CHAPTER V.BLOSSOMS.
When daylight came our friends were still in existence and gathered about our houses. I had feared that they would vanish as a dream of night.
They led us to a vale, hidden between perpendicular walls of rock. Miles and miles the cleft extended, and the surface of the lowland was filled with a strange-looking growth. Tall pods, smooth and satiny, in color pale green, stood like soldiers in an army. The pods were as much as ten feet in height and shaped like the husks of an ear of corn.
Walking among these pods we heard confused murmurs and calls, as if the green things themselves had voices.
Then we came upon one of the pods burstopen; from the husk crawled forth a winged man, blind and helpless, his huge wings useless and cumbersome.
I saw the truth. These people were a living vegetable—a product of the soil.
After we had somewhat recovered from our consternation, we began to consult. It was blossoming time; we must harvest our people.
Thousands of subjects for Regan; thousands of artisans for me! Sailors for air-ships, toilers at looms! A host of people for Father Renaudin to preach to and to teach. A crowd to fill a vast cathedral. A populace!
We remained among them for some weeks, until they were strong enough to fly away over wood and mountain isle. We taught them our language, engrafted our ideas upon them and instilled our desires into the minds and hearts of this new multitude.
We were earnest, politic workers; for once every one of us joined in the one great purpose—to civilize the people that we need not live in a world alone!
Our success was unlimited. There seemed to be no barriers to their understanding; they comprehended, became interested; in a few weeks they helped us plan. We had a great army of docile, winged servants.
There appeared to exist no envy, hate or anger among them. They were ambitious, but they were not treacherous. Their faith in us, in all we hoped and in all we did, was perfect.
Regan was delighted. He planned the most stupendous works.
We took possession of four great plains bordering on the sea, and each, with those who chose to assist, began improvements.
“I will build a cathedral which shall surpass St. Peter’s!” said Father Renaudin. “I shall have a praise-offering congregation, for I can see no sin among these bird men! They are not a fallen race; their brain is not clogged by wickedness! That is why they learn so fast!”
We knew another thing, but we thought Father Renaudin did not see it, so we did not tellhim. It was that this people, with all their brilliance of intellect, lacked something. They would never be a dominant race. They must have leaders, and I am compelled to acknowledge that in Regan they had found one. What a commander of hosts he would have been, had there been any occasion for the hosts! What a defender of the nations, had there only been need of a defence!
We even began to dislike our security!
As it was, Regan built walls and piers, planted great gardens to decorate his mountain sides, erected towns and surrounded them with terraces of earth and stone work, where the silver of fountains was contrasted with pale thread-like leaves, purple pansy color and deep cardinal red. The spires and domes and squares which he designed were always architecturally superior to any which the rest of us could conceive.
Isabella had a pretty little town. Every house seemed a home-like cottage of Earth. She had schools and soon printing presses, upon whichFather Renaudin printed condensed remembrances of the most important subjects of earthly teachings. Isabella herself put into record music and poetry, “original and selected.”
We found among the volcano’s rocky depths many beds of sulphur. We found also many minerals of Earth. Of iron, lead, silver and salt we had mines and worked them.
A heavy reed, growing in abundance, was easily pasted and pressed into sheets of paper. Among the grasses we found one rice-like seed which gave us a substance which, when crushed, made a not unwholesome floury food. We found some roots which were palatable when baked. We had varied and delicious fruits.
We made cloth from straw and from bark, and from a cotton-like growth we manufactured a fine, soft, gauze-like material, very beautiful.
Along the mountain’s side was a flattened rock platform, upon which we built great rough-walled manufactories, and the smoke looked very earthly as it rose from the pipes and chimneys.
Of laborers we had a limitless supply, each hand as interested in our experiments as were we ourselves.
Of demand for our wares we had almost too much, for the whole Star wished to possess each article of convenience, dress or luxury. In a singularly perfect copy of Earth the furnishings and decorations of the rooms of the palaces of piled-up, smoothed stone thickened in the vales.
We taught these men the use of pen and ink; taught them correspondence, postal service and the value of the clinking silver coins.
We brought the study of music into light and they constructed, after our models, harps, cymbals, trumpets, guitars and drums. Anthems and chorals for the Cathedral service were chanted in the halls. Light and graceful melodies of Earth were trilled from the hills.
Art was represented by colossal statuary in glass, stone and lava, in painting and in metal work.
Oils and crude colors for painting were collected,the first from slain animals, the second from earths, crushed berries and ground minerals.
It was a busy, bustling little star, whirling in a furnace heat toward the sun. The only comfortable hours upon it were in the night when Venus was ablaze before us.
The years went by so fast! The clouds sank closer to the surface of the star. We began to be almost smothered in their noonday weight!
The growth of the verdure of the star had changed it from a black lava ball to one mass of green and gorgeousness. The tops of the peaks alone stood above the vines.
The trees were lost in their own green; moss clung to everything. The steaming sea, always boiling in spots above the lava of subterranean chasms and volcanoes, further moistened the noonday air, which, if it had been of Earth, had been utterly unendurable in its temperature.
We understood that the clouds cloaked our planet. The dense air was not like the world’s atmosphere. We were close to the orbit ofVenus; we feared that we should go on and burn in the flames of the sun!
We appointed a day to gather with our chief friends that we might report our achievements and our successes.
We were to meet at the town built by Father Renaudin, where we arranged for a grand festival to take place in his cathedral, now nearly completed.
After a long day’s travel, I arrived, weary and dusty. Isabella and Father Renaudin came out to meet me. It was sunset; the last beam of sunlight had just left the scene. It was a still, sultry, purplish twilight.
As we walked beneath an avenue of bloom, we heard the most enchanting music.
Stepping through the bowers of green, we looked up into the sky. Above the surface, so far as to be still in the glow of the sun, which was below the horizon, we saw a multitude of white-robed people.
“Is it a stampede of angels?” asked Father Renaudin.
Their floating white robes and shining, flying hair were outlined on the blue sky. They were illuminated by a flood of golden sunshine. They were carrying something. We could hear their melodious song like the sound of a far-off bell. We could see wreaths of flowers, a mica-bright surface. The latter was a glistening car; therein, most gorgeous in apparel, like an Indian prince for brilliance of attire, was Regan, crowned and sceptered! He was followed at a distance, we now saw, by troops of his bird men.
It was a true misery to me. Whatever this villainous Regan did was always done with so much majesty that there was no use in trying to think it was ridiculous.
“He really is a monarch! It does not help me that he has made himself one!” I thought.
I raged at my own stupidity. There were my people; they would have borne me and have sung for me; they would have wrought fabricsand wreaths for me, but I came on foot; I arrived dusty and tired.
It was Regan first again!
We enjoyed our festival; that is, I suppose the rest did. We had torches by thousands at the feast, had music from sea shells, reeds and stringed instruments. We seemed to be in a magic land, the air was so soft, the star Venus so brilliant! The scene was bewildering! The sea was musical!
“The star is small, but it is all ours!” we said.
There were no warlike races to conquer, no insubordinate people to subdue. There was nothing to hinder the grand march of progress.
I noticed that Isabella looked pale and very sad. I had never seen such an expression upon her face before.
The walls of the house, where we went after the fête was over, were glittering with glass set in panels. The doors were hung with fabrics of gold-colored straw and of brilliant cloth. The floors were of polished woods, overlaid with grassrugs. Flowers were banked in corners, and a fire was upon the hearth, for we could not pass the hours of night without great fires, on account of the exceeding dampness of the air.
When we had quietly settled ourselves for the few hours left till day, the rain began to fall heavily.
While Father Renaudin and Regan were at the table before the door, looking over maps, I sat beside Isabella and we were speaking of the change which we had made in the star.
“If these people could not fly, they would work slower. They are living machines; don’t you think so?” said Isabella.
“Certainly their wings are a great advantage,” replied I.
“Do you know what Regan has done about the wings?” asked Isabella.
“No.”
“Then he has not told you?”
“No.”
“He calls them ‘hideous deformities,’ ‘cumbersome appendages.’”
“Yes; I know he doesn’t like the powerful wings of the people. But what is it, Isabella?”
“He says they are only subject when they choose to be—temporarily.”
“Yes. Isabella, have you seen Regan often in all these years?”
“Oh! yes, very often!” answered she, paying no heed to me or my question, absorbed, as ever, with some idea about Regan.
“Duped, duped!”—that hammer-like voice in my ears again!
“I am so troubled, Roy; he has cut off their wings from ten—”
“What!”
“Yes, he thought they would recover; but they—they—”
“Died?”
“No! I wish they had! They languished awhile, and then they fell upon the ground only to look more and more miserable! Finally, to end their misery, he—”
Isabella began to weep bitterly.
“How in the world did you learn all this?” I exclaimed.
“I was there!” she answered, composedly as regarded my question, only in tears over Regan’s iniquity. “Well, Roy, he killed them! They are vegetables you know!”
“Regan a murderer!”
She heard the triumph and pleasure in my voice.
“He is a king!” she began, vehemently.
“Nonsense! He is a criminal! He ought to be hanged!”
“Not for subjects, not by subjects!” I had never seen Isabella so beautiful; she looked like an enraged goddess. “He is a king! He has a right to kill!”
“Can you so forget right—”
“It is ‘right’ of another world! It has no place here!”
“Calling men vegetables does not change the crime!” insisted I. “These creatures have souls! They are the humanity of the sphere!”
“I shall tell you nothing more, Roy!” said Isabella. “You do not comfort me in my troubles! You only make me feel worse!”
She turned to go.
“Stay here, stay here!” I exclaimed. “It has been years since I have heard your voice till now! Stay here and talk with me!”
And she stopped, dried her tears and did not go away from my side until the party broke up for the night.
There were some good things about the star after all. One need not follow all the hypocrisies of Earth. If Isabella wished to remain and talk with me, she could do so!
When I was alone in my apartments, listening to the heavy rain, I thought it all over. It was a murderer who wore the silver crown, the ’broidered robes, who was so kingly in his manner! A murderer was ruler of the star! Must I be one of his minions, I, Roy Lee?
He was our law. Why not kill ten men? Now and then in some such disagreeable way he made us all realize his power.
I was madly in love with Isabella, but, if I should marry her, Regan would possibly kill her!
What would Father Renaudin think now of the monster whom he had crowned? He ought to take the crown from his head and give it to me! I was the more worthy. No blood stained my hands; my station, education and character were suited to the position. That name, or title, of king seemed very powerful with Isabella!
It was no use to gnash my teeth and roll on my bed. I dashed the long curtain away for air and thought the matter over. It was Regan who made the laws. If I spoke of a republic, he laughed at me and said:
“The discovery to the discoverer! A king is a fundamental law of the creation! The stars cannot whirl without a ruler!”
If I wanted Regan dethroned, what of that? How was I to remedy the matter?
How wonderfully the rain was falling! Wasthat the river roaring? The tumult was so ceaseless and singular that I rose and dressed. Scarcely had I done so when the sound of shrieks and bird voices came to me.
Hastening into the long hall where we had been in the evening, I saw the floor covered with water. Just then Isabella, Regan and Father Renaudin came into the same room.
“It is the sea! it is the sea!” they cried.
We ran out upon the foot-hills, from where we could see, in the light of the dawn, a waste of muddy water and a shroud of cloud.
We climbed into the peaks of the lava rocks and waited, drenched with storms.
We were above some of the clouds and could only dimly see the demolition of all we prized. Tower after tower fell. The water washed the stones from the foundations of the cathedral.
We saw the morass broken by the sea, saw masses of land as large as a farm sink from sight like lead.
When we could see so far we could note the flowing columns of fire in the cloud-dark south still increasing in size and redness.
We could hear the bursting of rocks in chasms where the water would not stay.
We found some sheltering ledges and waited.
CHAPTER VI.WINTER.
We had it all to repeat after we had endured the catastrophe.
We thought that the star, having reached the end of its elongated orbit, turned with exceeding suddenness upon its course, so changing the temperature of north and south as to produce the excessive storm.
I will not tell you of our discouraged hearts, but will go on to that winter which was approaching from this time.
True that we were disheartened, but that we should desist from our labor was impossible. We must prepare for a frigid zone.
This time we selected a high tableland, broken through with narrow clefts where the sea penetrated the land. Some of these clefts we roofed over.
We built with reference to enormous weights of snow. We made coverings and corridors; we put windows and pipes and tubes all so that we could breathe and so that we could close them in case of necessity.
We sunk wells, collected oil and firewood.
At one spot in the rocks we found intense heat; here we built a vast low building to be warmed from the perpetual heat of the star’s volcanic fire. Time passed on.
As we receded from the sun our fears became greater.
Again we came where we could see our Earth, almost a moon. Then we departed into colder, darker space.
Snow fell constantly until the forest disappeared under a white bank. The volcanoes were cloaked almost to their tops. The surface of the land was changed.
We had wood for fifty years in our cellars.
The smoke from the islands of the sea told us that the life of the star was still existing.
Day became twilight. On the snow it was inexpressibly gloomy. The sky grew black; we were entering a night of years.
About this time it became so cold that it was unsafe to go into the open air to look. We could only venture out in a hollow case of skins, with lamps about us for warmth.
We made all our investigations through triple plates of glass.
Then the bird people fell into a sleep from which it was impossible to wake them. We put them into a great hall by dozens, where they lay motionless, lifeless to all appearance.
Father Renaudin, Regan, Isabella and I were alone.
Day after day we watched our dear, far sun receding, and, as we gazed on the desolate, purpling waste, we wondered if we should find it possible to exist until the night was past!
Such an awful sky! The sun only as a taper in it!
The star was so small! Would it continuesafely on or would it drop down upon some larger sphere?
Then we all became aware that another form or presence was among us! Like a black mist it entered and stood beside the fire, sometimes remaining for hours.
For a time each observer feared to mention the phantom, lest the others prove that it was an illusion of the mind. We were afraid of the delusions of darkness of twenty years. But when we all began to watch for it together, we spoke of it. All had seen it, had heard its step, had felt its touch.
Prisoned, we could venture out no more. It was dangerous even to go into the corridors.
Father Renaudin had been writing from remembrance the condensed books of the Bible. He had finished his work so far as to have reached the words which were spoken by the dead man on that night when we left Earth:
“And I will give him the morning star.”
“I wonder what was meant when that was written?” said Father Renaudin.
He leaned his head upon his hand and seemed in deep study.
The shade had been for hours beside the fire. Now it crossed the floor and touched him upon the shoulder.
“Come!” it said.
“It is Gregg Dempster!” cried Regan. “It is his voice! There is no God! Oh! if there were He would do this!”
Father Renaudin rose, took his staff and his books and went after his guide. We followed along the corridors, through doors which we had not opened, out into the last corridor, where the cold stopped us.
We saw them go out into the dark cold, the two, side by side, like spirits moving across the snow, Father Renaudin in his crimson robe, his hair blown like silver, his books clasped in one hand, his staff in the other.
The darkness hid them.
I would have married Isabella if I could have ever gained courage to so defy Regan. Now Father Renaudin was gone and there was no hope of his return.
“There are things in this star which were never on Earth!” said Isabella.
Then she threw herself down beside Regan and, leaning her head upon the arm of his chair, sobbed and wept in frightful passion. She looked only at Regan, Regan—never at me!
But Regan looked at me, with a face like a demon’s, where was such horrid cruelty and rage that I shuddered. And still he touched the bowed head gently and said:
“Poor child, he will return!”
It was of no use to hope. Calamities and circumstances seemed to me to be in Regan’s control! He would never give her up!
“There is no humanity in our wonderful endurance!” said Regan, at last.
“Why should we keep up this fraud of hypocrisy?” sobbed Isabella. “We are lost!-utterly,hopelessly, everlastingly most miserable! Oh! I wish I could see the sun! I wish I could see a woman’s face! I wish I could hear the little children laugh! I hate these yellow, churning seas, this volcanic world! I can never leave it, never, never!”
Still the days went on. We wrote, composed music, painted, devised dramas and made plans for their presentation. We coined money, we made statuary in stone. We hated it all in our darkness and desolation.
As day after day we sat beside the fire, from hating fate, Regan and I grew to hate each other, hate as two who were dead and laid in two separate graves of black might hate each other if angelhood were to be won by only one of them!
Did not Isabella see and know, when she carefully removed every implement which might serve as a weapon?
Did she fear when we sat glowering sullenly at the fire and dangerously at each other? Did she not constantly talk, talk, sing, sing?
I think that human beings must all grow dangerous if they do not see the sun. One-half this sentiment, which we call “gentleness,” “humanity,” “mercy,” is only sunlight!
We were not much troubled when the star began to shake in its shroud. If the rocks should fall, what then? Possibly we should have no more of the terrible life to endure!
The shocks grew worse and worse. One night, as we sat hating beside the fire, a part of the wall fell down. We could see the cold, far stars shining into our house, that house which we had builded so strong! The dreadful breath of cold like steel struck upon our faces!
It was but for one instant. For once I thought quickly. I caught Isabella in my arms and rushed into the tunnel where the rocks were warm. Where Regan went I did not see.
END OF ROY LEE’S JOURNAL.
END OF ROY LEE’S JOURNAL.
END OF ROY LEE’S JOURNAL.