CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
_THE FEARFUL OATHS OF COLONEL SMITH_
Through all this terrible contest the emperor of the Martians hadremained standing upon his throne, gazing at the awful spectacle, andnot moving from the spot. Neither he nor the frightened woman gatheredupon the steps of the throne had been injured by the disintegrators.Their immunity was due to the fact that the position and elevation ofthe throne were such that, it was not within the range of fire of theelectrical ships which had poured their vibratory discharges through thewindows, and we inside had only directed our fire toward the warriorswho had attacked us.
Now that the struggle was over we turned our attention to Aina.Fortunately the girl had not been seriously injured and she was quicklyrestored to consciousness. Had she been killed, we would have beenpractically helpless in attempting further negotiations, because theknowledge which we had acquired of the language of the Martians from theprisoner captured on the golden asteroid, was not sufficient to meet therequirements of the occasion.
When the Martian monarch saw that we ceased the work of death, he sankupon his throne. There he remained, leaning his chin upon his two handsand staring straight before him like that terrible doomed creature whofascinates the eyes of every beholder standing in the Sistine Chapel andgazing at Micheal Angeleo's dreadful painting of "The Last Judgement."
This wicked Martian also felt that he was in the grasp of pitiless andirresistible fate, and that a punishment too well deserved, and fromwhich there was no possible escape, now confronted him.
There he remained in a hopelessness which almost compelled our sympathy,until Aina had so far recovered that she was once more able to act asour interpreter. Then we made short work of the negotiations. Speakingthrough Aina, the commander said:
"You know who we are. We have come from the earth, which, by yourcommand, was laid waste. Our commission was not revenge, butself-protection. What we have done has been accomplished with that inview. You have just witnessed an example of our power, the exercise ofwhich was not dictated by our wish, but compelled by the attack wantonlymade upon a helpless member of our own race under our protection.
"We have laid waste your planet, but it is simply a just retribution forwhat you did with ours. We are prepared to complete the destruction,leaving not a living being in this world of yours, or to grant youpeace, at your choice. Our condition of peace is simply this: Allresistance must cease absolutely."
"Quite right," broke in Colonel Smith; "let the scorpion pull out hissting or we shall do it for him."
"Nothing that we could do now," continued the commander, "would in myopinion save you from ultimate destruction. The forces of nature whichwe have been compelled to let loose upon you will complete their ownvictory. But we do not wish, unnecessarily, to stain our hands furtherwith your blood. We shall leave you in possession of your lives.Preserve them if you can. But, in case the flood recedes before you haveall perished from starvation, remember that you here take an oath,solemnly binding yourself and your descendants forever never again tomake war upon the earth."
"That's really the best we can do," said Mr. Edison, turning to us. "Wecan't possibly murder these people in cold blood. The probability isthat the flood has hopelessly ruined all their engines of war. I do notbelieve that there is one chance in ten that the waters will drain offin time to enable them to get at their stores of provisions before theyhave perished from starvation."
"It is my opinion," said Lord Kelvin, who had joined us (his pair ofdisintegrators hanging by his side, attached to a strap running over theback of his neck, very much as a farmer sometimes carries his bigmittens), "it is my opinion that the flood will recede more rapidly thanyou think, and that the majority of these people will survive. But Iquite agree with your merciful view of the matter. We must be guilty ofno wanton destruction. Probably more than nine-tenths of the inhabitantsof Mars have perished in the deluge. Even if all the others survivedages would elapse before they could regain the power to injure us."
I need not describe in detail how our propositions were received by theMartian monarch. He knew, and his advisors, some of whom he had calledin consultation, also knew, that everything was in our hands to do as wepleased. They readily agreed, therefore, that they would make no moreresistance and that we and our electrical ships should be undisturbedwhile we remained upon Mars. The monarch took the oath prescribed afterthe manner of his race; thus the business was completed. But through itall there had been a shadow of a sneer on the emperor's face which I didnot like. But I said nothing.
And now we began to think of our return home, and of the pleasure weshould have in recounting our adventures to our friends on the earth,who undoubtedly were eagerly awaiting news from us. We knew that theyhad been watching Mars with powerful telescopes, and we were also eagerto learn how much they had seen and how much they had been able to guessof our proceedings.
But a day or two at least would be required to overhaul the electricalships and examine the state of our provisions. Those which we hadbrought from the earth, it will be remembered, had been spoiled and wehad been compelled to replace them from the compressed provisions foundin the Martian's storehouse. This compressed food had proved not onlyexceedingly agreeable to the taste, but very nourishing, and all of ushad grown extremely fond of it. A new supply, however, would be neededin order to carry us back to the earth. At least sixty days would berequired for the homeward journey, because we could hardly expect tostart from Mars with the same initial velocity which we had been able togenerate on leaving home.
In considering the matter of provisioning the fleet it finally becamenecessary to take an account of our losses. This was a thing that we hadall shrunk from, because they had seemed to us almost too terrible to beborne. But now the facts had to be faced. Out of the one hundred ships,carrying something more than two thousand souls, with which we hadquitted the earth, there remained only fifty-five ships and 1085 men!All the others had been lost in our terrible encounters with theMartians, and particularly in our first disastrous battle beneath theclouds.
Among the lost were many men whose names were famous upon the earth, andwhose death would be widely deplored when the news of it was receivedupon their native planet. Fortunately this number did not include any ofthose whom I have had occasion to mention in the course of thisnarrative. The venerable Lord Kelvin, who, notwithstanding his age, andhis pacific disposition, proper to a man of science, had behaved withthe courage and coolness of a veteran in every crisis; Monsieur Moissan,the eminent chemist; Professor Sylvanus P. Thompson, and the Heidelbergprofessor, to whom we all felt under special obligations because he hadopened to our comprehension the charming lips of Aina--all these hadsurvived, and were about to return with us to the earth.
It seemed to some of us almost heartless to deprive the Martians whostill remained alive of any of the provisions which they themselveswould require to tide them over the long period which must elapse beforethe recession of the flood should enable them to discover the sites oftheir ruined homes, and to find the means of sustenance. But necessitywas now our only law. We learned from Aina that there must be stores ofprovisions in the neighborhood of the palace, because it was the customof the Martians to lay up such stores during the harvest time in eachMartian year in order to provide against the contingency of anextraordinary drought.
It was not with very good grace that the Martian emperor acceded to ourdemands that one of the storehouses should be opened, but resistance wasuseless and of course we had our way.
The supplies of water which we brought from the earth, owing to apeculiar process invented by Monsieur Moissan, had been kept inexceedingly good condition, but they were now running low and it becamenecessary to replenish them also. This was easily done from the SouthernOcean, for on Mars, since the levelling of the continental elevations,brought about many years ago, there is comparatively little salinity inthe sea waters.
While these preparations were going on Lord Kelvin and the other men ofscienc
e entered with the utmost eagerness upon those studies, theprosecution of which had been the principal inducement leading them toembark on the expedition. But, almost all of the face of the planetbeing covered with the flood, there was comparatively little that theycould do. Much, however, could be learned with the aid of Aina from theMartians, now crowded on the land above the palace.
The results of these discoveries will in due time appear, fullyelaborated in learned and authoratative treatises prepared by thesesavants' themselves. I shall only call attention to one, which seemed tome very remarkable. I have already said that there were astonishingdifferences in the personal appearance of the Martians evidently arisingfrom differences of character and education, which had impressedthemselves in the physical aspect of the individuals. We now learnedthat these differences were more completely the result of education thanwe had at first supposed.
Looking about among the Martians by whom we were surrounded, it soonbecame easy for us to tell who were the soldiers and who were thecivilians, simply by the appearance of their bodies, and particularly oftheir heads. All members of the military class resembled, to a greateror less extent, the monarch himself, in that those parts of their skullswhich our phrenologists had designated as the bumps of destructiveness,combativeness and so on were enormously and disproportionatelydeveloped.
And all this, we were assured, was completely under the control of theMartians themselves. They had learned, or invented, methods by which thebrain itself could be manipulated, so to speak, and any desired portionsof it could be especially developed, while other parts of it were leftto their normal growth. The consequence was that in the Martian schoolsand colleges there was no teaching in our sense of the word. It was allbrain culture.
A Martian youth selected to be a soldier had his fighting facultiesespecially developed, together with those parts of the brain whichimpart courage and steadiness of nerve. He who was intended forscientific investigation had his brain developed into a mathematicalmachine, or an instrument of observation. Poets and literary men hadtheir heads bulging with the imaginative faculties. The heads of theinventors were developed into a still different shape.
"And so," said Aina, translating for us the words of a professor in theImperial University of Mars, from whom we derived the greater part ofour information on this subject, "the Martian boys do not study asubject; they do not have to learn it, but, when their brains have beensufficiently developed in the proper direction, they comprehend itinstantly, by a kind of divine instinct."
But among the women of Mars, we saw none of these curious, and to oureyes, monstrous differences of development. While the men received, inaddition to their special education, a broad general culture also, withthe women there was no special education. It was all general in itscharacter, yet thorough enough in that way. The consequence was thatonly female brains upon Mars were entirely well balanced. This was thereason why we invariably found the Martian women to be remarkablycharming creatures, with none of those physical exaggerations anduncouth developments which disfigured their masculine companions.
All the books of the Martians, we ascertained, were books of history andof poetry. For scientific treatises they had no need, because, as I haveexplained, when the brains of those intended for scientific pursuits hadbeen developed in the proper way the knowledge of nature's laws came tothem without effort, as a spring bubbles from the rocks.
One word of explanation may be needed concerning the failure of theMartians, with all their marvelous powers, to invent electrical shipslike those of Mr. Edison's and engines of destruction comparable withour disintegrators. This failure was simply due to the fact that on Marsthere did not exist the peculiar metals by the combination of which Mr.Edison had been able to effect his wonders. The theory involved by ourinventions was perfectly understood by them and had they possessed themeans, doubtless they would have been able to carry it into practiceeven more effectively than we had done.
After two or three days all the preparations having been completed thesignal was given for our departure. The men of science were stillunwilling to leave this strange world, but Mr. Edison decided we couldlinger no longer.
At the moment of starting a most tragic event occured. Our fleet wasassembled around the palace, and the signal was given to rise slowly toa considerable height before imparting a great velocity to theelectrical ships. As we slowly rose we saw the immense crowd of giantsbeneath us, with upturned faces, watching our departure. The Martianmonarch and all his suite had come out upon the terrace of the palace tolook at us. At a moment when he probably supposed himself to beunwatched he shook his fist at the retreating fleet. My eyes and thoseof several others in the flagship chanced to be fixed upon him. Just ashe made the gesture one of the women of his suite, in her eagerness towatch us, apparently lost her balance and stumbled against him. Withouta moment's hesitation, with a tremendous blow, he felled her like an oxat his feet.
A fearful oath broke from the lips of Colonel Smith, who was one ofthose looking on. It chanced that he stood near the principaldisintegrator of the flagship. Before anybody could interfere he hadsighted and discharged it. The entire force of the terrible engine,almost capable of destroying a fort, fell upon the Martian emperor andnot merely blew him into a cloud of atoms but opened a great cavity inthe ground on the spot where he had stood.
A shout arose from the Martians, but they were too much astounded atwhat had occurred to make any hostile demonstrations, and, anyhow, theyknew well that they were completely at our mercy.
Mr. Edison was on the point of rebuking Colonel Smith for what he haddone, but Aina interposed.
"I am glad it was done," said she "for now only can you be safe. Thatmonster was more directly responsible than any other inhabitant of Marsfor all the wickedness of which they have been guilty.
"The expedition against the earth was inspired solely by him. There is atradition among the Martians--which my people, however, could nevercredit--that he possessed a kind of immortality. They declared that itwas he who led the former expedition against the earth when my ancestorswere brought away prisoners from their happy home, and that it was hisimage which they had set up in stone in the midst of the Land of Sand.He prolonged his existence, according to this legend, by drinking thewaters of a wonderful fountain, the secret of whose precise location wasknown to him alone but which was situated at that point where in yourmaps of Mars the name of the Fons Juventae occurs. He was personifiedwickedness, that I know; and he never would have kept his oath if powerhad returned to him again to injure the earth. In destroying him, youhave made your victory secure."