MELEAGER
A FANTASY
BY H.M. VAUGHAN
F.S.A.
"_Wilt thou know how farre the
Starres work upon us?_"
Anatomy of Melancholy
(Part I., sect. ii., sub-sect. iv.)
LONDON
MARTIN SECKER
NUMBER FIVE JOHN STREET
ADELPHI
_First Published 1916_
CONTENTS
PAGE
PROLOGUE 7
PART ONE 15
PART TWO 199
EPIGRAPH 308
PROLOGUE
(_By the Editor of the Original MS., the late_ Edward Cayley, F.S.A.)
In giving the following narrative to the Press, I feel, as its editor,
I am bound to write a short preface of apology or explanation to such
of the public as care to read these pages. But I shall be as brief as
possible.
The manuscript, which is here produced in printed form, came into
my personal possession through the kindness of Sir W---- Y----, the
eminent traveller and mountaineer, who chanced upon it under the
following circumstances. Whilst engaged in some work of exploration in
the Andes, at the height of 12,000 feet or thereabouts above sea-level,
he and his party had to traverse a dry stony ravine. On their passage
upward one of the attendant guides chanced to espy amongst the loose
stones and rubble a plain white metal cylinder sealed at both ends.
Except for a conspicuous dent, evidently the result of a heavy fall,
the cylinder itself appeared uninjured, and it was immediately brought
by the finder to Sir W----, as the leader of the party. Sir W----
stopped for a moment to examine this strange treasure-trove, and,
though much pressed for time, was able to loosen the cover and to
ascertain that the cylinder contained a large scroll of fine vellum
closely covered with minute writing. In the fading light, Sir W----,
who had many matters of professional importance to think of, gave
only a cursory glance at the manuscript itself, which he fancied must
be connected with some of the ancient inhabitants of Peru. Without
examining the parchment closely, he thereupon packed away the cylinder
in his baggage and made no further effort to elucidate its nature until
his return to Lima. My friend was here considerably astonished to find
that the MS. which had so strangely fallen into his hands was written,
not in some antique or unknown language and characters, but in neat
though exceedingly small English script, with the sole exception of
one short sentence in Latin--added apparently by another hand and in
a different ink--in which the Latin writer begged the finder of the
cylinder to take the enclosed scroll of vellum to the nearest English
or American consulate. But for this Latin request, which was inserted
at the beginning of the manuscript in a most prominent manner, the
whole was written in fair nervous English, which it became easy to
decipher, so soon as the reader had grown accustomed to the crabbedness
of the writing, that had evidently been produced by an exiguity of
space.
By one of those curious but happy chances which sometimes occur in
life, Sir W---- was still more astonished to discover that the name
of the author was not only familiar to him, but that he actually had
once owned a slight acquaintance with him. More than this, Sir W----,
who is one of my dearest and oldest friends, knew that I had been
intimate with the writer of this parchment, who (as he thought) had
been dead for some years. Sir W---- therefore, though greatly puzzled
by the whole inscrutable occurrence, very wisely made no further
mention of his discovery, but on his return to England brought the
manuscript direct to me at my room in the British Museum. After a long
discussion between us, Sir W---- voluntarily made over all arrangements
in the matter of publishing or suppressing the contents of the scroll
to myself, and indeed, so to speak, washed his hands of all further
responsibility in the matter, which had apparently somewhat affected
his nerves or his spirits. I have only to add, with regard to the
original owner of the MS., that Sir W----, when at Lima, showed the
metal case to various persons employed at the museum there, and that
all these experts unanimously declared that this object itself could
never have been produced by any of the aboriginal inhabitants of Peru;
whilst the metal, a species of platinum, was, so far as they were
aware, unknown on our planet. And this verdict of the officials at Lima
is, I believe, perfectly correct.
As to the authenticity of the MS., I may at once state that the account
contained therein coincides in every particular with the evidence
that was produced at the time of its alleged author's mysterious
disappearance. I have had for many years an intimate acquaintance,
amounting to a cordial friendship, with the writer, A---- B----. I
do not necessarily concur with all that he states later on as to his
exceptional mental gifts; nor do I consider his close self-analysis
as altogether a correct one. Still, I think his own views on his
attainments, his natural genius, his complete failure, and his outlook
on life are sincere. Though highly nervous and sensitive by nature,
and a prey to constant fits of depression, neither I nor any of his
friends, would ever have suspected him of a tendency to suicide. We
were indeed, all of us, fully as surprised as we were grieved to learn
through the newspapers of November ----, 19--, the details of what we
most assuredly at that date considered to have been his own deliberate
act of self-destruction. For there can be no question but that A----
B---- had made beforehand plans for his contemplated disappearance; the
letter of instruction he wrote to his brother, the careful packing of
his valuables at his lodgings, and the sudden payment on the morning
that he was last seen of certain outstanding bills clearly point to
this surmise. We are however now confronted since the strange discovery
of the manuscript with two theories as to his end; did A---- B----
really perish on the beach at Dover; or did he evanish from his own
world of men in order to start a new life under new conditions? His
clothing, we know, was found lying on the bare ground carefully held
down by stones and boulders, and in his pockets were some money and
a few personal trifles of value. Nevertheless, it is just possible
he may have changed into some other garb, and thus disguised have
made his escape whither none could trace him. This second theory is
however highly improbable, seeing that his age was over forty, his
temperament on the whole normal, and his health indifferent; so that
I merely mention it here to show that the suggestion has not escaped
my own inquiring mind. The conclusion however which both the police
and his relatives held was that A---- B---- had in some fit of frenzy
or despair plunged naked into the sea, wherein he had been speedily
drowned; for it was a cold stormy night. It is true the actual body
was never recovered, but professional and amateur alike were agreed
on the point of suicide whilst of unsound mind. That the manuscript
is a literary jest perpetrated in the name of A---- B---- is also
most unlikely, for though he was an author of some talent and repute,
his mere name certainly had not the glamour requisite to draw special
attention to any posthumous publication. At the risk therefore of being
considered credulous, or even crazy, I have come to the deliberate
decision that the whole marvellous story as set forth on the parchment
is essentially true; and that the events described therein are not
the figments of any imagination, sane or insane. If this is the case
(which I do not for one moment doubt), then we possess an inestimable
account of a planet other than our own. On the other hand, were it a
fraud of an elaborate nature, as has been suggested, we have simply a
treatise dealing with a Utopia in the stars, just one of those sterile
semi-descriptive, semi-political effusions that the speculative human
mind has produced from time to time. The record of Meleager and of its
unique Secret, of which the author claims to know the existence but
not the working details, is either a matter of surpassing interest,
or else it is but a literary trifle, a jejune compound of material
borrowed from Plato, Sir Thomas More, Rabelais, James Harington, Dean
Swift, Samuel Butler, H.G. Wells, and Heaven only knows how many other
inventors in a similar vein, both ancient and modern, English and
foreign. Once more I repeat my full belief in the writer's veracity and
in the substantial truth of all his many adventures. As I write this, I
have lying on my desk before me that same strange metal cylinder, and
that exquisitely prepared roll of vellum; and whenever I take these
objects in my hands I really feel that I am fingering a message in a
tangible form from a friend and fellow-mortal who has passed hence to
another planet.
I have only to add that in editing the MS. I have deemed it expedient
to omit here and there a few passages which might perhaps tend to
prejudice the reader against A---- B---- himself; the fact being
patent to me that the author, after some years of residence in another
and a wholly diverse moral and physical atmosphere, has somehow imbibed
notions and theories that may clash with some of the recognised
conventions and standards of this our world, which was also once his
own. These omissions do not however mar the general trend of the
narrative; and if any authorised persons may conceive a serious desire
to peruse these excerpts, I shall willingly acquaint them with what is
missing from the text.
PART ONE
I
I begin my manuscript in the palace of the Child of the Sun in a
distant world, thus relieving a mind that is apt to grow weary of mere
splendour and adulation by imagining the possibility of communicating
on some future day with those who were not so long ago my fellow-men
and fellow-mortals on the planet I have left, never to return. Though
brightness and beauty are around me in my new abode, yet a constant
longing for the drab unattainable past grips me with a feverish
eagerness, so that I find some small solace in placing on record from
time to time my impressions of a place and a people whose existence I
had never suspected until a few hours before I was hurried, a humble
subject out of the Earth, to dwell as ruler of an alien sphere. Whether
or no I shall ever gain the opportunity of committing this message
to its desired goal I know not; but at the present moment it suits
my fancy and soothes my unquiet brain to believe in the ultimate
feasibility of such an event. So I shall open by relating with the
utmost brevity the earlier and earthly, and therefore less interesting,
portion of my career.
I had already passed by some few years the age of forty, at which
landmark of life, so Count Alfieri discovered long ago, man ceases to
cherish illusions, and seeks to look back upon the irredeemable past
with feelings of self-satisfaction or of regret, as his case may be.
My own reflections after passing this Rubicon of time were anything
but agreeable, when I paused to consider the years that had slipped by
between my period of youth and that of middle age, and had to confess
that all my early ambitions had petered out in nothingness. I had
signally failed in all things; I had plainly proved myself
"too weak to put my shoulder to the wheel
Which Fortune offers all to push or leave."
And yet, despite my laziness, my lack of initiative, my sacrifices
to dull Convention, my timidity and my vacillation, I could not help
harbouring a dull dim fury of resentment against Fate itself. I
realised that I was the owner of high and original genius, yet this had
omitted to imprint its proper mark in the world; and further, I argued
that it was not wholly through my own fault that my latent virtues
had never developed. The finest and most useful piece of machinery
remains valueless and inert unless there be a skilled workman to set
its mechanism in motion, to oil its cogs, and generally to supervise
its action. So in my own case, the mental mechanism was all there ready
to perform and needing but the touch of a sympathetic human hand to
inspire its dormant possibilities. Some of the foremost characters
in history have owed their fame and their success to the judicious
but unappreciated help of persons of an inferior calibre, whose very
names are often unknown to posterity; then why could not I have been
permitted the service of some exterior force, some understanding
coadjutor, to awaken the gigantic strength that was slumbering in
myself?
Thus in my case a boyhood full of promise, yet a boyhood ever repressed
and misunderstood, ripened into an early manhood of diffidence and
irresolution. The golden years glided by unprofitably, until at length
they reached the grand climacteric, when I found myself straying in
a barren and deserted portion of the plain of life. A mental and
physical weariness began to enfold me; the sense of failure at times
was certainly keen and cutting as a razor, still I contrived by
various devices to blunt its edge. I had indeed obtained some slight
distinction in the sphere of literature, so that I was fain to feed my
hungry disappointed soul with such crumbs or stale food of gratulation
as fell to me from the small circle of those who admired my works,
concerning which I myself can honestly say that I neither professed nor
felt the smallest pride. A few trifles from my pen may possibly live in
the general literature of Britain, mostly in verse, for poetry is often
less perishable than prose in such instances as mine. Nevertheless, I
recognised myself as a partial failure in the domain of letters, as I
was admittedly a complete failure in the departments of politics, of
thought, of influence, of philosophy.
Naturally, with such bitter matter for reflection, my equanimity was
liable to serious disturbance what time the sharp edge of this haunting
sense of a life's bankruptcy pricked my all-too-sensitive skin. At
such periods long-drawn fits of depression would invade me. Though
at first these would dissolve and would often leave a marked flow of
gaiety and hopefulness behind them, yet such attacks grew stronger
and more frequent, whilst the subsequent recovery was less ecstatic
in its nature. It was during one of these temporary obsessions of
brooding care that I encountered the one and only adventure of my life,
the adventure indeed that, in one aspect, terminated it, as I shall
presently relate. For I have only written thus much concerning my
interior state of mind and my physical health to impress on the reader
that, apparent failure as I was and void of all worldly success, yet I
still possessed the clear inner consciousness of mental powers that far
exceeded those of all my more fortunate acquaintances, and were perhaps
equalled amongst very few contemporary persons whatsoever. My call to
action came at last; the master hand at the eleventh hour put the rusty
machinery of my unique mind in motion; and I have answered to that
call, and am now employing for a worthy purpose those superior talents
that, not altogether by reason of my own laches, had so long lain idle.
* * * * *
One November evening in the year 19--, whilst under the shadow of one
of my recurring moods of melancholy, I made my way to the Café Royale
in Regent Street, where I sat down and ordered a glass of absinthe. And
here I may as well state that I am no drunkard, and that I have never
sought to dispel my fits of depression by the aid of the wine-cup.
Occasionally, however, I used to drink a glass of absinthe, as an
excuse for visiting this foreign tavern, this latter-day Petty France
in London, whose alien quality always tended to reduce my misery, for
I found relaxation in the gruff Continental voices of the guests, in
the sight and scent of the foreign liquors, in the garish Parisian
decorations of the long low room, and in the unceasing chink of the
dominoes on the marble-topped tables. I had already poured the ice-cold
water upon the thin tablet of sugar reposing on the silver sifter that
I had placed across the goblet, and was watching the clouded liquor
below assume the yellow and green tints of the peridot, when I noticed
a stranger enter the doorway, glance quickly round at the noisy crowd
assembled, and then seat himself deliberately in the vacant chair
opposite to me. With a languid interest I observed the new-comer,
trying to recall his face, which somehow seemed vaguely familiar to me.
As this personage is to figure presently as my liberator, my mentor, my
particular _deus ex machinâ_, I may as well describe him here to the
best of my ability. He was short, and a little inclined to stoutness;
he was apparently about my own age, and was fashionably but quietly
dressed; he was also obviously not an Englishman. His complexion was
swarthy, even hinting at some possible admixture of Oriental blood,
but his features were small, regular and far from unpleasing. His dark
hair and moustache were grizzled; he had intelligent brown eyes and
regular teeth; his voice showed an agreeable intonation as he ordered
François to bring him some coffee. Having given his order, the stranger
looked fixedly at me for a moment, the while stroking his chin with a
delicate well-kept hand. Suddenly he addressed me, only to offer me
the evening paper which he had brought with him. I thanked him, and
seeing him thus anxious to converse, I made some commonplace remark
on the badness of the weather. He replied with alacrity, and by the
time the waiter had returned with his coffee the stranger and I were
chatting affably. He spoke excellent English, but with an accent that
caused me to speculate on his possible nationality. After we had
indulged thus in small talk for ten minutes or more, my neighbour,
assuming a graceful hesitation of manner, inquired of me whether my
name were not A---- B----. Greatly surprised, I assented; whereupon the
foreigner, with a well-bred apology for what he called his liberty of
attitude towards me, stated that he was a sincere admirer of my books,
and then proceeded to allude to them in a manner which showed plainly
enough that at least he had read them. He praised my work warmly,
complimented me on the subjects I had chosen for research, on my lucid
style and on other points. Now, there are few persons who are not
susceptible to praise or flattery, and I am no exception to the general
rule, provided only that the praise (or flattery) be applied with a
delicate brush and not with a trowel. The discriminating approval
therefore of this distinguished-looking foreigner acted like a sedative
to my jarred nerves, so that the cloud of depression hanging over my
head began rapidly to disperse. We talked and argued with animation
over my books and their themes, with which my unknown companion seemed
to possess a most intimate acquaintance. Time raced rapidly during this
congenial duologue, the clock above the bar denoting the flight of a
full hour before my comrade broached the matter of his own identity,
which could scarcely in politeness be withheld much longer. Taking a
leather case from his breast-pocket, he produced a visiting card, which
he handed to me, explaining to me at the same moment that he was of
Italian parentage though born in the Argentine, where he followed the
occupation of a merchant in connection with a large English commercial
house holding concessions in Peru and Bolivia. The card bore the
name "Signor Arrigo d'Aragno," and an address in Buenos Aires. Then,
glancing hastily at the clock, he made some remark about an important
business appointment and expressed deep concern at this abrupt ending
of our agreeable conversation. With some slight hesitation however
he ventured to ask whether I would not give him the extreme pleasure
of my company at dinner that night, provided I would excuse such an
invitation from a complete stranger after so short an acquaintance. I
happened to be disengaged that day, with the uninviting prospect of a
solitary evening at my club before me; and my alacrity in accepting his
hospitality caused obvious satisfaction to Signor d'Aragno, who named
one of the large London hotels for our trysting-place. We shook hands
cordially, and separated with a warm _a rivederla_.
* * * * *
Arrived punctually at eight o'clock at the ---- Hotel, I was shown
upstairs to my host's private apartment, and a few moments later we
two were sitting at table and resuming our interrupted discussion of
the Café Royale. By the time we had reached the stage of dessert, and
the waiters had retired, this topic had somewhat flagged, and the
conversation now took on a more personal complexion. The praise that
had hitherto been lavishly accorded to my books was now deftly and
tactfully--though of course I was unaware of the change at the actual
time--shifted to myself and my exceptional gifts of mind. Leading
skilfully from one point to another, d'Aragno finally stated his
opinion that my inherent genius, my political views, and my remarkable
culture were altogether such as marked me out as a person born to
rule, as a Homeric _anax andrõn_. The generous wine I had swallowed,
the intoxicating but judicious adulation and insinuating personality of
my host alike operated to arouse in me that keen desire for power I had
ofttimes secretly indulged in; whilst at the same time they generated
an indescribable sense of bitterness against the world at large for its
neglect or ignorance of so marvellous a genius as mine. I am certain
now (though at the time I was quite unconscious of its employment) the
will of my companion was working with every force at its command to
communicate with my brain and to instil therein the full appreciation
of the special object he had in view. We proceeded to higher and
higher planes of argument; the famous names of history fell frequently
from our lips, as we spoke of the ideal Prince of Machiavelli, of the
demi-god of Corsica, of the super-man of Nietzsche, of the mystical
powers wielded by the Pope of Rome and the Dalai Lama. The hours flew
by on rosy wings; midnight had passed, and the gong of Big Ben had just
hurled its solitary stroke of one o'clock booming through the dank
foggy air without that enveloped a London grown at last comparatively
silent. How well do I recall that precise moment! The reverberation of
the clanging knell had scarcely subsided when my host, making a brusque
movement in his chair, bluntly placed the great proposition before me,
and offered me a kingdom, though not a kingdom of this world!
II
Before attempting to give a short and, I hope, a tolerably coherent
account of my lengthy nocturnal interview with Arrigo d'Aragno, of
his amazing statements and proposals, and of my own half-hearted and
intermittent struggles against his invading powers of persuasion, I
must state first of all that the whole incident rises before me at this
moment with crystal clearness. Even now, in these exotic surroundings,
I can see with my mind's eye that commonplace hotel parlour with its
ugly luxurious furniture and its flamboyant wall-paper of scarlet
patterned with a design of raised and gilded vine-leaves. In this
room for several hours my host continued to address me with scarcely
a pause, except at one or two points when I feebly ventured to stem
the torrent of his extraordinary discourse. The open allurements, the
veiled warnings, the cynical wisdom, the biting indictments of our own
existing conditions of society, together composed a strange medley of
arguments, which were intended to convince me of the absolute necessity
of my immediate and unconditional submission to his carefully prepared
scheme. And this scheme was no less than the complete surrender of
myself, mind and body, into his keeping for the purpose of being
transported whilst in an unconscious or comatose state and by some
hidden means to another planet! I cannot of course recall the whole of
that prodigal information, nor all the astonishing things he confided
in me; but I do remember vividly throughout the whole of this mental
ordeal that I always remained fully aware of my host's sanity. He
talked the dreams of madmen, as judged by our conventional standards
of science and belief; yet I knew, instinctively knew, all his
bizarre statements to be fact and not fiction. Was some irresistible
hypnotic force, I wonder, emanating from that will and besieging my
own overwrought brain, to compel my full credence in the apparently
incredible? In any case, believe I did absolutely. I grew to realise
also, dimly at first, but with increasing clarity, that a refusal on my
part was now practically unthinkable. Of a truth my choice lay between
a swift and certain death on Earth and a new career in another planet;
and as the ties that bound me to Earth were neither very strong nor
very dear, whilst my curiosity was boundless, I was filled with tense
excitement but not with real alarm at the prospect opened before me.
With hardly an attempt at opposition, therefore, I allowed myself to
become permeated through and through with the psychical current of my
companion's will to power, ignoring my shrewd presentiment of intense
danger ahead in the event of my seeking to decline that which I most
ardently longed for despite a few passing qualms. Beyond a doubt I was
completely in the toils, but I experienced no anxiety to escape thence.
* * * * *
Directing his eyes full upon my face with a concentrated stare that
held my attention fixed and unwavering, d'Aragno started, and his
harangue proceeded with scarcely a break for four hours, of which here
I can only inscribe a few disjointed fragments. "You progressive and
enlightened peoples of the important planet known as the Earth have in
your own estimation acquired an immense store of knowledge, not only
of things terrestrial but also of the entire scheme celestial. Your
astronomers talk glibly of the presence of various metals in the Moon,
of the luminous rings of Saturn, of artificial canals in Mars; you
reckon with accuracy on the times and seasons of the wandering comets
which you christen by the names of their discoverers--and yet, and yet
you have not learnt our secret, The Secret!...
"On your aerial charts there is marked a tiny planet belonging to
our solar system which your scientists, following an absurd method
of nomenclature from the venue of classical mythology, have dubbed
Meleager. Being small, it is held of no account by your star-gazing
wiseacres, whilst the average layman of intelligence has probably
never so much as heard its name. Is not that so? Have you yourself any
knowledge of its existence? (I shook my head.) Now let me tell you
that Meleager is an Earth in miniature; its inhabitants, its natural
features, its vegetation, its fauna have all developed under identical
conditions in the past, so that, were any traveller from Herthus to be
unexpectedly translated thither, he would almost certainly imagine he
had only found his way to some hitherto unexplored subtropical region
of his own Earth. _I_ am a native of Meleager, and I am moreover one
of its small band of citizens who possess its secret, which has been
handed down from its original inventors to their successors through
countless centuries of time. How, when and by whom The Secret came into
existence I know not; and did I know, I should not inform you; but
this much I am empowered to say; there is intercommunication of long
standing between our small planet and your larger one; or rather, to
use exact language, a limited knot of persons in Meleager own the power
of visiting your Earth from time to time for certain purposes, one of
which I shall presently disclose to you, as it concerns intimately our
meeting and conversation this night. It is now five years and more
since I have been dwelling in an alien world, making a careful scrutiny
in connection with the mission that has been entrusted me by the
innermost circle of the ruling caste which alone controls the polity of
Meleager. I am, as it were, an ambassador to the Earth, but one whose
credentials have never been presented, who has no staff of legation,
no chancellery, and whose position is one-sided, for it is unknown
to, and unacknowledged by, the countries to which he has been sent. I
have been commanded to inquire into and report upon many terrestrial
matters of concern to us, but my leading task is being brought to its
termination to-day....
"My supreme duty is to choose an earth-born King for our planet. Our
constitution, which is the logical outcome of the most deliberate and
far-seeing policy for many generations, requires the presence in our
midst of a sovereign drawn from another sphere, and that sphere is of
necessity the Earth, for we in Meleager hold no communication with
any other planet in Cosmos. At intervals, as expediency or necessity
may dictate, a new king has to be sought and found by the Meleagrian
envoy on the Earth, whose task presents, as you may suppose, extreme,
well-nigh insuperable difficulties. I am tied down by certain stringent
rules, and to those rules I must strictly adhere. We demand a man of
intelligence, a man of good birth and breeding, one of fine presence,
and last of all an individual of a fair complexion and with blue eyes.
This final condition may strike you as absurd, but then the Meleagrians
are a dark race with dark skins and dark eyes and hair, as you may
perceive in my own person; and in their fixed opinion their extraneous
ruler must be the scion of an immortal stock, a member of the family
of the Sun, who alone is worshipped in Meleager. Our priests by the
aid of cunning devices and mystical potions, as also by means of the
waters of a certain Fountain of Rejuvenation, whose exact locale is
only known to our Arch-priest and a few chosen colleagues, can improve
both mentally and bodily the individual who is translated and handed
over to their care. Nevertheless, the raw material counts for a good
deal--as you express it in one of your homely English proverbs: 'One
cannot make a silk purse out of a sow's ear'; and on the same analogy
even our skilful ministers of state would be unable to construct the
true substance of a Child of the Sun-god out of an inferior Herthian
mortal. The nicest caution has therefore to be observed in the work
of selection. For nearly three years now I have been busily seeking,
and can at last congratulate myself on having obtained the requisite
material, the potential dross that will later be converted into pure
gold. For some time past I have been on your track without arousing the
smallest suspicion in your mind, and now at length I have grasped the
favourable, the critical, the final moment in which I claim you for
this most exalted, and indeed most sacred office....
"You are thoroughly out of touch with your own age and with your own
country in a special degree, and for my purpose your deep-rooted
dissatisfaction causes in me on the contrary the most intense
satisfaction. You have grown disgusted with the decadence of your Royal
House; you are sick of the greed and frivolity of your aristocracy;
you abhor the mischievous methods and aims of your unscrupulous
demagogues in power; you shrink from the violence and brutishness
of your all-powerful mob; you lament the utter incapacity of the
few serious and honest politicians who yet survive. You mourn over
the industrial devastation and the uglifying of your once-beautiful
world; you turn with horror from the blatant arrogance of the ruling
gang of financiers, who with the besotted populace mean to involve
the whole world in a final sordid struggle for mastery. On all sides
you see nothing but rapid change upon change, all for the worse; the
rooting-out of all that is good, artistic and ennobling, and the
substitution of all that is vile and mercenary....
"You are obsessed with the same hatred of this evil transformation
as are we ourselves, the ruling body in Meleager, who utilise your
planet now, not as in the past for purposes of imitation and guidance,
but for serious warnings as to what to avoid in our own future
course of polity. For in Meleager we still set before us as our
main striving-point Universal Content, not so-called industrial and
educational Progress and the mere amassing of wealth. The happiness
of all is, and always has been, the sole aim of our statesmen, and
we firmly hold that the various theories of equality that are so
advertised and belauded on your Earth are in reality most deadly
poisons that are being injected into the corporate mass of humanity.
One of the leading saints of your Christian Church has wisely said
that in every house are to be found vessels alike formed to honour
and to dishonour, yet that, as they are all equally necessary, so
viewed in that reasonable light are they all equally honourable. Thus
in our government of Meleager do we recognise the clear necessity of
the various grades of society which form the total fabric of every
healthy and happy state; whilst we reject with scorn and loathing the
specious notions that, under the guise of an equality that has no
real existence, endeavour to weld all society into one drab dismal
detestable whole....
"Nowadays everything that is ordered or orderly you worldlings have
set out to destroy. Your barbarian hordes broke up the stable Roman
Empire; your fanatical reformers and greedy monarchs destroyed the
consolidating features of the Middle Ages, which though very far from
being perfect yet presented many illuminating features which we deemed
expedient to copy in Meleager. In recent years your death-dealing guns
and your proselytising emissaries have destroyed wantonly the vast
matured civilisations of China and Japan and Burmah, which are now
rapidly casting out all their antique virtues and are fast absorbing
all the vice and vulgarity of the West. Every community, howsoever
poor or insignificant, yet content to work out its own salvation and
be governed by its own ancient laws and customs, and consequently
happy and healthy according to its own lights, you have disturbed and
dismembered....
"Everywhere and every day the beautiful is retreating before the
utilitarian; smoke and noise pollute the greenest and loveliest valleys
of Europe and America; dirt and disease increase in spite of your
undoubted advances in medical science, whose services are given over
to the individual who will pay for them rather than to the community
at large. One sees the feeble and the cretinous of your world breeding
like flies, whilst those of a better condition and in sound health are
found too selfish and too tenacious of their ease to undertake the
trouble or expense connected with the rearing of a family. Epidemics
continue, and in the form of a gift of Western civilisation are
allowed to sweep away whole tribes and nations of wholesome primitive
peoples; your most loathsome and yet preventable diseases of contagion
still hold sway, either by reason of your own indifference or from
false ideals of a prudery that, I confess, wholly passes my own
comprehension. Over all your Earth the universal craving for wealth
at any cost of morals or self-respect has settled like a blight. All
pleasures of the intellect are rapidly ceasing to attract, and the
extravagance and debauchery of the ostentatious rich are announced by
your odious vassal Press as the sole objects worthy of attainment or
imitation to-day....
"You slaughter and exterminate your rare animals and your beautiful
birds in order that your women may adorn themselves with their pelts
and plumage, and even now in this cold weather I have watched your
fine ladies daily walking in your noisy, crowded streets of London,
half-naked yet wholly unashamed, with their limbs and bosoms exposed
equally to the bitter wind and the lascivious eye of the stranger,
whilst masses of costly furs, the spoils of innocent and peaceful
animals, are heaped upon their pampered bodies....
"Whither are you being driven in this mad stampede after so-called
progress and knowledge? In what morass will this mocking
will-o'-the-wisp ultimately entice and overwhelm you?... I see
chicanery and disbelief possess your churches and their priests; a
clinging to stipends and a craving for personal leadership seem to
me to have become the sole guides of such as are themselves supposed
to guide their flocks. Everywhere change, restlessness, cynicism,
vulgarity, extravagance, crime, hypocrisy, covetousness, greed,
cringing, selfishness in every form are rampant; what sensitive mind
would not instinctively recoil from contact with such a changing world?
Can a nature such as your own endure to be associated with such a mass
of passive squalor and of active evil? Are you not more than ready to
welcome some chance of escape from such an uncongenial environment?...
"As you confess in your heart the utter collapse of your early aims
here on Earth--so must you recognise your unique chance to attain to
something higher than even you dreamed of in your youthful moods of
hope and ambition. You will be reincarnated as the Child of the Sun,
after you are once translated to Meleager. That is a part, but a part
only, of The Secret, which perhaps already you are inclined to regard
as The Fraud. And yet, if fraud it be, its ultimate aim is a beneficent
and unselfish one, for it has been practised in order to keep a whole
population happy and content...."
* * * * *
"And herewith I think I had now better give you some instructions, or
rather hints, as to your new position and as to your proper attitude
towards the governing caste of Meleager on your arrival there. As King,
the Child of the Sun is invested with a species of sovereignty that
has no exact counter-part on your Earth. Your high office in Meleager
partakes in some respects of the nature of a King of England, of a
Pope of Rome, of an old-time Sultan of Baghdad, of a modern colonial
governor; yet it is itself no one of these things. To sustain your part
you will be reincarnated after your long sleep, and you will awake to
find yourself endued with a fresh supply of youth and energy, whilst
all your acquired learning and ripe experience of a lifetime already
more than half consumed will abide in your brain. There now remains for
you the final stage of all on Earth, that of putting yourself and your
future unreservedly and confidently in my hands...."
There followed an abrupt spell of silence in which d'Aragno scrutinised
me closely. I knew not why, but I had begun to experience a sort
of repulsion against his arrogance in thus presuming obedience on
my part before ever I had signified my assent. I felt in some wise
bound to protest against this assumption of my readiness to obey, and
accordingly I made a protest rather out of personal vanity than from
any depth of rebellious feeling.
"And suppose, sir, I decide not to accept your proposal? Suppose I
refuse absolutely and doggedly to accede to your demand, whatever the
consequence to myself? What then?"
D'Aragno rose from his chair, thrust both hands into the pockets of
his dress jacket, and took up a position on the hearth-rug before the
dying embers of the fire. A curious expression, which I quite failed to
analyse, spread over his features, as he regarded me sternly for some
moments in silence. At length he spoke:
"Your objection I do not regard as sincere. It is idle, and has been
prompted, I am convinced, by a vague sense of wounded dignity on your
part. Perhaps I have been not sufficiently considerate to your proper
pride. You are anxious to 'save your face,' as you express it in your
English idiom. I therefore refuse to take your question seriously. You
have, I know, in your heart the fullest intention of complying with
my arrangements." A pause ensued, and he added with indifference: "In
any case, do you suppose for an instant that I have thus spoken to
you openly of THE SECRET with the smallest possibility of my sharing
it with any living mortal on your Earth? In reality you have no
choice left you. Whether you follow or refuse to follow my lead, your
connection with your own world is already severed. Need I make the case
any clearer to an intelligence such as yours?"
Again a spell of silence, which was ended by the harsh five strokes of
the Westminster clock resounding through the heavy air. With the final
reverberation I bowed my head, and simply said: "I am ready."
It may have been only my fancy, but I _thought_ I detected a shade of
relief pass over that now sinister face; at any rate, the pleasant
earnest look had returned when d'Aragno muttered quietly as though to
himself: "I never felt a moment's doubt!"
Again I essayed a question, this time, one that was really agitating
my mind: "As I am unalterably and inevitably destined to fill the
throne of your kingdom in Meleager, surely I may be permitted to ask
you for how long a period I am to enjoy the position that has been
thus allotted to me? How many years can I expect to rule in this realm
whence there is obviously no return? Is my reign to continue till the
end of my natural mortal life, or is it to be prolonged indefinitely by
mysterious measures, such as you have already hinted at?"
D'Aragno stroked his chin meditatively for some minutes and then
replied in a placid voice: "That at least is a reasonable and proper
question, though I have not the knowledge to answer it as you could
wish or might reasonably expect. I was an infant when our late king
came to be crowned, and he has ceased to rule since my sojourn on the
Earth--that is to say, his tenure of office must have lasted some
forty years. Thus for three years or more our realm has been without a
monarch, so that the whole community in all its classes has begun to
clamour vigorously for a successor, and hence the task of selection
wherewith I have been entrusted, and which I am now bringing to a
close. Our late king was, I fear, unfortunate in his relations with
our priestly or governing class, and by his own folly rendered his
office a source of real danger to our whole system of administration.
I have every reason to believe no such catastrophe is likely to occur
in your case. Your native endowments of head and heart, combined with
the additional advantages of youth and wisdom that you will obtain on
your arrival in Meleager, will protect you sufficiently from such an
untimely ending. Yet I warn you, you will require all your faculties,
especially those of self-restraint and discretion, if you are to
win and retain the good will and co-operation of that all-powerful
hierarchy which is actually not only your master but in a certain sense
also your creator. It used to be said in ancient Rome that two augurs
could never pass in the public streets without smiling--well, you must
first of all learn to repress that classical grimace, and be content to
abide ever with a solemn countenance in an atmosphere of make-believe.
Moreover, the desirability of such an attitude ought not to irritate
a person who like yourself is filled with a divine discontent. You
will be the glorious and adored figure-head of a community wherein the
maximum of human happiness and content has been already attained. But I
shall not pursue this dissertation further. With my warning voice ever
whispering in your ears, and with your natural tact and intelligence
to guide you, I am sure you will not fail. As to the length of your
reign, I cannot tell you what I myself do not know. But this much I
can honestly say, and that is, its duration will wholly depend on your
own action, and on your relations with the senators, who alone possess
the sources of power that are essential to your continued maintenance
in office. For aught I know to the contrary, our priests, by means of
their marvellous recipes and contrivances, may be able to prolong your
life, and even your youth, indefinitely for centuries. But I do not
speak with authority; I can only repeat that the extent of your reign
depends very largely on your own behaviour."
"On one other matter I should also like to be informed," interposed I,
"and I trust you will not condemn this question as superfluous. Tell
me, why out of all the inhabitants of the Earth have I, a bankrupt in
worldly glory and success, a person of mediocre attainments and the
owner of no special gifts of beauty or rank, thus been chosen to fill
so exalted a position? I ask from sheer curiosity, and from no subtle
desire to plead my unfitness as an excuse to decline your proffered,
and indeed accepted, honour."
My companion seemed to approve my question. A humorous look flitted
over his features as he dryly answered: "You are fully justified in
your inquiry; but you must recall that I have already mentioned that,
though your world is large, my own field of choice is very limited.
Our King, as I have already said, must be naturally a true Child of
the Sun; in other words, he must be tall, fair, blue-eyed. This is
essential, and such restrictions practically limit my search to your
northern races, and mainly to such as are of Teutonic stock. Secondly,
our King elect must be of middle age, for past experience and a ripe
intelligence are also necessary to our plans. Thirdly, he must be
either a bachelor or a widower, and preferably a misogynist at heart.
He must not quit the Earth homesick; he must not be a natural prey to
the influence of women, so far as it is possible to guard against this
danger, the mainspring of all our fears in Meleager. For the sheer
possibility of the founding of a royal race springing from the union
of the Child of the Sun with a maiden of Meleager is a constant cause
of alarm and watchfulness on the part of our hierarchy. Not to mention
the mischief resulting from any such intrigue to our body politic,
the possible birth of a Prince, a connecting link between the Divine
and the Human, might in a few days, nay, in a few hours, shatter in
pieces the whole edifice of the present system of government that it
has taken so many centuries of unremitting wisdom and state craft to
erect. Surely I need not dwell on this all-important phase? Last of
all, we must have a comely personality and gentle birth combined with
high intellectual gifts and training. This combination of qualities
is not so easy to discover as it ought to be on your Earth. Your
handsome nobles are either illiterate or debauched, and are often both
simultaneously; or else they are slaves to family ties or to female
influence in some form; whilst those who are both noble by birth and
breeding and also highly cultivated are usually undesirable for our
high purpose owing to their physical defects. In spite of all this,
there are doubtless many hundreds of persons living who would be
eligible and would answer to all our requirements as well as or even
better than yourself; nevertheless, after much reflection I have good
reason to suppose that the hierarchy of Meleager, whose envoy and
servant I am, will find no cause of quarrel with my choice."