CHAPTER VIII - A FAITH AND ITS FOUNDER.
On the return of the family, my host was met at the door with suchaccounts of what had happened as led him at once to see and questionhis daughter. It was not, therefore, till he had heard her story thatI saw him. More agitated than I should have expected from one underordinary circumstances so calm and self-possessed, he entered my roomwith a face whose paleness and compressed lips indicated intenseemotion; and, laying his hand on my shoulder, expressed his feelingrather in look and tone than in his few broken and not verysignificant words. After a few moments, however, he recovered hiscoolness, and asked me to supply the deficiencies of Eveena's story. Itold him briefly but exactly what had passed from the moment when Imissed her to that of her rescue. He listened without the slightestsymptom of surprise or anger to the tale of the Regent's indifference,and seemed hardly to understand the disgust and indignation with whichI dwelt upon it. When I had finished--
"You have made," he said, "an enemy, and a dangerous one; but you havealso secured friends against whose support even the anger of a greaterthan the Zampta might break as harmlessly as waves upon a rock. Hebehaved only as any one else would have done; and it is useless to beangry with men for being what they habitually and universally are.What you did for Eveena, one of ourselves, perhaps, but no other,might have risked for a first bride on the first day of her marriage.Indeed, though I am most thankful to you, I should, perhaps, havewithheld my consent to my daughter's request had I supposed that youfelt so strongly for her."
"I think," I replied with some displeasure, "that I may positivelyaffirm that I have spoken no word to your daughter which I should nothave spoken in your presence. I am too unfamiliar with your ideas toknow whether your remark has the same force and meaning it would haveborne among my own people; but to me it conveys a grave reproach. WhenI accepted the charge of your daughter during this day's excursion, Ithought of her only as every man thinks of a young, pretty, and gentlegirl of whom he has seen and knows scarcely anything. To avail myselfof what has since happened to make a deeper impression on her feelingsthan you might approve would have seemed to me unpardonabletreachery."
"You do utterly misunderstand me," he answered. "It may be that Eveenahas received an impression which will not be effaced from her mind. Itmay be that this morning, could I have foreseen it, I should havedecidedly wished to avoid anything that would so impress her. But thatfeeling, if it exist, has been caused by your acts and not by yourwords. That you should do your utmost, at any risk to yourself, tosave her, is consistent with what I know of your habit of mind, andought not much to surprise me. But, from your own account of what yousaid to the Zampta, you were not merely willing to risk life for life.When you deemed it impossible to return without her, you spoke as fewamong us would seriously speak of a favourite bride."
"I spoke and felt," I replied, "as any man trained in the hereditarythought of my race and rank would have spoken of any woman committedto his care. All that I said and did for Eveena, I should have saidand done, I hope, for the least attractive or least amiable maiden inthis planet who had been similarly entrusted to my charge. How couldany but the vilest coward return and say to a father, 'You trustedyour daughter to me, and she has perished by my fault or neglect'?"
"Not so," he answered, "Eveena alone was to blame--and much to blame.She says herself that you had told her to remain where you left hertill your return; and if she had not disobeyed, neither her life noryours would have been imperilled."
"One hardly expects a young lady to comply exactly with suchrequests," I said. "At any rate, Terrestrial feelings of honour andeven of manhood would have made it easier to leap the precipice thanto face you and the world if, no matter by whose fault, my charge haddied in such a manner under my eyes and within my reach."
Esmo's eyes brightened and his cheek flushed a little as I spoke, withmore of earnestness or passion than any incident, however exciting, iswont to provoke among his impassive race.
"Of one thing," he said, "you have assured me--that the proposal I wasabout to make rather invites honour than confers it. I have beenobliged, in speaking of the manners and ideas of my countrymen, to letyou perceive not only that I differ from them, but that there areothers who think and act as I do. We have for ages formed a societybound together by our peculiar tenets. That we individually differ inconduct, and, therefore, probably in ideas, from our countrymen, theynecessarily know; that we form a body apart with laws and tenets ofour own, is at least suspected. But our organisation, its powers, itsmethods, its rules of membership, and its doctrines are, and havealways been, a secret, and no man's connection with it is avowed orprovable. Our chief distinctive and essential doctrines you hold asstrongly as we do--the All-perfect Existence, the immortal human soul.From these necessarily follow conceptions of life and principles ofconduct alien to those that have as necessarily grown up among a racewhich repudiates, ignores, and hates our two fundamental premises.After what has happened, I can promise you immediate and eageracceptance among those invested with the fullest privileges of ourorder. They will all admire your action and applaud your motives,though, frankly speaking, I doubt whether any of us would carry yourviews so far as you have done. The best among us would have flinched,unless under the influence of the very strongest personal affection,from the double peril of which you seemed to think so lightly. Theymight indeed have defied the Regent but it would have been in relianceon the protection of, a power superior to his of which you knewnothing."
"Then," I said, "I suppose your engagement of to-day was a meeting ofthis society?"
"Yes," he answered, "a meeting of the Chamber to which I and the eldermembers of my household, including my son and his wife, belong.""But," I said, "if you are more powerful than the rulers of yourpeople, what need of such careful secrecy?"
"You will understand the reason," he answered, "when you learn thenature of our powers. Hundreds among millions, we are no match for thefighting force of our unbelieving countrymen. Our safety lies in theterror inspired by a tradition, verified by repeated and invariableexperience, that no one who injures one of us but has reason to rueit, that no mortal enemy of _the Star_ has ever escaped signalpunishment, more terrible for the mystery attending it. Were we known,were our organisation avowed, we might be hunted down andexterminated, and should certainly suffer frightful havoc, even if inthe end we were able to frighten or overcome our enemies. But if youare disposed to accept my offer--and enrolment among us gives you atonce your natural place in this planet and your best security againstthe enmity you have incurred and will incur here--I should prefer tomake the rest of the explanation that must precede your admission inpresence of my family. The first step, the preliminary instruction inour creed and our simpler mysteries, which is the work of theNovitiate, is a solemn epoch in the lives of our children. They arenot trusted with our secret till we can rely on the maturity of theirintelligence and loyalty of their nature. Eveena would in any casehave been received as a novice within some dozen days. It will now beeasy for me, considering her education and intelligence and my ownposition in the Order, to obtain, for her as for you, exemption fromthe usual probation on proof that you both know all that is usuallytaught therein, and admission on the same occasion; and it will addsolemnity and interest to her first initiation, that this chief lessonof her life should be shared this evening with him to whom she owes itthat she lives to enter the society, to which her ancestors havebelonged since its institution."
We passed into the peristyle, where the ladies were as usualassembled; but the children had been dismissed, and of the maidensEveena only was present. Fatigue and agitation had left her very pale,and she was resting at full length on the cushions with her headpillowed on her mother's knee. As we approached, however, they allrose, the other ladies greeting me eagerly and warmly, Eveena risingwith difficulty and faltering the welcome which the rest had spokenwith enthusiastic earnestness. Forgetting for the moment the prudencewhich ignorance of Martial customs had hitherto d
ictated, I lifted tomy lips the hand that she, following the example of the rest, butshyly and half reluctantly, laid on my shoulder--a form very differentto the distant greeting I had heretofore received, and marking that Iwas no longer to be treated as a stranger to the family. My unusualsalute brought the colour back to her cheeks, but no one else tooknotice of it. I observed, however, that on this occasion, instead ofinterposing himself between me and the ladies as usual, her fatherleft vacant the place next to her; and I seated myself at her feet.She would have exchanged her reclining posture for that of the others,but her mother gently drew her down to her former position.
"Eveena," said my host, "I have told our friend, what you know, thatthere is in this world a society, of which I am a member, whoseprinciples are not those of our countrymen, but resemble rather thosewhich supplied the impulses on which he acted to-day. This much youknow. What you would have learned a few days hence, I mean that youand he shall now hear at the same time."
"Before you enter on that subject," interposed Zulve timidly--for itis most unusual for a lady to interfere in her husband's conversation,much more to offer a suggestion or correction--but yet earnestly, "letme say, on my own part, what I am sure you must have said already onyours. If there be now, or ever shall be, anything we can do for ourguest, anything we can give that he would value, not in requital, butin memory of what he has done for us--whatever it should cost us,though he should ask the most precious thing we possess, it will beour pride and pleasure--the greatest pleasure he can afford us--togrant it."
The time and the surroundings were not perhaps exactly suitable to theutterance of the wish suggested by these words; but I knew so littlewhat might be in store for me, and understood so well the difficultyand uncertainty of finding future opportunities of intercourse withthe ladies at least of the family, that I dared not lose the present.I spoke at once upon the impulse of the moment, with a sense ofreckless desperation not unlike that with which an artillerist firesthe train whose explosion may win for him the obsidional wreath orblow him into atoms. "You and my host," I said, "have one treasurethat I have learned to covet, but it is exactly the most preciousthing you possess, and one which it would be presumptuous to ask asreward; even had I not owed to Esmo the life I perilled for Eveena,and if I had acted from choice and freely, instead of doing only whatonly the vilest of cowards could have failed to attempt. In asking itindeed, I feel that I cancel whatever claim your extravagant estimateof that act can possibly ascribe to me."
"We don't waste words," answered Esmo, "in saying what we don't mean,and I confirm fully what my wife has said. There is nothing we possessthat we shall not delight to give as token of regard and inremembrance of this day to the saviour of our child."
"If," I said, "I find a neighbour's purse containing half his fortune,and return it to him, he may offer me what reward I ask, but wouldhardly think it reasonable if I asked for the purse and its contents.But you have only one thing I care to possess--that which I have, byGod's help, been enabled to save to-day. If I must ask a gift, give meEveena herself."
Utilitarianism has extinguished in Mars the use of compliment andcircumlocution; and until I concluded, their looks of mild perplexityshowed that neither Zulve nor her husband caught my purpose. Ifancied--for, not daring to look them in the face, I had turned mydowncast glance on Eveena--that she had perhaps somewhat soonerdivined the object of my thoughts. However, a silence of surprise--wasit of reluctance?--followed, and then Zulve bent over her daughter andlooked into her half-averted face, while Esmo answered--
"What you should ask I promised to give; what you have asked I give,in so far as it is mine to give, in willing fulfilment of my pledge.But, of course, what I can give is but my free permission to mydaughter to answer for herself. You will be, I hope, within a few daysat furthest, one of those in whose possession alone a woman of myhouse could be safe or content; and, free by the law of the land tofollow her own wish, she is freed by her father's voice from the rulewhich the usage of ten thousand years imposes on the daughters of ourbrotherhood."
Zulve then looked up, for Eveena had hidden her face in her mother'srobe, and said--
"If my child will not speak for herself I must speak for her, and inmy own name and in hers I fulfil her father's promise. And now let myhusband tell his story, for nothing can solemnise more appropriatelythe betrothal of a daughter of the Star, than her admission to theknowledge of the Order whose privileges are her heritage."
"At the time," Esmo began, "when material science had gained a decidedascendant, and enforced the recognition of its methods as the onlyones whereby certain knowledge and legitimate belief could beattained, those who clung most earnestly to convictions not acquiredor favoured by scientific logic were sorely dismayed. They wereconfounded, not so much by the yet informal but irrevocablemajority-vote against them, as by an instinctive misgiving thatScience was right; and by irrepressible doubts whether that whichwould not bear the application of scientific method could in any sensebe true or trustworthy knowledge. At the same time, to apply ascientific method to the cherished beliefs threatened only to dissolvethem. Fortunately for them and their successors, there was living atthat time one of the most remarkable and original thinkers whom ourrace has produced. From him came the suggestions that gave impulse toour learning and birth to our Order. 'The reasonings, the processes ofScience,' he affirmed,'are beyond challenge. Their trustworthinessdepends not on their subject-matter, but on their own character; noton their relation to outward Nature, but on their conformity to thelaws of thought. Their upholders are right in affirming that what willnot ultimately bear the test of their application cannot be knowledge,and probably--for the practical purposes of human life we may saycertainly--cannot be truth. They are wrong in alleging that the ideasfor which they can find no foundation in the subjects to whichscientific method has hitherto been applied, are thereforeunscientific, or sure to disappear under scientific investigation. Ihold that the existence of a Creator and Ruler of the Universe can belogically deduced from first principles, as well as justly inferredfrom cumulative evidences of overwhelming weight. The existence ofsomething in Man that is not merely corporeal, of powers that can actbeyond the reach of any corporeal instruments at his command, orwithout the range of their application, is not proven; it may be, onlybecause the facts that indicate without proving it have never yet beensubject to systematic verification or scientific analysis. But of suchfacts there exists a vast accumulation; unsifted, untested, andtherefore as yet ineffective for proof, but capable, I can scarcelydoubt, of reduction to methodical order and scientific treatment.There are records and traditions of every degree of value, from utterworthlessness to the worth of the most authentic history, preservingthe evidences of powers which may be generally described as spiritual.Through all ages, among all races, the living have alleged themselvesfrom time to time to have seen the forms and even heard the voices ofthe dead. Scientific men have been forced by the actual and publicexercise of the power under the most crucial tests--for instance, toproduce insensibility in surgical operations--to admit that the willof one man can control the brain, the senses, the physical frame ofanother without material contact, perhaps at a distance. There arenarratives of marvels wrought by human will, chiefly in remote, butoccasionally in recent times, transcending and even contradicting oroverruling the known laws of Nature. All these evidences point to oneconclusion; all corroborate and confirm one another. The men ofscience ridicule them because in so many cases the facts areimperfectly authenticated, and because in others the action of thepowers is uncertain, dependent on conditions imperfectly ascertained,and not of that material kind to which material science willinglysubmits. But if they be facts, if they relate to any element of humannature, all these things can be systematically investigated, the trueseparated from the false, the proven from the unproven. The powers canbe investigated, their conditions of action laid down. Probably theymay be so developed as to be exercised with comparative certainty,whether by every one or only
by those special constitutions in whichthey may inhere. Such investigations will at present only enlist theattention and care of a few qualified persons, and, that they may becarried on in peace and safety, should be carried on in secrecy. Butupon them may, I hope, be founded a certainty as regards the higherside of man's nature not less complete than that which science, bysimilar methods, has gradually acquired in regard to its purelyphysical aspects.'
"For this end he instituted a secret society, which has subsisted inconstantly increasing strength and cohesion to the present hour. Ithas collected evidence, conducted experiments, investigated records,studied methodically the abnormal phenomena you call occult orspiritual, and reduced them to something like the certainty ofscience. Discoveries from the first curious and interesting havebecome more and more complete, practical, and effective. Our resultshave surpassed the hopes of our Founder, and transcend in importance,while they equal in certainty, the contemporary achievements ofphysical science,--some of the chief of which belong to us. All thatprofound knowledge of human nature could suggest to bring its weaknessto the support of its strength, and enlist both in the work, was doneby our Founder, and by those who have carried out his scheme. Thecorporate character of the society, its rites and formularies, itsgrades and ranks, are matter of deep interest to all its members, havelinked them together by an inviolable bond, and given them a strengthinfinitely greater than numbers without such cohesion could possiblyhave afforded. The Founder left us no moral code, imposed on us noneof his own most cherished ethical convictions, as he pledged us tonone of the conclusions which his own occult studies had led him toanticipate, nearly all of which have been verified by laterinvestigation. Such rules as he imposed were directed only to thecohesion and efficiency of the Order. Our creed still consists only ofthe two fundamental doctrines; two settled principles only are laiddown by our aboriginal law. We are taught to cultivate the closestpersonal affection, the most intimate and binding ties amongourselves; to defend the Order and one another, whether by strenuousresistance or severe reprisals, against all who injure us individuallyor collectively, and especially against persecutors of the Order. Butthe few laws our Founder has left are given in the form of strikingprecepts, brief, and often even paradoxical. For example, the law ofdefence or reprisal is concentrated in one antithetic phrase:--_Gavartdax Zvelta, gavart gedex Zinta_ [Never let the member strike, neverlet the Order spare]. As it is a rule with us to embody none of oursymbols, forms, or laws in writing, this manner of statement served toimpress them on the memory, as well as to leave the utmost freedom intheir application, by the gathered experience of ages, and theprudence of those who had to deal with the circumstances of eachsuccessive period. Another maxim says, 'Who kisses a brother's handmay kick the Campta,' thus enforcing at once the value of ceremonialcourtesy, and the power conferred by union. We observe more ceremonyin family life than others in the most formal public relations. Theirtheory of life being utterly utilitarian, no form is observed thatserves no distinct practical purpose. We wish to make life gracefuland elegant, as well as easy. Principles originally inculcated upon usby the necessity of self-protection have been enforced and graven onour very nature, by the reaction of our experience against the roughand harsh relations, the jarring and often unfriendly intercourse, ofexternal society. Aliens to our Order--that is, ninety-nine hundredthsof our race--take delight in the infliction of petty personalannoyance, at least never take care not to 'jar each other'selbow-nerves,' or set on edge the teeth that never bit them. _We_ arecareful not to wound the feelings or even the weaknesses of a brother.Punctilious courtesy, frank apology for unintentional wrong, is withus a point of honour. Disputes, when by any chance they arise, arereferred to the arbitration of our chiefs, who never consider theirwork done till the disputants are cordially reconciled. Envy, the mostdangerous source of ill-will among men, can hardly exist among us.Rank has been well earned by its holder, or in a few cases by hisancestors; and authority is a trust never to be used for its holder'sbenefit. Wealth never provokes covetousness, since no member is everallowed to be poor. Not only the Order but each member is bound totake every opportunity of assisting every other by every method withinhis power. We employ them, we promote them, we give them thepreference in every kind of patronage at our command. But theseobligations are points of honour rather than of law. Only apostasy ortreason to the Order involve compulsory penalties; and the latter, ifit ever occurred in these days, would be visited with instantdeath,--inflicted, as it is inflicted upon irreconcilable enemies, insuch a manner that none could know who passed the sentence, or by whomit was executed."
"And have you," I asked, "no apostates, as you have no traitors?"
"No," he said. "In the first place, none who has lived among us couldendure to fall into the ordinary Martial life. Secondly, thefoundations of our simple creed are so clear, so capable of being madeapparent to every one, that none once familiar with the evidences canwell cease to believe them."
Here he paused, and I asked, "How is it possible that the means youemploy to punish those who have wronged you should not, in some casesat least, indicate the person who has employed them?"
"Because," he said, "the means of vengeance are not corporeal; theagency does not in the least resemble any with which our countrymen,or apparently your race on Earth, are acquainted. A traitor would befound dead with no sign of suffering or injury, and the physicianwould pronounce that he had died of apoplexy or heart disease. Apersecutor, or one who had unpardonably wronged any of the Children ofthe Star, might go mad, might fling himself from a precipice, might bevisited with the most terrible series of calamities, all natural intheir character, all distinctly traceable to natural causes, butastonishing and even apparently supernatural in their accumulation,and often in their immediate appropriateness to the character of hisoffence. Our neighbours would, of course, destroy the avenger, if theycould find him out--would attempt to exterminate our society, couldthey prove its agency."
"But surely your countrymen must either disbelieve in such agency, inwhich case they can hardly fear your vengeance, or they must believeit, and then would deem it just and necessary to retaliate."
"No," he said. "They disbelieve in the possibility while they areforced to see the fact. It is impossible, they would say, that a manshould be injured in mind or body, reputation or estate, that theforces of Nature or the feelings of men should be directed againsthim, without the intervention of any material agent, by the mere willof those who take no traceable means to give that will effect. At thesame time, tradition and even authentic history record, whatexperience confirms, that every one who has wronged us deeply has cometo some terrible, awe-striking end. Each man would ridicule heartily aneighbour who should allege such a ground for fearing to injure one ofus; but there is none who is so true to his own unbelief as to do thatwhich, in every instance, has been followed by signal and awfuldisaster. Moreover, we do by visible symbols suggest a relationbetween the vengeance and the crime. Over the heart of criminals whohave paid with their lives, no matter by what immediate agency, forwrong to us, is found after death the image of a small blood-red star;the only case in which any of our sacred symbols are exposed toprofane eyes."
"Surely," I said, "in the course of generations, and with yournumbers, you must be often watched and traced; and some one spy, onone out of a million occasions, must have found access to yourmeetings and heard and seen all that passed."
"Our meetings," he said, "are held where no human eye can possiblysee, no human ear hear what passes. The Chambers meet in apartmentsconcealed within the dwellings of individual members. When we meet thedoors are guarded, and can be passed only by those who give a tokenand a password. And if these could become known to an enemy, theappearance of a stranger would lead to questions that would at onceexpose his ignorance of our simplest secrets. He would learn nothing,and would never tell his story to the outer world." ...
Opening the door, or rather window, of his private chamber, Esmodirected our eyes to a po
rtrait sunk in the wall, and usuallyconcealed by a screen which fitted exactly the level and the patternsof the general surface. It displayed, in a green vesture not unlikehis own, but with a gold ribbon and emerald symbol like the cross ofan European knighthood over the right shoulder, a spare soldierlyform, with the most striking countenance I have ever seen; one which,once seen, none could forget. The white long hair and beard, theformer reaching the shoulders, the latter falling to the belt, werenot only unlike the fashion of this generation, but gave tokens of agenever discerned in Mars for the last three or four thousand years. Theform, though erect and even stately, was that of one who had felt thelong since abolished infirmity of advancing years. The countenancealone bore no marks of old age. It was full, unwrinkled, firm inphysical as in moral character; calm in the unresisted power ofintellect and will over the passions, serene in a dignity too absoluteand self-contained for pride, but expressing a consciousness ofcommand over others as evident as the unconscious, effortless commandof self to which it owed its supreme and sublime quietude. The lipswere not set as with a habit of reserve or self-restraint, but closeand even as in the repose to which restraint had never been necessary.The features were large, clearly defined, and perfect in shape,proportion, and outline. The brow was massive and broad, but strangelysmooth and even; the head had no single marked development ordeficiency that could have enlightened a phrenologist, as the facetold no tale that a physiognomist could read. The dark deep eyes wereunescapable; while in presence of the portrait you could not for amoment avoid or forget their living, fixed, direct look into your own.Even in the painted representation of that gaze, almost too calm inits absolute mastery to be called searching or scrutinising, yetseeming to look through the eyes into the soul, there was an almostmesmeric influence; as if, across the abyss of ten thousand years, theMaster could still control the wills and draw forth the inner thoughtsof the living, as he had dominated the spirits of their remotestancestors.