserting
the value of the paper money and refixing it at its original face value.
Yet neither electors nor politicians would acknowledge the facts of the
case, that as long as there was no one to work, there was nothing to be
got to pay the inspectors and pensioners. There were the mines and lands
as rich as ever they were; but there were none to dig or cultivate them.
The alien labourers who used to work them had been thrust out, and the
natives had worked in such a way that they did not earn their wages.
There were the factories and industries; but they were silent and their
buildings were falling into ruin.

Yet the electors were convinced that it was the politicians that were at
fault; and the politicians had each his theory, which, if put into
practice, he was sure would set everything to rights. Every new
statesman had a new panacea, and when it failed to pay the state wages
and pensions in goods, down he went. Another statesman rose into power
and another political nostrum was tried. Fortunately for us the last
favourite theory had been the encouragement of foreigners. A politician
had shown that, if commerce were encouraged and aliens invited to settle
in their midst, everything would be right again; and his brief term of
office covered our compulsory visit to Wotnekst. That he would fail was
as certain as that night would follow day. Yet none the less would the
whole people believe that salvation was to be found in passing laws; and
they would continue to spend their days and their energies in arguing
out new political schemes for the return of prosperity, just as they and
their ancestors had done for generations. Nature, meanwhile, was kind
enough to save them from actual starvation; her wild roots and fruits
were free to all, and in ordinary seasons gave them bare subsistence the
year round. But when in one of her violent or barren moods she refused
them food, then famine and ultimately plague blotted out by the thousand
the less vigorous amongst these believers in the omnipotence of
legislation. The survivors, as soon as they gathered strength to talk
and argue, began to hammer out a new scheme for putting the state and
the state bank and the state industries and state lands and mines on a
sound footing. If the passing of laws did not bring them prosperity and
happiness, then they were certain that nothing would.

Such was the outline that Sneekape gave me of the history and character
of the Wotnekstians; but it seemed such a caricature of human nature
that I half suspected he was playing off a jest on me. He saw my
hesitation and he assured me on oath that he was speaking the truth. His
oaths had never impressed me much, and I tell you his story for what it
is worth. That a whole people should so insanely believe in the
omnipotence of legislation is beyond credit. That a whole people should
adopt such foolish schemes, and on their failure continue to forge and
put into practice similar schemes would strain the most primitive
credulity. But that any nation could bring themselves to think that the
encouragement of idleness and unthrift would lead to anything else than
leaving them to the mercy of the moods of Nature was indeed a jest too
patent to impose on me.

[Illustration]

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[Illustration]

CHAPTER XX

FOOLGAR

THE adjacent island over which we had to pass made me almost regret our
departure from Wotnekst. It was a low, marshy, rich-soiled island that
did not bulk into the appearance of land till we were almost half-way
across the straits. A few knolls, like a row of buttons, ran across it
and gave it the appearance at first of a thread of minute islets strung
rosary fashion. They were each topped with either a house or a group of
houses that as we approached stood out amid groves of trees against the
sky. A nearer view made the island even picturesque; streams and brooks
flashed in and out across the low terraces that, meadowed and treed,
broke the slope downwards to the shore.

When we reached the surf, there was no one to be seen; but for the
cultivated aspects of the centre, we should have said that the island
was uninhabited. We shot through the broken water at the mouth of a
stream, and ran up its channel as far as the shallows would permit. We
moored our boat and made for a little village that nestled at the foot
of one of the hills; but we could not get anyone to speak to us. I
thought that they were all deaf, till Sneekape demonstrated the
contrary; one to whom we spoke went like the others past us, his nose
turned skywards; my companion at once imitated with his tongue the
twanging of a bowstring and the whizz and cloop of an arrow that enters
wood; the figure first cowered and then ran, and when at a safe distance
glanced furtively round.

We left the islander to recover from his fright and turned into what
seemed a shop in the long street. Here we experienced wholly different
treatment. We made extensive purchases of personal clothing and
exchanged our absurd Meddlarian guise for this. Our appearance was now
less like that of circus clowns. And something in our gait and manner,
something perhaps imperious, changed the sullen irresponsiveness of the
shopman into the most obsequious attention. He rubbed his hands and
bowed before us and anticipated our every wish. He grew servile and
cringing; and Sneekape fooled him to the top of his bent. He got the
whole of the goods of the shop turned out upon the tables; he objected
to everything, or showed the loftiest contempt for the services and
eagerness of the capering, bowing salesman; he ordered this or that in
the loudest and vulgarest of tones, and the man danced attendance on him
all the more abjectly. I stood by and wondered at the change from the
haughty churlishness to the supple servility. It came about after and
not before we had made our purchases and donned them. In spite of the
trouble that Sneekape had given to the clothier, he bought nothing more,
and yet was bowed out of the shop with the most fawning of smiles.

We entered another at the upper end of the street; and our reputation,
or rather Sneekape’s, had preceded us; for we experienced the same
sycophantic court. The attendants bowed us in and offered us seats with
bent eyes and gracious smiles. We wished something to eat and drink, and
my guide gave his orders with the same insolent parade and pompous voice
that he had assumed in the garment store. It was indeed amusing to see
how the shopmen bustled about and smirked and bowed to his every
command. I knew that there must be another section of the islanders who
indulged freely in the manner Sneekape had assumed—loud, overbearing
tones, inflated contempt, and supercilious swagger.

I had not long to wait for a specimen. A female islander sailed into the
eating-shop with an elevation of her nose and chin that would have
annihilated a less impudent man than my fellow-traveller. I sat in my
corner and watched. She assumed the most complete oblivion of our
existence, although we sat right in front of her. A minute had elapsed
before any one of the attendants had perceived her entrance. She
answered his eager and servile inquiries as to her wishes by freezing
silence; she still held her nose in the air far above mere terrene
interests. He offered her a seat, and after a time she bent her rigid
frame and majestically rested. He then retired into the background
crushed. When she had settled her dress and airs, a trumpet note of the
loudest, most contemptuous kind recalled him to her side, and he knelt
down before her and apparently begged her pardon and the knowledge of
her wishes; she ordered like a drill sergeant. When the food and drink
came, there was a comparative lull; nothing but the sound of her
instruments and jaws for five minutes.

Sneekape outswaggered her; he paraded with proud strut from side to side
of the shop and trumpeted his orders into general space till the whole
of the attendants buzzed round him like a swarm of bees, leaving the
high-toned engulfer of viands in solitary state. Even the clatter of her
plate and spoon seemed to subside. It was as when a rooster in full crow
in the middle of the barnyard on a sudden hears another crow more
lustily within a few yards of him; with wings depressed and feeble strut
he collapses and seeks a safe corner; whilst the partlets range around
the newcomer. He knew the human nature he had to deal with, that coarse,
swaggering fibre of would-be aristocracies that is on one side bully and
on the other craven. There was an almost subdued tone of appeal in the
lady’s voice when she next addressed the shopman; and she sidled out
worsted and crestfallen.

There was a buzz of interest around us as we inquired our way to the
main town, and traversed it. The story of Sneekape’s lordly airs and
voice had preceded us. Great court was paid us by those who were
evidently members of the trading class, whilst the labourers assumed a
peculiar rigidity of body, their usual method of showing respect to a
superior. The few of the lordly class we came across passed us by with a
prolonged stare that seemed as if it would investigate the internal
machinery of our bodies.

We had not got far into the streets of the town, when an elaborately
arrayed flunkey gleaming in purple and gold stopped us with a servile
genuflection and besought us in the name of Soma and Sama Deloorna, the
latter of whom had met us in the eating-shop, to do them the honour of
resting at their house. We had nothing else to do, and Sneekape in his
most lordly manner bade the lackey lead the way.

We entered a fortified courtyard, surrounded by low houses, evidently
the dwelling-places of the menials of the household. Across it, we
reached a showy portal whose doors opened with a suddenness that was
overawing. We were bowed in from lackey to lackey through a gloomy and
pompous hall, and were at last ushered into a great room that was almost
grotesque in its equipment. Everywhere were sculptured or painted forms
of men and women in their burial-dress, the ghastly, lustreless gaze of
the dead upon their faces. Around each were gathered what were evidently
the favourite relics of the original, here a hunting-whip, there the
skins or feathers of wild animals, here a skull mounted as a drinking
cup, there the mummified feature of some animal or human being. It was a
great museum of the dead, perhaps the ancestry of the household. Above
each figure was stuck what seemed a heraldic emblem, wreathed in the
folds of some white cloth, brocaded with gold; and in front of it what
might be a little altar, a shallow cup on it that steamed and smoked
with smouldering fragrance.

After a delay of an hour or more our hostess entered with great bustle
and retinue. She apologised, so I was afterwards told, for not having
shown in the shop the courtesies of Foolgar to so distinguished
strangers. It was Sneekape she meant; for she turned to him and bowed
and smirked and acted most graciously to him in her majesty. She was not
massive; yet the performance was like that of an elephant condescending
to a minuet. My companion was equal to the occasion, and trumpeted forth
as lordly apologies, bowing as graciously. He began with distant
references to his far-back ancestry, astutely introducing some of the
most distinguished names of Riallaro; he made large draughts on his
imagination, he afterwards acknowledged to me, when he was elevating
himself at the expense of the Foolgarians by showing me how he laughed
at them. For she too had entered on the imaginative task of
out-ancestoring him. The contest was evidently a very keen one; for the
two bridled up to new hauteur at intervals. I did not understand the
conversation; yet I could see the drift of it in the gestures and
interplay of emotion on the faces.

It ended in another victory for my guide, as I could see by the
obsequious manner in which she now treated him, in spite of the presence
of her menials who had come to announce the approach of her lord. This
great red-headed lout bent himself low before each of the funereal
figures on the one side of the room as he came up. I afterwards learned
that these were his ancestors. Then with a stiff majesty that ill suited
his swollen pompous figure he approached us and bowed. He was the
coarsest specimen of humanity I had ever seen. If he was proud of his
ancestry it was difficult to understand how there could be any
reciprocity in the feeling, should their spirits be conscious. He had a
huge, ill-cut chasm for a mouth, even larger than Sneekape’s, and the
thick lips would never fulfil their original purpose of concealing the
amorphous, unsightly teeth and the processes of salivation and
speech,—two processes that were ever in foamy, spluttering contest. He
would insist on stretching the slit to its full elasticity by wearing a
sickly, patronising smile; and the rusty-red hair sprawled over various
sections of his face, and failed to conceal what it might have concealed
with advantage. The sections it left exposed to view were measly with
freckles and new artistic patterns in terra-cotta.

Still he held himself with the personal vanity of an Adonis; and it
would not be hard to conceive him dying of love of his own reflection,
like Narcissus in the myth. Yet he was so substantial that the process
would have to be spread over years, if not centuries.

He knew Aleofanian, and he prelected to me with the condescension of a
god on the greatness of his ancestors. It was the dreariest infliction I
had ever borne; but he would allow no interruption, and with
considerable diplomacy he turned the flank of Sneekape’s endeavours to
try a fall with him. He had me all to himself; whilst his wife abased
herself before my companion, he made up for the abasement by a truly
pavonine strut and spread of his feathers.

Amongst the few items of fact that floated on the torrent of his
imagination were these: the name of the island was, translated, the Land
of Lofty Lineage, and there were none amongst them whose ancestry did
not trace back to some god; their history covered myriads of centuries;
and no race on the face of the earth or even in the heavens above could
compare with them in ancientness or nobility; ah, they were the most
unfortunate of men, so lonely in their majestic isolation, there being
none in the universe with whom they could deal on an equal footing.

The thought took him up into regions whither ordinary mortals evidently
could not follow. The gross features were as near transfiguration as
they could ever be. I was glad to be ignored or, at least, unaddressed,
during his reverie on the solemn grandeur of his solitude in the
universe, glad to feel I was too insignificant for his lofty notice. He
strutted with a low, cooing chuckle as if he were superintending the
hatching of a world.

Sneekape jerked him out of his trance as with a lasso. He used an
epithet which, he afterwards told me, implied in these islands the
obliteration of ancestry, what would be considered nihilism in Foolgar.
It was like a whip-stroke to the bovine frame. He writhed as if stung.
His persecutor followed up the interjection with a stream of eulogy of
his own ancestors, piling in heroes and gods, till the lineage
overshadowed all mortal heraldry. The keeper of the great ancestral
museum and saint-shop, in which we were, fell at the feet of his
braggart visitor, prostrate. He had been outboasted, and grovelled
before this surpassing artist in heraldic imagination and in the
vulgarities on which he so prided himself.

He gave us a retinue wherever we went throughout the islands, and fêted
us every day, till we grew sick of his unwholesome attentions. He looked
as if he would lick the ground over which Sneekape walked. A man with so
great a lineage and such lordly airs and voice must be made much of.

Sneekape had still a wicked twinkle in his eye. He gave the gorgeous
servants of our host a high-sounding embassy to return with, and then
led me away through by-lanes into an unpretentious, if not squalid,
section of the town. We stopped before what I would have called an
ancient temple; it looked outside as if worn by the weather of
centuries, and it was clothed with their filth too. It had upon its
pediment a huge inscription in letters of gold, and this, according to
Sneekape’s interpretation, meant: “Honour thy forefathers; they
circulate in thy veins and guide thy life; there is no godhead equal to
theirs.” A feeling of solemnity crept over me, as we stepped into the
antique portico of what was the oldest shrine of ancestry worship in the
archipelago. All round there were evidences of primitive customs and
relics of olden times; and, in spite of the filth and dust of ages,
worshippers in rich robes knelt or moved about with anxious looks upon
their faces. I supposed that they were waiting for admission to the
inner temple, though they had a skulking gait, seemed to try to avoid
recognition, and had their hoods drawn over their faces. Every few
minutes men with villainous low brows, whom I took from their official
robes to be attendant priests, came out of the great folding-doors and
had conference with one or other of the hooded figures in confidential
whispers.

My curiosity was deeply excited; for the service was evidently
proceeding; even in the street as I approached the building I could hear
the hubbub of adoration, and when the door opened the babel of voices
suppliant or hortative burst upon our ears in deafening tumult. Sneekape
approached an attendant and after much haggling, during which I saw
several times the half-concealed passage of coin from palm to palm, he
seemed to succeed in his requests. We were soon threading our way along
devious and dark passages; I stumbled frequently; but, after escaping
many risks of accident, we found ourselves again outside of a door that
smothered the devotional riot within; and in another moment we had
plunged into the tempestuous ocean of devotees.

It was some time before I collected my wits sufficiently to observe the
centre of the scene; it was a huge priest in official robes standing in
a raised pulpit with two subordinates seated beside him writing in books
and a bevy of acolytes buzzing hither and thither around the dais. He
was shouting almost continuously with stentorian lungs that must have
needed the full capacity of his huge chest to contain. He had a hammer
in his hand and with this he pointed in various directions throughout
the congregation as he exhorted or chided, besought or encouraged; and
ever and anon a sounding blow of the mallet on his desk would still the
babel for a moment, while the buzzing acolytes rushed hither and thither
bearing new documents or inscriptions that were evidently portions of
the sacred writings.

I looked round at the sea of faces upturned in worship, and I thought I
had never seen such a villainous collection outside of a criminal court.
It was little wonder that the priest had to exert himself so
frantically, if he were to make any religious impression on such a
crowd. Their countenances belied them if they did not stand sorely in
need of his exhortations. The officiant was now ready with another
portion of scripture, an inordinately long scroll; and around in niches
behind him had been placed by the acolytes a row of mild-faced images
that I took to be a collection of minor deities, evidently of one
family; for there was a strong likeness in the countenances of all of
them. Again the tumult of devotion rose; I felt scared by its
importunacy and reflected that no god would dare to disregard such a
deafening invocation; but the priest’s voice rose above it like thunder
in a tempest. He appealed to them in bovine tones and with postulant
gestures; he exhibited his script and read portions aloud for their
benefit; he turned back to the images and seemed to laud them to heaven;
and ever and again he jerked out some appeal to the assembly, gesturing
wildly with his mallet; and responses to his litany came now from one
worshipper and now from another. As the scene proceeded, the service
seemed to narrow itself to three officiants, the priest in his pulpit
and two somewhat lordly-looking worshippers, whose faces I could not at
first see. The interchange of appeal and reply was like a fusilade, so
rapid and sharp was it; and ever and anon the acolytes held up an image,
or raised the long strip of manuscript in the air. The suppressed
excitement in the assembly grew intense. Not a sound was heard but the
voices of the three officiants, that of the priest in the pulpit
predominating.

A crisis was evidently approaching, the threefold litany crackling out
upon the blank silence like thunder on the depth of midnight. I was
conjecturing what would be the climax, when the mallet rapped with a
sharp click on the desk, and the acolytes bore off the images and the
manuscript. One of the response-givers turned around and his face was
dark and troubled as a tumultuous sea under the shadow of a cloud. With
excited gestures and rising intonations the worshippers bustled out; a
fierce quarrel was manifestly on foot, there being, I could see, two
contending sects present; face turned to face with darkening scowl and
arrested threat. Religious fervour had changed into virulent bigotry;
and the narrow space within the temple seemed to accentuate the
suppressed volcanic fire, to judge by the fierce, dark faces all
hieroglyphed by the passions of a murderous past; there was bloodshed in
store for the two divisions of the church. We did not follow them; but
before long we could hear in the neighbourhood the furious cries of a
sanguinary contest with a fringe of feminine wailing and screeching.

Sneekape drew me aside, and, when the crowd had thinned off, we went
into what seemed a huge warehouse in the rear of the temple. Here were
great rows of images and countless rolls of manuscript; and the
attendants were taking from the hands of hooded figures other images and
rolls. My guide took me into a still corner, and told me that this was a
pedigree pawnshop we had entered, and that the scene we had just
witnessed was an auction of ancestors. The great temple of ancestral
worship had been poverty-stricken till it had recognised the signs of
the times and ceased to prohibit with its ban the secret but
long-established traffic in lineage throughout the island and
archipelago. The ever-progressive extravagance and impoverishment of old
families had led to its necessary consequence, an ancestry exchange,
where for a consideration a new favourite of fortune could acquire an
ancestry with its good name and titles and its resultant social position
and prestige. It is true the commodity was encumbered with a few stones
of human flesh in the shape of a daughter of the family whom the newly
enriched or his son had to marry, or in the shape of a son to whom he
had to give his daughter in marriage; but there was discount for that,
and he could soon get clear of the encumbrance by divorcing it to some
other island. There was generally a higgling of the market according as
there was more supply or more demand all over the archipelago. The
mothers and fathers of the old families prided themselves on their
bargaining skill; they drew from the aspirant the more coin, the more
they disparaged himself and his forefather; if they could make him out a
blackguard, so much the better bargain could they drive. Most romantic
stories were told of great fortunes being made out of such a sale
through the employment of detectives, who found out the scoundrelism of
the buyer’s past.

The church had for centuries considered the traffic as a desecration of
the ancestral worship that it cherished, and frowned upon it; and the
consequence was that it was itself sunk in poverty and neglect. But a
generation before, a great ecclesiastical genius arose, who saw the
possibilities of the practice, and blessed it instead of cursing it. He
organised it into a regular business over which the priests presided. He
established the famous ancestral pawnshop behind the ancient temple and
extended its operations through the whole archipelago. At first the
priests kept the commerce semi-private so as to save the feelings of the
old families; but most of these latter had no compunctions about the
haggling for a price and pressed the church officials more and more
eagerly and openly to make a good bargain for them. After a time the
business became so large and open that an auction was established in the
temple; and bidders gathered from all parts of the archipelago. The
growth of commerce and the rise of new families to wealth at first
overtook the supply and then out distanced it. An old family name and
pedigree was one of the dearest of commodities and re-enriched
impoverished households. Still some of them shrank from the publicity of
the auction and pawnshop of ancestry and came thither with their
proposals hooded and unrecognisable. The church and then the individual
priests grew rapidly in wealth; and their increasing taste for luxury
demanded larger and still larger income. They established agencies in
the other islands, and at last, to meet the demand, set up a great
pedigree factory.

Our next visit was to this. One department of it printed off the long
strips of parchment with fictitious records of lineage, the earlier part
of it in ancient letters and language and stained with the marks of age.
Another department manufactured images, and artistically chipped,
cracked, and sullied them into true relics of antiquity. It was indeed
difficult to distinguish the old models from the new imitations; and I
was not surprised to hear that the buyers of the brand-new pedigrees
held their heads as high as those who had to pay ten times as much for a
well-known ancestry and titles. The priests alone knew the difference,
and it was their interest to keep it secret, and preserve the skill in
distinguishing true from false as a trade mystery. Sneekape told me
afterwards that it was the rarest of all privileges to get admission to
the factory of lineage. He had great personal influence with one of the
chief priests and considerable pecuniary influence over the
subordinates. We were both sworn to secrecy over the sacred writings and
by ceremonies that were meant to overawe us. I cannot say that I felt
much inclined to reveal anything I saw, so ordinary did it seem to me.

What impressed me most deeply was the auction in the temple. I had never
encountered any instance so bold and unconcealing of a practice, common
to all peoples, yet usually hidden under a thousand different fine names
and subterfuges. The scene engraved itself upon my memory, the priestly
auctioneer crying up his goods, and the wild, dark-faced assembly of
bidders, loudly competitive. I was soon led to understand that it had
been an auction to be remembered even by a people accustomed to such
scenes. The ancestry had been that of one of the most famous families in
the archipelago, a family of statesmen, reformers, divines, and
philanthropists, once of enormous wealth, now reduced to what was
comparative poverty in that age of luxury. There was attached to the
title and lineage the condition that the purchaser should marry the only
female representative, a beautiful and gentle-hearted young girl; and
the condition had this time given enhanced value to the pedigree. It
drew bidders from all portions of the archipelago; but amongst them it
soon came to be generally whispered about that no one had any chance
against two notorious corsairs of Broolyi, who had lately retired from
the overt pursuit of their profession with huge fortunes and bought
great estates and castles in the island. The hooded figures in the
portico had been the sellers hovering about, awaiting the result. At
first the other bidders kept up the running; but the price soon
overleapt the resources of all but the two pirates, who had each a force
of his old sailors and followers ready to carry out what his purse might
not be able to do. I had seen the conclusion of the matter as far as the
temple was concerned; but the true conclusion had to be reached by the
aid of knives in the open air. I protested against the fate of the young
lady, who would have to pass her life with her piratical purchaser; but
Sneekape and his friends on the islands only laughed at such a mistaken
view of a provision of nature. Krokya (the successful corsair) had paid
his full price; never had any lot had such a good market; the old family
was set on its legs again; the girl was supremely happy; for she would
have everything that money could purchase; and her husband, though he
still had interests in several piratical craft that were doing a
handsome business in the archipelago, had thoroughly reformed, and,
having settled down to the life of a respectable citizen, was worthy of
the best pedigree he could purchase. He would now move about with his
head high in the most aristocratic circles of the best islands, and
where could any girl find a better match? Her people, it seems, held
high festival over the result of the auction; for, although they had
bartered away the good name of the family, they had restored its
fortunes. What nobler thing could religion have done for ancestors than
to provide them with an organised and respectable means of raising the
family out of the slough of poverty and misfortune, and attaching
themselves to a new and successful family? The church had shown itself a
true philanthropist in thus acting as intermediary between ancestried
poverty and ignoble wealth.

After this explanation and defence of the system, I was anxious to
return to the temple and watch another auction; and as a large number of
small pedigrees were to be sold, the scene was sure to be interesting
and varied. To me it was from one point ludicrous, from another sad. The
officiant priest, evidently using phrases that he had used thousands of
times before, stirred the competitive eagerness of the audience. “Here
we have one of the finest commodities I have ever submitted in this
temple; look at the length of the pedigree; roll it out before the
gentlemen; show them the great names that occur in it; call out the
lateral connections of the family with the greatest families of the
archipelago. Now, gentlemen, let us have a bid; the opportunity will
never recur; I have clients behind here in the pignorative warehouse who
have been pressing me to submit it to private sale; why, I could have
sold it twenty times over since the family put it into my hands; but I
determined that the public, my old and faithful clients, should have the
first offer. A hundred pounds! Come, come, you are joking. Let us begin
with two hundred. You think this is a pedigree from the isle of
socialists. I tell you it is from the greatest country in the
archipelago, from Aleofane. Now look at the images of the ancestors.
Here is one who alone is worth the money. He has got the lineaments of a
god, and his life is written in the annals of the country. Just hold up
this image to the gentlemen. This, you can see, is the face of a
philosopher, thought in his every wrinkle, wisdom in the stoop of his
shoulders, lofty meditation in the gaze of his brooding eyes. Pass on to
the next in the row; who cannot see in his bold front, stern mouth and
chin, and high cheek-bones the lines of a successful warrior? Victory is
written over his face and mien; and, if you look into the features, you
will see in the scars upon his face the map of his innumerable
battlefields. Now, gentlemen, you can never be ashamed of a lineage like
this. What! Only ten pounds more! No, no; I must have twenty-pound bids.
And the lady who owns this lineage is a goddess in beauty and gait. Why,
if I were not so old, I would unfrock me of my priesthood, and bid for
the pedigree myself, so fair and so divine is she. No, no, it would be
sacrilege to let it go for such a paltry sum.” I could make out some of
this now from his gestures, aided by my knowledge of the temple and its
trade; and Sneekape eked out my conjectures by his running translation.
The pedigree was knocked down for coin equivalent to our thousand pounds
to a chimney-sweep who had made a fortune by extracting some valuable
chemical from the soot. Now that he had a pedigree and an estate, he
became a transmuter of fire-products, and he afterwards moved in the
best social circles of the archipelago. My guide slily drew me up
towards the images and manuscript as they passed out, and showed me that
they had been amongst the most recent production of the factory. Where
the priests got the divine lady attached to them, he said he could not
explain. Perhaps this was their method of disposing of undowried,
unancestored girls. It revealed at least the source of the vast and
increasing wealth of the temple.

Up till this experience of mine, I had thought that they had no public
religion; each household, it had seemed to me at first, had its own, and
worshipped its ancestors with the usual outward devotion and inward
freedom. They cared little for the character of those they worshipped,
whether good or bad, and called only that divine in them which fitted
their own desires and passions. There were amongst them all the evils of
inbreeding, intensified by its being in the sphere of religion; they
were tortured with morbidity and other diseases of the spirit, such as a
sort of moral epilepsy, and spiritual anæmia. The worst malady amongst
them was that which made them seem insane to the other inhabitants of
the archipelago,—intellectual wry-neck and tip-nose; they could never
look at any thing or person without getting their perspective twisted by
a vision false or true of some far-back past; they were ever craning
their necks back to an ancestry generally fictitious, or lifting their
noses high above someone who did not trouble himself about whether he
had any or not.

My guide had neither the conscience nor the honour to feel any scruples
about taking advantage of their weakness. He trumpeted and strutted in a
more and more lordly and vulgar way, till the Foolgarians, armoured
though they were in genealogies that reached farther back than the
creation, licked the dust off his feet. If they had not been such mean
bullies and parasites themselves, I should have been sorry for them, so
heartlessly did he trample upon their most sacred treasures and
feelings. His ancestral references were as fictitious as most of theirs;
but they were magnificent lies, brazened out irrespective of human
weaknesses. Poor, lank body though he had, he managed to give it an
appearance of volume by bulging his chest and raising his nose in the
air and stamping his feet on the ground; and by some means I never
discovered he changed his low nasal voice into a bovine trumpet-note,
with which he outbullied the loudest lineage braggartry of the
Foolgarians. The meaner side of human nature was gratified to see these
pompous pretenders and bullies biting the dust before one of their own
kin and revealing so plainly how natural to them was the other side of
their nature, cowardice and fawning. He was their supreme god for a day
or two.

Yet he knew that the charm would not work long, and that, when they
discovered how like he was to themselves as an artist in genealogical
fiction, they would turn and rend him. He chose the very top of the wave
of devotion, and we made a triumphal exit, our canoe full of all manner
of dainties and luxurious foods. To the last they kept their cringing
attitude. Long after we had shot over the bar and put to sea, we could
discern their bodies bending to the ground as in an act of worship.

Sneekape laughed loud, when we had got out of earshot and eyeshot. I did
not join in the outburst; the spirit of coarse mockery and triumph by
means of deceit was even worse than the mixture of bullying and
grovelling we had just seen. He was evidently much surprised and tried
to explain the jest to me. He said that these islanders were the butt of
the archipelago; the meanest laughed at them for the lordly airs they
assumed, and when his people were in lack of a good laugh or jest, they
organised an expedition to Foolgar, taking with them some comedian, who
would by his outlording their lordliness bring all to the dust-kissing
stage of fawning. It was the happy hunting-ground of practical jokers,
and they seldom failed to raise some good game, so mad were the
islanders with the itch for ancestry. The usual translation of its name
throughout the archipelago was the Isle of Snobs.

[Illustration]

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[Illustration]

CHAPTER XXI

AWDYOO

HE saw at last that I had little sympathy with the part he had assumed;
and with a wily insight and versatility he snaked himself round into a
confidential conversation on our next step. He told me that he was glad
we had come off so well-laden with provisions; for he wished to avoid
the next islet in the chain, Awdyoo, or the isle of journalism; it was
the foulest place on the earth, and no one ever landed there who could
avoid it.

It was the quarantine station, whither all the scribo-maniacs were
deported. Every island but Aleofane had used it as an asylum for those
who were afflicted with the desire to address their neighbours in
writing or type concerning their neighbours’ affairs and characters. In
Aleofane the government controlled and utilised the morbid state of mind
for the advantage of the governors. In other islands it was lamented and
guarded against as one of the foulest of contagious diseases; once it
had taken root in a community, they knew there was no eradicating it
except by the most wholesale exile. It generally caught the meanest and
most malignant natures, too, and turned them into moral sewers. They
would not let the affairs of their neighbours alone, and stirred up
every mud pool until it became offensive; and, when they could not find
anything in the shape of scandal or foible or quarrel, they had to
manufacture; so they filled the citizens’ minds with lies about each
other, and with cues of attack or offence. They fomented bad blood, and
infected the whole community with every spiritual disease that could
possibly approach it. There was no lunacy that Riallaro so greatly
feared as that of journalism, it was so disgusting and so swiftly
spreading an epidemic of the mind. Every man who was touched with it
came to fancy himself absolved from all laws of courtesy, honour, and
morality; he assumed that he was practically omniscient, and whosoever
dared to question this assumption had to be pursued to the death with
his most envenomed and deadliest weapons, malice, slander, ridicule,
misrepresentation, impudence, lies. They had all agreed at a conference
many centuries before that there were no such dangerous madmen, and that
their mental disease spread more quickly than a plague. They had
therefore fixed on Awdyoo, one of the most isolated of the islets, as
the hospital for this epidemic; and whoever showed any symptoms of it in
any island was deported thither.

The place had become a complete pandemonium in these centuries. The
inhabitants had substituted physical means of attack for their old
spiritual weapons, for every one of them had grown so thick-hided from
perpetual attack of the others that the foulest charges fell lightly on
them. They laughed to scorn the most irritating slanders and lies and
banter and mimicry, the favourite methods of their journalism. So, to
relieve their feelings, they had to translate their moral and
intellectual warfare into physical. And the weapons they used were the
physical equivalents of their old journalistic methods of attack; they
had great air-guns, from which they shot various mixtures more or less
glutinous; if they found someone they wished to parasite, it was butter;
if they had a rival or neighbour to quarrel with and blacken, it was
ink; other preparations were paste variously coloured and
stench-generative, filth highly granulated with pebbles, and the extract
of cuttlefish mingled with the poisons of various plants and animals.
Their missiles were not absolutely lethal; they were only noisome and
inconvenient until washed off. They were made into minute pellets with a
hard gelatine shell, so that they made no commotion in the olfactory
nerves till broken. Even those they wished to honour were incommoded by
the streams of butter that soon streaked their clothes and face. Honour,
flattery, from them was almost as little desired as their hostile
attacks; and it was one of the islands which no one visited unless under
a stern sense of duty or the incitement of some heroic mood or from
accident. Yet they were thoroughly convinced that they were the arbiters
of all reputation in the world. If they laughed, mankind trembled and
were sick. If they threatened, the orb shook. If they approved,
posterity accepted their verdict and threw up their caps in applause. A
nod or a frown from them had as great effect as a thunder-storm or an
earthquake. Their fiat was immortal, even though they should immediately
contradict it, as they generally did. Their respect for principles and
facts and truths continued as long as these continued to support their
conclusions and beliefs; and then the alliance was broken; they
considered that no loyalty was due to things that were disloyal; it was
a case, then, of internecine warfare; veiled in great professions of
respect and devotion for the enemy, if only it would cease to be
hostile. Their treatment of persons was based on the same ideal of
rights; omnipotence was not to be trifled with; omniscience was not to
be questioned.

What was their religion? It was the Veiled Ego. They believed that the
only true way of making divine was by mystification. Hide the average
personality under namelessness and mystery, and you give it the
attributes of godhead; its utterances, however feeble, gather strength
from the secrecy of their source, and seem to come from the mouth, if
not from the heart, of mankind. The primary article of their creed was
this: a voice from behind any veil, however tawdry or foul, becomes the
voice of the people; and the voice of the people is the voice of God.
Every man of them, therefore, had become a god; and it was his object to
bring the rest of the world to worship at his shrine, or sheet, behind
which he ever concealed himself. He believed it was only a matter of
time, when the whole universe would fall at his feet. Meantime his
fellows on his own island had to be subdued to the true faith; and his
whole time was spent in warfare and the invention of new forms of
attack, especially of ambush. He was filled with complete faith in the
righteousness and ultimate triumph of his cause, and was ever asserting
that truth will prevail, at the very moment that he was manufacturing
fiction and stench pellets for the conversion of his neighbours and the
salvation of their souls. By truth he meant his own deliverances. For
the gist of his creed was this: “There is no god but I, veiled under We,
the essence and sum of all created beings; and I, veiled under We, is
his prophet.”

I had become so deeply interested in his account of Awdyoo, and he in
his narrative, that we had not noticed a dark band round the horizon
broaden and gradually obliterate the islets. A cold effluence from it
had crept over us to the effacement of our compass and landmarks. The
mist soon closed and shut out the sun and sky, and then we knew not
where we were or whither we headed. We dared not move lest we should
drift far from both land and our course. We had only to throw ourselves
passively into the bottom of the canoe and await a change. Sneekape was
evidently much moved, and did not add to my cheerfulness by telling me
that these mists were frequent and long around Awdyoo; and that they
were brought about by the everlasting hail of gelatinous missiles that
rayed forth stench when burst.

Two nights fell upon us starless, like the walls of a prison, and still
the mist rose not. Our provisions would not last many days; but we felt
that the boat and the sea were drifting under us, or that the mist was
floating swiftly over us. It must have been about midday, when my
companion started from his prostrate position, and put his hand to his
nose. “It’s Awdyoo,” he exclaimed with bated breath. He knew it by the
indescribable medley of smells that floated over the islet as from a
thousand chemical factories, and he fancied that their repertory of
missiles must have greatly enlarged since his last approach to it. There
was a new variety in the fetid redolence of the atmosphere. If all the
putrescent waters and heaps of the world, all its assafœtida and noisome
plants, and all its polecats and skunks, had been gathered into one
centre, and all the exhalations from them turned into one nozzle, the
result would have been aromatic and balmy beside this mephitic stench.
It was not alone the nose that it invaded, but every sense and pore of
the body; the whole of our human system seemed to be mastered by the
olfactory section of it. We longed for one sniff even of the crater of
Klimarol.

Gradually the sense of smell got partially paralysed, and a smart
grating sound shivering through the framework of our canoe recalled our
mental force to eyes and ears. The current was bearing us over a
sand-bank, and we could see a dim, low line as of land beyond. We rose
in frenzy to our oars, and pushed off; and the current bore us past
several tongues of land, and then, it seemed, out into deep water. We
spent hours in the struggle before it succeeded. Happily the veil was
close drawn over the whole scene. But it was now near noon, and the
strength of the midday sun began to penetrate the thick gossamer of
floating moisture. In a brief time the whole pall lifted, and we saw the
island lying at a safe distance, yet near enough to show us the
inhabitants and their occupations. It looked as if they had all hung out
a very dirty washing to dry; for there flapped in the light wind, that
had rent the veil of mist, hundreds of long sheets that had once been
white. Out from behind them peeped the nozzles of air-guns and of men
and women, and back and forward darted various forms of familiar
animals, whose appropriate noises we could still hear in the distance.
My companion explained, with a smile at my mistaken conjecture, that
these sheets were their entrenchments, behind which they were nameless
and secret, that on them they printed threats and challenges and abuse
for the benefit of rivals and enemies; and when anyone approached they
poured forth a shower of stench pellets upon him, or chased him in the
disguise of some animal.

One by one they saw us; and a howl of execration rose from them and
gathered force as they collected into a crowd. There was evidently great
excitement; we had still one long spur of land to pass, though happily
at a distance. They galloped with all their following and their
artillery towards it. It was a narrow escape for us. We had just shot
past it into deeper water, when they arrived at its point and set their
guns in order. The pellets fell short; but as they struck the water they
broke and infected the air with putrescence. One unfortunately touched
the gunnel and bespattered Sneekape; and he acknowledged that they must
have invented some new odours surpassing for their strength and
noisomeness. Yet, as the current and wind drifted us out of the reach of
the raining stenches, it was almost a pleasure to have only the
offensive fetor of my companion’s hair and clothes near me. We lowered
the islet into a thin line by distance; then we could see them scatter
like insects to their various sheets; and night sheltered us soon with
its cool neutrality of perfume. My odorous mate had dipped himself again
and again into the sea and wrung himself out, till at last only a faint
reminiscence of the polecat hung about him. It was faint enough to let
me listen to his diverting chatter as we drifted. He assured me that the
current would bear us of itself to the next islet in the chain.

[Illustration]

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[Illustration]

CHAPTER XXII

JABBEROO

BETWEEN it and Awdyoo, but farther to the north than the current was
likely to carry us, lay a group of islands that Sneekape declared would
have been as good as a play to see. He entertained me with an account of
them as we drew away from the odours of Awdyoo. I listened with reserve
of judgment; for his story, as usual, sounded like fiction; and I had no
means of testing it. It was interesting enough, and drew my mental
energy from my nose to my ears. I knew afterwards that there was a good
deal of truth at the basis of it, even though the tricky, airy manner
made me doubt the whole of it. The nearest of the group to Awdyoo was
called Jabberoo, and seemed to be the inferno of talkers. Hither were
banished all who had become insufferable for their loquacity. For a time
it was said to have been the silentest island in the archipelago, such
an effect had the encagement of so many praters in one place upon the
disposition of each. They had all been so enamoured of the sound of
their own voices that they could not bear to hear anyone else speak;
that was the disease for which they had been quarantined; and it looked
as if this drastic step of exile was about to be an effectual cure of
it. Once the patients from the different islands realised that Jabberoo
was nothing but a huge garrulity hospital, they howled with rage and
found a certain distraction in airing their grievance to one another.
Each tested the listening power of every other inhabitant of the island,
and, finding that it was no greater than his own, settled down into
sullen taciturnity. Not even the variety of dialects in which they spoke
gave them any consolation; the babel only intensified their horror and
disgust at being cooped up with men and women as passionately fond of
babble as they were. Every talk they started became almost at once a
competitive duologue; the two voices rose into a shout that made hearing
the words an impossibility. Not one of them could bear to see his
neighbour begin to talk; he knew he could not get a word in except by
main force of lung, and he dared not risk the torrent of babble. The
first few days on land left them hoarse and exhausted; and thereafter
they muzzled their passion and went about mute as fish. Mariners and
boatmen avoided the shores of the island after a time; for those that
landed at first were almost torn to pieces by the Jabberoon mob, each
eager to secure a good listener; and even if any arrival had the good
fortune to meet only one Jabbaroon and be monopolised by him in secret,
he was glad to make his escape, lest he should turn into a pillar of
salt under the infliction of fluency; the only successful means of
flight was to bear the torrent till the darkness of night, slip out of
his upper garments which his buttonholer held, and leave in his place a
wooden substitute. The sullen silence had been no cure of the disease
after all.

A benevolent Swoonarian took pity on the wretched islanders and invented
an automatic listener. But, like all the inventions of his people, it
came to nothing. In theory it seemed as if it would work. He made a
figure in human form with a sensitive word-repeater inside it that at
certain sounds could by internal mechanism set it swaying and
gesticulating, as if in high nervous excitement. It could be wound up
for a whole day, or in some of the more expensive specimens even for a
whole week. As it heaved and swung about, one would have said that it
was a real, human listener moved by the eloquence of a speaker; but the
shipment failed. Superior though the automatic audience was to most
human beings in responsiveness and emotional endurance, something was
wanting; the look of suppressed despair on the face, the irritable
attempts at interjection, and the unavailing efforts to escape. The
inventor intended, if this venture had succeeded, to add those movements
to his figures; but unfortunately the first purchasers lost their
tempers over the monotonous acceptance of all they said and the
repetition of the gestures and attitudes as they repeated their
favourite phrases; they grew frantic with rage and smashed the whole
consignment to pieces.

It looked, indeed, at one time as if the community of Jabberoons would
go furiously mad for want of good listeners, and commit suicide in a
body; but a missionary arrived from a neighbouring island, called
Tubberythumpia, or the island of demagogues; and though his sufferings
often rose to torture at first, he knew from experience in his own land
how to endure them. In the end he conquered; he was able to get a word
in now and again; and this occasional word won its way by slow degrees
into the brains of the Jabberoons and bore fruit. They listened to the
gospel of the newcomer once a week or so, and resolved to adopt the new
evangel of alternation of eloquence. They organised themselves into
councils, assemblies, senates, conferences, synods, mob meetings,
boards, election meetings, parliaments, cabinets, conclaves, chambers,
convocations, congresses, consistories, diets, juntas, comitias,
directories, commissions, sanhedrims, and committees, so that every man
and woman was a member of forty or fifty of these bodies and could
attend the meetings of two or three dozen of them every day. They
adopted it as a basis of their new constitution that only one was to
speak at once in any sitting, and, whenever two began to speak together,
it was thereby dissolved. It is quite true that there were dissolutions
every hour of the day; but some speaker had had his say out, and those
who were disappointed in getting an escape-valve for their tongue energy
had plenty of other meetings to attend, where they might have a chance
of evacuating their own particular section of the dictionary.

The plan was a miraculous success for a time. It saved the Jabberoons
from universal frenzy and suicide. Every one of them was able to get off
half a dozen eloquent speeches every day to an audience more or less
unwilling, but that had by the constitution of the country to listen;
and it was easier for them to keep the mouth shut when they knew that
they too would have their chance before long. They worked just enough to
keep the wolf from the door; and then all the rest of the time was given
up to those delightful meetings and conferences, where each felt that he
could make others hear the sweet sound of his voice. They never settled
anything of any importance to anybody; but they felt that the existence
of the universe depended on their oratory. To satisfy themselves they
discussed every possible topic that had occurred or could ever occur to
any human mind, and they passed resolutions upon it to send on to other
meetings and conferences and assemblies. By the time these resolutions
had got through the various bodies and come back to the originators,
they had become so transformed as to be unrecognisable, and so
bewildering in their labyrinth of clauses and amendments as to be beyond
human intelligence; but they were recommitted and recreated and again
sent on their career of transformation. They kept the jaws working and
the tongues wagging. And every ambiguity introduced served the same
national and benign purpose.

With all this development of eloquence and elaboration of counsel, it
might have been expected that Jabberoo was the best governed country in
the world. Every citizen worked the clack-mill night and day for the
good government and guidance of every other citizen. Nothing could
surpass the earnestness and enthusiasm of the whole community in
pounding out the arguments for and against every possible course that
any member or section of it might take in life. They were in danger of
starving, so busy were they in deliberation over the questions, how
every man should earn his food, how he should cook his food, how he
should eat it, and how he should dispose of his surplus. They had not
time to drink, so strenuous in their tongue exertions were they over
what to drink and what not to drink. They left their children to run
naked, and their own clothes to fall into rags, whilst they discussed
the best kind of cloth for different weathers and climates, and the best
form of garments for various ages, and the best way of wearing garments.
No people in the world had ever held so many deliberations and
consultations, or ever spent so much eloquence and wisdom over the
proper way of bringing up a family; meantime every family was allowed to
tumble up in the best way it could, till the momentous questions were
settled. Never was there a nation that so strove to get at the highest
ideal of government as the Jabberoons did in meeting and conference and
assembly; and never was there a nation so devoid of all pure government
or even co-operation for their own internal administration or their
defence. There was nothing they would not do in their speeches on behalf
of their country, so fiery were they in their patriotism; but when a
pirate landed with a small boatload of men, there was not a Jabberoon to
be seen within shooting distance, and once, when a mad dog was let loose
on the beach, the silence and solitude of the island could be felt.

For himself, Sneekape asserted that, if the Jabberoo women were worth a
thought, he would land and walk off with the whole of them; but they had
such predominant and huge mouths and such pestilential tongues that no
ordinary human nature could endure them. Their recent developments under
the Tubbery-thumpian missionary had made their shores safe for strangers
to visit; but for his part he would keep at a safe distance from such a
nation of magpies. He could not endure the endless chatter of a prating,
gossipy woman. He preferred her with a good stormy channel between him
and her.

The latest development of their commonweal had again made landing
dangerous. Their tongue-courage had grown too mild for the expression of
all they felt. Argument and eloquence had given way to vituperation and
insult, and their meetings now generally ended in free fights. Scratched
noses and cracked crowns had become the natural accompaniment of
political fervour.

[Illustration]

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[Illustration]

CHAPTER XXIII

VULPIA

THE only chance of restraining and correcting these furious scenes of
debate, and preventing them from ending in complete annihilation of the
Jabberoons, was to turn the inhabitants of a neighbouring island loose
upon them. These were the Vulpians, exiles from the rest of the
archipelago for over-astuteness in diplomacy. They were hated by the
Jabberoons as the most deadly enemies they could encounter; for they
exploited their loquacious neighbours in the most heartless and
shameless way. For years they had been almost enraged at the simplicity
with which these orators fell into their snares. They would go over in
troops, and each fleece his man of all his goods, if not of his wife and
daughters, without making him feel anything but gratitude at his
friendship and patronage. Time after time these expeditions had gone
unsuspected. These wily flatterers would insinuate themselves into the
good-will of the Jabberoons and leave them naked, and yet with the sense
of having received unmeasured favours and advantages. They fooled their
victims to the top of their bent, applauding their feeblest gabble as
matchless eloquence and persuading them by their attitude of admiration
and their ambiguous phrases that they had only to go out into the world
to have it at their feet. They had but to listen in silence or with an
occasional cunning question or implication of reverence and enjoyment in
order to get the orators to accede to all their requests or desires.

The game was laughably simple and unworthy of the great powers of the
Vulpians. But, as years went on, a sense of being cheated of what they
had earned by hard and repulsive work grew in the minds of the
Jabberoons underneath the soothing flattery. They became uneasy and
timid at first, and afterwards furiously hostile to Vulpian approaches.
Though they were passionate for listeners and for flattering applause,
whether loud or silent, they rose in a body whenever they saw a Vulpian
expedition near their shores. Nothing so united them or so froze them
into taciturnity and action as the appearance of boats from the
neighbouring isle. Yet they were exploited and fleeced as much as they
had been willing to be before. A stranger would land on the opposite
side of Jabberoo, and rouse them into still greater fury against the
Vulpians; he would head them in their attack on the expedition. In the
enthusiasm of victory he would persuade them to provision their own
fleet and sail out to the conquest of the other islands of the
archipelago. As a preliminary they made first for Vulpia, which, they
were convinced, would fall an easy prey to their prowess. It ended in
their tumbling into the trap laid for them. Their fleet was piloted on
to shallows, where it had to be abandoned, and their enemies kindly
ferried them back to their homes. The supplies for the long voyage of
conquest were secured by the Vulpians; and their temporary leader
vanished, no one knew whither.

That was one of the Vulpian methods of warfare; but they had the
astuteness never to use any one too often; and, as the Jabberoons began
to feel dupe written broadly over their natures, their neighbours had to
exercise to the full their mania for diplomacy. Their schemes for
deceiving them were absurdly labyrinthine, till at last even the
simplest of the Jabberoons could entangle them in their own deceits.
They generally aimed so far ahead of their machinery that it was the
easiest thing in the world to cut the connection and bring the scheme to
naught; in fact, so far-seeing in their diplomacy did they become that
the mere development of events often destroyed the interest in their
aim.

Amongst themselves the Vulpians had long ago reached this point. They
were so astute and so elaborate and far-seeing in their schemes for
attaining even the most trivial object in life that they ceased to vex
themselves about the lives of each other. No one ever thought of finding
out the purpose of his neighbour’s moling and undermining. They grew
weary of the effort after so often discovering the paltry nothing that
lay at the end of the machinations. They took it as their own natural
habit of mind to follow out their aim by many a circumflexion and twist.
At last, if a Vulpian wished to cheat his fellows he adopted the
simplest and most direct way of getting at his object; and he had
reached it whilst they were fumbling in the dark and floundering in a
slough of conjecture and far-reaching guess. It came about that these
born diplomatists acquired in dealing with one another the direct and
simple methods of the most ingenuous people. The homœopathic cure of
lunacy and eccentricity adopted by the archipelago worked its usual
miracle. The caging of men of the same weakness or vice made them sick
of it and resort to its opposite. It was only against a people who were
off their guard that their old diplomacy became a passion in them again.

And Vulpia was one of the favourite hunting-grounds of the wags of the
archipelago. They delighted in sending this nation of cunning
diplomatists on a wrong scent or on a track that would lead them into a
ridiculous position or in pursuit of something they detested. There was
nothing in the world that so pleased the youths of the neighbouring
island of Witlingen.

[Illustration]

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[Illustration]

CHAPTER XXIV

WITLINGEN AND ADJACENT ISLANDS

THE adjacency of Vulpia was the only thing that saved the inhabitants of
Witlingen from stark madness. They organised raids upon its shores in
order to let off the accumulated wit of the weeks or months in which
they had had to repress it. They could all join patriotically in such an
expedition against the common enemies, the human foxes and tedium. For
weeks they enjoyed the elaborate preparation for the brand-new practical
jokelet; whilst its successful consummation saved their reason and gave
them laughter for months.

At other times Witlingen was a hell upon earth for them. Here were they
gathered together, the professional joculasters of the archipelago,
exiled from their favourite hunting-grounds and condemned to the company
of the men whom they detested most in the world. It was indeed the most
lugubrious of the islands. Everyone knew as thoroughly as his own all
the jests of the rest of his fellow-islanders. They had repeated them or
heard them repeated till they fled from them like a plague. They knew
the whole gamut through which human wit could play, and smiled dismally
and sceptically at the idea of a new joke; they had gone back through
the jest-books of past times, and seen how every age had merely revamped
jests that must have been prehistoric. They were quite convinced (and so
had been the fatherland of each before exiling him) that in no realm of
human industry was there so close an approach to the automatic. And a
Swoonarian, it was said, had once invented a human automaton that could
supply any one of all the witticisms that the human brain had been able
to hit upon, with a subsidiary movement for adapting it to the
circumstances or dialect of any island. The Witlingenites were so
enraged at his offer to equip the government of every country with as
many as they needed at small cost that they waylaid the ships that
carried them and sank them with their cargoes.

Theirs was one of the islands for the wayfarer to avoid; for on landing
he was liable to be mobbed, every Witlingenite rushing to secure him for
an audience, and if by any chance he was saved and became the personal
perquisite of any one inhabitant or section of the inhabitants, he had
not the life of a dog; he became the butt of their jests and, still
worse, he had to be the appreciator of them. The only way in which he
could survive or escape was to feign deafness or, still better,
inability to understand their witticisms and so to compel them to
explain them.

If any one of the Witlingenites managed to escape back to his
fatherland, he was soon recognised by his mosquito-like buzzing round
the market-place and his buttonholing of all and sundry, the
confidential and sage wag of his head, and the strut of his demeanour
after a series of successes; there was nothing in earth or out of it but
he could make himself superior to by uttering one of his little jokes
upon it; he could tread on the neck of omniscience and omnipotence
itself, if only he was allowed to jest about it to his fellow-men. It
was this peculiarity of the joculasters that made them the pariahs of
the archipelago. When one was found to have escaped from Witlingen, it
was the duty of every sane self-respecting man and woman to get him
quarantined, like a leper, and sent back. It was only there that they
got free and kept free of their terrible disease. Besides Vulpia the
Witlingenites had now another recreation-ground, in which they could
play off practical jokes much to their own satisfaction. It was the
small island of Fanfaronia. The peoples of the archipelago had begun to
be plagued with a new type of eccentric, the would-be world conqueror.
The success of two or three on military expeditions and the great glory
that they gathered to themselves thereby had sent an epidemic of
militant brag amongst the youth of the various islands. The manner was
most infectious; and, in order to stop the spread of the plague, the
saner majorities had to adopt the usual homœopathic cure. Every youth
who strutted with head on chest and arms folded, and assumed superiority
of genius to his fellows, and to their moral rules and conventions, was
exiled to Fanfaronia; and there proximity of likes kept the disease in
abeyance. But as soon as a stranger landed, the Fanfaronians struck the
stage attitudes of great conquerors and looked for adoration from him.
It was on this weakness that the Witlingenites played, and thus found
another escape-valve for their own mental malady.

They had rivals for the use of this new arena in the inhabitants of the
large island of Simiola, that lay close to their coasts. The particular
disease that had brought the Simiolans together was an irresistible
tendency to act the shadow or echo of those whom they saw or heard, and
especially of those whom others admired. The best and feeblest of them
had been useless to the communities in which they had lived; for, though
innocent of any malignant purpose, they were mere parrots that
depreciated the currency of good words or manners or acts or wisdom by
the wear of too frequent repetition. But most of them had been
mischievous or even dangerous in their habits. They were by nature
backbiters and malicious, with a passion for depreciating and trampling
in the mud whatsoever had stirred the praise or admiration of other
people or their own envy or jealousy. These had become foul or ape-like
in their habit of life and even in their forms. There was nothing they
would not condescend to in order to bring down to their level all that
seemed to be above them. Their island was seldom approached by voyagers,
so dangerous was it to land on it. Yet waggish expeditions frequently
made it their hunting-ground; for looked at from a distance their
conduct was often laughable, and their growing likeness to apes gave
zest to the comedy. But they became violent if the strangers ever
attempted to mimic them or laugh at them; and the favourite method of
teasing them was to bring an ape and set it beside them; they hated the
mere sight of the beast, for in it, it was thought, they discovered
their own certain destiny. Yet their chief deity in their central
shrine, it was found by a daring traveller who penetrated its mystery,
was the representation of an ape, gigantic and monstrous yet man-like.
They did their best to put that traveller to death; but he had taken all
precautions and escaped. They thought that they worshipped the noblest
being in the universe, and seemed quite unconscious that they had made
his image in the likeness of an ape. It was only a foreigner and alien
who could see the resemblance.

Close by the shores of Simiola, and as like it as isle could be to isle,
lay Polaria, a still more favoured hunting-ground for the waggish youth
of the archipelago. This was where they fleshed their first intellectual
weapons; for the Polarians fell into the traps set for them with
exceptional ease. They had been exiled and brought together here on
account of a strange but common malady, that of guiding their words and
conduct by the rule of contraries; finding themselves with a passion for
independence of action, and without the power of origination, they tried
to attain the appearance of it by contradicting all they heard and
making their actions the opposite of those they saw. They, so to speak,
enjoyed each other’s society more than the inhabitants of the adjacent
islands; for it made their hearts leap to hear a flat contradiction of
what they said; their blood was up, and they had a good run by the rule
of contraries. They hated each other most heartily, and would put
themselves to infinite trouble to find out what their neighbours or
friends did or loved in order to do the very opposite. It was their
daily feast to go abroad and especially to wander in the market-place;
for, if they met a man who seemed to know something about a subject,
they could contradict him to their heart’s content, and make him feel
how little he knew of it. They cultivated ignorance of the favourite
topics of the day so that they might have a free hand in saying the
opposite of anyone who had studied them. Knowledge would shut their
mouths and deprive them of the rapture of a good long wrangle.

It was amusing to see one of the wags lay his traps for them. He would
find out from neighbours or friends what were their pet opinions,
beliefs, or principles, and being fully equipped he would approach and
announce in a loud and assertive voice one or other of them; at once
would come the recantation; and through the whole range of their creed
he would pass and get them to deny all they believed. But it needed some
adroitness to escape ultimate detection, and he had to make arrangements
for avoiding the tempest of rage that was sure to follow the process of
making them eat their own words.

They had the greatest contempt for the inhabitants of Simiola, and hated
them even more heartily than they hated each other. The very sight of
them on their distant shore drove them into a violent passion. Yet a
Simiolan would as naturally contradict a Polarian as if he had been a
Polarian himself. The two were too much alike in their principles of
action to have any chance of common sympathy.

Farther away in the direction of Tirralaria, but nearer Wotnekst on the
side of Feneralia, lay another group of islets inhabited by those who
were crazy on the subject of thrift. The Grabawlians were the misers of
the archipelago; they had developed such a faculty for the concealment
of money and possessions that you would have thought them as stricken
with poverty as their greatest enemies and nearest neighbours, the
Iconoclasts. These last counted capital the unpardonable sin. They
refused to cultivate the soil lest they should have to harvest its
fruits and store them up. Thrift they considered the greatest of vices.
Trade and commerce they abhorred, and money, wherever they found it,
they threw into the sea; it was their devil. Tools and houses they
eschewed as the outcome of providence, and a form of capital. The only
accumulation that they looked on with tolerance was that of filth and
the refuse of Nature and man. Clothing they would have none of; it was
the result of industry and the sign and symbol of hated forethought;
they ignored and tolerated the kindly services of Nature in trying by
means of her winds and dust and various forms of decay to mould them a
substitute; for they refused to assist her in her ablutional attempts to
undo her work.

No one ever saw them eat; but this was no proof that they never ate. The
fruits disappeared off the trees; and there were many holes in the earth
to show where roots had been dug. If ever they felt the pangs of hunger
or thirst they vanished from the neighbourhood of their fellow-men; they
would rather die than acknowledge to either; for to satisfy it meant the
indulgence in industry; and industry was the sure sign of a nature
degenerating into thrift and capital. Their meals were, everybody knew,
nocturnal; they kept up the farce to each other of professing to be
above both meat and drink.

If they were ever seen to bustle about, you might be sure that they were
exterminating a nest of ants or chasing a bee off the island; these were
in their view the criminals of the animal kingdom, the economisers and
capitalists. One of their favourite maxims was this: “Go to the ant,
thou thriftling and idiot; consider her ways and be wise; see how she
toils and stores unceasingly from birth to death, enslaved to a despotic
instinct, brutally fettered to the future.”

The wonder was that they did not follow out the logic of their creed and
crusade against thrift in Nature’s own camp. There was she treasuring up
the carbon of the falling leaves to make the fruits of the coming
summer. There was she storing up sap during her idle months that she
might make her trees and plants blossom in spring. Nay, in their own
systems was she at work from infancy onwards carefully providing for
later periods of life. They did their best, it is true, to defeat her in
her providence and thrift; for they were walking skeletons and
hospitals. But after all their efforts they failed to eradicate her
thrift from their own systems. It was their unhappiness that every new
turn in their lives revealed to them some form of it in themselves, that
they had either to attempt to get rid of or pretend to each other that
they had not got. They refused to see that the only avoidance of thrift
was suicide, and that even that was a form of thrift. Nature, their foe,
had perhaps generously blinded them.

A singular group of islets was situated beyond these and collectively
called Paranomia. Their inhabitants had all been exiled for some craze
they had developed on the subject of law. They respected it either too
much or too little. Some were so devoted to it that they spent their
time in litigation and missed approach to the spirit of equity; others
reached the same goal by snapping their fingers at all law.

One of the group, called Palindicia, was colonised by justitiomaniacs,
who were not happy unless engaged in dealing out justice. They did not
object to acting the part of prosecutor or counsel; but their especial
passion was judicial; they would have risen in rebellion, had not their
administrators given them daily employment on the bench or in the
jury-box.

How to supply the people with cases and criminals was the difficulty
that beset the government, and drove them to their wits’ ends. Once they
had proposed to put in the dock a dummy or automatic criminal; but they
nearly lost their lives in the brawl that resulted. It was an
unpardonable insult to the humanity of the Palindicians to make them
play at toy trials. They would not suffer such an outrage and caricature
on the justice they so adored. They must have real flesh-and-blood
criminals to try, cases with a vein of tragedy running through them, to
whet their judicial skill upon. They would soon produce a good supply,
if the government did not look out; the administrators would last a good
while, if placed one after another in the dock.

In fact, they rather preferred an innocent man for their experiments in
justice; for, they often said, where lay the talent or ability in
sheeting a crime home to one who was guilty? There was something of true
genius in convicting an innocent man, and in making his friends feel
that there was something wrong about him. His defence was so earnest
that his prosecution and trial had to be exhibitions of the greatest
judicial talent in order to secure his condemnation. A real criminal was
clogged and handicapped by the consciousness of his crime, and after a
little struggle succumbed. The guiltless or his friends kept up the
judicial battle for years, and the whole nation was drawn into the case,
so that every citizen revelled in the exercise of his sense of justice.

One of the most successful methods for employing all the people in a
trial for a long period was, when a crime actually occurred, to get the
wronged in the dock and make the guilty try him. It relieved the
government for years and years of anxiety about the supply of subjects
for the judicial scalpel. The bench of criminals so enmeshed their
victim in the toils that there was no escape for him, and yet there was
the most exquisite exercise for the national passion. The labyrinth
became almost too intricate for their sense of justice. Yet they were
thankful for it; it was exactly what they wanted; for it meant appeal
from court to court, and trial after trial with all the evidence and the
details over again. In fact, they had manufactured so many tribunals,
one above another in even gradation, that the simplest case might last
them years, and every member of the community have his judicial skill
whetted every day. The result was that, however guiltless the accused
might seem when he first entered the dock, he was driven into false
witness, or perjury, or treason before he had gone far, and by the close
every Palindician was convinced that he only got his deserts, when
condemned; their sense of justice was fully satisfied, as well as their
passion for judgment; and those who had brought him into the meshes were
panegyrised as true patriots. They were always deeply grieved at the
condemnation of an accused by the last court of appeal; for the case was
then finally disposed of, and ceased to afford an arena for their
judicial talents. The only consolation in the misfortune was that the
defence and its failure might possibly supply a new crop of traitors,
whose cases might last for years.

Century after century they had had a splendid judicial preserve in the
remnant of an aboriginal race that had developed a genius for finance
and subtlety. Whatever laws the Palindicians might pass, these aliens
were so astute that in all their financial triumphs they could avoid
breaking them. It was one of the patriotic amusements of the citizens to
get up a periodical battue and hunt one or another of these unfortunates
into the legal nest; self-defence or retaliation generally led him at
last to commit some crime, treason or assault or slander, against a
citizen; and thus a first-class criminal was manufactured for their
unemployed law-courts, and, as he was baited by witnesses false or true
from court to court, he fell deeper and deeper into genuine criminality;
by developing new phases and working up new issues, they could husband
the case for a long period.

But too frequent battues had thinned the game in this legal preserve,
and the proclamation of a close season had not sufficed to restore the
old numbers, or even make them commensurate with the Palindician passion
for justice. They were driven at last to use up any strangers that
landed on their shores. Unfortunately most of these were criminals from
the other islands, and they had always made better material for the
bench than for the dock. In fact, it had become the custom for the
Palindicians to use them as judges; for who could dispense justice so
well as the guilty? Who more experienced than the criminal in finding
out crime? The culprits of the archipelago were so convinced of the
rightness of Palindician judgment that they fled at once to the island,
unless the cruel despotism of law retained them in their own. It was
with regret then that these devotees of justice were driven by failure
of the natural supply to change their policy and put them in the dock.
There they were anything but satisfactory, and were convicted too easily
and rapidly.

The Palindicians had grown sad as they reflected over the mysterious
workings of Providence; for here were they with all this passion and
genius for justice; and yet this new supply ran short. The criminals of
the archipelago had ceased to believe in Palindician justice, and
preferred in their blindness to take refuge in some other paradise; and
it looked as if the inhabitants of this unfortunate island would either
have to find subjects for their judicial talent in their own ranks or
abandon its refinement and power through want of practice. Such a
dilemma never had any people had to face.

And where would justice find a home, if they were driven to the latter
alternative? Would not the world mourn the greatest of virtues perished,
if once she were banished from her last refuge? No, rather would they
resort to the trivial contests of civil litigation than permit such a
catastrophe; rather would they manufacture their criminals out of the
guiltless in their own ranks than let Palindicia cease to be the jewel
of justice. Not one of them but would sacrifice his dearest friend
rather than allow the genius for judgment to vanish from the earth.

It was prattle like this that made me forget the malodorous state of the
narrator. Sneekape knew that he had to do something in order to withdraw
my energies from my olfactory nerves; and he succeeded. His
entertainment, when it ended, left me again a prey to the thought of the
commanding odours that rayed out from him. But rest and freedom were
near; for night fell and mesmerised our faculties.

[Illustration]

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[Illustration]

CHAPTER XXV

KLORIOLE

THE gauntlet of stenches that we had run stifled us into deep and long
sleep. The sun was far up the sky when we awakened, and its heat seemed
somehow to have subdued the traces of Awdyoo to a faint, though pungent
and offensive, odour. We looked ahead and astern. The current was much
slower; some undercurrent in the opposite direction must have been
dragging it back. All trace of land had vanished behind us. But there
was either a cloud or the top of some hill on the sky-rim to which the
canoe was drifting. We fell into stupor again; and, when I stirred to
life, the stars were keen as stiletto points above us. I lay staring at
them till they became eyes that spoke to me of the deep night and the
infinite abysses wherein they were moved to tears. A warm breath
softened the distance between us and soothed my senses.

I must have been asleep again, dreaming that they had a language of
their own full of intensity of meaning, and that they bade me approach
them without fear; for the sunlight was around me, as I seemed to fall
from them with prosaic suddenness into the still fetid reminiscences of
Awdyoo.

At the moment of awakening there dropped upon me as I lay what seemed at
first almost an emanation from the gleam of heaven. I raised my head and
found that a white, bird-shaped float was lightly resting on the bottom
of the canoe. I lifted it and saw that it was covered with written or
printed characters. I handed it to my companion, who was also awake,
and, as he read, he burst into a derisive laugh. It was a love-poem, he
explained, written in the fulsome conventional language of Kloriole, as
he called the island we were approaching. He translated a few lines into
Aleofanian with a sneer:

Deity and sex combined,
Godlike despot of the mind!
Look on our eternal fate,
Ere the ages antedate
All that we shall be in death,
Mingling souls in fleeting breath.
God and woman, make me god;
With thy glances starlight-shod
Slay me; for I would be slain;
Slay me once and yet again;
Slay me with thy deadly kiss;
Sweet such apotheosis!

Let not mercy stay thy hand!
We shall never understand
All the god that in us lies
Till from death our spirits rise,
Never know what might we own
Till through space we wing alone
On from orb to orb of night,
Shedding our creative light;
Whilst our mortal worshippers
Watch from world to universe.
Free my spirit from afar,
Thou my love’s own avatar!

I was bewildered by the strange medley of love and religion and
mysticism. Sneekape saw the perplexity in my eyes, and with a gross
laugh tore the kite of love to pieces and flung them into the sea. He
expressed the greatest contempt for such feeble mystifications of the
delights of the senses. I confessed that I had not much sympathy or
admiration for such performances; they were, like buffoonery and wit, a
mere trick of the mind; it was generally lame thought that needed such
rhyme and verses as crutches; learn the hobbling gait early enough, and
you could go on to infinity. It was not at his contempt, then, that I
felt disgusted; it was perhaps at the petty sneer that accompanied its
expression.

In order to cast out the loathing, I began to wonder whence the missive
came. I looked back, and right above us loomed a great hill crowned with
a massive building, and up to the gigantic porch climbed innumerable
flights of steps cut into the living rock. Scattered over the
balustrades and niches and recesses that ornamented the upward course of
the stair stood or sat many beings fantastically dressed and looking up
either to the sky or to the edifice that broke the azure. Some were
floating what seemed paper kites; others were watching their flight, as
they rushed before the wind or fell like falling stars into the sea or
behind the hill, or vanished into the blue distance. I knew then whence
had come the amatory lyric that had butterflied into our canoe.

It was the marvellous ascension of the steps that struck me most. They
seemed to dwarf by their broad spacing and their number the enormous
building that crowned the height up which they clambered. How puny
seemed the men and women that moved about their upper flights. I could
see that they were human beings; but that was all. Even half-way up it
seemed a lark’s flight into the blue. It wearied the imagination to
count the gradings between; still more to think of the ascent, or the
long years that must have passed in chiselling out this daring work of
ambition.

The lowest flight had its knees in the ocean, and as we approached we
could see the verdant sea-hair float and fall across the rising wave or
shimmer in the ripple. For a hundred steps or more the sea in its tides
or its passions claimed dominance and left the record of its conquests.
We moored our canoe between two pillars cut in the rock, and attempted
to ascend. But it was a work of extreme difficulty and danger. Each step
had been smoothed into a slope by the feet of ages of climbers and by
the action of the waters; and the lubricant green, wherewith the waves
velveted them, made footing almost impossible. We slid and tumbled back
into the sea a dozen times, and each time we made effort to scale the
flight it became harder from the growing burden of water in our clothes.
At last one of the native climbers farther up indicated the sides of the
steps, where they were but roughly cut out of the rock. Swimming along
to the right side, we found there was almost the sierraed roughness of
nature. We could just catch some of the sharp points, and, by means of
these, and at first almost prostrate, we hauled ourselves over the sleek
garden of the tide. Then, finding the weed less silken and the rock less
jagged, we crept on our knees up many steps; and when we looked back we
saw traces of our own blood upon them. Then we looked into the notched
rock before us and saw the dark bloodmark of generations that had gone
before us stained deep into its texture. This lower portion of the
marvellous staircase was indeed hieroglyphed and pictured with human
lifeblood.

The thought made me shudder, as I looked back into the flood, for there
doubtless had been the grave of myriads. How could any merely human
fingers cling here when the waves were high, or the wind lashed them
into fury? Out in the open I could see the fins of sea-monsters glance
in the sun; there was the fate of the fallen climbers; there were the
scavengers and mortuary vaults of the feebly ambitious dead that yielded
to their destiny and fell; there was the reason why the sea around was
not one vast gehenna.

We were strong with exposure and exercise, our cuticle hardened and
thick; and yet we were wounded and torn by our upward efforts. We were
now almost sea-creatures from our life in the briny air and the splash
of the billows; and so, perhaps, it was that the man-eaters below let us
alone when we fell back into the waters; at any rate they swam far off
from us, as if they would have no dealings with such strangers.

At length we reached the upper margin of the sea’s domain, and sat down,
weary and faint, to let our blood harden on our wounds in the sun.
Around us stood a crowd of pale and shadowy forms, their long hair
matted or tressed over their shoulders, vague distance in their eyes,
and something that looked like a pen in their right hands. They fingered
our clothes and hair in a dreamy way, and sighed, and looked, and sighed
again. Then one or another would retire into the background and seat
himself on one of the steps, where others too, I now saw, were seated in
an attitude of meditation. They gazed into the sky, and then looked
intense; they ran their thin white fingers through their long hair; then
they consulted slips of paper, on which were evidently printed rules for
their guidance; they threw their heads wildly about; their eyes seemed
ready to burst from their sockets; they rose and flung their arms aloft;
they whirled around and danced at imminent risk of falling back into the
sea. Then I saw them settle into a stupor; their lips moved and mumbled
as if in sleep; they awoke, and over a sheet that they held in their
left hands their pens flew. These performances went on for almost an
hour till everyone around us had settled down to his pen and paper.

Sneekape whispered with a contemptuous smile that this was inspiration.
They had been waiting, probably months, for a new subject, and our
arrival had set them all poetically adrift. They had each hope of rising
another flight up the steps of fame, borne on the pinions of a new
ecstasy.

We rose to look at the frenzied bevy of poets. And now I saw that across
the head of the flight, on which we were, ran a lofty arabesque fence of
adamant with a narrow gate in the middle most elaborately bolted and
padlocked. Inside it stood in an attitude of attack a serried array of
lank forms, clothed in vestures that were splendidly formal, some
holding scissors on the end of long poles, others bearing in one hand
dirty, long-handled brushes, and, in the other, pots streaked with some
black and greasy fluid, a third set swinging censers alight, and a
fourth carrying huge inflated bags on their backs. They looked, a scowl
or a sneer on their villainous low brows, upon the writhing romancers on
the other side of the adamant scrollwork. Half of them were boys with a
low type of face that indicated more bravado than intelligence, more
flippancy than wit; of the others some had more years and more
truculence, and a look of envy and malice in their eye; the rest were
men bowed by years and despair of life, and on their faces was a look as
of pity and reminiscence.

This was the lower ring of acolytes of the great temple of Literary
Fame, Sneekape whispered to me; there were four divisions of them, as I
could see by their implements, and these were the snippers, the
defacers, the burners, and the windbaggers, as their Kloriolean names
might be translated. They had a mean and somewhat soiled shrine of Fame
on the left side of their rocky platform, and here relays of them kept
up continual worship, burning on the altar imaginative productions that
they caught.

My attention was drawn to the other side by negotiations going on there.
Some of the wild-haired youths, who had evidently finished the result of
their frenzy, had come up to the scroll-fence and were haggling and
bargaining with one or other of a group of sleek business-like men
within it. These were called the propagators, my companion said, and
their function was to supply the means for floating any new product of
the fancy towards the priests and the worshippers of the temple of Fame.
I saw that most of the pale youths returned to their seats on the steps
with a look of baffled eagerness in their eyes. They touched and
retouched their sheets and wearily erased and inserted with their pens.
A few succeeded in getting paper-floats with their complement of
gossamer thread and other apparatus from the propagators. And with the
gleam of proud achievement in their looks they prepared to attach their
writings to them and set them afloat. But most of the literary kites
refused to rise, and when thrown up into the air fell heavily back into
the sea and either sank or were torn under by the devouring monsters. A
few of more prosperous and cheerful appearance approached the
windbaggers; I watched one of them: aided by his propagator, he got some
coin or valuable transferred through the interstices of the fence into
the hidden palm of one of the sack-bearing acolytes, and before long he
had his kite afloat, dancing upon the puff of wind that issued from the
nozzle of his ally’s bag. The other acolytes made fierce lunges at it
with their scissors, or brush, or censer. Amongst those that managed to
float, one had its thread early snipped and fell over the parapet;
another sank, heavy from the foul effacement from an ink-brush; another
caught fire and was burned in a censer. Two succeeded in running the
gauntlet and floating higher; but at the next enclosure they succumbed
to the attacks from behind it. The owners of these were admitted within
the fence by which we stood; and I saw the proud smile on their faces.
One of them was persuaded to join the group of acolytes, and, when he
donned the vestments, he seemed to lose his old and picturesque
personality and take on the truculence of his new companions. The other
turned away from them with a weary but ambitious face and climbed up the
long flight towards the next barrier.

As I looked upwards I now perceived that there was a barrier, with a
crowd of acolytes and propagators on the one side and a diminishing
crowd of suppliants on the other, at the head of every flight. The
strange thing was that, as the distance increased, the size and
sleekness of each fence-divided bevy increased too, till up at the porch
of the temple, priests, propagators, and poets looked fat and almost
bloated; they reclined on rich couches, and were surrounded with the
luxuries that would fit an outdoor tropical existence. It was little
wonder that the thin, pale faces of the candidates below looked up with
such longing to that Olympus and Elysium in one. Sneekape pointed out to
me on each adamant barricade the meaning of the scrollwork; he
translated the letters; the announcement ran: “None enter the mighty
temple as gods but by this ascent.”

In the middle of the explanation we were startled by a wild cry and a
rush of the crowd around us to the right-hand parapet. We ran in the
same direction, and, hearing a fierce, gruntling noise, looked over and
saw one of the long-haired tribe being devoured by jackals. To keep
candidates for fame back from the land approach to the great stairs, an
iron-barred enclosure ran its whole length on both sides, and in this
lived a number of wild beasts, fed upon young poets and other seekers of
glory. The priests and propagators saw that the supply was kept up. It
was not long before the victim had completely vanished and his comrades
sat down with a new and stirring topic in this suicide for fame.
Perchance their wild sympathy with him might produce such a poem as
would open the gate for them. They were soon all absorbed in their new
inspiration.

In looking from one to another bowed figure, I saw a sheet flutter near
the parapet; I took it up and handed it to my companion. He laughed and
said it was evidently the young suicide’s bid for fame; the verses had
rhythm and meaning like this:

Sea-borne strangers, whence are ye?
We have nought but sorrow here;
Fate hath made you fancy free;
Fly this fame-envenomed sphere!
Hell-born torture would be bliss,
Soul-ecstatic, matched with this.

Ye have never known the care
Lives within a heart like mine;
Spirit palsied with despair,
Anguish past all anodyne,
Follow me where’er I flee.
Who can quench my agony?

Through the dawn-flushed arch ye came;
Bright new worlds are shining there,
Worlds dispassionate of fame,
Gloryless as they are fair.
Oh! to tenant freshly born
Some new star beyond the morn!

Ah! new life is stale as old,
Outlook dull as memory,
Death an idiot’s tale half-told,
Hell’s own caravansary.
God, if thou hast in thy breast
Love or pity, let me rest!

Nothingness, I thee implore,
Rid me of this vacuous dream,
Let me fade and be no more,
Be the phantom that I seem!
Sweet Oblivion, let me light
In annihilative night!

There was a loud, coarse laugh behind the barrier over this pessimistic
effusion and its baptism of blood, and what made it sound stranger was
that it rose from the midst of pæans and hosannahs over the poem that
had borne the other aspirant up to the second arabesque. The echo
sounded even to the porch; for the priests seemed to move and listen as
in a dream. I was eager to see the production that had stirred such a
commotion in the ranks of the guardians of fame; and Sneekape managed to
get a copy for me, and translated it into Aleofanian; it must have
suffered in the change; for it was difficult to see the superiority. It
ran in rhythm and sentiment thus:

Ye are only the van
Of the army of man
That is marching over the sea.
Ye would seek to attain
The immortal fane
Of the glory that is to be.

No mightier god
Has ever trod
The crust of the quaking earth.
He has come to assist
In dispelling the mist
That clings to thought at its birth.

Through a long series of such doggerel verses the composition proceeded;
and I thought, how meaningless the pæans, if this were all that opened
the gates of literary Fame! I turned away from the sight of this sordid
injustice and looked for the first time out upon the level shores of the
island that stretched on either side of these sanguinary stairs. And I
was surprised to find them full of men and women of look and figure and
dress nearer the normal; they were evidently toilers with the hands; for
they were muscular in frame and tanned by the weather. They formed,
indeed, a wholesome contrast to these priests and worshippers of fame.

A longing to be amongst them seized me, a kind of homesickness to be
with the toilers of the field again. Sneekape could scarcely restrain me
from trying to leap the parapet; he showed me the jackal-haunted chasm
that I would fall into and the impossibility of crossing it. He got the
canoe in to the lowest step; nor had we so far to slither down; for the
tide had risen; and in a few minutes we were seeking a place to land. At
the risk of our lives we managed to get on the beach and were soon in
the midst of the crowd.

They were the slaves and artisans of Kloriole; and, as it was now
evening, they had finished their day’s labour and were engaged in the
usual recreation of the country, listening to or making songs and
ballads. It was a babel rippled with snatches of melody. I could catch
no intelligible phrase, nor could Sneekape help me much; for they did
not write or print their productions, and they composed them in the
popular dialect.

Just as the westering sun was tinging the zenith with gold, one ballad
seemed to run like wildfire through the clustering singers, and at last
was caught up and chanted by the whole multitude. It had a fine
symphonic oscillation, and the bodies of the group and the movements of
the great sea of heads swayed with the waves of its sound. At last a cry
rose above it and spread until it extinguished the fire of song: “To the
temple!” and I saw raised on the shoulders of two stalwart artisans a
feeble-looking child with an over-developed head and outstanding eyes.
The multitude began to move round a cliff and then along a path that
wound hither and thither up the hill. They kept chanting the song till
they reached another and far greater porch of the temple on its landward
side. With huge crowbars they pried open the doors and burst into the
vast edifice. It was niched from floor to dome with innumerable
shell-formed recesses, gaily painted and ornamented; and into most of
these were thrust, often jammed, a dozen or more mummies with labels and
printed sheets liberally stuck over them; peering to the back of them I
could see that most of those behind the front row were falling to dust,
their sheets all yellow with age. It was often difficult to distinguish
mummy from mummy or dust from dust; and there was throughout the
building, large though it was, a smell as of a charnel-house; the
movements and breath of the crowd seemed to shake out the forgotten
atoms of the famous dead.

These, Sneekape explained, were the embalmed bodies and productions of
the successful worshippers of fame, preserved to immortality. I saw in
some of the niches dusty forms of priests move, most of them greybeards,
and read the yellow sheets in the dusk, or rake for them in the
commingled dust. These, I was told, were the scholar-priests who tried
to arrange and furbish the fretwork of dusty death. But it seemed to me
that they helped even more than the trampling multitude to distribute
the remains of mortality into the atmosphere and the lungs.

The priests and their followers shot scornful glances at the rudely
surging mob; but without effect. Then they raised their paper lashes
that had made the worshippers on the stairs writhe with pain; but they
sounded feeble and childish against the noise of the chanting crowd; and
their strokes seemed to have no more effect than if applied to the
billows of the sea. The singing multitude swept on up the long aisles of
the edifice, and with a crash the adamant arabesque that hedged in the
shrine of the deity fell before it. The brawny arms of the bearers
perched the child on the altar, and the priests, cowed and silent, had
to accept him as one destined to be sustained at the expense of the
temple and at death to be placed in the niches of immortality. Under the
goad of fear, they had to leave their obeisances and fulsome adulation
before their favourites who had been admitted up the flights from the
sea into the precincts of the deity, and give all their ceremonial
eulogy to this illegitimate bantling of fame. In comparing the new
object of their adoration with those from whom they now turned, I could
see little difference either in grace or intelligence. Those who had
been admitted by the recognised ascent were most of them flabby boys or
youths, fattened by luxury and robbed by vanity of the little native
intelligence they had had; a few were old men in their dotage, whose
every foolish word and act was caught up by acolytes and recorded.

I turned to Sneekape for an explanation. We had kept close together,
lest the jostling crowd should do us harm in the worship of their
bantling. His face was puckered up in a derisive smile. “This is the
result of their devotion to what they think fame. Their literary art has
become child’s play, an exercise in what they call style. These priests
and acolytes, who have wrung out of the anguished labour of the common
people this gorgeous temple and its endowments, have gradually
formulated into exact rule all the points of poem or prose that would
admit a writer to the shrine as a sharer in its sustenance and glory. It
can be almost automatically decided what is worthy of eternal fame and
what is not. They pride themselves on this mathematical precision. Of
course this means the exclusion of all idea or fact or utility from the
literature; all that is required is the form, and if that comes up to
the recognised standard and conforms to the rules which we saw the
candidates at the bottom of the stairs continually consulting, then the
writer is raised flight by flight to the shrine. The compositions have
come to be empty and meaningless; their chief merit is that they have a
kind of melody. They must be according to the received convention.

“Through the ages, then, the stage of life at which the talent for such
work is found has been growing lower and lower; and now mothers watch
anxiously in the cradles for the lisping of numbers; they record the
most infantile chatterings and send them forth as mystic compositions;
and these priests, who are also interpreters, profess to find in them
the most profound wisdom. I have not heard yet of a babe in arms being
admitted to full literary fame; but the day is evidently near when only
sucklings and idiots will have any chance of success amongst guardians
who adopt such ideals and such mechanical rules, and who profess to find
depth of thought in what comes only from the lips. The truth is that the
priests and propagators desire to keep the whole emoluments of the
temple for their own benefit. Mere children will never interfere with
their power or their allotment of fame. When they grow up into youth,
they either vanish or are absorbed into the priestly ranks, and the
guardians, those that have the fame of old age, vote themselves the most
lucrative and elevated posts. For themselves they keep their loftiest
eulogies, their wildest devotion; they form mutually admiring and
advancing groups; they have no praise for those who will not praise them
or be likely to praise them. This habit has spread as a contagion right
down the flights of the ascent. No wind is lent to raise a float unless
the service is sure to be repaid. All the middle-aged about the temple
or the steps are priests, acolytes, or propagators. Children and old men
are the subdeities of fame, almost as easily managed as unseen gods, and
as easily disposed of. The literature has reached the level of first or
second childhood; it is an exercise in the art of saying nothing in the
most melodious or mystic way, and in the conventional form. Creation and
criticism have both become ceremonial, automatic arts, that have been
switched off from the influence of the imagination and every other
faculty of the soul. Vacuity veiled in mystery is what those long-haired
candidates we left on the sea-flight have not learned and cannot learn,
and they must remain there or leave; unless they acquire the other great
art, that of interflation or mutual windbagging.

“It is the natural development of a community in which one half are
creators and the other half critics by profession. The latter absorb the
reality of power and luxury and fame; the former get the shadow. The
critics pretend to worship creation; they are the gods, for they have
the omniscience; they give the rules and the ideals that are thought
divine; to their fiat the others have to bow. They have enslaved the
intelligence of the island and are gradually stifling it, that there may
be as little chance of outbreak as might come from beasts. Such popular
riots as we have seen to-day make them tremble for their power and
privileges. The uneducated people, trained in nothing but to worship
what the priests of fame profess to adore, feel at times the old musical
and imaginative instincts surge up in them, and they rush in rhythmic
passion to immortalise the singer who has resuscitated the old nature in
them. They are supposed not to know what literature or song is; but they
have caught the contagion from the singing in the temple and on the
stairs, and they encourage their offspring to attempt ambitious literary
flight from the cradle upwards; for is it not something to be the parent
of a subdeity of Fame? Amongst them alone is the true sense of natural
song unobliterated; and occasionally in their dialect some native,
untaught genius gathers its music round an old memory or emotion, and
the result is a lyric that sets their whole buried natures on fire; no
priestly power can repress the volcanic outburst, and a new idol is set
up in the temple.”

We saw the people retire and find their way down to the lower levels as
the night fell. We followed and found shelter till the morning. Not long
after daybreak they filed away to their tasks in the fields and the
workshops, and the incident of the previous day was evidently forgotten.

After a meal Sneekape led me over a spur of the hill to a rising ground
that commanded a deep valley into which the sun never seemed to come, so
filled with shadow and gloom was it, so walled off from the world of
light.

We serpentined down half-way into it till our eyes grew accustomed to
the obscurity; and then I could discern figures like the scholar-priests
moving about at the bottom of a fissure filled with bones and yellow
shreds of parchment or some other stuff that could withstand the
weather. Some were turning over and raking this graveyard and some were
intent upon yellow fragments they had found.

This was the valley of dead ambitions and dead literature. Into this the
literary kites that had their threads cut by the snippers generally
fell. Hither were brought the dusty remains of the mummies that had
decayed with their writings past recognition in the niches of the
temple. It was the charnel-house of the great sanctuary. Here were half
the scholar-priests trying to find intelligible relics of the past, that
they might by resuscitating them place their treasure and themselves in
some higher niche.

And Sneekape closed his explanation with a sneer. “Here they toss most
of the infants of fame who are not astute or worldly enough to enter the
ranks of the ecclesiastics. The child we saw enthroned on the altar
yesterday will be starved out, and, if he does not escape and return to
his slave-mother to sink into happy obscurity, his bones will soon be
found in this gehenna. The people, though they continue to sing his
songs, will utterly forget him; and this the priests knew well, when
they ceased their resistance yesterday.”

I looked down to the ghouls that battened below us on the hideous past;
I looked up to the great edifice that dominated the island; and I
remembered the vaunting inscriptions that decorated its interior. “Here
dwell the immortals”; “Who enter here never die”; “The gaze of all men
is upon us”; “The centre of the universe.” The valley of death and
oblivion was the natural complement of this hill of arrogance and
self-righteousness.

My companion laughed at the sharp antithesis, and wished to go down into
the valley of dry bones to enjoy the folly of the rakers and the
readers. In gloom and dejection I climbed the spur again and fled down
to the beach. It was too ghastly a comment on the whole civilised world
to linger over. If only I could wipe it from the mind! The mortal dust
of the immortals clung to my nostrils and throat. Heedless of the danger
I plunged into the sea, and was soon on board the canoe. Sneekape did
not wish to lose me, and was beside me before I could raise the paddle.
As we got into the current again and swept past and away from the islet,
we could see the stairs still crowded with the candidates and the
priests absorbed in their pursuit of fame; and not one of them turned to
see us drifting away. It was almost the time of stars before we had our
last glimpse of Kloriole. The cupolas of the temple still threw its
glory back upon the sun from beneath the horizon till it was difficult
to tell them from the golden light on the domed billows.

[Illustration]

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[Illustration]

CHAPTER XXVI

SWOONARIE

MY fellow-voyager lay down to sleep as soon as the field of night above
us broke into its myriad flowers. I could not sleep for the thought of
that wretched miniature of the great world; I could not forget the
suicide and his poem, the wild ecstasies of the neophytes, the poor
little dropsical-headed poet of the people left to weep and starve in
the gorgeous temple, or the murky fissure of the dead with its mortuary
vultures. Wearied out at last with the sombre thoughts, and in spite of
the heaving of the canoe, I fell asleep at the paddle; and chaotic
medleys of all I had just seen made new visions that wakened me in
terror to feel ostracised and forlorn under the eyes of infinity; and it
was as cheerless to sleep as to wake with this nightmare of the world
and its ambitions pressing in upon me.

The long night span itself out into a thread of dreams and reveries; at
times it was hard to distinguish between the vision of sleep and the
vision of waking, so closely did they twilight into each other. Even
when the cold gleam of daybreak shimmered over the waves it was
difficult to unravel the tangle of dream and thought; pictures, half
real, half unreal, filmed over my senses; the very air, as the sun
languished into sight from behind his sultry curtains, became dreamful,
the wind and sea fell, and a trance-like silence filled the dome of sky.
We had passed into a charmed sphere. Languor welled through me till I
dropped my paddle and stretched along the bottom of the canoe, floating
on the surface of sleep.

My companion I found trying to waken me. He was steeped in drowsiness
himself; but the grating of the boat on some bank had roused him; he
could not get to land without help. In a sluggish, half-vegetative state
I got up, and we seemed to paddle through an unending series of shallows
that entangled the canoe. The exercise at last broke our torpor, and
with a few vigorous strokes we reached land.

It lay so low, as far as eye could reach, that the sea in tempest must
take possession. Yet we saw human beings move in the distance. At first
we thought that they were cattle grazing, so slowly and spasmodically
did they trail along and so low did they bend their heads.

We got on shore. Only vigorous movement kept us out of the comatose
state that threatened us every moment. We saw men and women stretched on
the sand; but we could not get them to take any notice of us, and we had
strong desires to drowse prostrate too. We struggled on over the opiate
plain, till at last we found the ground rise gently. Our limbs
quickened, our senses began to grow nimble, and when we were high enough
to look out over the island and the sea, we had completely recovered
from our lethargy.

We reached a cluster of dilapidated huts, that turned out to be mere
roofings of pits dug in the earth. Men and women were working here and
there, but paid little attention to us when we spoke to them. Sneekape
at last found one who looked up, as he was addressed in Aleofanian; and,
after a long series of vigorous efforts and questionings, he left off
his slumberous style of digging and answered in droning, far-off tones
that sounded like the echo of muffled bells. There was a somnolent look
in his great cow-like eyes, covering what might have been depths of
intelligence and emotion, or what might have been nothing at all. We
followed him to a bench outside of his rooftree, and we sank down on it
with a sense of seeming collapse.

After a space our senses shook off their torpor and drew themselves
together, and we found in slow and measured question and answer that he
had no desire to know us or be known by us; he was too busy upon a vital
problem to feel any interest in other matters. It was this we discovered
on much inquiry: whether worms could be taught to do all the
agricultural operations of a farm; they were the ploughers, manurers,
sowers, and harvesters; but they were all these at once; he had been
experimenting for years to get them to divide their various operations
over the appropriate seasons. He seemed harassed that we had interrupted
him in attempting to fence off his ploughing worms from his harvesters.
There was just one link wanting, and when he found it he would reform
the agriculture of the world.

We had to leave him to his problem; he sank into it as into a pit of
sleep. We noticed as we passed along his domain that there was not a
green blade or shoot to be seen anywhere; his workers had evidently
harvested the estate.

The next man we came across was too busy hedging round his shadow to
attend to us. It gave him infinite trouble. If only he could fix it down
and get it secured in a net, he could make his fortune by exporting it
to equatorial climates, to cool down the temperature and reduce the
glare.

Everyone we met was absorbed in some problem, and had no time to spare
for idle questions like ours. They were ready enough to talk about their
experiments and discoveries; but anything else was futile; they at once
dropped from consciousness, and no effort could awaken them. We always
tried to get at their favourite project in order to lead them on to the
information we required. We laid siege to dozens without avail; any
divergence from their great scheme at once hypnotised them.

One was engaged in an attempt to exhaust the atmosphere in order that
the pure ether might descend upon the world and make them capable of
flight. Another was busy upon a rope-making machine that would twist
light into strands so that men might draw the sun nearer when they
needed more heat and light, or make out of the beams of any star a rope
ladder whereby they might climb to it. A neighbour of his was just on
the point of discovering a crucible that would extract silver from the
lustre of the stars. One had invented a shovel that could level all the
mountains into plains, if only he had the force for it, and he was
attempting to organise a company to supply the force. Another had made a
machine that would tunnel to the centre of the earth; and he was about
to form an association for working it; he said that one result alone
would enrich them beyond dreams: they could make a market for the
precious metals near the centre of the earth, where they would have
greatly increased weight. His neighbour was in the way to discover
antigravitation, by which they might be able to do what they liked with
the stars and the universes. The next man we met had a scheme for the
annihilation of all intoxicants throughout the world; and to induce men
to agree to it he would supply ailool, their favourite narcotic,
instead; the world needed sleep, not excitement.

Other projects and inventions that were in hand, we found, were: to
teach spiders to make all the garments men needed, and ants to be
providers for the human race; to mass insect-power in order to drive
engines; to yoke birds together for aërial navigation and carriage; to
utilise the waste breath of men for turning windmills; to run a road
back through time as through space, that we might eject our worst faults
from our ancestors; to distil the divine essence out of the ether in
order to supply it in bottles to religionists all the world over for
ceremonies and miracles; and to drive a conduit back into the age when
the gods were present in the world, so as to deliver direct inspiration
from them at a few pence a gallon.

We got weary of attempting to extract any piece of information available
for our purpose. There was not a scheme but had only one link wanting to
make it a success. I had been at first inclined to pity these men and
women,—their lives seemed so pathetically futile,—but I changed my
emotion when I saw that, however long they had been at their project,
they never lost the brightest hopes of it; they were the happiest of
mortals, so absorbed in their one thought, that care and sorrow could
not approach them. Nature gave them enough in most years to support
them; and when famine came they ate their opiate, ailool, and stretched
themselves upon their narcotic plain. The vultures were their sextons
and did the rest.

Sneekape never ceased to sneer at them or find food for petty laughter
in their enthusiasms and absorption. Before we left them I felt the
keenest envy of their happy unconsciousness of the stings of time.

[Illustration]

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[Illustration]

CHAPTER XXVII

FENERALIA

WE got at last to the highest point of the island, and thence we saw on
the other shore a large falla at anchor. Sneekape came as close to
ecstasy as such a petty nature could; he recognised her as one from his
own island; at this period of the year they were able to bargain for the
best females from Swoonarie for use in his country; now was the time
when they were most hypnotised by their narcotic atmosphere or their
problems; and it was easy to take the most beautiful, healthy, and
dreamy-natured. These sleepy denizens of Swoonarie were great breeders,
and their women when young had a dreamy grace that made them especially
attractive to a race of active, marauding disposition; away from their
opiate plain and atmosphere and the seductions of their ailool, the
blood in their veins grew almost active and touched their peachy cheeks
with bloom; their dark eyes languished with slumberous light; their
limbs moved as in a dream-dance; their voices grew as sweet and far-off
as the scarce-caught echo of lapsing rivers, or the low sigh of wind
through grass; their thoughts and passions would rise at times out of
the dim abyss of dreams in wild, consuming tempests. This falla-load, if
it had been well selected, would fetch an enormous price and fill the
treasury of the state.

We posted as quickly as our sleep-viscous limbs and faculties would
permit down towards the beach; and soon we were on board of a
luxuriously fitted galleon, the largest I had ever seen in the
archipelago. Off shore the glutinous lethargy that had clogged every
pore of our being seemed to melt and move with the blood. Sneekape was
soon closeted with the leaders of the enterprise; and after the
interview I was admitted to their fulsome salutations and oppressively
eager acquaintanceship. The women were in the middle of the ship; for I
could hear a faint, confused hum that rose at times into the muffled
sounds of feminine voices. Towards evening the swish of paddles was
heard, and going on deck I saw through the thickening gossamer of
twilight a canoe approach. It grated against the bulwarks, and the men
leaped on board and drew up after them some mantled and swathed figures
that must have been another instalment of women. There was a hurried
consultation, and the anchors were lifted. The great paddles were set in
motion; but before the sails bellied with the wind that blew outside the
shelter of the island the whizz of an arrow struck on my ear; the
missile sliced the water not many yards astern. Towards the shore dark
objects moved in the dim light, but the wind had now given the keel and
helm firm grip, and no paddles could overtake us. The expedition had
just escaped its greatest danger,—an attack from the fierce Feneralians
for poaching on their preserves. Most of these voyages to Swoonarie
ended in bloodshed, and it often happened that neither falla nor crew
ever returned.

I had full opportunity on the voyage of hearing about these neighbours
of the dreamers; for it fell calm, when we had got out of sight of land,
and the paddles propelled the ship at but a slow pace. Feneralia was an
island to which had been deported for centuries all the habitual
bankrupts of the archipelago. It will scarcely be believed in the
communities of Christendom, and it was long before I could be brought to
credit the story. But Sneekape asserted again and again that a species
of financial madness often seizes some of the more luxurious of the
peoples on the islands; they imagine that they have been specially
commissioned by heaven to spend; they have a fixed idea that mankind is
naturally portioned off into the earners and the spenders, and the
latter are as rare as creative genius upon earth; they are angelic
spirits that have abandoned their birthright to the infinite, and
wandered down into a world condemned to labour and acquisition; they are
beams of heavenly light let in upon the darkness of a race given over to
wage-earning. In some communities their story of divine mission is
accepted; they are made politicians and statesmen, and the public
treasury is handed over to them to do with as they please; some new tax
or loan is ever demanding their powers of expenditure; and how to turn
the plus into a minus almost wears them to a shadow. In other
communities they have been smiled at as harmless madmen till they have
grown subtly skilful and ingenious in inventing new methods of getting
command of the surplus earnings of their neighbours; to gratify the
moral weakness of their fellow-citizens they become periodically
bankrupt, and start again on their virtuous mission to turn the needless
plus of some other plutocratic locality into a minus. When their divine
mission has thus come to be considered harmless lunacy, they are given
the alternative of joining the altruists on Tirralaria or being deported
to Feneralia. This was an island originally of great fertility and
natural powers, but nothing would now grow on it, and the inhabitants in
order to live had to become the buccaneers of the archipelago. They
called themselves philanthropists; for they loved their fellow-men so
much that they were ever relieving them of unnecessary burdens and
spending for them that which they had never learned to spend for
themselves. Another favourite name that they adopted was financiers;
they were ever sailing out on great loan expeditions; they would land in
force on an island, advertise a huge loan with the attraction of a large
percentage, pay the first interest out of the capital and vanish forever
with the rest. If they went back there, they had some other scheme to
cover their philanthropy: for example, a company to extract gold from
sea-water or silver from starlight, destined to make all the
shareholders rich. Sneekape held that they were nothing but freebooters.

On these financial raids they generally employed some of the mild-eyed
dreamers of Swoonarie to mask their batteries. These had always some
fine scheme on hand that needed money to make it coin gold, and by their
simplicity they easily drew a community into belief in their dream; when
the money was secured, a Feneralian force was ready to make off with it
and repel any attempt to reclaim it; and when any people tried to
retaliate on Swoonarie, or make reprisals, or injure it in any way, they
swooped down on the invaders with their bloodthirsty manners and
cheerful arrogance.

They were the spenders of the world; the rest of mankind were the
earners. They would not hear of joining with the Tirralarians.
Socialists! Not they. They did not believe in the equality of men; there
were at least two levels, that of themselves and that of all other men;
they had the appetites and the appreciation of enjoyment; the rest of
the world was their purse; what did Heaven mean by such specialisation
but that the one set was to serve the other? It was only the lack of
numbers that prevented their carrying out the scheme of nature in its
entirety. It was this that made them starve for months on their now
barren island, whilst their harvest was preparing in the rest of the
world. Ignorance blinded the wage-earners to the true object of their
earning and made them fight to retain the result; if only they could
open their eyes and look at things as they are in reality, they would
see that it was meant for the appetite-bearers, the Feneralians. So
these latter were often kept out of their rights, and had to fight to
the death for them. They were often cooped up in their island by the
stupid savages, who would not listen to the voice of nature and justice.
Periodical raids were made upon them by way of retaliation; but it had
been impossible to clear out this nest of pirates, as other men called
it; this home of philanthropy, their own name for it. It was ever being
recruited by the unearning spenders who had failed to make the people in
their own islands believe in their divine mission. They were a cheerful,
active race that never abandoned hope even in the midst of starvation,
and never lost their patronising manners even when clad in rags. They
were the natural lords of creation, dethroned by their slaves, the
earners and fortune-makers. Some communities were wise enough to
recognise their genius and make them their statesmen. The millennium
would never arrive till all communities did the same.

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[Illustration]

CHAPTER XXVIII

THE VOYAGE AND THE WRECK

WHETHER this was a mere fable I was never able to verify by personal
experience. Christendom will doubtless take it as wholly the creation of
Sneekape’s brain, so unlike nature does it seem. The only feature that I
could vouch for as fact was the warlike attack as we weighed anchor from
Swoonarie. I was awakened from my meditation over the question by a low
murmur from the women’s section; I listened, and was certain that it was
a sleep-song they were chanting. Sneekape gave me the drift of each
verse, and I tried to turn it into the same metre as they used:

Snowflakes of starlight
Drift on us for ever.
Suns lend their far light,
Transmuter of river
And slumberous ocean
To shimmer of gold.
Eyes dim with emotion,
Eyes infinite-souled,
With magic diaphanous
Our spirits entrance;
In our hearts, as they coffin us,
Dreams quiver and dance.
Dead to our kin we lie;
Only the worlds of night,
Wizards that charm the sky,
See our unbodied flight.
Dream-winged we hover,
Death-drawn from birth;
As lover to lover,
Soul to its earth.
Break we the bond at last,
Breasting the infinite;
Future is clear as past,
Chaos as light.
Afloat on the stellar deep
Rest, rest, we crave,
Cradled to eyeless sleep,
Dream we from wave to wave.
Sleep, sleep, let us slumber!
Oh, we have lived and fought,
Borne pains without number.
Waken, Oh, waken us not.

It is impossible to give the drowsy sound of the melody in a language,
like English, that has been forged in unflagging struggle, in the stress
of battle with the forces of nature. Generations of ailooled nerves and
lips had saturated every word with languorous music. No cradle-song that
I had ever heard approached it in soporific power. All who sat within
sound of it dropped their eyelids; the voices began to seem distant and
stifled. At times the music died away, and again it rose in dim yet
growing echo, at first like the murmur of bees in the still summer air,
then like a wail swept fitfully by a breath that comes we know not
whence and vanishes in a moment; out of unknown depths the lullaby threw
its charm and then slowly withdrew it; the scarce-felt gradation of the
cadence was as strong in its hypnotic fascination as the breeze-flung
note. The singers seemed to fall into a dream as they sang. The words
melted into one liquid rill of song. Faint and muffled its melody
floated up as out of a dream. The falla lagged and dallied upon the
gleaming levels of the sea; it was the barge of sleep, and we seemed to
have been a thousand years fettered in trance. The sound of the paddles
came only at intervals, and then it ceased, and the whole skyey vault
and the weary sea and the specks of being that traversed it vanished. I
fell countless fathoms through space. And then the existence snapped
short; a crash rounded me up into the confines of life again. It was the
fusillade of the boatswain’s whip. And before we were rightly awake the
ship was swinging along to this loud chant sung at full lung-pitch by
the paddlers:

We beat with our paddles the passionless sea;
The flush of our wounding dies out on her face;
We dance free as gods on her billowy lea;
The trail of our feet no mortal can trace.
The life in our veins
Outgallops all pains.
Allanamoulin, Allanamoulin.

We slake our fierce thirst from the cup of the sky;
Its azure hath fathomless depths to exhaust;
Translucent within it worlds numberless lie;
With the gold of the dawn its rim is embossed.
The life is divine,
We drink with such wine.
Allanamoulin, Allanamoulin.

Our blood beats in time with the palpitant stars,
Our paddles in harmony rise and fall;
We cease from our labour, and life is a farce;
We rest, and our hearts grow weary of all.
For life, it is toil,
And happiness moil.
Allanamoulin, Allanamoulin.

The grave is the only repose for our being;
Thou ’rt welcome, Oh, death! When thou wilt, we are thine.
There’s nought on this earth that’s worth thinking or seeing,
And life’s fitful fever has no anodyne.
To work is to rest;
To die is the best.
Allanamoulin, Allanamoulin.

The refrain is untranslatable; it was as old as the race, I was told; it
had been used from generation to generation in paddle-songs, till it had
grown rounded and smooth in the stream of time and lost all trace of its
inner grain and force. An approach to the meaning would be, “Farewell,
Rest! There is none upon earth.” Sneekape and his friends were unwilling
to taint their lips with it; for it had been a slave-word for centuries
and they considered it beneath contempt. It was difficult even to get
some translation of the paddle-song; but verse by verse and line by line
I dragged it out of the haughty Figlefians.

Yet when they talked of their slaves, they spoke of them with leniency
and even with kindness. Pressing questions home, I found that they
considered the lash one of the most benevolent of institutions; it
softened the asperities of slave-nature; for slaves were children, and
had to be dealt with as children; they did not know what was good for
them; and their masters had to find out and insist; their best welfare
was obedience to law and routine, and the whip administered with
judicious severity induced obedience and prevented too large doses of
this wholesome physic.

It was the first outrunner of a breeze that had awakened the master of
the paddles, a cool breeze that seemed to come off distant snows. Soon
the falla was all bustle, and the great square sails that stretched
beyond the bulwarks twice the breadth of the ship were taut before the
wind. We spun along at a merry rate, and the paddles disappeared from
the sides. But it was only a catspaw, and died away. The sails fell
heavily against the masts, and had to be run down. The slaves again took
their place at the paddles, and we lounged along the sultry leaden floor
of the sea.

But suddenly there fell upon us like the stroke of a hammer a wandering
gust; the masts creaked, the loose cordage lashed the ship in their fury
till she staggered. Then all was still. The old leaden dulness came upon
the waters; it had been like the gleam of gnashing teeth in the sullen
monotony of enslaved work. A yell from the slaves’ quarters punctured
the silence; it was partly from the whip of the boatswain, partly from
the breaking of their paddles by the ridge of water that swept athwart
us. In five minutes we were helpless between the surly rancour of the
hurricane and the truculent floundering of the billows. On we rushed,
staggering, drunken, with horror and frenzy. The slaves would not rise
to the lash; the officers muttered curses between their teeth, and did
what they could to guide her course. The daylight was blind with the
angry dust of showers; the circle of grey film caged the ship, and eyes
were futile and weary in their frantic eagerness to pierce it. Down in
the women’s quarters I could see Sneekape and his fellows lying
prostrate, their faces in their hands on the planks; the women were
huddled together in apathetic limpness.

Out of the wreck that drowned so many of the Figlefians I was rescued by
one of the slaves, who canoed me with his bride to the base of a great
cliff. The tide was low: as high as we could reach, the surface was
rough with living shells that moved to our touch, and streamers of
seaweed rose and fell with the ripple. At last he forced the boat back
from the rocky wall: there was strong suction inwards. He bade us with a
gesture lie down flat in the bottom, whilst he at the bow grovelled with
a hand raised to the low-valuted rock. We shot in underneath into
darkness, but in a few minutes we were out of the torrent, moored in a
peaceful bay.

[Illustration]

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[Illustration]

CHAPTER XXIX

NOOKOO

WE got on shore in a sandy corner of a great cave; and we were soon
asleep from our great exertions and endurance. When I awoke, I saw that
the dome underneath which we slept was covered with myriads of
glowworms. Before long my eyes grew accustomed to the twilight of our
abode, and I could see pillars of gleaming white stretch from floor to
roof, as if hewn out of marble by the workmen of some great sculptor and
then abandoned before the capitals and bases could be carved into floral
symmetry. Pendent masses waited for some architect to hollow them into
forms of grace. Vaultings and domings of countless variety were there,
needing only the skilled hand to make them harmonise into marvellous
beauty. I could hear the rush and bustle of the current that had borne
us in, as it swept I knew not whither. I looked to see the direction,
and was for the first time struck by the wondrous azure of the light
that was around us. Untroubled depths lay close to our resting-place;
and the sunlight that shot through the waters of the low archway bore up
the mingled colour of the sea and the sky into the half-darkness of this
undercliff cathedral; all the mouldings and groinings of the vault were
bathed in a deep violet light such as we see in rare skies when the sun
has long set, and the thin moon stands sicklewise beside the harvest of
the stars. Only in our own shelving niche were there marks of the
discolouring hand of man; the débris of former fires lay scattered, and
dark shading ran up the marble of the roof; it had been used, I could
see, for generations as a camping-ground of recurrent dwellers in the
cave.

Our guide soon had a fire lit, and the meal he cooked was welcome. As we
ate, he told me his story. He had with the aid of the father of his
fiancée followed up a wonderful invention of his father’s, who had died
from an accident in his researches. It was a method of utilising the
germs of disease in warfare. Millions of the most destructive and most
prolific plague-scattering microbes were inclosed in minute globules for
arrow-points and in huge bombs for catapults. To prevent the plague
spreading amongst friends, they had also found a powerful disinfectant,
that could impregnate the air for miles in a few minutes and destroy all
the pestiferous germs.

A Figlefian, having heard of the invention, lured him into their island
with the promise of making a hero of him, but had enslaved him instead;
and he had lived like all the Swoonarian slaves, nursing the hope of
independence and revenge. He had been taken by his master on the last
voyage, and had discovered during the shipwreck that his bride was
included in the human cargo. He burst out into loud invectives against
the licentious tyrants; and he justified his determination to revenge by
a description of their devilish lechery and intrigue.

When the story was finished, his bride had disappeared; and we followed
her along the gallery that edged the torrent. We came across her seated
upon a broken stalagmite, but as we sat down near her on a shelf that
had once been the tidemark of the water a wild shriek pierced our ears;
it shot through the gorge we had just passed, and, peering into the
darkness through which it was sliding, we saw two men like Sneekape
clutching fiercely at the slippery walls of the ravine as their canoe
swept onwards. It was the shriek of despair and helplessness. Away into
the unknown it sped, and the agonised voices were swallowed up by the
darkness on the other side. The yell grew muffled and far-off, and then
suddenly sank. Our guide laid his ear to the azure depths of the
indwelling ocean, but he heard no more than I did,—the suck and splash
of the waters in their undercliff passage and the boom of the waves as
they struck on the wall of rock without.

We returned to our sleeping-place. We watched the twilight of our cave
die out and the glowworms glimmer and flash on the roof; and I fell into
a dream of starflights in space and the intricate dance of worlds across
the face of night. I was oppressed to agony, and awoke. The violet light
was rippling along the vault and paling the steely glimmer of our living
lamps. I heard the rush of the torrent; but there was no breathing or
rustle of mortals. I looked around. My companions were gone.

Here was I, alone, buried in this underground hiding-place of the
waters. Frenzy seized my mind, and I rushed to the edge of the torrent,
only to find the canoe gone and the traces of the feet of my guide and
his betrothed upon the sand, where they had embarked.

After a time I roused myself from my despair. I noted that the inrushing
waters had a downward flow. If I followed them, I should be certain to
find human beings. I made torches of the garments that lay in the nooks,
and stumbled along the marvellous cave, for how many days I know not,
guided by the hiss of the tortuous waters. To the right I often lost the
wall that I crept along. There were deep subcaves branching off. At last
I sank down in weariness and nausea of life. My torches had given out. I
had long before eaten the last of my food. I fell into a swoon, and I
seemed to dream. I saw Sneekape tempted by beautiful women and agonised
to find them phantoms. He was whipped and lashed as he and his
countrymen had whipped and lashed the Swoonarian slaves. Phantom after
phantom drew him into love-passages, till at last I saw him sink in
death upon the earth. He had died of his own special passion.

It was no dream at all, for my rescuer appeared and interpreted to me
the scenes I had just witnessed. They never killed any of these cruel
tyrants who had done them so many wrongs; they only let them feel what
they had been, and allowed them to die of surfeit of their own passions.
It was worth the trouble, to make them agonise through the dreary fate
of their victims and meet the natural result of their own vices. To kill
them off would be too merciful. The method of nature was more just, to
make their own sins punish them.

They were about to apply a quicker solvent to these obstructives of the
progress of man. They had the germs of all the diseases that attacked
their vices, and every Swoonarian woman was to be armed with capsules of
them, and whenever any one of the licentious tyrants approached her with
unjust or salacious intent in his mind, a capsule was, with its sharp
point, to effect a slight scratch on his body and, broken, to pour its
contents into the wound. The Swoonarian men were escaping by means of
seeming suicide. They plunged into what the Figlefians thought a boiling
caldron in their burning mountain Nookoo. But there was a cool space in
it, and it was into this that they dived and came up in the cave.

My rescuer had pleaded with his fellow-conspirators for my life and on
oath that I would never divulge their secret I was given up to him. He
blindfolded me and led me by a rough and devious path, that zigzagged
and circled round in the most bewildering way. Then was I conscious of
being enclosed in something that seemed a coffin. I dared not rebel; and
in fact I fully trusted the good faith of my rescuer. I soon felt myself
hurled as if through the air and my strange enclosure plunge as if into
water. For a few moments I had the sensation of stifling, and then I
felt a rush of briny air into my lungs; there was buoyancy about my
cell, and before long it moved along the surface of water and struck
land. I heard the voice of my guide again; the lid of my coffin was
unlocked, and I knew that I was standing on the earth in the sweet air
of heaven once more. Many a mile, it seemed to me, was I led up and
down, but at last we sat, and food was supplied to me. Again we started
forth on our rough journey. I was led down to a sandy beach; I knew by
the sound of the rippling waves and by the soft pliancy of that on which
I walked. I heard men’s voices and the sound of paddles. I was lifted
into a canoe, and my rescuer whispered in my ear farewell. I sought his
hand, and pressed it in token of gratitude. When the band was removed
from my eyes, I was on board my own yacht, and the dawn was breaking in
the east.

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[Illustration]

CHAPTER XXX

THE VOYAGE TO BROOLYI

OH, the ecstasy of that first day! To hear the accents of my native
tongue around me, to see the features of the men I loved, after the long
months of sojourn amongst strange peoples! It seemed years since I had
used English, or spoken soul to soul with any human being. I dared not
laugh or express my joy; I feared lest my utterance should be so
overdone that I would seem mad. I sat and reined in my passion of
reminiscence, waiting for the ebb of its inundating waters. My whole
being was flooded with the intoxication of the familiar thoughts and
moods of the past. I asked my old comrades to let me lie and meditate a
while, and as soon as a meal was prepared, they might call me. As I lay
I felt the memories of my boyhood and youth play upon me like the sweet
sunshine of my old home in summer. I could have lived thus for ever. No
utterance could have measured the happiness of my soul. Then the last
touch to the overbalancing of my emotion was given by Sandy Macrae, my
steward. As he moved about below preparing the table, he burst out into
“Ye Banks and Braes o’ Bonny Doon.” The tears rolled down my cheeks, nor
could I tell whether they came from sadness over the graves of the past
or joy flooding every pore of my existence. He had a fine voice that
tided with waves of emotion; and as he wailed forth, “And I sae weary,
fu’ o’ care,” I broke into low sobbing. It was as if the spirits of my
loved dead were speaking to me across the years and bidding me come to
them, as if the voice of lament rang out of the unseen. Every nerve in
my being quivered on the edge of song; I was shaken like a harp in the
wind. Oh, if only I could have found utterance for this music of the
infinite that was thrilling athwart my heartstrings! Nothing would come
but tears.

The song ceased, and I fell back into the dull and joyless lethargy that
follows great excitement. Life was a grey mist without vision beyond the
immediate sensation. Annihilation—any change from this blank
existence—would have been a delight. A shiver ran through my frame, as
if some enemy had crossed my grave.

Again the pathos of the voice found full expression in “The Flowers of
the Forest,” that beautiful threnody over the graveyards of dead ages;
and the sense of the swift oblivion that overtakes even the greatest of
the past came upon me. This earth was but a funeral orb of vanished pomp
and ambition, a vast God’s-acre, wherein a few years or ages mingled the
epitaph and the graven tombstone with the forgotten dust. The whole of
life was but a burial procession into a nameless past, a series of
everlasting farewells on the brink of an infinite oblivion. That all
this passion and sadness and weeping should vanish without effect! That
the singer should lie in the same unremembered dissolution as the sung!
That the sighs and groans and cruel rendings of the heart that make up
so much of the tale of life should be, within a few decades, as much
forgotten as to-day’s zephyr or yesterday’s storm! That even this
funeral orb should itself within a brief period of the life of our
universe blacken and shrivel into death! The shrilling “a’ wede away”
pierced the very heart as it sent these thoughts through my brain.

The ringing of the breakfast bell threw me with almost volcanic impetus
out into the commonplace world of working and sleeping and feeding. I
was soon replenishing the exhausted fires of energy, and the close of
the meal found me rid of sentiment and settled into everyday feelings
and purposes. We put out to sea that we might escape any hue and cry
that might arise from the disappearance of Sneekape or the outbreak of
the revolution of the slaves of Figlefia. It was not long till we had
left that island a speck on the horizon scarce distinguishable from our
smoke that lounged cloudlike across our wake, and we were deep in the
history of our adventures.

The sailing-captain of the _Daydream_, Alick Burns, acted as spokesman,
with a court of appeal in my old guide through Aleofane, Blastemo, and
my steward, Sandy Macrae. After seeing me safe aboard the Tirralarian
falla, they set out for Broolyi; but they had not reached it, for they
were driven off by a great storm, and, in battling against it so as to
prevent drifting into the circle of mist, they had exhausted their fuel,
and had to make for the nearest islands of the archipelago they could
find. Blastemo thought they were approaching a group of islands that was
inhabited by the fiercest and most quarrelsome savages to be found
within the rim of fog. Nothing could tame them or reduce their vanity
and belief in their greatness and invincibility. When exiled from their
respective communities, their ancestors had been of the ordinary size
and usual proportions of men. But in the process of the generations they
had gradually grown into pigmies with increasingly venomous
dispositions. Their shores were the most inhospitable for all strangers,
and no falla would approach them except under dire necessity. Stories of
their inhumanity and towering conceit were told all over the
archipelago. If they had as much ability to unite and as much power as
they had venom and inflated self-esteem, they would dominate the whole
earth. Happily, they were a feeble folk, still more enfeebled by their
mutual envies and jealousies and dissensions. Yet they did all the harm
they could, and especially delighted in getting the weak or invalid or
sensitive amongst them to whom to apply their tortures.

[Illustration]

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[Illustration]

CHAPTER XXXI

MESKEETA

BLASTEMO, warlike though he was, was greatly alarmed at seeing the wind
fall and the _Daydream_ drift towards one of the lowest of the group. He
knew it was Meskeeta, which he translated the isle of Book-butchers; the
people themselves translated it the isle of the Discerners of Good and
Evil. But it was the evil, our friend explained, that they especially
loved and indulged in; and it was not difficult for them, with their
venomous habit of anatomising the quivering tissues, to find evil in the
best of good. The ship was drifting so fast on the low shore that he got
Captain Burns to anchor; and soon after the great chains clanked and
whizzed she had stopped in her course. The crew began to feel their
faces and hands smart as if stung with nettles; and before long they
discovered that minute darts were sticking in their skin, feathered and
pointed and adhesive with some poisonous acid. As a rule a good vigorous
rub brushed off the microscopic barbs and prevented the venom searching
the blood. But those who had sensitive skins suffered keenly from the
volleys that came sweeping down the light puffs of wind now beginning to
set out from the shore. The captain would have heaved anchor and sailed,
had he not found that their provisions were running short. So he ordered
the thinner-skinned below, and with the others he watched the beach to
see if he could find the dart-throwers. Only by aid of the ship’s
telescope could he discover them, so diminutive were they and so masked
were their batteries. Blastemo had not much hope; but they might try
whether the islanders had any stores. Meanwhile, to reduce the virulence
of the pigmies, on his advice they lit all the lamps they had and
crowded them together on the point that would produce most effect on the
shore. At once the volleys ceased, and through the glass could be seen
the little beings falling in the dust. The effect was still more
pronounced when blank cartridges of gunpowder were fired and showers of
rockets and squibs. The creatures grovelled towards the ship, then bit
the dust, and scattered it with their hands upon their hair and bodies.
Blastemo told them that these pigmies were worshippers of anything that
flashed or dazzled, but whenever even the sun got obscured or clouded
they began to shoot at it. Into this island had been exiled all who were
bitten with the mania of criticism, and, however stalwart their
proportions when cast on its shores, their microscopic fault-finding
within a few generations reduced their descendants to the size of this
puny race of dart-throwers. For lack of books and authors to dissect and
torture, they resorted to this petty internecine warfare. They never did
much harm, it is true, except to one another and to oversensitive
targets, their missiles had grown so minute and their vision so oblique
and so marred by the habit of wearing varieties of spectacles. These
spectacles were all spotted and cracked and twisted, in order to produce
blemishes to be criticised and attacked in every object gazed at; they
had been originally assumed, it was said, to permit them to stare at the
sun and other luminaries without blenching, but, as they were never
cleaned or mended or renewed, they became invaluable in their daily
business of fault-finding; they discovered stains on the purest white,
and defects in the most perfect thing ever created; and that was a great
comfort. It was also a comfort to their victims; for they could not
distinguish the vulnerable parts from the invulnerable or even see to
shoot straight; they were as good as purblind. The worst the venomous
little creatures could do was to send their poisoned barbs down the wind
in volleys and thus obscure the vision of their foes or of those who
looked on; they even thought that they thus obscured the sun at times,
and they were sorry for this, for they adored everything that flashed
with brilliancy.

“When we saw them lie on their stomachs in the dust,” continued Burns,
“we struck out in our boats for the shore, expecting peace at least.
But, as we got out of range of our lamps, the dwarfs leaped up and began
pouring their paltry missiles into the air. We landed with some
inconvenience but no real harm; for we were all thick-skinned. They
crowded round us in groups, busy with their petty bows and slings. Their
missiles flew like dust. But they did more harm to one another than to
us, they missed us so often, and we spread our handkerchiefs over our
faces and hands. This last resort was necessary, for we noticed that one
group made the face their target, another the neck, and a third the
hands; their functions were, we could see, carefully specialised. One
feature that perplexed us was that they had their upper parts concealed
in such enormous masks as, if we had not seen their legs, would have
made them seem giants; each man’s mask was large enough to cover a whole
group; and the masks in each group were all exactly alike; but, as they
shifted from group to group, they interchanged masks. The only thing
that seemed to distinguish one from another was that a few of the masks
had names on them.

“We were much puzzled about all this till Blastemo, here, showed us that
it was a ruse to hide their identity in their internecine warfare; no
one could tell which of his enemies had dealt him any blow or poisonous
wound; and the size of the masks was to deceive as to the numbers and
force, when the foe could not see the legs. The gigantic heads had huge
brows, and beneath these protruded eyes that added a more truculent
expression to the already truculent face. These eyes were the spectacles
which were intended to give especial protection to the living eyes
behind and to distort and mar the objects looked at; they were an
especial mark for the missiles of enemies; and so they were cracked and
scratched in all directions. Blastemo also explained to us the sudden
change of attitude towards us after we had left the ship; it was the
dazzle that they adored and not the sources of it. We would not have
minded the artillery of the pigmies, but that, after seeing how futile
it was, they began to squirt water as well, and we were soon covered
with fetid mud from head to foot; the minute missiles mingled with the
water, and the poison on them gave the disgusting smell.

“We sent off to the ship for lamps, and we bore them, each of us one,
gleaming on our heads. We were at once safe, except for guerilla
warriors, who might be for the moment behind any one of us. They did
not now grovel in the dust; the light was not strong enough to produce
this effect. They approached and patted us with most patronising
familiarity, minute though they were. They seemed to draw infinite
courage from their numbers and the masking of their faces; for if we
caught any one of them alone and lifted him in our hands and took off
his head-gear, he shivered with fear and lay down flat on the palm of
our hands with imploring gestures; and when we let him down on the
ground he scampered off to the shelter of some group as if for dear
life. We were glad to be rid of the wretched little creatures; for
when held close to us they stank abominably, reminding us of certain
bed-lurking insects of Christendom. Without their masks they seemed to
lose their self-confidence and braggart airs, and yet there were a few
who wore none, and stood off from us in haughty isolation that almost
made us laugh, so incongruous was it with their stature. Blastemo
tells us that these were the great men amongst them, who thought they
had the power of conferring godhead and everlasting fame; they called
themselves, in fact, Todes, or the godmakers of mankind. Sandy Macrae
thought of bringing off one or two of them in his pocket, so useful
would they be to people without a religion, and to title-beggars and
popularity-hunters in the old country. Sandy’s waistcoat would have
held enough to serve all Europe. But the thought of the proximity of
the dirty little imps to his nose made him rob Christendom of such a
reinforcement of its courts and centres.

“We watched them for a time, and observed that all of them had a squint
in their eyes, so that we could never tell which way they were looking.
And their noses extended right across their lips into a sharp point.
They were, in fact, a most treacherous looking crew; and treacherous
they were, too, as any one of us soon found when his lamp went out or
when he turned his back on a group of them. We soon discovered, too, how
innumerable were the dissensions and divisions amongst them. When they
were all in front of us and all our lamps were shining brightly, group
would turn against group; but if that was not possible the members of a
group would turn and embrace, or adore, or brush the clothes of one
another. Blastemo explained to us that mutual flattery was the only
alternative they knew for malicious hatred or envy or jealousy. They
build their temples over the graves of those whom they call great men
and whom they have persecuted to death, and each worshipper expects a
temple to be erected over his grave when he dies. So you can imagine the
number of sacred buildings in the island. No stranger is admitted to any
of them; but it is said that each of them is a vast mirror within; only
one worshipper enters at a time; and he sees on all sides of him nothing
but glorified editions of himself. Without, they are of a jaundiced
colour, broken only by the light of green lamps that are ever kept
alight, in order, they say, to ward off the evil eye. There are no
priests, for every devotee is his own priest; but each has a doorkeeper
who is dressed up to represent Envy. His chief duty is to see that only
one enters at a time and that he adds his quota to the fire on the
altar. This consists of some book that he has criticised and shown to be
full of faults. They keep a feeble folk in slavery, dwarfs like
themselves, to produce books on which to exercise their critical powers.
These poor creatures have highly sensitive skins and feelings, and they
writhe under the attacks of their critics; it is their agony that gives
the keenest pleasure to their masters and makes the sweetest incense in
their offerings to the gods. The Meskeetans, indeed, would have lost the
end of their existence and died out but for this diversion. Occasionally
they get mad over a book of real power; they dance with rage and
afterwards with delight, for it piques their best faculties to energy;
and the joy they afterwards get out of its petty faults is tenfold
because their rage did not lead them to burn it at once or tear it into
fragments. Every comma or letter or word misplaced makes them
inordinately proud of their acumen; they strut and crow as if they had
found the source of original sin. The overseers of the slaves make them
insert mistakes in the books in order that their discovery may gratify
the venomous little masters. The lot of no people in the whole
archipelago arouses so much pity as that of these book-makers, so
utterly hopeless is it. They are kept alive that their anguish may be
enjoyed; they are carefully watched lest they commit suicide, all to
gratify the inhuman desire of the little monsters, their owners.

“This we knew afterwards from our friend here,” continued our captain.
“But we went up into their town to see if we could get food or fuel. We
saw their yellow, green-lanterned temples, and came upon some of the
poor scholars in chains bent over their books. The houses were made of
glass like their temples, and it was somewhat painful for our eyes to
look at them in the sun; but inside they were all mirror; every little
man could contemplate his own self, whatever he did within his own
household; outside he could see nothing to adore but the sun and its
reflection; inside he took the place of that luminary and god. Every
house bore evidence of having stood siege: it was cracked and splashed
with mud in almost every part; there were some spaces that were left
intact, and on these I saw something engraved; it was, Blastemo
interpreted, the chief maxim of their adored book: ‘God has given us to
know all things, and to say all things without error; let the world
worship us, His prophets and vicegerents upon earth.’ Where this was
written, the glass was thin and transparent, so that it could be read
both without and within; all the rest was fortified to stand a siege by
any one group.

“We could find no supplies. They had no food but a flour obtained by
pounding up the bones of those whom they considered the great dead, or a
kind of chalky paste obtained from reducing statues of themselves and of
the gods whom they worshipped. Their only drink was a black fluid that
tasted like vinegar, and no fuel could we get but a few of the books
produced by the enslaved people.

“The oil in our lamps began to give out, and we had to beat a hasty
retreat, for they had found that we did not bow before them as
omniscient or divine, or treat their sayings and life with any great
adoration. They began to concentrate their sharpest and most poisonous
darts upon us, as we turned to make off, and yet when we arrived on
board and massed our newly lighted lamps, we could see the little
creatures down on their faces again in the dust.”

[Illustration]

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[Illustration]

CHAPTER XXXII

COXURIA

“THE wind had risen offshore; but, not long after we weighed anchor, it
fell and we began to drift. When the morning came, we saw that a current
was rapidly bearing us down upon another low island that closely
resembled in its outline the land we had left; but it was evidently very
productive, and here we seemed certain of obtaining supplies. Blastemo
thought it was Coxuria. If it were and if the pigmies that inhabited it
were able to lay aside their everlasting hostilities, there was plenty
to get on the island. We cast anchor therefore and pulled to the shore.

“It was yet early, and on the beach there were but few pigmies, who were
greatly excited at our arrival. Each of the wizened little atomies laid
himself alongside of one of our party when we jumped out of our boats,
and began to prove to him the superiority of some dogma he held. We did
not understand them, and listened in bewildered silence. But the
friendly fervour died out of their manner as soon as it dawned on them
that not a word of their eloquence was understood by us. A shade fell
upon their faces and turned them, with their restless malice and cruel
hate, into miniature maps of hell. They were like little demons as they
consulted together. They chose a representative, who addressed us in
Aleofanian, and Blastemo interpreted. But the faces of the silent
Coxurians grew darker and more scowling; suspicion and hatred gave their
expression to every feature.

“The stuff we listened to was the most absurd jumble of doctrines and
arguments. The orator began by asserting as the first truth of religion
that the gods were between two and three feet in height, and had shapes
exactly like the Coxurians: that needed no proof, so he did not stop to
prove it; the world was agreed upon that. They had never appeared upon
earth except to the saints of Coxuria. With their saliva they had
moistened and leavened a cake that grew in all its essential ingredients
like the bodies they had assumed when they had come amongst men. A
little of this cake was enough to transform everything it touched into
divine material, and there was none of it except in Coxuria. The true
belief was that everything that it touched had this miraculous power of
transformation; only vile heretics could assert the opposite. Yet some
still worse heretics affirmed that only their high-priests who had been
touched by the hands of high-priests who had touched the original saliva
had the true divinising faculty in their hands. Another fanatical sect
held the damning doctrine that it was neither the original saliva nor
the cake that gave the power of miracle, but the words that had come out
of the mouths of the gods when the saliva sputtered on to the cake. He
cursed these heretics with wild vituperation, evidently selected from
their sacred books, and threatened them with everlasting damnation. He
was still more furious in his damnatory eloquence when he came to those
who held that the essence of religion lay in turning the face to the
rising sun in all ceremonies, and clipping all the hair off round the
left ear. All true reverence consisted in modesty towards the gods, who
lived in the sun; and their dazzling brilliance there was intended to
make the worshippers turn away their faces from them. The direction in
which they vanished in the evening in their car of light was that
towards which the reverent face ever should be turned; for by their
fading away and letting the curtain of night be drawn they meant to
encourage the worshipper to look sadly after them. Then, every man knew
that it was the right ear that heard most distinctly; it was this that
was meant by the gods to be uncovered of its natural veil in order to
hear the divine harmonies of the universe. It was appalling to hear any
human lips utter such blasphemy as that the face should be turned to the
east or that the left ear should be unmuffled. No torture was too great
for such heresy.

“He proceeded with other damnatory classifications of Coxurian
religionists, and bit by bit showed how he and his fellow-worshippers
beside him alone were to be saved. He implored us to turn to the true
faith and not be lost for ever. We managed to suppress the smile that
was ever rising to our faces. Then, with a look round, he warned us to
be careful of error even within the true faith. There were mistakes made
even by the best of men. He besought us to avoid the belief that it was
only over the tip of the right ear that the hair was to be cut, or that
the body was not to be bent quite to the ground in worship towards the
west. The whole sense of hearing was meant by the gods to be unbared;
and it was the main part of the body that was to be turned up to the
rising of the sun; reverence could be shown only by turning the eyes
completely away from the dazzling beams of the gods. He was getting more
and more fervid in his denunciations of such errors and others like them
that his fellow-sectarians had fallen into. He and he alone was the
pillar of true religion upon earth; he and he alone would reach the
sphere of the gods; alas for the solitary grandeur of his position in
the universe!

“Suspicion more and more filled the faces of his pigmy supporters. Nor
could we longer keep down the amusement that was pressing upwards within
us. We had just burst into a roar of laughter when there crept down upon
us in his rear a cloud of pigmies armed with the most jagged of lances
and arrows. The effect was magical. Our theological rooster who had
crowed so lustily and his band of our would-be converters turned tail
and fled, yet not without bravado or menacing gestures. The newcomers
went through the same performance as their predecessors, except that
they insisted on the special points of doctrine that marked them off
from all other sects. We could not understand the difference between the
two claimants of our souls. The leader of the second crowd put the
distinction into a single word and pounded the meaning of it into us. He
scowled and explained, preached and exhorted. Not a gleam of
intelligence passed over any of our faces. Their inappeasable hatred of
the sect that had just disappeared over the horizon had no other basis,
it seemed to us, than the unmeaning syllable ‘buzz.’ Their gods when
they appeared on earth had, according to our furious orator, proclaimed
‘fuzz’ as the name of the saving cake; it was a damning error in the
fugitive schismatics to hold that it was ‘buzz-fuzz.’ It looked as if we
were not going to be converted to this saving syllable. The ugly weapons
of conversion were raised more threateningly, but thanks to Blastemo the
awkwardness of the situation was got over. Without consulting us, he
rose and accepted all their statements as the everlasting truths of the
universe, and expressed for us the profoundest loathing of the doctrines
that had before been vented upon us. The scene was turned into one of
jubilation. The ugly weapons were lowered, and the loathsome little imps
ran forward to embrace their converts, as far, at least, as the
minuteness of their bodies would allow. Never at one sweep of their
doctrinal net had so large a haul been made. It seemed to be our size as
much as our numbers that gave them joy; every cubic inch of us freed
from the damning error told in the ultimate sum of salvation. We did not
understand it all till we got on board.”

Here Blastemo broke in with a loud but somewhat awkward laugh. He seemed
to understand something of what was being told.

“We followed them bewildered, as they led us inland with shouts of joy.
But we had not gone far towards their city when a larger troop was
encountered, evidently still more formidable in their doctrinal dislikes
and means of conversion, for our conductors slunk away. Again were we
flooded with oratory, and again Blastemo managed the affair with
delicacy and success, as it seemed to us at the time. The same type of
incident occurred half a dozen times before we reached the town gates.
Our last troop of soul-captors was the largest of all, but dissension
broke out in their midst. It seemed that several understood Aleofanian,
and each of these declared that their orator misstated their creed and
gave us only his special shade of it. They kept whispering to one
another, till at last discontent broke out into a general mêlée. To make
matters worse, most of the bands that had been forced to steal off and
let their convertites slip from their grasp had evidently come to an
understanding and discovered that they had all been deceived by
Blastemo. They united their forces and came down upon us and our convoy,
just at the moment that they were rent with dissensions and ready to
come to blows. In the confusion Blastemo smuggled us into the city, and
out again by another gate, leaving the two parties to fight it out. When
we had got near to our boats he saved us again. We saw the whole mob of
pigmies hurrying over the beach. A few minutes were all we needed to
embark and escape. He uttered words that seemed to paralyse them. It was
a curse upon the most fundamental and sacred part of their creed, a
point on which they had agreed to sink differences. But it was only a
momentary paralysis. They recovered and rushed on again. Again he hurled
amongst them words that we did not understand. The effect was as
strange. They divided up into two hostile groups that set upon each
other with the greatest violence. Before they had seen that it was a
ruse of his and had checked their dissentient fury, we had got far
enough from the shore to be out of reach of their missiles, which now
began to rain into the sea.

“The phrase that had saved us was one on which the island was equally
divided; one set accepted it as the saving part of their creed; the
other abhorred it as the very poison of the soul. Blastemo explained to
us the fundamental difference between the two forces of ‘babbyclootsy’;
but none of us could grasp it, or, if we did, we forgot it at once; it
was far too fine for translation through two languages. We abandoned the
effort. So did we the other niceties of creed that split the Coxurians
up into units. At various stages in their history they had succeeded in
attaining unanimity of opinion for a short time; one party through
greater procreative power or missionary zeal got the upper hand in
numbers and annihilated the minority by what they called “acts of
faith,” processes of slow torture that ended in most cases in death, but
it was only for a short time. They divided up again into two main sects;
within, each was rent almost into units by fierce differences of
opinions; but the differences were sunk in hatred of the opposition.
This same history repeated itself every second generation. Every decade
or so the majority wiped out the dissentient few by the usual process of
faith, and then split up, only to re-coalesce into two almost equal
bodies for temporary belligerent purposes.

“They are very lazy except with their tongues; and so they are very
prolific, as nature almost unaided supplies them with plenty of food.
Their numbers are constantly recruited, too, with outcasts from the
other islands, exiled on account of their passion for religious
dogmatism. But through the ages the Coxurians had gradually grown
smaller and smaller in size, more wizened in countenance, and more
venomous in feelings. Their perpetual internecine feuds would soon have
wiped the miserable imps off the face of the earth but for two
provisions of nature; the arrival of new immigrants made them at times
quicksilver into two masses in order to save the souls of the newcomers;
at other times the exceptional force of will in one or more individuals
produced militant organisation that obliterated minor hatreds. It was a
good thing for the archipelago that there were ever a surviving few,
amongst whom might be placed all the doctrinomaniacs of their various
communities, in order to give issue to the poisonous theological blood.
These exiles would never remain if the island were deserted; as it was
they were welcomed and made much of by the two parties, that their souls
might be saved.”

[Illustration]

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[Illustration]

CHAPTER XXXIII

HACIOCRAM

“ONE group of islands we were warned to avoid was that of the Rasolola,
or theomaniacs. Hither had been deported from the chief countries all
who allowed their peculiar religious ideas to outrun common-sense or the
permissible limits of worship or theological belief. A storm, however,
drove us close to the small archipelago, and we had to anchor off
Haciocram, or the Isle of Prophets. We had no sooner come to rest than
there was raised on a signal-board above a lofty tower on the island an
inscription in enormous letters. We got our guide to translate it. It
did not remove our perplexity to learn that it was only a number, 1999.
What could it mean? He could not enlighten us; but there was a provoking
smile on his face. Before we could question him further, we saw a canoe
put off from shore. Its occupant reaching us bounced on board, with
fiery eyes standing out of his head, and his long hair on end like a
mop. He was the inspired messenger of the inspired high-priest of the
island, and he came to ask us if we accepted that (and he pointed to the
sign-board) as the true number of the beast; if we did not, we might
just as well be gone at once; for we would not be allowed to land. I
wanted to know what beast it was; I knew a good many beasts, both human
and inhuman; and I should like to know which one it was he meant. What!
Did I not know what the beast was? the man of sin? the foul creature
that was to creep forth and pollute the world at its end? The true
number of him had but that day been revealed, and the whole world must
accept it. For the sake of peace, I indicated my acceptance of it,
though I was no more clear as to its meaning than before.

“Blastemo explained how the Haciocrammers had taken the sacred books of
the islands with them as the sole consolation of their exile, and had
worked out from them the most extraordinary theories of the
constitution, history, and fate of the world. But, as they took, some of
them the words, and others the letters of the words, of the book as
inspired, whilst one section accepted its Thribbaty form and another its
Slapyak form as the true, there had been the bitterest dissension
amongst them. At one time the dominant section converted the others by
great physical pressure brought to bear on the thumb, then considered
the seat of the soul; at another it was the great toe that was the point
of attack in conversion crusades; if the conversion could not be
accomplished thus, then were the recalcitrants purified by fire as the
only means left of saving their souls. Sometimes the dissentients
pretended to give up the errors of their way, and when strong enough
rose in rebellion and overturned the dominant set. This had occurred
again and again, till it was difficult to tell from month to month, or
now even week to week, which sect was in power. There were as many sects
as there were symmetrical combinations of numbers, and they were all,
when in power, equally fierce in persecution of the others. Their
experience as victims taught them no lesson of tolerance, but only
filled their hearts with a furious passion for revenge, that was
ultimately blended and confused with a passion for conversion.

“But had not the long series of mutual persecutions cleared out most of
the population? No; not one in a generation suffered the purification by
fire. Either the thumb or the great-toe persuasion was usually quite
sufficient. What had resulted from the perpetual conversions by pressure
was one of the most treacherous dispositions in the whole archipelago.
Cunning had become an ingrained instinct as strong as their fanaticism
in these numeromaniacs. When they were not dragooning and oppressing,
they were busy protecting themselves from persecution by pretending to
assume the colour of the persecutors. Alternately victim and fanatic
oppressor, the Haciocrammer had become one of the most singular mongrels
in creation. He was bold as a lion to-day, and confident in his own
inspiration and infallibility; to-morrow he was cringing and supple and
obsequious as the veriest slave. This creature who had just brought the
order from the ruling high-priest, whose eye was all fire and
fanaticism, would, after the next revolution to-morrow or the following
day, be ready to lick the dust beneath your feet, whilst his eye would
be full of mute and stupid appeal; you would not believe him to be the
same being, his nature would be so thoroughly turned inside out.

“We tried to persuade the ambassador to sell us provisions, but he was
so eager to persuade us of his infallibility and the finality of the new
number of the beast that he could not listen to our requests. The world
had been waiting for this number so long that it could not afford time
for anything now but the contemplation of it, and if only we would
consider the method by which the high-priest had come at it, we would
see that the universe was saved. He had counted all the words in the
Thribbaty version of the sacred book, and all in the Slapyak version,
and added them together for a divisor; and for a dividend he had counted
all their letters and added them together and multiplied the sum by the
number of divisions in the book; what he got he divided by the number of
words, and thus he found the new number. What was more important was
that he had prophesied this before he had reached the result by
arithmetic.

“Having got at the number, he had interpreted it in as original and
infallible a way. He had taken the number of strokes needed to make any
one letter of their alphabet as the numerical rendering of it, and in
this manner he had translated the whole alphabet into numbers. He thus
found that the new number stood for the name of his chief antagonist; if
taken numerically, it indicated that this enemy of his and of the sect
he represented would descend into Hades at the end of the world, whilst
the high-priest himself and his sect would ascend into heaven; and the
end of the world, he announced from other signs in the lettering of the
sacred book, was next year.

“Blastemo told us that every time he had approached the island the world
was to come to an end the following week or month or year; so, in order
to test the high-priest, we sent off a message by his envoy offering to
buy the surplus provisions of the island that would not be needed after
the date he gave for the collapse of all things. A negative answer came
back; and, as the storm had moderated, we lifted our anchor and left.”

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[Illustration]

CHAPTER XXXIV

SPECTRALIA

“AS we sailed off, Blastemo entertained us with stories of the groups of
islands that lay near at hand, and especially of one that lay away off
to the north nearer the sunset than Coxuria and the other islands of
religion. It was the place of ghosts, where the supernatural can have
things to itself without the intrusion of sceptical worldliness and
common-sense. It lies almost within the ring of mist that encircles the
archipelago, and it is dominated by twilight when it is not midnight.
The inhabitants have an invincible fear and hatred of the sun, and
especially the rising sun; and if he ever dares to show his shameless
face without a cloud they raise a dust that makes him like the eye of a
drunkard. In order to avoid the impudence of his glances most of them
used to live, and one section of them still lives, in cellars
underground, sleeping there by day, and following their avocations
out-of-doors by night. Mariners in that region land fearlessly when the
sun shines, but avoid its shores during times of cloud and darkness,
lest they should be taken for spirits and bodily enshrined for the
purposes of worship. To be retained either as a resident or as an object
of investigation or reverence was a fate to be shuddered at, for it was
considered one of the worst wards for lunatic exiles. Hither were
deported all who were incurably persuaded that they and they alone had
direct communication with the other world. There was something uncanny
about the conduct of everyone who found his way thither; in his eye
shone the gleam of insanity, a reflection from the baleful light of
hell.

“Another feature of the island, as of all the theopathic group, was its
rank sectarianism. Almost every man was his own sect. There was a rough
classification of them by travellers into ‘antiquated ghost-seers’ and
‘modern ghost-seers’; but none would acknowledge allegiance to any
classification. They all believed in spirits, or disembodied beings, who
visited their island; beyond that resemblance ceased. Most of the older
Spectralians, however, believed only in ghosts of ancient lineage, who
had the stately ways of olden times, who seldom condescended to speak or
communicate their thoughts, and who looked mutely piteous or minatory on
their appearance for a few seconds and then vanished. The more recent
exiles, having had a tinge of modern science, laughed at these fantastic
monstrosities of a primitive age and insisted on the logical outcome of
supernaturalism. Every human being had a ghost, and when death thrust it
out of its body it hung about its old locality and tried to make itself
manifest, now to one sense, again to another, but most frequently to
hearing. It had been a custom of former spirits to address themselves
chiefly to the eye; but that was in the silent old times when men
preferred striking and acting to speaking. Now that the tongue had
become the chief organ of action, it would be obviously absurd for the
world of spirits not to adapt itself to the new ways; and so it was now
to the ear that they addressed themselves, and seldom to the eye. And,
whereas they had been ridiculously limited by ghostly conventions and
could appear only in solemn guise at midnight by tombs and in abandoned
chambers of castles or in rooms where murder had been done, now they
were free to make themselves heard when and where they pleased, or
rather when and where their corporeal clients and patrons pleased. There
had evidently been a great war of liberation in the region of ghosts, a
sort of French Revolution, that had thrown off the shackles of old and
absurd convention from their limbs, if such a mode of speech were
permissible. Now there was infinite variety in the world of the
disembodied as in the world of common things. They all kept shop, as it
were, and were ready to serve any who approached them in the due and
proper way.

“There was in fact a small section of these modernists who prided
themselves on their superior modernity and held that they could take a
spirit out of its living body as easily as a pea out of its pod; for,
they said, there are really two spirits in every human body, the
detachable and the undetachable; the former it is that expatiates, the
world over, in dreams and holds communion with worlds whereof the senses
know nothing; the other is the workaday spirit that with observation and
reason carries out the practical functions of daily life. They plumed
themselves upon having thus solved all the problems of existence, that
have puzzled mankind so long, by this simple device of two labels or
classifications for the contents of the human body or vessel. They were
even proud that the rest of the archipelago counted them no less mad
than the other Spectralians, whom they scorned; it was the true sign of
superiority in mental power, wisdom, and modernity to be called mad by
other men.

“They despise the ancient ghost-seers for their old-fashioned ways and
the funny old castles and rickety houses they build for their friends
and clients from the other world. To think of going to the expense of
putting up tumble-down buildings in order to woo spirits into them, a
kind of ghost-trap, is to them the most laughable of proceedings; but
the old fellows never lose faith in their creaky ghost eelpots, and go
about as solemnly as ever they did making the walls of their castles
chinky, the passages draughty, the rooms full of dark corners, and the
halls like vaults for the dead. It is amusing to see them loosening the
footboards of the corridors and stairs in order that they may creak and
start and flap as soon as the shadows fall. They always hang old
tapestries and sheets at odd draughty corners to rustle and lift in the
blackness of the night; and they put a rooster handy outside of every
cobwebby old castle they erect to give the word when their clients
should be off. For themselves, they spend most of their nights there.
The early part they pass in reading the most ghostly and blood-curdling
books they can find in the archipelago and stuff into the dirty old
libraries. These are the religious literature and litanies of the
ghosts. It is a proper rule in every faith that the worshipper should
get his mind into the due receptive and inspired attitude before
attempting to approach the shrine; only thus can they see and hear the
objects of their worship. Hours do they consume in reading the pious
literature of ghosts, and then every nerve is on the alert, and every
sense awake for the footfalls of their friends from the other world. The
passages begin to creak, the tapestries to flop and rustle, the doors,
that they have left ajar for their clients, to slam. They know that the
spirits of the mighty dead are then approaching them; their eyes flame
out of their heads; and with a gleam like lightning the expected
apparition flashes over the line of their vision.

“The modernists smile at these preparations and precautions, and declare
that nothing of these manifest themselves, but only the shadow of the
watcher himself in some passing starlit or moonlit space. They know that
the true modern spirit cares for none of these things; he has been
brought up in the midst of the best medical science, and avoids draughty
old buildings as bad for colds and rheumatism and full of the microbes
of countless diseases; he has advanced with the ages, and asks for
nothing better than the simplest modern appliances; he has learned, as a
modern should, telegraphy and telepathy, and all he needs is a table to
rap on, or a planchette or slate to write on; that is his whole outfit,
as becomes an occupant of an immaterial world; he has the electricity in
his own system to work the thing; but if he has got to materialise, he
does like the lights turned down; for modern gas and oil lamps are very
trying for a poor old spirit’s eyes, that have been accustomed to the
dim, ethereal spaces. It is all right when he can remain unseen and
merely let his mind out in rap language, though that is a rather slow
way of communication for beings that move and act as quickly as thought;
but to doff his old habits and his invisible form makes a ghost as shy
as for a human being to appear naked in broad daylight. It is no wonder
that spirits insist that the lights be down, when they are asked to
appear to the eyes of the initiated. As for the worldly and sceptical,
they will never have the privilege of seeing anyone or even hearing
anyone from the world of spirits till they abandon their scoffing,
faithless ways. Faith is a prime essential of all communion with the
immaterial world. The gross senses of the worldling can never see or
hear what his more refined neighbours catch from the spirit-sphere. It
is only Spectralia that ghosts will ever favour with their countenance.
Now and again they appear to men and women of peculiar natures in other
islands in order to have them deported to their favourite isle; they are
heard of no more after the exile, having followed their clients. But, if
those they address lose faith in them and remain with their
fellow-countrymen, the ghosts cease to appear to them.

Even the modernists acknowledge that spirits have but limited means of
communication; they prefer two or three methods and will have no others.
A story is told over the archipelago of a Swoonarian inventor who had
noticed this and had thought out plans for opening a clear highway into
the spirit-world. One was to erect a vacuum tube up through the
atmosphere of the earth and to catch the ghosts in gossamer nets at the
bottom of it as they were sucked down. Another was to have a megaphone
with an enormous mouth stretching above the clouds and its terrestrial
end in a vast magnifying hall that would turn the poor ghost whispers
into clear, intelligible sounds. A third was to utilise their rapping
propensities; he proposed to have a great musical instrument with keys
placed in position underneath their favourite tables, where the spirits
loved to rap out their answers to questions; a little training would
soon develop in them the power of earthly harmony, and, as they struck
the keys, the Spectralians would have the most divine ghost music. A
modification of this would provide a method for spirits to express
applause when they approved of earthly performers and speakers; a series
of fans or clapboards were to work round a freely moving axle and to
come in contact with the soft, flat surface as they spun round, so that
they would produce a sound like the clapping of hands; as the spirits
rapped on the keyboard, the vanes whirled round, and the effect of
tumultuous applause was produced. Still another modification was
intended to use spirit force for human purposes; their rapping power was
to be concentrated on engines that would drives mills and looms and the
other machines of Spectralian factories. He had a great windmill too
that was to be blown round by the breath of spirits; and an automatic
spirit reporter that would record whatever was done or said in
spirit-land. Another line his inventions took was to provide bodies that
would invite wandering souls into them. A third set of inventions was
intended to relieve the over-population of the Spectralian atmosphere;
he was convinced that the region was uncomfortably crowded, because all
the ghosts of the archipelago flocked thither, and there were no
sanitary arrangements for making ghost life endurable; so he proposed by
one of his new machines to take a census of the spirits in and around
Spectralia, and then to send his automatic spirit-emigration Propaganda
amongst them in order to induce large numbers of them to seek other and
more wholesome spheres.

“After long years of work on these, he came across a wealthy and
enthusiastic Spectralian, whom he convinced of the fortune that lay in
his machines. The two shipped the cargo of notions and landed safely in
Spectralia. But before they could be put out on the market there was a
ghost riot one night; what were the poor spirits to do for a living if
all their functions were to be appropriated or concentrated by these
vile inventions? Half of them would be thrown out of the employment they
had been accustomed to, and how were they to learn all these new-fangled
notions? It was too much for ghost nature to bear, and the machinery was
smashed to pieces in a single night; and the spirits formed themselves
into a trades-union for keeping such agitators and inventors far from
the shores of Spectralia; it was said that the Swoonarian and his patron
fled before the indignation of the mob of ghosts that pursued them, and
the last that was seen of them they were on their knees uttering mad
cries of alternate prayer and threat to their unseen tormentors.

“Another story told the adventures of a missionary from Aleofane, who
was sent to convert Spectralians to the true faith. After long and
enthusiastic labour in preaching and praying he found on examination
that he was no further forward than when he landed. The Spectralians
were as unconvinced as before; and on inquiry he was told that as long
as the spirits were unconverted their clients would adhere to their old
faith. So the missionary set himself to the work of converting the
ghosts, promising himself that, this done, the whole island would go
over to his religion. At first they could not understand a word that he
said; and he learned their rap language. Then they refused to listen
patiently to his homilies and litanies; he had no sooner called them up
and launched into his eloquence than they had dispersed like leaves
before a gale. He tried to get at the bottom of this universal
reluctance on their part to hear him out; and he discovered that they
were a good deal more primitive than savages or children; their
education had been completely neglected; they could never tell anybody
anything that was not known to everybody before; they indulged in the
dreariest platitudes and the most obvious truisms, and they thought that
it was more than spirit could bear to hear lengthy sermons on the
obvious poured broadside into them. He assumed that his truths were too
high for them to understand, and never realised that he was doing
nothing more than pouring water into the ocean. It was true that their
education had been wretchedly neglected; the most elementary truths of
science were unknown to them. He set himself first to their tuition in
the use of reason before attempting to convert them again. Alas! his
task was an endless one. As with savages, after teaching any simple and
primal principle, he found he had to begin teaching it to them over
again. He did not weary of his burden; for he knew that he had the great
prize before him of converting a whole nation. He grew a white-haired
old man before he could get them beyond such elementary truths as two
and two are four, and he died at his task, a martyr to the
platitudinarianism of spirits.

“We were steaming along under the lee of Spectralia, the night fast
lowering upon us, as Blastemo held us spellbound by these stories. A
crash and a quiver of the ship cut short his narrative, and we rushed on
deck. The engines stopped, and peering over the side in the struggling
moonlight we could see one or two dark objects rise and fall on the
gleaming wake. We lowered a boat, and soon had two dripping figures upon
the deck. We anchored and attended to their necessities; and by the
morning they had so far recovered as to be able to give an account of
themselves.

“They were the superintendents or presidents of the Spectralian ghost
markets; so Blastemo interpreted for us. There had been reported to
them, as the sun set, a strange appearance on the horizon. It had become
too dim for them to make it out by the time they had reached the beach;
but as its mass of lights grew in size and brilliancy and a singular
throb seemed to come through the air from it, they could form no other
conclusion than that it was an influx of emigrants from the more distant
regions of spirits. As it approached, they could see it move on the face
of the waters, and they knew that it was a ghost ship; for they could
perceive dark flights of spirits gleam in its lights and hurry it on as
they spun through the night behind it, and they could hear the
multitudinous beat of their wings in the air. None but they were
officially authorised to welcome ghostly immigrants into the island; it
was their duty to meet the spectral fleet before it touched the land,
and they rushed for fallas, as they seemed to see it about to pass their
island. From a promontory that would most easily intercept it they swung
their paddles towards it; and their hearts were gladdened as they found
themselves right across the track it was making. The next they knew was
that they were floundering in the water and it had passed them. They
shouted; but, faint as they were, they thought that their cries would
make little impression. The elfin ship stopped, however; the throb of
the winged host ceased; and they were hoisted by the strange spirits on
board.

“We asked them what they wanted to do with the new arrival of ghosts
when they got them. The answer came; they would dispose of them in the
market of souls. Each division of the people, the antiques and the
moderns, had a market of its own, and that was why the two officials
rushed, each to his own boat, to secure the cargo of ghosts, and why
each ventured into such danger to secure his prize. They did not know
for certain whether the new arrivals were spirits of the olden time or
modern spirits; but each had good reason to think that they were ghosts
of his own special affinity. The man of the dead-soul market was pretty
sure that the cargo was for him; for none but ancient spirits would
arrive at midnight with such appalling sounds, in such sable robes, and
with such flash of lightnings. The president of the living-soul market
was as sure that they were for him; for only modern ghosts could arrive
in such novel circumstances, and in all the panoply of modern science.
It was with difficulty that we could keep the two from blows; they
wrangled furiously, and hurled insult and vituperation at each other
with manifest effect. At last we had to get them into separate
compartments that they might not do each other bodily harm.

“Alone with us each calmed down into comparative tranquillity, and we
were able to get a fair and rational account of the two markets out of
the chaos of their mutual misrepresentation. After collating notes of
the scene with each we came to the conclusion that the two markets were
at opposite ends of the island, and that they belonged to the two great
sects of the people, the antiques and the modernists. At stated times
there were great ghost fairs to which the inhabitants crowded that they
might be able to exchange familiars or traffic the spirit that had
become too commonplace to them for one that might give them more
exquisite shocks of supernatural surprise and alarm.

“The goblin-shop, as the modernist called the market of dead souls, was
evidently the place where ghosts of the olden type were bought and sold.
It was situated, like the catacombs, underground, and above it lay old
graveyards, ancient ruins, castles, chapels, and shrines where the goods
traded in might squeak and gibber and disport themselves for the
edification of the purchasing public; these dilapidated old cages were a
kind of ghost menagerie, or, as the modernist sneered, the goblin
kennels; in them the spirits were penned during the ghost fairs, and the
intending purchasers wandered round and listened to the whistling,
moaning winds through the crevices and tried to get the sensation of
being startled by the ghost rustle and speech or by the apparitions that
came and went within the dark pens. The traffickers went in twos and
threes around; for they dared not trust themselves alone in the presence
of these uneasy supernatural beings. Every one of these strange
creatures had either committed murder or suicide or been present at such
a deed; nor could he ever find rest night or day. It was only in the
deepest darkness that he was able to make himself manifest to his
clients; as soon as the first streak of dawn touched the horizon he
vanished like a dream, and not even the faintest smell of sulphur
remained during the day where he had paced by night.

“The antiquist expressed the greatest scorn of the new-fangled rubbish
traded off on poor humanity in the demon pigsty, as he usually called
the market of living souls. But the modernist waxed eloquent on the
miracles wrought by the spirits bought in his institution. His goods
were not the frequenters of tombs or mouldy fragments of buildings; they
were willing to talk to their clients by the light of day and in the
most comfortable surroundings; they were human and humane in every
respect; they liked the society of living men and women, especially if
these were commonplace and preferred information on topics that had no
mystery about them; they delighted in communications on the obvious, and
would rather talk to clients who wanted to hear of what they knew
already; they did not care for tombs and ghostly surroundings; though,
if people insisted on getting a sight of them, they preferred a dim
light; they were shy; for they were unable to procure in spirit-land the
phantasms of the garments that they had worn upon earth to clothe their
nakedness. Still better, they sold in their market many a phantasm of
the living which could tell its clients their own thoughts, and
communicate facts that they were certain to find out by common
observation within a few minutes or hours. They sold dream-stuff that
would supply the sleeping client with warnings as to the future so that
when the future arrived he would recognise it. In their market they had
practitioners who could draw souls like teeth, and, after polishing them
clean of diseases, put them back again. They had others, each of whom
could send his detachable soul down the throat of a patient like a
chimney-sweep, and, after cleaning the system, draw it back again. There
was not a disease in man but had its origin in the imagination or
detachable soul; and what was the use of medicine or surgery, when all a
man had to do in order to be cured was to get this free soul taken out
of him and sent to the practitioners in the market or to borrow the free
soul of a practitioner for a few hours or days as the case might need?
He could go on for years, if we liked, telling us the miracles and
wonders done by their spirit-therapeutics in their market of living
souls. No less marvellous was the consolation afforded to the bereaved
when they were able to come and converse with the souls of the departed.
For a small fee they could call up any spirit they pleased, and get it
to write on slates or give in rap language answers to any questions they
might ask, provided the questions did not touch on its actual state or
destiny and related to facts well known to all present. The spirits they
dealt in would give no satisfaction to the profanely curious or
impertinent.

“We suggested that most of these phenomena could be explained by natural
causes; and in each case the Spectralian broke into rage at the
suggestion, and when he had calmed down told us of the fate of a
missionary from Figlefia, who had come to convert them to naturalism.
They found that he addressed himself especially to the women, and most
of all to the good-looking women; but when he began to smile at their
creed and covertly sneer at it and attack it the women waited for a dark
night and, aided by the spirits of their dead ancestors, they spoiled
his smirking beauty for him and gave him such a scare that in his
madness and terror he ran into the waves and drowned himself. Each of
them pointed out to us a rocky islet off the coast, and told us the
story of it, evidently as a warning to us against our unseemly unbelief.
It was called Astralia, and contained a miserable sect that had
attempted to explain all the phenomena of their markets by the
swarming-off of astral bodies like invisible hoops from them. They also
professed to have found a new means of consulting the souls of distant
wise men; they could write their questions on any slip of common paper
and put it in a cupboard, and down from the ceiling would flutter the
answer, which was so unintelligibly wise as to puzzle men for years.
These poor creatures were at once exiled and were dying of starvation;
for, though they were eager for material food, they professed to subsist
on nothing but spiritual sustenance, and were wasting away in this
pretended astral-exhalation process.

“After the two rivals had been put on shore and we were steaming off on
our course, two packets were found in the bunks they had occupied. Moist
and limp, they were dried; and when opened they were found to contain
placards and advertisements of the goods to be traded off in their
respective markets at the next great ghost-fair. Blastemo translated a
few for us, both from the dead-soul packet and from the live-soul
packet. ‘For sale, the ghost of a knight walled up in the bastion of an
old castle four hundred years ago; warranted to walk in armour every
stormy night that has not too much moon, and to produce the most
appalling clank as he moves along the corridors or through the locked
doors.’ ‘For immediate sale on the lowest terms, a genuine old-fashioned
spirit, that cannot bear the crowing of a cock or the least streak of
light on the horizon; supposed to be the perpetrator of a mysterious
murder that took place some centuries ago; the sound of gnashing teeth
and of the drawing of swords is distinctly heard as he paces along, and
the echo of a loud sigh as he vanishes.... The owner is clearing out of
his present premises, because his physicians have recommended him a more
bracing alpine climate that is quite unsuited to his family ghost.’ ‘To
be sold by auction without reserve, one of the finest collections of
antique spirits ever made in this island; they belong to a splendid ruin
in one of the most picturesque and dismal localities of the country;
every one of them has either perpetrated a murder or been the victim of
cruel assassination; the rooms to which they are confined have the marks
of bloody footsteps all over them, and, where these are dim, they can be
easily renewed at small expense; one of them is headless and carries in
his arms something that has been identified by the best experts as a
head; another bears the form of a young girl, all covered with blood,
the supposed victim, and vanishes with a heart-breaking sigh. The late
owner died childless, and has joined his own collection of midnight
walkers. The heirs live in a distant part of the island in a castle
already well provided with spirits, and are willing to treat with
intending purchasers on easy terms extending over a number of years.
Cards of midnight inspection to be obtained from the auctioneer in the
market.’ ‘Wanted, for a dilapidated mansion newly built, a ghost of
harmless propensities but awe-striking habits. He must be at least three
centuries old, and have all the favourite traits of blood-curdling
apparitions. No upstarts of recent introduction need apply.’

“The live-soul-market advertisements were as definite in their terms;
the few that Blastemo translated were these: ‘For sale, the spirit of a
wise man just deceased, accustomed to daylight seances, and highly
trained in rap language and slate-writing. He would be a valuable
adjunct to a household that has no library, or one that from want of
education or eyepower is unable to consult a library. His knowledge is
encyclopedic, although his powers of observation are limited. The daily
intercourse with his spirit would be an education in itself. His
children and heirs have no further need of his instructions.’ ‘Offered
for sale, the spirit of a successful thought-therapeutist, who when
alive could cure any disease without the intervention of any material
medium or medicine or even the proximity of the patient. He had simply
to think the disease away, and it was gone. His spirit, now being free
of all bodily trammels, is even more potent than before. In fact, it is
more than likely that the possessor of it will secure immunity from all
sickness, if not from death itself. It would be a perfect mine of wealth
for a medical practitioner. Terms easy.’ ‘Wanted, to hire out for short
periods, the detachable spirit of a great sage who lives in a distant
part of the world; well accustomed to sending occult answers to occult
messages, and to all the recognised methods of occult communication and
intercourse; would be especially suited for the entertainment and
instruction of select companies in the evening; terms on application; a
reduction for a series of parties or entertainments.’ ‘To sell by
auction at the great fair, a famous troupe of table-tipping spirits, the
finest collection ever offered to the community. Have been employed in
drawing-room entertainments. Might be utilised in large hotels or
mansions in removing large tables from room to room, or in large
factories instead of elevators.’ ‘Wanted, immediately, for a bed-rid
invalid, a spirit-companion, who can enter into all his tastes and
humour all his fancies, converse with him without irritability or
caprice, and materialise in the cold hours of the night and
dematerialise when the patient is too hot. A high salary for a
thoroughly competent spirit.’ ‘Wanted, by a genius, a spirit-amanuensis,
who could inspire his hand when it lags on the paper, and fire his
imagination at all times. One accustomed to dream suggestion preferred.
No eccentrics need apply.’ ‘To be auctioned without reserve, the finest
collection of detachable spirits that this island has ever seen. For
Spectralians who wish to study human nature in all its variety this
affords a grand opportunity of acquiring specimens of every kind and
type of spirit. A guarantee given with every individual sold that he
will stand by the purchaser for any fixed period agreed on and allow him
to look microscopically into his inner mechanism.’ ‘Wanted, for a small
and unhealthy country village, a thought-therapeutic, who could, if he
wished, reside at a distance and project his spirit whenever a patient
needed his power. One who has had much practice in hysterics and
hypochondria, the prevailing diseases of the village, preferred.’

“Whether it was from inadvertence or design that our Spectralians left
their packets we were unable to discover. We counted them of so little
value that we never thought of putting ourselves to any trouble to send
them after their owners. Besides, we inclined to the belief that they
had been abandoned on board deliberately and for missionary purposes.
The twinkle in Blastemo’s eye as he read them seemed to us to imply that
this was not the first time he had had the experience; that, in fact, it
was a policy of the Spectralians to litter the archipelago with their
placards and advertisements. At any rate, we took no trouble to return
them; they were, on the contrary, used for menial purposes that did not
fulfil their high mission.”

[Illustration]

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[Illustration]

CHAPTER XXXV

THE VOYAGE CONTINUED

“A NEIGHBOURING island, which Blastemo called Fanattia, he would not
hear of our visiting; for there were gathered all the mad quixotists of
the archipelago; any who thought that some special kind of food, or
drink, or clothing, or gesture, or ceremony, or manner was ruinous to
both body and soul, and sacrificed all the other interests of life to
its destruction or abolition, were landed here and allowed to fight it
out like scorpions in a bottle. God pity any poor shipwrecked stranger
who fell into their hands! it was seldom that he was not torn limb from
limb by rival charlatans or the parties of conflicting shibboleths. They
were all threatened with famine; for what one grew or manufactured from
the fruits of the earth another detested as bad for the human system and
did his best to destroy; one thought tubers poisonous and fruits good;
another held the reverse opinion; and the violence of their enthusiasm
would not let either rest till he had destroyed his neighbour’s crops,
all for the good of that neighbour’s soul; one thought a solid food,
made out of any products of the earth, destroyed the sense of duty;
another thought that liquid food made from them dulled the senses, the
portals to the soul; impelled by his zeal neither could stop short of
destroying all that his neighbour manufactured. The result was that
there was never any food, either liquid or solid, to be found, and the
miserable creatures had to subsist on anything they could pick up on the
beach. It was the same with garments and gestures, with attitudes and
manners and tones of voice. There was not anything that could not find a
hostile critic, and the critic had at once to show his hostility in the
most violent crusade, that could not cease till the thing or the
believer in it was driven out of existence.

“There were other groups of islands near, on which Blastemo advised us
not to land; one was a group occupied by exiles who cultivated religion
apart from morality; another was occupied by exiles who devoted
themselves to imagination and let conscience decay; the inhabitants of a
third sank all human methods and thoughts in the interests of political
party. This was the worst class of monomaniacs in the whole archipelago.
They were in the most degraded condition, and were constantly burning or
torturing out some wretched minority, just as the Meskeetans and
Coxurians did. They paid little attention to the amenities of life. As
long as they still had islets to which they could exile their dissenters
they had not been so venomous as these two peoples. But recently they
had become unbearably offensive in their manners and their attacks on
strangers, and everyone now avoided their shores. The God-wise, as the
religious monomaniacs called themselves, had grown licentious and even
obscene; they had developed the most disgusting and beastly habits from
the idea that they knew the will of God and could dispense with the
common rules of morality and decency, those ‘badges of mere earth-born
natures.’ The worshippers of beauty had grown callous in their cruelty.
Squeamishly sensitive about their own feelings, they condemned any
dissentient amongst them, or any alien whom they found, to the most
excruciating tortures; every man who had anything abnormal in his face
or features or gait was given to the death-men. The federators of
humanity were the most dishonest and corrupt and quarrelsome of all;
they held that other considerations, moral, political, religious, were
as nothing compared with party organisation; and they had ultimately
come to feel all bonds dissolved but those of party, and to hound down
everyone who advocated anything, however noble or great or even decent,
that was outside of the party programme; no wonder they had grown so
offensive in their personal habits, so cruel in their relations to the
rest of mankind. It was useless asking any of these peoples for
supplies, they were so improvident; nay, it was dangerous approaching
their shores with such a property as the _Daydream_.

“There were other groups of islands that were too small and barren or
too much out of our course to think of visiting. There was the
art-religion group with Calocosm or the isle of art-popes in the centre
of it; their inhabitants were most intolerant and quarrelsome. Not far
from it is the isle of Cryptia, where the dwellers spend most of their
time in mystic ceremonies and parades, dressed in the most fantastic
garments, and carrying the most ludicrous paraphernalia of office; their
ceremonies are performed in dark caves dimly lit, and, in order to
impress the imagination, mimic in absurd fashion the wild feasts and
rites of savages; they believe in a religion without a god, without the
religious or moral spirit; a religion that is nothing but ceremonial. In
an opposite direction lies a group that is given up to medicomaniacs;
its central island, called Fidikyoor, has all the ailments of humanity
in full force; and yet the islanders can, if they will, cure any disease
they like by the mere act of belief. The other islands in the group have
each its system of therapeutics: one cures by blowing in the face,
another by spitting in the face, a third by striking on the cheek.

“Nearer to Coxuria lay two groups that were the natural complements of
each other. One group had as its centre Theophane, and the inhabitants
all believed that they had but to elect one of their number by ballot in
secret meeting in order to make him a god, who whilst he lived could
converse with the gods and get from them the absolute truth of all
existence. The president of each island might be the most consummate
liar in the archipelago, and yet all he said whilst president was taken
as divine revelation of the truth; and everyone who believed or
professed to believe in anything that disagreed with it was promptly
brought to his bearings by the most effective and summary punishments.
So there was perfect unanimity of belief in these communities. But the
numbers in each isle had become so small that every man expected some
day to have his most manifest fiction accepted during his period of
office as the most undeniable truth. Over against them lay another group
that had as its centre Antidea; its islands agreed in vehemently denying
the existence of all gods; but each had its own particularly unpleasant
way of affirming its creed. The people were virulently intolerant,
hating most of mankind because most believed in some deity or other.
They asserted so firmly and confidently that they had found absolute
truth on this matter of gods that, had a theopath landed on their
shores, they would have burned him in order to save his soul from the
grovelling superstition.

“Between the medicomaniacs and the theopaths lay a mediating group
called Dirtethos; here lived the exiles that counted sin and crime as a
mere aberration of intellect or of digestion; their religion was a
matter of food and medicine. If a man stole from his neighbour, then all
the rest of his neighbours came to sympathise with him in his misfortune
whilst the victim was left in deserved neglect. If anyone got into the
habit of telling lies, then, poor fellow, he had to go to bed and be
nursed; his stomach was out of order. If anyone murdered his mother or
his wife or his friend, he had to go to a hospital and get soothed, and
his relations and acquaintances rushed to console him in his temporary
sickness; it was sad indeed to have such an overflow of blood to the
head. If one should outrage all recognised traditions and rules of
morality and legality, then his friends spent their days and nights with
him reasoning him out of his sad mistake; he was the hero of the hour;
his victims were forgotten. An incorrigible criminal was sent to the
university, where, by sympathy and lectures, he had his chance of
recovering his tone. There he held receptions, to which the most
important people of the island were honoured in being invited; here he
discoursed with them on the methods of his crimes and lapses, and spoke
of his past as if it were a piece of ancient history of a foreign
nation; everybody conversed with him on it with the impartiality of
philosophers or the whispered consolations of bosom friends; his
teachers mourned with him over the hard lot of humanity which condemned
poor mortals like him to such mental aberrations. This group Blastemo
considered the worst of the lunatic settlements of the archipelago; no
locality was so dangerous for the stranger or the shipwrecked mariner.

“By his advice we steered for the island of Grabawlia, where those who
had a mania for finance dwelt. When we landed, the people did not crowd
around us as they had done in the other islands; they hovered off like
vultures waiting a solitary swoop. But we soon discovered, as one after
another approached us and explained his benevolent intentions, that we
were about to be exploited. Pilot-financiers always preceded the great
man who wished to make the negotiation. They brought no goods for us to
see; they only spoke of them as procurable, showing us samples that were
very attractive in their appearance. They stirred our appetite or our
curiosity in the most astute way. When any transaction was about to be
completed, in would come some bustling islander, offering a better price
for the goods and loudly declaring that he was being robbed in not
getting his opportunity; it was no genuine market that gave special
favours to special buyers, and gradually the price was raised till we
had to give an enormous sum for everything we bought. We had also to buy
by samples; for it was asserted that the mass of goods could not be
brought down to the beach till they were bought. Some of the
superfluities that we had on board they decried, but said that they
would be glad to sell for us. They did not care for them; but if they
were offered very cheap they might take them off our hands to oblige
those who had bought so much from them. When they had beaten our price
down to little or nothing, some newcomer would press forward and offer
similar goods at a lower price. At last they got our surplus practically
as a gift.

“When we had completed our negotiations and thought we had bought enough
stores and fuel to last several months, we went off to the ship, and the
goods began to arrive in fallas. They were in boxes or well-covered
bundles. Not till we had sailed did we find on opening our purchases
that half of them were rotten or worthless, and that in the boxes that
contained the fuel, stones filled half the space.

“These Grabawlians had the foundations of their houses of gold. They
would not let one coin of the precious metal pass out of their hands if
they could help it. They were the great barterers of the archipelago,
and took the goods of one island to trade off for the goods of another,
and wherever they could they got gold as the net result, till their
island was filled with the metal. We had seen that they were
half-starved, the only flourishing feature of their faces being their
nose, which protruded over their lips, and gave a foxy appearance to
their faces. They starved themselves to get more gold. They lied and
cheated that they might add even one coin to their heap. Again and again
were they found by their neighbours famishing; nor would they give any
of the treasures, on which they lay dying, to pay for the food that was
brought to them. They were always in dread of pirates and freebooters,
for ever and again through the centuries some warlike people bore down
on them and carried off the accumulations of ages. Blastemo himself
acknowledged that it was no infrequent thing for his island to pick a
quarrel with them and rob them in war of their savings. They were the
milch-cows of the archipelago. Their gold was a mere encumbrance to
them. It was better to be distributed again.

“After all the useless stores and the stones out of the fuel had been
thrown overboard, we calculated that we had remaining enough to last for
a month or six weeks. We were about to make again for Broolyi, when a
boat from Tirralaria informed us that you were intending to reach
Figlefia and embark there. When off that island awaiting orders, a slave
in a canoe came off in the darkness and bade us sail for the uninhabited
side of the island if we would save you from destruction; and he
indicated the bay where we ought to anchor that night. We were doubtful;
but we carried out his instructions. And the result is that we have you
now with us.”

Burns showed considerable agitation over their adventures and over my
return. I had interrupted him with many a question which had broken the
even flow of his narrative and lessened his emotion as he proceeded. He
and the others evidently expected an account of my wanderings; but I was
too much excited, too rent with conflicting melancholy and joy, to
accede fully to their request; and I gave them but a rough outline of
all I had done and suffered. The scars had not yet healed in my spirit;
the thoughts over life that my experiences had stirred in my breast were
too crude and sorrowful to find consolation in utterance; so I paced the
deck for days in solitary meditation.

Nothing could keep me long from the problem of problems, the central
mystery of the archipelago. What was that land which the inhabitants of
the various islands never had long out of their thoughts, but which they
so carefully avoided in speech? When forced to mention it, they
pretended to shudder at it as an island of devils. None of them seemed
to have visited it or to have had any personal knowledge of it for many
centuries. Their fear of it had crystallised into myths of horror. For
ages they had made fitful attempts to approach it, and failed, and at
last a fence of impenetrable darkness and terror held them far off from
it; and the fear that paralysed every energy, if ever their ships came
within sight of its shining peak on the far horizon, had taken permanent
shape in their traditions and stories of the isle of devils. What it
really was had faded into twilight, and the veil of the supernatural had
finally shut it out from human view. It was useless to attempt analysis
of the pictured curtain of tradition. The fabric would vanish in the
process instead of revealing its original texture. Once and once only
had I seen the pure sheen of its highest snow-clad mountain above the
rim of the sea; and at the sight I resolved to reach it, cost what it
would. I looked forward to our visit to Broolyi with no special interest
except as preparatory for the great expedition. I would say nothing of
it to Blastemo or his countrymen, lest they should discourage my men or
otherwise stand in my way. Nor would I confide at first in my comrades,
not indeed till I had seen my way clearly, and got all my methods of
preparation mapped out. They set my absorption down to my past
adventures, and I kept my own counsel whilst I inquired into the
conditions of my problem and found the possibility of a solution.

[Illustration]

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[Illustration]

CHAPTER XXXVI

BROOLYI

DURING the latter part of our conferences Blastemo had fallen silent;
his oaths and wild exclamations had first grown less frequent and then
ceased. When I looked to find the cause of the break in the torrent, I
laughed to see the rubicund face blanched, and instead of the usual
militant boldness of the expression a tremulous light in the eye. Sandy
Macrae at a gesture from me helped him below and we saw no more of him
for days, and heard nothing either but long-intervalled groans of agony.
For the wind had freshened ahead, and, as something or other had
disturbed the compasses, we could not tell whether we were keeping our
course or not. We steered by the sun; and, as we had not our pilot to
correct us, we had gradually shot far past our destination, and a
current had carried us away to the east.

Before daybreak on the third day our lookout called our attention to a
strange object on the horizon all gleaming white. At first the captain
thought it was an iceberg wandered into these tropical regions, but as
the sun forged up towards the rim of sky the ever-shifting tints that it
threw over the vault revealed to him that it was a snow-peak on whose
top lay a wreath of white filmy wool like a cloud. As the sunlight
strengthened, they saw the wool-festoon float out like a pennon, tinged
with the scarlet and gold of the dawn. The stars grew dim and winked
out. The day broadened into a glare, and still the peak stood firm with
its pennant of steam.

I was called, and I knew what it was they had been watching. It was the
mystery of mysteries, the Isle of Devils, that was thrusting up its
snow-peak into the sky. I bade Burns steer straight for it, and the wind
that still blew fresh from the north-west was with us. The gleaming cone
grew loftier and more beautiful in its outline, and past noon we could
see the cloud-turbaned peaks that flanked it begin to show beneath its
radiance. Still we pushed on, and, as the sun shot his western shuttle
through his great web of rays, and we could see the land darken at the
roots of the peak of snow, a strange circumstance occurred. There came
over the heavens a glossy look as if we were moving under a dome of
crystal closer to us than the azure of the sky. It was an occurrence I
had noticed once or twice before, but I could get no satisfactory
explanation of the phenomenon. It was like the glitter of the sky on a
morning of keen frost, that is just about to be followed by a tempest of
rain; and what made it stranger was that the crystalline dome vanished
as suddenly as it had come. The stars came out with a precipitance that
alarmed us. We had not time to recover from our terror when a shout rose
from the bow, “Breakers ahead.” We had but a few moments to bring her
round and lower the sails, and together the sea and the wind struck us
with a thud and made the ship stagger. I thought she would go to the
bottom, she heeled with such suddenness and shipped such a mass of
water. The masts broke like reeds, and the yards thundered down upon the
deck.

In the midst of the commotion I saw Blastemo rush towards me over the
wreckage, the pallor gone from his face. It was now livid with terror.
He looked for a moment to the horizon, and then to the smooth sea that
lay on either side of the tornado. He seized me by the arm and in a
hoarse whisper begged me to hurry away from the accursed peak that still
shone clear over our stern. Within half an hour we were in as peaceful
an atmosphere and sea as we had had; not a trace of the storm or of the
troubled water was to be seen. Even the long roll of billows with which
we had run so long had vanished. As we cleared away the wreckage, our
guest lay down exhausted on the deck. In a whisper of terror he told me
the same story as I had heard from other islanders. None of them had
ever been able to approach the Isle of Devils; every ship that had made
the attempt had been disabled and blown off. This had been the case for
long centuries, although there was a dim tradition that their ancestors
had come from it in vessels. The shock seemed to have driven out his
sea-sickness to some extent, and he kept by the man at the wheel till we
were out of sight of the snow-peak. Before he left the deck he gave such
instructions as to the route that no mistake could be made again.

Even this would not satisfy him, and in spite of his recurrent pallidity
he returned to his post in the morning and watched every point on the
horizon to see that we should not deviate as we did before. In three
more days of light winds and calms we came in sight of a land that
filled him with almost uncontrollable delight. He recognised its first
dim outline upon the horizon as his own. As we approached it, its sierra
rose boldly into the heavens, though rarely to the line of perpetual
snow. Great ranges of mountains seemed to divide it into isolated
corners, and jutted into the ocean in beetling precipices that forbade
too close approach to the angry snarl of their surf. It was in every
feature of it the home of warlike tribes bastioned against mutual peace
and intercourse. I was much amused, therefore, to hear Blastemo break
into an invocation to his fatherland as the home of all that was noble
and peace-loving. He repeated its name again and again with eulogistic
epithets, “noble, pacific Broolyi”; and, seeing us stand by
unenthusiastic, he tried to rouse us by explaining that the name meant
Isle of Peace, for the inhabitants were engaged in converting the whole
archipelago to its doctrine of peace; they were the great missionaries
of the gospel of peace to a world given over to war and mutual hatred.
The confused swell near the iron-bound coast relieved us of the need of
reply; for he quietly collapsed and sought a recumbent posture below.

We ran north along the wild scene of sheer cliffs. Solitary bird haunts
waist-deep in the sullen billows, monstrous toothed jaws angrily
churning the waters that ebbed and flowed across them, hollow-sounding
caves that echoed to the splash and boom of the sea and to the screams
of disturbed flashes of winged life, varied the monotony of the adamant
bulwark of nature. A note of everlasting war between land and sea
sounded hoarse along the shore, and ever as we approached there rang out
the wild challenge of the torn and recoiling waves. The marks of the
unending warfare of centuries lay in the reefs and outlying fragments of
rock that chafed the waters as they flowed. It was indeed a conflict of
Titans, whose chief ally and source of power was Time. Round great
headlands we swept that mocked and baffled the high-flashing onslaught
of the immortal enemy. How many generations of men had wailed into life,
grown, fought tooth and nail, and lapsed into the grave, since these
browbeaten cliffs had begun to outface the passions of their restless
foe!

We rounded one foreland more colossal and overhanging than any; but its
fantastic shapes held us only a moment, for beyond, the land rapidly
fell into a broad valley, and there two embattled bodies of men were
busy hacking and hewing each other. Their armour clashed under the
strokes, fierce shouts issued from those that were hurrying from the
rear, and a minor undercurrent of sound was a medley of wails and
groans. The crew were soon all on deck absorbed in the new spectacle.
Even Blastemo had recovered and ascended. He looked on from a modest
hiding-place in the rear; but, as soon as we saw him, we burst into a
roar of laughter, remembering his recent eulogies of peace and of the
pacific nature of his countrymen. He knew what we meant, and slunk below
again.

I had occasion to go soon after to my cabin, and I found him pacing the
floor in wild agitation. The sound of the clashing arms and the shouts
and groans reached him even here, and he saw, though dimly, through the
thick glass of the port-hole the swaying masses and the give-and-take of
the combat. His blood was in ferment, and he pleaded with me to put him
on shore, that he might join in the struggle. It maddened him to hear
the clangour and not be in the midst of the fray. He confessed that he
had not looked closely or long enough to know who were the combatants or
what was the right or wrong for which they fought. All he knew was that
it was near the capital and his own district, and his desire to keep the
peace was overwhelming everything else in him. I refused to listen to
his petitions, fearing that by landing him we might draw the fury of
either side or perhaps of both upon us. We sped on and soon melted the
uproar into a confused hum and shut out the sight that so fevered his
blood.

Our next experience was as exciting. We shot past the cape that like a
sheltering arm curled round the great harbour of the island, and a city
spread upwards from it bastioned to the roofs. And what a commotion
filled every parapet and wall and street! Never had such a craft been
seen in these waters; and our fame had spread before us. Every movement
of the _Daydream_, since she had approached the island, had been
messengered to the city. Banners and trophies swung in the breeze. Wild
music made the air a hoarse discordant pæan. Bells rung, gongs sounded,
shrill pipes shot skirling blasts into the ear of heaven. Marchings and
countermarchings of squares and rectangles of blue and green and scarlet
humanity made a moving tartan of the shore. The chromatropic effect was
as harassing to the eye as the clangour to the ear. Puffs of acrid smoke
obscured the air at intervals. At a distance it was alarming. What would
it be near at our hand? The whole armed population was evidently in
motion. Our guest, mad though he was with excitement, managed to
reassure us, and, taking from his cabin a small blue-green and red
pennon, flung it out from our poop. The effect was instantaneous. The
commotion ceased. The troops wheeled and marched inland, and soon only
the ununiformed crowd were left to watch us as we swept up to an
anchorage within a breastwork of the harbour.

The night fell, and silence shed its sleep upon the many-coloured,
myriad-noted world. With the morning returned the bustle and skirl and
brazen echo of a warlike community. Everything, as we looked out to the
shore, seemed to move to disciplinary rhythm. I went to the royal levee
with Blastemo, and, after he had prelected to the courtiers and the king
in a language that I did not understand, I was addressed from the throne
in Aleofanian. I could see from the speech that my fireship had deeply
impressed the community and especially the governors of Broolyi, but
their warlike purpose and employments were veiled in eulogies of their
mission of peace. Peace was the ideal and prayer of their inmost souls,
and this fireship of mine would enable them to fulfil it the sooner. It
was difficult to disentangle this from the labyrinth of ceremonies and
gestures, verbiage and oaths, that seemed to form the very heart of
Broolyian civilisation. Every climax reached by the monarchic eloquence
we heard echoed outside of the palace by the roll of drums and the
air-splitting shrill of pipes. The whole life of the community seemed to
move to machinery that centred in the court.

This I afterwards found was no mere metaphor or fancy. The next day was
their great festival of the week, and the people crowded into the
temples to worship the gods. None worked or were supposed to work. I
went with Blastemo first to one sacred building and then to another; and
I was struck with the fact that everything seemed to proceed as by
clockwork, the music, the sermon, the genuflections of the priest. “You
are right,” said my guide. “And I will show you how the whole thing is
worked.”

He took me to an enormous hall behind the palace. It was like a huge
factory, so full was it of machinery, all in motion. It was, indeed, he
assured me, a religion factory, one of the grandest institutions in the
world. This controlled all the services in the temples of the island. He
took me to one great machine that had on a capacious barrel all the
litanies of the year. At the moment we came up it was started by the
controller of religious services, who sat in a recess of the inner hall
of the king’s palace. We heard a prayer to the god of peace most
painfully and articulately intoned. I did not understand the words, but
I could make out from the tones in which they were uttered the changes
of meaning and spiritual attitude. It was marvellous, the solemnity of
the effect, provided we shut our eyes; there was such majesty in the
volume of the sound and in the elocutionary variations of the tone; one
might have imagined a vast assembly pouring forth in unison a submissive
appeal to heaven. In the temple the clack and shuttling of the machinery
were not heard; instead of it there was an automatic priest
magnificently clothed, bowing and posturing to suit the word. It was
only a wax figure containing clockwork controlled by this great litany
machine, but the effect was like life, or rather much more impressive.
There was none of the hawking and hemming of the human priest, none of
his awkward pauses and blowings of the nose, none of the clumsy gestures
or inability to dispose of the hands; and the voice rang out through the
great buildings with a bell-like clearness and naturalness that would
have made the human voice seem bathos. How feeble and tremulous, I
remembered, buzzed the voices of the priests I had heard intoning in the
cathedrals of Europe! I felt almost ashamed of the memory.

With a whirr and a click the litany machine stopped, and the
processional machine took up the tale. There was more noise and clang in
this, for more force had to be applied; a hundred or more processions of
marionette acolytes and priests through the various temples of the
island were impelled by it. There was a manifest rhythm in its motions,
almost like the sound of a stately minuet. I saw these processions
afterwards; and nothing could exceed the solemnity of the motions of the
man-like fantoccini. I never saw such an impressive ceremonial; every
step, every gesture was in harmony; there was no unseemly merriment in
the eyes or conversation on the lips of the youthful figures; and the
chanting was so noble and beautiful, filling as it did the whole vast
edifice with its mournful, or jubilant sound. The service was well
through before I had come into the religion factory, and the only other
machine I saw at work was that which produced the music. It was in an
adjoining hall, which was filled with thousands of pipes of the most
varied size and construction. There sat the musician, and the whole
building trembled as the keys were struck. It was intolerable; the
groaning and thunder it produced made the very tips of our ears to
shake. But when delivered by tubes or wires into the vast temples of the
country, nothing could surpass the softness and harmony of the volume of
sound.

One large edifice served for the central section of the town; it was
spacious enough to contain every man, woman, and child that lived in the
district. Each suburb had a smaller temple, yet large enough to dwarf
the cathedrals of England. I was deeply interested in them, and every
weekly festival I visited one or more of them. I was especially anxious
to hear the sermon or prelection. The lay-figure rose and moved his eyes
and lips and his arms and body to suit the words that were uttered. The
whole of the audience was too distant from it to distinguish the
movements; and the wax lifelessness of the face, which I made out when,
after the service, I approached it, could not have been seen by any of
the worshippers, so far aloft was it perched in a pulpit on the farthest
wall. The tones reached every ear in the huge edifice, and their
modulation and expression were perfect. I conjectured that the sermon
had been spoken into some recorder before, and that this reproduced it
by machinery on some diaphragm in each church, and that over the
diaphragm was fixed some instrument inside the lay-figure for
multiplying many times the volume of the sound.

The illusion was complete. I never heard oratory so impressive, or
religious service so solemnly performed. The sermon was, Blastemo told
me, a discourse on peace as the aim of all mankind. It painted the
horrors of war, and brought out in contrast a portrait of the man of the
millennium, who would have his passions so under control that nothing
would rouse him to anger or strife. It closed with a vindication of the
warlike policy for reaching this great ideal. Nothing but continual and
effective warfare would make men afraid to quarrel or bring their
quarrel to issue. The ebullience of the passions of the world was to be
mastered by fear. When they had brought warfare to the perfection of
destructiveness, all wars would cease; terror of death would be the
universal guiding motive of communities and individuals. Then would the
god of peace have voice through the whole world, for he would have his
mentor in every human breast in every assembly, the knowledge that any
strife must end in the annihilation of all those who take part in it.
The peroration was fervid in its appeal to the worshippers to pursue
warfare till it should be absolute in its annihilative power.

I was deeply impressed by the whole performance; never did it approach
to that bathos which, I remembered, had so often marred the services in
even the greatest cathedrals and churches of the various divisions of
Christianity. There was no halting in the oratory, no feebleness of
voice, no ridiculous straining of the nervous or muscular power. There
was no hitch in the processions or ceremonies, nothing pinchbeck or
tawdry or mean. The music was noble, and in its softening and shading as
fine as the massing of tens of thousands of human voices, there was no
discord, no jar. The effect of the whole was uniform, deep, and abiding.

Yet I could not get out of mind the cogs and wheels and keys of the
religion factory, the workmen moving about seeing that the machinery was
well oiled and that it worked without chance of breakdown, the solitary
performer sitting at the keyboard, and the king’s minister in the royal
recess grinding out the service. I expressed my feelings to Blastemo as
we walked away, and he warmly defended the method of his country. They
had had in the past a priesthood attached to the various temples, but it
had been found that their lives so differed from their teachings that
the people laughed at the whole of religion as a farce. The performances
and discourses were so feeble or extravagant or grotesque that the
buildings were deserted as a rule, or, if one was frequented, it was by
a wild crowd of enthusiasts stirred by some mad preacher to a crusade
against law, order, or progress. The church and religion had grown a
scandal. Women were the only regular worshippers, and they were in the
hands of unscrupulous priests, who used them against the aims and ideals
of the government and the community. The state tried for a time the
effect of adding to the creed a dogma that the religious efficacy of the
services was quite independent of the character of the priests; it came
direct from heaven, and the pollution of the vessel or channel did not
mar the divine influence. It was all in vain. It did not bring the men
to church; and it only hurried on the degeneracy of the priesthood. The
church became the nest of all the unclean and revolutionary characters
in the community. Again and again it threatened the safety of the state
by instilling a rebellious spirit into the women, and through them into
the youths of the nation during a serious war with a neighbour.
Something had to be done. There were the grand old temples; there was
the litany of the state religion consecrated by long generations of
worshippers; and yet the institution was but a lurking-place for the
indolent and voluptuous and hypocritical and rebellious in masculine
breasts. The endowments had fallen into a hopeless state. The finances
were quite inadequate. The worshippers would not support their own
services.

There was a great statesman at the helm of affairs, the ablest monarch
that had ever been selected by the council of wise warriors. He saw his
opportunity. He happened to have one of the most original and inventive
engineers as his right-hand man for the manufacture and superintendence
of war material. This latter had landed on the shores of Broolyi they
knew not whence. In these islands they ask no questions but accept what
the gods send them. The two together elaborated the existing religious
system. The dogma that the divine influence was altogether irrespective
of the channel or priest had thoroughly soaked into the natures of the
worshippers from the sermons of the preachers; and it was easy to turn
the flank of the doctrine by showing that automatic priests would have
least effect of all upon the religious elements that came through them.
They would be completely neutral like the air or the ether through which
the gods influenced the minds of men.

There was some talk of rebellion when the system was changed; but most
of the priests were too manifestly disreputable or characterless to
bring much influence to bear. They were banished to the islands that
were occupied by the non-moral religionists, and were never heard of
more. The women were only too glad to see the services conducted in
order and decency, whilst the men saw with pleasure the rotten finances
taken up by the state. It was one of the most peaceful and natural
changes that ever occurred; and now the temples were filled with men as
well as women. The music was splendid, the ceremonies solemn, the
discourses worth listening to. It cost far less. It was absolutely
controlled by the state, and all throughout the island had the same
spiritual fare.

I suggested to Blastemo that there was surely great monotony in having
the same thing year in, year out, every festival. He laughed at my
simplicity. The monarch and the engineer had fully provided for that
feature of human nature which makes it weary of mere repetition. The
finest imaginations of the country were employed in writing discourses;
the best musicians spent most of their time in composing the hymns and
songs; the finest theatrical talent and the most devout minds combined
to make new ceremonies and services. That was the reason there was not
standing room in most of the temples of the country. Everything was
under the eye of the king and his wise warriors. It was one of the most
effective disciplines that ever state had had in its hands; the
state-organised church of Aleofane was not to be compared to it. The
souls of the community were regimented like their bodies.

I was silenced; but any doubt of the efficacy of the institution was not
dissipated when I heard that it was still comparatively new. The monarch
had not long since died, and the engineer was still living. It had still
to be tested by time, and the attraction of novelty had not yet worn
off. Yet I had to acknowledge that it was a most effective method of
ridding a state church of irregularities and keeping a strong hand over
the minds of the community. Whether it would allow the civilisation to
advance was another question. Originality would soon be a thing
inconceivable in the island, if it were not already completely dead.
Peace in the spiritual world had been reached, but at the expense of all
new thought or individuality of character.

When I heard that the inventor of this automatic worship was still
alive, I felt eager to see him, certain as I was that he must be a man
of remarkable powers; but I found great difficulty in getting Blastemo
or anyone else to tell me about him. Since the election of the new
monarch, I ascertained by sundry hints, he had been in exile. Where he
was imprisoned I could not find out. His great capacity and his
ever-advancing thought had manifestly aroused the jealousy of the new
occupant of the throne. Hence, I conjectured, it was that the new arts
of war had grown abortive, promise though they once did to go far
towards the ideal of absolute destructiveness which would lead to
universal peace. I saw that he or someone else had introduced an
explosive, which might, with improvements, have made as effective a
means of war as European gunpowder. It had enabled the last king to
batter down the fortress-mansions of his nobles in the country and drive
them to settle round the court and abandon their continual little
internecine wars. Under his successor, the makers of the explosive had
lost its true secret; and the baronial castles were rebuilding, in spite
of the threats of royal displeasure. This was the meaning of the battle
we had seen before arriving at the harbour; two nobles were settling a
quarrel in the old way, heedless of royal power or judicial courts.
Whilst I was in Broolyi I saw hundreds of quarrels that were settled by
duels. The Broolyians had no control over their tempers, and during the
reign of the explosive they had given free play to them, as they knew
that the result would be no risk of life, but only to property in
settlement before the law-courts. It was like living over a gunpowder
magazine, and I avoided intercourse with these spitfires. Indeed, it was
difficult to conduct without hitch the commonest conversation with
Blastemo, now he had returned to his native fire-damp of an atmosphere.
Nothing but isolated residence in fortified keeps with miles of morass
or mountain or forest between them could ever insure peace amongst such
a people. To think that the name of their country was “Isle of Peace,”
and that the great object of their worship was the god of peace!

One day I heard of another community off the farther coast of Broolyi;
it was said to exist without government or institutions of any kind. My
curiosity was excited, and, though on inquiry I found that it was the
exile asylum of the archipelago for all who were plagued with the craze
of anarchism, I resolved to see the island for myself. They could not
laugh me out of my determination, and I at last procured a royal
passport that would pass me over the intervening districts in safety.
For the rest I was to look after myself if I ventured over the channel
that lay between the islands. None of the Broolyians would ever risk
their lives in that den of wild beasts, Kayoss. It had been chosen
because of its proximity to the most warlike people in the archipelago;
and, if any of the inhabitants attempted to leave it, the Broolyians
were authorised to shoot them down. A garrison was regularly established
over against it for the purpose.

I set out, glad to be free from the harassing ceremonial of a military,
machine-like, and yet most capricious-tempered community; but it was a
long and difficult journey, from castle to castle, over mountain and
through forest, often delayed by some local imbroglio or the jealousy of
neighbouring barons. Nothing but the magnificence of the scenery could
compensate for the petty annoyances that retarded my passage. Everywhere
I could see that the military commonweal was founded on slave labour.
The ground was tilled and the operations of common life were conducted
by men of a different race and climate from the oath-compelling
fire-eaters that ruled the island; and over them stood overseers with
whips to urge their industry. It was a sorry sight; and when I looked
into the faces of the workers, I could distinguish the wreckage of
nobler natures than were to be found in Broolyian breasts. The foreheads
were larger, the skulls more capacious; the eyes were full of a shy
melancholy that seemed to shrink from investigation; they had not the
huge lower jaws of their masters, or the cavernous mouths, or the red
hair. They were now but beasts of burden, and their limbs were muscular
and heavy and their footsteps dragging and torpid; but there was romance
lurking in the refined lineaments and the occasional grace that shone
out here and there amongst them. Whence they had come and what was their
fate I could not ascertain. That they were not natives I could see; and
that it was inferiority of will rather than inferiority of intellect or
imagination or civilisation that had led to their enslavement to the
fiery-willed Broolyians I could easily conjecture from the ruins of
their past that peeped out through the labour-clotted masks of their
rustic or artisan life.

I had to disguise my interest in them in order to get through the
country. Any sympathy or pity would have roused the savage wills of
their masters and sacrificed my hopes of the future, if not myself, to
the exaggerated Broolyian ideas of rebellion and the punishment it
demanded. Whenever I could, I lay in the shelter of some tree or
coppice, and watched the movements of these interesting relics of a
subjugated civilisation. Perhaps I might be able to do something for
them when I gained a higher platform of vantage.

[Illustration]

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[Illustration]

CHAPTER XXXVII

NOOLA

AFTER many difficulties and delays I reached the garrison on the western
shore of Broolyi, where it faced Kayoss. I delivered my pass to the
commandant, and was accommodated with shelter and food. The soldiers
were not communicative; but after a few days I encountered in my
wanderings on the beach one of the strangest men that I had ever seen,
and he opened up vistas into the history of the islands. He was short in
stature, but so light and springy was he in his gait and tread, I almost
thought that he never touched the earth; he seemed to skim along its
surface. He had a broad chest and great muscular development of the
shoulders that singularly contrasted with his bird-like progress. His
head was large for the body, but finely proportioned. It was the face,
however, that most attracted me. It seemed almost to speak to me as I
passed; it carried the soul in the depths of the eyes and in the whole
expression. This soul, I felt after one glance, was a beautiful thing,
marred only by some deep sorrow that draped it in everlasting
melancholy. There was a heaven of pity and regret doming the nature, one
could see in the sheen of the eyes and the strange translucence of the
features. I was drawn magnetically to this new type of manhood; and yet
I shrank from speech with him, his nature seemed so majestic and
overawing.

I asked in the garrison concerning him, but all I could find out was
that he was an exile from the city, and that he was kept under
surveillance. It had been at his own request that he had been settled
opposite the Isle of Anarchy. Finding that there would be nothing done
to prevent my speaking to him and that he knew Aleofanian, I addressed
him in reverent words the next time I met him, and we were soon fast
friends. We met daily and wandered on the shore, and both of us seemed
to find unfailing consolation in the ever-varying music of the sea, as
it tided along the beach, and answered to the moods of sky and wind and
current like a sensitive instrument. To me it had ever been a thing of
life that sang and quivered to my every impulse and change of spirit. To
be away from it was to be forlorn and widowed, and out of the reach of
pity and sympathy. To him it seemed to fill the same large space in
life. His thoughts were stimulated and made sublime by its rhythm; his
whole existence was fuller and more musical in that wider sense of the
word which applies it to the movements of the worlds on the face of
night. I soon discovered that he was the engineer who had centralised
and mechanised their religion for the Broolyians, and set them on the
way of fulfilling the object of their existence and of establishing
universal peace by universally annihilative war. He confessed that he
had not been sorry to leave the capital and give up the petty ambitions
with which he had been fired for a time. It would have meant but little
effort on his part to perfect his explosive and master the whole island
for his own purposes; but a look into the future had shown him how
absurd was the ideal the Broolyians pretended to hold up to themselves,
how impossible it would be by any homœopathic means, such as they
proposed, to cure humanity of its everlasting feuds. He fell into
despair and let the new king do as he would; and now in his solitude and
meditation the love of his older past had come back on him, and he
longed to see his native land, his paradise, again.

He had asked to be exiled to the garrison that watched Kayoss, in order
that the sight of that wretched community might keep his ambitions down.
There on the island opposite (and he pointed across the strait) lived
the anarchic exiles from the islands of the archipelago. As he uttered
the word “live” he smiled wearily. They lived but a few days after they
were landed, for they came to violent feud, and strife and bloodshed
ended the tragedy of trying to exist without government before the
animal was dead in man. He raised his eyes suddenly, and he pointed to
the opposite shore. On it moved a human being. That was the survivor of
the last shipment to Kayoss. The garrison had never had any trouble.
Within twenty-four hours after the anarchists were out of their fetters
and free on shore they had found weapons against one another. They
divided up into conspiracies and fought, and before many days were over,
two or three remained too maimed and wounded to fight. When they
recovered, they fought for the mastery, and one remained sorely
stricken, often to die, sometimes to recover only to become a maniac.
Such was the state of the wretch whom we now saw gesticulating on the
beach. There never could be anarchism on this earth till the wild beast
had died out of the human breast, and man was ready for flight to purer
spheres. It was but poison in the existing state of mankind. A little of
it did not do much harm. Its best cure was to give it full scope, for it
soon killed off all existences within its reach and itself with them.

As he rose to this climax, his transparent face began to cloud and grow
turbid. There was not that clearness of depth in the eyes which had so
drawn me to him. His nature seemed to become shallow and tempestuous,
more like the men of Broolyi and those I had known in the old western
world. But it was not for long; he drew himself up with a sharp gesture
of self-scorn, and then there settled upon him a silence and a
melancholy that resisted my efforts to overcome. He grew quite
unconscious of what I said, and, walking back towards his hut, left me.
It was useless to attempt intercourse with such self-inwrapt thoughts.

For days I saw how purposeless would be all speech; his figure was
bowed, his face was bent with grief, his eyes were fixed on the earth. I
had never witnessed such tearless sorrow in human form. I persevered in
my silent reverence for him, and at last the cloud lifted. He stood
erect one day in the sunshine, and on my approach, he smiled answer to
my greeting. All the dark and troubled appearance of his face had
vanished, and his eyes and his complexion seemed to show the depths of
his nature again with perfect limpidity. I was soon in sympathetic
converse with him. There still rang through his utterances a note of
sadness and regret. It reminded me of the undertones of so many
folk-songs that wail with the reminiscence of lost ideals. How wearily
it sounded, as it echoed through the depths of his meaning! It was as if
his words fell from the stars quivering with the emotion and thought of
the spheres in their everlasting rhythm. Out of infinity into infinity
their wisdom seemed to pass. There was no limit to their depth of
suggestion.

From his words there gradually developed the story of his life, with
reservations that I could by no questioning or interest penetrate.

“Many leaden-footed years ago,—brief in the tale of my own life, long
and slow taken by themselves,—I drifted on to the eastern shores of
Broolyi, and fell into the hands of Nunaresha, one of the most powerful
and ambitious nobles in the country, who was then endeavouring to get
the ruling monarch dethroned and to have himself elected in his place.
He saw before many moons had fruited and died that he had in me a
godsend for his designs. Oh, the misery of it! I listened to his
flattering proposals, and supplied him with the instruments to carry
them out.” The thought overcame him; the words died away on his lips,
and his consciousness seemed to ebb into unknown depths of sorrow. I
kept a reverent silence, and the thought of his broken story tided
upwards again into words. “Ah me! the memory of my atavistic folly
weighs my whole being down, when it comes upon me. Out of my warlike
forefathers of hundreds of generations before had come into my nature
some taint of their military passions and ambitions. For several
hundreds of years it lay dormant. The wise observers of my country had
seen it in me from my birth, and had surrounded me with such conditions
as would keep it in abeyance, if not deprive it of all living force.
Unhappily the profession of chemist and engineer, for which I was found
on examination of all my faculties to be best fitted, opened up to me a
vista into the destructive forces that permeate the universe, and the
marvellous power over them that our own chemical knowledge gave. This
and my growing acquaintance with the myriads that inhabit the earth and
with the consequent scope for military ambition roused the sleeping
devil in me. I passed my time in the analysis of the destructive
elements in nature, in the manufacture of explosives, and in devising
plans for their concentration against an enemy, although it was a
fundamental maxim of our commonwealth that no member of it should ever
harbour evil thought against the life of a fellow-being. Innumerable
gentle and indirect methods were applied for my cure; but it was all in
vain. My ancestral passion was roused like an unquenchable fire. I could
see the sorrow over me in the faces of the community. At last, without
their ever having come to formal resolve, I was placed in a boat with my
share of the wealth of the island in precious metals, and blown far out
to sea in the direction of Broolyi.

“Doubtless by the help of the forces my countrymen have control of, I
drifted towards this island, and came to be received by Nunaresha. He
almost at once raised me to the position of trusted adviser. He accepted
every device I invented for his purposes, and supplied me with the
material I required. I gave him such power over explosives that he felt
himself almost invincible. He subdued his quarrelsome baronial
neighbours with the greatest ease, and by the help of his explosive
catapults made his friends throughout the island supreme over their
districts. His influence was soon predominant, and the feeble intriguing
monarch was deposed and Nunaresha chosen in his stead. He spared neither
friend nor foe in order to attain to unquestioned despotism. The
baronial castles were demolished by the new force, and all were drawn
into his court by its attractions and its concentration of power. The
barons became the mere parasites and flatterers of the new king.

“Yet did he feel unhappy in that the ecclesiasts could still wage secret
war against him in the hearts of the women and thus in every household.
At any moment the rebellion might break out, and, though he could crush
it, once it became open, he never felt safe from the weapon of the
assassin or fanatic. I, the still-degenerate Noola, came to his aid,
when he pleaded with me; and I manufactured the spiritual mechanism of
the country for him to control as he pleased. He banished the priests
and substituted an automatic priesthood and service such as might be
completely at his beck. It was an easy matter for me to invent the
various machines, musical, ceremonial, marionettic, and locutory. I saw
that some such spiritual control over men was needed, if universal peace
were to be attained on the earth. I still believed that peace was the
true aim of human civilisation, and that this could be reached only by
such warlike forces and such spiritual authority in the hands of a
single governor or council of governors as would make rebellion seem an
impossibility and a farce to every reasoning mind.

“I have been utterly disabused of all such thoughts. Such peace can mean
nothing but universal stagnancy of mankind. There is no advance, no life
without struggle and competition. I could have invented after years of
work such a weapon of war as would have enabled a man to master the
world and keep it cowering in fear. I could have extended my mechanical
religion so as to control the thoughts and beliefs of all men. But what
was the advantage, if the ruler grew worse? It was only to connect all
the spiritual fountains of the earth with this tainted source, and thus
to keep them for ever impure. I saw his unbounded power gradually sap
the will and the morality of the monarch. He sank into dissipation and
debauchery. He made the whole of Broolyian art and religion and morality
coarse and vulgar. The women grew more pampered and fat and licentious;
the men became hypocrites and laggards. In the court there was nothing
but display, vulgar accretions of gaudy uniforms and of jewels of all
kinds. In the country there was increasing degradation and misery. It
was patent to the eyes of those who were not blinded by the possession
of power or the shadow of power. The only thing that saved the nation
from collapse was its frequent war expeditions. They hated the water
passage to other islands, but they delighted in the excitement of
conflict, and they came back fewer in numbers, slimmer in figure, and
more active in habit. You might have expected the women to preponderate
in the population, because of the war drain on the men. But perhaps you
have noticed that amongst the children and youth, it is our own sex that
has the best of it in numbers; whilst fat old women are seen everywhere,
old men are seldom seen. A warlike community ever recuperates by means
of the physiological fact that, where only young and vigorous soldiers
are the fathers competing for the love of the young women, who are few
and somewhat pampered, there is a predominance of male births. It is
this prevention of old age amongst men by the sharp sickle of war along
with the seclusion and delicacy of the women that keeps the community
from complete effeminacy and ultimate extinction. Broolyi is the exile
asylum of all the passion for militarism in the archipelago, and the
internecine wars of the exiles reduce their numbers and yet keep them
active; their hatred of the sea saves the other islands from conquest by
them. Their great heroic age was the reign of a woman who had been
expelled from my own land for her warlike passions. She overcame their
nausea for oceanic expeditions by training most of the boys like a coast
population to take delight in boats and ships, and it was only the
jealousy of the other women that prevented Broolyi from mastering the
whole of the archipelago. She ever fostered her desire of revenge on her
original country, and at last led an army of vengeance against it; but
she was again and again repulsed with ease. In the disfavour of defeat
the Broolyian women accused her of witchcraft in drawing away the
affections of the young men from them, and had her put to death.
Degenerate though I have grown, I never nurtured one thought of
retaliation for my exile; and even had I, I should never have been so
foolish as to imagine that I could have carried it out. She must have
been mad or drunk with passion to attempt such a thing. When she died
Broolyi sank back into the even tenor of quarrel and civil war. Alas,
that I should have been the means of stirring it again to warlike
ambition for mastery! It was my mistaken ideal of universal peace by
means of universal and omnipotent authority. I have come to the
conclusion that all government is but giving the monopoly of opportunity
to one set of robbers in order to save the nation from the ravages of
most others. It is worse for the higher natures of the governing than
for those of the governed; and I have recanted my heresies.

“How weary I grew of the pomp and show of the court, of the dreary round
of war and dissipation! I would have given the world for exile into
solitude; and yet I dared not secede from the monarch and his following.
I had shown myself too resourceful to be allowed to go free in the
island. The king never would have believed that I was at rest and only
desirous of rest.

“But the inevitable conclusion came. Lapped in the luxurious security of
unquestioned power, he grew careless; thinking that every mind in the
island was tuned to his key, hatred to him had grown silently in the
hearts of many. At the most unexpected place and moment it blazed out,
and he fell by the hand of an assassin. He had meant to establish a
dynasty, but his children all fell with him; and the nobility elected
his successor from amongst themselves, one of the mildest and most
characterless. I saw that this was my opportunity, and I pleaded with
him that I might be sent into exile and solitude; and, in order to make
him feel sure that I could not be plotting against him, I asked that I
should be near the garrison that watches the island of anarchists. Here
I have rested these many years, working out my spiritual purification in
sorrow and regret. I have climbed higher in soul than I had ever thought
to reach; and yet clouds of anger at times float across my nature and
mar my power of vision. I am not worthy to return to my own land. Ah,
that I were! And what hope is there of any such return for me, the
outcast, the degenerate?”

He fell again into self-inwrapt reverie. His thoughts had gone back to
that land of mystery whence he had come, and vain was it for me to
attempt to follow them. I must wait. And I thought I saw my way to bring
about my purpose.

One day we had again grown intimate in our conversation, and he had
become familiar enough to ask me whence I came. I told him how I had
crossed the circle of fog with my yacht, and he asked me how I had
resisted the magnetic forces and sea currents that so effectually fence
in this sub-tropical archipelago. I described the _Daydream_. At first
he could not realise that she could move swiftly without the help of
wind or current or oar; but, when the thought of steam power propelling
her came on his mind, it took full possession of it. He made sure that I
could force her right in the teeth of a storm, and then his face was
illumined with joy and hope.

The next day he was all eagerness to know the construction of her
engines and her mode of propulsion; and, having satisfied himself that
she had ten times the power of the largest falla driven by oars, he
surrendered his inner thoughts to me. He now saw a way by which he might
return to his dear native land, and he described to me the singular
means his countrymen employed for hedging off intrusion and expelling
members of their community that are alien to its main purpose. Round the
shoulders of their central peak, Lilaroma, runs, on an enormous
scaffolding, what they call the storm-cone; it is a huge trumpet-shaped
instrument with its wide end turned on the horizon, and out of it is
blown from the centre of force in the island a blast that, when
concentrated on any point, has the power of a tornado; nothing propelled
by oars or sails has hitherto been able to resist the artificial
hurricane. By night it moves slowly around the horizon, and, if its
blast encounters any object floating on the surface of the ocean,
however small, it brings all its force to bear on it till the resistant
material flees before it. It produces a local tempest, and the intruder
either sinks or escapes before the blast. There is no record in the
archipelago of any falla or human being having ever reached the shore of
Limanora by sea; and though the long tradition of this tornado
barrier-to-all has ended in a more complete, because a spiritual,
barrier, that of superstitious fear, the storm-cone never ceases its
vigilant blast.

I saw the source of his hope and told him of our encounter with the
storm-cone and the result, fearing that he did not understand all the
conditions; but, after ascertaining that we had sail set, and that the
tornado caught us broadside, his face bore a smile that implied complete
mastery of the problem. He showed me that, if the sails had been down
and the bow had been pointed right to the storm-cone, the ship could
have easily held her own against the blast; but, that we might not be
too sure of the result and might not introduce a whole shipload of
intruders into the island, he would invent a method by which we two
alone should reach its shore. It was this. He intended to make two
wooden, water-tight shells in the shape of a fish with sharp snout and
directing tail; into these, as we got close to a shelving beach, we two
would enter. The lids would be sealed so as to let no water in; and then
the sailors of the _Daydream_ would shoot them from two huge catapults
of his, so that they would plunge into the sea, and speeding through the
water, would rise to the surface, and float into the shallows close to
the sand.

I could see the feasibility of the plan, and entered gladly into it, for
at last I perceived a chance of reaching his mysterious fatherland. As
he had agreed to take me for his comrade, he began to teach me his
native language. He told me he could not give me more than the rudiments
and framework. The niceties of it and the great vocabulary come only in
long years of familiarity. It was constructed on the principle of
assigning the easiest words to the commonest and easiest things and
ideas. It grew in difficulty and perplexity in the higher spheres of
thought and investigation. The names for the familiar objects and needs
of human beings were monosyllabic, and each expressed some essential or
striking quality or feature of the thing either by means of the nature
of the sound or by resemblance to some other but abstract word. The
verb, or as he called it, the energy-word, and the adjective or
quality-word, were generally dissyllabic, the former by means of the
affixing, the other by means of the prefixing, of one of many different
sounds or letters. Half of each of these sets of extension elements were
vowels, the other half consonants. They were phonetic alternatives; the
consonantal was meant as neighbour to a vowel sound, and the vowel as
neighbour to a consonantal. For example: “kar” meant “dust”; “karo”
meant “to reduce to dust”; “okar,” “having the essential qualities of
dust.” “Tri” meant “sea-water”; “trim,” “to use sea-water”; “atri,”
“salt and liquid like sea-water”; “trik,” “to plunge into sea-water”;
“itri,” “dipped in sea-water.” There was no difference in form between
the adjective and the adverb, and there were only two kinds of
relational words or words that showed the connection between ideas or
things or energies or qualities that we brought into relation. Our
prepositions and conjunctions would be included under the one type; the
same particle or kin-word might be used to express the affinity between
two of the simplest words for concrete objects and two such complex
ideas as are given in sentences. The other kind of relational word was
what they called their pointer and seemed to stand for our pronoun. It
pointed out some object or idea already mentioned or to be mentioned, in
order to show its relation to other objects or ideas, or pointed out the
relation of the energy-word or of the quality or of the object to some
personality. These kin-words or pointers consisted each of two letters;
there were some hundreds of them, and their number was ever growing as
new relationships grew out of a more complex civilisation or out of
advancing investigation and discovery. There were no separate words of
one letter, all the letters being monopolised by the prefixes or
affixes.

The subtones or slight variations of the common sounds were utilised to
express various shades of meaning; as for example, time was expressed in
the verb by a modification of the sound of the affix, whether
consonantal or vocalic. “Lo karō ti rak” meant “I reduce this rock to
dust”; “Lo karō ti rak,” “I shall reduce this rock to dust”; “Lo karōō
ti rak,” “I reduced this rock to dust.” Accent on the affix was used to
express stage of action, beginning, in process, or complete; or rather
lack of accent expressed the second, sharp accent the first, and full
accent the last. Pitch was employed to express attitude of mind to the
action; the higher tones giving various shades of determination or
order, the lower, various kinds of uncertainty or question, and the
full, ordinary tones expressing the different phases of assertion or
surety.

Transferred or metaphorical meaning was indicated by the use of a
variation in the vowel sound of the noun. “Kăr” with long, broad vowel
is “dust”; “Kăr” with short vowel implies the sporadic ideas that float
in a civilisation or community or period or mind; and all the various
grammatical and sense modifications of the original concrete noun were
applicable to the new noun with the transferred sense.

The grammatical framework of the language was so simple that I mastered
it in a few days. A few more days sufficed to get familiar with what
they called the infant’s vocabulary, all the concrete words for common
things, like earth, rock, sea, sky, food, arm, hand, head, light, fire,
smoke, cloud. What made this easier was that words for things that had a
close resemblance or connection in action had the same consonantal sound
but different vowels, or the same vowel and one consonantal variation;
“foresight” was “lum”; “fore-energy” was “lim”; “rum” was “gravitation,”
“rim,” “force”; “lul,” “smoke,” “lil,” “cloud.” When I passed to the
youth’s vocabulary of less concrete words or words with metaphorical
applications, it was more difficult, partly because the vocabulary was
larger, partly because the differences were subtler; but I was greatly
aided by the universal and primary law of their tongue, that the same
sound should not stand for more than one meaning or shade of meaning;
whenever a word tended to acquire a new sense, a new modification of the
form was deliberately invented and adopted. Thus there were none of the
ambiguities and shifting senses that make all other languages and
especially the European like a quagmire or quicksand. One of the more
important annual functions of the community as a whole was language
sanitation.

It is one of the greatest mistakes of European civilisation to let words
take their own course, the most dangerous source of spiritual epidemics.
In them lurk foul thoughts and suggestions that spread their moral
contagion as soon as the child comes into contact with their inner
meanings. Nothing is so pernicious, so obstructive of progress, as the
virus of uncleansed words. They let out on new ages moral diseases that
have been forgotten. In them contagious germs adhere to the nooks and
corners for generations as in old houses. Even the fallacies that cling
to the human mind from the many and shifting senses of words are bad
enough, but worse is the opportunity they give for villains to palter
with them. Nothing is easier than in our old civilisations to betray the
innocent; language with its chameleon nature can fit itself to every
atmosphere and light; it gives the readiest shelter to dishonesty and
error. Unpurified, undefined, it is the quaking bog in which half the
souls that are born into the world are irrecoverably lost.

Ages ago his countrymen had taken their language in hand, and swept out
of it all foul suggestion. Now their chief task was to prevent
ambiguities and double or shifting meanings from creeping into words and
making them the cloaks of dishonest purpose, the stumbling-blocks of the
still feeble human soul. There were linguistic specialists whose duties
were to watch the use of words by the community and note down those that
were changing their signification. They had also to invent new words to
fit the new meanings, and to lay the results of their investigations
before the meeting of the whole nation. Whatever were unanimously
adopted became at once a part of the language; and for those that were
rejected the experts had to bring forward other suggestions.

The result was that their language was as limpid as their own thoughts;
and it was kept musical too. After the linguists had made out lists of
suggested substitutes, they submitted them to the imaginative men and
the musicians; through this ordeal, and that of the meeting of the
people, none but noble words could pass; and for words that had to cover
new ideas in some department of science or art the linguists had to
consult with the scientists or artists. This people thought no trouble
lost that was spent on ennobling the garment of thought and the
master-element of music and imaginative work. “All is false, if words
are uncertain,” “Language is the ether of thought; it interpenetrates
all existence,” were two of their favourite maxims. Another that was
often on the lips of Noola was: “Take care of the words, and the
thoughts will take care of themselves.”

It was little wonder then that I found it easy to master the primary
stages of this most translucent language. The stage of full manhood and
the stage of the wise, I could see from a few illustrations he gave me,
had difficulties and subtleties that could be mastered only by long
acquaintance; and it was not till I had been many years in Limanora that
I came to understand them; for, though the vocabularies were constructed
on the most symmetrical and clear plan, they had as many words as all
the languages of Europe put together. Most of them stood for ideas or
elements that were beyond European thought or discovery, or for ideas
that were, many of them, fagoted together under a single word in our
Western languages. No idea, no shade of an idea was without its own
word. Half the false starts of European civilisation or science or
philosophy were due to misunderstandings caused by the number of
meanings that attach to single words. European controversies and
discussions are interminable owing to this fertile source of fallacy and
of shifting ground. I was not surprised at the small progress made by
both old and modern civilisations after I saw the trouble the Limanorans
took to purify and define their words, and the ease with which one could
master the most difficult thought expressed in their limpid language. As
I tell you my story now in your own and my native tongue, I feel as if I
wandered in a dream through a land of mists that are ever shifting and
deceiving. I have often to abandon the attempt to explain to you the
noblest of the Limanoran ideas. At other times I have to translate clear
expressions into muddy, uncertain words, or to resort to makeshifts
that, I fear, give you but little notion of the originals. As I talk
with you in your English tongue, I seem to be moving amid illusions and
phantoms. How unmelodious it all sounds! A language like the Limanoran
needed no poets; it was poetry itself, so musical was every word and
every combination of words, so bright and strong, so suggestive and
harmonious every idea that needed expression in it. When an Englishman
is able to choose the musical words of his language and put them
together with rhythmic harmony expressive of the inner harmony of the
ideas, he is canonised as a linguistic saint, a poet. The Limanorans
were poets by virtue of their language and their nature and training,
and it is like passing into the most commonplace of prose to express
even their commonest words and ideas in the most poetical English.

Little though Noola taught me, I was enamoured of it, and could scarcely
keep from crooning the words to myself, like the lilt of an old song.
And every sentence seemed to be as melodious as the separate words. I
tried to form discordant combinations, but, on presenting them to my
tutor, I found that they bore no sense; they were impossible
combinations of ideas. Especially was the harmony of sound predominant
in the higher stages of the language. The commonest description of even
the most difficult scientific investigation sounded like a noble blank
verse poem. To speak in English again, much though it brings back out of
my oldest past, is to walk in fetters.

Before Noola was satisfied that I could make myself understood in
Limanoran, and just as he had perfected his plan for our projection into
the beach waters of his native land, we had aroused suspicion in the
garrison by our long colloquies. They watched our every movement. Nor
did I allay their fears by my assurance that we were about to attempt a
landing on Kayoss by sea. We were seized and sent to the capital to be
dealt with by the king and his council. Long debate and threatening
civil war delayed the decision, but I am certain that the result would
have been condemnation to death in the end, for the whole country was
honeycombed with suspicions and fears of plots; and executions of
suspects occurred every day.

But the unexpected rescued us. We lay in our prison cells, weary, half
expectant, half wishing more delay. Our food was thrust in to us day
after day through a small aperture in the iron doors of our pitiless
stone-walled dungeons. At first we heard through the narrow iron-railed
slit that served as a window the hurry and bustle of the city, like the
sound of a distant torrent. One day it seemed to grow less and less, and
at last it ceased. The silence was oppressive and ominous. Next morning
the wicket aperture in our door did not open. All day we were without
food. We wondered what had occurred. Four days threw their twilight into
our cells, and not a sound of human voice approached us. I felt my
hunger pass from the gnawing stage into languor and collapse. I sank on
my reed pallet unable longer to pace my floor. I swooned rather than
slept when twilight thickened into gloom. I knew that a few days at most
must end the alternations of collapse and consciousness. I dreamt that I
was back in the old fishing village in my mother’s hut on the cliff; and
her voice sounded sweet in my ears, as she welcomed me home at night. I
thought that I fell asleep in it and that the morning had come. I
remembered that my comrades were to call me and that we were to start
early on a long fishing excursion. I moved uneasily, half conscious that
I ought to rise and see if the dawn had broken; and then it seemed to me
that the hum of voices sounded in the distance. “It is my friends,” I
said; a loud rattle and clang, I thought, must be their volley of stones
on the roof and windows to waken me. Then I heard their Scotch accents
beside me. I must awaken. With an effort I rose and jumped from my bed.
The cold of the prison floor brought me to consciousness. There beside
me was my captain, Alec Burns, with some of his men. I sank back on my
pallet in a swoon after a sign of recognition. They applied
restoratives, and in half an hour, though faint and weak, I was able to
totter out on the arms of two of my sailors into the passage and thence
into the sunshine. Under an awning I lay panting back into life, and
nursing and liquid sustenance gave me appetite, and made me strong
enough to walk alone.

I asked Burns for an explanation of all that had occurred. The royal
officers were about to seize the _Daydream_, he discovered, and he was
intending to put out to sea in the night. He had got up steam and was
about to heave the anchors, but he found that she had grounded, as it
was low tide. As her screw moved, the water gave forth an unbearable
stench. He stopped her and the fetid odour disappeared. In the morning
he looked out to the city, and saw the streets and the ramparts
completely deserted. Not a being moved anywhere. All day the same
death-like stillness prevailed. No boat moved in the harbour; no soldier
appeared on the battlements; not a sound of marching or of military
music was heard. It might have been a city of the dead. The following
day opened with the same experience. They pulled on shore, and the
streets echoed empty to their step, as they walked up from the beach.
They knocked at doors, but received no answer. They entered houses, and
passed through them unmolested, unchallenged. At last the explanation
forced itself upon their senses. In one house they could not proceed for
the fetor that met them at their entrance; and in the next lane they saw
dead bodies strewn, as if cast from the windows, in some places heaped
high above the earth. It was a city of the unburied dead, and no living
creature was to be seen to bury them.

The next day, on landing again, they encountered some of the slaves, who
were plundering the houses, and who fled as the sailors approached. They
followed one up, and saw him enter the huge building, which they found
to be the prison. They saw him take the keys and open the various cells;
and out poured his imprisoned fellows. They heard from one prisoner of
my incarceration, and then discovered my dungeon and led me out into the
sunshine.

As Burns came to this point in his narrative, I remembered my
fellow-prisoner, Noola, and I hurried them off to look for him. They
returned with him none the worse for his long fast. He did not complain
of hunger. He had, I could see, a fund of sustenance to draw upon
unusual in the human bodies I had been accustomed to. We persuaded him
to try some of our restorers; but he took them with none of the eager
appetite that I had shown. It was manifest that he had a physical
constitution altogether different from ours.

He asked us how it was that Burns had been allowed to set us free. He
listened with equanimity to the explanation, but, when he heard of the
slaves, he started in alarm, and bade us hurry to our ship. It was not
long before we were on board, and, as it was full tide, the _Daydream_
was now able to get from her anchorage and make out into the open sea.

When he saw us safe out of the harbour, he settled down and told me the
meaning of his sudden fear and advice. “These slaves inhabit the
interior of the island in myriads, and, under the whips of their
overseers, do all the work that this military community needs. They are
so shamefully treated that, if ever the bonds break and they rise in
rebellion, they show no mercy, and make no distinction in their fury.
The opening of the prison doors meant that the slave population was
about to revel in crime and bloodshed. They will crowd down uncontrolled
from all parts of the country, and fill the city with a ravaging,
plundering mob. Had we remained till they were in force, we should have
had no chance of escape; we should have perished in the general hate of
all but their own kin.

“You ask me why so powerful and so military a people should ever permit
such an outbreak. It is because they are cowed by a greater fear, that
of the plague. You have perceived how low the tide has been, and how hot
the sun. The mud upon the shore of the harbours, when it is laid bare by
the waters and exposed to an exceptionally hot summer, breeds a plague
that sweeps through the ranks of the Broolyians. There is no means known
of stopping its ravages, no cure for it. Once seized by it no man can
last more than one day; and once dead the body putrefies and spreads the
contagion far and near. All the citizens flee to the heights, to be out
of reach of the pestilence. There and there alone can they have any
chance of survival, and then only if no one bears with him the seeds of
the terrible disease. It is piteous to see the cowardly stampede of
these bold warriors. The slaves know the meaning of the flight; it is
their carnival; they are untouched by the plague; they can move with
impunity amongst the rotting dead bodies or the putrid mud.

“It is a strange example of the revenge that a law of nature takes upon
those who outrage it. Long ages ago the war-loving exiles, who were
landed upon Broolyi, subdued its gentle inhabitants, but so wore them
down by driving them as slaves that they almost died out. Their place
had to be supplied; for the masters had become accustomed to freedom
from manual and sordid employments, and nothing could persuade them to
give up their weapons and swaggering military employments and put their
hand to the plough or the hatchet. They had to send emissaries out in
all directions to steal, borrow, or buy slaves. Peaceful and often
highly civilised islanders were kidnapped and battened down in the holds
of the fallas in order that they might not resort to mutiny or attempts
at escape. In these foul dens oftentimes men and women who had been
accustomed to the delicacies of civilisation were penned; and they
suffered the horrors of an unclean, putrid dungeon and of a rough sea
passage. By the close of the voyage half the captives had to be thrown
overboard dead or next door to death. Those that survived were proof
against the diseases that originated in such nests of contagion. When
the shipload had been disembarked, the filth of the voyage was washed
into the harbour, and the germs of a new plague took up their abode in
the mud at the bottom, dormant for long years, and then, when the
favouring conditions came, a hot summer and a series of low tides,
rising into the air and filling the neighbourhood of the shore. It is
one of these plagues that has emptied the city.

“The strange thing about this Broolyian fever is that its symptoms and
horrible effects are those that the slaves experienced in the loathsome
sea passage. The fever-smitten feel a sinking of the heart as in
homesickness; this alternates with wild fury against wrongs that are in
their case purely imaginary. They think that they are in darkness and
filth and chains, unable to escape, in utter despair of life. They
cherish a madness for liberty, which wears out their bodies and brings
such exhaustion that they sink rapidly. Their faces and bodies grow red
as with rage, then pale as with sea-sickness, then yellow with loathing.
They come to nauseate living, and would gladly put an end to their
tortures by suicide; yet their hearts again beat wildly as if clutching
at life. Before the passion has collapsed and their energy has sunk,
they become putrid in their limbs, till they shudder at the sight of
their hands and feet. The microscopic life, that sprang into being in
the holds of the slaving fallas, and that festers in the mud of the
fore-shores, having drawn all the sufferings and feelings of the
captives into it, communicates them to the people that wronged them. The
survivors of the enslaved and their descendants are for ever inoculated
against it. At every outbreak of the epidemic the slaves escape and hold
high festival in the city, all the fiercer and more degraded in their
orgies from the state in which they and their ancestry have been kept.
In their drunken carousals they come to blows, though many escape back
to their native land. When the summer has passed, some of the soldiers
venture into the suburbs, and with threatening missiles force those that
have remained alive to bury the dead, and to cleanse the city and
prepare it for their masters. All settles back into its old state. New
slave raids are organised to fill the places of those that have
vanished; new horrors take place, and new germs are deposited in the
mud.”

There was the light of pity in the eyes of the narrator. I could hear
his voice quiver and sound plaintive, although he gave but the barest
outline of the history. He was filled with the vision, I thought, of the
vanity of human life and its pursuits. I could see from some words that
fell from him soon after that memory had brought up to him the dire
chimeras that had led him from his native paradise; he saw the
bootlessness of war, and the awful vengeance it works out upon the
combatants; he realised the monstrous nature of tyranny and its recoil
upon the tyrants; he felt how illusory, how mocking was the human ideal
of luxurious ease. The faults that had banished him from Limanora had
been burned out of him by caustic experience; his nature had grown
purified by that long solitude which had brought wisdom again. He hoped
the evil in him had been long subdued; but would his native land take
him back? He despaired; he knew of no precedent; all who had been exiled
had finally vanished. He hoped, for he felt how drastic his purification
had been, how bitter his repentance. Yet the rapid advance of their
thought and civilisation threw him back again into fear; he felt like a
man put on shore at the head of a rapid and having to find his way on
land and through jungle after the boat, as he saw it speed down the
torrent.

I tried to draw him from the harassing turmoil of his emotions and
thoughts by questions on the meaning of phrases that he had used to me.
He had often spoken of the practice of banishment for moral or
constitutional weaknesses. Would he explain to me its character and
extent? I showed great anxiety to know how it worked.

After a time my eager interrogations drew him from the painful inner
conflict, and, with one of his comprehensive and benignant smiles, that
seemed to light up his whole being, he began: “It is a matter of very
ancient history. It is indeed thousands, I might almost say, tens of
thousands of years since it was first adopted; for it was a deliberate
adoption on the part of our ancestors in Limanora. Long generations
before, the idea of progress had fixed itself into our civilisation as
its true aim. How to make the human system, both spiritual and physical,
advance rapidly was the problem discussed year after year, age after age
by our wisest men and women. All others were counted trivial or
auxiliary. It seemed mere folly to look after the progress of our
domestic animals with so much care and science as we did, and leave the
human species to the assistance of accident. Our diseased kine and
horses and fowls had to die off without transmission of their weakness
to posterity. Only the finest breeds were paired or allowed to hand on
their frames and powers. Every care was spent on the study of their
anatomy and on the development of their best and most useful qualities.
Whatsoever the Limanorans desired to do with these animals they did. If
any feature of their bodies or natures or characters seemed worthy of
development, it was soon developed, and a new species was established.
What gross disloyalty to the destiny of man to let him drift when he was
doing so much for his humble servitors in the animal world! A generation
or two of discussion awakened our ancestors to the folly of their
inaction. The cry of reform arose, and the feelings of the whole nation
were aroused by the enthusiasts for progress in human breeding.
Hereditary disease and the tortures it inflicted on the innocent were
used to wing their arrows of eloquence. At last there grew up in the
community an instinct as peremptory as conscience, condemning the
marriage of men and women who had transmissible diseases. Public opinion
passed into a moral sense in one or two generations, and, before a
century had gone, all the diseases that tended to pass from parent to
child had disappeared from every class but the poorest.

“Then did it begin to dawn upon the consciousness of our ancestry that
the worst of all diseases had, though mitigated in virulence, been still
left to fester in the human system. What was the use of curing the body,
if the spirit were left to gather to it and transmit foul thought and
emotion? The educated and responsible classes came to feel that the true
problem was yet unsolved; nay, that, though they had purified their
systems of hereditary diseases, the poor and neglected and improvident
still nursed them and propagated them in the meaner suburbs of the town
and in the poverty-stricken districts and villages of the country.
Reformers applied their enthusiasm to educating the proletariat, and it
seemed at first as if Limanora were about to be transformed. The annual
bill of criminality was reduced, and many of the artisans and labourers
learned the lesson of providence, and rose into the class of the
well-to-do. Most of these soon admitted the physiological truths of
heredity into their system as part of their conscience, and if they had
disease of the lungs or heart or brain or nerve, they kept from marriage
and generation, lest it should be transmitted.

“But there still remained the foul social fringe of the community,
dabbled in the mire of improvidence, pauperism, hereditary disease, and
criminality, and this was the part of the population that increased most
rapidly still. It was an eating cancer in the body of the state. Its
members refused education for themselves and their children, or, if they
took it, used it as a new and refined weapon against their
self-restraining, law-abiding neighbours, or against the commonweal as a
whole. The true source of all the infection of the state was still
uncleansed. The medical rulers who had managed affairs so well for
several generations were unable to come at this incurable plague-spot.
What was to be done? The most drastic remedies were proposed, and had
their various advocates. The exterminators were never anything but a
small party, because of the general sense of humanity in the people. The
mutilators became more influential, especially amongst the party that
attached themselves to the doctors; but they never approached the really
practical sphere of politics. Both continued mere parties of theorists,
ridiculed and sometimes abhorred and execrated.

“At last there came a great religious reformer who spent his whole
energies on the pauper and criminal skirts of society. He took up the
altruistic motive and element in human nature, and set it in complete
antagonism to the egoistic and individualistic. He connected it with the
idea of God, and taught it as the utterance of the Deity. At first he
implied that the utterance was given through all nature, but, forced on
by his more superstitious followers, he had finally to announce himself
as the special mouthpiece of this divine doctrine. The whole country was
soon in a blaze, and great was the fervour of the proletariat. Their
millennium seemed to have come. They marched about in great bands
celebrating his praises. Many of them had their dormant powers stirred
to eloquence. Even the ruling classes looked with favour on the
movement, and some of the well-to-do joined in it.

“Then came the inevitable demand for practical doctrine that arises in
the career of every successful prophet. What was he going to do for the
poor and oppressed? What was to be the permanent solution of the
problems of pauperism and criminality? The state, it was true, allowed a
pittance to all who were completely stranded and appealed to its
officers; but there was the brand of disgrace on the dole; every man or
woman who took it slunk away from the sight of others. How was the world
to be regenerated, if the horror of charitable mechanism was not to be
removed? There could be no millennium without stern facing of this
problem.

“He took the plunge. He declared for equal division of the wealth of the
country. His mission soon became a crusade against, not merely the
wealthy, but the well-to-do. All goods were to be held in common. No
more was there to be inequality of position or possession. Property was
a sin, to be prosperous and provident a crime, the crime of theft from
the poor. The only possessions they should allow to be treasured up were
the spiritual wealth in the garner of God. Beyond death there lay the
only property that was worth having, happiness and serenity in the
divine dwelling-place. No man should be allowed to appropriate or lay up
other treasure. God would look after His own here; and none should want.
It was the rankest folly, if not blasphemy, to save or hoard worldly
treasure against the needs of the future.

“One or two of the prosperous amongst his followers came and laid their
money at his feet; but most turned away from him, when they heard him
shatter at a word all they had toiled for night and day during their
weary lifetime. He denounced them as faithless and worldlings, unworthy
to have followed in his footsteps.

“The governing classes took alarm and watched his movements with every
precaution against outbreak; but the _posse_ of converted highwaymen and
brigands guarded him; and it was said that not a few secret murderers
were in the band. They feared that he might be assassinated, and that
his followers might then be left to the tender mercies of the law. He
elevated their lives for the time by the religious fervour he infused
into them. Whosoever saw them spoke of them as new men. It is true that
he had adopted their own practical creed, antagonism to property, and
had thus attached them to him by bonds of community; but he sublimated
it, and, as long as the throb and transport lasted, raised them to
something that seemed his own religious platform.

“There were symptoms of dissension in some, when they came to see that
the world was not transfigured, whilst others, who had low, vulpine
natures to begin with, sneaked round his camp to see where they could
betray to their own profit. These latter, the rich hypocrites and
machiavellis hired as assassins. The fall of their saviour under the
blow of a midnight dagger at first paralysed the new enthusiasts; but
soon there came the full revenge of all martyrdoms. The doctrine that
had to be met by the knife of the assassin was surely strong. Many of
the ardent youth of the governing classes looked into it and found it
noble. They and some who had been secret followers of the popular leader
openly espoused his faith, and put themselves at the head of the
bewildered proletariat.

“The nation was suddenly involved in civil war. It was clear that the
one side had nothing and the other everything to lose. If the new
socialists won, then the rich and the governors would be reduced to the
ranks; all they had gained through long generations would have to be
surrendered for division. It was worth a struggle. Indeed, it must be a
struggle for very life. Their worldly cunning came to their aid. Most of
them were above the mean resources of treachery, were noble in every
sense of the word, and refused to listen to anything but open combat.
But the foxy diplomats suborned one of the youthful leaders and made him
their agent in the camp of the enthusiasts; they sent their hirelings in
to join the enemy. There was in the first battle a bold front offered by
the socialists; but the traitors deliberately gave way and fled, and
soon the raw half-disciplined artisans and labourers were in rout. The
converted thieves returned to their plunder, and the poverty-stricken to
their misery.

“Then a strange thing happened. To turn the flank of the new religion
the gilded classes adopted it, and began to worship the martyr as
divine. The more sincere of his followers were satisfied with the
change, and settled down to their old life of discontent or content. The
world took shelter under the beliefs of this hater of the world. His
creed was emasculated of its socialism and altruism in deed, but was
accepted in word. It became the symbol of all that was gorgeous and
tyrannical. Magnificent temples rose for its worship; and in them
haughty priests officiated. He who had been the apostle and prophet of
the poor became the god of the rich and powerful. The new religion had
left the nation not much better than it had been.

“One good thing, however, came from it by accident. It was long
discussed what was to be done with the enemies of property, theoretical
and practical, the socialists and the thieves. A solution was furnished
by one of the most machiavellian of the diplomats; it was to give them
as much as would be their share were the wealth of the state divided,
and to deport them to one of the largest and most fertile islands of the
archipelago, Tirralaria. It was hailed as the salvation of the state.
Many ships, therefore, were prepared, and the enthusiastic believers in
socialism and the thieves were put on board, and safely disembarked in
their new domain, with the threat that, if any of them attempted to land
again in Limanora, they would be at once put to death. Two attempts were
made to return; but they were beaten off. The expeditions in each case
consisted of the better class of socialists, who felt the grinding
tyranny of socialism, in which the bad are put on the same footing as
the honest and conscientious. They were each too small to force a
landing on any other island; nor would their fellow-islanders allow them
to come back to Tirralaria. They could not live always in fallas; and
they vanished from the archipelago. It is the current tradition, whence
it comes I know not, that they burst through the circle of fog into the
outer ocean, and sailing eastwards got footing on the western shores of
America; but it is so many centuries ago when either secession occurred
that the story is as dim as a dream of our infancy.

“The experiment was successful for Limanora, and supplied the new
political formula of all reform. The state was well rid of knaves
without doing them any wrong. Some of the worst blood of the community
had been drawn, and yet the system had not been weakened to any great
extent. The worst of the criminal and improvident part of the population
had been expelled; and it seemed to optimists as if the Limanoran
millennium were about to appear. Alas for human hopes! Though the
virtuous section of the people had had their hands greatly strengthened,
there were still the more gilded forms of vice to cope with. Ambition
and love of war, sensuality and falsehood, were rooted in the hearts of
the nation that had seemed to be purified. In order to gain their ends
the ambitious were ever appealing to force and stirring up civil war,
till at last it became unbearable by the peace-loving majority, who put
into office sympathisers with their view of life and demanded
expurgation of the loathed pugnacity. All who were warlike or ambitious
in their nature or who had come of warlike or ambitious ancestry were
deported to Broolyi; and you have seen the result of their civilisation.

“The hypocrites and the sensual were as eager as any to see the appeal
to force finally extruded. They thought they would have it their own way
when the swaggering, hectoring, military men were gone; but the
licentious soon found themselves isolated. Their sins more readily found
them out. Their outrages on what was honest in domestic life roused more
sweeping and clamorous condemnation. The soldiers and bullies had had in
their natures a side that was close to their own vice, and indulged in
the amorous passion to licence, when their combativeness or ambition did
not occupy the stage of their minds. They had had a sympathy for the
lechers, and often protected them when public opinion had risen against
them, knowing that they themselves at times stood in need of similar
protection; and, though the lechers felt more kin to the hypocrites in
their often demure or sly and crawling temptation of women, they found
these anything but allies. In fact the machiavellis joined the hue and
cry against them, and had them all carefully picked out of the community
and deported with their share of the wealth of the state to Figlefia.

“The net was drawing round the hypocrites and liars, though they thought
they were making themselves supreme in the nation. The honest and loyal
and true element had grown predominant; and before a century had passed,
the false had followed after the lechers; they were exiled with their
belongings to Aleofane. Unlike the socialists and thieves, these last
three sets of exiles made no attempts to return, or to enter into
alliance against their old island. They found too great scope for their
respective vices in their new countries to desire to leave them. They
have prospered according to their own lights, and delude themselves into
the belief that they have ideals far beyond those of their original
land; Broolyi, as we have seen, sets up peace as its motive and
religion, Figlefia matrimony and domestic life, and Aleofane truth. They
each carried away with them so large a share of the wealth of Limanora
that they long believed her too poor to be worth robbing. So they let
her alone. Individuals for a time made efforts to land; but they were
taught a severe lesson; and, since the invention of the storm-cone, all
such attempts have been abandoned, and the central island is usually
spoken of as the Land of Devils. Each of these now ancient nations
adopted the principle that had led to their independence, and deport
alien elements to other and smaller islands of the archipelago. One
large group they call their lunatic asylum; thither they send everyone
who is so fanatical in his enthusiasm for an idea or social theory, so
extreme in his development of any alien vice or virtue as to be a danger
to the state or to the peace of the community. Each island is given up
to one type of monomaniacs; and it is an agreement on the part of the
three great commonwealths to adhere to the classification of crazes. It
is thus that they have been able to remain stable and united. The
deportation policy has been their salvation, for it is the quixotic
enthusiasts and crotchety extremists that constitute the greatest danger
to the solidarity of a state; but in spite of their great advantages and
the adoption of this method of state expurgation, they have not advanced
in these thousands of years, during which they have occupied their
islands.

“In after ages it was a matter of regret to the advancing Limanorans
that they had not monasticised the exiles. It was useless, they knew, to
adopt what you are thinking of, a missionary system. No propaganda,
however successful, ever did more than send the old beliefs and habits
below the surface to reappear in the new generations. Conversion through
the intellect or the feelings is only skin deep. By no known process can
the century-long growth of civilisation or virtue be abbreviated into a
few days or months or years. Selection in breeding and complete change
in environment are the only true missionaries, and with many races even
these are powerless, so deep has the virus of moral retrogression sunk
into their natures. The best propagandist for them would be complete
monasticism. The men of my day felt deep sorrow for the world that their
ancestors had not sent the sexes of the deported to different islands,
and guarded against the mutual approach by keeping three or four navies
in the seas between, till the socialists, the warlike, the sensual, and
the false had died out. It would have meant the greatest vigilance and
the devotion of a large section of the people to naval pursuits for
almost a century; but it would also have meant the disappearance of this
obstacle to the progress of the world, this element of danger in the
archipelago. The evil was irremediable by my time, for any attempt to
remove it would mean conquest and bloodshed. And it had become not
merely a maxim of state but an instinct born in every Limanoran that
conquest and bloodshed are more than futile, are ruinous, that they
destroy the higher nature of the conqueror or destroyer. To enter on
such a course as would lead to the extermination of these vicious
communities would be to sow again in our own the seeds of still greater
evils. Nothing but the silent obliterative process of nature could
justify itself to my countrymen.

“There was another reason that will perhaps seem to you more practical.
It was that they had by no means finished their process of expurgation.
No longer had great bodies to be deported. But from age to age an
individual nature even in the most carefully bred and trained showed
atavistic vice or weakness; and, when every means had failed to cure it,
the individual had to be exiled; and one of these islands was his
natural home, to which it would be no inhumanity to carry him; for there
would he find choice spirits and natures akin to his own.

“This was my case. I had an ancestry that had in long ages gone by shown
warlike proclivities, but in so subordinate and unobtrusive a way that
they had not been banished. In the intervening generations their
pugnacity had by means of selection and environment wholly disappeared;
but, by some accident of nature or miscalculation on the part of the
Limanoran sages who had chosen my parents and surroundings, the taint,
that had seemed dead, reappeared. In spite of all remedies and care, I
grew more pugnacious, more eager to excite my neighbours to war. I
devoted my talents to the invention of weapons and war material. I made
myself at last so obnoxious that no alternative was left. I was exiled
to Broolyi, and there have I spent the long years since in efforts to
burn the tainted spot from my nature.”

The cloud had fallen upon him again, as he approached this part of his
story. He persevered to the end; but so heavy lay the sorrow over his
past upon him that it was keen anguish to speak further of it. I left
him to his thoughts and went on deck.

I was surprised to find that we were close to the shore, and that on it
stretched out a large and handsome city. I looked up to the great
mountain that overbrowed it, and I seemed to recognise an outline with
which I was familiar; could it be Nookoo? The name brought back my
subterranean agony. The light streamer of mist that floated over its top
showed it to have inner fires. The memory seemed almost dreamlike, and
perhaps the unfamiliarity of some of the details was owing to our being
on the other side of Figlefia, the side I had not seen.

Noola followed me on deck, and I conjectured that a subject like this
might distract his thoughts and dispel his cloud. I called his attention
to the land, and asked him if he knew it. It was Figlefia; but he seemed
to be astonished at something in the scene. His eye was fixed on the
city. I had never seen it before, and noticed nothing unusual in its
appearance; but he saw with his keener and farther power of vision that
no life was stirring in it. Another city of the dead was here. The
dwellers could not be buried in sleep under the flashing scrutiny of
noon. The ship’s glasses could not help him to solve the difficulty; nor
could his recollection of the history of the island; he had never heard
of such devastating plagues in Figlefia as he had witnessed in Broolyi.
It had slavery; but the slaves did not come such a distance, and were
used as sailors and oarsmen in the passage over-sea. It was women that
the lechers had mainly kidnapped, and it was these would have their
revenge; but he had never heard of any efficient retaliation on the part
of their seraglios.

It could not be an ambuscade to seize the _Daydream_? He alone would
venture on shore; he would not hear of my joining him on his first
excursion. When he got to land, I could see him move cautiously about
the streets and then return still alone to the beach. He rowed off, and
invited me to return with him.

It was one of the strangest scenes I had ever witnessed; for I had,
because of my illness and haste of embarkation, seen little of the
plague-stricken streets of the capital of Broolyi. The magnificence of
the buildings and the luxury of the interiors of the houses contrasted
with the loathsomeness of the rotting corpses. In every house lay some
dead, generally in the midst of the most splendid tapestries and the
most luxurious couches and seats; the spraying fountains of scent were
now unable to overcome the stench of the dead hands that had set them
flowing; but Noola observed that it was only in the houses of the lawful
wives that the dead lay, men, women, and children. The seraglios were
empty, except for here and there the stripped corpse of a man. The
beautiful slave-women had all vanished; and there was not one of the
male slaves amongst the dead.

When he had mentioned this to me, in a flash there came upon me the
remembrance of my saviour from the wreck of the falla and my guide into
the subterranean depths of Nookoo. It was, I saw in a moment, the
ingenious missile he had told me of that had accomplished this carnage
of the lecherous tyrants. The microbic globule in the hands of the women
of Swoonarie had swept the Figlefians from the face of the earth. The
infection had spread from each adulterer to his wife and household. How
and whither the slaves had escaped it was impossible to find out. There
was not a sign of life in the whole plague-stricken city. Doubtless his
antiseptic armour and antidote had been found a success. Whether he and
his people would follow up the victory by advancing with his
death-dealing missiles against the other islands of the archipelago
remained to be seen. That their old lethargy would overcome them when
they returned to Swoonarie was the more probable result. They would be
satisfied to have completed the revenge for the wrongs of ages, and to
have freed their women who had been kidnapped, and the narcotic
atmosphere of their native island would make them rest and postpone the
dream of universal conquest. It was unlikely that they would occupy the
island of Figlefia or the caverns of Nookoo, that had been their
salvation by giving them energy; for there were too many agonised
memories to lead them to rest there. Their own lotos-eating isle would
draw the slave exiles back irresistibly, and hold them within it for
ever as with bonds of iron.

Noola would not let me remain to speculate over the tragedy that had
taken place or the romance of conquest that might follow it. There was
danger for us in the pestilential atmosphere of the luxurious city. He
hurried me back to the beach; but in passing one of the ramparts he saw
some of the catapults that he had made for the Broolyians, capable of
throwing enormous weights to great distances. He had intended to return
to the Isle of Peace for two of them, as soon as he had allowed
sufficient time for the slaves to reach incapacity by intoxication and
sanguinary quarrels. This discovery obviated the expedition. He took two
of the huge machines to pieces, and sent the sailors to carry them
piecemeal to the boats. He had looked at our cannon and seen that they
would be dangerous instruments for carrying out our experiment; he had
got me to fire one of them, and decided that, though they had the power
to carry the distance he desired, they had not large enough bore to
admit of our enclosures, and to attach our cases to their balls might
lead to failure of aim, or perhaps fatal injury to the two passengers in
the missiles. When he had the catapults on board, he put them together;
then he made two cases, filled them with material equal to the weight of
a man, and shot them towards the shallower surf on the beach. They
plunged into the waters and emerged in the ripple along the shore. He
had them brought back, and found them intact. He went into one himself,
and fastened its door securely within so that no water could enter. Then
he instructed us to fire the man-missile in the same direction as the
previous shots. The result was the same, and we saw him open the lid and
walk out on the beach. Similar experiments with myself and with both of
us convinced him at last that everything was safe, and that he could
trust to the sailors to manage the affair with success.

We set out again in bright sunshine, and left behind us the deserted
city of the plague. The next day the sun suddenly clouded, and looking
up we saw that the cloud was rapidly moving over us and that it
consisted of birds. We could distinguish the flash of the individual
wings as they flickered in the sunbeams that broke through the ranks of
the great army. We could hear far off the harsh or musical cries of the
scouts and leaders, or the answering murmur of the embattled masses. At
times we could see battalions form and reform in their flight, the van
open its ranks and stretch out in long advancing line, and the rear ease
their pace in order to cover the laggards. It was a marvellous sight,
and the longer we listened the more distinctly could we hear the clang
and whizz and creak of the myriads of wings. It was the annual migration
northwards of the antarctic birds along the line of the submerged
continent; so Noola explained. A large contingent for long ages had been
inclined to settle each year on Limanora; but the storm-cone blew them
onwards till they rejoined the main body. It was the storm-cone that was
directing their flight now. He showed us how agitated were the rear
battalions, how uncertain the beat of their wings, how irregular and
shifting their formation. There we could see the strength of the blast
bear stragglers out of their course, as they jerked their wings and
uttered harsh cries; the spasmodic flash of the sunshine upon them was
enough to show that they were bearing the brunt of some propelling
storm. It took hours to clear the sky of this agitated cloud; but we set
our course by its streaming flight, knowing that whence they were blown
was our destination.

My heart bounded as I saw the face of our guide after instructing the
man at the helm. It was set with strong resolution, and the eye blazed
with the prayerful inspiration of a saint fixed upon his deity. He gazed
into the shimmering light ahead with an intensity that seemed to imply
some object dimly descried. We could see nothing, nor could we disturb
him with question. We had surrendered the whole guidance of the ship to
his discretion. On the morning after, we saw what had magnetised his
gaze; the gleaming peak of Lilaroma with its streamer of cloud upon the
distant rim of sky. He knew every inch of the shore; for, when it came
clearly into sight, he turned the ship’s head directly east, leaving the
fleckless white of the mountain on our starboard. We seemed indeed to be
steaming away from Limanora; but he knew his own purpose, and we let him
alone. Night fell, and then we veered round to the south, and faced the
still gleaming point of purity upon the horizon. Up and up it rose into
the sky as we sped on; and yet the storm had not yet burst upon us. He
evidently knew the side of the island that was least open to attack and
therefore least watched. In the dim underlight of the dark moonless
night we could discern cliffs rise and snowless levels stretch dim and
mysterious. Still no sign of the storm-cone, though we could see the
line of its passage black round the snowy shoulders of the giant peak.
On we forged as swiftly as steam could make the _Daydream_ fly. Noola
paced anxiously from bow to stern, from the look-out man to the wheel,
never relaxing his gaze into the darkness. It was a race with the
quickest thoughts upon the earth. It seemed as if we were about to
impinge upon merciless crags, we seemed so near. Still we held on with
unabated speed. We were almost under the lee of the threatening cliffs;
and I thought that in a few minutes we should shut out the sight of the
cone-path round the mountain. With the suddenness of a thunderbolt the
tornado struck us. It made the ship stagger; but everything was in
readiness, every rope and sail tied up, every surface that would impede
our progress stowed below or turned so that it should not meet the force
of the wind. We seemed to stand still; I thought that we were even
receding; but she was cutting into the storm, for the cliff in front of
us broke part of the force of it. Still the cone roared; still the yacht
made a few paces, we could see as we threw anything overboard. He knew
the conditions of the problem; he knew that the people were certain to
be long occupied with directing the flight of birds away from the
island; and he knew the section of the coast that rose highest and would
give us smooth water, blow the cone its fiercest. We took some hours to
get inside the ring of broken water; and it was still dark. He then
turned her head to the north, and soon we saw a shelving beach open out
beyond the cliff. He had the catapults ready. We were still protected by
the crags; but in a few minutes we would be out in the open, subject to
the full fury of the cone-storm. He gave direction to Burns to turn her
head inshore full speed as soon as we had run out of the shelter, and
shoot off the man-missiles. We entered our cases and fastened the lids
securely. I felt myself moved and laid in a groove that held the missile
firm. I heard the word of command from Burns; and that was almost the
last thing I was conscious of from the old world of my boyhood and
youth. My heart leapt into my mouth as I felt the concussion in starting
through the air. I seemed to be dashed with great force against
something that was cushiony, and at that moment my sense of the outer
world and of myself lapsed.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

POSTSCRIPT TO RIALLARO

Our narrator vanished as abruptly as his story broke off here. Just when
our curiosity had been whetted to its keenest we were left with the
broken thread. We had noticed him hanging back from the account of his
intercourse with Noola. His tissues had grown less transparent as he had
proceeded with his description of the various islands. He had become
accustomed to our food, and seemed to approach nearer to our common
humanity. We came to take greater liberties with him, and even urged him
to proceed with his narrative. We had become so interested in it that we
would willingly have abandoned our pursuit of gold for days, if only he
could have been induced to continue by daylight. The glimmer of our lamp
or the dancing glow of our fire threw his face into shadow, and seemed
to give him confidence; and even when storm and rain drove him in from
the bush he resisted our persuasions as long as daylight lingered. He
would lie so still that we were often afraid that he had died or fallen
into a trance.

As he came to his story of Noola’s exile, this reluctance increased even
when the flickering shadows of the lamp or fire sheltered him. Our rough
methods of trying to bring him to book only made him shrink farther into
himself, and had it not been for the prolonged and stormy spring I fear
that we should never have reached the natural close of his story, his
exit from Riallaro. With his last word came bright sunshine and clear
weather; and he disappeared as abruptly as he had come.

GODFREY SWEVEN.

[Illustration]

------------------------------------------------------------------------

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------------------------------------------------------------------------

● Transcriber’s Notes:
○ Missing or obscured punctuation was silently corrected.
○ Typographical errors were silently corrected.
○ Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation were made consistent only
when a predominant form was found in this book.
○ Text that:
was in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_);
was in bold by is enclosed by “equal” signs (=bold=)
had extra character spacing by “plus” signs (+stretched+).
○ The use of a caret (^) before a letter, or letters, shows that the
following letter or letters was intended to be a superscript, as
in S^t Bartholomew or 10^{th} Century.

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