Leading Eveena by the hand—for to hold my arm after the European
fashion was always an inconvenience and fatigue to her—and preceded
by Ergimo, I walked unnoticed to the closed gate of pink crystal,
contrasting the emerald green of the outer walls. Along the front of
this central portion of the residence was a species of verandah,
supported by pillars overlaid with a bright red metal, and wrought in
the form of smooth tree trunks closely clasped by creepers, the silver
flowers of the latter contrasting the dense golden foliage and
ruby-like stems. Under this, and in front of the gate itself, were two
sentries armed with a spear, the shaft of which was about six feet in
length, hollow, and almost as light as the cane or reed handle of an
African assegai. The blade more resembled the triangular bayonet.
Beside each, however, was the terrible asphyxiator, fixed on its
stand, with a bore about as great as that of a nine-pounder, but
incomparably lighter. These two weapons might at one discharge have
annihilated a huge mob of insurgents threatening to storm the palace,
were insurrections known in Mars. These men saluted us by dropping the
points of their weapons and inclining the handle towards us; gazing
upon me with surprise, and with something of soldierly admiration for
physical superiority. The doors, wide enough to admit a dozen
Martialists abreast, parted, and we entered a vaulted hall whose
arched roof was supported not by pillars but by gigantic statues, each
presenting the lustre of a different jewel, and all wrought with
singular perfection of proportion and of beauty. Here we were met by
two officers wearing the same dress as the sentries outside—a diaper
of crimson and silver. The rank of those who now received us, however,
was indicated by a silver ribbon passing over the left shoulder, and
supporting what I should have called a staff, save that it was of
metal and had a sharp point, rendering it almost as formidable a
weapon as the rapier. Exchanging a word or two with Ergimo, these
gentlemen ushered us into a small room on the right, where
refreshments were placed before us. Eveena whispered me that she must
not share our meal in presence of these strangers; an intimation which
somewhat blunted the keen appetite I always derived from a journey
through the Martial atmosphere. Checked as it was, however, that
appetite seemed a new astonishment to our attendants; the need of food
among their race being proportionate to their inferior size and
strength. When we rose, I asked Ergimo what was to become of Eveena,
as the officers were evidently waiting to conduct me into the presence
of their Sovereign, where it would not be appropriate for her to
appear. He repeated my question to the principal official, and the
latter, walking to a door in the farther corner of the room, sounded
an electric signal; a few seconds after which the door opened, showing
two veiled figures, the pink ground of whose robes indicated their
matronhood, if I may apply such a term to the relation of his hundred
temporary wives to the Camptâ. But this ground colour was almost
hidden in the embroidery of crimson, gold, and white, which, as I soon
found, were the favourite colours of the reigning Prince. To these
ladies I resigned Eveena, the officer saying, as I somewhat
reluctantly parted from her, "What you entrust to the Camptâ's
household you will find again in your own when your audience is over."
Whether this avoidance of all direct mention of women were matter of
delicacy or contempt I hardly knew, though I had observed it on former
occasions.
When the door closed, I noticed that Ergimo had left us, and the
officers indicated by gesture rather than by words that they were to
lead me immediately into the presence. I had considered with some care
how I was, on so critical an occasion, to conduct myself, and had
resolved that the most politic course would probably be an assumption
of courteous but absolute independence; to treat the Autocrat of this
planet much as an English envoy would treat an Indian Prince. It was
in accordance with this intention that I had assumed a dress somewhat
more elaborate than is usually worn here, a white suit of a substance
resembling velvet in texture, and moire in lustre, with collar and
belt of silver. On my breast I wore my order of [illegible], and in my
belt my one cherished Terrestrial possession—the sword, reputed the
best in Asia, that had twice driven its point home within a finger's
breadth of my life; and that clove the turban on my brow but a minute
before it was surrendered—just in time to save its gallant owner and
his score of surviving comrades. In its hilt I had set the emerald
with which alone the Commander of the Faithful rewarded my services.
The turban is not so unlike the masculine head-dress of Mars as to
attract any special attention. Re-entering the hall, I was conducted
along a gallery and through another crystal door into the immediate
presence of the Autocrat. The audience chamber was of no extraordinary
size, perhaps one-quarter as large as the peristyle of Esmo's
dwelling. Along the emerald walls ran a series of friezes wrought in
gold, representing various scenes of peace and war, agricultural,
judicial, and political; as well as incidents which, I afterwards
learnt, preserved the memory of the long struggles wherein the
Communists were finally overthrown. The lower half of the room was
empty, the upper was occupied by a semicircle of seats forming part of
the building itself and directly facing the entrance. These took up
about one-third of the space, the central floor being divided from the
upper portion of the room by a low wall of metal surmounted by arches
supporting the roof and hung with drapery, which might be so lowered
as to conceal the whole occupied part of the chamber. The seats rose
in five tiers, one above the other. The semicircle, however, was
broken exactly in the middle, that is, at the point farthest from the
entrance, by a broad flight of steps, at the summit of which, and
raised a very little above the seats of the highest tier, was the
throne, supported by two of the royal brutes whose attack had been so
nearly fatal to myself, wrought in silver, their erect heads forming
the arms and front. About fifty persons were present, occupying only
the seats nearest to the throne. On the upper tier were nine or ten
who wore a scarlet sash, among whom I recognised a face I had not seen
since the day of my memorable visit to the Astronaut; not precisely
the face of a friend—Endo Zamptâ. Behind the throne were ranged a
dozen guards, armed with the spear and with the lightning gun used in
hunting. That a single Martial battalion with its appropriate
artillery could annihilate the best army of the Earth I could not but
be aware; yet the first thought that occurred to me, as I looked on
these formidably armed but diminutive soldiers, was that a score of my
Arab horsemen would have cut a regiment of them to pieces. But by the
time I had reached the foot of the steps my attention was concentrated
on a single figure and face—the form and countenance of the Prince,
who rose from his throne as I approached. Those who remember that
Louis XIV., a prince reputed to have possessed the most majestic and
awe-inspiring presence of his age, was actually beneath the ordinary
height of Frenchmen, may be able to believe me when I say that the
Autocrat of Mars, though scarcely five feet tall, was in outward
appearance and bearing the most truly royal and imposing prince I have
ever seen. His stature, rising nearly two inches over the tallest of
those around him, perhaps added to the effect of a mien remarkable for
dignity, composure, and self-confidence. The predominant and most
immediately observable expression of his face was one of serene calm
and command. A closer inspection and a longer experience explained
why, notwithstanding, my first conception of his character (and it was
a true one) ascribed to him quite as much of fire and spirit as of
impassive grandeur. His voice, though its tone was gentle and almost
strikingly quiet, had in it something of the ring peculiar to those
which have sent the word of command along a line of battle. I felt as
I heard it more impressed with the personal greatness, and even with
the rank and power, of the Prince before me, than when I knelt to kiss
the hand of the Most Christian King, or stood barefooted before the
greatest modern successor of the conqueror of Stamboul.
"I am glad to receive you," he said. "It will be among the most
memorable incidents of my reign that I welcome to my Court the first
visitor from another world, or," he added, after a sudden pause, and
with an inflection of unmistakable irony in his tone, "the first who
has descended to our world from a height to which no balloon could
reach and at which no balloonist could live."
"I am honoured, Prince," I replied, "in the notice of a greater
potentate than the greatest of my own world."
These compliments exchanged, the Prince at once proceeded to more
practical matters, aptly, however, connecting his next sentence with
the formal phrases preceding it.
"Nevertheless, you have not shown excessive respect for my power in
the person of one of my greatest officers. If you treated the princes
of Earth as unceremoniously as the Regent of Elcavoo, I can understand
that you found it convenient to place yourself beyond their reach."
I thought that this speech afforded me an opportunity of repairing my
offence with the least possible loss of dignity.
"The proudest of Earthly princes," I replied, "would, I think, have
pardoned the roughness which forgot the duty of a subject in the first
obligations of humanity. No Sovereign whom I have served, but would
have forgiven me more readily for rough words spoken at such a moment,
than for any delay or slackness in saving the life of a woman in
danger under his own eyes. Permit me to take this opportunity of
apologizing to the Regent in your presence, and assuring him that I
was influenced by no disrespect to him, but only by overpowering
terror for another."
"The lives of a dozen women," said the Camptâ, still with that covert
irony or sarcasm in his tone, "would seem of less moment than threats
and actual violence offered to the ruler of our largest and wealthiest
dominion. The excuse which Endo Zamptâ must accept" (with a slight but
perceptible emphasis on the imperative) "is the utter difference
between our laws and ideas and your own."
The Regent, at this speech from his Sovereign, rose and made the usual
gesture of assent, inclining his head and lifting his left hand to his
mouth. But the look on his face as he turned it on me, thus partly
concealing it from the camptâ, boded no good should I ever fall into
his power. The Prince then desired me to give an account of the
motives which had induced my voyage and the adventures I had
encountered. In reply, I gave him, as briefly and clearly as I could,
a summary of all that is recorded in the earlier part of this
narrative, carefully forbearing to afford any explanation of the
manner in which the apergic force was generated. This omission the
Prince noticed at once with remarkable quickness.
"You do not choose," he said, "to tell us your secret, and of course
it is your property. Hereafter, however, I shall hope to purchase it
from you."
"Prince," I answered, "if one of your subjects-found himself in the
power of a race capable of conquering this world and destroying its
inhabitants, would you forgive him if he furnished them with the means
of reaching you?"
"I think," he replied, "my forgiveness would be of little consequence
in that case. But go on with your story."
I finished my narration among looks of surprise and incredulity from
no inconsiderable part of the audience, which, however, I noticed the
less because the Prince himself listened with profound interest;
putting in now and then a question which indicated his perfect
comprehension of my account, of the conditions of such a journey and
of the means I had employed to meet them.
"Before you were admitted," he said, "Endo Zamptâ had read to us his
report upon your vessel and her machinery, an account which in every
respect consists with and supports the truth of your relation. Indeed,
were your story untrue, you have run a greater risk in telling it here
than in the most daring adventure I have ever known or imagined. The
Court is dismissed. Reclamomortâ will please me by remaining with me
for the present."
When the assembly dispersed, I followed their Autocrat at his desire
into his private apartments, where, resting among a pile of cushions
and motioning me to take a place in immediate proximity to himself, he
continued the conversation in a tone and manner so exactly the same as
that he had employed in public as to show that the latter was not
assumed for purposes of monarchical stage-play, but was the natural
expression of his own character as developed under the influence of
unlimited and uncontradicted power. He only exchanged, for unaffected
interest and implied confidence, the tone of ironical doubt by which
he had rendered it out of the question for his courtiers to charge him
with a belief in that which public opinion might pronounce impossible,
while making it apparent to me that he regarded the bigotry of
scepticism with scarcely veiled contempt.
"I wish," he said, "I had half-a-dozen subjects capable of imagining
such an enterprise and hardy enough to undertake it. But though we all
profess to consider knowledge, and especially scientific knowledge,
the one object for which it is worth while to live, none of us would
risk his life in such an adventure for all the rewards that science
and fame could give."
"I think, Prince," I replied, "that I am in presence of one inhabitant
of this planet who would have dared at least as much as I have done."
"Possibly," he said. "Because, weary as most of us profess to be of
existence, the weariest life in this world is that of him who rules
it; living for ever under the silent criticism which he cannot answer,
and bound to devote his time and thoughts to the welfare of a race
whose utter extermination would be, on their own showing, the greatest
boon he could confer upon them. Certainly I would rather be the
discoverer of a world than its Sovereign."
He asked me numerous questions about the Earth, the races that inhabit
it, their several systems of government, and their relations to one
another; manifesting a keener interest, I thought, in the great wars
which ended while I was yet a youth, than in any other subject. At
last he permitted me to take leave. "You are," he said, "the most
welcome guest I ever have or could have received; a guest
distinguished above all others by a power independent of my own. But
what honour I can pay to courage and enterprise, what welcome I can
give such a guest, shall not be unworthy of him or of myself. Retire
now to the home you will find prepared for you. I will only ask you to
remember that I have chosen one near my own in order that I may see
you often, and learn in private all that you can tell me."
At the entrance of the apartment I was met by the officer who had
introduced me into the presence, and conducted at once to a door
opening on the interior court or peristyle of the central portion of
the Palace. This was itself a garden, but, unlike those of private
houses, a garden open to the sky and traversed by roads in lieu of
mere paths; not serving, as in private dwellings, the purposes of a
common living room. Here a carriage awaited us, and my escort
requested me to mount. I had some misgivings on Eveena's account, but
felt it necessary to imitate the reserve and affected indifference on
such subjects of those among whom I had been thrown, at least until I
somewhat better understood their ways, and had established my own
position. Traversing a vaulted passage underneath the rearward portion
of the Palace, we emerged into the outer garden, and through this into
a road lighted with a brilliancy almost equal to that of day. Our
journey occupied nearly half an hour, when we entered an enclosure
apparently of great size, the avenue of which was so wide that,
without dismounting, our carriage passed directly up to the door of a
larger house than I had yet seen.