Both the old boatman and Mr. Keith were correct in their surmises.
There was trouble in the market-place, serious trouble; so serious that
for the first time in five years--ever since that deplorable scandal of
the Irish lady and the poodle--the Militia were being called out. And it
was entirely the fault of the Sacred Sixty-three.
The Messiah, personally, was not to blame. That poor old man had much
declined of late; he was enfeebled in health and spirits. A French
artist who was specially despatched from Paris to do an original sketch
of him for the enterprising journal L'ILLUSTRATION had, at the end of
several sittings, uncharitably declared him to be "COMPLEETEMENT
GA-GA." The voluptuous surroundings of Nepenthe, the abundant food,
adoration of disciples, alcoholic and carnal debaucheries, had impaired
his tough Monjik frame and blunted his wit, working havoc with that
energy and peasant craftiness which once ruled an Emperor's Court. His
body was obese. His mind was in a state of advanced putrefaction. Even
his personal cleanliness left something to be desired. Sitting there,
puffy and pasty, in a darkened room, he looked more than ever like some
obscene vegetable that has grown up in the shade.
He moved seldom and with difficulty; he hardly ever opened his mouth
save to eat--for his appetite, thanks to certain daily exertions on the
part of the communal doctor, was still fairly satisfactory. When he
spoke at all it was in scattered monosyllables which even the most
devoted of his disciples were unable to arrange into such coherence as
to justify their inclusion in the GOLDEN BOOK. All this, though hidden
from the world at large, had been observed with dismay by the
initiated. It was an open secret among them that the last twenty-one
sayings ascribed to him in that volume had never issued from his lips
at all. They had been concocted by a clique of young extremists, who
were now masters of the situation. These fanatics edited the GOLDEN
BOOK and held the old man completely in subjection, ousting his former
and more moderate collaborators.
An ill-considered action on the part of this group led to the disaster
and eclipsed the light of holiness on Nepenthe by bringing the apostles
into conflict with the secular arm of the law. Fretting at the Master's
prolonged inactivity and eager, after the fashion of disciples, to
improve on his maxims, they decided on a bold step. They decided that
the time was ripe for a new Revelation.
The Messiah's last authentic one, it will be remembered, ran to the
effect that "flesh and blood of warm-blooded beast is Abomination to
Little White Cows." He had been inspired to insert the word
WARM-BLOODED because fish, for example, was an article of diet of which
he was inordinately fond, and he could not bring himself to deprive the
faithful of this gift of God.
With misplaced zeal, and little thinking that it would cost many of
them their lives and liberties, these enthusiasts gave it out that the
new Revelation ran as follows: "everything derivable from dead beasts
is Abomination to Little White Cows." They had been inspired to insert
the word DEAD because sheep's wool, for example, was an article of
clothing in which they greatly delighted, and they could not bring
themselves to deprive the faithful of this gift of God.
Even as it stood, the Commandment entailed severe sacrifices on the
part of the Sacred Sixty-three. No boot-leather, no picturesque belts,
no bone knife-handles or combs, no tallow candles.... They were
prepared, none the less, to carry out to the letter this injunction,
since it gave them what all religious people require--something to
torment themselves with; and this is how matters stood when, on that
morning, a stalwart batch of new-comers from the wilds of Muscovy,
burning with the ardour of abnegation and wholly ignorant of local laws
and customs, sauntered across the market-place in freshly purchased
hempen sandals.
Tobacco being derivable neither from warm-blooded beasts nor yet from
dead ones, a member of the band bethought himself of the fact that he
had run out of cigarettes. Knowing not a word of Italian he entered the
shop of a tobacconist and imitated the gesture of smoking with such
success that the proprietor straightway understood and supplied him
with a packet. Then he remembered that he also needed matches. This
called for a gesture rather more complex; so complex, indeed, that
perhaps nobody but a Nepenthean--gifted, as all his nation is, with
alert intuition--could have divined the Apostle's want. The tobacconist
was equal to the occasion. With a friendly smile of comprehension he
laid on the counter a diminutive pack of wax vestas, price two sous.
There the matter might have rested but for the new Revelation, which
prompted the sturdy stranger to investigate the composition of the
article tendered. He took out one match and examined it carefully.
Then, triturating its substance between his fingers, he applied his
nose to the product and sniffed critically. The outcome was suspicious
in the highest degree. There was no perceptible odour of beeswax; the
object had been compounded, only too plainly, of the fat of dead
animals; it was the Abomination, the Unclean Thing. Devout, and gifted
with the hot impulse of youth, he acted precisely as he would have
acted in Russia under a similar provocation. With a third gesture, one
of abhorrence and ungovernable fury, he threw the box in the
tobacconist's face.
And there the matter, once more, might have rested, had the salesman
been a Russian. Russians understand frank dealing.
He happened to be a native.
Fully to appreciate what followed, it is necessary to bear in mind that
local tobacconists are in a somewhat anomalous position. They occupy a
social status superior to those of many other countries. They are not
private merchants or ordinary citizens; they are, in a manner, servants
of the State. A native tobacconist is empowered to dispense CARTA
BOLLATA, which is the official stamped paper used for contracts and
other legal documents requiring registration; he deals in tobacco and
postage stamps--government monopolies; he sells, by special licence, wax
vestas, on each box of which there is a duty so minute as not to be
felt by the individual purchaser and yet, in its cumulative effect, so
great as to enable the State to pay, out of this source of revenue
alone, for the upkeep of all its colonial judges at a monthly salary of
forty-five francs apiece. It is a reasonable tax. Don Francesco, who
had notions of political economy and knew something of English life,
having preached to thousands of Catholic miners in Wales and confessed
hundreds of Catholic ladies in Mayfair--an occupation in which he might
still be engaged, but for a little CONTRETEMPS which brought him into
collision with the Jesuits of Mount Street--Don Francesco, who could
voice the Southerner's one-sided point of view, often adverted to this
match-tax when proving the superiority of his country's administrative
methods over those of England. This is what he would say to his
intimate friends:
"The Russian has convictions but no principles. The Englishman has
principles but no convictions--cast-iron principles, which save him the
trouble of thinking out anything for himself. This is as much as anyone
can ever hope to grasp concerning this lymphatic, unimaginative race.
They obey the laws--a criminal requires imagination. They never start a
respectable revolution--you cannot revolt without imagination. Among
other things they pride themselves on their immunity from vexatious
imposts. Yet whisky, the best quality of which is worth tenpence a
bottle, is taxed till it costs five shillings; ale, the life-blood of
the people, would be dear at three-pence a gallon and yet costs
fivepence a pint; tobacco, which could profitably be sold at twopence a
pound, goes for fivepence an ounce. They will submit to any number of
these extortions, being persuaded, in the depths of their turbid
intelligence, that such things are devised for the good of the nation
at large. That is the Englishman's method of procuring happiness: to
deny himself pleasure in order to save his neighbour's soul. Ale and
tobacco are commodities out of which a man can extract pleasure. They
are therefore appropriate objects for harassing restrictions. But
nobody can extract pleasure out of lucifer matches. They are therefore
pre-eminently unfitted for exploitation as a source of governmental
revenue. So keen is their sense of pleasure and non-pleasure, and such
is their FUROR PHLEGMATICUS on this particular question, that when it
is proposed to establish a tax on matches--an imperceptible duty which
would enrich the Exchequer to a vast extent--they will form a procession
ten miles long to protest against the outrage, and threaten to batter
down the Houses of Parliament. Why? Because there is no ethical purpose
to be served by taxing matches, seeing that only a madman would give
himself the guilty pleasure of either drinking or smoking them. In
short, these English reason after the fashion of paranoiacs--logically,
but from a wrong premise. Not that I dislike their women...."
The action of the quick-tempered Apostle can now be appraised in its
full enormity. A local tobacconist is a person in authority, a State
official, and the nation safeguards the interests and the fair name of
those who serve it faithfully. When it is remembered that according to
sect 43 of the 16th Section of their Penal Code any person speaking
disrespectfully to, or of, a Government official renders himself liable
to a term of cellular confinement not exceeding thirty-one years, ten
lunar months and eighteen days, it may be imagined what penalties are
applicable to the crime of actual personal violence towards such a
sacrosanct individual--a crime of which the Russian was unquestionably
guilty.
Now this particular tobacconist, though tremulously sensitive, like all
Southerners, on a point of honour, was as good-natured and forgiving as
might be consistent with his rank of Government official. He passed for
a respectable married man with an eligible daughter and a taste for the
quiet life; he did not want trouble. The purchase of an additional pack
of cigarettes, accompanied or unaccompanied by a frank apology, would
have more than satisfied his sense of honour.
There the matter might have rested. The second packet might have been
bought and even the apology tendered, but for the ill-considered action
of a young farmer who entered the shop at that moment to procure a
couple of postcards. This worthy lad was one of several dozen aspirants
to the hand of the tobacconist's daughter, whose dowry was reputed to
be considerable. He witnessed the insult and, desirous of standing well
in the graces of a prospective father-in-law, dealt the offending alien
so masterly a punch in the region of the solar plexus that he not only
doubled up, but forgot to straighten himself out again. Two or three
lusty Apostles came to the rescue without delay. They threw the youth
down, stamped on his face, pounded his abdomen, pulled his hair out in
handfuls, and otherwise treated him exactly as if the thing were
happening in Russia. This spectacle was too much for the tobacconist's
sense of honour. With unwonted sprightliness he vaulted over the
writhing cluster and summoned a municipal policeman. The officer was on
the spot in a twinkling, sword and trumpet in hand. And there, in all
conscience, the matter ought to have rested--with the identification and
bestowal in custody of the turbulent parties.
But frenzy hung in the air; a red cloud of insanity was hovering over
Nepenthe. Although the volcano continued to behave in exemplary
fashion, although the clergy had done their utmost to allay popular
apprehensions, the native mind had not calmed down since the news
concerning the Saint Elias fountain and those other portents had been
disseminated. The inhabitants were in a state of suppressed alarm and
ready, at the least provocation, to burst out into some fiendish act of
folly. And the Russians, especially those latest arrivals, could not
withdraw themselves from the subtle influence of the sound wind, the
frank stimulation of a cloudless sky; it made them fell, after their
gloomy forests and lowering horizons, like wild beasts that rush from
darkened cages into some sunny arena. Everyone lost his wits. The
appearance of a constable, far from restoring order, was the signal for
an uproarious tumult; the FRACAS, as the French artist was heard to
declare, promptly developed into a MELEE. Nobody troubled about the
merits of the case further than that it was a question of Apostles
VERSUS Gentiles.
The former were in sad minority. But they constituted a serried rank of
muscular Christians; they laid about them like those old monks of
Alexandria. All Russians are born fighters--if not on the battlefield,
then at least in the lanes and taverns of their natal villages. The
Little White Cows, wholly ignorant of the difference between their own
law and that of Italy on questions of assault and battery, used their
fists with such success that thirty natives were stretched out in
almost a few seconds. Their Faith was at stake; moreover, and as a
matter of fact, they were enjoying themselves hugely. The occasion
reminded them of a Sunday at home.
Then numbers began to tell--numbers and knives. For your sun-scorched
Nepenthean, when duly roused, confesses to an expert knowledge of
anatomy; he can tell you, to the fraction of an inch, where the liver,
the spleen, kidneys and various other coy organs of the human frame are
located. Blood, the blood of the Sacred Sixty-three, began to flow. At
that sight the women, as their manner is, set up a scream.
The Palace of Justice abutted on the market-place, and up to that
moment His Worship Signor Malipizzo might have been lost to the world,
so deeply immersed was he in threading the labyrinthine mazes of an
exceptionally intricate affiliation case--a warm document, after his own
heart. The sound of the scream suspended his labours. Like a gouty
parrot he hopped down from his seat of judgment, spat on the floor,
limped to the window and took in the situation at a glance. That is to
say, he understood the cause of the disturbance as little as did any
one else; it would have required a divine inspiration to guess that a
box of wax vestas was at the bottom of the affair; but he knew enough,
quite enough, more than enough, for the purpose at hand. He knew, to
begin with, that Apostles were involved in the brawl. He knew, what was
equally important, the provisions of the Penal Code. It sufficed. His
chance for dealing with the Russian colony had at last arrived.
Allowing himself barely time to smack his lips at this providential
interlude he gave orders for the great cannon of Duke Alfred to be
sounded. It boomed once or twice over Nepenthe and reverberated among
the rocks.
In times of yore a certain interval was wont to elapse before the
Militia could be assembled, living as they did in distant regions of
the island. But nowadays, as befitted a laborious rural population,
they were spending their morning in the wine-shops of the town,
gambling, drinking, or playing skittles. This enabled a sufficient
number of them to forgather, in an incredibly short space of time, at
the outskirts of the market-place (occupied by a seething, howling
tangle of humanity)--there to receive the plainest of instructions. They
were to quell the disorder and to single out for punishment, whenever
possible, the strangers, the obvious authors of the rebellion, easily
discernible by their scarlet blouses. Not that the judge was particular
about the lives or deaths of a few natives; he knew that any injuries
received by his countrymen would strengthen his case against the
outsiders. But an order couched in such terms would look well in the
records of the Court.
Within ten minutes the market-place was cleared. The Militia had used
their weapons with such precision that four school children, seven
women, eleven islanders, and twenty-six Apostles were wounded--about
half of them, it was believed, mortally. Order reigned in Nepenthe.
The warm affiliation case having been laid on ice for the nonce, the
next few minutes were occupied by His Worship in issuing warrants of
arrest against the Messiah's followers. They were lodged by batches in
gaol, and in supplementary gaols--disused cellars and so forth. Once
under lock and key they were safe from mischief for an indefinite
length of time, since according to the statutes of the Code of Criminal
Procedure, there is no reason on earth why an Italian lawsuit should
ever end, or indeed, why it should ever begin. They might, and probably
would, remain incarcerated for life, pending the commencement of a
trial which could only be set in motion by the judge himself--a most
improbable conjuncture--or, failing that, by an extravagant bribe to his
official superior, the President of the Court of Cassation. How were
poor Apostles to find the necessary sixty or seventy francs for such a
venture?
His Worship retired to luncheon, reasonably satisfied with the
morning's work. And yet not altogether delighted. Both the Messiah and
Peter the Great had eluded his wrath. Peter was able to prove, beyond
the shadow of a doubt, that he had spent the last twenty-four hours on
Madame Steynlin's premises and knew nothing whatever of occurrences in
the outside world. In the face of such a fact--so comfortable to common
knowledge, so inherently probable--Malipizzo gave way. He was too good a
lawyer to spoil his case. Sooner or later, he foresaw, that bird would
be caged with the rest of them. Regarding the Messiah, an unexpected
and breathless appeal for mercy was lodged by the Communal doctor,
atheist and freemason like the judge, who implored, with tears in his
eyes, that the warrant for his arrest should be rescinded. By means of
a sequence of rapid and intricate Masonic signs, he explained that
Bazhakuloff was a patient of his; that he was undergoing a daily
treatment with the stomach-pump; that the prison diet being notoriously
slender, he feared that if he, the Messiah, were confined in captivity,
than it, the stomach-pump, would be no longer required and therefore
he, the physician, a family man, deprived of a small but regular source
of income. Again the astute judge relented. This is how the Messiah and
his disciple escaped.
They escaped, but not for long.
And all this happened while Mr. Keith and his companion, drowsily
ensconced among the morocco cushions of their boat, were being wafted
over the blue sea, far away, under the cliffs.