How I grew weary of travel and resolved to settle down for a long
rest. A quiet life however soon tires me, and I desire to set out
again. Bulger’s opposition. How I deceived him. We take our
departure. Encounter a terrible storm. Are shipwrecked on a
beautiful Island. Made prisoners by the Round Bodies. Description of
this strange people. We are condemned to die. Saved by Rōlâ-Bōlâ,
the Roundbody Princess. More about the strange beings. The Princess
falls in love with me. Preparations for marriage. The ceremony on
the Great Plain. The sudden storm. Consternation of the Round
Bodies. I lash Bulger and myself to a platform. The storm-king
catches up the wooden structure and bears it away. Transported to
the main land on the wings of the wind. We are gently dropped in a
grain field not a thousand miles from home. Our unspeakable joy.
[Illustration: A GOOD MOTHER ROUNDBODY AMUSING HER CHILDREN.]
At this period of my life I had firmly resolved to settle down and enjoy
a good, long rest.
Bulger and I both needed it. We were tired of strange sights, strange
lands and strange people.
“Why should we not,” thought I, “enjoy our world-wide fame?”
From the very ends of the earth, visitors flocked in thousands to my
House Wonderful to see my treasures, my extraordinary curiosities, and
above all, my remarkable dog, Bulger, the sole companion of my strange
and eventful life, my guide, my friend, my counsellor, my all. Scarcely,
however, were the valleys green again after a long and bitterly cold
winter—so cold in fact that I drank nothing but iced tea for full three
months, as it was utterly impossible to carry the pot from the stove to
the table quickly enough to prevent its freezing,—than my thoughts
turned to the pleasures and dangers of a roving life, and I longed to be
up and off again in quest of new adventures.
As I roused myself from my reverie I found Bulger sitting at my feet
with his kind, lustrous eyes fixed full upon my face. He had read my
thoughts as correctly and easily as I might the words of a child’s
primer, and as he saw that I was wide awake and in full possession of my
faculties, he seized hold of my sleeve and whined most piteously.
Dear, faithful animal! Oh, that I had heeded thy remonstrance!
But no, it was not to be.
Unwilling to fret and worry good Bulger, I now resolved to make use of a
faculty which had no place in his nature—namely hypocrisy.
When he was in my presence I pretended to be perfectly happy and
contented, going about laughing, singing and dancing; but the very
moment he had quitted the room I set to work making ready for another
journey.
At last all was ready.
When Bulger entered the house and set eyes upon boxes and packages, he
lifted his head and gave one long, dismal howl of entreaty; but seeing
that my purpose was fixed, like a true and faithful servitor, he bounded
to my side and licked my outstretched hand, as much as to say: “Thy road
is my road, thy fate is my fate!”
In a few hours we were on our way to the sea-board.
My heart was light, my spirits buoyant and gay.
“What is life?” I cried. “Am I a worm to vegetate in mold and darkness?
Nay! I am a creature of intelligence, of mind, of soul; the air, the
sunlight, the boundless universe, are mine; I will enjoy them.”
Luckily I had not long to wait in the seaport, for a good, staunch
vessel was nearly loaded.
Learning that she was bound for the Southern ocean, I at once ordered my
effects to be set on board, and before the new moon had lost its
crescent I was on the high seas with my faithful Bulger by my side and a
bounding heart beating joyful music in my breast.
For a while all went well.
Bulger seemed to have gotten over his strange presentiment of evil and
romped about the deck with all his old-time love of mirth and jollity.
But upon me, however, after our good vessel was a few days out, there
came a strange feeling never experienced before.
In my dreams, light and darkness alternately oppressed me; the one more
dazzling than the electric flash, the other deeper than earthly night.
Our seventh day out, at high noon, suddenly it seemed as if some mighty
hand had drawn a vast and impenetrable curtain of inky blackness over
the entire sky. It almost appeared as if some terrible demon of the
skies had suddenly blown out the very sun itself.
Bulger, with one bound, gained my side, and, fastening his teeth in my
sash, moaned piteously, as was his custom when he thought my life in
danger. I stooped and stroked his head. The palm of my hand felt the hot
tears that were streaming from his eyes. Just then the vessel gave a
lurch, and Bulger’s weight tore his teeth from their hold in my sash,
and in an instant he was separated from me. I heard his supplicating
bark in a distant part of the ship.
“Bulger! Bulger!” I cried, “here! here! this way, to me, to me!” and in
my desperation at thought of losing my loved companion, I darted in the
direction of the barking, regardless of the black night which enveloped
us, and stumbling over some object fell headlong on the deck.
My fall stunned me.
I rose upon my elbow and passed my hand over my eyes like a person just
waking from a deep sleep.
Sulphurous flames now darted from the four quarters of the heavens, and
crash upon crash of deafening thunder rattled and pealed over our heads.
A terrific blast of wind caught up our ship like a cockle shell and
hurled it along through the seething, bubbling, maddened waters at such
a fearful rate that every instant it seemed as if she must go to the
bottom.
I know not how long we were driven along at this furious speed, for I
was half dazed by the roar of the warring elements and blinded by the
continuous flashing of the lightning. To my horror, the sound of
terrible blows, dull but awful in their energy, now fell upon my ears.
We had struck upon the rocks, and our ship was pounding out her own life
beneath my very feet.
Instinctively I called upon my faithful Bulger.
But not the voice of brazen throat and lungs could overcome the din of
that tempest.
The intense darkness was now dissipated by showers of meteoric fire,
which fell like ten times ten thousand bursting rockets as far as the
eye could reach. And then deep rifts broke in the inky mantle of the
heavens and showers of hail stones, each as large as a goose egg,
rattled with the fury of musketry upon the deck.
At that moment a lurch of the vessel had rolled me under a huge copper
kettle or my life would have been beaten out of me.
“Farewell, dear Bulger!” I cried, in a tear-strangled voice, “this
terrible discharge from heaven’s frozen artillery will surely end thy
life! Farewell, faithful dog; a long farewell!”
Gradually this terrifying shower of huge hail-stones lessened its fury,
and strange to say, in doing so the falling stones drew most wonderful
music from the great copper kettle which covered me like a huge buckler.
The wind moaned a deep bass and the pounding of the vessel kept time
like some gigantic drum.
Although half-dead with fear, I listened with ecstatic pleasure to this
awful concert played by the warring forces of nature. When it had
ceased, I looked out from my hiding-place.
Not a living soul was in sight. Every seaman and officer had perished
beneath the strokes of the lightning, been crushed by the fall of hail,
or swept by the resistless gale into the seething ocean.
So calm did it grow that I was beginning to take heart, when with a
terrific swish and whirr, as if slit by some gigantic knife, the clouds
parted and from the rent rushed blinding drifts of snow with such a wild
and startling sweep and whirl that my knees swote together and I fell
upon my face in utter despair.
But look! Had heaven slain the monster of the storm?
The snow was blood-red.
The sight froze the very marrow of my bones.
I rolled over upon my back; my senses fled; death seemed to have
overtaken me.
How long I lay in this stupor I know not, but when I awoke the storm had
spent its fury, the sun was sending down its brightest rays, the air was
pleasantly cool and bracing.
Slowly my strength came back to me, and I emerged from my hiding-place,
crawling on my hands and feet, for I was too weak to stand upright at
first. Little by little, however, I took heart, and, as I felt my blood
go tingling thro’ my veins, I made an effort and rose to my feet.
Yes, my worst fears had been realized.
Not a living being had survived the storm.
As I walked upon the blood-red snow, every foot-fall brought forth most
piteous sighs and groans.
“What dread warning,” thought I, “does this mysterious murmuring give
me? What is the meaning of these sobs and moans which issue from these
crimson crystals beneath the pressure of my feet? Am I walking upon the
blood of my ancestors?”
Clinging to the frozen sheets, I crept slowly along the red-encrusted
deck.
But stay!
Hark!
Are my ears playing me still more fantastic tricks?
No! I’m wholly and entirely myself now, and as sure as the blood of the
Trumps’ courses through my veins, that bark came from my faithful dog!
“Bulger lives! Bulger lives!” I cried out in accents of the wildest joy;
and breaking away from the hold of fear and trepidation, I rushed boldly
forward, calling out “I’m coming, Bulger, I’m coming!” With reckless
courage I sprang from one frozen plank to another, until I stood upon
the quarter-deck. There, upon the hatch, sat, or rather lay, Bulger, for
his life was almost extinct. His teeth were locked upon the straps of a
life-preserver which he, ever thoughtful of my safety, was about to
bring to me at the first outbreak of the storm, when its fury forced him
to seek refuge under a water-cask, as his tracks on the snow indicated.
As quickly as my stiffened limbs would permit, I bounded forward, and
throwing myself on my knees, in the crimson snow,—which sent forth most
heart-rending groans and sighs at the pressure of my body upon its
blood-red surface—I clasped Bulger in my arms and our cries of joy
mingled,—our tears ran together.
All my suffering was forgotten in that moment, for Bulger was alive, his
head was clasped to my breast.
The winds had now fallen, the sea had grown calm again, and I determined
at once to quit the wreck if possible, for the setting sun revealed to
me the shores of a beautiful land at the mouth of a small but extremely
picturesque river, whose banks were rich in palm-trees, fruit-trees and
flowering shrubs.
I lost no time in lowering one of the boats which had happily escaped
with slight injuries, and being an expert seaman, I found no difficulty
in rigging a tackle and lowering first, Bulger, and then myself into the
boat, and paddling leisurely towards the shore.
Here I drew the boat high and dry on the beach, and calling out gayly to
faithful Bulger to follow me, I clambered up the bank and pushed boldly
forward to survey the fair land upon which a strange fate had set our
feet.
Now, for the first, I became conscious of the terrible hunger that was
gnawing at my vitals—a fact which proved to me that I must have lain in
an unconscious state beneath the huge kettle for at least two days if
not more.
Bulger raised his kind eyes to me, and then bounding off to one of the
fruit trees, ran around it, barking joyfully.
I shook one of the branches and the ripe fruit fell in abundance to the
ground.
Its odor was so delicious that although it was unknown to me, I had no
hesitation in partaking of it most freely, Bulger following my example,
a fact which convinced me that it could not be otherwise than wholesome.
A long, deep draught from a limpid spring refreshed us both greatly; but
as the sun was sinking rapidly, and as I now began to feel the effects
of the rack, strain and weariness resulting from the terrible experience
of the past day or so, I called out to Bulger:
“Come, dear, faithful fellow, let us seek out a fit place to pass the
night; some nook shielded by wide-spreading branches, where there is
plenty of soft boughs to make a bed with.”
As the country was quite level, I sighted a grove at some distance, and
thither we directed our steps.
It had now grown quite dark. We quickened our pace, for I was too
prudent a traveler to care to expose myself to the night dew.
As we drew near the grove there appeared to be a low wall on one side of
it.
“This way, Bulger,” said I, “this long line of boulders will protect us
from the night winds, if any should rise. Let us creep under its edge
and lay our tired limbs down on the soft grass.” He looked up with
softened gaze and gave one or two consenting wags to his tail.
Nestling close under the edges of several of the largest of the
boulders, at a point where they formed a sort of sheltered nook, we soon
fell into a deep sleep, I sitting half upright and Bulger pillowing his
head upon my lap.
Once or twice in the course of the night I awoke to find my brow beaded
with perspiration. I put my hand on Bulger; he too was awake, and his
tongue was lolling from his mouth. Both of us seemed to have been seized
with a strange fever. The direst forebodings took possession of me. Had
we landed upon a shore along which lurked some deadly miasm? Possibly we
might not live to see the light of another day. It required all my
self-control to banish such terrible thoughts from my mind. But so tired
was I to the very bone that I soon fell asleep again, reassured as I was
by the example set me by Bulger. It was, however, a fitful slumber, for
the heat of our bodies had now become so great that the very ground upon
which we were lying felt warm to my touch. At length, to my joy, I
caught the first, faint glimpse of the dawn. I was now in a perfect glow
from head to foot. And so was Bulger. Suddenly it burst upon my mind
that possibly we might have lain down in a volcanic region; that,
mayhap, fierce, subterranean fires were raging beneath our very heads. I
rose to my knees with a bound, and placed both of my hands upon the
nearest boulder. Fancy my horror upon feeling that its surface was not
only hot, but that it yielded to the pressure of my hands, and gave
forth groans, hissings and rumblings. In an instant I was on my feet.
Bulger did not wait to be called. Determined to verify my
suspicions,—for discretion was always a reasonable part of my valor, I
hastened from one boulder to another within the circle where we had been
lying, and pressed my hands upon them with all my strength. Deep,
rumbling and hissing sounds came forth from the ground everywhere about
me, and seemed to awaken responsive cries far and near, as if one giant
tossing in his sleep disturbed the slumbers of his fellows.
“Bulger!” I cried, “we stand upon the ground of death; this is but the
outer wall of a crater, it is aglow with subterranean heat; only the
merest shell—so thin that it yields to my pressure—is between us and
destruction. Fly, fly, faithful dog!”
The morning sun now burst forth with a flood of golden light.
As far as my eye could reach, extended this same boulder-like parapet,
shutting out my gaze from the abyss through which the volcano was now
about to spout its liquid fire; for all at once the boulders began to
rock from side to side, giving forth such dreadful rumblings that I knew
the eruption was to be preceded by an earthquake.
A sickening fear seized hold of me; my legs bent like pipe stems,
beneath the weight of my body.
Bulger saw that his loved master was chained to the ground.
He refused to abandon me.
The whole wall, as far as my eye could reach, now trembled and rocked,
threatening to engulf us every instant.
With a mighty effort I pulled myself together, and, followed by Bulger,
darted away.
The measure of my horror was not complete.
With terrific rumblings, gurglings, hissing and groaning, the whole row
of rocks now danced in violent agitation, and then, like so many
gigantic balls, rolled by huge monsters at play, these boulders,
propelled with fearful violence by the outburst of the volcano—as I
supposed—came thundering down after our retreating forms, threatening us
with a terrible death.
Bulger, running at my side, ever and anon sent out a mournful whine, as
if to bid me an eternal farewell.
“Fly, Bulger! Faster, faster, good Bulger!” I called to him, as the roar
and rumble of the advancing wall increased.
Now each and every boulder seemed urged on its course by some mysterious
force of its own.
As I glanced over my shoulder, I could see that they were gaining in
velocity, bounding, springing, now in single file, now three abreast,
while the frightful and unearthly din and rumble went ever on
increasing.
They were gaining upon us.
My legs again threatened to bend under the weight of my body and topple
it over to certain and awful death, when a last glance revealed to me
the terrible truth.
“Bulger! they are alive!”
A sharp, despairing yelp came from my poor dog.
“They’re alive, I tell you! Some legion of monsters, devils, for aught I
know, escaped from the depths of Tartarus, intent to roll over us and
crush the life from our puny bodies!”
Again we redoubled our efforts.
“For your life, Bulger!” I gasped, “for your life! Look! the wood, the
wood!”
He caught my meaning, and gave a sharp, encouraging bark.
But no, it was useless.
My strength had been used to its last poor throb.
It grew dark before my eyes.
A palsying fear laid hold of my heart.
My limbs stiffened.
[Illustration: BULGER’S AND MY WILD FLIGHT WHEN PURSUED BY THE
ROUNDBODIES.]
I threw one last glance upon Bulger.
He answered me with a look of most tender affection, and then we both
tripped, staggered, stumbled, fell headlong, side by side, while
seemingly ten thousand living boulders, with awful shrieks, groans, and
gurgling sounds, hung like a shadow over us for an instant, and all was
black as night.
I felt my protuberant brow ground into the earth and the last bit of
life crushed out of me.
My last though was:
“Bulger! O, Bulger! What a terrible death! But O, what a kind Providence
to let us die together!”
* * * * *
“Rise! stunted, misshapen thing! Rise! thou wafer man, thou slice of
humanity with cleft edges!”
It was not so much the thundering tones of this strange, human monster
which caused me to sit bolt upright, rub my eyes and make a superhuman
effort to collect my sadly scattered senses, as it was the caresses of
my faithful Bulger, who was running from one side of me to the other,
showering kisses upon my face and hands and whining piteously.
After a hard struggle the shadows were lifted from my eyes. My heart
sank within me at sight of that wall of living boulders encircling us,
with their fierce visages turned, half in wonder, half in rage, upon
the, to them, two funny beings as utterly unlike themselves as each
other.
But love is always stronger than fear.
Stretching out my arms and drawing Bulger close to my breast, I cried
out:
“O, Bulger! do I really live? Am I not still the object of some demon’s
sportive malice?”
At sound of my voice the round-bodied monsters broke out into a hideous
chorus of deep, rumbling laughter, during which their bodies rolled from
side to side.
Then, as they pressed wildly forward, with fierce ejaculations of anger
or impatience, it seemed as if Bulger and I had been only saved from one
death to be set face to face with another.
“Alas! is there no power,” thought I, “to save us from the furious
impatience of these reckless monsters?”
Suddenly a terrible voice sounded loud above the din:
“Roll backward, Round bodies! What meaneth this unseemly impatience in
the presence of your King?”
In an instant, the round-bodied monsters rolled silently backwards.
All was calm again.
Turning to his neighbor, the King exclaimed, with a gurgling laugh:
“Why, by my royal girth, its voice is all the world like one of the toy
pipes of our baby prince!”
“‘Its? Its?’” I repeated, with fire flashing from my upturned eyes.
“Know, Sir Monster, that I am not a ‘thing,’ but a perfect man; a baron
by birth, a scholar by profession, a traveler by choice.”
At this outburst on my part, the crowd of living balls again sent up a
deep, rumbling peel of laughter.
“Silence!” commanded the King, and then he continued: “Well, well, then,
baron,—whatever that may be—but I think I ought to say ‘little baron,’
for by my royal roundness, thou art a wee, puny being! Let it be as thou
sayest, but tell me, I implore thee, what is this walking box on four
legs, which nature seems to have left unfinished?”
And so saying, he raised his terrible hand with fingers strong enough to
crush me as I might a puff-ball, and waved it toward Bulger.
This contemptuous sneer did not escape Bulger.
He broke out into a volume of sharp, angry barks, and showed his white
teeth in the most threatening manner.
Upon which the monsters rolled back in mock terror and consternation,
crying out:
“The King! The King! Save the King! The walking box is filled with
explosives; it may fly into pieces!”
When the hubbub was over, and the King had commanded silence, I stepped
boldly forward and exclaimed:
“Unfinished! What meanest thou, thou globe-shaped monster?”
The term “globe” seemed to please his majesty very much.
A great, wrinkled smile overran his huge countenance.
“Mean?” he ejaculated, with a deep, gurgling, chuckling laugh. “Mean?
why, little baron—whatever that may be—see for thyself. Has not Nature
left useless flaps at one end of the box, and a still more useless bit
of rope hanging down from the other?”
This insulting allusion to Bulger’s ears and tail seemed to be perfectly
understood by him, for he fairly bristled with rage, and advanced upon
the round-bodied monster, snapping, snarling, and showing his teeth.
Whereupon the deep, rumbling laughter again broke forth, and the cry,
“Save the King! Save the King!” went up in mock earnestness.
Having succeeded in appeasing Bulger’s anger by means of a few
affectionate words and tender caresses, I determined to make inquiry as
to our whereabouts, and to ascertain who the strange beings were among
whom capricious fate had so unceremoniously cast Bulger and me.
“Where are we, ball-shaped giant?” I inquired in my strongest voice,
“and who are you?”
Again the monster screwed his leathery face up in a deep, wrinkled
smile. The reason of his good will, as I afterwards learned, arose from
the fact that I had bestowed the terms “globe,” “round,” “ball-shaped,”
etc., upon him, for it seemed that these wonderfully formed beings were
extremely vain of their roundness, and that nothing could be uttered
more pleasing and complimentary to them than to make use of such words
and expressions as “ball,” “orb,” “sphere,” “round-bodied,”
“bullet-shaped,” etc.; that in their land, the greatest dignities honors
and titles of nobility were awarded those whose bodies showed most
perfect roundness; that in proportion as one’s body deviated from the
shape of a true sphere, he became degraded and excluded from society.
To such wretched subjects the King assigned the performance of all mean
labor. They were the “squares,” or outcasts, whom anybody might insult
or even enslave with impunity. The richer ones were sometimes able to
hide their deformity by means of padding, and in this manner conceal
their uneven motion in rolling from the keen eyes of the King; but the
poor ones, by their inability to correct their physical defects, at once
attracted the King’s attention, when he caused his people to roll up and
down before him, while he kept up a searching lookout for “wabblers” or
uneven rollers.
“Well, little baron—whatever that may be,” replied the King, “or shall I
call thee Wafer-man with cleft edges? Know, then, that I am King
Bô-gôô-gôô, Monarch of the Roundbodies; that these, are some of my
subjects.
“Know, furthermore, little baron—whatever that may be—that this island
is my kingdom, in which no one rules saving me, and that unless it may
please my royal daughter Rōlâ-Bōlâ to keep thee and thy attendant, the
walking box with cord and flaps, as curiosities to amuse her, thou and
thy companion perish at sundown, for, little baron—whatever that may
be—it is my royal will, and so it was my father’s, and his father’s, and
so back a thousand years, that no living creature shall set foot upon
the shores of my domain and not pay for his temerity by being crushed to
death, literally ground into the soil, until he become a very part of
it!”
Bulger appeared to grasp the meaning of this fierce speech, which was
delivered in thundering tones, and accompanied by hideous contortions of
the speaker’s great, round visage, flaming as the crimson disc of a
tropical sun in the western sky, and followed by an outburst of grunts,
groans and gurglings from the assembled Roundbodies; and, in spite of
his inborn courage, his tail fell between his legs and he slunk nearer
to me with a low, anxious whine.
But when good Bulger saw the calm expression of my countenance, he
quickly recovered himself; his tail resumed its graceful curl, and as I
faced King Bô-gôô-gôô with an unruffled exterior, to make reply to the
latter’s horrible threat, Bulger, too, placed himself at my side with a
defiant air.
“Most gracious Sphere! Most royal Globe! Roundest monarch of the great,
round world! true, I have set foot on the shores of thy domain, but it
was not, most majestic Sphericity, through choice. A fearful storm, in
which the warring elements seemed bent upon the destruction of the
universe, during which the great ocean hurled itself against the walls
of heaven as if to beat out the very stars, while the wide-mouthed gale
swooped down upon this petty earth with seeming intent to swallow it and
all it contained—?”
I could speak no further.
The Roundbodies broke in upon me with such dismal groans and cries that
I stood as if rooted to the earth.
“Ah!” thought I, “they, too, felt the terrible blows of that storm-demon
which so nearly beat out the life from mine and from Bulger’s bodies!”
Waving my hand as a signal for silence, I proceeded:
“I bow before the will of thy spherical Majesty, whatever it may be! At
the same time, I would beg to call the attention of your Imperial
Roundness to the fact that, in the systems of law of all the nations of
the globe, a man may not be held responsible for an act which he is made
to commit by a force or strength greater than his own.”
I saw that my flattery was telling upon King Bô-gôô-gôô, so I proceeded
to make a still further application of the same remedy:
“However, most Royal Globe and perfect Sphere of Strength and Beauty,
if, in thy great wisdom, thou dost decide that we must die, crushed
beneath the weight of thy people’s bodies, so be it! Great ball-shaped
monarch, I am but a bit and shred of humanity, and how may I dare to
oppose the will of your right royal Sphericity?”
King Bô-gôô-gôô smiled till his huge double teeth could be seen
glittering in his cavernous mouth, like white rocks in a half-lighted
pit, and his body swayed from one side to another in his gigantic glee.
“Send for the royal princess!” he roared.
In a few seconds, in answer to his command, a Roundbody came rolling
across the plain with the swiftness of the wind.
The crowd of retainers fell back, and the new-comer arrested her flight
by the side of King Bô-gôô-gôô.
I could not see that she was a bit more beautiful than those about her,
although she was a royal princess.
True, she was a globe of smaller girth, her face was somewhat less
repellent and beneath a long and heavy fringe of lashes, I caught
glimpses of a pair of good-natured, roguish eyes, and my perfect
knowledge of human and brute nature told me at a glance that if I could
but gain the good will of that strange being, Bulger and I would be
safe!
“My dear, little round papa,” cried Rōlâ-Bōlâ—for such proved to be her
name, “Where did those funny things come from? Are they really alive?
Wont they bite or sting? What do they eat? What shall I keep them in?
Will you make me a cage for them? Oh, I am so, so, so, so, so, so, so,
so, so glad!” and she bounded about, now this way, now that, now into
the air like an animated rubber ball, drumming like a partridge all the
while.
Behold us, then, Bulger and me, prisoners in the land of the
Roundbodies, with the Princess Rōlâ-Bōlâ as our keeper!
Hope sank low within our poor hearts.
I dared not breathe a word in opposition to the will of King Bô-gôô-gôô
or the caprice of Rōlâ-Bōlâ lest the order should be revoked.
At least, in the keeping of the Princess Rōlâ-Bōlâ, we would be more
likely to receive gentle treatment, and, what was almost a matter of
life and death, we should have great chances of making our escape from
the island of King Bô-gôô-gôô.
We were commanded to follow the Princess.
As Bulger and I started after Rōlâ-Bōlâ, with a brisk gait, the very
clouds fairly snapt asunder, so great was the shout of laughter which
the Roundbodies sent up.
Seemingly, it had not occurred to them until that moment how
ridiculously different our mode of locomotion was from theirs.
“Look! look! O, King!” they cried, “he can neither roll nor hop! See how
he edges along, leaning first on one foot and then on the other! He
walks on his toe nails! Mark his companion, too! What monsters of
clumsiness! How they rock and wabble! Why doth he not spring? Why doth
he pound the earth as if he were beating flax?”
To all this mocking and jeering, Bulger and I turned a deaf ear,
following our mistress, who ever and anon, turned her soft, black,
mischievous eyes encouragingly upon us, as her head came uppermost.
Imagine our surprise when Rōlâ-Bōlâ halted at the beginning of a path
having a gentle descent, and said:
“This is the entrance to the royal habitation. Follow me and fear
nothing.”
In a few moments we found ourselves in the outer room of a vast
underground dwelling, consisting of corridors, chambers, dormitories,
banquet-halls and arenas.
All the habitations of the Roundbodies are subterranean.
Why?
This you shall know anon.
Bulger and I were conducted to very pleasant quarters—well-lighted, as
were all the rooms of the palace, by means of vast slabs of rock
crystal, of which the roof was made, by a “square” or “lôb-bô” as he is
called in the language of the Roundbodies, that is, one not perfectly
round in form, and hence degraded to the position of serving man.
Doubtless, long before this, the reader has grown impatient at my
silence concerning the strange beings among whom Bulger and I now found
ourselves prisoners.
Who were the Roundbodies?
Know then, gentle reader, that they were—mark well my words—the sole
living creatures on the island of Gô-gû-lâh, upon which a strange fate
had cast us. Whether or not any other beings had ever inhabited the
island was unknown to them.
I found, upon conversing with their learned men, that there was a legend
in existence among them—dim and shadowy in its details, from the long
flight of centuries that it had come down through—that many thousands of
years ago they had been quite like human beings, who walk upright, with
bodies almost, if not quite, as long as mine; but that owing to the
unvarying recurrence of terrible storms, of wind, rain, hail and snow,
accompanied by the bursting of deafening thunderbolts, in fact, such as
I had experienced, which swept over the island twelve times in the year,
coming and going with a regularity as astonishing as their force is
terrific, everything upright had long ago been swept from the land; that
their ancestors, yielding to the irresistible forces of Nature, had
gradually bent their bodies before these resistless winds, until even
the time when they walked upright had been forgotten.
This was but the first change wrought by the forces which surrounded
them. When overtaken by these wild winds, they soon learned that their
only safety lay in rolling themselves up as much into the shape of balls
as possible, so that the tornado would be powerless to pick them up and
hurl them to destruction.
Another transformation now began to make itself apparent.
Their bodies, as centuries came and went, little by little, took on the
rounded form they then had.
Still clinging to the desperate chance for life on these storm-swept
plains, they drew down their heads and pressed in their limbs until
these had made recesses for them, as some tortoises draw their legs so
closely to their bodies that the eye fails to distinguish even the
outline of the limb.
The last change that came upon these globe-shaped people was a very
natural one: their arms took on a greater development of superhuman
strength, while their legs grew shorter and shorter, until they
consisted of little more than two broad, flexible feet, which they made
use of mainly to propel their round bodies like huge balls across the
vast plains of their island home.
Now, while they still dread the terrible blasts, yet is it rather an
inherited fear, for at last they have become the true children of the
gale.
If it should happen to blow in the direction of their homes, they simply
allow it to help them on their way by rolling them across the plain.
While, now and then, a lôb-bô, or “square” Roundbody, so to speak, would
be blown into the ocean, yet for nearly a century not a single, genuine
Roundbody had been caught up in the pitiless blast. As well might the
wind attempt to pick up the round stones of the ocean strand.
One of the things which early attracted my attention in King
Bô-gôô-gôô’s palace, was the hangings, apparently of the softest
leather, worked in mosaic patterns of transcendent beauty.
Imagine my surprise when told by the gentle princess Rōlâ-Bōlâ that they
were simply the natural leaves from the various trees growing on the
island, untouched by dye or stain of any kind.
They were so tough that my strength sufficed not to tear one in two.
Noticing my wide-opened eyes turned inquiringly upon her, the gentle
Rōlâ-Bōlâ cried out with a soft, low gurgle:
“Go into the royal garden, Tôô-tôô-lō; that is, little ‘flute-man,’ and
see for thyself.”
Now, for the first, I learned the secret of the presence of such
beautiful trees and shrubs upon this storm-swept land. Every leaf was as
thick and as strong as leather, and the trunks and boughs were exactly
of the nature of India rubber, so that, with a small bit which I brought
home with me in one of my pockets, I could erase pencil-marks with the
greatest ease.
To such foliage as this a tornado had no terrors.
When the storm struck these trees they went to the ground, until it had
spent its fury. In a few hours the tropical sun lifted them again, and
the beauty of their foliage was quite unharmed.
To return to the poor princess Rōlâ-Bōlâ:
Bulger began to fret and worry beneath the strain of our captivity.
I was constantly on the alert for a chance to escape, but none offered.
In fact, we were, I began to fear, prisoners for life.
True, it was a pleasant captivity, for the gentle Rōlâ-Bōlâ almost
killed us with dainty feeding, and our only toil was dancing, singing
and capering for her amusement.
Night and day, the sole gateway of the royal habitation was guarded by a
triple row of round-bodied sentinels, so fierce-visaged, so
mighty-handed, that my heart grew sick as I gazed upon them.
To add to my despair, I now made a discovery which seemed to seal my
fate forever—the princess Rōlâ-Bōlâ had become enamored of me!
What to me, at first, had seemed but a playful trick, to wit, her
pinching my little toe ever and anon, had, as I was casually informed by
one of the learned Roundbodies, in the course of a discussion with him,
a terrible significance.
It was a solemn declaration of love!
Oh! miserable me!
And a declaration, too, which, coming from a woman to a man, it was
certain, sure, inevitable death to ignore!
And yet I might be saved!
For the custom—made sacred by the observance of long ages—required the
man to pursue the woman, who pretended to be frightened and extremely
solicitous of escaping him, and while revolving with the same velocity
as she, to pinch her little toe in return.
This ended the matter.
The couple was now betrothed.
It was not in the power of man to publish bans of greater strength.
If the man gave one pinch, the marriage was solemnized the following
day; if two, the second day after, and so on.
But I was not a Roundbody!
How could I possibly comply with the ancient custom of the land?
Ah! Woman! Woman! it matters not whether thou belongest to the
Roundbodies or to the Longbodies, in affairs of the heart thy ingenuity
and subtlety overmatch the philosophy of man!
When it was made known to the princess Rōlâ-Bōlâ that the royal
counselors had, after mature deliberation, reached the conclusion that
the laws of the land—made sacred by the observance of ages—forbade any
such union contemplated by her, she flew into a towering or, rather, I
should call it, a bounding passion, for, from one end of her spacious
salon to the other, sidewise and lengthwise, she bounded about like a
great ball bouncing under the play of an invisible bat.
Alternately she wept, laughed, scolded and threatened.
But it made little difference how she began her tirades, they all had
the same ending:
“I say, I shall marry Tôô-tôô-lō!”
King Bô-gôô-gôô, thinking to pacify his daughter, sent her messengers
bearing the most beautiful presents; but she received them with disdain,
scattering them on the floor.
Things went on this way for several days.
King Bô-gôô-gôô was horrified to find that the princess had eaten
nothing for forty-eight hours, and that she was actually losing her
beautifully round shape, for which she had so justly been famous.
Bulger saw plainly that something awful was going on, and he, too,
became so worked up that he refused to eat or drink.
I passed most of my time going from his room to the princess
Rōlâ-Bōlâ’s, endeavoring to persuade them to take food.
But all in vain.
One morning the King’s daughter met me with demonstrations of the
wildest delight, laughing, singing, bounding and rolling about like mad.
So beside herself was she that, forgetting her great weight and my puny
build, she rolled against me and sent me flying like a little ten-pin
struck by a monstrous ball.
By actual measurement I was thrown thirty feet, but, fortunately, struck
against a heavy hanging which broke my fall.
Bulger gave a piteous howl.
He seemed to get an idea that Rōlâ-Bōlâ had struck me purposely.
Well, in a word, the cause of this frantic joy was simply this: The
princess had finally thought out a solution to the terrible problem
which had been for weeks torturing her mind.
Briefly stated, it was as follows:
I should be placed in the boughs of a tree just high enough to clear her
body. She then was to roll under me, and at the right moment, I was to
lean downward and pinch her little toe when it came uppermost.
In vain I assured her that I should grow dizzy and fall headlong to the
ground, breaking my neck, or, at very least, dislocating it.
But no, I need have no fear.
She would watch over me.
She would turn and catch me in time.
The royal counsellors were at once called together.
The plan of the princess Rōlâ-Bōlâ was laid before them.
At first they sent up a deep and ominous rumble of disagreement.
But Rōlâ-Bōlâ’s messengers were at hand with most costly presents, and
it all ended in their finding an almost similar case in their books,
where a wounded prince, who was quite unable to roll an inch, had been
placed upon an elevated platform in order that his round-bodied
sweetheart might pass beneath and he be enabled to pinch her little toe
while it was in the air at the highest point from the ground.
Seeing that it would be useless to make further opposition, I now
submitted with a good grace, for it was plain to me that once the
husband of the princess Rōlâ-Bōlâ I should become, to a certain extent,
one of the family and be accorded greater liberty, by means of which I
confidently hoped to make my escape from the land of the Roundbodies.
Preparations for the marriage were now begun with extraordinary haste,
in order to have all things ready for the first feast-day in the
calendar.
As the time drew near, however, I somewhat lost my courage.
“Was I not,” I asked myself, “simply lending my aid in forging my own
fetters, in laying chains upon my neck, which would render it impossible
for Bulger and me ever to set eyes again upon our beloved home?”
I became very nervous, and found it impossible to catch a wink of sleep.
At last I resolved to postpone my fate, at least for several days.
And this was my scheme:—
I should explain to the fair Rōlâ-Bōlâ how utterly impossible it would
be for me, in my fright and anxiety, to get my thumb and finger upon her
little toe at all, as she revolved swiftly beneath me.
I therefore would implore her to roll very slowly.
And then my scheme would be to seize her foot, hold it fast, and pinch
the little toe a score of times at least!
Each pinch would be a clear gain of a day!
Our wedding-day dawned at last.
The King’s wine was dealt out to the people with liberal hand.
Mirth and gayety resounded on all sides.
The skies were one vast expanse of cloudless blue.
The flowering shrubs breathed out the most delightful odors.
The air was deliciously balmy.
The painted foliage hung in graceful festoons, unmoved by even a breath
of air.
To his evident disgust, Bulger was decorated with a necklace of leaf
mosaic of most delicate workmanship.
Had I not reproved him with a shake of the head, he would quickly have
shaken off this useless adornment.
Vast crowds of the Roundbodies covered the plain as far as the eye could
reach.
Children rolled in troops after their parents, like marbles chasing up a
cannon ball.
At times I observed that the mothers, in order to amuse their little
ones, or to quell some discussion which had broken out among them,
halted by the wayside, and catching up three or four of them, tossed
them into the air as a juggler does his balls, sometimes keeping three
or more of them on the fly and one in each hand.
It was a strange sight, and amused me so much that I quite insisted upon
halting the wedding procession in order that I might observe it more
closely.
But the fair Rōlâ-Bōlâ was very impatient, and chided me in unmeasured
terms for my lack of dignity.
In fact, I now began to notice a very evident desire on the part of the
managers of the wedding arrangements to hurry things up.
King Bô-gôô-gôô ever and anon turned an anxious eye toward the horizon.
And then there would follow a whispered consultation with the
soothsayers and magicians.
Behold me at last mounted upon my—scaffold, I had almost said—for such
it seemed to be.
A terrible, tightening sensation took hold of my heart.
The air seemed too heavy to breathe.
I gasped like a fish thrown up on dry land.
“Let the marriage ceremony begin this instant, and move apace!” roared
Bô-gôô-gôô.
“Make ready, Tôô-tôô-lō!” cried one of the royal councillors.
I turned to survey the multitude, and then prostrated myself upon the
platform under which the princess Rōlâ-Bōlâ was to pass.
“She has started! She comes like the wind! She is here!” Such were the
cries which arose from the vast multitude.
With head and shoulders thrust through the opening in the platform, I
awaited my bride with bated breath and thumping heart.
Imagine my amazement when I saw her flash beneath me and disappear in
the crowd of Roundbodies, almost like a ball from a cannon.
I had scarcely felt her body as it had rolled beneath me.
As for pinching her toe, that was certainly out of the question, seeing
that I had only caught a hurried glimpse of her white feet, and then all
was gone!
In an instant I was on my legs, and, advancing to the edge of the
platform, I raised my hand to signify to King Bô-gôô-gôô that I desired
to be heard:
“O, King with the globe-shaped body, hearken unto me! I have been
wronged! There is vile treachery here! The judges of the land of
Gô-gû-lâh have been corrupted! I demand their blood! Not only have I not
pinched the little toe of the royal princess Rōlâ-Bōlâ, but I—”
At this instant, a deep, rumbling noise like a burst of distant
artillery, cut short my harangue, by setting the air into such violent
vibration that my lips moved without making the slightest sound.
The effect of this terrific “boom” upon the Roundbodies was astounding.
The wildest confusion came upon them.
In vain did King Bô-gôô-gôô command silence.
They rocked like the waves of the sea when struck by a sudden blast.
The most deafening groans and sighs rolled over the plains in a sort of
half tuneful unison. Their faces blanched and they pressed together in
the most abject fear.
At last King Bô-gôô-gôô was himself again, and, with a terrific voice,
awed his people into silence, crying out:
“Ughgō! Raûlag pad Oüistimgâr!” (My people, the storm is upon us!
Protect yourselves!)
More quickly than it takes me to tell it, the dreaded roar broke in upon
the stilly air.
The Roundbodies gathered their children and aged people into a group,
and then formed double and triple walls about them.
“Tôô-tôô-lō! Tôô-tôô-lō!”
It was Rōlâ-Bōlâ’s voice.
But other thoughts were in my mind at this dread moment.
Again it sounded forth in most piteous accents:
“Tôô-tôô-lō! Tôô-tôô-lō!”
To that voice, now, the ears of the dead would have given more heed than
mine!
The storm-fiend was galloping amain.
Quicker than thought I swung myself down from the platform, and,
encircling Bulger with my left arm, made my way back again.
The good dog was delighted to be with me again, although he was
trembling like an aspen leaf at the distant sound of the winds.
He well knew what was coming.
But look! The sunlight is gone!
The very air seems affrighted.
A terrifying tremor of the ground beneath us causes the soles of our
feet to tingle and prickle.
“Tôô-tôô-lō! Tôô-tôô-lō!”
It was Rōlâ-Bōlâ calling her lover away from the impending death with
which the storm-cloud was fraught.
He was busy with one dearer to him than the weeping princess of the
Roundbodies.
Happily the platform had been constructed by lashing together the
uprights and flooring by means of hempen cords. To loosen one of these
and bind Bulger and myself securely to the wooden structure was the work
of a moment.
The Roundbodies had followed my movements in silence, fairly stricken
dumb with amazement at what seemed to them the work of a madman.
When they could find their tongues, they motioned to me fiercely to
leave the platform, crying:
“Pôô-döeg! Pôô-döeg!” (What madness! What madness!)
But I was not mad!
What is death but a thought?
One may live and yet be dead!
Look! the terrible storm-king is coming! He is a greater monarch than
thou, O mighty Bô-gôô-gôô!
“Tôô-tôô-lō! Tôô-tôô-lō!”
It was the kind, good Rōlâ-Bōlâ’s last farewell!
From that moment the roar of the coming gale drowned every sound of
earth or its puny creatures.
Look again! See the black monster, how he draws nearer and nearer, his
huge, shapeless, terrible body rolling and swaying as he rides along on
his black wings, while, like a gigantic serpent, his tail drags over the
fair earth, hissing, writhing and curling, now on this side, now on
that, now coiling upward to gather strength, now beating and threshing
the plain with a roar mighty enough to plunge the stoutest heart into
despair.
Ah, Bulger! It comes! ’Tis here! We move! It lifts us! Away! Away! We
ride on the bosom of the gale! What a roar! How dark! How black! The
storm-king strangles me! Bulger, I die—
* * * * *
“Where am I? Ah, Bulger, good dog! Has the princess called us yet?
“King Bô-gôô-gôô comes to-day.
“We must amuse him!”
I made an effort to rise.
The cords held me down.
By degrees the shadows lifted from my mind, and thoughts of the
storm-king’s coming flashed through my brain, and how he had lifted the
platform upon which we were bound, and borne it away, away, as if it
were a feather caught up by the wind in play!
Something tickled my cheek.
I raised my head.
Oh! joy unutterable! It was grain! Ay, golden grain!
Wheat, ready for the sickle!
We are saved! We must be near the habitations of man!
And so we were.
Nay, more; we were not a thousand miles away from home.
Thus it was a mightier king than Bô-gôô-gôô, one to whom in my despair,
I had appealed for aid, caught up my loved Bulger and me and bore us
away from Gô-gû-lâh, the Land of the Roundbodies.
* * * * *
And here I end my story.
[Illustration:
HOME AGAIN!
THIS TIME FOR A GOOD, LONG REST.]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Transcriber’s note:
1. Added quotation marks at the beginning of each paragraph for
quotations that extend over more than one paragraph.
2. Silently corrected typographical errors and variations in spelling.
3. Retained anachronistic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as
printed.