The Green and Vermilion
Not half an hour after my encounter with the furnace workers, I had an
even more surprising experience. I was still gradually working my way
upward through the interminable labyrinths, when unexpectedly I came
out on a broad thoroughfare, where great multitudes of chalk-faces
were convening. From the manner in which they lined themselves along
the sides of the avenue, leaving the center clear, I knew that some
sort of a spectacle was expected; and this excited my curiosity, so
much so that I again forgot caution, mingled with the crowds, and
pushed forward so as to secure a position in the front row. Once more,
fortunately, I was protected by the inability of the natives to see
things near at hand; I was now so hemmed in by them that they did not
view me as I really was, and accordingly I felt safer than if observed
at a distance.
No sooner had I edged my way to the front than the crowd broke into
cheers, which were dinned and repeated in ever-growing volume, while
the spectators seemed to grow mad with excitement, and jumped and
stamped in glee, and flung their arms high in air, and shouted till
their lungs were hoarse. What they were shouting about was not quite
clear to me, although I made an effort to join in the chorus; I
thought, however, that I could make out something like, "Long live the
green and vermilion! Long live the green and vermilion!" and at first
the impression came to me that I was about to witness a football game.
Only on this ground could I explain the mad agitation of the people.
But as the tumult subsided, a great banner hanging from the ceiling
reminded me that green and vermilion were the national colors of Wu. I
would now have guessed the nature of the celebration, even had it not
been for my conversation with the jovial-looking, portly chalk-face
just to my right. This gentleman, whose cheers had roared into my ears
until I was almost deafened, turned to me genially as soon as the
shouting had died down, and made a remark to me, with an expectant
smile.
"Well, guess they'll be coming any minute now!"
"Guess they will!" I agreed, although I still had only the vaguest
notion who "they" might be.
"This is General Bing's greatest triumph!" went on my garrulous
neighbor. "Just imagine, he's retaken three-fifths of the lower
left-hand corner of Nullnull--at a cost of only a million and a quarter
lives! Marvelous, I call it!"
"Marvelous!" I concurred.
"True, he couldn't hold it very long," went on my companion,
ruefully. "He was outnumbered too strongly. But he did keep it a good
three-quarters of a wake! And they say that, when retreating, he didn't
have to vacate more than four-fifths of the lower left-hand corner
of Nullnull, at a cost of another million and a quarter lives. An
extraordinary strategic victory, I call it!"
"Extraordinary!" I acknowledged.
"So it's only proper, isn't it, that Thuno Flâtum, our good Dictator,
should grant a triumphal procession, in order that we may pay public
tribute to the greatness of General Bing? Look! here they come!"
Suddenly the mob let out such a howl of acclaim that I had to clap my
palms to my ears for protection. To the accompaniment of blaring horns,
and of a clanging instrument known as a "bange," which made a noise
resembling a cannonade, an elegant-looking procession of dignitaries
rode into view on slow-moving little "scootscoots." On one of the
foremost cars, surrounded by a bodyguard of a hundred warriors and
several scores of obsequious valets, rode a man in a gorgeous crimson
uniform--none other than General Bing himself! The exalted rank of
this personage would, of course, have been apparent from many facts:
the long ear-tubes, the projecting eye-tubes, the nose-tubes and
mouth-tubes, and his dwarfish stature and weazened legs, all of which
proved him to be a kinsman of Dictator Thuno Flâtum--in short, a First
Class Citizen!
Just why the General should have been so popular with the Second and
Third Classes was more than I could understand; but so great was public
admiration that many heads bowed themselves into the gutter as he
passed, while countless eyes shed tears of happy emotion.
"You see, he bears a charmed life," stated the portly neighbor to my
right. "All generals bear charmed lives; that's why we honor them as
heroes. In order to keep their lives charmed, they direct the battles
from a distance of fifty miles, sometimes more; for what a loss to the
country if they should be--er--turned over!"
"Yes, what a loss!" I coincided.
* * * * *
The main body of the procession was now passing--and a gallant sight
it was! There were several other generals who, like Commander-in-Chief
Bing, were dressed either in crimson, or in crimson striped with
black; there were hundreds of banners of green and vermilion, and
several yellow-and-purple banners said to have been captured during
the strategic retreat from Nullnull; there were scores of large-sized
"scootscoots" laden with blackened uniforms taken from the enemy; there
were several dozen war-heroes, who had received the "Dictatorial Badge
of Honor," and were so covered with decorations that it was impossible
to see their faces; there were innumerable placards proclaiming the
vastness of the recent victories, which, it seemed, were without
precedent "in the history of civilized massacre"; and there were,
finally, thousands of common soldiers, who walked twenty abreast
with the peculiar high-swinging foot motion of the native infantry,
reminding me once more of prancing horses, except for the slowness and
automatic precision with which they advanced.
All these men wore helmets, of the peculiar hatchet shape I had already
observed; and in their hands, instead of swords or rifles, they
carried long poles. On the top of each of these I observed curious
round glittering objects which, at the first glimpse, looked most
attractive, for the wiry sheaths caught the light and flashed it back
resplendently. But, on a closer view, I shuddered and turned pale.
Under each of the gleaming metallic coverings, there leered a naked
skull!
While I reeled backward, horrified at this sight, I heard the cheers
of the throng. "Look at the proofs of our victory! The proofs of
our victory! Proofs of our victory! Hurrah! Hurrah! _Hurrah!_" they
howled, pointing to the shining protuberances on the poles. Evidently
their vision was so poor that they could not see beneath the sparkling
surface!
Following the foot soldiers, dozens of huge vans came rumbling down the
avenue, electrically propelled, and bearing great machines that I can
only describe as dragons of a hundred necks, since their steel bodies
bristled with scores of long tapering tubes, twenty feet high, and
pointing in all directions, like the throats of siege guns.
[Illustration: Their steel bodies bristled with scores of long tapering
tubes, twenty feet high, and pointing in all directions, like the
throats of siege guns.]
"Just look at them! Just look!" excitedly sputtered the neighbor to my
right, while I was wondering what these engines might be. "If there's
not the lightning-spitters!"
"The lightning what!" I demanded.
"Lightning-spitters!" he cried, his voice barely audible above the
rumbling of the machines. "Of course, you've heard of them! One of the
most remarkable inventions of modern times!"
Even as he spoke, a blade of orange electricity shot from one of the
machines, darting to the ceiling in a swift zigzag, and was succeeded
instantly by blades of green and crimson light, while miniature
thunders rolled.
Now all at once I understood the nature of the machines! They were the
source of those lightnings which had wiped out whole armies in the
battle cavern, before the dazzled eyes of Clay and myself! They were
the same lightnings that had threatened us both, and that might, for
all I knew, have taken Clay's life!
"Of course, those are only toy lightnings, for demonstration purposes,"
my portly neighbor rambled on, while other shafts of colored light
shot harmlessly upward. "But these same machines have wiped out whole
armies!"
"What's the principle behind them?" I asked.
My neighbor shrugged his shoulders. "How do I know? It's a carefully
guarded secret of the authorities. However, they say that the power of
Mulflar is used to generate electricity in the machine--to generate it
in such excessive quantities that the engine becomes supercharged and
releases its energy through the tubes in tremendous lightning blades."
"I see," said I. "The machine becomes somewhat like a thunder-cloud,
supercharged with positive electricity--"
"Thunder-cloud?" demanded my companion. "What's that?"
* * * * *
I perceived that I had used the wrong illustration, for, of course,
thunder-clouds were not known underground.
"The only trouble," proceeded my neighbor, after I had vainly tried to
convey an idea of the nature of a thunder-cloud--"the only trouble is
in aiming the lightnings. Of course, we try to direct them accurately
through the different tubes, but they don't always go where we want
them to. You can never tell where the lightning will strike."
"I should call that a fatal difficulty," said I.
"Not at all! Wherever it hits, it's certain to kill--that is to say--"
here he paused, greatly embarrassed--"that is to say, to turn over some
of the enemy. And that, after all, is the only thing that counts!"
I was about to reply, remarking that I perhaps owed my life to the
inexpertness of the foe in aiming the lightnings, when all at once the
crowd broke into song, chanting the National Anthem in a tumultuous
chorus as the last of the lightning-spitters rolled past.
Unfortunately, I have forgotten all the stanzas except the first two;
but these, which I give in a translation that does scant justice to the
magnificence of the original, will illustrate the theme and idea of the
whole:
Let us fight forever!
We'll be conquered never
While we've heads to sever
From our brutish foes!
Let us fight forever
With a gay endeavor!
We are keen and clever
With electric blows!
Where the lightning flashes
In mechanic clashes,
And the thunder crashes,
Grind our foes to dust!
How our fury slashes,
Dealing scarlet gashes,
Till the earth is ashes--
Lord, in Thee we trust!
The crowd had just completed the twenty-first stanza, and was singing
the chorus with resounding gusto, when I suddenly observed something
that made me lose all interest in the celebration. Among the throngs
across the gallery, I caught sight of an ugly-looking chalk-face, with
thin slits of eyes and a twisted nose, who was staring at me with such
an intent scrutiny that I felt a chill traveling down my spine. Did he
suspect me of being a spy?--or was he an agent of the government, sent
to arrest me for breaking my Oath of Fidelity and running away from the
Ventilation Office?
Now all at once I remembered that I was a fugitive from justice; and,
with a tremor of terror, I pushed my way back into the crowd, resolved
on instant flight; while the neighbor to my right, having finished
singing the National Anthem, stepped forward with an excited cry, and
exclaimed, "Oh, just look! The Subterrains are coming; the Subterrains
are coming!"
But I did not wait to see the Subterrains, whatever they might be. The
vision of that man with the thin slits of eyes and twisted nose drove
all other thoughts from my mind as I wormed my way deeper into the mob;
and the dread of being taken back to face the violet-ray or marry Loa
lent haste to my footsteps.
Yet it was not to be long before I would learn the nature of the
Subterrain.