AT ten o’clock on the following morning the great temple of Aeria was
filled by a congregation of men and matrons who had been summoned
together to hear what may, without exaggeration, be described as the
death-sentence of the world and the funeral oration of the human race.
As had been previously decided by the President and Council, only the
heads of families were present. Of these, some had but just welcomed
their first-born into the world, while others, standing almost on the
brink of the grave, could see their children of the fourth generation
growing up from infancy to youth.
When the President commenced his address by reading in solemnly
impressive tones the prophecy of Natas, those present knew
instinctively what they had been called together to hear. The
possibility of the world being overwhelmed by some tremendous
catastrophe in the fifth generation from the year of the Peace was no
new or unawaited prospect to the Aerians.
Therefore there was no panic, no sudden outburst of sorrow or dismay,
among the grave, earnest congregation assembled in the temple when the
President, having read the prophecy, went on to say--
“It is now my solemn duty as Chief Magistrate of Aeria to tell you, the
heads of the families of our race, that, in the mysterious workings
of destiny, which we can only accept with reverence and resignation,
the time has come for us to prepare to meet, with the fortitude worthy
of our position among the races of mankind, the doom which is as
inevitable as it is universal. The confirmation of the prophecy of
Natas has come to us across the abysses of space from one of those
sister worlds which, as the Master said, should see with fear and
trembling the passing of the messenger of Fate.
“On the night of Tuesday last, Vassilis Cosmo received from the planet
Mars a photogrammic message, the transcription of which into our
language reads thus--
‘A cometary body, primarily formed by the meeting of two extinguished
astral spheres at 10 hrs. 38 min. 42 sec. on the night of the 13th
of October, in the year 1920, terrestrial reckoning, will cross the
orbit of the earth at 11 hrs. 55 min. 22 sec. on the night of the
23rd of September next, time corrected to the meridian of Aeria.
‘At this hour the earth will arrive at the point of intersection,
and will pass obliquely through the central portion or nucleus of
the body. This portion is composed of incandescent metallic gases
interspersed with semi-fluid masses, which on contact with the
earth’s atmosphere will probably be vaporised.
‘The constituents of the incandescent nucleus are iron, gold,
tellurium, chromium, oxygen, nitrogen, and carbon, with smaller
quantities of many other substances which spectrum analysis will
disclose to you on the appearance of the comet which will become
visible from Aeria at 8 hrs. 13 min. P.M. on the 15th of July,
when its right ascension will be 15 hrs. 24 min. 17 sec, and its
declination north 10 deg. 42 min. 17 sec. Here follow the detailed
calculations upon which the foregoing conclusions are based.’
“With these calculations,” continued the President, “this is neither
the time nor the place to deal, for I know that all here will be
satisfied when I say that for the last three days they have been
submitted to the critical examination of our best astronomers and
mathematicians, and that not the slightest flaw has been found in them.
“This being so, the only course left open to us as reasonable beings is
to prepare to look the inevitable in the face, and to play our part in
the closing scene of the life-drama of humanity as men and women who
believe that the life we are living here is but a stage on our journey
through infinity, and that the fiery sign which will soon appear in the
heavens will be to us but a beacon light on the ultimate shore of Time
casting a guiding ray over the ocean of Eternity.”
He paused for a moment and looked down upon the hushed throng at his
feet. The instantaneous silence was broken by a long, low, inarticulate
murmur. Thousands of pale faces were upturned towards him, from
thousands of eyes there came one appealing upward glance, and then
every head in the great assembly was bowed in silence and resignation.
The death-sentence had been passed. There was no appeal from it, and
there was no rebellion against it. The voice of Fate had spoken, and it
was not for such men as the Aerians to sacrifice their reason or their
dignity by cavilling at it.
The President bent his head with the rest, and for several moments
there was silence throughout the vast area of the temple. Then he took
up from the desk in front of the rostrum the four sheets of parchment
which contained the last message and commands of Natas, and read them
out to the assembly.
The perusal was listened to in breathless silence. It was like his
voice speaking across the generations from the urn containing his ashes
and standing there in their midst. When the President had finished, he
laid the sheets down again and said--
“Thus the eye of the Master, looking across the years which separated
his day from ours, has seen one gleam of light, one ray of hope
piercing the black pall of desolation which is about to fall upon the
world, and it is for us to follow where he has pointed the way.
“I have now discharged the first part of the solemn and terrible duty
which has devolved upon me. It is now for you to communicate the
tidings you have heard to your families, a task which, however awful
it may be for loving parents to be charged with, you will yet find
strength to perform, even as your children shall find strength to hear
their inevitable doom from those lips which will best know how to
soften the tidings of death to them.
“When you have done this we will set about making the choice of those
who, if it shall please the Master of Destiny, shall be the Children
of Deliverance and the parents of the new race that shall repeople the
earth when cosmos once more succeeds to chaos.
“If that shall be permitted, then we, who shall never see the new
world, may yet go down to the grave knowing that we shall live again
in our children, for these will be the children, not only of a few
families among us, but sons and daughters of Aeria, the most perfect
flower of our race, and in them, if we choose them wisely, the world,
purged by fire of the dross of human wickedness, will find a new
destiny, and the Golden Age shall return to earth once more.”
As the President finished speaking, he held up his hands as though in
blessing, and once more every head was bent. Then the great doors of
the temple swung open, the assembly divided into four streams, and
passed silently as a congregation of shadows out of the building.
That night the story of the world’s approaching doom was told in every
home in Aeria. Children on the threshold of youth learnt that for them
youth would never come; youths and maidens on the verge of manhood
and womanhood learnt that the bright promise of their lives could now
never be fulfilled; and lovers just about to join hands for life saw
the grave opening at their feet, and parting them in their earthly
personalities for ever. That they would meet again upon a higher plane
of existence was the first and most firmly held article of their faith,
but so far as the affairs of this world were concerned the end was in
sight.
In a less highly developed, a less perfectly organised, state of
society, the almost immediate result would have been the end of all
control, and the dissolution of all but the most elementary bonds of
interest or affection that exist between men and men.
But in Aeria this was not possible. The firm belief, ingrained into
the very being of all who had reached the age of thought, that where
men left off here, whether in good or evil, they would begin their
lives again hereafter, precluded even the thought of such a lapse into
social anarchy and individual sin.
For, happily for them, the union of true religion with true philosophy
had now been accomplished in a national faith, and the result was that
even the terrors of the universal end which was so near failed to shake
the fortitude that was founded on a basis firmer than that of the world
itself.
Though every home in the valley had its tragedy that night, a tragedy
too sacred in its unspeakable solemnity for any mere words to describe
it, when the next morning came the first bitterness of death had
already passed.
Saving only the little children, who, too young to understand, laughed
and played and sang in the sunlight as usual, in happy unconsciousness
of their coming fate, the dwellers in Aeria rose with the next sunrise
from their sleepless couches and went about their daily associations
much as they had done the day before.
They did so rather as a matter of routine and discipline than of
necessity, for now nothing more was necessary on earth. They had ample
supplies of food to last them beyond the time when they would have no
more need of it. It was of no use to dress the gardens and vineyards,
or to till the fields that would be blasted into wildernesses before
the harvest could be reaped.
There was no need to pursue further the triumphs of creative art and
science which had transfigured Aeria into a paradise and a fairyland,
for in a few weeks all these would be crumbled to dust with their own
sepulchres--and yet they took up the work that lay nearest to their
hands and went on with it as though they believed that there were still
ages of life before humanity, and that the empire of Aeria was to
endure for ever.
They knew that in work only lay the refuge from the torment of
apprehension which might in the end drive even their highly disciplined
minds into the delirium of despair and transform their orderly paradise
into a pandemonium of anarchy and terror.
As soon as the first shock of inevitable horror had passed, as it did
during that first terrible night when the death-sentence went from lip
to lip throughout the land, their proud spirits rose superior to their
physical fears and conquered them, and they resolved that, until the
fatal hour came, nothing short of the dissolution of the world should
put an end to social order in Aeria.
They were the royal race of earth, and when death came they would meet
it crowned and sceptred in the gates of their palaces, and die as men
who had solved the secret of life and death and so had no fear.
With the war that was raging beyond their borders they had now
no personal concern. The quarrels of men and nations were as the
bickerings of children in the presence of the fate that would so soon
involve the world in ruin. And yet the rulers of Aeria were not willing
that this fate should overtake their fellow-men in the delirium of
blood-drunkenness.
They recognised that their duty to the nations bade them send the
warning of the world’s approaching fate far and wide through the earth
and call for the cessation of strife, so that humanity might set its
house in order and prepare to meet its end.
Whether the warning would be received or not was another matter. It was
possible that both the Tsarina and the Sultan would laugh it to scorn,
and pursue their path of now certain conquest through carnage and
devastation to the end. That, however, was their concern.
As soon as the Council decided to despatch an envoy to summon the
warring nations to cease their strife for the now more than ever
worthless prizes of earthly empire, and to prepare for the cataclysm
which would so soon dissolve all empires and kingdoms to nothing in the
fiery crucible of the coming chaos, Alan at once renewed his petition
and asked to be allowed to man the _Avenger_ with a crew of volunteers
and convey the warning to the Sultan and the Tsarina.
Since his second return to Aeria no word of love had passed between
him and Alma. He was still too proud to become a suitor even to her,
knowing as he did that she had looked upon him as polluted by his
involuntary relations with Olga. As before, they had met as friends
whose friendship was warmed by the memory of an early but bygone love.
They had talked calmly and dispassionately of the coming end of earthly
things, but neither of them had let fall any hint of a desire to meet
it hand and hand with the other. His lips were sealed by the pride and
anger of humiliation and hers by a spiritual exaltation which in the
presence of approaching death raised her above the consideration of
earthly love to the contemplation of even more solemn and holier things.
Then there happened an entirely unexpected event, which completely
changed their relationship in an instant. On the third day after the
delivery of the message in the temple a company composed of twenty
old men, the heads of the noblest families in Aeria, presented to the
President in Council, a petition, signed by every father and mother
in the nation, praying that all in whose veins flowed the blood of
Natas, Richard Arnold, and Alan Tremayne should, irrespective of all
other considerations, be included among those who were destined to
seek in the caverns of Mount Austral the one chance of escape from the
universal doom.
So obvious and so weighty were the reasons advanced in support of the
petition that when, like all other matters of State, it was put to the
vote of the Council, the only dissentient voices were those of the
President and the Vice-President.
The immediate effect of this decision--from which, by the laws of
Aeria, there was no appeal--was that Alma, Isma, and Alan were exempted
from the ordeal of selection and numbered beforehand among the Children
of Deliverance.
The President took upon himself the duty of communicating this decision
to those whom it so deeply concerned. He told Alan first, and this was
the half-expected reply that he received--
“No, father, I have never disobeyed you or the Council, as you know,
but I tell you now frankly that I will not take advantage of what is
after all only the accident of birth to save my life in such a crisis
as this.
“Not only are there thousands of others in Aeria as good as I am, but
I have already told you that, save under one condition, which you know
as well as I do can never be realised, I have not the slightest desire
to survive the ruin of the world. You may call this disobedience,
rebellion, if you will, but it is my last resolve, and in such a time
as this one does not make resolves lightly.”
Alan said this standing facing his father in his private study. The
President looked at him for a moment or two with eyes which, though
grave, were neither reproving nor reproachful. Then he said with the
shadow of a smile upon his lips--
“It is both disobedience and rebellion, my son, but though the Chief
Magistrate must condemn it, your father cannot. I know, too, that not
even the Council of Aeria can now enforce its commands. After all, the
last penalty is but death, and that is a mockery now.
“I fully understand, too, the spirit in which you refuse the reprieve
from the general doom, and prefer instead a mission which can scarcely
end save in honourable death. It is the most noble one that you can
choose, and you of all other men are the man to perform it.
“You have shown our enemies that you can strike hard in battle, so if
they believe anyone they will believe you when you go to them with a
message of peace enforced by such a solemn warning as you will take.”
“Thank you, father,” replied Alan simply, “not for what you say of me,
but for the consent that your words imply. But what about the air-ship
and her crew? I can do nothing without them, yet I cannot have them
without the consent of the Council. Can you get that for me?”
“I believe so,” said the President. “And if I can I will, since you are
resolved to go, and since the honour of our name compels me to consent.
But I must tell you that I feel sure that it will only be given
conditionally.”
“And what will the condition be?”
“That if you survive your mission you will return to Aeria before the
end comes. They will have a right to demand that, for it is no part of
your duty to deprive your companions of the chance of life, slender
though it may be, that will remain for those who may be among the
chosen.”
“That is true,” replied Alan, bending his head in acquiescence. “If we
escape with our lives they shall return, though I shall not”--
“You will not return, Alan? Why, where are you going? Surely you are
not going to leave Aeria again, and at such a time as this; you, who
are already one of the chosen, a first-born son of the Master’s line!”
It was Alan’s mother who spoke. She had entered the room just as he
had uttered the last sentence, and the ominous words struck a sudden
chill to her heart. She came towards him with her eyes full of tears of
apprehension and her hands stretched out pleadingly towards him.
Now that the first terror of the crisis was past, and there was
one definite, however slender, hope of safety, she clung to it
passionately for Alan’s sake with a faith that made light of all the
fearful difficulties which lay in the way of its realisation. In the
sublime egotism of her mother-love the fate of a world shrank into
insignificance in comparison with the one chance of safety for her only
son.
“Yes, mother,” replied Alan, taking her hands in his and bending down
until his lips touched her upturned brow. “I am going to leave Aeria
again to proclaim the Truce of God against the hour of His judgment,
and I have just told my father that I shall not return”--
“No, no, my boy, you must not say that. You must not rob us of the one
ray of light in this awful darkness that is falling upon us--of our
one hope in all the world’s despair!” cried his mother, letting go his
hands and laying her own upon his shoulders as she looked up into his
face with eyes that were now overflowing with tears.
“You will not leave us now, surely, for if we lost you we could not
even take the chance of life ourselves, for it would not be worth
having.”
“Nor would it be worth having, my mother, either to you or to me,” he
replied, gently laying his hand on hers, “if I lived and left untried
the attempt that it is my plain duty to make. You would see me a lonely
and unmated man among the parents of the new race, a man with a shadow
upon his name, and the memory of an unfulfilled duty behind him.
“Remember that it is I who have brought the guilt of blood back
again upon earth. Would you have me outlive all the millions of my
fellow-creatures with the knowledge that I had not made one effort to
bring back that peace on earth which was lost through me before the
last summons comes to all humanity?”
“Alan is right, wife,” interrupted the President, before she could make
any reply to her son’s appeal. “It is his duty to save, if he can, his
fellow-creatures from being overwhelmed in the midst of their madness
and their sin. Remember that, according to our faith, as all these
millions, who are now drunk with battle and slaughter, and mad with the
rage of conquest and revenge, end this life, so they must begin the
next.
“There is time for him to speak and for them to hear, but whether they
hear him or not, if he has spoken he has done his duty. Is it not
better that if needs be he should die doing it than live and leave it
undone?”
The weighty words, spoken as they were in a tone of blended affection
and authority, found a fitting echo in his wife’s breast. She stood
for a moment between her husband and her son, looking from the one to
the other. Then she dried her tears, and replied in a tone of gentle
dignity and resignation--
“Yes, I see. You are right and I was wrong. It is his duty to go, and
he must go. But,” she continued, turning to Alan with the sudden light
of a new hope in her eyes, “if I bid you ‘God-speed,’ my son, you will
promise one thing, won’t you?”
“Yes, mother, I will--whatever it is.”
“Then promise me that if it shall be proved possible for you to live in
happiness as well as in honour, you will come back.”
“Yes,” he replied, smiling gravely as he once more took her
outstretched hands. “I will promise that as gladly as I would promise
to enter Heaven if I saw the gates open before me.”
“Then you shall go, and God go with you and bring you back in safety
to us!” she said. Then, turning abruptly, she went out of the room,
leaving them both wondering at her words.
This took place early on the morning of the 21st of May. An hour later
the President had applied in Alan’s name for the permission of the
Council for him to select a crew of twenty volunteers and to take
the _Avenger_ to Europe on his mission to the warring peoples and to
proclaim peace on earth and breathing space for humanity to prepare for
its end. But then a new difficulty presented itself. Alexis, in spite
of all Alan’s remonstrances to the contrary, declared that he should
never leave Aeria without him.
“I have shared in your exile and your return,” he said, in answer to
all arguments, “and, by the honour of the Golden Wings, I swear that I
will either go with you now or you shall see me fall dead the moment
that you leave the earth!”
This was the only oath that ever was heard upon the lips of an Aerian,
and it was irrevocable, so, as there was no choice, Alan was forced to
consent, and Alexis made ready to bid a last farewell to Aeria and all
its dear associations.