"What's the matter, anyhow?" I asked.
"We have just discovered that you are a robber," said Ocou.
"I am no robber here," I answered, "no matter what I was in the place I
came from."
"Once a robber always a robber," retorted Ocou, "unless you touch the
Bolla."
"Well, well!" murmured the professor, rubbing his hands delightedly over
the pedestal and giving little heed to Ocou's remark. "What do you call
this machine, Mr. Ocou?"
"That, sir," Ocou replied, "is a character indexograph. We find it very
useful in cataloguing the natural tendencies of subjects of the realm."
He sighed.
"The number of indexographs in the kingdom is limited, and they have all
been working overtime of late. This is the first opportunity we have
had to use one on you and your friend. Now, professor, if you will
oblige me."
The professor dropped down, the disk gliding over his bald head, and
another ideograph shot into sight.
"Ah," murmured Ocou, reading the sign: 'philanthropist, scientist, a man
to counsel with!' You'll do, sir; but your friend!"--and he shook his
head sadly as he dropped his talking machine.
"I suppose," said I, watching Ocou and his attendants make off with the
indexograph, "that I shall be kept within this circle indefinitely?"
"Let us hope not, Mr. Munn," rejoined the professor, laying a kindly
hand on my arm. "Rather let us hope that you will experience a moral
rejuvenation, so that when the indexograph is tried on you at another
time it will show a different result."
"I wish they would try that thing on J. Archibald Meigs!" I exclaimed.
"The Baigols would find, I think, that I have no monopoly on that
particular ideograph."
The professor laughed quietly.
"Let us see what comes to us now after we have been catalogued," said
he. "I think they have simply been waiting to make trial of our
tendencies before allowing us to pass out of this enchanted circle."
Ocou came back in a couple of hours, carrying a roll of parchment in
addition to his baton. He came alone.
"Gentlemen," said he in his mechanical way, "your names have been
entered and tagged. In accordance with the information secured through
the indexograph, a task has been set for you. Perform that task
faithfully and you are to have the freedom of the realm."
"What is the task, Mr. Ocou?" inquired the professor.
"You are to restore the sacred Bolla to his majesty, the king of
Baigol."
"And what is the Bolla?"
"It is the stone of happiness and peace. Merely to touch it restores a
mortal to health, physical and moral. Crime is a contagious disease,
and since the Bolla has been lost to us and untouched of any in the
kingdom, lawlessness has become widespread."
"Where is the Bolla?"
"It was loaned some seasons ago to the king of Baigadd, who now refuses
to return it. As Baigadd is a more powerful country than ours, it would
be an act of destruction for us to make war for the stone. So our king
has graciously decreed that Mr. Munn shall proceed to the neighboring
kingdom and steal the Bolla, taking you along with him, professor, as
adviser and general aide."
Nothing could have pleased us more.
As I have stated elsewhere in this narrative, stealing property from
some one to whom that property does not rightfully belong can hardly be
accounted a crime; and when property thus purloined is restored to its
rightful owner, the theft is transformed into a high and noble act.
Such a task filled me with enthusiasm, and I was ready to go forth among
the four-handed enemies of Baigol and demonstrate my abilities. The
professor, thinking of Gilhooly, would have welcomed any undertaking
which carried him into the neighboring realm.
Ocou told us that the king of Baigadd was a very grasping individual,
although he was very careful to abstain from touching the Bolla. Had he
touched the wonderful stone, so great was its power that he would have
experienced a change of heart immediately, and could not have shirked
returning the property to its rightful owner.
King Gaddbai was very wealthy, according to Ocou, drawing his revenues
principally from the kaka industry, of which he had a monopoly. Ka was
a fibrous plant from which kaka, the only cloth known in the four
kingdoms, was made.
This plant would grow nowhere else than in Baigadd, so that the people
of the other three kingdoms had to go to Baigadd for their kirtles.
Every time the king of Baigadd suffered a pecuniary backset, or donated
a large sum to charity, he recouped his exchequer by boosting the price
of kirtles.
There was a time, Ocou declared, when all the inhabitants of Njambai
went clothed from neck to heels, but wardrobes dwindled as the price of
cloth rose. Very few people could now afford the luxury of a full suit;
and since the upper half of the body could not be covered with a
garment, it was covered with paint--the paint being usually of a color
to match or harmonize with the kirtle.
A variety of black kaka was the only serviceable material to be had for
writing purposes, ideographs being traced on its surface with white ink.
We were told how gentlemen once wealthy, but who had fallen upon evil
days, had drawn upon their libraries for wearing apparel.
Books of poetry, essays, travel, fiction, all yielded their leaves to
the making of various garments, thereby clothing the body as comfortably
as they had already clothed the mind.
What could be more apropos than a morning gown inscribed with choice
ideographic sonnets? Or a student's robe begemmed with the brilliant wit
of an essayist? Or a traveling costume bearing an account of some
voyage of discovery?
The only fault to be found with this arrangement was that such clothing
advertised the wearer's poverty; and in Njambai, as in Terra, the pride
of wealth was most pronounced.
King Gaddbai, it appeared, had so enhanced the cost of black kaka that
literature lay languishing. Writers had not the requisite material on
which to inscribe their thoughts, and the four kingdoms were threatened
with a blight of ignorance.
From what we heard of King Gaddbai, the professor and I were not
disposed to regard him very favorably. He seemed a greedy and
unscrupulous person, more than ready to swell his coffers by trampling
on the rights and the welfare of others.
The parchment roll brought by Ocou was a map, showing us how to direct
our steps in order to reach Baigadd. Ocou also delivered to us a royal
banner, direct from the hands of King Golbai, which was to procure us
favor en route and entitle us to be received and cared for as
ambassadors when we reached the other kingdom.
The professor asked for a baton, but this was denied him. The Baigols
feared, I suppose, to trust such a terrible weapon in the hands of
aliens.
The professor's pleasure over the prospect of being allowed to leave our
prison ring and journey in search of our friends while seeking the Bolla
was marred somewhat by Ocou's revelations.
He had hoped to find Njambai free of monopoly and greed, and yet here
was King Gaddbai boosting the price of kaka whenever the whim struck
him; and he had hoped to find a people where poverty was unknown, and
yet he discovered how the educated were obliged to raid their libraries
in order to cover their nakedness.
"Human nature, professor," I expounded, "is the same all over the
universe. If a man finds himself in a position to gouge his neighbor,
he is as apt to do it on Jupiter, or Mercury, as he is on Terra."
"I am grievously discouraged," he sighed.
"Furthermore," said I, "my practicing on the word-box could not have
caused the havoc you imagined it might. Ocou tells us that, since the
Bolla has been taken from Baigol, lawlessness has been widespread, and
increasing."
"Your rehearsal of the false sentiments contained in your book may have
helped on the lawlessness. I am more sorry than I know how to express
in finding, among this gifted people, some of the worst elements of our
own civilization. And my regret is the more pronounced on the score of
Popham, Meigs, Gilhooly, and Markham."
"How do they figure in your disappointment?" I queried.
"Can't you understand?" he cried. "I had the same hopes of them that I
had of you. Suppose we found on this planet not a trace of monopoly or
greed; suppose we had found here a peace-loving, justice-serving people,
with plenty to eat and wear, needing no laws to govern them, and all
happy and contented. The moral effect upon you and the rest of our
friends would have been uplifting. You would have seen, admired and
coveted the same conditions for our own orb. A change would have been
worked in you, and for the better.
"That," he went on passionately, "is the full measure of my
disappointment. So far from finding such conditions, Mr. Munn, you are
immediately catalogued as a thief, and given a task commensurate with
your supposed abilities--a task or robbery!"
"But a righteous robbery," I averred. "Recovering stolen property and
returning it to the rightful owner is a meritorious act."
"We must call it so," he answered bitterly, "since so much hangs upon
our joint attempt. But what a lesson for these poor, benighted people!"
"The ability to get the stone is beyond them, and they call upon us," I
pursued. "Their action is flattering, rather than otherwise. If we
succeed, it means that we shall stand even higher in their estimation."
"We, who ought to know better, are making ourselves living examples of
successful thievery."
"The end justifies the means, professor."
"We must strive to think so."
"I suppose Gilhooly has been catalogued, the same as you and I, and that
he was found to stand so high in traction affairs that they----"
"Let us not dwell upon poor Gilhooly."
"He is just where he ought to be," I declared. "I only wish he had a
glimmering of sense still left him in order that he might realize his
position. The effect would be salutary."
This frank expression of my views rather startled Professor Quinn. He
walked back and forth, his hands clasped behind him and his head bowed
in deep thought.
"The indexograph is a most remarkable invention," he finally observed,
"and would be of inestimable value on our native planet. The detection
of crime would be an easy matter, and on the testimony of the
indexograph alone justice could be meted out without the intermediate
application of the courts. Furthermore, justice would never miscarry."
"I hope," I exclaimed in a panic, "that I shall never live to see the
day when the police officials of Terra are equipped with indexographs!
It would prove a knockout blow for my profession. Every citizen would be
tested, and his proclivities jotted down in black and white."
"That would mean," expanded the professor, "that crime would be
relegated to the limbo of lost arts! Before a lawless act could be
committed, the artist in crime would be placed where the deed would be
impossible."
"That's the way I figure it out, professor."
"But that is not the least of the indexograph's merits. Children could
be duly catalogued, and, if they showed criminal tendencies, could be
sent to institutions for proper moral training. The inclination of the
young toward certain trades could be learned, and they could be given
instruction along the line which would best serve their future careers.
There would not be so many failures in life, Mr. Munn."
"Perhaps not," I answered stubbornly, "but I still maintain that the
overturning of our customary standards would land us in chaos."
"Tut!" he exclaimed half angrily. "Some day, I trust, your angle of
vision will change materially. Until that time, Mr. Munn, it would be
well for you to repress your peculiar views, for, you are going to be
sorry for them."
Just three weeks to a day from the time we reached Baigol we fared forth
from the royal city, bent upon the performance of our mission. We were
armed only with our word-boxes, the king's standard, and a firm
determination to achieve our liberty by securing the Bolla, no matter
what the cost.
Our journey led us through a pleasant country, level for the most part
and covered with irrigated fields growing the white blossoms which the
Baigols gathered and cooked for food. The king's will, as made known by
the banner, secured us rest by the way.
I have not considered it necessary to refer to the fact that there was
light and darkness throughout the kingdoms of Baigol and Baigadd during
each period of twenty-four hours and three minutes. Light and heat were
sent through the under-world by means of the two huge reflectors already
mentioned, and when the sun passed from the heavens of course night
fell.
But the climate was at all times delightful. We were armored against the
temperature, and could not ourselves experience the equable air, yet our
eyes and ears assured us of its presence, and this proved another
surprise for the professor.
By day we traveled and by night we rested, often covering as many as
five hundred _spatli_ in a single day. Four days, at that rate, were to
carry us to the capital of the other kingdom.
I gathered much wisdom from the professor as we journeyed, and there
were two of our conversations which made a deep impression on me. The
first had to do with the reflectors that turned the sun's rays into the
bowels of the planet.
"Without the sun, Mr. Munn," remarked Quinn, indicating the white fields
beside us with a gesture of the hand, "there could be no vegetable life
in Baigol. Those fields must be quickened to life by the solar rays or
they would be as barren as the outer shell of the planet. Finite
ingenuity may always be trusted to accommodate itself to its
environment. I can set the astronomers of Terra right on one mystery,
at least."
"What mystery do you refer to, professor?" I asked.
"Why," he answered, "a luminous point has been detected by earthly
telescopes on the disk of Mercury. The phenomenon has been explained as
a huge mountain, whose top reflects the sun; yet it is only one of the
great reflectors fabricated by these ingenious people."
Then at another time:
"Professor," said I, "have you made any discoveries relative to that
powerful little weapon which the Baigols know so well how to use?"
"A few," he answered. "The baton is called a zetbai, and its ammunition
is drawn from a peculiar ingredient of the atmosphere. The white tip of
the zetbai furnishes the destructive force, while the black tip combats
and nullifies it. The inhabitants of this orb, Mr. Munn, have a weapon
of such awful power in the zetbai that a dozen of their number, armed
with the batons, could descend upon our own globe and devastate it.
"Well is it for Terra that means are lacking for interplanetary
communication; otherwise the Baigols and their fellow-creatures might
prove the Napoleons of the universe. Such a contingency is terrible to
contemplate."
"Had the zetbai anything to do with that invisible power that stayed us
from crossing the circular wall?"
"It had everything to do with that. An unseen barrier was placed around
us--a barrier of zet, drawn from the atmosphere by these Baigols and
made to serve their ends. Unlike powder and ball, which destroy
themselves in creating destruction, zet is indestructible; it can be
regathered into the zetbai and used over and over again. The resisting
medium, controlled by the black tip of the baton, is alone powerful to
annul the energy of the white tip."
These were the points that impressed me. Another which we discussed, but
which did not appeal to me as logical or accurate, had to do with the
object of our quest--the Bolla.
"With all due respect to Mr. Ocou," said I, "he was certainly talking
moonshine when he described the Bolla."
"I would not go so far as to say he was talking moonshine, Mr. Munn,"
the professor answered. "There are stranger things in Heaven, Earth,
and Mercury than are dreamed of in our philosophy. Take yourself, for
instance. You are a sick man----"
"Never sick in my life," I declared.
"I mean morally," went on Quinn. "If crime is a disease, you will
admit, I think, that you are sick."
"No," I averred, "I am healthy in mind and body. I take no stock in Mr.
Ocou's assertions--which ought to prove that I am mentally sound, I take
it. But we'll get this palladium, just the same, for our liberty
depends on it."
Toward noon of the fourth day, as we drew near the boundaries of
Baigadd, we entered a rocky and uneven country, the well-defined road we
had been following cutting and circling through the low hills. When we
were well in among the bowlders a frantic shout reached us from around a
bend in the road a few _spatli_ ahead.
"That was a cry in our own tongue, Mr. Munn!" exclaimed the professor,
coming to a halt. "Did you not hear it? It was certainly a call for
help."
"You are right, sir," I answered. "That was a lusty English yell, if I
ever heard one."
"It was given by one of our friends, of course."
"No doubt; it is not hard to distinguish a human voice from the bleat of
one of these Baigol word-boxes. Possibly the new motive power of the
B.&B. Interplanetary has rebelled and is fleeing this way."
"No," answered the professor excitedly, "I do not think that shout came
from Gilhooly. It was---- Ah, Mr. Meigs!"
At that instant, J. Archibald Meigs came bounding into sight around the
bend. But he was not the well-groomed, richly appareled Mr. Meigs of
Earth and the steel car. His only garment was a kirtle.
He must have been surprised at seeing us, but so great was his fear that
he did not show it. Panic left no room for any other emotion.
"Quinn! Munn! Save me--save me from the soldiers!"
A few dozen prodigious leaps brought him trembling to our vicinity, and
he fell exhausted to his knees.
*CHAPTER XI.*
*THE DILEMMA OF MR. MEIGS.*
"My, my!" cried the professor. "What has happened, Mr. Meigs? How is
it that we find you in this--er--forlorn condition?"
"I'm a wretched man!" wailed Meigs, grabbing the professor's knees in
the stress of his emotion. "You have got to save me, Professor Quinn.
It was you who brought me to this awful planet, and if I am slain my
blood will be upon your head!"
That was Meigs for you. Even in his dire extremity he did not forget to
heap censure upon the head of our great savant.
"You are not going to be slain," said the professor confidently.
"But these creatures are as venomous as centipedes!" murmured Meigs,
suffering himself to be lifted erect by the professor. "Horrors! There
they come now. Oh, this is too much, too much!"
Meigs got behind the professor. Turning our eyes toward the bend, we
saw a detachment of the Baigadd army just hurling itself into sight.
We had made some acquaintance with military affairs in Baigol.
Soldiers, as may be surmised, were armed with zetbais, but word-boxes
were kept out of the ranks. Only officers carried talking machines,
matters being ordered on the principle that privates were to hear and
obey. Each soldier wielded two zetbais--one with each pair of
hands--thereby enormously increasing his capacity for destruction.
The fighting force of Baigol, we had been informed, although organized
on a smaller scale, was equipped and maneuvred exactly as was the
military arm of Baigadd.
The detachment approaching at a double-quick in pursuit of Meigs was, as
we afterward found, a company of Gaddbaizets, or royal guards. They
numbered fifty, wore yellow kirtles, had the torso gilded, and were
commanded by a single officer carrying nothing but a word-box.
The sight of the professor and myself caused the Gaddbaizets to come to
an abrupt halt. They had undoubtedly heard of us, but they were far from
expecting to encounter us there at that time.
The officer was the first to recover his wits, and approached the place
where we were standing, holding his talking machine over his head and
punching its keys vigorously. His first words were a command to the
soldiers: "Hold your zetbais and make no move against these fierce
colossi until you get further orders from me!"
Then, to us:
"Behemoths! Whence come you and why are you protecting the monster in
the red kirtle?"
Meigs, it could easily be seen, was not on familiar terms with the
word-boxes. So far as he was concerned, the captain's words fell on
deaf ears.
"We are from Baigol," said the professor, giving an amiable twist to his
words by a deft use of Key 7, "and come on an errand from the king of
that country. This gentleman is a friend of ours----"
"A friend!" screeched the captain's machine. "He is a thief and has
stolen a hundred djins of kaka from our sovereign storehouse."