Sorianus tarried long under the camphor tree, but at last, becoming
weary, resumed his travels, until emerging from the wilderness he
entered the dominions of the King of Ayodhya. His extraordinary
appearance speedily attracted the attention of the royal officers, by
whom he was apprehended and brought before his majesty.
“It is evident,” pronounced the monarch, after bestowing his attention
on the case, “that thou art in possession of an object too rare and
precious for a private individual, of which thou must accordingly be
deprived. I lament the inconvenience thou wilt sustain. I would it had
been thy hand or thy foot.”
Sorianus acknowledged the royal considerateness, but pleaded the
indefeasible right of property which he conceived himself to have
acquired in his own head.
“In respect,” responded the royal logician, “that thy head is conjoined
to thy shoulders, it is thine; but in respect that it is purple, it is
mine, purple being a royal monopoly. Thy claim is founded on anatomy,
mine on jurisprudence. Shall matter prevail over mind? Shall medicine,
the most uncertain of sciences, override law, the perfection of human
reason? It is but to the vulgar observation that thou appearest to have
a head at all; in the eye of the law thou art acephalous.”
“I would submit,” urged the philosopher, “that the corporal connection
of my head with my body is an essential property, the colour of it a
fortuitous accident.”
“Thou mightest as well contend,” returned the king, “that the law is
bound to regard thee in thy abstract condition as a human being, and is
disabled from taking cognisance of thy acquired capacity of
smuggler—rebel, I might say, seeing that thou hast assumed the purple.”
“But the imputation of cruelty which might attach to your majesty’s
proceedings?”
“There can be no cruelty where there is no injustice. If any there be,
it must be on thy part, since, as I have demonstrated, so far from my
despoiling thee of thy head, it is thou who iniquitously withholdest
mine. I will labour to render this even clearer to thy apprehension.
Thou art found, as thou must needs admit, in possession of a contraband
article forfeit to the crown by operation of law. What then? Shall the
intention of the legislature be frustrated because thou hast
insidiously rendered the possession of _my_ property inseparable from
the possession of _thine_? Shall I, an innocent proprietor, be mulcted
of my right by thy fraud and covin? Justice howls, righteousness weeps,
integrity stands aghast at the bare notion. No, friend, thy head has
not a leg to stand on. Wouldst thou retain it, it behoves thee to show
that it will be more serviceable to the owner, namely, myself, upon thy
shoulders than elsewhere. This may well be. Hast thou peradventure any
subtleties in perfumery? any secrets in confectionery? any skill in the
preparation of soup?”
“I have condescended to none of these frivolities, O king. My study
hath ever consisted in divine philosophy, whereby men are rendered
equal to the gods.”
“And yet long most of all for purple!” retorted the monarch, “as I
conclude from perceiving thou hast after all preferred the latter. Thy
head must indeed be worth the taking.”
“Thy taunt is merited, O king! I will importune thee no longer. Thou
wilt indeed render me a service in depriving me of this wretched head,
hideous without, and I must fear, empty within, seeing that it hath not
prevented me from wasting my life in the service of vanity and luxury.
Woe to the sage who trusts his infirm wisdom and frail integrity within
the precincts of a court! Yet can I foretell a time when philosophers
shall no longer run on the futile and selfish errands of kings, and
when kings shall be suffered to rule only so far as they obey the
bidding of philosophers. Peace, Knowledge, Liberty—”
The King of Ayodhya possessed, beyond all princes of his age, the art
of gracefully interrupting an unseasonable discourse. He slightly
signed to a courtier in attendance, a scimitar flashed for a moment
from its scabbard, and the head of Sorianus rolled on the pavement; the
lips murmuring as though still striving to dwell with inarticulate
fondness upon the last word of hope for mankind.
It soon appeared that the principle of life was essential to the
resplendence of the Purple Head. Within a few minutes it had assumed so
ghastly a hue that the Rajah himself was intimidated, and directed that
it should be consumed with the body.
The same full-moon that watched the white-robed throng busied with the
rites of incremation in a grove of palms, beheld also the seven dragons
contending for the body of Marcobad. But, for many a year, the maids
and matrons of Rome were not weary of regarding, extolling, and
coveting the priceless purple tissue that glowed in the fane of Jupiter
Capitolinus.