HOME THOUGHTS
THE genius of the Torides had qualities which more affiliated them with
the people of our own earth than did that of the Saturnians. Their desire
for power had stimulated them to develop the material sciences, and to
experiment with a view to the physical control of nature for personal
ends; whereas the Saturnians sought knowledge for the sake of its inherent
goodness and beauty, and therefore aimed to obliterate self as far as they
might, in order to thus remove the obstruction to influx and render
themselves obedient channels of the omnipotent force. They used no
writing, because such records of the past as were spiritually useful were
spontaneously present with them in each passing hour, and the source of
their wisdom constantly supplied them to the limits of their capacity;
they built no enduring structures, because they could immediately fashion
their natural surroundings into the form of their thoughts; they gave no
labor to food and protection, because the substances necessary to their
bodily nourishment passed into them in measure as waste created the
demand, on a principle analogous to the flow of vegetable sap; and for
defense, should that be required, they could so modify the vibrations of
reflected light as to render themselves invisible. They were wholly
occupied with the concerns of the moment; and they were independent of
space, by reason of their ability not only to appear and to act at a
distance mentally, but also to effect almost immediate bodily
transference. The general result of all this was, not a complicated but an
extremely simple manner of existence on the physical plane, interrupted on
special occasions only for some exceptional purpose; their ordinary life
was as artless and naïve as that of children; and they enriched their
environment not otherwise than by establishing an increasing harmony
between it and themselves. To this harmony was due the extension of their
physical life to periods vastly beyond any imaginable limits of ours,
accompanied throughout by a perfection of vigor and freshness which we
ascribe to the prime of youth alone.
Widely alien from this, and more consonant with ours, were the methods and
ambitions of the Torides, a self-centered and arrogant race, eager to
amaze and subdue by arbitrary force, and far more conversant than are we
not only with the more legitimate processes of science, but with those
devices to effect illusion of sense and mental bewilderment and subjection
which were practised to a limited degree by the necromancers and adepts of
former ages. They were of a turbulent and restless temper, capable of
daring and arduous enterprises, but always unsatisfied and unruly. Their
present ruler exercised a sway over them more absolute and severe than any
they had known for a long time; he possessed in the fullest degree the
qualities of the Torides nature, supplemented by an intellectual training
and accomplishment rivaled by no other. By means at his disposal he had
acquainted himself with many details of the nature and civilization of
most of the inhabitants of the planets of our system, and of our own earth
especially; with the ultimate object, never yet avowed but intensely
fostered, of obtaining supreme domination over them all. He had long been
collecting the materials for achieving this stupendous project; and at the
time of Miriam’s arrival on the scene he conceived himself to be nearly
ready to attempt it. The passion for possession of her which had seized
upon him appeared to him to be something far above the limitations of a
personal desire to enjoy her love and beauty; he imagined that a union
with her would greatly enhance his chances of success in his cosmic
adventure. Working together for that end, each would multiply the other’s
powers; and his actual contact with her, brief though it had been, and
hostile outwardly, had confirmed his confidence in the final outcome.
Among his many studies he had not neglected research into the nature of
woman, and fancied himself no tyro in that far-reaching and ramifying
mystery. Miriam’s unexampled exile from her home and people would render
her, he reflected, tenderly susceptible to influences that should seem to
conciliate that estrangement, and to make her forget the violence and
extraordinary circumstances of her seizure, and he took his measures
accordingly.
After conducting her into the castle he waved aside the guards and
attendants who assembled to do them honor, and led her through several
halls and antechambers, massively built and furnished with austere
dignity, to an upper floor where a corridor opened before them wainscoted
with light-tinted and polished woods, the upper walls and ceilings colored
in cheerful hues, with designs gracefully and tastefully conceived. At the
end of the passage he flung open a door, and stood aside, with an
obeisance, for her to enter.
Upon crossing the threshold she found herself in the outermost of a suite
of rooms, the first glimpse of which almost betrayed her into an
exclamation of astonishment. He was watching her closely and he smiled.
“Anything you wish is at your service here,” he said quietly. “There are
women at your call to wait upon you. You are mistress of this place and of
this planet. If you should be disposed to see me I will come; otherwise
your privacy will be inviolate.”
The door closed and she heard his tread departing down the passage.
After standing for a few moments, looking interestedly about her, while
the stern expression of her face gradually softened with pleased surprise,
she walked slowly through the five or six rooms of the apartment. At every
step some new object aroused her wonder and gratification. If this were
magic it was admirable employed!
The site was a replica, apparently exact, of her own rooms in her father’s
house on the Long Island shore. Had skilled architects and upholsterers
employed months in executing a careful reproduction their success could
not have been greater than had been here achieved, as it seemed,
instantaneously. It was home itself! Even familiar trifles—an inlaid
hand-mirror, an ivory fan from Burma, a silver flask of Damascus perfume,
a color photograph of her father—were in their accustomed places. The rugs
on the inlaid floors were of her own selection; the embroidery on the
silken bed-covering was of her own design. Entering the room on the left
of the bedchamber, which she had had fitted up as a study and laboratory,
she found all her paraphernalia apparently as she had left them when going
on her last visit to Mary Faust. This discovery aroused in her something
more than surprise. She examined various articles minutely; then, throwing
herself into the study chair, she spent some time in grave meditation. If
this apparatus were as genuine as it looked, Torpeon had, no doubt,
unwittingly put in her hands potent means for defeating his own plans.
Before leaving her earth she had nearly completed an invention, based upon
atomic disintegration, which was capable of being applied in a manner to
give unexpected significance to his statement that she was “mistress of
Tor.” If the result of her experiments answered their promise the words
would become something more than an empty compliment.
“At any rate,” she told herself, “science is science, in one part of the
universe as much as in another. But, of course, all this wonderful
reproduction is a clever device to put me off my guard—an expansion of the
same principle used by Hindu jugglers to beguile the senses. I seem to be
at home again, but I am a prisoner here, nevertheless; and probably under
constant observation. If there were only some one here whom I could
trust!”
As she uttered the wish an incongruous thought of the grotesque little
cripple, Jim, slipped into her mind. It was one of those unaccountable
vagaries which characterize memory. She had never given more than passing
attention to him. The impression was probably due to the prevailing, if
sometimes subconscious, presence of Jack in her reflections; the one would
suggest the other. Jack! Where was he? What was he doing or planning?
Doubtless he would attempt to follow her. Aided by the Saturnians—but
would they aid him? And must not Torpeon have prepared for all such
contingencies? Did not the very liberality with which he treated her
indicate his conviction that he was safe from attack? Yes; she must not
depend upon outside assistance. She must fight for herself!
But, once more, that impression of the cripple returned to her. She half
resented it. But she dismissed that feeling; the poor little creature
could not be responsible for the notion. It was odd how clearly he was
presented before her mind’s eye. She must have taken more exact note of
him than she had supposed. Jim was the only one of the three who had
undergone no outward alteration on his arrival on Saturn; the flame
garments which she and Jack had assumed had not replaced, for him, the
quaint, terrestrial jacket and trousers which he had worn in New York. Jim
was too elementary in his simplicity to undergo change. And yet the soul
of him, which was loyal, honest and affectionate, must be capable, like
all true and loving souls of indefinite development. But he would always
be Jim! Miriam smiled and sighed. Then she rose, with an impatient
impulse, and returned to the bedroom.
Yonder was her dressing-table in the corner, with the cheval-glass
standing beside it, inclined at the angle she had last given it. She
walked up to it with a feminine curiosity, to see how she looked in
Saturnian costume.
She was frankly startled when the reflection given back to her showed her
to be wearing the same dove-colored flying-suit that was her usual dress
when visiting the Long Island estate. The degree of pleasure which this
gave her was perhaps not logically justifiable. It seemed to bring her
real home nearer than had any of the other features of the production of
her familiar surroundings—reproduction, illusion, or whatever it might be.
Here she stood, as she was accustomed to see herself! It restored her
self-possession. And she yielded to a genuine emotion of gratitude to
Torpeon, whose foresight must have been something more than
self-interested to inspire him to such a thought. It implied real interest
in her.
“The creature does really care for me!” she said to herself. She seated
herself in the chair before the dressing-table, and by the mere force of
habit touched the bell-punch in the panel, by which she was wont to summon
her personal maid, Jenny. Jenny was a New England girl, daughter of a
farmer, who had been a chum of Terence Mayne before they emigrated to
America. Old Mike, dying a widower in narrow circumstances, had left his
daughter an orphan, and Terence, for old sake’s sake, had brought her to
New York to be Miriam’s confidential attendant.
“Dear little Jenny!” murmured Miriam, as she sent the signal along the
wire. “I wonder if she misses me! What kind of substitute will I get, do
you suppose?”
The door leading into the servant’s quarters opened quietly, and a light
step was audible approaching from behind; that was how Jenny used to come
in, and the rhythm of the steps was like hers. In a moment Jenny herself
stood before her mistress and dropped a curtsy with her warm Hibernian
smile.
“Did you ring, miss?” The well remembered lilt of the Cork brogue—Jenny
was born in Old Kinsale!
“Bring me a cup of tea, Jenny,” said Miriam. But this was mere reflex
action, she had been too much amazed to express her amazement.
“Sure I will, miss, with pleasure,” Jenny relied; and turned briskly and
walked out. There had been no illusion about it, no reproduction.
Inanimate things might be imitated, but not a human being in flesh and
blood.
Miriam had leisure before Jenny returned with the tea-things on the tray
to recover her breath and to turn the matter over in her mind. But the
only result of her reflections was an increased admiration for Torpeon: a
being who could do this was not to be despised. It showed something more
and better than control of hidden agencies; there was a grace, a delicacy,
in the achievement—a manifestation of the heart—which carried still
further the kindly sentiment which she had begun to feel for him, in spite
of her resolve to bring his purposes to naught.
Now she heard the clink of the tea-things on the tray, and here was Jenny
again, bearing the smoking teapot, the sugar, the sliced lemon, the thin
slices of brown bread and butter, and the Japanese porcelain teacup and
saucer.