It was all over. Chick opened his eyes to see the Jan throwing open the
plate on the side of the compartment. Neither the soldier nor the Rhamda
seemed to have noted Chick's daze. As for the Jan, his blue eyes were
dancing with dare-devilry.
“That's what I call living!” he grinned. “They can keep on looking for
the June Bug all night!”
Chick looked out. They were inside the great room from which they had
started; the trip was over; the plunge had been made in safety. Chick
took a long breath, and held out a hand.
“A man after my own heart, Jan Lucar. I foresee that we may have great
sport with the Senestro.”
“Aye, my lord,” cheerfully. “The presumptuous usurper! I only wish I
could kill him, instead of you.”
“You are not the only one,” commented the Rhamda. “Half of the Rhamdas
would cheerfully act as the chosen one's proxy.”
And so ended the events of Chick Watson's first day beyond the Blind
Spot, his first day on the Thomahlia; that is, disregarding the previous
months of unconsciousness. He had good reason to pass a sleepless night
in legitimate worry for the outcome of it all; but instead he slept the
sound sleep of exhaustion, awakening the next morning much refreshed.
He reminded himself, first of all, that today was the one immediately
preceding that of his test--the Day of the Prophet. He had only a little
more than twenty-four hours to prepare. What was the best and wisest
proceeding?
He called for the Geos. He told him what data he wanted. The Rhamda said
that he could find everything in a library in that building, and inside
a half-hour he returned with a pile of manuscripts.
Left to himself, Chick found that he now had data relating to all the
sciences, to religion, to education and political history and the law.
The chronology of the Thomahlians, Chick found, dates back no less than
fifteen thousand years. An abiding civilisation of that antiquity, it
need not be said, presented somewhat different aspects from what is
known on the earth.
It seemed that the Jarados had come miraculously. That is, he had come
out of the unknown, through a channel which he himself later termed the
Spot of Life.
He had taught a religion of enlightenment, embracing intelligence,
love, virtue, and the higher ethics such as are inherent in all great
philosophies. But he did not call himself a religionist. That was the
queer point. He said that he had come to teach an advanced philosophy of
life; and he expressly stated that his teachings were absolute only to a
limited extent.
“Man must seek and find,” was one of his epigrams; “and if he find no
more truths, then he will find lies.” Which was merely a negative way of
saying that some of his philosophy was only provisional.
But on some points he was adamant. He had arrived at a time when the
unthinking, self-glorifying Thomahlians had all but exterminated the
lower orders of creation. The Jarados sought to remove the handicap
which the people had set upon themselves, and gave them, in the place
of kindness which they had forgotten, how to use, a burning desire for
a positive knowledge, where before had been only blind faith. Also, he
taught good-fellowship, as a means to this end. He taught beauty, love,
and laughter, the three great cleansers of humanity. And yet, through it
all--
The Jarados was a mystic.
He studied life after a manner of his own. He was a stickler for getting
down to the very heart of things, for prodding around among causes until
he found the cause itself. And thus he learned the secret of the occult.
For so he taught. And presently the Jarados was recognized as an
authority on what the Thomahlia called “the next world.” Only he showed
that death, instead of being an ushering into a void, was merely a
translation onto another plane of life, a higher plane and a more
glorious one. In short, a thing to be desired and attained, not to be
avoided.
This put the Spot of Life on an entirely different basis. No longer
was it a fearsome thing. The Jarados elevated death to the plane of
motherhood--something to glory in. And Chick gathered that his famous
prophecy--which he had yet to read, where it hung on the wall of the
temple--gave every detail of the Jarados' profound convictions and
teachings regarding the mystery of the next life.
And now comes a curious thing. As Chick read these details, he became
more and more conscious of--what shall it be called?--the presence of
someone or something beside him, above and all about him, watching his
every movement. He could not get away from the feeling, although it was
broad daylight, and he was seemingly quite alone in the room. Chick was
not frightened; but he could have sworn that a very real personality was
enveloping his own as he read.
Every word, somehow, reminded him of the miraculous sequence of facts
as he knew them; the unerring accuracy with which he, quite unthinkingly
and almost without volition, had solved problem after problem, although
the chances were totally against him. He became more and more convinced
that he himself had practically no control over his affairs; that he
was in the hands of an irresistible Fate; and that--he could not help
it--his good angel was none other than the prophet who, almost ninety
centuries ago, had lived and taught upon the Thomahlia, and in the end
had returned to the unknown.
But how could such a thing be? Watson did not even know where he was!
Small wonder that, again and again, he felt the need of assurance. He
asked for the Jan Lucar.
“In the first place,” began Chick without preamble, “you accept me, Jan
Lucar; do you not?”
“Absolutely, my lord.”
“You conceive me to be out of the spiritual world, and yet flesh and
blood like yourself?”
“Of course,” with flat conviction.
That settled it. Watson decided to find out something he had not had
time to locate in the library.
“The Rhamda may have told you, Jan Lucar, that I am here to seek the
Jarados. Now, I suspect the Senestro. Can you imagine what he has done
to the prophet?”
“My lord,” remonstrated the other, “daring as the Bar might be, he could
do nothing to the Jarados. He would not dare.”
“Then he is afraid to run counter to the prophecy?”
“Yes, my lord; that is, its literal interpretation. He is opposed only
to the broader version as held by such liberals as the Rhamda Avec. The
Bars are always warning the people against the false one.”
“And the Senestro is at their head,” mused Chick aloud. “This brother of
his who died--usually there are two such princes and chiefs?”
“Yes, my lord.”
“And the Senestro plans to marry both queens, according to the custom!”
“My lord”--and the Jan suddenly snapped erect--“the Bar will do
exceedingly well if he succeeds in marrying one of them! Certainly he
shall never have the Aradna--not while I live and can fight!”
“Good! How about the Nervina?”
“He'll do well to find her first!”
“True enough. What would you say was his code of honour?”
“My lord, the Senestro actually has no code. He believes in nothing. He
is so constituted, mentally and morally, that he cares for and trusts in
none but himself. He is a sceptic pure and simple; he cares nothing for
the Jarados and his teachings. He is an opportunist seeking for power,
wicked, lustful, cruel--”
“But a good sportsman!”
“In what way, my lord?”
“Didn't he allow me the choice of combat?”
The Jan laughed, but his handsome face could not hide his contempt.
“It is ever so with a champion, my lord. He has never been defeated in
a matter of physical prowess. It would be far more to his glory to
overcome you in combat of your own selection. It will be spectacular--he
knows the value of dramatic climax--and he would kill you in a moment,
before a million Thomahlians.”
“It's a nice way to die,” said Watson. “You must grant that much.”
“I don't know of any nice way to die, my lord. But it is a good way of
living--to kill the Bar Senestro. I would that I could have the honour.”
“How does it come that the Rhamdas, superintellectual as they are,
can consent to such a contest? Is it not degrading, to their way of
thinking? It smacks of barbarism.”
“They do not look upon it in that light, my lord. Our civilisation has
passed beyond snobbery. Of course there was a time, centuries ago when
we were taught that any physical contest was brutal. But that was before
we knew better.”
“You don't believe it now?”
“By no means, my lord. The most wonderful physical thing in the
Thomahlia is the human body. We do not hide it. We admire beauty,
strength, prowess. The live body is above all art; it is the work of God
himself; art is but an imitation. And there is nothing so splendid as
a physical contest--the lightning correlation of mind and body. It is a
picture of life.”
“Do the Rhamdas think this?”
“Most assuredly. A Rhamda is always first an athlete.”
“Why?”
“Perfection, my lord. A perfect mind does not always dwell in a perfect
body, but they strive for it as much as possible. The first test of a
Rhamda is his body. After he passes that he must take the mental test.”
“Mental?”
“Moral first. The most rigid, perhaps of all; he must be a man above
suspicion. The honour of a Rhamda must never be questioned. He must
be upright and absolutely unselfish. He must be broad-minded,
human, lovable, and a leader of men. After that, my lord, comes the
intellectual test.”
“He must be a learned man?”
“Not exactly, your lordship. There are many very learned men who could
not be Rhamdas; and there are many who have had no learning at all
who eventually were admitted. The qualifications are intellectual,
not educational; the mind is put to a rigid test. It is examined for
alertness, perception, memory, reason, emotion, and control. There is no
greater honour in all the Thomahlia.”
“And they are all athletes?”
“Every one, my lord. In all the world there is no finer body of men, I
myself would hesitate before entering a match with even the old Rhamda
Geos.”
“How about the Rhamda Avec?”
“Nor he, either; in the gymnasium he was always the superior, just as he
topped all others morally and mentally.”
Did this explain the Avec's physical prowess, on the one hand, and the
fact that he would not stoop to take that ring by force, on the other?
“Just one more thing, Jan Lucar. You have absolutely no fear that I may
fail tomorrow?”
“Not the slightest, my lord. You cannot fail!”
“Why not?”
“I have already said--because you are from the Jarados.”
And Chick, facing the greatest experience of his life, submerged in a
sea wherein only a few islands of fact were visible, had to be content
with this: his only friends were those who were firmly convinced of
something which, he knew only too well, was a flat fraud! All this
backing was based upon a misled faith.
No, not quite. Was there not that strange feeling that the Jarados
himself was at his back? And had he not found that the prophet had
been real? Did he not feel, as positively as he felt anything, that the
Jarados was still a reality?
Chick went to bed that night with a light heart.