LOVE 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 knew Ziliah 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 a _great loss to
science_ no 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 making _gold_. 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 a _Gold
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 sight _forever_.”
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 our _guns_. 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. Science _must know_ of 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 grew dangerously. 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 the _ALL IN_
look 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 as _personae non gratae_ to 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 the _crux_ of 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
intimacy with Hopkins; he thought it would lead to something. It did. As
Hopkins put it, “it was the Guy who put the _eat_ in _Beat_ it.”
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—the _numina_ of 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, and Javan
(“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 certainly _played_ her 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 would fall 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 the _killing 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 closed chapter, 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 a _diaspora_ of
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 the _impasse_, 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. But _she_ formed the plan of our _coup
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 it were, 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 compelling _suadente
potestas_ of 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 (_fide_ Hopkins), 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 the
miraculous 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. The _eukairia_, 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 Professor _Shamlah_, 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 fourteen _settas_, which meant, in our
time, about a week. Oh ho! That was the limit of our sufferance. In a
week they would meet us _on 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 us _en 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 disseminators of 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 somewhat _en 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 the _qui 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 would start 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 the _Demiurge 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 the
_Pretender_ himself, Javan literally flew to my arms and urged clemency.
It was complete _capitulation_. 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 carried far. 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 the _rapprochement_, 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 an _enjambment_ from 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
and _picaresque_ effect and I again felt, as I had felt hundreds of
times before, that it all was a dream and 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 inconceivable _denouement_.
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 conduct had 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 bring _her_ here. 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 morsel of 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 of _Thunderer_ to 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 put
_light_ in 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—and _quit_.”
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.
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