H. M. Vaughan

“ A priest certainly stood beside me, but he made no attempt to interfere with Hiridia's arrangements. First of all, I was stripped to my inner vesture, after which gorgeous blue leather buskins with heavy gold tassels and laces were fitted to my feet. Next a tunic far more elaborate than my usual one was donned; then a mantle of an appalling weight but of a surpassing splendour was hung from my yielding shoulders. On the mantle itself was embroidered a device of the blazing sun in heavy gold thread, whilst the rest of the surface of the cloak was thickly patined with golden stars. ”

“ I am speaking of our hierarchy who are by no means immaculate, and whose intrigues and jealousy will not permit any monarch to escape his predetermined end, no matter how conspicuous his merits. Not that all our members are tainted with this disease of treachery, that is far from being the case; but in every executive body so strong is the spirit of self-interest that no scruples will stand in the way of preserving power, from whatsoever cause it is once threatened. ”

“ I saw the gardens, cool and umbrageous, with their many fountains spurting their foamy jets upon the drenched fronds of fern and palm; I saw my aery balcony with its table of audience and faithful Hiridia standing disconsolate beside my favourite chair; under the external awnings of blue and yellow I saw the deep purple line of the harbour beyond the enclosing balustrade. A veritable wave of nostalgia seemed to engulph me, as I watched thus every familiar scene of my Meleagrian existence pass in procession before my gaze. ”

“ How passing wonderful it is that I should be enabled to send another message to the Earth, and still more wonderful, wonderful out of all whooping, that I should be writing it not as sovereign of an unsuspected planet but as a humble member of the human hive on Earth itself, here in this mean Welsh sea-side inn! As to my former missive which I dispatched to my present abode through d'Aragno's kind offices some two years ago, I have, of course, no notion as to its final fate. ”

“ How fearful an awakening! How difficult for a conscientious nobleman to combine the two phases of a public benefactor and of a promulgator of an elaborate lie! Has any Meleagrian noble of high integrity I wonder ever had the courage or conscience, at the supreme moment, to protest, even at the risk of death? But I presume the preliminary training and preparation bestowed on all probationers are carefully contrived to soften so great a shock, and to lead the postulant gently towards the amazing revelations made at the time of his reception into the council. ”

“ Nor did I budge from my stiff, comfortless pose till at length I felt a light touch on the shoulder, the respectful touch of a privileged dependent. On turning my eyes, still red and swollen with my lately shed tears, they met the honest, inquiring face of Hiridia, who was regarding me reproachfully, as though rebuking me in silence for such an unseemly lack of control. I made the necessary attempt in the form of a wan smile and a request for a cup of wine; for a true public ruler must exhibit no private sorrow. ”

“ As in the old Greek mythos, the Sun is popularly supposed to drive his golden chariot with its flaming wheels and with its yoke of fretting stallions across the dome of heaven, till finally god and car alike pass over the containing rim of the Meleagrian world. Below the flat surface of the land and sea the Sun-god inhabits a vast palace, whose splendours far exceed anything known to men. ”

“ See those boats with bellying sails that are even now entering the harbour's mouth; they are all freighted with excited pilgrims, men, women and children, drawn hither to assist at a spectacle of outward splendour and interior sanctity that your Earth, notwithstanding its illimitable wealth and its superior population, cannot produce. They tell me (and here the old man's eyes again twinkled mischievously) that one of your own many religious cults is ruled by a priest who claims and receives divine honours. ”

“ The firmament is his field of action; the space below the ground is his haven of retirement. At night the dome of heaven shorn of his effulgent presence is lighted only by the sparkling stars; "jewels of the Sun," as they are termed in Meleagrian parlance; or else the great vacant arc is illumined by the sickly lustre of the Moon. For the Moon stands to the Meleagrian mind, as it did largely to the antique and mediæval imagination, for all that is uncanny and malign. Few Meleagrians will walk abroad in clear moonlight, if they can reasonably avoid so doing ”

“ At the first quiver of sentient life I could see practically nothing; I could only feel that I lay in semi-darkness with my whole frame stretched out vigorously but without pain on a couch which contained a system of pulleys at its head and foot. I was faintly aware of the pressure of this innocuous species of rack, and was trying to open my eyes wider, when an approaching figure waved a censer before my face, and the thick narcotic smoke issuing thence promptly forced my half-awakened mind back into slumber. ”

“ Has your Majesty no other aim than to escape the terrors of the grave in thus deciding once more to exchange your Mother Earth for Meleager? Do the loyalty and the prayers of your subjects weigh as nothing in the scales of your predilection? Has your abandoned palace no remembered charms? Our temple bells, our sunlit city, our shining harbour, our dawns and our sunsets, do these count for naught? O King, have none of the fibres of your once generous heart struck root in our soil? ”

“ 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 ”

“ How cruel my fate! To sail thus from the stars to the Earth only to be engulfed and choked in the barren salt waters! What a mean conclusion to a divine adventure! Not terror, but fierce disappointment was my prevailing emotion, as mounting to the rim of the cabin I made ready to leap at the precise moment the misguided vessel should strike the surface of the sea. ”

“ Have you not dimly apprehended the dire prospects that even now await your fellow-mortals on this devoted distracted planet? Is she not in the pangs of a fresh period of travail, and seeing her thus threatened and knowing her past history, do you expect her to bring forth a regenerating angel? I tell you, no. The horrors of carnage and greed and ambition have only begun; the stream of blood is trickling slowly, but it will continue to creep onward with increasing volume till scarcely a corner of the Earth will not be saturated with human gore.... ”

“ First of all, in my bald, inadequate account of the people and polity of Meleager, I fear I have not dwelt sufficiently on the unswerving loyalty of the hierarchy to their own order and to their fixed devotion to what they consider the perfect common-weal; to the general happiness and content of the whole population, and to the universal sense of peace and plenty that prevails here. But remember, I neither praise nor blame, neither approve nor condemn the system that produces ends so desirable in themselves, which form the recognised aim of every conscientious statesman. ”

“ The King here, even making full allowance for the peculiar bonds wherein he is tied and bound to the hierarchy, wields considerable powers. He is, as I have already shown, the judge of the people in their courts, and to them his decisions are final and undisputed. The belief and devotion of the populace are therefore wholly concentrated in their resident King, who appears to them—and who can marvel at it?—as the authentic Child of the Sun, whose father they daily worship and praise for the light whereby they live, for the food they eat, and for the warmth they enjoy. ”

“ 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 [Pg 32] 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. ”

“ First emerged the nobles attached to the Court in their crimson gala robes, then the priests, a long sinuous line of snowy white; behind them walked the Arch-priest, whilst last of all appeared myself, a tall commanding majestic figure with my equerries to uphold my glittering mantle. My entry into sight of the vast multitude that thronged the courtyard below the platform on which we stood was first greeted by a spell of perfect silence, which in time changed to a long low murmur of approval and awe, and finally to a resounding roar of satisfied delight. ”

“ I sometimes have the sensation of living in a world of shadows, with which I sport and even converse, for the mental gulf fixed between me and them is fathomless and unbridgeable. Even my Hiridia, faithful friend and delightful companion though he be, seems often a plaything rather than a co-equal being of the same flesh and blood as myself. ”

“ The sharp dewy freshness of the night air was now upon us, whilst the hooting of distant owls and other nocturnal sounds filled our ears, as we stood gazing into the dark blue vault overhead. The stars glistened with the peculiar brilliance associated with a touch of frost, and shining above the tree-tops was a conspicuous planet far surpassing its companion stars in size and lustre. D'Aragno paused, and pointing towards the ascending orb quietly informed me it was the Earth, my old domicile ”

“ So might the Olympian Zeus in heroic days have heard the daily orisons of his earth-born suppliants, and have sought for the sparse note of sincerity amidst that vast uproar of human prayer ascending from a thousand altars to his ivory throne set amidst the unattainable clouds of highest heaven. ”

“ At my urgent entreaty I was spared a good many of these intrusions, but my kind protector could not well exclude the baboon-faced captain, whose empurpled visage framed in masses of ochre hair thrust itself more than once through the doorway and inquired in rasping accents after my welfare. The bibulous ship's surgeon too invaded my retreat, and expressed a desire to astonish my stomach with special concoctions of his own mixing. Good Dr Wayne did all that was possible to save me from these well-meaning persons, and finally he closed the cabin door on the pretence of my exhaustion. ”

“ The last elected member of the hierarchy summons the chosen probationer and leads him to the council chamber where his brother members are assembled. Here he kneels, whilst a homily on the nature of the high honour conferred on him and the vast sum of confidence reposed in him, is read aloud by the Arch-priest, who acts as president. Impressive rites follow, for nothing is omitted to prove to the new member the terrible fate that awaits any councillor who may be found guilty of any disloyalty, or of even breathing a hint of The Secret, which he is now empowered to learn. ”

“ I have already explained the extraordinary genesis of the King of Meleager, how he is a native of the Earth, and is consequently on his arrival here utterly ignorant of the laws, traditions, polity and ideals of his new kingdom. At the end of five years I may add it is astonishing to reflect how terribly ignorant of all these matters I still remain, not through any fault of mine, but owing to the fixed intention of my practical masters, the hierarchy, to keep me in the dark concerning many affairs of importance in the realm for which they have themselves deliberately chosen me as monarch. ”

“ How strange, for example, must it seem for a newly elected candidate to learn for the first time that the religious teaching he has imbibed from infancy is a deliberate fabrication, which he himself is now called on to champion and perpetuate; that the divinity of the Sun is a hollow myth; that his Child is a mortal from another planet; that the world of Meleager, far from being the special creation and care of the Sun-god, is in reality a mere speck in a vast solar system, such as has been propounded by our own astronomers Copernicus and Galileo. ”

“ I have already hinted that their condition and well-being form the constant care of the councillors, who see that their homes are sanitary, well built and generally adequate, whilst the wages paid must be deemed sufficient to support the individual or his family in decency and comfort. In fact, the supervision of this, the largest and economically the most important section of the community, constitutes the first care of the hierarchy. The people seem hale and happy, nor do they exhibit any envy of the better-fed and better-clad Greens, nor yet of the majestic and privileged Reds. ”

“ 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. ”

“ From the banqueting hall, guided by Hiridia, I proceeded to my sleeping apartment, wherein I found a low square bed of some richly carved dark-coloured wood. A long open gallery occupied one side of this room, and thither I hastened to obtain a glimpse of the outer world. It was a lovely warm starry night, but without moonlight, so that I could only discern my surroundings very dimly. ”