THE PROBLEM
I ate quickly, for the impatience of my companion’s mind was affecting
me like a physical pressure, and we then set off rapidly to overtake the
troop, which had now disappeared in the tunnel, my energy being
stimulated to the swift exertion, either by the force of my companion’s
will, or by the strange food which I had taken.
As we ran, our minds met and contended, making little progress at first,
for her curiosity was keen, and was of a kind which, being without
anxiety, and regarding me only as a strange animal which had lost its
way, was not easily turned, while I was acutely conscious that I had
here a friendly intelligence which, if I could use the time to
advantage, might give me information of vital importance, to enable me
to move with safety through the unfamiliar ways to which I had committed
myself.
Consequently we each strove for some moments to obtain information
rather than provide it, but in the end she gave way, thinking she would
gain more by humouring me, and that my questions could hardly fail to
disclose much of my own identity.
I then asked her how it was that the troop, the rear of which we had now
gained, was able to traverse the tunnel in safety. I recognised that the
pace at which they moved must give some advantage, but I should have
supposed that, though the first might pass, the roused worms would
strike at those that followed. She replied that the combined will-power
of the troop held them down very easily, on which I mentioned my own
experience, and admitted that I had made no effort to use my will-power
against them. She replied that this was natural in such an animal as I,
and that I had possibly allowed anger, or even fear, to enter my mind,
so descending to their own level, and rendering it easier for them to
attack me.
I could not deny this, but asked why she regarded me so contemptuously.
She replied that, as I was a strange creature to her, she could only
judge me by the degree of intelligence which I exhibited, but that a
species of any eminence could hardly be content to exist in bodies so
ugly, so awkward, and so badly made. She added that many of the lowest
creatures of the ocean-floor possessed bodies which were complete and
sufficient without extraneous coverings.
I replied that the human body was not necessarily insufficient, but that
clothing might be worn from a sense of shame, or as an ornament only.
She said that she understood the sense of shame, which she should feel
very strongly herself if she were burdened with such a body, but if I
regarded my clothes as ornamental, it was a point on which we must
differ; and, in that case, the wearing of clothes confessed me to be an
inferior, even among my own kind, as a Leader naturally would not enter
into such a competition.
I was puzzled by this reply, and she instanced the fact that she, and
other Leaders of her kind, did not pattern their fur, which would bring
them into unseemly competition with those below them--a competition
which would lead to envy if they succeeded, or ridicule if they failed
to outdo their rivals.
I then asked a number of questions intended to guide me as to the
conditions of the world I had entered, and it will be most convenient to
give the facts,--as far as I was then able to understand them,--in the
form of a direct statement rather than in that of the conversation which
gained them.
I learnt that the country in which I found myself was an island
continent, of about the size of Australia, but in the northern
hemisphere, as the stars had told me. It was controlled by the Dwellers,
who had lived below its surface for a long period of time, of the
duration of which I could form no idea, nor could I obtain any
information as to the depth or extent of their subterranean excavations,
for the sufficient reason that no Amphibian had ever penetrated them.
The island continent was surrounded on every side by a great ocean,
beyond which was a world containing such inhabitants that the Dwellers
had first gone underground to escape them, and then, at a later period,
planted around the whole extent of the coast a girdle of strange
growths, above which the air had no sustaining power, and which had
protected it so effectively that for an enormous period of time they had
been left in undisputed isolation.
In some remote antiquity they had entered into a treaty with the
Amphibians by which it was agreed that they should be left in possession
of the numerous rocky islets which surrounded a large part of the coast,
on three conditions;--they were to keep certain subterranean reservoirs
filled with fresh fish continually; they were to hold no intercourse
with the farther world; and they were to make no attempt to penetrate
inland, either above or below the surface.
Until recently, these conditions had been observed with exactness. They
had, beneath the ocean, an undisputed dominion of enormous area; they
did not even cross to the farther sides of the fish-tanks they filled,
from which the Dwellers netted the shoals of fish which they had herded
into them; they made no attempt to penetrate the protective belt which
surrounded the surface area; and they entirely avoided the other
continents of which the land surface of the earth consisted.
For the whole period since this treaty was made--I could only marvel at
their longevity--they had been ruled by a Council of Seven, whose
headquarters were beneath the black rocks which I had observed to
seaward.
The Council decided all matters affecting the welfare of the community
by thinking upon them until they arrived at unanimity, and these
decisions were always accepted without dissent.
But there was one of the seven who had not been present when the treaty
was made. She had been long absent, and was supposed to have been dead,
but she had subsequently returned from the exploration of the caves of a
range of submarine mountains at the farther end of the earth, in which
she had met with such adventures as had detained her for a long period.
Not having been a party to the treaty, she had not felt herself bound in
honour, as had the other six, to observe it. Nor, being of the seven,
did she feel controlled by their authority, as did the rest of the
community. She was of a disposition which loved the adventures of
strange ways, and, from the first, had wished to explore the interior of
the forbidden continent. For a very long period she had been held back
by the wishes of her companions, and by the fear that she might be the
cause of disaster to them, but at last a time had come when the impulse
had been irresistible, and there had been none near to restrain her. She
had spent the night on the forbidden land, and had returned at dawn with
a strange tale of a silent country, where all things slept, and where
trees and grasses grew, such as they had never seen, or remembered only
with the vagueness of a distant dream.
After this escapade they watched in doubt lest the Dwellers had been
aware of it, but the days passed in safety, and at length she ventured
again--and again--always returning before the dawn, until the tales she
brought enabled them to visualise a land inhabited by many species of
creatures, such as the Dwellers permitted to run wild, or conserved for
their utilities to themselves, and of a fertility which was alluringly
different from the ocean meadows in which they were accustomed to
wander, but in which all creatures slept in the night-time, and even the
Dwellers did not appear upon the surface of the land they owned.
After a time it appeared certain that these expeditions might be taken
with impunity, providing that the night were chosen, and a return made
before sunrise. But the time came when the desire to see the moving life
of the daytime overcame her. She remained in hiding, she saw much, and
the next time she stayed away for three days. Acting with great caution,
and with the advantage of her past experience, she returned in safety
and unsuspected; but in the meantime a companion, alarmed at her
lengthened absence, had started out to find her. On learning this, she
at once set out again, though the day was then dawning, and the open
paths had to be taken at a new peril; she found her would-be rescuer
herself captured, and apparently in the greatest danger, and on her
return to obtain the help which was essential, had encountered me, with
the result of which I knew already.
Conscious that her body was damaged beyond immediate remedy, and aware
that her separate mind could not communicate with her friends unless
their own should be receptive, she had entrusted me with the message
which I had tardily delivered. But in the meantime, she had found it
easy to establish intercourse with minds which were anxiously awaiting
news of herself and her companion, and it was on the information that
she had supplied that the expedition was started.
It was a deliberate breach of the treaty on which their security was
founded, but with two of their number in jeopardy, and the body of one
lying where the Dwellers could not fail to find it sooner or later, they
had felt that they had no alternative but to attempt the enterprise.
Among the various creatures which lived upon the surface of the
continent, it appeared that there were certain ferocious animals of the
lowest kind, gregarious in their habits, collected in mountain
strongholds, and having bodies which were like those of fish in this
respect, that they decayed after a short space of years, sometimes even
rotting while the unfortunate animals remained within them, and being
continually replaced by young of the same species which grew up around
them. They did not appear to have any life apart from these bodies,
though my informant could not tell with certainty whether they actually
ceased to exist when their bodies perished, or were incarnated in their
descendants.
These creatures had carnivorous feasts at regular intervals, in
anticipation of which they hunted the wild things of the land, and set
traps for them, into one of which the unfortunate Amphibian had fallen.
As one of these feast days was shortly due, she was now penned up, not
merely in anticipation of death, but that her body might be destroyed
beyond remedy, in which case I understood that the path of reincarnation
might be both long and difficult.
The problems were, therefore, first, to remove the body which lay in the
tunnel entrance to a place of safety, where it could be repaired, and
its owner could resume it; and second, to rescue her companion either by
force or subtlety, bringing their faculty of thinking in unison, and of
combined will-power, to operate against opponents who were not expecting
attack, and who relied upon their savage strength and weapons to
maintain their own security, and to hold the prey that they had
captured; and third, to do these things, if either were possible,
without the knowledge of the Dwellers, whose means of information were
only vaguely guessed, but who were known to come out on the surface in
the daytime.