“It is quite ridiculous, besides being untrue,” said Phyllis, when she had read the article in the newspaper to which her father called her attention one morning, a week after the criticism on “Cagliostro” had appeared. The article was headed:
“DYNAMITE VERSUS EVANGELIZATION,”
and it came out in a weekly paper devoted to the interests of Nonconformists.
“It is with the deepest regret that we have to call the attention of our readers and the public [the article ran] to the series of charges brought by the Revs. Joseph Capper and Evans Jones, the eminent pioneers of the Nonconformist Eastern Mission, against a gentleman to whom a considerable amount of honor is just now being given by the Royal Geographical Society, the Ethnological Institute, the Ornithological Association, and other secular organizations, on account of his exploration in the Island of New Guinea. It is scarcely necessary to say that we allude to Mr. Herbert Courtland. The position which has been occupied for several years by the two distinguished ministers whose self sacrifice in endeavoring to spread the Light through the dark places of the tropical forests of a savage land is well known to the subscribers to the N. E. M., precludes the possibility of a mistake being made in this matter, and yet they declare in a letter which we publish this morning that the manner in which Mr. Courtland pursued his so-called explorations in the forests which line the banks of the Fly River has practically made impossible all attempts at mission work in that region. In several directions it is not denied that Mr. Courtland entered into friendly relations with some native tribes; but instead of endeavoring to make the poor benighted creatures acquainted with the Truth, he actually purchased as slaves over a hundred of them to aid him in penetrating the Kallolu forest, where, it will be remembered, he succeeded in shooting the much illustrated meteor-bird, as well as several other specimens which will delight the members of the Ornithological Association rather than professing Christians. Our distinguished correspondents state, and we have no room to doubt their word, that Mr. Courtland purchased his slaves by a promise to assist the head man of their tribe against his enemies belonging to another tribe—a promise which he only too amply fulfilled, the result being an indiscriminate slaughter of savages who, though avowed cannibals, might eventually have embraced the truths of Nonconformity. The elephant rifles of the explorer did their deadly work only too efficiently; but we trust that, for his own sake, Mr. Courtland will be able to bring forward trustworthy evidence to rebut the suspicion of his having upon at least one occasion induced even the friendly natives to believe that he possessed the power of the Deity to perform miracles, and upon another occasion of having used dynamite against them by which hundreds were destroyed in cold blood. It is the evil influences of such irresponsible men as Mr. Courtland, whose ill-directed enterprise we cannot in justice to him refrain from acknowledging, that retard the efforts of those noble pioneers of Nonconformity who have already made such sacrifices for the cause, and who rejoice at the difficulties with which they find themselves beset. We understand that a question will be put to the Minister for the Annexation Department in the House of Commons toward the latter end of the week, on the subject of the alleged excesses of the most recent explorer (so-called) of New Guinea—excesses which if committed in Bulgaria or Armenia, or even Ireland, would have called for an expression of the horror of Christian Europe; and we may mention that subscriptions on behalf of the Revs. Joseph Capper and Evans Jones will be received at the office of this paper to enable them to substantiate the truth of their statements.”
“It is quite ridiculous, besides being untrue, papa,” cried Phyllis; “and I hope that you will not fail to take his part and show the falsehood of such accusations. Could anything be more absurd than that about the slaves? Slaves! Dynamite!”
“Leading up to subscriptions—don’t forget that,” said her father. “If subscriptions are to be forthcoming, they must be got up. Traffic in human flesh, insults to aborigines, Siberia, the conversion of the Jews—all these appeal directly to the pockets of the Great English People. Any one of them will constitute an excellent peg on which to hang an appeal to the pocket. Those two distinguished pioneers of—well, shall we say civilization or Nonconformity?—understand their business, my dear.”
“It is no part of their business to try and hold a brave man up to the execration of everyone.”
“I’m not so sure of that. The technicalities of the mission field are not so apparent all at once. The Vineyard—well, the system of vine-culture of some of the organizations is a trifle obscure.”
Phyllis became impatient.
“The House of Commons—a question is to be asked in the House. Then you must ask another, papa, showing the nonsense of the first.”
“Heavens above! Why should I be dragged into the quarrel, if it is a quarrel, of Herbert Courtland on the one hand and the Reverends Joseph Capper and what’s the other, Smith—no, Jones—Evans Jones? I shouldn’t wonder if he is of Welsh extraction.”
“You will surely not stand passively by and hear a brave man slandered. That would be unlike you, papa. No; you are bound to protest against the falsehood.”
“Am I indeed? Why? Because the slandered man, if he is slandered, is the friend of my daughter’s friend?”
“Exactly—that’s quite sufficient for you to go upon—that and the falsehood.”
“If it is a falsehood.”
“If—oh, papa—if?”
“If I have your personal guarantee that the statements are unsubstantiated——”
“Now, you are beginning to jest. I cannot jest on so serious an issue. Think of it—slaves—dynamite!”
“Both excellent words for missionaries to send home to England—almost equal to opium and idols from the standpoint of the mission-box.”
Phyllis was solemn for a moment; then she burst into a merry laugh that only wanted a note of merriment to be delightful. Her father did not miss that note. He was thinking of another phrase.
“Now, why shouldn’t you say that or something like that, my father?” cried the girl. “Something to set the House laughing before the Minister of the Annexation Department has had time to reply? You can do it, you know.”
“I believe I could,” said Mr. Ayrton thoughtfully. “But why, my child; why?”
“Why! Why! Oh, if one only said good things when there was a reason for saying them, how dull we should all be! Any stick for a dog—any jest is good enough for the House of Commons.”
“Yes; but suppose it is inferred that I am not on the side of the missionaries? What about Hazelborough?”
Hazelborough was the constituency which Mr. Ayrton represented in the House of Commons.
“My dear father, where would you be if you couldn’t steer through the Hazelborough prejudices now and again? You can always say something so good as to make people not care which way it cuts.”
“What? Oh, Phyllis! I am ashamed of you. Besides, the people of Hazelborough have got to be extremely sensitive. They have caught the Nonconformist Conscience. The bacillus of the Nonconformist Conscience was rampant a short time ago, and it has not yet been stamped out. I’m afraid that I must have principle on my side—some show of principle, at any rate—not so wide as a church door or so deep as a well, but still——”
“And you will, too, papa. I’ll see Ella and get her to find out from Mr. Courtland what is the truth.”
“Well, perhaps it mightn’t be wise to rush into extremes all at once! I wouldn’t insist on the truth, if I were you. What’s the House of Commons that it should be cockered up with the truth? All that is needed is enough to go on with. An electro-plating of veracity is in keeping with the economic tendencies of the age.”
“I am not afraid of the truth,” cried Phyllis, without giving the cynicism of her father the tribute of a smile. “Mr. Courtland would, I know, be incapable of doing anything unworthy of—of——”
“Let us say an explorer,” suggested her father. He knew that the word which was in her mind wasEnglishman. She only checked herself when her imagination caused her to perceive the average silk-hatted man with his tongue in his cheek at the utterance of the phrase. “Let us say ‘unworthy of an explorer,’” repeated her father; “that is an elastic phrase.”
Phyllis was irritated.
“I have talked with him,” she said a trifle coldly.
“Yes,” said her father, “once.”
“I should have said that I know Ella.”
“And yet Ella is a woman!”
“Oh, the charges are too ridiculous! Slaves! What nonsense! We all know what slavery is. Well, where are his slaves now? If he only hired the natives for a month or two they were only servants, not slaves. The thing is manifestly ridiculous.”
“Then why should we trouble ourselves with the attempt to rebut it?”
“Because so many people are idiots nowadays,” cried Phyllis warmly. “Because, no matter how ridiculous a charge which is brought against a distinguished person may be, some people will be found ready to believe in its truth. Never mind; I’ll find out the truth; I’ll go to Ella.”
“The fountain-head indeed,” said Mr. Ayrton. “When in search of the truth, go to a woman.”
“I will, at any rate,” said Phyllis.
And she went thither.
Phyllis, of course, knew when to go to Ella with the certainty of finding her at home. At the luncheon hour Mrs. Linton was always visible to the three friends whom she had within the confines of Mayfair. She considered herself blessed among women in the numerical strength of her friendships; and so perhaps she was; she had three.
She was in one of her drawing rooms—the one that was decorated with water colors set in fluted panels of yellow silk—not the one with the pink blinds so beloved by those of her visitors who had reached an age to regard a pink light as a woman’s best friend. She was wearing a new gown which Phyllis, in spite of her enthusiasm on behalf of a brave man maligned, found admirable both as regards fabric, fit, and fashion.
Then followed a word or two of commendation of the artists who had been concerned in its production. They had not been absurd about the sleeves, and they had not vetoed the sweep of lace—it was about half a yard wide—which the person who occupied so insignificant a position as is usually allocated to the mere wearer of the gown had suggested for the bodice. The gown was an unequivocal success, and had Ella seen the disgraceful article which had appeared in theSpiritual Aneroidon the subject of Mr. Courtland’s explorations?
Ella smiled a slow smile, as the question joined the congratulation without the lapse of a breath.
“TheSpiritual Aneroid? Who is theSpiritual Aneroid? What is theSpiritual Aneroid?” she asked. “Oh, a newspaper. What could a newspaper with such a funny name have to say about Mr. Courtland?”
“I have brought it with me,” said Phyllis. “It is quite disgraceful. I’m sure you’ll agree with me.”
“I’m certain of it.”
Ella accepted the proffered paper and glanced down the article pointed out to her by Phyllis. Phyllis’ eyes were gleaming as she placed her finger on the words, “DynamiteversusEvangelization,” but Ella’s eyes did not gleam while she was reading all the words printed beneath the heading. She folded the paper and glanced carelessly at the name at the top of the outside page and said, “Well?”
“Was there ever anything so disgraceful?” cried the girl. “Was there every anything so false?”
“Is it false?” asked Ella.
“How can you doubt it? Do you fancy that Mr. Courtland would be a slave-dealer?”
“I wonder how he’d look in the broad flat hat which appears in all the pictures of the slave-dealers? Rather well, I fancy,” said Mrs. Linton.
“Oh, how can you talk of his looking well or ill when you read such an attack upon him?” said Phyllis, jumping up with a charmingly rosy face. “Surely it is something to you when so distinguished a man—your friend as well—is attacked!”
“If we were traveling with him across the desert in a caravan, should we mind much if the whole caravan were attacked by Bedouins or missionaries or people of that stamp, my dear? Of course we shouldn’t. We should feel that he would be equal to the defense of all of us, and himself as well.”
“Oh, of course; but this is quite another thing, isn’t it?”
“Where is the difference? If anybody minds the nonsense printed in that thing, Herbert Courtland will certainly be able to defend himself when called on to do so.”
Phyllis seated herself once again.
“But a question is to be asked in Parliament about him?” she suggested.
“And can you, the daughter of a member of that Parliament, honestly tell me that you fancy that any human being minds how many questions are asked about him in the Questionable House?”
“But the least breath of suspicion—dynamite—slave-dealing—massacres—Armenia. Oh, the article is certain to be copied into dozens of other papers—the public do so like to get hold of some scandal against a man who has done something great.”
“They do indeed. Would you suggest organizing a committee of ladies for the protection of Mr. Courtland?”
“Don’t talk nonsense, Ella. I though that you were his friend, and that you would be as indignant as I was at that disgraceful attack upon his reputation.”
“I don’t think that it will place his reputation in jeopardy, unless with the readers of that paper, and they are not worth taking into account, are they?”
“Papa says the thing has a large circulation among a certain class. I want him to ridicule the question which is threatened in that article; he knows how to do that kind of thing very well.”
“Is it come to that, my Phyllis? Were you really so greatly interested in the one conversation you had with him as to constitute yourself his champion?”
Above all things Phyllis was truthful. She had never had an experience of love—that passion which can change the most truthful of womankind into the least scrupulous. There was no pause between Ella’s question and Phyllis’ answer.
“Certainly the one conversation that I had with him interested me—I told you so returning in the carriage. Has he never succeeded in interesting you, Ella? He told me that you were his friend—I believe he said his dearest friend.”
“And I believe that he told you the truth,” said Ella. “But, being his best friend and a woman, I refrain from constituting myself his champion. You see we live in Philistia, my Phyllis, and the champions that Philistia sends forth usually come to grief; there was the case of one Goliath of Gath, for example. I have no desire to have stones slung at me by the chosen people.”
“I’m not quite sure that I understand you,” said Phyllis, with a very pretty pucker on her forehead. “You don’t mean to say that a woman should not do her best for a man whom she knows to be maligned? You don’t suggest that she should stand silently to one side while people are saying what’s false about him?”
“I say that it’s unwise in Philistia; though I admit that it is of the greatest advantage to the man, for people at once cease maligning him and take to maligning her.”
“If she is any sort of a woman she will not mind that, however unjust it may be. In this case, however, I don’t think there is much risk: even the most unscrupulous person could hardly say that—that——”
“That we were becoming Herbert Courtland’s champions, because we were in love with him?”
“Well, I don’t know. Wasn’t that what you meant to suggest people would say of a woman who became a man’s champion?”
“Something in that way. How straightforwardly you speak out what’s on your mind!”
“Oh, I’m a girl of to-day. I have got over all those absurd affectations of childishness which used to be thought feminine long ago. The gambols of the kitten were once thought the most attractive thing on earth, and they are very interesting: but for the full-grown cat to pretend that it is perfectly happy with a ball of worsted, when all the time it has its heart set on a real mouse, is nonsense.”
“That is an allegory, a subtle parable, Phyllis. But I fancy I can interpret it. You are quite right. Men know that we, the full-grown cats, take no interest in the ravelings of wool as mediums of diversion—that we have our hearts set on mice. Oh, yes! it is much better to be straightforward in our speech—it is even sometimes better to be quite straight in our ways as well. It usually prevents misunderstanding. There is scarcely a subject that women may not talk about to men in the most direct way, nowadays. But about the question of championship——”
Here the door of the room was thrown open and Mr. Herbert Courtland was announced.
“I quite forgot to mention that Mr. Courtland was lunching with us to-day, Phyllis,” said Ella, while shaking hands with her visitor. “Now you will have a chance of getting the slave-dealer’s account of the whole business. Are you a slave-dealer, Bertie? If so, why don’t you wear the usual broad-leaved hat of your order?”
“It is I who am the enslaved one,” said Mr. Courtland, laying his hand to the left of the buttons of his white waistcoat and bowing the bow of the early years of the century, with a glance at each lady.
“What a pretty reminiscence of the age of artificiality!” said Ella; “and what an apt commentary upon the subject we were talking about, Phyllis! We were discussing the merits of directness in speech and straightness in every way. We were ridiculing the timid maid—all sandals and simper—of forty years ago. Why should men and women have ever taken the trouble to be affected? Let us go in to lunch and eat with the appetites of men and women of the nineties, not with the nibblings of society of the fifties. Come along, Phyllis. Mr. Courtland will tell us all about his dreadful goings on, his slave-dealings, his dynamitings. Have you seen that article in the—what’s the name of the paper, Phyllis?”
“TheSpiritual Aneroid,” said Phyllis.
“I haven’t been so fortunate,” said he.
“Then we shall take the paper into the dining room with us, and place it before you. If you were guilty of the doings that the article details, you would do well to—to—well, to adopt the picturesque costume incidental to ruffianism—the linen jacket of the slave-trader, the mangy fur collar of the dynamity man of war. Have you ever trafficked in human beings, Mr. Courtland?”
“Well, yes,” said he. “I have done a little in that way, I admit.”
“And dynamite—have you ever massacred people with dynamite?” Ella continued.
“Well, when my dynamite exploded, the people who were in the immediate neighborhood were never just the same afterward,” said he.
“Finally, did you allow yourself to be worshiped as God?” she asked.
“Yes, I got them to do that,” he replied. “I have experienced all human sensations, including those of a god in working order.”
“Then I hope you will make a good lunch. We begin with white-bait.”
“I am quite satisfied to begin with white-bait,” said he.
“I did not intend to stay for lunch,” said Phyllis, “but your overpowering will swept me along with it, Ella. But I hope you will let me say that I don’t think you should jest about what is—what some people at any rate think very serious.”
“Phyllis is of Philistia,” said Ella, “and Philistia was always given to ordeal by champions. She thinks the attack made upon you by two missionaries in their newspaper organ quite disgraceful. It doesn’t seem so disgraceful after all.”
“I haven’t seen the attack,” said he. “But I feel it to be very good of Miss Ayrton to think it disgraceful.”
“Of course I thought it disgraceful,” said Phyllis, “and I came to Ella to talk it all over. The article accuses you of atrocities, and said that a question would shortly be put to the Minister of the Annexation Department in the House of Commons. Now, I know that there is nothing my father enjoys more than snubbing those detestable men who endeavor to get up a reputation for philanthropy, and temperance, and bimetallism, and other virtues, by putting questions on the paper; and he could, I think, ask some counter question in this particular case that would ridicule the original busybody.”
“It was very good of you to think so, Miss Ayrton,” said he. “I can’t say that, personally, I mind all the attacks that all the missionaries who earn precarious salaries in South Seas may make upon me; but I must confess that I have a weakness for seeing busybodies put to shame.”
“You may depend upon Mr. Ayrton’s satire,” said Ella. “It never misses the point in the harness. The barb of the dart is, I believe, Mr. Ayrton’s, the feather at the other end is Phyllis’.”
“Only once that happened,” said Phyllis. “Oh, no! papa manufactures his own darts, from feather to tip.”
“But supposing that the charges brought against me are true?” suggested Mr. Courtland.
“Why, then, can’t you see there is all the greater need for ingenuity in your defense?” said Ella.
“It is impossible to think of the charges as true,” said Phyllis stoutly.
“For example?” said he.
“Well, the article said that you had made slaves of some of the natives of New Guinea, purchasing them by a promise to help a native chief against his enemies.”
“There wasn’t much harm in that: I did it,” said he.
“And then it went on to say that you kept your promise,” said Phyllis.
“What! They accused me of keeping my promise?” said he. “Well, I’m afraid I can’t deny that charge either.”
“Did you really slaughter the natives?” cried Phyllis.
The interest which she felt appeared in her eyes.
“I did my best for the savages who had purchased my services,” he replied. “The campaign was not a protracted one. Two days after the outbreak of hostilities brought things to a climax. We fought our decisive battle—the Sedan of King Mubamayo. You see, I had a trustworthy Winchester. I believe that about seventy of the enemy bit the dust.”
“Only seventy? That was unworthy of you, Mr. Courtland,” cried Ella. “Nothing short of thousands counts as a civilized battle. Seventy! Oh, I’m afraid you don’t do yourself justice.”
“Of course a battle is a battle,” said Phyllis stoutly. “If you hadn’t killed them they would have killed you. You were in the right, I’m sure.”
“I’m not so sure of that,” said he, shaking his head. “To tell you the truth, the elements of the crisis of Headman Glowabyola were somewhat involved. The original dispute was difficult for a foreigner to understand—it was, in fact, the Schleswig-Holstein question of Kafalonga.”
“You settled it, anyway,” suggested Ella. “You were the Bismarck of what’s-its-name?”
“I doubled the parts of Bismarck and Von Moltke,” said he.
“And that’s why they worshiped you as their god? I don’t wonder at the heathen in his blindness doing that. Any man who was the same as Bismarck and Von Moltke would certainly shoulder a deity out of his way,” laughed Ella.
“It so happened, however, that my deification was due neither to my recognition as a diplomatist nor as a military strategist,” said the explorer. “No, they wanted something beyond the mere fighting man to worship, and my knowledge of that fact combined with their paeans of victory—to theobbligatoof a solid iron-wood drum beaten with the thigh bones of the conquered—to keep me awake at night. But one morning the headman came upon me when I was about to boil my kettle to make myself a cup of tea. I had a small lamp that burned spirits, and he stood by while I filled it up from the bottle that I carried with me. He took it for granted that the spirit was water, and he was greatly impressed when he saw it flare up as I applied a lighted match to it. He asked me if I possessed the power to set water in a blaze, and I assured him that that was something for which I had long been celebrated; adding that when I had had my breakfast I meant to while away an hour or two by setting fire to the ocean itself. He implored of me to reconsider my decision, and when I had poured a little spirit into the hollow of my hand and lighted it in the presence of his most eminent scientists, they said that they also desired to associate themselves with the headman’s petition. I was, however, inexorable; I walked down to the beach and had just struck a match on the brink of the ocean when the whole tribe prostrated themselves around me, promising to continue worshiping me if I would only stay my hand. Well, what could I do? I weakly yielded and spared the multitudinous sea from being the medium of what would in all likelihood have been the greatest conflagration on record. From that moment, I’m happy to say, they worshiped me as their supreme deity, and I’m bound to say that I behaved as such; I was certainly the most superior class of god they had ever had, and they gave me a testimonial to this effect in case I might ever be looking out for a new situation.”
“That was how you managed to get such a collection of birds, including my meteor-bird,” said Ella. “But Phyllis of Philistia is shocked at the bare recital of such a tale of idolatry. Are you not, Phyllis?”
“I think I am a little shocked,” said Phyllis. She did not say that her first thought just then was that the feather fan was not, after all, the price of blood: it was something much worse. “It was an encouragement of idolatry, was it not, Mr. Courtland?”
“Scarcely,” said he. “On the contrary, it was an honest attempt to lead them from their idols to something higher and better.”
“You are something higher and better,” suggested Ella.
“Quite so; I am a little lower than the angels, but a good deal higher than the awful image which they worshiped before I turned up,” said he. “The whole tribe admitted in the most honorable manner that I was by far the best god they had ever had; they had not an unlucky day so long as they worshiped me, and I retained my Winchester and a full supply of cartridges.”
“The testimony was flattering,” said Ella. “But still Phyllis is shocked.”
“I am,” said Phyllis. “I believe in God. Mr. Courtland believes in a Principle.”
“Anyhow, I led some thousands of savages from idolatry and cannibalism to something higher, and that’s a better record than most gods of my acquaintance can show. Everything must be done gradually to be done permanently. Nothing could be more absurd than themodus operandiof your missionary. Most of them have got rid of their Christianity to make way for their theology. They endeavor to inculcate upon the natives the most subtle points of their theological system, immediately after they have preached against the wickedness of economy in the matter of clothing.”
“A large missionary work might be done among husbands at home,” said Ella. “But what about the dynamite, that is the charge which still hands over you—a charge of dynamite?”
“That was my worst hour,” said Courtland. “I had gone up the Fly River in my steam launch to a point never previously reached by a European. I was fortunate enough to get some specimens that had never been seen before, and I was returning to the coast. My engineer and I were captured when ashore one night getting fuel for our furnace. They took us into the forest a long way, binding our hands with the fiber of one of the creepers, and I had no trouble whatever gathering that it was their intention to make a feast of us—a sort of high tea, it was to be, for they began brewing the herbs which I knew they used only when they were cannibalizing. We were courteously permitted to watch these preparations, for it was rightly assumed that they would be in some degree interesting to us. We were, indeed, greatly interested in all we saw, but much more so when, toward evening, a number of the natives arrived on the scene carrying with them some of the stores which they had found aboard the steam launch. They broke open with a stone hatchet some tins of preserved meat, and seemed to enjoy the contents greatly. The biscuits they didn’t care for much, and the cakes of soap which they began to eat could not honestly be said to be an entire success as comestibles. But while we watched them at thesehors d’oeuvresto the banquet at which we were expected to take a prominent part, a straggler came up with some reserve supplies; I saw them; tins of dynamite—we carried dynamite for blowing up the snags that obstructed the narrower reaches of the river. We watched the thieves crowd around the bearer of the tins, and we saw that the general impression that prevailed in regard to them was that they had come upon some of the most highly concentrated beef they had ever had in their hands. When they laid the tins among the hot ashes of their fires and began to break them open with their stone hatchets, my engineer thought with me that all the interest there would be in the subsequent proceedings could not possibly compensate us for the waste of precious time which would be entailed by our remaining. We bolted in spite of our fettered hands, but before we had got more than a couple of hundred yards from the camp, there took place the severest earthquake, coincidental with a thunderstorm and the salute of a battery of a thousand heavy guns. We were whirled into the air like feathers in a breeze, but managed to cling—our bonds being broken—to some of the boughs among which we found ourselves. Shortly afterward, a quarter of an hour or so, there came on the heaviest shower I had ever experienced. Such a downpour of branches of trees, gnarled roots, broken fruits, birds’ feathers, mutilated apes of many species, and—well, anatomical specimens! It went on and on until the boughs around us were made into splinters and we were beaten to the ground with the force of those missiles, all the dense forest around us echoing to the shrieks of the lories and parrots, the monkeys and the wildcats.”
“And now the missionaries,” said Ella, after a pause.
“And what happened after that?” whispered Phyllis.
He shook his head.
“After that we came away,” he said. “We couldn’t see that there was any need for us to stay loafing about the forest when we had our business to mind in another direction. It took us two days, however, finding our launch.”
“And that is what the missionaries call your dynamite outrage against the natives?” said Ella.
“So it would seem,” said he. “I suppose they managed to get some account of the business; one can’t hush up a dynamite outrage even in the interior of New Guinea.”
“But what a gross misrepresentation of facts it was to say that you had massacred the natives,” cried Phyllis indignantly.
He laughed with a shrug.
“Oh, we must all live,” he said.
“Unless those who treat tins of dynamite as though they were tins of brawn,” said Ella. Then turning to Phyllis she smiled.
Phyllis had no difficulty interpreting the smile.
“Yes,” she said, “your opinion was quite correct: Mr. Courtland doesn’t care what people say, and it doesn’t matter in the least what they do say, or what falsehoods are spread abroad.”
“Not in the smallest degree,” said Ella. “Herbert Courtland is still Herbert Courtland.”
“But so far as I can gather,” said Mr. Courtland, “all that the missionaries said of me was substantially correct.”
“Read the paper and you will see how detestably false all the charges are,” cried Phyllis, rising,—the servants had now left the room,—and picking up theSpiritual Aneroidfrom where Ella had laid it on a chair.
Herbert Courtland had not yet opened it. He took it from her, saying:
“Thank you, Miss Ayrton. But I really don’t see that it concerns me very much whether or not the charges brought against me are true or false. The matter is certainly one for the—the—ah—Spiritual Aneroidand its specialclientele.”
“But a question is to be asked about it in the House of Commons. I said so just now,” cried Phyllis.
“And even the House of Commons doesn’t matter much,” said Ella.
“That is what papa thought,” said Phyllis meekly. “Only I know that if Mr. Courtland thought it worth noticing, papa would be quite pleased to put a counter question. That is why I came here to-day.”
“It was so good of you,” said the man.
“My Phyllis is all that is good. Let us return to the drawing room,” said Ella, rising.
They returned to the drawing room; but when they had been in the apartment for perhaps four minutes, certainly not five, Phyllis said it was necessary for her to hurry home in order that the afternoon letters should be sent to her father at the House.
With another word of appreciation of her kindness, Mr. Courtland held her hand a second longer than was absolutely necessary to maintain a character for civility.
“She is the most charming girl in the world,” remarked Ella to the visitor, who remained when Phyllis had left.
“Is she?” said he.
“I know it. Don’t you?” asked she.
“How do I know?” he said. “I have thought nothing about it. If you say she is charming, I am pleased to hear it. It matters no more to me that the world is full of charming girls than that the kraken is still at the bottom of the sea. One woman fills all my thoughts. My heart is full of her.”
“And you want her to risk the salvation of her soul for you?”
“Yes; that is just what I want.”
He remained with her for another hour.
Mr. Ayrton met his daughter the next morning with the good news that he had found among his specimen cases of phrases, one that would effectually silence the member from Wales who had been nominated by the Nonconformist Eastern Missionary Society to put that question to the minister of the Annexation Department on the subject of Mr. Courtland, the explorer. Mr. Ayrton was the better pleased at his discovery, because of the inoffensive nature of the phrase which he had taken out of its case, so to speak. As a rule, he did not mind being offensive if only his phrase was apt. Only people who had no artistic appreciation found fault with the tone of some of his most notable phrases. He did not mind whether they were just or unjust, they said. As if a man can be both honest and witty at the same time!
It so happened, however, that the party to which Mr. Ayrton belonged had become greatly concerned in respect of an element that had just come to the surface to still further complicate the course of politics. This was the Nonconformist Conscience—hitherto aquantite negligeablein the calculations of the leaders, but now one that it appeared absolutely necessary to take into account as a factor. To be sure, there were a good many people who put their tongues in their cheeks when any mention was made of the Nonconformist Conscience: they said it was no more to be taken seriously than the Spector on the Brocken or the Athanasian Creed. It was only the trick of an electioneering agent desirous of escaping from an untenable position.
There were other persons, however (mostly Nonconformists), who were found ready to declare that the Nonconformist Conscience was a Great and Living Truth. The only point upon which statesmen of all parties were agreed was that it was worth purchasing. The Nonconformists themselves, upon whom the Great and Living Truth was sprung, had no notion at first that it could be turned into a negotiable security occupying as high a place in the market as, say, Argentine bonds. But it did not take them very long to find out that even an abstraction such as this could be turned to good account by discreet maneuvering. Truth sometimes is heard on an election platform, and yet truth is but an abstract quality. Why, then should not a Great and Living Truth become a regular gold mine to its inventor? It was as great an invention as the art of electroplating, which it closely resembled, and a quite as nice thing could be made out of it by a little dexterous manipulation. If the conscience is silver, the Nonconformist Conscience is at least electroplate of a first-class quality, it was argued; and a political manifesto, which was practically a financial prospectus, was issued with a view of floating the Nonconformist Conscience Company, Limited.
English politics cannot by any possibility be regarded as an exact science; and thus it was that all political parties were at this time making bids for shares in the enterprise. The leaders of one party, in fact, expressed themselves ready to buy up the whole concern, and they actually tendered bills payable at twelve months for all the vendors’ interest, and it was only when these bills became due and were returned dishonored that the shadowy character of the transaction was made plain, and the country was convulsed at the disclosure of the fact that the vendors had disposed of a perfectly worthless invention, and that the purchasers had paid for it by promises that were equally worthless.
All this happened later, however; when the fuss was made about the atrocities by an explorer in New Guinea, and Mr. Ayrton was contemplating a counter question that should cast ridicule upon the missionaries and their champion, he was given to understand by the leaders of his party, who, it was believed, had a small parcel of baronetcies done up in official twine, with blank spaces for the name and address in each, awaiting distribution at the first change of Government, that he must take no step that might jeopardize the relations of the party with the vendors of the Nonconformists Conscience. TheSpiritual Aneroidwas the leading Nonconformist organ, and it would not do to sneer at the missionaries whom it supported. It would be better that all the explorers who had ever risked their lives on behalf of civilization should go by the board than that a single vote should be lost to the party, he was assured by the Senior Whip.
This was rather irritating to the artist in phrases; because it stood to reason that the majority of his phrases were calculated to be hurtful to his opponents. He was thus quite elated when he came upon something which would, he felt sure, call comment in the press at the expense of the member from Wales without casting any slight upon Nonconformist Missionary enterprise.
He read out the thing to his daughter, and he was surprised to find that she was not appreciative of its unique charm. This was rather too bad, he felt, considering that it was she who had enlisted his services in this particular matter.
“I don’t think Mr. Courtland wants anybody to take his part in Parliament or out of it,” said she. “And that’s why I think it would be better to let that Mr. Apthomas ask his question without interruption. What can the Minister of Annexation say except that he has no information on the subject, and that if he had he could not interfere, as he had no jurisdiction on the Fly River?”
“That is what he will reply as a matter of course,” said her father. “But that will not prevent the newspapers that are on the side of Wales and the missionaries from saying what they please in the way of comment on the atrocities in New Guinea.”
“Mr. Courtland will not mind whatever they may say,” cried Phyllis.
“That was the view I took of the matter in regard to Mr. Courtland’s attitude when you mentioned it to me at first,” said he. “I didn’t suppose that he was the man to be broken down because some foolish paper attacks him; but you were emphatic in your denunciation of the injustice that would be liable to be done if—”
“Oh, I had only spoken for about half an hour to Mr. Courtland then,” said Phyllis. “I think I know him better now.”
“Yes, you have spoken with him for another half hour; you therefore know him twice as well as you did,” remarked her father. “I wonder if he admitted to you having done all that he was accused of doing.”
He saw in a moment from the little uneasy movement of her eyes that he had made an excellent guess at the general result of the conversation at Mrs. Linton’s little lunch. He had not yet succeeded in obtaining any details from his daughter regarding her visit to Ella. She had merely told him that Ella had kept her to lunch, and that Mr. Courtland had been there also.
“Yes. I do believe that he admitted everything,” he continued, with a laugh as he thought how clever he was. (He had frequent reasons for laughing that laugh.)
“No,” said Phyllis doubtfully; “he did not admit everything.”
“There was some reservation? Perhaps it was melinite that he employed for the massacre of the innocents of New Guinea, not dynamite.”
“No; it was dynamite. But the natives had stolen it from his steam launch and they exploded it themselves.”
Mr. Ayrton lay back in his chair convulsed with laughter.
“And that is the true story of the dynamite massacre?” he cried. “That is how it comes that, in the words of theAneroid, the works of evangelization on Nonconformist principles is likely to be retarded for some time? The missionaries are quite right too. And what about his miracles—they suggested a miracle, didn’t they?”
“Oh, that was some foolishness about setting spirits of wine on fire,” said Phyllis. “The natives thought that it was water, you know.”
Mr. Ayrton laughed more heartily than before.
“That is the crowning infamy,” he cried. “My dear Phyllis, it would be quite impossible to allow so delicious a series of missionary muddles to pass unnoticed. I think I see my way clearly in the matter.”
She knew that he did. She knew that he regarded most incidents in the political world merely as feeders to his phrase-making capacity. She knew that it would be impossible to repress him now in the matter of Courtland and the missionaries; she fully realized the feelings of Frankenstein.
Only the weakest protest did she make against her father’s intended action; and thus when the day came for Mr. Apthomas’ question, that gentleman from Wales inquired, “If Her Majesty’s Minister for Annexations could give the House any information regarding the so-called explorations of Mr. Herbert Courtland in the island of New Guinea, particularly in respect of a massacre of natives by dynamite in the region of the Fly River; and if it was true that the gentleman just named had permitted himself to be worshiped as a god by the aborigines of another region; and if Her Majesty’s Minister for Domestic Affairs was prepared to say that it was legal for one of Her Majesty’s subjects to assume the privileges and functions of a god, and if the First Lord of the Treasury was prepared to communicate to the House what course, if any, Her Majesty’s government meant to adopt with a view to the prevention of similar outrages in the same region in the future?”
Mr. Ayrton rose before the Minister of the Annexation Department had quite concluded his yawn, and said he trusted that he was in order (cries of “Yes, yes,” from those members who knew that the honorable member had an enlivening phrase which he wanted to get rid of) in inquiring, in connection with the same subject, if the right honorable gentleman could inform the House if there was any truth in the report current in financial and other circles that the object of the explorations of Mr. Herbert Courtland was the discovery of a small mammal of the porcine tribe, and if one of the Law Officers of the Crown was prepared to assure the House that it would be contrary to the provisions of the Companies Act, and the Companies Act Amendment Act, to permit this New Guinea pig to assume the functions of the director of Limited Liability Companies, whose directorate was largely composed of members of both Houses of Parliament (great laughter from honorable gentlemen who were aware that the Mr. Apthomas had no income beyond the remuneration he received as a director of companies); and if Her Majesty’s Minister for Agriculture was prepared to state that it was the intention of Her Majesty’s Government to prohibit the introduction of, at any rate the males of the mammals just referred to, considering the rapid increase in representative assemblies of the English or Welsh bore——(Great laughter, which prevented the concluding words of the sentence being audible in the gallery.)
THE SPEAKER: Order! order! The honorable member for Hazelborough must confine himself strictly to the issued raised by the honorable gentleman from Wales. The honorable member for Hazelborough is only permitted to follow the honorable gentleman from Wales by the indulgence of the House.
MR. AYRTON: Sir, I bow to the ruling of the chair, and will continue by inquiring if Her Majesty’s Minister for the Public Worship Department can state to the House if it is true that a newspaper published within the Principality of Wales recently made the announcement that the honorable member who had just made inquiries regarding the exploration of Mr. Herbert Courtland, was the idol of his constituents [Laughter, and cries of “Order!”], and if the right honorable gentleman is prepared to state that the provisions of the Idolatry Act are—
THE SPEAKER: The honorable member is clearly out of order. The question of idolatry in Wales is not at present before the House.
MR. AYRTON: Sir, I give notice that next session I shall move a resolution regarding idolatry in the Principality of Wales [Laughter and cheers.]
The minister for Annexation was about to rise when
MR. MUDLARKY (Ballynamuck) asked if the introduction of the guinea pigs would be prejudicial to the interests of the higher and nobler Irish animal who, he would remind the Minister for Public Worship, was not to be confounded with the herd whose example was clearly emulated by the present government in seeking self-destruction by running down a steep place into the sea. (Cries of “Order, order!”) If there was any doubt before, the honorable member continued, as to the influence which was at work in that Gadarene herd, which assumed the functions of Her Majesty’s government, the sounds that now came from the Treasury Benches would convince even the most skeptical that sacred history is sometimes repeated by profane, but he could not compliment the devils, who had the bad taste to—(Several honorable members here rose amid the cheers of the Irish Members, and a scene of confusion took place.)
THE SPEAKER [sternly]: Order, Order! The honorable member from Ballynamuck must resume his seat. He is out of order. The question before the House is not the good taste of demoniac visitants. I call upon the right honorable gentleman, the Minister for the Department of Annexation.
MR. McCULLUM (Blairpukey Burghs): Mr. Speaker, one moment. To save time, will the right honorable gentleman say if the Highland Crofters, whose land was stolen from them in order that the members of the Upper House—
THE SPEAKER: Order! The Minister for the Department of Annexation.
MR. BLISTER (Battersea, Mid): Mr. Speaker, though I don’t do any work myself, I’m the representative of labor, only those contemptible skunks, the workingmen, don’t see that they have a man for a leader—a man, that’s me—that’s Joe Blister. And as the Upper House has been introduced, I’ll run, eat, or swear with the best of that lot of tap-room loafers; I’ll do anything but fight them—except, of course, on a labor platform, and if—
THE SPEAKER: The honorable member is out of order. The Minister for the Department of Annexations.
THE MINISTER FOR ANNEXATIONS: No, sir; I have no information [Cheers and laughter.]
The House then went into Committee of Supply.