CHAPTER XVI - TROUBLED WATERS.
We were now in Martial N. latitude 57 deg., in a comparatively open partof the narrow sea which encloses the northern land-belt, and to thesouth-eastward lay the only channel by which this sea communicateswith the main ocean of the southern hemisphere. Along this we took ourcourse. Rather against Ergimo's advice, I insisted on remaining on thesurface, as the sea was tolerably calm. Eveena, with her usualself-suppression, professed to prefer the free air, the light of thelong day, and such amusement as the sight of an occasional sea-monsteror shoal of fishes afforded, to the fainter light and comparativemonotony of submarine travelling. Ergimo, who had in his timecommanded the hunters of the Arctic Sea, was almost as completelyexempt as myself from sea-sickness; but I was surprised to find thatthe crew disliked, and, had they ventured, would have grumbled at, thechange, being so little accustomed to any long superficial voyage asto suffer like landsmen from rough weather. The difference betweensailing on and below the surface is so great, both in comfort and inthe kind of skill and knowledge required, that the seamen of passengerand of mercantile vessels are classes much more distinct than those ofthe mercantile and national marine of England, or any other maritimePower on Earth. I consented readily that, except on the rare occasionswhen the heavens were visible, the short night, from the fall of theevening to the dissipation of the morning mists, should be passedunder water. I have said that gales are comparatively rare and thetides insignificant; but the narrow and exceedingly long channels ofthe Martial seas, with the influence of a Solar movement from north tosouth more extensive though slower than that which takes place betweenour Winter and Summer Solstices, produce currents, atmospheric andoceanic, and sudden squalls that often give rise to that worst of alldisturbances of the surface, known as a "chopping sea." When wecrossed the tropic and came fairly into the channel separating thewestern coast of the continent on which the Astronaut had landed fromthe eastern seabord of that upon whose southern coast I was presentlyto disembark, this disturbance was even worse than, except onpeculiarly disagreeable occasions, in the Straits of Dover. Afterenduring this for two or three hours, I observed that Eveena hadstolen from her seat beside me on the deck. Since we left Askinta herspirits had been unusually variable. She had been sometimes lively andalmost excitable; more generally quiet, depressed, and silent evenbeyond her wont. Still, her manner and bearing were always so equable,gentle, and docile that, accustomed to the caprices of the sex onEarth, I had hardly noticed the change. I thought, however, that shewas to-day nervous and somewhat pale; and as she did not return, afterpermitting the pilot to seek a calmer stratum at some five fathomsdepth, I followed Eveena into our cabin or chamber. Standing with herback to the entrance and with a goblet to her lips, she did not hearme till I had approached within arm's length. She then startedviolently, so agitated that the colour faded at once from hercountenance, leaving it white as in a swoon, then as suddenlyreturning, flushed her neck and face, from the emerald shoulder claspsto the silver snood, with a pink deeper than that of her robe.
"I am very sorry I startled you," I said. "You are certainly ill, oryou would not be so easily upset."
I laid my hand as I spoke on her soft tresses, but she withdrew fromthe touch, sinking down among the cushions. Leaving her to recover hercomposure, I took up the half-empty cup she had dropped on the centraltable. Thirsty myself, I had almost drained without tasting it, when alittle half-stifled cry of dismay checked me. The moment I removed thecup from my mouth I perceived its flavour--the unmistakable taste ofthe _dravadone_ ("courage cup"), so disagreeable to us both, which wehad shared on our bridal evening. Wetting with one drop the test-stoneattached to my watch-chain, it presented the local discolorationindicating the narcotic poison which is the chief ingredient of thiscompound.
"I don't think this is wise, child," I said, turning once more toEveena. To my amazement, far from having recovered the effect of hersurprise, she was yet more overcome than at first; crouching among thecushions with her head bent down over her knees, and covering her facewith her hands. Reclining in the soft pile, I held her in my arms,overcoming perforce what seemed hysterical reluctance; but when Iwould have withdrawn the little hands, she threw herself on my knee,burying her face in the cushions.
"It is very wicked," she sobbed; "I cannot ask you to forgive me."
"Forgive what, my child? Eveena, you are certainly ill. Calm yourself,and don't try to talk just now."
"I am not ill, I assure you," she faltered, resisting the arm thatsought to raise her; "but ..."
In my hands, however, she was powerless as an infant; and I would hearnothing till I held her gathered within my arm and her two hands fastin my right. Now that I could look into the face she strove to avert,it was clear that she was neither hysterical nor simply ill; heragitation, however unreasonable and extravagant, was real.
"What troubles you, my own? I promise you not to say one word ofreproach; I only want to understand with what you so bitterly reproachyourself."
"But you cannot help being angry," she urged, "if you understand whatI have done. It is the _charny_, which I never tasted till that night,and never ought to have tasted again. I know you cannot forgive me;only take my fault for granted, and don't question me."
These incoherent words threw the first glimpse of light on the meaningof her distress and penitence. I doubt if the best woman inChristendom would so reproach and abase herself, if convicted of evena worse sin than the secret use of those stimulants for which the_charny_ is a Martial equivalent. No Martialist would dream ofpoisoning his blood and besotting his brain with alcohol in any form.But their opiates affect a race addicted to physical repose, tosensuous enjoyment rather than to sensual excitement, and to lucidintellectual contemplation, with a sense of serene delight assupremely delicious to their temperament as the dreamy illusions ofhaschisch to the Turk, the fierce frenzy of bhang to the Malay, or thewild excitement of brandy or Geneva to the races of Northern Europe.But as with the luxury of intoxication in Europe, so in Marsindulgence in these drugs, freely permitted to the one sex, isstrictly forbidden by opinion and domestic rule to the other. A ladydiscovered in the use of _charny_ is as deeply disgraced as anEuropean matron detected in the secret enjoyment of spirits andcigars; and her lord and master takes care to render her sufficientlyconscious of her fault.
And there was something stranger here than a violation of theartificial restraint of sex. Slightly and seldom as the Golden Circletouches the lines defining personal or social morality--carefully asthe Founder has abstained from imposing an ethical code of his own, orattaching to his precepts any rule not directly derived from thefundamental tenets or necessary to the cohesion of the Order--he hadexpressed in strong terms his dread and horror of narcotism; the usefor pleasure's sake, not to relieve pain or nervous excitement, ofdrugs which act, as he said, through the brain upon the soul. Hisjudgment, expressed with unusual directness and severity and enforcedby experience, has become with his followers a tradition not lessimperative than the most binding of their laws. It was so held, aboveall, in that household in which Eveena and I had first learnt the"lore of the Starlight." Esmo, indeed, regarded not merely as anunscientific superstition, but as blasphemous folly, the rejection ofany means of restoring health or relieving pain which Providence hasplaced within human reach. But he abhorred the use for pleasure's sakeof poisons affirmed to reduce the activity and in the long-run toimpair the energies of the mind, and weaken the moral sense and thewill, more intensely than the strictest follower of the ArabianProphet abhors the draughts which deprive man of the full use of thesenses, intelligence, and conscience which Allah has bestowed, anddegrade him below the brute, Esmo's children, moreover, were not morestrictly compelled to respect the letter than carefully instructed inthe principle of every command for which he claimed their obedience.
But in such measure as Eveena's distress became intelligible, thefault of which she accused herself became incredible. I could notbelieve that she could be wilfully disl
oyal to me--still less that shecould have suddenly broken through the fixed ideas of her whole life,the principles engraved on her mind by education more stringently thanthe maxims of the Koran or the Levitical Law on the children ofIshmael or of Israel; and this while the impressive rites ofInitiation, the imprecation at which I myself had shuddered, werefresh in her memory--their impression infinitely deepened, moreover,by the awful mystery of that Vision of which even yet we were halfafraid to speak to one another. While I hesitated to reply, gatheringup as well as I could the thread of these thoughts as they passed in afew seconds through my mind, my left hand touched an object hidden inmy bride's zone. I drew out a tiny crystal phial three parts full,taken, as I saw, from the medicine-chest Esmo had carefully stockedand as carefully fastened. As, holding this, I turned again to her,Eveena repeated: "Punish, but don't question me!"
"My own," I said, "you are far more punished already than you deserveor I can bear to see. How did you get this?"
Releasing her hands, she drew from the folds of her robe the electrickeys, which, by a separate combination, would unlock each of mycases;--without which it was impossible to open or force them.
"Yes, I remember; and you were surprised that I trusted them to you.And now you expect me to believe that you have abused that trust,deceived me, broken a rule which in your father's house and by all ourOrder is held sacred as the rings of the Signet, for a drug whichtwelve days ago you disliked as much as I?"
"It is true."
The words were spoken with downcast eyes, in the low faltering tonenatural to a confession of disgrace.
"It is not true, Eveena; or if true in form, false in matter. If itwere possible that you could wish to deceive me, you knew it could notbe for long."
"I meant to be found out," she interrupted, "only not yet."
She had betrayed herself, stung by words that seemed to express theone doubt she could not nerve herself to endure--doubt of her loyaltyto me. Before I could speak, she looked up hastily, and began toretract. I stopped her.
"I see--when you had done with it. But, Eveena, why conceal it? Do youthink I would not have given this or all the contents of the chestinto your hands, and asked no question?"
"Do you mean it? Could you have so trusted me?"
"My child! is it difficult to trust where I know there is notemptation to wrong? Do you think that to-day I have doubted orsuspected you, even while you have accused yourself? I cannot guess atyour motive, but I am as sure as ever of your loyalty. Take thesethings,"--forcing back upon her the phial and the magnets,--"yes, andthe test-stone." ... She burst into passionate tears.
"I cannot endure this. If I had dreamed your patience would have bornewith me half so far, I would never have tried it so, even for your ownsake. I meant to be found out and accept the consequences in silence.But you trust me so, that I must tell you what I wanted to conceal.When you kept on the surface it made me so ill"---
"But, Eveena, if the remedy be not worse than the sickness, why notask for it openly?"
"It was not that. Don't you understand? Of course, I would bear anysuffering rather than have done this; but then you would have found meout at once. I wanted to conceal my suffering, not to escape it."
"My child! my child! how could you put us both to all this pain?"
"You know you would not have given me the draught; you would have leftthe surface at once; and I cannot bear to be always in the way, alwayshindering your pleasures, and even your discoveries. You came across adistance that makes a bigger world than this look less than thatlight, through solitude and dangers and horrors I cannot bear to thinkof, to see and examine this world of ours. And then you leave thingsunseen or half-seen, you spoil your work, because a girl is seasick!You ran great risk of death and got badly hurt to see what our huntingwas like, and you will not let my head ache that you may find out whatour sea-storms and currents are! How can I bear to be such a burdenupon you? You trust me, and, I believe," (she added, colouring), "youlove me, twelvefold more than I deserve; yet you think me unwilling orunworthy to take ever so small an interest in your work, to bear a fewhours' discomfort for it and for you. And yet," she went onpassionately, "I may sit trembling and heart-sick for a whole dayalone that you may carry out your purpose. I may receive the only realsting your lips have given, because I could not bear that pain withoutcrying. And so with everything. It is not that I must not suffer pain,but that the pain must not come from without. Your lips would punish afault with words that shame and sting for a day, a summer, a year;your hand must never inflict a sting that may smart for ten minutes.And it is not only that you do this, but you pride yourself on it.Why? It is not that you think the pain of the body so much worse thanthat of the spirit:--you that smiled at me when you were too badlybruised and torn to stand, yet could scarcely keep back your tearsjust now, when you thought that I had suffered half an hour of sorrowI did not quite deserve. Why then? Do you think that women feel sodifferently? Have the women of your Earth hearts so much harder andskins so much softer than ours?"
She spoke with most unusual impetuosity, and with that absolutesimplicity and sincerity which marked her every look and word, whichgave them, for me at least, an unspeakable charm, and for all whoheard her a characteristic individuality unlike the speech or mannerof any other woman. As soon suspect an infant of elaborate sarcasm asEveena of affectation, irony, or conscious paradox. Nay, while hervoice was in my ears, I never could feel that her views _were_paradoxical. The direct straightforwardness and simple structure ofthe Martial language enhanced this peculiar effect of her speech; andmuch that seems infantine in translation was all but eloquent as shespoke it. Often, as on this occasion, I felt guilty of insincerity, ofa verbal fencing unworthy of her unalloyed good faith and earnestness,as I endeavoured to parry thrusts that went to the very heart of allthose instinctive doctrines which I could the less defend on themoment, because I had never before dreamed that they could be doubted.
"At any rate," I said at last, "your sex gain by my heresy, since theyare as richly gifted in stinging words as we in physical force."
"So much the worse for them, surely," she answered simply, "if it beright that men should rule and women obey?"
"That is the received doctrine on Earth," I answered. "In practice,men command and women disobey them; men bully and women lie. But intruth, Eveena, having a wife only too loyal and too loving, I don'tcare to canvass the deserts of ordinary women or the discipline ofother households. I own that it was wrong to scold you. Do not insiston making me say that it would have been a little less wrong to beatyou!"
She laughed--her low, sweet, silvery laugh, the like of which I havehardly heard among Earthly women, even of the simpler, more child-likeraces of the East and South; a laugh still stranger in a world wherechildhood is seldom bright and womanhood mostly sad and fretful. Ofthe very few satisfactory memories I bore away from that world, thesweetest is the recollection of that laugh, which I heard for thefirst time on the morrow of our bridals, and for the last time on theday before we parted. I cherish it as evidence that, despite many andbitter troubles, my bride's short married life was not wholly unhappy.By this time she had found out that we had left the surface, and beganto remonstrate.
"Nay, I have seen all I care to see, my own. I confess the justice ofyour claim, as the partner of my life, to be the partner of itsparamount purpose. You are more precious to me than all thediscoveries of which I ever dreamed, and I will not for any purposewhatsoever expose you to real peril or serious pain. But henceforth Iwill ask you to bear discomfort and inconvenience when the object isworth it, and to help me wherever your help can avail."
"I can help you?"
"Much, and in many ways, my Eveena. You will soon learn to understandwhat I wish to examine and the use of the instruments I employ; andthen you will be the most useful of assistants, as you are the bestand most welcome of companions."
As I spoke a soft colour suffused her face, and her eyes brightenedwith a joy and contentment such as no pr
omise of pleasure orindulgence could have inspired. To be the partner of adventure andhardship, the drudge in toil and sentinel in peril, was the boon sheclaimed, the best guerdon I could promise. If but the promise mighthave been better fulfilled!
It was not till in latitude 9 deg. S. we emerged into the open ocean, andpresently found ourselves free from the currents of the narrow waters,that, in order to see the remarkable island of which I had caughtsight in my descent, I requested Ergimo to remain for some hours abovethe surface. The island rises directly out of the sea, and isabsolutely unascendible. Balloons, however, render access possible,both to its summit and to its cave-pierced sides. It is the home ofenormous flocks of white birds, which resemble in form the heronrather than the eider duck, but which, like the latter, line with downdrawn from their own breasts the nests which, counted by millions,occupy every nook and cranny of the crystalline walls, about ten milesin circumference. Each of the nests is nearly as large as that of thestork. They are made of a jelly digested from the bones of the fishupon which the birds prey, and are almost as white in colour as thebirds themselves. Freshly formed nest dissolved in hot water makesdishes as much to the taste of Martialists as the famous bird-nestsoup to that of the Chinese. Both down and nests, therefore, arelargely plundered; but the birds are never injured, and care is takenin robbing them to leave enough of the outer portion of the nest toconstitute a bed for the eggs, and encourage the creatures to rebuildand reline it.
One harvest only is permitted, the second stripping of feathers andthe rebuilt nest being left undisturbed. The caverns are lined with awhite guano, now some feet thick, since it has ceased to be sought formanure; the Martialists having discovered means of saturating the soilwith ammonia procured from the nitrogen of the atmosphere, which withthe sewage and other similar materials enables them to dispense withthis valuable bird manure. Whether the white colour of the island,perceptible even in a large Terrestrial telescope, is in any degreedue to the whiteness of the birds, their nests, and leavings, orwholly to reflection from the bright spar-like surface of the rockitself, and especially of the flat table-like summit, I will notpretend to say.
From this point we held our course south-westward, and entered thenorthernmost of two extraordinary gulfs of exactly similar shape,separated by an isthmus and peninsula which assume on a map the formof a gigantic hammer. The strait by which each gulf is entered isabout a hundred miles in length and ten in breadth. The gulf itself,if it should not rather be called an inland sea, occupies a total areaof about 100,000 square miles. The isthmus, 500 miles in length by 50in breadth, ends in a roughly square peninsula of about 10,000 squaremiles in extent, nearly the whole of which is a plateau 2000 feetabove the sea-level. On the narrowest point of the isthmus, just whereit joins the mainland, and where a sheltered bay runs up from eithersea, is situated the great city of Amakasfe, the natural centre ofMartial life and commerce. At this point we found awaiting us theballoon which was to convey us to the Court of the Suzerain. A verylight but strong metallic framework maintained the form of the"fish-shaped" or spindle-shaped balloon itself, which closelyresembled that of our vessel, its dimensions being of necessitygreater. Attached to this framework was the car of similar form, abouttwelve feet in length and six in depth, the upper third of the sides,however, being of open-work, so as not to interfere with the survey ofthe traveller. Eveena could not help shivering at the sight of theslight vehicle and the enormous machine of thin, bladder-like materialby which it was to be upheld. She embarked, indeed, without a word,her alarm betraying itself by no voluntary sign, unless it were thetight clasp of my hand, resembling that of a child frightened, butashamed to confess its fear. I noticed, however, that she so arrangedher veil as to cover her eyes when the signal for the start was given.She was, therefore, wholly unconscious of the sudden spring,unattended by the slightest jolt or shake, which raised us at once 500feet above the coast, and under whose influence, to my eyes, theground appeared suddenly to fall from us. When I drew out the folds ofher veil, it was with no little amazement that she saw the sky aroundher, the sea and the city far below. An aerial current to thenorth-westward at our present level, which had been selected on thataccount, carried us at a rate of some twelve miles an hour; a ratemuch increased, however, by the sails at the stern of the car, sailsof thin metal fixed on strong frames, and striking with a screw-likemotion. Their lack of expanse was compensated by a rapidity of motionsuch that they seemed to the eye not to move at all, presenting theappearance of an uniform disc reflecting the rays of the Sun, whichwas now almost immediately above us. Towards evening the Residence ofthe Campta became visible on the north-western horizon. It was builton a plateau about 400 feet above the sea-level, towards which theground from all sides sloped up almost imperceptibly. Around it was agarden of great extent with a number of trees of every sort, some ofthem masses of the darkest green, others of bright yellow, contrastingsimilarly shaped masses of almost equal size clothed from base to topin a continuous sheet of pink, emerald, white or crimson flowers. Theturf presented almost as great a variety of colours, arranged in.every conceivable pattern, above which rose innumerable flower-beds,uniform or varied, the smallest perhaps two, the largest more than 200feet in diameter; each circle of bloom higher than that outside it,till in some cases the centre rose even ten feet above the generallevel. The building itself was low, having nowhere more than twostories. One wing, pointed out to me by Ergimo, was appropriated tothe household of the Prince; the centre standing out in front andrear, divided by a court almost as wide as the wings; the further wingaccommodating the attendants and officials of the Court. We landed,just before the evening mist began to gather, at the foot of aninclined way of a concrete resembling jasper, leading up to the mainentrance of the Palace.