CHAPTER XIIILove and Liberty
We soon heard the swarming crowds returning, and before long saw the flat wagons, with the straining goats drawing them, and softly luminous from the radium bulbs held in wickerwork cages, and on them the governors, much agitated and confused. It was really a rout. Panic had seized the people, the guards were in disorder, and they failed to repel the surging masses that rolled up against the rocking chariots. It was a straggling, in some sections a struggling, cortege, and the dominant purpose was to get under cover, for the blackness deepened, the very last glimpses of light had vanished, and a night of storm and wind with a cold rain had blotted out the smiling peacefulness of Radiumopolis.
Fortunately, the construction of the houses was excellent and, except as the wind drove rain through or past the crevices of the board or leathern insertions, their interiors were probably quite dry in storms. The rooms at the Capitol were completely so.
And now the running groups, the populace, the guards, officials hastening variously on their many ways could be heard tramping and surging along, with only occasional ejaculations of impatience or alarm, but all in an evident race and retreat.
I did not wait long with my friends. I knewZiliah was with them—with one. I clutched my intolerable load closer, I sprang to the eastern terrace, now deserted, and rushed down, suddenly seized with the thought of destroying the infernal machines I carried. It was agreat loss to scienceno doubt, but at the moment I felt convinced that once these preposterous weapons were lost to the little doctors, we were safe. I cried in my heart, “Our guns against everything.”
So on I flew, and straight out into the serpent pasture, now and again slipping on some coiled or gliding snake to where I knew that well hole lay which marked the departing kick of the celestial visitor who had taught Radiumopolis the trick of makinggold. It was a deep hole and it was full of water. I reached it. I opened my tunic and from it the bundle of pestiferous little arsenals of magic tumbled, and splashed in the water—and were gone. The pack that fell off Christian’s back and rolled backward into the sepulchre could not have been gotten rid of with more satisfaction to that tired pilgrim than I freed myself of those hateful little tubes. Of course afterwards the Professor was dreadfully upset about it. He deplored the “loss to science.” “Perhaps,” retorted Hopkins, “but—we count too.”
I soon returned to the others and found them—minus Ziliah, who had been persuaded to retire to her boudoir—nestling against the corner of the Capitol where there was less wind and rain, enjoying the home gathering of the Sanhedrin, its wives and children, relatives, attendants, and the police.
“My!” gurgled Hopkins under his breath, “such a coop of hens! And the cackling! What’s hard to understand is how such poultry govern this land, and how they have the nerve to keep up this detestable religion with its snakes and its crocodiles;and yet—blame—me—they certainly are on the inside of a good many things, and they surely are on aGold Basis, and some of our best people wouldn’t mind swapping all they know, for just that one particular bit of information which will turn a leaden pot into a gold one.”
“We must know how, too,” grumbled Goritz.
“Well,” continued Hopkins, “say the word and we’ll revolutionize this country, get into the government, and run the mint.”
I was getting impatient with this nonsense, and I said, “Now see here my friends, we are four men against thousands—why talk such rubbish? We’re all in danger because of our imprudence but I think we can steer away safely though our difficulties, get the confidence of everyone—perhaps more, and come out, as you might say Spruce, on the Top of the Heap. Ziliah knows what she is talking about and she says we’re to be put out of the way. But that perhaps won’t be so easy now. I’ve stolen the tubes and buried them out of sightforever.”
The three men sprang around me and seized me with one exclamation: “No!”
“Yes I have—they’re gone. Come to our rooms and I’ll tell you everything. We must use diplomacy, but if they push us to the wall there are ourguns. The people are accustomed to us and are indifferent. Those little doctors never will let us get out alive if they can help it. There’s more than our lives at stake; there’s the revelation we shall give to the great world outside of this polar hole—about these strange people, their achievements, their knowledge, above all about that radium mass which may change all the civilization we are acquainted with into something quite different. I do not agree with Goritz, though I can sympathize with his appeal. Sciencemust knowof this place, and what is here. Science, I say, MUST KNOW.”
In a few words I explained what had happened, when we had gotten to our rooms, which still remained undisturbed. I told them of the curious suggestive influence on Ziliah (Hopkins said he “didn’t like it”), how we penetrated the subterranean room, how I found and seized those menacing little vials, and how I despatched every one of them into the fathomless mud and water (the Professor compared it with “the crime of the Caliph Omar who burned the Alexandrian Library”), and how now, with Ziliah as an ally, and with our guns, we might turn the tables on the discomfited doctors. “Guess you’ve taken the sting out of their tails—the little wasps,” exclaimed Hopkins.
We did not have to wait long for developments. The storm passed, the light returned and it was much colder. Warmer clothing was given us, and our meals were even more liberal. This excessive hospitality made me suspicious and I insisted that the bearers of the cakes and bread, the wine and milk, the meat and vegetables should partake of a little of each, before us, and this I ingeniously explained to them was the custom of our native countries. They never hesitated, and the courtesy, as they understood it, quite delighted and propitiated them. This too was a part of my rule. I intended to conciliate them so thoroughly that I might be able to make them spies on our enemies—“pump ’em,” said Hopkins. Ziliah watched diligently; the beloved Spooce was an invaluable hostage.
Our liberty was not interfered with, it seemed extended, and the Professor kept up his unremitting labors in making notes for the voluminous papers he was contemplating, and which he idolatrously regarded as his possible monument in the files of time. Goritz became a confirmed pilferer, and his stock of gold objects, whittlings and fragments grewdangerously. I remonstrated, but he kept at it. I could not get the wizened little doctors to talk. I addressed them as I met them in the palace in the Hebrew patois I had acquired, and which I was convinced they understood. But no—not a word; a bow, those wrinkling smiles, that deferential obeisance, and the palms of their hands rubbed together meditatively, while the prodigious eyes watched me, I thought, with an unmistakable malice, and—with FEAR.
We seldom saw the ladies of their households which, as Hopkins expressed it, “considering our extreme manly beauty, as compared with theALL INlook of their own matrimonial boobs, is a reflection on their good taste, a proof of their imperfect education. Everybody else likes us,” he said. And that was true. We met with the most amiable reception, and Goritz’s skill in talking with the Eskimos, and my astounding success with the Hebrew lingo was giving us a vogue that it seemed unreasonable the little rulers did not see was ruinous to their prestige. Could it be possible that they were afraid of us—afraid of our popularity? I thought that they would avail themselves of the discovered thefts of the tree shrines and of the unpropitious storm, on the day of the Oblation, to turn the populace against us aspersonae non grataeto their deity.
But they had not, and the storm was forgotten. It was bewildering, for I felt sure Ziliah was not deceiving me, and that our lives somehow were at stake. Perhaps—perhaps—in that curious complicated psychology of their dwarfed natures, cowardice, deceit, sharpness, superstition, ferocity even, were so mixed up with an enervating feebleness of mind, in spite of their astuteness, that it made them, as Lady Macbeth puts it, “infirm of purpose.”
At any rate we would watch our guns, in all senses, and we literally did watch those we owned, carrying them with us, always strapped to our backs, our cartridge belts at our waists, and a part of our dress. I think this alarmed our spies a little.
But now thecruxof the whole situation came to light. Two things had happened and both of these were known to Ziliah. Ziliah was splendid—the “best ever” said Spruce—“true down to her little toe bone; she turned down her own dad and turned ag’in the Government rather than see us licked. Tell you what, Alfred, I’ll take my chances with her, and—it’s good-bye to the States.”
It was this way. And to begin with, Ziliah’s father’s first name was Javan, and, because the coincidence is so extraordinary, the names of those little governors, and there were thirty of them, are worth repeating, because again—as the Professor was the first to observe—they can all be found in the first Chapter of the Book of Chronicles, in our Bible. This is the list: Riphath, Kittim, Put, Cush, Pathrusim, Lud, Hul, Joktan, Peleg, Hadad, Naphish, Jeush, Jaalam, Shammah, Shobal, Homan, Uz, Samlah, Bela, Zephi, Zyrah, Ebal, Manahath, Anah, Amram, Mibsam, Gomer, Magog, Anamim, Ludim.
I took these down carefully from Ziliah, by word of mouth, and they confirmed all we had inferred of Semitic relations but when later—much later sir, on my return to America—I made the comparison, as the Professor suggested, I was dumbfounded. But I will not stop now to elaborate reflections. My story has already lengthened beyond my expectations, and there is much to recount.
Two things had happened, I have said. Oh, by the way, Mr. Link, I might insert this here—Javan, Ziliah’s father, encouraged his daughter’s intimacywith Hopkins; he thought it would lead to something. It did. As Hopkins put it, “it was the Guy who put theeatinBeatit.”
The two things were—the theft of the tubes had been discovered, and there had been a Council held—a “pow-wow” according to Spruce, in which Javan threw a bomb into the deliberations for our destruction because he connected what he had to say at the “pow-wow” with the disappearance of the little wizard wands. A wonderful denouement was at hand. It all came about as follows:
The excursion through the pine tree shrines showed a considerable damage, and the inspectors were sure the mischief had been perpetrated by us. Our tracks were unmistakable; they found our camps, and they noted that the pillaging had been done, as it were, yesterday. Their indignation was great, but, as the detection of the outrage was actually unnoticed by the multitude, and had only come to the knowledge of the little doctors—the Sanhedrin as we had called them—and had not then been seriously considered at first, except by a few leaders—apparently the older and shrewder men, Put and Hul, Peleg, Hadad and Javan, himself, the President—it was concluded to keep still about it, and that nothing should be done until they had returned. But the outrage, as they considered it, made them rather anxious as to the state of mind of the insulted serpent and tree deities—thenuminaof their unseen world. Propitiation was in order, and they had taken pains to visit all the shrines, repair the mischief, attach new offerings, sing and dance and pray, and go through a snake ceremonial with the doctors as masters of the ceremony, as indeed these odd creatures were really priests to the nation.
They talked a great deal about it among themselves,but they were dreadfully bothered by Javan’s scruples as to touching us, and all because he recalled an ancient prophecy of a fall from the clouds of a beggar-like man, who would not know their language, and who would bring them a new wisdom, and who would be their King.
Now it seems this ancient prophecy was in their archives, as you might say, and action in our case was to be delayed until its exact portents or contents were ascertained. There were queer coincidences in the matter. Our descent from the top of the pine tree, albeit awkward and a little unseemly, was a good deal like a drop from the clouds.It seemed so to them.Our beggarly condition was really shamefully clear. Then we did not speak their language, and as to the new wisdom, the Professor’s harangue rather filled the bill there, and, in spite of themselves, his red hair had impressed them,as it did everybody else.
Certainly there were or might be discrepancies. There were four of us for instance; we had been in the wood some time—desecrating it too, a profanation inconceivable in a future King—a heaven-sent King! These considerations cheered them greatly, for really the little fellows did not wish to abdicate. So they mulled these things over and fixed their plans very craftily. They’d get back, ignore us, seem to forget all about us, hunt up the precious document, and, if they came to the conclusion to “do us,” as Hopkins said, the affair would be kept very secret, and—their white fingers clasped the ominous tubes as they raised them significantly over their big heads—they wouldn’t be long about it either.
At the return to Radiumopolis Javan heard from Ziliah’s own lips—very soon, I suppose, after she lifted him up in her arms on the terrace steps—what a dreadful state her heart was in over Spooce, andJavan (“perfidious dad,” Hopkins called him) simpered, sniggered, and encouraged her attachment. But Ziliah possessed some feminine acuteness—“No piker,she,” declared Hopkins—and she was not many minutes in finding out the true position of affairs; viz., the enmity of the Directorate, the existing government, for us. She was in an agony of fear, and, aflame with her love, she had met us and told me of our danger. Then, sir, as you may incredulously recall, I did that telepathic act, and cleared away the most formidable obstacle in our way.
From that moment Ziliah was ours, every heart beat, every brain pulse was for us. She certainlyplayedher father, but we had no intentions against his life, and it was just simply immolation for us all in his case, as the coterie would have sent us on the long road in a hurry, and then all this strange tale would never have entranced your ears. Ziliah, as the verdict of the world will pronounce, chose the better part. Her devotion led us into the light of deliverance.
The old record of the prophecy was brought to light. It actually was engraved on a gold tablet. That showed, sir, that the knowledge of transmutation was over a hundred years old in Krocker Land, for, as you will learn, there is no mining for gold in Krocker Land; that mother lode which the Professor predicted, as far as we know is a dream only. All the gold in Krocker Land comes from Radium Transmutation.
Ziliah saw the tablet, she heard it read; for that matter she read it herself (“A twentieth century woman and no mistake,” was Hopkins’ tribute to her sagacity), and now what I tell you, sir, will hardly be believed. It has such a fabulous fairy-like sound.
The prophecy read thus: The future King wouldfall from the sky, in the shape of a man dressed in rags, with hair red like blood, with a strange language on his tongue, and “he KILLS with THUNDER.”
That, sir, brought our guns and the Professor into the drama, and swept the stakes into our hands. You shall see.
The prophecy did mightily disturb the council. They convened in their state chamber, and argued it out circumstantially, and Ziliah, conveniently disposed for the revelations to be expected, listened. The upshot of their deliberations was that there was much difference of opinion, with a preponderant feeling that the Professor was a dangerous probability. Had we fallen from the sky, or just dropped out of the branches of the tree, and, if that was our first appearance how about the thefts? Yes—yes—the thefts, and the traces of our previous camps, and then thekilling with thunder? There was some ill-natured derisive and weak giggling over this. Thunder indeed!
The upshot of it all was that Javan was deputed to keep an eye on us, and probably the best thing to do, taking a strictly conservative view of the matter was to— Ziliah didn’t catch this, but when I told her Hopkins, he winked assertively and drew the forefinger of his ring hand across his throat, and said nothing.
Anyhow the little elders came out from the conference, looking greatly satisfied, very benignant, and were happily garrulous. But the second event was the discovery of the disappearance of the tubes. It seemed that some recuperative effect was sought for in thus storing them in the metallic box in the subterranean chamber, but—WHAT? And whether other agents were present in the box will never be known, as indeed the mystery of those tubes is itself a closedchapter, unless forsooth the Professor elicits the information as to their fabrication, by reason of his present control of the scientific resources— But pardon me, I anticipate.
The tubes had been placed in the chest almost instantly after the re-entrance of the cortege into the Capitol. A literal translation of Ziliah’s remark as to the need of this would be that they were “dying out.”
You can imagine Javan’s despair, consternation, and amazement. Apparently there were no more of these stupefying inventions handy, and the Sanhedrin were really at their wits’ end. At this juncture Ziliah became a perfect demon of suggestion. Hopkins’ enthusiastic submission to her charms inflamed her with a sprightliness of mind that kept us busy too, and won our case. Ziliah knew that the citizens of Radiumopolis, which practically was Krocker Land, the outlying agricultural sections being little else than adiasporaof Radiumopolis itself, were not so loyally disposed towards the exclusive Areopagus on Capitol Hill, and that some shock of wonderment that might establish our supernatural origin would solve theimpasse, and give us the upper hand, for literally there was now no way out of the dilemma but for us to RULE.
Ziliah conceived the idea of our subverting the reigning government as quickly as we had reached the same conclusion, and Hopkins was not slow to sharpen her perceptions. Butsheformed the plan of ourcoup d’etat. We had thought (and the Professor was as deeply implicated as any of us, he realized our plight and for once worldly aims gripped and diverted his mind) to make a public appeal to the people or else insidiously foment discontent, lead an attack on the now defenceless governors, seize the throne, as itwere, and establish the dynasty of Hlmath Bjornsen the First.
At first blush the Professor seemed greatly puzzled and unwilling, and his bulging eyes stared at us with blank misgivings. But when the rigor of our situation was forced upon him, with the compellingsuadente potestasof his red hair, and its felicitous conjunction with aboriginal prophecy, he worked himself into a real glee over it that was delightful. To Hopkins there was something so macaronic and side-splitting about this role of the Professor’s, that he could scarcely look at his half rueful, absorbed expression, his odd mouth, the prodigious ears, and the coronal splendor of his hair, without being overcome with a badly concealed merriment that might have turned our plans awry with anyone less essentially good-natured than the Professor.
Of course we improved our popularity, and we put the Professor through ambulatory excursions that must have tired his legs. From the first the people had “cottoned” to him (fideHopkins), and we wanted them to become intimate with their future KING. Certainly it seemed like a huge joke.
Everything was coming our way. The governors had actually become afraid of us. We were no longer confined to the Capitol. We fascinated our guards by giving them all the trinkets we could find about us, and Goritz and I talked constantly with the people. The Sanhedrin might have turned the people against us by revealing our thefts, but somehow they did not try it. They did not even enter our rooms for proof. I think we began to despise them. They had a secretive, feeble way that too plainly advertised their impotence. It was evident indeed that some fatal collapse in their authority was imminent, and they did not have themiraculous tubes to reinstate themselves. Nothing could have withstood them then. Between the prophecy and the loss of the tubes they were desperate. Our sedition prospered in the meanwhile.
Suddenly it occurred to me that their apathy and shrinking avoidance of a collision meant mischief. It might be ominous. Were they—the thought transfixed me with horror—were they secretly at work repairing their loss, MAKING OTHER TUBES? Of course they were; in the light of this suggestion their apparent timidity was explained. It was not timidity. Nay, it was just a delicate, artful duplicity that was fooling us. Ziliah must find out and then one way or another we must test the situation. Of course the prophecy that Ziliah had recounted to us was constantly the keynote of our plans. To lose our chance now would be madness.
And Ziliah? She wheedled Javan and Put, and Cush, and Hul, and the rest successfully. They thought she was keeping us quiet, and they thought too their own inoffensiveness was blinding us. Ah ha!It was—while they contrived their devilish weapons anew. They had made no outcry when they found them gone. That might have liberated the people of their fear for themselves. But was Ziliah possibly playing us false? There was or certainly had been a countermine at work and she had failed to detect it. These foxy patriarchs were fooling our own spy in their camp, or again—was Ziliah false?
Well sir, Ziliah was “straight as a string and true as gold,” to quote Hopkins. She knew nothing about the making of the new tubes, but she would find out. Her terror over this new turn in the affair was greater than our own, her surprise too. Ah, sir, she knew what those tubes meant, what they could do!
She soon returned to me—it was easy enough, and it was easy to do it unnoticed. Javan trusted her implicitly, and indeed she and I had been somewhat hoodwinked by him. Ziliah confirmed my suspicions. The new tubes were indeed under way. Theeukairia, the “nick of time,” had come. We must strike. Then it was that Ziliah told us HOW.
We were to take on the grand air, assert our provenance from Heaven, repeat the prophecy from the tablet, call the ProfessorShamlah, and threaten destruction if the Sanhedrin did not receive us at once, see that our thunder bolts were ready, and use them. The message, to be taken by Ziliah, would admit that our manners had been humble and that Shamlah had concealed his mission. But delay would be cut short. The time for his royal assumption was at hand. We would come to them with our thunder tubes and talk with them; and if our overture was rejected we would go to the people and show our power.
That was our ultimatum; batteries on both sides were now unmasked and the issue defined. What we needed just then were theatrical properties, some chromatic detonating explosions, fireworks, skyrockets, roman candles, flower-pots, fire-fizzes of any sort that would give us a supernatural flavor. As Hopkins said, just one night’s Coney Island Payne’s Fireworks outfit, and what wasn’t ours in the joint, wouldn’t be worth having. But—we had only our guns. That however was a good deal.
Ziliah returned the answer of the Conventicle. They would not see us just now,later, perhaps in fourteensettas, which meant, in our time, about a week. Oh ho! That was the limit of our sufferance. In a week they would meet uson their own terms. The crisis had come.
It was not half an hour later that Goritz, Hopkins, the Professor and myself, as faultlessly attired as our wardrobe and toilet facilities permitted, marched from our abode in the city, down the great highway. Our guns were in our arms, clasped tightly to our chests, and all the ammunition we possessed was loaded in our cartridge belts and pockets. We were instantly noticed and numerously attended. We entered the serpent pasture, at the eastern end, and walked to the eastern terrace of steps, and up these to the courtyard above. We were seen. Men and women, girls and boys, in a desultory manner at first, then in hastening groups, emerged from the Capitol and, among them a few of the little rulers. The rumor of attack spread.
From the houses of the city, its looms and barns, the workshops and bakeries, its gardens, the cloth manufactories, the metal shops, the curious small people gathered, and with them the larger race from near and far, while the idle and loafing contingent, always large and drifting instinctively towards every new incident, hastened in mirthful or expectant groups, pouring along behind us. Each fresh accession stimulated a wider circle of attention, until it almost seemed as if the populace were following usen masse. They overflowed the road, they dispersed over the meadow land appropriated to snakes, they clambered up on the dilapidated cutches, where the snakes congregated and clustered, in gaping crews, on the steps of the terrace. Their humor seemed propitious. The peculiar gaiety that characterized them when we were brought to Radiumopolis, dampened or made a little grave by wonder, again affected them that day, but it was freer and more hospitable, and I think they already appreciated the situation. Goritz and I had been rather industrious disseminatorsof mischief—“Semeurs d’emeute” Antoine said.
When we came to the last step of the terrace we separated. The Professor took a central position, and the light luckily turned his splendid coiffure into a garnet glory that must have transported the audience around us. Goritz and Hopkins flanked him, I stood somewhat to one side. We all held our guns—magazine rifles—but the Professor, it was agreed, should remain statuesque and motionless, only succoring us at any critical juncture. I have a splendid voice, I proposed to use it.
By this time the throng in the doorway of the Capitol almost blocked it. The dignitaries were coming out quickly and the magistrates from the wards of the city were arriving, but all somewhaten deshabille. Their court robes were forgotten, or too hastily deserted, and their appearance assumed an absurdly shrunken manner and tenuity. We very certainly outclassed them. The Professor,par excellence, was magnificent. The people measured the spectacular effect and, I guess, shrewdly preferred our “make-up.”
I began my demand. I spoke for the SON of THUNDER, and I spoke of the prophecy which described his coming to rule his people, and then, it was a master stroke which almost unnerved my friends, knocked the Directory plumb off its feet, and thunderstruck the people,I showed the golden tablet(Ziliah’s stroke), and read it. By this time I had acquired fairly well the Hebrew dialect of these people, and they understood me. I pointed to the Professor who, responding to some histrionic impulse, which none of us had even suspected in him, raised his hands as if invoking the heavens, and then bowed to me, to Goritz, to Hopkins, and in unimpeachable—English, said in a loud domineering tone,
“REVEAL MY POWER—FIRE!”
Now this was absolutely an improvisation. We had not planned the affair exactly in that way, but we were on thequi vive(Johnnies-on-the-spot, averred Hopkins), and off went the whole magazine of guns in a glorious unison. It was really immense, coming as it did upon the heels of the prediction, that—he kills with his thunder. Only we hadn’t killed anything. And then the Professor by another sublime intuition filled the required bill. It was nearing spring time and the reinforcement of the light and heat from the diurnal sun was beginning to be felt. Some straggling Arctic gulls crossed the sky. The Professor was a fair shot. The accentuation of a supreme moment nerved his arm, brightened his eye, and put the force of precision in his aim. He fired—a gull fluttered to the ground almost at our feet—another shot, and a second bird flopped actually upon the heads of the dismayed councillors, who were now in a fine frenzy of agitation.
The mercurial disposition of semi-civilized people and that contagion of admiration which, as Le Bon has shown, infects a mob, as with the sharp upward rush of a fire fanned by high winds, had an invincible illustration then and there. At first there was a silence; as if shocked into dumbness by the inexplicable occurrence, or bewildered by a confusion of responses they could not define, they for a moment awaited direction.It came.Oogalah, in the very first rank of the attendant crowds, shouted with hoarse exultation:
“PEEUK—PEEUK—PEEUK.”
Then came the reaction of release from incertitude, and the assemblage caught the sound— Nay, the word, and from side to side, to and fro, hither, thither, the cry doubled and redoubled, until it almost seemed as if the convulsed nation wouldstart some riotous stampede in favor of that darling, red-headed, heaven-sent, death-dealing sovereign. And the Professor, animated by I know not what elan of conquest, seized his rifle in both hands, and holding it horizontally before him, stepped forward against the heterogeneous throng of courtiers, officials, and Areopagites that crammed every inch of space in front of the Capitol, as if he were theDemiurge of Destruction. In a fright they gave way, and in the path thus made we followed. There was nothing else to do, although this demonstration to me seemed unaccountable and dangerous, as it might lead to some unexpected disaster and an anticlimax of ridicule and repulsion. With the Professor it was just an involuntary spasm of stage play, with no clear purpose outlined or even seen in it. Behind us in the regurgitant host I could hear the stentorian roars of Oogalah. This unexpected and vociferous ally after all had a grudge to gratify; he had not altogether forgotten his inviscerated mother. His appeals were quite in favor of the new allegiance. You see, sir, it was an orgulous moment for the Professor, and I don’t think he knew exactly what he was about.
But Luck, which after all favors a good many more people than fools, intervened. We had gotten rather tightly entrapped in the brigades about the Capitol, when we were met by a huddle of the patriarchs, themselves somewhat violently jostled by the pushing citizens. Here were Javan, and Put, and Hul, Peleg, Hadad, the head men, and they presented a very sorry and despoiled appearance. Their nervous white hands ran over their straggling beards in piteous perplexity, and, lacking the surplusage of their state regalia, they appeared even more contemptible than depressed.
Knowing me best and perhaps too dismayed by the flaming presence of thePretenderhimself,Javan literally flew to my arms and urged clemency. It was completecapitulation. I knew it. But the victory must be more crushing. The last struggle of the victim must be squelched. It had occurred to me before that an epic seriousness, if not majesty, might be given to our high-handed pretensions by shooting down the Crocodilo-Python effigies at the corners of the palace. The risk might be considerable, and then again it might be very little, with tremendous compensating benefits if the dice fell the right way. How would the people take it? I did not know. This moment of irresolution permitted something to happen which gave us the upper hand most beautifully, eliminated violence, and struck the keynote of a perfect CONCILIATION.
Ziliah, ardent, arrayed superbly, with her copious dark hair bound up, as was the fashion of the upper-class women, with the little gold serpents, wearing the gold caps on her knees, her ankles encased in gold filagree that rose half way up the naked leg, her feet in golden sandals, and swathed somehow in a soft delicate blue tunic covering her thighs and body, but falling away from the pillar-like neck and firmly moulded breasts, a vision of picturesque loveliness, sprang amongst us. Her face was flushed by excitement but radiant in smiles. And of course she wore the golden belt with its serpent buckle.
She flung her arms around the Professor, kissed him on both cheeks, salaamed, bending her knees to the ground with a wonderful, unstudied grace. Then she took her astonished father’s hand and led that little gentleman forward, and then Put, and Hul, Peleg and Hadad—the remaining elders, arrived, but had shrunk from the presentation. Then Ziliah spoke. Her voice was high keyed, but musical, and had a soaring quality in it that carriedfar. Silence fell and the intensity of the psychological moment made me wonder at the girl’s prescience.
“Father, make peace with these men. They bring us a New Wisdom. We shall be happy with them. Let the Son of Thunder (my eyes at that instant fell on Hopkins; he was visibly squirming in an agony of suppressed mirth at the designation, but the Professor retained a most noble immobility) be your guide, your companion. These men will all be brothers to us, and this man (she knelt again at the feet of Hopkins, who seized her in his arms, and lifted her to his face) will be my husband.” Javan’s astonishment then was a study.
I was transported, and I rushed in to therapprochement, as she ended, with fresh promises of friendship.
Nothing would be disturbed, nothing changed. We came to them strangers from the clouds, we would bless them with new powers. The Great Serpent still should reign.
At all this there was a great shouting, a tempest of approving comment, and the landslide of public endorsement overwhelmed the council. The retreating or abashed or cowardly members of “the Syndicate of Old Toddlers,” as Hopkins said, issued from their niches in the crowd, and Javan, caught in anenjambmentfrom which he could not extricate his party, surrendered. He came forward, and after him came Put, Hul, Peleg, Hadad; and the Professor, with a fine urbanity that capped the climax and swept away all traces of resentment or repugnance, fell on their necks, so to speak, though the act had to be rather sedately done for he would incontinently have knocked them down. It had a delightfully funny andpicaresqueeffect and I again felt, as I had felt hundreds of times before, that it all was a dreamand unreal. The string as it lengthened embraced the whole Areopagus, and this fraternal ceremony evidently, as Hopkins noted, “tickled the little old fellow to death.”
They were all there: Riphath, Kittim, Cush, Pathrusim, Lud, Hul, Joktan, Naphish, Jeush, Jaalam, Shammah, Shobal, Homan, Uz, Samlah, Bela, Zephi, Zerah, Ebal, Manahath, Anah, Amram Mibsam, Gomer, Magog, Anamim, Ludim. I am sure I did not know their identity; I counted them, thirty in all. That consummated matters and set Professor Hlmath Bjornsen of Christiania on the throne of Radiumopolis in KROCKER LAND.
Javan and the other doctors softened beautifully, and actually expanded into a self-satisfied body of patronage and allegiance. The Professor was “shown through” the Capitol, and he threaded its maze of compartments, saw its Council Chamber, enriched with gold, hung with gaudy rugs, and found there the as yet unoccupied clumsy and incalculably valuable gold throne which we had seen shaking and rattling in the procession, itself a relic of some old time, when this isolated kingdom had had a king, but was young compared to that still more remote time when “the stranger” taught that king’s progenitor the miracle of making gold.
From it now, under the aegis of its hideous device, the rearing Crocodilo-Python, our dear Professor was to dispense justice to the Radiumopolites. Of a truth it was an almost inconceivabledenouement. What would, what could, the Professor’s colleagues at the University say, and by what insupportable hypothesis could they explain this transmutation?
And there was to be a Coronation! Oh yes. Javan and the rest of the Fathers had conspired successfully there; indeed the fuss of its preparation and the importance of their parts in its conducthad now really made them inanely jubilant over the whole revolution in state affairs.
Hopkins and I walking eastward along the broad highway over which we had entered Radiumopolis, out into that fair Valley of Rasselas which was again stirring with the field life of the advancing spring, talked rather earnestly of our predicament, for, after all, predicament it was. How were we to get home and tell our story? We were to be made a good deal of here but—could we escape? Goritz had become eager to return with his gold “souvenirs” (never inquired for), with his radium, with the secret of making gold, if he could learn it. That was yet concealed and, much more important, so were the tubes. Those balloons, the radium-lit cave in the Deer Fels. And there was the great ethnic wonder of the people themselves, the marvel of the Stationary Sun, the radium country! It was impossible to reconcile ourselves to a lifelong immurement in this monotony. Science must break through into this chrysalis of wonders. It was our bounden duty to bringherhere. But literally we were captives; the hocus-pocus of our descent from the sky would not let us demean ourselves in ordinary ways (in spite of past precedents of the vulgarity on the part of heaven-descended kings) and we began to see we had prepared a dilemma for ourselves which might end more fatally than the enmity of the little doctors had threatened.
Now all was changed, and like flies in honey were we hopelessly entangled. Perhaps the most fortunate of us all was Spruce Hopkins himself, who frankly loved Ziliah; but even he wanted to “vamoose” and take his bride with him, for he thought she would “take the edge off the jolliest swell ladies anywhere.” The Professor, now the joke was over and our necks safe, was sick to death of his role, and only extracted a comforting morselof pleasure from it in its possibility of opening to him the few but very peculiar secrets of physics and chemistry which the Faculty of Radiumopolis monopolized—monopolized too, we learned, by a rigid system of verbal transmission. And then our thunder! It wouldn’t last for ever; and our celestial powers would fail conclusively in creating cartridges on demand, owing to the unscrupulous fondness on the part of the Radiumopolites, which was having easily foreseen and disastrous consequences. Our supply was shrinking fast. We adopted the expedient of delegating the role ofThundererto the Professor, which saved shot, or at least extended the usefulness of our arsenal. The peaceful nature of the Professor was, however, so far exasperated by the improvident urgency of his subjects that he confessed to a murderous inclination to shoot them at the same time. If any one of us got away he would need his gun and ammunition and much more—a stock of provisions too, and transportation. We both felt pretty blue.
Hopkins: “One of us must make a break soon.”
I: “Well you certainly can’t. Your family’s here now.”
Hopkins: “Ziliah’s a sport. She might just prove to be the guy to putlightin flight. Besides I could tell her some things about the way we live in New York that might increase her desire to travel.”
I: “But we came from Heaven!”
Hopkins: “Yes, I know—we’re the angelic sort. Say, if I wanted to desert Ziliah—and I don’t—I could play up the Lohengrin gag. Get her to ask questions, get mad about it—andquit.”
I: “Easier said than done.”
Hopkins: “There’s no chance to skip out up here in this everlasting daylight.”
I: “Pshaw! That isn’t it. Think of the journey back; think of the ice pack.”
Hopkins: “If we could only wireless back for a relief expedition.”
I: “If.”
We turned back, gloomy and dispirited. When we reached Radiumopolis we found King Hlmath Bjornsen thundering from the Capitol and Goritz—gone.